Johnny Carson fans flush with cash can reportedly score a deal of sorts on the late Tonight Show hosts former home after the price dropped more than $10 million.

The Malibu-based property in California, initially listed at $81.5 million, is currently available for just over $65 million, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.

LANCE BASS LOSES BID TO BUY BRADY BUNCH HOUSE

The scenic estate, which spans roughly four acres, has five bedrooms and twice as many bathrooms, the report said.

Among the amenities reportedly included in the sprawling property are a wine cellar, a media room and an indoor arboretum.

STAR TREK STAR NICHELLE NICHOLS DIAGNOSED WITH DEMENTIA: REPORT

Carson first purchased the property in 1984 for a fraction of its current price  about $9.5 million at the time, according to the Times.

The current owners - producer Sidney Kimmel and wife, Caroline, - reportedly bought the property in 2007 from Carsons widow. Carson was 79 years old when he passed away in 2005.

The home was put up for sale last year, according to the New York Post.
A sexual assault case involving famed actor Steven Seagal is now under review by the Los Angeles County District Attorneys office, according to The Wrap.

The outlet reported that the case was brought to the DA from the Los Angeles Police Department on Wednesday and has since been under review.

This is reportedly the actor's second case that the office is in the process of reviewing. Another case involving Seagal was brought to the DA in January.

At the time that the first case was brought to the DA, actor Regina Simons and Dutch model Faviola Dadis told The Wrap that they had filed reports with the LAPD against the actor, but the DA would not reveal whose case was under review.

A case was presented to our office on Jan. 31 by the Beverly Hills Police Department involving Steven Seagal and is under review, a spokesman for the DA told The Wrap in February.

In March, both Simons and Dadis detailed their alleged encounters with Seagal in a press conference with their attorney Lisa Bloom.

Simons claimed Seagal raped her 25 years ago at his home.

He closed the door and approached me from behind; he started kissing my neck and taking off my clothes. I was in shock, she said. I was completely caught off guard. Seagal was more than twice my size and twice my age. I was not sexually active nor had I ever been naked in front of a man before. I froze I remember him taking off his robe and the next thing I knew he was inside of me.

Faviola Dadis said she was 17 when she met Seagal in 2002. She claims their meeting took place at a hotel.

Steven approached me and said he would like to act out a romantic scene ... I felt uncomfortable because I was in my bikini and I expressed this ... Steven slipped his hand under my bikini top and simultaneously slid his hand over my vaginal area I quickly yelled that this audition is over, and I began gathering my things. Steven sat there calmly as if nothing had happened while I was noticeably upset and terrified by the experience. Steven's security guard stood blocking the doorway and only moved when Steven motioned to him.

In November 2017, The Wrap published a story in which Hollywood star Jenny McCarthy claimed Seagal asked her to take off her clothes during a 1995 audition for Under Siege 2.

The 66-year-old actor denied McCarthy's claim, as well as another from former Bond girl Rachel Grant.

Fox News' Sasha Savitsky and Leora Arnowitz contributed to this report.
The View co-host Joy Behar has emerged as a far-left political pundit that supporters of President Trump love to hate, but she began her show business career as a standup comedian over three decades ago after a career as an English teacher.

The ABC gab fest finished the 2017-18 TV season with an average of 2.9 million viewers, the shows most-watched year since 2012-13. Behars polarizing hot takes are largely responsible for the shows success during the Trump era, as she regularly battles the shows lone conservative, Meghan McCain, with heated political arguments.

Whether you tune into hate watch, cheer for whatever blurts out from Joy Behar, or see Meghan McCain battling Behar or Whoopi, 'The View' has become prime viewing just like the White House press briefing, NewsBusters' managing editor Curtis Houck recently told Fox News.

The fiery Behar didnt take the conventional path to stardom and her career included everything from talk radio to working as a receptionist.

Too cool for school

The 75-year-old View star was born Josephine Occhiuto but goes by the nickname Joy, and Behar is the last name of her first husband  whom she divorced back in 1981. The Brooklyn native once told The New York Times that her snarky, outspoken liberalism is a result of her childhood and Italian roots.

I was loved, and no one ever told me to shut up, which is a blessing, she told the paper.

She earned a masters degree in English education and her first career was teaching English to high school students. As a teacher, her outspoken personality landed her in hot water on numerous occasions. She regularly spoke out against the Vietnam War, which didnt always sit well with school officials.

They thought I was too radical, she told New York Magazine in 1992.

After a near-death experience in 1979 when she suffered an ectopic pregnancy, Behar gave up teaching to take a job as a receptionist at ABCs Good Morning America, with aspirations of working in show business.

I just didnt want to do it anymore, she told the Times of teaching.

First taste of fame

Behar didn't try to make it in comedy until she was almost 40 years old, according to The New York Times. Her typical routine included making fun of her teaching career, explaining that she isnt Jewish despite her accent and attraction to Jewish men and expressing jealousy of women who lived during The Fat Century when Sir Peter Paul Rubens famously painted heavy-set women.

While working at GMA in 1981 and dabbling in standup, she impressed Steve Allen during a phone call, and he invited her to perform on the Steve Allen Comedy Hour, according to the New Yorker.

Behar was eventually fired from GMA and focused exclusively on comedy. She blames being fired on not taking the job seriously and has joked that she would purposely be rude to callers when answering phones for ABCs flagship morning show.

I was one of their more hostile receptionists, she told the Lifetime talk show Attitudes in 1989.

Then a single mother, Behar spent her evenings honing her standup skills at dingy Manhattan comedy clubs.

It worked out and by 1984 she appeared in Lorne Michaels The New Show and she did HBOs One Night Stand in 1989. Behars liberal voice emerged during her time as a stand-up comedian and she even landed gigs covering elections and Democratic conventions for Comedy Central.

Behar hosted a call-in radio show on WABC in the early 1990s where she provided a liberal voice to a mostly conservative programming lineup.

I didnt start making a living at [comedy] until I was about 41 or 42, Behar told Out Smart in 2012.

Sharing her 'Views'

Back in 1997, television legend Barbara Walters saw Behar perform at Milton Berles lavish 89th birthday tribute, according to the Times. Clearly impressed, Walters invited Behar to join the cast of her daytime talk show.

In a 2014 interview with Newsday, Behar raved about Walters.

"She had an incredible work ethic. That woman never went to the bathroom! I guess that's how she'd one-up Diane Sawyer. You could never say to her that you were tired. She'd say, 'What do you mean, you're tired? You finished at noon today, what are you so tired about?'"

Behar first co-hosted The View from 1997 through 2013.

In 2009 it was announced with much fanfare that Behar would host a primetime show on CNNs sister network, HLN, while remaining on "The View." The Joy Behar Show was created after Behar successfully substituted for CNN legend Larry King on a regular basis. The show was not renewed after over 500 episodes spanning two years.

She told Newsday in 2014, she left "The View" because she was busy with other projects.

"Well, 16 years is a long time to be on a show. I also had two of my own shows while I was on 'The View.' After you have your own show, it's very hard to be on a panel following other people's rules. It was a tipping point for me. I was finished with that format. I didn't want it anymore."

She also hosted a short-lived solo shows on Current TV and has appeared on a variety of programs including, Late Night with David Letterman, Hollywood Squares, The Rosie ODonnell Show, Late Night with Conan OBrien, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, Kathy Griffin: My Life on the D-List, The Oprah Winfrey Show and Jimmy Kimmel Live!

But in 2015, she found her way back to "The View"  just in time to regularly offer her thoughts on the 2016 presidential election.

Just when I thought I was out, they pulled me back in, Behar told Variety at the time. Im happy to be back home. And Im looking forward to sticking my two cents into the hot topics, especially now that Hillary and the Donald are in the spotlight.

Behar has, sort of, gone back to her roots because she is known to lecture viewers and panelists on her liberal ideology.

Someone once told me Im still teaching, only now I have a bigger classroom, she told The New York Times in 2010 when asked about her role on The View.

This past season, Behar made headlines on a seemingly daily basis and even had to apologize after joking about Vice President Mike Pences Christian faith. She also feuded with McCain about normalization of Democratic Socialism in America, said GOP congressmen side with Trump because theyre afraid of losing their seats and even admitted she watches CNN when she has trouble falling asleep.

Liberal icon

The Resistance can't seem to get enough of her.  NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck

It could be argued that Behar is more of a household name these days than ever before. Behars anti-Trump rhetoric makes headlines across the internet on a regular basis. Conservative publications bash Behar, while liberal rivals praise her.

The HuffPost recently published an article headlined, There Were Zero Things Better This Week Than Joy Behar Embracing Socialism, that explained liberals watched the seemingly eternal 1990s of our politics die in a heap next to Joy Behars coffee mug when she defended Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs platform.

Liberals have spent the better part of three decades building their program on the turf of the right, but here is Behar, in the soft heart of network TV liberalism, listening to a straightforward blueprint for a robust commonwealth and liking what she hears, HuffPost senior editor Tommy Craggs wrote.

NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck, who oversees a site dedicated to exposing and combating liberal bias, is in awe of Behars rise in popularity.

If you had told someone a few years ago, after Joy Behar's show on Current TV were canceled, that she would not only remain on The View, but emerge as a far-left folk hero, it's doubtful that even the most ardent supporters would have predicted this, Houck told Fox News. The Resistance can't seem to get enough of her.

Mediaite columnist Joseph Wulfsohn echoed Houck and told Fox News that Trump being elected was the best thing that ever happened to the former teacher.

Joy Behar has revived her relevancy in the Trump era with her hyperbolic commentary on current events. Her insults and jabs aimed at this presidency have been praised by the Resistance and her status in the public eye has never been higher, he said.

Behar will return to The View in September when its 22nd season kicks off.
A Seattle, Wash., man recently donated one of his kidneys to his wife of nearly 30 years.

Were a team, Steve Kennedy told Q13 News of his decision.

Last month, Steve donated his kidney to his wife, Lesley, who has long suffered from polycystic kidney disease, a condition that causes numerous cysts to grow in the kidneys, according to the National Kidney Foundation. The cysts, which are filled with fluid, can damage kidneys if they grow too large.

In Lesleys case, the condition worsened to the point where she was put on dialysis. Her physicians informed her that she would need a transplant in order to survive.

VIRGINIA WOMAN DONATES KIDNEY TO STRANGER: 'GOD CALLED ME TO DO THIS'

Needless to say, the couple, who enjoy traveling and will celebrate their 30th anniversary in October, was worried.

"It's not easy asking someone for a kidney," Lesley told the news station. "It's not something you just walk up to anybody on the street and say hey, would you be willing to give me a kidney?"

Not long after, Lesleys colleague and sister each offered to donate a kidney to her. But neither was a match.

It was then that Steve decided he would like to donate a kidney to Lesley, undergoing tests to determine if he were a match. He was.

On July 19, Steve posted on Facebook that the surgery, which took place at Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle, was successful.

TEXAS SHERIFF'S DEPUTY WITH 'HEART OF GOLD' TO DONATE KIDNEY TO MAN IN NEED

My donated kidney appears to be doing pretty well in its new home inside Lesley. But it may be a bumpy ride for a while. Thanks to everyone for their incredible love and support, he wrote.

"It's probably the best thing I've ever done in my life, " Steve added to Q13 News, which reported that the couple is now back home and recovering.

Also consider organ donation, Steve wrote. It is truly an amazing gift to be able to donate. Especially to your spouse.
A Morton, Illinois, family claims their dog was mistakenly euthanized this week at a local animal control facility.

It has destroyed me, my wife and our six-year-old son, Tony Wang, the dogs owner, told Fox News on Saturday.

On August 3, a maintenance worker entered Tony and Jennifer Wangs backyard unannounced, startling Moses, a six-year-old lab and shepherd mix. Normally a docile dog, the pups protective instincts kicked in, prompting him to bite the stranger on the leg, the couple told Fox News.

When the two took the worker to a local medical facility to be treated, they proactively called the Tazewell County Animal Control in Tremont themselves, Jennifer said, knowing the facility would inevitably be informed about the situation.

Moses was then taken to Tazewell County Animal Control, where the couple was told he would have to stay for 10 days.

They called it a cooling off period, Jennifer said. We were very upset; we didnt want Moses to be gone for 10 days.

According to the Illinois General Assembly, if a person has been bitten by a dog, the animal is then confined under the observation of a licensed veterinarian. The confinement shall be for a period of not less than 10 days from the date the bite occurred and shall continue until the animal has been examined and released from confinement by a licensed veterinarian.

MYSTERIOUS DOG DISEASE HITS VIRGINIA CITY: 'THERE'S AN EPIDEMIC UNDERWAY'

Despite the law, the couple was still concerned for Moses well-being. In a grim twist of irony, Jennifer said she even expressed concern that Moses could be confused with another dog and accidentally euthanized.

But the facility's staff assured [her] that Moses would be OK, she said.

Over the next few days, Tony, who works minutes away from the shelter, visited Moses during his lunch break. He said he brought him food, toys and even special treats like pizza.

He wasnt eating because he wanted to come home, Tony recalled, adding that, looking back, it bothers [him] so much [he] didn't stay for a couple of more minutes on Wednesday.

But how was I supposed to know that would be the last time? he asked.

The following morning, Jennifer said she got an unexpected call from the shelters director.

He very calmly and matter-of-factly said that he accidentally euthanized Moses, Jennifer recalled. I thought it was a cruel prank. I couldnt believe this was happening."

She added that she received the call around 9:30 Thursday morning, though was later informed Moses was put to sleep hours before.

Jennifer, who said she spoke to both director and another official at the shelter, called her husband to tell him what happened. Like Jennifer, Tony was in disbelief.

The two then left work and headed to Tazewell County Animal Control. Tony, the first to arrive, then saw Moses cold, dead body on the ground of what looked like a maintenance room.

The couple claims that Moses was euthanized with a heart stick rather than an injection in his leg.

ARMY SOLDIER'S LOST DOG FOUND AFTER ESCAPING FROM COLORADO FOSTER HOME 2 MONTHS AGO

He was treated like a wild animal that nobody cared about, Jennifer said, adding that the couple just sat in that room and cried and held him.

Both Tony and Jennifer said that when asked, the facilitys director claimed he didnt know how the mistake happened, adding that he was told to put down a gold-colored dog and assumed that dog was Moses.

I asked him many times: How did this happen? How could this happen? All he said to me was that he didn't know and that he wasnt sure, Tony said.

The couple also claims that only some of the dogs in the facility had papers on their crates that identified them. Moses was not one of those dogs, they said, though noted that the pup wore a tagged collar for the entirety of his stay at the shelter.

Furious and heartbroken, Jennifer carried Moses body out of the facility before taking the pup to be cremated. As she left, she promised that she and her family would take legal action against the facility and those responsible.

The couple is slated to meet with an animal rights attorney in a separate county next week.

Its not about the money, Jennifer said. We want to hold these people accountable.

In a statement to WMBD-News, Tazewell County Animal Control said that, on August 7, they mistakenly euthanized a dog that was being held in our facility on a 10-day bite quarantine."

"Tazewell County truly regrets this error. Tazewell County will be reviewing policies and procedures to prevent any such occurrence from happening in the future, the statement continued.

A representative for Tazewell County Animal Control did not immediately return Fox News request for comment on Saturday.

K-9 EXPOSED TO HEROIN IN JAIL IS ADMINISTERED NARCAN

Tony said that the couple's son, Keloan, cried himself to sleep on Thursday night, asking to go to heaven so he could see Moses.

"The cost wont matter; were making sure he will get the justice he deserves. For us, its not over."  Jennifer Wang

He was scared, lonely and confused, Tony said of Moses' last moments. I cant stop thinking about it and I cant get his image out of my head.

The cost wont matter; were making sure he will get the justice he deserves, Jennifer said. For us, its not over."
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Anti-Russian hysteria appears to be replacing calm calculations of our national interest as the basis for U.S. foreign policy toward Russia  and thats a big mistake.

The hatred and fear of all things Russian has reached a fever pitch in America today. Indeed, so powerful are the emotions and concerns over Moscows interference with the 2016 presidential election that many have asserted that America must aggressively wage a Second Cold War until Russian President Vladimir Putin is forced from power.

One consequence of this anti-Russian feeling came Wednesday, when the Trump administration announced it will impose new economic sanctions on Russia in response to Moscows use of a nerve agent to try to kill former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia, who now live in England. The two survived the attack.

The new sanctions were prompted by a 1991 law that requires the U.S. to act against countries responsible for a chemical or biological weapons attack.

The sanctions will go into effect on about Aug. 22. They will bar U.S. companies from selling technology and other items with national security implications to companies funded or owned by the Russian government, affecting 70 percent of the Russian economy.

America and our European allies previously expelled 100 Russian diplomats over the poisonings and applied an earlier round of sanctions. But there is a very important difference in the new U.S. economic sanctions against Russia from earlier sanctions that are still in force.

While the new sanctions include many items already banned under the earlier ones, they also include a provision that requires Moscow to give reliable assurances that it will no longer use chemical and biological weapons  and allow international inspections to verify this.

If Russia refuses to provide these assurances and allow inspections, nearly all U.S. trade with Russia will be cut off. This would include banning Russias flagship airline Aeroflot from flying to America. And there is talk that other countries would face sanctions for doing business with Russia as well.

Drastic action like this is sure to worsen U.S.-Russian relations and make it harder to avoid the kind of escalation spirals and war-scares witnessed during the first Cold War.

The fact of Russian interference in Americas 2016 elections cannot be denied. However, regardless of what the probe of that interference by Special Counsel Robert Mueller concludes, the fact remains that Russia is a nuclear power that the U.S. is currently locked in a fierce political struggle with, including several proxy wars.

Putin is a geopolitical rival and a very clever tactician. He's not a friend of America, but he's not an immediate national security threat who must be destroyed at all costs either. His regime is distasteful, but so was the Soviet Union, Mao Zedong's China, and Vietnam  each of which America had to eventually learn to live with.

Ultimately, America still needs a clear-headed policy towards Russia that properly assesses the threat from Moscow and the risks of various responses. Washington's policy must be based on American interests and not on a blind desire to cause as much harm to Russia as possible. The catch with nuclear powers is to deter them while also making sure to never put them in too tight of a corner.

Therefore, it is perfectly reasonable for America to argue that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) should refocus on defending against Russia. Washington should also refuse to tolerate election interference by Moscow, while also trying to de-escalate tensions.

The hard lesson learned from Europe's endless holy and civil wars  in which nations tried to impose their ways of life and political systems on each other  is that countries shouldn't interfere in each other's domestic affairs. That is how wars get started.

The Cold War and mutually-assured-destruction taught the world not to go too far when playing chicken. No matter how outraged Americans are over recent events, these are vital lessons no one can afford to forget.

Moscows actions, including the seizure of Crimea from Ukraine and the Skripal poisoning, necessitated a response from Washington. The question is how far does America go and how well do these latest sanctions advance U.S. interests?

Recognition of both American and Russian core interests of sovereignty and security are important because it helps each great power avoid triggering the other's red lines. This is also why NATOs expansion to include Montenegro is a bad strategy and ignores the historical role of the Balkans as a tinderbox.

At his recent summit with President Putin in Helsinki, President Trump should have insisted that he will always pursue America's interests and that if they happen to overlap with Russia, then both countries will try and work together. This could mean cooperation on anti-terrorism, improving communication between both militaries to avoid any accidents, and taking another look at arms control agreements such as extending the New Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty.

All the while, despite President Trump dragging his feet on imposing previous sanctions, his administration has generally implemented policies against Russias interests.

Sanctions are still in place. President Trump hasnt tried to exert his full force to browbeat Congress into lifting those sanctions. He has, for all his bluster, so far reinforced Americas commitment to NATO and hasnt ordered the withdrawal of U.S. forces in Europe.

The Trump administration expelled 60 Russian diplomats over the poisoning of the Skripals. In Syria, U.S. airstrikes killed 200 unofficial Russian forces fighting American-backed rebels.

Finally, America is still training Ukrainian soldiers to resist Russia. And President Trump authorized the delivery of Javelin anti-tank missiles to Ukraine  something President Obama never did.

Russia isnt as powerful or stable as China. It is a weak, struggling former empire with an economy smaller than Italys and only slightly bigger than South Koreas. Moscow is not a threat that requires Washington to push back on every front and admit every single former Soviet satellite nation into NATO.

Diplomacy and grand strategy are about the pursuit of the national interest  about what is best for America. This means being realistic about threats and correctly seeing alliances, such as NATO, as a tool to advance the national interests of security and prosperity. Wise leaders match means to national ends and do not act out of anger. Fools confuse means for ends and will take action simply out of spite.

This is why NATO cannot endlessly expand and also why America needs to harden its election infrastructure and tell Russia that both countries must respect each others domestic affairs and sovereignty. This is also why it is unclear what imposing more sanctions is meant to accomplish beyond punishment.

New sanctions will weaken Russia and could distract Putin from near-term military adventurism, but will also make it harder for him to back down overall. Sanctions will also hurt any effort to get the Russians to cooperate with the U.S. on arms control or Iran.

Sanctions are better used as a threat to deter action, rather than as a punishment of unclear duration that is only imposed after another country has done something America doesnt like.



Russia is a country that needs to be told not to mess with American elections again. It is also a nation that the United States needs to grudgingly live with because it has nuclear weapons.

It is possible to warn off Moscow from harming U.S. interests or from using biochemical weapons in NATO countries, while also concluding that relations with Russia must not deteriorate further. The catch is having a Congress and president who will work together to make this a priority.
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The first two weeks of the trial of former Donald Trump presidential campaign chairman Paul Manafort on 18 counts of tax evasion and bank fraud charges have failed to implicate Trump or his campaign in any alleged criminal conduct.

Prosecutors working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller  who is investigating Russias interference in the 2016 presidential election  are expected to call their final witness Monday at Manaforts trial in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia. If convicted on all counts, Manafort could face a maximum sentence of 305 years in prison.

So far weve learned that the prosecutions star witness, former Manafort employee Rick Gates, is a liar, a serial adulterer and a thief who embezzled funds from Manafort.

And weve learned that Manafort is alleged to have evaded paying taxes on income that he and Gates earned through secret offshore bank accounts, shell companies and fraudulent bank loans.

But when it comes to the mandate given to Mueller on May 17, 2017, weve learned absolutely nothing. Mueller was charged with investigating any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump.

But neither Gates nor any other witness at the Manafort trial has testified about the Russian election interference or any alleged collusion between the Trump campaign  or Trump himself  with the Russians.

Manafort was with the Trump presidential campaign for just under five months. Thats a tiny sliver of the long career of the 68-year-old.

All of the testimony at the Manafort trial has addressed events that occurred long before Manafort went to work for 2016 Trump campaign. The testimony has focused on Manaforts and Gatess activities as alleged unregistered agents representing the Ukrainian government starting in 2006.

It would be absurd to argue that Manaforts other clients in the 12 years since then are somehow to blame for any criminal activity he may have engaged in  and prosecutors arent even trying to point the finger at President Trump for these activities.

Manaforts lawyers claim that Gates was the actual wrongdoer, and they subjected him to a punishing cross-examination.

Under questioning, Gates was forced to admit that he lied to the investigators from the special counsels office; embezzled huge amounts of money from Manafort and prior employers; and used the stolen funds in part to pay for extramarital affairs and a secret life that included an apartment and a girlfriend in London.

Through their cross-examination, Manaforts lawyers pushed the idea to the jury that Gates got accountants to falsify Manaforts tax returns in order to cover up the embezzling. Gates fraud apparently included submitting fraudulent personal expenses to the Trump inauguration committee.

Prosecutors tried to counter this with testimony by an FBI forensic accountant, an Internal Revenue Service agent, and Manaforts own accountant. The accountant testified under a grant of immunity that although she worked with Gates a lot, she believed Manafort knew what was going on.

At a prior hearing in this case, the presiding federal judge  the very colorful T.S. Ellis III  said that Mueller is prosecuting Manafort in part because he wants Manafort to sing  in other words, testify against President Trump on other unrelated matters.

Ellis said at the earlier hearing that Mueller set out to turn the screws and get the information you really want from Manafort. And that information, according to the judge, is what Manafort can give you that would reflect on Mr. Trump and lead to his prosecution or impeachment.

It is certainly possible that Gates has some kind of evidence relevant to the Russian collusion allegation that Mueller has not yet made public. And perhaps Manafort also has similar evidence.

But so far at least, Manafort has chosen not to cooperate with Mueller. There was a hint of this in the trial with regard to Gates after the judge issued an order on Thursday at the request of the government. The order sealed portions of a sidebar conference the lawyers had with the judge to avoid revealing substantive evidence pertaining to an ongoing government investigation.

If Gates is the one with this secret evidence against the Trump campaign, the government will face a severe witness-credibility problem, given his embarrassing admissions on the stand in the Manafort trial.

Moreover, Gates admitted that he was threatened with 290 years in prison by Muellers team but was promised he could get off with just probation if he agreed to testify against Manafort. That certainly gives Gates an enormous incentive to allege criminal conduct by Manafort. Its hard to believe that prosecutors would offer Gates a get out of jail free card if he testified that Manafort did nothing wrong.

If Manafort is found guilty of tax evasion and bank fraud, some will try to use his very brief association with the Trump campaign to tar the president. But such criticism would ignore two crucial facts.

First, presidential campaigns are not law enforcement agencies. They have neither the capacity nor the resources to do detailed background investigations on the thousands of individuals who volunteer to work with a campaign.

Second, Manafort appeared to be a successful, ethical businessman. Even the government  including the IRS, the FBI and our intelligence agencies  had no idea that he was allegedly engaging in any wrongdoing for a foreign government through an elaborate scheme of offshore bank accounts and shell companies, until Muellers office started investigating him.

In an odd point in the trial, Gates testified that he and Manafort actually told the FBI about their offshore bank accounts in Cypress back in 2014. At the time, the FBI was investigating the former Ukrainian president. Gates and Manafort disclosed the accounts to the agent, because that is how the Ukrainian government paid them.

Yet the FBI apparently did nothing about this and did not notify the IRS. There has been no explanation from the government as to why it took no action at that time.

And surely the Trump campaign cannot be legitimately criticized for not knowing, as the federal government did not know, what Manafort and Gates were supposedly doing vis a vis their personal finances and income tax liability.

The bottom line is this: The Manafort trial is about alleged criminal activity by Manafort and Gates. If Manafort had not spent less than five months working as a volunteer on the Trump presidential campaign he might never have even been charged with a crime.

However, Manaforts short time in a high-visibility role with the campaign placed all his past activities  having nothing to do with Donald Trump  under the microscope.

In the unlikely event Manafort had been charged with the same crimes but had never joined the Trump campaign his trial would no doubt have attracted only a small amount of media attention. Only his association with Trump has turned his trial into a major news story.

The Manafort trial is complicated. It is receiving enormous news coverage. Most Americans dont have the time or interest to follow every detail on a daily basis. So its understandable that many people assume the trial has something or other to do with President Trump and his campaign.

But that assumption is a mistake. Whether you support President Trump or oppose him, the simple and indisputable fact is that nothing in the Manafort trial so far has revealed any evidence of collusion with Russia or any other misconduct by President Trump or his campaign.

This trial is about Paul Manafort and Rick Gates  not Donald Trump.
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Expressions of anguish and hope are being heard from around the nation as the search for Mollie Tibbetts drags on. The 20-year-old University of Iowa student disappeared over three weeks ago. Experts believe Tibbetts disappearance involves foul play, likely an abduction by somebody she knew or had a non-threatening demeanor.

Many around the nation have expressed solidarity with Mollies father, who has pled with the perpetrator to let Mollie come home and turn himself in. Or with Mollies step-mother, who has expressed a combination of bewilderment and anguish that someone like Mollie could simply vanish without a trace.

In the midst of such heartache and distress, everyday Americans may feel paralyzed and hopeless. Is there anything at all we can do?

The answer is always yes. The most important thing we can do now  or ever  is pray.

Why should we pray for Mollie?

There are dozens of reasons we should pray for Mollie. But heres a unique one: We know that Mollie herself believes in the power of prayer.

She believes in the Bibles declaration that God holds the world in His hands. She believes in its counsel that we should pray on behalf of other people (1 Timothy 2:1). She believes we should plead with God in times of trouble (Psalm 50:15). And she believes we should pray with the radical trust that despite the appearance of outward circumstances, Gods goodness and mercy are always near (Hebrews 4:16).

Were Mollie in our shoes, she would know what to do. She would pray. So lets honor her by doing the same.

What should we pray for Mollie?

Many people who arent in the habit of praying find themselves willing to give it a try if the situation is desperate enough. But what should we pray?

We should pray for justice and mercy, because we appeal to a God who gives justice to the weak and has mercy on the needy (Psalm 82:3-4).

We should pray for Him to have mercy on Mollie by rescuing her, either through the hands of law enforcement officers or through more dramatic and supernatural means.

We should pray for Him to bring justice for Mollie by delivering up anybody who has abducted or harmed her.

And we should pray for courage. We dont know the details of Mollies past few weeks, but we can be pretty sure theyve been filled with fear. Between now and the resolution of this heartbreaking situation, we can pray that God will give her strength and courage.

Praying Within a Larger Story

Most importantly, we should pray with hope. And that means praying from within the Bibles true story about the world.

Hope comes from knowing that God created this world perfectly good, without a trace of evil (Genesis 1). Hope persists when we remember that evil is an intruder, a result of humanitys decision to turn away from Gods good kingdom (Genesis 3). Hope is nourished when we look to Gods promise: Rather than leaving us to endure suffering and darkness, He vowed to send a Savior to crush evil and draw us back to Him.

And hope finds its blazing center in the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ. We celebrate Jesus death because through it God himself was acting to save the world from itself, once and for all. Even while the forces of evil were conspiring to perpetrate historys greatest evil, God was working to bring about historys greatest good.

In the crucifixion, Jesus entered into our suffering and experienced it on our behalf. He lived the sinless life that we should have lived, and experienced the evil that we, a rebel race, brought upon ourselves through sin. He took our guilty record and its consequences, died for it, and offers us His perfect record and eternal life in return.

As the Apostle Paul wrote, God demonstrates his love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:7-8 NIV).

The crucifixion, however, is not the end of the story. Hope burst forth in victory when Jesus rose from the dead. And in His resurrection, we receive a promise that we, too, can share in His everlasting life. Standing by the light of Jesus resurrection, no situation is so bleak as to become hopeless. Whether in this life or the next, the resurrection guarantees that sadness, despair, and death will not have the final word.

Hope for Mollie and Hope for Us

We do not know the end of Mollies story. But we do know the story in which her story fits. And Mollie knows the Storyteller who holds her in His hand and cherishes her in His heart. Neither she nor we have reason to abandon hope, because our hope does not rest on what happens next. Our hope rests on what happens last. Because while evil might have prevailed for a moment, it will not prevail in the end.
President Trump on Friday took to Twitter to praise Kanye West following the rappers recent Jimmy Kimmel Live! appearance, in which he defended his decision to support Trump during his bid for the White House.

Thank you to Kanye West and the fact that he is willing to tell the TRUTH, Trump tweeted before claiming that unemployment rates for African Americans are the lowest ever recorded in the history of our Country.

So honored by this, the president continued. Thank you Kanye for your support. It is making a big difference!

KANYE WEST DEFENDS HIS SUPPORT FOR TRUMP: LIBERALS CANT BULLY ME

The Chicago rapper was a guest on the talk show Thursday night and recalled how during the 2016 presidential election, every time I said I liked Trump he was told that I couldnt say it out loud or my career would be over.

I didnt have the confidence to take on the world and the possible backlash and it took me a year and a half to have the confidence to stand up and put on the hat no matter what the consequences were, West explained, referring to his Make America Great Again hat.

He added that no one could bully him.

TRUMP MOCKS NANCY PELOSI AS WONDERFUL PERSON, WHO SHOULD DEFINITELY BE GIVEN A 4THCHANCE

Trump's tweets on West came amid his opining on a series of topics on Friday, including a phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron and a deal with Mexico.

He also tweeted about House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, pleading with Democrats to not distance themselves from her in the midst of the midterm elections.

She is a wonderful person whose ideas & policies may be bad, but who should definitely be given a 4th chance, Trump tweeted. She is trying very hard & has every right to take down the Democrat Party if she has veered too far left!
While journalists rail against President Trumps attack on fake news media outlets as the enemy of the people, at the United Nations, a reporter is fighting to keep his beat alive after being physically thrown out and barred.

And a former New York Times bureau chief holds the key to his fate.

Matthew Lee, of the online Inner City Press blog, will learn soon whether he will be hit with a permanent ban from U.N. headquarters for an alleged breach of the rules -- the latest in a history of clashes with U.N. officials and fellow reporters in his more than 10 years in the Turtle Bay trenches.

The decision will be made by Alison Smale -- the Under-Secretary-General for Global Communications and a former New York Times bureau chief.

Smale was appointed to the post last year after having served as the Times' Berlin chief since 2003. She originally joined the Times in 1998. A former journalist herself, its not clear whether the fights between Trump and her former colleagues will affect Smales decision. (Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger says that he told Trump in a recent meeting his rhetoric was putting lives at risk.)

Smale did not respond to requests for comments from Fox News.

To ban Lee just weeks before the annual General Assembly session could give Trump -- who will be in attendance -- an easy way to brush off any criticisms from the U.N. about his treatment of hostile reporters.

Im a free press person, the idea of journalists being berated and placed in physical harm -- Im against that, Lee said Thursday. But the U.N. is much worse [than the White House], it has physically assaulted and banned a journalist for 37 days.

Lee rarely covers D.C. politics, instead publishing roughly eight-10 stories a day on almost everything related to the U.N. and often on topics that are almost indecipherable to outsiders. Using a mix of Twitter, Periscope, and lengthy blog posts to breathlessly cover events other journalists deem too insignificant, he regularly picks up scoops as a consequence and has a loyal band of followers within the U.N. itself.

When he breaks a story, however big or small, hell tease readers with the tagline: Well have more on this. And he normally does -- often to the chagrin of the U.N. officials he is writing about.

The Government Accountability Project, which has expressed concern about Lees treatment by the U.N., notes that he has broken stories about the role of U.N. peacekeepers in bringing cholera to Haiti, as well as war crimes in Sri Lanka, Burundi and Sudan.

But last month, as he covered a late-night budget meeting, he was allegedly roughed up before being tossed out of the premises. The U.N. said that Lee had been violating the terms of his non-resident correspondent pass and was being unruly -- something that Lee disputes. U.N. officials say it comes on the heels of a long history of bad behavior toward staff and other reporters by Lee.

UN ROUGHS UP, EJECTS, BANS REPORTER FROM HEADQUARTERS: CAUGHT ON TAPE

Since then Lee has been waiting for his fate to be determined by Smale, but has not been idle. He has been filing stories from a bus stop for 12 hours a day outside U.N. headquarters, where he catches fragments of Wi-Fi from passing buses.

Spring or fall would have been a better time to get beaten up and thrown out of the U.N., he jokes.

The Secretary-Generals spokesmans office told Fox News last month that there is a review of the incident itself, but it appears that that review is taking consideration of past incidents as well. U.N. Secretary-General deputy spokesman Farhan Haq told Fox News that there have been a number of allegations from fellow journalists that Lee has harassed them over the years.

A lot of journalists have not just been harassed but threatened by him and thats a problem, Haq said.

Haq said that two departments had been involved in Lees case, the Department of Public Information and the Department of Safety and Security, and that a conclusion would be coming in the coming days from Smale. He added that the process had taken as long as it had as the U.N. wanted to abide by its procedures strictly.

But Lee says he has only had one interview with Safety and Security, and has not heard a word from DPI or Smale. He also rejects the claim that he has harassed anyone, although acknowledges that he has a difficult and combative relationship with some members of the U.N. press corp -- whom he describes as cliquish and too close to the powerful people they seek to cover. Some of those journalists, meanwhile, have accused him of not doing real journalism.

The U.N. Correspondents Association (UNCA), which Lee left years ago, has declined to comment on Lees case.

"Its entirely appropriate for them not to comment because theyre not a freedom of the press group, Lee shrugged. They represent those who the U.N. has seen fit to give office space to.

Lees case has picked up the attention of some journalistic groups. The GAP described Lees treatment as concerning and said they regard the U.N.s banning of him as retaliatory.

Lynn Walsh of the Society of Professional Journalists said that it is always upsetting to hear reports about the alleged mistreatment of journalists.

One of the important roles journalists play is holding the powerful accountable, that includes government officials, she told Fox News Thursday. Not allowing journalists access to public meetings and public officials means the government is keeping the public in the dark as well. In the end, it is the public who ultimately loses in these situations. Also, journalists should not be punished for doing their jobs and they should absolutely never have to experience physical assaults of any kind.

As he waits for his fate to be decided, Lee is making do with what he can, and his ability to spot an obscure U.N. official from down the street is serving him well.

On Wednesday, moments after former Chilean president Michelle Bachelet was announced as the new U.N. human rights chief, Lee snagged the first (and, as of writing, only) comment from her predecessor Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein -- who wasnt even aware her name had been made official.

Asked what hell do if Smale decides to revoke his credentials permanently, Lee is adamant: Im covering the U.N. its my right to cover it. Im not going anywhere.

Well have more on this.
Hawaii Gov. David Ige is facing a tough Democratic primary Saturday night -- and Januarys false missile alert could be a deciding factor in voters minds.

Ige faces a primary challenge from Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, and she is using the January false alarm as a key campaign issue -- particularly the fact that it took 38 minutes to correct the alert.

Officials mistakenly sent a warning of an imminent missile attack, promising THIS IS NOT A DRILL, to cellphones, radios and televisions on January 13. The move sparked panic across the state before officials corrected it, especially because it was at a time of heightened tensions between the U.S. and North Korea.

Ige was partly blamed for the error and took responsibility for it, but also pointed to human error as the ultimate cause for the chaos.

And Hanabusa is using that as part of her campaign.

"When you hear the stories about what people did in 38 minutes, it gives you a clear sense that it truly affected so many people," Hanabusa said, according to The Associated Press.

She has also called for Ige to hand over phone records so that the public can know his actions during those 38 minutes.

Hanabusa has lost ground somewhat since Iges response to a volcano eruption in May, which he was perceived to have handled well. The Washington Post reports a Mason-Dixon poll that had Hanabusa ahead by 20 points in March, showed that Ige was ahead by four by July. The outlet reports that she has also struggled with liberal voters in particular.

We feel pretty good about where the campaign is headed, Ige said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal.

Ige has also targeted Hanabusas career -- namely a $75 million tax credit she fought for in the state senate to develop a resort, which primarily benefited a developer with ties to her and husband. That developer then bought town houses at the resort, one of which that were sold to her now-husband.

Ige has said that the house was flipped for a $400,000 profit and accused Hanabusa of not only supporting a special interest but really advocating on behalf of a special interest.

But Hanabusa says she wasnt directly involved in the purchase and accused Ige of making a political issue out of it.

Whoever wins the primary will face the winner of the Republican primary in November. Former state lawmaker John Carroll is running against state House minority leader Andria Tupola. But in the deeply blue state, the winner of the Democratic primary would be the overwhelming favorite.

Hanabusa's run for governor has also opened up her House seat, leading to a race between six Democrats to replace her. That list includes conservative Democrat Ed Case, who has served in Congress before, and 29-year-old Democratic socialist Kaniela Ing -- who is promising to push for tuition free college and Medicare-for-all.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer dug in for a legal fight over this past weeks Republican gubernatorial primary, hiring an outside lawyer for the vote-counting process with Secretary of State Kris Kobach leading the incumbent by less than a tenth of a percentage point.

The Colyer campaign has hired Todd Graves, a Kansas City attorney who works on election law.

Governor Colyer is confident that Todd Graves experience as a U.S. Attorney and, in particular, his expertise in election law will be a valuable asset as we navigate this process, Kendall Marr, a spokesperson for Mr. Colyer, wrote in an email.

Mr. Colyer has ramped up pressure on Mr. Kobach as election officials continue to review the vote count and tally the remaining ballots. Mr. Colyer in a letter Thursday asked Mr. Kobach to recuse himself from advising county election officials on the matter, saying it had come to his attention that Mr. Kobach was making statements that may serve to suppress the vote.

Mr. Kobach, who was endorsed by President Trump, formally recused himself Friday from his duties as secretary of state until the end of the primary process and designated assistant secretary of state Erick Rucker to fulfill his election responsibilitiesa move that the Colyer campaign said was still insufficient. Mr. Kobach declined Mr. Colyers request to transfer responsibility for the election to the Kansas attorney general.

Mr. Kobach refuted Mr. Colyers allegations in a letter of his own Friday.

Continue reading this story in the Wall Street Journal.
Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., said on Saturday that he is suspending his re-election campaign -- just days after he was indicted on insider trading charges.

"Democrats are laser focused on taking back the House, electing Nancy Pelosi Speaker and then launching impeachment proceedings against President Trump," Collins said in a statement. "They would like nothing more than to elect an 'Impeach Trump' Democrat in this District, which is something that neither our country or my party can afford."

Collins was named in the indictment announced on Wednesday, along with his son and the father of his son's fiancee. The fraud counts relate to securities of an Australian biotechnology company called Innate Immunotherapeutics, where the 68-year-old congressman served on the board.

"Christopher Collins, the defendent, violated the duties he owed to Innate by passing material; nonpublic information regarding the Drug Trial results to his son, Cameron Collins, the defendent, so that [his son] could use that information to make timely trades in Innate stock and tip others," the indictment states. "Cameron Collins traded on the inside information and passed it to Stephen Zarsky."

NEW YORK REP. CHRISTOPHER COLLINS INDICTED ON INSIDER TRADING CHARGES

The charges include multiple counts of securities fraud, along with one count of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count each of making false statements. All three defendents pleaded not guilty.

On Wednesday, Collins said the charges were "meritless" and said he would remain on the ballot for re-election.

But on Saturday, he said that after discussions with family and friends, that he had decided it was in the best interests of his constituents, the GOP and President Trump for his to suspend the campaign.

"I will fill out the remaining few months of my term to assure that our community maintains its vote in Congress to support President Trumps agenda to create jobs, eliminate regulations, reduce the size of government, address immigration and lower taxes," he said in the statement.

He added that he will fight the "meritless" charges against him and looked forward to being cleared.

Collins has served New York's 27th District since 2013 and ran unopposed in the Republican primary for what is largely considered a safe Republican seat. He's being challenged by Democrat Nate McMurray.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called Collins' statement "insufficient" and said that Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., should demand Collins resign.

This insufficient and overdue announcement does little to drain the toxic cesspool of self-enrichment, special interest deals and corruption that has proliferated in Washington under GOP control," she said in a statement.

Fox News' Andrew O'Reilly, Nicole Darrah and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
President Trump marked the anniversary of the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., by calling for unity and condemning all types of racism and acts of violence.

The riots in Charlottesville a year ago resulted in senseless death and division. We must come together as a nation. I condemn all types of racism and acts of violence. Peace to ALL Americans! he tweeted.

A white nationalist protest over the removal of a statue of Robert E. Lee turned violent last year when participants clashed with counter protesters. Counter protester Heather Heyer, was killed when James Fields Jr., drove his car into a crowd.

UBER, LYFT, DC RESTAURANTS TO BAN 'UNITE THE RIGHT' RALLY PARTICIPANTS; TWITTER SUSPENDS NUMEROUS FAR-RIGHT ACCOUNTS

Trump was widely criticized by both Democrats and some Republicans for blaming both sides for the protest violence, although he also issued a statement from the White House condemning neo-Nazis and white supremacists.

Trumps tweet on Saturday comes as police block off streets in preparation for rallies and counter-rallies marking the same anniversary.

Jason Kessler, the organizer of last years rally, is planning to hold a white civil rights rally on Sunday in Washington, D.C., to mark the anniversary. Meanwhile, other events are planned to promote racial healing.

CHARLOTTESVILLE PASTOR: HATE ISN'T A POLITICAL ISSUE AND OTHER LESSONS FROM ONE OF OUR DARKEST DAYS

Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam and D.C. declared states of emergency, citing the potential impacts of events in the area. Streets and parks will be closed and are restricting access to a security area.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.


A Colorado woman was surprised on Thursday by the discovery that a mountain lion had gotten into her home, becoming trapped and ultimately killing her house cat.

Boulder Police said that they were called to a home on Marine Street Thursday night. There, they found that a mountain lion had apparently entered through a screen door. Police shared a picture on Twitter of the giant cat sitting between a coffee table and a couch.

It took the police and Colorado Parks and Wildlife over an hour to get the mountain lion out of the two-story home, Fox 31 reported.

Video was captured of the cat peering out a second-floor window.

Police managed to coax the cat out the front door just after midnight and fired non-lethal rounds to scare it away from the area.

There were no injuries to the homeowner or authorities, but a house cat was killed.

OREGON WOMAN FINDS MOUNTAIN LION NAPPING IN HER HOME: THIS IS WILD

Police took to Twitter to urge locals to keep all ground-level doors and windows closed as a barrier to unwelcome wildlife.

Just last month, an Oregon woman came home to find that a mountain lion was napping for six or more hours behind her sofa.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Space company United Launch Alliance is busily preparing for the return of manned missions from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

Human spaceflight can inspire the public and inspire scientists in a way that no other activities can, ULA CEO Tory Bruno told Fox News. It means so much to us to have human spaceflight from American soil returning Americans to space, I cannot begin to tell you what that means to myself and my team.

United Launch Alliance is involved in NASAs Commercial Crew program that will take American astronauts into space on missions launched from U.S. soil. Since the retirement of the space shuttle in 2011, the U.S. has been relying on Russian Soyuz rockets, launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, to get astronauts to the International Space Station.

PARKER SOLAR PROBE: NASA SPACECRAFT IS ITS FIRST NAMED AFTER A LIVING PERSON

NASA recently named the nine American astronauts that will crew the test flights and first missions of the Boeing CST-100 Starliner and SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft. The Starliner will launch atop a ULA Atlas V rocket from ULAs Space Launch Complex 41 at Cape Canaveral.

We have added a Crew Access Tower that allows the astronauts to arrive at the height above the ground where they will enter their capsule, Bruno said. It also has a Crew Access Arm that can swing out, with its White Room, and allow them to get access to that capsule, and then pull away so that the rocket can take off and leave.

A longstanding feature of human spaceflight, White Rooms are specially-designed areas that prevent contaminants from getting into the spacecraft. Astronauts also use White Rooms to make final phone calls to their families before blasting off into space.

NASA NAMES NINE 'AMERICAN HERO' ASTRONAUTS FOR SPACEX, BOEING MISSIONS

ULA has also built an escape system that employs a sophisticated zipline-type technology, enabling astronauts and launch pad personnel to quickly evacuate the tower in the event of an accident. That would allow them to very quickly exit that area to a safe distance, Bruno explained.

Crew for the Starliner test flight are NASA astronauts Eric Boe and Nicole Aunapu-Mann and Boeing astronaut Chris Ferguson. The first Boeing mission to the International Space Station will be crewed by NASA astronauts Josh Cassada and Suni Williams.

Boeing plans to do an uncrewed flight test of its CST-100 Starliner later this year or early next year.

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers
The eagerly anticipated launch of NASAs Parker Solar Probe was scrubbed early Saturday when delays on the launch pad ate away at the spacecrafts 65-minute window to blast off to the sun.

Crowds had gathered at Kennedy Space Center in Florida to see the Solar Probe embark on its incredible journey from nearby Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

Sitting atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket, the Solar Probe was initially scheduled to launch from Cape Canaverals Space Launch Complex 37 at 3:33 a.m. EDT. Onlookers watched tensely as the launch-time was pushed back to 3:53 a.m. EDT, eating into the 65-minute launch window. The launch was scrubbed about 2 minutes from the end of the launch window.

NASA'S PARKER SOLAR PROBE: CAPE CANAVERAL PREPARES FOR EPIC MISSION TO THE SUN

The launch of a ULA #DeltaIV Heavy carrying the Parker #SolarProbe spacecraft was scrubbed today due to a violation of a launch limit, resulting in a hold. There was not enough time remaining in the window to recycle, tweeted ULA.

"The team received a gaseous helium red pressure alarm that kicked them out," said Mic Woltman of NASA's Launch Services Program in NASA's Live TV commentary, according to Space.com. ""The team is evaluating that and looking at it."

A new launch time has been set for 3:31 a.m. EDT Sunday.

NASA'S PARKER SOLAR PROBE SET TO WRITE NEW CHAPTER IN CAPE CANAVERAL

The $1.5 billion mission will take humanity closer to the sun than ever before. Parker will be the first spacecraft to fly through the suns corona, the outermost part of the stars atmosphere. It is expected to reach the sun in November.

Parker will face brutal heat and radiation during an epic journey that will take it to within 3.8 million miles of the suns surface, according to the space agency. This is seven times closer than the previous closest spacecraft, Helios 2, which came within 27 million miles of the sun in 1976.

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers
White supremacists and white nationalists heading to Washington, D.C., for Sundays second Unite the Right rally may have trouble finding a way to get there or a place to eat, according to reports.

The rally comes on the one year anniversary of white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, where on Saturday, police blocked off streets and mobilized hundreds of officers downtown as a precaution.

Early Saturday afternoon, a group of 20 Antifa protestors with fists in the air marched through downtown Charlottsville holding a flag saying Antifascist action.

Meanwhile, in preparation for the rally near the White House, Uber and Lyft told drivers they have a right to kick a passenger out of car if they are harassed or threatened, The Washington Post reported.

At the same time, the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington sent out a toolkit informing restaurateurs of their legal rights to refuse service to white nationalists and other political fringe groups, The Washingtonian reported.

Meantime, Twitter suspended numerous accounts associated with the Proud Boys, a controversial group of right-wing chauvinists on Friday on the eve of the anniversary of the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, the Guardian reported.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, DC PREPARE FOR ANNIVERSARY OF VIOLENT RALLY

Previously, Airbnb threatened to ban users who participate in the rally, Fox News reported.

"When we identify and determine that there are those who would be pursuing behavior on the Airbnb platform that would be antithetical to the Airbnb Community Commitment, we seek to take appropriate action, which may include removing them from the platform," the company confirmed in a statement shared with Fox News.

Rally organizer, Jason Kessler, obtained a permit for Lafayette Park across from the White House. He expects 400 supporters to show up.

The first "Unite The Right" rally in Charlottesville on Aug. 12, 2017, resulted in violent clashes between white supremacists and counter protesters. One person was killed when a white supremacist drove into a crowd of counter protesters.

Uber recently sent a message to its drivers in the Washington region, reminding them of community guidelines  and eject a fare who is harassing or threatening, The Post reported.

Regardless of event, drivers are advised to follow all local laws but have the right to refuse service to riders who are disrespectful or who make them feel unsafe, the message from Uber said.

Lyft drivers received similar instructions, the paper reported

The Washingtonian interviewed several restaurant owners who said they are threatening to refuse service to those participating in the rally--or planning to close altogether.

Our mentality is were going to protect each other. This is our city. Our house. Our people, Founding Farmers owner Dan Simons told the magazine.

There are times when a guest can be rude to an employee and you swap out the server. Weve told our team: this isnt what that is. You dont have to be in a room with someone whos advocating for your death and enslavement," he added.

AIRBNB THREATENS TO BAN USERS PARTICIPATING IN 'UNITE THE RIGHT' RALLY

Ellen Kassoff Gray, owner of Equinox restaurant near the White House, also said she would refuse to serve those who espouse hate.

Ill proudly stay open and serve those whore respectful and kind. But being a Jewish restaurant owner and having a pro-Nazi group come to town, would I refuse service? Yes, I would, Kassoff Gray told The Washingtonian.

Alan Popovsky, owner of Lincoln restaurant, said the restaurant will be open for Sunday brunch then close for dinner altogether, according to the magazine.

As far as the Proud Boys, verified accounts belonging to the group and its founder, Gavin McInnes, were suspended for violating Twitters policy against violent extremist groups, according to the Guardian.

A number of non-verified accounts for various Proud Boys chapters were also suspended, the paper reported.
This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," August 9, 2018. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

LAURA INGRAHAM, HOST: Good evening. Welcome to Washington. I am Laura Ingraham and this is "The Ingraham Angle." I want to start tonight by addressing my commentary at the top of last night's show. A message to those who are distorting my views including all white nationalists and especially one racist freak whose name I will not even mention.

You do not have my support. You don't represent my views and you are antithetical to the beliefs I hold dear. The purpose of last night's Angle was to point out that the rule of law, meaning secure borders, is something that used to bind our country together. And despite what some may be contending, I made explicitly clear that my commentary had nothing to do with race or ethnicity, but rather a shared goal of keeping America safe and her citizens safe and prosperous.

Furthermore, as I have said repeatedly on the show, merit-based immigration does wonders for our country's economy, our way of life, and how we define our country. I even said that in my opening thoughts last night.

I want to make it really clear that my concern will continue to remain with the families who have suffered the tragic results of illegal immigration. The children put in dangerous and unfair situations at the border, and all those border agents around the country who work to keep our country safe.

And now could the expert class be possibly wrong again? That is the focus of tonight's Angle.

All right, the prevailing wisdom among the professional political prognosticators is that it's all gloom and doom for Republicans come the November midterms.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN KING, CNN HOST: We're 89 days away from midterm elections. It is already a steeper than steep hill for the Republican Party.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If the best that they can do here is basically a tie, a slight win, that is not good news at all for Republicans come the fall.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The turnout lessens the money, lessens -- all still suggest that this is going to be a good election for Democrats. That's not a debate. I think the debate is how big does the wave get?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: That debate's over. Well -- and they are already busy writing the president's political obit for 2020.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS MATTHEWS, MSNBC HOST: We are going to tell you about unlucky seven. That's the average number of false, misleading statements President Trump has made per day since inauguration. It's also how much he's losing to a certain democrat in a 2020 match --

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel very good about the prospects of both taking back the House and Senate in the midterms. Feel very good about the prospects of taking the White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: And while it is true that Republicans have an uphill climb in the House, let's not forget that those same experts who are gleefully forecasting the GOP's demise, are the same ones who had egg on their faces on election night.

First, in its latest iteration, the RealClearPolitics average of polls about the country's direction finds that more Americans, 41.3 percent, find that Trump is setting us on the right track than at any other moment since December 2012. That's the right track, wrong track. Second, to the idea that Trump's base is shrinking, there is ample evidence to refute that.

A brand-new Pew Research poll finds that for most Trump voters, the warm feelings for him -- I love that -- the warm feelings for him over the past couple of years have endured. Furthermore, Trump has many more converts, people who voted for him but didn't like him who have since warmed than those who liked him in 2016 and have "cooled" -- I love the warm cooled.

And despite the near daily barrage of negative coverage about Mueller, tariffs, immigration, his approval ratings have remain pretty consistent. And they have even improved with his rural base despite the stories were told about the farmers who would turn on him over his aggressive trade policies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNBC HOST: In 19 farm states surveyed by Morning Consults exclusively for CNBC, 10 states saw President Trump's rural approval rating improved between May and the end of July. Seven saw it stayed the same in that period and just one, Idaho, saw a decline.

ERIC NELSON, FARMER: I'm a big believer. If you are in a bad deal, be it a lease, be it an agreement with a business partner, you owe it to yourself to step up and try to make it better for both parties and negotiate it. But for sure, it needs to be better for yourself and I think simply that's what this administration is attempting to do.

MIKE BEARD, FARM OWNER: We are going to trust that the president will have at least some success in negotiating a trade deal that will support corn, soybeans, and actually everything that the U.S. exports.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Now, despite all the positive trends for the president, there are a few real areas of concern. First, polling trouble spots. A recent NPR?PBS NewsHour/Marist poll reveals that not only do most female voters prefer Democrats this fall, but nearly six in 10 suburban women strongly disapprove of Trump.

And that same Pew poll mentioned above also found that women with a college degree are the most likely Trump voters to have soured on him since the election. And finally, a recent Wall Street Journal-NBC poll found that just 36 percent of independents approve of Trump's job, down seven points from just one month earlier. And also distractions. The president must -- let's face it -- keep his eyes on the prize. Check out the complaint of this former Trump supporter.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: My issue with this president who I voted for is the fact that he has something negative to say about every other leader. But you try saying one little comment that's negative about Trump himself, he jumps into a fit and he has a twitter tirade.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: But don't women think men have thin skins anyway. I mean, come on. Most of us do. No more the president, I think veers off his message. I said this on Monday and waste time reacting to every distraction, whether it's Russia or Stormy Daniels, all and any of these other things, Michael Cohen, Avenatti. The more he risks losing I t think more voters like Mary.

The economy is good. It's a period of peace and prosperity. So, women like Trump the protector, the strong guy. They like that. But for the swing voters, he might not seem as charming when it seems like he's fighting everyone at once. They want things to calm down a little. For President Trump, the message is simple. Be the happy warrior we see at a lot of these rallies.

Touting the economic resurgence, you can pat yourself on the back a little. The media is not going to do it. The renaissance in manufacturing and talk about how you want the economy to benefit all people -- forgotten Americans of all backgrounds, races, ethnicities like you did this afternoon.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: One of the single most important things we are doing is to help former inmates in creating jobs. We are creating so many jobs for former inmates for the first time or are really getting a shot at it.

Our unemployment rate is so low, historically low, 50 years. Now, our economy is booming. Businesses are hiring and recruiting workers that were previously overlooked. They are being hired. It's a great feeling. It's a great thing that we have all accomplished.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: By the way, prison reform, jobs training, that is vital. It's a vital issue to this country, recidivism. We want to decrease it if we can. And it's an issue that the president is desperately trying to get to yes on, and it might also have the added benefit of helping with some of those discontented voters who are on the fence as well.

Finally, Mr. President, don't ignore that right track reading we mentioned at the top. As the "Washington Post" wrote ahead of the 2016 election, "the nation's mood is intrinsically important, providing a basic gauge of how Americans think the country is doing and whether people are more optimistic or pessimistic than in the past. Presidents can succeed or fail regardless of the public's mood, but the public's overall outlook sets the stage for political debate."

Sets the stage for political debate -- that final line is most important for Trump and Republicans. Use that data point. Draft off that economic success. Be positive about America's current economic standings. It's a great time to be an American. We have problems but my goodness, other than the early years of Reagan, I can't think of a better economy.

Set the terms of the debate yourself. Do not be defined by others. We are already on the right track, Mr. President. All you need to do now is not let the wrong track get you sidetracked. And that is "The Angle."

Joining us now with the reaction is Garland Nixon, a radio talk show host, Matt Schlapp, American Conservative Union chair, and Candace Owens, of Turning Point USA. Garland, your reaction.

GARLAND NIXON, RADIO TALK SHOW HOST: Initially, I still -- and I was the person who predicted Trump would win. Here's what I would say, I think the Republicans will have some losses. They will definitely have losses in the midterm because it is kind of like Yelp reviews.

The people that are happy tend to kind of mellow out and the people that are really angry are the most motivated and those are the ones that are going to show up and the Democrats are definitely going to have an advantage as far as people who show up at the polls. The question is how much.

INGRAHAM: Matt, some of the trends in this last election, in the 12th district of Ohio, yeah, you pull out a victory may be barely by the skin of his teeth, but the turnout for Democrats was very strong.

MATT SCHLAPP, CHAIRMAN, AMERICAN CONSERVATIVE UNION: You're right.

INGRAHAM: It was stronger I believe than the presidential turnout in the same district where Trump won big. Now, Trump's approval on that district is quite high, so you can say the candidate made some pretty big mistakes.

SCHLAPP: He did.

INGRAHAM: A couple of verbal gaffes that was really unfortunate. But does that portend other problems? They are jacked up. You know, blame the Democrats. We were excited in 2010. They are excited now.

SCHLAPP: I think that right track, wrong track is very important, but let's take a step away from that and look at what happened in the special election and you are exactly right. In the last week or 10 days of that race, his lead collapsed. He said some stupid things. He might need to go to candidate training school which a lot of candidates need to do.

But it also shows the motivation and the energy is definitely on the left. And for Trump supporters out there in the country, what they have to understand is the House is very losable and they can't be cavalier about this idea that I am for Trump, but I'll take a skip of the midterm, because if they do, the House could be lost. And if the House is lost, so much of the Trump agenda stops.

INGRAHAM: Candace, you know, the president addressed the issue of Chicago today and he talked about how it is so important that we have good leadership, deliver results for the people on the ground. Should he go to Chicago?

CANDACE OWENS, TURNING POINT USA: Absolutely.

INGRAHAM: Yes, tell us what your thoughts are because there are some Republicans that say oh, it will be a disaster. Remember he was going to go during the campaign and they had to call it off because of protests. But could he go, listen to the people on the ground in Chicago, hear what they have to say?

OWENS: Now is absolutely the time for him to make an appearance in Chicago. And first and foremost, Laura, I want to thank you for this coverage of last weekend. You did so much coverage on Chicago. I didn't see it across all the networks by I did see it on your show.

INGRAHAM: Thank you.

OWENS: It is such an important issue that is facing the black community that is not spoken enough about. He should send the National Guard to Chicago. I mean it's unbelievable. It's incomprehensible to think that 71 people were shot over the weekend and they haven't even caught anybody for these crimes.

It's the perfect time. His polling is up in the black community. The Rasmussen poll that was released two weeks ago shows that his support has doubled since this time last year, which means that black people are paying attention to the results of this administration, not so much the rhetoric of the left, accusing him of racism and sexism at every single turn. Now is the time for him to appear in Chicago. President, please do it.

INGRAHAM: I mean, we had Obama do his my brother's keeper initiative. We had Al Sharpton moved there temporarily. But there weren't that, you know, you have a murder rate declined but that's only after the really high average of the last few years. Something has to be done in Chicago.

I completely agree with Candace. Let's talk about what the Democrats are facing. The Republicans have headwinds. It's not all peachy over in the Democrat side either. This was the new it girl for socialism, the poster child for socialism, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who said this yesterday when she was asked by Chris Cuomo about whether Nancy Pelosi is really the leader of the party or will be. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CHRIS CUOMO, CNN "CUOMO PRIME TIME" HOST: Do you recognize her as the leader?

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, SOCIALIST: I think absolutely right now, you know, she --

CUOMO: Go ahead please.

OCASIO-CORTEZ: -- she is the leader of -- no, no, no, she -- I mean, speaker or rather Leader Pelosi hopefully, you know, we'll see she's the current leader of the party and I think that the party absolutely does have its leadership in the House. We have our leadership in the Senate as well.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Garland, I think she was more favorable to capitalism the other day in her comments than to Nancy Pelosi. What's going on with this revulsion toward Nancy Pelosi?

NIXON: Two things, number one, let's face it, the Democrats have been losing like a bloody heck for the last eight years and it is certainly not unreasonable to question the people who have lead them, you know, to little big horn, but that also --

INGRAHAM: She also got a lot done as speaker. They did Obamacare. They push the big stimulus under Pelosi.

NIXON: Well here's the other issue with her, and that is the Democratic Party has understand that their millennial base, which will be the largest voting bloc in 2018 and 2020, have a different concept. They weren't around for the Soviet Union. The word socialism and things like that, that doesn't mean --

INGRAHAM: So they think everything is --

NIXON: It doesn't mean anything to them words. They're listening to policies and listen -- and the Democratic Party needs to understand that because if they get the millennial vote out, they are in really good shape. And if they continue doing what they are doing, and they don't engage that millennial vote and understand them and they just like beat them up and say --

SCHLAPP: Look, the midterm isn't about millennials. The fact is the Republicans have faults, of course. The best thing Republicans have going for them is when people see their dead center heart and soul of the Democratic Party and its radical and it's left and it's socialist --

INGRAHAM: Anti-ICE, they're going to shutdown ICE. We're going to shutdown deportation --

SCHLAPP: Yes. It's our best thing.

INGRAHAM: I mean, Candace, this was tonight, Anderson Cooper with Soike Lee. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANDERSON COOPER, CNN "ANDERSON COOPER 360" HOST: Would you want to sit down with Donald Trump?

SPIKE LEE, FIL DIRECTOR: No.

COOPER: And have a conversation?

LEE: I don't -- I don't use his name either. He's Agent Orange.

COOPER: Do you consider him your president?

LEE: No. Might be Putin.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Candace.

OWENS: Here's what I will say about that network altogether. What they do all the time is that they employ black athletes and black stars. We saw this with LeBron James the other week to try to -- it's a mechanism of controls of the black community.

They say, hey look, I found some of your idols. I've found people that are prominent in your community and they are saying that they hate Trump and they are hoping they're going to be able to drum up that heat. But it hasn't been successful. This isn't working. They need to switch strategies altogether.

As I said, it's not going to matter if they keep doing this. They can bring out any black person that they want that's going to speak out against Trump. The black community cares at this moment about results and we are getting the results that we have finally -- we've been begging for these results.

We are finally seeing them. Black unemployment at an all-time low. There are jobs. So look. Spike Lee, CNN, it makes sense but it's not coming down I'm really too concerned about. It's not going to impact the black vote for Trump in 2020.

INGRAHAM: Yes, I mean, I can't imagine what would, I don't know. I can't imagine what the left would do, what Democrats would say if someone said something akin to what he just said about President Trump. He calls him Agent Orange. He won't use his name. I mean, they went after --

SCHLAPP: He's not his president.

INGRAHAM: -- they went after that Joe Wilson for screaming "You Lie" during the State Of The Union, right. They crucified that Joe Wilson.

NIXON: -- we heard that stuff --

INGRAHAM: Agent Orange? An athlete went on television and called him, agent -- something akin to that he's not my president? I don't (inaudible) not treated like that. At least should be a follow-up. You'd be followed-up with, OK, what about unemployment? What about the fact that a lot of these Democrat-led cities are crumbling with crime and gang violence?

What, you know, about the fact that his numbers among black people have gone up? I mean, did hit him with all these things if the other shoe was on the other foot, Garland. I mean, you don't speak like that. I know you wouldn't speak like that.

NIXON: No, but we -- but I understand because you know what, for eight years, I heard that. There was like a big "not my president" kind of movement.

INGRAHAM: Never would I -- I'd never say that.

NIXON: (Inaudible).

SCHLAPP: He was my president.

INGRAHAM: I would never say that.

NIXON: You didn't.

INGRAHAM: Someone as prominent as Spike Lee who is such a talented filmmaker. His wife was in my class at UVA Law School.

NIXON: But I don't --

INGRAHAM: She's a lovely person, but, you know, I just --

NIXON: I don't think it's new but I think what it does reflects, unfortunately, again, this is not good for the Democratic Party. I can sense (ph) the Democratic Party --

SCHLAPP: It is not good.

INGRAHAM: Disrespectful.

NIXON: -- one angle is to get your people so angry to try to get them to show up.

INGRAHAM: But what are they angry about?

NIXON: But I think the other part --

INGRAHAM: What are the Democrats angry about except Pelosi?

NIXON: What they need to do is they need to develop a platform that is attractive to the working class and that's what they're not -- they are making an error, and they may have some success in 2018 with what they are doing simply because people are upset, but 2020 is a whole different story and if they don't get a platform together then, then they are toast.

INGRAHAM: This is Rashida Tlaib who is one of the two socialists approved candidates who Ocasio-Cortez endorsed, who won the other night, a Michigan congressional candidate. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOHN BERMAN, CNN HOST: When you are elected formally in November, you will have a vote as part of the Democratic caucus as to who will be the next Democratic leader, whether it be the minority leader or Speaker of the House. Will you vote for Nancy Pelosi?

RASHIDA TLAIB, FORMER MEMBER OF THE MICHIGAN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES: Probably not.

BERMAN: Probably not.

TLAIB: That's my answer. No, probably not.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Well, so the party moves kind of hard left. I mean, Nancy Pelosi is no conservative Democrat.

SCHLAPP: And she's almost 80-years-old, isn't she.

(CROSSTALK)

SCHLAPP: If they pick up a lot of seats, there is no question that she's going to have competition. But think about this, Nancy Pelosi is one of the most unpopular politicians we've seen in the modern age. It could be Nancy Pelosi or worse.

INGRAHAM: Republicans cleaned house. I mean, Republicans got tired of John Boehner, right, Candace.

OWENS: Right.

INGRAHAM: The Republicans got tired of Boehner. They were tired of him, god bless him. He is now lobbying for pot. So, they got tired of him and he's gone. So what if the Democrats want to get rid of Pelosi? I mean, that's probably smart in a way. Maybe it's smart.

SCHLAPP: They'd be (INAUDIBLE).

CANDACE: It definitely is smart, but what I think is actually happening here is we are seeing a split in the Democratic Party. We're seeing the people like Nancy Pelosi, the Maxine Waters, they are just driven by hate and animosity for this president. People like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, I don't necessarily think she is driven by hate. I think she actually believes that this platform could work, that socialism could work.

So the hard left, they are driven by lack of understanding for mathematics and the utopian concept for how the world might work. And unfortunately, this is going to be problematic for them if they can't figure out and get this party together, just the people that hate Trump versus the people that don't understand math. It's going to be extremely problematic for them heading into the midterms. So I'm interested to see what's going to take place.

INGRAHAM: Candace, have you been attacked at breakfast lately? What were you eating? What were you eating Candace that had them all upset? Was it pancake or --

OWENS: You know, I had chicken and waffles. It was a really good meal. What's really funny is the manager said -- it was he said, "I thought for a moment that outside there were vegan protests to my chicken and waffles.

INGRAHAM: Oh my gosh.

OWENS: They were not vegans.

INGRAHAM: Candace, I think by the looks of those -- most of those protesters, god bless them, you could have taken most of them anyway. No problem.

OWENS: I think we could have.

INGRAHAM: You're pretty tough. All right, great panel, guys. I love having you all on. Now, it sounds like common sense. Permanently deploy more police -- we're talking about Chicago -- and its most ravaged areas. But that new push sparking a huge uproar in the Windy City. Details after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: As violence flares in Chicago, city officials and residents are yet again locking horns over a solution about how to stop it. One Chicago alderman, Anthony Beale from the far south side is leading the charge on what sounds like a kind of common sense solution. Permanently re-assigning officers to the city's most gang ravaged areas. But the proposal is generating huge blowback. Why?

Over fears that it could generate a surge in crime in some of the safer districts of Chicago. But is this just another excuse to avoid badly needed radical solutions to stop this carnage? Joining us now to analyze this Horace Cooper, the co-chair of Project 21, along with Anthony Tall, a criminal defense attorney.

Now, neither of you are with me in the studio so, we're going to have to deal with that. I wish you were here with me. But let's start with you, Anthony because something has to be done in Chicago. The residents are crying out for solutions. This is one resident, we will play her first. This is -- excuse me, this is a young man. This is one resident today talking with Charlie Kirk. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got to take good care of certain parts of town as we should. They take care of downtown. They take care of the north side. South and west sides are left.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: He was young to me, but he says look, you take care of these, basically, these rich areas, but our areas aren't getting the help. So we have a lot of police being reassigned today through the weekend to these bad areas, but what about that idea of permanently reassigning officers to the worst of the worst areas? Why is that controversial? Either of you can answer.

ANTHONY TALL, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY: Well, I think it's controversial when --

INGHRAHAM: Yes, go ahead.

TALL: Yes, well I think it's controversial, Laura, just because what we have in a lot of high policed areas or areas that are policed particularly communities of African-American and Hispanics, is we have over policing where a lot of the innocent people end up getting tagged or pulled aside or stopped unconstitutionally against their Fourth Amendment right.

Remember, I have represented gang members in L.A. I've represented gang members who -- and they have the whole community afraid of them. So what we don't need is police coming in doubling the fear if it's not going to be strategically placed and constitutional provisions are not going to be there.

There is nothing wrong with permanent policing, but it needs to be constitutional provisions to protect the 98 percent of the community that is not causing the trouble. And that two to three percent that are repeat offenders.

INGRAHAM: Yes, the problem is that a small percentage of people are turning those areas upside down. And the carnage over the weekend was just unacceptable. Horace, you know, there is great concern in the black community about aggressive policing that turns innocent people into feeling like criminals and these comments are heartfelt. They are made. You hear them over and over and over again.

Yet residents of the south and west sides of Chicago, on camera over the last several days, saying we need help. So there is two competing views here. Where is your -- where do you come down?

HORACE COOPER, CO-CHAIR, PROJECT 21: Look, these people are living literally in war zones. It is unbelievable that the conversation is being held that grandma can't go and get her prescription filled, that her granddaughter can't get to school without a drive-by shooting, that jobs won't locate in those communities, perpetuating poverty because investors will not go where there is this elevated level of crime.

What you need is a common sense idea. The same thing that happens when you are on the interstate, when the officer puts his car prominently on the side of the road, all of a sudden, everybody slows down. Even people who are law-abiding take notice.

What we need to do is have an elevated presence of law enforcement in these communities. And it doesn't need to be for a weekend. It doesn't need to be for a few weeks. It needs to be a year, two or three if necessary. That's the way that you can make it safer, and that's the way that this war zone mentality can go away.

INGRAHAM: This is what Donald Trump --

TALL: Let me ask you --

INGRAHAM: Hold on. We are going to play a sound bite from President Trump and then you can react on the other side. This was today addressing issues such as prison reform. They even touched on sentencing reform and he touched on Chicago. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: We must strengthen community bonds with law enforcement including cities like Chicago that have been an absolute and total disaster -- 63 incidents last weekend and 12 deaths. That's bad stuff happening and probably, I guess you have to take from the leadership. It's called bad leadership. There is no reason in a million years that something like that should be happening in Chicago.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Anthony, he is obviously dinging Rahm Emanuel's leadership in Chicago. Given your background and counsel representing these former gang bangers and so forth, do you think Rahm Emanuel has done a good job?

TALL: No, I don't. I think Rahm Emanuel has done a horrible job, but that's not really the point. The point is -- I want to ask Horace, does he really think that with the statistics that we have, where African-Americans are pulled over more without reasonable cause or without probable cause or where they are arrested more often or where they are sentenced harsher.

With all of these harsh statistics, do you really want a permanent police force there that's not strategic and that's not following Fourth Amendment rules? And what are you going to do to make sure that those rules are set? That Fourth Amendment reasonable standard that the founders put in there is being followed? I think that's very important.

COOOPER: You can hide behind the Fourth Amendment all you want. Here's the fact. Black Americans, particularly in Chicago, are dying as a result of the failure of law enforcement to be welcomed in and to let them play the role that they are capable of doing.

Here's what needs to happen. What the mayor needs to do, what the governor of the state needs to do, is create a joint task force where they immediately allow for the state law-enforcement officers to come in. They also need to work with the Department of Justice and they allow for new prosecution teams to come in. You absolutely are going to have to start sweeps.

TALL: OK. OK.

INGRAHAM: I mean the goal. The goal guys, yes, hold on. The goal --

TALL: Here's the problem with that.

INGRAHAM: Go ahead real quick and then we have to close.

TALL: Here's the problem with that. There's white people dying in Appalachia, in Kentucky. Why aren't you so concerned about them? They are dying by numbers. I will tell you why. Because when the police come there, they are not going to be over policed as much as African-American and as much as Hispanics.

INGRAHAM: Anthony. Anthony. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

COOPER: That is so false. That is so false.

INGRAHAM: Hold on. Hold on. Anthony.

TALL: That is not false at all.

INGRAHAM: Anthony.

TALL: Why aren't you concerned about them, Horace? Why aren't you concerned about them?

INGRAHAM: Anthony, Anthony, Anthony, hold on. Anthony, we are concerned about all people here on this show. But the Chicago murder rate is still unacceptably high.

TALL: I know you are, Laura.

INGRAHAM: It's higher than New York. It's higher than Los Angeles. It has to change. I think we all want that. We differ on how to get there, but we all want it to change. We don't want people pulled over unnecessarily. We don't want people's constitutional rights violated. Sometimes the police will probably pull someone over and it won't be fair. I understand that happens, and that's terrible. But if you can save lives this weekend and every weekend in the summer and beyond with smarter policing, with smarter community involvement, maybe President Trump can offer some solutions with other faith-based leaders, that's a good thing.

And I think we all have to get out of our corners and come together and get back to basics in all parts of the country where we are having problems. Whether it's opioids, Chicago, Burlington, Vermont where they have a huge drug trade. We have got to get together as a country and solve it, because otherwise we're just going to keep losing Americans unnecessarily. Anthony.

TALL: Yes, I agree with all of that. I don't want the environment of police being there to create more criminals, incarcerate more people, and those people go back into the community and create more crime. That's what I want to safeguard against. There's nothing wrong with that.

HORACE COOPER, CO-CHAIR, PROJECT 21: Those talking points are killing people. There is a small number of people in these communities that are creating a nightmarish existence.

INGRAHAM: Guys.

COOPER: These people need to be pulled out of the circle.

INGRAHAM: They've got to be taken out of the community, they've got to be incarcerated. And if not, we are going to see kids on bicycles killed again as we did last weekend. All right, guys, great segment. Thanks so much.

And Jeff Sessions is taking on one of conservative speech's biggest enemies. We will tell you what it is when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: In an important speech that garnered very little attention, Attorney General Jeff Sessions condemned one of the biggest foes of conservative speech, the Southern Poverty Law Center. The far left organization is notorious for labeling those not aligned with its radical agenda as a hate group. And in a very, very important address to the Alliance Defending Freedom Organization yesterday, the attorney general did not mince words.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEFF SESSIONS, U.S. ATTORNEY GENERAL: When I spoke to ADF last year, I learned the Southern Poverty Law Center had classified ADF as a hate group. Many in the media simply parroted that is a fact. They've used this designation as a weapon, and they have wielded it against conservative organizations, others than ADF, that refuse to accept their orthodoxy and choose instead to speak for their conscience.

I wanted to come back here tonight partially because I wanted to say this. You are not a hate group.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Joining us now with reaction, Harmeet Dhillon, an attorney and RNC committeewoman for California, does a lot of civil-rights representation, along with Joe Alioto Veronese. He's a civil rights attorney himself. Great to see both of you. Joe, let's start with you. The Southern Poverty Law Center, cited by the mainstream media as an unbiased organization that's a national treasure because it points out the bad people. And there are a lot of bad people. White nationalist, Nazi groups, that type of person.

But then they also label with the hate label people like Ben Carson who was put on an extremist watch list. The Israeli ambassador dinner with Frank Gaffney, they urged the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer, not to attend a dinner hosted by this guy Frank Gaffney who has views on Islamism and so forth. Center for Immigration Studies done enormous research on immigration. And of course the Alliance Defending Freedom, a group I have spoken to before, that litigated cases. Most recently I think the wedding cake case at the Supreme Court involving the baker in the gay couple. What's going on here? If you disagree with the Southern Poverty Law Center, you are suddenly a hater?

JOE ALIOTO VERONESE: First of all, I wouldn't agree with the fact that they are unbiased. Of course they are biased to their own position, but that's what's so great about the First Amendment is that they are allowed to do that. The problem here is that the attorney general is using the office of the attorney general to suppress First Amendment rights of these organizations in the name of religious freedom, which is yet another constitutional right.

So that's a real problem because people look at the attorney general as an office that should instill confidence in the government's allowing you to enjoy your constitutional rights. And in here he's using one constitutional right against the other and basically starting political wildfires.

INGRAHAM: I think it is the opposite. I think he is actually saying religious freedom, which is defended by the Alliance Defending Freedom, is a sacrosanct right. And just for defending religious freedom, labeling someone as a hater and a hate group, Harmeet, that probably hurts their fundraising. It probably hurts any corporate association they have. The label is meant to demonetize individuals, corporations, pulling back, and associations. You see it on big tech, what they are doing with the suppression of conservative speech. And this is a different way to do it. Harmeet?

HARMEET DHILLON, ATTORNEY: Absolutely. I like my friend Joe, but he's upside down. What has been happening in the government is that the government has been using and partnering with Southern Poverty Law Center's list to suppress speech and target groups. So it's only recently that the attorney general called it out, but the FBI is continuing to partner with the National Organization of Women, Southern Poverty Law Center, NAACP, and other groups. And SPLC is about as objective as Antifa. They are a far left organization, and it's a disgrace that the government is using their imprimatur to silence speech.

The real effects of this, Laura, are, for example, earlier, a couple years ago the Family Research Council was actually shot up in D.C. by an attacker trying to kill people there because that group was on the SPLC list.

INGRAHAM: That's right. I forgot that.

DHILLON: And in Silicon Valley, like you mentioned, the effect of this is that matching programs and corporations where corporations will say if you give money to a charity like Alliance Defending Freedom, an outstanding Christian First Amendment law firm, they will not match it if the organization is on that list. And on top of that, Amazon will not match contributions in their Smile program if the SPLC has put it on their hate list.

So who made these people, the Soros funded and the far left organization the arbiter of what is correct speech in America and not. So it's fine for them, Joe, to have their viewpoint, but it's also fine for us to fight back. It's not fine for the government to use their false list as a weapon to attack citizens.

INGRAHAM: They have a half-a-billion dollar budget. They get a lot of money from a lot of rich people. Joe, my point is they would rather label people haters then have a debate about the underlying subject. I live that every day. People don't want to debate you because they lose on the facts, so they want to label you things. That's not American. Have the debate. Have the debate vigorously. Don't label people haters accept the ones who should be labeled haters like the white nationalists and the Nazis.

VERONESE: But labeling people haters is part of their First Amendment right. And there are far right groups who have a have-a-billion dollars as well. The real problem here is that the attorney general is using his office to pit one constitutional right against the other. And where does that end, right? You could look at a lot of religions and make the claim that they have some sort of hate speech. We shouldn't be doing this. The attorney general should be uniting people here in the United States. But the reality is, he's a darling of the confederacy.

INGRAHAM: What does that mean?

DHILLON: That is not fair.

INGRAHAM: I think that is poisonous. Joe.

VERONESE: If you look to his voting record, there are views there that are anti-LGBT, that are anti-immigrant. Of course there are. This is known stuff.

INGRAHAM: Once again, if you believe in border enforcement and legal immigration reforms, you are anti-immigrant.

VERONESE: No. I don't believe that either.

INGRAHAM: People rejected that in 2016. They don't like being called that, because when you say that, that means the Trump voters are anti- immigrant, and they are not. They're good people. They're always bad elements in groups, but they're overwhelming good people.

So guys, we're out of time. Great segment, as always.

And by the way, an Atlanta school is facing an uproar after trying to ditch the Pledge of Allegiance. We have some breaking news on this story. Stay there.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CROWD: -- to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

INGRAHAM: Well, well, an Atlanta charter school is reeling tonight after having announced it was going to ditch the Pledge of Allegiance from their morning agenda. According to the Atlanta neighborhood charter school, it made its decision due to the more and more students and staff choosing not to recite or stand during the pledge in recent years.

The announcement sparked a storm of controversy, as you can imagine, and tonight the school announced it is backtracking on its decision. But could be seen more schools across the country trying the same move? Joining us now with reaction, University of Maryland professor Jason Nichols, back by popular demand, along with writer and clinical analyst Carrie Sheffield.

Jason, they are backtracking and saying that you can see that pledge or say the school cheer or something like that. but what does it say about us that this is a controversy? I am almost wanting to treat this as something hilarious because I think those kids reciting the pledge is so cute and I remember doing it as a kid. It wasn't controversial. It was what you did. Why are we here?

DR. JASON NICHOLS, PROFESSOR, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND: I think it's controversial because they want to unify the kids at the beginning of the morning, and they feel that the pledge, there are many kids that opt out. I can remember when I was a kid, there were kids that were Jehovah's Witnesses and they didn't recite the pledge. Sometimes they would go to a separate room. And they really want to build community, and they think this is getting in the way of that.

Of course I have to throw my dig in there and say that if you are against this and if you have a problem with this, then you probably have a problem with Betsy DeVos and our secretary of education who is trying to move more towards charter schools who get to take public funding but make their own rules.

INGRAHAM: This is a charter school.

NICHOLS: This is a charter school.

INGRAHAM: So you find saying the pledge, requiring that, your view is that that's divisive?

NICHOLS: I'm not saying that's divisive, but I do think there are many people who opt out. That is their First Amendment rights.

INGRAHAM: They can do that. But they can say one nation, and they don't have to say under God. A lot of people don't say under God and they go on. I don't remember this being a controversy. They just say one nation. Indivisible with liberty and justice. Apparently people do still do believe in liberty and justice or is that also controversial?

NICHOLS: Because some people just feel it's better if they're not a part of it. And that's their First Amendment right.

CARRIE SHEFFIELD, NATIONAL EDITOR, ACCURACY IN MEDIA: I have got to take issue with what you just said about charter schools, because if anything that shows how responsive charter schools are, because imagine if a public school sector, public union backed teachers, when they try to make changes and there's public accountability, public outcry, nothing happens. So this is actually a case in point, showing the agility of charters. And so I applaud that.

And yes, I am very pro-charter, and it upsets me to see something that something that was a charter school was antifreedom, because charters to me equals freedom. So I am glad that they have done the right thing.

But look, Laura, I think this speaks to the broader issue of trying to turn people against each other, trying to tear at our social fabric against things that represent the United States of America. And no one, including Martin Luther King Jr., would sit here and tell you if he were alive today, but he knew that we were working toward a more perfect union. And when you try to shut down the Pledge of a Allegiance, that's opposite of building a union.

INGRAHAM: I think we should just do jumping jacks instead, push-ups. Can we say just drop and give me 50. Wouldn't that be better? Michelle Obama is about let's move. I am all for that. I would like to use the exercise of the beginning of the day.

I also wanted your thoughts on this. This is something, I have teachers in my family, private school, and just recently retired public school. And should cell phones be allowed or banned from school classrooms? Countries like France are putting government mandated bans on cell phones for elementary and middle school students on their campuses. But more U.S. cities like Boise, Idaho, are doing the exact opposite and lifting cell phone bans from their students. Jason?

NICHOLS: This was a tough one for me.

INGRAHAM: Come on, professor. Do you want them to be on their phone? It's annoying.

NICHOLS: I definitely don't, I definitely don't'. It is totally annoying, and I know that it can be disruptive sometimes. But at the same time, as we have seen with some of the school shootings and things that have been going on, cell phones have really helped in those situations to call the police in an emergency. So I understand why they would want to have those cell phones there. But also cell phones have encouraged a lot of bullying and fights and things like that. Nobody --

INGRAHAM: How about cheating? Have you caught anybody cheating using a cell phone?

NICHOLS: I haven't. I haven't. Maybe I'm just bad at catching people.

INGRAHAM: You haven't caught anybody? How many times during average class do you see student looking down at her phone, checking Facebook, how many times?

NICHOLS: I can't even count.

INGRAHAM: They could be listening to your lecture, following, taking notes. Instead, they are on their phone. It's not good for learning. It's fun, you can play games, but during the class, focus on the professor.

NICHOLS: I agree. During class, they shouldn't have it.

INGRAHAM: Have it in your locker. Have it in your locker.

NICHOLS: Have it in your bag.

SHEFFIELD: I am inclined, whatever the French say to do, we should do the opposite.

INGRAHAM: Come on.

SHEFFIELD: For that fact alone, I say embrace the cell phone. And also in cases of emergency, absolutely. And Laura, you said take notes. I take notes on my cell phone.

INGRAHAM: OK, Carrie, you are a young woman. But do you remember or not being 14 and you've got the boys in the first row. They are texting each other. In high school and junior high, do you remember?

NICHOLS: I am a little older.

INGRAHAM: Do you remember?

SHEFFIELD: Laura, isn't the difference that it's just updated, because you would send paper notes.

INGRAHAM: I think it's less distracting. Do you like me, check box one.

SHEFFIELD: I think it's more distracting.

INGRAHAM: It's like, yes, no, I will think about it.

NICHOLS: If you have your laptop out, you probably don't need your cell phone as well to take notes.

INGRAHAM: Guys, fantastic conversation. But I think it happens more than you are even admitting in your classes. They are all on their phones.

NICHOLS: Definitely. I agree.

INGRAHAM: Do tell them ever to put them down?

NICHOLS: It says in the syllabus to silence your phone, keep it in your bag.

INGRAHAM: They are on their laps. You are making important point. It's like in the movies. You're watching a really important, and then the glow. Put them away.

SHEFFIELD: That's what I'm more worried about. I'm more worried about teachers not enforcing it, teachers trying to be buddy-buddy with their students rather than enforcing the discipline. That's what I'm more worried about.

INGRAHAM: OK, guys, thanks so much.

And the media and liberals attempt to understand Trump supporters, it kind of failed a lot. And one professor may have finally discovered why. He joins us next. A lot of professors next, with details.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: No matter how hard they try, liberals and their media brethren still just can't seem to figure out Trump supporters and their loyalty to the president. But Musa Al-Gharbi, a sociology professor at Columbia University, may have figured out why they keep getting it so wrong. He was on radio this morning, and now he joins us with more. Professor, good to see you. Thanks for being on in the morning and at night. You're doing double duty, really appreciate it. So what is going on here with some of the polling and some of the research that you've been able to cull through?

PROF. MUSA AL-GHARBI, SOCIOLOGIST, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY: So there is a few things that we see in a lot of the studies that are intended to understand the 2016 election. The main problems seem to be things like prejudicial study design. So a survey will ask a question like, what motivated Trump voters? Is it that their more racist or sexist or ignorant rather than any kind of balanced or positive attributes that could have possibly motivated to vote for who they did. And of course there is no surveys about why would someone vote for Hillary Clinton? Is it because they are anti- American? So there's this sort of prejudicial study design is a big problem.

And then there are sometimes just glaring errors, like inferential errors, statistical errors that somehow get through by people who know better and by editors who know better. And they are cited by other people who know better. Not on purpose. I don't think it's a cynical thing. I think for the most part it's just an issue where the studies are confirming something, a view of the world, that they strongly believe and want to believe. And so these kinds of errors can creep in and get unnoticed.

INGRAHAM: And then once one study is published or one poll, it just gets repeated, paraphrased in another website and another and another and another.

I want to show for our viewers what we are talking about specifically. One particular question illustrates your point. And you're not a fan of the president, we should say. You're not a rah-rah Trump supporter. In fact, the opposite.

Question, this is a CNN/SSRS poll. Question, which of the following do you think is more important? Imposing tariffs on imports from foreign countries to protect certain U.S. industries, 25 percent, maintaining good relations with countries that have been close allies of the U.S. for many years? Of course people are going to say that 63 percent. Both equally, no opinion. So that's a problem because, professor?

AL-GHARBI: Yes, absolutely. That result you got there was probably the result of what we call a framing effect. For instance, if they rephrased the question something like do you support -- like maintaining, like protecting the U.S. economy or U.S., critical service, critical U.S. manufacturing.

INGRAHAM: It's a phrasing issue. This is just classic prejudicial framing issue. When you say maintaining good relations countries that have been close, that's just a biased way to frame it. It's so obvious when you read it.

Also something we want to get to, just really quickly, the pairing of Donald Trump with racism on the Google searches. Donald Trump-white supremacy, Donald Trump-xenophobia, 10,000 results, 2,300 results, 3,000 results. Why is that a problem in 15 seconds, professor?

AL-GHARBI: What's astonishing is it takes a long time to publish anything in an academic journal. Half a year, a year. So the fact that just since 2016 there were these tens of thousands of studies that were published, all of them having the same -- if you survey the abstracts and titles of these works, they all tell the same story. Trump voters were racist, motivated by --

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

INGRAHAM: Tomorrow night, we have a fantastic show. The U.S. attorney in Philadelphia will join us, to tell us why the city's sanctuary policies are so dangerous and what he says is also un-American. So you don't want to miss that.

Thanks for watching tonight, as always, our loyal viewers. Catch me on the radio tomorrow morning. Until tomorrow night, stay safe. Be sure to check me out on Twitter and Facebook. I always love reading your comments. Shannon Bream and the "Fox News @ Night" team are coming up. Shannon?





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A Horizon Air passenger plane crashed on an island in Puget Sound Friday night, not long after a suspect conducted an "unauthorized take-off" from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Washington state, officials said.

Witnesses reported seeing a large plume of smoke in the air above Ketron Island after the plane went down. No passengers were believed to be aboard the Q400 aircraft, airport officials said.

No one on the sparsely inhabited island was believed to have been injured, the Pierce County Sheriff's Department said on Twitter.

The unidentified pilot was a 29-year-old "suicidal male," the sheriff's department said. The Seattle Times reported that he was a Horizon Air employee from Sumner, Wash.

The drama played out in real time on the Internet as the public was able to hear the suspect communicating with air traffic controllers via the air traffic control scanner.

"I've got a lot of people that care about me. It's going to disappoint them to hear that I did this. I would like to apologize to each and every one of them. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess," the suspect said, according to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

"I've got a lot of people that care about me. It's going to disappoint them to hear that I did this. I would like to apologize to each and every one of them. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess."  Voice on air control scanner, believed to be that of suspect

In another instance, the suspect joked whether the airline would hire him as a pilot if he landed the plane safely.

Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor said the man "did something foolish and may well have paid with his life."

The sheriff's department said it was launching a background investigation on the suspect.

The man, who was addressed as "Rich" in audio recordings with air traffic controllers, said he didn't want to land at a nearby military base because, "Those guys will rough me up if I try and land there."

The crash of the Q400 -- described as a 76-seat aircraft designed for short trips -- occurred because the pilot was "doing stunts in air or lack of flying skills," the sheriff's department said.

Horizon is a subsidiary of Alaska Airlines.

Airport officials said that operations at the airport had resumed after being temporarily halted.

Some unconfirmed reports on social media said the suspect was believed to have been an airline mechanic. Alaska Airlines later said he was an employee who helped direct aircraft to gates and de-ice planes.

Around 9:15 p.m. PDT, Alaska Airlines tweeted: "We are aware of an incident involving an unauthorized take-off of a Horizon Air Q400. We believe there are no passengers on board. More information as we learn more."

The Federal Aviation Administration issued a message soon after the take-off:

"We can't confirm anything at this time. We're trying to get accurate information about what is actually going on. Without confirming anything, a stolen aircraft would be a security issue."

Authorities said there was no connection to terrorism.

A spokesman for the Pierce County Sheriffs Department said F-15 aircraft scambled out of Portland, Ore., and were in the air within a few minutes in order to keep people on the ground safe.

NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) issued a statement about the role of the military jets.

The stolen aircraft initially tracked south from Seattle-Tacoma. NORAD fighters were working to redirect the aircraft out over the Pacific Ocean when it crashed on the Southern tip of Ketron Island in the Southern end of Puget Sound. NORAD fighters did not fire upon the aircraft. The event was subsequently passed to local rescue and law enforcement, the statement read.

According to Alaska Airlines, the aircraft was stolen about 8 p.m. Alaska Airlines said it was in a "maintenance position" and not scheduled for a passenger flight.

Air travelers and residents able to see the plane in flight were quick to post messages on social media.

Apparently someone stole a plane from SeaTac? wrote one Twitter user. Saw two fighter jets fly overhead then smoke.

Some dude stole a plane from #Seatac (Allegedly), did a loop-the-loop, ALMOST crashed into #ChambersBay, then crossed in front of our party, chased by fighter jets and subsequently crashed. Weird times, wrote another user.

Fire officials responded to the scene of the crash, which had started a few fires in the area. Video showed flames amid the trees on Ketron Island, which is accessible only by ferry. Alaska Airlines said no structures on the ground were damaged.

Multiple flights remained grounded on the SeaTac tarmac after service was halted while authorities worked to address the situation. Other flights from San Francisco, Honolulu, and Los Angeles were diverted to Portland, the website reported.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Saturday morning that President Donald Trump is "monitoring the situation." He's currently at his New Jersey golf club.

Our hearts are with the family of the individual aboard as well as all our Alaska Air and Horizon Air employees, Constance von Muehlen, chief operating officer of Alaska Airlines, said in a recorded video statement. We will provide more information as it becomes available.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee lauded the authorities response to the situation.

I want to thank the Air National Guard from Washington and Oregon for scrambling jets to keep Washingtonians safe. Those pilots are trained for moments like tonight and showed they are ready and capable, the governor tweeted.

Near midnight Pacific time, the investigation was handed off to federal authorities. The FBIs Seattle bureau tweeted it will work with state, local, and federal partners to gather a complete picture of what transpired with tonights unauthorized Horizon aircraft takeoff and crash.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and the Associated Press contributed to this report.
A mother from Kent, England, and her young daughter were jailed in Dubai for three days  where she was allegedly denied water and forced to clean toilets  after she admitted to drinking a glass of wine on the incoming Emirates flight from London, but Dubai officials have a different side of the story.

Its illegal to drink alcohol or be intoxicated in public in Dubai, one of the seven emirates of the United Arab Emirates.

Ellie Holman, a 44-year-old dentist originally from Sweden who resides in Britain with her husband and their three children, was arrested on July 13 after landing in Dubai with her 4-year-old daughter, the Press Association reported.

Upon arrival in Dubai, an official reportedly told Holman she needed to return to the United Kingdom immediately because of an invalid visa, at which point she took out her phone and started filming the encounter, according to human rights group Detained in Dubai.

Holman said the official was dismissive and rude to her, and asked if she had been consuming alcohol. She admitted to the official that she had a complimentary glass of wine on the Emirates flight.

Holman, unaware that it was an offense to film the encounter, and illegal to drink alcohol, was taken into custody, Detained in Dubai reported. The mother and her daughter also had their passports and electronic devices confiscated.

HUMILIATED COUPLE KICKED OFF HOLLAND AMERICA CRUISE AFTER CAPTAIN ACCUSES PASSENGER OF PUSHING CREW MEMBER

Holman said in a statement to Detained in Dubai that the prison guards also attempted to pull out her hair extensions, and the prison facility was hot and foul-smelling. She claimed she and her daughter were forced to sleep on a filthy mattress and to clean toilets.

My little girl had to go to the toilet on the cell floor. I have never heard her cry in the same way as she did in that cell, Holman said in a statement.

SEX TOYS IN AIRLINE PASSENGERS LUGGAGE PROMPT SECURITY ALERT AT BERLIN AIRPORT

Holman added that she was given food that smelled like rotting garbage. She said her husband and friends tried to visit her in jail, but they were not allowed to see her.

Holman was released on bail days later, but could face being detained in Dubai for up to a year while awaiting a court hearing, the Press Association reported. Her passport was confiscated until the case is finished, and she claims to have already lost thousands of dollars in missed wages and legal costs.

Her daughter returned to the United Kingdom with her husband.

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Holman was initially traveling to Dubai with her to daughter to visit friends for a few days. She has been in the country before.

However, Dubai officials told The Sun a different story and disputed the dentists claim.

We dispute Dr. Holmans account of her treatment," an official told The Sun. She was not turned away because she had a one-visit visa, as she claimed, because European citizens get a 30-day visa upon arrival. UAE law is strict on people recording others on their mobile phone without permission, which will not have helped Dr. Holmans case. She became abusive towards airport staff, which is not tolerated.

We cannot comment further as Dr Holmans case is still under review but there is more to her story than she has told."

Dubai's Attorney General's Office told Fox News in a statement that an investigation into the incident was completed and charges were dropped. The office said it decided to deport Hollman after she attempted to enter the country with an expired visa.

The office also said Hollman and her child "remained in airport security for less than 24 hours while services were provided to them, taking into full account and consideration of her 4-year-old daughter."

Radha Stirling, Detained in Dubais chief executive, said it is wholly illegal for any tourist to have any level of alcohol in their blood, even if consumed in flight and provided by Dubais own airline. It is illegal to consume alcohol at a bar, a hotel and a restaurant, and if breathalyzed, that person will be jailed."

However, Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade says that being intoxicated, and not neccessarily just having a small amount of alcohol in your system, is what's actually forbidden, according to News.com.au.

Its illegal to drink alcohol or be intoxicated in public, the department states. You can be arrested. Foreigners have been arrested on arrival after becoming intoxicated on incoming aircraft or while in transit.

This story was updated to add a comment from Dubai officials.
One Transportation Security Administration security officer is being praised for his quick thinking during a recent scare at Savannah-Hilton Head International Airport. TSA Lead Officer Lead Officer Darrell Wade grabbed a smoking piece of luggage from a checkpoint and ran it away from the terminal, protecting everyone nearby.

On August 8, footage was released of Wades brave actions at the Georgia air hub on July 20, which potentially prevented a major mishap, Fox 30 reports.

'SUICIDAL' AIRLINE EMPLOYEE WHO STOLE PLANE FROM SEATAC AIRPORT HAD BIZARRE CONVERSATION WITH AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL BEFORE CRASHING

I just really wanted everyone else to be safe. At that moment I can honestly say I wasnt thinking of me getting injured, or anything else, Wade recalled of the scene, in footage obtained by Fox News. I just wanted everyone else at the checkpoint and all the other officers to be safe, passengers to be safe.

Upon examination, the cause of the smoke was revealed to be a malfunctioning vape battery, Fox 30 reports. Wades actions also prevented damage to the TSA security equipment, as well as a potential showdown of the airport. The checkpoint also remained open.

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As noted by the TSAs security screening guidelines, electronic cigarettes and vaping devices are banned in checked bags.

Battery-powered E-cigarettes, vaporizers, vape pens, atomizers, and electronic nicotine delivery systems may only be carried in the aircraft cabin (in carry-on baggage or on your person). Check with your airline for additional restrictions, the site states.
Nebraskas first execution since 1997 will be carried out after a judge ruled Friday in favor of the inmates wishes, despite a German pharmaceutical company's lawsuit claiming the state illicitly obtained its drugs.

Carey Dean Moore, one of the nations longest-serving death row inmates, will be executed on Tuesday after being convicted in 1979 for killing two cab drivers, five days apart. Moore has stopped fighting the states efforts to execute him.

But Fresenius Kabi, a German drug company, filed a lawsuit this week trying to stop the execution, alleging that the state illegally obtained at least one of the companys drugs and that proceeding with it would damage its reputation and business relationships; it strongly opposes the use of its products for use in executions.

TENNESSEE CONVICTED CHILD KILLER BILLY RAY IRICK PICKS DELUX BURGER COMBO AS LAST MEAL BEFORE EXECUTION

Moore is scheduled to be executed with a combination of four drugs: the sedative diazepam, commonly known as Valium, to render him unconscious; fentanyl citrate, a powerful synthetic opioid; cisatracurium besylate to induce paralysis and halt his breathing; and potassium chloride to stop his heart.

Nebraska state officials have refused to identify the source of their execution drugs, but Fresenius Kabi alleges the state's supply of potassium chloride is stored in 30 milliliter bottles. Fresenius Kabi said it's the only company that packages the drug in vials of that size.

U.S. District Judge Richard Kopf ruled against the company, arguing that temporarily blocking the execution would frustrate the will of the people.

SOUTH DAKOTA DECLINES TO REVEAL DRUG TO BE USED IN EXECUTION

Kopf was referring to the 61 percent of Nebraska voters who chose to reinstate capital punishment in 2016 after lawmakers abolished it.

"I will not allow the plaintiff to frustrate the wishes of Mr. Moore and the laws of the state of Nebraska," Kopf said during the hearing.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The suspect charged with deliberately starting Southern California's Holy Fire -- which began Monday and has spread across more than 19,000 acres -- called his arson charge a "lie," reports said Friday.

Forrest Gordon Clark, 51, was arrested late Tuesday and appeared in court Friday, but his arraignment was postponed.

Its a lie, Clark said when Orange County Superior Court Commissioner Vickie Hix discussed the criminal charges, the Orange County Register reported.

She reminded him that these are just allegations.

Clark reportedly made several outbursts and claimed his life was being threatened.

A court commissioner ordered his bail to remain at $1 million.

"May I pay for that immediately?" asked Clark, who could face life in prison if convicted.

The Holy Fire  named for Holy Jim Canyon, where it began Monday  nearly doubled in size overnight between Thursday and Friday.

Were dealing with steep terrain, dry fuel and wind in the area, Thanh Nguyen, public information officer with SoCal Team 1, in charge of communications for the Holy Fire, told the Register. All of that contributes to fire behavior.

Aircraft have been making flight after flight, dumping water and bright pink retardant to protect Lake Elsinore and other foothill communities as the fire sweeps through the dense, bone-dry brush of the Cleveland National Forest.

The fire had destroyed at least 12 structures as of Friday, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.

"The air operations have been relentless. ... When we drop so many gallons of water, we're doing it to overwhelm the heat with the coolness of the water."  Thanh Nguyen, public information officer

But firefighters also made progress, with containment doubling from 5 to 10 percent.

"The air operations have been relentless," Nguyen told the Union-Tribune. "When we drop so many gallons of water, we're doing it to overwhelm the heat with the coolness of the water."

Some hillsides were being allowed to burn under the watchful eyes of firefighters as a way to reduce fuel and make it harder for flames to jump roadways into communities if winds pick up again.

Although the fire burned a dozen forest cabins early on, only one home was lost Thursday as fire crews managed to fend off flames that stalked downhill and came right up to yards.

Lake Elsinore is about 70 miles southeast of Los Angeles.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A 7-year-old boy in Missouri may need skin grafts after suffering severe burns to his face and arms. Another child allegedly soaked him in nail polish remover and set him on fire, the boys mother said.

Ashley Lyons told the Kansas City Star that her son, Julien Sandlin, was playing outside the familys apartment Monday when there was an apparent altercation with another boy.

My son kept saying Stop. What are you doing? Julien kept telling him to leave him alone and thats when he decided to burn him, Lyons said.

Lyons wasnt home at the time, but said Julien was outside with an older brother and another adult. She claimed the other boys mother was present and didnt intervene.

A neighbor wrapped Julien in a wet towel and rolled him on the ground until police and paramedics arrived, the paper reported. Julien underwent surgery at Childrens Mercy Hospital, where he remains.

There is a lot of anxiety. There is a lot of anger. There is a lot of confusion."  Ashley Lyons, mother

Its a very painful process for him, Lyons told the paper. There is a lot of anxiety. There is a lot of anger. There is a lot of confusion. Hes trying to maintain the best that he can, for a 7-year-old.

Graphic photos of Julien posted online show him lying in a hospital bed, eyes shut, with extreme burns on his forehead, across his nose and cheeks, and over an ear. One photo shows one of his arms wrapped in a bandage.

We had to reassure him that he was not ugly, said Vicki Test, Juliens grandmother. Hes a beautiful baby inside and out. I love my grandson so much, no matter what he looks like.

"I love my grandson so much, no matter what he looks like.  Vicki Test, grandmother

Police told Lyons on Thursday they were investigating the matter.

On Friday, an update on Juliens GoFundMe page read: We're doing amazing!!! I am so thankful and greatful [sic] for all the prayers and love and support for julien everything helps and we are so thankful for every bit of it julien is doing well confused but stable.

The page has raised nearly $5,000 of the family's $10,000 goal as of Saturday morning.
A California Highway Patrol motorcycle officer and a motorist he had pulled over were both killed Friday when they were struck by a pickup truck on Interstate 80, authorities said.

Officer Kirk Greiss, 46, was a 19-year veteran of the CHP, having served the last 16 years with the Golden Gate Division. The former Marine is survived by his wife and three children, ages 25, 21 and 14, the Bay Area's FOX 2 reported.

"He was the ultimate public servant," CHP Commissioner Warren Stanley told the station. "He loved being a CHP officer. He loved being a CHP motorcycle officer. He's going to be dearly missed."

The other man killed was identified as Jaime Bueza Manuel, 49. Further details about him were not immediately known.

The driver of the pickup truck, who was not identified, was being treated at a local hospital for unspecified injuries and was cooperating with investigators, the San Francisco Chronicle reported.

Griess had pulled over Manuel's vehicle for an enforcement stop when the white truck veered and hit the two men in Fairfield, about 47 miles northeast of San Francisco, the report said.

The reason for the enforcement stop was not immediately known.
California's two-week-old Carr Fire -- which has killed six people and burned more than 1,000 homes -- is now more than 50 percent contained, even as it continues growing, state officials said Friday.

The year's deadliest fire, in the Redding area south of the Oregon border, grew to more than 180,000 acres but reached 53 percent containment as of Friday, forestry and fire protection officials said, according to the Redding Record Searchlight.

"Firefighters continue to build and improve containment lines, and perform building operations in more active portions of the fire," the officials said in a statement, adding that "mop-up and patrol efforts continue throughout the less active areas."

The six people who've perrished in the Carr Fire have included two firefighters.

A state fire heavy equipment mechanic assigned to the fire and a utility worker trying to restore power near the fire have died in car accidents.

The blaze was burning into remote and rugged forest land but grass, brush and trees there are so dry from years of drought and recent heat that the potential remained for the fire to grow, state fire officials said.

Even though fire crews have made progress against the biggest blaze in California history, officials said the fire won't be fully contained until September.

Redding is about a three-and-a-half-hour drive north of San Francisco.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Investigators found dirty diapers, shotgun shells, broken bicycles and a DVD about killing techniques in close combat at the ramshackle New Mexico compound of a "extremist Muslim" where 11 children were found hungry and living in squalor.

The makeshift living quarters were also littered with diesel cans, household garbage and Qurans, according to reports.

Siraj Ibn Wahhaj, 39, has been accused of conducting weapons training on the compound. He was wanted for questioning in the abduction of his 3-year-old son, Abdul-ghani Wahhaj, a boy with severe medical issues. The boy went missing from Georgia in December. His remains were found on the property Monday.

The settlement sprung up on the outskirts of tiny Amalia, New Mexico, last winter  as authorities searched for the Wahhaj in his son's kidnapping.

The empty dwelling, without running water or a drainage system, is arranged around a rickety camper that is half submerged in a dirty pit and surrounded by 7-foot berms of used tires, sections of adobe wall topped with broken glass, a junked refrigerator and other odd supplies.

INVESTIGATORS DISPUTE NEW MEXICO GRANDDAD'S CLAIM THAT REMAINS IN 'EXTREMIST MUSLIM' COMPOUND BELONG TO MISSING BOY

An alcove shaped out of wooden shipping pallets hides a makeshift bathroom  with a toilet seat suspended above a blue plastic bucket. A pair of underpants dangled from a pole overhead.

To one side of the camper, an underground tunnel  big enough to crawl through  led in and out of the compound, which was flanked by an apparent target range. Dozens of spent casings were left behind there.

Wahhaj, Lucas Morton and three other adults have been accused of training children to use firearms in preparation for future school shootings. Prosecutors have also charged them with child abuse.

Refuse at the compound included standard ammunition as well as fake cartridges designed to help people safely learn how to load and fire a weapon.

The owner of the property, Jason Badger, on Friday prodded through a left-behind satchel of ammunition  fit for rifle, shotgun and handgun  and discarded garbage bags holding crumpled grade-school textbooks and journals lined with notes in neat cursive and the primitive doodles of children.

He said he informed local authorities of Wahhajs whereabouts in the spring.

INVESTIGATORS RAIDED NEW MEXICO COMPOUND ON TIP FROM TERROR-TIED NEW YORK CITY IMAM, CLERIC CLAIMS

"If they knew about it, and then that kid died in that timeframe, when they knew, somebody has to be held accountable," Badger said.

A Taos County Sheriff's Department spokesman defended the probe and said investigators had to follow certain restrictions.

"Mr. Badger doesn't have to adhere to those same restrictions," spokesman Steve Fullendorf said. "He wants to have his 15 minutes of fame and that's fine."

Wahhaj is the son of a Brooklyn imam, also named Siraj Wahhaj, who was named by prosecutors as an unindicted co-conspirator in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, the New York Post has reported.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A man who wore demonic white clown makeup and claw-like gloves when he stabbed a homeless man to death in the parking lot of a taco restaurant in Colorado in May 2017 was sentenced on Friday to 42 years in prison.

Christian Gulzow, 37, was sentenced in Denver District Court on a second-degree murder conviction. He was found guilty by a jury in June.

Prosecutors said Gulzow, who identified as Christof Gulzowpruzenstein, fatally stabbed Brian Lucero, 29, in the parking lot of a Torchys Tacos on May 23, 2017. The two reportedly got into an argument at a nearby gas station before the deadly assault. Authorities have said Gulzow followed Lucero when he left the store and stabbed him in the neck.

MOLLIE TIBBETTS FATHER TAKES SEARCH TO THE STATE FAIR

Gulzow was wearing white clown makeup with black streaks and a glove with 2- to 3-inch blades on each finger, witnesses said.

Gulzow was the vocalist of a heavy metal band and claimed to be the founder and promoter of @WorldMusicStudios and the goth-metal band The Paranormal, the Denver Post reported. He worked at a pizza restaurant and had a son. His Instagram account contained multiple photos of him wearing white makeup. Witnesses said he could be seen riding in town on his scooter wearing makeup and costumes.

CREWS BATTLE GROWING WILDFIRE NEAR HOMES IN CALIFORNIA

Lucero was pronounced dead at the scene. Gulzow was seen riding down a nearby street on a scooter, according to a probable cause statement obtained by FOX31. The 37-year-old was arrested later that morning and was found with his clothing still covered in blood.

When Gulzow was interviewed by police, he claimed Lucero threatened him to get out of my alley, leading to a fight in which he might have accidentally stabbed him, which did not match with witness statements.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Lezley McSpadden, the mother of Michael Brown, said Friday that she would seek a seek on the Ferguson, Mo., City Council, according to multiple reports..

McSpadden made the announcement four years after her son was shot and killed by a white police officer in 2014. The death, along with others involving black youths killed in encounters with white officers, triggered mass protests nationwide and helped catalyze the Black Lives Matter movement.

According to a report by The Hill, McSpadden said she will focus on policing within the community, economic equality and health care during her campaign.

She said she expects to field questions about what qualifies her for public office, The Hill said, quoting her as responding, "If a mother had to watch her son lay on the street for four hours, and watch our community be completely disrespected by the people we elected, what would you do?

On Friday, despite pressure from McSpadden, the Missouri governor's office said it didn't have the authority to appoint a special prosecutor to reinvestigate the 2014 shooting of Brown, 18.

McSpadden said earlier in the day that she'd launched an online petition seeking a new investigation.

McSpadden has been an activist since Brown was shot, but has never held public office. "I learned to walk again," The Associated Press quoted her as saying. "And this is one of my first steps: running for Ferguson City Council."

Her son was unarmed when he was fatally shot during a confrontation with Ferguson officer Darren Wilson, who is white, on Aug. 9, 2014. Witnesses initially said the black teenager had his hands up in surrender at the time of the shooting, though an investigation by the Justice Department didn't find those accounts credible.

Wilson, who resigned from the force, was later cleared by a grand jusry and Justice.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts has been missing for more than three weeks, and with little information from authorities and days turning to weeks, her family is trying a new approach to getting the word out.

Iowians really want to bring Mollie home, said Rob Tibbetts, Mollies father.

Her dad, along with Mollies boyfriend and aunt, traveled to the Iowa State Fair on Friday armed with buttons, T-shirts, and missing person flyers in the hopes of crossing paths with visitors who may have information about Mollies whereabouts.

MOLLIE TIBBETTS LIKELY WENT OFF IN CAR WITH SOMEONE SHE KNEW, SAYS FBI EX-PROFILER

Annually, the fair brings in an estimated 1 million visitors over its two-week span. And the trio is hoping their visibility may bring in new tips.

Dalton Jack, Mollies longtime boyfriend, says he is optimistic authorities will bring her home alive but wants the public to assist in the search by providing timely information.

Nothing is too big or too small, said Jack. "Just let the authorities decide whats worth investigating.

The family handed out hundreds of flyers. The importance of keeping Mollie's story public is so that we can keep driving information and tips to the authorities, said Tibbetts.

MOLLIE TIBBETTS SEARCH: FARMER WHO HAS REPEATEDLY BEEN QUESTIONED ADMITS TO TAKING POLYGRAPH TEST

Mollies story has captivated the nation, and now her loved ones are hoping the attention will soon bring her home.

She going to come back safe to us, said Jack.

A spokesman for Crime Stoppers of Central Iowa said Thursday the organization has passed on more than 935 tips to authorities investigating the disappearance of Mollie Tibbetts.

The reward is now over $332,000.
The 18-year-old son of a police chief in Californias Bay Area, who allegedly attacked a 71-year-old Sikh man, appeared in court Friday, smiling and waving his middle fingers at media cameras, a report said.

Tyrone Keith McAllister, estranged son of Union City police Chief Darryl McAllister, entered the courtroom and flipped his middle fingers at their camera, Sacramento's FOX 40 reported.

He appeared to be grinning, and made suspected gang signs while his hands were cuffed, the Record of Stockton reported.

"[W]ords can barely describe how embarrassed, dejected, and hurt my wife, daughters, and I feel right now," the chief wrote on Facebook. He also wrote that his son, who has spent time in both juvenile and adult jail, needs to be held accountable for his actions.

The younger McAllister and a 16-year-old companion allegedly confronted Sahib Singh Natt while he was taking a stroll in Manteca, near Stockton in the Central Valley, on Monday at about 6 a.m., and asked him for money.

Authorities said the pair kicked Natt to the ground. Police said the video shows the suspect kick him at least three times and that one of the suspects may have waved a gun.

The police chief and his wife worked with local police to track down their son and the 16-year-old. The pair were arrested Wednesday on one count of attempted robbery, elder abuse and assault with a deadly weapon.

Investigators were still looking into whether the attack meets the legal criteria for charging a hate crime, the Record reported.

"As to whether it was just a crime or a hate crime, Im of the opinion that at this point, looking at the videos, that its just a crime committed by some young people," Bobby Bivens, president of the Stockton branch of the NAACP, told FOX 40.

Bail wasn't set during the arraignment. McAllister was scheduled appear again Aug. 17.

Fox News Edmund DeMarche contributed to this report.
Climb into the cockpit of a plane and start it up. Its as simple as flicking a switch.

They dont necessarily use a key so theres a switch that they use to start the aircraft, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) official Debra Eckrote said Saturday as she briefed reporters on the theft of a Horizon Air Q400 by a suicidal airline employee who crashed it into a remote island in Washington State after a 90-minute fight.

That employee has been identified as Richard Russell, 29, a Horizon Air employee, who is presumed dead after Friday's crash.

Eckrote said Fridays event was very unusual.

Its not like we get this every day, she said.

The FBI is investigating how the thief was able steal the plane, which was parked at a maintenance area, and take off without clearance from air traffic controllers.

'SUICIDAL' AIRLINE EMPLOYEE WHO STOLE PLANE FROM SEATAC AIRPORT HAD BIZARRE CONVERSATION WITH AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL BEFORE CRASHING

The thief was described as a Horizon ground service agent at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport with an identification card that allowed him access to be near planes in secure areas.

He was able to take the aircraft and get it airborne and we do know he was in communication with air traffic control, Eckrote said.

This is probably jail time for life, huh? he said during his conversation with an air traffic controller. I would hope it is for a guy like me.

Eckrote said she believes the man had a basic understanding of how to power up a plane because of his background as an airline employee.

Horizon officials said Saturday the thief did not have a pilots license and used a push-back tractor to spin the plane 180 degrees where it was parked.

Video showed the turboprop plane doing large loops and other dangerous maneuvers as the sun set on Puget Sound.

Of course, there's a lot more to flying a plane than just starting the engines. Aviation attorney Mark Dombroff told Fox News Saturday that it was striking that the thief actually flew for 90 minutes.

The fact that he was aloft for almost 90 minutes without the airplane crashing, the fact that he was able to take off the airplane in the first instance, would suggest that he had a lot of familiarity with the aircraft controls and capabilities, Dombroff said. He may well have had a lot of experience flying a computer-based flight simulator, one you can buy in a computer store.

The bizarre case points to a peril for commercial air travel --- conjuring images of airport employees causing mayhem.

'SUICIDAL' AIRLINE EMPLOYEE WHO STOLE PLANE FROM SEATAC AIRPORT HAD BIZARRE CONVERSATION WITH AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL BEFORE CRASHING

"The greatest threat we have to aviation is the insider threat," Erroll Southers, a former FBI agent and transportation security expert, told The Associated Press. "Here we have an employee who was vetted to the level to have access to the aircraft and had a skill set proficient enough to take off with that plane."

There have been other instances involving airplanes and people intent on snatching them.

On Tuesday, for instance, an 18-year-old was formally charged with attempting to steal an American Eagle twin-engine jet so he could fly it to a rap concert in another state last month.

Zemarcuis Devon Scott was arrested after police found him sitting in the cockpit at Texarkana Regional Airport.

Police asked about Scotts lack of pilot training, and he allegedly said he didn't believe there was much more to flying than pushing buttons and pulling levers.

In 2003, Ben Padilla, a private pilot, stole a Boeing 727-223 in Angola with an accomplice. The aircraft began taxiing with no communication between the crew and the tower. It then maneuvered erratically, entered a runway without clearance and took off with its lights off and its transponder not transmitting, Smithsonian Air & Space magazine reported.

The 727, Padilla and his cohort havent been seen since.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
A woman was transported to the hospital on Wednesday after she said a U.S. Secret Service dog bit her on the leg outside a hotel in Michigan where Vice President Mike Pence was attending a Republican rally.

WARNING: IMAGES ARE GRAPHIC

Melissa Ramirez told FOX 17 she had to get a stitch after a German Shepard bit her on the leg outside the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Pence was at the hotel attending a "unity rally" following Tuesday's primary election, M Live reported.

Ramirez said she was walking to a bus stop after work when the incident occurred.

He [the secret service agent] pulled him back really quick, Ramirez told FOX 17. It only lasted maybe a second but it was long enough for him to get his teeth into my leg pretty well.

POLICE CHIEFS SON, 18, CHARGED WITH BEATING ELDERLY SIKH MAN, SMILES, FLIPS BIRD IN COURT: REPORT

She said the Secret Service told her they would pay for her medical bills and the agent handling the dog was very apologetic.

He definitely apologized. He was very apologetic, she said. He kept saying that he was sorry, you know he didnt, we dont know why it happened. We have no idea.

A Secret Service agent told Ramirez the dog was put in quarantine following the incident. On Friday night, she said her leg was still sore but was glad that it wasnt a child this happened to.

Im glad that it was me and not, like, a little kid because I feel like that would have been just face level, she said.

ARSON SUSPECT CALLS CHARGES A LIE AS CALIFORNIAS HOLY FIRE GROWS

Ramirez said she was not upset with the Secret Service agent who handled the dog.

Im not mad at all, Im not upset with them, Ramirez said. It was totally not his fault. I mean, the trainer tried really hard. He pulled him back really quickly, so he was pretty on it. He could have been a little more on it and it wouldnt have happened, I guess.

The U.S. Secret Service has not immediately commented on the incident. The Kent County Health Department said animal control was investigating the incident.
Three of the four people killed in Fridays shooting in the Canadian city of Fredericton, New Brunswick, have been identified as two police officers and a local musician.

The Fredericton Police Department identified the two slain offices as Sara Mae Helen Burns, 43, and Lawrence Robert Costello, 45.

Burns had been on the force for two years after previously serving as an auxiliary officer for two years, police said. She leaves behind a husband and three children.

Costello was a 20-year veteran of the police department and leaves behind a partner and four children, police said.

The other victim, Donnie Robichaud, 42, was identified by family members, CBC News reported. Robichaud, a bass player and father of three, was said to be the best guy you could ever meet, his cousin Sean Callahan told the media outlet. Robichaud moved into the building where the incident happened a few months ago.

2 CANADIAN POLICE OFFICERS AMONG 4 DEAD IN SHOOTING; 1 SUSPECT IN CUSTODY

A fourth victim, a woman, was not identified. A 48-year-old male suspect was arrested and was being treated for serious injuries related to the shooting. Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital said it was treating multiple shooting victims but further information was not immediately available.

Fredericton police responded to calls of shots fired around 7:10 a.m. local time, Deputy Police Chief Martin Gaudet said. The two officers killed were the first to arrive at the scene. Gaudet said the suspect was arrested around 9:30 a.m. local time in an apartment. It was not immediately clear what caused the shooting. The incident was under investigation and it was not immediately clear if any people were wounded in the shooting.

"Obviously, this is incredibly difficult for our officers and for our community," Gaudet said. "No one ever wants to lose a colleague or friend, especially in this kind of situation."

The residents who lived in the apartment building where the shooting occurred were told they could not return until a probe was completed. Neighbors discussed what they heard and saw at the time of the shooting.

David MacCoubrey, who lives in Fredericton, said he heard about 20 shots and was hiding on his kitchen floor.

POLICE CHIEFS SON, 18, CHARGED WITH BEATING ELDERLY SIKH MAN, SMILES, FLIPS BIRD IN COURT: REPORTS

"I'm on my floor," he told The Associated Press in a phone interview. "The cops have come through my place. They have searched all the apartments in the building. It sounded like it started in the courtyard area."

MacCoubrey said police have been searching the buildings, and hes been sitting away from windows.

Travis Hrubeniuk said his fiancee had just left for work around 7:45 a.m. local time when he began hearing a steady stream of sirens.

Hrubeniuk said residents have been advised to stay inside with their doors locked. The quiet residential neighborhood, which has houses, grocery stores, a church and an elementary school, is the last place Hrubeniuk said he expected to encounter a dangerous situation.

Fredericton has a population of about 58,000 and is located just northeast of Maine. The city is the capital of New Brunswick.

Fox News' Elizabeth Zwirz and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Thirty years after its founding on Aug. 11, 1988, Al Qaeda is showing signs of a resurgence following ISISs near-defeat in Iraq and Syria, experts warn.

Al Qaeda shares the same long term goals as ISIS, but is pursuing them more slowly and carefully, Jennifer Cafarella, intelligence planner with the Institute for the Study of War, told FoxNews.com.

ISIS's shock-and-awe tactics enabled it to mobilize tens of thousands of foreign fighters quickly, but did not enable it to sustain its battlefield successes or the scale of its recruitment, Cafarella said. Al Qaeda has been investing in the long game, and may now resurge as the leader of the global jihadist movement.

It was on Aug. 11, 1988, in Peshawar, Pakistan, that Usama bin Laden conducted a meeting to discuss "the establishment of a new military group" called Al Qaeda, or the base. Handwritten notes of the meeting's minutes were seized in Bosnia after 9/11.

BIN LADEN'S SON MARRIES 9/11 LEAD HIJACKER'S DAUGHTER, REPORT SAYS

Ten years later on Aug. 7, 1998, Al Qaeda extremists bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in near-simultaneous attacks. Another attack resulted in the death of 17 U.S. sailors on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.

A year later, on Sept. 11, 2001, Al Qaeda operatives at bin Laden's direction hijacked four jets and rammed three of them into New York's World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. The 9/11 terror attack killed nearly 3,000 people. In response, the U.S. launched the global War on Terror.

The manhunt for bin Laden came to an end in 2011 when Navy SEALs raided his compound in Pakistan and killed him - an event that some predicted would lead to Al Qaeda's demise. That didn't happen.

ISIS started as an Al Qaeda offshoot to fight U.S. troops in Iraq and then, after a falling out, gobbled up huge amounts of territory in Iraq and Syria while engaging in horrific attacks of brutality. At the same time ISIS leaders declared the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate spanning the two countries.

AL QAEDA-AFFILIATED TERROR GROUP LAUNCHES WAR ON PLASTIC BAGS

But by the end of last year, ISIS was in tatters as U.S.-led coalition troops liberated Iraqi and Syrian cities under ISIS control.

Still, Katherine Zimmerman, lead analyst on Al Qaeda for the American Enterprise Institutes Critical Threats Project, told FoxNews.com that it may be too early to call the demise of ISIS.

She said the challenge ISIS posed strengthened, rather than weakened Al Qaeda.

ISIS has made Al Qaeda seem less radical, less extreme, only because Al Qaeda will not employ the barbaric tactics that ISIS does to coerce and win loyalty through fear. Yet they seek the same goal, Zimmerman said. The problem with focusing on just ISIS or just Al Qaeda is that the U.S. has missed the real enemythe Salafi-jihadi movementof which Al Qaeda and ISIS are two global organizations.

In February, United Nations experts monitoring sanctions against ISIS and Al Qaeda said affiliates in West Africa and South Asia remain a threat at least as serious as ISIS.

AL QAEDA USES GOOGLE MAPS TO PLAN ATTACKS NEW VIDEO REPORTEDLY SHOWS

The experts also reported that as ISIS suffered military losses in Syria, Iraq and the Phillipines in the second half of 2017, the Al Qaeda global network remained remarkably resilient.

Al Qaeda affiliates remain the dominant terror threat in some regions, such as Somalia and Yemen, a fact demonstrated by a continuous stream of attacks and foiled operations, according to the U.N. report.

Forces loyal to Al Qaeda and its affiliates now number in the tens of thousands, Bruce Hoffman, senior fellow for counterterrorism and homeland security at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in an article in March headlined, Al Qaedas Resurrection.

Hoffman said upwards of 4,000 fighters are in Yemen, 7,000 in Somali and 20,000 in Syria.

Al Qaeda has five affiliates: Jabhat al-Nusrah in Syria; Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen; Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent in South Asia; Al Shabaab in Somalia; and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in North Africa. The group also has ties to other groups in Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and West Africa.

Al Qaeda is particularly strong in Syria, where it has positioned itself as a defender of Syria's rebelling community against the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and his backers, Cafarella told Fox News.

Al Qaeda's role in Syria provides a strong basis for recruiting and propaganda because it enables Al Qaeda to make a humanitarian argument: that Al Qaeda alone offers justice and defense against the atrocities that Assad is committing against his own population, she said.

Over the years, Al Qaeda has dispatched a number of top leaders to Syria, including bin Laden son Hamza who was reportedly there last summer.

Hamza has increasingly taken a leadership role within al Qaeda  a role for which he has been groomed his entire life, Zimmerman said. Hamzas calls for jihad echo his fathers, and the bin Laden name gives Hamza credibility within the Salafi-jihadi movement.

The U.S. has officially designated Hamza bin Laden a terrorist.

In testimony to Congress last year, Zimmerman said Americas strategy to counter Al Qaeda has remained relatively unchanged since 2001 even as the organization has adapted.

She told FoxNews.com: For all of its setbacks, Al Qaeda remains on course to be exactly what Usama bin Laden envisioned it as thirty years ago: a covert vanguard that provides the strategic guidance and resources to local Islamists movements to support a global revolution.
Hungarys populist government is stopping universities from offering courses in gender studies, saying there is no need for graduates in the labor market and they take taxpayer money away from other programs.



The move, announced this week, comes after Prime Minister Viktor Orbans government won a comfortable majority in April after an election focused primarily on immigration. Since then his Fidesz Party has been implementing key parts of its election manifesto.



In a statement, Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said that there is no demonstrable demand for graduates of social gender studies in the Hungarian labor market.

There is no economic rationale for studies such as these, and so we have reason to presume that it was not created in response to labor market needs, and equally not to furnish students with skills that can be readily and directly converted on the labor market, he said. It is also questionable to what extent studies with admittedly such low student numbers are economical and sustainable.



Hungarys HVG said that it would only affect two of the countrys universities, but also that such courses had been in the governments crosshairs for a while.



Critics of the nationalist government say that Orban has been engaging in authoritarian tactics and this move is likely only to fuel such claims.



But Kovacs, the government spokesman, said that such programs take valuable resources away from other programs, and deteriorate the economic stability of universities.



State universities operated from public funds must take this into consideration as the purpose of these higher education institutions is to meet genuine social and labour market needs, he said.



Earlier this year, his government implemented a Stop Soros package aimed at Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros.

HUNGARY'S PRO-TRUMP, POPULIST GOVERNMENT PUSHES SOROS CRACKDOWN

The package includes a law that makes it illegal for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to organize illegal immigration into the country. Such activities can range from financial support to the distribution and preparation of information and pamphlets.



Soros Open Society Foundation has moved its Budapest offices to Berlin shortly after the election amid what it described as a repressive political and legal environment.


U.S. sanctions on Iran have inadvertently led to a crackdown on its persecuted Christian community as the ayatollahs move to consolidate their power in the face of growing unrest across the country.

The U.S. on Tuesday re-imposed a wave of robust sanctions targeting the Islamic Republics automobile industry, precious metal trade, and a ban on purchasing U.S. dollars.

Meanwhile, the plight of Irans persecuted Christian community has become significantly worse over the past few weeks, with the Islamic Republic ramping up prison terms and other judicial actions.

IRAN TEST-FIRES BALLISTIC MISSILE FOR FIRST TIME IN 2018, OFFICIALS SAY

Jeff King, president of the Washington D.C.-based International Christian Concern, told FoxNews.com: Irans regime is under a great amount of pressure right now.

Poor economic conditions combined with the harshness of their Islamic rule has led to massive unrest that has defined the country for months.

There are many reports that this has contributed to the governments ever-increasing dependence on hardline Islamic ayatollahs, who naturally see Christianity as a threat to their power. For this reason, its not surprising that were seeing an increase in Christian persecution.

Article18, an organization that promotes religious freedom and supports Irans repressed Christians, tweeted on Thursday: A Christian couple have reported that a court in Boushehr has just sentenced them & 10 other Iranian Christians to one year in prison each for Propagating against the Islamic Republic in favor of Christianity. This group of Christian converts were arrested on April 7th, 2015.

Christian website Mohabat News also reported that the Iranian couple, who were part of a group of converts, were charged with orientation toward the land of Christianity.

FORMER IRANIAN PRESIDENT AHMADINEJAD SAYS EMBATTLED ROUHANI MUST STEP ASIDE

Getting information on the arrests of Christians is incredibly challenging given the heavily censored nature of Iran, but based on the cases we have been tracking, this is the first time this year that weve seen a jail sentence being given based on the charge of inclination to the land of Christianity, King said.

This could be interpreted as a reference to Israel, the birthplace of Christianity and also a country that Iran has adopted a very aggressive stance towards.

Peter Kohanloo, the president of the U.S.-based Iranian American Majority organization, told FoxNews.com: Today, some of the worst persecution against Christians is meted out by the regime in Iran.

The new round of sanctions is putting the ruling mullahs under pressure, and they are lashing out by arresting evangelical converts.

In 2010, Iran sentenced Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani to death for apostasy  converting to Christianity. A global campaign however secured a reversal in his sentence, and the pastor was instead incarcerated for three years for Christian evangelizing.

In June 2017, Irans opaque judicial system sentenced him to 10 years in prison and two years of exile on baseless charges including collusion against national security and promoting Zionist Christianity,  according to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom.

IRAN PLOTS TERROR ON EUROPEAN SOIL AS EU TRIES TO SHIELD REGIME FROM TRUMP SANCTIONS PUSH

The American Center for Law & Justice in Washington, D.C., launched a petition campaign to secure his release. As of Friday, more than 71,000 people had signed the petition.

The ACLJ wrote that Irans actions violate its own constitution that guarantees religious freedom, and multiple international human rights treaties.

The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) also condemned Irans detention of Pastor Nadarkhani and church congregants on August 1.

While Christianity is legal in Iran, the U.S. State Department has classified the Islamic Republic as a country of particular concern under the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 for having engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom.

Last month, Irans President Hassan Rouhani claimed Christians have the same rights as others do.

Irans constitution, which is anchored in fundamentalist Islamic Sharia, states that Zoroastrians, Jews, and Christians, with the exception of converts from Islam, can worship within the limits of the law.

According to World Christian Database statistics, there are an estimated 350,000 Christians in Iran, while the governments Statistical Center of Iran reports 117,700 Christians in a country of just over 82 million people.

But the harsh conditions faced has led many observers to believe there are more than 350,000 Christians in Iran.

Alireza Miryousefi, the head of press for the Iranian Mission to the United Nations, told FoxNews.com: "Iran does not discriminate against or persecute any recognized religious minority, including the large Christian community inside Iran who are free to worship in the many churches that can be found across Iran.

In fact, as is the case with Iranian Jews, Iranian Christians are constitutionally guaranteed parliamentary representation. Major cities such as Tehran and Isfahan are home to large Christian communities with centuries-old churches.
Construction scandal in Bonn : Former manager Naujoks denies WCCB damage

Bonn The legal dispute around the WCCB construction scandal is seemingly reaching its final round: On Friday, two of the five city council employees who were sued by the city for damages appeared before the labour court Bonn. Both conciliation hearings ended without agreement.

The City of Bonn claims 500,000 Euro from Friedhelm Naujoks, the former head of the citys building management department (SGB). The council accuses him of mistakes during the project controlling of the World Conference Center Bonn (WCCB). He certified the dubious investor Man-Ki Kim a commitment of more than ten million Euro in equity and personal contribution despite the audit office (RPA) only mentioning 2.5 million Euro. On this basis the Sparkasse Cologne-Bonn paid the building loans. Also, Naujoks is accused of having cleared bills associated with little or no services. Also the use of public funds was not checked regularly.

On Friday, facing the 4th chamber of the labour court, Naujoks remained silent. The man from the Ruhrvalley, whose employment contract the city tried to terminate several times before agreeing to a settlement, let his lawyer deny all the accusations. According to his lawyer Thorsten Leisbrock, Naujok fulfilled all his duties. According to the controlling contract with the Sparkasse Naujoks and his employees only had to do validity controls and single case checks. Leisbrock doubted that the city had suffered any kind of damage. The city owns the WCCB and received support funding of about 100 million Euro, said Leisbrock. The lawyer of the municipality countered that the statement was rather bold.

Info 72 Millionen Euro fur die Sparkasse Nach der Insolvenz des Investors Man-Ki Kim hat die Fertigstellung des World Conference Centers Bonn (WCCB) die Stadt insgesamt rund 300 Millionen Euro gekostet. Welcher Teil der Summe als Schaden des Bauskandals zu werten ist, hat die Kommune bisher nicht erklart. Bei den Klagen gegen die fruhere Oberburgermeisterin Barbel Dieckmann und vier weitere Personen legt sie nun offenbar die 72 Millionen Euro zugrunde, die sie nach einem Rechtsstreit an die Sparkasse Koln-Bonn zahlen musste  eine Folge der als Nebenabrede getarnten WCCB-Burgschaft, die die Stadt 2005 beschlossen hatte. Im Juni 2018 beauftragte der Stadtrat mit breiter Mehrheit die Verwaltung, Schadensersatz einzuklagen.

In a second case on Friday, a former city council department director also denied any failure in the WCCB controlling. The city council had sued the 69-year-old pensioner for 250,000 Euro. He insisted he had only checked the numbers in the certificates for validity which were handed to him by the project group around Arno Hubner. Considerable documents were not seen by him, and he never saw from which account which services were paid. He said he was disappointed by his former employer. He claims he was not heard by the city in regard to the accusations prior to the law suit.

I can understand that this burdens you, said the presiding judge, Wilfried Lohr-Steinhaus and suggested a settlement. Both sides are now considering a sum of 25,000 Euro which the judge mentioned without measurement of the trial costs.

For both cases the court set the next chamber meeting date for autumn. Lohr-Steinhaus suggested the former department director should get a lawyer - until now the pensioner had forgone that option.

WCCB criminal proceedings against him were discontinued after a payment of 5,000 Euro; Naujoks had to pay 15,000 Euro.

Another labour court case involves a currently employed SGB staff member. The legal actions against the former Lady Mayoress Barbel Dieckmann and former city director Hubner are filed with the administrative court in Cologne, which is responsible for civil servants. Trial dates will probably only be announced for 2019. The city council demanded one million Euro each from both Hubner and Dieckmann.

The Komba union criticises the law suits. To pillory civilian colleagues who fulfilled political contracts is not expedient, declared the union chairman Christoph Busch, who is also chairman to the citys staff council.
State Protection Office investigates : Hate mails against Bonns Lord Mayor Sridharan

Bonn The lord mayors of the Rhine cities Bonn, Cologne and Dusseldorf have received countless hate mails after their refugee initiative. Now the State Protection Office investigates.

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Three municipal leaders are receiving a lot of hatred after having turned to Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) with a humanitarian request? After Bonn, Cologne and Dusseldorf announced in an open letter at the end of July that they are supporting a continuous refugee admission and stood up against the stopping of the sea rescue mission in the Mediterranean, all three cities received a lot of negative reaction.

Dussledorfs Lord Mayor, Thomas Geisel (SPD) even received death threats. In those cases, and because of three e-mails to Bonns Lord Mayor Ashok Sridharan (CDU), the State Protection Office is investigating after the city councils handed the e-mails to the police. Beside having received a lot of positive reaction we got many negative mailings too, said Monika Horig, press spokesperson of the city council in Bonn. Among those were three e-mails that contained wording against the Lord Mayor personally, and we reported them to the authorities.

The State Protection Office is investigating in all three cases for insult and threat, police spokesperson Frank Piontek confirmed. The hate comments came not just by letter or emails. Many posted similar comments on Twitter and Facebook. About a dozen comments were hidden by the city council, says Horig, who does not want to refer in detail to the content of the verbal attacks. They exceeded comments like Before you three dreadful idiots write letters, maybe you should ask the general public first, or Such politicans should be sued for gross or destructive negligence, which are still to be found online.

Colognes Lady Mayoress Henriette Reker (independent) has also received many mailings, according to her press office - about 500 via letter or e-mail, plus many comments on social media. Until now, the city of Cologne did not see any reason to report anything to the authorities, said spokesperson Alexander Vogel. About one third of the comments were positive, he said, and two thirds negative. Death threats like in Bonn and Dusseldorf were not mentioned in any comment. The Lord Mayor of the NRW capital has made those kind of threats public himself, in the SPD newspaper Vorwarts. Unfortunately there were openly racist tones and blatant death threats, which prompted my office to forward those mails to the State Protection Office, Geisel said in the interview.

The head of the Lord Mayors Office, Jochen Wirtz, in an interview with the Rheinische Post said, that there were two to three mails, in which the Lord Mayor was personally threatened. A police spokesperson confirmed the investigation in conversation with this newspaper. In total, many mailings from all over Germany were received, many of those positive, Wirtz added. But it is surprising how many people express racist and national-socialist views openly, with their name and address, he said. For the spokesperson of the city of Bonn, Monika Horig, those reactions reflect a fundamental problem in the social networks.

The tendency to type stuff is much bigger and unrestrained than writing a letter before, she says. Unfortunately this seems to be also true for humanitarian appeals. Because thats what it was: appeal for the Federal Government to act. We want to set a sign for humanity, for the right to receive asylum, for the integration of refugees, wrote the three municipal leaders. Until a European solution is found, it is urgently necessary to make the sea rescue in the Mediterranean possible again and to secure the admission of refugees in need. And: Our cities want to and can admit refugees in need. Nonetheless, Horig was not surprised by the many negative reactions, she says.

We know that each initiative by the city council prompts criticism. Yet she sees signs in the mailings and their phrasing that represent a more brutal behaviour on social platforms in general. Deutsche Welle decided to take its own stand. The broadcasting service with its headquarters in Bonn decided to switch off the commenting feature underneath its online articles.
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bohlah at 11-08-2018 07:19 AM (3 years ago) (m)

Mrs Gladys Osaigbovo-Omon, 60 years old and pictured below, narrowly escaped being assassinated at her residence in Benin-City, the Edo State Capital, a fortnight ago.

Mrs Gladys Osaigbovo-Omon, 60 years old and pictured below, narrowly escaped being assassinated at her residence in Benin-City, the Edo State Capital, a fortnight ago.

Yesterday, she was at the Lagos State Police Command headquarters, Ikeja, to see her suspected assasins get paraded.



Clad in a buba and wrapper and a pair of red slippers, she sat on a chair, hands clasped together as she kept shaking her legs slowly. At a point, she glanced at the two suspected assassins close to her, shook her head in disbelief before lifting it up to the sky and muttered, Osalobua uwese( meaning God, thank you, in Benin dialect).



Vanguard reports that when Mrs Gladys Osaigbovo-Omon was approached, she was too stunned to narrate what brought her from Benin city. All she could mutter in pidgin English was that the stab of a loved one could be so painful when compared to that of a stranger.



Two suspected assassins hired to eliminate the sexagenarian have been arrested by the Police in Lagos while efforts were still on to arrest the alleged mastermind, an Europe Based Nigerian woman. Surprisingly, the alleged mastermind turned out to be her younger sister while one of the suspected assassins was discovered to be her nephew.



Yesterday, she was at the Lagos State Police Command headquarters, Ikeja, to see her suspected assasins get paraded.Clad in a buba and wrapper and a pair of red slippers, she sat on a chair, hands clasped together as she kept shaking her legs slowly. At a point, she glanced at the two suspected assassins close to her, shook her head in disbelief before lifting it up to the sky and muttered, Osalobua uwese( meaning God, thank you, in Benin dialect).Vanguard reports that when Mrs Gladys Osaigbovo-Omon was approached, she was too stunned to narrate what brought her from Benin city. All she could mutter in pidgin English was that the stab of a loved one could be so painful when compared to that of a stranger.Two suspected assassins hired to eliminate the sexagenarian have been arrested by the Police in Lagos while efforts were still on to arrest the alleged mastermind, an Europe Based Nigerian woman. Surprisingly, the alleged mastermind turned out to be her younger sister while one of the suspected assassins was discovered to be her nephew. GENESIS OF THE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT: Vanguards Crime Guard reports that 60-year-old Gladys, being the eldest of her siblings, assisted them in her own little way. One of her siblings, Augusta Osaigbovo, according to her, lived with her for 13 years until she left for Europe.



At a time, Gladys said she begged Augusta, to take one of her daughters, Mercy Omon, overseas, for better life, an offer that was granted.



However, on arriving the United Kingdom, Mercy contacted her family back in Nigeria to inform them that her aunty, Augusta, was a leader of a prostitution ring and had recruited her into prostitution in London.







But she claimed to have refused to bow to pressures from her aunty to go into prostitution, an action that led to a strained relationship between them. Along the line, Crime Guard gathered that Mercy was arrested by Police authorities in the UK, for possessing fake documents which were allegedly facilitated by her aunty.



She managed to wriggle her way out of trouble after disclosing that her aunty, Augusta, brought her to London with job promises, only to turn out to be something else. Her confession led to Augustas subsequent arrest and was thereafter jailed.



Vanguards Crime Guard reports that 60-year-old Gladys, being the eldest of her siblings, assisted them in her own little way. One of her siblings, Augusta Osaigbovo, according to her, lived with her for 13 years until she left for Europe.At a time, Gladys said she begged Augusta, to take one of her daughters, Mercy Omon, overseas, for better life, an offer that was granted.However, on arriving the United Kingdom, Mercy contacted her family back in Nigeria to inform them that her aunty, Augusta, was a leader of a prostitution ring and had recruited her into prostitution in London.But she claimed to have refused to bow to pressures from her aunty to go into prostitution, an action that led to a strained relationship between them. Along the line, Crime Guard gathered that Mercy was arrested by Police authorities in the UK, for possessing fake documents which were allegedly facilitated by her aunty.She managed to wriggle her way out of trouble after disclosing that her aunty, Augusta, brought her to London with job promises, only to turn out to be something else. Her confession led to Augustas subsequent arrest and was thereafter jailed. Assassination move According to the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State Police Command, Imohimi Edgal, who paraded the suspected assassins,







When Augusta Osaigbovo finished her jail term, she complained to her sister Gladys, that her daughter, Mercy, whom she brought from the village to help, had ruined her.



Believing that her sister was supporting her daughter, she decided to hire the services of assassins to eliminate Gladys.



The first person allegedly contacted by Augusta, was her nephew, Osaro Okonoboh (44), whom the sexagenarian kept glancing at, in shock.



In an interview with Osaro, a commercial bus driver who resides in Lagos, he admitted to have been contacted by Augusta to snuff life out of his aunty, Gladys. He said:



Aunty Gladys is my mothers eldest sister. Aunty Augusta who stays abroad, my mother and aunty Gladys were born of the same mother. She (Augusta ) called me on phone that she would want me to help her kill aunty Gladys.



When I asked why, she said aunty Gladys was the one behind what Mercy did to her abroad. I told her I did not know of any assassin but that I would look for one.



I contacted Lucky Oboh, who is also a driver, here in Lagos. He also said he would look for someone. He came back and said he had found someone, Igbinedion Ogbevon who demanded N1 million for the job.



When I called Augusta to inform her, I told her that the proposed assassin asked for N4.5 million.



Osaro then gave the job of eliminating Mrs Gladys Osaigbovo- Omon to Igbinedion Ogbevon and Lucky Oboh. But Ogbevon, who also hails from Edo state, insisted on visiting the targets home, in order to know where she lived and also to study the terrain.



Crime Guard gathered that on July 17, 2018 Osaro, Gladys nephew took the suspected hired assassin, Ogbevon on a visit to Gladys home in Benin City. An elated Gladys was said to have welcomed the visitors with a sumptuous meal and drinks, unaware that she was entertaining her assailants.



By the time her visitors announced their departure, she had brought another meal for them and insisted they must eat before hitting the road back to Lagos. That singular display of kindness and generosity saved Gladys life as it endeared her supposed killers heart towards her.



In an interview with Crime Guard, Ogbevon, narrated how he changed his mind and turned around to spill the beans that led to the arrest of Osaro and Lucky. He said:



On our way back after the visit, I asked Osaro why he wanted his aunty killed. He said that was what he was contracted to do.



But in my mind I decided I was not going to do it because of the womans kindness, although I didnt tell Osaro I was opting out. You needed to have seen the way the woman welcomed us and took pains to prepare food for us as if she had been expecting us.



I was really overfed. When I got home, I was troubled and had to open up to my uncle, who advised that I should first go back to the woman and tell her of the plan to kill her and thereafter report to the police.



I then went with my uncle to visit mummy ( Gladys) to tell her about the plan by Augusta and Osaro to eliminate her. From there, we informed the Police who advised I played along, until I was given part payment of N490,000.



I had to play along so that they would not contact another person.



At this point, the sexagenarian exclaimed, Osalobua! ( My God!). Speaking in Pidgin English, she said:



When they told me, I could not believe that my own family members would want me dead.



I dont know why my sister, who stayed with me for 13 years wanted to do this to me. Had she succeeded nobody would have attributed it to her. Perhaps, she would have attended my burial.



But I thank God, she did not succeed. I thank the Police and every other person that God used to spare my life. My thanks also go to our father, the Oba of Benin who placed a curse on anyone who is tarnishing the image of the ancient city outside the country. According to the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State Police Command, Imohimi Edgal, who paraded the suspected assassins,When Augusta Osaigbovo finished her jail term, she complained to her sister Gladys, that her daughter, Mercy, whom she brought from the village to help, had ruined her.Believing that her sister was supporting her daughter, she decided to hire the services of assassins to eliminate Gladys.The first person allegedly contacted by Augusta, was her nephew, Osaro Okonoboh (44), whom the sexagenarian kept glancing at, in shock.In an interview with Osaro, a commercial bus driver who resides in Lagos, he admitted to have been contacted by Augusta to snuff life out of his aunty, Gladys. He said:Osaro then gave the job of eliminating Mrs Gladys Osaigbovo- Omon to Igbinedion Ogbevon and Lucky Oboh. But Ogbevon, who also hails from Edo state, insisted on visiting the targets home, in order to know where she lived and also to study the terrain.Crime Guard gathered that on July 17, 2018 Osaro, Gladys nephew took the suspected hired assassin, Ogbevon on a visit to Gladys home in Benin City. An elated Gladys was said to have welcomed the visitors with a sumptuous meal and drinks, unaware that she was entertaining her assailants.By the time her visitors announced their departure, she had brought another meal for them and insisted they must eat before hitting the road back to Lagos. That singular display of kindness and generosity saved Gladys life as it endeared her supposed killers heart towards her.In an interview with Crime Guard, Ogbevon, narrated how he changed his mind and turned around to spill the beans that led to the arrest of Osaro and Lucky. He said:At this point, the sexagenarian exclaimed, Osalobua! ( My God!). Speaking in Pidgin English, she said:

Post Reply I have been reporting on latest news from Nigeria for almost 10 years now. I report on every possible news area I come across, but always ensure my reports are compiled with dignity and fact to uphold my personal values and duty as a journalist Posted: at 11-08-2018 07:19 AM (3 years ago) | Addicted Hero
(TNS)  Police in recent years have tapped into a vast database of license plate images to track drivers and solve crimes.Few people know, however, that Sacramento County, Calif., welfare fraud investigators have been using that same data since 2016.It is rare for a welfare agency to use data collected by automated license plate recognition (ALPR) cameras, which snap photos of all license plates from street poles and police cars as vehicles drive by, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation , a civil liberties group. The organization is particularly concerned that the Sacramento County agency violated state law by accessing the database without rules in place for its use.County welfare fraud investigators with the Department of Human Assistance use ALPR data to find suspects and collect evidence to prove cases of fraud, said DHA Director Ann Edwards. Investigators determine whether to use the data on a case-by-case basis depending on the investigative needs of the case, she said.Its really used to help us locate folks that are being investigated for welfare fraud, she said. Sometimes theyre not at their stated address.Through agreements, law enforcement agencies across California and the U.S. upload the images they obtain to a database owned by Livermore-based corporation Vigilant Solutions , which says the data help police solve crimes, track down kidnappers and recover stolen vehicles. Users can search the database by license plate, partial license plate, date or time, year or model of car, or by address where a crime occurred, which can show police which vehicles were in the area, the companys website says.The EFF has a more skeptical view of the data-collection practice and said its disturbing that millions of people who are not suspected of a crime can be tracked with license plate photos.ALPR data can paint an intimate portrait of a drivers life, EFFs website says. ALPR technology can be used to target drivers who visit sensitive places such as health centers, immigration clinics, gun shops, union halls, protests or centers of religious worship.Since June 2016, when the county started using ALPR data, investigators discovered fraud had occurred in about 13,000 of the 35,412 fraud referrals they investigated, or about 37 percent of the time, the DHA said. Welfare fraud includes activities like failing to report income and claiming care for a child who does not actually live with the benefits recipient, the DHA said.Twenty-two welfare fraud investigators and investigative assistants have accessed ALPR data a total of 1,110 times in that two-year period, Edwards said, meaning they use ALPR data about 2.5 percent of the time.It doesnt appear to be overused, Edwards said. I think we use it very judiciously and only when needed to investigate fraud.But Mike Herald, a director with the Western Center on Law and Poverty , said accessing the license plate recognition database is just another example of the county being overly aggressive about pursuing relatively minor fraud cases.The use of these really invasive tools ... really bothers me, because were really talking about small amounts of money and people who in the main are not actually committing fraud, Herald said.Herald said the county is overblowing the significance of welfare fraud.I think were only picking on a group of people who are extremely poor and they want to create a perception with the public that there is a real big fraud problem with welfare programs, he said.Edwards said DHA pays about $5,000 each year to access the data, which Vigilant Solutions sells to law enforcement and investigatory agencies around the country. Company representatives would not provide details about how data is collected or sold, but The Atlantic reported in 2016 that Vigilant Solutions had stored about 2.2 billion photos of license plates at the time, and photographs about 80 million per month.The EFF, which examined the use of ALPR data by the county over a two-year period, has been collecting mandated privacy and use policies for agencies in California that rely on license plate data. It says DHA did not have one in place.EFF investigator Dave Maass said his interaction with the department over its policy was one of the more bizarre things hes experienced. Because he couldnt find a policy on DHAs website, he filed a public records request with the county.Instead of telling me, Hey, we dont have a policy, they generated a policy really quickly and then gave it to me as if it had existed, Maass said. It was only when I called back again and said, Hey did this exist (prior to our request), they said, No, we didnt know until you submitted a public records request.Edwards said her department was unaware it was required by Senate Bill 34 , which took effect at the beginning of 2016, to create a privacy and usage policy that respected peoples privacy and civil liberties. She said as soon as EFF told her department about the violation, DHA quickly created a policy and posted it on its website , in accordance with state law.Edwards said DHA was already following other parts of the law, including a justification for each use of ALPR data.Each time a criminal investigator accesses the information, they ... must document the reason why the data is being requested from the system, she said. The department was not conducting periodic audits of the documentation to ensure that investigators are using the data the way they claim, which is also required by law. But Edwards says internal audits are starting this week, and will occur every two months.We will be doing a random sampling of times (ALPR data) has been used in the past, in order to confirm that it hasnt been used inappropriately, she said. If we find as a result of our review that it was used inappropriately, disciplinary action could be taken.DHAs policy does not specify what an appropriate use is beyond generally describing it as a legitimate law enforcement purpose.Maass thinks the department should stop using ALPR data altogether, at least for now.They should definitely halt it immediately and do an investigation, he said.Without frequent audits and an investigation into each of the departments past uses of ALPR data, Maass said, theres no way to know what fraud investigators were searching for.They could be doing anything from investigating a major fraud case to spying on their ex-spouses, he said. Were they looking up people in Texas, people on the other side of the country? We just dont know.
(TNS)  LOS ANGELES  Theyve been crammed into toilets, tossed off balconies and set on fire. Theyve even been adorned with dangling bags of dog droppings.As California cities from Santa Monica to Beverly Hills struggle to control a rapid proliferation of electric pay-per-mile scooters, some residents are taking matters into their own hands and waging a guerrilla war against the devices. These vandals are destroying or desecrating the vehicles in disturbingly imaginative ways, and celebrating their illegal deeds on social media  in full view of authorities and the public.They throw them everywhere: in the ocean, in the sand, in the trash can, said Robert Johnson Bey, a Venice Beach maintenance worker who regularly comes across scooter parts on the Venice Beach boardwalk, Speedway and adjoining alleys.Sunday I was finding kickstands everywhere, Bey said. Looked like they were snapped off.The vandalism echoes a rash of pellet-gun attacks on so-called Google buses in the Bay Area and appears to be motivated in part by resentment over the increasing presence of tech corporations along the Southern California coast  what is now dubbed Silicon Beach.But unlike the attacks on buses that ferry workers to their Google and Apple offices, the scooter destruction has elicited little sympathy or outrage  to say nothing of criminal investigations. The Los Angeles Police Departments Pacific Division has received just one report of scooter vandalism that resulted in an arrest, but the case was rejected by the prosecutor. The Santa Monica Police Department said it hasnt received any such reports.Lt. Michael Soliman, who supervises the LAPD Pacific Divisions Venice Beach detail, said hes aware of some vandalism  his team has seen scooters left in a pile 10 feet high. But because people arent reporting such incidents, its not something officers are responding to, he said.If we have to prioritize the allocation of our time and resources, first and foremost were going to prioritize the preservation of life, Soliman said. Protection of property comes second.Hailed as a cheap, clean-energy solution to urban gridlock when they first arrived in Los Angeles a year ago, Bird and Lime scooters now find themselves on the receiving end of a public and bureaucratic backlash  especially on the Westside, where theyve established a buzzing omnipresence.In Santa Monica, where Bird is headquartered, City Council members voted to cap the number of scooters on city streets while officials craft longer-term regulations. Beverly Hills officials ordered them banned for six months. Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Koretz asked officials last week to take all available measures to outlaw the scooters within the city.While most tech entrepreneurs expect some criticism and calls for regulation when they introduce new and potentially disruptive products, they dont necessarily anticipate the outright destruction of their property. They also dont expect to see such carnage celebrated and encouraged on social media.Yet, mayhem directed at dockless scooters is the order of the day on Instagrams Bird Graveyard, whose contributors relish publishing photos and videos of scooters that have been set aflame, tossed into canals, smeared with feces and snapped into pieces. The account has more than 24,000 followers.One moderator, a Westsider who declined to give his name for fear of prosecution, said that more than 100 videos and photos of scooters being defaced are submitted to the account each day. Only the most outrageous are published.Bird representatives were reluctant to discuss the phenomenon but urged people to report incidents of defacement.We do not support the vandalism or destruction of any property and are disappointed when it takes place, Bird spokeswoman Mackenzie Long said in a written statement. Nor do we support the encouragement, celebration or normalization of this behavior.Its unclear exactly how many scooters are being sabotaged on local streets. Bird declined to say how many of its scooters have been maimed, while a representative from Lime, based in San Mateo, said less than 1 percent of its scooters have been vandalized nationwide.Natanel Edelson, a mechanic who does repairs for Bird in Venice, said he sees a lot of scooters with cut power cables and smashed brakes. He only fixes a few each week, but said his friends who are also Bird mechanics  all independent contractors making around $15 per repair  fix dozens of scooters a day.When Hassan Galedary of Culver City sees a Bird scooter, a knot in his stomach begins to twist and his teeth clench, he said. The 32-year-old film producer describes the sensation as one of violent bitterness.I hate Birds more than anyone, Galedary said. They suck. People who ride them suck.He loathes the scooters so much that he waged what he calls an insurgency against them, tossing the contraptions into trash cans on Abbott Kinney Boulevard and down the Culver City Stairs. He even designed a T-shirt of a chick perched on a scooter being shot in the head. Many of his anti-scooter antics have been featured on the Bird Graveyard account.So where does all this scooter scorn come from?Galedary grew up on the Westside and said he hates how kids there are paying to ride scooters instead of honoring the local traditions of surfing and skateboarding. He hates the traffic accidents they cause  Bird on Bird, Bird on person and Bird on car  and he hates how they can be left anywhere for pedestrians to trip over.The city is already losing so much culture due to gentrification, Galedary said.While not everyone is as angry as Galedary, others agree that the sudden influx of scooters has changed the character of the Westside.The scooters abrupt arrival in Venice last fall was viewed by some as another example of how the tech industry was encroaching on the community without asking for permission. It didnt help that Bird founder Travis VanderZanden  a former executive at Uber and Lyft  said the company wouldnt be happy until there are more Birds than cars.Its a very urban environment, said architect Kelly Boston, a longtime Venice resident. Were all close together, we need to be respectful of one anothers space, and these make it harder.The scooters might be affordable, residents say, but theyre left all over the place, blocking sidewalks and tripping up pedestrians. They complain that scooter pilots zip through and around traffic without obeying traffic signals.Tye Donaldson, a Venice barista, has a complicated relationship with the scooters. The 20-year-old loves riding them  theyre super fun, she said  and she appreciates them as an environmentally friendly mode of transportation. Theyre also affordable: It costs $1 to unlock a scooter and 15 cents per minute to ride one.But Donaldson began to reassess their place in the community after she was hit by a scooter not once, but twice in the same month while running on the Venice Beach bike path.The first time, the teenage rider was driving slowly; Donaldson described the collision as a forceful nudge. She avoided injury by flopping over into the sand. The second time, the scooter was going full speed, about 15 mph. She heard it approaching her from behind and whipped around in time to grab the scooters stem to keep it from slamming into her.I was holding on to this girls scooter with all my might, Donaldson said. I felt like I was in The Matrix.Donaldson thinks speed restrictions should be placed on the scooters in heavily trafficked areas. But she doesnt want them to disappear.Of course, there are still those who take a harder stance.Manny Torres, a postal carrier in Venice, pushed his mail cart down Innes Place recently and recounted several occasions in which he nearly hit scooters head-on with his truck. The scooter riders, he said, were swerving haphazardly down the narrow side streets of Venice all too often.I wouldnt mind if they just went away, he said.Bird declined to say how much its scooters are worth, saying that information was proprietary. However, similar motorized scooters on Amazon can sell for more than $1,000.Under the law, vandalism of property worth more than $400 is a felony. Yet the risk of arrest appears to offer little deterrent to those bent on scooter destruction.Dan Ariely, professor of psychology and behavioral economics at Duke University, said contempt for technology may offer a partial explanation for why people feel inclined to vandalize the scooters, despite the risk. But a likelier reason, Ariely said, is that destroying a scooter owned by a corporation probably doesnt evoke much guilt within the vandal.Think about Uber, Ariely said. Even if youre upset with the company, you understand that destroying the car is going to cost the driver a lot of money.But if you wreck a Bird, no one in particular is getting hurt, he said.Ariely also compared scooter vandalism to road rage. When something upsets us, he said, it is natural to want to seek revenge, to teach the offending entity a lesson.The presence of images on social media of scooters being damaged may also lead some to view their urge to destroy as reasonable, Ariely said. If people get a sense that scooter vandalism is rampant, just as speeding on the highway is rampant, vandals can still consider themselves good people, he said.But oddly enough, it was rampant scooter vandalism that gradually led Galedary, the Culver City Bird cynic, to a change of heart. He said he stopped messing with scooters some months ago when he began feeling increasingly guilty.As much as I hate them, he said, I cant put bad energy into the world. I dont even kick them over anymore.But Galedary hasnt exactly quit his Bird high jinks cold-turkey. He recently placed a scooter in the middle of Abbot Kinney Boulevard, triggering an immediate snarl of honking cars.He said he wanted people to associate Bird scooters with the quintessential symbol of Los Angeles discontent: a traffic jam.
(TNS)  For the past few years, Apple has scaled back Project Titan, the codename for its secretive self-driving car research unit, with personnel shuffles and a new narrower focus on autonomous-driving software.But does Apples newest high-profile hire suggest otherwise?Apple this week re-hired Doug Field, Teslas senior vice president of engineering, back to Project Titan, originally reported by longtime Apple watcher and blogger John Gruber on Thursday . Before leaving for Tesla in 2013, Field was Apples vice president of Mac hardware engineering.Field worked in Tesla as head of Model 3 production until this March, when CEO Elon Musk took over the production and reassigned Field to the vehicle design team. Two months later in May, Field went on a leave of absence. In July, Field officially left the company At Apple, Field will re-join with Bob Mansfield, Apples former senior vice president of technologies, who was tapped in 2016 to run Project Titan. Under Mansfield, Project Titan saw a major downsizing of personnel and a new focus on software and partnering with existing car manufacturers such as Lexus rather than developing a whole new self-driving car.However, Fields return to the Cupertino tech giant may signal Apple have not fully given up on creating a self-driving car of its own, according to longtime Apple watcher and blogger John Gruber.I think its an interesting hire, primarily because it suggests to me that Apple still has an interest in making actual vehicles, despite reports that the company has scaled back the project to merely make autonomous systems for inclusion in vehicles made by other companies, wrote Gruber in a blog post on his website, Daring Fireball. That rumor never really made sense to me anyway  Apples modus operandi has always been to make the whole widget. Apple makes products, not components.In the past year, Apple seems to have revamped Project Titan. By July, Apple acquired 66 self-driving car permits in California, more than Tesla, according to Apple-focused blog MacRumors . In contrast, in last April, Apple only had three permits.Project Titan made news last month after former Apple engineer Xiaolang Zhang was arrested by the FBI in San Jose Airport and was accused of stealing the companys trade secrets related to its self-driving cars.
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Haiti - FLASH : D-2, Baccalaureate extraordinary session, final preparations and instructions





On Friday, a working meeting was held between Meniol Jeune, the Director General of the Ministry of National Education, members of the State Examination Commission and the Departmental Directors of Education (DDE) around the final preparations for the extraordinary session of the baccalaureate planned from 13 to 17 August 2018 with a leave on 15 August.



The instructions, the logistics, the security, the arrangements for the passing of the tests and the correction of the copies, are some essential points addressed during this meeting. The Director Jeune insisted on the need to maintain mobilization and vigilance for the good conduct of the official tests of the extraordinary session.



The objective is to complete all operations and publish the results of these exams before the start of the school year, scheduled for September 3rd.



According to the figures of the National Bureau of State Examinations (BUNEXE) 38,319 candidates are ajourned, half of them come from the Department of the West.



According to the work plan adopted by the central authorities, the processing of the candidates' copies is due to start on Tuesday 14 August and the correction operations on 16 August.



Find your exam center and your online baccalaureate results :

In addition, the Ministry has resolved various computer problems, the candidates ajourned in the West can now check their examination center for the special session from August 13 to 17, 2018 on

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25202-haiti-flash-adjourned-find-your-exam-center-+-all-bac-results.html



Reminder of instructions to candidates :



Any candidate caught in the act of fraud or having misconduct will have their copy canceled and will be asked to leave the room after a report has been drawn up. The offending candidate will not be able to participate in the exams for a minimum of two years.



No candidate may enter a test center with a weapon, regardless of its nature.



Wearing the uniform is mandatory during the examination.



The use of programmable calculators and any other communication device is strictly forbidden.



Cell phones are strictly forbidden in the exam centers, except for those responsible, if necessary. Thus, the use of the telephone is forbidden for supervisors.



Any candidate caught in the act of fraud with a cell phone will be eliminated.



Anyone caught red-handed in the vicinity and / or in the examination centers will be arrested and handed over to the judicial authorities for legal action.



It is forbidden for the security agents of the examination centers to enter the examination rooms.



No one can have access to an examination center without a special authorization from the central authorities (Minister, Directorate General, BUNEXE, Departmental Directorate).



HL/ S/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Social : Passing of Iphares Blain, Haitian icon of scholarly music





Guyler C. Delva, the resigning Minister of Culture welcomes the departure and memory of former Colonel Iphares Blain (born in Port-au-Prince on March 22, 1926), a great Haitian icon of the national and international scholarly music whose the passing away in Port-au-Prince, occurred on August 2, 2018, at the age of 96 years.



Minister Delva bows to the remains of the Colonel-musician and thanks him with reverence for having dedicated his life to the service of the country as a soldier and, in particular, as Founder of the National Symphony Orchestra and the National Choir of Haiti. He was also the Founder and Conductor of the National Palace Fanfare.



"It is all sectors of the national life that join the Ministry to express their deepest sympathy to the family members of the missing Colonel, his brothers-in-arms and musicians and the whole Republic weeping.



Decorated by President Moise in June 2017, from the National Order of Honor and Merit to the rank of Officer https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21372-haiti-politics-moise-decorates-the-founder-of-the-fanfare-of-national-palace.html . "May the musical career and military discipline of Colonel-musician Iphares Blain, serve as examples to the Haitian youth and future generations."



Please note that Sunday, August 12, 2018, the National School of Arts (ENARTS) will pay tribute (from 4:00 to 8:00 pm) to the memory of Iphares Blain and that of Jean Rodolphe Doirin https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25056-haiti-social-message-of-sympathy-from-enarts.html



Learn more about Iphares Blain's musical career :

Upon his return from 4 years of music study in France, in 1960, he was professor of wind instruments at the National Conservatory of Music and Dramatic Arts. He has trained several generations of musicians both at the level of the orchestra of the National Palace and in the private. He was professor of Music at the National School of Arts of which he was one of founding fathers. Last year again, he taught harmony and counterpoint in this institution.



Composer emeritus, he composed seven masses (in Latin, French and Creole) including his famous Requiem, Mass in D minor which was performed for the first time at the cathedral of Port-au-Prince during the commemoration of the first year of the death of the late President Francois Duvalier in 1972.



He also composed several military marches, meringues, and an opera in Creole. The latter was a first in the history of Haitian and universal music.



It should be noted that during the 60s, 70s and 80s, Colonel Iphares Blain embodies the pride of the Haitian scholarly music. He has been considered as the almost absolute reference in music especially in terms of composition.



HL/ SL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - FLASH : Back to School, assistance measures and promises of President Moise





This week, at the presentation ceremony at the National Palace, the appointed Prime Minister, Jean Henry Ceant, President Jovenel Moise took the opportunity to reassure parents and students by announcing a series of assistance measures for back to school, scheduled for September 3rd.



"Subsidies will be provided to parents of kindergarten children, from working-popular neighborhoods and to community and presbyteral schools," said President Moise adding, "to meet the challenges of the new school year, my administration will provide assistance to State employees. It will be 100% for a monthly salary of 25,000 gourdes, less, 50% for a salary of 25,001 to 46,000 gourdes and 25% for wages over 46,000 gourdes."



Moise recalled that the State had already ordered 100,000 school uniforms, 220,000 school kits, 12,000 benches and that it would subsidize 1.5 million schoolbooks and buy 400,000 (endowments (dotation)) for the national schools, ensuring that instructions had been given to the resigning Minister of National Education, Cadet, to make available before September 3 all these subsidized and endowed school books



The Head of State also promised that "The school canteen program will be strengthened. He will integrate more children."



In addition, Meniol Jeune, the Director General of the Ministry of National Education, said on the radio of the capital, that more than 50 million gourdes were available in the budget of his Ministry to subsidize some parents who according to their file, could receive a lump sum up to 20,000 Gourdes as accompaniment at the start of school.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25183-haiti-politic-presentation-of-the-prime-minister-appointed-to-the-national-palace.html



S/ HaitiLibre


















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Vietnamese Ambassador to India Ton Sinh Thanh (Photo: VNA)



The ambassador granted an interview to the media on the Vietnam-India ties on the occasion of the 30th Diplomatic Conference to be held from August 12th to 17th in Hanoi.

Ambassador Thanh said there are four outstanding points in the two countries relationship during the past two years.



First of all, the bilateral political relationship and mutual trust have been strengthened thanks to the constant exchange of high-level visits. During the visits, the two countries have signed 17 more agreements on cooperation across the fields.



Second, defence-security cooperation has reached the highest level ever, with its scope covering all military forces and the content expanded beyond information sharing and training to the production of military equipment. The two countries also conducted their first joint naval exercise. India has become the most important defence cooperative partner of Vietnam, the ambassador said.



Third, economic partnership has thrived with two-way trade registering an impressive growth of more than 40 percent, from USD5.6 billion in 2016 to USD7.6 billion in 2017. Ambassador Thanh cited statistics of Vietnam customs that showed bilateral trade turnover touched USD5.44 billion in the first half of the year, rising 48 percent on a yearly basis. On this pace, the figure for 2018 is expected to surpass USD10 billion.



Fourth, cultural diplomacy is booming on the occasion of the 45th anniversary of diplomatic ties and 10th year of the strategic partnership between the two countries. Besides such activities as the Vietnam Culture Days, photo and painting exhibitions, film festival and art performances, a Vietnam Book space was set up in India for the first time ever, and a Vietnam Study Centre was established in New Delhi.



Ambassador Thanh underlined the role of the Vietnamese Embassy in India in bolstering bilateral relations across the fields.



He said the Embassy has organized many trade, investment and tourism promotion events to introduce Vietnam to potential Indian partners, while engaging in addressing problems hindering bilateral economic cooperation.



Thanh noted that the embassy has played a part in the opening of a direct flight service between Ho Chi Minh city and New Delhi by Vietjet Air, which is scheduled for October this year. An Indian airline, the Indigo also has a plan to open a direct route to Vietnam next year.



The Ambassador said the Vietnam - India relationship has a firm foundation, which is the mutual trust based on shared strategic interests and great potential for cooperation. He expressed the belief that there is a bright prospect ahead for the bilateral partnership./.
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Japanese doctors perform a cardiac surgery for a patient of the Military Hospital 175 (Source: www.qdnd.vn)



The two sides shared experience in medical cooperation, along with training and advanced technology transfer to treat communicable diseases, orthopaedics, cardiology, cancer and more.

The Japanese delegation lauded the efforts of the Military Hospital 175 in medical check and treatment. It also praised the hospitals investment in scientific research and new medical technology, pledging to strengthen cooperation activities in the future.

After the meeting, the visiting doctors performed a cardiac surgery on a patient of the hospital./.
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iciHaiti - Justice : Project to take care of 200 minor children in pre-trial detention





On Thursday, the Mobile Institute for Democratic Education (IMED) in partnership with the United Nations Mission for the Support of Justice in Haiti (Minujusth) launched a project to reduce the prolonged preventive detention of children in conflict with the law and facilitate the care of 200 juveniles in pre-trial detention at the Rehabilitation Center for Minors in Conflict with the Law (CERMICOL) and at the prison of Port-au-Prince.



Kettly Julien, a member of the IMED, said that this program, funded by the UN Mission, will cost a little more than 12 million Gourdes (12,387,950), and will initially be concentrated in the metropolitan area for 12 months before to be deployed in provincial cities. Moreover, he deplores the fact that minors, as soon as they reach the age of 16-17, are transferred to the national penitentiary without a lawyer, nor to aid agencies that can take care of them.



TB/ iciHaiti






















iciHaiti - Politic : The Committee of the States General meets artists





This week, the Technical Secretariat of Organization of the Sectoral General States of the Nation (EGSN), accompanied by the members of the Steering Committee, met with artists evolving in various fields (painting, fashion, architecture) including the famous Haitian painter Levoy Exil, who has just celebrated his 45-year career, the musician and composer Jean Jean-Pierre and the model maker Maelle David and several painters of the Mouvement Saint-Soleil.



It was a preparatory meeting that allowed to share with these artists information about the conduct of the EGSN convened by the Head of State.



During this meeting, the artists discussed: copyright issues, the lack of social security and recreation centers, and the lack of guidance from the state. They pleaded, among other things, for the creation of a national museum of the arts, a bank of artistic works and a public square in memory of Haitian artists.



They also asked the state to put in place a social protection system to enable artists to access universal health coverage. In addition, they advised the country's decision makers to make carnival a growth sector of the Haitian economy as is the case in other countries.



This preparatory meeting is part of the second phase of the sectoral General Estates of the nation, which consists in raising awareness and mobilizing the various sectors concerned, preparing sectoral notebooks, collecting information on the state of play of the sectors, make a summary of the sectoral public policy documents.



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25208-haiti-politic-the-committee-of-the-states-general-meets-leaders-of-disadvantaged-neighborhoods.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-25113-haiti-politic-on-monday-the-steering-committee-and-the-technical-secretariat-fohe-committee-of-the-sectoral-general-states-consults-the-religious-sectors.html

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-24777-icihaiti-social-a-member-of-the-committee-of-the-states-general-victim-of-a-crime-of-passion.html

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-24548-icihaiti-estates-general-preparatory-meeting-with-actors-of-vocational-training.html

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-24428-icihaiti-estates-general-first-preparatory-forum.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-24358-haiti-news-zapping.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-24300-haiti-news-zapping.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-24160-haiti-flash-mgr-louis-kebreau-resigns-from-the-steering-committee-of-the-estates-general.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-24014-haiti-politic-meeting-of-the-steering-committee-of-the-sectoral-general-states-at-the-national-palace.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-23948-haiti-flash-sectoral-general-states-of-the-nation-installation-of-the-members-of-the-steering-committee.html



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Aerial photo taken on Aug. 9, 2018 shows a view of Tiegong Paozi Village in Duolun County, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. Under policy support of local government and joint efforts on afforestation by villagers, the eco-environment of the village has witnessed sound improvement. (Xinhua/Liu Lei)

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By LARRY SMITH

Abortion is one of the most contentious issues in America. My position on abortion is influenced by faith, compassion and practicality. As a Christian minister, I am unapologetically pro-life. While I choose not to spew hyperbolic, hateful and harmful rhetoric, my faith compels me to believe that life begins at conception. Yet, I believe that the 1973 Roe vs. Wade verdict should be maintained  in large part because overturning the law would not result in ending abortions. Rather, it would result in poor women (especially women of color) reverting to methods that were discarded long ago. Upper class women would continue to have access to doctors who perform abortions. In my opinion, abortion should be legal  and prayerfully  rare.

My purpose is not to convince people who are pro-choice to become pro-life. I am writing to highlight the fact that some conservatives (mostly Republicans) are suggesting that abortion is a racist plot against African-Americans. For example, proponents of this view point to Margaret Sanger, who founded the organization that became Planned Parenthood. They argue, inaccurately, that Sanger wanted to eliminate African-Americans via abortion. While Sanger was a eugenicist (i.e., one who believes that the human population can be improved via selective breeding), she did not hope to eliminate Black folk. Her supporters included W.E.B. DuBois, Mary McLeod Bethune and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

To be clear, Black women have higher abortion rates than women who are white or Hispanic despite the fact that African-Americans tend to be more socially and religiously conservative than white Americans. According to the Guttmacher Institute, as of 2017, white women ages 15-44 have abortions at a rate of 10 per 1,000 pregnancies, while Hispanic women have a rate of 18.1. By contrast, Black women have a rate of 27.1 abortions per 1,000 pregnancies  nearly triple that of white women. No matter where one is on the political spectrum, this should be cause for alarm.

Unfortunately, this is where political opportunism often creeps in. Some Republicans view these statistics as a chance to align themselves with religious African-Americans (frequently pastors) to condemn the racist act of abortion. The problem is that this usually is a thinly-veiled attempt to curry political favor with African-Americans, who overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. If our pro-life friends were genuinely interested in addressing racism, they would attend Black Lives Matter marches, be much more visible and vocal when African-Americans are subject to racist taunts and discrimination and support us in the aftermath of unarmed Blacks being shot by police officers. Sadly, they are generally silent in those instances. This lack of solidarity regarding actual racism is perhaps the most important reason that churches remain largely segregated.

And, before anyones head explodes regarding my comment about some Republicans, I want to be crystal clear that Democrats have taken the Black vote for granted for decades. As far as Im concerned, both major political parties have miserably failed African-Americans in recent decades. This leaves us in a tough spot. We can (1) vote for a party that usually writes us off; (2) vote for a party that cares a lot about our votes but not nearly enough about our interests and concerns; (3) vote for a third-party candidate who has virtually no chance of winning, especially in Indiana; or (4) stay home on Election Day. (For the record, I am hopeful that we always reject option 4.) I digress 

I am always in favor of partnering with people of all races and political stripes to decrease the abortion rate. This includes wrapping loving arms around women who are in difficult circumstances, ensuring access to birth control and educating girls and boys about the dangers of non-marital sex. However, I will not support efforts to address racism in only a narrow (often manufactured) sense.
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Actress Kangana Ranaut expressed her views about joining the political world while interacting with the media at the "In Conversation with the Mystic 2018" session along with Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev (right) on Aug. 8. (IANS photo)
Indian American actor/writer Vishaal Reddy has created, and stars in, Insomnia, a mini-series that explores the life of a queer Indian American book editor who secretly moonlights as an escort in New York City. (video screengrab)
Addressing the ceremony, Politburo member, Secretary of Party Central Committee (PCC) and Head of the PCCs Commission for Mass Mobilisation, Truong Thi Mai, who is also President of the VCFA, affirmed that the special friendship between Vietnam and Cuba is an invaluable asset that has been nurtured by generations of leaders and people of the two countries.

The World Festival of Youth and Students held in Cuba left a good impression on the young Vietnamese people who had the chance to visit the beautiful and hospitable country, she noted.

Emphasising that 2018 is the year with many important events in consolidating and strengthening the friendship between Vietnam and Cuba, Politburo member Truong Thi Mai suggested that the ministries and sectors of the two countries continue to promote the exchange of delegations and organise more cultural activities, contributing to the solidarity and close relationship between the two peoples.

At the ceremony, Politburo member Mai presented US$50,000 raised by former Vietnamese young participant at the 11th World Festival of Youth and Students to the Bac Ho (Uncle Ho) primary school in Cuba.

The 11th World Festival of Youth and Students took place from July 28 to August 5, 1978, in Havana, Cuba, with the participation of more than 20,000 delegates from 145 countries and territories worldwide, representing more than 2,000 youth and students' organisations around the world.
Clinton Foundation Tax Return Shows It's A Scam These figures are from an official copy of the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation for the tax year 2014. The copy of the tax return is from the National Center for Charitable Statistics website!



You can get the latest tax return on any charitable organization! (link below)



Total revenue (line 12)  .$177,804,612.00



Total grants to charity (line 13) .. $5,160,385.00 (thats less than 3%)



Total expenses of $91,281,145.00



expenses include: salaries (line 15).$34,838,106.00

fund raising fees (line 16a) .$850,803.00

other expenses (line 17) ..$50,431,851.00



They list 486 employees (line 5)!



It took 486 people who are paid $34.8 million and $91.3 million in fees and expenses, to give away $5.1 MILLION WHICH IS LESS THAN 3% OF TOTAL REVENUES!



Line 22 shows ending year net assets/ fund balances of $332,471,349.00 which is up $85,171,891 from last years tax return!



And they call this a CHARITY? You can access the entire return here: Link for Clinton Foundation Tax Return and here https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/311580204 Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter How Much Does the Clinton Foundation Really Donate to Charity?



The Clinton Foundation's 2014 tax return tells a different story than Hillary and Chelsea would like you to hear.



By Chana Roberts The Bill, Hillary, and Chelsea Clinton Foundation's tax returns from the year 2014 show that despite the organization's classification as a charitable organization, in fact most of the profits went to employees, and only 3% were donated to the various causes the foundation claims to support. As a charitable organization, the Clinton Foundation's tax returns are publicly available from the National Center for Charitable Statistics' website. In the 65-page 2014 form, the organization's total revenue was listed as $177, 804,612.00, with the total grants to charity amounting to $5,160,385.00. Meanwhile, the organization's expenses amounted to $91,281,145.00. This number included salaries for 486 employees ($34,838,106.00), fundraising fees ($850,803.00), and other expenses ($50,431,851.00). The Clinton Foundation's 2014 net assets/ fund balances totaled $332,471,349.00, up $85,171,891 from 2013's tax return. In November 2016, Hillary Clinton admitted to receiving $1 million from Qatar. This article was originally published by "Arutz Sheva " - The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. ====== Note To ICH Community We are currently searching for a new comment system as we have run out of options on how to prevent the constant bickering and attacks by troll's, whose intention is to paint our website and newsletter as, anti-Semitic, anti-American, pro-Russian fake news. We can no longer afford to invest hours of our time each day, trying to have people behave in a manner befitting those who say they are concerned for others, while offering abuse and hostility to other ICH community members. When we have found such a comment system we will restore the comment function. We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. This would be a better use of out time than trying to prevent abuse of our comment system. Thank you for your continued support. Peace and joy
Home Search ICH Iran Sanctions Are an Act of War By Will Porter August 10, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - Having unilaterally stepped out of the Iran nuclear deal in May, the Trump administration reimposed sanctions on the Islamic Republic earlier this week, part of another so-called maximum pressure campaign.



The new sanctions will target Irans purchases of U.S. dollars, precious metals trading, industrial software, Irans coal industry and its automotive sector. Sanctions on Irans oil industry are also set to begin in November.



All of the above is sure to inflict pain on Irans civilian population.



Indeed, that is a common intended effect of sanctions: to impose suffering on civilians in hopes they will pressure their own government to comply with American demands. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Not only does such an economic offensive amount to an act of war, the idea that sanctions will spur citizens to action is not borne out in practice, especially in Iran. The more likely result is to inspire a siege mentality in the populacewho instead view their leaders as their protectorswhile also reinforcing hatred for the West.



Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi put it well in a recent press conference: [S]anctions destroy societies and do not weaken regimes.



Speaking of Iraq, consider the sanctions imposed on that country under the Clinton administration. Though they were worth it in the well-known words of an American diplomat, they also killed hundreds of thousands of people. Those sanctions didnt just fail to provoke Iraqis to overthrow Saddam Hussein, they inspired hatred for the United States the world over (including in the mind of Osama bin Laden, who used this stain on Americas record as a propaganda device).



Using sanctions to bully Irans citizenry, then, is not a viable strategy.



The new round of sanctions is also unlikely to accomplish the administrations more immediate goal: bringing Iran back to the negotiation table.



Trumps unilateral withdrawal from the JCPOA can only be taken by Iranian leadership as the deepest insult, the greatest sign of bad faith. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, long a major backer of the deal, has drawn a hard line in the sand, stating that Iran will not negotiate as long as the US continues to violate the terms of the deal reached in 2015.



Resistance from Abroad



A handful of world powers, among them US allies, are chafing against the renewed sanctions. With the obvious exception of the US, the P5+1 states (France, UK, China, Russia, plus Germany) insist theyre sticking to the nuclear deal. Compliance with American sanctions in this case would amount to a violation of the deal on the behalf of the other signatories, as the normalization of trade relations is one of the JCPOAs terms.



China, Irans biggest oil customer, recently reaffirmed its position that it would not go along with the sanctions, a major damper on Washingtons aims. Because theres not a huge amount of US-Iranian business to cut off in the first place, to achieve the intended effect the US must pressure other countries into halting trade.



The EU is pushing back, too. In May, soon after Trump pulled out of the JCPOA, the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Britain and Iran were already working on what they called a nine-point plan to keep Iran in from the cold.



EU officials are also working to update a statute known as the Blocking Regulation, which was initially drawn up in 1996 to prohibit institutions under EU jurisdiction from complying with American secondary sanctions related to Cuba.



Primary sanctions include the freezing of assets, restrictions on US citizens from doing business with the sanctioned entity, or outright trade embargoes. Secondary sanctions, on the other hand, involve pressuring allies to stop doing business with the country in question. Companies that fail to go along are cut off from the American financial system.



For European businesses, that threat could prove more compelling than the Blocking Regulation itself. Companies may simply avoid the regulation and comply with the sanctions for the sake of staying in the good graces of US finance.



Earlier this week President Trump promised worldwide secondary sanctions for anybody who continued dealings with Iran, which puts European companies between a rock and a hard place.



Several large European firms have already announced theyd be getting out of Iran due to the sanctions:



A French shipping company (CMA CGM), two French car manufacturers (PSA and Renault), and a French oil company (Total) have ceased operations and investments in Iran. The same goes for a large Danish shipping firm (Maersk) and a German auto company (Daimler).



SWIFT



Of particular importance for Iranian trade relations is the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, an institution that facilitates financial transactions across borders between several different countries.



SWIFT is based in Belgium and resides under the jurisdiction of the EU. Going forward, its crucial that the EU keeps that organization from complying with American demands, which would cripple Irans ability to do business internationally.



There is a possibility that the Trump administration could impose sanctions on SWIFT itself, but the costs of interfering with such a significant institution may be prohibitively high.



Given the staunch resistance offered by the P5+1 nations, as well as a few unlikely dissidents, it remains to be seen what kind of teeth the new round of sanctions will have. Beyond dispute, however, are very real tensions growing between the US and its imperial satellites in Europe, a welcomed silver lining in an otherwise dismal situation. This article was originally published by "The Libertarian Institute " - The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. ====== Here We Go Again - Killing More Civillians Note To ICH Community We are currently searching for a new comment system as we have run out of options on how to prevent the constant bickering and attacks by troll's, whose intention is to paint our website and newsletter as, anti-Semitic, anti-American, pro-Russian fake news. We can no longer afford to invest hours of our time each day, trying to have people behave in a manner befitting those who say they are concerned for others, while offering abuse and hostility to other ICH community members. When we have found such a comment system we will restore the comment function. We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. This would be a better use of out time than trying to prevent abuse of our comment system. Thank you for your continued support. Peace and joy Search Information Clearing House === Click Here To Support Information Clearing House Your support has kept ICH free on the Web since 2002. Click for Spanish , German , Dutch , Danish , French , translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load.
Home Search ICH Argentina at a Crossroads



By Alberto L. Zuppi and Cesar Chelala



August 10, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - A new and widespread corruption scandal implicating businessmen with former Kirchner administration officials, may have unforeseen consequences for Argentinas future as a democracy. The recent conviction of former Vice President Amado Boudou to 5 years and 10 months in prison for crimes committed while in office may still offer some hope for the country.



Corruption is certainly not new to Argentina. It has been chiseled into Argentinas political landscape since the beginning of the XXth century, and acquired pandemic intensity after General Juan Domingo Perons governments. Adolfo Perez Esquivel, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, spoke of Argentinas society pervasive moral illness.



Cheating has been the unspoken public policy in school, on taxes, and when paying bills and fines. This social conduct has soiled the roots of the countrys political system, and produced its most spectacular finale with the Kirchners government. Nestor Kirchner was Argentinas President from 2003 to 2007 and Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner from 2007 to 2015. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Nobody should be surprised, however. The germs were there, spreading in the basement, rotting the structures, preparing the final collapse. How can anybody explain, otherwise, the bloodthirsty repression carried out by the military during the 1970s without considering its previous acceptance by civilian political circles? How is it possible that people were made to disappear in broad daylight by military tactical commandos, without legal complaints except for a few human rights groups?



How could it also be explained that the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) terrorist attack that killed 85 people in Buenos Aires in 1994 could occur, without considering the possible connivance by officials from former president Carlos Menems government? Or how could it also be explained the Alberto Nismans assassination? He was the Special Prosecutor in the AMIA case, and was assassinated the day before he was to testify in Congress denouncing the Kirchner administrations corrupted agreement with Iran. In that agreement, Iran and Argentina reportedly exchanged oil for immunity for Iranians suspected to have been involved in the AMIA attack.



Those disparate events were simply the consequence of corruption at all levels of Argentinas society. The policy of decade-long complicity between politicians and judges not only allowed these events to remain unpunished, but condoned bribery as a channel for resolving any investigation of a corrupted system.



In the last scandal, it became known that the driver of one of the main officials in the Kirchner government filled eight notebooks with detailed explanations of meetings, people involved, places and bags with money. The notebooks implicated not only major members of government but several wealthy businessmen.



Is there any chance for Argentina to eliminate the chronic illness of corruption in its social life? After all, it seems easier to give up any resistance than to begin a disproportionate fight against a disease that has accomplices at all levels of society. However, as happens when we are confronted with injustice, we may either give up any hope or maintain our resistance, believing that we deserve a better future.



Italy fought with success a similar corrupted system with Mani Pulite (clean hands.) This was an Italian nationwide judicial investigation into political corruption that led to the demise of the so-called First Republic. Several politicians and businessmen committed suicide after their crimes were uncovered. Brazil has recently produced Lava Jato, a similar approach, which shows a chance to get rid of widespread corruption in that country.



It is now up to Argentine judges to use this opportunity to put a final stop to Argentinas endemic corruption. Opportunities like this one are rare, when there is a desperate voice of the population demanding justice.



Alberto L. Zuppi, is an Argentine attorney and professor of law, author of "AMIA: An Ongoing Crime", Red Penguin, 2018. Cesar Chelala is a co-winner of an Overseas Press Club of America award for Missing or Dead in Argentina: The Desperate Search for Thousands of Abducted Victims. The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. ====== Note To ICH Community We are currently searching for a new comment system as we have run out of options on how to prevent the constant bickering and attacks by troll's, whose intention is to paint our website and newsletter as, anti-Semitic, anti-American, pro-Russian fake news. We can no longer afford to invest hours of our time each day, trying to have people behave in a manner befitting those who say they are concerned for others, while offering abuse and hostility to other ICH community members. When we have found such a comment system we will restore the comment function. We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. This would be a better use of out time than trying to prevent abuse of our comment system. Thank you for your continued support. Peace and joy Search Information Clearing House === Click Here To Support Information Clearing House Your support has kept ICH free on the Web since 2002. Click for Spanish , German , Dutch , Danish , French , translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load.
Watch: Reporters Slam US For Refusing To Condemn Saudi Killing Children On School Bus By Tyler Durden August 10, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - Just as expected, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert refused to condemn Thursday's coalition airstrike on a school bus in Yemen, which left as many as 50 people dead and 63 injured  the vast majority of which were children. As we reported previously, Saudi-US/UK coalition jets scored a direct hit on the school bus packed with children as it drove through a crowded market place in Dahyan, in the rebel-held north of Yemen. During the State Department's daily press briefing, Nauert was asked point blank by journalists, starting with the AP's Matt Lee, whether the US condemns the attack. The whole testy exchange on Yemen is worth watching, especially as Matt Lee lays out the case for direct US complicity in the attack on the bus packed with children from the start of his question: "The Saudis obviously are the ones who conducted this, but they do that with weapons supplied by the U.S., with training supplied by the U.S., and with targeting information, targeting data, supplied by the U.S. How can something like this happen?" he said. Are You Tired Of The Lies And Non-Stop Propaganda? Get Your FREE Daily Newsletter Watch the State Department's response here: State Dept's Heather Nauert is not willing to condemn the Saudis for their airstrike on a schoolbus earlier today that killed over 50 children in Northern #Yemen. She wants to wait for the Saudis to conduct their own investigation into the attack. Shameful. pic.twitter.com/ixo57tzfRk  Walid (@walid970721) August 9, 2018 Unbelievably, Nauert tried to obfuscate the issue by simply saying "I cant confirm all the details because we are not there on the ground." Not only did Nauert refuse to say the State Department condemned the attack, but wouldn't so much as agree to simply call for an independent investigation into the incident (she called only for a Saudi-led inquiry). Dozens are dead after an airstrike hit a school bus carrying children in northern Yemen, humanitarian group says https://t.co/zIVYgpm5eu pic.twitter.com/iWCfTUZBNN  CNN Breaking News (@cnnbrk) August 9, 2018 Nauert drew random incredulous expressions of laughter from the press pool by the end of the segment on Yemen when she was caught struggling to acknowledge the long established fact that the US supplies "a tremendous amount of weaponry and the data for targeting to the Saudis" while simultaneously touting that Washington provides "a tremendous amount of humanitarian assistance." This section of the exchange played out as follows: MS NAUERT: Look, we provide a tremendous amount of humanitarian assistance in Yemen to try to support civilians in Yemen and try to mitigate against the devastation thats taken place there in that country. I dont have anything more for you on that. QUESTION: But you also supply a tremendous amount of weaponry and the data for targeting to the Saudis. MS NAUERT: Well, then  sorry. QUESTION: Right? No? QUESTION: No. QUESTION: Am I wrong? Is that wrong? QUESTION: Thats not wrong. MS NAUERT: Sorry, these ladies over here are laughing. On that I would refer you to the Department of Defense that is involved with that, but as you know, Saudi Arabia is an important strategic partner in the region to the United States. Meanwhile as Al Masdar News reports, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is calling for an independent and prompt investigation into the deadly Saudi-led coalition airstrike that hit the bus carrying children, United Nations deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said in a press release. The Secretary-General condemns the air strike today by the coalition forces in Saada, which hit a busy market area in Majz District, and impacted a bus carrying children from a summer camp, Haq said on Thursday. He calls for an independent and prompt investigation into this incident. If a massacre of children on this scale was alleged of Russia or Assad, it would dominate US UK media for days. But as this is a real, verified #Yemen massacre by a US UK ally, and using US UK arms, its receiving almost no US UK front page coverage at allhttps://t.co/VlYON5tP2Z  Charles Shoebridge (@ShoebridgeC) August 9, 2018 According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), citing local officials, a total of 50 people died in the attack, while another 77 were injured. War crime: US-backed Saudi/UAE coalition kills at least 20 children and injures many more in airstrike on a *school bus* in Yemen's Saada province https://t.co/9iQ91Wugcq pic.twitter.com/C7d8HfeQav  Borzou Daragahi  (@borzou) August 9, 2018 Leader of the Yemens rebel Supreme Revolutionary Committee Mohammed Houthi on Thursday urged Russia, China and France to hold an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting over the attack of the Saudi-led coalition, local media reported. According to the Houthi-run Al Masirah TV, the committees leader said that the coalitions attack confirmed that the coalition rejects peace in the region. This article was originally published by " ZeroHedge " - The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Information Clearing House. ====== Another Proud Day For US Arms Industry and Shame For The Rest Of Us Exclusive video from the scene of the US-Saudi coalition bombing of a school bus in #Yemen.



Warning: Extremely Graphic Footage pic.twitter.com/iNkNLGCna8  MintPress News (@MintPressNews) August 10, 2018 Barf alert: Statement by Ambassador Haley on the Strike Against Civilians in Yemen : The death of innocent civilians in war, under any circumstance, to include their use as human shields, is unacceptable. Note To ICH Community We are currently searching for a new comment system as we have run out of options on how to prevent the constant bickering and attacks by troll's, whose intention is to paint our website and newsletter as, anti-Semitic, anti-American, pro-Russian fake news. We can no longer afford to invest hours of our time each day, trying to have people behave in a manner befitting those who say they are concerned for others, while offering abuse and hostility to other ICH community members. When we have found such a comment system we will restore the comment function. We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites. This would be a better use of out time than trying to prevent abuse of our comment system. Thank you for your continued support. Peace and joy
August 10, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - At a graduation ceremony for the US Naval War College (barf), US Secretary of Defense James Mattis asserted that Russian President Vladimir Putin aims to diminish the appeal of the western democratic model and attempts to undermine Americas moral authority, and that his actions are designed not to challenge our arms at this point but to undercut and compromise our belief in our ideals.

A casual glance at facts and history makes it instantly clear that the United States has no moral authority of any kind whatsoever, and is arguably the hub of the most pernicious and dangerous force ever assembled in human history. But the establishment Russia narrative really is that cartoonishly ridiculous: you really do have to believe that the US government is 100 percent pure good and the Russian government is 100 percent pure evil to prevent the whole narrative from falling to pieces. If you accept the idea that the exchange is anything close to 50/50, with Russia giving back more or less what its getting and simply protecting its own interests from the interests of geopolitical rivals, it no longer makes any sense to view Putin as a leader who poses a unique threat to the world. If you accept the idea that the west is actually being far more aggressive and antagonistic toward Russia than Russia is being toward the west, it gets even more laughable.

In order to believe that the US has anything resembling moral authority you have to shove your head so far into the sand you get lava burns, but that really is what is needed to keep western anti-Russia hysteria going. None of the things the Russian government has been accused of doing (let alone the very legitimate questions about whether or not they even did all of them) merit anything but an indifferent shrug when compared with the unforgivable evils that Americas unelected power establishment has been inflicting upon the world, so they need to weave a narrative about moral authority in order to give those accusations meaning and relevance. And, since the notion of America having moral authority is contradicted by all facts in evidence, that narrative is necessarily woven of threads of fantasy and denial.

Establishment anti-Russia hysteria is all narrative, no substance. Its sustained by the talking heads of plutocrat-owned western media making the same unanimous assertions over and over again in authoritative, confident-sounding tones of voice without presenting any evidence or engaging with the reality of what Russia or its rivals are actually doing. The only reason American liberals believe that Putin is a dangerous boogieman who has taken over their government, but dont believe for example that America is ruled by a baby-eating pedophile cabal, is because the Jake Tappers and Rachel Maddows have told them to believe one conspiracy theory and not the other. They could have employed the exact same strategy with any other wholly unsubstantiated conspiracy narrative and had just as much success.

In reality, Russia is nothing other than a rival power structure that the US-centralized empire wants to either collapse or absorb, but they cant just come right out and tell the public that theyre dangerously escalating tensions with a nuclear superpower because westerners live in an invisible empire ruled by insatiably greedy plutocrats, so they make up nonsense about Putin being some kind of omnipotent supervillain who has infiltrated the highest levels of US government and is trying to take over the world.

I think it's time we give Vladimir Putin his due. He is clearly the greatest intelligence agent -ever . He has engineered the unraveling of the western alliance, fidelity to democracy in the United States and the severing of the UK from the EU. It's a remarkable achievement  @SteveSchmidtSES

Of equal interest to the Defense Secretarys moral authority gibberish is his claim that Putins actions are designed not to challenge our arms at this point but to undercut and compromise our belief in our ideals.

I mean, like what? So Russia isnt challenging America militarily and isnt taking any actions to attempt to, but its trying to, what, hurt Americas feelings? All this new cold war hysteria and nuclear brinkmanship has basically been America acting like a bitchy high school drama queen because Russia is saying mean things about it behind its back? How does a guy named Mad Dog get to be such a thin-skinned little snowflake?

Im just playing. Actually, when Mattis says that the Russian government is trying to undercut and compromise our belief in our ideals, he is saying that Moscow is interrupting the lies that Americans are being told about their government by the plutocrat-owned media. As weve been discussing a lot recently, control of the narrative is absolutely essential for rulers to maintain their rule. When you hear establishment policy makers babbling about Russian propaganda and Putins attempts to undercut and compromise our belief in our ideals, all that they are saying is that the plutocrats who rule America need to be able to control the way Americans think and vote, and that the Russian government is making it a bit harder for them to do that.

More and more, the threads of the establishment narrative are ceasing to be unconsciously absorbed and are being increasingly consciously examined instead. This development has ultimately nothing to do with Russia and everything to do with our species moving out of its old relationship with mental narrative as it approaches evolve-or-die time in our challenging new world. I am greatly encouraged by what I am seeing.

Caitlin's articles are entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking her on Facebook, following her antics on Twitter, checking out her podcast, throwing some money into her hat on Patreon or Paypal, or buying her book Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers.
By Middle East Monitor

August 10, 2018 " Information Clearing House " - The BBC has once again come under sharp criticism over its coverage of violence perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinians. Critics called the BBC out over its bias after the broadcaster bowed to pressure from the Israeli Foreign Ministry and changed the headline of a news piece concerning Israeli air strikes on Gaza.

The BBC headline read: Israeli air strikes kill woman and baby for a news piece related to the killing of three Palestinians including a pregnant mother and toddler in Gaza on Wednesday night.

The headline attracted the attention of Israels Foreign Ministry and the Board of Deputies of British Jews, who is currently leading a bitter campaign against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn over a definition of anti-Semitism that conflates criticism of Israel with racism against Jews.

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Israels foreign ministry spokesman Emmanuel Nahshon shot the BBC down and demanded for the headline to be changed IMMEDIATELY:

.@BBCWorld this is a formal complaint by @IsraelMFA .This title is a deliberate misrepresentation of reality ( thats the polite equivalent of  this is a LIE, if you dont get it). Israelis were targeted by Hamas and IDF acts to protect them. Change it IMMEDIATELY!!! @IsraelMFA pic.twitter.com/pqjXuopXgO  Emmanuel Nahshon (@EmmanuelNahshon) August 9, 2018

The Board of Deputies joined the act, denouncing the BBC headline as appalling. They said that they had lodged a complaint and encouraged others to do the same.

A short while after the complaints the BBC completely changed the headline: Gaza air strikes kill woman and child after rockets hit Israel.

The dramatic change in headline caught the attention of social media users who were astonished by BBCs capitulation to the dictates of a foreign state.

British commentator Owen Jones tweeted:

Wow. The Israeli Foreign Ministry demanded the BBC change their headline  which said Israeli air strikes "kill pregnant women and baby"  and the BBC did as they were told. Astonishing. https://t.co/CPc7SWE2Cn  Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) August 9, 2018

Others pointed to the influence of the Israeli lobby in the UK citing the Al Jazeera documentary The Lobby, which exposed how the Israeli embassy was providing covert assistance to supposedly independent groups within the Labour Party, and led a campaign to remove not just Foreign Office Minister Sir Alan Duncan, but also Crispin Blunt MP, the chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee for their strong views on Israel. Many of these groups are now at the centre of the anti-Semitism row within the Labour Party.

Looks like the influence of a foreign power on our political landscape and media never went away, tweeted a social media user who also shared a video of Israeli embassy staff Shai Masot attempting to organise a takedown of British MPs sympathetic to the Palestinians and possibly hostile to the Israeli state.

Many responded with personal accounts to highlight the extent to which the BBC is bullied into taking a pro-Israel stance. A video clip of a famous study Bad News from Israel by the renowned Glasgow University Media Group resurfaced. Its author Greg Philo can be heard saying:

I spent time with BBC journalists and a senior producer said to me, We wait in fear for the phone call from the Israelis, referring to the trepidation felt by BBC editors when publishing negative stories about Israel.

It is unusual for the BBC to publish a story about Israeli aggression using headlines that doesnt make excuses. On this occasion the fact that the story appeared in BBC World perhaps explains why the headline may not have gone through the rigorous vetting that many suspect stories about Israel are subjected to.

A BBC spokesperson admitted that although the original headline was not factually incorrect, we updated it to add more context to the story.
Lawal Gumau, All Progressives Congress(APC) senatorial candidate for Bauchi South Bye-election has vowed to make President Muhammadu Buhari, a life president, if hes elected.

The aspiring senator made it clear, how he would sponsor a bill to amend the constitution to make this happen.

He said this at the close of his campaign in Bauchi. In his words;

>I, Lawal-Yahaya Gumau, want you to know that the mandate that will be given to me on Saturday is to go and protect Buharis interest in the senate, he noted.

This is the only mandate that I will be going to the senate with, having fulfilled every other mandate to the best of my ability while in the house of representatives for eight years.

By Gods grace, we will amend Nigerias constitution to allow Buhari to be president for the remaining years of his life. He will only cease to be president when God takes his life.

Obasanjo tried all his best for the constitution to be amended to allow him go for a third term, but God didnt approve of it because of its lack of sincerity. What is now needed in Nigeria is to protect Buharis interest and that is what we will do.

Nigerians have expressed their dissatisfaction at the politicians statement. They decried the breed of politicians that make it to the National Assembly, saying thats the reason the NASS is the way it is.

See some reactions below

"My only mission of going to the Senate is to make Buhari I life president" This was what came out of a supposed leader and law maker's mouth Get your PVC this coming week and get ready for a better Nigeria in 2019. Your vote counts!!!!!  VOTE NO FIGHT.(FIGHT WITH YOUR PVC) (@my_pvc_mypower) August 11, 2018

"Well amend Nigerias Constitution to allow Buhari be President till God takes his life"  Sen. Lawal Yahaya Gumau (APC Candidate in Bauchi South Senatorial district) Nigerians: pic.twitter.com/hl98d3TChb  Oba Of Nigeria (@UrbanCulture16) August 11, 2018

For an aspiring senator to talk about protecting Buhari's interest and amending the constitution to make Buhari a life time president shows what has been going on in the secrets. These men don't just speak like that. We must resist this move by all means. @henryshield @segalink  Confidence Jonah (@realNCNC) August 11, 2018

Any body soliciting for constitutional amendment to make Buhari life President is not fit to be a law maker. If Bauchi people from his constituency are wise enough, they will see he has nothing to offer.

These lots just ride on Buhari's popularity to win polls.  iSIOMA (@isiomamb) August 11, 2018
Following the public outrage over Toke Makinwa posing completely naked in anticipation for her new product, Glow by TM, a lady, Angel Eze has criticized Toke calling her a hypocrite.

According to her, no man will be able to stand her superficial and materialistic side, plus any man who beats some sense into her for posing nude in public is highly justified.

Read the full statement below:

Toke, Toke, Toke, How many times did I call you? You are a Christian, You are a role model, You were a wife, You are a respectable brand, Which of these are you representing in the above picture? Going nude for whatever reason is totally uncalled for. As a Christain lady you cant market your stuff the way the world do. Remember you are a Christian woman and a role model.

You are not a Kim Kardashian and can never be, No matter how hard you try. You are African. Do you want to hit 100M overnight on IG with this nude photoshoot? You wish. It will only dent your image as a future wife period. Is this the true reason you left Maje and killed his image? No man can tolerate your materialistic and superficial side, And any man who beats some sense into you for posing nude in public can be absolutely justified! Yes!! He own you not the public.

So, keep your inspirational messages to yourself you are not fit to dish it after this complete nude photoshoot. Just get out of my sight @tokemakinwa is this how you pay God for putting you in the spotlight? SMH.
Supporters of the ruling All Progressives Congress(APC) have taken to social media to mock Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) supporters for the perceived outcome of todays polls.

Elections held today in Kogi, Katsina and Bauchi, and from many reports, it appears the APC has taken major leads.

This has prompted its supporters to chant the songs of victory as they mock PDP supporters.

Meanwhile the opposition party has made several claims that the ruling party rigged the polls today, and are asking for a cancellation. The PDP claimed that vote buying, ballot box snatching and intimidation were the order of the day.

APC supporters on the other hand, are measuring their perceived victory for todays polls with what 2019 presidential election will look like.

See their comments below

Results from Bye Elections in Katsina, Bauchi & Kogi States has shown that Nigerians have rejected @OfficialPDPNig in every form and shades.The party is loosing scandalously. Votes for PDP & it CUPP allies is grossly abysmally insufficient Nigerians still prefer @OfficialAPCNg  General M. W. Abiola. The Patriot (@Busaayo) August 11, 2018

So, i understand that an election held today in Katsina and the @OfficialPDPNig didn't even come secondus? That's unacceptable!!! Can @akaebube explain the annihilation of his party in Katsina?  Major General Eneji (@iameneji) August 11, 2018

PDP is having a great start? Maybe u need to check the score line again from Katsina, Bauchi and Kogi. Guess it is 3-0. Do u need VAR? https://t.co/6htWyFBKAM  Asiwaju Oladimeji (@AsiwajuOladimej) August 11, 2018

The results coming in from Bauchi, Kaduna and Katsina are quite tellingunknown party is even doing better than @OfficialPDPNig   Jubril of Sudan till 2023 (@Gen_Buhar) August 11, 2018

@OfficialPDPNig gather momentum now and come back to try your luck 2023..

You are losing everywhere from Bauchi to Katsina to Kogi..  Sultan Of Lagos (@sultanoflagos) August 11, 2018

If i were PDP i will not waste money for 2019 elections, party shld just be preparing for 2023 against another APC candidate, they missed this flight already. PMB/PYO just too strong a brand. Chk Kogi, Bauchi and katsina  Mr. Maja (@kola_maja) August 11, 2018

Lol look at the performance of PDP in today's bye elections in Bauchi, Katsina, and Kogi. Is this how they want to win the presidential elections in 2019?  KUKUTE (@Ade_Nurayn) August 11, 2018
The Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) has urged the federal government to cancel the Lokoja/Kogi bye-elections because of irregularities.

The PDP says the election was fraught with several irregularities ranging from ballot box snatching to vote buying.

The opposition party alleged that the ruling All Progressives Congress(APC) intimidated others with thugs, snatching ballot boxes and so on.

It made this cry via its official twitter handle on Saturday. It wrote:

2. The ongoing Lokoja/Kogi Federal Constituency bye election is fraught with several irregularities such as ballot snatching, violence, vote buying and impunity. The @APCNigeria led state government is using security agencies to disrupt election in most areas of the state Capital pic.twitter.com/yWg8cDFqTS  Official PDP Nigeria (@OfficialPDPNig) August 11, 2018

The party further alleged that the Special Anti-robbery Squad, SARS gave APC thugs cover as they snatched ballot boxes.
Industry 4.0 is a shortcut to bring the country to modernity and prosperity, Dung said at a press conference in Hanoi on August 10, providing information on Vietnams innovation network programme.

The fourth Industrial Revolution is changing the current world, from business production to services provision, he said, adding that the movement has created a golden opportunity for Vietnam to catch up with the latest technological and economic development trends around the world.

The minister said that the Party and State have always paid due attention to gathering Vietnamese talents in the fields of science and technology to serve the countrys development.

Following the direction of PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc, the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) is building a national strategy for Industry 4.0 which will be reported back to the government leader at the years end.

The ministry is also working on establishing a national innovation centre and a network of human resources which can assist with implementing the national Industry 4.0 strategy, Dung said.

It will coordinate with the Ministry of Science and Technology, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Education and Training, as well as other agencies and localities to organise the Vietnam innovation network programme, he added.

The programme, initiated by the Ministry of Planning and Investment, aims to mobilise Vietnamese experts in the field, including those working in foreign countries with advanced science-technology development.

Tran Quoc Phuong, Director of the MPIs National Economic Issues Department, said the programme aims to share strategic visions and viewpoints of Party, State, and Government leaders regarding current opportunities to approach and optimise scientific and technological accomplishments in key areas, serving both the national short-term and sustainable socio-economic development targets.

The programme will take place from August 18-24 with a variety of activities in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City, and Quang Ninh, such as meetings with the startup community and intellectuals in science-technology in Vietnam, exchanges amongst major groups and businesses in sci-tech application, and visits to high-tech parks in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.

About 100 Vietnamese youths who have excelled in various fields  such as information technology, biotechnology, automatics, robotics, artificial intelligence, blockchain, cyber security, and Internet of Things  are expected to attend the event.
Following Toke Makinwa viral n*de photo which has got some people talking, a concerned fan has taken out time to cover her up with Ankara fabric and snickers.

She wrote;

yall stop hating and judging if you dont know the story. You see any damsel in distress, drenched by the heavy down pour in Lagos a day ago. The flood dragged off all her clothing, even her shoes.

Before she knew it, paparazzi everywhere and she had to fold up on the ground.

Thats why the pic. Thank God I had some Ankara pieces to make this after taking her home, also gave her a pair of shoe and tfare back home.
A Nigerian man simply identified as Full-time Udummiri Nwakalu on Facebook, has taken to the platform to announce that he is dedicating his soul to the devil, who he claim is better than God.

His post reads;

I dedicate my soul to Satan because he is far better than God. Devil I love you so much and can never stop working for you, bringing more Christians to your kingdom and initiating them in our coven because the end time is near.

He also shared the effect his post had on some of his followers. Read a chat between him and one of his followers below;
Police in Ondo State have revealed that the suspected kidnapper who slept off while planning to abduct a renowned pharmacist in the state, is still sleeping, almost a week after.

Femi Joseph, spokesperson of the Ondo State Police Command, said the suspect was attempting to abduct the owner of the Chinery Pharmacy in Owo, when he was arrested on Sunday.

He explained that the suspect was likely under the influence of Tramadol because a 400mg tablet of the drug and one cut-to-size locally-made gun were found on him.

Speaking to Punchs correspondent, the State Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Femi Joseph disclosed that the suspect is still being watched to know if he is pretending.

As of today (Friday), the suspect had yet to wake up. Maybe he took too much of the drug, that is why he is still sleeping. We have tried all we could to make him regain his consciousness to no avail.

However, we are still watching him to find out if he is pretending. We are with him and he would face the music no matter how long he is unconscious he said.
Self acclaimed king of the streets, Olamide decided to bless the streets with a surprise release of his new song titled Puna.

In a bid the promote the song, he shared an obscene video of a lady supposedly twerking to the track.

The video caught the attention of his fan who pointed out to the artiste that the song might just get banned by the National Broadcasting Commission.

In response to the fans comment, the rapper subtly shaded the cooperation as he says hes unbothered whether or not, they ban his yet to be released song cause hes already on their blacklist.

See their exchange below;

Puna features rising producer, Killertunes and boasts of rhythmical lyrics and a danceable tune which makes it easy for music lovers to shake their bodies.
In case you missed it: Here is the weekly recap in news.

8/6: Ames mayor vetoes rental cap exemptions.

+3 Ames mayor vetoes rental cap exemptions Ames Mayor John Haila has vetoed the rental cap exemptions which were passed on July 31, mak

8/7: Former Title IX coordinator settles two lawsuits against Iowa State for $125,000

Former Title IX coordinator settles two lawsuits against Iowa State for $125,000 Former Title IX coordinator Robinette Kelley and Iowa State have settled two lawsuits in whi

8/8: Mollie Tibbetts' father says he believes she is with someone she knows

+2 Mollie Tibbetts' Father says he believes she is with someone she knows The father of missing University of Iowa student Mollie Tibbetts told reporters Monday he be

8/9: Iowa State professor agrees to settlement in free speech lawsuit

Iowa State professor agrees to settlement in free speech lawsuit A mechanical engineering professor has settled a lawsuit with Iowa State that will stop him 

8/10: Rummage Rampage grew for third straight year: broke records, put items to use

8/10: Delta Chi fraternity under interim suspension following out of control bonfire
According to certain ancient documents, the street is named Ma May because in the past it consisted of two small streets: Hang May and Hang Ma. After many ups and downs, the old street today features many innovations, alternating between the buildings, hotels with splendid lights, and still the old quiet houses. Among them, the most prominent is the house located at No.87 Ma May. The house is built mainly of black gloss ironwood. This house is typical of the traditional architecture in the Old Quarter: It has a narrow facade and a succession of buildings and courtyards. Stepping through the doorstep, guests get the sense of time standing still for centuries. Beside the unique architecture, the visitors are attracted by the moss-covered roof, the silence, the peace of the house, it differs from the outsides life of the bustle of the streets and the tall buildings, the crowds of busy people.

According to the documents of the Management Board of Hanoi's Old Quarter, the house was built in the early 19th century with the traditional architecture of Vietnam. It has been restored within the cooperation agreement between Hanoi and Toulouse (France) and was inaugurated in October, 1999. After being renovated, the house is now under the management of the Hanoi city People's Committee and is a model traditional house in Hanoi's Old Quarter, which is well preserved.

It seems that the idea and way of renovating the 87 Ma May ancient house was a successful plan as it has become a familiar address of many domestic and foreign visitors. Arriving here, everyone is welcome. For a long time, the one-time owner of the house has been absent, but the architecture and the layout of furniture help visitors imagine the owners life.

The entire ancient architecture of the house is divided into three areas. First building, the first floor is a space to display books, some ceramic products, and a tea table. On the second floor, the most important area is the ancestral altar. Going through a narrow courtyard without a roof, called a "skylight", there are a fishbowl and rockery. The second building, first floor is also a space to display looms, ceramics (mainly from Bat Trang pottery village), and many ethnic musical instruments. The second floor includes the bedroom and the living room. The room is decorated with tea cabinets in the centre area, and traditional pictures, which show the affluence and luxury of the owner of the house. The kitchen and the bathroom are located at the far end of the house. The order of the kitchen is enough for visitors to imagine the virtue of the Hanoi women.

The ancient house has a unique and precious culture, capturing the values of the life and people in Hanoi during an important historical period, reflecting the interference and advancement of East-West culture. Thus, visitors and the next generations can imagine the life and old habits of residents in Hanoi's Old Quarter.
TOKYO, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- Former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba officially declared his candidacy on Friday for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's (LDP) leadership race next month.

Ishiba, 61, a lower house member, has in the past been outspoken about Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his policies and this will be the third time the veteran politician will attempt to win the ruling party's top post.

While Abe has yet to officially declare his candidacy, he is widely believed to win his third three-year term as LDP President and in doing so becoming the longest-serving prime minister.

But Ishiba, who has the support of a powerful LDP faction and has held key posts in the party including defense minister, LDP secretary general and minister in charge of revitalizing local economies, may be able to take advantage of slumping support rate for Abe and his Cabinet following a slew of cronyism and document tampering scandals.

While many believe Abe's success will be a foregone conclusion, some believe that Ishiba's "honest and fair" politics may for some be a refreshing change from Abe who has long been caught up in cronyism scandals.

Ishiba has also been a vocal critic of Abe's plans to revise Japan's Constitution and actually rewrote his own constitution revision proposal in February.

While acknowledging some of the positives of "Abenomics", Ishiba is a proponent of introducing more methods to bolster regional economies.

In light of the government's tardy handling of a spate of recent natural disasters, Ishiba has proposed to set up a new ministry dedicated to taking charge of disaster prevention.

The LDP presidential election, which will also effectively decide Japan's next prime minister, is slated to be held on on Sept. 20, with official campaigning starting on Sept. 7.
HARBIN, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- Fourteen cutaneous anthrax cases have been confirmed in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, local authorities said Friday.

One of the 14 patients has been cured and discharged from hospital, the information office of the provincial government told a press briefing.

The epidemic is under control and the patients have been under effective treatment, it said.

Local authorities are examining the pathogens. A total of 818 sheep in the affected and high-risk areas in Huanan and Yilan counties have been culled.

Cutaneous, or skin, anthrax is the least serious form of the disease. It is usually contracted when a person with a cut or sore on their skin comes into direct, unprotected contact with anthrax spores on a sick or dead animal.

The Heilongjiang Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Bureau has sent three expert teams to handle the situation. Meanwhile, it has sent 112,500 ml of anthrax vaccine to immunize livestock in the two counties .

The provincial health authorities also have sent experts to investigate the infections in a bid to roll out more effective control and prevention measures.
Michael Avenatti, the lawyer representing adult film actress Stormy Daniels, shakes hands at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines, Iowa, Thursday, Aug. 9, 2018. AvenattiAos crusade for the porn actress taking on President Donald Trump has already catapulted him to cable news stardom and endeared him to many frustrated liberals. Now the self-styled "dragon slayer" is taking his message to Iowa Democrats. (Zach Boyden-Holme/The Des Moines Register via AP)
EUGENE, Ore. -- Oregon Governor Kate Brown toured an affordable housing complex Friday after state leaders announced funding for new housing projects.

Brown toured Bascom Village II in North Eugene and met with residents and community leaders. Tenants at Bascom Village make 50 percent less than the median area income.

Oregon Housing and Community Services recently awarded funding to 13 housing projects, two in Eugene.

Market District Commons was awarded $12 million. Located on 6th Avenue and Oak Street, the mixed-use space with 50 units of affordable housing plans to serve downtown Eugenes workforce. Developers with Homes for Good Housing Agency said they hope to have it completed by early 2020.

State leaders also awarded $3 million to develop a supportive housing apartment community on Martin Luther King Boulevard. That project aims to not only give some of the city's homeless a roof over their heads but also provide services including connections to employment and education. Developers with Homes for Good Housing Agency said the money from the state will allow them to leverage other necessary funding, and they hope to start building in the summer of 2019.

We're going to continue this work. We have over 11,000 units either built or in the pipeline, Brown said. We're going to continue to invest because I believe that having a warm, safe affordable dry place to call home is instrumental for every Oregonian.

Republic candidate for governor Knute Buehler said under Brown, homelessness is getting worse and Oregon has a housing supply shortage and an affordability crisis.

If elected he said he would solve unsheltered homelessness within five years with 8,000 more shelter beds statewide, get a $50 million direct rental assistance fund for affordable workplace housing, and fast-track the construction of 20,000 housing units to increase supply and hold down costs.
A farm in Iowa State in the U.S. (File photo)

Beijing can boost agricultural imports from elsewhere, senior official says

China can minimize the impact of raising tariffs on farm products from the United States by increasing imports from other countries and adjusting domestic agricultural patterns, but the US may lose the Chinese market that its farmers have been exploring for decades, a senior official in charge of agriculture has said.

Despite the plan by the administration of US President Donald Trump for up to $12 billion in subsidies for US farmers and the initial agreement with the European Union to increase imports of US soybeans to Europe, the US farm sector will suffer greatly due to the loss of the huge Chinese market, said Han Jun, deputy head of the Office of the Central Leading Group for Rural Affairs and vice-minister of agriculture and rural affairs, in an interview on Thursday.

However, China does not want to see the escalation of China-US trade friction, and most people in the two countries do not want trade relations between the two countries to reach a stalemate, he said.

"Negotiation is the only way to resolve trade disputes between the two countries," he said. "For China, the door for negotiation will not close. China will pay attention to US concerns in agriculture, but the US should not make unreasonably high demands on China."

In response to the US imposition of rising tariffs on Chinese goods, China has since July 6 begun to levy additional 25 percent tariffs on 517 types of agricultural products  including soybeans, cotton and pork  imported from the US. The total value of these imports last year was about $21 billion, Han said.

Last week, China announced that it might levy different levels of additional tariffs on US goods worth $60 billion, in response to US threats to impose additional tariffs on Chinese goods worth $200 billion.

Han said the list will include 387 kinds of agricultural products, so almost all agricultural products from the US will face additional tariffs once the latest countermeasures by China take effect.

"China made the countermeasures after extensively soliciting opinions and careful evaluations of the effects, and they are rational and restrained," he said.

Han said China and the US are strongly complementary in agricultural trade. "China has huge demand for import of agricultural products, with its population growth and rising living standards of its people, and it will keep expanding imports," he said. "We hope to see a healthy agricultural trade relations between the two countries, so US farmers also get benefits. However, the US has kept escalating trade frictions, regardless of a consensus already made between the two countries."

Han said China will closely evaluate the effects caused by its countermeasures to the tariff measures imposed by the US to minimize their impact on domestic production and people's livelihood.

"Levying additional tariffs will cause a great decrease in the export of US agricultural products to China," he said. "But the impact on China is very limited, due to multiple import resources for China."

"If a trade war breaks out between China and the US, many other countries will be willing and able to replace the US share of agricultural products in the Chinese market."

Escalation of trade frictions between the two countries will result in higher costs for US agricultural products entering China, and the US share of the market will be significantly reduced, which will favor its competitors, he said.

"Once other countries have become reliable suppliers of agricultural goods for China, it will be very difficult for the US agricultural producers to regain the Chinese market," he said.

Han said additional tariffs would cause a great decrease in China's imports of soybeans from the US, the most important product of China-US agriculture trade.

But China is fully prepared and is capable of bridging the gap in reduced supply from the US through various measures, including increasing imports from other countries, promoting alternatives to animal feed made of soybeans in the poultry and husbandry industries to reduce domestic consumption of soybeans, and increasing domestic planting of soybeans, he said.

China relies on imports for most of its soybean consumption, with the US being the second-largest source of imports for China, after Brazil. Nearly 60 percent of all exported soybeans from the US went to China between 2015 and last year.

China could reduce imports of soybeans by more than 10 million metric tons this year  down by more than 10 percent from last year  because of expanding domestic production and the promotion of soybean substitutes, Chinese experts have predicted.

Han said China may also increase soybean imports from countries such as Brazil to meet its increasing demand.

Han also said China and the US had some fruitful negotiations on agricultural trade in June, during which the two sides reached initial agreements that China would increase imports of US agricultural products by a large margin. However, the US unilaterally provoked conflicts, so the negotiation achievements have become invalid, he said.

Despite the agreement by the EU to import more soybeans from the US, it is estimated that the EU could only import between 13 million and 14 million metric tons of soybeans each year over the next 10 years  compared with more than 30 million metric tons imported from the US by China last year  so it would be impossible for the US to handle all the soybeans in surplus, Han said.

"People of all walks of life in agriculture in the US have expressed worries over losing the Chinese market," he said.

The additional tariff measures carried out on July 6 by the US did not include agricultural products imported from China, but most aquatic products, fruits and vegetables exported to the US will be covered by a second round of tariff measures likely to be imposed by the US, which would involve Chinese goods with a total value of $200 billion, Han said.

The Chinese government will take measures such as helping producers to find alternative export destinations and exploring domestic market opportunities to minimize the impact, he said.

Contact the writer at [email protected]
CLEAR LAKE, Iowa- More than 1,000 people headed to the Surf Ballroom Friday for the 15th annual Democratic Wing Ding. But it wasnt just the food or the democratic pride that brought out the large turnout. Part of the draw was Michael Avenatti, the attorney representing Stormy Daniels in her defamation lawsuit against President Donald Trump.

Id like to hear what he has to say, said Kathi Jennings of Cedar Falls.

Avenatti has been talking about running his own presidential campaign.

We need to make America decent again, he said to the full house.

Avenatti spent much of his time criticizing the President, but did not make an announcement about running in 2020. That was something Jennings was looking forward to.

I just like what he is saying, she said. He is very smart.

Even those like Trudy and Tom Kettner, who are no strangers to the Wing Ding, said Avenatti being in Clear Lake was unexpected.

Why would he want to come to Iowa? said Trudy.

They said they want to hear from him before they are willing to support him running.

I think we can do better than him, but well see, said Tom. I dont know too much about him.

Despite Avenatti not making his announcement, those hosting the Wing Ding said the event was a huge success.
The solar e-car charging station at the University of Iowa was built in 2011 and provides charging spaces for up to 20 electric vehicles. (facilities.uiowa.eu)
BEIJING, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- China called on relevant parties to resolve the Iran issue through dialogue and consultation based on the principle of equality and mutual respect, a Foreign Ministry spokesperson said Friday.

Spokesperson Lu Kang made the remarks regarding the United States' announcement to reimpose formal sanctions on Iran on Monday.

"China always opposes unilateral sanctions and long-arm jurisdiction," said Lu.

He said China has had open, transparent and normal commercial cooperation with Iran in economy, trade, energy and other fields for a long time, which has not violated the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council or China's commitment to its international obligations, nor has it undermined the interests of other countries.

Such cooperation should be respected and maintained, said Lu.

China always believes that imposing or threatening to impose sanctions will not help resolve issues, and dialogue and consultation are better alternatives, said the spokesperson.
Carmel, California

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Aug 10, 2018 16:10:57 #

Caroline Currer My husband and I are going to Carmel on the 26th of this month. If anyone lives in that part of California, would you please let me know what the weather is like so I will know what to pack. Thank you.



Also, if there is an absolutely wonderful yarn store I must see in Carmel, would love to know that as well, of course.

Aug 10, 2018 16:13:27 #

Pearls Girls (a regular here) I hope that is not near the fires. . . .I really have no idea. Safe Journeys.

Aug 10, 2018 16:15:44 #

Caroline Currer I hope that is not near the fires. . . .I really have no idea. Safe Journeys. Pearls Girls wrote:



Carmel is in the southern part of California and I believe the fires are all in the north. Thanks for the concern Carmel is in the southern part of California and I believe the fires are all in the north. Thanks for the concern

Aug 10, 2018 16:18:59 #

Nina Weddle Tullis My daughter and husband used to live there but she left in the early 80''s so not sure what is there. It is a quaint little town and many movie stars live there: Clint Eastwood, Betty White and Doris Day come to mind. You will enjoy this little beach town. It is not near the fires.

Aug 10, 2018 16:38:19 #

NanaMc I visited Carmel a few years ago. Lovely little town but dont remember any knitting shops.

Aug 10, 2018 16:48:18 #

bevcustom My husband and I are going to Carmel on the 26th of this month. If anyone lives in that part of California, would you please let me know what the weather is like so I will know what to pack. Thank you.



Also, if there is an absolutely wonderful yarn store I must see in Carmel, would love to know that as well, of course. Caroline Currer wrote:



The weather in California has been hot, however, Carmel is by the ocean so, bring sweaters or light jackets, there tends to be fog in the mornings and cool in the evenings. There is a lot to see, parking is a BEAR, so plan to wear comfortable shoes for a lot of walking. Here is a list of things to see. It has a lot of art shops, and tends to be 'high end' shopping. There was a shop "Knitting by the Sea"in Carmel, but it is permanently closed. Another is in Pacific Grove, Ca, Not too too far from Carmel (this is the only one in the area). It has good reviews on the net.



Monarch Knitting Address: 529 Central Ave #4, Pacific Grove, CA 93950 Hours: Open  Closes 5:30PM Phone: (831) 647-9276

https://www.tripadvisor.com/Attractions-g32172-Activities-Carmel_Monterey_County_California.html The weather in California has been hot, however, Carmel is by the ocean so, bring sweaters or light jackets, there tends to be fog in the mornings and cool in the evenings. There is a lot to see, parking is a BEAR, so plan to wear comfortable shoes for a lot of walking. Here is a list of things to see. It has a lot of art shops, and tends to be 'high end' shopping. There was a shop "Knitting by the Sea"in Carmel, but it is permanently closed. Another is in Pacific Grove, Ca, Not too too far from Carmel (this is the only one in the area). It has good reviews on the net.Monarch Knitting Address: 529 Central Ave #4, Pacific Grove, CA 93950 Hours: Open  Closes 5:30PM Phone: (831) 647-9276

Aug 10, 2018 16:49:18 #

timannmom Carmel is in the southern part of California and I believe the fires are all in the north. Thanks for the concern Caroline Currer wrote:



I don't know where is Carmel. But I do know there's Holy fire in southern CA, it is between Orange County and Riverside County. I live in Riverside County, pretty close to the fire, and it is bad! Smokey air, ashes, up to Big Bear mountain and Victorville. It started this last Monday, and today already reached 18,000 acres and only 5% contained. Very sad. I don't know where is Carmel. But I do know there's Holy fire in southern CA, it is between Orange County and Riverside County. I live in Riverside County, pretty close to the fire, and it is bad! Smokey air, ashes, up to Big Bear mountain and Victorville. It started this last Monday, and today already reached 18,000 acres and only 5% contained. Very sad.

Aug 10, 2018 16:55:36 #

ADW55 (a regular here) Carmel is in the southern part of California and I believe the fires are all in the north. Thanks for the concern Caroline Currer wrote:



https://weather.com/weather/tenday/l/Carmel+CA+USCA0183:1:US



There also are fires in the southern part of California.



Carmel is just south of San Jose and Santa Cruz, but north of Los Angeles.



There is no fire in and around where you will be, but keep an eye out and check before you go.



https://projects.sfchronicle.com/2018/fire-tracker/ There also are fires in the southern part of California.Carmel is just south of San Jose and Santa Cruz, but north of Los Angeles.There is no fire in and around where you will be, but keep an eye out and check before you go.

Aug 10, 2018 17:47:22 #

knitteerli We once toured that area in May one year. It was already very hot, but we had driven down from northern B.C., so we did acclimatise quickly. One lad in a gas station did not know what that plug hanging out of the engine was, hed never heard of a block heater. Lovely area, though. We stayed a while in Pacific Grove, where and Hooch was being filmed. Lovely place. Take lots of good, new sunscreen. I onky found out recently that sunscreen loses its efficacy if stored too long.

Aug 10, 2018 18:32:54 #

Aug 10, 2018 18:35:20 #

Marilynf

https://www.pebblebeach.com/17-mile-drive/ Seventeen Mile drive is beautiful. I think it's must see. We live 2 hours north of Carmel.

Aug 10, 2018 18:39:12 #

diamondbelle Go to the Carmel travel/tourism website. It should have weather forecasts, and may have lists of stores.



If not, Google is your friend, search for yarn stores.

Aug 10, 2018 19:57:15 #

kittygritty Carmel is in the southern part of California and I believe the fires are all in the north. Thanks for the concern Caroline Currer wrote:



Carmel is in Northern California, next to Monterey-so the huge fire is north of there, but there are also fires in Santa Barbara south of there. I'd call the local city hall or non emergency fire number for the town to check as you get closer.. I read today that the smoke has traveled all the way to New York, though right now it's a mile up above there.Be cautious if you have any respiratory problems. It is very smoky in Portland, Oregon right now from fires south of us and also from Washington. Carmel is in Northern California, next to Monterey-so the huge fire is north of there, but there are also fires in Santa Barbara south of there. I'd call the local city hall or non emergency fire number for the town to check as you get closer.. I read today that the smoke has traveled all the way to New York, though right now it's a mile up above there.Be cautious if you have any respiratory problems. It is very smoky in Portland, Oregon right now from fires south of us and also from Washington.

Aug 10, 2018 22:37:16 #

LexiesGram Lucky you, have a fabulous trip!!

Aug 11, 2018 01:15:25 #
BEIJING, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- Chinese authorities on Friday released the findings of a probe into a previous investigation of substandard DPT vaccines produced by Wuhan Institute of Biological Products Co. Ltd.

The inspection team, formed by members of departments including the State Drug Administration (SDA) and National Health Commission, found misconduct in vaccine production, as well as in fulfillment of local supervisory responsibilities.

DPT refers to a combination of vaccines for three infectious diseases: diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus.

In the previous investigation of the incident in 2017, the punishment was too light and not in line with related laws and regulations, said inspectors on the new probe team.

"The SDA and related government agencies will demand the rectification of the wrongdoings, hold accountable involved company and supervisory departments, conduct re-vaccination for children affected, and release results to the public in a timely manner," the inspectors said.

The inspectors have conducted spot-checks, looked through files and documents, and interviewed relevant people since they arrived in Hubei on Aug. 1.

The batch of DPT vaccines, produced on July 19, 2016, was proved substandard due to a short-term equipment failure, which resulted in improper distribution of the active constituent in the vaccines.

The official findings showed the company failed to take into account the malfunction and make targeted tests on the quality of its products during internal inspections. The defective vaccines were not chosen in the random test of the National Institutes for Food and Drug Control (NIFDC) before being permitted to enter the market.

The NIFDC found in later tests last year that the effectiveness of the vaccine against pertussis did not meet national standards.

In Hebei and Chongqing, where the defective vaccines were sold, 71 percent and 75 percent of the children affected were re-inoculated with quality vaccine against pertussis, respectively.

All unused defective DPT vaccines have been recalled and destroyed.
The United States voiced its continued support for South Korea Friday after three South Korean businesses were caught importing North Korean coal and iron in possible violation of U.N. sanctions.



The firms brought in 35,038 tons of the commodities on seven occasions between April and October last year, according to the Korea Customs Office. The imports, worth a combined 6.6 billion won (US$5.86 million), violated South Korean law and possibly a U.N. Security Council resolution adopted last August for the North's test-firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile.



The resolution calls for a ban on North Korea's exports of coal, iron ore and other mineral resources that could generate revenue for the regime's development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.



"The Republic of Korea (South Korea) is a faithful and reliable partner in the maritime implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolutions," Katina Adams, a State Department spokesperson, said in response to a Yonhap query. "The United States and the ROK work closely together on North Korea issues, and remain in close contact to coordinate our unified response to the DPRK."






By Hwang Jae-ho





Kim Hor Toh.
Kim Il-sung Square in Pyongyang. Yonhap



Visiting the North Korean embassy



By Jacco Zwetsloot




Kendallville, IN (46755)

Today

Rain. High 57F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 90%..

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Rain early...then remaining cloudy with showers overnight. Low 47F. Winds NNE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
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Angola, IN (46703)

Today

Showers this morning, becoming a steady rain during the afternoon hours. High 57F. Winds ENE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

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A steady rain early...then remaining cloudy with a few showers. Low 47F. Winds NE at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 90%.
The kiwifruit are local to the area and grow on 80,000 acres of farmland. (Photos/Courtesy of Yang Zhengyu)

Guizhou is famous for its clean air, stunning countryside and agriculture.

Another thing that Guizhou is well-known for is its alcohol. The province is the largest producer of Baijiu in the country, with its most famous brand, Moutai, becoming the worlds most valuable liquor company in 2017 according to the Financial Times.

However, thanks to government investment in the provinces agricultural industry, theres a new front runner in Guizhous liquor cabinet, and its much sweeter!

The company, Cool City Minihong, has a range of products that are FDA approved.

Local brand, Cool City Minihong, is now using locally-grown red kiwifruits to create a new type of wine in a variety of strengths 6%, 12% and 14%. Its sweet, crisp and has a tangy aftertaste reminding you that this isnt your usual grape variety of wine.

The company is using poverty alleviation methods to create more jobs, helping more locals gain employment and escape poverty. Yang Zhengyu, the commercial manager in the companys international trade department, said, Our company has about 300 employees. We now own a standard red kiwifruit planting base of more than 80,000 acres, and all bases are involved in the "Three Changes Reform", directly spurring poor breadwinners to increase their average monthly income to more than 3,500 yuan.

The 80,000 acres of farmland has given locals more job opportunities in the area.

The company went into production in 2014, and has already exported to Canada, selling almost 500,000 bottles in the last year alone. This year, it will start exporting to Japan, Russia and the U.S.

Yang says that the wine is healthier than baijiu as the fruit is locally grown, fresh and full of health benefits, not to mention its less likely to give you a headache the next day. He adds that after Maotai, this is only the second liquor enterprise in Guizhou to pass U.S. FDA certification, meaning more people will get to enjoy the fresh taste of kiwifruit wine soon!

The special red kiwifruit, which is grown locally, has a red heart which means it looks beautiful as well as tasting delicious.
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On August 11, 2018 at 2:00 AM KYCW-LD will move from channel 19, broadcasting from our Fordland tower to channel 25 broadcasting from the studio tower at 999 West Sunshine in Springfield.

This move is necessitated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) as they begin their repack of television stations across the country into a tighter bundled broadcast spectrum. By moving KYCW from channel 19 to channel 25 it allows us to prepare for the move of KYTV, KSPR and The Ozarks CW later this year.

Channel 25 will broadcast a directional pattern 30 degrees north at a much reduced height. This means that some over the air viewers will no longer be able to receive these signals (Antenna/Cozi/WX 24/7). The CW will still be on our full power KYTV transmitter, virtual channel 33-2. We recommend viewers rescan their TVs and have an outdoor antenna aimed toward our studio tower (999 West Sunshine in Springfield).

For deeper technical help and explanations please call (417) 268-3000 and ask for engineering. Antenna, Cozi and The KY3 Weather Channel channels will be available, as usual, on Mediacom, Suddenlink, Fidelity, COMO cable and the Ozarks Go network. The long term plan is to move KYCW-LD back to the Fordland tower late this year after the KYTV repack construction is complete.
GUIZHOU (Peoples Daily Online) - An expert on poverty alleviation said that the successful implementation of the "Three Changes Reform" has turned poverty-stricken villages into a zero-poverty area and changed the fate of poor people in Liupanshui city of Southwest Chinas Guizhou Province.

While talking to a delegation of foreign journalists from Asian, African and Latin American countries, Tao Zhengxue, inventor of the "Three Changes Reform" and also chief executive of an agriculture and tourism development company, said that due to successful implementation of his plan, the continuous growth of tourism and agricultural industries has gradually increased contribution to the economic and social development of the city.

By applying the plan, resources have been successfully transformed into assets, capital has been converted into business equity and farmers have been made shareholders in local companies. Today, Tao explained, there is zero poverty in the area.

Due to poverty, I had to leave this village for thirty years. I came back to implement this poverty plan in 2012. Just three years ago, there was no road in the village. Now all necessary infrastructure has been constructed and the living standard has been improved with the support of the local government, said Tao.

He added that efforts are underway to further improve agriculture, local tourism and quality of life by providing health, education and other basic services.

A local official told journalists that Tuole village near Panzhou city is home to thousands of ancient ginkgo trees, the oldest one being around 1,450 years old. But for hundreds of years, these treasures did nothing to help local people. However, as soon as these ancient ginkgo trees were taken into equity, the Ginkgo tree forests became a "cash cow".

Niangniang Mountain is considered the birthplace of the "Three Changes Reform", which has brought the people here tremendous welfare and helped alleviate poverty throughout the entire area in many industries.

In recent years, local residents began to join the fruit industry. Local farmers provided their land to companies to grow kiwifruit, prickly pears, blueberries, wax berries, pomegranate and cherries. Now people here are earning more money than ever before, and are also shareholders of the fruit companies, an official said.

Poverty alleviation linked to the development of tourism.

According to official reports, the number of tourists in Liupanshui city reached 11.09 million in the first quarter of 2018, an increase of 60.8 percent year-on-year. In 2017, the city received more than 30 million tourists and realized tourism revenue of over 20 billion yuan, up by 60.84 percent and 57.82 percent respectively compared with the same period of the previous year. In 2017, the added value of tourism accounted for 6.8 percent of local GDP.

The development of tourism has led to the development of transportation, catering and accommodation industries. Poor residents have become tour guides, some have taken part in the management of scenic spots, and some have opened hotels and farmhouses in the scenic areas, he added. In 2017, 959 households received 1.6 million yuan in dividends, which equates to 1,683 yuan per household.

30-year-old Zheng, a local resident, said that he left his village in 2004 when he was 16 and went to Guangdong Province. He started working in a furniture factory for just 400 yuan a month. Now he has established a family restaurant in his hometown and earns a monthly salary of 7000 yuan.

Liupanshui, located in the western Wumeng mountain area of Guizhou Province, has completed more than 10 key tourism zones, including six national 4A level tourism attractions and six provincial tourist resorts including Zangke River, Meihua Mountain, and more.

Due to its pleasant weather all year round, the city has been awarded the title of "the Cool City of China" by the China meteorological society for its cool and comfortable climate. It has more than 30 kinds of mineral resources such as, coal, iron, manganese, zinc and basalt.
A file photo shows pilot Liu Chuanjian at the headquarters of Sichuan Airlines in Chengdu, Sichuan province. [Photo/chinadaily.com.cn]

The heroic deeds of Liu Chuanjian, a Chinese pilot who was applauded after successfully handing a flight emergency, will be adapted into a movie, the paper.cn reported.

The movie will be produced by Chinese film company Bona Film Group whose application for the filming has been approved by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.

The story is based on the real experience of Liu Chuanjian, a Sichuan Airlines' captain who in May calmly landed a flight after a 20-minutes struggle with the loss of cabin pressure. He was operating the Airbus A319 from Chongqing to Lhasa, Tibet, when a windshield suddenly broke at 32,000 feet above the ground and his co-pilot was sucked halfway out of the window and was saved by the seat belt. Liu landed the plane safely with none of the passengers was injured.

Liu was honored with five million yuan ($730,000) prize and hailed the "hero captain of China's civil aviation". He told the media later that he was confident at the time that he could steer the plane to the nearest airport manually when the automatic systems stopped working.

Liu was an instructor with the PLA Air Force No 2 Flight College in Sichuan province for 10 years before he joined the airline in 2006.
A San Francisco jury on Friday found Monsanto liable for a school groundskeepers lymphoma that he said developed after years of applying the companys trademarked Roundup weed killer.

The $289-million verdict in San Francisco County Superior Court is certain to add momentum to a multi-front battle to ban Roundups main active ingredient, glyphosate. The compound is applied to millions of acres of crops, many of which have been genetically modified to withstand the herbicide.

The jury deliberated three days before awarding $39 million in compensatory damages and $250 million in punitive damages to groundskeeper DeWayne Lee Johnson, 46. He claimed that years of applying Monsantos Roundup and Ranger Pro to school properties in a Bay Area suburb of Benicia caused his incurable non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

Activists, who have long battled to ban glyphosate, lauded the decision in the closely watched trial.

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Monsanto made Roundup the OxyContin of pesticides, and now the addiction and damage they caused have come home to roost, said Ken Cook, president of Environmental Working Group. This wont cure DeWayne Lee Johnsons cancer, but it will send a strong message to a renegade company.

The verdict signals a turning tide, said Linda Wells, Midwest organizing director for Pesticide Action Network. Its time to get carcinogenic pesticides off the market, and fight for the protective regulations we all deserve, Wells said.

Monsanto, which continues to be run independently after merging earlier this year with German agro-industrial giant Bayer AG, said in a statement that it will appeal the verdict.

We are sympathetic to Mr. Johnson and his family, said Scott Partridge, Monsantos vice president of global strategy. Todays decision does not change the fact that more than 800 scientific studies and reviews  and conclusions by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and regulatory authorities around the world  support the fact that glyphosate does not cause cancer, and did not cause Mr. Johnsons cancer.

Nationwide, growers have used an estimated 1.8 million tons of the chemical since it was introduced in the mid-1970s, according to government and industry estimates.

The bulk of glyphosate was sprayed on tens of millions of acres of corn and soy in the Midwest. But California growers also applied it to more than 200 crops across 4 million acres, including 1.5 million acres of almonds, making it their most widely used herbicide, according to the California Department of Pesticide Regulation.

Having inherited a company long vilified by environmental activists as Monsatan, Bayer faces high potential liabilities from hundreds of similar lawsuits, along with a battle over adding a cancer warning label on products sold in California.

A U.S. District Court judge earlier this year temporarily halted moves by California to require a cancer warning label under Proposition 65, the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act, passed by voters in 1986.

Californias decision to include glyphosate on its list of chemicals linked to cancer followed a 2015 ruling by the Europe-based International Agency for Research on Cancer that the chemical is a probable carcinogen.

The U.S. EPA as well as its counterpart agencies in the European Union have disagreed with the conclusion reached by that panel, which is part of the World Health Organization. Last December, the U.S. EPA ruled that glyphosate was not likely to cause cancer.

Californias Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment, the agency that listed the chemical as a probable carcinogen, is finalizing its regulation establishing a safe threshold under which glyphosate products would be exempt from the Proposition 65 warning provisions.

geoffrey.mohan@latimes.com

Follow me: @LATgeoffmohan
While lawmakers feud over the release of blueprints for 3-D-printed plastic guns, the Transportation Security Administration wants fliers to know that airport security screeners have been able to spot the so-called untraceable and undetectable weapons in carry-on bags.

The 3-D-printed gun controversy erupted in June when Defense Distributed of Austin, Texas, reached a settlement with the federal government to allow it to make the plans for the guns available for download. Then a federal judge in Seattle issued a temporary restraining order to stop the release of blueprints, and a coalition of 20 attorney generals, including California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra, filed a motion on Aug. 2 to continue to block the release of the plans.

But TSA officials say 3-D-printed guns and firearm components have been in circulation for years and have been found on passengers trying to board commercial flights.

Since August 2016, the TSA has detected two 3-D-printed guns and two 3-D-printed firearm components, all of which were voluntarily abandoned by the passengers who were packing them in their carry-on bags, TSA spokesman Michael Bilello said.

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The most recent component was discovered in January at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas.

TSA officers are trained and on the lookout for 3-D guns, he said. We have proven detection capabilities and screening protocols in place.

Like all firearms, explosives and replica weapons, 3-D-printed guns are prohibited in the cabin of commercial planes. Passengers caught trying to bring any weapons into a flight are turned over to local law enforcement for prosecution and could face civil penalties of up to $9,800 imposed by the TSA.

hugo.martin@latimes.com

Twitter: @hugomartin
Rogue Machine, one of Los Angeles more prominent small-theater companies, is heading west this fall, relocating from Hollywood to Venice.

Weve been looking for a permanent home for 11 years, artistic director John Perrin Flynn said with a laugh.

Several factors are behind the move. Most pressing: The companys current home, the Met Theatre on Oxford Avenue near Santa Monica Boulevard, is for sale and couldnt guarantee long-term occupancy, Flynn said. At the same time, the 99-seat Electric Lodge in Venice was in search of a resident company and appealed to Flynn as a black-box space with flexible seating arrangements.

Rogue Machines new home will have ample parking and valet service, a luxury for small theaters, although Flynn is concerned the company will lose some patrons from Pasadena and Glendale with the move west. He hopes to regain some of the Westside theatergoers that Rogue Machine lost when the company moved from Pico Boulevard in 2016.

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The Met is a hallowed space, Flynn said. It has been a theater in Los Angeles for 60-plus years. Sam Shepard did premieres, and all kinds of wonderful theater was done there.

Before moving, Rogue Machine will present a final production, Gunshot Medley, at the Met in September. The companys last day in Hollywood will be Oct. 1, just days ahead of opening in Venice. Rogue Machine opens the U.S. premiere of Oppenheimer on Oct. 6.

Were going to have a really jam packed few weeks in September, said Flynn, who will direct Oppenheimer. He called the play a true epic, with 24 characters involved in the creation of the first atomic bomb.

Its about making the bomb, which changed the world forever, Flynn adds. But its also very much about Oppenheimer and the cost to all the scientists and wives involved. Its very timely.

See all of our latest arts news and reviews at latimes.com/arts.
Just another hot August arts newsletter bursting with atomic bombs, 3-D art and gentrification. Im Carolina A. Miranda, staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, with your weekly dose of whats good in the world of culture and whats bad in the world of McMansions:

ESSENTIAL IMAGE

Maria, 2014, a 1985 Chevy El Camino customized by Rose B. Simpson. (Kate Russell)

The Minneapolis Institute of Art is prepping a major exhibition examining the art of Native American women for 2019. To announce the show, they sent an image of Rose B. Simpsons custom Chevy El Camino truck, Maria, which is inspired by black-on-black Santa Clara pottery. Someone, please, bring these hot wheels to El Lay! First American Art Magazine

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ATOMIC AGE

Times classical music critic Mark Swed was just in Santa Fe for a performance of John Adams Doctor Atomic, staged by the Santa Fe Opera. Directed by Peter Sellars, who is also the librettist, the opera is about the test of the first atomic bomb in nearby Trinity Site, N.M. It was interrupted by thunderous rain. But nothing stopped a performance of the most significant, Id say the greatest, opera of our time, writes Swed. If you want to know what the opera felt like, what it means and why the world is the way it is, this was the place to be. Los Angeles Times

Dancers in a scene from Santa Fe Operas Doctor Atomic. (Ken Howard / Santa Fe Opera)

THE GENTRIFICATION FRONT

Over the last three years, antigentrification protestors have targeted galleries in an industrial portion of Boyle Heights. Now, many of those galleries are leaving  including MaRS, founded by Robert Zin Stark, who will stage a ceremonial closing of his space after a meeting with ski-mask-clad activists. But other battles loom. I report on how new zoning code, the designation of part of the neighborhood as an economic opportunity zone, and the development of market-rate lofts at the old Sears mail order complex could redefine the neighborhood. Los Angeles Times

Plus: a sidebar on what the revised zoning code, including the designation of an innovation district, could mean for Boyle Heights. Los Angeles Times

A man walks past a mural on Anderson Street in Boyle Heights that reads RESIST. (Gary Coronado / Los Angeles Times)

Catherine Wagley outlines the history of galleries entering and departing Boyle Heights. ARTnews

And Caribbean Fragoza looks at how some artists in gentrifying neighborhoods are redefining their roles as artists. The American Prospect

HONORING ISADORA DUNCAN

The ballet Isadora, which is premiering at the Segerstrom Center for the Arts this weekend, is inspired by the artistry of one of ballets most legendary figures: the acclaimed American-born dancer Isadora Duncan, who died in 1927. In the lead role is Natalia Osipova, principal dancer at the Royal Ballet. On board as choreographer is Vladimir Varnava, of St. Petersburgs Mariinsky Theatre. The score comes from Prokofievs Cinderella. Laura Bleiberg has a very compelling report. Los Angeles Times

Natalia Osipova, following a rehearsal for the new ballet Isadora at Segerstrom Center for the Arts (Jay L. Clendenin / Los Angeles Times)

SUMMER DREAMING

The New Swan Shakespeare Festivals staging of A Midsummer Nights Dream has given the supernatural play a lesbian twist: One of the four young Athenian lovers, Lysander, is now Lysandra (played by Kayla Kearney). And Times theater critic Charles McNulty says the production pulls off the gender bending with aplomb. The high spirits are infectious, he adds, at least until the second half when the silliness is allowed to devolve into mere horseplay. Los Angeles Times

Kayla Kearney as Lysandra, left, Maya Smoot as Helena and Tristan Turner as Demetrius in A Midsummer Nights Dream. (Paul Kennedy)

LIFE OF PIE

The hit Broadway musical Waitress, inspired by the film of the same name, has landed at the Hollywood Pantages Theatre. The musical  about a waitress, her pies and her complicated love life  needlessly and ham-fistedly tweaked aspects of the film, writes The Times Daryl H. Miller. But much of its strange magic remains. The performance, he notes, has audiences alternately whooping with excitement and dabbing at tears. Los Angeles Times

Charity Angel Dawson, from left, Desi Oakley and Lenne Klingaman in the national tour of Waitress. (Joan Marcus)

Miller also has a look at a rare re-staging of the play Haiti, currently on view at Will Geers Theatricum Botanicum. The play, created by the Federal Theatre Project in the 1930s, tells a story about the former slaves who helped secure independence for Haiti. We can only imagine how segregated America must have responded to this depiction of black people standing up to oppression, he writes. Los Angeles Times

Plus, Matt Cooper has all the weekend picks, including a musical about Judy Garland in Laguna Beach and a dance festival in Santa Monica. Los Angeles Times

IN TRIBUTE

Actress Charlotte Rae was best known as Mrs. Garrett on the 80s sitcom The Facts of Life, but she was also a theater actress. The Times Craig Nakano pays tribute to her stagecraft: It was in the theater where the actress broke out of her sitcom box, defying audiences expectations for decades after she left Mrs. G behind. Los Angeles Times

Charlotte Rae and James Greene in Samuel Becketts Endgame at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in 2016. (Craig Schwartz)

OTHER DIMENSIONS

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has a new show, 3D: Double Vision, that explores the nature of three-dimensional illusion  such as stereoscopic prints and holograms. The show, writes Times art critic Christopher Knight, has assembled a captivating array of material produced since the mid-19th century by scientists, inventors, designers, engineers and artists. Los Angeles Times

Simone Forti, Striding Crawling, 1975-78, integral multiplex hologram. (Fredrik Nilsen)

Plus, Knight also reviews an exhibition of work by Senga Nengudi at Art + Practice. The show, he notes, is more a thumbnail sketch than an in-depth exploration of this key installation and performance artist, but standout video documentation and newer works that take the artists signature material (pantyhose) and attach it to refrigeration equipment, make it worthwhile. Los Angeles Times

IN THE GALLERIES

Times contributing reviewer David Pagel is intrigued by a new show of work by the artist known as Jess (1923-2004) at Kohn Gallery in Hollywood. To visit the show, he writes, is to glimpse a soul who couldnt care less about stylistic consistency. Los Angeles Times

A detail from the collage Untitled (Girl with Geese), 1955, by Jess. (Kohn Gallery and Tibor de Nagy)

For more arts happenings, check out my Datebook, which includes a show of illuminated sacred texts and the dreamlike visions of a Chicana painter. Los Angeles Times

IN OTHER NEWS

 Zadie Smiths critique of the work of L.A. painter Henry Taylor is what you want to be reading this weekend. The New Yorker

 Chinese authorities have demolished Ai Weiweis studio in Beijing. Hyperallergic

 How the Albright-Knox Art Gallery has expanded into the far corners of Buffalo by establishing a program geared at public art. Citylab

 Unionized workers at the Museum of Modern Art this week staged a public walkout. Hrag Vartanian speaks to a pair of museum workers about the museums labor troubles. Hyperallergic

 Someone, please, show this: Oran Zs collection of black Americana in the Mojave Desert. NPR

Oran Z with his collection in 2008. (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

 The Valley Relics Museum is expanding! Los Angeles Magazine

 Jocelyn Vollmar, a founding member of the San Francisco Ballet, and the first American to play the role of the Snow Queen in the Nutcracker, has died at 92. San Francisco Chronicle

 Laura Cappelle picks apart the dancing, the narratives and all the male gaze in contemporary Parisian cabaret. New York Times

 Actor Stacy Keach writes about what its like to have a heart attack on stage. New York Times

 Critic John King has a first look at the San Franciscos new Transbay Terminal, a massive undertaking led by Pelli Clarke Pelli Architects that is part park, part public transit center. San Francisco Chronicle

 Art critic Charles Desmarais, in the meantime, has a look at the terminals works of public art, which each have strengths, but all are subsumed into a vast machine of commerce. San Francisco Chronicle

 Is a mound in Turkey the worlds oldest piece of architecture? The Art Newspaper

 Demolition is set to begin on the Parker Center on Aug. 20. Urbanize.LA

 Dear Architects: Do you have design concepts related to death? An arts nonprofit in upstate New York wants them. The Architects Newspaper

LAST BUT NOT LEAST...

A delicate balancing act between having privacy and showing off your hoarded wealth: a hilarious and withering analysis of education secretary Betsy DeVos summer home by Kate Wagner. Vox

Sign up for our weekly Essential Arts & Culture newsletter 

carolina.miranda@latimes.com | Twitter: @cmonstah
Wind-swept wildfires raging. Homes incinerated. Families displaced. Lives lost.

In the long, hot, smoky California summer of 2018, as we camp under ash-hued sunset skies, the scariest thought is that the future has arrived, and more intense weather extremes will continue to wreak havoc in years to come. Not just in summer, but with drought-deluge cycles and higher temperatures even in cooler months.

Last week, an 81-year-old Van Nuys resident told me that sure, summers have always been hot, but lately they seem to have been imported from Palm Springs.

Near Santa Cruz, a winery owner told me there are fewer foggy days and more high temperatures, shrinking what have long been prime grape-growing regions.

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But not everyone is alarmed, it turns out, which Ive discovered since my July 18 column on climate change. Reaction has fallen into the following categories:

There is no climate change, and Im a stooge to have fallen for a hoax.

Global warming exists, but its not man-made.

Climate change is real, but its silly to believe Californias environmental zealotry can measurably improve a global problem.

And lastly, if climate change is real and its here, what can we do about it legislatively and individually?

So lets take a look at each one, beginning with those who believe  as does the president of the United States and a number of his key advisors and members of Congress  that climate change is a figment of our imaginations, or that were overreacting to what might simply be natural variations.

You see, Steve, what you call global warming, we call summer, wrote a reader named Jim.

They say the temps are the highest recorded in 130 years, wrote Joe. What was the excuse for the soaring temps 130 years ago when there were no cars and very, very little industrialization  heres a clue  its a HOAX swallowed whole by the rush of lemmings who want to believe they are doing gooooooooooood things for the planet.

I responded by telling Joe what several climate scientists have painstakingly explained to me in recent weeks:

Yes, unusually high temperatures have always existed, but scientists have now documented more frequent and intense heat waves of longer duration. Also, nighttime temperatures have increased, record highs now outnumber record lows by a 5-1 ratio and atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased from 250 parts per million to 400 parts per million, all of which has altered climates around the world.

Joe called this information crap that cant stand up to REAL SCIENTIFIC SCRUTINY. He suggested I look up the writings of climate scientist Judith Curry, who has long attacked the views of many climate scientists as alarmist. Curry has not challenged the notion of global warming, but has questioned the causes, and whether there has been a rush to judgment.

Ben Santer, a climate scientist with the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, had this to say:

Prof. Curry has argued (and continues to argue) that: 1) climate scientists routinely ignore important uncertainties in their efforts to quantify human influences on global climate; and 2) reality is too complex for us to comprehend; we will never understand the real-world climate system.

Santer said he disagrees with Curry on both counts.

In my line of research  climate fingerprinting  we routinely consider uncertainties in satellite temperature data, in model simulations of natural variability, and in model estimates of the climate response to human influences, Santer said.

Furthermore, we routinely look at other possible explanations for the observed changes in climate (such as changes in the Suns energy output and changes in volcanic activity). Uncertainty is an integral part of our work. We do not sweep it under the carpet, as Prof. Curry incorrectly asserts, Santer said.

He added that despite imperfect observations, it is clear beyond any reasonable doubt that evidence points to a human-caused warming signal related to greenhouse gas increases. And if we wait for more perfect data before responding, Santer warned, humanity is in trouble.

California isnt waiting. The state has long led the way on embracing renewable energy sources and limiting greenhouse gas emissions. Then theres the current legislation demanding better gas mileage in the near future, which is under attack by the Trump administration. But as a single state in a world of major polluters, can going green make a difference?

Alex Hall, a UCLA climate scientist, has no doubt.

I think whats happening in California is wonderful, said Hall, who traded his gas-hungry car for a Chevy Bolt. Its a pathway forward.

Environmentalism isnt sacrifice, Hall said. Its change. And in charting a course toward renewable energy and lower greenhouse gas emissions, California is setting an agenda.

If you look at any transformation in history, it hasnt happened all at once everywhere, Hall said. Its been a small group of people committed to change. Theyve made change in their communities and it scaled up from there.

Lynn Sosa of Mt. Washington emailed to say she wishes outdoor mall merchants would close their doors in the middle of summer, instead of throwing them open so shoppers might be lured in by air-conditioned blasts. Sosa and her husband, Jeffrey Parkin, suggested I visit Glendales Americana on Brand, and sure enough, more than half the shops had their doors open as the temperature hit 98 one afternoon.

The Apple store was one of them, and Tesla was another  a Tesla showroom with electric cars on display, along with a wall-mounted solar pitch: Energy Security for Your Home.

Maybe Tesla/Space X engineering guru Elon Musk has a plan to reverse global warming with air conditioning?

Actually, said the Tesla sales clerk, the AC was working so hard with the doors wide open, it had been on the fritz two or three times in recent weeks. He said that keeping the doors open was mall policy, but Americana owner Rick Caruso denied that and called it unacceptable, promising to look into it.

We are adamant that we are environmentally sensitive, Caruso said.

Adaptation is survival, and we have to do it in our personal and professional lives, said David Fink, a climate change policy consultant whose projects include updating the states Cal-Adapt.org website, which logs climate change data to aid in planning decisions.

We have to be smarter about how we get places, how much fuel we burn, where we clear brush and where we plant trees, where we allow new housing developments and what materials we use to build them, Fink said.

Laying down black asphalt everywhere is one of the worst things we can be doing, said Fink, who told me about light-colored coating materials that dont retain as much heat.

The same concept is true, he added, for new roofing materials that reflect rather than absorb heat.

A key to all of this is that a number of these things are either free or there are incentives or rebates available, said Fink, who recommended going to LADWP.com and clicking on rebates for information.

There are, of course, ways to make an impact on a bigger scale, or to at least try. You can speak up for candidates who understand the threat to the planet, or you can scream about destructive environmental policy bought and paid for by fossil fuel barons.

As Santer said, one of the best things you can do is educate yourself. He suggested that I read Climate Change Evidence & Causes, a short summary thats been neatly laid out by the Royal Society and the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.

I grew up in California, lived in the Bay Area for 30 years and in Southern California for 20 more, and yes, climate variations have always existed. I can recall many extremes of dry heat and steady rain.

But this looks and feels different. The hills are drier and more combustible, the heat is hotter and more stubborn, the fires are bigger and more frightening and I can only wonder what well be passing on to my daughter and future generations.

However many naysayers there are, including a president who blames Californias catastrophe on everything but global warming, leading the way on educating, planning and adapting isnt just possible, its a moral imperative.

Get more of Steve Lopezs work and follow him on Twitter @LATstevelopez
Chronograph chronology Chronograph chronology

Since the acclaimed premiere of the Datograph 16 years ago, the Saxon watch brand has continuously leveraged its expertise in this domain...

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Firefighters continued to make significant progress against the Holy fire burning in the Cleveland National Forest near Lake Elsinore, raising the fires containment to 41% on Sunday, officials said.

The blaze has been burning along inaccessible ridges and mountains in Orange and Riverside counties since Monday, chewing through bone-dry chaparral, short grass and brush that have not seen a fire in decades.

As of Sunday morning, the Holy fire  named for Holy Jim Canyon Road, near where the fire got its start  had burned 22,714 acres and 12 structures, officials said. All of those structures burned in the fires early stages. A damage assessment team was working to determine whether more structures had been damaged or destroyed, said Thanh Nguyen, a public information officer for an incident management team assigned to the fire.

Residents who had evacuated the McVicker Canyon neighborhood just east of the national forest were returning Saturday to find that firefighters, and a few homeowners who stayed behind, had prevented any homes from burning.

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Thank you is not enough for these firemen, said Minnie Gaucin, who watched the Thursday-afternoon drama on a surveillance camera feed from her sisters house in Temecula, as firefighters used hoses and hand tools to save her home at the corner of Edgewood and North Crest drives.

They were in our yard putting the fire out, four or five firemen Gaucin said. I was watching my own home on my phone; the flames were very high. I started crying. I wanted my home to be safe.

On Saturday she found there was no damage, just ashes everywhere.

Kenneth Leishman, one of the few residents who ignored the evacuation order, recounted how he watched flames rush past the last mountaintop and down the gully to his house on Edgewood.

Kenneth Leishman, who lives in McVicker Canyon neighborhood, didnt evacuate but stayed in to protect his home from Holy Fire. (Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times)

When they told everybody to evacuate, I stayed, Leishman said.

His 5-year-old house is built of fire-resistant materials, but its attic vents could be passageways for embers, firefighters told him. Following their advice, he worked for hours on his roof covering the 14 vents with cardboard and duct tape.

Then he started cutting brush in his backyard until firefighters came to help him.

They didnt like my plug-in chain saw, so they took over, Leishman said.

When the fire came, it was sudden.

At one point it felt like it was a mile away, Leishman said. In about 30 seconds it turned on the wind. That was it. It was in our backyard. It sounds like a freight train coming toward you. Its hard to explain if you havent been there.

Leishman said he got down from his roof and waited it out in the street with firefighters and police.

Examining his almost undamaged house after it was over, he found piles of embers under the vents.

(Los Angeles Times)

High temperatures, steep terrain and dry grasses and other fuels on the mountains have made firefighting difficult, Nguyen said.

Firefighters will face thunderstorms this weekend, in addition to soaring temperatures, gusty winds and dry conditions  creating a period of near critical fire weather, officials said in a news release.

Wind gusts also have lifted embers out of the main blaze and deposited them in new areas, sparking fires that stretch the firefighters thin, Nguyen said.

All those things make it difficult, Nguyen said.

The Holy fire has injured three firefighters and displaced more than 20,000 people. It started Monday near Trabuco Canyon and was intentionally set, officials said.

Full coverage: Californias summer siege of wildfires 

More than 1,200 firefighters are battling the blaze. Also on scene are 12 airplanes and 14 helicopters to fight the fire from the air.

Although weather is not on the firefighters side, geography is. Lake Elsinore has been the source of water for many drops, officials said, and the short distance from the lake to the fire has been a big help.

If you have to travel a long distance, you risk allowing the fire to regrow, Nguyen said.

On Friday, a plane and the water tanker it was leading were both forced to land after striking a bird. Nguyen said it was unclear which of the two planes had hit the bird, but both landed safely, with no one aboard suffering any injuries.

Orange County authorities arrested Forrest Gordon Clark, 51, earlier this week and charged him with multiple counts of arson in connection with the Holy fire.

Clark had a brief court appearance in Santa Ana on Friday, during which he made several outbursts, calling the charges against him a lie and insisting that he was being threatened. His bail was set at $1 million. His arraignment was set for Aug. 17.

Clarks Facebook feed is littered with links to popular conspiracy theories, some pertaining to land use. The Cleveland National Forest is federal land, and cabins in the area where Clark lives and where the fire was started are not supposed to be used as full-time residences.

More than 13,000 firefighters are battling 18 blazes across California. The fires have scorched more than 650,000 acres, an area larger than Sacramento County.

The largest is the Mendocino Complex fire, the biggest recorded in California history. The blaze, made up of the Ranch and River fires, had burned more than 328,226 acres as of Saturday morning. The Ranch fire was 58% contained, and the River fire was 92% contained.

In Redding, the 186,416-acre Carr fire was 55% contained. That fire had destroyed 1,881 structures, including 1,077 homes and other residential structures, and threatened 528 others.

ruben.vives@latimes.com

laura.nelson@latimes.com

doug.smith@latimes.com

Times staff writer Christopher Goffard contributed to this article.

UPDATES:

9:10 a.m., Aug. 12: This article was updated with new containment figures.

7:25 p.m.: This article was updated with new information on acreage burned in the Holy fire.

6:40 p.m.: This article was updated with new information on acreage burned in Mendocino Complex Fire.

4:10 p.m.: This article was updated with new information from fire officials.

12:40 p.m.: This article was updated with new information from residents whose homes were threatened.

10:45 a.m., Aug. 11: This article was updated with new information from fire officials about containment.

This article was originally posted at 9:25 p.m. Aug. 10.
Tera Swick watched in horror as monster flames raced down a mountain Friday morning and toward her mothers neighborhood.

She and her family had been tracking the Holy fire during the last few days, watching it gain steam then stall as it climbed through the Santa Ana Mountains from Orange County into the foothills above the Riverside County lake community.

All night, the fire raced toward the Robin Hood Oaks subdivision, which was illuminated with flames and the flashing lights of fire trucks. Swick had a U-Haul packed with belongings ready to go with her family.

Then, a plane flew in low and dropped water on the flames. Swick and her family screamed with excitement.

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Theyre just amazing, she said. Were cheering them on every time theyre making drops.

(Los Angeles Times)

It was that kind of day on the Holy fire lines, as a squadron of 12 fixed-wing planes and 14 helicopters pounded the 21,400-acre fire with water and retardant.

Its been an epic aerial assault that is showing signs of success. By Saturday morning, containment of the fire had jumped from 5% to 29% in less than 24 hours. While flames whipped dangerously close to Lake Elsinore suburban developments, there has not been a major loss of housing so far.

The hot conditions and unpredictable weather has made it difficult for firefighters to get ahead of the fire. But they have one big advantage: easy access to the water from Lake Elsinore, which they have used for countless drops.

California fire coverage: Eight dead and hundreds of thousands of acres scorched across the state 

The short distance from the lake to the flames has proven a key factor in tamping down the flames.

If you have to travel a long distance you risk of allowing the fire to regrow, said Thanh Nguyen, spokesman for Southern California Interagency Incident Management Team 1, which is managing Holy fire operations.

The air bombardment occurred day and night. Teams were halted for a short time Thursday night because of poor visibility. At least one plane and a tanker had to make an emergency landing in San Bernardino Friday after one or two of the aircrafts struck a bird.

The air operations have been relentless, Nguyen added. When we drop so many gallons of water, were doing it to overwhelm the heat with the coolness of the water.

The fire started several days ago near Holy Jim Canyon in Orange County, allegedly on purpose by a local resident. It moved up through the rugged Cleveland National Forest and down into Riverside County, where it approached thousands of homes. More than 20,000 people were ordered to flee their homes as more than 1,000 firefighters battled the fire.

Firefighters have battled extreme heat as well as winds, which sent embers flying and caused new spot fires. The winds pushed the fire faster than firefighters could reach it.

We have high temperatures in the burning areas, steep terrain, but on top of that, dry fuel, Nguyen said. The growth is extraordinary.

Three firefighters have been hurt, but so far there have been no civilian casualties. Twelve structures were lost, mostly deep in the forest.

Residents in Lake Elsinore said they were awed by the ground and air campaigns, saying they saw how those efforts stopped flames they thought for sure would push into their neighborhoods and destroy homes.

We want to thank the firefighters for all the hard work, said Ana Tran, who on Thursday opened her garage door and saw fire retardant falling from above onto homes, cars and plants.

Orange County authorities arrested Forrest Gordon Clark, 51, for allegedly causing the fire. He faces numerous charges including aggravated arson of property and of a forest. Clark lives in the canyon area where the fire started. On Friday, he appeared in court, making several outbursts after his bail was set at $1 million. His arraignment was set for Aug. 17.

It was not immediately clear how the fire was set but investigators said they identified Clark based on witness statements and physical findings at the fire.

Before he was arrested, Clark gave a rambling interview with KABC-TV Channel 7, saying he didnt know anything about the fire.

I have no idea. I was asleep; I had two earplugs in, he told the station, adding that gangs were after him and that hed been up for more than 20 days after visiting a South Orange County hospital.

As Swick looked at the fire sweeping toward her Lake Elsinore neighborhood after midnight Friday morning, she said it was hard to believe this much destruction could have been caused by one man.

Its disgusting, she said.

But she could not say enough about the firefighters defending her subdivision. Swick said her late father was a Cal Fire firefighter. He led female inmate crews, and she knows how dangerous the job can be.

These guys out here are the ones that deserve the attention, she said. Theyre fighting so hard.

UPDATES:

7:20 a.m.: This story has been updated with fire acreage and containment figures.

This article was originally published at 5 a.m.
A former Torrey Pines High School student whose online threats in May prompted school officials to cancel classes for a day was sentenced Friday in San Diego Superior Court to a residential treatment facility and placed on probation for five years.

Kevin Matlak, 21, pleaded guilty in July to one count of making a criminal threat.

He posted a photo on his Instagram account showing himself holding an AR-15 assault rifle, an image of a decapitated head, the phrase I hate all of you and a veiled threat that no one was going to graduate from Torrey Pines High, authorities said.

Another post, using an expletive, said, Get the  out of San Diego 2K18 before I find u.

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Judge Polly Shamoon sentenced Matlak to up to one year in custody, starting immediately at a residential substance abuse treatment facility instead of county jail.

He is to undergo at least six months of substance abuse and mental health treatment at a rural facility, Genesis Recovery Inc., in the eastern part of the county.

You cant leave without the courts express approval, Shamoon told Matlak.

The judge also ordered Matlak to stay 1,000 yards away from his former high school, to allow law enforcement access to his electronic devices and to stay away from the three individuals who read his online posts and felt threatened.

Defense attorney Brian Watkins told the judge his client doesnt know those people.

This satisfies the public safety that were very concerned with and hopefully gets him the help he needs, Deputy Dist. Atty. Matthew Greco said after the sentencing.

The three former classmates of Matlak, who graduated in 2015, reported seeing his Instagram posts on May 30 and reported them to San Diego police. Police confiscated the rifle Matlak had posed with and the next day arrested him in Point Loma. Greco did not say how or where police obtained the rifle.

As soon as Matlak was released from jail on bail, he had himself admitted into a treatment facility, Watkins said at a previous court hearing. Matlak later was released from the facility and booked into jail.

The high schools principal decided to cancel classes May 31 as a precaution because of the threats.

Principal Rob Coppo wrote a letter to the court saying what an impact that day had on him and his staff, Greco said.

The letter said that, before getting word of the arrest, administrators came to the realization that they were going to have to put themselves in harms way in order to ensure that the school was closed, Greco said.

He said Matlak originally was charged with three counts of criminal threats, involving the three reported victims, and could have spent up to four years and four months in prison.

The plea bargain included dismissal of two of the counts and an agreement that he would not spend more time behind bars unless he violates the terms of his five-year probation.

A second case against Matlak, in which he was accused of stealing and using an acquaintances credit card, was dismissed when he pleaded guilty in the school threats case.

Repard writes for the San Diego Union-Tribune.

pauline.repard@sduniontribune.com
A dog park opened Friday on skid row to assist residents of a homeless services agency to get off the streets without being forced to give up their pets.

Shaded by a tree and lined with cheerful dog graphics, the Weingart Centers pocket park comes amid a growing consensus that shelter pet prohibitions have posed a major barrier to helping L.A.s 53,000 homeless people turn their lives around.

As recently as five years ago, homeless pet owners on skid row were being targeted by social media campaigns as neglectful and venal people who bred puppies for fight pits and for sale, often to other homeless people.

While acknowledging a small percentage of homeless people do breed and abuse their pets, advocates say the overwhelming majority go without eating to feed their dogs, and are attentive caretakers. Most will not abandon their pets, even for housing or shelter, supporters said.

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Theyve lost everything, and now this pet is giving them unconditional love and protection, said Genevieve Frederick, founder of Pets of the Homeless, a national nonprofit that operates in Los Angeles.

Ernie, a Shih Tzu, top, and Chub-Chub Lee, a cocker spaniel-Rottweiler mix, rest at Weingart Centers pocket park. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

Two years ago, the Inner City Law Center and L.A. Animal Services opened a weekly pet resource center on skid row, providing free food and other supplies, veterinary care and spay and neuter services. Several big shelters have relaxed or eliminated pet bans, and now, Mayor Eric Garcetti plans to accept pets as part of his upcoming, $20-million citywide shelter expansion.

People in the streets have always had dogs and now were finally starting to incorporate services so they will want to go into housing, said Lori Weise, founder of Downtown Dog Rescue, which helps run the resource center.

Nearly half of skid rows pet owners are homeless and most of the rest live in motels, renovated flophouses or shelters, officials at skid row resource center said. The Weingart dog park will be restricted to use by the centers clients, 15 of whom currently live with dogs or cats in the 11-story center, the former El Rey Hotel.

Wed love to provide a bigger program,  said Tonja Boykin, chief operating officer for the Weingart Center, but we know that individuals sleeping on the street have pets for comfort, protection and solace, and faced with transitional housing that doesnt allow pets, they therefore stay on the streets longer.

We want people to come in, she said.

Bobby Ann Luckett, a Weingart Center resident, visits the new dog park with her dogs, Princess Ann, an 8-year-old Maltese/terrier mix, and Chub-Chub Lee, a 16-year-old cocker spaniel-Rottweiler mix. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

Several residents said the park will provide respite from their overheated and lonely rooms, as well as a place to exercise and socialize their pets without venturing into the often violent and rat- and needle-infested streets of skid row.

They steal your clothes, you get robbed and cussed out for no reason, said Bobby Ann Luckett, 67, who had been pulling her two fluffy dogs, Chub-Chub Lee and Princess Ann, in a laundry cart to search out the neighborhoods few trees and greenery. I can come down here and we can have time together at night.

Funded by a $15,000 Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority grant, the park will also offer obedience training, food and other pet supplies, veterinary care and spay and neuter services.

The homeless authority also granted four other agencies  Proyecto Pastoral, Volunteers of America Los Angeles, L.A. Family Housing and People Assisting the Homeless, or PATH  money to purchase kennels and crates, furnish pet and cleaning supplies, hire dog trainers and make shelter modifications to better accommodate companion animals, for a total of $150,000 in grants.

Moore Ruble Yudell Architects & Planners and designers Jen Ha and Victoria Lam donated their services to planning the park, which also features a couple of benches and succulent planters.

Steffen Baldwin, the centers dog trainer, said he will be working with individual and group behaviors so pets can adjust not only to living at Weingart but later in permanent housing. Key to the training is a space to let the dogs off-leash, he said.

Its amazing what dogs can teach themselves if we let dogs be dogs, Baldwin said. Fifteen minutes of group play is as stimulating as an hour walk.

Residents will be equipped with pooper scoopers and doggie bags, and trained to keep the park clean, Boykin said.

The worst thing that could happen in my mind is for people to find they are not equipped to handle pets, and the landlords put them out, Boykin said.

Ducep Palermo, 42, said her dog Rex became anxious and fearful living in a tent at MacArthur Park and then on skid row since her barber shop business fell apart two years ago.

I promised him when I rescued him I could take care of him, but I lied to him, Palermo said, tears running down her face.

Volunteers of America helped her get into the Weingart Center three months ago, and on Friday, she found out that shed been cleared for permanent housing.

Ive seen more crime and violence in three months than the whole rest of my life, she said. Weve been chased by dogs and chased by people, and I was more concerned for him than for myself.

gholland@latimes.com

Twitter: @geholland
The Russians were confused. They were not alone.

On Wednesday, the Trump administration said it would impose sanctions later this month against Russia in retaliation for the attempted assassination of a former Russian spy, now a British citizen, and his daughter, in England last spring with an illegal nerve agent.

The sanctions were announced 3 1/2 weeks after President Trump met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki and blamed U.S. policies for the nosedive in relations with Moscow. Trump also cast doubt on the U.S. intelligence agencies conclusion that Russia had interfered in the 2016 election, citing Putins denial instead.

Once again, Trump pronouncements, from national security to international trade, appeared at odds with his own administrations policy in practice. Nowhere is the disconnect more glaring than in foreign policy, where the twists and turns have bewildered world leaders, from NATO allies to autocrats in China and the Middle East.

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Usually the U.S. government has one policy, enunciated by the president, and all the advisors work to enact it, said Timothy Naftali, a presidential historian and former director of the Richard Nixon Library. This essentially is a U.S. government with two policies.

Ive never seen anything like it, he added.

Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo has appeared more adept at balancing the contradictions than his predecessor, Rex Tillerson, whom Trump fired in March. But it isnt always easy.

Pompeo flew to Asia this month, for example, to promote one of the administrations policy visions: a free and open Indo-Pacific region of trade and markets stretching from California to Japan, India and Australia.

But in high-level meetings in Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia, Pompeo repeatedly had to reassure regional officials worried about a different vision: Trumps trade tariffs against China, Korea, Canada and other countries, and his willingness to engage in a potentially ruinous trade war.

Speaking to reporters as he flew back to Washington, Pompeo rebuffed the notion that Trumps trade policy had tied his hands. He insisted that he and the president agreed on the need for tough action to create open markets, and that Trump didnt want a trade war.

Thats what I told every one of my counterparts, Pompeo added, acknowledging that the question had dogged him at each stop.

Appearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 25, Pompeo was repeatedly assailed for the administrations handling of talks with Russia and North Korea, and other major foreign policy initiatives.

Sen. Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), who chairs the committee, criticized Trump for failing to disclose any agreements he had reached in two hours of private talks with Putin, for undermining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and for his attacks on other U.S. allies.

You come before a group of senators today who are filled with serious doubts about this White House and its conduct of American foreign policy, Mr. Corker said. From where we sit, it appears that in a ready-fire-aim fashion, the White House is waking up every morning making it up as they go.

In the testy hearing, Pompeo was forced to contradict Trumps claim that North Korea was no longer a nuclear threat thanks to his summit in Singapore with Kim Jong Un. Pompeo acknowledged that Pyongyang is still producing fuel for nuclear bombs and has not shown any sign of giving up its arsenal.

On Russia, Pompeo repeated U.S. policy that Washington views Moscows 2014 annexation of Crimea as illegal and will not ease sanctions on Russia until the peninsula is returned to Ukraine.

Trump has voiced less concern, musing in June that Crimea may as well be Russian because people there speak Russian. He also said Russia should be readmitted to the Group of 7 industrialized nations, although it was expelled in 2014 because of its military operations in Ukraine.

The administration has taken tough measures against Russia, including the expulsion of dozens of Russian diplomats in retaliation for Moscows intervention in the 2016 presidential race. Prodded by Congress, it also has imposed several packages of sanctions.

Trump has never condemned Putin, however, and before the two met in Helsinki, Trump blamed the poor relations on many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity, not on Russias aggression in Ukraine, its attempts to hack U.S. election facilities, the nerve gas attack in England or other alleged misdeeds.

The Russians may be as confused as the rest of the world about official U.S.  policy, Daniel Fried, a 40-year veteran of the State Department, said last week at the Atlantic Council, a Washington think tank. President Trump says one thing and his administration another.

Indeed, Russias Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev warned Friday that the U.S. sanctions could be considered a declaration of economic war.

And it would be necessary, it would be needed to react to this war economically, politically, or, if needed, by other means. And our American friends need to understand this, he added.

Allies also have scrambled to fathom what Trump wants, and whether Pompeo and other senior aides speak on his behalf. Some find a workaround, like Mexico, which deals directly with Trumps son-in-law and advisor Jared Kushner, thanks to his personal relationship with Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Videgaray.

At the same time, Trump loyalists across the government have managed to translate his rhetoric to policy. Few in the administration now speak of climate change, which Trump has called a hoax, or human rights abuses, which Trump has largely ignored  except in Venezuela and Iran, which he considers adversaries.

Still, U.S. officials sometimes sound like they work for a different administration. So it seemed, at least, when the U.S. ambassador to NATO, Kay Bailey Hutchison, and the U.S. ambassador to Russia, Jon Huntsman Jr., briefed reporters before the July 11 NATO summit in Brussels.

They extolled the importance of strength and unity in the 29-nation military alliance and its bedrock commitment to mutual defense.

Days later, Hutchison and Huntsman appeared distressed as Trump railed against German Chancellor Angela Merkel, calling Germany a captive of Russia for its purchase of natural gas, and denounced other allies as delinquent in defense spending.

His provocative insults, false claims and broad theatrics roiled the gathering and overshadowed several concrete achievements  including an agreement to reinforce its deterrence and defense capabilities to counter Russian aggression.

Some of us just hope to wake up one day and all of this will be over, said a European diplomat, who asked for anonymity to be able to speak frankly.

tracy.wilkinson@latimes.com

For more on international affairs, follow @TracyKWilkinson on Twitter
He had all the proper security credentials. He had been working his shift and was believed to still be in uniform. The baggage handler didnt seem out of place at all  until he was taxiing down the runway and taking off in a stolen passenger plane.

Richard Russell sparked a combination of amazement and fear as he flew  alone  a 76-seat Horizon Air Q400 plane for more than an hour before it crashed on a wooded area on Ketron Island south of Seattle.

He did a barrel roll. A daring swoop. Officials said they didnt believe he even had a pilots license.

Incredible, Horizon Air President and Chief Executive Gary Beck said Saturday.

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But investigators are still trying to understand why the man nicknamed Beebo decided to take the plane for a what appeared to be joy ride Friday evening from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.

Mike Matthews, a family friend, read a statement on behalf of Russells family Saturday night that said relatives were still trying to process what happened.

We are stunned and heartbroken, he said. It may seem difficult for those watching at home to believe, but Beebo was a warm, compassionate man. It is impossible to encompass who he was in a press release. He was a faithful husband, a loving son, and a good friend.

The statement also said: As the voice recording show, Beebos intent was not to harm anyone and he was right in saying that there are so many people who loved him.

The act also reignited discussions about airport and aviation security, with Alaska Airlines Chairman and Chief Executive Brad Tilden repeating several times Saturday that passenger and employee safety was  and is  the companys primary concern. Horizon Air is a subsidiary of Alaska Air Group.

The FBI special agent in charge in Washington state, Jay Tabb, said Saturday that dozens of investigators were combing the crash site, where it is believed the man died. Officials at the Pierce County medical examiners office confirmed Sunday they have Russells body. He was 28.

We are diligently investigating this matter, Tabb said. We will get to the bottom of it.

It is believed the man was the only one in the plane, but Tabb said that investigators hadnt confirmed that at the crash site. Officials with Horizon Air said the plane had not been scheduled to fly and was parked at a cargo parking area at the airport.

The man was authorized to tow aircraft. Officials said he rotated the plane 180 degrees, using a push-back tractor to position it for takeoff at 7:32 p.m.

During the flight the renegade pilot bantered erratically with air traffic controllers, who pleaded with him to land the plane, according to officials and dispatch. Officials said they lost contact with him at 8:47 p.m.

This is probably jail time for life, huh? said the man, according to dispatch audio reviewed by the Seattle Times. I would hope it is for a guy like me.

Oh, Richard, said an air traffic controller, Were not going to worry or think about that. But could you start a left turn, please?

Paul Rinaldi, president of the National Air Traffic Controllers Assn., on Saturday praised the controllers who dealt with the man in the air.

In a statement, Rinaldi said of one of the controllers: The recordings of the incident display his exceptional professionalism and his calm and poised dedication to the task at hand that is a hallmark of our air traffic controller workforce nationwide.

Michael Ehl, Seattle-Tacoma International Airports director of operations, said 75 flights were delayed, nine flights were diverted to other airports and five flights were canceled due to the incident.

Ehl said the man who took the plane was authorized to be in the vicinity of the parked aircraft.

He was totally credentialed, Ehl said. He had access to that area legitimately.

Jeff Price, professor of aviation at Metropolitan State University in Denver, said the incident would probably be a wake-up call for closer scrutiny and tighter security at airports and among airlines, and would require reworking the way employees report pre-incident behaviors that might point to a problem.

Price said that as more time has passed since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, security at airports and among airlines and the Transportation Security Administration has gotten more lax. He noted reports that have shown dangerous objects clearing security systems. The Horizon plane theft, he said, would probably force the airline industry to take a closer look at screening and identifying employees within the secure area that might be a danger.

Price said the airlines and airplane manufacturers may also look at adding layers of security to keep anyone but the flight crew from taking off in a specific plane. Special encrypted passcodes could be a part of that process, he said.

But he also said Fridays heist of the aircraft falls low on the risk scale and that the threat of a rogue pilot crashing a plane had always been present. This incident, he said, would probably make it more difficult for those who might have similar thoughts or plans about taking a plane.

Thats always been a risk, Price said. But now theyll find it harder to navigate the process because now people will be watching for it. Its possible for a terrorist to become a pilot, but theres a lot of water between that and what happened in Seattle.

In this long-exposure photo, smoke and an orange glow are seen on Ketron Island after a stolen plane crashed. (Ted S. Warren / Associated Press)

At one point, the pilot said: Im gonna land it, in a safe kind of manner. I think Im gonna try to do a barrel roll, and if that goes good, Im just gonna nose down and call it a night.

Two F-15 fighter jets were scrambled from Portland, Ore., during the unauthorized flight. The fighter jets were traveling so quickly that at least one of them broke the sound barrier, setting off a sonic boom that some people in the vicinity mistook for an explosion.

Video posted by witnesses on social media showed the plane making a barrel roll over what appears to be Puget Sound, with some people crying out in terror as the plane exited the roll in a dive toward the water, before barely pulling up in time and flying away.

Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Hes OK? Hes OK, one woman said in a video posted on Facebook, which showed at least one of the military jets in pursuit.

Debra Eckrote, Western Pacific regional chief of the NTSB, said agents were looking for flight data recorders and the remains of the airline employee.

The cockpit voice recorder could prove useful, Eckrote said. We already have the air traffic and pilot communications, but he might have been talking to himself in the cockpit, she said.

The plane went down in a heavily forested area with thick underbrush. First responders cleared a path to the wreckage Friday night, she said. A fire sparked by the crash was out by daylight.

The plane did not hit any structures, according to an Alaska Airlines statement. Ketron Island is primarily undeveloped, with a few homes toward the north end of the island, according to a Pierce County website.

Whether the crash was intentional is among the many questions facing investigators. According to the dispatch audio reviewed by the Seattle Times, the man told air traffic controllers: Ive got a lot of people that care about me. Its going to disappoint them to hear that I did this. I would like to apologize to each and every one of them. Just a broken guy; got a few screws loose, I guess. Never really knew it, until now.

Jimmy Thomson, deputy editor of Canadian investigative environmental news outlet the Narwhal, compiled portions of the air traffic recording. In one clip, the man says he wouldnt know how to land the plane. I wasnt really planning on landing it, he says.

On a blog belonging to Russell, created last year for a communications class at Washington State University, he wrote that he lives in Sumner with his wife, Hannah. He said he was born in Key West, Fla., and moved to Wasilla, Alaska, at age 7.

Russell said he and his wife ran a bakery for three years in Oregon before moving to Washington in 2015 to be near her family. He said he got the job at Horizon so he could travel to Alaska more easily to visit his family.

In one post, he says he never imagined himself as a ground services agent because it seemed like miserable work. I always felt bad for the guys and gals who handled luggage, he wrote.

But later, he said, he was glad to have been turned down after an interview for a customer service agent position. Ive since learned that angry people can be much more exhausting than heavy bags, he wrote.

andrea.castillo@latimes.com

Twitter: @andreamcastillo

david.montero@latimes.com

Twitter: @davemontero

matt.pearce@latimes.com

Twitter: @mattdpearce

UPDATES:

Sunday, 1 p.m.: This story has been updated with a statement from Russells family.

8:20 p.m.: This article has been updated with comments from security experts and biographical details on the man identified in multiple media reports as the one who piloted the stolen plane.

This article was originally published at 2:45 p.m.
Happy Saturday, which is looking like another hot one in Southern California. And since you might not feel like firing up the oven when the temperatures are hovering around triple digits, how about making ceviche, which doesnt require you to cook your fish at all. We have some excellent suggestions for the addictive South American dish, sourced from local ingredients by way of Peru and Ecuador, and using seasonal produce as well as seafood.

What to pair with a plate of chile-spiked rockfish? How about some local wine, specifically some of the stuff made from a crew of winemakers called garagistes. People jump-start all kinds of hobbies in their garages, and in wine country that includes, no surprise, wine. We have a story about that, as well as a foray into the coffee scene in Lynwood, found not in a garage but in a community center.

We also have some suggestions for what to do with the market produce now hitting the stands (summer beans), as well as some ways to grill your desserts rather than baking them. You might also whip up a batch of popsicles, which you could load with blueberries and lavender, or spike with some of the same ingredients that you put into your favorite cocktails. Keep cool, however you can, and enjoy your weekend.

 Amy Scattergood

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CEVICHES FROM PERU AND ECUADOR

Peruvian and Ecuadorean ceviches and related salsas at the table. (Maria Alejandra Cardona / Los Angeles Times)

If your experience of ceviches, the South American dish of citrus-cured fish and seafood, has been limited to the straightforward versions served at many seafood restaurants, food writer Amelia Saltsman has brought back some more inventive versions from a recent trip to Peru and Ecuador. These are recipes built on local seafood, but loaded with chiles, leche de tigre, sweet potatoes and corn. Not a fish person? She has a recipe for a vegetarian ceviche thats got not only a wealth of seasonal vegetables, but popcorn. Yes, popcorn.

WHATS IN YOUR GARAGE

Organizers of Garagiste festival, from left: Doug Minnick (co-founder), Lisa Dinsmore, Melanie Webber and Stewart McLennan (co-founder). (Laura Simak)

Strange and wondrous things happen in garages, says wine writer Patrick Comiskey. And yes, hes talking about wine  specifically the breed of self-starter wine fanatics called garagistes, so named for their penchant for tinkering not in their wine cellars but in their garages. There are not a few of these, so many that they have not only their own name but their own wine festival called the Garagiste Wine Festival. He tells us what goes on there, plus highlights four local winemakers who participated in the most recent Santa Monica festival.

A LEGENDARY RESTAURANT CLOSES

Piero Selvaggio, owner of Valentino restaurant in Santa Monica, which will close at the end of the year. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

For the last 46 years, Piero Selvaggios landmark Santa Monica restaurant Valentino has been the locus of high-end Italian dining in Los Angeles. He introduced many Angelenos to truffles, balsamic vinegar and not a few wines from his famous cellars. That era will end with 2018, as the restaurant will close Dec. 31. Whats next for Selvaggio might surprise you: an Italian steakhouse in Newport Beach. Food Editor Jenn Harris has details on this and more news (dim sum in Vegas; more pizza in West Hollywood) in her weekly restaurant news column.

SOS CAULIFLOWER

The Four Seasons cauliflower steaks with black walnut quinoa and fragrant pear curry. (Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times)

Fashioning wedges of cauliflower into steaks has been an on-trend recipe in recent years. And one reader wrote in recently to request the cauliflower steak recipe from the Four Seasons in New York City. Test Kitchen Director Noelle Carter got the recipe in her latest Culinary SOS column, a slice that comes atop quinoa and blanched vegetables. Pining for a particular recipe? Write to Noelle and shell do her best to find it for you.

CO-OP CAPPUCCINO

Kateri Gutierrez and Jonathan Robles at their Lynwood co-op, Collective Avenue Coffee. (Gabriel S. Scarlett / Los Angeles Times)

There are the third-wave coffee shops that, with their gadgets and accouterments, look more like science labs than java joints, and then there is Collective Avenue Coffee, a co-op in Lynwood thats run out of a concessions stand at a community center. Thus rather than siphons and pour-overs, theres a pingpong table and piles of kids backpacks. Food writer Ben Mesirow talks to the local pair who envisioned the worker-owned cooperative cafe.

The Taste(s): Our annual Labor Day festival, the Taste, will be held over the course of that holiday weekend at Paramount. And this year were having two Tastes, not one, with the second happening in October in Costa Mesa. For more info and early tickets, go to extras.latimes.com/taste.

Check us out on Instagram at @latimesfood.

And dont forget the thousands of recipes in our California Cookbook recipe database.

Feedback? Wed love to hear from you. Email us at food@latimes.com.
Good morning, and welcome to the Essential California newsletter. It is Saturday, Aug. 11. Heres what you dont want to miss this weekend:

TOP STORIES

This fire might be won from the air. A squadron of 12 fixed-wing planes and 14 helicopters pounded the Holy Fire, an epic aerial assault that is showing signs of success. The hot conditions and unpredictable weather have made it difficult for firefighters to get ahead of the fire. But they have one big advantage: easy access to the water from Lake Elsinore, which they have used for countless drops. The short distance to the lake has proven a key factor in tamping down the flames. Los Angeles Times

 Amid Californias destructive year of fire, a pitched battle is underway over how much slack the Legislature should  or can  provide for the states utility companies facing liability under a strict standard they have been held to for more than a half-century. Industry representatives have warned that those rules, combined with the forecast of a hotter and drier California, mean that proactive fire policies wont be enough to prevent the kinds of costs that could lead to bankruptcy. Los Angeles Times

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 Yosemite will finally reopen next week. Los Angeles Times

 Mapping Californias many terrible fires. New York Times

-- Northern California air quality goes from bad to worse. Record Searchlight

A deputys secrets

Los Angeles County Sheriffs Deputy James Peterson testified for years in state court without his history of misconduct becoming an issue. But when he was set to testify in federal court, his past suddenly caught up with him. How could one court system keep his record a secret and another consider it so prejudicial that several drug cases built on his work collapsed? Los Angeles Times

The scooter backlash

As cities from Santa Monica to Beverly Hills struggle to control the rapid proliferation of electric pay-per-mile scooters, Westside vandals are waging a guerrilla war against the devices and destroying them in increasingly imaginative ways  including burying them at sea. Los Angeles Times

Westside vandals are waging a guerrilla war against pay-per-mile scooters. These Bird electric scooters were left on the Venice Beach boardwalk. (Gabriel S. Scarlett / Los Angeles Times)

AROUND CALIFORNIA

Follow the money: Los Angeles officials have signed off on about $1 billion in taxpayer assistance for hotels and other development since 2005, yet they lack a rigorous process for finding out whether the money was well spent, a new audit found. Los Angeles Times

Case closed: Los Angeles prosecutors dropped all criminal charges against the Skid Row Stabber suspect on Friday, closing a 40-year legal saga complicated by a jailhouse scandal, overturned convictions and a defendant who may have only months to live. Los Angeles Times

Stunning decision: The plea deal for the Ghost Ship fire disaster was thrown out by a judge. Why? The defendant didnt show remorse. SF Gate

Must be nice: Why politicians in Sacramento dont need to worry about those long DMV lines. Sacramento Bee

Exploring their options: Facing mounting criticism for allowing Hollister Ranch landowners to keep 8.5 miles of Santa Barbara coastline largely closed to the beachgoing public, state officials indicated some regret about the controversial deal they quietly agreed to earlier this year. Los Angeles Times

Sad times: The bird population in the Salton Sea is plummeting. Desert Sun

Huge jury award: A San Francisco jury has awarded $289 million to a former school groundskeeper who claimed Monsantos popular Roundup weed killer contributed to his terminal cancer. Los Angeles Times

Hes impressed: A San Diego federal judge on Friday called the new plan to locate and reunite hundreds of deported parents with their separated children impressive and gave U.S. officials the green light to move ahead full bore over the weekend. San Diego Union-Tribune

It sold for how much?! There is no way the Brady Bunch house is worth that much, right? Los Angeles Daily News

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THIS WEEKS MOST POPULAR STORIES IN ESSENTIAL CALIFORNIA

1. CBS 60 Minutes executive producer Jeff Fager extends vacation amid harassment scandal. Los Angeles Times

2. Heres what the Mendocino Complex fire looks like overlaid on Los Angeles and New York. Los Angeles Times

3. Californias optimistic bosses vs. skittish consumers: Whos right? Orange County Register

4. Chilling details swirl in rape, kidnapping case of ex-NFL player Kellen Winslow II. San Diego Union-Tribune

5. State shuts down Pasadena-based Celebrity Rehab center over death, repeated violations. Los Angeles Daily News

ICYMI, HERE ARE THIS WEEKS GREAT READS

A historic rom-com: This summer marks the return of the splashy, big-budget Hollywood romance  but with a crazy historic twist. Crazy Rich Asians marks the first studio film in 25 years to tell a contemporary story centered on an all-Asian cast. Its a huge cultural moment for Hollywood. And heres how it came about. Los Angeles Times

Make or break time: Hollywoods Asian August  but will it last into September? Reuters

Ready for his closeup: Lenny Dykstra is plotting his latest comeback from Thousand Oaks. The New Yorker

Catching the wave: How these women became Californias newest surfing Mavericks. California Sunday

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.
Californians will do just about anything to keep driving their cars, no matter how bad traffic gets (witness steep declines in transit ridership and increasing greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector, despite significant improvements in other areas).

And by traffic, I also mean on foot.

Two weeks ago, when Opinion contributing writer David L. Ulin objected to the Real ID law on the grounds that it constitutes unnecessary government overreach, most of the letter writers who agreed with him decried the bureaucratic maze they had to navigate at the Department of Motor Vehicles to obtain a federally mandated enhanced drivers license. Now, with state lawmakers hammering the DMV for reported wait times of six hours or more, readers are continuing to send us their horror stories of making appointments, waiting around for hours and dealing with cantankerous clerks.

And all this, just for the privilege (because driving is not a right, says the DMV) of crawling on crumbling freeways and roads.

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Steve Bloch of Laguna Niguel tried to make an appointment. It didnt go well:

The Legislature does a public service by scrutinizing the disaster at the DMV. The problem is even greater than what has been reported, however.

A few weeks ago, two months before my license expiration date, I received an in-person DMV license renewal notice. A week later  eight weeks before expiration  I tried to schedule an appointment. Nothing was available before October within 25 miles of my house. Because California has no renewal grace period, I accepted an appointment 30 miles away.

Solution to long lines at DMV? Privatize. I bet AAA could take over and make it work. Chuck Trudeau, Nipomo

My experience raises important questions: Why doesnt the DMV notify drivers at least three months before expiration so they can make appointments in time? And why doesnt the DMV grant a grace period of 90 days for license renewals?

Rogelio Pena of Montebello recalls his three-hour ordeal:

I am one of those who waited for three hours to get a Real ID license.

I waited in line for one hour just to get an application. After completing it, the clerk noticed that I dated the application incorrectly. Crossing it out and correcting it would not suffice, so I had to complete the application a second time. I was given a number and waited to be called again.

About 90 minutes later, I was called. There was only one clerk assigned to process Real ID applications  and that clerk left for more than an hour after serving the fellow ahead of me. It was not lunchtime, so I do not know where she went.

Hacienda Heights resident Bobby Fraker is a rare satisfied customer:

I went to the DMV recently to renew my drivers license. I had an appointment and was directed to the appropriate window. From there, I went to the test area to prepare my application to renew my license. When I finished the application, I was given a number, after which I waited for a short time before being called.

I took an eye test, paid $35 and had my picture taken. Then, I took a test on Californias driving laws, after which I was given a temporary license and told the permanent card would arrive in the mail. The whole process took exactly one hour.

The problem is that people seem to resist making an appointment. How could any business operate efficiently if most of its customers resist its advice?

Chuck Trudeau of Nipomo wants government to hand over the DMV:

Solution to long lines at DMV? Privatize. I bet AAA could take over and make it work.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
The crew of a tourist boat rescued 26 tourists and four Egyptian crew members whose boat was sinking off the coast of the Red Sea resort city on Friday, the Head of the Rescue and Environmental Protection Society Hassan El-Tayeb told Ahram Online.

There were no injuries as a result of the incident, according to El-Tayeb.

Correction: An earlier version of this article said that 30 German tourists were rescued; there were 26 tourists of mixed nationalities and four Egyptian crew members.

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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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Watch Live: White House holds surprise news briefing amid government shutdown 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
With the first day of school just around the corner, school and safety officials from Burbank reminded residents Thursday to obey traffic laws around school campuses.

Officials from the Burbank Unified School District, Automobile Club of Southern California and the Burbank Police Department held an event in front of Jordan Middle School and demonstrated the dos and donts when dropping off or picking up a student or driving by a school.

As schools are going back in session, theres a lot going on, said Anita Lorz Villagrana, manager of community affairs and traffic safety for the Automobile Club of Southern California. Motorists are busy. Theyre working and, by now, theyre used to the summertime when things tend to be a bit slower. But when schools open, its a really hectic time, so were asking motorists to be extra vigilant.

The event covered various traffic-safety tips for motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians. Lorz Villagrana covered proper bike-helmet fitment, while Burbank Unified officials demonstrated safe drop-off and pick-up procedures, as well as tips that students should follow in crosswalks.

Stacy Cashman, the school districts director of student services, said she recommends parents walk with their children to school the first few days to familiarize them with routes and traffic hazards they might encounter.

She also recommended students walk in large groups because of their higher visibility to motorists.

Cashman, who was the principal at Jordan Middle School the past seven years, said shes seen too many close calls students have had with vehicles and that traffic safety around campuses is one of her greatest fears.

I was out here every day helping to cross kids and monitoring the streets, and there were near misses every day, she said. People are always in a rush, and theyre breaking all kinds of laws. I would constantly tell them to slow down and that their childs safety is most important.

Burbank Police Sgt. Derek Green said motorcycle and patrol officers will be around local schools to make sure motorists are following the rules of the road, adding that those who break traffic laws can be cited and/or fined.

Historically, the issues have been limiting speed and being aware of your surroundings when youre around schools, he said. These days, whats even more important is eliminating the distractions  a cellphone, a tablet or whatever the case might be.

Part of the Auto Clubs safety campaign is telling drivers to not operate a vehicle while intexticated, or using their handheld phone while driving, which is illegal in California. Drivers under 18 years old are also prohibited from using wireless phones while driving.

Lorz Villagrana said most people know not to drink and drive, and she thinks using a cellphone while driving should be seen in the same light.

We want people to realize that it has the same consequences, she said. Youre not paying attention, youre impaired and your reaction time is slower.

In addition to improving traffic-safety skills, the city officials have been working to create safe routes to schools.

Hannah Woo, an associate transportation planner for the Burbank Community Development Department, said she and her colleagues are in the process of reaching out to the public to understand and design paths students can use to get them safely to their schools.

She said a community workshop is planned for sometime next month and a draft of the routes is expected to be presented to the City Council in October.

anthonyclark.carpio@latimes.com

Twitter: @acocarpio
An Orange County Superior Court judge on Thursday denied a motion by a Huntington Beach blogger who argued that a school board members legal actions against him unfairly limited his right to criticize an elected official.

Judge Sheila Recio denied HB Sledgehammer publisher Chuck Johnsons anti-strategic lawsuit against public participation, or anti-SLAPP, motion, against Ocean View School District trustee Gina Clayton-Tarvin. SLAPP cases are considered an attempt to intimidate critics by burdening them with the costs of a legal defense.

Recio called the motion moot in a tentative ruling.

Johnson wanted a judge to determine whether Clayton-Tarvin purposely tried to stifle his right to criticize an elected official by falsely claiming he threatened her with physical, rather than metaphoric, harm on his blog and social media and in a school board meeting.

Clayton-Tarvin argued that the criticisms were more like threats. The trustee requested a permanent restraining order against the blogger, which was denied by Judge Timothy J. Stafford May 9.

As I have maintained throughout these proceedings, and as the California Supreme Court has repeatedly stated, threats of violence are not constitutionally protected speech, and there has never been any merit to Johnsons anti-SLAPP motion, Clayton-Tarvin said Friday in a prepared statement.

Johnson and his attorney, Chad Morgan, could not be reached for comment. However, in previous interviews Johnson has maintained his posts and comments were never threatening and that Clayton-Tarvin was just trying to stifle political criticism protected by the 1st Amendment.

A hearing on the motion was originally scheduled in June but was postponed by Judge Timothy J. Stafford to allow each partys attorney to submit new case documents.

Johnsons petition argued that Clayton-Tarvins request for a restraining order, which was denied May 9 by Stafford, should be rejected if she failed to provide sufficient evidence to demonstrate how Johnsons criticisms were meant as actual threats.

Clayton-Tarvin alleged in court documents that Johnson caused her to fear for my own safety and for that of my immediate family members.

Priscella.Vega@latimes.com

Twitter: @vegapriscella
On Wednesday, Father Movses Shannakian was joined by a dozen ministers as they visited Adventist Health Glendale, formerly Glendale Adventist Medical Center, to partake in the annual Blessing of the Grapes ceremony.

Armenian churches around the world recently celebrated the religious ceremony dedicated to the Virgin Mary.

The main event is Sunday. Wednesday is just a tradition we have in Glendale, said Shannakian of the Western Prelacy of the Armenian Apostolic Church of America after the ceremony.

Every second Sunday of August, members of Armenian churches sing, chant and pray in celebration. Priests enhance the atmosphere with incense from a censer as people eat and dance.

Every year on the Feast of the Assumption of the Holy Mother of God, Armenian ministers lead attendees in prayer and worship in the hospitals chapel. The grapes are blessed and then passed around to patients.

Rev. Vazken Atmajian of St. Marys Armenian Apostolic Church officiated the ceremony with about 40 people in attendance, he said.

Since grapes were the first fruits of the harvest, the Holy Spirit is called upon to make the grapes holy and those who partake of them receive healing and spiritual nourishment, said Naira Khosrovian, marketing and communications specialist at Adventist Health Glendale.

Shannakian recalled telling people in attendance that at the core of Gods word is sharing love with the world.

We must all make love a priority, Shannakian said.

michael.livingston@latimes.com

@MLivingston06
Hello, my name is John Cherwa and welcome back to our horse racing newsletter as we get ready for big days at Arlington Park and Prairie Meadows.

Heres our weekly contribution from Rob Henie of the WCHR (West Coast Handicapping Report) and the ECHR (East Coast Handicapping Report). The thinking is if you can know and understand the strategies, it will make you a better handicapper.

The eighth race from Bings place, a track which opened in 1937, still using the original grandstand until 1992, with half of the new grandstand completed in time for 1993, and the other half finished prior to the 1994 season. Its difficult to believe weve been enjoying the new grandstand for 26 years? This race is a $16,000 claimer at six furlongs. Top selection is BURN ME TWICE (#6) . We often try to identify improving health, after all, good health opens the door to good efforts, always a good place to start in the handicapping process, and this one strings races back to back for the first time in a year. Rather than work him since that last race, Bill Spawr is electing to run him right back, in just over three weeks, a moral victory in itself for a horse whos been brittle with regard to making it to the afternoon races. The jockey is Agapito Delgadillo , a guy whos gonna ride forever, seriously, not sure of his age, but I can tell you this, I remember him riding at Aqua Caliente when I was a young teenager in the early 80s, true story. Expecting a step forward today, and whenever youre looking at races in the $10,000 to $16,000 range, a good place to start the handicapping process, is trying to decipher a healthy pattern. Very little in this race that we can condone outside of the top choice, lets simply move along. BOW AND ARROW (#4) is cheap, but as we often write, well take a sharp cheap runner facing regressing horses on the drop, any day of the week. Fits right back in sharp form at the moment.

Can you have too much of Rob Henie? Well, he will be Frank Scatonis guest at the Del Mar handicapping session a week from Sunday. The seminars are from 12:45 p.m. until 1:30 p.m. at the Seaside Terrace near the head of the stretch. If you tell him you read him in our newsletter, youll get, well, you wont get anything. But, it would be a good thing to do.

The center stage on Friday night was occupied by Cal-bred fillies and mares going a mile on the turf in the $150,000 Solana Beach Stakes. Cordiality, the favorite, showed why she was much the best finding a 2 -length win.

She just gives you confidence getting on her, Baze said. Shes relaxed, but shes serious. The older shes gotten, [5 years old] the better shes gotten. Shes a sweetheart.

It was a great trip and shes just getting good, Glatt said. She ran a respectable finish in a Grade III [third in the Wilshire Stakes] last time against open company. Shes a diamond and they dont come around very often. Its hard to claim a horse [for $32,000] that ends up being a stakes horse. We all know it doesnt happen very often, but it happens. We were just the fortunate ones to have gotten her.

Del Mar has a 10-race Saturday card starting at the usual 2 p.m. Once again, because of a short field, it has moved its feature up in the program, this time to the third race at about 3 p.m. But there are three allowance/optional claimers later in the card making it decent for a Saturday.

The feature is the Grade 2 $200,000 Best Pal Stakes for 2-year-olds going six furlongs. Three of the five horses are making their second start, all having won their first. But only Instagrand won by 10  lengths at Los Alamitos, which is why Russ Hudak made him the 1-2 morning-line favorite. Jerry Hollendorfer is the trainer with Drayden Van Dyke as the jockey.

Owning, for Simon Callaghan and Mario Gutierrez , won his last race by 2  at Los Alamitos and is the second favorite at 5-2. Mason Dixon is the other undefeated colt, winning at Del Mar by  of a length. Doug ONeill is trainer with Flavien Prat the jockey. The other two horses in the race are Sparky Ville (10-1) and Synthesis (15-1).

Sharp filly from the Matt Chew should have made it three straight wins but encountered traffic trouble into the far turn and was shuffled back to last before finishing furiously late when an unlucky second. Look for her to get back on the winning track vs. this allowance/optional claiming field assuming she gets a clear run.

He easily outran his 13-1 odds in nice runnerup debut when moving well during the final 1/16 after coming away in sluggish style while getting bumped. He has more upside than the two class-dropping favorites in Legally Hott and Card Trix, who have both regressed in recent outings. Masters is always nicely drawn between two 15-1 morning-line foes who showed little in their debuts.

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Del Mar Charts Results for Friday, August 10. Copyright 2018 by Equibase Company. Reproduction prohibited. Del Mar Thoroughbred Club, Del Mar, California. All finishes confirmed by Plusmic USA. Official program numbers may not correspond with post position. 17th day of a 36-day meet. Clear & Fast

FIRST RACE. 1 Mile. Purse: $60,000. Maiden Special Weight. Fillies and Mares. 3 year olds and up. Time 22.82 47.50 1:12.78 1:25.97 1:39.59

Pgm Horse Wt PP St    Str Fin Jockey $1 4 Aunt Lubie 120 3 5 3hd 32 37 1hd 11 Prat 0.80 2 Convince 120 1 2 21 2hd 2hd 21 23 Bejarano 1.90 5 Now Blessed 119 4 1 13 1hd 1hd 36 32 Espinoza 3.30 3 Grecian Fort 120 2 3 5 5 48 420 436 Vergara, Jr. 59.80 6 Pulpacheeks 120 5 4 41 41 5 5 5 Conner 17.10

4 AUNT LUBIE 3.60 2.20 2.10 2 CONVINCE 2.40 2.10 5 NOW BLESSED 2.10

$1 EXACTA (4-2) $3.90 $2 QUINELLA (2-4) $4.00 10-CENT SUPERFECTA (4-2-5-3) $2.96 50-CENT TRIFECTA (4-2-5) $2.90

WinnerAunt Lubie B.f.3 by Uncle Mo out of Galloping Giraffe, by Tapit. Bred by The Elkstone Group LLC (MD). Trainer: Richard E. Mandella. Owner: Jay Em Ess Stable. Mutuel Pool $219,499 Exacta Pool $82,683 Quinella Pool $4,033 Superfecta Pool $29,566 Trifecta Pool $60,423. ScratchedConfidentially.

AUNT LUBIE stalked off the rail then between horses, bid three deep on the backstretch and second turn, took a short lead into the stretch, battled outside the runner-up under urging and inched away late. CONVINCE came off the rail into the first turn, stalked then bid between horses on the backstretch and second turn, briefly put a head in front nearing the stretch, fought back a bit off the rail in the final furlong, could not match the winner late but was clearly second best. NOW BLESSED sped to the early lead, angled in on the first turn and set the pace inside, dueled along the rail on the backstretch and second turn and into the stretch and held third. GRECIAN FORT a bit washy at the gate, angled in and saved ground off the pace, came out into the stretch and lacked a rally. PULPACHEEKS four wide on the first turn, stalked outside then off the rail, dropped back and angled in on the second turn, gave way readily and was eased in the drive.

SECOND RACE. 5 Furlongs Turf. Purse: $35,000. Starter Allowance. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Price $50,000. Time 22.02 44.49 56.12

Pgm Horse Wt PP St 3/16 3/8 Str Fin Jockey $1 1 Stop the Violence 113 1 4 2 1hd 12 13 Figueroa 1.00 2 Candyman Garret 118 2 2 1hd 21 2 2nk Roman 11.00 4 Old Indian Trick 120 4 1 3hd 3hd 31 3 Pereira 10.00 6 Saratoga Morning 120 6 5 6 51 4hd 4 Desormeaux 2.50 5 Zapana's Game 121 5 3 41 6 6 51 Pena 13.30 3 Isee It in Hiseyes 120 3 6 5hd 4hd 5 6 Maldonado 5.40

1 STOP THE VIOLENCE 4.00 3.00 2.60 2 CANDYMAN GARRET 7.00 4.60 4 OLD INDIAN TRICK 4.20

$2 DAILY DOUBLE (4-1) $9.60 $1 EXACTA (1-2) $12.20 $2 QUINELLA (1-2) $17.80 10-CENT SUPERFECTA (1-2-4-6) $16.05 50-CENT TRIFECTA (1-2-4) $28.40

WinnerStop the Violence Dbb.g.3 by Violence out of Sea Pegasus, by Fusaichi Pegasus. Bred by LNJ Foxwoods (KY). Trainer: Peter Miller. Owner: Gary Barber. Mutuel Pool $231,320 Daily Double Pool $58,361 Exacta Pool $125,928 Quinella Pool $5,153 Superfecta Pool $41,199 Trifecta Pool $76,409. Scratchednone.

STOP THE VIOLENCE went up inside to duel for the lead, put a head in front on the turn, came a bit off the rail and kicked clear in the stretch and proved best under a left handed crack of the whip and a vigorous hand ride. CANDYMAN GARRET had good early speed and dueled between horses then outside the winner on the turn and into the stretch, could not match that one in the final furlong but held second. OLD INDIAN TRICK pressed the pace three deep between horses then stalked on the turn, came three wide into the stretch and was edged for the place. SARATOGA MORNING stalked outside a rival then between foes on the turn, was with a foe past midstretch then angled in late and was edged for third inside. ZAPANA'S GAME prompted the pace four wide then stalked three deep on the turn, came four wide into the stretch and was outfinished for a minor award. ISEE IT IN HISEYES saved ground stalking the pace throughout, was bumped in tight along the rail nearing the sixteenth pole and lacked a rally.

THIRD RACE. 5 Furlongs. Purse: $20,000. Maiden Claiming. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Price $20,000. Time 21.96 46.14 58.58 1:05.24

Pgm Horse Wt PP St  3/8 Str Fin Jockey $1 8 Wild Wild Kingdom 113 8 1 41 41 1 12 Figueroa 5.90 10 Duke of Fallbrook 123 10 3 7 7hd 52 2nk Gutierrez 14.80 11 Street Zombie 120 11 5 5hd 5hd 42 3 Desormeaux 2.50 2 He's Out to Sea 120 2 6 11 11 21 4ns Gonzalez 37.40 1 Iron Curtain 123 1 10 2hd 31 3 53 Quinonez 15.20 5 Royal Seeker 123 5 8 94 91 101 61 Pereira 20.20 7 Positive Numbers 115 7 9 11 11 11 7nk Espinoza 3.70 4 Imagineiamfastest 120 4 7 6hd 61 71 8 Conner 7.20 6 Lion Command 118 6 11 102 103 9 9 Payeras 6.10 9 Captain N. Barron 120 9 2 82 82 8 109 Roman 18.40 3 E Bradley Cooper 123 3 4 31 2hd 6hd 11 Pena 27.80

8 WILD WILD KINGDOM 13.80 8.40 5.80 10 DUKE OF FALLBROOK 14.40 8.00 11 STREET ZOMBIE 3.40

$2 DAILY DOUBLE (1-8) $36.40 $1 EXACTA (8-10) $85.00 $2 QUINELLA (8-10) $120.60 10-CENT SUPERFECTA (8-10-11-2) $879.43 50-CENT TRIFECTA (8-10-11) $189.25

WinnerWild Wild Kingdom B.g.3 by Animal Kingdom out of Superb, by Arch. Bred by Gestuet Faehrhof (KY). Trainer: Peter Miller. Owner: Robison, J. Kirk and Judy. Mutuel Pool $294,363 Daily Double Pool $35,541 Exacta Pool $226,272 Quinella Pool $10,767 Superfecta Pool $117,667 Trifecta Pool $160,499. ClaimedPositive Numbers by Robison, J. Kirk and Judy. Trainer: Peter Miller. ClaimedImagineiamfastest by Jett, T. Lawrence and Ann and Oakhart Racing. Trainer: Jack Carava. Scratchednone. $1 Pick Three (4-1-8) paid $52.50. Pick Three Pool $85,695.

WILD WILD KINGDOM stalked the pace off the rail, came three deep into the stretch, bid outside the pacesetter to gain the lead in the stretch and drew clear under left handed urging. DUKE OF FALLBROOK between horses stalking the pace on the backstretch and turn, came three deep into the stretch and gained the place late. STREET ZOMBIE stalked four wide to the stretch, drifted in some in upper stretch, split rivals in deep stretch and was edged for the place. HE'S OUT TO SEA sent between horses to the early lead, set the pace a bit off the rail then inside, fought back in midstretch, could not match the winner in the final sixteenth and was edged for a minor award late. IRON CURTAIN broke inward and a bit slowly, saved ground stalking the pace, came out into the stretch and also was edged for a minor share. ROYAL SEEKER bumped at the start, settled off the rail, chased outside a rival on the turn, came three wide into the stretch and lacked the needed rally. POSITIVE NUMBERS dropped back off the rail then a bit off the fence on the turn, came out in the stretch and was not a threat. IMAGINEIAMFASTEST bumped then bobbled at the break, stalked a bit off the rail then inside on the turn and in the stretch and lacked the needed late kick. LION COMMAND broke slowly, settled off the rail then a bit off the fence, angled to the inside on the turn and did not rally. CAPTAIN N. BARRON chased between horses on the backstretch and turn, continued outside a rival into the stretch and weakened. E BRADLEY COOPER close up stalking the pace outside a rival to the stretch, dropped back in the lane and had little left for the drive.

FOURTH RACE. 5 Furlongs. Purse: $20,000. Claiming. Fillies and Mares. 3 year olds and up. Claiming Prices $8,000-$7,000. Time 22.79 45.93 58.46 1:05.05

Pgm Horse Wt PP St  3/8 Str Fin Jockey $1 9 Lucky Student 119 9 1 11 12 16 16 Stevens 4.30 12 Christy Jackson 121 11 2 81 7hd 52 22 Pereira 18.50 4 Adios Cali 119 4 4 3hd 42 31 3 Franco 1.10 8 She'sluckythatway 119 8 8 7 6 62 41 Mt Garcia 48.10 1 Lookinforadanger 117 1 5 4hd 2hd 2hd 51 Fuentes 8.90 11 Rockantharos 119 10 11 11 11 81 6 Ceballos 46.50 2 Tuscany Beauty 119 2 3 2 3hd 4hd 71 Gutierrez 3.60 3 Majestic Diva 114 3 6 104 91 92 8hd Payeras 67.00 5 Peaked 121 5 7 51 5hd 71 95 Roman 11.90 6 Rcatcanscat 122 6 9 6hd 81 103 102 Rojas Fernandez 72.60 7 Nazareth 118 7 10 91 102 11 11 Elliott 35.60

9 LUCKY STUDENT 10.60 5.40 3.60 12 CHRISTY JACKSON 15.40 7.00 4 ADIOS CALI 2.60

$2 DAILY DOUBLE (8-9) $87.20 $1 EXACTA (9-12) $74.70 $2 QUINELLA (9-12) $84.00 10-CENT SUPERFECTA (9-12-4-8) $344.27 50-CENT TRIFECTA (9-12-4) $127.95 $2 CONSOLATION DOUBLE (8-10) $14.60

WinnerLucky Student Ch.m.8 by Game Plan out of Corissa's Birthday, by Half Term. Bred by Academic Farms (CA). Trainer: Michael Pender. Owner: Dirt Road Racing, Pender Racing LLC and Skellan, Jeanne. Mutuel Pool $350,524 Daily Double Pool $40,045 Exacta Pool $220,987 Quinella Pool $10,395 Superfecta Pool $93,530 Trifecta Pool $144,023. ClaimedAdios Cali by Thomsen Racing, LLC. Trainer: Steve Knapp. ClaimedTuscany Beauty by Taboada, Johnny and Marcel and Razavian, Amir Amiri. Trainer: Reed Saldana. ScratchedAlpha Pegasus, Autumn Twilight, Sharp Holiday. $1 Pick Three (1-8-9) paid $71.50. Pick Three Pool $49,461. $1 Consolation Pick Three (1-8-10) paid $19.50.

LUCKY STUDENT sped to the early lead, angled in and set all the pace a bit off the rail and drew off in the stretch under a steady hand ride and a hold late. CHRISTY JACKSON veered out at the start, chased outside then four wide into and on the turn and into the stretch and gained the place. ADIOS CALI hopped a bit at the start, stalked between horses then three deep on the turn and into the stretch and held third. SHE'SLUCKYTHATWAY chased outside then between horses leaving the backstretch, angled to the inside into the stretch and was edged for the show. LOOKINFORADANGER saved ground stalking the pace, came out into the stretch and lacked the necessary response. ROCKANTHAROS broke slowly and awkwardly, settled off the rail, came four wide into the stretch and improved position. TUSCANY BEAUTY close up stalking the pace between horses on the backstretch and turn, weakened in the drive. MAJESTIC DIVA chased a bit off the rail, went outside a rival on the turn, came out into the stretch and lacked the needed rally. PEAKED stalked four wide, dropped back off the rail on the turn, came three deep into the stretch and weakened. RCATCANSCAT chased off the rail then a bit off the fence on the turn and lacked a response in the drive. NAZARETH chased off the rail then outside a rival into the turn, dropped back in the stretch and weakened. HAND TIMED.

FIFTH RACE. 1 Mile Turf. Purse: $60,000. Maiden Special Weight. Fillies. 2 year olds. Time 23.29 49.18 1:14.00 1:25.92 1:37.87

Pgm Horse Wt PP St    Str Fin Jockey $1 7 Angel Alessandra 120 7 7 5hd 65 64 4 1 Prat 3.20 3 Hyde Park Corner 120 3 6 64 4hd 1hd 1hd 2 Stevens 4.00 2 Noble Contessa 115 2 2 11 1hd 21 31 3 Espinoza 31.10 1 Barbadolla 120 1 1 21 21 31 2hd 41 T Baze 3.00 5 Ask the Customer 120 5 4 41 51 41 53 52 Van Dyke 2.50 4 Imperial Creed 120 4 8 9 9 812 8 6hd Blanc 33.30 6 Marrazano 120 6 3 3hd 3hd 5hd 64 74 Mn Garcia 27.40 9 Friars Walk 120 9 9 8hd 81 74 71 8 Franco 7.90 8 Miss Dialed 120 8 5 71 7 9 dnf Fuentes 60.10

7 ANGEL ALESSANDRA 8.40 4.60 3.40 3 HYDE PARK CORNER (IRE) 4.80 3.40 2 NOBLE CONTESSA 11.20

$2 DAILY DOUBLE (9-7) $51.60 $1 EXACTA (7-3) $18.40 $2 QUINELLA (3-7) $18.40 10-CENT SUPERFECTA (7-3-2-1) $82.12 50-CENT TRIFECTA (7-3-2) $126.65

WinnerAngel Alessandra Ch.f.2 by Ghostzapper out of High Button Shoes, by Carson City. Bred by My Meadowview LLC (KY). Trainer: Peter Miller. Owner: Altamira Racing Stable, David A Bernsen LLC and Rockingham Ranch. Mutuel Pool $312,176 Daily Double Pool $53,050 Exacta Pool $162,101 Quinella Pool $8,023 Superfecta Pool $75,307 Trifecta Pool $111,167. Scratchednone. $1 Pick Three (8-9-7) paid $159.70. Pick Three Pool $76,536. 50-Cent Pick Four (1-8-9-7) 4 correct paid $236.25. Pick Four Pool $237,296. 50-Cent Pick Five (1/4-1-8-9-7) 5 correct paid $906.40. Pick Five Pool $714,984. $1 Consolation Pick Three (8-10-7) paid $26.40.

ANGEL ALESSANDRA chased outside a rival then a bit off the rail on the second turn, swung three deep into the stretch and rallied under urging to gain the lead four wide in deep stretch and proved best. HYDE PARK CORNER (IRE) saved ground stalking the pace, bid inside on the second turn to gain the lead a quarter mile out, fought back along the rail in the stretch but could not hold off the winner. NOBLE CONTESSA had speed outside a rival then inched away into the first turn, set the pace inside then a bit off the rail, battled inside a foe leaving the backstretch and outside the runner-up leaving the second turn, fought back between foes in the stretch and held third. BARBADOLLA stalked inside then a bit off the rail, bid outside the pacesetter on the backstretch, stalked again leaving the second turn, re-bid three deep into and through the stretch and was outfinished. ASK THE CUSTOMER angled in and stalked inside then a bit off the rail, found the fence again on the second turn, came out some into the stretch and lacked the needed rally. IMPERIAL CREED saved ground chasing the pace, cut the corner into the stretch and could not offer the necessary response. MARRAZANO chased outside a rival, continued three deep on the second turn and four wide into the stretch and weakened. FRIARS WALK (IRE) broke a bit slowly, angled in and settled outside a rival then inside on the second turn and weakened. MISS DIALED chased off the rail then angled in and saved ground, dropped back into and on the second turn, drifted out while being pulled up into the stretch and walked off.

SIXTH RACE. 6 Furlongs. Purse: $48,000. Starter Optional Claiming. 2 year olds. Claiming Price $50,000. Time 22.49 46.16 58.57 1:11.87

Pgm Horse Wt PP St   Str Fin Jockey $1 6 Watch Me Burn 120 6 5 11 13 16 17 Quinonez 1.60 7 Bea's Boy 118 7 2 5 5 41 21 Figueroa 11.40 1 Baby Frankie 123 1 6 61 41 3 3 Desormeaux 1.60 5 Swing Thoughts 120 5 1 21 22 22 42 Van Dyke 6.30 2 Grab the Munny 118 2 3 7 62 54 521 Espinoza 8.50 3 At the Margin 120 3 4 3hd 3hd 68 65 Fuentes 14.40 4 Big Impression 123 4 7 4hd 7 7 7 Conner 22.00

6 WATCH ME BURN 5.20 3.80 2.60 7 BEA'S BOY 9.00 4.00 1 BABY FRANKIE 2.60

$2 DAILY DOUBLE (7-6) $25.60 $1 EXACTA (6-7) $21.00 $2 QUINELLA (6-7) $28.00 10-CENT SUPERFECTA (6-7-1-5) $15.39 50-CENT TRIFECTA (6-7-1) $24.00

WinnerWatch Me Burn Dbb.f.2 by Hold Me Back out of Catticus, by Bluegrass Cat. Bred by Westwind Farms (KY). Trainer: Val Brinkerhoff. Owner: Brinkerhoff, Kelly and Grayson, Jr., Bob. Mutuel Pool $305,140 Daily Double Pool $28,130 Exacta Pool $154,287 Quinella Pool $7,199 Superfecta Pool $63,143 Trifecta Pool $107,510. Scratchednone. $1 Pick Three (9-7-6) paid $74.50. Pick Three Pool $77,359.

WATCH ME BURN sped to the early lead, angled in and set the pace inside, opened up on the turn and drew off in the stretch under some urging, steady handling and a long hold late. BEA'S BOY stalked four wide then outside on the turn and three deep into the stretch and gained the place. BABY FRANKIE saved ground stalking the pace throughout and edged a rival for the show. SWING THOUGHTS close up stalking the winner a bit off the rail to the stretch and was edged for third. GRAB THE MUNNY chased between horses then a bit off the rail leaving the backstretch and inside on the turn, came out in the stretch and lacked a rally. AT THE MARGIN bumped at the start, stalked between horses then a bit off the rail on the turn and gave way. BIG IMPRESSION also bumped at the start, also stalked between foes, dropped back off the rail on the turn and gave way.

SEVENTH RACE. 1 Mile Turf. Purse: $150,000. 'Solana Beach Stakes'. Fillies and Mares. 3 year olds and up. Time 23.57 47.01 1:10.76 1:22.34 1:34.14

Pgm Horse Wt PP St    Str Fin Jockey $1 9 Cordiality 123 9 2 21 23 22 1 12 T Baze 1.30 1 Queen Bee to You 121 1 6 32 32 31 3 21 Prat 14.70 6 Cheekaboo 125 6 4 41 41 51 5hd 3hd Stevens 9.50 7 Princess Roi 119 7 1 11 11 1 22 41 Smith 5.80 3 Shehastheritestuff 119 3 8 73 78 6 62 5 Van Dyke 6.10 5 How About Zero 123 5 9 61 51 4 42 64 Gutierrez 18.10 2 How Unusual 121 2 7 9 9 81 84 7 Franco 11.60 8 Moonless Sky 121 8 3 5hd 61 75 73 81 Desormeaux 11.50 4 Lynne's Legacy 121 4 5 82 81 9 9 9 Bejarano 8.50

9 CORDIALITY 4.60 3.00 2.80 1 QUEEN BEE TO YOU 10.00 6.20 6 CHEEKABOO 5.20

$2 DAILY DOUBLE (6-9) $12.60 $1 EXACTA (9-1) $24.70 $2 QUINELLA (1-9) $33.40 10-CENT SUPERFECTA (9-1-6-7) $80.53 50-CENT TRIFECTA (9-1-6) $74.65

WinnerCordiality Dbb.m.5 by Papa Clem out of Warmth, by Unusual Heat. Bred by Dr. Edward C. Allred (CA). Trainer: Mark Glatt. Owner: Drummond, Lee, Glatt, Mark and Xitco, John V.. Mutuel Pool $419,319 Daily Double Pool $47,167 Exacta Pool $211,339 Quinella Pool $9,013 Superfecta Pool $106,257 Trifecta Pool $148,919. Scratchednone. $1 Pick Three (7-6-9) paid $34.20. Pick Three Pool $40,946.

CORDIALITY angled in and stalked off the rail, bid outside the pacesetter on the second turn, took the lead in upper stretch and won clear under urging. QUEEN BEE TO YOU pulled her way along inside early, saved ground stalking the pace, came out leaving the second turn and again into the stretch and gained the place. CHEEKABOO between foes early, chased a bit off the rail then outside a rival on the second turn, came three wide into the stretch and edged a foe for the show. PRINCESS ROI sped to the early lead, angled in and set the pace inside, fought back on the second turn and to midstretch and was edged late for third. SHEHASTHERITESTUFF broke a bit slowly, chased just off the rail then inside into the second turn, came out into the stretch and lacked the needed rally. HOW ABOUT ZERO stumbled at the start, angled in and saved ground chasing the pace, cut the corner into the stretch and could not summon the necessary late response. HOW UNUSUAL settled inside, went around a rival on the second turn, continued a bit off the rail into the stretch and did not rally. MOONLESS SKY three deep early, stalked outside a rival, came out leaving the second turn and four wide into the stretch and lacked a response in the drive. LYNNE'S LEGACY settled off the pace inside, dropped back on the backstretch, continued inside on the second turn and into the stretch and failed to menace.

EIGHTH RACE. 5 Furlongs. Purse: $23,000. Maiden Claiming. Fillies. 2 year olds. Claiming Prices $32,000-$28,000. Time 22.27 46.86 59.69 1:06.44

Pgm Horse Wt PP St  3/8 Str Fin Jockey $1 5 Secret Maneuver 120 5 3 52 3 21 11 Desormeaux 4.20 1 Staythirstymyamigo 120 1 6 2hd 1hd 1hd 21 Quinonez 2.20 4 Twitterati 120 4 10 81 6hd 31 3 Maldonado 26.60 7 Disco Tale 115 7 2 61 71 42 43 Payeras 5.10 6 Party All Night 120 6 7 7hd 82 5hd 54 Pereira 12.90 2 Easy Peasy 115 2 9 10 10 10 62 Figueroa 21.70 10 Portal Creek 120 10 5 41 52 82 7 Elliott 6.40 9 Lucille 115 9 4 3hd 4hd 7 81 Espinoza 14.10 3 Jackie Star 118 3 8 92 93 9 92 Ceballos 42.90 8 Romolina 118 8 1 1hd 21 62 10 Franco 5.70

5 SECRET MANEUVER 10.40 5.40 4.20 1 STAYTHIRSTYMYAMIGO 4.00 3.80 4 TWITTERATI 10.20

$2 DAILY DOUBLE (9-5) $35.60 $1 EXACTA (5-1) $21.30 $2 QUINELLA (1-5) $18.80 10-CENT SUPERFECTA (5-1-4-7) $170.97 $1 SUPER HIGH FIVE (5-1-4-7-6) Carryover $23,891 50-CENT TRIFECTA (5-1-4) $189.15

WinnerSecret Maneuver B.f.2 by Trappe Shot out of Oneminutetomidnite, by Street Cry (IRE). Bred by Mr. & Mrs. Charles McGinnes (MD). Trainer: J. Keith Desormeaux. Owner: J. Keith Desormeaux. Mutuel Pool $326,693 Daily Double Pool $114,358 Exacta Pool $210,367 Quinella Pool $9,261 Superfecta Pool $109,143 Super High Five Pool $31,305 Trifecta Pool $152,082. ClaimedStaythirstymyamigo by Darrin Albert. Trainer: Edward Freeman. ScratchedNo Thanks Erik, Sky Babe. $1 Pick Three (6-9-5) paid $66.20. Pick Three Pool $156,024. 50-Cent Pick Four (7-6-9-5) 4 correct paid $153.65. Pick Four Pool $569,127. 50-Cent Pick Five (9-7-6-9-5) 5 correct paid $741.65. Pick Five Pool $436,328. $2 Pick Six (8-9-7-6-9-5) 5 out of 6 paid $105.60. $2 Pick Six (8-9-7-6-9-5) 6 correct paid $13,574.00. Pick Six Pool $101,636. $2 Pick Six Jackpot (8-9-7-6-9-5) . Pick Six Jackpot Carryover $21,996. $1 Place Pick All 7 out of 8 paid $217.30. Place Pick All Pool $45,931.

SECRET MANEUVER stalked a bit off the rail, came out leaving the turn and three deep into the stretch, bid outside the runner-up in the drive, gained the lead past the eighth pole and inched away late under left handed urging. STAYTHIRSTYMYAMIGO had good early speed and dueled inside, took the lead on the turn, inched away into the stretch, fought back inside the winner in the drive, could not match that one late but held second. TWITTERATI broke a bit slowly, chased just off the rail then inside on the turn, came out and was in tight off heels approaching the furlong marker, got out and just held third. DISCO TALE stalked off the rail then outside a rival on the turn, split horses leaving the turn then angled in, came out for room and was in tight off heels nearing the eighth pole as the rider lost the whip, then was edged for the show. PARTY ALL NIGHT chased off the rail then three deep leaving the backstretch and into the turn, angled in some leaving the turn and lacked a rally. EASY PEASY broke a bit slowly, settled inside, came out on the turn and again into the stretch and improved position. PORTAL CREEK pressed the pace four wide then stalked outside on the turn, came four wide into the stretch and weakened. LUCILLE dueled three deep between horses then stalked between foes or off the rail on the turn, came three wide into the stretch and also weakened. JACKIE STAR a bit slow to begin, was between horses early then angled in and saved ground to no avail. ROMOLINA hopped slightly at the start, had good early speed and angled in, dueled between horses then outside the runner-up on the turn and weakened in the drive.
Members of Israels Arab minority led a mass protest in central Tel Aviv on Saturday night against a contentious new law that critics say marginalizes the states non-Jewish citizens.

The rally marked further fallout from the explosive Nation-State law and came a week after thousands of Druze, also members of the Arab minority, packed the same city square last week.

Israels 1948 declaration of independence defined the country as a Jewish and democratic state, and the government says the recently passed bill merely enshrines the countrys existing character. But critics say it undercuts Israels democratic values and sidelines the countrys non-Jewish population, namely the Arab community that makes up 20% of the country.

One clause downgrades the Arabic language from official to special standing.

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Israeli media reported tens of thousands of Jews and Arabs attended the protest. Some Arab protesters waved Palestinian flags and others held signs reading equality. Some knelt and preformed Muslim prayers.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted footage on Twitter of protesters waving the Palestinian flags. No better testament to the necessity of the Nation-State law, he wrote.

Ayman Odeh, an Arab member of the Israeli parliament, told the Associated Press: This is the first time that tens of thousands of Arabs have come to Tel Aviv with Jewish democratic groups. They came to say this is not the end of the demonstrations, but the first serious demonstration against the Nation-State law.

Many Jewish Israelis, including top retired security officials and politicians, have also harshly criticized the law.

Omar Sultan, from the Arab city of Tira in central Israel, said he was protesting to send a message to Netanyahu.

This law is against us, against the Arabic language, against peace, against our future in this land. We are the real people of this land  we cant agree on this law, he said.

Israels Arab citizens enjoy full citizenship rights but face discrimination in some areas of society including jobs and housing. They share the ethnicity and culture of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and often identify with Palestinian nationalism, rather than Israeli.

Tens of thousands of Druze, also members of the Arab minority, packed the same square in the heart of Tel Aviv, Israels cultural and commercial center, last week. The Druze are followers of a secretive offshoot of Shiite Islam and are considered fiercely loyal to the state; they serve in Israels military, unlike most of the countrys other Arab citizens.

Over the years, members of the Druze community have risen to prominence in the military and in politics. Some Druze have said they feel betrayed by the law and several Druze military officers recently said they would stop serving in response to it, sparking fears of widespread insubordination.
Relations between Turkey and the United States suffered another blow Friday after President Trump announced via Twitter that he had authorized the doubling of tariffs on steel and aluminum exports from Turkey.

The deepening rift between the two NATO allies is over failed talks to release an American pastor who has been detained since 2016 on espionage charges.

Fridays announcement comes nine days after Trump said the Treasury Department would impose sanctions on two Turkish officials. Heres a look at the major players involved and an explanation of this geopolitical conflict:

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U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson is escorted by Turkish police officers to his house in Izmir. (Emre Tazegul / Associated Press)

Pastor Andrew Brunson

Brunson is an evangelical preacher who has lived in Turkey for more two decades where he ran the small Izmir Resurrection Church in Izmir, a city on the Aegean coast in western Turkey. He was swept up in a massive dragnet in 2016 and accused of espionage after a military coup failed to topple President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

The Turkish indictment against the 50-year-old pastor alleges he tried to convert Kurds living in Turkey to Christianity and engaged in missionary activities under the cover of providing humanitarian aid to asylum seekers. Whether or not true, those allegations bring together two feared subjects for the Turkish government: overt Christian proselytizing and work with the Kurds, many of whom desire independence from Turkey.

Brunson, his supporters and the U.S. government maintain the charges are bogus, and Trump has described Brunson as a hostage. The disciples of Jesus suffered in his name, now it is my turn, Brunson said during a court appearance last month. Brunsons church belongs to the same large evangelical umbrella as Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeos Kansas congregation.

Brunson is a member of the conservative Evangelical Presbyterian Church, which has hundreds of churches across the U.S. A native of Black Mountain, N.C., he has lived and worked in Turkey with his wife and children, according to the American Center for Law and Justice, a D.C.-based legal organization that has advocated for his release.

Ive never done something against Turkey, Brunson said in a court hearing in April. I love Turkey. Ive been praying for Turkey for 25 years. I want the truth to come out.

Brunsons next hearing is Oct. 12. He could face 35 years in prison if convicted.

Fethullah Gulen is an Islamic preacher who came to the U.S. in 1999 just ahead of a treason charge in his native Turkey. (@fgulen.com)

Fethullah Gulen

Gulen is the man the Erdogans government blames for the failed coup that unfolded on the night of July 15, 2016.

Gulen, a frail 75-year-old Turkish-born Muslim cleric who has been living in exile on a 26-acre compound in eastern Pennsylvania since the 1990s, vehemently denies any involvement in the coup.

Although he lives thousands of miles away from his home country, his teachings of Sufi Islam  a mystical branch that draws on ancient teachings  have inspired thousands of followers.

Based on Gulens religious, economic and political beliefs, his followers have created a global movement known as Hizmet that controls schools, companies and charities.

His critics, however, say Gulen is the head of a cult and blame him for trying to overthrow Erdogans government.

Relations between the U.S. and Turkey started to worsen when the U.S. refused to extradite Gulen in 2016.

Turkeys President Recep Tayyip Erdogan saluting supporters after Friday prayers, in Bayburt, (Murat Kula / AFP/Getty Images)

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Erdogan began his rule in Turkey in 2003  first as prime minister, then president  as a relatively moderate conservative, having toned down his deeper Islamic tendencies in a Muslim country that fiercely defended its status as secular. But gradually he began to expand his power, eliminating the position of prime minister, placing loyal supporters in the judiciary, seizing or closing most independent media and repressing dissent.

Tens of thousands of people were arrested or fired in the aftermath of a failed coup in 2016; Turkey had more journalists in prison than any nation in the world. All the while, Erdogan also injected more religion into in Turkeys public life, reversing a status quo of nearly a century. He may be as talented as Trump is in brinkmanship, and he is a tough, wily negotiator. He is not above using Brunson as a bargaining chip  and driving a hard bargain, at that.

President Trump and President Erdogan during the opening ceremony of the NATO summit July 11, 2018, in Brussels, Belgium. (Abaca Press / TNS)

President Trump

In keeping with his affinity for autocratic leaders, Trump started out forming a cordial relationship with Erdogan. Despite the misgivings of many in the administration about the countrys human rights record, Turkey remained an important partner in the fight against terrorism.

Trump telephoned to congratulate Erdogan on his victory in a referendum last year that most observers considered a sham and a thinly veiled attempt by the president at consolidating authoritarian power. And Trump has been exceedingly friendly with Erdogan at international meetings.

But it is the case of the detained American preacher  despite being a relatively narrow issue  that has captured Trumps attention and heightened tensions between Ankara and Washington as Trump wields his presidential powers as an economic tool. In April, Trump again took to Twitter to ask for his release: Pastor Andrew Brunson, a fine gentleman and Christian leader in the United States, is on trial and being persecuted in Turkey for no reason. They call him a Spy, but I am more a Spy than he is. Hopefully he will be able to come home to his beautiful family where be belongs!

One reason for Trumps interest might be the preachers appeal as a cause celebre among evangelical Christians in the United States.

Vice President Mike Pence has asked for a jailed pastor to be released in Turkey (Saul Loeb / AFP/Getty Images)

Vice President Mike Pence

Pence has repeatedly called for the pastors release and in July threatened Turkey with sanctions unless it took immediate action to free him.

Pence spoke passionately about Brunson in late July to a crowd at a State Department conference on religious freedom. As we gather today there is one victim of religious persecution that bears mentioning as well, Pence said. He is an innocent man. There is no credible evidence against him.

During the speech Pence revealed that he had spoken with the detained pastor and said he reassured Brunson that the Trump administration was working to secure his release. Brunsons daughter, Jacqueline Furnari, was also in attendance and Pence addressed her in his remarks: As I told your father yesterday  President Trump and I will continue to fight to secure your fathers full release until he is restored to your family and returns to the United States of America.

tracy.wilkinson@latimes.com

Twitter @TracyKWilkinson

melissa.etehad@latimes.com

Twitter @melissaetehad

Wilkinson reported from Washington and Etehad from Los Angeles.
The Womens Council of Realtors Fort Myers/Cape Coral network is celebrating its 60th year as a member of the premiere real estate organization in the country.

An idea brewed up during a train ride home from a convention in D.C., the Womens Council of Realtors has been in existence for 80 years and focuses on education, leadership, networking and referrals to bolster the mind and businesses of realtors spanning the U.S.

The Fort Myers and Cape Coral branches merged, just this year, to become the second largest network in the state of Florida.

We have had so many changes over the years, and all for the best. And weve had so many dynamic leaders along the way. Its been an amazing 60 years, said Linda Biondi, real estate agent for Raso Realty and former president of the Cape Coral network.

The organization facilitates the professional growth of its members through educational seminars and classes, that provides the tools Realtors need to excel in their field and region.

Most of the people who belong to Womens Council usually move up in the Real Estate Associations, said Biondi.

Gloria Tate, also of Raso Realty, and also a former president, has greatly benefitted from the resources the council has provided to her.

They gave me the education and public speaking tools, as well as being able to present myself and be a leader, Tate said.

Tate has been heavily involved in city council as well as the Chamber of Commerce in Cape Coral, and owes a great deal to the group for helping her achieve what she has.

It helps you with your real estate business, it helps you in the real world, too. It helps you with all the skills you need for life beyond the real estate world, Biondi said. A lot of us are juggling our family, our career, our life, they kind of give you the tools and the friendships and framework to do it all.

The educational opportunities the council implements are second to none, as most of their fundraisers are geared towards learning opportunities.

At our luncheons, we just dont get together and have lunch. We get together and learn something, said Biondi.

Getting the word out about issues in the community is something the group believes strongly in, almost as a community parter, Biondi and Raso agreed.

Camaraderie throughout the network between the women and men, yes, men are welcome too, truly is felt amongst members and is passed on from president to president, who serve one-year terms.

Any programs or projects a president starts will get passed onto the next elect to carry out.

Current president of the Fort Myers/Cape Coral network is Sandra Huber, who was just in Orlando to network amongst other groups in Florida.

She brought along current members of the local group to only increase their knowledge of the field.

Everything we do is to benefit members, she said. This year has been great with the merger. Were a huge family.

The group had a hand in Catch the Vision, which is a look forward into whats coming and whats happening in Cape Coral.

This upcoming November will be its eighth year running.

The Womens Council of Realtors provides many a opportunity to grow and be recognized for achievements.

It gives you opportunities to grow your leadership abilities, wherever you want to take them, Tate said.

It has taken numerous past Fort Myers/Cape Coral network presidents to the state levels of the organization and even national.

It gives you the energy, it gives you the confidence, it gives you the tools to move up and move along, said Biondi, who said the group has helped her with public speaking tremendously.

Any Realtor in Cape Coral or Fort Myers can join, man or woman.

In fact, the next state president for Florida will be a gentleman.

If you want to be among the best of the best in your profession, this is the organization that you want to belong to. Whether youre a Realtor, an affiliate or strategic partner, that will help you in your business to be the best of the best, Biondi said.

To celebrate its 60th year, the group will be having a Past Presidents Dinner at the Broadway Palm on Aug. 16 at 5:30 p.m for, you guessed it, past presidents of the group.

Also, in October, they will hold a past presidents panel at a luncheon to pass on the infinite wisdom we all have, quipped Biondi.

For more information about the organization and its events wcr.org/chapter-sites/florida/cape-coral-fort-myers/

Connect with this reporter on Twitter: @haddad_cj
Computer & Technology New Yorker Electronics to be New Franchise Distributor for Silergy, Strengthening its High-Performance IC Division



10.08.2018 23:19:06 - New Agreement Means Expanded Worldwide Distribution of State-of-the-Art Industrial, Communication, Computer and Consumer Integrated Circuits



(live-PR.com) - NORTHVALE, New Jersey, USA  New Yorker Electronics has announced a new global distribution agreement with high-performance Integrated Circuits manufacturer Silergy Corp. Founded by a group of technology innovators and business leaders from Silicon Valley, Silergy today has locations in the USA and Asia. The company researches, develops, designs and manufactures analog Power ICs using industry-leading technology. Despite increasing costs - NORTHVALE, New Jersey, USA  New Yorker Electronics has announced a new global distribution agreement with high-performance Integrated Circuits manufacturer Silergy Corp. Founded by a group of technology innovators and business leaders from Silicon Valley, Silergy today has locations in the USA and Asia. The company researches, develops, designs and manufactures analog Power ICs using industry-leading technology. Despite increasing costs of IC development throughout the industry, Silergy has remained committed to providing leading-edge performance and solutions at an affordable cost.



Silergys terminal application products include devices for consumer, industrial, computer and communication. They are used in LED lighting, automobiles, tablet and notebook computers, smart phones, televisions and video surveillance systems and other devices. Silergy products are designed with the intention of improving efficiency and conserving energy.



New Yorker Electronics, an ISO 9001:2015 and AS9120B certified source of electronic components, also serves these sectors. This parallel means existing customers of both companies will be open to a new range of products from the same provider, making this relationship very beneficial to end users.



This new agreement will secure exceptional access to integrated circuits and innovative mixed-signal and analog ICs that improve efficiency and conserve or measure energy use. Popular Silergy products include dual and single output step down regulators, battery charge management chips, LED backlight regulators, AC/DC LED lighting controllers and drivers, LDO regulators, protection switches and others.



"For New Yorker Electronics, our agreement with Silergy represents a meaningful long-term opportunity to partner with one of the most respected IC manufacturers," said Sandy Slivka, CEO of New Yorker Electronics. With all the advances in Integrated Circuit solutions, we want our customers to have access to the most efficient and cutting edge technology.



As a franchise distributor for Silergy, New Yorker Electronics supplies its full line of Single Output Step Up/Step Down Regulators, Dual Output Regulators, Power Management ICs, LED Backlight Regulators, Controller ICs, LED Lighting Drivers, LDO Regulators, Protection Switches, TVS/Surges, EMIs, Electricity Metering ICs and Embedded Measurement ICs.



New Yorker Electronics is a certified franchised distributor of electronic components, well known for its full product lines, large inventories and competitive pricing since 1948. New Yorker Electronics is an AS9120B and ISO 9001:2015 certified source of capacitors, resistors, semi-conductors, connectors, filters, inductors and more, and operates entirely at heightened military and aerospace performance levels. It also functions in strict accordance with AS5553 and AS6496 standards  verifying that it has implemented industry standards into everyday practices to thwart the proliferation of counterfeit parts. It is a member of ECIA (Electronics Component Industry Association) and of ERAI (Electronic Resellers Association International). New Yorker Electronics is a certified franchised distributor of electronic components, well known for its full product lines, large inventories and competitive pricing since 1948. New Yorker Electronics is an AS9120B and ISO 9001:2015 certified source of capacitors, resistors, semi-conductors, connectors, filters, inductors and more, and operates entirely at heightened military and aerospace performance levels. It also functions in strict accordance with AS5553 and AS6496 standards  verifying that it has implemented industry standards into everyday practices to thwart the proliferation of counterfeit parts. It is a member of ECIA (Electronics Component Industry Association) and of ERAI (Electronic Resellers Association International).

of IC development throughout the industry, Silergy has remained committed to providing leading-edge performance and solutions at an affordable cost.Silergys terminal application products include devices for consumer, industrial, computer and communication. They are used in LED lighting, automobiles, tablet and notebook computers, smart phones, televisions and video surveillance systems and other devices. Silergy products are designed with the intention of improving efficiency and conserving energy.New Yorker Electronics, an ISO 9001:2015 and AS9120B certified source of electronic components, also serves these sectors. This parallel means existing customers of both companies will be open to a new range of products from the same provider, making this relationship very beneficial to end users.This new agreement will secure exceptional access to integrated circuits and innovative mixed-signal and analog ICs that improve efficiency and conserve or measure energy use. Popular Silergy products include dual and single output step down regulators, battery charge management chips, LED backlight regulators, AC/DC LED lighting controllers and drivers, LDO regulators, protection switches and others."For New Yorker Electronics, our agreement with Silergy represents a meaningful long-term opportunity to partner with one of the most respected IC manufacturers," said Sandy Slivka, CEO of New Yorker Electronics. With all the advances in Integrated Circuit solutions, we want our customers to have access to the most efficient and cutting edge technology.As a franchise distributor for Silergy, New Yorker Electronics supplies its full line of Single Output Step Up/Step Down Regulators, Dual Output Regulators, Power Management ICs, LED Backlight Regulators, Controller ICs, LED Lighting Drivers, LDO Regulators, Protection Switches, TVS/Surges, EMIs, Electricity Metering ICs and Embedded Measurement ICs.New Yorker Electronics is a certified franchised distributor of electronic components, well known for its full product lines, large inventories and competitive pricing since 1948. New Yorker Electronics is an AS9120B and ISO 9001:2015 certified source of capacitors, resistors, semi-conductors, connectors, filters, inductors and more, and operates entirely at heightened military and aerospace performance levels. It also functions in strict accordance with AS5553 and AS6496 standards  verifying that it has implemented industry standards into everyday practices to thwart the proliferation of counterfeit parts. It is a member of ECIA (Electronics Component Industry Association) and of ERAI (Electronic Resellers Association International). New Yorker Electronics is a certified franchised distributor of electronic components, well known for its full product lines, large inventories and competitive pricing since 1948. New Yorker Electronics is an AS9120B and ISO 9001:2015 certified source of capacitors, resistors, semi-conductors, connectors, filters, inductors and more, and operates entirely at heightened military and aerospace performance levels. It also functions in strict accordance with AS5553 and AS6496 standards  verifying that it has implemented industry standards into everyday practices to thwart the proliferation of counterfeit parts. It is a member of ECIA (Electronics Component Industry Association) and of ERAI (Electronic Resellers Association International). Press Information:

New Yorker Electronics



209 Industrial Parkway, Northvale, New Jersey 07647 United States of America



Contact Person:

Mark Pappas

Marketing

Phone: 2017501171

eMail: eMail



Web: http://www.newyorkerelectronics.com





10.08.2018 23:19:06 -

Disclaimer: If you have any questions regarding information in this article please contact the author. Please do not contact Live-PR.com. We are not able to assist you. Live-PR.com disclaims content contained in this article. Live-PR.com is not authorized to give any information about content and not responsible for content posted by third party.
Related Two Egyptian pilgrims die in Mecca ahead of hajj

An Egyptian pilgrim died in Saudi Arabia ahead of the annual Islamic hajj pilgrimage, bringing the total death toll to six, Egypts health ministry announced on Friday.

In an official statement, health ministry spokesman Khaled Megahed said that a 67-year-old pilgrim from Daqahliya governorate passed away inside Al-Masjid Al-Haram in Mecca while performing umrah due to hypotensive shock.

Megahed added that the Egyptian authorities were currently coordinating with Saudi counterparts to extract the Egyptian pilgrims death certificate.

Deaths from heat exhaustion, fatigue and other natural causes are a common occurrence among pilgrims on the hajj in Saudi Arabia.

Hajj will take place this year over five days from August 19 to 24.

Around 80,000 Egyptians are expected to go on hajj this year, Egyptian officials have said.

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Senators on Friday welcomed the Sandiganbayan decision which provides that the P74 billion worth of assets from the Coconut Industry Investment Fund belonged to the government and must be distributed to coconut farmers.Senator Cynthia Villar, chairman of the Senate agriculture and food committee, said this was good news for the 3.5-million coconut farmers and their families. This is also a realization of their initiatives to improve the lives of the coconut farmers and all stakeholders in the coconut industry, she said. The bicameral conference committee on the bill creating the P100-billion coconut levy trust fund had earlier reconciled the disagreeing provisions of Senate Bill 1233 and House Bill 5745 or the Coconut Farmers and Industry Development Act. The Act was among the priority legislative measures pushed by President Rodrigo Duterte during his State of the Nation Address on July 23. Senate President Vicente Sotto said the coco levy bill, when it becomes a law, would be the instrument to be followed on what to do with the funds. Senate Pro-Tempore Ralph Recto said the Sandiganbayan ruling was similar to what Congress did.Thats what we did. We created a trust fund for coco farmers which belong to the government, he said. Senator Risa Hontiveros said as early as 2014, her partymates had been talking against the claims of United Coconut Planters Bank and the Coconut Planters Life Assurance Corp. (Cocolife) which were seeking to cut the fund intended for coconut farmers. The decision should clear the way for legislation to distribute the levy to the farmers, Hontiveros said. I voted against the Senate version of the coco levy bill because this is no longer trust fund as what the coconut farmers had been after, she said. Hontiveros was referring to the bicameral approval of the bill creating a P100-billion coconut levy trust fund to be used for 25 years for the benefit 3.5-million farmers.
Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana has revealed the willingness of Russia to provide the Philippine government soft loans to acquire a first-ever submarine in the Philippine Navy inventory. The acquisition of a specialized watercraft of the Philippine Navy would boost its naval capability and strengthen the countrys territorial security, he said. Lorenzana said Russia is willing to sell to the Philippines its Kilo-class submarine, which if finalized would take four yearsoutside the term of President Rodrigo Duterteto be delivered. Maybe within the year, maybe within the next 12 months. Maybe we could finalize this. If this is approved, it will take them four years to make it, Lorenzana said. Presently, the government has no budget to support the submarine project, but Lorenzana is optimistic for Russias soft loan.The Russian Kilo-class submarine can be armed with variety of torpedoes, missiles, and naval chargers. It has an engine displacement of 2,350 tons, a length of 73.8 meters and a cruising speeds up to 17 to 20 knots and range of about 6,000 to 7,500 nautical miles. However, Lorenzana said they are still looking at other prospective submarine suppliers, including those from Europe and France. The country plans to acquire at least three submarines that Lorenzana said intends for its security in order for the military to enhance its capability, particularly in securing territorial sovereignty. He said neighbors like Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Singapore have submarines in their military inventory, and it is only us who does not have it.
Saudis King Salman bin Abdulaziz has ordered that authorities in his country host 1,000 relatives of Egyptian police and military martyrs in this years annual hajj, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Saturday.

According to the agency, the order came under the countrys Hajj Guests programme, which is supervised by the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Dawah and Guidance.

The Islamic Affairs Minister, Sheikh Dr. Abdullatif bin Abdulaziz Al Al-Sheikh, said that this year's guests are coming from Asia, Africa and Europe.

Last year, King Salman ordered that his country host 1,000 families of Egyptian security forces killed on duty.

The hajj falls this year from 19 to 24 August.

Nearly 80,000 Egyptian pilgrims are expected to perform the Islamic pilgrimage this year.

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Greek Debt Tragedy is Far From Over

Last week, Greece received $17 billion from its creditors, representing the final installment of the countrys third bailout since 2010.



This is the last one.



Really. Stop laughing.



Theres no doubt the Southern Mediterranean country has endured a lot of pain over the last eight years.



To revamp their economy, the Greeks cut back on public pensions, increased taxes, and swept away some of their debt overhang.



The results have been impressive.



After watching their GDP fall by as much as 25% from pre-recession levels, the Greek economy has grown over the last two years and the government has posted primary (meaning before debt payments) surpluses.



Thats awesome, but its not enough.



This is a tragedy that seems to have no end.



The Greeks and their creditors claim the bailout can end because the ailing country has mended and has a sustainable path.



But the details tell a different story.



To make the numbers work, the Greek creditors gave the country a short-term pass on much of its debt, which includes a 10-year extension on previous loans, and a 10-year moratorium on interest and amortization.



Essentially, Greece is OK as long as it doesnt have to pay back very much. But even thats not a sure thing.



Greece must run a primary budget surplus of 3.5% until 2022, and then a 2.2% primary budget surplus after that.



As a refresher, NO ONE does that.



Maybe a country, like Germany, runs a bit of a surplus for a year or two. Maybe a country, like Australia, runs a decent surplus for years.



But a 3.5% surplus for several years, followed by 2.2% indefinitely?



And this in a country with 20% unemployment, a difficult workplace environment, few exports and an aging population.



Not a chance.



To make matters worse, Greece is starting behind the eight ball.



The country currently carries 180% of debt-to-GDP, and has raised taxes to the point that its driving the economy back underground.



Starting this year, professionals earning 5,000 euro per month, about $5,500, must pay 75% in combined taxes and security contributions.



That income level is a mere $66,000 per year, which is decent, but not excessive.



Imagine if three out of every four dollars you made had to be sent to Uncle Sam.



And thats not all.



Greek banks havent recovered.



In 2016, non-performing loans made up just over 50% of all loans in Greek banks. That number dropped to 43% earlier this year, and the ECB wants to see bad loans at 35% by the end of 2019.



But that still means that more than one-third of all loans in Greek banks arent performing!



With capital ratios at a generous 10%, the Greek banking system remains dead broke.



Not everyone is blind to the situation. The IMF refused to participate in the last few rounds of lending to Greece, noting that without more loan forgiveness the country couldnt pay its debts.



Everyone knows this, but the other lenders  the European Commission and the ECB  have bigger problems.



They cant ask investors holding Greek bonds to take a haircut because those investors include other central banks in Europe as well as some of the largest private banks, all of which have their own capital problems.



As long as they keep the debt on their books, even if they allow Greece to take 100 years to repay it, they can claim that the debts are in good standing.



Its a game of musical chairs.



When the music stops, not everyone will have a seat.



When the Greek economy finally breaks down, its possible the country will finally call it quits on the euro.



When that happens, even the ECB will have to admit that this is a tragedy, not a triumph.



P.S. Back here stateside, our Adam ODell is getting ready to celebrate the five-year anniversary of his Cycle 9 Alert trading service with a special event hes calling the Seven-Figure Summit.



He just bagged a 430% gain in the service, so nows the perfect time to hear what he has to say.



Click here to for more information and to sign up for free.

Rodney

Follow me on Twitter ;@RJHSDent

By Rodney Johnson, Senior Editor of Economy & Markets

http://economyandmarkets.com

Copyright  2018 Rodney Johnson - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.

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South Africas President and African Union chairperson Cyril Ramaphosa and the Nobel peace laureate and former Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf have commended Akinwumi Adesina, President of the African Development Bank , for his visionary leadership and bold initiatives to accelerate Africas development and to support the continent through the COVID-19 crisis.

President Ramaphosa expressed appreciation for the Banks commitment of $26 million for the African Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, its support in the procurement of critical medical supplies in Africa, and the financial instruments the Bank has provided to assist member countries through the pandemic.

The African Development Bank (AfDB) recently launched a $3 billion Fight COVID-19 social bond, with bids exceeding $4.6 billion. It is the largest dollar-denominated social bond ever launched in international capital markets and the largest US dollar benchmark ever issued by the Bank. The Bank also launched a $10 billion Crisis Response Facility to support Africa and to address the pandemic.

Through these initiatives, the Bank is poised to deploy funds to provide African governments and the private sector with access to financing to reduce the economic and social impacts of COVID-19.

I commend the AfDB for taking these bold initiatives and for the role played by the AfDB under your leadership during this challenging period, President Ramaphosa, also the current chair of the African Union, said in a written message of support to Dr. Adesina.

Echoing President Ramaphosas statement, President Sirleaf said: The leaders of Africa, and I dare say the world, have recognized the important changes that you have made in the Bank  reorganization of management and restructuring of Bank operations around the High 5s that represent a response to Africas more critical development needs.

Acknowledging the Banks highest ever capital replenishment last year, President Sirleaf added: Take heart, dear President, knowing that Africa respects your intellect and commitment and is pleased that through your leadership our premier institution has received worldwide acknowledgement and recognition for high-quality performance and impacting results.

Under Adesinas leadership, the African Development Bank has centered its mission around its High 5 development priorities: Light Up and Power Africa, Feed Africa, Industrialize Africa, Integrate Africa, and Improve the Quality of Life for the People of Africa.

The Banks shareholders in 2019 approved a landmark general capital increase of $115 billion, the largest in the Banks history, increasing its capital base to $208 billion.

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Egyptian police foiled a suicide bombing attempt on Saturday morning at a church in the town of Mostorod in Qalioubiya governorate, just north of Cairo, state television said.

According to the website of Egyptian state television, an unidentified terrorist, who was wearing an explosive belt, tried to infiltrate into the worshippers gathered at the Virgin Mary Church for a service.

Security around the church prevented him from doing so, however, and he subsequently detonated his explosives on top of Mostorod Bridge, killing himself in the process.

He had been intending to blow himself up to cause the maximum casualties among the churchgoers, state television said.

No further information on casualties has yet been released.

Worshippers at the service were celebrating the annual Fast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, which began on 7 August and concludes on 22 August.

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Egypt prosecutors ordered a recently defrocked monk be detained for four days pending investigations related to the murder of the abbot of his former monastery at the end of July.

Bishop Epiphanius, the head of Abu Maqar monastery in Wadi El-Natroun, was found dead inside the monastery on 29 July under what the church described as suspicious circumstances.

The decision by the Alexandria appeals prosecution today comes nearly a week after the Coptic Orthodox Church defrocked monk Isaiah El-Maqary as an investigation by the monastic affairs committee of the Holy Synod, the highest decision-making body in the church, showed he had committed actions unbecoming of a monk.

El-Maqary was released from the monastery by church decree and ordered to go by his former, non-monastic name, Wael Saad Tawadros.

The church had stressed that the monk was not dismissed from his ministry due to the investigations into the murder of Bishop Epiphanius, and said he had been investigated and sanctioned previously by the church before for breaking monastic rules.

Following the death of Bishop Epiphanius, the Holy Synod, , issued new decrees prohibiting monks use of social media, media appearances by monks, and the construction of unlicensed worship sites.

The decrees also included a one-year freeze on the process of initiating new monks, and a three-year suspension of the ordination of monks as priests and archpriests.

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Related Jordan says explosive device behind blast that killed policeman

Egypt condemned on Saturday a terrorist attack in Jordan a day earlier which left one policeman dead and six others injured in a bomb blast, a statement by the foreign ministry read.

The incident in Amman was caused by an IED which was planted near a police van, according to initial Jordanian investigations reported by Reuters.

Egypt expressed its sincere condolences to the Jordanian government and the family of the victim, and wished a speedy recovery to those injured.

These terrorist acts will not discourage Egypt and Jordan from standing firm in the face of terrorism," read the statement.

The foreign ministry emphasised the need to take serious steps towards halting the financing, training, and provision of safe havens for terrorist groups.

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By Jesse Buchanan

School security grants from an auto dealer in New Britain will fund cameras, radios and other school security measures in that city as well as surrounding towns.

Schaller Auto World Fund, administered by the Community Foundation of Greater New Britain, provided $2,500 to each high school in New Britain, Southington, Plainville and Berlin.

Southington superintendent Tim Connellan said the grant will be used to buy more two-way radios for use at the high school. The size of the building makes such radios useful.

Those really extend our ability to communicate in that building, Connellan said.

The radios are about $600 each and the grant will fund the purchase of four.

Thats a marvelous thing the Schallers did, Connellan said. Were very appreciative of that.

Kaylah Smith, Community Foundation assistant development director, said Art Schaller wanted to provide security upgrades to local schools but wanted school leaders to determine what was most needed.

He was really moved by the Parkland shootings, Smith said.

In Berlin, the funds will help update the schools camera system and buy a visitor management system that scans driver licenses and can compare them to sex offender registries nationwide. The system also prints ID badges for high school guests.

Plainville High School will buy cameras to eliminate blind spots in their camera coverage. The new cameras will also have better quality than the existing cameras.

The funds will help New Britain fund e-licenses for a violent incident training program from ALICE Training Institute. The school plans to extend the training it already gives teachers and students to bus drivers, cafeteria workers and paraprofessionals with the grant money.

jbuchanan@record-journal.com

203-317-2230

Twitter: @JBuchananRJ
HARTFORD (AP)  Two Democrats and three Republicans are vying for the opportunity to fill Connecticuts only open congressional seat in this years election.

Its a scenario that was unthinkable a year ago, when many believed Democratic U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty likely would win a fourth term representing the 5th Congressional District.

But the outspoken advocate of the #MeToo movement was criticized for how she handled the firing of a former chief of staff accused of harassment in her Washington, D.C. office, including by top members of her own party. In April, Esty abruptly announced she wouldnt seek re-election.

While Democrats are confident the seat will remain in their hands after the November election, Republicans are hopeful voter frustration with Connecticuts ongoing fiscal woes will help the GOPs ultimate nominee.

A look at where things stand in Tuesdays primary:

THE DEMOCRATS

Much of the attention on the 5th District race has so far focused on the two Democrats, former Simsbury First Selectman Mary Glassman and Wolcott educator Jahana Hayes.

Glassman, who narrowly won the partys endorsement in May, is considered the political veteran of the race, having run for lieutenant governor twice in the past. Hayes, a political newcomer and the 2016 National Teacher of the Year, has pitched herself as an outsider. She has sparked a lot of attention, and campaign contributions, from outside of the state.

If elected, shed be the first black woman elected to Congress from Connecticut.

Ive been asked to run for elected office many times, the educator from Wolcott said in a recent WVIT-TV debate. Im not a perennial candidate. Ive always said no. But I think this seat at this time provides a unique opportunity to bring us back to our moral center as a country.

Hayes said theres an appetite for change among voters and that shes been able to inspire a nation with her candidacy.

Glassman argues her experience, which includes working on public policy when she was chief of staff to former Lt. Gov. Kevin Sullivan, will be beneficial in Congress. An attorney who served as first selectman from 1991 to 1999 and from 2007 to 2014, she said shes balanced budgets and brought people together to solve problems.

I am not an insider, Ive never served in Washington, she said. Ive just served my community.

THE REPUBLICANS

While both Glassman and Hayes have criticized President Donald Trump on the campaign trail, the three GOP contenders in the 5th District race have praised the Republican leader.

The trio includes insurance analyst and former Meriden Mayor Manny Santos, the partys endorsed candidate; retired Southbury university professor Ruby Corby ONeill; and Watertown manufacturing consultant Rich Dupont. Theyre hoping their conservative message, coupled with frustration over the states fiscal woes, will resonate with voters in this western Connecticut district, which state GOP Chairman JR Romano has called a pure toss-up.

His policies are dead on, Santos recently told WFSB-TV, referring to Trump. I think when you look at the economy, theres no arguing that our economy is doing a lot better,

Both Santos and Corby ONeill are immigrants; Santos is from Portugal and Corby ONeill is from Honduras. They both support Trumps stance on stronger border security. Dupont takes the same position as well.

Corby ONeill has called for a greater focus on the opioid crisis, including improved transportation access to rehab programs, while Dupont has pitched himself as a businessman who will push to grow the economy and put people in the district back to work.

THE MONEY

So far, the two Democrats have far outpaced the three Republicans when it comes to fundraising.

Hayes leads the pack, so far amassing more than $461,000 as of July 25, with Glassman following close behind. Hayes, however, had more than twice as much cash left to spend compared to Glassman.

Among the Republicans, Corby ONeill is in the fundraising lead, with $120,523 in total receipts. That includes an $81,300 loan she made to her campaign. Shes followed by Dupont, who raised $92,865 and Santos, who reporting having accumulated $25,859. But Santos also reported having less than $500 in cash to spend, after accounting for his campaigns current debt.
Egypt's Dar Al-Ifta announced on Saturday that the first day of the Islamic Eid Al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice, will be Tuesday, 21 August.

Eid Al-Adha, also known as the Grand Feast, lasts for four days and is celebrated by Muslims worldwide.

The Eid marks the start of the annual Hajj or the Islamic pilgrimage to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

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Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said there was no meeting planned with U.S. officials including his counterpart Mike Pompeo at the United Nations General Assembly, the semi-official news agency Tasnim reported on Saturday.

Asked about the likelihood of a meeting with U.S. officials, including Pompeo, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, Zarif said: "No, no such meeting is planned. We have repeatedly announced our position," Tasnim reported.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani dismissed a U.S. call for talks without preconditions last Monday, hours before Washington moved to impose new sanctions in line with President Donald Trump's decision to pull out of a 2015 agreement over Iran's nuclear programme.

"About the recent offer by Trump, our official position has been announced both by the president (Rouhani) and myself. The Americans lack honesty," Zarif was quoted as saying by Tasnim.

Asked whether a message from the United States was to be delivered to Iran by Omani officials, Zarif said: "There is no such message," Tasnim reported.

Zarif said earlier this week that Oman and Switzerland had acted as mediators in talks with America in the past but that there were currently no direct or indirect talks being held with the United States.

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By PTI

NEW DELHI: The Delhi High Court today restrained former Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd promoters Malvinder and Shivinder Singh from operating their bank accounts in India or abroad and selling any property.

The brothers had appeared in the court in pursuance to its earlier direction to know how they were going to repay the money to Japanese pharma major Daiichi Sankyo, which had come to the high court seeking execution of the Rs 3,500 crore arbitral award won by it.

Justice Rajiv Shakdher, who recorded the depositions of the Singh brothers on oath, also directed them to submit the gift deed of a painting worth Rs 7.59 crore, title document of their Singapore apartment and details of any other bank account, if any.

As the counsel for the two brothers maintained that they do not have any money, the court said why don't they declare themselves insolvent.

"If they don't have money, why don't they declare themselves insolvent. It's simple. The best way to protect themselves is that they go for insolvency," the judge said, during an over two-hour-long hearing.

Besides the Singh brothers, the court also directed their firms RHC Holding Pvt Ltd and Oscar Investments Ltd to disclose the bank account details.

While recording their depositions, the court asked them various questions ranging from number of bank accounts in India and abroad, their balances, properties, sculptures and assets.

On being told by Malvinder that his Singapore property, which was mortgaged to a bank, was in a process to be sold, the court said, "you will not finalise the sale transaction without court's permission."

He also said he had one sculpture, worth Rs 7.59 crore, which he has gifted to his daughter.

The court turned down the prayer of Singhs' counsel that they be allowed to file the details in a sealed cover.

"What was so special and different about them? When I don't do it in case of any other individual litigant, how can I pass such a direction for them," the judge said.

The court listed the matter for September 5 for further proceedings.

It had earlier directed the two brothers to disclose their bank accounts and assets overseas and had ordered them not to transfer or create any third party in their shareholdings in RHC Holding Pvt Ltd or trademarks.

The court had directed a local commissioner, a chartered accountant, to sell the entire lot of unencumbered shares of the respondents, other than Malvinder in listed companies.

It had earlier also ordered the attachment of all unencumbered assets of RHC Holdings Pvt Ltd and Oscar Investments Pvt Ltd.

A Singapore tribunal had in April 2016 passed the award in Daiichi's favour holding that the brothers had concealed information that their company was facing probe by the US Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Justice while selling its shares.

The high court on January 31 had upheld the international arbitral award passed in the favour of Daiichi and paved the way for enforcement of the 2016 tribunal award against the brothers who had sold their shares in Ranbaxy to Daiichi in 2008 for Rs 9,576.1 crore.

Sun Pharmaceuticals Ltd had later acquired the company from Daiichi.

It had, however, said that the award was 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.

Daiichi had moved the high court here seeking direction to the brothers to take steps towards paying its Rs 3,500 crore arbitration award, including depositing the amount.

It had also urged the court to attach their assets, which may be used to recover the award.

On February 16, the Supreme Court had dismissed Singh brothers' appeal against the high court verdict upholding the international arbitral award.

Singh brothers' counsel had argued that 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 claimed that Daiichi was fully aware of all facts and still chose to retain the Ranbaxy shares, instead of terminating the agreement and returning them.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Realty major DLF is in talks with private equity players to raise funds for the development of a commercial property on 11.

Also Read | DLF Q1 net profit rises 56 per cent

76 acre land in Gurugram that it recently bought for about Rs 1,600 crore, a senior company official said today.

India's largest realty firm could dilute up to 50 per cent stake in this 2.5 million sq ft commercial project, DLF's CFO Saurabh Chawla said.

In February this year, DLF had bought this land for Rs 1,496 crore in an e-auction conducted by the Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC).

After including the stamp duty, the total cost to purchase this land came to about Rs 1,600 crore.

"We bought this land in Gurugram as it was close to DLF Cyber City and was strategic for the company.

Now, we are looking for a partner for development of this project," Chawla told PTI.

He said the company is in talks with many private equity funds and expects to close this deal by September.

Chawla, however, declined to name the private equity players with whom discussions were taking place and also the amount the company was looking to raise for this project.

"This deal would be similar in nature as we did with investment firm GIC for housing projects in Delhi," he added.

In September 2015, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC had invested about Rs 2,000 crore in DLFs two housing projects in the national capital.

DLF is a leading developer of commercial properties in the country and has more than 30 million sq ft of rental assets, mostly office space, which it owns directly as well as through JV with GIC.

It's promoters had in December last year sold 33.34 per cent stake in DLF Cyber City Developers Ltd (DCCDL) to GIC for Rs 9,000 crore.

DLF holds 66.66 per cent stake in the DCCDL, which holds bulk of its commercial assets.

DLF said in a presentation that it would build commercial products for sale either to retail customers (B2C) or to DCCDL as investment properties (B2B).

It also has the flexibility to hold the property as investment property earning lease rentals.

DCCDL group currently owns and operates a pan-India portfolio of about 27 million sq ft, which is slated to grow more than double in the next 10 years.

"DCCDL shall act as a 'Business Trust' not only will it build its own investment properties (about 25 million sq ft potential embedded in the JV) but shall also have the ability to purchase investment properties, at FMV, being developed by DLF or third parties," the presentation said.

Yesterday, DLF reported a 56 per cent increase in its consolidated net profit at Rs 172.77 crore for the first quarter of this fiscal.

Its net profit stood at Rs 110.70 crore in the year-ago period.

Total income, however, declined to Rs 1,657.67 crore during April-June this fiscal from Rs 2,211.24 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Paresh Sukthankar, deputy managing director of private-sector lender HDFC Bank, quit from his post on Friday, with the bank disclosing no specific reason for his resignation.

The resignation comes as a surprise, Sukthankar having been continuously associated with the bank since its inception in 1994. He was also one of the prime contenders to take over the bank after current managing director Aditya Puris term comes to a close in 2020.

We hereby inform you that Paresh Sukthankar has tendered his resignation as Deputy Managing Director of the bank, to be effective 90 days from the close of business hours of today, HDFC Bank said, adding that its board of directors places on record its appreciation for the contribution made by Sukthankar.

The 51-year-old has previously served as executive director and was appointed as deputy managing director in March 2017.
By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: New markets are expected to drive the growth of Indian pharma exports, in spite of headwinds in the traditional US market.

For the first time, Indian pharma exports grew to $17.26 billion in financial year 2017-18. In spite of eight per cent negative growth from the US market, pharma exports in India grew by 2.92 per cent last financial year. This was possible due to new markets opening up for our pharma companies. Africa, China, and Commonwealth of Independent States markets are the potential new markets that will present growth opportunities.

Therefore, even if negative growth continues in the US market, Indian pharma companies need not worry, they only have to explore opportunities in these potential markets, said Uday Bhaskar Reddy, Director General of Pharmaceuticals Export Promotion Council, speaking at a pharma expo in Hyderabad.

Traditionally, the US has been the top importer for Indian pharma exporters, but price erosion in North American market and regulatory hurdles have led to negative growth from this region.

Indian pharma industry is self-driven and things are moving in the positive direction in spite of negative growth from the US market. We always worried that if negative growth is witnessed in the US market, our overall exports will also see a dip. But it was proved in FY18 that even if negative trend continues in the US market, Indian pharma exports will rise, Reddy said.

There is a lot of potential in other markets. For instance, pharma exports to China grew by 37 per cent, from $137 million to $200 million last fiscal. The value may be less, but it points to new doors opening up in other territories. Chinese government has even imposed zero duty on 103 anti-cancer drugs, which will be beneficial for the Indian pharma industry. There was 18 per cent growth in pharma exports in the first quarter of FY19, which is very positive for the Indian pharma sector, he added.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: A bill to amend the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) 2016, allowing home buyers to be treated as financial creditors and seeking to set up a special dispensation for small sector enterprises, was passed by Parliament today.

The bill, which was passed in Lok Sabha on July 31, was approved in the Rajya Sabha today by voice vote.

The legislation seeks to replace the June 6 ordinance that sought to put these amendments into force to aid quick resolution of several bankrupt firms.

Replying to the debate on the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Second amendment) 2018 in the Upper House, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said its objective was to provide resolution to small bankrupt firms and, at the same time, take stringent action against big bankrupt businesses.

He said the bill aims to ensure that all cases are led to resolution instead of liquidation.

"We want faster resolution of cases. We don't want liquidation. Insolvency will not help the country. Assets worth crores should put to use," he said.

The Minister said the Insolvency Law Committee, which was set up in November 2017, had submitted the report on May 26 this year and every recommendation of the panel has been accepted and incorporated in the amendments.

On the approval of a resolution plan, the Minister said the report said it should be approved by a panel of creditors by a vote of not less than 66 per cent of the voting share of financial creditors.

For routine decisions, it should be 51 per cent vote requirement.

Goyal said the government is trying to increase the strength of NCLAT to address the pendency of cases.

"The number of courts, judicial members and technical members are being increased," he said.

Besides, a group has been set up to see a speedy resolution of about 40,000 cases in NCLAT that are simple in nature and can be resolved by imposing a non-discretionary penalty, he added.

On a member's query regarding less recovery of assets through the resolution process, Goyal said "there is a good recovery. If you look at the cases so far, 32 cases are resolved through resolution and up to 55 per cent have been recovered."

Earlier, it used to take an average of three years to resolve a matter, it has now come down to one year.

Earlier the cost of resolution used be higher at 9 per cent, now it has come down to one per cent, he said.

He also stated that the NCLAT was an independent body and the government does not interfere in its functioning.

The minister said it is not that in all cases, the promoters are wiful defaulters.

Wherever promoters are wilful defaulters, the action should be taken strictly.

"Now there is fear among big borrowers that they have to repay their loans. Earlier, there was a responsibility to repay loans was on small borrowers. Big players used think it is not our problem, banks have to recover the loan. This equation has changed today," he noted.

Earlier, Minister of State for Finance P P Chaudhary termed the bill as a game changer for the economy.

Opposing the bill, D Raja (CPI) said that frequent changes to the law is being done to help defaulters and the government wants to bail out the defaulters.

In the Bhushan Steel case, he alleged that the banks lost Rs 21,000 crore but a corporate house gained this amount.

He sought to know why the government has a "soft corner towards the corporates."

"The government should bail out the poor and not the corporates. The voting requirement is reduced to 66 per cent from 75 per cent to help one corporate," he alleged.

Neeraj Shekhar (SP), SR Balasubramaniyan (AIADMK), Kahkashan Perween (JD-U), P Bhattacharya (Cong) were among others who supported the bill but expressed concern over the government taking the ordinance route to amend various laws.

Supporting the bill, Jairam Ramesh (Cong) said that in the last two years out of 700 cases admitted under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy code only 3 per cent have been resolved, 12 per cent have gone into liquidation and 10 per cent have been closed.

"In other words out of 700 cases over 500 cases are active. Now the court says within 270 days the process must be complete. So my first question to the minister is high proposition of cases which are ongoing," Ramesh said.

He said "We have passed a law which says that the whole process should be completed in 270 days. But over 75 per cent of the cases going through some process or the other. I would urge the minister to pay close attention to it."

Ramesh said the recovery rate for banks stood at about 40 per cent.

"Now this 40 per cent is also an optimistic figure this include the recovery in steel industry which is now on the recovery path."

He said he suspected that the recovery through this code would not be more than 30 per cent.

"This is not a very healthy figure and I urge the Finance Minister to pay close attention to the fact that the recovery is good in the steel sector. If you leave that aside, the recovery rates are not very encouargeing," Ramesh said.

Ramesh also pointed out that on February 12, the RBI had issued a circular on stressed assets and that the Finnace Ministry has challenged it in the Allahabad High Court and sought to know the government's position regarding the circular.

"This is extarordinary situation. RBI issuing a circular which is being challenged by the Finance Ministry. I would like the government to clarify the exact position on this circular," the Congress leader said, stressing that the willfull defaulters should not go scot-free.

Neeraj Shekhar (SP) said what was the need for the government to bring in an ordinance in June when the House was scheduled to meet in July.

Such action raises suspicion about government's motives, he added.
Irans Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had killed ten militants overnight in a security operation conducted in the northwest of the country near the border with Iraq, the official news agency IRNA reported.

"A well-equipped terrorist group ... intending to infiltrate the country from the border area of Oshnavieh to foment insecurity and carry out acts of sabotage was ambushed and at least 10 terrorists were killed in a heavy clash," the Revolutionary Guards said in a statement carried by IRNA.

There has been sporadic fighting with Iranian Kurdish militant groups based in Iraq as well as Islamic State fighters near Irans porous border with Iraq.

In July, there were at least two clashes in the mountainous border area, in which at least 10 Guards and three militants were killed.

In 2017, Islamic State militants carried out coordinated attacks at the parliament building in Tehran and the mausoleum of Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini south of the capital, killing 18 people.

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S Lalitha By

Express News Service

BENGALURU: Passengers departing from Bengaluru try to carry something nice as souvenirs for relatives or friends. Naturally, Nandini Ghee tops that list. This delicious ghee carried in large quantities along with Swiss knives (multi-purpose knives) are causing endless altercations among the security personnel and public during security check-ins.

As per airport security regulations, liquids or semi-liquids beyond the 100 ml limit cannot be carried by passengers as hand-luggage (what they carry into the aircraft). At security check, these are usually dropped into huge bins unless the passengers are willing to go back to the airlines counter and place it in their check-in bags.

However, many domestic passengers refuse to accept this without kicking up a big fuss or pleading fervently to be permitted to carry the articles on board. Comparatively, passengers on international flights comply readily, a senior security official said.

Four knives daily

Every month, security check staff hand over a minimum of 120 Swiss knives to the Kempegowda International Airport staff. Many people have these knives as it has a nail cutter, peeler, knife and other sharp blades rolled into one. Some have exquisite ones gifted by close ones and they attach a lot of emotional value to them, an official added.

The stories they cook up to retain these gifts can be hilarious, another staffer said. An elderly passenger recently said how he cannot give it away. I have had it for 15 years on me. Please, please, allow me to take it with me, he pleaded. We cannot violate rules as we please and had to take it off him, the official said. A few passengers even shed tears to be permitted to retain them, but the officers do not relent, another staffer said. During every eight-hour security shift, there are anywhere between two and four passengers carrying such knives, he said.

Watching the delicious Nandini Ghee packets binned in front of their eyes enrages a few.

We sometimes get abused and are told nasty things by passengers, a security staffer said. He recalled one such remark: Don't think I do not know what you will do with them. You people pick up all the products and sell them at the end of the day and make money!

Passengers also abuse loudly at security staffers, but the staffers have been trained not to respond in order to ensure a smooth travelling experience for passengers, the senior official added.

Articles of altercation



Swiss knife, Nandini ghee, pickles, attractive water bottles, moisturisers (above 100 ml), skin creams (above 100 ml)
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: The City Corporation has passed a council resolution to install waste to energy plants at the Kodungaiyur and Perungudi landfills. They also plan to maximise the land use in the two landfills. On implementation, these projects are expected to reduce the amount of waste, which goes to the landfill, by 80 per cent. The 32-megawatt capacity plants will incinerate the waste which reaches the landfill to produce energy. The City Corporation has proposed piggyback engineered landfills (PBELs) to be constructed on top of the existing landfills.

The piggyback method uses a lining in between the old and new layers of garbage, and avoids the need to extend landfill area. This method was first used in the United States in 1987, and will replace the biomining system usually adopted to reclaim landfills in the state. According to the Detailed Feasibility Report (DFR) prepared by a private consultant. The operation and maintenance costs of the plants at Kodungaiyur and Perungudi are estimated to cost of `1,243.50 crore and `1,163.43 crore, respectively over a 20-year period. The operation and maintenance costs of the PBELs in Kodungaiyur and Perungudi are estimated at `258.08 crore each.

Both the waste to energy and PBEL will be implemented through a Private Public Partnership. The projects will be implemented over a five-year period, and bidding will be based on the design build operate and transfer model.

Sources in the Corporation said that the project is being rushed as both Kodungaiyur and Perungudi landfills are brimming. While the incinerators will ensure new waste isnt added, the piggyback method will maximise land use and reclaim the land in the area, said a senior Corporation official.

The Corporation has also proposed systems to monitor landfill juice (leachate) in real time and micro plans to handle waste from bulk generators.
Donita Jose By

Express News Service

HYDERABAD: People traversing this fast-growing residential hub of west zone, flanked by ORR on one end and ORR-JNTU link road on the other, are left with a painful experience due to the horrendous condition of the road. Residents of Nizampet say they feel like they are living on an island, disconnected from rest of the city, thanks to the pothole-ridden roads.

The 4-km link road that connects Bachupally and Nizampet Gram Panchayat to ORR on one end and to the JNTU metro station on the other, becomes further narrow at Nizampet, a fast-growing residential option for the IT crowd. It is a nightmare in the rush hours as it is the only main road linking us to the rest of the city. Not only is it damaged severely but now HMWSSB has dug it up on sides making it a traffic congestion point, rues Sridhar Macha, a resident of Bachupally.

The link road was proposed on paper to be 100 feet wide, but is barely 30 feet at points. The rapid urban growth and encroachments have eaten up most of the road, whatever is left is not maintained well. Making matters worse, there are hawkers and debris dumped by the water board that is digging up the sides, says Ratna Gopal a resident of Hill County in Nizampet.

Meanwhile, authorities maintain, the work is on the anvil and would be completed soon. We will be doing emergency repairs on the potholes within 15 days. A sum of `8 lakh has been sanctioned, and we are clearing the tender process for the same. Repairing the damage done by HMWSSB is not under that plan right now, said Chander Singh, Executive Engineer, Roads and Buildings department.

What about the other roads?

For an IT employee like Sridhar, whose workplace is in Gachibowli-Hitech area, there are only two options, one to go via the link road or to go via the GRIET College Road onto Bollaram road, both of which were dug up 4 months ago for water works and left undone since. The road is no better, even though its for a short stretch. Its covered with just gravel causing heavy traffic jams in evenings, adds Sridhar. Authorities, however, maintain the work is underway.
Gopika I S By

Express News Service

KOCHI: When the district worked itself up into a full on panic mode following the release of water from Idukki and Idamalayar dams, people at the Water Works substation at Aluva were dealing with rising turbidity in water. Fake news spread like wildfire that the water authority has stopped pumping as water entered the pump house.

READ | Kerala rains: Water woes mount in Kochi

Anil Kumar Augustin, an assistant executive engineer, refutes the claims. The turbidity of water had risen to 400, possibly the highest in the past two decades. We had to regulate the water pumping to prevent extra load into the filter bed. People will face some difficulties but water supply will continue. If water level increases enough to submerge the pumphouse, the electricity will be cut off, he added.We can manage until the water level rises two more metres from now. Till then there is no threat of submersion and even if thats the case, we are fully equipped to deal with it, said Jolly KK, executive engineer.

READ | Demand for water tankers and bottles across Kochi

While a couple of small pump houses from Panamkuzhy to Puthenvelikkara which supply water to maybe 300 houses had been submerged, the pump house at Aluva still functions round the clock albeit, a bit restricted.

Working hard



The possible water crisis in the city has been gnawing the personnel at Water Works.

Aneesh, a staff, Riyas an electrician, and Tolly, an overseer, are working extra time to ensure pumping goes unhindered.They constantly check the turbidity, add necessary chemicals and regulate the water supply. Especially when water is coming at such a frequency, constant evaluation is important. The effort every single person put forward for this tedious effort is applaudable. said Anilkumar Augustin. The AE, mechanical superintendent, overseers and electrical wing are all taking a combined effort.
Express News Service

KOCHI: With water receding from flooded areas, people have slowly started trudging back towards their homes. However, what awaits them back home are danger and misery in equal parts. A woman in Eloor was bitten by a snake which had entered her house and stayed back even when the water left the premises. The authorities had indeed been warning of the presence of snakes in the area.

A more subtle threat comes from African snails which feed on buildings, thus weakening them. The snails, which remains dormant in the summer, grow at an alarming rate during the monsoon. Contact with them are also said to cause meningitis in kids.

There are hundreds of eggs and the snails are sticking to the walls, said Viswambharan, a resident of Panchayat Colony in Eloor. Already, the buildings are in a bad condition. Now, they are being leached. The snails are usually seen in large numbers near the container yard area.

Five wards in Eloor face the issue, with the menace spreading to Kalamassery too. Five years ago, Puthalath ward in the 16th division of Eloor Municipality had faced a similar predicament.

It was a novelty at first, said Naseera Razak, the councillor from Puthalath.

Then, during monsoon, they started entering the houses and their numbers started increasing rapidly. This became a serious issue and we have received instructions from KMFRI in Peechi and salt in large quantities was used to halt their march. We have also used tobacco syrup to drive the snails away. We will take every step to ensure that the snails dont do much damage.
By Express News Service

VIJAYAWADA: The three day AP Construction and Build-tech Expo 2018 was inaugurated by Water Resources Minister Devineni Umamaheswara Rao here on Friday. At the expo, about 110 organisations have displayed their products which include construction equipment, materials related to building, architecture, interiors, furnishing etc. The expo was organised by Shiny Trade Events and Exhibitions (STEE).

Speaking on the occasion, the minister said that organising different kinds of expos in Amaravati helped in making everyone aware about latest technologies developed in the field of construction and the machinery used for it. He also said that all the companies taking part in the expo should see the Polavaram project and the capital city.

A large number of engineers are working for the prestigious national project using the latest machinery and world class technology and the companies visiting the project will get to know about them. Polavaram engineers team will visit the expo in three days. Next time, the expo will be organised at Auto Nagar, the biggest automobile cluster in Asia, he added.

Expo CEO Sk Baji said that STEE was organising this expo for the third time in Vijayawada. He said that 100 companies from across the country participated in the expo, which was a good sign for the growth of the state.

CREDAI, NAREDCO, Amaravati Builders Association, Architecture Association, Engineers Institution of India and School of Architecture participated in the programme.
Avinash Ramachandran By

Express News Service

Film: The Meg

Director: Jon Turteltaub

Cast: Jason Statham, Bingbing Li, Rainn Wilson, Winston Chao

Rating: 2/5

When someone first hears about a film titled The Meg, it wouldn't be too much of a stretch for them to assume it to be a romantic comedy centred around the journey of a woman named Meg. While one can actually call The Meg a journey story, this Jon Turteltaub directorial that is set off the coast of China deals with yet another done-to-death genre that desperately needs a makeover. Adapted from Steve Alten's 1997 book titled Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror, the film is about a prehistoric shark, a Megalodon, that wreaks havoc in the lives of a few marine biologists and technicians, who decide to present an episode of Man vs Wild. The Bear Grylls equivalent in this film is Jonas Taylor (Jason Statham), who plays a deep sea rescuer fighting a few past demons, both literally and figuratively.

A deep-sea exploration facility, led by Dr Minway Zhang (Winston Chao) and his daughter Suyin (Bingbing Li), and funded by American billionaire Jack Morris (Rainn Wilson), is close to discovering a place that could be deeper than the Mariana trench. Exploring hitherto unexplored territories gets the research facility into trouble as the Megalodon, a creature believed to be extinct for 2 million years, is brought back to our world.

And what happens next is that the makers tick, with varying levels of aplomb, all the requisite boxes that shark-based and Man vs Monster films since Jaws have formulated. For a film directed by the maker of the National Treasure series, Cool Runnings and The Sorcerer's Apprentice, this sci-fi thriller is an attempt at a genre outside Turteltaub's comfort zone. While he has made a bunch of adventure films laced with quick wit and action set pieces, The Meg doesn't exactly have shining moments in either of those departments.

There is very little to write home about in the action sequences, which are relegated to providing cheap thrills in an attempt to rattle audiences watching the film in 3D. Even the humour portions that worked smartly in Turteltaub's earlier films miss the beat quite frequently here. However, the scene where the Indian censor board decides to blur the entirety of a beer bottle instead of just the label can be filed under the unintended comedy section.

The Meg is also a case study of how Hollywood has decided to capture the burgeoning Chinese market. Following the Dwayne Johnson action film Skyscraper that came out last month, The Meg also features prominent Chinese actors and is set in Shanghai, China. But while the makers seem to have invested time in figuring out trends, it is a downer that this concern wasn't extended to the writing of the film. When Steven Spielberg made the iconic Jaws in 1975, he cast relatively unknown actors in major parts to portray the feeling of fear and nudge the audience into believing that such impending danger could happen to any of them. However, by casting a bonafide action star like Statham in the lead, the entire thrill factor is negated, and from there, The Meg is left with just one way to go: Down.
By Online Desk

Actor Kriti Sanon posed with a taxidermied giraffe in the magazine cover for Cosmopolitan India, August issue and is currently facing backlash by netizens over it.

Many animal rights activists have condemned the actor claiming that it was animal harassment, and demanded an apology from the actress.

Some of the comments on Cosmoindia's post. (Photo: Instagram)

The giraffe is used as a prop in the image and according to Cosmoindia, it is not hanging but floating in the air with balloons on its back. Cosmoindia said,"The giraffe featured here is floating (not hanging, heavens no!) with balloons on its back. An art installation, in what is possibly one of the eclectic yet most majestic mansions in the world."

The issue has become controversial as giraffe was recently put under the endangered species list as their numbers are fast declining in the wild due to rampant hunting.

After the uproar over the picture, Kriti clarified her stance and said, It was a normal photoshoot in a palace kind of hotel in London; the decor was in the wildlife zone. Its all fake. I am an animal lover. The Quint reported.

The image was shot in Londons Aynhoe Park which is filled with various taxidermied animals as can be seen in the images on their Instagram handle.
By IANS

MUMBAI: Actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha has lauded filmmaker Anubhav Sinha's latest release "Mulk" and said that the film is bold, beautiful, socially relevant and balanced.

"Just watched a very bold, beautiful, socially relevant and very well balanced film 'Mulk', by ace director, Anubhav Sinha. Friend and film maker, Sheetal Talwar organised a special screening in Mumbai with elder brother and statesman, Yashwant Sinha, Ghanshyam Tiwari (SP) and friends," Shatrughan tweeted on Saturday.

The 72-year-old actor-politician, who is the father of actress Sonakshi Sinha, praised the cast and crew of the film that revolves around the struggles of a Muslim joint family from a small town in India, who fight to reclaim their honour after a member of their family takes to terrorism.

"Right from the cast, crew to techniques, the film is phenomenal. Rishi Kapoor, an actor par excellence is superb. Taapsee Pannu yet again gives a tremendous performance. Ashutosh Rana as usual is fantastic. Special mention to Kumud Mishra who has essayed the role of a judge....simply steals the show by his natural flair for acting. Prateik Babbar, Kudos! Left a great impact," he wrote.

"Mulk" features Taapsee Pannu, Rishi Kapoor, Rajat Kapoor, Ashutosh Rana, Neena Gupta, Prateik Babbar, Manoj Pahwa and Prachee Shah Pandya in lead roles.

It released on August 3.
Sudhir Srinivasan By

Express News Service

As you can imagine, theres plenty of explosion in Vishwaroopam 2. The one that most impacted me though isnt one of bombs and bazookas; its of emotion. Perhaps it helps that the scene in question features two terrific actors, Kamal Haasan and Waheeda Rehman. After a gap, Wisam is meeting his lonely mother whos battling Alzheimers.

Its incredible how Kamal sells multiple emotions at once - guilt at not being able to tend to her, sadness about her waning health, and effusive love for the woman who means so much to him. The scene had me bawling.

Egging on with relish is Ghibrans beautiful "Naanagiya Nadhimoolame" in the background. The visuals gracefully shift to an undefined time in the past when Wisams mother is young, graceful and beautiful, and training him in Kathak.

Its a lovely touch that till the end, Wisams mother doesnt ever learn of his identity - despite numerous tempting scenes in which Kamal Haasan could have easily exploited this angle for more emotion. This whole stretch is an unexpected onslaught.

Onslaughts - of the more physical variety - are naturally a more prominent feature in an action film like Vishwaroopam 2. This plays right into Kamals unabashed relish for shooting violence, and you get quite a few impactful visuals - memorable, if youre like me, and revolting, if youre not. A mans neck gushing blood, as he gasps for breath. A bullet piercing Wisams chest as hes seemingly out of danger. A severed head. A man being impaled on spikes. A fatal punch to a mans throat.

Rahul Bose and Kamal Haasan in Vishwaroopam 2.

A mans brain splattered on glass, as the blood drips to form the shape of Indias borders. I havent covered the half of it. In a film about terrorism and espionage agents, these visuals are par for the course. This is less about romanticising violence than about establishing authenticity. In a scene, a bunch of children are lined up for rescue, and without warning, a man, of their own kind, suddenly pumps bullets into them. It truly drums in the tragedy of how faith-based propaganda has dehumanised communities. Its why the villain, Omar, can never understand his familys reluctance to follow in his footsteps.

ALSO READ | Vishwaroopam 2 should have been my first release with Kamal sir: Ghibran

I also share some fondness towards the Viswaroopam films for their depiction of women. You have the obvious strong-women candidates in Nirupama (Pooja Kumar) and Ashmita (Andrea). I only wish Nirupama had had a biting question or two to ask of Wisams longstanding disguise, and his eavesdropping of her counselling sessions. Shes a tad too apologetic of her mistakes, while Wisams a tad too self-righteous about his own manipulation of her. This film tells you a bit more about what Ashmitas prepared to do for the sake of duty.

Strength isnt just in these educated, liberated women; its also in someone like Omars wife, who despite potent threats, is prepared to do whatever it takes to get her children educated. Kamal summarises this with the visual of alphabet getting written on mud with a bullet. Among Omars weaknesses is his contempt for women. When Wisam tentatively suggests that the children be allowed education, hes quick to retort, Pombalainga madhri pesaadha. Pombalainga kooda jaasthi pesaadha. Its natural then that the men of his clan are violent and barbaric - how else can a society thats suppressive of women be?

It also harks back to a scene from the first film that shows Omar entering his home to see a female doctor tending to his sick wife. His first concern isnt about his wifes health; its about a woman being the doctor, and about how shes not covered from head to toe. Wisam, the hero, is a man cut of a different cloth. Its most evident in this film when a man offers to join him on a dangerous mission, and he rejects it: Pombalainga irukaanga. Avanga podhum. And why wouldnt he say that given he knows how Ashmita can kick a**? Kamal Haasan is perhaps the best Tamil director out there, when it comes to orchestrating stunt sequences featuring women. He did it with Trisha in Thoongavanam (2015), and now, hes done it with Andrea Jeremiah.

I dare say that Vishwaroopam 2 is better seen as a completion of the first film than as a continuation. Kamal Haasan may have assured that this film can be watched on its own merits, but the truth is, its better consumed as a bunch of jigsaw pieces that join to make the first film become a coherent whole. In unison, both films become better. Vishwaroopam 2 helps fill up numerous blanks, including the Osama meeting, the discovery of the tracking device from the US (Sam uncle, as its said in this film), and the crucial NATO strike. In that sense, its not incorrect to see the five years between Vishwaroopam 1 and Vishwaroopam 2 as being perhaps the longest interval in Tamil cinema history.

A still from Vishwaroopam 2

While the first films action sequences were mainly set in the outdoors, here, there are quite a few that occur in congested spaces - like one that takes place in a small room whose properties, like the wash basin, become props. The flashiest action sequence - hardly the films best - takes place underwater. Perhaps in being too fervent, Kamal Haasan dwells on this far longer than he should have.

In hindsight, I wish Omar and co had been injected with more purpose. They fail in the US, and head to the UK. They fail there, and then head to India. A cursory justification - the second largest democracy - doesnt quite seem enough. Vishwaroopam 2 also has the overused women-getting-kidnapped angle, even if Kamal Haasan draws a shocking visual from it. Also, love or hate it, wordplay will always be a feature of Kamals films. A character says, Naalezhuthu padichirkel, and another responds, Naala? PhD moonu dhaane? It didnt work for me at all.

Kamal Haasan Vishwaroopam 2

In a later scene though, two senior officers are discussing Wisams newfound affinity for his wife. One of them quips, RAW na Receptions and Weddings illa. This totally worked for me. Much like in many other Kamal films, here too, the wordplay ranges from laboured to lovely. And of course, theres his affinity for American accent thats become an integral, er, quirk. Here though, Wisam has been in the US for a while, and so, its more easily digestible.

The Vishwaroopam films biggest strength is how they present opposing perspectives, with great earnestness. The good people are convinced theyre good. The bad people are convinced they are good too. One of Omars lackeys is convinced that Wisam is headed to hell, and so are his wife and mother. Omar himself once declares, Nee saaga bayapadra dhrogi. Naan sandhoshama saagara jihadi. Its this almost-gleeful desire for death thats truly scary about Omars clan, and it comes from their conviction that theres an afterlife, that they will be received with fanfare in heaven. How do you fight this?

Its ironical then that a film that shows us how dangerous propaganda is, begins with propaganda: A featurette of Makkal Needhi Maiyam and Kamal Haasan. For a fleeting minute, I wondered if Kamal had somehow integrated it into the film, against all odds. The videos also a gloomy reminder that Vishwaroopam 2 takes us one step closer to Kamals self-proclaimed departure from cinema. His talents as a performer are well-appreciated, but there are moments in this film that show the gaping void he will be leaving behind as a writer-director.

In a scene, one of Omars men comes to threaten Wisam with dire straits and begins to get soundly thumped. He takes it all quietly though and suffers the pain, because he knows Omar has already destroyed something that Wisam holds dearly. These punches dont matter; Omar has already landed the winning punch.

Its such small, effective moments that make me feel quite fondly about the Vishwaroopam films, and despondently about Tamil cinema without Kamal Haasan, the director.

Rating: 3.5/5
A top Iranian constitutional body has approved measures passed by parliament to bring the country more into line with global money-laundering norms, state media said on Saturday, as Tehran tries to attract investments despite the reimposition of U.S sanctions.

Iran has been trying to implement standards set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global group of government anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-financing of terrorism regimes (CFT), in the hope it will be removed from a blacklist that makes some foreign investors reluctant to deal with it.

In June, FATF said Iran had until October to complete the reforms or face consequences that could further deter investors from the country, which has already been hit by the return of U.S. sanctions this week.

The Guardian Council, which vets legislation passed by parliament for compliance with Irans constitution, gave its approval to the legal amendments on combating the funding of terrorism, the council's spokesman, Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, was quoted by the state news agency IRNA as saying.

Hardliners in parliament have opposed passing legislation aimed at moving towards compliance with FATF standards, arguing it could hamper Iranian financial support for allies such as Lebanons Hezbollah, which the United States has classified as a terrorist organisation.

Saturday's approval came despite the clergy-dominated council's earlier objections to another set of amendments linked to money laundering.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in June parliament should pass legislation to combat money laundering according to its own criteria.

Foreign businesses say legislation that includes FATF guidelines is essential if they are to increase investment.

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By PTI

KOLKATA: With the TMC announcing protest rallies in West Bengal tomorrow against the Assam NRC, the BJP leadership wrote to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and the state chief secretary today, requesting them to ensure the safety and security of its members who will arrive in the city for party president Amit Shah's rally.

West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Dilip Ghosh wrote to Singh, requesting him to urge the Trinamool Congress (TMC) government in West Bengal to ensure the safety and security of the saffron party's workers, who will come to attend Shah's rally and on their way back.

State BJP vice-president Jay Prakash Majumdar wrote to West Bengal Chief Secretary Malay De, requesting him to ensure the safety of the BJP workers.

The TMC leadership has announced protest rallies across the state, except in Kolkata, tomorrow against the complete draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam that was published on July 30, party sources said.

"In the letter, I have apprised Rajnath Singh of the situation -- how our workers, who are coming to attend our rally, are being attacked. The TMC and the police administration have joined hands. I have requested him to tell the state government to ensure the safety and security of the BJP workers," Ghosh said.

The BJP rally will start at 11 am tomorrow, he said, adding, "The TMC has called its rallies to attack our cadre and stop them from reaching the venue. We have asked the chief secretary to ensure proper security arrangements."

Majumdar said, "The TMC wants to instigate violence and ensure that untoward incidents take place. We have told the chief secretary that if any untoward incident takes place, the TMC and the government will be held responsible for it."
By PTI

NEW DELHI: Raising the pitch for a joint parliamentary committee probe into the Rafale fighter jets deal, the Congress today gave an adjournment notice in the Rajya Sabha for a discussion on the issue and for fixing responsibility for the alleged scam.

Party's deputy leader in Rajya Sabha Anand Sharma gave the notice today, alleging irregularities and corruption in the multi-crore fighter jets deal.

In his notice under rule 267, Sharma demanded the suspension of business/rules for today.

The notice, was, however, not accepted by Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu.

The notice alleged that they expressed various concerns over the "irregularities" and alleged corruption in the acquisition of Rafale jets.

It said the "arbitrary" decision of buying the jets, resulted in a loss of technology transfer in the manufacture of 108 fighter jets by public-sector Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL) and entailed a "massive loss" to the national exchequer.

The notice demanded that the alleged scam is investigated by a JPC to fix accountability.

The Congress had been raising the demand for a JPC probe into the deal and party members raised the demand both inside and outside the House today.

While UPA chairperson and former party chief Sonia Gandhi led the protest by party MPs outside Mahatma Gandhi's statue in Parliament complex and raised the demand for a JPC probe, members raised their demand by protesting inside the House.

Today was the last day of the Monsoon Session of Parliament.

The Congress was likely to raise the pitch on the issue of alleged corruption in the Rafale deal in the coming times and make it a major poll issue.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: BJP president Amit Shah today brushed off allegations of corruption levelled by former union ministers Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha in the Rafale deal, saying credence should be given to the defence minister's statement and not what those "who did not get jobs" say.

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that the base price of Rafale fighter aircraft negotiated by the Modi government is less than what was finalised by the UPA, he said, adding that the government has already clarified on the matter following the opposition's charges.

He was speaking in an interview after releasing a book "Blue print for an economic miracle" authored by Pradeep Gupta, CMD of Axis My India.

He was responding to a question about allegations of scam levelled by Shourie and Sinha, both ministers in the NDA government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan in the aircraft deal.

"Will you give credence to the defence minister's statement or those who did not get jobs," he asked.

ALSO READ: Rafale deal bigger scam than Bofors: Arun Shourie

BJP leaders have often hinted that Shourie's and Sinha's relentless attack on the Modi government over various issues is because they were sidelined by it after it came to power in 2014.

They had claimed on Wednesday that the alleged scam involving the Rafale deal is much bigger than the Bofors scandal.

He also claimed that his party will return to power in three poll-bound states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Chhattisgarh as there is an overall "pro-incumbency" sentiment there due to the works of governments there.

ALSO READ: Rafale deal conflict explained: Here's what Congress and BJP said over the past three years

A day ahead of his rally in West Bengal, Shah said his party will win more than 22 of 42 Lok Sabha seats.

To a question about the escape of businessmen Mehul Choksi and Nirav Modi, he said the Modi government's relentless action against them would ensure that there will be "fewer thieves" now.

He said the government cannot give a deadline about when these fugitives will be brought back to India to face trial as it is a judicial process.

There will not be any laxity in our government's efforts, he asserted.

He also rejected suggestions that some of the BJP's allies are not happy with the party and said all NDA constituents are together.

He referred to the NDA's decision to field JD(U) leader Harivansh in the election to the post of the Rajya Sabha deputy chairman to make his point.

For the first time in over four decades years, the post has gone outside the main party in the government, he said, underlining the BJP's accommodative stand to its allies.

The BJP is not like the Congress which dumped its allies when they were not needed, he said, referring to its treatment of the Samajwadi Party when the UPA was in power.
By PTI

ITANAGAR: The Arunachal Pradesh Police have detected 2,333 Inner Line Permit (ILP) violators across the NE state since the publication of the complete draft of the National Register of Citizens in neighbouring Assam, state top police official said.

Papum Pare district accounted for the maximum number of 663 violators, the sources said adding Papum Pare(capital) reported a total 532 cases, while Papum Pare (Rural) accounted for 131 cases, he said.

Remote Kra Daadi district has not reported any ILP violation during the period.

The complete list of the citizen's register, touted to be the proof of Assamese identity, was published on July 30.

The figures were shared by the Director General of Police (DGP) S B K Singh in the state cabinet meeting held under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Friday.

West Kameng district occupied the second spot in reference to ILP violators reporting 354 such cases.

The border districts of Tawang and Anjaw recorded four and five cases respectively, he said.

Ever since the publication of complete draft of NRC in Assam, all the district superintendents of police in Arunachal were directed to check thoroughly the entry points to the state, an official comminique informed here today.

The SPs were also asked to check the ILPs at places like building construction sites, agricultural fields, motor workshops, restaurants and dhabas.

SPs of the districts are personally monitoring the checking of ILP on daily basis and reports are being collected every day, the communique added.

The DGP also apprised the cabinet about the details of action being taken against the ILP violators by the police.

The Cabinet expressed satisfaction over the measures taken but directed that ILP checking should continue intensively on a daily basis.

Accordingly, the district SPs have again been instructed to pay personal attention to the ILP checking, the comminique added.

The ILP is an official travel document issued by the Government of India to allow inward travel of an Indian citizen into a protected area for a limited period.

It is obligatory for Indian citizens from outside those states to obtain a permit for entering into the protected state.
By PTI

MUZAFFARPUR: A CBI team today took into custody the son of Brajesh Thakur, prime accused in the shelter home sex scandal, after 11 hours of the search operation and questioning at the premises owned by them.

The CBI team, which had reached Thakur's Sahu Road residence at around 9 am, left at around 8 pm with his son Rahul Anand.

Anand is the publisher and editor of Hindi daily "Pratah Kamal", the office of which is situated within the same premises as the residence and the shelter home which have since been sealed.

Headed by DIG Abhay Kumar, the CBI team was flanked by a number of armed commandoes who locked the main gate of the premises from inside, preventing entry of media persons and a number of other curious onlookers.

The CBI team, which was also accompanied by a number of forensic experts, is understood to have inspected the shelter home after getting its seal opened, and collected documents and other items it found to be of value in the investigation.

ALSO READ: Bihar shelter home rape case: CBI team, forensic experts conduct probe at Brajesh Thakur's residence

CBI sleuths also inspected the courtyard, which was dug up last month by the police, following allegations by inmates that one of the girls was beaten to death by staff members a few years ago and her body was buried at the spot.

Nothing incriminating was found after the day-long excavation and the eight-feet-deep pit was again filled up.

The CBI deployed heavy earth mover machines at the site but no excavation took place during the day.

Thakur, who is in jail, heads the NGO Seva Sankalp Evam Vika Samiti, which ran the state-funded shelter home where sexual abuse of more than 30 inmates has been confirmed in medical tests.

The Bihar government had cancelled the registration of the NGO earlier this week.

Sexual exploitation of girls at the shelter home first came to light in the report of a socia audit conducted by Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, which was submitted to the state social welfare department in April.

The FIR in the case was registered on May 31 against 11 people, including Thakur.

On July 26, the Bihar government recommended a CBI inquiry in the matter.

Bihar social welfare department minister Manju Verma had to resign after links of her husband with the key accused Brajesh Thakur surfaced.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: Despite the transport ministry rolling out a road safety policy, the number of accidents on national highways has gone up by around 7,900.

While the number of accidents in 2016 was 140,785, the figure rose to 147,913 in 2017, with the maximum increase seen in Maharashtra.

The number of accidents in Maharashtra shot up by a whopping 317 per cent. The number of accidents grew from 2,935 in 2016 to 12,264 in 2017.

The number of accidents on national highways registered in Uttar Pradesh and Tamil Nadu was 20,124 and 16,157, respectively, in 2017. Officials say that the two states being industrial and freight hubs, see more transport movement than other states and hence the numbers are high there.

Ministry officials say that drivers on national highways do not adhere to rules.

We have done our best in formulating and educating people. If they do not want to adhere to the rules for their own safety, the results are going to be disastrous. Apart from guidelines, it is important that the mindset of a driver changes, a ministry official said.

The rise in number of accidents shows that the policy is not being enforced properly. The threshold of four-lane highways has been reduced from 15,000 passengers units to 10,000 units, but the number is way above 10,000, said Dr PK Sarkar, director of Asian Institute of Transport Development.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Saturday said it will approach the Election Commission to demand action against BJP president Amit Shah who omitted to mention liabilities in his 2017 election affidavit.

According to Congress spokesperson Jairam Ramesh, Amit Shah mentioned in his Rajya Sabha poll affidavit filed before the EC in July 2017 that he had no liability but his son Jay Shah had obtained bank loans on two plots of land owned by the BJP president near Ahmedabad.

"There is no other such example in our country. Kusum Finserve owned by Jay Shah had shown two plots and one commercial building near Ahmedabad as a mortgage against the loans. Amit Shah is the owner of these plots but his son had obtained loans on the properties. This is a liability," said Ramesh.

"We want to ask Amit Shah why did he hide that information in the EC affidavit," he said. The Congress leader further said that in May 2017, Kusum Finserv was given a plot of land worth Rs 6 cr on lease in Sanand by the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation and within a month the company got a loan worth Rs 17 cr from a private bank against the said property.

Former Union minister and Congress leader Jairam Ramesh addresses a press conference at AICC headquarters in New Delhi on Aug 11 2018. (Photo | PTI)

Further, Kusum Finserve, which had no experience in the energy sector, received a loan of approx Rs 10.5 Cr by IREDA (a government enterprise) when Piyush Goyal was union power minister. "This was against the rules of not giving over Rs 5 cr loan to a single person," said Ramesh.

Also, Kalupur Bank of Gujarat, a commercial cooperative bank, of which one of the shareholders is Gujarat deputy chief minister Nitin Patel, had given credit worth Rs 25 Cr to Kusum Finserve, Ramesh said.

Citing a violation of rules as per the companies act, Ramesh asked: "Till date, Jay Shah's Kusum Finserve had not submitted any annual report to the government. Why?"

Citing the case of Temple Enterprises owned by Amit Shah, which made extraordinary profits from Rs 50,000 to Rs 81 cr in one year and then closed down, the Congress leader said he did not believe that Amit Shah and PM Modi were not aware of the wrongdoings.

"When questions were raised about BJP President A Amit Shah's Temple Enterprises, it was shut down after turning 16000 times its initial worth. Afterwards another company of Amit Shah's son- Kusum Finserve- was established by mortgaging Amit Shah's properties," added Ramesh.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The Congress on Friday demanded dismissal of Union Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain as a case of rape was registered against him in Guwahati.

"(Prime Minister Narendra) Modiji, you have failed the test not once, not twice, not thrice, but almost a dozen times. Again there is a rape FIR against one of your Cabinet colleagues, Gohain," Congress leader Pawan Khera said addressing a press conference here.

He said that if PM Modi does not act now, then he would lose the moral authority to stay in the office even for a day.

"Remove him from his office. You can't allow him to be in a position of power and influence during the investigation. Please remove him if you meant anything that you promised before 2014," he said.

"We demand from this government, from Modi, from (BJP President) Amit Shah to take immediate and strict action against rape accused Minister Gohain," he said.

The Congress leader's remarks came after a woman in Assam filed a case of rape with the Assam Police against Gohain.

Referring to the cases of rape in which Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders were allegedly involved, Khera mentioned the case of Unnao district in Uttar Pradesh and said: "We saw you were standing with the rapists of Unnao."

Khera was referring to BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Senger, who has been charged for rape by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The Congress leader also questioned Modi's silence on the Muzaffarpur shelter home rapes. "Your own government is there in alliance with (Bihar Chief Minister) Nitish Kumarji."

Khera also questioned Modi's silence over his party's state ministers coming out in support of the rape accused in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua.

Slamming Modi, he said: "Last week, we saw reports from Deoria, from Pratapgarh, and again you remained quiet."

"These are the same people who used provocative and emotionally charged slogans to woo the people of the country before 2014. And now, their Cabinet ministers are being charged with sexual assault and rapes, yet they maintain silence and action is hardly taken against those involved in such cases," Khera added.
By Express News Service

BHOPAL: Madhya Pradesh chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan chaired a high-level meeting of officials in Bhopal on Friday in the wake of the alleged rape and molestation of deaf and mute girls at a private hostel in the state capital.

"I'm saddened by the incident and the accused will be brought to justice by the police and prosecution through the filing of the charge-sheet in the case at the earliest," said Chouhan after the meeting.

At the meeting, the CM also issued directions for carrying monthly inspection of all government, private and aided shelter homes and hostels for girls. Presently, such inspection is carried out once in every two months.

Chouhan also said that proper rules and guidelines will be framed soon for private hostels housing girls. Meanwhile, the MP social justice and disability welfare department will hold enquiry into operations of around 100 NGOs and social organizations funded by the department.

The department's Principal Secretary Ashok Shah issued orders in this regard on Friday and fixed a month deadline for completing the enquiry. The enquiry will cover all the shelter homes and hostels run by social organizations and NGOs.Statements of students residing in such hostels would be recorded by the enquiry teams.

The income status of the heads of such hostels, provision of CCTVs in these hostels and other details too will be probed. In a significant development, the joint director of the department, Manoj Tiwari told on Friday that the private hostel run by Ashwini Sharma or his NGO was not funded by the department.

Similarly, the officials at the women and child development department also made it clear that Sharma's NGO or hostel was neither registered with the department nor receiving any government grants. It has also come to the fore that around a year back some ITI students residing at the concerned private hostel had complained to social justice department about Sharma troubling them and not giving them proper food and lodging facilities during their stay at the hostel.

The department conducted the enquiry into the complaints and ordered the closure of the illegal hostel, after which it was shut. Importantly, the department renders Rs 4000 monthly scholarship to specially-abled students undergoing vocational training at ITI.

Meanwhile, the opposition Congress launched a scathing attack on the ruling BJP in the wake of the incident. Party's state media in-charge Shobha Oza said the government is trying to cover up the matter as the accused Ashwini Sharma is close to one of the ministers in the state government and a ruling party MLA, besides having good ties with some key bureaucrats.'Responding to Oza's allegations, MP minister of state for cooperatives and local BJP MLA Vishwas Sarang said "we don't take Congress' allegations seriously as the opposition party has become habitual of making baseless allegations every now and then."

MP State Congress chief Kamal Nath wrote a letter to CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan, demanding CBI probe into the shocking episode. He also demanded that the government should make public the list of all NGOs registered with the government. He also demanded that the government make public details of public funds being provided to NGOs and social organization under different schemes.
By ANI

NEW DELHI: Ahead of the Independence Day, the Delhi Police inducted India's first all-woman Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team for anti-terrorist operations.

After rigorous training of around 15 months from specialists all across India and abroad, 36 women commandos from the northeastern states have been inducted into this squad. While 13 members are from Assam, rest of them hail from Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim and Manipur.

Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik, who was behind the idea of the SWAT team, said, "The team is ready to take on hostage crises and terror strikes in urban areas. The members of this all-women SWAT team received better ratings at the Police Training College in Jharoda Kalan than their male counterparts."

Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who formally inducted the unit on Friday, said that the women commandos will be deployed at Red Fort and India Gate during Independence Day celebrations.

All Women SWAT Commando unit is expert in unarmed combat, ambush & counter ambush, urban operations with knowledge of explosives, IEDs and assault weapons. #PowerToHer #SafeDelhi pic.twitter.com/ce32RiUvJw  Delhi Police (@DelhiPolice) August 10, 2018

Armed with MP5 submachine guns and Glock 21 pistols, all the members of the force are also well-versed in Israeli Krav Maga, an unarmed combat style.

Members of this team are experts in building interventions, counter ambush and VVIP security, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) (Special Cell) Pramod Kushwaha said.
More than half of the 14 districts in India's Kerala state have been put on high alert, officials said on Saturday, as the death toll from one of the worst floods in the southern state reached 34.

Torrential rains and landslides during India's June-September mansoon season have ravaged farmlands and prompted massive evacuation efforts in Kerala state.

Crops on 1,031 hectares (2547.66 acres) have been damaged and 31,000 people have been forced to take shelter in rescue camps, according to the Kerala State Disaster Management Authority's (KSDMA) control room in the state capital.

A senior official there said eight districts had been put on varying levels of high alert.

Another government official previously told Reuters that crop worth 3.42 billion rupees ($49.65 million), across 26,824 hectares had been destroyed by rains since their onset on May 29.

P.H. Kurian, KSDMA's chief and a top state bureaucrat, said rains had eased.

"There was no rain in the catchment areas of major reservoirs today," Kurian said. "However, we will continue our alert and preparedness till August 15."

Federal home minister Rajnath Singh was expected to travel to the state on Sunday to take a stock of the relief and rescue operations, Kurian added.

Kerala state authorities have taken the unprecedented step of opening the gates of 25 water reservoirs to prevent potentially disastrous breaches.

The state, which has 44 rivers, witnessed its worst floods in 1924 following torrential rains.

The weather department forecast heavy rains until August 15, India's Independence Day, also warning of flooding in low-lying coastal areas. Fishermen have been advised not to venture into the Arabian sea.

Despite the rains, tens of hundreds of Hindus across the state gathered on the banks of rivers and roads to perform a ritual in honour of their ancestors.

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By PTI

NEW DELHI: Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu said today that in his first year in the constitutional office he had carried out "effective engagement" with different stakeholders through his visits to 28 of the 29 states across the country.

He said his engagements were focused on students, youths and farmers, and science and research and culture as 60 per cent of his total 313 major outdoor events were related to them.

The vice president's secretariat also posted five tweets giving a summary of Naidu's outreach during the year. Setting a record for any vice president, Naidu visited 28 of the 29 states in the country.

Sikkim was the only state he could not visit as a scheduled event had to be cancelled due to inclement weather. He visited all the seven northeastern states.

According his office, he visited 56 universities and addressed 29 convocations urging students and youths to look forward to the future with a sense of confidence, seizing the emerging opportunities within and outside the country as complete individuals rooted in Indian cultural ethos while at the same time imbibing modern vision.

The vice president also visited 15 leading centres of science and research in the country for interacting with scientists and researchers and urged them to compete with the best in the world.

Through his 60 domestic visits outside Delhi and 313 major outdoor events and daily engagements of over 12, Naidu has reached out to over 450 countrymen everyday during the past year motivating them towards inspired actions.

On his first and sole foreign visit, Naidu visited three Latin American countries of Guatemala, Panama and Peru, and held wider ranging discussions on bilateral and multi-lateral issues with the presidents and senior ministers of those countries.

Naidu was the first high-level dignitary from India to visit Guatemala and Panama.

He also met in Delhi 22 visiting foreign leaders including Presidents of Germany, Switzerland and Belgium, and Prime Ministers of Nepal, Cambodia and Italy.

Naidu was sworn in as the 13th Vice President on August 11 last year.

He is the ex-officio chairman of Rajya Sabha.

As the Rajya Sabha Chairman's 'Moments of the Year', just-concluded monsoon session has been described as the 'Hope of the Year', presiding over the full-day proceedings of the House on July 24, 2018 as the 'Moment of Endurance' and an all-party meeting before the start of the monsoon session as the 'Breakthrough moment of the Year'.

His 'New Tidings of the Year' include the decision on disqualification of three members of Rajya Sabha in three months, quick decision on the notice for removal of Chief Justice of India, and setting up a two-member committee to review rules of the House.

He also made available simultaneous interpretation facility for five more languages making such facility now available in all the 22 scheduled languages.

Despite persistent disruptions during the winter session of last year and budget session of this year, Rajya Sabha passed 27 bills during the three sessions presided over by Naidu during his first year as the chairman of the House, according to the Rajya Sabha secretariat.
By ANI

BASTI: At least four people were injured after a lintel of a flyover on National Highway 28 was collapsed in Uttar Pradesh's Basti on Saturday early morning.

Two more people are feared trapped under the debris. The rescue operation is underway. No reports of causalities have been reported yet.

Basti: Rescue operation is still underway at the site where lintel of a flyover on National Highway 28 collapsed in Basti earlier this morning. CM Yogi Adityanath has ordered the local administration for an immediate rescue operation & to resume the traffic. pic.twitter.com/9c4GVCAFSu  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) August 11, 2018

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has instructed the local administration to initiate immediate relief work and provide all possible help to the needy. A similar incident took place on May 15, in which 18 people were killed after an under-construction flyover collapsed in Varanasi.

More details awaited.
By PTI

RAJKOT: A Gujarat Congress legislator, on his way to take 'jal samadhi' in Bhadar river in Rajkot district, was today detained along with seven other MLAs of his party, Patidar leader Hardik Patel and others at Bhukhi village in the district, police said.

Congress legislator Lalit Vasoya, who represents Dhoraji assembly constituency, was proceeding to take 'jal samadhi' (suicide by drowning) in Bhadar river to protest against the textile dyeing units polluting it with untreated effluents.

Seven other Congress MLAs, including Pratap Dudhat who represents Savarkundla assembly segment, Patidar quota stir spearhead Hardik Patel and others had gathered in support of Vasoya at Bhukhi village.

"Apart from Vasoya, seven other Congress MLAs, Hardik and around 12 others were detained. They had gathered in Bhukhi village in support of Vasoya, who was heading for 'jal samadhi'," Jetpur Deputy Superintendent of Police J M Bharwad said.

"They were released after Vasoya and others gave a written assurance that he will not taken 'jal samadhi'," he added.

Earlier this week, the MLA had submitted a memorandum to Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and Governor O P Kohli threatening to take 'jal samadhi' today in case the government failed to act against untreated effluents from industrial units polluting Bhadar river and the reservoir.

Vasoya had alleged that untreated toxic waste from textile dyeing units in Jetpur town was being released into Bhadar river which in turn was polluting the reservoir.

The Bhadar-2 reservoir supplies drinking water to Dhoraji.

Neither the Rajkot collector nor the officials of Gujarat Pollution Control Board have taken cognisance of this issue despite repeated reminders, he had claimed.

Following their detention, Vasoya and Hardik alleged that they were offered money by certain people not to take the protest.

"The government belongs to the industrialists. Industrialists are polluting the river by releasing chemicals into it. Before coming here, I was made an offer of Rs 50 lakh by the middlemen of certain people. Two days ago, Lalitbhai (Vasoya) was offered Rs 1 crore," Hardik told reporters.

Making similar allegations, Vasoya said there was a threat to his life if he continued the fight the issue.

"I am being offered money not to take up the protest. I told them your money cannot be bigger than people's lives. My life could be in danger if I continue the fight," the legislator said.

He said he would continue the protest against the pollution of the river and the dam.

"If needed, I will even take 'jal samadhi'," he said.
Fayaz Wani By

Express News Service

JAMMU: In an embarrassment to the BJP government, a party legislator from Jammu and Kashmir has snubbed the partys stand on Article 35A and warned that scrapping the constitutional provision with an eye on the 2019 Lok Sabha election could lead to serious consequences.

If the state residency law is scrapped, the youth will pick up guns and stones, said Gagan Bhagat, BJP MLA from RS Pura while addressing a public meet in his constituency on Saturday.

Article 35A should not be scrapped. If it is scrapped, then there will be no jobs for J&K youth and educated youth wont even get private jobs. If a person wants to purchase a land, he wont get it, the MLA said in his address, the video of which has gone viral on social media.

For the past two years, while our government was fighting the case legally in court , I stood alone in this political battle emphasising that any dilution of Article 35 A will set the state on fire. 1/2  Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) August 11, 2018

Bhagat said if today a marla of land is sold for Rs 1 lakh, its price would increase 10 times overnight if the state residency law is scrapped. Our people dont have the money to compete with outsiders. The rich men from Punjab, Haryana, Gujarat, Rajasthan and other states will come and purchase land here.

Asserting that people of Jammu would be worst hit by scrapping of Article 35A, BJP MLA said, People in the country know that there is militancy in Kashmir and nobody will like to go to Valley. If 35A is removed, people from outside will purchase land in Jammu and they will become owner of our land and Dogras and other people of Jammu will be wiped off.

Today I feel relieved that regardless of political views or affliations , we are all on the same page as far as protecting the special status of J&K is concerned. 2/2  Mehbooba Mufti (@MehboobaMufti) August 11, 2018

The lawmaker said people in Kashmir are fighting our battle while people in Jammu on social media are calling for its abrogation. Jammu people dont know that they will be worst affected if this law is scrapped.

If Article 35A is removed, the Jammuites will neither have jobs nor business. When there will be no business in Jammu, people will take up gun and pelt stones, he said.

Bhagat said the gun did not come to Kashmir in one day. A youth is being harassed by security men and he has no jobs. He is left with no option but to take up gun.
Aishik Chanda By

Express News Service

KOLKATA: A doctor, her husband and their six-year-old daughter will undertake a 40,000 km road trip covering 30 countries to make the people aware of the new medical concept of 'pain as a disease'.

On August 17, Dr Debanjali Roy, her husband Kausik and their daughter Diyasinee will drive their SUV from Chandannagar, West Bengal to travel through Nepal, Tibet entering central Asia and then to Europe, right up to the UK, before returning to Mumbai.

Automobile Association of Eastern India president and former transport minister Madan Mitra, French consul general in Kolkata Damien Syed and Federation of Indian Automobile Association president Nitin Dossa will flag off the transcontinental journey of the Roys.

Tour costs are staggering, and the couple is raising funds through crowd-funding. "The tour costs may reach `40 lakh. Though we have not yet found any sponsor, we hope to raise a portion of the amount through crowd-funding. Once we have started this tour, there will be no looking back," says Kausik.

It is Debanjalis desire to spread public awareness about the concept of 'pain as a disease' that led to the Roy family plan the grand trip. An International Association for Study of Pain (IASP) fellow, Debanjali says the Association declared 2018 as the global year for excellence in pain education.

We tend to suppress pain by taking medicines and forget it. But research has shown that pain is not just a symptom but ultimately it's a disease, Debjani says. So, instead of suppressing it with medicines, we need to find out the source of the pain which is why pain has become a separate subject now. All over the world, pain subject may soon be taught as professional medical degree."

The RG Kar Medical College alumnus says the IASP is urging doctors to make the people aware on pain education. As a pain physician, I have to work hard to establish this subject. I plan to use the IASP guidelines of factsheets and lectures to make the people aware of 'pain as a disease', she asserts.
Namita Bajpai By

Express News Service

LUCKNOW: Dubbing One District, One Product (ODOP) an innovative concept, President Ram Nath Kovind said it would not only change the scenario of skill development in Uttar Pradesh but also provide a fillip to the states efforts to mitigate unemployment by creating around 25 lakh jobs in the next five years.

Inaugurating a three-day summit to promote micro, small and medium industries on Friday, the President called such enterprises the backbone of the countrys economy.

These enterprises are engines of inclusive development. After the agricultural sector, it is this sector which absorbs most people.

Kovind said it was a cost-effective sector generating comparatively more jobs at rural-level even in the backward regions.

After this concept comes into being and takes concrete shape, rural youth will not be required to join the mad rush of securing government or private jobs. Through skill development, they can generate option for their own growth.

Besides India, the opportunities for growth would be immense by exploring foreign market through proper branding of handicraft products, food processing, engineering goods, ready-made garments, carpets, furniture, and leather goods, said Kovind.

He added these products had the potential to earn good foreign exchange. In fact, UP accounts for 44 per cent of the total handicraft exports of the country. Uttar Pradesh is famous for product-specific traditional industrial hubs across 75 districts, including Varanasi (Banarasi silk sari), Bhadohi (carpet), Lucknow (chikan), Kanpur (leather goods), Agra (leather footwear), Aligarh (locks), Moradabad (brassware), Meerut (sports goods) and Saharanpur (wooden products).

Under the scheme, the state government has set a goal of providing employment to 25 lakh people in five years through a financial assistance of Rs 25,000 crore.
Rajesh Asnani By

Express News Service

JAIPUR: In a mega road show, Congress Rahul Gandhi launched a scathing attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP over various issues. The roadshow, which was held to promote Rahul, saw Congress delegates arriving from 33 districts of Rajasthan.

Rahul seemed to strategically target the minority vote bank like Dalits, farmers and small traders, but kept his speech firmly on the agenda of the alleged corruption in the Rafale deal.

Anil Ambani was in the group that went to France with Modi. His company was formed just seven days prior to the deal. It needs to be looked into as to why the deal that should have cost the exchequer around Rs 520 crore finally cost Rs 1,600 crore, the Congress president said.

The roadshow of 12-13 km, starting from the Jaipur airport, halted the traffic on the roads. He was greeted and given warm welcome by party workers.

From the airport, he boarded a specially designed bus along with all the prominent leaders including Ashok Gehlot, Sachin Pilot and CP Joshi.

Other than the Rafale deal, Rahul said, the Narendra Modi government promised to give two crore jobs to the youths but gave only 450 new jobs.

Whereas China is able to employ over 50,000 people daily in new jobs.

Further, the Gandhi scion said the Prime Minister was allowing highly indebted businessman to leave the country and, at the same time, failing to give any relief to the farmers.

Reaching out to the business community, Rahul promised to bring relief in tax and correct the fuel prices by adding GST to them.

But the main target of the rally remained Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
By Express News Service

JAIPUR: In a big jolt to the ruling BJP, the High Court on Friday issued a notice to Rajasthan party chief Madanlal Saini asking him to present a report by August 16 on the expenses being incurred on Chief Minister Vasundhara Rajes Gaurav Yatra.

A PIL by advocate Vibhuti Bhushan Sharma said, The Chief Ministers yatra is to promote the electoral fortunes of the ruling party but its expenditure is being met by government departments.

The hearing on the PIL was conducted by the Bench of Chief Justice Pradeep Nandrajog.

Apart from Saini, other respondents in the petition are Chief Secretary of Rajasthan, the Principal Secretary of Public Works Department and the chief engineer of the PWD.

During the hearing, advocates of the PWD pleaded that the order regarding the expenses on the CMs Gaurav Yatra had already been withdrawn, but the court said a hearing is essential on this issue and ordered the state BJP chief to give a reply.

The petition also pointed out that home minister Gulab Chand Kataria, the convenor of the yatra, had said that it was the BJPs Gaurav Yatra and all the expenses would be borne by the party, but state PWD Minister Yunus Khan had called the Gaurav Yatra a government programme.

The petitioner said its a part of the BJPs election campaign in which people are asked to vote for the party. Hence, the BJP should be asked to refund the expenses and asked to stop any wastage of public money.
Aishik Chanda By

Express News Service

KOLKATA: BJP President Amit Shah on Saturday slammed the Mamata Banerjee government over misappropriation of Central assistance to West Bengal. During a BJYM rally in the state capital, he said: "The Centre has given Rs 3.59 lakh crores to the state but the amount did not reach the grassroots and ended up with bhatija (Mamata Banerjee's nephew and Yuva Morcha president Abhishek Banerjee) and syndicates."

Responding to Shah's corruption charges, TMC spokesperson and Rajya Sabha MP Derek O'Brien said that legal steps will be taken against the BJP President if he did not apologise within 24 hours.

"From another flop show in Bengal, Amit Shah has brought bogus corruption charges against Mamata Banerjee. If he does not apologise within 24 hours, we will take legal steps," he said.

READ HERE: Why do you want to keep Bangladeshi infiltrators: Amit Shah attacks Mamata Banerjee in Kolkata rally

TMC-Congress held rallies across state over Shah's visit

TMC workers also held 'Condemnation Rallies' across the state to protest the visit of the BJP President. While Matuas led by Bangaon MP Mamata Thakur protested at Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport, TMC workers shaved their heads at Chandannagar to protest against Amit Shah's visit. Motorbike-borne Youth Congress leaders showed black flags to Amit Shah outside the airport.

Amit Shah's meeting was a flop show, he has insulted Bengal today. He doesn't understand the culture of Bengal and even insulted it with his blatant lies. If he doesn't apologise within next 72 hours we will take legal action against him: Derek O'Brien, TMC pic.twitter.com/a12jR4BgtD  ANI (@ANI) August 11, 2018

Meanwhile, Congress held a rally to slam Centre's plan on NRC in West Bengal. The Congress state chief Adhir Ranjan Choudhury said: "There is no extradition treaty with Bangladesh. Will Bangladesh take back the 40 lakh people? No. This is a cheap gimmick before the poll season."

BJP President Amit Shah in his speech today had said that Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee or Congress President Rahul Gandhi won't be able to stop National Register of Citizenship (NRC) and the entire process would be completed according to legal provisions.
By PTI

KOLKATA: The Trinamool Congress (TMC) will take out rallies across West Bengal tomorrow to protest the publication of National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, a senior leader of the party said.

The state capital, however, has been exempted from Saturday's plan, TMC secretary-general and West Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee said here today.

BJP national president Amit Shah is set to address a public meeting tomorrow in the central part of Kolkata.

"Barring Kolkata, we will organise rallies across the state in protest against the NRC. A separate rally will be taken out in the capital city on Sunday," Chatterjee told reporters here.

The minister also accused the BJP-led Assam government of "deliberately omitting" Bengalis from the NRC draft.

The complete draft of the NRC was published on July 30 in Assam with 2.89 lakh names out of 3.29 applicants.

Over 40 lakh people did not make it to the list.

"Lakhs of Bengalis have been omitted from the NRC draft. It has been done deliberately. We demand that these names be included in the list. You cannot make a person refugee in his own country," Chatterjee added.

Reacting to the TMC announcement, West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh alleged that the ruling party wants to instigate violence during Shah's rally.

"The TMC has announced this protest rally to stop the BJP workers from coming to the venue of Amit Shah's public meeting. The party wants to instigate violence in Bengal. But I want to tell them clearly that if they create trouble, they will get a befitting reply from the people of this state," Ghosh said.

Last week, the ruling party had observed 'black day' across the state against the detention of its MPs at Silchar airport in Assam.

An eight-member TMC delegation that reached Silchar on August 2 to assess the situation in Assam in the wake of the NRC publication was not allowed to leave the airport.

TMC supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had claimed that the delegation members were manhandled at the airport and accused the BJP of imposing "super emergency" in the country.
The minister of antiquities visited several historic sites in Assiut on Saturday, allocating EGP 300,000 as a preliminary budget to start excavation work at Meir necropolis, and became the first minister to visit the ancient El-Muharraq monastery.

During an inspection tour of several archaeological sites in the governorate, the Minister of Antiquities Khaled El-Enany gave the go-ahead to begin a comprehensive plan to restore the Meir tombs, located 12km west of El-Qussiya town, and to develop the site to be more tourist-friendly and provide more services to visitors.

The necropolis consists of a collection of 15 rock-hewn tombs, which were unearthed last century by British Egyptologist Aylward Blackman. Only nine are open to visitors.

Mostafa Waziri, secretary-general of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, told Ahram Online that the tombs date back to the Old and Middle Kingdoms, from the sixth to the twelfth Dynasties, and include tombs of priest and rulers of the fourteenth Nome, or regional division, of Egypt at that time.

He explains that the tombs contain unusual painted scenes, characterised by their naturalistic qualities. Many of them shows highly detailed scenes of daily life, including industry, cultivation and sports, with a distinct local style.

Among the most distinguished is the one belongs to Ni-Ankh-Hpepy who was the chancellor of sixth dynasty King Pepi I. The tomb is painted with scenes depicting offerings of cattle, birds, and food, as well as fishing scenes.

The tomb of Senbi, a nomarch (provincial governor) and overseer of priests during the reign of twelfth dynasty King Amenemhat I, has many offering, agricultural and manufacturing scenes.

El-Enany also visited El-Muharraq monastery, noted for the important role it played during the visit of the holy family to Egypt. The monastery was the final place on their journey.

Waziri told Ahram Online that to commemorate El-Enanys visit, as he is the first minister of antiquities to visit the monastery, the monasterys abbot, Bishop Bigol, and the monasterys board of directors, reproduced a replica of an icon depicting the Holy Familys journey to Egypt, and offered it to the minister.

The visit included a tour around the monasterys old and new churches and its fortress. The minister also met with Bishop Bigol to discuss several archaeological matters and to solve any problems. Waziri said that Bishop Bigol highlighted the successful cooperation between the ministry and the monastery.

El-Muharraq monastery was built on the Qosqam mount in the fourth century AD.

The monastery has three churches, the oldest of which is the Church of the Virgin, which was built on the site of a cave where the holy family spent six months and ten days during their flight to Egypt.

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By Agencies

KOLKATA: BJP president Amit Shah today said West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee opposed the NRC in Assam due to "vote-bank politics" and called upon the people of the state to uproot the TMC government, saying it patronised infiltration from Bangladesh as well as corruption.

He also asked Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Banerjee to clarify their stand on infiltration from Bangladesh and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

Addressing a well-attended public rally here, the BJP chief began his speech with the slogan of uprooting the TMC government from Bengal and said in order to do that, he would visit all the districts of the state.

"In 2005, Mamata Banerjee protested against Bangladeshi infiltrators because they were Left's vote bank. Now these Bangladeshis are TMC's vote bank and therefore she is against NRC. Mamata didi, Congress leaders, kindly specify are you with the country or only for vote bank politics. I want to ask you people, aren't Bangladeshi infiltrators a threat to India? Shouldn't we drag them out? We are members of Bharatiya Janata Party. For us country comes first, and not vote bank politics," the BJP president said.

ALSO READ | TMC threatens legal action against Amit Shah over his 'misappropriation of central aid' claim



"Rahul Gandhi and Mamata didi should clarify whether national security is important for them or the vote bank. For the BJP, the country comes first," Shah said.

BJP supporters during the party president Amit Shah's rally in Kolkata on August 11 2018. (Photo | PTI)

He added: We will make sure that the process of NRC Assam is carried out peacefully. Neither Mamata Banerjee nor Rahul Gandhi can stop us from doing it. We will definitely complete the NRC process in Assam and drag out each and every infiltrator from India.

Shah talks about 'law and order' issue

The BJP president alleged law and order has been thrown out of gear in West Bengal. "The Bengal, where Rabindra Sangeet used to resonate once, is now all about explosions."

Shah alleges 'TV signal blocking'

He said: Mamata Banerjee made sure our rally today is blocked; all Bangla TV news channels have been blacked out the rally. We are not against West Bengal, but we are definitely against Mamata Banerjee. I am here to protest against the TMC.

Hits out at corruption

"Mamata Banerjee was elected because she fought against corruption but now scams are everywhere in Bengal," said Shah, hinting indirectly at West Bengal CM's nephew Abhishekh for his alleged involvement in scams.

(With inputs from PTI and UNI)
Namita Bajpai By

Express News Service

LUCKNOW: Senior leaders of the BJP along with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath huddled in Meerut on Saturday at the party's state executive meeting, drawing a roadmap to convert the challenge of the Opposition's 'grand alliance' into an opportunity for the party in the 2019 elections by targeting a vote share of 51 per cent to repeat the 2014 performance in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

The party's two-day state executive committee meeting was inaugurated by Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh.

Besides a bigger vote share, a strategy to win over Dalits and backward classes for a better performance in 2019 will also be discussed.

As many as 670 members of the executive committee, along with 400 MPs and MLAs from the state, are attending the meeting.

Addressing the party leaders, CM Yogi gave a detailed account of his government's achievements, claiming he had provided 'su-shashan' (good governance) in the state by curbing anarchy, and that this was best reflected in the way investment was pouring into the state.

The meeting will conclude on Sunday with an address by party president Amit Shah.

"The real challenge, as is being seen by the top leaders of the party, we would need to transform the challenge of 'grand alliance' into an opportunity by seeking 51 per cent of the total votes," said a senior BJP leader, spelling out the party strategy to counter the Opposition's efforts to defeat the BJP.

Meerut was chosen as the venue for the meeting because western UP accounts for 14 Lok Sabha and 71 assembly seats, and the party doesn't want to take any chances in the prevailing political scenario.

In the wake of the emergence of the Bhim Army in western UP, the party's main focus would be on holding on to its Dalit vote bank.
Subhash Chandra N S By

Express News Service

BALLARI: Unlike our netas and bureaucrats, Sir Dominic Asquith and his wife Lady Asquith boarded a train from Bengaluru to travel to Hospet. They were on a private visit to the World Heritage site. Sounds uninteresting?

Asquith is not an ordinary foreigner. He is none other than the British High Commisioner to India in New Delhi. The couple is on a two-day private visit to Hampi.

The duo arrived at Hospet by Hampi Express, travelling overnight. They began their visit with a special prayer to Lord Virupaksha. The British couple, who travelled as common tourists, was given a warm reception by the temple authorities. The temple elephant led the welcome team by garlanding the couple, followed by a special puja to Lord Virupaksha.

The temple sources said the couple was taken around the temple as well as to some of the important places in Hampi. The duo appreciated the monuments.

They were shown the Shiva temple, elephant stable, Lotus Mahal, Queens bath and other monuments. Speaking to reporters here, he said everyone once in their lifetime should visit Hampi.

Arun Rangarajan, SP of Ballari, told Express that the diplomat and his wife are being given a Z plus security. The couple will be residing at a private resort and will stay in Hampi until August 12. They will leave for Bengaluru by flight from Vidyanagar airport.

The Revenue dept has chalked out a protocol for them. The resort they are residing has been provided with security.
By Express News Service

BENGALURU: "The BJP has approached all 80 of our MLAs," joked KPCC Chief Dinesh Gundu Rao during a press conference earlier this week. He was responding to whether some Congress MLAs are being approached by the BJP even now, three months after the assembly elections. While leaders of the BJP including state president B S Yeddyurappa have claimed that there are no efforts on to woo MLAs of the Congress and the JD(S), sources in the party suggest a different story.

Sources say, national president Amit Shah has given them time till November to try and bring the Congress-JD(S) coalition government down. State BJP leaders have been asked to approach MLAs till November this year after which the party will invest all attention, resource and effort into campaigning for the Lok Sabha polls. If the current coalition government survives till November, BJP sources say, they will stop making all attempts to return to power in the state till parliamentary elections conclude.

"Allowing this coalition to continue till election could be disastrous for us. If this coalition continues, we can barely win 11 seats, but if the government falls, we are sure to get 20-22 seats," said a BJP functionary in charge of election campaigns.

Many from the Congress acknowledge that a few of their MLAs are being consulted. "They (BJP) have stopped trying to poach but are in constant touch with our MLAs. I suppose they will wait for things to roll after cabinet expansion," a Congress legislator said. While the party is confident of keeping its flock together, it also believes that BJP stands to lose more by bringing the government down.

While many within state BJP are sceptical about attempting to disrupt the government, they acknowledge that Shah has an unconventional way of working things. "The period post cabinet expansion is crucial. MLAs of the Congress, not just Lingayat leaders, but also those from OBC and SC communities, are willing to resign.

Even if we don't woo them, they are likely to abandon the coalition on grounds of representation," a BJP leader said. The Congress doesn't deny that tension is anticipated after the cabinet expansion with number of aspirants overtaking the number of berths available. While the party hopes to keep its leaders satisfied with boards and corporations, they are also keeping a close watch on the BJP and its attempts.
Mahesh M Goudar By

Express News Service

VIJAYAPURA: Uttar Karnataka Horatta Samiti agitators accused Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy of adopting a step-motherly treatment towards North Karnataka region as he offered bagina only to Krishna Raja Sagara Water Reservoir, sidelining the Water Reservoirs of North Karnataka.

The Lal Bahadur Shashtri Water Reservoir has filled to the brim on July 17, and on the same day, it opened all the crest gates with an outflow of 1.45 lakh cusecs. Next day, the Narayanapura Dam also filled to its brim.

Earlier this month the agitation for the demand of a separate statehood for North Karnataka got intensified. The agitators targeted CM Kumaraswamy for ill-treating this region. They accused saying, he is the CM of South Karnataka and not for Akanda Karnataka. Then they blamed him for not offering bagina to the Almatti Dam after it completely got filled. Next day, he rushed to the KRS dam of Mandya to offer prayers after the reservoir was filled, agitators said.

The officials from the Chief Ministers office has released a tentative tour list of the CM. He will offer bagina to the Almatti Dam on August 12.

Speaking to TNIE, Aravind Kulkarni, secretary of State Farmers Association told, Krishna river will provide life to more farmers compared to the Cauvery river. The CM should give more importance to this reservoir instead of the KRS dam. We will soon teach him a lesson if he doesnt changes his behaviour.

Meanwhile, sources have revealed that the members of Uttara Karnataka Horatta Samiti (UKHS) are preparing to welcome Kumaraswamy with a black flag, which is a symbol of the opposition and will also stage a protest at Almatti on August 12. The members said that their demand for a separate statehood of North Karnataka is still on.
By Express News Service

BENGALURU: Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy has directed Chief Secretary T M Vijayabhaskar to extended support to flood relief works in Kerala. Following this, the state government has extended financial assistance of `10 crore to Kerala and it will send a team of doctors too.

Expressing shock over the death of 26 people due to floods and landslides in Kerala, Kumaraswamy said the Karnataka government will extend every possible support for flood relief. The CM also called Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan over phone and discussed about flood relief.

READ | Five shutters of Idukki dam opened, toll touches 29; army and coast guard swing into action

Revenue Minister R V Deshpande said a team of 15 doctors will be sent to Kerala and the funds have been transferred.

These apart, eight columns of the Indian Army have been deployed to rescue stranded people in Kozhikode and Waynad, and two columns of Military Engineering Services (MES) from Bengaluru were deployed on Thursday.

Till now, the flood has claimed over 26 lives in Idukki, Malappuram, Ernakulam, Wayanad, Kannur, Palakkad, Kozhikode and several other districts in North Kerala. Also, special engineering task forces from Bengaluru and Hyderabad have been deployed.

IN PICS | Heavy rain triggers landslides in Kerala

Considering the crisis situation, Kumaraswamy ordered the release of 70,000 cusecs of water from the Kabini reservoir in Mysuru. This was done as the rising water level in the backwaters is further leading to excessive water levels in waterbodies in Kerala.

Stranded tourists rescued after 52 hours in Idukki



Idukki: Fifty-two hours after getting trapped inside a private resort at Pallivasal near Munnar due to a landslip near the resort on Thursday, revenue officials rescued 59 tourists, including 22 foreigners, by 6 pm on Friday. The tourists, including foreigners from the US, Singapore, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Russia and UAE, were trapped on Thursday at 7 am after a large mass of earth and boulders tumbled down the slopes of a hill near the KSEB Tunnel, blocking the only route to get access to the resort.

Ration, Aadhaar gone, residents fear identity loss



Kochi: Sunil, a resident of Kuttikkattukara, near Eloor, which has more than 100 households stands helpless as he looks onto his house partially submerged in water. This is the third time in recent times that our houses are getting submerged. Every time we go back, it take about five days for the house to completely dry, he said. Almost all houses here are filled with water. Unable to get their ration and Aadhar cards from the houses, they live in constant fear that they may not be able to avail the benefits.
By Express News Service

HYDERABAD: Chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has instructed the officials concerned that the prestigious Rythu Bhima scheme, to be launched on August 15, should be implemented in an effective manner.

Speaking at a meeting held with officials at Pragathi Bhavan here on Friday to discuss the nitty-gritty of implementation of the scheme, he said, Rythu Bhima scheme is the largest insurance scheme in the world and it will give confidence to the families of farmers. The nominee of an insured farmer would get `5 lakh in the event of the death of the farmer.

An effective mechanism should be devised for the cheque for the insured amount to reach the farmer as per schedule within 10 days after the death of the farmer. It is the responsibility of the agriculture extension office and panchayat secretary to ensure that the farmers nominee got the insurance amount. The chief minister told the officials concerned that the deceased farmers family should get the death certificate within 48 hours as production of death certificate is a must to claim the insured money. Issuance of death certificate would be the responsibility of the panchayat secretary, Rao said.

We are launching the largest insurance scheme benefitting 28 lakh farmers. The premium amount of `636 crore has already been paid by the state government to LIC. In case any farmer dies after the midnight of August 14, his nominee will get the insurance amount, the chief minister said.

The public sector Life Insurance Corporation has made arrangements for setting up special cells to disburse insurance cheques. The chief minister called upon farmers who have not yet registered their names to register for insurance coverage immediately. Once a farmer registered his name, the state government would pay the premium, he added.

CM announces land, fund for Padmasali Bhavan

CM K Chandrasekhar Rao on Friday announced allotment of two and a half acres of land and a fund of `5 crore for construction of Padmasali Bhavan in Hyderabad. Rao suggested to the community that it should organise and create a Padmasali welfare fund, and donated `50 lakh on behalf of the TRS as the first contribution to the fund. The chief minister held a meeting with representatives of Padmasali community at his camp office, Pragathi Bhavan.

17,000 sanitation workers to be appointed

The state government has decided to appoint a massive number of 17,000 sanitary workers in villages for maintaining cleanliness. The chief minister said that they would recruit 17,000 sanitary workers and pay them not less than `8,500 per month as wages. Panchayat raj officials informed him that the 12,751 villages in the state required 44,000 workers for maintaining sanitation.
By IANS

AFGHANISTAN: At least 20 Taliban militants were killed and four huge insurgents' weapons and ammunition depots were destroyed after US-led NATO coalition forces launched an airstrike in Afghanistan's Baghlan province overnight, an official said on Saturday.

The strike was conducted on a Taliban hideout near Aka Khil village, Dahana-i-Ghori district on Friday night, Hanif Rezai, spokesman of Army Corps 209 Shaheen based in the region, told Xinhua news agency.

ALSO READ | Afghanistan: Taliban launches attack on Ghazni

Among those killed was a Taliban local leader, who served as commander of the group's Sara Ketta or Red Unit in the province, Rezai said.

In a separate incident, Taliban divisional commander Muwlawi Salauddin was killed along with his two associates after Afghan Army commandos launched an operation in the same district on Friday night.

Salauddin also served as deputy shadow district chief for Dahana-i-Ghori.
By AFP

BRIDGEWATER, N.J.: Islamic State group jihadists killed five members of the same family at a checkpoint on the edge of their village north of Baghdad early on Saturday, a police official said.

The killings took place in Baiji district, around 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of the capital, the official said.

"A group of Daesh (IS) fighters came from the Hamrin mountains, crossed the Tigris river after midnight and attacked the checkpoint at the entrance to the village of Albu Juwari, north of Baiji," he said.

Five members of the family were killed and a sixth was in a critical condition, he said.

ALSO READ | IS group claims responsibility for Tajikistan attack: SITE

All were members of a tribal militia operating under the umbrella of the Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) paramilitary force that has fought the jihadists.

IS, which once controlled swathes of Iraq and neighbouring Syria, has been pushed back by multiple offensives and ousted from all of Iraq's towns and cities, including the capital of its self-declared "caliphate", Mosul.

But despite Iraq declaring victory over the jihadists in December, they have continued to use sparsely populated areas such as the Hamrin mountains as launchpads for attacks.
By AFP

TIRANA: A man who shot dead eight of his relatives, including two children, remains on the run and is armed and "dangerous", Albanian police said yesterday.

Ridvan Zykaj, 24, shot dead "eight persons from two Zykaj families in Resulaj village," 90 kilometres (55 miles) south of the capital Tirana, the police said in a statement.

"After the murder the armed person has left the area," police said, adding that the motive was "still unclear".

Police published a photo of the man and asked the public to come forward with any information, warning however that the fugitive "is dangerous" and "should be avoided if seen".

The victims include Zykaj's great-uncle, as well as the great uncle's sons and extended family, police said, adding that the suspect's parents were being questioned.

Local media reported that large police forces have been searching the area.

According to the News24 private television channel, among those killed were a nine-year-old child, a teenage girl and three women.
By AFP

SEOUL: Pyongyang will suspend Chinese tour group visits to North Korea ahead of a high profile anniversary next month, according to news reports today.

The North's Korea International Youth Travel Agency told a Chinese tourist agency that hotels in Pyongyang would be closed for renovations for 20 days starting Saturday, according to South Korean media reports.

ALSO READ: North Korea slams UN chief Antonio Guterres over call for nuclear disarming

Another North Korean travel agency informed their Chinese partner that an unspecified "state decision" meant they had to stop receiving Chinese tour group package travellers until September 5, the reports said.

North Korea has in the past restricted entry to foreigner tourists as the country prepares for significant events, giving a variety of reasons for the moves, Yonhap reported.

The latest measure comes as the North prepares to mark the 70th anniversary of the foundation of the government.

ALSO READ: North Korea will preserve know-how despite denuclearisation: Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho

In his New Year speech in January, leader Kim Jong Un said North Korean people would "greet the 70th founding anniversary of their Republic as a great, auspicious event".

The North has been preparing for the arrival of foreign delegations and thousands of North Korean citizens have reportedly been practising choreographed movements in Pyongyang for the official celebration of the anniversary.

In part thanks to a recent diplomatic thaw, the number of Chinese tourists visiting the North has rapidly increased.

Between 1,000 and 2,000 tourists are currently visiting popular sites such as the North's side of the demilitarized zone in a single day, NK News, an online news provider, said.

The surge in Chinese tourism may have been seen by North Korean authorities as straining Pyongyang's limited hotel infrastructure ahead of the anniversary, it added.
By AFP

UNITED STATES/UNITED NATIONS: North Korea on Friday accused UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of making "reckless remarks" and toeing the US line when he called for verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

Guterres made the statement following talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo on Wednesday to discuss the US-led effort to rid North Korea of its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

ALSO READ: North Korea asks US to ease sanctions as Koreas prepare for summit

The UN chief "should do what is beneficial to the current situation on Korean peninsula for peace and stability, not just by singing (the) chorus for sanctions to please (a) certain country," said a statement from the North Korean mission to the United Nations.

The mission described as "reckless" a remark from Guterres who said that North Korea "can be a normal member of the international community in this region through total denuclearization that is verifiable, irreversible."

The statement said North Korea was "astonished" to hear Guterres' remarks "at a time when the world supports and welcomes the historic DPRK-US summit and the joint statement in Singapore."

ALSO READ: North Korea will preserve know-how despite denuclearisation: Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho

At the first-ever meeting between sitting leaders of the US and North Korea in June, President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un pledged in a joint statement to work toward the "complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."

The statement however was short on details and a UN panel of experts reported last week that North Korea is pressing ahead with its nuclear and missile programs.

The United States, backed by Japan, is urging UN member-states to maintain pressure on North Korea to give up its military programs by fully adhering to a raft of sanctions.

Trump's administration has argued that sanctions must remain fully in place until North Korea has scrapped its nuclear and missile programs and that the dismantling is verified.

The Security Council last year adopted three rounds of tough economic sanctions on North Korea, banning most of its exports of raw commodities and severely restricting oil supplies.
By AFP

JAYAPURA: A small plane carrying nine people went missing Saturday during a short flight in mountainous eastern Indonesia, authorities said, with a search and rescue mission underway.

The Swiss-made Pilatus aircraft lost contact with air traffic control during what was supposed to be a flight of around 40 minutes in remote Papua province, police said.

"Villagers in Okatem reported that they heard a loud roar from the plane followed by a big explosion," Bintang regency police chief Michael Mumbunan told AFP.

Search and rescue teams have been deployed but it will take them up to three hours to reach the suspected crash site by foot, he added.

ALSO READ | Grieving families of MH370 want Malaysian Govt to continue search for the missing plane

The plane was carrying seven passengers, including a child, and two crew.

It belonged to Dimonim Air, a private company operating charter flights in and around Papua.

Indonesia relies heavily on air transport to connect its thousands of islands but has a poor aviation safety record and has suffered several fatal crashes in recent years.

Papua is a particularly difficult area to reach.

Five people died after a small plane crashed near Wamena in Papua province in July last year.

In August 2015, a commercial passenger aircraft operated by Indonesian carrier Trigana crashed in Papua due to bad weather, killing all 54 people on board.
By ANI

LAHORE: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is nominating its party president Shehbaz Sharif's son Hamza Shehbaz as the Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab provincial assembly, sources said.

The Express Tribune quoted sources as saying that the decision was taken by the party's central executive committee. Shehbaz first mooted the proposal, which was then approved by former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at Rawalpindi's Adiala jail on Thursday.

ALSO READ | Pakistan judge recuses from hearing petition against conviction of the Nawaz Sharif family

Sources added that the PML-N was in no position to get its Chief Minister, Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the assembly elected. They further said that Hamza could give the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) a difficult time and was the party's best choice and potential to emerge as his father's true successor.

Pakistan went to polls on July 25 and the PML-N had emerged as the leader in Punjab, having secured 129 seats, while the PTI was hot on its heels with 123. Both the parties have claimed that they have got the required numbers to form the government in Punjab province.

ALSO READ | First session of Pakistan's 15th Parliament summoned; Imran Khan's oath-taking delayed

Meanwhile, PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb announced that the party would take a decision on the newly elected candidates in the province on Saturday (today).

Nationally, the PTI had emerged as the single largest party with 116 seats, followed by the PML-N, which bagged 64 seats. The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) won 43 seats and finished third.

Amid speculations about Pakistan Prime Minister in-waiting Imran Khan's swearing-in dates, the Pakistani media ran a report quoting PTI Senator Faisal Javed saying that the former would take oath on August 18.
By AFP

BUCHAREST: Romanian police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse anti-corruption protesters in Bucharest on Friday, after tens of thousands rallied to call on the leftwing government to resign.

Local media said between 50,000 to 80,000 people turned out for the protest, including many Romanian expatriates who returned home to show their anger at the graft in one of the EU's most corruption-plagued members.

About a thousand officers in riot gear intervened to clear the crowds assembled in a central square outside the main government building after some protesters tried to break through the police cordon.

Protesters briefly clear the center of the square after riot police fired teargas outside the government headquarters, in Bucharest, Romania. (Photo | AP)

Nearly 250 people required medical attention after inhaling tear gas and pepper spray, while 10 police officers were injured by hurled stones and bottles, the emergency services said.

Centre-right President Klaus Iohannis said he "strongly condemned the brutal intervention of the police, which was disproportionate to the attitude of most demonstrators," but added that "any form of violence is unacceptable".

In a Facebook post, Iohannis, who has frequently clashed with the government, also called on the interior ministry to explain why the event had been so mismanaged.

The protesters had earlier chanted "resign" and "thieves" at the rally.

Stefan and Ileana Anghel, Romanian nationals living in Spain, waved a Spanish flag after travelling across Europe to take part in the demonstration.

"Unfortunately nothing has changed in Romania," Ileana told AFP.

"We want to see modern roads and schools and above all to not have to pay bribes to the left and right," added Ileana who, like her husband, works in the Alicante region.

Corruption and embezzlement

Last month Iohannis approved the dismissal of top anti-graft prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi -- considered a symbol of the country's fight against corruption -- after long resisting attempts to remove her by the ruling Social Democratic Party.

With Kovesi at the helm, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (DNA) had led a crackdown on corruption among local and national elected officials in recent years, earning accusations of abuse of power and the enmity of many in Romania's political class.

Romanians who live abroad are staging an anti-government protest calling on the left-wing government to resign and an early election. (Photo | AFP)

Among the protesters in Bucharest on Friday was 60-year-old Vlad and his wife who flew in from New York where they have lived for 30 years.

"Corruption and embezzlement, which profit the ruling class, are what bothers me," said Vlad, an estate agent in the US.

"A force is being born here (at the protest) and I hope that the message is heard," he added.

Thousands of people also joined demonstrations in other main Romanian cities, including Cluj in the northwest, central Sibiu and Timisoara in the west.

Around four million Romanians work abroad from an overall population of 20 million. Half of the expatriates are living in Italy and Spain, according to official figures.

Last year those working abroad sent 4.3 billion euros ($4.9 billion) back to their families at home, nearly 2.5 percent of the national GDP in one of Europe's poorest countries.
By AFP

WASHINGTON: The "suicidal" mechanic who commandeered and crashed a plane without passengers from a US airport in Washington state seemed excited, confused, and at times calm while talking with the air traffic control tower.

The 29-year-old man identified as "Rich" or "Richard" flew out of the Seattle-Takoma airport with a twin engine, 76-seat turboprop Bombardier Q400 belonging to Horizon Air at around 8 pm Friday (0300 GMT Saturday).

Two F-15 fighter jets were scrambled as "Rich" flew the passenger plane in an aerial loop, then headed south. He died when the plane crashed after a 90 minutes "joy ride."

The local sheriff's office quickly described him via Twitter as "suicidal," but audio from his conversation with the Sea-Tac control tower portrays a more complex picture.

"Rich" said in a matter-of-fact way that he fueled the airplane "to go check out the Olympics," according to audio posted by The Seattle Times newspaper.

He then expresses about fuel -- it "burned quite a bit faster than I expected" -- as the air traffic control officer gently tries to direct him to a nearby military base.

People stand in the Alaska Airlines ticket area at Sea-Tac International Airport Friday, Aug. 10, 2018. (Photo | AP)

"Oh man," "Rich" answers. "Those guys will rough me up if I try and land there ... They probably have anti-aircraft."

"They don't have any of that stuff," the air-traffic controller assures him. "Were just trying to find a place for you to land safely."

"I'm not quite ready to bring it down just yet," the pilot says.

"This is probably jail time for life, huh?" he asks. "I would hope it is for a guy like me."

"Oh, Richard," the controller responds. "We're not going to worry or think about that. But could you start a left turn please?"

Later on the pilot says: "I've got a lot of people that care about me. It's going to disappoint them to hear that I did this. I would like to apologize to each and every one of them. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess. Never really knew it, until now."
By Associated Press

WASHINGTON: A "suicidal" mechanic stole an empty passenger plane from the Seattle-Tacoma airport late Friday, took it for a brief flight that included an aerial loop, then crashed it in an incident officials said was unrelated to terrorism.

Two military F-15s were scrambled to chase the stolen plane, but "were not involved in the crash," local officials said.

Video taken by a bystander showed the passenger airplane making an unlikely upside-down loop, then flying low over Puget Sound before crashing into the sparsely populated Ketron Island in the northwestern US state of Washington.

READ HERE | Seattle mechanic opens up to control tower before 'suicidal' crash

The crash sparked a fire in the dense forest. Flames lit up the night as they spread from the burning wreckage to nearby trees. Officials said there were no victims on the ground.

The stolen plane was a twin-engine turboprop Q400 airplane belonging to its sister carrier Horizon Air, Alaska Airlines said on Twitter. It normally carries 76 passengers.

"This is not a terrorist incident," Ed Troyer with the Pierce County Sheriff's office wrote on Twitter. The plane thief "is confirmed a suicidal male," Troyer wrote. "We know who he is."

Follow this thread for official info. This is not a terrorist incident. Confirmed info .. this is a single suicide male. We know who he is. No others involved.

Told F 15s made it within a few minutes of theft of plane. Pilots kept plane out of harms way and people on ground safe. Yay air force . They may not admit for a few days. But is true..  Pierce Co Sheriff (@PierceSheriff) August 11, 2018

 Pierce Co Sheriff (@PierceSheriff) August 11, 2018

The suspect was identified as a 29-year-old airline mechanic and local resident who "acted alone," Troyer added, confirming that there were "no passengers on the plane" when it crashed.

The sheriff's office also said that the F-15s arrived minutes after the plane was stolen and kept the aircraft "out of harms way and people on ground safe."

Horizon Air chief operating officer Constance von Muehlen issued a video statement describing the incident.

"We believe it (the plane) was taken by a single Horizon Air employee and no other passengers or crew were on board," she said. "Our hearts are with the family of the individual aboard as well as all of our Alaska Air and Horizon Air employees."

The plane was stolen at around 8 pm (0300 GMT Saturday) and crashed 90 minutes later, officials said.

A reader board shows a number of flights delayed at Sea-Tac International Airport.

(Photo | AP)

'Bizarre' incident filmed

John Waldron, who took dramatic video of the stolen plane flying in a loop, told CNN that he was out for an evening stroll when he saw the two fighter jets following the turboprop aeroplane.

His first thought was that they were practicing for an air show. "So, I started to capture video, just because I thought it was kind of bizarre," he told CNN.

We've confirmed a Horizon Air Q400 that had an unauthorized takeoff from SeaTac around 8pm has gone down near Ketron Island in Pierce County, WA. We're working to confirm who was on board, we believe there were no guests or crew on board other than the person operating the plane.  Alaska Airlines (@AlaskaAir) August 11, 2018

Waldron said it seemed that the jets were chasing down the airplane. "I thought this is really odd. Kept the video rolling."

Then the passenger plane pilot "did a complete loop ... I couldn't believe he recovered."

He estimated that the plane at its lowest point was no more than 100 feet (30.5 meters) above the water.

"Then the pilot "pulled -- pretty much straight up. And kind of at an angle. And almost stalled the aircraft. Somehow he got it leveled back off. And then made his way down toward the island."

Waldron said that he was prepared to "run and take cover." He briefly turned away, then turned back and saw the explosion as the plane crashed.

Suicide or joy ride?

The pilot, identified as "Rich," comes across as excitable, confused, and even apologetic in a conversation with the control tower.

"Congratulations, you did it," the control tower tells "Rich," according to audio that aired on CNN. "Let's turn around the air and land it and not hurt anybody on the ground."

"I don't know, man," the pilot answers. "I don't want to. I was kind of hoping that was going to be it, you know."

Alaska Airlines planes sit on the tarmac at Sea-Tac International Airport Friday evening. (Photo | AP)

"Rich" explains that he had put some fuel in the plane "to go check out the Olympics," but then worried that he was low on gasoline.

"I'm down to 2,100 (pounds) [952 kilos]," he says, "I dont know what the burnage is like on takeoff, but it burned quite a bit faster than I expected."

The control tower gently urges him to land at a nearby military base. "I wouldn't want to do that. They probably have anti-aircraft," he responds.

"This is probably jail time for life, huh?" he later asks, according to a recording provided by the Seattle Times.

"Rich" said: "Ive got a lot of people that care about me. It's going to disappoint them to hear that I did this. I would like to apologize to each and every one of them. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess. Never really knew it, until now."

Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor described the incident at a press conference as a "joyride gone terribly wrong."
By AFP

TEHRAN: Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Saturday there would be no meeting with the United States in the near future following Washington's reimposition of sanctions.

Asked by the conservative Tasnim news agency if there was any plan to meet US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Zarif said: "No, there will be no meeting."

He said there were also no plans for a meeting with US officials on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York next month, which both Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his US counterpart Donald Trump are due to attend.

"On Trump's recent proposal (of talks), our official stance was announced by the president and by us. Americans are not honest and their addiction to sanctions does not allow any negotiation to take place," Zarif told Tasnim.

ALSO READ | Anyone doing business with Iran cannot deal with United States: Donald Trump

It was Iran's most explicit rejection of talks to date, after much speculation that economic pressure would force its leaders back to the table with Washington.

The US reimposed sanctions on Tuesday, following its withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers in May.

Zarif met repeatedly with then US secretary of state John Kerry during the agreement's negotiation and implementation.

ALSO READ | Iran could answer US sanctions with cyber attacks: Experts

Rouhani said last week that Iran "always welcomed negotiations" but that Washington would first have to demonstrate it can be trusted.

"If you're an enemy and you stab the other person with a knife and then you say you want negotiations, then the first thing you have to do is remove the knife."
By AFP

BEIJING: Thousands of demonstrators gathered at a mosque in China to stop its government-ordered demolition, a participant said Saturday, as Beijing's increasingly harsh policies against religion heighten anxiety about Islam's future in the country.

Across the nation, Chinese officials have sought to limit religious freedoms for Muslims as part of a widespread attempt to bring believers in line with the dictates of the ruling Communist Party.

Protesters began gathering Thursday ahead of a deadline to demolish the grand mosque in the town of Weizhou in the northern Ningxia region, a restaurant owner surnamed Ma told AFP.

Videos posted on social media over the last two days show hundreds of protesters gathered in front of the building as police with riot shields stand by.

Holding Chinese flags, they sat quietly on the building's steps and milled around a large plaza, before heading to Friday night prayers, according to the videos, which could not be verified by AFP.

"The government said it's an illegal building, but it's not. The mosque has several hundred years of history," Ma said.

The mosque was rebuilt over the past two years, according to government documents, but the licensing process was not carefully managed and several officials received a "serious warning" from a local disciplinary committee.

In the process, the facade was changed from its previous Chinese style -- featuring sweeping tiled roofs similar to a Buddhist temple -- to what is often described in China as an "Arab" design, with domes and crescents.

Concerns have been growing in Weizhou since the circulation of a government order last week demanding the mosque's demolition on the grounds that it had been rebuilt without the proper permits.

The document -- which could not be verified by AFP -- said that if the building was not demolished by Friday, August 10, the government would "forcefully tear it down, and you will accept responsibility for the consequences."

Calls to the local county government and the regional Islamic association Saturday went unanswered.

The words "Weizhou mosque" appeared to be censored on China's Twitter-like Weibo platform when AFP tried to search for them.

Sinicization of religion

Islam is one of five officially recognised religions in China, home to some 23 million Muslims.

Pressure has been building on the group in recent months as the Communist party moves to tighten the reins on religious expression.

China's top leaders recently called for the "Sinicization" of religious practise -- bringing it in line with "traditional" Chinese values and culture -- and new regulations on religious affairs came into effect in February, sparking concern among rights groups.

The measures increased state supervision of religion in a bid to "block extremism", and in areas with significant Muslim populations, authorities have removed Islamic symbols, such as crescents, from public spaces.

In the far western region of Xinjiang, things have gone much farther, with Muslims being harshly punished for violating regulations banning beards and burqas, and even for the possession of unauthorised Korans.

Concerns about the mosque standoff in Weizhou appeared to be spreading Saturday, as Muslims in other regions expressed solidarity with the protesters

"We are quietly waiting to see that the problem is satisfactorily resolved," said one open letter posted on Weibo by a mosque in Shanxi province.

If it is not, "we reserve the legal right to go to Ningxia or call on the central government to petition".
By AFP

UNITED STATES/UNITED NATIONS: The UN Security Council called Friday for a credible and transparent investigation into the death of at least 29 children in a Saudi-led coalition attack on a bus in Yemen.

The Saudi-led coalition earlier announced that it had ordered an investigation into the air strike on Thursday that also wounded at least 48 others in the northern rebel stronghold of Saada.

British Ambassador Karen Pierce, who holds the council presidency, told reporters following a closed-door meeting on Yemen that "if any investigation that is held is not credible, the council will obviously want to review that" and decide "if more is necessary."

The council did not order a separate investigation but "will now consult with the UN and others as to how the investigation can best be taken forward," said Pierce.

The council met at the request of five countries: Bolivia, the Netherlands, Peru, Poland, and Sweden, which are all non-permanent council members.

Kuwait, also a non-permanent council member, is part of the Saudi-led coalition fighting Huthi rebels in Yemen.

The United States, France and Britain -- three of the five permanent council members -- have supported the Saudi coalition in its military campaign, but have expressed concern over the heavy toll on civilians.

Ahead of the meeting, the Netherlands had stressed that the investigation must be independent, suggesting that the coalition's decision to open up a probe was insufficient.

"We have seen the images of children who died," Dutch Deputy Ambassador Lise Gregoire-van Haaren told reporters. "What is essential at this moment in time is to have a credible and independent investigation."

Saudi investigation

The council did not specify in the agreed statement to the press that the investigation should be independent -- a demand that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also made in a statement condemning the attack on Thursday.

Council members expressed their "great concern" and "called for a credible and transparent investigation," Pierce said.

Human Rights Watch criticised the council's failure to demand an impartial investigation.

"The sad truth is Saudis have been given a chance to investigate themselves and the results are laughable," said HRW's deputy UN director Akshaya Kumar.

Out of 75 cases of civilian deaths investigated by the coalition, only two resulted in an admission of fault, she said.

Last year, the coalition was put on a UN blacklist of child rights' violators for killing or injuring 683 children, and attacking dozens of schools and hospitals.

Since 2015, Saudi Arabia has been leading a military campaign to restore the internationally recognized government to power and push back the Huthis, who still hold the capital Sanaa.

The war has left nearly 10,000 people dead and unleashed what the United Nations describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
Champaign, IL (61820)

Today

Cloudy skies with periods of light rain this afternoon. High 57F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 80%..

Tonight

Steady light rain this evening. Showers continuing overnight. Low 51F. Winds N at 10 to 20 mph. Chance of rain 70%.
Ms Ho and Mr To both completed a comprehensive nine-month training programme, which includes lectures and three months of practical training.

Ms Ho said she enjoyed her training in the Mainland, although the process was challenging.

The high-speed train captain will check the trains traction and braking systems every time before driving.

Andrew To and Priscilla Ho have obtained the licence issued by the National Railway Administration. They will be driving the Vibrant Express, Hong Kongs high-speed trains.

The Government and the Mass Transit Railway Corporation are actively preparing for the commissioning of the Hong Kong Section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link.

The first group of high-speed train drivers in Hong Kong have completed training and examinations.

Priscilla Ho, 28, one of the high-speed train captains, operated trains on the East Rail Line before she applied to join the high-speed train captain training programme in 2016.

She said she enjoyed her training in the Mainland.

When I entered the driving cab for the first time, I was asked to drive from Shenzhen North Station to Guangzhou South Station. I felt very nervous at the time, and even dreamed about driving the train that night!

After a comprehensive nine-month training programme, which includes lectures and three months of practical training, Ms Ho obtained the licence issued by the National Railway Administration for driving high-speed trains.

Highly focused

The Hong Kong Section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link will connect Hong Kong with the continuously expanding national high-speed rail network. Train captains are required to fulfil the requirements and obtain the qualifications prescribed by the National Railway Administration.

Fellow high-speed train captain Andrew To said the biggest challenge of the programme was learning to operate the train at high speeds.

The mechanical parts of a high-speed train are different from those of the trains I drove before. High-speed trains are clearly much faster, and I needed time to adapt to it.

Besides, high-speed trains are almost entirely manually operated. Train captains need to be highly focused.

Mr To said he is excited to be a high-speed train captain.

My dream was to be a train driver. Even though I have successfully become one, I really want to be a part of the Hong Kong Section of the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link.

The 26km Express Rail Link is vitally important to the city.

It will link Hong Kong with major Mainland cities and significantly reduce rail travelling times. Commissioning of the service is expected to take place in September.




MDC-T youth leader Happymore Chidziva, elected Highfield West legislator in the July 31 elections, went into hiding soon after police indicated that they wanted him in connection with the violent and deadly protests that rocked Harare last Wednesday.





The police, who during the demonstrations called in the military to crush the protest using lethal force, are keen to interview him on allegations that he incited the violence. NewsDay Weekender reporter, Blessed Mhlanga (ND), caught up with Chidziva (HC) at his hide-out to discuss his tribulations.





ND: The police have expressed interest in interviewing you. Are you going to hand yourself over to them?





HC: I will not commit suicide because the police are being overpowered by the army and the people who are coming to look for me, especially those that raided my home, are not police officers. These are Military Intelligence and Central Intelligence Organisation operatives.





Some are coming wearing masks and that is surely not about arrest. In my view, this is about torture or abduction. Is it not intimidation?





If I go there with the police obviously being overpowered by the army, it will just be like committing suicide.





ND: So are you going to skip the country and find a safe haven elsewhere?





HC: I am not going anywhere. This is my country. I was elected to represent the people in my constituency and I intend to fulfil that role. I will remain in the country mobilising for the fight and defence of democracy.





We will not allow the vote to be stolen. We will not allow fear to rule our homes and families.





ND: How do you intend to represent your constituency while you are in hiding? Are you not being a coward?





HC: I am not a coward, but a dead leader cant fight another day to ensure victory of the peoples will. We saw how people were shot dead in cold blood by government agents, people who had nothing to do with those demonstrations.





We will fight within the confines of the law until we have a peoples leadership. Right now, we have the leadership of the army.





ND: How do you intend to get the peoples leadership into office?





HC: The people must pursue all avenues open to them by way of the Constitution.





Demonstrations, court processes and peaceful civil disobedience are part of our democracy.





We cant keep funding a government that is for the few. We cant obey people who manipulate the law, which is our aim.





ND: You stand to lose your seat if you dont attend Parliament for a period of time stipulated at law. So what will happen if the situation continues?





HC: How does the situation continue if people speak with one voice to reject this manipulation of the election?





The people will rise and will be counted. This situation will not continue. Freedom is here. This will come to an end.





The peoples victory will be reclaimed. Nelson Chamisa will be inaugurated (president).





ND: You talk about Nelson Chamisa as incoming president, but does your party have the evidence to challenge the Zanu PF victory or its just talk?





HC: You will see the evidence when (the) court (hearing) starts. Evidence is not presented in newspapers.





People should follow the court case and they will hear the evidence we have. We will win in court.





The evidence is solid. Chamisa will be the President of Zimbabwe.





ND: There are allegations that you did not have polling agents in all parts of the country and, therefore, you might not have V11 forms from all polling stations, whats your comment?





HC: We had polling agents everywhere, those who are saying that are lying. They are lying to give themselves false hope and allow themselves room for propaganda and rigging.





We had polling agents and we had roving agents. We even have information on how they were rigging even from their own polling officers.





ND: Lets talk about your family. I hear they were beaten up and abducted from home? Are they safe?





HC: They are still in pain, but they still tell me that we have to keep fighting.





They have hope in our leadership and they say yes, we have been tortured, but our hope is in you.





Its not about the pain they have suffered, but its the future of the children, to bring food on their table.





They are looking at the issue of employment, the ending of corruption.





ND: You have been asked to accept the results, move on and try again in 2023. What is your response to such calls?





HC: Those people who are saying that are Zanu PF people and we dont have to listen to people who know they stole a vote.





We have to reclaim our stolen victory. Instead, they should have accepted our victory and moved on.





ND: Do you think anything is going to change in terms of the election results?





HC: Yes, its going to change because those results announced by [Zimbabwe Electoral Commission chairperson Justice] Priscilla [Chigumba] are fake results.





True results are coming through the courts. That is the reason why they have been going after polling agents.





They want to hide the evidence. That is the reason they have been calling presiding officers back to command centres. They want to hide the evidence. They failed to run this election.





ND: You have been sceptical about the judicial system. Do you trust the courts?




The State case is fanciful, porous as has been shown above. The State has failed to reply to these criticisms, preferring to hide behind the lame excuse that these are triable issues to be determined at trial. With respect, the relative strengths of the State and defence cases is a relevant consideration. The States refusal to relate thereto must be put to the applicants benefit, Uriri said before the judge ruled in his favour. Newsday
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(Newser)  Roman emperors not only had war, jealousy, and political infighting to worry aboutthere was also the rain. A new study linking climate data to Roman history finds that lower average rainfall boosted the odds of an emperor being murdered during the empire's roughly 500-year run, from 27 BCE to 476 CE, the Smithsonian reports. The reasoning: Low rainfall in what is now France and Germany (then the Roman frontier, where many troops were stationed) would cause low harvests and starve soldiers, who became more likely to mutiny. "That mutiny, in turn, would collapse support for the emperor and make him more prone to assassination," study co-author Cornelius Christian, an assistant economics professor in Canada, tells Live Science.

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Relying on a 2011 study of oak-tree rings, researchers found that a 20% drop in annual rainfall created a 0.11 standard deviation increase in the chance a Roman emperor being murdered the following year, the Economist reports. Those most in danger lived during the Gordian dynasty from 235 CE to 285 CE, when 14 emperors were killed. "We're not trying to claim that rainfall is the only explanation for all these things," says Christian. "But usually there is a drought preceding the assassination of the emperor." Their study is part of a growing field linking historical events to climate data, like a Nature study last year about how volcanic activity may have created drier conditions and crippled Egypt's Ptolemaic dynasty. (In other assassination news, Robert F. Kennedy Jr said Sirhan Sirhan didn't kill his father.)
(Newser)  Shaming women for breastfeeding in public is still more common than it should be, but Jennifer Howard likely didn't think it would happen in her own doctor's office. The Salem Statesman Journal reports the 38-year-old Oregon mom was at an appointment at Salem Clinic when it came time to feed her 3-month-old daughter, Evelyn, and so she reached for the infant to feed her. That's when, she says, Dr. Dennis Barnett asked her if she had anything she could cover herself with, as the clinic had rules in place to keep staffers safe from lawsuits over inappropriate behavior. An "embarrassed" Howard looked in her diaper bag and found a blanket, which she says the doctor helped her put in place before the feeding. "It was humiliating and uncomfortable and I felt judged and shamed for trying to feed my baby," Howard says, adding to KOIN that Barnett could've left or asked for a nurse.

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Breastfeeding in public is legal in Oregon; the American Medical Association does recommend doctors use a chaperone during certain exams to avoid problems. Howard says she called the clinic back later to ask about its breastfeeding policy (she says she was told there was none), filed a complaint with the Oregon Medical Board, and asked the clinic if she could switch doctors. The clinic sent her a letter denying that request, and Howard took her complaint to social media, which quickly went viral and ended up making national newscasts. A petition calling for Barnett's firing has so far gathered more than 18,000 signatures, though Howard tells the Statesman Journal she hadn't known about it ahead of time and doesn't endorse it. She just wants the clinic to say it's sorry and to train staff to not shame breastfeeding moms in the future. (Read more breastfeeding stories.)
(Newser)  Air traffic controllers expecting a quiet Friday evening got anything but as an incident developed out of Seattle. Airport officials and local authorities report that around 8pm local time, a 29-year-old ground service agent with Horizon Air stole a 76-seat turboprop from Sea-Tac International Airport, took to the skies, and may have even done stunts above Puget Sound as military F-15 jets flew after him, CNN and ABC News report. After about an hour in the air, the passenger-less plane crashed on Ketron Island, about 40 miles away from the airport. The Pierce County Sheriff's Department said the unidentified pilot, whom it called "suicidal," was pronounced dead after the crash, and that the crash wasn't caused by the military jets. As the situation unfolded, air traffic controllers could be heard trying to guide the man safely back down to the ground.

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"Yeah, I'm not quite ready to bring it down just yet," the pilot, referred to by controllers as Rich or Richard, said as they tried to get him to land at a nearby military airfield (you can hear audio at the Seattle Times.) "Those guys will rough me up if I tried landing there. ... This is probably jail time for life, huh?" At one point, the pilot refers to himself as a "broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess," per the Washington Post. Sheriff Paul Porter says the act wasn't terrorism. "Most terrorists don't do loops over the water," he tells ABC. "This might have been a joyride gone terribly wrong." His office tweeted it couldn't be sure if what the pilot was doing was stunts or a "lack of flying skills" before the plane went down. The CEO of Alaska Airlines, which owns Horizon Air, expressed sadness for the family of the pilot and said the airline is working with the FAA, FBI, and NTSB to investigate what happened. (Read more Seattle stories.)
(Newser)  Canada's growing rift with the US has included tense trade talks and tit-for-tat remarks. Now the US is among countries leaving Canucks in the diplomatic cold over their spat with Saudi Arabia, the Guardian reports. "It's up for the government of Saudi Arabia and the Canadians to work this out," says State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert. "Both sides need to diplomatically resolve this together. We can't do it for them." America isn't the only country refusing to support Canada after it called for Saudi Arabia to free arrested women's rights activists, and the Saudi government lashed out in a rage: The UK also gave Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government a muted response.

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"The Brits and the Trumpians run for cover and say 'we're friends with both the Saudis and the Canadians,'" tweeted Bob Rae, former leader of the Liberal Party in Canada. "Thanks for the support for human rights, guys, and well remember this one for sure." As Rachel Curran, a former official under the Stephen Harper government, tweeted: "We do not have a single friend in the whole entire world." Meanwhile, Reuters reports that the European Union is asking Saudi Arabia to explain why activists Samar Badawi and Nassima al-Sadah were arrested and urged the Saudi government to grant them due process. (A Saudi government-linked youth group threatened a 9/11-style attack on Toronto.)
(Newser)  President Trump marked the eve of the Charlottesville-riot anniversary with a tweet thatsurprise, surprisemay be dividing the nation, USA Today reports. "The riots in Charlottesville a year ago resulted in senseless death and division," the president tweeted Saturday. "We must come together as a nation. I condemn all types of racism and acts of violence. Peace to ALL Americans!" For some, Trump's tweet recalled his remarks after fighting broke out in Charlottesville, Va., last year and three people were killed: "You had some very bad people in that group," he said at the time, referring to white nationalists, "but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides."

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"'All types.' 'Both sides.' Continuing to advance a narrative of moral equivalency between racists and those opposed to racism, so as not to tick off his white supremacist supporters," NAACP official Sherrilyn Ifill tweeted. Richard Cohen, head of the South Poverty Law Center, said white people think "they're the ones being targeted for racism and a lot of these people are Trump supporters so when the president makes a comment like this with 'all types' it's hard not to be suspicious." Meanwhile, white nationalist Jason Kesslerwho organized last year's Charlottesville demonstrationwas refused a permit there this year but has been allowed to hold a rally Sunday across the street from the White House, Reuters reports. (Read more President Trump stories.)
New Delhi:

Congress president Rahul Gandhi is scheduled to start his roadshow on Saturday in Jaipur. The Congress chief will address a rally and chair a meeting of Congress leaders after the roadshow. The show comes following the BJPs rally on 4 August. The route of the roadshow has been decided and has been approved by the police and the special protection group (SPG).

Gandhi will address a diverse gathering at Jaipurs Ramlila Maidan after the roadshow, which is expected to be around 12km.

ALSO READ: Amit Shah to address 'Yuva Samabesh' rally in Kolkata today

The Congress chief will start the roadshow in a specially designed open bus with Ramlila Maidan being the last destination of the show. He is expected to be welcomed by the party workers at a total of 14 different places.

"Rahul Gandhi is giving top priority to Rajasthan and he will launch the election campaign of the party in the state on August 11. He is likely to visit the state again in the month end and another visit will be scheduled in September," said senior party leader Sachin Pilot.

Gandhi is expected to offer prayers at the Govind Dev Ji Temple, and the party workers have planned a huge welcome on his first Assembly elections related visit to Rajasthan.

ALSO READ: Sooner the Muslim divorce law is passed, the better

Meanwhile, the police have made tight security arrangements for the roadshow and intelligence agencies have been put on high alert. Only the workers with a pass to the event will be allowed to attend the show.

Earlier on 4 August, BJP chief Amit Shah had flagged off Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Rajes Suraj Gaurav Yatra at Kankroli. The rally received a massive response as the party workers were full of energy and enthusiasm.
New Delhi:

Over 37 people have been reported killed in the flood-hit Kerala since August 8 and over 50,000 others shifted to relief camps, officials said. High alert if more rains has been sounded by the state government.

The Indian Meteorological Department issued a Red alert for eight districts-Idukki, Wayanad, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Palakkad, Kottayam, Alappuzha, cautioning people of a possibility of heavy to very heavy rainfall in most places in Idukki, Wayanad, Kannur, Ernakulam, Palakkad and Malappuram.

Out of 14 districts, 11 districts of Kerala are inundated by flood waters due to the incessant rains in the last three days.

Also Read | Kerala Crisis: Half of state reels under floods; 37 killed, 54,000 homeless

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who undertook an aerial survey of rain-ravaged areas, promised to provide compensation to all those affected by the rains.

Vijayan said that a compensation of Rs 10 lakh each would be granted to those who lost their homes and land due to the heavy rainfall and Rs four lakh to the nearest kin of the deceased.

On Saturday, two fishermen drowned after their boat capsized off Thiruvananthapuram coast, while in another incident, the bodies of a mother and daughter were found in a waterlogged area behind their house at Kuttanad in Alappuzha district.

Also Read | Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan announced Rs 4 lakh as ex-gratia

Four more bodies were recovered from other parts of the state, taking the toll to 37, sources said.

Torrential rains and landslides have ravaged farmlands and prompted massive evacuation efforts in Kerala.

A total of 35,874 people have been put up in 341 relief camps across Kerala, officials at the state Disaster Management control room told media.

Also Read | 10,510 people along Periyar river moved to relief camps

Crops on 1301 hectares (2547.66 acres) have been destroyed.

According to the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services, there was a possibility of flooding in low-lying coastal areas in Kerala, especially during high tide timings due to Perigean spring tides from August 11-15.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will undertake an aerial survey of some flood-hit areas and hold discussions with the Chief Minister in Kochi on Sunday.

(With inputs from agencies)
New Delhi:

BJP president Amit Shah is on a visit to Kolkata and is addressing the 'Yuva Samavesh' Rally. This is Shah's first visit to West Bengal since the release of Assam's National Register of Citizens (NRC) draft. Shah heavily criticised the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress for 'protecting' the illegal immigrants and said that the West Bengal chief minister should clear her stance towards the issue, adding that this rally was just a small step towards defeating TMC in West Bengal.

ALSO READ: TMC calls for 'Dhikkar Diwas' on Amit Shah's rally day, BJP cries 'lack of courtesy'

Shah, amid the tight security, was welcomed by a huge crowd and Kolkata police have deployed drones to avoid any mishaps.

Here are the top takeaways from Amit Shah's speech in Kolkata, West Bengal.

For the development of West Bengal, illegal infiltrators need to be stopped said Amit Shah adding that corruption is on a rise since the TMC came to power in West Bengal

since the TMC came to power in West Bengal For the Bharatiya Janata Party, the nation comes ahead of the vote bank . We will not stall the NRC draft, said Shah.

. We will not stall the NRC draft, said Shah. Shah said that the BJP will carry out the NRC peacefully in Assam and neither of Congress president Rahul Gandhi nor the West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee will be able to stop it. "Why is Mamata Banerjee protecting Bangladeshi infiltrators? She, along with Rahul Gandhi, are not clarifying their stance on the issue, but protesting it."

and neither of Congress president Rahul Gandhi nor the West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee will be able to stop it. "Why is Mamata Banerjee protecting Bangladeshi infiltrators? She, along with Rahul Gandhi, are not clarifying their stance on the issue, but protesting it." Shouldn't Bangladeshi immigrants be thrown out? Shah asked the crowd and said that West Bengal will witness a change soon, and added that Mamata Banerjee has been constantly objecting the NRC as she does not wants the illegal immigrant to go out of Bengal and Assam.

Shah asked the crowd and said that West Bengal will witness a change soon, and added that Mamata Banerjee has been constantly objecting the NRC as she does not wants the illegal immigrant to go out of Bengal and Assam. " We are not against West Bengal , but we are definitely against Mamata Banerjee. I am here to protest against the TMC. Even if you try to suppress our voices, we will go to every district of Bengal and throw TMC out," said Amit Shah and added that Mamata Banerjee and TMC have blocked all the Bengali TV channels for broadcasting the rally.

, but we are definitely against Mamata Banerjee. I am here to protest against the TMC. Even if you try to suppress our voices, we will go to every district of Bengal and throw TMC out," said Amit Shah and added that Mamata Banerjee and TMC have blocked all the Bengali TV channels for broadcasting the rally. Shah hit out at TMC and said that the BJP will defeat the ruling party and will change Bengal forever for the good of the people.

and will change Bengal forever for the good of the people. BJP West Bengal chief Dilip Ghosh said that youth of West Bengal is leaving the state due to lack of employment and TMC government is the sole reason behind it.

and TMC government is the sole reason behind it. "Have reached Kolkata where I will be addressing lakhs of young men and women who have come from all parts of West Bengal to attend the "Yuva Swabhiman Samavesh", an awakening that will uproot the undemocratic and totalitarian TMC government in the state. #BJPForSonarBangla," tweeted BJP president Amit Shah ahead of the rally. Hashtag #BJPForSonarBangla started trending on micro-blogging platform Twitter just after his tweet.

started trending on micro-blogging platform Twitter just after his tweet. The Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) president Poonam Mahajan accused that the TMC workers 'assaulted' the BJP workers for coming to the rally and said "democracy is being brutalised in the state under TMC rule." News agency PTI quoted her saying,"Our workers are being attacked on a daily basis. Since yesterday we have reports that our workers are being assaulted and stopped from coming to the rally."

the BJP workers for coming to the rally and said "democracy is being brutalised in the state under TMC rule." News agency PTI quoted her saying,"Our workers are being attacked on a daily basis. Since yesterday we have reports that our workers are being assaulted and stopped from coming to the rally." Black flags were displayed by the youth Congress workers as he came out of the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport to address the gathering at Mayo Road in Kolkata, West Bengal. Anti-Modi and anti-Shah slogans were also raised after Amit Shah landed in Kolkata. The youth Congress workers even tried to stop Amith Shah's convoy by lining up vehicles on the street.

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New Delhi:

Amid great cheers to the sound of drumbeating andA warm welcome by a huge crowd followed by tight security, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday launched a roadshow in Jaipur, kick-starting the party's election campaign in view of the Assembly polls ahead. Rahul will meet party leaders in the state after the show. The face of the Congress party will address a diverse gathering at the Ramlila ground in Jaipur. Rahul is expected to discuss the strategy for the upcoming elections and chalk out a plan for the party leaders during his one-day long visit. The total distance of roadshow is expected to be around 12 kilometre. The Congress president hit the roads in a specially designed open bus for the three-hour-long roadshow.

Here are the highlights:

#A Congress president Rahul Gandhi extends best wishes to Congress workers at the grassroot level; Rajasthan Assembly election will be won by their efforts and their voice will be heard.

I want to give my best wishes to Congress workers who are working at the grassroots. This election in Rajasthan will be won by the efforts and blessings of these workers and their voice will be heard: Congress President @RahulGandhi #RajWelcomesRahulGandhi a Congress (@INCIndia) August 11, 2018

#A People go to courts to seek justice but under Modi govt. Supreme Court judges had to seek help from media and the public: Rahul Gandhi

#A During Demonetisation, PM Modi did not even listen to the RBI Governor and made MSMEs suffer.

Do you remember November 8, 2016, when PM Modi banned a500 and a1000 notes? He did not even listen to the RBI Governor and made MSMEs suffer: Congress President @RahulGandhi #RajWelcomesRahulGandhi pic.twitter.com/QCbMKMEFbu a Congress (@INCIndia) August 11, 2018

# Prime Minister Narendra Modi doesn't protect women, farmers: Rahul Gandhi

Narendra Modi is the Prime Minister of India. His duty is to protect women, farmers, MSMEs, but he doesn't: Congress President @RahulGandhi #RajWelcomesRahulGandhi a Congress (@INCIndia) August 11, 2018

#A In Uttar Pradesh, a BJP MLA rapes a woman. Instead of protecting the woman, BJP government supports rapists.

In UP, a BJP MLA rapes a woman. Instead of protecting the woman, BJP govt supports rapists: Congress President @RahulGandhi #RajWelcomesRahulGandhi a Congress (@INCIndia) August 11, 2018

#A Modi government waived off loans worth Rs. 2,00,000 crore of 15 businessmen in the last two years but PM Modi remained silent on loan waivers for farmers: Rahul Gandhi

In the last 2 years, Modi Ji's government has waived off loans worth Rs. 2,00,000 Crore of 15 businessmen. I asked for loan waivers for farmers, to which his response was, silence: Congress President Rahul Gandhi in Jaipur, #Rajasthan pic.twitter.com/aO4cY7mt8f a ANI (@ANI) August 11, 2018

#A PM Modias promises failed on all fronts; Modi did not spare a minute to answer my questions on rafale deal and corruption: Rahul Gandhi

PM Modi had promised 2 crore jobs, Rs. 15 Lakhs in every account & women's safety, but they failed on all fronts. When I raised the issue of Rafale deal & corruption in Parliament, PM Modi did not spare a minute to answer my questions: Congress President Rahul Gandhi in Jaipur pic.twitter.com/XOpNWjPP6A a ANI (@ANI) August 11, 2018

# Rafale deal:A Rahul Gandhi alleges that PM Modi himself gave Rs 1600 crore to the French company for one aircraft while the UPA government had bought an airplane for Rs 540 crore.

UPA govt had bought an airplane for Rs 540 crore while PM Modi himself gave Rs 1600 crore to the French company for 1 aircraft: Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Rafale deal in Jaipur, #Rajasthan pic.twitter.com/4hvxeKUrWn a ANI (@ANI) August 11, 2018

#A Congress president Rahul Gandhi conducts a roadshow in Jaipur.

#Rajasthan: Congress president Rahul Gandhi conducts a roadshow in Jaipur. pic.twitter.com/2VMcnczGZZ a ANI (@ANI) August 11, 2018

#A Enthusiastic Congress supporters come out in huge numbers to welcome Congress President.

Enthusiastic Congress supporters come out in huge numbers to welcome Congress President @RahulGandhi #RajWelcomesRahulGandhi pic.twitter.com/oaUSm6WhM9 a Congress (@INCIndia) August 11, 2018

# In preparation for the upcoming state elections in Rajasthan, I will be in Jaipur today, to meet with citizens, Congress party workers and leaders and to address a public meeting at Ramleela Maidan at 4.30 pm, Rahul Gandhi tweeted earlier today.

In preparation for the upcoming state elections in Rajasthan, I will be in Jaipur today, to meet with citizens, Congress party workers and leaders and to address a public meeting at Ramleela Maidan at 4.30 pm. a Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) August 11, 2018

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New Delhi:

Ahead of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shahs rally in Kolkata on Saturday, Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Friday called for a two-day Dhikkar Diwas from Saturday onwards. State BJP leader Dilip Ghosh alleged lack of courtesy against the ruling TMC party, igniting more political heat in West Bengal.

ALSO READ: Amit Shah to address 'Yuva Samabesh' rally in Kolkata today

This is a deliberate attempt at creating disturbance by giving the Trinamool Congress goons a cause to attack the BJP workers when they would go to attend our party president Amit Shahs rally in Kolkata, said the state BJP chief Dilip Ghosh on Friday adding whether this was the kind of courtesy that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee always speaks about and expect s from the other parties.

It seems that the Trinamool wants political disturbance in Bengal. In that context if any untoward incident happens in the State then the Trinamool Government will be held responsible, he further said.

ALSO READ: Rahul Gandhi to hold roadshow, launch election campaign in Jaipur today

Earlier on Friday, TMCs general secretary Partho Chatterjee declared a two-day Dhikkar Diwas in Bengal citing BJPs nefarious attempt to throw out the minorities from Assam in the name of National Register for Citizens (NRC) draft.

BJP in Assam is shamelessly using the NRC and the Supreme Court directive out of context to strike out the names of the citizens including lakhs of Bengalis and other people from the NRC, he said.

The TMC will protest against this dirty design by the BJP aimed at throwing out the minority population from Assam. We will observe August 11 and 12 as Dhikkar Diwas in every part of Bengal, he added.

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New Delhi:

At least four people were injured and several feared trapped as an under-construction flyover collapsed at Phutaiyya Chauraha in Uttar Pradeshs Basti district while another flyover collapsed in Siliguri, West Bengal on Saturday, according to reports.

The incident at Basti occurred after an overloaded truck hit the flyover being built by the of National Highways Authority of India.

Also Read | Rajnath to visit flood-hit Kerala tomorrow

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath took stock of the incident and directed the district administration to provide best treatment to the injured, ensure smooth movement of traffic and take up all effective measures to ensure such incidents do not recur.

Rescue operation was underway.

Basti: Rescue operation is still underway at the site where lintel of a flyover on National Highway 28 collapsed in Basti earlier this morning. CM Yogi Adityanath has ordered the local administration for an immediate rescue operation & to resume the traffic. pic.twitter.com/9c4GVCAFSu  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) August 11, 2018

In West Bengals Siliguri, a portion of National Highway-31Ds railway flyover guarder collapsed in Goaltuli on Saturday morning.

Also Read | BJP will uproot TMC in WB : Top takeaways from Amit Shah's rally

No casualty had been reported from Siliguri so far. Restoration work was underway.

After the incident, villagers blocked the NH-31D and protested against the engineer alleging poor raw materials used in the construction of the railway flyover guarder.

The flyover is a part of the 3,300-km-long East West Corridor connecting Porbandar in Gujarat and Silchar in Assam.

Siliguri: A portion of National Highway-31D's railway flyover guarder collapsed in Goaltuli, early morning today. No casualties have been reported. Restoration work underway. #WestBengal pic.twitter.com/gYUeJrB6Lb  ANI (@ANI) August 11, 2018

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New Delhi:

In a controversial statement, suspended Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar on Saturday said that he never thought that a chief minister who had compared Muslims with 'puppies' would be the prime minister of India one day.

Aiyar, speaking at the inauguration of Enough With intolerance National Campaign event at India International Centre, said when Prime Minister Narenrda Modi was asked if the loss of Muslim lives in the 2002 Gujarat riots upset him, Modi replied Even if a puppy comes under a car, I will feel the pain.

Also Read | PM Modi announces Rs 1,000 crore financial aid to IIT-Bombay

The suspended Congress leader alleged that PM Modi never visited any Muslim refugee camp for 24 days in 2002 after the Gujarat riots.

Before 2014, I would have never thought, that a Chief Minister thinks of Muslims as puppy. The individual, who was when asked about whether you have any regrets that so many Muslims lost their lives in 2002, had said that even if a puppy comes under a car, I will feel the pain. I have thought over this statement. He never visited any Muslim refugee camp for 24 days (after Gujarat riots) and reached Shah Alam mosque in Ahmadabad only when (then) Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee came, as it was the necessity of the protocol. I had never thought that any such individual can become Prime Minister, ANI quoted Aiyar as saying.

Also Read | Rahul Gandhi Jaipur: Congress chief holds roadshow in Rajasthan

Aiyar went on to mention former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehrus contribution in promoting secularism.

Our first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru taught us the real definition of nationalism. I learned from him that majority communalism is worst than minority communalism. He taught us that we can either be secular or cannot remain one single country, Aiyar added.

Also Read | Rahuls politics is all about lying on every issue: BJP

Aiyar, who had served as Union cabinet minister under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the first tenure of United Progressive Alliance (UPA) in 2004, was suspended from the primary membership of the Congress party in December 2017 after his neech remark for Prime Minister Modi courted a major controversy.

(With inputs from agencies)

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New Delhi:

The more the proposed law related to triple Talaq - instant divorce by mere word of mouth or in writing by Muslim men against their wives in case of estrangement between the parties - drags, the more polarising effect it would have upon an already communally divided and surcharged society. This became palpably clear as the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill 2017 could not be taken up on the last day of the Parliament monsoon session due to the lack of consensus among parties. And, thus, it will have to wait until the next Parliament session.



Strangely, a minority versus majority angle has come to be attached to a law which is meant for Muslims alone. This is so because politics over the years has taken a communal turn where the plight of Muslim women outweighs that of Muslims in general and it suits politicos, more so those from the ruling party, to ride through a divide between the sexes and meet their electoral needs.

ALSO READ: Triple Talaq Bill: Fight for gender justice must go on

Painting Muslim men as misogynists can be made to look gratifying to the majority in times of elections, and this can easily be played up through election speeches to beat Muslims as well as Opposition by blaming it to be their backers and appeasers.

It is in this backdrop that the bill has been lingering on since last December when it got the Lok Sabhas nod amid rejection of amendments moved by several members from the Opposition. And when it came to the Rajya Sabha where the BJP is still short of majority, the Oppositions views had to be taken note of by the Government.

The bill makes divorce by Muslim men by pronouncing the word Talaq thrice against their wives amid any differences or quarrel a punishable offence. The Union Cabinet discussed the provisions of the bill in the light of Oppositions reservations as late as , and agreed to amend the bill to give the right to grant bail in the wake of arrest of a husband divorcing his wife summarily through triple Talaq to the magistrate as per or in accordance with his discretion.

A law was necessitated after the Supreme Court hearing a number of divorce cases related to Muslims struck down the practice of Triple Talaq and put the onus in the legislatures court last August by calling upon it to frame a suitable legislation in this regard. Since, Prime Minister Narendra Modi showed keen interest in bringing a law to end the unseemly discrimination that Muslim women can be put through in the hands of their estranged husbands because of the ostensible religious sanction to the practice of triple Talaq.

ALSO READ: BJP blames Rahul Gandhi for Triple Talaq Bill not being passed

In fact, it was the judiciary that deserved praise and not PM Modi for scrapping a discriminatory social more like triple Talaq. Despite hailing the courts verdict, the Modi Government could not get the law passed even after a year the courts move against the way Muslim women face the threat of divorce because of one-sided practice that is clearly in favour of the male members of the community.

Yet, ever since the apex courts judgment, Modi has often sworn at public platforms and in Parliament to empower Muslim women. This is in sharp contrast to the BJP governments record vis-a-vis women in general and Muslim women in particular. The recent womens shelter home cases in Bihar and UP point to the worst kind of horror that women have to face under the BJP rule both at the Centre as also in the two states. More so since the Bihar Government is also supported by the BJP.

As for Muslims, it took a Gujarat riot victim and a rape survivor Bilkis Bano a decade-and-half to get justice. In May last year the Bombay High Court convicted 12 accused and quashed the acquittal of seven other suspects in one of the worst cases of rioters targeting a Muslim woman. After the High Court judgment, Bilkis travelled to Delhi to complain at a Press conference about the harassment she faced for 15 long years after the 2002 riots allegedly at the behest of the accused persons where she had to change her residence several times to avoid pressure put from the defendants side. Thus, the BJPs credibility towards ensuring womens rights has not been as great as PM Modi often vouches to be in case of what he calls to be his Muslim sisters who need a foolproof law to avoid discrimination because of Muslim men.

Yet, it is true that the divorce law has been amended in as many as 20 Muslim countries since it has been found detrimental and discriminatory to womens genuine rights as equal citizens. Back home, it sadly lingers through because of Muslim clergys reluctance to allow it to be changed. This is so despite the fact that in the past this had led to political haggling when a poor divorced woman Shah Bano was given a little alimony by the Supreme Court which her former husband was supposed to foot.

ALSO READ: Child Marriage Act: UP, Meghalaya, Nagaland yet to set rules, says Man

A progressive ruling given by the apex court was somehow reversed in the late Rajiv Gandhis time giving the BJP a stick to beat the government at its game. The BJP leadership since the 1980s in the wake of the Shah Bano case had argued that when the rule of law can be rewritten as per the sentiments of the minority community, why couldnt this be so in the case of Babri Masjid which as per Hindu public sentiments was the birthplace of Lord Rama?

Ever since, a communal divide has been taking deeper roots and this has brought the entire society to a virtual edge with the result of perpetual acrimony on communal lines, intermittent riots and development of political stakes in religious divisiveness. So, the sooner the debate over the present divorce bill is sorted out, the better.

MORE in OPINION
Bengaluru:

The multiple raids organised by the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) and the arrest of three men affiliated to radical Hindu nationalist groups in Nallasopara and Satara, allegedly with a huge cache of explosives, has once again brought to the fore the role of some fringe groups in terror activities.

It is puerile to describe these misguided elements as Hindu or saffron terrorists just as it is inadvisable to see the terror activities of all Muslims as Muslim terror. Those who indulge in violence and subversion must not be identified by their religion. They are indeed the very antithesis of religiosity and must be dealt with as criminals.

Also Read | Triple Talaq Bill: Fight for gender justice must go on

Fundamentalism among Muslims has taken deep roots and led to mushrooming of terror outfits but while terror groups among Hindus are rare, there is no room for complacency on that score.

It is heartening that though there are BJP governments both at the Centre and in Maharashtra, the ATS of Maharashtra has had no qualms about identifying the terror activists and taking steps to bring them to book. In the process, if the police version is to be believed, a major conspiracy to organise terror attacks in the state has been averted with the three arrests.

It is a hard reality that gangs opposed to cow slaughter have been active in Maharashtra and their activities insofar as they impinge on the rights of others need to be nipped in the bud. Among the three suspects arrested was one Vaibhav Raut, allegedly a member of the Hindu Govansh Raksha Samiti. He is also believed to be a sympathiser of the right wing Sanatan Sanstha which is allegedly involved in the murder of three rationalists Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M M Kalburgi and the killing of journalist Gauri Lankesh.

Also Read | The name Mughalsarai junked but not its inherent medievalism

Another accused, Sudhanwa Gondhalekar from Satara is a member of the Shri Shivapratishthan Hindustan whose chief Sambhaji Bhide had been booked in two criminal cases in connection with violence near Bhima Koregaon on January 1 by Pune police. The third accused, Sharad Kasalkar was arrested along with Raut from his residence in Nallasapara. Live crude bombs and gelatine sticks were allegedly recovered from the accused.

Significantly, information passed on by a Special Investigation Team of Karnataka police probing the murder of Gauri Lankesh is credited with having played a key role in the arrests.

Union Home Minister in the erstwhile UPA government, P Chidambaram, had disturbed a hornets nest when he urged Indians to beware of saffron terror at a meeting of state police chiefs in New Delhi in 2010. Among others, even the then Congress general secretary Janardhan Dwivedi had objected to this usage, saying that terrorism did not have any colour other than black.

Also Read | Justice to Muslim Women must not be delayed

While most terror attacks have been traced to Muslim groups, a few like the Malegaon blasts, Ajmer Dargah terror attack and the Samjhauta blasts were initially attributed to Hindu nationalists.

It would be appropriate, however, that communal sentiments ought not be aroused by assigning Muslim or Hindu terror tags to terror incidents.

The ATS arrest of the three persons who were allegedly making bombs for subversion must be investigated thoroughly and deterrent punishment meted out to the culprits if their role is proved.

Also Read | Tackling Corruption: Can digitalisation help

A proven terrorist is a terrorist who deserves no shielding. It is unfortunate that trial in most terror cases is delayed inordinately. Swift action is indeed the need of the hour. There must be no discrimination on the basis of caste, creed or religion.

The credibility of the prosecuting agencies and personnel needs to be above board. Extremist organizations that perpetrate terror must be banned or brought to book through other means. Terror of all hues must be put down with a heavy hand.
Bengaluru:

Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Saturday rued sectarian clashes among Muslims in the Middle East, saying killing in the name of religion is unthinkable.

He emphasised that developing oneness among people would solve various crisis the world is facing today.

Referring to countries like Afghanistan, Syria and other Islamic nations, the Dalai Lama said, They all follow the same god Allah, same Quran, every day (offer) five-time prayers. Yet they are killing each other. Its unthinkable, really.

Killing due to political power or economic interest is somewhat understandable. In the name of religion killing each other is unthinkable. But it is a fact and it is happening, he said.

The Dalai Lama was delivering a lecture here on the topic Courage and compassion in the 21st century, which was organised by Vana Foundation under their Vidyaloke initiative.

Also Read | Dalai Lama calls for shunning Shia-Sunni conflicts

Emphasising that developing oneness among seven billion people is his major commitment, he was all praise for India for its religious harmony and tolerance.

Though the country has various homegrown religious traditions such as Sankhyaism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism besides Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Islam, they had all settled here peacefully and harmoniously, he said.

India is a big country with over a billion population, but religious tolerance, religious harmony are there. So therefore, religious harmony is very much possible.

We always say India is the only example that different religious traditions can live together, the Dalai Lama said.

He also hailed Shias and Sunnis living together in India peacefully in contrast with the situation in Muslim nations, where they often clash with each other.

The Tibetan leader rued that religion today has become a factor to divide people, whose job is to bring inner peace, love, forgiveness, tolerance and self-discipline.

Read More | India, Pakistan would have been one country if Jinnah became the PM instead of Nehru: Dalai Lama

The Dalai Lama also pointed out that his mission was to revive ancient Indian spiritual traditions in their original form, whether it be Buddhism, Jainism or Vedic traditions.

He urged people to understand the Nalanda tradition of Buddhism, which originated in India and is still preserved with the Tibetans.

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Phnom Penh : Hackers targeted the official Facebook page of Cambodias premier Hun Sen and falsely claimed he would cede several parliamentary seats, an official said, after the strongman swept last months election virtually uncontested. The long-serving leaders ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) is expected to take all 125 spots in parliament when official results are announced next week, cementing Cambodias status as a one-party state.

But on Friday, hackers broke into Hun Sens official Facebook page and said the CPP would give away four seats to other parties, a ruling party spokesman confirmed to AFP. The perplexing message was up for about an hour and got some 3,300 likes before it was removed. The news was fake, Sok Eysan told AFP, confirming there are no plans to share seats with any other parties.
Japan's SoftBank Group has agreed to invest an additional $1 billion in shared-office company WeWork, where SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son sees the potential for a repeat of his lucrative bet on Alibaba Group Holding.

The funding comes in the form of convertible bonds, according to WeWork. This follows a $4.4 billion investment, announced last year, by SoftBank and the Saudi-backed SoftBank Vision Fund. SoftBank and WeWork have also expanded the co-working business into Japan through a 50-50 joint venture.

It is rare for Son, who casts a wide net with his startup investments, to commit so much resources to a single company. But he said WeWork is more than just a renter of office space: it is "something completely new that uses technology to build and network communities."

"WeWork is the next Alibaba," Son said, referring to SoftBank's early investment in the e-commerce company, which enjoyed meteoric growth as the internet took off in China.

"I believe it will grow to a substantial scale and become one of our core companies," he said.

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son speaks at an earnings conference in Tokyo on Aug. 6. (Photo by Maho Obata)

The SoftBank chief caused a flutter at an earnings briefing on Monday when he said half-jokingly that his company has discussed moving its headquarters into WeWork offices.

Mobile phones and the internet have made it possible to work from anywhere, fueling demand worldwide for shared office spaces. WeWork, founded in 2010, is among the most prominent players, with well over 250,000 registered members and nearly 300 locations in 20-plus countries. It logged about $900 million in revenue for 2017 -- up 12-fold from four years earlier.

What sets WeWork apart from peers is its use of big data to connect people and companies for new business opportunities.
Izakaya Japanese-style pubs are bringing in a new kind of customer, foreign tourists.

Food tours for travelers are helping Japan's major izakaya chains as they adjust to the waning popularity of drinking among young Japanese and to a falloff in the number of big group outings.

By bringing in tourists at lunchtime, pub operators are hoping to tap into a new revenue stream being created by the government's tourism drive, which is loosely connected to the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

It is 11:30 a.m. in the corporate district of Shimbashi, Tokyo. American tourists step off a bus and are quickly funneled up to the fourth floor of an office building, to an izakaya called Nippon Maguro Gyogyoudan. The name translates as the Japan Tuna Fishing Industry Group.

Chefs prepare tuna in front of the visitors, who later try their hand at rolling the fish fillets into nigiri sushi and are also treated to freshly fried tempura.

Tour groups come through the place at least three times a week and daily during the peak spring and autumn seasons.

Major Japanese izakaya chain Watami runs Nippon Maguro Gyogyoudan. It is one of about 130 outlets under the company's various brands, including the well-recognized Watami and Miraizaka chains, which have begun to cater for foreign tour groups.

Watami is appropriating its large urban restaurants, those seating over 100, as lunch spots for tourists, in cooperation with tour operators. For this year, Watami is targeting a 30% annual increase in overseas visitors to 300,000.

To cultivate the tourist market, izakaya companies are also adopting new payment methods. In July, Daisyo began accepting WeChat Pay at 30 of its outlets. It also expanded an Alipay trial, running since February, to 30 stores. WeChat Pay and Alipay are Chinese smartphone applications that use QR codes to help users settle their bills.

Daisyo operates a network of seafood izakaya, where ease of payment is seen as a drawing card for individual and family travelers.
Abubakar Umar, former military administrator of Kaduna state, has called for the probe of Lawal Daura, former director-general of the Depa...

Abubakar Umar, former military administrator of Kaduna state, has called for the probe of Lawal Daura, former director-general of the Department of Security Service (DSS).





In a statement on Friday, Umar said sacking and placing Daura under house arrest is not enough for his misdeeds while in office.





Acting President Yemi Osinbajo had sacked the former DSS DG on Tuesday following the invasion of the National Assembly Complex by operatives of the secret police.





Umar said the sack of Daura was long overdue, accusing the former security chief of curving out a government within the Nigerian government while in office.





In the last three years, Lawal Daura had marched from one audacious act of impunity to another; had rudely defied the president, had routinely ignored court orders and seemed all but successful in carving out, for himself, a government within a government in Nigeria, he said.





There was hardly any observer of the turbulent Nigerian political scene over the last several years who still believed that Lawal Daura was subject to any laws not to speak of official code of behavior.





He also said Osinbajo action must not stop halfway as the government should seek to discover the motives behind some of those crazy maneuvers (by Daura), many of which simply beggars belief.





Umar added that in probing the former DSS DG, the government should ask the following questions:





Where and in what condition are all the assets handed over to Lawal Daura by the immediate past D-G , SS, Mr. Ita Ekpenyong?





What are the reasons why Lawal Daura deployed SS operatives and prevented personnel of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) from searching the residences of former DG, SSS, Mr Ekpenyong and former D-G, NIA, Mr Oke?





Was it not true that Daura moved to seize and appropriate over $43 million NIA funds if he was not prevented from doing so by the national security adviser?





Why did Daura continue to ignore court orders allowing several people detained by him to be released on bail?




Samuel Ortom, governor of Benue state, has asked Adams Oshiomhole, national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to retract all...

Samuel Ortom, governor of Benue state, has asked Adams Oshiomhole, national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to retract allegations made against him or face legal action.





The governor also asked for a public apology in the media within 7 days and N10bn as damages.





In a letter to Oshiomhole, Ortom said the APC national chairman damaged his reputation at a press conference in Abuja on July 27, 2018.





During the press conference, Oshiomhole had accused the governor of deepening the circle of poverty in his state.





The APC chairman alleged that Ortom mismanaged bailout funds and Paris Club refund and also refused to pay salaries.





According to the letter written by Samuel Irabor, the governors counsel, he said the allegations made by the APC chairman against his client were very astonishing, unsubstantiated, wild.

The letter read in part, A letter of retraction/apology addressed to our client in respect of the false, defamatory and libellous statement made against him in the sponsored press conference herein complained of.





That the said retraction/apology be simultaneously published in the Sunday edition of 10 National Dailies circulating within Benue State as well as a paid advertorial to the same effect on the prime time beats of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Channels TV, TVC News, African Independent Television (AIT), Independent Television (ITV) Benin, Radio Nigeria, Radio Benue and Harvest FM, Makurdi.
Bunmi Ojo, an ally of Segun Oni, an aspirant in the All Progressives Congress (APC) primary election in Ekiti state, is dead.

Bunmi Ojo, an ally of Segun Oni, an aspirant in the All Progressives Congress (APC) primary election in Ekiti state, is dead.





Oni was the runner-up in the exercise won by Kayode Fayemi, governor-elect of the state.





A source revealed that Ojo was shot dead in Ado-Ekiti, capital of the state, around 8:30pm on Friday.





He was trailed to a viewing centre along Adebayo road, here in Ado-Ekiti. The match between Leicester and Manchester United was ongoing then, the source said.





Immediately they identified him, his killers opened fire on him.





the vehicle which the assailants brought was parked in front of the viewing centre. A witness saidthe vehicle which the assailants brought was parked in front of the viewing centre.





They sped off after confirming that he had died, the witness told TheCable.





Caleb Ikechukwu, spokesman the Ekiti police command, could not be reached for comment as he neither answered nor responded to the text message sent.





The deceased served as personal assistant to Oni when he was governor of the state between 2007 and 2010.




The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, has expressed confidence in the Speaker of the House of Repr...

The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, has expressed confidence in the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, in spite of recent defections by National Assembly members.

At a news conference in Abuja on Friday, Oshiomhole insisted that Dogara was not like Senate President, Bukola Saraki.





I have absolute confidence in Right Honourable Yakubu Dogara. I said something earlier that it was Sen. Saraki that complained. He did not only complain that he was not given juicy appointments but that Rt. Hon. Dogara was also not given and I wondered aloud whether Saraki thought that Dogara is not capable of speaking for himself, afterall he is the Speaker.





So, if those were the views of Rt. Hon. Dogara, it was not for Sen. Saraki to parrot because Hon. Dogara is capable any day of speaking for himself.





The point I tried to make is that Saraki wants to drag everybody along with him.





The APC as a party and myself as Chairman, we have confidence in Hon. Dogara. I have had very useful interactions with him. We have had couple of meetings. He had shared with me in trust, his concerns that have to do with issues in Bauchi state and I have taken steps to address those issues to the best of my ability and I have shared with him that I am excited that we are getting very positive results.




Abdulwahab Abdulrahman, an ex-aide to the sacked Director General of the Department of State Services, DSS, Lawal Daura, has revealed the ...

Abdulwahab Abdulrahman, an ex-aide to the sacked Director General of the Department of State Services, DSS, Lawal Daura, has revealed the reason for the faceoff that existed between the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Magu and Daura.





Abdulrahman had earlier accused his former boss of extensive corruption and portrayed him as a man who serially betrayed his boss, President Muhammadu Buhari, for money.





Asked what the real issue was between Magu and the DG SSS, Abdulrahman told Premium Times that Daura wanted the EFFC boss to share information on high profile cases with him.





Magu is a smart officer and he knew Daura wanted to use such information to extract money from people. He told Daura to his face that I cant report to you, I only report to the president who appointed me, Abdulrahman said.





Speaking on Dauras career history, the former aide said his former boss was nearly sacked from the DSS originally before his reappointment by Buhari because he was caught siphoning diesel from the DSS Academy in Kaduna.




An Igbo cleric and senior pastor of Jehovahs World Ministerial Outreach, Olisadebelum Onuoha, has counselled pro-Biafra agitators and groups to halt what he described as unnecessary rivalry among them and seek divine direction if they are desirous of achieving Biafra Republic.The cleric noted that such rivalry has contributed immensely to the non-actualisation of the struggle, calling on agitators, particularly members of the Indigenous People of Biafra and the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra to immediately end the war of supremacy.Onuoha stated this on Friday in Asaba, the Delta State capital, while addressing journalists where he claimed that although Biafra would certainly be achieved, but not at the moment.He posited that the struggle had failed because its promoters have not involved God in pushing for a Biafra Republic, warning that without God, Biafra will be trodden under foot and a defeated battle.The pastor, however, urged the agitators and Igbo leaders to attend a spiritual rally at the Michael Okpara Stadium in Enugu State towards the actualisiation of the movement.Onuoha, while calling for unity among the Igbo, noted that the supremacy war among the IPOB, Ohaneze Ndigbo and MASSOB was not necessary in the agitation, saying that there was an urgent need for them to close ranks and work in unison.He said, Make no mistake about it, the nation (Biafra) must emerge but not now because God has time for everything that He has ordained.So, our Biafran brothers are advised to welcome Jehovah into their struggle and the world for His end-time work, which will be heralded this month. He will tell them what to do thereafter.
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UK Travelers are Returning to Turkey

Hotels in Antalya, Bodrum or Istanbul may enjoy higher sales this year because the country has been attracting more guests from different countries. Travelers from the UK are no exception. It has been revealed that they are returning to their long favorite holiday destinations of the country.



According to the information provided by ForwardKeys and GfK, such countries as Egypt, Tunisia, and Turkey benefit the most from this change. Turkey is the biggest winner out of the three in terms of the market share as the two Arab countries yet need to work to return to their previous level. Turkey enjoys a growth in leisure bookings from the UK of 66.4%. Egypt is 50.9% higher and Tunisia is 901% ahead of its previous results, but the market share of this country is only 0.7%.



Traditional vacation destinations, such as Spain or Portugal, attract slightly fewer UK vacationers this year. The decrease estimates 2.5% and 0.2% respectively. Here it is important to mention that these two European countries had exceptionally high bookings among UK vacationers in recent years. Tensions and various threats of other destinations were the main reason for that. Numerous destinations in the Middle East and North Africa suffered a significant decrease in popularity due to terror acts. Even Morocco hotels only start showing signs of recovery that would certainly take some time.



When analyzing scheduled capacity, it is clear that Tunisia and Egypt still have to work hard to reach their results of 2015. Current data for the third quarter of 2018 shows that Egypt has 46% more free flight seats and Tunisia has 38% more free flight seats than these countries had in the same period of 2015. Direct flights from Turkey to the UK are much more loaded  approximately 95% seats are purchased, and that is similar to the result of 2015.



This study shows that tourists are concerned about the safety of a potential vacation destination and do not want to visit places that suffered from terror attacks or political tensions. However, once a destination remains safe for a longer period of time, travelers can reconsider and return to that destination. This is what happens to Turkey that attracts travelers seeking short or mid-haul summer destinations. British travelers are particularly fond of them as such vacations represent more than a half of the countrys international travel. Bulgaria, Greece, and Croatia are among European destinations that draw the attention of British travelers.

11.08.2018Stay 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.
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Iran's State TV Must End Its Use of Families to Discredit Journalists, Dissenters

08/10/18

Press Release by Center for Human Rights in Iran

State Broadcasts of Family Members Used to Silence Activists

(New York, August 9, 2018) - Iranian authorities should immediately stop harassing and threatening the families of activists and journalists as a means to silence dissent and criticism, Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) and Justice for Iran (JFI) said in a joint statement today.

On July 27, Iranian state TV's "20:30" program featured an interview with Mina Alinejad, the sister of Iranian activist Masih Alinejad, in which she publicly denounced her sister for her advocacy against Iran's compulsory hijab laws. During the interview, Mina Alinejad said she was appearing on TV of her own free will, but Masih has said in an Instagram post and a New York Times op-ed on July 31 that Iranian authorities have pressured her family to denounce her on state television.

"The longstanding use of Iran's state media to force activists' families to appear unwillingly to denounce their relatives shows the level the authorities will stoop to silence state critics," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch.

Masih Alinejad founded the campaign "My Stealthy Freedom" in 2014, which advocates against women being forced to wear the compulsory hijab in public in Iran. The enforcement of a compulsory dress code for women in Iran violates their rights to private life, personal autonomy, and freedom of expression, as well as to freedom of religion, thought, and conscience. It is also a form of gender-based discrimination prohibited under international law.

There are serious concerns that this broadcast is just the latest example of authorities using one of their well-established tactics to pressure and threaten family members of Alinejad, who is based outside Iran.

In March 2018, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) filed a complaint at the United Nations Human Rights Council against Iranian authorities for their campaign of harassment against BBC Persian staff. The harassment included the arrest and intimidation of employees' family members based in Iran.

The BBC Persian service is based in London and does not have an office in Iran. A BBC public statement detailed examples of harassment that family members of staff have received in Iran; in one instance, the press statement said, "a senior producer's elderly mother was called in for questioning in Tehran by one of the many intelligence agencies. She was told that her son could have a car accident in London if he continued working for the BBC."

"A government that preys on the bonds of family in order to lash out at its critics is a government that has no respect for the rights of its citizens - or common decency," said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the Center for Human Rights in Iran.

Iran's government-run Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) has a long history of parading Iran's critics and their family members on national TV, where they are forced to make so-called "confessions" or public statements meant to discredit them and their causes. Human rights groups have documented several instances in which dissidents, activists, and journalists were featured in pseudo-documentary videos intended to "prove" their "guilt," though they apparently did not appear willingly.

On February 13, a few days after the suspicious "suicide" in detention of prominent environmentalist Kavous Seyed Emami, IRIB's 20:30 program claimed that he was a spy - an allegation for which his family has since filed a defamation lawsuit against IRIB. The program featured a video-recorded statement by Kavous's brother saying that he had seen the body and believed that he had committed suicide. The family has said authorities coerced the brother into recording the video when they raided his house a few days earlier.

On July 9, Iranian state television broadcasted apologies by several women, including Maedeh Hojabri, a teenager briefly detained in May for posting videos of themselves dancing on their personal Instagram accounts.

In December 2015, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) rejected a complaint by two IRIB officials against the European Union's decision to include them on its human rights sanctions list. The ECJ placed them on the list in 2013, after Press TV, an English and French channel affiliated with IRIB, broadcasted a series of forced confessions by detainees who had been tortured.

The Court ruled that under their leadership, IRIB and Press TV had both repeatedly and closely collaborated with the Iranian security apparatus and Revolutionary Court prosecutors to coerce confessions from prisoners of conscience and then broadcasted them under the pretext of interviews conducted with the approval of the prisoners.

"As the European Court of Justice emphasizes in its ruling against the IRIB chiefs, collaboration with the security apparatus in producing pseudo-documentary videos, and broadcasting coercive confessions are serious human rights violations," said Shadi Sadr, executive director of Justice for Iran.

Signatories:

Hadi Ghaemi, Executive Director

Center for Human Rights in Iran

Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East Director

Human Rights Watch

Shadi Sadr, Executive Director

Justice for Iran
Former Rector of the Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration (GIMPA), Professor Stephen Addae says he has no hand in the fall of Beige Bank.



Prof. Addae said he never formed part of the board that oversaw the defunct Beige Bank. According to him, he rather is a board member of the Beige Group and not the bank.



I have never been on the board of Beige Bank; I have had nothing to do with Beige Bank in my life. I serve on the board of Beige Group, not the Beige Bank. Its a matter of checking Google for this. Its a public notice. I dont know anything about the Beige Bank, Professor Addae revealed to Joy Business.



Reacting to the collapse of the five local banks, Professor Addae said the approach by the Central Bank was overly aggressive and out of place.



The defunct Beige Bank was part of four other local banks that were merged to form the new Consolidated Bank of Ghana (CBG).



According to the BoG: Beige Bank was granted provisional licenses in 2016 and launched in 2017.



Subsequent investigations conducted by the Bank of Ghana revealed that similar to the case of Sovereign Bank, both banks obtained their banking licenses under false pretences through the use of suspicious and non-existent capital, which has resulted in a situation where their reported capital is inaccessible to them for their operations.



Meanwhile, the Institute of Chartered Accountants, Ghana (ICAG) says it has begun an enquiry into the role of auditors in the collapse of the seven banks.



ICAG says it will take appropriate action against members who are found culpable in the collapse of these banks.



In a statement, ICAG said it has noted with great concern the current developments in the banking industry with particular reference to the collapse of seven banks.



The Council of the Institute wishes to assure the general public that the Institute has a formalized procedure to handle complaints against its members.



ICAG said, the Professional Standards and Ethics Committee of the Institute, in line with its mandate, has initiated the necessary enquiries on the matter and that an appropriate action will be taken if merit to the complaint is established.

Source: Joy News









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo on Friday began a five-day tour of the Ashanti Region, giving an assurance that one of the legacies he will want to bequeath to posterity is the maternity block of the Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital (KATH) whose construction has stalled for more than 40 years.



He called on the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu ll, to work with the government to secure the necessary funds to complete the maternity block project.



The President gave the assurance when he paid a courtesy call on the Asantehene at the Manhyia Palace at the beginning of his five-day tour of the region.



Mother and Baby Unit



Last year, the First Lady, Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo, raised more than GH10 million to put up a new Mother and Baby Unit to ease congestion at the old ward of the KATH.



According to conservative estimates, about U$100 million is required to complete the maternity block.



As part of the five-day tour, President Akufo-Addo will visit the Manhyia South, Asokwa, Nhyiaeso, Bosomtwe, Bantama, Sekyere Central, Nsuta-Kwamang-Beposo, Mampong, Subin, Ahafo-Ano South, Kwadaso, Atwima Kwanwoma and Oforikrom constituencies.



Yesterday, he cut the sod for a facelift of major roads in Kumasi to ease traffic, promote business and reduce flooding.



The works include the asphaltic overlay of 150 km, resealing of 145 km of roads and the rehabilitation and reconstruction of 180 km of roads within Kumasi and its environs.



The works will also cover the reconstruction and rehabilitation of 100km of roads and safety works, including improvement of roundabouts, pedestrian footbridges and walkways.



Vester Oil



At Aputuagya in the Bosomtwi District in the Ashanti Region, the President visited Vester Oil, a private oil-producing company.



He also visited the new site of the factory at Aputuagya to inspect the facility and find out how the government could lend its support to the company.



Interacting with the management of the company, the President said the government was currently studying a proposal from the company to access the equivalent of $5 million to expand its operations.



If successful, Vester is expected to increase its workforce from 100 to 200 and introduce new products.



The Founder and Chief Executive Officer of the company, Mr Kwasi Nyamekye, told President Akufo-Addo that the company could help reduce the number of unemployed youth if given the necessary support by the government.

Source: Graphic.com









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Member of Parliament for Bolgatanga Central constituency in the Upper East Region, Isaac Adongo says the Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. Ernest Addison must resign.



To him, Dr Addison supervised the recent collapse of indigenous banks in the country.



Speaking on Okay FM's 'Ade Akye Abia' programme, he accused the Governor of the Central Bank of aiding some Directors of the defunct banks to misappropriate tax payers money.



The Bank of Ghana last week merged five banks into the Consolidated Bank of Ghana Limited.



The affected financial institutions are; Beige, Sovereign, Construction, UniBank and Royal Banks.



It follows the insolvency of the five banks after investigations by Bank of Ghana (BoG).



"Government has also issued a bond totalling GHc5.6 billion to cater for bad assets of the five banks," Dr Addison said.



Explaining, the Governor said Unibank and Royal Banks were under capitalised and that those banks were beyond rehabilitation. On Royal Bank, he said non performing loans were high, whiles Sovereign Bank obtained its license by false pretences through the use of suspicious and non-existent capital.



According to an investigative report, the management of Capital Bank, with the approval of the Board Chair, diverted some of the Bank of Ghana (BoG) GHc 610 million liquidity support for other uses.



Some of that money was presented as capital to set up another collapsed bank, Sovereign Bank.



Among the flagged transactions were GHc 27.5 million used for business promotion and handled by a board member; transfers to IFS amounting to GHc 23.9 million, transfers to Nordea Capital amounting to GHc 65 million, and transfers to Alltime Capital amounting to GHc 130 million.



The GCB in 2017, took over the two banks under a purchase agreement approved by the Bank of Ghana.



GCB Bank has since absorbed about four hundred workers



But, Hon. Adongo believes Mr. Ernest Addison has shown gross incompetence, thus must resign.



"Collapsing indigenous banks does not make sense. It is just a lazy approach to put banks on their toes. What were they doing when these banks started to experience financial distress?....They have oversight responsibility of monitoring and supervising these banks," he said.



However General Secretary of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP), John Boadu says Mr. Addison should be patted on the back for sanitizing the banking industry.



Speaking on the same platform, he explained that though the BoG was not effective in dispensing their duties, Mr. Addison cannot be blamed.



"....it was a painful but necessary decision for the government to take since monies of customers of these banks needed to be protected," he added.

Source: Isaac Kwame Owusu/Peacefmonline.com/[email protected]









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The International Federation of Red Cross says the current heat wave in North Korea poses a serious threat to vulnerable population groups and to the country's food supply.

Red Cross emergency response teams, armed with water pumps, are helping irrigate fields hard hit by North Korea's heat wave. In addition, IFRC staff and volunteers have mounted a campaign to raise awareness about the signs, symptoms and treatment of heat-related illnesses.

Children and the elderly are among the most vulnerable "unless urgent action is taken," the IFRC said Friday.


Jackie Appiah as shes popularly known is a Ghanaian actress born on 5 December 1983 in Canada and spent her early childhood in there.



She moved to Ghana with her mother at the age of 10. She was the runner-up at the Talent Teens Competition. Jackie started acting at the age of 12 in her local church group.



She got married to Mr Peter Agyeman in 2005. The couple has a son, Damien. But they are currently divorced.



A photo of Jackie Appiah and her ex-husband being joined together in a customary marriage back then in 2005 pops up online and fans are craving to have more of it.



The two looked fashionable as Peter Agyemang wore an all-white suit and Jackie spotted wearing a Kente cloth and a white earring.



In the photo, Jackie is seen looking away while her husband looked at her as if she was shy of him.



However, not much is known about Mr Peter Agyemang who seemingly coiled back into shells after their marriage ended in divorce.



Despite how many time the media tried to get Jackie Appiah or Peter Agyemang to reveal what caused their divorce, none of them was ever ready to talk. But it was obvious Jackie was relieved to be rid of her husband.



Jackie Appiah has received a countless number of awards and nominations including Best Actress in a Supporting Role and a Leading Role at the African Movie Academy Awards in 2007 and 2010 respectively. She also received two nominations for Best Actress in a leading role and Best Upcoming Actress at the African Movie Academy Awards in 2008.



In 2013, she won the Best International Actress award at the Papyrus Magazine Screen Actors Awards (PAMSAA) 2013 which was held in Abuja, Nigeria. In that same year, she was awarded Best Actress in Drama for her award-winning performance in The Perfect Picture at the Africa Magic Viewers Choice Awards in Lagos, Nigeria.







Source: ghpage.com









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

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The woman in this photo, taken by video surveillance, has now been charged with assault with a weapon and break and enter for a bizarre home invasion in Osoyoos on Wednesday morning.
Bryan Rickards, an Abington Township police officer, was exactly the kind of guy you'd want by your side in a crisis. A K-9 officer, emergency vehicle operator, medic, and firearms instructor, he could handle any police call.

"He was just the most funny, witty person. He'd make you smile no matter what," said Officer Tom Nyman, his colleague and best friend. "But when you were working, and things got bad, he could be a tough guy."

In February 2017, Officer Rickards was 19 years and four months into his career when tragedy struck. He was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.

He fought to live as normally as possible between treatments for the debilitating disease. The public, inspired by his courage, rallied around him and his family, contributing $32,000 to a GoFundMe page.

On Monday, Aug. 6, after holding ALS at bay for nearly two years, Officer Rickards, 48, died at home in Warrington surrounded by his wife, Cindy, three children, and Nyman. The announcement of his death was made "with deep sadness" by Patrick Molloy, chief of the Abington Police Department.

His wife remained in seclusion, and his K-9 partner, Ivan, "is just lost without him," Nyman said. Now 11 and retired from patrol duty, the dog will work as protector of his master's family.

Officer Rickards was born in 1969 in Philadelphia. Though he had always wanted to be a police officer, he had only firefighters in his background. He graduated from George Washington High School in Northeast Philadelphia and from the Montgomery County Police Academy in 1997.

Officer Rickards served in the U.S. Coast Guard from 1988 through 1992 at the Coast Guard Station at Beach Haven, N.J., as a medic and a rescue crewman.

Although he "always wanted to do something to help people," the role as medic pointed him toward police work, Nyman said.

In 1996, Officer Rickards joined the Abington police force as a patrolman. In November 2006, he joined the K-9 Unit. He trained with the New Jersey State Police and received certification to patrol with a dog and take the dog on drug and SWAT team assignments. His first dog was named Ransom. Ivan was his second dog.

Over the course of his career, Officer Rickards received many commendations for valor. He also was recognized for putting in almost 17 consecutive years of service without a sick day before his ALS diagnosis.

"In fact, Bryan continued to work during the early stages of this horrible disease," Molloy said in a tribute. "Officer Rickards was a warrior until the end, and he served as an example of the consummate public servant."

His wife plans to set up a foundation to help ALS patients and their families, Nyman said. The two met while both worked at the King of Prussia Mall. They married in 1998.

In addition to his wife, Officer Rickards is survived by daughters Abigail, 10, and Emily, 2, and a son, Gavin, 15.

A viewing will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 14, at the John F. Givnish Funeral Home, 10975 Academy Rd., Philadelphia. A funeral service will be at 11 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 15, at St. Andrew Roman Catholic Church, 81 Swamp Rd., Newtown. Burial with full military honors will be in Washington Crossing National Cemetery, Newtown.

Memorial donations may be made in care of the Abington Township Police Association, to the Bryan Rickards Memorial Fund, Box 211, Abington, Pa. 19001. Donations will be used to fund his children's education and support other families struggling with ALS.
Bucks County state Rep. Marguerite Quinn, left, and Chester County state Sen. Tom Killion, right, are Republicans whose bills to protect domestic violence victims from gun-slinging abusers have been felled by leaders of their own party and the gun lobby. Read more

Republicans in suburban Philadelphia wanted it to become law. So did every single member of Pennsylvania's GOP-controlled state Senate from both parties. So did Democrat Gov. Wolf, advocates trying to keep domestic-violence victims alive, and just about anyone with more than two brain cells to rub together.

It was a GOP-backed bill that would order all alleged domestic abusers to give up their guns after being slapped with a protection-from-abuse order.

And as it appeared on the verge of passage this past June, Republican leaders in the House stopped it dead in its tracks.

It was a sickening display of swamp-like servitude to the gun lobby by a body whose committee and caucus leaders overwhelmingly hail from the more uber-conservative, rural districts in our state.

Instead of using their 120-83 Republican majority to help save a woman from a raging spouse or boyfriend with a Smith and Wesson, this group of elected state employees blew a kiss to the gun lobby.

They did it despite the fact that two of their own members, Republicans Sen. Tom Killion of Chester County, and Rep. Marguerite Quinn of Bucks County, were the sponsors.

They did it despite this being a common-sense change. They did it because it would have required standing up to the kooks in their caucus  and the lobbyists who think the right to bear arms includes having the right to kill your girlfriend with a gun, and pursue justice for the victim afterward.

No one will tell me exactly what happened  or at whose urging. I spent hours calling around Harrisburg and beyond, only to be left with that familiar pang of disgust you get when trying to force transparency in government.

Let's start with the locals.

Killion and Quinn pushed versions of this bill in the Senate and House, respectively. Both are Republicans from the Philadelphia suburbs and, as such, are now marginal players in state GOP politics. That's because the state Republican House caucus is now home to some pretty loud tea party types.

Killion's version passed the Senate unanimously this spring.

His bill would no longer allow alleged abusers to give up their guns to friends or family members after being hit with a final PFA order. The new law also would make it mandatory  and not up to a judge, as the law currently allows  for a PFA defendant's guns to be taken away.

If you're separately convicted in criminal court of misdemeanor domestic violence, Killion's bill no longer gives you 60 days to turn in your guns. You get 48 hours.

The gun lobby did not oppose its passage in the Senate.

But then, not-good stuff happened.

The House Judiciary Committee, led by veteran conservative Rep. Ron Marsico, held unprecedented gun-control hearings on a large number of bills that resulted, unsurprisingly, in virtually zero legislative action. They were a dog-and-pony show following the Parkland, Fla., shootings.

Marsico's committee then took action on a domestic-violence bill authored by Quinn. Staffers replaced the text with the Senate version.

So far, so good.

But then staffers rewrote a provision that, despite domestic-violence advocates warning it would make the gun lobby ballistic, did just that.

Instead of forcing convicted criminal abusers to relinquish their guns in 48 hours, as the Killion bill proposed, Marsico's people changed that to 24 hours.

Marsico's office would not make him or anyone on his committee available to publicly explain what happened. A spokesperson for House Republicans told me the change was intended to bring the gun-turnover period in line with the 24 hours currently given to PFA defendants. He was unclear about whether it had been done at any outsider's behest.

This turned into a poison pill.

Just days after the bill passed out of committee on June 19, and within hours of an expected vote by the full House on June 25, gun lobbyist Kim Stolfer blitzed the General Assembly.

Stolfer said he texted his displeasure to Pittsburgh-area House Speaker Mike Turzai. Rank-and-file members got emails, too.

House leaders didn't do what they get paid to do  whip their members behind a vote for a good bill.

They instead scotched it. With just 11 days left when the House reconvenes next month, the bill is viewed as all but dead.

"It is definitely the intention to bring this bill back up when we come back in September and October," House Republican spokesman Steve Miskin told me on Thursday. "We wanted to give the members the opportunity this summer to fully ascertain what is and what isn't in the bill. When members have a lot of questions, they usually vote no."

There are no assurances it can pass.

Killion still calls this bill a "no-brainer."
Rohman Griffin, 39, left, and Lisa Velasquez, 38, right, talk with Inquirer reporter Jason Laughlin, in Philadelphia, Friday, August 10, 2018. JESSICA GRIFFIN / Staff Photographer. Read more

This week, for the second time in a year, a person in a Philadelphia transit station after hours died an unnatural death.

A man in his 30s, possibly homeless, was fatally stabbed in Jefferson Station before dawn Thursday. In November, a teenage runaway was burned to death, likely by electrocution, in the middle of the night while on the top of a train at the same station.

Thursday's brutal 3 a.m. stabbing on a platform, which left blood through three floors of the subway and railroad hub, was caught on camera but remains unsolved, though law enforcement officials say they believe they have identified a person of interest. Both men involved in the altercation had told police in the past they were homeless, law enforcement reported, and they appeared to have known each other.

The stabbing and last year's death highlight a challenge for SEPTA police: balancing security with compassion for the city's indigent.

The incidents also highlight the reality that risk and the potential for violence are constant companions for people without a home. There are predators on city streets after storefronts and apartment windows go dark, said people who are homeless. They are often the prey, and vulnerability is a liability, they said.

>>READ MORE: After a killing, a meeting in Suburban Station's 'Living Room' for our city's most vulnerable

"It's a little bit more dangerous for the females as opposed to the males," said Rohman Griffin, 39, who has spent nights in Suburban Station. "If they're asleep, anybody could run up on them or do anything to them."

"We usually try to stay in groups," added Lisa Velasquez, 38, who was with Griffin at Suburban Station Friday afternoon.

Also at risk are elderly and mentally ill people, Griffin said. A homeless person has a 14 to 21 percent risk of being a victim of violence, a 2014 study by the National Health Care for the Homeless Council found, compared with 2 percent of the general population. Homeless women with mental health issues have a 97 percent chance of being a victim of violence in their lifetime, according to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center.

About 5,700 in Philadelphia live either on the street or in shelters or temporary housing

People stay in the stations, rather than at shelters, for many reasons.

"There are people who are homeless, addicted, or suffering from mental health that do not want help," said Sister Mary Scullion, who runs the homeless relief organization Project HOME.

Griffin and Velasquez said some people who recently became homeless may not be aware of all the shelter options available.

Completely securing stations like Jefferson and Suburban is virtually impossible, said Thomas Nestel III, SEPTA's police chief. Fire code requires the doors to have push bars so they can open from the inside, so every night when the station is being shut down, typically around 1:30 a.m., people hide inside and reopen the doors to let others in. A few police patrol the stations overnight, Nestel said, but people looking for a safe place to stay overnight try to stay out of sight of officers.

That may have been why Raekwon Jones, 15, was on top of a train on Nov. 29, 2017, when he touched a part carrying 12,000 volts.

>>READ MORE: Teen found electrocuted on top of SEPTA train 'was just a good kid who ran' | Helen Ubinas

Griffin said he spends nights in Suburban Station without expecting to get sleep. He just wants a place to be. From the time the station is closed to its reopening about 4 a.m., he changes locations to stay out of sight of the officers who pass through once an hour. Others try to find hiding places where they can rest.

"People go to the bathroom and get in the stall and sleep on the toilet," Griffin said.

SEPTA police are trained to evict people from the station after hours, Nestel said, and do so almost every night. They do not charge them with any offenses like trespassing, though.

"They're not hiding to vandalize; they're not hiding to steal," Nestel said. "They're hiding to find a safe place to sleep, and they know with our officer in the station it's a safe place."

Nestel declined to say specifically how many officers patrol each station overnight, citing concern for publicizing tactics, but said he did not expect to boost the number of officers in the station over the long term because of Thursday's killing.

"If there's a need for it, we will," he said, "but one incident doesn't create the need."

He said SEPTA police were increasing the number of people watching the feeds from security cameras in the stations, though, and were exploring the possibility of installing technology like motion sensors to help identify when people were in the station. He noted the overnight shift was typically one of the quietest for SEPTA police.

One man who has spent nights at Jefferson, Gerald Clark, 45, said he has never experienced problems there.

"I just lay down on a bench and go to sleep," he said.

He's been asked to leave by police once or twice, he said.

Others who stay in the stations say they don't always experience that calm.

"It's very unsafe," Griffin said. "You have people running through there all times of the night."

Velasquez had firsthand experience with the risks of living on the street. In October, about a month after she was released from prison on an assault charge, she was spending a night on the porch outside 30th Street Station when a man tried to sleep near her.

"He wanted to rape me so he put a gun to my head and choked me unconscious," she said, "and when I woke up I had my pants pulled down."

She never reported the incident, she said.
The U.S. Department of Education also is investigating the misreporting of rankings data by Temple University's business school. Read more

The rankings scandal at Temple University spread beyond the Fox School of Business on Friday after officials announced that reports from two other schools submitted to U.S. News and World Report also included errors, though the online rankings site said the errors did not affect its graduate school rankings.

University officials identified incorrect data from the College of Education and the Lewis Katz School of Medicine that were collected for U.S. News' graduate program rankings for 2019. The rest of the data from the two schools were verified, the university said. All data from the College of Engineering and the Beasley School of Law were verified.

The education school underreported the number of students receiving grants and or scholarships, mistakenly included students graduating from Temple's Japan campus in its graduating class of master's students, and entered the amount of fees as per credit rather than per semester.

>> READ MORE: Temple business dean forced out over falsified M.B.A. data used in rankings

The Katz School underreported the number of minorities, along with the number of applicants interviewed. The medical school also corrected full-time and part-time faculty figures.

The information Temple shared with U.S. News "did not have an impact on its 2019 Best Graduate Schools rankings," Robert Morse, chief data strategist at U.S. News, said in a statement.

Temple discovered these errors after U.S. News asked the university to certify the accuracy of its ranking submissions.

>> READ MORE: U.S. Department of Education investigating Temple business school scandal

Temple also announced Friday that the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business  the group that accredits Temple's Fox School  has moved up its re-accreditation review from spring 2020 to early 2019.

In addition, Temple said it notified the Princeton Review that at least one inaccurate data point reported to U.S. News also was used in reports to the Princeton Review.

In January, U.S. News dropped Temple's online M.B.A. program from its ranking after the school self-reported that it had provided inaccurate data. The online M.B.A. program had been ranked No. 1 for four years and the university had been touting the ranking.

In July, a law firm Temple hired to investigate the issue reported that a rankings-focused strategy led to some of the misreporting.

On July 9, Temple announced that it had removed its long-time business school head, Moshe Porat, from his leadership post, replacing him with interim dean Ronald C. Anderson, who headed the school's finance department.

Later in July, Temple officials announced that they had found more misreporting to U.S. News from the Fox School, involving six other programs.

Anderson has apologized for the rankings scandal and said the school is aiming for a "thorough scrubbing" of its human resources and data oversight in hope of rejoining outside rankings in the next six to eight months.

The university is updating its community about the rankings issue at www.temple.edu/about/data-integrity.
The National Weather Service has issued a flash flood warning for the Philadelphia region until 5:45 p.m. Saturday and says to expect more of the same Sunday. Read more

The National Weather Service in Mount Holly says the Philadelphia region and the Jersey Shore should be ready to head for cover throughout the afternoon and night as thunderstorms and possible flooding are expected. Expect much the same Sunday.

"We're kind of expecting more of these heavier showers and thunderstorms to keep developing tonight. It will clear out later this evening," said meteorologist Alex Staarmann. "We're kind of expecting this same thing to happen more or less tomorrow."

The office issued flash flood warnings Saturday afternoon after thick bands of rain moved across the region. Staarmann said the warnings would be similar at the Shore: Areas that usually flood may likely do so this weekend.

Shortly before 4 p.m. Saturday, New Jersey Transit issued this announcement about a suspension in service on the River Line:

"River Line service is suspended in both directions between the Walter Rand Transportation Center and the Waterfront Entertainment Complex due to flooding."
Firefighters battle a three alarm junkyard fire at Tulip and Somerset streets in Kensington, Tuesday, July 10, 2018. STEVEN M. FALK / Staff Photographer Read more

A Kensington junkyard that caught fire last month has been permitted to reopen  again  after addressing code violations.

The city's Department of Licenses and Inspections had ordered the junkyard at Somerset and Tulip Streets, Philadelphia Metal & Resource Recovery, to close last month. L&I required the facility's owners to reduce scrap piles to 10 feet and create clear fire lanes between piles.

Karen Guss, an L&I spokeswoman, said Saturday afternoon that the owners met those requirements.

Earlier this month, Common Pleas Court Judge Paula A. Patrick had rejected a request by the junkyard to reopen, saying it first had to resolve multiple code violations. She gave owner David Feinberg a week to prepare for an inspection.

"We believe that aggressive use of cease-operations order was key factor in owner getting the work done so quickly," Guss said in an email Saturday.

>> READ MORE: Kensington junkyard: Site of spectacular fire, violations, reopens for business

The July 1 fire grew to four alarms and sent thick, acrid smoke through the neighborhood. Feinberg told news outlets he believed heroin users had started it. He could not be reached for comment Saturday afternoon.

The junkyard, which reopened for the first time just two weeks after the blaze, was then hit with a cease-operations order by L&I.

>> READ MORE: Fire-damaged junkyard ordered to shut down

Guss said L&I would continue to monitor and reinspect the property. The city has a hearing in an ongoing case against Philadelphia Metal & Resource Recovery on Aug. 30. Guss said the city would be asking for "hundreds of thousands of dollars" in fines. L&I has cited the facility multiple times for violations in the last 10 years.
KAKUMIRO  The families of two residents of Kakumiro District who were in June arrested for allegedly plotting to cause insecurity in Rwanda are living in fear after receiving death-threatening letters.

Mr Suleiman, a resident of Gayaza Town Council and one Munyakazi a resident of the same area, were on June 26 this year detained for nearly two weeks and questioned by several security operatives on whether they knew anything about rebellious activities against the current regime in Rwanda.

Whereas the duo was later released, they now say unknown people dropped two letters threatening to kill him over his engagements with the anti-Rwanda forces.

They dropped it at my doorstep threatening to kill me with my family like they killed Karegyeya in South Africa.It was written in two languages in Kinyarwanda and English. The letters were picked up by police, Suleiman said on Friday.

They think that I am in support of Kayumba Nyamwasa and the rebel group which is against the Rwanda regime.They claim that I recruit the youth into rebel activities but am innocent he added.

The letters reportedly warn the suspects to concentrate on eating cassava in Uganda and stop attacking Rwanda.

The letter read in part how can you attack Rwanda? Kayumba is lying to you. If you dont leave them, we will kill you with your family and relatives.

Albertine Regional Police spokesman Julius Hakiza promised to investigate the matter.

The accident comes a week after two other area residents  Abdul Karim Niwamanya and Abdul Safari  all residents of Igayaza Town Council, were picked by security operatives at around 5 pm, bundled into the car and driven off to an unknown destination.

Since last year, some suspects have been arrested by operatives of the Chieftaincy of Military Intelligence over their alleged links to espionage for a neighbouring country and forcefully repatriating refugees.

According to Niwamanyas father, Mr Ali Ahimbisibwe, the security operatives were driving a black, tinted car and armed with pistols. Mr Ahimbisibwe said they also carried a smartphone with photos of the suspects. He said he suspects the soldiers were from the Internal Security Organisation (ISO).

Related
KAMPALA  Prime Minister Dr Ruhakana Rugunda has broken the silence on the continued detention of the former Inspector General of Police Gen Kale Kayihura saying he is being handled in the right procedure.

Rugunda told Parliament on Friday, August 10, that Gen Kayihura is to be handled according to procedure befitting of a military general.

You know the former IGP [Gen. Kayihura] is a senior cadre of UPDF [Uganda Peoples Defence Forces]; he is being handled according to the right procedures of handling such a cadre, the prime minister said.

This was while responding to a question raised by Hon Latif Ssebaggala for Kawempe North Member of Parliament, on government plans to present Kayihura before court.

Kayihura has been in detention in Makindye Military Barracks since June 13 but is yet to appear in any court or be charged with any crimes.

About three countries recently withdrawn support to the Uganda Police Force following the continued incarceration of Gen Kayihura

He was  in March 2018  sacked as police chief before he was on June 13 arrested and detained for yet unspecified charges.

And now it has emerged that since he was sacked from the position, several countries that include Iran, Algeria, Russia and China have since withdrawn their funding from the Force.

Highly placed sources within police told this website that Gen Kayihura had personally lobbied the countries to help the Uganda police to advance its skills in military intelligence through acquiring modern technology and help equip the police officers with training and other logistical support.

Civil society activists including two Uganda Christian University (UCU) students have since sued government over the continued detention of former IGP without formally charging him in court is unlawful.

Gen Kayihura was arrested from his home at Kashagama in Lyatonde district and is in detention at Makindye police military barracks.

This is the first time government has spoken out on Gen. Kayihuras detention.

Related
Fredericton police have identified two police officers who were among four people killed in a Friday morning shooting that left a total of four people dead.

Police Chief Leanne Fitch said in a news conference that 45-year-old Lawrence Robert Costello, a 20-year veteran of the police force, and 43-year-old Sarah May Burns, who had been on the force for two year,s were the officers who died, reports the New York Daily News.

Costello is survived by his spouse and four children. Burns leaves behind her husband and three children.

A 48-year-old suspect is reportedly in custody at a local hospital and being treated for serious injuries.

Police said the names of the two civilian shooting victims  a man and a woman  were not yet being released.

A search is underway for the person responsible for the road rage incident that led to the Friday morning shooting.
If you were looking for the Charlestown Democratic Town Committee website and ended up here, try this





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Photo credit: Kristy Titus

In preparation for CARNIVORE 2 hitting stands on August 24th, we're featuring hunters who share our passion for everything that leads up to putting food on the table. We welcome the hard work, accept and learn from errors, and then rejoice when we connect and put game in the freezer. If you're interested in being featured in this Hunter Spotlight series, please email [email protected].

HUNTER SPOTLIGHT: KRISTY TITUS

RECOIL: Tell us about your first hunt.

KT: As a kid, my dad would pop in a VHS tape and watch his favorite elk hunting episodes while practicing his elk calling technique in our living room. At that point in my life, it was beyond comprehension that what he was practicing would actually draw in a rutting bull elk to archery range.

When I was 13 years old, I watched my dads living room practice sessions pay off during a public land, DIY elk hunt in Idaho. He used his old school bugle to chuckle in a spike and 55 bull Elk. The 55 came in screaming head tipped back, chasing off the spike, and then charging towards at less than 30 yards away.

I didnt pull the trigger on that bull but I consider it to be my first in many ways as it changed my life forever. And, my dad and I still experience the thrill of elk hunting together every year.

RECOIL: What was your favorite hunt and why?

KT: When it comes to hunting, I love venturing into territory that is virtually untouched by man. Hunting land that is as it has always been, large expansive landscapes where the terrain is raw- truly wild. There is a purity found in places like that and it cleanses the soul. Out there you are completely self-reliant. The decisions that you make in your gear and your physical preparedness are literally your lifeblood. It is absolutely intoxicating.

RECOIL: What is the one piece of gear is your must-need for every hunt (other than your weapon)?

KT: In the back county, you depend on your feet to take you to the highest of peaks, so good hunting boots are a must; I wear Cabelas Meindl Denalis. Your clothing becomes your shelter from the elements, so I wear Kryptek because it is battlefield to backcountry tested.

RECOIL: Is there anything else you would like included, i.e. public lands, types of hunting, etc or anything you're passionate about?

KT: Hunting is still relevant in todays society and culture. Now more than in any other time in history, there needs to be an understanding by everyone of the importance of conservation and our hunting heritage. This is not just for the provision of meat for the table, but how hunters are working hard to improve, conserve, enhance and fund more land projects that are directly benefitting wildlife and wild places than any other group or organization in the world.

There is a big disconnect in our culture from the land and the wildlife that calls it home. Many urban city kids that have never seen the stars in the sky let alone know the feeling of waking up at 4 am for a hunt. This reconnection to the land is the key to ensure the future of our time-honored traditions and the relevancy of hunting in todays ever-changing world.

Going to the grocery store to purchase meat is not the only way to provide for a family- the value and lessons that come from the hunt are priceless. Inspire, educate and mentor- we must reach the non-hunters of the world and educate them on the value of hunting, for the entire family, for the economic benefit to our nation and how hunters are truly the first crusaders in conservation. The growing involvement of women and youth is the key to the success of our future.

Find Kristy online: http://kristytitus.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KristyTitus/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kristytitus/
Dressing up an SKS rifle as a Chinese Type 84, only better.

The SKS Rifle Hits the U.S.

The year was 1999 and the SKS rifle had had a good run. Soon, the developed world would supposedly come crashing down, as computers across the globe would cause rolling blackouts due to a simple date error: Yes, ladies and gentlemen, were talking about Y2K.

OK, we know this article isnt carved onto a cave wall, and that nothing much of substance happened at the turn of the millennium sans a few unplanned pregnancies. However, this article is a little bit about that, because it was also the last calendar year the SKS rifle could be considered a pragmatic or practical choice for offensive use (in the United States at least; sorry, Canada).

Though there are variations and models from nearly a dozen separate nations, your standard fare SKS was a semiautomatic, 7.62x39mm, 20-inch barreled affair that fed from an internal 10-round magazine. Loading and reloading took place with stripper clips. Many were imported with folding bayonets that couldnt be quickly removed from the rifle without the use of tools.

They were inexpensive and readily available, which goes a long way to explaining their popularity in the United States. Hell, an entire cottage industry was invented seemingly solely to peddle awful accessories. Some of these efforts were attempts to address the shortcomings relative to modern rifles, and some left us just sadly shaking our heads. Chassis systems. Folding stocks. Wobbly railed top covers. Weird ugly duck billed removable magazines  youve seen them all, of that were certain.

The Affordable SKS

Remember, this was a magic time when the mantra, Get whatever AR-15 that you want, provided its made by ABC: Armalite, Bushmaster, or Colt, was mostly true. A cheap SKS rifle was roughly the tenth of a price of a Colt.

Ultimately, the American heyday of the SKS was extinguished for exactly the same reason the Russian one was: the increased availability of the AK/AKM. Long gone is the time when youd buy an SKS for practical reasons, solely consigned instead to nerdy Com-Blok collectors.

To the Russians, the SKS was a bit like the American M14  an awkward middle child, never heavily fielded for any significant period, and largely relegated to the rear. Sure, youve seen some shiny ones all dolled up for parade across the iron curtain, but thats the most common use for it now.

Chinese SKS Types

The same couldnt be said of Red China. When they received the official tooling from Tula Arsenal in the 50s, they embraced it. For nearly three decades it remained their go-to, mass-issue rifle. While they spent some time dabbling with new designs in the early 70s, it wouldnt be until the far-superior Type 81 Assault Rifles were fielded in the 80s that SKSs began to drop off the scene.

Its been said that the Peoples Liberation Army prized the accuracy of the SKS rifle; if thats true, their measuring sticks must have been made in China as well. Rather than allowing the AK to replace the SKS wholesale, the Chinese military treated them as complimentary weapons  with some hybrids along the way.

Eating from AK Mags

One such Moreau-esque amalgam was the Chinese Type 84. It featured a shorter 16.5-inch barrel, a correspondingly shorter spike bayonet, and  importantly  could almost accept AK magazines. We say almost because each magazine had to be individually hand-fit to the gun; they were even serialized together. Because AK magazines, even ones heavily hand modded, dont work with the SKS bolt-hold-open system (incredibly important for rifles that traditionally ate from strippers  theres a joke there someplace), the Type 84 had a unique button on top of the bolt carrier to lock it in place.

In 1989, USA Navy Arms imported some to the United States. Weve heard as few as 400 of these rifles hit American shores. It was and remains the only SKS import that had the shorter 16.5-inch barrel, stubby bayonet, and ability to accept AK magazines, albeit modified ones.

AK magazines are commonly available, fast to reload, and offer a significant upgrade to other cobbled-together detachable magazines for SKS rifles. So, of course, we had to have one. And also make it better. While you could dig deep in your pockets and scour the depths of Gunbroker or Armslist looking for one of those rare birds, we made one ourselves instead.

Limited Options

Aside from the Chinese Type 84 SKS, two other variations that ate from common AK/AKM magazines were imported. The first was dubbed the SKS-D by dealers to differentiate them from the fixed magazine fodder. It looked like a standard CHICOMM SKS, differing mainly by accepting AK magazines.

These rifles came in before the George H. W. Bush administration banned the importation of so-called assault rifles in 1989. On the other hand, sporting rifles were allowed, all of which had fewer assault rifle features like bayonet lugs. Because drive-by bayonet assaults were apparently a huge problem in the 1980s.

SKS vs. SKS-M

At this time, we also began seeing the SKS-M. With a real name scripted on the side of the receiver rather than a dealer denomination, the SKS-M was most often imported with the shorter 16.5-inch paratrooper barrel. And, of course, with dangerous features like the bayonet removed. The SKS-M rifle had a sporting stock, either consisting of a Monte Carlo-style that almost looks like a standard stock, or the dreaded thumbhole.

While more of these rifles came in than the Chinese Type 84, a trade dispute in 1993 ended Chinese importation of most all firearms and ammunition shortly thereafter (you can still get shotguns though  see our piece on the Lynx-12 in Issue 37).

Since we wanted a Type 84, wed have to start our journey by first obtaining an SKS-M.

Treasure Hunt

The firearms market is completely upside down compared to two decades ago. Instead of an SKS costing a mere fraction of an AR-15, SKS prices often meet or even exceed those of a basic AR. And a special one like an SKS-M? Good luck.

We happened upon one at The Bullet Ranch, in Pataskala, Ohio, and snatched it up. Monte Carlo-type stock, nonexistent bayonet, and that all-important short barrel and magazine well. What we didnt know is that this would be just the start of our journey.

The appropriate foreign parts were very easy to obtain online and relatively inexpensive, including the shortened paratrooper spike bayonet. But alas, the hardest part had yet to come: compliance with the law, specifically 922(r). Essentially, 922(r) means that you cant simply take an imported sporting rifle and give it assault features without first increasing the amount of American-made parts. And no, not every little screw counts. There are 20 parts specifically listed in Title 18 Chapter 44 Section 922(r), further broken down in Title 27 Part 478.39 of the Code of Federal Regulation.

SKS Rifle Legalise

Yes, we also feel like we need a lawyer just to read that sentence. Not every specified 922(r) part corresponds to an actual part on an imported rifle. Thus depending on the design of your rifle, varying numbers of American compliance parts may be needed. Regardless of the foreign rifle youre converting from sporting status, the law says that you can have no more than 10 foreign parts from that list of 20.

Because the SKS rifle isnt nearly as popular as other imported rifles, it can be harder to find appropriate compliance parts. Furthermore, not every compliance part is a simple drop in fit with our SKS-M because of its shortened gas system. Deciding to go with the belt and suspenders approach, we replaced more than technically necessary in order to ensure there could be no question about its legality.

We begged and bartered for a U.S.-made fire control group, then wrestled with installing it. We took a brand new and shiny U.S.-made gas piston and shortened it to work with the truncated gas system. And we begrudgingly only used U.S.-made magazines.

SKS Magazines

With a twist of irony, we note that U.S. magazines need to be modified to fit. Just like regular AK magazines in the Chinese Type 84.

But once we had all of our parts and pieces, we could put it all together. Were thankful Chinese manufacturers used wood approximately as soft as soap, which made hogging the magwell out much easier. And oh yeah  we had the barrel threaded.

SKS Rifle On the Range

We wish we could say that this was a pleasant rifle to shoot, but that would be a bald faced lie. The bare muzzle and heavy gas resulted in more recoil than the 7.6239 normally metes out. The brass (err  steel) casings seemed to fly as far as the bullets themselves.

Furthermore, though it might sound a tad strange, we missed having a pistol grip. The ability to use your shooting hand to pull the rifle back into your shoulder for better recoil control is diminished with the standard stock.

Maybe we got a lemon, but benched group sizes at 100 yards were in excess of 5 inches. Precise indeed.To help with the recoil, we installed a SuperComp XL from GoGun USA. Sure, it doesnt look like a Chinese Type 84 anymore, but boy was it more fun to shoot and easy to remove. And, of course, we also installed a Surefire SOCOM762-MINI2. After carefully checking alignment, we gave it a go.

If brass went as far as the bullet with a bare muzzle, were pretty sure we put some in orbit with the suppressor mounted. Theres no way we can recommend silencing an SKS rifle unless some special measures are taken, lest you end up with bent pistons and destroyed rifles.

Loose Rounds

Like a road trip with friends, this project turned out to be more about the journey than the destination. Did we accomplish our mission of a DIY Chinese Type 84, but better? Kind of.

Once we track down three more 922R compliance parts that dont make it look like a Y2K bubba job, well say mission accomplished. Wed then have the ability to legally use whatever magazine we want. Until then, our rifle suffers the same fate as the Chinese Type 84. But when that happens, shell be the hottest cashier at Dollar Tree.

SKS Rifle, Dressed up as a Type 84

Caliber: 7.62x39mm

Barrel Length:16.5 inches

Overall Length: 35.5 inches

Weight (Unloaded): 8 pounds

Magazine Capacity: 5- to 40-round

MSRP:$800

Also check out: Old School: Karabiner 31 and the Standard Catalog of Military Firearms.

Corey Graff contributed to this article.
ICT ministry to come up with measures to prevent incidents like KT outage The Ministry of Science and ICT on Friday said it will come up with measures restricting the concurrent update of routers to prevent recurrence of a network outage that crippled th...
'The cow can always be the CAUSE.'

'Cause for murder. Cause for setting India's people against each other.'

'Not recognising the fact that this can tip the country into an unending spiral of civil strife is the ultimate stupidity of all,' says Shuma Raha.

Sometimes a single utterance can encapsulate the spirit of the times.

Last month Rajasthan BJP President Madan Lal Saini made one such singular utterance. On July 24, the honourable leader said that when Mughal emperor Humayun was dying, he called Babur and told him, 'If you want to rule Hindustan, you must keep three things in mind -- respect cows, brahmins and women.'

The boneheaded stupidity of the statement leaves you slack-jawed.

First, it shows that Saini has got his history back to front.

Any school kid knows that Babur was the father of Humayun and not vice versa, and for the latter to summon the former in his dying moments (Humayun died 25 years after Babur did), he would have had to have some serious ties with the spirit world.

To add imagination to ignorance, Saini dreamed up a little piece of theatre, a fictive tete-a-tete between two great Mughal kings on how important cows and caste were to the dwellers of this land.

Oh, yes, Saini also added women to his list of venerables -- although one isn't sure if this includes girls and women who wear jeans or short skirts or stay out late in the night, which, according to many of our political leaders, is an open invitation to men to commit rape and murder.

Needless to say, Saini's words evoked guffaws on social media. He was roundly pilloried for his charming ignorance of the chronology of the Mughal dynasty and the way he had shoehorned the bovine and the Brahmin into his sermon on ruling 'Hindustan'.

But there was more to his statement than its unintentioned humour.

To me, it seemed like a grim epiphany -- a chilling distillation of the fakery and anti-intellectualism toxifying the discourse in India today.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines anti-intellectualism as hostility to intellectual reasoning. This is exactly what we are witnessing in India now.

The rejection of reason is playing out at various levels.

It's playing out in brazen distortions of historical facts, where the victor is turned into the vanquished or major historical figures erased from school text books and marginal ones pushed into their place -- all to stitch up a cultural narrative predicated on so-called Hindu pride.

When ministers say that our ancients knew plastic surgery or knew how to build planes, when they assert that cow urine can cure cancer or that the cow has the unique ability to exhale oxygen, you marvel at their utter contempt for facts and their serene conviction that the people of India will swallow their fantastical claims.

What's terrifying is that so many people are actually swallowing them.

You manufacture a targeted consternation around 'love jihad', whip up fear and suspicion that Muslims boys are luring Hindu girls away, and you have mobs beating up young men, trying to squash inter-faith love, or even a government officer refusing to renew the passports of an inter-faith couple.

You keep up a relentless frenzy around the sacredness of cows and the need to protect them, and soon, people are ready to kill in the name of the cow.

The law does not matter. Reason does not matter. Morality, humanity -- nothing matters.

The only realities are blind belief and a bloodthirsty majoritarian machismo fuelled by fakery, demagoguery, or maybe a rumour gathering vicious steam on WhatsApp.

According to a recent report by the data journalism Web site IndiaSpend, 34 persons have been killed in incidents of cow-related violence since 2010 and 98 per cent of all such incidents took place after 2014.

Saini's bizarre statement came on the back of yet another Muslim man dying after being severely beaten by a group of cow vigilantes in Alwar, Rajasthan.

And it checked all the necessary boxes: The overturning of history, the delicious (but false) proposition that a medieval Muslim emperor recognised the sanctity of cows, the emphasis on the hierarchy of caste, and the implicit insistence that the cow can always be the CAUSE.

Cause for murder. Cause for setting India's people against each other.

Not recognising the fact that this can tip the country into an unending spiral of civil strife and set the much-vaunted 'India story' back by years is the ultimate stupidity of all.
Bharatiya Janata Party chief Amit Shah on Saturday launched a scathing attack on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Congress president Rahul Gandhi today for opposing the National Register of Citizens in Assam and said that they should clarify whether the country comes first or the vote bank.

IMAGE: BJP chief Amit Shah flashes the victory sign as West Bengal BJP President Dilip Ghosh looks on. Photograph: Swapan Mahapatra/PTI Photo

Attacking Banerjee in her backyard, the BJP president, who addressed a rally, accused the TMC of patronising infiltration from Bangladesh and corruption in West Bengal and gave a call for uprooting the TMC government.

Shah said the Assam accord was signed by the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and the Congress had no problems with the NRC at that time. He alleged that for the sake of vote bank politics, Rahul Gandhi is not making his stand clear on illegal migration from Bangladesh.

Hitting back at Shah, the TMC said the BJPs communal politics will not work in Bengal.

Virtually sounding the poll bugle for the next Lok Sabha polls in Bengal, Shah began his speech at the well-attended public rally with the slogan of uprooting the ruling TMC government from Bengal and said that he would visit all the districts in the state.

He said the partys Vijay Rath (victory march) will not stop, until it comes to power in West Bengal. Why do you (Banerjee) want to keep the Bangladeshi infiltrators? You should make your stand clear, he said adding she was against the NRC for vote bank politics.

He claimed that infiltrators were a vote bank for the previous Communist government and now they have become the vote bank of the TMC. Rahul Gandhi and Mamata didi should clarify whether national security is important for them or the vote bank. For the BJP, the country comes first, Shah said.

IMAGE: BJP president Amit Shah with BJP Yuva Morcha leader Poonam Mahajan and other leaders being garlanded by the supporters during a public rally in Kolkata. Photograph: Swapan Mahapatra/PTI Photo

AICC spokesperson Pawan Khera said the Congress was not opposed to the NRC but to the way it was being implemented in Assam. He accused Shah of doing politics over NRC.

Khera said that 80 per cent of the NRC work in Assam was done by Congress and the rest of it was done by the BJP after the Supreme Courts directive. Shah said the TMC was engaged in propaganda by stating that refugees would driven out and said, I assure that all the refugees that nothing will happen to them.

The Centre has brought the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 for this purpose, he said. The Bill, introduced in the Lok Sabha in 2016, seeks to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955 to provide citizenship to illegal migrants from Afghanistan Bangladesh and Pakistan, who are of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian extraction.

But the Congress and the TMC should clarify whether they agree with the bill or not, he said.

IMAGE: BJP supporters during the party president Amit Shah's rally in Kolkata. Photograph: Ashok Bhaumik/PTI Photo

Shah said that some people talk about human rights of illegal migrants, but questioned the similar rights of the citizens of Bengal -- the Hindus and Muslims. They dont bother about that, he remarked.

Referring to TMC posters saying Anti-Bengal BJP to leave Bengal he said the saffron party is neither anti-Bengal nor anti-Bengali but is against the misrule of TMC.

He accused the TMC government of patronising corruption and wondered where did the Rs 3.59 lakh crore provided to the state by the 14th Finance Commission go.

I want to ask everybody has anyone received any benefit from those funds. All the factories in Bengal have pulled down their shutters, only bomb making and arms factory are operating here, he said.

Shah said that the people of Bengal had given a chance to the Congress, the communists and the TMC but they failed to usher in development. Give a chance to the BJP under Narendra Modi. We will bring in development.

IMAGE: Amit Shah pays floral tribute to freedom fighter Khudiram Bose during the rally. Photograph: Swapan Mahapatra/PTI Photo

Alleging that the TMC government had tried to put hurdles during the immersion of Durga idols, he said, Once the BJP comes to power in the state, Durga puja, Saraswati puja will be celebrated with fanfare. Until the BJP assumes power in Bengal, our Vijay Rath will not stop.

Shah accused the ruling TMC for blacking out news channels which covered his programme. You (TMC) can blackout channels, but our BJP workers will carry my message to every corner of the state, he said at the meeting.

Accusing Banerjee of a U-turn on the infiltration issue, BJYM president Poonam Mahajan urged the Trinamool Congress not to politicise issues related to national security. She targeted the TMC for scams such as Rose Valley, Saradha and Narada and alleged it has turned into a Terror Making Machine.

The Trinamool Congress termed Shahs allegations as baseless. TMC chief national spokesperson Derek O Brien said Shah has insulted Bengal and has spread blatant lies against the TMC.

The communal politics of BJP will not work in Bengal, he said.

IMAGE: BJP supporters during the party president Amit Shah's rally in Kolkata. Photograph: Ashok Bhaumik/PTI Photo

While BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya claimed the rally was one of the biggest in Kolkata, the TMC said that it was a flop show.

The BJP has just concluded another flop show in #Bangla. After the flop meeting, BJP is looking for excuses. They are saying their meeting was blacked-out. Black outs and blackmailing is what BJP does.

Do not insult the media. All showed. We challenge BJP. Either they prove it or resign, the TMC said in a statement.

The TMC on Saturday organised Dhikkar Diwas in various parts of the state, except Kolkata, against publication of the complete draft of NRC in Assam on July 30.

Shah was shown black flags by Youth Congress workers when he came out of the NSC Bose International airport here to attend a rally, the police said.
After being pounded by rains for the past few days, there was a brief let-up in the downpour on Saturday but the government remained on high alert with more rains forecast, even as the toll in the monsoon fury since August 8 climbed to 37.

IMAGE: NDRF personnel rescue the flood-hit people in Wayanad, Kerala. Photograph: @NDRFHQ Photo/PTI Photo

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who undertook an aerial survey of rain ravaged areas of Idukki and Wayanad, said Kerala was in the midst of an unprecedented flood havoc and the calamity has caused immeasurable misery and devastation.

He said Rs 10 lakh compensation would be given to people who lost their homes and land and Rs four lakh to those who lost a member of their family.

Though there was a respite from rains across the state on Saturday, especially in catchment areas of Idukki dam, the Indian Meteorological Department issued a Red alert, asking people to be cautious as there was a possibility of heavy to very heavy rainfall in most places in Idukki, Wayanad, Kannur, Ernakulam, Palakkad and Malappuram.

IMAGE: A Navy jawan rescues an elderly person in a flood-hit area in Wayanad, Kerala. Photograph: PTI Photo

Two fishermen drowned when their boat capsized off Thiruvananthapuram coast, while in an another incident, the bodies of a mother and daughter were found in a waterlogged area behind their house at Kuttanad in Alappuzha district.

Four more bodies were recovered from other parts of the state, taking the toll to 37, official sources said.

With the let up in the rains, life is limping back to normal in affected areas, including Palakkad and Waynad, where flood waters have started receding.

A total of 35,874 people have been put up in 341 relief camps across Kerala, officials at the state Disaster Management control room said.

A total of 580 houses were partially damaged and 44 fully, they said, adding crops in 1301 hectares have been destroyed.

IMAGE: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan interacts with the flood-affected people at a relief camp in Ernakulam. Photograph: PTI Photo

According to Indian National Centre for Ocean information services, there was a possibility of flooding in low-lying coastal areas in Kerala, especially during high tide timings due to Perigean spring tides from August 11-15.

The government machinery, as well as the Army, Navy and Coast Guard continued to remain alert to deal with the threats of flooding in parts of Ernakulam district and banks of the Periyar river following release of water from Idukki dam.

KSEB sources said the water release from the dam was being closely monitored. At present 7.50 lakh litres of water was being released by the dam per second.

This discharge would continue till the water level in the giant reservoir reaches the 2400 feet level, sources said.

IMAGE: An aerial view of the flood-hit areas of the state of Kerala. Photograph: @CMOKerala Photo via PTI

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will undertake an aerial survey of some flood-hit areas and hold discussions with the chief minister at Kochi on Sunday.

Earlier, due to inclement weather, the chief ministers helicopter could not land at Kattapana in Idukki, where he had called a meeting to review the situation in the backdrop of the opening of five shutters of the Idukki Dam, government sources said.

The helicopter later left for Wayanad.

Announcing the compensation after chairing a review meeting at Wayanad, Vijayan said all families housed in relief camps would be provided Rs 3,800 each.

Vijayan was accompanied by Opposition leader in the assembly, Ramesh Chennithala, Revenue minister E Chandrasekharan and senior officials during the aerial survey.

IMAGE: Devotees perform Bali tharpan on the occasion of Karkidaka Vavu near Aluva Mahadeva Temple at the banks of flooded Periyar River in Kochi. Photograph: PTI Photo

The CM also held review meetings and met people at some relief camps to hear their woes.

Later in a Facebook post, Vijayan said agricultural loss was to the tune of crores of rupees and several houses were damaged.

Many bridges and roads were also destroyed, he said.

It would take months for life to come back to normal and help and assistance from all quarters was needed, he said.

For the first time in the states history, sluice gates of 27 dams were opened, he said, adding never before had the state witnessed a calamity on this scale.

The entire state machinery is working in unison to provide drinking water, food and clothes to people living in relief camps, he added.
Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Saturday targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi again on the Rafale aircraft deal as he launched his partys campaign for the assembly polls later this year in Rajasthan.

IMAGE: In his address to party workers at the Ramlila grounds, Gandhi claimed that the Rafale deal had snatched job opportunities from young Indians, including engineers, as the planes will be manufactured abroad. Photograph: @INCIndia/Twitter

Directly accusing Modi of corruption in the deal for the French fighter planes, he said the prime minister had favoured his businessman friend Anil Ambani by getting him the contract.

The reference was to the business that foreign manufacturers are required to bring to Indian firms when a defence deal is signed with the government, under the countrys offset policy.

Ambani has already rejected Rahul Gandhis allegations and emphasised that the government had no role in the Rafale-manufacturing French firm Dassault picking up his company as a local partner.

IMAGE: The Congress chief also paid his respects at the Govind Dev ji temple. Photograph: @INCIndia/Twitter

India had signed an inter-governmental agreement with France in 2015 for the procurement of 36 Rafale planes.

In his address to party workers at the Ramlila grounds, Gandhi claimed that the Rafale deal had snatched job opportunities from young Indians, including engineers, as the planes will be manufactured abroad.

Gandhi said the price of the Rafale plane fixed now is about three times the amount agreed upon during the previous Congress-led government.

IMAGE: Congress supporters take Jaipur by storm to welcome the party's chief. Photograph: @INCIndia/Twitter

He said this corruption by Modi will become apparent over time.

The Congress chief claimed that only 450 youths got employment in the country every day while China was creating jobs for 50,000 people every 24 hours.

Our youths more honest, capable and stronger than the Chinese but it is a matter of shame that despite having almost equal population, they are getting fewer job opportunities, he said.

IMAGE: Congress supporters during the party President Rahul Gandhi's roadshow in Jaipur. Photograph: PTI Photo

He questioned why Rs 2,30,000 crore could be written off as bad loans to 15 or 20 big industrialists, but the government could not help debt-ridden farmers.

When farmers are unable to pay back their loans, they are called defaulters and are jailed. But bad debts of big industrialists are called non-performing assets, he said.

He also accused the government of failing to ensure the safety of women.
The Trump administration has suspended more than a decade-long military training programme of Pakistani personnel at United States institutions, a media report said on Saturday, days after Islamabad and Moscow signed an agreement to allow Pakistani troops to receive training at the Russian defence centres.

Pakistan and Russia signed an agreement on Tuesday at their first Joint Military Consultative Committee meeting in Rawalpindi during which the two sides discussed the present status of the bilateral defence relations and agreed that Pakistani troops will receive training at the Russian military training institutes.

The relations between Pakistan and the US nosedived this January after US President Donald Trump accused Islamabad of giving nothing to Washington but lies and deceit and providing safe haven to terrorists.

The US Congress also passed a bill to slash Pakistans defence aid to $150 million, significantly below the historic level of more than $1 billion per year.

The US military institutions are struggling to fill the 66 slots they had kept aside for officers from Pakistan for the next academic year, as the Trump administration refused to provide funds for their training, the Dawn newspaper reported, quoting official sources.

The fund for the training of Pakistani officers came from the US governments International Military Education and Training Programme but no funds were made available for Pakistan for the next academic year, it said.

The suspension of the training first became apparent when the US National Defence University in Washington, which has had reserved seats for Pakistani officers for more than a decade, told the outgoing Pakistani officers that the varsity has been asked to fill the positions for the next year with officers from other nations.

The NDU is one of several US military institutions that train officers from Pakistan.

The Trump administration had announced early this year that it was suspending security assistance to Pakistan over differences on Afghanistan but indicated that training programmes for military officers will continue.

The cancellation of slots kept aside for Pakistani officers, however, shows that the suspension now also applies to training programmes, the report said.

Pakistani officers have been receiving military training and education in the US since early 1960s, which were suspended in the 1990s but restored after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Previously, it was not just Pakistan that valued the training and education of its officers received in the US.

US military institutions also proudly owned training officers who assumed senior positions after returning home, such as former Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and Lt Gen Naveed Mukhtar, the current director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence, the report said.

This is an unfortunate and ultimately counterproductive decision. There are certainly ways to send a strong message to Pakistan, but this isnt the way to do it, Michael Kugelman, an expert of Pakistan affairs at the Washington think tank the Wilson Center, was quoted as saying in the report.

This move could squander what little goodwill and trust remains in the military-to-military relationship, and it reduces the likelihood that Pakistan will act in the ways that Washington would like it to act, Kugelman said.

He said there was a long history of educational and training cooperation between the US and Pakistani militaries, and this cooperation had withstood the pressures and tensions of the relationship.

The fact that these educational exchanges have suffered this blow now suggests that the relationship could be entering into a new phase where even the supposedly safe and protected dimensions of the relationship can become casualties of wider tensions and ill will, Kugelman said.

So far there is no response from Pakistani official to this move by the US.

Pakistans defence ties with Russia have moved past the bitter Cold War hostilities in recent years and the chill in the relations between Pakistan and the US has further pushed the country towards Russia and China.

Pakistan has shown eagerness to build military-to-military level ties with Russia.

Earlier this year, the then foreign minister Khawaja Asif visited Moscow during which the two sides agreed to set up a commission to boost military cooperation.

Russia has over the past three years provided four Mi-35M combat and cargo helicopters to Pakistan and the militaries of the two countries also held joint drills codenamed Friendship
After the wedding, Sheena and Mekhail did not meet again.

Four or five months later she met her death.

Mekhail referred to their last meeting without overt emotion, clear-eyed.

Vaihayasi Pande Daniel reports from the Sheena Bora trial.

Illustration: Uttam Ghosh/Rediff.com

It was not an unequal battle in court on Friday, August 10.

Not at all.

On the first day of Mekhail Upendra Kumar Bora's cross examination of his testimony against his mother by defence lawyer Sudeep Ratnamberdutt Pasbola, the young man performed quite well.

Indrani Mukerjea's son took the stand, to face her lawyer, wearing formal attire -- white shirt, dark trousers, polished black pointed shoes, snazzy belt -- and a black pen in his left pocket, neatly groomed.

He remained calm, collected and sharp-witted under the onslaught of exhaustive questions from the feisty lawyer in the hearing of the Sheena Bora murder trial at CBI Special Courtroom 51, at the Mumbai city civil and sessions court, Kala Ghoda, batting off most of Pasbola's sharp queries efficiently and capably, sometimes hitting a four, if not any flashy sixes.

From time to time Mikhail, 28, even left his crease, where he was batting defensively, to do a spot of bowling, tossing out a curved ball or two at the unsuspecting advocate.

But the hearing progressed almost too peacefully. There was nothing stormy or choppy about it.

The session began 45 minutes late, after a nine-day adjournment because Mekhail had been unable to appear, for lack of means in getting to Mumbai, even though CBI Special Judge Jayendra Chandrasen Jagdale had gently suggested he take a train.

On Friday the court patiently waited for Pasbola to arrive from Bhiwandi, 57 km north, where he was defending Congress President Rahul Gandhi in a defamation suit.

The accused were already in the rickety, dusty, aaropee box behind.

Indrani, her dark hair tumbling over her shoulder, a bright yellow bandhini dupatta swathed around the neck of her white kurta made a striking picture sitting between husband Peter Mukerjea and former husband businessman Sanjeev Khanna.

It is very easy to see why this case fetches so much attention.

How many courtrooms, that you might peep into, in the country features such a tableaux?

An attractive woman, still on the right side of 50, flanked by both an ex and soon-to-be ex-husband, all of them belonging to India's privileged top five per cent and all of them accused of the murder of her daughter in a trial where she is challenged by her son too.

Pasbola strolled in, not a hair out of place, at 3.30 pm and after he had got his bearings, was in conference with Indrani's lawyer Gunjan Mangla and Sanjeev's lawyer Niranjan Mundargi.

He then began to examine his notes, as Mekhail surreptitiously sized him up. You have to admire the agility with which the lawyer moves from one case to the next, changing gears smoothly, as he accelerates up.

He began by addressing Indrani's second born in English, "Mr Mekhail..." when Mekhail immediately and abruptly interrupted him and asked him to speak in Hindi.

The lawyer looked puzzled: "But didn't you study in an English-medium school?"

Mekhail: "English mein fluency nahin hai (I am not fluent in English)."

Pasbola: "Hindi mujhe nahin aayega (I won't know Hindi)," indicating he would find it easier to work in English, even if he was a Hindi speaker.

"Puree padhai English-medium mein hua? (Didn't all your education happen in English?)"

Judge Jagdale intervened smiling: "Let's not land up in a language dispute. It's a volatile issue in this country."

Pasbola then explained that he had reason to quibble with Mekhail about his proficiency in English.

Pasbola to Mekhail: "Arnab Goswami ko jaante ho? (Do you know Arnab Goswami?)"

Mekhail: "Nahin. Naam suna hai (No. I have heard his name)"

Pasbola tried again saying the anchor's name in a proper Assamese tone to Mekhail, "Aarnobe?"

Judge Jagdale, unsure: "That TV anchor?"

Pasbola with a twinkle in his eye: "Ha, actor hai (Yes, the actor)."

Pasbola to Mekhail: "Unhone aap ka interview kiya hai. Puch-taach, sawal-jawab (He interviewed you. Questions. Q and A)"

Mekhail: "Sawaal-jawab kiya. Mulakat nahin hua (He did a Q and A. Never met)."

Pasbola: "Puch-tach ek ghanta ke upar? (Questioning that went over an hour?)"

Mekhail agreed.

Pasbola: "Baat-chit hua English mein (The back and forth happened in English)."

Mekhail: "English mein hua (Happened in English)."

Pasbola: "Is ke alava aur bhi interview diya TV par? (Apart from this you gave other interviews on television?)"

Mekhail: "Ha (Yes)."

Pasbola: "Bahut saara English mein diya (Many of them and in English)."

Mekhail: "Ha, English mein diya (Yes, given in English)."

Pasbola: "Toh jawab diya soch samajh kar diya? (Did you give answers in those television interviews with some thought?)"

Mekhail: "The news of the murder had just broken. Hum kafi disturbed the. Jawaab idhar udhar ho sakta hai (I was very disturbed. The answers could have gone awry)."

Pasbola, instantly alert to what he was suggesting, asked if he was saying that his answers in those interviews were false.

Mekhail quickly: "Sach hai. Yeh nahin ki sach nahin hai. English mein pucha speed mein toh thoda confusion hua (They are true. It is not that they are not true. Asked in English quickly so some amount of confusion happened)."

Pasbola spent the next 15 minutes trying to ascertain Mekhail's educational qualifications and how and when they were achieved.

Pasbola: "Yeh jo aap Open University kiya 12th pass kaun sa saal mein kiya? (This Open University you did, in which year did you pass the 12th?)"

Mekhail smoothly: "Jhoota certificate tha. Indrani ne banaya (It was a false certificate. Indrani had it made)."

Judge Jagdale meanwhile had lost track of the Q and A and asked: "First standard??!" wondering why anyone would forge a certificate for passing the first standard.

A bit of laughter.

Pasbola to the judge: "12th standard!"

Indrani, at the back, looking like this was the first time she was hearing about having organised such a forgery, her face confused, raised both hands in puzzlement, distancing herself from Mekhail's accusation.

Pasbola: "Yeh jo jhoota certificate tha is ke basis mein aap management kiya? (On the basis of this false certificate you did your management?)"

Mekhail: "Ha, Sir."

Pasbola: "Management woh bhi forged hai? (The management degree, is that also forged?)"

Mekhail laconically: "Woh padha tha (That I studied)."

The lawyer asked that if his 12th certificate was forged why had he told the Khar police, north west Mumbai, who were initially handling the murder investigation, that he completed his 12th from the National Institute of Open Schooling.

Pasbola: "CBI ko bataya National Open University kiya (You told the CBI that you did the National Open University)."

Mekhail with pat, infallible logic: "Certificate mila. Toh complete hua (I got a certificate. So I have completed it)."

Pasbola looked at him for a moment startled, and then laughed heartily. He wondered why Mekhail had not mentioned the forgery before.

He also mused aloud why it did not come out in the testimony CBI Special Public Prosecutor Kavita Patil guided Mekhail through in late July.

Pasbola seemed like he was itching for a fight.

Before the tension could begin to rack up and time was wasted, the judge hastily interceded, raising a hand: "The examination is based on the questions put by the prosecution. Now I have not taken down how she took the questions!"

Pasbola rummaged into what else Mekhail had done in Delhi. It emerged he had worked at the Lufthansa airlines's call centre there.

Pasbola smiling broadly: "Wahan Hindi mein baat karte the? (And you spoke in Hindi there?)"

Mekhail unperturbed: "English phrase dete the bolne ke liye (They gave you a bunch of English phrases to answer the client with)."

Something about Mekhail's unwillingness to speak English had Pasbola's antennae up. It was a matter he would return to later for sure because it was not sitting right.

Pasbola: "Wahan kitna pagar milta tha? (What salary were you getting there?)"

Mekhail: "6,000-7,000."

Judge Jagdale dictated for the court record: "60,000-70,000."

Pasbola, mildly astonished, swiftly corrected him.

The lawyer then cut to Mekhail's return to Guwahati, his maternal grandmother's illness and Indrani's financial support of them.

Even if Mekhail never seemed to look at his mother, she often looked at him broodingly, moodily Friday, closely examining his face and listening carefully to what he said.

You could imagine that she was brimming with unspoken thoughts and emotions, that one would not get to hear. She wasn't really taking notes today and occasionally voiced a perhaps frustrated view to Peter.

Mekhail finished his course in hotel management in 2010. Mekhail said Indrani began supporting him and providing for all his and the family's expenses from 2005 through 2014, but Pasbola insisted it was from 2004 when he was in Class 9.

Mekhail stoutly declared Pasbola was wrong.

In 2014 his grandmother had a fall and Indrani instructed they admit her to the Guwahati Medical College Hospital and then later to the Guwahati International Hospital and that she would take care of the expenses.

Pasbola and Mekhail wrangled over the exact details of this and how expenses were paid for.

Mekhail disputed that Indrani had spoken to him directly about any of this and that she instead coordinated both the money and the decisions with his mama (uncle), Amitabh Hazarika.

The lawyer asked Mekhail why in his statement to the Khar police he said it differently -- that he had taken his grandmother to the Guwahati Medical College Hospital on Indrani's instructions.

Mekhail shrugged and added smartly: "Police ko puchiye (Ask the police that)."

Pasbola checked about his passport and the trip he took abroad.

In 2005 he said, he was not exactly sure of the year, he applied for a passport. He still had the passport, but it has expired. Pasbola asked if he could produce it in court. He said he could.

Pasbola: "Passport videsh jaane ke liye nikala. Gaye the? (The passport was made to go abroad. Did you go?)"

Mekhail: "Ek baar (Once)."

Pasbola: "Kitna din ka yatra kiya? (For how many days?)"

Mekhail: "15 din (15 days)."

Pasbola: "Akele gaye? (You went alone?)"

Mekhail: "Nani nana ke saath (With my maternal grandmother and grandfather)."

Pasbola: "Sheena bhi? (Sheena came too?)"

Mekhail: "Ha."

Pasbola: "Kaunsa saal? (What year?)"

Mekhail: "2006."

Pasbola: "Kahan-kahan gaye? (Where did you go?)"

Mekhail: "London aur (and) Europe tour."

Pasbola: "Yeh saare kharch Indrani ne kiya? (Indrani paid for the trip?)"

Mekhail: "Ha."

It was not clear why Pasbola was enquiring about the details of this trip. Perhaps it was an attempt to show that Indrani had been willing to spend money for her parents and her children from her first relationship with Siddhantha Das.

The Q and A turned to Mekhail's stint at the Bangalore International School after Class 10, where Indrani had admitted him after she regained contact with her children.

Pasbola asked if Mekhail knew what fees Indrani was paying and if most of the students were foreigners. And if the students dabbled with "ganja aur charas (marijuana and hashish)."

Pasbola: "Unka rahan-sahan ka standard ucha tha? (Their standard of living was higher?)"

Mekhail: "Ha sir."

Pasbola, purposefully, it seemed, choosing stinging words: "Aap ko inferiority complex feel hota tha?(You had an inferiority complex?)"

Mekhail, unperturbed, didn't dispute that. He did dispute that he had left the school or had been expelled or was stubbornly insistent about wanting to leave Bangalore International. "Request kiya (I requested)."

Pasbola refuted: "Jidh kiya (Stubbornly insisted)."

Mekhail, his manner always mildly brash: "Galat hai (That's wrong)."

Then began a lengthy, mildly bizarre, discussion about Mekhail's drinking habits. What he smoked. What he chewed.

A sharp distinction was made between alcohol and beer. Also between being offered alcohol and actually purchasing it.

Such a discussion rendered in Hindi became more colourful and fascinating.

Interesting too was Mekhail's exact memory for when he drank what, with whom.

Mekhail swore many times that he neither touched marijuana or cigarettes or even chewing tobacco.

Pasbola: "Yeh jo ladke the Bangalore International wahan bahut ganja charas peete the? (Those boys at Bangalore International smoked a lot of marijuana and hashish?)"

Mekhail: "Nahin maloom (I don't know)."

Pasbola: "Aap dusvee standard mein cigarette aur gutka lene laga. Aap ka aadat par gaya (In the 10th standard you started smoking and chewing tobacco. It became a habit)."

Mekhail in a level, steadfast voice: "Galat (Incorrect)."

Pasbola: "Aap gutka nahin khaate the? Cigarette nahin peete the? (You didn't chew tobacco? You didn't smoke cigarettes?)"

Mekhail: "Nahin. When I was studying never."

Pasbola laughed: "Daat, muh se dikhai de raha hai! (Can tell from your face and teeth!)"

Pasbola: "Charas aur ganja ka sutta nahin lagata the? (No puffs of marijuana or hashish?)"

Mekhail denied it, choosing that moment to fiddle with the pen in his shirt pocket, dust imaginary specks off his shirt and adjust the roll of one of his shirt sleeve.

Judge Jagdale looked baffled with the word sutta and looked at Pasbola: "Whether he has experienced it?"

Pasbola, his face mischievous: "Not me sir. Puffs. Puffs!"

Pabola wanted to know why he told the Khar police he had a tobacco habit.

Mekhail: "Paan khate the. Unse puchiya (I ate paan. Ask them)."

The lawyer attempted to confirm why he told the Khar police that the students dabbled in marijuana and hashish.

Pasbola: "Aise kyo likha? (Why is it written there?)"

Mekhail cockily: "Mere ko kya patta? (How would I know?)."

Pasbola: "Drinks kab se peete the? (When did you start drinking?)"

Mekhail: "Sochta hoon (Let me think)."

Pasbola: "Socho! (Think!)"

There was a moment of silence.

The judge looked up from his papers wondering what was going on.

Pasbola: "He is thinking."

Mekhail, after a lot of thought, offered: "First time Indrani ke saath beer piya 2006 mein (I first drank beer with Indrani in 2006)."

The statement had all the portent Mekhail perhaps intended, offering the image of a young boy having beer in India with his mother, who eventually killed his sister.

Judge Jagdale: "Alcohol?"

CBI Special Public Prosecutor Bharat Badami firmly: "Beer."

A discussion ensued between the difference between alcohol and beer.

Pasbola: "Alcohol ka matlab vodka, whiskey (Alcohol means vodka, whiskey)..."

Judge Jagdale weighed in: "More amount of alcohol."

Mekhail said he started having liquor on his own in 2011, although there was some confusion between when he started buying it himself and if that was more voluntary than having it at a social gathering or a pub, when it was offered to him.

Mekhail confessed to having exactly two pegs, once in a way. Daily? Never. Only "kabhi kabhi (sometimes)."

Judge Jagdale asked bewildered what the point of this discussion was and where it was headed. "It is permissible by the law."

Pasbola: "I am not saying he is doing something bad." Although the undertone of the entire discussion hinted that way exactly.

Pasbila indicated he had a purpose to this line of questioning.

Badami cheerily: "We are also not objecting!"

Judge Jagdale, beaming: "You are enjoying it."

Badami laughed hugely.

Pasbola, delving further, with zeal: "Drinks dost ke saath peete the? Akela? (You drank with friends? Alone?)"

Mekhail, matter-of-factly, carelessly, as if it did not mean much, with the insouciance of the younger generation teaching something to the more conservative older generation: "Dost ke saath. Kabhi akela (With friends. Alone sometimes)."

Pasbola asked how many times he had drank with Indrani after the beer episode and, apart from that, if he had ever drunk anything before 2011.

Mekhail remembered very precisely his "drinks" outings with Indrani -- beer in 2006, vodka in Mumbai in April 2012, the day Sheena was murdered and vodka with her in Guwahati in 2014.

Other than that he had not drunk before 2011.

He quickly revised his answer, reminding the court of the tequilas he had with Sanjeev Khanna at a Mumbai club. Pasbola and Mundargi snickered.

The rest of Friday's cross examination was about the several phone numbers Mekhail used and his last meeting with Sheena.

Pasbola kept reading out phone numbers to Mekhail and asked him to identify them. He identified all five or six of them.

Some were his Guwahati numbers, other were Delhi numbers.

Two belonged to his girlfriend Supriya Pathak, whose phone he would borrow.

One of the numbers was discontinued because he could not pay the bill.

His last meeting with Sheena occurred at the wedding they both attended of Sheena's buddy Sanjana Phukan in Guwahati in 2011.

Pasbola and Mekhail started to argue about the dates of the wedding.

Pasbola said it was November. Mekhail said it was December.

Pasbola wanted to know why he gave the Khar police the wrong information.

Mekhail getting worked up: "Woh photo abhi bhi Facebook par hai. Aap dekh sakte hai (That photograph is still up on Facebook. You can take a look )."

Judge Jagdale irritated: "We have a lot of cases. We don't have time to look at Facebook!'

Mekhail backtracked a bit and said the wedding was between November and December and he was not sure of the exact dates.

After the wedding, Sheena and Mekhail did not meet again.

It was his last meeting with his sister. Four or five months later she met her death.

Mekhail referred to it without overt emotion, clear-eyed.

They kept in touch on the telephone, he admitted, infrequently and on text and Facebook chat.

Pasbola: "Last Facebook chat kab hua tha Sheena ke saath? (When was your last chat with Sheena on Facebook?)"

Mekhail strangely did not have an answer: "Yaad nahin (Don't remember)."

Pasbola considered this, slightly mystified, and then asked if he had shown his Facebook chats with Sheena to the police and if they had asked about them.

Mekhail said he had not.

The next hearing was scheduled for August 13. Pasbola was hoping to have it set for August 14.

Judge Jagdale refused inflexibly. "You should stick to your promise."

The next 20 minutes were hectic. The accused held various rounds of consultations with their lawyers.

Sanjeev received a fresh stack of clothes from his Bengaluru cousin.

Peter ate his lunch with his sister Shangon Das Gupta, starting off with a salad this time, before diving into his favourite burger.

Indrani's family lawyer Edith Dey, who is following up on her divorce filings, circled the room waiting for Indrani to finish first with Pasbola, Mangla and then the CBI officer from Delhi who is working on the Karti Chidambaram case.

Earlier this week, Indrani filed a request for bail saying her life was in danger whilst she was in jail.

Dey needed Indrani's passport photograph for the divorce filing. Indrani didn't have any more pictures of herself.

Dey turned to Peter asking if he happened to have a picture of Indrani, the wife who was divorcing him.

Peter, taken aback, shrugged. He didn't have any. It was a strange request.

It was nearly 5.30 and the clerks were ready to close up Courtroom 51. They ordered everyone to finish up.

The police bustled everyone out and back to jail.

Mekhail had departed long before that.
Setting the tone of his party's West Bengal poll campaign next year, BJP president Amit Shah on Saturday launched a blistering attack on Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on the NRC issue, while warning her not to hinder Hindu religious celebrations.

In an aggressive speech at a rally organised by the party's youth wing, Shah dwelt at length on infiltration from Bangladesh and made a clear distinction between the infiltrators and refugees -- minority Hindus, Christians and Buddhists from Muslim majority Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh.



While the infiltrators needed to be "identified", it was the "responsibility" of the BJP government at the Centre to ensure refugees can stay back in India, he said.





He gave a call to uproot the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government, and made a veiled reference to her nephew and MP Abhishek Banerjee as he charged the state's ruling party with involvement in a series of corruption cases, besides destroying the law and order situation in the state.



Accusing Gandhi of not taking a clear stand on the recently published draft of the National Register for Citizens (NRC) in Assam for the sake of vote-bank politics, Shah asserted that his party was committed to completing the registration process to identify infiltrators.



"Mamata Di, NRC will not stop just because of your opposition. You are free to oppose. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is free to oppose. But it is our commitment that we will complete NRC in Assam, by following the due process of law, and identify all infiltrators one by one," Shah said at a rally here.



Banerjee has been strident in her criticism of the NRC after 40 lakh people did not find a place in the document published on July 30.



Asking Gandhi to spell out his stand on NRC, Shah pointed out that the work on the document was being done as per the Assam accord which was signed by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi - Rahul Gandhi's father - in 1985.



"Now for vote-bank politics, Rahul Gandhi is not taking a clear stand," Shah said at the rally organised on Mayo Road in the heart of the city.



Virtually throwing a challenge to Gandhi and Banerjee, Shah said they should clarify their priority -- country's security or votebank politics.



Reminding Banerjee that in 2005 she had thrown papers at then Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and stalled the House demanding removal of Bangladeshi infiltrators, Shah said she has changed her stance as the infiltrators now vote for her Trinamool.



Unlike other state BJP leaders, Shah did not talk of bringing out an NRC in Bengal, but said the state would not be in fine fettle if infiltration - 'rampant' during Banerjee's rule - was not stopped.



"And the best way to stop infiltration is NRC. So, the NRC process in Assam has to be completed," he said.



Shah also charged Banerjee with spreading "misinformation" in Bengal that along with infiltrators, refugees will also be driven out of India because of the NRC.



"I assure all refugees in Bengal that the BJP government is bringing the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016. This Bill has the provision to give citizenship to Christians, Buddhists and Hindu refugees who have come from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. There are no plans to send any refugee back."



Shah asked the two opposition parties to speak out before the general election whether they would back the legislation in Parliament.



Ridiculing the critics of NRC who have expressed concern about human rights of infiltrators, Shah wondered whether the Congress and the Trinamool were "not bothered" about the "human rights of the Hindus and Muslims of West Bengal".



Playing the Hindu card, Shah warned Banerjee not to create hurdles in Durga idol immersion or the Saraswati worship in the state, saying his party activists will "bring down Banerjee's secretariat brick by brick" if such things ever recurred.



The Durga Puja immersion processions were delayed over the past few years in certain parts of Bengal as Muharram rallies coincided with the immersion of idols.



Shah said he would tour all districts in Bengal and start an agitation to throw out the Trinamool Congress.



Describing the BJP as the only party capable of ushering in progress in the state, Shah said : "Since the Trinamool Congress government came to power, there has been a series of corruption (cases) starting from the Narada scandal, Saradha and Rose valley ponzi scams... syndicates and the unlawful activities of cattle mafia and coal mafia."



On the issue of graft, Shah indirectly referred to Abhishek, widely regarded as her prospective successor.



"During the 14th finance commission, the Narendra Modi government allotted Rs. 3,59000 crore to Bengal as compared to Rs. 1.32,000 crore given by the UPA government during the previous finance commission. Where did all the money go? Did it disappear in the pockets of syndicates and the nephew?" Shah questioned.



He also urged the people of Bengal to ensure the BJP won 22-plus Lok Sabha seats in Bengal in 2019.
To add value to an already thriving filtered water market in Samoa is Pure Pacific Water.

Established in June, 2018, Directors Lucky Seumanu and Neal Stephens, who complement each others skills in water filtration, specifically plumbed-in water coolers, hope to provide an alternative efficient water cooling system to the people of Samoa.

The first service of its kind in Samoa, Pure Pacific Water brought a fully serviced plumbed-in water cooler option, which operates without the use of a bottle, an option that the majority of the world has had for years.

Every other water cooler on the island, they provide a water cooler with a bottle on top, we dont provide a water cooler, Mr. Stephens told the Business team.

Over recent years, the Samoan Water Authority has made tremendous strides in providing quality mains water supply to 85 percent of homes and businesses on the island.

A plumbed-in water cooler takes advantage of this by filtering and chilling the already treated water.

Mr. Seumanu, who has always wanted to move back to Samoa from Australia, said over the past 10 years hes been visiting Samoa with his wife to look for opportunities, which is why he persuaded Neal to join him on a commercial adventure.

I worked for a company in the United Kingdom for about 15 years and we acquired some businesses in Australia about five years ago, so I volunteered to go work in our company in Australia, so thats where we met Lucky in Brisbane, doing the same work weve brought here, Mr. Stephens said.

There are good options available for the domestic market, where people and families everywhere want access to filtered water without plastic bottles.

He said since the establishment of their business, their list of clientele is building up.

This includes assisting the much publicised Saletoga Sands Resort to go plastic free as well as Scalinis & Paddles restaurants."

Customers pay a fixed monthly cost and the business partners carry out all installations and maintenance, which is all included in the fixed monthly cost.

Mr. Seumanu said they hope to expand their business to other Pacific Islands.

To know more about their business email [email protected]
Australia has granted Samoa A$4.1 million (T$7.8 m) to fund a new radio transmission tower to replace the Radio 2AP transmission tower.

The project is a partnership between the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.

Australias Minister of Foreign Affairs, Julie Bishop, announced the funding in Samoa. She said radio communications are the most important form of technology for this disaster-prone region.

One of the first casualties in a natural disaster is the communication and connectivity that gives people hope and enables people to contact their loved ones, she said.

Radio 2AP transmission tower was built in 1948, and is primarily responsible for informing Samoans when natural or national disasters occur.

The station also broadcasts in American Samoa, the Cook Islands and Tokelau.

Its time to upgrade to ensure Radio 2AP can continue to provide essential services and keep people informed.

Prime Minister Tuilaepa Dr. Sailele Malielegaoi said it was fitting for Australia to assist Samoa as it was Australia who built the current mast and radio transmission tower in 1990, after Samoa was hit by Cyclone Ofa.

The launch of the transmission today is historical to our Government and people, Tuilaepa said.

Samoa Radio 2AP is a governments arm and a key communication to inform everyone and every part in Samoa while also reaching out to our American Samoa and Tokelau. The broadcasting power of radio 2AP come significantly important whenever Samoa is struck with devastating effects from any natural disasters.

Natural disasters are now referred to by many experts as the worst form of terrorism category 5 Cyclone can usually result in loss of many lives Psychological depression damages to whole infrastructure government facilities and services and a whole lot more.

So the urgency of the Government is to inform everyone before during and after a cyclone depends very much on the Ministry via the radio 2AP. Radio 2AP on the other hand depends on the strong and solid transmission tower to transmit broadcast to every home and everywhere in Samoa.

That is why over the recent years the Government has making negotiations and seeking financial and experts assistance from the regional and global development partners for demolition and to construct a new transmission mast which will be able to reach out to every corner of our country. Government of Australia has kindly responded to our request for assistance.
The women of Savaii are hosting a Nofotane Market for Fathers Day at the Salelologa Market today.

Following the official closing of the Nofotane Project late July, the nofotane empowered women continued in their new role as breadwinners for their families.

And what better day to show their husbands that they are there to support, to help, and to care, other than on Fathers Day.

The colorful products on sale at the market attest to the empowered nofotane womens innovative and creativity.

It highlighted women with improved self-esteem as they rise up to support their husbands and their families through the work of their hands.

Fouvale Moafanua, a 70-year-old nofotane woman of Faletagaloa Safune, is selling different products that she has printed, sewn and woven.

This business is now assisting me in raising my children, paying for their school fees, and all things needed for my family, she said.

For so long, I have wanted to be a part of Samoa Victim Support Group to help others, but little did I know that I will be empowered through the nofotane programme and become one of the programmes beneficiaries. Thank you S.V.S.G. for being a great help to our people.

S.V.S.G. President Siliniu Lina Chang and some of the staff are in Savaii to support the Nofotane Womens Fathers Day Market.

For our community in Savaii, please visit the nofotane entrepreneur at the Salelologa Market, buy their products and support their new business ventures, as part of their gifts to their husbands and families for Fathers Day, said Siliniu.
And so all is well that ends well.

With Samoa having once again successfully hosted the Pacific Island Forum Foreign Ministers Meeting last week, the Ministers and their high level delegations are making their way back to their home countries with many wonderful memories.

You see one nice thing about Apia is that over the years it has become a very popular destination for regional meetings, seminars and all sorts of business meetings.

And with Samoa currently chairing the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat, its one of the perks, recognition perhaps of this country for being politically stable, not to mention economic and social achievements.

Which are things to be proud of. Who wouldnt, especially if you are Samoan?

But then all good things come to an end. Now back in their homes, visitors to this country will no doubt be telling their friends, families and colleagues about the wonderful time they had in Samoa.

Although a lot of it for our friends last week would have been here for official business, there would have been some time to enjoy the simple pleasures that Samoa had to offer, our world famous Samoan hospitality for instance.

Come to think of it, during the past few days, this country hosted some pretty high profile visitors. There was Australias Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, New Zealands Deputy Prime Minister, Vaovasamanaia Winston Peters, President of Nauru, Baron Waqa, Prime Minister of Tonga, Akilisi Pohiva, Prime Minister of the Cook Islands, Henry Puna and many more.

And judging from what they have been saying, Samoa has once again outdone herself in terms of hosting. But then there are no surprises there, we are naturally hospitable people and we love the opportunity to roll out the red carpet for everyone.

But now that it is all over our visitors have returned to where they truly belong. Samoa has done her part in trying to address the regional and some of the global challenges we face in the Pacific.

Today, when we find ourselves sitting down to reflect, we see that here in Samoa we have our own challenges.

That said, it must be acknowledged that Samoa has come a long way.

As a people and a nation, we have a lot to thank our forefathers. With their God-given wisdom, they navigated the unknown, cracked mysteries only science and experts can explain these days and did so many things the mind can only marvel about.

They were visionaries and courageous leaders who pioneered the way forward through the difficult times to establish the platform upon which we enjoy Samoa as it is.

As guardians and custodians of this land, culture, language, vision and wisdom, it is our moral duty to take care of it so we can pass it down to the next generation.

That is our calling, our God-ordained purpose. Indeed, we are the guardians and custodians of this slice of paradise.

On this Sunday, Samoa is celebrating Fathers day. It is a day that means different things to different people.

Whatever it means to you, we want you to think about the future of this country. We want you to think about your children, my children and the Samoa they would inherit from us.

We want to bless them and leave them with a legacy they can be proud of.

We do not want our children, their children and their childrens children to grow up to beg with an insurmountable amount of foreign debt hanging over their heads, and consequently find themselves second-class citizens in their own country.

There is no denying the fact the leaders of both the past and today have played a major role in the development of Samoa and for that, we will forever be grateful.

But lets be honest with ourselves also because the facts are there for all to see and they are glaringly alarming. The Government has changed so much in Samoa that our forefathers who shed their blood and fought for our independence would probably not even recognise what has become of our Constitution today.

Weve seen constitutional changes being made to anything and everything at the whim of a very powerful political machine. From Parliament, villages, families all the way to the Head of State. The poor Constitution has been amended so many times its sacredness is undermined.

The latest one is by far the most serious one of them all.

It involves the decision by Prime Minister Tuilaepas administration to tax the alofa of the Church Ministers who live off the generosity and goodness of our peoples hearts. Today in Samoa, we have two of the biggest pillars in this country at loggerheads over the issue. None of them appear to be budging, which means this confrontation will only escalate and get ugly.

Now lets think about faaaloalo and ava fatafata. In ancient Samoa, whenever a village plans a journey that would require them to travel to or through another village, one of the first things they would want to know is the location of the fale tapu (sacred house). The fale tapu was often the house of a senior orator or a paramount chief. It existed as a house of refuge. If anything were to happen during the journey to the travelling party, once they seek refuge at the fale tapu, they are safe.

When Samoa accepted Christianity, that fale tapu became the Church Ministers house. It is a house that is meant to be respected because Church Ministers are revered; it is no accident that they are referred to as ao faalupega in Samoan.

What has changed? What has happened today? How did we reach this point?

When you have a ruling administration that has been so ruthless in action and language, showing absolutely no respect and regard for Samoas fale tapu today, what does that tell us about the faaaloalo and ava fatafata.

What message are we sending out to the future generations of this country?

And will anyone find refuge anywhere anymore now that the fale tapu of today has been so callously disrespected?

This is a question for all the fathers of Samoa today.

Happy Fathers Day Samoa, God bless!
Dear Editor,

Well madam Wendy, on second thoughts towards your unbelieving views, reminds me The Parable of the Weeds Among the Wheat our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ spoke of on one incident as recorded by Mathews Gospel; 13:24-30, with its main message was to be patience and maintain preaching on repentance.

And seeing you wish on saving a person does sounds our aim are not that much far apart, hope we are aiming the same direction instead of the opposite, dont you agree.

I must say am glad you did not feel offended by my reluctant resident reference for I had meant well i.e. creating a relationship instead of the opposite. And just as God respects our FREEWIL to choose which includes our expression of mind makes me wonder whether you can see yourself following our Gods will, or is it just me and my wishful mind, hehehe?

Anyhow believe it or not, I can relate to your observation and suggestion that it is better for people to embrace their own myth -to an extent.

Simply because I believe, before the missionarys arrived our shores our forefathers had already embraced our Peaceful and Tranquility Samoan Way of life where I refer to as Abrahamic culture same one directed by the trinity God himself when He calls Abraham to lead his village.

And talking Constitutions, you sounded like an honorable Judge knowing for certain what is stupidly wrong. Whereas to me, arguably our Nation Constitution is the most important Document to us all its Citizens so as other Nations even the set-up organization with in a Nation. And as time evolves thru generation so is the need to change as its concern leaders see it fit, from time to time.

Classic example, Christian State Bill 2016 notion. Actually the idea had been discussed and proposed for a change on to the Government by the National Council of Churches during its 2002 Annual General meeting. Coincidently T. Sailele Malielegaoi (Right Honorable Mr. Prime Minister) had attended it on his capacity as a Lay-preacher and he did receive it wholeheartedly with an open mind. As usual political protocol the Notion had mandated the 2010 Commission of Enquiry -where represented by 100% Reverends. Unfortunate they had incorrectly ruled against its necessity.

Such necessity had T. Sailele Malielegaoi and his Parliamentary group -current seating, corrected it. Honoring their Parental obligation onto our Nations resident even non-resident citizens betterment. Same goes with the LTRA 2008 Bill allowing the actively organized village council chiefs represented by various families Sao and their Aiga potopoto opportunity to utilize their useful and available land for their village and family members betterment. Definitely Wendy in Wonder, you and your non-believer group are welcome to join Christianity Notion anytime at your own pace. And most certainly we are not imposing it as our Lord God does not approve for us doing so instead of Patient and maintain preaching on repentance.

It is sad to note the poor souls whom make themselves believe that they are poor, as pointed out by Mr. John -our friend from afar, tarnishing our Tranquility Samoan way of life. Most definitely if such people had chosen to attached with their pertained Aiga Potopoto and relevant villages instead of being independent they would not be in such a situation.

Anyhow I second Mr. Johns compliment on to us all who willingly spend our time sharing ideas on this forum hoping for the betterment of our people. And may I suggest we do it with Love and Patient then certainly our efforts will not be in vain. Unlike Tofaeono Misatauveve Iosefo Joseph Hollywood recent piece towards poor Mr. Hamilton where sounded too harsh and can imagine it result to added harshness, dont you agree Mr. Hollywood?

Together with works as per our Dear Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ where no doubt Mr. Prime Minster and his Cabinet trying efforts even us Matais with our Godly obligation towards our family and villages participating Village council regular/monthly meetings instead of just gets honoured with a Matai and then disappear afar do nothing.

About this time last year Sunday week celebrating Fathers of Samoa I posed a question on to us Matais whether we be determine to stay around like headless chickens for certainly if our divided Reverend brother focus is aimless then it is our moral obligation to help them straighten up mainly for the betterment of our family and village members.

Have faith in our TRINITY God promised of being with us until the end of times for he had remained faithful with his claim within His established Church under the protection of the Holy Spirit Gods 3rd Personification.

Pauls letter to the EPHISIANS; 4:305:2 the second reading of today Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time honouring our Nations Fathers reads: Brothers and sisters: Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with which you were sealed for the day of redemption. All bitterness, fury, anger, shouting, and reviling must be removed from you, along with all malice. And be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving one another as God has forgiven you in Christ. So be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and handed himself over for us as a sacrificial offering to God for a fragrant aroma.

Wishing our Nations Fathers a Peaceful and Happy Fathers Day to you all!

Until next time we meet again,

Atalii fanau le au o le Talalelei

Leoo Muaimalae M.M.M.F. Pius
Prime Minister Tuilaepa Dr. Sailele Malielegaoi has acknowledged with grattitude Australias contribution to the development of Samoa.

Tuilaepa offered the acknowledgement during the visit by Australias Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop.

Among her official engagements was the unveiling of a Time Capsule to be buried at the Parliament building. The time capsule contains official memorabilia related to the construction of the new Maota Fono to be opened when the building is to be demolished for reconstruction.

This occasion continues to demonstrate the close and long standing partnership between Samoa and Australia, Tuilaepa said.

In saying that I acknowledge with great gratitude the immense contribution by Australia to Samoas development goals and its strong collaborative efforts to ensuring ongoing and improved access for the people of Samoa to parliamentary process.

Speaking about the Time Capsule, Tuilaepa said: In respect of our own Samoa tradition a Time Capsule is buried at the cornerstone during the laying of the foundation of a new building and to be dug up only when a building is demolished for reconstruction.

The Time Capsule would contain the names of all those who were involved in the planning design and the construction of a building.

Similarly this Time Capsule would contain a group photo of all who were gathered here today. A collection of memorabilia to be kept inside this capsule will be sealed up when the construction of the building is completed and the building is commissioned for use this year.

The Prime Minister added that he was delighted by the announcement that Australia will fund the design and reconstruction of the Office of the Legislative Assembly.

Today we are grateful to the Government of Australia for their favorable response to a request to fund the reconstruction of the Legislative Assembly office to support the new Parliament building.

The Master Plan for the Redevelopment of the Parliament complex formulate in 2012 considered the demolition of the old Legislative Assembly Office in 2015.

This year, the Government of Australia funded a Scoping Study for the Legislative Assembly offices based on onsite investigations and extensive consultations with the Parliament offices.

Indeed even as we look back and appreciate how far we have come over the last 56 years, the Parliament of Samoa must continue to remain forward looking and pray Gods blessings on the successful completion of the remaining construction works.

Prime Minister Tuilaepa presented Ms. Bishop with a gift as a gesture of Samoas appreciation for the generosity of Australias Government.
Lealiiee Rudy Ott donates $105,000 to charities

Successful business man, Lealiiee Rudy Ott, is not one for pomp and fanfare.

But he is a hard working man with a heart to give to charity.

And so it comes as no surprise that after he celebrated his 80th birthday last week, he decided to donate all the money given to him as gifts to seven different charities, making this Fathers Day one of the best ever for the recipients.

Leaali'ie'e divided the $105,000 among the Little Sisters of the Poor of the Poor at Mapuifagalele, Catholic Education Board, Carmelite Sisters, Aoga Fiamalamalama, Loto Taumafai, Senese and the Samoa Cancer Society.

The presentation was short and simple.

He presented the cheques in his office; a modest space filled with rows of family pictures, proud displays of his grand childrens academic achievements and a few of his grandchildrens scattered toy trucks. These show another side of the astute business man who is also a very proud and doting grandfather.

As he was giving out donations, Leaali'ie'e told the Sunday Samoan that when it is one's turn to be called by the good Lord, theres no point in holding on to things because you cant take them with you.

Be humble, he said. Thats a teaching I take away from my faith and its something that motivates me to work hard and to give.

I am a very devoted Catholic and I practice my religion, its the reason why most of the charities receiving money today are Catholic. At Mapuifagalele, no one can do what the Sisters of the Poor do for our elderly and thats why I give them the biggest amount. They received $40,000.

As a revered father figure in the Ott family, Leaali'ie'e says it is a big motivating factor for him to work hard so that he could look after his family for generations to come.

Ask what advice he has imparted to his children and grandchildren, many of whom are successful business people today, and he says: The only advice I have is if you want to do or achieve something, there are no shortcuts to anything.

The most important thing is to be honest with your work. I have seen a lot of people who got successful and rise in a very short time. But I see them now, theyre all gone because I knew at the time they went too fast.

Leaali'ie'e learnt this lesson early on in his life from his very first business mentor, his mother, Lily Apollonia Achatz Lober.

Recounting a funny story about how his mother both helped him get started on his business journey as well as teach him a valuable lesson that has stayed with him for life, he said: I bought my first taxi when I was 20 years old.

It was a car I had seen at church and I fell in love with the car so I told my mum I really want that car but I dont have the money. Two days later, she said to me that I can go pick up the car because she had arranged with George Hazelman that I could pay back the car slowly.

I said to mama, faafetai lou alofa. I was still working for the government at the time so I drive the taxi at night time to make my repayments and I paid it off slowly.

When Leaali'ie'e finished repaying the car and asked Mr. Hazelman for the receipts, he will never forget the mans answer, after a few days of avoiding his request.

George Hazelman told me the truth and he said my mother already came to him and paid in cash for the car on day one, he laughed.

She made an arrangement with George not to tell me because she wanted to see if I was an honest young man and pay back his financial commitment.

Every time I paid George, my mother would go and pick up the money. And that was how I started.

These are lessons Lealiiee has passed down to his children.

Daughter Marlene Westerlund said her father taught her and all of her siblings to first be humble, honest and live within your means.

Growing up with a father who gave her a world-class business education that cannot be found in a university classroom, Marlene says her father taught them that the value of being street smart was just as valuable if not more important than being book smart.

I always say to my children, a lot of them are educated right now and got degrees, that one thing they dont have is experience because I dont have the education that you have but the experience I have is something that you cant buy. I can probably buy a degree if I wanted to.

Leaali'ie'e smiles.

The one thing youve got to have in life is you have to be very cunning. Nobody can fool me  Ive been through the mill. Whenever anyone talks to me I can read their brain.

Street smart and extraordinarily bright, Leaali'ie'e is described by his daughter as one who is not afraid to take calculated risks. It is one of the reasons why he is successful, telling the story of how he started his bus company in the 1960s with a $500 pound loan from the bank. He invested the money, following a long time passion of motor cars and trucks.

His transport company was very successful and he dominated the town area in Samoa for many years until he took another risk in the 1980s.

At the time, his bus company started to slow down in business Leaali'ie'e hired a financial consultant to assess his company. He received advice that led to him establishing Ott Construction, which made him the wealthy man he is today.

After looking at our books and operations, he said to me Leali'iee, sell all your buses now - this is the time to sell them all and just concentrate on your few trucks and machines that you have right now, that will go a long way.

I said to him at the time, this is going to break me but he told to take the risk because there was a future in what I could do with the trucks and machines.

And the rest as they would say is history.

This Fathers day, Leali'iee is looking forward to indulging in family time especially with his grandchildren. He is proud to report that some are showing signs of sharing his passion for trucks and cars.

I think its always been in me, Ive always loved my trucks and motor cars, he said. I think the reason why I am successful at what I do is I have a very great passion for cars and if I didnt have that passion I would have left the business years ago.

Even though Im getting old Im still interested in looking at machines and cars where ever I go. The funny this is my grandson is doing the same thing. Hes only two years old but every day he is excavating with his toy trucks in my office.

My office is full of his trucks so when people come in to see me they must be thinking, what the heck is going on, is this a toy room?

I havent just been blessed with a successful business but all my grandchildren are a blessing. My hope is they continue with what they want in life.




The Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Lopaoo Natanielu Mua, has defended the decision to prioritise commercial farmers in the distribution of the Israel banana variety.

The Minister was asked for a comment following concerns by small-scale farmers, who say they are finding it hard to obtain some of the banana suckers because the priority is given to the rich and bigger commercial farmers.

Among them are prominent businessmen, Taimalie Charlie Westerlund and Ututaaloga Charlie Ulia.

Weve given 2,000 to Ah Liki, 2,000 to Ulia and 2,000 to the village of Magiagi because they were the main suppliers of bananas to the market and they were affected by Cyclone Gita, Lopaoo said.

We gave 1,800 to the Ministry for our tissue culture lab so that we can produce more bananas.

The Minister said he accepts that some farmers will think that I am being unfair.

The reality is that I cannot please everyone. Like that saying, you can please some people some of the time but you cant please everybody all the time.

I want everybody to succeed but I must also make sure that the objectives of the export drive are met and I trust my views and the only way to achieve it is to do what we are doing right now.

The Minister added that without those farmers who are prepared to put a major investment into our banana exports, this whole thing will collapse.

I see the commitment of the big players and I always say the tide raises all ships. When the big guys are able to start the exports and the market grows and thats when the small holder farmers can bring in their bananas as well.

During an interview with the Sunday Samoan, Minister Lopaoo pointed to an earlier shipment of Israel bananas where he said small-holder farmers were unable to keep up with the expense of maintaining and sustaining banana export plantations.

The first export shipment to New Zealand is scheduled for September October and the Minister emphasized his objective to see our export drive succeed which includes pushing and prioritizing the large holder banana farmers to lead in the first phase

My objective is to push the exports and I want to the exports to be sustainable, he said. But the bananas we have is not enough to sustain a continual supply for export which is why we are actually trying to push certain farmers with abilities to get the banana base going expanding quickly.

This is my belief and my objective which may provide conflict but I am going to push my agenda so it will work but everyone will get bananas  its going to be a slow process. These Israel bananas are for export and we are trying to develop our exports to a level that will be sustainable.

The high standards expected from New Zealand quarantine are an added expense for banana export farmers. If we give out 100 bananas here and there, its not going to work and no one is going to make any money on 100 bananas because you have to have all the equipment, you need workers, you need to inject the tree, you need fertilizer, you need the machine to spray the crops  its very expensive. 

The Minister attended the Banana Growers Association meeting held earlier in the week and addressed the members concerns around the distribution of the current shipment of export bananas.

To export a container we need no less than 15,000 bunches of bananas and even the some of the bunches of bananas we dont use all of it because they cannot be exported so we actually need more than 15,000, he said.

I would like to see three farmers have 15,000 bunches of banana each to be able to sustain the supply of exporting bananas and the other farmers are slowly being developed -Everybody will get there but I want to get this thing started before I finish this term hence why I need to push it so far.

The banana association may think the way we are distributing is very unfair but some of the members of the banana association have never had a banana plantation before and thats a fact. 

Its a good thing that they are interested in it but I just want to make sure that we have enough bananas for exporting and we are able to maintain and sustain that. If we want a part of that banana market in New Zealand we need a consistent supply and they will not relinquish their present supply for an exporter that hasnt got enough supply.

According to the Minister the most recent shipment of Israel bananas is being prioritized to those banana farmers who suffered damages during Cyclone Gita.

The banana suckers have not been distributed yet as they are currently going through a nursing period at M.A.F nurseries. He added that the Banana Association will receive around 8 thousand banana suckers to distribute amongst themselves.

Attempts to get comments from Taimalie and Ututaaloga were unsuccessful.

But the concerns have apparently created frictions between the Banana Growers Association and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.

The President of the Banana Growers Association and former Cabinet Minister, Tuisugaletaua Sofara Aveau, downplayed the frictions.

The Association is going well and I am trying to hold it together, Tuisugaletaua told the Sunday Samoan.

The Minister is also helping us by taking our issues to Cabinet if need be so we rely on him. We invite Lopaoo to all our meetings and when he attends, its like any normal meeting and I dont see any difficulties. The Minister can shout and all the members are free to shout too because everyone is entitled to their opinion  theres nothing unusual about that and if someone translates it into something else I dont understand.

The Minister has his own opinion about things and our association has ours on how things should be done. So obviously we cant be all on the same page on every issue.

Tuisuga says that current shipment has not been distributed yet and they are still trying to organize memberships before they confirm distribution but that the association is aware that they have to meet certain conditions before they receive the suckers.

The President explained that the cost in maintaining a banana plantation for export cannot be less than $8000 tala per one acre.

A lot people do wish to have bananas but not all can prepare them properly on their lands thats the thing we have to be careful about because the bananas are very expensive, he said.

The government is providing the funds to pay for the shipment so we have to be very careful with the distribution otherwise the government might not give us anymore help in organizing the shipment of Israeli bananas from South Africa, thats why we have to do inspections and we go with the ministry officers to check. If the farmer is not up to standard they wont get the bananas because its a waste of resources.

Together with the Ministry, we distributed the first shipment this year in April to all the members of the Banana Association according to the provisions that had already been made and thats the basis and the only viable basis to distribute the bananas is when your land is ready and you do all the requirements that are in the booklets, the guide which we already distributed to our members which they follow to the book.

Asked whether it was fair to the small farmers that the larger commercial farmers were receiving a significant amount of the banana consignment and Tuisuga replied: The first shipment was by Ah Liki himself, he bought and paid for it all.

When the first shipment of our bananas came in February, the ones distributed in April he gladly offered not to be given any bananas and allowed the members to have some so that we can have bigger numbers so he opted out of receiving any in the last shipment.

He was very kind to do that because he already has huge numbers of bananas that he bought himself from South Africa so thats why he didnt take anything from the Association.

This time, this shipment that arrived in June which has not been distributed yet because they have to go through an incubation period. We are still working on how we are going to distribute it and Ah Liki will receive a share of it because its only fair that he receives some this time.

Tuisuga said most of the farmers who received that shipment are doing very well with the exception of some who are a little bit behind because of challenges with management.

For export standards youve got to raise it much higher, the quality of the bananas and what you do with them and if the farmer doesnt sustain that management requirement then the growth of the bananas will fall back so thats basically what we are trying to do.

The Banana Association has been around for less than a year.

Tuisuga also clarified the confusion around the membership fees and what members can expect.

The $100 tala fee is being confused - its for member registration fees not necessarily for any bananas to be received so they are confusing the two issues.

The distribution of bananas has nothing to do with that. With the membership fees we have collected we have bought some equipment, which will be available to the members to use on their banana farms.

Tuisuga acknowledges that it would be ideal if there was equal distribution but suggests that members be patient as they all work to push a sustainable export drive of bananas.

Be patient, because when other receive the bananas we have it in our Constitution that we share the suckers to our members giving them the priority to obtain some before they can distribute to others outside the association.

If you dont get enough now, just be patient and wait for the others to have the suckers be distributed to them so then the resource becomes more available in significant numbers.
Prominent lawyer Unasa Iuni Sapolu is the leader of the Samoa First Political Party (S.F.P.P.).

She was previously the legal counsel for the Samoa Solidarity International Group Global Initiative and visited villages to raise awareness on issues affecting ordinary citizens. But it was in the villages, says Unasa, where people came forward to sign a petition requesting she and her colleagues establish a political party.

And due to popular demand people personally requested and signed a petition allowing the registration of the Samoa First Political Party, with the Election Commission Officer.

Who are we to deny the demand voted by the majority of members of the public we encountered during our educational programs in the villages, she added.

The lawyer was later voted the party leader after the establishment of the S.F.P.P. and the party machinery is currently in the process of producing its manifesto and collating data on issues that affect Samoans.

As of now, we are going through the process of formulating our manifesto and gathering information on the issues that affects our people on the daily basis, such as the debts, the leasing of customary land, the high cost of living to name a few.

To date more than people 200 who have signed our manifesto for the general election upcoming, she added.

Unasa said they plan to launch a website soon to enable the public to access more information on the mandate and purpose of the party.

We take in numerous concerns from the people who have signed on and we take note of their concerns and we also look to the media and conduct further research on our own, of what is being reported, such as the huge debts we owe and these are the issues we intend to address as a party.

The partys board has 10 members with most of them Samoans who previously lived abroad and according to Unasa enjoyed the fruits of democracy without barriers.

Unlike Samoa, we are operating under a one-party governance and that is not a healthy. We need a variety of parties to have a healthy governance Government.

We are in the age information, where numerous of our youth are well informed and they are very innovative in terms of brainstorming and making the plans for the future, she added.

But a lot of work needs to be done to get more women to enter politics, says Unasa, and youth should not fall for cash and alcohol during the voting period.

We want to encourage more women to get involved in the political arena as it is a place for every one. Also we want to conduct seminars on how the youth needs to overcome the enticement of voting with cash and alcohol in the villages as its an issue.

The Chiefs in the village councils at time of consultations indicated their surprised with their constituents in the turn out of the vote and to find out later its the young voters who have been bribed with money and alcohol.

The party secretary is Feagaimaalii Toomalatai-Uta'ile'uo and the treasurer Sa'u Autaloto Brown. Feagaimaalii besides being the party secretary is a founding member of the party.
A woman who appeared to be overly intoxicated drove her grey SUV and crashed into a white sedan on Friday night at the intersection in Matautu.

The sedan was driven by a male in his 30s, who later complained about glass from the smashed windshield piercing his arms and face.

Eye witness, Peni Langkilde, told the Sunday Samoan at the scene of the accident that the SUV was speeding and took a sharp left turn, consequently crashing into the oncoming sedan. The sedans windshield came off at the impact of the collision.

The Ministry of Police has in recent weeks conducted road blocks and appealed to motorists who consume alcohol to use a sober driver or catch a taxi home.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP)  Members of Israel's Arab minority led a mass protest in central Tel Aviv on Saturday night against a contentious new law that critics say marginalizes the state's non-Jewish citizens.

The rally marked further fallout from the explosive Nation-State law and came a week after thousands of Druze, also members of the Arab minority, packed the same city square last week.

Israel's 1948 declaration of independence defined the country as a Jewish and democratic state and the government says the recently passed bill merely enshrines the country's existing character. But critics say it undercuts Israel's democratic values and sidelines the country's non-Jewish population, namely the Arab community that makes up 20 percent of the country.

One clause downgrades the Arabic language from official to "special" standing.

Israeli media reported tens of thousands of Jews and Arabs attended the protest. Some Arab protesters waved Palestinian flags and others held signs reading "equality." Some knelt and preformed Muslim prayers.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted footage on Twitter of protesters waving the Palestinian flags. "No better testament to the necessity of the Nation State law," he wrote.

Ayman Odeh, an Arab member of the Israeli parliament, told The Associated Press: "This is the first time that tens of thousands of Arabs have come to Tel Aviv with Jewish democratic groups. They came to say this is not the end of the demonstrations, but the first serious demonstration against the Nation State law."

Many Jewish Israelis, including top retired security officials and politicians, have also harshly criticized the law.

Omar Sultan, from the Arab city of Tira in central Israel, said he was protesting to send a message to Netanyahu.

"This law is against us, against the Arabic language, against peace, against our future in this land, we are the real people of this land, we can't agree on this law," he said.

Israel's Arab citizens enjoy full citizenship rights but face discrimination in some areas of society like jobs and housing. They share the ethnicity and culture of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and often identify with Palestinian nationalism, rather than Israeli.

Tens of thousands of Druze, also members of the Arab minority, packed the same square in the heart of Tel Aviv, Israel's cultural and commercial center, last week. The Druze are followers of a secretive offshoot of Shiite Islam and are considered fiercely loyal to the state and serve in Israel's military, unlike most of the country's other Arab citizens.

Over the years, members of the Druze community have risen to prominence in the military and in politics. Some Druze have said they feel betrayed by the law and several Druze military officers recently said they would stop serving in response to it, sparking fears of widespread insubordination.
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Carlsbad Unified School District will float a $265 bond measure in November to fund science and math labs, technology, school site safety, and repairs to aging campus infrastructure.

The school board voted last month to place the measure on the November ballot, after approving a facilities master plan in January. That document describes improvement and maintenance projects needed in the next 15 to 20 years.

In 2006, district voters passed Proposition P, a $198 school bond measure that funded the modernization of Carlsbad High School and construction of the Sage Creek High School. The new high school christened its $14 million performing arts center on June 4, according to the high school website. With the completion of that project, the district closed the book on Proposition P.

This year, officials turned their sights to the next series of improvements that they hope to accomplish through subsequent school bonds.

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The district aims to prepare students for in demand careers, including health care, biomedical science, computer science, robotics and skilled trades, by upgrading science and engineering labs, and career technical education facilities.

It would also build or improve facilities and instructional equipment to support math and science education.The bonds would also cover technology upgrades needed for 21st Century curriculum and instructional programs.

According to the master plan, libraries would be renovated as research centers, with flexible space and digital resources, in addition to books. Elementary schools could get maker spaces with gear such as 3D printers, or sound equipment.

The bond would also cover modernizing older classrooms to meet the same safety standards as newer ones. And it would pay for school site security measures, which could include fencing, controlled entrances, security cameras and digital scanning of drivers licenses to provide real-time background checks.

The bonds would also be slated for energy efficiency and sustainability measures. That could include replacing older heating, cooling, lighting and water systems to save money and resources. Installing solar panels and battery storage at all campuses would produce energy the district needs on site, and pay for themselves within seven years, according to Superintendent Ben Churchill.

deborah.brennan@sduniontribune.com Twitter@deborahsbrennan
In light of a state audit that uncovered evidence of possible fraud or misappropriation of funds by former San Ysidro School District administrators, an accounting firm is set to review the districts finance policies and protocols.

The school board on Thursday unanimously approved the review. It was authorized without discussion as part of the boards consent agenda.

The accounting firm, Wilkinson Hadley King & Co., plans to begin the review this month and complete it by next June, according to a letter the firm sent the school district last month.

The El Cajon-based firm, which specializes in areas that include school district financial audits, will evaluate and help update the districts policies and other internal controls in an effort to prevent fraud or financial errors.

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The review will focus on the districts procedures for financial aspects that include cash, inventory, fixed assets, money owed both to and by the district, payroll and employee reimbursements.

The firm also will train district staff to implement the policies and procedures. Within about six months of the training, the firm will test the internal controls to evaluate the performance of the set of updated internal controls.

After the nearly yearlong review, the firm will provide the district with a report that spells out the procedures and findings.

The cost for the review is estimated between $15,500 and $22,500, Wilkinson Hadley King & Co. said in the July 31 letter sent to the district.

Completed in June, the audit of payments made to former Superintendent Julio Fonseca and former Deputy Superintendent Arturo Sanchez-Macias found the two men, who resigned last year, were each overpaid more than $160,000, mostly in payouts for vacation days or term life insurance.

The audit uncovered amendments made to Fonseca and Sanchez-Macias employment contracts  some without the school boards approval  that led to the overpayments.

The audit also found Fonseca and Sanchez-Macias were reimbursed for questionable expenses such as travel costs. Some expenses were not approved in advance and some of the reimbursements were made without proper documentation, according to the report.

The audit by the state-created Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team concluded there was evidence of fraud, misappropriation of funds or other illegal fiscal activities. The San Diego County Office of Education, which commissioned the audit, turned over the findings to the District Attorneys Office.

In the report, auditors called on the district to address weaknesses the audit uncovered.

The findings should be of great concern to the San Ysidro School District and the San Diego County Office of Education and require immediate intervention to limit the risk of fraud, mismanagement and/or misappropriation of assets, or other illegal fiscal activities, in the future, the report said.

In response to the findings of the audit, Superintendent Gina Potter, who stepped into the position in May, said in a letter to the San Diego County Office of Education that the district intended to review the areas of deficiency highlighted in the report.

It is our intention to complete a comprehensive review of these areas and make corrections where needed, Potter said in the letter, which served as the districts state-mandated response to the audit.

On Friday, Potter reinforced the districts committment to making changes in light of the audit.

As the new superintendent, who formerly served for over a decade as an assistant superintendent of business services/deputy superintendent and as the chair of the (Association of) Chief Business Officials in San Diego County, I want our community to know that our district is committed to upholding the character traits of integrity and ethics, she said, in part, in a statement.

Email: david.hernandez@sduniontribune.com

Phone: (619) 293-1876

Twitter: @D4VIDHernandez
Ry Cooder has a new lease on life, musically speaking, and the legendary guitarist and roots-music champion couldnt be more delighted about his first album in six years and his first concert tour in a decade.

Im happy to say things have brightened up, said Cooder, whose past collaborators range from the Rolling Stones, Captain Beefheart and Neil Young to Emmylou Harris, The Monkees and Cubas all-star Buena Vista Social Club, whose Grammy Award-winning 1997 album he produced. His credits also include the musical scores for 24 feature films, including Paris, Texas, The Long Riders and The Border.

Im having more fun than I used to, Cooder continued, speaking from his Santa Monica home. I dont know exactly why, but I can guess at it, although fun is a funny word. Anybody who says (being in the music business) is a bowl of cherries is lying. But it is more fun now.

True to his word, Cooder sounds better than ever on his 17th and newest album, The Prodigal Son. He and his new band will promote it with a rare San Diego area concert next Sunday, Aug. 19, at California Center for the Arts, Escondido, whose 2018-19 season opens with his performance.

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The Prodigal Son follows Cooders five most recent releases, which were all expertly crafted and had overt political and social themes. They range from 2005s Chavez Ravine and 2007s The Grapes of Wrath-inspired My Name Is Buddy to 2012s Election Special, which skewered that years presidential campaign, Wall Street subterfuge, the Koch brothers and more.

Ten songs strong, The Prodigal Son celebrates Cooders roots in early blues, gospel and spiritual music. With supremely soulful vocal support from Terry Evans, Bobby King and Arnold McCuller, Cooder  who sings and plays guitar, mandolin, banjo, bass and keyboards on the album  puts his distinctive stamp on any array of classic songs. That these songs have new resonance in these troubled, politically polarized times is more than coincidental.

Im not any kind of pop (music) guy, Cooder said. Im not good at that, so go get somebody who is good at that.

Highlights on The Prodigal Son include his versions of earthy gems by Blind Willie Johnson (Nobodys Fault But Mine, Everybody Ought to Treat a Stranger Right), the Pilgrim Travelers (Straight Street), the Stanley Brothers (Harbor of Love), William Dawson (In His Care), Alfred Reed (You Must Unload) and Blind Roosevelt Graves (Ill Be Rested When the Roll Is Called). The album also features three Cooder originals, including Jesus and Woody, which chronicles what a chat between Christ and folk-music pioneer Woody Guthrie might entail.

When I (sing) I like sinners better than fascists, that gets the biggest applause of the night, says Ry Cooder, who performs Aug. 19 in Escondido with his new band. (Photo by Joachim Cooder)

Weathered songs with subtle modern twists

Yet, despite the weathered vintage of these songs, there is a subtle  and decidedly modern  twist. While focusing on Cooders rustic singing and masterful bottleneck-guitar-playing, many of the albums 10 songs are built on electronic soundscapes and loops created by Cooders son, Joachim. He has become his fathers closest artistic collaborator in recent years and is also the drummer on The Prodigal Son and in Cooders new touring band.

Having my son on drums has made a huge difference, Cooder, 71, said.

I cant stress this strongly enough, in terms of the groove space and style that Joachim gave me to instinctively play what I felt in a more free way, rather than feeling constricted. Thats true on record and on stage. Playing on stage used to be such a problem for me. I had so many problems on stage that I had to give it up (10 years ago). With Joachim on board, its a whole different deal.

To hear the elder Cooder tell it, The Prodigal Son wouldnt even exist if it wasnt for Joachim having implored him to make a new album.

I asked Joachim: Make a record? A record of what?  Cooder recalled with a chortle. And Joachim said: You did all those real hardcore political songs  dont do that anymore. I said: Well, what am I supposed to do? He said: Youll figure it out.

Then, because he had these fluid ambient tracks that he came up with, I thought: I can hear (doing the Stanley Brothers 1954 classic) Harbor of Love over that. And, as it turned out with the gospel songs on this album, I was watching for an opportunity to utilize these (soundscapes) and invoke something the songs are saying  some people would say its the message. But its more than that  a feeling, an idea.

Joachim, 40, was not yet a teenager when he made his San Diego concert debut as a drummer at the Belly Up, where he accompanied his celebrated father and fellow guitar great David Lindley on their unplugged encore of the garage-rock staple, Wooly Bully. It was easy for Joachim to collaborate with his dad on The Prodigal Son, since  at the time it was made  he and his family lived right next door to his parents in Santa Monica.

It was all very natural, said Joachim, whose atmospheric new EP, Fuchsia Machu Picchu, features his dad on guitar on several songs.

Im constantly playing my electric mbira (African thumb piano) and making these soundscapes in my free time. My father heard some of them, and asked: Can I take this? Can I use this one? Or, hed sit in the corner of the studio and start singing something over it. And I thought: Wow, hes got a whole other thing going, so I told him: Yeah, its yours.

Thats always a fun process, hearing what somebody else hears. Because a lot of times, when you loop things up, you hear things other people dont hear. Thats how a bunch of his songs got made and the rest were done in the studio. Everything was just different this time than on the last bunch of records that he made.

Ry Cooder (right) is shown in 2003 with Cuban guitar great Manuel Galban (left). (Photo by Susan Titelman)

New band brings new musical vistas

It was at Joachims suggestion that his father hired saxophonist/guitarist Sam Gendel for his new touring band, which also features keyboardist Glenn Patscha and bassist Robert Francis.

The far bigger challenge, Cooder noted, was finding qualified vocal support.

Terry Evans, who had been singing with Cooder for the past four decades and is featured on The Prodigal Son, died shortly after the album was completed. Arnold McCuller, who is also on the album, was already committed to a summer tour with James Taylor.

I told Arnold: I have nobody to sing with! Its a whole different world now with all these young guys, Cooder recalled. Arnold said: Theres only one thing to do. Get The HamilTones. Well, it wasnt so easy to do, but fate worked out.

Best known for their work with R&B vocal star Anthony Hamilton, The HamilTones three singers  Corey Williams, Tony Lelo and J. Vito  are based in Charlotte, N.C. Lelo and Vito both grew up performing gospel music, while Williams has worked with Jodeci and K-Ci & JoJo.

Cooder effusively describes The HamilTones as the last of their kind on the planet. He also raves about the keyboard-like effects saxophonist Gendel can get by using harmonizers and other electronic gear.

Asked about his musical role, Cooder replied: All I know is, I play the guitar, beat it out, and sing a song that has some damn resonance, that we feel as musicians. We send it out and people get it, and thats a good thing.

With the mid-term elections coming this fall, followed by the 2020 presidential election, might Cooder consider making a sequel to his 2012 Election Special album?

In a word, no.

But based on the audience response to his current concert tour, he senses his listeners are hungry for vital music that addresses these turbulent, troubled times.

I can tell you this, Cooder said. Lately, doing these shows, I do a version of (Woody Guthries) Vigilante Man and my song,  Jesus and Woody. And when I get to the Jesus and Woody verse  I like sinners better than fascists  that gets the biggest applause of the night. And I throw in a verse about (the murder) of Trayvon Martin in Vigilante Man, and that gets a big hand, too. 

People respond to any good you can do in music. And, these days, I would say people are anorexic for these things, whether its by me or anybody. This has to be the reason they come to the show; not just to get a beer and make cell-phone calls like the young do  God help them. These people were seeing now who come to hear us are mostly all 50 and up. They know were living in a certain time and they probably have a pretty good idea of what the circumstances are that people and society find themselves in. ...

But we dont have to harp on that. Its the musical context you put it in that has some power, something to offer  a good feeling  rather than just (singing): My baby done left me. My baby done left me is OK. But it cant compare to (Blind Alfred Reeds 1927 classics) How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live? or You Must Unload  songs that can never be written again, and never will be.

Ry Cooder, featuring The HamilTones

When: 7:30 p.m. next Sunday, Aug. 19

Where: California Center for the Arts, Escondido, 340 North Escondido Blvd.

Tickets: $35-$70, plus service charges

Phone: (800) 988-4253

Online: artcenter.org

george.varga@sduniontribune.com

Twitter @georgevarga
August 11, 1918 The San Diego Union

The San Diego Union-Tribune will mark its 150th anniversary in 2018 by presenting a significant front page from the archives each day throughout the year.

Sunday, August 11, 1918

In 1918 a war of words between Mayor Louis J. Wilde and Councilman Walter P. Moore turned into a fist fight in the lobby of the U.S. Grant hotel. When given the opportunity to comment on his actions, Mayor Wilde said, "I am sorry the bout did not go the full four rounds.

Here are the first few paragraphs of the story:

COUNCILS HEAD HIT BY MAYOR

Wilde Punches Moore in Eye At U.S. Grant Hotel Lobby, As Result of Letter Sent by Councilman in Dispute.

NO EFFORT TO HIT BACK MADE BY ATTACKED MAN

City Executive and Solon Are Parted by City Attorney; Mayor Then Goes to Police; Smashed Moores Door.

AS THE climax to a feud of long standing, growing out of differences in the municipal government, Mayor L. J. Wilde yesterday afternoon in the U.S. Grant hotel lobby made good his threat to punch the face of Councilman Walter P. Moore, president of the city council. The councilman, who made little effort to protect himself, bled profusely. The men were finally separated by City Attorney T.B. Cosgrove.

The bad feeling, between Mayor Wilde and Councilman Moore reached a really serious state earlier in the day when Moore sent a letter to Wilde declaring that he did not wish to see the citizens again buncoed by one who has in more ways than one discredited himself in this, the city that has honored him.

Mayor Wild, in the fracas at the Grant later in the day, fought like a wildcat. Several of his blows fell short, but one, a left uppercut, caught Moore squarely above the right eye, the blood spurting freely all over the councilmans face and shirtfront. As the men were pushed apart by City Attorney Cosgrove, Moore shouted to Wilde: Thats just what I wanted you to doI wanted you to hit me first.

Goes to Room

Wilde continued to prance nimbly around, with both fists extended, and Moore cride to Cosgrove, Let him come on, let him come on!

Cosgrove finally induced Moore to take the elevator to a room on the second floor of the hotel to wash off the blood. Wilde remained in the lobby for several minutes, evidently awaiting Moores return. The mayor then went to the police station, told Chief of Police S. P. McMullen what he had done, and offered to put up bond for his appearance in court in case Moore had him arrested. The diamond rings on the mayors left hand, where he had struck Moore in the face, was covered with blood.

The U.S. Grant lobby was crowded with men and women yesterday afternoon when Councilman Moore strolled in. A few hours before the mayor had gone to Moores office at the city hall looking for Moore, but not finding him in had smashed the glass window of the councilmans office with his cane. The mayor at that time had charged that Moore, after slipping a scurrilous letter in the door of the mayors office, had taken a city machine and ridden away to avoid facing the mayor.

View anniversary front pages online at sandiegouniontribune.com/150-years. For more from the Union-Tribune digital archives, go to newslibrary.com/sites/sdub. Searching is free, with registration. A fee is required to view full stories.
A San Francisco jury has awarded $289 million to a former school groundskeeper who claimed Monsantos popular Roundup weed killer contributed to his terminal cancer.

In its decision Friday, the state court jury found the agribusiness giant failed to adequately warn of the risks of using Roundup.

Dewayne Johnsons lawyers said he sprayed Roundup and a similar product, Ranger Pro, in large quantities as a pest control manager at a Bay Area school district. He developed a rash and was 42 when he was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2014.

Monsantos lawyer, George Lombardi, said non-Hodgkins lymphoma takes years to develop, so Johnsons cancer must have started before he worked for the district.

The company has denied ties between glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, and cancer.
Whats in an old name? For the San Diego Museum of Man, the answer is, Not enough. Not anymore.

Earlier this month, the Balboa Park museum announced that it is looking to change its name after more than 70 years. According to a statement from the museum, the goal is to find a new name that better describes all the people we serve and the stories we want to tell.

No pressure!

The new name wont be announced until 2020, and the museum is inviting the public to weigh in. To help San Diegans get a handle on the change and why its happening, I stopped by earlier this week to check out some exhibits that illustrate how todays Museum of Man is not the same place it was when it took the name in 1942. And its not just the many selfie opportunities.

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Back then, man was very commonly thought to mean human. But we found after talking to visitors that is no longer the case, said San Diego Museum of Man Deputy Director Ben Garcia. What we heard over and over is that for many people, the name is old-fashioned. The goal is to find a name that better conveys a sense of the kind of place we want to be moving forward.

On our tour, that journey forward started with a new look at the past. In 2015, the museums Kumeyaay: Native Californians exhibit added a section on Kumeyaay Cosmology. The new section expands the traditional collection of baskets, pottery and tools to include an exploration of how San Diegos indigenous people looked at the skies we are looking at now, how they created their own versions of observatories and what they named the constellations.

The exhibit, which was created in conjunction with local scholar and Campo Kumeyaay Nation member Michael Connolly Miskwish, reflect two ways in which the new museum is not like the old one. It looks at indigenous people not just through their belongings, but also through their minds and spirits. And it does it with input from the indigenous community, which the museum plans to keep doing as it updates the artifact-heavy exhibit.

The goal is to make sure that narratives on history that hadnt shown up at the museum before are now showing up, Garcia said. And that the stories are coming from the people who are in the best position to tell them.

The idea that there is more to being human than the artifacts we leave behind is further amplified in Race: Are We So Different?, the exhibit that changed a lot of things for the Museum of Man.

It came to here in 2011 as a temporary exhibit, but when new CEO Micah Parzen saw how visitors responded to the knowledge that a lot of what we think we know about race is not based in fact, the traveling exhibit created by the American Anthropological Association and the Science Museum of Minnesota became part of the museums permanent collection.

In the Hapa Project portion of the exhibit, artist Kip Fulbeck asked fellow multiracial people to answer the charged question, What are you? The answers people gave  I am a person. I am 100% black and 100% Japanese. Im a very little boy in 5th grade that has no friends.  tell another part of the Museum of Mans new story.

Museums traditionally saw themselves as important authorities, and we are moving away from that, Garcia said. We used to think we could be the authority on defining who people were. Now we want to be a platform for people to define themselves.

And what if you want to define yourself as someone who likes their knowledge served with a generous side of fun? You will get plenty of that in lively exhibits devoted to beer (BEERology), critters (Living with Animals) and true confessions.

The latter comes courtesy of PostSecret, the new exhibit devoted to the hidden truths people reveal on the postcards they send to PostSecret creator Frank Warren and also on the postcards visitors create and drop into the exhibits mailbox.

The postcards are small, but the truths they reveal about the human condition in all its funny, freaky and heartbreaking glory are huge. Which is the same size as the challenge facing the Museum of Man and all of the things it hopes its new name and new direction will say to all of us.

We really want you to leave here feeling connected to other people in a time when there is a lot of divisiveness in the bigger world, Garcia said. After coming here and being surprised and learning something new, we hope you leave with the idea that small acts can make a difference in the larger world.

Just that?

Garcia laughed. Just that.

Twitter: @karla_peterson

karla.peterson@sduniontribune.com
A public defense lawyer who is now on leave from her job was arrested on suspicion of providing a gun to felon, authorities said Friday.

Andrea Bayer, 37, who has been with the county Alternate Public Defenders Office since 2005, was arrested by San Diego police on Aug. 1, police officials said.

She was booked into Las Colinas womens jail on a charge that includes furnishing a weapon to either a convicted felon or someone wanted on a felony warrant.

Bayer was released on bond the same night, police Sgt. Michael Stirk said.

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The District Attorneys Office has not filed a criminal complaint against Bayer. An office spokeswoman said they have received the case from police and are continuing to review it.

Police declined to be specific about what illegal action Bayer is alleged to have taken.

The Alternate Public Defenders Office handles cases where the Public Defender has a conflict of interest, such as a criminal case with more than one defendant. Public defenders are appointed to criminal defendants who cant afford their own attorney.

Public Defender Randy Mize on Friday acknowledged knowing about Bayers arrest. He said Bayer had been on a vacation, and when she returned on July 30, she was placed on paid leave, two days before her arrest.

We didnt have any forewarning about her arrest, Mize said, adding that he was not allowed under personnel confidentiality rules to say why Bayer went on leave.

As the public defender, I believe in the presumption of innocence and in the criminal justice process.

He could not confirm whether the person Bayer is alleged to have provided a gun was a client.

pauline.repard@sduniontribune

Twitter: @pdrepard
Former All Star pitcher Esteban Loaiza pleaded guilty in federal court Friday to felony cocaine possession with intent to distribute.

Loaiza was arrested Feb. 9 in Imperial Beach and charged in Superior Court with possession of more than 40 pounds of cocaine for sale. The state charges were dismissed later and the case moved to federal court.

On the day of Loaizas arrest, law enforcement officials were following a Mercedes Benz SUV, believed linked to smuggling, when it pulled into a Fern Avenue townhome in Imperial Beach. The SUV left 10 minutes later and a sheriffs deputy pulled it over.

Loaiza, 46, a Tijuana native, was behind the wheel, authorities said.

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Back at the townhome that Loaiza leased, officers found a minivan loaded with 20 packages of cocaine under the floor panels, the federal complaint said.

In the plea agreement, Loaiza admitted shifting the cocaine from the Mercedes to the minivan during his brief stop at the residence. Loaiza had crossed the border from Mexico earlier in the day, authorities said.

The charge carries a 10-year mandatory minimum sentence, although Loaiza does not have a prior criminal record and the judge could issue a lower sentence.

Loaiza, who attended Mar Vista High School in Imperial Beach, pitched for 14 seasons for nine major league teams including the Chicago White Sox and Los Angeles Dodgers until retiring in 2008. He was voted an All-Star in 2003 and 2004.

Correction

An earlier version of this story stated incorrectly that attorneys had agreed to recommend a 30-year sentence for Loaiza. No such agreement was made.

pauline.repard@sduniontribune

Twitter: @pdrepard
Addressed directly to the doctor, the letter arrived in a plain business envelope with a return address of the San Diego County medical examiners office.

Its contents were intended, ever so carefully, to focus the physician on a national epidemic of opioid abuse  and his or her possible role in it.

This is a courtesy communication to inform you that your patient [name, date of birth inserted here] died on [date inserted here]. Prescription drug overdose was either the primary cause of death or contributed to the death, the letter read.

In the blandest of clinical language, the courtesy communication went on to inform the doctor of how many medication-related deaths the San Diego County medical examiner sees each year (between 250 and 270). It offered five prescribing tips (or evidence-based interventions) proven to help lower overdose death rates. And it steered the doctor to an online program designed to help medical professionals who are dedicated to avoiding prescribing controlled substances when they are likely to do more harm than good.

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The letters  signed by San Diego Countys chief deputy medical examiner, Dr. Jonathan Lucas, who has since become Los Angeles Countys chief medical examiner  were part of an experiment to gauge how to reduce the prescribing of drugs implicated in fatal overdoses.

At a time when legally prescribed opioids and other medications are claiming 174 lives a day in the United States, the research aimed to test a new way to get physicians to rethink their prescribing habits.

Medical societies, state boards and the federal government have sought for several years to educate doctors and dentists about the risks of prescribing opioids, with limited results. The new research is among the first to take a different tack: Get physicians, who are inclined to view the opioid crisis as stemming from other doctors poor management, to understand how their own decisions may contribute in small ways to a national epidemic. And then give them tools to guide a change in behavior.

The study, written by a group of researchers led by Jason Doctor of USCs Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics, was published Thursday in the journal Science.

Dated Jan. 27, 2017, the letter went out to 388 doctors. All had prescribed at least one of several drugs with known risks to a patient within a year of that persons overdose death. The letters were careful not to suggest that the death was directly attributable to the doctors actions: Of the 82 deceased patients named, most had received prescriptions from several sources.

An additional 447 physicians found to have prescribed the same range of drugs to 85 patients who died of overdose got no such letter. But like their colleagues who got the letter, this comparison groups prescribing practices were tracked over the next three months in an effort to discern whether the communication had made a difference.

It did.

Compared with the doctors who did not get a letter, those who did reduced their prescribing of opioid medications by almost 10% over the three-month study period. Doctors who got the courtesy communication started 7% fewer patients on a regimen of prescription opioids. And they were between 3% and 4.5% less likely to write prescriptions for the highest doses of opioid medication  those implicated most often in fatal overdoses.

Lucas acknowledged that such a shift may seem marginal. But he called it just a piece of a broader raft of initiatives that can nudge physicians in the direction of safer prescribing practices. With time, consistent messaging and a bit more insight into the role that they may play in the epidemic, doctors increasingly will rethink their prescribing of opioid medications, he said.

Its sort of a process, said Lucas, who reported that he got only five or six calls from physicians wanting to follow up on the letter with him. Given the growing awareness of the issue, he said, if we had extended the study period out to a year or so, we probably would have seen a bigger difference.

In a first-of-its-kind initiative, San Diego County soon will be routinely sending courtesy letters that notify doctors when an overdose of certain drugs has claimed the life of a patient.

Los Angeles County is exploring the feasibility of sending similar letters to physicians, Lucas said.

We are definitely thinking about it, he said Thursday. Its the right thing to do.

Few experts doubted that the letter got doctors attention  at least in the short term.

I have to imagine its gut-wrenching, said Dr. Sean Michael, a University of Colorado emergency physician who has studied opioid prescribing habits but was not involved in the new research. The job that everybody is trying to do on a daily basis is the exact opposite of this outcome. The intention when people wrote these prescriptions was to try to help someone, not to accidentally kill them. But thats the problem: The edge is so narrow and the risk is so high with these medications.

Knowing that those prescribing decisions may have contributed to a patients death appears to challenge a comforting delusion that Michaels research shows is shared by most doctors  that they are less likely than their peers to prescribe opioids, or to do so in ways that have been found unsafe.

It tells them, I might be part of the problem here, Michael said. It turns out that a decent proportion of them are probably prescribing more than their peers and dont have the insight to recognize that.

Whether getting such a letter will spark long-term change is a matter still to be studied.

Stanford University pain medicine specialist Dr. David Clark is hopeful. But, he said, it could take years for the letters effects to reverberate through a doctors practice.

You dont change doctors prescribing habits  or patients consumption habits  overnight, said Clark, who teaches anesthesiology, perioperative and pain medicine at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. I imagine if a physician has to change their practice, they have to initiate a long and difficult conversation with a patient  and we all experience pushback, he said.

Dr. Andrew J. Schoenfeld, an orthopedic surgeon at Brigham & Womens Hospital in Boston who has studied the opioid prescribing habits of surgeons, said that notifications of a patients death might help doctors who are on the receiving end of that pushback.

It gives a doctor something objective to present to a patient and say, Im not just deciding out of the blue that we should reconsider your opioid medication use, said Schoenfeld, who was not involved in the new research. It helps answer that question from patients, Why now?

Physicians also will have to put aside years of conventional wisdom  much of it fostered, funded and promulgated by the makers of opioid narcotics  that the medications are safe and effective for a wide range of pain conditions, Clark said.

This is likely to be generational in the field of medicine, he said. Invoking the physicians oath of First, do no harm, he added: We probably havent lived up to that in our opioid prescribing practices.

melissa.healy@latimes.com

@LATMelissaHealy

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A San Diego federal judge on Friday called the new plan to locate and reunite hundreds of deported parents with their separated children impressive and gave U.S. officials the green light to move ahead full bore over the weekend.

U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw also said he was encouraged at the significant strides the government has made in the past week making contact with the deported parents of 299 children but said extreme effort must be made to track down the remaining parents of 87 children.

The tone of Fridays hearing was markedly different from one last week in which the judge expressed frustration at the governments attempt to place the burden of locating all of the deported parents on the American Civil Liberties Union and a host of volunteers. He ordered both sides to come up with a joint plan and seemed pleased with the results presented Friday, saying the proposal showed collaboration.

The focus on deported parents is the second stage of the reunification effort of some 2,500 children ordered by Sabraw. The effort stems from a lawsuit filed by the ACLU challenging the Trump administrations practice of separating families caught illegally crossing the border or applying for asylum at the ports of entry.

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Nearly 2,000 children with parents in the U.S. have been reunited, an operation that Sabraw has deemed a success.

A detailed plan by the government on the logistics of reuniting the overseas parents with their children, though, suggests much work remains ahead.

Both the government and ACLU have appointed steering committees that will coordinate the efforts and work with government authorities in El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, where the parents now reside.

A corporate law firm in New York  Paul, Weiss, Rifkind Wharton & Garrison  along with three non-profits are heading up the ACLUs outreach mission and will attempt to make contact with each family using information culled from government sources. The families will then be counseled on their legal options so they can determine whether to reunite or to keep their children in the U.S., perhaps with relatives.

The government has proposed giving the ACLU a 14-day deadline for parents to make their decisions, starting at the time the contact information is handed over.

But attorneys with the ACLU and other organizations representing the migrant families in similar lawsuits appeared ready to push back on such a deadline, arguing that the contact information may not be correct and more investigation is needed.

For families ready to reunify, the government has agreed to provide children transportation to their countries of origin.

Parents oversees must still go through the same background checks and confirmation of parentage to be deemed eligible to reunite.

For parents who are more difficult to track down, the government plans to work with the other nations on outreach, including a hotline posted on the embassy websites for parents to call as well as billboards, ads and notices.

The ACLU also requested focus return to the first group of children, ages 4 and under, who were initially targeted for reunification under the court order. Of the roughly 100 kids in that group, 57 were reunited by the judges July 10 deadline. Others had parents who were deemed ineligible due to serious criminal records or other red flags, while 12 had been deported.

An updated list of the circumstances of those children and contact information for the deported parents is expected next week.

kristina.davis@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @kristinadavis
A last-minute Superior Court ruling Friday forced San Diego Countys hand to put on the November ballot a measure that would require all elections for county offices to be decided in a November runoff.

The ruling came after a San Diego County Board of Supervisors vote July 24 to request a study on the Full Voter Participation Act ballot initiative and its potential to add costs to elections, a delay that would have kept measure off the ballot until 2020.

Proponents, who collected more than 100,000 signatures in a petition drive to qualify it for inclusion on the ballot for the coming election, were outraged by the boards decision. So they turned to the court, seeking an emergency order to force the county to put the measure on the ballot instead of waiting for a report that was not required by law.

After hearing hours of arguments and taking two short recesses to further review documents, Superior Court Judge Ronald L. Styn granted the proponents request just before 5 p.m. Friday.

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Styns ruling requires the county and its Registrar of Voters to take all action necessary to ensure that the Full Voter Participation Act of 2018 appears on the countys ballot for the Nov. 6, 2018 election, according to court records.

The Full Voter Participation Act would amend the county charter to force races for all San Diego County offices to a runoff in the general election, regardless of the outcome in the primary.

Under current law, candidates who receive more than 50 percent of the vote in a primary election are declared the winner.

A coalition of labor unions that support the measure have said it would ensure county officials are chosen in general elections, which typically have much higher voter participation than primary contests.The higher turnout for general elections, which generally draw more Democrats to the polls, could give that party an advantage if the ballot measure is successful. All five members of the county Board of Supervisors are members of the Republican Party, which typically has a turnout advantage in primary elections.

We are pleased that the judge honored the wishes of the 103,000 people that signed the petition, and we are confident that voters will support this common sense measure in November, Dave Lagstein, political director for the Service Employees International Union Local 221, said after the ruling Friday.

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morgan.cook@sduniontribune.com
San Diego firefighters and city officials gave a peek Friday inside a new partnership that could shape the future of how crews use drones to respond better and faster to emergencies.

They showcased emerging technology, from using a drone to help crews pinpoint the site of a fire to live streaming drone footage to multiple devices in multiple locations.

For firefighters, one exciting promise is that drones can show them where a wildfire is and where it is heading  intelligence they need to determine what resources to call in and where to send them.

The San Diego Fire-Rescue Department started using drones, which are called unmanned aircraft systems, last year. Now, they will share their drone experience with others under a pilot program from the federal Department of Transportation to help shape the future of drones in responding to emergencies.

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Back in May, San Diego Fire-Rescue was one of 10 agencies across the country tapped to join the program, which brings together fire departments, private companies and the Federal Aviation Administration.

The idea is to explore what fire crews need, what might be possible with the technology and  just as importantly  what regulations need to be in place so fire crews can quickly get FAA permission to launch those drones into the air.

For Fire-Rescue Capt. Jeff Ring, who runs the drone program, its all about potential.

We will participate in the future development of emerging UAS technology, Ring said.

The use of drones in firefighting is in relative infancy. San Diego Fire-Rescue recently started using drones. City firefighters have one on hand now, and have used it twice.

Earlier this year, they used it to view a one-acre fire.

The first use came late last year, when fire officials deployed it over the aftermath of a commercial structure fire. The idea was to help arson investigators assess where crews needed to start digging to find the fires origin point, Ring said. It worked, and investigators were able to quickly focus on the correct area, saving perhaps two days of work.

Two more drones  at a cost of roughly $160,000  will be delivered in the next few months, Ring said.

SDFD fire engineer Matt Scarpuzzi, a technician with the Bomb-Arson unit, co-controlled a drone that was flying above Fire Station No. 37 during a simulation Friday. (JOHN GIBBINS/San Diego Union-Tribune)

The drones are kept at the fire station in downtown San Diego where the drone pilots are stationed. If there is an incident, the pilot and the drone head to the location, whether in San Ysidro or San Pasqual.

San Diego Fire-Rescue has nine FAA certified drone pilots  who are also firefighters and bomb squad members  and will soon add three more.

The bomb squad was tapped to pilot the drones because of their outstanding background in the use of robotics and remote use of machinery It was a good fit for them, Assistant Fire Chief Chris Webber said.

One hope is that the drones will be able stream live footage of a wildfire or other incident to fire officials phones and laptops.

Ring said that the department is mindful of privacy for people who find themselves or their homes underneath a drone.

One of the central concepts of the pilot training is know where your camera is positioned, Ring said. We are training our pilots to be very mindful of where the camera is positioned so we are only seeing what is beneficial to the operations.

Tiffany Vinson, senior coordinator with the citys Office of Homeland Security said Friday the emergency response drone testing will run for the next two years in the cities of San Diego and Chula Vista, as well as areas run by the Port of San Diego.

We look forward to the day when (unmanned aircraft systems) are resources to every emergency response team in the nation, Vinson said.

When San Diego officials announced the city had won a spot in the federal program, they noted that the program would also include tests such as using drones to flying medical specimens from UC San Diego or even testing food delivery from restaurants to consumers using Uber.

teri.figueroa@sduniontribune.com

(760) 529-4945

Twitter: @TeriFigueroaUT
A man who was struck by a car in Oceanside last month succumbed to his injuries, the Medical Examiners Office said Saturday.

Officers found Michael Barney, 56, lying in the middle of Mission Avenue near North Horne Street around 11:50 p.m. on July 6. He told officers hed been struck by a black sedan, which stopped briefly after the crash before taking off.

Barneys condition was described as serious, but stable, by Oceanside police at the time. He died of his injuries at a hospital on Aug. 6, a month after the crash, the Medical Examiners Office said.
A 72-year-old woman with dementia who went missing Monday morning from the San Ysidro area has been found and is safe, authorities said Friday.

San Diego police first asked for the publics help to find Dania Josefina Lopez on Tuesday night, though her family said they last contacted her around 6:30 a.m. Monday.

It was unclear Friday exactly how long she was missing. Police did not say where, when or how she was discovered.

Family members had worried about Lopez, who was diagnosed with dementia and high blood pressure, after she left her house without her medications Monday morning and never returned.

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Twitter: @Alex_Riggins

(619) 293-1710

alex.riggins@sduniontribune.com
A woman killed in a three-vehicle crash on a North County freeway last weekend was identified Saturday as 33-year-old Dalila Perez, the Medical Examiners Office said.

Perez was killed when she lost control of her car and overturned it around 2:15 a.m. Aug. 5 on westbound state Route 78 near Mar Vista Drive in Vista. She was then was struck by an allegedly drunk driver who did not see her, according to the medical examiner and the California Highway Patrol.

Perez had drifted into the dirt on the right shoulder of Route 78, then veered back across four traffic lanes and rolled into the center divider, where she was struck by a Scion XB driven by a 54-year-old San Marcos man, CHP Officer Mark Latulippe said at the time. The force of the second crash pushed the Corolla onto its side in the two right lanes and ejected Perez into the left lane.

The Scion XB stopped in the left lane, where it was then rear-ended by a Scion XC, Latulippe said.

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Perez died at the scene.

The driver of the Scion XB sustained major injuries. The 38-year-old man from San Marcos and his two passengers in the Scion XC sustained minor injuries.

The drivers of both Scions were suspected to be under the influence of alcohol or drugs at the time of the incident, Latulippe said.
A.W. Richard Sipe, a priest and psychotherapist whose research on celibacy and the Roman Catholic Churchs sex abuse scandal earned him popular renown and official scorn, died Wednesday in his Mount Soledad home. He was 85.

His son, Dr. Walter Sipe, attributed the cause of death to multiple organ failure.

Sipes work was instrumental in the 2002 Boston Globes Spotlight reports, which led to a worldwide revolt against Catholic clergy who had sexually assaulted children. After initial denials, church leaders slowly agreed to reforms.

In 2017, though, Sipe argued that the problem persisted, fueled in part by the secret sex lives of Catholic clergy.

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From the top down, he told the Union-Tribune, it hasnt changed.

This is my thesis and I am going to hold to it because I think it has proved out  the problem is at the top. If you have people at the top who are sexually active and they are in charge of people who are acting out, you cant afford to expose that, lest you be exposed.

After the Vatican released Sipe from his vows of celibacy and obedience in 1970, he married a former nun, Dr. Marianne Benkert. In 1998, the couple moved to La Jolla where their only child, Walter, was enrolled in the UC San Diego School of Medicine.

In a quiet study decorated with an 11th century image of Christ welcoming souls to paradise, he continued his studies of the sex lives of Catholic clergy. At any one time, he estimated, 50 percent of priests are involved in sexual relationships, while 6 percent are sexually abusing children.

When the Globes Spotlight team learned of his research, they flew Sipe and his wife from San Diego to Boston, where he briefed the reporters on the subject.

He went on to become a renowned expert witness, testifying in about 250 cases brought against Catholic priests accused of rape and other sexual crimes. He was a much sought-after speaker on college campuses, in public forums and in conferences addressing this crisis.

Within the offices of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego, though, he was often unwelcome.

Ive been blackballed, " he said in 2015. Bishop Robert Brom sent his chancellor here to say I was not welcome in the chancery. If I came, it would only be in the presence of a lawyer.

While he visited the current bishop, Robert McElroy, at least twice, their relationship was also rocky.

Sooner or later it will become broadly obvious that there is a systemic connection between the sexual activity by, among and between clerics in positions of authority and control, and the abuse of children, Sipe wrote in a letter to McElroy in 2016.

When men in authority  cardinals, bishops, rectors, abbots, confessors, professors  are having or have had an unacknowledged-secret-active-sex life under the guise of celibacy, an atmosphere of tolerance of behaviors within the system is made operative.

Walter Richard Sipe was born on Dec. 11, 1932, in Robbinsdale, Minn. He was the fourth of 10 children of Walter C. Sipe, who owned several gas stations, and Elizabeth (Altendorf) Sipe, a homemaker.

His family were observant Catholics, and from an early age he was entranced by the church. After attending a high school and a college run by Benedictine monks, he became a monk himself. In 1959 he was ordained a priest. (He took the name Aquinas, after the theologian St. Thomas Aquinas, when he became a brother and added the initial A. in his name.)

But it was not long before he realized that just below the surface of the church lay secrets that its hierarchy protected.

In his first posting, to Cold Spring, Minn., to work as a high school counselor, he heard in the confessional about priests who were sexually involved with other priests, priests who had girlfriends, and even priests who were involved with minors, he said in an interview in 2008 for a documentary film, Sipe: Sex, Lies, and the Priesthood, which is to be released this year.

He also learned that his predecessor had abused girls. Yet these men remained in good standing with the church, he said.

So I asked myself, What is this celibacy, and how is it practiced by those people who claim to be celibate? he said in the interview, giving voice to the research question that would animate his career.

In 1967, he became the director of family services at the Seton Psychiatric Institute in Baltimore, a treatment center where bishops sent problem priests. As he got to know the troubled men, he said, some revealed that they had been abused by clergymen themselves. He also heard stories about how church leaders had been dismissive of reports of abuse.

He began formally collecting data, seeking patterns. He was encouraged by Margaret Mead to conduct his studies in an ethnographic fashion, describing the customs and culture of his tribe  in this case, Catholic priests.

Twenty years after leaving the priesthood, he published A Secret World: Sexuality and the Search for Celibacy. Assisted by his wife, a psychiatrist, the landmark study drew on case files and 25 years of interviews with hundreds of sexually active priests, as well as victims of clergy sex abuse.

Sipe had assumed that his study would be welcomed by bishops, Dr. Benkert Sipe said. Instead, he was blackballed in some dioceses.

When he wasnt listened to, and wasnt believed, it was really hurtful to him, because he cared about the church, she said.

Further studies have supported Sipe. In 2017, an investigation by the Australian Royal Commission found that 7 percent of priests in the Australian Catholic Church had been accused of sexually abusing children from 1950 to 2010. A study commissioned by the American bishops in 2004 put the percentage at 4 percent.

He lived long enough to see many of his predictions come true, said Phil Saviano, a clergy-abuse activist and friend.

Still, accountability for bishops continued to elude Sipe, frustrating him.

I defy you to find where the system has changed, he said in 2008. Bishops are not accountable, they can  and do  do what they want.

In recent weeks, a wider swath of the church appeared to be coming around to accepting that statement. Sipe had been warning on his website about the sexual activities of Cardinal McCarrick since 2008. After a substantiated report of abuse was revealed in June, followed by more allegations, some of the nations leading bishops began calling for reforms in how allegations against bishops are investigated.

Though Sipe had devoted his life to understanding the issues of celibacy and abuse, the deeper question of why the problem could persist unaddressed for so long still eluded him, said the Rev. Tom Doyle, a friend and longtime advocate for abuse victims.

On Tuesday, at Sipes bedside, the two men pondered the moral mystery of how so many clerics could look the other way, putting ecclesiastical ambition above doing the right thing by children.

 Will we ever find the answer?  Sipe asked, Doyle said. And I said, You will know it, sooner than I will. 

Besides his wife, Dr. Marianne Benkert Sipe, and son, Dr. Walter Sipe, he is survived by six siblings, Thomas, John, Bernadette, Michael, Elizabeth and Rosie.

Services are pending.

The New York Times and Union-Tribune staff writer Peter Rowe contributed to this report
Rafaat Mohamed, 54, originally from Sudan, had a 'difficult' relationship with Kez Phillips before he threw the contents of a boiled kettle over him on April 28 this year.

The pair lived in the same hostel in Chelsea, west London , for six months.

+2 Rafaat Mohamed, 54, originally from Sudan, had a 'difficult' relationship with Kez Phillips before he threw the contents of a boiled kettle over him on April 28 this year, Isleworth Crown Court heard

Mohamed was in the shared kitchen making a cup of tea when Mr Phillips accused him of stealing his food and said: 'In your country, you would have your hand cut off for stealing'.

He then calmly put down his cup of tea before picking up the kettle and emptying it onto Mr Phillip's face and shirtless torso leaving him with severe blistering, Isleworth Crown Court heard.

Prosecutor Oluwole Phillips told the court that Mohamed had previously made homophobic jibes towards Mr Phillips including saying 'in my country we do not allow you,' in reference to his sexuality.

Mohamed came to the UK from Sudan as a refugee in 1999.

After his arrest, Mohamed claimed it was an 'accident at best, reckless at worst.'

His lawyer, Ylenia Rosso, said that he 'accepts the danger he put the victim in.'

'He is extremely remorseful, particularly for the injuries to the victim in this case,' she added.

Ms Rosso asked Judge Robin Johnson to suspend Mohamed's sentence because he suffers from diabetes and is of previous good character.

But Judge Johnson said a suspended sentence for such an 'appalling attack' could not be justified.

'I do not know the motivation for this attack,' he added.

'In my book, throwing a kettle of boiling water is a wicked attack.

'He was treated in the hospital, required a skin graft and the strongest medication available - your attack has caused understandable trauma.

'I accept that a prison sentence will be difficult for you but in my judgement only an immediate custodial sentence can capture the public's horror at this attack.'

Mohammed, of Elm Grove, Harrow, west London, admitted causing actual bodily harm.

He was emotionless as he was jailed for 17 months.
Crime on San Diegos trolley system has dropped in the last two years, as transit officials have revamped their approach to on-board security  cracking down on everything from riding without a ticket to public drunkenness.

Starting last fall, the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System more than tripled the number of code compliance inspectors patrolling trolley cars at any one time.

Inspectors, who have the power to arrest riders and write tickets, are now paired with armed security guards to form train teams.

While contract security guards had largely been posted at station platforms, these two-person teams now work beats that span between three and seven stops at a time.

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Officials said this new system allows security personnel to watch for illegal and prohibited behavior while also checking that people have paid their fares.

With all the fixed-post positions, we didnt have as much visibility on board, said Manuel Guaderrama, director of transit enforcement with the San Diego Metropolitan Transit System. By creating the beat system and making them responsible for a geographical area, they have to get on and off the train a lot.

Sgt. Steve Gil (r), a code compliance inspector and Rey Estrada, armed security guard, head north on the Green Line checking for paid trolley tickets. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Reported illegal activity dropped to just 755 incidents last year, down from 1,064 in 2015  including just 58 incidents of drug and alcohol use on the trolley, down from 387.

Majority of the issues we have are quality-of-life issues, rowdy or boisterous behavior, drunk in public, Guaderrama said. Sometimes that leads to the perception of it being unsafe. In reality, our real crime is very low.

What makes people feel safe is if you see a uniformed person thats going to do something if an incident comes up, he added.

Kristian Sanchez, who regularly rides the trolley from Spring Valley to downtown where she attends City College, said that she would welcome even more security on the trains.

Theres men who harass me, said the 20-year-old on Friday while riding the Orange Line home from class. Theres groups of people who curse, are rowdy and loud.

I feel like a lot of time when Im on here, the trolley cops arent here, she added. I want them to be here because when they are people dont really act up.

Cassandra Rubio, 20, echoed those concerns: They sit next to you and stare at you. You cant really be rude and say, You cant sit here.

Having ridden the train for the last three years, Rubio said shes seen fights and even had a close encounter last year with someone who had been stabbed.

He got on the trolley bleeding and coughing up blood, she said. My main goal is to always get home before it gets dark. Thats when it gets real.

Last year there were more than 260 reported cases of theft, robbery and assault, with security officers and other MTS staff often being the target.

I feel like a lot of time when Im on here, the trolley cops arent here. I want them to be here because when they are people dont really act up. Kristian Sanchez, regular MTS trolley rider

The agency believes it can continue to help reduce these more serious crimes by limiting infractions and misdemeanors, such as public intoxication.

We find that by taking care of the little things like fare enforcement and making sure people arent drinking, the larger issues kind of weed themselves out, said Sgt. Steven Gil, whos worked as a compliance officer with MTS since 2014. Because you cant be drinking or playing loud music, it kind of stops the larger issues from being able to take root.

Over the last 18 months, the 30-year-old former Marine has helped train about three dozen new inspectors as part of the agencys overhaul.

On Wednesday, Gil teamed up with 23-year-old security guard Rey Estrada to work the Green Line from Little Italy to Old Town.

The duo started their 10-hour shift around 3 p.m. as commuters and tourists piled on the train at 12th and Imperial avenues. After about an hour on the job, Gill and Estrada had handed out roughly half a dozen citations to people caught riding without paying the fare.

We do have frequent fare evaders, so every other train I would say theres somebody in there, Estrada said. We do also have tourists that are new here. We try to educate them about the system.

Sgt. Steve Gil, a code compliance inspector writes a citation for a passenger riding without paying the fare. (Nelvin C. Cepeda / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Last year, MTS handed out 45,723 citations for riding the trolley without a valid ticket, nearly double the number from 2016. The fine for evading the trolley is roughly $250.

Smoking on the trolley was the next most frequent citation last year at 6,165, up from 2,674 in 2016.

Some days, its pretty routine where were just writing a lot of tickets, Gil said. Other days, theres some sort of incident that we need to go respond to.

For those who ride the trolley system, satisfaction seems to be high. According to a 2017 public survey, about 87 percent of respondents said they felt safe while riding, up from 82 percent in 2015.

At night, Ive thought I wouldnt want to get off in some places, but when youre on the train its perfectly safe, said Paul Barbano, 66, who was riding home from his job in Middletown on Wednesday. I like the trolley.

Still, authorities say theyre constantly fighting a public stigma that the trolley is not safe, especially among those that dont frequently ride transit.

The number one concern of riders, not only here, is that safe and secure environment, said MTS spokesman Rob Schupp. We go to (transit) conferences all the time, and everybody talks about this perception. Its a big issue industry wide.

Riding on public transit can be unnerving for some people even though crime rates are statistically insignificant, said Polly Hanson, director of security risk and emergency management with the American Public Transportation Association.

You are in a confined space, she said. Theres different thoughts about your space and how you feel about safety.

Recent efforts to provide more security on board trolley cars in San Diego comes as MTS has tried to woo more riders amid declines in ridership. Public transit agencies across the country have seen dips in patronage as the economy has rebounded and gas remains relatively cheap.

Twitter: @jemersmith

Phone: (619) 293-2234

Email: joshua.smith@sduniontribune.com
One section of a bill to expand the California power grid to multiple states calls for owners of the transmission network to receive just and reasonable compensation for their past investments in poles and wires if and when operational control of the system changes.

But its not clear from the legislation how much the utilities would receive or where the money would come from. The payments could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars -- or nothing at all -- depending on how the language is interpreted.

Supporters of Assembly Bill 813, which will be deliberated by the Senate Appropriations Committee on Monday, downplay the provision dictating that transmission owners would be paid for their previous grid investments.

All thats saying is if we go into the larger regional thing, they still get to recover the amounts of their undepreciated past investments, said Jon Wellinghoff, a former federal utility regulator now pushing to regionalize the electric grid. Theres no extra money here.

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San Diego Gas & Electric, which neither supports nor opposes the legislation, also said ratepayers should not worry about that section of the bill.

There is no possibility of SDG&E double-recovering its transmission costs, spokeswoman Allison Torres wrote in a statement. Accounting procedures implemented by SDG&E and the regulatory authority ensure customers compensate SDG&E for the costs of transmission facilities once, and only once.

Opponents are not convinced, and they point to the language itself:

The rules shall ensure that California participating transmission owners receive equitable use of, and just and reasonable compensation for, their past investments in the transmission system assets, the bill states.

San Diego attorney Michael Aguirre said there is no justification for considering a bill with such unanswered questions about its financial impacts. The same thing happened two decades ago, when legislators pushed through an energy-deregulation bill that ended up costing ratepayers tens of billions of dollars, he said.

This is absolutely irresponsible legislating, said Aguirre, who has been trying to secure public records about the potential costs of an expanded power grid. Its one of the reasons there needs to be an analysis and there has to be something put in writing saying what the fiscal impact is.

The Appropriations Committee consultant performing a fiscal analysis said her findings would be released Monday, the same day legislators will be asked to vote for the bill.

Im still working on my analysis for this one, which will be publicly available on (Monday) and hopefully help answer some of your questions, the consultant, Ashley Ames, said by email. In the meantime, Id suggest that the Legislative Analysts Office might be better able to answer many of your questions.

The energy expert at the Legislative Analysts Office was unavailable, and an assistant said the office has not evaluated the impacts of AB 813.

This is the third effort in as many years to convert the state power grid into a multistate operation. The legislation stalled in 2016 and last year. State senators this year have moved the bill through several committees.

A spokesman for Gov. Jerry Brown, who has made the regional power grid one of his top priorities, declined to respond to questions about the legislation but provided links to previous studies concluding that an expanded grid would save money and improve service.

The governor continues to support the concept of a regional grid, Brown spokesman Gareth Lacy said by email.

A 2016 study by the California Independent System Operator, or CAISO, the state nonprofit entity that now governs most of the power grid, estimated that expanding the transmission network may eventually save ratepayers up to $1.5 billion a year.

Critics say those estimates were flawed and do not factor in fossil-fuel friendly policies advocated by President Donald Trump, whose administration would have more power over a multi-state grid than it does over Californias.

Without considering a new analysis that takes into account recent developments initiated by the Trump Administration, the legislature has no idea whether the creation of a regional grid would benefit California customers and the environment, said Matthew Freedman, a staff attorney for The Utility Reform Network in San Francisco.

Under current rules, most of the state power grid is managed by CAISO, which tells utilities when and how much power to provide at any given time and also runs an energy market for companies to buy and sell electricity on a last-minute basis.

CAISO is governed by a five-member board of directors appointed by the governor and approved by the Senate.

Under the regionalization bill, CAISO would merge with PacifiCorp, a utility owned by the Berkshire Hathaway holding company controlled by investor Warren Buffet.

PacifiCorp generates the majority of its electricity from coal and other fossil fuels, raising questions about how California could meet its goal of generating 50 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2030.

The bill also leaves until later the formation of a governance structure that would manage the multistate grid. But under any circumstance, California would give up direct control of the network and the regional system would be run by a board of industry stakeholders subject to federal energy regulators.

Lauren Navarro, an attorney and policy analyst with the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund, said she is confident that state lawmakers can pass legislation that will protect Californias clean-energy objectives even if joins a regional power grid.

California has authority over things that happen inside the state, she said. If you add on top of that, California has the ability to earmark and block at its borders electricity produced from sources that have higher greenhouse gas levels.

Regional transmission networks create market efficiencies that promote the sale of renewable energy sources like wind and solar because they are generally cheaper to produce, Navarro said. She said that would help phase out dirtier resources like coal.

Even so, the Environmental Defense Fund has yet to support the legislation.

This is a good bill for California, Navarro said. We need certain things in the bill to put the finishing touches on it to make sure the bill is as strong and visionary as it can be.

The idea of merging the state grid operator with a regional network is not new. It was actually part of the 1996 deregulation effort that led to the market manipulation in 2001 that cost California consumers at least $20 billion and prompted rolling blackouts across the state.

An aide to author Assemblyman Chris Holden, D-Pasadena, said AB 813 would not threaten ratepayers the way the deregulation bill did.

The energy crisis had everything to do with the state divesting utilities of long-term procurement generation assets and relying on short-term market procurement electricity to serve customers, the aide, Kellie Smith, said by email. It had nothing to do with the transmission of electricity on the CAISO-managed grid.

If AB 813 makes it through the Appropriations Committee, it would be forwarded to the Senate for a floor vote later this month.

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jeff.mcdonald@sduniontribune.com (619) 293-1708 @sdutMcDonald
Canadian police early Saturday charged a 48-year-old Fredericton man with four counts of first-degree murder for a shooting in New Brunswicks capital that claimed the lives of two polices officers and two civilians.

The suspect, Matthew Vincent Raymond, is accused of killing Fredericton constables Robb Costello and Sarah Burns as well as 32-year-old Bobbie Lee Wright and her 42-year-old boyfriend, Donnie Robichaud, authorities announced in a press release. The couple had just gotten together at the beginning of August.

Costello, a 20-year veteran of the police force leaves behind his partner and four kids while Burns is survived by her spouse and three children.

Just after I tucked my son in bed tonight, and reflected on the day, it was with chagrin that I realized that at least seven children in Fredericton tonight would not have the same luxury. To the children of Sara Burns and Robb Costello, I wish you peace and comfort this night, Halifax police chief Jean-Michel Blais tweeted.

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The officers were responding to reports of shots fired around 7 a.m. Friday at an apartment near Brookside avenue in Fredericton, where they found the two deceased civilians before being fatally shot themselves, Fredericton deputy police chief Martin Gaudet said Friday.

Additional officers responded and engaged the suspect. They entered the apartment building around 9:30 a.m. and arrested Raymond on the scene.

Initial reports seemed to suggest there were also people injured in the early-morning attack, but Horizon Health clarified Saturday that Dr. Everett Chalmers Regional Hospital was only treating one person  the suspect, who sustained serious injuries related to the shooting.

Paramedic Brian Fournier plays a hymn after placing a tribute at the police station in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada. (Andrew Vaughan / AP)

Raymond will remain in police custody until his court appearance scheduled for August 27.

Its not clear whether Raymond knew any of the victims, and authorities have not yet released a motive in the attack. The investigation into shooting is ongoing and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and New Brunswick Major Crime unit is requesting anyone who may have recorded or captured a photo of the the incident to come share them with police.

Sean Callahan, Robichauds cousin, said they grew up together in rural New Brunswick. He remembered the father of three as a kind musician.

Donnies probably the best person you could ever meet in your whole life, Callahan told Reuters. Who in the hell would want to shoot Donnie?

The Fredericton Police Department also mourned their fallen colleagues and sent their deepest condolences to their families.

There is no greater gesture than to put oneself in harms way to protect the life of another. This morning, first responders rushed to the scene of danger, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement following the shooting.

They did not think twice about what they had to do to keep their fellow Canadians safe. They were unflinching in their duty. We will not forget the two fallen police officers whose sacrifice no doubt saved lives and prevented even greater tragedy.

The shooting comes as Canada grapples with a spate of violence, including an instance in Toronto last month where a man opened fire into a crowed part of the city  killing two people and wounding 13 before he died in the confrontation. And in April, another 10 people were killed and 14 injured after a man used a van to run down pedestrians in a busy part of Toronto.

The fatal incident is also not the first time New Brunswick has been the sight of a deadly shooting attack. In 2014, an attack in Moncton  located 100 miles outside Fredericson  left three Mounted Police Officers dead and another two wounded. At the time it was one of the deadliest attacks of its kind in Canada, where gun laws are significantly stricter than those in the United States.

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A wild dashcam video released by Pennsylvania State Police shows a run-of-the-mill highway stop devolve into a roadside brawl that turns into a near-fatal shooting.

The video starts with a mundane field sobriety test given to driver, Daniel Clary, 22, after he was stopped for speeding, but by the end of the recording one of the officers, Cpl. Seth Kelly, lay bleeding in a ditch with severed femoral artery, according to the Allentown Morning Call.

Clary was shot in the head and hand during the gunplay. He was arrested after driving himself to the hospital for treatment. A second officer, trooper Ryan Seiple, who tried to help with the arrest, was not hit in the shooting.

The two troopers struggled to cuff 22-year-old Daniel Clary on a Pennsylvania highway. (YouTube/lehighvalleylive.com)

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Kelly arrived at the hospital clinically dead, but was revived. Doctors gave the officer 66 pints of blood and was eventually able to revive him. After nearly a month in the hospital, he was well enough to leave, but he doesnt remember anything about the traffic stop.

Clary, who has a history of mental issues, was charged with the attempted murder of two state troopers and convicted on June 29.

The video shows the officer tell Clary that hes under arrest after he fails the sobriety test along Route 33 in Plainfield, Penn on Nov. 7, 2017. As the officers go to handcuff him, Clary begins to resist. He breaks free momentarily and Kelly hits him with a stun gun, causing the suspect to go stiff and fall into the roadway.

The two troopers drag him back to the shouldering and continue to struggle with him, punching him and continuing to shock him with the stun gun.

They are unable to cuff him as he struggles and he breaks free again, running around the car to the driverside window where he reaches in and pulls out a handgun. He fires at the officers, striking Kelly four times. The trooper went down as he returns fire.

The wounded trooper manages to hurl himself over the guardrail, out of the line of fire. Trooper Seiple continues to fire as Clary gets into the car and drives away.

Clary later tested positive for marijuana.

Northhampton County First Deputy District Attorney Terence Houck released the video after asking Kelly and Seiple for their permission.

We think the community should see it, Houck he told the news service.

Clary is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 29.

Kelly hopes to return to the job next month.

With News Wire Services
Outdoor advertisers are not a happy bunch in San Diego. Thats because the city is a pioneer in establishing the right of local governments to limit sign pollution and visual blight. In Metromedia, Inc. v. San Diego, the U.S. Supreme Court in 1981 announced for the first time the legal rule that cities, counties and other government agencies can limit visual ad clutter. As long as the laws preserve community aesthetics and promote traffic safety, theyll stand up to legal challenges.

Thanks to San Diegos historic pursuit of this case and decades of work by scenic advocates, our county has far fewer billboards than other parts of California, and almost no digital billboards. Laws passed decades ago capped the number of billboards in the city of San Diego and most jurisdictions countywide. Presciently, these laws banned billboards with blinking lights and moving parts even before advertisers invented digital billboards. Local limits also capped the size of ad signs before advertisers created the multistory attention-grabbers dubbed building wraps. As much as they try, its been virtually impossible for outdoor advertisers to blanket our streets and freeways with garish ad displays, including the blinking, digital ones and the ugly 40-floor ad wraps common in Los Angeles and elsewhere.

But this could all change if a stealthy bill now wending its way through the state Legislature is approved. Assembly Bill 3168, authored by Los Angeles-area Assembly member Blanca Rubio, could open our freeways to a massive increase in digital and static billboards.

The bill would loosen rules in myriad ways  permitting static signs to be converted to digital screens that flash new ads every few seconds, raising height limits and making it simpler to relocate signs from one place to another. The bill also narrows the definition of a landscaped freeway, opening untold miles of roads to digital and static billboards. Shockingly, this bill passed the Assembly without opposition, not even from our representatives who should know local history, character and public sentiment better. Scenic advocates were unaware of AB 3168 then but are geared up and working hard to defeat it now.

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In recent years, local citizens and Scenic San Diego won local battles against efforts like AB 3168. In 2013 we convinced a San Diego City Council subcommittee to abandon a Downtown Sign District comprised of almost 100 building wraps, billboards and other private ad displays that would have busted the citys long-term freeze on outdoor ads. That same year Vista activists successfully reversed a City Council initiative to install digital billboards on State Route 78. In 2016 Oceanside residents with help from Scenic America and local chapter Scenic Oceanside, accomplished the same goal. Carlsbads City Council rejected digital signs sought by Car County Carlsbad in the face of a public outcry in 2014 and Santee denied a car dealership digital sign in 2015 after local opposition. Most recently, Scenic San Diego and allies worked for a year to persuade San Diego Port commissioners this July to abandon an ill-advised campaign to privatize our waterfront with commercial building wraps and giant TV-like ad platforms along the Embarcadero.

When the public is asked if they want more outdoor advertising, the answer is a nearly unanimous No! But volunteer scenic advocates are locked in a David and Goliath battle with a hugely profitable industry that keeps coming back. History shows the ad industry is a generous campaign donor. Advertisers often seduce local governments with a promise of easy revenues. But what they sell doesnt belong to them. Urban planner Ed McMahon has written: Billboard companies sell something they dont own  our field of vision. ... Billboards are the only form of advertising you cannot turn off or ignore. ... Billboard regulation is not a legal problem, but a political problem. Curbing billboards is not easy, but it can and is being done.

Its time for San Diegans to urge their elected representatives to vote No on AB 3168. This is a political problem that demands a political solution, which means the politicians must hear from the people, not just moneyed private corporations. The Senate Appropriations Committee will hear this bill by Aug. 17. If it passes there, it goes to a vote in the Senate and a reconciliation vote in the Assembly. Let your representatives know you dont want more billboards on our freeways. Keep San Diego, and California, scenic.

Wilson is director of Scenic San Diego.
The California Legislature has a long history of making rash decisions in the final weeks of its annual sessions that wind up haunting state residents. As CALmatters columnist Dan Walters recently noted, the granddaddy of all such mistakes was the Legislatures late-session embrace in 1996 of a bill meant to deregulate the state electricity sector, which created chaos and cost ratepayers dearly.

Now the Legislature  under intense pressure from legacy-hunting lame-duck Gov. Jerry Brown  is considering several issues that have the potential to be policy fiascoes on a similar grand scale. Every Californian should hope and pray that lawmakers sweat the details before taking any bold action.

On the governors push for a bill to insulate the states giant investor-owned utilities from paying for wildfire costs blamed on their equipment, lawmakers on Thursday seemed inclined to take a pass. This is a relief. Neither Brown nor the utilities have cogently explained how utilities with a history of cutting corners on safety measures should be given de facto incentives to cut corners even more. Despite a series of reforms, ratepayers shouldnt blindly trust the governor to come up with a fair approach, as The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board noted last month. Brown and his appointees on the California Public Utilities Commission have long blocked or limited attempts to hold utilities accountable for mistakes and to be more transparent about CPUC regulatory decisions.

On the governors push for legislation that would make California part of a multistate Western electricity power grid, lawmakers have so far seemed more supportive. But neither Brown nor other supporters have been able to answer valid questions about the wisdom of surrendering state autonomy over its grid in favor of an arrangement in which the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission would have far more authority than it does now over Golden State energy decisions. The Trump administrations hostility to efforts to address climate change  most recently by seeking an end to the long-established practice of letting California set its own vehicle emission-control rules  shouldnt be seen as a red flag. It should be seen as a slug to the jaw.

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On the governors push for his $16.7 billion WaterFix project  building two 35-mile-long, 40-foot-high tunnels to transfer water south from the Sacramento River to the State Water Project pumps in San Joaquin County  it is unclear how lawmakers will act. Browns goal of stabilizing the states water transmission system and improving the health of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta is wise. But plenty of stakeholders are skeptical WaterFix will live up to its hype. This has so frustrated the governor that his tactics now include an attempt to use nearly 60-year-old covenants related to the State Water Project to commit the state to construction without the approval of the state Legislature, the voters or ratepayers who would be footing the bill, as the San Jose Mercury News editorial board recently detailed. This is absurd.

Browns legacy hunt on these issues should hurt, not help, his legacy. Instead of thoroughly responding to skeptics, the governor seems to expect pliant lawmakers to implement my vision, as Gov. Gray Davis described the Legislatures job in 1999.

Dont do it, Legislature. Legislators should think for themselves. Neither they nor Brown should make huge decisions without careful consideration.

Twitter: @sdutIdeas

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Its not like San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer doesnt try to build coalitions and tackle thorny issues such as pension reform, rising homelessness and a convention center expansion. Its not like he doesnt want to make the city better for its residents, from the homeless people sleeping along some pretty filthy city streets to the hoteliers whose high-rises capture the sun so beautifully.

Hes just not very good at getting the job done.

If this week wasnt his worst yet, its only surpassed by the weeks his initial inaction and the bungling of his administration contributed to 20 deaths and 406 hospitalizations during the 2017 hepatitis A crisis. Its hard to believe Faulconer was considered gubernatorial material 18 months ago.

Last Thursday, the state Supreme Court crippled the pension reforms Faulconer fought for in 2012, damaging his legacy as well as ex-Mayor Jerry Sanders and forcing city officials into contract negotiations that may require serious concessions, talks that were required by law and should have been held when the unions didnt have the upper hand. As a councilman in 2012 who pushed for pension reform, Faulconer shoulders some but not all of the blame. But he should have seen that coming.

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Faulconers penchant for political miscalculation on major issues became clearer this week. For one thing, the City Council had to shell out $30 million more on top of the $200 million it had committed to a real estate deal arranged to move some 1,150 employees into a better space. For another, KPBS reported that the citys projections for three large homeless shelters were way off; it wants to move 65 percent of one-time bridge shelter residents into permanent housing. At the end of May, it had transitioned just 12 percent. As the manager of the team that worked with others to set that benchmark, Faulconer deserves some but not all of the blame. But he should have seen this coming.

Wednesday, a signature-gathering campaign spearheaded on his behalf by labor, business and civic leaders fell embarrassingly short of the signatures it needed to put Faulconers No. 1 priority  the convention center expansion  on the November ballot, despite a campaign that cost more than $1 million and an effort that backers called Herculean. As the mayor who called the convention center measure the most important decision before voters in November and who vowed to work tirelessly with the coalition to get it passed, Faulconer merits some but not all of the blame for this failure. But he should have managed the project better and  all together now  seen this coming.

The failure was a huge setback because it eliminated the possibility the project to expand the convention center and pump more money into homelessness aid and street repairs could be approved with a simple majority vote of the public in November. Instead Faulconer asked the council to hold an extraordinary special meeting, hastily arranged within 24 hours over objections of open-government advocates, and to put the measure on the ballot with a two-thirds threshold for approval. Failure to get it on the ballot meant that the city, in another questionable decision, may have to give developers eyeing the expansion site $5 million so the rush to a council meeting made sense, assuming Faulconer could wrangle the votes he needed. He couldnt.

It was the second time the mayor had failed to get the City Council to put a convention center expansion on a ballot. In 2017, before labors involvement made it more palatable, a Democratic majority rebuffed the Republican mayor, 5-4, raising questions about his deal-making prowess. This week, the Democratic majority minus an absent member blocked his new proposal, 4-4, renewing questions.

Ultimately the buck has to stop somewhere. It stops with Faulconer. He has two-plus years left in office, and the need for better leadership, management and negotiations has never been more clear.

Twitter: @sdutIdeas

Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion

Twitter: @sdutIdeas

Facebook: San Diego Union-Tribune Ideas & Opinion
Authorities say a driver impaired by marijuana caused a July 14 accident in the Bay Area that injured state Controller Betty Yee. When a vehicle driven by an allegedly stoned 25-year-old hit the one Yee was riding in, she passed out, the latest incident to illustrate the absolute need to develop tests that can reliably detect marijuana intoxication. Its crucial to public safety in the post-Proposition 64 era of legal recreational cannabis use.

Several testing methods have already been developed. Among them are the Drager DrugTest 5000 machines owned by San Diego police, which use oral swabs to confirm the presence of drugs in the body, with positive results leading to follow-up blood tests. In a recent interview with The San Diego Union-Tribune Editorial Board, Police Chief David Nisleit said he believed it was an effective tool when combined with officers observations of drivers suspected of impairment. Canada also recently chose the Drager machines for national use.

But it is just a matter of time before criminal defense attorneys realize that Drager also has plenty of skeptics. The Truth About Cars website noted Friday that some authorities in Australia and Ireland have lost faith in the devices accuracy and reliability. Closer to home, last year, an official with the Orange County District Attorneys Office voiced similar concerns, citing unacceptably high numbers of false test results.

Heres hoping the UC San Diego Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research finds a better way. Its been tasked by the Legislature to come up with a reliable roadside test for marijuana impairment. Such a breakthrough would make the world a safer place.

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Twitter: @sdutIdeas

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San Diego needs to evaluate its process

Re No convention center measure on Nov. ballot (Aug. 10): With all due respect to Mayor Faulconer, our City Council put process over politics  not politics over progress  by not approving putting the convention center measure on the November ballot.

It is ironic that the Friday paper also included an opinion piece about the California Supreme Courts recent ruling that San Diegos pension reform initiative was not legally placed on the ballot six years ago. Major process deviations should be limited to addressing important urgent needs and not in cases of mismanaged signature gathering.

Want progress? Get it the right way. Manage the process correctly so we dont find ourselves in process crisis.

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Paul Jester

San Diego

If city were a business it would close down

Re Political establishment letting city down (Aug. 10): Your excellent editorial should read the political establishment is letting citizens down instead of the city down.

The way the City of San Diego wastes so much taxpayer money is incomprehensible. If it were a private business it would go out of business a long time ago.

Please, can you name one business or investment it made of public fund that has made profit? But the bureaucrats are very good at making threats to small business owners.

M.G. Bhakta

San Diego

Paper should not have repeated mayors words

Re Political establishment letting city down (Aug. 9): In the U-T editorial, Mayor Faulconer is quoted using the Lords name in vain.

Was it necessary for the U-T to actually print his blasphemy?

A mea culpa is due, to you know who.

Eileen Lavelle

Oceanside

Letters and commentary policy

The U-T welcomes and encourages community dialogue on important public matters. Please visit this page for more details on our letters and commentaries policy. You can email letters@sduniontribune.com or leave a comment below.

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Pack your camera and your tent and head to the outdoors this weekend because youre in for a bright surprise in the sky.

The Perseid meteor shower  caused by Swift-Tuttle comet debris entering the Earths atmosphere  is expected to bring colorful streaks of light in the sky between Saturday night and early Monday morning, and Southern California is set for to have clear view of it.

Where and how can America see this meteor shower? Here are the details.

What are the best times to see it?

Streaks of the meteor shower can be seen in the dark after 9 p.m. between Saturday night, Aug. 11, and early Monday morning, Aug. 13. The meteor shower will peak between Sunday night and Monday morning when as many as 100 meteors can be seen in every hour.

The best time to see the meteor shower is on Monday at 2 a.m.

Cant go outside. How can I watch online?

NASA will have a live broadcast of the meteor shower on Sunday starting at 7 p.m., Pacific Time. The online observatory Slooh.com will also carry a live broadcast of the meteor shower on Sunday starting at 8 p.m., Pacific Time.

Where in Southern California can I get the best view?

The International Dark Sky Association has pinpointed areas where you can get the most darkness in the country. In Southern California you can find those at Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Borrego Springs and at Joshua Tree National Park.

If you live elsewhere in a big city, heres a list of places where you can go to get the most darkness.

Also, the Capital Weather Gang at The Washington Post has a really cool map that shows you where the sky will be the clearest on Sunday night.

What makes this Perseid meteor shower so visible this weekend?

The meteor shower has been going on since July 17 and its expected to go on until Aug. 24. But what makes the meteor shower visible this weekend is the new moon, which makes the sky look darker.

In this video, NASA says the lights in the sky concentrate in the constellation of Perseus which is visible in the northern sky after sunset. The meteor shower, however, should be visible anywhere in the sky.

Is the meteor shower safe?

Yes. The debris left behind by the Swift-Tuttle comet, which orbits around the sun every 133 years, is as small as grains of sand or small pebbles that collide with the Earths atmosphere and disintegrate completely.

The results are colorful lights in the sky.

How can one get the best photos of the meteor shower?

The photo magazine Digital Camera World has a list of recommendations on how to get the best photos, but heres the gist of what you may need:

a digital single-lens reflex camera, also known as a DSLR, that can shoot long exposure shots

a wide-angle lens with a focal length between 28mm and 10mm.

a tripod to hold the camera as steady as possible

Dont have an expensive DSLR camera? No problem.

The Slow Shutter Cam on the iPhone and the Camera FV-5 Lite app on the Android are great free tools for capturing long exposure photos on your mobile phone.

Got any other tips on how to photograph the meteor shower? Share them with us!

Email: luis.gomez@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @RunGomez

Read The Conversation on Flipboard.
Ever heard of Snapchat dysmorphia?

The term resurfaced on social media this week when The Journal of the American Medical Association published a report raising concerns about the pervasiveness of filtered photographs on smartphones, particularly so-called selfies, and the effects on peoples self-perception.

This is an alarming trend because those filtered selfies often present an unattainable look and are blurring the line of reality and fantasy, the article says.

Filtered selfies are self-portrait photos taken on a smartphone using technology that make ones face look more flawless, including features like longer eyelashes or enhanced cheek bones.

So, what is it and how concerned should you be about it? Heres what we were able to find out.

What is Snapchat dysmorphia?

Its not a certified medical diagnosis, but the term has been used by some plastic surgeons to describe a consequence of the smartphone era. Dr. Tijion Esho, a cosmetic doctor at The Esho Clinic UK, is said to have coined the term which stems from an uptick in the use of filtered photos as inspiration for cosmetic surgery or treatment.

A 2017 survey by the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery found that 55 percent of surgeons saw patients who want to look better in selfies in their practices  up 13 percent from the previous year.

Esho says its common to see these selfies used as a reference point, but if it becomes how a person see themselves or they want to look exactly like the image, thats when there are concerns.

Not only is this unrealistic, it's potentially a sign of underlying problems with the patient concerned, he told the BBC. "Further questions should be asked to screen for any element of body dysmorphia. Treating patients that do show those red flags is not only unethical, but also detrimental to the patient, as they need something that no needle or scalpel can ever provide."

What is the big concern about this?

The term Snapchat dysmorphia is being used to address the rise of plastic surgery tied to filtered images. Experts at Boston University of Medicines dermatology department published an article this week exploring how filters and edits have altered peoples perception of beauty.

The advent and popularity of image-based social media have put Photoshop and filters in everyones arsenal, the article by members of the Boston University of Medicines dermatology department says. The pervasiveness of these filtered images can take a told on ones self esteem, make one feel inadequate for not looking a certain way in the real world, and may even act as a trigger and lead to body dysmorphic disorder.

What is body dysmorphic disorder?

Body dysmorphic disorder is a mental disorder in which you can't stop thinking about one or more perceived defects or flaws in your appearance  a flaw that, to others, is either minor or not observable according to Mayo Clinic.

The disorder may cause a person to seek out cosmetic procedures and has been linked to eating disorders and depression.

Body dysmorphic disorder hasnt been tied to apps like Snapchat or its competitor Instagram by any research, but its a topic these researchers feel clinicians should be aware of going forward, especially among young people.

"Snapchat filters are not causing plastic surgery, and Snapchat dysmorphia is not body dysmorphic disorder, but it could be a trigger and this [article] is just increasing awareness," Dr. Neelam Vashi, one of the authors of the article, told BuzzFeed News.

The article seems to have done the trick, because journalist Katie Couric and others are discussing the term on social media.

Some showed concern while others found it to be a sad symptom of the social media era or mocked the term.

What do you think of the terminology?

Email: abby.hamblin@sduniontribune.com

Twitter: @abbyhamblin


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New York, NY -- (SBWIRE) -- 08/10/2018 -- Geared motors refer to those motors which comprise of mechanical gears to control the speed/torque of the motor depending upon the type of application and requirements. A geared motor can run on alternating current (AC) or direct current (DC). Agriculture industry uses gear motors for applications such as harvesting, weed control, seed spreading and irrigation. Forest department primarily deploys geared motors for producing lumber. The rising demand for wooden products across the globe is supporting the growth of the lumber market. As a result, the demand for geared motors in timber industry is expected to rise over the coming years. Moreover, the geared motor market for forestry is dominated by the largest timber producing countries such as the U.S., India, China, Brazil, Canada, Russia, Indonesia, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria.



Geared motors used in agriculture and forest industries are classified on the basis of type of gear boxes such as bevel gear box, helical gear box, offset gear box, planetary gear box, right angle gear box, sequential gear box, shaft mounted gear box, and worm reduction gear box. The bevel gear boxes are further classified as spiral bevel gear box and worm bevel gear box. The mounting of gear box also plays an important role for proper functioning of the geared motors. Moreover, the mounting of gear boxes is dependent on the type of application. Generally, line mounted gear box and shaft mounted gear boxes are preferred for agriculture and forest applications.



Request For Report Sample@ https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/samples/20641



Geared motors market for agriculture is driven by the rising demand for automation in countries such as India, China, U.S., Brazil and China. These countries are among the largest producers of fruits, vegetable, spices and nuts among others. The government support for encouraging agriculture and rising investments in the overall food and beverage industry are the factors propelling the growth of automatic machines across the agriculture and forestry industry. Thus, the demand for geared motors used in these machines is increasing across the globe. However, the lack of technically sound farmers is a potential challenge for the growth of geared motor based machinery. Conversely, increasing awareness among the farmers is expected to overcome the challenge in the coming years. The market for geared motors has potential growth opportunities in the emerging countries whose GDP is widely contributed by the agriculture or timber industry. Moreover, investing in research and development for manufacturing cost effective solutions in geared motors market is expected to open more opportunities for geared motors market.



Request For Report Table of Content (TOC): https://www.persistencemarketresearch.com/toc/20641



Global geared motors for agriculture and forestry market is highly competitive in nature. Maxon Motor AG, Siemens AG, Radicon. (Elecon Group Company), Framo Morat Group, Portescap Inc., Varvel SpA, Leroy Somer, WEG S.A., Bauer Gear Motor, Bison Group, Johnson Electric, Sumitomo Drive Technologies, SEW-Eurodrive, and BFT Automation UK Ltd., among others, are some of the major players in global geared motors market. The gear motor market has a wide range of applications segment; thus, the demand for geared motors is high across the industries. Some companies such as Maxon Motor AG and Emerson Elecric Co. design geared motors especially for irrigation applications and timber producing whereas others design the geared motors for various other applications.
Press Release

August 10, 2018 ANGARA SEEKS TO IMPROVE HEALTHCARE SERVICES FOR SENIOR CITIZENS Senator Sonny Angara has stressed the necessity to improve the country's ability to meet the healthcare needs of the Filipino elderly. Speaking at the 6th Annual Convention of the Philippine Society of Geriatrics and Gerontology, Angara said the country is facing a serious shortage of geriatricians or medical doctors who are specially trained to evaluate and manage the healthcare needs and treatment of older people. The lawmaker cited data from the Retirement and Healthcare Coalition which showed that there are only 140 geriatric doctors for the 8 million senior citizens in the country. "I learned that out of the 140 geriatric doctors, about half of them do not have actual clinic or hospital experience. And one of the main reasons for the lack of geriatricians is the lack of facilities where doctors can train for this particular specialty. We need more venues where our geriatricians can hone their craft," he said. Angara has filed Senate Bill 1157 that seeks to establish a medical scholarship program to address the shortage of doctors in the country. The senator added that while the state-run National Center for Geriatric Health in Manila was inaugurated in 2010 supposedly to serve as the country's first center for aged care, its capability is limited and that is has yet to be institutionalized by Congress. Angara said that as a legislator, he "remains attentive and responsive to the needs of seniors" by pushing for legislation that would promote their welfare such as the Expanded Senior Citizens Act, which grants VAT exemption on medicines and medical supplies, medical services, and professional fees of doctors. "Masasabi ko na minana ko ang adbokasiya para sa mga senior citizen mula sa aking ama. He is responsible for the Senior Citizens Act of 1992 that granted discounts to our seniors. "How we treat our elders is an indication of how we treat our most vulnerable. Tungkulin natin na alagaan at suportahan sila upang masiguro na sila ay may buhay na maginhawa," the younger Angara said. He is now pushing for the passage of the Expanded Social Pension bill, which seeks to not only double the amount, but also widen the scope to cover those without any form of pension. Just last week, he also sponsored the Universal Health Care bill. While all senior citizens are already covered by Philhealth, the proposed UHC will be more comprehensive to include preventive, promotive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative health services.
Press Release

August 10, 2018 De Lima files bill for pedestrian safety and convenience Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima has filed a measure which seeks to mandate local government units (LGUs) to remove any obstructions along sidewalks and public roads that jeopardize the safety and convenience of thepedestrians and motorists. Alarmed at the growing road-related deaths and injuries, De Lima filed Senate Bill (SB) No. 1905, to be known as "Pedestrian Safety Act," which seeks to implement measures that would free sidewalks and public roads of any obstructions that impede the public safety and convenience. "Given the large number of pedestrian fatalities and injuries, there is an urgent need for the government to make our streets pedestrian-friendly," she said. "These road-related injuries can be prevented when the government takes some action to address the problems in road safety," she added. Based on the Global Status Report on Road Safety released by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2015, more than 1.25 million people die and 50 million more injured from road-related incidents every year globally. In Metro Manila, there were 446 fatalities and 20,876 injuries recorded in road accidents in 2016, with 44 percent of the deaths and 24 percent of those injured being pedestrians. "What is extremely troubling is that an average of 670 children have perished from 2006 to 2015, from road accidents," the Senator from Bicol pointed out. De Lima explained that most of these road accidents can be prevented if the both of the pedestrians and motorists alike are well-informed of their rights and duties, along with a strict adherence to long-established traffic rules and regulations. "Unarguably, road accidents are not only caused by erring motorists who refuse to follow the Traffic Code and give way to pedestrians, but likewise by pedestrians who stubbornly place themselves in harm's way," she said. Under SB No. 1905, all pedestrians are prohibited from walking along and upon the portion of a public road paved for vehicular traffic and are required to walk only on the shoulder on the left side of the roadway in relation to the pedestrian's direction of travel when sidewalks are not provided. She also proposed, among others, that no person upon roller skates, or riding in or by means of any coaster, toy vehicle, or similar device, may go upon any public road except while crossing a street on a crosswalk. As for motorists, De Lima proposed that when traffic control signals are not in place and no sign indicates otherwise, the driver of a vehicle shall yield by slowing down or stopping if needed to a pedestrian crossing the road within a marked crosswalk. De Lima also suggested that a driver should be obliged to bring his vehicle to a full stop when a pedestrian is trying to cross a public road, guided by a dog guide or carrying in a raised or extended position a cane or walking stick. Under this proposed measure, local government units are to provide sidewalks when there are none, clear any obstructions, and install high visible signs whenever there are ongoing construction activities in the vicinity. Under this bill, any person who suffers damage to himself or his property as a result of inadequate sidewalks may file an action for damages against any juridical person or local government unit responsible in the area.
Press Release

August 11, 2018 De Lima promotes use of renewable energy in PH households Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima has filed a measure which pushes for the utilization of solar energy in homes as a means to lowering energy costs and reducing overall carbon footprint in the country. De Lima filed Senate Bill (SB) No. 1904 which seeks to promote the use of renewable energy providing incentives and credit facilities for households utilizing solar power systems. "This bill seeks to institutionalize the provision of adequate incentive mechanisms for small households in order to help ease and expedite their transition to renewable energy sources and thus contribute to the nation's pursuit towards reducing its overall carbon footprint," she said. In 2016, the Department of Energy (DOE) reported that approximately 24% of power generated nationwide came from Renewable Energy (RE)-based generation facilities. The Senator from Bicol noted that upon closer inspection, the data revealed that only 1% of all RE for the same year was generated from solar photovoltaic systems. De Lima said utilizing solar energy is an endeavour that should be considered by the government because "generating electricity by way of harvesting solar energy is becoming cheaper as the years go by." According to the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), the cost of power generation from solar photovoltaic systems has fallen by 73% since 2010 and is projected to be further cut by half in the year 2020. De Lima also said that solar panels are relatively easy to acquire, transport, and install, noting that sometimes only taking a few hours to a few days for larger arrays. "This ease of access is what makes solar panels unique from other energy sources - renewable or otherwise," she said. "The sooner the nation adopts policies promoting renewable energy sources, the closer it is to achieving energy independence," she added. Under her proposed measure, the Department of Finance (DOF) and concerned agencies shall draw-up appropriate mechanisms for the grant of subsidies, establishment of guarantee funds, tax credits, and rebates on the purchase and installation of small solar power system for residential use. The Senator from Bicol explained, "These incentive mechanisms shall be implemented in tranches beginning from a subsidy of 75% of the basic cost for the installation of small solar power systems in the first three years of this Act's implementation, 50% on the next three years, and 25% on the seventh year onward." "The installation of small solar power systems shall be granted expedited plan checks and shall be exempt from the payment of building permit fees. The total cost of the solar power system shall further be excluded from the computation and payment of real property taxes," she added. The DOF, in coordination with Department of Science and Technology, DOE, and The National Renewable Energy Board shall issue the necessary rules and regulations for the implementation of the proposed measure to be known as the "Small Solar Power System Incentives Act of 2018."
Press Release

August 11, 2018 MMDA traffic scheme to give rise to 'passengers-for-hire,' De Lima warns Opposition Senator Leila M. de Lima has asked the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority (MMDA) to seriously reconsider its plan to prohibit driver-only vehicles from plying along EDSA during rush hours. De Lima said the latest MMDA's traffic scheme might just give birth to "passengers-for hire," also referred as "car jockeys," who could make an earning out of being the second or third person in private vehicles plying along EDSA. "Our government should abandon its bad habit of experimenting on how to ease out traffic congestion during rush hours. It cannot always try its luck through a trial-and-error in resolving the perennial traffic problem," she said. "While car-pooling may be commendable, this plan prohibiting driver-only vehicles along EDSA could give rise to paid car jockeys who are more than willing to risk their own safety by getting into the cars of strangers just to earn money," she added. Last Aug. 7, the Metro Manila Council (MMC) approved MMDA's High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) regulation, which aims to ban single passenger private vehicles on EDSA during peak hours, which were not specified. Under the directive, only vehicles with two or more passengers would be allowed to pass through EDSA. De Lima, who chairs the Senate social justice, welfare and rural development committee, noted that the "peak-time rule of three people to one car" has already been tested and implemented in Jakarta, Indonesia but has proven to be ineffective. In Indonesia, the so-called "3-in-1 rule" which was introduced in 2003 did not only give rise to passengers-for-hire--which included children who left their schools to be fulltime jockeys--but also worsened the traffic in Jakarta. "This instance should remind our government to rethink its plan before fully implementing the HOV because aside from possibly worsening the traffic in EDSA, they might put the safety of the Filipino people, especially those from the poor sectors of society, in great peril," she said. The Senator from Bicol reiterated his legislative proposal, logged as Senate Bill 1897, which seeks to create the Philippine Road Safety Institute to look closely into the myriad aspects of road and transportation safety situation in the Philippines. She has also filed Senate Bill 1905 which seeks to implement measures that would free sidewalks and public roads of any obstructions that impede the public safety and convenience.
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Two Chinese among five wounded in SW Pakistan suicide attack



Quetta, Pakistan, Aug 11 (AFP) Aug 11, 2018



A suicide attack on Saturday in Southwest Pakistan targeted a bus carrying Chinese engineers, wounding at least five people including two Chinese nationals, officials said.

The attack came in Dalbandin region, around 340 kilometres (211 miles) from Quetta, the capital of southwestern Balochistan province, when the Chinese engineers working on a mineral project were being transported to the city.

Local administration and police officials told AFP that two paramilitary soldiers providing security the the driver of the bus were wounded in the attack alongside the two Chinese nationals.

"The attacker, waiting in a small truck along the route, exploded the vehicle when the bus carrying Chinese engineers came close to him," Dostain Dashti, a senior police officer in the region, told AFP on phone.

He said that the body of the suicide attacker was blown up in the attack and his vehicle caught fire.

Saifullah Khaitran, a senior local administration official, confirmed the attack, adding that the condition of all the injured was stable.

He added that the engineers were working on the Saindak project, a joint venture between Pakistan and China to extract gold, copper and silver from an area close to the Iranian border.

Muhammad Ibrahim, the driver of the targeted bus, told AFP from his hospital bed that he had averted major loss by slamming on the brakes when he saw blast in front of him.

"The whole bus would have burnt if I had not applied the brakes in emergency," he said.

Baloch insurgents later claimed responsibility of the attack.

"We targeted this bus which was carrying Chinese engineers," Jiand Baloch, a spokesperson for Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) told AFP by phone.

"We attacked them because they are extracting gold from our region, we won't allow it," he said.

Balochistan is home to a long-running ethnic Baloch insurgency aimed at seeking greater control over the province's abundant mineral resources.

Bordering Iran and Afghanistan, Balochistan is the largest of Pakistan's four provinces, but the roughly seven million inhabitants have long complained they do not receive a fair share of its gas and mineral wealth.

Beijing is ramping up investment in its South Asian neighbour as part of a plan unveiled in 2015 that will link its far-western Xinjiang region to Gwadar port in Balochistan with a series of infrastructure, power and transport upgrades.

Pakistan also regularly accuses its eastern neighbour India of funding and arming the separatist insurgents.
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/var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17

/usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149



Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fd4c365b0)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd4b04430)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fd4c365b0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd4b04430)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fd4b9c8e8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd4b04430)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd4b04430)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd3ebfa00)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fd4c394c8)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fd4c394c8)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0
System error

error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.

context: ... 21: </%method> 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: </%perl> 28: <table width="90%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> 29: <tr> ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25

/usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951

/var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17

/usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149



Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fd484b2e0)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd482bca0)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fd484b2e0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd482bca0)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fd47ecd00)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd482bca0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd482bca0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd3ec0060)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fd46a1838)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fd46a1838)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0
System error

error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.

context: ... 21: </%method> 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: </%perl> 28: <table width="90%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> 29: <tr> ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25

/usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951

/var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17

/usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149



Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fd48018e8)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd47d1580)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fd48018e8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd47d1580)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fd4831680)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd47d1580)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd47d1580)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd3ec0a18)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fd47cffb0)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fd47cffb0)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0
System error

error: Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.

context: ... 21: </%method> 22: 23: % foreach my $c (@categories) { 24: <%perl> 25: my $category_id = $c->get_id(); 26: my @stories = Bric::Biz::Asset::Business::Story->list ( { element_type_id=>1148, category_id=>$category_id , Order=> 'cover_date', publish_status => 't' , OrderDirection=> 'DESC' , Limit=>10 } ); 27: </%perl> 28: <table width="90%" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> 29: <tr> ... code stack: /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html:25

/usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm:951

/var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj:17

/usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html:149



Can't call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25. Trace begun at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Exceptions.pm line 129 HTML::Mason::Exceptions::rethrow_exception('Can\'t call method "get_id" on an undefined value at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25.^J') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/dhandler.html line 25 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 160 HTML::Mason::Component::run_dynamic_sub('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fd47fb0c0)', 'main') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 951 HTML::Mason::Request::call_dynamic('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd468de88)', 'main') called at /var/cache/mason/obj/1784076917/main/smetimes/dhandler.html.obj line 17 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fd47fb0c0)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1305 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 958 HTML::Mason::Request::call_next('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd468de88)') called at /usr/local/bricolage/data/burn/stage/oc_1027/smetimes/autohandler_template.html line 149 HTML::Mason::Commands::__ANON__ at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Component.pm line 138 HTML::Mason::Component::run('HTML::Mason::Component::FileBased=HASH(0x7f3fd4804bb8)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1303 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 1295 HTML::Mason::Request::comp(undef, undef, undef) called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 484 eval {...} at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/Request.pm line 436 HTML::Mason::Request::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd468de88)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 165 HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler::exec('HTML::Mason::Request::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd468de88)') called at /usr/share/perl5/HTML/Mason/ApacheHandler.pm line 831 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handle_request('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler=HASH(0x7f3fd3ec0880)', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fd478a0a0)') called at (eval 487) line 8 HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler::handler('HTML::Mason::ApacheHandler', 'Apache2::RequestRec=SCALAR(0x7f3fd478a0a0)') called at -e line 0 eval {...} at -e line 0
North Korea slams UN chief over call for nuclear disarming



United Nations, United States, Aug 10 (AFP) Aug 10, 2018



North Korea on Friday accused UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres of making "reckless remarks" and toeing the US line when he called for verifiable and irreversible denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.

Guterres made the statement following talks with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo on Wednesday to discuss the US-led effort to rid North Korea of its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

The UN chief "should do what is beneficial to the current situation on Korean peninsula for peace and stability, not just by singing (the) chorus for sanctions to please (a) certain country," said a statement from the North Korean mission to the United Nations.

The mission described as "reckless" a remark from Guterres who said that North Korea "can be a normal member of the international community in this region through total denuclearization that is verifiable, irreversible."

The statement said North Korea was "astonished" to hear Guterres' remarks "at a time when the world supports and welcomes the historic DPRK-US summit and the joint statement in Singapore."

At the first-ever meeting between sitting leaders of the US and North Korea in June, President Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un pledged in a joint statement to work toward the "complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."

The statement however was short on details and a UN panel of experts reported last week that North Korea is pressing ahead with its nuclear and missile programs.

The United States, backed by Japan, is urging UN member-states to maintain pressure on North Korea to give up its military programs by fully adhering to a raft of sanctions.

Trump's administration has argued that sanctions must remain fully in place until North Korea has scrapped its nuclear and missile programs and that the dismantling is verified.

The Security Council last year adopted three rounds of tough economic sanctions on North Korea, banning most of its exports of raw commodities and severely restricting oil supplies.
UN calls for credible probe of Yemen bus strike



United Nations, United States, Aug 10 (AFP) Aug 10, 2018



The UN Security Council called for a "credible" investigation Friday after at least 29 children were killed in an air strike by the Saudi-led coalition in northern Yemen.

The appeal followed the coalition's announcement that it had ordered a probe of Thursday's raid in the northern rebel stronghold of Saada.

Britain's Ambassador Karen Pierce, whose country holds the rotating Security Council presidency, said after a closed-door meeting on Yemen that "if any investigation that is held is not credible, the council will obviously want to review that" and decide "if more is necessary."

The raid hit the bus at Dahyan market in Saada, injuring at least 48 others, including 30 children, according to the International Committee for the Red Cross.

The bus was turned into a mass of twisted metal, and remains of the victims and personal items were still scattered across the ground on Friday.

The coalition, which has been fighting Yemen's rebels since 2015, claimed the bus was carrying "Huthi combatants."

It initially said the coalition had carried out a "legitimate military action," targeting a bus in response to a deadly missile attack on Saudi Arabia by Huthi rebels on Wednesday.

At a press conference in Dahyan, Huthi health minister Taha al-Mutawakel put the death toll from the "horrible crime" at 51 people, including 40 children.

"This toll is not final... a lot of people are missing and the remains are still scattered around the crime scene and nearby," he said.

The Red Cross could not immediately confirm the new figures.



- Children 'excited' for trip -



At the time of the attack, the children were on a bus heading back to school "from a picnic," the Save the Children charity said, quoting its staff.

"The mothers told me that their children did not sleep for two days because they were too excited to take part in this trip," Yahya Hussein, one of the children's teachers, told AFP.

The Huthis' Islamic affairs ministry said the children were from a Koranic school.

As international outrage over the attack mounted, the coalition said it would open an investigation.

US Ambassador Nikki Haley said the images of the strike that killed children were "appalling" and called on the coalition to quickly complete its investigation, release the findings and take accountability measures.

The Security Council met behind closed doors to discuss the attack, at the request of five countries that are non-permanent council members.

"We have seen the images of children who died," Dutch Deputy Ambassador Lise Gregoire-van Haaren told reporters. "What is essential at this moment in time is to have a credible and independent investigation."

But the council did not request an independent investigation -- as demanded by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who condemned the attack.

Human Rights Watch criticised the council's failure to demand an impartial investigation.

"The sad truth is the Saudis have been given a chance to investigate themselves and the results are laughable," said HRW's deputy UN director Akshaya Kumar.

Out of 75 cases of civilian deaths investigated by the coalition, only two have resulted in an admission of fault, she said.



- Rebel missile attacks -



The coalition, which also includes the United Arab Emirates, intervened in Yemen to try to restore the government after the rebels drove it out of the capital Sanaa.

Coalition spokesman Turki al-Maliki said claims by aid organisations that children were inside the bus were "misleading," and that "the elements inside the bus were Huthi combatants."

Saudi Arabia shot down a missile fired by the Huthis on Wednesday, with debris killing a Yemeni man and wounding 11 others, the coalition said.

The missile was fired from the rebel-held Yemeni province of Amran towards the Saudi city of Jizan, the coalition said.

The coalition said it intercepted and destroyed two more ballistic missiles fired by the Huthis from Saada towards Jizan. No damage or injuries were reported.

The war in impoverished Yemen has left nearly 10,000 people dead and unleashed what the UN describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

UN envoy to Yemen Martin Griffiths has invited the warring sides to talks on September 6 in Geneva.
IS jihadists in Iraq kill 5 members of family



Tikrit, Iraq, Aug 11 (AFP) Aug 11, 2018



Islamic State group jihadists killed five members of the same family at a checkpoint on the edge of their village north of Baghdad early on Saturday, a police official said.

The killings took place in Baiji district, around 200 kilometres (125 miles) north of the capital, the official said.

"A group of Daesh (IS) fighters came from the Hamrin mountains, crossed the Tigris river after midnight and attacked the checkpoint at the entrance to the village of Albu Juwari, north of Baiji," he said.

Five members of the family were killed and a sixth was in a critical condition, he said.

All were members of a tribal militia operating under the umbrella of the Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) paramilitary force that has fought the jihadists.

IS, which once controlled swathes of Iraq and neighbouring Syria, has been pushed back by multiple offensives and ousted from all of Iraq's towns and cities, including the capital of its self-declared "caliphate", Mosul.

But despite Iraq declaring victory over the jihadists in December, they have continued to use sparsely populated areas such as the Hamrin mountains as launchpads for attacks.
'Time has come' to create US Space Force, sixth military branch: Pence







Washington (AFP) Aug 9, 2018





Vice President Mike Pence on Thursday unveiled details of plans to build a US Space Force that would become the sixth branch of America's massive military, saying the "time has come" to prepare for "the next battlefield." President Donald Trump ordered the creation of Space Force in June, arguing the Pentagon needs it to tackle vulnerabilities in space and assert US dominance in orbit. Its creation however is not a done deal, as it needs to be approved by Congress, and the concept has met with s ... read more
Government efforts to project the image of a modern, professional and constantly improving armed forces is proving more difficult to sustain. During the decades of communist rule the state had complete control over the media, a massive internal security forces and, most important, no Internet or smartphones. Those last two items have crippled efforts to persuade Russians and foreigners that Russia was still a major developer and manufacturer of new weapons. The constant stream of press releases detailing new weapons the Russian forces will be equipped with is undermined by the reality, often documented vis-a-vi smartphone video spread via the Internet. The new weapons often do not work at all and even if they do there is never enough money to produce them in the quantities implied. Russian development and manufacturing efforts are still crippled by shortages of cash and talent. Arms exports are hurt by this, especially with competitors like China continuing to produce Russian designs more efficiently (more effective, reliable and less costly in the long run). New gear that does get produced in significant numbers is usually for export customers who have the cash for procurement that the Russian military still lacks.

This poverty of money and talent is very visible with the Russian military efforts in Ukraine (Donbas) and Syria. Both are being carried out on the cheap and with as much discretion as possible because these operations are unpopular with the Russian people. They see Russian money and Russian lives being wasted on expensive political games that do the average Russian no good at all. Thus the government efforts to mask just how much these operations cost in terms of resources and casualties. Hiding the spending is easier than concealing the number of dead.

But the government keeps trying. Some with morale in the military. That is not a new problem and that was why the government tried, in 2013, to revive the old communist era ideological training for troops and increased use of informants and opinion surveys to monitor morale and loyalty in the military. In effect, the government has returned to using the communist era "Zampolit" (political officer.) In Soviet times, every unit commander had a deputy (Zampolit) who represented the communist party and could veto any of the commanders decisions. The Zampolit was responsible for troop loyalty and political correctness. Sort of a communist chaplain. In 2010 the Russian Army reintroduced chaplains, something that the communists did away with in the 1920s. The new chaplains are, however, expected to report on the loyalty of the troops, to church and state. Now, additional officers are being added to handle ideological training and monitoring morale. Not exactly the return of the Zampolit, but a return of most of the Zampolits duties. Like their Cold War era counterparts the Zampolits proved better at reporting the bad news than dealing with it.

Morale did not improve but at least the regular use of opinion surveys did by showing the troops were well aware of deceptive press releases about nonexistent new equipment. The troops also knew what low budget charades the operations in Donbas and Syria were. While many details of the surveys could be kept secret the actual attitudes of the troops could not. No wonder why some Russians are nostalgic for the good old days of communist rule. If you want to see the future, look at China where newly (for the first time in history) modernized Chinese forces are a long-term threat to Russia. In China, there is lots of new gear and plenty to go around. China has a more effective economy and lots more money. But there many ways to weaponized wealth. Examples abound in far eastern Russia and that is most unwelcome with most Russians.

Chinese entrepreneurs have quietly taken control of the local economy in those parts of Russia that border China and North Korea. That explains why China has ignored North Korea using Russia and Chinese cargo ships to illegally export coal. North Korea moves the coal (illegally) into Russia via truck where it is exported on ships owned by Chinese companies. China is tolerating this because Chinese firms have been exploiting corruption in Russia (where it is worse than in China) to dominate the economy in the Russian Far East (the area between Mongolia and the Pacific coast). China has a historical claim on this area, claims which China revived after World War II when the communists took over China. Those revived claims led to border skirmishes during the 1970s that were halted when Russia made it clear it was prepared to risk nuclear war over the issue. That Russian policy still stands, although it is not publicized.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 and the Russian economy went free market and open to foreign trade and investment China saw an opportunity to get back its lost lands in the Russian Far East. The plan is for China to slowly absorb the Russian Far East economically and demographically (with more Chinese settling in the Russian Far East, legally or otherwise.) Eventually, Russia finds that Chinese comprise most of the population in their far eastern provinces and control the economy as well. This approach takes longer but is less likely to trigger a nuclear war with Russia. Despite that threat, Russia has made itself more vulnerable by becoming more dependent on the Chinese currency (the yuan) as a way to deal with the growing list of Western (especially American) sanctions. By selling off euro and dollar-denominated assets (bonds, government debt) and switching to yuan-denominated equivalents Russia becomes more dependent on (and vulnerable to) China. Yes, all is going according to plan

Meanwhile, the most potent threat to Russia is internal. The corruption has been much more extensive than in China and, in comparison to China, Russia has been a much more difficult place to start and profitably run any kind of enterprise. That is one reason why Russian shipbuilding (both military and commercial) is considered below par while Chinese efforts are world class and a major part of the much larger Chinese economy. Same with most defense firms in China. The greater corruption in Russia not only drives more of the local talent out of the country but also a lot of new wealth. China created all of its new wealth with a rapidly developing and expanding local economy and that persuades many talented Chinese expatriates to return. Chinese who made money and preferred to invest it in China. In contrast, much more of the new wealth in Russia (largely because of oil exports) was stolen and illegally moved outside Russia.

Syria

In Syria, the alliance between Russia, Iran and Turkey is coming apart because all three nations have different goals even though the three have been cooperating with the Assad government since 2015 to win and end the war. Such alliances can be difficult to manage and the one in Syria is in real danger of coming apart. With the rebels no longer a major threat to the Assad government each of these three allies are more interested in their own objectives in Syria. For Russia, it is to maintain its two bases there and that is only possible if the Assad government (which granted the use of an airbase and port facilities) survives. Iran is in Syria to keep the Assads in power so Iran can mass forces there to attack and destroy Israel. Turkey is mainly there to destroy Turkish and Syrian Kurdish separatist groups, as well as any Islamic terrorists that are seen as a threat to Turkey. To accomplish this Turkey wants to clear all Kurdish separatists from the Syrian side of the border and turn that security zone over to the FSA (a Syrian rebel group that not works for the Turks). After that, there has been some vague talk of forming and leading an Arab alliance that would destroy Israel. At the moment there are few Arab states interested in that sort of thing (because of Iran) or doing anything under Turkish leadership (bad memories).

All three of these unlikely allies have run into different, although sometimes interrelated, problems with achieving their goals. The Russians want an end to the seven years of fighting and are now in conflict with Iranian plans to attack Israel. Russia and Israel have long been on good terms and the Russians want to keep it that way. Iran doesnt really care much what the Turks do in the north and are more concerned with their growing (and so far failed) effort to do some damage to Israel. Russia is trying to convince Iran that the Israelis are really, really serious about getting Iranian forces out of Syria. Israel demands this. Turkey agrees with that and the Assads would prefer Iranian forces to leave. So far Iran appears to be ignoring this advice.

Iranian leaders need a win against Israel and they are not having much luck in getting one. This is one reason Russia makes it clear that it sides with Israel when it comes to Syria and a long-term peace deal. Despite that Israel has concluded that Russian pressure will not persuade Iran to back off on their efforts to increase Iranian controlled military forces in Syria and then launch attacks on Israel. But Russia will cooperate with Israel.

Russia backed this up by openly accepting Israeli use of Jerusalem as their capital and moving functions normally held in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. This angers many Moslems, and especially Iran. This support for Israel is one the few things the United States and Russia agree on these days. The durability of this alliance is mainly a matter of paying attention to who can do what. For example, unclassified rankings of the most powerful nations tend to include tiny Israel in the top ten, as in; U.S., Russia, China, Germany, Britain, France, Japan, Israel, Saudi Arabia and the UAE (United Arab Emirates). These rankings combine economic, technical, military and diplomatic capabilities. Israel may be small in population but they are world class in many technology areas, have nukes and the most capable armed forces in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia and UAE have much of the world oil reserves and armed forces they have built up over decades at great expense and, to the surprise of many (including Iran) made it work. Their combat pilots are competent and their anti-missile defenses work (as they have intercepted over a 100 ballistic missiles, many of them Iranian made, fired by Yemeni Shia rebels at targets in Saudi Arabia.) Iran and Turkey are not in the top ten and Russia notices that. Despite all that the Israeli alliance with Russia is unwritten and has limits. Yet it is real because Israel has not attacked any Russian targets with its growing air offensive against Iranian forces.

Israel has told the Assads that if they stick with Iran they will be destroyed. The Assads realize that the Iranians are fanatics about destroying Israel and that the Israelis have demonstrated their ability to counter any move the Iranians make. Moreover, all the other Arab states consider the Assads traitors for aligning themselves with the Iranians, who are quite openly at war with Arab control of Arabia and much else. Worse, no one has much sympathy for the Assads, who have very few good qualities. Despite this, the Assads apparently try to side with Russia and Israel rather than Iran. What this comes down to is the fact that Iran is a foreign (Indo-European, not Arab) power that wants to increase its direct control over Syria. Russia and Israel do not. Many Iranians (but few of their leaders) note that the three most powerful Middle Eastern states (Israel, Saudi Arabia and UAE) are now allies, mainly against Iran. While the Turks are now led by a nationalistic Islamic leader who also wants to destroy Israel the Turks also admit that Iran is a traditional rival and the Arabs are not as weak as they were during the centuries the Turks (the Ottoman Empire) ruled them. Many Turks are smitten with the nationalism thing, just as they once were when they had an empire. But the Turks didnt get their empire and then transition to a modern, industrial age state when the empire collapsed a century ago by being stupid. The only dummies at this point are key factions of the religious dictatorship that rules Iran.

Ukraine Interrupted

Russia seems unconcerned that the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) observer teams who continue operating in Donbas keep reporting violations (of ceasefire and other agreements) and Russia simply denies it, calling the photos and witness accounts contrived. The OSCE personnel are still targets for rebel fire. The 600 OSCE staff (most of them roving monitors) in eastern Ukraine and Donbas, whose job is to oversee the ceasefire, have been complaining since 2015 that they are being restricted by rebels and, less frequently Ukrainian forces from carrying out inspections. There are satellite photos available as a backup and local sources on the ground. Russia believes that because the front lines have not moved much in years, they can do what they want with no consequences.

In the four years that OSCE has been monitoring the Donbas violence, they have suffered some casualties but these could be explained away as accidents. In general, the OSCE personnel have not been targets of assassination. From the beginning of the OSCE monitoring operation, Russia has regularly been accused of interfering. The OSCE presence is recognized by Russia and is supposed to be monitoring the situation in Donbas and verifying who is doing what. That has proved to be difficult because the Russian backed rebels (and sometimes Russian troops pretending to be rebels) regularly interfere with OSCE monitoring teams. The Russians ignore or harass OSCE whenever they decide they need to, or simply feel like it. The pro-Russian rebels continue to block the movement of observers in their territory. OSCE has been less aggressive because of all this but because new team members constantly arrive there are still observers willing to do the job right. The OSCE has found that Russian backed rebels are responsible for most (sometimes 90 percent) of the violent incidents in eastern Ukraine.

The UN estimates that 10,600 people have died in eastern Ukraine between April 2014 and August 2018. Nearly 30 percent of the dead were civilians. The violence continues but at a lower intensity. In the last few months, there has been more Russian armored vehicles operation in the Donbas but these have not been used much, even though their presence in Donbas is forbidden by the current ceasefire agreements. The most effective Russian moves have been economic, like the effort to block water access to Ukrainian coastal areas on the Sea of Azov (east of Crimea.)

August 8, 2018: The U.S. imposed the first round of new sanctions on Russia for its March 2018 use of nerve gas in Britain. The details of this use of Russian nerve gas has been confirmed. British investigators identified the Russians who were involved with the use of nerve gas to try and murder Sergei Skripal on March 4th. Skripal was a former Soviet intelligence officer, who worked for Britain as a double agent. He was found unconscious on March 4th, with his adult daughter, on a park bench near a British pub they had visited. The two were hospitalized and survived what turned out to be an assassination attempt using a form of nerve gas (novichok) developed in Russia and, as far as anyone knows, not possessed by anyone but Russia. Three of the police officers who responded to the call about the unconscious people on the park bench also fell ill, one of them seriously. Everyone recovered and provided information on what happened. Four months later the container (a small perfume bottle) the Russian assassin carried the liquid novichok in was found. This was because a couple had found the discarded novichok bottle nine days after the March attack and kept it. The assassin had tossed the bottle away in a park. Eventually, the couple opened the bottle and both ended up in the hospital, where the woman died. When her companion regained consciousness he provided information leading to the novichok container and further analysis of it. Worldwide, four different labs analyzed the samples and all agreed it was novichok, a chemical weapon never manufactured outside Russia.

In response to the March incident, Britain expelled 23 Russian diplomats suspected of being intelligence agents and Russia responded by expelling 23 British diplomats. More nations said they would expel Russian diplomats and after the June confirmation that it was Russian novichok, the U.S. ordered a series of additional sanctions on Russia into effect. These could be limited if Russia admitted it used novichok and provided assurances it would never do so again (with any banned weapons). Russia has said it will do neither and denied any involvement.

This assassination effort was nothing new for Russia. Skripal was still working for British intelligence when he was arrested in Russia at the end of 2004 and prosecuted for espionage. He was sent to prison in 2006 but got out in 2010 when Russia agreed to use him as one of the three imprisoned spies to get back several Russian illegals who were caught in the United States. Russia was reluctant to part with Skripal, who had apparently done enormous damage to Russian overseas spying efforts. But they wanted their imprisoned agents in the U.S. back. This was not the first time Russia had gone after people like Skripal in Britain. This sort of thing has happened elsewhere in Europe before and after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Russia insists that it does not do this and have been saying that since the Soviets started hunting down and killing traitors overseas back in the 1930s.

August 6, 2018: Russia is expelling 13 Greek diplomats after Greece banned four Russian diplomats from Greece and accused Russia of attempting to interfere with internal Greek politics. Russia denied it and retaliated.

August 4, 2018: Ukrainian intelligence noted that Russia had replaced all the rebel faction leaders in Donbas with Russian officers. The rebel forces in rebel-held portions of the two provinces of Donbas (Luhansk and Donetsk) are organized (unofficially) into the 1st and 2nd corps of the Russian 8th army, which is based across the border in Novocherkassk. Russia. The 8th army provides supplies, replacements and all manner of support. A growing number of the rebels are actually Russian soldiers although many Russian volunteers are still around. While the Russians commanding rebel units pretend to be a rebel, not Russian army, old habits die hard and the rebels units are operating more and more like Russian army units and not improvised rebel groups. Russia is only sending career (non-conscript) troops or Russian speaking mercenaries to Donbas. Every rebel is now on the Russian payroll because Russian cash and economic aid are all that keeps the rebel-controlled half of Donbas going.

August 2, 2018: In southern Syria Russian military police are operating with UN peacekeepers so that, for the first time since 2014, the peacekeepers can patrol the 1974 UN demilitarized zone (extending 24 kilometers from the Israel-Syrian border). By the terms of the 1974 deal, any Syrian violation of that zone would be considered an act of war and would be met with force from Israel. Russia has also agreed to keep Iranian forces 85 kilometers from the Israeli border. This includes Hezbollah and other Iranian mercenaries. The Russian military police are also taking possession of the abandoned Syrian observation positions which, along with their Israeli counterparts, monitored the border and the actions of the UN peacekeepers. The Russians will soon turn over these observation posts to the Assad forces.

August 1, 2018: In Syria American forces operating there, especially on the ground, have to receive additional training before arriving in Syria so they know how to operate under constant attack by Russia EW (Electronic Warfare) equipment. The Americans have made the most of this and are sending new EW gear to their troops in Syria to not only deal with the Russian EW but to see how well the new EW equipment performs against the formidable inventory of new Russian designs. For many American troops in Syria, the most difficult aspect of being there is dealing with the Russian EW.

July 31, 2018: In southern Syria, on the Israeli border, Iranian forces appear to be pulling back. Russia says it has persuaded the Iranians to stay at least 85 kilometers from the Israeli border. The problem is constantly monitoring and verifying compliance. The Iranians regularly make peace deals like then and then devote a lot of effort to developing ways to violate the terms of their agreement and not get caught. Russia has also told Israel that Iran has rebuffed Russian suggestions that Iran withdraws its forces from Syria.

July 30, 2018: In the Central African Republic (CAR) three Russian journalists were murdered in an ambush 50 kilometers from the capital Bangui near the town of Sibut. The journalists were working on a documentary report about the Wagner Group, a Russian military contractor that has a training and advisory presence in the CAR. Apparently one or more of the Russians resisted what turned out to be a case of robbery, resulting in gunfire and the death of the three Russians. There is a suspicion that the deaths were part of a Russian effort to inhibit wealthy Russian exile (and critic of Vladimir Putin) Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who financed the project the dead journalists were working on. In 2017 the UN authorized Russia to provide training and some light infantry weapons to the CAR security forces.

July 29, 2018: The government announced an expansion of efforts to improve morale and patriotic attitudes among military personnel. The new move establishes a directorate within the military high command to increase efforts to ensure the loyalty of military personnel via more propaganda and ideological education. This is an old communist era technique that did not work out so well but the communist era Zampolit did prove useful, if only in a limited sense.

July 28, 2018: The Navy commissioned a new warship, the Admiral Gorshkov the first of four new, 5,400 ton stealth frigates. These ships can operate in distant waters and are replacing Cold War era destroyers, few of which can still get to sea.

July 25, 2018: In Moscow Sergei Lemeshevsky, the head of a Russian space satellite development firm, was arrested and charged with fraud and embezzlement which involved stealing $5.2 million in the last three years. The Russian space programmed has suffered from a growing number of very visible and very expensive failures, usually involving launch rocker or satellite failures.

July 20, 2018: Outside Moscow, FSB agents raided a space research center seeking evidence of who was providing the United States with details on Russian research into hypersonic spacecraft. At least ten Russian researchers are believed involved. Earlier a search was conducted in the offices of space equipment manufacturer Energia.

July 18, 2018: Russia is trying to delay or sidetrack American efforts to have the UN investigate well-documented incidents of Russians aiding North Korea to evade economic sanctions. Russians on the Pacific Coast are helping North Korea to obtain oil supplies and move illegal exports to pay for it

July 16, 2018: One of the Baltic States, Estonia complained to Russia of an incident in which two Russian commercial aircraft, an A319 and an Il-96 entered Estonian airspace without permission and refused to respond to air traffic controllers.

July 13, 2018: A senior Iranian official announced that Russia was going to invest up to $50 billion in Iranian oil and gas facilities. Russia quickly responded that there was no such commitment. This was a very public embarrassment for Iran, especially in the wake of recent (July 5th) Chinese warnings about Iranian threats to close the Straits of Hormuz.

South Korea complained to Russia after two Russian military aircraft violated South Koreas ADIZ (Air Defense Identification Zone). The Russians did this four times as they flew south off the east coast towards the Dokdo Islands. The Russian aircraft left the ADIZ quickly in each case. South Korea is seeing a lot more ADIZ violation activity west coast because of Chinese intrusions. In 2013 China announced a new ADIZ that overlapped South Korean, Philippine and Japanese airspace. China demanded that any foreign military or commercial aircraft request permission before flying into this zone. South Korea and Japan protested while the United States quickly flew some B-52s into the disputed zone without asking for Chinese permission. China protested and the United States ignored them.
Mohammed bin Salman Abdulaziz Al Saud, the 32 year old son of the current king of Saudi Arabia, is seen as one of the brightest (he has a degree in law) of the top Saudi royals. Hes currently the deputy crown prince and, since January 2016, the youngest Minister of Defense ever. Mohammed bin Salman is ambitious and has proved himself capable of handling the Saudi bureaucracy. For the last four years, he has been working on a plan to move Saudi Arabia away from dependence on oil income. In April 2016 he announced that his plan has been accepted and he will implement it. That has turned out to be extremely difficult even though getting away from oil dependence is recognized as a matter of life or death because within 50-90 years the oil will be gone. This has been known since the 1970s and ever since the government has tried several plans to develop the non-oil side of the economy and none have worked. Currently, oil income is nearly half the GDP. Take away the oil income and most of the rest of the GDP disappears as well.

There are still elderly Saudis who remembered what life was like before the oil wealth began pouring in during the 1970s. When the kingdom was founded in the 1930s oil was just being discovered in Arabia. At that point, the economy was described as subsistence and per-person GDP was about half the world average. By 1950 per-person GDP was a little above the world average (the U.S. was nearly five times average). After OPEC (the oil cartel) was created in the early 1970s per-person GDP soon grew to three times the world average (U.S. was four times). That was the peak (in terms of per-person GDP) for the Saudis because all that sudden wealth sparked a population explosion. Saudi per-person GDP shrank to about twice the world average (which had doubled since 1950) in the 1980s (U.S. still four times). By 2013 Saudi per-person GDP was about at the world average and the population was still growing while oil income was not and there was not much growth at all in the non-oil part of the economy. Saudis noted that the U.S. was now nearly five times the world average in per-person GDP. And many countries with no oil, and that were as poor as the Saudis in the 1930s, are doing better than Saudi Arabia.

Mohammed bin Salman (or MBS for short) is seen as the last, best hope. But when you get into the details you see that known problems pile up faster than workable solutions. For example, he wants to have half of the Saudi military purchases to be made in Saudi Arabia by Saudi firms. Currently, Saudi Arabia has the third largest annual defense budget ($57 billion) and nearly all military equipment is imported. That is not going to change soon but the composition of the Saudi defense forces is because right now the Saudi military still depends on a lot of foreigners to do key jobs (technical and management.)

An example of why Saudi Arabia is so dependent on defense imports was seen in early 2016 when MBS was present when a munitions factory in Saudi Arabia was opened (but not yet in production). The facility was built by German-South African defense firm (Rheinmetall Denel) and it will produce artillery (60mm, 81mm and 120mm mortar and 105mm and 155mm howitzer) shells and aircraft bombs (of up to 909 kg/2,000 pounds). The new plant, financed by the Saudis and jointly run by them and Rheinmetall Denel can produce up to 300 artillery and 600 mortar shells a day. Apparently, most of the ammo is for the Saudi military although some may be exported. However, the Saudis tried this before, in the 1980s. Back then South Asian workers were used and quality control was poor. This was kept quiet until 1990 when during a skirmish with Iraq (on the Kuwaiti border) it was found that the Saudi built ammo was defective (the 90mm shells would not explode). The plant was quietly closed, the ammo produced there was discarded and replaced with ammo purchased from a European manufacturer.

Rheinmetall Denel has been told to avoid a repeat of the 1990s fiasco but the Saudis have been quietly informed that finding enough Saudis willing and able to do the exacting work has proved, as in the past, impossible. The munitions plans are still not in full production and never will be if it has to rely on a largely Saudi workforce. This is the essential problem throughout the economy although when it comes to manufacturing ammo its a matter of life or death.

MBS wants Saudis to work at skilled jobs and manage this new non-oil economy. He faces formidable challenges. The official Saudi Arabian unemployment rate is 12-13 percent but for a long time, the government tried to pretend that the unemployment rate for Saudis was less than half that. Another problem is that many Saudis seek no show jobs or are unemployed by choice. Saudi men tend to have a very high opinion of themselves, and most jobs available, even to poorly educated young men, do not satisfy. Thus most Saudi prefer a government job where the work is easy, the pay is good, the title is flattering and life is boring. In the non-government sector of the economy, 90 percent of the jobs in Saudi Arabia are handled by foreigners. These foreigners comprise 30 percent of the Saudi population, mostly to staff all the non-government jobs Saudi men disdain. While those foreign workers send over $20 billion home each year over 80 percent fill unskilled jobs. These unskilled workers do not make enough to bring their families to Saudi Arabia and over 90 percent of them spend less than six years working in Saudi Arabia. Basically taking a job in Saudi Arabia (or any other oil-rich Arabian state) is a way to make enough money to start a business or otherwise improve your life back home. The Saudis are fine with that.

This means most young Saudi men have few challenges. Past efforts to replace foreign workers with Saudis have failed in practice although many of these Saudi employees were declared a success because many foreigners were officially replaced with Saudis who were often so ineffective that companies had to find ways to hire foreigners to actually get the work done while Saudis were still on the payroll. Currently, about 80 percent of the non-government workforce is foreign-born. This includes most of the managers and skilled personnel. Since the 1990s the Saudis have made some progress because it used to be that 90 percent of the non-government workforce were foreign-born. The problem is not just the inability, or unwillingness, of Saudis to do many of these jobs but the fact that the foreigners are informally organized and resist reducing their numbers. Nearly all the foreign workers come from relatively poor nations with Moslem majority populations or large Moslem minorities. Most of these foreign workers are from South Asia (Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka). Note that India has more Moslems than Pakistan and those Indian Moslems have made themselves indispensable when it comes to keeping the commercial sector going.

While oil accounts for 45 percent of the Saudi GDP, the rest is largely in private hands. There are few foreign owners but the Saudi owners would see their companies fall apart quickly if their foreign workers were gone. The Saudis depend on foreign entrepreneurs to obtain a steady supply of mainly poor, mainly unskilled and mainly Moslem workers to serve less than six years in Saudi Arabia to do the dirty work (according to Saudi standards) and keep things working. In 2012 the Saudis confronted the suitability problem and carefully examined it. They found that most Saudis consider about 86 percent of the jobs expatriates do as unsuitable for Saudis.

This made it clear that a major problem was the absence of a suitable work ethic among Saudis. Many Saudis openly complain about this and often blame the government for creating a culture of dependence to ensure the survival of the monarchy. As a result, foreign workers are much more effective, its as simple as that. This is in part a self-inflicted problem. Since all of the oil states in Arabia are monarchies, the rulers quickly found that the most effective way to remain in power was to keep their subjects pampered and happy. In other words, spread the oil money around and pay attention to public opinion. Most of the public backs the use of foreigners and the continued use of oil money to make life easy for the locals.

For example, foreign workers are brought in to handle most jobs (like training pilots and maintaining weapons) that require high skill levels, a lot of effort, and lots of experience. This importation of foreign experts for piloting warplanes and maintaining them is very common in the Arab oil nations because the locals tend to avoid heavy physical or mental labor. While many Arab men see being a fighter pilot as glamorous and worthy of some effort, the training required discourages most who attempt it. Some Gulf Arab states insist that Arabs occupy those fighter plane cockpits no matter what so the foreign trainers and maintainers are ordered to do what has to be done to keep the pilots alive and the planes in one piece. Pilot skill and capability has a lower priority. There are some exceptional Arab fighter pilots but just getting by is tolerated among the fighter pilot community. Yet due to these pilots being constantly exposed to ridicule by allied (Western) foreign the Saudi pilots got better. They established a subculture that was encouraged allied pilots who said nothing but once at the controls showed how it was done. Over decades similar exposure to competent fighters created a growing number of Saudis capable and willing to do jobs like maintaining warplanes and other high-tech military gear. Progress in this area is slow and as much as MBS and many other Saudis would like to speed it up no one has figured out how.

Another problem MBS is quietly trying to address is what Islamic conservatives have had control of the education system for decades in return for remaining loyal to the Saudi family. This meant emphasis was placed on religion and not literacy, math, science, critical thinking and anything seen as too Western. This placed Saudi students at all levels near the bottom of educational rankings when Saudi students took standardized tests. Saudi Arabia was not producing students who could handle many of the jobs they were importing Moslems from other countries to do. The other Gulf oil states, particularly the UAE, did a much better job and produced graduates who could more easily handle technology, business and managing a modern economy. Saudi parents were increasingly willing to pay for additional education for their children so they could qualify to attend a foreign university and become competitive. This was increasingly popular but backfired when a lot of the Saudis who got a Western education, especially those who went to college in the West, decided that Saudi Arabia was not the best place to get a good job and live as they had become accustomed to in the West.

MBS has looked at the problem more intently than anyone before him and openly admitted that he personally knew a lot of trained and capable Saudis who emigrated to seek better career opportunities elsewhere. What a lot of these expatriate Saudis would never make a lot of noise about (so as not to offend the Saudi government) was that the strict enforcement of Islamic lifestyle rules was not popular with a lot of Saudis and especially not with their Saudi wives (who were educated and knew what was going on in the rest of the world). MBS correctly concluded that relaxing many of these rules (like allowing women to drive automobiles) would keep some able Saudis in Saudi Arabia. Many of the Saudis working in government jobs did so out of desperation because the commercial sector was not just staffed by foreigners (who held nearly all the management and supervisory jobs) but unofficially controlled by them. The foreigners are organized and realize that it is in their interest to keep Saudis dependent on the foreign workforce. Saudis like to quip about their foreign slaves but the reality is rather different and it is unclear who has actually enslaved who. One thing has become clear; more Saudis are now aware of how backward and uncompetitive they are and are willing to accept all manner of reforms.

MBS is probably aware of how neighboring UAE (United Arab Emirates) has gone about establishing military industries. Since the 1990s the UAE has invested heavily in defense manufacturers inside the UAE and the Middle East. One of these firms is Adcom Systems United which has been around since the 1980s and produces a wide range of military equipment. It does this by licensing a lot of technology and forming partnerships with high-tech firms in the West. Adcom has been working on UAVs since 2003 and has delivered several models for both military, police and commercial use.

The UAE has been encouraging local companies to develop weapons for use by local forces and export markets. So far this has resulted in UAE firms manufacturing military trucks, guided missiles, and small arms. Despite this since 2008 UAE has become the third largest importer of weapons in the world and the largest in the Middle East. The other two big spenders worldwide are India and China. In the Middle East, the UAE imports 50 percent more weapons than Israel.

Note that the UAE makes this work by doing most of the manufacturing in foreign countries, usually other Arab states that have little or no oil income and a better work ethic. MBS is going right to the heart of the issue in an effort to see if Saudis can support themselves without the economic crutch oil has provided for the last two generations.
FORT IRWIN, Calif. - Blackhorse Troopers from the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment maneuver into their position in the Central corridor, National Training Center, Calif., during an attack on the Pennsylvania National Guards, 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 28th Infantry Division, August 6, 2018. This phase of combat challenged the Independence Brigades ability to defend a fortified area against a near-peer opponent. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Justin May, 11th ACR, PAO)

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Ambeon Group continues the winning streak View(s):

Leading multi-discipline diversified conglomerate, the Ambeon Group has shown remarkable and sustained growth throughout the 2017/2018 financial year, according to annual financial results released to the Colombo Stock Exchange recently.

Overall, Ambeon Capital PLC posted impressive financial results during 2017/2018, starting with the companys PBT (pre-tax profit) of Rs. 286 million for 2017/18, which was almost thrice its 2016/2017 PBT of Rs.102 million.

Even more noteworthy was the companys PAT (post- tax) of Rs. 372 million compared to a loss of Rs. 23 million only a year prior. The total comprehensive income for the company for 2017/2018 was Rs. 907 million, which was more than four times that of the year before, wherein earned income was Rs. 224 million, the group said in a media release.

Its main subsidiary, Ambeon Holdings PLCs total comprehensive income climbed to Rs. 1.1 billion, which was more than double the profits that were incurred in 2016/2017, which was Rs. 494 million. An annual PBT of Rs. 571 million this year was also posted, which was a significant increase over the groups PBT of Rs. 367 million in 2016/2017.

Further Group PAT more than doubled to Rs. 670 million in 2017/2018. This is in comparison to a group PAT of Rs. 263 million achieved last year. Ambeon Holdings further recorded revenues of Rs. 12,272 million in 2017/2018, which was a growth of 14.04 per cent over the corresponding period in 2016/2017.

We are pleased that our extensive restructuring initiatives continue to lead to exceptional financial results. This is particularly apparent with the groups acquisition of Millennium IT ESP, which is a direct outcome of our strategic decision to invest in the tech sector and drive techno-consumerism within the country, said Murali Prakash, Group Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer  Ambeon Capital PLC and Ambeon Holdings PLC.

The 2017/2018 financial year also witnessed a revitalization of Dankotuwa Porcelain with the opening of its new Signature Showroom, along with a wide-ranging re-branding for DI, the leader in the leather and fashion footwear industry, both of which fall under the groups main Ambeon Holdings PLC.

Along with our future focus, we still intend to be prepared for today, with a wide overhaul and re-positioning of key brands in our portfolio, allowing them to better compete in a more globalized world. Our continued investment in the respective manufacturing sectors ensures that we maintain our coveted market leadership.

Even giving us the tools needed to keep leveraging these brands into new markets whenever international opportunities arise, said Mr. Prakash.
It was tea, not rice! View(s):

After learning about the economic development history of Sri Lanka, there was a question that made me anxious for many years at that time: Why did British planters during colonial times take so much of trouble and risk in introducing some plantation crops that were totally alien to Sri Lanka? The flip side of my question was that instead of tea or rubber, why did they never think of investing in rice production? Perhaps, we might be able to figure out some political answers, but my question was an economic one.

A rational question

I also had many reasons to make my question a rational one. Rice was our staple food, but at that time Sri Lanka was short of rice; the country could produce only half the peoples rice requirement. The other half was imported, and the colonial government spent foreign exchange to import rice. This means that there was an absolute need for investment in rice production. That was exactly why the national governments did so after independence.

There was an ancient high-tech irrigation system in the countrys dry zone, which was abandoned into jungles as people gradually moved towards the south. A rehabilitation of that irrigation system would have supplied the necessary inputs, the capital, and the infrastructure needed for reviving the countrys ancient rice cultivation.

Rice ration scheme

During the time of the Second World War, as import trade was disrupted there was not enough rice in the country. The colonial government took steps to introduce a rice ration scheme. Then the World War ended but the rice ration scheme continued for the next 30 years. Under this scheme, rice was imported and distributed among all Sri Lankans  both rich and poor! During the 30-year period of time some politicians lost power on the rice ration scheme while others came to power using this scheme as an election tool.

Sri Lanka also entered into a historical rice-rubber pact with China in 1952 to exchange rice for rubber; China received rubber from Sri Lanka which was used as a raw material for industries in China. In return, Sri Lanka received rice from China, which was distributed among all Sri Lankans; we cooked and ate it.

Rice was such an important staple food in Sri Lanka which could even topple politicians showing that the country was in need of investing in local rice production.

Yet rice production was not an attractive area for agriculture investment for planters who were seeking plantation opportunities in Sri Lanka.

Plantations of alien plants

Tea and rubber were both unknown to the Sri Lankans. The British planters brought tea from China and rubber from Latin America to Asian countries like Sri Lanka; the crops were planted as an experiment in the late 19th Century. Before that they had already experimented with some other crops, while one of the thriving plantation crops was coffee. It was also a foreign crop introduced to Sri Lanka from Latin America. Coffee plantations flourished by the 1870s and then died due to a disease.

There was no reason to argue that British did not want to invest in any indigenous crop. They had already identified some indigenous crops too, including coconut and some spices. They invested in these crops, but did not show any interest in rice!

Even though the planters were not politically correct because they were not seeking election victories, they knew the economics of their investment decisions. From a political point of view, their investment decisions were correct in the long term, as the Sri Lankan economy flourished for over more than 100 years on the fortune of tea, rubber and coconut.

International market

The prime concern of British investment in plantation crops was the market; the market has to be a big market for an industry to grow and thrive. It would never be the local market of Sri Lanka, which is too small to allow an industry to thrive and grow. Even if the countries like China or India with over 1 billion people consider their local markets too small for their industries to grow, how can we talk about the capacity of our local market with just 21 million people?

The planters knew that rice would have never been a commercially viable crop as such; in fact, Sri Lanka achieved self-sufficiency in rice production by the 1980s, all due to government support. Even today, rice production in Sri Lanka is sustained by import protection and government support.

This is because, although it is our staple food crop, it does not have the economic competency to grow or, at least to survive in an international market. It is not an export crop exposed to international market environment and, it would not grow to be an export commodity either. Rice in Sri Lanka has to remain as a domestic crop as we have named it, until and unless conditions change in the future.

Why exports?

Why do we need to bother about exporting our products to the international market, instead of being content with our local market, just like in the case of rice?

There can be many ways to answer this question. One way is to look at the benefits of the international market to the investor as well as to the nation. To an investor, the international market offers unlimited opportunities to expand the industry. If it was the local market like in the case of rice, either tea or rubber or any other industry would not have grown that far; the boundaries of the market will limit the expansion of any economic activity.

Moreover, there is also an economic benefit of a bigger market known as economies of scale and scope; an investor can produce at lower cost (economies of scale) and diversify into similar products (economies of scope), when the market is big enough to permit such changes. This is important to remain competitive in a market where there are many rivals. However, that competition is good because it makes the product development a constant process.

Prosperity from plantation crops

When you add up all these changes at individual levels, then we have the national picture. At national level, all these changes will accelerate growth and prosperity and, provide sustainable remedies to many economic problems such as trade deficits, budget deficits and debt burden.

The plantation crops brought Sri Lanka to a prosperous position at the time. They brought about enough foreign exchange to the country so that for many years the country had trade surpluses; in fact, the country was able to import the rice it needed.

Plantation crops generated tax revenue to the government so that the governments could maintain sound budgets. The countrys welfare system including rice ration scheme was maintained with government spending.

The development of the countrys service sector such as banking, transportation, port services and trade were based on and connected to the progress of the plantation crops at the time.

But the problem was that the country started depending too much and too long on the fortune of the plantation crops. Even by the 1970s, the Sri Lankan economy was surviving on the fortune of plantation crops.

Concluding remark

I have a point to consider, although some of us are reluctant to agree with me. Domestic crops including rice will meet our food requirement so that they will make us survive. These economic activities cannot take the country beyond the boundaries of survival.

What would allow the economy to thrive is producing for the international market. Export growth is important for all the countries to prosper and, more important for small countries than big ones.

(The writer is a Professor in Economics at the Colombo University.

He can be reached at sirimal@econ.cmb.ac.lk)
Korea, Indonesia in trade talks with Sri Lanka By Sunimalee Dias View(s): View(s):

Sri Lankas apparel industry is negotiating with Korea and Indonesia to buy fabric to secure a complete duty waiver exporting to the European Union (EU) under the GSP + concessions.

Fabrics from Korea and Indonesia are said to be of a higher quality and purchasing from these countries would help Sri Lanka obtain a complete waiver of the duty concessions under the GSP + trade with the EU, Sri Lanka Apparel Exporters Association President Felix Fernando told the Business Times.

Sri Lanka commenced negotiations to purchase fabric from Korea about three months back and with Indonesia about six months ago, he said.

Most manufacturers continue to purchase from China since it is cheaper but since they have no trade relation for duty concessions with the EU, Sri Lanka is unable to obtain the full facility of the GSP +, it was pointed out.

We have gone far in the discussions and now we will submit the papers to the EU, to ensure that the EU allows Sri Lankan exporters to obtain the full waiver on duty under the GSP + deal, Mr. Fernando explained. Sri Lankan exports from January to June 2018 totalled $2,395 million, an increase of 5 per cent compared to the same period in 2017. Exports to the US were at $1,047 and the EU at $1,027 million which is a 3.77 per cent and 7.76 per cent increase over the previous year.
Lanka Property Show on Aug 18-19 Apartments from Rs 7 m to Rs. 100 m on offer View(s): View(s):

LankaPropertyWeb (LPW) (www.lankapropertyweb.com) will be the host of The Lanka Property Showon August 18-19 at the Galadari Hotels main ballroom in Colombo.

The event is Sri Lankas largest property show, attracting the countrys most renowned property developers, real estate agents and banks coming together under one roof to offer consumers a chance to view, express interest in, and eventually have an opportunity to invest in Sri Lankas burgeoning real-estate and property sector.

Prominent banks, including National Savings Bank (NSB), will be present, offering consumers housing loans at special rates. The doors for The Lanka Property Show open at 9 am giving potential investors a convenient time slot to attend the event on that August weekend, LPW said in a media release.

Daham Gunaratna, Managing Director of LPW said, This is the most exciting two days for the Sri Lankan property sector. The Lanka Property Show is the only flagship event dedicated to developers, real estate agents and property investors. We have a number of Sri Lankas most prominent developers displaying the countrys most high-profile developments, and investors  high profile or otherwise  all under one roof. There will be something for everyone  with apartments ranging from Rs. 7 million to Rs. 100 million on offer at the show.
Poholiyadde quits RP, joins Lankem View(s):

Former head of plantations at Richard Peiris Sunil Poholiyadde is taking over as the new Managing Director at the Lankem Plantations unit.

Mr. Poholiyadde, Richard Peiris Groups Plantations Sector Managing Director resigned from his post according to an announcement on the Colombo Stock Exchange (CSE) filing by the group.

He resigned from the boards of Namunukula Plantations, Kegalle Plantations and Maskeliya Plantations and exited the company on August 2.

He is currently Chairman -Planters Association and, according to informed sources, is to head the plantations unit of Lankem which has Kotagala and Agarapathana Plantations.

Lankem is said to already be in debt and the government is already questioning the financials of its key plantations estate Kotagala Plantations.

It is learnt that Mr. Poholiyadde assumed duties on Friday (August 10) and was discussing with the Lankem authorities on the problems on its properties and how the company would be able to turn-around.
Walking a tightrope View(s):

A small group of mischievous boys were running down the road with one singing, Avilla, avillaa  karadara kaley  avilla (The troubled period has come), to the tune of that popular Avuduru favourite, Avilla avillaa Sinhala Avurudda avilla.

There was a small commotion near the gate when Kussi Amma Sera along with Serapina and Mabel Rasthiyadu, shouted at the youngsters, Oyalata pissuda (Are you crazy)? making a feeble attempt to chase them away.

Balanna ko, ratey kalabala kaley mey lammai-ta jolly (See, when the country is in crisis, these fellows are poking fun), she said frowning. The three women then got into a conversation about the latest crisis facing the country  the railway strike and other protests this week which once again caused an element of chaos in the city, particularly for those returning home after work.

I could hear snatches of their conversation from my office window while sipping the morning cup of tea.

Mangala mahattaya giya sumaane quewwa Meka konda pana nethi durwala aanduwak (Mangala Sir said last week that this is a weak, backboneless government), Serapina was saying. Irked by the remark, Kussi Amma Sera quickly responded: Ehema kiyana-eka waredi, neda (It is unfair to say that). Mama hithanne Mangala mahattaya kiyana eka hari (But what he said was correct), butted in Mabel Rasthiyadu, adding, Chee .Me vidiye Aaanduwak apita hambuwela nehe (We have never had a regime like this).

Before I could shut off from listening to their conversation, good-for-nothing Somay was on the line:

I-say, fine man Mangala, how can he talk of a spineless government when he himself is part of it?

Well he was trying to express a personal opinion and in this regime, they can and still remain in government, unlike in the past, I said. But what about collective responsibility of cabinet? he asked. Wellthe two parties are having a challenging time trying to cater to the needs of both sides and the need of the hour is to rise above party politics, think of the country and be firm in managing the country, I said.

Changing the subject, Somay refers to a recent speech by President Maithripala Sirisena in Polonnaruwa and says: The President says that the country needs 4,000 engineers for development projects and has appealed to Sri Lankan expatriate engineers to come and work for the country. How can they work here when the administration is in a mess?

Good point. Youre absolutely right, I said and then we parted company as some visitors had walked into his home.

The President, speaking at one of the development projects inaugurated in Polonnaruwa (it was like deja vu and Hambantota happening all over again), had urged Sri Lankan engineers who studied in local schools and universities making use of free education to come back to serve their motherland and return once the job is done.

Whether Sri Lankan expatriate engineers will respond to the call, one has to wait and see but no one is going to get sabbatical leave or any leave for several months to finish a job in Sri Lanka and return to their new homeland. They may need to be paid international salaries and if that happens, where does that leave local engineers who chose to remain in Sri Lanka?

Local engineers, it appears, are a very disgruntled lot, losing the recognition they deserve because Sri Lanka is swamped by foreign funded projects which come packaged with foreign contractors and engineers. In a June 24 article in the Business Times titled, Plight of SLs public sector engineers, Chartered Civil EngineerM.G. Hemachandra has raised the question: Why are local engineers ignored?

He goes on to list the numerous achievements by the engineers in the 70 years since independence, building projects like the Galoya development scheme which encompasses some of the largest and the most iconic reservoirs in the country and the Senanayake Samudra, all at much lower cost than foreign funded projects.

Lamenting that the golden era of the public services engineers who were the backbone of the countrys modern day development history has come to an end, he pointed out: We are now in an era where public service engineers are often sidelined from the countrys major development works and reduced to being just signing mechanisms for certifying completion of works for turnkey projects outsourced to third parties. His valid argument was that local engineers were being sidelined for engineers brought in on expensive, foreign funded projects.

Going back to Maithripalas plea for expatriate Sri Lankan engineers to return to the country for short stints, there is another way in which this could work. Many years ago in the North during a ceasefire between government troops and the LTTE, Tamil expatriate experts were brought in on short, voluntary stints to chart a development plan for the North. They came at their own expense on short holiday-cum-work stints, met at a temporary work-station in Kilinochchi and developed plans with their own team and returned to their homes in faraway lands to drive the initiative from there through their respective teams. With the end of the ceasefire, that plan collapsed.

Over the years, since the end of the war, many Sri Lankans abroad have expressed a desire to help their motherland. Given this desire to serve the country of their birth, the government should set about creating a work space and a list of development projects that need their expertise. This could be titled a Holiday-cum-volunteer scheme.

Once a work hub is created in Colombo, a list of development projects and the expertise required should be prepared. The work hub should ideally be created under a semi-government, apolitical body with a desire to continue this process under any government, under any ruling political party. The proposed organisation then sends out a call to Sri Lankans who would like to help the country with their expertise, asking them for their skill set and schedule of when they propose to take a holiday in Sri Lanka (there are many who come once or twice a year to visit family and/or relatives). Once their skills are processed, they are matched with the needs in the development projects underway or proposed to be started. After the skill set is matched with a project that needs this expertise, a local team is assembled at the time the Sri Lankan expert arrives for his planned holiday.

The team then meets with the expatriate Sri Lankan, who has by then agreed as to how many days or hours he can spend on the project during his holiday here.

The team then starts working on the project and after he leaves Sri Lanka at the end of his holiday-cum-work trip, he continues to drive the project or work under a team leader while he is abroad. While the local team is hired by the government, the expatriate Sri Lankan donates his effort and continues to do so while abroad  with advanced technology now available at our fingertips.

If there is a need to spend time in the field, that needs to be arranged while the expatriate Sri Lanka is visiting on holiday. At the end of each visit, the expatriate Sri Lankan gets a well done and thank you from the government for the volunteerism. I am sure many Sri Lankans would love to get involved in apolitical, community projects in building the country.

With so much of disharmony in government, administration and politics, Sri Lankans are looking for a window of calm and tranquility to overcome  even for a short time  the madness that is going around us. Maybe a development plan bringing together Sri Lankan experts here (like engineers who have been sidelined) and expatriate Sri Lankan experts may be just what the doctor ordered. It could even offer expertise to private sector-driven projects.

The challenge, however, is in ensuring this scheme is above politics, not owned by a single political party and is able to continue irrespective of who is in charge of governing the country.
A scandalously coercive monk brought to book View(s):

C ore elements of the fifty-six page decision handed down by the Court of Appeal this week sentencing General Secretary of the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS) Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara to six years rigorous imprisonment for contempt in the face of the court constitute a stern warning to unruly individuals (monks or laymen) attempting to interfere with the processes of court.

An eminently rigorous sentence

If it was thought (and indeed, it would have been, judging from the openly insulting behavior of the BBS and its representatives during the court proceedings at the Homagama Magistrates Court), that the judiciary would not respond with the appropriate severity, then those misapprehensions may now be laid to rest.

In fact, observing the markedly subdued reactions of those representing the accused monk who had deposited himself in hospital at the time of the sentencing as they presented themselves before television cameras on Hulfsdorp, it appears that the decision has had a markedly salutary effect, almost immediately.

For many of us, applauding a decision imposing an eminently rigorous sentence for contempt, (nineteen years, to be served concurrently making it six years in all), does not come easy. Sri Lankas history of contempt of court has been a peculiar mixture of judges being extremely harsh on some occasions and unduly lenient in others. When a teacher of English Antony Michael Fernando was sentenced to one year rigorous imprisonment by the Supreme Court (per order of then Chief Justice Sarath Silva with Justices Yapa and Edussuriya agreeing), after he was determined to have raised his voice and insisted on his right to pursue an application that he was urging himself before the Court in early 2003, this was perhaps a good instance of the former category of cases.

Unusually strong language by Court

Fernando was thereafter detained at the Welikada prisons and inhumanely physically abused by prison guards leading to criminal charges being filed against the torturers who were also named in a fundamental rights application filed on his behalf, though these cases did not result in justice being served.

While Fernandos case is at one extreme, there are many more at the other extreme where the authority of the Court had been egregiously flouted with no apparent repercussions. Viewed objectively and putting aside the racial and religious motivations of the BBS, the scandalous conduct of its General Secretary at the Homagama Magistrates Court during the hearing of an application relating to the disappearance of journalist Prageeth Ekneligoda which led to this decision by the Appeal Court was unequivocally one such instance.

In finding the accused General Secretary of the BBS guilty, the Court of Appeal did not mince its language. The judges pointed out that the accused who had no connection to the case being heard at the Magistrates Court and had no standing to appear, had addressed the Court without express or implied permission of the magistrate. He had intended to intimidate the magistrate into granting bail to the suspects (all intelligence officers) after the magistrate had already refused to do so.

Intent to intimidate and coerce

This address by the accused to the magistrate had been made in a high tone, to be heard even by those waiting away from the court room and had been in abusive, offensive and commanding language. In doing so, he had tried to somehow force the judicial officer into obeying his commands and to reverse an already pronounced Order of the magistrate. It was proven beyond reasonable doubt that, despite not being a party to the case, the accused had come in support of the suspects deliberately to intimidate and coerce.

Among those coercive utterances was the statement by the accused to the Homagama Magistrate that this was the white persons law and that he did not accept that law. The Appeal Court reprimanded that statement in the strongest terms, observing that whether it is foreign-made or locally-made, it is the prevailing law that the courts have to apply. It was further emphasized that the Court will administer justice according to such law irrespective of its genesis. The accuseds statement was concluded to be an attempt to degrade the honour and authority of Court and a categorical refusal to accept its authority, deserving therefore of the most stringent response.

Further, an additional factor weighing with the judges was that when state counsel and the lawyer representing the aggrieved party rushed back into the court room upon hearing the commotion and attempted to support the Magistrate whom they had found to be in a vulnerable situation in the face of the accuseds verbal onslaughts, they too had been abused with the state counsel being referred to as impotent by the accused General Secretary. Assessing the testimony with judicious care, the Court of Appeal found that the evidence of the state counsel, the magistrate and the lawyer buttressed each other and were trustworthy while the testimony of the accused and his witnesses who spoke on his behalf were contradictory.

A wider principle in issue

No doubt, this decision of the Appeal Court will be a potentially strong deterrent to those wishing to follow in the turbulent if not thuggish footsteps of the accused in this case. But there is a wider principle in issue. Too often, calls for the codification of a law on contempt have been seen as a limitation on the discretion of judges to exercise their authority in such cases.

In Fernandos case for example, the ruling against him was taken to the United Nations Human Rights Committee under the terms of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, (ICCPR) with this columnist representing his case at the time. Thirteen jurists of the UN Committee agreed without dissent that, no reasoned explanation has been provided as to why such a severe and summary penalty was warranted in the exercise of the courts power to maintain orderly proceedings when the only disruption was the repetitious filing of motions and one instance of raising his voice in the presence of the court (U.N. Doc. CCPR/C/83/D/1189/2003 (2005).

While that may be so, it must also be even reluctantly conceded that, as this weeks Appeal Court decision amply shows, there are instances when, exercising the power of contempt in all its severity is, in fact, required.

In all respects therefore, Sri Lanka should look to enacting a Contempt of Court Act, in line with neighbouring countries in the region. This will be useful for keeping both unruly individuals dismissive of the authority of court and overly repressive judges, within the framework of the Rule of Law when contempt powers are in issue and are so exercised.
Achieving US$ 28 billion National Export Strategy target is challenging View(s):

T he exhortation Export or Perish has never been more relevant to Sri Lanka than today. Achieving the ambitious targets of the National Export Strategy (NES) of Sri Lanka 2018-2022 is, therefore, imperative. However, transforming this strategy into performance is challenging.

The massive trade deficits of recent years make a substantial increase in exports essential for the countrys economic stability and development. Imports exceeded exports by nearly US$ 10 billion last year. Even with a 10 percent increase in exports in the first five months of this year, the country has a massive trade deficit of US$ 4.7 billion and this is likely to exceed US$ 10 billion this year. A far higher expansion of exports, as envisaged in the NES 2018-22, is needed to contain the trade deficit to a manageable proportion.

Export Strategy 2022

The NES 2018 2022 launched on July 19 was a bold, far reaching and ambitious one. It is innovative and forward looking. It expects to achieve exports in new areas and products rather than to only expand the traditional pattern of exports. It expects not only to expand merchandise exports, but also earn more from services. Information technology services, boat building, tourism, new manufactures and enhanced agricultural exports are part of this strategy.

Six strategic areas

The NES focuses on six strategic areas: The countrys information technology, business process management, spices and concentrates, wellness tourism, processed foods and beverages, boat building and electrical and electronic components. These encompass both merchandise and services and have been chosen on the basis of certain advantages the country possesses, evidence of comparative and competitive advantage and growing international demand.

The essence of this strategy is to expand exports from merchandise and services from the current level of about US$ 11 billion to US$ 28 billion by 2022. This substantial increase is expected to be achieved by an expansion in exports of both traditional exports like garments and rubber products, as well as newer ones like boat building. It also envisages an expansion in services exports, especially wellness tourism and information communication technology (ICT). These latter two services have shown an increase recently and hold promise of further significant increases.

Challenging

Although the expansion of exports to US$ 28 billion is an ambitious and challenging task, it is essential. The effective implementation of the NES and supportive macroeconomic policies is a sine qua non to realise the envisaged targets. Economic and other reforms that are vital for expanding exports are difficult to accomplish. Furthermore an efficient administration is essential to enable effective implementation of policies that would assist export industries to achieve their targets.

These are the serious constraints to overcome in the current political and administrative environment. The success of the export strategy depends very much on the capacity of the Government and people to provide a conducive environment for enhancing exports.

Achilles heel

The Achilles heel of the export strategy lies in its dependence on supportive macro-economic policies, economic reforms, administrative efficiency, research and hi-tech development. The country has not only been unable to achieve much in these areas, but there have been considerable obstacles and opposition.

Economic reforms have been particularly difficult to implement. Even the free trade agreements that have been signed or to be signed by the Government are opposed by interested groups which are ignorant of the economic rationale of these agreements which are an integral component of the export strategy. The characteristic indecisiveness of the government could result in wavering on these international agreements.

Opposition

The only section which is supportive of the forward-looking economic policies of the government and the export strategy, in particular, appears to be the business community and the economists who are enlightened. There is a core of even economists with moribund and ideological ideas and a political agenda, who are opposed to this strategy. They are ideological rather than pragmatic. There are no such difficulties in implementing pragmatic economic policies in South East Asian countries and erstwhile communist countries like Vietnam.

Macroeconomic conditions

Stable macroeconomic conditions are vital for expansion of exports. The current depreciation of the Rupee is on the surface an impetus for exports. When there is exchange rate volatility, the costs of production fluctuate and the competitiveness of exports is affected. As exporters have pointed out, it has a serious disadvantage too. This arises from the fact that most manufactured exports have a high import content.

Import dependency is inevitable in a country that has few resources. Countries like Malaysia and Singapore have also had exports that have a high import content. However, their macroeconomic stability has been conducive for exports.

Energy costs

Another disadvantage to export competitiveness is energy costs. The prices of electricity and fuel are important determinants of the costs of production. Here again external shocks, such as the hike in international fuel prices which are passed on to industries and exchange rate depreciation, play a vital role in affecting the countrys competitiveness in international markets.

Scientific and technical capacity

The capacity of the country to produce hi-tech exports would depend very much on the countrys scientific and technical capacity. In fact, Sri Lanka is caught up in a situation where wage rates are high and, therefore, its competitiveness in low wage-exports are reducing, while the capacity to produce high-tech items is constrained by the low level of technological and scientific capability. While the Government has recognised that scientific and technical education must be expanded, the capacity to do so is limited by lack of resources, the brain drain and the regular breakdown of university education, as, for instance, the current closure of the University of Peradeniya for two months owing to protests by the Engineering Faculty.

Agricultural exports

While the NES is being implemented, there should be a parallel thrust to expand key agricultural exports. Production of tea, rubber and coconut requires to be increased to expand their export surplus. In the case of rubber, almost all the countrys rubber is used for exports. This is a favourable development. However, there is a potential for increased rubber production as well as coconut production by expanding the area under cultivation. An export strategy must not devalue the high domestic value addition of these agricultural exports.

Uphill task

While the NES objectives are laudable and imperative to achieve, the capacity of the country to achieve the targets is wrought with political, administrative, technical and economic constraints.

Transforming the National Export Strategy into performance to achieve the targets is an uphill task owing to the current state of affairs in the country.
Closer defence ties with Russia, training for Lankan troops View(s):

Russia will become the latest partner to train Sri Lankan troops and extend defence co-operation. For this purpose, the Government has reached accord with a top level visiting delegation from Moscow. This is under a Joint Russia-Sri Lanka Working Group on Military Technical Co-operation. The terms of reference of the new arrangement were presented to last Tuesdays weekly Cabinet meeting.

Defence Ministry officials, who represented the Sri Lankan side, said that in terms of the new arrangement, Russian troops will train their Sri Lankan counterparts in the Army, Navy and the Air Force. This is both at training academies in Russia and on special visits for joint training exercises in Sri Lanka.

At present, military co-operation exists at different levels between Sri Lanka and the United States, India, Britain and China.

Under the Yahapalana government, military co-operation with the US has increased manifold. There are frequent US military visits and calls in Sri Lankan ports by the US Navy. There have also been joint exercises on training Sri Lankan troops on humanitarian matters.

India continues to offer top slots at its National Defence Academy and other military establishments for senior and mid-career officers. China, which has been a staunch backer of Sri Lanka by providing most of the military hardware for the separatist war against the Tiger guerrillas, also offers training slots in its academies for Sri Lankan security forces personnel.

SriLankan flight and cabin crew suffering from fatigue; concern over flight safety

A considerable percentage of SriLankan airlines flight and cabin crew members seem to be suffering silently from the cumulative effects of residual fatigue which influence badly on their medical fitness in the long term, Civil Aviation Director H.M.C. Nimalasiri has warned.

The warning has gone out in a note he sent to the SriLankan managements top brass. Mr. Wimalasiri, who is also the Chief Executive Officer of the Civil Aviation Authority of Sri Lanka, on Thursday said, This matter was echoed in the discussion that the Pilots Guild members had with this office today in the presence of Board of Civil Aviation Medical Examiners (CAME). It is observed that the airline staff making the rosters have not undergone proper training in regard to Human Factors, factors contributing to onset of fatigue in crewmembers and measures of their mitigation.

Here are significant highlights of the letter which raises issues over passenger safety in the light of fatigue by pilots and crew.

Recent communications of representatives of Airline Pilots Guild of Sri Lanka and Flight Attendants Union of SriLankan Airlines with this office indicate that although prescriptive requirements stipulated by this office in the respective Implementing Standards in regard to Flight Time, Duty Time and Rest Periods are respected in the preparation of duty rosters of crewmembers, the underlying human factors which have direct impact on onset of fatigue in crewmembers are not given due consideration. .

In the premises aforementioned, you are kindly requested to take early steps to get SriLankan Airlines doctor (is also serving the CAASL as CAME of the CAASL) to approve each and every duty roster of both flight crew and cabin crew members, having examined the rosters from the view point of Aviation Medicine, prior to their implementation as a measure of remedy of the above deficiency. This practice shall continue until the rostering staff are given proper training acceptable to this office in regard to the subject matter.

Bond scam: Ten more volumes sent to Speaker

The Attorney Generals Department has sent Speaker Karu Jayasuriya ten more volumes of reports of the Commission of Inquiry that probed the Central Bank bond scandal.

This was conveyed by Speaker Jayasuriya at a party leaders meeting held in Parliament on Tuesday. Following a request at the meeting to seek the AGs view whether these could be released to the MPs, Parliament sources said Speaker Jayasuriya had spoken to AG Jayantha Jayasuriya on Thursday. Barring a few, he had advised that the rest could be released.

Those the AG had not recommended to be released are instances where inquiries are under way or potential inquiries are to begin.

Former Minister Ravi Karunanayake who represented the United National Party (UNP) at the meeting urged that all reports be released together. Hence, party leaders will decide later this month what to do, after consulting the AG.

At the same meeting, Speaker Jayasuriya declared he had received a letter from UPFA General Secretary Mahinda Amaraweera. He has said that though they were now seated in opposition benches, they were elected to Parliament on the UPFA ticket where the Betel Leaf was the symbol. Hence they could not sustain their demand to pick a member as Leader of the Opposition.

Speaker Jayasuriya also informed the party leaders of the decision by the UNP parliamentary group not to call for a pay increase for MPs. Some members at the meeting noted that the issue of MPs pension should be addressed in the light of difficulties some of them face.

President tweets Tamil message on Karunanidhis death

Dravida Munnetra Kazhakam (DMK) leader Muthuvel Karunanidhi passed away this week at the age of 94.

President Maithripala Sirisena tweeted a condolence message only in Tamil.

Also tweeting a condolence message in Tamil was former President Mahinda Rajapaksa. He also sent a message in English.

PC poll debate on Aug. 24

On August 24, Parliament will once again debate on how the impending Provincial Council elections should be held.

A decision on this was made at an emergency meeting of party leaders in Parliament on Friday.

Minister clings to his stance on WHO post

One is not sure whether to laugh or cry at last weeks remarks by Health Minister and official government spokesperson Rajitha Senaratne.

The Sunday Times (Political Commentary) reported last week that full page advertisements placed in newspapers and wide television news coverage that he was now the World Health Organisation (WHO) Vice President was factually wrong.

A journalist raised questions at his weekly media briefing held after cabinet meetings. Here are highlights of what he said:

.The third WHO post I got was Vice Chairman of World Health Organisation (WHO). The post of Vice Chairman is given to an individual. There are 194 countries in the WHO and 35 in the Executive Committee

Of course every position or office is given to an individual. That is obvious in that it is a person who has to sit on that chair  not a country. Also, Dr Senaratnes advertisements claimed he was Vice President? Such a post does not exist. Anyway, one wishes him bon voyage in his ego trip.

President insists on Dayan for Russia

The appointment of Dayan Jayatilleke as Sri Lankas Ambassador to Russia was eventually approved on Thursday by the High Posts Committee of Parliament after President Maithripala Sirisena spoke to some of the members and insisted on the appointment. Earlier, the committee wrote to the President objecting to the appointment.

Yet, four committee members, whose identities are not known, have said that their objections should be recorded. It is believed they are JVP MPs.

Speaker Karu Jayasuriya had accordingly recorded their dissent and also informed President Sirisena of the position.

Dr. Jayatilleke, though not a career diplomat, has served as ambassador in Geneva and Paris previously during the Mahinda Rajapaksa Administration.
JO loses battle as Speaker rules Sampanthan is opposition leader By Chandani Kirinde- Lobby Correspondent View(s): View(s):

The Joint Opposition (JO) claim to the post of Leader of the Opposition in Parliament is not entirely new. Ever since the last General election, when a sizable number of MPs who contested under the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA) decided to sit in Opposition, and distance themselves from those who decided to be in Government with the UNP, the JO has struggled to gain legitimacy as the true Opposition in Parliament.

This week things came to a head when they sought a definitive ruling on the matter from Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, after the JO Group wrote to him, asking him to name the their Group Leader MP Dinesh Gunawardena as the Opposition Leader. They wanted the Speaker to rule on the matter on Tuesday, but he sought time till Friday and, on that day, after a lengthy explanation, ruled that the leader of the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) R. Sampanthan, whose Illankai Tamil Arasu Kachchi (ITAK) party holds 16 seats in the House, will continue as the Leader of the Opposition.

I recognized Rajavarothiam Sampanthan of the ITAK as the Leader of the Opposition on September 3, 2015. I am bound by this decision, both legally and by convention, and I am not in a position to make a change in this regard. This is my final decision. However, those who are in the JO Group will be given adequate time during Parliamentary debates, as well as in Parliamentary committees, and all their privileges as MPs will be safeguarded by me, the Speaker said.

The Speakers ruling, as expected, did not go down well with the JO MPs, and with Fridays ruling, their claim to the post of Leader of the Opposition is likely to lose ground .

There is no doubt, a paradox in the situation that cannot be addressed by seeking refuge in Parliamentary convention or rules laid down by Standing Orders. The JO Group now has 70 MPs on its side, including the 16 UPFA MPs who were in government, deciding to give up their portfolios, to sit in Opposition. It was this move, no doubt, that prompted a fresh claim for the Opposition Leaders post. Their numbers and the role in keeping the government in check, does make them more eligible to be the main Opposition group in Parliament but, unless they can get all MPs who contested on the UPFA ticket to cross over to their side, they will have to be satisfied being the alternative Opposition in this Legislature. Their dilemma is that, more than 20 MPs who contested on the UPFA ticket are in Government, many holding Cabinet portfolios. UPFA General Secretary Mahinda Amaraweera too, is a Minister, and he made it known to the Speaker that Mr Sampanthan should be the Opposition Leader, as it has the highest number of seats, after the UNP and the UPFA.

On Tuesday, both sides argued for and against a change in the post. MP Dinesh Gunawardena said that, with 70 members on its side, they should hold the Opposition Leaders post, as opposed to Mr. Sampanthan whose Tamil National Alliance (TNA) holds only 16 seats in the House.

UNP MPs, however, argued otherwise. There are UPFA MPs who are in the Cabinet and are part of this Government. A section from the same party cannot hold the Opposition Leaders post, said Leader of the House, Minister Lakshman Kiriella.

This conundrum in Parliament regarding positions is a reflection of the general sense of confusion that has been prevalent since the two main parties decided to form a government of national unity. This trend will likely continue till the next General election is held, by which time the two main parties running the country together will certainly end.

For now, the 225 MPs elected in August 2015 are left to make the most of the 5 years they have been elected for. But, given the constant distractions, such as the one that took up a great deal of time over who should hold the Opposition Leaders post, interest in other Parliamentary business is on the wane. This week, the House had to adjourn early on 3 of the 4 sitting days due to the lack of a quorum.

In a best case scenario, the JO may decide to let go of any further claims to the Opposition Leaders post, but several of its MPs have, since the Speakers ruling, said they will continue to agitate to get the post. If that does happen, we can see more disruptions of Parliamentary business in the weeks ahead.

The Speakers ruling Speaker Karu Jayasuriya ruled this week that there would be no change in the Opposition Leaders post. This was in response to a move by members of the UPFAs Joint Opposition (JO) to secure the post for one of its MPs. Here are excerpts of the Speakers ruling on the matter on August 10 in Parliament. On August 1 2018, a letter signed by eight MPs was handed over to me requesting that UPFA MP Dinesh Gunawardena be appointed as the Opposition Leader. The MPs said in the letter that of the 93 UPFA MPs elected in the August 2015, 70 support this move. They also requested more time in Parliament for debates as well as more representation in parliament committees. I have made my decision not only based on the submission expressed by members on both sides of the house but by also after making an indepth study of parliamentary practices and procedures, discussions with experts and looking at parliamentary convention in other countries on such matters. The post of the Leader of the Opposition is an essential one in preliminary system and is recognised in the constitution as well as by Standing Orders. The post goes to a member of a party that is not in government and holds the largest number of seats outside the government. A Parliamentary Resolution adopted on September 3, 2015 clearly states that the UNP and UPFA are partners of a National Government. On September 3, 2015, I recognised Rajavarothiam Sampanthan as the Leader of the Opposition. My final decision is that, as the Speaker of Parliament, I am not in a position to make a change to the post of Leader of the Opposition, bound both by the Constitution as well as by Convention. However the MPs of the UPFA who have decided to sit in opposition will be allocated adequate time for debate in Parliament as well as in Committees. I will pay special attention to ensure their rights as MPs are safeguarded.
Several former military commanders called for meeting, but Fonseka and Gotabaya absent President not keen on PMs proposal to pay Rs. 200,000 a month for MPs monitoring Gamperaliya Maliks proposal for ministries to hire private lawyers also put on hold Not only Sri Lankans, but the whole world knows that it was under the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) was militarily defeated. That has never remained in doubt or a matter of dispute.

Now, nine long years later, it is President Maithripala Sirisena, who wants to record the history of how that defeat came about. The reason  he has been made to believe by his advisors and officials, who were nowhere near a battlefield, that there is still no proper historic record of how the war ended. Sirisena cannot be faulted. He has been advised that the best way to obtain such a record would be to tap the experiences and views of retired armed forces commanders. All of them quit some ten years ago or more.

Hence, Sirisena summoned a meeting last Monday night with a group of retired top officers. The first thing he did was to swear them into secrecy. He said what they were about to discuss should not be revealed to anyone outside. Even before the project to write the correct history got off the ground, some political colourations became clear.

Sarath Fonseka, on whom Sirisena conferred the rank of Sri Lankas only Field Marshal for leading troops to victory, was not present. That he had a vast knowledge of the enemy and was privy to every offensive operation that militarily destroyed Tiger guerrillas is all too well known. Even his staunch opponents in the military and outside acknowledge this ungrudgingly. His eccentricities and the deadly venomous invectives towards some officers notwithstanding, the credit due to him for his soldiery and leadership during the war cannot be ignored. The country owed it and even volumes of new stories cannot hide it. Fonseka, now a Cabinet Minister, by his own follies as a politician, has tarnished his image somewhat by lending his name to drug lords and unscrupulous businessmen now under investigation. His garrulous verbal assaults on all and sundry have also made him quite unpopular.

In the same way, another persons input that has been invaluable towards recording the history of the military defeat of Tiger guerrillas is that of former Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa. During the final stages of the war, Gotabaya needed Fonseka and vice versa. That became the winning combination. The former provided all the military wherewithal (some still remaining as surplus stocks) with the brother President Mahinda as Commander-in-chief refusing to provide little or nothing. The latter put them to use. Fonseka stayed late nights in his office at Army Headquarters and took only little time off after switching the red light on top of his door (to indicate he was engaged). That was when he was watching the television series Paba on ITN. On other occasions, too, the red light was on, but that was during strategy sessions and confidential briefings. Mahinda Rajapaksa scrupulously avoided telephone calls from western government leaders who wanted to ask him to stop the final offensive.

Both Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Sarath Fonseka are at present mired in serious controversy over many issues. They are at the centre of allegations over human rights violations during the war  an issue now before the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in Geneva. They were accused of staging white van attacks on dissidents including journalists, intimidating and threatening them. Yet, Gotabaya Rajapaksa still commands respect among many armed forces personnel and is a principal shareholder in the military defeat of the LTTE. That is also a truth that cannot be buried. Gotabaya Rajapaksas demonstrated foray into politics with a speech at the Viyath Maga on plans for the countrys economy jolted the United National Party (UNP) government. It rushed to complain it was its ideas he was extolling.

He is now one of the front runners for the presidential election from the Joint Opposition. He was also not invited for the Presidents discussion. That he would not be needed when recording the history of the end of the war is akin to staging Shakespeares Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark or a play on the history of Sigiriya without King Kashyappa. But who needs his version for the new MoDs search for history? Such efforts show that even in national efforts to change history, bureaucrats and politicians cannot stand together.

The message is very clear. Fighting the scourge of terrorism, which has left thousands of civilians and troops dead and others maimed, gets clouded politically. The fact that billions worth of property was destroyed and even a Tamil population in the north and east bore the brunt of it seems forgotten. The morbid fact is that politicians want to use the military gains to their own advantage and officials who want to please them go out of the way to ensure that. Amateurism at the Defence Ministry appears to be at its height. Not surprisingly when those unfamiliar with the workings of the military establishment or the conduct of a near-three-decade-long war advise their leaders.

There were some 25 persons present at Sirisenas meeting. At the higher ranks of the retired, those present included former Army Commanders Generals Gerry de Silva and Lionel Balagalle. The Air Force had its senior most retired officers, Air Chief Marshal Jayalath Weerakkody and Air Chief Marshal Pathman (Paddy) Mendis. The Navy had one time Commander Admiral Daya Sandagiri, Admiral Deshamanya Basil Gunasekera and Admiral Cecil Tissera. There were a host of others, all of them who had quit many years earlier.

Also present were Education and Cultural Affairs Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, Defence Secretary Kapila Waidyaratne and the countrys top four in the security establishment  Chief of Defence Staff Ravi Wijegunaratne, Commanders Lt Gen Mahesh Senanayake (Army), Vice Admiral Sirimevan Ranasinghe (Navy) and Air Marshal Kapila Jayampathi (Air Force).

Sirisena told the retired officers who gathered on Monday night that many books had been published since the Tiger guerrillas were militarily defeated. Those accounts were often incorrect and tended to only project the writers own image exaggerating the roles they played. I dont want to lose the knowledge you have, Sirisena declared adding that the war had been given many twists. Behind the scenes, some MoD officials discussed the book of a retired Major General who led troops near a lagoon area. They spoke of a string of inaccuracies and the reflection of what they said were self-importance in most chapters. He tried to project himself as the Sri Lankan Rambo, one of them said.

The President is quite correct that some books written by senior officers spoke only of their mighty heroism and how it would have been difficult to win the war without their role. In the process, plenty of real history has been re-written with new heroes emerging from the original episodes. It is true that there is thus no reliable, accurate and a cohesive record of the events leading to the downfall of the guerrillas. But does the answer lie in just asking a select group of retired commanders?

This is by no means a bad reflection on any of the retired officers who met the President on Monday night. Yet, all of them were not directly involved in the final operations that led to the military defeat of the guerrillas. They could only relate their experiences during a particular phase of the separatist war in as far as it relates to them. Other than that, they could air their own views. Thus, it would raise a multitude of queries when the history of the war and the military defeat of guerrillas are projected from their perspective when they were not the participants. Eventually it would become the current Defence Ministrys own history of the war and how it ended. That would naturally differ from the version under the MoD of the previous government. Even national issues are now shamefully politics. Is it only because the elections are round the corner?

There have been several serious drawbacks in the conduct of the separatist war. A substantial part has been under periodic censorship. The final stages of the battles, noteworthy enough, grounded the local media in Colombo. They had to report largely on news releases put out by the military or the MoD. The absence of a credible flow of information is one of the contributory causes that lent credibility to allegations of human rights violations and war crimes. Some in the west dubbed it the war without witnesses. In every armed conflict, the media are present. The exceptions are when their lives become hazardous. In such situations, like in Syria, a new breed of brave men served as members of the White Helmets to evacuate the dead, rescue the injured and record how they became victims. The Assad regime packed them off only weeks earlier after what they continued to uncover embarrassed the regime. They were dubbed terrorists and US spies.

Among those who suffered grave injustice in Sri Lanka as a result were the troops  the real men and women who fought the war from the frontlines. Their mothers and fathers, leave alone their countrymen, are unaware of their acts of bravery and heroism. Only a handful of instances have come to the fore. One is reminded of the words of General Norman H. Schwarzkopf, the top US General who led troops in the Gulf War. In an interview with Barbara Walters of ABC he declared, It doesnt take hero to order men into battle. It takes a hero to be one of those men who go into battle. Later, he used those words as the title of his book on the war. The military defeat of the guerrillas would not have been possible but for the sacrifice of the troops. They were the children of mostly poor families from the villages. Some of the funerals after death from combat could not be held in their tiny homes. A garage like aluminium shed had to be put up to allow the body to lie. Have they been forgotten?

It is a known fact that any military offensive is carried out according to operational (OP) orders formulated by the relevant command. It lists the plan for the re-capture of a particular area or accomplishing a target, details out to different officers the tasks they should execute with the personnel assigned to them, the code names for radio communications etc. All offensive operations to defeat the guerrillas militarily in May 2009 were carried out after OP orders were issued. That is a record of history by itself. There are also intelligence reports, both local and foreign. The latter became useful particularly during air attacks on LTTE installations, including ammunition dumps and weapons caches.

One is not sure whether the Defence Ministry would be aware that through such OP orders, it could identify the officers who had directed operational activity in the various sectors? Will they not be aware of the brave and heroic deeds of the men they commanded? Would they not know who died and who was maimed? Will not this be a credible basis if the Defence Ministry is truly keen to obtain a cohesive, chronological historic record of what happened in the battlefield? Why is the Defence Ministry resorting to secrecy on such a national issue that affected practically every Sri Lankan? Why is it saying that there is no credible account available at present? Is it because it is simply unaware? Imposing a veil of secrecy is not only most damning but unfair to troops too. Such an exercise, if needed, would have been carried out transparently after inviting all stakeholders to air their views and experience. Alas, there are no military historians in Sri Lanka and bureaucrats want to play that role. The damage they cause to the country and the people is irreparable.

It is also unfair to those men and women who have sacrificed their lives or the troops who are still serving. If the MoD wanted to draw the services of retired service chiefs or officers, there are number of areas where they could be of immense assistance. One that is most wanting is for a panel of them to advise MoD bureaucrats on the basics of how the defence establishment works and the different nuances in their activities. Otherwise, heavy damage is done when they finish their term learning in office. It was demonstrated once before under this coalition. This way such a panel can ensure there is sanity and order in what they are doing for the national interest and for a national cause. The retired senior officers also made use of the opportunity to urge Sirisena to have one standard pension for different ranks. Defence Secretary Kapila Waidyaratne replied that it was not possible due to the lack of financial resources.

The night after his meeting with retired commanders, President Sirisena chaired the weekly cabinet meeting the next (Tuesday) morning. He put on hold two important issues, one a proposal by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and the other by Minister Malik Samarawickrema. Wickremesinghe, who had called a halt to a Rs 100,000 pay increase to MPs had sent in a memorandum  a report by an official committee and his recommendation to now pay Rs 200,000 a month to MPs who will be involved in the Gamperaliya projects. The Committee headed by PMs Secretary Saman Ekanayake had been appointed by Wickremesinghe. This was a fee, according to his recommendation, for monitoring different aspects of the projects.

Ministers Rajitha Senaratne and Gayantha Karunatilleke, who were spokespersons at Wednesdays news briefing on the cabinet meeting avoided references to Premier Wickremesinghe. This is how they dealt with the subject:

Q: Isnt the gap between the President and the Prime Minster widening? There have been reports that a cabinet paper submitted by the Prime Minister has been rejected by the Cabinet.

Senaratne: The cabinet paper was not rejected. It will be taken up for discussion again. The cabinet paper had details about the facilities to be provided. The discussion was on that.

Karunatilleke: It was a proposal put forward by an official committee. Particularly, the Gamperaliya programme is a major one where a multitude of development projects are being carried out. Since the Divisional Secretaries are not in a position to oversee these projects, a committee recommended that MPs assisted by some staff can oversee the project. The proposal was put forward by Prime Ministers Secretary, the Finance Ministry Secretary and the Parliamentary Affairs Secretary. The proposal will be further discussed. It was postponed for next week.

Q: Is this for all MPs or Government MPs.

Senaratne: Opposition MPs do not get involved as supervising (Monitoring) MPs.

The fact that the project was a pre-election initiative of the UNP and the payment of a fee for MPs was coupled with it was not lost on Sirisena. He did not favour the idea. He said that the projects (under Gamperaliya) could easily be monitored by the present District Co-ordinating Committees (DCC). Usually headed by Cabinet Ministers, the DCCs include all MPs of a district. Sirisena said that the matter could be examined on a later occasion. Some media reports, however, declared Sirisena had rejected the proposal. This is not the accurate position. A senior UNPer said they would raise issue again at the next cabinet meeting on Tuesday.

Another issue Sirisena did not favour was a cabinet memorandum submitted by Development Strategies and International Trade Malik Samarawickrema. He has sought approval for ministries to hire private counsel. Payment is to be made by the state. Samarawickrema produced a letter at the cabinet meeting to say that the Attorney General Jayantha Jayasuriya had consented to the proposal in the light of his departments workload. That he has written to you is one thing. He has told me another, declared Sirisena. He said the matter would have to be clarified with the AG since he has made clear to the President that staff in his office could easily undertake the work which Samarawickrema wants to give private counsel. The matter has now been put on hold until things are clarified with AG Jayasuriya.

The fact that proposals advantageous to one side and disadvantageous to the other are frequently coming before cabinet appears to have become a cause for concern for Sirisena. On Tuesday, he told the SLFP parliamentary group of 23 MPs that we have to be more vigilant. He said they should get together every two weeks before Parliament met. They would have to discuss issues relating to ministries and those coming up before Parliament. He said it was regrettable that Parliament had to be adjourned abruptly due to lack of quorum. There were also different positions taken by the UNP and the SLFP. They would have to be identified and corrected, Sirisena declared adding that the media gave a different picture.

Earlier on Tuesday, Sirisena chaired a meeting of the partys committee making preparations for the annual conference. This time it will be held in Colombo though the exact date in September is yet to be determined. One of the members who took part in the meeting said Sirisena was keen to ensure that a very large crowd attended  an indication that he plans to contest the upcoming presidential election for a second term. Further confirmation came during the SLFP Central Committee meeting on Wednesday. It centred on the setting up and immediate completion of more Bala Mandalayas. These are grassroots level party organs.

Sirisena spent considerable time examining the workings of these bodies in various electorates. He said the constitution of these bodies in areas it did not exist now should be completed before the partys annual sessions. Former Minister Dayasiri Jayasekera made a presentation on how to re-organise the party to win public support. A committee headed by General Secretary Prof. Rohana Luxman Piyadasa was appointed to further develop the concept. Jayasekeras concept was on the old cliche of Sangha, Veda. Guru, Govi Kamkaaru  or clergy, native physicians, teachers, farmers and workers. For example, the slogans are being modernised. Where there is a reference to Sangha (Buddhist Clergy) it is to be defined to include all religious groups. Thus, the new Pancha Maha Balavegaya (the five giant forces) will also focus on Pradeshiya Sabhas and district level organisations among other improvements.

Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva and former State Minister Dilan Perera, who are SLFP members on the Steering Committee that is involved in the formulation of a new Constitution gave the latest position. De Silva said that the Committee had forwarded five different reports and they were now being studied. This time, however, the reports by the panel of experts had not been signed, suggesting there were disagreements. At the next meeting of the Central Committee, a decision is to be made on which provisions could be approved and which are not consistent with SLFP policies.

The SLFP position that the Executive Presidency should remain was endorsed again. This is in the light of the drafts going on the basis that there should be no Executive Presidency.

Next Tuesday, President Sirisena faces a test of strength at the cabinet. UNP Ministers plan to push once again for Premier Wickremesinghes proposal for a monthly allowance of Rs 200,000 to MPs to monitor the Gamperaliya project. All indications are that he will put his foot down for the move as it will place at disadvantage the 23 SLFP MPs who are supporting him. The next is Minister Samarawickremas proposal for ministries to hire private counsel. That move too is not likely to see the light of day. Not when Sirisena believes that the Attorney Generals Department could handle those cases.

With elections round the corner, political parties need more money not only to keep their politicians happy but also for related expenses. Sirisena has argued with his confidants that such money should not be tapped from state sources under whatever pretext. Thus, there is at least a modicum of checks and balances being ensured by him though his countrymen would have wished there was more.

Paisley affair: Full probe by Parliamentary Committee The Parliaments Sectoral Oversight Committee on International Relations has initiated a probe on the Ian Paisley affair revealed extensively in the Sunday Times (Political Commentary) of July 29. The Committee has called for a full report from the Foreign Ministry on who invited the British MP, now suspended from the House of Commons, for two different all expenses paid holidays fit enough for a head of state. One was in April 2013 and the other in July 2013. The directive was given after the Committee summoned four top officials from the Foreign Ministry. They were Secretary Prasad Kariyawasam, Chief Accountant U.G.C. Abeyratne, Chief of Protocol M.R. Hassen and Sarath Dissanayake, who was then Deputy Chief of Protocol. The Committees Chairman and State Minister Ranjith Aluvihare told the four Foreign Ministry officials that their report should be comprehensive since further action was being contemplated. Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP) parliamentarian Bimal Ratnayake also raised a series of questions on how such a visit violated all norms. The Sunday Times learnt that Foreign Secretary Kariyawasam has in turn called for a full report from Majintha Jayasinghe who was the then Chief of Protocol. He is currently Sri Lankas Deputy High Commissioner in Malaysia. Foreign Ministry sources said Jayasinghe had said that the request to make arrangements for Paisely had come from the then Sri Lanka High Commissioner in Britain, Dr Chris Nonis. He had obtained approval of the then Foreign Secretary, the late Romesh Jayasinghe. However, as revealed in these columns, the visit originated after Paisely sent an e-mail to Sajin de Vass Gunawardena, who was then Monitoring MP for the Foreign Ministry. In fact Mr Jayasinghe had quoted that e-mail in the process of confirming the request and making other arrangements. Other issues surfaced in the process, the Sunday Times learnt were similar visits arranged for at least ten or more persons from United States public relations firms. One such person has been the driver of a car which transported the Sri Lankan director of one such PR firm. This issue has placed Foreign Secretary Kariyawasam in a dilemma. The visits passed through his hands then as Sri Lankas Ambassador to the United States. It was during the Mahinda Rajapaksa administration. Now, serving under President Maithripala Sirisena, he may have to look into these cases too if the Committee decides to probe the matter. Members of the Sectoral Oversight Committee on International Relations are: Ranjith Aluvihare (Chairman), Indika Bandaranayake, Dunesh Gankanda, Ajith P. Perera, Eran Wickramaratne, Tharanath Basnayaka, Anuradha Jayaratne, Dinesh Gunawardena, S.M. Chandrasena, Bimal Rathnayake, Annamalai Nadesu Sivasakthi, Lakshman Ananda Wijemanne, Namal Rajapaksa, Nalaka Prasad Colonne, Malith Jayathilake, (Dr.) Kavinda Heshan Jayawardana, Mayantha Yaswanth Dissanayake, S.M. Marikkar, Prasanna Ranatunga and Chaminda Wijesiri.
Regular strikes causing chaos: Lessons from Iron Lady View(s):

Just when one has to condemn doctors going on strike holding the general public hostage, the railway men decide to act  like doctors.

The fact that railway men struck work only days after a rail accident due to their negligence causing grievous hurt to passengers is an irony. That irate commuters were prepared to assault the train drivers and hurt them during the strike is not an irony; it is a very real trend that might lead to civil commotion in time to come. Police paramilitary units were brought in to maintain the peace this week.

These frequent strikes can easily snowball into complete chaos. The Government seems unable to stem rising labour unrest. Backroom negotiations seem non-existent. Where on earth is the Minister of Labour in a Government of 92 Cabinet, State and Deputy Ministers?

There is a creepy feeling in the country that the Government is weak and with elections looming, that this is the time  to strike. The trend can extend to other sectors of the public service. That is why trade unionists resist privatisation; their strength is in the numbers within the essential services of the country.

Government leaders might want to take a leaf from the way one-time British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher dealt with a year-long, left-wing strike which she said undermined her electoral victory of 1985. That strike crippled the British economy with dock workers, lorry drivers, miners and railwaymen, all on strike. British cities were stinking with uncollected garbage. There was violence at the picket lines during clashes with the police.

In her autobiography, Mrs. Thatcher writes of Mr. Arthur Scargills Insurrection, referring to the President of the National Union of Mine Workers and the strikes that also included British Rail. She wrote: So much was at stake that no responsible Government could take a hands-off attitude I tried to combine respect for their freedom with clear signals as to what would, or would not be financially and politically acceptable. Her tough action earned her the moniker The Iron Lady, thereafter. Even earlier, in Sri Lanka, President J.R. Jayewardene dealt a severe blow to trade unions, later known as the July 80 strikers. Very often these strikes have political undercurrents far beyond the economic sphere.

The Government is clearly facing a financial crunch. In such circumstances, calls for higher wages seem unreasonable. The foreign reserves of the country are dwindling by the day, merely to prop up the rupee vis-a-vis the US dollar. The Prime Minister has warned that oil prices in the world market could rise once US sanctions against Iran kick in. The Central Bank has turned to the Chinese Peoples Bank for Panda bonds raising USD 250 million and negotiating for a further USD one billion syndicated loan from the Chinese Development Bank for its massive debt servicing, part of it to repay for the Hambantota port. It seems like borrowing from Ching to pay Chang.

And yet, the demands of the trade unionists sound justifiable on the other hand when the Government is on an expenditure binge. With all sorts of infrastructure projects called developments projects under the banners Gamperaliya (UNP) and Grama Shakthi (SLFP) with elections looming. With MPs to be given some extra spending money euphemistically for development work in their electorates, for their political survival, it is difficult for the Government to argue it has no money to pay the workers. Also not to be forgotten by the public is the fact that MPs were allowed to make millions by selling their duty-free car permits.

The wrath of the people on the striking workers can easily rebound on the Government.

Lanka and the Karunanidhi legacy

The bereaved supporters of the DMK (Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam) in Tamil Nadu carried their recently deceased beloved leader, Muthuvel Karunanidhi on their shoulders last Wednesday to perform the final rites in an emotional farewell.

De mortuis nihil nisi bonum in Latin means nothing but the good is to be said about the dead. The 94-year-old former Chief Minister of the state, however, was no friend of Sri Lanka. In a scramble to compete with his arch rival M.G. Ramachandran (MGR) for the top job of the state, he threw caution to the winds where good neighbourliness with Sri Lanka was concerned.

Both of them played to the emotive sentiments of the populace by exploiting the Sri Lankan ethno-political mix since the 1983 anti-Tamil pogrom in Sri Lanka, and what was worse  they gave state patronage to separatism and terrorism in Sri Lanka. They provided finances, and their turf for hit-and-run operations across the Palk Strait, also succour, and lodging to those boys to wreak mayhem in this country.

The Karunanidhi-Ramachandran duo took turns to outdo the other and changed the matrix of Indias national politics taking advantage of the shaky coalition politics in New Delhi. They forced the Central Government to adopt a hostile stance against the Government in Colombo.

What did they achieve other than high political office for themselves? They achieved misery for the people of Sri Lanka both in the North and the South by encouraging the cycle of violence that this country witnessed in the post-1983 years until 2009. Their state inherited a refugee problem and intra-guerrilla group rivalry saw shootouts on the streets of Tamil Nadu. Bombs destined for the Colombo international airport exploded at their own Meenambakam airport in a botched act of terrorism targeting Sri Lanka. All this climaxed with the murder of their own Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi on Tamil Nadu soil. And yet, what was arguably the worst thing they did for their country was to pit the majority of Sri Lankans against India.

India was once referred to as Mother Country by all Sri Lankans. The two countries freedom struggles were intertwined. India was regarded with great fondness as the land of the Buddha. All this goodwill evaporated and in its place, China gained a foothold in the country by providing the weapons to battle the separatist movement. The Karunanidhi-MGR combine dreaming the impossible dream of a Pan-Tamil Federation that included Northern Sri Lanka, which was frowned by New Delhi even then, has now to undo the damage caused to Indo-Lanka relations by the incumbents in office.

The fear of Indias hegemony, real or imagined, was fuelled by the politics of Tamil Nadu of that era, closed for now with the departure of the DMK leader. The politics of the state in the future will need to take a different turn, and a broader view adopted of its relations with Sri Lanka  and vice versa, if a new era of commercial and social engagement is to take off leaving the unfortunate past behind.
A designful week By Oshani Alwis Arcade Independence Square comes alive with Moratuwa Universitys innovative venture View(s): View(s):

It was a weeklong celebration of design and creativity at Arcade Independence Square when Sri Lanka Design Week unfolded with talks, workshops, live studio activity spaces, a design exhibition and a design forum including the Design Research Conference 2018.The exhibition launched on August 7 ends today.

Sri Lanka Design Week aimed at identifying the broader role of design in society, cultivating designs and ideas into tangible solutions, taking a bold new design direction and appreciation of outstanding design contributions.

Design Code, an initiative of the Department of Integrated Design, Faculty of Architecture, University of Moratuwa, sought to promote innovative designs of young creators who were hosting this years Sri Lanka Design Week 2018, aptly themed Design in Sri Lanka.

Delivering the keynote address Design a Nation: Who Cares!, Prasoon Kumar, graduate in Urban and Environmental Planning, Co-founder of BillionBricks Organization that innovated shelters for the homeless and a TEDx speaker, focused on the impacts on designs created for everyone that yet end up with few users. Designers today are user-centric and design with empathy and the products are so user-focused that we are addicted to them and forget the externalities, Prasoon pointed out.

The concept of ethical designing is getting popular in the world, focusing more on social and environmental impacts, he said. Design for everyone truly means the purpose of it and creating people-centric designs rather than user-centric ones. In the process, questioning is the way for change. If you truly want to design a nation, start by questioning, Prasoon noted.

The talk was followed by the Sri Lankan Design Awards in partnership with Cargills Ceylon PLC, showcasing the best design talents, products and innovations of the undergraduates of the University of Moratuwa. (See box above for winners)

The chief guest at the inaugural ceremony was Prof. Kapila Perera, Vice Chancellor, University of Moratuwa. Deputy Vice Chancellor, Prof. P.K.S. Mahanama, Prof. Lalith De Silva of the Faculty of Architecture and Head of the Department, Department of Integrated Design Sithumini Ratnamalala were also present. The keynote speaker of the Design Research Conference was Prof. Praveen Nahar. Chandaramani Thenuwara, designer and advocator in textile designing and James Balmond, Creative Director at Balmond Studio also attended the launch.

The exhibition was held in collaboration with Leo Burnett Sri Lanka, Balmond Studio, Lanka Association of Designers and Design Development Corporation, Cargills Ceylon Plc and Hirdramani Group of Companies and other corporates.

Grand fashion show today Sri Lanka Design Week 2018 ends today with a grand fashion show curated by Ajai Vir Singh, Founder of Colombo Fashion Week, featuring the creations of the students of the Department of Integrated Design. The fashion show will start at 6.30 p.m at Arcade Independence Square, Colombo and is open to all.

The winners The Young Sri Lankan Designer Award, Product Design category was won by Dinuka Amarakoon for designing a solution for grocery bags that are financially feasible, eco-friendly and bio-degradable.Hasini De Silva won the award for Fashion and Lifestyle Design Category, for designing protective and functional clothing for the vegetable farmer in the dry zone.Ravindu Subasinghe won the Young Sri Lankan Designer of the Year 2018 award and also the Media and Communication Design Category award, for his poster on cutting down food waste and presenting solutions. The Most Popular Design award was won by Ruwini Dharmasena. The Culture Code Best Student Award and Best Product Award were won by Harindu Gunawardena and Sanjani Wijekoon of the Department of Integrated Design. The Artisan Awards were presented to handloom manufacturers and traditional craftsmen who contributed their creations to the Culture Code.
Power of Plants View(s):

4Ever Skin Naturals, a well reputed brand not only in Sri Lanka, but also in a cluster of foreign countries, continues to earn accolades as a top brand in the beauty industry, bagging much coveted milestones identical to the industry itself.

Founder of 4Ever, Chandani Bandara dreamt something big, not mere success of her business in natural products based herbalism but to contribute to the national economy, in the calibre of a proud local entrepreneur while championing something identical to her own country. Fulfilling the aspired goal of the founder, keeping fingers crossed for the domestic herbal products industry, 4Ever Skin Naturals Pvt. Ltd. has ventured into the international market, marking a leap forward in the whole journey of the organisation.

Blending the essence of traditional Ayurvedic knowledge with modern know-how, Chandani Bandara has been able to place a remarkable product among a competitive range that truly amuses consumer.

4Ever has broken new fields in the herbal products industry with brand identity, POP (Power of Plants) engendering its current portfolio.

The fresh products that come under POP are enriched with the spirit of herbal medicine; Pas Panguwa (Liquid), a well-tested treatment for fever, cough and pain, Pawatta Thal Sukiri Syrup to fight cough and Nelli Rasankinda drink.

The products successfully meet the highest standards of health assurances merging with the ancient Hela medical spirit that has showcased proven success.

The 4Ever Skin Naturals Ltd boasts its unprecedented products range replete with miracles of the glorious of Hela medical heritage, and the inventions will not only be introduced to the domestic market but also to the international market.
Taste of chocolate from the days of her grandfather By Oshani Alwis Indian chocolatier Zeba Kohli who has reinvented and revamped a family business, was in Colombo recently with her own brand of #IndulgePerM2 View(s): View(s):

Zeba Kohli clasps a piece of chocolate between her fingers, palm reached out, looking at it. She feels its appeal, noticing whether it is reddish, dark brown, light brown, black or white. She rubs the piece with her fingers, coaxing the texture, feeling the coco butter melting. It is the way to identify real coco butter chocolate from compound chocolate.

Smelling the chocolate, inhaling the aroma and fragrance veiled around the piece, Zeba tries to catch the notes of wood, grass, ash, smoke or blackberry even tobacco. When the piece goes into the mouth.it brings out all the sensations of the chocolate. Zeba lets the piece swivel around the mouth as chewing immediately is just not the way to taste chocolate. She holds her nose with her thumb and forefinger, swallowing the subtle tastes, exhaling into the chocolate, noticing its texture- creamy, smooth, dry or grainy.

Chocolate can be eaten and must be eaten with all the five senses, Zeba says, finishing the chocolate tasting.

#IndulgePerM2 is an innovative chocolate range created by none other than Indias most renowned chocolatier Zeba Kohli, who calls herself Willy Wonki(the female version of Roald Dahls fictional character Willy Wonka who owns a chocolate factory).

Hafele Sri Lanka, a premier kitchenware brand, hosted a collection of chocolate installations and artworks exclusively created by Zeba on August 3 at Hafele Design Studio, Colombo. The showrooms counter tops were filled with designer chocolates in dark, brown and white, turning the place into a chocolate haven.

Philanthropist and entrepreneur, Zeba heads Fantasie Fine Chocolates, her family business started in 1946 from Mumbai. As a passionate chocolatier Zeba reinvented and revamped the brand by creating an eclectic range of flavours and chocolate inventions.

Recalling her first memories of chocolate, Zeba relates how she woud run to the chocolate store from school as any other child would do. For me chocolate is something made and packed with love as my grandmother used to do, Zeba says. The family business, Fantasie Fine Chocolates started by Zebas grandfather was one of her most favourite things in the world. As a child and a young girl, I loved to hang around with my family and naturally felt responsible towards the family business, she says. Zeba would spend her time at the store learning the ropes at each of the departments trying to understand more and to be better at it.

As her grandfather used to hire the less privileged men and women as employees, Zeba to this day follows his vision involving them in the art of chocolate-making providing a high standard of training. In simple terms I became a chocolatier through trial and error, Zeba says humbly.

India is famous for its unique range of sweets  laddu, barfi, halwa, jalebi and many more. As Zeba says Indians by and large adore sweets and they make the Indian sweets at home. Chocolate is something that people do not make in the house, and are keen on buying the finest, she remarks as she has a clientele in India who always comes for her outstanding chocolates.

Inventing chocolate stilettos, edible chocolate paint, chess boards to fashion accessories, Zeba draws inspiration from her life and experiences, different cultures, cuisines, fusions, fashion and people. My chocolate experiments are a let go of traditional chocolate making and exploring new dimensions, Zeba says.

Taking the guests through a journey of chocolate indulgence, Zeba explained the history of cocoa and chocolate. The delicate cocoa tree grows only 20 degrees south and north of the equator. A cocoa pod has 25-50 coca nuts which are covered in a white pulp. Pure hard liquor is extracted from roasted cocoa beans and it is the basic ingredient of chocolate. Zebas Mexican chocolate range is nothing but pure cocoa tasted with chilli and black pepper, just the way the ancient Mayans had it.

Featuring marzipan, mint, caramel nougat, candi white kiwi and dark orange chocolate, Zebas collection was outstanding.

Todays chocolates are more sweet and milky. And she foresees that the future of chocolate will be focused on healthy bites. Zebas future collection contained 70% pure dark chocolate combined with goji berry, blueberry and cranberry.

Her special Sri Lankan collection of chocolate ganache, coconut, cinnamon, ginger, lunumiris, Chinese chilli paste, vanilla and strawberry- flavoured Sri Lankan tea were much popular delicacies of the evening.

Zebas exclusive chocolates can be ordered online on fantasiechocolate.com
Dual citizens as envoys: Foreign Secretary makes contradictory statements By Our Diplomatic Editor View(s): View(s):

Appointment of dual nationals as heads of Sri Lankas diplomatic missions overseas has set a serious poser for Parliaments High Post Committee.

This came in the wake of contradictions following Foreign Secretary Prasad Kariyawasams interpretation to Parliament on the Sri Lanka Foreign Service Minute.

The Minute adopted in November 2016, he says, required new entrants to the foreign service to be a citizen of Sri Lanka (Those who have dual citizenship should rescind their foreign nationality in the event they are selected to the SLFS and should not acquire the nationality of any other country during their Service.) On the other hand, he also says, applicable public service regulations at present do not prevent any Sri Lankan with dual nationality holding a high post in public service, though the 19th Amendment to the Constitution established a condition that Members of Parliament cannot hold dual nationality.

The two conflicting versions are contained in a August 9-dated letter which Foreign Secretary Kariyawasam sent to Speaker Karu Jayasuriya. It came amidst the controversy surrounding the appointment of Arusha Cooray as Sri Lankas Ambassador to Norway. The 52-year-old academic, additionally an Australian national, has served educational institutions in that country since 2002 until her appointment as a Sri Lankan envoy.

At a meeting of the High Posts Committee of Parliament, Minister Wijeyadasa Rajapakshe, TNA parliamentarian M.A. Sumanthiran and JO Parliamentary leader Dinesh Gunawardena protested strongly on the appointment. They said persons appointed as Presidents nominee for envoys overseas should have only Sri Lankan nationality, and not those with dual citizenship. They argued this would lead to divided loyalties. Members urged that the Foreign Ministry should be called upon to formally explain the position.

For good measure, after presenting two contradictory positions, Mr. Kariyawasam adds, However, it is common practice among several countries e.g. Australia and the United States that they will not accept those who hold dual nationality of their country as Ambassador/High Commissioner of Sri Lanka.

The Foreign Secretarys letter, to say the least, is contradictory. This show there is no proper policy at the Foreign Ministry. The recent appointment of Ms Cooray is a glaring example of how principles are being violated to please different people, Dinesh Gunawardena told the Sunday Times. He said such practices were a slur on the countrys sovereignty. Ms. Cooray is awaiting a final decision from Sri Lankas Parliamentary Committee which is trying to sort out her legality in holding the post.
Ex-Chief of RADA Alles gave over Rs 180m to LTTE: Witness By Ranjith Padmasiri View(s): View(s):

A complaint of criminal misappropriation of State funds amounting to over Rs 180 million, was made, as it was considered a crime against the public because the monies were channelled to the LTTE organisation for war purposes, a key witness in the High Court said.

Western Provincial Council member Nishantha Shri Warnasinghe was testifying in the case where former Chairman of the Reconstruction & Development Agency (RADA) Tiran Alles, former LTTE Financial section head Emil Kanthan, RADA Chief Operating Officer Saliya Wickramasuriya and Dr Jayantha Dias Samarasinghe are charged with criminal misappropriation.

The case was taken up before High Court Judge Vikum Kaluaarachchi last week.

Mr Warnasinghe said the money had been allocated to the RADA without Cabinet approval and the funds had been used by the LTTE, while the public suffered the consequences of their actions.

Under cross examination, Mr Warnasinghe said that 1st accused Alles should be held responsible for channeling the funds through Emil Kanthan to the LTTE and thereby, strengthening the LTTE.

He said that Alles, at a press conference, had admitted he witnessed money being handed over to Emil Kanthan and that, the video of this media conference could be produced in courts. He said that Alles had made this statement, a day after his house was attacked on January 22, 2010.

Mr Warnasinghe said he had lodged a complaint at Police Headquarters on February 25, 2015, as a member of the Anti-Corruption Front (ACF), which was actively involved in the political changes which took place after the January 8, 2015 elections.

He said they lodged complaints with the Bribery Commission, Criminal Investigations Department and the Financial Crimes Investigation Division.

Mr Warnasinghe, describing the case as a matter of national importance, said that, in his statement to the Police, he said he had acted in the interest of the public, at a time when the country was under the threat of terrorists.

He said he was aware that Emil Kanthan was directly connected to the RADA, which was formed in 2006 and that, as RADA head, Alles had links with the LTTE.

During cross examination, Mr Warnasinghe denied he lodged the complaint without the knowledge of the other members of the ACF.

Deputy Solicitor General Dilipa Peiris with State Counsel Nishara Jayaratna and Udara Karunatilake appeared for the Prosecution.

Nalin Ladduwahetti P.C. with Attorneys Shalika Gunawardena, Thusitha Ranasinha and Hakeem Haris, appeared for Alles. Shanaka Ranasinghe P.C. with Attorneys Lakshman Perera, Anton Kumarasinghe and Nishadha Gamage, appeared for 2nd accused Emil Kanthan, who was absent.

Anil de Silva P.C. with Attorneys Shiny Weerasuriya and Mahinda Jayawardena, appeared for 3rd accused Wickramasuriya, while Nalinda Indatissa with Attorney-at-Law Madumathi Jayatilake, appeared for 4th accused Dr Samarasinghe,

The next hearing was fixed for October 4.
First-ever Students Formulary from Colombo Med Fac By Kumudini Hettiarachchi To aid proper prescribing and rational use of drugs and prevent medication errors View(s): View(s):

Poisons and medications! They are one and the same, with only one major difference  poisons become medications only with proper prescribing and rational use. To aid proper prescribing and rational use, a team at the Department of Pharmacology of the Colombo Medical Faculty, in a first in the country and most probably in all of Asia as well, has come up with The Sri Lanka Students Formulary (SLSF).

It was at a simple ceremony in the Boardroom of the hallowed Colombo Medical Faculty amidst a distinguished gathering that the birth of the SLSF, after a hard labour of about eight years, was witnessed on July 30. Those at the head-table were the Director-General of Health Services, Dr. Anil Jasinghe; the Director of the Medical Supplies Division (MSD), Dr. Lal Panapitiya; the Dean of the Colombo Medical Faculty, Prof. Jennifer Perera; and Professor in Pharmacology, Prof. Kusum de Abrew, while in the audience were the Emeritus Professor in Pharmacology, Prof. Laal Jayakody and the former Professor of Pharmacology, Prof. Krishantha Weerasuriya.

Hailing it a red-letter day, Prof. Perera commended the Colombo Medical Facultys Department of Pharmacology, involving both academic and non-academic staff, for launching such an important initiative.

Comprising exhaustive information, she said it was a uniquely Sri Lankan publication, as much research has gone into what should be included in it. It is not copied from other formularies, but is based on evidence of our use of drugs.

You made it possible, said Prof. Perera, adding that it will help ensure the safety of patients by preventing medication errors as the SLSF will give guidance on appropriate prescribing.

Pointing out that studies have indicated that when new interns take over, there is an increase of morbidity (illness) and mortality (death) among patients, she reiterated that the SLSF will help reduce medication errors.

Prof. Perera urged that a follow-up should be conducted once the SLSF is in use to show its benefits to the world. It should also be reviewed, with the feedback, both positive and negative, being included. There should be future editions, adding on new drugs and their side-effects etc., or at least, the SLSF should be edited and updated at least once in three years.

The Head of the Department of Pharmacology of the Colombo Medical Faculty, Prof. Shalini Sri Ranganathan reiterated that there are no safe medications only safe prescriptions.

We (medical faculties) create the doctors who then work in the Health Department, she said, pointing out that there is a lot of irrational prescribing. She urged the Director-General of Health Services to set in motion an internal audit system to curb this.

All drugs are poisons. It is the dosage which makes the difference  between a poison and a medication, Prof. Sri Ranganathan stressed. Requesting students to use the SLSF, Prof. Laal Jayakody said that it is a first in this part of the world. We need to catch the students young and ingrain in them rational prescribing, he said, adding that it is not just a formulary but also comprises pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics.

The President of the Medical Faculty Students Union, Damitha Liyanaarachchi also spoke.

Going through the pages of the Students Formulary

Underscoring that producing the Sri Lanka Students Formulary (SLSF) was no easy task, Specialist Physician and Professor in Pharmacology, Prof. Priyadarshani Galappatthy took the audience through the book, explaining in meticulous detail what it is all about. What is a Student Formulary, she asked, replying that it consists of a core list of commonly-used drugs that are prescribed by junior doctors, typically about 100 drugs. A limited formulary offers students a learning target that is realistic and attainable. These student formularies are a component of the core curriculum in clinical pharmacology by the British Pharmacological Society (BPS). A few countries and universities such as the Queens University in Belfast, Ireland and the Southampton University in the United Kingdom have produced them, while some have introduced electronic formularies. However, there are no records of any student formularies from Asia or the low/middle income countries, she said. Going back in time, she referred to the setting up of the Formulary Committee in 1957 which published the Ceylon Hospitals Formulary in 1959. This formulary is said to have been done single-handedly by Prof. Senaka Bibile. Then in 1994, the Sri Lanka Hospitals Formulary edited by Prof. Laal Jayakody came into use. Now, the Sri Lanka Student Formulary of 2018 has been published, a project initiated by Prof. Kusum de Abrew in 2010. The SLSF is a source of reference of commonly prescribed medicines in the country and is meant for medical and other allied healthcare undergraduates as well as first contact doctors, says Prof. Galappatthy, reiterating that it is to promote the rational use of medicines among junior prescribers and trainees. It will help promote the application of clinical pharmacology knowledge in clinical practice among junior prescribers. But that is not all  the SLSF is different to the usual formularies.

While providing details of dosage forms and doses, it also gives information on the mechanisms of action of a drug; pharmacokinetics (how the drug is absorbed, distributed, metabolized and excreted over time); pharmacodynamics (the effect the drug will have on the body); important drug interactions; side-effects; cautions; contraindications; prescribing in special situations such as when the patient is pregnant or lactating or when the patient has renal or hepatic impairment; practice points; and patient advice. The formulary includes details of about 300 individual drugs grouped into 19 sections ranging from anti-infective medicines to endocrine medicines; from anaesthetic medicines to medicines acting in the eye, ear, nose and throat; from immunologicals to immunosuppressants, to name a few.

It also gives an insight into the most commonly prescribed 100 drugs in the five major specialties (medicine, surgery, obstetrics & gynaecology, paediatrics and psychiatry) in the Colombo group of hospitals. The SLSF Formulary Committee comprises Editors cum Contributing Authors Prof. Kusum de Abrew (Chairperson); Prof. Priyadarshani Galappatthy (Convener); Prof. Laal Jayakody, Dr. Chamari Weeraratne and Dr. Priyanga Ranasinghe. The other Contributing Authors are Dr. Sachith Abhayaratna, Dr. Piyusha Atapattu, Dr. Dinithi Fernando, Dr. Chiranthi Kongala Liyanage and Dr. Vipula Bataduwaarachchi. Secretarial assistance had been provided by Inoka Gammune. While the Health Ministry had provided the funding through the MSD, 5,000 copies have been printed by the Government Printer at a cost of Rs. 1.5 million. The SLSF is to be sold at cost to make the next print self-sustaining.
Fresh bids to be called for BIA development project View(s):

The Government is to call for fresh bids for the construction of a new terminal at the Bandaranaike International Airport after the Cabinet decided to cancel the bid from Japan on grounds that it was too high, a senior official said.

Airport and Aviation Service Sri Lanka Ltd Chairman Saman Ediriweera told the Sunday Times that the bid had a difference of 46 percent when compared to the engineers estimate. The Cabinet, which considered the proposal, had decided to cancel the bidding process and advised to obtain the concurrence from JICA (Japanese International Cooperation Agency) for rebidding for the US$ 700 million project.

It was also proposed to promote the project as a Public-Private Partnership (PPP). A detailed design for the project was carried out by the Japan Airport Consultants in 2006 at a cost of Rs 340 million, but the project was delayed due to a range of reasons. The bidding process for the Stage Two of the projects phase II resumed in September/November 2016 in two packages. However only one contractor was found and that too only for one package of the project.

The decision to call fresh bids is now set to delay the construction of the terminal until 2022. Mr Ediriweera said that the present terminal handled more than 10 million passengers annually though it was geared to handle around 6 million. He said they were planning an interim terminal to meet the increasing demand.
Horrifying sight of thousands of commuters stranded over rail strike By Shaadya Ismail Public helpless as unions, Govt. lock horns View(s): View(s):

A total of 374 trains carrying almost 600,000 passengers daily islandwide came to a halt on Wednesday when railway workers launched a sudden strike, and despite widespread public dismay unions are vowing to continue industrial action.

Commuters were left stranded on the night the strike began, taken unawares by the stoppage. Many only reached home the following morning, using buses, while others took refuge in railway stations, unable to find transport home.

R.H. Gamini, who works at the Colombo dockyard, counted himself lucky that the meagre amount of money in his pockets was sufficient for him to find an alternative way back home to Udugampola on the night of the strike.

When I look back, I wonder what if, like most days, I had just my season ticket in my hand? I would have had to either spend the night in the station or headed back home really late, he said.

Mr. Gamini explained with a heavy heart how his family had been anxiously waiting till he came home with food rations so they could cook their meal that night.

The government and the unionists are at loggerheads and we are beaten by both forces and are helpless, he said.

Regular rail commuter M.M. Upasena had to take three buses to reach his home in Magalegoda.

A lot of people were stranded that night. The sight was horrifying  many women and children were helpless, Mr. Upasena, an employee at a five-star hotel, said.

Its okay for them [the unionists] to protest but please, inform the public beforehand and dont put them in a situation where they are helpless, he pleaded.

Gnanamurali Thavavanidi, a teacher from Jaffna, had been visiting her sister in Colombo and was returning home on Thursday. She came to the Fort Railway Station expecting that she and her family would be taking the train to Jaffna.

We booked our tickets early, hoping that we could travel back home by train, which is the most convenient way of travel for us, she said. Because of the strike, they were forced to travel all the way to Jaffna by bus, paying heavily for their tickets.

Employed on a daily wage at a Colombo tea kiosk, R.A. Yasanthi has to use a train to travel from Ganemulla because it is the cheapest transport. What happened to us on Wednesday was very unfair, she said. I had to wait until one in the morning to get a bus to go home. I reached home only at 3am.

Kolitha Gunawardene expressed the same outrage: his normal single train ride home to Veyangoda became four bus journeys on Wednesday night, and he condemned the union action.

Stationmasters, engine drivers, railway controllers and railway supervisor managers are involved in the strike launched on August 8 and are refusing to stop industrial action until the government accedes to their salary demands.

Over time, promotions havent been reflected in our salaries, Railway Engine Drivers Union Secretary Indika Dodangoda said. The higher the promotion the lesser the salary which doesnt make any sense.

When questioned whether the suddenness of the strike was reasonable, he claimed prior notice of the stoppage had been issued. That warning, however, had been given on a previous occasion a month ago when the unions threatened a strike that was later called off due to assurances given by the government.

The All-Ceylon Railway Union, which did not take part in Wednesdays stoppage and says it will continue to operate trains on condition that its members salaries will also be revised and increased, criticised the other unions.

We regret the inconvenience caused to the public due to the sudden trade union action which was launched by the four sectors and we think that it was very unfair, All-Ceylon Railway Union chief S.P. Vithanage said.

Mr. Vithanage said the other unions had a right to strike over salary scales but not on the matter of a salary increment if the Railway Department was privatised  a step he alleged the government was contemplating.

Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera told parliament a pay rise given to railway workers would create a salary anomaly with other public institutions.

Mr. Samaraweera gave an assurance that the salaries of all public sector employees will be increased within two to three months through orders of the planned new Special Public Commission mooted by President Maithripala Sirisena. Mr. Samaraweera is refusing to hold discussions with the railway unions unless they report back for work.

The statement made by the Minister of Finance with regard to the salary anomaly is very reasonable and it was very unfair of the trade unions to go on strike, Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation Secretary G.S. Withanage said.

He said a Cabinet paper put forward to increase the salaries of the railway workers was never cancelled but merely deferred. We informed the railway unions regarding the deferment and requested them to not launch a trade union action and we assured them that matters will be sorted, Mr. Withanage said.

By Friday evening, measures were taken to operate nine trains from Colombo to Halawatha, Kandy, Mahawa, Anuradhapura, Rambukkana, Matara, Galle, Avissawella and Polgahawela.

Assistance was also sought from the Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB) to provide transport to the public.

Around 6,000 buses have been deployed islandwide, due to the ongoing railway strike, SLTB Chairman Ramal Siriwardena said.

Priority is diverted to the students sitting for their Advanced Level examinations this year, he added.

Leave has been cancelled for all SLTB drivers, conductors and mechanics.

The army also stepped in to transport people during the strike. Army Media Spokesman Brigadier Sumith Atapattu said 28 army buses were pressed into service for long-distance public transport while nine other army buses were used to carry Advanced Level students from Maharagama, Gampaha, Veyangoda, Nittambuwa, Ganemulla, Homgama Meegoda and Kalutara.

About 100 army personnel were deployed to help transport people to their destinations, Brigadier Atapattu said.

Police have been instructed to be lenient with traffic rules for buses, not insisting that buses follow their specified route permit.

Passengers with a train season ticket will be allowed to travel free on SLTB buses. Mr. Withanage said there were practical difficulties in extending the same arrangement to travel on private buses due to difficulties in calculating and claiming costs.

No complaints had come in from examination centres over late arrivals due to the strike, the Commissioner-General of Examinations, B. Sanath Pujitha, said.

The support extended by the SLTB and the private buses made it possible for the students to reach their destinations on time without any complaints, he said.
IATA protests against CPCs high jet fuel prices By Namini Wijedasa Warns that the soaring costs will affect Colombo airport and SriLankan Airlines View(s): View(s):

The International Air Transport Association (IATA) this week criticised CEYPETCOs opaque pricing for jet fuel and called for a transparent formula, warning that the soaring cost of refuelling in Sri Lanka was stifling the aviation industry.

A team from the union of global airlines visited Sri Lanka and sounded caution to officials, including those of the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation, that jet fuel here is significantly higher priced than at other Asian airports. For instance, it is 21 percent more than in Singapore; 13 percent more than in Hong Kong; and eight percent more than in Bangalore.

While CEYPETCOs monthly prices generally tally with the Mean of Platts Arab Gulf (MOPAG), the gap in prices is inconsistent, IATA also observed. On a few occasions, the CEYPETCO price was maintained even though the MOPAG price had dipped, it said, in a presentation made to officials. Without price transparency, CEYPETCO as a monopoly supplier, can set prices as it chooses. MOPAG is an international pricing benchmark for fuel.

Current CEYPETCO prices are opaque and do not follow global best practice. IATA has urged the Government to adopt a transparent formula comprising MOPAG and a fixed add-on.

In the absence of competition, the add-on should be capped, it suggests. IATA also raises doubts that the Government could be taxing aviation fuel for foreign carriers in violation of bilateral air services agreements that govern exemptions. If tax on jet fuel for international flights is applied, it should be removed in compliance with bilateral air services agreements between Sri Lanka and various countries, it states, calling for adherence to International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) policies which Sri Lanka, as a member, helped formulate.

But Petroleum Resources Ministry Secretary Upali Marasinghe said the Government did not tax aviation fuel. The prices had also hit national carrier, SriLankan Airlines, the union told policymakers in Sri Lanka. For the financial year 2017-18, the airlines fuel cost is 27 percent of operating expenses. In April-June 2018, it was of 32 percent of operating expenses.

IATA pointed out that CEYPETCO adds on significantly to the MOPAG price, thereby making jet fuel steeply expensive. The difference is wider than at any other airport in Asia. For July 2018 where the add-on at CMB [Colombo] hit 52.2 US cents/gallon, the percentage difference would be even higher, it said.

The global airline union reiterated that these fuel prices were bad for aviation and will impact the benefits the country can derive from a strong industry. For instance, airlines tanker in fuel to avoid dishing out dollars in Colombo. This results in less sales volumes for CEYPETCO. Meanwhile, payload restrictions reduce sellable seats for airlines resulting in higher cost per seat. This, in turn, affects operational viability.

IATA warns that the high cost environment was not conducive for airlines to grow operations and that it could compel existing airlines to reduce services or pull out while deterring new ones from starting services. This could also hamper Colombos development into a vibrant airport in the region, it says.

The overall economic benefits from having competitive jet fuel price outweigh the additional revenue that CEYPETCO gets from higher jet fuel price add-on, it said.

IATA also commented on the monopoly position of the fuel supplier and proposed that a strategic direction could be to introduce competition in jet fuel supply, allowing the market to drive price efficiency. SriLankan Airlines has repeatedly pointed to the impact high fuel prices were having on its balance sheet. In its last annual report, Chairman Ajith Dias said the company was canvassing strongly for the Government to intervene and provide the airline with aviation fuel at competitive rates which, he points out, is not the case at the moment.

The company has been negotiating with CPC to arrive at a pricing structure that is more competitive and reflects regional fuel costs, it is stated elsewhere in the report. It also observes that, while the declining trend of jet fuel prices in 2015 continued through 2016 and into early 2017, prices have gradually edged upward.
Reparations Bill: SC finds 2 clauses unconstitutional By Chandani Kirinde View(s): View(s):

The Supreme Court (SC) has shot down two clauses in the Office for Reparations (OFR) Bill on the grounds that these vest judicial powers in the OFR. The Government intends to set up the OFR to provide reparations including monetary payment or material benefits to aggrieved persons.

The SC determination on the Constitutionality of the Bill was announced in Parliament by Speaker Karu Jayasuriya on Tuesday. The SC ruled that the Bill in its present form can become Law only if it is passed with a two-thirds majority (including those not present) in Parliament and is approved by the people at a referendum or, be amended as per the SCs recommendations, to make it consistent with the Constitution.

The three-member SC Bench comprising Justices Buwaneka Aluwihare P.C., Priyantha Jayawardena P.C. and Prasanna S. Jayawardena P.C., ruled that the power vested with the OFR to determine whether or not a person has suffered a violation of human rights or, has been the subject of a violation of humanitarian law, is a function of making judgement based on an objective examination, assessment and evaluation of facts placed before the OFR, and the parallel task of interpreting a complex body of Law in the present circumstances amounts to a Judicial function.

Furthermore, Clause 25 of the Bill excludes the imposition of civil or criminal liability on any person pursuant to a determination by the OFR, which will, unarguably, result in imposing liability on the State to make monetary payment. The SC ruled that findings of such nature by the OFR will have far reaching consequences to the State and people of Sri Lanka.

Two petitions were filed in the SC challenging the Bill, which determined that the other provisions of the Bill are not in conflict with the Constitution and can be passed with a simple majority in Parliament. The OFR Bill provides for individual reparations as well as collective reparations which will include monetary payment or material benefits to aggrieved persons, while recognizing means of remembrance of deceased persons including memorials.

This Bill will replace the Rehabilitation of Persons, Properties and Industries Authority Act 1987.

Collective reparations intend to recognize the right to an effective remedy and benefits of the communities or groups of aggrieved persons, means of remembrance of deceased persons, including memorials, development of infrastructure, educational programmers, training, skills development programmers among others.

Individual reparations have been defined in the Bill as measures intended to recognize the right to an effective remedy and benefit an aggrieved individual and shall include any monetary payment or material benefit, micro-finance and concessionary loans etc.
Strike continues: Railway unions and Govt. on collision track View(s):

The countrywide railway strike is set to continue today, with the Government and trade unions maintaining their tough stance. The Transport Ministry is insisting that the unions should end the strike action and come for negotiations, but the unions have rejected the call. Transport Ministry Secretary G.S. Withanage told the Sunday Times that the railway unions had been invited to take part in a discussion with ministry officials on the issues concerned.

However, he insisted that the Ministry would hold talks only if the unions first called off the strike. The unions are not agreeable to this.Railway Engine Drivers Union Secretary Indika Dodangoda said they were continuing the strike since the Governments was not granting their demands.

He said that they stopped every train including the ones that Railways General Manager had requested them to run.

If government leaders, and the Railway authorities do not want solve the issue, we will continue the strike until our demands are met, he vowed.

He said that the railway authorities and the General Manager had requested them to operate a fuel carrier train to the Katunayake airport yesterday as the fuel was required urgently.

We are considering the request to run this particular trains and other trains that need to provide emergency services, but the strike will continue, he said.

What if we call of the trade union action and go for talks and do not still receive a solution to our problems? It is a chance that we are not willing to take as we have previously been misled, he said.

Meanwhile, Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera also said Parliament that he was ready for talks with the uninos, if they called off the strike.
There can never be a woman IGP in Sri Lanka By Namini Wijedasa Female police officers' promotions hit by gender discrimination View(s): View(s):

Female Inspectors of Police (IPs) are being barred from applying for promotion because there are no vacancies for women in the Chief Inspector (CI) rank  a sign of persistent structural gender discrimination in the 150-year-old department.

Now 40 of them have lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) saying they were twice denied the chance to advance to CI rank, violating their right to equality guaranteed in the countrys constitution.

One-hundred-and-twenty women joined the police force in 1997 as Sub-Inspectors (SIs). Some were promoted as IPs in 2003 and 2006 but have stagnated in the same rank for 15-12 years while multiple male inspectors with a minimum of eight years of service have climbed the ladder.

The reason is that women IPs are discouraged from even trying for a promotion on the grounds that there are no openings in the female CI cadre. Advancement in the Police Department is separated by gender  not purely on merit and performance  and is dependent on cadre positions. This has mostly affected women because of a refusal to increase slots available to them at senior level.

The problem affects other ranks, too. Till the end of 2016, there were only two openings in the 85,000-strong police force for women in Superintendent of Police (SP) Grade II; that year, it was increased to four. There were 15 cadre vacancies for women Assistant Superintendents of Police (ASP); this was raised by just one to 16.

There is no career progression beyond the rank of SP, except to reach the sole SSP chair set aside for women. There are no cadre positions for women DIGs and Senior DIGs. There can never be a woman Inspector General of Police (IGP).

In 2016, several women ASPs took the matter to the Supreme Court. The case drags on with the Police Department repeatedly asking for dates. The fundamental rights petition seeks an increase in cadre positions to females from ranks of SP and above. The petitioners are from the same batch of SIs who joined in 1997. But they had managed to edge into the available slots by sitting competitive exams.

The petitions point to unfair and inexplicable discrimination against female police officers despite them performing duties similar to their male counterparts and counting the same number of years in service. Owing to the number of vacancies allocated to male policemen, those with the prescribed qualifications will rise to SP Grade II.

The women say that their appeals to everyone from the IGP downwards have brought no result. They should be provided with equal opportunity to be promoted to SP and above if they have the required qualifications and service experience. The intentional limitation of females being promoted to the rank of SP and above is discouraging and in frustration to the legitimate expectations of the petitioners, they hold.

Since the case went to court, some petitioners were promoted to SP Grade IIbut not without the intervention of the National Police Commission (NPC). The independent body directed the department to increase the number of vacancies in the SP grade. It was then that two more slots were added. However, this was still not sufficient to accommodate all the qualified women officers.

Again on the directives of the NPC, the Police Department combined the four SP vacancies and 16 ASP slots and created a common cadre of 20 to facilitate the appointment of 10 women SPs and one woman ASP. But by no means is the solution satisfactory or permanent, says NPC member Savithree Wijesekara who has long been pushing for gender equality in the Police Department. The male cadre is not amalgamated; they periodically increase the number of slots when the need arises.

And none of the women SPs  whose promotions became effective more than one year after they were due  has been made division heads as is their entitlement. There are other injustices: In November 2008, three female and 17 male graduates were directly recruited to the police force as ASPs on the same gazette. While the men have a clear path of career advancement, the women, despite occupying senior seats at a younger age, have nowhere to go beyond SP.

In 2006, the Cabinet decreed that 15 percent of recruitment to the police force must be women. It did not specify the rank. The department has attempted to comply but has not made provision for promotions. They are essentially being recruited without any thought to their future, said an officer who wished to remain anonymous.

The latest case  IP to CI promotions  could also end up in court. Applications were last called in May this year. Division Heads were even instructed to alert any IPs who away on UN peacekeeping missions, serving interdictions, on prolonged sick leave or assigned on special duty that applications were open. Women were not considered. The announcement alluded throughout only to men: niladharin, not niladharinian. And all female IPs were told by their superiors that they need not bother applying.

Promotions were announced, too, in December 2014. That circular said applications are not invited from female IPs because there were no openings in their CI cadre  notwithstanding the fact that several women satisfied the criteria, had been recruited and trained on the same basis as their male counterparts and had performed similar duties.

Applications had also been called in 2012. Again, women were denied their chance. Around 20 of them who defied instructions to submit their documents were rejected. The women IPs have told the HRCSL that it was unbecoming of a disciplined service such as the police force to disregard seniority. This was one reason why standards were sliding. Furthermore, they add, staying in the same rank for 15-12 years have caused us to become demoralised. They want a promotion scheme that does not discriminate on gender; and for the same practice to be adopted for women IPs as for men, without taking into consideration the approved cadre.

It is 21 years since we joined the Police Department, said one IP, requesting anonymity. We have received only one promotion in all those years. Around 20 of us retired because we were dejected. There are only 15 women CIs in the 85,000-strong police force. In 150 years, there has been no female Headquarters Inspector. We are not given even a small station to command.

The problem is that there has been a cadre although, historically, there is no documentation to support this, Ms Wijesekara said. We dont know where it started but it has come down. So there are a specified number of slots for men and women. In the CI cadre, for instance, they have 96 men to 15 women.

The NPC has pushed for an increase in slots for women. It recently secured a pledge that the number of CI slots for them would be raised to 66. But we have given a proposal that there must be a 15 percent across-the-board increase in the cadre for women at every level, Ms Wijesekara said. If it succeeds, that would be a start.

Police Spokesman ASP Ruwan Gunasekara confirmed that there are now 66 slots  with 51 of them currently vacant  for women CIs. The department hopes to call interviews in the near future to fill those vacancies, he said.

Still, the campaign has been long and progress, slow. As you know, said one officer, its a real boys club in there. When it comes to promotions, the IGP  known to hold a progressive stance on female advancement  consults his male Senior DIGs and nothing much happens.

The NPC, Mrs Wijesekara maintained, had no authority to compel the IGP to act on its directives. While the 19th Amendment does give us a lot of powers, there is a vacuum or question mark there, she observed. The Commission has to ask the IGP to do it. He is the implementer.

The attitude of the Police Department towards women in their ranks is neither modern nor enlightened. And it feeds a cycle. Women are reluctant to apply when there is no chance of promotion or equal opportunity, Ms Wijesekara pointed out. But most women who talk to me can do any mans job.

The IGP, she said, is willing. During his time, the police force got seven women SPs, something not seen in the past 25 years. There must, however, be political will, she asserted. This has to be formalised. You cannot be waging a battle every year.
From Udarata Menike to Rocky Mountaineer; on the rails with a train enthusiast View(s):

What is it about Sri Lankan Railways that inspires non-railwaymen to write books about the railways here?

There have been several books published in the past 30 years looking at various aspects of the railways. Hemasiri Fernando, the rail enthusiast behind the introduction of The Viceroy Special, has written three. The National Trust of Sri Lanka recently produced a fine coffee table book Ceylon Railway Heritage. I am myself author of three rail books: Sri Lanka By Rail published in the UK and the tourist booklet Seeing Sri Lanka By Train (both 1994) and Sri Lanka Railways 150 Years of Service (2014).

Now along comes Essays in Railroading written by a Sri Lankan who lives in Australia and, although he is a Mechanical Engineer, his connection with rail is that of a fan, not a professional. That, however, does not deter Udaya Peeligama as his enthusiasm for railways in Sri Lanka (and elsewhere) has driven him to record his reflections in this slim (132 pages) paperback.

The books cover is enticing as it features the steam locomotive B213 (built in 1922 and restored to haul the Viceroy Special) passing under the overhang rock at Kadugannawa known as The Lions Mouth. This is an example of why one should not judge a book by its cover as most of the essays are on diesel, not steam, rail travel.

From the books preface, we learn that Udaya Peeligama inherited his obsession with railroading from his father who, as an employee of the Post Office in the 1940s/1950s, occasionally worked in the Travelling Post Office vans on the Night Mails to Talaimannar and Badulla. His fathers favourite steam locomotive was the B1 built between 1929 and 1948 and of which 49 were still in service in 1955.

Peeligama recalls his first encounter in the 1950s with the diesel M2, 570 Alberta, remembering it in a maroon and orange livery, not the silver, light blue and dark blue three tone sported by Alberta today. (The longevity of those Canadian diesels is remarkable. Alberta was trapped in Kankesanturai in1989 where it remained until 1997 when it was dismantled and shipped to Colombo to be rebuilt. It was damaged by an accident in Pothuhera but repaired.)

Peeligama caught the gricer (rail fan) bug early. He recalls even before he was a teenager riding from Kandy to Matale in the cab of B4 141 steam loco. He still has a book Famous Trains of Britain given to him by an aunt when he was five, and this resulted in a lifetimes collection of railway books. Although he became an engineer and wanted to join the railways, his career took another track leading to him settling in Australia. This book consists of short articles he began writing in 2009, many of which have been published in Lanka Railway Digest or the Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka, newsletter.

The books first chapter considers the question of which type of locomotive best suits Sri Lankan conditions. The author writes: The Sri Lankan railways offers unique and arduous operating conditions such as tight reverse curves, 1 in 44 continuous gradients, altitudes of over 6000 ft, etc. Additionally the hot, humid and dusty conditions would test out any make of motive power to the limit. He also refers to the railways being at the mercy of the stipulations of foreign donor organisations, politics and dishonesty, all resulting in the wastage of millions of scarce foreign exchange and hampering strategic development.

The impact on Sri Lanka of the impressive looking M1, the pioneering Brush-Bagnall diesel locomotive of which 25 were imported between 1952 and 1954, is analysed in the books second chapter. Also highlighted is the brilliant contribution of B.D. Rampala, when he was the Chief Mechanical Engineer of CGR, in overcoming difficulties in the locos design and the influence of his modifications on similar locomotives used in Britain.

The suitability and fate of the Alstom Prima Class M9 locomotives imported from France in 2000 is probed although the technical detail was too much for a non-mechanically minded rail fan like me to grasp. The author discusses whether the arrival of Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU) S12 Power Set trains in 2012 marked the end of the line for locomotive-hauled passenger trains. While understanding the reasons, he regrets their use on the main line, stating, Nothing beats the grandeur of the Udarata Menike blasting its way through the lush tea estates of the hill country.

In other chapters, the author looks at Electric or Hydraulic Transmission in Sri Lanka, and whether Electro Motive Division (EMD) such as the legendary Class M2 locomotives will make a comeback on Sri Lankan rails. He describes the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) designed locomotives (the M4 Class that arrived in 1975 and are still in service) as the unsung heroes of Sri Lankan rail.

In a definitive chapter recalling Garratt, the steam era king of the upcountry line, the author comments, To train buffs and passengers of an earlier vintage, the term Garratt Locomotive conjures up images of mountainous track, winding curves, thunderous exhaust and mighty steam engines. He proceeds to describe the fascinating history of this magnificent locomotive and its yeoman service in Sri Lanka. He also includes a short chapter acknowledging the importance of the Class B1 steam locomotive as the workhorse of Sri Lankan steam.

The account of the Travel Town Railroad Museum in Los Angeles could be helpful for those working to establish the National Rail Museum in Colombo.

A train trip as a passenger across the Canadian Rockies on the famous Rocky Mountaineer train is described in a manner that conveys the authors boundless enthusiasm. This is complemented by an account of driving a diesel locomotive in Australia. I could feel the power of the beast transferring on to my hand on the throttle and coursing through my entire bodyBoy, how thrilling is this!

Essays in Railroading is a satisfying blend of enthusiasm, technical knowledge and memoir to make it a book of interest to everyone, from the kid who wants to be an engine driver to the passenger intrigued by trains and the pensioner recalling railways heritage.

To answer the question I asked at the beginning of this review, it seems to me that the urge to write about trains is inspired by nostalgia for a time when train travel was an adventure and fun, not an unpleasant commute.

Book Facts Essays in Railroading- by Udaya Peeligama Published by Darshana Marketing Enterprises (Pvt) Ltd.).

Reviewed by Royston Ellis
Pride and celebration By Yomal Yapa View(s): View(s):

A good cross section of genteel Kandyan society had gathered at the Sri Lanka Foundation Institute, for the special occasion of the launch of a magisterial oeuvre dedicated to the last kingdom of Sri Lanka. From dowager kumarihamys to young scions of forgotten noble houses, the gathering resonated with a deeply palpable pride. A sincere and moving pride because the two-volume work evokes the glory of the Kandyan Period as few publications before have done; the fruit of long labour, the more than thousand page magnum opus pieces together as vivid a picture of Kandy as possible using, for the most part, rare and never before published historical material. It was a just and moving pride, also, because one of their own has finally come out with an exhaustive account of the kingdom, with the privilege of access to material never before explored.

The book is titled Mahanuwara Yugaye Aprakata Witti and the author, Chamikara Pilapitiya, had dedicated more than a decade to research on the book, taking time off his career in tea. He is an old boy of Trinity College and a former ruggerite, an enthusiastic rider and driver in motor sports. Descending from an old Radala aristocratic family made this unique book possible, opening for him doors that would otherwise have been tightly barred. Many little or unknown sources thus discovered go to make the book an engrossing read, which, though built to resemble a reference work for the scholar (and indeed magnificently scholarly), can also be an immensely readable treat for the general reader.

The launch was attended by Speaker Karu Jayasuriya, the Ven. Niyangoda Vijithasiri Thera, Prof. K.D. Paranavitana, and Major General Mano Perera.

The Ven. Vijithasiri Thera spoke on the heritage of the Kandyan kingdom celebrated in the book while Prof. Paranavithana, the eminent historian and archivist, spoke on Sri Lankan historiography in general before branching out to this particular, sparkling example which he said comfortably filled a large and sorely-felt lacuna. Major General Mano Perera also had much to contribute as the book covers a great span of military history and firearms, one of Chamikaras pet hobbies.

A Neptune publication, Mahanuwara Yugaye Aprakata Witti comes in two handsome volumes, the first priced at Rs. 2500 and the second at Rs. 2800.
WNPS lecture on leopard conservation View(s):

This months Wildlife & Nature Protection Society Public Lecture titled, Sheltering under the leopards umbrella will be held on August 16 at the Jasmine Hall, BMICH at 6 p.m.

In a time of increasing human-animal conflict, mainly due to unplanned development, we are now faced with the unthinkable, the possible extermination of species that have lived on this island for thousands of years. One such threatened creature is the leopard. In addition to its ecological importance as the islands apex predator, it fulfils two important conservation roles: it is a flagship species which can be used to rally support for conservation, and wide-ranging across multiple habitat types, it is a useful umbrella species with the potential to shelter a much wider array of more spatially-restricted species.

For these reasons leopard conservation is of major importance.

Dr. Andrew Kittle and Anjali Watson who have, in recent times, been foremost in field research on wild leopards in Sri Lanka will present their observations, and analysis on what is required now, to preserve the leopard in the wilds of Sri Lanka for future generations.
A radical cure By Namrata Biji Ahuja Indias The Week magazine gives an insight into the countrys first de-radicalisation programme View(s): View(s):

Hundreds of young people, their minds once clouded by religious bigotry and calls to violence, are now returning to normal, peaceful lives. Their social rehabilitation comes courtesy of a humane counter-terror projectone that has the government, security agencies, the police and community leaders working together to defeat terror.

Yasar Moideen of Malappuram in Kerala has boyish looks and a charming smile. Yet, for the past two years, the affable 31-year-old has been leading a somewhat friendless life. In June 2016, some of his friends left India on what he describes as hijrah, a religious journey to a land where they could do more good, and sin less. The leader of the emigres, a group comprising 21 Malayalis, was Yasars best friend, Abdul Rashid Abdullah. Their destination: the caliphate established by the Islamic State in parts of Iraq and Syria.

Rashid is now believed to be in Afghanistan, somewhere in the region that IS calls Khorasan province. He is now one of Indias most wanted menthe National Investigation Agency says he masterminded the recruitment of vulnerable Muslim youth to fight the war for IS. Of the 20 Malayalis shepherded by Rashid to Syria and Iraq, at least one has been confirmed killed in battle. The whereabouts of the others, including that of Rashid, remain unknown.

Yasar, however, is in denial. He draws a parallel between Rashids journey and the First Hijrain which Prophet Muhammads followers fled from persecution in Mecca and sought refuge in the kingdom of Aksum, or modern-day Ethiopia, in the seventh century. There was no Islamic State then, said Yasar. In fact, Ethiopia was Christian-dominated. But, since Meccans were cruel, Muslims went there. Later, when Islamic rule was established in Medina, they all returned.

As per Islam, he believes, his friends did no wrong by leaving India, as they were only trying to protect themselves from sins, and gain spiritual rewards. All [of the 21] were extremely good and peaceful citizens, said Yasar, who has a masters degree in psychology and is fluent in English. You can ask anyone here how much they were loved, especially Rashid, my best friend.

He first met Rashid six years ago, when he joined Peace Education Foundation in Malappuram as an English trainer. Rashid was a teacher there. He was a learned man, Yasar said. We used to speak for hours on various subjects. Which is why, when he left the country and the police went through his call records, my number figured high on the list.

Since he has not broken any law, Yasar has neither been arrested nor has any case been registered against him. He is, however, under the watch of multiple security agenciesthe NIA, the Intelligence Bureau and state intelligence agencies, who have all questioned him for information regarding his emigrant friends. The occasional visits by the police apart, Yasar mostly leads a quiet life, working at Peace School in Malappuram and taking care of his three children.

If I can make a positive difference to the life of a single person, I hope to be rewarded in afterlife, said Yasar, when asked why he did not join IS. At Peace School, he is focused on helping children learn technology and embrace modernity, the Islamic way.

Yasar is a participant in Indias first counter-radicalisation programme, which attempts to wean radicalised youth off IS propaganda and let them live a normal life. Like him, in states like Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi, there are hundreds of young men and women who are taking part in the programme, which aims at liberating vulnerable youth from the ideological moorings that could drive them to break the law and put lives in danger.

At the heart of the counter-radicalisation programme is the understanding that the war on terror is fought not just on battlefields, but inside human minds as well. Rashid is suspected to have been killed in a drone strike last year, which Yasar feels could take his friend to jannat, or heaven. The actual life of a person begins after death, said Yasar. The belief is that the best end one could meet is to be killed in battle, in the path of Allah.

Drones cannot kill the dogmas of faith. And that is why the governments counter-radicalisation programme becomes all the more relevant. The strategy began taking shape after 2015, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi appointed former IB chief Syed Asif Ibrahim as special envoy for counter-terrorism and extremism at the National Security Council secretariat. The idea was to develop a counter-radicalisation programme on the lines of what was being implemented in countries like Saudi Arabia and United Kingdom. In 2017, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh set up the Counter-Terrorism and Counter-Radicalisation Division (CT-CR), the first-of-its-kind initiative to help state governments, security agencies and communities in preventing young people from embracing extremism.

An integral part of the counter-radicalisation strategy is to mould a counter-narrative that would help in defusing the social media tactics of extremists. With the help of Islamic organisations and religious leaders, efforts are on to ensure that religious texts and teachings are not misinterpreted. A key aspect of this is to reinforce the syncretic nature of Islam in India, which has been influenced by varied cultures and beliefs.

Radical outfits like IS, Al Qaeda and the Lashkar-e-Taiba subscribe to Al-Wala Wal Bara ideologywhich advocates loving those who follow Allah and hating those who do not. Indias counter to this is the Sufi concept of Wahdat al-Wajud, or the unity of being. Its essence is that if you love the creator, then you love all his manifestations. Today, thanks to the counter-radicalisation programme, this message is being spread through websites and sermons, and discussed at madrassas and community gatherings.

Loknath Behera, Keralas director-general of police, said a robust policy is being implemented to prevent people from being misled in the name of religion. This is being done by energising the community, involving families, religious leaders, teachers and the youth under the social policing scheme to reinforce the secular fabric, he said. Our aim is to build strong minds which do not fall prey to any propaganda. The results have been positive and we are constantly building on our efforts.

In Kerala alone, the spread of the programme is huge. Maulavis in Kannur, Kozhikode, Wayanad, Malappuram and Kasaragod districts are coordinating with superintendents of police to dispel doubts and misbeliefs about Islamic tenets. In Kozhikode, Islamic scholars and activists have joined hands with their network. Senior citizens are being roped in to share their experiences and words of wisdom with vulnerable youth.

The police are also focusing on rehabilitating young people who have been jailed, and have upgraded their cyber policing capabilities. Parents who notice their children indulging in suspicious online activities are also becoming part of the programme. The efforts are both preventive and curative in nature, said Behera.

According to the Anti-Terrorism Squad in Maharashtra, 114 youth, including 10 women, have been de-radicalised in the past two years. The eldest among them is 28 years old, while the youngest is 16. The social background of these youth contradict the conventional notion that it is madrassas that churn out terroriststhey hail from middle- and upper middle-class families, and have studied at secular institutions. More than 25 of them are engineers or trained technical experts, while others are graduates or have completed school education. Most of these young people were radicalised through online group discussions, before some of them began attending seminars organised by radical preachers and meeting other radicalised youth.

Incidents like the Dadri killing, lynchings and beef ban are being projected by radical preachers as a conspiracy against Islam, and the youth are being galvanised to fight back, said a counter-terror official. A lot of radicalisation activity has been traced to the dark web. NIA spokesperson Alok Mittal said the enormity of the radicalisation threat demands that society participate in counter-radicalisation efforts.

Rehana, 25, is a trained aircraft maintenance technician who is employed with a reputed airline in Mumbai. Two years ago, she came under the radar of the Maharashtra ATS, after she converted to Islam and began taking to IS propaganda. Educated abroad, Rehana had been in a state of mental agony after her marriage broke down. She had turned to Islam for solace, and had friends working at Islamic Research Foundation, founded by the controversial preacher Zakir Naik. For security agencies, the fact that Rehana was working in the airline industry was a cause for concern.

She is now part of the counter-radicalisation programme. I am happy that my identity has been kept confidential, which has helped me keep my job, she said. The ATS ensured that there are only minimum disturbances in my day-to-day life. I think I am more balanced in my outlook towards life today, and I owe it to my parents support.

Complementing the efforts of state governments and security agencies are the contributions being made by religious institutions. Mahim Dargah in Mumbai, for instance, has long been at the forefront of counter-terror initiatives.

Suhail Khandwani, who oversees the functioning of the dargah and is managing trustee of Pir Makhdum Saheb Charitable Trust, said Mahims was the first ISO-certified dargah. It has considerable social media influence, thanks to its Facebook and Twitter accounts and a mobile app that helps the faithful listen to muftis interpreting the tenets of Islam and legal experts explaining the laws of the land. Fanaticism is never limited to a particular religion, said Khandwani. But, when religious platforms are used for political stunts, it polarises society and gives rise to the problem of radicalisation.

SSabir Jamal Sayed, director of information technology at Mahim Dargah, said the dargah was organising workshops to help madrassa students use social media in an empowering way. We teach them to develop counter-narratives and handle hate speech, he said. The aim is clear: To prevent online spaces from being turned into recruiting grounds for violent extremism.

But, like all laudable efforts, the counter-radicalisation programme also has its share of challenges. It has been unable to quell the fear of the other in peoples minds, and to prevent them from stereotyping and stigmatising certain groups. A case in point is the situation at Athikkad colony, a few kilometres away from the heart of Malappuram in Kerala. A serene residential area surrounded by teak forests, it is home to followers of Dammaj Salafism, a branch of Salafism noted for its ultra-conservative tenets.

The Dammaj Salafis here comprise around 15 families that moved in together several years ago, so as to practise their faith and create a homogenous community. They rear goats for a living, and seldom step outside the colony. In 2016, when 21 Malayalis left for Syria and Iraq, this colony drew global attention for its extreme ideology and suspected links to IS. The fear, apparently, persistseven the postman does not venture into the colony.

Today, there are only 10 Dammaj Salafi families in Athikkad. Shihab, a member of the community, was initially reluctant to speak to menot because he was radicalised, he said, but because he was not allowed to look at any woman other than his wife. Later, he reluctantly agreed, but took care to look away when he talked. We do not support the IS ideology, he said. Just because we wear clothes differently or grow our beards long does not mean we are radicalised. We are Indians, and we believe in peace and harmony. I only want the freedom to follow my religion.

A.T. Mujeeb, who lives near the area but is not a Dammaj Salafi, says he has never noticed any suspicious activity in the colony. It is partially true that they follow extreme ideas, he said. Initially, some did not cast their votes and children went to a school inside the colony. No outsiders were allowed in. People started calling it the Taliban colony.

Removing the stigma remains a challenge. Counter-radicalisation efforts also have to grapple with the problem of distinguishing radicals from deeply religious people. Notably, the most number of fatwas against terrorism have been issued by Indian ulemas. Even the Jamiat Ahle Hadith, seen as the ideological underpinning behind violent jihadism across the world, has issued a fatwa against terrorism in this country, said the Delhi-based Islamic scholar Ghulam Rasool Dehlvi.

In June this year, security agencies went into a tizzy after 11 Malayalis were reported missing from Dubai since June 15. They feared that the group, which included children as well, had followed in the footsteps of the missing 21 persons from Kerala. The fears, however, have now been allayed. The 11 missing persons have been traced, said K.G. Simon, superintendent of police in Kasaragod district in Kerala. They are in Yemen, where they are pursuing religious studies. All are safe and we have not found anything anti-national or unlawful in their activities. These people have also assured us that they will return once their studies are complete.

Religious centres in Yemen, which has turned into a hub of Islamic studies, deny any links with Al Qaeda and IS. They say that their focus is on counteracting the misinterpretation of Islam. Apparently, Yemen does not treat those who come to study Islam from abroad as foreigners. Any Muslim who goes there and studies Islam is considered to be at home. The 11 persons have told us that they are willingly pursuing religious studies there, said Simon. They are happy and want to be free to pursue their studies further.

The NIA, however, is keeping a close watch on their activities, even though it has ruled out any links between them and the 21 who went missing earlier. So far, there is no evidence to prove that they were in touch [with the 21] or that they have any common link, said a senior police officer.

Security agencies insist that the counter-radicalisation initiative is based on the precept that religion does not radicalise people; instead, it is people who radicalise religion. Still, the criticism against counter-radicalisation is that it is largely tagged as an initiative to counter radical Islamism alone. Many Muslims who are part of the mainstream perceive this as being discriminatory. I have a problem with the de-radicalisation programme, said Harris, a Mumbaikar who is aware of the governments new initiative. Why do we always discriminate against the minority community? The mindset [in battling extremism] needs to change before we alienate an entire community.

The sentiments within the Muslim community, however, largely reflect cautious optimism. Javed, who runs the anti-IS portal Jahankainsaaf.com, said the counterterrorism initiative is a step in the right direction, but suggested that it should not be tagged with a particular religion alone. All we need to do, he said, is to create an enabling atmosphere that rejects all forms of extremism.

(Some names have been changed to protect identities.)

Courtesy The Week, India
Amidst rising heat waves, UN says cooling is a human right, not a luxury By Thalif Deen View(s): View(s):

UNITED NATIONS (IPS)  The rising heat waves in the worlds middle income and poorer nations are threatening the health and prosperity of about 1.1 billion people, including 470 million in rural areas without access to safe food and medicines, and 630 million in hotter, poor urban slums, with little or no cooling to protect them, according to the latest figures released by the United Nations.

At least nine countries, with large populations, face significant cooling risks, including India, Bangladesh, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, Indonesia, China, Mozambique and Sudan.Rachel Kyte*, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Special Representative to the United Nations Secretary-General for Sustainable Energy for All (SEforALL), says that in a world facing continuously rising temperatures, access to cooling is not a luxury.

Its essential for everyday life. It guarantees safe cold supply chains for fresh produce, safe storage of life-saving vaccines, and safe work and housing conditions.But rising temperatures  made worse by global warming  is not confined only to middle income and poorer nations.

In a July 30 piece in the US weekly Time magazine, Justin Worland points out that extreme heat recently melted roads in the UK; hit a record-shattering 120 degrees Fahrenheit in Chino, California; and led to more than 70 deaths in Quebec, Canada.

These cases illustrate a vexing paradox for scientists and policy makers: air conditioning keeps people cool and saves lives but is also one of the biggest contributors to global warming.

Erik Solheim of Norway, executive director of the Nairobi-based UN Environment (UNE), is quoted as saying that air-conditioning has been an enormous, enormous drain on electricity.

Cooling is probably the biggest energy consumer, and people tend not to think of it, said Solheim, a former Chair of the Development Assistance Committee (DAC) of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Meanwhile, at one time, there were reports that when middle class families, with rising incomes in India, were able to access TV, air conditioners and refrigerators, there were environmental groups that were critical of this because it would add to global warming.

But the middle class argued this was never an issue when the rich and privileged luxuriated with air conditioners and refrigerators as part of essential living.

Asked for a response, Kyte told IPS: Sustainable Energy for All believes this is a fundamental issue of equity, as we need to ensure ALL have access to effective solutions. At the same time, we must recognise the needs of our planet and the future of our children.

She said it has been estimated that cooling is now responsible for 10percent of warming and is growing rapidly. So, we need to provide cooling solutions that are clean and sustainable over the long-term.

She said a new report titled Chilling Prospects: Providing Sustainable Cooling for All  released last month recommends all stakeholders accelerate their innovation efforts and think more holistically about the way we provide cooling, focusing firstly on reducing heat loads and then thinking about how to deliver remaining cooling as affordably and sustainably as possible.

Were calling on business and other private sector entities to provide those solutions. These groups have to come together as a matter of priority to provide low Global Warming Potential (GWP) technology and business models that are affordable and sustainable, and that address the needs of the poor and vulnerable populations most at risk, so no one has to make a choice between cooling and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and Paris Climate objectives.

Asked if air conditioning and global warming are some of the lingering issues of the UNs global campaign for sustainable energy for all, Kyte told IPS that achieving both equity and sustainability is one of the reasons this new Chilling Prospects report is so timely and important.

Cooling is not a luxury. Its a human right and a fundamental issue of equity that underpins the ability of millions to escape poverty and realize the SDGs, she noted.

She said the findings of the report are a wake-up call for us all, and a call-to-action for government policymakers and industry to think and act more systematically about pathways to provide sustainable cooling that will benefit these communities, economies and current and future generations. 

Excerpts from the interview:

IPS: What is the practical answer to the lack of access to cooling in some of the worlds poorest nations where refrigeration and air conditioning are still luxuries?

KYTE: Its a great question, because practical and sustainable solutions are absolutely crucial to closing gaps in access to cooling, in all countries, but particularly in the developing world.

This new Chilling Prospects: Providing Cooling for All report tackles the challenge from several angles, including through some very practically-focused recommendations.

For example, the report recommends solutions that address consumer finances, which is a critical requirement for selling sustainable cooling solutions to the rural poor; government financing  governments can make direct investment with public bulk procurements to lower costs and improve efficiency; enterprise financing such as fundraising in the off-grid sector and financing for mini-grids; and then theres donor funding for concessional financing.

Given that products and markets for access to cooling are still poorly defined, grant and highly concessional financing is really important because it can support R&D on innovative technologies, capital for small businesses offering cooling services and financing for low-income consumers.

Its important to note that while there are major threats to life, health, economies and the climate, there are also huge opportunities in closing cooling access gaps: reducing the number of lost work hours, improving the productivity of the workforce, avoiding costs of healthcare for people with food poisoning or who are suffering because their vaccines werent stored properly, increasing the incomes of farmers, and increasing the number of jobs available to service a new cool economy.

IPS: Is there a role for governments to make these affordable to the poor? if so, how?

KYTE: The Chilling Prospects report calls on all stakeholders to embrace a paradigm shift  thinking more holistically about the way we provide cooling  and that definitely includes governments.

On a practical level, the report includes a recommendation that government policymakers should immediately measure gaps in access to cooling in their own countries, as an evidence base for more proactive and integrated policy-making.

More broadly, government policy-makers need to think and act more systematically about pathways to provide sustainable cooling that will benefit communities, economies and current and future generations.

One example noted in the report, is a 2017 programme in India administered by EESL, which was a joint venture by the Indian Ministry of Power and Public Service Undertakings (PSUs). They used $68 million in public resources for a competitive procurement of 100,000 room air conditioners at efficiencies better than had generally been available in the market.

More concerted efforts like these, between governments (national and local) and industry are needed to develop and provide cooling solutions that are affordable and sustainable for all.

IPS: In the US, there are public cooling centres for senior citizens when temperatures reach beyond 80 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit? Are there any such facilities for the poor in any of the developing nations? Or should they?

KYTE: Ahmedabad in India is a very pertinent example cited in the Chilling Prospects report. It was the first city in South-Asia to formulate a Heat Action Plan after a devastating heat wave hit the city in 2010. Local authorities mapped areas with populations at high risk of heat stressincluding slumsand developed an easy-to-understand, early-warning system, as well as a strategy for mobilizing the city in advance of impending heat waves. Their plan uses a well-publicized color-coding system to warn citizens at risk of extreme heat to go to emergency cooling centers.

The program has proven its worth. Heat-related casualties in Ahmedabad remained low during a major 2015 heat wave, while thousands tragically died elsewhere across India. Last year, 17 cities and 11 states across India had released or were developing heat action plans.

There are also other simple and cost-effective solutions like white-washing rooves or using solar power to drive fans and create a more comfortable and safe living environment for people living in densely packed slums. We need to scale-up todays most efficient technologies, power them with renewables, and make them affordable for those that need them most. Governments will play essential roles to address cooling access gaps holistically.

*Rachel Kyte served until December 2015 as World Bank Group Vice President and Special Envoy for Climate Change, leading the Bank Groups efforts to campaign for an ambitious agreement at the 21st Convention of the Parties of the UNFCCC (COP 21). She was previously World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development and was the International Finance Corporation Vice President for Business Advisory Services.

The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org
Re-energising NVQ: A fillip to national economys local skilled partners By Randima Attygalle View(s): View(s):

Sri Lankan skill is second to none in the world. While the irrigation marvels from the days of the ancient royals still astonish the modern engineer and the Sigiri feat continues to enthral the whole world, with only the inherited skilled gene in them, our masons, cooks, welders, carpenters, tailors, cinnamon peelers, tea pluckers and rubber tappers become skilled partners in the national economy, mostly with no paper qualification endorsing their talents.

In a bid to give recognition to those who opt out of the conventional education system of the country and pursue technical and vocational paths, the Tertiary and Vocational Education Commission (TVEC), in 2005 took measures to introduce a National Vocational Qualification (NVQ) system. NVQ which certifies an individuals skills, is a nationally recognised certificate that confirms that an individual possess skills up to the respective NVQ level in that occupation. (The NVQ framework entails seven levels of qualifications)

The initiative also sought to provide national and international recognition to qualifications issued by numerous technical and vocational education institutions in the country.

Despite the NVQ scheme being in operation for more than a decade, its application by the private sector for the purposes of skills certification, skills development, recruitment of candidates and employee promotions has been sluggish. To mitigate this gap, the Employers Federation of Ceylon (EFC), in a progressive move, has launched an awareness programme together with TVEC which is piloted in plantation, apparel and hotel sectors, the Sunday Times learns.

While creating awareness about the NVQ scheme among a wider group of personnel with hands-on-experience in these sectors, which entitles them to a career path, the project also intends to certify a critical mass of employees in these sectors as nationally recognised skilled craftsmen, points out the Director General of the EFC, Kanishka Weerasinghe. During our preliminary discussions with these personnel, it was obvious that their knowledge about NVQ standards was very low. The situation among the SMEs (small and medium enterprises) which accounts for more than 95% of the manufacturing units in the country is unlikely to be better, remarks Mr. Weerasinghe who attributes this slow progress largely to the absence of an aggressive social marketing programme to reach out to a wider audience in different industries and sectors.

Being the nucleus of the employers, the EFCs reach to a vast segment of the labour market has given it the distinct advantage of mobilising employers to give their workforce recognition for the skills, notes the EFC Chief. The programme has already trialled several sessions and, depending on the success of the pilot project, it is to be extended to other enterprises representing the manufacturing and service sectors within the EFC membership, he says.

Promoting NVQ among those with hands-on-experience will not only offer recognition to their inherent skills but also boost the image of an organisation which employs a skilled work force, says S.U.K. Rubasinghe, Director- NVQ of the Tertiary and Vocational Education Commission (TVEC).

The EFC-TVEC collaboration is also a manifestation of the countrys skilled workforce in which we should take pride and at the same time deserves recognition. We need to take pride in our skilled workforce which sadly lacks awareness of the career growth NVQ enables, observes Mr. Rubasinghe who illustrates the career path it promotes from the certificate and diploma to the degree level. Many operational level workers in the private sector are often stuck in the rut with poor awareness says Mr. Rubasinghe who applauds the EFC for taking the initiative to promote it in the private sector. The move also encourages competition between the state and the private sector as NVQ is an entry qualification for technical jobs in the state sector.

The qualification, as the Director-NVQ, further points out is an internationally recognised one entailing theoretical knowledge as well. Despite being skilled, a large majority of our workforce is ill-equipped with the industrial jargon, which becomes a bottle neck in terms of promotions and overseas job interviews. The skills awareness programme also aspires to issue a Skills Passport which will recognise other soft skills of the certificate holder. This is going beyond the present NVQ certificate which is confined to the level of technical competency of the certificate holder. The proposed Skills Passport, as Mr. Rubasinghe explains, will contain language competency, communication skills and other skills such as leadership qualities which will enhance the employability of a NVQ Certificate holder both locally and internationally.

Speaking to the Sunday Times, Senior Manager, General Management and Operations, Polytex Garments Ltd, Indika Gamage says that the initiative helps the apparel industry to position the Manufacturing Team Members (MTMs) at a higher level, adding more value to the product. The landscape of the apparel industry is fast changing and attracting millennials to the industry, especially at Machine Operator level which is one of the most daunting tasks, for which repositioning of the work force is a must. He further notes that an exercise of this nature helps the industry to reduce the layers of the Management and thereby equip the MTMs with the multiskilling which the manufacturing process requires.

The entry of the MTMs into the manufacturing process will call for more techno advanced machinery coupled with enhanced implementation of built-in-quality concepts. Mr. Gamage further surmises: the better educated workforce will be able to flatten the current organisation charts or hierarchy which prevails, and restructure the apparel industry. Moreover with experience and education in technical and technological advancement, they will be able to pursue management or technical career paths of their choice.

Extending the skills recognition programme to the plantation sector is a case of nobodys child becoming somebodys child, avers the former Chairman, Tea Planters Association of Sri Lanka and the Managing Director of Kelani Valley, Talawakelle and Horana Plantations, Roshan Rajadurai.

Despite the contribution to the national economy for 150 years, the work force on tea plantations had not received adequate technical training and the recognition that accompanies it, maintains Mr. Rajadurai who welcomes the initiative as a timely move, given the modern day demands of the industry. The benefits are multi-pronged says the senior professional. While offering dignity of labour as skilled people, the programme is also the first streamlined approach towards skills development in the sector. It is also a refreshing exercise for the industry which is navigating turbulent waters.

In a setting where our tea is acclaimed as the most certified tea in the world, a skilled workforce becomes imperative for global branding, points out Mr. Rajadurai who applauds the programme for encouraging the tea industry to become a people-centric venture, moving away from the product-centric nature it had traditionally been. The programme which is being trialled in 60 estates, also targets the training of kanganis. The response to the on-site programme has been quite encouraging, Mr. Rajadurai says, adding that this opens a career path for the plantation workforce defying the traditional image associated with the sector.

The project which will be implemented in two phases will engage multiple stakeholders including NAITA and other vocational and training experts. Training of selected employees as Assessors is among the highlights of the programme. As the EFCs Director General further noted the underlying objectives of this long-term initiative are many, including the creation of a value system to enhance the integrity of labour, retention of employees as well as mobility of skills both within and outside of the country. Besides, if we are to transform our country as a destination for FDI, it would be imperative for us to hone the skills of our workforce. We cannot afford to leave any of them behind.
The Marco Polo Journeys will take guests from the remote wetlands of Brazils Pantanal to the coastal wilderness of Canada, or the far-flung desert oasis of Omans Wahiba Sands to the hidden paradise of Papua New Guinea.

Weve selected destinations and experiences that may not be on many travellers radars yet, but that offer the kind of authentic encounters seasoned travellers are in search of, says Abercrombie & Kent President Keith Baron.

For the culturally-curious traveler, luxury is as easily found in the depths of Brazils Pantanal as it is on the gleaming skydeck of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai.

The Brazilian themed journey will take visitors to the Amazon, Pantanal & Iguazu Falls. Youll explore the Amazon by canoe, taking a nighttime safari in search of nocturnal wildlife, visiting an isolated village on the Rio Negro and traversing the Pantanal, a wetland that's home to spot ocelots, anteaters and jaguars.

In Wild Canada, meanwhile, youll enjoy a summer adventure in Canadas northern reaches including a coastal tour of Hudson Bay to observe wildlife in their summer habitat. Youll also get to spot beluga whales as they gather at the mouth of the Churchill River and get a close up look at American bison up in Fort Whyte.

Prices range from $6,495 to $10,995 and each journey is open to just 18 guests.
Take A Mulligan: The Big 7-0

Here is the $64,000 question. Just exactly how old is old? In my teens, I figured it was about 35 but when I was getting close to that age, it ...
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But a closer look at the numbers revealed that the country gained 82,000 less desirable, part-time positions last month -- and it lost 28,000 full-time jobs. The public sector made the biggest contribution to the July increase with 49,600 new jobs, while the private sector added 5,200 positions.



In other words, student hires.
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Linkedin Editorial Board (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, August 11, 2018 12:33 1175 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df528292b 2 Editorial presidential-election,MarufAmin,Jokowi,editorial Free

On Thursday, Joko Jokowi Widodo, the incumbent President, backed by nine political parties controlling 60 percent of the seats at the House of Representatives, took pragmatism to the extreme. By picking Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) chairman Maruf Amin as his running mate, Jokowi went the extra mile to secure his chance for reelection, going farther to the right, way past his opponent Gerindra Party chairman Prabowo Subianto, who tapped Jakarta Deputy Governor Sandiaga Uno as his running mate. Sandiaga, prior to his current position, was known for his business acumen rather than his Muslim credentials.

By making this move, Jokowi planned for all possibilities in next years presidential election and leaves nothing to chance. It was widely reported that Maruf was the only figure that all parties in his coalition could support and had the least amount of resistance. If one party rebelled against his choice for the vice-presidential slot and decided to join parties splintering from Prabowos coalition, Jokowi risked a three-way race that could complicate his bid for reelection, to mention nothing of having to deal with a protracted run-off that could create political and business uncertainty throughout 2019.

Also, other political figures like Jusuf Kalla or Mahfud MD, the latter of whom until the last minute was chalked up to be the strongest candidate, have the odds stacked against them. Kalla may be accepted by all but he was up against the constitutional term limit, while Mahfud was reported to have been rejected by Nahdhatul Ulama (NU) leaders who did not consider him to be a member of the organization.

Jokowi could not risk alienating the NU as it is the bulwark against some of the hard-line elements in the Muslim community, which in 2016 turned up in huge numbers to stop the reelection of Basuki Thahaja Ahok Purnama as Jakarta governor. These groups achieved their goal, if not more. Ahok lost the election and now languishes in prison for blasphemy.

It was perfectly clear that what happened in 2016 shocked Jokowi to his core. Soon after that, he made overtures to Muslim communities, visiting Islamic boarding schools and having regular meetings with Muslim leaders and respected clerics. So in picking Maruf, Jokowi went for the jugular, making an unprecedented decision in the countrys history by picking who many consider to be the ulemas ulema, a cleric not only well-versed in the scripture, but one who holds a powerful political position in his role as MUI chairman. To compare it to the United States, the equivalent would be like having Ronald Reagan pick Jerry Fallwell as his running mate.

With this decision, it is also perfectly clear that Jokowi put political stability above anything else. Maruf will be the key figure to blunt any attack from the hard right and stem possible discontent from the wider Muslim population.

We are now left with the lingering question over whether this concession is too much, and whether this move could embolden conservative and hard-line elements. What if, for short-term political gain, Jokowi sacrificed the long-term prospect of democracy and diversity?
The Dorchester and The Waldorf Astoria in London are two of several world-famous properties given explosively creative makeovers by Alexandra Champalimaud, the woman who is also behind the Four Seasons Jakartas spectacular interiors.

Yet it's culinary metaphors that the Lisbon-born design dynamo uses when talking about her next project: The St Regis Jakarta.

Im like a chef putting together a table. The ingredients need to be there, but can be interpreted differently. Its about feeling the whole, Champalimaud said during a recent interview. Theres no perfect recipe [but] theres an ability to see an end vision before you almost even start: What does this place need to evoke? How do we make it extraordinary?

Champalimaud, the president and principal designer of an eponymous design firm in New York City that she founded in 1988, was in Jakarta to meet with Shirley Tan, the CEO of Rajawali Property Group, which owns the St Regis Jakarta.

Alexandra Champalimaud (J+/Dennie Ramon)

The pair became fast friends after meeting in London seven years ago and embarking on their first collaboration: The Four Seasons Jakarta. Shirley inspires me, says Champalimaud. Im easy to inspire when I have a good, provocative client.

Champalimaud, inducted into the Interior Design Hall of Fame in 2012, is not as well known as her works, which include global luxury destinations such as The New York Palace or the Hotel Bel-Air in Los Angeles.

Social observation and extensive travel have honed the design sense of Champalimaud, who says she manipulates color, texture and sound to create memorable moments in all of a hotels spaces.

Take, for example, the Little Nell Hotel in Aspen in the US, where Champalimaud devised a bold, geometric blue-and-white carpet that suggested (more than underscored) the railroad tracks that made the town famous.

In Singapore, shes revamping Southeast Asias most famous locale, The Raffles Hotel, preserving the essence of the venerable heritage site while devising a look for the 138-year-old property that will place it in the new millennium for hospitality, luxury and global travel.

Read also: An architects take

For the St Regis Jakarta, slated to open in 2020 with 280 rooms, Champalimaud says that Indonesias musical culture will be a key design influencebut dont expect to hear gamelan, however. Weve taken that element and put it on steroids.

Looking to top the magnificent palm-inspired Lasvit chandelier hanging from the 13-meter cupola ceiling at Palm Court at the Four Seasons, Champalimaud promises a monumentally beautiful kinetic chandelier for the St Regis that will sing and speak to guests.

Its going to be connected to the tones of a musical instrument. The chandelier is a big swath and huge wave of lights. It will undulate and move according to the music. It will be subtle, sensuous, rhythmic.

Incorporating the work and spirit of local artisans is important for Champalimaud. A hotel, she says, is an expression of a culture. We are reinventing a wonderful vocabulary for this new hotel, so [Indonesians] will be well represented within your own country.

The Nautilus Bar at the Four Seasons Jakarta, designed by Alexandra Champalimaud. (Courtesy of Four Seasons Jakarta/File)

While Champalimaud doesnt say that her interpretations of Indonesian design will be instantly recognizable, she does promise creative execution that will use local artisans and respectfully reconceive Indonesian

design tropes.

Traveling relentlessly, living on four different continents, experiencing many different cultures....you need to be cultured and respectful to be a designer. You have to observe the culture of each place, she adds.

Respect for perfect and contemporary artisanal creation drives Champalimaud, such as in her collaborations with UK- based leather master Bill Amberg, who she describes as a true craftsman. We create a lot of new mediums together, Champalimaud says, citing plans for huge leather walls that will sport engraved mural- like patterns.

For people who do their craft so well, theres a soul that emits and you cant copy it. Once its done by others, the message and the emotion are different.

Read also: Jakarta has third-largest growth rate for hotel rooms in Asia-Pacific

Favorite shopping city?

The show unit at the Residences at The St Regis Jakarta. Alexandra Champalimaud will design the St Regis Jakarta hotel. (J+/Dennie Ramon)

"Any place that can bring me more culture and more interest and excitement. I seek out objects and pieces that I find thrilling. I seek out talented people. Paris and France continue to reveal incredible and talented craftsmen. In the United States, some galleries curate things incredibly well. In L.A., there are a bunch of furniture [galleries] that I find incredibly interesting. I also buy a lot at auction."

Inspiring architects?

Champalimaud cites two: Japanese star architect Kengo Kuma, designer of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic stadium (I dream of having a house one day thats designed by him. I love his idealism.) and Jean Nouvel, the French Aga Khan Award-wining architect (I live in a Jean Nouvel building and its so masculine and strong. It is a pure reflection of his way of being).

__________

This article was originally published in the Apr. 2018 edition of J+ by The Jakarta Post with the headline "A Little Magic, a Little Talent and a Lot of Creativity".
NEW YORK, Aug. 11, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against Glencore plc (Glencore or the Company) (OTC MKT: GLNCY) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in United States District Court, Southern District of New York, and docketed under index 18-cv-06286, is on behalf of a class consisting of investors who purchased or otherwise acquired publicly traded Glencore securities from September 30, 2016, and July 2, 2018, both dates inclusive (the Class Period), seeking to recover damages caused by Defendants violations of the federal securities laws and to pursue remedies under Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the Exchange Act) and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder, against the Company and certain of its top officials.

If you are a shareholder who purchased Glencore securities from September 30, 2016, to July 2, 2018, you have until September 7, 2018, to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com. To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll-free, Ext. 9980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and the number of shares purchased.

[Click here to join this class action]

Glencore engages in the production, refinement, processing, storage, transport and marketing of metals and minerals, energy products, and agricultural products worldwide.

The Complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding the Companys business, operational and compliance policies. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) Glencores conduct would foreseeably subject it to heightened scrutiny by U.S. and foreign government bodies with respect to the Companys compliance with money laundering and bribery laws and the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA); and (ii) as a result, Defendants statements about Glencores business, operations, and prospects were materially false and/or misleading and/or lacked a reasonable basis at all relevant times.

On May 18, 2018, Bloomberg reported that the U.K.s Serious Fraud Office was preparing to open a formal bribery investigation into Glencore.

On this news, shares of GLNCY fell $0.55 per share, or over 5%, to close at $10.13 per share on May 18, 2018, while shares of GLCNF fell $0.32 per share, or nearly 6%, to close at $5.06 per share on May 18, 2018.

Then, on July 3, 2018, pre-market, Glencore disclosed that the U.S. Department of Justice had issued its subsidiary Glencore Ltd a subpoena to produce documents and other records in connection with its compliance with U.S. money laundering statutes and the FCPA.

On this news, shares of GLNCY fell $0.86 per share, or over 9%, to close at $8.31 per share on July 3, 2018, while shares of GLCNF fell $0.41 per share, or nearly 9%, to close at $4.20 per share on July 3, 2018.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Paris, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com

CONTACT:

Robert S. Willoughby

Pomerantz LLP

rswilloughby@pomlaw.com

888-476-6529 Ext. 9980
Two Indonesian documentary films, How Far Ill Go by Ucu Agustin and Diary of Cattle by David Darmadi and Lidia Afrilita, were among four projects selected to receive funds from non-profit organization In-Docs to finish shooting, as well as receive mentorship and a distribution deal from the Tribeca Film Institute.

The If/Then Shorts competition is part of the 2018 Docs by the Sea.

The other two winners announced on Thursday are Bullet-Laced Dreams by Cha Escala and Kristoffer Brugada from the Philippines, and The Songbirds of Aceh by Aminda Faradilla from Malaysia.

Docs by the Sea is an international forum that aims to connect Indonesian documentary films with the international industry. Held from Aug. 2 to 9 in Bali, it featured 31 documentary projects from 11 countries.

Prior to the winners announcement, participants joined various activities, including a storytelling lab, editing lab, master class, pitching exercises and pitching forums.

Im so happy to see the tremendous accomplishment gained by the participants after joining the activities during this event. It leads to a larger number of documentary film projects that will receive our support from, said In-Docs director Amelie Hapsari.

Read also: Indonesia submits five films to Asia-Pacific Film Festival

Among the Indonesian winners announced at the event were Sculpting the Giant by Rheza Arden Wiguna and Banu Wirandoko (selected to pitch at the 2019 Australian International Documentary Conference), Help is on the Way? by Ismail Fahmi Lubish (selected to attend the 2019 Australian International Documentary Conference), Dont Talk About Freedom by Gerry Apiryan (received US$3,000 in cash prize and is being purchased by Current Time TV) and How Far Ill Go by Ucu Agustin (also selected to pitch at the 2018 Tokyo Docs).

Twelve Indonesian documentary films were also chosen to receive mentorship, funding and distribution support from In-Docs, the Creative Economy Agency (Bekraf) and Go-Jek through Docs By The Sea Co-Production Fund: Sculpting the Giant by Rheza Arden Wiguna and Banu Wirandoko, The Flame by Arfan Sabran, Dont Talk About Freedom by Gerry Apiryan, Rato and I by Ray Nayoan, You and I by Fanny Chotimah, A Boarding School by Shalahuddin Siregar, My Big Sumba Family by Tonny Trimarsanto, The Other Half by Wahyu Utami Wati, The Plastic Bag Journey by Gugun Junaedi and Lutfi Wahyudyanti, Nchay Looking for Haven by Andi Hutagalung, Help is on the Way? by Ismail Fahmi Lubish and How Far Ill Go by Ucu Agustin. (kes)
Last week, the Communications and Information Ministry announced its plan to filter pornographic content by utilizing the SafeSearch feature in search engine Google.

Semuel A. Pangerapan, the ministrys director general of applications and information, said the policy would come into effect starting Friday.

The SafeSearch feature will be permanently activated in the search engine when it is accessed from Indonesia.

The method will filter any pornographic content in the image category, including if a user inputs keywords, Semuel told kompas.com on Thursday.

The permanent factor means that Indonesian users cannot deactivate the feature. In addition to Google, Semuel also said the government planned to collaborate with other search engines, such as Microsofts Bing to apply a similar filtering feature.

Read also: ASEAN video-on-demand providers launch regulations on hate speech, pornography

He said the ministry already blocked pornographic sites, but this was ineffective as the content was easily available through image searches.

Thats what were trying to eradicate. Concerned mothers have reported that their children search for images by using pornographic words. We are using the SafeSearch method based on our year-long research, he added.

SafeSearch is a feature in Google to filter out negative content, such as pornography. According to Google as quoted from its features page, SafeSearch is not 100 percent accurate, but it can help you filter inappropriate content.

Semuel said internet service providers should enact their own policies regarding filtering based on SafeSearch. In the last few days, there have been rumors that the filter has affected YouTube as well, with users status changed to restricted mode.

Semuel said the feature should only be applied to Google, and that providers should not broaden it to YouTube. (wng)
The number of people sleeping in 24-hour McDonalds outlets across Hong Kong, dubbed McRefugees, has increased sixfold in the past five years, a recent study has found.

Conducted by Junior Chamber International (JCI) Tai Ping Shan, the study counted a significant increase from 57 sleepers in 2013 to 334 sleepers this year between June and July.

According to CNN, researchers found that not all people sleeping in McDonalds overnight in Hong Kong were homeless or unemployed. More than 70 percent of respondents revealed that they had other places to sleep, such as public housing, and are either full- or part-time employees.

They have places to sleep, but they dont go home, said Jennifer Hung, chairwoman of the study.

Read also: McDonald's has a legal problem in pizza-loving India

Socioeconomic challenges such as high rent or electricity bills were some of the main reasons that drove the people to sleep at McDonalds. According to a 2017 study by Demographia, Hong Kong has one of the worlds most expensive housing markets.

Other factors include family or personal conflicts, and a need to be surrounded by others. One example is an elderly McRefugee with no children who found herself home alone after the passing of her husband.

We found that people are not only poor in pocket or poor in wealth, but poor in their souls, their lives, said Hung.

In response to the findings, JCI recommended several measures to the Hong Kong government, including providing resources for its personal welfare organizations and social workers, and updating statistics on people who sleep overnight at public places. (anm/kes)
A gold mug made by British artist and puzzlemaker Tony Fisher has created a buzz thanks to a design that appears to be both square and round.

In a video recently published by Fisher on YouTube, titled Is the mug round or square?, the mug is placed in front of a mirror to create different perspectives, which clearly shows the different shape of the item depending on where you look.

Fisher pours milk into the mug and stirs it around using a spoon.

Read also: Photo of couple hugging latest optical puzzle to spark Internet frenzy

The milk and spoon were used to show there was no video trickery. Milk shows up better than other liquids in the gold mug. The mug is based on a shape devised by Kokichi Sugihara, read the videos description.

To further educated netizens, Fisher uploaded a second video about the mug titled Magic golden mug and puzzle illusions.

I wanted to create an interesting puzzle to solve, but also one that tricks your eyes into seeing something that isnt there, he said in the video.

Fisher has been recognized as a pioneer in new puzzle design and technique creations, according to boldsky.com. Last year, he was recognized as the maker of the world's biggest Rubik's Cube by Guinness Book of World Records. (kes)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, August 11, 2018 07:31 1175 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df5279e69 1 City Asian-Games-2018,kopaja-bus,metromini,traffic,reroute Free

The Jakarta Transportation Agency has banned minibuses from Jl. Sudirman and Jl. MH Thamrin in Central Jakarta, the citys busiest business hub, throughout the Asian Games.

The transportation agency tweeted through its twitter handle on Thursday that Kopaja P19, Metromini P15 and Metromini S640 minibuses would be rerouted to South Jakarta roads that run parallel to Central Jakarta from Aug. 10 to Sept. 10.

The policy is the latest in the citys quick fixes to beautify Jakarta ahead of the prestigious Games next week. The green-and-white Kopaja buses and orange-and-blue Metromini are generally dilapidated, highly pollutive public modes of transportation with notoriously reckless drivers.

We will enforce this ban every day [for the Asian Games] to ensure proper traffic conditions, commented Jakarta Transportation Agency deputy head Sigit Wijatmoko on Monday as reported by kompas.com. (nor)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, August 11, 2018 06:56 1175 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df52786cc 1 City Tangerang,police,robbery,shooting Free

Two suspected robbers who resisted arrest were shot by the local police at a slaughterhouse in Tangerang, Banten, on Friday.

Tangerang Police chief Sr. Comr. Harry Kurniawan stated on Friday that the two were shot in the chest after they attacked officers with a cutting tool, wounding one policeman in the head.

The police also arrested five others suspected to have been involved in the Rp 800 million (US$ 55,248) robbery in Batu Ceper district on Thursday.

Harry said it took the police around 24 hours to round up all seven individuals after the robbery. Slaughterhouses are profitable in the lead up to Idul Adha, the Day of Sacrifice, on Aug. 22.

The five suspects will be charged under Article 365 of the Criminal Code for theft and violence. They face up to 12 years' imprisonment, he said as quoted by kompas.com. (nor)
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Linkedin (The Jakarta Post) Indonesia  Sat, August 11 2018

A 20-year-old Indonesian students with the initial SPDP was found drowned in Lake Trebgast Badesse, Bavaria, Germany on Thursday after went missing since she went for swimming on Wednesday.

According to a statement issued by the Indonesian Consulate General (KJRI) in Frankfurt on Friday, the victim went to Lake Trebast with her college friends from Bayreuth University for a swim. Her friend, P, did not join her and waited for two hours before reported the incident to local authorities.

The local authorities had tried to call her name through loudspeakers but to no avail. At around 4:30 p.m. local time, the case was reported to the police, and a search was conducted immediately until 1:30 a.m.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, August 11, 2018 14:00 1175 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df528a12e 1 National aceh,elephant,animal-abuse,probe Free

The East Aceh Police and Aceh Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) are investigating the death of an elephant that was found on Friday in Cek Mbon village in Aceh province.

The elephant still had its tusks when it was discovered by a villager.

The BKSDAs medical team has conducted an autopsy on the carcass and found that the liver, spleen, heart and lungs had darkened, which suggests poison.

However, the BKSDA and East Aceh Police also found electrical wires installed on the fence owned by locals not far from where the elephant was killed, which does not rule out the possibility that the animal had been electrocuted.

The elephants tissue samples will be sent to a forensics laboratory in Medan, North Sumatra, where they will be examined to determine a cause of death.

The results will take one to three months, Sapto Edi, head of the Aceh BKSDA, said on Thursday as reported by kompas.com. It was a male elephant, about 15 years old. Its tusks were 76 centimeters long.

A Cek Mbon villager named Herman found the elephant on Friday. He reported his finding to the village head, who then went to the East Aceh Police. (sau/ahw)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, August 11, 2018 15:26 1175 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df528afd5 1 National Jakabaring-Sport-City,Asian-Games,fire,Palembang Free

A field located near the Jakabaring athletes villages in Palembang, South Sumatra, caught fire on Friday evening, a week before the Asian Games are scheduled to commence.

The fire was extinguished on Saturday at 9.09 a.m. local time with the help of water bombers, National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) spokesman Sutopo told The Jakarta Post.

However, smoke from the blaze has remained in the skies above the area.

Police are currently looking for the person or persons who started the fire, which was reportedly intended to clear the land for farming, Sutopo said.

He added that there had been similar incidents in Jakabaring recently, but the smoke never reached the Asian Games venue.

This is an important lesson for us all. Patrols must be intensified during the Asian Games, he said.

The Environment and Forestry Ministry has warned of a potential increase in hot spots in several regions. As the land-clearing period had just started, the central government is determined to prevent forest fires from spreading on the island of Sumatra, as the Asian Games are being held in Palembang. (sau/ahw)
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Linkedin Jon Afrizal (The Jakarta Post) Jambi  Sat, August 11, 2018 11:26 1175 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df528162b 2 National crocodiles,animal-conservation,Jambi Free

Residents of Rantau Panjang village in Jujuhan district, Bungo regency in Jambi recently spotted a rare Senyulong crocodile in the Jujuhan River.

The villagers spotted the endangered animal in Lubuk Larangan, at a spot in the river where fish commonly gather, on Thursday. The local name for the animal is a fish crocodile because of its narrow, flat and long snout.

Rantau Panjang village chief Alfadol said the crocodile was 2-meters long. He said in the past, residents, who had never been threatened by the crocodiles, often saw Senyulong crocodiles in the river.

However, after illegal gold mining became rampant in the upstream areas of the Jujuhan River, we rarely see them now, he said on Friday.

The residents discovered the crocodile when it was accidently caught in a net they were using to catch fish. Local customs only permit villagers to catch fish from the deepest depths of the river for special occasions such as Independence Day, which falls in August. The villagers immediately released the crocodile back into the river.

The villagers never meant to disturb the crocodiles habitat, Alfadol added.

Senyulong crocodiles are one of seven crocodile species endemic to Indonesia and live in Sumatra, Kalimantan and Java. The endangered species are a target of poachers. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) categorizes Senyulong crocodiles as Appendix I animals, meaning that they face imminent extinction unless the illegal trade in the animal is brought to an end.
NEW YORK, Aug. 11, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Pomerantz LLP announces that a class action lawsuit has been filed against National Beverage Corp. (National Beverage or the Company) (NYSE: FIZZ) and certain of its officers. The class action, filed in United States District Court, Southern District of Florida, and docketed under 18-cv-61631, is on behalf of a class consisting of all persons other than Defendants who purchased or otherwise acquired National Beverage securities between July 17, 2014 and July 3, 2018, both dates inclusive (the Class Period), seeking to recover damages caused by Defendants violations of the federal securities laws and to pursue remedies under Sections 10(b) and 20(a) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (the Exchange Act) and Rule 10b-5 promulgated thereunder, against the Company and certain of its top officials.



If you are a shareholder who purchased National Beverage securities between July 17, 2014, and July 3, 2018, both dates inclusive, you have until September 17, 2018, to ask the Court to appoint you as Lead Plaintiff for the class. A copy of the Complaint can be obtained at www.pomerantzlaw.com. To discuss this action, contact Robert S. Willoughby at rswilloughby@pomlaw.com or 888.476.6529 (or 888.4-POMLAW), toll-free, Ext. 9980. Those who inquire by e-mail are encouraged to include their mailing address, telephone number, and the number of shares purchased.

[Click here to join this class action]

National Beverage, through its subsidiaries, develops, produces, markets, and sells a portfolio of flavored beverage products in North America and internationally. The Company offers beverages to the active and health-conscious consumers, including sparkling waters under the LaCroix, LaCroix Curate, LaCroix NiCola, and Shasta Sparkling Water brand names. It serves retailers, as well as various up-and-down-the-street accounts through the take-home, convenience, and food-service distribution channels. The Company sells and markets its products through an internal sales force, as well as specialized broker networks.

On May 4, 2017, National Beverage issued a press release stating that it employs methods that no other company does in this areaVPO (velocity per outlet) and VPC (velocity per capita). National Beverage asserted that it utilize[s] two proprietary techniques to magnify these measures and this creates growth never before thought possible. On May 5, 2017, National Beverage issued a second press release, stating that [o]ur impressive VPO calculator . . . is flashing solid green numbers as we bring FY2017 to a close.

The Complaint alleges that throughout the Class Period, Defendants made materially false and misleading statements regarding the Companys business, operational and compliance policies. Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) National Beverages sales claims and the supposed underlying proprietary techniques lacked a verifiable basis; (ii) National Beverages Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Defendant Nick A. Caporella (Caporella), engaged in a pattern of sexual misconduct between 2014 and 2016; and (iii) as a result, National Beverages public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.

On December 8, 2017, National Beverage issued a press release announcing its financial and operating results for the period ended October 28, 2017. Notwithstanding the Companys representations in its May 2017 press releases with respect to creat[ing] growth never before thought possible, analyst Laurent Grandet of Credit Suisse assigned an underperform rating to the Companys stock. Grandet noted that National Beverages business was driven almost entirely by the success of its LaCroix sparkling water brand, the growth trajectory of which was in fact slowing. That same day, Maxim analyst Anthony Vendetti reiterated a sell recommendation for National Beverage stock, noting that its numerous weak brands and opaque financial reporting made its sale highly unlikely.

On this news, National Beverages share price fell $11.91, or 10.56%, to close at $100.84 on December 8, 2017.

On June 26, 2018, the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled The SEC Has Had Its Own Questions About LaCroix, reporting that National Beverage had declined to provide the SEC with requested sales figures to clarify [National Beverages] sales claims, following a letter request from the SEC in January 2018.

On this news, National Beverages share price fell $9.75, or 8.87%, to close at $100.19 on June 27, 2018.

Then, on July 3, 2018, the Wall Street Journal published an article entitled Billionaire Behind LaCroix Accused of Improper Touching by Two Pilots. The article reported, in part, that [t]wo pilots have filed lawsuits alleging sexual harassment . . . claiming 82-year-old Nick A. Caporella inappropriately touched them on multiple trips while they were flying with him in the cockpit of his business jet and that [t]he suits claim the unwanted touching occurred on more than 30 trips from 2014 to 2016.

On this news, National Beverages share price fell $2.90, or 2.64%, over the following two trading days, closing at $107.04 on July 6, 2018.

The Pomerantz Firm, with offices in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Paris, is acknowledged as one of the premier firms in the areas of corporate, securities, and antitrust class litigation. Founded by the late Abraham L. Pomerantz, known as the dean of the class action bar, the Pomerantz Firm pioneered the field of securities class actions. Today, more than 80 years later, the Pomerantz Firm continues in the tradition he established, fighting for the rights of the victims of securities fraud, breaches of fiduciary duty, and corporate misconduct. The Firm has recovered numerous multimillion-dollar damages awards on behalf of class members. See www.pomerantzlaw.com

CONTACT:

Robert S. Willoughby

Pomerantz LLP

rswilloughby@pomlaw.com

888-476-6529 ext. 9980
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Linkedin Ary Hermawan (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sat, August 11, 2018 18:14 1175 b147f6715e2195e5246e701df528d2e5 1 City SusiPudjiastuti,MuaraBaru,fishery-products,North-Jakarta Free

Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti sees great potential in the Muara Baru area of North Jakarta to become a tourist attraction, thanks to its fishing industry.

Muara Baru is actually extraordinary; it could be an attraction for the people. We are building the fish market [and will] keep it clean, so that everyone will love to visit Muara Baru, Susi was quoted as saying by Kompas while attending the Muara Baru Festival hosted by the Indonesia Fishery Company.

Susi cited the Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo as a model for the Muara Baru Fish Market.

Tsukiji Fish Market, Susi said, was beautifully organized and attracted millions of visitors every year. The entrance fee to the fish market could contribute greatly to regional income, she said.

Susi expressed appreciation for the initiative in organizing the Muara Baru Festival but added that she expected more local residents to become involved in the future, because the festival only organized a cooking competition for cruise chefs.

I saw many locals around. They should have been transported by bus, dressed up and joined competitions to make them cheerful. Thats what a festival should be like, she said. If it is only the cruise chefs who compete in the cooking competition, it is not fair. There are many stakeholders [to involve] here: the fish-selling ladies, the fisherwomen, mothers of Muara Baru, she added.

Jakarta Governor Anies Baswedan also visited the festival later in the afternoon and took a stroll around the area with Susi. (gis)
A koala scaled new heights this week after flying by passenger plane from Germany to Scotland to become Edinburgh Zoo's newest resident.

Tanami, a 19-month-old male Queensland koala, had his own seat on Thursday's Eurowings flight from Dusseldorf to the Scottish capital, as sensitive animals cannot be placed in the hold on aircraft.

The upwardly-mobile marsupial, who remained in a cage for the one hour, 45 minute ride through the skies, left Duisburg Zoo to join Scotland's only koalas in a conservation breeding programme.

He will trade places with Toorie, a young male koala already in Edinburgh who is set to make the 700-mile reverse journey next week.

"Koalas are very sensitive animals, so special care needs to be taken when transporting them," said Darren McGarry, head of living collections at the British zoo.

"They travel in the plane's cabin and not in the hold so keepers can easily make sure everything's okay during the flight."

Read also: Outrage after koala found screwed to pole in Australia

A handout picture released by the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) on August 10, 2018 shows Tanami, a 19-month-old Queensland koala in her enclosure at Edinburgh Zoo on August 9, 2018 after flying to Scotland from Dusseldorf. (Royal Zoological Society of Scotland/AFP/File)

He added Tanami had generated plenty of excitement but public viewings of the new arrival would be restricted this weekend as he adapted to his new home.

"Koalas are a real favourite among our visitors and it's great to see him settling in well and enjoying his new surroundings," said McGarry.

The sight of a koala aboard a commercial plane reportedly turned some heads on the plane and on disembarkation.

Edinburgh Airport chief executive Gordon Dewar said: "We welcome passengers from all over the world... but not all of them are as special or as cute as a koala.

"It was quite exciting to have Tanami arriving here and he joins a list of famous animals who have touched down here to make Edinburgh Zoo their new home."
Partygoers who visit Clarke Quay on Friday nights can now imbibe alcohol for an hour longer until 4am the next day at popular nightspots like Zouk, Attica and The Pump Room every week, instead of two Fridays a month.

This is the result of a trial extension of liquor licensing hours by the police and comes after nightclubs in the area called for a review of curbs on the selling of alcohol, which they said had hurt their businesses.

The extension, requested by Clarke Quay's management in June, took effect yesterday and applies to selected nightclubs and bars in the precinct until the end of next month.

The allowance is for licensees who had applied for the extension and had not breached their liquor licensing conditions in the last three months, the police said in a statement last night.

The affected nightspots are nightclub Zouk and its bars Capital, Phuture and Red Tail, as well as other operators Attica, Le Noir, F.Club, The Pump Room, Highlander and Get Juiced.

During the trial period, Clarke Quay management and tenants will beef up security by increasing security staff and installing additional closed-circuit television for instance, the police said.

The police added that they will assess the law and order situation after the trial and make "suitable adjustments".

Under regulations introduced in 2013, bars and clubs in Clarke Quay could no longer sell liquor until 6am. They had to stop by 4am on Sundays and public holidays and by 3am the rest of the week.

The curbs were to tackle the high number of violent crimes in Clarke Quay, said the police, and the number of public order incidents has plummeted in the three years after the rules kicked in.

Liquor licensing curbs have already been relaxed over the last two years to allow extensions to 4am the next morning on two Fridays a month, as well as for special events.

But nightclubs said their business is still affected by the curbs.They said that unlike bars, clubs fill up only after midnight, meaning that shorter licensing hours translate to a smaller window for alcohol sales.

Last month, the police had said they were assessing the potential impact of further extensions on the safety and security of the precinct.

Read also: Historic areas in Singapore you must visit

Zouk Group's chief executive Andrew Li said in response to queries yesterday that the club will remain open until 5am the next day on all Fridays during the trial to sell water and soft drinks after liquor hours end at 4am.

"The trial hours are a great step towards levelling the playing field. Zouk is committed to enforcing good security practices and working together with the authorities to ensure a safe environment for all our guests and attendees," he said.

Ms Kelly Brimblecombe, who co-owns Attica and Le Noir, said that having consistent licensing hours for Fridays will be less confusing for customers.

Both outlets will also stay open until 5am to help inebriated customers sober up with sales of soft drinks and snacks.

"We don't foresee an increase in incidents... if anything we hope that there will be fewer issues due to the staggered (time of) exits," she said.
Smarta/Shutterstock

foreign secretarys

words are an attempt to remain at the forefront of politics, amid the possibility of a Conservative party leadership contest

If this is an attempt to grab headlines, Johnsons tactics are a copy and paste of what worked so successfully for US President Donald Trump and former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon. Their campaign focused on evoking a sense of nationalism that had apparently been

lost,

The success of the Trump campaign and the continued grassroots support the US president enjoys have illustrated that if politicians are able to create a shared scapegoat(s) that can be blamed for all social ills, then it doesnt matter what the facts are. The narrative just needs to be repeated without pause.

The Trump administrations ongoing criticism of Muslims, and his ban on travel from certain Muslim

countries,

Asserting identity

At the heart of all of this are the communities being used for collateral in the furthering of political

aspirations.

When politicians make statements like those Johnson did, they legitimise racism  or at the very least ridicule and harassment.

Modes of dress

Muslims in the UK are feeling besieged by the constant threat they are under. The face covering veil, the niqab (a face veil that leaves the area around the eyes clear which is often referred to as the burqa in the media and popular discussion), which has come to define Muslims in Europe, is only worn by a tiny proportion of Muslims. Numbers are almost impossible to garner as generally statistics on womens clothing are not collected widely. But based on figures available from other European countries it can roughly be estimated that with a UK Muslim population of 2.8m, around 836 women (0.001% of the UK population) will be wearing a niqab/burqa.

It is staggering that such a tiny proportion has created so much consternation and the need to fight so much negativity. At least 100 women who identify as wearing the burqa have written to the Tory party demanding action against Johnson, and women who wear face veils have spoken about their choices following his comments.

What has been interesting to note is that despite the growing rates of attacks on Muslim women, there is some anecdotal evidence of a rise in sales of niqab . While this might seem inimical to welfare given the situation, this act demonstrates a

well understood

phenomena

of groups under threat. When a group feels that their identity is being challenged, they work hard to protect it, often by reinforcing and reproducing acts that clearly define them . In the aftermath of 9/11, the global backlash against Muslims resulted in more young American

Muslims

adopting more visible Islamic dress  the hijab (headscarf) for women and beards for men.
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Luxury single-family homes from the mid-$500s available from D.R. Horton

BEL AIR, Md., Aug. 11, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- D.R. Hortons Capital Division invites the public to tour Somerset Hill, its newest single-family home community that features a furnished model and several homes now under construction. The Somerset Hill model home grand opening is scheduled for Saturday, August 11, from 12 to 4 p.m. Located less than three miles from MD Route 1 in the highly sought-after Harford County School District, Somerset Hill offers a luxury single-family community with prices starting in the mid-$500s. The community will offer quick move-in homes, providing prospective buyers a unique opportunity to settle into their new construction home in a timely manner.

The furnished model home available for viewing is the Tuscany floor plan, which offers over 2,894 square feet of living space and features a variety of home design configurations to suit every buyers distinct needs, preferences and budget. The home plan consists of two levels of finished living space with four bedrooms and up to three bathrooms, plus an optional finished basement. The fully finished lower level of the Tuscany is available with either a spacious recreation room or a convenient fifth guest bedroom and fourth full bathroom ideal for visitors. Stainless steel kitchen appliances (dishwasher, microwave and stove top) are included in the purchase price, and homes feature professionally curated finishes including granite countertops, stylish tile backsplashes, luxury flooring and an elegant color scheme. The exterior architectural design of the single-family homes at Somerset Hill maintains a rich look and character with an optional brick or stone front, optional pitched rooftop, cedar shake impressions and a fresh landscaping package with a sodded lawn. All homes are built with high quality and energy efficient materials including low-e glass windows and a high efficiency furnace with programmable thermostat, and a robust new home warranty demonstrates D.R. Hortons commitment to excellence in construction. See a D.R. Horton sales agent for complete details.

Conveniently situated in Harford County, Somerset Hill is located at the intersection of West Ring Factory Road and Exmoor Lane. The community is within close proximity to the towns revered schools, stores, restaurants and local community recreation areas such as the beautiful Rockfield Park. Major travel arteries such as I-95, I-83, I-695, MD Route 1 and MD Route 40 are all within easy reach offering commuter access and abundant shopping and dining options.

For more information about Somerset Hill or any other D.R. Horton community in the tri-state area, please call 410-984-2072 or visit www.drhorton.com/maryland.

D.R. Horton, Americas Builder, has been building families beautiful homes in desirable locations for more than 40 years. Americas largest homebuilder for sixteen years in a row by volume, D.R. Horton has built more than 660,000 homes with quality, functionality, value and style in mind. Home and community information including pricing, included features, terms, availability and amenities are subject to change and prior sale at any time without notice or obligation. Square footage dimensions are approximate. Event is subject to change or canceled without notice. Buyer should conduct his or her own investigation of the present and future availability of the school district and school assignments. Seller has no control or responsibility for any changes to school districts or school assignments should they occur in the future. D.R. Horton is an equal housing opportunity builder.
Seven apparently.

Source: Press Release

Marvel has announced its relaunch of Uncanny X-Men in the form of a ten-part weekly story titled X-Men Disassembled. The publisher claims it'll bring together nearly every mutant left on Earth and it seems they'll bring together every creator they have as well to figure out how to disassemble this team.

The ten-part series will be written by Ed Brisson, Kelly Thompson, and Matthew Rosenberg. While art will be handled by Mahmud Asrar, R.B. Silva, Yildiray Cinar, and Pere Perez. With a team of seven creators, there can't be any delays, right? Right? We'll find out in November.

See the press release below.
There has been much ado about low turnout in the last senatorial by-elections. Most of the reasons are quite amusing. That many did not vote because a barely six-month-old government has failed is just one. And people have their right to say what they think about the elections, and their interpretation of the political inertia evolving amongst the citizens. They may not be wrong that they too have their perspectives. It is all just about hurried conclusionsthe same more conclusions anyone can reach to spice up their personal feelings and make them authentic by the pitch of their voices and the weight of their pens.

If Liberians excitedly voted intermittently in 12 years under the immediate erstwhile administration and they could hardly do the same in just six months under the new dispensation, it would be hypocritical if not dishonest to lay the cause on the latter administration. Those who look beyond the ordinary landscape of politics and its accessory, propaganda, know very well that the electoral fatigue showed on Tuesday, July 31, is a million mile away from the output of the current government. And the reason is this.

Firstly, naturally, fatigue or tiredness to overcome distractions and getting something done, however meaningful, is given to human effort. This is compounded by politics, and more so Liberian politics, which is notoriously selfish. The phenomenon of voter apathy is not unique to Liberia. Universally, the only proven medicine for voter apathy is electoral momentum. Electoral momentum is not a product of political success. In other words, high voter turnout does not come about because a political authority was or is successful in meeting its goals. In fact, conversely, there is bound to be high voter turnout when the regime that is the incumbent has many failures for which the electorate rises up to effect a change because of the failures. Perhaps thats why the clamor to vote or the voter turnout of 2017 was relatively high in the 2017 elections. Electoral momentum dies when the stakes in politics are low, and the stakeholders who are the contestants fail to raise the stakes. Its the contestants and the issues at stake that ignite electoral momentum. It is competitive elections that emit high electoral momentum. Where there are no contentious issues and where the contestants dont excite and mobilize the electorate, voter turnout is bound to go low, and not necessarily because the sitting authority, whether old as Methuselah or young as a day newborn, failed to meet some amount of public expectations. It was clear sufficiently in the Tuesday by-elections that the contestants did little or nothing to mobilize and excite the electorate in finding a reason to leave their chores, walk to polling places and to cast a vote.

If Liberians were so angry and they wanted to strike at the George Weah government for failure as perceived and propagated by some argues, they would turn out en masse to vote. Liberians are good at unleashing their anger at incumbent regimes for failure. They dont vent their anger by cowering at home and staying away from the ballot box. Thus, no one should lie on the people or twist their reasons for not voting Tuesday. Staying out from the senatorial by-elections is because of something else other than the so-called signs of bigger things to come as perceived by others. Ask the former ruling Unity Party or the former ruling National Democratic Party of Liberia (NDPL) or 34 former senators in the 2014 elections if you doubt what Liberian voters can do when they are angry with politicians. They dont stay home. They vote.

Secondly, too many potential voters could not vote because they found themselves in the voter trafficking situations created by the 2017 voter registration quagmire. Throngs of people were lifted to distant communities or constituencies in Monsterrado County to register and to vote. This was the case in Bong County and all other counties. Without the transportation support and other enticements that caused their displaced registration in the 2017 election, it was obvious that these trafficked voters would not be inclined to pay their own fares to travel to places they had registered. Some pundits say five out of every ten voters were trafficked. I know this for sure because one or two persons close to me fell in this category and did not vote on Tuesday despite encouragement provided. And, clearly, this case is emblematic of the larger situation which accounts for the low turnout.

Thirdly, the 2017 elections were too stressful, meandering and energy-exhausting for so many Liberians to get re-excited for a senatorial by-election barely in six months. Voter fatigue already being pervasive, if not deeply treasured in the DNA of many ordinary Liberians, a senatorial by-election a stone-throw away from the winding 2017 national elections would understandably face a near boycott. Liberians who normally see politicians and politics as the peoples thing would save themselves some energy and the tension that come with serial elections, even if skyscrapers and superhighways were built in six months. This would come certainly particularly where the contestants had left all to chance, failing to mobilize and excite an already tired electorate to come out to vote for them.

I am hearing some folks attributing the low turnout to the failure of the 6-month government to bring manna down from heaven. Whatever the empirical basis for this, who says they dont have the right to their version of hypothesis? After all, this line of conclusionthat voters refused to vote because the current government failed to develop Liberia to expectation [in five months]is the easiest postulation to proffer. Anyone can say it, and it is this that many weak minds can easily grasp. What is not easy to say and understand because of the politics of the day is that there was low turnout because the contestants failed to create the necessary momentum, failing to reach out deeply and noisily to the electorate; that countless others struggled unsuccessfully to overcome their trafficked status, and that naturally many potential voters felt so stretched out from the uproarious 2017 elections. Thus, low voter turn was to be expected, and its totally not because of the inherited broken system being fixed.

What is historically clear is that Liberians dont shy away from demonstrating their anger against incumbent politicians who failed. They confront them. They uproot them. Not by lamenting. Not by staying away from the ballot box. But they do so visibly by coming out in their droves despite prevailing socioeconomic and political crises to vote. If they were so angry with a five-month-old government they would also come out to vote. They wouldnt have stayed home. Thats not Liberian electorates nature.
Decades of conflict and complex power dynamics between Jewish and Muslim communities have resulted in a deep-rooted aversion towards cultural engagement. This continues to hinder multiethnic relationships throughout the Middle Eastern and North African region. Even so, a rich history of ethnic and religious diversity remains an inseparable embodiment of the cultural atmosphere in Morocco. In the June 2018 issue of the Mediterranean Quarterly, Yossef Ben-Meir discusses Moroccos notable display of commitment towards peaceful coexistence, presenting promising outcomes for the kingdom. Concurrently, the question arises whether this Moroccan integration of cultural preservation and sustainable development is able to transcend borders across the Arab region.

At the onset of the independence of Morocco, the country was home to the largest Jewish population in the Muslim world. The mellah, a Jewish quarter, in Marrakech emerged within the sixteenth century, a notable testament to the prominent Jewish identity instilled within early Moroccan history. This vibrant multicultural history is made evident by the approximately six hundred Hebrew saints that are buried at sites across Morocco, now recognized within the national preservation program. In a benevolent act of solidarity, the Moroccan Jewish community began to donate land to the High Atlas Foundation (HAF) in 2012 to plant organic fruit-tree nurseries for the benefit of Muslim farming families and schools. While impoverished families cannot afford to allocate the necessary two years to grow saplings from seeds, the Jewish communitys interfaith act helped to overcome this obstacle, initiating the House of Life project.

Access to profitable resources on behalf of the land donation is intended to increase these communities visibility in the market, secure organic certification, and increase food security. Creating self-sustaining opportunities advances socioeconomic status and consequently leads to accessibility to resources, such as in education and health care, which can provide the means to counter the poverty trap. These human development outcomes are catalyzed in part from the Jewish communities act of interfaith through the donation of land. The multicultural component to the development approach contributes to the mutual respect and trust that builds between communities, which suggests greater sustainability of these projects.

Cultural platforms deeply ingrain and perpetuate stereotypic content and false narratives about groups of people, which creates predispositions in our minds. The phenomena of prejudice and bias used to an extreme are detrimental to civilization and work against human endurance. Even when multiethnic groups are not engaged in explicit competition, imbalances in power and access to valued resources among various groups lead to perceptions of competitiveness. Both communities must be perceived as mutually contributive and valuable to reduce the inclination to feel vulnerably dependent on the other. Therefore, portraying out-groups as a beneficiary to the in-groups success can actually decrease prejudice and bias among the Jewish and Muslim communities because it can shift the out-group from a competitor to an ally. The High Atlas Foundations focus on cultivating mutual respect and appreciation of other groups gives a promising outlook towards the future of interfaith and sustainable development.

However, in Ben-Meirs essay, the evidence for the legitimacy of the Moroccan approach to development is largely limited to direct observation of only one organizations fieldwork. Assessing outside efforts success or failure in human development would contribute to an expanded understanding of the factors that either facilitate or hinder efficient implementation. The essay makes note of Moroccos potential to act as a positive model for fostering interfaith dialogue. For instance, the visit by Israelis and Palestinians to the nursery sites near the Jewish cemeteries in Morocco in recent years aimed to inspire individuals to implement these projects in their local communities across the region. Yet, there was no discussion in the essay of how the antecedent conditions in Morocco, that dont necessarily exist elsewhere, may be fundamental towards its ability to implement projects efficiently.

In the context of Israel and Palestine, we must acknowledge the only recent formation of the Jewish state that served to heighten the historically existing tensions in the region. Albeit the undeniable tensions that have endured between the Jewish and Muslim communities in Morocco, there is still an historical record and contemporary memory of peaceful coexistence. In addition, the intricate power dynamics plant distrust between members of the communities because of the vulnerabilities that arise within the Palestinian communities, who are denied equal access to the social, economic and political resources. Although sustainable development through an act of interfaith may already be implemented amidst the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, evidence of such projects would confirm the validity of the Moroccan approach. However, it is necessary to test and analyze what factors cultivate or hinder efficient implementation of human development integrated with interfaith. Then, efforts are able to knowledgeably create the suitable environment for community growth in different cultural contexts.

Ultimately, human development is not occurring at levels suited to address the detrimental consequences of immense poverty and marginalization in Morocco. Therefore, investment in human development rooted in interculturalism is critical to transform the potential in impoverished communities into unbounded socio-economic success. The increasingly globalized world collectively benefits politically, socially and economically in an accepting and cooperative, rather than condemning, atmosphere. Therefore, investment in the Moroccan approach ought to be supported to grow, as it can build a powerful symbol within sites such as religious cemeteries that act as a sanctuary to nurture the conditions for a unified and more prosperous future.

Julia Al-Akkad is an intern at the High Atlas Foundation in Marrakech, and a student at the University of Virginia studying Foreign Affairs and Middle Eastern Studies.





The organic fruit tree nursery at Akrich (Al Houaz province of Morocco) on land granted by the Moroccan Jewish

community near the burial site of the Hebrew saint Raphael Hacohen (2018).
Last week, the Israeli Knesset passed a new basic law which in the main enshrines Israel [as] the historical homeland of the Jewish people in which the State of Israel was established The right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel.



On the surface, there is not much new in this law. Israel has been practicing its provisions for many years. Nevertheless, the law betrays Israels foundational document, its declaration of independence. It will severely cripple Israels democracy, and the argument that the new law does not tamper with Israels democracy and equality among all of its citizens regardless of their cultural, racial, or religious orientation is fake, misleading, and ultimately self-defeating.



The new law further limits immigration to Israel to Jews only, indirectly relegates the Israeli Arabs to second-class citizens and allows discrimination against non-Jews in allocating resources for housing and segregated communities.



The law will serve as a recipe for the continuing conflict with the Palestinians at large while further diminishing the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and will have an adverse effect on future relations between Israel and the Western democracies.



Furthermore, this law officially embraces revisionist Zionism that focuses exclusively on the right of the Jews to the land of Palestine with a Jewish state and discards the mainstream of Israeli Jews who are appalled by the scene of Palestinian oppression in the territories and gross human rights violation.



Finally, the law will alarmingly increase the alienation of world Jewry (largely reform Jews) from Israel and may well unravel the historic bond between all Jews, regardless of their places of residence. To be sure, it is a sad day for Israel and it will be remembered in infamy.



Although the intention of the law is to perpetuate the Jewish national identity of the state, such a law will bring Israel ever closer to becoming a pariah if not an apartheid state, even though the law itself does not separate legal norms applying to Jews and non-Jews.



The Netanyahu governments concerns over the faster-growing population of Israeli Arabs and the call for a one-state solution which is gaining traction, especially because Israel does not want to relinquish the West Bank, precipitated the push for such a law, however incongruous and counterproductive it may be.



That said, Israel has every right to maintain the Jewish national identity of the state as it was envisioned by its founders and recognized as such by the partition plan of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 in 1947. But then, the only way Israel can legitimately maintain its Jewish identity is through a sustainable Jewish majoritynot through discriminatory laws and racist policies.

To sustain such a majority, Israel relies on a growing birth rate and increasing immigration of Jews, especially from the US. The drawback, however is that the Palestinians birth rate is equal within Israel and higher in the territories, and a substantial number of Israelis are emigrating from Israel (largely because of the continuing conflict with the Palestinians), which offsets the number of immigrants to Israel as the pool of potential new immigrants from the West is drying out.



The last category is of special concern. Young American Jews have already been disillusioned with Israels treatment of the Palestinians; this law adds another layer of disgust as they view it as even more discriminatory and racist. I was told by many young American Jews that they were seriously considering immigrating to Israel but have decided not to because the appeal of relocating to a country that they once viewed as progressive, innovative, and challenging no longer resonates.



They lament the immoral and continuing occupation and do not want to be inducted into the army simply to be trained to kill and enforce brutal occupation. I want to be a proud citizen of Israel, one young graduate student told me, willing and able to defend the country when legitimately threatened, but not to fight wars and quell violent confrontation against the Palestinians when in the end nothing changes other than more death and suffering.



Immigration to Israel is central to sustaining the Jewish majority and thereby the identity of the state. To encourage Jews to flock to Israels shores, the government must reach an agreement with the Palestinians and end the occupation. There is no law or program that will entice young Jews to immigrate to Israel and encourage Israelis who left the country to return, other than ending the bloodshed and normalizing relations with the Palestinians.



This repugnant new law will not only discriminate against non-Jews, but further deepen the divide between the liberally enlightened Jew who believes in equality and human rights to all citizens of the state, and those who want to preserve the Jewish exclusiveness of the country. They ignore the fact that such division will be at the expense of destroying the Jews bond with one another, both among Israelis and between Israelis and their counterparts in the Jewish Diaspora.



One would think that the torturous history of the Jews that culminated in the Holocaust would have taught every Israeli the importance of treating others humanely. Instead, it appears that those who endorse this despicable law, Netanyahu and company, care less about the rights of anyone else that does not belong to their ilk and cover that by falsely invoking national security.

Netanyahu, Lieberman, Bennett, Shaked, and many others should ask themselves the simple question: what kind of a nation should Israel be in 10, 15, or 20 years from now? Do they want to continue to build on Israels remarkable achievements in science, technology, medicine, and just about every field of human endeavor, and make Israel a formidable and respected power embraced by its friends and envied by its enemies?



Or do they want a state marred in ruthless occupation, hated and violently resisted by its nemeses, resented by its friends, and scorned by fellow Jews who no longer see it as representative of their values? A country that has lost its pioneering spirit, with a demoralized citizenry, increasingly isolated, surrounded by walls and fences, constantly threatened, never realizing a day of real peace, and living by the gun?



This deplorable new law forfeits the Jews dream of having a real democratic state in which they take pride; a just and benevolent state at peace with itself and its neighbors, a state the world would admire for its magnificent achievements and contribution to the betterment of humankind.



This is not a pipedream; Israel could have become such a state. It has all the human and material resources and the power to travel the path of peace with confidence, had it not been for its corrupt leaders who have long since lost the vision of Israels founders, who dreamed about such a home with pride.

About the Author: Dr. Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies.

alon@alonben-meir.com Web: www.alonben-meir.com
Southern Pines, NC (28387)

Today

Showers early, then partly cloudy for the afternoon. High 68F. Winds SW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 100%..

Tonight

Clear to partly cloudy. Low 47F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph.
A 23-year-old woman visiting NYC from Australia was fatally struck by a private sanitation truck driver on the Upper West Side on Friday afternoon. She had been in the bike lane, but had to swerve out of it when a livery cab suddenly blocked it, according to police.

Madison Jane Lyden, a swim teacher from Geelong, was on a rented bicycle and biking north in the Central Park West bike lane just before 4:45 p.m. when a parked black Toyota livery car suddenly "pulled out into the bike lane," police say. Lyden then swerved out of the bike lane around 66th Street and into regular trafficand was then struck by the private sanitation truck driver, also going north.

A witness told the Daily News, "She flew and hit the concrete on her head." Another witness added that Lyden had been with a friend, who "was shouting, Baby, baby, baby, wake up."

Lyden was taken to Roosevelt Hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Both the livery cab and truck drivers remained at the scene. The truck driver, Felipe Chairez, 44, was arrested for DWI; beer cans were reportedly found in his vehicle. WABC 7 reports, "According to the co-owner of Central Park Sightseeing, Lyden was with another woman on vacation, and rented bikes from City Hall. The two reportedly rode around Lower Manhattan on Thursday, and enjoyed it so much that they decided to tour Central Park and the Upper West Side on a bike on Friday."

Mayor de Blasio said, "Of course there has to be a full investigation, but this is an example from my point of view of the danger of reckless driving."

"Madison Jane Lyden is dead because her bike lane was blocked," Transportation Alternatives Executive Director Paul Steely White said in a statement. "Its tragic, yes, but all the more unconscionable because this was a crash waiting to happen. Every day in this city, bike lanes meant to protect people on bikes are used as drop-off lanes, parking lanes, and idling lanes for lazy and entitled drivers. As a city we should be ashamed, because this death could have been prevented. More and more people are traveling by bike in our city, and they need safe, protected space. And while we have more protected lane-miles today than ever before, this preventable death underscores the need for every major street in New York City to have a safe, protected space to travel by bike."
Montreal, CA (H4T1V6)

Today

Abundant sunshine. High 12C. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Mostly clear this evening. Becoming mostly cloudy with showers developing after midnight. Low 4C. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 50%.


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John J. Winters is a Sun Chronicle columnist and the author of Sam Shephard: A Life. Reach him at johnjwinters@gmail.com
MIKE KIRBY of North Attleboro is a former editor of The Sun Chronicle. Contact him at mkirbygolf18@gmail.com.
Fears: Vitaliy Khomutynnik snapped up a stake in JKX

The London-listed oil company JKX Oil & Gas is scrambling to find out why a Ukrainian MP has quietly become its second largest shareholder in a deal that has sparked speculation of a potential takeover by oligarchs.

Vitaliy Khomutynnik, one of Ukraines richest men, has clinched a 20 per cent stake in JKX  which has assets in Ukraine and Russia  via an investment fund called Cascade. He bought the stake from Proxima, a Russian fund that in 2016 succeeded in booting out the entire JKX board.

His surprise move has raised eyebrows among JKXs British investors because Khomutynnik has links with Ukrainian oligarchs Igor Kolomoisky and Gennadiy Bogolyubov. The pair are JKXs largest shareholder through their investment vehicle Eclairs.

In another thread of the tangled Ukrainian connections, JKX has a 10 per cent stake in Ukrnaftoburinnia, a Ukrainian gas firm where Kolomoisky and Khomutynnik are major shareholders.

One top JKX investor told The Mail on Sunday that there were fears the purchase of the JKX stake could be a precursor to a takeover by the top two shareholders or it could herald a merger between JKX and Ukrnaftoburinnia.

A JKX spokesman said: Weve made an inquiry to try to find out who is behind Cascade and their intentions.

Last December, the High Court in London granted a 2 billion freezing order on assets owned by Kolomoisky and Bogolyubov, including their stake in JKX and properties in Londons Belgravia, in a dispute with PrivatBank, a Ukrainian state-owned lender once owned by the oligarchs.

PrivatBank claims they took the 2 billion through a series of dishonest transactions with firms they secretly controlled. They deny the allegations.
It is an idea with foundations as old as the buildings behind its name, but 'church spire banking' is part of a customer service revolution sweeping Britain.

As the traditional banking giants close branches in droves, the boss of one challenger bank explains that his firm 'does not do business with a customer the manager could not see if he or she climbed to the top of the highest local steeple'.

Mikael Sorensen, UK chief executive of Handelsbanken, continues: 'If you have granted a loan to a bakery in Inverness and suddenly there is no smoke from the chimney of that bakery and you are based in Inverness, you will notice on your way to work.

Challenger: Anne Boden's Starling bank has set its sights high

'But if you are in London you will never notice and it will be too late to do something the day it collapses.'

The Swedish operator is so wedded to the idea of branch banking that its ideals hark back to those celebrated in the classic 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life.

Handelsbanken saw the UK lenders' disgrace in the financial crisis a decade ago as an opportunity to offer a customer-friendly alternative, and has quietly opened more than 200 branches in this country. Sorensen says he can afford to run a branch network because his bank does not have expensive layers of management or lavish executive bonuses.

It is just one of a string of banks in the wave of change sweeping the industry. Another is Starling, led by Anne Boden, 58, the first British woman to start a bank.

It is named after the bird because it is sociable, adaptable and friendly, but also because of its tendency to flock into new territory and knock rivals off their perches. Boden believes she can simply fly over some of the burdens weighing down the mainstream players.

Starling is a branchless bank  it exists in the form of an app on customers' smartphones, so there is no need to maintain an expensive network of high street outlets. And the problem of replacing creaky old IT with new technology that brought TSB low earlier this year is not one that furrows her brow.

Church spire principle: 'Only do business with customers the manager could see from the top of the highest local church steeple'

She says banking was perceived by customers as stagnant, old-fashioned and male-dominated. 'There was a huge amount of sameness. I felt it was time to do things differently and shake up the industry. I'm used to being the only woman and the only tech person in the boardroom.'

Investors are backing the challengers. Monzo, another smartphone bank, based in the hipster haven of East London, last year attracted 71million of venture capital on top of previous fundraisings.

Atom Bank, backed by star fund manager Neil Woodford, earlier this year raised 149million from its main investors, including Spanish bank BBVA and hedge fund Toscafund. Fintech firm Revolut raised $250million in the spring, bringing its valuation to $1.7billion (1.3billion).

Although they have attracted hundreds of thousands of customers, the new banks are still very much niche operators. People use them for secondary accounts and individual services, and keep their primary account at a traditional operator. They have not yet made a big dent in the dominance of the Big Four  Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and RBS  but they have provoked a change in behaviour. RBS has an innovation centre in Islington, North London, developing smart new technology.

Handelsbanken saw the UK lenders' disgrace in the financial crisis a decade ago as an opportunity to offer a customer-friendly alternative

It includes portfolio optimisation programmes that can, in seconds, calculate how to minimise costs and risks and maximise returns on large baskets of investments  work that would take four people up to three weeks. RBS has also created Cora, a 'digital human' who can answer basic inquiries from customers.

Both the challengers and established lenders are hoping to embrace Open Banking, which will for the first time put customers in control of their own data. So, for instance, people will be able to hook up their bank accounts to budgeting tools that will help them manage their finances better.

'If we don't keep up with new technology, we will be overtaken,' says RBS chief Ross McEwan. 'It's going to be a great battle. Competition is the great thing about it because it will make us better.'

'The first five years of the ten after the crisis were not at all good from a customer perspective,' he admits. 'In the UK it has taken quite some time for banks to repair themselves and get back in the position where they can think really strongly about customers again.'

Handy: Mikael Sorensen's Handelsbanken is opening branches

RBS and its peers have been criticised for closing branches. Around 3,000 will have been axed between 2015 and the end of this year, says Which? magazine. McEwan says this reflects trends in customer usage, with many rarely setting foot in a branch. 'Our focus has been a shift away from the physical because customers aren't using it so much, to digital,' he says.

But, like Handelsbanken, some challengers are opening branches, notably Metro  the UK's first new high street bank since 1840. It has a network in the South East and plans to roll out across the country.

'You've got this small island, with over 2trillion in deposits, which is owned and run by five or six players,' says chief executive Craig Donaldson. 'We have too few banks that control the market. They need competition to improve.'

Metro, founded by US banking magnate Vernon Hill, has its share of sceptics. But its stores, as it calls them, are popular thanks to 8am to 8pm opening and the return of facilities such as safety deposit boxes.

It has been slow in coming but the crisis, coupled with developments in technology, have created viable competition in banking for the first time in generations. What's fascinating is there isn't just one vision of the bank of the future, but several. The challengers, in their diverse ways, are shaking up the market  and that should be good for consumer choice.

Radio 4 In Business: Banking On Change, presented by Ruth Sunderland, will air tonight at 9.30pm.
Watching the eccentric performances you could have wondered as to who is this lady with an explosive voice who was invited by South African contemporary tribal artist Thandiswa Mazwai on stage.

Not only will you question their friendship and the ladys voice which is scrumptious to the ear but you will also question her strong presence and unique afro centric dress sense.



Her name is Nana Magagula! The Nana and yes, she has lived and has represented the country in all ways, from her talents to her captivating words which flow through her lips to the style that she possesses.

Going on stage with Nana aroused many questions about her whereabouts as she oozed out nothing but talent while singing Koboyi in a serenely trance mode.



Nana has been a household name, in Eswatini and beyond at least for more than a decade. After her trademark track Koboyi and her album Five Loaves and Two Fish, this lady who is now 43 years, rose to fame and was big in the City of Gold.

After all the fame, I had to sacrifice my career because I was aligning myself to God, said the eccentric Nana to GCWALA in an exclusive interview.

She has lived, travelled, embraced art and still possesses that energy to change the world through being creative within her.

The name Nana Magagulacame about thanks to her trainer Billie Holiday.



EARLY LIFE

Born on April 14, 1975, from Lucas and Elizabeth Magagula from Msunduza, Nana always knew that the arts were instilled in her DNA and back in those days, the arts were not considered as a career to live off.

Luck was drawn her way as her mother was welcoming of her early eccentric behaviour and this might have been caused by her artistic traits which included sewing and knitting and yet, she was also a banker.

Surprisingly, my father was also encouraging after he found my songbook where I kept lyrics of some songs and also wrote my own songs, she explained.



After the influence from TV and the National Library which was treasure of wonderment to Nana, she was convinced that she wanted to branch into music.

Meeting Cecil Mbuli was my first live introduction to music as he bought me music by Nina Simon, Ella Fitzgerald, Eartha Kitt and BB King who influenced the jazzy side of me. He also introduced me to Eswatini traditional music sang by emabutfo, tintfombi during Umhlanga, ingatja and all these were a medley which caused musical fertility in my mind. Cecil cultivated music in me, she said.

That is when, at the age of 17, I joined a band called Soul Friends where she was a lead vocalist and the band constituted of Boy Shongwe (liSwati), Hendrik Brandt (Canada) and Mark Casey from Britain. They performed during jam sessions at Pine Valley and they rendered a fusion of jazz and rock music.



At the age of 19, Nana moved to the United Kingdom for six months to explore music. It is in London here she was exposed to neighbourhoods of hippies, jazz, reggae and all genres of music and this happened during the jam sessions she attended.

Being in London was like being in a sweet store as a teenager for me. The musical diversity was incredible.
MBABANE  FNB has been ordered to freeze the bank account of a man who was involved in an accident and squandered E500 000 of his compensation.



Louis Duma Nxumalo of Mbabane was certified to have a mental imbalance after being involved in motor vehicle accident while travelling from Johannesburg to Eswatini with his children.

Two of the children died and one of them suffered permanent brain damage.

The South African Road Accident Fund paid Nxumalo a sum of E1 300 000 as compensation.



The money was paid in two instalments.

The first instalment of E687 870.79 was deposited into his First National Bank (FNB) account in 2018 and the second one is due to be paid sometime this month.



Invested



Nxumalos wife, Hixonia, said her husband gave her E85 000 which she used to renovate their house and he invested only a sum of E100 000.

In her application before court, Hixonia said she discovered that the balance of E500 000 had been deposited into an account believed to belong to Nigerian scammers in several instalments through communication between her husband and them.

She alleged that the Nigerians were Njoku, Cebby and Lumbord.



Hixonia told the court that the three men approached her husband claiming to be from the Central Bank of Nigeria promising to assist Louis recover his money.

I made discoveries that these people are the same scammers who have been taking monies from my husband through his phone.



I believe the second respondent (Louis) has been transacting with the scammers using the same account. If not interdicted, same would be used for further transactions with these scammers and the family would be put to dire straits, she said.

According to Hixonia, her husband began to behave strangely after the accident.



She said he was always under the delusion that he was at work and would wake up and send emails to the alleged scammers, hoping to recover his money.

Housewife

She further alleged that since she was a housewife, Louis stopped maintaining her and taking care of the household needs.

She said he began to spend more time on the computer.



Hixonia also told the court that she was patient with her husband, hoping that his behaviour would change but this was not to be.

She said in 2012, Louis was booked for psychological evaluation for the processing of his claim in South Africa and the results showed that he had a mental imbalance.

Hixonia said she approached Luis brothers and in the end the family resolved to take the legal route.
MBABANE  It was raining money at the Mbabane Magistrates Court yesterday.



The woman, who presented herself as one of His Majesty the Kings daughters and defrauded various people different sums of money in return for jobs and scholarships, has compensated most of her victims the full amounts she swindled them.

Gama promised to facilitate her victims employment in the armed forces, Kings Officer, Tibiyo TakaNgwane and scholarships to even overseas institutions.



In total, Bekezeli Gama of Mafutseni under Chief Ngalonkulu paid out a total sum of E132 630 to some of the complainants before Principal Magistrate Fikile Nhlabatsi yesterday.

The repayments were conducted in the principal magistrates courtroom. The money was brought to court by Gamas attorney, Bongani Phakathi, of Masina Mzizi Attorneys.

However, not all the people she defrauded received their money. A sum of E15 000 is still outstanding. The principal magistrate made it clear that Gama, who wants to be released on bail pending her appeal of her 112 years sentence, had to pay the balance before she could be let out of Mawelawela Correctional Services.



When Gamas victims presented themselves in court, orderlies confirmed that they were all present and the doors to the courtroom were shut, supposedly to confirm if there was enough money for everyone. After a short while, the victims were then ushered into the principal magistrates courtroom. Gama arrived in the company of Correctional officers.



According to one of the victims, who declined to reveal his identity, one by one, they were called to approach principal magistrate in front of the court and produce their identity cards, one at a time.

He said there was an official who recorded the sum that was paid to each one of them and confirmed with them if it was the correct amount.



This went on until all the 12 people were compensated the defrauded amounts. Gama faced 38 counts of theft by false pretences and she pleaded guilty to all the charges.

Noteworthy, is that there were people who paid different amounts to Gama on different dates resulting in multiple counts in respect of an individual. Since she has not paid back the whole sum, the matter was postponed to August 31, 2018 when the other victims who missed out on the repayments would be called and compensated.



During her trial and in her application for bail pending appeal, Gama made an undertaking to repay her victims the defrauded monies.

The principal magistrate had wholly suspended the 112 years imprisonment on condition that Gama paid back all the money which amounted to E146 130.

Gama said the condition to suspend the sentences was not legally sound and practicable.



In her application for bail pending appeal, Gama accused her inmates of allegedly stabbing her in the armpit. She claimed to be kept with dangerous inmates at Mawelawela Correctional Services.

I reiterate that as a result of the number of years in my sentences, I am currently kept behind the walls where they keep dangerous inmates convicted of multiple murders. My safety there is not guaranteed as some of them are violent, she told the court.

After Gama was arrested and granted bail fixed at E50 000, she told the court she would pay back her victims and requested for more time to organise the funds.

The court released her on her own recognisance pending submission of proof of payment. However, Gama was not seen after her release and she never returned to court.

She was eventually spotted by one the complainants, Betfule Mnisi, near Jet Stores at the Swazi Plaza in Mbabane.



Mnisi notified the police officers providing security at the elections registration centre at the Swazi Plaza, who rearrested Gama and took her to the police station.

When she appeared in court the following day, she was remanded into custody. She was eventually convicted on September 12, 2017 and sentenced on June 5, 2018.

She submitted that the gist of her appeal was that the principal magistrate erred in imposing what she described as grossly harsh sentences which induced a sense of shock that no reasonable court could issue.

Gama, said Principal Magistrate Nhlabatsi should have ordered that the sentences on the 38 counts should run concurrently (consolidated) and not consecutively (one after the other).



She added that the court ought to have taken her mitigating factors in that she pleaded guilty to the charges and that she was a first offender. I submit therefore that I have prospects of success on my appeal which will see my sentences reduced, with an option to pay an affordable fine. I submit that I am therefore entitled to bail pending hearing of my appeal so that I can regain my freedom, she told the court.

Gama said she was prepared to provide security in the sum of E146 130 which is equivalent to the amount she was ordered to compensate the people she defrauded.



When she applied for bail before being her conviction, Gama denied that she had any relations with the people she was accused of working with in committing the offences.

She told the court that she was a sickly person and that her continued incarceration would worsen her condition.

She also said there was no prejudice to be suffered by the Crown if she were to be released from custody because she would not endanger members of the public.

Mnisi said they were grateful to the principal magistrate for deciding the matter as she did. He said justice had been properly served in the matter and highlighted that there were many other people who fell victim to the fraud whose cases were not in court.






South Washington Street was jam-packed with food stands as part of this years Oil Festival. The 159th Oil Fest kicked off Friday, bringing a deluge of vendors, volunteers, booths, and performers into downtown Titusville.
By Trend





The Baku-Moscow-Ankara regional axis is a promising format and it is expected to become even more important if it is expanded, Head of the Strategic Analysis Center of the Russian Innovative Development Institute, well-known Russian expert Andrey Ivanov told Trend.

Ivanov was commenting on the significance and prospects of this trilateral format.

The Azerbaijan-Turkey-Russia regional axis meets a single goal, focused on maintaining a stable and secure situation in the region, he said.

"The cooperation of Russia, Azerbaijan and Turkey benefits all those who are interested in stability not only in the South Caucasus but also in a big region around the Caspian Sea," Ivanov said. The Moscow-Baku-Ankara axis is extremely important for the development of good-neighbourly relations, but it can also be part of other, broader associations.

BRICS summit has been recently held in South Africa, he said. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended the summit. Iran thinks about it. One can recall SCO. Iran has already entered it and a proposal was made for Turkey to join it. I think the more we have such formats for honest and open discussion of pressing problems, the better.

Ivanov stressed that there is the format of the CIS, the Eurasian Economic Union in the post-Soviet area, which are also open to the countries which are friendly to Russia.

"Politicians must communicate more often with each other, look for a compromise on everything, even insignificant issues, he added. As a result, big conflicts will be avoided. We see Azerbaijans current balanced policy. It is not a member of any unions, but cooperates with everybody. Today, Turkey pursues a fairly pragmatic policy. It is a NATO member and thinks about SCO and BRICS. In its turn, Russia stands for interaction with all countries and this is extremely important today in the system of international relations.
By Trend





Pakistans energy ministry rejected reports that huge oil reserves have been found in the country near the border with Iran.

In a recent statement, the Pakistani energy ministry said no oil reserves, reportedly bigger than Kuwaits, have been discovered near the Iran border by US energy giant Exxon Mobil, Pakistani media reported.

It added that no license for oil and gas exploration has been awarded to Exxon Mobil and that the American multinational oil and gas company is currently not involved in any drilling operations in the country.

On August 4, Pakistani caretaker Minister for Maritime Affairs and Foreign Affairs Abdullah Hussain Haroon said Exxon Mobil Corp was close to discovering huge oil reserves in Pakistan near the border with Iran.

The statement further said, "The caretaker minister has given an irresponsible statement on a sensitive matter which needs inquiry as it has added problems for the ministry, intelligence forces and concerned departments. Foreign ministers statement contained exaggerated figures".
By Trend





Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said no meeting would take place between Iranian and US officials during the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 73), scheduled to open on September 18.

There are no plans for any engagement with US officials (on the sidelines of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly), Zarif told Tasnim on August 11.

He added that Tehran has repeatedly announced its stance noting that Americans are not honest and are addicted to sanctions.

The minister further ruled out that Tehran is set to receive any message from Washington via Oman or any other third party.

On May 8, the US president pulled his country out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a nuclear agreement achieved in Vienna in 2015 after two years of negotiations among Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).

After Donald Trump withdrew the US from the deal, his administration moved to re-implement the previous sanctions against Iran.

The United States reimposed stiff economic sanctions on Iran on Monday, ratcheting up pressure on the Islamic Republic despite statements of deep dismay from European allies.

A first set of reimposed US sanctions affect financial transactions that involve US dollars, Iran's automotive sector, the purchase of commercial planes and metals including gold.

A second batch of US sanctions targeting Iran's oil sector and central bank are to be reimposed in early November.
The Panhellenic Exporters Association (PEA) on Tuesday reported significant growth in the Greek exports sector during the first half of the year, with growth at 24.8% in June, to 3 billion euros from 2.4 billion in the same month in 2017 (including oil products), while exports excluding oil products grew 15.5 % to 2.07 billion euros.

The PEA stressed that the impressive growth contributes to a further reduction of the countrys trade deficit, and has created optimism for the outlook of Greek exports, despite existing hurdles such as high taxation and capital controls.

According to the report, Greek exports increased to all destinations, rising 17 % to EU member-states and 35.6 % to third countries. Excluding oil products, Greek exports grew 13.9 % to the EU and by 19 % to third countries.

Oil products (53.8 %), machinery (44.4 %), raw materials (39.7%) and industrial products (22.2 %) recorded the biggest percentage increase among export product categories, while oils (5.8 %) and alcohol/tobacco (13.9 %) suffered losses in June. In the first half, all categories recorded growth with the exception of alcohol/tobacco (-1.2 %), led by oils (35.7 %), oil products (21.9 %), machinery (18.8 %) and industrial products (16 %).

Read more at greekcitytimes.com

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: steve gibson License: CC-BY-SA
It is widely said that good musicians perform equally well in the studio, on stage or in the shower. That tends to be true, but its also true that some venues (such as the ancient theaters of Epidaurus and the Herod Atticus in Athens) offer so much atmosphere that they help to produce even stronger performances. Its especially true when it comes to young artists who are just starting out and are easily inspired. The 2,500-year-old Pythagoreion Theater on the island of Samos, where the Samos Young Artists Festival is taking place, is one such venue.

Held by the Schwarz Foundation, the festival features accomplished young musicians from all over the world in a promising musical program. Our goal is to present all kinds of cultivated music. That doesnt mean that well only be hearing classical works, however. On the contrary, there will be a good dose of contemporary works, as well as a traditional music performance by Savina Yannatou (August 13) in harmony with the island setting, said the festivals young artistic director, Alexis Karaiskakis-Nastos. A skilled cellist, he and other Greek musicians have a stronger presence than ever at this years event. From the start we wanted to bring more Greek artists, to show that there are many talented ones here. Aside from the successful Leonidas Kavakos, there are also other equally remarkable albeit less well-known musicians, Nastos explains.

Perhaps the most significant aspect of the festival is that at a time of global uncertainty, an island like Samos, just 1.2 kilometers from the Turkish mainland, is serving as a bridge for people to come together, cooperate, and shatter discriminatory views. We have plenty of Turkish guests this year, and, for the first time, a Greek-Turkish artistic partnership, aiming to show how music can be an example of openness and conversation, Nastos concludes.

Concerts take place at the Pythagorion Theater, beginning at 8.30 p.m. each day through August 14.

Read more at ekathimerini.com

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: Tomisti License: CC-BY-SA
Samsung Electronics has announced that its new super powerful Galaxy Note9 model is now available for pre-order till August 24 across all major retailers, operators and brand stores in Bahrain.

Customers who pre-order the device will be the first to experience the powerful S-Pen, the enhanced battery and the most powerful camera available amongst other innovative features, said a statement from Samsung.

The new Galaxy Note9 also boasts a 4,000m Ah battery, the largest ever on a flagship Galaxy phone for long-lasting power and two internal storage options 128GB or 512GB with the ability to insert a microSD card.

Its camera is Samsungs smartest yet, with advanced noise reduction technology, and a dual aperture lens, which adjusts to light just like the human eye. It employs scene optimizer and flaw detection for stunning, lifelike images.

In addition to that, the new Samsung model comes with JBL headphones alongwith the 128 GB version and the JBL headphones and JBL Bluetooth speakers with the 512 GB version, it stated.

Tarek Sabbagh, the head of IT and Mobile (IM) Division at Samsung Electronics Gulf, said: "We are thrilled today to offer consumers a mobile device that is our most powerful yet, aimed for our multitasking lifestyles, with a longer battery life."

"The Galaxy Note9 is designed to keep up with the most ambitious achievers for whom technology is second nature, and for whom the work place is evolving, with its improved S Pen that can do much more than ever before in addition to its superior camera functionality that offers the best image quality," noted Sabbagh.

Now with Bluetooth Low-Energy (BLE) support, the new S Pen delivers an entirely new way to use the Note, he explained.

The device, priced at BD370 ($986) for 128 GB model, is being offered in Midnight Black, Lavender Purple, with matching S Pen, and Ocean Blue with a Pearl Yellow S Pen.-TradeArabia News Service
Pak to herald in Sino-Pak future by building 'shared community' :Pak foreign ministry 29 Oct 2021 | 6:45 PM Islamabad, Oct 29 (UNI/Xinhua) Highlighting the deep relations between Pakistan and China marked by mutual respect, mutual trust, and mutual understanding, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said Pakistan is committed to building a closer China-Pakistan community with a shared future in the new era. see more..

Russia, Finland may resume rail tourism by end of 2021: Putin 29 Oct 2021 | 6:40 PM Moscow, Oct 29 (UNI/Sputnik) Russia and Finland may be able to resume arrivals of tourists by railways by the end of the year, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday during a meeting with his Finnish counterpart Sauli Niinisto. see more..

G20 to seriously consider Covid-19 vaccination certificates recognition: Russian Sherpa 29 Oct 2021 | 6:23 PM Moscow, Oct 29 (UNI/Sputnik) The G20 nations will seriously consider the coronavirus vaccination certificates recognition, as they believe this will speed up the economic recovery, but an exact decision is yet to be made, Russian G20 Sherpa Svetlana Lukash said on Friday. see more..

29 Oct 2021 | 6:19 PM Moscow, Oct 29 (UNI/Sputnik) Participants of the upcoming G20 summit in Rome plan to adopt targets to provide access to Covid-19 vaccines to at least 40 percent of the global population by the end of the year and at least 70 percent by the end of 2022, Russian G20 Sherpa Svetlana Lukash said on Friday. see more..
Central Africa: SC concerned by 'grave security situation'

United Nations, Aug 11 (UNI) With Central African countries beset by ongoing terrorist activity, instability and the effects of climate change, the Security Council has asked the United Nations Secretary-General to review the work of the UN Regional Office for Central Africa (UNOCA), and recommend areas for improvement.

In a Presidential Statement released on Friday, the 15-member body acknowledged UNOCAs role, in cooperation with other partners, in promoting inclusive dialogue in the region; its work with the UN Office for West Africa and the Sahel (UNOWAS) to develop a strategy addressing the root causes of the security and humanitarian crisis in the Lake Chad Basin; and its support for regional anti-piracy efforts in the Gulf of Guinea.

However, the statement highlights grave concerns over the security situation and human rights abuses. Terrorist attacks by Boko Haram, ISIL (also known as Daesh), the Lords Resistance Army and other armed groups, are ongoing. There is also continued maritime insecurity in the Gulf of Guinea, and a pervasive threat of transnational organised crime, including the threat of mercenary activities.
Former Chilean Prez officially appointed new UN rights chief

United Nations, Aug 11 (UNI) After a vote on Friday by the United Nations General Assembly in New York, former two-time President of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, hailed a pioneer by the UN Secretary-General, has officially been appointed as High Commissioner for Human Rights, effective from 1 September.

Minutes after she was voted in, UN chief Antonio Guterres told reporters he was delighted by the news of her official appointment as Michelle Bachelet has been as formidable a figure in her native Chile, as she has at the United Nations.

Highlighting her role as the first leader of UN Women, between 2010 and 2013, he said she gave that new entity a dynamic and inspiring start. He also pointed to her remarkable career as the first woman to serve as the countrys President, but also as a survivor of brutality by the authorities targeting her and her family, many decades ago.
Puducherry, Aug 11(UNI) Puducherry chief Minister V Narayansamy on Saturday said that 'he is ready to cooperate with Lt.Governor Kiran Bedi' if she functions within the framework of guidelines.



Talking to news persons here, Mr Narayanasamy wondered what Ms Bedi did for the development of the Union Territory.

A Lt.Governor should not stall people's welfare schemes as it is the duty of an elected government to fulfill their needs, Mr Narayansamy said, alleging the LT Governor is trying to stall the free rice scheme and centac assistance scheme.



He said on August 5, at a press conference, he had stated that the officers need not follow the directions of the Lt.Governor since, she do not enjoy any special powers. To this the LG had tweeted that Mr Narayanasamy is not cooperating for the development of the union territory, the Chief Minister said and added that he had written a letter to her on August 10.

In the copy of the letter provided to the media, the chief minister said that the Lt.Governor have referred to para 180 of the Supreme Court judgement in the Kejriwal-LG standoff case in Delhi.

He said the Supreme Court made the observation that article 239A is applicable to Puducherry and therefore it is different from Article 239AA which is applicable to NCT Dehi.



The fundamental principles decided by the Constitution Bench of the Top Court in the judgement was that the administrator has to act on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers, the administrator has no independent powers in the administration, council of ministers decision is final, the administrator should not be an obstructionist and on flimsy grounds matters should not be referred to the President of India.

MORE UNI PAB cs 1236
New Delhi, Aug 11 (UNI) After wrapping up the first schedule of Bharat in Mumbai, Salman Khan begins the second schedule of the film in Malta.



One of the most anticipated films of 2019, Bharat went on floors earlier last month and has already wrapped the first schedule in Mumbai.



After the Mumbai schedule, the team of Bharat has already kick-started the second schedule in Malta.



The superstar took to social media to announce the beginning of second schedule saying, "Starting the shooting schedule of #Bharat in Malta, lovely country ."



Director Ali Abbas Zafar earlier shared a sneak peek from the first schedule of the film which included a grand circus sequence featuring Salman Khan riding a motorbike amidst a fire ring.



Salman Khan and Disha Patani shot for the first schedule of Bharat which also included a song choreographed by Vaibhavi Merchant.



Disha Patani plays a trapeze artiste in the film and will be seen doing some action sequences and daredevil stunts, including fire for the same.



Bharat's release brings back Salman Khan and director Ali Abbas Zafar for an Eid release after the 2016 Blockbuster Hit, Sultan.



The hit director-actor duo will be marking a hat-trick with Bharat after their last outing Tiger Zinda Hai.



Salman Khan will yet again treat the audience on the festive season of Eid 2019 with the release of Bharat.



The film will feature Salman Khan sporting five different looks spanning 60 years, wherein a crucial part will showcase the actor in his late 20s, looking much leaner and younger.



Khan will be recreating his 'Karan-Arjun' look which has created immense excitement amongst the audience.



The film is set to have a character-driven story spanning across many periods.



Bharat will be shot across exotic locations in Malta and Abu Dhabi, besides Punjab and Delhi in India.



Including stellar performers like Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif, Disha Patani, Tabu and Sunil Grover, the Ali Abbas Zafar directorial boasts of an ensemble cast promising power-packed performances.



Directed by Ali Abbas Zafar, 'Bharat' is produced by Atul Agnihotri's Reel Life Production Pvt. Ltd and Bhushan Kumar's T-Series releasing Eid 2019.



UNI PY JTS SB 1418
UN chief welcomes DRC Prezs promise to stand down

United Nations, Aug 11 (UNI) The United Nations Secretary-General has commended the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Joseph Kabilas decision not to stand in elections scheduled to take place on 23 December.

In line with constitutional rules, Mr Kabila was due to end his mandate as leader of the Central African nation, in 2016. Following delays and subsequent political mediation, his term was extended until December 2017, but protests were sparked when polls were once again delayed by 12 months, resulting in the violent repression of demonstrators by Congolese security forces.

Mr Kabilas name is absent from a provisional list of candidates that was published by CENI, the DR Congos electoral commission, on the 8 August.
Venezuelan exodus to Ecuador reaches record levels

United Nations, Aug 11 (UNI) One of the largest population movements in Latin American history is under way from Venezuela, according to the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, which has confirmed it is increasing assistance to neighbouring Ecuador, where more and more Venezuelans are arriving each week.

Amid ongoing social and political upheaval in the South American country, more than half a million people have arrived in Ecuador since the beginning of the year, UNHCRs William Spindler said.

The exodus of Venezuelans from the country is one of Latin Americas largest mass-population movements in history, he added. Since the beginning of the year, some 547,000 Venezuelans have entered Ecuador through the Colombian border at a daily average of between 2,700 and 3,000 men women and children. However, the influx is now accelerating, and in the first week of August, some 30,000 Venezuelans entered the country. Thats more than 4,000 a day.
Experts have said Saudi Arabia's maneuvers against Canada illustrate how the oil-rich kingdom is increasingly seeking to use its economic and diplomatic muscle to quell foreign criticism under its young de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman AFP/BANDAR AL-JALOUD

An air strike by the Saudi-led coalition hit a bus in rebel-held northern Yemen on Thursday, killing dozens of what aid groups said were school children, with the United States and United Nations both calling for an investigation.

The coalition insisted Huthi rebel combatants were aboard the bus, but international media have photographed dazed and bloodied children flooding into hospitals struggling to cope with a three-year conflict that the UN has dubbed the world's worst humanitarian crisis.

"The war is becoming increasingly unpopular with the international community, including in the US Congress," Sigurd Neubauer, a Middle East analyst in Washington, said.

"(This) attack has unfortunately become the norm and not the exception."

The coalition has repeatedly been accused of striking civilians in Yemen since it launched an intervention in 2015 to try to restore the internationally recognised government after the Iran-backed Shiite Huthi rebels drove it out of the capital Sanaa.

The coalition called Thursday's strike a "legitimate military action" in response to a rebel missile attack on Saudi Arabia's southern Jizan city a day earlier that resulted in the death of a Yemeni national.

But that did not quell the outpouring of global condemnation.

"NO EXCUSES ANYMORE!!" tweeted Geert Cappelaere, UNICEF's regional director in the Middle East and North Africa.

"Does the world really need more innocent children's lives to stop the cruel war on children in Yemen?"

Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, tweeted: "Grotesque, shameful, indignant. Blatant disregard for rules of war when bus carrying innocent school children is fair game for attack."

"SHUTTING THE DOOR TO CRITICISM"

The bombing raid, part of an intervention that reflects Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's increasingly assertive foreign policy, follows the kingdom's diplomatic rupture with Canada earlier this week.

Saudi Arabia expelled Canada's ambassador, recalled its own envoy and froze all new trade and investments after Ottawa publicly demanded the "immediate release" of rights campaigners jailed in the kingdom.

A furious Riyadh also moved to pull out thousands of Saudi students from Canadian universities, state airline Saudia suspended flights to Toronto, and the kingdom pledged to stop all medical treatment programmes in Canada.

The Saudi reaction could impinge on the kingdom's efforts to attract badly needed foreign investment to fund its ambitious reform plan to pivot the economy away from oil, experts say.

The move illustrates how the oil-rich kingdom is unwilling to brook any criticism - foreign or domestic - under its young crown prince.

"The top leadership is not particularly concerned with Canada's global influence," said analysis firm Eurasia Group.

"Instead, it is interested in shutting the door to broader criticism, also from European countries, and on other issues in the future."

But Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has refused to back down and asserted that his country will continue to speak out on human rights.

Saudi officials privately insist that respect for cultural sensitivities and closed-door diplomatic engagement is a more effective approach than public denunciations of the kingdom.

GROWING DISCONTENT

Canada is quietly consulting Germany and Sweden -- targets of previous Saudi backlashes for calling out the kingdom over human rights abuses -? to help resolve the row, according to a government source.

Canada also plans to reach out to regional heavyweight the United Arab Emirates and to Britain, which has strong historical ties to Saudi Arabia.

Canada has expressed disappointment that Western powers including the US - which has provided arms worth billions of dollars to the Saudi-led coalition - did not publicly support Ottawa.

"Absent a strong US voice (under President Donald Trump) on human rights and democratic values, Arab leaders have become less willing to tolerate Western advice on either political reform of governance," said the Eurasia Group.

But the developments this week could complicate Riyadh's relationship with Washington.

"President Trump has made relations with Saudi Arabia a central aspect of his approach to the Middle East. But discontent against Saudi Arabia in the US Congress is growing," Perry Cammack, a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said.

"There is a real possibility that (the) Congress could move to constrain in a meaningful way the US military's involvement in the Yemen war."

The row with Canada has also shone an uncomfortable spotlight on its European allies.

"The failure of Western allies to rally around Canada in its dispute with Saudi Arabia risks luring the kingdom into a false belief that economic sanctions will shield it from, if not reverse mounting criticism of its human rights record and conduct of the war in Yemen," said James Dorsey, a fellow at Singapore's S Rajaratnam School of International Studies.
Genius: Lang Lang comes back to inspire Hanoi once again after 10 years. Photo courtesy of the event organiser

His performance will be part of the Swiss luxury brand, Hublot loves Art, marking the arrival of the brand in Vietnam with their flagship stores opening in Hanoi and HCM City.

Voted by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, besides a virtuoso artist, Lang Lang has also worked as a piano instructor and social activist. Hes been one of the pioneer artists to breathe the rhythm of the 21st century into classical music.

Getting to know the keyboard at three, Lang Lang had his first pubic performance before his fifth birthday. He won the International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians when he was 13 in 1995. This is the junior section of the prestigious International Tchaikovsky Competition and the largest competition for junior performers up to 17 years of age. Bui Cong Duy, one of Viet Nams top violinists also won first prize in violin in the same competition two years later in 1997.

During his career, Lang Lang had performed for Pope Francis, Queen Elizabeth II and Barack Obama when he served as US President. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, the Royal Albert Hall and Sydney Opera House. He had shared the same stage as other music legend such as Metallica, Herbie Hancock and Pharrell Williams.

Yet, after such hectic schedule, the international superstar is finally getting the break hes really been waiting for his entire life a literal one.

The pain in his left arm started last year. The prognosis: tendonitis, an inflammation of the tendon. The healing was expected to begin quickly; it didnt. Almost a full year later, his road to recovery is still being paved. But this detour from his regular path afforded him a rare opportunity: taking time to rest.

This year was relaxing, he was quoted as saying. I couldnt play, so I had a lot of time to think about my life. For 20 years, he has been either practicing or travelling. Im trying to enjoy the time I never had before. Now, I have the time to reflect, to rethink, to restart.

He also finally has the time to figure out what he wants from life. Coming from Shenyang, Liaoning, China, he was driven to succeed at a young age by his father, who gave up his job as a policemanas well as his marriage-to manage Lang Langs career. At 9, when his music teacher declared him talentless, his father, Lang Guoren, quietly suggested that his son commit suicide. Lang Lang ignored his father, and worked even harder.

Coincidentally, his autobiography, co-authored with David Ritz, Lang Lang, Journey of a Thousand Miles, is coming out next week in Hanoi in Vietnamese translated by Linh Pham.

One of the comments on Linh Phams post on Facebook about the upcoming Vietnamese copy says No pain, no gain. If Lang Langs father did not determine to leave everything aside, sacrificing his career and his marriage, to make his son a success, today we wont have this superstar spreading the music message across the world.

This year, his nonprofit The Lang Lang International Music Foundation will mark its 10th anniversary. Aimed at cultivating up-and-coming pianists, championing music education and building a young audience through live musical experiences, the foundation also inspires public school children who might not be able to afford music education the chance to live their musical dreams.

In fact, the foundation has been so successful in inspiring 40 million Chinese children to learn piano that the phenomenon is known as The Lang Lang effect, which has also branched into schools in the US.

Lang Lang said he would like to refer to himself as innovative. As a pianist, educator and influential ambassador for the arts, Lang Lang has fully embraced new technology and the spirit of innovation, making classical music palatable for the 21st century generation. Hes a groundbreaker, a trendsetter.

Now, hes continuing his exploration into the cutting edge by partnering with Swiss watch brand Hublot, with whom hes created two collections of avant-garde timepieces.

Im a classical musician, but Im trying to bring classical music into the new century, he says. Im not so keen to follow what has already been done before, and thats the same with Hublot. Their watches are of great quality from the past, but theyre trying everything to break through and create something new every day. We have similar targets, similar missions.

The pioneering spirit and uniqueness are both shared by Lang Lang and Hublot. Indeed, the brands ethos is its Art of Fusion, combining tradition with the future. Lang Lang says he feels that the brand gets him.

For Lang Lang, the watches are functional: I like to wear a watch while Im playing the piano. As you know, pianists dont typically like to wear things during performances, because watches can be heavy, and it can be hard to move your wrist. But I can actually wear this while Im performing, because its lightweight.
Cristiano Ronaldo, who has left Real Madrid for Juventus, will pay the Spanish authorities a reduced sum for dodging taxes on image rights. AFP/Isabella Bonotto

Spain's taxman and Ronaldo's advisors made the deal to settle claims the 33-year-old, who has since moved to Italy's Juventus, hid income generated from image rights while he was playing for Real Madrid.

The agreement also includes a two-year jail sentence which he won't serve. Sentences of up to two years are generally not enforced in Spain for first-time offenders in non-violent crimes.

According to El Mundo, who had access to documents of the settlement, tax authorities realised he paid two million euros too much last year for image rights he sold in 2014.

That means he only has to pay 16.7 million, the report said.

It added that Ronaldo has already paid 13.4 million.

Spain's finance ministry would not comment on the report.

The newspaper said the tax agreement also means that the court near Madrid investigating the case had dropped charges against Ronaldo's agent Jorge Mendes.

The court was not immediately available for comment.

Had the case gone further, without the player offering a settlement, Ronaldo could have faced a reported fine of 28 million and a three-and-a-half-year jail term, according to the Spanish tax office union Gestha.

Ronaldo's big rival, Barcelona's Argentinian star Lionel Messi, paid a 2 million fine in 2016 in his own tax wrangle and received a 21-month jail term.

The prison sentence was later reduced to a further fine of 252,000 equivalent to 400 per day of the original term.
The Saudi-led coalition ordered an investigation into the air strike that killed at least 29 children on a bus. (Photo: AFP/Stringer)

The Saudi-led coalition earlier announced that it had ordered an investigation into the air strike on Thursday that also wounded at least 48 others in the northern rebel stronghold of Saada.

British Ambassador Karen Pierce, who holds the council presidency, told reporters following a closed-door meeting on Yemen that "if any investigation that is held is not credible, the council will obviously want to review that" and decide "if more is necessary."

The council did not order a separate investigation but "will now consult with the UN and others as to how the investigation can best be taken forward," said Pierce.

The council met at the request of five countries: Bolivia, the Netherlands, Peru, Poland, and Sweden, which are all non-permanent council members.

Kuwait, also a non-permanent council member, is part of the Saudi-led coalition fighting Huthi rebels in Yemen.

The United States, France and Britain - three of the five permanent council members - have supported the Saudi coalition in its military campaign, but have expressed concern over the heavy toll on civilians.

Ahead of the meeting, the Netherlands had stressed that the investigation must be independent, suggesting that the coalition's decision to open up a probe was insufficient.

"We have seen the images of children who died," Dutch Deputy Ambassador Lise Gregoire-van Haaren told reporters. "What is essential at this moment in time is to have a credible and independent investigation."

SAUDI INVESTIGATION

The council did not specify in the agreed statement to the press that the investigation should be independent - a demand that UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also made in a statement condemning the attack on Thursday.

Council members expressed their "great concern" and "called for a credible and transparent investigation," Pierce said.

Human Rights Watch criticised the council's failure to demand an impartial investigation.

"The sad truth is Saudis have been given a chance to investigate themselves and the results are laughable," said HRW's deputy UN director Akshaya Kumar.

Out of 75 cases of civilian deaths investigated by the coalition, only two resulted in an admission of fault, she said.

Last year, the coalition was put on a UN blacklist of child rights' violators for killing or injuring 683 children, and attacking dozens of schools and hospitals.

Since 2015, Saudi Arabia has been leading a military campaign to restore the internationally recognised government to power and push back the Huthis, who still hold the capital Sanaa.

The war has left nearly 10,000 people dead and unleashed what the United Nations describes as the world's worst humanitarian crisis.
A broker examines trading data at MB Securities Company.-VNS Photo Truong Vi

The benchmark VN-Index on the HCM Stock Exchange gained 0.52 per cent to close at 968.47 points. It recovered from a 0.29 per cent drop on Thursday.

The HNX Index on the Ha Noi Stock Exchange was up 0.57 per cent to end at 108.41 points, extending its rally to a fourth session with total growth of 2.66 per cent.

The VN-Index recorded a weekly increase of 0.92 per cent while the HNX Index advanced total 2 per cent during the week.

More than 218.5 million shares were traded on the two bourses, worth VND4.55 trillion (US$202.2 million).

Trading figures were up 5.1 per cent in volume but declined by 6.8 per cent in value compared to the previous session.

Financial-banking and energy sectors assisted the stock market to advance as insurance, securities, banking and energy industry indices grew between 2.2 per cent and 4 per cent.

Among financial-banking stocks that moved up were Bank for Investment and Development of Viet Nam (BID), Vietcombank (VCB), insurer Bao Viet Holdings (BVH), HCM City Securities Corp (HCM), VNDirect Securities (VND) and Saigon Securities Inc (SSI).

Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue has recently told the Vietnam M&A 2018 Forum that the Government would sell parts of its stakes in some State-owned banks and financial firms.

The Government also welcomed private firms and foreign investors to participate in the restructuring of the banking-financial sector, Hue said.

That was attributed to the strong growth of the three large-cap State-owned financial institutions BID, VCB and BVH on Friday.

Energy stocks that increased strongly were PetroVietnam Technical Services (PVS), and PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Services (PVD), which jumped 5.6 per cent and 5.5 per cent, respectively.

The State-owned conglomerate National Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam or PVN) was reported to have submitted a plan to the Ministry of Industry and Trade on divesting from its subsidiaries by 2020, under which PVN will focus on reducing its ownership in PVD from current the 50.4 per cent to 36 per cent.

Another two large-cap energy stocks  PetroVietnam Gas (GAS) and PetroVietnam Coating Corp (PVB)  made slight gains on the news.

Foreign selling remained a concern for the stock market as foreign investors net-sold VND37.4 billion on Friday, totalling a net-sell value of VND736 billion this week.
While negotiating their reintegration into the Syrian Arab Republic, the Kurds of the PYD are doggedly pursuing their policy of the forced Kurdization of North Syria, in the region known as the Rojava.

The PYD is the Syrian branch of the Turkish PKK (the Workers Party of Kurdistan). The PKK is the Kurdish Independent Party established in Turkey in 1978. Taking advantage of the situation that arose during the foreign aggression against the Syrian Arab Republic, the PYD which brings together some of the Turkish Kurds that took refuge in Syria when they were fleeing Turkish repression, has tried to establish an independent state in the North Syria with the help of the US, French and Israeli military.

From the 1980s, which was when they arrived in these parts as asylum seekers, the Kurdish members of the PYD have begun a policy of the forced Kurdization of Arab and Christian people. This includes expropriation without compensation, mandatory conscription of youth in order to enrol them in pro-US militia and the imposition of a new school curriculum conforming to PKK ideology, delivered in the Kurdish language.

The most recent action taken to further Kurdization occurred on 7 August 2018. The Turkish PKK closed the Assyrian Christian school in Derbiseye (a city in the North of Syria), charging it with refusing, despite pleas from the Assyrian bishop of Hasake, Monseigneur Maurice Amsih, to roll out this programme of studies.
Murray Miller. Photo: Patrick McMullan/Patrick McMullan via Getty Image

Last fall, Girls writer and producer Murray Miller was accused by actress Aurora Perrineau of allegedly sexually assaulting her in 2012 when she was 17, an incident which she reported to Los Angeles County police in November. Miller himself categorically and vehemently denied the claim at the time. Now, the Los Angeles County District Attorneys Office has decided not to charge Miller with a crime, saying in a statement, based on the evidence presented, which included victim, suspect, and witness statements, there are inconsistencies which cannot be overcome. Moreover, they also indicated that the three-year statute of limitations under which he could be prosecuted had expired.

After news of Perrineaus police report became public last fall, Millers Girls bosses Lena Dunham and Jenni Konner leapt to his defense. They said in a joint statement, Sadly this accusation is one of the 3 percent of assault cases that are misreported every year. They both immediately leapt back, apologizing for weighing in on the veracity of his accusers claims. We regret this decision with every fiber of our being, they said of issuing the statement. Millers lawyers also initially claimed Perrineau had sought substantial monetary damages from Miller, then retracted their claim entirely, calling it incorrect and the result of a good-faith misunderstanding.
Photo: Tina Rowden/Netflix

Netflixs new show Insatiable is about a cruelly bullied high-school girl, fatty Patty, who  and this is true  gets her jaw wired shut after being punched by a homeless man who she first punched because he tried to steal her candy bar, and suddenly sheds 70 pounds in three months. When she gets back to school, all of her peers treat her differently because shes skinny, and hijinks ensue. The show has been described as, among other things, an utter disaster, obscenely cruel and terminally dull, an offensive mess, and hollow, harmful, and hateful.

Shortly after its trailer premiered last month, over 200,000 people signed a Change.org petition to cancel the show because of its perceived fat-shaming plotline. This series will cause eating disorders, and perpetuate the further objectification of womens bodies. The trailer has already triggered people with eating disorders. Lets stop this, and protect further damage, the petition read.

In a new interview with The Hollywood Reporter, Insatiables creator, Lauren Gussis  who told THR that she has struggled with every single one of the issues presented on the show  said she thought the backlash to show bordered on censorship.

When asked about her choice to include so much fat-shaming language in the show, Gussis replied, Thats the reality of what still happens. Theres a lot of people in this country who are evolved. But I know that my experience was that there are still people in the world who think that stuff is okay. To portray those people who actually exist in the world, is real. I think were in a real danger of censorship if we decide that we all have to tell stories in a certain way so that everybody else feels safe. In my own experience, growth comes from discomfort and pain.

Gussis did not go on to explain why the discomfort and pain that is already constantly and systematically inflicted upon people with fat bodies is not enough for experience and growth.
Matt Groening. Photo: Getty Images

Seemingly unaware that success in the television industry can be used as a means to obtain wild personal fame and (were presuming) true happiness, Matt Groening tends to stay out of the limelight himself. As The Hollywood Reporter points out, he last did the late-night rounds in 2007 to promote The Simpsons Movie. But like a comet (ever-returning, loves Futurama), the man behind The Simpsons will stop by Late Night With Seth Meyers on Thursday, August 16, to promote his latest show, Netflixs Disenchantment with Abbi Jacobson and Eric Andre.

None of which is to suggest Groening has been out of the news cycle lately. While he hasnt sat across the desk from a host, he did sit down with the New York Times in July to weigh in on the ongoing criticism of the Simpsons character Apu Nahasapeemapetilon, voiced with an Indian accent by exceedingly not Indian actor Hank Azaria. I think particularly right now, people feel so aggrieved and crazed and powerless that theyre picking the wrong battles, he said of the controversy, inspired in part by comedian Hari Kondabolus documentary The Problem With Apu. I am sorry that The Simpsons would be criticized for having an Indian character that, because of our extraordinary popularity  I expected other people to do it. I go, maybe hes a problem, but whos better? Whos a better Indian animated character in the last 30 years?
Simmons. Photo: Amy Graves/WireImage

Russell Simmons, the music producer who has been accused of rape by multiple women, is now filing a lawsuit against one of his accusers  an anonymous woman who Simmons insists made allegations for purposes of publicity, which this case has garnered. According to E! News, Simmons wants the woman, listed in legal documents as Jane Doe, to pay him $35,000 for her baseless actions. The woman sued Simmons in March for $10 million, but the case was dropped because the statute of limitations had passed. Even so, Simmons is asking for money, as well as sanctions imposed on the womans attorney, Douglas Mastroianni. The law firm representing Simmons in the case also happens to have represented Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein.

In her initial lawsuit, the Jane Doe alleged that Simmons raped her in a hotel room after meeting her at a concert, which she had attended with her son, and then inviting her to an after-party. The suit says Simmons told her, Im going to fuck you, further threatening, Im going to fuck you or Im going to fuck your son, before forcing her onto the hotel bed and raping her. In March, Simmons told Billboard he was shocked [to his] core by the allegations, insisting that he has passed all of the lie-detector tests in his assertions that he has never sexually assaulted someone. Well, nobody can argue with a good lie detector.
With just one week to go in the competition (can you believe it!), our four semi-finalists must face the gauntlet that is patisserie. This French-themed episode is off to a very French start with our signature challenge: three varieties of bite-size petit four, a dozen of each. These tempting little post-dinner treats have to be not just small, Paul says, but also exquisite, and also perfect, which sounds reasonable.

Brendan explains that absolute uniformity is central to his baking style. I suppose that suggests Ive got some perfectionist tendencies  It can make me a bit difficult to live with, because I wont compromise in that sense, says our very own Reynolds Woodcock. My personal favorite of Brendans bakes this challenge are his lime curd choux pastry cygnets, which yes, of course, are precious little handcrafted swans. Will they be sitting on a blue buttercream sea? Paul asks, not unshadily. Anyone who wishes to discourage Brendans pursuit of lifelike pastry bird creations with teeny fondant coxcombs will have to go through me.

The other three bakers are trying their hands at macarons (which Bake-Off, interestingly, both spells and pronounces as macaroons): blackberry and peppermint for Danny, dark chocolate and cherry for John, and lime and raspberry with chili sugar (!) for James. He explains that you should never ever add hot water to chocolate, while proceeding to add hot water to chocolate. James, you see, has figured out that by whisking this tricky concoction over ice, he can effectively form a mousse that will serve as the filling for his hazelnut biscuit and chocolate brownie towers.

All around the tent, theres some pretty kooky multitasking going on. Its rustic, announces James, splashing yellow liquid messily over the shells for his lemon and rhubarb tartlets. Meanwhile, John likens the ruby goo he slathers on his raspberry and white chocolate tartlets to red mucus. Paul thinks almost everyones petit fours are too big, which, I get it, theyre supposed to be petit, but this is a ridiculous complaint that I refuse to seriously consider.

To Mary, Brendans tres Parisien (tres Parisienne? I dont know, you guys; I took Spanish) mini apricot and pistachio friands are a sheer joy to eat. James earns high praise for his spicy macarons and especially for his towers, which Paul describes as excellent, good, and excellent. On the weaker side are Danny  whose prettily purple peppermint-y macarons have a heat the judges dont dig  and John, whose lemon madeleines look to Mary like a slab on the plate. Appetizing!

The technical challenge is a Fraisier cake, lovely layers of genoise sponge, strawberries, and creme patissiere. (Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to the stage: Creme Pat!) Make the genoise sponge and make the creme pat reads the not very helpful recipe this week.

The Frasier, strawberry shortcakes fancy-schmancy big-city cousin, must have a filling that holds its shape. If its too warm, the creme pat will ooze right out. The bakers have to struggle a sheet of acetate into their tin as a lining to ensure smoothness. It gives me very stressful flashbacks of every time I made the mistake of buying the cheapest possible wrapping paper at CVS. (I always buy the cheapest possible wrapping paper at CVS. It is always a mistake.) James calls this the most difficult technical yet, but as far as I can tell, everyone kills it  well, almost everyone. Having failed to set, Dannys creme pat sploops right out, stray strawberries carried away in a pale dairy lava flow. The judges final order is James, John, Brendan, then Danny in last.

The showstopper is a quintessentially French choux pastry gateau. Choux pastry is an intermediate between batter and dough, cooked twice: first on a stovetop, then in the oven.

Danny, Brendan, and John all make variations of the Gateau St. Honore (named in honor of the patron saint of baking), a base of puff pastry with a choux pastry ring on top and a garnish of cream puffs. Any dish that has a garnish of cream puffs is a friend of mine. Danny is flavoring hers with rosewater and John is incorporating passion-fruit curd into his. Brendan respectfully dissents. I think its an impertinence to try to tinker with something thats so well established, he says. (Okay, but he did add some kirsch to his custard.) Ever the rebel, James has chosen to make a coffee, caramel, and hazelnut Paris-Brest, first created in 1891 in honor of the eponymous cycle race. This gateau is traditionally made in the shape of a bike wheel, but James is crafting his to resemble a full bike, handlebars and all. This should be interesting.

Like 99.9 percent of rosewater baked goods, Dannys bake proves to be, alas, too heavy on the rosewater. The judges laugh at the extraordinary sight of Jamess bike, a criss-crossed funnel cake chimera, but nevertheless hail it as delicious and well executed. The judges appreciate Brendans gateaus striking multicolored stripes and decorative chocolate shards, even if it has a bit of a tough crunch. Johns distinctive passion fruit and crispy choux leads Paul to declare his bake the very best-tasting of the whole showstopper.

James is crowned Star Baker on the strength of, as Sue says, the worlds most delicious handlebar. Sadly, Danny is going home. Who will save us in case of a medical emergency now?

John calls his mother: Youve got a little big boy whos in the final! Speaking of, all three finalists are little big boys this season! At long last, a victory for men.
Republican Rep. Tom Garrett said Saturday that he was told during a briefing with the FBI director that Russian meddling played in a role in "fomenting the flames of what happened in Charlottesville," Virginia, one year ago, when a white nationalist rally turned violent and resulted in the death of a counterprotester.

"I sat in a closed session briefing probably two months ago about Charlottesville with the director of the FBI, amongst others, and asked if Russian inter-meddling had to do with fomenting the flames of what happened in Charlottesville. I was told yes, it did," Garrett told CNN's Ryan Nobles on "Newsroom." The congressman from Virginia said he asked during the briefing if the information was classified and was told it is not.

Garrett, a member of the House Homeland Security and Foreign Affairs committees, said that Russian interference is "seeking to pit Americans against Americans to undermine confidence in Western-style democracies."

Referring to Russia, the congressman said, "They use events like this divisive racial fight ... and this is the sort of thing they do. As a member of Homeland Security, that's what scares me most, that Americans will be pitted against Americans over real differences, but that are minimal in the grand scheme of things. We are an American family of brothers and sisters regardless of religion and race, and we need to focus on that."

The FBI declined to comment on the congressman's remarks.

FBI Director Christopher Wray referenced Charlottesville last month while discussing foreign interference at the Aspen Security Forum in Colorado and said "foreign influence" is playing a role in efforts to "spin up domestic extremist movements."

"Along the lines of the question about Charlottesville, for example, to the extent that we have domestic terrorism in this country that is spun up by various ideologies, foreign influence is being used, in many ways, to capitalize on that and spin up domestic extremist movements to create terrorist attacks here inside," he said.

The Wall Street Journal reported last fall that Facebook accounts that appeared to be linked to Russian entities posted extreme messages, including anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant messages after the 2016 election and racially divisive messages during the white nationalist rally in Charlottesville last August.
WAAY 31 learned an automotive supplier is now working with Toyota to bring 50 new jobs to the plant.

Newman Technology company is celebrating its fifth anniversary in Albertville where it debuted its newest technology.

WAAY 31 was there for the celebration and learned more about what this new expansion means for Toyota.

Newman Technology currently employees 320 people and now another 50 jobs have been added to the plant. Plant manager Jeff Thomas said the Toyota-Corolla project started just over a year ago and now the plant is working with another manufacturer in Mississippi to stamp frame components for the company.

"For the toyota project it would be a frame components stamping out of that," said Thomas.

The plant now has a new 2,000 metric ton Aida press to do the stamping work and will ship the parts from Albertville to the plant in Mississippi. This helped to create 50 new jobs at the plant.

"It's great for the company. it's great for the community. You know Albertville and Marshall County they have been just wonderful to us. This company here, 320 jobs, a great shot in the for our community here," said Thomas.

Thomas said this is just the latest in a three part expansion.

Governor Kay Ivey was at the celebration and she told WAAY 31 Newman Technology is having a huge impact on the economy in Alabama.

"These folks are working. They're able to provide for themselves and their families. They're paying taxes. This is huge and that's the reason why growing our economy is so important. Putting our people back to work and we've got more working today than ever in our states history," said Governor Ivey.

Thomas said the company is looking forward to continued growth and they couldn't do it without their employees.

The company also used the celebration to as a time to give back to the community presenting Albertville High School with a $10,000 check.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Aug. 10, 2018 | PADUCAH

By West Kentucky Star Staff Aug. 10, 2018 | 12:36 PM | PADUCAH

The Big Brown Truck Pull for Special Olympics returns to the Paducah floodwall on Saturday.



This will be the third year for the event at the floodwall, after several years on the streets of downtown Paducah. More than 20 teams from local companies, organizations and schools are expected to participate, and teams can still sign up to compete at the event.



The pull features teams in five divisions, vying to see who can pull a loaded UPS 18-wheeler a distance of 12 feet in the fastest time.



Teams are made up of 15 pullers. Many teams that participate come from companies and other community organizations, but they could just as easily be any 15 friends or neighbors. Pullers raise a minimum of $750 per team to compete. Last year's event featured 20 teams combining to raise more than $38,000.



On-site registration starts at 4 pm, followed by opening ceremonies at 6 pm and the first pull at approximately 6:30 pm. Junior teams will also compete.



Food vendors will be present, with proceeds from their sales donated back to Special Olympics.



Prizes will be awarded for the fastest pull time in mens, womens and co-ed (minimum of six women) and two youth divisions (youth and pee wee), as well as to the team that shows the most team spirit and the team with the best team T-shirt. There will also be an award for the top fundraising Special Olympics athlete participant, top fundraising individual and top fundraising team. Youth and pee wee divisions will pull a UPS delivery truck.



All participants receive the official Big Brown Truck Pull T-shirt, but teams who raise more money can earn prizes including Special Olympics Kentucky can koozies, sun shades and blankets.



Proceeds from the event go to benefit Special Olympics athletes in McCracken Co and throughout the state. To register or donate to the event go to paducahtruckpull.com.




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IL House passes amendment to allow those who refuse vaccine to be fired
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By The Associated Press

Aug. 01, 2018 | FRANKFORT

By The Associated Press Aug. 01, 2018 | 05:33 PM | FRANKFORT

The remains of a Kentucky soldier who disappeared after a 1950 Korean War battle with high casualties will be returned home for a burial with full military honors.



Army Pfc. Joe S. Elmore's remains were originally thought to be of a British soldier when they were discovered in North Korea in 1995, but they could not be identified. The remains were later buried in South Korea.



Nearly 20 years later, the remains were disinterred and transported to The Defense Department's POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which seeks to identify missing and unidentified American soldiers. The agency used DNA and anthropological analysis to match the remains to Elmore.



Elmore was 20 when he was killed during a battle on Dec. 2, 1950, in Hamgyeong Province, North Korea. He will be given a military funeral in Albany, Kentucky, on Aug. 18.



The POW/MIA Accounting Agency said in a release that Elmore was among about 2,500 U.S. soldiers that were attacked in late November by overwhelming Chinese forces near the Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. The attacks pushed the U.S. forces to withdraw south and by Dec. 6, the Army had evacuated about 1,500 soldiers. The release said the rest had been captured, killed, or were missing in enemy territory.



The agency says about 7,700 Americans remain unaccounted for from the Korean War.





Original Story (Aug. 1):



A Kentucky soldier who went missing in 1950 during the Korean War has been identified by his remains.



PFC Joe Stanton Elmore was 20 when he died on Dec. 2, 1950, in Changjim County, Hamgyeong Province, North Korea.



A release from Gov. Matt Bevin's office says his remains will be returned to his family in Bowling Green.



The Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, which keeps a record of missing American soldiers, announced Elmore's identification on July 3. He was a member of the 7th Infantry Division and one of about 2,500 U.S. soldiers assigned to the 31st Regimental Combat Team, also known as Task Force MacLean and Task Force Faith.



This week, the U.S. received the remains of dozens of presumed U.S. war dead that were handed over by North Korea.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has called for the end of the destruction of the Dilijan National Park and a halt to the actions of the wood mafia.

I am taking a firm position on the matter, and I hope that all present will be so advised, Pashinyan said at a meeting with Dilijan community residents, according to a government press release.

Dilijan National Park has been in the news of late after Haghartzin village residents attacked four environmental activists who were patrolling the park to prevent illegal logging.

Several days later, residents of Haghartzin and surrounding villages blocked the M4 highway linking Armenia and Georgia and demanded that the government allow them to enter Dilijan National Park to cut down trees for fuel.
Oh, well. I read a comment from one guy about this. He claimed:



"You realize they weren't allies?(answer reagarding that Hitler and Stalin were allies) They had an agreement to not attack each other. England, Poland, France, Romania had the same agreements with Germany. So looks like they were also allies with Germany, right?



Germany invaded Poland on first September. Allies told Poland that if Germany invaded it, they'll help Poland. So what happened?



On 3rd September allies declared war to Germany and... betrayed Poland. No one came to help it.



On 17th September USSR came to Poland. Why?



They knew that Germany, sooner or later, would invade USSR anyway, so they wanted to halt Germany from invading Poland further, thus being closer to USSR if they were to attack



USSR and Poland were enemies. When Germany wanted to invade Czechoslovakia, USSR asked Poland to let their troops go through their country, to help Czechoslovakia, to which Poland refused. Huh, betrayed. Later Poland refused any help from USSR and didn't want to sign anything with it. So after Hitler invaded Poland, USSR had no other choice, if they wanted to halt him and have some advantage in the upcoming war.



This land belonged to Ukrainians and Belorussians anyway



Even Churchil admited, that it was a right decision, if they wanted to protect Russia.



Now think what would have happened, if they didn't "invade" Poland? Germany would have started their attack 250km closer to east.



And don't forget. People like to say "Duh! America supplied USSR"



Maybe. I haven't studied it yet. But they were also trading with Germany during WW2, which provided Germany much needed materials for their army"



So I wanted to know thoughts of historians regarding those claims. As it represented a view with which I wasn't familiar.



So, it's a bs?
So, for Sub-Saharan Africa, here's a list. I can't claim that it's somehow comprehensive or complete.1. Richard Reid - Warfare in African History2. John Lamphear (ed.) - African Military History3. John Thornton - Warfare in Atlantic Africa, 1500-18004. Robert Smith - Warfare & Diplomacy in Pre-colonial West Africa5. Manuel Barcia - West African Warfare in Bahia and Cuba: Soldier Slaves in the Atlantic World, 1807-18446. Joseph Smaldone - Warfare in the Sokoto Caliphate: Historical and Sociological Perspectives7. Murray Last - The Sokoto Caliphate8. R. A. Adeleye - Power and diplomacy in Northern Nigeria, 1804-1906: the Sokoto Caliphate and its enemies9. Paul Lovejoy - Jihad in West Africa during the Age of Revolutions10. B. O. Oloruntimehin - The Segu Tukulor Empire11. Richard Roberts - Warriors, Merchants, and Slaves: The State and the Economy in the Middle Niger Valley, 1700-191412. Michael Gomez - Pragmatism in the Age of Jihad: The Precolonial State of Bundu13. Michael Gomez - African Dominion: A New History of Empire in Early and Medieval West Africa14. Ahmad b. Furtu, Dierk Lange - A Sudanic chronicle: the Borno expeditions of Idris Alauma (1564-1576) according to the account of Ahmad b. Furtu15. Kyari Mohammed - Borno in the Rabih years, 1893-1901: the rise and crash of a predatory state16. Robin Law - The Horse in West African History17. Robin Law - The Oyo Empire, c.1600c. 1836: A West African Imperialism in the Era of the Atlantic Slave Trade18. Robin Law - Contemporary Source Material for the History of the Old Oyo Empire, 1627-182419. J. F. Ade Ajayi, Robert Smith - Yoruba warfare in the nineteenth century20. I. A. Akinjogbin - Dahomey and Its Neighbours, 1708-181821. Robin Law - The slave coast of West Africa, 1550-175022. Stanley Alpern - Amazons of Black Sparta: The Women Warriors of Dahomey23. Robert Edgerton - Warrior Women: The Amazons of Dahomey and the Nature of War24. Thomas Maroukis - Warfare and society in the Kingdom of Dahomey: 1818-189425. Festus Aboagye - Indigenous African Warfare: Its Concept and Art in the Gold Coast, Asante and the Northern Territories Up to Early 1900s26. Robert Edgerton - The Fall of the Asante Empire: The Hundred-Year War For Africa's Gold Coast27. John Fynn - Asante and Its Neighbours, 1700-180728. Ivor Wilks - Asante in the Nineteenth Century29. Prempeh I (King of Asante) - 'The history of Ashanti Kings and the whole country itself' and other writings by Agyeman Prempeh30. George Hatke - Aksum and Nubia: Warfare, Commerce, and Political Fictions in Ancient Northeast Africa31. Sihab ad-Din Ahmad bin 'Abd al-Qader - Futuh Al-Habasha: The Conquest of Abyssinia32. Richard Pankhurst - The Ethiopian royal chronicles33. Richard Pankhurst - The Ethiopian Borderlands: Essays in Regional History from Ancient Times to the End of the 18th Century34. Richard Reid - War in Pre-colonial Eastern Africa: The Patterns & Meanings of State-level Conflict in the Nineteenth Century35. Linda Heywood - Njinga of Angola: Africa's Warrior Queen36. John Thornton - The Kingdom of Kongo : civil war and transition, 1641-171837. S. I. G. Mudenge - A Political History of Munhumutapa: c1400-190238. W. G. L. Randles - The empire of Monomotapa, from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century39. D. N. Beach - War and politics in Zimbabwe, 1840-190040. Timothy Stapleton - A Military History of South Africa: From the Dutch-Khoi Wars to the End of Apartheid41. Adrian Greaves, Xolani Mkhize - The Zulus at War: The History, Rise, and Fall of the Tribe That Washed Its Spears42. John Iliffe - Honour in African History43. Bruce Vandervort - Wars Of Imperial Conquest In Africa, 1830-1914For some of the titles listed above, despite the fact that their titles do not seem to be about warfare (such as Iliffe's book Honour in African History), they do actually discuss warfare in some parts, but just from a different perspective (such as economic or social effects) from most of the rest of the books on the list. Both Wilks' and Fynn's books about Asante are more about politics and government, especially Wilks' book, but military affairs are discussed at some points. For #37 and #38 (about Zimbabwe), the information in those books is also more political than military, but they are included because there is some discussion of wars.I don't necessarily agree with or endorse everything in these books. Two examples of things I disagree with: 1) a claim in Robert Smith's book Warfare and Diplomacy in Pre-colonial West Africa (#4) that gun manufacturing was unknown in precolonial west Africa with only one exception isn't actually correct, since there are multiple other cases that the author misses, and 2) a claim near the end of Robin Law's book The Oyo empire (#17), about the main economic basis of the state and the cause of the state's collapse that I don't agree with either, based on the fact that I think the author has some misinterpretations or errors in reasoning. Those books are still quite informative and well researched in general despite there being a few things in them that I disagree with. For #18, there is a direct link to a pdf version below the worldcat link.Thornton's book (#3 above) on almost the same subject as Smith's book (#4) is a bit better than Smith's earlier book, but Smith's book can still be read since there are a few areas it discusses that Thornton's book does not. Regarding #20 by Akinjogbin, there are certain errors in there which #21 serves as a partial corrective to, but it is still an informative book with regard to the wars that occurred in that area (the area of the modern day Republic of Benin, formerly called the Republic of Dahomey) in the 18th century despite those errors. Akinjogbin's book is available to be read on archive.org (if one creates a free account and requests to "borrow" it), though it can't be downloaded from there:Also, I think that Edgerton's Fall of the Asante Empire (#26) isn't really as objective at it has been described as being in certain reviews, and that it has some errors or instances where he takes certain erroneous claims in sources at face value despite other research from other scholars having already proven those claims to be incorrect with other/better sources. But it's an interesting and lively read, despite certain omissions or errors.For the few books listed as e-books in the worldcat links I posted, they all have hard copy versions available, but the e-book versions are just what is coming up first for them on worldcat.As I said above, this isn't meant to be a "complete" list and there's probably some stuff I'm missing.
Closure may come to two families in Colorado as authorities announced they had charged a man with killing four people more than 30 years ago.

At a joint news conference Friday in Aurora, law enforcement officials said they issued arrest warrants for Alexander Christopher Ewing, 57, whose DNA linked him to the cold cases, authorities said. Ewing is in the custody of the Nevada Department of Corrections on separate charges.

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The gruesome killings began on Jan. 10, 1984, when Patricia Smith was found dead in her home in Lakewood, about a 7-mile drive from Denver, authorities said. Six days later, on Jan. 16, Bruce Bennett was found dead with his wife, Debra, and their 7-year-old daughter. The couple's 3-year-old daughter was severely injured, but survived. Both children, police said, had been sexually assaulted.

While investigators saw similarities between the killings from the start, the release said technology was limited. The investigations remained open, authorities said, but they were considered cold cases for over 30 years.

"This case haunted our detectives that responded that night," Aurora Police Chief Nicholas Metz said Friday. "It was a case that haunted the families and the victims to the core."

Then in 2010, a DNA link was established between the two cases, the release said. However, it wasn't until July, when Nevada prison officials entered Ewing's DNA into a database, that the Colorado Investigation Bureau discovered the genetic profile of the DNA matched Ewing, according to CNN affiliate KMGH. The charges against Ewing include three counts of first-degree murder, felony murder, attempted first-degree murder and two counts of first-degree sexual assault.

Randy McCoy, a friend of the Bennett family, told CNN affiliate KCNC he wanted to be present during Friday's press conference.

"I just wanted to hear it," he said between tears. "Hear that they had found the guy. Not just on the news or something, I wanted to be here to hear it."

The extradition process to return Ewing to Colorado from Nevada has begun, authorities said Friday. Colorado authorities said they'd ask the governors of both Colorado and Nevada to have Ewing extradited, KMGH reports.

According to the Nevada Department of Corrections, Ewing has been in prison in Nevada on charges ranging from aggravated escape to burglary to attempted murder. The charges span from the mid-1980s to 2013. He had been serving time since the summer of 1984 when he escaped the custody of two Arizona sheriff's deputies while being transported from Utah for a court appearance on attempted murder and burglary charges, according to KCNC.

During his escape, KCNC reported that Ewing entered an unlocked home and beat a woman and her husband with an ax handle.
When President Trump arrives in Utica on Monday, he'll be greeted by the 22nd District Congresswoman with a long list of local matters to discuss.

"Oh, I have a list of issues I want to bring up with him when I have my chance with him," said Congresswoman Claudia Tenney, for whom Trump is hosting a fundraiser in Utica. "Actually, he's a good listener and he really cares about our community so I'm just really excited. I think it's a huge testament to our community that we have the President of the United States who cares enough to come to my hometown and do an event."

Trump is hosting the $1,000-$15,000 per plate fundraiser at a Utica location that neither Tenney's campaign nor the White House have disclosed. It's a move that illustrates Republicans' determination to hold onto the hotly-contested 22nd Congressional District seat.

Those paying the $15,000 will get a roundtable with the president.

RELATED: Dueling Congressional fundraisers

"A lot of the people are going to be names you're going to be very familiar with are going to be at the roundtable discussion. A lot of local business leaders, people who are interested in talking to the president about policies we need in place on the federal side to continue to allow their businesses to thrive and grow in upstate New York," said Tenney.

The Congresswoman alluded to a possible second, less-restrictive, all-inclusive presidential visit to central New York, as the hard-fought, high-stakes race for the 22nd Congressional District draws closer.

"We're hoping the President will come back for a rally where everyone can attend," Tenney said.
UTICA  Mohawk Valley Community Action Agency held a party at Quinn Park in Utica on Friday, and they invited the local community.

Families the agency serves came and enjoyed a day full of food and fun, free activities. MVCAA's Community Day is an annual event thats held rain or shine on the second Friday in August.

We have popcorn, snow cones, cotton candy, different vendors that come out like the Utica Zoo, we have cocoa, face painting, we have Dolly that does balloons, said Sheila Nova, program director for youth services with MVCAA.

Kids left the event with happy memories and free backpacks, courtesy of MVCAA.




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They arrived as complete underdogs to take on many of the best nations in the world, but Team Mexico turned the sport on its head Friday when winning the Longines FEI Jumping Nations Cup of Ireland in Dublin (IRL). This last leg of the Europe Division 1 series was electrifying from beginning to end, and incredibly tense in the closing stages with the home crowd willing their own boys to win it.

But Eugenio Garza Perez (22) and his veteran team-mates Federico Fernandez (50), Patricio Pasquel (46) and Enrique Gonzalez (54) enjoyed the warmest reception, including a great big Mexican wave, from the 20,000 spectators when producing three second-round clears to pin Ireland, France and Italy into joint-runner-up spot. Mexico had never won at the Irish fixture before and it was 37 years since they last contested the coveted Aga Khan trophy at the historic Royal Dublin Society showgrounds. So along with their delighted Chef dEquipe Stany van Paesschen they didnt hold back on the celebrations afterwards.

"Ive been doing this sport a long time and Ive never had a day like this!" Enrique Gonzalez said, whose last-to-go effort proved the clincher.

The Mexicans were really incredible, they came back in the second round with real determination and when youre in contention in a Nations Cup thats how you have to ride, Irish Chef dEquipe Rodrigo Pessoa added.

It seemed the reigning European Champions from Ireland would have it all their own way when they cruised into the lead on a zero score at the halfway stage, with Italy snapping at their heels on four faults followed by USA, Mexico and France carrying eight apiece. The Swiss, British and Dutch were already down the line, eventually finishing sixth, seventh and eighth while USA slotted ahead of them in fifth despite being hampered by elimination for Jamie Barge at the water in both rounds.

Mexican pathfinder Garza Perez on Victer Finn DH Z (Va Vite x Stakkato) showed a dramatic improvement from his 12-fault first-round effort when clear second time out, and when Pasquel on Babel (Billy du Lys x High Flyer) produced one of four double-clears of the day and Gonzalez and Chacna (Chacco-Blue x Narew xx) wrapped it up by also being foot-perfect all the pressure was on the Italians and Irish. And both faltered, adding four faults to complete along with France on a total of 12 as Team Mexico made history and a whole lot of new Irish friends.

Its a dream come true. Since we got the invitation we have not stopped dreaming about this moment. We worked hard to be here and we enjoyed every second! said Fernandez who posted two four-fault scores with Landpeter do Feroleto (Landritter x Wangmix). This is a very unique horse-and-rider partnership, both are survivors. Federico was involved in a devastating air-crash that left many dead in 1987, and Peter, as the horse is known, also suffered serious injury in a lorry accident that nearly took his life. The pure joy of todays success was written all over every Mexican face, and Federico was in tears at the post-competition press conference.

"After what happened to me I feel an obligation to be happy, and today was one of the happiest days of my life!" Fernandez said.

Garza Perez was happy too because he is trained by Irish showjumping legend Eddie Macken and was disappointed with his three mistakes in the first round. But he put it all right when clear at his second attempt. I was anxious not to let Eddie down and I hope today was as good for him as it was for me. Its really out of a dream, its incredible!

Todays result confirms Belgium as winners of the Europe Division 1 series with Ireland finishing a close second, just five points behind. Switzerland, France, Netherlands, Great Britain and Sweden fill the next five places on the leaderboard and all seven countries will compete at the Longines FEI Jumping Nations Cup Final in Barcelona (ESP) in October. However Germany and Italy have missed the cut and the Spanish who have finished last at the end of the 2018 season will be relegated to Europe Division 2 next year.
Audius Raises $5.5M For SoundCloud On The Blockchain

Audius has raised a $5.5 million to use blockchain and cryptocurrency to assure that artists are paid fairly. It's a pitch made repeatedly by numerous startups in recent months, but Audius now has the capital to actually move this game-changing concept forward.

_____________________________

Music tech startup Audius has raised a $5.5 million Series A funding round led by General Catalyst and Lightspeed, with participation from Kleiner Perkins, Pantera Capital, 122West and Ascolta Ventures.

What is Audius?

Audius is building a decentralized, community-owned and artist-controlled music sharing protocol. Think of it as a SoundCloud-like open protocol offering artists blockchain based music attribution, distribution and monetization for their content.

The Audius team views SoundCloud, Spotify, YouTube and other music platforms, as well as, social media as perpetuating many of the same evils attributed to old school records labels: unfair payments, closed databases and an ever-changing rulebook.

"Presently, centralized music sharing platforms hoard user data in locked up databases," according Audius. "This results in a minority arbitrarily controlling the music distribution for the majority. As both creators and fans, we want to see a world in which all data is openly accessible to all artists, providing a true equality of opportunity and letting the music speak for itself."

Musician/Founder Ranidu

Audius co-founder and CEO Ranidu is a platinum-selling Sri Lankan Pop artist and DJ, formerly signed to Sony. His lense is "15 years of building fan bases on platforms that come and go, change the rules, and dont have fair compensation models for artists." In response, Audius promises to improves existing music platforms in three ways:

1) Longevity

"Platforms such as Myspace, Youtube, SoundCloud have all changed the rules on creators many times and we have seen artists lose their followings, views, and revenue streams again and again. We want Artists to create their following on a platform that will exist forever  regardless of the health of the company that runs it. This is the promise of the community ownership that blockchain based platforms like Audius brings."

2) Artist Control

"Artists have never had control over the platforms where they contributed content. We at Audius believe artists should have the power to vote on changes to the Audius protocol, including issues like content distribution and monetization structure. By creating a community-owned level playing field for artists, everyone wins."

3) Transparent Payments

"Artist payments on centralized platforms like Spotify and Soundcloud are slow and opaque. It takes anywhere from a month (for a fully independent artist) to 18 months (for a major label artist) to get paid for streams today. We can change this by using a blockchain-based public ledger to make near-instant, fully-transparent payments."

Clearly, these are ambitious and even audacious goals. But they could reshape how artists monetize music and connect with fans, as well as, the entire music industry. We will be following Audius closely.

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The International Amazon Workers Voice recently sat down with Camille about her experiences working for Amazon over the last two years. She came into contact with the World Socialist Web Site at the urging of Shannon Allen, an Amazon worker who reached out to the WSWS to cover her story of injury and subsequent homelessness at the Haslet, Texas facility.

Camille is a young woman in her 20s who lives in Southern California and has been working at the ONT6 Fulfillment Center in Riverside County since 2016. Camille described a situation similar to the Haslet facility, including low wages, difficult working conditions and authoritarian management practices.

Currently tens of thousands of homes in Riverside County are at risk of being engulfed by the Holy fire, which has burned over 10,000 acres since Monday and is only 5 percent contained, with authorities reporting no end in sight.

Camille said the fire has created even more dire working conditions and particularly for those under evacuation orders. The air quality is horrible at the facility. The fire is so close they are closing schools, yet Amazon is still forcing people to come to work. Some of my coworkers have homes that are in danger of being lost, yet they arent letting them take leave.

The companys disregard for workers during this emergency situation is part of a larger pattern Camille outlined to IAWV reporters.

It's really hot in there. The management have scanners that gauge the temperature in the morning, and then set the air conditioning on at an uncomfortable 80 degrees. Can you imagine walking all day for 10 hours in an 80 degree room? They have it running at 80 degrees and its supposedly conditioning the air. That is what they say!

You walk in the building and you feel like you just want to go home. During the last heat wave, the temperatures would reach up to 118 degrees inside the facility. The senior operations official said that if it was going to get any hotter they would have had to shut the whole place down. But how much hotter does it have to be? Does someone have to pass out or die? The Haslet facility, where Shannon Allen worked, often had a heat index of 80, 90 and even 100 degrees.

Coupled with the stifling heat, Camille works 10-hour days and often has to take on the work intended for two individuals. People are constantly quitting and Amazon does not want to open up transfers. We are losing people every month and it is essentially double the work for all of us. Working at Amazon demands an unsustainable level of physical activity. I walk sometimes about 12 miles a day. But I really feel bad for all the pick workers. They can walk up to 20 miles a day and sometimes more.

Camille added, We cant have our phones on us, but a lot of pick workers track their numbers with a Fitbit or Apple watch. She remarked, Pick work has 10-hour work days and at six days a week. Imagine walking 120 miles and 60 hours per week? Then you get one day off to recuperate and you have to it all over again!

Due to low pay at Amazon, Camille was forced to move back in with her parents. She explained that most people she knows at her facility begin at $11.75 an hour and receive a 25 cent raise every six months. I am grateful for having the option to go back living with my parents. I know some people in there that arent making it. They have two, three, four kids, so many dont even have the option to quit.

Even the low-level management responsible for pushing workers to the brink are overworked and underpaid. Our area managers used to make 55,000 a year, but now Amazon is hiring them at 45,000, and with reduced incentives such as stocks and benefits. Managers are on salary and on peak season work from 5 a.m. all the way until 8 p.m. at night. Sometimes they work 14- 15-hour days, Camille said.

When IAWV reporters explained that the casualization of labor and the driving down of wages were the policy of bringing jobs back to America, Camille agreed, adding, It has gotten worse over the years. But Amazon doesnt care. They dont care if you quit. They dont care if you get injured. Whatever happens, Amazon is going to replace you.

Like most seasonal workers in other industries, many Amazon employees receive no benefits, including pension and healthcare. Camille explained that Amazon categorizes its warehouse employees by badge color, distinguishing between a seasonal and a regular full-time worker.

One of the main issues in understaffing is that they arent converting enough white badges (seasonal workers) into blue badges (full-time employees). There are still people in the building I work at that have been here since peak season, so about eight months, and have yet to be converted into a blue badge. We just had one of our last seasonal workers quit after eight months. She said she wasnt going to put up with it anymore.

This division also affects the issue of the stock benefits promised by the company to newly hired white badge workers after two years of employment.

The reality for the majority of Amazon workers, however, is either termination, injury or resignation prior to reaching their two years with the company. Many workers believe Amazon management commonly fires workers arbitrarily as they approach the date by which the stocks are to be issued.

Camille said, We have no job security. I have seen on many occasions people who were really close to their two-year mark and get fired for just about any reason. I have seen people fired one week, and even a few days before receiving their stocks. My friend was fired two months ago for drawing two arrows on a whiteboard board and they marked her for vandalism. Security called her in and told her she was going to get fired. They then retracted their initial charges, since they were so absurd, and instead claimed she had gone negative on her hours. It went from vandalism charges to running out of hours.

Camille continued, I have heard of many stories from my coworkers about people getting fired for what they were posting on Facebook. Our supervisors warn us all the time that we could be terminated for what we post online, but it happens more than you think. Just go read The Face of Amazon. It is a website started by a guy who was fired for trying to form a union. The management ended up firing him for something completely unrelated.

Time-off task (TOT) is generated by management when their employees take time to go to the restroom when off break, or when employees are working behind schedule. Given the large facilities and warehouses, going through security clearance, taking a bathroom break, the TOT can add up and management uses these figures as an easy means to justify firing workers.

We have to worry about TOT because the managers can easily pull that up in their computers. If you go over 30 minutes TOT, then you get written up. After you receive another writeup, you are gone. Its very easy to acquire TOT as a pick worker to stop and take a drink or even have management come talk to you. Ninety-nine percent of the people in pick want to transfer out, Camille said.

The stress and frantic pace affect all workers to varying degrees. Camille stated, I go home with a sore back every day. Just standing on my feet for that long causes my back to hurt. My feet hurt too. When I first started working there, I literally could not walk out of the building because my feet were so sore. She said, It took me three to four months to adjust.

I have not gotten injured thankfully. But a lot of people I know have quit because they cant physically take it. A lot of people on the floor dont even report their injuries. She also mentioned that many coworkers withhold their injuries in order to avoid dealing with management. Others arent so lucky.

People get injured all the time. I had a friend who I came in with when I started working and she got hurt in March and hasnt been back since. She now has permanent and partial disability in her left wrist. She cant work in a warehouse ever again. Camille reported that for the lifetime injury sustained on her friends wrist, Amazon settled with the employee with a dismal sum of $15,000, with her waiving all rights to discuss her injury with the press. Amazon management offered Shannon Allen a measly $3,500 to essentially shut her up, roughly the same dollar amount Jeff Bezos makes every second as CEO of the company.

Camille also spoke about the inability of Amazon workers to afford the cost of living and the worsening economic conditions facing young people. It is hard to be a single person to pay all those bills with what Amazon pays you. Most of my coworkers are in their early 20s, but I have some that are 65 years old. Most of the older folks are having to come back to Amazon because their retirement money has run out. Some of these people are former lawyers and real estate agents.

I have a friend who got a masters degree and cant find a job. She ended up taking up hours at a bar to help make ends meet. People are now going to school to get a degree but hardly ever find work in their field. Why waste your time and money for college when you know you cant find work?

Responding to the vast degree of social inequality in the US compared to Bezos, she responded, I think anybody would agree that Amazon makes their money cutting corners, not addressing the safety of their warehouses, not putting in air conditioning, and working people mercilessly. He has people coming in to measure the temperature inside the facilities so he knows what the conditions are like.

On the way forward for Amazon, UPS and other logistical workers, Camille said, They need to treat the workers better. We need a raise; not so many working hours. We all have to come together and make a stand. I dont think its right that they are trying to give Shannon $3,500 for her back injury. Its a slap in the face.

Shannon Allens and Camilles stories speak to the conditions of Amazon facilities in the United States and internationally. We urge logistics workers of all industries, including UPS and Amazon workers, to contact the the International Amazons Workers Voice to express their grievances and address the issues they currently face.
Last weekend, Oskar Lafontaine and Sahra Wagenknecht, two leading members of Germanys Left Party, launched the #StandUp coalition, combining anti-corporate demagogy with nationalist and xenophobic positions pioneered by the extreme right.

All major German newspapers reported extensively on the launch. In last Saturdays edition, Der Spiegel published three articles on the subject. These included a seven-author piece entitled Stand up for Sahra, an interview with Wagenknecht, and an opinion piece authored by leading Green Party member Antje Vollmer, SPD parliamentary deputy Marco Bulow, and Left Party parliamentary deputy Sevim Dagdelen.

The initiative was announced in May in a five-page statement outlining its nationalist worldview.

Wagenknecht blamed refugees for the social crisis. Public administration, cities, and municipalities have been overwhelmed by the number of refugees, she wrote at the time. The shortage of social housing, overstretched schools, and lack of kindergarten places have been exacerbated by the uncontrolled influx of refugeesto the detriment of the already disadvantaged. In the following passage, she declared, If politicians continue to look on as radical Islamist hate preachers indoctrinate 5-year-olds with a worldview that makes integration next to impossible, the social climate will be poisoned.

To avoid a new round of criticism of such right-wing standpoints, the initiators of the project refrained from making their own political statement on the website. Instead, under the heading The citizens must be heard, they presented a series of eighteen short videos.

Max, a student, complained of unaffordable housing costs in urban centers; camera operator Simon stated that environmental protection could not be conducted on the basis of political interests; dispatcher Daniela said we should not profit from the worlds crises and wars; Margot, a pensioner, noted that she cannot afford her apartment on her low pension; pastor Kurt declared that there were too many foreigners in Germany.

The longest interview was with a trade union official, who pointed to the poor working conditions in many industries, and claimed that the new coalition movement will increase pressure on the government parties and force the adoption of better policies.

Earlier this year, Wagenknecht declared that the movement would be launched in the autumn and the latest indications are that the official launch will take place on September 4. Lafontaine and Wagenknecht have reserved the main hall at the federal press conference centre for this date.

There is a good reason why the projects launch has been accelerated. Resistance to the grand coalitions right-wing agenda is growing more rapidly and on a broader scale than many observers had expected. The adoption by the federal government of the Alternative for Germanys (AfD) far-right policies has triggered mass protests, with tens of thousands taking to the streets.

While support for the governing Christian Democratic Union/Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) and Social Democratic (SPD) parties has continued to fall in polls below the historic low of last years federal election, and support for the Left Party remains stagnant, 70,000 people protested in late May in Berlin alone against the AfD.

In June, the anti-racist petition initiated under the slogan Solidarity instead of homeland received 15,000 signatures within a short period of time. Chapters of the Sea Bridge, which campaigns for emergency rescue at sea in the Mediterranean and the acceptance of refugees, were founded in over 90 cities.

In Munich, 50,000 people demonstrated under the slogan #HoundedOut against the CSU and federal governments refugee policies. Prior to this, 40,000 people took to the streets of the Bavarian state capital to demonstrate against Bavarias new police law and the sweeping attacks on democratic rights it contains.

Lafontaine and Wagenknecht want to prevent this radicalisation from intersecting with a revival of the class struggle and the growing militancy among workers.

The struggle at Ryanair, where workers in Belgium, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Sweden struck simultaneously yesterday, stands in stark contrast to Lafontaine and Wagenknechts nationalist agenda. It demonstrates that the return of the class struggle is an international phenomenon and is increasingly assuming an international form.

Earlier this year, a strike movement developed among teachers in the United States in opposition to the official trade unions. In France, railway workers fought for three months against Macrons privatization of the state-owned SNCF and the planned lay-off of 120,000 workers until the struggle was strangled by the trade unions. In Romania, Ford workers rejected a miserable contract and took spontaneous strike action in the face of the unions opposition. Workers in other Eastern European countries are also rebelling against conditions of brutal exploitation.

Workers are disgusted by the right-wing policies of the Social Democrats, Left Party, and trade unions, which, in the name of defending production locations and maintaining international competitiveness, are attacking wages and working conditions, rearming the military, and sabotaging all workers struggles.

Lafontaine and Wagenknecht fear that this development could move in an independent direction and that a socialist perspective such as that advocated by the Socialist Equality Party could win support. They want to prevent this at all costs. Despite their occasional criticisms of the SPD, where Lafontaine enjoyed a forty-year career, they repeatedly note that they want to strengthen it.

Wagenknecht told Der Spiegel that in the SPD and Greens, there are many members who are fed up with supporting policies in the interests of the corporate and rich lobbies. Their chances to substantially change their parties would grow if her coalition gains strength, she added. If there is enough pressure, the parties, even in their own interests, will open their lists for our ideas and campaigners.

The hope for substantial changes in the SPD and Greens is an illusion and a political dead end. Lafontaine encouraged similar illusions in 1998, when he organized the election campaign for Gerhard Schroder, who then enforced the Hartz labour laws and the Agenda 2010 austerity measures. This was also the case in 2007, when Lafontaine took over as leader of the Left Party, which advocates a no less right-wing and anti-worker line than the SPD.

The future role of the coalition is being kept deliberately vague. As a movement, it cannot stand independently in elections, meaning it will serve to strengthen the SPD, Greens, and Left Party. However, if the Social Democrats suffer a total collapse, as in Greece, France, and other countries, the movement could be transformed into a party to continue the pursuit of the same agenda.

The new coalitions policy is directed towards leading the growing militancy within the working class into a nationalist blind alley, strengthening right-wing elements who will combat this militancy politically, and physically if required, and bolstering the reactionary trade union bureaucracy. This is the logic of its nationalist and xenophobic programme.

In her interview with Der Spiegel, Wagenknecht once again spoke out against open borders and, in the style of the AfD, blamed refugees and Merkels 2015 refugee policy for the social crisis. Wagenknecht stated, Open borders are no help to the poorest, because they have no chance to go anywhere. We dont combat poverty in developing countries by attracting their middle class to Europe.

This is reactionary cynicism. While the financial elite makes unrestrained use of its right to invest and exploit the working class wherever it likes around the world, Wagenknecht denies the right to workers and refugee families from parts of the world scarred by war and starvation to live in the country where they are able find work, housing, and a decent standard of living.

Wagenknecht vehemently rejects the fundamental socialist principle that the working class is an international class with no fatherland and is united in struggle against capitalist exploitation, militarism, war, and fascism.

She connects her tub-thumping nationalism and defence of the nation state with Oskar Lafontaine, who in the 1990s as SPD chairman was already employing the rhetoric of the far-right to agitate against foreign workers. With the threat, Whoever abuses the right to hospitality has forfeited the right to it, Wagenknecht received praise from AfD leader Alexander Gauland.

This nationalism and hatred of foreigners, combined with the defence of the state security apparatus, are part of the political DNA of the new coalition. Workers should treat it with undisguised hostility, unite with workers in other countries and refugees, and wage a common struggle for socialism in opposition to capitalist exploitation, fascism, and war.
The diplomatic standoff between Canada and Saudi Arabia that was triggered by a Twitter post late last week by Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland shows no sign of abating.

Riyadh has announced sweeping measures to punish Ottawa for Freelands hypocritical criticisms of the absolutist regimes human rights abuses. The vehemence of the Saudi reaction has stunned Canadas Justin Trudeau-led Liberal government and elite. But what has most perturbed, even roiled, Ottawa is Washingtons refusal to take any steps to rein in its Saudi ally.

The row erupted when Freeland tweeted her alarm at the news that Saudi security forces had arrested womens rights activists, including Samar Badawi, the sister of jailed blogger Ralph Badawi, whose wife is a Canadian citizen.

Freelands post was a continuation of the Liberal governments efforts to conceal Canadas substantial economic ties with, and political support, for the Saudi dictatorshipincluding a massive $15 billion arms dealbehind vacuous human rights propaganda.

But to Ottawas shock and dismay, the Saudi regime chose to take great umbrage at Freelands post. Denouncing the Trudeau government for interfering in its internal affairs, Riyadh has kicked Canadas ambassador out of the country, ordered 7,000 Saudi foreign students to leave Canada, suspended flights to the country of the Saudi national airline, vowed to prevent future commercial deals with Canadian companies, and ordered a fire-sale of Saudi-owned Canadian assets.

For several days it was unclear whether the 75,000 barrels of oil that Saudi Arabia exports to Canada daily would be affected. But on Thursday, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said Riyadh has a firm and longstanding policy that political disputes should not impact on its oil sales.

A close ally of US imperialism in its predatory wars across the Middle East and preparations for war with Iran, Saudi Arabia is one of the worlds most vicious and repressive dictatorships. It regularly beheads prisoners and arrests dissidents at home, while waging a near genocidal war in neighbouring Yemen that has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of civilians and displaced millions.

Riyadhs aggressive response to Canadas diplomatic slap-on-the-wrist reflects the growing power of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. Through militarism and the promotion of a virulent Saudi nationalism, bin Salman is seeking to strengthen Riyadhs role as a regional hegemon allied with Washington.

That being said, Ottawas attempt to pose as a defender of human rights reeks of hypocrisy and cynicism. The reality is that the Trudeau government, like its Liberal and Conservative predecessors, has invoked human rights to justify a series of violent Canadian imperialist military interventions around the globe. These began with Canadas participation in the NATO bombardment of Yugoslavia in 1999 and continue to this day with Canadas involvement in the US-led war in Syria and Iraq and its leading role in NATOs drive to threaten and strategically encircle Russia.

In 2011, a Canadian general led the NATO regime change war in Libya that toppled the Gaddafi regimea war justified in the name of protecting the civilian population, but in which NATO used al-Qaeda aligned Islamists as its shock troops and which has left the oil-rich North African country in ruins. Canadian troops deployed to Libya described themselves, according to the Ottawa Citizen, as al-Qaedas air force. Canada has similarly collaborated with far-right forces in US-orchestrated regime-change operations in Haiti in 2004 and Ukraine in 2014.

While Trudeau today grandstands in the face of the Saudi reprisals, saying Ottawa will never apologize for advocating for human rights, the reality is Canada and his government have hitherto been staunch allies of the Saudi regime, including in its invasion of Yemen.

Canadas $15 billion deal to sell Canadian-made armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia only took effect because the Trudeau government approved it and Canadian officials have continue to defend it, including again this week, as commensurate with Canadas defence of human rights. This has involved Ottawa willfully ignoring evidence that the vehicles have been used to violently repress the Shia minority in eastern Saudi Arabia and in the illegal Yemen war.

Although publicly Canadas government is making a show of defiance, it is anxious to mend ties with Riyadh so as to ensure Canadian big business interests are not harmed. Behind the scenes, Freeland is reportedly in contact with her Saudi counterpart. She is also said to have approached several European countries, including Sweden and Germany, in the hopes they might mediate an end to the dispute.

However, the Canadian elites biggest concern over the developments of the past week is that they have provided yet further proof that Washington is intent on redefining its relationship with Ottawa.

When asked to comment on the Canada-Saudi dispute, the US State Department, in a carefully-worded statement, described both Canada and Saudi Arabia as important partners, and pointedly refused to either criticize Riyadh for the jailing of the womens rights activists or urge it to withdraw any of its retaliatory measures. This has been interpreted in the Canadian media as a slap in the face for Canada given Ottawas decades-long strategic partnership with US imperialism, including in the NATO alliance and through NORAD, and its prominent role in the current American military-strategic offensives in the Middle East and against Russia and China. The Globe and Mail, Canadas purported newspaper of record, led its Wednesday edition with the front page headline, US refuses to back Canada in Saudi Arabia dispute.

Washingtons refusal to sign on to Freelands hypocritical criticism of the Saudis human rights record reflects the fact that under Trump, US imperialism has all but dispensed with any attempt to conceal its global predatory ambitions behind a cloak of humanitarian propaganda. More fundamentally, Washington clearly does not see it to be in its interests to ruffle feathers in Riyadh. Not when it is expecting Saudi Arabia to play a vital role in its war drive against Iran, both by ramping up oil production to compensate for the unilateral US embargo on Iranian oil exports and to spearhead a military coalition of Arab Sunni states against Tehran.

By striking a pose of neutrality in the Canada-Saudi dispute, the Trump administration has reiterated the message it has already spelt out in the NAFTA renegotiation and through its demand Ottawa increase military spending far above the Liberals planned 70 percent hike by 2026: if the Canadian bourgeoisie wants to continue to enjoy a privileged partnership with Washington it will have to be still more accommodating to US interests.

The growing rift between Canada and the US is part of a much broader unravelling of the post-Second World War, American-led capitalist world order.

Under conditions of deepening economic crisis, all of the imperialist powers, Canada included, are seeking to aggressively assert their interests, through intrigue, diplomatic power-plays, protectionist measures, rearmament and war, in a struggle for markets and profits that is being waged increasingly openly as each against all.

Significantly, none of Canadas ostensible European allies has come to its support in the dispute with the Saudi absolutist regime.

The diplomatic spat with Riyadh has also brought divisions in Canadian ruling circles to the fore. Leading Conservative Party figures, emboldened by corporate Canadas growing criticism of the Trudeau government, have denounced Freeland and Trudeau for allowing human rights concerns to get in the way of national security considerations.

The Unifor trade union has also expressed concern, lest the dispute impact its involvement in the $15 billion arms deal with Riyadh. Unifor is the bargaining agent for workers at the General Dynamics plant in London, Ontario, where the armoured vehicles are built. In 2015, after then NDP leader Thomas Mulcair criticized the Saudi arms deal in the hopes it would boost the partys flagging election campaign, Unifor officials prevailed on the social democrats to drop the issue like a lead balloon.

There is an absolute clear and present risk to jobs, declared Unifor Local 27 President Jim Reid this week following Riyadhs threat to cut commercial ties with Canada.

Far from being concerned about the fate of the General Dynamics workers, Unifor, which has spent the past three decades imposing vicious concessions and job cuts on workers in auto and other sectors, fears the impact the unraveling of the Saudi arms deal would have on its dues income.

On the other hand, the Trudeau government has won plaudits from the NDP for its posturing as a defender of human rights. Issuing not a word of criticism over the bogus character of the Trudeau governments humanitarian credentials, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh told CBC, There are other nations we can look at in terms of access to oil. I think we should look at that as an alternative to dealing with a nation that has a serious track record of human rights violations 

Singhs suggestion that Canadian imperialism can be a protagonist for human rights on the world stage is both absurd and deeply reactionary. It comes from the leader of a party that has endorsed every Canadian imperialist military intervention over the past two decades. Singhs remarks underscore how the NDP serves as a key prop of Canadian imperialist foreign policy and of the interests of an important section of the ruling elite which views human rights propaganda as a useful means to advance its economic and geo-strategic interests in the Middle East and around the world.

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Amid a tidal wave of coordinated media hysteria slandering Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters as anti-Semites, details are emerging of the plot to remove him as Labour Party leader or to split the party to prevent him ever leading a government.

On August 7, the Daily Express reported that senior Labour MPs have been holding secret away days at a luxury 12-acre holiday estate in Sussex to make plans to oust Jeremy Corbyn.

The meetings have been held for months as moderate Labour MPs plan Corbyns downfall, led by a core group of 12 and a wider group numbering more than 20.

The Express lists former leadership candidate Liz Kendall, former shadow cabinet members Chuka Umunna and Chris Leslie, Stephen Kinnock and Gavin Shuker as present, along with John Woodcock, who has quit Labour to become an independent MP.

A source cited by the newspaper said, At some point the Corbyn leadership is going to fail and collapse, we only need to see what is happening with the anti-Semitism problem, and we need to be ready to step in, win the leadership, rebuild the party as a credible force and repair the damage that has been done.

Repairing damage means reasserting the nakedly neo-liberal and militarist agenda pursued by Labour under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, even if this means keeping the Conservatives in office.

The Express reports, Among the subjects discussed have been plans to regain the leadership and form a new party  one proposal put forward was to wait for a Corbyn election victory and then to use the large group of moderate Labour MPs to prevent him from becoming prime minister.

One of those involved states that if the Conservatives lose the next election, then we will break away and either form a separate Labour Party within parliament or a new party.

Another added, There are [Remainer] Conservative and Lib Dem MPs who are interested in joining us if we do form a new party because of Brexit.

Listed as potential leadership challengers to Corbyn are former leadership challenger Yvette Cooper, Umunna, Leslie and Kinnock. But the Express also anticipates a left challenge to Corbyn by Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, alongside compromise candidates Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry and Shadow Brexit Secretary Sir Keir Starmer.

The Electronic Intifada website ran a piece on the same day by Asa Winstanley of the group Lobby Watch. He noted that an app operated as part of an Israeli government propaganda campaign issued a mission for social media users to make comments accusing Corbyn of anti-Semitism.

The Act.IL app asks users to comment on Facebook in response to a Huffington Post UK story about Corbyns alleged anti-Israel remarks, directing them to click like on a comment by Facebook user Nancy Saada before adding comments echoing her criticisms.

Winstanley adds that the Act.IL app is a product of Israels strategic affairs ministry, which directs Israels covert efforts to sabotage the Palestine solidarity movement around the world. Its top civil servant is a former army intelligence officer and the ministry is staffed by veterans of various spy agencies whose names are classified.

Positioning himself in the destabilisation campaign is Deputy Labour leader Tom Watson, who wrote in the Observer newspaper Sunday that the party faced disappearing into a vortex of eternal shame unless it tackled anti-Semitism in its ranks. Even Rupert Murdochs Times newspaper was forced to acknowledge that his comments are not designed to help the Corbyn Labour Party, they are meant to destabilise it.

Opposition to the right-wing offensive is widespread, with Twitter hashtags #WeAreCorbyn and #ResignWatson trending at No. 1 in Britain and internationally, and widespread calls for the coup plotters to be expelled. Instead, the familiar pattern emerges of Corbyn seeking to appease his opponents who then redouble their offensive.

The millionaire MP Margaret Hodge, who called Corbyn, to his face, a fucking racist and anti-Semite, had disciplinary action against her dropped amid claims that she had expressed regret. A letter from her tier-one lawyers Mishcon de Reya, posted on Twitter by Hodge, accused Labour General Secretary Jennie Formby of an entirely disingenuous attempt to save face, adding that our client will not apologise for her conduct or words, as she did nothing wrong.

Hodge, together with the equally foul-mouthed right-winger Ian Austin, are complaining of a campaign to drive out opponents of Labours anti-Semitism. The new style of politics is bullying and intolerance, not gentle and inclusive, she told the Express without blushing.

Corbyn has issued a statement to the Guardian and an accompanying video, ceding much ground to those slandering the left as anti-Semitic.

There was a continuing problem of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party, which he would root outincluding by speeding up the processing of disciplinary cases and launching an education and training programme throughout the party.

He then calls actual differences over Labours refusal to accept all 11 examples attached to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism very small.

Corbyns small difference is over Labours opposition to an IHRA example stating that it is anti-Semitic to describe the foundation of the State of Israel as a racist endeavour. Adopting this would provide a blanket excuse to witch-hunt left-wing critics of Israels repressive actions against the Palestinians that were on display yet again in this weeks bombing of Gaza.

Corbyn appealed to his opponents to recognise that This has been a difficult year in the Middle East, with the killing of many unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza, and Israels new nation-state law relegating Palestinian citizens of Israel to second-class status. Opposing this should not be a source of dispute, he pleaded.

However, this is precisely the source of the present dispute.

Manchester Jewish Action for Palestine wrote correctly that the anti-Semitism definition guidelines are designed by Israeli propagandists to aid their many mass lobby attempts to stop international solidarity with the Palestinians and to deny Palestinians the right to express the nature of Israels 70 years of violence and racism towards them.

Corbyn trails behind many of his erstwhile supporters in efforts to appease the right wing, to supposedly preserve party unity and get Labour elected.

McDonnell was among those who called for the disciplinary action against Hodge to be dropped and is reportedly supportive of the full adoption of the IHRA definition and examples. He is joined by Jon Lansman, who exercises almost total control of the pro-Corbyn Momentum group, Tim Roache, general secretary of the GMB union, and Dave Prentis of Unison.

All such claims that Labours divisions can be mended by the simple expedient of adopting the IHRA definition in full is so much snake oil. A regime-change operation is again underway in the Labour Party. And if this fails, then a split will be organised. The appeasement of the right wing by Corbyn et al only demobilises the working class in the face of the political conspiracies being organised against it.

In the process, Corbyns insistence that Labour could be transformed into a party opposing austerity and war is being tested to destruction, confirming the warning made by the Socialist Equality Party in its first statement following Corbyns election as party leader in September 2015:

No one can seriously propose that this partywhich, in its politics and organisation and the social composition of its apparatus, is Tory in all but namecan be transformed into an instrument of working class struggle. The British Labour Party did not begin with Blair. It is a bourgeois party of more than a centurys standing and a tried and tested instrument of British imperialism and its state machine. Whether led by Clement Attlee, James Callaghan or Jeremy Corbyn, its essence remains unaltered.
Tennessee executed Billy Ray Irick on Thursday in the first execution in the state in nearly a decade. Irick, 59, was convicted and sentenced to death for the brutal 1985 rape and murder of 7-year-old Paula Dyer in Knoxville. He spent more than three decades on death row.

Iricks lethal injection was allowed to proceed at the Riverbend Maximum Security Prison in Nashville after both the Tennessee and US Supreme Courts denying his request for a stay. Governor Bill Haslam, a Republican, did not exercise his power to grant Irick clemency.

Iricks attorneys had argued both that their client should not be put to death because he suffered from severe mental illness, and that one of the drugs to be used in his lethal injection could cause severe pain. There is evidence that Irick did indeed suffer a torturous death.

Journalists witnessing the execution reported that the blinds between the witness room and the death chamber were opened at 7:26 p.m. local time. Asked if he had any final words, Irick at first said No, and then said, I just want to say Im really sorry and that, thats it. The lethal injection drugs then began to flow.

A minute later, the Associated Press (AP) reported, his eyes closed and snoring and heavy breathing could be heard. At 7:34 p.m. there was coughing, huffing and deep breaths, and an attendant called out to him and grabbed his shoulder to check for consciousness.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC), federal public defender Kelley Henry said Irick exhibited signs of pulmonary edema (fluid filling the lungs) during the execution, which took more than 20 minutes. She said media witnesses reported that Mr. Irick gulped for an extended period of time, was choking, gasping, coughing, and that his stomach was moving up and down.

Henry described Irick moving his body, including his head, after the attendants consciousness check. This means that the second and third drugs were administered even though Mr. Irick was not unconscious, Henry said. This suggests that the first drug, midazolam, did not sufficiently sedate Irick, making the second two drugs in the protocol extremely painful.

After Iricks coughing and huffing, according to the AP, he was not making any noise and began to turn dark purple. He was pronounced dead at 7:48 p.m.

By many accounts, Irick suffered from severe mental illness. According to Knoxville TV station WBIR, he was an uncontrollable child who was regularly tied up and beaten by his parents. As a young child he underwent psychological evaluation for what a teacher described as extreme behavioral issues.

A clinical social worker said Irick may have suffered mild organic brain damage since birth. He was briefly institutionalized before being sent to an orphanage for emotionally disturbed children.

He eventually found a job as a dishwasher at a Knoxville truck stop in 1983, where he met Kenny Jeffers, the father of the little girl who would become his victim. He eventually moved in with Kenny, his wife Kathy and five of their eight children. He often took care of the children while Kenny and Kathy worked long hours and overnight shifts.

On the morning of April 15, 1985, Kathy kicked Irick out of the house after a fight. However, later that day when she was called in to work and neither her regular babysitter nor Kenny was able to take care of the children, she called Billy to come back.

After receiving a disturbing call from Irick that he couldnt wake Paula up, Kenny arrived home to find Irick standing on the porch and Paula unconscious on the floor covered in blood. He rushed her to the hospital, but she died of her injuries, having been raped and asphyxiated.

Irick was found by police the following day. According to WBIR, he was cooperative and remorseful, confessing to the crime immediately. A Knox County jury found him guilty of first-degree murder and two counts of aggravated rape after a six-day trial. A jury sentenced him to die in the electric chair, scheduled for May 4, 1987.

Iricks execution was postponed over the following decades as debate ensued over acceptable methods of execution after the states electric chair was retired. His case was also appealed over claims of testimony that he suffered from mental illness.

Leaders of the National Alliance on Mental Illness sent a letter to Tennessee authorities calling on Irick to be given life without parole instead of the death penalty.

From all reports, Iricks severe mental illness has continued unabated during his many years of incarceration, the letter reads. The fact that eight experts, working for both the state and defense, agree that he suffers from severe mental illness is powerful evidence in support of this point.

Attorneys for 33 Tennessee death row inmates, including Irick, filed suit claiming that the drugs the state planned to use in Iricks and other lethal injections would cause the inmates to be tortured to death. The states execution protocol calls for the use of midazolam, a sedative, followed by vecuronium bromide, a muscle relaxer, and finally potassium chloride to stop the heart.

At issue is whether midazolam is effective at rendering a person unconscious and unable to feel pain from the other two drugs. In numerous executions in recent years, inmates have heaved and gasped for breath and called out that they felt their bodies were on fire.

On Monday, the Tennessee Supreme Court refused to block Iricks execution, saying that the lawsuit brought by the inmates over midazolam was unlikely to succeed.

The US Supreme Court denied a petition to spare his life hours before the execution. Iricks lawyers had argued that he suffered from psychosis throughout his life and that putting him to death would violate the high courts previous decisions barring the execution of people with severe mental disorders or disabilities.

The lawyers also argued that his execution should have been halted to give time for an appeals court to render a decision on the Tennessee inmates lawsuit over midazolam. Justice Sonia Sotomayor cast the only dissenting vote in the Supreme Courts decision denying Irick a reprieve.

She wrote, In refusing to grant Irick a stay, the Court today turns a blind eye to a proven likelihood that the State of Tennessee is on the verge of inflicting several minutes of torturous pain on an inmate in its custody, while shrouding his suffering behind a veneer of paralysis. I cannot in good conscience join in this rush to execute without first seeking every assurance that our precedent permits such a result. If the law permits this execution to go forward in spite of the horrific final minutes that Irick may well experience, then we have stopped being a civilized nation and accepted barbarism.

Sotomayers predictions appeared to prove true. While the Supreme Court has ruled against the death penalty in specific instancesincluding for the mentally ill and for crimes committed by juvenilesit has consistently upheld the barbaric practice in principle. Billy Ray Irick was the 15th execution carried out this year and the 1,480th since the Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.
Israeli military forces killed two Palestinian paramedics and wounded at least 307 more, 131 of whom needed hospital treatment, during protests Friday in the Gaza Strip.

The protests were held under the banner of the Great March of Return, as they have been over the last four months demanding the Palestinians right of return to their homes in Israel from which they or their families were driven out during the 1948-49 and 1967 wars.

The Palestinian Ministry of Health named the two people who were killed as Abdullah al-Qatiti, 26, and Saeed Aloul, 55. It brings to more than 160 the number of Gazans killed since March 30. Tens of thousands more have been injured.

The killings came just hours after Israeli attacks on the besieged Palestinian enclave stopped late Thursday night. This was widely described as a de facto ceasefire between the Hamas-led authorities in Gaza and Israel, with an official Israeli statement issued that quiet will be met with quiet.

However, as well as the killing and maiming of protesters yesterday an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tank attacked what was described as a Hamas position in the northern Gaza Strip. A senior Israeli diplomatic official insisted on the national news bulletin Hadashot that Hamass statement that Jerusalem had agreed to a truce was a lie. A senior defense official was cited by the Times of Israelstating that the army did not see the confrontation as over, implying that the IDF did not see itself obligated to a truce.

According to Channel 10 news, the IDF was considering a short sharp operation on Gaza City to exert the maximum pressure on the Hamas leadership.

This is the fourth such ceasefire and comes just three weeks after the last of three ceasefires in two months came into force. Tensions remain high, amid expectations that another military assault to restore calm could come soon.

The European Union (EU) warned that Gaza and Israel are dangerously close to a new conflict, saying that an urgent de-escalation was needed to keep civilians from further risk, while blaming Hamas and other Palestinian militants for rocket fire from Gaza as well as other violent actions and provocations against Israel as totally unacceptable.

This latest round of fighting could torpedo a four-year truce between Israel and Hamas, including reconciliation between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority being brokered by the United Nations, Egypt and Qatar. According to Hamas, it had agreed to end the launching of incendiary kites and balloons into Israel in return for an easing of Israel and Egypts criminal blockade of Gaza.

Israel had also promised to release dozens of Palestinians freed in 2011 from Israeli jails and then re-arrested prior to the war in summer 2014 in a second phase of the deal, in return for the handover of the remains of two Israeli soldiers killed during Operation Protective Edge in 2014, and the release of several Israeli civilians believed to be held by Hamas.

The release of the Palestinians is an anathema to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahus nationalist coalition partners, particularly his rival, Jewish Home leader Naftali Bennett, and was due to be discussed at Thursdays cabinet meeting.

It was this, and the build-up of tensions with Gaza in the wake of the March of Return protests that led Netanyahu on August 2 to call off his trip to Colombia, planned for August 6-9.

Earlier this week, the IDF carried out its most intense air strikes since its seven-week, murderous assault on Gaza in 2014.

Its 150 military targets in Gaza were nothing of the sort. They included manufacturing facilities, alleged weapons depots and the five-story, al-Meshaal cultural centre in a densely populated area, which housed a theatre, library, offices for cultural associations and an office for Gazas Egyptian community. The strikes killed three Palestinians, including a pregnant woman and her 18-month-old daughter, and injured more than 30 people.

The strikes started on Tuesday August 7, when an Israeli tank fired on a Palestinian border post, killing two members of Hamas militia, in what the Israeli military later claimed was a mistake. Its intelligence forces had thought that the militia was preparing to attack when it was in fact demonstrating its firepower at a ceremony for Hamas leaders.

One of the guests at the ceremony was Saleh al-Arouri, deputy head of Hamas political wing, who had travelled to Gaza to discuss a possible Israeli truce with local leaders, after receiving a promise via Egypt that Israel would not try to assassinate him.

Hamas rejected Israels explanation and once al-Arouri had crossed back into Egypt, responded by firing around 150 rockets into southern Israel. These homemade rockets, no more successful than the thousands of such rockets fired in recent years, largely fell on open ground, causing craters no bigger than saucepans and some minor damage. A few people were slightly injured, including a female foreign labourer working in a greenhouse. Israels Iron Dome defence shield intercepted some 30 rockets.

Two longer range rockets fired at the southern city of Beersheba, more than 24 miles from Gaza, caused no injuries or damage, which Hamas indicated was the work of a Salafist group that collaborated with Israel.

Senior Israeli officials threatened further action, with additional forces deployed to the Gaza area. Housing Minister Yoav Gallant, a member of the security cabinet, said, Whatever is needed to protect our citizens and our soldiers will be done, no matter what the price will be in Gaza.

A senior IDF officer warned that Israel was rapidly nearing a confrontation with Hamas in Gaza, saying, Hamas is making serious mistakes, and we may have to make it clear after four years that this path doesnt yield any results for it and isnt worth it, referring to the 2014 war.

He added that reserve soldiers from air defence units were called up and he would call up more reservists if needed, with the military near to launching an operation in the Gaza Strip.

The Trump administration gave its full backing to Israel. A State Department official said, We strongly condemn the launching of missile attacks into Israel and call for an end to this destructive violence, and we fully support Israels right to self-defense and to take action to prevent such provocations.

Conditions in Gaza, which has been subject to an 11-year economic blockade by Israel, Egypt and latterly the Fatah-controlled Palestinian Authority on the West Bank, are appalling. Israel has recently imposed further restrictions aimed at preventing everything except medical and food supplies passing through the Kerem Shalom border crossing.

World Bank data shows that Gaza has the highest unemployment rate in the world, at 44 percent, while unemployment among those aged between 15 and 29 is a staggering 60 percent. According to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics, 53 percent of Gazans live below the poverty line, while 33.8 percent suffer deep poverty. Electricity is only available for four hours a day, while almost all water is contaminated by untreated sewage or salt.

Tensions rose after US President Donald Trump announced his decision to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, exacerbated by reports that his special envoy, Jared Kushner, is seeking to annul the refugee status of millions of Palestinians and close the relief agency UNRWA.

Encouraged by US support and the passage of the nation-state law that enshrines Jewish supremacy, members of Netanyahus coalition have submitted bills asserting Israels sovereignty over the West Bank or parts of it.

Israel is riven with divisions, ranked second only to the United States as the most socially unequal member nation of the OECD. With a poverty rate of 22 percent55 percent for Israeli Palestinians and one third for the countrys childrenclass tensions are growing.

Israels rulers are deliberately whipping up militarism and war fever as a means of directing outward the immense social, economic and political tensions building up within Israeli society and diverting attention from the series of corruption scandals that have implicated the entire political establishment, from Netanyahu on down.
Asia

India: Over 400,000 West Bengal tea plantation workers strike for pay rise

More than 400,000 tea plantation workers began a three-day strike on August 7 in West Bengals Darjeeling district to demand a pay rise from the government and the plantation owners.

The mainly women workers want a combined 20 percent or 39 paise (about 50 US cents) increase in their minimum daily pay rates. The current minimum daily wage for Darjeeling tea plantation workers is 169 rupees ($2.46). The 20 percent raise would increase it to 203 rupees.

The tea plantation workers are covered by various union bodies, including the Stalinist Centre for Indian Trade Unions and Congress-affiliated Indian Trade Union Congress, which have formed a Joint Forum organisation.

The Joint Forum, which began negotiations early last month, threatened to strike between July 23 and 25. It called off the planned action after being told it could meet with West Bengal Labour Minister Moloy Ghatak on July 30 to discuss the wage claim. This meeting did not occur and future negotiations collapsed after employers only offered 17 paise.

The current minimum daily wage for tea plantation workers in nearby Assam state is 351 rupees, double that in Darjeeling.

Andhra Pradesh midday meal workers arrested

Hundreds of midday meal workers, who prepare lunches at government funded schools, were arrested by police on August 6 after they attempted to hold a protest in Vijayawada, the states capital region.

About 3,000 midday meal workers travelled to the city to demand the government pay outstanding monthly salaries and cancel plans to privatise midday meal services throughout the state.

Dozens of police vans were used to transport the arrested women to police cells in Unguturu, Gannavaram, Ibrahimpatnam, Vuyyur, Thotlavallur and other police stations in the densely populated city.

The workers are members of the Mid-Day Meals Scheme Workers Union, which is affiliated to the Centre for Indian Trade Unions. Workers have warned that over 80,000 jobs will be destroyed if the privatisation plans are adopted.

Pakistan: Hyderabad health workers demand dues

Lady Health Workers program employees demonstrated on August 1 in Hyderabad, in Pakistans Sindh province, to demand outstanding dues. The government has failed to pay monthly wages, arrears from previous wage increases, bonuses and payments for election duties in last months general elections.

The workers blocked a major city road for more than two hours before the All Sindh Lady Health Workers and Employees Union (ASLHWEU) called off the demonstration when authorities promised to resolve the issue. The ASLHWEU later demanded the government grant workers demands within 15 day or face an indefinite protest campaign.

A statement issued by the union said that 24,000 employees of the program did not have a service structure, which prevented them receiving regular salaries or other benefits awarded to government employees.

Hong Kong cleaners strike

Over 300 cleaners walked out on strike on Monday in protest against harsh working conditions and the sacking of elderly employees.

The strikers are employed by Lapco, a private cleaning contractor used by the government. The strike began with 100 workers from the Shui Wo Market in Kwun Tong. They were joined by other cleaners who struck at eight other waste handling sites. Workers said they were denied meal breaks by the governments Food and Environmental Hygiene Department and struggled to stay hydrated in stifling conditions.

Hong Kong maids demand better conditions

Around 30 workers protested outside Hong Kongs Labour Department offices on Tuesday for wage increases. During an annual meeting with authorities, maids organisations called for the doubling of their food allowance and a 24.7 percent increase in their monthly wage to HK$5,500.

Hong Kong employers with maids living in their residences are required by law to give them either a separate food allowance, or some form of provisions. One worker complained that she was being provided with five-day old food from her employers fridge.

Thailand vendors protest eviction from popular tourist venues

Scores of street vendors in Bangkok have participated in protests over the past week against government attempts to remove them from tourist hotspots. A ban was recently placed on vendors on the sidewalks of Khao San Road, which has substantial tourist traffic.

Government officials are strictly enforcing the new regulations. Authorities are also removing shanties along the Chao Phraya River to build a promenade, and earlier this year forced out a community of more than 300 people near an historic fort. The vendors, overwhelmingly poor and with no land rights, have no official channels for recourse.

Myanmar workers protest over unpaid benefits

Workers from May Kaung wood factory in Pyi Gyi Tagon township in Myanmars Mandalay city demonstrated last week to demand unpaid incentives and benefits. The main gate of the factory was blocked by the protest.

Workers said they were owed payments for regular attendance, along with incremental and competency-based wage benefits and workplace healthcare allowances. Workers said their calls for the government to intervene had been ignored or rebuffed.

South Korean delivery drivers protest dress code

McDelivery motorcycle riders demonstrated outside the companys national headquarters in Jongno, Seoul on Monday. They were protesting a company dress code, which requires them to wear jeans, including in sweltering summer heat. They also called for wage increases.

Protesters held banners reading The Coke is delivered cold but the delivery man melts on the way. They called for an extra 100 won for each successful delivery. Currently workers are given an additional 400 won for each delivery. Workers have been agitating for their demands since late last month.

Australia and the Pacific

Alcoa workers strike to defend conditions in Western Australia

Around 1,500 workers at aluminium company Alcoa began indefinite strike action in Western Australia on Wednesday in a long-running dispute over a new enterprise agreement. Negotiations began in December 2016.

While the company told the media this week that it had contingency plans to ensure production continues, the walkout is impacting on operations at the companys refineries in Kwinana and Wagerup and at its Huntly and Willowdale bauxite mines.

The industrial action followed an application by Alcoa for the federal governments Fair Work industrial tribunal to allow it to terminate the current work agreement. If this is granted, workers could be forced on to the base award with far inferior pay and working conditions.

The Australian Workers Union (AWU) says there has been no agreement on job security. Union officials have admitted that they have offered concessions to the company.

Cairns airport security workers protest job losses

Security workers employed by Danish-based contractor ISS protested at Cairns airport in Queensland last Tuesday, after being told they will lose their jobs at the end of this month. The company has lost the contract to provide security at Cairns and Mackay airports.

ISS told the 100 workers, who are members of United Voice Union, that they can apply for employment with the new contractor. Even if successful, they will be regarded as new employees and placed on probation. Accrued entitlements would not be transferable.

ISS is a global company operating in more than 70 countries, employing around half a million people worldwide. In 2017 the revenue value of its global operations stood at almost $AUS17 billion.

New Zealand: Secondary school teachers union begins negotiations for new contract

On Tuesday the Post-Primary Teachers Association (PPTA) began talks with the Ministry of Education for a new contract for secondary school teachers that expires on October 27. Meetings with union members were held during May and June earlier this year.

Secondary teachers want a 15 percent pay rise over one year, more non-contact time, allowances for teachers who live in cities with expensive accommodation costs, and new roles to liaise with Maori and Pacific Island communities.

The government has already ruled out the demands of the teachers. Minister of Education Chris Hipkins described the demands as unreasonable. PPTA president Jack Boyle told the media that secondary teachers are willing to strike but said that the union hopes negotiations will prevent a walkout.

New Zealand education support specialists vote on strike

Learning support specialists voted this week on whether or not to strike on August 21. The vote closes on Monday at 6 p.m. Specialists include psychologists, speech therapists and early intervention teachers.

The New Zealand Educational Institute (NZEI) says their members workloads are overwhelming. Union members have rejected a current government offer of a 2 percent increase on the day of ratification and a further 2 percent next September. Primary school teachers, also represented by the NZEI, voted to strike in July and recently voted to extend their strike from 3 to 24 hours.

New Zealand quarry workers locked out

Fourteen workers at Atlas Quarry in Northland were locked out from August 6 to August 12 after striking on August 2. The quarry employees are only paid $20 an hour, around $4 less than the industry standard wage. The companys drivers work up to 88 hours a week.

First Union, which has negotiated with management for 10 months, says it has only presented a slight variation on a previous wage offer.

Maori TV workers strike for 24 hours

Workers at New Zealands state-owned Maori TV station went on strike for higher pay on Wednesday. The channel primarily broadcasts in the Maori language. According to Joe Gallagher from the E tu union, around 35 five people, which included workers and supporters, picketed the studio.

E tu has been negotiating a new pay deal with Maori TV for months. Workers rejected a management offer made last week and have criticised management for awarding non-union members a pay rise and a Christmas bonus last year.
Tuesdays primary election in the state of Missouri included a referendum vote on the right-to-work law enacted by the Republican-controlled state legislature in 2017 and signed by Republican Governor Eric Greitens. The law was massively repudiated, with 67 percent voting to overturn it and only 33 percent voting to uphold it.

The two-to-one margin was a surprise to union officials who organized the petition drive to force the referendum, and a shock for the state Republican Party, which controls both houses of the legislature by wide margins, as well as the governorship. It is notable that the landslide defeat of the legislation came in a primary where slightly more voters chose Republican ballots than Democratic ballotsan indication that large numbers of workers who voted Republican also voted against the right-to-work law.

The Missouri State AFL-CIO mounted the petition drive last year to collect the 100,000 signatures needed to place the right-to-work referendum on the ballot. The drive won widespread support among working people, with more than 300,000 signing the petition, far more than the number required. The campaign leading up to the referendum vote was even broader, involving visits to more than 800,000 homes and more than 1,000 workplace meetings.

There is no question that in the Missouri referendum, hundreds of thousands of workers saw the right-to-work law as an attack on their rights by big business and responded accordingly. It was an expression of the more general shift to left among working people, expressed in the wave of teachers strikes, the overwhelming strike votes by workers at UPS, and the widespread opposition to the Trump administrations persecution of immigrants and refugees.

The Janus decision

There is a sharp contrast between the class response among working people to the enactment of a state right-to-work lawwidely viewed as an attack on the democratic right of workers to form independent organizationsand the lack of outrage among working people after the Supreme Courts decision in Janus v. AFSCME, issued in late June, which denied public employee unions the right to collect dues from non-members under an arrangement known as the agency shop.

This reflects the differing historical conditions under which the fight for the union shop and the institution of dues checkoff arose, and their contrasting significance: the first, as a defensive mechanism for the working class, the second, as the financial lifeline of the privileged union bureaucracy.

The union shop was a central demand of the mass movement of the industrial working class in the 1930s, which built the CIO in an insurgent revolt against the entrenched, pro-employer craft unions of the AFL. Workers had learned through bitter struggles that the survival of their new organizations required the removal of strikebreakers and company spies from the workplace. The purpose of a union shop, with every worker in a given workplace a union member, was to guarantee this.

Dues checkoff was established as part of the process by which a privileged bureaucracy was consolidated in the leadership of the newly established industrial unions, bringing these organizations under the influence of corporate management and the capitalist state. It had the effect of insulating union officials from direct accountability to the rank-and-file, since the funds for the union were now supplied by the company, based on automatic deduction from workers paychecks. This began a process of bureaucratization that has long since transformed contemporary American unions into monstrosities that bear no resemblance, except in the name, to the democratic, fighting organizations that workers instinctively seek to form whenever they first go into struggle.

The Janus decision was the product of a drive by the Republican Party to cut off a source of funding for the Democrats, as part of the increasingly bitter political warfare within the US ruling elite. As the WSWS wrote at the time, the decision was a defeat for the union officialdom, not for the working class: For genuine socialists, there is nothing progressive or democratic about compelling workers to pay dues to organizations that function as strikebreakers and enforcers of austerity.

But the decision sparked an outcry from the AFL-CIO and the Democratic Partyas well as from the coterie of pseudo-left organizations that orbit around bothbecause it threatened to cut off an important source of their funding. Under a longstanding and politically reactionary arrangement, Democratic Party officeholders uphold the franchise of the public employee unions and their access to a continued stream of dues income. The unions in return provide substantial financing to the Democratic Party, while suppressing any struggles of state and local government workers. As one union attorney argued before the court, Union security is a tradeoff for no strikes.

Workers vs. union apparatus

These same forces hailed the vote in Missouri as though it was a vindication of the unions. AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who in the course of his long career in union office has probably betrayed and sabotaged more workers struggles than any other individual in American history, hailed the vote as a harbinger of a Democratic Party landslide in the November elections.

At the same time, he wrote in an op-ed column in the Wall Street Journal, in what amounts to sounding the alarm for his masters in corporate America, that what is emerging is an uprising unlike any Ive seen in my 50 years in the labor movement. From crowds of striking teachers speaking out for fair treatment to an entire generation of young workers rejecting a broken status quo, Americans are demanding more than the crumbs weve been handed by corporate and political elites.

The radicalization of the working class does not mean a strengthening of the AFL-CIO unions, however, but sets the stage for an even more explosive conflict between the workers and these organizations, which have been transformed into one of the principal bulwarks of corporate domination over the working class.

Perhaps the most fatuous response came in the New York Times. The newspaper published an editorial headlined, The Wind at Labors Back, and presented the Missouri referendum as a vote of confidence in the unions and the latest sign of resurgent and effective labor activism. The vote comes months after teacher strikes around the country forced Republican-controlled legislatures in states like West Virginia and Oklahoma to hand out big raises to overworked and underpaid workers for the first time in many years.

In fact, the teacher walkouts in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Arizona and other states came about through rebellions against the two major teacher unions, the AFT and the NEA, and were eventually betrayed and sold out once the union officials gained control of them. All these states have right-to-work laws, which proved no obstacle once the teachers decided to fight.

Jacobin glorifies the AFL-CIO

The Times also opened its op-ed column to two representatives of Jacobin, the magazine affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, Bhaskar Sunkara, the publications editor, and Meagan Day, a staff writer. Under the headline, Why You Should Care About Unions (Even if youre not in one), the two gave a description of the AFL-CIO unions which no worker today would recognize.

Unions improve wages, benefits and working conditions for their members, they wrote. But its not just to members advantage. Collective bargaining affects pay standards across entire industries, meaning even nonunion workers benefit. Unions also secure legislation that protects all workers, from workplace safety guidelines to a guaranteed weekend. And they reduce gender and racial wage gaps across industries, which contributes to broader equality in society.

One would think Sunkara and Day have never belonged to a union or ever spoken with a union member. They acknowledge the decline of the unions in terms of membership over the past four decadesfrom nearly one third of all workers in 1970s to barely 11 percent today, and much lower than that in private industrybut they entirely ignore the qualitative transformation that has taken place.

The unions no longer improve wages, benefits and working conditions, they negotiate reductions and a general worsening of the terms for the sale of labor power to the capitalists. The unions do not negotiate standards across industries, but rather the fragmentation of the working class into multiple tiers, even within a single workplace, with the lower tiers more poorly paid and brutally exploited. The unions do not press for legislation that protects and elevates workers, they hustle votes for a Democratic Party that is, just as much as the Republicans, the instrument of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus, and which defends the interests of the super-rich at the expense of the working class.

The corporatist degeneration of the unions has led to their transformation from defensive organizations of the working classalthough never as successful as the rosy daydream presented by the Jacobin writersinto an industrial police force for the corporations and the capitalist state.

It is this context that one must evaluate the result of the vote in Missouri.

Behind the spread of right-to-work laws

Right-to-work laws, which outlaw the union shop, were devised as a weapon of big business against the mass movement of the working class which built the industrial unions in the 1930s and 1940s. They have nothing to do with guaranteeing workers the right to a job, as the name might suggest. Instead, they outlaw union security contracts, under which workers are required to join a union and pay dues as a condition of employment.

Such laws were promoted by corporate lobbies, such as the US Chamber of Commerce, after states were permitted to enact them under Section 14(b) of the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. Initially, right-to-work laws had a regional character: in the South, where the Democratic Party was then dominant, and the rural West, controlled by the Republicans, unions were relatively weak. Right-to-work laws were passed at the urging of local business interests to maintain that status quo.

More recently, the struggle over these laws has taken on a different character, bound up with the steady shift to the right in capitalist politics, and the transformed character of the trade unions. While the unions have long abandoned any defense of the working class and work as agents of the employers on the shop floor, they still play a central role in capitalist politics as an adjunct of the Democratic Party.

With the unions aligned with the Democrats and supplying a considerable proportion of Democratic Party funding and campaign workers, the Republican Party has come to view right-to-work as a partisan weapon. They have pushed such laws even in Midwest industrial states where the trade unions have long played a prominent role and where Republicans as well as Democrats once solicited union support.

In the past six years, Republican state legislatures and Republican governors have pushed through right-to-work laws in five once heavily unionized states: Michigan (2012), Indiana (2012), Wisconsin (2015), West Virginia (2016), and Kentucky (2017). Missouri in 2017 was the sixth. Significantly, this current push for right-to-work laws is not in response to demands from the employers: on the contrary, most giant corporations now view the unions as indispensable partners in controlling and suppressing worker militancy.

From the standpoint of the working class, there is not the slightest progressive content to union security clauses that require workers to join and pay dues to organizations that do not represent them and instead do the bidding of the corporations. But state intervention in the form of right-to-work laws is an attack on the democratic rights of the working class, aimed at creating a political climate in which any genuine effort by workers to organize independently and fight the capitalist class is criminalized. It is on that basis alone, and without the slightest illusions in the nature of the unions, that workers should oppose right-to-work laws.

The socialist movement upholds the right of workers to establish their own organizations to defend their economic interests against the employers, whether trade unions, factory committees or some other form. The existing organizations of the AFL-CIO, while calling themselves unions, do not perform any of the defensive tasks with which they were once associated. This is why, for example, virtually all the efforts of the present-day unions to organize workersi.e., to increase the dues income of the bureaucracy without in any way inconveniencing the employersgenerally fail. There is no reason for workers to join them.

The revolutionary alternative is for workers to break with the old, bankrupt organizations and build new ones: factory committees, to conduct the struggle in the workplace; neighborhood committees, to defend democratic rights and oppose attacks on social conditions, such as evictions and utility shutoffs; and above all, the building of a mass political party of the working class, to fight for a socialist program against the capitalist system as a whole.

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Supreme Court rules against unions in Janus case

[28 June 2018]
The US and North Korea this week traded accusations in a further indication that the nuclear deal struck between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un in June is stalling.

In a brief joint statement, the two leaders had publicly committed to the complete denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula. But the gulf between the two sides has become increasingly apparent over the past two months.

Washington has interpreted the agreement as North Korea dismantling its nuclear and missile programs, giving up its nuclear arsenal and allowing intrusive inspections. Pyongyang has insisted that the US make step-by-step concessions, including easing sanctions and taking steps toward a formal peace treaty.

The tensions were evident last month when US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo travelled to Pyongyang for negotiations. Following his departure, the North Korean foreign ministry issued a blunt statement denouncing Washingtons unilateral and gangster-like demand for denuclearisation and warning that trust between the two sides was now at a dangerous stage.

The Vox website this week revealed that the Trump administration has demanded that Pyongyang hand over 60 to 70 percent of its nuclear warheads within six to eight months, either to the US or a third country. It is not known whether the US has offered anything in exchange. The website reported that North Korean negotiators had rejected the proposal multiple times over the past two months.

Pompeo and his North Korean counterpart Ri Yong Ho shook hands during a brief encounter last weekend at a regional security forum in Singapore. However, Pompeo then suggested that North Koreas continued work on nuclear programs was inconsistent with its pledge to denuclearise.

Ri responded by declaring that North Korea had already made goodwill gestures, including a moratorium on nuclear and missile testing, and the dismantling of a testing site. Instead of responding in kind, he said, the US is raising its voice louder for maintaining the sanctions and is retreating even from declaring the end of the war, a very basic and primary step for providing peace on the Korean peninsula.

Rather pointedly, Ri flew to Iran this week where he met with President Hassan Rouhani, who told him that the performance of the US administration has led the country to be considered untrustworthy and unreliable around the world. The Trump administration has unilaterally abrogated the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and reimposed sanctions, despite Tehran abiding by its terms.

Formally the US and North Korea are still at war, as a peace treaty was never signed to end the devastating 195053 Korean War. Washington has maintained a de facto diplomatic and economic blockade of North Korea for decades, which has been ramped up under the Obama and Trump administrations, with harsh economic sanctions designed to provoke a severe crisis in Pyongyang.

In comments on Fox News on Tuesday, Trumps national security adviser John Bolton escalated the war of words. He accused North Korea of failing to live up to the agreement reached in Singapore in June. What we need is performance from North Korea on denuclearisation, he said. North Korea has not taken the steps we feel are necessary to denuclearise.

Bolton flatly rejected North Koreas call for a step-by-step easing of sanctions, saying they would not be lifted until North Korea abandoned its nuclear programs. The idea that were going to relax the sanctions just on North Koreas say-so is something that isnt under consideration. Were going to continue to apply maximum pressure to North Korea until they denuclearise, he declared.

Prior to being appointed as national security adviser, Bolton, who is notorious for his militarist views, publicly opposed talks with North Korea and urged military attacks on the small, impoverished country. Trump, who last year threatened to completely destroy North Korea, has not publicly disavowed repeated statements that all options are on the tableincluding war on the Pyongyang regime.

Bolton even sounded a sour note on the North Korean handover last month of the remains of US soldiers killed in the Korean Wara step for which Trump thanked North Korea. Bolton declared that North Korea was not serious about improving relations with the West, as it had not handed over the remains of soldiers of other combatant countries, such as South Korea and Australia.

Responding on Thursday, Pyongyang reiterated its demand for the US to agree to declare a formal end to the 195053 war, as the first part of the US providing a security guarantee to North Korea. The North Korean foreign ministry said some high-level officials within the US administration are making baseless allegations against us and making desperate attempts at intensifying the international sanctions and pressure.

Far from even a token easing of sanctions, the US has taken steps to tighten them.

On August 3, the US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on a Russian bank that the US claims was still doing business with North Korea, in supposed violation of existing measures.

Last weekend, Pompeo also suggested that Russia was breaching UN sanctions by issuing work visas to North Korean workers. I want to remind every nation that has supported these resolutions that this is a serious issue and something that we will discuss with Moscow, he said. Russia denied a Wall Street Journal story that it was allowing thousands of new North Korean labourers into the country.

While accusing North Korea of not living up to agreements, the US has no intention of making any concessions without a complete capitulation by Pyongyang to its demands. The US is not just seeking the destruction of North Koreas nuclear weapons and programs, but is pushing for Pyongyang to align itself more closely with Washington in foreign policy. A deal with North Korea is part of a far broader US strategy aimed at encircling China and preparing for war.

For the time being, Trump has halted his inflammatory and provocative threats against North Korea. But that could rapidly change if North Korea fails to bow to US demands.
Four years after the murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri by police officer Darren Wilson sparked mass popular outrage over police violence, the daily onslaught of police killings in the US continues. Through the end of July, at least 720 people have had their lives taken by the police this year, averaging more than three deaths every day.

At the current pace, 2018 will be among the deadliest years on record for police killings in the US. Nearly all these killings pass under the radar of the national media. Those especially egregious incidents that are captured on video garner a few obligatory seconds on the nightly news before being dropped.

In one of the latest fatal encounters, 25-year-old Daniel Hambrick was shot in the back and killed, as he ran from a traffic stop on July 26, by 25-year-old Nashville, Tennessee police officer Andrew Delke. Hambrick was African American, Delke is white.

Initial reports indicated that Hambrick was killed during a traffic stop after he emerged from the car armed with a gun. The police justified the killing by publicizing the fact that Hambrick had a long record of criminal convictions.

With no police bodycam or dashcam footage immediately forthcoming, Hambricks killing passed with little notice outside of local media. Vigils and protests were held by family and friends demanding justice and an end to police killings. Hambrick was fondly remembered as Dan Dan, a young man who cared deeply for his family and was looking forward to starting a new job this month.

This week, the lies of the police were exposed when surveillance video was released by the district attorney showing that Delke shot Hambrick in the back as he fled, sparking national outrage.

Hambricks death is one of an unending string of police murders, beatings and assaults that are part of daily American life. And workers and youth of all races and ethnicities are the victims.

In May, 20-year-old Cody Reynolds, who was white, was gunned down by a Royal Oak, Michigan police officer. Though Reynolds was unarmed, no charges have been filed against the police. Thurman Blevins, Jr. was shot down in a hail of police bullets in Minneapolis as he fled from police down an alley in June. Prosecutors announced last month that there would be no criminal charges.

On top of the approximately three killings every day, workers must bear the indignity of harassment, beatings and assault. On Monday, an off-duty police officer in Cincinnati, Ohio Tasered an 11-year-old girl accused of shoplifting, sending 50,000 volts of electricity through her body. Earlier this month, horrific video emerged of a police officer violently beating a homeless woman at Detroit Receiving Hospital; both the officer and the woman are black.

Police violence and abuse is an expression of a malignant social and economic system, characterized by unending war and extreme social inequality, which infects the state apparatus and all its institutions. The state is not a neutral body, but an instrument of class rule. As class tensions increase, as the viability of the social system becomes ever more tenuous, the bodies of armed men that exist to maintain this social system become that much more brutal.

The violence carried out by the police cannot be separated from the increasingly fascistic operations of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Customs and Border Protection agenciesthe separation of children from parents, the construction of concentration camps, the kidnapping and deportation of immigrant workers.

The police are part of a total army that includes the intelligence agencies and the armed forces, which are playing an ever more direct role in domestic affairs, including through the provision of arms and training to the police themselves. As Trump has unleashed Gestapo-like agents on immigrant communities, the Democrats uphold the torturers and criminals who head the CIA, FBI and NSA as the supposed guardians of democracy.

Whatever their tactical differencescentered on matters of foreign policythe entire political establishment, Democrat and Republican, defends the police forces of the state and is preparing to use them against growing social opposition in the working class. For this reason, the issue of police violence, like domestic spying and opposition to war, has been entirely excluded from political debate or discussion. It is a non-issue in the 2018 US midterm elections.

It is the fundamental class character of the state that the purveyors of racial politics work to ignore and cover up. Four years after the killing of Michael Brown, what has come of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and its calls for the hiring of black police officers and police chiefs, its toothless accountability and oversight boards? Nothingexcept perhaps a few positions within the state apparatus for the sections of the upper middle class for which BLM speaks. They have seen the mass protests against police violence as something to suppress and channel behind the Democratic Party, while serving as a springboard for their own careers.

While racism plays a role in some police killings, and in the brutal measures directed against immigrants, this is entirely subordinate to the role of the state as an instrument of class rule. It is not a matter of making the police more racially diverse or electing more African American prosecutors. Decades of racially integrated police forces have illustrated quite starkly that black cops can be just as vicious, corrupt and murderous as their white counterparts.

The fight against police violence is a class question. It must be connected to the struggles of every section of the working class, from the fight by teachers for better funding for their schools and salaries, to the fight of UPS drivers and Amazon warehouse workers for better working conditions and living standards.

The resolution passed by the Socialist Equality Party last month, The Resurgence of Class Struggle and the Tasks of the Socialist Equality Party, states: The SEP is spearheading the fight to arm the developing objective working class movement with an uncompromising revolutionary strategy and perspective. It is fighting to connect struggles against declining wages, attacks on health care and the destruction of public education to opposition to the assault on immigrant workers, police brutality, the destruction of democratic rights and the danger of world war.

I am running for Congress in Michigans 12th district as a member of the SEP to mobilize workers and youth behind a socialist, internationalist and anti-imperialist political movement to take state power and reorganize economic life on the basis of social need instead of private profit. I urge you to join the SEP and, wherever you live, support and take part in the SEP campaign in Michigan.

To get involved and donate to the campaign of Niles Niemuth for Congress, visit niles2018.com.
Railway workers in Sri Lanka remain on strike after walking out on Wednesday over longstanding demands for pay rises and the resolution of salary anomalies. The strikers have defied demands by Finance Minister Mangala Samaraweera to end all industrial action. Government and management attempts to run a face-saving skeletal service have failed.

The strike was called by the Railway Trade Union Alliance (RTUA), which includes unions covering workers vital for the rail systems day-to-day running. This includes engine drivers, railway guards, station masters and supervisory managers.

The RTUA called the strike in response to demands from rank-and-file members determined not to allow the union leaders to again postpone work stoppages on the basis of more false government promises.

The union alliance was due to call a two-day walkout on July 3031 but union officials called it off at the last minute, claiming that Transport Minister Nimal Siripala de Silva had promised the government would adopt a cabinet sub-committee recommendation within a week and grant workers demands.

The recommendation, however, was vehemently opposed at a July 30 cabinet meeting by Finance Minister Samaraweera, who said any increase in railway workers wages would lead to a wave of pay demands from other state sector workers.

Wages cannot be increased every time workers threaten strikes, he declared, and accused the government of being spineless when confronting workers. This is not the opinion of just one minister, or the current administration, but outlook of the ruling class as a whole.

When the strike began on Wednesday, Samaraweera cancelled a scheduled 6 p.m. discussion with the unions, making clear there would be no compromise.

At the same time, a call was issued to all retired engine drivers to report to work the next morning. Steps were also announced for the establishment of a strikebreaking system to coordinate passenger transport services between the Sri Lanka Bus Transport Board and the three armed services. The media reported on Friday, however, that no railway retiree had come forward to blackleg on the strikers.

President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghes coalition government launched a sinister media campaign denouncing the workers for striking without prior notice. This was aimed at whipping up opposition from other workers due to return home after the strike began at midday. Media interviews with stranded commuters, however, overwhelmingly supported the strikers.

Over the past year, the RTUA has been forced to call several strikes and demonstrations over the same issue, but has shut them all down, citing bogus official promises.

Last December, the RTUA halted national strike action, claiming that the cabinet sub-committee would provide a solution to the outstanding pay demands. This proved to be another false promise.

In May, the government-owned Dinamina newspaper cited cabinet spokesman Rajitha Senaratne saying the recommendation had been approved. Accepting this lie, union leaders postponed a scheduled May 89 strike.

RTUA officials are now desperately attempting to divert the escalating political confrontation with the government by falsely claiming that the cabinet has agreed to resolve salary issues but is being held up by the finance ministers opposition.

Once again, in the face of growing militancy by railway workers and other sections of the working class, the RTUA is making futile appeals to Sirisena to intervene and resolve the issue. Sirisena has made it categorically clear where he stands: last December he issued an Essential Services Order illegalising strike action by railway workers.

Sympathetic posturing by the transport minister and cabinet spokesperson toward railway workers is a total fraud. These are tactical moves by the same ruling class, which fears that railway workers strike action will attract support from other sections of working class who are equally hostile to the governments big business policies and its attacks on their social conditions and democratic rights.

The Sirisena-Wickremesinghe regime has pledged its unwavering commitment to International Monetary Fund demands to reduce the fiscal deficit by slashing spending on public transport, education, health and other vital social services. This includes transforming the railways into a semi-government entity, in line with preparations to privatise the state enterprise. This plan, in fact, is part of the cabinet sub-committee proposal that purports to solve workers wage and salary anomalies demands.

The trade unions are fundamentally opposed to any unified struggle by railway workers, or other state sector employees, against this job destruction program because it means challenging not just the current government but the capitalist system itself.

Instead, the unions divide railway workers and other sections of the working class. They have separated engine drivers, station masters, guards and supervisory officers from low-ranking workers, including technological assistants and labourers. There are more than 100 different unions in the railways alone.

The railway workers strike is part of a growing movement of the working class against the government, seen in recent actions by university non-academic, water supply, postal and electricity workers, and teachers, along with protests by students, unemployed youth and rural poor.

This is part and parcel of an emerging wave of class struggles against the austerity measures of capitalist governments in every country. Recent examples include teachers in the US, technical workers in Germany, railway workers in France, truck drivers in Brazil, China and Argentina, and nurses and health workers in New Zealand. To this list must be added the millions of transport workers and hundreds of thousands of rural farmers drawn into struggle against Narendra Modis government in India.

The principal obstacle confronting workers in every country is the unions, which function as a last line of defence for the ruling elites and the capitalist profit system. The working class cannot defeat the attacks on jobs, conditions and basic rights while they remain tied to the unions.

The unavoidable political challenge facing striking rail workers and every other section of the working class is to break from the unions and establish independent organisations under the leadership of the working class to rally the rural poor and youth.

Railway workers must take the initiative and build rank-and-file Action Committees to organise a united struggle of all railway employees, and call for active industrial and political support from workers in the state, private and plantation industries and from the oppressed masses.

Railway workers are involved in a political struggle against the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government and all other sections of the Sri Lankan ruling elite. This can only go forward on the basis of a socialist and internationalist perspective to establish a workers and peasants government to implement socialist policies, as part of the wider perspective of establishing a socialist federation of states in South Asia and internationally.

This is the program of the Socialist Equality Party, the Sri Lankan section of the International Committee of the Fourth International. We call on all class-conscious workers, the rural poor and youth and students of all communities to join the SEP and take forward this fight.

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Pilots at the Dublin, Ireland-based low-cost airline Ryanair went on strike Friday in Ireland, Belgium, Sweden, the Netherlands and Germany to demand improvements in working conditions, forcing the company to scrap 400 of its scheduled 2,400 European flights.

The company, whose business model revolves around paying the lowest wages and offering the most exploitative working conditions in the European airline industry, has for years set the benchmark for slashing wages and benefits throughout the entire airline industry.

Some 250 flights in and out of Germany were cancelled, with pilots at nine of 10 airports where Ryanair operates involved. 104 flights to and from Belgium were cancelled along with another 42 in Sweden and the airlines home base, Ireland.

The strike met with wide support among airline workers. At Germanys Frankfurt Airport, where supporters of the World Socialist Web Site distributed the statement The Ryanair strike and the resurgence of international class struggle, many airport workers expressed their solidarity with the strike.

Of course I support this strike, said Jutta, who works for a supplier company at Fraport AG at the Rhein-Main airport. Its been long overdue! The staff should be treated humanely, she said. It cant always be just about profits. Who thinks about the people behind it all and who do all the work? The bosses just want to keep making more money, but thats at the expense of the pilots, the stewardesses and all the personnel.

Jutta said the pressure on the airline workforce is increasing and added, Its not just Ryanair. They are pushing the standards down for everyone, you can see that. The greed is good mentality can be seen everywhere.

Mustafa, a cargo handler at the airport, said he had great sympathy for this strike. It was a clear sign that they wont just accept everything. It cant go on like this forever. He said that at Frankfurt Airport, more and more work must be done by fewer and fewer people. Mustafa concluded that the right to strike is there so that people who do all the work can also push for their demands.

In contrast to widespread support for their action among workers, the trade unions did everything to sabotage the strike and prevent it having any serious effect on the company. Ryanair reports that despite the industrial action, 85 percent of flights ran as scheduled.

Ryanair claimed that no flights were cancelled to and from the Netherlands, even though pilots were striking there. In the three countries where Ryanair employs the most pilotsthe UK (880), Italy (829) and Spain (859)the trade unions called no action in support of their striking co-workers. Likewise, unions representing Ryanair cabin crew did not lift a finger in solidarity with the pilots.

In the UK and Italy, Ryanair has concluded union recognition deals with the British Airline Pilots Association (BALPA) and ANPAC, the Italian pilots union, respectively in the last eight months.

Last December, Ryanair agreed to recognise unions, as it outlined plans to expand its operations and increase profitability, with the company stating that it did not expect union agreements to add costs to its operations. Eddie Wilson, Ryanairs chief people officer said that Ryanair would continue its exploitative labour practices in partnership with the unions, insisting, Its not the end of the model. The model here will stay the same.

Upon signing the first Ryanair deal in January, BALPA general secretary Brian Strutton said the union looked forward to a cosy relationship with a company. Given Ryanairs previous hostility towards unions, todays agreement is historic. While we were initially sceptical about Ryanairs sincerity in offering recognition to us and other unions, our conversations and meetings with them have shown that they are genuine in wanting a constructive trade union relationship, he said.

In the countries where strikes took place, the pilot unions sought up to the last moment to get strikes off the agenda.

On Thursday, the Association of Dutch Pilots (VNV), representing 50 Ryanair pilots, announced it would join Fridays strike after failing to reach an agreement with the airline. Ryanair attempted to prevent any strikes by taking last-minute legal action. The VNV said it was surprised by Ryanairs move because by that stage it had not actually called a strike.

In Germany, the greatest fear of the trade union leaders is that the strike will escalate out of their control and become a pole of attraction for Ryanair flight attendants and ground crew, as well as throughout the whole flight industry.

The Vereinigung Cockpit (VC) union refused to mount any pickets or to organise protests at any of Ryanairs 10 bases of operation in Germany. Instead, the union called on its members to attend a meeting in the basement of its Frankfurt headquarters, miles away from the airport and from the colleagues of the Ryanair pilots at other airlines.

The underground meeting was nothing more than a staged photo opportunity, where the union functionaries did their best to keep their own membership in check. Representatives from the World Socialist Web Site were forbidden from distributing leaflets to the union members present. The union representatives repeatedly told the workers they should not talk to the press under any circumstances. Only the unions press spokesman could do this, they said.

For the union, the meeting merely served as a means to reemphasize its partnership with Ryanair. Martin Locher, the president of the Vereinigung Cockpit union, quoted Ryanair marketing chief Kenny Jacobs, who has talked about this unnecessary strike, and said he agreed one hundred percent with this. It would have made much more sense, Locher said, to sit down and have constructive negotiations.

The efforts of the trade unions to prevent the development of a European-wide strike could also be seen in Ireland, where Ryanair has its home base.

Forsa, representing some of Ryanairs Ireland-based pilots, said it was Ryanairs lack of experience in industrial relations, i.e., that it did not yet sufficiently trust the union bureaucracy to police the workforce, that had led to its members fifth one-day strike. The Irish Air Line Pilots' Association (IALPA) , which is part of FORSA, only represents around a quarter of Ryanairs Irish-based pilotswith the company able to run the majority of its operations in Ireland by utilising pilots employed via third-party agencies.

Next week, IALPA is scheduled to meet with Ryanair under the auspices of mediator Kieran Mulvey. Ahead of the talks, IALPA announced it had no plans for further strikes.

Workers at Ryanair must not allow the trade unions to sabotage their struggle. They must form independent workplace committees that will continue to expand the strike. They must reach out to workers at all other locations and airlines to fight for the international unity of the working class against the nationalist parochialism of the trade unions.
Shannon Allen, the injured and homeless Amazon worker who published a video statement on Monday calling for a united struggle of Amazon and UPS workers internationally, responded yesterday to the censorship of her video by a Facebook page controlled by members of the Teamsters for a Democratic Union, a faction of the Teamsters union.

More than 20,000 UPS workers are members of the Vote no on UPS contract Facebook page. The administrators of the page removed a post of Shannons video on Tuesday.

Shannon said the censorship of her video showed that the Teamsters union was fearful of workers from Amazon and UPS forming rank-and-file committees in the warehouses and hubs and linking up their struggles.

It reminds me of being at work, where were not allowed to speak to one another, she said. Amazon has the workstations so far apart because they dont want employees to talk. Thats one of the reasons the breaks are so short, so you dont have time to walk to areas with other workers.

Shannon said the Teamsters union doesnt want us talking to one another because we would be a powerful force if workers at Amazon, UPS workers and the [United States] Postal Service all united. Everybody thinks Jeff Bezos is powerful because he has Amazon. But the workers banding together, to become a rank-and-file committee, would be more powerful than Bezos $150 billion. Because we could control the operations, and we could slow or stop production. At UPS, the drivers wouldnt be doing 40 routes a day, speeding through parking lots, trying to hurry up and deliver the next package.

In her video, Shannon noted that the Teamsters union wanted to use her story to help boost their image and gain a foothold at Amazon, where they would be able to extract dues money from hundreds of thousands of Amazon workers wages.

Yesterday, she explained that a Teamsters official contacted her, and said she was in Dallas one more day and asked if I would like to meet with her. She said she wanted to buy me lunch and put some gas in my car. Everybody knows Im having a hard time right now.

The union official told Shannon that she wanted to explain what the union was about and what they could do for Amazon workers. She wanted me to distribute literature to other Amazon employees about what the union could do at Amazon. Thats not something I was willing to do. I told her that I had a different agenda for a rank-and-file committee. If you bring in a union youre just going to have the corporate managers deciding with the union head about what happens to the employees. But a rank-and-file committee would be where all the workers collectively decide what we want to do.

The Teamsters for a Democratic Union (TDU) has called for a no vote against the sellout agreement released by the union last month. Its concern is to keep the widespread anger among workers confined within the union and prevent workers from forming their own organizations in opposition to the Teamsters, which functions as a pro-corporate labor-management business.

Shannon rejected the position of Mark Timlin, a former member of the TDU steering committee and founder of the Vote no on UPS contract Facebook page, that statements could not be permitted that referenced politicians. Shannons video opposed Democratic Senator Bernie Sanders, who used her earlier YouTube videos in his campaign advertising, as another Democratic Party politician whose job is to keep workers like me chained to a two-party system.

Responding to the argument that workers should not discuss politics, Shannon said: What this really means is no politics for certain people, she said, like the World Socialist Web Site and anyone who speaks out against the Democrats and the Republicans. Why cant workers talk about the struggles were having or about Bernie Sanders, without being censored? This is supposedly the land of the free. Why cant I say what I want to say, even if its about a politician?

Shannon concluded by restating her call for logistics workers all around the world to unite in opposition to all forms of nationalism and the efforts by the unions to keep workers divided. The UPS workers should stand up together and not accept anything less than they deserve, she said. We should all stand together. If you work for a company, be it Amazon, UPS or USPS, you should have the same conditions anywhere in the world. Workers in India should not be getting less than workers in America.
South Korea announced recently that it would reorganize its military intelligence body, the Defense Security Command (DSC), after it was revealed in early July to have plotted imposing martial law during mass protests last year against former President Park Geun-hye.

Last Monday, the Defense Ministry following President Moon Jae-ins orders launched a new preparatory committee for a body to replace the DSC. The previous Friday Moon announced the replacement of the agencys chief, Lieutenant General Lee Seok-gu, with the supposedly reform-minded Lieutenant General Nam Yeong-sin.

Moon disbanded the DSC, with the government later saying that all current DSC personnel would be sent back to their units in the army, navy, air force, and marine corps, though some will return to their positions following the reforms.

However, the fundamentally anti-democratic character of the DSC will not be addressed. Instead, the government is painting the situation as one that can be rectified by the removal of rogue officers or through shuffling staff and positions while leaving the DSCs basic functions untouched.

We will expeditiously carry out the creation work to ensure that we can complete the DSC reform as soon as possible through re-establishing its mission, function and organizational composition and through personnel reform, the Defense Ministry claimed on Monday.

Other changes being discussed include slashing the number of positions in the agency by approximately 30 percent from the current total of 4,200 and renaming the DSC for the moment as the military security support command.

The Defense Ministry is also looking to provide a fig leaf of civilian oversight, claiming that the new agency could be kept in check by assigning a high-level bureaucrat to serve as the head of an audit office. A 70 percent cap will also be placed on the number of military officers occupying top roles, with the remainder going to civilians. The new commander and chief of staff, however, will still be generals.

The new 21-person committee in charge of carrying out these changes is also comprised entirely of military officials, a further indication that the militarys functions in the new agency will not change. A civilian lawyer, Choe Gang-uk, will serve as an advisor to this task force, but he was previously a military lawyer.

None of the roles that reportedly will be assigned to the new unitinternal security, counterintelligence, and collecting and processing military informationare at all are different from the previous roles under the DSC.

Furthermore, given the power of the DSC, reforming or disbanding the agency is impossible under the capitalist system. The Defense Security Command has long been considered the most powerful military organization for decades I dont think it would be easy for the DSC to accept the new reality, an anonymous military official told the South Korean media.

Public anger towards the DSC, the military, and the government broke out in early July when a ruling Democratic Party of Korea member Rhee Cheol-hee made the martial law documents public. The DSC intended to seize power to put down demonstrations and mass protests against then President Park, had they not subsided when she was removed from office, impeached and arrested in March 2017.

These plans included occupying key parts of the capital, Seoul, arresting then-opposition lawmakers in the Democratic Party, censoring the media to prevent the public from learning what was taking place, and petitioning foreign diplomats to recognize the legitimacy of the coup detat.

In addition, the DSC has also been accused of spying on civilians, namely the families of victims who were killed when the Sewol ferry sank in April 2014. The issue continues to remain politically sensitive, a symbol for many of government incompetence, corruption, and disregard for public welfare as well as an anti-government rallying point.

All of this is par for the course when it comes to the DSC. It has gone by a number of names and re-brandings, tracing its origins back to 1950 during the Korean War when it was a special operations unit under the army, known as the Army Counterintelligence Corps. It was used to preserve loyalty to the regime of Syngman Rhee, who trampled on democratic rights and murdered political opponents.

In 1977, the army unit and its counterparts in the navy and air force were reorganized into a single unit and renamed the Defense Security Command under Park Chung-hee. Future dictator Chun Doo-hwan became head of the DSC shortly before Parks assassination in 1979. He used his position to seize power after Parks death.

In 1990, a whistleblower at the DSC named Private Yun Seok-yang exposed the agencys spying on 1,300 civilians, including students, professors, and politicians. It also included plans for their arrest in the event that martial law was declared. The DSC underwent a name change in Korean (though its English name remained the same), a common tactic the South Korean ruling class uses to cover up its crimes while pretending to enact reforms.

The DSC continued to spy on civilians, according to a civic group that was involved in publicizing the martial law documents in July. The intelligence agency reportedly tapped phone calls between President Noh Moo-hyun when he was in office and his defense minister. The civic group also accused the DSC of collecting information on and surveilling millions of civilians.

Ultimately, regardless of whatever measures Moons government carries out, he will not touch the framework of the police state that continues to exist in South Korea. His administration, no less than the conservatives whose legacies he claimed he would sweep away, defends the capitalist system and will preserve the repressive state apparatus needed to maintain it.
In a speech Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence promoted President Trumps plan to create a Space Force as a sixth branch of the US militaryon par with the Navy, Air Force, Marines, Army and Coast Guardaimed at fighting wars in space.

Pence called the initiative an idea whose time has come and stated the Trump Administration planned to have the branch operational by 2020. In his speech at the Pentagon, Pence called for Congress to supply an additional $8 billion for space security systems over the next five years.

The time has come to write the next great chapter in the history of our armed forces, to prepare for the next battlefield where Americas best and bravest will be called to deter and defeat a new generation of threats to our people, to our nation, he said.

In his typical chauvinist fashion, President Trump has said, It is not enough to merely have an American presence in space; we must have American dominance in space. The chest-thumping rhetoric conceals an inconvenient truth: the US manned space program is moribund rather than dominant, dependent on Russian rockets to send astronauts to the International Space Station. Many other nations have mastered the basic technologies associated with reaching space, which are now some 60 years old.

Pence, in his inflammatory speech, said that other nations are seeking to disrupt our space-based systems and challenge American supremacy in space as never before. The vice president claimed China and Russia have transformed space into a warfighting domain, and stated, in a show of menace, the United States will not shrink from this challenge.

When Trump publicly announced his intentions in June, he made it clear that the creation of a Space Force was directly linked to preparations for war with Russia and China. The White House pointed to Russias and Chinas improved satellite capabilities as a pretext for the US militarization of space.

Trumps initial proposal for a Space Force met opposition within his own cabinet and the Pentagon. Secretary of Defense James Mattis initially opposed its creation on the grounds that it would likely present a narrower and even more parochial approach to space operations. He was also responding to internal pressures within the Pentagon, where the Air Force views a Space Force as a subtraction from its resources and powers.

Senator Bill Nelson, a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, tweeted his opposition, saying Trump could not create a sixth branch of the military without congressional approval. But another top Democrat, Jim Cooper, ranking member of the House Armed Forces Committee, declared his support for the plan.

Pences announcement indicates a shifting mood in the upper levels of the state. Following Pence speech, the Pentagon unveiled a report with steps that would be necessary to create a Space Force, known as United States Space Command. According to Pence, Mattis even said that space is becoming a contested war-fighting domain, and we have to adapt to that reality.

The drive to expand Americas war machine into space stems from concerns over antisatellite weaponry allegedly being developed by Russia and China. An intelligence report in February claimed that Russia and China will be able to shoot down American satellites within two to three years. In 2007, China destroyed one of its own satellites using a missile launched from the Earth. Russia has also tested a missile that can be used to target satellites.

We could be deaf, dumb and blind within seconds, Cooper said in February at a forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Seldom has a great nation been so vulnerable.

According to the World Atlas, the United States operates 123 of the approximately 320 military satellites currently orbiting Earth, which serve a variety of functions such as reconnaissance, GPS and communications.

The satellite network is an essential component to US imperialism. GPS satellites help guide aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf and fighter jets over Syria. The satellites also help organize drone strikes across the Middle East in countries such as Yemen and allow intelligence agencies to spy on foreign targets.

The US military apparatus is concerned with maintaining its supremacy in all territory possible, including space. Establishing and maintaining space superiority has been an element of US military planning since Reagan introduced the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), better known as Star Wars, in 1983.

The US military particularly sees China as a threat to its dream of domination in space. Chinas space program has undergone rapid development in the past 30 years. China became the third country to conduct a manned spaceflight with the launch of Shenzhou 5 in 2003. Russia maintains a space program inherited from the Soviet Union.

The introduction of a Space Command is tied to the escalation of imperialist intervention and preparation for great power conflict with Russia, China, and even Europe. Trump made his war aim clear in June when he stated the US should not have China and Russia and other countries leading us in space.
Last Monday, Cincinnati Police Department (CPD) Officer Kevin Brown, 55, saw fit to tase 11-year-old Donesha Gowdy as she was leaving a Spring Grove Village Kroger grocery store Monday evening. Brown, working as a security guard, tasered Gowdy for allegedly stealing snacks.

According to the police report, Gowdy refused to comply with Browns demands to stop. As she turned her back and walked away, the off-duty officer electrocuted the adolescent, shocking her with up to 50,000 volts of electricity. The metal electrodes pierced her skin and embedded in her back, completing a circuit that witnesses state caused Gowdy to collapse. She began convulsing as the electricity sent spasms through her 4-foot-11-inch, 90-pound body. The fourth grader was transported to the Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and charged with theft and obstructing official business.

The use of a Taser on a child as young as 7 or an adult as old as 70 is currently permitted under the CPDs Use of Force policy.

Donna Gowdy, mother of Donesha, was irate at the officers actions. If you cant restrain these little kids, you need to find a different job. She also stated that her daughter was suffering from back pain and having difficulty sleeping since the incident. In comments to local reporters, Donesha stated that she didnt comply with the officers demand to stop because she was scared.

The Taser, developed by Axon Enterprise Inc., has been sold to law enforcement departments, the military and civilians as a less lethal electroshock weapon that can incapacitate from up to 25 feet away. Axon, formerly Taser International, touts the ability of its products to induce NMI, or neuromuscular incapacitation, which temporarily overrides an attackers central nervous system, limiting muscular control for 5 seconds.

According to a 2017 Reuters investigation, this less lethal weapon has been the cause of or a contributing factor in at least 153 deaths in the United States since its widespread adoption by police forces beginning in 2000. The same study concluded that, as with Donesha Gowdy, nine out of ten of those killed by tasering were unarmed.

Axon disputes the study, claiming only 24 instances of taser usage have resulted in death. Axon further claims that 18 of those 24 died from falling after the taser was used, while the remaining six instances were caused due to fires sparked by the weapons electrical arc.

In a morbid coincidence, August 6 marked the seven-year anniversary of the murder in Cincinnati of 18-year-old Everette Howard Jr. by campus police officer Richard Hass. Hass used his taser in an early Sunday morning altercation after Howard allegedly didnt comply with the officers commands. Howard was attending summer college preparatory classes at the University of Cincinnati.

Despite paramedic attempts to save him, Howard was declared dead upon arriving at the local hospital. Howard was unarmed and witnesses state he was complying with police demands, lowering himself to the ground and resting on his knees when Hass shot him in the chest. After suing Hass and the University of Cincinnati, the Howard family received a two million dollar settlement in 2013.

The latter court outcome is rare. According to a 2015 investigation conducted by the Washington Post, of the thousands of police killings which occurred in the ten-year period from 2005 to 2015, only 54 officers were so much as charged, let alone convicted of murder. At the same time, literally thousands have continued to die at the hands of police. According to the internet aggregator website killedbypolice.net, as of July, 720 individuals have been killed by law enforcement this year.

As is par for the course, social outrage has prompted city officials to promise a thorough investigation while Officer Kevin Brown is put on restricted duty. This thorough investigation will have to be completed without the use of body camera footage. While Brown was wearing a camera at the time of the incident, as so often is the case, it was not turned on.

Vice Mayor Christopher Smitherman has proposed raising the minimum age for stun gun use to 12 years old. It is unclear how police officers will determine if a child is 11 or 12 and therefore eligible to receive electroshock. Meanwhile at the behest of Cincinnati Mayor John Cranley, Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters has dropped the charges originally filed against Donesha Gowdy.

Likewise, figures around the Democratic Party specializing in channeling social opposition along the lines of race and gender, rather than class, have sprung into action. Shaun King, columnist at The Intercept and arch-peddler of identity politics, lamented on Twitter Thursday: This would NEVER happen to an 11-year-old WHITE girl. Never. The fact that Officer Kevin Brown is black did not deter Kings racialist ramblings.

Police departments such as Cincinnatis have been integrated for decades. Despite this diversity, officers continue to assault and kill working class citizens of all races and ages with regularity, while the wealthy continue to swindle billions of dollars from workers and orchestrate imperialist wars around the globe. Only a struggle against the capitalist system, the chief driver of inequality, police brutality and war, can eliminate such scourges from society.
Opposition is continuing to grow among UPS workers following a national meeting of Teamsters officials in Chicago, Illinois on Thursday, which endorsed the widely-opposed sellout contracts with UPS and UPS Freight.

Following the meeting, Dennis Taylor, the co-chairman of the Teamsters National UPS Negotiating Committee, who has an officially reported salary of $232,000, declared that the agreement provides all our UPS members with tremendous gains in wages, benefits and working conditions.

The real nature of the contracts, however, was made clear in the gloating response by UPS management to the Teamsters executives endorsement. A company statement declared: UPS is pleased that Teamster leadership throughout the country have approved the small-package and freight tentative national agreements. It noted that the agreements include provisions that give UPS greater flexibility, including for expanded weekend residential services, as well as to address challenges from competitors.

The Teamsters is now set to send out ballots for a vote on the contracts. No date has been publicly announced for the vote. The union already extended negotiations beyond the end of the last contract in order to buy time to suppress workers opposition.

The agreements include the creation of a second-tier of lower-paid hybrid delivery drivers, which is aimed at extending part-time work from the warehouses to deliveries. Pay for part timers, who make up 70 percent of the workforce, would rise to a derisory $15.50 by the end of the contract, leaving the majority of the workforce in poverty. The contract covering UPS Freight workers contains similar concessions.

Dozens of workers have spoken with the UPS Workers Newsletter to voice their opposition to the contract and describe the impact of the Teamsters collaboration with UPS management.

James, a 25-year-old part-time loader in Madison Heights, Michigan is paid just over $13 an hour. He has been at UPS for four years, and his weekly check is just over $100. Like most part-timers, he works a second job to make ends meet. You have to do that, he said. He works at a local carwash, where he is paid $6.75, less than the minimum wage, under the table.

I come in at 3 or 4 AM to UPS and get off at 8 or 9 AM, he said. Its hot and muggy. We ask for fans, and they tell us we cant because it would blow all the dust around. I wake up every day and dont want to come in here.

The conditions are so bad that many workers leave after a few days on the job, James said. Just today a guy started, was working next to me, and said he wasnt coming back tomorrow because its too hard. Its because of the union and the people who own this place; its not the workers fault. Its like this everywhere. Thats why lots of people are on the street and people want to sell drugs. If there were jobs and they paid decent, you wouldnt see that.

The union keeps talking about how great the contract is, how well get a raise, James said. Were supposed to get a few dollars by 2022. I dont even think well get it. But if we did, it would be worth less than it is now.

James has had his own experience with the Teamsters union over the last four years. He said the Teamsters is not for us, thats for sure. If it was, they would be trying to help us.

Once I was working on a Saturday, he explained. I had eight cars to load. I went to the union and asked, Why arent we getting some more loaders? They said I had lower seniority so thats why I had to work the Saturday. He said to do what the company said. I said, This is slavery, youve got me doing 2,000 packages, and Im not getting any help. He just told me to get back to it.

I dont know why we dont just go on strike. The whole place could go on strike. They cant do anything if theres no workers. But the union isnt saying anything about a strike.

James read over the section of the WSWS UPS Workers Newsletter statement urging UPS workers to form their own rank-and-file committees to draw up their own demands to launch a nationwide strike. It would be great to have our own committee, he said. All we have to do is get together. We wouldnt tell the union anything, just get our signs about going on strike, and go out. They should pay us more. We need more hours. Four or five hours a day is nothing.

It would have to be nationwide, he added. I could write a letter to other workers for a strike and say, it needs to be nationwide.

In Wisconsin, a driver of 12 years told the UPS Workers Newsletter, No union has worked so hard for the success of a company and given so much should be asked to give in to this type of concession.

The driver was particularly opposed to the efforts to introduce a new second tier of hybrid drivers. Once the company gets this classification, its just the beginning of the end of regular drivers, and [Teamsters President] James Hoffa is the guy who agreed to this. He is the epitome of a sellout.

Over the last 12 years Ive worked for UPS, these contracts went through without much trouble, the driver explained, arguing that this was due to the Teamsters common practice of stuffing ballots or sending ballots out late to ensure a yes vote. But with the advent of social media, the members are starting to stand up and say this is BS.

Rick, a long-time driver, said, The company and shareholders get more out of this contract than we do. Since the full contract was released on July 10, the value of UPS stock increased by more than 11 percent, with Wall Street applauding the enforcement of cost-cutting ahead of the upcoming holiday peak season. He said the fact that the contract was aimed at boosting profits goes against everything a union is supposed to stand for. Its truly disheartening on what it has become.

Rick said he believed a wildcat strike by workers should be a viable option Strength is always in numbers. If everyone bands together and sees that we can stand strong, we can make change.

The WSWS UPS Workers Newsletter urges UPS workers to build their own organizations of struggle, rank-and-file committees in every hub and warehouse, to unite with workers across UPS, at Amazon and USPS, and prepare for a coordinated offensive against the corporations. These committees should draw up their own demands as the basis for a nationwide strike. The campaign for a no vote should raise the demand for workers oversight over the balloting process and verification of the integrity of the vote.

We urge UPS workers who wish to take up such a struggle to contact us today.

The author also recommends:

UPS workers: Build rank-and-file committees to organize opposition to the contract!

[9 August 2018]
Special counsel Robert Mueller has subpoenaed Randy Credico to testify before a grand jury next month, according to Credico's attorney.

Martin Stolar told CNN he received a subpoena Thursday and Credico intends to comply and testify on September 7.

Continents and regions Eastern Europe Europe Government and public administration Investigations Law and legal system Political Figures - US Politics Robert Mueller Roger Stone Russia Russia meddling investigation Subpoenas Trial and procedure Non-profit and NGO organizations WikiLeaks Julian Assange Misc people

Credico, a comedian and radio show host, will likely meet with Mueller's team for a voluntary interview first. Credico previously declined a request from Mueller's team for a voluntary interview.

Roger Stone claimed Credico was his back channel to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during the 2016 campaign.

Stolar said it's unclear exactly what Mueller's team wants to question Credico about.

"My speculation is that they probably want to talk to him about Roger Stone and Julian Assange," Stolar said.

Credico had told CNN in June he was expecting to be subpoenaed because he had turned down the interview request.

MSNBC reported Thursday that Mueller intended to issue the subpoena.

Stone on Friday said he urges Credico to "simply tell the truth."

"I have testified truthfully before the House Intelligence Committee that Randy Credico was the source who confirmed Assange's June 2016 CNN interview in which the Wikileaks publisher said he had substantial information on Hillary Clinton," Stone said in a statement. "As I testified Credico told me this material would be released in October. I now realize that Credico's source was a Wikileaks lawyer and not Assange himself. At no time did Credico tell me what the source, content or scope of the WikiLeaks disclosures would be. I would note that Mr. Credico has avoided testifying on these matters under oath. If he is compelled to testify I would urge Mr. Credico to simply tell the truth."

Update: This story has been updated with additional context around the subpoena.
MARSHALL, Ill. (WTHI) - People in Marshall enjoyed a night out on Friday.

The community hosted it's 'Night Out on National Road' event.

Several groups helped put together the fun evening.

There were police, fire, and Army vehicles for families to explore.

They also had a pretty zoo for people to check out.
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTHI) -- The Terre Haute Air Show is right around the corner. Pieces of history are starting to fly into Terre Haute Regional airport. Pilots and their planes are getting ready for the big day.

One family owns a C-47 A plane that was built in 1944. It was plane used to carry gear, cargo, and men into combat during World War II.

"It came off the factory assembly line on June 2nd, 1944. It was then six days late transferred to the Canadian government June 8th," Jordan Brown, the owner of the plane said. "Right from there right into combat. Then June 13th it landed in Europe. It missed D-Day by just a week."

The plane is modeled off of luxury airplanes that had just started production. When the war started those factories quickly transitioned into making these, warplanes.

When the Brown family bought it about a year ago it was going essentially going to be scrapped.

"We spent about a little over a year with the restoration and it's still got a lot of work to be done," Nicole Brown, owner of the plane said. "But, aesthetically it's come a long way."

The C-47 has most of the original pieces. They did have to replace some things like the brakes and tires, but when you step into the plane it feels like you're going back in time.

The entire Brown family is involved in the project. Both of their sons helped to restore the plane. Cutting and wrapping individual pieces of installation to put into the navigation part of the plane.

"Aviation is a passion for our entire family," Nicole said. "Our boys are heavily involved in it as much as we are."

For the Brown's owning a C-47 WWII aircraft was something to check off the bucket list.

"I think we always had the 'one day dream' that this would maybe happen. Then one day we had the opportunity to buy one," she said.

Even though it's been a year they still love flying in it and telling people about the history.

"I think it's still surreal," Nicole said.

"Yeah, it's a grand old lady to fly," Jordan said.

Jordan and Nicole are going to be flying the plane at the start and end of the show. They will be carrying the Patriot Parachuters as they jump from the plane.

This is just one of the planes that are going to be at the Terre Haute Air Show next weekend. It's also not the only one that from the WWII era.

You still have time to order general admission tickets to the show. You can do that by going to their website here.

You can also get tickets to fly on some individual aircrafts during the show. You can do that by going to tents on the west side of the show and signing up.
TERRE HAUTE, Ind. (WTHI) - Friday was a big day for Union Hospital.

The hospital is celebrating 125 years of service.

Union unveiled a legacy wall to mark the day.

The wall tells the hospital's story.

Norma Shaw served with Union for 38-years.

She says things have changed a lot since she started working there.

"It's unbelievable. I keep saying I'm going to write a book, but I haven't slowed down to take time to do that. The changes that I have seen are unbelievable," Shaw said.

The Legacy Wall was inspired by Saint Frances and Saint Vincent hospitals.
Environmental sustainability is a hot corporate trend right now, with one company after another banning plastic straws, offsetting carbon emissions, and taking other steps toward being better planetary stewards.

But even by that measure, WeWork wants to be outstanding in the field. Literally.

Some 8,000 WeWork employees from around the world descend on a bucolic pasture in England next week for the company's seventh annual summer camp. They'll listen to talks from speakers like entrepreneur and author Tim Ferriss, attend workshops, and participate in activities like stand-up paddleboard, gong therapy, and sound baths. Yes, sound baths.

Beyond the corporate teambuilding, WeWork hopes the event provides a model of sustainability that other companies, as well as the entrepreneurs and businesses who use its coworking spaces in 20 countries, will follow. The idea is to get everyone working together to address environmental issues, Lindsay Baker, WeWork's global head of sustainability, told CNNMoney.

"The more we scale, the easier it is in some ways to deal with these problems in a comprehensive way," she said.

The company, believed to be worth $20 billion, makes a point of promoting sustainability. Last month it took the radical step of banning meat at corporate events and refusing to reimburse employees for meals that include red meat, poultry and pork. WeWork wants to achieve carbon-neutrality by 2025, and it works with carbon-offset organizations to mitigate the impact of corporate travel like flying thousands of people to England.

Such things are increasingly common in the business world. Hundreds of companies are working toward carbon neutrality, for example, and striving to conserve water and energy on their campuses, said Tensie Whelan, director of the Center for Sustainable Business at the New York University Stern School of Business. Going green, or as green as possible, makes sense from an ecological and business perspective, she said.

"The broader gestalt is one that both plays well with the millennials these companies want to attract and is meaningful in terms of supporting better sustainability practices at the office that hopefully employees will carry through at home," she said.

WeWork's corporate do-goodism continues at next week's camp, where plastic straws and bottled water are prohibited, plates and flatware are biodegradable, and the goal is to recycle, reuse, or donate as much as possible.

Related: WeWork is banning meat

Everyone will sip canned water or top off their reusable bottles at refill stations. Anything that isn't recycled will be carted away to a carbon recapture incinerator. Local vendors will provide meat-free meals.

The company is working with Eighth Plate to collect and distribute leftover food and Help Refugees to donate anything people leave behind, like clothing.

Despite the buzz the meat ban generated, WeWork's commitment to the environment and sustainability goes beyond dictating what employees can't eat on its dime, Baker said. Global environmental impact, as well as employee health and wellbeing, are top priorities, she said.

Related: Why adults are heading off to summer camp

Under Baker's leadership, the company is working with the nonprofit Carbon Fund to minimize its carbon footprint. WeWork plans to invest in the Envira Amazonia Project the Brazilian state of Acre to offset the impact of flying everyone to summer camp and mitigate other corporate travel.

Andrew J. Hoffman, professor of sustainable enterprise at University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, said flying and eating meat are two of the biggest contributors to a person's carbon footprint. But he believes carbon offsetting should be a lower priority for companies than banning meat or plastic, which have a far greater impact.

A 2016 report from Oko-Institut, a European nonprofit group that studies environmental issues, found that 85% of the carbon offset projects it looked at were not providing additional reductions in emissions.

Still, Hoffman said promoting sustainability and making employees aware of things like how abstaining from meat can curb CO2 emissions is "an admiral step to take." And the way Baker sees it, every little bit helps.

"We are thinking about global and social impacts -- what's going on in the world and what are issues we can help tackle?" she said. "It's a very different frame when you start from that angle, rather than saying whats our impact on the world and how to do we neutralize that."

Baker is already looking ahead to next year's camp, and what more she can do. She'd like to start by analyzing exactly how much waste the company generates, so she can track its reduction over time. And she's already got another idea for making the company a little greener.

"[Biodegradable water bottles," she said. "We'll try to do that next year."
The United Nations Security Council is calling for an investigation into Thursday's Saudi-led airstrike that hit a school bus in Yemen and killed dozens of children, many under the age of 10.

After private discussions on the airstrikes, the council said in a statement Friday that there should be a "credible, transparent" investigation, but it did not specifically indicate that it wants an "independent" probe.

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The Security Council said it "expressed grave concern" about the airstrike and all other recent attacks in Yemen. At least five Security Council nations called for the session, which included a briefing from a senior UN official.

A field trip

Saudi Arabia intervened in Yemen's civil war in 2015 in an attempt to sway the outcome against Iran-backed Houthi rebels, who took control of Yemen in an uprising and now say they are fighting to defend the country from outside attack.

The children were on a field trip when their bus was struck at a market, the first stop of the day, killing 50 and injuring 77, according to the Houthi-controlled Health Ministry.

Most of the children were inside the bus when the airstrike hit, according to a local medic, Yahya al-Hadi.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said a hospital it supports in Saada had received 29 bodies of "mainly children" under 15 years of age, and 40 injured, including 30 children.

Asked why the Security Council statement did not mention the word "independent," UK Ambassador Karen Pierce, serving as this month's council president, said the council will hold talks with the UN and others to determine how any investigation would proceed.

The UN secretary-general called for an independent investigation on Thursday. The Saudi-led coalition said Friday that it would start its own probe, according to state-run Saudi media.

On Thursday, the Saudi-led coalition defended the airstrike as a "legitimate military operation" and a retaliation for a Houthi ballistic missile that targeted the kingdom's Jizan province on Wednesday night, according to the country's official news agency.

"The targeting that happened today in Saada province was legal military action to target elements that planned and executed the targeting of civilians in the city of Jizan last night, killing and wounding civilians," the Saudi Press Agency quoted Col. Turki al-Malki, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, as saying.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Thursday that the US doesn't have full details of the Saudi-led strike and called for a "thorough investigation."

The US supplies Saudi Arabia with data for targeting and equipment.

"We don't have the full details of what happened on the ground," Nauert said Thursday. "We've seen reports. We can say we're concerned about these reports, that there was an attack that resulted in the deaths of civilians. We call on the Saudi-led coalition to conduct ... an investigation."
TALLAHASSEE, FL (WTXL) -- A high pressure is still sitting in the Gulf of Mexico with a stationary boundary draped over central Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. This boundary will begin moving toward the Florida Panhandle as a cold front. Before arriving in the Big Bend, it's expected to stall out once again. This will keep rain chances low for the rest of the weekend.

Tonight, lows fall to the lower and mid 70s with a partly cloudy sky. Winds are expected to be calm.

Sunday will start mostly sunny, but partly cloudy conditions will be seen by the afternoon. There is a 30 percent chance of seeing an isolated rain shower or a non-severe thunderstorm in the afternoon to evening hours. Highs will be seasonal, heating to the low 90s, with a northwest wind. Sunday night will be a repeat of tonight... lows near 74 degrees with a partly cloudy sky.
SEOUL, Aug. 8 (Xinhua) -- A group of South Korean officials visited the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Wednesday for joint inspection of forests in the DPRK side, according to local media reports.

Twelve South Korean officials, led by a high-level Korea Forest Service official, crossed the military demarcation line (MDL) earlier in the day via the eastern route along the coast to get to the Mount Kumgang.

The officials would conduct a joint inspection of the Mount Kumgang areas with DPRK officials and discuss ways to protect forests from harmful insects and diseases.

The South Korean officials are scheduled to return home later in the day.

The visit is a follow-up measure to the agreement reached during the inter-Korean working-level talks in July to increase forest cooperation between the two Koreas.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-09 22:25:50|Editor: xuxin

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STOCKHOLM, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- Several train connections in southern and western Sweden are cancelled or delayed, and suspension of train traffic will last at least till Saturday, the Swedish Television SVT reported on Thursday.

Train connections have been suspended because of the warm weather that causes the tracks to bend. In addition, some trains are cancelled or delayed because of fires and electrical failures caused by thunderstorms.

Especially in the region of Gothland, southern Sweden, the train traffic between several cities is cut off.

"This is a safety measure that we take because of the extreme weather. According to the weather forecast, the train traffic should return to normal on Saturday," unit manager Jorgen Borggren from the Transport Administration told SVT.

On Thursday, a third of all Sweden's long-distance train are delayed. According to SVT, the Minister of Infrastructure Tomas Eneroth promises to improve the country's rail network in the future.

"The Swedish rail network is really worn down. We have to make big investments and the biggest railway renovation in modern times. We are now investing over 700 billion SEK (78,1 billion U.S. dollars) in the infrastructure," the minister said to SVT.

Disturbances in the train traffic are expected to last till Saturday, and travellers are advised to contact their train companies for more information. (1 U.S. dollars=8.96 SEK)
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-10 15:13:56|Editor: zh

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A money changer watches foreign exchange board at a currency exchange office in Ankara, Turkey, on Aug. 10, 2018. The Turkish lira on early Friday hit an all-time low of 6.30 against the U.S. dollar, a day after a deadlock in bilateral talks in Washington which aimed to resolve political crisis between Turkey and the United States. (Xinhua/Mustafa Kaya)

ANKARA, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Turkish lira on early Friday hit an all-time low of 6.30 against the U.S. dollar, a day after a deadlock in bilateral talks in Washington which aimed to resolve political crisis between Turkey and the United States.

The Turkish lira has fallen more than 10 percent since last week after the U.S. slapped sanctions against two Turkish ministers whom Washington accused of playing role in detention of American Pastor Andrew Brunson.

Talks between Turkish and U.S. delegations failed on Tuesday, triggering the lira rapid weakening to new record low against the U.S. dollar.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday has dismissed concerns over the tumbling lira and called on his nation to "have no worries."

Turkish Treasury and Finance Ministry is set to announce a "new economic model" on Friday, aiming at stabilize the economic growth.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-10 17:54:34|Editor: zh

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Indonesian President Joko Widodo (2nd L, front) and his running mate, senior Islamic cleric Ma'ruf Amin (3rd L, front), submit documents in Jakarta, Indonesia, Aug. 10, 2018. Indonesian President Joko Widodo and his former rival in the 2014 general election, retired general Prabowo Subianto, officially registered their candidacy in the country's electoral commission on Friday. (Xinhua/Veri Sanovri)

JAKARTA, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- Indonesian President Joko Widodo and his former rival in the 2014 general election, retired general Prabowo Subianto, officially registered their candidacy in the country's electoral commission on Friday.

President Widodo picked up senior Islamic cleric Ma'aruf Amin as his running mate while Prabowo chose to partner with Sandiaga Salahuddin Uno, an entrepreneur and deputy governor of Jakarta.

The 57-year-old President Widodo came into office in 2014 on a platform of battling corruption, bolstering investment, constructing a massive infrastructure and beefing up education.

During his period, Widodo cut fuel subsidies, allocated more state budget to infrastructures and social programs.

"Democracy is not a war, democracy is not a hostility, but a contest of ideas, track record of achievement," said Widodo after his registration at the commission office.

"I hear that Prabowo declared his running mate last night, we congratulate him and his supporting political parties on that," he added.

Widodo's running mate Amin, 75, is the head of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), the highest Muslim organization in the country. The cleric has played a strategic role in the rise of tolerance in the world's largest Muslim nation.

Widodo and Amin are supported by a coalition of nine political parties, including the largest Democratic Party of Struggle, the second largest Golkar Party, the National Democratic Party and the National Awakening Party.

Prabowo is former head of the country's army strategic reserve and he has vowed to avert economic inequality.

"We want to be in power on behalf of the people, we want there is no hunger and poor people in Indonesia," Prabowo said after the registration.

Prabowo and Sandiaga are supported by a coalition of four political parties, including the third largest Great Indonesia Movement Party, the Democratic Party chaired by former president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the Prosperous and Justice Party and the National Mandate Party.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 00:06:07|Editor: Chengcheng

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SHANGHAI, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- A popular online travel agency said a growing number of Chinese tourists are heading to rural Chinese villages to spend their summer vacation.

The report released by Lvmama.com, a Shanghai-based online travel agency, said the number of Chinese tourists who booked rural packages in July and August jumped by 50 percent year on year.

Visits to rural areas are more frequent, the agency said, with the number of travelers who have taken more than three rural visits is growing, it said.

Big cities such as Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, Chongqing, and Suzhou are the most popular destinations in China for tourists. About 70 percent of domestic travelers choose destinations close to their hometowns or cities where they live.

The report said rural resorts are becoming more unique, high-end and provide interactive activities.

Li Qiuyan, public relations chief of Lvmama, said rural tourism is developing with a strong push from the on-going poverty alleviation campaign.

Data from the China Tourism Academy shows the Chinese rural tourism market recorded 1.4 trillion yuan in sales and 2.5 billion visitors in 2017. The market is expected to continue expanding this year, said Li.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 00:56:26|Editor: Chengcheng

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BEIJING, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese mainland spokesperson on Friday promised assistance to Taiwan compatriots who have encountered difficulties overseas.

"We will offer assistance to compatriots from Taiwan no matter what kind of difficulties they have encountered or wherever they are overseas," said Ma Xiaoguang, spokesperson with the State Council Taiwan Affairs Office.

Ma made the remarks when introducing conditions of a young woman from Taiwan who has been bailed out of difficulty with the help of Chinese embassy to Afghanistan.

The woman went to Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, in early August, but was left in financial difficulty after falling victim of a scheme, according to Ma.

The Chinese embassy offered timely assistance to the woman and secured her safe return to Taiwan, Ma said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 01:41:35|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks to journalists on the appointment of Michelle Bachelet at the UN headquarters in New York, Aug. 10, 2018. The United Nations General Assembly on Friday approved former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet as the next UN human rights chief by acclamation. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Friday that former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet is "perfectly suited" for the key post of High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Extending his congratulations to Bachelet whose appointment as the new UN human rights chief was confirmed by the General Assembly earlier on the day, Guterres said that "Ms. Bachelet has been as formidable a figure in her native Chile as she has at the United Nations."

"At home, she has known the heights and the depths -- as the first woman to serve as the country's president, but also as a survivor of brutality by the authorities targeting her and her family many decades ago," the UN chief said at a press encounter.

Praising Bachelet as "a pioneer" at the United Nations, Guterres said as the first leader of UN Women, she gave the new entity "a new dynamic and inspiring start."

Bachelet was appointed in 2010 as the first Executive Director of the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women).

"In this year in which we mark the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human rights, I could not think of a better choice," the UN chief added.

Speaking of Bachelet's "unique experience," the UN chief said that "she has lived under the darkness of dictatorship. As a physician, she knows the trials of people thirsting for health and yearning to enjoy other vital economic and social rights."

"And she knows the responsibilities of both national and global leadership," he added.

However, the secretary-general said Bachelet takes office "at a time of grave consequence for human rights."

"Hatred and inequality are on the rise. Respect for international humanitarian and human rights law is on the decline. Space for civil society is shrinking. Press freedoms are under pressure," the UN chief listed a number of human rights problems the world is facing.

"To navigate these currents, we need a strong advocate for all human rights -- civil, political, economic, social and cultural," said the UN chief, adding that "we need a person who can ensure the integrity of the indispensable human rights mechanisms of the United Nations."

The secretary-general also expressed "deep gratitude" to Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein whose four-year term as the human rights chief expires at the end of this month, for "his leadership, passion, courage and skill in serving as High Commissioner for the past four years."

The UN human rights chief is the principal official who speaks out for human rights across the whole UN system, strengthening human rights mechanisms, enhancing equality, fighting discrimination in all its forms, widening the democratic space and protecting the most vulnerable from all forms of human rights abuse.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 02:01:40|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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RIYADH, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Saudi air forces intercepted on Friday two ballistic missiles launched toward the border city of Jazan, Al Arabiya local news reported.

The attack came less than 48 hours after a precious one targeting the same city, which left one killed and 11 others injured.

Saudi Arabia has been leading a war against Houthi rebels for the last three years in support of Yemen's international recognized exiled government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 02:31:52|Editor: Chengcheng

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BEIJING, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- China will remain committed to opening up its agricultural industries despite trade tensions with the United States, a senior Chinese official said, adding that tariffs will only have a limited impact on the country's markets.

"China's diversified sources of imports from a wide range of overseas markets will ensure its countermeasures against U.S. tariffs will only have a limited influence on the domestic market," said Han Jun, deputy director of the office of the central agricultural work leading group and vice minister of agriculture and rural affairs, during a press briefing Thursday.

The government will work to minimize the impacts on industrial production and people's everyday life, Han said.

The vice minister's remarks came on the heel of an escalation of a U.S.-ignited trade war. Among rising tariffs against a wide range of goods traded in both directions, China introduced extra levies on more than 900 U.S. agricultural product lines, including soybeans, grains, cotton and meat.

"China is not willing to engage in a trade war but was forced to implement necessary countermeasures in response to the U.S. moves," Han said, noting the country's tariffs, put forward after extensive public input and a careful assessment on the impact, are "rational and restrained."

The impact on U.S. agriculture is foreseeable.

"American farmers are likely to lose the Chinese market that they have worked for decades to explore, despite the agricultural subsidies worth up to 12 billion U.S. dollars announced by the White House and U.S. Department of Agriculture," Han said.

Soybeans, the most important agricultural product in the bilateral trade, are at the forefront of this trade war.

The U.S. is expected to export more than 30 million tonnes of soybeans to China this year, according to a previous forecast, but this number is now unlikely to materialize, as Chinese companies have largely stopped purchasing U.S. soybeans after an additional 25-percent duty took effect on July 6.

A hearing by the U.S. House of Representatives on July 19 reflected the concerns of farmers and agri-business groups about the scenario of a shrinking market share in China. After the soybean season begins in October, the sector will face a worsening situation that features falling prices, increasing export pressure and a long export cycle.

The United States exports about half of its annual soybean production, around 100 million tonnes.

In a fiercely-competitive Chinese market, soybean producers from other countries will occupy the market share that belonged to U.S. farmers if trade frictions continue to worsen, Han said.

Han cited remarks of Brazilian Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi that the South American country is capable of doubling the cultivated area of soybeans.

"Many countries have the will and ability to replace the U.S. presence in the Chinese agricultural market. If other countries become reliable suppliers to China, it will be difficult for the United States to regain the position." Han said.

China is capable of dealing with the gap left by dropping soybean imports from the United States, Han said.

With limited arable land resources, it is hard for China to ensure the sufficient supply of land-intensive products including soybeans after securing enough staple grains like rice and wheat. The country relies on global markets to fill its 90 million tonne soybean demand each year.

China has made thorough preparations to prevent the impacts on domestic food prices, Han said, citing responding measures including seeking new sources, reducing the use of soymeal in animal feed, buying substitutes, and raise domestic soybean production capacity.

Despite the trade frictions, Han stressed China would promote the opening-up of the agricultural sector in an active, steady and orderly manner, with more imports from the global markets. "It is China's established policy to actively expand agricultural imports."

"The main issue faced by China's agriculture is not shortage in production but structural imbalance. We must accelerate supply-side structural reform in agriculture through further reforms and opening up," Han said.

China has become the largest importer of agricultural products worldwide and the second largest agricultural trading nation. The country is the world's biggest buyer of soybeans, sugar, and cotton.

In fact, China and the United States are highly complementary in agricultural trade and strengthened cooperation in the area would be beneficial to the agriculture of both sides, Han said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 02:57:00|Editor: Liangyu

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Visitors are seen in the Exhibition of Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Bibliotheca Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt, on Aug. 8, 2018. (Xinhua/Wu Huiwo)

by Marwa Yahya

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- "Culture is a fundamental human factor for enhancing cooperation between peoples," said Mohamed Sultan, governor of the Egyptian coastal city of Alexandria, amid an ongoing exhibition of the intangible cultural heritage in Shanghai, China's most populous city.

Egypt and China were connected with trade, economic and cultural ties over thousands of years, Sultan told Xinhua while inspecting unique Chinese heritage pieces being displayed in the Bibliotheca Alexandria.

The first session of the International Tour Exhibition of Chinese traditional Fine Arts was opened on Wednesday in the historical library of Alexandria.

Under the topic "Culture across Ancient and Modern," the Exhibition of Shanghai Intangible Cultural Heritage in Daily Life, which will last until Aug. 27, has showcased more than 130 pieces of artifacts including Jinshan farmer paintings, Shanghai-style woolen tapestries, Shanghai-style silk works, opera customs, jade and bamboo carving works and other cultural heritage objects from Shanghai, sister city of Alexandria for 26 years.

Shanghai will also host an Egyptian Child Exhibition that will include drawings and paintings about Alexandria on Sept. 23, Sultan noted.

Alexandria was a historical city where the ancient Greek and Rome civilizations met and integrated with each other, while the library itself was the meeting point for the businessmen who traded on the Silk Road.

The Chinese exhibition shows the strong, deep and historical relations between Egypt and China, Huda Meqaty, deputy director of the Bibliotheca Alexandria, told Xinhua.

By holding the exhibition in the library, which enjoys a high reputation as a cultural center along the Mediterranean, China and Egypt have broadened the Chinese culture to a new horizon, Meqaty said.

Meanwhile, the exhibition will encourage the Egyptian youth to know more about their Chinese peers through cultural communication, she added.

"Dialogue between young generations from both sides is necessary to bridge gap between the two peoples," Meqaty explained.

Shi Yuewen, a Chinese cultural counsellor in Egypt, said the mutual understanding between the two countries isn't sufficient because of geographic distance and language.

There should be more active communications between the two peoples through exhibitions mirroring cultures and heritages, he noted.

The exhibition is divided into four areas: "Life as painting," "Gorgeous Brocades and Silk Articles," "Beauty in the Square" and "Elegant Melody."

Watching the Jinshan farmer painting "Golden harvest, return from fishing," which was featured by novel design, bright colors and simple shapes, Mahmoud Atta, a 22-year-old trainer in the Model African Union, said he was stunned.

"I was really surprised to see very simple but sophisticated paintings that tell stories of the daily life of people," Atta said.

The performance of the folk music players on traditional wooden instrument with their dazzling dresses at the entrance of the exhibition was enough to envision the beauty of Shanghai, he added.

Zynab al-Sayed, an 18-year-old high school student, was taking selfie photo wearing Peking opera costumes.

Al-Sayed said she was so eager to know about the Chinese culture, describing the exhibition as "the best opportunity for getting closer to the Chinese."

"I love the traditional musical instruments Liuqin and Guzheng, which are similar to old Egyptian musical instruments," she said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 03:42:11|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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LONDON, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- An official representative of Queen Elizabeth II paid tribute on Friday to the tens of thousands of Chinese men who played a key, but largely forgotten, role in the First World War.

A national event took place in Liverpool to remember the almost 100,000 members of the Chinese Labour Corps (CLC) who were recruited by the British government during the 1914-1918 conflict.

Mark Blundell, Lord Lieutenant of Merseyside, addressed a large gathering at Liverpool's Anfield cemetery where five members of the CLC are buried. The audience included high-ranking British military officers, civic leaders, representatives from the Chinese Consulate General in Manchester, and members of Chinese organizations in Britain.

"Theirs was a civilian army which deserves as much respect and recognition as our army of soldiers, those men who travelled thousands of miles across continents and under the harshest of conditions to help our troops on the Western Front," he said.

Blundell said the CLC, consisting mostly of men from poor farming communities in China, was recruited to help with manual work during the war.

"What they did was neither easy nor glamorous, yet it was essential. Sadly, their story is little known," he said.

Blundell added: "On behalf of Her Majesty the Queen, I should like to say thank you to the men of the Chinese Labor Corps. We shall remember them."

Brigadier Peter Rafferty, Colonel of the British Army's Duke of Lancaster's Regiment said the CLC men arrived in Liverpool from China, and were dispatched to keep vital supplies moving to the front lines, digging trenches and fences, even retrieving the dead from the battlefields.

They also built roads and railways and worked in munitions factories.

By the end of the war, he said, there were 195 CLC companies carrying out dangerous work.

Rafferty said that the official record showed that of 2,000 CLC members were killed, but the figure could be as high as 20,000.

"The contribution made by the Chinese Labour Corps was barely recognized at the end of the war. There is no tribute to them among Britain's 40,000 war memorials, and most of their records were destroyed during the Blitz of World War II."

"These men deserve better, and our nation's promise never to forget should apply to them as much as any other allied contingent," said Rafferty.

An official representative from the Chinese Consulate General in Manchester praised the way the men of the CLC were saluted for their deeds.

"We are here to represent a new generation of Chinese people, and to remember the men from the CLC who died a hundred years ago. We are now far from war or turmoil and hard times, and we believe we will continue to be a supporter of peace so that the men of the CLC can finally rest in peace," said the representative.

Karen Soo, whose grandfather Soo Yuen Yi served as one of the men in the CLC during the war, was at the event. Soo Yuen Yi survived the war and continued living in Britain, eventually opening a laundry before becoming a businessman.

The event in Liverpool was organized by Peng Wenlan of the Meridian Society to raise awareness in Britain of the CLC's work.

An exhibition of the CLC, featuring photographs from the W.J. Hawkings Collection, is on display in Liverpool until Aug. 18.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 04:32:30|Editor: mym

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Palestinian medics carry a wounded man during clashes with Israeli troops on the Gaza-Israel border, east of Gaza City, on Aug. 10, 2018. Two Palestinians, one of whom was a medic, were killed, and 307 Palestinians on Friday were wounded in clashes near the Gaza-Israel border, according to the report of Gaza's Health Ministry. (Xinhua/Wissam Nassar)

JERUSALEM, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Israeli army's tanks Friday evening struck two Hamas posts in the northern Gaza Strip, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reported.

About 9,000 Palestinians Friday gathered in five locations along the Gaza Strip security fence, burning tires adjacent to the security fence, hurling rocks, explosive devices and firebombs at IDF troops and the security fence, according to the IDF.

A number of Palestinians hurled a grenade at IDF troops in the northern Gaza Strip, said the IDF. No injuries to IDF troops were reported.

Two Palestinians, one of whom was a medic, were killed, and 307 Palestinians on Friday were wounded in clashes near the Gaza-Israel border, according to the report of Gaza's Health Ministry.

Israel's security cabinet announced on Thursday night it will continue its strikes in Gaza, despite Egyptian efforts to achieve a cease-fire after two days of severe escalation.

Israeli media reported that Israel is denying it ever agreed to a cease-fire with Hamas.

Israeli war jets have stricken more than 150 Hamas sites in Gaza, killing a pregnant woman, her baby and a Hamas fighter, while Gaza militants launched about 200 rockets towards southern Israel on Wednesday and Thursday.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 04:37:33|Editor: Chengcheng

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by Burak Akinci

ANKARA, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- The rising tension in the ties between Turkey and the U.S. has led to speculation that Turkey would further strengthen its relations with Russia.

Ankara has retaliated last weekend for the extraordinary U.S. sanctions targeting two Turkish ministers over the detention of U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson, who was charged with espionage and terrorism.

Turkey swiftly responded by imposing identical sanctions on two U.S. secretaries, leading the bilateral ties to a new low since the early 1950s.

Analysts believed that the deterioration of the Turkey-U.S. ties is a result of a series of disputes between the two governments, including the divergent policies in Syria, the U.S. refusal to extradite Fethullah Gulen, a Turkish cleric living in the U.S. in exile who was blamed by Ankara for a failed coup in 2016, and Turkey's purchase of Russian S-400 missiles.

ANKARA EXASPERATED

There's an apparent frustration and exasperation in Turkey towards the U.S. administration.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's senior advisor Yigit Bulut said that Turkey will now deepen its already close ties with Moscow after this latest episode of distrust on the Washington government.

"Frankly speaking, thank god for those sanctions. I hope they don't give us the F-35s (fighter planes). Instead of these planes we will purchase SU (Sukhoi) bomber jets and others from Russia which are more compatible with S-400 missiles," said Bulut in a TV interview.

The U.S. Congress has passed a bill prohibiting the sale of F-35 jets to Turkey pending a review assessing the possible risk associated with Ankara's purchase of the S-400 air defense system.

The atmosphere in NATO is also quite bleak regarding the differences between two of its major allies.

U.S. Ambassador to NATO Kay Bailey Hutchison said early July that Russia appeared to be trying to "flip" Turkey, a key member of the alliance and second in troop numbers after the United States, in a bid to undermine and destabilize NATO.

"They want to destabilize the strongest defense alliance in the history of the world, and that is NATO," she added, while also voicing her doubts about Moscow's possible success on their efforts on Turkey.

ERDOGAN'S CONCILIATORY TONE

Contrary to previous tensions, this time, Erdogan took a conciliatory tone and called for a return of the two country's partnership, but the decayed state of bilateral relations are rife for new disagreements to erupt.

Analysts suggested Washington's hardline approach toward Ankara over the Brunson case can be possibly explained by broader doubts about Turkey's allegiance to its Western allies.

"Personally even though I think that the latest crisis (with the United States) will be resolved in one way or another, problems in bilateral relations have built up to be structural thus tensions between Ankara and Washington, also the West, will only get worse and deeper in the future," Kerim Has, an expert on Eurasian politics from Moscow State University, told Xinhua.

According to the analyst, despite that one may reach the conclusion at first that Ankara's ties with Moscow will deepen, the speculation is not entirely correct.

"Turkish-Russian relations are not the fruit of strategic planning but are the result of an obligatory partnership over the Syrian crisis, and in this crisis Ankara's needs for Russia are increasing compared with Moscow's needs towards Ankara," argued Has.

Turkey and Russia are historical regional rivals and have been in war for several times during the Ottoman Empire and Tsarist Russia. But now, they have forged a partnership based mainly on trade, energy and defense issues.

"We have a good understanding on matters that are both of our interests and we have a good basis of cooperation with Russia. We want this cooperation to continue," said a source close to the Turkish government on condition of anonymity.

"What Trump did (sanctions) was very wrong, I really don't think that Russia would have made such a mistake if we were in the same situation," said the source, while insisting that Turkey's ties with the West are "essential" and that Ankara is "balancing its relations with the West and the East."

TURKISH-RUSSIA TIES NOT UNBREAKABLE

Furthermore, Ankara's ties with Moscow have its limitations. Syrian government forces, backed by Russian air forces, are gradually overrunning the de-escalation zones. Erdogan has vowed to protect the last main zone in Idlib, on Turkey's border.

"Russians think that they can manage an offensive targeting Idlib more smoothly in an atmosphere where Turkey is hit by U.S. sanctions and in need of Russian support," commented Has, pointing out however that the Syrian city could be a potential source of a crisis between Turkey and Russia.

Turkish officials have announced that Istanbul will host on Sept. 7 a summit on Syria and Iraq without U.S. presence. Senior representatives from Turkey, Russia, France and Germany are expected to attend to create a new framework for regional issues regarding security, economy and defense.

The absence of the United States in those talks regarding significant regional issues clearly draws attention at this time when not only Turkey, but also EU countries are confused by Trump's rigid economic policies toward Europe, experts noted.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 05:22:46|Editor: Liangyu

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The first Chinese tourist who enjoys the visa-free agreement between China and Belarus receives a certificate in Minsk, Belarus, on Aug. 10, 2018. The intergovernmental agreement on visa-free travel between Belarus and China came into effect on Friday. (Xinhua/Wei Zhongjie)

MINSK, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- The intergovernmental agreement on visa-free travel between Belarus and China came into force on Friday.

From now on, Belarusians can stay in China without a visa for up to 30 days in one trip, but not more than 90 days a year. The same rule applies to Chinese citizens.

If a person wants to stay in the country for more than 30 days or engage in educational and professional activities, he or she needs a special visa. Visa-free travel covers private trips, business trips and tourist trips.

The Belarusian authorities expect that the implementation of the agreement will significantly increase the number of Chinese tourists to Belarus, and will be an important factor in the development of tourism infrastructure.

The intergovernmental agreement on mutual visa-free travel for ordinary citizens of the two countries was signed in China's Qingdao on June 10 during Belarusian President's working visit to China.
Photo taken on Aug. 2, 2018 shows a general view of the UN Security Council meeting on the situation in Yemen at the UN headquarters in New York. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

UNITED NATIONS, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- The UN Security Council on Friday called for a "credible and transparent" probe into a Saudi-led coalition air strike in Yemen that killed dozens of children.

"If any investigation that is held is not credible, the council will obviously want to review that," British ambassador to the UN Karen Pierce, council president for August, told reporters after a closed-door council meeting on Yemen.

"They (council members) expressed their grave concern at these, and all other recent attacks in Yemen. They called for a credible and transparent investigation," Pierce noted.

British ambassador to the United Nations Karen Pierce, whose country holds the Security Council presidency for the month of August, briefs journalists on the Council's programme of work for the month, at the UN headquarters in New York, Aug. 1, 2018. (Xinhua/Li Muzi)

The Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemen's Houthi rebels announced on Friday an investigation into the air strike under mounting international pressure.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has strongly condemned the air strike on Thursday, urging an "independent and prompt investigation," adding that warring parties must take "constant care to spare civilians."

The UN Special Envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, has said that he was "deeply shocked by the appalling tragedy that claimed so many innocent lives."

Briefing journalists in Geneva on Friday, the United Nations Children's Fund's (UNICEF) spokesperson Christophe Boulierac said that the agency believed the air strike on the school bus constituted "the single worst attack" on children since 2015. "No such number of children have been involved in one incident before," he added.

Between March 26 and Aug. 9, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has documented 17,062 civilian casualties in Yemen, including 6,592 dead and 10,470 injured. The majority of these casualties were as a result of air strikes carried out by the Saudi-led Coalition, it said in a statement.

Amid ongoing conflict in one of the world's poorest countries, UNICEF warned that the consequences for children have been "particularly striking."

Yemen has become the world's worst humanitarian crisis, with more than 22.2 million people in need of assistance.

Yemen's conflict has its roots in uprisings that date back to 2011, but fighting escalated in March 2015, when an international coalition led by Saudi Arabia intervened militarily at the request of Yemen's President.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 07:18:17|Editor: mmm

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Mexican team members celebrate after winning the trophy of FEI Jumping Nations Cup of Ireland in Dublin, Ireland, Aug. 10, 2018. Mexico stunned their European rivals by winning Longines FEI Nations Cup of Ireland held here on Friday. (Xinhua)

DUBLIN, Ireland, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- Mexico stunned their European rivals here on Friday to win the Longines FEI Jumping Nations Cup of Ireland in Dublin.

Mexico, who competed here last time in 1991, arrived as complete underdogs but turned the sport on its head in the last leg of the Europe Division 1 series at the historic Royal Dublin Society showgrounds.

But Eugenio Garza Perez and his veteran team-mates Federico Fernandez, Patricio Pasquel and Enrique Gonzalez enjoyed the warmest reception from the 20,000 spectators when producing three second-round clears to pin Ireland, France and Italy into joint-runner-up spot.

Hosts Ireland cruised into the lead on a zero score after the first round, with Italy snapping at their heels on four faults followed by the United States, Mexico and France carrying eight apiece.

The 22-year-old Perez (Victer Finn) showed a dramatic improvement from his 12-fault first-round effort when clear second time out, and when 46-year-old Pasquel (Babel) produced one of four double-clears of the day and Gonzalez (Chacna) wrapped it up by also being foot-perfect all the pressure was on the Italians and Irish.

And both faltered, adding four faults to complete along with France on a total of 12 as Mexico made history.

"It's a dream come true. Since we got the invitation we have not stopped dreaming about this moment. We worked hard to be here and we enjoyed every second," said Fernandez who posted two four-fault scores with Landpeter do Feroleto.

"After what happened to me I feel an obligation to be happy, and today was one of the happiest days of my life," said the 50-year-old Fernandez, who was involved in a devastating air-crash that left many dead in 1987.

Perez, who is trained by Irish showjumping legend Eddie Macken, said, "It's really out of a dream, it's incredible."

The day's result confirms Belgium as winners of the Europe Division 1 series with Ireland finishing a close second, just five points behind. Switzerland, France, Netherlands, Britain and Sweden fill the next five places on the leaderboard and all seven countries will compete at the Longines FEI Jumping Nations Cup Final in Barcelona in October.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 08:38:27|Editor: Chengcheng

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BEIJING, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- More than 300,000 newly published books from across the world will be displayed at the upcoming 25th Beijing International Book Fair, the organizer said at a recent press briefing.

A total of 2,500 exhibitors from 93 countries and regions will participate in the book fair, to be held at the China International Exhibition Center from Aug. 22 to 26.

As this year marks the 40th anniversary of China's reform and opening-up, nearly 5,000 books and publications will be showcasing the country's achievements, the organizer said.

Morocco, this year's guest country of honor, will exhibit around 800 kinds of books and hold several events to showcase African culture, and China-Morocco relations under the Belt and Road Initiative.

An exhibition of children's books will be held for the first time as part of the book fair, according to the organizer.

Co-hosted by government departments and associations, including the State Administration of Press and Publication and China Writers Association, the book fair aims at advancing cooperation and exchange among global publishers.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 09:33:34|Editor: zh

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LONDON, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- One person was killed and one seriously injured in an explosion in a military hardware factory in Salisbury in southern England late Friday, police said.

The blast occurred at the factory north of Wiltshire City shortly before 17:00 (1600 GMT), police said.

The factory produces hardware to protect military ships and aircraft from incoming fire.

There was no immediate information about the cause of the explosion. The casualties have not been named yet.

Police said a joint investigation will be conducted with the Health and Safety Executive, the organization responsible for workplace safety.
Photo taken on Aug, 9, 2018 shows submerged houses due to heavy rains in Idukki, the southern Indian state of Kerala. (Xinhua/Stringer)

NEW DELHI, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- At least 30 people have died in floods and landslides triggered by torrential rains in the southern Indian state of Kerala in the past 48 hours, officials said Friday.

The deaths were reported from the districts of Idukki, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Wayanad and Ernakulam.

"With more deaths in the past 24 hours, the toll now stands at 30. The most deaths were reported from Idukki district. Several people are also missing in these flood-affected districts," a disaster management official said.

Photo taken on Aug, 9, 2018 shows submerged houses due to heavy rains in Idukki, the southern Indian state of Kerala. (Xinhua/Stringer)

Apart from 10 teams of National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF), the Indian military has been deployed in the state.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) said it had deployed a number of aircraft and helicopters in the rescue operations.

"Five An-32 transport aircraft have been pressed into service to transport National Disaster Response Force teams. Two Mi-17 V5 helicopters and an Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) have also been deployed," an IAF spokesperson told the media.

Authorities said schools and colleges have been closed in large parts of the state and the annual Nehru boat race in Alappuzha district has been postponed because of the heavy showers lashing Kerala.

Photo taken on Aug, 9, 2018 shows submerged houses due to heavy rains in Idukki, the southern Indian state of Kerala. (Xinhua/Stringer)

State Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has attributed the floods to the opening of many dams across Kerala because of rise in water levels in major reservoirs.

"The situation in the state is really serious. We are forced to open 22 dams in the state due to incessant rains. Such a situation never arose in the recent past. This is really unprecedented," the chief minister said.

Meanwhile, the state government has asked the central government to declare it a national tragedy.

"This is a national tragedy. I request the government to proclaim it as a national tragedy and rush assistance to the people of Kerala immediately," Binoy Viswam, a lawmaker from Kerala said in parliament this morning.

Last month, some 40 people lost their lives in rain-related incidents in the state.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 10:48:43|Editor: zh

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CANBERRA, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Australian first responders are in need of increased mental health support, a parliamentary inquiry has been told.

In its submission to the Senate education and employment committee, the Royal Australian College of Psychiatrists (RACP) called for routine health and wellbeing checks to be implemented for emergency service workers.

"In Australia, there are more than 80,000 full-time emergency workers who perform a vital role in protecting and providing emergency assistance to other citizens," the submission, published by News Corp Australia on Saturday, said.

"As a result of their work, these Australians operate under very difficult working conditions and are regularly exposed to potentially traumatic experiences.

"There is increasing awareness and concern for the possible consequences of prolonged and repeated exposure to trauma.

"Evidence shows that large numbers of emergency workers experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and will be at risk for other mental health conditions."

The Senate committee has been charged with delivering recommendations so that governments and employers can protect and support first responders.

According to a 2017 Australian Federal Police (AFP) report 25 percent of emergency services workers experienced moderate to high levels of distress.

Sandy McFarlane, an expert at the Centre for Traumatic Stress Studies at the University of Adelaide, said that removing the stigma around mental health issues was key.

"The very nature of these occupations is that it requires people to deny their own fears and apprehensions and to walk towards danger. People's personality characteristics in some regards tend to make these individuals ignore their own health concerns," he wrote in his submission.

"This, in turn, is reflected in the work culture of toughness and coping, which then leads to, at times, a lack of sensitivity to those who begin to struggle. The prejudice implicit in many workers' compensation systems tends to harbour and encourage this stigma and prejudice."
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 11:08:49|Editor: Chengcheng

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HAVANA, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- With the help of Chinese financing, Cuba has finished dredging the Santiago de Cuba Bay as part of efforts to modernize the key port there, project directors said on Friday.

Now the Guillermon Moncada Port will be able to receive ships weighing as much as 55,000 tons, compared with the 30,000-ton capacity previously.

China Communications Construction Company is taking part in the upgradation begun in 2015 with a 120-million-U.S.-dollar line of credit.

Walter Niuvo, the Cuban investor in the project, praised the Chinese collaboration as three state-of-the-art cranes were delivered at the port to help move cargo containers with precision.

The Cuban-Chinese project is expected to build warehouses, perimeter fences, coastal protection hardware, a guard house and light towers.

It will also improve the roads and railways serving the port, as well as tourism facilities, bringing more economic and social benefits to the area.

The completed port will feature a modern container terminal, a 232-meter-long pier, two warehouses with the capacity to hold 20,000 tons of cargo, and a wastewater treatment plant.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 11:53:56|Editor: mym

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SHANGHAI, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- The first China International Import Expo (CIIE) will be hosted in Shanghai from Nov. 5 to 10. A growing number of multinational firms said they would use the expo to strengthen their brand and expand their business.

Next year's CIIE is now accepting reservations, and accounting firm EY has already confirmed participation in the second CIIE.

The CIIE, the world's first import-themed national-level expo, is expected to bring together thousands of enterprises from more than 130 countries and regions.

The first CIIE commercial exhibition will include trade in goods and services. The section of trade in services comprises emerging technologies, service outsourcing, creative design, culture and education, tourism, logistics, and comprehensive services. EY has secured a 72-square-meter exhibition area.

EY employs 18,000 people in more than 20 cities in China. "It is a well-known company, but many participants of CIIE may not know the full range of our services. During CIIE, we plan to present a different image of EY," said Walter Tong, EY Greater China Key Accounts Leader, in an interview with Xinhua.

To embrace the digital future, EY launched its first China innovation hub called Wavespace in Shanghai last month, which is a highly connected global network that provides new business solutions through a digital experience.

"We'll bring our most innovative services containing high-tech elements from our innovation hub such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and blockchain technology to CIIE, in addition to traditional services like tax or advisory," Tong said.

Given the fact that more than 2,800 companies have confirmed participation in the first CIIE and more than 150,000 domestic and international buyers are expected to attend, Tong believes the meaning of CIIE is collaboration and cooperation among companies, governments, and people around the world. "It's a win-win-win event for everyone," he said.

"Another expectation is to get to know more small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) during the event. We want to build relationships with companies when they are small because when they become big, it will be too late," Tong noted.

According to the CIIE Bureau, exhibitor enthusiasm has been beyond expectations and the booth area for businesses has been fully booked. More than 40 companies and institutions, including the Japanese manufacturing company Nachi-Fujikoshi Corp., which was the first to sign up for this year's CIIE, have also signed up for the second CIIE.

"We want to express our confidence that CIIE will be a very successful event, so we want to make sure we'll have the chance and space next year. The EY booth next year will be as exciting and as innovative as this year," Tong said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 12:03:57|Editor: mym

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- Brazil's largest unions on Friday staged protests against government reforms in at least 14 major cities.

Workers protested over unemployment, labor reforms and proposed social security reforms, and demanded ex-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's release from prison so that he can run for president in the October elections.

Eight leading labor associations, including the Unified Workers' Central (CUT) and the General Union of Workers (UGT), rallied under the banner "Enough".

In Sao Paulo, an estimated 5,000 people took to the streets, according to the organizers, with union leaders asking where the jobs promised by the labor reforms approved last year were.

Social security reforms, which raise the age of retirement and are seen by the government as key to lowering the public deficit, did not have enough support in parliament to pass the first time around.

"The reform left us in a precarious labor situation never seen before," said Ricardo Patah, president of the UGT, adding it left people with a lot of "temporary work, which amounts to slavery."

He was joined by CUT head Vagner Freitas, who called for the labor reforms to be revoked and the pensions of public-sector workers to be protected. He also criticized the high price of gasoline and utility bills.

Lula, who is serving a 12-year prison sentence for corruption, was chosen by the Workers' Party as their presidential candidate in the upcoming elections, though it looks unlikely he will be allowed to run.

Brazilian law forbids anyone convicted of a crime from running for elected office.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 12:08:58|Editor: mym

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RIO DE JANEIRO, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Brazilian Government on Friday welcomed the appointment of former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet as the new United Nations human rights chief.

A Foreign Ministry statement praised Bachelet's experience in the field of human rights, in particular her commitment to advancing gender equality in her capacity as the first executive director of United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, as well as her efforts to improve maternal and child health.

Bachelet will take office on Sept.1, succeeding Jordanian diplomat Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein.

She served as president of Chile from 2014 to 2018 and from 2006 to 2010.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 12:24:01|Editor: zh

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Photo taken on Aug. 10, 2018 shows Turkish Embassy in Washington D.C., the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted Friday that he has authorized to double the tariffs on steel and aluminum products from Turkey to 50 percent and 20 percent respectively. The White House has since confirmed the tweet. (Xinhua/Ting Shen)

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- President Donald Trump has authorized the preparation of documents to double tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Turkey, a White House spokesperson said Friday.

"Section 232 tariffs are imposed on imports from particular countries whose exports threaten to impair national security as defined in Section 232, independent of negotiations on trade or any other matter," Lindsay Walters added.

The statement followed Trump's tweet on Friday that he has authorized doubling the tariffs on steel and aluminum products from Turkey to 50 percent and 20 percent respectively.

"I have just authorized a doubling of Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum with respect to Turkey as their currency, the Turkish Lira, slides rapidly against our very strong Dollar!" Trump tweeted. Washington's relations with Ankara "are not good at this time," he added.

In response, Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hami Aksoy said on Friday that the U.S. sanctions and pressure would only harm bilateral ties, and that Ankara would retaliate.

Aksoy also said Turkey wants to solve the issues through diplomacy, dialogue, good intentions and bilateral understanding.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on the same day urged the public to exchange their gold and dollars for the lira to help fight "a national, domestic battle," while telling them "to have no worries."

The lira tumbled 17 percent on Friday alone, its biggest single-day drop since 2001, trading at an all-time low of 6.30 against the U.S. dollar.

Turkey and the United States have been at odds after Washington imposed sanctions last Wednesday on two Turkish ministers over the continued detention of U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson.

Brunson was first detained in Turkey in 2016 on the charge of involvement in a failed coup attempt against Erdogan's government. He was placed under house arrest due to health concerns last month and faces up to 35 years in prison if found guilty.

The United States has denied Turkey's request for deporting Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Turkish cleric who Ankara says is the main perpetrator of the 2016 coup.

Recent diplomatic engagements -- first between Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and his U.S. counterpart Mike Pompeo in Singapore last Friday, followed by a visit by Turkish Deputy Foreign Minister Sedat Onal and his entourage to Washington on Wednesday -- seemed to have failed to resolve the deadlock.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said Thursday that Washington "would define progress as Pastor Brunson being brought home."

There are a range of other issues that have sown discord between the two members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), such as the U.S. military presence in Syria, Turkey's purchase of Russian S-400 missile systems, and the U.S. move to reimpose sanctions on Iran, the main supplier of oil and gas to Turkey.

Differences over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Erdogan's strongman-style governance, and Ankara's growing intimacy with Moscow have further made the two NATO allies drift apart, according to analysts.

In March, the United States imposed extra 25 percent tariff on steel and 10 percent tariff on aluminum imported from a variety of countries, including Turkey.

Turkey is the world's eighth largest steel producer and, according to a June report by the U.S. Commerce Department, the seventh largest source of U.S. steel imports.

In retaliation, Turkey imposed additional tariffs worth 266.5 million U.S. dollars on U.S. goods in June.

Related:

Spotlight: Will U.S. sanctions push Turkey further towards Russia?
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 12:29:02|Editor: mym

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SHENYANG, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Lack of rainfall and heatwaves have left China's Liaoning Province in drought, threatening the growth of crops in the region.

More than 1 million hectares of crops have been affected by the drought and some 11,000 residents in the province face a shortage of drinking water, according to the provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters.

Water resource authorities have sent eight teams to fight against the drought, mobilizing pumps, delivering water with vehicles and irrigating crops. Weather departments are also considering artificial rainfall enhancement.

Precipitation this year dropped by 40 percent compared with the same period of previous years in the province.

Liaoning is located in northeast China, one of the coolest areas in the country. However, it has been hit by persistent heat this summer, with many parts experiencing record high temperatures.

On Aug. 2, the provincial capital of Shenyang experienced its hottest day since 1951 as the temperature reached 38.4 degrees Celsius.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 12:34:04|Editor: mym

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BEIJING, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- China's coal imports in July hit a record high in four and a half years as demand for coal-fired electricity increased during the summer, official data showed.

China imported 29 million tonnes of coal in July, up 49 percent year on year, the highest monthly volume since January 2014, according to data from the General Administration of Customs.

The value of imports surged 63 percent year on year to 17.9 billion yuan (about 2.6 billion U.S. dollars) in July, the data showed.

China is promoting the use of clean energy to reduce its dependence on coal, but the latter still accounted for 60.4 percent of the country's energy consumption in 2017. The share narrowed by 1.6 percentage points from the previous year.

Increased imports and port inventories kept a lid on coal prices. The Bohai-Rim Steam-Coal Price Index, the country's benchmark power coal price, stood at 567 yuan per tonne for the week between Aug. 1 and Aug. 7, the same as the previous week.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 13:14:13|Editor: Chengcheng

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BEIJING, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- With steady export growth in China, container transport for export purposes gained momentum in July, according to data from the Shanghai Shipping Exchange.

The average China Export Containerized Freight Index stood at 820.31 points in July, up 2.1 percent from a month earlier.

"Affected by the peak season, China's export container transportation market continued to see an upward trend, with a rise in overall transportation demand," said a statement from the exchange.

Since the beginning of this year, the index averaged 798.99 points, down from an average of 820.47 points last year.

In July, the sub-index for the South America route surged by 18.5 percent from a month earlier, the most among all routes mainly due to relatively high cargo demand and freight price decline in June, the statement said.

The sub-index for European routes also rose last month, as the region's transport demand was sustained by its economic recovery.

The China Export Containerized Freight Index was first released by the exchange on April 13, 1998 as a barometer of the shipping market.

China's export rose 6 percent year on year in July and 5 percent in the first seven months of this year.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 13:49:21|Editor: Chengcheng

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BEIJING, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Badaling section of the Great Wall in Beijing's Yanqing District temporarily closed starting Saturday afternoon, as a heavy rainstorm is expected to hit the area.

The reopening time will be subject to further notice, said a circular issued by the Beijing municipal tourism commission on Weibo, a microblogging website.

All tourist resorts in the district are required to close on Saturday and Sunday, according to the commission.

Beijing municipal land resources and weather departments on Saturday issued yellow alerts for a thunderstorm during the weekend and potential geological disasters over the next three days.

The national observatory renewed a blue alert for heavy rain on Saturday and Sunday, with some areas in Beijing and its neighboring provinces to see up to 300 mm of rainfall within 24 hours.

China has a four-tier color-coded weather warning system for storms, with red representing the most severe, followed by orange, yellow, and blue.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 14:44:27|Editor: Chengcheng

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CHONGQING, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- It's 11 a.m. and 40 degrees Celsius on deck. Liu Bo and his cleaning team have been working for four hours straight, collecting trash from the river.

"Working on the river is harsh. It's either too hot in summer or too cold in winter," Liu said.

Liu is a member of the cleaning team in Wanzhou, a district in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality.

Since the Three Gorges Dam was built, the flow of the Yangtze River has slowed down. As a result, trash and withered plants accumulate rapidly on the water. This is not just unpleasant to look at, but also hinders ship navigation.

"If the trash is not cleared in time, it will rot. You could smell the odor even on the other side of the river," said Chen Yu, deputy director with the district's environment and sanitation office.

So in 2003, the local government started a river-cleaning project and assembled a cleaning team to collect trash and clean the river.

"We live on the boats, sailing with the wind and fighting the waves as we collect the trash," Liu said. "Usually, we start work at six o'clock in the morning and work for a dozen hours straight."

The cleaning team now has 25 full-time members, and 20 boats. And recently, technology has become a great help. The team is equipped with four new mechanized boats, and the cleaners can now collect more than 50 tonnes of trash in an hour.

"Manual labor doesn't come close. If the team only has nets and pitchforks, 5 tonnes of trash is a whole day's work," said Chen.

Last year, the team collected 28,000 tonnes of trash from the river.

The local government knows that just cleaning up isn't enough. To solve the problem at its root, chemical plants and battery factories along the river have been shut down, and illegally-operated private dining ships have been blocked from entering the river. Tourists and locals are encouraged not to throw their waste into the river.

"My parents used to complain about my job, saying that it was toilsome and lacked high pay," Liu said. "But when I took them to the river bank, they stopped complaining as they saw the river was clean and peaceful. We made the river beautiful again and I'm proud to be on the team."
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 14:59:29|Editor: zh

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PUL-E-KUMRI, Afghanistan, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- At least 20 Taliban militants were killed and four large insurgents' weapons and ammunition depots were destroyed after U.S.-led coalition forces launched an airstrike in Afghanistan's northern province of Baghlan overnight, an Afghan army source said Saturday.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 15:39:34|Editor: mmm

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SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Modern technology such as smart phones and other electronic devices is making people better connected, but it is also making users more distracted, conference-goers at the American Psychological Association (APA) said Friday.

At a symposium of the 126th annual APA Convention being held in San Francisco from Aug. 9 to Aug. 12, Elizabeth Dunn, from the Canadian University of British Columbia and co-author of a study on the subject, said her team surveyed more than 120 participants from the U.S. University of Virginia and found the subjects felt more distracted during face-to-face interactions when they were using their smart phones compared with face-to-face interactions where they did not use a phone.

The participants were surveyed five times a day for one week and were asked to report on how they were feeling and what they had been doing in the 15 minutes before the survey was started.

Dunn said the students complained of having less enjoyment and interest in their interactions with others if they had been on their phones.

"The survey findings were especially notable because of the negative effects of phone use among university students, who are commonly known as digital natives," she said.

"This generation would be more adept at multi-tasking between using their phones and interacting with others, but we found out even moderate levels of phone use undermined the benefits of engaging with others," she added.

In a field experiment in a restaurant conducted by a team led by Ryan Dwyer, also from the University of British Columbia who is the lead author of the study, the researchers found that even minor phone use during a meal with friends would spoil the time spent together, making the diners feel distracted and diminishing their sense of enjoyment.

The experiment showed that people who had their phones easily accessible during a meal not only used them more than those with their phones put away, but also reported feeling less able to concentrate and less satisfied with face-to-face interactions.

"Decades of research on happiness tell us that engaging positively with others is critical for our well-being," he said.

"Modern technology may be wonderful, but it can easily sidetrack us and take away from the special moments we have with friends and family in person," said Dwyer.

The APA, based in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization focusing on psychology in the United States.

APA President Jessica Henderson Daniel said in a message to the APA 2018 that the San Francisco gathering brings together psychologists from the United States, Canada, and other countries and put APA's Citizen Psychologists in the spotlight as well as individuals who, through prolonged engagement in significant community activities, have contributed to improving others' lives.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 15:39:35|Editor: mmm

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PUL-E-KUMRI, Afghanistan, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- At least 20 Taliban militants were killed and four large insurgents' weapons and ammunition depots were destroyed after U.S.-led NATO coalition forces launched an airstrike in Afghanistan's northern province of Baghlan overnight, an Afghan army source said Saturday.

The strike was launched against a Taliban hideout near Aka Khil village, Dahana-i-Ghori district Friday night, Hanif Rezai, spokesman of army Corps 209 Shaheen based in the region, told Xinhua.

The initial information found 20 militants died after the strike and among those killed was a Taliban local leader, who served as commander of Taliban's Sara Ketta or Red Unit in the province, Rezai said.

The so-called Sara Ketta is the special forces of Taliban.

In a separate incident, a Taliban divisional commander named Muwlawi Salauddin, along with two associates, was killed after Afghan army commandos launched an operation in the same district late Friday night, the spokesman added.

Salauddin was also served as deputy shadow district chief for Dahana-i-Ghori.

The Taliban group, which has been waging an insurgency for more than 17 years, has yet to make comments.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 15:44:37|Editor: mmm

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HAVANA, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- Cuban curator and art collector Yosvanis Fornaris owes his expertise in Chinese porcelain to something unusual -- a tropical cyclone that devastated Cuba in 2008.

On his first day at work in Havana's National Museum of Decorative Arts, Hurricane Ike threatened to rip the building apart and smash up the invaluable artifacts.

The 35-year-old recalled how he raced against the clock to save the fragile pieces, including antique ceramics, an experience that gave him a newfound appreciation for Chinese porcelain and started a process that would eventually turn him into an expert in this field.

"I was fascinated by what I saw, even though I didn't know anything about what I had in front of me. Still, I sensed it was something important and decided to devote myself to studying it," Fornaris said.

He started at the libraries, researching the museum's 1,200 Chinese ceramic items. Then in 2014, he went to China to study archaeology at the Jingdezhen Ceramic Institute in southeast Jiangxi Province. He stayed there for nearly four years, tutored by Chinese expert Cao Jianwen until his return to Cuba in July.

"These four years changed my life, not just professionally, but also personally. Now I feel I have to pass on everything I learned there," Fornaris said at the museum office he shares with other experts on antiques.

His thesis was on the green Chinese porcelain from the Kangxi period between the 17th and 18th centuries, also part of the museum collection.

His passion for antique porcelain is now complemented by a love for Chinese culture, especially Chinese cuisine and tea.

He said he was impressed by "the immense cultural weight carried by even the smallest daily gestures of the Chinese" and the work ethics of the Chinese.

On his return to Cuba, he curated an exhibition, "Splendor of 18th-century Chinese porcelain", as part of the celebrations marking the museum's 54th anniversary.

Currently, he is researching Chinese porcelain collecting in Cuba, which he hopes will be the foundation of the doctoral thesis he wishes to complete in China.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 15:49:38|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- An aircraft stolen from the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on the U.S. West Coast has crashed into the sea, airport authorities said Friday.

"An airline employee conducted an unauthorized takeoff without passengers at Sea-Tac; aircraft has crashed in south Puget Sound," Sea-Tac Airport (@SeaTacAirport) tweeted.

The airport authorities said normal operations at Sea-Tac Airport have resumed.

Video footage posted on social media showed the plane belonging to Horizon Airlines doing a loop-the-loop over the airport and being chased by fighter jets before crashing.

Horizon's partner Alaska Airlines said in a statement that the aircraft was a twin-prop Horizon Air Q400.

The Sea-Tac authorities did not disclose the identity of the airline employee who had stolen the plane.

Pierce police said this was not a terrorist incident but an individual case conducted by a single, 29-year-old suicidal man. "No others involved," Pierce Co Sheriff (@PierceSheriff) tweeted.

The Sea-Tac is the ninth busiest airport in the United States, serving more than 46.9 million passengers in 2017.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 15:54:39|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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TOKYO, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Tens of thousands of people rallied Saturday in Naha, capital of the Okinawa prefecture in Japan, protesting against the central government's plan to relocate a U.S. military base within the island prefecture.

According to the organizer, some 70,000 people participated in the rally, demanding the central government to give up the plan to transfer U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from a crowded residential district in Ginowan to the Henoko coastal area of Nago, Okinawa.

A moment of silence was observed at the beginning of the rally for late Okinawa Governor Takeshi Onaga, who died of cancer earlier in this week amid his anti-U.S. base campaign.

Onaga's son Takeharu told the rally that his father had spent a lot of time fighting against the relocation plan even when he was hospitalized for cancer treatment.

"Let's fight together so that we can tell my late father one day that the relocation plan has been stopped," he said.

Deputy Governor Kiichiro Jahana, who has been filling in for governor duties, said that he would follow Onaga's suit and continue with the procedures to retract a previous government's approval for landfill work of the relocation plan.

Onaga, elected as governor in 2014, revoked in October 2015 an approval issued by former governor Hirokazu Nakaima for the landfill work of the relocation plan of the central government.

However, he was forced to withdraw his order to suspend work on the site after the Supreme Court ruled in 2016 against the governor's attempt to revoke the land reclamation work approval.

Before hospitalized last week, Onaga had ordered procedures to be started again to retract landfill work approval, which was seen by the public as a last resort for the governor to stop the relocation plan.

"I will take whatever measures and do my utmost to realize my election pledge of preventing the construction of a new base," Onaga told a press conference on July 27.

He died on Aug. 8 at the age of 67 after cancer metastasized to the liver despite a pancreatic surgery in April.

Onaga's new retraction order was based on the ground that situation had changed and the central government had failed to protect the environment of the coastal area since resuming the construction work.

The central government, however, has said that its intention to proceed with the relocation construction was unchanged.

Okinawa hosts the bulk of U.S. bases in Japan while accounting for only 0.6 percent of the country's total land mass.

Japan's central government had said that the relocation plan is "the only solution" for removing the dangers posed by the Futenma base to the crowded residential area of Ginowan without undermining the Japan-U.S. alliance.

The Okinawa people, however, have called for the base to be removed from the prefecture, complaining of sufferings caused by aircraft noise, crimes committed by the U.S. servicemen as well as safety concerns.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 15:59:40|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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TRIPOLI, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Many Libyans are suffering from poor public medical services, particularly patients of heart diseases, cancer and diabetes, with lack of government-subsidized medicines and frequent power blackouts that last for as long as 14 hours daily.

Ibtisam Al-Sharif, 58-year-old divorced house wife and mother of three, is suffering from diabetes and heart problems. She is struggling to get necessary medicines that keep her alive.

She cannot afford expensive medicines or treatments from private clinics or pharmacies. So, she moves from one government hospital to another searching for insulin and heart medicines.

"I have reached the point of suicide because of a lack of treatment in government hospitals and health centers. Throughout the week, I move from one hospital to another in search of my medicine. A week ago, I traveled 200 km to the city of Misurata, after a friend helped me get insulin enough for one month only," Al-Sharif told Xinhua.

"I do not have enough money for treatment, and I can barely feed myself and my children, especially since we have no supporter to pay for the daily expenses," she said. "I feel that I am slowly dying. I feel pain surrounding my body every day."

34-year-old Abdurraheem told a similar story. "I have kidney failure and I do dialysis twice a week. I also have diabetes. My mental state is devastated by the lack of medication and continuous dialysis."

"I have traveled with my younger brother from one city to another in the west of the country. I was looking for a hospital to receive me but failed, either because of the lack of operating materials or the long-time power blackouts, or the hospital's inability to operate the equipment," Abdurraheem told Xinhua.

He revealed that he lost part of his left foot, as a result of amputation due to the lack of diabetes medicine.

"They had amputated part of my left foot, after I had a severe infection to the point where I did not feel it because of the constant absence of medication and the power blackouts. My foot cannot bear to stay in a room without air conditioning. Frankly, I told my family I wished death rather than to continue to live this way," he added.

The deficit of electricity in Libya is more than 2,000 megawatts per day, while the current electricity production is no more than 5,500 megawatts per day, according to the state-owned General Electricity Company.

Most foreign companies left Libya because of the security deterioration following the overthrow of former leader Gaddafi's regime in 2011, and most development projects in the fields of electricity, water and housing were suspended.

Government hospitals and clinics in Libya are facing serious difficulties in operation and providing medicines, which put them under great pressure as a result of inability to absorb large numbers of patients.

Khairy al-Agha, a diabetes specialist, said that government hospitals are facing unprecedented difficulties since the independence last century, which threaten the national security and create high risk of death for many Libyans.

"People with chronic diseases, especially diabetes, have problems because they cannot afford treatment of private clinics, in the absence of adequate doses of medication in government hospitals, and lack of medical examinations to follow up their condition," Agha told Xinhua.

He pointed out that chronic diseases medicines are "very expensive and ordinary people cannot afford them, which are government-subsidized in most countries around the world."

"With the chaos and lack of control of the border, fraud drugs spread in the market. Many patients buy them, although many of them know their danger to their health. But there is no other way with the severe shortage of medicines. Many of the fraud drugs are not of good quality or even expired. Thus, patients become infected with new diseases that increase their daily suffering," Agha added.

He also said that power blackouts damaged dialysis equipment and some medicines that need a certain temperature to store, "which should be addressed quickly so that the remainder of the health system of the country does not collapse altogether."
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 16:04:42|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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BAGHDAD, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Five people were killed Saturday by unknown gunmen at a village in Iraq's central province of Salahudin, a provincial police source said.

The incident took place in early morning when the gunmen broke into a house at a village near the oil refinery town of Baiji, some 200 km north of Iraqi capital Baghdad, and shot dead two brothers and dragged three of their young nephews outside the house and shot them dead, Colonel Mohammed Khalil al-Bazi told Xinhua.

No group has so far claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the Islamic State (IS) militant group, in most cases, is responsible for such deadly attacks against civilians.

The key cities of Salahudin province, including Tikrit, which located some 170 km north of Baghdad, were captured by IS militants in June 2014, but the Iraqi security forces have freed the province during major anti-IS offensives.

On Dec. 9, 2017, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi officially declared full liberation of Iraq from IS militants after Iraqi forces recaptured all the areas once seized by the extremist group.

However, small IS groups and individuals regrouped in desert and rugged areas and are carrying out attacks against the security forces and civilians despite operations from time to time to hunt them down.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 16:19:45|Editor: Yamei

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Photo taken on Aug. 10, 2018 shows Turkish Embassy in Washington D.C., the United States. U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted Friday that he has authorized to double the tariffs on steel and aluminum products from Turkey to 50 percent and 20 percent respectively. The White House has since confirmed the tweet. (Xinhua/Ting Shen)

by Xinhua writers Zhu Dongyang, Matthew Rusling

WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- U.S. experts say President Donald Trump's tweet on Friday stating that he has authorized doubling the tariff on steel and aluminum imports from Turkey will further destabilize the Turkish economy and put ties between the two countries in a "real dilemma."

"I have just authorized a doubling of Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum with respect to Turkey as their currency, the Turkish Lira, slides rapidly against our very strong Dollar!" Trump tweeted. Washington's relations with Ankara "are not good at this time," he added.

The updated sanctions will raise Turkish steel tariff to 50 percent and aluminum tariff to 20 percent.

The escalation came after Washington's ultimatum for Ankara to release and repatriate American pastor Andrew Brunson, detained in Turkey since 2016, lapsed on Wednesday, despite intense diplomatic engagement over the last week.

Brunson was charged with involvement in a failed coup attempt against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's government in 2016. Transferred from detainment to house arrest last month, he could face up to 25 years in jail if found guilty.

The United States has denied Turkey's request for deporting Fethullah Gulen, a U.S.-based Turkish cleric who Ankara says is the main perpetrator of the 2016 coup.

David Pollock, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Xinhua that the sanctions derived not from an economic reason, but a foreign policy one.

The Brunson case has enraged the Evangelicals in the United States, who constitute a critical electoral base for Trump. Pollock said the new tariff decision appeals to Trump's political base.

Turkey is the world's eighth largest steel producer and according to a June report by the U.S. Commerce Department, the seventh largest source of U.S. steel imports.

The metal tariffs, Pollock said, "will have a real impact on Turkey, more than you might expect."

Ian Bremmer, head of the New York-headquartered think tank Eurasia Group, called the sanctions "an example of the short-term tough line this administration is willing to take."

"Big impact. No regard for long term consequences. Hope he never needs a helping hand from anyone," Bremmer tweeted on Friday.

Experts have been questioning the real intention of U.S. tariffs, which are based on Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, a domestic legislation that justifies the imposition of duties over national security concerns.

"(Section 232 is) being employed more in a punitive sense rather than protecting a U.S. industry for the sake of national security," said Dan Mahaffee, senior vice president and director of policy at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress.

Pollock said by ratcheting up economic sanctions against Turkey, an American ally in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), Washington has put itself in a "real dilemma" with Ankara.

"We are exercising economic leverage against Turkey but we're also damaging our own alliance structure in NATO. So there's no easy answer, it's a real dilemma," he said.

Noting that Turkey is moving away from NATO allies and toward Russia and Iran, Mahaffee said, "The clash of personalities between Trump and Erdogan might be more than enough to split the historic alliance."

Edward Price, a former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer who retired from the CIA refusing to work for the Trump administration, said the administration, in order to bring back Brunson, should fill the vacant U.S. ambassador's post in Turkey instead of levying tariffs that will ultimately have to be borne by Americans.

Price said on Twitter: "Before slapping a NATO ally and vital counter-ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) partner with tariffs -- which US consumers will pay for -- the Trump administration would've been wise to name an Ambassador to Turkey. Or have in place a Hostage Envoy. Both steps could've helped secure Pastor Brunson's release."
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 16:54:49|Editor: mmm

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LOS ANGELES, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- California Attorney General Xavier Becerra Friday joined a coalition of 20 U.S. Attorneys General in filing a motion to continue blocking the publication of downloadable blueprints for 3D-printed guns.

On June 29, the U.S. government abandoned two favorable federal court rulings authorizing the government to block the publication and reached a settlement with a Texas-based company that distributes blueprints for 3D-printed guns, which are called "ghost guns" because they are untraceable and could be manufactured on a 3D printer.

This agreement became public in late July. Becerra then joined a bipartisan coalition of 20 attorneys general led by Washington State calling on the federal government to change course and block the company from posting blueprints online.

The coalition of 20 states, which filed a suit on Aug. 2 as plaintiffs, issued a letter Friday expressing grave concerns about the U.S. Department of State's failure to enforce federal law to keep untraceable firearms out of the hands of terrorists, criminals, and others seeking to do harm.

These attorney generals from 20 states said in the letter that the company had posted several downloadable 3D gun files on its website, "including files that had been previously identified as subject to the controls of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations." This posed a public safety risk, however nothing has been done about it.

"This is a manufactured crisis," the letter said. "Some of these weapons may even be undetectable by x-ray machines and magnetometers in places like airports, courthouses, and other government buildings; they are also untraceable by law enforcement."

"The federal government's actions have made it easier for violent criminals, transnational gangs, and other bad actors to develop, acquire, and conceal firearms," it read, adding "we will continue to do what lies within our authority to confront this public safety risk head on."

Becerra's office also issued a press release Friday, saying Trump's giving the green light to distributing blueprints of 3D-printed guns "needlessly endangers our children, our loved ones and our men and women in law enforcement."

"We're asking the court to put the brakes on the Trump Administration's foolish and irrational action. President Trump must understand that his fingerprints will be all over these untraceable ghost guns if his inexplicable decision leads to the use of these dangerous weapons to commit crimes," Becerra said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 17:04:51|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- China's Belt and Road Initiative could "definitely" help with global refugee work, said United Nations Refugee Agency UNHCR chief Filippo Grandi who completed an official visit to China on Saturday.

"Much of what China does through the Belt and Road Initiative converges with what we are doing in refugee-hosting countries, linking humanitarian and development aid to better address long-term problems and seek solutions to refugee crisis," said Grandi, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

According to UNHCR, 68.5 million people were forcibly displaced worldwide in 2017. Among them, 52 percent were children under 18 years old.

Developing regions hosted 85 percent of the world's refugees under the UNHCR's mandate, and the least developed countries provided asylum to a growing proportion, about one-third of the global total, UNHCR data showed.

Solving conflicts is fundamental in refugee work, including peace work and mediation work, but peace has to be followed by development which consolidates peace and helps with education, infrastructure, the environment and others, Grandi told Xinhua in an interview.

Grandi looked at China's interest to respond to global refugee work as part of a bigger vision of Chinese leadership to use China's experiences and approaches to foster international cooperation, bring peace and development, and invest in infrastructure projects around the world.

During his three-day trip in Beijing, Grandi met with government officials from related departments and representatives from the Boao Forum for Asia.

Taking office in 2016, Grandi has visited China twice and pledged to come to the country annually to strengthen dialogue and further cooperation.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 17:19:54|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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Wreckage is seen after being burned by a wildfire that swept through Lake county, California, the United States, on Aug. 9, 2018. (Xinhua/Dong Xudong)

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- A Southern California wildfire continues to rage and is threatening more populated areas despite frantic efforts to contain it.

The so-called Holy Fire in Cleveland National Forest is now raging over 19,107 acres (77 square kilometers) in Lake Elsinore in Riverside County and was only 10 percent contained by Friday evening, according to the Cleveland National Forest's Twitter account.

Flames filled the sky with smoke as more than 1,200 firefighters were battling the blaze to keep it from reaching foothill communities.

The fire has forced over 21,000 people to evacuate their homes since it broke out on Monday. Several school districts canceled classes due to fire warnings and unhealthy air quality.

California Governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency Thursday in Orange and Riverside counties as the aggressive wildfire swept through ridges and mountains.

Forrest Gordon Clark, 51, was arrested earlier this week after he allegedly sent a text to a volunteer fire chief about two weeks ago saying this place "is going to burn."

He was charged by Orange County authorities with felony arson and making criminal threats -- among other counts -- in connection with the Holy Fire.

Clark appeared in court Friday, saying "it's all a lie" as the judge read the charges.

Dozens of wildfires are raging in California, with the one dubbed the Mendocino Complex burning more than 100 miles (about 161 km) north of Sacramento declared the most destructive fire in the state's history.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 17:24:55|Editor: Liangyu

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by Nick Kolyohin

JERUSALEM, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Israel will stop using coal and as a result stop producing coal ash at its power stations by the years 2025-2030, according to Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection.

Ministry of Environmental Protection succeeded last week to promote governmental decision to close four out of eight coal units for electricity generation at Israel's power stations by the summer of 2022.

These four coal units at power stations, according to the Ministry of Environment, are responsible for one quarter of all air pollution in Israel. The pollution ratio generated by coal is up to 1,000 times more than pollution from natural gas.

Yuval Laster, director of Policy and Strategy Division at Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection, told Xinhua that all the remaining coal units would be closed by 2025-2030 mostly because of environmental reasons.

Laster said in an interview with Xinhua that the National Coal Ash Board (NCAB) would not exist any more because its work to find alternative use to coal ash will not be necessary anymore.

Laster added that even today the cement and concrete industries demand much more coal ash than it produces, so the work of NCAB to find by force alternative uses to it is needless.

Coal ash is disposal remaining after the power station burns coal to produce electricity, in many countries, this is a compound used for various industrial purposes.

Israel has begun mass use of coal for generating electricity during the 1980s, when there were not environmental awareness among public, nor the government or the industry cared about the environment.

Besides the massive air pollution created during the burning of the coal, its remains, the coal ash was thrown into the Mediterranean, and this polluting practice stopped just during the 1990s.

After more than a decade of polluting the sea with coal ash, Israel recognized that it was a violation of the Barcelona Convention for protection of the Mediterranean Sea against pollution.

Now it was time to decide what to do with growing amounts of coal ash accumulating at the backyards of the Israeli national electric Corporation' power plants.

For that purpose, the Israeli government established in 1993 the National Coal Ash Board (NCAB) whose mission was to find what to do with all the millions of tons of coal ash produced every year.

The primary solution has been found in the 1990s, and the coal ash has begun to be used as a compound in the concrete and cement from which the houses, apartments, and buildings were built.

Besides, the NCAB tried to use coal ash as the betterment of land for agricultural purposes but the Environmental Ministry rejected it because of the polluting danger to the ground and the underground water.

NCAB also tried to promote using coal ash as an alternative to sand in an asphalt mix used to build roads and infrastructure around the country. Basically, any use of coal ash was banned by the Ministry of Environment due to pollution concerns.

The only use of coal ash since the 1990s until today that was approved by the Ministry of Environmental Protection is to put it inside concrete and cement, and this use is also in controversy, the Ministry of Health is opposing any use of coal ash inside the walls of the residential buildings.

The knowledge that coal ash is emitting radioactive radiation and the fact that it is a part of the houses' walls in the country, which were usually made from cement and concrete, raised concerns at the Ministry of Health.

Laster said that the coal ash inside the walls of Israeli apartments around the country increases the radioactive radiation up to 40 percent.

Despite the concern, the Ministry of Environment is not planning to ban the use of coal ash inside the walls of residential or any other buildings.

The ministry is aware of the radiation from the walls but believes it is the best solution available to deal with the coal ash disposal.

Coal ash has inside it a lot of toxic and poisonous heavy metals which can be dangerous to human's health if they meet food or drinking water, moreover it is a radioactive material.

Sinaia Netanyahu, a former chief scientist at the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection, told Xinhua she forced the ministry to quit from NCAB.

Netanyahu realized there are conflicting interests between NCAB and the ministry, "various practices at NCAB for the re-use of coal ash were not chosen based on a systematic analytical methodology."

"Guaranteeing minimum exposure of the public to coal ash, a material that contains heavy metals and radioactive materials is a priority because it ends up in residential buildings," Netanyahu said to Xinhua.

"The costs of using coal ash in residential buildings outweigh its benefits, regulation with respect to limiting the use of coal ash to infrastructure only are obviously required," concluded Netanyahu.

Just last week the High Court of Israel reassured the Ministry of Environmental Protection policy not to give import permission of coal ash, according to the verdict it is dangerous disposal and no economic reasons can justify its import.

While the Ministries of the Environment and Health worried about the health implications of coal ash use, the Ministries of Economy and Energy see in the coal ash disposal a financial opportunity.

Many countries around the world are willing to ship for free and give away their coal ash disposal to Israel or any other county that will accept it. The industry can use it as a free of additional charge compound in cement and concrete.

The leading Israeli producers of cement and concrete are trying over the years to force the government to import the coal ash because the amounts of this disposal in Israeli power plants are not enough for them.

Another concern of these companies is Israel's tendency to close its coal power stations and to transfer the electricity generation to natural gas power stations and renewable energies.

This tendency of reducing coal until a complete stop is rushed in the last years due to substantial natural gas funding under the Mediterranean waters which belongs to Israel.
Passengers queue to be screened at Uganda's Entebbe International Airport on May 15, 2018. Medical officers have been deployed at the airport to screen all passengers coming into the country, especially those from neighboring Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) where there is an Ebola outbreak. (Xinhua/Joseph Kiggundu)

NAIROBI, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Neighboring countries of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) are tightening preventive measures over an Ebola outbreak in which 10 people have died in eastern DRC.

Tanzanian Minister for Health Ummy Mwalimu said Friday the east African nation was on the highest alert after reports of fresh outbreak of Ebola in the DRC.

"People could be at risk of the deadly Ebola disease owing to interaction with those of neighboring DRC," Mwalimu said. "Tanzanians need to take the highest precaution in order to prevent contracting the disease."

According to her, the ministry had put the people on high alert, particularly those living in regions bordering the DRC, Uganda and Rwanda.

"Precautionary measures need to be taken at all border posts when interacting with passengers who get in and out of the country," she said.

Rwanda's health minister Diane Gashumba has urged hotel managers and transport companies to be the at the front line and part of strategies of Ebola prevention and response.

She met religious leaders, hotel owners and transport companies in Kigali, capital city of Rwanda, where she updated them on the ongoing Ebola outbreak of Ebola in the DRC.

In Uganda, the ministry of health said it was on high alert following the Ebola outbreak, saying all travelers from DRC will be screened before being allowed into the country.

"Our rapid response teams have started training health workers on how to identify potential risks, enhance infection control and increase their level of awareness," Uganda's health minister Ruth Aceng said.

She said apart from a screening center which has been set up at Entebbe International Airport, others have also been put in border districts.

Rwanda has started Ebola screening of travelers entering the country to ensure that any Ebola cases can be detected and isolated.

"Everyone coming in is requested to go through the screening processes for Ebola prevention as per measures set up at borders with DRC and Uganda, Kigali International Airport and ports," said Malick Kayumba, the head of Rwanda health communication center, to Xinhua. "No one will proceed for entrance unless she or he is screened.

He said any person with fever of 37.5 degree and above is requested to go for isolation in the nearest health facility for further checks and follow-up. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 18:20:04|Editor: Liangyu

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MANILA, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Philippines has set aside a total of 2.1 billion pesos (roughly 39.5 million U.S. dollars) in a fresh fund to modernize the infrastructure of six airports in the central and southern Philippines, a lawmaker said Saturday.

Congressman Luis Campos, an ex-officio member of the appropriations committee of the House of Representatives, said the six airports are New Bohol or Panglao International Airport, Siargao Airport in Surigao del Norte, Catbalogan Airport in Samar province, Davao International Airport, Central Mindanao M'lang Airport in North Cotabato and Tacloban Airport in Leyte province.

Campos said the 2.1 billion pesos is on top of the 10.2 billion pesos (roughly 191.7 million U.S. dollars) that the Philippine Department of Transportation is spending this year to upgrade 40 airports across this archipelagic country.

"The government is investing heavily to build up aviation facilities and services, amid the growing number of Filipinos traveling by air domestically as well as the surge in foreign tourists, many of whom go on island-hopping tours," Campos said.

Citing data from the Department of Tourism, Campos said a total of 3.706 million foreigners visited the Philippines from January to June this year, up 10.4 percent from 3.357 million in the same six-month period in 2017.

Some 25 million Filipinos, or nearly one-fourth of the national population, now rely on local air travel every year, Campos said, citing the Civil Aviation Authority of the Philippines.

Among the six airports, the new Bohol International Airport is getting the biggest slice of the aviation infrastructure program budget.

"The new Bohol airport is getting an extra 754 million pesos (14.2 million U.S. dollars) next year," Campos said in a statement.

The new Bohol airport is the gateway to the central Philippine province famous for pristine beaches, century-old Roman Catholic churches and a geographical formation called chocolate hills, an extraordinary landscape of more than 1,000 limestone hills scattered in a 50 square km area.

Bohol, a famous resort in the central Philippines, is also home to the tarsiers, considered as the world's smallest primate endemic to the Philippines that measures four to five inches.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 18:25:05|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) said Saturday that it has encouraged banks and insurance companies to increase funding to meet the financing demand of the real economy.

Preliminary data showed that newly made yuan loans in July stood at 1.45 trillion yuan (212 billion U.S. dollars), up 623.7 billion yuan from the same period last year, the commission said in a statement on its website.

"[The commission] instructed banking and insurance institutions to have an accurate understanding of the relations between promoting economic growth and containing risks," the statement said.

It also urged the institutions to make full use of current favorable conditions including abundant liquidity and declining financing costs to raise their financing support for the real economy.

Banks have been instructed to ensure financing demand of projects under construction and raise funding support for weak areas in the country's infrastructure, the statement read.

Among the new yuan loans in July, lending to the infrastructure sector rose from June to 172.4 billion yuan.

The commission has also encouraged banks to write off their bad loans to create more room for increasing lending.

In the first half, commercial banks wrote off bad loans of about 800 billion yuan, up 166.5 billion yuan from the same period last year.

The CBIRC has supervised banks to retain more profits to consolidate their core capital, and supported banks to replenish their capital base through multiple channels, the statement said.

The statement added that efforts were also made to improve the incentive mechanism to make banking institutions more willing to serve the real economy, including increasing the tolerance for bad loans to small- and micro-sized enterprises.

In the first seven months of this year, bank lending to small and micro firms rose 1.6 trillion yuan, faster than the increase in overall bank loans during the period.

In the future, the commission will continue to uphold the underlying principle of pursuing progress while ensuring stability and further raise the quality and efficiency for financial institutions to serve the real economy, the statement said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 18:50:11|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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DAMASCUS, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Syria's air defenses intercepted "enemy targets" on the western countryside of the capital Damascus after midnight Saturday, state news agency SANA reported.

The targets were intercepted in the far western countryside of Damascus over the town of Deir al-Asha'er near the Lebanese border, said SANA, without revealing further details.

Meanwhile, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Saturday that explosions were heard as the Syrian air defenses were intercepting the attack that was targeting military positions in Deir al-Asha'er.

The Britain-based watchdog group said it's not clear yet whether the attack hit the military targets or was completely intercepted by the Syrian air defenses.

SANA and the war monitor didn't say who was behind the attack.

On Aug. 2, the Syrian air defenses responded to a similar attack, which was later said to have been an Israeli drone.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 19:50:25|Editor: mmm

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RIYADH, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Saudi-led coalition involved in a war in Yemen announced on Saturday it has rescued 86 Yemeni children from the death and handed them over to their families, Al Akhbariya local TV reported.

The coalition said that the Houthi militias recruited children and exposed them to danger. It returned seven of the young fighters to their parents by transferring them to the Yemeni government in the presence of the Red Cross.

The coalition has been accusing the militias of violating the international laws by recruiting children as fighters, forcing them to be human shields and attack Saudi cities with missiles.

Saudi Arabia has been leading a war in Yemen in support of the Yemeni exiled government for the last three years.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 19:55:28|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Economic sanctions imposed by the United States over the last week against Iran, Russia and Turkey will ultimately undermine U.S. foreign policy goals, experts have said.

In the course of a week, the United States has reimposed sanctions against Iran that were lifted after a 2015 nuclear deal, banned exports of national-security sensitive goods and technologies to Russia, and doubled the rate of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Turkey.

Speaking of the reasons behind US government's picking of steel and aluminum products from Turkey, David Pollock, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told Xinhua that it was "partly in line with the overall sanctions effort, the trade war so to speak."

"It appeals to (US President Donald) Trump's political base and it's part of his economic ideology or vision to try and restore traditional manufacturing sectors," he said.

However, Dan Mahaffee, senior vice president and director of policy at the Center for the Study of the Presidency and Congress, told Xinhua that "Section 232 gives the president a wide latitude to justify trade action under national security purposes, though in this way it's being employed more in a punitive sense rather than protecting a U.S. industry for the sake of national security."

The Washington Post said that the steel and aluminum tariffs originally had nothing to do with the treatment of pastor Andrew Brunson, who is being detained by Turkey.

"They are tied to the trade fight that Trump launched earlier this year with a number of countries, including Turkey," it said. "The Turkish currency has steadily weakened in recent months, removing some of the bite of the tariffs by making Turkish goods cheaper for U.S. consumers. One way to address that, as Trump signaled Friday, is to double the tariff rate."

The New York Times said in an article that "Trump's decision ... spooked markets and raised the possibility that he could similarly increase tariff rates on other trading partners that have seen their currencies fall against the strengthening dollar."

Moreover, Eswar Prasad, an economist at Cornell University, was quoted as saying that the use of tariffs in the tense diplomatic scenario set "a worrying precedent for future trade sanctions that could be triggered by purely market-driven changes in exchange rates."

Edward Price, the special assistant of former U.S. President Barack Obama, tweeted that U.S. consumers will pay for Washington's sanctions against a North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ally and vital counter-Islamic State (IS) partner, and these steps would not help secure Brunson's release.

In response to the U.S. sanctions and other economic pressure on his nation over the case of Brunson, who faces terrorism charges and up to 35 years in prison if found guilty, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Friday characterized them as an "economic war."

"We are not going to lose" in the process, Erdogan said.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said on Friday that Moscow considers Washington's sanctions as a declaration of economic war, vowing to "respond to it -- economically, politically or in any other way, if need be."

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Monday that the Iranians would make the United States regret reimposing sanctions, and "negotiations with sanctions don't make sense," referring to Trump's recent call for direct talks with him.

Republican Senator Rob Portman of Ohio tweeted that "Section 232 is a powerful trade tool used in matters of national security, but its misuse could result in loss of the tool or repercussions from other countries."

Chad Bown, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a U.S. think tank, was quoted by The New York Times as saying that Washington's move sent a "worrisome" signal to the world, as Trump "is tweeting that when a crisis emerges -- which could happen in Turkey -- his gut instinct is to exacerbate the problem by imposing more tariffs, instead of stepping in with leadership to help resolve the emergency."

"The Trump administration is no stranger to using its economic power as a political weapon to hit foreign powers," The Washington Post said. "Trump has made clear that he is hoping to use the economic pain caused by these tariffs to force other countries to agree to a range of concessions."

A separate commentary in the newspaper said that for the U.S. government, sanctions are being used in place of foreign policies, rather than serving as the latter's supplement.

"The simplest issue with Trump's sanctions-heavy, strategy-light policy is the wasted effort. But they could also produce more subtle effects that would be bad for the United States going forward," said the article.

"And it's worth remembering that one reason that the United States can effectively employ sanctions is because of its hegemonic power over the global financial system. In the long term, that could change as foreign powers grow more and more disillusioned with Washington's supposedly steady hand."

(Matthew Rusling from Washington also contributed to the story.)
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 20:05:31|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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CAIRO, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian forces have frustrated on Saturday an attack on a church in Cairo before the suicide bomber exploded himself, state-run Gomhoria news website reported.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 20:25:33|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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GAZA, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- A Palestinian hit by Israeli fire during protests on the Gaza border died of his wounds on Saturday, raising the previous day's death toll to three, GAZA Health Ministry reported.

The health ministry identified the dead man as Ahmad Abu Lolo, 40-year-old, was wounded in the pelvis.

He was along with other 300 Palestinians wounded by Israeli bullets during the Friday's confrontations in the southern city Rafah, Ashraf al-Qoudra, spokesperson of the Health Ministry in Gaza said.

The ministry added other two Palestinians were killed on Friday including a volunteer medic Abdullah al-Qatati, 21 years old, who was shot dead in heart.

It added that the nature of injuries proved that the Israeli forces have shot on purpose the victims in sensitive killing parts of their bodies.

It called on the international community and its legal and humanitarian institutions to work on stopping the Israeli continuous violations against the Palestinian civilians.

The border confrontations continued despite a calm deal was announced by Hamas Islamic movement to end rocket fire into Israel and air strikes on the Gaza Strip getting into force around Thursday midnight.

The Israeli side hasn't confirmed the deal.

According to the Health Ministry, at least 167 Palestinians have been killed, including three medical volunteers, and more than 18,000 wounded, along with 70 ambulances damaged since the "Great March of Return" protests erupted on March 30.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 20:35:35|Editor: mmm

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CAIRO, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian forces have thwarted on Saturday an attempted attack on a church in Cairo before the suicide bomber exploded himself, state-run Ahram news website reported.

The bomber attempted to infiltrate the crowds of Copts, who were celebrating of the birthday of Mary that started from August 7, outside Al-Azra Church in Shoubra district in north of the capital.

Due to the intensive security measures near the church, the suicide bomber detonated his explosive belt on a bridge overlooking the church, the report added. Enditem
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 21:00:39|Editor: Liangyu

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MINSK, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- The China-Belarus industrial park Great Stone, a pivot of the Silk Road Economic Belt, serves as an engine of the Belarusian economy, the park's chief administrator told the Chinese media in an interview on Friday.

The industrial park, a special economic zone created by both countries within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, serves as a key platform for attracting worldwide high technology and investment, Alexander Yaroshenko said.

Widely hailed as a "pearl" on the Belt and Road, the park secures Belarus a strong suit for its geopolitical significance. Geographically, it sits at the heartland of Europe, linking up with the huge European Union market in the west and with Russia and Kazakhstan in the east through the Eurasian Economic Union. Politically, it thrives in a relatively favorable environment marked by domestic stability, the park head pointed out.

Another competitive edge of the park is the partnership with China, which boasts richer experience in economic zone development and unquestionable strength in capital and technology, he said.

The park is managed based on the model of China's Suzhou Industrial Park.

There are so far 20 Chinese companies out of the 36 companies that have already settled in the park.

Yaroshenko believes that the Chinese investors are leading the development of the Great Stone.

Both countries have also coordinated with each other on relevant legal efforts, with Belarus rolling out No. 166 presidential decree last May, the third one serving the park.

The decree fully incorporated advanced experience from China, such as the notion of providing "one-stop" services.

Speaking of the upcoming China International Import Expo to be held in Shanghai this November, the former vice minister of the Ministry of Economy expressed high expectations for fruitful outcomes benefiting the Great Stone industry park and Belarus as a whole.

Belarus stands ready to actively take part in the Expo and use the Expo to promote Belarussian products and investment opportunities, he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 21:00:40|Editor: Liangyu

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BEIJING, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- China's top securities regulator approved IPO applications from three companies, which will raise no more than 4.2 billion yuan (about 613.5 million U.S. dollars) in the A-share market.

The Bank of Changsha, based in Hunan Province and Zhejiang Jiecang Linear Motion Technology will be listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, according to the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC).

Chengdu Spaceon Electronics, based in Sichuan Province, will be listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, said the CSRC.

The three companies and their underwriters will confirm IPO dates and publish prospectuses following discussions with the exchanges.

Under the current IPO system, new shares are subject to approval from the CSRC.

China is gradually switching from an approval-based IPO system to one based on registration.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 21:25:43|Editor: mmm

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ISLAMABAD, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- A suicide attack injured six people, including three Chinese workers, in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province on Saturday, the Chinese Embassy to Pakistan said.

"The Embassy and Consulates General of China in Pakistan strongly condemn the violent attack in Balochistan today, and express our sincere sympathy to the injured from both countries," the Chinese Embassy and the Chinese Consulate General in Karachi said in a statement.

The Chinese side has requested Pakistan to investigate the incident, bring the perpetrators to justice and take further effective measures to ensure the security of the Chinese institutions and citizens in Pakistan, the statement added.

The suicide blast shattered the windows of the bus ferrying the Chinese workers in Dalbandin, about 340 km southwest of the provincial capital of Quetta.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 21:55:49|Editor: Shi Yinglun

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CAIRO, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Egyptian Finance Minister Mohamed Ma'it said the country will reduce its public debt to 92 percent of the GDP in the budget of the current fiscal year 2018-2019, state-run Ahram newspaper reported on Saturday.

"The government has enforced package of procedures to reduce the public debt to 92 percent of the GDP compared with 98 percent in the previous year," the report said.

The new financial measures intended to increase the state's public revenues and control the government's expenditures, the minister said.

He added also that the financial performance would be improved after new laws on tariffs and taxes take into effect soon.

The government's plans for diversifying the state revenue resource will add 10 billion pounds (56 million U.S. dollars) to the country's treasury.

According to Waleed Gab-Allah, professor of financial and economic jurisdictions at Cairo University, "Egypt's economy owns the workforce and the resources but lacks funds, which forced the government to borrow."

To compensate for the debt, the government had to reduce its dependence on loans, and increase its revenues, Gab-Allah told Xinhua.

Part of the country's economic reforms that started at the end of 2016, was using part of the surplus of some governmental private funds as public budget instead of carrying it forward to the coming fiscal years balance.

The revenues of that surplus be used for creating more jobs along with the country's other assets, the expert added.

Gab-Allah expected success for the Finance Ministry's new measures, but believed its application is also associated with the world's fluctuating economy.

He added some economic ups and downs, like the increase in the world oil prices last year, had negative impacts on the government plans.

Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) said on Monday that Egypt's foreign debt has risen to 88.2 billion dollars at the end of March, with total public debt accounting for 86 percent of the GDP.

Egypt has been facing difficult economic conditions due to political instability and relevant security challenges over the past few years.

To boost economy, the Egyptian government started in late 2016 a strict three-year economic reform program based on austerity measures, fuel and energy subsidy cuts and tax hikes.

In addition to floating local currency's exchange rate, the reform plan has been encouraged by a 12-billion-dollar loan from the International Monetary Fund, two thirds of which has already been delivered to the most populous Arab country.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 22:00:50|Editor: mmm

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AMMAN, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- A Jordanian officer was killed in an explosion in capital Amman, the Interior Ministry said Saturday.

The ministry said the incident occurred Friday in Fuheis area in Amman, when an explosive device, planted under a vehicle of the security forces, went off.

The explosion took place during a festival event in Fuheis, killing Officer Ali Qawaqzeh and severely injuring six others, the ministry said in a statement.

Investigations were underway and no group has claimed responsibility for the attack yet.

On his official Twitter account, Jordanian Prime Minister Omar Razzaz issued a statement, paying condolences to the family of the officer.

Razzaz stressed that Jordan will always be on the frontline fighting against unjust terrorism.
Visitors take selfies in the Exhibition of Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Bibliotheca Alexandria, Alexandria, Egypt, on Aug. 8, 2018. (Xinhua/Wu Huiwo)

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- "Culture is a fundamental human factor for enhancing cooperation between peoples," said Mohamed Sultan, governor of the Egyptian coastal city of Alexandria, amid an ongoing exhibition of the intangible cultural heritage in Shanghai, China's most populous city.

Egypt and China were connected with trade, economic and cultural ties over thousands of years, Sultan told Xinhua while inspecting unique Chinese heritage pieces being displayed in the Bibliotheca Alexandria.

The first session of the International Tour Exhibition of Chinese traditional Fine Arts was opened on Wednesday in the historical library of Alexandria.

Under the topic "Culture across Ancient and Modern," the Exhibition of Shanghai Intangible Cultural Heritage in Daily Life, which will last until Aug. 27, has showcased more than 130 pieces of artifacts including Jinshan farmer paintings, Shanghai-style woolen tapestries, Shanghai-style silk works, opera customs, jade and bamboo carving works and other cultural heritage objects from Shanghai, sister city of Alexandria for 26 years.

Shanghai will also host an Egyptian Child Exhibition that will include drawings and paintings about Alexandria on Sept. 23, Sultan noted.

Alexandria was a historical city where the ancient Greek and Rome civilizations met and integrated with each other, while the library itself was the meeting point for the businessmen who traded on the Silk Road.

The Chinese exhibition shows the strong, deep and historical relations between Egypt and China, Huda Meqaty, deputy director of the Bibliotheca Alexandria, told Xinhua.

By holding the exhibition in the library, which enjoys a high reputation as a cultural center along the Mediterranean, China and Egypt have broadened the Chinese culture to a new horizon, Meqaty said.

Meanwhile, the exhibition will encourage the Egyptian youth to know more about their Chinese peers through cultural communication, she added.

"Dialogue between young generations from both sides is necessary to bridge gap between the two peoples," Meqaty explained.

Shi Yuewen, a Chinese cultural counsellor in Egypt, said the mutual understanding between the two countries isn't sufficient because of geographic distance and language.

There should be more active communications between the two peoples through exhibitions mirroring cultures and heritages, he noted.

The exhibition is divided into four areas: "Life as painting," "Gorgeous Brocades and Silk Articles," "Beauty in the Square" and "Elegant Melody."

Watching the Jinshan farmer painting "Golden harvest, return from fishing," which was featured by novel design, bright colors and simple shapes, Mahmoud Atta, a 22-year-old trainer in the Model African Union, said he was stunned.

"I was really surprised to see very simple but sophisticated paintings that tell stories of the daily life of people," Atta said.

The performance of the folk music players on traditional wooden instrument with their dazzling dresses at the entrance of the exhibition was enough to envision the beauty of Shanghai, he added.

Zynab al-Sayed, an 18-year-old high school student, was taking selfie photo wearing Peking opera costumes.

Al-Sayed said she was so eager to know about the Chinese culture, describing the exhibition as "the best opportunity for getting closer to the Chinese."

"I love the traditional musical instruments Liuqin and Guzheng, which are similar to old Egyptian musical instruments," she said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 22:30:55|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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JAKARTA, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- A small plane with nine people on board lost contact on Saturday in Oksibil in Indonesia's Papua province, spokesman of the transport ministry Bambang Ervan told Xinhua by phone.

According to reports from local media, the PAC 75 type aircraft took off from Tanah Merah at around 01:42 p.m. Eastern Indonesia Standard Time and should have arrived in Oksibil at around 2:20 p.m.

Authorities said a search and rescue mission is underway.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 22:50:59|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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GAZA, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Israeli army drones carried out on Saturday afternoon three successive airstrikes on the Palestinians who released arson balloons from eastern Gaza Strip into Israel, injuring two people, medics in the Health Ministry said.

Ashraf al-Qedra, spokesman of the Health Ministry in Gaza, told reporters that two Palestinian young men were injured, including one in critical condition, by the shrapnel of a missile fired by an Israeli drone in eastern Gaza city close to the border with Israel.

On Saturday, Palestinian activists flew and released dozens of flaming balloons from eastern Gaza Strip into Israel, causing large fires to agricultural fields in southern Israel. An Israeli army spokesman confirmed the airstrikes on eastern Gaza.

The Israeli airstrikes came one day after three Palestinians were killed, including a 21-year-old volunteer paramedic who was shot dead east of Rafah town in southern Gaza Strip close to the border with Israel.

Al-Qedra said that more than 300 were injured on Friday in protests, rallies and clashes between hundreds of Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli soldiers.

On Thursday, Egypt and the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process Nikolay Mladenov brokered a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas-led militant groups in Gaza, ending another round of armed confrontations between the two sides.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 23:01:05|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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DUBAI, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- The United Arab Emirates (UAE) strongly condemned a vehicle explosion on Friday evening in Jordanian capital Amman, UAE's state news agency WAM reported Saturday.

In a statement, the UAE's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation said "the UAE stands in solidarity with the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan against any attempts to undermine its security and stability and supports whatever measures it may take to fight extremism, violence and terrorism."

The ministry expressed "its heartfelt condolences to the families of the victims as well as to the government and people of Jordan." It also wished a speedy recovery to those injured during the "heinous terrorist act."

A Jordanian officer was killed in an explosion in Amman, said Jordanian Interior Ministry on Saturday. The incident occurred Friday in Fuheis area in Amman, when an explosive device planted under a vehicle of the security forces went off, killing an officer and severely injuring six others.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 23:51:17|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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OTTAWA, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- The 48-year-old suspect, Matthew Vincent Raymond who killed four people including two police officers in Fredericton, Canada on Friday, has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder, local media reported Saturday.

The tragedy happened around 7 a.m. local time (1400 GMT) Friday morning at an apartment complex in a north-end residential neighbourhood. The two police officers responded to a "shots fired" call and drove to the scene, according to the CTV.

After they arrived, two civilian victims were found dead on the ground. Police did not reveal what type of firearm was used against them.

The two police officers killed were Const. Robb Costello, 45, a 20-year police veteran and a father of four, and Const. Sara Mae Burns, 43, a two-year veteran of the Fredericton police force and a married mother of three.

The killed civilians are a woman and a 42-year-old father of three.

Investigation on the tragedy is ongoing. Fredericton police said that the Red Cross and the city have found lodging for 50 residents of the apartment complex as they have been unable to return to their homes.

Police are asking anyone who captured photos or video of the incident to come forward. They tweeted that they would do their best to keep the public updated.

Across the country, many police forces have lowered their flags to half-mast to pay tribute to their two comrades who lost their lives in the line of duty.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-12 00:11:21|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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CAIRO, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Egypt condemned on Saturday the recent terrorist blast that killed a police officer western the Jordanian capital Amman, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The blast took place on Friday evening during a cultural festival in Fuheis area in Amman, through an explosive device planted under a vehicle of the security forces, killing an officer and wounding six others, according to the Jordanian Interior Ministry.

"The Egyptian government and people stand in solidarity with the government and people of the Kingdom of Jordan in confrontation of terrorism," said the Egyptian Foreign Ministry's statement.

Egypt has also been facing a wave of terrorism that killed hundreds of policemen, soldiers and civilians over the past few years, with most of the attacks claimed by a Sinai-based group loyal to the Islamic State regional terrorist group.

Egypt stressed that such terrorist activities would not stop Cairo and Amman from fighting terrorism, highlighting the necessity of taking earnest steps to eliminate the sources that provide finance, training and shelter for terrorist groups.
A 3D printed gun, called the "Liberator", is seen in a factory in Austin, Texas on August 1, 2018. (Xinhua/AFP)

LOS ANGELES, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- California Attorney General Xavier Becerra Friday joined a coalition of 20 U.S. Attorneys General in filing a motion to continue blocking the publication of downloadable blueprints for 3D-printed guns.

On June 29, the U.S. government abandoned two favorable federal court rulings authorizing the government to block the publication and reached a settlement with a Texas-based company that distributes blueprints for 3D-printed guns, which are called "ghost guns" because they are untraceable and could be manufactured on a 3D printer.

This agreement became public in late July. Becerra then joined a bipartisan coalition of 20 attorneys general led by Washington State calling on the federal government to change course and block the company from posting blueprints online.

The coalition of 20 states, which filed a suit on Aug. 2 as plaintiffs, issued a letter Friday expressing grave concerns about the U.S. Department of State's failure to enforce federal law to keep untraceable firearms out of the hands of terrorists, criminals, and others seeking to do harm.

These attorney generals from 20 states said in the letter that the company had posted several downloadable 3D gun files on its website, "including files that had been previously identified as subject to the controls of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations." This posed a public safety risk, however nothing has been done about it.

"This is a manufactured crisis," the letter said. "Some of these weapons may even be undetectable by x-ray machines and magnetometers in places like airports, courthouses, and other government buildings; they are also untraceable by law enforcement."

"The federal government's actions have made it easier for violent criminals, transnational gangs, and other bad actors to develop, acquire, and conceal firearms," it read, adding "we will continue to do what lies within our authority to confront this public safety risk head on."

Becerra's office also issued a press release Friday, saying Trump's giving the green light to distributing blueprints of 3D-printed guns "needlessly endangers our children, our loved ones and our men and women in law enforcement."

"We're asking the court to put the brakes on the Trump Administration's foolish and irrational action. President Trump must understand that his fingerprints will be all over these untraceable ghost guns if his inexplicable decision leads to the use of these dangerous weapons to commit crimes," Becerra said.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-12 01:06:29|Editor: xuxin

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by Murad Abdu

ADEN, Yemen, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- The Saudi Arabia-led coalition fighting Yemen's Houthi rebels announced that it has rescued 86 child soldiers, blasting the Shiite group for violating the international laws by recruiting children in the war-torn Arab country.

The anti-Houthi coalition released a statement earlier on Saturday saying that it "rescued 86 child soldiers recruited by the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels and returned them to their families."

The coalition's statement strongly condemned the Houthi rebels for continuing to exploit Yemen's children and putting them in harm.

The safety of Yemen's children is a priority for the coalition's forces, as well as ensuring that they were not recruited or affected by the war, according to the statement.

The coalition vowed also to continue its humanitarian efforts including financing the rehabilitation programs of Yemeni child soldiers recruited by Houthis.

Two days ago, warplanes of the Saudi-led coalition targeted passenger buses in the Dhahyan popular market in northern Yemen, killing at least 43 people, mostly pupils under 10, and injuring 64 others.

The aerial bombardment triggered popular anger across Yemen and drew mass condemnation from international humanitarian agencies.

The Arab coalition defended the attack and described it as a "legitimate military action," but acknowledged later on Friday and said that it would launch an investigation into the incident.

Allegations by media and relief organizations in Yemen were immediately forwarded to the Joint Incident Assessment Team for investigation, the coalition said on Friday.

An official of Yemen's government based in Aden said on condition of anonymity that "killing the children during Thursday's attack was a terrible carnage and Houthis were the only beneficiaries."

"The Houthis might be the ones who masterminded the attack by putting the children in danger just to gain international sympathy with extremist group," the government source said.

In June, Yemen's Human Rights Minister Mohamed Askar accused the Houthis of recruiting more than 15,000 child soldiers and sending them to the battlefronts without military experience or training since 2014.

The Saudi-backed Yemeni government frequently urges the United Nations to pressure the Houthis into stopping the recruitment of children particularly in the northern provinces.

The impoverished Arab country has been locked in a civil war since the Houthi rebels overran much of Yemen and seized all northern provinces in late 2014, including the capital Sanaa.

Saudi Arabia is leading the Arab military coalition that intervened in the Yemeni war to support the internationally-recognized government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

More than 10,000 Yemenis, mostly civilians, have been killed in the war, with about 3 million others displaced.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-12 01:26:31|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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CHICAGO, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Compared with European Americans, Asian-American firstborns feel the additional burden of being cultural brokers and having to take care of their immigrant parents and young siblings at the same time, a study of the University of Michigan (UM) shows.

Kaidi Wu, a UM doctoral candidate in social psychology, explored how Asian-American firstborns aged 18 to 25 viewed sibling relationships, their birth order and family relations.

For firstborn Asian Americans, the sibling caregiving and cultural brokering responsibility created dual pressure. In Asian cultures, the oldest son traditionally has greater obligations in the family, but more firstborn females are taking on these roles - even when there are young male siblings in the household, the study showed.

Asian-American families may rely more heavily on the firstborn than their counterparts for various reasons. But the increased family obligations may have an adverse impact on the older Asian-American siblings, such as greater depression and anxiety, the study cautioned.

Asian-American firstborns also felt motivated to become role models for their younger siblings by having high-achievement levels, confidence and behavior, according to the study.

Nevertheless, having siblings can be beneficial to Asian-American firstborns when firstborns struggle with their parents' more traditional cultural perspectives and have their younger siblings to relate to. This finding contrasts with previous research in which older siblings closely resemble parents' stance on Asian values and differ from later-borns who acculturate more easily into the mainstream American culture.

Other positive points of siblingship include: feeling supported, appreciated and comforted during interactions with their siblings. Some participants disclosed that siblings alleviate pressure from parents that might otherwise cause conflict.

The study has been published in the Journal of Family Issues.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-12 01:36:34|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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NICOSIA, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Ten refugees arrived in Cyprus overnight in an inflatable boat after making the 200-kilometer sea crossing from Syria, police said on Saturday.

This was the first time Syrians arrived in Cyprus by sea directly from Syria, as other groups who arrived on the eastern Mediterranean island before had fled to Turkey and then traveled in boats provided by people traffickers.

The ten were a family of five and a family of four, along with a man, who declined to be hosted either to a refugee center or a hotel, saying they had arranged to stay with relatives who have been in Cyprus for years.

The police said they scrambled on Friday night after radar picked up a boat sailing off the southeastern Cavo Greco cape, a sensitive area as it is very near the sea line dividing the government controlled region of Cyprus from the Turkish occupied part of the island.

The boat was spotted some hours later off the popular sea resort of Protaras and policemen on a patrol boat helped the ten people ashore.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-12 02:21:41|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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DUBAI, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- A Swedish national, Ellie Holman, was deported after she attempted to enter the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on an expired passport and misbehaved toward an immigration officer, the Dubai government's media office said on Saturday.

According to the statement on the media office's website, Esam Issa Al Humaidan, Attorney General of Dubai, confirmed that the Dubai Public Prosecution has completed investigations and closed the case involving Holman who traveled with her four-year-old daughter from London to Dubai on an Emirates Airline flight.

Charges against Holman for verbally attacking and photographing an immigration officer were eventually dropped and she was deported.

"She attempted to enter the country using a Swedish passport, which had already expired on June 10, 2018," said the statement.

The report by the Attorney General of Dubai stated that the accused passenger "then produced an Iranian passport, and was informed by the officer that she could enter the country by issuing a new temporary visa, which allowed a 96-hour stay, and had to change her departure flight according to the new visa."

However, the report claimed that Holman "refused angrily" due to the additional payment fees the process would require, and proceeded to verbally insult the immigration officer and take photos of the officer via her phone.

The Dubai authorities issued a legal claim against Holman with charges of "profanity and photographing a government official at the border crossing," a restricted area. The woman and her child remained together at the airport security office for less than 24 hours while services were provided to them.

The Dubai Media Office report said that authorities were taking "into full consideration of her daughter."

"The daughter's father received her immediately upon his arrival and they subsequently left the country," said the statement.
The first Chinese tourist who enjoys the visa-free agreement between China and Belarus receives flowers in Minsk, Belarus, on Aug. 10, 2018. (Xinhua/Wei Zhongjie)

MINSK, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- The intergovernmental agreement on visa-free travel between Belarus and China came into force on Friday.

From now on, Belarusians can stay in China without a visa for up to 30 days in one trip, but not more than 90 days a year. The same rule applies to Chinese citizens.

If a person wants to stay in the country for more than 30 days or engage in educational and professional activities, he or she needs a special visa. Visa-free travel covers private trips, business trips and tourist trips.

The Belarusian authorities expect that the implementation of the agreement will significantly increase the number of Chinese tourists to Belarus, and will be an important factor in the development of tourism infrastructure.

The intergovernmental agreement on mutual visa-free travel for ordinary citizens of the two countries was signed in China's Qingdao on June 10 during Belarusian President's working visit to China.
NEW YORK, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Keys of Inspiration (KOI), one of the most influential programs of the Lang Lang International Music Foundation (LLIMF), aims to reach 30,000 children of grades two to five by 2020 in 80 U.S. public schools for students from lower-income families.

The music intervention program, which started in 2013 with only two schools and 300 students, will have 40 schools enrolled in the program across the United States as of September 2018, reaching more than 6,000 students, according to Leszek Barwinski-Brown, chief executive officer of LLIMF.

"Utilizing a strategic expansion plan, KOI will reach 30,000 students in 80 schools by 2020," said Barwinski-Brown in a press release late Friday.

The KOI piano lab provides students with a safe, creative outlet in school and gives them a chance to build self-confidence, develop a drive for excellence and a sense of achievement, said world-known Chinese pianist Lang Lang.

"At LLIMF, we believe that all children should have access to music education, regardless of their background," he said. "Most students enter the program with no prior knowledge of music or piano."

"There have been many students who began the program speaking no English, but in the KOI classroom, everyone speaks one language: music," Lang said. "In the piano lab, they gain the confidence to communicate with their peers. There are also cases of students who didn't like coming to school, or were struggling. Now, they're star students."

The KOI is one of the music education programs of the LLIMF, founded in 2008 by Lang Lang, to educate, inspire and motivate the next generation of music lovers and performers worldwide. Other programs include 101 Pianists, Young Scholars and Play It Forward.

With 101 Pianists, the foundation brings together 100 young piano students from one city for a unique social music performance with Lang Lang. To date, this program has inspired over 150,000 audiences in 18 cities worldwide.

Every two years, LLIMF welcomes a new class of Young Scholars to the LLIMF family. The students, selected by Lang Lang and his teacher Gary Graffman from hundreds of applicants, receive mentorship, tutelage and unique performance opportunities.

The scholars are also encouraged to participate in the Play It Forward program, which brings the healing properties and joys of music and art to groups of all ages and abilities in their community.

On Oct. 10, 2018, LLIMF will celebrate its 10th anniversary with a benefit gala at Cipriani 25 Broadway in Manhattan, New York City. Lang will lead a performance featuring the foundation's Young Scholars during the gala.

The evening will also feature Golden Globe-winning actor Alec Baldwin as the host, as well as internationally acclaimed tenor Roberto Alagna, twelve-time Grammy Award Nominee Ledisi, and three-time Grammy Award winning Wyclef Jean.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-12 03:06:48|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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TIRANA, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- The European Union (EU) countries continued to be the main trading partners of Albania, according to the quarterly monetary policy of Bank of Albania (BoA).

According to BoA's quarterly monetary policy report, growing exports of fuel and electricity contributed to the increase in the share of partners such as Spain, Serbia and Switzerland.

Moreover, Albania's trade deficit in goods decreased by about 12.8 percent in annual terms, driven by rapid growth of exports.

Meanwhile, the increase in imports has run at slow pace, said the report.

The report said Albania's exports of goods in value expanded by about 17.8 percent annually, during the second quarter of 2018, a rate similar to the previous quarter.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-12 04:01:57|Editor: xuxin

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Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez (R) and German Chancellor Angela Merkel attend a joint press conference in Sanlucar de Barrameda, Cadiz, Spain, on Aug. 11, 2018. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Saturday urged all members of the European Union (EU) to unite and confront the migrant crisis as a "common challenge". (Xinhua/Guo Qiuda)

MADRID, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Sunday urged all members of the European Union (EU) to unite and confront the migrant crisis as a "common challenge".

Reducing the inequality of the migrants among EU member states should be one of the objectives for the European Union at present and in future, Sanchez told a joint press conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"This is something that we can only achieve as a whole, not with isolated sight among the member states of the European Union. I think Spain and Germany share that vision," he said.

Sanchez held talks with Merkel in the city of San Lucar de Barrameda in southern Spain.

Merkel told the press conference that the migrants should be distributed equally among EU members. "They have to be spread across the European Union, as this is a challenge for all members, not just for a few countries," Merkel said.

Speaking after her arrival on Saturday, Merkel said her country is backing Spain's bid to stem the flow of migrants from Morocco to Europe via the Mediterranean, days after the two European countries signed a bilateral refugee deal, German news agency DPA reported.

Honest cooperation with African nations was important to secure the return of rejected asylum seekers, she added.

Sanchez said that Spain "is under enormous migration pressure coming from countries south of the Sahara", according to DPA.

"We should reject the opportunism of those who only promise to repeat the solutions that have failed of the past," he added.

"We can't only talk about controlling the borders and the coasts of Europe, but also have to reinforce secondary movements and cooperation with African countries. Both Spain and Germany plan to do so," Sanchez said.

On Monday, Berlin and Madrid reached an agreement to send migrants arriving in Germany back to Spain within 48 hours if they already have a pending asylum request there. Spain is the first EU country to sign such an agreement with Germany.

When asked whether the deal was only symbolic, given that so few asylum-seekers actually arrive in Germany after registering in Spain, Merkel said that it showed "that Germany and Spain support a European solution" to the migration question.

Merkel is hoping to strike similar deals with Greece and Italy, after a major showdown on asylum policy with German Interior Minister Horst Seehofer that threatened to topple her coalition in early July.

Spain has rescued 22,858 migrants from the sea during the first seven months of 2018, according to a government report, which is more than any other country in the EU.

Both Sanchez and Merkel confirmed that the EU will increase the funds for Morocco, the key country to control migratory pressure on the coasts of southern Spain, although neither of them specified the amount.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-12 04:27:02|Editor: ZD

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WASHINGTON, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- U.S. President Donald Trump said Saturday that he condemned "all types of racism and acts of violence," a day before the one-year mark of a deadly rally in Charlottesville, state of Virginia.

"The riots in Charlottesville a year ago resulted in senseless death and division," Trump said in a tweet. "We must come together as a nation."

Last summer's "Unite the Right" rally in historic Charlottesville, held on Aug. 12 to protest U.S. cities taking down Confederate statues, attracted national attention when white supremacists, fascists and neo-Nazis violently clashed with counter-protesters.

A 32-year-old woman was killed and 19 others were injured when an Ohio man associated with white nationalist groups allegedly drove a car into the crowd of counter-protesters.

Trump drew a firestorm of criticism last year following the deadly incident in Charlottesville when he said "both sides" were to blame for the violence.

Another white supremacist rally is to take place outside the White House in Washington D.C. on Sunday, which is expected to bring about 400 demonstrators. Counter-protests will also be held in the capital city.

A permit to host another "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville this year was denied due to public safety concerns. Virginia Governor Ralph Northam and the city of Charlottesville have declared a state of emergency.

Local reports said a group of anti-fascist activists rallied peacefully in downtown Charlottesville on Saturday amid heightening security with heavy police presence.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-12 04:37:04|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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MOSCOW, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Russian military intercepted an attack drone near its Hmeymim airbase in Syria on Saturday, local media reported, citing Alexei Tsygankov, head of the Russian Center for Syrian Reconciliation.

The air defense system at the airbase detected a drone launched from the territory controlled by militants and shot it down at a safe distance from the base.

The airbase is operating normally with no injuries or damage.

The Hmeymim airbase destroyed two drones from militants on Friday and one on Thursday.

Russia maintains an airbase in Hmeymim and a naval base in Tartus in Syria to support the government forces fighting terrorists.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-12 05:22:11|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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TRIPOLI, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Member of Libya's eastern-based parliament, AbdelSalam Nasiyeh, on Saturday expressed optimism that the parliament will approve the constitution referendum law next week.

Nasiyeh made his remarks during a meeting with the UN Secretary-General to Libya Ghassan Salame in the capital Tripoli, where the two officials discussed economic reforms and improving public services in the country.

The priority for Libya now is for the completion of the constitutional process, unification of institutions, and preparation for elections, the UN Support Mission in Libya tweeted earlier.

On Monday, the parliament postponed the discussion on the constitution referendum law.

Last July, the constitution drafting assembly voted for a draft constitution and presented it to the parliament.

However, the parliament said it refused to issue a referendum law pending a court ruling regarding the validity of the drafting procedures.

A month later, the appeals court ruled that the draft constitution should be suspended on grounds that the assembly held the voting session on a holiday.

The Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that the administrative judiciary is not competent to hear cases against the constitution assembly.

The parliament so far has made no comment regarding the ruling of the Supreme Court.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-12 06:32:21|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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ALGIERS, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- A senior official of a terrorist group in the African Sahel region has surrendered to military authorities, said Algerian Defense Ministry on Saturday announced in a statement.

The statement said that Abzou Aissa, alias Soltane Oueld Badi, laid down his arms on Saturday to military authorities in the southern province of Tamanrasset, near the border with Mali and Niger.

The surrendered militant had in his possession a Kalashnikov submachine gun and 250 bullets of different calibers.

The statement specified that the militant joined terrorist groups in 2006, "as he used to be among the senior officials of terrorist organizations in the Sahel region."

This successful operation confirmed "the positive results obtained by counterterrorism troops," said the statement.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-12 06:42:23|Editor: Li Xia

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LA PAZ, Aug. 11 (Xinhua) -- Bolivian interest in Chinese culture has proved overwhelming at the La Paz International Book Fair (FIL) 2018.

At the fair's "Red Pavillion" featuring China, this year's "distinguished guest", bookshelves have become almost empty.

Li Ruixia and Lu Shuming, who are in charge of the stand, said that around 90 percent of the books on display have been sold, including some untranslated books.

The fair began Aug. 1 and runs to Aug. 12.

China is participating for the first time in the La Paz FIL, with a program that includes a gastronomy exhibition, a literature debate, a calligraphy workshop and a conference about China-Bolivia relations.

According to Bolivian doctor Lucio Moya, China is creating great interest for the fair goers for several reasons, including the country's culture, philosophy, technology and economic power.

Chinese novelist Zhao Daxin gave a talk about China's literary evolution titled "Lu Xun to Mo Yan: A century of Chinese literature in an area of historic changes."

The FIL is the most important book fair in Bolivia, with over 130 participants from countries around the world this year.

According to Liu Hebao, the cultural affairs officer at the Chinese embassy in Bolivia, 200 Chinese books were made available to visitors at the FIL. The exposition is a great success, he added.
Source: Xinhua| 2018-08-11 02:16:47|Editor: Mu Xuequan

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MOSCOW, Aug. 10 (Xinhua) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday told U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo by phone that Russia categorically rejects new U.S. sanctions over alleged Russian involvement in the Skripal case.

Lavrov reiterated Russia's position that Moscow played no role in the alleged nerve agent attack on ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the British city of Salisbury, the foreign ministry said.

Lavrov stressed that neither the United States, nor Britain, nor any other country have provided a single fact to support their accusations, according to a Russian Foreign Ministry statement.

The U.S. State Department said Wednesday that Washington will impose new sanctions on Russia over the alleged poison attack on Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in March.

Western countries claim the pair was exposed to a nerve agent and hold Russia responsible, while the Russian government has repeatedly denied any involvement in the case and demanded direct participation in the investigation.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has criticized the U.S. decision on new sanctions and Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Moscow will consider retaliation.

Lavrov and Pompeo also discussed issues on the international agenda, including the situation in Syria, and other topics considered during the meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump in Helsinki on July 16.

The two top diplomats agreed to maintain contacts on all issues of mutual interest, the statement said, adding that the phone conversation was initiated by the U.S. side.
A wildland fire that threatened the community of White Swan Friday night is now estimated at 80 percent contained.
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Coun Perez reiterates warning to barangay leaders involved in drugs

07 Aug 2017 Hits:37 Comments(0)

Liga ng mga Barangay President, Councilor Jerry Perez yesterday reiterated his warning to all barangay officials from using or selling drugs. Perez said he is closely monitoring the activities of all the barangay officials and vowed sanctions against erring leaders. Aqui gane na mio barangay ya quita ya iyo na puesto cunel dos barangay leaders quien mas temprano ya sale positivo na...
Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings will be held the first week of September, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley (R., Iowa) announced Friday.

The hearings for President Trump's pick to replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy will be held Sept. 4 to 7, according to a notice sent to Senate Republican offices Friday and obtained by the Washington Post, although the committee noted that the hearing could be three or four days.

"As I said after his nomination, Judge Kavanaugh is one of the most respected jurists in the country and one of the most qualified nominees ever to be considered by the Senate for a seat on our highest court," Grassley said in a statement Friday. "He's a mainstream judge. He has a record of judicial independence and applying the law as it is written. He's met with dozens of senators who have nothing but positive things to say."

The first day of hearings will be dedicated to opening statements from senators. Kavanaugh will go under questioning Sept. 5. Then outside witnesses, legal experts, and the American Bar Association will follow.

"He'll get confirmed. It won't be a landslide, but he'll get confirmed," Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) said in an interview Friday morning with WKDZ radio in Kentucky. He said the Senate was "moving right along" for Kavanaugh to be confirmed by Oct. 1, when the Supreme Court will convene for its fall term.

Grassley's team of counsels and other aides have reviewed 4,800 pages of legal opinions that Kavanaugh wrote, more than 17,000 pages related to Kavanaugh's committee questionnaire, and more than 184,000 pages of the nominee's documents from his tenure working in the George W. Bush White House and for independent counsel Kenneth Starr.

But the documents have been a major point of contention in the Senate. Democratic senators have been infuriated with how Grassley and other Republicans have released Kavanaugh's documents in a slow trickle since the papers began arriving at the Senate late last week.

Those pages are being released on a rolling basis by the committee, after a team of lawyers for former President George W. Bush reviews them and clears them for public release. But thousands of pages  which are a fraction of all the documents from Kavanaugh's tenure as Bush's associate White House counsel  that have already been given to the committee are still considered "committee confidential," which means no one outside the panel's senators and staff can review them.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D., Calif.), the Judiciary Committee's top Democrat, raised concerns about a "lack of transparency" in releasing Kavanaugh's papers in a new letter to Grassley on Friday. The committee has received about 175,000 pages from the Bush library, but has only publicly released 5,700 pages.

"Simply stated, this is unacceptable. The senators and the public must have access to Mr. Kavanaugh's full record," Feinstein wrote to Grassley. "Additionally, this committee has never allowed a third party to control what information is kept confidential, and should not do so now when we are considering a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court."

A spokeswoman for Feinstein said the senator is "reviewing options in the event he continues to restrict access to only senators on the committee." Grassley's aides have said they expect to release more of those papers on a rolling basis.
Yes, Simon's Cat is between the covers again The new book is called Simon's Cat vs the World and you can win your own copy, acco...
Ninth Circuit Panel Rules CA Unsafe Handgun

Act not Covered by Second Amendment

By Dean Weingarten. August 10th, 2018

Original Source

A three judge panel in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled the restrictions of the California Unsafe Handgun Act (UHA) do not violate the Second Amendment. In circular reasoning, the opinion posits the UHA restrictions do not restrict behavior protected by the Second Amendment. They then apply the least restrictive Constitutional test to determine if the behavior is protected. Unsurprisingly, they find that it is not.

The key to the decision is the Ninth Circuit's hostility to a broad reading of the Second Amendment. The Circuit, in it's en banc rulings, such as Peruta, Tiexeira v. County of Alameda, and in a three judge panel, Silvester v. Harris, has consistently worked to restrict Second Amendment rights to the narrowest possible box. An analogous reading of the First Amendment would be that the State can restrict certain publications on the grounds that they might impact public safety. For example, that violent video games could be banned. The Supreme Court has rejected that argument for the First Amendment.

Here is the summation of the opinion of the court, From Pena v. Lindley:

California requires that new models of handguns meet certain criteria, and be listed on a handgun roster, before they may be offered for sale in the state. Two provisions require that a handgun have a chamber load indicator and a magazine detachment mechanism, both of which are designed to limit accidental firearm discharges. The third provision, adopted to aid law enforcement, requires new handguns to stamp microscopically the handgun's make, model, and serial number onto each fired shell casing. Plaintiffs asserted that these three provisions have narrowed their ability to buy firearms in California, in violation of the Second Amendment, and that the handgun roster scheme imposes irrational exceptions, in violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The panel held that it did not need to reach the question of whether the challenged provisions fell within the scope of the Second Amendment's right to bear arms because, even assuming coverage, the provisions passed constitutional muster. Applying intermediate scrutiny, the panel held that the Act only regulates commercial sales, not possession, and does so in a way that does not impose a substantial burden on purchasers. The panel held that the requirements for a chamber load indicator and a magazine detachment mechanism reasonably fit with California's interest in public safety. The panel further held that California had met its burden of showing that the microstamping requirement was reasonably tailored to address the substantial problem of untraceable bullets at crime scenes and the value of a reasonable means of identification. The panel rejected plaintiffs' claim that they have a constitutional right to purchase a particular handgun and their claim that the provisions violate the Equal Protection Clause.

The Court's using of the words "intermediate scrutiny" belies the fact that, in the case of the Second Amendment, "intermediate scrutiny" has collapsed to mere rational basis scrutiny. Rational Basis scrutiny is so close to no scrutiny, there is effectively no difference.

Under "intermediate scrutiny" in a Second Amendment case at the Ninth Circuit, to pass Constitutional muster, the State only has to claim some vague governmental interest. "Public Safety" is a favorite. It can be made to fit nearly every circumstance.

Then the State need only claim there is some relationship between the interest and the law in question. The State does not have to show the law actually accomplishes any increase in public safety; nor does the state have to show the law performs better than other, less restrictive, remedies.

In effect, in the Ninth Circuit and in other circuits hostile to a broad interpretation of Second Amendment rights, intermediate scrutiny is used as a sophistry to restrict the Second Amendment to narrower and narrower meanings.

The problem cannot be solved at the current Ninth Circuit. There are too many judges on the Circuit actively hostile to Second Amendment rights.

Given the political situation in California, it is unlikely the California legislature will correct the situation. Citizens in California who resent every greater restrictions on exercise of their Second Amendment rights have one judicial remedy left: appeal to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court may or may not accept the case. The Supreme Court has been unwilling to accept appeals from the Ninth Circuit on Second Amendment grounds. I cannot recall a single case the Supreme Court has accepted from the Ninth Circuit on a Second Amendment challenge.

When and if President Trump's nominee, Judge Kavanaugh, becomes Justice Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, the makeup of the Supreme Court may be changed enough so the Court will accept Second Amendment appeals from the Ninth Circuit.

That remains to be seen.

An alternate, and plausible solution would be for the Congress of the United States to pass legislation to enforce Second Amendment rights against the states. A national reciprocity act, as has broad support in the Congress, would go a long way to restore Second Amendment rights to Californians.

Congress could remove the current prohibition on interstate handgun sales, if it so wished.

2018 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included. Gun Watch

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Discussions to be held on reopening Tatopani route

Nepali and Chinese government officials are slated to meet in the border town of Khasa to discuss the modality of reopening the Tatopani-Khasa transit point which has remained closed after being damaged by the 2015 earthquake.
Fire and water

When a fire engulfed the top floor of the Share Market Building in Putalisadak in February this year, it took firefighters from the City Fire Brigade (Juddha Barun Yantra) a little under twenty minutes to bring the flames under control. The building, which straddles one of the Capitals busiest streets, was spared from major damage in part because it is located just a kilometer away from the fire station that is capable of dispatching personnel within two minutes of receiving a distress call.
New Delhi: Shani Dev or Saturn Lord is worshipped by Hindus across the globe. The Lord is mentioned in the ancient Puranas and scripts as well. The planet associated with the Lord is Saturn; it is also one of the main Navagraha as per Hindu mythology.

On the new moon as per Hindu calendar, certain specific rituals are performed for different gods and goddesses. If a new moon or Amavasya falls on a Monday, it is called Somvati Amavasya and if it is on a Saturday then it becomes Shani Amavasya.

This year, the first Shani Amavasya took place on March 17 and the second one happens to be on August 11, 2018.

August 11 is a Saturday and therefore it's called 'Shani Amavasya', making it even more auspicious. Many believe that if the Amavasya falls on a Saturday and you take bath at a holy place, then all your bad deeds get washed away and you are freed from your sins.

Significance:

This day becomes more significant as Shani Amavasya is coinciding with the partial solar eclipse on August 11. Although the impact of Aanshik Surya Grahan will not be seen in India, people believe in following certain dos and don'ts during the eclipse time.

Once the eclipse ends at 5 pm in the evening, the ritual for Shani Amavasya will begin. Interestingly, it is falling during the month of Shravan or Sawan, so some even call it 'Shravan Amavasya'.

Meanwhile, Hariyali Amavasya which falls three days ahead of Hariyali Teej festival was celebrated this year on August 10, 2018. Mathura's famous Dwarkadhish temple and Banke Bihari temple in Vrindavan witnessed a massive crowd of devotees lining up to offer prayers to Krishna-Radha.

In North India, many Lord Shiva and Mata Parvati temples conduct special pujas on Haryali Amavasya.

This is how you can make the most of this day:

You can pray to the Lord by getting up early and taking a bath at some holy river or pilgrimage.

Also, the devotees can offer food, clothes and other valuable stuff in the name of their ancestors who are no longer alive.

Helping the poor and needy on this day can please the Lord and in turn, he will bless you.

You can visit any Shani Temple and offer jaggery and chana (black chickpeas or Gram) to the Lord. Also, black lentils (urad black dal) can be offered to the Lord as well. It is believed that the Saturn God also likes black colour and the mettle Iron (Loha) is associated with him. The devotees can give eatables along with the mettle utensils to the needy also.

The most important thing above all is that you must pray to Lord Shani Dev with a pure mind, body, and soul not thinking about your worries and he shall grant your wishes.

Jai Shani Dev!
New Delhi: The Class 2 student who was allegedly raped by an electrician in a New Delhi Municipal Council school (NDMC) recorded her statement before a magistrate on Saturday, police said.

The girl reiterated all the charges against the accused. She recalled that the accused had also tried to pull her towards himself on Tuesday, but she had somehow escaped, they said.

The girl was leaving school on Wednesday when the 47-year-old accused allegedly took her to a pump room inside the school premises and forced himself on her.

Police said they would file a charge sheet within 20 days and demand a speedy trial in the case. A senior police officer alleged negligence on the part of school in ensuring the safety of the schoolchildren.

"There were no teachers to escort the students to the main gate. The girl was running towards the main gate when the accused took her to the pump house and raped her," he said.
Home minister flip-flops on extrajudicial killings

A day after Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa promised to investigate the Bhaktapur encounter in which two alleged kidnappers were shot dead, he refuted charges on Monday that the police staged a fake encounter to kill the two accused of abducting and murdering an 11-year-old boy.
A Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) team on Saturday detained the son of Brajesh Thakur -- the prime accused in the Muzaffarpur shelter home alleged sexual assault case -- from the premises owned by them.

The CBI team conducted a thorough search for 11 hours with the help of forensic experts, sifted through documents and interrogated people close to him. The team, which had reached Thakur's Sahu Road residence at around 9 am, left at around 8 pm with his son Rahul Anand.

#MuzaffarpurShelterHome: Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) detains accused Brajesh Thakur's son after questioning him, earlier today. pic.twitter.com/WDQQVzoK0r  ANI (@ANI) August 11, 2018

Anand is the publisher and editor of Hindi daily "Pratah Kamal", the office of which is situated within the same premises as the residence and the shelter home which have since been sealed.

Headed by DIG Abhay Kumar, the CBI team was flanked by a number of armed commandoes who locked the main gate of the premises from inside, preventing entry of media persons and a number of other curious onlookers.

The CBI team is understood to have inspected the shelter home after getting its seal opened, and collected documents and other items it found to be of value in the investigation.

CBI sleuths also inspected the courtyard, which was dug up last month by the police, following allegations by inmates that one of the girls was beaten to death by staff members a few years ago and her body was buried at the spot. Nothing incriminating was found after the day-long excavation and the eight-feet-deep pit was again filled up.

The CBI deployed heavy earth mover machines at the site but no excavation took place during the day.

In the same case, Bihar Police on Saturday recovered a list of 40 mobile phone numbers and the names of those whom they were issued against from Brajesh Thakur, police said.

According to police, the officers spotted Thakur in an area reserved for people coming to meet prisoners lodged in the jail and recovered two handwritten pages with 40 mobile phone numbers and the names of those they were issued against.

A district administration official said the names of some powerful people, including a minister, were written on two pages recovered from Thakur during the search.

Bihar Police on Saturday conducted raids on over a dozen of jails in the state and recovered objectionable items from prisoners.

Thakur has spent only five days in the Muzaffarpur Central Jail since he was arrested on June 2. "He has been staying in the medical ward of the jail on health grounds and managed to avoid staying in the prisoners' ward," the police said.

The Patna High Court is monitoring the ongoing CBI investigation into the case.

Thakur, who is in jail, heads the NGO Seva Sankalp Evam Vika Samiti, which ran the state-funded shelter home where sexual abuse of more than 30 inmates has been confirmed in medical tests.

The Bihar government had cancelled the registration of the NGO earlier this week.

Sexual exploitation of girls at the shelter home first came to light in the report of a social audit conducted by Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, which was submitted to the state social welfare department in April.

The FIR in the case was registered on May 31 against 11 people, including Thakur. On July 26, the Bihar government recommended a CBI inquiry into the matter.

Bihar social welfare department minister Manju Verma had to resign after links of her husband with the key accused Brajesh Thakur surfaced.

with PTI and IANS inputs
Trinamool Congress (TMC) on Saturday demanded an apology from BJP National President Amit Shah within 72 hours or the party will take legal action against him, hours after Shah launched a scathing attack on the Mamata Banerjee-government.

Amit Shah has insulted, disrespected Bengal today. He does not understand Bengal and its people. He has no knowledge of its tradition and culture. We are a healthy culture here and he has insulted our culture too. All that he said was blatant lies. He must apologise within 72 hours. We are giving him till Sunday, else we will take legal action against him, said Derek OBrien, TMC Spokesperson.

Amit Shah's meeting was a flop show, he has insulted Bengal today. He doesn't understand the culture of Bengal and even insulted it with his blatant lies. If he doesn't apologise within next 72 hours we will take legal action against him: Derek O'Brien, TMC pic.twitter.com/a12jR4BgtD  ANI (@ANI) August 11, 2018

What are you talking about cheating? Look at your own affidavit. You are a dacoit, you are a dangabaaj. We will not allow you to say all this on Bengals soil. Your Gujarat type of politics of robbery and dacoity will not be successful here. The communal politics will not work here in Bengal. Dont you dare engage in mud-slinging against Mamata Banerjee, he added.

The comments come after Shah verbally attacked Mamata Banerjee government for their stand on NRC while addressing a BJP Yuva Morcha rally in Kolkata. He leveled allegations against the TMC and its party supremo for engaging in vote bank politics hence safeguarding Bangladeshi nationals staying in the country and protecting infiltrators.

Shah had said, Mamata Banerjee had put up protests across Delhi a few days ago against NRC. What is she scared of? Let me tell you what NRC is. It is a process to identify infiltrators and Bangladeshi nationals staying in Assam illegally. Given a chance, we will bring NRC in West Bengal too. How did her stand change? In 2005 she raised her voice against Bangladeshis by throwing papers at the speaker in Parliament and now in 2018 she is supporting them? Bangladeshis are her vote bank.

Responding to Shahs comments on NRC, Derek said, NRC in Bengal is not an issue. Our stand on the NRC is clear. We have to save Indian citizens. It is an issue of Punjab, Bihar, Gorkhas and tribals and effects each one of them.
Kolkata: BJP National President Amit Shah launched a scathing attack on the Mamata Banerjee government while speaking at the BJP Yuva Morcha meeting in Kolkata on Saturday on Assam's National Register of Citizens (NRC) issue.

Shah tore into the West Bengal Chief Minister for protesting against NRC saying, Mamata Banerjee had put up protests across Delhi a few days ago against NRC. What is she scared of? Let me tell you what NRC is. It is a process to identify infiltrators and Bangladeshi nationals staying in Assam illegally. Given a chance, we will bring NRC in West Bengal too. How did her stand change? In 2005 she raised her voice against Bangladeshis by throwing papers at the speaker in Parliament and now in 2018 she is supporting them? Bangladeshis are her vote bank," said Shah.

"We did not bring in the NRC. It was Congress brainchild and now Congress is also objecting to the NRC as it is a matter of vote bank for them now. For BJP, its nation first and vote bank later, he added.

Shah took a dig at the Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief for her changing stand on Congress. Mamata Banerjee must clarify now whether she is on the same page with the Congress or not. She cannot be with them and also not be with them at the same time. We are going to table the citizens amendment bill in both the houses. She also needs to clarify whether she will support this bill or not, he said.

Shah was shown black flags at the airport and also on his way to the venue by not just the Trinamool Congress supporters but also by Congress supporters. I was shown black flags at the airport. My party supporters had to cross several hurdles on their way to the venue. I will just say one thing, that no matter how much you try to stop me, I will go to each of the districts in Bengal and uproot TMC, Shah said.

Union Minister and Asansol MP Babul Supriyo who was present in the meeting had alleged that the local MSOs were threatened by the ruling party so that they cannot air Amit Shahs speeches and blackout the entire BJP meeting.

Countering Supriyos claims, the Trinamool Congress official twitter handle wrote, BJP has just concluded another flop show in Bangla. After the flop meeting, BJP is looking for excuses. They are saying their meeting was blacked out. Blackouts and blackmailing are what BJP does. Dont insult the media. All showed. We challenge BJP. Either they prove it or resign.
In a major gaffe, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Saturday addressed Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad as 'Pandit Ravi Shankar'.

"I would like to especially thank Pandit Ravi Shankarji," Sonowal said at the beginning of his speech at the launch of the "Digital North East Vision 2022" document in Guwahati.

However, Prasad, who was sitting on the dais, quickly interrupted Sonowal, saying "Ah, you made me Pandit!". This evoked a round of laughter from the audience that included Sonowal's counterparts from Meghalaya and Tripura, along with a host of other ministers and senior bureaucrats.

Rectifying himself, Sonowal continued with his speech, mentioning the proper name and designation of the Union information technology minister. However, the chief minister tried to defend the blooper in the concluding part of his speech.

"I am sorry for calling you (Prasad) in that way. But whenever I pronounce your name, I have the tendency to call you as Pandit. God has been kind enough to bless you with such wisdom, maturity and courage. You do everything so sincerely. I always feel so (addressing you as Pandit)," he said.

Pandit Ravi Shankar was a sitar maestro, who passed away in 2012.

In his speech, Sonowal highlighted Prime Minister Narendra Modi's initiatives in developing the north-east, especially the connectivity.

Without naming former prime minister Manmohan Singh, he said, "Our representative remained as prime minister for 10 years, but he did not launch any exemplary scheme for the north-east."

Singh was a Rajya Sabha MP from Assam.
Amritsar: Nearly a year after the Doklam row strained ties between two nuclear-powered Asian giants India and China, Luo Zhaohui - the Chinese Ambassador to India - has now said that the Doklam chapter is now over and that two countries have reached a consensus to look forward.

Zhaohui said this after visiting the Golden Temple in Amritsar on Friday.

Speaking to reporters, Zhaohui said, "That page has already been turned over. We have reached a consensus to look forward. So that's why the Chinese Prime Minister (Xi Jinping) and Prime Minister of India (Narendra Modi) have met many a time this year.''

The Chinese official further said that he was happy and optimistic about strong bilateral relations between the two countries.

The remarks from the Chinese envoy comes nearly a year after a military stand-off began between India and China after the latter's troops tried to construct a road at the disputed territory in violation of understandings arrived at by both countries.

The bitter military stand-off between the two powerful nations lasted for about 73 days.

The stand-off began on June 16, 2017, and was resolved on August 28 after both the countries announced the withdrawal of their troops.

Importantly, Zhaohui had said last month that neither India nor China can afford to have another Doklam-like incident, which threatened peace and stability in the region.

The Chinese official also called for making sincere efforts by the two sides to maintain peace along the border.

The Chinese envoy also shared some pictures of various events he attended in Punjab on his Twitter handle where he can be seen wearing a turban.

Unforgettable visit to Dr. Kotnis Acupuncture Hospital in Ludhiana. Appreciations to Dr. Inderjit Singh for his relentless efforts in promoting acupuncture, TCM and enhancing #China #India friendship. Our Tribute to Dr. Kotnis, Indian hero in China during World War II. pic.twitter.com/R6N5SYz768  Luo Zhaohui (@China_Amb_India) August 10, 2018

Shortly after his arrival in Amritsar, Zhaohui was welcomed by the Gurdwara Committee in Golden Temple on Friday.

The committee also honoured Zhaohui with a Golden Temple memento.

(With ANI inputs)
An Indian Air Force (IAF) contingent member got an opportunity to fly onboard a French Rafale fighter aircraft, as part of the exchange sorties during the Integration Training week of Exercise Pitch Black in Australia. The IAF took to Twitter on Saturday early morning and said, "We are working together as a team & learning from each other." It also tweeted pictures of the member inside the fighter jet.

#ExPitchBlack18 : As part of the exchange sorties during the Integration Training week, Indian Air Force contingent member, got an opportunity to fly onboard a French Rafale fighter aircraft. We are working together as a team & learning from each other... pic.twitter.com/puEQpOKg0R  Indian Air Force (@IAF_MCC) August 11, 2018

The Exercise Pitch Black is the Air Force's premier air warfare exercise with 16 nations participating in the exercise in 2018 that is taking place in Australi's Darwin.

Earlier on August 9, the Australian skies witnessed a miraculous display of might when 60 jets took off in just 90 minutes from its air base as part of Exercise Pitch Black. Among the jets which were part of the mass take-off were fast-jet, mobility, and air-to-air refuelling aircraft.

These jets belonged to the Australian Air Force, Indian Air Force, Indonesian Air Force, Singapore Air Force, United States Air Force, French Air Force, Royal Malaysia Airforce and Thai Air Force.

The Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Air Battle Managers are joined by controllers from India, Germany and Canada to target, track and direct friendly and "enemy" aircraft on Exercise Pitch Black.

Wing Commander Brett Risstrom, Commanding Officer No 114 Mobile Control and Reporting Unit (114MCRU), said that this years Exercise has provided new opportunities to develop skills with more international air forces during simulated aerial combat.

"At Exercise Pitch Black 2018 weve been able to integrate fighter control teams, including for the first time controllers from India, Germany and Canada as one team," he was in a release by Australian Air Force.

The Air Battle managers sit together among a wall of screens in their shipping container-sized cabins in RAAF Base Darwin. They carefully watch the tracks on the monitors representing aircraft speeding across the area of operations. They direct the aircraft and help the aircrews find, track and target multiple incoming enemy aircraft across the Northern Territory during long and intense hours of simulated combat.

Sergeant (SGT) Ryan Mckee from No. 1 Remote Sensor Unit said the exercise is about coordinating to put "Blue" aircraft in the right place at the right time. "Were looking at where the Red are and where theyre coming from to ensure we have a safe air picture and also dominate the skies," SGT Mckee said.
Chandigarh: Pakistan's prime minister-elect Imran Khan called up cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Sidhu to extend an invitation to his oath-taking ceremony in Islamabad on August 18, the Punjab Minister said in a statement on Saturday. Sidhu has accepted the invitation and informed the Union Home Ministry and the office of the Punjab Chief Minister about his intention to attend the swearing-in ceremony.

Khan, the chairman of Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaaf (PTI), has personally telephoned Sidhu to extend the invitation, according to the statement.

Earlier, Sidhu said that he hoped that relations between India and Pakistan would improve with cricketer-turned-politician Khan becoming the prime minister of the neighbouring country.
RJD's Tejashwi Yadav on Saturday asked Bihar's Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to resign on moral grounds as he is unable to run the state and bring justice to the girls from Muzaffarpur Shelter Home.

Taking a jibe at the Cheif Minister, Yadav accused Kumar of being a coward and shielding the criminals. Yadav said that Kumar should resign from Home Ministry as well.

According to news agency ANI, Yadav said, "Nitish Ji must resign on moral grounds as he's unable to run the state. It'll be proved he's the most coward CM who isn't fighting for justice for our daughters, but shielding those who committed the crime. He must resign from state Home Ministry as well."

Yadav also accused the chief minister of knowing everything and gave him a week's time to reveal the whereabouts of the girl who was shifted from the shelter home and went missing since then. He threatened to stage a mass protest in Madhubani if Kumar doesn't come up with relevant information about the girl within a week.

Yadav said, "Nitish ji knows everything. I give him a week's time to reveal the whereabouts of the girl who was shifted from the shelter home & who has been missing since then, after which we will stage a mass protest in Madhubani."

Comments from the Yadav comes after the Central Bureau (CBI) took over the probe as ordered by the Supreme Court.

CBI on Thursday took all documents including a copy of the FIR, charge sheet and case diary related to the Muzaffarpur shelter home sex scandal case from the court.

The Patna High Court had, earlier asked the Bihar government to submit a detailed action report in the Muzaffarpur sex scandal case.

The CBI froze the bank accounts of the prime accused Brajesh Thakur and said that it would also investigate his property.

Bihar CM Nitish Kumar had on Monday blamed the long-standing "flaw in the system" of such shelter homes being run by NGOs in the entire country for such cases. He had announced his decision to phase out this practice in Bihar and said the state government would take over the administration of all such centres over a period of time.

Bihar Social Welfare Minister Manju Verma on Wednesday resigned from her post after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders alleged her involvement in the sex scandal.

Manju Verma's husband has been accused of having links with alleged mastermind Brajesh Thakur in the Muzaffarpur shelter home sex scandal case.

Over 30 girls were allegedly raped at the centre run by Brajesh Thakur, the chief of the state-funded NGO. The alleged sexual exploitation of the girls was first highlighted in an audit report submitted by the Tata Institute of Social Science (TISS), Mumbai, to the state's social welfare department in April.
New Delhi: In the recent past, the Opposition has levelled several allegations against the Narendra Modi-led government and Prime Minister Modi on Saturday spoke on these important issues, that includes NRC, reservation, the crime against women, India-Pakistan relations, among others.

In an exclusive interview to news agency ANI, PM Modi spoke on NRC and allayed concerns that no Indian citizen will have to leave the country. He said as per the due process all possible opportunities will be given so that the concerns of the people can be addressed.

Reacting to Mamata Banerjee's statement on NRC, PM Modi said, "Those who have lost faith in themselves, fear the loss of popular support and lack faith in our institutions can use words like civil war,blood bath and Desh Ke Tukde Tukde Evidently, they are disconnected from the pulse of the nation."

Speaking on the recent incidents of crime against women and lynching, PM Modi said, "Even a single incident is one too many and deeply unfortunate. Everyone should rise above politics to ensure peace and unity in our society. My party and I have spoken in clear words, on multiple occasions against such actions and such a mindset. It is all on record."

The PM responded to the question of caste based reservation and assured that reservation is here to stay and added that there should be no doubt about it.

In a jibe to the Opposition, PM Modi said that he is a "humble Kaamdaar" and taunted that he is "nothing compared to the Naamdaars of the country, who have their own unique style of conducting themselves". He added, "They decide whom to hate, when to hate and whom to love and how to make a show of it. In all this, what can a Kamdaar like me say?"

As Pakistan is all set for a new administration under Imran Khan, PM Modi said, "We hope that Pakistan would work for a safe, secure, stable and prosperous region, free from terror and violence. I have always said that we wish to have good neighbourly relations. We have also taken various initiatives in this regard. I recently congratulated Imran Khan on his victory in the elections."

Clarifying on the gloomy picture by the Opposition on the employment scenarion in the country, the prime minister said in the last one year more than one crore jobs has been created. He added that "the campaign that jobs have not been created must come to a halt."
In a verbal attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday targeted him on the Rafale aircraft deal as he launched his party's campaign for the assembly polls later this year in Rajasthan.

Accusing Modi of corruption in the deal for the French fighter planes, he said the prime minister had favoured his businessman friend Anil Ambani by getting him the contract. The reference was to the business that foreign manufacturers are required to bring to Indian firms when a defence deal is signed with the government, under the country's offset policy.

Ambani has already rejected Rahul Gandhi's allegations and emphasised that the government had no role in the Rafale-manufacturing French firm Dassault picking up his company as a local partner. India had signed an inter-governmental agreement with France in 2015 for the procurement of 36 Rafale planes.

In his address to party workers at the Ramlila grounds here, Gandhi claimed that the Rafale deal had snatched job opportunities from young Indians, including engineers, as the planes will be manufactured abroad. Gandhi said the price of the Rafale plane fixed now is about "three times" the amount agreed upon during the previous Congress-led government. He said this corruption by Modi will become apparent over time.

The Congress chief claimed that only 450 youths got employment in the country every day while China was creating jobs for 50,000 people every 24 hours.

"Our youths more honest, capable and stronger than the Chinese but it is a matter of shame that despite having an almost equal population, they are getting fewer job opportunities," he said. He questioned why Rs 2,30,000 crore could be written off as bad loans to 15 or 20 big industrialists, but the government could not help debt-ridden farmers.

When farmers are unable to pay back their loans, they are called defaulters and are jailed. But bad debts of big industrialists are called non-performing assets (NPA), he said. He also accused the government of failing to ensure the safety of women.
Indias Exim Bank proposes stake in infrastructure bank

Exim Bank of India, an undertaking of the government of India, is exploring an investment opportunity in Nepal, potentially setting up its own infrastructure bank or making equity investments in an existing Nepali bank.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and BJP President Amit Shah on Saturday visited All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) to enquire about the health condition of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who has been undergoing treatment at the premier institute.

Shah visited AIIMS around 6.30 pm and Singh reached there around 8.15 pm to enquire about Vajpayee's health condition, a source at the AIIMS said.

There was no official update on Vajpayee's health condition.

Vajpayee was admitted to the hospital on June 11 with kidney tract infection, chest congestion, urinary tract infection and urine output on the lower side.

The 93-year-old BJP leader, a diabetic, has one functional kidney. He had suffered a stroke in 2009 that weakened his cognitive abilities. Subsequently, he developed dementia.
In the face of the heavy floods and landslides triggered by the torrential rains across Kerala, the death toll in the southern state reached 37 on Saturday and red alert has also been issued in several districts by the India Meteorological Department (IMD). IMD issued red and orange alerts for several places until the next few days.

A red alert has been declared in Ernakulam, Palakkad, Malappuram and Calicut till August 11; Idukki and Wayanad till August 14; and in Kannur till August 13. An orange alert has also been issued in -- Ernakulam, Palakkad, Malappuram and Calicut till August 14; Kasaragod till August 13; Idukki and Wayanad till August 15 and Kannur till August 15.

The rain fury in the state has so far claimed 29 lives besides causing heavy damage to crops and destruction of property. More than 53,500 people were now staying in various relief camps across the state.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has made a personal contribution of Rs one lakh to the Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund (CMDRF). Urging everyone to contribute generously to relief efforts, Vijayan said in a Facebook post that rebuilding the affected areas is going to be an arduous task.

The CM had also asked everyone to express solidarity with the people of the state in their hour of crisis.

Meanwhile, Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy announced a relief assistance of Rs 1 crore to the Kerala government to tackle the situation arising out of floods. He also appealed to traders, industrialists and others to make generous contributions to the Puducherry Chief Minister Relief Fund which would be sent to the Kerala government for relief works.

Vijayan announced an ex-gratia payment of Rs four lakh each to the kin of those who lost their lives in the devastating floods that have hit the state.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to release sufficient funds to the Kerala government to help respond to the flood crisis and restore critical infrastructure in the state. In a letter to the prime minister, Gandhi said the torrential rains, floods and wide-scale landslides have left behind a trail of destruction across Kerala.

Terming it as the "most severe disaster" that has struck the state in the last five decades, he said this natural calamity has resulted in massive economic and human losses. "At this juncture, it is critical to acknowledge the looming humanitarian crisis facing Kerala,? he said.

He expressed the hope that the Centre would cooperate with the state government in the massive relief and rehabilitation efforts which were underway. "I request you to release sufficient funds immediately to the state government, to enable the state to respond effectively, and work towards restoring critical infrastructure," Gandhi said in his letter to Modi.

Muddy homes, wells brimming with dirty water, clogged toilets, snakes and other reptiles crawling inside their houses was giving them sleepless nights, according to the victims of the Kerala floods.

Nearly 400 flood-affected people, including 85 children from Keerithod in Kanjikuzhy panchayat near Cheruthoni are in the camp for the past two days as a precautionary measure after water was released from Idukki dam. Eight villages have been affected due to the release of water from the dam and nearly 1,000 people have been shifted to 20 relief camps, official sources said.

All five shutters of the Cheruthoni dam, part of Idukki reservoir, were opened yesterday after incessant heavy rains increased the water level in the reservoir. This is for the first time in the history that all the gates of the dam have been opened, underlying the gravity of the situation.

Meanwhile, people living at Kariveli Mannapuram in Aluva in Ernakulam district said mud and slush-filled their homes due to waterlogging and well water has turned muddy. Farmers in Puthenvelikara said about one lakh banana plants were destroyed in the region due to heavy rains and sought the state government to provide compensation.
Thiruvananthapuram: At least 29 deaths have been reported and nearly 54,000 people have been rendered homeless as incessant rain continues to lash nearly half of Kerala. The worsening flood situation in Kerala has forced the authorities to open all the five gates of the Idukki Hydel Project and shutters of over two dozen dams.

Due to incessant rain, dam reservoirs and rivers are overflowing, sections of highways have collapsed and hundreds of homes have been swept away in severe flooding in more than half of Kerala, the officials said.

Navy launches 'Operation Madad'

Five columns of Army have been deployed in the state's seven severely-hit northern districts, out of Kerala's 14, to help evacuate people and to build makeshift bridges even as the Indian Navy's southern command launched 'Operation Madad.'

Navy's southern command was put on alert after the water level in Periyar river rose amid concern that parts of Wellingdon Island in Kochi could be inundated. Almost all 40-odd rivers in the state are in spate, the officials said.

Northern and central Kerala has been battered by heavy rains due to the Southwest monsoon since August 8, which has left 29 people dead, including three on Friday.

Of them, 25 died in landslides and four in drowning. State officials said a total of 53,501 people are now housed in 439 relief camps across the state.

Several tourists were barred from entering the hilly Idukki district after roads caved in at many places.

Army soldiers were building small bridges to evacuate people stranded at various places in Kozhikode and Wayanad. A red alert was issued for Idukki and its adjoining districts in view of the possibility of release of more water from the Idukki reservoir.

At least 50 tourists, including 24 foreigners, stranded at the Plum Judy resort at Munnar since Wednesday were rescued and taken to safer places, state Tourism minister Kadakampally Surendran said.

People living downstream of Periyar river in Kochi, and Cheruthoni river in Idukki have been warned of a possibility of inundation of banks.

The water level had crossed the maximum storage capacity of reservoirs of 24 out of the state's 58 dams, forcing officials to release the water by opening the sluice gates, including three of the Idukki reservoir. Two more shutters of the Cheruthoni dam, part of the Idukki reservoir, the biggest arch dam in Asia, were also lifted.

One shutter was opened Friday yesterday after a gap of 26 years.

Centre monitoring flood situation in Kerala

Earlier on Friday, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan reviewed the flood situation and relief works being undertaken by the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and the NDRF.

''Due to the increase in the water level at Idukki dam, it is essential to release water three times (more) than what was being released now,'' Vijayan said, adding that this will lead to rise in the water levels of Periyar river and its tributaries. He appealed to people to be vigilant.

Vijayan has cancelled all his public functions till August 12 and will monitor the situation from the state capital.

Union Minister Alphons Kannanthanam said he discussed the flood situation in Kerala with Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who assured him of all possible help. Singh also spoke with Vijayan and will make an aerial survey of the flood-affected areas on Sunday.

"The Government of India is providing all the required assistance including services of armed forces, disaster management team and other required assistance. Any other immediate assistance requested by the Government of Kerala will be provided," Alphons said in a Facebook post.

Col Ajai Sharma, the commandant of DSC Centre, who is overseeing relief and rescue operations, said five columns of Army have been deployed in the northern districts since last night.

"The haphazard development along the streams has affected the natural flow of rivers, which is a challenge right now," he said.

Small bridges have been constructed to evacuate stranded people in various places in Kozhikode and Wayanad areas, and rescue operations are currently underway.

"The situation is under control," he said.

IAF deploys helicopters, transport planes for Kerala relief operation

The Indian Air Force (IAF) has deployed five An-32 transport aircraft, two Mi-17 V5 helicopters and an Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) for rescue and relief operations in the rain-devastated parts of Kerala.

Five An-32 transport aircraft were deployed to transport National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams and their equipment from Arakkonam to Calicut, an IAF spokesperson said.

Two NDRF teams from Vijayawada and two teams of Army Engineering Group from Bangalore and Hyderabad have been transported to Calicut, the spokesperson said.

He said two Mi-17 V5 were pressed into service for distribution of relief material and winching operations.

(With Agency inputs)
IDUKKI: In a big relief for the Kerala administration and thousands of people living around the worst-flood affected Idukki dam, the waters here started receding and no rainfall was reported on Saturday.

The situation also appeared to be slowly improving in and around Ernakulam and Thrissur where several people were rendered homeless due to incessant floods in the recent past.

"The rains have slowed down in and around the Idukki dam since last night and hence the water level in the dam has also come down," State Power Minister MM Mani informed.

"So far things are fine and everything is going as planned. The water that came down the five floodgates, barring at Cheruthoni, has not caused any major crisis," Mani added.

The state's Power Minister has been monitoring the situation from here.

Meanwhile, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Saturday announced a compensation of Rs 4 Lakh to the next of the kin of the deceased and Rs 10 Lakh compensation to those who lost their houses and land.

Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan announces ex-gratia Rs 4 Lakh to the next of the kin of the deceased and Rs 10 Lakh compensation to those who lost their houses and land.#KeralaFloods pic.twitter.com/st1xAZttp3  ANI (@ANI) August 11, 2018

Earlier this morning, Vijayan, accompanied by Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala, State Forest Minister P Raju, Chief Secretary Tom Jose and Kerala Police Chief Loknath Behra, took off in a helicopter from Thiruvananthapuram to survey the worst affected districts.

Though the ministers were scheduled to stop at Idukki, bad weather conditions at the landing area in Kattapana forced them to travel to Wayanad, the CM said in a Facebook post.

Cheruthoni is the nearest town to the Idamalayar dam and with water gushing down the spillway for the first time in 26 years, there was heavy flooding in the area.

The Cheruthoni bridge continued to be submerged. It had come under severe stress with huge trees that have been uprooted coming and hitting the bridge.

The water level at the Idukki dam was now at 2,401 feet after it came down on Friday night as the intensity of the rains decreased.

On Saturday, the inflow into the dam stood at 6,00,000 litres of water per second, while the outflow through the floodgates is 7.50 lakh litres per second.

Authorities on Friday expected that parts of Ernakulam and Thrissur districts would be submerged following the opening of all five floodgates. However, this did not happen as the dam water entered the tributaries of the Periyar river in a systematic manner.

According to informed sources, if the water level in the dam comes down to 2,400 feet, it was likely to bring down the outflow through the five shutters as well - to around 5,00,000 litres per second.

On Saturday morning, a team led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan accompanied by Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala, State Forest Minister P Raju, Chief Secretary Tom Jose and Kerala Police Chief Loknath Behra took off in a helicopter from Thiruvananthapuram to survey the worst affected districts.

Even though their first stop was planned at Idukki, Vijayan wrote in his Facebook post that due to bad weather conditions at the landing area in Kattapana, they have been forced to travel to Wayanad.

Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan and leader of opposition Ramesh Chennithala arrive at Wayanad. #KeralaFloods pic.twitter.com/Dg3ko7u2Fm  ANI (@ANI) August 11, 2018

The Indian Air Force (IAF) deployed five An-32 transport aircraft, two Mi-17 V5 helicopters and an Advanced Light Helicopter (ALH) for rescue and relief operations in the rain-devastated parts of Kerala.

Five An-32 transport aircraft were deployed to transport National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams and their equipment from Arakkonam to Calicut, an IAF spokesperson said.

Two NDRF teams from Vijayawada and two teams of Army Engineering Group from Bangalore and Hyderabad have been transported to Calicut, the spokesperson said.

He said two Mi-17 V5 were pressed into service for distribution of relief material and winching operations.

Indian Navy's southern command, which was put on alert after the water level in Periyar river rose amid concern that parts of Willingdon Island in Kochi could be inundated, launched 'Operation Madad' to help victims.

The floods have so far claimed at least 29 lives and left nearly 54,000 people homeless.

(With Agency inputs)
NEW DELHI: Rajasthan BJP MLA Gyan Dev Ahuja, who is known for making offensive statements, has once again targeted the country's first prime minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and his Congress party.

Ahuja, the BJP MLA from Ramgarh (Alwar), has said that Nehru was not a 'pandit' and the prefix was added by the Congress party on his name.

Nehru was not a pandit, one who ate beef and pork, cannot be a pandit. Congress has put pundit in front of his name, the loudmouth BJP legislator said.

#WATCH: BJP MLA Gyan Dev Ahuja says, "Nehru was not a Pandit. One who ate beef and pork, cannot be a Pandit". (10.08.18) pic.twitter.com/faltELOAgr  ANI (@ANI) August 11, 2018

Ahuja made these remarks after visiting the BJP headquarters here on Friday. Ahuja also accused the Congress party of contesting elections in the name of casteism.

The Ramgarh MLA said this in response to Rajasthan PCC chief Sachin Pilot's statement that Rahul Gandhi had learned to visit temples from his grandmother Indira Gandhi.

Rahul Gandhi has never visited temples with Indira Gandhi. If my claim is wrong, I will quit my post or Sachin Pilot should quit his post, the BJP lawmaker said.

Ahuja raised the question on Rahuls proposed temple visit and asked Pilot, Gehlot or Ghulam Nabi should tell that when was the 'yagyopaveet' sanskar of Rahul done. A 'janeu' (sacred thread) is worn only after the yagyopaveet sanskar is over.

This is not the first time that Ahuja has targeted the Nehru-Gandhi family and the Congress party.

The BJP MLA recently said that cow slaughter was a bigger crime than terrorism. He also courted a controversy due to his stance on "love jihad".

Speaking to ANI, Ahuja had claimed that girls coming from the Hindu families were being targeted, lured into love jihad and forced to change their religion.

Ahuja had earlier claimed that JNU students indulge in sex and booze and go naked on campus and later attributed the growing instances of rapes in India to the Nehru, Gandhi family.

Blaming the Nehru family for all social problems in the country, the BJP legislator from Alwar's Ramgarh also urged that all statues and monuments named after the Gandhis should be immediately demolished like it was done in Iraq where hundreds of agitators uprooted dictator Saddam Hussain and broke into pieces his iconic statue in central Baghdad.

Ahuja had faced criticism for saying JNU students were responsible for 50 percent of rapes and molestation cases in the national capital.
New Delhi: Superstar Salman Khan will soon meet us every week on our TV sets through Bigg Boss season 12. Bigg Boss is one of the most controversial and popular reality shows of Indian television. The craze of the show is such, that whoever enters the Bigg Boss house gains instant fame! Be it a commoner or a celebrity, everybody is equal in the eyes of Boss! The show will air in September this year and as per a Mumbai Mirror report, the shooting has begun.

Salman has shot for the promo of the show. A source from the sets told Mumbai Mirror that Salman made an on-the-spot inclusion of his famous towel step from the song 'Jawaani Phir Na Aaye' of the movie 'Mujhse Shaadi Karogi'. The actor also added the Dabbang hook step and hummed his current favourite song, 'Dil Diyan Gallan'. As per the report, the set had posters of the films 'Ram-Lakhan', 'Sholay', 'Karan-Arjun' and 'Seeta Aur Geeta'. The report further states that this year the show's theme is 'jodis'. However, these jodis will be different from what the perception of the word is. The suffix 'Vichitra' has been added to the jodis and the inmates of the Bigg Boss house will be related to each other in relations like Saas-Bahu, Boss-Employee and so on.

Last season of Bigg Boss was high on entertainment and Shilpa Shinde emerged as the winner! Hina Khan was the show's finalist and both of them shared a 'khatta-meetha' relationship inside the house.

With the shoot of the show being kick-started, we just can't wait till we get to see who all will enter the controversial house this year!
LUCKNOW: Portion of an under-construction flyover collapsed in the Basti district of Uttar Pradesh in which at least four people were injured on Saturday.

According to ANI, the incident occurred in the wee hours of Saturday on the National Highway No. 28 in Basti.

Lintel of a flyover on National Highway 28 collapsed in Basti earlier this morning. 4 people injured, 2 people trapped under the debris. Rescue operation is underway. pic.twitter.com/kZ4beCNIVC  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) August 11, 2018

Initial reports said that at least 2 people are believed to be trapped inside the debris.

The top district officials and the police have reached the mishap site.

A rescue operation is currently underway.

Meanwhile, the UP Chief Minister has taken cognizance of the incident and ordered the state government officials to expedite the rescue operation and restore the normal traffic on the highway, which has been temporarily closed after the incident.

Basti: Rescue operation is still underway at the site where lintel of a flyover on National Highway 28 collapsed in Basti earlier this morning. CM Yogi Adityanath has ordered the local administration for an immediate rescue operation & to resume the traffic. pic.twitter.com/9c4GVCAFSu  ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) August 11, 2018

According to eyewitnesses, a major tragedy was averted since the mishap took place early morning.

It is believed that 90% of the flyover's construction was over and its progress was reviewed last week by the district magistrate.
WASHINGTON: NASA is all set to launch its historic small car-size probe to "touch the Sun" from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 3.33 am EDT (1 pm India time) on Saturday.

The probe is named after Eugene Parker, a solar physicist who in 1958 first predicted the existence of the solar wind, the stream of charged particles and magnetic fields that flow continuously from the Sun.

The launch of the Parker Solar Probe will set it on a journey all the way to the Sun's atmosphere, or corona -- closer to the Sun than any spacecraft in history, NASA said in a statement.

"Launch teams are working on technical issues and weather is predicted to be 70 per cent chance of favourable conditions," NASA said in a tweet late on Thursday.

"Eight long years of hard work by countless engineers and scientists is finally paying off," Adam Szabo, the mission scientist for Parker Solar Probe at NASA`s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, said in a statement.

Nestled atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy -- one of the world's most powerful rockets -- with a third stage added, Parker Solar Probe will blast off toward the Sun with a whopping 55 times more energy than is required to reach Mars.

Weighing just 635 kgs, it is a relatively light spacecraft, said Andy Driesman, project manager for the mission at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in the US.

"And it needs to be, because it takes an immense amount of energy to get to our final orbit around the Sun," Driesman added.

Zooming through space in a highly elliptical orbit, Parker Solar Probe will reach speeds up to 692,018 km per hour, setting the record for the fastest spacecraft in history.

During its nominal mission lifetime of just under seven years, Parker Solar Probe will complete 24 orbits of the Sun -- reaching within 3.8 million miles of the Sun's surface at closest approach.

"We'll be going where no spacecraft has dared go before -- within the corona of a star," said project scientist Nicky Fox from Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory.

"With each orbit, we'll be seeing new regions of the Sun`s atmosphere and learning things about stellar mechanics that we've wanted to explore for decades," Fox added.

But getting so close to the Sun requires slowing down -- for which Parker will use the gravity of our neighbor planet, Venus.

"Parker Solar Probe uses Venus to adjust its course and slow down in order to put the spacecraft on the best trajectory," said Driesman.

"We will fly by Venus seven times throughout the mission. Each time we fly by we get closer and closer to the Sun," Driesman added.

In an orbit this close to the Sun, the real challenge is to keep the spacecraft from burning up.

"Recent advances in materials science gave us the material to fashion a heat shield in front of the spacecraft not only to withstand the extreme heat of the Sun, but to remain cool on the backside," said Szabo.

The heat shield is made of a 4.5-inch thick carbon composite foam material between two carbon fibre face sheets.

At Parker Solar Probe's closest approach to the Sun, temperatures on the heat shield will reach nearly 1,371 degrees Celsius, but the spacecraft and its instruments will be kept at a relatively comfortable temperature of about 29.4 degrees Celsius.
Nepal, Bangladesh sign power cooperation deal

Nepal and Bangladesh on Friday signed a cooperation agreement in the energy sector which paves the way for the export of surplus electricity that Nepal is expected to produce within a few years.
Open source

During the day, August 11, Donbas militants 15 times opened fire at the Armed Forces of Ukraine, heavy weapons were not used. As a result of the fighting, one soldier of the Armed Forces of Ukraine was wounded. This is reported by the press center of the Joint Forces Operation HQ on Facebook.



"The invaders opened fire, mainly from grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and small arms at the positions of the Joint forces in the areas of Krymske, Novooleksandrivka, Luhanske, Novotroitske, Bohdanivka, Chermalyk, Pavlopil, Hnutove, Vodyane, Lebedynske and Shyrokine. In addition, the enemy shelled the defenders of Pavlopil and Lebedynske with anti-tank guided missiles, "the report said.



As a result of the fighting, one Ukrainian serviceman was wounded.

Yesterday, from 7:00 a.m. through 6:00 p.m., the militants violated ceasefire regime ten times during the day including the one with the use of the prohibited by the Minsk Agreements weapon. The press office of JFO reports on their page on Facebook.

The occupants were opening target fire from grenade launchers and small arms at JFO positions in the areas of the settlements: Luhanske, Zalizne, Bohdanivka, Vodyane, Lebedynske and Shyrokyne.

Along with this, the enemy shelled the defenders of Lebedynske from 120mm mortar.

'One of the servicemen received a shrapnel wound,' reads the message.

Related: Deadly car accident near Zaporizhia: Number of victims increased to seven
Earlier, the Government of Greece decided to exile two Russian diplomats and to ban to enter the country for another two officials

Open source

Andreas Friganas, Ambassador of Greece in the Russian Federation was recalled to Athens. TASS claims this with a reference to the Greek diplomatic source.

Mr. Friganas is being recalled to Greece. He completes his mission in Moscow and will be replaced by new, reads the message.

According to mass media, Friganas was appointed Greeces Ambassador to Moscow in May.

Earlier, on July 11, the outlet in Athens reported that the Government of Greece decided to send off two Russian diplomats and to ban the entrance for another two officials due to the threat of the National Security. Russians are blamed with attempts to meddle with Greece's internal affairs and the illegal activity, which undermines the basics of the national security.

On August 6, Andreas Friganas, Greece Ambassador in Russia was called to the MFA of the Russian Federation to be informed about retaliatory measures in response to the expelling of the Russian diplomats by Athens.
112 Agency

Romanian President Klaus Johannis condemned the actions of law enforcement officers during the dispersal of anti-government protests in Bucharest, when more than 435 people were injured. This Johannis stated on Facebook.



"True democracy provides for everyone's right to protest, but violence is unacceptable regardless of political choice, and I strongly condemn the brutal interference of the gendarmerie, disproportionate to the actions of most people in Victory Square," Johannis wrote.



He demanded urgent explanations from the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Romania on the events on Victory Square in Bucharest.



We recall that earlier clashes of people and police took place in Bucharest during the anti-government protests. Law enforcement officers used tear gas and water cannons. As a result of the collision 435 people were injured.



Many-thousand meeting against the ruling coalition led by the Social Democratic Party took place in Bucharest. The protesters called on the government to resign and hold early elections.

Related: Deadly car accident near Zaporizhia: Number of victims increased to seven
According to the Russian Federal Penitentiary Service, the health condition of the Ukrainian filmmaker is satisfactory

Russian Federal Penitentiary Service assures that the information of Lawyer Dmytro Dinze on the deterioration of the health condition and the weight loss of the Ukranian political prisoner Oleg Sentsov is not true.

As of today, neither underweight body nor deterioration of the health condition are not observed... The condition of Oleg Sentsov is assessed as satisfactory, reads the message published on the website of the agency.

Related: Denisova sends formal letter to Moskalkova with proposal of hostage exchange

According to the Russian jailors, the result is achieved owing to supportive therapy and having the nutritional treatment mixture.

Russian Federal Penitentiary Service calculated how much they spend for the health support of Oleg Sentsov.

This year, Russian Federal Penitentiary Service for Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District provided suspects, accused and condemned, medical services in the amount of $19 thousand in civil health care institutions. Oleg Sentsov, at the time of voluntary renunciation of sustenance, 202 medical services in the amount $664 were provided. During the period, $1401 were spent from the federal budget for the medical supply of this patient, stressed in the message.

Related: Denisova addresses UN with request to influence on Russia

Earlier, Natalia Kaplan, sister of Oleg Sentsov stated that she received a letter from the Ukrainian. Sentsov said he is not getting up from a bed and the end is near.

Reportedly, Oleg Sentsov was detained by Russian intelligence agencies in Crimea on May 2014. Later he was sentenced to 20 years of the colony under the accusation of terrorist activity on the territory of Crimea. Oleg does not admit his guilt.

Sentsov declared a hunger strike with a requirement to release all Ukrainian political prisoners in the Russian Federation.

At the end of June, Ludmyla Denisova claimed that a priest wasnt allowed to visit Sentsov.

Related: Denisova reports on condition of released Kostenko

Reportedly, Kolchenko declared a hunger strike on May 31, requiring the release of Oleg Sentsov. He had to suspend the strike, as he got very weak.

Kolchenko and Sentsov were detained by Russian intelligence services in Crimea in May 2014. They were accused of the organization of a terrorist act on the peninsula. Kolchenko was sentenced to 10 years of the colony, Sentsov to 20 years. Both are denying their guilt.

Recently, Sentsovs lawyer stated on the deterioration of his condition. He has a very low hemoglobin, which led to anemia, as well as a very low pulse. Oleg has a bad heart, he was asked twice to be taken to a hospital.

Related: Penal colony administration refuses to let priest see Sentsov, - Denisova

However, the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia in Yamalo-Nenets County claimed that the medical staff examines Sentsov on daily basis, and his condition is satisfactory. Furthermore, according to the lawyer of the political prisoner, the Chief Doctor of the Hospital in Labytnangi city was threatening Oleg Sentsov by tying up and drugging him with medicine and artificial nutrition.
According to the lawyer, a remote casting will be started in September

Currently, negotiations are held on the start of shooting a film under the remote supervision of Oleg Sentsov. Dmytro Dinze claimed this, Meduza reports.

Negotiations are held on the start of shooting a film under the remote supervision of Oleg. The start of the shootings is scheduled for September. By this, filmmakers are hoping to give him strength, include him into work and facilitate his existence in the colony, he told.

According to the information of the lawyer, probably, the remote casting will start in September. It is expected that on this base, lawyers would visit him every other day. Dinze stressed that it is a Ukrainian project.

Earlier, Natalia Kaplan, sister of Oleg Sentsov stated that she received a letter from the Ukrainian. Sentsov said he is not getting up from a bed and the end is near.

Reportedly, Oleg Sentsov was detained by Russian intelligence agencies in Crimea on May 2018. Later he was sentenced to 20 years of the colony under the accusation of terrorist activity on the territory of Crimea. Oleg does not admit his guilt.

Sentsov declared a hunger strike with a requirement to release all Ukrainian political prisoners in the Russian Federation.

At the end of June, Ludmyla Denisova claimed that a priest wasnt allowed to visit Sentsov.

Reportedly, Kolchenko declared a hunger strike on May 31, requiring the release of Oleg Sentsov. He had to suspend the strike, as he got very weak.

Kolchenko and Sentsov were detained by Russian intelligence services in Crimea in May 2014. They were accused of the organization of a terrorist act on the peninsula. Kolchenko was sentenced to 10 years of the colony, Sentsov to 20 years. Both are denying their guilt.

Recently, Sentsovs lawyer stated on the deterioration of his condition. He has a very low hemoglobin, which led to anemia, as well as a very low pulse. Oleg has a bad heart, he was asked twice to be taken to a hospital.

However, the Federal Penitentiary Service of Russia in Yamalo-Nenets County claimed that the medical staff examines Sentsov on daily basis, and his condition is satisfactory. Furthermore, according to the lawyer of the political prisoner, the Chief Doctor of the Hospital in Labytnangi city was threatening Oleg Sentsov by tying up and drugging him with medicine and artificial nutrition.
The embassy asks the Kremlin to release Sentsov and other Ukrainian political prisoners on humanitarian grounds

The US Embassy to Russia calls to release falsely imprisoned Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov. The request is posted on Twitter.

We are still concerned about the deteriorating health condition of Oleg Sentsov. Colling Russia to release Sentsov and other Ukrainian political prisoners on humanitarian grounds, reads the message.

Related: Denisova reports on condition of released Kostenko

Reportedly, Commissioner for Human Rights in Russia Tetiana Moskalkova sent pictures of the Ukrainian political prisoner Oleg Sentsov to Lyudmyla Denisova. According to her, Sentsov is active. He watches TV, reads books and writes something from time to time.

Earlier, Natalia Kaplan, sister of Oleg Sentsov stated that she received a letter from the Ukrainian. Sentsov said he is not getting up from a bed and the end is near.

Related: Denisova addresses UN with request to influence on Russia

Reportedly, Oleg Sentsov was detained by Russian intelligence agencies in Crimea on May 2014. Later he was sentenced to 20 years of the colony under the accusation of terrorist activity on the territory of Crimea. Oleg does not admit his guilt.

Sentsov declared a hunger strike with a requirement to release all Ukrainian political prisoners in the Russian Federation.

Related: HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK: AUG. 6  10

Ukraine news on 112.international
Zaporizhia Police

The number of victims of the deadly car accident on the highway in Zaporizhia region increased to seven. A seven-year-old child died during the operation, Channel 5 reports.



"It also became known that five adults remain under medical supervision in the intensive care unit. Four more were examined and they went home, "the report said.



Law enforcers did not comment on this information.

KamAZ and a shuttle bus crashed in Zaporizhia region, as Yulia Barysheva, the Spokesperson of the Main Department of Emergency Service in Zaporizhia region, informed Segodnya.

As a result of the collapse the shuttle bus turned over and began to burn. According to the police, five people died as a result of the car accident  two adults and three children. At the same time, the Spokesperson could not specify the information about the number of the victims  this information is being defined, the message says.

Additionally, the reporter of 112 Ukraine, who is at the accident site, stated that one more victim died on the way to the hospital.

The driver of KamAZ, which collided with a shuttle bus on the highway in Zaporizhia region is charged with suspicion. Kateryna Liudvik, Spokesperson of Zaporizhia region Police claimed this in a commentary to UNN.

He was charged with suspicion for violation of traffic safety regulations, Liudvik claimed.



She added that one of the courts of Zaporizhia is intended to impose the driver a preventive measure on Saturday, August 11.

Related: 28 shells of WWII destroyed in Kyiv
112 Agency

An explosion, followed by a fire, occurred on the first floor of a nine-story apartment building in Kharkiv on Saturday, August 11. This was reported by Assistant Chief of the Main Directorate of the State Service for Emergency Situations Ihor Lupandin, Interfax-Ukraine reports.



"The message was received at 15:11, at 16:21 the fire was liquidated. According to preliminary information, there was an explosion of household gas in the apartment on the first floor, followed by the fire. At the time of the explosion, there were no people in the apartment. Doors, internal doors and partitions were damaged. 17 people including children were rescued and evacuated from other apartments, "he said.

On August fire hazard will remain extremely high in seven regions across Ukraine. The State Emergency Service reported that with a reference to Ukraine's Hydrometeocentre.

'The class 5 level of fire hazard will be observed on August 6 in the following regions: Chernivtsi, Kirovohrad, Zaporizhya, Rivne, Poltava, Zhytomyr and Vinnytsia', the message on the website of the State Emergency Service says.

The current average temperature rate holds above +30 degrees by Celsius in the daytime.

As we reported, several countries in Western Europe, specifically Germany, France and Portugal are now overtaken by the extreme heat. In many parts of the country, the temperature is already above +35 degrees by Celsius, Xinhua reports. The heat already led to forest fires and lowering the water level in the rivers in Germany. In addition, it is expected that the drought will cause a reduction in yields.

The German Meteorological Service confirmed that weather in July of 2018 broke the temperature record and it became the hottest month in Germany since 1881. As for the record of the total duration of sunshine, in July 2018 it was 305 hours, the second place since 1951. According to forecasts, in August the heat will not recede.

Related: Ukrainian cyberpolice informs on permanent cyber attacks from Russia
He recalled that the Russian Federation still does not allow international observers to the Ukrainian-Russian border

Open source

Special representative of the US State Department on Ukraine Kurt Volker commented on the video of the OSCE SMM, which shows how the columns of Russian trucks enter the territory of Ukraine. He wrote about this in his Twitter microblog.



"This is another way how Russia intentionally continues the conflict and supports military operations in the east of Ukraine, despite international efforts for settlement," he wrote.



"Here is footage from the OSCE CMM of convoys of trucks illegally entering and exiting Ukraine from Russia. As a reminder, Russia has blocked an effective border monitoring mission and its forces routinely prevent the SMM from visiting the border," Volker added.

Here is footage from @OSCE_SMM of convoys of trucks illegally entering and exiting Ukraine from Russia. As a reminder, Russia has blocked an effective border monitoring mission and its forces routinely prevent the SMM from visiting the border. https://t.co/uXC1D6qmCK  Kurt Volker (@SpecRepUkraine) August 11, 2018





Earlier it was reported that the observers of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission noticed columns of Russian trucks that entered Donbas in the middle of the night and moved along a road where there is no border checkpoint.

Earlier Ukraine adopted the bill on the special status of Donbas; but it doesn't work since Russia did nothing to end the conflict in eastern Ukraine. U.S. Special Envoy for Ukraine's Affairs Kurt Volker said that as quoted by the Voice of America.

'I understand the disappointment of the Ukrainian lawmakers and the society. They did some necessary steps, such as passing the law on the special status and the amnesty law. Russia, on its part, did nothing to bring the conflict to an end, to withdraw the troops', the official said.

He admitted that the law was adopted, but never actually implemented.

'There's actually no special status. It won't start working until there's an agreement, until Russia withdraws troops and local elections take place', Volker added. 'I don't see any harm in renewing the bill. Nothing will change from today till the moment when it's extended. I don't think there's any harm. On the other hand, Russia will use the suspension of the law as a reason to complain about Ukraine's behavior. They'll say Ukraine doesn't want to live up by Minsk agreement. So just don't give Russia that kind of argument'.

Related: Russian ombudswoman asks Ukrainian colleague find out what happened to Russian ship in Kherson
Nepal favours government deals to protect migrant workers

Bir Bahadur Waiba and his two friends paid Rs 50,000 each to Meridian Associates Pvt Ltd, a recruiting agency, for job placements in Dubai in the United Arab of Emirates. The tissue paper manufacturing company would pay them 1,300 UAE Dirhams per month, or Rs 38,987.07, they were told.
The death of justice

We live in a New Nepal where were slowly turning our backs on the rule of law and heading to the rule of the jungle. Well, our rebels have left the jungle and are now major power players. A decade of tasting power has turned our rebels into the same old corrupt politicians they vowed to take action against during their jungle fever days. Now, who really wants to go back to the jungle?
The masque of anarchy

Qatar and Malaysia are the two foremost destinations for migrant workers from my village, Myanglung in Tehrathum. The tropical, peninsular country of Malaysia and the desert nation of Qatar have starkly different environments and are not of commensurable sizes.
NOYEMBERYAN, AUGUST 11, ARMENPRESS. One of the major tasks of Tavush province is to eliminate logging, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at a meeting with the Noyemberyan community residents, adding that the government must propose alternative solutions to this issue. Eventually, we should agree on the fact that the forest, that we cut and sell, has much greater wealth and value, than the money obtained from them, in addition, we also cause damage to the environment. I understand that the village residents need firewood, my remarks relate to those who consider cutting forest as their business, PM Pashinyan said.

He expressed his surprise over the fact that wood, boards and logs are exported from Armenia. Meanwhile, he said nature can serve for boosting tourism, small and medium business. Today we are thinking about one thing: what to do in order to propose alternative to our compatriots in order to cut them from the forest so that they will not cut it, the PM noted.

He said there are more affordable technologies for fuel, people can use it as an alternative for solving the problem of heating the house. Each tree, that is being cut, needs 50-60 years to become a tree. The nature can be a great impetus for tourism. Yenokavan, which was one of the weakest villages of Ijevan, today has become a regional tourism center. Imagine if the forests there were cut, today this would not happen. We shouldnt go to easy solutions, cut and sell, or cut and fire. Its a slow weapon of self-destruction. We also need to change the prospect of cutting for our kids. We should establish production, earn money via tourism instead, Nikol Pashinyan said.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, AUGUST 11, ARMENPRESS. In the frame of his visit to Tavush province, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan visted the Berd subsidiary of Tavush Textile company, the PMs Office told Armenpress.

Accompanied by the companys top executives, the Premier toured the facility to get acquainted with the production of working gloves. He was told that 520 people are currently employed at Tavush Textiles local workshops with an average salary of 145,000 drams. The company exported AMD 2 billion-worth output to Russia and Georgia last year. The exports are supposed to increase by 40-50% this year. Steps are being taken to extend the geographical coverage of exports.

Tavush Textile has invested about 10 million dollars since 2015. As a result of a 1 million dollar investment, the number of machine tools has increased by 600 that will augment the number of jobs by 150-200. Overall, the company is going to provide 1000-1500 new jobs over the next few years.

Nikol Pashinyan next visited a livestock farm established with funds available from Himnatavush Development Foundation in Lusadzor community. It has a high milk yield of 200 cows. Various types of French cheese are produced there. Most of the output is exported to Russia. The company representatives advised that 800,000 euros are annually invested in the farm. At the same time, they noted that milk and forage are being purchased from neighboring farms.

Prime Minister Pashinyan attached importance to the development of light industry and farms in Tavush province, stressing that the Government is prepared to possibly support the development and expansion of business programs in the province. Highlighting the imperative of having ecologically clean food products produced in Armenia, the Premier said Armenia should boast an image of eco country in the international arena. Nikol Pashinyan expressed hope that the aforementioned companies will soon reach industrial levels to generate new jobs.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, AUGUST 11, ARMENPRESS. The delegation led by defense minister of Armenia Davit Tonoyan has departed for Moscow, Russia, on a working visit, the defense ministry told Armenpress.

The minister today will attend the final of Tank Biathlon competition in Alabino, as well as the official closing ceremony of the International Army Games 2018.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, AUGUST 11, ARMENPRESS. The Armenian government will give a priority to programs aimed at encouraging the work, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at a meeting with the representatives of local self-government bodies in Ijevan, reports Armenpress.

Commenting on the question of Ditavan community leader concerning the road to village to be renovated by the governments support since the community budget doesnt allow to make savings and receive subventions, the PM said he has heard a lot about this community these days thanks to conducting successful economic activity and added: The main goal of the governments policy is to encourage the work, not to provide support, but conditions for proper work. I am happy that such processes are taking place in your community, the government will discuss all possible measures in order to make the renovation of the road possible.

We imagine overcoming poverty in encouraging the work so that people will overcome poverty with their activities, the PM said.

He expressed hope during this period they will be able to generate great money and direct for infrastructure development. Ensuring the proper situation of infrastructures is the governments duty. Today the upgrading of roads, drinking and irrigation water systems is one of our priorities, the PM said.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan






YEREVAN, AUGUST 11, ARMENPRESS. Armenias foreign policy course is successfully being carried out, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Arman Navasardyan told reporters on August 11, reports Armenpress. He said he doesnt see major changes in Armenias relations with Russia since it doesnt derive from the interests of both Russia and Armenia.

Navasardyan also attached importance to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyans upcoming participation in the UN summit in September.

I attach great importance to the expected participation of our leadership to the UN summit. It will be PM Nikol Pashinyans first visit to that structure, and I think it will play a predictable role for the further developments, Navasardyan said.

Commenting on the US sanctions imposed on Iran, the Ambassador said it will not have great impact on Armenia. Recently US President Donald Trump announced that the US will close its ties with the countries which will continue commercial or economic relations with Iran. Whether this statement can affect the relations of other countries, one of which is Armenia. I think the US attitude to Armenias relations with other states, especially our relations with Russia, has been quite mild. The US also perceives our relations with Iran, since Armenia, being a neighbor country and in a blockade, must have relations with Iran. I dont think that major changes will take place here, he said.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, AUGUST 11, ARMENPRESS. Congressman Ted Lieu has called on US President Donald Trump to recognize the Armenian Genocide, Armenpress reports.

On this I agree with Donald Trump. Turkey has been trending towards authoritarianism & becoming more anti-American. Many of us have also pushed for recognition of the Armenian Genocide. I urge Donald Trump to do so. The US should not continue to ignore historical facts, the Congressman said on Twitter.

US President Donald Trump authorized a doubling of tariffs on steel and aluminum with respect to Turkey.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, AUGUST 11, ARMENPRESS. Compared to the previous year, this year more than 140 young citizens of Armenia returned from abroad for compulsory military service in the homeland, military commissar, Major-General Henrik Muradyan told reporters on August 11, reports Armenpress.

Compared to the last year, this year more than 140 boys came from abroad and were drafted for military service. Most of them have been conscripted to the service, but there were some among them who havent been examined and as a result short-term deferment was provided until autumn, he said.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
US clears four Army units on human rights

Four Nepal Army units, which were among a dozen units under the US government restrictions for severe human rights violations during the decade-long Maoist insurgency, have cleared the human rights vetting, according to a document released by the outgoing Army chief touting his accomplishments during his tenure.
YEREVAN, AUGUST 11, ARMENPRESS. On the background of depreciation of national currencies of neighbor states in the region, Armenias national dram maintains its stability, economist Tatul Manaseryan told Armenpress. He said that he notices national currency instability tendencies in the region on the background of unpredictable foreign policy run by US President Donald Trump.

The economist outlined the fact that there is a common depreciation of currencies in neighbor countries  Iran, Turkey, Georgia and Azerbaijan, but the Armenian national dram maintains its stability.

In this regard Armenias national dram maintains not only relative, but also absolute stability in the past years, which, of course, is a result of balanced monetary-loan policy, which in its turn creates stable background for the business environment. In other words, the national currency makes predictable also the economic developments for entrepreneurs and investors, of course, make Armenias economy much more preferable, the economist noted.

He reminded how many banks were closed in neighbor states, which didnt take place in Armenia even during the depreciation of the national dram in 2009-2014.

Manaseryan says the new US sanctions on Russia are not desirable for Armenia. He states that the economies of Armenia and Russia are inter-related and the export and import comprise quite a great volume which increases every year, especially in the context of membership to the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).

The depreciation of the Russian ruble in the recent period, and I would say in the recent years, quite negatively affects Armenia. And this is first of all the decline of solvency of the Russian population which can undermine selling of goods exported from Armenia, the economist highlighted.

According to him, on the other hand, when the national currency of Armenias partner country depreciates, it enables the country to acquire raw material or ready products at relatively at affordable prices.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, AUGUST 11, ARMENPRESS. Henrik Abrahamyan, brother of former Prime Minister of Armenia Hovik Abrahamyan, who has been charged for illegal possession of firearms, has been remanded in custody for two months, the Special Investigation Service told Armenpress.

The court approved the motion to remand him in custody.

Within the frames of the criminal case investigated at the Special Investigation Service of Armenia, Henrik Abrahamyan has been charged on August 10 for illegally obtaining and keeping firearms at a factory de-facto owned by his brother, former Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan, but registered in the name of Ambik Gevorgyan, the SIS told Armenpress.

The Special Investigation Service filed a motion to the court to remand Henrik Abrahamyan into custody.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
YEREVAN, AUGUST 11, ARMENPRESS. Armenian deputy prime minister Mher Grigoryans office, the government representatives at the moment are working with the EU partners, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told reporters during his visit to Tavush province, asked whether after his Brussels visit there are talks that Armenia expects support from the EU, reports Armenpress.

The work is underway with the EU partners, I have an impression that it has constructive nature. We hope it will be productive, the PM said.

PM Pashinyan visited Brussels on July 11-12 where he met with the EU leaders. He talked about the new approaches of the EU support provided to Armenia.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan
A young Sydney boy who was found wandering Sydneys streets at night in his pyjamas has been identified and reunited with his family.

The boy, believed to be aged between nine and 11, was discovered wandering alone in Wicks Lane in Kogarah at 12.40am on Saturday morning.

Police released an image of the child in an appeal to the public, and just after 8am the boys mother was located.

Police from St George Police Area Command commenced a search of the area with the child in the early hours of Saturday morning, but were unable to locate his parents or carers.

Police are urging anyone who knows the boy to get in touch. Source: NSW Police

The boy was wearing long grey pyjamas with Marvel superhero characters on them and wasnt wearing shoes when he was discovered.

He suffers a medical condition and was not able to identify himself to officers or provide any clues about his identity or home address.

Police have thanked the media and the community for their assistance.
Mali's security services said Saturday they had disrupted a plot to carry out "targeted attacks" in the capital Bamako on the eve of a runoff in a presidential election marred by security breaches. Sunday's second round is likely to return Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to the helm of Mali despite fierce criticism of his handling of the country's fight against jihadist violence and ethnic attacks. The first round, held last month, was peppered by violence and threats from armed groups that led to several hundred polling stations being closed, mainly in the lawless central region. Security will be tightened for the second round, an aide in the prime minister's office said on Saturday, with 20 percent more soldiers on duty. This means 36,000 Malian military will be deployed, 6,000 more than two weeks earlier, with a particular focus on the Mopti region in the centre of the country where voting stations had been closed, Cheick Oumar told AFP. Security forces in Bamako said Saturday they had arrested three members of a "commando" cell who were planning attacks in the capital this weekend. The three men, suspected of involvement in a robbery which left three people dead in 2016, are accused of "plotting targeted attacks" over the weekend, the security services said in a statement. "They were in the planning stage," it said. "We are not currently going to provide too many details in terms of arms and munitions seized, but obviously during the election period it's better to have them arrested than still at large." - 'Torn nation' - Sunday's vote is a rerun of a 2013 faceoff that Keita won by a landslide over former finance minister Soumaila Cisse. Keita, 73, was credited with 41.7 percent of the July 29 first-round vote while Cisse, 68, picked up 17.78 percent. Cisse insisted on Friday he could turn things around on polling day -- warning the status quo would only bring "chaos" in a "torn nation." But he failed to unite the opposition behind him, and first-round challengers have either backed the president or refused to give voting instructions. Few Malians attended a string of planned marches and protests called for by opposition leaders in the capital Bamako ahead of the run-off. As a result, Keita, commonly named "IBK" after his initials, is clear favourite. The three main opposition candidates mounted a last-ditch legal challenge, alleging ballot-box stuffing and other irregularities. But their petition was rejected by the Constitutional Court. Outside Mali, the hope is that the winner will strengthen a 2015 accord that the fragile Sahel state sees as its foundation for peace. The deal brought together the government, government-allied groups and former Tuareg rebels. But a state of emergency heads into its fourth year in November. Jihadist violence has spread from the north to the centre and south of the vast country and spilled into neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger, often inflaming communal conflicts. Voting will be open from 0800 to 1800 GMT. Turnout was low in the first round of voting at around 40 percent. A demonstrator holds up a placard reading "no to theft of the victory of the people" during a protest against incumbent Malian president Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in Bamako Few Malians attended a string of planned marches and protests called for by opposition leaders in the capital Bamako ahead of the runoff Map of Mali which holds the second round of a presidential election on Sunday
Authorities in northern China delayed the demolition of a massive mosque on Saturday after thousands of people demonstrated to stop its destruction, local residents said, amid a nationwide government drive to tighten restrictions on religious activities. Across China, officials have sought to limit religious freedoms for Muslims as part of a widespread attempt to bring believers in line with the dictates of the ruling Communist Party. Protesters began gathering Thursday ahead of a deadline to demolish the grand mosque in the town of Weizhou in the northern Ningxia region, local residents said. Videos posted on social media in recent days showed protesters gathering in front of the building as police with riot shields stood by. Holding Chinese flags, they sat quietly on the building's steps and milled around a large plaza, before heading to Friday night prayers, according to the videos, which could not be verified by AFP. "The government said it's an illegal building, but it's not. The mosque has several hundred years of history," a restaurant owner surnamed Ma told AFP. Around noon Saturday, a local official had read a document saying that the government would hold off on the mosque's demolition, locals told AFP. After that, many who had participated in the sit-in dispersed. - Internet down - People had come hundreds of kilometres from other Muslim regions to show support and bring food to those in Weizhou, locals said. Hundreds of security forces had at one point been brought in on civilian buses to secure a perimeter around the area, not allowing outsiders in. Internet and 4G cellphone service had been cut off to the area, resuming only some 14 kilometres (nine miles) away from Weizhou -- though residents could still make phone calls. On Saturday evening, a few dozen people sat on folded stools or leaned against their motorbikes in another neighbourhood away from the mosque, watching a movie projected onto a cement wall near a petrol station. Police cars occasionally drove past, lights flashing, but it was otherwise peaceful. "They told us the internet was down because of recent rains, but does that really make sense?" said a young man straddling his bike. "They're afraid of us spreading videos," he aid. The mosque was rebuilt over the past two years, according to government documents, but the licensing process was not carefully managed and several officials received a "serious warning" from a local disciplinary committee. In the process, the facade was changed from its previous Chinese style -- featuring sweeping tiled roofs similar to a Buddhist temple -- to what is often described in China as an "Arab" design, with domes and crescents. Concerns have been growing in Weizhou since the circulation of a government order last week demanding the mosque's demolition on the grounds that it had been rebuilt without the proper permits. The document said that if the building was not demolished by Friday, August 10, the government would tear it down, locals said. Residents were frustrated because officials had shown support for the construction until now. Calls to the local county government and the regional Islamic association Saturday went unanswered. The words "Weizhou mosque" appeared to be censored on China's Twitter-like Weibo platform when AFP tried to search for them. - 'Sinicization' of religion - Islam is one of five officially recognised religions in China, home to some 23 million Muslims. Pressure has been building on the community in recent months as the Communist party moves to tighten the reins on religious expression. China's top leaders recently called for the "Sinicization" of religious practice -- bringing it in line with "traditional" Chinese values and culture -- and new regulations on religious affairs came into effect in February, sparking concern among rights groups. The measures increased state supervision of religion in a bid to "block extremism", and in areas with significant Muslim populations, authorities have removed Islamic symbols, such as crescents, from public spaces. In the far western region of Xinjiang, things have gone much farther, with Muslims being harshly punished for violating regulations banning beards and burqas, and even for the possession of unauthorised Korans. Concerns about the mosque standoff in Weizhou appeared to be spreading Saturday, as Muslims in other regions expressed solidarity with the protesters. "We are quietly waiting to see that the problem is satisfactorily resolved," said one open letter posted on Weibo by a mosque in Shanxi province. If it is not, "we reserve the legal right to go to Ningxia or call on the central government to petition". Chinese officials have sought to limit religious freedoms for Muslims as part of a widespread attempt to bring believers in line with Communist Party dictates
Glyphosate, the world's most widely used herbicide and the active ingredient in Monsanto's weedkiller Roundup, is the subject of fierce controversy all across the globe and is classified by the World Health Organization as "probably" being carcinogenic. After a US court on Friday ordered Monsanto to pay nearly $290 million in compensation to a groundskeeper who was diagnosed with cancer after repeatedly using Roundup, here is the state of play regarding lawsuits and restrictions on the use of glyphosate around the world: UNITED STATES A San Francisco court ordered Monsanto to pay $250 million in punitive damages and nearly $40 million in compensatory damages and other costs to Dewayne Johnson, a California groundskeeper diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma -- a cancer that affects white blood cells -- 2014. He says he repeatedly used a professional version of Roundup while working at a school in Benicia, California. The jurors unanimously found that Monsanto -- which vowed to appeal -- acted with "malice" and that its weed killers Roundup and the professional grade version RangerPro contributed "substantially" to Dewayne Johnson's terminal illness. Thousands of lawsuits have been filed against Monsanto, all at varying stages of the legal process. The agrochemicals giant insisted that the court decision "does not change the fact that more than 800 scientific studies and reviews... support the fact that glyphosate does not cause cancer, and did not cause Mr Johnson's cancer." Germany's Bayer, which acquired Monsanto for $63 billion in June, said Saturday that it was "convinced that glyphosate is safe and does not cause cancer." EUROPE After two years after fierce debate, the EU member states decided, at the end of 2017, to renew the licence for glyphosate for another five years. The EU's executive body, the European Commission, points to the approval of glyphosate by its two scientific agencies, the European Food Safety Authority and the European Chemicals Agency, which do not classify the substance as carcinogenic. But the independence of EFSA has been questioned after media suggested that pages of its report were copied and pasted from analyses in a Monsanto study. FRANCE The French government promised in May that glyphosate would be banned "for its main uses" by 2021, and "for all of its uses" within five years. In June, a beekeeping cooperative in northern France filed a legal complaint against Bayer after traces of the controversial weedkiller glyphosate were detected in batches of honey. In the autumn of 2017, a French judge who was due to sentence environmental activists for vandalising cans containing glyphosate, asked for advice from the EU regarding the dangerousness of the substance. In 2009, France's highest court, the Court of Cassation, fined Monsanto 15,000 euros ($17,100) for "false adverts" that vaunted the weedkiller Roundup as "biodegradable". ARGENTINA The world's third-biggest producer of soybeans after the United States and Brazil, Argentina uses vast quantities of glyphosate. In some fertile plans in Pampa, concerned inhabitants clash almost daily with the farmers for whom the product is indispensible. Without nationwide legislation, the mayors of individual towns and cities have passed measures restricting use of glyphosate. Farmers generally contest the measures, raising tensions further. BRAZIL At the beginning of August, a federal judge in Brasilia ruled that new products containing glyphosate could not be registered in the country. Existing regulations concerning glyphosate were also suspended, pending a government reevaluation of toxicological data. The Brazilian government plans to appeal that decision before the next harvest. As the biggest economy and agricultural producer in Latin America, Brazil widely uses glyphosate-based herbicides, particularly in soybean plantations. SALVADOR Parliament voted in September 2013 to pull 53 agrochemical products, including herbicides and pesticides, from the market. The decision was partially annulled by the president at the time, Mauricio Funes. He asked that 11 of the 53 products not be pulled on the grounds that they are widely used and that they are not banned at an international level. A technical committee was set up, but there have been major changes to the situation in five years. Glyphosate is still on sale in Salvador. SRI LANKA The Sri Lankan government banned imports of glyphosate in October 2015 following a campaign spearheaded by a Buddhist monk. Agricultural organisations criticise the government for not having conducted other scientific research, calculating that the ban cost them 10 percent of the 300 millions of kilogrammes of tea products annually. In July, the government lifted the import ban but restricted the use of glyphosate on tea and rubber plantations. Argentina's soybean industry uses huge quantitities of glyphosate
On a rainy morning in Nicaragua's south, two men step out of the jungle and into a boat that will transport them a short distance over the border with Costa Rica, slipping past border guards and police to safety. Both were among those spearheading roadblocks protesting the government of President Daniel Ortega in the city of Masaya, which in July was the target of an operation by police and loyalist paramilitaries to quash three months of dissent. One of the men, a 28-year-old who used the pseudonym Guardabarranco, or "ravine-guard," was one of the coordinators of Masaya's protest movement. The other, a 31-year-old calling himself PSJ, had led those manning one of the barricades. With only a backpack each, the men have left behind wives and children to join a flow of other Nicaraguans escaping what they see as a national "prison" for the relative safety of Costa Rica. "We are fleeing the Ortega regime because to protest in Nicaragua is considered a crime. We've been threatened with death," Guardabarranco said before getting into the small, flat-bottomed boat, known as a "panga." The United Nations says nearly 23,000 Nicaraguans have sought asylum in Costa Rica since the anti-Ortega protests started in mid-April, overwhelming the country's processing system. The UN refugee agency UNHCR said it was bolstering its operations. The Costa Rican government says 100 to 150 people are daily crossing through main border station with Nicaragua -- a number that doesn't include many clandestine crossings. - Ongoing unrest - The Nicaraguans are seeking refuge from unrest that shows no sign of ending, despite a recent decline in violence. More than 300 people have been killed and 2,000 wounded in the past four months, according to rights groups, although the government puts the death toll at 197. A crackdown by authorities has seen 480 people arrested, 180 of whom have been put on trial on charges of terrorism and other serious crimes. "Costa Rica has opened its arms to Nicaraguans. We want to work, to spend some time there while things in Nicaragua calm down, while the international pressure keeps up on what's left of the Ortega regime," Guardabarranco said. His companion said "this genocidal government is pursuing us, it wants to kills us. They know me very well and I'm afraid they will follow me and know where I am." AFP accompanied the two men this week as the crossed the border to a Costa Rican beach where a car awaited them on condition they not be identified and no details be given about the people helping them. Costa Rica is the main destination for Nicaraguans. But many are also going to Honduras, Panama and the United States. The two men used to be active in the Sandinista movement that backs Ortega before turning against the president. Guardabarranco left a senior post with a company to join the protests. PSJ left his job in a family business. "I saw the injustices done against the first protesters. I joined their fight and rapidly became one of the leaders" in the Masaya district of Monimbo, a bastion of anti-Ortega sentiment, Guardabarranco said. "That was my crime: to protest, to rise up against the killers and the corruption in this government," he said. PSJ's story was similar. He became enraged seeing Ortega's security forces brutally putting down the initial protests on April 18, when they were against cutbacks to social security. A day after that first crackdown Masaya erupted with youths taking to the streets to decry the government's violence. They were attacked by police. "I took the initiative to make a barricade at Masaya's entrance. My wife helped me. And then a group of young people helped. We were there for three months," PSJ said. Clashes were constant for those three months, up until mid-July when riot police and masked paramilitaries carrying assault rifles sealed off Masaya and went in to forcibly clear the barricades and corner the protesters, some of whom resisted with stones and home-made mortars. - A 'new Nicaragua' - Guardabarranco and PSJ said they planned to meet up with other exiled Nicaraguans in Costa Rica to discuss how to bring about change in their home country. For both, it was difficult to leave family and country behind. "It hurts me deeply to leave my country, to leave my children," PSJ said. "I didn't want to leave. But I am going to Costa Rica with the hope of one day seeing my country become free," he said, his eyes wet. Guardabarranco concurred. "I want to leave my children a new Nicaragua, where nobody is murdered for not thinking the same as the government," he said. With only a backpack each, the men have left behind wives and children to join a flow of other Nicaraguans escaping what they see as a national "prison" for the relative safety of Costa Rica The United Nations says nearly 23,000 Nicaraguans have sought asylum in Costa Rica since the anti-Ortega protests started in mid-April, overwhelming the country's processing system


A passengers personal belongings in a suitcase sparked the partial closure of a European airport.

Federal police said the suspicious content in the luggage was discovered when employees at Berlins Schonefeld Airport were carrying out standard X-rays on Tuesday morning, according to CNN.

Due to police investigation concerning a piece of baggage, check-in at Terminal D is currently restricted, a tweet posted by the airport at the time read.

The items turned out to be various sex toys, including a vibrator, CNN reports.

Check-in at the airports Terminal D was restricted while police investigated the suspicious content in the luggage. Source: Getty Images

When the owner, reportedly 31-years-old, was questioned by police he allegedly said the bag had technical stuff inside it.

The suspicious items were deemed to be sex toys following an examination which included the bomb squad.

Restrictions in the terminal were said to be lifted at noon.
1. Yes. It makes me wonder why Killeen is having the problem and other cities arent.

2. Yes. The city also had water issues after the winter storm, so this is rather troubling.

3. No. Its good that the city is dealing with the problem and playing it safe with consumers.

4. No. Its more of an annoyance than a concern. The city will take the necessary steps.

5. Unsure. Its hard to say until more information about the issue becomes available.

Vote

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Rowdy brass bands and revellers ruled the streets of the small Serbian town of Guca on Saturday as its annual trumpet festival hit full stride with music, meat and alcohol flowing in abundance. The four-day affair, which ends on Sunday, sees hundreds of thousands of music-lovers from Serbia and abroad descend on Guca, a mountain town of several thousand people that locals say is best described as "quiet" during the rest of the year. Now in its 58th edition, the festival draws the best players of "Balkan brass" -- a distinct regional style -? to battle it out on stage for prestigious awards. During the day musicians also go table-to-table in restaurants and bars lining the streets, stirring up spontaneous dance parties as they blare their horns for tips. "We're very fascinated by the rhythm of this kind of music," said Martin Miers, a trombone player who travelled from Germany with his wife for the festival. "It's the spirit of the community... this mixture of very popular bands and very high level, very sophisticated bands, that's impressive," he added. The crowds draws a mix of Serbians, music aficionados and foreign tourists and backpackers, with many camping out in tents and vans parked along the town?s river. Food and drink fuels the fun, with whole lambs and pigs roasting on spits and plenty of beer and rakija -? a local brandy -? to wash the meat down. "Guca lives for these five days of the year," said Aleksandra Radicevic, a 26-year-old who comes to Guca, her parents' hometown, every year to sell cheeses and other local products during the festival. She said she loves the sound of the trumpet but admits that after four days of non-stop cacophony, she "needs a break". Hundreds of thousands of people descend on the small Serbian town of Guca for its trumpet festival The festival draws the best players of "Balkan brass" -- a distinct regional style -? to battle it out on stage for prestigious awards The Guca trumpet festival in Serbia is a raucous street party The trumpet festival draws a mix of Serbians, music aficionados and foreign tourists
The leaders of Spain and Germany agreed Saturday to push for greater EU help for countries such as Morocco, a major point of departure for migrants and refugees trying to reach Europe. "Fourteen kilometres separate the coast of Spain -- and therefore Europe -- from those of North Africa but there is an infinitely greater distance in terms of development," Spain's new Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "Reducing the depth of this abyss of inequality must be one of the main tasks of the European Union." Faced with a crackdown by Libyan authorities and Italy's hardline approach to immigration, Spain has now become the main destination for people trying to get to Europe from Africa. Sanchez said he and Merkel agreed to "intensify dialogue and cooperation with countries of origin and transit" of migrants, mainly Morocco. He said they were in discussion with the European Commission to unlock aid that would allow Morocco to be much more effective in controlling its borders. This year Spain took in more than 23,500 new arrivals, more than the total number of migrants last year, the UNHCR said earlier this month, compared with 18,500 arrivals in Italy and 16,000 in Greece. Saturday's meeting in the southern Andalusia region coincided with the entry into force of a deal under which Madrid pledged to take back migrants in Germany who had already been registered in Spain. It is one of a series of bilateral agreements that Germany is seeking with EU partners, with Merkel under pressure to reduce the number of migrant arrivals to her country. Berlin still hopes to persuade Italy and Greece to also accept the return of migrants who were registered on their soil before travelling to Germany. Spain's new Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez and german Chancellor Angela Merkel have agreed to "intensify dialogue and cooperation" with migrants' countries of origin and transit


A teens sweet offer toward a stressed mother at Starbucks has made a surprising impact on both womens lives.

On Tuesday 19-year-old Mackenzie Mauller tweeted: Yesterday I bought coffee for the lady behind me at Starbucks  later in the day I found this [in] my mailbox. Small acts can make a big difference folks, spread some kindness.

Ms Mauller, from the US state of Ohio, also posted a photo of the handwritten note from the woman, Nicole Clawson.

Thank you for the coffee. I rarely go to Starbucks and treat myself but the last couple of months have been a bit of a struggle, she wrote.

Yesterday I bought coffee for the lady behind me at Starbucks.. later in the day I found this is my mailbox. Small acts can make a big difference folks, spread some kindness. pic.twitter.com/awNi4LSGJq  Mackenzie (@mackey2399) August 7, 2018

Ms Clawson said her family was experiencing lots of transition. Her father who had provided daily care for her children had recently passed away, her babysitter called in sick that morning forcing Ms Clawson to take the day off work and she was soon about to become a stay-at-home mum, a role she was not emotionally and financially prepared for.

I cried when I found out you were so sweet to buy my coffee, Ms Clawson wrote.

And thrilled to see you pull in a couple houses down from where I live. I felt it necessary for you to know that what you did for me was more than just a coffee.

It was something that has turned my whole day around, put tears in my eyes and a smile on my face and I feel so grateful.

Nicole Clawsons thank you note to a teen who bought her coffee is going viral. Source: Supplied/Nicole Clawson

That day, Ms Clawson felt guilty while sitting in the drive-through lane of Starbucks.

Its been hard because I am no longer providing income, but I decided to buy coffee for myself and breakfast for the kids, the 32-year-old told Yahoo Lifestyle.

Story continues

An employee at the order window said my coffee had been paid for  I was shocked.

On the way home, Ms Clawson found herself trailing the car driven by the stranger, who eventually pulled into a driveway across the street and a few houses down from Ms Clawsons home.

I thought to myself, How often do people pay it forward and learn the impact of their actions? she said.

Mackenzie Mauller paid for a struggling mothers coffee at Starbucks. Source: Twitter/Mackenzie Mauller

She and her children, aged three and six, wrote a thank you note and slipped it into Ms Maullers mailbox.

Ms Mauller, an aspiring pilot who is studying flight technology at Kent State University, said she could relate to Ms Clawson.

Strangers have bought me coffee in the past, and I always wished I could have thanked them, she told Yahoo Lifestyle, adding that she nearly cried when she read Ms Clawsons note.

After receiving the note Ms Mauller went door-to-door in search of Ms Clawson.

When the women met in person, they hugged.

Ms Mauller said strangers on Twitter have sent her $150, which she spent on a Starbucks card for Ms Clawson. She has also offered her babysitting services.
At least six people, including three Chinese nationals, were wounded in a suicide attack on a bus in southwestern Pakistan on Saturday, officials said. An attacker struck the vehicle in the Dalbandin region of Balochistan province, as it transported Chinese engineers working on a mining project in the area. Local administration and police officials told AFP that three Chinese nationals, two paramilitary soldiers from their security detail, and the bus driver were wounded in the attack. "The attacker, waiting in a small truck along the route... (detonated) the vehicle when the bus carrying Chinese engineers came close to him," said Dostain Dashti, a senior police officer in the region, around 340 km (210 miles) southwest of the provincial capital Quetta. Saifullah Khaitran, a senior local administration official, confirmed the attack, adding that all the injured were in stable condition. Balochistan is home to a long-running ethnic insurgency aimed at seeking greater control over the province's abundant mineral resources. The engineers were working on the Saindak project, Khaitran said, a joint venture between Pakistan and China to extract gold, copper and silver from an area close to the Iranian border. Muhammad Ibrahim, the driver of the targeted bus, told AFP from his hospital bed that he had averted major loss by slamming the brakes before the bus hit the attacker's vehicle. "The whole bus would have burnt if I had not applied the brakes," he said. Ethnic Baloch insurgents later claimed responsibility for the attack. "We targeted this bus which was carrying Chinese engineers," Jihand Baloch, a spokesperson for Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), told AFP by phone. "We attacked them because they are extracting gold from our region, we won't allow it." Bordering Iran and Afghanistan, Balochistan is the largest of Pakistan's four provinces, and many of its residents have long complained that it does not receive a fair share of its mineral wealth. Pakistan regularly accuses its eastern neighbour India of funding and arming Baloch separatists, and of targeting development projects in the province. Beijing has ramped up investment in its South Asian neighbour's infrastructure as part of an ambitious plan to link its far-western Xinjiang region to the Arabian Sea port of Gwadar in Balochistan. Three Chinese engineers were among six injured in the suicide attack in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province
A garbage truck driver has been arrested on drunken driving charges after an Australian tourist visiting New York City was fatally struck by his truck while riding her bike.

Police say 23-year-old Madison Jane Lyden swerved to avoid an Uber blocking a bike lane near Central Park on Friday.

They say a commercial sanitation truck hit her when she veered out of the bike lane.

The Geelong swim teacher was in New York on holiday with friends at the time of her death. Source: Facebook/ Madison Jane Lyden

Dozens rushed to the her aid before she was taken to hospital but was pronounced dead on arrival.

Ms Lyden, a swim teacher from Geelong, had only been in the city for a few days on holiday with friends.

The driver of the truck, 44-year-old Felipe Chairez, was later arrested on charges including driving while intoxicated. Its not clear whether he has an attorney who could speak for him.

The advocacy group Transportation Alternatives says Ms Lydens death underscores the need for protected bike lanes.

Friends and family in Australia were devastated to learn her trip of a lifetime could have ended so tragically as news of her death reached home.

Ms Lyden had been working at a Waurn Ponds aquatic centre for almost two years.

A colleague described her as bright and bubbly.

Shes really well liked by her team and also the families that come to the centre, they told 7 News.

With AP
From "Agent Orange" and DDT to genetically modified crops, Monsanto has long been associated with controversial chemicals, but a US court order for it to pay damages because one of its herbicides may cause cancer could open the door to thousands more claims against the company. A California jury on Friday ordered the US agrochemicals giant -- which was taken over by Germany's Bayer in June -- to pay nearly $290 million in compensation to a groundskeeper diagnosed with cancer after he repeatedly used Monsanto's weed killer, Roundup. The lawsuit built on 2015 findings by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the UN World Health Organization, which classified Roundup's main ingredient glyphosate as a probable carcinogen. - Artificially sweet - Founded in 1901 in St. Louis, Missouri, Monsanto early on made the artificial sweetener saccharin. The company began producing agrochemicals in the 1940s. Monsanto was one of the companies which produced a defoliant dubbed "Agent Orange," which has been linked to cancer and other diseases, for use by US forces in Vietnam but denies responsibility for how the military used it. The company also made insecticide DDT. After it was introduced in the United States as Roundup in the mid-1970s, the use of the glyphosate -- which is sprayed on food crops but also widely used outside of agriculture, such as on public lawns and in forestry -- soared across the globe. The company began genetically modifying plants, making some resistant to Roundup. There was a dramatic jump after the introduction in 1996 of genetically engineered "Roundup Ready" crops, such as soybean and maize, that survive glyphosate while it kills weeds. Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world, produced by an array of companies since Monsanto's exclusive patent expired in the year 2000. It is the subject of conflicting scientific studies as to whether it causes cancer. The herbicide has been accused of damaging the environment, contributing to the disappearance of bees and being an endocrine disruptor. The chemical has also been used as a pesticide for decades, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency website. - 'Ecocide' - German chemicals and pharmaceuticals giant Bayer acquired Monsanto in June for $63 billion. And it said it would get rid of the Monsanto company name following the merger, while brand names on products would remain. The San Francisco trial of Roundup and its possible carcinogenic effects was the first litigation of its kind against the company to make it to trial. In 2012, Monsanto negotiated a $93 million settlement to settle a case with the West Virginia town of Nitro, where a plant making a main Agent Orange ingredient once operated. The municipality accused the plant of being behind health problems faced by people in the community. A French court in 2012 found Monsanto to be liable in the case of a farmer who said he suffered neurological problems after inhaling the company's Lasso weed killer. Monsanto has appealed the finding on points of law. Meanwhile, Monsanto's genetically modified seeds have triggered concerns and legal challenges in Europe and the United States. Last year, a citizen court consisting of a panel of professional judges in The Hague (Netherlands) found Monsanto guilty at a mock trial of human rights violations for harm caused by chemicals. What became referred to as the "Monsanto Tribunal," in a purely advisory opinion, called for stronger laws protecting people and the environment from corporations, and a prosecutable crime of "ecocide." Monsanto has always denied any link between disease and glyphosate, a substance classified as carcinogenic in the US state of California. Monsanto now employs 20,000 people around the world and generates $15 billion in annual revenue. The International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the UN World Health Organization, in 2015 classified Roundup's main ingredient glyphosate as a probable carcinogen A California jury on Friday ordered Monsanto to pay nearly $290 million in compensation to groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson who was diagnosed with cancer after he repeatedly used Monsanto's weed killer, Roundup Glyphosate, the weed killer Roundup's main ingredient, was found by the International Agency for Research on Cancer to be a probable carcinogen The San Francisco trial of Roundup and its possible carcinogenic effects was the first litigation of its kind against the company to make it to trial
Monsanto's German owners insisted Saturday that the weed killer Roundup was "safe," rejecting a California jury's decision to order the chemical giant to pay nearly $290 million for failing to warn a dying groundskeeper that the product might cause cancer. While observers predicted thousands of potential future claims against the company in the wake of Monsanto's defeat, Bayer -- which recently acquired the US giant -- said the California ruling went against scientific evidence. "On the basis of scientific conclusions, the views of worldwide regulatory authorities and the decades-long practical experience with glyphosate use, Bayer is convinced that glyphosate is safe and does not cause cancer," the company said in a statement. It said other court proceedings with other juries might "arrive at different conclusions" than the jury which ruled in the California lawsuit, the first to accuse glyphosate of causing cancer. Jurors unanimously found that Monsanto -- which vowed to appeal -- acted with "malice" and that its weed killers Roundup and the professional grade version RangerPro contributed "substantially" to Dewayne Johnson's terminal illness. Johnson, diagnosed in 2014 with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma -- a cancer that affects white blood cells -- says he repeatedly used a professional form of Roundup while working at a school in Benicia, California. "The cause is way bigger than me. Hopefully this thing will get the attention it needs," Johnson, 46, said after the verdict. Johnson wept openly, as did some jurors, when he met with the panel later. The lawsuit built on 2015 findings by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the UN World Health Organization, which classified Roundup's main ingredient glyphosate as a probable carcinogen, causing the state of California to follow suit. "We are sympathetic to Mr Johnson and his family," Monsanto said in a statement, but promised to "continue to vigorously defend this product". "The jury got it wrong," Monsanto vice president Scott Partridge told reporters. But Johnson's attorney Brent Wisner said the verdict "shows the evidence is overwhelming" that the product poses danger. "When you are right, it is really easy to win," he said. - More to come? - Wisner called the ruling the "tip of the spear" of litigation likely to come. "The jury sent a message to the Monsanto boardroom that they have to change the way they do business," said Robert F. Kennedy Jr -- an environmental lawyer, son of the late US senator and a member of Johnson's legal team. "You not only see many people injured, you see the corruption of public officials, the capture of agencies that are supposed to protect us from pollution and the falsification of science," he said. Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in the US state of Virginia, said the plaintiff's evidence that Monsanto "knew or should have known that Roundup caused his cancer" could benefit those currently seeking damages from Monsanto, as well as encourage new filings. Tobias said Monsanto's promised appeal could result in the charges being reduced -- but said the company "might want to consider settling now, depending on its calculus of the risk that it might lose on appeal and the adverse publicity that might arise from losing or from continuing to contest the verdict." But he cautioned that settling now could "make it appear that Monsanto believes it has a weak case." Partridge, meanwhile, announced that Monsanto had no intention of settling the slew of similar cases in the legal queue. "It is the most widely used and most widely studied herbicide in the world," Partridge said. - 'Win for all of humanity' - Roundup is Monsanto's leading product. "The Johnson vs Monsanto verdict is a win for all of humanity and all life on earth," said Zen Honeycutt, founding executive director of non-profit group Moms Across America. In France, a leading anti-Monsanto campaigner told AFP that the California ruling would strengthen the resolve of those doing battle with the agrochemicals giant across the world. "I was thinking of them and I said to myself that this ruling will help them and give them lots of hope," said Paul Francois, author of "A farmer against Monsanto" ("Un paysan contre Monsanto"). France's minister for ecological transition, Brune Poirson, hailed the "historic decision," tweeting that it validated President Emmanuel Macron's push to ban glyphosate use within three years. Records unsealed previously by a federal court lent credence to Johnson's claims -- internal company emails with regulators suggested Monsanto had ghostwritten research later attributed to academics. Founded in 1901 in St Louis, Missouri, Monsanto began producing agrochemicals in the 1940s. It was acquired by Bayer for more than $62 billion in June. Monsanto launched Roundup in 1976 and soon thereafter began genetically modifying plants, making some resistant to Roundup. burs-pg-mdo/ska Plaintiff Dewayne Johnson reacts after hearing the verdict to his case against Monsanto in San Francisco Monsanto vice president Scott Partridge speaks after Monsanto was ordered to pay nearly $290 million in damages for not disclosing the dangers of its popular Roundup products Monsanto launched Roundup in 1976 and soon thereafter began genetically modifying plants, making some resistant to Roundup Johnson hugs one of his lawyers after hearing the verdict to his case against Monsanto at the Superior Court Of California
A row is erupting over vaccines in Italy as the country's new populist government fights to roll back a law that bans children from attending school if they haven't received a series of jabs. The law, adopted last year by the centre-left government that was booted out of power in March, made it compulsory for children in pre-school education to be vaccinated against 10 diseases, including measles, tetanus and poliomyelitis. Parents who have not vaccinated their children by the time they reach school age (six years old in Italy) face a fine of up to 500 euros. The new administration -- formed of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the nationalist League -- is leading the charge against the law. Last week, the upper house Senate approved an amendment proposed by Five Star and the League pushing back enforcement of compulsory vaccination for pre-schoolers to the 2019-20 school year, pending a complete revision of the law after the summer recess. New health minister Giulia Grillo, from Five Star, has drafted a new bill introducing what she calls a "flexible obligation", giving priority to education on the benefits of vaccines, encourages use of compulsory vaccination only over short periods and instances when the coverage rate is too low. Grillo, a doctor, claims there will be guarantees that children who haven't been immunised could be enrolled in classes where the WHO recommended coverage is assured. However she also caused outrage when, in an interview with major daily Corriere Della Sera on Wednesday, she said that it wasn't realistic to "make people believe that no one will die" of measles. - Outbreak - Parents currently have to present pre-school institutions with booklets that list the vaccines, updated by the doctors who administer them. For the 2019-20 school year plans were in place for educators to get vaccine information on each child directly from local health authorities, a measure designed to bypass the possibility of anti-vax parents falsifying documentation. That measure was adopted in order to fight back against a drop in the number of people being vaccinated that had taken coverage below the 95 percent limit recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). That coverage ratio is the minimum required to create the communal immunity that staves off diseases and protects people with compromised immune systems who can't be vaccinated. Coverage rates increased in Italy following the enaction of the previous government's law, but many regions remain well below the WHO threshold for a number of illnesses. Data from Italy's National Health Institute released in July showed that four people -- including a 10-month-old baby -- had died from measles between January and May, the same number that died in the whole of 2017. In total over 1,700 people had contracted the disease, while last year 5,400 cases were recorded. - Fightback - The WHO says that Italy accounted for nearly a quarter of the 21,315 measles cases recorded across Europe last year, when cases of the disease soared across the continent. The number of cases in Italy alone last year was close to the entire European total for 2016, a record low of 5,273, according to the WHO. While both Five Star head Luigi Di Maio and League leader Matteo Salvini say they are in favour of vaccines and have vaccinated their own children, they consider the current law "coercive" and criticise it for blocking children's access to education. Some people are fighting back against the government, with a petition created by concerned parents against the amendment attracting around 100,000 signatures in just a few days. Several regional presidents have announced that they intend to enforce the vaccine obligation even if it is withdrawn, while the national association of headteachers has also said that the current law would remain in force and that parents would have to present a medical certificate proving their children have been vaccinated. Italy's new administration is leading the charge against a law that bans children from attending school if they haven't received a series of jabs
Last month, on July 15, I featured the move of the Owasco Odd Fellows Hall on July 4, 1974. I quoted the words and revealed the tremendous effort of both George Groom and his brother Fred, with the help of friends Wendall Hatfield and Edward Wild, to move the back section of the hall up the street to the back of a field on land George had purchased for $900.

The picture with this column shows the hall set on a foundation of cement blocks, in its new and finished location on Gahwiler Road. George confided that he had brought the cement blocks home in his car. He could only handle 12 blocks at a time. As you look at the picture, can you imagine how many trips he had made?

The research I did on the timeline and history of the hall was very instructional. The building was used for many events and had several name changes. I found that it reflected the social history of the community, too. The hamlet's residents gathered there for respite during the Great Depression and after World War II. They joined fraternal organizations such as the Odd Fellows and the Grange, held church dinners and even a missionary tea in 1926 (Owasco Reformed Church), and voted at Bristol and the hall in 1929. In 1927, 200 people enjoyed the Ladies Kitchen Band. They held fundraisers such as the Owasco Reformed Church minstrel show in 1929. Later, Cub Scout Pack 67 and Boy Scout blue and gold banquets were held there as each generation carried on the small-town legacy of community.

This year we are celebrating the centennial of womens right to vote in New York state. A newspaper item in 1915 stated, In the interest of equal suffrage, there will be a meeting and speaker ... at the Odd Fellows hall. By the 1960s, the building was now called the Grange Hall and it held round and square dances. On June 15, 1962, 651 people were administered the polio vaccine there. In 1950, antique auctions were held. In 1953, the Grange began the Owasco Chicken Barbecue with events across the street in Earl Glanville's field.

The earliest date I found in my newspaper search was the advertisement in 1903 for the annual Leap Year Party to be held at Hopkins Hall. The bill was $1.15 admission, including horse care. In March 1904, The Sargent Volunteers Bible Class of the Owasco Reformed Church put on a play for four evenings at Hopkins Hall. Hopkins Hall was the final destination in late June for the 1906 annual Skaneateles High Schools seniors Straw Ride. There were two wagons that picked up the celebrants at the high school and left for Owasco in the evening ride.

The names of the newly elected officers of the Owasco Odd Fellows Hall in 1933 was published in the Moravia Republican Register. Many of the names will be familiar: Chalmer Sagan, Carl Kent, George Fisher, Keith Belnap, Harold Wilson, John Hare, George Fisher, Howe Defendorf, Lynn Ripley, John Hart, Herman Woodruff, Levi ODell, Glen Shaver and Fred Gunsales.

I would be grateful if anyone who has a story about the Odd Fellows Hall or Grange Hall would contact me. I appreciate, too, any pictures you would be willing to share.

Laurel Auchampaugh is the Owasco historian and can be reached at the Owasco Town Hall from 1 to 4 p.m. Tuesday afternoons or at historian@owascony.gov.

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CANOGA PARK, Calif.Free Speech Coalition has issued the following industry alert regarding an unknown person attempting to scam performers:

A UK-based producer fraudulently implying association with Kink.com has been approaching potential models in the US, and possibly elsewhere, in an attempt to set up shoots in the UK.

The alleged producer approached at least one performer, and also their agent, claiming to be shooting scenes for Kink.com. Kink.com representatives have no relationship with the person or company. The alleged producer promised to fly the model to the UK for a scene, but was unable to adequately provide basic information as to the type of scene, or who the co-performers would be.

The elements of this fraud appear to be similar to another incident reported earlier this month.

If you have a licensed agent:

Have them verify the booking, contacts and details

If you do not have a licensed agent:

Only communicate with companies through official company email accounts

Ask for references and verify them

Get contracts and other paperwork in advance and have it vetted by an attorney

Avoid negotiating or agreeing to shoots via sites like Whatsapp and Facebook, particularly when dealing with a new producer or agent

When in doubt, contact FSC

We ask all existing performers, as well as those seeking to work in the adult industry, to always confirm the identity of any unknown director, agent or other contact by calling or emailing the company they claim to represent. Most companies have publically available profiles. If you are unable to reach the company, or are otherwise hesitant to do so, please contact Free Speech Coalition, either by email at [email protected] or by phone at 818-348-9373 and we can help confirm.

The Free Speech Coalition is currently working to investigate this possible scam. We encourage anyone who has been approached, or has any knowledge of this scam or others, to report potential incidents to us so that we may alert the community.

Please also be aware when booking European shoots that many producers do not use the US-based PASS testing system. Always find out what safety precautions will be available to you before committing to any shoot.
NAPA, Calif.The Rabbit Pearl from Vibratex marked a special anniversary with a recent article in Forbes Magazine.

20 Years Later, How The Sex And The City Vibrator Episode Created a Lasting Buzz highlights Vibratexthe 35-year industry pioneer in dual-action, advanced-technology toys.

In the article, author and Professor Lynn Comella, discusses what may be one of the most influential, recognizable and iconic sex toys in existence. It is quite possible that no other vibrator has captured the mainstream imagination and hearts of female consumers the way the Rabbit Pearl has.

Comella notes, It became not only a pop culture sensation, but a case study in sex-toy product placement that ushered in a new era of sexual consumerism, one in which female shoppers boldly strutted into sex-toy stores looking to purchase the vibrator theyd seen on Sex and the City.

Vibratex celebrates 35 years of leadership in the adult industry this year.

We have demonstrated our commitment to our customers, and to their customers in turn over our 35 years with offerings such as the Rabbit Pearl, it pushed the limits of possibilities in dual-action toys at that time, said Shay Martin, vice president of Vibratex. To see this character, whos a little more prim and proper, discover her sexuality likely resonated with a lot of women, 20 years later to still see the impact Sex and the City has had on the Rabbit Pearl, exploration of female sexuality and the sex-positive cultureits been an honor and humbling experience.

It is clear to see the impact the Sex and the City episode had, Martin notes average annual sales jumped by more than 700 percent in years that followed the airing and the industry took notice, evidenced by the countless variations of the Rabbit now available to consumers, essentially creating their own category.

To read the full Forbes article by author and Professor Lynn Comellas, click here.

View the famous Rabbit Pearl Sex and the City scene here.

More information is available on Vibratex.com, or contact Vibratex at [email protected] or (800) 222-3361.
Should Beaufort County's commissioners be resolved to ask the federal government to defend our Southern Border by ending the Biden /Harris Open Border policy in regards to that one border that is intentionally made OPEN?

Yes, Illegal Migrants are a huge expense to local governments.

No, the cost of Undocumented Immigrants is insignificant in our providing a pathway for the "Browning of America".
Geographic information systems used to be 2-D maps, but new AR technologies are letting users see where pipes and other underground infrastructure is through augmented reality .

Brief video showcasing a few features of the vGIS Utilities system (http://www.vgis.io/). vGIS Utilities is the most advanced augmented reality solution for GIS designed specifically with utilities, municipalities and GIS service providers in mind. The system connects to Esri ArcGIS to seamlessly convert traditional 2D GIS data into powerful, accurate and stable 3D visuals.

vGIS is the only system that supports the full spectrum of technologies  augmented reality (Android and iOS), mixed reality (HoloLens) and virtual reality.

The system is deployed in at over 40 sites across the world to bring real-life benefits to municipalities, utilities, locate service providers and multiple other organizations.
Ever wonder how the dusty blank slate of the Black Rock Desert becomes Burning Man's Black Rock City each year?

Well, my pal Shalaco has started vlogging and in his latest video he gives an interesting glimpse into this process by talking to the Survey crew as they create it. It's a really beautiful piece!

On the Burning Man Journal, he writes, "One impossible aspect about Black Rock City, and part of the nature of a city that is born every year, is that you can visit it at different times in its growth and development. Each and every year I visit, Black Rock City it is younger and younger. You can never visit New York when it was a colony or San Francisco before the gold rush, but you can do that with Black Rock City."

[Cue the music]
We thank our sponsor for making this content possible; it is not written by the editorial staff nor necessarily reflects their views. We all know how tedious cleaning our homes can be. Between sweeping, vacuuming, dusting, laundry, dishes, and everything else, it can get overwhelming and downright anxiety-inducing just thinking about getting it all done. READ THE REST
Last week, a Florida woman (because of course she's from Florida) was caught rolling around in a stolen SUV. There was a chase! There was a crash! In an effort to escape her police entourage, 46-year old Jennifer Anne Kaufman left the other occupants of her pilfered ride behind and took off on foot. As she fled across a farmer's field, Kaufman could likely hear the sirens of the prowl cars that had been chasing her. The helicopter that the Seminole County Sheriff's Office called in to help hunt her down? No way she'd have missed that.

Kaufman did not, however, account for the cows.

Rural crime is a serious issue: everyone's gotta do their part, even livestock.

According to the Tampa Bay Times, after the cows and Seminole County Sheriff's deputies took Kaufman and her pals, who were good enough to stick around, into custody, they had a chance to search the stolen SUV and discovered "more than a gram of cocaine, a crack pipe, syringes and a metal spoon."

That'll do cows. That'll do.

Yeah, I know that it's more likely that the cattle were either curious or expecting to be fed by a human tromping through their field. But honestly, in a world so full of hate, violence and unspeakable dangers, I need to believe that, when faced with a situation like this one, a cow can be relied upon to rise up and mete out justice, that we all might sleep just a little bit easier.

Image via Pexels
Kyle is a Canada goose that was rescued by Mike Jivanjee, who found her struggling in the water as a gosling. After taking care of her, she's been his buddy whenever Mike takes out his boat.

You can keep up with Kyle, who now has a running buddy named Jack, over on Kyle's Instagram:

Goose Visits Man Who Rescued Her Every Day (YouTube / The Dodo)
Juxtaposing bright spray-painted mesh with the ocean vista of a 400-year-old Greek ruin, artistic duo Quintessenz created Kagkatikas Secret.

The installation is located on the island of Paxos in the Adriatic Sea. This work unfolds in a 400-year-old ruin in the village of Kagatika to offer an aesthetic and unique contrast between the old and the new, waiting for the public to contemplate.

The mesh material is colourized with spray paint in 120 different colour shades, and each layer is getting more prominent when you walk to the window from where you can see the wideness of the view. For the ones who will go there, the installation is a part of the Paxos Contemporary Art Project and will run until September 9th.
News / National

by Moyo Roy

Just had special call from the UK Minister for Africa, @hbaldwin. We had a great conversation regarding political developments in Zimbabwe.I'm encouraged by the UK government's insistence on standards for human rights, credible elections and rule of law.  Nelson Chamisa (@nelsonchamisa) August 10, 2018

The United Kingdom on Friday reached out to MDC Alliance leader Nelson Chamisa "regarding political developments in Zimbabwe."Chamisa has said he is "encouraged by the UK government's insistence on standards for human rights, credible elections and rule of law."
News / National

by Simbarashe Sithole

A drunk ZANU PF supporter reportedly went berserk and whipped a six year old boy for chanting Chamisa's slogan.Norman Mafa (37) appeared before Guruve resident magistrate Shingirai Mutiro yesterday facing assault charges and pleaded not guilty.Public prosecutor Mr Albert Mazhindu told the court that on 6 August Mafa allegedly met a group of young boys at Gem farm in Mvurwi while he was putting on his party regalia under the influence of alcohol.The young boys around the ages of six and seven started chanting Chamisa's slogans, enragaing Mafa who picked a stick and chased after the boys.He is reported to have caught one boy and whipped him severely only to release him after noticing blood gushing out of his legs.The boy was rushed to Mvurwi hospital where he is believed to have been stitched twice on both legs.Mafa was reminded in custody to next Friday for continuation of trial.Gemu farm has recorded two cases of political violence from ZANU PF supporters so far with the previous case for Godfrey Musebo (40) of plot 40 Gem farm who was slapped with community service for assaulting an MDC supporter.
News / National

by Stephen Jakes

Mthwakazi activist Hloniphani Ncube has said since the advent of sanctions in Zimbabwe after the introduction of the MDC into the political field the negative effects have only hit hard the voter not the voted.He said the sanctions would not affect the wealth of Mnangagwa or Chiwengwa and their children, but the impact would be felt by the voter."The United States have intensified the sanctions which they claim they are targeting the government in particular with reference to their conduct of elections. Whilst this may appear to be good news in particular if they were going to affect Mnangagwa and the junta, it is however public knowledge that the sanctions will increase unemployment rate which is at 95 percent as we speak, liquidity crunch, the health sector which is at its knees, political killings and all sorts of negativity that ZANU PF embraces," he said."United States must take into consideration that sanctions would benefit China, South Africa and other BRICS nations. As it stands China would borrow billions of US dollars to the Zimbabwean corrupt government and attach more land as collateral of which just like the Mugabe government this one would also fail to service the loans and more of our land would be colonised by capitalist China which deceives people as communist. South Africa would simply reduce Zimbabwe as a market thereby increasing its exports and stabilising her economy. More people would run to accessible borders to look for bread and better life."Ncube said what United States must know is that, the public does not vote for ZANU PF so as to continue degrading the country, instead ZANU PF put itself into power with a bullet."The people of Zimbabwe have never voted for these thugs whose conducts bring economic and political hardships. If ever the United States is serious with helping the people of Zimbabwe they should not pass sanctions which would affect the vulnerable voters rather they must come with a better strategy than sanctions," he said.
A young endangered killer whale at the centre of a cross-border "emergency response" has received a novel medical treatment at sea as part of an effort to help the ailing three-year old swimming with her pod off the coast of British Columbia.

Scientists grew worried about the orca, known as J-50, when overhead photography showed she had lost 20 per cent of her body weight. She also had foul breath  indicating a serious health problem.

While it's not clear what that problem is, a response team led by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) located the whale Thursday, obtained a breath sample and delivered a broad-spectrum antibiotic using a dart.

It's the first time such a treatment has been used on a wild killer whale, NOAA said.

The Vancouver Aquarium's head veterinarian, Dr. Martin Haulena, was on the vessel assessing and treating the whale, according to statements from the aquarium and NOAA.

"The opportunity to try new things, to be a little more proactive than we've been able to be with an ... individual of an endangered population in our own backyard is incredibly exciting," he told CBC News on Wednesday when discussing the plan.

J-50 was "skinny and small" but was observed keeping up with her mother and siblings when she had been lethargic in the past.

The response group is now considering a trial feeding the young whale live Chinook salmon as a possible tactic to deliver oral antibiotics in the future.

No 'smoking gun'

The team decided on antibiotic treatment for J-50 because it seemed like an infection was likely in the young whale, even though it hadn't been confirmed.

She is malnourished, but scientists didn't suspect food supply was the only culprit, as others in her family group known as J-pod weren't in the same state, said Haulena.

"We don't have a smoking gun here," he said Wednesday.

Based on experience from infections in other whales, scientists chose a broad-spectrum, long-lasting drug.

Story continues

While this hasn't been done in a wild killer whale before, officials pointed to treatment of another young whale known as Springer in 2002 as a past example of something similar.

In that case, Springer was orphaned, alone and in poor health in Puget Sound when she was captured, and treated in captivity before being released for reintegration with her pod.

In the case of J-50, officials aren't contemplating capture because of the harmful disturbance that would cause for the social animals.

Cross-border response

J-50's pod was found Thursday in Canadian waters, then followed into U.S. waters near San Juan Island, according to NOAA.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada is working with the team, and issued permits Thursday to deliver the medical treatment in Canadian waters if necessary  something that earlier had been in question.

J-50 is part of a family group known as J-pod, which also includes the mother orca who has gained international attention for carrying her dead newborn calf for more than two weeks, in an apparent display of mourning.

Earlier in the week, the group had been spotted near Port Renfrew, B.C., and Cape Flattery, Wash., in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, but response crews were waiting for calm conditions in more inland waters to take action.

The southern resident killer whales are a critically endangered population, with approximately 75 individuals left.
The Metis Nation of Alberta (MNA) says it hopes to settle outstanding and inherent issues concerning their people's rights to harvest and govern themselves by 2019.

The MNA updated members on the progress done to achieve this during its annual general assembly in Lac La Biche Friday. Leadership urged its citizens to support the creation of a constitution when it comes to a vote Saturday.

"We are a nation. We know what we need to fully express our rights to self-government. We need our own constitution," MNA President Audrey Poitras said Friday.

Self-government for the Alberta Metis could mean managing their own healthcare, education and child welfare systems.

But self-government and harvesting rights have been prickly topics among Metis and the federal and provincial governments.

At least one of those issues reached a boiling point last September when wildlife officers swooped into a cultural harvesting camp in the Metis community of Conklin and seized smoked fish. Officers alleged the fish were obtained without a licence.

It caused an uproar after the community posted about the officers' actions on social media.

Alberta's Minister of Indigenous Relations Richard Feehan later apologized.

Since the ruckus, MNA's legal counsel Jason Madden said the Metis Nation has been in discussions with the province about hunting and fishing concerns.

And he hopes Alberta's provincial cabinet will approve a Metis provincial consultation and harvesting policy soon.

When it comes to self-government, Madden said talks began with the federal government in January. They hope to settle on an agreement-in-principle in 2019.

Already the MNA, Madden said, has achieved interim steps toward Canada recognizing Metis rights and nationhood.

The federal government has agreed to a consultation policy and Parks Canada has given Metis free admission.

But before an agreement-in-principle is inked, the MNA needs a constitution, Madden said.

Story continues

Like any sovereign government, a constitution would outline the priorities and governance structures of the Alberta Metis Nation and it would replace the organization's bylaws.

"We're hoping through the work of this assembly that Metis will be developing a constitution moving towards self-government in the very near term," Madden said.

MNA president Audrey Poitras urged the Nation's citizens to approve the parameters of a Metis constitution, which will be drafted after the three-day general meeting ending Sunday.

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Poitras and Madden both said the time is right for Alberta's Metis and the Crown to arrive at a self-government agreement.

Recent court decisions and the political will, they said, exists to get the work done.

"It is because of those court cases," Madden said. "Combined with the federal government's approach to these issues that we are at this unique moment in time."

Connect with David Thurton, CBC's Fort McMurray correspondent, on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or email him at david.thurton@cbc.ca
'The new norm': Diplomat says Canada may need to get used to being alone on world stage

One week into the Canada-Saudi Arabia spat and there has been very little high-profile public support for the Canadian position.

Spokespeople from countries considered Canada's closest allies offered bluntly neutral comments when pressed on the diplomatic dispute.

One British diplomat is taken aback by his country's public reaction.

"I confess that I'm very disappointed by it," said Anthony Cary, a former British High Commissioner to Canada.

"There was a time when Canada could have rightly expected to receive the core support from the United States and from the United Kingdom, as its closest partners," he said in interview with CBC News from his home in London.

But a senior research fellow, from whom the Canadian government sought advice on this dispute, says the British are heavily involved in quietly defusing the tensions.

"The United Kingdom in particular is working very hard behind the scenes to try and cool this problem down," said Michael Stephens of the Royal United Services Institute.

"It's sort of going through British diplomatic channels and it's being done obviously quietly. This is not something which needs to play out on Twitter," he said during an interview from his office.

"At the end of the day, enough damage has been done in public."

CBC News reported earlier in the week, that Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland is reaching out to her international counterparts for advice on how to navigate this dispute.

Stephens said that from the perspective of Canada's allies, quiet conversations include reassurances for Ottawa, while another message is delivered to Riyadh.

"We understand that you're upset, but this is counterproductive, and actually what you're doing is you're harming yourself by trying to escalate this further," Stephens said of the discussions with the Saudis.

Still the diplomatic community has noticed a gaping hole in public solidarity that appears to be lingering over the Saudi affair.

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Earlier this week, the British Foreign Office issued just a three-line statement that read in part: "Canada and Saudi Arabia are both close partners  and we urge restraint."

The U.S. urged Canada to go it alone.

"Both sides need to diplomatically resolve this together. We can't do it for them," said U.S. State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert.

'Weakening' of solidarity

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) lashed out at Canada, after Global Affairs and Freeland published tweets calling for the release of recently jailed human rights activists.

In a matter of days, KSA expelled Canada's ambassador in Riyadh, recalled its own ambassador from Ottawa, ordered students in Canada to return home, ceased purchases of Canadian wheat and grain and said there would be no new trade trade deals with Canada. Other sanctions followed.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has rejected calls to apologize, while vowing to continue to stand up for human rights.

"We have seen a weakening of the sort of solidarity that I think would have been taken for granted a few years ago," said Cary.

"I'm very worried that this is indeed the new norm."

Cary points to the rise of nationalism in both the U.K. and the U.S. for that weakening in solidarity.

Cary argues that under Donald Trump's leadership the U.S. is "not so interested in its international relationships."

As for the U.K., he says it is "extremely isolated and confused and, frankly, in some chaos," as it deals with its looming exit from the European Union.

'Approach was undiplomatic'

This combination of factors could very well mean that Canada may have to get used to standing on its own.

Stephens does not share that viewpoint, saying the U.K.'s response is more "about trying to find the balance between very strong historical partners in the Gulf and a very close ally like Canada."

"I don't think it's about not showing support for Canada, or not showing support for the G7. It's about the fact that we have a set of security and economic relationships that restrain us in that particular part of the world."

Another close observer suggests Canada wouldn't be testing the strength of its international relationships if it had stuck to traditional diplomatic channels.

"The thing with Canada  their approach was undiplomatic," said Najah al-Otaibi, a Saudi journalist and senior policy analyst at the Arabia Foundation.

"Behind closed doors, dialogue, communication, that's diplomacy," she said in an interview with CBC News on Thursday.

Al-Otaibi defended the actions of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, suggesting the KSA is being ganged up on by the West at a time when it is trying to change.

"They are reforming, and they thought they wanted to be appreciated and encouraged to do more. On the other hand, they are bashed by the international community and that's what made them frustrated about it."

Earlier this summer, Saudi Arabia was applauded for ending its ban on women drivers and announcing other reforms. But some of the activists who fought for that right remain imprisoned (including University of British Columbia alumna Loujain al-Hathloul). And women in the kingdom still live deeply restricted lives, needing a man's permission to marry and travel.

Stephens said the dispute is far from over, but he does not predict the tensions will get worse.

"People are still trying to ascertain the depth of Saudi outrage if you like where it stems from.

"I think the best thing is obviously the weekend is coming up ... perhaps a little bit of time out of the spotlight out of the media would be better for both sides. It gives people time to think, time to reflect and time for quiet diplomacy."
B.C. Wildfires 2018: New fires popping up across southern half of province

As two major fires merged in northwest B.C. overnight, firefighters have had to contend with several new blazes that popped up in the southeast and the Okanagan region.

Three significant new wildfires were ignited Thursday in the southeastern corner of the province, including a 35-hectare blaze just 10 kilometres from the Salmo-area site of the Shambhala Music Festival  an annual electronic music event that was threatened by wildfire last year.

The B.C. Wildfire Service says the festival isn't in any immediate danger this year, unlike in 2017, when its grounds were placed on evacuation alert.

Large new wildfires are also burning northwest of Creston, within two kilometres of Highway 3, and northwest of Radium.

Two evacuation alerts have been issued in connection with the three southeastern blazes, including one for the McArthur Creek area, southeast of Salmo, and another for the Cross River/Nipika Mountain Resort areas.

In the Okanagan, firefighters are tangling with an aggressive new wildfire 24 kilometres west of West Kelowna that quickly grew to four square kilometres, but they say no structures are threatened.

Meanwhile, in the northwest, the Alkali Lake and South Stikine River fires met overnight, with the combined blaze now ranging over 300 square kilometres, and the weather forecast doesn't look promising for the efforts to get it under control.

Fire information officer Heather Rice said Wednesday that the merge itself isn't necessarily a bad thing.

"Merging means we have one fire to deal with instead of two, so it can almost make it a little easier to deploy our resources to where we want them, to the primary areas in the flanks to pinch off the fire."

The Alkali Lake fire had already burned through 27 structures in the area of Telegraph Creek earlier in the week. More than 250 residents have been unable to return to the area.

B.C. Forests Minister Doug Donaldson said crews have established fire guards and structural protection units within the town, including industrial sprinklers.

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Highway 51 in both directions from Telegraph Creek to the Highway 37 junction in Dease Lake remained closed, with the fire burning alongside the roadway.

Illustrating just how volatile the conditions are in B.C., a semi truck trailer full of wood chips caught fire Wednesday afternoon along Highway 3 near Hedley.

The fire quickly spread to the nearby hillside before firefighters were able to extinguish it.

Hopes for cooler Friday

Kevin Skrepnek, B.C.'s chief fire information officer, said the heat should let up across the province in the next day.

"The real day we are focusing on right now is Friday," Skrepnek said from Kamloops. "We do expect a pretty dramatic shift in the weather."

But with it comes forecasts of thunderstorms, lightning and only small amounts of rain. Skrepnek said the most recent forecast predicts between three and five millimetres of rain, which is not enough to ease the extreme fire conditions across B.C.

"Unfortunately, with the system coming through, we are expecting a cold front that is going to bring about increased winds, and that is more than likely going to bring some thunderstorm activity with it," he said. "We are bracing for it to be a challenging day."

There have been 1,564 wildfires in the province since April 1, burning about 1,186 square kilometres and costing $131 million to fight.

B.C. spent about $650 million fighting forest fires in 2017.

Additional fire information

- The Snowy Mountain wildfire near Keremeos is now 40 per cent contained. It remains 120 square kilometres in size.

- In the upper Fraser Valley, a brush fire ignited Wednesday along Highway 7 between Agassiz and Hope. Police believe it began when a vehicle with a flat tire pulled over to the side of the road. The fire prompted officials to close the highway in both directions on Thursday afternoon, and police say it could be closed for 24 hours.

- A wildfire burning south of Hope has led to the closure of Skagit Valley Provincial Park.

- The Verdun Mountain wildfire has grown to eight square kilometres. On Thursday, the Bulkley-Nechako Regional District expanded the evacuation order related to the blaze.

- The Nadina Lake wildfire burning about 60 kilometres south of Houston is now 120 square kilometres in size, and regional officials expanded the related evacuation order and alert on Thursday.

- Further north, homes in the Elbow Lake area were ordered evacuated because of the Elbow Lake fire, which covers almost 6.7 square kilometres. Structural protection crews are working on saving some cabins.

- Highway 93 South through Kootenay National Park remains closed due to work on the Wardle wildfire.

- All regional parks in Metro Vancouver are under an extreme fire danger rating. Campfires and barbecues are prohibited.

- The campfire ban across most of the province has been expanded to Haida Gwaii due to unseasonably dry and hot conditions.

Wildfire map:

Evacuation orders and alerts:

With files from the Canadian Press

Read more from CBC British Columbia
A Calgary man has been sentenced to seven years behind bars for an attack that nearly killed a Regina cab driver. The decision was handed down on Friday at Regina's Court of Queen's Bench.

With credit for time served, 22-year-old Leroy Redwood will face 4 more years for the 2016 assault on Iqbal Singh Sharma and two passengers.

He pleaded guilty to three counts of aggravated assault last year.

The judge said she agreed with the Crown prosecutor's description of the attack as "extremely brutal."

During the sentencing, court heard Redwood and the two other passengers had been drinking together on that evening in November.

They decided to take a cab to a nightclub and an argument broke out on the way there. Redwood attacked the two passengers first before stabbing and kicking Sharma outside of his taxi.

Sharma suffered severe neck and head injuries and had to be placed in a medically-induced coma.

At one point, Sharma was being fed through a tube and couldn't walk or talk. He required three brain surgeries after the attack.

Court heard Sharma was a newcomer to Canada and drove taxi temporarily while pursuing a career in engineering.

Due to his injuries, it is unlikely he will be able to work as an engineer and is still recovering from the ordeal.

"He still has a lot of work to do," said Rhonda Fiddler from Regina police's victim services unit. She spoke on his behalf at the sentencing.

"He has a lot of challenges as far as mobility with his leg and his arm but he is hopeful and positive for the future," she said.

During the sentencing, the judge noted Redwood's upbringing was taken into account. He grew up around violence and addiction, with his father dying from a stab wound.

The court heard Redwood was so intoxicated at the time of the assault he couldn't recall doing it.

"We had asked for 11 years, the sentence was 7 years, " said senior Crown prosecutor Kim Jones.

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He said he was a bit disappointed, but understands the judge's decision based on Redwood's background.

The defence, meanwhile, requested Redwood serve a four year sentence.

"The point of arguing the sentence was to leave it up to the judge to decide based on the facts and the law and to apply the law to the facts and come to a decision," said defence lawyer Thomas Hynes.

"That's what we have here."

At the time of sentencing, Redwood had spent 935 days in custody.
Geraint Thomas has made a triumphant return to his home town of Cardiff where thousands of people turned out to celebrate his recent victory in the Tour de France.

The Team Sky rider, who last month became the first Welshman to win the gruelling three-week event, rode into the city wearing the famous yellow jersey, followed by his own peloton of local riders, many of them children.

He ditched the bike near Cardiff Castle to greet fans, as he shook hands and signed autographs.

Thomas said it "could have been awkward or a bit tense" between him and defending champion Chris Froome, who led the Tour early on, but it wasn't because Froome "was happy for me" and was "a true gentleman about it", when Thomas took the lead.

It has been suggested that one of them may now leave the team, but Thomas said there is "definitely" enough room on Team Sky for them both.

"There's plenty of other races as well," he added.

He admitted he had yet to sign a new contract, but said: "Not yet, but we're close, obviously Team Sky is working well for me. I'm sure we'll get it sorted."

Thomas admitted he was stunned by the size of the crowd and told Sky News his victory last month had not really sunk in and that the welcome home was "overwhelming", adding it "was insane how many people came to the castle".

Told that the crowd to greet him was bigger than that for Harry and Meghan in January, Thomas shrugged and said "pretty good scalps to have, I guess".

Thomas said he will return to training later this month, but admitted he may need to get some laundry done first, as he had been wearing his yellow jersey "for the last 10 days and it's probably a bit smelly".

Many people who turned out to see him posted pictures to social media, among them @OutofBroadcast, who tweeted a picture of Geraint with his young peloton before they set off, saying "#GeraintThomas on Saint Mary Street #Cardiff."

@MikeOwen2390 summed up the feelings of many, posting a picture Thomas holding up a Wales flag by Cardiff Castle, saying "Someone put the Welshness up to 11 at the #GeraintThomas home coming @maxboyceMBE @fmwales it was great."
A raging barge fire on the Surrey side of the Fraser River is proving challenging to fire crews trying to put it out.

The huge blaze near the eastern foot of the Patullo Bridge broke out in the centre of a massive pile of scrap cars, appliances and metal floating in the river.

"It's a challenge to get access to this fire because three sides are surrounded by water," said Surrey Deputy Fire Chief John Lehmann.

"The barge is probably 250 feet in length and the fire is burning in the middle of it. Given that our crews could only access it from the ramp, we're only able to get water on the front portion of the barge at this time."

Lehmann said a fireboat from Vancouver was enroute. A tug with water spraying capability is also assisting in the effort.

Witnesses say they have heard a number of small explosions and a thick, acrid smoke is blanketing the area.

"The scrap material likely contains plastics and upholstery  that's what's burning, not the metal itself," said Lehmann. "Metro Vancouver is working with Fraser Health to determine the impact of the air quality. If an advisory is required they will issue one."

Burnaby resident Teresa Heitzmaan said she rushed over after finding out about the fire, worried for her mother who lives three blocks away in the Bridgeview neighbourhood of Surrey.

"She has a sleep apnea machine ... and we phoned her 10 times to inform her to shut the windows," she said. "It's not a good smell. It's like a chemical smell and we could see from the [Patullo] bridge that a barge with cars was burning."

One onlooker told CBC News that at the height of the fire the flames were shooting over 20 metres into the air.

The fire was called in a 4:40 a.m. PT.

With files from Yvette Brend
A boy has died after being rescued at Woodbine Beach Friday afternoon, Toronto police say.

The boy, who paramedics say was 16-years-old, was taken to hospital with life-threatening injuries. He later succumbed to his injuries.

Paramedics say they assessed four people who were rescued from the water. In addition to the boy, they took two others to hospital.

A 15-year-old girl was taken to local hospital with serious, non-life-threatening injuries. Paramedics took another person with moderate injuries to local hospital. A fourth person was assessed by paramedics on the scene and was not taken to hospital.

Emergency crews were called on scene, near Lake Shore Boulevard E and Woodbine Avenue, around 2:40 p.m. with police saying they received reports that three people were in distress.

Police said shortly after 4 p.m. that everyone had been accounted for and that a water rescue search was being called off.

A number of boats took to the beach's whitecapped waves and some rescuers entered the waters in the height of the search. Several people were also on the shores when rescue efforts were underway.

The Canadian Coast Guard and the Royal Canadian Air Force assisted with the search. The Canadian Coast Guard Ship Cape Storm, a 47-foot motor lifeboat, and an RCAF Griffon helicopter were on scene during the rescue. Four Metro Marine vessels and lifeguard boats were also used.

Toronto fire was also on scene.

Toronto Public Health has warned against swimming at some beaches due to the significant rainfall, which has caused high water levels in some parts of the city.

However, the Toronto SwimSafe website listed Woodbine Beach as safe to swim as of Thursday, but police say the public was warned of strong undertows in the area.
When Stephen Ayeni and Naafiu Mohammed first met in a math class at the University of Toronto in 2015, they had plenty to talk about.

As international students from Nigeria, the two instantly hit it off. They talked about life in Canada and started studying for calculus exams and assignments together.

But it didn't take long before the inevitable came up: how much they missed the food back home in Nigeria.

"One of the first things I noticed was how much I missed my mom's cooking," Ayeni remembered of his first days in Canada.

The 20-year-old wasn't much of a cook when he left Nigeria. But at his first Canadian home in Port Dover, he faced an even bigger challenge when he tried to whip up some of his mom's old classics.

"When I was trying to replicate Nigerian food, I figured out that it was really difficult to get those actual ingredients," he said on CBC Radio's Metro Morning, recounting his old four-hour round trip drive to an African grocer. "I realized that was a problem for the African community in Canada."

To help solve that problem for other homesick Africans, the two friends teamed up to launch Afrocart last year.

Store offers rare African ingredients

The online marketplace carries around 200 African products including spices, snacks and soups. The selection includes hard-to-find ingredients like ground crayfish, African curry powders and a Cameroonian hot pepper blend.

When the store launched in late October 2017, Afrocart racked up $300 in sales within its first week.

"I was shocked," said Mohammed, 21. "To me, it really shows the true demand that's really out there."

Mohammed and Ayeni buy the products in bulk from an African grocery store in Toronto, then sell to customers who can't easily access similar brick-and-mortar businesses.

Kilishi, a type of spicy beef jerky native to Nigeria's Hausa ethnic group, has been the store's hottest seller so far.

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"Every time we get this product, in three or four days, it's gone," Ayeni said with a laugh. "My friends are texting me saying, 'Hey when are you getting it back? We need it!.'"

International orders

Afrocart has shipped orders across Canada and the U.S., and as far as France and the U.K.

The two friends-turned-business partners also make local deliveries themselves.

"When we deliver the products we get that feeling that we're actually helping the customers out," said Mohammed.

"We're on that path of actually influencing everybody's life in a positive way," he added. "And I guess it's just through food or grocery shopping."
As crews in Ontario continue to make progress containing the forest fire called Parry Sound 33, officials with the Municipality of French River have lifted the evacuation alert that had been placed on the area since July 30.

In a news release Friday morning, the municipality said the area includes the Alban area, west of Highway 64.

As Parry Sound 33 remains "being held" at 11,362 hectares by firefighters, the Ministry of Natural Resources said the fire is not likely to spread beyond control boundaries under forecasted conditions.

The ministry has also revoked its restrictions for travel and waterway use in the area, east and west of Highway 69.

The entire area still remains a fire restricted zone, meaning any outdoor fires, fireworks and the use of tiki torches are all banned.

More restrictions lifted

Hundreds of residents and cottagers within the wider Municipality of Killarney also received good news on Friday, as those along Hartley Bay Road and the French River once again have access to their properties.

However, some travel restrictions do remain in place for certain areas.

No boaters are allowed on the Pickerel and Key rivers between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m.

"That's to protect the people going in and out, as well as the fire crews, because they're working on the south shore of the Pickerel, trying to force this fire back on itself and put it out," said Jim Rook, the municipality of Killarney's emergency manager.

"But cottagers can come to their place as long as they're here before eight in the morning or after eight at night."

Rook himself was among the permanent residents of Hartley Bay Road forced out by the forest fire almost two weeks ago.

He added that only a small southwest portion of the Pickerel river remained under travel restrictions as of Friday afternoon. Rook noted that's a sign that Parry Sound 33 remains very active in sections within its perimeter, despite firefighters managing to keep it contained.

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"The crews will be in here I would think for quite a bit longer, since we're not getting any rain," he said. "It feels like we're the only place in Ontario where it never rains anymore."

Provincial Parks beginning to reopen

Grundy Lake Provincial Park and French River Provincial Park also announced they were re-opening Friday, although several restrictions remain in place.

In French River, visitors are still prohibited from accessing any area of the park within 500 metres of the fire's containment zone, including campsites.

The park's visitor centre will stay closed until further notice, while anyone who wants to purchase permits for the park can still obtain those through local outfitters.

Ontario Parks website has an updated list of park reopenings.
By Yimou Lee and Stephen Nellis TAIPEI/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Mobile chipmaker Qualcomm Inc will settle an anti-trust case with Taiwanese regulators for about $93 million, and has also pledged to invest $700 million in Taiwan over the next five years. The settlement replaces a fine of roughly $778 million imposed by Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission in 2017, when it accused the U.S. firm of refusing to sell chips to mobile handset makers that wouldn't agree to its patent-licensing terms. It was also accused of cutting iPhone maker Apple Inc a royalty discount in exchange for the exclusive use of Qualcomm's modem chips in the past. Under the settlement, Qualcomm will have to provide reports every six months to Taiwanese officials for five years to show it is negotiating in good faith with handset makers in patent-licensing deals. Moreover, Qualcomm will be required to offer patent licenses to rival chipmakers such as Intel Corp and MediaTek Inc <2454.TW> on fair terms before seeking to enforce its patent rights against them in court. Qualcomm also is in the midst of appealing a $927 million fine from the Korea Fair Trade Commission and a $1.2 billion fine from the European Commission. It also faces a lawsuit from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission and is in a wide-ranging legal dispute with Apple. As part of the Taiwanese settlement, Qualcomm will continue to be allowed to charge a royalty based on the selling price of a handset - a core part of its licensing model that Apple and others have objected to. Because the settlement replaces the original decision and fine, other anti-trust regulators and legal foes will now be less likely to be able to use the commission's findings as a basis for their own legal actions. Mediatek said the Commission's decision failed to protect a fair competitive environment as Qualcomm was not required to adjust its business model of charging a royalty fee. "It will have negative impact on Taiwan's 5G industry and therefore hurt Taiwan's global competitiveness," the company said in a statement on Friday. As part of the deal Qualcomm said it had agreed to build new manufacturing and operations facilities in Taiwan and work with Taiwan universities and start-ups on technology initiatives around so-called 5G technology, the next generation of wireless networks. Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission said that amounted to an investment pledge of $700 million over five years. "With the uncertainty removed, we can now focus on expanding our relationships that support the Taiwanese wireless industry and rapid adoption of 5G technology," Alex Rogers, Qualcomm's patent licensing chief, said in a statement. (Reporting by Yimou Lee in TAIPEI and Stephen Nellis in SAN FRANCISCO; Editing by Edwina Gibbs and Manolo Serapio Jr.)
Just like the heat wave, it seems like summer festival season just won't end in Manitoba.

To catch up on what's going on this week, we've brought back 3 CBC personalities to lay out some of the highlights.

Ismaila Alfa's pick: Folklorama

One of the world's largest, and longest running multicultural festival is back for another year.

The first weekend of Folklorama is here, with over 40 countries present over two weeks. It would be extremely difficult to make it to every pavilion, but I have a few favorites to share with you for this weekend.

Mexico Pavilion

RBC Convention Centre (Third Floor, North Building)

Between the amazing authentic and traditional Mexican Cuisine, and the stunning craft market there's already enough reason to make it out to the Mexican Pavilion. But this year, a special performance from the International Ballet Folklorico de la Universidad Veracruzana will highlight the pavilion. A show seen for the first time ever in Canada, Para Bailar La Bamba, will be presented each evening surrounded by music and traditional folklore from the Gulf of Mexico.

Israel Pavilion

Asper Jewish Community Campus

It's a big year for Israel, celebrating 70 years of independence, and the pride will carry through to Folklorama.

What amazes me about the Israel Pavilion when I have the chance to attend is that most of the music you hear is all performed by a live ensemble. From the music you hear entering the pavilion to the performances on stage, top-notch musicians are creating it all live.

Combined with the excellent falafel, pita, and hummus you can pick up, this is always a must-visit country.

Africa/Carribean Pavilion

Pembina Curling Club

I have to mention the Africa/Carribean Pavilion for this weekend. Full disclosure, I volunteered for years at this Pavilion (Youth Ambassador, 1989) and absolutely fell in love with the culture presented. Fire-eater Prince Jo Jo makes the trip to Folklorama every year from Jamaica. This year is no different, and you can also catch performances from the Afro-Caribbean Dancers and Ariya Afrika, as well as the lovely voices of the Jamaican Folk Ensemble.

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Just to make your mouth water, I'll name roti, Jamaican patties, ginger beer, and rum punch as some of the flavours to go along with the shows.

The pavilions turn over on Sunday, so make sure you catch some of these great countries over the next couple days.

Colton Hutchinson's pick: rural music festivals

Rural Manitoba has been congested with great music festivals all summer, and this weekend is no different.

I couldn't even pick a favourite this week, so I'm going to cheat a little and run down a whole list, and you can pick your fancy.

Flin Flon Blueberry Jam Music Gathering

The City of Flin Flon has been working hard to get ready for their inaugural Blueberry Jam Music Gathering.

This is a brand new, three day festival full of music and camping, and it's all happening free of admission

Flin Flon built a brand new stage in hopes that the festival will become an annual event. The Blueberry Jam will feature artists from Flin Flon, across Manitoba, and throughout the Prairies for three full days of music.

It's all happening in the Flin Flon Campground Friday through Sunday, steps away from the blueberry bushes.

Festival 59 Bluesfest

Some of the finest Bluester's in the province will be hanging out at the Hilltop Resort outside of Grand Beach this weekend.

Big Dave McLean, Tracy K, and Greg Leskiw are just a couple of names you can catch on stage. Hill Top Resort boasts ATV Trails, mud pits and a beach to cool down with between sets.

Festival 59 takes place on Friday and Saturday with camping available.

Rockin Horse Music Fest

Doc Walker heads the bill in Morris, Manitoba out at the stampede grounds. Rockin' Horse Music Festival is a one day affair with some of the province's favourite names in country music like The Windups, Greg Arcade, and The Honeysliders.

Music starts at 2 p.m. on Saturday and runs through the evening

Toba Rockfest 2018

The headbangers are reading this list and asking where is our Festival? The answer is St. Andrews.

Toba Rockfest is back in full force this Saturday with some of Manitoba's favourite local rockers.

Moon Tan, Ex Omerta, and Bright Righteous will all be present, as well as a special treat in the headlining act. It will be an early 2000's throwback when Winnipeg's Jet Set Satellite are returning for a special performance.

Tickets are $40 with all proceeds heading toward the Rainbow Resource Centre in Winnipeg.

Sam Samson's pick: Moulin Rouge rooftop singalong

The Winnipeg Art Gallery is having a fun night under the stars on their rooftop this evening,

As a part of the Summer With the Impressionists Gallery which is currently featured, they're hosting a Rooftop Pop-Up sing-along of the film Moulin Rouge.

Join Nicole Kidman, Ewan McGregor, and the cast of can-can dancers for an unforgettable Burlesque sing-along of the classic 2001 film.

Lyrics will be provided, unless you're like me and know every word by heart.

The screening is at 9PM for $10. The age is limited to 18+. There's limited space on the rooftop so make sure to reserve your seat online.
Appellate Court of Illinois, Third District. THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ROBERT HIATT, Defendant-Appellee. Appeal No. 3-16-0751 Decided: August 10, 2018

OPINION

 1 Defendant, Robert Hiatt, was charged with three counts of unlawful delivery of cannabis. He entered into a plea agreement with the State in which he pled guilty to the charges and was released on his own recognizance to assist the authorities until his sentencing hearing. A month later, the State requested a revocation of Hiatt's recognizance bond, which the trial court granted, and a warrant was issued for Hiatt's arrest. Subsequently, the court sentenced Hiatt in absentia to nine years' imprisonment. Fifteen days later, Hiatt was arrested in Florida and extradited to Illinois, where he was taken into custody. Hiatt filed a pro se postconviction petition, arguing, inter alia, that his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance of counsel when he failed to investigate his mental state and that he was prejudiced because he was unfit to plead guilty. The petition advanced to the third stage of postconviction proceedings, and ultimately, the trial court vacated Hiatt's guilty plea. The State filed a motion to reconsider, which the trial court denied, and the State appealed. We affirm the trial court's grant of Hiatt's postconviction petition.

 2 FACTS

 3 In April 2013, defendant was charged with three counts of unlawful delivery of cannabis for delivering cannabis to an agent of the Rock Island County Sheriff's Department. In November 2013, the State informed the court about the parties' negotiated plea:

MR. LAREAU [public defender]: Your Honor, we have a partially negotiated plea whereby Mr. Hiatt will be pleading open to all three counts of the information. We'll be releasing him on a recognizance pending the sentencing hearing to be held by agreement in front of Judge Braud.

When the court asked if the State agreed to the terms of the release despite defendant's criminal history, the State responded, Yes, [Y]our Honor. There's some things the defendant needs to do to show that he should [sic] shouldn't go back to the department of corrections.

 4 The court asked Hiatt if he understood the nature of his charges, the possible penalties, and his rights under the law, and he responded yes. The court also asked Hiatt if he wished to plead guilty to the charges, and he responded yes. Hiatt acknowledged that he signed a plea of guilty and waiver of trial by judge and by jury form that had stated he was entering a plea of guilty on all counts. The court accepted Hiatt's guilty plea and released him on his own recognizance. Hector Lareau, Hiatt's defense counsel, informed the court that the parties had agreed to delay the presentencing report and requested a review hearing. The court continued the case for further review regarding the plea and subsequent sentencing to March 10th.

 5 Prior to his release, Hiatt signed a form addressing the conditions of his recognizance bond. The form stated that (1) he must appear in court on March 10, (2) he must submit himself to the orders and process of the court, (3) he must not leave the state without authorization from the court, (4) he must not violate any criminal laws, (5) he must report to court services, and (6) he must notify the clerk of the circuit court of any change in his address.

 6 In December 2013, the State made an oral motion to revoke Hiatt's recognizance bond, and the court granted the motion and issued a warrant for Hiatt's arrest. On March 10, 2014, Hiatt failed to appear in court. He failed to appear again on March 31, and the court sentenced him in absentia to nine years' imprisonment and one year mandatory supervised release. In July 2014, he appeared in court and was taken into custody.

 7 In May 2015, Hiatt filed a pro se petition for postconviction relief, arguing that Lareau rendered ineffective assistance when he failed to investigate and recognize his mental challenges. Hiatt also claimed that the parties had an agreement that he would plead guilty and receive probation if he would be employed as a [D]rug Enforcement Agent, assigned to apprehend any Drug Lord or his conspirators/co-conspirators. He argued that he believed, pursuant to the agreement, he'd become a police officer like he saw on television and that he followed a flow of drugs from Rock Island to Florida, where the police officers stopped him for being in a Drug infested part of the state. He alleged that his subsequent arrest and extradition to Illinois violated his constitutional rights because there were no charges against him in Florida. He also noted that he had been under psychiatric care and taking psychotropic drugs since he had been incarcerated.

 8 The trial court advanced Hiatt's petition to the second stage of postconviction proceedings, and he was appointed counsel. Hiatt filed an amended postconviction petition, alleging that Lareau rendered ineffective assistance when he failed to investigate Hiatt's mental state before he pled guilty. Hiatt claims that his mental illness is evinced in his pro se petition when he stated that the plea agreement included his employment as a drug enforcement agent and that he believed he would become a police officer like he saw on television. He also argues that if Lareau had inquired into his mental state, Lareau would have discovered defendant was diagnosed with depression, anxiety disorder, psychosis, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and was taking medication. Moreover, Lareau would have discovered Hiatt's Iowa case, in which he was ordered to complete a fitness evaluation. Hiatt, however, was ultimately found fit to stand trial in the Iowa case. In the trial court's order of disposition, it stated that Hiatt must complete mental health treatment and provide proof to the court. The State filed a motion to dismiss the amended petition. The court denied the motion and advanced the petition to the third stage of postconviction proceedings.

 9 In October 2016, an evidentiary hearing was held. Hiatt testified that, to his understanding, he and the State agreed that, If I were to get out then I wouldif I plead guilty then I can get out and I could go home, and then I had to put peoplebust people, find people that were selling drugs and turn them in and then that would be it and I wouldn't have to go to prison. The judge was not directly notified of this agreement. When he was released, he returned to his neighborhood where individuals called him a snitch and would not associate with him. Based on this treatment, he assumed he could not set anyone up so he went to Florida to find drug dealers. He observed that there was not much drug activity I felt going on up here and believed that there will be a lot more deals and stuff being made in Florida. He did not know anyone when he went to Florida and stayed on the streets. He was in Florida for four to five months until he was arrested on April 15, 2014, and extradited to Illinois.

 10 Hiatt appeared in court in July and was shocked to learn that he had been sentenced to nine years' imprisonment. Hiatt stated that he did not agree to nine years. He was initially offered a plea deal of two years but I thought it would be better if I could get out right away because it's hard for me to be in prison so he agreed to be released on his own recognizance. He suffered from depression, anxiety, psychosis, PTSD, OCD, and ADHD. Since 2012, he had been taking psychotropic medication for his mental illnesses. When Hiatt was initially arrested, he was consistently taking his medication in jail. When asked if Lareau asked him about taking psychotropic medication, he stated, No, I don't believe he did. He could have, but I don't recall. He only came to see me I believe two times for 15 minutes and it wasn'tI can't remember exactly if he asked me, but if he would have asked me I would have told him the truth. He also stated that he did not recall talking to Lareau about his psychiatric treatment history.

 11 In 2011, Hiatt was charged with second degree robbery in Iowa. During the pendency of the case, the court ordered him to perform a fitness evaluation. Lareau never asked Hiatt about the fitness evaluation. Hiatt never talked to Lareau about his mental health problems or his medication. When Hiatt entered into the plea agreement he had mental health problems but was taking medication. He believed his mental conditions and his medication affected his ability to enter into the agreement, and he would not have entered into the agreement under a different mental state. He stated that,

I feel when I have my relapses with mental illness I just feel like I don't know what's going on, I don't know where I'm at really and stuff like that. But right now I've been working on mymyself and trying to get better because I have a lot going on. When I get out I want to be better for my family.

 12 After he began his nine-year sentence, Hiatt received different mental health treatment in the Illinois Department of Corrections (DOC) than he had in the Rock Island County jail. Defendant averred that if he had received the same treatment in the county jail,

I feel like my head would be more clear and to think about it than just tojust to answer and just say the wrong thing because when I'mwhen I'm mentally going on it's like I don't understand what's going on and I don't know where I'm at. I'll live right down the street my whole life and I'll be standing there, like where am I, I don't know where I'm at. And then I'll go in the gas station and I'll ask the clerk to say, will you call my sister for me? And he'll be like, who is your sister? And that happens from time to time. And that's how I felt, and it's a very scary feeling and that's how I kind of felt around the time that I was going through.

 13 Currently, Haitt was not taking the medication directed by the DOC because they made him feel suicidal. He had been dealing with his mental illnesses on his own. He was no longer taking Xanax or Adderall because they told me that theythat was the medicine that I felt worked pretty good, but when I got to DOC they said we are not having this, you are not taking this. They started to put me on this other stuff, but I'm not taking it.

 14 Hiatt remembered pleading guilty to all three counts because that's what I had to do to go home so I did it and at the time I thought it was a good idea. So I thought it was just the best deal or go to prison. He realized that he had made a bad decision accepting the plea deal when he learned that he was sentenced to nine years' imprisonment. He knew he was supposed to return for sentencing on March 31 but did not know he would suffer consequences if he did not appear.

 15 Lareau testified that he was an assistant public defender for Rock Island County Public Defender's Office. Hiatt was Lareau's client, and they met at least twice in the jail and other times in the courtroom. Initially, the State had offered Hiatt a four-year prison sentence. Lareau clarified that he would have explained to Hiatt that he could receive day-for-day credit and his sentence could be lessened to two years. The parties came to an alternative agreement in which Hiatt would plead guilty and be released on recognizance bond if he did work for the authorities. Lareau explained that,

the objective was to keep Mr. Hiatt out of DOC. Mr. Hiatt has expressed to me several times that he was very, very reluctant to return. Apparently on his last trip to DOC he had gotten a pretty severe injury. He had a facial scar that was pretty prominent and he did not want to go back because he feared further injury or harm to his person.

Lareau hope[d] that if Hiatt cooperated with authorities, he would receive probation. Lareau and Hiatt never talked about Hiatt's medication. Lareau believed that Hiatt understood what was happening during his plea and that the plea agreement was the closest deal to meeting Hiatt's objectives of not returning to DOC. He never had trouble understanding Hiatt. Hiatt was told that he had to come back to court for sentencing. After Hiatt was released, Lareau did not have contact with him. He tried every number in Hiatt's file but was unable to reach him. He received a call from the state's attorney's office expressing concern that Hiatt had not been in touch with the authorities.

 16 Hiatt never exhibited any behaviors that would make Lareau inquire into his mental condition. He would have inquired about Hiatt's mental condition if he had known that defendant was taking medication. Hiatt never told Lareau about his concerns of being unable to help the authorities because no one would associate with him or about his plan to go to Florida. When asked if Lareau knew about Hiatt's prior fitness evaluation in his Iowa case, Lareau responded,

You know, now that you say that it may be that I recall something about that, but nothingI mean, I would have to looked [sic] at the file and notes and so on to have a particular recollection about that. But I guess you saying that makes me think that perhaps I did know about that.

The plea agreement did not involve Hiatt going down to Florida and getting drug lords but rather involved with him working locally with authorities.

 17 The trial court granted Hiatt's postconviction petition. Specifically, it stated:

A few comments. Mr. McCooley is quite right when he speaks of the Mitchell [ (People v. Mitchell, 189 Ill. 2d 312 (2000)) ] case and merely being on drugs does not necessitate a fitness hearing. To put a finer point on it, my understanding of the issue or the law as it relates to the issue here after reading Mitchell is additionally merely having a mental illness would not necessarily require a fitness hearing. People can be on medication people, people can have mental illness, and it can be controlled and that doesn't rise to the level of requiring a fitness hearing.

Additionally, I think for purposes of the Strickland [ (Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984)) ] test as we are here today under these facts, the issue is not would a fitness hearing have been ordered or should have been ordered, but is there a reasonable probability that had one been ordered the defendant would have been found unfit. The reason being, there has to be some actual prejudice and if the evidence is to show that a fitness hearing would have been ordered and the defendant found fit that doesn't change anything so there's no prejudice.

* * *

I find [defendant's] testimony about the Florida trip credible. Looking at his testimony in its entirety and these other factors that seem to be right on point and accurate, I don't have any reason to disbelieve him as he sits here about why he went to Florida, what he was trying to do, and I also believe him when he talks about maybe he's feeling better now.

Based on all that, I do agree with Mr. Nieman with respect to the second prong. I think there is a reasonable probability here that a fitness evaluation would have resulted in the finding of unfitness based upon what was going on in the defendant's mind at the time.

I do note the transcript. And as you go through that transcript it speaks basically what the defendant says, and this is typical of most transcripts. Yes, sir. No. Guilty. Yes. Things of that nature.

But in the Mitchell case there's some language in there: We recognize that a trial judge cannot rely on trial demeanor to dispense with a fitness hearing in the face of evidence of a bona fide doubt of defendant's fitness. So the transcript is not the end of the story here.

So, as I said, I do think the second prong has been met by the defense. First prong, there's alternative arguments and Mr. Nieman makes those arguments. I'll refer to them.

And, Mr. Niemancorrect me if I'm wrongthere's the post-plea argument and the pre-plea argument. I find the post-plea argument somewhat problematic because, assuming everything I just talked about is true, I don't find any evidence Mr. Lareau knew about that. I don't think he knew about the Florida thing. And to the extent he may have, it's not clear when. Mr. Lareau's memory is not that clear. I think he even said he didn't review his notes. And talks about a quick meeting at some point with Mr. Umlah here in the courtroom when, I believe, he referenced 15 other pretrials going on. And everybody that's in this courtroom on a regular basis knows how pretrials work here and the number of cases going.

* * *

And with respect to the post-plea argument of Mr. Nieman I did look at the presentence investigation. There's one little line in there, but most of it is because he didn't report. There isn't any evidence for them to make any sort of determination in the presentence investigation of the type of issues we are talking about today.

At the same time I have no doubt in my mind that if the defendant had come back and had told Mr. Lareau he'd been in Florida trying to capture drug dealers in accordance with his agreement, I don't have any doubt in my mind Mr. Lareau would have requested a fitness hearing at that point. I think that would have been enough to trigger it. But, again, we are talking about things that didn't happen and there just isn't much that did happen post-plea to put Mr. Lareau on notice.

The one comment though that I keep coming back to in my notes and in my review of this is Mr. Lareau's testimony at one point. It could be that he recalls the Iowa fitness. Perhaps he knew it. It seems like the tenor of his testimony was that, Mr. Nieman I believe asked that question, he does recognize in his memory that he has some awareness of a fitness issue in Iowa. So at this point he's aware of a fitness issue recently and no action is taken based on that not even to explore it with the defendant.

I'm granting a petition for post-conviction relief. The plea is vacated.

The State filed a motion to reconsider, which the trial court denied. The State appealed.

 18 ANALYSIS

 19 The State challenges the trial court's grant of Hiatt's postconviction petition, arguing that the court erred when it found that Hiatt's defense counsel rendered ineffective assistance of counsel. The Post-Conviction Hearing Act allows a defendant to challenge his conviction or sentence for violations of federal or state constitutional rights. 725 ILCS 5/122-1 et seq. (West 2016). To be entitled to postconviction relief, a defendant must show that he has suffered a substantial deprivation of his federal or state constitutional rights in the proceedings that produced the conviction or sentence being challenged. People v. Pendleton, 223 Ill. 2d 458, 471 (2006). Postconviction proceedings may include up to three stages. Id. at 472. When a petition is advanced to a third-stage, evidentiary hearing, where fact-finding and credibility determinations are involved, we will not reverse a circuit court's decision unless it is manifestly erroneous. Id. at 473.

 20 To prevail on a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, the defendant must show that (1) counsel's performance was so seriously deficient as to fall below an objective standard of reasonableness under prevailing professional norms and (2) the deficient performance so prejudiced the defendant as to deny him a fair trial. People v. Mitchell, 189 Ill. 2d 312, 332 (2000) (citing Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984)). A counsel's performance is measured by an objective standard of competence under prevailing professional norms. People v. Easley, 192 Ill. 2d 307, 317 (2000). [T]he defendant must overcome the strong presumption that the challenged action or inaction might have been the product of sound trial strategy. Id. Under the prejudice prong of the Strickland test, defendant must show that there is a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the results of the proceeding would have been different. Id.

 21 The State claims that counsel's failure did not constitute deficient performance because Hiatt did not exhibit any behaviors during his guilty plea that would raise a bona fide doubt of his fitness. The State also argues that, even if defense counsel did not inquire about Hiatt's mental health, Hiatt was not prejudiced because (1) his prior Iowa case would not raise a bona fide doubt of his fitness because he was found fit to stand trial and (2) his history of taking medication for his mental illness alone does not raise a bona fide doubt of unfitness.

 22 A defendant is presumed to be fit to stand trial. People v. Griffin, 178 Ill. 2d 65, 79 (1997). However, a defendant will be considered unfit if, because of his mental and physical condition, he is unable to understand the nature and purpose of the proceedings against him to assist in his defense. Id. Fitness speaks only to a person's ability to function within the context of a trial; a defendant may be fit to stand trial even though the defendant's mind is otherwise unsound. Id. A defendant is entitled to a pretrial fitness hearing only when a bona fide doubt of his fitness to stand trial or be sentenced exists. People v. Johnson, 183 Ill. 2d 176, 193 (1998). [T]he question of whether a bona fide doubt of fitness exists is a fact-specific inquiry. People v. Rosado, 2016 IL App (1st) 140826,  31.

 23 The State relies on three cases to support its argument that Hiatt did not provide evidence that raised a bona fide doubt of his fitness at the time he pled guilty. In Tapscott, the defendant claimed that defense counsel rendered ineffective assistance of counsel when he failed to request a fitness hearing on direct appeal. People v. Tapscott, 386 Ill. App. 3d 1064, 1078 (2008). The Fourth District determined that the evidence revealed that the defendant understood the nature of the proceedings and participated in his defense when (1) defense counsel testified that he did not observe anything that would give him a bona fide doubt of the defendant's fitness, (2) the defendant's testimony showed his understanding of the legal process, (3) the defendant's argument that he did not remember his rights did not prove he did not understand his rights, (4) the court knew about the defendant's low IQ, (5) the defendant stated he understood his rights and the details of the proceedings, and (6) the defendant communicated with his defense counsel. Id. at 1077-79. Therefore, the court ruled that the defendant did not meet the prejudice prong of the Strickland test. Id.

 24 In Rosado, the defendant argued that the trial court erred when it dismissed his postconviction petition in which he claimed that trial counsel was ineffective for failing to request a fitness hearing. Rosado, 2016 IL App (1st) 140826,  41. The First District noted that the issue for the court was not whether the defendant suffered a mental illness but whether he was unable to understand the proceedings and cooperate with counsel. Id.  44. Based on this reasoning, it found that evidence of the defendant's mental illness history and the medication he was on at the time of his plea only showed the defendant suffered a mental illness and did not show his inability to participate in court. Id. Also, the court determined that the evidence showed that the defendant understood the nature and purpose of the proceedings. Id.  45. Specifically, he behaved respectfully and rationally in court, understood and wished to plead guilty to the charges and sentencing range, and was willing to relinquish his rights under the law. Id.  4647. Furthermore, the defendant was evaluated prior to trial and found fit to stand trial. Id.  45. The First District concluded that there was no bona fide doubt to the defendant's fitness and that he was not prejudiced by defense counsel's failure to request a fitness hearing. Id.  49.

 25 In Tuduj, the defendant alleged that defense counsel rendered ineffective assistance when counsel failed to request a reevaluation of his fitness to stand trial. People v. Tuduj, 2014 IL App (1st) 092536,  83. The First District reasoned that there was no bona fide doubt as to the defendant's fitness because (1) before the defendant's trial, the trial court conducted a fitness hearing and found him fit to stand trial, (2) neither the prosecution nor the defense questioned the defendant's fitness at the subsequent hearing, (3) defendant's refusal to cooperate was based on a long-standing disagreement with his attorneys regarding trial strategy and not based on mental illness, (4) the court did not express any concerns about the defendant's fitness to stand trial, and (5) the defendant was able to articulate his position and strategy at the hearing. Id.  91-96. The court also reasoned that defense counsel's statement that he might have a  mental illness problem,  that he might be bipolar, and that  there's probably a real fitness issue here, too  did not raise a bona fide doubt of fitness because the statements only indicated the defendant's mental illness, not his inability to understand the nature of the proceedings against him. Id.  92. Furthermore, the court stated that defense counsel's statement that  there's probably a real fitness issue here  contradicted his conclusion that the defendant would be found fit if another fitness hearing had been conducted. Id.  93. Thus, the court found that the defendant had not met the prejudice prong under Strickland. Id.  97.

 26 These cases are all distinguishable from the present case. The courts in the aforementioned cases found that there was evidence to support the State's argument that the defendant understood the nature and purpose of the proceedings. Here, we find that Lareau rendered deficient performance. Lareau failed to inquire about defendant's prior fitness evaluation in his Iowa case although he acknowledged some awareness about that fitness evaluation. If he had inquired about the Iowa case, he would have learned that, although defendant had been found fit, Hiatt's mental illness could affect his ability to plead guilty in a subsequent case because the trial court in the Iowa case ordered defendant to complete mental health treatment in its order of disposition. Moreover, there is no evidence that Lareau's failure to inquire about Hiatt's prior fitness evaluation was a matter of sound trial strategy.

 27 We also hold Hiatt was prejudiced by counsel's performance because the evidence shows there was a bona fide doubt of his fitness at the time he pled guilty. Hiatt had been diagnosed with depression, anxiety disorder, psychosis, PTSD, OCD, and ADHD. When he was initially taken into custody, he consistently took the medications prescribed to him by the county jail. Hiatt testified that, during his guilty plea proceedings, his mental conditions and medications affected his ability to enter into the plea agreement because he was experiencing a relapse with mental illness and did not understand what was happening. This lack of understanding is evident in his petition in which he stated that he believed he would be employed as a [D]rug Enforcement Agent, assigned to apprehend any Drug Lord or his conspirators/co-conspirators and would become a police officer like he saw on television if he accepted the plea agreement. Subsequently, defendant went to Florida to follow[ ] a flow of drugs from Rock Island to Florida and set up individuals conducting drug activity. He did not know anyone in Florida and continued to stay[ ] on the streets until he was arrested. The trial court found defendant to be credible. Therefore, we find that trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance of counsel. Accordingly, we affirm the trial court's grant of Hiatt's postconviction petition.

 28 CONCLUSION

 29 The judgment of the circuit court of Will County is affirmed.

 30 Affirmed.

JUSTICE McDADE delivered the judgment of the court, with opinion.

Presiding Justice Carter and Justice Holdridge concurred in the judgment and opinion.
Its been a two-year wait, but at this years IPCPR Trade Show, Fred Rewey finally brought his Nomad Signature line for a widespread release.

Nomad Signature made its debut at the 2016 IPCPR Trade Show. At the time, Rewey released it to a limited number of retailers in order to beat the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)s August 8, 2016 deadline for pre-market approval. Last year, Rewey opted to showcase Fin de los Mundos, another line that had a limited release in 2016.

The Nomad Signature features an Ecuadorian wrapper and binder. The fillers are from Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic. Rewey said this is will most likely become Nomads first vintage release. Nomad Signature uses a Dominican tobacco that has been known to vary the resulting blend depending on the vintage crop it has come from. Rewey has used this to his advantage, making a story around the blend. Production comes from Fabrica Oveja Negra in Esteli, Nicaragua.

The cigar is available in four sizes  each presented in 20-count boxes. At press time, the cigars are currently shipping to retailers.

At a glance, here is a look at the Nomad Signature Series:

Blend Profile

Wrapper: Ecuadorian

Binder: Ecuadorian

Filler: Nicaraguan, Dominican

Country of Origin: Nicaragua (Fabrica Oveja Negra)

Vitolas Available

Shorty: 4 x 54

Corona Gordo: 5 1/2 x 48

Robusto: 5 x 50

Toro: 6 x 50

Photo Credit: Cigar Coop
Pier 28 Premium Cigars has added its first lancero into its portfolio. The cigar is an extension to the Pier 28 Habano, the companys first blend.

According to brand owner Tim Wong, the Pier 28 Habano Lancero uses the same blend as the rest of the Pier 28 Habano line. The blend consists of an Ecuadorian Habano Cafe wrapper over a Nicaraguan binder and a combination of Nicaraguan and Dominican fillers. As with all Pier 28 Cigars, the Pier 28 Habano cigar originates from Erik Espinosas La Zona factory in Esteli, Nicaragua. Wong says the 7 1/2 x 38 format intensifies the sweetness of the blend.

The lancero will come in 10-count flat boxes as opposed to the 20-count cabinet boxes even across the rest of the Pier 28 Habano. Pricing is set at $8.99 per cigar.

Photo Credits: Pier 28 Premium Cigars
For the second year in a row, JRE Tobacco Company had its own booth at the IPCPR Trade Show. The booth was in a very similar place to where it was the year before, located toward the rear and side of the trade show floor. Like the previous year, the location didnt matter as the company once again had quite a busy IPCPR.

JRE Tobacco Company is the joint venture between Julio Eiroa and his son Justo. The company features three brands: Aladino, Rancho Luna, and Tatascan. Since launching in 2016, Aladino has emerged as the most popular brand. In 2018, it was the Aladino brand that was center stage as two extensions to the brand were launched.

One of the line extensions is the Aladino Corojo Reserva. Its a 100% Authentic Corojo cigar that incorporates a corona priming into the blend. The high priming of the corona makes this a bolder offering under the Aladino brand. The cigar is being released in one size: a 5 x 50 Robusto available in 20-count boxes. The cigar is produced at the companys Las Lomas factory in Honduras.

After a soft launch to select retailers, the Aladino Maduro finally had a widespread launch. Aladino Maduro incorporates a San Andres Maduro wrapper over a blend of Honduran tobaccos from the Eiroa Tobacco farm. The line has been launched in four sizes. The Aladino Maduro is available in four sizes: Elegante (7 x 38), Cazador (6 x 46), Robusto (5 x 50), and Toro (6 x 50). All of the sizes are box-pressed with the exception of the Elegante.

Finally, the Tatascan Yellow Series, a value-priced offering, introduced more elegant black and gold colored bands.

2018 Product Reports

Photo Credits: Cigar Coop
FRIDAY, Aug. 10, 2018 (American Heart Association) -- When Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico last fall, Jose Maldonado was heartbroken. Although he now lives in Maryland, he has strong ties to the island where he was born. But when his sisters tried to convince him to help with disaster relief, he was skeptical.

"In the beginning, I told them they were crazy to have me down there," he said. Maldonado survived a stroke 16 years ago, and walks with a cane because of partial paralysis. He wasn't sure how much help he could be. But his sisters finally persuaded him, telling him, "You're just what we need to convince people that there's hope out there and that people care."

In 2017, the U.S. was slammed by three major hurricanes that hit not only Puerto Rico, but also large areas in Texas and Florida, and caused over $200 billion in damage. These communities have scrambled to recover and then to prepare for a new hurricane season, which began June 1 and runs to Nov. 30. And while most of the focus is on the immediate devastation, health researchers are still investigating how superstorms impact communities long-term -- especially minorities and low-income populations.

After a hurricane, it can be difficult to get to a doctor for a checkup as well as get medications. Stress and trauma also intensify, all leading to an increase in cardiovascular disease, said Dr. Ralph Sacco, chairman of the Department of Neurology at the University of Miami.

"Hurricanes acutely affect all kinds of basic support activities.  A hurricane is a stressor, and inequity in care can get amplified under that stressful situation," Sacco said.

Two months after Puerto Rico's hurricane, Maldonado arrived to find people still didn't have electricity and other basic needs. He walked up to 6 miles a day through difficult terrain to bring supplies and Christmas gifts house-to-house.

"I'm a professional with a great job and medical benefits. You can imagine someone who doesn't have these things. They usually fall through the cracks," Maldonado said.

"I had no idea how bad things were," he said. "And when it came to the stroke survivors, it was much worse."

As Maldonado witnessed, hurricanes can cause the most damage among vulnerable populations. One of the focuses of Sacco's research is why certain communities, especially black and Hispanic populations, suffer more strokes than others. As director of the Florida-Puerto Rico Collaboration to Reduce Stroke Disparities, funded by the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, he has seen firsthand how storms can increase those inequities in care.

Florida and Texas were able to recover more quickly than Puerto Rico, but Sacco said researchers don't have enough data on the long-term effects of these system breakdowns. Initial studies suggest the consequences may be significant.

In New Orleans, there was a fourfold increase in the incidence of heart attacks in the 11 years after Hurricane Katrina, according to a recent study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. And the incidence of heart attacks increased 22 percent in the New Jersey area hit hardest by Hurricane Sandy, according to research in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

While these statistics are dire, Sacco and others dealing with the effects of hurricanes emphasize that extreme weather events also reveal the resiliency of medical professionals and the populations they treat.

"We did very well during Hurricane Harvey when you compare its magnitude to other storms," said Darrell Pile, CEO of the Southeast Texas Regional Advisory Council, which leads the federal disaster preparedness and response program for 25 counties. It covers a population roughly comparable to the state of Missouri.

Although the hurricane was epic, he said hospitals pulled together, donating supplies and resources to each other. It's important for Texas residents to be prepared, and to gather any medications they might need beforehand, but he also believes his network of "over 150 hospitals and nearly 1,000 extended care facilities is well positioned to manage another storm."

Maldonado also was inspired by how Puerto Ricans pulled together to help each other through Hurricane Maria. The stroke survivors he visited had networks, friends and family helping them. "People were very willing to lend a hand, get food to them," he said.

It was the kind of support that made all the difference during his stroke recovery.

"I was really lucky because [my family] didn't give up on me even though I gave up on me," he said. "The fact that I reach out [to others] is a tribute to them."
By Benjamin Jumbe.

The minister of tourism wildlife and Antiquities Prof Ephraim Kamuntu has advised people living in Namayingo to avoid getting closer to breeding places for crocodiles to minimize loss of lives.

It comes at a time residents of islands in the district are expressing fear for their lives following crocodile attacks on several of their community members.

Prof Kamuntu made the call yesterday during a visit to Dolwe Islands in Namayingo district on the directive of the president where he met community members together with the district leaders.

He said government will in the interim trans-locate problem crocodiles, as a long term solution is being sought, with piped water to be also provided in the long run.

Meanwhile the Uganda Wildlife Executive director Sam Mwanda also said UWA will build cages to ensure people fetch water safely in addition to deploying rangers to quickly respond to distress calls

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Crocodile eats another man in Mayuge District
Iran Human Rights (Aug 8, 2018): At least two prisoners were executed at Rajai Shahr Prison on murder charges.





According to a close source, on the morning of Wednesday, August 8, at least two prisoners were executed at Rajai Shahr Prison.





The prisoners, sentenced to death on murder charges, were transferred to the solitary confinement in a group of six on Sunday, August 5.





The other four prisoners returned to their cells by either winning the consent of the plaintiffs or asking for time.





One of the prisoners who was executed was identified as Mohammad Abdi from ward 10. He was arrested on the charge of murder 12 years ago.





A close source told IHR, The plaintiffs didnt want to be present at the time of the execution, only their lawyer was there.





The other prisoner who was executed was an Afghan citizen who was sentenced to death on murder charges. He has not been identified so far.





The execution of these prisoners has not been announced by the state-run media so far.





According to confirmed reports by Iran Human Rights (IHR), at least 36 people were executed in different Iranian cities in the month of July, 24 of whom were sentenced to death on murder charges.

4 Afghan Citizens Scheduled to Be Executed

4 Afghan citizens who were sentenced to death on the charge of "armed drug trafficking and the murder of a police officer" are scheduled to be executed at Birjand Central Prison in the next few days.





According to a close source, 4 Afghan citizens are going to be executed at Birjand Central Prison in the next few days. The prisoners are named Shah Mohammad Miran Zehi, Eid Mohammad Miran Zehi, Mohammad Miran Zehi, and Ahmad Shah Saghzehi. The prisoners were sentenced to death on the charge of "armed drug trafficking and the murder of a police officer".





A co-defendant of the prisoners named Seraj Gavkhor, has been sentenced to 25 years and 1 day. All 5 prisoners are currently held at ward 105 of Birjand Central Prison. Their verdict was delivered to them on Saturday, August 4, and they were told that their sentence would be implemented before August 15.





Mohammad Miran Zehi told IHR, "They tortured and forced a confession out of us. They didn't find any weapons or drugs on us. We were unaware of the incident. We were tortured and made to accept the accusations. We denied the murder charge in the court but the judge didn't care. We didn't kill the guard. We were accused of killing him after we trespassed the border."





He continued, "They told us to admit to murdering a border guard in an assault, which we didn't. Then they told us that if we admitted to trafficking drugs from Afghanistan, they would save us from execution, but we didn't accept it. We only accepted the charges under torture but, in the court, we said that we were unaware of what happened and we were not involved in the murder at all."





The prisoners were sentenced to death on the charge of "armed drug trafficking" at branch 2 of the Revolutionary Court of Birjand.





A close source told IHR, "The defendants were in a village named Bandan when the border guards attacked them while they possessed no drugs or weapons. But they were charged with armed possession of 142 kilograms of opium and 2 Kalashnikov rifles." He added, "6 years ago, they were trying to cross the Iranian-Afghan border illegally when they were attacked by some border guards. A few days before that, a guard was murdered in an assault, that is why they tortured and made the defendants confess to murdering the guard."





It's worth mentioning that Birjand Central Prison is located in Birjand, South Khorasan province.





Iran Human Rights expresses its concern about the lack of a fair trial for these Afghan citizens and demands that Iranian judicial authorities should stop the execution of these prisoners immediately and hold a fair trial.

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"One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed,

but by the punishments that the good have inflicted." -- Oscar Wilde
The arrested persons were identified as D. Padithurai (37) of Uttamapalayam in Theni and M. Sillo Sahadev (21) of Visakhapatnam.

Chennai: The anti-drug trafficking wing of Tamil Nadu police on Friday seized 44 kg of ganja smuggled from Andhra Pradesh to the city. Two persons were arrested.

The arrested persons were identified as D. Padithurai (37) of Uttamapalayam in Theni and M. Sillo Sahadev (21) of Visakhapatnam.

According to the police sources, the anti-drug trafficking wing had received a tip-off about the smuggling of cannabis into Chennai from Andhra Pradesh. Based on the information, DSP Purusothaman and his team conducted a vehicle check near Padi flyover.

The police team stopped a bus belongs to Andhra Pradesh government that originated from Visakhapatnam. During a search in the bus, the police found 44kg ganja worth Rs 8 lakh in the bus and arrested Padithurai and Sahadev.

During the investigation, it was revealed that the duo had allegedly procured the contraband in Visakhapatnam for Rs 4 lakh. They were intended to sell the cannabis for Rs 8 lakh in Theni and surroundings, the police said. The police registered a case and further investigation is on.
New Delhi: The Centre on Friday informed the Supreme Court that the seven killers of Rajiv Gandhi cannot be released as the case involved the assassination of the former Prime Minister in pursuance of a diabolical plot executed by a highly organised foreign terrorist organisation.

The Centre told a three-judge bench headed by Justice Ranjan Gogoi that the Union home ministry had passed an order on April 18 and conveyed its decision to the Tamil Nadu government rejecting its proposal to grant remission and release the seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, who are in jail for the last nearly 27 years.

By a letter dated March 2, 2016 the Tamil Nadu government reiterated the earlier proposal of February 19, 2014 to grant remission to seven convicts, viz Murugan, Santhan, Perarivalan (whose death sentence was commuted to life sentence) and that of Nalini, Robert Pius, Jayakumar and Ravichandran, serving life term and sought Centres approval.

In January this year the court had granted three months time to the Centre to take a decision on the States proposal. Accordingly the decision has been taken the ASG told the Bench. It said the crime was perpetrated as a result of a pre-planned and pre-meditated conspiracy, the brutal act brought the Indian democratic process to a grinding halt in as much as the general election to the Lok Sabha and assemblies on some States had to be postponed.

The Home Ministry has evaluated the case and decided that releasing the four foreign and three Indian nationals who had committed the gruesome crime will set a very dangerous precedent and lead to international ramifications by other such criminals in the future. The apex court had already commuted the death sentence of three convicts into life imprisonment.
A visitor is reflected on a Toyota vehicle at the company's showroom in Tokyo. Photo by Reuters/Toru Hanai

Toyota Vietnam has announced the recall of more than 11,300 cars of three models with faulty airbags.

The inflator canister of over 5,600 Corolla Altis cars manufactured in 2013 can be penetrated by humidity, the Japanese company said in a statement.

Thus, it can happen that in some crashes, the activation of the airbag can break the inflator into pieces. These pieces can be pushed through the inflated airbag, causing serious damage to users.

The same fault is likely in 5,100 Vios cars and 550 Yaris cars manufactured at the same year, which are also being recalled.

Another 372 Corolla Altis cars manufactured between December 16, 2015 to February 15, 2016 are being recalled for airbag crash sensor faults.

The electrical insulator of the airbag electronic controller unit can fall off after a period of car operation, turning on the warning airbag symbol on the drivers control board.

In the event of a crash, the airbag may not be activated because of this fault.

Toyota said it has not been aware of any accidents involving these faults so far.

Customers can bring their vehicles for a free replacement of the faulty parts at Toyota dealers, which should take three hours.

This is not the first time Toyota Vietnam is recalling cars with airbag faults. The most recent one was in March this year and August last year, with over 20,000 vehicles in each occasion.
By Samuel Ssebuliba.

Refugee host communities especially those receiving people from the Democratic Republic of Congo have raised concern over the likely spread of Ebola.

The Member of Parliament for Kyaka South Constituency Jackson Karugaba Kafuuzi told parliament yesterday that his constituency is hosting Kyaka 11 refugee camps that continue to receive refugees from DR Congo on a daily basis.

He said that people in this area are worried about likely spread of Ebola in neighboring areas since the outbreak has been confirmed in the neighboring country by the World Health Organisation with over 20
Ho Chi Minh City could be a swamp 50 years from now

Many parts of Ho Chi Minh City submerge under water after a heavy rain in May, 2018. Photo by VnExpress/Quynh Tran

The city surface has been subsiding seven centimeters each year and the process is speeding up.

It is not a mere problem anymore, but an existential threat that is facing the nations biggest city, according to the Netherlands Embassy in Hanoi.

It is possible that a major part of the city can lie below sea level in 50 years, turning into a swamp, said Laurent Umans, the embassy's First Secretary, Water and Climate Change.

The dire warning came at a meeting held on Thursday to call for investment for ongoing anti-floding projects in the city.

Ho Chi Minh City now needs VND73.5 trillion ($3.15 billion) to implement the rest of its 2016-2020 drainage system master plan, Nguyen Hoang Anh Dung, deputy director of the citys Steering Center for the Urban Flood Control Program, said at the meeting.

Under this plan, the inner-city area needs 6,000 km (over 3,700 miles) of sewers of different types by 2020. So far, around 4,176 km of these sewers have been built.

The city has only finished two of 12 planned wastewater treatment plants, 64 km out of 149 km of dykes along the Saigon River, and one-tenth of a major tidal control sluice.

It is planned that of the investment the city now needs, VND16.38 trillion will come from the citys budget, VND588 billion from the central government budget, VND20.28 trillion ($868 million) from private sources and VND36.15 trillion ($1.55 billion) from official development assistance (ODA).

The investment is needed for 16 anti-flooding projects - 7 wastewater treatment plants, 6 canal dredging projects, and three dyke and tidal control projects.

Dung said the citys development plan before 1975 was designed for a population of only 2 million.

The city now is home to around 10 million, excluding migrants, but the water drainage system is yet to be upgraded, he said.

Apart from heavy rain, the city usually gets flooded due to high tides from the Saigon-Dong Nai-Vam Co Dong river system that flows through it. Sixty-three percent of the city is at a height of below 1.5 meters compared with sea level, which is lower than the maximum tide.

Climate change has made the flooding situation worse in the city because it is getting heavier rainfall, more than the drainage system can handle, he said.

Tran Vinh Tuyen, the citys Deputy Chairman, said urban development errors like projects in the southern part of the city was also a reason behind the flooding and subsidence.

The city now needs to clarify and specify what actually causes flooding in each part and then find specific solutions to deal with the situation in each area, Tuyen said.

For the immediate future, the city will revise its water drainage master plan and build a flooding map to find useful solutions, he added.
Van Kinh Duongs life of crime included document forgery, fraud and breaking out of jail.

When Ho Chi Minh City police recently called for prosecution of Van Kinh Duong, Vu Hoang Anh Ngoc and Nguyen Duc Ky Nam for producing, trafficking and storing narcotic substances, it signalled curtains for a long life of crime.

Seven other gang members are also facing prosecution.

Van Kinh Duong, the ringleader, faces prosecution for additional crimes including document forgery, fraud and escaping from detention facilities.

Duongs brushes with the law goes back to 2008, when he was sentenced to jail for robbery and storing narcotics.

But in 2010, when his sentence was still in effect, Duong broke out of prison along with three other inmates.

He returned to his life of crime, this time delivering drugs for Hoang Phuong Lam, another drug lord based in Hanoi, from the capital to southern Vietnam.

In 2012, Lams ring was busted by the Ministry of Public Security, but Duong managed to slip through the cracks and disappear once more.

It was later found that Duong was residing in Saigon after changing his name to Tran Ngoc Hieu. In Saigon, he is said to have met a mysterious patron, Tom, in a bar in 2016. Duong neither knows Toms real name nor where he lives.

Tom taught Duong to create narcotics from scratch, and provided the substances to make them.

In the beginning, Duong was only in charge of finding locations and hiring workers to construct drug-producing facilites. Later, he created his own drug ring, with his cousin Nguyen Duc Ky Nam joing him as a manager for one facility in Dong Nai Province, which neighbors HCMC. Nam was also in charge of creating new types of drugs.

As his business boomed and other drug rings stepped up their game, Duong decided to expand his empire. New facilities in the central regions and HCMC were constructed for this purpose. He took great care to avoid detection, passing orders to his underlings remotely.

But Duong lived a high life in Saigon with his girlfriend Hoang Anh Ngoc, who also helped him to store narcotics until the ring was busted in April last year.

Duong and his ring had already been on the polices radar for more than a year by then. In the raid that busted the gang, police seized more than 500,000 ecstasy pills, 120 kilograms of powdered drugs, seven cars and over VND10 billion ($446,000) in cash, along with numerous machinery and real estate properties in several cities and provinces including HCMC and Nha Trang.

Investigations have revealed that the ecstasy powder was first made in Nha Trang, before being delivered to Dong Nai and HCMC to be molded into pills and stored in coffee packages.

Each package contained 500 to 1,000 pills. Each pill could fetch VND50,000 ($2.14) to VND200,000, depending on the location and the buyers.

Police are searching for Duongs mysterious patron Tom.

Vietnam is a key trafficking hub for narcotics despite having some of the worlds toughest drug laws.

Those convicted of possessing or smuggling more than 600 grams of heroin or more than 2.5 kilograms of methamphetamines face the death penalty. The production or sale of 100 grams of heroin or 300 grams of other illegal narcotics is also punishable by death.
Think again! 8 misconceptions about a Son Doong cave tour Exploring the famous Son Doong Cave is not as difficult as people think. Au Contraire, mon ami.
On the way to see Tokyo in fall, I fell for Hanoi

An unplanned bowl of pho in Hanoi turned into an unexpected feast for the senses, and for the soul.

In hindsight, I guess I can blame it on the bowl of pho I was served on the Sydney-Tokyo flight I took last September.

I was thrilled to have got a hot airfare package and eager to see Tokyo in the fall, something that Id heard and read about and seen in pictures, but never in person.

It was a great time to go there. Autumn is the time when cool winds wash away the heat of summer, and leaves fall off the trees and prepare for the freezing times of winter.

Especially in Tokyo, autumn is not only beautiful because of the stunning colors, but also because of the absence of summer crowds. The holiday is over, children are back to school, and families are back to work after finishing their traditional August break.

I imagined enjoying Tokyo in the autumn, walking along peaceful streets, trying food that would warm the body, breathing in the quiet of serene temples. It was a heady feeling.

From the Kingsford Smith Airport in Sydney, the flight would take nine hours to Hanoi and another flight would leave for Tokyo the next morning.

And as the aircraft soared above the clouds smoothly, I was able to enjoy a signature Vietnamese meal, pho (flat rice noodle soup).

Except, it did not taste the same as pho in Sydney or even pho in Saigon. I was not sure if the ingredients were modified to suit commercial flights, but it got me thinking, and thinking hard, about a bowl of pho in Hanoi.

People enjoy food and beer on Ta Hien street in Hanoi's Old Quarter. Photo by Bao Yen

The transit time in Hanoi was not too long, but it was long enough to nip out of the airport, go downtown, and find the best pho possible at that moment, I thought, the craving increasing at the prospect.

So I lost no time in taking a cab downtown, to the Old Quarter, after the plane landed at the Noi Bai airport in Hanoi at 9 p.m.

The cab dropped me off at the corner of two Old Quarter streets, Ta Hien and Luong Ngoc Quyen. It was a good spot. The smell of food from street stalls and outdoor restaurants made my stomach growl and I made my way, helped by local directions and advice, to a shop that sold really good pho.

The aroma of an authentic bowl of pho from north Vietnam, with its condiments, cinnamon, black cardamom, garlic and clear beef broth with no fat on the surface is so alluring that I remember it to this day. It is no wonder that anyone who has it puts it on his or her list of favorite foods.

I had done what Id come for in Hanoi, and was fully satisfied. But I had time to kill, so I mingled with the crowds enjoying the night on the walking streets around the Hoan Kiem Lake. It was a cool night, and I got lost in the spell cast by autumn over Hanoi. I was no stranger to the capital city, but I felt I was in an enchanted land.

A woman notes down something as she waits for customers at a streetside stall in Hanoi. Photo by Quynh Trang

After walking for a while, I took a xe om and got dropped off at the corner of Nguyen Du and Quang Trung streets. It was midnight, and the clock was ticking away for my flight to Tokyo, but I felt at peace as I sat down at a small tea shop, which was not really one. A few tiny stools, and a small table with some traditional snacks in glass and plastic jars - peanut candy, sweet bean cakes  things like that.

As I sipped the green tea and enjoyed the serenity of an autumn night in Hanoi, looking at the old colonial buildings and leaves strewn by the trees on the ground as if it was some sort of ritual, I realized I was actually floating on the fragrance exuded by the sua, or blackboard trees, in bloom. It was a magic carpet that only Hanoi in autumn could produce.

Blooming blackboard trees are among the many things that make a Hanoi autumn special. Photo by VnExpress

I knew I had to leave soon for the airport to continue my journey. But I didnt want to. I wanted this transit magic to continue, to stay on in wonderland.

Tokyo could wait. I had arrived. I was home.
US jury orders Monsanto to pay $290mn to cancer patient over weed killer

Monsanto launched Roundup in 1976 and soon thereafter began genetically modifying plants, making some resistant to Roundup. Photo by AFP

A California jury ordered chemical giant Monsanto to pay nearly $290 million Friday for failing to warn that its weed killer causes cancer.

Jurors unanimously found that Monsanto - which vowed to appeal - acted with "malice" and that its weed killers Roundup and the professional grade version RangerPro contributed "substantially" to Dewayne Johnson's terminal illness.

Following eight weeks of trial proceedings, the San Francisco jury ordered Monsanto to pay $250 million in punitive damages along with compensatory damages and other costs, bringing the total figure to nearly $290 million.

"The jury got it wrong," the company's vice president Scott Partridge told reporters outside the courthouse.

Johnson, a California groundskeeper diagnosed in 2014 with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma -- a cancer that affects white blood cells - says he repeatedly used a professional form of Roundup while working at a school in Benicia, California.

"I want to thank everybody on the jury from the bottom of my heart," Johnson, 46, said during a press conference after the verdict.

"I am glad to be here; the cause is way bigger than me. Hopefully this thing will get the attention it needs."

Plaintiff Dewayne Johnson reacts after hearing the verdict to his case against Monsanto in San Francisco. Photo by AFP

Johnson, who appeared to be fighting back sobs while the verdict was read, wept openly, as did some jurors, when he met with the panel afterward

The lawsuit built on 2015 findings by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the UN World Health Organization, which classified Roundup's main ingredient glyphosate as a probable carcinogen, causing the state of California to follow suit.

"We are sympathetic to Mr Johnson and his family," Monsanto said in a statement promising to appeal the ruling and "continue to vigorously defend this product, which has a 40-year history of safe use and continues to be a vital, effective and safe tool for farmers and others."

But Johnson's attorney Brent Wisner said the verdict "shows the evidence is overwhelming" that the product poses danger.

"When you are right, it is really easy to win," he said.

More to come?

Wisner called the ruling the "tip of the spear" of litigation likely to come.

The lawsuit is the first to accuse the product of causing cancer, but observers say a Monsanto defeat likely opens the door to thousands of other claims against the company, which was recently acquired by Germany's Bayer.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr -- an environmental lawyer, son of the late US senator and a member of Johnson's legal team -- hugged Johnson after the verdict.

"The jury sent a message to the Monsanto boardroom that they have to change the way they do business," said Kennedy, who championed the case publicly.

Partridge said outside the courthouse that Monsanto had no intention of settling the slew of similar cases in the legal queue, saying if anything the verdict would prompt the company to work harder to demonstrate the weed killer is safe.

"It is the most widely used and most widely studied herbicide in the world," Partridge said. "The verdict today does not change the science."

Johnson's team expressed confidence in the verdict, saying the judge in the case had kept out a mountain of more evidence backing their position.

"All the efforts by Monsanto to put their finger in the dike and hold back the science; the science is now too persuasive," Kennedy said, pointing to "cascading" scientific evidence about the health dangers of Roundup.

"You not only see many people injured, you see the corruption of public officials, the capture of agencies that are supposed to protect us from pollution and the falsification of science," Kennedy said.

"In many ways, American democracy and our justice system was on trial in this case."

Monsanto vice president Scott Partridge speaks after Monsanto was ordered to pay nearly $290 million in damages for not disclosing the dangers of its popular Roundup products. Photo by AFP

'Win for all of humanity'

Before jurors went to deliberate, Johnson's attorney Brent Wisner asked them to deliver a "day of reckoning" for Monsanto.

"The science finally caught up, where they couldn't bury it anymore," Wisner told the jury in closing arguments.

Roundup is Monsanto's leading product and glyphosate is reportedly the world's most commonly used weed killer.

"The Johnson v Monsanto verdict is a win for all of humanity and all life on earth," said Zen Honeycutt, founding executive director of non-profit group Moms Across America.

"The majority of our illnesses and losses to soil quality, water, wildlife and marine life are due to toxic chemicals, particularly Monsanto's most widely used glyphosate herbicides like Roundup and Ranger Pro."

Despite its denials of any links between its products and ill health effects, Monsanto has already suffered hits to its reputation in light of the controversy.

Records unsealed earlier by a federal court lent credence to Johnson's claims -- internal company emails with regulators suggested Monsanto had ghostwritten research later attributed to academics.

Founded in 1901 in St Louis, Missouri, Monsanto began producing agrochemicals in the 1940s. It was acquired by Bayer for more than $62 billion in June.

Monsanto was one of the companies that produced the defoliant "Agent Orange" -- which has been linked to cancer and other diseases -- for use by US forces in Vietnam.

The company denies responsibility for how the military used the product.

Monsanto launched Roundup in 1976 and soon thereafter began genetically modifying plants, making some resistant to Roundup.
Religious freedom is under threat in many parts of the world today. Indeed, a stunning 83 percent of the worlds population live in nations where religious freedom is either threatened or even banned, said Vice President Mike Pence in a speech at the Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom.

The victims of religious persecution face economic sanctions. Theyre often arrested and imprisoned. Theyre the target of mob violence and state-sanctioned terror. And all too often, those whose beliefs run counter to their rulers face not just persecution but death, warned Mr. Pence.

The list of religious freedom violators is long, he said, their crimes and oppressions span the width of our world. In the Western hemisphere, the Nicaraguan government of Daniel Ortega is virtually waging war on the Catholic Church, said Vice President Pence.

For months, Nicaraguas bishops have sought to broker a national dialogue following pro-democracy protests that swept through the country earlier this year. But government-backed mobs armed with machetes, and even heavy weapons, have attacked parishes and church properties, and bishops and priests have been physically assaulted by the police.

Father Raul Zamora is the pastor of Divine Mercy Church and is a hero of the faith, said Mr. Pence. Recently, the Ortega government laid siege to his church after more than 200 students sought shelter there, and two students lost their lives. They joined the more than 350 courageous Nicaraguans whove died for the cause of freedom this year alone.

Speaking to Father Zamora and the Nicaraguan people, Vice President Pence said, Our prayers are with you, and the people of America stand with you for freedom of religion and freedom in Nicaragua.
The United States is committed to a strategy of a free and open Indo- Pacific region, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, is central to that strategy.

ASEAN is an economically dynamic region at the heart of the Indo-Pacific and a key partner in addressing regional and global challenges. ASEAN-centered meetings provide an important platform for addressing pressing political and security issues.

Speaking at a press conference after the 51st ASEAN Foreign Ministers' Meeting, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo reaffirmed the Trump Administrations commitment to this vital part of the world. Security in the region has been a major issue discussed at the meetings, he said. And much of this conversation revolves around the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, or North Korea, and its efforts to build weapons of mass destruction.

Ive emphasized the importance of maintaining diplomatic and economic pressure on North Korea to achieve the final, fully verified denuclearization of the DPRK, as agreed to by Chairman Kim, said Secretary of State Pompeo. Its worth remembering this isnt just an American security goal; it is clear our partners and allies within ASEAN know how important the denuclearization of North Korea is for their own security. I called on them to strictly enforce all sanctions.

In reference to reports that Russia is allowing for joint ventures with North Korean firms and granting new work permits to North Korean guest workers, Secretary of State Pompeo noted that any such activity would be in violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2375:

This is a serious issue and something that we will discuss with Moscow. We expect the Russians and all countries to abide by the UN Security Council resolutions and enforce sanctions on North Korea. Any violation that detracts from the worlds goal of finally fully denuclearizing North Korea would be something that America would take very seriously.

In an effort to strengthen maritime security in the Indo-Pacific, develop humanitarian assistance and peacekeeping capabilities, and enhance programs that counter transnational threats, the United States will dedicate nearly 300 million dollars in new funding to reinforce security cooperation throughout the entire region, said Secretary of State Pompeo.

Progress on these and other critical security issues is essential to a free and open Indo-Pacific. ASEAN will remain at the center of this effort. A free Indo-Pacific is one in which every citizen can exercise his or her fundamental rights without any constraint.
Russian occupation forces fired on positions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces in Donbas 36 times over the past 24 hours, including twice from heavy weapons, three Ukrainian servicemen are wounded, the press center of the Joint Forces Operation (JFO) headquarters has said.

"The enemy opened fire on the positions of our troops 36 times, including two times from heavy weapons. As a result of hostile actions, three Ukrainian servicemen were injured," the report says.

It states illegal armed units provided accurate fire from grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and small arms, and in separate directions from infantry fighting vehicles. Defenders of Krymske, Troitske, Luhanske, Zalizne, Opytne, Maryinka, Krasnohorivka, Novomykhailivka, Bohdanivka, Hnutove, Lebedynske, Pavlopil, Vodiane, and Shyrokyne came under fire.

According to Ukrainian intelligence, one militant was killed, while four were injured.
New anti-Russian sanctions announced by the United States in connection with a chemical attack in Salisbury, the UK, in March will make it possible to significantly limit the capabilities of the Russian defense industry to create new types of weapons used against Ukraine and lower the military potential of the Russian Federation, experts from the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies (CACDS) believe.

The estimates of the Ukrainian analytical center are posted on the center's website in connection with the upcoming launch of a new package of anti-Russian sanctions.

"The new sanctions list will deal a devastating blow to the Russian high tech industries, in particular, the defense industry complex. Taking into account the dependence of the Russian defense industry on foreign technologies and components, the sanctions could significantly limit the capabilities of the Russian defense industry to produce modern weapons," the military experts predict.

"In the period from 2010 to 2014, Russia carried out mass purchases of weapons abroad, in particular, it is advisable to cite the example of Orlan-10 drones (which actually consist of American, German and Japanese components), Forpost drones (Israel's Searcher drones), and Zastava drones (the Israeli Bird Eye 400 drones)," the center said, stressing that "all these drones, in particular, are used by the Russian Armed Forces in combat operations against Ukraine."
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 11

By Fikret Dolukhanov  Trend:

Azerbaijan particularly appreciates Tajikistan's position on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Rector of ADA University Hafiz Pashayev said Aug. 11 during a speech as part of a series of lectures titled "Global Perspective Lecture Series" at the ADA University.

"We especially appreciate the position of Tajikistan on the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict within the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan," he said.

Pashayev noted that Tajikistan and Azerbaijan are friendly countries with developing business relations and humanitarian contacts. "ADA University has also made a modest contribution to this," he added.

"A memorandum of cooperation has been signed between ADA University and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Tajikistan, and the first student from Tajikistan has already received a scholarship at the University. We hope the documents signed yesterday will lead to new projects in transportation and economy," Pashayev said.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 11

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

A communique of the 52nd meeting of the ad hoc working group for development of the convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea has been adopted, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan told Trend.

The final 52nd meeting of the working group was held in Aktau.

Delegations of Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan took part in the talks. The Azerbaijani delegation was led by Deputy Foreign Minister Khalaf Khalafov.

"During the meeting, the parties summed up the work on preparation of documents of the Fifth Caspian Summit, and also discussed and agreed on the agenda of the meeting of foreign ministers of the Caspian states. In connection with the completion of the negotiations on development of the convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea, the parties noted with great satisfaction the results achieved during the joint long-term work. The delegations appreciated the results of the talks and expressed their gratitude to Kazakhstan for the high level of organization of the final meeting," the Foreign Ministry said.

The status of the Caspian Sea remains a key topic for discussions at the Caspian states' summits. The leaders of the five countries met for the first time in 2002 in Ashgabat. The second Caspian summit was held in Tehran in 2007, the third in Baku in 2010, and the fourth in Astrakhan in 2014.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 11

By Fikret Dolukhanov  Trend:

Relations between Azerbaijan and Tajikistan are developing in all areas, President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon said Aug. 11 in a speech as part of a series of lectures titled "Global Perspective Lecture Series" at ADA University.

The president expressed hope that the agreements reached yesterday will give new substance to the relations between the two countries.

Emomali Rahmon wished the ADA University to augment the good traditions formed inside the educational institution, and wished all the students of the University great success in their studies and further protection of the interests of fraternal Azerbaijan.

Rector of ADA University Hafiz Pashayev noted at the event that the Tajik side can send to the University the students of not only the diplomatic faculty, but also of other specialties.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 12

Trend:

The Meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Caspian Littoral States has been held today, the day preceding the Fifth Caspian Summit in Aktau to be chaired by Kazakhstan, Kazinform cites the Kazakh MFA's press service.

Participating in the meeting, Foreign Ministers Elmar Mammadyarov of Azerbaijan, Mohammad Javad Zarif of Iran, Kairat Abdrakhmanov of Kazakhstan, Sergey Lavrov of Russia, and Rashid Meredov of Turkmenistan summarized the work on the preparation for the forthcoming summit of the 'Caspian Five'.

"Today, owing to the progressive efforts to reach compromise and find mutually acceptable solutions, we have managed to come to a consensus on all issues relating to cooperation in the Caspian Sea as is evident from the Draft Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea to be presented for signing by the presidents," said Kairat Abdrakhmanov.

It was emphasized that the work done would be impossible without the active involvement and personal attention of the Heads of the Caspian Littoral States.

The Foreign Ministers of the Caspian Littoral States adopted the Protocol Resolution, which reflects the parties' further actions to implement the provisions of the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea planned to be signed at the Fifth Caspian Summit.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 11

By Matanat Nasibova - Trend:

Azerbaijani textile producers are planning to enter the European, in particular the Baltic market, through the recently opened trading house in Latvia, head of the Textile Producers and Exporters Association and CEO at Gilan Textile Park Mehriban Akhundova told Trend.

"Certain work is already underway in this direction," Akhundova said. "Azerbaijani products are mainly exported to the CIS countries and Turkey, but now some companies are already working to enter European markets."

"Reduction in the prices for local goods and the creation of design companies are among the priorities for the development of the textile industry in Azerbaijan," she added.

"In order to guarantee that domestic textile products can seriously compete in the demand market, companies need to raise the level of marketing of the produced goods. Although the quality of local goods is high enough, our products sometimes can not compete with foreign goods due to the lack of appropriate design. Therefore, we need special design studios that would work on the design of local products," Akhundova said.

"At present textile products that come to Azerbaijani market from abroad (namely Chinese and Pakistani) are made of mixed fabric, which contains a lot of polyester. This applies to both children's and adults' clothing, but due to the fact that the prices for these products are very cheap, most of the population prefer these foreign products. In contrast, our local products are produced mainly from very high-quality fabric. If it's children's clothes, then this is 100 percent cotton. This high-quality fabric is made from the combed yarn which has the highest quality. This is one of the most expensive types of yarn in the world, but it is environmentally friendly. At the moment the only advantage of imported goods is the very low prices," Akhundova said.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug.11

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

The consortium for construction of the Trans Adriatic Pipeline (TAP), which envisages transportation of Azerbaijani gas to Europe, has secured temporary removal of 446 olive trees in Italy, Lisa Givert, TAP Head of Communications, told Trend.

"In Italy, in line with the Single Authorization permit granted by the Ministry of Economy on 20 May 2015, TAP continues to progress its secondary permitting activities. At the end of July 2018, TAP has safely secured the temporary removal of the 446 olive trees from cluster 5 and housed them in its olive tree nursery Masseria del Capitano. This was necessary in order to safeguard and preserve the olive trees health," she said.

Givert noted that the move took place with the consent and under the supervision of the Regional Phytosanitary Observatory and the Provincial Agricultural Services of the Apulia Region and with the prior approval of the prosecutors office in Lecce.

She went on to add that as part of its ongoing commitment to respect the tourist season in Italy, TAP temporarily suspended major construction works during the summer period. As such, TAP has temporarily suspended works in the micro-tunnel area, said Givert.

TAP has done this every year since construction started and so this is part of its every day procedure.

TAP project, worth 4.5 billion euros, is one of the priority energy projects for the European Union (EU), and has already attracted 1.5 billion euros from the European Investment Bank (EIB), which approved the loan in early February 2018.

Connecting with the Trans-Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline (TANAP) at the Greek-Turkish border, TAP will cross Northern Greece, Albania and the Adriatic Sea before coming ashore in Southern Italy to connect to the Italian natural gas network.

The project is currently in its construction phase, which started in 2016.

Once built, TAP will offer a direct and cost-effective transportation route opening up the vital Southern Gas Corridor, a 3,500-kilometer long gas value chain stretching from the Caspian Sea to Europe.

TAP shareholders include BP (20 percent), SOCAR (20 percent), Snam S.p.A. (20 percent), Fluxys (19 percent), Enagas (16 percent) and Axpo (5 percent).

---

Follow the author on Twitter: @Lyaman_Zeyn
Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Aug. 11

By Huseyn Hasanov  Trend:

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan has held a meeting with the Secretary General of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) Adem Kula, the ministry said in a statement Aug. 11.

The sides exchanged views on the prospects of partnership. The secretary general delivered a proposal on a briefing in Istanbul dedicated to the ongoing Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project, as well as laying the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) power transmission line.

He noted that such an event will cause the interest of other ECO member states, the message says.

Construction of the Turkmen section of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline was launched in December 2015, while the Afghan section - in February 2018.

Being the leader of the international consortium TAPI Pipeline Company Limited, Turkmengas with a controlling stake performs the functions of the main financier and manager of the project.

The consortium also includes the Afghan Gas Corporation, Pakistans Inter State Gas Systems (Private) Limited Company and Indias GAIL.

The total length of the pipeline with a capacity of 33 billion cubic meters of gas per year will be 1,840 kilometers. TAPI will export gas from the Galkynysh field in Turkmenistan, which is the second largest in the world.

Economic Cooperation Organization, ECO, is an interstate economic organization formed in 1985 with the participation of Turkey, Iran and Pakistan. Since 1992, ECO activities have intensified with the accession of Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

The purpose of this institution is to discuss ways to improve development and promotion of trade and investment opportunities.
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug.11

By Leman Zeynalova  Trend:

The Southern Gas Corridor project, which envisages transportation of Azerbaijani gas to Europe, got sanctions waiver from the US as the latter is assessing it as a strategic project for its allies, Cyril Widdershoven, a Middle East geopolitical specialist and energy analyst, a partner at Dutch risk consultancy VEROCY and SVP MEA-Risk, told Trend.

He was commenting on the recent order issued by the US President Donald Trump on imposition of news sanctions on Iran. Trump's order contained a "natural gas project exception" that describes the Southern Gas Corridor without naming it.

"The latter was expected, as there will be some strategic waivers being put in place. Keep in mind that the overriding impact of these waivers still needs to be assessed and could be only partial. The same could be done for some other operations worldwide in which NIOC still has some minor stakes, including maybe the North Sea operations. Still, more is to be followed," he said.

Widdershoven noted that the US will be assessing this most probably as a strategic project for its allies.

"Southern Gas Corridor is of importance to the still very weak Balkan economies, including Greece. Continuing support for these parts of the European arena are currently viewed by Washington as a very strategic issue, for which other conflicts can be seen as minor. Washington has been very actively involved the last years in getting and keeping Former Eastern Europe in the Western/NATO fold," he said.

The expert pointed out that the strategic importance of the Caspian Sea arena and the position of Azerbaijan also matters. "For Washington a good and strong relationship with these players is a direct strategic interest. It is also seen still as a direct road to Central Asia."

S&P Global Platts earlier reported that the Southern Gas Corridor has received a waiver from US sanctions against Iran's energy customers.

BP had been seeking a sanctions waiver for its development of Azerbaijan's offshore Shah Deniz fields, the source of the Southern Gas Corridor's natural gas. Iran's NICO holds a 10 percent share in the second phase of Shah Deniz, potentially triggering US sanctions against Iran petroleum sector investment.

US energy sector sanctions being re-imposed November 4 will ban companies from the US financial system if they continue to do business with Iran.

Trump's order contained a "natural gas project exception" that describes the Southern Gas Corridor without naming it.

The Southern Gas Corridor, which costs more than $40 billion, is one of the priority projects for the EU and provides for the transportation of 10 billion cubic meters of Azerbaijani gas from the Caspian region through Georgia and Turkey to Europe.

---

Follow the author on Twitter:@Lyaman_Zeyn
Baku, Azerbaijan, August 11

Trend:

Pakistans energy ministry rejected reports that huge oil reserves have been found in the country near the border with Iran.

In a recent statement, the Pakistani energy ministry said no oil reserves, reportedly bigger than Kuwaits, have been discovered near the Iran border by US energy giant Exxon Mobil, Pakistani media reported.

It added that no license for oil and gas exploration has been awarded to Exxon Mobil and that the American multinational oil and gas company is currently not involved in any drilling operations in the country.

On August 4, Pakistani caretaker Minister for Maritime Affairs and Foreign Affairs Abdullah Hussain Haroon said Exxon Mobil Corp was close to discovering huge oil reserves in Pakistan near the border with Iran.

The statement further said, "The caretaker minister has given an irresponsible statement on a sensitive matter which needs inquiry as it has added problems for the ministry, intelligence forces and concerned departments. Foreign ministers statement contained exaggerated figures".
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 11

By Ilkin Shafiyev  Trend:

SOCAR Trading, trading house of Azerbaijans state oil company SOCAR, intends to become one of the biggest suppliers of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Pakistan in the future, SOCAR Trading told Trend.

"SOCAR Trading is still interested in becoming one of the main LNG suppliers to Pakistan both through tenders and within a long-term agreement," the company said. "This country is one of the fastest growing importers of this type of fuel in the world."

Earlier it was reported that SOCAR became one of the winners of a tender for the supply of liquefied natural gas to Pakistan. Pakistan through Pakistan LNG Limited buys LNG via tenders and long-term contracts.

"For the tender held in July 2018, SOCAR Trading submitted proposals on two long-term options put forward by Pakistan LNG Limited," the company said. "One of our proposals was the most competitive at that time of supplies."

"But Pakistan LNG Limited decided not to provide the winners with these options within the tender rules," the company said. "At the same time, SOCAR is the company selected for LNG shipments to Pakistan within the long-term agreement following the interstate agreement on energy, signed in February 2017. This agreement was discussed and agreed between the parties, but it has not yet been implemented."

SOCAR Trading, headquartered in Geneva, was established in late 2007 by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan.



The company sells SOCAR crude oil from Ceyhan port (Mediterranean Sea, Turkey), trades oil and oil products of other countries, and also assists the parent company in international investments. SOCAR Trading operations cover the countries of Europe, Africa, Asia and America.

Follow the author on Twitter: @IlkinShafiyev
Baku, Azerbaijan, Aug. 11

By Azad Hasanli - Trend:

The State Property Committee of Azerbaijan has announced a tender for the procurement of consulting services.

Applicants will have to prepare proposals on improvement of the efficiency and elimination of the current difficulties in the field of privatization (transfer of management) of state property, taking into account international best practices.

The cost of participation in the tender is 700 manats.

Those who wish to participate in the tender must submit an application before 17:00 on September 14, 2018, and the tender offer - until 17:00 on September 24, 2018. Opening of tender packages will be held at 15:00 on September 25.

For more information, please contact:

Address: Baku, Khatai district, 50, Yusif Safarov street, room 810;

Phone: (+994 12 )490-24-08 (extension 191);

Contact person: Nurlan Verdiyev.

Follow the author on Twitter: @AzadHasanli
Baku, Azerbaijan, August 11

Trend:

Hadi Farajvand, the Iranian ambassador to Kenya, said Iran exported $138 million worth of goods to Kenya in the past Iranian calendar year (Ended March 20).

Farajvand added that the Islamic Republic has exported $97 million worth of goods to Kenya since of the start of the current Iranian fiscal year (started March 21), IRNA news agency reported.

The figure is expected to grow by the end of the year, he added.

The northwestern province of Qazvin has played a key role in facilitating the export of goods to the African country.

The envoy invited Iranian investors to travel to Kenya and explore business opportunities there.

According to the Arab-African States Department of Iran Trade Promotion Organization, milk, cream, vegetable, beverages, cement, liquefied propane, paraffin wax, tar, polyethylene, plastic materials, tiles and ceramics were the main goods exported to the East African country from Iran.
The share of China's CNPC International has reached 80.1 percent in Iran's South Pars Phase 11 Project after Total announced it would pull out of the project due to US sanctions, Shana reported.

Speaking to Shana, Director of Investment and Business at the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) Mohammad Mostafavi said CNPC has taken over Total's share in the $5 billion gas project after the French energy major withdrew the plan because of the US threats of sanctions.

Total announced in May that it pulls out of South Pars deal in light of a decision by US President Donald Trump to pull his country out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal.

The US administration has announced a series of new sanctions against Iran, aimed at driving its oil exports down to zero.

NIOC signed a contract for developing the project with a consortium of Total, the CNPC and Petropars
Baku, Azerbaijan, August 11

Trend:

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said no meeting would take place between Iranian and US officials during the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly (UNGA 73), scheduled to open on September 18.

There are no plans for any engagement with US officials (on the sidelines of the 73rd session of the UN General Assembly), Zarif told Tasnim on August 11.

He added that Tehran has repeatedly announced its stance noting that Americans are not honest and are addicted to sanctions.

The minister further ruled out that Tehran is set to receive any message from Washington via Oman or any other third party.

On May 8, the US president pulled his country out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a nuclear agreement achieved in Vienna in 2015 after two years of negotiations among Iran and the Group 5+1 (Russia, China, the US, Britain, France and Germany).

After Donald Trump withdrew the US from the deal, his administration moved to re-implement the previous sanctions against Iran.

The United States reimposed stiff economic sanctions on Iran on Monday, ratcheting up pressure on the Islamic Republic despite statements of deep dismay from European allies.

A first set of reimposed US sanctions affect financial transactions that involve US dollars, Iran's automotive sector, the purchase of commercial planes and metals including gold.

A second batch of US sanctions targeting Iran's oil sector and central bank are to be reimposed in early November.
Baku, Azerbaijan, August 11

Trend:

Irans Guardian Council ratified new amendments proposed by the government to the countrys Anti-Money Laundering (AML) law.

The council approved the article about capital and profit in money laundering after it was approved by 148 lawmakers from a total of 210 recently, Tasnim news agency reported on August 11.

It is part of efforts to improve connections to the international banking and trade system.

In a directive circulated on Saturday, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani instructed all relevant government bodies to follow the new amendments.

On June 30, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) said Iran had until October to complete reforms that would bring it into line with global norms or face consequences that could further deter investors from the country.

The FATF is disappointed with Irans failure to implement its action plan to address its significant AML/CFT deficiencies, the organization said at the time.

The FATF urgently expects Iran to proceed swiftly in the reform path to ensure that it addresses all of the remaining items in its action plan ... we expect Iran to enact amendments to its AML and CFT laws ... in full compliance with the FATF standards by October 2018, otherwise, the FATF will decide upon appropriate and necessary actions at that time.

Until Iran carries out measures to address deficiencies, FATF said it would remain concerned and urges all jurisdictions to continue to advise their financial institutions to apply enhanced due diligence to business relationships and transactions with natural and legal persons from Iran.
Estonian servicemen failed to find a missile that was accidentally fired in the Baltic country's airspace by a Spanish fighter jet earlier this week after searching its likely landing site, the press service of the Estonian Defense Forces said in a statement on Saturday, adding that the ground search has been discontinued, Sputnik reported.

"We can tell that, according to our assessment, the missile did not land on the controlled territory," Capt. Karmo Saar, the head of the explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) center of Estonia's combat engineer battalion, said as quoted in the statement.

According to Estonian Air Force Commander Col. Riivo Valge, the military will continue searching for the missile from aircraft.

On Tuesday, a Spanish Eurofighter Typhoon mistakenly fired an air-to-air missile while on NATOs Baltic air-policing mission.

According to media reports, the projectile presumably fell near the Endla nature reserve in central Estonia. The Estonian military searched the area of approximately 600 square meters (about 6,458 square feet) using metal detectors.
All nine crew members aboard a local Japanese government helicopter that crashed on a mountain in the prefecture of Gunma on Friday have been confirmed dead, police said on Saturday, Xinhua reports.

Two of the crew members were declared dead on Friday, and seven more were confirmed dead Saturday after a rescue mission by some 160 police officials and Self-Defense Force personnel was conducted in the morning.

According to the authorities, the chopper was one of the prefecture's disaster prevention helicopters and lost contact with air traffic controllers shortly past 10 a.m. local time after taking off at 9:15 a.m. local time on Friday.

The helicopter was being flown by Noriyuki Amagai, 57, an experienced pilot who had logged many flying hours, sources close to the matter said.

The chopper was scheduled to return to its heliport in Maebashi City, Gunma Prefecture, at 10:45 a.m. local time Friday, prefectural officials said.

The helicopter was supposed to be observing a hiking trail, which spans Gunma, Nagano and Niigata prefectures when contact was lost, officials said.

The transport ministry said the helicopter was a Bell 412EP helicopter and had began operations in May 1997, clocking up around 7,000 flight hours.

The same model of helicopter crashed in March last year killing all nine occupants and in November last year another crash involving the same model crashed killing four people aboard.

The ministry's Transport Safety Board has sent three officials to the site to investigate the cause of the incident.
A small plane with nine people on board lost contact on Saturday in Oksibil in Indonesia's Papua province, spokesman of the transport ministry Bambang Ervan told Xinhua by phone, Xinhua reported.

According to reports from local media, the PAC 75 type aircraft took off from Tanah Merah at around 01:42 p.m. Eastern Indonesia Standard Time and should have arrived in Oksibil at around 2:20 p.m.

Authorities said a search and rescue mission is underway.
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Page: 1 2 Air Force officer wants to drop BOMBS on wildfires in California and Colorado to LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 391619

08-11-2018 02:00 AM











Post: #1 Air Force officer wants to drop BOMBS on wildfires in California and Colorado to

Advertisement



He pointed to the Swedish Air Force doing the same thing last month



It used a 500lb bomb to extinguish a two-week fire on a munitions range





http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-...orado.html Air Force officer wants to drop BOMBS on wildfires in California and Colorado to extinguish them by sending shockwaves that blow out the flamesHe pointed to the Swedish Air Force doing the same thing last monthIt used a 500lb bomb to extinguish a two-week fire on a munitions range LunaC

\_()_/

User ID: 455987

08-11-2018 02:02 AM



Posts: 20,943









Post: #2 RE: Air Force officer wants to drop BOMBS on wildfires in California and Colorado to

I'll admit. It works. Flectere Si Nequeo Superos Acheronta Movebo

I never dreamed I'd grow up to be an asshole. But here I am. Killing it. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 455995

08-11-2018 02:03 AM











Post: #3 RE: Air Force officer wants to drop BOMBS on wildfires in California and Colorado to

LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 352770

08-11-2018 02:05 AM











Post: #4 RE: Air Force officer wants to drop BOMBS on wildfires in California and Colorado to

Yes lets just feed the military industrial hell machine even more Archangel

Michael

User ID: 441975

08-11-2018 02:29 AM



Posts: 14,103









Post: #5 RE: Air Force officer wants to drop BOMBS on wildfires in California and Colorado to

"We received reports something was burning at your home, so we bombed it".



"Oh, it was just the toast". LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 455959

08-11-2018 02:32 AM











Post: #6 RE: Air Force officer wants to drop BOMBS on wildfires in California and Colorado to

Great idea.



At least they won't be dropped on some poor middle eastern women and children.. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 441631

08-11-2018 02:35 AM











Post: #7 RE: Air Force officer wants to drop BOMBS on wildfires in California and Colorado to

They use explosives for oil well fires. Why not? LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 408320

08-11-2018 02:38 AM











Post: #8 RE: Air Force officer wants to drop BOMBS on wildfires in California and Colorado to

Gee, I wonder if they might be bombing real people in America, and using wildfires that they may have started as the cover story. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 450243

08-11-2018 02:38 AM











Post: #9 RE: Air Force officer wants to drop BOMBS on wildfires in California and Colorado to

Why don't they use thermobaric bombs? Those suck all the oxygen right out of the air. LunaC

\_()_/

User ID: 441651

08-11-2018 02:39 AM



Posts: 20,943









Post: #10 RE: Air Force officer wants to drop BOMBS on wildfires in California and Colorado to

LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 02:38 AM) Why don't they use thermobaric bombs? Those suck all the oxygen right out of the air.

By making a sh*t ton of fire. Overkill is why. TNT blows the fire out like a candle. By making a sh*t ton of fire. Overkill is why. TNT blows the fire out like a candle. Flectere Si Nequeo Superos Acheronta Movebo

I never dreamed I'd grow up to be an asshole. But here I am. Killing it. (_y_)SSSSSSsssss.....

lop guest

User ID: 456001

08-11-2018 02:41 AM











Post: #11 RE: Air Force officer wants to drop BOMBS on wildfires in California and Colorado to

LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 02:38 AM) Why don't they use thermobaric bombs? Those suck all the oxygen right out of the air.

this^^^^^^^

and way more fun ! this^^^^^^^and way more fun ! LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 450243

08-11-2018 02:41 AM











Post: #12 RE: Air Force officer wants to drop BOMBS on wildfires in California and Colorado to

LunaC Wrote: (08-11-2018 02:39 AM) LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 02:38 AM) Why don't they use thermobaric bombs? Those suck all the oxygen right out of the air.

By making a sh*t ton of fire. Overkill is why. TNT blows the fire out like a candle.

No oxygen, no fire. No oxygen, no fire. LunaC

\_()_/

User ID: 441651

08-11-2018 02:43 AM



Posts: 20,943









Post: #13 RE: Air Force officer wants to drop BOMBS on wildfires in California and Colorado to

LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 02:41 AM) LunaC Wrote: (08-11-2018 02:39 AM) By making a sh*t ton of fire. Overkill is why. TNT blows the fire out like a candle.

No oxygen, no fire.

The reason you would use TNT is because the shock wave will preserve an area around the impact and is the main focus. Thermobaric weapons would just do the job of the fire faster by obliterating everything. The trees would dampen the shock wave about the same and you would have a bigger hole. The reason you would use TNT is because the shock wave will preserve an area around the impact and is the main focus. Thermobaric weapons would just do the job of the fire faster by obliterating everything. The trees would dampen the shock wave about the same and you would have a bigger hole. Flectere Si Nequeo Superos Acheronta Movebo

I never dreamed I'd grow up to be an asshole. But here I am. Killing it. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 455957

08-11-2018 02:44 AM











Post: #14 RE: Air Force officer wants to drop BOMBS on wildfires in California and Colorado to

They should just carpet bomb the living f*#k outta califagia...simply on principle. LunaC

\_()_/

User ID: 441651

08-11-2018 02:44 AM



Posts: 20,943









Post: #15 RE: Air Force officer wants to drop BOMBS on wildfires in California and Colorado to

LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 02:44 AM) They should just carpet bomb the living f*#k outta califagia...simply on principle.

Flectere Si Nequeo Superos Acheronta Movebo

I never dreamed I'd grow up to be an asshole. But here I am. Killing it. Advertisement


















International Organization for Migration (IOM) on Saturday revealed that 154 illegal immigrants have been voluntarily repatriated from Libya to their homeland Ivory Coast, Xinhua reported.

The IOM said in a statement that it will ensure the needs of 154 people, including 6 children, to be covered before their departure to Ivory Coast.

The anti-illegal immigration department also confirmed that 10 Algerian immigrants have been deported to their home country on Saturday.

More than 10,000 illegal immigrants have been voluntarily repatriated from Libya to their countries of origin since the beginning of this year, as part of IOM's Voluntary Return Program.

Migrant shelters in Libya are crowded with thousands of illegal immigrants who have been rescued at sea or arrested by the Libyan security services.
The U.S. State Department said on Friday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had spoken with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov over phone to discuss the recently announced U.S. sanctions on Russia and the bilateral ties, Xinhua reported.

In a statement, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said Pompeo also discussed the ongoing challenges in Syria with Lavrov.

Pompeo "reiterated that the U.S. seeks an improved relationship with Russia and agreed to future dialogue," read the statement.
US President Donald Trump in a statement said he had a very good phone conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron on various subjects including security and trade, Sputnik reports.

"Had a very good phone call with Emmanuel Macron, President of France," Trump said in a Twitter post on Friday. "Discussed various subjects, in particular security and trade."

US tensions with France and its European allies have been on the rise recently over trade tariffs and the Trump administrations sanctions targeting Irans trading partners.
KYODO NEWS - Aug 11, 2018 - 14:29 | All, Feature

Two documentary films by Japanese pushing back against the harshly critical portrayal of dolphin-hunting practices and the whaling industry in the Oscar-winning documentary "The Cove" are prompting U.S. viewers to revisit the issue of Japanese whaling.

Megumi Sasaki's 2017 film "A Whale of a Tale" ("Okujirasama"), slated for theatrical release in New York this month, presents new footage and interviews from the site of the earlier 2009 documentary -- the fishing village of Taiji in Wakayama Prefecture -- to offer a broader view of the controversial issue.

(Fishing boats return to a port Taiji on Sept. 1, 2017, after dolphin and small whale hunt is suspended by tidal waves caused by a typhoon)

"Taiji has become polarized over whaling," the New York-based director said at a recent event. "In the same way, the U.S. population is sharply divided under the (President Donald) Trump administration."

"The larger inquiry I want to pursue with the film is why people who have differing values are unable to engage in meaningful dialogue with the other side," she said.

Sasaki presents the voices of local fishermen and officials, united in wanting to preserve four centuries of traditional whaling culture, alongside interviews with anti-whaling activists who argue for a swift end to traditions they see as outmoded and cruel.

The film also spotlights lesser-known figures working to bridge divides, including a U.S. journalist who moved to Taiji in 2013 and spent years building trust and understanding with the locals, as well as a pro-whaling Japanese man who learned English to communicate with foreign protesters.

While defenders of "The Cove" maintain that the film's dramatic presentation and surreptitious shooting techniques were necessary to expose abuses hidden from the Japanese public, Sasaki's film suggests the harsh tone set by the U.S. release may have backfired, creating tensions and fault lines that have only hampered change.

(Megumi Sasaki poses with her book on Japan's whaling industry on July 25 in New York)

Japanese filmmaker Keiko Yagi also traveled to Taiji to wade into the divisive topic, interviewing the U.S. film's director Louie Psihoyos and anti-whaling cast member Ric O'Barry among others for her 2015 release "Behind 'The Cove'."

The film, like Sasaki's, aims to present a wide range of viewpoints while rebutting the stereotypical view of Japanese people as passive in the face of tradition.

"If Japanese people are persistent, Americans will hear and understand their side of the issue," the Tokyo native said.

Yagi's first film debuted in the United States in 2016, and in May of this year picked up an honorable mention at the International Filmmaker Festival of New York for its historical and educational value.

"Behind 'The Cove'" is available for online streaming in the United States through Netflix, while "A Whale of a Tale" opens in New York on Aug. 17 followed by releases in Los Angeles and San Francisco by early September.
KYODO NEWS - Aug 10, 2018 - 22:45 | Urgent, All

A prefectural government rescue helicopter crashed on an eastern Japan mountain Friday, killing two of the nine people aboard, the transport ministry and local government said.

Eight people, whose identities were not known, were found at the crash site and taken to hospital, but two of them were pronounced dead. Information on the condition of the remaining six was not yet available, while the fate of the remaining person was not known.

The chopper belonging to Gunma Prefecture lost contact with air traffic control earlier in the day and debris was found in the afternoon in a mountain forest in Gunma..

(Photo taken from a Kyodo News helicopter)

The chopper belonging to Gunma Prefecture lost contact with air traffic control earlier in the day and debris was found in the afternoon in a mountain forest in Gunma.

Police officers looking for the missing person around the crash site suspended the search Friday night.

The helicopter was on a flight to assess a trail route on the borders of Gunma, Nagano and Niigata prefectures, according to the prefectural government. The trail was scheduled to open on Saturday.

The Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism certified the crash as an aviation accident, prompting the dispatch of three investigators to the scene for an investigation from Saturday.

An eyewitness said the helicopter had been flying over the site at a low altitude and making a very loud noise.

According to the prefectural government, there was no flight recorder on the chopper as the installation of such a device was not mandatory.

The chopper had been under repair from April to June due to engine trouble, a senior prefectural government official said. In a press conference, another official said the helicopter license was scheduled for renewal in the fiscal year starting April 2020.

Those aboard were two prefectural disaster management officials, two employees of Toho Air Service Co. and five firefighters, according to the prefectural government.

The prefectural government identified the nine as including pilot Noriyuki Amagai, 57, and mechanic Susumu Sawaguchi, 60, both employees of Toho Air Service Co. operating the chopper.

The two were also part of a prefectural disaster management unit together with two other passengers -- Satoshi Ozawa, 44, and Akihiro Oka, 38.

The five others were firefighters Ken Tamura, 47, Yosuke Mizuide, 42, Hidetoshi Shiobara, 42, Hiroshi Kuroiwa, 42, and Masaya Hachisuka, 43.

The chopper, which the transport ministry identified as a Bell 412EP helicopter, took off from a heliport in the city of Maebashi at 9:15 a.m. and was scheduled to return at 10:45 a.m.

The prefectural government said the helicopter went missing after reception of its location information using GPS was cut off shortly past 10 a.m. A local firefighter office received the last radio contact from the aircraft at around 9:28 a.m., reporting it had arrived at a hospital.

A local weather station said the chopper is believed to have gone missing around Mt. Kusatsu Shirane. In the nearby town of Kusatsu, the weather was cloudy in the morning and the wind was not strong.

The helicopter started operation in May 1997 and had clocked over 7,000 flight hours.

In March last year, the same kind of chopper crashed in central Japan, killing all nine members of a rescue squad aboard.

In November the same year, a helicopter also operated by Toho Air Service crashed in the village of Ueno, Gunma, killing four people.
The CPM will have to do more explaining especially at a time when the party's earlier stand of opposing the Express Highway is now being widely discussed.
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Massive Attack On Swedish News Sites Was The Work Of Russia spo snouou

Vocem sine nomine audivit!

User ID: 350320

08-11-2018 10:25 AM



Posts: 67,593









Post: #1 Massive Attack On Swedish News Sites Was The Work Of Russia

Advertisement According to a newly released State Department cable, the attack was part of a Russian campaign to sow disinformation about NATO. It came as Russia allegedly was stealing Democrats' emails.



Quote: The cable, which was obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by BuzzFeed News and Ryan Shapiro, a PhD candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the cofounder of the transparency project Property of the People, was intended for internal use only. Sent Oct. 19, 2016, primarily to US ambassadors in Europe, it detailed US intelligence suspicions about Russian meddling in US the presidential election.



It also warned that Russia was engaged in a widespread campaign to destabilize NATO alliances that included not only a disinformation campaign but the crippling cyberattacks against Swedish news organizations, which knocked several of the countrys largest news organizations offline.



The cable is the first confirmation that Russia was suspected in the March 2016 attacks in Sweden, which came as the Swedish government was debating whether to approve a cooperation treaty with NATO. Sweden is not a member of NATO, but has grown closer to the organization in recent years in light of what Swedish officials called Russias willingness to use force in Georgia and Ukraine. News outlets reported at the time that some Swedish officials were pushing to join NATO outright, a sentiment that was echoed fearfully by a Russian think tank. The agreement was approved in May 2016.



Russia has focused significant resources on specific Partners, like Sweden and Finland, the cable notes in a section marked SBU  sensitive but unclassified. Russian actors are suspected of being behind recent efforts to infiltrate Sweden with distorted and false information about NATO in the Swedish press, at think tank events, and on social media.



It adds, Russia is also suspected of carrying out cyberattacks against Swedish media outlets in March 2016.



The cable, portions of which were redacted because the information remains classified, is notable for using plain language to attribute the cyberattacks likely perpetrator, something that the US government only does publicly with enormous care and as part of an intra-agency announcement, and never on an attack in which the US itself isnt the victim.



Asked for comment, a State Department spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that the cable speaks for itself.



The cable came 12 days after the US governments first public proclamation that Russia was interfering in the 2016 presidential election. Media coverage of that Oct. 7 joint statement was largely subsumed, however, by accounts of the infamous Access Hollywood tape that caught Donald Trump bragging about groping women and WikiLeaks publication of Hillary Clinton campaign manager John Podestas emails.



The attacks on Swedish media didnt attract significant US attention, but they constituted a major event in Sweden. The attacks werent sophisticated  they were merely a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), which overloads a network with too much traffic, keeping it from being able to load  but they were powerful enough to keep readers from accessing at least nine of the countrys biggest news sites.

more:

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kev...sia-cables more: LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 456017

08-11-2018 10:27 AM











Post: #2 RE: Massive Attack On Swedish News Sites Was The Work Of Russia

RUSHA, RUSHA, RUSHA ! spo snouou

Vocem sine nomine audivit!

User ID: 350320

08-11-2018 10:51 AM



Posts: 67,593









Post: #3 RE: Massive Attack On Swedish News Sites Was The Work Of Russia

Quote: The attacks on Swedish media didnt attract significant US attention, but they constituted a major event in Sweden. The attacks werent sophisticated  they were merely a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), which overloads a network with too much traffic, keeping it from being able to load  but they were powerful enough to keep readers from accessing at least nine of the countrys biggest news sites.



The timing of those attacks, which began March 19 and continued against at least some sites for five days, also is notable, in light of the indictment last month of 12 Russian military operatives by special counsel Robert Mueller. March 19 was also the day, according to the indictment, that a Russian intelligence officer named Aleksey Lukashev sent a spear-phishing email to Podesta. Two days later, according to the indictment, Lukashev and others downloaded the contents of Podestas email account.



The Swedish government has never publicly blamed Russia for the media attacks, according to representatives for Polisen, the countrys national police; Sakerhetspolisen, a national security agency; and the countrys Foreign Ministry. At the time, police said that many of the IP addresses used in the DDoS were Russian, which is far from proof of a DDoS perpetrators identity, and that they were considering a full range of culprits, from a hostile nation-state to an angry teenager.



Thomas Mattsson, the editor-in-chief of Expressen, Swedens second-largest paper and one of the victims, met with a number of government officials and politicians at the time over the attacks.



Everyone was suspecting this would have something to do with Russia, of course, Mattsson told BuzzFeed News. But it has not been declared in Sweden as fact. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 456060

08-11-2018 10:59 AM











Post: #4 RE: Massive Attack On Swedish News Sites Was The Work Of Russia

Lmao...the news scum are not important enough to hack...pathetic whack jobs...how arrogant do you have to be to claim the russians hacked you....sad Corosive

Resident Time Wizard

User ID: 437414

08-11-2018 11:06 AM



Posts: 3,785









Post: #5 RE: Massive Attack On Swedish News Sites Was The Work Of Russia





You know that inbreeding is a problem there, right?



We're better off having them as drinking buddies :) Russia is the new boogeyman? Lol once we ally ourselves with the fokken reds we will dominate the world. The reds aren't the enemy, man, it's the chinese. Russia isn't f*cking smart enough to do half the sh*t we accuse them of. Have you ever been there? Or seen what russian life is like?You know that inbreeding is a problem there, right?We're better off having them as drinking buddies :) \_(  )_/



If it can be destroyed by the truth, it deserves to be destroyed by the truth LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 455863

08-11-2018 12:16 PM











Post: #6 RE: Massive Attack On Swedish News Sites Was The Work Of Russia

Looks like the Lib t.a.r.d.s. are getting desperate LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 406166

08-11-2018 01:02 PM











Post: #7 RE: Massive Attack On Swedish News Sites Was The Work Of Russia

Let me tell you the story of the men/women/trans who cried "Russia!"... LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 456069

08-11-2018 01:06 PM











Post: #8 RE: Massive Attack On Swedish News Sites Was The Work Of Russia

Our real enemy is Israel.



Take them out and the world becomes calm. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 441482

08-11-2018 01:08 PM











Post: #9 RE: Massive Attack On Swedish News Sites Was The Work Of Russia

Another pro-war agitation thread. Brought to you by nuke inc. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 441482

08-11-2018 01:11 PM











Post: #10 RE: Massive Attack On Swedish News Sites Was The Work Of Russia

CIA attacks Sweden. Blames Russia. Israel attacks US. Blames Arabs. Obama uses chemical weapons. Blames Assad.



Just one lie after another. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 456069

08-11-2018 01:14 PM











Post: #11 RE: Massive Attack On Swedish News Sites Was The Work Of Russia

Judeocons want Russia attacked. What we're seeing is the propaganda machine preparing the public mindset for that war. They also want war with China, which is being ramped up as well.



Their plans insure the destructin of America as well. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 441482

08-11-2018 01:21 PM











Post: #12 RE: Massive Attack On Swedish News Sites Was The Work Of Russia

LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 01:14 PM) Judeocons want Russia attacked. What we're seeing is the propaganda machine preparing the public mindset for that war. They also want war with China, which is being ramped up as well.



Their plans insure the destructin of America as well.

They know their time is short.



The fall of ISIS and Trump leaving the Iran nuke deal guarantee the fall of occupied Israel.



All the fake left racial and tranny agitation in the West are a cover for allowing fake libs to continue the war agitation behind the skirts of America's billionaire OLIGARCHS. They know their time is short.The fall of ISIS and Trump leaving the Iran nuke deal guarantee the fall of occupied Israel.All the fake left racial and tranny agitation in the West are a cover for allowing fake libs to continue the war agitation behind the skirts of America's billionaire OLIGARCHS.
















By Chen Aizhu

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's decision to remove crude oil from its latest tariff list in an escalating trade war with the United States was a relief to state oil firms prompted by a strong lobbying effort by main importer the Sinopec Group, Beijing-based oil sources said.

Dropping crude oil from the final tariff list on $16 billion in U.S. goods announced late on Wednesday underscores the growing importance of the United States as a key global producer and critical alternative supply source for top importer China, which is seeking to diversify its oil purchases.

Removing crude imports, worth roughly $8 billion annually based on Sinopec's earlier forecast of 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) for 2018, also gives Beijing room to manoeuvre in future negotiations with Washington, especially as it may soon lose some Iranian oil shipments due to reimposed U.S. sanctions.

"Sinopec did a lot of lobbying work with the government," said one person with direct knowledge of the state refiner's efforts to sway the policy decision of various agencies such as the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Commerce.

Sinopec declined to comment.

The revision came after Sinopec - Asia's largest refiner and biggest buyer of U.S. oil - suspended new bookings until at least October over worries that a 25 percent tariff would prohibit it from finding buyers in China.

"The U.S. will be the single largest source of new oil supplies outside OPEC. It's in China's interest to diversify supplies," said a second source, a state oil trading manager.

The move could encourage Sinopec to bring in cargoes loaded in June and July, and resume new bookings, the sources said, declining to be named due to the sensitive nature of the topic.

U.S. IMPORTS COULD OFFSET LOST IRAN OIL

Story continues

Some analysts say Beijing is bowing to China's heavy reliance on imported crude oil.

"The issue for the Chinese is that any tariff on U.S. exports, (including) oil, will likely hurt their economy disproportionately because they have to import," said Kenneth Medlock, senior director of the Center for Energy Studies at Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy.

"U.S. exports will find a home regardless of how the global supply deck is reshuffled," Medlock said.

Although crude oil has been dropped off the list, refined fuels including propane, kerosene, diesel and lubricants are among the products due to be levied an additional 25 percent tax from August 23.

Propane will be the main item hit, with China's imports amounting to some $2 billion last year. Chinese imports of other refined fuels were negligible.

China's U.S. crude oil purchases shot to a record 553,000 bpd for June loadings, worth nearly $1 billion.

Dropping oil from the list could also be seen as a good-will concession that could help China win a waiver to keep buying Iranian oil even as U.S. President Donald Trump threatens to choke off Tehran's oil exports completely, analysts said.

China now takes in around 650,000 bpd of Iranian oil, trade worth roughly $15 billion a year. State oil giants China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) [CNPET.UL] and Sinopec have invested billions of dollars in Iranian oil fields, and have been importing their equity production.

But if the U.S.-China trade war is not scaled back, and Trump carries through threats of tariffs on $200 billion in Chinese goods, Beijing could put U.S. crude back on the list, the sources said.

"China's decision to drop crude may be an attempt to keep U.S. crude as leverage for potential negotiations," Michal Meidan of Energy Aspect wrote in a client note on Thursday.

But it could also just give Chinese buyers more time to bring in U.S. crude they have already bought, she said.

(Reporting by Chen Aizhu; Additional reporting by Gary McWilliams in HOUSTON and Henning Gloystein in SINGAPORE; Editing by Tom Hogue)
Elon Musk

Evan Vucci/AP Images

The Securities and Exchange Commission is inquiring about a tweet from Tesla CEO Elon Musk regarding the potential for the company to go private, The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg reported this week.

An inquiry from the SEC does not necessarily mean an investigation will follow. But if the agency determines one is necessary, it will start by looking at a tweet Musk posted on Tuesday, Harvey Pitt, a former SEC chairman, told Business Insider.

If Musk were to be found guilty of misconduct, punishments could range from hundreds of millions of dollars in fines to criminal prosecution.

Nearly three days after Tesla CEO Elon Musk said he had secured the funding necessary to take Tesla private pending a shareholder vote, neither he nor the company has disclosed where that money could come from.

One possible explanation: Tesla and its board of directors don't know.

While Tesla's board released a statement on Wednesday saying Musk discussed with it last week the prospect of going private, Musk has yet to tell it where the backing for a buyout deal would come from, Reuters reported on Thursday, citing a source familiar with the matter.

Tesla did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

(Have a Tesla news tip? Contact this reporter at mmatousek@businessinsider.com.)

2 words could get Musk into trouble

Musk's failure to clarify his tweets indicating Tesla is a shareholder vote away from becoming a private company is a problem, James Rosener, a partner at the law firm Pepper Hamilton who specializes in private equity and corporate financing, told Business Insider.

"The fact that there has been no announcement clarifying, confirming, or denying the financing is surprising and puts Tesla and Musk at great risk," he said in an email.

That risk includes the possibility of fines from the SEC, or even criminal prosecution.

The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the SEC had made an inquiry into Tesla about whether one of Musk's tweets regarding the possibility of taking the company private was truthful. And on Thursday, Bloomberg reported that the agency was "intensifying" its inquiry.

Story continues

An inquiry from the SEC does not necessarily mean an investigation will follow. But if the agency determines one is necessary, it will start by looking at the tweet that has put Musk under intense scrutiny, according to Harvey Pitt, who was the SEC's chairman from 2001 to 2003.

"Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured," Musk said on Tuesday via Twitter before issuing a formal statement on Tesla's website.

Tesla's share price surged after the tweet, rising by as much as 12%, to over $381, before trading closed.

According to Pitt, mentioning the possibility of taking Tesla private on Twitter, while ill-advised, will not trouble regulators. Instead, it's the tweet's final two words, "funding secured," that could create problems.

"'Funding secured' is a very strong term, and it has legal consequences," Pitt said.

If the SEC launched an investigation, it would seek to determine whether at the time Musk tweeted he had a legally binding commitment that would provide enough funding to convert Tesla into a private company at $420 a share. The agency would also look at the veracity of the statement Tesla later posted on its website and whether the company should have made additional statements based on what it knew.

The agency would be able to answer those questions relatively quickly, but its second potential area of inquiry  Musk's intent with his tweets  would be more challenging, Pitt said.

The SEC could look at Musk's war against short-sellers

Musk could be punished if the agency finds he tweeted about a buyout not because he had a deal in place, but because he wanted to punish short-sellers  who bet against a company's stock  knowing his statement would be likely to increase the price of Tesla's shares.

Proving that would be a difficult task, in part because Musk had previously expressed his desire to take Tesla private.

"I wish we could be private with Tesla," Musk said in an interview with Rolling Stone published in November. "It actually makes us less efficient to be a public company."

But Musk has been open about his disdain for Tesla short-sellers. On multiple occasions, he has hinted at an event he said would "burn" them.

"Short burn of the century comin soon," he tweeted in May. "The sheer magnitude of short carnage will be unreal."

"They have about three weeks before their short position explodes," he said on June 17.

To determine Musk's intent with his tweets on Tuesday, the SEC would look at his internal communications before and around the time he sent the first tweet, Pitt said. If Musk had expressed to anyone that he wanted to take revenge on short-sellers, or if he was told not to tweet about a potential go-private deal while markets were open, he could be found guilty of market manipulation.

That's a difficult charge to prove, Pitt said. And ultimately, any punishment Musk or Tesla would receive would depend on the amount and strength of evidence the SEC found.

For Musk to be criminally prosecuted and sent to prison, wrongdoing would have to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. For less severe penalties, the SEC would have to determine it was more likely than not that Musk committed some form of misconduct, Pitt said. If it did, its punishments could range from imposing hundreds of millions of dollars in fines on Musk or Tesla to barring Musk from ever serving as an officer or director of a public company again, according to Pitt.

Whether or not Musk's actions lead to an SEC investigation, his conduct this week has been highly unusual, putting Tesla and its shareholders in an increasingly difficult position.

"This whole course of events is highly problematic," Pitt said.

Read more about Tesla possibly going private:

NOW WATCH: Why the Chase Cards CEO is not worried about the hundreds of millions lost last quarter due to credit card rewards

See Also:

SEE ALSO: Elon Musk makes good on his promise to send David Einhorn 'a box of short shorts' after Tesla hurt the short-seller's performance
By Rod Nickel

(Reuters) - In a suburban Minneapolis laboratory, a tiny company that has never turned a profit is poised to beat the world's biggest agriculture firms to market with the next potential breakthrough in genetic engineering - a crop with "edited" DNA.

Calyxt Inc, an eight-year-old firm co-founded by a genetics professor, altered the genes of a soybean plant to produce healthier oil using the cutting-edge editing technique rather than conventional genetic modification.

Seventy-eight farmers planted those soybeans this spring across 17,000 acres in South Dakota and Minnesota, a crop expected to be the first gene-edited crop to sell commercially, beating out Fortune 500 companies.

Seed development giants such as Monsanto, Syngenta AG and DowDuPont Inc have dominated genetically modified crop technology that emerged in the 1990s. But they face a wider field of competition from start-ups and other smaller competitors because gene-edited crops have drastically lower development costs and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has decided not to regulate them.

Relatively unknown firms including Calyxt, Cibus, and Benson Hill Biosystems are already advancing their own gene-edited projects in a race against Big Ag for dominance of the potentially transformational technology.

"It's a very exciting time for such a young company," said Calyxt CEO Federico Tripodi, who oversees 45 people. "The fact a company so small and nimble can accomplish those things has picked up interest in the industry."

Story continues

Gene-editing technology involves targeting specific genes in a single organism and disrupting those linked to undesirable characteristics or altering them to make a positive change. Traditional genetic modification, by contrast, involves transferring a gene from one kind of organism to another, a process that still does not have full consumer acceptance.

Gene-editing could mean bigger harvests of crops with a wide array of desirable traits - better-tasting tomatoes, low-gluten wheat, apples that don't turn brown, drought-resistant soybeans or potatoes better suited for cold storage. The advances could also double the $15 billion global biotechnology seed market within a decade, said analyst Nick Anderson of investment bank Berenberg.

The USDA has fielded 23 inquiries about whether gene-edited crops need regulation and decided that none meet its criteria for oversight. That saves their developers years of time and untold amounts of money compared to traditional genetically modified crops. Of those 23 organisms, just three were being developed by major agriculture firms.

The newly competitive landscape could foster more partnerships and licensing deals between big and small firms, along with universities or other public research institutions, said Monsanto spokeswoman Camille Lynne Scott. Monsanto - which was recently acquired by Bayer AG - invested $100 million in startup Pairwise Plants this year to accelerate development of gene-edited plants.

North Carolina-based Benson Hill, founded in 2012 and named after two scientists, mainly licenses crop technology to other companies. But it decided to produce its own higher-yielding corn plant because of the low development costs, said Chief Executive Matt Crisp.

Calyxt plans to sell the oil from its gene-edited soybeans to food companies and has a dozen more gene-edited crops in the pipeline, including high-fibre wheat and potatoes that stay fresh longer.

Developing and marketing a traditional genetically modified crop might easily cost $150 million, which only a few large companies can afford, Crisp said. With gene-editing, that cost might fall as much as 90 percent, he said.

"We're seeing a huge number of organizations interested in gene-editing," Crisp said, referring to traditional crop-breeding companies, along with technology firms and food companies. "That speaks to the power of the technology and how we're at a pivotal point in time to modernize the food system."

UNCERTAIN REGULATORY, PUBLIC ACCEPTANCE

Supporters of gene-editing say it allows a higher level of precision than traditional modification.

With CRISPR, one popular type of gene-editing technology used by Syngenta, scientists transfer an RNA molecule and an enzyme into a crop cell. When the RNA encounters a targeted strand of DNA inside the cell, it binds to it and the enzyme creates a break in the cell's DNA. Then, the cell repairs the broken DNA in ways that disrupt or improve the gene.

(For a graphic on how the Syngenta process works, see: https://tmsnrt.rs/2KJmtxr )

Biotech firms hope the technology can avoid the "Frankenfood" label that critics have pinned on traditional genetically modified crops. But acceptance by regulators and the public globally remains uncertain.

The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on July 25 that gene-editing techniques are subject to regulations governing genetically modified crops.

The ruling will limit gene-editing in Europe to research and make it illegal to grow commercial crops. The German chemical industry association called the decision "hostile to progress."

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue blasted the ruling for enacting unnecessary barriers to innovation and stigmatizing gene-editing technology by subjecting it to the EU's "regressive and outdated" regulations governing genetically modified crops.

The USDA also has no current plans to regulate gene-editing in animal products, according to a document provided by the agency.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, however, plans to regulate gene-editing in both plants and animals, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb wrote in a June blog post. The agency is developing an "innovative and nimble" approach to regulating gene-editing, he wrote, that will aim to ensure its safety for both humans and animals while allowing companies to bring beneficial products to market.

The USDA, by contrast, chose not to regulate gene-edited crops because the process typically introduces characteristics that are "indistinguishable" from those created through traditional plant breeding, which take much longer, USDA Secretary Perdue said in a March statement.

Although there has been no widespread consumer resistance to gene-editing, activists who have long opposed genetically modified crops remain suspicious of any sort of tinkering with DNA. The new technique raises risks of creating undesired changes in the food supply and warrants increased regulation, said Lucy Sharratt, coordinator of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network.

That kind of opposition is why agribusiness giant Cargill Inc is pursuing gene-edited technology with caution, said Randal Giroux, the firm's vice-president of food safety, quality and regulatory affairs.

Cargill announced in February that it would collaborate with Precision BioSciences to develop healthier canola oil, but is proceeding slowly on agreements to store and transport other companies' gene-edited crops pending clarity from regulators, Giroux said.

"We really do want to see gene-editing evolve in the marketplace," Giroux said. "Were watching to see how consumers adopt these products and react to these products."

SECRET FIELD-TESTING

Other major agriculture biotech firms are moving more aggressively, hoping to take advantage of lighter regulation to speed development.

A gene-edited crop may take five years to move from development to commercialization in the United States, compared with a genetically modified crop that could take 12 years, said Dan Dyer, head of seeds development at Syngenta.

The firm is working on better-tasting tomatoes that take longer to spoil and hopes to launch a gene-edited crop in the mid-2020s, said Jeff Rowe, Syngenta's president of global seeds.

DowDuPont - at a secret location in the U.S. Midwest - is field-testing waxy corn, a variety grown for industrial purposes that has been edited for higher yields. The company plans a commercial launch next spring.

Smaller firms will be nipping at the heels of these massive companies in the race to bring the next generation of genetically engineered foods to market, said Robert Wager, a biology faculty member at Vancouver Island University.

"The lack of USDA-regulated status is a huge game-changer," he said, "for universities and small startups to enter the market."

(Reporting by Rod Nickel; Editing by Brian Thevenot)
bitcoin price predictions

Dash CEO and former Wall Street executive Ryan Taylor spoke out about the recent Wall Street activity seen in the cryptocurrency space recently, with ICE establishing a bitcoin market and financialization coming in from other avenues of the traditional finance world.

Dash CEO Explains Why He Left Wall Street to Go All in on Crypto

In an exclusive interview, Taylor told CCN:

I was led away from Wall Street for two primary reasons. The first is the tremendous opportunity I believe is inherent in the space. This is an incredibly immature industry with enormous potential for well-run projects. The second reason is that this technology has the potential to change the world for the better by empowering some of the most disaffected people in the world with a greater degree of financial freedom. It is truly an exciting place to be working.

Dash is a cryptocurrency and a digital autonomous organization (DAO) aimed at enabling merchants to handle private payments in crypto. The currency has been adopted in Venezuela by over 800 merchants and is also active in Zimbabwe.

dash

After working for 15 years in financial services and technology, Taylor left his position as a hedge fund analyst working for a $20 billion investment firm based in New York to set up Dash, and he has some interesting insights into how things work behind the scenes in the traditional finance world.

Wall Street has a tendency to work on major new developments in private, and I suspect many others are working on solutions, even while simultaneously publicly shunning cryptocurrencies, said Taylor.

Cryptocurrency Doesnt Need Wall Street

The effects of mainstream financial institutions investing in crypto has yet to be seen, but Taylor believes that crypto will make its own way regardless of outside influence.

Crypto doesnt need Wall Street to grow. It is getting adopted more and more every year with or without it. There are major benefits and drawbacks from its involvement, but I think netting those out, it is an overall positive thing that crypto is becoming more and more integrated with the traditional financial system.

Story continues

Cryptocurrency can become much easier to use if it is integrated with other financial systems and add to its utility. Would you rather use the U.S. dollar if it were not integrated with the financial system? By turning the question around, it becomes obvious that this will help crypto adoption, he added.

While Taylor acknowledges that there are benefits as well as disadvantages to Wall Street becoming more involved in crypto, there are other obstacles to be dealt with before we see widespread adoption.

Right now, regulatory uncertainty is preventing a lot of businesses from jumping in to provide services or become comfortable accepting payments in digital currencies. Regulators will eventually catch up and provide businesses with the guidance they need to gain comfort with it.

With banks now jumping into the space, I think regulators will need to finally address this. The problem is that regulators tend to focus on institutions, and this was unusually a market that developed from a grassroots movement by regular people, rather than the financial institutions. Regulators got caught on their back heels as a result, but seem to be catching up to the need quickly, he concluded.

Images from Shutterstock



The post Interview: Dash CEO Ryan Taylor on Why Cryptocurrency Doesnt Need Wall Street to Grow appeared first on CCN.


DUBAI, Aug 11 (Reuters) - A top Iranian constitutional body has approved measures passed by parliament to bring the country more into line with global money-laundering norms, state media said on Saturday, as Tehran tries to attract investments despite the reimposition of U.S sanctions.

Iran has been trying to implement standards set by the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), a global group of government anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-financing of terrorism regimes (CFT), in the hope it will be removed from a blacklist that makes some foreign investors reluctant to deal with it.

In June, FATF said Iran had until October to complete the reforms or face consequences that could further deter investors from the country, which has already been hit by the return of U.S. sanctions this week. {nL5N1UY39D]

The Guardian Council, which vets legislation passed by parliament for compliance with Irans constitution, gave its approval to the legal amendments on combating the funding of terrorism, the council's spokesman, Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, was quoted by the state news agency IRNA as saying.

Hardliners in parliament have opposed passing legislation aimed at moving towards compliance with FATF standards, arguing it could hamper Iranian financial support for allies such as Lebanons Hezbollah, which the United States has classified as a terrorist organisation.

Saturday's approval came despite the clergy-dominated council's earlier objections to another set of amendments linked to money laundering.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in June parliament should pass legislation to combat money laundering according to its own criteria.

Foreign businesses say legislation that includes FATF guidelines is essential if they are to increase investment. (Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editint by Mark Potter)
Kinder Morgan (NYSE: KMI) appears to be winning the race to build the next natural gas pipeline out of the fast-growing Permian Basin. Just days after the unveiling of a rival pipeline by Targa Resources (NYSE: TRGP), Kinder Morgan announced that it reeled in ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) as a major shipper for its proposed Permian Highway Pipeline (PHP). That agreement moves it one step closer to locking up its second major gas pipeline out of the region to drive growth in the coming years.

The building boom

Kinder Morgan is already building a multibillion-dollar gas pipeline out of the Permian Basin after starting work on the Gulf Coast Express (GCX) in the first quarter. The company is developing that $1.75 billion pipeline in a partnership with Targa Resources and DCP Midstream. GCX will transport up to 1.98 Bcf/d of natural gas from shippers such as Apache (NYSE: APA), which not only signed a transportation agreement, but holds an option to buy a 15% stake in the pipeline from Kinder Morgan.

A stack of pipelines with a blue sky in the background.

Image source: Getty Images.

However, shortly after locking that project up, Kinder Morgan indicated that a second line was already in development. The company unveiled that project in June after forming a joint venture with privately held Eagle Claw Midstream and Apache to build the PHP project, which is a $2 billion pipeline that would move 2.0 Bfc/d. Eagle Claw and Apache each committed to much as a quarter of the pipeline's proposed capacity, which they hope to bring online by the end of 2020.

ExxonMobil will now join them after it signed a letter of intent to secure space on the line, committing to ship up to 450 Mmcf/d. In doing so, it gave a big stamp of approval for the project, pushing it one step closer to becoming a reality. That's just as important to Exxon as it is to Kinder Morgan since the oil giant expects to grow its oil and gas output from the region by five-fold through 2025 as part of its ambitious expansion plan and needs a clear path to get its gas to market centers.

Story continues

Staying ahead of the competition

Kinder Morgan's announcement that it has secured a significant commitment from ExxonMobil comes just days after Targa Resources announced that it had teamed up with NextEra Energy, MPLX, and a private equity company to develop the Whistler Pipeline Project, which would move Permian gas to the Gulf Coast. This pipeline would also be able to ship 2.0 Bcf/d and consists of a 450-mile mainline as well as a smaller 170-mile lateral that would connect the system to processing plants operated by Targa Resources. Those partners and their producing customers have collectively committed more than 1.5 Bcf/d to the project, which would also begin operations at the end of 2020.

While both pipeline developments have commitments representing about three quarters of their proposed capacity, Kinder Morgan seems to be out in front. With an industry leader like Exxon supporting its project, it will "accelerate our path to a final investment decision," according to Sital Mody, the president of Kinder Morgan Natural Gas Midstream, because it should quicken the pace of conversations with other shippers to firm up their commitments.

That's important because there doesn't seem to be enough gas to support to two more 2.0 Bcf/d gas pipelines out of the Permian by that end of 2020 timeframe. That's because output in the region is only expected to grow from 8.7 Bcf/d in this year up to 10.9 Bcf/d in 2021, and GCX is coming online in late 2019. Though, with output in the region expected to reach 14 Bcf/d by 2027, there's a clear need for additional pipeline capacity at some point in the future.

A big step forward for Kinder Morgan

Investors have questioned how fast Kinder Morgan can grow in the coming years after it abandoned its Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion in Canada. However, the company can provide more clarity on its growth prospects by locking up the PHP project. That's why investors should keep an eye on its progress, especially with competition heating up.

More From The Motley Fool

Matthew DiLallo owns shares of Kinder Morgan. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Kinder Morgan. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
alex jones roger stone

Ben Jackson/Getty Images for SiriusXM

Mark Zuckerberg reportedly suspects that infamous Infowars founder Alex Jones wanted to get banned from Facebook all along, for the attention it would give him.

Indeed, the official Infowars app has shot up the Apple and Google app store charts in the wake of Facebook's actions.

The tech giants are cracking down on Alex Jones  and his public profile is skyrocketing in the aftermath.

Over the last few days, numerous big tech firms, including Facebook to YouTube, have banished the often-controversial conspiracy theorist from their platforms, citing their rules around hate speech. But Mark Zuckerberg reportedly suspects that this was all part of Jones' plan.

According to a new report from The New York Times published Friday, citing anonymous sources, the Facebook CEO mulled over whether the faux-newsman "was purposefully trying to get kicked off the platform to gain attention" before finally pulling the trigger after Apple moved first and booted the Infowars podcasts from its iTunes directory.

In other words, Zuckerberg thought Jones might believe the positives of getting banned from Facebook would outweigh the negatives, before the CEO ultimately bowed to public pressure and banned him anyway.

Indeed, in the wake of these bans, the official app of Jones' Infowars network has shot up the charts of Apple and Google's mobile app stores, giving him a major publicity boost, at least in the short term.

A Facebook spokesperson did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

In recent months, Facebook and other social networks have come under intense pressure over the spread of misinformation and hoaxes on their platform, with critics calling them to do far more to halt the spread of malicious falsehoods.

The recent moves to eject Alex Jones suggests a potential sea change in tech firms' approach to policing their platforms and their view of their responsibilities. That said, Twitter, unlike most other major social networks, has refused to crack down on Jones, insisting he doesn't violate its rules  though a recent analysis from CNN suggests otherwise.

Story continues

NOW WATCH: We used a headset that transforms your brain activity into a light display  here's how it works

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FILE - In this Saturday, July 30, 2016 file photo, smoke billows from chimneys of an industrial plant as the sun sets in Campus Misericordiae in Brzegi, near Krakow, Poland. Unionists and government officials attending a climate conference in Poland have called for protecting industrial jobs and giving nations the freedom to choose their approaches for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The two-day meeting that opened Thursday, Aug. 9, 2018 in Katowice was organized to work out the positions of Polands trade unions and industry for an international climate summit to take place in the industrial city. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia, file)

WARSAW, Poland (AP)  Polish trade union leaders and government officials at a climate conference called Thursday for nations to protect industrial jobs and be given the freedom to choose their own approaches to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The two-day meeting that opened in Katowice aimed to work out the positions of Poland's trade unions and industry before an international climate summit in December taking place in the industrial city.

Poland chose to host the COP-24 summit in Katowice to show how this former coal-mining city has been turned into an environment-friendly one in the almost-three decades after the collapse of communism and after Poland joined the European Union in 2004.

At the Dec. 3-14 summit, more than 190 countries taking part in the 2015 Paris Agreement are to work out a rulebook for implementing the landmark climate accord.

Participants at the Poland conference said nations should be allowed to choose their own ways of cutting carbon emissions in accordance with their industrialization and reliance on fossil fuels. They said developing economies should not be forced to cut jobs.

"Those member countries in Europe that have a chance for a modern development and for modern industry, they should get support, on the condition it really is modern industry that will preserve the region's jobs," Deputy Energy Minister Grzegorz Tobiszowski said.

Since 1990, Poland has cut over 300,000 coal mining jobs, to some 83,000 currently, and has also scaled down coal extraction to some 65 million tons from 147 million tons. However, the industry remains one of the major employers in Poland and consecutive governments have vowed to protect it, while still modernizing it and making it more environment-friendly.

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Some 80 percent of Poland's energy comes from coal, some 15 percent comes from renewable sources and 5 percent is from gas. By 2030, the government has pledged to cut coal to some 49 percent of the country's energy mix.

Tomasz Rogala, the head of the European Association for Coal and Lignite, said that last year the EU imported 173 million tons of coal, an amount that could have provided some 175,000 jobs in Europe.

Among the issues for the two-week summit in December are how to ensure transparent monitoring of what countries do to cut their global emissions and the methods used to take stock of what countries have achieved.

It is also expected that the governments will hear that their current national pledges won't be enough to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius by 2100, and should therefore raise their ambitions.

While U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to pull out of the 2015 Paris accord, the rest of the world remains committed to the deal.
Dave Majumdar

Security, Europe

Russias future sixth-generation fighter as well as its next generation unmanned aircraft could be equipped with what is described as a radio-photonic radar.

Russia's Next Fighter Might Have a New Way to Shoot Down F-22s and F-35s

The Russians are not the first to start developing photonic radars. An Italian funded project called PHOtonic-based full DIgital Radar (PHODIR) developed the first fully photonics-based coherent radar system in 2014. A photonic radar replaces the traditional electronic circuits of conventional radars with lasers, optical filters and photodiodes to generate very precise, high-quality radio frequency signals. While the photonic radar still uses radio waves to locate objects like conventional systems, the laser allows it to pulse highly tuned frequencies in a broad emission band from the tens of megahertz to possibly up to the hundreds of gigahertz, states a General Electric press statement.

Russias future sixth-generation fighter as well as its next generation unmanned aircraft could be equipped with what is described as a radio-photonic radar.

(This first appeared last month.)

If the Russians succeed in developing such systems, Moscow would be in possession of a sensor with far greater range and resolutionhigh enough to develop a three dimensional image of an airborne targetthan anything currently in operation around the world. Potentially, such a radar system could allow the Russians to develop a weapons quality track on a stealth aircraft if it proves to be successful.

According to the state-owned TASS news agency, Russias RTI Group is expected to complete preliminary research and developmentas well as built a mockupof a X-band radio-photonic radar this year. That "will determine a principal scheme of building the radio-photonic locator," the RTI Group told TASS. That should allow the company "in several years to build prototypes of super-light and small-size radars for unmanned aerial vehicles."

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Photonic radars "will be able to provide radio wave imaging when an image has greater details with the possibility to identify the target type," the RTI Group told TASS. That mirrors previous statements from the Radio-Electronic Technologies Group, which is generally better known by its Russian acronym KRET.

"The radio-photonic radar will be able to see farther than existing radars, in our estimates. And, as we irradiate an enemy in an unprecedentedly wide range of frequencies, we'll know its position with the highest accuracy and after processing we'll get an almost photographic image of it - radio vision," Vladimir Mikheyev, an advisor to the first deputy chief executive officer of KRET, told TASS last year.

KRET claims to have already developed working prototypes of various subcomponents of their photonic radar. KRET is now working on building a full-scale prototype of the system.

"Both the emitter and the receiver have been built on the basis of the experimental prototype as part of the R&D work. All this works and performs the location - we emit an ultra-high frequency signal, it is reflected back and we receive and process it and get the radar picture of an object. We see what we need to do to make it optimal," Mikheyev said.

"Now a full-fledged mockup of this radio-optical photonic antenna array is being developed as part of the research and development work, which will allow us to test the characteristics of the serial prototype."

The Russians are not the first to start developing photonic radars. An Italian funded project called PHOtonic-based full DIgital Radar (PHODIR) developed the first fully photonics-based coherent radar system in 2014. A photonic radar replaces the traditional electronic circuits of conventional radars with lasers, optical filters and photodiodes to generate very precise, high-quality radio frequency signals. While the photonic radar still uses radio waves to locate objects like conventional systems, the laser allows it to pulse highly tuned frequencies in a broad emission band from the tens of megahertz to possibly up to the hundreds of gigahertz, states a General Electric press statement.

Current marine radar and air traffic control typically operate in the 1-12 gigahertz range, with higher frequencies typically meaning more precise detection of objects.

Lead PHODIR researcher Paolo Ghelfi, an electronics engineer with Italy's National Inter-University Consortium for Telecommunications (CNIT), described some the teams research to Txchnologist.

"We are defining the position, speed and even the shape of big cargo ships in and outside the port," Ghelfi said. "Using a laser instead of traditional radar electronics means we can detect more accurate positions of objects. We can also detect smaller objects farther away because our system produces lower noise in the radar signal."

The PHODIR team published their findings in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Nature in 2014.

The proposed architecture exploits a single pulsed laser for generating tunable radar signals and receiving their echoes, avoiding radio-frequency up- and downconversion and guaranteeing both the software-defined approach and high resolution, reads the paper abstract from the Italian team.

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Its performance exceeds state-of-the-art electronics at carrier frequencies above two gigahertz, and the detection of non-cooperating aeroplanes confirms the effectiveness and expected precision of the system.

Other researchersincluding one from Chinahave followed up on the PHODIR teams work to address some of the limitations of current photonic radar technology.

The signal processing in the sampling receiver is still a main limitation of the operation frequency and bandwidth, reads a paper by Chinese scientists Fangzheng Zhang, Qingshui Guo and Shilong Pan in Nature.

To down-convert the high-frequency RF signals, microwave photonic frequency conversion and time-stretched analog-to-digital conversion techniques have been proposed, but it is still hard for a traditional radar receiver to process the down-converted baseband or intermediate frequency (IF)-band signals if a very large operation bandwidth is adopted.

The Chinese researchers posed a solution to that problem in their paper.

We propose and demonstrate a photonics-based real-time high-range-resolution radar incorporating optical generation and processing of broadband LFM signals, the researchers wrote.

In the transmitter, a broadband LFM signal is generated by frequency quadrupling of a low-speed electrical signal applying a single integrated electro-optical modulator. In the receiver, the reflected LFM signal is de-chirped to a low-frequency signal based on photonic frequency mixing. The implementation of photonic de-chirping can directly process high-frequency and large bandwidth signals without any electrical frequency conversion. After photonic de-chirping, ADC with a moderate sampling rate can be used in the receiver and real-time signal processing is realizable. In the proposed system, the bandwidth limitations due to electrical signal generation and processing is eliminated. The maximum operation bandwidth is mainly determined by the electro-optical devices, which can be tens or even hundreds of gigahertz. As a result, real-time radar detection with a very high range resolution can be realized.

Meanwhile Russia has started to invest in military applications of photonic radar technology, the Pentagon has a fairly large head start. Indeed, the Pentagon has a host of photonics-based technology development program underwaynot just for radars but also for signals intelligence and other applications. The fact that Moscow and Beijing are also working on such technology only highlights that the Pentagon is not longer able maintain a huge technological lead over potential adversaries over the longer term.

Dave Majumdar is the defense editor for The National Interest. You can follow him on Twitter: @davemajumdar.

Image: Creative Commons.

Read full article
Originally published by Ian Bremmer on LinkedIn: Signal: Irans Keyboard Shortcut  Blame Canada  Cartoonish Villains - Pyongyang-upon-Avon

Hi LinkedIn,

If you like what you see, be sure to sign up for Signal to receive it in your inbox first thing every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday morning.

-Ian

IRAN: HITTING BACK WITH A KEYBOARD

Lets say that right now you are Iran. The US has torn up a deal you were abiding by, and reimposed crippling sanctions that are exacerbating a currency crash and broader economic crisis. Youre in no mood to roll over for Uncle Sam  Washingtons demands are beyond the pale  but what are you gonna do about it?

You have options. You could threaten oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, or encourage your proxies in Yemen, Syria, and elsewhere in the Middle East to step up their attacks against US allies and interests. But why go to all that trouble and expense when you could inflict pain on the Great Satan and its friends with a tap or two on a keyboard and the click of a mouse?

Iran has done cyber-damage before. Back in 2012 Tehran launched a series of cyberattacks against the US and Saudi Arabia as tensions were on the rise. This time around, Tehran will almost certainly be tempted to do the same. Heres one reason why it might not want to do anything too provocative  along with two reasons why you should be worried anyway.

First, the good news: Unlike the Obama Administration, Donald Trump and his hawkish national security adviser John Bolton are almost certainly ready (if not actively itching) to respond ferociously to any Iranian cyberattacks, particularly if they cause any serious damage to people or property in the US. Iran knows this and may reason that its better to go after something in the neighborhood and relatively low-risk, like Saudi companies business networks, rather than to invite US wrath by going after something more sensitive in Uncle Sams own house, right?

But heres where things get dicey: Cyber weapons arent like missiles that you can just stockpile and pull out whenever you want. Hackers access to networks comes and goes as their targets discover and defend against new threats. So if Tehran thinks it has a shot on goal, it might feel pressure to take it. Iran will step carefully, but it may be more likely to consider a riskier attack on a higher value American target  if the opportunity presents itself.

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Theres another problem: Cyber weapons can be hard to control once you make the decision to use them. As an example, when suspected Russian hackers hit Ukraine with a big ransomware attack last year, the malware  which had been augmented with weapons-grade code stolen from the US National Security Agency -- spread well beyond its initial target. It caused billions of dollars of damage and wiped out IT systems in dozens of countries, including Russia. No one was killed. The attack didnt destroy the computers that regulate control systems in a power plant or take down the intensive care unit of a major hospital. But next time might not be so lucky.

Put together, Irans incentive to retaliate while it can, and the potential for unintended, even deadly, consequences adds a dangerous new dimension to an already-tense standoff.

BLAME CANADA! THE KINGDOM LASHES OUT

In recent days, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has thrown a fit with Canada. Riyadh has kicked out the Canadian ambassador, recalled its own envoy, cancelled flights between the two countries, and put a freeze on new bilateral trade and investment. A pro-government youth club went so far as to post (but then remove) an image that seemed to threaten Canada with a 9/11 style terrorist attack.

The reason for the blowup? Canadas call for the release of recently-jailed activist Samar Badawi. Badawi is an outspoken champion of womens rights who has also campaigned for the release of her brother Raif, a blogger sentenced in 2014 to a thousand lashes and ten years in jail for insulting Islam through electronic channels.

By the standards of the old pantomime act in which Western governments criticize Saudi Arabias appalling human rights record but more or less leave the energy-rich and strategically aligned kingdom alone, Canadas statement hardly stands out.

So why the furious response? Heres Alex to help cut through the noise:

First, theres a domestic angle. Saudi Arabias young Crown Prince Mohamed Bin Salman is liberalizing parts of Saudi society as part of a broader bid to attract foreign investment and reduce his countrys dependence on oil revenues.

But as part of that plan, hes staged a power grab and crushed dissent to minimize challenges from rival princes or from conservative circles who hate what hes up to. This, for example, explains why Prince Mohamed sees no contradiction in allowing women to drive while also arresting the women who have campaigned for allowing women to drive.

By lashing out at Canada  a country big enough to matter, but small enough not to risk any serious fallout  he is sending a signal: external criticism is now just as off-limits as internal criticism.

Second, theres an external angle: the Trump effect. Just to be clear, the US has never  under any administration -- really put the screws to Saudi Arabia (or any other Sunni Arab allies) over human rights. But no modern US President has been as unapologetically uninterested in human rights issues as Donald Trump.

At the same time, Trump has signaled he is firmly in Saudi Arabias corner when it comes to the Kingdoms key foreign policy objective, which is to crush Iran. Where Obamas embrace of the Arab Spring and the Islamic Republic raised fears in Riyadh, Trump has set the House of Saud at ease.

Will Trump intervene on behalf of very weak and dishonest Justin Trudeau? Doubtful. And while Ottawa and Riyadh will probably eventually work this all out, other authoritarians will surely take notice that on Trumps watch theres room to be tougher at home and pricklier abroad.

A message from Microsoft:

The Woman Who Showed the World How to Drive

What did the automobiles first road trip look like? Microsofts Today in Technology series explores what happened 130 years ago this month when the female visionary Bertha Benz and her sons took a 60-mile journey on the first patented horseless carriage. Read more about her story and how inclusion shapes innovation at  Today in Technology

CARTOON VILLAINS, REAL FEARS: POOH AND JONES

Were living through a cartoonish period in global politics. Just look at the US and China, for example, where the fate of two very different cartoon(ish) characters reveals something important about each countrys biggest political fears.

Last week, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that Chinese censors had banned Walt Disneys new Winnie-the-Pooh live-action film, Christopher Robin, from theaters. Its part of an ongoing crusade against the portly, honey-addicted cartoon bear, which, it is widely agreed, bears a certain resemblance to Chinese President Xi Jinping. Xis opponents have made a meme of the lovable storybook character, using it to poke fun at the countrys most powerful leader since Mao. It seems absurd. Is China, the aspiring superpower, really so afraid that its leader cant stand a little ribbing that it has to ban a cartoon bear? Xi is arguably the most powerful man on the planet, and cuts a strong figure as the head of a newly confident China. But as Beijing girds for a trade war with the US, the government doesnt want a little bear to open the way for bigger criticism of Chinas leadership. Millions of would-be Winnie-the-Pooh fans will just have to go see something else.

Meanwhile, in the US, a cartoonish villain has become a poster-boy for the countrys deepest anxieties. Fans of Alex Jones, a conspiracy-mongering talk radio host -- who, among other things, has spread baseless claims that the Sandy Hook school shooting was a hoax -- can no longer find their favorite entertainer on Facebook, Apple, and YouTube. In recent days, those companies banned him from their services on the grounds that he was using hate speech. The fear here isnt making a mockery of the national leadership, its that lies and disinformation will exacerbate divisions in society and undermine trust in institutions that are critical to a healthy democracy. Technically, theres no free speech conflict  these are private companies. But their decision to deny Jones the use of their megaphone raises broader questions  does keeping the internet safe for democracy require rooting out poisonous speech? If so, should governments be regulating these companies more closely? Or does silencing someone like Jones just risk exacerbating the divisions he was inflaming in the first place?

PYONGYANG-UPON-AVON: A POP QUIZ

When it comes to the well-wrought verbal insult, few governments, if any, are in the league of the North Koreans. Just last week they were at it again, decrying US Secretary of State Mike Pompeos gangster like mentality monarchical thinking and the unprecedented tragicomedy of Washington seeking North Koreas complete denuclearization without giving anything in return along the way.

Theres something almost Shakespearean about the DPRKs cache of calumnies. So Shakespearean, in fact, that we bet you cant tell the difference between the Bard himself and the wordsmiths of Pyongyang. Give it a shot  for each of these following insults: was it Shakespeare or the DPRK? Scroll to the bottom of todays hard numbers for the answers

Stuffed cloak-bag of guts A most cruel monster and blood-thirsty beast Chicken soaked in rain Fat-kidneyed rascal Three-inch fool Old insane bitch

HARD NUMBERS

40: Later this month, Greece will exit its third and final bailout and can again borrow money from markets. Yet, unemployment remains at 20 percent. Among young people, its 40 percent.

56: A monthly poll of public attitudes in 28 countries found that 56 percent of respondents felt their countries were on the wrong track, with unemployment and poverty/inequality topping the list of complaints. Brazil and Peru scored the worst of the 28 nations surveyed, while citizens of China and Saudi Arabia had the most confidence in the direction their countries were headed.

1,100: After the return of sanctions against Iran this week, the list of people and companies sanctioned by the US government runs more than 1,100 pages. Thats a lot of Iranians, Turks, Russians, Venezuelans, terrorists and other assorted persona non grata that US companies can no longer do business with.

2.6 million: Some 2.6 million Syrian civilians could soon be in the firing line as President Bashar al-Assads troops close in on the last major remaining rebel stronghold of Idlib, near the countrys Turkish border. The countrys six-year civil war has displaced roughly 12 million people, with half of them seeking shelter overseas.

9 billion: China spent over $9 billion on public security in Xinjiang province last year, up more than 10-fold since ethnic riots erupted across the sprawling, predominantly Muslim region, leaving hundreds dead. Thats eight times the growth rate of Chinas total public security budget.

Quiz answers:

1. Shakespeare, in Henry IV

2. North Korea, on US Vice President Dick Cheney

3. North Korea, on US President George W Bush

4. Shakespeare, in Henry VI

5. Shakespeare, in Taming of the Shrew

6. North Korea, on former South Korean president Park Geun-hye





This edition of Signal was prepared by Kevin Allison (@KevinAllison) with editorial support from Alex Kliment, Willis Sparks, and Edana Ng.
The President and Vice President are actively seeking to add a U.S. Space Force to the country, which would make it the sixth branch in the military.

U.S. Space Force

Source: Shutterstock

Here are six things you should know about the idea:

Vice President Mike Pence gave a speech regarding the governments idea for a U.S. Space Force on Thursday at the Pentagon, which would reportedly cost taxpayers $8 billion.

The current administration said that it hoped to establish a new military Space Command and a Space Operations Force, which would bring in professionals in the space industry.

America will always seek peace in space, as on the Earth. But history proves that peace only comes through strength, and in the realm of outer space, the United States Space Force will be that strength in the years ahead, Pence said.

The U.S. Space Force would also require members from the Department of Defense and a Space Development Agency to streamline the process of acquiring military space equipment.

The Pentagon can help make all this happen but only Congress is capable of creating a new branch of the military, which is something that hasnt happened since the Air Force became its own branch in 1947.

Pence said that Congress needs to act now to establish and fund the U.S. Space Force.

What do you think of the matter?

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betsy devos summer home

Advance Media/Barcroft Images

In Holland, Michigan, there's a 22,000-square-foot behemoth facing Lake Macatawa. The nautical-themed mansion serves as a summer home for Betsy DeVos, the Trump administration's Department of Education secretary.

While the custom home was likely expensive, architecture critic Kate Wagner argues that it reeks of bad design. Wagner has written for places like Architectural Digest and Curbed, but is best known for founding the blog "McMansion Hell," where she publishes memes that poke fun at huge, horribly-designed homes. (Generally, McMansions describe properties that span at least 3,000 square feet and feature a hodgepodge of nonsensical architectural styles. The homes started becoming popular in the 1980s.)

When asked to describe DeVos' waterfront home in a few words, Wagner replied a "beached whale."

She explains more below.

See the rest of the story at Business Insider

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SEE ALSO: An architecture expert reveals 19 of the ugliest McMansions in America
* Saudi-led coalition announces probe into Yemen bus attack

* Yemen's Houthis say attack killed 51, including 40 children

* Funerals to be held Saturday

* Attacks draws international condemnation, calls to ebd conflict

* Battles continue; Houthis fire missiles at Saudi Arabia

* (Houthi missiles fired at Saudi Arabia)

SANAA/DUBAI/GENEVA, Aug 10 (Reuters) - A Saudi-led Arab military coalition said on Friday it would investigate an air strike that killed dozens of children in Yemen, an apparent shift of stance on an attack Riyadh has portrayed as a legitimate action against its Houthi foes.

At least 40 children were killed in Thursday's strike on a bus in northern Yemen, the armed Houthi group which controls Yemen's capital said. That raised the toll of children killed in the raid from 29.

The strike by the Western-backed alliance of Arab countries outraged human rights groups and was strongly condemned by U.N. officials. Henrietta Fore, executive director of the U.N. Children's Fund UNICEF, said the "horrific" attack marked "a low point in (Yemens) brutal war".

People in Saada started to dig graves in preparation for funerals to be held on Saturday.

"God may give us patience," said Hussein Hussein Tayeb who lost three sons on the bus, on a trip with other pupils to visit a mosque and tombs.

"I was one of the first to arrive on the scene, seeking to rescue the wounded; I lifted a body and I found that it was Ahmed's face. I hugged him, he was my son."

Ahmed was 11. His brothers Yusef and Ali were 14 and 9.

The United Nations called for an independent investigation of the raid which hit the bus as it drove through a market of Dahyan, a town in the Houthis' home province of Saada.

A Reuters TV crew saw boys injured in the strike lying on beds in the Dahyan hospital, many with their heads wrapped. The face of one was covered in lacerations.

The Arab states carried out new air strikes on Friday, killing a girl and injuring several other people whose home was targeted in the Marib province, east of the capital Sanaa, the Houthis' al-Masirah TV said.

Story continues

Announcing the investigation into the strike on the bus, the Saudi Press Agency quoted an alliance official as saying: "The coalition is firmly committed to investigating all claims regarding mistakes or violations of international law, to sanction those who caused these incidents and to provide assistance to the victims."

The Saudi-led Arab alliance, whose members receive Western political support and buy billions of dollars a year in arms from the United States, Britain and France, has been fighting for three years to drive out the Houthis, Iran-aligned fighters who pushed a Saudi-backed government out of the capital in 2014.

Yemen is the poorest country in the Arabian peninsula, and the United Nations says the war has created the world's most urgent humanitarian disaster, with millions of people totally dependent on aid and at risk of famine if supply lines are cut.

"LEGITIMATE"

The Arab states initially said the air strikes on the bus were "legitimate military action" against missile launchers, carried out in accordance with international humanitarian law.

Houthi-run al-Masirah TV cited the group's health minister Taha Mutawakil as saying that the estimated number of casualties stood at 51 killed including 40 children, and at least 79 people wounded, of which 56 were children.

The International Committee of the Red Cross reported the same toll on Friday, citing authorities in Saada. It had said on its Twitter account on Thursday that its medical team at the ICRC-supported hospital in Saada had received the bodies of 29 children, all under 15 years old. The hospital also received 48 wounded people, among them 30 children. Masirah TV said on Friday the Houthis had fired a number of ballistic missile at Saudi Arabia, targeting the Jizan and Aseer provinces which lie at the border. Saudi Arabia intercepted two missiles fired at Jizan, Al-Arabiya TV reported.

The head of the Houthis's supreme revolutionary committee, Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, hailed a call on Friday by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for an independent investigation into the air strike.

In Paris, the French foreign ministry said France condemned the strike and backed a U.N. call to bring all parties in the war together for talks in Geneva on Sept 6.

The Houthis have however barred without explanation the head of the U.N.'s human rights office in Yemen from returning to the country, a U.N. spokeswoman said on Friday.

Elobaid Elobaid, a Canadian citizen, had been based in Yemen since October 2016, leading a team of 17 staff in Sanaa and 13 monitors in 11 of Yemen's governorates. His visa expired in June but was not renewed.

The U.N. human rights office has frequently accused all sides of violating international law and committing war crimes. (Reporting by Maher Chmaytelli in Dubai and Stephanie Ulmer-Nebehay in Geneva; Editing by Catherine Evans, Raissa Kasolowsky, William Maclean)
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Colorado Politics senior political reporter

Joey Bunch is the senior correspondent and deputy managing editor of Colorado Politics. His 32-year career includes the last 16 in Colorado. He was part of the Denver Post team that won the Pulitzer Prize in 2013 and he is a two-time finalist.
We have been studying Colorados political party voting patterns in statewide elections for about three decades  and the major finding is tha
U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado has joined a growing list of Capitol Hill lawmakers demanding the release of a study that details fresh concerns about toxic chemicals that fouled an aquifer south of Colorado Springs, as well as the drinking water of millions of other Americans. Bennet and a bipartisan group of 10 other senators sent a letter to the heads of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Health and Human Services expressing concern that the EPA appeared to be suppressing the study. Such actions are "unacceptable," says the letter released Tuesday by Bennet, D-Colo. "Given the wide use ... and presence of these chemicals in communities across the U.S.
Two protests next week will challenge attempts by El Paso County officials to seal autopsy reports for sheriffs Deputy Micah Flick and suspected car thief Manuel Zetina, who were killed in a gunbattle in February.

The Coroners Office petitioned last month to block the records from public release, saying the information contained in the reports will cause a substantial injury to the public interest and cause additional stress and grief to Flicks family.

But Flick and Zetina werent the only ones impacted by the shooting, protest organizer and shooting witness Michael DeRossett said. Thomas Villanueva, 28, who was described by the Sheriffs Office as an innocent bystander, got caught in the crossfire on his way home from lunch and was paralyzed from the chest down.

DeRossett says Villanueva deserves to know why he wasnt warned to stay away and who shot him  officers or Zetina?

Thomas simply needs answers, DeRossett said. We demand transparency. What do they have to hide by sealing these records?

The first protest will be Tuesday outside the El Paso County courthouse, 270 S. Tejon St. A second protest will follow Wednesday outside the Coroners Office, 2741 E. Las Vegas Street.

The Gazette and the Colorado Springs Independent have hired legal counsel to fight for the autopsy reports.

DeRossett said he believes the records will reveal important details about the gunbattle, which could answer lingering questions about whether the Beat Auto Theft Through Law Enforcement team acted appropriately when they confronted Zetina in a parking lot at the Murray Hill Apartments on Feb. 5.

Some witnesses have criticized officers for approaching Zetina with their guns holstered. Others, quoted by the Independent, said the officers did not identify themselves as law enforcement before Flick grabbed Zetina from behind, attempting to pin his arms to his side. They criticized whether Zetina could have known who was attacking him.

Sheriff Bill Elder said agents were clearly marked by law enforcement insignia, but Villanueva and other witnesses have contradicted that account.

Villanueva described the officers as well-dressed gangsters, adding that he saw the men signaling to each other but had no idea who they were or that they were about to attempt an arrest. DeRossett agrees, saying from his vantage point overlooking the parking lot he never saw badges or heard warnings from police before the shooting erupted.

He captured video of the aftermath, which he says proves officers werent identified. He also said the scene was so confusing that he and neighbors grabbed weapons to assist in what they thought was a gang fight going bad.

Villanueva, DeRossett said, is upset he never had a chance to run or turn away.

Villanueva has since filed a notice of claim  a precursor to a lawsuit  blaming Colorado Springs police and the Sheriffs Office for his serious physical injuries requiring hospitalization and surgeries. The allegations are only conjecture, his attorney Dr. Joseph Ramos said, until the investigation is complete.

Theres this idea out there that there were these uniformed officers and it was clear a shootout was about to go down and (Villanueva) walked in the middle of it, Ramos previously told The Gazette. I can promise he had no idea what was happening in the area he was in.

Ramos office did not return calls Friday seeking comment about whether it supports the protest.

If officers are found to have acted appropriately, Ramos has said, Villanueva will not sue. He also would not receive other compensation for his injuries or his extensive stay at Craig Hospital in Englewood, where he had to relearn how to care for himself.

Thats why Villanuevas supporters say theyre fighting for his right to access records  including the autopsies of Flick and Zetina. He has a right to know why he may spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair, Villanuevas sisters nephew, Derik Dubbel, said.

I feel that justice needs to be served here, Dubbel, 29, said. The other officers who were killed and injured, why are their families being taken care of any more than Thomas?

In addition to Villanueva, three officers were wounded in the shooting, two suffering minor injuries and quickly returned to work. The third, sheriffs deputy Scott Stone, remains on leave after being shot in the abdomen.

Dubbel, a hip-hop artist who goes by the stage name Dvoted, wrote a rap about the ordeal from Villanuevas perspective: Piracy is what it feels like, I may never feel rightAt some point I cant help but ask whyI want answers so Im out gettin em.

Contact the writer at 719-636-0362 or find her on Twitter: @njKaitlinDurbin.
Broncos have lost four straight after a 17-14 loss to the Cleveland Browns Thursday night.

You voted:
abhimahna

The conclusion of the argument above depends on which of the following assumptions?A) The increase in the rate of people treated for melanoma did not result from an improved ability to detect the disease at a treatable stage of development.B) The chances that an individual who contracts melanoma will survive have not improved since 1980.C) Due to improvements in medical technology, melanoma patients are more likely to live longer after detection of the disease than they were in 1980.D) It is highly unlikely that medical researchers will discover a cure for melanoma at any time in the foreseeable future.E) The rate of melanoma will continue to increase unless the government poses a ban on the use of chlorofluorocarbons, which are largely responsible for the destruction of the ozone layerHello - GMATNinja Could you kindly comment on this question. I really don't think - E can be the answer here. My Analysis below -Assumption is something - which is a must for conclusion to hold true. Also a few of the assumptions of a causal relation (A - caused - B) are --- B did not cause A-- Any thing else did not caused B. (Only A - caused B)Now coming back to the question -Argument (summary) - The destruction of ozone layer is the reason behind the increased rate of melanom disease.Option A is telling - Anything else (i.e. Improvement of detection technique of decease) is not the reason of the increased rate.Choice E however , talks about a specific chemical - "chlorofluorocarbons" and says unless govt. bans the chemical, rate of melanoma will continue to increase.Choice E is definitely a strengthener but we can't say it has to be true for conclusion to hold. The reason is use of specific detail on - "chlorofluorocarbons". What if this is not "chlorofluorocarbons" but something else. Choice E - can be considered if it is as shown below -The rate of melanoma will continue to increase unless the destruction of ozone layer stops, --- Now this needs to be true for the conclusion to hold.So, A seems to be the clear winner here.
Re: Although there has been great scientific debate for decades over globa [ #permalink

Although there has been great scientific debate for decades over global warming, most scientists now agree that human activity is causing the Earths temperature to rise. Though predictions vary, many global warming experts believe that average global temperatures will rise between three and eight degrees Fahrenheit during the next century. Such an increase would cause an alarming rise in sea levels, displacing millions of people by destroying major population centers along the worlds coastlines.



Conclusion: Such an increase would cause an alarming rise in sea levels, displacing millions of people by destroying major population centers along the worlds coastlines.



Falsification:

1) What if this increase in the sea levels could be checked?

2) What if this global temperature does not increase because of the counterbalancing effect of some other natural phenomenon?



Possible Assumption:

1) Theres no way the increase in the sea level or increase in the global temperature could be checked.



Which of the following is an assumption in support of the arguments conclusion?



A. New technological developments in the next century will not divert rising seas from the worlds coastal cities.

Negate: New technological developments in the next century will divert rising seas from the worlds coastal cities

If the technological developments in the next century can do that, then we will be able to break the conclusion. Thus, this option has the potential to be a prospective assumption.



B. Individuals will not become more aware of the steps they can take to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.

Negate: Individuals will become more aware of the steps they can take to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases

Even if the emission of the greenhouse gases is reduced, we do not know, within the scope of the argument, whether the event will have a positive or negative effect on the problems and whether the effect will be significant or not.



C. Rising sea levels similarly affect all coastal population centers.

Out of scope.



D. Some global warming experts predict a greater than eight degree Fahrenheit increase in global temperatures during the next century.

Negate: No global warming experts predict a greater than eight-degree fah increase in the global temperature during the next century.

Doesnt matter. The range mentioned in the argument is enough for the dooms days.



E. Human activity is the sole cause of increasing global temperatures.

Negate: Human activity is not the sole cause of increasing global temperatures.

There may be some other factors, say X. But, this new information does not break the conclusion.
sondenso wrote:

Economist: On average, the emergency treatment for an elderly person for injuries resulting from a fall costs $11,000. A new therapeutic program can significantly reduce an elderly person's chances of falling. Though obviously desirable for many reasons, this treatment program will cost $12,500 and thus cannot be justified.



Which of the following, if true, most seriously undermines the conclusion of the argument?



(A) Among elderly people who had followed the program for only a few months, the number of serious falls reported was higher than it was for people who had followed the program for its recommended minimum length of one year.



(B) Falls resulting in serious injuries are less common among elderly people living in nursing homes than they are among elderly people who live alone at home.



(C) A frequent result of injuries sustained in falls is long-term pain, medication for which is not counted among the average per-person costs of emergency treatment for elderly people's injuries from such falls.



(D) The new therapeutic program focuses on therapies other than medication, since overmedication can cause disorientation and hence increase the likelihood that an elderly person will have a serious fall.



(E) A significant portion of the cost of the new therapeutic program is represented by regular visits by health care professionals, the costs of which tend to increase more rapidly than do those of other elements of the program.



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Premises:Cost of emergency treatment from a fall - $11,000Cost of new therapeutic program that can reduce chances of fall - $12,500 (though desirable from other angles)Conclusion:New program cannot be justified due to higher costWe need to weaken this. Note that the argument concedes that the program has other benefits. It says that since its cost is higher, hence it is not justified. We need to weaken it from the cost perspective. That is, we need to say how the new program may actually turn out cheaper than cost of treatment.(A) Among elderly people who had followed the program for only a few months, the number of serious falls reported was higher than it was for people who had followed the program for its recommended minimum length of one year.We need make the new program justifiable in terms of cost too. Not the correct option.(B) Falls resulting in serious injuries are less common among elderly people living in nursing homes than they are among elderly people who live alone at home.Irrelevant(C) A frequent result of injuries sustained in falls is long-term pain, medication for which is not counted among the average per-person costs of emergency treatment for elderly people's injuries from such falls.Here is the answer. It says that cost of emergency treatment is actually much higher than $11,000 mentioned (because of long term medication required). Hence this justifies the expense of $12,500 for the new treatment.(D) The new therapeutic program focuses on therapies other than medication, since overmedication can cause disorientation and hence increase the likelihood that an elderly person will have a serious fall.This option tells us HOW the new program reduces the chances of fall. It doesn't talk about the cost of the program. Note that the author talks about the program having benefits. He says it is not justified from the cost perspective. That is what we need to focus on. Hence this is not the correct option.(E) A significant portion of the cost of the new therapeutic program is represented by regular visits by health care professionals, the costs of which tend to increase more rapidly than do those of other elements of the program.What comprises the big part of $12,500 and how this will change over time is irrelevant. Anyway, if the cost of $12,500 is going to rapidly increase over time, that makes the new program even less justifiable.Answer (C)_________________
JonAdmissionado wrote:

Hi there! The bad news that as an Indian male you are coming from an extremely tough demographic when it comes to b-school apps, and one that tends to have very high GMATs (740+). BUT the good news is that you have a very unique profile among your demographic. Your work work in the fashion industry is unique (most Indian males are working in very technical engineering roles) and, since it is unique, I would recommend sticking to fashion in your post-MBA goals since that will also help you stand out (most people in your demographic want either product manager roles in a tech firm or jobs in consulting).

JonAdmissionado wrote:

I think it is worth considering US schools. Even if you don't work in the US afterwards, US b-schools are among the best in the world and can help your earning power significantly. That said, I would not focus on US schools exclusively for the reasons you name & would consider European, Canadian and & Indian schools as well.



There are lots of ranking out there so I'm not sure which one you are referring to when you mention top 30 (we typically use US News & World Report for US rankings), but I would say Rotman, IESE, IE, IMD, ESADE, Rotterdam, Manchester and Mannheim would all be ones to consider. In the US, I'd consider UCLA (a bit of a stretch but worth a shot), Tepper, UNC & Emory (the latter 3 tend to accept more Indian male applicants than other schools do).

Thanks Jon for your inputs. Post your suggestion, I have been researching about the schools you mentioned. Have prepared a final list to proceed with. Willl be great fi you can suggest how to proceed further.In my post MBA goal, can i put fashion E Commerce as the targeted industry? As suggested by you, I don't want to move outside Fashion.This is the final list I have prepared. Let me know your opinion:Asia - NUS, NTUCanada - RotmanUS - Stern (primarily because of focus on Fashion), Haas (more open for business roles), & Darden ( High probability of scholarship for Indian candidates).
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Page: 1 2 3 4 Russia regrets the day it chose to intervene in syria. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 456144

08-11-2018 10:33 PM











Post: #1 Russia regrets the day it chose to intervene in syria.

Advertisement

putin doenst give a crap about syrian lives or syrian stability.



the only incentive for putin was potential money.



money from the oil and gas in east syria



and money from blackmailing the west by demagogue requests of rebuilding syria for the name of humanism (moeny paid by europe straight to russian pockets who'd ensure no syrian refugees come to europe)



but the US took control of the east and when the wagner russian mercenaries tried to do anything they got bombed to sh*t and lost hundreds.



europe doesnt want to pay because it planned to pay with the money it would have made by trading with iran through the iran deal but now thats gone



and putin is left with huge expenses huge lose of russian lives and no potential profit.



putin's fanbois be mad long story short.putin doenst give a crap about syrian lives or syrian stability.the only incentive for putin was potential money.money from the oil and gas in east syriaand money from blackmailing the west by demagogue requests of rebuilding syria for the name of humanism (moeny paid by europe straight to russian pockets who'd ensure no syrian refugees come to europe)but the US took control of the east and when the wagner russian mercenaries tried to do anything they got bombed to sh*t and lost hundreds.europe doesnt want to pay because it planned to pay with the money it would have made by trading with iran through the iran deal but now thats goneand putin is left with huge expenses huge lose of russian lives and no potential profit.putin's fanbois be mad LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 456150

08-11-2018 10:38 PM











Post: #2 RE: Russia regrets the day it chose to intervene in syria.

united states and europe are doomed...with or without Putin.... Spiddy

Registered User

User ID: 242609

08-11-2018 10:39 PM



Posts: 18,584









Post: #3 RE: Russia regrets the day it chose to intervene in syria.

Not as much as the poor f*ckers that live there do.

As democracy is perfected, the office of president represents, more and more closely, the inner soul of the people. On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron.





H.L. Mencken 1920. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 456144

08-11-2018 10:39 PM











Post: #4 RE: Russia regrets the day it chose to intervene in syria.

LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 10:38 PM) united states and europe are doomed...with or without Putin....

europe is probably doomed unless they somehow reverse the PC culture and muslim invasion (50% muslims in german school) and start making white babies.



but the US? europe is probably doomed unless they somehow reverse the PC culture and muslim invasion (50% muslims in german school) and start making white babies.but the US? LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 456144

08-11-2018 10:41 PM











Post: #5 RE: Russia regrets the day it chose to intervene in syria.

Spiddy Wrote: (08-11-2018 10:39 PM) Not as much as the poor f*ckers that live there do.

yeah, the world likes to use a magnifying glass on Israel which does more than anyone to fight asymetrical warfare but still tries not to harm civillians.



yet putin just carpets bombs entire cities because he doenst want to risk russian lives and assad has no soldiers so the only option is blind carpet bombing. yeah, the world likes to use a magnifying glass on Israel which does more than anyone to fight asymetrical warfare but still tries not to harm civillians.yet putin just carpets bombs entire cities because he doenst want to risk russian lives and assad has no soldiers so the only option is blind carpet bombing. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 456150

08-11-2018 10:41 PM











Post: #6 RE: Russia regrets the day it chose to intervene in syria.

LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 10:39 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 10:38 PM) united states and europe are doomed...with or without Putin....

europe is probably doomed unless they somehow reverse the PC culture and muslim invasion (50% muslims in german school) and start making white babies.



but the US?

once and empire starts collapsing there is no way to stop it...zero.....take whatever you can pillage and run... once and empire starts collapsing there is no way to stop it...zero.....take whatever you can pillage and run... LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 456144

08-11-2018 10:43 PM











Post: #7 RE: Russia regrets the day it chose to intervene in syria.

LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 10:41 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 10:39 PM) europe is probably doomed unless they somehow reverse the PC culture and muslim invasion (50% muslims in german school) and start making white babies.



but the US?

once and empire starts collapsing there is no way to stop it...zero.....take whatever you can pillage and run...

what empire?

I dont see the US collapsing anytime soon - thanks to trump and hopefully his predecessors who would carry on with his way. what empire?I dont see the US collapsing anytime soon - thanks to trump and hopefully his predecessors who would carry on with his way. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 456150

08-11-2018 10:44 PM











Post: #8 RE: Russia regrets the day it chose to intervene in syria.

LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 10:43 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 10:41 PM) once and empire starts collapsing there is no way to stop it...zero.....take whatever you can pillage and run...

what empire?

I dont see the US collapsing anytime soon - thanks to trump and hopefully his predecessors who would carry on with his way.

you can not Un-empire an empire.........you are just a lunatic... you can not Un-empire an empire.........you are just a lunatic... LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 456144

08-11-2018 10:45 PM











Post: #9 RE: Russia regrets the day it chose to intervene in syria.

LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 10:44 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 10:43 PM) what empire?

I dont see the US collapsing anytime soon - thanks to trump and hopefully his predecessors who would carry on with his way.

you can not Un-empire an empire.........you are just a lunatic...

what empire are you talking about though? what empire are you talking about though? LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 456150

08-11-2018 10:47 PM











Post: #10 RE: Russia regrets the day it chose to intervene in syria.

LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 10:45 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 10:44 PM) you can not Un-empire an empire.........you are just a lunatic...

what empire are you talking about though?



The United States is an empire- indeed, one of the most powerful empires in all history-but refuses to acknowledge the obvious. This is part of the problem, for at present, America is a colossus with an attention deficit disorder, practicing cut-price colonization.



https://nationalinterest.org/article/ame...uture-2390 The United States is an empire- indeed, one of the most powerful empires in all history-but refuses to acknowledge the obvious. This is part of the problem, for at present, America is a colossus with an attention deficit disorder, practicing cut-price colonization. Pasta Lover

Registered User

User ID: 418981

08-11-2018 10:48 PM



Posts: 9,463









Post: #11 RE: Russia regrets the day it chose to intervene in syria.

LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 10:33 PM) long story short.

putin doenst give a crap about syrian lives or syrian stability.



the only incentive for putin was potential money.



money from the oil and gas in east syria



and money from blackmailing the west by demagogue requests of rebuilding syria for the name of humanism (moeny paid by europe straight to russian pockets who'd ensure no syrian refugees come to europe)



but the US took control of the east and when the wagner russian mercenaries tried to do anything they got bombed to sh*t and lost hundreds.



europe doesnt want to pay because it planned to pay with the money it would have made by trading with iran through the iran deal but now thats gone



and putin is left with huge expenses huge lose of russian lives and no potential profit.



putin's fanbois be mad

[ ]NOPE[/size] [ ]NOPE[/size] LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 456144

08-11-2018 10:49 PM











Post: #12 RE: Russia regrets the day it chose to intervene in syria.

LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 10:47 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 10:45 PM) what empire are you talking about though?



The United States is an empire- indeed, one of the most powerful empires in all history-but refuses to acknowledge the obvious. This is part of the problem, for at present, America is a colossus with an attention deficit disorder, practicing cut-price colonization.



https://nationalinterest.org/article/ame...uture-2390

ok... I dont agree, empire needs an emperor, US is democratic republic.



but regardless, who says the 'empire' is collapsing? ok... I dont agree, empire needs an emperor, US is democratic republic.but regardless, who says the 'empire' is collapsing? LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 456144

08-11-2018 10:50 PM











Post: #13 RE: Russia regrets the day it chose to intervene in syria.

Pasta Lover Wrote: (08-11-2018 10:48 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 10:33 PM) long story short.

putin doenst give a crap about syrian lives or syrian stability.



the only incentive for putin was potential money.



money from the oil and gas in east syria



and money from blackmailing the west by demagogue requests of rebuilding syria for the name of humanism (moeny paid by europe straight to russian pockets who'd ensure no syrian refugees come to europe)



but the US took control of the east and when the wagner russian mercenaries tried to do anything they got bombed to sh*t and lost hundreds.



europe doesnt want to pay because it planned to pay with the money it would have made by trading with iran through the iran deal but now thats gone



and putin is left with huge expenses huge lose of russian lives and no potential profit.



putin's fanbois be mad

[ ]NOPE[/size]

ok ok LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 456150

08-11-2018 10:50 PM











Post: #14 RE: Russia regrets the day it chose to intervene in syria.

LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 10:49 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 10:47 PM) The United States is an empire- indeed, one of the most powerful empires in all history-but refuses to acknowledge the obvious. This is part of the problem, for at present, America is a colossus with an attention deficit disorder, practicing cut-price colonization.



https://nationalinterest.org/article/ame...uture-2390

ok... I dont agree, empire needs an emperor, US is democratic republic.



but regardless, who says the 'empire' is collapsing?

life?.. life?.. LoP Guest

lop guest

User ID: 456144

08-11-2018 10:53 PM











Post: #15 RE: Russia regrets the day it chose to intervene in syria.

LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 10:50 PM) LoP Guest Wrote: (08-11-2018 10:49 PM) ok... I dont agree, empire needs an emperor, US is democratic republic.



but regardless, who says the 'empire' is collapsing?

life?..

maybe in the past the US was in decline, but now under trump its on the rise again.



so again as long as trump is in power and the anti globalist right maintains power I dont see the US declining any time soon. maybe in the past the US was in decline, but now under trump its on the rise again.so again as long as trump is in power and the anti globalist right maintains power I dont see the US declining any time soon. Advertisement


















Hello from the GMAT Club VerbalBot!Thanks to another GMAT Club member, I have just discovered this valuable topic, yet it had no discussion for over a year. I am now bumping it up - doing my job. I think you may find it valuable (esp those replies with Kudos).Want to see all other topics I dig out? Follow me (click follow button on profile). You will receive a summary of all topics I bump in your profile area as well as via email._________________
iliavko wrote:

Hi everyone,



Can somebody explain to me the structure of this sentence? What is the main clause, etc?

I am confused about the construction of a dependent clause.



"He finally finished his novel, after months of research." -> here do we have a dependent clause? or "after months of research" is not a clause because it doesn't have a subject?



Thank you!

Turn-of-the-century magician Harry Houdini

claimed

to be able to hold his breath for more than three minutes.

Turn-of-the-century magician Harry Houdini

claimed

to be able to hold his breath for more than three minutes

for his famous water-torture cell trick

to say something more about the verb

Turn-of-the-century magician Harry Houdini

claimed

for his famous water-torture cell trick

to be able to hold his breath for more than three minutes

The basic structure of the sentence is as follows:Subject:Verb:Object:(nominal infinitive phrase)Now add an adverbial phrase (NOT a dependent clause) ""claim".... for what did he claim?Thus the sentence becomes:. (option D)
Was Hillary Clinton involved in a 6-car collision in New Hampshire? No, that's not true: the story was made up by a website run by a man who has run several Hillary Clinton death hoaxes in the past. We suspect this article is just the set up for a new one. The car crash did not happen.

The story originated from an article published by America's Last Line of Defense on August 11, 2018 titled "BREAKING: Hillary Clinton In 6-Car Collission In New Hampshire" (archived here) which opened:

According to our source at the Laconia National Gazette, Hillary Clinton has been rushed to the hospital after being evacuated from a 6-car pileup on Interstate 95. The man traveling with her says she was at a "secret campaign function" in the Granite State.

Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:

BREAKING: Hillary Clinton In 6-Car Collission In New Hampshire According to our source at the Laconia National Gazette, Hillary Clinton has been rushed to the hospital after being evacuated from a 6-car pileup on Interstat

So why is it not true? For starters, the source given by the story is the "Laconia National Gazette", a newspaper which does not exist. The words "our source" link to an image which says:

(image source)

The site comes with a clear satire disclaimer at the bottom of each article:

satire ~sati()r

noun

the use of humor, irony, exaggeration, OR ridicule to expose and criticize people's stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other topical issues.

If you disagree with the definition of satire or have decided it is synonymous with "comedy," you should really just move along.

The owner and main writer of the site is self-professed liberal troll Christopher Blair, a man from Maine who has made it his full time job to troll gullible conservatives and Trump supporters into liking and sharing his articles. He runs several other websites, including potatriotpost.us, dailyworldupdate.us and nofakenewsonline.us. Sometimes he is also known under his nickname "Busta Troll". A second man working on the sites is John Prager as revealed in this earlier story we wrote.

Articles from Blair's sites frequently get copied by "real" fake news sites who often omit the satire disclaimer and any other hints the stories are fake. Blair has tried to get these sites shut down in the past but new ones keep cropping up and he keeps knocking them down.

If you see one of his stories on a site that does not contain a satire disclaimer, assume it is fake news. If you do see the satire disclaimer it is of course also fake news.

We wrote about americaslastlineofdefense.org before, here are our most recent articles that mention the site:




IceViking strongly condemns physical attacks and harassment directed towards them.





They are also often victims of the Islamic idea. This is true when it comes to the cruel and tragic treatment of Muslim women and children when it is in accord with the Koran, the example of Mohammed and Islamic law, Sharia, which may be applied regardless of where a Muslim male may find himself in the world, whether in a Muslim or non-Muslim country.





However, in no way, shape or form should one judge all Muslim men because of what is in Islamic scripture and what constitutes the Islamic law, Sharia.





"Race", ethnicity or basically anything that you are "merely" born with should never be a basis for bigotry and discrimination.





Apostates from Islam have been executed for 1400 years in accord with the Koran and the words and actions of the Islamic prophet Mohammed and Islamic law, Sharia.





They should be lovingly helped.





Furthermore, approximately as many as 11,000,000 Muslims may have been killed by other Muslims since 1948.





To quote the website The Religion of Peace (TROP), edited by Glen Roberts:





While it may be safe to say that a true Muslim would not intentionally kill another true Muslim ( 4:92-93 ), the Quran places no such value on the life of a Muslim who is not true. Consider verse 9:73 :

Strive hard against the disbelievers and the hypocrites, and be harsh against them, their abode is Hell.

The Arabic for strive hard uses the same root as Jihad - and the context in this sura is holy war (see v. 86 and 91). Thus, there are two distinct classes of people that a true Muslim is to target with harshness: disbelievers and hypocrites.



A disbeliever obviously refers to a non-Muslim, so a "hypocrite" must be a Muslim of some sort. In fact, hypocrites are those who say they believe, but do not act as they should. In other words, they are "Muslims", but not true Muslims. They will go to hell just as unbelievers do, and so, according to the verse, their lives matter for naught.



The same sura says that a hypocrite can be recognized not just by lack of piety (reluctance to follow Sharia), but by fear of death ( 9:56 ), reluctance to fight ( 9:44-45 ) and even friendliness toward non-believers ( 9:67 ). A true Muslim would thus be a pious person who relishes martyrdom, is eager to fight, and shuns non-believers.



Even the Quranic passage that warns against killing "believers" ( 4:88-94 ) is more complicated than it first appears. It never says that a true Muslim is incapable of killing another Muslim, just that it should not be done. In fact, it makes exceptions for the unintentional killing of "believers" in war and mandates the killing of "hypocrites."



Verse 17:33 says, "Do not kill anyone which Allah has forbidden, except for a just cause" . The greatest cause of all is that Islam be superior ( 9:33 ), which is exactly what Islamic terrorists say is their goal. Thus believing Muslims are allowed to be collateral damage in the war on unbelievers.









There is sadly a phenomena that I`ve noticed in Sweden and elsewhere of people using true facts about Islamic doctrine and history as a cover for all sorts of irrational targeting of Muslims, ranging from xenophobia and racism to verbal abuse and physical attacks.





This is strongly condemned by this website and does not in any way serve serious criticism of orthodox Islam and other important work.





It`s also important that one tries to express oneself in a civilized way. Words matter.





In this bloggers humble opinion the root cause of the problem is the ancient doctrine of orthodox Islam.













In simple terms a non-Muslim is a Kafir.





" The Koran defines the kafir and kafir is not a neutral word. A kafir is not merely someone who does not agree with Islam, but a kafir is evil, disgusting, the lowest form of life."





An exact quote, as stated in the writings of Dr. Bill Warner in the article "Kafir" at http://www.politicalislam.com/kafir .





In the perfect Koran (Allah`s direct and literal word as revealed to Mohammed through the angel Jibril), Muslims are told 89 times to emulate Mohammed in all ways (see Koran 33:21 for instance).





Mohammed`s example, the Sunna, is found in the Hadith (stories of what Mohammed said and did) and the Sira (biographies of Mohammed).





Islamic law, Sharia , is directly derived from these unchanging scriptures. It is based on the Koran`s numerous commands to obey Allah and obey the Messenger, that is Mohammed (see Koran 4:59 for instance).









Islam is Sharia. Sharia is Islam.





It is a capital crime for Muslims to deny Sharia in any way.





A Muslim is someone who submits to Islam and submitting to Islam means obeying the Sharia of Allah.





Sharia law includes pronouncements for both Muslims and non-Muslims (Kafirs).









Islam is a "complete way of life", a "complete code of life", a "complete system of life".





Islam is not just a religion but also a comprehensive ideology.





Islam is a supremacist ideology.





Islam is a totalitarian and imperialistic ideology akin to Communism and Nazism.





Islam is a civilization.

Islamic law, Sharia, is a manual for a civilization.





Islamic law, Sharia, governs every aspect of life.

It has a say about every conceivable human act .





Non-Muslims are morally and legally inferior in Islam. Women are morally and legally inferior in Islam.

























The History of Jihad: From Muhammad to ISIS by Robert Spencer is the first one-volume history of jihad in the English language and a great book on the topic.





Allah guarantees Paradise to those who "kill and are killed" for him (Koran 9:111).





A hadith depicts a Muslim asking Muhammad: "Instruct me as to such a deed as equals Jihad (in reward)." Muhammad replied, "I do not find such a deed." (Bukhari 4.52.44)





Muhammad himself said:

I have been commanded to fight against people so long as they do not declare that there is no god but Allah, and he who professed it was guaranteed the protection of his property and life on my behalf except for the right affairs rest with Allah. (Sahih Muslim 30)









Freedom of speech, human rights, democracy, science and human lives are all at stake in the fight against the Islamic Jihad.




As of August 26th, 2021 Yahoo India will no longer be publishing content. Your Yahoo Account Mail and Search experiences will not be affected in any way and will operate as usual. We thank you for your support and readership. For more information on Yahoo India, please visit the FAQ
In their statement, titled Road to be built over individual and mass graves, Amnesty explained that the families of the political dissidents who were forcibly disappeared and extra-judicially killed in Ahvaz, Iran, in the 1980s were suffering untold mental anguish and distress because of the Regimes destruction of these graves.

Of course, Ahvaz is not the only location in Iran, where the Regime murdered dissidents and tried to cover it up. The National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) website reports that the Regime demolished the graves of political prisoners in Vadi-e Rahmat Cemetery in Tabriz, capital of East Azerbaijan Province, in June, and Behesht-e-Reza Cemetery in Mashhad, capital of Razavi Khorasan Province, in May.

Amnestys warning and the NCRIs coverage is a timely reminder, as we approach the 30th anniversary of this crime against humanity, that not one person complicit in the mass murder has ever been brought to justice. In fact, the crime has not even been independently investigated.

Who were the prisoners?

The 30,000 murdered political prisoners were mainly members and supporters of the Peoples Mojahiden Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), including teenagers and the elderly. Some had been imprisoned for something as small as reading an opposition newsletter.

Why were they killed?

Then-Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for the death of any imprisoned MEK member who refused to publically renounce the group and help the Regime to kill other MEK members.

Over the course of one summer, 30,000 died and their bodies were buried in mass graves, but their deaths were kept secret from the family, who were constantly denied visitation rights, and the world. The Regime knew that this would cause global outrage.

How do we know about the massacre?

Through the brave revelations of prisoners who survived the massacre, either by not being affiliated with the Regime or by being in the infirmary on the day of their trial, as well as the persistence of the families to find the truth.

In the three decades since the massacre, the NCRI and MEK have tirelessly sought to expose the crimes of the Regime and bring the perpetrators of the massacre to justice.

In 2016, the NCRI announced a justice-seeking mission that was designed to make the mullahs accountable for their crimes. At the same time, a 1988 audio tape was leaked of Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri, then second-in-command of the Iranian Regime, criticising the Death Commission for this crime. Montazeri was sacked in 1988 and placed under house arrest, but the reason was never fully known.

Those responsible for the massacre are also coming out to admit their involvement, without even a hint of shame, as evidenced by Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi, who was justice minister until last year, who said he was proud of his role.

Why has no one been held to account?

Sadly, the answer is the willingness of the international community to appease the Regime, but that is changing. Recently, Canada and the US have condemned the Regime for this massacre and called for an independent investigation. Hopefully, this will come sooner rather than later.

Reza Shafiee, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the NCRI, wrote: For three decades, the theocratic regime in Tehran tried to pull the wool on the worlds eyes and hid his most heinous crime since Second World War. Had this crime against humanity received deserved international attention, the Iranian regime would have been stopped a long time ago. No doubt the regimes Achilles heel is human rights.
The international debate on Iran has long focused on reform, but given the performance of the Regime over the past 40 years, that will never happen. The Regime rules over a country with no respect for human rights, a failing economy, several environmental crises, and a dramatically high suicide rate  the result of under a repressive regime, and the mullahs will never submit to the demands of their people.

Thats why the protest has continued, even dragging in groups traditionally loyal to the regime, and why this current wave of demonstrations is different from previous protests. Its not just a demonstration; its a revolt. Iran will soon be free from the oppressive grip of the mullahs and the world should stand with the resistance.

The people can only see a dark future ahead, which is why theyre determined to tear down the corrupt Regime through any means necessary. To the average outsider, regime change may appear chaotic or likely to, as was the case with Iraq, allow terrorist groups to take hold. However, Iran is slightly different in this regard.

Iran has an organised, democratic resistance force that is helping to direct the protests and provide resources to the people of Iran. The Iranian Resistance, which already has working relationships with many foreign governments and serves as a government-in-exile in France, has a plan for governing Iran in the interim period between the fall of the mullahs and the peoples election of a new government.

The resistance coalition, the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), and its main organized constituent, the Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), are beloved by the Iranian people and respected by international governments. This means that it will be able to create a peaceful, free Iran once the mullahs have gone with large amounts of cooperation and no chance of the country being usurped by a power-hungry dictator.

Hamid Bahrami, a former political prisoner from Iran, wrote: Both the MEK and the NCRI have spearheaded the struggle against the Iranian regime for a free, democratic and secular Iran for the last 40 years and are the opposition most feared by the regimes Supreme Leader and officials.

He explains that the MEK is helping to organise anti-regime protests through its global network, which is helping the Iranian people to break down the Regime and making the mullahs desperate. He advised that the US continue to support the protesters, rather than looking to make a deal with the Regime.
On Monday, the US sanctions against Iran, targeting currency transfers, trade in precious metals, and Iranian exports, came into play and theyve already rocked the world.

The EU, who have been trying to bring the US back to the negotiating table since May, has announced heavy restrictions on European companies that wish to pull out of Iran to avoid US penalties, and even announced that the companies could sue the US for lost profit, but the fact is that this will not work. Most companies have already pulled out or announced plans to pull out of Iran, including Frances Renault.

The EU may be desperate to keep the Iran deal alive, but they cant avoid the pressure from the US. Thats why Germanys central bank blocked Iran from withdrawing 300 million Euros in cash from a Hamburg-based Iranian-controlled bank last week  a desperate attempt to prop up the Regime with an influx of cash.

But Iran should know that this is only the beginning. In November, the really heavy US sanctions, which target Irans oil industry, come into force. Irans oil exports will be cut dramatically and Donald Trump wants them down to zero, which will really damage the Iranian economy.

The Regime hoped that Trumps tough rhetoric would be enough to convince the Iranian people that America is the great Satan, but the people hear the US administration supporting their protests and they like that. Even those from within the Regimes key supporter base, are coming out to protest the corruption of the mullahs.

Moreover, the people are not opposed to returning sanctions as the wealth never trickled down to them in the first place. They see that sanctions hurt the Regime, not the people.

The worlds media should not ignore this powerful call for change, led by the Iranian people. This is the great chance for peace and stability in the Middle East, where for so long the Regime has driven terrorism and warfare.

Luckily, the Trump administration recognises the Iranian people and their right to protest. Trump tweeted this back in January, when the uprising began, but Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted just this Sunday that he backed the Iranian peoples right to protest against the regimes corruption & oppression without fear of reprisal.

Regime change may be a long and costly process, but it is worth it to remove a regime committed to the violation of human rights and terrorism.
A lovely view from Rizal Boulevard.

Dumaguete Belfry, the oldest known belfry in the city.

St. Catherine of Alexandria Cathedral

Rizal Boulevard

Negros Orientals capital, Dumaguete City, has been named the best place to retire in the Philippines for 2018.Six years after giving Makati the same honor, the Philippine Retirement Authority awarded Dumaguete the Best Retirement Area Deemed as Retiree-Friendly or RADAR, the first Visayan city to receive the honor. According to PRA data, Dumaguete scored an average of 87.48 percent, based on criteria set by the United Nations, International Living, World Health Organization, and other international organizations.Some of the factors for judging include cost of living, friendliness of locals, climate, healthcare, and peace and order. Mayor Felipe Antonio Remollo, who received the award, said the main factor behind the citys attractiveness to foreign retirees is its people. Dumaguete is known as The City of Gentle of People. Tiningnan po namin ang number of retirees na nandito and figures showed that its been growing up. A dominating number of our retirees from Negros Oriental are living in Dumaguete, said PRA marketing head Mervin Magbuhat. He further noted of more than 300 retirees living in the province, 255 of them live in the city.Magbuhat added, We interviewed some of retirees here and they said a lot of good things about Dumaguete. Dumaguete is referred to as a university city because of the four universities and a number of other colleges located in the city. The most popular education institution in the city is Silliman University, the first Protestant university in the Philippines. But aside from students converging to enroll for tertiary education, Dumaguete has long been attracting retirees. Forbes magazine in 2014 named the city as one of the Best Places to Retire Around the World.Magbuhat said the RADAR award will significantly benefit Dumaguete as the Philippines is the most Googled country in the world when it comes to retirement, with Malaysia and Thailand coming close. Magbuhat said Dumaguetenos can expect more investors and stakeholders involved in the retirement and tourism industries to flock to the city.An upsurge of foreign retirees is also expected in the next few years as the PRA said it will heavily promote Dumaguete as one the most recommended cities in the Philippines for retirees.
Bongao, Tawi-TawiGovernment forces have occupied an island near the border with Malaysia to prevent it from being exploited as safe haven and staging point of piracy and kidnapping by the Abu Sayyaf Group. Brig. Gen. Custodio Parcon, Joint Task Force Tawi-Tawi commander, said they established a camp in Panguan island in Sibutu town to drive away ASG bandits. We conducted beach-landing operations and established a camp in Panguan, Parcon said in an interview Thursday. Locally known as Malamanok, Sibutu was created out of Sitangkai by virtue of Muslim Mindanao Autonomy Act No. 197, which was subsequently ratified in a plebiscite held on Oct. 21, 2006. Parcon said the ASG bandits had used the island as an observatory area and jump-off point for piracy and kidnappings since it is near Mataking, an island resort in Malaysia. He said the ASG also used Panguan Island as a resting and refueling place for staging kidnappings in Malaysia or at sea. In previous years, the ASG bandits seized more than a dozen seafarers, mostly foreigners, from cargo ships that pass near Panguan Island, Sibutu. Lt. Senior Grade (Lt.SG) Euphraim Jayson Diciano, Bongao Coastguard Station commander, said Panguan Island is less than two nautical miles from the Philippine border with Malaysia. Diciano said Sibutu serves as a passageway for ships, noting that about 17,000 foreign cargo vessels pass the area yearly. Parcon said the marine forces deployed in Panguan Island are complemented by personnel from the Philippine Coastguard. He said the ASG bandits have been denied of access in Sibutu with the establishment of a camp in Panguan Island and with the ongoing tri-lateral naval patrol agreement with Malaysia and Indonesia. Meanwhile, he said 26 ASG bandits have already surrendered while 14 were killed by troops under his command in this province within this year.The others have left the province since it would be dangerous for them to stay, he added. Also on Thursday, Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana said the driver of a van that blew up at a checkpoint in Lamitan, Basilan, killing 10 people, was Moroccan. We are certain that he is really a Moroccan, Lorenzana said. He said the bomb attack was staged to avenge the death of his child in Sulu. He was trying to convince the local ASG in Basilan to conduct a suicide bombing, but no one joined him, Lorenzana said. Meanwhile, a think tank said Friday it has received information that the Islamic State terrorist group sees Mindanao as a part of its province in East Asia. Rommel Banlaoi, president of the Center for Intelligence and National Security Studies, told ABS-CBN News that his information stated that ISIS recognized its followers in Mindanao as part of its Wilaya East Asia, meaning ISIS province in the region. Banlaoi said this would mean more funds would be infused to ISIS followers in the Philippines with which they can launch more terror attacks.
Following a briefing by UN Personal Envoy for the Sahara Horst Kohler, members of the Security Council stressed the need to include Algeria in any future talks on the conflict.

Algeria which has for decades hosted, armed and funded the Polisario militia and offered a slice of its territories to the separatist group where they auto-declared a state, is now more than ever called upon to contribute to efforts aiming to finding a political solution to the four-decade conflict.

The UK presidency of the Security Council made it clear that Kohler should consult all the parties in question, notably Algeria, in order to relaunch talks.

Last April, King Mohammed VI sent a letter to UN chief Antonio Guterres in which he highlighted the Algerian role in perpetuating the conflict over the Sahara and urged Algiers to uphold its responsibility as it continues to fund, host, arm and back diplomatically the Polisario militias.

Therefore, for the Moroccan diplomatic action, Algeria should play a role that is commensurate with its responsibility in the development of this regional conflict, stressed the king in the letter.

The Algerian umbrella has emboldened Polisario armed men to threaten on multiple occasions the stability and security of the North African region by engaging in piracy and banditism as well as cross border trafficking.

Moroccos calls for Algeria to sit in the table of negotiations as a direct party in the Sahara conflict were echoed in the 2414 Security Council resolution. The Resolution called upon the parties and the neighboring States to cooperate more fully with the United Nations and with each other and to strengthen their involvement and to achieve progress towards a political solution.

The statements by the UK presidency of the UN Security Council are indicative of the awareness of the international community of the useless of talks between Morocco and the Polisario, which has become more than ever a tool manipulated by the Algerian regime to contain the Kingdom.

The UK presidency reiterated what has been said in Resolution 2414 urging the UN Personal Envoy to undertake consultations with all parties, including Algeria.

The international community is increasingly aware of the role that Algeria can play in facilitating a political solution to the conflict. They see in the perpetuation of the Sahara conflict a source of security and stability threats in North Africa, the Mediterranean and beyond, hence the need for finding a mutually beneficial solution that respects Moroccos sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The UN has only renewed the UN mission for the Sahara (MINURSO) by six months instead of one year as usual. This also indicates that the international community is fed up with the status quo and wants progress to be made in resolving the Sahara issue. To do so, real parties to the conflict should sit in the negotiation table.

After the Moroccan autonomy initiative fell on deaf ears in Algeria, Rabat is now aware that negotiations with the Polisario are a waste of time in the absence of the mentor, Algeria.

A UK diplomat said the talks are scheduled to be launched by the end of December 2018. Meanwhile, pressure is mounting on Algeria as Polisario mentor and host to contribute towards a political solution that would spare the Maghreb conflict and instability prospects.
Environmental groups and researchers are calling on the government of Laos to carry out an open investigation of the deadly collapse of a large dam.

On July 23, part of the Xe-Pian-Xe Namnoy hydropower dam collapsed releasing a wall of water. More than 20 people were killed, and as many as 6,000 were displaced by the floods.

The village of Attapeu in southern Laos received the most damage from the flooding.

Harming vulnerable people

Keith Barney is an expert in environmental research and natural resource policy in South East Asia at Australias National University. He said that governments often try to limit information after large disasters.

Barney told VOA, "The tendency in many cases when faced with difficult issues or external criticism is to cover up and shut down and block out the flow of information. He added there are signs that this is happening in Laos, but it is being criticized and raising questions.

Satellite images from before the flood show Attapeu on a bend in the river with a network of roads. Pictures taken after the incident, however, show the flooded area as a brown mass of mud with few structures left.

Barney said that many of the people in the area are ethnic minorities who had already suffered from the dam building process. He said they may have been harmed by the downstream impact or may have been resettled. Barney added that this, will just be adding on to their vulnerability in the coming year."

The Xe-Pian-Xe Namnoy dam is being built to create 410 megawatts of electricity near the Cambodian border. It is part of a series of dams Laos has planned or built to improve its economy by selling electricity to neighboring countries.

Non-governmental organizations have strongly opposed the countrys hydro power development. They say Laos has not made good safety plans for the social and environmental results of the projects.

 of Mekongs most important tributaries

The Xe-Pian-Xe Namnoy area feeds into the Sekong River. The organization Save the Mekong considers the river "one of the Mekongs most important tributaries.

In a statement, the group said the area is home "to tens of thousands of people from at least 20 different ethnic groups, all of whom rely on wild capture fisheries and surrounding forests and fertile lands."

Save the Mekong said a total of 11 large hydropower dams on the lower Mekong River and 120 tributary dams are planned.

Save the Mekong also said the recent dam disaster renews calls for the government to reconsider the countrys heavy investment in hydropower. It said the Laos governmentshould strengthen the enforcement of laws to guarantee greater responsibility from foreign investors.

The group also said water quality changes had ruined local fisheries along the Xe Pian River. But, it said villagers living there had not received any support for the loss of their livelihoods.

Barney said the collapse also raises questions about safety rules for building projects.

Many countries have donated aid to assist Laos with recovery and redevelopment. South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia and Australia have donated money and resources to the effort.

The intergovernmental Mekong River Commission released a statement to VOA. The group said it is "working to develop short- and medium-term programs to support Laos and other countries on dam safety in partnership with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

This week, the Laos government announced that it was suspending approval of new dams while it examines more than 50 current projects.

Im Phil Dierking.

This story was originally written by Ron Corben for VOANews.com. Phil Dierking adapted the story for Learning English. Mario Ritter was the editor.

Do you think hydropower is worth the risk of harming nearby communities? Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

displaced - v. to force (people or animals) to leave the area where they live

tendency - n. a quality that makes something likely to happen or that makes someone likely to think or behave in a particular way

external - adj. located, seen, or used on the outside or surface of something

mud - n. soft, wet dirt

impact - n. a powerful or major influence or effect

vulnerability - n. easily hurt or harmed physically, mentally, or emotionally

tributaries - n. a stream that flows into a larger stream or river or into a lake
ouatarIn Ivory Coast, things are falling apart as the ruling coalition is bitterly divided over who will succeed President Alassane Ouattara when he steps down in 2020.

Former President Henri Konan Bedies Democratic Party of the Ivory Coast (PDCI) on Thursday announced its withdrawal from the coalition with the Rally of Republicans (RDR) of President Alassane Ouattara.

In an official statement issued a day after a meeting between President Ouattara and PDCI President Henri Konan Bedie, the PDCI said it is opting out of Ouattaras Rally of Houphouetists for Democracy and Peace and reserves the right to promote a platform of collaboration with other parties.

The party will present municipal and regional election candidates under its own banner, it said. Local elections are scheduled for 13 October.

The alliance, created by President Ouattara, aims to unite the two parties that had been allies since 2005. The PDCI and three smaller groups backed Ouattaras Rally of the Republicans under the banner of the RHDP to contest presidential elections in 2010 and 2015.

Bedie, 84, served as president for six years in the worlds biggest cocoa producer until he was deposed in a bloodless coup in 1999. His party ruled the West African nation for almost four decades.

In June, he declared that there was an agreement to rotate the presidency and that the coalitions candidate for 2020 should come from his party. A month later, Ouattara demoted two PDCI ministers in a cabinet reshuffle.
Google released a pretty major update for Chrome OS today, and the company has started certifying YouTube Signature devices for smartphones that will provide an optimal experience.

But most of the big Google-related news today comes from leaks. Weve got the best look yet at the upcoming Google Pixel 3 XL (unless its all part of some elaborate hoax), and it looks like two new Google-branded Chromebooks are in the works. All of those devices will probably be officially unveiled in October.

Heres a roundup of tech news from around the web.

You can keep up on the latest headlines by following Liliputing on Twitter, Google+ and Facebook.

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As expected, Samsung has beat Apple to market with a wireless charger that you can use to charge a two devices simultaneously.

The Samsung Wireless Charger Duo is now available in black and white color options.

Both versions sell for $120, and both are capable of charging a smartphone and smartwatch at the same time, or two smartphones, as long as they use the Qi wireless charging standard.

Samsung says the device supports 7.5 watt fast charging on supported devices including the Galaxy Note 5 and later and the Galaxy S6 Edge+ and later.

The Samsung Wireless Charger Duo has a built-in stand to prop up one of the devices youre charging, and a flat pad for a second device. Theres an integrated fan to keep the charger from getting too hot.

And if you dont have a Samsung phone or watch, you can use the charger with third-party hardware. It supports any Qi-certified devices, which includes most Android phones that support wireless charging as well as Apples iPhone X or iPhone 8 series phones.

That said, the $120 price tag does seem a little steep at a time when you can often find single-device wireless charging pads and stands for under $30. Its probably cheaper to just buy two wireless chargers if you want to keep two different devices charged but that is a slightly less elegant solution since it means two gadgets to plug into the wall instead of one: wireless only applies to the way you charge your phone, watch, or other devices. The charger itself still needs to be plugged into an electric outlet.

via Android Police

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Zambias Foreign Minister Joe Malanji on Wednesday said they have refused to offer asylum to Zimbabwes opposition leader and former Finance Minister Tendai Biti.

Zimbabwe opposition politician Tendai Biti has been denied asylum in Zambia, after authorities in Zimbabwe briefly detained him as he tried to cross the border. Earlier reports quoting his lawyer Nqobizitha Mlilo, said that the ex-minister was detained as he was attempting to cross the border at Chirundu border post, north of the capital Harare.

The BBC quoted Zambias foreign minister as saying Bitis grounds for asylum were weak. He said Biti was being kept in safe custody until his return to Zimbabwe.

Biti, whose party formed an election alliance with President Emmerson Mnangagwas main rival Nelson Chamisa, is the first senior opposition politician to be arrested in the aftermath of last week election.

Biti held a news conference the day before President Mnangagwa was declared the winner and claimed that MDC leader Nelson Chamisa had won the July 30 vote.

The United States top diplomat for Africa, Tibor Nagy, in a series of posts on Twitter said he was deeply troubled by credible reports that opposition supporters are being targeted by members of the Zimbabwean security forces.

Assistant secretary of state for African affairs said he strongly urged authorities in Zambia to allow Biti to stay there until his asylum request can be appropriately evaluated.
Joseph Kabila will not be a candidate in December elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, government spokesman Lambert Mende told reporters in the capital, Kinshasa, on Wednesday.

According to Mende, the 47-year-old president, in power since 2001, has appointed Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary as his successor.

Shadary, 57, is the permanent secretary of Kabilas Peoples Party for Reconstruction and Democracy and a former interior minister. His tenure as interior minister was marked by a violent crackdown on opposition politicians and their supporters, and the arrest of activists, according to right groups.

He was among the nine Congolese sanctioned last year by the European Union, which accused them of undermining democracy and abusing human rights in the mineral-rich central African nation.

The DRC is scheduled to hold parliamentary and presidential votes on December 23. They have been delayed since 2016 by the electoral commission.

Shadary will face at least eight other contenders, including the former vice-president and ex-warlord, Jean Pierre Bemba, who returned to DR Congo last week after being acquitted of war crimes at the International Criminal Court.

Jean-Pierre Bemba, an opposition leader acquitted of war crimes at the International Criminal Court in June, returned home last week after a decade in detention, and registered on August 2. Felix Tshisekedi, who leads the largest opposition party, is also among the front-runners.

Opposition leaders have all spoken favorably of eventually uniting behind a single candidate to fight the nominee of Kabilas coalition.

As a reminder, DR Congo has been riven by conflicts as several militias fight for control of territory and mineral-rich areas.
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Posted on: Aug 11, 2018

conference ON HUMAN VALUES AND THE LEGAL WORLD

Sri Sathya Sai Baba has emphasised that the proper study of Mankind is Man. He was emphatic that the human being is the supreme creation and that human values are the essence of every human being. The core of His message is based on five pillars i.e. Satya, Dharma, Prema, Shanti and Ahimsa. He envisaged a society based on these human values so that every human being will have an opportunity not only to realize the inherent divinity, but also the blossoming of human excellence.

The Preamble to the Constitution of India guarantees an ideal ambience for such blossoming of Human Excellence wherein, Indian citizens are dedicating themselves to the universal values of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity. Therefore, it is a boon to every citizen of India. In fact the Preamble enshrines all the ingredients required for a just and spiritual society beyond caste colour, creed, denomination and religion.

Judiciary has been the custodian of human values and has played an important role in sustaining and upholding not only the Constitutional rights of the citizens of India but also expanding the rights of its citizens. Sixty eight years of constitutional law scholarship, and tensions have evolved a plethora of judicial pronouncements protecting the inherent values and rights of its citizens.

With passage of time and the changing social mores it is necessary to re-emphasise the role of judiciary in upholding human values, and its core responsibility to strengthen the principles and values enshrined in the Constitution of India.





Day 1 - 11 Aug 2018



Human Values and the Legal World - Jurists Conference at Prasanthi Nilayam

Day 2 - 12 Aug 2018



Human Values and the Legal World - Jurists Conference at Prasanthi Nilayam

The responsibility of upholding the human rights rests vastly on the shoulders of the Judiciary. Since 1947, it has performed reasonably well in independent India, despite all constitutional tensions. The expanding scope of the role of judiciary merits some reflection on the higher purpose which it expects to achieve to further the eternal human values.

During the sojourn of Sri Sathya Sai Baba on earth, many judicial stalwarts have been blessed by Him. Apart from the Judges, many eminent lawyers have had the benefit of personal guidance from Baba.

Therefore, we have proposed to invite a cross section of Bar, Bench and academia from across India to Prashanthi Nilayam on the 11th (Saturday) and 12th (Sunday) August, 2018 for a symposium on the theme Human Values and the Legal World.

The Symposium aims to generate views, ideas and suggest steps to strengthen the Judiciary in discharging its important role and further, how to entrench the values in legal curriculum and legal practice in order to produce lawyers of great calibre and character in equal measure.

Program Schedule

Media Coverage



Thank you and loving Sai Ram,

Team Radio Sai



What are your impressions about this? Please share your feedback by writing to [email protected] or [email protected] . Do not forget to mention your name and country please.
Like any fast-developing technology, 3-D printing, described more technically as "additive manufacturing," is susceptible to a variety of misconceptions. While recent debates have revolved around 3-D-printed firearms, most of the practical issues in the field come down to the emergence of new manufacturing techniques. The resulting culture of innovation has led to some persistent myths. Here are five of the most common.

Myth No. 1: 3-D printing is slow and expensive

Early 3-D printing was indeed agonizingly slow, requiring expensive equipment, pricey materials and tedious trial-and-error fiddling to make improvements. In 2015, Quartz magazine said that 3-D printers are "still slow, inaccurate and generally only print one material at a time. And that's not going to change any time soon." When the stock price of the leading printer manufacturers was free-falling in 2016, Inc. magazine announced that 3-D printing was "dying," mostly because people were realizing the high cost of printer feedstock.

But a variety of new techniques for additive manufacturing are proving those premises wrong. Desktop Metal's Single Pass Jetting, HP's Multi Jet Fusion and Carbon's Digital Light Synthesis can all make products in minutes, not hours. Lab tests show that these printers are cost-competitive with conventional manufacturing in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of units. Many of the newest printers also use lower-price commodity materials rather than specially formulated proprietary feedstocks, so the cost is falling rapidly.

Myth No. 2: 3-D printers are limited to small products.

By design, 3-D printers are not large. They need an airtight build chamber to function, so most are sized no larger than a copy machine. Nick Allen, an early 3-D printing evangelist, once said, "Producing anything in bulk that is bigger than your fist seems to be a waste of time." TechRepublic warned in 2014 that 3-D printing from "plastic filament can't make anything too sturdy," which would further limit the size of printed objects.

But some techniques, such as Big Area Additive Manufacturing, work in the open air and can generate highly resilient pieces. They've been used to build products from automobiles to jet fighters. A new method for building involves a roving "printer bot" that gradually adds fast-hardening materials to carry out the construction. This spring, a Dutch company completed a pedestrian bridge using 3-D printing methods.

Myth No. 3: 3-D printers only produce low quality products.

As anyone who's handled a crude 3-D-printed keychain can probably guess, the hardest part of 3-D printing is ensuring that a product looks good. When you print layer upon layer, you don't get the nice smooth finish of conventional manufacturing. "There's no device that you're using today that can be 3-D printed to the standard you're going to accept as the consumer," said Liam Casey, the chief executive of PCH International, back in 2015. The Additive Manufacturing and 3D Printing Research Group at the University of Nottinghamin Britain likewise predicted that high post-printing costs, among other challenges, would help keep 3-D printing from expanding much beyond customized or highly complex parts.

But some new additive techniques, such as Digital Light Synthesis, can generate a high-quality finish from the start. That's because they aren't based on layering. The products are monolithic - they emerge smoothly from a vat of liquid, similar to the reassembled robot in the Terminator movies. Other printer manufacturers are building automated hybrid systems that combine 3-D-printed products with conventional finishing, so you get most of the benefits of additive with only a bit more cost.

If we think of quality more broadly, additive is likely to improve on conventional products. That's because 3-D printing can handle sophisticated internal structures and radical geometries that would be impossible via conventional manufacturing. Boeing is now installing additive support struts in its jets. These struts are a good deal lighter than conventional equivalents, but they're stronger because they have honeycomb structures that couldn't be made before. Adidas is making running shoes with complex lattices that are firmer and better at shock absorption than conventional shoes.

Myth No. 4: 3-D printing will give us artificial organs.

One of the most exciting areas of additive manufacturing is bioprinting. Thousands of people die every year waiting for replacement hearts, kidneys and other organs; if we could generate artificial organs, we could eliminate a leading cause of death in the United States. We've already made major advances with customized 3-D-printed prosthetics and orthodontics, and most hearing aids now come from additive manufacturing. Why not organs? A 2014 CNN article predicted that 3-D-printed organs might soon be a reality, since the machines' "precise process can reproduce vascular systems required to make organs viable." Smithsonian magazine likewise announced in 2015 that "Soon, Your Doctor Could Print a Human Organ on Demand."

But scientists have yet to crack the fundamental problem of creating life. We can build a matrix that will support living tissue, and we can add a kind of "cell ink" from the recipient's stem cells to create the tissue. But we haven't been able to generate a microscopic capillary network to feed oxygen to this tissue.

The most promising current work focuses on artificial skin, which is of special interest to cosmetic companies looking for an unlimited supply of skin for testing new products. Skin is the easiest organ to manufacture because it's relatively stable, but success is several years away at best. Other organs are decades away from reality: Even if we could solve the capillary problem, the cost of each organ might be prohibitive.

Myth No. 5: Small-scale users will dominate 3-D printing.

In his best-selling 2012 book, "Makers: The New Industrial Revolution," Chris Anderson argued that 3-D printing would usher in a decentralized economy of people generating small quantities of products for local use from printers at home or in community workshops. The 2017 volume "Designing Reality: How to Survive and Thrive in the Third Digital Revolution" similarly portrays a future of self-sufficient cities supplied by community "fab labs."

In reality, relatively few individuals have bought 3-D printers. Corporations and educational institutions have purchased the majority of them, and that trend is unlikely to change. Over time, 3-D printing may bring about the opposite of Anderson's vision: a world where corporate manufacturers, not ordinary civilians, are empowered by the technology. With 3-D printing, companies can make a specialized product one month, then switch to a different kind of product the next if demand falls. Such changes would be costly and time-consuming with conventional techniques, but 3-D printing makes manufacturing far more flexible. General Electric's factory in Pune, India, for example, can adjust its output of parts for medical equipment or turbines depending on demand.

As a result, companies will be able to profit from operating in multiple industries. If demand in one industry slows, the firm can shift the unused factory capacity over to making products for higher-demand industries. Eventually, we're likely to see a new wave of diversification, leading to pan-industrial behemoths that could cover much of the manufacturing economy.

Richard A. D'Aveni is the Bakala professor of strategy at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. He is the author of the forthcoming book "The Pan-Industrial Revolution: How New Manufacturing Titans Will Transform the World." He wrote this for the Washington Post.
Japanese Encephalitis (JE) continues to bare its fangs in Assam with one more person succumbing to the disease in Dibrugarh on Wednesday thus taking the death toll in the State to 66 this year. So far, 324 individuals have tested positive to the disease and another 874 persons have been diagnosed with Acute Encephalitic Syndrome (AES) this year.

A report appearing in the The Times of India stated that with all efforts to control the spread of JE having proved to be futile so far, the Assam Health Department is now hoping that the gradual decrease in temperature will bring an end to the JE virus.

The report further quoted U Phangsu, State Nodal Officer of the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme as saying on Friday, JE claimed the life of a person in Dibrugarh on Wednesday taking the death toll to 66. We are taking no chance and have sounded an alert to all district health services to remain vigilant of any JE case that may arise and take necessary measures to provide all possible medical facilities. The medical staffs in all hospitals have been directed to attend to such patients with utmost care.

Also Read: Assam: Dibrugarhs top health official rejects RMRC report on Japanese Encephalitis

JE is an infection of the brain caused by the Japanese Encephalitis Virus (JEV). While most infections results in little or no symptoms, occasional inflammation of the brain occurs and symptoms may include vomiting, headache, fever, confusion and seizures. This occurs after 5 to 15 days after infection.
Less than two months after New Delhi and Beijing announced troop disengagement at Doklam, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs was told by S Jaishankar, the then Foreign Secretary, that it was possible Chinese troops were in northern Doklam but, on real time basis, he would hesitate to comment.

A report in the The Indian Express stated that his successor, Vijay Gokhale, also told the committee that the Chinese troop build-up in the area, though in a territory disputed between Bhutan and China, was taking place across a large part of the India-China boundary, and on both sides.

The report further stated that the testimonies of Gokhale, Jaishankar, Defence Secretary Sanjay Mitra and former Army chief General (retd) Deepak Kapoor are part of the draft report of the committee on Sino-India Relations including Doklam, Border Situation and Cooperation in International Organisations.

The draft report, circulated among members for comments, was discussed by the committee on Thursday. Chaired by Shashi Tharoor, the committee includes Rahul Gandhi, Varun Gandhi, Swapan Dasgupta, Richard Hay, Raghav Lakhanpal, Vishnu Dayal Ram, Ram Swaroop Sharma, Sharad Tripathi, Chunibhai Gohel, Sugata Bose, Kanimozhi, Mohammad Salim and Supriya Sule among its members.

The military faceoff at Doklam between India and China started on June 16, 2017, when a Chinese road construction party tried to build a road in the Doklam region and was stopped by Indian troops from Doka La. The issue was eventually resolved with disengagement of border personnel at the faceoff site in Doklam on August 28 last. But, Chinese troops remained present near the face-off site, particularly in north Doklam, despite the issue being amicably settled.

Referring to north Doklam, Jaishankar is said to have told the committee on October 18, 2017 that the area is actually a part of Bhutan and an issue with which Bhutan will be focused on. For the Indians, he said, the focus was the face-off area, the access point for the Jampheri ridge. This is the place, he said, where Indian security interests are at stake.

To a query on whether the Chinese troops were located in Chinese territory or Bhutanese territory, Jaishankar said he did not have a real-time figure on the number on Chinese soldiers who may be beyond the Batangla-Merugla-Sinchela ridgeline.

On February 22 this year, Gokhale too clarified Indias stand on the Chinese troop build-up, stating that this part of the territory is disputed between Bhutan and China. He too said the build-up was taking place across a large part of the India-China boundary and on both sides.

He said the limited Indian objective was whether the area where construction was taking place was within 100 metres of what Delhi considers the India-Bhutan boundary. Any build-up or activity beyond that is a matter for China and Bhutan to sort out. He said it is not for India to tell the Chinese that they should construct infrastructure elsewhere along the border.

Defence Secretary Mitra, it is learnt, told the committee on October 30, 2017 that the Chinese built a road across the Batangla-Merugla-Sinchela ridgeline about 15 years ago. Jaishankar also agreed that the road did not come up all of a sudden. He said it happened over many years. The faceoff, he said, was because that denoted a qualitative rising of what the Chinese had been doing and the new activity, if allowed, could have seriously undermined Indian interest.

The committee was told that there were 13 rounds of diplomatic discussions with the Chinese side, led by the Indian Ambassador in Beijing, which led to resolution of the faceoff at Doklam. The committee was also told that there were enough Indian troops in the circle around Doklam.
Engineering professor speaks at doctoral commencement about surviving cancer and passing discoveries to new generations

Greg Sawyer is a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and a member of the Academy of Distinguished Teaching Scholars at UF. A Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors, Sawyer specializes in the field of tribology. His work includes new materials for ultra-low friction and wear for a number of applications ranging from space to biomedicine. His speech is below.

Doctors!

It really is an honor and a privilege to be here with all of you today at your commencement; it is such a special day for you. Youre surrounded by classmates, advisors, friends, and family. It takes a prodigious amount of effort to amass this level of education. This is a day you will always remember.

You are all clearly, very talented, passionate, and motivated, but you didnt get here alone. Make sure that you take some time to thank the people that are here with you. Thank-yous are important. They let people know that you notice their efforts. And honestly, your degree is as much about effort as anything.

As an undergraduate student at Rensselaer, I took classes in engineering, science, history, art, and literature. I fell in love with all of it! I think thats why I am so fond of the Renaissance. There are a lot of heroes from that time, and Leonardo da Vinci is certainly one of them, particularly for an engineer. I have seen a dozen of the known surviving da Vinci paintings, about half of them. I have stood for hours really looking at these paintings. Oddly, I dont find them inherently beautiful. They are full of details that he clearly draws from his own observations of the world. The backgrounds feature landscapes of unbelievable tortuosity and detail, all created from his imagination  details that drift into a foggy obscurity at the margins. The babies and children are frankly a wreck, but the eyes... Leonardo studied eyes. I walk away from these encounters with his art, thinking about Leonardo, the scientist and engineer, staring into the eyes of his models, trying desperately to capture the finest details, to capture the details that reveal that there is thought behind these eyes.

What is it that draws so many of us to his paintings, if not the beauty? I think that it is the effort  his paintings are full of effort. There is no easy brush stroke.

Effort is Beautiful.

About 4 years ago, I tried to recreate one of the experiments from da Vincis notebook. Just 1 of his experiments - a block of wood being dragged across a board. It took me a year to recreate this seemingly simple measurement. The key bit turned out to be handling the wood with dirty dusty hands. It made sense considering that experiments were done in a busy workshop full of scientist, engineers, and artists. Of course these experiments were performed with his pupils, his advisees all pitching in as they tried to find a universal model to friction. I like this notion of the Renaissance: the advisor and the advisee.

In the Prado in Madrid there is a second Mona Lisa, far less visited than Leonardos, but arguably more true to the model  she had eyebrows. It was likely painted by one of his students, Francesco Melzi, working alongside Leonardo. What a great thing! Leonardo didnt simply give Francesco a finished painting to copy; it is clear that they created the painting together. As mistakes were made and corrected and details changed, they were changed together.

I think about that vibrant lab often. How much of Leonardo da Vincis work was really for his advisees? Who were all the notebooks for? Leonardo reportedly maintained a group of 6 students. It was Francesco who kept Leonardos notebooks: the advisee carrying the lessons forward, sharing the notebooks and teachings of Leonardo with his own students. We might never know the breadth of Leonardos work, his methods and experiments, his work in mechanics and medicine, and all of the imaginative engineering designs if not for Francesco.

Many of you are seated next to your thesis advisor who will hood you later this afternoon. The doctorate degree has certainly evolved over the past thousand years, but the concept of an advisor has been there from the beginning. The origin of the word doctor is Latin: to teach.

We are counting on all of you to carry knowledge forward  to be your advisors Francescos.

About 5 years ago, I was diagnosed with late stage metastatic cancer. I remember the morning that I realized something really wasnt quite right. I biked in to my general physician, scheduled an ultrasound, and 24 hours later  I knew.

That week I did all the scans and my first of 5 surgeries. While I was asleep in recovery, the doctor told my wife the diagnosis  it was an aggressive cancer. She promptly called my parents. I am so glad that I didnt have to make that call. The cancer was in my spine, the T12 vertebrae, and a bunch of lymph nodes under my left arm. I had to face the new reality that I was a cancer patient, and the cancer was spreading.

That evening, I told my sons William and Charles about the diagnosis. They were 12 and 7 at the time. It was the worst thing I have ever had to tell anyone; I felt sick, really sick. The next day, I got in early to my laboratory, turned on the lights and cried. I was looking at my busy laboratory. A beautiful space full of the best instrumentation in the world, most of it built by my students -- a young team of brilliant engineers and scientists. All of it was designed to study engineering surfaces. I saw no instruments to help with cancer.

All alone in the lab, leaning against a gigantic stainless-steel instrument, I am not exactly sure why I cried. I remember thinking about all of my students, and how on earth was I going to tell them that I probably wouldnt be here for their graduations. I remember thinking: How am I going to do this? What do I want to do? Later that morning I told them all the diagnosis. It was the second hardest conversation of my life.

Advisors, mentees, and colleagues: Your academic family really is a family. Cherish it.

After I told my families the diagnosis, I delegated the task to others to spread the word. I stopped talking about it and travelled to the best cancer center in the country, where I met my new oncologist, who on my very first meeting said well, the 5-year survival is in the toilet -- what do you want to do? I couldnt believe this was the beginning of my cancer story. Less than 10% of people with my diagnosis make it 5 years.

What do I want to do?

Work! I wanted to work on cancer. I drove back to a friends house that evening and got to work. So much to do, I had a project to finish, a report to write, and a lifetime of lessons to teach two young boys. A diagnosis like this changes your perspective, quickly. What I realized was that we are not really living for ourselves; we are really living for others. We are living for what we leave behind, the notebooks, the families. I remember my first prayer as a cancer patient: God, let me stay here as long as the boys need me. Everything takes on a new urgency: Sons there are only 4 knots that you need to master, lesson 1  the bowline. I cant imagine what it has been like for them living with this urgency.

That night, when everyone was asleep I downloaded my first scientific paper on cancer. I couldnt read it. The terminology was like Dr. Seuss! cMYC SMAD JNK WNT Frizzled. I never felt dumber in my life, but I kept digging through these papers, making notes, trying to understand where the problems were. Where does cancer need an engineer? I personally chose a treatment path that kept as many options open as possible, sparing no effort: 5 surgeries and 2 rounds of intense radiation. I slowly realized that immunotherapy was my only real chance.

Later that year, I was patient 1 on a combination check point inhibitor trial. I have no doubt that I am here today with you because of that trial.

In reading cancer papers, it became clear to me that my own training and experiences brought a different perspective to the cancer problem. Engineers work with extremely complex systems, but we like to break them down, test individual components, and subassemblies, and manage the complexity systematically, piecewise. We look for connections at the interfaces between these components. I suspected that biology must do something similar. I just couldnt see any obvious way to help with cancer, but I kept looking and trying to find the gaps. Your degree, the doctorate, is about researching problems and getting things down to the fundamentals. Whatever challenges you are faced with, dont forget your training and your experiences.

Never, ever, ever quit. Effort is beautiful. There are no easy brushstrokes.

After 2 years of searching, it was a discovery by a friend, colleague, and UF engineering professor Tommy Angelini, that opened the door. I learned that what researchers and clinicians needed most to make progress against rare and aggressive cancers was access to precise tumors, and 3D assays that included immune cells, controlled microenvironments, and high-resolution imaging and control of drug delivery. We needed a new infrastructure, a new type of lab, a Cancer Engineering Lab. Tumor bioprinting: we can now manufacture tumors by the thousands! All human biology, all in the lab, a tool for everyone to build and tear apart cancer, figure out how it works, find its weaknesses, and stop it.

Today, 5 years after my diagnosis, I am still here; I am still working. I once again have a laboratory full of wonderful instrumentation hand built by a young team of brilliant engineers and scientists, but now it is all dedicated to cancer research. I have funding from the Pharmaceutical Industry and the National Institutes of Health to fabricate tumors and study the mechanism of action of the very drugs that saved my life. I am a part of a wonderful group of dedicated medical researchers, engineers, scientists, and doctors all working together, all working on cancer.

Cancer survivors make promises  and we keep them. I like that. I wish I did more of that before cancer. I live 6 months at a time and I can tell you it is truly exhausting. I have come to peace with this existence  I plan optimistically, but I live urgently. Working on a cure is a long-horizon problem, maybe like Leonardos landscapes  tortuous, foggy, and uncertain. I try to bring persistent and continuous effort, urgency, and optimism to the challenge, and I look for colleagues that can do the same  unrelenting focus and effort. Breakthroughs almost always have elements of chance, opportunity, and ability, but there is also, almost always, a team, a family, and a mountain of hard work.

Be kind and patient with your families; its your job to be the bridge. These relationships are complex, and it will take a lot of effort to maintain them over a lifetime. Try to be generous with your time, but remember, things happen quickly, and its worth taking time to tell people what they mean to you when you have a chance. We all fight for time and a chance.

Please whatever you do, never, ever, ever quit. Regardless of the challenge, you will absolutely find your way through it. Youre Doctors!

Enjoy your day.
An Australian data center operator and its cryptocurrency subsidiary are developing what they describe as the countrys first behind-the-grid data center powered by renewable energy.

Situated in the coal-mining town of Collie, some 200km south of Perth, the new facility is being developed by data center operator DC Two and subsidiary D Coin and will be powered by a solar farm built by a company called Hadouken, IT Brief reports.

With the key objective of competitive power rates via primarily renewable source, the company claims it will offer the lowest cost and highest density data center in Australia. The data center will notably offer specific zones customized to host cryptocurrency mining operations.

By providing customised low cost hosting options specifically engineered for cryptocurrency and Bitcoin mining at globally competitive rates, DC Two & D Coin have been able to attract the interest of both the local and international crypto mining community, the company said.

The first stages of the data center and the solar farm will draw an expected power supply of up to 4 megawatts and is will take shape in early 2019. At this stage, the two installations are expected to service 256 IT racks wherein each rack is capable of delivering up to 30 kw of IT load.

Through its crypto-mining hosting subsidiary D Coin, DC Two underlined its intent to cater to crypto mining operations.

The company said:

In complete crypto mining configuration, using the initial 4MW power availability, the data centre could mine about 650 bitcoins per annum worth around $6 million based on current mining and exchange rates.

The endeavor is the second instance of a proposed behind-the-grid data center in Australia, both taking shape this year. In May, Sydney-based blockchain firm IoT Group  a company listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX)  announced a conditional binding agreement with the domestic seller of bitcoin mining hardware giant Bitfury to commence a crypto mining operation.

Story continues

The conditional terms, specifically, relates to a proposed mining center built within a decommissioned coal plant  the Redbank power station in Hunter Valley, New South Wales. The AUD$190 million deal is contingent on the successful acquisition of the power station.

Featured image from Shutterstock.



The post Australia Could See First Solar-Powered Bitcoin Mining Farm in Coal Town appeared first on CCN.


Ukraine NEM Blockchain

Blockchain technology has been deployed for Ukrainian elections in a test according to a Facebook post by Alexander Stelmakh, an official Ukraines Central Election Commission.

A test began several weeks ago and voting is currently underway held using test coins provided by the NEM Foundation.

Blockchain makes it impossible to change saved information, the post noted. The decentralization of the data is also seen as advantageous. NEMs blockchain allows a user to create their own assets. In addition, the blockchains log structure includes a message box that allows the user to attach a message.

All information protocols are displayed in the format section on the blockchain. Assisted transactions can also be viewed on the blockchain. In addition, NEMs API allows users to access data in an easy-to-use format.

Worth The Cost

The estimated cost of placing the results on the blockchain will be small in exchange for the lifetime preservation of such socially important data, Stelmakh noted.

The NEM website notes that the foundation is committed to working with governments to expand the use of the NEM blockchain, and that the ability to record transactions on distributed ledgers offers governments the chance to improve transparency, prevent fraud and build trust.

Also read: Ukrainian group seeks support for blockchain elections in Ukraine

Blockchain Voting Gains Traction

In 2016, an open democracy blockchain called E-Vox committed to deploying blockchain-based voting in Ukraine signed a memorandum to support a blockchain-based voting system. THe memorandum was signed by volunteers and organizations to give the world e-voting for fair and transparent decision making, according to the E-Vox website.

The Swiss city, Zug, recently decided to test blockchain based voting using the citys eID system to vote with their smartphones. Residents were able to download an app to register to vote.

Featured image from Shutterstock.



The post Ukraine Election Body Trials Voting on an NEM Blockchain appeared first on CCN.


More than 2,000 properties are at direct risk of the Holy Fire, which is 70 miles south-east of Los Angeles.

Many show an eerie orange glow hanging over the hills as fire licks through the dry grasses.

The Holy Fire has scorched 18,137 acres and was 5% contained, the forest said on its Twitter page on Friday morning.

Schools have been closed in Menifee, Perris and Lake Elsinore.

Incredible photos show apocalyptic scenes as firefighters try to battle the blaze.

Evacuations: From Grand Avenue to Oretega Highway and homes on the mountainside of Lake Street in Lake Elsinore, Painted Canyon, McVickers, Rice Canyon, Horsethief Canyon, El Cariso Village, Sycamore Creek, Sycamore Canyon, Rancho Capistrano, Glen Eden, Indian Canyon, Mayhew Canyon and the Ortega Highway corridor from Lookout Roadhouse to Nichols Institute.

As the blaze headed toward the Lake Elsinore area, communities to the northwest of the lake in Riverside County were urged to flee their homes.

Orange County Fire officials say they believe the Holy Fire began near Cabin 14, which is owned by Clark.

Clark is being held pending bail of $1million.

A resident of the canyon, 51-year-old Forrest Gordon Clark, was charged Thursday with arson and other crimes that could send him to prison for life. Volunteer Fire Chief Mike Milligan, who also has a cabin in the area, says every resident in the canyon is afraid of him.

The firefighter told the Post that he had been reporting "problems" with Clark to the sheriff's office and U.S. Forest Service for more than three years, including the most recent text message he reportedly received from Clark.

"Who would go out with low humidity, and high wind and highest heat temperatures this time of year and intentionally set the forest on fire?" asked Orange County Supervisor Todd Spitzer during Wednesday's press conference.

Fire crews worked in 100-plus-degree (38 Celsius) heat.

Susan Schroeder, spokeswoman for the Orange County district attorney's office, said her office would "bring him to justice for these bad crimes".

In Northern California, a mechanic helping to fight the Carr Fire, burning around Redding, was killed in a vehicle crash on Thursday, the eighth person to die in that conflagration.

Residents are scared and fleeing their homes, he said.

Institute. Those areas had previously been under voluntary evacuation orders.

In addition to the Holy Fire, firefighters in California are battling 15 large blazes.

About 100 miles (160 km) southwest of the Carr Fire, almost 4,000 firefighters are battling the Mendocino Complex Fire, which has burned 307,000 acres (124,240 hectares) to become the largest fire on record in California.

The second biggest fire is the Carr Fire in Shasta County, also in Northern California.

The Complex fire is actually made up of two fires: the smaller River Fire, which has burned 48,920 acres, and the larger Ranch Fire, which has burned 255,482.

The Carr Fire has killed six people, including two firefighters, and burned more than 1,000 homes. More than 550,000 acres have burned in the last three weeks.
Daaaamn, kid looks like his father.

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ikr? I see all Billy and none of his mother

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"For every coat sold, Maison Atia provides a homeless pet transport from a high kill shelter to PAWS Chicago"



Wow, how much does it cost to transport a pet for this company to only pay for one with the sale of each $1000 - $1600 coat?

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Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in Hello! Your entry got to top-25 of the most popular entries in LiveJournal!Learn more about LiveJournal Ratings in FAQ

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Billy Corgan...one of the greatest musicians of all time...!



(he's crazy now but the pumpkins were crazy popular in the 1990s)

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This weekend, Courtney Love lines the bottom of her birdcages with this article.

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lmao

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Youre not officially a rock lengend until you marry someone who was born AFTER your greatest record. Congrats, Billy!

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Wow, shes younger than me. I just assumed she was in her 30s I should know better 

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good lord, she was born in 1993! feeling like I've done nothing with my life now...

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Super cute bb.

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corgan looks like a billiard ball with eyes

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I know that arm positioning, that cat is mid way through squirming out of her arms and making a break for it lol

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she looks trapped

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The cats and their names are cutie, but where are the doggies?

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That's a cute bb

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It's really nice that she's got a faux-fur line especially since her dad is Gilles Mendel and J. Mendel is famous for fur.



Edited at 2018-08-11 06:30 pm (UTC)

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Also lmao @ Billy trying with that "William Corgan" nonsense.

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I can't believe he hasn't given up yet, it's never gonna happen.

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omg i can't believe that's her dad!

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Same, I just thought maybe she was just some random young chick marrying him and I was shocked that she's an heir to J. Mendel.



Gilles's IG has pictures of him with Billy and videos of (fake) Smashing Pumpkins in concert.

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I used to hang out with Chloe when she was still in highschool in NYC - which was not too long ago FYI. Super sweet kid and from a wealthy family - almost like a real-life Blair Waldorf but the artsy type. I wish I could say Im surprised she ended up with someone older like Billy, but not really because he is her type. Shes always been drawn towards rock star types.



Edited at 2018-08-11 06:52 pm (UTC)

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well damn. the article said she wanted to go to school in Chicago where she knew nobody... so now this is like another nepotism person trying to pave their own way

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When they announced her pregnancy I was a little creeped off because her age and his age, also Billy haven't aged that well IMO. OTOH, Billy always have the sweetest words to her on his ig stories lol

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Nope

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Yes, Omari is so fine

Watch Power, every Sundays on Starz,

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I can't look at him because it makes me sad that I will never encounter such beauty in real life

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nahhh.



meagan good is still so fine tho.

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The night before the 2016 election seems like such an unnecessary plot point. I mean if it was before the 2008 I'd understand man with being able to achieve a dream or whatnot.

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Meh

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this looks stupid sorry

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omari's mom reviewed it.

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Remember when Meagan Good was in cousin skeeter? That show was so weird lmao.

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Me and my brother loved Cousin Skeeter growing up! Every time we see Meagan in something we call her Nina.

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The into still bops, I wonder what happened to 702.





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what a terrible title

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Cass and Frida manage to find love on the evening of the 2016 election as the nation kept a close eye on Donald Trump and Hillary Clintons battle to the White House.



they found love in a hopeless place.

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I wish Meagan had a bigger career ...

I hope her new show will be a success

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She had so many shows but they can never last.

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I really liked that futuristic crime show she was in a few years ago. Its a damn shame that sci-fi shows with black leads always get cancelled.

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I watched the trailer. 100 percent? Where?

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With SIX reviews lmao

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When I get my money right, if love to dye my hair a blonde/chestnut brown like Meagan.



Cant wait to see the film! Shes such an underrated actress.

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I watched some random interview with him on late late late night tv and he's such a ass. Soo fuckinh fine, but that personality...

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The bulls have gained the upper hand in oil markets of late, with estimates of $90 oil before the end of the year. The driving factor behind this renewed bullishness is the re-imposition of sanctions on Iran that threaten to significantly impact Iranian exports. While this bullish sentiment is certainly justifiable, there are also plenty of bearish catalysts looming over markets that should not be ignored. The most important of these catalysts is the possibility of an all-out trade war between China and the U.S., an outcome that is very much plausible. Oil prices in the coming months are likely to be influenced most heavily by these two contrasting factors  with Iranian sanctions sending prices up while trade war escalations sending them down.

The U.S. and Iran saga has had a grip over oil markets for the last three months. Oil prices spiked in May when Trump announced that he was imposing sanctions on Iran and leaving the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). Now, as the first round of sanctions goes into effect, the relationship between Iran and the U.S. has become increasingly strained. The second round of sanctions, which is going to focus on the energy sector, will have a much higher impact than the current round. According to different estimates, sanctions could take anywhere from 1.5 to 1 million barrels out of the market. This combined with the recent worries about spare capacity and the ongoing tension in the Arabian Peninsula (between Yemeni Houthis and KSA) may well drive prices towards the much-hyped $90 mark.

While there is certainly a possibility of a more than one million bpd decline in Iranian oil, there are some who suggest the decline will be significantly less than that. It is important to note that India and China account for almost 50 percent of Iranian oil exports between them and likely have the ability to boost their imports.

(Click to enlarge)

The stance of India is a little vague, but they have cleared that they will only comply with UN mandated sanctions and are reportedly looking to find alternate ways of payment in order to continue buying oil from Iran. China has clearly stated that it will not implement any cut in its imports from Iran. EU, accounting for another big chunk of Irans oil, wants to retain the current Iran deal and is trying its best to rescue it.

So, while Iranian sanctions may excite oil bulls, they remain very much a wild card for oil markets.

The second major factor to watch in todays oil markets is the ongoing trade war between China and the U.S. President Trump recently escalated this trade war with a second round of sanctions on $16 billion worth of Chinese products. China has said that it will retaliate with $60 billion of its own tariffs and has made it clear that it will not back down. It is generally accepted that trade wars are bad for the global economy, and the oil market is no exception. Oil prices tanked 3 percent in a single day after Trump announced the $16 billion tariffs. As these tariffs continue to escalate the impact on oil markets will likely grow.

Related: A Price Spike Looms For Natural Gas

Shan Saeed, Chief Economist at IQI Global, Malaysia and APEC region, is very bullish on oil and sees it at $100, claiming that Geopolitical risk and tight supply constraint have given oil prices a new head to stay on the bullish course. Understanding geography is a real virtue for sophisticated investors. On the demand side he added that demand for oil would touch 100 million barrel per day by Q-3/2019.

The influence of sanctions on oil prices, however, is subject to the response of China, India, the EU and Iran itself. Bulls may well have an argument, but they lack any sort of certainty when it comes to quantifying the impact of sanctions. The outcome of the trade war by comparison, is quite certain: lower oil prices. It is this certainty that might give oil bulls pause for thought as the end of the year looms.

While other factors such as inventory figures, rig count, global demand and supply will continue to shape oil markets, it is the above-mentioned major factors that are going to have a significant and sustainable effect.

By Osama Rizvi for Oilprice.com

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Canadas oil and gas market is profiting from the rally in oil, but in the meantime it has diluted opportunities for some much needed consolidation that could give it a competitive edge over U.S. oil companies.

According to data compiled by Bloomberg, deals made by Canadian oil, natural gas and pipeline companies slumped 29 percent in the first seven months of 2018 to $45.5 billion. If the $22.3 billion investment to absorb subsidiaries by Enbridge Inc., which owns and operates Canada's largest natural gas distribution network, were to be excluded the decline would widen to 64 percent.

During that same time, U.S. deals increased 12 percent to $174.8 billion. Canadian oil and gas companies had hoped to gain a competitive edge over lower-cost shale drillers based in the U.S., with consolidation being an integral part of that change.

Rising oil prices have driven management teams to stay the course. Theyve also lost interest in dilutive share issuance to fund Canadian takeovers.

Observers have been calling out the necessity of Canadian consolidation to lower costs and compete with lower-cost shale drillers in the U.S.

The ability to attack inefficiencies is much greater when theres one group of people working on an asset rather than two, said Rafi Tahmazian, who helps manage about C$900 million ($690 million) in energy investments at Canoe Financial in Calgary. Thats just a better way to go in this world today, where were not focused on just growing production, were focused on the rate of return.

Western Canada Select crude prices climbed 16 percent during the first seven months of 2018, outpacing West Texas Intermediate. The days of slumping crude prices starting three years ago are over, which drove Canadian wildcatters to sell when market recovery looked way off, according to Martin Pelletier, a portfolio manager at TriVest Wealth Counsel in Calgary.

Related: The Next Big Energy Standoff Will Happen Here

Tahmazian thinks that declining oil industry deals can also be explained by certain Canadian government policies, such as carbon taxes that make Canadas energy sector less competitive than rivals in other countries. Another concern has been a shortage of pipeline capacity in western Canada thats hurt domestic producers who have to sell their crude oil and gas at discounted prices.

Energy producers have had to rely on their own stock to pay for transactions, with investors and other bankers holding out on buying new equity in these companies. Its had quite an impact on the market, with all-stock transactions making up 39 percent of deals this year, compared to just 2.5 percent last year.

Three to five years from now, were going to go through another downturn, and a lot of these companies cannot survive, Tahmazian said. That could end up making them have to sell in a forced situation at a much lower valuation. Its important that potential sellers recognize that is a risk for them.

Vermilion Energy Inc. and Baytex Energy Corp. have both arranged all-stock buyouts. Both companies have a significant presence in Canadian oil and gas production and distribution.

Oil and gas observers also wonder what impact Saudi Arabias fallout with Canada will have on Canadian oil and gas markets.

Saudi Arabia has been outraged with Canadas criticism of the recent arrest of Saudi womens rights activists.

Saudi Arabia, which is the second largest source of oil imports to Canada behind the U.S., is reacting to what it perceives as growing foreign intrusion into its own internal matters. The country said it will freeze all new business between Saudi Arabia and Canada.

The leading OPEC country will also be recalling thousands of Saudi students who are attending Canadian universities, which is expected to impact the Canadian economy.

Related: Chinas Oil Futures Jump To Record High

The political fight between the two countries has been ongoing. Ottawa had made the demand that Saudi Arabia release detained womens rights activists.

Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia ordered the Canadian ambassador to leave Saudi Arabia within 24 hours after Canadas criticism of the recent arrests.

Canadas fight with Saudi Arabia has its roots in the OPEC oil crisis of 1973 when it was targeted as one of the western powers included in the Arab oil embargo. The four-fold global oil price spike threw Canada into a whirlwind that eventually led to consolidation and growth in the market.

By Jon LeSage for Oilprice.com

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Southern Company's Georgia Power subsidiary announced yet another increase in the estimated cost to complete the Vogtle 3 and 4 nuclear units. At this moment this is the only ongoing nuclear construction project in the United States. Georgia Power has raised its cost to complete the nuclear project by 15 percent. This pushes the final cost estimate for these units to almost $28 billion. Perhaps more significant for investors, Southern's management agreed to write off almost $1.1 billion of Vogtle costs, rather than attempt to charge ratepayers for the expenditures.

Georgia Power owns 45.7 percent of the two Vogtle units under construction, with public power agencies owning the balance. Later this fall, all owners will vote on whether to continue the project. (A similar, meaningfully over budget nuclear project was cancelled in South Carolina earlier this year.)

These revised cost estimates indicate that total cost of the two units could approach $28 billion upon completion. Back in 2012, when the Georgia Public Service Commission regulators approved them, the cost estimate was $14 billion. This is a 100 percent cost increase over initial estimates and represents incremental financial risk for investors.

Southern Company's Vogtle misadventure raises three questions that go beyond the perils of estimating costs for massive projects with long lead times to completion. Dealing with these issues may, in our view, enable regulators and utility managements to make better decisions in the future.

Related: Oil Prices Hit 7-Week Low As Trade War Heats Up

Question 1. How did the regulators and managements evaluate their options and what were the alternatives to and risks of the projects? Most utilities in this country have steered clear of nuclear construction for some time presumably for a reason. Did the availability of federal money sway the decision? Was there an ingrained bias in favor of large, central station projects? Is there also an ideological issue or a regulatory incentive with large central station power generating plants? Why did the regulators of and participants in Vogtle believe that they could succeed?

Question 2. What events during the construction project caused Vogtle costs to rise so much? The difficulties of the builders and Westinghouse's bankruptcy is well known. But could they have been predicted, given the nature of the project? Could the problems that emerged be prevented in future projects or are they inherent in any massive building project? In other words, are these unlikely, one-off events or likely consequences of the choice?

Related: Shockwave In Shipping Could Send Brent Soaring

Question 3. Should nuclear construction decision-making and financing remain a responsibility of state regulatory commissioners? Should it even be paid for exclusively by local consumers? After all, among the main reasons cited by the utility industry to go nuclear nowadays is to limit carbon dioxide emissions and to provide base load power for a large region often beyond the state borders. Everything is interconnected regionally in the electric grid. Presumably, those outside the state would benefit, too. Perhaps all consumers should pay a nuclear surcharge to finance these plants, not the consumers of one sate.

It's a little late to second guess Southern Company's senior management and the compliant Georgia Public Service Commission is no doubt owed its share of blame. And federal legislators and policy makers also encouraged the Vogtle project.

But it is not too late to examine the Vogtle fiasco for the lessons that it provides. Nuclear powered electric generating stations will have an extremely limited future in this country unless potential builders can answer those three questions ahead of time.

By Leonard Hyman and William Tilles for Oilprice.com

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Seven years into the Syrian civil war and hundreds of thousands of casualties, the conflict is presumably entering its final stage. At the start of the uprising during the Arab Spring seven years ago, few could have predicted the current state of the participating states. The Syrian regime is in a comfortable position where it does not face an existential threat anymore, but merely strategic choices to optimize its end result.

A few remaining major assets are the oil and gas fields in Eastern Syria controlled by the SDF which contain a significant part of the energy resources of the country. Signs have been appearing that both parties prefer negotiations over a military confrontation. However, the reason behind it differs for Damascus and the SDF.

The decision of Putin to send in Russian troops created a turning point in the crisis. It set in motion an unlikely chain of events that changed the configuration and position of involved parties. Combined with the unwillingness of the U.S. to react in kind and confront its adversaries, created an opportunity for Russian and Iranian supported forces. The financial and material support of Arab countries to rebels proved insufficient, effectively sidelining Arab Gulf involvement. The success of Assads forces and radicalization of rebels pushed the U.S. towards the Kurdish YPG in northeastern Syria, which led to the creation of the multi-ethnic but Kurdish dominated Syrian Democratic Forces in October 2015.

Two separate developments have led to the Syrian government in Damascus and the Kurds to negotiate on the status of SDF held territory. First, the success of the SDF in northern Syria and the affiliation of the YPG with the PKK created fear with Ankara on the destabilizing effect on its own Kurdish population. Second, the attack on Afrin and the settlement with the U.S. to withdraw Kurdish forces from Manbij created uncertainty with the YPG regarding continued support from Washington in the face of Turkish aggression.

Although Western Syria is considered valuable Syria due to its concentration of large cities, infrastructure, and industry, the east contains other vital resources: energy. The cost of reconstructing Syria is estimated at $250 billion. One of the options to earn some hard currency is the energy sector.

Before the civil war, Syria produced 380,000 barrels/day and an all-time high of 667,000 in 2002. The war has ravaged the industry, which currently produces just 15,000 barrels/day. Gas production has been hit less hard as it declined from 8 bcm/year before the war and currently produces 3.5 bcm/year.

Related: A Price Spike Looms For Natural Gas

In January 2018 the inevitable happened and a significant development for the future of the energy industry in the country with the signing of an energy cooperation framework with Russia. With this agreement, Damascus provided Russia with the exclusive right to produce oil and gas including the right to construct infrastructure, provide energy advisory services, and training of Syrian oilmen.

Damascus and the SDF have realized in the past that they need each other when it comes to exploiting these resources. While the SDF controls most of these fields, transporting them to markets is another story as existing infrastructure is constructed to facilitate industrialized Syria in the west or export to international markets via port cities on the Mediterranean. After the collapse of ISIS in 2017 and the seizure of the Conoco gas processing facility and field northeast of Deir Ez-Zor, SDF forces reached an agreement with Damascus and handed over the assets. Competition concerning other fields remained though.

(Click to enlarge)

Pressure from Turkey and uncertainty on the future of U.S. forces in Eastern Syria have forced the SDF, but mainly the Kurdish YPG faction within it, to recalculate its strategic position. Ankara will never tolerate the creation of an autonomous, let alone independent, Kurdish region adjacent to its southern border. The invasion of Afrin and the deal with the U.S. to chase away Kurdish forces from Manbij is proof of Turkish red lines.

Related: Russias High Risk Global Oil Strategy

Unreliability on the U.S. part due to statements by President Trump do not strengthen the position of the YPG. The U.S. President has claimed before to leave Syria as soon as possible: I want to get out, I want to bring the troops back home, I want to start rebuilding our nation. In case this does happen, the forces that brought down IS will be facing pressure from all sides, including Assads forces.

Although Assad has stated to retake all areas within Syria, by force if necessary, the costs and availability of alternatives create an opportunity. Damascus knows that the Kurdish YPG is a different kind of organization than what they've encountered in other areas: a battle-hardened and well-organized force of thousands. Furthermore, Russia does not support such a move as it would lengthen a costly war and potentially push the Kurds to make for concessions with alternative players in order to consolidate their gains.

With another playbook on the table, both parties have started exploratory talks on the future of Eastern Syria. The alternative is a confrontation, which would weaken both parties in an area where threats remain from both neighboring countries and Islamic militants. The stakes are high, but so are the gains from peaceful cooperation and the efficient exploitation of Syria oil and gas resources.

By Vanand Meliksetian for Oilprice.com

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Its been more than a year after the groundbreaking Brexit vote, in which the British public decided to leave the European Union in a controversial upset. Despite 14 months of prep time, many industry leaders and economic experts are crying out that its still too soon to cut ties with tax-free international trade without causing major economic fallout for the United Kingdom.

The possibility of severing ties from the European Union without a 21-month transition period leading up to the slated EU exit date in March 2019 has created nationwide uproar. According to warnings by UK Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Greg Clark, leaving without securing any trade deals with the rest of Europe (coined as the no-deal Brexit) may prove to be massively damaging to the nations economy, especially the north east region of the UK.

The north east United Kingdom is a historically industrial region, and the local business structure has come to be highly dependent on international exports. For years industries in the north east have developed a strong international focus, with well-established and highly efficient supply chains. The taxes on international trade that will be brought in swiftly by a no-deal Brexit will be a huge blow to the regions oilfield services exporters in particular, as well as to industrial exports in Scotland and the rest of the UK to a slightly lesser degree.

In particular, the subsea technology located in the UKs north east region would be highly impacted by an abrupt, no-deal Brexit. Even with high demand for the industrys specialized skills and products, the vast majority of this demand is overseas and would be majorly impacted by suddenly high tariffs. Theres also a danger of too much demand for skilled workers, as the right of EU workers to practice their trades in the UK is only preserved until 2020. Related: Ghana Boosts Natural Gas Production

In the face of a potential no-deal Brexit, the UKs economy is already wavering. The pound sterling has fallen to its lowest level this year as compared to all major currencies. Even if they dont fully understand the sudden squeeze, Brits are certainly feeling the impact.

The no-deal fear frenzy is not unfounded--many prominent in the UK have acted as particularly vocal harbingers of doom. Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England governor Mark Carney and UK trade secretary Liam Fox have both publicly stated that they think the no-deal Brexit is more likely to happen then not, and Bloomberg has reported that even Prime Minister Theresa May is hosting a September summit to begin making preparations for the looming possibility of no-deal Brexit.

Two main alternatives to the no-deal Brexit are also being bandied around in the media --a soft Brexit, in which the UK would maintain close trading relations with the EU even after departing the organization, and a hard Brexit, which would include some sort of trade deal but would see the UK leaving the EUs single market entirely, saying goodbye to untaxed movement of goods services, people, and capital. Related: Oil Prices Take A Breather As Supply Jumps

In the meantime, Ireland is reportedly preparing for Brexit fallout by gearing up to repatriate around 1.4 million barrels (200,000 tonnes) of oil stored in the UK, in search of politically greener pastures. This will be yet another blow to the UKs oil storage industry, whove been making money off of Irish oil for decades. Until now, Ireland has stored a whopping 40 percent of its overseas oil reserves in the UK.

In all likelihood we are heading into economically difficult if not disastrous era for Great Britain. If no-deal Brexit fears become reality, it will mean major change for industry across the UK, and by all accounts the country simply isnt ready for it. However--deal or no deal, economic devastation or merely overblown media madness, the fact remains that major change is exactly what the people of the UK voted for last June, and major change is indeed the one certainty in Britains immediate future.

By Haley Zaremba for Oilprice.com

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He recalled his own run for Congressional office as a Republican for a House district in the Maryland panhandle as well as for U.S. Senate several years ago. That is almost 28 percent higher than the 1.7 million who turned out in 2002, which is believed to be the previous MI midterm primary record. Just over 28 percent of the voting-age population cast ballots, an increase from the previous high of 24 percent from 1982.

Gretchen Whitmer, a former Democratic leader in the MI state Senate, claimed her party's nomination for governor Tuesday, defeating two insurgent rivals and setting up a crucial test for Midwestern Democrats and organized labor in November.

Michigan, where Republicans have controlled state government for 7 years, is an important gauge of whether Democrats can make gains in the upper Midwest after Trump won the state in 2016.

She beat veteran Representative Joe Crowley (D-NY) in the primary, prompting the Democratic National Committee's Tom Perez to describe the former Bernie Sanders campaign organizer as "the future" of the Democratic party. "When you've got a Legislature that's so male, all the leaders making decisions around our health care being white males. you get the policies that we have here in MI. We know we deserve better and we are ready to fight, right?"

Republicans say they expected higher Democratic turnout.

Greg Gutfeld and the panel on "The Five" reacted to NY democratic socialist congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez turning down an offer from conservative author Ben Shapiro to debate him on the issues, with the added incentive of a $10,000 campaign contribution. We're aware of it. Both Shri Thanedar and Abdul El Sayed positioned themselves as progressives.

"Our voters will come home". He likes Trump but said the president's endorsement did not sway him. Debbie Stabenow for re-election to a fourth term, lawyer Dana Nessel for state attorney general and election expert Joceyln Benson for secretary of state - which is already unprecedented.
Through connections made at summer camp, high school students Aarzu Gupta and Lili Sun used artificial intelligence to create a drone program that aims to detect wildfires before they spread too far.

Rebekah Agwunobi, a rising high school senior, learned enough to nab an internship at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab, working on using artificial intelligence to evaluate the court system, including collecting data on how judges set bail.

Both projects stemmed from the Oakland, Calif.-based nonprofit AI4All, which will expand its outreach to young under-represented minorities and women with a $1 million grant from Google.org, the technology giant's philanthropic arm announced Friday.

Artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly commonplace in daily life, found in everything from Facebook's face detection feature for photos to Apple's iPhone X facial recognition.

It's also one of the more disputed parts of technology. The late astrophysicist Stephen Hawking and Tesla CEO Elon Musk have warned human civilization is at risk from the unfettered development of artificial intelligence, which could lead to autonomous weapons of terror. Such fears led staff at Google earlier this year to press the company to halt a drone contract with the Pentagon.

The technology, still in its early stages, has also been decried for built-in racial bias that can amplify existing stereotypes. That's particularly worrisome as more companies use it for decisions like hiring and police leverage artificial intelligence-powered software to identify suspects. MIT Media Lab researcher Joy Buolamwini, who is black, found facial recognition software could more easily identify her face when she wore a white mask, a result of algorithms that relied on data sets of mostly white faces.

Three years ago, Google apologized after its photo identification software mislabeled black people as gorillas. Microsoft did the same after users quickly found a way to get an artificial intelligence-powered social chatbot to spew racial slurs.

Tess Posner, CEO of the nonprofit organization AI4All, said the problem is made worse by the fact that minority groups like women and people of color have historically been left out of the tech industry, particularly in AI.

"We need to have people included that are going to be impacted by these technologies, and we also need inclusion to ensure that they're developed responsibly," Posner said. "(Bias) happens when we don't have people asking the right questions from the beginning."

Despite stated efforts to attract more women and more people of color, Google, Facebook and other big tech giants have been slow to diversify their staff and they've failed to hire many women of color. African-American and Hispanic women make up no more than one percent of Silicon Valley's entire workforce.

Posner's organization believes the tech industry has to start including women and people of color at a much earlier stage. They're working to close that gap through summer camps aimed at high school students.

AI4All, launched in 2017, is based on a two-week summer camp program out of Stanford University.

Since then, AI4All's resources have expanded across the country. In its first year, there were only two summer camps at Stanford University and UC Berkeley. This year it added four more at Carnegie Mellon, Princeton, Boston University and Simon Fraser University.

All of the camps are aimed at high school students who are women, people of color or low-income.

Part of Google.org's grant will go towards opening more AI4All camps. The ultimate goal is to use the money to create a free, online AI curriculum course that will be accessible to anyone in the world. A course is already in the works.

"We really need for AI to be made by diverse creators, and that starts with people having access to the learning opportunities to understand at its core what AI is and how it can be applied," Google.org's AI4All partnership lead Hannah Peter said.

In addition to providing summer camps, AI4All also offers three-month fellowships where students can develop their own projects and pitch them to AI experts in the industry, as well as funding for their students to launch independent initiatives.

One such initiative was AI4All alumnus Ananya Karthik's workshop, creAIte, which uses artificial intelligence to create artwork. Karthik gathered a few dozen girls on a sunny Monday afternoon at Oakland's Kapor Center to show them how to use the Deep Dream Generator program to fuse images together for a unique piece of artwork.

Other AI4All students, most of whom are still in high school, have turned their newly acquired technical skills towards current pressing issues, like the wildfire project developed by Gupta and Sun, from AI4All's 2017 and 2016 class, respectively. The two met during one of the AI4All's three-month fellowships this year. This idea came out of the Napa and Sonoma County fires that plagued northern California late last year.

The camps validated their interest in STEM careers. They also appreciated the camp's talks featuring real-world examples of minority women who were able to succeed in the industry.

"I want to initiate change using artificial intelligence," Sun said. "I don't want to be just working on an iPhone or something like that ... (AI4All) gave me real examples of people who've succeeded, which is pretty cool. I knew that I could do it."

Because of her experiences, Gupta said, she's looking forward to exploring a career in AI, particularly in its uses for health and medicine. She's already putting that interest to work with her internship this summer at UC San Francisco, where the lab she's working at is doing research on the increased risk factors for women in developing Alzheimer's disease.

Amy Jin, an AI4All 2015 alumna and a rising freshman set for Harvard University in the fall, said the program opened her eyes to all the possibilities of AI as a tool for solving real-world problems.

Using surgery videos from UCSF, Jin, along with one of her AI4All mentors, developed a program that can track a surgeon's tools, movements and hand placement to give feedback on how to improve their technique.

For Agwunobi, AI4All was instrumental in showing her how she could combine her passion for activism and social justice with her interest in technology.

At her MIT internship, Agwunobi took data gathered during the pre-trial process to evaluate how key figures like judges behave while setting bail. The goal is to arm activists with this data when pushing for bail reform and scaling back mass incarceration.

"You can work with tech and still be accountable to community solutions," Agwunobi said. "(AI4All) affirmed my desire to solve interesting problems that actually helped communities I was accountable to, rather than making me feel like I was selling out ... I think that's how I want to approach solving humanitarian problems in the future."

2018 USA Today

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the UN World Health Organization, in 2015 classified Roundup's main ingredient glyphosate as a probable carcinogen

From "Agent Orange" and DDT to genetically modified crops, Monsanto has long been associated with controversial chemicals, but a US court order for it to pay damages because one of its herbicides may cause cancer could open the door to thousands more claims against the company.

A California jury on Friday ordered the US agrochemicals giantwhich was taken over by Germany's Bayer in Juneto pay nearly $290 million in compensation to a groundskeeper diagnosed with cancer after he repeatedly used Monsanto's weed killer, Roundup.

The lawsuit built on 2015 findings by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the UN World Health Organization, which classified Roundup's main ingredient glyphosate as a probable carcinogen.

Artificially sweet

Founded in 1901 in St. Louis, Missouri, Monsanto early on made the artificial sweetener saccharin. The company began producing agrochemicals in the 1940s.

Monsanto was one of the companies which produced a defoliant dubbed "Agent Orange," which has been linked to cancer and other diseases, for use by US forces in Vietnam but denies responsibility for how the military used it. The company also made insecticide DDT.

After it was introduced in the United States as Roundup in the mid-1970s, the use of the glyphosatewhich is sprayed on food crops but also widely used outside of agriculture, such as on public lawns and in forestrysoared across the globe.

A California jury on Friday ordered Monsanto to pay nearly $290 million in compensation to groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson who was diagnosed with cancer after he repeatedly used Monsanto's weed killer, Roundup

The company began genetically modifying plants, making some resistant to Roundup.

There was a dramatic jump after the introduction in 1996 of genetically engineered "Roundup Ready" crops, such as soybean and maize, that survive glyphosate while it kills weeds.

Glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world, produced by an array of companies since Monsanto's exclusive patent expired in the year 2000.

It is the subject of conflicting scientific studies as to whether it causes cancer.

The herbicide has been accused of damaging the environment, contributing to the disappearance of bees and being an endocrine disruptor.

The chemical has also been used as a pesticide for decades, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency website.

Glyphosate, the weed killer Roundup's main ingredient, was found by the International Agency for Research on Cancer to be a probable carcinogen

'Ecocide'

German chemicals and pharmaceuticals giant Bayer acquired Monsanto in June for $63 billion. And it said it would get rid of the Monsanto company name following the merger, while brand names on products would remain.

The San Francisco trial of Roundup and its possible carcinogenic effects was the first litigation of its kind against the company to make it to trial.

In 2012, Monsanto negotiated a $93 million settlement to settle a case with the West Virginia town of Nitro, where a plant making a main Agent Orange ingredient once operated.

The municipality accused the plant of being behind health problems faced by people in the community.

A French court in 2012 found Monsanto to be liable in the case of a farmer who said he suffered neurological problems after inhaling the company's Lasso weed killer.

The San Francisco trial of Roundup and its possible carcinogenic effects was the first litigation of its kind against the company to make it to trial

Monsanto has appealed the finding on points of law.

Meanwhile, Monsanto's genetically modified seeds have triggered concerns and legal challenges in Europe and the United States.

Last year, a citizen court consisting of a panel of professional judges in The Hague (Netherlands) found Monsanto guilty at a mock trial of human rights violations for harm caused by chemicals.

What became referred to as the "Monsanto Tribunal," in a purely advisory opinion, called for stronger laws protecting people and the environment from corporations, and a prosecutable crime of "ecocide."

Monsanto has always denied any link between disease and glyphosate, a substance classified as carcinogenic in the US state of California.

Monsanto now employs 20,000 people around the world and generates $15 billion in annual revenue.

Explore further Monsanto known for controversial chemicals

 2018 AFP
Monsanto's German owners insisted Saturday that the weed killer Roundup was "safe," rejecting a California jury's decision to order the chemical giant to pay nearly $290 million for failing to warn a dying groundskeeper that the product might cause cancer.

While observers predicted thousands of potential future claims against the company in the wake of Monsanto's defeat, Bayerwhich recently acquired the US giantsaid the California ruling went against scientific evidence.

"On the basis of scientific conclusions, the views of worldwide regulatory authorities and the decades-long practical experience with glyphosate use, Bayer is convinced that glyphosate is safe and does not cause cancer," the company said in a statement.

It said other court proceedings with other juries might "arrive at different conclusions" than the jury which ruled in the California lawsuit, the first to accuse glyphosate of causing cancer.

Jurors unanimously found that Monsantowhich vowed to appealacted with "malice" and that its weed killers Roundup and the professional grade version RangerPro contributed "substantially" to Dewayne Johnson's terminal illness.

Johnson, diagnosed in 2014 with non-Hodgkin's lymphomaa cancer that affects white blood cellssays he repeatedly used a professional form of Roundup while working at a school in Benicia, California.

"The cause is way bigger than me. Hopefully this thing will get the attention it needs," Johnson, 46, said after the verdict.

Johnson wept openly, as did some jurors, when he met with the panel later.

The lawsuit built on 2015 findings by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the UN World Health Organization, which classified Roundup's main ingredient glyphosate as a probable carcinogen, causing the state of California to follow suit.

"We are sympathetic to Mr Johnson and his family," Monsanto said in a statement, but promised to "continue to vigorously defend this product".

"The jury got it wrong," Monsanto vice president Scott Partridge told reporters.

But Johnson's attorney Brent Wisner said the verdict "shows the evidence is overwhelming" that the product poses danger.

"When you are right, it is really easy to win," he said.

More to come?

Wisner called the ruling the "tip of the spear" of litigation likely to come.

"The jury sent a message to the Monsanto boardroom that they have to change the way they do business," said Robert F. Kennedy Jran environmental lawyer, son of the late US senator and a member of Johnson's legal team.

"You not only see many people injured, you see the corruption of public officials, the capture of agencies that are supposed to protect us from pollution and the falsification of science," he said.

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in the US state of Virginia, said the plaintiff's evidence that Monsanto "knew or should have known that Roundup caused his cancer" could benefit those currently seeking damages from Monsanto, as well as encourage new filings.

Tobias said Monsanto's promised appeal could result in the charges being reducedbut said the company "might want to consider settling now, depending on its calculus of the risk that it might lose on appeal and the adverse publicity that might arise from losing or from continuing to contest the verdict."

But he cautioned that settling now could "make it appear that Monsanto believes it has a weak case."

Partridge, meanwhile, announced that Monsanto had no intention of settling the slew of similar cases in the legal queue.

"It is the most widely used and most widely studied herbicide in the world," Partridge said.

'Win for all of humanity'

Roundup is Monsanto's leading product.

"The Johnson vs Monsanto verdict is a win for all of humanity and all life on earth," said Zen Honeycutt, founding executive director of non-profit group Moms Across America.

In France, a leading anti-Monsanto campaigner told AFP that the California ruling would strengthen the resolve of those doing battle with the agrochemicals giant across the world.

"I was thinking of them and I said to myself that this ruling will help them and give them lots of hope," said Paul Francois, author of "A farmer against Monsanto" ("Un paysan contre Monsanto").

France's minister for ecological transition, Brune Poirson, hailed the "historic decision," tweeting that it validated President Emmanuel Macron's push to ban glyphosate use within three years.

Records unsealed previously by a federal court lent credence to Johnson's claimsinternal company emails with regulators suggested Monsanto had ghostwritten research later attributed to academics.

Founded in 1901 in St Louis, Missouri, Monsanto began producing agrochemicals in the 1940s. It was acquired by Bayer for more than $62 billion in June.

Monsanto launched Roundup in 1976 and soon thereafter began genetically modifying plants, making some resistant to Roundup.

Explore further US jury orders Monsanto to pay $290mn to cancer patient over weed killer

 2018 AFP
University of California students, from left, Anjali Banerjee, Alice Ma and Tyler Heintz walk near the university's campus Wednesday, June 6, 2018, in, Berkeley, Calif. The students who were in Nice, France when a terrorist drove a truck down a promenade killing 83 people, including one of their classmates, have channeled their grief and anger into two nonprofits to fight terrorism. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

California college student Anjali Banerjee was watching fireworks during a 2016 celebration on a seafront promenade in the French city of Nice when a man plowed a huge truck through the crowd, killing 86 people and wounding 200.

The University of California, Berkeley incoming senior ran through mobs of people to escape the chaos and later joined classmates to search hospitals and plaster the city with flyers of fellow students reported missing in the July 2016 terrorist attack. She later learned three students were injured, and UC Berkeley junior Nicolas Leslie, 20, was among the dead.

Banerjee and several classmates have since turned their grief into a startup called Archer that builds digital tools to help journalists, investigators and human rights workers tackle terrorism, sanctions evasion, corruption and other global violence.

"In that moment, it was hard finding the correct information. It was hard even going to different police stations. It was chaos," said Banerjee, who is from London.

The lack of official information following the terrorist attack by a Tunisian man led the students to self-organize and rely on locals to navigate the city as they looked for their missing friends. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the Bastille Day attack.

University of California students, from left, Alice Ma,Tyler Heintz and Anjali Banerjee walk near the university's campus Wednesday, June 6, 2018, in, Berkeley, Calif. The students who were in Nice, France when a terrorist drove a truck down a promenade killing 83 people, including one of their classmates, have channeled their grief and anger into two nonprofits to fight terrorism. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Collaborating with each other and with the people of Nice made the students realize they could create a space in the digital world to help others do the same in the fight against terrorism, Banerjee said.

The students built a free online platform that makes big data analysis and visualization easy to access and that helps track people and companies that have been sanctioned by the United States for crimes that include money laundering, corruption and terrorism.

They're still working to turn their data analysis tool into a for-profit company, but the startup has achieved some success. Amnesty International is using one of its tools, Archer Meta, to verify photographs of the crackdown by security forces against minority Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar's Rakhine state.

The tool identifies when and where the photographs were taken and can process 50 at once, unlike other readily available internet tools that upload one photo at a time and can pose a security risk, said Sam Dubberley, a researcher with Amnesty International.

University of California student Anjali Banerjee answers questions during an interview on the university's campus Wednesday, June 6, 2018, in, Berkeley, Calif. Banerjee and other students who were in Nice, France when a terrorist drove a truck down a promenade killing 83 people, including one of their classmates, have channeled their grief and anger into two nonprofits to fight terrorism. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

"We get photographs in bulk from activists groups in Myanmar, and we have to verify they are true. But uploading one at a time can be mind-numbing, tedious work," he said.

Archer Metta also offers an added layer of security by allowing users to analyze a photo's metadata without relying on an internet connection, Dubberley said.

"These tools are needed in human rights work, but they are prohibitively expensive to develop, and there is no money in it for tech companies to build them," he said.

The group's data analysis tool helps those investigating terrorist financing cases, "but there is a broader community of people who can rely on our tools, including those looking into war crimes, sanction violations or environmental crimes," said Alice Ma, a former UC Berkeley student who founded the startup with Banerjee and classmate Tyler Heintz.

University of California student Alice Ma answers questions during an interview on the university's campus Wednesday, June 6, 2018, in, Berkeley, Calif. Ma, and other fellow students who were in Nice, France when a terrorist drove a truck down a promenade killing 83 people, including one of their classmates, have channeled their grief and anger into two nonprofits to fight terrorism. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Heintz was also in Nice at the time of the attack. They have since been joined by nearly two dozen other students, including several others who were with them in France as part of a monthlong class and competition hosted by the European Innovation Academy, which focuses on tech entrepreneurship education.

Banerjee, a history major, had considered a career in foreign affairs but after what happened in France, she wanted to take immediate action. Weeks before the attack, her friend Tarishi Jain, a UC Berkeley sophomore, was among 20 hostages killed at a restaurant by militants in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

"A lot of people all over the world exist in this kind of situation on the daily, and we thought it was time somebody suggested another way we could combat it," Banerjee said.

Experiencing the France attack also pushed Heintz, a 20-year-old computer science major, to change his professional goals.

University of California student Tyler Heintz answers questions during an interview on the university's campus Wednesday, June 6, 2018, in, Berkeley, Calif. Heintz and other fellow students who were in Nice, France when a terrorist drove a truck down a promenade killing 83 people, including one of their classmates, have channeled their grief and anger into two nonprofits to fight terrorism. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

"Before Nice, I was very much on the traditional path of wanting to build the next app that a bunch of people would use for some reason but that doesn't actually change anyone's lives. But building an app that can help you transport your cat or dog just seemed so trivial," he said.

What motivates Heintz and "a lot of us, is the idea that we can build products to help magnify the work of people trying to bring terrorists to justice," he added.

 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
A Palestinian medic was killed by Israeli fire during protests along the Gaza-Israel border on Friday after a deadly flare-up between the two sides.

Also on Friday, the Israeli military lifted restrictive recommendations for residents of some areas in southern Israel that it had set amid the Palestinian bombing, including suggestions to avoid open areas and beaches.

The protests came after a deal to end all rocket fire into Israel and air strikes on the Gaza Strip appeared to go into effect around midnight (2100 GMT) on Thursday.

It identified the man who died Saturday as Ahmed Abu Lulu, saying he was shot in a section of the border east of the southern city of Rafah, where the two other Palestinians were also killed.

Israel and Hamas have come close to serious conflict in recent weeks after four months of violence along Gaza's border following Hamas-organized protests there.

So, don't forget that while we see this rocket war aimed at Israeli civilian population centers in part because of the Gaza evacuation, we are now talking about the continued so-called land for peace formula and for some sort of creation ultimately of a Palestinian state in the West bank. Israel's government hasn't confirmed the truce.

Ali al-Alul, 55, was killed on the same stretch of the border in southern Gaza where medical volunteer Abdullah al-Qatati was fatally shot, the ministry said.

The 40-year-old was among 131 Palestinians wounded by Israeli bullets during the protest, breaking an unofficial ceasefire after less than 24 hours.

Speaking in a panel discussion on Israel's i24NEWS (video above), Klein reminded viewers about Israel's 2005 withdrawal from Gaza, which he argued paved the way for Hamas's takeover and the use of the coastal enclave to attack Israel.

The military said Palestinians hurled "explosive devices and firebombs" and in one instance a grenade at Israeli soldiers Friday.

At least 168 Palestinians have been killed since the border protests began on March 30, with most succumbing to Israeli fire during demonstrations. Saeed Aloul was reported dead by the Health Ministry.

The European Union on Friday said "the death of the pregnant Palestinian mother and her child in this latest escalation is a tragic loss".

In July it further reduced that zone to three miles after scores of kites carried firebombs across the border to burn Israeli farmland.

Israel and Hamas have fought three wars since the Islamic militant group seized control of Gaza in 2007.

The Israeli fire service says the devices have sparked hundreds of fires and burned some 3,000 hectares.
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Letters to the Editor: Psychologists' training should not be used keep children online; Mark Meuser top candidate; Pops Orchestra should get more recognition
One cannot continue to play by the same rules and expect different results. Since it put forth an autonomy plan, Morocco has engaged in UN-brokered negotiations with the Polisario to no avail. Before that the referendum option, now considered obsolete and unfeasible, has been discarded in view of irreconcilable differences over who should vote.

With the new call for new direct talks between the parties to the conflict, Morocco and the Security Council are aware that if negotiations have to start again then a more positive role should be played by Algeria.

Resolution 2414, clearly states that Algeria as a neighboring country should cooperate with the UN and the parties to achieve progress towards a political solution.

Such calls usually fall on deaf ears in Algeria. The Algerian regime has turned the Sahara issue into a doctrine and flouted neighborliness by hosting, arming and backing diplomatically a separatist militia that wreak havoc in the region.

Algeria, keen to have an outlet into the Atlantic Ocean, has hosted and armed the Polisario separatists in the early 1970s and pushed them to declare an independent republic. It used its oil mantra to buy support for the phony entity at the Organization of the African Unity, the predecessor of the African Union, in a cold war context.

The fortified wall spared Morocco the hit and run attacks inherent to the guerrilla warfare waged by the Polisario, which used the Algerian territories as a rear base.

During the era of Hassan II, Morocco refused to engage in talks with the Polisario maintaining that Algeria is the real party to the conflict.

However, in a sign of good will Morocco submitted the autonomy initiative as a maximum compromise to settle the issue. The move was welcomed by the international community as a serious and credible option.

The autonomy initiative was thought to offer a basis for solving the dispute, but Algeria and its mentors reject it while insisting on the obsolete and unfeasible referendum option causing a stalemate in negotiations.

Today, despite its depleting reserves and the impending social and economic crisis it faces, Algeria continues to generously fund and arm the Polisario to the detriment of its own population.

Algeria backs the Polisario in diplomatic fora and emboldens its actions with lavish military aid in order to distract attention from Moroccos recent inroads at the African level.

It is therefore a waste of time to negotiate with the Polisario in the absence of the real party to the conflict Algeria. After all, Polisario diplomats and officials are on Algerian payroll and receive Algerian passports.
The talk-of-the-town for this years National Day Parade (NDP) 2018 in online forums seems to be around a chiobu whom Singapore President Halimah Yacob spoke to during her inspection of the guards of honour.

Heres a video of the girl talking to the President:

Whos that girl?

Netizens were quick to CSI her out as an engineer in the Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF), Military Expert (ME) 1 Gorgina Choo. Gorgina is from 806 Squadron and is responsible for the maintenance of CH-47 Chinook helicopters.

Pic from Gorgina's Instagram

According to her LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram profiles, Gorgina graduated with a Diploma in Aerospace Electronics from Singapore Polytechnic before signing on as a regular with RSAF.

She studied at Loyang Secondary School and enjoys activities like rock-climbing and dancing. She also worked briefly as a retail assistant at home-grown F&B brand, Awfully Chocolate.

In an interview with Pioneer magazine, Gorgina revealed that she is an avid home chef who spends her weekends seeking out recipes. Gorgina is of half Thai descent (her mother is Thai) and her best dish is said to be pad kra pao gai, or Thai basil chicken with rice.

Below are some pictures of Gorgina Choo from her public Facebook album. You can also follow her on Instagram where she shares many of her life moments, including shots taken in uniform and when she is off work.

Click to view slideshow.

Gorgina is quite an influencer on Instagram by the way  with close to 5,000 fans. Her latest posts drew lots of comments from those who saw her on television during the NDP 2018 telecast:

Why did Gorgina joined the RSAF?

From the same interview with Pioneer magazine, she was said to be inspired by her late father who was an Aircrew Specialist in the RSAF.

I still remember the look on his face whenever he talked about his pride and joy  the Chinook helicopter. She said in the interview and mentioned that she was thrilled to be working on the same type of aircraft that her father did, and enjoys her job in the RSAF. We maintain our aircraft to keep them at a high state of readiness, and I like the mental and physical challenges of the job.

Story continues

Check out her interview video with Pioneer magazine:

Gorgina is not the only one in the family who is contributing to Singapores total defence, in one of her instagram posts, her brother is seen geared up as a firefighter:

How does Gorgina Choo square up in the competition of beauties from the Singapore Armed Forces?

Before Gorgina Choo from the RSAF, there was ME1 Clarie Teo who is made many Singaporean men fell in love with the Singapore Navy and ME4 Liping Ang who inspired many guys to sign on to the army after reading about her in Pioneer magazine.

Then there are her fellow RSAF colleagues, LTA Graci Foo or 2LT Sengie Chong, widely seen as Singapore Air Forces counters to Navys ME1 Clarie Teo and Armys LT2 Joelle Cheong.

But

thats before the RSAF discovered that they have a secret weapon in ME1 Gorgina Choo.

Who do you think is the prettiest of them all? Cast your vote below:

The post Who is Gorgina Choo? The Chiobu Guard of Honour President Halimah Yacob Spoke to at NDP 2018 appeared first on Alvinology.
Thousands of Romanians staged an anti-government protest in Bucharests Victory Square on Friday, August 10, with many Romanian expatriates travelling across Europe to return for the stand against the corrupt government.

Romanias national news agency reported up to 60,000 people attended the rally, according to Euronews.

The protestors were calling for the resignation of the government, which is led by the Social Democrat Party, Washington Post reported.

An estimated three million Romanians live abroad, reportedly due, in part, to corruption, low wages and lack of opportunity.

The protests were largely peaceful, however, there was vision of riot police in the area and Euronews reported tear gas was fired when some protestors tried to break through security lines.

The protest is the latest in a series of demonstrations against the government since they came to power in 2016. Credit: Dinca_Laurentiu via Storyful
Bachir Dkhil, one of the founders of the Polisario who defected to Morocco in 1990, welcomed the UN Security latest statements on Algerias involvement in the Sahara issue.

Algeria is a party to the conflict. Not only does it arm, back and fund the Polisario, but it has also prevented any attempt at reaching a solution with Morocco, Dkhil told le360 news website.

He said a solution to the Sahara issue hinges on a Moroccan-Algerian deal.

The Security Council better understands the Algerian role and is pushing for a solution to a conflict that has long-lasted, he said.

The Moroccan autonomy initiative represents a credible basis to settle the conflict politically within Moroccos sovereignty, he said.

The Security Council wants feasible solutions that take into account the demographic changes in the Sahara in the last four decades.

Bachir Dkhil made it clear The Polisario is not a representative of the Saharan population.
FILE PHOTO: A view of the Roman Catholic church and belfry in the devastated coastal Philippine town of Balangiga A view of the Roman Catholic church and belfry in the coastal Philippine town of Balangiga after a typhoon, November 20, 2013. REUTERS/Nathan Layne/Files

MANILA (Reuters) - The United States will return to the Philippines church bells seized by U.S. troops as trophies during a war between the two countries more than a century ago, giving way to Manila after years of diplomatic pressure.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis has notified Congress that the department plans to return the Bells of Balangiga to the Philippines at a date yet to be identified, the U.S. Embassy in Manila said in a statement on Saturday.

Despite decades of close ties between the two countries and a tight military alliance, the United States' refusal to return the bells has long been a bone of contention, raised strongly by Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.

In 1901, U.S. soldiers killed thousands of Filipinos, including women and children in the central Philippines town of Balangiga in response to the death of 48 U.S. soldiers at the hand of rebels during the war between the two countries.

U.S. troops took the town's church bells. Two of the bells are at the Warren Air Force Base in Wyoming, while the third is part of a travelling museum.

"We are aware that the Bells of Balangiga have deep significance for a number of people, both in the United States and in the Philippines," the embassy said.

The Philippines government had no immediate comment.

(Reporting by Neil Jerome Morales; Editing by Martin Petty and Hugh Lawson)
The Moroccan armed forces have received so far no less than 127 M1A1 Abrams Tanks from the US, said infodefensa, a defense news agency.

Satellite images show that Morocco has at least 127 M1A1 tanks that the US supplied, infodefensa said.

The Donald Trump administration has approved the shipping of 162 Abrams tanks to Morocco last year to help the kingdom respond to regional challenges.

The deal was approved last September in a move to endow Morocco with US military equipment worth more than $115 million.

The equipment is part of the Excess Defense Articles program, or EDA, which provides for surplus military equipment that has not been offered to domestic police forces to be made available at reduced or no cost to foreign allies.

Morocco is the largest US weapons buyer in the Pentagons 53-country Africa Command.

The US Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) announced in June 2012 that Morocco had requested the possible sale of 200 surplus M1A1 tanks converted into the M1A1 Special Armor configuration along with associated weapons, ammunition, and equipment.

Under the $358m foreign military sales (FMS) contract, the General Dynamics Land Systems (GDLS) company was to upgrade a total of 150 M1A1 Abrams tanks for sale to the Kingdom of Morocco.

The advanced M1A1 SA tank features gunners primary sight, new Block I 2nd generation forward-looking infrared technology, and a blue force tracking system for enhanced effectiveness in the battlefield.

Designed for modern armored ground warfare, Abrams tank is the main battle tank in the US Army and Marine Corps.
2018 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #32

Posted on 11 August 2018 by John Hartz

A chronological listing of news articles posted on the Skeptical Science Facebook Page during the past week.

Editor's Pick

Scientists mock Trumps tweet on wildfires as comedically ill-informed and unmitigated crap

Trump's climate denial is "a crime against the planet" warns climatologist.

Embers Smolder from Wildfires Near Clearlake Oaks, California, On August 5, 2018. Credit: Noah Berger/AFP/Getty Images

Two years ago, an actual headline from CBS in Sacramento was, Donald Trump Tells California There Is No Drought As Drought Continues.

And now, on Sunday evening, Trumps denial of reality in California continued, as he attempted to blame the ever-worsening wildfires in the state on everything but climate change.

California wildfires are being magnified & made so much worse by the bad environmental laws which arent allowing massive amount of readily available water to be properly utilized, the President tweeted. It is being diverted into the Pacific Ocean. Must also tree clear to stop fire spreading!

The tweet came just hours after the Trump administration declared the California wildfires a major disaster.

Scientists mock Trumps tweet on wildfires as comedically ill-informed and unmitigated crap by Joe Romm, Think Progress, Aug 6, 2018

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BlacKkKlansman, Spike Lees latest joint, tells the story of Ron Stallworth, the first black officer to work for the Colorado Springs Police Department, who launches a covert investigation into the Ku Klux Klan. It is an adaptation of Stallworths memoir, an account of the undercover operation, and an on-screen title early in the film notes that its based on some fo real, fo real shit. How closely does the movie stick to Stallworths real-life operation, as its been described in both his memoir and in the press? We break it all down below.

Ron Stallworth (John David Washington)

In the memoir, Detective Stallworth enrolls in the police academy after high school because he sees it as a plausible segue into a career as a gym teacher. Movie Stallworth is hard to read but seems to have more high-minded motives, worrying about whether his employment as a cop is counterproductive to the fight for black liberation. Both struggle to reconcile their identities as black men and police officers, however. As Stallworth puts it in the memoir, black officers were stuck in a phantom-like void in which they were too black for some of their fellow officers and too blue for their racial brothers. The movie evokes W.E.B. Du Bois theory of double consciousness to describe the predicament, albeit more pointedly than Stallworth does in his memoir.

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In the memoir, Stallworth has been working as an officer for four years, three of them spent undercover, when he begins the Klan infiltration. Just as in the movie, he talks to the Klan on the phone after spotting an ad in the local newspaper, and though he had a few years experience, he still made the mistake of giving his real name. The real Ron Stallworth also did indeed succeed in becoming a card-carrying Klan member, and in fact he still has the card and often brandishes it in interviews:

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As for how accurate the movie is to his character, the real-life Stallworth has said, The movie captured the essence of me at 25, going through this investigation. They did take some liberties, though, he says, noting that his afro was about an inch shorter.

Flip Zimmerman (Adam Driver)

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In the film, the white cop who aids detective Stallworth and infiltrates the Klan is an unobservant Jew, a bit of artistic license that raises the stakes, since Flip himself must work to hide his true identity from the Klan. In the memoir, Stallworth keeps the officers identity somewhat obscured for his own protection, referring to him only as Chuck, but he is a willing if wary participant in the investigation.

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The memoir, like the book, portrays several close calls and instances where the cops cover is nearly blown. Unlike in the movie, another officer, named Jim, is chosen to go undercover as well. However, there was no lie detector scene, as Chuck, who is white and not Jewish, does not receive as much scrutiny as Flip does in the movie.

Patrice (Laura Harrier)

The character of Patrice, Stallworths love interest, seems to have been invented for the film. However, Stallworth does mention an unnamed young woman he was dating.

The racist patrolman, Landers (Frederick Weller)

The racist patrolman who harasses Stallworth and gropes Patrice appears to have been largely invented for the movie as well. However, the memoir does describe a patrolman named Ralph who, like Landers, shot and killed a teenaged boy and was only able to hold onto his badge because of the loyalty of others in the justice system. Unlike in the movie, there is no scene of Stallworth and the others eliciting a taped confession and getting the patrolman arrested.

Kwame Ture, born Stokely Carmichael (Corey Hawkins)

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In the memoir, Stallworths first undercover assignment is portrayed much as it is in the film. He is ordered to attend an event at a local black nightclub where Kwame Ture, who in the late 60s changed his name from Stokely Carmichael, is speaking. As in the film, Stallworth eagerly accepts the assignment and at times felt himself swept up in Tures speech, muttering in agreeance with him. He compliments his skill as a fiery orator and does briefly meet with Ture after, though he does not make any meaningful connections with any other black attendees.

David Duke (Topher Grace)

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Stallworths interactions with Duke are mostly true to the memoir. Stallworth did actually speak to the Grand Wizard via telephone and inquire how he would know whether he was speaking with a black person. Duke did indeed say that he was capable of discerning a black persons voice by the pronunciation of the word are. And Stallworth does indeed write that he was eventually charged with working as one of Dukes armed bodyguards, accompanying him when he visited Colorado Springs, during which time he really did snap a chummy photo with Duke. (Stallworth says he lost the photo in a move.)

The Klan in Colorado

The movies depiction of the local chapter of the Klan is pretty true to the memoir, though some of the names are changed. Many of the most unbelievable details come straight from the memoir. The local leader (identified in the book as Ken, instead of Walter) does indeed seek to have Ron become a new leader in the group. As in the movie, Stallworth blames the different sound of his voice on a cold or allergies.

The initiation ceremony and counterprotests

In the memoir, both Chuck and Jim attend the ritual that formalizes their Klan citizenship. Stallworth writes that, as in the movie, the ceremony was attended by Duke, who chose to screen D.W. Griffiths racist epic The Birth of a Nation, the film that helped inspire the Klans early-20th-century resurgence.

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The anti-Klan protests described in the memoir are more scattered and less tense, with the Black Student Union and other leftist groups, including predominantly white ones, showing their opposition to the white supremacists. The character of Jerome Turner, played in the film by Harry Belafonte, seems to have been invented for the film, but the gruesome murder he describes, the lynching of Jesse Washington in Waco, Texas, is 100 percent real, as are the infamous photos taken by Fred Gildersleeve that are shown in the film. The Birth of a Nation had been released just one year before and may have partially inspired the killing.

The ending

No planned attack on the Black Student Union is described in the memoir. Stallworth does write, however, that the Klan was planning to firebomb gay bars in Colorado Springs, in addition to cross burnings. As in the movie, all the Klans plans for domestic terrorism are thwarted by Stallworth and the CSPD.

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The detectives were indeed eventually ordered to shut down the investigation, destroy all the evidence, and slip back into their prior roles. The final phone call between Duke and Stallworth, in which the detective relishes his dramatic reveal of his true identity to a stunned Duke, is invented for the film. In real life, Stallworth has said in interviews, David Duke didnt find out that he was black until 2006, when a reporter called the Klan leader to fact-check Stallworths story.
GOP Rep. Chris Collins from New York is suspending his re-election campaign shortly after he was arrested on insider trading charges. The move was quite a change of tune for the lawmaker, who had vowed days ago to press forward with his re-election campaign as he dismissed the charges as meritless. But on Saturday, the three-term congressman issued a statement saying that after extensive discussions with my family and my friends over the last few days, I have decided that it is in the best interests of the constituents of NY-27, the Republican Party and President Trumps agenda for me to suspend my campaign for re-election to Congress.

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Collins and his son are facing multiple charges, including securities fraud, wire fraud, and false statements all of which are part of an alleged insider trading scheme tied to an Australian pharmaceutical company. Prosecutors claim Collins, who sits on the board of the pharmaceutical company, helped family members avoid hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses by revealing information about the failure of a drug in clinical trials.

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Collins, who was the first member of Congress to endorse Donald Trump in 2016, pleaded not guilty to the charges and insists he is innocent but says that staying in the race would only help Democrats elect one of their own in the heavily Republican district. Democrats are laser focused on taking back the House, electing Nancy Pelosi Speaker and then launching impeachment proceedings against President Trump, Collins statement read. They would like nothing more than to elect an Impeach Trump Democrat in this District, which is something that neither our country or my party can afford. Collins did make clear he wont be stepping down and will fill out the remaining few months of my term.

Getting his name off the ballot wont be that simple. Politico explains:

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Under New York law, Collins name can be supplanted on the ballot at this stage of the cycle only if he dies, moves out of state or is nominated for another office  like a local judgeship. According to Erie County GOP Chairman Nick Langworthy, the exact mechanisms are still being worked out, but he noted Collins owns houses in Florida and Washington, D.C. At this point, he has decided its a distraction focusing on his legal situation, Langworthy said. It was a distraction for us trying to retain the seat as conservative and Republican leadership. So, I think it was the best decision given the circumstances, and I wish him and his family the best.

His decision also came after growing pressure from Republicans, both from within and outside his district. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan removed Collins from the Energy and Commerce Committee and called for an Ethics Committee investigation. In his district, several potential replacements quickly started working behind the scenes to garner support.
A 29-year-old employee for Horizon Air sparked panic Friday night when hefor some unknown reasondecided to take one of the airlines Bombardier Q400 turboprop airplanes from Seattles airport and go for a ride before crashing it in a sparsely populated island nearby. The ground service agent took the plane from the maintenance area at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport at around 8 p.m. and flew it around for about an hour before he crashed on Ketron Island In Puget Sound. Although initial reports said the man was a mechanic for Alaska Airlines, officials later said he was a ground service agent employed by Horizon Air, which is part of Alaska Air Group.

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The man crashed the plane either because he was doing stunts in air or lack of flying skills, the Pierce County Sheriffs Department said on Twitter. Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor characterized the incident as a joyride gone terribly wrong. Law enforcement authorities described the man as suicidal and said the incident didnt have anything to do with terrorism. The man who took the plane died when the plane crashed but no other injuries were reported on the 230-acre island that has a population of 20.

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Stolen horizon airplane crashed into Ketron island. Preliminary info is that a mechanic from unknown airlines stole plane. Was doing stunts in air or lack of flying skills caused crash into Island  Pierce Co Sheriff (@PierceSheriff) August 11, 2018

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Video posted on social media showed the 76-seat plane doing loops and other types of stunts as a F-15 fighter jet followed it. Two F-15s were scrambled out of Oregon shortly after the incident but were not involved in the crash. Told F 15s made it within a few minutes of theft of plane. Pilots kept plane out of harms way and people on ground safe, noted a tweet from the Pierce County Sheriffs Department.

Some dude stole a plane from #Seatac (Allegedly), did a loop-the-loop, ALMOST crashed into #ChambersBay, then crossed in front of our party, chased by fighter jets and subsequently crashed. Weird times. pic.twitter.com/Ra4LcIhwfU  bmbdgty (@drbmbdgty) August 11, 2018

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UPDATE: Airline mechanic stole an Alaska Airlines plane without any passengers and took off from Sea-Tac International Airport in Washington state before crashing near Ketron Island, officials said: https://t.co/gzqIUY7M4g pic.twitter.com/RWgaArMN1i  NBC Bay Area (@nbcbayarea) August 11, 2018

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Recordings of the mans communication with air traffic control were posted on social media and showed how he was excited but also how he seemed to have realized a bit late the gravity of what he had done. The man, who was referred to as Rich and Richard in the recordings said he had put gas in the plane to go check out the Olympics  and uh, yeah. He also worried about fuel. Im down to 2,100, he told the ATC. I started at 30 something.  I dont know what the burnage is like on takeoff, but it burned quite a bit faster than I expected.

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Here he is realizing how quickly he is burning through fuel. pic.twitter.com/ftnpowm9D4  Jimmy Thomson (@jwsthomson) August 11, 2018

The air-traffic controller keeps a remarkable degree of composure through the conversations, trying to coax the man to land the plane safely. At one point the controller tries to get him to land at a military airfield. Oh man, the man responds. Those guys will rough me up if I try and land there. I think I might mess something up there too. I wouldnt want to do that. They probably have anti-aircraft. The air traffic controller assures him thats not the case. Im not quite ready to bring it down just yet, the man said. But holy smokes, I got to stop looking at the fuel, because its going down quick.

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Here, the air traffic controller is trying to talk him into landing. pic.twitter.com/OxEe5T6JHJ  Jimmy Thomson (@jwsthomson) August 11, 2018

In a remarkable exchange, he asks the controller if he could get a job as a pilot if he lands it successfully. You know, I think they would give you a job doing anything if you could pull this off, the controller answers. Yeah right! Nah, Im a white guy, he says.

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At another point he seems to start worrying about the consequences: This is probably jail time for life, huh? The controller refuses to engage: Were not going to worry or think about that. But could you start a left turn please? And then comes a moment when it seems he realizes the seriousness of the situation: Ive got a lot of people that care about me. Its going to disappoint them to hear that I did this. I would like to apologize to each and every one of them. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess.

Never really knew it, until now.

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I'm listening through the archive of the radio chatter on the #seatac hijacking. Below are some of the clips. pic.twitter.com/ziBAYv7cgn  Jimmy Thomson (@jwsthomson) August 11, 2018

If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, text the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273- 8255.
Representative Chris Collins now says his current third term in Congress will be his last. Photo: John Normile/Getty Images

Chris Collins, the Republican congressman from western New York who was arrested and charged with insider trading on Wednesday, has announced that he will no longer seek reelection this year. Collins said that he made the decision to withdraw from the race after extensive discussions with my family and friends over the last few days. He will not resign from office, however, insisting that, I will fill out the remaining few months of my term to assure that our community maintains its vote in Congress to support President Trumps agenda.

Collins, who was the first member of Congress to support Donald Trumps presidential campaign, also implied that he was leaving the race to make sure Democrats would not not able to gain his seat and launch impeachment proceedings against the president. His indictment undoubtedly improved his Democratic challengers chances this fall, but there was also a pretty good chance Collins would have been able to win a fourth term in Congress despite the indictment since his district, New Yorks 27th, is the reddest in the state.

Collins is continuing to maintain his innocence despite what appears to be a considerable amount of evidence suggesting otherwise. Federal prosecutors, armed with phone records, text messages, and bank records, allege that Collins used insider information to enable him and his son, Cameron Collins, to avoid $768,000 in losses after the elder Collins learned of a failed FDA trial by a Australian biotech company the two men had heavily invested in. Cameron Collins and his future-father in law, Stephen Zarsky, were also arrested on Wednesday.

Erie Countys Republican comptroller, Stefan Mychajliw, quickly announced his intention to run in Collinss place this November (and emphasized his pro-Trump bona fides). The Democratic candidate in the race, Nate McMurray, welcomed a surge of campaign contributions following Collinss arrest  but still faces long odds to win the seat.

This post has been updated to include the news that Stefan Mychajliw intends to run in Collinss place.
A Republican member of Congress who represents Charlottesville claimed Saturday that Russians played a key role in fanning the flames of racial divisions at the deadly Unite the Right rally last year. In an interview with CNN, Rep. Tom Garrett, said FBI officials told him about the role Russia played in the deadly clashes last year.

I sat in a closed session briefingprobably two months agoabout Charlottesville, with the director of the FBI among others, and asked if Russian intermeddling had do with fomenting the flames of what happened in Charlottesville, he said. I was told, Yes, it did. I was asked if this was classified, they said, No, it is not.

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VIDEO: On @CNN @RepTomGarrett says the FBI Director told him directly in a briefing two months ago that Russian inter meddling had to do with fanning the flames in Charlottesville. pic.twitter.com/rorpfeWA95  Ryan Nobles (@ryanobles) August 11, 2018

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Its unclear why Garrett waited until the weekend marking the one-year anniversary of the deadly rally to reveal this information. But he used it as an example of how Russia seeks to sow divisions among Americans. The Russian intermeddling is seeking to pit Americans against Americans, to undermine confidence in Western-style democracies, Garrett told CNN. They use events like this divisive racial fight, which really ignores the commonality that we as Americans have with one another regardless of our race or ethnicity or religion.

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BuzzFeed carried out an analysis of almost three million tweets from accounts tied to the shadowy Internet Research Agency based in St. Petersburg and found that Russian trolls went into overdrive in the aftermath of the violence in Charlottesville last year. They were already busy before white supremacists gathered a year ago in Charlottesville, Virginia, for the Unite the Right rally, notes BuzzFeed. But after the event erupted into conflict, culminating in the death of counterprotester Heather Heyer on Aug. 12, the trolls fanned the flames, blaming the violence on Antifa and Black Lives Matter. A few days later, the accounts went silent, presumably because Twitter banned them, although the company wont confirm that.

Garrett, a first-term congressman, has said he wont seek reelection amid numerous ethics investigations. Garrett said he wants to focus on getting treatment for alcoholism.
On Sunday, a group of white supremacists is planning to gather in Washington, D.C. for a white civil rights rallya sequel to the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, last August, when around 600 demonstrators showed up to march carrying torches and chanting things like Jews will not replace us. Unite the Right 2 is being organized primarily by Jason Kessler, the same white nationalist who was a key organizer of the first Unite the Right. This years venue is Lafayette Square, immediately to the north of the White House.

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For many Americans, the 2017 rallys size came as a shock, its violence a wake-up call to the reality that the alt-right, neo-Nazis, and other white-power groups had grown confident enough during the presidency of Donald Trump to dramatically proclaim their existence. Before that event, many participants planned their attendance using online hubs like Discord, a chat service best known for its use by gamers. There, in 2017, private Discord servers run by alt-right users were home to major coordinating efforts for Unite the Right, arranging things like event speakers, car pools, and room sharing for those attending the rally. A lot of organizing work also happened through the neo-Nazi website the Daily Stormer.

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This year, Kessler and his fellow white nationalist co-organizers switched much of their rally planning throughout the summer to private groups on Facebook Messenger and the encrypted texting app Signal, as was learned after a nonprofit investigative media collective, Unicorn Riot, leaked private Facebook chat logs between Kessler and others. Looking at their activity thereas well as at how various online communities of white supremacists have reacted to the rally plansits clear the movement that emerged into the pubic view in Charlottesville is now in a much more fractious state.

This time around, Kessler and his small group of co-organizers built a website, unitetherightrally.com, where people could sign up to indicate they planned to attend. That theyre making a public appeal is telling, since last year they were able to gather hundreds of marchers using more private online enclaves. But after the 2017 march turned deadly, with one participant striking the counterprotester Heather Heyer with a car and killing her, Discord took action to remove some of the servers that were used to organize the march. Facebook took down a number of private groups that were associated with the rally, as well, and the Daily Stormer lost its domain hosting. People who wanted to participate in Charlottesville in 2017 could organize privately, in trusted online spaces that many had called home for years. Now theyre locked out of some of those spacesand are finding fewer enthusiastic marchers.

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Whatever the organizers are planning for D.C., it looks like itll be piddlier than Charlottesville. Kessler has yet to release the speaker list for Sundays event, and many of the most prominent figures in the white nationalist movement who supported last years march have denounced Unite the Right 2. That includes the white supremacist Richard Spencer, who shared on Twitter this week that he would not attend the event and encouraged others to avoid it.

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I will not be attending the #UniteTheRight this weekend. And I recommend that others do not as well. I know that many have good intentions in going, but a rally like this does make sense at this time. I don't know exactly what will happen, but it probably will not be good.  Richard  Spencer (@RichardBSpencer) August 7, 2018

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Spencer isnt alone. A lot of white nationalists criticized Kessler for taking the wrong approach, suggesting a rift in whats supposed to be a neo-fascist movement predicated on a binding understanding that Christian white people are superior to everyone else. The movement that looked so strong and terrifyingly coordinated in Charlottesville in 2017 appears to lack the same cohesion a year later, or at least lack the same confidence that inspired hundreds of spirited, mostly white men to pour into the streets, unmasked and ready to brawl. Whether or not leaders in the movement are simply sitting this one out or if there really is a disintegration in the white-power community is hard to say, but its clear that all the press the Unite the Right 2 rally has generated isnt being matched in interest by the movement itself.

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The far-right podcaster Mike Enoch Peinovich told Newsweek earlier this year, when it looked like there would still be a simultaneous event in Charlottesville, that he has no plans to attend a sequel. Andrew Aglin, the editor of the Daily Stormer, earlier this month wrote a scathing condemnation of the years rally in D.C. If you show up at this event, and you are identified, your life will be ruined, he wrote. You wont be able to get into a university or get a good job, you probably wont be able to even get into a trade school or join a union. Aglins perspective actually isnt uninformed. The Daily Stormer went through the ringer after the Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville last year when it lost its security and hosting providers and was temporarily forced offline and later into the obscurity of the dark web.

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The old-school online Nazi stomping ground Stormfront, the longest-running major hate website on the web, is full of anti-Semitic sympathizers who are calling the D.C. rally a must-miss event. This is a bad idea. It plays right into the jewish medias hands. It is a great opportunity to make us look bad and lose support among mainstream Americans. Any violence that happens will be blamed on the right. Regardless of who starts it, one poster said on a thread with a litany of others agreeing that Kesslers event is bound to be a bust.

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Even those interested in helping organize the event have found reason to be apprehensive. In the private Facebook chats where organizers have been working for months to hash out logistics, many used Facebook profiles with alias names, according to the leaked logs released by Unicorn Riot. Those logs revealed that Kessler discussed bringing a violent skinhead group to the event. Though they also unearthed the kind of logistical discussions youd see with the organization of any protest (sound systems, road closures), every third or fourth message contained an anti-Semitic slur, complaint about anti-fascist organizers, or racist meme. Any Jew that would help us is going to have to work extra hard to be seen as one of the good ones. Thats just a reality of the situation, Kessler wrote in the group chat as they discussed theories on how Jewish people had tried to foil their movement. After the logs were released at the end of June, many of the rally organizers appeared to abandon their Facebook pages.

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The aftermath of Charlottesville seems to have led many participants to conclude that the event had left the movement weaker.

Although the 2017 Unite the Right rally was a terrifying show of force and cohesion by white supremacists, the aftermath seems to have led many participants to conclude that the event had left the movement weaker. The death of Heather Heyer sparked a mass expulsion of hate groups from the internet. White supremacists lost their dating profiles; neo-Nazi bands were kicked off Spotify; famous racists lost their Patreon accounts; Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter stomped out neo-Nazi users and groups; and Kessler and others became embroiled in a string of lawsuits that are still ongoing. Many who were confident enough to declare themselves affiliated with violent white supremacists and were filmed at the first Unite the Right rally lost their jobs and were alienated from their families and friends. Fractured and weaker, Kessler and his co-organizers are having trouble getting their fellow racists and anti-Semites on board for the sequel. No surprise there.

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None of this is to say that the white nationalist and neo-Nazi movements arent something people should take seriously; if these demonstrators were dangerous last year, they should be considered so this year, too. And no one on the far right who denounced Kesslers event did so because of a change of heart, but rather because they think the event isnt a good look for their movement. Their disinterest doesnt mean that hate is any less likely to manifest in the real world at a later date. If this weekends big rally turns out to be more like a small gathering of a few men in ridiculous Ku Klux Klaninspired garb, it might be easy to laugh at. But dont be fooled into thinking there arent more white supremacists where these ones came from.
It all makes sense once you realize they want to kill us, by Mike Whitney - The Unz Review : 'It is now apparent that these products in ...
If we do not resist evil, we go along with it

Gas chambers were preceded by eight or so years of seemingly reasonable people trying to rationalise irrational racism.

Donald Trump (Source: AP/SITA)

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Xiaomi has announced that the Xiaomi Mi 8 will officially launch in Malaysia starting from RM1599 for the 6GB RAM and 64GB internal storage while the 6GB RAM and 128GB internal storage variant will be priced at RM1899. Do take note the 64GB internal storage variant will available for purchase starting 16 August 2018 on Lazada and Shopee, while the 128GB internal storage variant is available starting from 18 August 2018 via authorised Mi Stores, Lazada, and Shopee. The Xiaomi Mi 8 will be available in 3 different colour schemes, which is Black, Blue, and later in September, White.

In terms of tech specs, the Xiaomi Mi 8 is running of the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 chipset, 6GB of RAM, up to 128GB of internal storage for the Malaysian variants, 12MP + 12MP dual camera setup in the rear, 20MP front facing selfie camera, 6.21-inch display with a screen resolution of 1080 x 2248 pixels and it is powered by a 3400mAh non-removable battery.

On another note, Xiaomi has also announced the release of the Mi Robot Vacuum in Malaysia for your home cleaning convenience for the price of only RM1099 and it will be available for purchase starting 10 August 2018 at all authorized Mi Stores, Lazada as well as Shopee. The Mi Robot Vacuum comes with various features such as Laser Distance Sensor, Simultaneous Localization Mapping and more. Check out Xiaomis official website for more information about the Xiaomi Mi 8 as well as the Mi Robot Vacuum and the functionality of it. For more updates like these, stay tuned to TechNave.com.
Though some results in local races have been announced, she said full and official results might not be announced until the weekend.

The Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said ZANU-PF had won 109 of the 153 seats confirmed so far, while 41 seats went to the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

On Wednesday afternoon, riot police were stationed outside the electoral commission in the capital, Harare, where a crowd of opposition supporters gathered to await the results.

Kenyans will recall how the main opposition coalition NASA, through its chief campaigner Musalia Mudavadi invited the media only to declare its candidate Raila Odinga the "winner" of last year's divisive elections.

"I will stay here until Chamisa is president", said Amandishe Muzhinji, who traveled back from Swaziland where he works as a migrant laborer to vote in Monday's election.

A two-thirds majority in parliament would allow Zanu-PF to amend Zimbabwe's constitution.

Early on Tuesday Chamisa said he was "winning resoundingly", a claim repeated by senior officials over the course of the day.

Fears grip Assam as millions made stateless

The Assam government has brought in 25,000 extra security force members from outside the state in case of trouble. Until then, no one will be declared an illegal immigrant.

"Election...represents a political watershed in Zimbabwe's history as they may open a new chapter building towards socio-economic recovery and consolidation of democracy", the regional SADC bloc said in a statement.

Supporters of opposition presidential candidate Nelson Chamisa are buoyant but authorities warn vote counting will likely take several more days to complete.

Election observers from southern African nations have commended Zimbabwe for a peaceful, orderly election, though they also identified some shortcomings in how it was conducted.

Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC) chair, Priscilla Chigumba has reportedly issued out a warning to members of the public from announcing unofficial election results on Monday's harmonized general elections. It cited concerns that the voters' roll had not been released prior to the poll, about a fifth of results from the presidential ballot were not published outside polling stations and that some voters had been "deliberately displaced".

Global election observers in the Zimbabwean harmonised polls are expected to release their preliminary reports on Wednesday morning.

ZEC has been accused of involvement in previous flawed votes in Zimbabwe.
"I apologize to our fans, our industry and my family for the impact of my actions last night", he said.

NASCAR star Kyle Busch is hoping the series can quickly move past the arrest of Chairman Brian France.

While France is on his leave of absence, his uncle, Jim France, will serve as "interim chairman and chief executive officer".

ESPN's Bob Pockrass, citing a news release from the Sag Harbor Village Police Department, reported that France was held overnight, arraigned at Sag Harbor Village Justice Court on Monday morning, and released on his own recognizance.

France faces charges of aggravated driving while intoxicated and criminal possession of a controlled substance in the 7th degree.

Hendrick Motorsports driver Chase Elliott, in a teleconference talking about his win Sunday at Watkins Glen, said he has confidence in Jim France. Jim France is the son of NASCAR founder Bill France Sr. He appeared intoxicated and when police searched him they found oxycodone on him.

Spacewatch: Firing up for a close encounter with the sun

On each close approach to the sun, the probe will sample the solar wind, study the sun's corona, and provide close-up observations from around the star.

France has been running NASCAR since 2003, and several drivers have complained that France shows little interest in the sport, doesn't attend the races and sold all of his personal stake in NASCAR.

An official statement from Nascar said: 'Brian France has taken an indefinite leave of absence from Nascar as chairman and chief executive officer. NASCAR has been losing fans and television viewership and a recent change in the racing format hasn't helped bring fans back.

Police said at the time he was pulled over France struggled to keep his balance during field sobriety tests, his eyes were red and glassy, and tests showed his blood-alcohol content was almost twice New York's legal limit. "We're focused on ruling and managing NASCAR". The legal limit in NY is 0.08.

Brian France introduced a playoff system, overhauled the design of the series' cars and pushed for diversity within the circuit's predominantly white, male ranks. The next day, hours after his release, France announced in a statement that he was stepping down as the organization's CEO.

"First of all, the France family has guided us for years, and I met with Jim France himself recently", Gibbs told ESPN. Officers pulled France over and deemed that he was driving the vehicle while intoxicated.

'The France family is locked and loaded in its dedication to NASCAR, ' France on SiriusXM NASCAR Radio. "Rumors are always interesting, but they're seldom right".
"You have not really visited Chiang Mai if you have not been to the Wat Phra That Doi Suthep Temple. The Doi Suthep Temple is so auspicious that every Thai person needs to visit it once in their lifetime"

With those words, Nicky, my guide whisked me up a mountain to visit one of the oldest temples of Thailand. In my mind, it was a sign of good times in Chiang Mai, for I was starting my journey in this city with this temple.

Wat Phra That Doi Suthep Temple, Chiang Mai

Wat Phra That Doi Suthep is often referred to as Doi Suthep Temple, though technically Doi Suthep is the name of the mountain where it is located. The temple is significant as it holds the relics of the Buddha. For me, that was not the only treasure that I found here. The stunning architecture with beautiful idols in every nook and corner coupled with magical views of Chiang Mai City  it was a whole package. No wonder that it is one of the key Chiang Mai Attractions. Best you discover it here through my journey.

History of Wat Phra That Doi Suthep Temple

The story of the Wat Phra Doi Suthep Temple is quite an interesting one. It starts with the legendary shoulder bones of Buddha that were procured by a Buddhist monk called Sumanthera. The bones were magical as they could become invisible or glow or multiply at times. King Nu Naone of the Lanna Kingdom heard of these and summoned the monk to see for himself. The monk met him at Lamphun in North Thailand and here the bone broke into two pieces. One of them was enshrined in a temple  Wat Suan Dok while the other was hung onto a White Elephant that was set loose.

Shrine of the White Elephant at Wat Phra That Doi Suthep Temple, Chiang Mai

The White Elephant ended up at Doi Suthep mountain and at one spot, trumpeted thrice. He fell dead at that very spot after this. Considering this as an omen, the King ordered a temple to be built. Thus, came into existence in the 1360s, the famous Wat Phra Doi Suthep Temple.

Initially, the temple was just a small one but over time, there were other buildings like the Viharin (sermon hall), ubosot (ordination hall) and a library that was built around it. The entire temple is now much more than a single stupa and as I discovered, a destination in itself.

Climbing the Doi Suthep temple in Chiang Mai

There are two ways to get to the main temple  one is by climbing 306 steps along a beautiful Naga lined staircase. The other is by taking a funicular to the top. Nicky suggested that we ascend using the funicular and descend the steps to save a bit of time. And that is indeed, what we did.

The Naga staircase to Wat Phra That Doi Suthep in Chiang Mai, Thailand

However, it was later that I realized that climbing too, might not have been a bad deal as the steps were quite easy. And frankly, the ornate staircase and the views around would have made the climb short  just as it made our descent seem like a flight of 20 steps. The bejeweled serpent banister was there by design for these creatures are revered as protectors by the Buddists. As the story goes, a many-hooded serpent (Naga) protected Buddha from a storm, when he was meditating.

The Goddess of Mercy  Guanyins temple outside Wat Phra That Doi Suthep temple, Chiang Mai

The funicular ride was quite enclosed. However, it was before the ride that I found interesting things. Like this statue of Buddha and the little temple of Guanyin  the Goddess of Mercy. So, all in all, I think whatever we did, was definitely a good thing.

The Sweeping views of Chiang Mai City

Wooden pavilion for the Chiang Mai Views at Doi Suthep Temple

Nicky first directed me to a gorgeous wooden pavilion from where you could see the Chiang Mai City. No doubt that the views were lovely but I was quite distracted by the intricate pillars of the wooden pavilion. Each pillar was a picture story of different themes. Over 100 years old, these teak wood pillars have been hand-carved. And that for me, was a very astonishing fact.

Close up of carved pillars at Wat Phra That Doi Suthep Temple

Oriole at Wat Phra That Doi Suthep Temple

I wish I had more time here for around this pavilion were plenty of birds. In the short time that I was there, I saw a woodpecker, an Oriole and a Sunbird. Had I stayed around, I am sure I would have had a field day. However, regretfully or maybe not so regretfully, I set off to explore the epic Doi Suthep temple.

Finding Mom at Doi Suthep Temple

MOM  the mythical Thai guardian at Wat Phra That Doi Suthep Temple

Meet the MOM  short for Dtuwamaum, who is a mythical guardian in the Lanna Culture. Between the carved wooden pillars that I shared above, you will notice ornate temple roofs. These belong to a Viharin guarded by the fierce MOMs. These creatures, as Nicky shared, are supposed to be an amalgamation of 8 animals. See if you can spot them in the picture 

Dragon Eyes Sheep Horn Snake Tongue Crocodile Teeth Fish tail and Scales Elephants head Monkey Body Birds Legs.

Entrance to the Doi Suthep Temple

Statue of Suthep at Wat Phra That Doi Suthep

While the main shrine of the temple is a mind-blowing experience, the entrance to it is a story in itself. First in line is the memorial of the White Elephant who marked the sacred spot for this temple. Next to that, in a small cell is a statue of a Hermit in a Tiger Skin. It is he after whom the mountain  Doi Suthep is named. This hermit also, called Sudeva, used to live in these mountains which was earlier called Doi Aoy Chang (Sugarcane Elephant Mountain). The belief here is that paying respect to this Hermit Suthep brings a lot of Good Luck.

Ganesha at Wat Phra That Doi Suthep Temple

There are smaller shrines with monk statues and Hindu Gods. Among the many here, the one that stood out for me  possibly owing to familiarity was the Blue Ganesha. Here he is referred to as Phra Phikanet and symbolizes good beginnings  quite like how it is here at home.

The Main Shrine of Wat That Doi Suthep Temple

First Glimpse of the Wat Phra That Doi Suthep

What greeted me as I entered the main temple area was quite literally a glittering scene. The focal point of the square was a huge Golden Chedi (Stupa) around which were small shrines and line of Buddha Statue. The corners of the square had a dazzling golden umbrella.

One of the temples in the main square of Doi Suthep Temple

Inside the shrine of Wat Phra That Doi Suthep Temple, Chiang Mai

Ritual demands that you walk around the square in a clockwise manner. Following the tourists and locals who were holding Lotus buds, I made my first stop inside a small temple. Around the central Golden Buddha, was a monk who spoke to these devotees and performed a few rituals to ensure their well-being. This is where I clicked this heart-warming exchange between the monk and this little boy.

Monk at Wat Phra That Doi Suthep Temple

Buddha Relics at Wat Phra That Doi Suthep Temple, Chiang Mai

Outside the shrine, was a small enclosure where the famous relics of Gautama Buddha were encased. One can argue about the authenticity of these bones and there is no way to prove that. However, you cannot curtail the devotion of the people visiting the shrine. It was quite soothing to watch them light a candle and offer those lotus buds to the main Chedi.

Offering at Wat Phra That Doi Suthep Temple

Nicky told me that the various statues of Buddha around the square were actually donated by devotees from across the world. If you care to look at them closely, there are several different Asian styles that you will observe. And having done a trip to Nepal and Bhutan recently, I could quite identify a few 

The various Buddha Idols around Doi Suthep Temple

The architecture in Wat That Doi Suthep Temple

Smaller temple of Wat Phra That Doi Suthep

The Wat That Doi Suthep temple is a treasure trove of architecture. I was quite fascinated with the way bright colors like blue, green and red were used in the gilded roofs of the various buildings around the Temple. Unmissable were the nagas or the Serpents that protruded out of these roofs and on the stairs.

Close up of the doors and roofs of Doi Suthep temple

Artistic windows of the temple at Doi Suthep

The architecture of Wat Phra That Doi Suthep Temple

A line of silver bells paved the paths to many of these buildings. Some of them even had a large gong outside its entrance. These things made the whole aura so mystical and in some ways, serene.

Statue of King Rama IX at Wat Phra That Doi Suthep Temple

Near the Viharin, was a huge statue of the last King of Thailand. The same is a recent addition to the Doi Suthep temple, following his death.

Another statue of the King at Wat Phra That Doi Suthep Temple

There are plenty of other gems in the Wat That Doi Suthep Temple and if it were up to me, I would have spent at least half a day discovering them. The atmosphere in the temple too, makes you want to stay here. I am sure that by now you too agree that a visit here is merited So, go on and pin this to your list of key things to do in Chiang Mai.

Getting here

Chiang Mai is well connected by Air to Bangkok. There are plenty of low-cost airlines that will get you here. You can also, get here by road.

Click here to get Wat Phra That Doi Suthep temple on your mobile. It is around 15 km from the city. You can get here by hiring the Red Songthaew from Wat Phra Singh Temple or the Chiang Mai Zoo. It costs around 40  50 Bahts per person one way.

from Wat Phra Singh Temple or the Chiang Mai Zoo. It costs around 40  50 Bahts per person one way. You can even trek to this temple. It takes about an hour and a half each way and the hike level is easy-moderate. In fact, it is a common practice for University students in Chiang Mai to do this when they join the first time. It is a belief that if they manage the trek, they will complete their graduation. 

Travel Tips

The Doi Suthep Temple is open from 6 am to 6 pm every day

The entry fee for the temple is 30 Thai Baht. If you take the Funicular, it will cost you 20 Baht each way.

There are restrooms and a small restaurant at the Temple. You will find a few shops selling accessories and food at the base of the Temple

You will need to remove your footwear when you enter the main shrine.

Please ensure that your shoulders are covered. Avoid shorts and sleeveless outfits at the Temple as these are not allowed.

There are no Chiang Mai Hotels at the peak but plenty in every budget in the main town.

When you visit the Wat Phra That Doi Suthep temple, you can also, visit the Bhubing palace that is close to it.

Disclaimer: This article includes affiliate links. This means that at no cost to you, I will receive a small commission if you purchase through my link. Thank you for supporting me with this.

Popularly referred to as a Restless Ball of Energy. My Mom refuses to entertain my complaints about my equally restless daughter & assures my husband that I was born with a travel bug. I am a Post-Graduate in Marketing by qualification and a travel blogger by passion. Besides travel, I enjoy photography and if you dont find me at my desk, I would be out playing badminton or swimming or just running. I believe in planning for every long weekend through the year. And when I cannot travel physically, I travel virtually through this travel blog. My travel stories have also, got published on various websites and magazines including BBC Travel, Lonely Planet India and Jetwings. I have recently published my first book  When Places Come Alive  a collection of stories that are based on legends, landscapes, art and culture of a place which is available in both ebook and paperback format.
President Mamnoon Hussain shelved his visit to Ireland

ISLAMABAD: President Mamnoon Hussain has shelved his three-day visit to Ireland, apparently to be available on Aug 18 to administer the oath to Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan as the 21st prime minister of the country.



On Friday Mr Hussain had earlier decided to proceed to Ireland on Aug 16 to attend the award-distribution ceremony of Royal College of Physicians where he too had to receive an honorary degree. However, he cancelled the visit on the request of caretaker Prime Minister Nasirul Mulk.



Information and Law Minister Ali Zafar met the president late on Thursday night and conveyed the message of the prime minister to him.



The president, on the recommendation of the interim prime minister, has already summoned a session of the National Assembly on Aug 13 so that the process of formation of the new government could start.



The PTI has secured 115 seats of the National Assembly in the July 25 general elections and with the support of its allies and independent candidates, the party claimed to have a simple majority in the lower house of parliament with around 180 seats.



Earlier, it was expected that Mr Khan, according to his own desire, would take the oath as prime minister on Independence Day  Aug 14  but due some legal compulsion and the process of finalisation of election results by the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), it seemed impossible.



The demand for cancellation of President Hussains foreign visit also came from the PTI on Thursday when Mr Khans close aide Naeemul Haq urged the president to cancel his three-day official visit to Ireland that was to be concluded on Aug 19.



PTI spokesman Fawad Chaudhry said that the absence of Mr Hussain did not matter as Senate Chairman Sadiq Sanjrani, being acting president, could administer the oath to the new prime minister.



It has been learnt that soon after Mr Khan takes the oath as prime minister, the governors of three provinces  Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan  are likely to step down.


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USA administration excluding Pakistan officers from military training

WASHINGTON: United States (US) President Donald Trumps administration has quietly started cutting scores of Pakistani officers from coveted training and educational programmes that have been a hallmark of bilateral military relations for more than a decade, officials say.



The move, which has not been previously reported, is one of the first known impacts from Trumps decision this year to suspend US security assistance to Pakistan to compel it to crack down on militants.



The Pentagon and the Pakistan Army did not comment directly on the decision or the internal deliberations, but officials from both countries privately criticised the move. US officials said they were worried the decision could undermine a key trust-building measure.



Pakistani officials warned it could push their military to further look to China or Russia for leadership training. The effective suspension of Pakistan from the US governments International Military Education and Training program (IMET) will close off places that had been set aside for 66 Pakistani officers this year, a State Department spokesperson said.



The places will either be unfilled or given to officers from other countries. Dan Feldman, a former US special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, called the move very short-sighted and myopic. This will have lasting negative impacts limiting the bilateral relationship well into the future, Feldman said.



The State Department spokesperson, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the IMET cancellations were valued at $2.41 million so far. At least two other programmes have also been affected, the spokesperson said. It is unclear precisely what level of military cooperation still continues outside the IMET programme, beyond the top-level contacts between US and Pakistani military leaders.



The US military has traditionally sought to shield such educational programmes from political tensions, arguing that the ties built by bringing foreign military officers to the United States pay long-term dividends. For example, the US Armys War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, which would normally have two Pakistani military officers per year, boasts graduates including Lieutenant General Naveed Mukhtar, the Director-General Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI). The War College, the US Armys premier school for foreign officers, says it has hosted 37 participants from Pakistan over the past several decades. It will have no Pakistani students in the upcoming academic year, a spokeswoman said. Pakistan has also been removed from programmes at the US Naval War College, Naval Staff College and courses including cybersecurity studies.



In his first tweet of 2018, Trump slammed Pakistan, saying the country has rewarded past US aid with nothing but lies and deceit. Washington announced plans in January to suspend up to roughly $2 billion in US security assistance to Pakistan. But weeks later, Pakistans foreign secretary was quoted by local media as saying that Islamabad had been told the US would continue funding IMET programs. Officially allies in fighting terrorism, Pakistan and the United States have a complicated relationship, bound by Washingtons dependence on Pakistan to supply its troops in Afghanistan but plagued by accusations Islamabad is playing a double game.



Current and former US officials said Defense Secretary Jim Mattis argued against excluding Pakistani officers from IMET courses. I am shocked We worked so hard for this to be the one thing that got saved, said a former US defence official, who was involved in the conversations.



The Pentagon declined to comment on internal government discussions, but Dana White, a Pentagon spokesperson, said Mattis long believed in the value of the IMET programme as a way to build relations between foreign militaries.



IMET courses have been able to withstand poor relations between the two countries in the past, even after al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed in a US Navy SEAL raid in the town of Abbottabad in 2011. A NATO helicopter raid killed 28 Pakistani troops later that year in a friendly fire incident on the Afghan-Pakistan border.



Feldman said that after the raid, when relations were at a low point, the US limited large security assistance items, but made active efforts to continue the IMET programme.



In the 1990s, former US President George Bush refused to certify that Pakistan did not have nuclear weapons, triggering the so-called Pressler Amendment that required cutting off all military assistance. That included IMET courses. The unintended consequence was we didnt know a decade of the Pakistani military leadership as well, and therefore couldnt engage as effectively with them when we needed to, Feldman said. Mattis, in private discussions within the government, had warned that excluding Pakistani officers from IMET courses could contribute to a similar situation in years to come, the former US defence official said. Pakistan had been the largest recipient of IMET between 2003 and 2017, according to the Security Assistance Monitor which tracks US assistance.
This week Australian Story delves into a legal case with ABC recording phone calls from behind prison walls.

This episode is introduced by Nicholas Cowdery AM QC, former NSW Director of Public Prosecutions.

Kathleen Folbigg is currently serving a 30-year prison sentence for killing all four of her young children.

She has her hopes pinned on a petition drafted by her legal team to the Governor of NSW, seeking a judicial review of the case.

The petition contains a report from one of Australias top forensic pathologists, Professor Stephen Cordner, who says: There is no positive forensic pathology support for the contention that any or all of these children have been killed.

Australian Story invited a second independent forensic pathologist based at Vancouver General Hospital in Canada, to examine the forensic evidence in relation to the death of Folbiggs fourth and final child, Laura.

I think this is an eminently fatal case of myocarditis, Associate Professor Matthew Orde says, in relation to Lauras death. Myocarditis, an inflammation of the heart muscle, is known to cause sudden death in some children.

On the basis of the medical evidence alone, I think this case certainly needs to be re-examined quite carefully, he says.

In an Australian Story exclusive, Kathleen Folbigg speaks out for the first time about her case. During phone calls to a friend, recorded by the ABC, she candidly discusses life behind bars, her hopes for the petition and her view of some of the events leading to her multiple murder convictions.

Nicholas Cowdery, who was Director of Public Prosecutions for NSW at the time of Kathleen Folbiggs trial, disagrees with the need for a judicial review.

I have looked at the petition that Mrs Folbigg has lodged I remain of the view that the jury was correct, he says.

However Cowdery is critical of the time taken to process the petition. The fact that the petition was filed three years ago, is concerning. I think this is an inordinate delay in dealing with the matter.

For Kathleen Folbigg, now midway through her sentence, an answer cant come soon enough. For over three years now, weve been clinging to that little bit of hope.

8pm Monday on ABC
Shadowhunters producers have thanked fans for a loyal campaign to save their show, but have sadly ruled out its continuation.

To our loyal and vocal fans who put so much behind making the show the popular series that it became, we extend our deepest thanks for your enduring support, a statement reads.

The outpouring from the fandom from the start, and since the announcement of the shows cancellation has indelibly touched all of us involved. Were so grateful to have gone on this journey with you.

Regrettably for all involved, Shadowhunters must come to an end. While we are trying to figure out new ways and new incarnations in which to bring the Shadow World to fans worldwide, we are sad to say that after many efforts by all parties involved, its not possible for this version of Shadowhunters to continue.

After Freeform chose not to proceed with a fourth season very creative fans staged a profile publicity operation including billboards in Times Square, public transport ads in Seoul and London, and flying an actual plane over Netflixs LA headquarters. Aussie fans have also been campaigning heavily online.

The show, which airs in Australia on Netflix, is currently due to conclude in 2019.

Source: Radio Times
From Greg Swank, 12-4-2 You are about to read a list of 45 goals that found their way down the halls of our great Capitol back in 1963. As...
A firefighter drops water in the aftermath of the fire, next to a road between Monchique and Silves, Portugal August 9, 2018. REUTERS/Pedro Nunes

Thomson Reuters

LISBON (Reuters) - Portuguese firefighters have put out a huge fire that devastated the forested hills in the southern Algarve tourist region, the head of the operation said on Friday, but emergency services will remain in the area to monitor potential hotspots.

Europe's biggest wildfire this year forced nearly 300 people to leave their homes but nobody died as authorities went to great lengths to keep people safe after last year, when the worst fires on record killed 114 in Portugal.

This year's fire erupted a week ago during an extreme heatwave. Europe's summer has been unusually hot, sparking wildfires as far apart as Sweden and Greece, where a brutal blaze killed at least 88.

"The fire has been dominated," said Patricia Gaspar, who is commanding the Portuguese operation. "At this moment there is no significant risk that the fire will spread."

Firefighters had maximized their efforts during the cooler night and early morning temperatures and Gaspar said they would remain in the area to monitor for potential reignitions. More than 1,450 firefighters, 460 fire engines and 15 aircraft have been involved in the effort.

About 40 people have been treated for smoke inhalation and burns, many of them firefighters.

A huge plume of smoke hung over the region since it started, reaching some of the popular beach resorts on the coast.

The fire has burnt through 27,000 hectares of mainly eucalyptus forest in the hills above the Algarve coast, according to European Union data. A fire in the same area in 2003 destroyed 41,000 hectares of forest.

Portugal's government was overwhelmed last year by fires in June and October in extreme drought. The interior minister resigned and the opposition launched a vote of no-confidence, which the government survived.

(Reporting By Axel Bugge; Editing by Andrei Khalip and Peter Graff)

See Also:
An Albanian shepherd who killed eight relatives with an AK-47 before challenging the country's prime minister to find him has been arrested.

Ridvan Zykaj, 24, confessed to shooting cousins and other family members with a Kalashnikov after the 12-hour police hunt on Saturday.

While on the run, the fugitive challenged Prime Minister Edi Rama on Facebook to find him.

Zykaj killed his relatives in the southern coastal area of Vlore because they accused him of being a thief, police said.

Local media reported that the killing spree was triggered by a family lunch, where one of the victims accused Zykaj of stealing their turkeys.

He killed his great-uncle, the great-uncle's wife and two sons, and other members of their extended family.

All of the victims are believed to be members of two Zykaj families living in the same village of Resulaj.

Women and children were among the dead, including a nine-year-old child, a teenage girl and three women, it was also reported.

Zykaj is said to have killed eight and injured six in the shootings before fleeing the village 62 miles south of the Albania capital, Tirana.

He is said to have appeared unrepentant and even told police they were late in arresting him.

Police have found the Kalashnikov - a gas-operated assault rifle developed in the Soviet Union - he allegedly used to kill his relatives.

As a shepherd, Zykaj knew the area in southern Albania well, complicating his capture.
By Makini Brice

(Reuters) - The son of a California city police chief is expected to appear in court on Friday after he was arrested for beating an elderly Sikh man in an unprovoked attack that was caught on video.

Tyrone McAllister, 18, has been charged, along with an unnamed 16-year-old, with second-degree robbery, harming an elderly adult and one other charge over the incident on Monday, which was recorded by a security camera on a nearby house.

The video, posted online by officials in the city of Manteca in northern California, showed two men confronting the 71-year-old victim, who was wearing a turban and walking alone on a sidewalk. The pair kick him and knock him to the ground, before robbing him and spitting on him.

Following McAllister's arrest on Wednesday, the police department of Union City, about an hour from Manteca, posted a letter on its Facebook page. In the letter, addressed to community members, Police Chief Darryl McAllister said the suspect in the case was his estranged son.

Darryl McAllister said he and his wife had helped the Manteca police track down his son.

"Words can barely describe how embarrassed, dejected, and hurt my wife, daughters, and I feel right now. Violence and hatred is not what we have taught our children; intolerance for others is not even in our vocabulary, let alone our values," the police chief wrote.

While neither Tyrone McAllister nor the teenager were charged with a hate crime, activists say the attack followed a number of beatings of U.S. Sikhs over the past decade. Groups that track hate crimes say assailants have sometimes mistaken Sikhs for Muslims, who have also been targeted in hate crimes.

McAllister is scheduled to appear in court at 1:30 p.m Californian time (2030 GMT). It was not immediately clear when the 16-year-old would appear in court or if McAllister had a lawyer.

(Reporting by Makini Brice)

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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
Five thousand people left their homes due to high-water levels reached by the Marikina river in metropolitan Manila, Philippines, on Saturday, August 11.

The Marikina Public Information Office informed the public the water had reached its worst stage at 9:13 local time, the Philippines news site Rappler reported.

A red-warning level for the Manila metropolitan area was issued by the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration.

In this footage, the effect of the heavy rains can be seen on the Marcos Bridge over the river Marikina. Credit: @sweet_ayeh via Storyful
House of Fraser has called in administrators after last-ditch talks with investors and creditors failed.

The fate of 17,500 staff members who work for HoF and the concessions in its stores hangs in the balance.

Sky (Frankfurt: 893517 - news) 's City editor Mark Kleinman was first to reveal administrators were to be appointed today after talks with three potential backers failed to find a solution to save the 169-year-old department store chain.

In a statement to the Luxembourg Stock Exchange, where the company's bonds are listed, HoF said it the administrator Ernst & Young would continue those talks and a sale of the retailer's business and assets.

The administrator plans to keep the business trading, including all stores and offices, while they seek to complete a sale. All stores will be open for business as usual today, the company said.

Alex Williamson, chief executive of House of Fraser, said: "We are hopeful that the current negotiations will shortly be concluded."

"An acquisition of the 169-year-old retail business will see House of Fraser regain stability, certainty and financial strength.

Billionaire tycoons Mike Ashley and Philip Day, and the retail turnaround fund Alteri Investors, submitted "best and final" offers to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), which is advising HoF's lenders and bondholders, on Thursday.

The tussle over the fate of one of the UK's best-known retailers follows a frantic scramble for cash following the decision of Hamley's Chinese owner, C.banner International, to abandon a 70m rescue package for HoF last week.

Without 40m of new funding by 20 August to pay concession operators, HoF would be unable to survive, with further money required to meet the chain's 5m-a-month rent bill.

So far this year, Maplin, Poundworld and Toys R Us UK have all fallen into administration, triggering about 10,000 job losses.

Numerous other chains have launched Company Voluntary Arrangement mechanisms to raise hopes of their survival, but at the cost of thousands more jobs.

HoF's collapse would dwarf those of its rivals.

More follows...
Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe speaks at a news conference in Tokyo, Japan, July 20, 2018. REUTERS/Kim Kyung-Hoon

Thomson Reuters

By Linda Sieg

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe looks well placed to win a September ruling party leadership race, putting the conservative leader on track to become the longest-serving premier despite a challenge by a former defense minister for the party post.

Shigeru Ishiba, 61, promising to restore trust in politics, announced his candidacy on Friday for a Liberal Democratic Party presidential election expected on Sept. 20.

But media surveys suggest Abe, who took office for a second time in December 2012 promising to revive the economy and bolster defense, has already locked in 70 percent of the 405 votes from LDP members of parliament. Another 405 votes will be apportioned based on votes by rank-and-file party members.

If no candidate wins a majority, a second round would be held with 405 votes from MPs and 47 from local party chapters.

Former foreign minister Fumio Kishida bowed out before the race began and Internal Affairs Minister Seiko Noda is struggling to find the 20 backers needed to get on the ballot for a shot at becoming the country's first female premier.

The winner of the LDP election gets a three-year term and is all but assured of the premiership because of the ruling bloc's majority in parliament.

Ishiba is counting on his grass-roots popularity, but analysts say that's unlikely to offset weak support among MPs.

Abe's ratings have recovered after falling to around 30 percent earlier this year amid scandals over suspected cronyism. He has denied wrongdoing.

Still, a weekend survey by NHK public TV put voter support for Abe's cabinet at 41 percent, tied with the percentage expressing disapproval.

"If there is no jump in his support levels after re-election, it will expose the difference in temperature between the LDP and the rest of the country," said Sophia University professor Koichi Nakano.

Support for the LDP at 35.6 percent swamped the 5.6 percent for the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, but even more - 43.2 percent - had no party preference, the NHK poll showed. Local elections will be held nationwide next April and an upper house poll in July 2019.

Story continues

What Abe can accomplish in another term is unclear, including whether he can achieve his long-held but controversial goal of revising the pacifist post-war constitution.

"I have a hard time seeing it happen," said Tobias Harris, vice president of consultancy Teneo Intelligence. Amendments must be approved by two-thirds of each house of parliament and a majority in a public referendum.

(Editing by Nick Macfie)

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A terror plotter wrote down his prime targets for an attack - before ripping them up and throwing them away.

But detectives found the pieces of the note in the bin at his home and pieced them together to discover his chilling plans.

Lewis Ludlow, 26, who swore allegiance to Islamic State (IS), pleaded guilty to plotting to kill around 100 people outside the Disney store on London's Oxford Street on Friday.

The paper scraps revealed "potential attack sites" including "madam tussauds", "Oxford Street - busiest time", "St Paul's cathedral" and a "Shia temple in Romford".

It added: "Further locations scouted to kil. (sic)"

There were also details of a potential attack on Oxford Street using a van to mount the pavement.

It said: "Wolf should either use a ram attack or use...on the truck to maximise death...it is a busy street it is ideal for an attack. It is expected nearly 100 could be killed in the attack".

In another letter he pledges allegiance to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, pledging to "live to serve as one of the soldiers".

It adds: "We will take revenge for we love death as you love life"

In January, Ludlow, from Rochester in Kent, bought a ticket to fly to the Philippines and was stopped at the airport and his passport was seized.

He told police he was going to the country as a sex tourist.

But officers searching his home found he was in contact with a man named Abu Yaqeen in an area with a major IS presence.

Ludlow is currently being held at Belmarsh prison and will be sentenced in November.
Space shuttle Endeavour lifts off from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral (AP Photo/Alan Diaz)

A NASA astronaut has set the hearts of UFO fans fluttering with the revelation that he once saw something organic, alien-like in the cargo bay of the Space Shuttle.

In response to a question from tireless UFO hunter Scott C Waring, astronaut Leland Melvin said that he saw something, organic, alien like floating out of the payload bay.

Melvin, an engineer who flew two missions on Space Shuttle Atlantis, said that NASA ground control told him it was ice that had broken off of the Freon hoses. Translucent, curved, organic looking.

But just to keep the UFO fans happy, he replied, You never know, when asked whether NASA might have been hiding something.

I have not seen one in space or on the ground but thought I saw something organic/alien like floating out of the payload bay. @AstroKomrade and I called the ground to ask what it could be and it was ice that had broken off of the Freon hoses.Translucent, curved, organic looking  Leland Melvin (@Astro_Flow) August 4, 2018

Hmmm. Dont think so but you never know.   Leland Melvin (@Astro_Flow) August 7, 2018

Hes far from the first NASA astronaut to claim to have seen something weird in space.

Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon, claimed  among other things  that high-ranking military officials saw UFOs during weapons tests in the White Sands desert in New Mexico.

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Mitchell, who piloted the Apollo 14 landing module, has spoken regularly about his belief in aliens.

Mitchell said in 2015,White Sands was a testing ground for atomic weapons  and thats what the extra-terrestrials were interested in.

They wanted to know about our military capabilities.

My own experience talking to people has made it clear the ETs had been attempting to keep us from going to war and help create peace on Earth.

Mitchell died in 2016.
Since the spiralling civil conflict of the Troubles in the early 1970s, unionism in Northern Ireland has always been more preoccupied with asserting its opposition to Irish unification, as opposed to articulating a vision of what it is and aspires to be, and how it fits into an increasingly multicultural United Kingdom.

People in Northern Ireland stoically resisted a campaign of republican violence throughout the 30 years of the Troubles. But the reasons for this understandable hunkering down are long gone. The battlefield is now cultural and unionism is losing.

Declaring for the Union

I was born 65 years ago in the predominantly Protestant environs of south Belfast; for me, Northern Ireland represents the corner of the Union that is both Irish and British. My cultural identity is bound up in this place and its symbolically endowed landscape that incorporates both these dimensions alongside a strong cultural and historical Scottish link.

This space of the imagination and real cultural interaction remains potentially fluid. While unionism in the past has been associated with narrow triumphalism and religious dogma, such influences are on the wane even if the pace appears frustratingly slow. To be out of step with wider liberalising currents in the UK is to invite embarrassment  that peculiar relative in the attic of the Union. But any attempt to distil the essence of unionism in more neutral, dry, constitutional relationships, obligations or even economic interests does not address the more fundamental cultural factors that define each group.

My unionist culture is part of a broader British culture which I unapologetically embrace. It has no truck with discriminatory sectarian practices, which some have uncharitably labelled the very lifeblood of unionism. But the idea that unionist culture is shallow, based on economic supremacy and a hangover from a colonial presence still prevails.

The 1998 Good Friday Agreement that ended the Troubles recognises the importance of culture in acknowledging differences between the two major traditions in Northern Ireland. But after 20 years, the hoped-for generation of an emergent civic culture bridging the ethnic divide has failed to appear.

Story continues

While unionism pragmatically saw the deal on the whole as the best available, republicanism sees the agreement as a transitional step towards full Irish political unification. The result has been difficulty in moving beyond a war of cultural attrition; the potential fluidity of identities has been frozen.

What is needed is a notion of two identities embedded within a culture of openness and dialogue that is not closed to the potentially new, novel and unexpected. In reimagining itself, unionism must think beyond a Sinn Fein projection of cultural superiority and its cool reception to the idea of British-Irish identity. To engage effectively in cultural debate, unionism needs to have a more considered and long-term strategy.

Last chance saloon

Sinn Feins call to join in building a new Ireland (as opposed to a united Ireland) with a rainbow of identities, is a soft approach which gives unionism cause to be sceptical. And the way republicans have denigrated unionist tradition, portraying it as a stereotypical sectarian monolith, is frequently criticised by seasoned political commentators and academics. But this is not to deny that certain unionist voices can also be insulting towards nationalist culture.

Unionists need to set out their own stall. First they must assert their own brand of Irishness which is infused with Britishness as well. This involves more than recognising that the Irishness of Catholics requires legitimate expression in Northern Ireland  it must include the belated appropriation of Irishness as a constituent part of the Protestant unionist identity too. Engaging with current debates about identity and belonging in Brexit Britain is a substantial but vital challenge for unionism, whose past record has been poor.

Northern Ireland is often dismissed as a place apart, ignoring the historical bonds and close cultural relationship with Britain. But identities can become static if theyre not open to change as circumstances alter. Here unionism has not adapted well; it has to engage in the debate over what defines Britishness in an increasingly diverse society. A positive and less defensive case must be made for the Union.

Difference can be celebrated and respected, but it must be accompanied by shared values. The argument that British and Irish are not mutually exclusive categories needs strong voices as the Republic of Ireland calls on unionism in uncertain Brexit times to throw in its lot with an evolving nation on a different European trajectory. Any response must go beyond saving the Union for unionists and make a case to the middle ground of Northern Irish Catholic opinion, which lack of vision has almost squandered.

Selling the Union

The prospect of a prosperous, secular, multicultural and eurocentric Republic of Ireland is a strong one. The watchwords of any counter offer must be courtesy, due recognition of cultural difference, reasonableness and compromise. And not sweating the small stuff. For unionism, circling the wagons is not an option. It will more likely survive through kind words than belligerence.

Returning recently to Ireland from a foreign trip I presented my British passport to a border official at Dublin Airport. Glancing at it, he said, Welcome home sir. Those three kind words did more to waken my Irish roots than three decades of armed IRA struggle.

Disputes over flags, marching and place names are of course emotive, but the high ground does not promote parades that are not welcomed by locals. It does not seek to insult. It contemplates compromise on Gaelic language rights and sees advantages in the rich and varied cultures of the UK.

As Brexit sees the middle ground of those open to such ideas recede further, the leader of political unionism, Arlene Foster, has begun to change tack with outreaching gestures that reclaim the civic dimension of unionism with a more inclusive citizenship and rights agenda. But whether such belated and slow-moving attempts will be enough to lead on to a necessary reframing of unionism has yet to play out.

A unionist response has been too long in the making. Moderate unionism must reassert itself, because adhering staunchly to an identity bound up in the past has outlived its sell-by date.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

The Conversation

William Neill does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
montenegro police us embassy attack

REUTERS/Stevo Vasiljevic

PODGORICA, Montenegro (AP)  Montenegro on Thursday issued an international arrest warrant for a former CIA agent for alleged involvement in what the government said was a failed pro-Russia coup designed to prevent the Balkan country's NATO membership.

Montenegro's state TV said that prosecutors want the extradition of Joseph Assad, a US citizen born and raised in Egypt, on charges of participating in a criminal enterprise led by two Russian military spy agency officers.

The Russians and 12 others, mostly Serbs, are on trial in Montenegro over the alleged election day plot in October 2016 that included plans to assassinate then-Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic, storming parliament and taking over power. The Russians are being tried in absentia.

Montenegro's prosecutors are investigating whether Assad was hired to help the 14 suspects on an escape plan. He was named during testimony by another former CIA agent at the trial.

Assad has reportedly refused to testify and denied wrongdoing.

Assad and his wife, Michele, both former US counter-terrorism officers, gained international attention when US media said they helped more than 100 Iraqi Christians to escape Islamic State group violence and flee to Europe as refugees in 2015.

Assad's whereabouts are currently unknown. He is said to be heading an Abu Dhabi-based security agency.

Montenegro joined NATO last year despite strong opposition from its longtime Slavic ally Russia. Moscow has denied accusations that it took part in the plot.

___

Dusan Stojanovic contributed to this report from Belgrade, Serbia.

NOW WATCH: The former head of the CIA reveals the best advice he's ever gotten

See Also:
U.S. President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer Michael Cohen exits his hotel in Manhattan, New York, U.S., July 31, 2018. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

Thomson Reuters

By Brendan Pierson

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A court-appointed official has finished reviewing which materials seized from U.S. President Donald Trump's longtime personal lawyer Michael Cohen can be used in a criminal investigation, according to a court filing on Thursday.

Lawyers for Cohen and Trump had said that some of the seized materials were protected by attorney-client privilege, which would stop prosecutors from using them. Barbara Jones, a former federal judge, had been tasked with vetting those claims of privilege.

The end of Jones' review came about two weeks after CNN reported that Cohen was willing to tell Special Counsel Robert Mueller that Trump knew in advance about a June 2016 meeting involving his son and a Kremlin-connected lawyer, which Trump has denied. The report, along with public statements by Cohen, has raised the possibility that Cohen might seek a plea deal and cooperate with Mueller against the president.

Cohen has not been charged with any crime.

Federal prosecutors in New York are investigating him for possible bank and tax fraud, and for possible campaign law violations linked to a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels, a person familiar with the investigation has told Reuters. The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday that prosecutors were also probing whether Cohen committed tax fraud in relation to his taxi-medallion business.

The investigation stems from a referral from Mueller, who is looking into possible coordination between Trump 2016 campaign aides and Russia. Trump has said there was "no collusion" with Russia and repeatedly called the probe a "witch hunt."

Out of more than 4 million items seized by authorities in raids on Cohen's home, office and hotel room in April, fewer than 8,000 have been deemed privileged by Jones, according to court filings. Cohen's and Trump's lawyers had sought to shield several thousand additional items from prosecutors' review, but will not dispute Jones' findings in court, the filings said.

Story continues

Lawyers for Cohen and Trump did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

(Reporting By Brendan Pierson in New York; Editing by Tom Brown)

See Also:
GHAZNI, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Heavily armed Taliban fighters attacked Ghazni city in central Afghanistan early on Friday, shelling houses and business areas and gaining control of parts of the city center, officials said.

The attack on a strategic city straddling the main route between the capital Kabul and southern Afghanistan demonstrated the Taliban's strength amid increased speculation about a possible ceasefire during the Eid religious holiday this month.

Officials said clashes between government forces and the Taliban started overnight, forcing authorities to close the highway linking it to Kabul, 150 kilometers (95 miles) to the northeast.

"The Taliban are dropping missiles near residential and commercial areas. There has not been a single minute of silence for the last eight hours," said a senior government official in Ghazni.

A second government official said it was too dangerous for people to leave their homes and he had no immediate details on casualties.

"It is not possible to get out of our homes to help the injured or collect bodies," he said.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said parts of the city had been seized by the Taliban and many people were killed.

The attack on Ghazni followed a similar assault on Farah in May, when insurgents came close to overrunning the city in western Afghanistan.

Taliban militants and insurgents belonging to the other groups have been active in Ghazni province, and Taliban fighters captured a district there and killed its governor in April.

(Reporting by Reuters Staff, Ahmad Sultan in JALALABAD, Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

See Also:
In a harrowing moment captured on video, a Washington teen is pushed by a friend from a bridge more than 50 feet high.

Jordan Holgerson, 16, suffered five cracked ribs and a lung injury.

I could have died, Holgerson said. In midair, I think I might have blacked out, but I was awake and aware when I hit the water.

The location is reportedly a popular location for kids to leap into the water.

In the video, kids can be heard counting three, two, one. Holgerson appears to hesitate before being pushed by a girl standing behind her.

The Clark County Sheriffs Office is investigating the incident. No charges have been filed.

Im very upset with her. She is an adult, and Im sure she should have known better. She could have killed my daughter," Genelle Holgerson, Jordan's mother, told WCVB.

The friend has since apologized.

This isnt the first time a teen has suffered major injuries after leaping off bridges.

Tyler Weight, who did a back flip off a bridge into the Spokane River in Washington, was knocked out and had to be resuscitated after his leap.

Fortunately, he survived.

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Normally, law enforcement officers being killed by gunfire is something that people hear of happening with some frequency in the USA. This phenomenon appears to be spreading to Canada. Despite having stricter gun laws, incidents of police officers being killed in the line of duty are occurring with greater frequency. The BBC reported that in Fredericton, New Brunswick, a small town of 56,000 inhabitants, a shooting took place and four people, including two police officers, were shot dead. NewBrunswick is usually a peaceful place and in the last 57 years since 1961, only five policemen have been killed in shootings in the province.

The shooting

The two police officers have been identified as 45-year-old Lawrence Robert Costello and 43-year-old Sara Mae Helen Burns. They were obviously not wearing bulletproof jackets and were responding to sounds of a shooting. This is reminiscent of five RCMP officers who were not wearing jackets and were shot dead in 2014 by a 24-year-old man called Justin Bourque. That incident led to an unprecedented manhunt until the suspect was nabbed after 28 hours. At that time the RCMP was charged with violating the labor code by sending unarmed and unprotected policemen into an operation.

Gunman in custody

The good news is that the gunman, like in the Florida Parkland shooting, was arrested and is in police custody.

The New York Times reported that he appears to be wounded but other details have not yet been released, other than he is a "48-year-old local man." The New York Times reported that at a press conference the Deputy Police, Chief Martin Gaudet, said that the officers were killed as they approached the victims. This shows a lack of professional approach and one hopes that in future this lapse will be attended to.

Discuss this news on Eunomia

The Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau tweeted. "My heart goes out to everyone affected by this morning's shooting. We're following the situation closely."

The Fredericton police have also expressed their condolences.

Our deepest condolences to the families of our fallen members 45-year-old Lawrence Robert Costello and 43-year-old Sara Mae Helen Burns and the other victims in this morning's shootings. pic.twitter.com/9TeWn5OqWx  Fredericton Police (@CityFredPolice) August 10, 2018

Gun control debate wilts

Canada has been a relatively peaceful place and the gun laws are more stringent than in America.

But this has not helped and it appears guns are still available as the graph of such shootings like the one at the Youtube Headquarters in California is showing an upward trend. Following the Toronto shootings last month, Mayor John Tory wanted to ban handguns in the city. However, the premiere of Ontario said, Theres a lot of legal, responsible handgun owners, according to The Toronto Star.
Before I headed north on leave for a couple of weeks, I helped celebrate Hen Harrier Day at RSPB Rainham Marshes today. It was a fabulous event and I was delighted to join a great line of speakers (Ruth Tingay, Natalie Bennett, Barry Gardiner, Mark Avery and Chris Packham). This is (roughly) what I said...

-----------------------

I want to start by saying thank you.

Thank you to the founders of Hen Harrier Day for giving us the opportunity for people to take stand.

Thank you to the organisers of todays event here at Rainham for bringing the sunshine and allowing us all to make our voices heard.

Thank you all for turning up and showing you care about the plight of hen harriers and demand change.

Thank you to a nine year old Isabell Haskell who, inspired by the story of hen harriers, raised more than 500 for charity (with half going to the RSPB) by cutting off her hair!

Thank you to the incredible work of the RSPB Investigations team for working tirelessly with the police to catch criminals who continue to persecute our birds of prey.

And a massive thank you to those that have spent their summer protecting hen harrier nests day and night. I am delighted that, this year, their dedication has been rewarded by a more positive hen harrier breeding season in England: 9 nests and over 30 chicks.

One of the RSPBs founders, Etta Lemon, established the first watchers at key breeding sites (for species such as hen harriers) in the early twentieth century. As Tessa Boase has described in her fabulous book about the origins of the RSPB (Mrs Pankhursts Purple Feather), Mrs Lemon was an indefatigable campaigner and I think she would be outraged that more than one hundred years later, we still have to protect hen harrier nests around the clock.

We all dream of the day when 24/7 monitoring of hen harrier nests is a thing of the past, that changes have happened that mean it is no longer necessary. Only then will we know that we have learnt to live alongside hen harriers and that their future is secure.

Sadly, this wont happen overnight and it wont happen unless we continue to campaign for change. That is what the RSPBs foremothers taught us. They ran a thirty year campaign against murderous millinery and the global plumage trade. And they didnt rest until they secured what they wanted  the ban on the plumage trade through the passage of the Importation of Plumage (Prohibition) Act 1921.

The good news is that things are shifting. In Scotland, there is a real prospect of gamebird licensing and in England, while the political context is very different, there are few outside of the die-hard grouse shooting industry who now defend the status quo.

The hen harrier has rightly become totemic. Because of illegal killing, it remains at risk of extinction as a breeding species in England  something that this government promised to prevent. The parlours state of our hen harrier population is a stark reminder that we are failing to live in harmony with nature.

"Living in harmony with nature" is the ultimate goal of the Convention of Biological Diversity that was conceived at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. In 2010, the UK Government signed up to 20 CBD targets including to stop species extinctions.

In just over two years, world leaders will gather in China to report on how well we are doing against these targets designed to restore nature. We want the UK Government to report positive progress. A key test of success will be what is happening in our hills, and especially the fate of species like the hen harrier.

All of us attending Hen Harrier Day events across the country are sending a powerful message to landowners and politicians that the public demands urgent reform of the way our hills are managed.

And to deliver the change we want, we must remain united. I know that we all have different views about how best to secure that change  some seek a ban in grouse shooting, we propose licensing. But we are united in wanting reform.

Those of us that work for the RSPB follow in Etta Lemons footsteps which is why I urge you to remember what made those early campaigners successful: remain passionate, be persistent and above all remain united in our demand for more hen harriers and an end to the illegal killing of our fabulous birds of prey.
Hawaii holds its primaries on Saturday. The state elects a Senator, governor and representatives from both congressional districts in 2018. Democrats are expected to retain control of all of these seats.

The most notable primary races are for the Democratic nomination for governor and in the first congressional district. Polls close at 6:00 PM local time, which is midnight Eastern. Reload this page after that time for the latest results.

Hawaii Gubernatorial Primaries

Gov. David Ige defeated then Gov. Neil Abercrombie in the 2014 Democratic primary, going on to win the general election by 12 points. Ige himself now faces a serious primary challenge from Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (HI-01). For much of the year, it has looked like Ige would meet the same fate as his predecessor. Polls this spring had him down by double-digits to Hanabusa, as voters were not impressed by Ige's slow response to the false missile alert from this past January. However, Ige's handling of real disasters - Kauai flooding and the kilauea volcano have turned his fortunes around, and Ige goes into the primary with the lead in recent polling. Either Democrat will be favored in the general election.

The leading Republican appears to be Andria Tupola, who is the Minority Leader of the Hawaii House of Representatives.

Hawaii Senate Primary

Incumbent Sen. Mazie Hirono is running unopposed. She is expected to win a 2nd term in November.

Hawaii House Primaries

Hanabusa is giving up her Honolulu-area seat to run for governor. This Washington Post article provides an overview of many of the Democratic primary candidates looking to replace her in Congress. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is likely to advance to the general election in the 2nd district, although she does have some detractors. Both seats are considered safe for Democrats in the fall.
Mrill Ingram in The Progressive:

In his new book, In Defense of Public Lands: The Case against Privatization and Transfer (Temple University Press), Steven Davis, political science professor at Edgewood College in Madison, Wisconsin, takes on the privatizers. His book is an even-handed and thorough look at public lands in the United States. Although public support for wilderness, national parks, and other public lands is high, Davis is rightly concerned that these open spacesfrom national parks like Yosemite to county-owned landsface serious threats.

The sentiments that led to the Sagebrush Rebellion and Wise Use Movement are not in the past, Davis tells us. In his first chapter, Public Land and its Discontents, Davis details how, since the gains of the Tea Party in 2010, those against public lands have the support of a large number of office-holders in state and federal legislatures. What was previously seen as the intemperate agitation of fringe activists is now the standard stuff of political platforms, floor debates, and campaign speeches, he writes.

The Republican Partys 2012 platform, for example, stated, Congress should reconsider whether . . . federal governments enormous landholdings and control of water in the West could be better used for ranching, mining, or forestry through private ownership.

More here.
Ive always loved simple food. When I was growing up, my mom, Beatrice Bennett, waitressed at Kings Donuts, a Harlem luncheonette next door to the Apollo Theater. My sister, Estelle, and I would stop there on the way home from school, and my mom would stick us downstairs in the employees lounge to do our homework. After about an hour and a half, she let us come upstairs and sit at the counter; booths were for big-time customers.



Estelle and I always had burgers and fries with a Coke. They toasted the buns. I loved those burgers! Medium well, the way I still like them. Id look out the window onto 125th Street, see lines around the block for the Apollo and get this pang in my stomach: Thats what I want  lines around the block for me!

The Apollos owner had a crush on my mother. She was the only one he let make his burgers and sandwiches. So when Mom asked him if Estelle and I could do Amateur Night at the Apollo, he naturally said yes.

In those days, it was Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Little Anthony and the Imperials  boy groups. So we figured, let Cousin Ira sing lead. Im 11  hes a couple of years younger. We get out there; Ira opens his mouth and nothing comes out. Can you imagine? I grabbed the mic and sang a Frankie Lymon song. The audience loved me! I had this attitude  streetwise. Thats when the ball started to roll for me.

My moms burgers at home were even better than the ones she made at work. Shed take an onion, then chop and chop and chop till the pieces were really tiny. She said that that way, the next day my breath wouldnt smell of onions. It was so yummy! If we ran out of buns, wed toast Wonder Bread. Simple things taste the best. Every time I have a burger, I think of her and growing up in Harlem. It was a real neighborhood then. Candy stores had big jars of pickles, with tongs to pull one out. Id try to get the biggest one, and Mrs. Rutenberg, behind the counter, would say, Now, Veronica, take the one on top  all the juice is spilling!

Everybody was looking out their windows and knew one another. My grandmother lived across the street from City College and watched us out the window: Dont you go around that corner! When my dad, Louis, wasnt working in the subway yards, hed take me across the street to Shermans Bar B.Q.; I used to sell lemonade to college students for two cents a cup, on the sidewalk there.

Today, when my oldest son visits, Ill make my special hamburger. Its a combination of the Kings Donuts burger and my moms. I chop up the onion and shape the meat into patties. I use a little avocado oil to cook them in  thats my modern twist.

Mother-Daughter Hamburgers

Serves 4

Ingredients



1 small onion

1 pounds 80/20 ground beef

Kosher salt

Ground black pepper

1-2 tablespoons avocado oil

4 slices American cheese

(optional)

4 old-fashioned packaged hamburger rolls or 8 slices Wonder Bread

Ketchup and mustard

Directions

Chop the onion finely; mix it with the ground beef. Form into 4 equal patties. Sprinkle salt and pepper on each side of the patties.



Add the avocado oil to the skillet. Warm the pan on medium heat for 4 or 5 minutes.

Add the patties and cook, flipping once, until they turn out the way you like themapproximately 4 to 5 minutes on each side for medium well. (For cheeseburgers, top each with 1 slice American cheese after cooking the second side for 3 or 4 minutes.) The burgers should sizzle and give you a great crust if the temperature is just right.

While the burgers are cooking, toast the buns or bread. Squirt a little ketchup and mustard on one side of each bun.

Put each burger on a bun. Get out a jar of supermarket pickles, and pour yourself a Coke. Have a biteitll be like you stepped into Ronnie Spectors kitchen!

Nutrients per serving: 478 calories, 35g protein, 25g carbohydrates, 1g fiber, 25g fat, 101mg cholesterol, 552mg sodium
(MUSIC SEGUE)

[00:00:01] This week on The Perfect Scam.

[00:00:04] We're not talking about a psychic on the street corner with the little palm reading and tarot card neon sign out front.

[00:00:09] It's so pathetic that these people should pick on people that don't know any better.

[00:00:17] No one had ever really figured out whether she really was a real person and whether she really was the one sending out these letters.

(MUSIC SEGUE)

[00:00:29] Michelle: Welcome back to AARP's The Perfect Scam. I'm your host, Michelle Kosinski. This week the strange shadowy unfolding of one of the largest, longest running, most successful scams the United States has seen. We're talking thousands of victims a week, well over a million in total, and all the money they sent. It involves an alleged psychic and her personalized letters through the mail. Lots and lots of letters targeting people who might be happy to get them, people in need of anyone to talk to and hear from. And as we transition into our next season with brand new episodes coming soon, this is an opportunity to hear some episodes you might have missed. They're episodes 15 and 16 combined hosted by Will Johnson. I hope you enjoy them. This is quite a scam and quite a story.

(MUSIC SEGUE)

[00:01:28] Will: Welcome back to AARP - The Perfect Scam. I'm your host Will Johnson. I'm here with the AARP Fraud Watch Network Ambassador, Frank Abagnale. Frank, good to see you again.

[00:01:36] Frank: Yeah, good to be back.

[00:01:36] Will: Well we're back in the studio talking about scams and fraud and this week, uh, we have a, an amazing story. We'll get into it shortly. One of the biggest cons in history, and it's based on a new book that's uh just coming out. So we'll tell you all about that, but truly a phenomenal story. In the meantime, before we get into that, I have a question. I brought it up in one of our recent episodes, but since doing the show with you, this, this idea of being suspicious, of being on guard, um, not trusting a phone call or an email. It's a difficult place to be in modern society and it, it's sort of, you want to be suspicious, but you also want to be sane and be able to be civil.

[00:02:20] Frank: Yeah, I think so, but I think in today's environment, you have to be, you have to just make sure that uh what you're hearing and what you're reading is, in fact, legitimate because unfortunately there are so many people out there that are trying to separate you from your money, so I think a wiser person is a little skeptical and you know a skeptic being skeptical is really somewhat of a virtue and uh I think that there's nothing wrong with taking a moment or two to verify that what is being sold to you, or what is being told to you, what's being written to you, what's coming over the internet to you is, in fact, legitimate. And we do have tremendous resources today we didn't have 20 years ago where you can check a lot of things out and go find out, is this a legitimate company? Is this something that's real? So I think there's nothing wrong with taking a few minutes and always acting on the, I need to know that this is correct before I again separate with my money. That's the thing here. I'm going to separate either with my money or I'm going to give out information. So there's nothing wrong with stopping for a minute to say, before I take that step, I want to make sure and verify that, that it's real.

[00:03:30] Will: Maybe just doing this show I got too wrapped up in it.

(chuckling)

[00:03:35] Will: Something like that. All right, Frank, today's show is about a very well-known, decades long psychic scam. You don't strike me as the type of person who would go to a psychic. Maybe I'm wrong.

[00:03:45] Frank Abagnale: No, I'm not.

[00:03:46] Will: It's not your kind of thing. Palm reader?

[00:03:48] Frank Abagnale: No.

[00:03:48] Will: No, okay.

[00:03:49] Frank Abagnale: No horoscopes, none of that.

[00:03:50] Will: All right. Well let's get into today's episode, the story of Maria Duval.

(MUSIC SEGUE)

[00:03:57] Will: I'd like to welcome CNN investigative reporters and authors of the book, "A Deal With the Devil" Melanie Hicken and Blake Ellis.

[00:04:04] Melanie Hicken: Thank you for having us.

[00:04:05] Will: Melanie, let me start by asking you, how did the Maria Duval letters work? How does a mail order psychic scam generally work?

[00:04:12] Melanie Hicken: So they have have a list of people who they believe, for some reason, are likely to respond to a letter like this. and it's usually because they're elderly, they have dementia, um, they are more likely to fall for this scam. And so, they will get a letter, but then once they get that letter, if they do respond and send in money, then they get more letters, and then they send in more money, and then they get even more letters, and then they probably start getting more letters from other psychics and other scams and so it just becomes this huge domino effect. In many cases, we've spoken to people whose loved ones have had so much mail coming to them that the mailman has to bring up a box of mail to their doorstep. There's so much junk mail coming to these people that it may not even fit in their mailbox, and, and I know it's hard for some people, for those of us who don't have dementia, it's hard to understand why someone wouldn't just throw that letter away. I mean the letter would say, "I'm Maria Duval, and I see how lonely you are, or I see how many problems you have, and I'm going to help you fix them. All you have to do is send me money," but because of the data they're able to get from data brokers, the letters can seem believable, especially to someone who is cognitively impaired. So, it could have their birthday, it could have their hometown city. Oftentimes the letters would ask them to send in more personal information as well, so they'd send that personal information in, and then it would be used in future letters against them. So it really is a, a pretty sophisticated process, so to us at first, it seems like just a simple letter, but there's a lot of layers to it that really makes it successful.

[00:05:59] Will: And it, stop me if I'm wrong here, and then the psychic information is, or the, the payoff is that then you get more uh, psychic insight into your life or numbers to play at the lottery, or any number of things, right, that could impact your wealth, health, and happiness.

[00:06:14] Blake Ellis: Exactly, and it just makes, it makes the people receiving these letters um, more likely to believe, because they see, oh, this letter, Maria Duval knows that I am widowed. Maria Duval knows that I live in Kansas. She knows where I was born. She even knows the time I was born. I mean the information that these scammers can get is amazing. And so, yeah, you might think that these people are just gullible, but it's, they can seem very, they can be very believable with all of these personal details in them.

[00:06:48] Melanie Hicken: The letters were designed to be handwritten, or to look handwritten, so they often had fake coffee cup stains, as if Maria had been sitting there with a cup of coffee or they have these scrawled out notes, uh about the psychic reading, so again, if you aren't able to really determine fact from fiction, there is a lot of stuff there that would add to the believability.

[00:07:11] Will: So, and, and another aspect of the letters is there's a photo of Maria Duval.

[00:07:15] Blake Ellis: Yes, there's a very inviting photo of Maria Duval in her younger years, um, that it, it seems like really does help draw people in, 'cause she kind of has the small smile on her face, um, and it gives people reading these letters someone to envision...

(MUSIC SEGUE)

[00:07:37] Will: In the fall of 2015, Blake Ellis and Melanie Hicken are interviewing victims, digging through bank and court records, emails, online videos. Any evidence they can find on the mastermind behind the scam.

[00:07:48] Blake Ellis: And I mean at first, we had no idea if she was a real person. We saw in government filings that she could be a fictitious creation, um, but as we started googling, um, we found all these YouTube videos of a blonde woman who looks like she could be the same woman in the letters talking about her psychic abilities, but then we kind of wondered if she was potentially, this could be an actress.

[00:08:14] Will: You also came across a copywriter in Canada, and that's actually a really interesting aspect to this scam, is that the, the copywriting and the way the letters are written, play a really important role in the scammer's ability to ensnare people.

[00:08:29] Blake Ellis: This was one of the most fascinating interviews we had. It was so interesting to hear from someone who had actually written some of these Maria Duval letters. And interestingly enough, he had once been a journalist himself, and said that this is just a different kind of storytelling. When we asked him if he ever felt bad about doing any of this, and he answered, "Yes, to an extent, but at the same time, I'm sorry, but I think I'm doing good in giving someone to talk to. If they didn't talk to me, they would talk to someone else, and hopefully someone legitimate, but I can't control that."

[00:09:01] Melanie Hicken: Yeah, what's interesting with him, too, is just he kind of drew a line in the sand where he said, well yes, they wrote Maria Duval letters, but I would never write the illegal ones.

(MUSIC SEGUE)

[00:09:12] Will: As Melanie Hicken and Blake Ellis delve into the Maria Duval scam, they start searching for victims to interview. They come across the story of Doreen and sit down with her daughter, Chrissie, in Arizona.

[00:09:23] Melanie Hicken: Chrissie ended up being a very important window into her mother, because unfortunately, her mother had passed away just before um, a little bit before we had started looking into this. So we weren't able to talk to Doreen and hear what this had been like for her, but Chrissie was still so angry about how this had taken advantage of her mother in her most vulnerable years.

[00:09:46] Will: When we talk with Chrissie, she's back in Canada, living outside Edmonton, Alberta for the warmer months. The 57-year-old mother of three and grandmother of four, tells us about her mother, Doreen. How she came across the Maria Duval letters and what eventually happened to her mother as she dealt with a rapid mental decline.

[00:10:02] Chrissie: I, I was helping her clean the house, and it was at this point that we knew that her mind was slipping pretty bad. But we didn't know how bad. Um, and then we came across letters from this Maria Duval promising health, wealth, happiness, um, winning lottery numbers, um, and, and this kind of stuff, and these were personalized letters. Dear Doreen.

[00:10:34] Will: Chrissie goes back through Doreen's bank statements and finds month after month, a $49 payments going back two years, totally $2500.

[00:10:42] Chrissie: And, and I called the police, and they had just cautioned, buyer beware. I asked Mom who this Maria Duval is. She either couldn't or wouldn't tell me. You know she would batt her blue eyes and "Oh, I don't know," or "I don't remember," you know.

[00:11:05] Will: Chrissie takes her mom's checkbook and stops payments, but she then gets a frantic phone call from a friend who's visiting her mom.

[00:11:12] Chrissie: So when her friend got there, what was happening was my mom was putting physical money, like bills and, and coins into envelopes to send.

(MUSIC SEGUE)

[00:11:29] Will: Frustrated and angry, Chrissie starts doing her own research about Maria Duval. She finds stories of victims who had experienced financial collapse because of the scam.

[00:11:39] Chrissie: I came across some desperate people and always the same story. Give me a refund. Or I've spent this money, and nothing has happened. Or you've, you've cleaned my parent out of you know, their whole life savings.

(MUSIC SEGUE)

[00:12:00] Will: As the CNN reporters keep reporting and digging fairly early on, they reach out to Clayton Gerber with the United States Postal Inspection Service.

[00:12:07] Blake Ellis: He was really the person that helped us understand the magnitude of the scam.

[00:12:12] Will: He's been with the Postal Service for 14 years and is currently involved in the investigation of mail fraud. When he joins us in the studio, he's wearing a gun and a badge and has a confident air of authority about him.

[00:12:23] Clayton Gerber: People trust what they receive in the mail. There's some, there's some belief that it has this blessing of, of sincerity or, or some authenticity or something genuine about it. And I've interviewed tons of victims and they will, it'll be after a collapsed Ponzi scheme and they'll get their, they'll have their last statement, and they'll be clutching the statement saying, the money can't be gone. It says right here that my money's right here. And I said, "You believe that your money is there because it's printed on that piece of paper and it came in the mail." Now if I mail you a letter, on my letterhead that says that that scheme has collapsed and there's no money left, will you believe it? "No, I won't believe it."

[00:13:03] Will: When did you first hear about the Maria Duval letters, and how did they come to your attention or the Postal Service's attention?

[00:13:09] Clayton Gerber: They, it came to the Postal Service's attention years ago. We actually have a, a Regulations in File Administrative Action. So these are enforcement actions that are truly done by the Postal Service to stop mail delivery, or stop the, the receipt of mail so we can stop you from receiving mail if you're running a fraudulent sch--, scheme, or we can stop you from putting mail into the mail stream. So, um, years ago, 2006 or something, an inspector had initiated an administrative action against the Maria Duval scheme to shut it down, as a fraudulent scheme, and the then operators at the time agreed and filed a Cease and Desist Order and they consent, Cease and Desist Order, and said they would shut down and go out of business.

[00:13:59] Will: And if we've, as we've come to learn this scam has maybe been around for decades in one form or another.

[00:14:05] Clayton Gerber: Sure. It had been around for many years before then, and the moment they signed that Cease and Desist Order, they ramped up production and kept going. They just changed their PO boxes and, and keep going.

[00:14:16] Will: So, in your line of work, that must be frustrating but expected.

[00:14:19] Clayton Gerber: Very expected. Um, it's, it's good sport.

[00:14:22] Will: The case seemed to drop off the radar after that initial investigation in 2006. It was years later, around 2013 when one of Clayton Gerber's Postal Inspectors comes across some curious bank records.

[00:14:34] Clayton Gerber: So then the instant investigation started when a postal inspector on my team was looking through a production from a bank and looking at high rates of returns. And a bank that had been processing payments for this Maria Duval scheme had high rates of returns for this scheme. He's like, Maria Duval, who is this?

[00:14:51] Will: High rates of return for the bank?

[00:14:53] Clayton Gerber: For that vendor, so if, if um, you're processing a payment, some people are going to say, hey I want my money back. I, I'm not happy with the product, you know, so your money back guarantee kind of thing. For a, a bonafide vendor, their rate of return is very, very low. Fraudsters have a very high rate of return. There's a couple of reasons; one, people didn't get what they thought they were going to get; two, most fraudsters will pay returns instantaneously if you complain. They actually claim that's what make them a legitimate business. We always pay returns. We provide the best customer service. They pay returns so that they don't get complaints to law enforcement. So about 2013 or '14, when we were noticing these high rates of returns, um, in this, for this solicitation with the name, Maria Duval, and the guy on my team used the most powerful investigative tool we have available to us, the Google, and uh we plugged Maria Duval into Google and it was replete with Psychic Scam, Scambook, you name it, and we're like, how is this bank processing for this Maria Duval scheme when all of the available information is everyone complaining about how it's a scam.

[00:16:07] Will: So it comes to your attention and others on your team, uh as you got into it in the scheme of other investigations, how big did the Maria Duval case seem?

[00:16:16] Clayton Gerber: Fairly early on in the investigation, we uh we went and did a trash pull, um, to pull the trash from the company that would slice open all the envelopes. So a customer would send their payment in, the payment envelope would go to what's called a caging service. A caging service is a service provider that slices open envelopes, takes your payment out, takes your order information out, does the order entry and the like. So we did a trash pull at the caging service, and um, we counted up all the envelopes, the empty envelopes and we had 7,000 envelopes from one week's trash, and we were like, this is unbelievable. We have 7,000 victims a week on this scheme and we, collectively, none of us could think of a scheme that had ever had that kind of return. That is a phenomenal mailer order business.

[00:17:04] Will: Did you have a sense or ever wonder to yourself or with your team, uh is there a Maria Duval? Or did you have a pretty good idea that this was run by somebody not named Maria Duval?

[00:17:13] Clayton Gerber: I assumed, there was a photograph in the solicitations, and I assumed that that was a photograph of a real person. I mean it could have been digitally created, but I, it was more likely it was a real person. Um, was it a person who actually has previously claimed to have psychic abilities and things, I didn't know, and I, and I didn't care. We're not attacking any belief someone has about psychic ability.

[00:17:33] Will: So then, did you talk to victims of the scam right away, or along the way?

[00:17:38] Clayton Gerber: Um, we talked to uh many. I, I didn't have to do that. Talking to victims is an, is an emotional task. Um, many guys on my team, some of my uh support folks talked to many victims.

(MUSIC SEGUE)

[00:17:53] Clayton Gerber: I remember a story, one of my inspectors came back after he had been around, traveling around Pennsylvania talking to victims, and he took pictures inside the, individual and pictures inside the house. He had all of the pictures from all of the mailings taped up on the wall, running down the hallway from all of the mailings he had received from Maria Duval. All of the little trinkets and mass produced junk was on a bookshelf, all in one spot. Um, he couldn't afford his medicine, couldn't afford his utilities, and he was sitting there with a piece of rope tied around his waist in a knot as a belt cause he couldn't afford a belt. But he was writing $40 checks like crazy to Maria Duval, and that really affected my investigator. He, I, he has reminded me of this victim over and over and over again over the years, and that's one of 7,000 victims.

(MUSIC SEGUE)

[00:18:47] Will: Meanwhile, Melanie and Blake are still on the hunt. They follow the trail of post office boxes where the scammers are apparently picking up the letters and payments. One of these return addresses and PO boxes is in Sparks, Nevada.

[00:19:00] And the address ended up taking us to this, um this commercial shopping center kind of in the middle of nowhere, um, and we just were talking to everyone we could find at any of the stores, asking them if they had heard of Maria Duval, if they knew anything about these PO boxes, um, and no one knew anything, and we ended up finding the, the mailboxes, um but they had been shut down um by the government.

(MUSIC SEGUE)

[00:19:27] Will: That's thanks to Clayton Gerber and his team of postal inspectors.

[00:19:31] Clayton Gerber: So, in the Maria Duval case, we filed a civil, a civil complaint seeking an injunction against the caging service that was slicing open the envelopes, uh, against a Montreal-based, Montreal, Canada-based company that had employed them, that was hiring them. They were controlling the North American scheme. Then we went to the post office, and we said, shut all these PO boxes down and any mail that comes to them, send it to us. So we started collecting those victim envelopes. Um, we went to the post office where they were dropping the 100,000 or 200,000 solicitations in the mail, and we said, you cannot accept mail from this mailer anymore. These envelopes cannot go in the mail stream. If they show up with a truck, give us a call. We went to the caging service and we actually executed a search warrant at the caging service on the day of the injunction; seized all of evidence there, and, and they were served. We were giving notice, you need to shut down, we've already closed your PO boxes, it's not like you're going to receive any mail today, so you could come in tomorrow, but you wouldn't have anything to do.

[00:20:31] Will: And you were present at the serving of that warrant?

[00:20:33] Clayton Gerber: Yes.

[00:20:34] Will: What was that like? You, you walk into an office, and there's people sitting there doing their job and you say, hey this is, this is coming to an end?

[00:20:41] Clayton Gerber: Yeah, but we're law enforcement officers, so we wear body armor and we have our guns out and...

[00:20:46] Will: Really?

[00:20:46] Clayton Gerber: Yeah. Yeah, ;cause this is America and a lot of people have guns, even fraudsters, and uh, so we, we go with um, enough uh presence that things are going to stay calm.

[00:20:59] Will: Where was that company?

[00:21:00] Clayton Gerber: That company was on Long Island.

[00:21:01] Will: And were those the two companies then that were shut down by the inspection service?

[00:21:06] Clayton Gerber: Yes.

[00:21:06] Will: How did work? How has it worked?

[00:21:08] Clayton Gerber: We collected about 45,000 victim response payments in the immediate aftermath of the injunction, so we immediately stopped 45,000 victim payments and we've, we've returned cash and money orders to those victims. We have not seen a Maria Duval mailing uh in the US. There are other psychic mailings and we're, we're aware of some.

(MUSIC SEGUE)

[00:21:31] Will: Clayton, how many victims would you estimate in this Maria Duval scam, at least here in the United States or how much money would you estimate? Do you have any idea?

[00:21:41] Clayton Gerber: So we were able to collect pretty precise records for victimization going back 10 years. And in um, the US alone, there were a little over 1.4 million victims over a 10 year period, and it was over 200 million dollars US. We were able to, to seize 40,000 or so victim payments, so once we shut the scheme down, these were payment envelopes from victims that were still in the mail stream that were still destined to the PO boxes. We seized all of those. After the court issued us an order that we could open them, and we could return the payments to the victims; we did that.

[00:22:18] Will: The government action seems to stop the scam's bloodletting in the US, but remember, this is a worldwide scam with millions of letters beings sent to countless countries, and for Melanie and Blake, one main question keeps haunting them. Where is Maria Duval?

BREAK

[00:22:37] Will: Welcome back to AARP - The Perfect Scam. I'm your host, Will Johnson. Let's get back into the story of Maria Duval and CNN investigative reporters, Melanie Hicken and Blake Ellis, who are hot on the trail of Maria Duval. They believe that this woman is, is a real person. She's the name behind this decade long scam that claims to offer psychic insight and help to anyone willing to send in a check, and then keep on sending checks.

(MUSIC SEGUE)

[00:23:04] Will: US Postal Service Inspector, Clayton Gerber, collected over 45,000 victim account letters as part of the investigation. He estimates the scam has cost almost 1.4 million victims over 2 million dollars, and that's just over one 4-year period. And that's just in the US.

[00:23:20] Clayton Gerber: These are victims who need to pay their utilities. These are victims who need to pay for their medicine. These are victims that need to get their car fixed. And $40 is, is not an insignificant amount of money if you're living paycheck to paycheck, and if you're asked then to pay again and again and again, these are people who are least able to pay it.

[00:23:41] Will: The scam's mostly been shut down now in the US, thanks to the US Postal Inspection Service, but while the various companies sending out the letters in the US and Canada, they no longer exist, Melanie and Blake and still left wondering, who are the actual masterminds behind the scam? Does the blonde woman pictured in the letters actually have anything to do with the scam? Is she still alive?

[00:24:03] Will: You finally determined that Maria Duval could be a real person living in a small city in France. I won't get to all of the details on how you figured this out, but you convinced your bosses to fly you there. What were you hoping to learn in France? What happened when you got there?

[00:24:19] Melanie Hicken: Well we had spent so long investigating these letters and the people behind them and had identified some of the key players, which you can read about more in the book, but at the end of the day it was Maria Duval's face and name that was on all of these letters. So we knew we needed to try to talk to her to determine if she knew that letters had been going out and um, to figure out how she had gotten involved in all, in all of this, because at this point that we were going to France, just in the very few days before leaving, we found pivotal business records online in French, that showed something we had suspected, which was that Maria Duval really had made money from one of the companies that was key to the scam, and so that was our first proof we had that she had profited off of these letters specifically, and the filing we saw showed she had made at least $200,000 um, from the liquidation of one of these companies. So, with that business filing in hand, we basically, you know, got on a plane and were hoping to confront her.

[00:25:26] Will: And you eventually in, in France you, you're able to track down a location of a house where she apparently is, right?

[00:25:34] Blake Ellis: Yes, we had seen this one address on trademark filings from the very beginning, and we confirmed that when we called, we called the little town of Colossae, um, and they said that she did indeed live in the town, um, so we knew that she lived there and we had an address in our hands.

[00:25:53] Will: And when you got to the house what, what happened? You were hoping to, I mean you, you, you must, your hearts must have been beating fast.

[00:25:59] Melanie Hicken: Yeah, it was crazy. I think we both just couldn't believe that we were there, that we had convinced our editors to send us all the way to the South of France. So we're standing there. We, we ring the doorbell a few times, and we're pretty much convinced nothing's going to happen but then the gate slowly starts to open, and I think both of our hearts just leaped thinking that we were going to get to meet Maria, and as soon as the gate started to open, it immediately started to shut, and uh our colleague, Julia who came with us and spoke French, unlike us, immediately starts to try to talk to this woman behind the gate. She only got a glimpse of her. She was a blonde woman, and, and the woman said that Maria wasn't there. That she was in Rome, and that all we could do was leave a note for her. So that note was the closest we got to speaking uh, with Maria herself.

[00:26:56] Will: But then, shortly before leaving France, you also finally meet up with her son, Antoine, in person, is that right?

[00:27:03] Blake Ellis: We did. So we spent a long time trying to track him down. He had been very elusive from the very beginning. We had been reaching out to him by email, and trying to call him. He finally agreed to meet with us in this little cafe nearby, and we sat with him for about an hour, and he told us, he answered a lot of our questions. It seems like he was still holding a lot back, um, but he claims that his mother had sold the rights to her name decades ago, um and that she had never intended for her name to be used in a scam like the letters that we were telling him about.

[00:27:39] Will: So there's almost this sense that you start to get like, her, her name is being used, but she's not to blame. It's other people that are behind this whole scheme.

[00:27:48] Blake Ellis: So that's what he would like us to believe, but we also knew that she had made money from the letters, um so we tried to push him on that. Uh, he claims to not understand the financial dealings, but he was also adamant that she had made far, far less money from the letters than any of the businesspeople who were actually orchestrating this scam. Um, but we still, leaving that, leaving that meeting, I mean we, we understood how something like this could happen, how selling your name could lead to something like this, but we did have a hard time believing that she was truly innocent.

[00:28:22] Melanie Hicken: Yeah, and I would just say, I mean it, it is such a fascinating story, this idea of how a name can become currency in this shady world of scams, and so we spent a lot of the book diving into this idea of could this scam have gotten out of her control and, and did she make money from it, and, and if she really didn't want to be involved, then why did she make all these defensive media appearances and, and really just trying to understand what her motivations were, like was it money she was after when she signed that contract? Was it um, you know greed for fame, for attention, or, or maybe, you know maybe was it romance? Like was there someone she was romantically involved with that convinced her to sign this contract? So, we, we have lots of theories.

(MUSIC SEGUE)

[00:29:17] Will: I want to jump ahead a little bit because after that time in France, you came back. You eventually published a lot of what you had, you took a, a video camera to France and you had filmed a lot of this, and it came out as a web series online, right?

[00:29:31] Melanie Hicken: Yes.

[00:29:32] Will: And so, a lot of your work in reporting became public at that point. After it became public, one of the more chilling chapters in the book is when you got some messages about uh who was really behind all this. Um, and that there might actually be some connections to some more, I would say, uh nefarious individuals or people who have been around for centuries in secret clubs and things like that. Can you talk about what was going on?

[00:29:59] Blake Ellis: Yeah, so, we finally thought that the story was over, um, and that's when we began getting some of the weirdest emails we've ever received, um, for any investigation we've worked on.

(MUSIC SEGUE)

[00:30:14] Blake Ellis: One came from an email address um, called Secret Friend, and that person warned us about very dangerous people that we should be careful of. Others had theories that included a, a widespread but secret cult, um, that focused on black magic and doing evil. Then there was another person who tried to lure us to Thailand um, until we found out his true identity. Um, so it was, I mean this is nothing that we would have ever expected getting into when we first embarked on this investigation. And we've really never had an investigation go this dark.

[00:30:55] Will: And you both start to maybe even have some sense of not fear, but maybe some anxiety about your own safety?

[00:31:01] Melanie Hicken: Yeah, so it's funny. I think we were in this so deep that we started feeling like central characters in this story ourselves, which as a journalist you never want to be, you want to be an impartial outside observer, and so when we started getting these emails with people trying to get us to go meet them and it, it was, either we got weird emails from Romanian journalists claiming to be doing their own investigation, but then they disappeared, and so we just started creating these conspiracy theories in our heads that all these emails were connected and that someone was trying to lure us somewhere to do something and, and so I think we have since come back to reality, but at the time yeah, I mean there were some very anxious moments where we were just confused and a little bit alarmed.

[00:31:52] Will: You were, you were like instruments of illuminati there for a minute it seemed like or something, which you mentioned in the book, like maybe that's a part of all this, whether it was jokingly or otherwise.

[00:32:04] Melanie Hicken: Yeah, I mean the hardest thing about this is that there were so many theories that people were sending us but not many people had evidence to back it up, so as journalists, we're looking for the hard evidence, but then you also can't get these stories out of your head once you've heard them. So it was, we were definitely trying to separate facts from fiction, and um, yeah, for a while there, the theories got pretty crazy.

[00:32:29] Will: So Blake and Melanie, you, you've come back to reality, you, you more or less finish the story. You never meet Maria, at least in the advance copy of the story that I've looked at, but my understanding is that there's an update

[00:32:42] Blake Ellis: Yep, so the story never stops, and we um, had continued to reach out to Maria Duval's son, Antoine, um, and we ended up going back to France for one more final attempt at meeting Maria Duval, and so now there's a brand new ending to our story. And we don't want to give that away but, um, what we, what we found and what we did in France really brings the whole story full circle.

[00:33:13] Will: Okay, so we'll, we'll leave it up to our listeners if, if they've followed along on this, this journey with us to, to find that final chapter in your book, "A Deal with the Devil.: So, do either one of you believe in psychics at this point?

[00:33:26] Melanie Hicken: So, a lot of people ask us that question.

[00:33:28] Will: Sorry.

[00:33:28] Melanie Hicken: We, no, it's a good one. I mean we still don't.

[00:33:32] Will: (chuckle) You were, you're skeptics from the beginning and you still are.

[00:33:34] Melanie Hicken: Yeah.

[00:33:35] Will: That's your job.

[00:33:36] Melanie Hicken: Yeah, I think as a journalist, um, if we told our bosses we have now decided that Maria is a real psychic, I think they'd be, they'd wonder who had kidnapped us, but she definitely, there was something special about Maria Duval.

[00:33:50] Will: So in all of your reporting, your investigation, your digging into these dark and seedy corners of scams and frauds and, and mail order psychics, what can you tell us about what people can look out for? How do, how do we make sure that our, our loved ones, our parents, our grandparents, and even ourselves can, can be safe in this world of mail order crime and fraud?

[00:34:13] Melanie Hicken: Yeah, so one of the reasons we originally started looking into this was because of how many scams there are out there that are preying on people, and unfortunately, even though Maria Duval letters are not going out in the US anymore, there are countless others that still are, and so one of the things we're hoping to bring attention to is this idea that you should try to keep an eye on elderly relatives and there are little things you can spot that we've heard from people that even if you're not demanding access to their bank accounts, 'cause I know that's a tricky conversation for a lot of um, people and their parents, but even just looking, is your father or mother or grandfather or grandmother buying a lot of stamps? That's really one of the key things we've heard. They buy a lot of stamps because they're mailing in all these checks. So are they buying a lot of stamps? Are they making a lot of small withdrawals? Try to become friends with the bank tellers. A lot of elderly people will still actually physically go into the bank, and so um, we've heard stories of bank employees raising the alarm saying, hey, I don't think you want to keep getting all these withdrawals. Um, also just mail. If your elderly loved one is getting a ton of mail, that is a sign that they might be responding to it. So just that alone um, is a good warning sign.

[00:35:34] Blake Ellis: A lot of people we talked to said that they could tell something was wrong when they realized how obsessed um, their loved ones were with the mail, and they waited every day for that mail to come. Um, and then they realized it was because they were getting letters like this, and then sending in money.

(MUSIC SEGUE)

[00:35:52] Will: Peter Lichtenberg is a professor of Psychology at Wayne State University in Detroit. As a gerontologist, he works closely with older people and their families. For adult children of scam victims, his advice is to proceed gently.

[00:36:05] Peter Lichtenberg: You don't come storming in like Superman to save the day, because many times your older parent is going to slam the door or change the locks and never talk to you again. You have to be very, you have to partner with your, with your relative, your older parent, your older relative that you're trying to help and kind of find a way in of talking more generally about um, older adults being targeted, and try to get them to think and plan um, instead of coming and saying, you're throwing your money away. I need to take over your finances, cause a lot of times that just backfires.

[00:36:50] Will: Postal Inspector, Clayton Gerber, helped shut down the Maria Duval letters in the US. He's met with victims and also the perpetrators behind the scam. He knows the elderly are vulnerable, but also knows scammers will reach out to anyone who's willing to pay.

[00:37:04] Clayton Gerber: The fraudsters, um, I don't want to generalize and say they target the elderly. The fraudsters will target anybody who will give them money. This is revenue for them. This is their job. So if they can trick a 25-year-old, they'll trick a 25-year-old.

[00:37:18] Will: Do you believe Maria Duval herself, if she exists and she put her name on this or sold her name or her abilities, is to blame in some part for the scam and all the victims?

[00:37:28] Clayton Gerber: That's a good question. So I, I think there is a woman out there who is purported to be Maria Duval. Sitting here now, I mean I think we, we believe there's a woman out there that, that the perpetrators of this scheme are holding up as the Maria Duval, whether that's her real name or a pseudonym or stage name. Um, is she to blame? I, I think the woman we've identified is um, has held herself out as a psychic, you know, in, in helps police solve murder investigations and things like that over the course of her life. Um, did she um, start this mass mailing uh scheme? I don't think she started it. Did she allow her name to be used? I think she probably allowed her name to be used, received some sort of compensation, otherwise she'd have a pretty good lawsuit for someone using her name or her likeness. Um, so I think she was probably aware, aware to the extent, I don't know, what kind of compensation she got, I don't know. Um, but I think there's a woman out there who, um, you know, they like to hold up. I mean they; the fraudsters have to give, they have to plan for some kind of defense, right? The police are going to come eventually.

[00:38:35] Will: It's really tragic and heartbreaking, I'm sure, as you look into all of these crimes and you mentioned interviewing victims earlier. It must take a toll.

[00:38:45] Clayton Gerber: Um, you, you have to uh enjoy your successes. You have to celebrate your successes because, and you have to have, find humor in what you do, in your day-to-day because it can really become very depressing. Uh, when it became very clear to us that this Maria Duval scheme was 7,000 victims a week, I was jumping up and down screaming saying, "We have to move now!" The end of the week would go by and I would say, "That's 7,000 more victims. We need to move now." And another week would go by as we were trying to tie up loose ends and get all of our paperwork together, and I was like, "That's another 7,000 victims." Uh, we knew it, and we, you know, you, you, again I said it earlier, you know, I think law enforcement needs to look as a goal to stop victimization. Putting people in jail is one thing, but stopping victimization is much more impactful.

(MUSIC SEGUE)

[00:39:40] Will: And Chrissie, whose mother, Doreen, sent thousands of dollars to the psychic scammers and watched her mother deal with shame and embarrassment as her mental health rapidly declined, is left with little consolation today. She remembers her mother's final years of life, caught in a scam. She holds onto hope that Doreen's story will save someone else from falling into the spiral of a scam.

[00:40:02] Chrissie: I'm, hmm, sorry... I suppose a part of me is grateful to have her experience to possibly help somebody else, because I know that my mother would like that. You know if her, if her experience could stop at least one other person going through the same thing, my goodness.

(MUSIC SEGUE)

[00:40:31] Will: So I'm back with the AARP Fraud Watch Network Ambassador, Frank Abagnale. Um, so Maria Duval may or may not be involved. She may be culpable. What do you think?

[00:40:39] Frank Abagnale: She may or may not knew what was going on, or it wasn't important as long as she was getting a monthly check for the royalty to using her name and image. And again, I can see where a scam artist, who sometimes are very legitimate people in the eyes of other people, so they don't want to risk uh, losing uh, a lot of money just because they failed to pay some small amount of money, so they were just covering their bases. If they were going to use this woman's image and her name, which sounded so good and looked so good for the scam, it was worth whatever small amount they had to pay her.

[00:41:08] Will: So the benefit to them, way back when, whenever this all started, uh, is that a legitimate psychic, if you will...

[00:41:16] Frank Abagnale: Great psychic, great sounding name, she existed, uh great image, uh, you know so certainly worth paying for, no question about it.

[00:41:25] Will: Uh, let's talk about the sort of occult, the weird stuff, they started getting messages and emails and following some paths that we talk about a little bit in the episode.

[00:41:34] Frank Abagnale: I felt, I felt that was uh they were, they realized these reporters were investigating whosever really behind this, and that was a way to throw them off the scent, or in just a way to intimidate them a little bit and uh, maybe scare them off a little bit. That was just an effort on the behalf of the scammers to uh to do that.

[00:41:53] Will: I think for a while it worked, they were getting kind of wrapped up in it, and then they realized they needed to kind of get their heads above the water again and come back to reality and move on in one way or another. We also hear from the professor, uh who talks on sort of the psychological component of scams, and also how to talk to family members who might be caught up in a scam, but being gentle, and not just going to them and saying, "Hey, what are you doing? You're throwing all your money away," but saying, "Hey, what is this? You know, can we talk about it?"

[00:42:18] Frank Abagnale: Right, and this is what we've talked about in the past that the reason sometimes seniors are reluctant to tell their loved ones or the police is they're afraid that their loved ones are then going to say, "See, you can't handle your money, you need to let me take over your bank account." And people want to be independent and that's totally understandable.

[00:42:34] Will: That's a really good point.

[00:42:35] Frank Abagnale: And so that's why I think it is important, as I mentioned, when you were growing up as a child your parents looked out for your well-being, and they sometimes got in your personal business as a teenager because that's their job being, not your friend, but your mom and dad. And I think it's the same way it turns around in life, your parents get older, you get older, then it's your time to take care of your parents.

[00:42:56] Will: One piece of advice we've heard that I, I had not considered, but there may be just some little ways of noticing that somebody's hooked into a scam, is that your family member or your loved one, your mother, your father, your grandparents might be buying a lot of stamps? You know, I mean there, there's a little way that you might say...

[00:43:11] Frank Abagnale: Buying a lot of stamps or just uh, you know, starting to do things irrationally, like ordering a lot of things on television that they don't need, and they're just starting ordering, but this is why you need to be in their life. If I, if I don't speak to my parent for uh, three months, I don't know what they're doing, or what could be happening in their life. The only way I know what's happening in their life is to be in their life, just like you want to be in your kids' lives, so you know that when they're young, what they're doing.

[00:43:36] Will: So lots of different ways we can, we can pay attention and from the beginning of this story to the very end, um, what we might call red flags, but uh a lot of mail being delivered to the door to trinkets around the house that they're getting from a psychic scam, stamps, what have you.

[00:43:52] Frank Abagnale: Yeah, and even if you know, in the case of the psychic scam, if I go and then solicit to a psychic that I want the psychic to help me and the psychic says, well there's a $40 fee, and I want to pay that one-time fee, but if I start getting a whole bunch of solicitations from other psychics, or this psychic keeps asking me for more and more money, telling me things that they can do that obviously they can't do, uh that, that again brings up that red flag. That's the time when you need to be able to say, okay, it's time to stop, obviously this is just a scam and they're trying to take my money from me.

[00:44:23] Will: As Frank says, there's two things uh we can look out for. When they ask for money or when they ask for information.

[00:44:28] Frank Abagnale: Right, that's it.

[00:44:29] Will: The AARP Fraud Watch Network Ambassador, Frank Abagnale, thanks again for all of your insight.

[00:44:33] Frank Abagnale: Thanks, Will.

(MUSIC SEGUE)

[00:44:35] Michelle: There is a lot that's still unclear. The real Maria Duval is still out there, likely still in the South of France today. Who would have thought maybe the psychic might have, I don't know, predicted how whatever deal she claims to have made for name would have turned out? But that's her story and she's sticking to it. How she feels about all this now remains as murky as the operation that made this enormous scam possible. It's over now. But I hope you like these episodes from deep on The Perfect Scam archives, and don't you go anywhere, because we are back with brand new episodes and more scams than you ever dreamed possible on July 24th. See you then.

(MUSIC SEGUE)

END OF TRANSCRIPT
Roncalli suffers 7-6 overtime loss to Beresford in quarterfinals

After earning their first playoff win in 30 years, Beresfords 7-6 triumph in overtime sends them to the 11B semifinals.
NEW YORK  Who knew connecting the world could get so complicated? Perhaps some of technologys brightest minds should have seen that coming.

Social media bans of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones have thrust Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and others into a role they never wanted  as gatekeepers of discourse on their platforms, deciding what should and shouldnt be allowed and often angering almost everyone in the process. Jones, a right-wing provocateur, suddenly found himself banned from most major social platforms this week, after years in which he was free to use them to promulgate a variety of false claims.

Twitter, which one of its executives once called the free speech wing of the free speech party, remains a lonely holdout on Jones. The resulting backlash suggests that no matter what the tech companies do, there is no way they can please everyone, as Scott Shackelford, a business law and ethics professor at Indiana University, observed.

Facebooks Mark Zuckerberg, Twitters Jack Dorsey and crew, and Googles stewards of YouTube gave little thought to such consequences as they built their empires with lofty goals to connect the world and democratize discourse. At the time, they were the rebels aiming to bypass the stodgy old gatekeepers  newspaper editors, television programmers and other establishment types  and let people talk directly to one another.

If you go back a decade or so, the whole idea of speech on social media was seen as highly positive light, said Tim Cigelske, who teaches social media at Marquette University in Wisconsin. There was the Arab Spring. There were stories of gay, lesbian and transgender teens from small towns finding support online.

At the same time, of course, the companies were racing to build the largest audiences possible, slice and dice their user data and make big profits by turning that information into lucrative targeted advertisements.

The dark side of untrammeled discourse, the thinking went, would sort itself out as online communities moderated themselves, aided by fast-evolving computer algorithms and, eventually, artificial intelligence.

They scaled, they built, they wanted to drive revenue as well as user base, said technology analyst Tim Bajarin, president of consultancy Creative Strategies. That was priority one and controlling content was priority two. It should have been the other way around.

That all got dicier once the election of President Donald Trump focused new attention on fake news and organized misinformation campaigns  not to mention the fact that some of the people grabbing these new social-media megaphones were wild conspiracy theorists who falsely call mass shootings hoaxes, white nationalists who organize violent rallies and men who threaten women with rape and murder.

While the platforms may not have anticipated the influx of hate speech and meddling from foreign powers like Russia, North Korea and China, Bajarin said, they should have acted more quickly once they found it. The fact is were dealing with a brave new world that theyve allowed to happen, and they need to take more control to keep it from spreading, he said.

Thats easier said than done, of course. But its particularly difficult for huge tech companies to balance public goods such free speech with the need to protect their users from harassment, abuse, fake news and manipulation. Especially given that their business models require them to alienate as few of their users as possible, lest they put the flood of advertising money at risk.

Trying to piece together a framework for speech that works for everyone  and making sure we effectively enforce that framework  is challenging, wrote Richard Allan, Facebooks vice president of policy, in a blog post Thursday. Every policy we have is grounded in three core principles: giving people a voice, keeping people safe, and treating people equitably. The frustrations we hear about our policies  outside and internally as well  come from the inevitable tension between these three principles.

Such tensions force some of the largest corporations in the world to decide, for instance, if banning Nazis also means banning white nationalists  and to figure out how to tell them apart if not. Or whether kicking off Jones means they need to ban all purveyors of false conspiracy theories. Or whether racist comments should be allowed if they are posted, to make a point, by the people who received them.

I dont think the platforms in their heart of hearts would like to keep Alex Jones on, said Nathaniel Persily, a professor at Stanford Law School. But its difficult to come up with a principle to say why Alex Jones and not others would be removed.

While most companies have policies against hate speech, defining what constitutes hate speech can be difficult, he added. Even governments have trouble with it. One countrys free speech is another countrys hate speech, punishable by jail time.

Facebook, Twitter, Google, Reddit and others face these questions millions of times a day, as human moderators and algorithms decide which posts, which people, which photos or videos to allow, to kick off or simply make less visible and harder to find. If they allow too much harmful content, they risk losing users and advertisers. If they go too far and remove too much, they face charges of censorship and ideological bias.

My sense is that they are throwing everything at the wall and seeing what sticks, Persily said. Its a whack-a-mole problem. Its not the same threats that are continuing, and they have to be nimble enough to deal with new problems.

___

AP Technology Writer Mae Anderson contributed to this story.
WASHINGTON  Confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh will begin the day after Labor Day, Republicans said, sparking Democratic objections that they are rushing the process without properly delving into his background.

The announcement Friday came amid the release of new documents from Kavanaughs time on the Kenneth Starr team investigating Bill Clinton. The records reveal his resistance to issuing an indictment of a sitting president.

On Christmas Eve 1998, Kavanaugh drafted an Overall Plan to colleagues providing his thoughts on bringing the independent counsel offices work to a close and suggesting they inform the attorney general that the findings against Clinton be left to the next president.

We believe an indictment should not be pursued while the President is in Office, Kavanaugh wrote.

The memo, tucked toward the end of nearly 10,000 pages, provides greater insight into Kavanaughs views on executive power that are expected to feature prominently in the Senate confirmation hearings. Democrats have warned that Kavanaugh may be unwilling to protect special counsel Robert Muellers ongoing probe of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he hopes to have President Donald Trumps nominee confirmed to replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy before the new court session begins Oct. 1.

Were moving right along, McConnell said during a radio interview in Kentucky ahead of the announcement. Hell get confirmed. It wont be a landslide, but hell get confirmed.

The Judiciary Committee will hold up to four days of review, with Kavanaugh to begin facing questions on Day 2, Sept. 5, said committee chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley. Kavanaughs appearance will be followed by testimony from legal experts and people who know the judge.

The White House, which is determined to have Kavanaugh confirmed before the November elections as Republicans aim to deliver on Trumps priorities, applauded the schedule announcement. But Democrats want access to more documents from Kavanaughs past as a judge and as an official in the George W. Bush administration.

Grassley, R-Iowa, said theres plenty of time to review documents but now its time for Americans to hear directly from Kavanaugh.

Hes a mainstream judge, Grassley said. He has a record of judicial independence and applying the law as it is written.

So far, the committee has made public Kavanaughs 17,000-page questionnaire and his more than 300 court cases as an appellate judge. The panel has additionally received 174,000 pages from his work for Bush in the White House counsels office.

The new documents Friday provide a glimpse into Kavanaughs years on the Starr team shuttling back and forth to Little Rock for investigative purposes. He co-wrote a detailed, nearly 300-page memo on deputy White House counsel Vince Fosters suicide.

Hundreds of pages in the Starr files are grand jury proceedings that are redacted. Meanwhile, most of the White House records related to Kavanaugh are being held on a committee confidential basis, with just 5,700 pages from his White House years released this week to the public.

Democrats say the Republicans are relying on the cherry-picked files being released primarily by Bushs lawyer, Bill Burck, who is compiling and vetting the documents, rather than the traditional process conducted by the National Archives and Records Administration.

The Archives has said its review of some 1 million pages of Kavanaugh records the committee requested will not be fully available until the end of October. The Archives produced the Starr files.

The top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, said scheduling the hearing before the documents are ready is not only unprecedented but a new low in Republican efforts to stack the courts.

She said, Its clear that Republicans want to speed this nomination through before we know who Brett Kavanaugh is.

Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice, called it jaw-dropping.

It means that the chairman is telling the American people that this hearing is barreling forward, no matter what, no matter how little information is available to the Senate and public or how many shortcuts the committee has to take, she said.

The White House on Friday welcomed the news of a set date for confirmation hearings.

With the Senate already reviewing more documents than for any other Supreme Court nominee in history, Chairman Grassley has lived up to his promise to lead an open, transparent and fair process, said White House spokesman Raj Shah. Judge Kavanaugh looks forward to addressing the Judiciary Committee in public hearings for the American people to view.

Kavanaugh, 53, is a conservative who could tip the courts balance for a generation and play a decisive role on issues like abortion access, gay marriage and executive branch oversight.

He has met privately with almost all the Republican senators and one Democrat as supporters try to build momentum for confirmation.

Because his career has largely been spent in public service, Kavanaugh has an unusually voluminous paper trail. Democrats are particularly pushing for access to his three years as staff secretary for Bush, but Republicans are not including those documents in the review.

GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah said they are conducting the most thorough vetting process for a nominee in the history of the Supreme Court.

Edwin Meese, the former attorney general to President Ronald Reagan, said, Democratic senators have the time and they have the material. They have no excuse to obstruct his prompt confirmation.

___

Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report.
SANTA FE  The wife of a Santa Fe real estate firm executive saw her husband fighting with an unknown man outside their home late last month before the assailant fatally shot her husband, according to a police search warrant affidavit.

Robert J. Romero, 52, was shot outside his home on Las Casitas, near Herb Martinez Park, around 2 a.m. July 30 before the shooter fled the scene. Romero, the comptroller and chief financial officer for Barker Realty and the father of two, died at the hospital. On Friday Santa Fe Police spokesman Greg Gurule said theres no new information to release on the case.

A search warrant affidavit filed this week in Santa Fe District Court says Romeros daughter called 911 and said her father had been shot and there was an intruder in their home. Officers got there and saw Romero lying in the backyard with what appeared to be a gunshot wound on the left side of his chest.

Romeros wife told police that she awoke to her husband screaming her name multiple times from downstairs. She ran downstairs and proceeded to go outside and observed her husband to be in a struggle with an unknown person in the backyard, the affidavit says. She said the man was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt.

The woman said she heard a gunshot as she was going back inside and yelled for her daughter to call 911. She returned outside and saw her husband on the ground.

After Romero was taken to the hospital, his wife also found a pair of glasses in the backyard that she said didnt belong to anyone in her family.

A single shell casing from a .357 magnum was found in the back yard. Police also took two bats and a fire poker from the home in addition to several other items.
Heres an idea. Instead of turning our schools into fortresses to try to prevent the next school shooting, how about we do more than just that? As we contemplate adding metal detectors and bulletproof safe rooms to schools, how about we try an additional approach as well?

How about setting up dedicated lines of communication within schools so students, teachers and staff can confidently share what they know about troubled kids and get them the attention they need.

In most cases school shootings are carried out by angry current or former students. And who is in the best position to observe these disturbed kids? Other kids, of course! If Sebastian overhears his classmate Luke incessantly talking about guns or if Ruby knows Owen is talking about his romantic heartbreak and suicide, shouldnt we give these kids a fast and safe way to relay that information?

This common sense concept is at the center of a new plan from the National Threat Assessment Center at the U.S. Secret Service which recently issued an 8-step guide for safer schools. The plan has been described as, one of the most explicit pieces of literature to come out of the Trump administration on how to prevent targeted attacks.

The guidelines encourage administrators to establish an atmosphere where students can make reports about the disturbing behavior of their classmates without feeling like a snitch. The incoming reports would be assessed by a specially trained threat assessment team of adults, which includes education, mental health and law enforcement professionals. This team would be dedicated to talking with  and seriously listening to  students. Their goal: to build trust and break down the codes of silence so many teens follow. The federal plans suggestions include setting up an online tip form, a dedicated telephone hotline and/or designing a Smartphone app to accept reports about worrisome behaviors.

Theres no magic wand that will unmask potential school shooters, of course, but if a student sees a classmate has posted a disturbing message on social media or a teacher suddenly notices a student isnt completing homework and has withdrawn they can use one of these new lines of communication to instantly alert the threat assessment team.

If the reported threat is found to be a one-time occurrence, light disciplinary action and a note home to parents might suffice. But if the threat is more serious or a repeat of past bad behavior then the threat assessment team might direct the student to psychological therapy or special tutoring. If the team decides the threat is a real and credible danger to the school they would call in law enforcement.

This kind of system has been in effect in Los Angeles County since 2009. Dr. Tony Beliz set the program in motion and stresses that it is not just about confronting high-risk kids. It also has to be about really engaging with them and staying in touch well after the first contact.

When we focus on the fact that were trying to help them get on with their life versus drilling them every day about whether you have a weapon, are you going to shoot somebody today, and we talk about the issues beneath that, they get better, they see some hope, Dr. Beliz said.

School shooters like Nikolas Cruz, who attended Floridas Stoneman Douglas High but was involuntarily transferred to an alternative school for students with special needs, was well known as a kid with severe emotional and anger issues. He had been diagnosed as disruptive, explosive and impulsive at the age of 5. Somehow, Cruzs long-standing behavior intervention plan was discontinued as he approached his high school graduation. On Valentines Day 2018, he returned to Stoneman Douglas High and shot dead 17 students and teachers in one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history. Cruzs classmates said they were not surprised when he was identified as the killer.

Could this newly proposed road map to safer schools have prevented Cruzs rampage? Who knows for sure, but it might have helped if only one person had expressed genuine concern about his deteriorating behavior.

Were in a summertime lull right now, but schools will be back in session soon, targets for disturbed minds once again. We can continue on the singular path of hardening our schools against attack or we can add a completely different course of action. One that focuses on tending to the young minds inside the school, directing the troubled ones to support services that can help them  and may avert a tragedy.

Everyone says they want to help students feel safer in school. Toward that goal we need to try every reasonable suggestion. Each school district across America should try to implement these new Secret Service suggestions  immediately  before the new school year begins.

Diane@DianeDimond.com.
Copyright  2018 Albuquerque Journal

Albuquerque Public Schools is asking a judge to decide whether the state Public Education Department is overstepping its authority, breaking the law and acting unconstitutionally in how it has been handling Hawthorne Elementary Schools plans for improvement.

In an appeal filed Aug. 3, the district says Secretary-designate Christopher Ruszkowskis decisions on Hawthorne, which included possible closure due to six consecutive F school grades, were contrary to law.

After months of back and forth negotiations between PED and APS, the district is appealing PEDs resolve on Hawthorne, specifically pointing to an email dated July 6 in which Ruszkowski reinforced that APS Superintendent Raquel Reedy had to agree to Hawthornes improvement plan and all its conditions, including possible closure.

APS is requesting that next steps at the school pause until a judge makes a decision.

Hawthorne was one of three APS schools that required more rigorous intervention due to their strings of low grades. APS submitted plans for all three; PED approved two of them while rejecting Hawthornes, insisting on a clause that says it could close. Hawthorne has opened this year with several reforms in place, including a longer school year and longer school day.

APS argues 10 points in its appeal, filed in state District Court in Santa Fe, that say Ruszkowskis conditions for the school, requirements on the district and its threats of closure were outside the bounds of what PED can do.

In response, PED told the Journal that it is the departments job to put the state Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan into effect.

It is common knowledge that New Mexico has the top-rated State Plan in the nation under ESSA  and it is our duty to implement it in full  both the letter and the spirt (sic) of it, Ruszkowski wrote in the statement.

And PED argues APS would not have tried to improve Hawthorne if PED hadnt stepped in.

The simple act of telling the truth and putting students first has already prompted change for the community  what would have happened if NMPED did nothing last year? If history is any indicator, nothing, the statement says.

No legal authority

APS appeal says PED is breaching its own ESSA plan by requiring the district to proceed with a different improvement plan than the district designated. It also calls into question whether the plan can even be enforced. The appeal contends that PEDs ESSA state plan did not go through the process required by state agencies when proposing a new Rule and it was not filed with the state records center.

The Secretary lacks legal authority to enforce the Plan because it is neither a statute nor a rule, the appeal states.

The appeal further claims state statutes do not contain any grant of authority to the Secretary or PED by the New Mexico Legislature which would permit the closure of a school.

Reedy has been adamant that she will not sign anything that calls for closing Hawthorne.

When PED denied Hawthornes redesign plans  while it approved nearly identical restructuring plans for the other two MRI schools  the state department required the district to inform parents about higher-performing schools and facilitate any desired transfers, an option known as champion and provide choice.

Violates state plan?

But the appeal says that requiring a different course of action for Hawthorne violates PEDs ESSA state plan.

The Plan calls for the school districts, not PED, to designate the chosen MRI, the appeal says.

The Every Student Succeeds Act is an Obama-era national education law that allowed state educational agencies like PED to develop consolidated plans. New Mexicos was approved in 2017 by the U.S. Department of Education.

The court document goes on to say the MRI process overall isnt in accordance with the state Constitutions requirement to have a uniform public schools system.

By its very nature, the MRI designation does not provide for uniform treatment of New Mexico public schools. The MRI designation, instead, provides for more rigorous treatment of a select set of public schools, it says.

The appeal references a lawsuit and preliminary injunction on teacher evaluations, too.

Since the injunction bars teacher evaluations from being used for negative consequences, the appeal says complying with PEDs initial condition to staff the MRI school with teachers based on their evaluation rankings would lead to violating the injunction and it also states the school grading system uses the same measures the injunction addressed.

PED wrote in its statement that APS should focus on giving students access to better schools, top-performing teachers and $2 million more in resources.

But instead of embracing change and opportunity, APS is blocking its own students from getting everything they deserve, the statement concludes.

PED has up to 30 days to give an official response to the appeal.

School grades are expected later this month, which PED says it is waiting for before declaring its next steps at the school.
The school year begins next week for most students in New Mexico, but, in the town of Estancia, a 10-year-old boy will stay home, reluctantly, relegated from his classmates because of a rare neuropsychological condition that his mother says can be quelled only with the use of medical marijuana  and thats not allowed on campus.

Now, neither is his mother.

But Tisha Brick is not giving up on getting her son the medication, education and socialization he needs. She has filed a complaint against the Estancia Municipal School District, claiming school officials have prohibited her son, Anthony, from using medical marijuana on campus and have retaliated against them as a result.

A six-day due process hearing before a state Department of Education hearing officer begins Aug. 20 in Estancia.

Brick joins the parents around the country for whom medical marijuana has been both a salvation for their sick children and a struggle, because its use is often in conflict with state and federal laws.

In New Mexico, medical marijuana is legal but prohibited in certain locations, including school grounds.

The school shouldnt be putting parents through this for our children, Brick said. If they had just sat down and worked with me, we wouldnt be here now.

She describes her son as smart and high functioning at times, but, as a toddler, he began showing signs of developmental delays. He had bouts of psychosis, mood swings, lengthy tantrums, hand tremors. After years of trial and error, evaluations, hospitalizations and heartbreak, Anthony was given a complex diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, sensory integration disorder and a form of schizophrenia that is especially rare and severe in children.

It was really, really a hellish journey, Brick said. Weve been through every hospital, agency, evaluator, psychologist, psychiatrist in the state and tried all kinds of medications that left him not functional, his head down all day. I was desperate to find a way for this kid to live. There had to be a way.

Under a doctors care in 2015, Anthony began treatment using a combination of medical marijuana and CBD oil and was stabilized enough to attend Estancia Elementary School as a second-grader.

For the first time, his mother said, he had friends.

It was such a breakthrough, such a joy to see him blossom, she said.

The school allowed her to administer the medical marijuana on campus, she said. In March 2017, the schools principal, social worker, occupational therapist and speech and language pathologist signed a note stating that Anthony had exhibited such significant positive changes as a result of the medical marijuana that they agreed it was integral to his ability to access learning opportunities and function appropriately in school.

But when new principal Mindy Lingnau took over in fall 2017, things changed. Brick said it appeared the team effort to work with her and her son was broken. Worst of all, Anthony was no longer allowed to receive medical marijuana on campus.

Without his medication to keep him stabilized, Brick said, she was forced to stop sending Anthony to school, beginning Nov. 14.

What choice did I have? she said. This kid did nothing wrong. He shouldnt have been completely flushed from the system.

Brick began writing lengthy emails to Lingnau and others, trying to remedy what in one of the emails she described as a difference in personalities, fear of change, inexperience and change of position/district.

But in a Jan. 23 letter to Brick, Estancia School Superintendent Joel Shirley called the emails hostile and voluminous and accused her of making threats and being offensive to Lingnau and other staff  claims Brick denies.

Bricks emails to school officials were also blocked, and she was banned from campus.

When she continued to refuse to return Anthony to school, the state Children, Youth and Families Department was called in to investigate her for neglecting Anthony and failing to feed him enough. Those allegations were unsubstantiated, according to a Feb. 7 letter from CYFD.

Shirley, contacted this week, said he and other school officials are prohibited under privacy laws from commenting on the Brick case, hinting that there is more to it than it appears.

Shirley also said that he is obligated to follow state law. And because federal law still classifies all marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, schools are at risk of losing Title 1 funding and U.S. Department of Agriculture funding for school lunches if found in violation of drug-free requirements.

Shirley said he takes no issue with medical marijuana itself, provided it is prescribed by a doctor.

Im more than happy to talk to legislators from my end as an educator, he said. With all the reading Ive done on the subject, a common sense approach to this is needed, because this isnt going away.

And neither is Brick.

Because of her limited resources, she is serving as her own attorney at the due process hearing, and invites the public to attend.

Depending on the outcome, she intends to file a lawsuit against the school district and continue the fight, not just for her son, but all children for whom medical marijuana is a lifeline.

We didnt do anything wrong to deserve to be booted from that school, she said. This is my only avenue to fight for Anthony, because no one else is.

UpFront is a front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Joline at 823-3603, jkrueger@abqjournal.com or follow her on Twitter @jolinegkg. Go to www.abqjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.

Public hearing

The public is invited to attend the due process hearing, begins 8:30 a.m. daily Aug. 20-25, Estancia Municipal School District, 709 Hopewell, Estancia.
SANTA FE  In the latest twist in an ongoing legal tug-of-war, state Auditor Wayne Johnson said Friday he is ordering a special audit to look into the finances of New Mexicos high-risk insurance pool over a recent five-year period.

The announcement escalates a dispute between the State Auditors office and the high-risk pool, which provides health care coverage to roughly 2,400 people, over whether the pool meets the definition of a state agency.

In a Friday letter to the chairman of the pools board, Johnson cited a 2016 audit commissioned by the pools board that refers to a federal tax exemption for governmental bodies.

It is disingenuous for the (pool) to claim on one hand that it is an instrumentality of the state for purposes of the IRS code, while claiming it is not an instrumentality of the state for purposes of the transparency that the New Mexico Audit Act provides for public expenditures, wrote Johnson, a Republican who was appointed auditor last year by Gov. Susana Martinez.

The high-risk insurance pool assists New Mexico residents who do not have insurance or have been quoted at higher rates than the pools rate. Its enrollment has decreased significantly since the enactment of the Affordable Care Act but it still covers more than 2,000 people, many of whom are kidney dialysis patients.

The insurance pools contract attorney has insisted the pool does not meet the definition of a state agency and recently described it as a nonprofit entity made up of private business members.

Kristina Campbell, the pools deputy director, said Friday she had not yet heard about the special audit and could not comment on it.

While the insurance pool has balked at giving the state auditor the authority to inspect its finances, the pools past financial audits dating back to 2007 were posted online last month after the Journal reported on the legal dispute.

But the State Auditors office has said those audits fall short from whats required for agencies under state law.

In his Friday letter, Johnson instructed the insurance pool to start work toward hiring an outside auditor to conduct the special audit by Aug. 25. The pool will also have to foot the bill for the special audit, which would examine the pools finances and transactions from 2013 through 2017.

Meanwhile, the disagreement over the insurance pools status also has a political backdrop.

Delta Consulting, a health care consulting company that Democratic gubernatorial nominee Michelle Lujan Grisham co-founded in 2008, has repeatedly landed contracts to help run the pool.

Lujan Grisham divested herself from Delta Consulting last year after announcing her run for governor. She has said she played no role in the companys day-to-day operations since being elected to Congress in 2012.

For his part, Johnson is running for election to a four-year term as auditor this year. He will face Democrat Brian Colon in the November general election.
EAST ORANGE, N.J.  Marla L. Andrews put on her glasses, held the small plastic bag close and strained to see the gold ring inside.

Her vision is poor, and the opaque bag made it impossible for her to see the inscription on the inner surface of the ring: P.D., a heart with an arrow through it, and L.E.D. 5-31-43.

P.D. was her mother, Phyllis Dickson. L.E.D. was her father, the World War II Tuskegee fighter pilot, Capt. Lawrence E. Dickson. May 31, 1943, was his 23rd birthday.

Thursday afternoon Andrews, 76, sat in her living room here and struggled to make out the artifact that had just become a piece of her history, and that of the United States.

Last month, the Defense Department announced that it had accounted for Dickson, among more than two dozen black aviators known as Tuskegee Airmen who were still missing from World War II.

Dickson, who had trained at the Tuskegee Army Flying School, was 24 when he crashed in mountainous southern Austria on Dec. 23, 1944, while on an escort mission.

Seventy-three years later, his ring was found in the dirt by a University of New Orleans graduate student, Titus Firmin, during a dig last summer at the crash site near Hohenthurn.

Charred remains and other small personal items were also found, along with parts of the airplane.

On Thursday, Michael Mee, the identifications chief for the Armys Past Conflict Repatriations Branch, presented Andrews with the ring and a formal report on how her father was accounted for.

Andrews sat in a black skirt and colored blouse, wearing gold hoop earrings and holding a tissue and a black marker.

The 14-karat Art Deco ring was a prize, the physical link to a man Andrews barely knew, and to a different life that might have been, had he come home.

There had been talk for months that a ring had been found during the dig. Now, here it was, encased in bubble wrap, inside a larger plastic bag that Mee pulled from his black briefcase.

This is the ring, he said.

Wow, guys, she said quietly.

Want me to take it out for you? Mee asked, referring to the plastic bag.

No, she said.

(She said later she didnt want to remove it because she wasnt ready.)

The excavation had also found the rings aqua-colored stone, which had broken loose and was in a separate bag. Andrews said her mother had loved the color aqua, and she guessed that her mother had bought the ring for her fathers birthday.

Mee also turned over a small remnant of a harmonica that was found at the crash site, and a small cross.

Capt. Dickson had loved music. He had taught himself to play the guitar and had taken an electric guitar with him when he went overseas. It was never returned to his family after his death, according to his records.

Mee, who was accompanied by Army Maj. Phillip Richardson, explained how the scientific identification was made.

DNA had been extracted from arm and leg bone fragments found at the crash site and matched with DNA from Andrews, a nephew and a distant cousin the Army had found but whom Andrews had never heard of.

The report contained pictures of the pieces of Capt. Dicksons ribs, hands, spine, arms and legs recovered from the site. Highly fragmented, small quantity of remains, Mee said.

Andrews, who sat on a floral-patterned couch, looked somber when Mee explained that some of her fathers bone fragments were charred from the planes crash.

These were perimortem injuries, which happened at or near the time of death, he said.

Some of the remains are blackened, Mee told her. There was a fire. The aircraft caught fire. . . . This is very typical of an aircraft accident.

Capt. Dickson, of the 100th Fighter Squadron, was among the more than 900 black pilots who were trained at the segregated Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama during the war.

They were African-American men from all over the country who fought racism and oppression at home and enemy pilots and antiaircraft gunners overseas.

More than 400 served in combat, flying patrol and strafing missions, and escorting bombers from bases in North Africa and Italy. The tail sections of their fighter planes were painted a distinctive red.

The dig was conducted by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the University of New Orleans, and the University of Austria at Innsbruck, with help from the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.

There are 26 Tuskegee Airmen still missing from the war.

Lawrence Dickson had married Phyllis Constance Maillard in November 1941. (She remarried and died Dec. 28, 2017, in Nevada at the age of 96.) The couple lived in New York City. Marla was born July 14, 1942, in Harlems old Sydenham Hospital.

Two days before Christmas 1944, Dickson took off from his base in Italy, in a P-51D Mustang nicknamed Peggin, headed for Nazi-occupied Prague.

He was on his 68th mission and had already been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for meritorious service.

He was leading a three-Mustang escort of a fast but unarmed photo reconnaissance plane, according to the account of a wingman, 2nd Lt. Robert L. Martin, many years later.

(Martin died July 26 at the age of 99 at his home in Olympia Fields, Illinois)

The four planes headed over the mountains for Prague. About an hour into the trip, Dickson radioed that he was having engine trouble and began losing speed.

His wingmen stayed with him as he dropped back. The twin-engine reconnaissance plane sped on and was soon out of sight.

Dickson decided to turn for home in his crippled plane, and his buddies stuck with him.

He looked for a spot to land or bail out. Martin saw him jettison the canopy of his cockpit before bailing out, but then he lost sight of the airplane.

The two wingmen circled, looking for a parachute, a column of smoke or burning wreckage. There was nothing but an empty, snow-covered valley.

After the war, the Army searched for Dickson in northern Italy, where Martin thought he went down. Other crashed planes and remains were found, but not his.

In 1949, the Army recommended that his remains be declared nonrecoverable.

Last August, Andrews got a phone call at her home from the Past Conflict Repatriations Branch, saying experts, armed with new data on the crash location, were investigating her fathers case anew.

On Thursday, Mee said the captains remains, now in a laboratory in Nebraska, would be placed in a coffin, and wrapped in a traditional Army blanket fastened with a large safety pin.

Andrews said she would like her father to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Mee said it might be possible for the modern 100th Fighter Squadron, with the tails of its jets painted red, to make a flyover at the funeral.
The Travel and Tourism industry has today become pivotal to the overall economic growth of India. It accounts for approximately 7% of our GDP and is the third largest foreign exchange earner for the country. We are ranked 7th among 184 countries in terms of travel and tourisms total contribution to GDP. In 2016, India had approximately 9 million foreign tourist arrivals (FTAs), registering an annual growth of 5.2 per cent over the previous year; by 2025, FTAs are expected to reach 15.3 million. Our Hotel industry has grown almost 2.5 times over the last 10 years, currently amounting to approximately 123,000 rooms.

These numbers are indeed all very encouraging and have been made possible owing to some key trends that have paved the way for the industry to grow and evolve into its current state. At InterGlobe, we have been well entrenched to have effected some of these changes and have made concerted, institutional investments for the long term and continue to believe very strongly in the potential of the industry.

Lets look at four of these key trends:

Growth of Hotels in the Mid-Segment: Today, almost 50% of the existing inventory of organized hotel rooms in India is represented by this segment; by 2022, this number is expected to rise to almost 60%. At InterGlobe hotels we have been an active part of this journey with the first of our 16 Ibis hotels opening back in 2008. Over the last 10 years our portfolio has grown at an impressive compounded rate of 33% per annum and we are committed to continue adding new properties in key locations across the country.

Introduction of Low Cost Carriers (LCC): The historic and future growth of our industry may be directly correlated to air travel within India as well as overseas becoming affordable and within reach of the Indian Middle Class. LCCs today dominate the Indian Aviation space and InterGlobe has once again been at the helm of this change. Air travel today has opened doors to so many more locations within the country leading to Indians travelling far more within India than ever before.

Growth of the Indian Middle Class and Domestic Tourism: The size of the Indian middle class today stands at approximately 300 million and is projected to reach 550 million by 2025. The liberalization of our economy in the mid-2000s led to an influx several multinational setups and new companies which in turn boosted disposable income amongst Indias young working class. The Indian traveler today, is consequently far more discerning, well-travelled and familiar with international hotel brands. Domestic tourism in India today is at an all-time high and its contribution to the growth our industry has and will continue to be immense.

Technology, Digitization, Social Media: Technology has evolved leaps and bounds and is perhaps one of the key catalysts for effecting change across multiple industries. For us specifically, it has provided us with the power of significantly increasing distribution as well us enabling closer engagement with our customers through Social Media platforms.

All in all, our industry is poised for aggressive growth over the long term. While there may be several other factors which have and will continue to effect change to Travel and Tourism, these four and likely to be key to most developments. At InterGlobe Hotels, we will continue to our strong growth focus as well as continue to evolve ourselves both from a product as well as a customer standpoint in everything that we do.

(The Author is Shwetank Singh. He is Vice President - Development & Asset Management - InterGlobe Hotels).
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One person was killed and another injured in an early-morning crash in Homewood.

The accident happened about 2:30 a.m. Saturday on U.S. 31 northbound just past Brookwood Baptist Medical Center. According to authorities, a motorist struck another vehicle and then veered off the roadway and into a ravine near the exit ramp to Lakeshore Parkway.

Police said the vehicle then caught on a fire. The victim, believed to be a male, was pronounce dead on the scene. The motorist in the other vehicle was transported to the hospital with injuries that aren't life-threatening.

The crash shut down both sides of U.S. 31 for at least six hours and traffic in both directions was being diverted, but the road is now reopened It remains under investigation by Alabama State Troopers. Homewood police assisted troopers with the scene.
NASA delayed Saturday morning's pre-dawn launch of the Parker Solar Probe and will try again early Sunday morning.

The probe was scheduled to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Fla., aboard a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket made in Decatur. It is named for 91-year-old Eugene Parker, who first described the stream of particles flowing from the sun now called the solar wind.

In a brief statement, NASA said the launch was delayed due to "a violation of a launch limit, resulting in a hold. There was not enough time remaining in the window to recycle." Launch controllers will try again Sunday at 2:31 a.m. CDT with a 60 percent chance of favorable weather.
This is an opinion column.

Money is the poison in our politics.

That's the sort of thing everyone believes they understand but then dismisses with a scoff or a shrug. We haven't grown accustomed to this truth so much as we've learned not to think about it. Like a kid eating a hot dog, maybe you think life is better if you don't know what's in there.

But politics affects every aspect of our lives.

From the moment you're born, politics sets the odds you will live to see your first birthday. It determines whether you will have a good school, a safe neighborhood or affordable college. It affects whom you may marry, whether or not you can afford a doctor, and whether your child might have to fight and die in a war. And when they put you in the ground, politics will be there with a handful of dirt to throw on your grave.

Politics is in the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe.

If our politics are poisoned, all those things are poisoned, too.

This is not a metaphor. For people living in north Birmingham and Tarrant, it's as real as the toxic dirt under their feet.

When the EPA tried to clean that soil of poisons, the Drummond Co. feared the EPA would saddle it with the cleanup costs. Instead of paying those costs, the company, through its law firm, Balch & Bingham, paid state Rep. Oliver Robinson to use his office to pressure environmental regulators and to convince people in those neighborhoods not to let the EPA test their soil for toxins.

Last month, a jury in Birmingham convicted Drummond Co. vice president David Roberson and Balch & Bingham lawyer Joel Gilbert of bribing former state Rep. Oliver Robinson, who had already pleaded guilty.

The contract with Robinson, prosecutors said, was the bribe. That was their crime.

But Robinson wasn't the only one taking money from Drummond and Balch. Many others have, too. The difference is their money came in the form of campaign contributions.

Since 2012, Drummond has contributed more than $1.7 million to state political action committees and campaigns, and it has given more than $1 million to PACs and candidates in federal races -- including every member of Alabama's current DC delegation except Doug Jones.

Together, that money has made Drummond the second-largest individual donor in Alabama. Only the Poarch Band of Creek Indians has given more.

The defendants' attack against the EPA involved every level of government -- state, local and federal -- and it got that help because of the money Drummond poured into this ecosystem.

When Attorney General Jeff Sessions was still Sen. Jeff Sessions, Drummond was his campaign committee's third largest donor. Balch was second.

And Sessions was there for them when they needed him.

Records from the trial show Sessions' office worked closely with Drummond and Balch lawyers to thwart the EPA. An aid on his staff, Brandon Middleton, was in constant contact with Gilbert, and he arranged for Sessions to sign a letter to the EPA -- a letter Gilbert and Robertson helped write. EPA officials have said they were taken aback by how forcefully Sessions' office fought the project in north Birmingham.

Similarly, Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange wrote letters to the EPA, pushing back against their efforts in north Birmingham and Tarrant. Around the time Strange sent those two letters, he received two $25,000 donations from Drummond.

Former Gov. Robert Bentley's campaign received $75,000. His office pressured the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, among others, to resist the EPA.

If you think this latest scandal might have made politicians wary of Drummond's money, think again. Gov. Kay Ivey has accepted $35,000 from Drummond -- after this scandal broke last year.

That's just the money we can trace. Most of Drummond's donations go through PACs.

The trial also revealed how Drummond's influence went beyond politicians.

Gilbert and Roberson solicited help fighting the EPA from the Birmingham Business Alliance and the Business Council of Alabama, and they persuaded other businesses to provide money the defendants then used to pay Robinson's bribes.

When the jury convicted the defendants, Drummond did not express any contrition or remorse. Instead, the company said it was disappointed in the verdict, defended Roberson and cast blame on Balch.

"As testimony in the trial showed, we were assured the firm's community outreach efforts on our behalf were legal and proper," the company said in a press release.

Indeed, that was the testimony. The jury just didn't believe it.

Instead, those jurors sent a message: Quit dumping poison into our politics.

But that message hasn't gotten across.

Luckily, for the rest of us, Drummond's political poison has an antidote.

If you are a business, do not help anymore in their efforts.

If you are a charity, do not accept their donations.

If you are a politician, do not take their contributions.

If you are a voter, do not trust candidates who do.

Treat their money like the poison it is.

Kyle Whitmire is the state political columnist for the Alabama Media Group.

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As Alabama's children return to school, safety is on the minds of many school officials. Districts across the state used the summer months to add security upgrades to their schools and train teachers and school personnel in new ways of keeping students safe.

"There's more interest in school safety than anything I've seen in probably 20 years," Alabama Superintendent Eric Mackey said.

The intense focus on school safety comes in the wake of the tragic Valentine's Day shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., where a former student killed 17 students and staff. Weeks later, on May 18, a student killed 10 students and staff at Santa Fe High School in Texas.

Though Alabama lawmakers were unable to agree on new laws aimed at improving school safety, they did open up funding earmarked for school technology to be used for school security measures. That $41 million was divided among 137 school districts based on enrollment, with amounts for districts ranging from $24,800 in Linden City Schools to $2.9 million in Mobile County.

Alabama Superintendent Eric Mackey has to sign off on district requests to spend that money. Mackey said districts are spending that money on locks and cameras and other things to secure school campuses. "We are getting requests on those every day," he said.

In addition to building upgrades, Mackey said school officials are asking for help implementing threat assessment programs, which means training for counselors and teachers to identify students who may pose a threat to themselves or others at school. Mental health services are a big part of keeping schools and students safe, he said, and districts are interested in adding those services for students.

Education officials statewide have said having a school resource officer, or SRO, on a campus is a good way to keep students safe, but that costs money that some school districts just don't have. Local law enforcement, government, and school districts often share the cost of having that SRO on campus, and a recent survey by the state department of education found one in four schools doesn't have a security officer on campus.

Mackey said they're working to get more SRO's into schools as well as more money for security improvements, and the Alabama Board of Education's budget request to state lawmakers in 2019 will reflect that increased priority on school safety.

Ryan Hollingsworth recently took over as leader of the state superintendent association in July after being superintendent in Marion County for 10 years. He said school safety is always on school officials' minds. "Your number one priority," he said, "is to assure that parent or grandparent that when we pick that child up in the morning, we get that child back home safe."

Keeping schools and students safe looks different in school districts across the state, he said, because what is needed in a rural school is likely different than what a school located in a big city may need for security.

AL.com asked school officials across Alabama what they are doing to keep students safe this school year.

MOBILE COUNTY

Mobile County Public Schools, the state's largest system with over 56,000 students in 88 schools, has 13 school resource officers (12 in the schools, and one director). The school system has formed a safety committee that includes representatives from state and local municipalities, law enforcement, etc.

Rena Phillips, the school system's spokeswoman, said Mobile County has adopted new safety and security procedures from a group called the ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter and Evacuate) Training Institute.

She said that administrators from all 88 schools attended ALICE training this summer through a combination of online and hands-on sessions. The administrators are now returning to their schools to train their faculty and students on the new procedures, Phillips said.

ALICE is designed to offer survival enhancing options for more proactive responses to threats of violence and intruders or active shooters, she said. The program is in use by more than 4,000 K-12 schools and nearly 1,000 postsecondary institutions around the country.

"We hope we never have to put this into practice," said Andy Gatewood, the school system's director of security. "However, it is very important that we are prepared. If there ever is an event where we need to put this into practice, we want the kids to know exactly what to do, and for the staff to know what to do."

The school system is also in the process of securing doors, adding security cameras, etc. All of the elementary schools and one middle school have new lock systems that requires visitors to be buzzed in after they are first viewed on camera.

BALDWIN COUNTY

Baldwin County Sheriff Huey "Hoss" Mack said his department recently sponsored the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO) during a basic SRO certification class.

From that, 24 new SROs from various agencies in Baldwin County graduated. Assignments were made last week to cover all of the county's 46 schools ahead of Monday's first day of school.

"Some campuses may have intermittent coverage until additional officers can be hired," said Mack, in an email to AL.com. "We are working closely with the (police) chiefs and Superintendent (Eddie) Tyler to ensure complete coverage as soon as personnel levels permit."

The School Board, in June, approved spending $1.5 million for a new program that ensured every school in the county had a NASRO-trained school resource officer in place during the 2018-2019 school year.

Baldwin County is the third largest public school system in Alabama, and enrolls more than 31,000 students. It was the first of the largest school districts in the state to commit to hiring and placing a SRO at everyone one of its schools.

SARALAND CITY

Saraland City Schools, with an enrollment of over 3,000 students, is in the processing of training two armed NASRO-certified school resource officers. Two are already trained and are in place for the beginning of the school year.

Saraland City Schools are comprised of an elementary school (grades pre-K to fourth), middle school (grades 5-8) and high school (grades 9-10). It also includes an early education center.

According to Superintendent Aaron Milner, the school system spent $200,000 to upgrade the security at its schools. That includes upgrading the radio system for better communication between administrators, the camera systems at various schools and securing the foyers in each of the facilities.

He said the school district did not have to cut anything from its budget to pay for the upgrades.

BLOUNT COUNTY

Superintendent Rodney Green said the Blount County School System will begin the school year with 10 certified SROs, which is the same number the school district had at the end of the last school year.

"We share SROs," said Green. The school district includes 17 schools, some of which include smaller locations with fewer than 50 students.

He said that hiring five additional SRO's will add the right number to what the school district needs.

"We haven't been able financially to add more than what we have," said Green. "We are hoping to see more money out of the Legislature to add some more."

The school district, which is located north of Jefferson County, did add a new scanning device called "Raptor." He said the new devices scan a visitor's driver's license before they can enter a school.

"We scan it through the computerized machine and it detects the background or a sex offense issue where they do not need to have contact with a child or we try to verify who they are and if school officials know them," said Green.

He said the school district is also adding mental health counseling to four of its schools through Gateway mental health services out of Birmingham.

BIRMINGHAM CITY

Birmingham City Schools, the state's second-largest city school district with just under 23,000 students, has completed many upgrades through the summer. The district placed a renewed focus on school safety after Huffman High senior Courtlin Arrington was shot and killed at school by a student on March 7.

District officials said they are still reviewing school safety plans and have placed school resource officers in all seven of the district's high schools. Security cameras in place in all schools, and metal detectors are used in high schools as a deterrent.

In a statement provided to AL.com, district officials said they have ensured all outside doors to all schools are locked or access-controlled and are in the process of putting alarms on doors at their high schools.

Students are participating in safety drills multiple times a year, including lockdown, shelter-in-place and fire drills. School counselors and social workers are available to support students who are worried or have concerns about tragedies in the community.

Students and communities are encouraged to report suspicious activity and can use the anonymous tip line (1-877-250-2830) to report threats. "If you see something, say something," the statement read.

At a town hall meeting in March to discuss how gun violence impacts students and the community, Superintendent Lisa Herring said even with all of the security improvements they are implementing, the most powerful thing Birmingham City School employees need to do to keep students safe is to build relationships with them.

"[Children] need to have trusting relationships with some adult in the building that if they see something, and they need to say something," Herring said, "that they have someone that they trust that they can say something to." The district is working to improve those relationships, she said.

TUSCALOOSA CITY

"Safety is everybody's responsibility," Tuscaloosa City School Superintendent Mike Daria said. With more than 10,000 students and 1,450 teachers in the district, Daria said, "I think we're moving safety from being a priority of the time based on current events to more of a value of schools that has to run through all of our thinking moving forward."

Daria said around five years ago, the district began focusing on improving student safety and implemented a number of initiatives like adding social workers, using local tax dollars, to support students and putting a bullying awareness program in place that helped school officials develop a protocol for not only reporting bullying but following through with resolving the problem.

In addition to adding security measures like installing a visitor tracking system and putting security cameras in place, Daria said they had to work to remove the idea that reacting to a crisis required an administrative decision.

Daria said among teachers, this message---"You are empowered to make the decisions for the safety of you and your children" ---has become somewhat of a mantra in an effort to move away from a top-down way of thinking about safety.

"We had to move from a mentality, as a culture," Daria said, "that if a crisis occurs, in a building, you have to look for a principal, and then the principal needs to make a decision about going on lock down." That top-down approach was cumbersome, he said, and school personnel thought only a principal could call 911.

Daria said they told educators to call 911, and the district would deal with any negative press that resulted. Getting help on its way to the school was more important, he said. "It's all about time."

Daria said mental health services for students are a priority, too. "We've tried to get unapologetic about removing barriers," he said. The district has a partnership with a local mental health provider and now all 21 schools have a therapist on campus.

Asked if the conversation around school safety has shifted, Daria said in the past, there was an "ebb and flow" to school safety conversations that flared up around shootings at schools. "Now we're staying focused on safety."

JEFFERSON COUNTY

Jefferson County Superintendent Craig Pouncey said his district made great strides in school safety over the summer. "The tragedy in Parkland caused us to take an internal look at where we were and look at some other opportunities that we could have to make our schools safer."

Improving school safety is a continuous process, he said. "We have so many variations of facilities in our school district that you have to look at each one of them individually." Some are easier to modify to improve safety while others are more difficult, like when there are multiple entrances to a school.

Pouncey shared a list of projects aimed at improving security the district completed over the summer. Additional sets of doors were installed in a number of schools to serve as an additional barrier to entry. Visitors must be buzzed into the school before they are able to get into classroom areas.

Night Lock safety devices, which lockdown classroom doors in an emergency, were installed in 32 elementary schools over the summer. The devices will continue to be installed until all doors in all 56 schools are secured.

The district was able to add five SROs, he said, meaning all middle and high schools have a full-time SRO, and Jefferson County Sheriff Mike Hale is working to add SROs at all of the elementary schools.

"It gives parents an extra added security feeling to know there is an SRO there," Pouncey said.

Pouncey said the school community needs to work together to keep schools safe. "If parents see things that concern them, they need to bring it to administrators. I want to encourage the community that support our schools to bring any concerns they have to administrators also."

Sheriff Mike Hale on School Resoure Officer active shooter training. Posted by Jefferson County Sheriff's Office on Friday, July 27, 2018

SHELBY COUNTY

Shelby County school officials are charged with keeping more than 20,000 students safe across 29 school campuses. Through multiple partnerships with local law enforcement in cities and the county, SROs cover all of Shelby County's schools, but some are covered on a rotational basis, district spokesperson Cindy Warner said.

SROs are trained to cover school campuses, and safety training is provided to school administrators in partnership with those SROs, Warner added.

Shelby County officials began the Safe Schools Initiative in 2013 after 20 first-grade students and six teachers and staff were shot to death at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut in December of 2012.

Safety measures like securing entry doors were a part of that initiative according to news reports at the time, but the initiative also included adding mental health services for students that are accessible at school.

That initiative is ongoing, Warner said.

MADISON COUNTY

Madison County Superintendent Matt Massey said making safety a priority for his 18,700-student district is nothing new. "As superintendent, we think about safety all the time," he said. "What are all the little ways we can get better? That's what can keep you up at night."

Massey said the board allocated $750,000 for safety upgrades last November. After that, the district formed a safety task force which included members of the FBI, Army, Homeland Security and the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms division---people who are parents in the school community. The task force recommended upgrades in communications and other areas, which Massey said are underway.

Some of those recommendations included hardening entrances to schools, making it more difficult for those who want to harm students to get into the building. Those upgrades are in progress, he said, and some were completed over the summer.

A system that tracks who is coming into the building, known as "Raptor," is also in place, he said. The system scans visitors' identification cards to determine whether outstanding warrants or previous convictions that could cause concern.

Massey said they hold "surprise lockdowns" that are then reviewed by security personnel to determine what could be done better.

School safety includes more than just protecting students from a mass shooting incident, he said, and officials are working to improve parking lot safety and offer training in advanced CPR techniques to all school personnel.

Massey said he would love to have an SRO on all campuses, but "We feel like that we use 10 [SROs] as well as you can." On campuses without a full-time SRO, the Sheriff's office has a "routine presence," he said.

Massey said he can see government and school officials working to harden schools. "We're putting everything we can into making [schools] as safe as possible," he said.

"My goal as superintendent," Massey said, "is to make sure our schools are not a soft target."

HUNTSVILLE CITY

Huntsville City Schools Communications Director Keith Ward said the district has had a focus on security for nearly 20 years. Security cameras were originally installed in the 1980s, he said, after schools experienced break-ins. Those cameras are now in all schools and have been upgraded to allow for monitoring from a central site every day.

The school district has its own security force, Ward said, that works in tandem with the schools that have Huntsville police officers serving as SROs.

Over the past few years, as new schools have been built as part of the district's $280 million capital improvement plan, Ward said security measures like extra sets of entry doors, and magnetic locks requiring visitors to be buzzed in have been a part of the initial design.

Older schools have been retrofitted to include the latest security measures, he said.

Once a year, Ward said, the district participates in an emergency response training drill alongside police and fire departments, medical and hospital personnel and the local emergency management association. They conduct the drill at a local school and review how it went to see what needs to be improved.

The district has a way for students and community members to report threats and remain anonymous. That system, "Anonymous Alerts," can also be accessed through a smartphone application. The district takes those reports seriously, Ward said.

"Nine times out of 10," Ward said, "it may just be something that someone has done as a hoax or a prank, but it's still going to be investigated."

MADISON CITY

Madison City spokesperson John Peck said the 10,500-student school district in north Alabama is in the final stages of creating a safety and security task force to hire a full-time director of school safety and security.

Peck said a mental health counselor is in place at each of the district's 11 schools, where previously mental health counselors were concentrated at the district's middle and high schools.

A 14-year-old student, Todd Brown, was shot to death by another student at a Madison school in 2010. Superintendent Robby Parker, who was hired as superintendent last year, told AL.com in April the school system has steadily been adding school resource officers since then.

In April, district officials took the unusual step of initiating a $755,500 fundraising campaign to pay the cost of placing an SRO on every school campus. The district currently has nine SROs, Peck said.

As of press time, 176 people had contributed a little less than $22,000. "The campaign still has much to go," Peck wrote in a statement to AL.com, "but the superintendent has said he wants to fill the slots hopefully this year with money he hopes to identify in the budget."

AL.com reporter John Sharp contributed to this report.
This is an opinion piece.

They're a veritable Who's Who (or, in some cases, Who Was) at all levels of Alabama politics:



United States Attorney General Jeff Sessions; U.S. Sen. Richard Shelby; U.S. Congressional Representatives Bradley Byrne, Martha Roby, Robert Aderholt, Spencer Bachus, Mo Brooks and Mike Rogers; former Governor Robert Bentley; former state attorney general and U.S. Senator Luther Strange; Alabama Department of Environmental Management director Lance LeFleur; and Tarrant mayor Loxcil Tuck.



In truth, they're really: Who Ought to be Ashamed of Themselves.



Better even: Who's Gonna Fix Their Mess and Do Right?



Who's to ensure justice for the still over-looked (and still dying) citizens of north Birmingham, who are still being poisoned by the air they breathe and the land upon which they live--thanks to nearby manufacturers that for decades pumped Lord knows what into the skies?



Each of our Who's Who of Shame "wrote" letters opposing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's effort to expand a Superfund cleanup site to include and prioritize these north Birmingham neighborhoods because, well, it might just cost the responsible companies too much money.



We learned this, and many other sordid, stomach-churning facts, of course, during the recent federal trial of Balch & Bingham law partner Joel Gilbert and Drummond Company Vice President of Government Affairs David Roberson, who were convicted of conspiring with former state Rep. Oliver Robinson to oppose the expansion, which could have cost Drummond millions.



We also learned the letters were actually ghost-written by Gilbert--or someone on his team--on behalf of their coal-burning client, Drummond. The letters were then sent on to a plethora of all-too-eager-to-comply public officials, who forwarded them to the EPA under their own letterhead and signature.



One letter, dated October 30, 2014, read, in part:



"While we appreciate the EPA's efforts to protect Alabamians from the effects of hazardous substances in the environment, we are concerned that the EPA's proposed listing is unsupportable by reliable evidence and that it may undermine economic development in the area."



Translation: we are more concerned about the company that feeds us than we are about the people whom we serve.

Listen to the citizens who still don't have justice



In an open letter to Tarrant citizens, mayor Tuck wrote: "[We] must respectfully disagree with the tactics currently being employed that are needlessly causing concern among our City's residents about their health and safety, their property values, their homes and the futures of their families."



Translation: stop scaring my folks into actually getting their soil tested so they might figure out why their relatives and neighbors are suffering and dying from cancer and other ailments at higher rates than citizens in other areas in and around Birmingham.



Now that Gilbert and Roberson were found guilty of a laundry list of slithery charges--including bribery, money laundering, conspiracy honest services wire fraud and more--and will likely be joining Robinson in a federal prison, each of these letter "writers" should pull out their keyboards and craft new letters to EPA officials, in their own words this time, encouraging them to right this wrong as expeditiously as possible--to offer those suffering most from this scurrilous fraud true justice.

"The corruption and bribery trial revealed the extent to which industry and their friends in Montgomery and Washington will go to protect profits at the expense of the people," says Michael Hansen, executive director of he Greater Birmingham Alliance to Stop Pollution (G.A.S.P.), an advocacy group that in 2014 petitioned the EPA to investigate potential contamination in Tarrant and supported efforts to expand and prioritize the Superfund site.

"We're glad the veil has been pulled back and the shadow government exposed," he adds. "Those in office now -- like Governor Kay Ivey, Attorney General Steve Marshall, U.S. Representative Gary Palmer, and Senator Doug Jones -- must do what they can to make things right."

Get out your laptops, folks.

I know writer's block can be a beast. So, if any find themselves struggling for the right words to convey that they actually care about citizens, or should they need inspiration to pen their own thoughts rather than scratching their name under others' self-serving arguments, they should peruse the persuasive letter Birmingham mayor Randall Woodfin wrote to the EPA acting head Andrew Wheeler earlier this week.

(Like me, Wheeler's a former Oklahoman; unlike me, alas, he's also a former coal-industry lobbyist.)

"[T]housands remain at risk including the 1,070 people living in 394 public housing units and 751 students attending Hudson K-8 school," Woodfin wrote in asking that the site be immediately placed on the National Priorities List (NPL). He also requested health screenings, relocation of residents, reconstruction of the school and redevelopment of the site.

Translation: fix this mess to the benefit of the real Who's Who--north Birmingham citizens whom public officials are charged to serve.

Roy S. Johnson's column appears in The Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register and AL.com. Hit me up at rjohnson@al.com or/and follow me at twitter.com/roysj.

Superfund Congress Letter by Roy S. Johnson on Scribd

Superfund opposition letter from Tarrant mayor by Roy S. Johnson on Scribd
The executive committee of the Alabama Democratic Party today reelected Nancy Worley as chairwoman despite blunt criticism by the party's only statewide officeholder.

Worley kept the leadership position by a vote of 101-89 over challenger Peck Fox, a Montgomery attorney and lobbyist. Worley has held the position since 2013. She said she was grateful for the support today.

"I felt like I had made some progress in moving the party forward," Worley said. "We paid off about the half the indebtedness or at least half the indebtedness. I felt like we had a structure in order to get more staff in place and to get many of our county organizations reorganized. And I felt like we had the potential to move on that next level. So I felt like to change horses in midstream would not be productive."

Sen. Doug Jones nominated Fox for the position. Jones, who gave the Democrats a badly needed signature win with his victory over Roy Moore last year, said the party lacks a support structure for candidates.

"This party needs to build," Jones said before the committee's vote. "We need change. And the only way to get change is to have change. I think it's time to move on. There's a lot of energy we've got to capture. And I think Peck is the best person to do that."

After today's vote by the committee, Jones said he was disappointed. He said a key reason he wanted new leadership was that his Senate campaign got no significant help from the state party last year.

"Our candidates are going to have to go it alone, just like I did," Jones said. "We need to have a party. We don't have a party. There is no social media. There's no outreach. There's no get out the vote effort. There's no organization. There's no field. And the vote today was simply to keep that."

Peck Fox talks to reporters after he came up short in his bid for chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party today.

Fox said the fact that he was unable to unseat Worley despite the support of Jones shows that the majority of the committee favors the status quo, which he said defies logic.

"The definition of insanity is that if you keep doing the same things and expect different results," Fox said. "Well, our results hadn't been good, and we're keeping doing the same thing. I'm going to continue to be a Democrat. I'm going to continue to campaign for candidates. I'm going to continue to support the party when I can. I'm disappointed today but I knew it was going to be an uphill battle. I'm very pleased and proud of the people who supported me and stood up."

Except for Jones' seat in the Senate, Republicans hold every statewide office in Alabama, as well as about 70 percent of the seats in the state Legislature.

Joe Reed, the party's vice chairman for minority affairs, said today's competition for leadership positions was healthy for the party. He also said it was up to the committee, not Jones, to pick the chairman. Reed said he supported Worley because he said she has worked tirelessly for Democrats.

"The lady works for that night and day, all the time," Reed said. "She spends hours after hours working. And when she took over the party, the party was in deep, deep financial straits.

"She doesn't get one dime for this. All of this is voluntary work. She does it. She's the first to see the sunrise, the last to see the moon. She does it well and she deserves our support and our confidence."

As the meeting got underway, party treasurer Ed Gentle told committee members that finances have improved under Worley's leadership. Gentle said the party has sharply reduced its debt, has low overhead and has $800,000 in the bank. He noted that Worley is unpaid as chairman and the party does not have a paid executive director.

Worley said she has essentially served two roles without compensation.

"I'm an old school teacher and we pinch pennies and we know how to stretch that dollar as far as it will go," Worley said. "That's one of the ways I've saved money for the party is that I didn't take a salary as chair nor did I take a salary as executive director."

Fox said the party suffers by not having a paid executive director and more of a work force.

"The Republican Party has a full-time professional staff in Alabama," Fox said. "We don't. And that's not a level playing field.

"Nancy has gotten the party back on better footing financially. But she's done that by not spending. And you can't invest in the future without spending. She's strangling growth. She's strangling development. She's strangling support for county committees and candidates by not investing in the future."

Worley said she plans to hire a communications director, as well as a field director to work with counties.

Worley and Fox were the only two nominees for the chairmanship. Committee members voted by standing. A request for a roll call vote after the initial count was rejected.

This story was updated at 12:56 p.m. to say that Nancy Worley was reelected as chairwoman. Updated again at 4:12 p.m. with additional information and quotes.


Japanese islanders are trying to block the governments plan to start dumping soil into Henoko Bay within days.

Tens of thousands of protesters gathered on Saturday in Okinawa vowing to stop the planned relocation of a US military base on the southern Japanese island.

Opponents of the relocation said the plan to move US Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from a crowded neighbourhood to a less-populated coastal site would not only be an environmental debacle but also ignores local wishes to have the base moved from the island entirely.

About 70,000 people gathered at a park in the state capital of Naha under pouring rain in advance of an approaching typhoon and observed a moment of silence for Okinawas governor, Takeshi Onaga, who died Thursday of cancer.

Onaga, elected in 2014, had spearheaded opposition to the relocation and criticised the central government for ignoring the voices of Okinawans. He had filed lawsuits against the central government and said he planned to revoke a landfill permit issued by his predecessor that is needed for construction of the new base.

Determination and passion

Deputy Governor Kiichiro Jahana, representing Onaga at Saturdays rally, said he will follow through with the revocation process as instructed by the governor and succeed his strong determination and passion.

Okinawans are trying to block the central government plan to start dumping soil into Henoko Bay within days to make a landfill for the new site of the Futenma base. Environmental groups say construction risks corals and endangered dugongs.





Saturdays protesters held up signs saying Henoko new base, NO! and Okinawans will not give up as they chanted slogans. They also adopted a resolution demanding the central government to immediately scrap the relocation plan.

25,000 US troops

The central government says the current plan is the only solution, but many Okinawans want the base entirely moved outside of Okinawa. About half of the 50,000 American troops in Japan are stationed on Okinawa.

Onaga had said Tokyos post-war defence stance under the Japan-US security alliance was built on Okinawas sacrifice.

The dispute over the Futenma relocation reflects centuries-old tensions between Okinawa and the Japanese mainland, which annexed the islands, formerly the independent kingdom of the Ryukus, in 1878. Okinawa was Japans only home battleground in the final days of World War II, and the island remained under US rule for 20 years longer than the rest of Japan.

Okinawa is still forced to sacrifice for the interest of the mainland, Onagas son Takeharu, an Okinawa assemblyman, said at Saturdays rally.

The [relocation issue] is pushed to Okinawa because nobody on the mainland wants it, he said, urging the rest of the country to also think about the issue. Let us keep fighting so we can achieve my fathers unfinished goal and give him good news.
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The countrys top electoral body issues list of banned candidates, accused of having ties to illegal armed groups.

Afghanistans top electoral body has barred dozens of candidates from running in the upcoming parliamentary elections, officials said.

The Independent Electoral Complaints Commission (IECC) issued a statement on Saturday with the names of the 35 disqualified candidates  including serving MPs  after it said they were found to have direct links with illegal armed groups.

Most of those barred have already lodged appeals against the move.

Officials at the IECC said the final list was the result of a month-long probe launched after its office received complaints against hundreds of candidates from voters in 34 provinces.

Some candidates were alleged to have been involved in cases of murder, rape and extortion.

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We disqualified the candidates because we want to clean the process and finally hold free and fair elections, said Alirez Rohani, the spokesman of IECC.

Already much delayed, the vote in October comes amid increasing attacks by Taliban and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) fighters, who have threatened to target the electoral process.

Diplomats tracking the upcoming elections said they backed the IECC to ensure transparency and accuracy.

But most of the disqualified candidates were planning to launch a nationwide protest against the IECC.

The IECC did not even provide the opportunity to the disqualified candidates to defend themselves, said Fawzia Kofi, a legislator from Badakhshan province on the list.

Kofi, who has been accused of funding an armed group to retain control over her constituency, has rejected the allegations against her.

These are politically motivated accusations. My supporters will start a protest march to prove my innocence, Kofi said.

Separately, at least 39 Taliban fighters and 14 soldiers were killed in clashes in the southeastern city of Ghazni.

The attack on the strategic city, which straddles the main route between the capital, Kabul, and southern Afghanistan, began overnight on Friday with the Taliban claiming to have overrun it within hours of the assault.

Defence ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanish later said the army supported police and the city was now under control of government forces.
Intellectuals and civil society groups urge the Bangladeshi government to release Alam amid reports he was tortured.

Calls are growing for the release of award-winning photographer and social activist Shahidul Alam who was detained by Bangladeshi police for provocative comments about student-led protests in the country.

Alam, 63, was picked up by officers at his home in Dhaka on Sunday, hours after his remarks about the days-long rallies were broadcast on Al Jazeera.

Mass demonstrations over road safety broke out in late July after two teenagers were killed by a speeding bus.

Five renowned intellectuals and authors  Arundhati Roy, Eve Ensler, Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad  issued a statement urging the Bangladeshi government to immediately release Alam and drop all charges against him

Documentation and criticism are elementary aspects of human life. For a state to deny a citizen the right to say what is happening and to be angered about what is happening is a denial of this basic right, their statement said.

Free Shahidul Alam. Yesterday, Arundhati Roy, Eve Ensler, Naomi Klein, Noam Chomsky and I released this statement. We hope that @sheikhhasina will pay attention to the worldwide condemnation of the arrest and detention of Bangladesh's celebrated photographer and teacher. pic.twitter.com/HKEzPhkWCm  Vijay Prashad (@vijayprashad) August 10, 2018

Road safety protests

In his interview with Al Jazeera, Alam had criticised the Bangladeshi government for their handling of the student-led protests and said they were clinging on [to power] by brute force.

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On his way to court on Monday, he told reporters police had beaten him and had not given him access to a lawyer.

On Wednesday, Alam was sent to hospital after his wife petitioned the court challenging the legality of her husbands arrest and asking he be given medical treatment after allegedly being beaten.

Police have denied the allegation.

Since his detention, civil society groups, activists and others have called for his release.

On Friday, 24 civil society groups including Transparency International Bangladesh, Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists issued a statement condemning the blatant violation of Alams right to freedom of expression and calling for his immediate and unconditional release.

A change.org petition for the release of Alam launched by rights group Amnesty International reached 5,000 supporters on Saturday.

On Thursday, Dhaka police deputy commissioner Nazmul Islam said 12 people had been arrested for spreading rumours on Facebook during the protests, which he said left about 1,000 people injured.

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Hopefully in the next couple of days we will arrest more people, he said.

Islam said rumours spread online had led to the destruction of 382 public vehicles, including eight police vehicles.

Rights groups have criticised Bangladeshs internet laws. Amnesty International said the law under which Alam was charged, section 57 of the Information Communications Technology Act, was draconian and inconsistent with international legal standards for the protection of the right to freedom of expression.

In 2017, at least 25 journalists and hundreds of bloggers and Facebook users were prosecuted under the law, which criminalises online content deemed defamatory of blasphemous.
UN calls for probe into Yemen school bus attack

The Saudi-led coalition has been criticised repeatedly for targeting civilian areas in their attacks, but the images of children covered in blood still appear to have shocked the world.
Colombia deaths tribunal: Concerns over courts jurisdiction

International Criminal Court could open its own investigation, if it determines Colombian authorities are unable or unwilling to thoroughly investigate and prosecute over 2,000 cases.
A year after the deadly car-ramming in Charlottesville, Virginia, white supremacists plan Unite the Right 2 in DC.

A 2010 silver Dodge Charger thundered down Charlottesvilles Fourth Street Southeast on the afternoon of August 12, 2017. The driver of the car accelerated and barreled into a crowd of pedestrians.

Bodies flew. Bystanders screamed. Some fled, but others rushed the coupe, striking it with flagpoles as the driver threw it into reverse and retreated.

Constance Young, an organiser with the Shut It Down DC activist group, had travelled to Charlottesville with an interfaith group.

I heard the car attack first, and then I saw the bodies flying, and then he reversed, and we were all left to sort of fend for ourselves, Young, who was injured in the attack, said.

The car made it a mile from the scene of the attack before a police deputy stopped and arrested 20-year-old James Alex Fields Jr.

Back on Fourth Street Southeast, people were sprawled on the pavement. Heather Heyer, a 32-year-old paralegal and counterprotester, was later pronounced dead at the University of Virginia Medical Center, and dozens more were injured.

Mourners and passersby surround an impromptu memorial commemorating the victims of the car attack on a group of counterprotesters during the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville [Justin Ide/Reuters]

The fatal car-ramming was the tragic conclusion to Unite the Right, the largest white supremacist rally held in the US in decades. Throughout the day leading up to the attack, far-right participants clashed with community members, anti-fascists (Antifa) and antiracist activists across the Virginian city.

A year later, Fields is behind bars and facing a slew of charges, including federal hate crimes. But Jason Kessler, who organised last years rally, is gearing up for a second iteration in Washington, DC, on Sunday.

Along with others, Young is organising a rally against Kesslers protest. It is one of a handful of counterdemonstrations slated to take place over the weekend.

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I dont understand how a murderous militia is given an opportunity to convene after what happened last year, Young told Al Jazeera.

I just dont understand why they were given the opportunity to do this again and to potentially terrorise our nations capital.

Far right divided

Unite the Right was the high point of the alt-right, the loosely knit coalition of white nationalist, white supremacist and neo-Nazi groups that surged during Donald Trumps presidential campaign and celebrated his victory.

But Unite the Right 2 comes at a time when the far right is at its most marginalised and divided since Trumps ascent to the presidency.

Keegan Hankes, a senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center hate monitor, predicted a very small turnout, citing the pervasive divisions among far-right groups and ongoing lawsuits against several of last years high-profile participants, including alt-right leader Richard Spencer and white nationalist Christopher Cantwell, among others.

For his part, Spencer said he will not attend the rally in a Twitter post also urging others to abstain from attending.

I cant even tell you affirmatively of one major hate group that will attend. By and large, the organised white nationalist movement is not going to attend, Hankes told Al Jazeera.

They are fighting with each other at a rate that I havent seen since before the movement was electrified by Trumps campaign.

Charlottesvilles Unite the Right led to a far-reaching wave of backlash, including a crackdown by tech companies and social media outlets, cities rejecting alt-right protest permits and universities cancelling speaking events by leading alt-right figures.

Twitter and Facebook banned several far-right leaders from their platforms, and web-hosting services booted neo-Nazi websites like the Daily Stormer. Several participants had their identities revealed online.

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While many far-right groups attempted to rebrand themselves as run-of-the-mill nationalist movements, others collapsed under the weight of infighting. In April, the Traditionalist Worker Party ceased to exist after its leader, Matthew Heimbach, was arrested and charged over a trailer park brawl.

The aftermath of that rally was devastating for those groups, Hankes added. It has been a huge setback.

Unite the hate

The City of Charlottesville denied Kesslers request for a permit to hold a similar demonstration, and demonstrators will hold their main protest on Sunday afternoon, the first anniversary of Heyers death, in the Washington, DCs Lafayette Park.

Along with a handful of others, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke is slated to speak at the demonstration, according to documents recently released by the National Park Service.

Antifa, the media and law enforcement know everything that we do, the rallys official website warns participants. Dont let that rattle you.

Like last year, anti-racists, anti-fascists and other counter-demonstrators plan to flood the streets to voice their disapproval. At least 1,000 counterprotesters are expected to attend, according to local media reports.

Among the groups attending the counterdemonstrations are Black Lives Matter, a slew of anti-fascist collectives, Smash Racism DC, the International Socialist Organization, the Democratic Socialists of America and several anarchist outfits.

Along with fellow activists, Maurice Cook, a DC-based activist and cofounder the March for Racial Justice group, also witnessed last years deadly attack in Charlottesville.

We went down there to do what we do, and the sky fell, he said at a pre-rally meeting in DC on Wednesday night.

I saw something that I had never seen before, and I never want to see that again, he recalled.

I don't understand how a murderous militia is given an opportunity to convene after what happened last year. I just don't understand why they were given the opportunity to do this again and to potentially terrorise our nation's capital. Constance Young, organiser of Shut It Down DC

Speaking to Al Jazeera, he said: I think we just have to ensure that at any moment that they are feeling confident enough to come out, that we are intentional in our demand that they go back to the cage where they belong.

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Reverend Grayland Hagler, a senior pastor at the DC-based Plymouth United Church of Christ, will also join the counterprotest this weekend.

He pointed to an attack on a black man in Washington, DC, on Monday morning, in which 24-year-old Maxim Smith, who is white, allegedly smashed Ketchazo Pahos head with a bicycle lock. Police are investigating the incident as a hate crime, local media reported.

You have this kind of stuff going on because these [white supremacists] are in power, Hagler told Al Jazeera.

At the pre-rally organising meeting on Wednesday night, Hagler added: They call this Unite the Right. This is Unite the Hate.
Iran: Persian rug industry takes a hit after US sanctions

The beautiful hand-woven carpets that are a valuable Iranian export are also masterful works of art and weavers say the US sanctions targeting them are an assault on Irans identity.
Officials, business people and companies charged with misdealing during China-funded flagship railways construction.

Kenyan authorities have arrested several senior officials on suspicion of corruption over their management of a flagship $3.2bn railway project.

The National Prosecution Authority said in a statement on Saturday that it had agreed to charge 14 civil servants and business people, as well as three companies, over compensation for land purchased for the construction of the Chinese-funded line linking the capital, Nairobi, to the coastal city of Mombasa.

Among those indicted were Mohammed Abdalla Swazuri, chairman of the National Land Commission (NLC), and Atanas Kariuki Maina, managing director of the Kenya Railways Corporation.

The charges followed an investigation by the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC) into allegations the NLC made phoney compensation payments for land used for the project.

The commission did not reveal the source of the allegations.

Major project

Opened in May 2017, the Nairobi-Mombasa line is part of a master plan agreed on by East African leaders to connect Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, South Sudan and Ethiopia by rail.

It also forms part of Chinas One Belt, One Road initiative, a multibillion-dollar series of infrastructure projects upgrading land and maritime trade routes between China and Europe, Asia and Africa.

Beijings Export-Import Bank has funded 90 percent of the projects costs, while its state-owned Road and Bridges Corporation is in charge of maintaining and operating the railway.

No Chinese companies or individuals were accused of financial misdealing during the railways construction.

Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has repeatedly pledged to stamp out corruption in the country, which was ranked 143rd out of 180 in Transparency Internationals 2017 corruption perceptions index.

In May, 54 people  including dozens of civil servants  and 10 business entities were accused of stealing almost $80m from Kenyas National Youth Service.

Two months earlier, a report by Auditor General Edward Ouko revealed almost $400m of public funds cannot be accounted for by the government.
Parker Solar Probe is the fastest spacecraft ever flying 700,000kph and will conduct unprecedented research on the star.

A NASA spacecraft rocketed towards the sun on an unprecedented quest to get closer to the star than anything ever sent before.

On Sunday, the space agency launched the spacecraft from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida using a Delta IV Heavy, the worlds second-most powerful rocket.

The probe  which will be the fastest spacecraft ever once it reaches top speed  will gather data on the inner workings of the sun on its flybys, which will happen in 2023. When the spacecraft reaches top speed, it will fly 700,000 kilometres per hour  fast enough to travel from London to Berlin in about three seconds.

The US space agency originally scheduled the launch for Saturday, but technical issues led to a postponement.

Parker Solar Probe will travel through the suns atmosphere, closer to the surface than any spacecraft before it, facing brutal heat and radiation conditions, and ultimately providing humanity with the closest-ever observations of a star, the US space agency said in a statement.

3-2-1 and we have liftoff of Parker #SolarProbe atop @ULAlaunchs #DeltaIV Heavy rocket. Tune in as we broadcast our mission to touch the Sun: https://t.co/T3F4bqeATB pic.twitter.com/Ah4023Vfvn  NASA (@NASA) August 12, 2018

The spacecraft will first fly around Earths neighbouring planet Venus and use that planets gravity to build up speed and fly towards the sun.

At its closest flyby, the probe will be just 6.13 million kilometres from the sun. The distance between the sun and Earth is almost 150-million kilometres.

It will pass through the suns atmosphere, the corona, allowing the probe to gather new data on solar winds and the inner workings of the mega star.

The primary science goals for the mission are to trace how energy and heat move through the solar corona and to explore what accelerates the solar wind, as well as solar energetic particles, NASA said.

At closest approach, our Parker #SolarProbe spacecraft will be hurtling around @NASASun at approximately 430,000 miles per hour! That's fast enough to get from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C. in one second. Watch: https://t.co/T3F4bqeATB pic.twitter.com/RPzeX2bW65  NASA (@NASA) August 12, 2018

Parker Solar Probe will carry four instrument suites designed to study magnetic fields, plasma and energetic particles, and image the solar wind, it added.

Flying that close to the sun requires unique equipment that can withstand immense heat and radiation.

To perform these unprecedented investigations, the spacecraft and instruments will be protected from the suns heat by a 4.5-inch-thick [11.43cm] carbon-composite shield, which will need to withstand temperatures outside the spacecraft that reach nearly [1,377 degrees Celsius], NASA said

The Sun's gravitational pull keeps everything in our solar system. Even though the Sun has a powerful pull, it takes 55x more energy to go to the Sun than to Mars! See how our #SolarProbe will make the journey when it launches at 3:53am ET today, Aug. 11: https://t.co/LevTP7RR1b pic.twitter.com/Nv7xHwNDHi  NASA (@NASA) August 11, 2018

During its nearly seven-year mission, the spacecraft will send data back to Earth for scientists at Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Maryland, which manages the mission for NASA.

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The probe is named after solar astrophysicist Eugene Parker, who developed the theory of Parker spirals, a spiral-shaped magnetic field generated by the sun.

It is the first time in NASAs history the space agency has named a spacecraft after a person that is still alive at the time of launch.

All I can say is wow, here we go. Were in for some learning over the next several years, said Parker, the 91-year-old.
More young people have indicated an interest to contest the presidency after a reduction of the age limit to 35.

A few years ago, it was almost impossible to talk up the chances of a youthful president in Nigeria.

But now, the clamour for a young leader is gaining momentum with the signing of a bill that reduces the age limit to seek political office in the country.

The limit was lowered from age 40 to 35, giving younger people an opportunity to vie for the coveted position. The original version of the bill proposed reducing the presidential candidacy age to 30. It also reduced age requirements for the Senate and state governor to 30 from 35.

With elections in early 2019, some younger Nigerians have thrown down the gauntlet, hoping to break the deadlock.

Adamu Garba, 36, said he is hoping to become the countrys youngest elected leader  an ambition he claims to have been nursing since 2003.

Garba told Al Jazeera he wants to make a difference in the political space.

I am inspired to do this by observing  several wrong policy choices of our leaders that affects the general wellbeing of the people. I am driven by empathy and compassion towards humanity, Garba said.

I, over the period of 12 years, studied and came up with deliberate policy proposals in the form of manifestos that will address all of Nigerias seeming challenges  joblessness, lower skills level, illiteracy, diseases and security issues.

Garba is seeking the nomination of the ruling All Progressives Congress. He will be up against President Muhammadu Buhari, 75, who is seeking re-election.

President Buhari in May signed the bill reducing the age limit to seek political office [Courtesy of KC Nwakalor]

Game of numbers

More than half of Nigerias estimated 182 million population is under 30 years of age. The countrys median age is just 18, according to the United Nations, but politics is dominated by older politicians.

All civilian heads of government were more than 50 years old before they were elected. Nearly two decades after the advent of civilian rule, former military leaders retain a strong influence over politics.

Samson Itodo, leader of youth advocacy group YIAGA  which is pushing for increased participation in politics by younger Nigerians  told Al Jazeera they are not intimidated in their bid to participate in politics.

Nigeria and Nigerian politics requires fixing and my generation is taking responsibility for fixing Nigeria. The movement is maintaining its identity as a citizens movement dedicated to democratic accountability, inclusion, and excellent public leadership, Itodo said.

This movement is raising a new cadre of political leadership and redefining civic engagement.

The campaigners, with the slogan #NotTooYoungToRun, hope to increase the number of younger people in the corridors of power starting next year.

Eunice Atuejide is hoping to be Nigerias first female president in 2019 [Al Jazeera]

Gender gap

Nigeria ranks as one of the worst in the world for female representation in politics. Women occupy only 27 of 469 parliamentary seats.

Women have continued to be sidelined in the countrys politics  playing minimal roles, resulting in a shortage of female candidates.

Eunice Atuejide, 39, leader of National Interest Party, told Al Jazeera shes hoping to make history.

I am quite certain that I stand a very good chance to wrestle power from the more experienced politicians in 2019, but not because I have more experience than them, or more money than they do, she said.

There are fears fewer women will participate in the 2019 elections because of increasing political violence that has marred previous votes.

The countrys political campaigns also require a lot of funding that most female politicians cant muster.

Funding is an issue, however, I am hopeful that ordinary Nigerians will soon start backing me financially now that they start to see from where I am approaching the 2019 presidency. For now, the competition is badly tilted against me, however, I am very hopeful, Atuejide said.

Failed promises

Younger people blame older politicians for the countrys woes because of unfulfilled electoral promises.

Political parties in Nigeria must select their candidates for the election between August 18 and October 7. Most political parties have in the past chosen veteran candidates.

The older politicians keep power because the younger generation refused to rise up and take responsibility. However, it has now become glaringly clear that there is a need for evolution of the new generation to replace the old because their policy proposals are not working, Adamu said.

Advocacy groups are campaigning to reverse the trend by getting younger people into elected posts.

Weve got over 50 million young registered voters behind us. We will mobilise them to vote against any party that doesnt give tickets to young women and men, Itodo said.
Lebanon to consider legalising medicinal cannabis

According to the UN, Lebanon is one of the largest producers and exporters of cannabis and now the government wants to stop destroying the crop and cash in on the lucrative market.
Thousands gather in the capital a day after more than 450 people were injured during mass anti-corruption rally.

Tensions are high in Romania as thousands of anti-government protesters have taken to the streets for a second consecutive evening, a day after more than 450 people were injured in violence with police.

Demonstrators carrying Romanian, European Union and other flags rallied on Saturday outside government offices in the capital, Bucharest, the same place where Fridays protest took place.

Fridays rally was attended by many expatriates who returned to Romania to express their anger over what they say is entrenched high-level corruption, low wages, and attempts by the ruling Social Democrat (PSD) party to weaken the judiciary.

Police on Friday used water cannon and tear gas to disperse the protesters, as they called on the left-wing government to resign. Around 30 police officers were also injured, 11 of whom were taken to hospital.

Have no fear! Romanians will rise up! the demonstrators yelled on Saturday, as police placed traffic restrictions in the area.

Kit Gillet, a journalist based in Bucharest, said Saturdays protest, which attracted about 50,000 people, according to his estimates, was much calmer.

There was a sense that they [protesters] were purposely trying to keep things less tense, he told Al Jazeera. There were people sitting down in the crowds trying to show a less confrontational approach.

For periods of time, the whole crowd turned their back on the government building as a show of both defiance against the government, who they are asking to resign, but also, its a non-confrontational way of protesting, Gillet added.

Isabela Conduruta, a 45-year-old Romanian who has worked as a cleaner for 12 years in Germany, explained why she joined Saturdays protest.

We want to return to Romania, but theres too much corruption and the healthcare is dismal, she told The Associated Press news agency.

Police defend use of force

Romanian police on Saturday defended their use of force the previous night, rejecting criticism from the centre-right opposition.

Marius Militaru, spokesman for Romanias riot police, said police were pursuing charges against eight people.

There were no immediate reports of life-threatening injuries, but Militaru said a female colleague had been brutally beaten and has a suspected fractured spine.

Militaru said officers were ordered by Bucharest city officials to evacuate Victory Square late on Friday.

Another police spokesman, Georgian Enache, said the legitimate state violence was justified because protesters had been warned several times to leave the square.

Police used water cannon and tear gas to disperse the protesters [Octav Ganea/Reuters]

Protesters lobbed rocks, bottles and smoke bombs at riot police. Some people sustained head and other injuries while others were overcome by tear gas, authorities said.

Interior Minister Carmen Dan said the riot police had not intervened against peaceful protesters, but against dangerous hooligans who attacked the states authority.

But President Klaus Iohannis, a critic of the left-wing government, condemned the brutal intervention of riot police on Friday night.

Three journalists said they were also subjected to police violence.

Austrian public broadcaster ORF said on Saturday that a cameraman covering the protest was hit by police with truncheons and the TV presenter with him was shoved up against a wall.

A journalist filming the rally for Romanias Hotnews online website said he was kicked and shoved by riot police.

In a controversial move last month, Romania sacked top anti-graft prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi  considered a symbol of the countrys fight against corruption.

Romania ranks as one of the European Unions most corrupt states and Brussels keeps its justice system under special monitoring.

Anti-government protests have been taking place in Romania  on and off  since February 2017, when the government passed a controversial emergency legislation that effectively decriminalised low-level corruption. The government repealed the decree, but mass demonstrations continued to rock the European nation.

For the last 18 months, weve seen continual efforts by the government to change legislation in ways that many people fear will weaken the rule of law, said Gillet, the journalist.

The protest movement, in general, will continue because the government is continuing to push through these measures that anger so many people and the protesters will continue to take to the streets.
Merkel and Sanchez agree to push for greater help from the EU to help Morocco strengthen border controls.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel has told European Union countries to tackle racist attitudes within the bloc, and said that no member state can avoid the challenge migration poses.

She made the comments on Saturday after being welcomed in Spain by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, in a visit taking place as a migrant-exchange deal between the two countries came into effect.

After their meeting, held in the Donana natural reserve in the southern region of Andalusia, the two leaders promoted a shared approach to immigration into the bloc amid increasing populist opposition in some countries to taking in more people seeking asylum.

They also said they will share a common vision at an EU summit in Austria next month.

We are just a few kilometres from the African coast, similar to Malta or Sicily, so this is a challenge we must cope with together and no country can dodge this task, Merkel said at a press conference, renewing calls for a fair distribution of refugees and migrants across the bloc.

The racist tendencies we are seeing, regrettably, in all member countries is something we have to fight against.

Spain this year has become the main destination for refugees and migrants trying to reach Europe from Africa, amid a crackdown by Libyan authorities and a more hardline approach to immigration in Italy since the inauguration of its new government.

Last week, the UNs refugee agency, UNHCR, said 23,500 people had arrived in Spain by sea, compared to about 18,500 in Italy and 16,000 in Greece.

Fourteen kilometres separate the coast of Spain  and therefore Europe  from those of North Africa but there is an infinitely greater distance in terms of development, Sanchez told reporters.

Reducing the depth of this abyss of inequality must be one of the main tasks of the European Union.

Merkel and Sanchez have agreed to push for greater help from the EU for countries such as Morocco, one of the main points of departure for people wanting to reach Europe.

Sanchez said the two leaders were in discussion with the European Commission to unlock aid that would allow Morocco to be more effective in controlling their borders.

We have to intensify our support for Morocco and Tunisia, Merkel said. They are border countries and they need our help.

Taking back migrants

The two leaders met on the same day that a bilateral deal on immigration between the countries came into effect.

Under the deal, Madrid agreed to take back migrants arriving in Germany after registering in Spain.

Spain is the first EU country to sign such an agreement, while Merkel is seeking similar arrangements with Greece and Italy after recently coming under severe pressure from her interior minister Horst Seehofer.

In June, a dispute over immigration between Seehofer and Merkel nearly brought an end to the chancellors 13-year-long rule.

Seehofer wanted to start turning away migrants at the German border who had already registered elsewhere in the EU  a policy Merkel had explicitly disagreed with.

The hardened stances on immigration in a number of European countries comes amid a significant downturn of migrants and refugees arriving on the continent.

By the end of July, 62,459 people had arrived by sea and land according to UNHCR figures. In 2015, more than 225,000 people arrived in the same period.
Air defences confront incursion breaching the countrys airspace above the area of Deir al-Ashair.

Syrian air defences confronted a hostile target breaching the countrys airspace west of the capital Damascus, state media reported.

The area is close to the countrys border with Lebanon. Saturdays report suggested Israel was to blame for the incursion.

State news agency SANA said there were reports of air defences confronting a hostile target breaching the skies above the area of Deir al-Ashair in the Damascus countryside.

Our air defences confronted an enemy target that penetrated airspace, SANA reported. In the past few weeks, the Israeli enemy has attacked military positions.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli military said it would not comment on foreign media reports.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed air defences launched missiles. The Britain-based war monitor said Lebanons Hezbollah militia, which has backed the Damascus government in Syrias seven-year civil war, was present in the area.

Syrian air defences were activated in a similar way over western Damascus on Thursday night.

Israel has carried out numerous raids in Syria in recent years, targeting government forces, Hezbollah and Iranian fighters, also allies of Syria.

Damascus last month took back control of its entire border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and its southwest border with Jordan after an offensive that began in June.

Israel is concerned that Irans growing presence in Syria poses a threat to its security.
The June 2017 warrant application begins on PDF page 292, with the title "VERIFIED APPLICATION." On PDF page 379, it states: "The FBI has reviewed this verified application for accuracy in accordance with its April 5, 2001 procedures[.]" On PDF pages 390-391, it states the following under the heading "APPROVAL":

Journalist Paul Sperry tweeted on August 5, 2018 that we should look this month for President Donald Trump to "declassify 20 redacted pages of the June 2017 FISA renewal." Sperry is referring to a Portable Document Format file released on July 21, 2018 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which contains heavily redacted versions of four Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant applications to conduct surveillance of Carter Page, who had been a foreign policy adviser to presidential candidate Donald Trump. Even with the redactions, the June 2017 warrant application is damning for deputy United States attorney general Rod Rosenstein.

I find that this application regarding Carter W. Page satisfies the criteria and requirements for such applications set forth in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, as amended, and hereby approve its filing with this Court. [redacted] Accordingly, I approve the filing of this application regarding Carter W. Page with the Court [redacted][.]

This APPROVAL is signed on PDF page 391 by Rosenstein.

The unredacted portions of the June 2017 warrant application reveal two deceptions by Rosenstein that have not received sufficient attention. The first is that Rosenstein told the FISA judge that the information from former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele that was in the warrant application was "verified" but failed to tell the FISA judge that a month earlier, Steele admitted that his information was "unverified." After Steele's dossier was published in early 2017, Steele was sued for libel in Great Britain. On page seven of Steele's response to interrogatories in that case, Steele stated:

The December memorandum [a portion of Steele's dossier] was a raw intelligence report which contained information gathered from a confidential source(s) about various national security issues that warranted further investigation. Further, the words complained of [by the plaintiffs in the libel suit] were published by BuzzFeed as part of an article which stressed that the contents of the dossier (which included the December memorandum) were "unverified", "unconfirmed" and contained "unverified, and potentially unverifiable allegations". The article added that, "BuzzFeed News reporters in the US and Europe have been investigating the alleged facts in the dossier but have not verified or falsified them." The article reported that the President-elect's attorney, Michael Cohen, had said that allegations in the dossier "were absolutely false". In these circumstances, readers of the words complained of were therefore aware that (i) the contents of the December memorandum did not represent (and did not purport to represent) verified facts, but were raw intelligence which had identified a range of allegations that warranted investigation given their potential national security implications; (ii) persons mentioned in the December memorandum were unlikely to have been approached for comment, and therefore many of those persons were likely to deny the allegations contained in the raw intelligence; and (iii) while the December memorandum was prepared in good faith, its content must be critically viewed in light of the purpose for and circumstances in which the information was collected.

As seen on page nine of Steele's response to the interrogatories, the document is dated May 18, 2017. Presumably, this document was made public on that date or shortly thereafter. Although we know that Senator Charles Grassley, chairman of the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, sent FBI director Christopher Wray a copy of Steele's interrogatory responses in October 2017, it is likely that the FBI and the DOJ had a copy before the June 2017 warrant application was submitted. It would be difficult to believe that the FBI and DOJ were not monitoring the lawsuit against Steele. If for no other reason, failure to monitor the lawsuit would have been a dereliction of duty by the FBI and DOJ, given that the Steele dossier was used in the three previous FISA warrant applications and was being used again in the fourth FISA warrant application for a warrant that would allow surveillance for another 90 days.

The FBI and DOJ had a duty to monitor the lawsuit to see if anything developed that would impact the representations the FBI and DOJ were making to the FISA judges. This is precisely what happened in May of 2017, when Steele responded to the interrogatories. Yet there is nothing in the June FISA warrant application indicating that Rosenstein informed the FISA judge about Steele's interrogatory responses. It is unlikely that a disclosure about Steele's interrogatory responses was redacted in the publicly released version of the June 2017 FISA warrant application because there would be no legitimate reason to redact it given that Steele's interrogatory responses were public information.

Rosenstein's second deception was falsely telling the FISA judge that Steele did not disclose his information to the press in September 2016, but disclosed to the press only in October 2016. Footnotes on PDF pages 308-309 and 320-321 in the June 2017 warrant application state that 1) Steele told the FBI that he shared his information only to Fusion GPS and the FBI, and the FBI did not believe that Steele shared his information with the press in September 2016; 2) in late October 2016, when FBI director James Comey publicly announced the reopening of the Hillary email server investigation, Steele became "frustrated" with this action and, in response, disobeyed the FBI and shared his information with the press in late October 2016; and 3) the FBI continues to assess Steele's reporting as reliable but closed Steele as an active source.

The problem for Rosenstein is that on page eight of Steele's interrogatory responses, from May 2017, Steele admitted that he shared his information with the press in September 2016. This is the opposite of what Rosenstein told the FISA judge in June 2017. Rosenstein did not tell the FISA judge in June 2017 about Steele's admission from a month earlier. The FISA judge was likely left with the impression that Steele had only disobeyed the FBI once regarding sharing with the press, and then only because Steele was "frustrated" at the reopening of the Hillary email investigation in late October 2016, and Steele had no other motivation for sharing with the press. This was a false impression because Steele's "frustration" over the reopening of the Hillary investigation could not account for Steele's sharing with the press in September 2016. Moreover, Rosenstein did not tell the FISA judge that Steele had lied to the FBI about his sharing with the press in September 2016. The FISA judge was not given any indication that Steele's credibility was in serious doubt because of that lie. This is especially egregious, given that the June 2017 warrant application was significantly based on Steele's credibility.

Senator Grassley and Senator Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, noticed the significance of Steele's interrogatory responses over six months before the public release of the FISA warrant applications. On February 6, 2018, Grassley and Graham, released a redacted version of their memorandum on the topic dated January 4, 2018. On pages 4-5 of their memorandum, they asserted that FBI and DOJ officials misrepresented Steele's credibility to the FISA Court in order to make Steele appear more credible than the facts would justify.

The Grassley-Graham memorandum is primarily focused on Steele's lying to the FBI about when he spoke to the press. However, the memorandum sets forth a compelling case that Rosenstein was dishonest with the FISA judge in June 2017, and the unredacted portions of the June 2017 warrant application support this conclusion.

Allan J. Favish is an attorney in Los Angeles. His website is allanfavish.com. James Fernald and Mr. Favish have co-authored a book about what might happen if the government ran Disneyland, entitled Fireworks! If the Government Ran the Fairest Kingdom of Them All (A Very Unauthorized Fantasy).
D'Souza's Death of a Nation Stands Up to Criticism

Rule of thumb: If Rotten Tomatoes and most movie critics hate a political flick, it must be good! One of those critics who hangs out at the website RogerEbert.com deemed Dinesh D'Souza's latest film, Death of a Nation, so "shabbily constructed and artistically bankrupt" that it hardly "qualifies as a movie in the first place." Peter Sobczynski doesn't deal seriously with the film's core assertions, which he cavalierly dismisses as "cherry-picked facts" garnished by "overt omissions." Those two terms do serve well, alongside "blatant distortions," as descriptions of Sobczynski's review. D'Souza's movie, for example, compares Donald Trump to Abraham Lincoln only in certain respects, primarily as an American president who faces tremendous political hostility that once again threatens to divide the Union. P.S. repeats a canard that D'Souza has repeatedly demolished, including in this film, that the parties "switched positions" with respect to civil rights in the 1960s. This widely accepted misrepresentation ignores the fact that a greater percentage of Republicans than Democrats supported the '64 Civil Rights bill (which was filibustered in the Senate by Southern Democrats) and that all but two of the hundreds of segregationist Dixiecrat legislators remained Democrats throughout their long careers, including former Klansman Senator Robert Byrd of West Virginia. D'Souza also notes that the Democrat George Wallace carried the Deep South in 1968, not Richard Nixon, whose Civil Rights initiatives are rigorously ignored by leftist historians and movie critics who incessantly push the "Southern strategy" narrative.

P.S. also ignores the boatload of historical cherries that clearly put Mussolini's fascism on the "left" or socialist side of the political spectrum and has nothing to say about its curious "right-wing" repositioning after World War II. Hitler, like Mussolini, was a national socialist. D'Souza provides in this film several additional "cherries" that illuminate the mutual admiration that existed for years between Mussolini and FDR, as well as a few nuggets that show embarrassing links between Germany's early Nazi years and Roosevelt's New Deal. If P.S. has any intellectual curiosity about such things, it isn't communicated in his epithet-laden review. For those individuals who might be interested, D'Souza provides reams of additional evidence about the leftist origins of fascism in his book The Big Lie. Other "cherries" P.S. "overtly omits" from his review include the re-segregation of the White House by President Woodrow Wilson, that same Progressive Democrat's White House screening of D.W. Griffith's Klan-boosting The Birth of a Nation, and the blatantly racist aspects of Margaret Sanger's progressive eugenics-based organization, Planned Parenthood. Needless to say, P.S. has nothing positive to say about Trump and adds for his mindless readers that D'Souza never mentions "the countless [unspecified] scandals surrounding the administration." From my own perspective, Death of a Nation does cover much of the material that was dealt with in D'Souza's prior films, but this "repetitious" objection doesn't seem to count against the hundreds of Watergate or McCarthy-era retellings that continue to titillate Democrats and the mainstream media. Moreover, it certainly takes more than a few reiterations to drive home points that counter well established lies like "the parties switched in the '60s" and "fascism is on the right." Another important point the film makes is that northern Democrats opposed the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution that outlawed slavery and granted citizenship and voting rights to blacks. Consequently, the Civil War was not just a war of North versus South, but, in some respects, a war of anti-slavery Republicans against pro-slavery (or anti-abolition) Democrats who resided in both the North and the South. A completely new component of D'Souza's recent film is his interview with a white supremacist leader, Richard Spencer, whose favorite presidents include the founder of the Democratic Party, Andrew Jackson, and expansionist Democrat slave-owner James Polk. Far from being a conservative, Spencer sees rights being bestowed on us by "the state" and not "by God or nature." P.S. writes in his review that D'Souza "twists things around" to get Spencer to say "I guess I'm a Progressive," but what D'Souza actually does is point out how Spencer's political beliefs coincide with the state-centered philosophy of Progressivism. The mainstream media portray Spencer as a leader of the "Alt-Right" animated by President Trump, who, despite media claims, has actually pursued a non-state-centered agenda. For those of us who have seen D'Souza's prior films, Death of a Nation may seem like more of the same, even if "the same" is stuff that's essential to the nation's survival. For those who aren't familiar with D'Souza's work, Death of a Nation could be a revelatory moment that turns their political world upside-down. At the very least, for those folks whose minds are at all open, it can be an invitation to explore whether ideas that most folks take for granted are actually true  and if they aren't true, how and by whom those lies came to be propagated. Richard Kirk is a freelance writer living in Southern California whose book Moral Illiteracy: "Who's to Say?" is available on Kindle.
The Problem with Gay Marriage

Lately I've been thinking of a former close friend and colleague who happens to be one of the most brilliant and insightful political writers of our time. I had referenced his work in my own books long before I got to know him and was honored to find after we'd met that the esteem was mutual. I regarded his camaraderie as one of the blessings that conservative affiliations can afford, especially to those toiling in the scribbling trade. Our relationship lasted many years. We met often when he visited our shores, enjoyed many pleasant, conversation-rich dinners, shared the same circle of friends, continued to read one another's works with admiration, exchanged emails several times a week, and even wrote for the same magazines. I introduced him to my wife, with whom he developed a friendship and appreciation for her own contributions to the conservative movement. We were like an extended family. What could possibly go wrong?

The short answer is, a lot. Our relationship foundered over the vexed issue of redefining marriage, for my friend was gay and expected us to affirm the legalization of gay marriage in the United States and his forthcoming betrothal, as he referred to it, to his longtime partner. This we could not do. He objected to a rather obscure Facebook comment in which my wife deplored how the gay lobby's justifiable plea for tolerance, with which she was fully on board, had morphed into the triumphalist demand for the unconditional celebration of all things gay, from gay politicking to Gay Pride to so-called gay marriage. The question of religious freedom and belief, sanctioned by the Constitution, also entered into the equation. She supported the right of a Christian baker to refuse preparing a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. This my friend could not accept. An email arrived accusing us of homophobia and informing us that the friendship was over. Although I regard the reduction of identity to one's sexual preferences, whatever these might be, as a diminishment of the complex spectrum of human personality, I have nothing against the practice of homosexuality  to each his own  and considered it a non-issue and none of my business. I do not like to interfere in other people's personal lives. Then and now, however, I believed as a matter of principle that redefining marriage was another kettle entirely. People can manage their private passions as they wish, provided they remain within the common law, but marriage has to be defended not only as a binding compact between two people and an expression of religious faith, but as a social institution whose role is twofold: the preservation of cultural life and the procreation of the species. For these reasons, marriage can be only a contract between a man and woman. Love, companionship, spiritual and intellectual reciprocity are desirable goods, but from the institutional perspective, such golden qualities are sufficient though not necessary conditions. As the backbone of the social covenant and the sine qua non of reproductive duration, marriage is more than merely a ritual performance or a consumer accessory. Romance and compatibility will sweeten and strengthen commitment and avowal, but the essential point is that the contractual heterosexual union is the driving force of human culture and the warranty of human survival. When the institution of marriage is compromised; when single mothers proliferate and are even applauded; when children are separated or alienated from their parents; when the bonds of heterosexual intimacy are breached; when gender politics sabotages concord between the sexes; when same-sex couples receive the same rights, privileges, and rewards as child-bearing couples; and when matrimony becomes the prerogative of any group whatsoever with no relation to fecundity or cultural stability, the underpinnings of Western society will inevitably collapse. This is why Marxism, for example, considers marriage an institution that needs to be destroyed, since procreant marriage with all its attendant responsibilities is the foundation of bourgeois society. This is why its dissolution or misprision is a prerequisite for the revolutionary socialist state in which the pivotal loyalty of the individual belongs to the sovereign collective, not to the family. And this is why calling two men or two women in a union "marriage" has been serially championed by the left. Marriage in its orthodox acceptation may be in some respects a flawed institution; nevertheless, it is imperative. It is, as I've argued, the basis of civilizational survival, just as the heterosexual union in whatever form it may assume guarantees the survival of the race. Gay "marriage," taken to its reductio ad absurdum, would terminate in the disappearance of the human race from the face of the Earth. In weakening the institution of marriage, gay people calling themselves spouses actually endorse the logic of species annihilation. Moreover, to contend, as same-sex couples do, that they can adopt children or rely on sperm donors merely accentuates the paradox, for they reveal themselves as dependent on precisely the sexual fertility which they forsake and the procreative function they have renounced. There would be no gays in the absence of the bonded heterosexual couple that rears children and is socially constrained to provide for their future. There is a debt to be paid in the only way possible: do not insult or damage the institution that gave you existence and continues to sustain it. The fact often adduced by skeptics that not all heterosexual unions are fertile or permanent is beside the point; the ancestral purpose of marriage as an institution remains intact. There is another paradox regarding gays who, like my former friend, are politically conservative, since they have participated in the socialist and communist paradigm of family abolition and the destruction of the very society they have taken for granted, espousing as they do a kind of archetypal sterility. They are doing the left's bidding  professed conservatives eroding the traditional foundation of heteronormative society, turning marriage into a mockery of its reason for being. The cognitive dissonance is startling. None of these considerations carried any weight with my literary colleague, who accused my wife and me of rejecting his "essential humanity" and broke off all communication, saying the issue was "non-negotiable" and all discussion would henceforth cease. We have never heard from him again. That his sexual proclivities were wholly inconsequential to us and that we explicitly wished the best for him and his partner were now immaterial. That he was helping to consummate the cultural mission of the left simply did not factor. I think of our lost friendship with regret. We still follow his political writing devoutly, though we miss the conversations and lament the forfeiture of mutual affection. But there's no help for it. My brief, as I've stressed, was never against him or the nature of his desire and love. My argument was, one might say, clinical. The received institution of marriage, whether regarded as sacrosanct or purely functional, was indispensable to both culture and race and should not be enfeebled or caricatured or rendered moot. It has to be respected and maintained in order to serve its original purpose. My friend would have none of it. He demanded total assent and expected our congratulations. But as he once wrote me about another matter, "you don't owe a friend a lie." It's a maxim worth living by.
There was one thing most voters agreed on before the 2016 presidential election, and that was that Donald Trump was a good businessman and would likely do a good job handling the economy. After eight years of halting, lackluster economic growth under the heavy government hand of President Obama, Trump's supporters hoped The Donald would be able to unshackle the economy and inject real growth back into the country's business environs.

Stocks are markedly higher than at the end of Obama's tenure. The Dow is over 26K now (mid-Aug. 2018) compared to 19.8K when Obama left office, and the more broadly based S&P 500 is over 2,800 now compared to 2,270 when Obama left office.

The question is why, and how much is this president  or any president  really responsible for the economy's performance, good or bad?

Rabid, resentful liberal partisans  still reeling in utter shock and disbelief over Hillary's ignominious defeat, and eager to downplay any Trump success  are only too quick to point out that they feel that Obama handed Trump an altogether better economic hand than the one President Bush gave to Obama, so President Trump had a "head start" over Obama. With the country's banking system supposedly teetering on the brink of total collapse in the waning Bush years (according to liberal revisionists), it is Obama who deserves the credit for stabilizing a potentially calamitous situation and bringing order and sanity back to American economic markets. In liberal chronicles, any further growth in the ensuing Trump years is the result of Obama's measured, steady hand on the financial tiller as he masterfully guided the fragile American economic boat around the rocky shoals, as it were, and avoided additional damage.

Nice story. Blatantly untrue, however, despite the popular narrative put forth by the liberal mainstream media and repeated endlessly by accuracy-challenged Democratic politicians. The banking crisis was brought about largely by Democratic-sponsored, P.C.-driven lowered lending standards, which led to the creation of mortgage loans to borrowers patently unqualified to receive them. It was a financial time bomb waiting to go off. It finally did, and when it happened, the brilliant, heroic efforts of Sheila Bair (head of the FDIC under President Bush) ensured that not a single bank failed, maintaining confidence in the system and preventing an out-of-control run on the banks. In fact, President Bush put in place all the solutions to the crisis  including TARP  and the system was already recovering by the time Obama took office several months later.

Much to the total chagrin of rabid, resentful conservative partisans, however, Obama does deserve some credit. His calm, reassuring demeanor did indeed deliver a settling effect to deeply worried world markets. And while his "Stimulus" was little more than political showmanship of essentially no tangible positive economic value, it did demonstrate that the American administration was engaged and willing to take action. Sometimes, appearances can be as meaningful and comforting as substance. The world breathed a sigh of relief: the president was hands-on. Things would get better.

They did. Unfortunately, they didn't get that much better. Once past the immediate danger of the Great Recession, the Obama recovery was the weakest economic recovery after a recession in over 50 years. The weak recovery was indeed Obama's fault, as he took the opportunity presented by a desperate economic situation to impose his onerous, punishing ideological thumbprint on what he saw as the unfair aspects of our free-market system.

Under the banner of the undefinable but haughty-sounding phrase of "social justice," Obama targeted businesses with a raft of thicket-like, punitive regulations, increased their taxes and generally made it far more difficult for private businesses  large and small  to make a substantial profit. Make no mistake: the unspoken, never-admitted-to but unquestioned target of his actions was private business, owned and run, in Obama's mind, mostly by conservative Republicans, whose ill gotten profits never filtered down to the "deserving"  his voting base. Obama would change that.

For example, he weaponized the EPA by empowering the bureaucrats there to impose new emissions regulations so intentionally, unrealistically strict that targeted companies would be virtually forced out of business. Another action was his ACA Obamacare, which weighed down companies with virtually untenable financial requirements and new taxes for providing mandatory health care coverage for their employees. These are just two of the most visible of an uninterrupted eight-year string of anti-business actions on Obama's part. The net result of Obama's web of politically motivated anti-business taxes and regulations was an incredibly weak economic recovery  one that averaged only about 2% annual GDP growth from 2010-2016.

The real culprit of Obama's actions was the creation of tremendous uncertainty. Companies simply didn't know what new punishment, regulation, or tax awaited them around the bend. One anti-business action after another was flung at them by the Obama administration; companies were shell-shocked into inaction. They dared not make a risky move in terms of aggressive expansion or major capital investment for fear of yet another social justice landmine being tossed in their path.

Whether it's an individual, the head of a household, or the CEO of a billion-dollar company, when the outlook is uncertain and likely negative, it's human nature to play things conservatively, close to the vest, and take no chances. People spend the bare minimum, just enough to get by. Families cut back: no new car or extravagant vacation this year. Not until things improve. Companies don't expand, and they don't hire beyond what's absolutely necessary. They go into cost-cutting survival mode, hoping to ride out the storm.

That is precisely the negative atmosphere that Trump has removed, and that's why things are so much better. Buyer psychology is buyer psychology, regardless of scale. "Buyers"  individual consumers, heads of households, hiring agents, corporate purchasing managers, expansion-minded CEOs  all feel immeasurably more confident and certain about the economic landscape now, under President Trump, than they did under Obama. People don't feel that they're going to be blindsided or have the rug pulled out from underneath them. This administration has earned the confidence of the business community by rolling back punitive regulations and lowering taxes in a commonsense fashion, and it shows in the employment gains across all demographic groups; the markets' performance; and the GDP growth, which is averaging above 3% and poised to go higher, something that eluded the anti-business Obama administration.

President Trump deserves direct, unequivocal credit for the current economic turnaround. His removal of unneeded, punishing regulations and his tax-cutting measures have sent an unmistakable signal to buyers of all stripes and sizes that the country's business conditions really are better and it's safe to come out now. President Trump understands "buyer psychology" the way few, if any, past presidents have. This is a prime example of presidential leadership, coming from a skilled, experienced businessperson and exercised to the good of all Americans.
An 'Americas First' agenda

As a result of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro's ceaseless human rights abuses and authoritarian crackdowns of political opponents, over 1.5 million poverty-stricken citizens have fled the country since 2014. This outflow has become so extreme that yesterday, Ecuador's foreign ministry declared a state of emergency in three of its northernmost provinces  Carchi, Pichincha, and El Oro  as they are unable to cope with a reported 4,200 daily Venezuelan migrants streaming across the border from Colombia. While these dire circumstances should serve as a reminder to the world of the repeated failures of socialism  which is more important now than ever before  it should also remind us of the obligation the United States has to step in and lend assistance to our South American allies. Although it is true that this Wednesday, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., Nikki Haley, did announce that we would be giving another $9 million to Colombia to help  totaling $46 million so far  significantly more must be given, to other countries as well, in order to assist effectively.

To help contextualize the sheer scale of the issue at hand, when President Obama declared that the Mexican children border crossings were an "urgent humanitarian situation" back in 2013 and spent billions trying to remedy it, it was because the number had reached nearly 25,000 apprehended in a year. Ecuador, Colombia, and other surrounding countries take in that amount  as per the above numbers  in less than two weeks. The world still refuses to acknowledge this problem, leaving inexperienced and underfunded countries to scramble for resources in their valiant effort to save millions. Assistance to countries that border Venezuela boldly empowers and incentivizes Venezuelans to "vote with their feet" and move, demonstrating to them that America supports their fight for freedom and opportunity. Ilya Somin  a law professor at George Mason University and an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute who has written much on the topic  explains in a recent paper just how powerful foot-voting can be, in that it offers both country and citizen a choice: if a government chooses dangerous policy a la Venezuela, the people can then choose to leave to find better opportunity elsewhere, robbing the former of its most important economic resource: people. This is not a mere theory  we have seen evidence of this happening even in America, with ample data regarding interstate movement involving increasing numbers of people moving away from high-tax states toward low-tax locales like Texas. Such an action poses a troubling question to rulers like Maduro: what good is a Socialist Paradise if there is no one left to live in it? The positive effects from aid like this would not end at the border. By enabling nearby countries to better absorb the migrant influx, those emigres can more quickly put their talents to work, boosting the economies of their host countries and even America's, as it could further expand our opportunities for trade. The Western Hemisphere  minus Canada and Mexico  makes up over $500 billion of our goods and services trade. Bolstering that amount has the potential to be fruitful for our economy. Clearly, aid would not only weaken Venezuela's harmful agenda, but serve as an investment in the economies of countries that have long stood behind us and what we stand for. Taking decisive action  in addition to greatly helping those in need  would also send a message to an international community that has become increasingly critical toward America: that when push comes to shove, the U.S.  unlike the U.N.  gets things done. The U.N. has repeatedly decried the actions of Maduro but, to date, has only "suggested the International Criminal Court could become involved." The U.N. not made any effort to actually stop the crisis, instead drafting a five-page angry letter expressing how "deeply disturbed", "grave[ly] concern[ed]," and "alarmed" members are at measures taken by the U.S., the E.U., and others. Their solution? "Urg[ing] States to resolve their differences through dialogue and peaceful relations." This is an excellent chance to expose the U.N's ineptitude, slamming it for the comments it made about poverty in the United States less than two months ago. Perhaps  and more selfishly  deciding to send aid could act as a redemption arc of sorts for the Trump administration, especially in light of the scathingly harsh criticism it received in response to its family separation policy. Demonstrating that they actually care about what happens south of the border would be valuable for a Republican Party entering midterm season at a strong disadvantage. Convincing uneasy moderates could serve as a dam against an impending "blue wave." Aside from the above reason, just as we have done countless times in the past, the United States needs to lead by example and show the world that, yes, America is still an unparalleled force for good. Millions are counting on what we can do for them in these coming months, and America needs to step up to the plate.
In other words, are Hispanics going to show up in 2018? It looks as though I'm not the only one asking that question. Let's check out Ronald Brownstein :

Even since the Texas primary runoff, I've been wondering about the Hispanic vote. Back on May 22, a Hispanic woman running for governor in a runoff resulted in the lowest turnout since 1920 . "No muy bueno," as we say in Spanish.

Democrats have hit an unexpected speed bump in their drive to regain control of Congress: unsettling signs that the party may not generate as much turnout or support among Latino voters this fall as it expected. Despite a procession of provocations from President Donald Trump  from ending deportation protections for so-called "Dreamers," young immigrants [sic] brought to the country illegally by their parents, to his now-terminated policy that resulted in children being separated from their undocumented [sic] parents at the border  a growing number of Democratic strategists are privately concerned that their candidates are not consolidating Latino support as much as they anticipated in several key races. While cautioning that there is still time to reverse the trend, they point to signs of wavering Hispanic support and engagement in House districts in Texas, Nevada, Florida and California, and in Senate races in Texas, Nevada, Florida and Arizona.

I agree that there is still time to turn this around. At the same time, the apathy could get worse with more time.

There are two problems.

First, the economy for Hispanics is working out well. Unemployment is low. Prospects are good. Jobs are the best medicine to tune out the guy crying wolf.

Second, you need a better message than repeating over and over what then-candidate Trump said about "rapists." I agree that Trump could have used better language, but how much longer are they going to sing that song?

We will wait and see for the voters to answer our questions in November. I agree with Brownstein that Democrats need to give Hispanics some new material or face low turnout.

PS: You can listen to my show (Canto Talk) and follow me on Twitter.
"Fossil fuel corporations are drowning our democracy in a tidal wave of dark oily money; they have deceived the public about the impacts of climate change, fought the growth of clean renewable energy, and corrupted our political system," the resolution read. That noise you hear is the sound of global warming hysteric's heads exploding.

I guess that dark, oily money was just too hard to resist.

Washington Free Beacon:

But HuffPost reported Friday that the DNC was already considering lifting the ban, with a vote scheduled Friday afternoon. Introduced by DNC chairman Tom Perez, the resolution frames the decision as a means to empower workers in the fossil fuel industry, saying the DNC will accept "the longstanding and generous contributions of workers, including those in energy and related industries, who organize and donate to Democratic candidates individually or through their unions or employers political action committees." During the Barack Obama administration, the DNC had a ban on all corporate PAC donations. That ban was lifted during the 2016 election by the then-DNC chairwoman, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D., Fla.), during which time the energy sector donated $2.6 million. An attempt to reinstate the ban in 2017 was voted down, despite efforts from progressive DNC member and Congressman Keith Ellison (D., Minn.).

The resolution passed overwhelmingly.

Of course. We should have known. Democratic candidates will now accept campaign contributions from fossil fuel companies in the interest of the workers.

The Hill:

On a conference call Friday, Perez said that after the June resolution passed, members of the labor community voiced concerns about the ban, calling "an attack on the working people in these industries." But he stressed that the DNC will still work to combat climate change. We have to draw the line that we are indeed a party of a big tent where all working people are welcome. Were not a party that punishes workers simply based on how they make ends meet, Perez said. We have been engaging with folks in the labor movement to address their concerns," he continued. "At the same time, we remain committed to the Democratic Party platform, which states unequivocally our support for combating climate change.

This kind of hypocrisy is rare, even for a political party. It would be like the RNC approving a resolution allowing anti-tax cut PACs to donate to candidates. But it's a measure of how serious Democrats are about retaking the House that they would throw one of their prime constituencies - global warming advocates - under the bus.

It's difficult to reconcile taking money from oil and coal companies while piously proclaiming Republicans the enemy of Mother Earth. But most candidates won't bat an eye at the switcheroo and still bash the GOP as "deniers" all the way to the bank.
The data is controversial. Activists say that too many young people are misidentified as gang members and are forced to carry that designation all through their lives. But police defend the data, saying it assists them in fighting the war against gangs, who have unleashed an unprecedented level of violence in the city.

Police data obtained by the Chicago Tribune after an open records request shows that almost 33,000 Chicago juveniles have been arrested over the past two decades and identified as gang members.

The records released to the Tribune through a Freedom of Information Act request included 20 years of arrest data in all for adults as well as juveniles, giving a glimpse at how the department gathers and stores information on the tens of thousands it says have been gang-affiliated. Its a controversial practice that has led to an ongoing audit by the citys Office of Inspector General, a federal lawsuit against the city and a proposed city ordinance to limit its impact. Critics and experts say that the gang labels are often too easily attached, racially skewed and out of date, yet the harm can be lasting when the Police Department shares flawed gang intelligence with other law enforcement agencies such as immigration officials. It can also be a damaging label during criminal investigations or at sentencings. While the department released adult gang records to the newspaper in April, it had refused to provide similar data on juveniles, citing privacy laws. After the Tribune appealed to the Illinois attorney generals office for the juvenile records, though, the departments Bureau of Technical Services released a new set of data. The department said its most recent search took a more thorough look at arrest data, but it still didnt capture everyone labeled a gang member by Chicago police because it excluded street stops that didnt result in arrests. That means the department could have far more than 33,000 juveniles listed as gang members in its databases.

Gang members are usually members for life - or death - so the value of this database should be immediately clear to anyone concerned about gang violence. Tracking the rise of juvenile offenders to gang kingpins makes it easier to track offenders, gather intelligence, and arrest perpetrators.

There are almost certainly mistakes in the database. But anyone who has been misidentified is not likely to lose employment or be denied entrance to a school because the data isn't publicly available. Only if someone is suspected of committing a crime will the database be employed.

The point being, there are very few "innocent" people in that database. If you avoid getting arrested, the records won't come into play.

The idea that the data is "racially skewed" is absurd. Nothing is skewed when the arrests or police stops occur in neighborhoods where there a few to no white faces. Bringing up race is a typical distraction used by activists that makes it appear as if they want to obstruct the police in their efforts to crack down on gangs.

It's frightening to contemplate that despite the database, gang violence is way out of control, making the city a shooting
A heat wave in North Korea has led to rice, maize and other crops withering in the fields, with potentially catastrophic effects, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) said on Friday.

As negotiations continue over President Trumps demand that North Korea junk its nuclear weapons and missile programs, Kim Jong-uns bargaining position may be weakening. Reuters reports:

The worlds largest disaster relief network warned of a risk of a full-blown food security crisis in the isolated country, where a famine in the mid-1990s killed up to three million people. It said the worrying situation had been exacerbated by international sanctions imposed due to North Koreas nuclear and missile programs.

I am no fan of the IFRC. Its ole in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians who seek to destroy it has been one-sided. So, it does not surprise me if Sanctions are blamed for potential famine. No mention of the diversion of NKs very limited resources into expensive weapons programs, of course.

And they blame recent weather for the probem:

In a statement issued in Geneva, the IFRC said there had been no rainfall since early July as temperatures soared to an average 39 Celsius (102 Fahrenheit) across the country, whose official name is the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK). The next rain was expected in mid-August.

Yet, months before the July weather, in early May, Reuters was reporting serious food production problems in North Korea

Funding shortfalls have meant that rations have had to be reduced and suspended in some cases, WFP said in a statement coinciding with the start of the May 8-11 visit by WFP executive director David Beasley.

The real source of North Koreas food shortage should be obvious: socialism. Just like Venezuela and Zimbabwe.

But the patch of drought and heat no doubt is increasing pressure on Kim to fund a means of easing the sanctions and getting some food aid shipments. Dependence on foreign charity is not a good look for dictators negotiating with Donald Trump.

I have no doubt that Kim Jong-un would rather lose a million of his subjects than make a disadvantageous deal that removed his survival security blanket (nukes) without adequate guarantees of regime survival.

No famine worries for Kim Jong-un's table

Nonetheless, the weather is adding to President Trumps leverage. The many enemies of his will seize any opportunity to portray him as inhumane and causing starvation, so the card has to be played privately and skillfully.

Stay tuned.

Caricature by Donkey Hoety via Flickr

Hat tip: John McMahon
And, this is receiving vast public subsidies, despite assurances that it would be privately funded. Barack and Michelle Obama have been playing a major role in its design, in a fashion reminiscent of a dictator putting up monuments to himself in some third world country. As the revised design stands, it will look like a cenotaph bizarrely erected before the death and burial of its principal.

The Obama Presidential Center planned for Chicago is nothing more than a personal monument to Barack Obama and a center for political indoctrination in his radical views. It serves no public purpose the way that a presidential library would. Obamas presidential papers will not be housed there, and no scholars will be afforded the opportunity to explore the history of his presidency.

I have written several pieces about the folly of the OPC. But I am delighted to be joined in this by the Wall Street Journal. In an article there, Mark Glennon challenges the vast subsidies that all American taxpayers will be affording this personal and political endeavor:

Illinois taxpayers will put up at least $174 million for roadway and transit reconfigurations needed to accommodate the Obama Center. If you dont live in Illinois, you may be smirkingbut youll be footing the bill, too. Eighty percent of such spending is generally reimbursed by the federal government, and Illinois officials confirmed to me that they expect to receive $139 million from Washington if they request it.

Bait and switch

Taxpayers were softened up by a bait and switch strategy:

In a 2014 request for proposal, the Obama Foundation said that the planned presidential library will include an Institute that will enhance the pursuit of the Presidents initiatives beyond 2017. This institute now seems to have taken over the project. As the Chicago Tribune reported in February: Obama said he envisions his center as a place where young people from around the world can meet each other, get training and prepare to become the next generation of leaders. No doubt, his definition of leaders will be political. Which raises the question of why the state and city are giving the Obama Center official support. Back when it was still being sold as an official presidential library, the city of Chicago took steps to allow the project to be built in Jackson Park. Under a deal approved by the City Council in May, the Obama Foundation will lease 19.3 acres in perpetuity for $1.

One dollar for perpetual use of a huge amount of priceless lakefront land.

Fortunately, this is not going to happen without a legal challenge:

A nonprofit group called Protect our Parks has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that this violates state law. The suit calls the Obama Center a bait and switch, since the public purpose of a presidential library no longer exists.

I am proud to report that my work was cited in that lawsuit.

Promises made, promises broken

Last fall WTTW, a Chicago public television station, was reporting skeptically on preliminary plans for Illinois to cough up $100 million to assist the Obama Center: How could a public financing proposal fly in a state that is bleeding red ink, especially when the Obamas have promised 100 percent private funding?

The Obama Foundation responds that no public money will flow into its coffers (the tax deductibility of donations is another matter). But a hundred and seventy-four million taxpayer dollars spent on construction specifically designed for the facility is a subsidy, period.

Hat tip: Michael Nadler
As Ireland and Chile were falling to the abortion forces and getting great media coverage about how they'd finally foisted ' progress ' upon their once-Catholic nations, Argentina of all places pushed back resoundingly in the opposite direction, with its Senate taking a stunning stance in favor of life, despite a big global pro-abortion campaign in the name of 'women's rights.' And that came despite a big press buildup cheering the other side on as the only side worth reporting on.

It was utterly radical news from the other end of the hemisphere that the press didn't seem to want to talk about much.

Wow. Even many pro-lifers have up until now viewed the defense of life as almost a rearguard battle, triage in the name of keeping life alive as an issue in the hopes of a better day, given the size and power of foes such as Planned Parenthood and its mainstream media allies. All 'respectable' Democrats support the killing of the unborn. Pretty much all Hollywood actresses support Planned Parenthood. And certainly the press covers just one side of the issue - the pro-abortion side, because supporting life is just ... unthinkable. It's a juggernaut, and not only is it deep, it's worldwide. The Irish abortion vote earlier this year, which forces even Catholic hospitals to perform abortion even if it goes against conscience, was horrible.

Now, we are staring in amazement at a nation that simply said no, and in so doing, achieved a stunning victory for life. Here's what it looks like in Argentina now:

Well done to #Argentina for rejecting the brutal abortion abortion industry.

No surprise the pro-abortion fanatics rioted when they lost. Nasty people wherever they are as we know well in Ireland.

This pro-life win trumps #repealthe8th on a global scale.#ArgentinaDefiendeLaVida pic.twitter.com/NDyifQ1xV2  Emma Murphy (@EmmaMurphy12150) August 10, 2018

Here's a video. And the pictures on Twitter are absolutely ecstatic. This is the real Argentina, the nation that loves life - in every sense.

What happened? How or why could it be that things could turn out so differently in this country? A certain kind of leftist prig could argue that it was just the vote in the Senate, not the will of the people, which is true in many countries. But it wasn't. It was preceded by an avalanche of whole states that came out as pro-life in the run-up to the vote. You can bet that was because voters were pushing for it. You can see the popular support on this Twitter sequence here. Because that's an Argentina thang. It's populist to a fault. That's to say there's no politician out there who will do anything without the will of the people squarely behind him. Argentines hate their politicians, but not for lack of their doing the populist thing. The politicians if anything go overboard in their populism, and are far more likely to sacrifice fiscal discipline or double-entry bookkeeping in order to enact the will of the people, which is why they often get bad results such as bankrupt public coffers. They are populists and Argentina is the nation, unlike any other, that gave us descamisados, and Juan Peron.

Which only serves to amplify this vote as the will of the people instead of that of an elite that has no regard for 'what women want' which is a longstanding claim of the globalist pro-abortion lobby.

It's not hard to think we in the rest of the world can learn something from this stunning victory for life in Argentina. There are a lot of clues about it out on Twitter.

We can start with tweets like this that have been going around:

Nationalism and a strong sense of sovereignty were obvious here in this 'retort' to the Washington Post's undoubtedly negative coverage, which hints strongly that the country was being pressured by international abortion lobbies and didn't like it:

It seems that we think different. Luckily, we are a sovereign country, we make our own decisions, we don't need your advice#NoEsLey #ArgentinaDefiendeLaVida pic.twitter.com/vyUhEsXukb  Peregrino    (@ha_peregrino) August 9, 2018

Wow. Directed at the WaPo, which the locals are talking back to because of its unfair coverage. You get the sense of the little guy against the global juggeraut right there.

Next up we get into the argument against the killing itself. Note the use of dollar signs that unwittingly illustrates that the abortion lobby as a big bucks globalist operation. This is a pro-choice sign (in English, which signals the globalism of the push), making a specious and mendacious argument that legalizing abortion will save women's lives, which is baloney, because neighboring Chile, which has long had prohibitions on abortion, is famous for its low infant mortality:

Here is the retort on Twitter from the pro-lifers:

#ElMundoGritaAbortoLegal porque los embriones no tienen cuerdas bocales. Si ellos no pueden gritar, gritemos nosotros por ellos. Argentina defiende la vida #ArgentinaDefiendeLaVida #OlaCelesteLatinoamericana pic.twitter.com/TBDldza0Ph  Facu Bello Guti (@FacuBelloGuti) August 8, 2018

Note that the images show unborn babies cut up like cuts of beef, with dollar prices for brain, lungs, eyes, arms, the whole body parts business from aborted fetuses that has made the global abortion industry rich.

This analysis here signals that the pro-life forces skillfully succeeded in getting the message out that global abortion is big business and all about greed and money:

A lawyer, Martin Zeballos, coined a phrase in an article he wrote for the newspaper Clarin. Argentina had a sleeping giant that has awoken, Zeballos wrote, and he has a sky-blue neckerchief. Zeballos was referring to the sky-blue neckerchief that has become the symbol of those who defend the right to life. This is a symbol which recalls the sky-blue of Argentinian flag, and so the love of the unborn became synonymous with love of country. On the other hand, pro-abortion activists wear green neckerchiefs. This colorthe color of a dollar billquickly became identified with the international financial pressure on Argentina to legalize abortion. This color blindness turned out to be a major strategic blunder on the part of the pro-aborts. Pro-lifers also won the messaging campaign, adopting a great slogan: Let us save 2 lives. This referred to saving both the childs life and the mothers, and helped to rally support to the pro-life cause.

They did succeed in showing, then, that the international abortion lobby is a soulless globalist outfit, that is inherently anti-Argentinian, and inherently all about greed and big bucks from soulless globalist organizations, whose agenda comes at a cost to human lives.

That worked well there, given Argentina's uniquely bad history with horrible organizations such as the International Monetary Fund. But there are probably takeaways that can well be used here, given what we know about the vileness of the abortion industry.

There's ample reason to savor this victory, not the least because of the lives that will never be lost. But here's a lagniappe that is worth considering: Argentina is not just Argentina to all of us, but a bellwether of coming trends. It was the first nation that swung left when Latin America went into its socialist spiral in the late 1990s, and it was the first nation that swung rightward with the "unexpected" election of Mauricio Macri, resoundingly rejecting the clown-socialism of Hugo Chavez of Venezuela,

Is it absurd to think this pro-life vote in Argentina may just be another bellwether of things to come? It was a big victory and it offered a blueprint of how to win the hearts and minds necessary for the defense of life.

One can only hope that the Argentina example will be studied and repeated here.
Pope Francis stated that the death penalty is unacceptable. This has caused discussion and argument from supporters and opponents of the death penalty.

Lets examine the issue about whether, as limited government, conservatives, and libertarians, we trust the government to execute a person.

But let's put aside Pope Francis's opinion, or anybody else's opinion about the death penalty, so we don't conflate what we think about the death penalty with the Pope or anyone else.

There are of course many crimes for which the death penalty seems appropriate. But the problem is that we have a justice system run by imperfect men. It cannot be helped because we are imperfect.

I was in favor of the death penalty until the past two years after watching the corrupt Obama FBI/DOJ trying to prevent the election of Trump and now trying to weaken and force him out of office. The power wielded by the corrupt Obama Gang brought to focus the power of corrupt prosecutors and police. The Obama gang lied and used false information to obtain FISA warrants. They coerced and tricked General Flynn, a decorated war hero, into a perjury plea. The Obama gang showed no hesitancy to go after the President for political purposes because they favored the election of Hillary.

Now they are prosecuting Paul Manafort on charges from conduct in 2005 using the testimony of Rick Gates, who is charged with essentially the same crimes as Manafort. Mueller wants to convict Manafort because he was Trumps campaign manager, just like Genera Flynn worked for Trump. Gates gets a favorable plea deal because the Mueller team of Obama/Hillary prosecutors want to nail Trump supporters. The Obama Gang has been trying to undo the election of President Trump

One can ask, What does the Russia investigation have to do with the death penalty? The answer is that prosecutors and police decide which case gets the death penalty. While most prosecutors and police that I have dealt with are honorable, the conduct of the corrupt Obama DOJ and FBI should make everyone think about the power of corrupt police and prosecutors, exemplified by the Obama Gang. For example, on a local level, remember the Duke lacrosse team case where a political District Attorney filed rape charges against innocent students?

Or, the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas judge in Luzerne County who sent over 2,000 minors to private prisons in return for cash?

Or, on the federal level, in 1965 the Boston FBI allowed four men to be convicted of murder when it knew they were innocent. Three were on death row until the Supreme Court vacated their death penalty but spent about 30 years in prison. The US paid damages of over 100 million for their convictions.

Moreover, there is no question that we have executed innocent people. The Innocence Project founded by Attorney Peter Neufeld and Barry Scheck in 1992 has freed 358 with DNA testing. Most importantly twenty (20) were on death row.

If we reason by inference from these facts, it is obvious that before 1992 when DNA testing was first used by the Project, innocent people were executed.

The corruption of the Russia investigation by the Obama FBI/DOJ has affected the way we view the police and prosecutors.

Do you want prosecutors and police such as Strzok, McCabe, Ohr, Comey, and Mueller's team to decide who gets the death penalty?
As if we're not supposed to think of President Trump with such endorsements, given the press's wall-to-wall claims that Trump is a tyrant.

These questions are more pertinent to us in the early 21st century than we would wish.

How do democratic countries get to the point where they give up on self-rule? Under what circumstances do demagogues capture large audiences through irrational, emotional appeals unmoored from fact, logic or morality? When do politicians responsible for maintaining a democratic system surrender to dictators?

Writing in the Washington Post the other day, lefty columnist E.J. Dionne is pumping the old leftist narrative that President Trump is a tyrant, producing pious drivel like this :

But just in case we're a little clueless, Dionne makes it clear for us that Trump is the guy he's talking about as the New Hitler:

Consider this declaration from Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler's chief propagandist: "Certainly we want to build a wall, a protective wall."

He gets even less subtle here (emphasis added):

Conservatives everywhere should ponder the choices made by the German establishment, including big business, the military, culturally traditional Protestants and big landowners. They all helped bring Hitler to power because they hated the left [editor's note: Hitler was a National Socialist]  including the moderate Social Democrats, the backbone of the Weimar Republic  more than they loved republican government and political freedom.

Oh.

I'm going to look at another presidency from the early 21st century, that of one Barack Hussein Obama. Because the path to autocracy is familiar, and we saw it during the eight years of Obama, and pundits such as Dionne supported it every step of the way. What did he do? How did he do it? Allow me to refresh Dionne's memory:

He broke bankruptcy law by rewarding his political supporters, the unions, over secured bondholders whose claims took priority.

He lied continuously to get his precious Obamacare through.

He taxed and regulated as fast as he could to take greater government control.

His IRS targeted political opponents to shut them up.

He weaponized the Justice Department and the Intelligence Community to spy on and otherwise target his political opponents.

He lied continuously to get the Iran deal done.

He repeatedly said he didn't have the authority to change immigration laws and then dictatorially and unconstitutionally did it anyway.

He used the FBI and Justice Department to protect Hillary and himself as well as to target Trump. Despite being mired in scandals, he never fired anyone, let alone appointed a special counsel to investigate.

He left Americans on the ground representing America to die while concocting a lie about a video to protect his political power.

He allowed uranium to be sold to a dangerous country.

He told Russia he would be flexible if he was re-elected.

In summary, Obama tried to usurp power for himself and government as fast as he could.

In contrast, Trump is trying to give the power, purse, and freedom back to the people as fast as he can, which is the opposite of what an autocrat, dictator, or fascist ever does.

So Dionne in his leftist wisdom is absolutely correct. An autocrat is easy to spot, and he and most of his fellow sycophant journalists supported one for eight years. It is a shame he was so willing to bend over as the country, as it was founded, was being destroyed. It is pathetic that Dionne and others did so much to intentionally mislead the public down that dangerous path.
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All states/UTs to give due publicity through electronic/print media, local cable services to make people aware about firecracker ban: SC.

Chief Secretary, Secretary (Home), Police Commissioner, District SP, SHO to be personally liable for violation of ban on firecrackers: SC

Any lapse on part of states, agencies and UTs in implementing ban on firecrackers shall be viewed very seriously: SC.

There is no total ban on use of firecrackers, only crackers containing Barium salts prohibited, says SC.

Celebration cannot be at cost of other's health: SC on firecrackers.
Rick Lofaro, executive director at the Roaring Fork Conservancy, cuts the ribbon to open the organization's new facility on the banks of the Roaring Fork River on Friday morning in Basalt.
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Considering the immensely positive response the new Jimny received, both in Japan and Europe, we wouldn't be surprised if it becomes a real hero of the aftermarket industry. After all, there hasn't been such a cool-looking and smallin a long time.Japan's tuners are not strangers to making one car look like another. There was the Subaru BRZ that was made to resemble an Aston Martin and, more recently, a Daihatsu Kopen that looked like a convertible Nissan GT-R . Liberty Walk did that one too!In any case, the rendering they are proposing is borderline plagiarism, especially since the front bumper is a carbon copy of an-style G-Class. But we don't mind that, nor do we dislike the hood scoop. They work well with the deliberately round headlights of the Jimny.A silver tow hook can also be seen at the bottom of the bumper. So this little truck means business... off-road business.Liberty Walk is best known for its bolt-on fender flares which create a deliberate aftermarket statement. It's not like the standard Jimny is weak in that department, but it more resembles a Jeep Wrangler.Kato Wataru and his hang also included a small deck for the top of the car and a rear spoiler. An aftermarket exhaust is also suggested in the company's social media posts, as are custom wheels. But let's not forget that Jimny is still available as a kei ar and subsequently fitted with a 0.66-liter engine.No pricing details have been announced, but the "OEP222" body kit shouldnt cost more than a couple of grand.
The hacker conference DEF CON launched its second annual election hacking extravaganza on Friday after last year's conference led cybersecurity enthusiasts to discover several security flaws in election equipment and are poised to do the same thing again this year.

The big picture: One secretary of state argued at the event that the problem may be less about rediscovering how unsecure machines are, and more about getting the funding to do anything about it.

What they're saying: "We spend $700 billion for defense," California Secretary of State Alex Padilla told Axios. "Last week, the White House said that election security was a national security issue. For less than 1 tenth of 1%, Congress could make a world of difference."

The event: Padilla was one of several high profile attendees at this year's conference. He and Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for the Office of Cybersecurity and Communication Jeanette Manfra both spoke at the event and several Homeland Security cybersecurity experts participated in the hacking.

The background: Congress fronted $380 million for new election systems earlier this year  but that money came from a fund started more than a decade ago.

"The money Congress appropriated last month isnt cybersecurity money, its still hanging chad money," said Padilla, who would later echo the remarks at a panel. "We need cybersecurity money."

Padilla noted that the changing cybersecurity landscape requires continually updated systems and replacing equipment. The one-time Congressional gift would not be enough for every state to make necessary repairs, let alone keep systems secure on any long-term basis.

State officials worry the hacking event will be misconstrued. The speed and thoroughness with which hackers tunneled into voting machines and a poll book last year received widespread press coverage.

On Thursday, the National Association of Secretaries of State said it supported the hacking event this year, but wanted to be clear the hacking did not accurately represent real world conditions.

"Providing conference attendees with unlimited physical access to voting machines...does not replicate accurate physical and cyber protections established by state and local governments. "

Hacking voting machines often needs to be done with physical access to each machine. Following proper security hygiene guidelines, including limiting access to machines, minimizes those threats.
Iran fired a ballistic test missile for the first time in over a year last week, just days before the United States hit the country with sanctions on Tuesday, Fox News reports citing multiple U.S. officials.

Why it matters: This is the first missile test the country has launched since the United States pulled out of the Iran deal earlier this year. Though there were no U.S. assets near the missile launch, it is still viewed as an "act of defiance." The secret military activity by Iran was intended to "send a message" to the U.S., according to a top commander for U.S. forces in the Middle East.
Pakistan and Russia signed an agreement this week that said Pakistani military officers would be trained at Russian Federation military institutes, the Associated Press reports.

The context: This comes after reports that the U.S. is cutting back on military training for Pakistani soldiers in the U.S., per the AP. The agreement "underscores Pakistan's increasing reliance on Russia for its military needs." Go deeper: Pakistan's future as the "most dangerous country in the world"
Before talks with North Korea can progress, the U.S. must officially declare the Korean War over, the New York Times' David Sanger and William Broad report.

The big picture: While President Trump has maintained that his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was a success, according to the Times, the regime is refusing to provide documents of its nuclear weapons, stockpiles, and production sites.

The bottom line: This standoff could ultimately stall how the two countries move forward, if at all.

North Korea is hesitant to provide a declaration of its total nuclear capabilities with the fear it could give the U.S. "information to target any pre-emptive strikes in the future." The regime's state-run newspaper, Rodon Sinmun, said the U.S.' proclamation is "the demand of our time," per the Times.

of its total nuclear capabilities with the fear it could give the U.S. "information to target any pre-emptive strikes in the future." The regime's state-run newspaper, Rodon Sinmun, said the U.S.' proclamation is "the demand of our time," per the Times. The concern with declaring the Korean war over  as it was "halted with a 1953 armistice but never officially brought to a close"  is that it would look as though Trump was "outmaneuvered" by Kim, the NYT reports.

For many experts, the inability to progress with talks isn't all that surprising. Joseph Nye, who wrote the first assessment of North Korea's weapons program for the National Intelligence Council in 1993, told the Times: "The North Koreans have lied to us consistently for nearly 30 years. ... Trump is in a long tradition of American presidents who have been taken to the cleaners."

Go deeper:
By Trend

Over the past 24 hours, Armenian armed forces have 82 times violated the ceasefire along the line of contact between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said August 11.

Armenian armed forces were using large-caliber machine guns.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

---

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz
Exxon Mobil Corp. lost its fight with the U.S. government over a request for a $337 million refund for fuel excise taxes.

A Dallas federal judge on Wednesday sided with the government in a dispute over how to apply so-called mixture credits against the fuel excise tax.
A Port Arthur man was charged with aggravated assault after reportedly stabbing another man, according to information from the Port Arthur Police Department.

Officers responded to reports of a stabbing at 3740 Gulfway Drive shortly before noon on Friday, PAPD said.
The clear-out of Co-op Banks top ranks continued as finance chief Tom Woods announced plans to step down after less than one year in the role.

The lender confirmed on Friday that Mr Wood, who also served as the banks restructuring officer, was leaving after making significant progress in the banks restructuring programme over the past 12 months.

Mr Wood became the banks third finance chief in two years when he joined the bank in September 2017, replacing John Worth.

Co-op Bank will launch a formal search process for his successor, but said Mr Wood will stay on until a replacement is found.

Mr Wood said: It has been a privilege to lead the restructuring of The Co-operative Bank.

The hard work of many colleagues has helped us achieve some key milestones ahead of schedule, in particular towards de-risking the balance sheet, reducing our pension liabilities and improving the capital position.

Our progress to lower costs and improved efficiency has laid important foundations for the bank as it builds for the future.

It marks the third major departure among Co-op Banks top brass this year, having first seen chairman Dennis Holt leave and be replaced by Paragons boss Bob Dench in the spring.

A few months later, the lender announced the departure of chief executive Liam Coleman after just a year and a half in the role.

Andrew Bester  a former executive of Lloyds Banking Group  was appointed as his replacement nearly a month later.

Mr Wood leaves Co-op Bank nearly 12 months after it struck a 700 million rescue deal that saved it from potential collapse last September.

The refinancing and restructuring package agreed to by the Co-op Banks hedge fund investors  which include Silver Point Capital, GoldenTree, Anchorage Capital, Blue Mountain and Cyrus Capital  saw the bank effectively sever its historic relationship with the Co-operative Group and separate itself from the wider mutuals pension scheme.

It gave the lender the ability to meet regulations on long-term capital requirements, avoid it being wound down and allow it to continue as a stand-alone lender.

Mr Bester said: Toms drive and commitment has helped to materially transform the position of the bank over the past 12 months and we thank him for his significant contribution in delivering a number of complex restructuring milestones.

The bank is now in a stronger position and I understand Toms desire to take on a new challenge. We wish him every success for the future.

There is still much to be done as we seek to return to a position of sustainable profitability, rebuilding the ethical bank we know is valued by our customers.
This Wednesday, August 15, 20 years after the terrible Omagh bomb, I'll be at St George's School in Weybridge in Surrey for a service at the grave of James Barker.

A happy, kind and loving boy, he was 12 when he was murdered when out with friends on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

It was the busiest shopping day of the year - not least for school uniforms - so among the crowds was a disproportionate number of women and children.

There would be 31 people dead when the 500lb car bomb went off in the busiest part of town. The youngest, Eimear and Evelyn Monaghan, were close to being born: the oldest, their grandmother, Mary Grimes, was 66. Only 14 were more than 21.

And there were, too, over 200 physically injured, some of them terribly. Thousands were traumatised.

Apart from the unborn twins, the 31 dead were two babies, three schoolgirls, four schoolboys, six students, four housewives, three shop assistants, a despatch clerk, a shopkeeper, a crane driver, a mechanic, a horticulturalist, a businessman and a retired accounts clerk. It was their very ordinariness that gave them a kind of universality.

The horrors of this carnage in a little country town - the worst single atrocity of the Troubles - were compounded by it having happened three months after the Good Friday Agreement had been approved by voters across the whole island and celebrated by the international press as a happy ending to decades of violence and misery. There would be around 800 books of condolence, with two million signatures delivered to Omagh.

As always happens at such times, politicians promised to go to the ends of the earth to find the perpetrators, and - as usually happens - they failed. Although the Real IRA had accepted responsibility and the RUC were pretty sure who the bombers and their accomplices were, they were hampered by the jurisdictional problems of having most of the victims on one side of the border and most of the perpetrators on the other.

There were also, as with most cases of Irish terrorism, the massive hurdles of intimidation and omerta: witnesses were scared and while republican leaders like Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness condemned an action they would have defended from the Provisional IRA, they refused to ask their supporters to give any evidence to either the RUC or the Gardai.

By 2000, only one person had been charged in connection with the case. There was terrible frustration among many victims and onlookers, most articulately expressed by James's father Victor, a Surrey solicitor, and Michael Gallagher, an Omagh mechanic, who lost 21-year-old son Aiden.

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When I first met Victor, he told me of the 18 months he had spent in fruitless correspondence and meetings with British and Irish police and politicians, including Tony Blair, then Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, then Taoiseach, and McGuinness.

Victor was determined to get justice for James, and was immensely persistent, but he felt he was getting nowhere.

"I've wondered about bringing a civil case against the bombers," he said to me, "but no one takes the idea seriously."

Michael Gallagher, who had set up the Omagh Support and Self-help Group and was brilliant in dealing with the press and whom I met in June 2000 in Tyrone, did take the idea seriously. As did I, and I introduced Victor to an unlikely collection of people who decided to make it happen.

The core group in London included the ex-Cabinet minister Lord Cranborne (now Lord Salisbury), one of the few politicians with a serious interest in Northern Ireland, who provided wisdom and seed corn money.

His friend Lady Janie Dawnay, daughter of the Duke of Westminster and brought up in Fermanagh, became a key fundraiser and became close to relatives of the families who took the case. There was Sean O'Callaghan, Provisional IRA terrorist-turned-informer who was a terrific networker and a fine political analyst who had vital journalistic contacts. Henry Robinson, an Official IRA terrorist who had become a vigorous enemy of political violence, was a seasoned campaigner and a perennial optimist who bolstered morale when false starts, setbacks, financial crises and the derision we met from most quarters were getting us down. Young and inexperienced solicitor Jason McCue had the imagination and courage to take on an unprecedented case that all other lawyers had turned down immediately as absurd, too dangerous or just impossible; David Greenhalgh, who joined him in 2001, became the trusted confidant of the victims whom Michael recruited to take the case; and the human rights barrister Lord (Daniel) Brennan took the case on, well knowing that in financial terms we were living from hand to mouth.

And at a time when the real IRA was letting off bombs in London, three brave people became trustees of the fund we set up: my old friend Paul Le Druillenec had his tiny staff process the hundreds of mostly small cheques that arrived after we set up the Omagh Victims Legal Fund.

On Sean's advice we decided to ask Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail, to take the lead on fundraising. Routinely accused by the Left of being heartless, he is a very emotional man with a very clear sense of good and evil and is passionate about the rights of the ordinary man and woman. As a ruthless campaigner against the racist murderers of young Stephen Lawrence, he had named names despite lawyers' advice. Much moved by the terrible stories from individual victims, he would do the same on Omagh, launching in 2001 a fighting fund and naming as the chief suspects Michael McKevitt, Liam Campbell, Seamus Daly, Colin Murphy and Oliver Traynor.

McKevitt - "a violent, secretive man" according to IRA informer Eamon Collins - was Provo quartermaster and right hand man to Chief of Staff Thomas 'Slab' Murphy when in 1997 he fell out with Adams, McGuinness and the rest of the IRA leadership over the peace strategy and founded the Real IRA. He and his wife Bernadette, Bobby Sands' sister, were utterly uncompromising in their pursuit of a united Ireland through the bomb and the bullet.

The other four had been named as suspects in October 2001 in "Who Bombed Omagh?", a BBC Panorama programme presented by the indefatigable investigative journalist John Ware. He expressed well what was felt by many journalists who rallied to the victims. "Omagh was so dreadful. Every terrorist murder is, and every family goes through what the families in Omagh went through, but the sheer scale of Omagh! We talked to lots and lots of relatives and these were broken people I just thought this is such a bloody outrage, and so plainly wrong."

He was armed with a dossier of evidence from Victor and Detective Chief Superintendent Eric Anderson, who was utterly frustrated by his inability to find evidence good enough against anyone other than Colm Murphy to meet the standards of a criminal case.

Colm Murphy, a successful businessman and long-time part-time paramilitary, had been charged in the Republic for conspiring to cause an explosion - accused of lending phones to the bombers. Liam Campbell, farmer, smuggler and terrorist, was the Real IRA's Director of Operations who planned the operation who had recently been charged in the Republic in October with membership of an illegal organisation. Daly, with McKevitt, but not with Traynor, would be the defendants in the civil case along with Seamus McKenna.

I doubt if anyone would have gone through with the case had they had the faintest idea how long and maddening it would prove to be. In my book about it, the chronology of the legal proceedings takes up 19 pages. There were 22 plaintiffs on the writ of summons against the five men and the Real IRA that was filed with the High Court of Northern Ireland in August 2001 - relatives of Geraldine Breslin, Aiden Gallagher, Esther Gibson, Ann McCombe, Samantha McFarland, Alan Radford, Elizabeth Rush, Thomas and Bryan White and Lorraine Wilson.

Nine of them dropped out as the years went on, exhausted and frustrated. A passage from my book records the findings of the psychologist who had to examine them for the Court. "Dr Cooling listed innumerable symptoms displayed by those he examined, which included anxiety, physical aches and pains, anger, irritability, loss of appetite, weight loss, weight gain from comfort eating, impaired concentration, acute stress, insomnia, claustrophobia, tearfulness, flashbacks, tension, nightmares, poor memory, low energy, jumpiness, suicidal urges, obsessional behaviour, mood swings, panic attacks, sweating, palpitations, hallucinations and breathing difficulties."

For professional reasons Victor Barker wasn't on the writ, although he remained a supportive fundraiser and advocate for the whole period. Judgment was finally made in June 2009, when all but Seamus McKenna were found guilty and 1.6m in damages was awarded, but appeals dragged proceedings out until 2013. The defendants - none of whom attended court - were all on what seemed limitless legal aid and a fed-up judge remarked: "This appeal has been characterised by the inclusion of every conceivable technical objection to the judge's order. The case generally has spawned much interlocutory litigation where, again, every possible ground on which the action might be frustrated has been canvassed. There has been satellite litigation challenging the grant of funds to the respondents for the legal costs of the action."

We had almost no help from Northern Ireland politicians - except David Trimble, who made a personal donation of 5,000. The case would have collapsed had it not been for one of our most consistent supporters - ex-Secretary of State Peter Mandelson. In mid-2003, when having raised and spent 1.2m on legal fees the campaigners were broke, he twisted Tony Blair's arm to provide legal aid. Jason McCue's colleague Matthew Jury has been doggedly pursuing the guilty for the damages: Daly in Northern Ireland and Campbell, McKevitt and Murphy in the Republic. Yesterday he reported: "We believe that from the outset of the civil proceedings, the bombers went to great lengths to dissipate and conceal assets. Given their continued refusal to pay the damages due to their victims, and after the Irish legal team's extensive investigations and cross-examining of the bombers in court, we have now started the process of transferring the matter and all available information to the Irish state to bankrupt the bombers and recover all of their assets, so as to enable the judgment obtained by the Omagh families against the bombers to be enforced."

Those brave people bereaved by the bomb may yet never get a penny, but they have achieved a great deal. As Mandelson put it, "they turned tragedy into triumph". By sticking with the campaign to show people that all terrorists do is bring heartache to decent people, they shamed them in their own communities and added an urgency to police operations that had them pursued into the criminal courts (although the limitless legal aid has let some of them off lightly). They have inspired the bereaved from other atrocities like the Birmingham and Hyde Park bombings to try to follow in their footsteps.

Now, with atrocious legacy proposals coming from the Northern Ireland Office, is the time for us all to remember our priority should be to stand with victims and against perpetrators.

As I stand by James Barker's grave on Wednesday, I will be thinking of them all.

Ruth Dudley Edwards is the author of Aftermath: the Omagh Bombing and the Families' Pursuit of Justice
Kristyn and Keith with their children (from left) Gracie, Tahlia, Charlotte and Eliza Joy

Keith and Kristyn with US Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen

Keith after receiving his OBE with his father John, Kristyn, Eliza Joy and his mother Helen

Northern Ireland-born hymn writer and performer Keith Getty tells Stephanie Bell his wife was not impressed with him at first meeting and also reveals how his most famous composition was written on the back of a bill

Discovering that the world's most famous modern hymn, In Christ Alone, was born on the back of an electric bill receipt may seem bizarre until you meet the man behind it.

World renowned as an innovator in the modern hymn genre, Keith Getty (43) is refreshingly grounded about his global fame and expresses gratitude for it that you don't doubt is heartfelt.

He comes across as a not-too-serious, doting father who enjoys life and seems to take success in his stride.

And that success is on such a huge scale that he and his wife Kristyn (37) lead an unconventional life, touring internationally and dividing their time between their home in Tennessee and here in Northern Ireland.

The couple have four children - Eliza Joy (7), Charlotte (4), Gracie (3) and four-month-old Tahlia - who are all clearly the apple of their daddy's eye.

Touring as a singing duo, composing and bringing the Christian message to the world through their music, the couple survive with a tight team of people around them including a tutor who helps with home schooling their girls.

They spend five weeks during the summer at home in Northern Ireland where they both grew up.

It is impossible to overstate the impact the pair have had on the world of music as modern hymn writers.

Up to 100 million people worldwide sing Keith Getty's hymns in church services each year, an accomplishment recognised in the Queen's Birthday Honours last year when he was awarded an OBE.

In Christ Alone is his best known composition - and one of the most famous hymns ever written.

Penned by Keith and long-time writing partner Stuart Townend, it holds the position of most-frequently-sung in UK churches for the past nine consecutive years.

It was voted the second best-loved hymn of all time in the UK according to a BBC Songs of Praise national survey and among the top five hymns of all time by the UK Hymns Society.

According to Christian Copyright Licensing International, it is estimated that 40 to 50 million people sing In Christ Alone in church services each year.

Back home in Northern Ireland for the summer, Keith revealed exciting plans for a huge gospel concert in Belfast in the SSE Arena next year when they plan to bring together a choir of 1,000 people.

He talked about his Christian childhood growing up in Northern Ireland, how he met Kristyn and fell for her immediately while having to woo her and his amazing career and talent as a hymn writer.

With a new addition to the family, he says life for him and Kristyn centres first and foremost on their girls and he revealed just how precious they are after the couple spent seven years thinking they were not going to be parents.

Keith says: "There is no model for our lives. For us the responsibility of our children comes first and we only tour now 12 weeks a year and in fact this year it was 10 weeks. The rest of the year we have with the girls and it means that for most of the year we get a lot of time with them.

"We take 10 weeks off in the summer and spend five of them in Northern Ireland going down to the beach every day and just enjoying family time together.

"Some Christian leaders think we are negligent of our work, but we have been married for 14 years and for the first seven years we didn't think we were going to have kids.

"We now have four and we love it, it is amazing and I can't believe it and it makes me so thankful to be alive."

The couple are based in Nashville, Tennessee because it suits their work.

They met in 2002 after being introduced by world renowned Northern Ireland-born mathematician John Lennox who was a friend of Keith's and also Kristyn's uncle.

The couple were both brought up in Christian homes and although they appear the perfect match - composing together, singing together and running their business together - Keith reveals it took Kristyn a little longer than him to realise it.

"Kristyn was 18 and I was 24 and I think to her I was this unattractive boy who was Presbyterian and wore his trousers too high," he says.

"Her uncle John Lennox had become a hero to me and would debate faith with me and he said he wanted to introduce me to his niece who was interested in doing a bit of singing.

"When I met her she just knocked me out but it took her a couple of years to realise how attractive I was!"

Kristyn grew up in a Christian household, the eldest of four in Glengormley as a member of an independent church, while Keith was also the eldest or four, raised as a Christian in the Presbyterian Church in Lisburn.

He says from his youngest years he wanted to be a Christian.

He explains: "It was my parents John and Helen who introduced me to my faith. Dad was a choir master in the church and mum was a piano teacher and also introduced me to music. They still live in the same house in Lisburn where they have been for 40 years.

"I was a Christian from the earliest age I can remember. Between the ages of 15 and 21 I found it more challenging in high school and university when I would talk to atheists and people of other faiths and engage in intellectual debates with them.

"There are two teachers in school who really influenced my career. In Pond Park Primary School I had terrible problems concentrating in class. Bobbie Hunter helped me through that stuff and she gave me a lot of self confidence.

"In Friends School in Lisburn, Peter Hunter my music teacher gave me a lot of opportunities to write music and perform. It was the best training."

Keith completed a degree in Music at Durham University and then studied conducting in London.

From he was a young boy he played the flute and at the age of 18 attended a masterclass in Switzerland by famous flautist Sir James Galway.

He says: "I became obsessed with the flute and trying to perfect melodies and James Galway really encouraged me to do arrangements."

Keith began writing hymns in his 20s and soon proved to be one of the most prolific hymn writers of modern times.

Together he and Kristyn occupy a unique space in the world of music as the finest modern hymn writers.

In re-inventing the traditional hymn form, they have created a catalogue of songs teaching Christian doctrine and crossing the genres of traditional, classical, folk and contemporary composition which are sung the world over.

Together the couple have written The Power of the Cross, Christ Is Risen, He Is Risen Indeed, By Faith, and others.

Their compositions can be found in mainline hymn books and choral repertoires and have also been recorded by a wide range of artists.

For Keith it has always been about getting the Christian message out. "I wanted to write hymns because I was excited about my faith," he says.

"I believe we live in the most exciting generation in history as Christians. There are more Christians now than ever and more conversions. It is unique now because of global communication.

"Christianity in the 21st century needs to be intelligent and deep, enjoyable and engaging for every generation both at home and in church.

"In Christ Alone was the first hymn that blew the whole thing open for us. I was 25 when I wrote it.

"Singing is such a huge part of Christianity. My goal with In Christ Alone was to help articulate the Christian faith and what is behind it.

"I wrote the tune on the back of a cellophane envelope of an old Northern Ireland Electricity bill.

"I write piles and piles of melodies and every so often one stands out from the rest and usually they are written on manuscript paper.

"I was going through them and found this one on the electricity bill and thought I like this and I wanted it to be a hymn on the life of Christ and Stuart came up with strong lyrics for it.

"As a writer most of my life is just writing tunes and tunes and hoping that one of them speaks to people in a unique way. I would say one in every 100 becomes a hit and a lot of it is hard work.

I believe singing transforms people, and getting individuals, families and children singing again is our lifes work.

His favourite hymns, he says, change every day. On the day we are doing our interview, there are two on his mind.

He says: I have been thinking a lot about friends, and in the past year I lost an uncle whom I loved really dearly. Thinking about him today, the hymns How Marvellous How Wonderful and Abide With Me are what are on my mind today.

I think we need different songs to suit our different moods.

As a singing duo, Keith and Kristyn travel the world and have performed in many top venues including Carnegie Hall, the Royal Albert Hall, the Pentagon, the Grand Ole Opry and many more.

They have performed for former United States President George W Bush and ex-South Korea President Lee Myung-bak.

They also have a famous Gettys Irish Christmas show, touring annually since 2011, built around their Christmas church music catalogue, as well as their love for historic carols and congregational singing.

The tour, playing to some 40,000 to 50,000 people each year, has featured annual sold-out performances at Carnegie Hall, as well as performances at many of the top concert venues in the US.

Their profile just keeps rising.

Regulars on TV, three years ago their concert, Joy: An Irish Christmas television special, was broadcast to over 45 million homes across the United States, as well as on the BBC and internationally.

They also run the Getty Music record label, have built various print publishing partnerships and produced unique merchandise containing their hymn lyrics.

The label has now released two collections of songs and hymns for families, In Christ Alone and For the Cause.

Keith pays tribute to the people around them for helping them to strike a balance between juggling their heavy work schedule and being there for their girls.

He says: I never thought I would be doing the things I am doing, not even slightly. It is beyond words. Coming home every summer to Ireland, I am more grateful every year that we get to do what we do at such a high and global level.

I always feel lucky. We have a wonderful team of people around us. Having a full-time tutor on our staff means the kids get to tour with us, and wherever we go they get to pick up skills and education on our travels.

If we are in New York, they will tour around Manhattan. If we are in Washington DC, they will visit two museums a day, and in Ireland they get to explore.

Where we live in Nashville, there is a lot of home schooling and groups would get together, which the kids love.

We also have a great nanny and house keeper, who is a stunningly brilliant organiser, and generally we have a brilliant team  most of whom have been with us for over eight years.

The couple are excited about a huge concert they are planning to stage in the SSE Arena on June 15 next year.

The event will see the performance of the biggest choir ever, with 1000 people on stage with Keith and Kristyn. Tickets will be for sale on the couples website  www.gettymusic.com
Mike Nesbitt has asked us to clarify that while speaking at the West Belfast Festival earlier this week he described Martin McGuinness as "a man of political integrity".

This follows a report in our edition yesterday, which contained part of a news agency account of the event.

The Ulster Unionist MLA for Strangford said: "I made a clear distinction in my remarks between Martin McGuinness the IRA man and Martin McGuinness the politician.

"I deplore what he did as a terrorist, but in all honesty have to say he demonstrated political integrity in my dealings with him at Stormont.

"While we disagreed on the past, we did recognise the toxic legacy it has created and our joint responsibility to put it right."

We are happy to clarify the issue.
Turning the ship before it hits the iceberg
An audiologist at the centre of a major health scare in the Republic of Ireland has worked for the Belfast Trust, it can be revealed.

However, health officials will not say when the individual in question worked for them or how many patients were treated by the individual.

A spokeswoman for the trust said she could not provide the information as it would breach confidentiality.

The refusal by the trust to provide details about the period in which the audiology worked has been criticised by Paula Bradshaw, the Alliance Party's health spokeswoman.

She said: "I sincerely hope that the Belfast Trust is either already or planning to carry out an internal investigation with the utmost urgency.

"This must be worrying for the families of children who have attended the paediatric audiology service over the last few years and they have the right to expect answers. The requirement for rigorous clinical governance and supervision of performance applies right across health and social care.

"In this case of audiology with children, whose condition could deteriorate if not handled and treated appropriately, it is surely one that the Belfast Trust must ensure is an exemplar and regularly monitored."

In June, it emerged that 49 families in the Republic were to receive an apology for failings in audiology services provided to their children by one audiologist - the same person who has worked for the Belfast Trust.

They were found to have been affected after more than 900 cases were examined in a review.

Of those 49, 13 had been discharged from the service but were re-referred and were found to have suffered additional hearing loss.

A further 20 children were still active in the system, but were also found to have suffered additional hearing loss.

It was established that 16 other children with hearing aids received care that deviated significantly from national standards.

At the time, health officials in Ireland said the individual in question was an external provider.

While the Belfast Trust has said it will not reveal the period when the audiologist worked for the trust, it issued a statement which said: "We are aware of review of audiology services in ROI and the subsequent HSE report.

"This is a detailed report looking at concerns in a service delivered in another jurisdiction with different aspects to governance and operating standards to that of the service provided in the Belfast Trust.

"Taking that into consideration we have mapped the recommendations of the report against our own governance criteria and are assessing if there are implications for the service provided in Belfast.

"Given the rigour required in such exercises, this may take a little time to complete."

It is the latest controversy for the scandal-hit Belfast Health Trust.

At the end of last month, the trust apologised for failings in its care of patients at Muckamore Abbey.

It revealed that four members of staff were suspended after an adult safeguarding investigation was launched in September 2017 following reports of alleged physical abuse of patients.

The trust revealed that another nine employees were later relieved of their duties after a review of CCTV footage, and an expert panel was set up to independently review the standard of care in the facility.

The statement added: "This regrettable and unacceptable situation in no way reflects the work of our 500 dedicated and professional staff who provide excellent care every day to the 80 patients in Muckamore."

And a review of thousands of the trust's neurology patients continues to ensure no-one has come to harm under the care of Dr Michael Watt.

The trust was also heavily criticised earlier this year by the chair of the Hyponatraemia Inquiry.

He said that some staff had seemed more interested in protecting the organisation's reputation than learning from the deaths of children.
A Co Antrim nurse has claimed she "lost everything" after being given a flu vaccine which is being linked to a global rise in narcolepsy.

Hayley Best (41) is one of around 350,000 people here who received the swine flu vaccine in 2009 and one of 33,000 healthcare workers.

She was given the injection, which contained Pandemrix, just days after starting her first post in Craigavon Area Hospital's intensive care unit (ICU).

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But within weeks, and just a few months after the mum-of-three graduated from university, her life began to unravel. Hayley was forced to medically retire before her 40th birthday.

"Everything was put down to post-natal depression," she said.

"Within a year I was suicidal and eventually the diagnosis changed to chronic depression.

"I did everything I could to try and get better but nothing worked.

"How many others are there like me?"

Hayley complained of being exhausted all the time and eventually began falling asleep behind the wheel of her car.

"I would just nod off and have these really vivid dreams and when I woke up I was in the car," she recalled.

"I would arrive places and have no memory of how I got there - it was terrifying."

Hayley also became extremely paranoid which took its toll in work and at home.

"I second guessed everything because I believed everyone was out to get me," she said.

"I even thought I was being bullied in work.

"My family life suffered too and my children, especially the younger two, have certainly not had the best of me."

By 2010, as her health continued to deteriorate, Hayley began losing confidence in her ability to do her job and took an entire year off.

"I got to the point where I felt it was safer for everyone if I just wasn't there," she said.

The former clerk, who had given birth twice during her five years of study, transferred from ICU and began district nursing closer to home.

However her symptoms worsened and she became overwhelmed by daytime sleepiness.

"Driving even short distances became a serious problem," she said.

"I would need to pull over two miles into the journey and nap for 20 minutes.

"I was losing things that eventually turned up in the freezer, including bank cards - it wasn't normal."

The distraught medic, who was struggling to breathe in her sleep, was left devastated when the results of overnight respiratory tests in 2014 failed to shed any light on the cause of her misery.

"I cried when they said everything was fine because I knew it wasn't and so did my husband," she said.

It was then that a consultant began to probe her about her "crazy" dream activity.

"I talked about my night terrors and how vivid they are.

"I told him about the black hand that strangles me in my sleep," she said.

"The hand, it's wrapped in a black leather glove, grabs my throat and squeezes until I can't breathe anymore."

The consultant recommended testing for narcolepsy and Hayley made arrangements to see a specialist in England.

It was then that she was diagnosed with the chronic sleep disorder.

But it was only after reading the harrowing story of a 23-year-old nursery assistant in England that Hayley realised there could be a link between the vaccine and the incurable sleep condition.

"I read the heartbreaking story about Katie Clack and how she struggled to deal with the terrible effects of narcolepsy," she explained.

"She ended up taking her own life but detailed her experience of trying to deal with the catastrophic side effects of the vaccine in a suicide note and I realised her symptoms were my symptoms."

She contacted the Southern Health and Social Care Trust which confirmed the vaccine she was given in 2009 contained Pandemrix.

"I cried and then I became very angry," she recalled.

"I try so hard not to be bitter, but it's difficult because I have lost everything.

"I'm not the person I want to be."

Hayley said the toughest part of her arduous journey has been trying to get the Department of Health to recognise the link between her life-shattering illness and the flu jab.

"It has been a nightmare, but my medical notes are crystal clear," she said.

"I was not ill before I was given this vaccine."

The now permanently disabled mum, who even requires supervision to have a bath, said she feels "betrayed" by the health service.

"It wasn't my decision to take it, I was told it was part of the job," she said.

"But what really galls me is that no one ever outlined the risks, which I believe were well known, and no one will take responsibility.

"I have been completely abandoned."

Hayley, who continues to fund her own travel to England twice a year to see a specialist, said that the absence of a devolved government has compounded her ordeal.

"I just want recognition, but honesty is a rare thing," she added.

"Many questions need to be answered but not much can be done without a government in place.

"I know I was a good nurse, but where is my NHS now? Where is my government?"

The Southern Trust and Department of Health said they would not comment on individual cases.
General view of the republican Anti Internment League parade as it leaves Ardoyne in north Belfast to Dunville Park in 2017.

A major police operation will be in place today as dissident republicans march through Belfast city centre for the first time in four years.

Loyalist counter-demonstrations are expected as republicans make their way to City Hall for an anti-internment rally.

The main speaker at the event will be Mandy Duffy, the vice-chairperson of dissident republican party Saoradh, and sister-in-law of leading Lurgan republican Colin Duffy.

The parade organisers pledged their march would be peaceful as unionists yesterday expressed fears of serious disturbances on the streets.

Up to 1,000 republicans and four flute bands are taking part in the event.

An Ulster Unionist delegation held an hour-long meeting with PSNI officers in Musgrave Street police station yesterday.

Speaking afterwards, Councillor Jim Rodgers said he was satisfied with the security arrangements that would be in place.

Mr Rodgers said: "Saturday is a busy shopping day and the sales mean even more people will be in town.

"Our traders are already under enough pressure. My party sought assurances from the police that there will be no disruption to business. We are very happy with the plans that police will be putting into operation.

"We would appeal to both the parade organisers and counter-demonstrators to make sure they act within the law.

"There must be no violence or unruly behaviour in the heart of our city centre."

Mr Rodgers said scenes of disorder would send out the wrong message to visitors in Belfast from outside Northern Ireland.

The UUP councillor said the Parades Commission should not have given the go-ahead for the demonstration.

"It will pass the site where two UDR soldiers were murdered in an IRA bomb in 1988 and this fact alone is enough to cause great anger and offence," he added.

Dee Fennell of the Anti-Internment League dismissed suggestions that those taking part in the parade would be involved in unruly behaviour.

He said: "There will be no attacks or violence by anyone taking part in the parade. Rather than lecturing us, unionist representatives must use their influence to ensure the counter-demonstrators are peaceful".

Mr Fennell said republicans were looking forward to marching in the city for the first time in four years.

"We see the parade as part of reclaiming Belfast city centre for everyone.

"The Parades Commission had no choice but to approve our application to march as continuing to deny us that right was discriminatory," he added.

Republicans will gather at Writers' Square beside St Anne's Cathedral at lunchtime and march up Royal Avenue and into Donegall Place to City Hall, where speakers will address the rally.

The crowd was due to disperse at 2pm but the organisers yesterday notified the Parades Commission of their intention to hold a return parade through the city centre which will finish in Castle Street.

"Loyalists will not be able to protest against this return march as it is now too late to file for a protest," Mr Fennell said.

In 2015, there were clashes between the PSNI and republicans after police stopped the anti-internment march from entering the city centre.

The previous year the parade went ahead amid a massive police operation which saw streets blocked off hours in advance.

In 2013, 56 PSNI officers were injured after loyalist protesters attacked the police during a parade.
Tom Hill gets a chance to have some fun with his mother Carolyn at a craft stall in Island Park.

3 year old Cohen Grant got a chance to sit in an Alouette helicopter, which was in display in Newcastles Island Park.

Organisers of the Newcastle Festival of Flight said safety was paramount in explaining their decision to cancelled all air displays due to the poor weather conditions on Saturday

Thousands were expected to the Co Down town for the show.

However, the adverse weather conditions forced organisers to cancel the main show. In a statement, they said events on the ground would continue.

In a statement, organisers said: "Whilst the weather started well and thousands of people were in attendance for today's Festival of Flight, organisers were forced to cancel all air displays, including the Red Arrows, due to the onset of extremely bad weather.

"Organisers understand that people are disappointed but the decision to cancel was not taken lightly. The safety of both pilots and spectators had to remain paramount.

"All ground based activities continued despite the rain with visitors able to enjoy the fabulous Aviation and Food Village, RAF100 STEM Village and a plethora of wonderful places to eat and drink in Newcastle.

"This was the first time in the shows nine year history that the full show had to be cancelled.

"Tomorrow the RAF100 STEM and Youth Village at Donard Park will be open from 9am until 6pm. Entry is free."
A Muslim convert dubbed "The Eagle" is facing life behind bars after pleading guilty to plotting a terror attack outside the Disney Store on Oxford Street

A Muslim convert dubbed "The Eagle" is facing life behind bars after pleading guilty to plotting a terror attack outside the Disney Store on Oxford Street.

Lewis Ludlow (26), from Rochester in Kent, swore allegiance to Islamic State (IS) and planned to drive a van through London's shopping district.

Ludlow appeared at the Old Bailey via video-link from HMP Belmarsh.

He identified Oxford Street as an "ideal" target, writing on papers found in a bin: "It is expected nearly 100 could be killed in the attack".

He formulated his plan after being stopped by police at Heathrow airport in February as he attempted to board a flight to the Philippines.

It was alleged he also set up a Facebook account called Antique Collections as a front to send money to south-east Asia for terrorism.

He pleaded guilty to plotting an attack in the UK and funding IS abroad. Ludlow is due to be sentenced on November 2.
The Apprentice Boys of Derry anniversary of the ending of the 105 day siege of the city in 1689. Pic Trevor McBride

The Apprentice Boys of Derry anniversary of the ending of the 105 day siege of the city in 1689. Pic Trevor McBride

Police said the example of Derry could be a solution to parading issues across Northern Ireland after Saturday's Apprentice Boys march through the city.

More than 140 bands took part in the annual Relief of Derry commemorations, which included a pageant at Craigavon Bridge with thousands of spectators.

It was expected 10,000 would take part in the parade with many more thousands lining the streets in one of Northern Ireland's biggest parades.

The parade marched the city walls before a wreath laying ceremony in the Diamond ahead of the main parade.

The event is held on the second Saturday in August and commemorates the ending of the 105-day siege of the city in August 1689.

Temporary Chief Inspector Johnny Hunter hailed the successful peaceful outcome of the parade.

He said: "Derry/Londondery is an example throughout the province to how problems around parading in the past have been overcome through working together, various parties talking to each other, the police working collaboratively with our partners, but really problem solving issues so that everyone can have their day."

The return parade marched through the city at 5pm.
Former Finance Minister Simon Hamilton has said those currently attempting to make an economic case for a united Ireland are gambling their future on "supposition and wishful thinking".

The DUP MLA was speaking as the debate continued on a report which lays out what would happen if the economies of Northern Ireland and the Republic were to integrate.

Financial journalist and economic commentator Paul Gosling outlined aspects of his report, published in April of this year, at this week's West Belfast Festival.

The report, entitled 'The Economic Effect of an All-Ireland Economy', considers the potential economic impact of Irish reunification, with particular consideration given to the likely effects of Brexit.

Mr Gosling warned that Brexit could be devastating to the Northern Ireland economy in many ways, including reducing jobs and wages.

He says that north-south economic integration would generate substantial benefits for all of the island of Ireland and has penned a 10-point plan for how Irish reunification might be achieved.

Previously, former Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams called the report "common sense".

However Mr Hamilton, who previously served as Finance Minister at Stormont between 2013-2015, said yesterday that united Ireland economics are based on "wishful thinking".

He said: "This report was published earlier in 2018 but this week at the West Belfast Festival, it received renewed focus.

"Behind some of the claims that 'everyone's a winner' in this united Ireland, however there lies a reliance on supposition and wishful thinking to build a case," he said.

The Strangford Assembly member claimed the report was fraught with difficulties.

He noted that it assumes continued UK Government subvention to Northern Ireland for approximately 30 years along with an immediate 10bn contribution to infrastructure and that the UK Government will continue to fund pension costs.

Mr Hamilton said unification would cost thousands of jobs in Northern Ireland.

"Interestingly, the report does not dwell too long on its view that 50,000 public sector workers in Northern Ireland would have to be made redundant.

"However even in this area, it expects the United Kingdom Exchequer to bear all the costs," he added.

Mr Hamilton's comments came after Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald said an Irish unity referendum is now at the centre of political discussion.

She was accused of performing a u-turn as days earlier she said that such a poll should not be held while uncertainty around Brexit remains.

Speaking in Castlewellan in Co Down last weekend, Ms McDonald said the time for a unity referendum was drawing near, adding that British identity "can and must be accommodated" in a united Ireland.

"It is not a question of 'if' a unity referendum will happen but a question of 'when'," she said.
A murder suspect who was involved in nine separate incidents in a four-month period after being released from a Young Offenders Centre was granted bail again yesterday.

Lee Smyth - charged along with two other co-accused of murdering west Belfast man Christopher Meli in December 2015 - was warned that any further failures to comply with bail will result in a return to prison.

Smyth (21) made a fifth application for High Court bail, and despite objections from the Crown, he was re-released to reside at an address outside Belfast which cannot be reported.

The court heard that since his return to custody following the nine incidents, Smyth was remanded to HMP Maghaberry and not Hydebank YOC, where he was initially sent.

His barrister said Smyth has found his experience in the adult prison of Maghaberry to be "frightening, worrying and depressing".

Crown prosecutor Kate McKay said that since his last release bail in April, there had been numerous breaches which resulted in Smyth being back in custody.

The last breach occurred when police called to his bail address and discovered he had broken the 'no alcohol' condition.

Mrs McKay told Mr Justice Maguire that Smyth was one of a number of people facing charges arising from the death of Mr Meli (20), who was beaten to death on December 12, 2015. His body was found on a pathway in Twinbrook after he was attacked by a crowd of people.

The prosecutor said that on the day of the murder, Smyth voluntarily attended a police station and told officers he had been "involved in an altercation" with Mr Meli, they had fought and fallen, and others became involved and started kicking Mr Meli.

Mrs McKay said Smyth has been connected to the attack forensically as the victim's blood was found on his clothes and footwear.

Regarding the latest breaches, Mrs McKay said many of these were linked to incidents at his bail address. Revealing that due to complaints over anti-social behaviour at the flat the Housing Executive were considering "repossessing his tenancy", Mrs McKay said Smyth had breached curfew and been caught under the influence of drink.

She told the judge "for all these reasons, and until a more suitable address is found for this man, it is felt he is not a suitable applicant".

Defence barrister Tom McCreanor said his client has already spent a significant period on remand. He accepted there had been incidents but said this was largely down to "other people who are prone to partying".

Mr Justice Maguire granted bail and imposed conditions including a curfew and a drinking ban. The judge said the court would review the case in six weeks.
The decision of the Parliamentary Hearing Committee (PHC) to reject the recommendation of the Constitutional Council to appoint Acting Chief Justice Deepak Raj Joshee in the post of Chief Justice is condemned from different sectors even raising a question mark over the attitude and intention of the incumbent Nepal Communist Party (NCP) led government. Not only the main opposition Nepali Congress (NC) but also the concerned stakes holders including Nepal Bar Association (NBA) have condemned the decision suspecting that the government would invite constitutional crisis in the country by creating conformation among the state organs. The PHC decision is taken as of an interference of the incumbent communist led government against of the judiciary. The recent act of the government is taken as of the interference of the executive in the judiciary. As the executive, legislation and the judiciary are considered as of the three fundamental pillars in the democratic system, these all should have function autonomously. The looming fear of now is that the decision would set the bad precedent to force the judiciary into submission to the executive and legislature. Similarly, the decision has also raised the question mark over the rationality of the PHC because it has resembled to have fully controlled by the government and its head NCP.

Joshees nomination is rejected labeling him of being not qualified to lead the judiciary, failing to present his work plan with vision to lead the judiciary and failing to give satisfactory answers to the questions posed by lawmakers. His conduct, integrity and capability including the academic certificates (SLC or equivalent) were also questioned citing dubious. The constitutional provision allows the PHC not to make nominations of justices for the Supreme Court (SC) or other constitutional bodies and ambassadorship to mention fairness. But the decision of now has become an unprecedented incident in Nepals history that vetting nominees for higher constitutional posts were rejected even those with tainted characters and questionable track records. With the rejection of the Joshees name, Prime Minister KP Oli has also fallen under the question mark as the recommendation of the Constitutional Council (CC) led by Primer Oli is also rejected. As the PHC made the decision becoming a rubber stamp of political parties, particularly the government head NCP, it has also exposed its own independence and competence. As the 15-member PHC rejected Joshees nomination by a two-thirds majority- all were from the ruling NCP and Federal Socialist Forum Nepal amidst a boycott by four lawmakers from the main opposition NC, it has failed to mention the past precedence of making unilateral decision.





As we are also heading with the strong conviction that incompetent and fraud persons should be excluded from any public position, we will salute to the PHC if the allegations labeled against of Joshee, particularly the issue related to the academic certificate were proved independently. The concerned stake holders particularly the Judicial Council (JC) has to take responsibility regarding the academic certificates of Joshee. If the academic certificates were found dubious, he has to be removed earlier from the post on the charge of corruption. The concern of now is that why the JC and other concerned stake holders is remaining mum over the issue of dubious academic certificates and the PHC lost the persistence to wait the fact-finding before rejecting Joshees name as Chief Justice. The widely raised question of now is that how and why he can be labeled as incompetent for the post of Chief Justice if he has already served for 22 years in the Appellate Court and four years in the Supreme Court. As Joshee has now gone on a 15-day leave demanding his academic certificate be independently verified by a competent authority, the government and the PHC should take responsibility to prove the allegation labeled against him because nobody has the right to raise any misgivings about the authenticity of someones academic certificate without having any hard proof.
The scene of the horrorific crash at Fairview Park in Dublin yesterday

A Northern Ireland man was killed after the pick-up truck he was driving was involved in a pursuit by gardai in Dublin.

Officers originally thought the 26-year-old man killed in the incident was his father, a 47-year-old with an address in Belfast, and with the same name.

This was due to the seriousness of the injuries suffered by the deceased. However, it was later determined to be the younger man who had been in the pick-up truck and who had died.

A 48-year-old woman, who was a front-seat passenger in the vehicle and is believed to be the mother of the dead man, was in a critical condition in hospital last night.

Meanwhile a 13-year-old boy, a brother of the deceased who was in the back seat, escaped without serious injury.

It is understood the family, from Belfast, were in Dublin for the funeral of an elderly female member of the Traveller community.

The man died when the truck he was driving crashed into metal fencing and a tree at Fairview Park in the early hours of yesterday morning. No other vehicle was involved.

Minutes before, a patrol car from Clontarf noticed the truck "swerving all over" the Malahide Road close to Clontarf beach.

Gardai pulled over the vehicle. The driver spoke briefly to the two officers.

Sources said there was a strong smell of alcohol from the vehicle. Before officers could speak to the driver in depth, or attempt to breathalyse him, the man drove off at speed.

Gardai began to pursue the vehicle, which crashed a couple of minutes later.

A source said: "It was a very short pursuit, the officers were actually keeping their distance because he was driving so badly and dangerously."

The woman in the vehicle was taken to the Mater Hospital, where she is now fighting for her life. The 13-year-old boy was taken to Temple Street Hospital.

It is understood gardai have attempted to take a statement from the boy but so far have been unsuccessful.

The Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission (Gsoc) is investigating the fatality, in line with protocol.

A spokesperson for the watchdog said the vehicle involved had come to the attention of gardai prior to the collision.

The junction of Clontarf Road, Marino Mart and the Malahide Road in Fairview was closed for a technical examination.

The heavily damaged silver Nissan Navara was removed from the scene, along with a marked Garda car.

Gardai have appealed to any witnesses to contact Clontarf garda station on 01 6664800.
A Northern Ireland man has been elected president of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) amid a row over alleged "institutional racism" at the prestigious body.

Alan Jones (53), who is a lecturer in architecture at Queen's University and also has a private practice, was elected president of the 43,0000-strong professional body this week.

He studied architecture at Queen's University and graduated with the first distinction in seven years.

This was followed by 10 years in practice in London.

His election comes amid accusations that the RIBA tried to silence criticism from a black architect who also stood for election as president.

The Guardian newspaper reported yesterday that Elsie Owusu, the first chair of the Society of Black Architects, had accused the RIBA of "institutional discrimination and racism".

She also questioned the 180,000 salary of the RIBA chief executive.

The RIBA's honorary secretary, Kerr Robertson, rejected the claims and told her she had breached guidelines for the presidential election and that her behaviour was "a flagrant breach of confidentiality".

The London Times also reported that Ms Owusu, who now intends to stand for the presidency once again in 2020, had accused the RIBA of mislaying 1.1m of members' funds during a property deal in 2013. The RIBA denied there were any improper transactions and said accusations of racism had been investigated.

Ms Owusu had hoped to become the RIBA's first black president.

Mr Jones won the election by 2,704 votes to Ms Owusu's 1,673 and will officially become president next September. Ms Owusu was instead elected to the RIBA council.

Speaking after the election, Mr Jones said: "The RIBA is a fantastic organisation with great resources, particularly its staff who I'm keen to support more than ever.

"As individuals and as an institution, we need to come together to make the most of our assets and make the case for our profession."

Mr Jones, who was educated at Coleraine Inst and Ballymena Academy, will be the 77th president since the role was established in 1835.

As the chair of the RIBA council, the Randalstown-based architect will be responsible for the development and finances of the institute.

In May 2012, he became the president of the Royal Society of Ulster Architects for 2012-14.

Seven of his projects have received RIBA awards and two were shortlisted for the Stirling Prize, which is awarded to the best new building in the UK.
A solicitor was yesterday ordered to stand trial accused of stealing more than 250,000 from various clients, including the wills of the deceased. (stock photo)

A solicitor was yesterday ordered to stand trial accused of stealing more than 250,000 from various clients, including the wills of the deceased.

Appearing at Newtownards Magistrates Court, 53-year-old Elaine Mary Early confirmed she was aware of the 18 charges against her.

Early, from the Killinchy Road in Comber, faces 12 counts of fraud by abusing her position as a solicitor, five counts of transferring criminal property and one count of theft, all alleged to have been committed between September 2014 and February 2016.

While the single count of theft accused Early of stealing credit from various clients amounting to a total of 261,916, the charges of transferring criminal property relate to Early allegedly transferring a total of 134,750 to her own account, the account of her now defunct firm and to the accounts of clients she allegedly defrauded.

She is accused of abusing her position as a solicitor in order to defraud various clients, two of them deceased, of funds which she allegedly transferred to her own accounts or between accounts of other clients she allegedly defrauded.

Sending the case to Downpatrick Crown Court for trial, District Judge Paul Copeland released Early on her own bail of 750.
A woman who was blinded as a teenager in the Omagh bombing has said she holds no bitterness towards those who carried out the atrocity and has had to move on for the sake of her children.

Claire Bowes was an ordinary 15-year-old until that day in August 1998 when a Real IRA bomb ripped through her home town, killing 29 people, injuring hundreds more and robbing her of her sight.

In the last 20 years, the mum-of-three has endured multiple surgeries and overcame seemingly insurmountable challenges to finish her education, get married, have children and set up her own business.

She said she tries not to dwell on the negatives as the anniversary of the atrocity looms, but added it's a day that she will never forget.

"On the day of the bomb I was doing what a typical 15-year-old would have," Claire told the Belfast Telegraph.

"I was in the town with my friends, we were just walking about, talking about the teenage disco we had been at the night before, gossiping.

"I remember the bomb going off. I remember my sight going straight away, I was instantly blinded.

"I don't remember being hit, I couldn't see straight away but I thought that it must be dirt or dust in my eyes. I remember getting up and walking around, not knowing where I was or where I was going. I was dazed. I was taken to hospital.

"My mum was a radiographer at the hospital. I remember hearing a lot of injured people around me. I still didn't realise how badly I was injured, I had a piece of metal embedded between two arteries behind my nose."

Claire was airlifted to the Royal Victoria Hospital where she had to stay for two weeks and underwent several operations, the last of which was to restore some sight in her left eye.

The surgery was unsuccessful. It was then the reality started to kick in that nothing much could be done.

"When I was given the news I didn't know how I felt or where to go from there," she added.

"My mum asked me how I felt about it all and I really didn't know. It was then she said that we had two ways we could look at this - we could feel sorry for ourselves to which I responded 'no', so this left me with the option of making the most of what I still had and to get on with my life."

Claire said she was a wilful teenager and never let the cruel fate that was bestowed upon her hold her back. She pushed herself on to fulfil her dreams.

"Like many teens I was stubborn and determined to make the most out of life," she added. "I told myself that I was not going to let what happened to me destroy my life. I returned to mainstream school in October, two months after the bomb."

Claire passed her GCSEs and A-levels, went on to a degree and post-graduate diploma in music, got married to Ryan, had three children and set up the Omagh Music Academy.

She said she has not let the trauma of what happened to her or what the bomb robbed her of make her bitter or angry.

"I believe everything happens for a reason," she added.

"I couldn't be bitter. I get frustrated at times and there were times I would have got very upset. Life would be so much easier if I could see. But I'm so fortunate that I'm still here.

"I don't hold any grudges and I just try to make the very best of this life I have been given.

"I always try and put a positive slant on it. Yes, what happened should never have happened.

"But if I let the negativity consume my life, I couldn't move on. I try and stay positive."

However, Claire admits it's not always easy.

She added: "I have a young family.

"I have to focus on the positives for them.

"My two boys know what happened. I let them read an article in the paper last week about me and that led to questions.

"It will always be a part of their lives. But if I was negative or bitter, what would it be teaching them, the next generation? So I do try and be positive and I'm very aware of the fact that I'm very lucky to still be here and making the most of my life. That's what I try and focus on.

"That's without taking away from what other people are feeling because I don't know what it would be like for them, particularly having lost people.

"Now having my own children, I just can't imagine what it was like for those families."

Despite a huge police investigation, no one has ever been convicted of bombing Omagh in a criminal court.

Claire said she tries not to dwell on the lack of justice, adding: "The fact that no one was ever convicted does not weigh heavy on my mind. If I let it then I couldn't move on.

"I was 15 when it happened and I'm now 35-years-old.

"I had lots of living to do then and I still have.

"If I dwelt on things like that I couldn't have moved on with my life.

"I'm married with three children and have my own business.

"I have done so much with my life and if I had dwelt on the negativity I don't think any of that would have been possible.

"I needed to get my independence back and I needed to move on and find new ways of doing things to make the most of it."

Claire said the 20th anniversary is a milestone, but as she lives with the memories and scars from that day, the atrocity is always with her.

"It is hard to believe in many ways that it has been 20 years," she added.

"It's so strange. It doesn't feel like that long. It's just something that has always been there.

"It is part of my life every day, the fact that I can't see, so it will always be something that I'll never forget and it's going to be like that always.

"Obviously I remember the anniversary year, but this year seems to be a bit more of a milestone. For myself and the other families, none of us will forget it, even in subsequent years.

"Every single person in Northern Ireland and further afield seems to remember where they were on that day, when they heard about the Omagh bomb.

"I don't think people will ever forget."
A man and woman appeared in court on Saturday on charges linked to what police describe as a drug importing operation worth up to 7 million.

The pair were arrested in south Belfast on Thursday following searches by the PSNIs Organised Crime Branch which uncovered cannabis with a street value of 1m.

Mei Juan Gao (37) and her male co-accused Chun Guo Pan (48)  both Chinese nationals  were remanded into custody after appearing at the citys magistrates' court on a string of charges including possessing drugs with intent to supply.

A police officer told the court that in addition to 1m worth of cannabis seized during the south Belfast operation, a further 750,000 worth of the drug had been uncovered in the postal system.

He also said they estimate some 40 packages weighing a minimum of 5kgs each had slipped through the net.

The officer said: The case also relates to 40 packages not seized containing a minimum of 5kgs of herbal cannabis each, the smallest estimation for that is just under 5m.

The 37-year-old woman was arrested in the Stranmillis area of Belfast while co-accused Pan was taken in to custody near the Lisburn Road.

A solicitor acting on behalf of both defendants said: Mr Pan has given an interview to a very limited degree, both of them have significant language difficulties.

Both are relatively vulnerable persons to some degree due to financial and migration issues, they have no bank accounts and no cash.

Gao is alleged to have been in possession of a fake Chinese passport when she was arrested whilst Pan is accused of being in possession of a phony driving licence.

Neither accused applied for bail.

Gao, of no fixed abode, faces a series of charges including possessing a class B drug with intent to supply, conspiracy to supply a class B drug and transferring criminal property.

Pan, also of no fixed abode, faces similar charges and is also accused of possessing a class A drug, overstaying a temporary visa and having a false driving licence.

In a statement last week following the arrests, Detective Inspector Pete Mullan said: These arrests and seizures are evidence of our ongoing commitment to removing and disrupting the illegal supply of drugs into Northern Ireland.

The seizure of these drugs has removed a substantial amount of cannabis and prevented 1m from falling into the hands of organised criminals who profit from others misery.
Three men were stabbed in a brawl outside a Co Antrim pub.

It happened in the Main Street area of Ballycarry at 1am on Saturday.

The victims, two in their 30s and one in his 60s, were taken to hospital with their injuries described as not life-threatening.

A 31-year-old man and a woman (27) were arrested on suspicion of a number of offences including attempted murder.

They remain in police custody. The road was closed to allow for police investigations.

Mid and East Antrim Borough councillor Mark McKinty, who grew up in the village, said the incident had shocked the local community.

"First and foremost, I send my best wishes for a speedy recovery to the three injured parties, all of whom I know well," he added.

"Sincere thanks must go to the PSNI who were on the scene very quickly, possibly preventing further injury or a fatality. I would encourage anyone with any information to speak to the police and assist with their investigation.

"Ballycarry is a small and peaceful community which is understandably shaken today, and I know the whole village will rally around those individuals and businesses affected."

Police are asking anyone with information to call investigators on 101 or provide anonymous information to Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.

Update: The woman was released pending further investigation.
The memorial in Ligoniel to three Scottish soldiers killed by the IRA has been vandalised in the past.

A Belfast councillor has voiced her disgust after a memorial stone to three soldiers killed in the Troubles by the IRA was stolen.

Julie-Anne Corr-Johnston hit out after the disappearance of the memorial on Saturday, urging anyone with information to contact police.

"Not content with their cold blooded murder and hellbent on causing more hurt and suffering upon their families, thugs have once again returned to desecrate the memorial to three Royal Highland Fusiliers," the PUP councillor said.

This isnt just another sectarian attack this is a vicious, repulsive and repetitive campaign of hatred. The perpetrators are absent of human decency.

"They can remove stones and wreaths but the memory of these three men will forever live on in the hearts and minds of their families, friends and the people of north Belfast. Never to be airbrushed from history.

The three soldiers were killed in 1971 at White Brae.

Brothers John (17) and Joseph (18) McCaig from Ayr and Dougald McCaughey (23) from Glasgow were killed by the IRA on March 10.

The 1st Battalion, Royal Highland Fusiliers, had been socialising in Belfast city centre when they were lured to the remote White Brae on the Ligoniel Road by a republican woman and murdered.

The mother of the teenagers expressed a wish for a memorial to her boys in 1972, but one was not erected until the Royal British Legion raised money for it in 2010.

There have been numerous attacks on the monument.
Two people have been arrested after police officers seized cannabis worth 1m in Northern Ireland

Two people have been charged after police officers seized cannabis worth 1m in Northern Ireland.

A woman (37) and a 38-year-old man were detained in south Belfast on Thursday as part of an investigation into the supply of illegal drugs.

Detective Inspector Pete Mullan said: "Searches were carried out and cannabis with an approximate street value of 1m recovered.

"These arrests and seizures are evidence of our ongoing commitment to removing and disrupting the illegal supply of drugs into Northern Ireland.

"The seizure of these drugs has removed a substantial amount of cannabis and prevented 1m from falling into the hands of organised criminals who profit from others' misery."

Det Insp Mullan appealed for members of the public to disclose any information about drugs in their local area.

The pair were charged with a number of offences to appear in court on Saturday morning.




Guwahati : Assam excise department on Friday had destroyed over 6 lakh seized liquor bottales worth of Rs 168.54 crore





The huge quantity seized liquor bottles had crushed under a road roller at Garchuk area, outskirts of Guwahati in presence of Assam excise minister Parimal Suklabaidya.





The Bureau of Investigations Economic Offences (BIEO) of Assam police had seized a huge quantity of illegal IMFL and beer bottles around 17,410 cases from four different places at Khatkhati area in Karbi Anglong district in 2016.





The estimated cost of the seized liquor is Rs 168,54,31,349.





The BIEO had registered four cases (no 21/2016, 22/2016, 23/2016 and 24/2016) in this regard and arrested 13 persons and filed four charge sheets before the court.





On Friday, the Assam excise department had destroyed the seized liquor bottles as per direction of the court.




Medics are at the scene on the Dundrod circuit.

A rider at the Ulster Grand Prix is fighting for his life in hospital after a serious incident during the opening race on Saturday.

Two riders were involved in the incident.

The French rider Fabrice Miguet is in a critical condition in hospital following the Superstock crash.

English competitor Davey Todd has been taken to hospital with suspected fractures.

Organisers have not released details of the incident. It happened at the Joey's Windmill section of the track during the first race on Saturday, the Lisburn and Castlereagh Council Superstock Race.

The race was red flagged after the fourth lap at the Dundrod circuit with Dean Harrison declared the winner.

The clerk of the course Noel Johnston also attended the scene.

Racing resumed just after 1.30pm.
Police have said they are making enquiries into "possible wrongdoing" after comments were posted online about the south Belfast community.

Detective Chief Inspector Gary Reid explained: Police are aware of comments made online and on social media platforms last week, regarding the community in south Belfast.

While we have not received any reports or complaints to date, we are making enquiries into possible wrongdoing.

If anyone has information that could help us, please call detectives at Musgrave on 101.

Alternatively, information can also be provided to the independent charity Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111, which is 100% anonymous and gives people the power to speak up and stop crime.
A controversial anti-internment parade passed without incident as hundreds of republicans paraded through Belfast city centre.

It is the first time in four years that the Anti-Internment League (AIL) has protested in the city centre, after they were granted permission by the Parades Commission.

There were heightened concerns that trouble would erupt as two loyalist counter-demonstrations took place along the route of the republican parade.

However, despite a number of verbal exchanges between loyalist protesters from Northern Ireland Against Terrorism group and some republicans, the protest passed without any violence.

There was a heavy police operation along the route which saw hundreds of republicans and a number of flute bands gather in Writers Square before making their way along Royal Avenue to the City Hall where a number of speeches took place.

I dont think people marching through Belfast city centre in a dignified fashion will intimidate anyoneAIL spokesman Dee Fennell

The Parades Commission ruled on Friday that participants in the parade could make a return leg from City Hall to Castle Street.

According to the parade organisers, this was to provide a dispersal point for participants.

The annual parade, which started in 2013, marks the beginning of internment, or detention without trial, which was introduced at the height of the Troubles in Northern Ireland in 1971.

AIL spokesman Dee Fennell said the parade was to highlight the ongoing use of internment.

He also defended people associated with dissident republicans parading through Belfasts main shopping district on a Saturday afternoon.

I dont think its intimidating. The largest military organisation you are going to see on the streets is the PSNI and they will be heavily armed as they always are, he said.

I dont think people marching through Belfast city centre in a dignified fashion will intimidate anyone.

Its hypocritical that the main critics of this parade march through the city centre numerous times through the year, not just for religious reasons but to commemorate British military and also members of British death squads that operated here.

He denied that any participants in the anti-internment parade have been involved in rioting in the past saying that the onus is on Unionist representatives to appeal to counter-demonstrators to act in a dignified way.

He added: The name of the organised body is Northern Ireland Against Terrorism, which in itself is ironic because we have some members of the Unionist community who have no problem commemorating UVF murderers.

The main speaker of the event, Mandy Duffy, who is the vice-chairperson of dissident republican party Saoradh and sister-in-law of leading Lurgan republican Colin Duffy, told the crowd that republicans are being held in prisons under draconian legislation.

She said: Recently we have witnessed the imprisonment of republicans in the 26 counties (Republic of Ireland), including comrades from the North due to the most spurious of charges and a show trial in the anti-republican Special Criminal Court.

Portlaoise Prison has seen an influx of prisoners held under some of the most draconian legislation ever witnessed in Ireland.

A conveyor belt of charges and convictions has begun to emerge with arrest, spurious charges and guaranteed convictions seeing republicans being imprisoned at an alarming rate.

Republicans in the occupied six counties also face extensive draconian policies within the courts in the form of undetermined sentences, and extended sentences.

Those held on such charges will find themselves in the hell of Magheraberry where isolation, controlled movement and forced strip searches are used to torment political prisoners with various other tactics.

We must commit ourselves to defend prisoners, the most vulnerable element in the republican community.

We must make clear to all pro-imperialists that we will not stand by while political captives face oppression.

There was strong opposition to the parade taking place from Unionist politicians who said that businesses and traders will be negatively impacted by the march.

Ulster Unionist Jim Rodgers said that any scenes of disorder would send out the wrong message to visitors from Northern Ireland, but added that he was satisfied from police that there was to be no disruption to businesses.

A number of tourists visiting Belfast could be seen taking pictures and videos from passing buses.
A heritage railway is marking the 50th anniversary of British Rails last mainline, steam-hauled passenger service.

Great Central Railway in Loughborough, Leicestershire, is holding an End of Steam gala featuring one of the engines that hauled the final service on August 11 1968.

The 70013 Oliver Cromwell was used during the charter return trip from Liverpool to Carlisle via Manchester 50 years ago.

It was known as the Fifteen Guinea Special because that was the cost of a ticket.

A ban on all mainline steam traffic was implemented the following day as more efficient and cheaper diesel and electric locomotives were introduced across the country.

Expand Close Crowds flocked to witness the historic journey (Phil Horton/National Railway Museum/PA) / Facebook

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Following the end of steam, many locomotives were scrapped but a number were preserved by private individuals and public bodies such as the National Railway Museum (NRM) in York.

A total of four steam locomotives will appear at Grand Central Railway this weekend, taking passengers on 16-mile trips through the Leicestershire countryside.

NRM senior curator Anthony Coulls, who will attend the event, said: The steam locomotive is a very emotive thing.

It was part of everyday life for well over a century. Its passing was marked big time.

I grew up after the age of steam but August 68 was a date that was ingrained in my mind as a young railway enthusiast.

To be able to be part of the 50th anniversary with the loco that brought the curtain down is quite significant.

Expand Close Last steam train services in Britain (PA Graphics) Press Association Images / Facebook

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Mark Smith, vice chairman of the Heritage Railway Association, was one of 450 passengers on board the Fifteen Guinea Special.

At the time he was a 20-year-old penniless student and his ticket was paid for by a farmer he was working for during the summer holidays.

Fifteen guineas was a huge amount of money, he told the Press Association.

I was walking on air. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I might be on this train. It was absolutely magical.

Huge crowds of spectators lined the tracks throughout the journey.

He said: I dont think we were ever away from people watching the progress of the train, even in the most remote parts of northern England.

Expand Close The 70013 Oliver Cromwell at the Great Central Railway, Loughborough (Rick Eborall/Great Central Railway/PA) / Facebook

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My travelling companions and I agreed wed never seen anything like it before and we were never going to see anything like it again.

Mr Smith described how the mood on board changed as they neared the end of the journey.

The day started as a celebration, he recalled. At the end, I think it had become very sombre because we thought, This really is it.

When the train arrived at Liverpool Lime Street we all stood around it. I remember thinking, I dont want to go home because when I leave the station it really will be the end.

The 50th anniversary is also being marked by a train named the Cumbrian Mountain Express being run by the Railway Touring Company to take passengers from London to Cumbria.
Railway enthusiasts gather on the platforms at Barbican Station to bid farewell to the last steam train on London Transport railways (PA)

The Great Central Railway heritage line in Loughborough is marking the 50th anniversary of British Rails last mainline, steam-hauled passenger service with an End of Steam gala.

The event will feature the 70013 Oliver Cromwell, which was used during the charter return trip from Liverpool to Carlisle via Manchester 50 years ago.

Here we take a look through the archives at images from the golden age of steam railways.

Expand Close The Flying Scotsman, drawn by a Great Northern Railway Stirling 8-footer, pictured in 1888 at Holloway Station between Kings Cross and Finsbury Park (PA) Press Association Images / Facebook

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Expand Close The Chatham Express leaves Victoria Station in January 1920  passing new signalling apparatus (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook

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Expand Close An oil-fired steam locomotive on the London and North Western Railway, leaving Euston Station in 1920 (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook

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Expand Close A steam train carrying royalty leaves Portsmouth Docks en route to London in October 1920 (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook

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Expand Close The Bournemouth Belle leaves Waterloo Station in October 1946 (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook

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Expand Close Schoolchildren try out the Emmett Neptune train at the Festival of Britain in Londons Battersea Park, in April 1951 (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook

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Expand Close Luxury and comfort in the Hercules first class parlour of the all-Pullman Golden Arrow train in 1951 (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook

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Expand Close A crowd line the track at Ealing as the funeral train bearing the coffin of King George VI passes on the way to Windsor, in February 1952 (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook

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Expand Close The Eastern Regions express The Elizabethan leaves Kings Cross Station in 1954. It travelled the 393 miles to Edinburgh in six-and-a-half hours  the fastest ever non-stop journey between London and Edinburgh, with average speed of 60 miles per hour (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp The Eastern Regions express The Elizabethan leaves Kings Cross Station in 1954. It travelled the 393 miles to Edinburgh in six-and-a-half hours  the fastest ever non-stop journey between London and Edinburgh, with average speed of 60 miles per hour (PA)

Expand Close The Cornish Riviera express ploughs at walking pace through flood waters at Plympton, Devon, in 1954 (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook

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Expand Close The Caledonian leaves Euston Station on its inaugural run to Glasgow in June 1957 (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook

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Expand Close The Evening Star, a 2-10-0 steam locomotive, leaves Swindon Works after her naming ceremony in 1960. Evening Star was the last steam locomotive to be built by British Railways as a result of the dieselisation and electrification policy (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp The Evening Star, a 2-10-0 steam locomotive, leaves Swindon Works after her naming ceremony in 1960. Evening Star was the last steam locomotive to be built by British Railways as a result of the dieselisation and electrification policy (PA)

Expand Close The Flying Scotsman leaves Kings Cross Station on her final run to Doncaster in January 1963 (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook

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Expand Close Derby, birthplace of countless hundreds of steam locomotives in the past, said goodbye to the iron horse for good in September 1963 when Number 75042, a class 4 4-6-0 tender engine, had a civic send-off as the last steam locomotive to receive a general repair at the British Railway Works (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Derby, birthplace of countless hundreds of steam locomotives in the past, said goodbye to the iron horse for good in September 1963 when Number 75042, a class 4 4-6-0 tender engine, had a civic send-off as the last steam locomotive to receive a general repair at the British Railway Works (PA)

Expand Close Great Western Railway steam locomotive Castle, class 4-6-0 No 7029, pulls out of Paddington Station at the start of the Farewell to Steam run, in November 1965 (PA) PA Archive/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Great Western Railway steam locomotive Castle, class 4-6-0 No 7029, pulls out of Paddington Station at the start of the Farewell to Steam run, in November 1965 (PA)

Expand Close Thousands gathered to get a look at Britains last mainline steam passenger train as it passed through Rainhill station, between Liverpool and Manchester, in August 1968 (PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Thousands gathered to get a look at Britains last mainline steam passenger train as it passed through Rainhill station, between Liverpool and Manchester, in August 1968 (PA)
Boris Johnson is yet to respond to the furore sparked by his article on Monday (Victoria Jones/PA)

Conservative MPs support for Boris Johnson over his comments comparing Muslim women in burkas to bank robbers has shone a light on the underbelly of Islamophobia within the party, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has said.

Harun Khan, MCB secretary general, said the former foreign secretarys comments, which have attracted criticism and divided opinion since appearing in the Daily Telegraph on Monday, had a real and worrying impact on the Muslim community.

He also said the MCB received Islamophobic hate mail off the back of the furore, some describing Muslims as barbarians.

Mr Khans comments came as fellow prominent Conservative Jacob Rees-Mogg said the partys investigation into Mr Johnson had been set up as a show trial in a bid to derail any plans the former Cabinet minister may have to seek the Tory party leadership.

Mr Johnson is yet to respond to the furore sparked by the article, in which he opposed a ban on the burka or niqab, but branded the face-covering veils ridiculous and oppressive and said Muslim women wearing them looked like letter-boxes or bank robbers.

He made no comment to waiting reporters as he returned home from a holiday abroad on Saturday, but is expected to break his silence in his next Telegraph column on Monday.

In a statement, Mr Khan said: The impact of Boris Johnsons comments are real and worrying and indicate the importance of a full, transparent and independent investigation into his conduct, in particular given the lack of action in previous cases of Islamophobia in the party.

The comments and belief by a number of Conservative MPs that not even an apology is required has shone a light on the underbelly of Islamophobia that is present within the party  one that can only be tackled by sincerely changing course and positively responding to calls for an independent inquiry into Islamophobia in the party.

Further condemnation came from Andrew Cooper, David Camerons former Downing Street aide, who pulled no punches with his assessment of Mr Johnson.

In a Twitter post, he wrote: The rottenness of Boris Johnson goes deeper even than his casual racism and his equally casual courting of fascism.

He will advocate literally anything to play to the crowd of the moment. His career is a saga of moral emptiness and lies; pathetic, weak and needy; the opposite of strong.

There were further signs of grassroots Tory anger over the affair, with the Telegraph giving over its whole letters page to reaction from readers after being inundated with messages of support for Mr Johnson.

And it was reported that letters have been sent to the party complaining about chairman Brandon Lewis, whose demand for an apology from Mr Johnson provoked an escalation in the row earlier this week.

Mr Rees-Mogg suggested the attacks on Mr Johnsons comment were a reflection of envy felt towards him because of his many successes, popularity with voters and charisma.

The howls of outrage directed at the former figurehead of the Leave campaign were suspect and the motivations of those attacking him dubious, said the North East Somerset MP.

Could it be that there is a nervousness that a once and probably future leadership contender is becoming too popular and needs to be stopped? asked Mr Rees-Mogg.

This may explain the attempt to use the Conservative Partys disciplinary procedures, but it has been handled so ham-fistedly that it brings only sympathy and support for Mr Johnson.

It is time for good sense to assert itself, free speech to be encouraged and, as the summer rain falls, for hot-headed action to be cooled downJacob Rees-Mogg

And he added: When Margaret Thatcher was leader, she and Michael Heseltine were hardly soulmates, but she would not have allowed personal rivalry to take the heat off the Labour Party, whose own deep internal divisions are buried in other news now, nor would she have countenanced any attempt to have a show trial.

Attacking Boris merely helps the Opposition. It is time for good sense to assert itself, free speech to be encouraged and, as the summer rain falls, for hot-headed action to be cooled down.

Mr Johnsons comments on the burka have been branded inflammatory and divisive by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, but the watchdog made clear it was not launching its own investigation.

A panel including one independent figure, one representative of the voluntary party and one nominated by the backbench 1922 Committee, will look into complaints that Mr Johnsons comments breached the Conservative Partys code of conduct.

Under party rules, the head of the panel may dismiss the complaints if they are found to be obviously trivial, lacking in merit or unable to be fairly investigated.

Disciplinary action could lead to Mr Johnson being suspended or even expelled from the Tories, but would risk igniting civil war in a party many of whose members see him as the best option to succeed Mrs May as leader.

But there have also been suggestions that he could be ordered to attend a diversity training course.
Americas ambassador in London has issued a call for the UK to join Donald Trump in putting pressure on Iran.

Britain and its European allies responded with dismay to Mr Trumps decision in May to pull out of the 2015 deal which relieved sanctions on Tehran in return to an end to Irans military nuclear ambitions.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt joined with his French and German counterparts last week to voice their deep regret at Washingtons withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and vow to protect European companies from US reprisals if they continue to trade with Iran.

London has made clear it is committed to the JCPOA but is open to talking to the US about ways to address shared concerns about Irans regional activities.

On Tuesday, Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt said that the US had not got this right and Britain was ready to stand up to Mr Trump, telling the BBC: Sometimes you need to take a stand against friends.

But Ambassador Woody Johnson urged the UK to rethink its position.

America is turning up the pressure and we want the UK by our sideUS Ambassador Robert Wood Johnson

In an article in the Sunday Telegraph, he said: It is time to move on from the flawed 2015 deal.

We are asking global Britain to use its considerable diplomatic power and influence and join us as we lead a concerted global effort towards a genuinely comprehensive agreement.

Mr Johnson said the Tehran regime had used the flow of money coming into the country since the easing of sanctions not to improve the lives of ordinary Iranians but to beef up spending on the military and networks of proxy forces and terrorists.

He accused Iran of launching cyber attacks against Western democracies, sponsoring Hizbollah terrorists in Lebanon, arming militants in Yemen and publicly threatening to destroy Israel.

It is clear that the danger from Iran did not diminish in the wake of the deal, he said. It grew.

Far from becoming a more responsible member of the international community, as we had all hoped, Iran grew bolder.

Expand Close Ambassor Johnson arrived at the US embassy in London in August 2017 (John Stillwell/PA) PA Wire/PA Images / Facebook

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He called for a united front among Western nations to force Tehran into a change of course.

Only by presenting a united front can we exert the maximum possible pressure on the Iranian regime, and get it to finally change course and put an end to its malign and reckless activities both at home and abroad, said the ambassador.

If the regime does make tangible and sustained changes to behave like a normal country, America is prepared to resume full commercial and diplomatic relations. Iran will be free to develop advanced technologies and play a full role in the global economy.

Until then, America is turning up the pressure and we want the UK by our side.
The mountain lion roamed the house for more than an hour (Boulder Police Department via AP)

A mountain lion that became trapped inside a house killed a cat before police and wildlife officers were able to scare it out.

Police in Boulder, Colorado, in the US, said the homeowner came back to the house late and found the mountain lion inside.

A mountain lion entered a home in Boulder last night through a screen door. The cat burglar was chased off. No people were injured but a house cat, sadly, was killed. Please keep ground level doors and windows closed and locked at night and when youre not home. pic.twitter.com/7u5nRwZBaw  City of Boulder (@bouldercolorado) August 10, 2018

It appeared it had pushed through a screen and could not get back out.

The big cat roamed throughout the home for more than an hour before officers used non-lethal rounds to scare it out of the front door.




Guwahati : A shocking incident has come to light as a man has thrown his sick mother into a river in central Assams Nagaon district.





According to the reports, a person named Pramod Agarwala had pushed his sick mother Ratna Devi into the Kolong river from a wooden bridge located near the Nagaon Girls College on late Wednesday night.





The man had carried his mother in a rickshaw and pushed her into the river.





The mother-son was staying at a rented house at Haiborgaon area in Nagaon town.





When the incident was happened, locals had immediately informed police and police team had rushed to the area.





Police and State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) teams have engaged in search operation to rescue the woman, but still to trace.





Meanwhile, Nagaon police have arrested the man.





The man claimed that, after pushing his mother he also tried to jump into the river, but couldnt do so.





We were informed that, a man had carried a woman near the bridge, but the woman was missing. Police had immediately reached the area and getting information that, the man identified as Pramod Agarwala had pushed his mother into the river and arrested the man. Search operation is going on and still to trace the woman, Ananta Das, Officer-in-Charge of Nagaon Sadar police station said.




A shooting in a small Canadian city Friday has left four people dead, including two police officers.

The killings have struck a nerve in a country that has been hit in recent months by several instances of mass violence.

People in Fredericton, the capital of New Brunswick, said they heard as many as 20 gunshots following a confrontation that prompted police to cordon off a large section of the city with emergency vehicles and order residents to remain inside their homes and businesses.

Our deepest condolences to the families of our fallen members 45-year-old Lawrence Robert Costello and 43-year-old Sara Mae Helen Burns and the other victims in this morning's shootings. pic.twitter.com/9TeWn5OqWx  Fredericton Police (@CityFredPolice) August 10, 2018

Finally, after a tense period of waiting, authorities said that among the four killed were two officers, a rare case of police killed in the line of duty in Canada.

Frederictons deputy police chief Martin Gaudet said the two officers arrived at the apartment complex and saw two dead civilians before being shot and killed themselves.

Gaudet said a 48-year old man with serious injuries was arrested. They did not identify him and no motive has been disclosed for the shooting.

Expand Close Flowers are placed outside the police station in Fredericton (Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press via AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

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Fredericton police chief Leanne Fitch identified the officers killed as Sara Burns, 43, who was married with three children, and 45-year-old Robb Costello who had a partner and four children.

The two civilians killed, a man and a woman, were not identified.

Costello was a 20-year veteran of the force. Burns had been on the force for two years.

Several other victims were being treated at a regional hospital, but there were no details on the nature of their injuries or their conditions.

Our hearts are broken by the murder of our two brave police officers, Fredericton mayor Mike OBrien said in a tweet.

The entire province of New Brunswick had 11 homicides in 2016.

In Fredericton, a city of about 60,000 residents, people said they were stunned by the scene, which occurred as people were heading to work or dropping children at a day care centre not far from the apartment complex where the shooting took place.

This is the first time Ive even heard of any serious crime or violent crime in this city, said Travis Hrubeniuk, whose fiancee had just left their home when the sirens began.

Bill Henwood, a funeral director at York Funeral Home, whose business is located inside the cordoned off area on Brookside Drive, said people sat in their cars or were just standing near the blockade of police and fire vehicles hanging tight and waiting for word for news.

Expand Close Two police officers were among the four dead (Keith Minchin/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

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Its not something that we expect in Fredericton to wake up and hear about, Henwood said.

To see that theres actually fatalities is pretty extraordinary for this area.

The shooting comes as Canada wrestles with a string of violence, including an incident in Toronto last month where a man with a handgun opened fire in a crowded part of the city, killing two people and wounding 13 before he either shot himself or was killed by police.

In April, a man who linked himself to a misogynistic online community used a van to run down pedestrians in a busy part of Toronto, killing 10 people and injuring 14.

Authorities are still pursuing leads in an investigation of a serial killer who has been charged with killing eight men in the city in recent years.

In 2014, a shooting in Moncton, New Brunswick left three Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers dead and two wounded.
Students shout slogans during a rally as they join a protest over recent traffic accidents that killed a boy and a girl, in Dhaka, Aug. 5, 2018.

Bangladeshi police have arrested at least 42 people in connection with recent mass protests demanding road safety, officials said Friday, amid growing international calls for the release of those detained, including renowned photographer Shahidul Alam.

Law enforcement officials said they were on the lookout for instigators of demonstrations that brought tens of thousands of mostly high school students to the streets for nine days after two classmates were killed by a speeding bus in late July.

We are watching the agitators and instigators, Lt. Col. Sarwar Bin Quashem, an official of the elite Rapid Action Battalion police force (RAB), told BenarNews. Were monitoring people who were involved in spreading false propaganda and rumour using social sites.

The comments sparked panic among students, some of whom have gone into hiding, according to young people who spoke to BenarNews on condition of anonymity.

Among those detained are 22 private university students who were put on remand for two-day interrogation in police custody, sources told BenarNews.

Police did not arrest minors, said Iqbal Sobhan Chowdhury, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasinas adviser for media. Lawful actions are being taken only against the adults, who were involved in provocation and anarchy out of political motives.

Bangladeshs Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid earlier rejected an appeal from university vice-chancellors to announce a general amnesty for student protesters.

Who are we to forgive anyone? We cannot spare anyone who spread rumours, he said. Law will take its own course. We cannot say that the culprits will not face legal action.

Absurd charges

The comments came as international rights and media groups slammed Bangladesh for the brutal beatings of journalists covering the protests and suppression of free speech.

No arrests have so far been made in connection with the violence against many journalists that took place on Aug. 5, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said a statement titled Shocking press freedom violations during Bangladesh student protests.

Up to 26 journalists covering the events suffered injuries on Aug. 4 - 5, according to a BenarNews tally. Among them was AP news photographer AM Ahad. Social media videos of Ahads attack showed about a dozen men striking him with long sticks and batons.

It is high time that the Bangladeshi authorities took concrete measures to defuse the tension and demonstrate respect for press freedom and democratic practices, said Daniel Bastard, head of RSFs Asia-Pacific desk.

The first step should be to drop the absurd charges against Shahidul Alam and to arrest those responsible for the deliberate violence against journalists, he said.

Alam, a respected figure in the photojournalism community, was seized by dozens of police officers in civilian clothes from his home on Aug. 5, according to his partner, Rahnuma Ahmed.

A Dhaka court ordered him held for seven days for questioning on allegations that he violated the countrys Information and Communication Technology Act by spreading propaganda against the government and false information on electronic media.

Alam was arrested hours after an interview with Al-Jazeera in which he said the Hasina government was clinging on to power by using brute force, and after posting live updates on the student protests on Facebook in which he gave tallies of those reportedly injured.

In a joint statement Friday, 24 more human rights and media groups called for Alams immediate and unconditional release and demanded that all allegations against him be dropped as they represent a blatant violation of his right to freedom of expression.

As police escorted the barefooted Alam to court Monday, he yelled at reporters that he had been beaten by police.

They washed my blood-stained tunic and then I was made to wear it again, Alam said. I urge the citizens of the country to protest. I have been told that if I don't obey their instructions they will hurt me more.

Sajeeb Wazed, the son of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and government information technology adviser, claimed the statement was baseless.

Contrary to recent media reports, no evidence exists that Bangladeshi photographer Shahidul Alam was tortured while in police custody, he said in a statement Friday.

Unfortunately, in an election year, opposition party leaders are prone to exaggerate and even fabricate issues in an attempt to influence public opinion. The opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party and its leaders are no doubt doing so with Mr. Alams story. Bangladesh is scheduled to hold national elections in December.

Students gather in Dhaka to join the protests demanding road safety, Aug. 5, 2019. [BenarNews]





A legitimate right

The demonstrations brought streets of the capital to a standstill and saw students stopping vehicles of police and government officials, demanding to see licenses and registrations.

Violent confrontation broke out after six days, as police and men allegedly linked with the ruling party swooped in and chased the demonstrators with long sticks. Scores were hurt as police fired tear gas, beat up students and blasted them with water cannons.

Amid the chaos, armed adult men attacked U.S. Ambassador Marcia Bernicats vehicle, although no one was harmed, the U.S. Embassy in Dhaka said.

A Facebook post by the U.S. embassy declared that the protests have united and captured the imagination of the whole country, while UNICEF, the United Nations children agency, defended the students in a tweet.

Students and young people have a legitimate right to speak out on issues of concern to them, including road safety issues and to have their opinion heard without the threat of violence, UNICEF Bangladesh said.
Former Malaysia Prime Minister Najib Razak leaves a Kuala Lumpur court on Friday after court hearing on the gag order application on his case, Aug. 10, 2018.

Malaysias ex-Prime Minister Najib Razak will face trial Feb. 12, 2019, for criminal breach of trust, abuse of power and money laundering, a judge ruled Friday while dismissing an application from the former leader for a gag order on the news media.



The country has enough existing laws to ensure that the so-called trial by media would not happen, High Court Judge Mohamad Nazlan Mohamad Ghazali said as he issued his ruling on the petition to bar journalists from discussing the merits of the charges against Najib.

In my judgment in this case, freedom of speech takes precedence, he said after hearing arguments from Najibs attorneys and prosecutors. The gag order is unjustified as it is superfluous.

Najib, 65, and his wife, Rosmah, have been barred from leaving and residences linked to them have been raided since his coalition partys stunning defeat in May. During the raid, police seized jewelry, cash and luxury handbags with an estimated value of up to U.S. $273 million.

The charges against Najib stemmed from a multibillion-dollar corruption scandal that has engulfed 1Malaysia Development Berhad (1MDB), a state investment fund he founded to spur economic development.

Najib, who is free on bail, faces seven charges after prosecutors on Wednesday lodged money laundering charges. All of the charges so far involve allegations that 42 million ringgit ($10.3 million) were illegally funneled electronically into his private bank accounts from SRC International, a former 1MDB subsidiary.

The amount involved in those charges were minuscule compared to $4.5 billion that U.S. prosecutors allege were stolen from 1MDB and diverted through acquisitions of real estate, artwork and luxury properties by Najib and his associates.

Najib has denied all the charges. He faces years in prison if found guilty.



Along with announcing the start date, Judge Mohamad gave prosecutors until March 29, 2019, to present their case.
Police Maj. Gen. Kornchai Khlaikhlueng (second from right), views a chart showing efforts to solve human trafficking and child pornography cases, Aug. 7, 2018.

A Thai government crackdown on human trafficking last month including cases involving child pornography led to the arrests of more than 30 suspects in about 20 cases, police officials announced this week.

Eight suspects, including a university lecturer and a government official, were arrested after allegedly paying for online sex services involving underage boys, said police Maj. Gen. Kornchai Khlaikhlueng, the chief commander of the Thai polices Anti-Trafficking in Persons Division (ATPD).

The ATPD charged them with depriving boys younger than 18 of their parents care and sent the charges to criminal court, Kornchai said. The suspects were released on 300,000 baht ($9,000) bail.

To break the case, investigators monitored Namphon Somngam, 27, who allegedly opened a Facebook account offering child pornography and sex services involving boys, according to an ATPD officer.

Namphon allegedly charged each customer a 300 baht ($9) membership fee to join a chat group named Rak Dek or love children, according to ATPD Col. Khomkrit Sukthai.

Customers paid up to 1,500 baht ($45) for having sex with the boys. Namphon would deduct 500 baht ($15) for his broker fee, Khomkrit said.

Namphon has been charged with human trafficking by procuring Thai boys 18 and younger and disseminating child pornography online, according Kornchai.

We rescued seven boys between the ages of 12 and 16 who later helped identify their customers, he said.

ATPD officials told reporters that joint efforts with the Tourist Police Bureau, the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security and non-governmental organizations saved 17 victims involved in 20 separate cases, leading to charges being brought against 33 suspects.

Online abuse

Kornchai told BenarNews he is concerned about a growing demand for cybersex.

Selling and buying child porn online is the very beginning of a human trafficking ring, he said. We are focusing on cracking down on online child-sex abuse rings because we want to make sure that human trafficking cases are going down.

Kornchai challenged a claim last year by a United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) research consultant that Thailand had surpassed the Philippines for the notorious title of webcam center for child pornography.

I think this is not fair, and its not true, Kornchai told BenarNews.

A UNODC representative in 2017 said intelligence indicated that parts of a major webcam operation had moved from the Philippines to Thailand.

Kornchai said some foreigners arrested in Thailand had child porn featuring boys from other countries, not Thailand.
She loved Hans Scholl, is the last contemporary witness of the NS resistance group

Charleston  The warm evening sun of the American South illuminates her face. Traute Lafrenz (99) is sitting in the swing chair on the porch, drinking iced tea. Her features suggest modesty and contentment. Her name is only really known to historians. Yet at school these days, every child learns about the history she played a role in.

There are numerous books, movies, and documentaries about the White Rose  the anti-National Socialist resistance group that grew up around the siblings Hans ( 24) and Sophie Scholl ( 21).

Three initiators of the White Rose: Hans Scholl (left) , Sophie Scholl und Christoph Probst Foto: AP

Traute Lafrenz is the last living White Rose. BILD has visited her on her Ranch near Charleston (South Carolina).

In May 2019, Traute Lafrenz will turn 100. She is remarkably fit  she cooks and does her laundry, drives to the post office and the bakery with her car. Almost every morning, she walks along a 100-metre-long jetty to bathe in the Atlantic. I only use the walking stick for longer distances, she says. Then she begins to talk about her eventful and moving life.

How she became a White Rose

She grew up in a German-National home. Her father Carl was a civil servant; her mother Hermine a housewife. She had two older sisters. She went to Lichtwark School. Thats where Loki and Helmut Schmidt also studied. We called Helmut Schmiddi the motormouth. He was one year above me.

hen her teacher Erna Stahl lost her job under the Nazis in 1935, she secretly taught the children at her home. When Stahl was arrested, her fellow students asked the eloquent Schmidt to speak up for the teacher. But he didnt do it, Traute Lafrenz today still says with a noticeable bitterness. Even though Schmiddi was already lieutenant back then.

Apparently, Schmidt later no longer wanted to hear about the issue. After his chancellorship, he came to Chicago in the 80s to give a lecture. That was the first time we talked to each other again. I stayed friends with Loki for my entire life.

After finishing school, Traute Lafrenz went to Munich and studied medicine. Thats where she met Hans Scholl, Alexander Schmorell and their friends  the heads of the White Rose.

How she loved Hans Scholl

I already noticed Hans at the lectures, since we both studied medicine, she remembers with a smile. However, back then we did not yet talk to each other. When she went to Johann Sebastian Bachs Brandenburg Concertos in the Odeon Munich concert hall in June 1941, she met Alexander Schmorell during the interval. He introduced her to his friend Hans Scholl.

Traute was very pretty, highly educated, and spoke with a sassy Hamburg accent. Hans was tall, slim, had dark hair and dark eyes. A good-looking man, says Traute Lafrenz. There was a spark. Traute and Hans spent the whole summer together. We learned to know each other, then to know each other even better, and better. We went walking, hiking, and bathing. We went to concerts and talked a lot about art, literature, and religion.

In the short summer of their love, Hans Scholl wrote three poems. One is called Longing:

Where the western wind blows from

you live.

And where it blows to

my longing flees ahead.

As the wind blew between the twigs

The leaves died, blown away on the streets

Because I left you once

I left you again yesterday.

Hans Scholl was charismatic, says Traute Lafrenz. He fascinated people. This, of course, included women  which became a problem. The love only lasted one short, beautiful summer. But the friendship endured.

Auch Interessant



How she risked her life

Traute Lafrenz organized literary evenings with Hans Scholl and became friends with his family. Later with Sophie Scholl, she bought stamps and paper for distributing White Rose flyers. She gave those flyers to fellow students and professors, and brought them to Vienna and Hamburg.

She established contacts between the Munich and the Hamburg group of the White Rose and warned persecuted people prior to their arrest by the Gestapo. She wrote appeals for clemency for imprisoned friends. In Vienna, I tried to organize a duplicating machine, Traute Lafrenz remembers. Later, I destroyed incriminating material.

Lafrenz: Hans Scholl fascinated people Foto: Ralf Gunther

Following the execution of Hans and Sophie, she was the only non-family member who dared to attend the funeral, even though the graveyard was observed by the SS.

In April 1943, Traute Lafrenz was put on trial for connivance. She was imprisoned for a total of two years. The prison in Berlin-Moabit was completely overfilled. We had to stand at night and were eaten away by bugs. She was transferred to the womens prison in Cottbus (Thats where I heard the word Auschwitz for the first time) and later via Leipzig to Bayreuth.

On the way there, my friend Margaretha Rothe died, she remembers the journey in ice-cold cattle cars. In Bayreuth, the remaining members of the White Rose were scheduled to be put on trial again. They were at risk of the death penalty. A few days prior to the start of the court proceedings, the Americans liberated the prison.

Despite all of this, Traute Lafrenz downplays her role in the White Rose. I am just a contemporary witness, she says. Given the fates of the others, I am not allowed to complain. After the end of the war, she went back to Munich and finished her medical studies.

Traute Lafrenz (99): Given the fates of the others, I am not allowed to complain Foto: Ralf Gunther

Her new life

Upon invitation by a Jewish friend, Traute travelled to San Francisco. She fell in love: first with the beautiful bay, then with eye surgeon Veron Page. They married in 1949 and have had four children: homoeopath Renee (67), teacher Michael (66, lives in Oslo), architect Thomas (63, lives in Chicago), and shrimp-grower Kim (60, lives in Mexico).

The family moved to Chicago in 1963, where Traute Lafrenz was head of a school for disadvantaged children for 23 years.

Read the german version here BILD traf Traute Lafrenz Ich bin die letzte Weie Rose BILD traf Traute Lafrenz (99) in den USA. Sie liebte Hans Scholl und ist die letzte Zeitzeugin der beruhmten NS-Widerstandsgruppe.

After her husband died in 1995, Traute Lafrenz moved to her daughter Renees ranch in South Carolina, half an hour away from Charleston by car. For a long time, we didnt speak about my mothers past, the daughter says. I learned about it by chance, on a trip to Europe around 1970. Mum was asked about her time in the White Rose. It was only then that I realized what she had suffered and achieved.

What a life. What can we learn from it? Traute Lafrenz says that she is watching the rise of the right in Germany with concern. Upon our farewell, she tells us to Stay watchful!.




Guwahati : Former Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi criticised the updation process of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and said that, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP wouldnt want to deport the illegal Bangladeshis.





Tarun Gogoi said that, PM Modi and BJP want to give Indian citizenship to the Bangladeshis.





During the election campaign in 2014 general elections, PM Modi said that, all illegal Bangladeshis must to be leaved India after 16 May. PM Modi also said that, he will deport all illegal Bangladeshis after 16 May. But how many illegal Bangladeshis have been deported. They will not deport them. They will provide all facilities to them, Tarun Gogoi said.





Tarun Gogoi further said that, the NRC list contains lots of errors as many people have been excluded in the list.





There are many people from former Presidents nephew to wife of deputy speaker of Assam assembly have been excluded in the list, Gogoi said.





The former Assam Chief Minister claimed that, the Congress is the father of NRC in Assam and the entire process was started during the Congress tenure.








Guwahati : The Union Minister of State (MoS) for Railways Rajen Gohain has allegedly been booked for raping an early 30-year-old married woman in central Assams Nagaon district.





Assam police has registered a case against the Junior Railway minister.





According to the reports, the victim lady had lodged a complaint against the MoS for Railways at Nagaon Sadar police station on August 2 and Nagaon police had registered a case (no 2592/2018) under section 417, 376 and 506 of IPC after receiving the complaint.





The complaint stated that, the alleged incident took place seven to eight months ago and both Rajen Gohain and the lady knew each other for a long time.





The complaint saying that, Gohain had committed the crime at the home of the woman, while her husband and other family members were not present.





Nagaon district Superintendent of Police (SP) Shankar Raimedhi said that, after registration of the case, police has taken all actions legally.





We have recorded the statement under section 161 of Code of Criminal Procedure and 164 statements also being recorded and medical examination also being done. In the meantime, the complainant has come with a letter said that, she is not interested going forward to the case, the Nagaon district SP said.





We have taken all actions legally as per the provisions of law and investigation is going on. Another case has been registered at Nagaon police station (no  2585/2018) under section 385, 506 of IPC after lodging compalint by Nabarun Borgohain and alleged that he and his father were blackmailed by particular husband of accused, the top Assam cop said.




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Kathmandu, Nepal: Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has assured the medical activist Dr Govinda KC that the nine point deal inked to end the latters hunger strike would be implemented without further delay.





The need for another hunger strike would not arise, Prime Minister Oli said during a meeting held at the formers official residence in Baluwatar while responding to the concerns of the Dr. KC.





During the about two hours long meeting, Dr KC reiterated that he would go on another fast unto death if the government fails to implement the recent agreement. Prime Minister Oli had invited Oli to hold discussion over the issue of implementing the nine point agreement.




Kathmandu, Nepal: Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has invited senior Orthopedic Surgeon at Tribhuvan University teaching Hospital Dr Govinda KC at his official residence today.





It is said that Prime Minister Oli invited Dr. KC to discuss over the matter related to the implementation of the recent nine-point- agreement signed between the government and Dr KC.




Kathmandu, Nepal: At least two killed one injured when a truck bearing Indian registration number met with an accident at Jugedi Bridge of Bharatpur metropolitan city-29 at wee hours on Saturday morning.





According to the police the accident took place at 4.40 am. The deceased have been identified as trick driver 25-year-old Juber Mohamad of Balrampur, India and his assistant. However, name and address is not known yet.





In the accident, forty-year-old Firoz Alam of Balrampur, India received severe injury in the mishap. He is receiving treatment at College of Medical Sciences Teaching Hospital, Bharatpur.





The deceased driver had also breathed his last at the same hospital while receiving treatment.




A bakers dozen years into the beauty industry, Ashley Berscheid has branched out on her own by opening The Brow Loft, a third-floor business at 29 10th St.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 11/8/2018 (1175 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

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A bakers dozen years into the beauty industry, Ashley Berscheid has branched out on her own by opening The Brow Loft, a third-floor business at 29 10th St.

Adding to the newly renovated downtown buildings wedding theme, The Brow Loft joins others such as Muse Bridal, a photographer and hair salon in providing services commonly used by those getting married.

On this front, Berscheid said that she has some ambitious aspirations for her new space, which is currently too large for her to staff alone into the long term.

She hopes to hire people as well as take out liquor permits in order to accommodate bachelorette parties.

"In town, there isnt much to do for that kind of event," she said, adding that she also plans on teaching short classes on things such as makeup application as part of these get-togethers.

She also plans on establishing makeup classes this fall and winter, starting out with a few students and growing the effort as she gains her footing.

Her retail line will also grow to include additional beauty products that are not currently available in Brandon.

For now, shes easing into her new space, which is a culmination of 13 years experience in skin care, nails, makeup and massage.

An aesthetician by trade, Berscheid said that her love of the craft was established at her childhood farm home near The Pas, where she did makeup and hair for her three younger sisters.

Studying and then practising the trade in Winnipeg, she relocated to Brandon approximately seven years ago in order to change her pace of life.

Things in Winnipeg were too busy, she said, adding that Brandon was able to offer her a more positive atmosphere.

Having been renting chairs at others salons, she decided that now was the time to branch out on her own.

The Sneath Developments building at 29 10th St. offered an ideal opportunity, she said, adding that it adds to the community vibe she sought by relocating to Brandon seven years ago.

"Everyone is supportive; its a community," she said of the buildings other clients, who are sharing their successes by encouraging people to check out the other businesses that are sprinkled throughout the four storeys.

The physical space itself is also appealing, in that it taps in to her familys interest in antiques and vintage items, which she said her mother established in her at a young age.

"I was just blown away with this space, so it drew me in," Berscheid said.

"It just feels like a second home."

Building her business out of her own pocket and declining to take on any loans has made Berscheids development of The Brow Loft a slow-building effort, however she said that it is progressing, slowly but surely.

Having built up a client base during the past few years, she said that most of them have made their way to her new third-floor space, and that new people have even been popping by, curious about whats going on throughout the recently renewed building.

 tclarke@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @TylerClarkeMB
The St. Vincent de Paul says the Government must act now and declare a national emergency on homelessness.

The call comes after a mother and her children had to sleep in Tallaght Garda Station in Dublin, due to the lack of suitable emergency accommodation.
There was no winner of tonight's Lotto jackpot worth over 2.5m.

There was no winner of the Lotto Plus 1 jackpot of 500,000 but two players take home winnings of 5,000.
Tesla and Elon Musk were sued by an investor over wild share price swings following the chief executive officer's August 7 tweet saying he was considering taking the company private.

The complaint alleges violations of US securities law and was filed Friday as a class action in federal court in San Francisco.

Musk set off a firestorm with the 53-character post on Twitter: "Am considering taking Tesla private at $US420. Funding Secured."

The stock initially shot up 11 per cent to almost $US380. Then it fell back, losing about 7 per cent over two days, as doubts mounted about the feasibility of the going-private idea -- and about the chief executive officer's declaration that funding was already in place. He hasn't supplied evidence that it was; nor has anyone else.
When Jack Berne when to school last week, he knew very little about the drought across NSW.

A week later, the 10-year-old has become the poster boy for a campaign to raise funds for farmers that is being supported by at least 66 schools and dozens of businesses.

Students at St John the Baptist Primary School are trying to raise $200,000 for NSW farmers. Credit:Janie Barrett

"At school we've been watching a video about the drought and I thought we needed to do more, so I came home and spoke to Mum," said Jack, who is in year 4 at St John the Baptist Primary School in Freshwater.

"I knew what a drought was before that, but it was devastating to see kids my age skipping school but not really getting anywhere.
WARNING for European visitors European Union laws require you to give European Union visitors information about cookies used on your blog. In many cases, these laws also require you to obtain consent.

As a courtesy, we have added a notice on your blog to explain Google's use of certain Blogger and Google cookies, including use of Google Analytics and AdSense cookies.
With the Briggs Family Tea Service, Trent Jansen reveals a fascination with the relationship between sealer and free settler George Briggs, and Tasmanian Aboriginal Woretermoeteyenner of the Pairrebeenne people on the harsh Tasmanian coast. Jansen collaborated with Indigenous artist Vicki West and others to create the tea service. Made of bull kelp, wallaby pelt and porcelain, the surreal result is a beautiful evocation of the marriage of two seemingly incongruous cultures. Broached's second collection, East, explored the impact of Asian culture on Australia, particularly during the 19th century. Orientalism and Japonisme are perhaps the most famous examples of these stylistic influences. "[Broached's] work was made explicitly to tell a story," observes McEoin. "It will be interesting to see how that plays out in 50 or a 100 years' time when it has another layer. What does it say about the stories we were actively trying to tell at that time?" In one sense Broached Commissions tells a story about migration of people and ideas across continents. Within that a chapter would be about craftsmanship and luxury. Not that Weis sees the objects as intentionally luxurious. "This is a flaccid distinction, but they are just expensive," says Weis. "We're not trying to be Gucci. We're not trying to be luxury in that sense, but unfortunately the pieces are expensive by the nature of how they are made. It goes back to the very same regret William Morris had about the Arts and Craft movement [in the 19th century]. He wanted it to be artisanship for local community, and [yet] it was artisanship for a few rich people. I don't know what to do about that. We support a network of highly skilled individuals who are not wealthy themselves to make work they are passionate about."

One way of challenging the bounds of luxury is by making it conceptually challenging. "Originally, I was about what happens when the design style at the time of colonialism arrives in Australia  how does it change and evolve in the local context," Weis reflects. "What happens when the Aesthetic movement during the gold rush and the Meiji restoration arrives in Australia? Really, wave after wave is just another version of globalised economic transformation of the country. And the way in which design justifies that by making the latest tools of industry sexy. So the objects I'm trying to commission and often what I'm saying to designers, don't be scared to make it ugly. Because reality is pretty ugly." Broached dissects the home  tables, lamps, chairs, cupboards, tall boys, tea services  and examines each object's relationship to economics: the migration of lifestyle and societal norms. Surreal, often awkward, these objects blur the lines of sculpture. But they are largely functional. More recently, as if to furnish a home with art as well as objects, Weis has commissioned more decorative elements such as graphic design posters (see box) and flower arrangements. But instead of simply commissioning a vase, Broached takes the opportunity to comment on another form of wasteful global transfer: flowers that are sent around the world yet last for a very short time. "Azuma [Makato] often talks about the cut-flower industry that it gives birth to death," says Weis. "It's highly transitory beauty. It's just fine with being unsustainable." Makato's Block flowers capture in resin forever the flowers' transitory beauty, creating a tension between life and death, waste and preservation.

The collections also explore the global exchange of ideas by asking English designers such as Max Lamb and Chinese designers like Naihan Li for their take on Australian history. Li, in particular, highlights the different approaches to storytelling. Where Jansen explored the hardship Chinese faced during the gold rush, she emphasised their achievements. Her Armillary sphere (an example of scientific and military prowess) doubles as a whisky cabinet. Made from brass and black walnut, it's a symbol of success. "She thought we were incredibly depressing and boring, and not her experience of Chinese people at all," laughs Weis. Another key chapter in Broached Commissions' storytelling is how it captures a renewed cultural interest and appreciation for Indigenous culture. Jansen's Briggs Family Tea Service and his Monsters series have been fruitful collaborations with Indigenous makers. But surrounding that will be debates around what is culturally appropriate. Indeed Jansen writes on the Conversation website that he's been accused of being a "carpetbagger" for using the Indigenous story of the mythical central desert figure, the Pankalangu, in his Monsters series. Jansen expresses shock at this criticism as senior leader Baden Williams from Hermannsburg gave him permission to use the Pankalangu stories for his furniture.

"Go for it, use that name," says Williams on the recorded permission. "Take it. Talk about it." As debates rage around cultural appropriation, Jansen's work is done with respect and in good faith. He ascribes to Indigenous visual art historian Greg Lehman's view that: "White Australians cannot continue to place Aboriginal culture on a shelf, afraid to touch it. This only cements the divide that already exists between white and Indigenous Australians. It is important for people from all backgrounds  artists, musicians, designers etc to respectfully take Aboriginal culture into their own expressions of culture, and communicate these ideas to new audiences." Arguably the bigger omission is that while Indigenous designers have been collaborators in Broached Commissions they have never been the driver of any collection. Weis hopes to remedy that. "Nine years ago when we did [Broached] Colonial, I didn't know anyone to approach," says Weis. "Now I would probably be able to think of a couple. We will do that for sure." What might be an Aboriginal response to settlement? Perhaps given that first Australians are the oldest living culture, the theme of migration here could well be about displacement.
MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

miff.com.au. Until Sunday, August 19.

ASH IS PUREST WHITE (141 minutes; Sunday, August 19): Jia Zhang-ke returns to one of his enduring themes for his latest feature: the dislocating, exclusionary transformation of 21st century China. Starting in 2001 and spanning 15 years, it's set in a northern city where the state-run industry is under threat. The backdrop is a criminal organisation but the lens is the relationship between Qiao (Zhao Tao) and her boyfriend, Bin (Fan Liao), a mid-level boss whose assets she shrewdly helps manage. Qiao is the exception in a word where Bin's authority is seemingly unquestionable, and the dynamic of what they want  or need  from each other is put to the test by changed circumstances. This is a crime epic whose sense of time passing is tenderly tragic, with a mordant streak of humour and revelatory tracking shots that always returns to Zhao's thrillingly contained performance.

The crime epic Ash is Purest White is set to be one of the highlights of the Melbourne International Film Festival.

BURNING (148 minutes; Sunday, August 19): Masterfully shot, Lee Chang-don's drama captures how a moment of romantic wonder can turn to malignant mystery. Awkward and uncertain of his life ahead, budding writer Jong-su (Yoo Ah-in) runs into childhood acquaintance Hae-mi (Jeon Jong-seo), whose affection befuddles him until it is gone. Returning from a trip with wealthy Ben (Steven Yeun), Hae-mi makes Jong-su a witness to her new life and the fissures beneath it even as he finds himself falling in love with her. Treated with charming condescension by Ben, Jong-su becomes obsessed with Hae-mi's fate and exposing Ben, a process that reveals his own heritage, obsessions and social standing. Situating Dostoyevsky in the Gangnam neighbourhood, the filmmaking is intensely communicative, with portents and private performances that build to a shuddering peak.

CLIMAX (95 minutes; Saturday, August 18): The Argentinian provocateur Gaspar Noe (Irreversible, Enter the Void, Love) once more follows the ecstatic all the way to the excessive with this DJ set from hell drama about a dance troupe's collective freak-out after the sangria at a celebratory party is spiked with LSD. Like Darren Aronofsky's Mother!  with a backbeat instead of the Bible, carnal desire instead of worship  long choreographed sequences wend through a building's spaces, although none is as thrilling as the dance sequences that serve as the best introduction to the ensemble cast's characters. The camera is both inquisitor and God-like platform, tracking interactions and then switching to above so that the chaos and violence is seconded to the filmmaker's authority. The build is sublime, but the comedown is queasy, as Noe once again finds corridors that lead only to repetition and torment.
Q: Recently divorced, I'm new to the dating scene and feel awkward. I met a woman around my age, and we got on well  up to a point. Although slim, she kept describing herself as "Rubenesque". When I said I thought she was pretty she said, "Are you willing to put that in writing?", and seemed incapable of taking a compliment. In fact, she actively pointed out physical flaws. Eventually, it was too much like hard work, and I moved away.

A: Many people find it difficult to accept compliments, appreciation and gratitude graciously. In Australia, Tall Poppy Syndrome makes us fear seeming full of ourselves, and self-effacement and self-deprecation are considered signs of humility. This can keep others at arm's length, and make social conversations more like an obstacle course.

Dr John Amodeo says valuing and appreciating ourselves is vital.

An inability to take positive comments not only feeds our own insecurities, it is also crushing, embarrassing, and off-putting to the person trying to connect with us, or can come across as fishing for compliments.

Moving away might reinforce her low self-esteem, but you cannot help someone if they are trapped in a pattern that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
"We're living in Australia's busiest city and yet Vaucluse feels a million miles away from the fast pace," says Olivia. "There's been a generational change here; there are a lot of young families and a strong sense of community."

Future plans

"We need more bedrooms, given we're a family of six," says Olivia. "So a renovation is on the cards for that."

Loading

Best advice "Take time and choose pieces you'll love forever," says Olivia. "Don't get too caught up in trends."
Aspiring scientists, sci-fi buffs and curious Canberrans converged on the Old Bus Depot Markets on Saturday for the Science in ACTion event.

To kick off National Science Week, professionals from fields including science, technology, engineering and mathematics packed into the Kingston warehouse to teach visitors young and old about how science is a part of every day life.

One of Andrew Corson's meccanoid robots at Science in ACTion at the Old Bus Depot Markets. Credit:Dion Georgopoulos

Visitors had the chance to learn about new technologies, renewable energy, protecting endangered species, robotics, the solar system and more.

One of the more novel exhibits was the homemade robots created by Andrew Corson.
A letter given to a Canberra school by a student describing alleged domestic violence by his stepfather led to the arrest of a Coombs man, a court has heard.

The ACT Magistrates Court on Saturday heard the note was handed to the school and police were called.

Court documents said the letter was written by the student's mother, who had been cut off from the phone and internet by her partner. It described a situation of domestic violence within the family home, with the mother requesting help to deal with it.

The man was refused bail and will appear before court again on August 28. Credit:File

The man, 64, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the children, was arrested after the school notified police.
Some Sydney council areas are already pushing past targets for new housing development set only two years ago, prompting the state government to consider new measures to ensure local infrastructure keeps up.

In a week in which the national population surged past 25 million, other figures released this week show Sydney is on track to meet and exceed ambitious targets to house the swelling number of people in the city.

In the Hills Shire in the north-west for example, more than 8600 new homes have been approved since 2016. That is more than the Greater Sydney Commissions target of 8500 new homes to be built in the area between 2016 and 2021.

Other council areas already pushing up against large housing targets set by the commission, when measured by the number of approvals, include Penrith, Liverpool, the Sutherland Shire, Hornsby and Fairfield.
The Queensland Teachers' Union has called for school term dates to be moved to avoid the depths of winter and height of summer because of the lack of air-conditioning in the state's schools.

However, the state government said there are no plans to change school dates and the Queensland LNP opposition labelled the union's calls an "air-con con".

QTU president Kevin Bates said a lack of climate control in the state's schools was "an absolutely critical issue". Credit:Wolter Peeters - Fairfax Media

QTU president Kevin Bates said conditions in classrooms and a lack of climate control have been identified as major issues by students and staff as part of a year-long wellbeing campaign.

He said the union had asked teachers to record classroom temperatures during the year. Ipswich schools reached 42 degrees during a summer heatwave and schools in other parts of the state recording one degree in winter without heaters.
Brisbane City Council has given the development of a medicinal cannabis farm the green light.

The development application for a horticulture operation in Moggill, about 19 kilometres south-west of Brisbane CBD, was approved two months ago.

Medicinal cannabis growth is regulated by the Office of Drug Control, according to Brisbane City Council. Credit:Rohan Thomson

"In June 2018, Council approved a development application for a horticulture operation at ... Moggill," a council spokeswoman said in a statement.

"The proposal was to commercially cultivate, store and pack medicinal marijuana.
A University of Queensland researcher has received almost $900,000 in federal funding to continue his ground-breaking work to reduce the environmental impact of toxic firefighting foam leaks.

Professor Victor Rudolph from UQ's School of Chemical Engineering is part of an elite national team who have shared $8.2 million in funding to address the impact of PFAS chemicals.

Professor Rudolph is confident he will develop a proven portable system to destroy PFAS chemicals onsite.

The toxic chemicals were found to have contaminated water near Brisbane Airport in April after leaking from a hangar and later that month the Department of Environment and Heritage Protection was investigating the suspected second spill at Narangba in the Moreton Bay region.

Also in April, Bundaberg Regional Council received test results for samples taken from a local reservoir in September last year which showed elevated levels of toxic chemicals in the water.
Major crash officers are investigating another fatal crash in regional WA on Saturday after a man died in a single vehicle crash in Lyndon, north of Coral Bay.

About 3.30am Saturday morning police recieved a report that a vehicle had gone over a 20 metre cliff at The Lagoon, a remote coastal area in Lyndon about 15 kilometres south of the Warroora Homestead.

The Royal Flying Doctor Service will fly the survivors to Perth today for further treatment.

When emergency services arrived they found a male passenger had died at the scene as a result of his injuries.

The male driver and a female passenger were taken to Coral Bay for medical treatment.
An Australian medical ethicist who spent decades observing euthanasia in Canada has called on the Senate to reject a bill that would clear the way for voluntary assisted dying to be legalised across Australia.

Bioethics Professor Margaret Somerville, from the University of Notre Dame's school of medicine, said the international experience demonstrated that euthanasia was being used as a cheaper alternative to psychiatric and palliative care.

"It's a societal tragedy if we allow this," she said.

Senator Leyonhjelm's bill will be debated this week. Credit:AAP

The federal Senate will this week debate a private members bill brought by Liberal Democratic Party senator David Leyonhjelm, which would enable the ACT and Northern Territory to make their own laws on voluntary assisted dying.
Last month China's ambassador to Singapore took the rare step of publicly rebutting recent remarks made by Kausikan in which he raised an alarm about what he called China's covert "influence operations". "We uphold the principles of peaceful coexistence and champion global fairness and justice," the ambassador, Hong Xiaoyong, wrote in an op-ed in The Straits Times, an English-language newspaper. "We oppose the big bullying the small and interference in others' internal affairs. This is what China has said, and this is also what China has been doing. "China respects Singapore's achievements in maintaining racial and religious harmony," he added. "It has no intention of influencing Singaporeans' sense of their national identity and will never do so." There are growing concerns in Singapore that a rising China could seek to convert existing cultural affinities among Singaporean Chinese into loyalty to the Chinese motherland. Credit:New York Times One example of how on-edge Singaporean officials have been came to light last year, when the government expelled Huang Jing, an American academic born in China, for what it said was his covert effort to influence Singapore's foreign policy on behalf of an unnamed foreign government - widely believed to be China. The expulsion came amid heightened tensions between Singapore and China over territorial issues relating to the South China Sea.

Kausikan and others are also concerned about China's subtler influence efforts in Singapore, including appeals to sentimental "flesh and blood" ties to China. In recent years, China has stepped up people-to-people exchanges between the two countries, helping to organise conferences bringing together overseas Chinese, arranging visits for Singaporean Chinese to their ancestral villages and coordinating study abroad programs and "roots-seeking camps" for young Singaporeans. These kinds of programs are not unique to China, of course. The camps, for example, bear some similarity to Israel's Birthright program. They are often arranged and paid for in part by Chinese government agencies like the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office. Loading In a description of one such camp held this year, participating Singaporean students were promised a full itinerary of activities including lessons in Chinese calligraphy and history. At another camp, in 2014, the schedule included learning the martial art of tai chi and singing Communist "red" songs.

In recent years, officials affiliated with the Communist Party's United Front Work Department - a powerful Chinese agency responsible for winning hearts and minds abroad - have also visited Singapore with the aim of strengthening ties with the local Chinese. "My cellphone is on 24 hours a day," Hong Guoping, then head of the United Front in the Xiang'an district in Fujian province, told a group of Singaporean Chinese affiliated with that district in 2013. "My fellow countrymen can call me at any time. I'm happy to serve everyone." In a sign of the growing emphasis on building diaspora ties, it was announced this year that the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office would come under the purview of the United Front Work Department. Recognising the economic potential after China's opening-up in the 1980s, Singapore has gone out of its way to play up its shared Chinese heritage. Credit:New York Times "A more generous reading is that these are people-to-people exchanges," said Ian Chong, an associate professor of political science at the National University of Singapore, "and a more sceptical reading is that it's an effort by China to exert soft-power influence".

Some scholars have highlighted what they call a worrying trend that has seen China increasingly blurring the distinction between huaqiao (Chinese citizens overseas) and huaren (ethnic Chinese of all nationalities). At an overseas Chinese work conference last year, President Xi Jinping stressed the need to bring together people of Chinese descent around the world - up to 60 million ethnic Chinese in more than 180 countries - to enjoy the "Chinese dream". "The realisation of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation requires the joint efforts of Chinese sons and daughters at home and abroad," said Xi, according to Xinhua, China's state-run news agency. Big dream: Xi Jinping's tenure has seen a changing approach to ethnic Chinese in the diaspora. Credit:AP Scholars say the focus on strengthening ties with overseas Chinese signals a major shift away from Beijing's previous, more hands-off approach to diaspora relations.

"There is a sense that the emphasis now is on how all ethnic Chinese share a similar origin and therefore should be more sympathetic to a PRC perspective," said Chong, referring to the People's Republic of China. In some Western countries, China has already successfully mobilised local groups like Chinese businessmen, Chinese students and Chinese-language media, using them as proxies to rally against anti-Chinese views or to whip up support for Beijing's line on contentious issues such as the Dalai Lama or Taiwan. Frequently, the result has been a negative and often xenophobic anti-Chinese backlash. Many overseas Chinese have said they are now being unfairly subject to a cloud of suspicion simply for being associated with China. Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, fourth from right, in Sydney in March. Under Mr Lee's father, Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore was the last ASEAN country to establish diplomatic ties with Beijing. Credit:AAP "When you start reaching out to people on the basis of race and blood, it becomes unacceptable to other governments," said Wang Gungwu, a former chairman of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore. "On the other hand, Beijing thinks it is natural to do so. And that is where the conflict lies, however unintended the consequences may be."

As the only country outside China, Hong Kong and Taiwan to have a majority-Chinese population, Singapore is in a unique position. Wary of being seen as a fifth column of China, the country under prime minister Lee Kuan Yew went out of its way after gaining independence in 1965 to assert its sovereignty - making it a point to be the last country in the Association of South-east Asian Nations to establish diplomatic ties with China. At the same time, the government sought to build a Singaporean national identity based on multiracialism, equality and meritocracy. English is the country's official working language. But Singapore finds itself continually needing to remind officials in Beijing that it is not a Chinese country. Last year, for example, not long after China unveiled a gleaming new centre to promote Chinese culture here, Singapore countered by opening a sprawling $US110 million ($148 million), 11-storey Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre in the heart of the financial district. The $148 million, 11-storey Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre. Credit:New York Times

The message was clear: Singaporean Chinese culture is not the same as Chinese culture. And China's efforts to gain influence in Singapore are by no means one-way. Recognising the economic potential after China's opening-up in the 1980s, Singapore has also gone out of its way to play up its shared Chinese heritage. Loading In the late 1970s, for example, the government started a language campaign to encourage young Singaporean Chinese to learn Mandarin - China's official language - instead of their native Chinese dialects, with an eye to facilitating greater business opportunities. Every year, the country also hosts numerous performances by Chinese entertainers, particularly during the annual Chinese New Year celebrations. Last year, Singapore was China's top foreign investor - a status many here proudly attribute to the country's ability to act as a gateway between China and the West.

"You could say Singaporeans are even more proactive than the Chinese" in building ties between the two countries, said Chan of the Teochew Poit Ip Clan Association. Not everyone is convinced that China will succeed in winning the loyalty of Singaporean Chinese, a large and fragmented population. Young Singaporean Chinese as well as those who studied in the country's former English education system, for example, often have only a vague notion of China and limited Chinese-speaking abilities. Then there is the large influx of immigrants from China in recent years, which has sharpened the perceived differences between the two countries. "Maybe some people who go back to their ancestral village and see all the progress being made might feel their heartstrings being tugged, but at the end of the day, they would never look at it and think this is home," said Pang Cheng Lian, the editor of the book 50 Years of the Chinese Community in Singapore. Then again, when it comes to strengthening its influence abroad, China has proved that it is both patient and persistent.
US President Donald Trump says he condemns "all types of racism and acts of violence," appealing for unity ahead of the anniversary of a deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

"The riots in Charlottesville a year ago resulted in senseless death and division," Trump posted on Twitter on Saturday morning. "We must come together as a nation. I condemn all types of racism and acts of violence. Peace to ALL Americans!"

His tweet came as police blocked off streets and mobilised hundreds of officers for the anniversary. The security measures alarmed activists but reassured others who said they have painful memories of last year's chaos.

Local and state authorities framed the weekend's heightened security as a necessary precaution.
Correction: An earlier version of this story referred to American "apocalypse preppers" as a cause of the housing crisis. The reference has been removed.

Wellington: Foreigners face a ban on buying homes in New Zealand after a spending splurge by millionaires seeking doomsday bolt-holes crowded out local buyers and pushed up property prices.

Home purchases by tycoons such as tech billionaire Peter Thiel, the PayPal founder, and Matt Lauer, the former NBC host who lost his job after allegations of sexual misconduct, have led the New Zealand government to crack down on the trend.

Buildings stand illuminated at dawn in Wellington, New Zealand. Credit:Bloomberg

The country's allure for the mega-rich planning a safe space to ride out the apocalypse has become almost a cliche in recent years. Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn co-founder, told The New Yorker last year: "Saying you're buying a house in New Zealand is kind of a wink, wink, say no more".
The minister's attention In March this year, Dutton, known for his tough stance on refugees, vowed to look at offering to help these farmers under the limited humanitarian, or refugee, visa program. Alt-right figures Lauren Southern and Brittany Pettibone interview Russian Eurasianist ideologue Alexander Dugin. Credit:Youtube I do think, on the information Ive seen, people do need our help and they need help from a civilised country like ours," Dutton told News Corp columnist Miranda Devine on March 14, after she had published an opinion piece on the subject. While never specifically referring to them as "white" farmers, he described them as people who would easily integrate into our society.

About a week earlier, News Corp had run an explosive story about the murder of white farmers, citing graphic and horrifying details. Then on March 13 commentators Devine and Caroline Marcus published opinion pieces on the subject. The next day, Dutton told her he had asked his department to look into helping. Loading But News Corp in Australia was far from the first group adopting the cause of the white South Africans. They had become a favourite of people pushing the idea of "white genocide". Coined originally by white supremacists, "white genocide" acts as shorthand for one of their most deeply held convictions: that the white race is "dying" due to growing non-white populations who "breed" more quickly than white populations and aggressively attack them, and that governments are enacting "forced assimilation".

One of the boosters of this theory, Canadian alt-right activist Lauren Southern, who made headlines on her recent visit to Australia, produced a documentary about violence and white South African farmers. Alt-right organ Breitbart has given a platform to conservative commentator Ann Coulter, who has said "a genocide" is taking place in South Africa, and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, on his popular program, InfoWars, claimed that white farmers should "evacuate" the country because "angry blacks" were going to kill them. The conspiracy theory percolates on the internet, with upticks of interest when the idea is publicised or promoted - such as in Janurary 2016, when Trump retweeted the account @whitegenocideTM. Another surge occurred in December 2016 when a US academic resigned after tweeting about the term. His tweet was heavily amplified by the alt-right, including Southern, and Russian bots.

In August 2017 came the deadly Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Another peak of searches occurs in early March, amid stories about South African farmers in Australias media and Dutton's comment. Canadian far-right activist Lauren Southern speaks during a 'Rally for South Africa' demonstration in Sydney. Credit:AAP In June, after Duttons statement, Southern herself told News Corp "it was such a pleasure to actually see someone step up and that was the Australian government and Australian politicians and really put this on the world stage". Fairfax Media is not suggesting that Dutton subscribes to white supremacist notions. The government has since shown little sign of offering special visas to South African farmers.

In response to questions, his office said the ministers views on helping people in South Africa are well known and already on the public record", and declined to comment further. Nevertheless, his comments, following the News Corp coverage, meant that a divisive conspiracy theory had been legitimised by a real government. Driving a wedge into democracies "White genocide" also reflects the idea of the conflict of civilisations inherent in the Russian ideology of Eurasianism, a school of thought in which the destiny of races figures heavily. As it seeks to give historical coherence to Russia, Eurasianism explicitly rejects liberalism, the core political philosophy that undergirds modern open democracies such as Australia.

For that reason, Edele says Russia supports groups that will undermine liberal views. That's the logic of sponsorship of alt-right groups by Russia. There are other linkages, too. There is a longstanding anxiety among Russia's nationalists that Russians are dying out because of falling birth rates compared to non-Slavic peoples," said Edele. "It reverberates with white genocide fears. And Russia is watching the South African white farmers, too, for more evidence of a Western liberal values failure.

A recent news segment on Russian state-controlled TV channel Vesti showed a family of South African Boer farmers - described at one point as "brothers in faith" - considering moving to Russia, to flee European values. At around the same time as Dutton made his comments, Lauren Southern and her fellow alt-right figure, Brittany Pettibone, actually interviewed Russian Eurasianist ideologue Alexander Dugin in Russia, one of the brains behind his country's aggressive new push against the West. In it, Dugin claimed that "liberalism denies the existence of any collective identities" and that "liberalism is based on the absence of any form of collective identity". Liberalism, the political system of the West, destroys collective identity which then welcomes others who will destroy our society, Dugin argued.

Embracing the claim about white South African farmers amplifies a divisive talking point into Australias political sphere. Technology's role The ability for an idea like white genocide to move from the fringes to the mainstream is made easier by our changed information environment, too. As Duttons decision to help South African farmers was welcomed online, the white genocide conspiracy theory was amplified by networks of partisans, activists and automated social media accounts, and bots, all of which drive up the popularity of the topic in search rankings online. Mentionmapp Analytics, a Vancouver-based social network analysis group, examined the traffic around the "white genocide" Twitter hashtag for Fairfax Media, drawing from accounts in US, South Africa, Denmark, Britain and Australia.

Mentionmapp analysed 112 indicative profiles from a larger data set of 996 samples of unique profiles that have tweeted the hashtag at various moments from early to mid-April. Within the data set, 43 accounts were likely amplifiers or automated profiles that alternated with human control. "These are all political hyper-partisan accounts, and they suggest the intent to 'normalise' [the topic], manipulate, or influence public perception/opinion," wrote John Gray of Mentionmapp. Seven accounts were suspended over the period measured. The automation of accounts in social media can seed a discussion with an audience, setting it loose or turning up the volume on it. The abundance of accounts tweeting on a topic gives the false impression that it is genuinely popular. Alt-right trolls did the same thing during the 2016 US election to elevate suspicion around former US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

The anonymity of the accounts is another factor: 86 of those analysed by Gray are anonymous, which he said indicated a "lack of credibility, an inability to verify sources, and desire to operate without accountability". "Combine the high percentage of high-volume clearly hyper-partisan profiles, with the high ratio of anonymous participants [suggests] ... #whitegenocide is more coordinated/concerted than organic. "Its important to look at this not strictly through the lens of individual profiles ... but to think about the cumulative intent and effects." An analysis of hashtags provided by Hashtagify provides another view. "White genocide" is linked to Donald Trump, MAGA (Make America Great Again) but also altright, antiwhite and waronwhites.

Nationalism v 'globalism' The academic director of the ANU's National Security College, Matthew Sussex, said Russia-backed influence campaigns were currently finding fertile ground in far-right groups in the West by appealing to anti-"globalist", anti-immigration sentiment. "It is ... about currying favour with those who see themselves  rightly or wrongly  as being marginalised in some way," Sussex said. In Cold War times, left-wing organisations in Australia and the West "were a logical ally for the USSR given that they tended to be against free trade and statist", he said. Melbourne University's Edele said Russia backs the alt-right and white nationalists today in order to gain the upper hand against democracies, which it sees as meddling in Russia's affairs.
on Saturday reported 5 per cent drop in global sales, including that of (JLR), to 92,639 units in July.

Global wholesales of all Tata Motors' commercial vehicles and Tata Daewoo range last month were at 40,443 units, higher 29 per cent from the year-ago period, the company said in a regulatory filing.

The company's global sales of all were at 52,196 units in the month, down 22 per cent from July last year.

Global sales of JLR were at 35,007 units in July. Jaguar wholesales for the month stood at 12,427 units, while Land Rover sales were at 22,580 vehicles.
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Indian carrier Jet Airways Limited sought to reassure investors on Saturday, saying it is meeting its payment obligations to lenders and other dues, such as staff commitments. Indias biggest-full service airline issued the statement a day after its shares fell to a three-year low following an announcement that it had deferred its quarterly earnings report. Jet, which is part-owned by Qatars Etihad Airways, was due to report quarterly earnings on Thursday but said in stock exchange filings that its audit committee had not signed off on them pending ...
The has approved a proposal for setting up of water aerodromes in the country, with Chilika Lake in Odisha, and Sabarmati River Front in Gujarat being identified in the first phase for development of such facilities, an official said on Saturday.

The proposal was cleared by Civil Aviation Minister on Friday.

The (DGCA) issued regulations in June this year, prescribing procedures and requirement for licencing of water aerodromes.

Since there is no historical data on the market and demand from any airlines, the project will be done as a pilot project, the ministry official said. The development would pave the way for operation of amphibious planes (both in land and water) to enhance air connectivity.

Under the proposal, water aerodrome would be set up near locations of tourist and religious importance.



The Airports Authority of India has already identified the sites in Odisha, Gujarat, Assam, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh where water aerodrome would be developed.

"In the first phase, Chilika Lake in Odisha, and Sabarmati River Front in Gujarat have been identified for development of water aerodromes," the official said.

Earlier, Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey said that his ministry was also considering a proposal to look at seaplane operation under phase III of the regional connectivity scheme UDAN.

According to the DGCA, an entity seeking to set up a water aerodrome has to take approvals from various authorities, including the ministries of defence, home, environment and forests, and shipping.

A water aerodrome licence would be valid for two years.

"Initially, a provisional licence shall be issued for a period of six months during which implementation of the water aerodrome operation is monitored...Regular licence shall be accorded after post implementation monitoring period and completion of corrective action," the DGCA said.



ALSO READ: Civil Aviation Ministry to soon begin registration for drone operations

The formal application for setting up a water aerodrome has to be submitted at least 90 days before the date of intended operations.

Under the aviation regulations, an aerodrome cannot be used for scheduled air transport services, among others, unless there is a licence.

Generally, seaplanes are described as fixed-wing aircraft that is designed for taking off and landing on water.

In October last year, no-frills carrier SpiceJet had unveiled plans to buy over 100 amphibious planes, estimated to cost $ 400 million.

The airline had signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan's Setouchi Holdings to explore whether the amphibious planes can be used by the airline in a cost-effective manner. It has already approached the Odisha government evincing interest to operate amphibious planes from the Chilika Lake.
The on Saturday stayed a High Court direction to the cinema hall and multiplex owners of the state not to prohibit moviegoers from carrying own food and water inside the theatres.

Besides the relaxation on carrying food items inside the theatres, the High Court had on July 18 passed a number of directions related to cinema halls.

A bench of justices R F Nariman and Indu Malhotra, as an interim relief, stayed only one direction of the high court and sought the reply of the state government and the lawyers who had filed a PIL before the high court within four weeks.

Appearing for the petitioner -- the Multiplex Association of India that has challenged the high court order -- senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi said if the order was implemented across the country, these business entities would face a breakdown.

"Can I be allowed to carry my whisky and chips into Willingdon Club and ask for soda there," Rohatgi said as he sought an immediate stay of the high court order.

The bench asked the senior lawyer whether there were any rules that imposed restrictions on carrying food and water inside the theatres.

Rohatgi said statutory rules existed only for films and not for food articles as these business entities were cinema halls.

"The absence of any rules does not mean that people can carry their own food inside the cinema halls," he said.

Senior advocates Abhishek M Singhvi, Vivek Tankha and advocate Sumeer Sodhi, appearing for petitioner Waves Cinema, Jammu, also opposed the high court order, saying the entry tickets of the theatres had conditions mentioned, restricting people from carrying food inside the halls.

"Due to the absence of any substantive law on the issue, we will have to rely upon old English judgments, which held that the terms and conditions mentioned on the entry tickets must be complied with," Singhvi said.

The bench posted the matter for further hearing after six weeks.

ALSO READ: Carrying outside food at Maharashtra movie halls may increase ticket prices

On July 18, the high court had issued a slew of directions on a PIL filed by two lawyers, seeking a direction for the implementation of the Cinemas (Regulation) Rules, 1975 in their letter and spirit.

The PIL before the high court had further sought a direction prohibiting the cinema hall owners from restraining the moviegoers from taking outside eatables with them inside the cinema halls.

The high court had directed the owners of the multiplexes and cinema halls in the state not to prohibit the moviegoers henceforth from carrying own food and water inside the theatres.

It had also directed the state government and the licensing authority and district magistrates to ensure that a ban on polythene bags at multiplexes and cinema halls was strictly enforced.

The high court had asked the multiplex and cinema hall owners to put up signboards at conspicuous places, requesting the moviegoers not to litter the multiplexes and cinema halls with waste food items and empty bottles.

ALSO READ: The food issue in multiplexes

"The government of Jammu and Kashmir, as well as the licensing authority and every district magistrate in the state, are directed to ensure that a proper uniformity is maintained with respect to the sale price of tickets in all the cinemas of the state," the order had said.

It had directed a strict compliance of the rules, which provided that no person in the age group of 5 to 18 years should be admitted to any show commencing before 3 pm, except on a Sunday or any holiday notified by the state.

"The government as well as every district magistrate in the state is directed to see and ensure that these directions are complied with forthwith in their true letter and spirit and in case of any breach of these directions on the part of any multiplex or cinema hall owners, take stern action against them and even revoke the license of such multiplex or cinema hall owners," the high court order had said.
Two police officers were among four people killed today in a shooting in eastern Canada and a suspect has been arrested, authorities said.

Residents of the Brookside neighborhood of Fredericton, New Brunswick reported waking to the sounds of multiple gunshots.

Witnesses described to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) seeing the barrel of a rifle or shotgun poking out from the window of a low-rise apartment building and firing into a courtyard, while the bodies of two officers lay on the ground nearby.

Heavily armed police, paramedics and firefighters quickly descended on the scene and a lockdown of the neighbourhood was ordered, trapping some early risers in daycare facilities, coffee shops and other businesses. were seen being escorted by police from their homes -- some still in pyjamas -- to safety beyond a police cordon.

Authorities in the provincial capital initially urged people in the Brookside neighbourhood to stay indoors, describing an "active incident" on Twitter.

Around an hour after giving first word of the killings, a second and then a third message from police said: "At this time, we can confirm that we have one suspect in custody" and "of the four people killed in this morning's shootings on Brookside Drive, two were Fredericton police officers."



Then came word that the threat had been neutralized, the lockdown was lifted and the police cordon was shrunk to a few blocks: "We can confirm that there is no further threat to the public, and lockdowns are not required at this time."



Also, police added: "We can confirm that the suspect in custody is currently being treated for serious injuries related to this morning's shooting incident." The circumstances of the shooting in Fredericton, about 75 kilometers from the border between Canada and the US state of Maine, were not immediately clear.

The shooting happened in a sleepy residential area of the city north of downtown.

Public broadcaster CBC quoted Robert DiDiodato, who lives in the area, as saying he heard a series of "firecracker" sounds around 7 am. "With the tempo, it might've been a gunshot," he said. "It was sort of like a pop, pop, pop, pop." He said that about five minutes later he could hear similar sounds near his home.

"Doors are locked and everybody's inside," he said, according to CBC. Another resident, who gave his name only as Justin, told the broadcaster: "I woke up and I heard gunshots and I looked outside my window.

"The cops were trying to put one of the officers in their vehicle to take them out to safety," he said, adding that he tried to help but was told by the officers to take cover.

Another resident, Pierre Huard, told Radio-Canada he initially thought the sounds were "children playing with firecrackers." The mass shooting is the second in the province in recent years, and comes only weeks after a man opened fire on July 22 in a bustling nightlife district of Toronto, killing an 18 year old woman and a 10 year old girl and wounding 13 other people.

The latter triggered a public debate on rising gun violence and gangs in Canadian cities, and calls for a handgun ban. "Awful news coming out of Fredericton," Prime Minister said in a Twitter message.

"My heart goes out to everyone affected by this morning's shooting. We're following the situation closely," he said.

In 2014, three federal police officers were killed and two more were injured after responding to an emergency call about an armed man roaming a residential neighborhood of nearby Moncton, New Brunswick.

A 28-hour manhunt ensued before police caught up to the suspect and arrested him, in what was described as the second-deadliest attack on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) since four officers were ambushed on a Mayerthorpe, Alberta farm in 2005.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday repeated a call on Turks to sell dollars and euros to support the national currency, which has been in free-fall over concerns about the economy and deteriorating ties with the United States. Speaking to supporters in the northeastern Turkish town of Unye, Erdogan also said it was a pity the United States was choosing Andrew Brunson, a US pastor on trial in Turkey over terrorism charges - over its strategic NATO ally Ankara. US President Donald Trump has demanded the pastor's release, the most pressing of a number of disagreements ...
With his arms folded, Jack Dorsey paced back and forth in a conference room at Twitters headquarters on Friday afternoon. In a rare look inside one of the social media companys policy meetings, the Twitter chief executive gathered with 18 colleagues, including the safety team, to debate ways to make the social media service safer for its users. The discussion quickly turned to how to rid the site of dehumanising speech, even if it did not violate Twitters rules, which forbid direct threats of violence and some forms of hate speech but do not prohibit ...
Women who want to manage money seem to be having better luck doing it someplace other than Wall Street. US firms with the highest share of female portfolio managers are located thousands of miles from Manhattan, according to new Morningstar research.

Dodge & Cox and Charles Schwab  both with headquarters in San Francisco  are top ranked at 30 per cent and 28 per cent, while Franklin Resources, with $724 billion in assets as of June 30, is tied for the third and based in nearby San Mateo, California. Academics, consultants and some of the women entrusted with investing these ...
Federal authorities were searching on Saturday for what drove an airline worker to steal an empty airplane from Seattles airport and crashing it into a nearby sparsely populated island, sparking a security scare that saw US fighter jets scrambled. An Horizon Air ground service agent took the controls of a Bombardier Q400 turboprop airplane in a maintenance area at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport at about 8 pm local time Friday and took off, embarking on flight over Seattle before crashing about an one hour later on Ketron Island in Puget Sound, Horizon sister carrier Alaska ...
A suicide attack on a convoy of Saindak Copper-Gold project employees left six people injured, including two Chinese nationals, on Saturday.

The mishap, which occurred after a vehicle which was driving in front of the bus exploded, also left two project employees and two security personnel wounded, The Express Tribune reported.

Quetta Division Commissioner Muhammad Hashim Ghilzai said that a bomber had detonated his explosives near the bus carrying the employees.

The injured are undergoing medical treatment and an investigation has been launched. Security forces have cordoned off the area.

The Saindak Copper-Gold mine is situated near Saindak town in Balochistan's Chagai district. In the 1970s, copper deposits were discovered in partnership with a Chinese engineering company, according to Geo News.

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Rehan Baloch, a young Baloch fighter and elder son of Balochistan Liberation Army's (BLA) senior commander Aslam Baloch has asked China to vacate Balochistan and stop plundering their resources.

The video statement was recorded by Rehan just before he carried out a suicide attack on a bus carrying Chinese engineers and other employees of Saindak project in Dalbandin city of Chaghi district on Saturday.

There are reports of multiple deaths and injuries in the attack. Two Chinese engineers have been reported dead while several of them injured in the attack.

"We have told China multiple times to shun plundering Baloch resources and refrain from becoming part of any Pakistani designs. We have asked China time and again to take their engineers and workers out of Balochistan. However, China never paid heed to our justified demands", said Rehan Baloch in a video message issued from an undisclosed location in Balochistan.

In his message, Rehan accused that 'with China's help, Pakistan has intensified its offensive against Baloch nation and thousands have been killed and their villages destroyed in Pakistani military operations.

"China has also been providing arms, ammunition, funds and communication devices to Pakistan to use against Baloch national struggle. This is a serious crime both legally and morally with China's help. Pakistan has intensified its offensive against Baloch nation and thousands have been killed and hundreds of villages have been destroyed. During Pakistani military operation thousands of Baloch have been forced to leave their ancestral land to become refugees in Iran, Afghanistan and Middle East", said the young Baloch fighter, who appeared holding an automatic weapon.

"Through this act, I want to make China and its people realize that whosoever will try to meddle in Baloch issue without Baloch nation's consent, it will face the wrath of the Baloch nation," he added.

"It cannot be possible at all for a foreign country to plunder the precious natural resources and wealth of Baloch nation without any resistance when our people are deprived of basic necessities, China should immediately withdraw its investment and forces from Balochistan or else they will continue to face Baloch youth", said Rehan Baloch.

Balochistan is Pakistan's resource-rich province where a large number of Chinese engineers and workers are engaged in development projects including multi-billion dollar China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). The Saindak project pertains to mining of gold and copper that Pakistan is doing in partnership with China. The indigenous Baloch, who have been fighting for their independence, are opposed to any foreign presence in the region.

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Madhya Pradesh Home Minister Bhupendra Singh on Friday said that the Central Government should take control of shelter homes across the country and manage them.

His statement comes a day after a sexual abuse case came to light from Bhopal's shelter home.

"My personal view is, institutions like this should not be allowed to run on residential areas. The government should take full control of these shelter homes and manage them. An investigation is underway and, we are hopeful, that the truth will be out soon," Singh told ANI.

Assuring that the state administration has taken a cue from the incident, he said, "We have given guidelines to the police to take information on these institutions and monitor it from time to time. The private players should not be allowed to run out. However, the final decision will be taken by the Chief Minister."

Police on Friday arrested the owner of two shelter homes for specially-abled women for allegedly raping a deaf and mute inmate.

The case came to light when the victim went to her home in Madhya Pradesh's Dhar and narrated her ordeal to her family members. On learning about the incident, her family approached the police and filed an FIR against the accused under Section 376 of the Indian Penal Code.

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Hours after a group of Dalit lawyers "purified" the statue of Dr. B.R. Ambedkar, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath reiterated that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government was not "anti-Dalit".

Addressing a two-day BJP state working committee meet in Meerut, the Chief Minister questioned the societal status of the Dalit community prior to the BJP rule.

"People who accuse BJP governments of being anti-Dalit, I want to ask them, if it is really so, then why were Dalits not given houses till now? Why were they not able to enjoy benefits of developmental works," Yogi asked.

Earlier in the day, a group of Dalit lawyers poured milk and 'gangajal' (water from the River Ganga) over Ambedkar's statue, soon after it was garlanded by BJP state secretary Sunil Bansal on Friday.

The lawyers claimed that the statue got "dirty" after Bansal garlanded it, as the BJP government was one that used Ambedkar's name to promote their party and allure the Dalit community.

Furthermore, Congress President Rahul Gandhi too attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah over "rising atrocities" against the Dalits.

"Mr. 56's (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) best buddy (Amit Shah) asked me to 'check my facts' when I said the BJP fuels violence against the Dalits and Adivasis," the Congress President had tweeted.

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One person died after a three-storeyed building collapsed on Saturday morning in Vadodara, Gujarat. The building was located in Mandvi area of the city.

Five people from the same family were trapped in the rubble of the collapse, who were rescued later. However, one of them succumbed to the injuries.

In an identical accident in Ganeshganj area of Lucknow on August 3, a three-storeyed building collapsed on Friday morning, leaving one person dead and another injured. The front part of the decade-old house came down suddenly at a free-fall speed as the mother-daughter duo was drinking tea in the same room.

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Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's ruling party, Cambodian People's Party (CPP) has swept the general elections that were held on July 29, as per the provincial results by the country's electoral body on Saturday.

Cambodia's National Election Committee (NEC) said that the CPP garnered 76.84 per cent of the total votes. While the Funcinpec Party received 5.88 per cent of the votes, the League for Democracy Party and Khmer Will Party got 4.86 per cent and 3.34 per cent respectively.

The Cambodian electoral body said that the official results would be announced on August 15 and the allocation of the seats in the parliament would be declared at that time, Xinhua reported.

A day after the polls were held, the CPP claimed that it had won all the 125 seats in the Cambodian Parliament. Hun Sen, who has been in power for the last 33 years, would again take over the prime ministerial post, further consolidating his power.

Many Cambodian opposition parties alleged that the electoral process had a number of irregularities and accused the CPP of muzzling the media and jailing opposition leaders.

Earlier this week, the 65-year-old Cambodian Prime Minister said that the new Parliament would be convened on September 5 and the new government would be formed by September 6.

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Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, who launched the Manrega Mazdoor Tiffin Yojna on Friday, said that labourers in the state will be provided healthy food under this scheme.

He further said that more than 10 lakh labourers will get tiffin under the scheme. "The government has come forward with many beneficial schemes for the labourers. One among them is Tiffin Yojana that comes under Mahatma Gandhi Gramin Rozgar Guarantee Yojana in which around 10, 80,000 labourers will be given tiffins in a month," he said.

"The labourers in Chhattisgarh will be given healthy food through Manrega Mazdoor Tiffin Yojna," added.

Speaking at the inauguration event, Singh said that his government aim is to improve the lives of poor downtrodden, adding, efforts are being made to improve the lives of villagers.

The Chief Minister also distributed tiffin boxes to some workers.

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At least 7 children were hospitalised after they were allegedly given Albendazole tablets in the Sambhal district on Saturday.

The children, at an Anganwadi centre, were administered the anti-worm tablets, after which they complained of stomach ache. The staff, then, rushed the kids to the Chandausi Government Hospital where they are undergoing a treatment.

Speaking to ANI, Amita Singh, the Chief Medical Officer, informed, "Some 8-9 children complained of stomach ache after having the medicine. They were admitted to the hospital. First-aid has been given to them."

Despite governmental efforts, condition of some Anganwadis or day-care centres, has often remained dismal, specially in rural areas.

Just last month, 13 children and a helper at an Anganwadi center in Delhi's Uttam Nagar were hospitalised after allegedly having a mid-day meal.

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The Bihar police is working on a proposal to establish Cyber Senani Samooh (CSS) units, comprising civilians as their registered members, to prevent the misuse of social media in the state.

The unit will work in close coordination with the cybercrime and social media units (CCSMUs) of the state police department.

Various steps are being undertaken to constitute 74 CCSMUs in the state covering all the 38 districts. The notification regarding the same has been issued by police headquarters for the formation of the CSS units at the identified administrative points, police stations, and outposts.

The CSS units comprising of young boys and girls from the state will be ready by August 30. These units will then be ready to control crime in the state from October onwards.

Both of these units will complement each other in information exchange while neutralising together the rumours generated and spread through social media platforms. The Cyber Senani Samooh units will function as a form of community policing.

The total strength of the state police force is much less than members of CSS units which explains in itself the critical role the CSS units will play in maintaining social harmony across the state.

"The CSS units will be formed at 1,075 police stations, 225 police outposts, and 115 sub-divisional police stations. The overall number of the civilians engaged, enlisted and impaneled through the CSS units would be anywhere between 1.40 lakh and 3.73 lakh," Additional director general of police (Bihar), S K Singhal.

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A man named Deepak Mandal in possession of counterfeit currency worth Rs.7.5 lakh was apprehended on Saturday in Delhi's Khanpur area.

The arrest came after a tip-off was received about the same by the Delhi Police's special cell. All of the counterfeit currency was recovered in the Rs.2000 denomination.

The police suspect that these fake notes were printed in Pakistan, after which they were sent to Bangladesh -West Bengal border and were thereon brought to Delhi via Malda.

During interrogation, Deepak revealed that he was a mere pawn in the international racket, and was paid Rs.400 on the supply of one note. Accordingly, he would buy one Rs.2,000 note on at a price of Rs.800, which would be sold at Rs.12,000 going forward.

"Investigation so far has revealed that Deepak had already brought the fake currency notes from Bangladesh in the past, which were supplied to different states," said Pramod Singh Kushwah, Deputy commissioner of police (Special Cell).

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One man was charred to death when the car in which he was travelling caught fire in Sheikh Sarai area late Friday night.

The incident came to light after the Delhi Fire Service received an anonymous call at 1:48 am yesterday.

The officials said that the vehicle was reduced to ashes when they reached the spot.

The probe team is assuming that the car caught fire after colliding with another speedy vehicle. It also added that the deceased was seemingly carrying bundles of paper with him for supply.

The investigation is underway.

On July 18, as many as eight people from the same family were killed while one got injured after a car caught fire following a collision with a truck on Rajkot-Morbi Highway near Morbi district's Tankara town in Gujarat.

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Chinese ambassador to India, Luo Zhaohui has said that the Doklam issue has been turned over and that India and China have reached an consensus to look forward.

Zhaohui, who visited Golden Temple in Amritsar on Friday, told ANI, "That page has already been turned over. We have reached a consensus to look forward. So that's why the Chinese Prime Minister (Xi Jinping) and Prime Minister of India (Narendra Modi) have met many a time this year. So I am happy and optimistic for our bilateral relations."

India and China faced a 73-day-long military standoff in Doklam last year after Chinese troops tried to construct a road at the disputed territory in violation of understandings arrived at by both countries. The stand-off that started on June 16, 2017, ended on August 28 after both the countries announced a withdrawal of their troops.

Last month, Zhaohui had said that neither India nor China can afford to have another Doklam incident. He also urged India to make a joint effort with China to maintain peace along the border.

Zhaohui, who is on a visit to India, was on Friday welcomed by Gurdwara Committee in Golden Temple. They also presented a Golden Temple memento to the Chinese envoy.

The Chinese envoy also shared some pictures of various events, he attended in Punjab, on his Twitter handle where he can be seen wearing a turban.

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Ahead of the Independence Day, the inducted India's first all-woman Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team for anti-terrorist operations.

After rigorous training of around 15 months from specialists all across India and abroad, 36 women commandos from the northeastern states have been inducted into this squad. While 13 members are from Assam, rest of them hail from Arunachal Pradesh, and Manipur.

Commissioner Amulya Patnaik, who was behind the idea of the SWAT team, said, "The team is ready to take on hostage crises and terror strikes in urban areas. The members of this all- received better ratings at the Police Training College in Jharoda Kalan than their male counterparts."

Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who formally inducted the unit on Friday, said that the women commandos will be deployed at Red Fort and India Gate during celebrations.

Armed with MP5 submachine guns and Glock 21 pistols, all the members of the force are also well-versed in Israeli Krav Maga, an unarmed combat style.

Members of this team are experts in building interventions, counter ambush and VVIP security, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) (Special Cell) Pramod Kushwaha said.
Three policemen were killed and two others injured in a militant attack on a police check post in Kargah Valley in the Gilgit region of Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir on Saturday.

Samaa TV quoted the police as saying that a militant involved in the recent school attacks in the Daimer district was shot dead in the cross-firing.

While the injured were shifted to a local hospital, the police called in for an additional force for a search operation in the area to arrest the rest of the militants involved.

Earlier this month, 12 schools including 8-girls' schools were attacked in Chilas near Gilgit by unidentified men.

While an explosion was set off in two of the schools, the other schools were vandalised and their property was set on fire.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday announced a financial aid of Rs 1,000 crore to the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay.

Speaking at the convocation ceremony of IIT Bombay, the Prime Minister said, "The confidence I can see on your face confirms that we are moving in the right direction. IIT Bombay will get a financial aid of Rs 1000 crore. It was a large number of IIT students, who built the IT sector of India, brick by brick."

The Prime Minister stated that innovations and enterprise are going to be the foundation stone for making India a developed economy and further voiced his hope that a long-term sustainable technology-led economic growth is possible on this foundation.

Describing IITs as 'India's Instrument for Transformation', the Prime Minister said, "Innovation is the buzz-word of the 21st century. Any society, which does not innovate, will stagnate. India is emerging as a hub for start-ups which shows the thirst for innovation. We must make India the most attractive destination for innovation and enterprise."

Prime Minister Modi also appealed youth to innovate in India for the betterment or development of the society.

"My appeal to youngsters is - Innovate in India, Innovate for humanity, from mitigating climate change to ensuring better agricultural productivity, from cleaner energy to water conservation, from combating malnutrition to effective waste management," he said.

He also boosted the morale of the students present in the ceremony and said, "The nation is proud of the IITs and what IIT graduates have achieved. The success of IITs led to the creation of engineering colleges around the country. They were inspired by the IITs and this led to India becoming one of the world's largest pools of technical manpower."

The Prime Minister further said that the students in the IIT represent the diversity of India. "You have received what can be called the best that our system has to offer. Students here represent the diversity of India. From different states, speaking different languages, from different backgrounds you merge here in pursuit of knowledge and learning," he added.

Concluding his speech, the Prime Minister said, "Let us affirm that the best ideas will come from Indian laboratories and from Indian students. The best ideas do not come in Government buildings or in fancy offices. They come in campuses like yours, in the minds of youngsters like you."

Prime Minister Modi also inaugurated the new building of the Department of Energy Science and Engineering and Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering at IIT Bombay.

Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Prakash Javadekar, Maharashtra Governor Vidyasagar Rao and state Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis were also present on the occasion.

PM Modi later inaugurated the new building of the Department of Energy Science and Engineering and Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering at IIT Bombay.

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With an aim to maintain sanctity and security of the international border, India and Nepal recently held its third co-ordination meeting and discussed several issues pertaining to border situation, trans-border crimes, forward and backward linkages, human trafficking among others.

The meeting held on August 8 at the Force Headquarter, Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) in New Delhi aimed to enhance mutual cooperation and coordination between the two Border Guarding Forces (BGF) of both countries.

During the meeting, both countries agreed to continue holding regular co-ordinaion meetings at all levels for effective border management. It was also concurred to continue and extend cooperation to handle the border issues with mutual understanding.

"They discussed security scenario of the border and emphasised on timely sharing of information between SSB and APF on trans-border crime and criminal activities," an official statement said.

During the meeting, the Nepalese side also appreciated the continued support from India to the Armed Police Force of Nepal in providing training, logistics and capacity building facilities of the force.

The next co-ordination meeting is proposed to be held in Nepal in 2019.

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Bollywood star Kangana Ranaut has a message for Pakistan's Prime Minister-designate Imran Khan.

The 31-year-old, while wishing Khan good luck, said she was impressed by his speech.

At an event, when the 'Queen' star was asked if she thought the relations between the two countries will improve, Kangana said, "Hopefully, we can only hope that we don't have to shed more blood."

"It's unfortunate that our soldiers are dying. But, the kind of speech that Imran Khan has given is very nice and I wish him all the best and with folded hands, I really hope and appeal, that we have a really beautiful relationship," she added, as reported by Geo News.

The actor recently made headlines after she bestowed praise on Prime Minister Narendra Modi terming him as the 'rightful leader of democracy.' She also batted in favour of a second term for the Prime Minister.

On the work front, Kangana is currently gearing up for 'Manikarnika -The Queen of Jhansi', which is based on the life of warrior Rani Laxmi Bai.

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The Assam Police has filed a case against Minister of State (MoS) for Railways Rajen Gohain for allegedly raping a woman in Assam's Nagaon district. The case was registered after the woman filed a complaint against the Gohain on August 2.

Superintendents of Police (SP) Shankar Barata, however, said that the woman later asked the police to withdraw the case in the middle of the investigation

"In the middle of the investigation, the woman sent us a letter saying that she does not want to go ahead with the case but we are taking all actions as per law," Barata told ANI.

Gohain's son has also filed a complaint against the woman accusing her husband of blackmailing him and his father.

"Also, on August 2 another case was registered on the complaint of Nabarun Gohain, son of Rajen Gohain. He accused the woman's husband of blackmailing him and his father. In this case also, we are proceeding as per the law," Barata added.

According to media reports, Gohain allegedly lured the woman under the pretext of a job offer in the Railways.

Gohain is a veteran BJP leader, who has been representing the Nagaon Lok Sabha constituency in Assam since 1999.

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The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) on Saturday postponed the launch of its Parker Solar Probe spacecraft by a day.

The official Twitter handle of NASA made the announcement, writing, "This morning's launch of a @ulalaunch #DeltaIV Heavy rocket carrying the #ParkerSolarProbe spacecraft was scrubbed. The launch is planned for Sunday, Aug. 12."

NASA shared on their blog that it "was scrubbed today due to a violation of a launch limit, resulting in a hold." It added that a second attempt is now planned for Sunday from Space Launch Complex-37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

According to NASA, its Parker Solar Probe will revolutionise the understanding of the Sun, our closest star.

"Parker Solar Probe is part of NASA's Living With a Star program to explore aspects of the Sun-Earth system that directly affect life and society. The spacecraft will fly into part of the Sun's atmosphere, known as the corona, for the first time.

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Nepal's former prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda will embark on a six-day visit to India from September 7 to 12.

During his visit, Prachanda will engage in various high-level talks and discussions.

"The dates for former prime minister Prachanda's visit to India have been confirmed. He will visit India from September 7 to 12. After returning from India he will leave for China on September 17 for a week," said an official statement from the secretariat of Prachanda.

This will be Prachanda's maiden visit to India after the two communist parties of Nepal Maoist Center and Communist Party of Nepal- Unified Marxist Leninist currently united.

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Suspended Congress leader Mani Shankar Aiyar on Saturday came up with a fresh comment that may soon evoke strong reactions from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Speaking at the inauguration of 'Enough With intolerance Campaign' event at India International Centre, Aiyar said he could never imagine that any person who called Muslims as puppy can become Prime Minister of India.

"Before 2014, I would have never thought, that a Chief Minister thinks of Muslims as puppy. The individual, who was when asked about whether you have any regrets that so many Muslims lost their lives in 2002, had said that even if a puppy comes under a car, I will feel the pain. I have thought over this statement. He never visited any Muslim refugee camp for 24 days (after Gujarat riots) and reached Shah Alam mosque in Ahmadabad only when (then) Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee came, as it was the necessity of the protocol. I had never thought that any such individual can become Prime Minister," Aiyar said.

He went on to mention former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru's contribution in promoting secularism. "Our first Prime Minister Jawahar Lal Nehru taught us the real definition of nationalism. I learned from him that majority communalism is worst than minority communalism. He taught us that we can either be secular or cannot remain one single country," Aiyar added.

He further said: "I am proud of Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Christians and I am very proud of Muslims. Muslims ruled India for 666 years from the throne of Delhi. From Muhammad Ghori in 1152 to Bahadur Shah Zafar in 1858 -- Muslims ruled India but we remained a large nation. During this vast period, only 24 per cent Hindus converted to Islam and 76 per cent did not." Interestingly, years from 1152 to 1858 total to 706 years and not 666 as mentioned by Aiyar.

Aiyar has been a member of both houses of the Parliament. He has also served as Union Cabinet Minister under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh during the first tenure of United Progressive Alliance in 2004. Aiyar was suspended from the primary membership of the Congress party in December 2017 after his "neech" remark for Prime Minister Modi courted a major controversy.

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Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Amit Shah on Saturday attacked West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee for opposing the Register of Citizens (NRC) and accused her of compromising the interests of Indians in Assam and West Bengal for her vote bank

Reacting to Banerjee's criticism on the NRC draft, the BJP chief during a public rally in Kolkata also accused Banerjee of protecting illegal immigrants.

"Should Bangladeshi immigrants not be thrown out of the country? We want to ask Mamata Banerjee why is she protecting Bangladeshi infiltrators? All Mamata ji has done is to object the NRC. But the NRC is the process to throw illegal immigrants out. She (Mamata) is compromising with the interests of Indians in Assam and West Bengal for her vote bank But for us country comes first before vote bank. Oppose us as much as you want but we will not stall the process of NRC," he said.

The BJP supremo also dragged Congress President Rahul Gandhi into the controversy. "Rahul Gandhi is also not clarifying his stand on the issue. This is because of Congress' vote-bank politics," he said while adding that both Banerjee and Gandhi cannot stop the BJP from carrying out the NRC. "The BJP will make sure that the NRC is carried out peacefully in Assam. Neither West Bengal Chief Minister nor Rahul Gandhi can stop the BJP from doing it," Shah asserted.

Steeping up political attack on Trinamool Congress (TMC), Shah accused the party of promoting corruption in West Bengal. "Corruption is flourishing in the state since the party came to power. Ever since Banerjee became the chief minister of the state, West Bengal has seen scam after scam," he added and cited the example of Narda scam and Sharda chit-fund scam to ascertain his claim. He asserted that the state is going to witness a change and the BJP is going to uproot TMC.

Meanwhile, Shah blamed Banerjee for disrupting the broadcast of his rally on all Bengali channels in the state. "Signals of all Bengali channels have been lowered so that people will not be able to watch us. But even if you try to suppress our voices, we will go to every district of Bengal and throw TMC out. All Bangla TV news channels have been blacked out the rally. We are not against West Bengal, but we are definitely against Mamata Banerjee. I am here to protest against the TMC," Shah said.

Union Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Babul Supriyo took to Twitter to comment: "Reliable sources confirm #SitiCable owner Sri Suresh Sethia was threatened yesterday & forced to Black Out Prime Bengali News Channels Blocking the Live Telecast of Sri @AmitShah ji's Rally&Speech. It didn't work cuz Channels r reaching it LIVE to the Hearts of WB."

Banerjee has been consistently disapproving the latest NRC draft, which has left out nearly 40 lakh people in Assam while incorporating names of 2.89 crore people out of 3.29 crore applicants. Accusing BJP of vendetta politics, Banerjee had said that the party was targeting people, particularly the minorities, in the wake of general elections scheduled in 2019.

The Opposition parties, including, the Congress have been vociferous against the draft. Congress president Rahul Gandhi took to Twitter to criticise the draft, and said the "execution of the critical and highly sensitive exercise is tardy".

The first draft was published on December 31, 2017, and names of 1.9 crore of the 3.29 crore applicants were incorporated. The NRC draft features the names, addresses and photographs of all Indian citizens, who have been residing in the northeastern state before March 25, 1971.

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Holding a paper plane in hand as a replica of Rafale fighter jet, Punjab Congress Chief Sunil Jakhar on Saturday claimed that his statement "he can make better Rafale" in Lok Sabha was misquoted.

Speaking to ANI, Jakhar clarified that he used the paper plane in the Lower House on Friday just to seek attention of the members and the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led government towards the high-profile Defence contract.

"My statement was misquoted. I used the replica of Rafale fighter jet to convey a message to the present government that nation's security is not a child's play. Businessman Anil Ambani has zero experience of making any kind of aircraft, much less a fighter jet which is going to defend our borders. Hence, I said, if a person without any experience can make a fighter jet, then I can also do that. We will not let anyone play with the security and lives of our brave soldiers," Jakhar said.

Jakhar also added that the Congress Party has demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee to probe the alleged scam in Rafale fighter jet deal. "The Congress party demands that a Joint Parliamentary Committee should be constituted to investigate the Defence contract. For BJP, security of the nation could be a deal but for us it is not. For us it is a matter of security. BJP is betraying the trust of nation and its people," he added.

On Friday, before the Congress members walked out from the Lok Sabha after a protest demanding the constitution of a Joint Parliamentary Committee to investigate the alleged scam in the Rafale deal, the Punjab Congress Chief demanded in Parliament that he be given the Rafale fighter jet contract. The Punjab Congress Chief showed the paper aircraft during the Zero Hour as Congress members, carrying placards reading 'Modi's Rafale Gate' and 'JPC set up karo', assembled in front of the Speaker and raised slogans demanding probe in the alleged scam.

"Madam, I want permission to present the replica of the Rafale on the table of the House. Please permit that. I can make a better Rafale than (an industrialist) who has no experience in manufacturing one," Jakhar said. As the day began, several Opposition parties held a protest near the Gandhi statue inside Parliament over the Rafale deal.

Former Congress president Sonia Gandhi also joined the protestors outside Parliament House. Holding placards, Members of Parliament from various opposition parties, like Congress, Communist Party of India, Rashtriya Janata Dal and Aam Aadmi Party, raised slogans demanding a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) be formed to probe the purchase of Rafale fighter planes from France.

The Democratic Alliance (NDA) government signed the deal with France-based Dassault Aviation to purchase 36 Rafale jets in 2016. The Congress party has time and again cornered the government over the defence pact, alleging irregularities in it and demanding the government to disclose the price of the jets.

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In a bid to create awareness about the ill effects of crop residue burning and management, Parijat Urja Chakra in collaboration with Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVKs) organized a special campaign at Fatehgarh village of Ambala in Haryana.

The special focus of the campaign was to create awareness among farmers about proper management of crops residue and the ill effects of stubble burning after harvesting. The meeting was attended by dozens of farmers.

The burning of agricultural Crop Residue (CRB) has been identified as a major health hazard, in addition to causing exposure to extremely high levels of Particulate Matter concentration to people in the immediate vicinity.

Senior scientist from Krishi Vigyan Kendra Dr. Guruprem sensitized the participants about the importance of straw management and the need of creating awareness among the rural masses. He also explained about the recommended machinery and techniques of straw management.

"Such type of campaign is necessary to sensitize the farmers about management for residue. Several efforts are being made to provide the various residue management implements on subsidy to the farmers. I appealed to the farmers to follow and spread the message given by the team of KVK for the welfare of the society and to save environment," said Dr. Guruprem

Underscoring the impact of crop residue burning, he said crop burning leads to air, land and water pollution. It also leads to reduction of nutrients in the soil.

Keeping in mind the commitment towards farmers, safety handbooks were also distributed amongst the farmers on safe use of crop protection products.

On the other hand, the Haryana government is also set to launch a massive campaign in the state to create awareness among farmers about proper management of crops residue and the ill effects of stubble burning in view of the ensuing paddy harvesting season.

Parijat industries (India Pvt Ltd is one of the leading agro-chemical manufacturing company with its manufacturing base at Ambala, Haryana and with a presence in 16 Indian states, and exports spanning over 70 countries. Parijat and its international subsidiaries sell branded formulations in countries of Asia, Africa, CIS, Europe, North and South America.

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Hitting back at the Congress party for criticising the Goods and Services Tax (GST) by terming it pejoratively as the 'Gabbar Singh Tax', Prime Minister Narendra Modi said "people who have seen only dacoits around them, will naturally think of dacoits only."

In an exclusive interview to ANI, Prime Minister Modi said: "Our GST model was acceptable to the states because we were sensitive. The Congress President (Rahul Gandhi) tried his best to provoke people against the GST during Gujarat legislative assembly election last year, why did the people reject him?"

Clarifying Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) stance on opposing GST during UPA regime, the Prime Minister highlighted the loopholes of the GST model which was proposed by then finance minister (UPA) P. Chidambaram.

"The 'Know It All' Finance Minister (Chidambaram) refused to listen to the concerns of the various state governments and adopted a 'my way or the highway' approach. Not only Gujarat, but most states did not trust the UPA Government to be fair with them. They had not paid the GST compensation to the states which were promised. They were also unwilling to provide GST compensation to the states if they suffered losses in the first 5 years. It is only when the NDA Government discharged the liability of the past GST compensation and agreed to pay compensation in the event of loss for the first in five years then the GST was possible," the Prime Minister added.

He further asserted that the GST model of his government was not opposed by al the Opposition parties and added that only a few, who have been continuously rejected by the masses are making baseless points.

"They not only want to misguide but also indulge in opposing for the sake of opposing. Whether it is Yoga, Ayushman Bharat, SwachhBharat, NRC, surgical strikes, their conduct is for everyone to see," he added

The Prime Minister further asserted that many people, including business community, have hailed GST and adopted it whole-heartedly. "Being a sensitive Government, we are also taking into account the feedback which comes from people and we are doing corrections wherever required. That is why GST has acquired full faith of people and has made life easier for many of us. People have responded positively as it brings lot of benefits to them and to the economy," he added.

When asked what benefits has GST brought since its implementation on July 1, 2017, the Prime Minister said: "The number of enterprises registered from Independence until now was 66 lakh. In just one year after the introduction of GST, the number of new enterprises registered is 48 lakh. Around 350 crore invoices were processed and 11 crore returns were filed in oneyear. Doesn't this show wide-spread public acceptance?"

Launched on July 1, 2017, by Prime Minister Modi and then President Pranab Mukherjee, the taxation scheme aimed at bringing all taxes into a single window along the lines of the 'One Nation - One Tax - One Market' goal.

The Opposition, especially Congress party has been critical of Modi government's GST model ever since its implementation and often accuses the Centre of poorly implementing the tax system, overlooking the small traders and Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed hope that Pakistan would work in the direction to make the country 'terror and violence' free under the new government of Prime Minister-in-waiting Imran Khan.

In an exclusive interview to ANI on Saturday, Prime Minister wished for good relations between the two countries and said that his government has also taken numerous initiatives in this regard.

"I have always said that we wish to have good neighbourly relations. We have also taken various initiatives in this regard. I recently congratulated Imran Khan on his victory in the elections. We hope that Pakistan would work for a safe, secure, stable and prosperous region, free from terror and violence," the Prime Minister responded when asked if India is ready to hold talks with Pakistan.

Prime Minister Modi had called up Khan on July 30 and congratulated him on his electoral success. He also expressed hope that democracy would take deeper roots in Pakistan under the new government.

Pakistan went to polls on July 25 and Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) emerged as the single largest party with 116 seats.

Soon after emerging victorious in the elections, Khan in his first speech said he wanted to have good relations with India and work to resolve all outstanding issues through dialogue.

Referring Kashmir as the major issue of dispute between the two countries, he said it was time the two countries sat across the table and discussed the issues.

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The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) is nominating its party president Shehbaz Sharif's son Hamza Shehbaz as the Leader of the Opposition in the Punjab provincial assembly, sources said.

The Express Tribune quoted sources as saying that the decision was taken by the party's central executive committee. Shehbaz first mooted the proposal, which was then approved by former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif at Rawalpindi's Adiala jail on Thursday.

Sources added that the PML-N was in no position to get its Chief Minister, Speaker and Deputy Speaker of the assembly elected. They further said that Hamza could give the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) a difficult time and was the party's best choice and potential to emerge as his father's true successor.

Pakistan went to polls on July 25 and the PML-N had emerged as the leader in Punjab, having secured 129 seats, while the PTI was hot on its heels with 123. Both the parties have claimed that they have got the required numbers to form the government in Punjab province.

Meanwhile, PML-N spokesperson Marriyum Aurangzeb announced that the party would take a decision on the newly elected candidates in the province on Saturday (today).

Nationally, the PTI had emerged as the single largest party with 116 seats, followed by the PML-N, which bagged 64 seats. The Pakistan People's Party (PPP) won 43 seats and finished third.

Amid speculations about Pakistan Prime Minister in-waiting Imran Khan's swearing-in dates, the Pakistani media ran a report quoting PTI Senator Faisal Javed saying that the former would take oath on August 18.

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In an exclusive interview to ANI, Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke about the importance of women empowerment in the country and said, "No country can progress if its women are not equal partners in the development process. Going a step ahead of women development, we are working towards women-led development. "

"'Beti Bachao Beti Padhao', was among the first programmes that this Government launched aimed at addressing the issue of declining Child Sex Ratio and educating the girl child. 'Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao' has led to significant improvement in the Child Sex Ratio in various parts of India. It has taken the shape of a vibrant mass movement that is changing mindsets all over," the Prime Minister added highlighting his Government's vision on empowerment of women.

Talking about women holding important cabinet positions in his government, the Prime Minister said: "This is the first time in the history of independent India that we have two women in the Cabinet Committee on Security - the Minister of External Affairs and the Minister for Defence. Women have, for the first time, been inducted as fighter pilots in combat roles in the Indian Air Force."

Citing the objective of Swacch Bharat Abhiyan, he said: "Construction of toilets in million sunder Swachh Bharat Abhiyan both in rural and semi-urban areas augments women safety and security. Separate toilets for girls constructed in all government schools in mission mode will help reduce dropout of girl students."

He added : "The newly amended Maternity Benefit Act statutorily increases maternity leave to 26 weeks and makes it mandatory for every establishment that has more than 50 employees (whether male or female) to offer creche facilities. This will ensure that working women are not compelled to drop out of the workforce. Mission Indradhanush and Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana is ensuring the good health of the mother and the child."

Highlighting the benefits of the Ujjwala scheme, the Prime Minister said, "Under the Ujjwala Scheme, free LPG connections have revolutionized the lives of poor women. It heralds freedom from smoky chulhas and persistent coughs. More than 5 crore LPG connections have been released to poor women so far."

Speaking on the financial inclusion of women, Prime Minister stressed that there is a sizeable and rapid growth in financial inclusion of women, which paves way for irreversible and institutional progress. "Through the Jan Dhan Yojana, more than 16 crore accounts of women have been opened. We have not only focussed on financial inclusion but also financial empowerment of women. Thanks to the Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY) over 13 crore loans have been given of which more than 70% have been given to women. Under the Rural Livelihoods Mission, there is a massive increase in access to credit by women SHGs. You would be glad to know that the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana gives preference to allotment in the name of the women in the family. This is a major step in furthering the dignity and empowerment of women," he said.

The Prime Minister also spoke about his government's tough stand with regards to ensuring gender justice. "This Government has never shied away from tough measures to ensure gender justice. The Triple Talaq bill is in response to a long standing injustice done to Muslim women in India. The Anti-trafficking Bill, that has just been passed by the Lok Sabha, attempts to address one of the most pervasive crimes affecting women and children, especially the most vulnerable."

He mentioned the new Haj policy, according to which for the first time women above the age of 45 years can go for the pilgrimage without a 'mehram', or a male escort. "This also is a harbinger of substantial change. I think all the points mentioned give a glimpse of this Government's consistent commitment to women empowerment. You can judge whether this is just a slogan or there is concrete action," Prime Minister said.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi in an exclusive interview to ANI on Saturday said that Congress President Rahul Gandhi's wink at his colleague right after hugging him in the Parliament proved how childish his stunt was.

"It is for you to judge whether it was a childish act or not. And, if you are unable to decide that, watch the wink and you will get the answer," Prime Minister Narendra Modi told ANI.

Rahul Gandhi hugged the Prime Minister after concluding his speech during the debate on the No-Confidence Motion against the NDA government. However, moments later, Rahul Gandhi was seen winking at a fellow Congress Members of Parliament.

Continuing with his jibe at the Congress President, Prime Minister Modi said: "I am a humble Kamdaar. I am nothing compared to the Naamdaars of this country. They decide whom to hate when to hate, whom to love and how to make a show out of it. A kamdaar like me cannot have a say in it."

There has been a war of words after Rahul Gandhi's unexpected act of hug in the Parliament with BJP and its allies severely criticising the Congress President.

Earlier, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath also labelled Gandhi's hug as an "extremely childish act."

On Saturday, Union Minister Rajnath Singh also mocked the act by saying that Rahul Gandhi "began a Chipko movement after hugging PM Modi in the Parliament.

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Congress president Rahul Gandhi will launch the party's election campaign on Saturday in Rajasthan, which is expected to go for polls later this year.

As per his schedule, Rahul will land in Jaipur at 1:30 pm and will later address a public gathering at Ramlila Maidan in the evening, thereby officially kickstarting Congress' election campaign in the state.

"In preparation for the upcoming state elections in Rajasthan, I will be in Jaipur today, to meet with citizens, Congress party workers and leaders and to address a public meeting at Ramleela Maidan at 4.30 pm," Rahul tweeted.

On Friday, the Congress president held a rally in Raipur, Chhattisgarh where he questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his silence over the incidents of alleged rapes in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

"The Prime Minister does not utter a word when girls are raped in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Now, even women across the country have begun to wonder why the Prime Minister is not speaking on the issue," Rahul said.

Touching upon the issue of women's safety, especially in the BJP-ruled states, the Gandhi scion expressed concern over alarming rise in atrocities against them.

Gandhi even termed the Rafale deal as the country's "biggest ever" scam and accused Prime Minister Modi of being involved in the same.

"I asked the Defence Minister in Parliament why she lied to the people about the fighter jet deal? But my question was not answered. When I asked the Prime Minister, he was not able to look into my eyes. He started looking here and there because even 'chowkidar' was involved in this scam," he said.

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Dr. Romesh Wadhwani, Founder and Chairman, Wadhwani Foundation and CEO of Symphony Technology Group, was conferred with the prestigious degree of Doctor of Science (Honoris Causa) by IIT Bombay during its 56th convocation (Diamond Jubilee Year) in the presence of Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar, Maharashtra Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.

The degree was conferred in recognition of Dr. Romesh Wadhwani's outstanding contributions as a technologist and a leader, and for his efforts in creating social impact through innovative uses of technology, which enriched a large number of lives across India and many other countries.

Addressing the diamond jubilee convocation of IIT Bombay, Prime Minister Modi congratulated the 'diamonds' of IIT Mumbai on their graduation and also its illustrious alumnus Dr. Romesh Wadhwani on being conferred the Doctor of Science degree.

"Dr. Wadhwani has devoted his life to connecting technology with social welfare needs. Through Wadhwani Foundation, he has empowered the youth of India by facilitating employment generation and creating a culture of innovation and enterprise. It is a matter of pride for IIT Bombay that it has many alumni like Dr. Romesh Wadhwani who are actively contributing to nation building. The nation is proud of IITs and their achievements," he added.

Dr. Wadhwani is a successful Silicon Valley entrepreneur and philanthropist with passion for large-scale social change. After building three successful companies, the last of which sold for over USD 9 billion, he founded the 'Wadhwani Foundation' in 2000 and subsequently the 'Wadhwani Institute of AI' for social good to which he has committed to donate most of his wealth. He envisions high-impact social change through sustained economic acceleration of emerging economies.

The Wadhwani Foundation has the primary mission of accelerating economic development in emerging economies through large-scale job creation and fulfilment. It is present in 20 countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America operating in association with governments, educational institutes, corporates, mentors, and investors and its initiatives are driving job creation and fulfilment through entrepreneurship, skills development and innovation.

Dr. Wadhwani is a member of the Gates Buffet Giving Pledge. He is also the Founding Chairman and CEO of Symphony Technology Group, a 12-year old PE firm comprising of 23 companies, with a combined revenue of USD 3.5 billion and 18,000 employees.

He is a proud recipient of the prestigious 'Non Resident Philanthropist' award at the Forbes India Philanthropy Awards 2013 and also features in Forbes 400 list. He obtained a B.Tech degree from IIT Bombay and an MS and Ph.D in Electrical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.

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Indian School of Hospitality, one of the country's most unique educational institutions was inaugurated today by Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog.

Frits van Paasschen, Former CEO of Starwood Hotels and Resorts and Author of Amazon Bestseller 'The Disruptors' Feast' was the guest of honour along with Michel Rochat, CEO - Ecole hoteliere de Lausanne. The mission of ISH is to bring in a new-age educational philosophy and reimagine higher for the upcoming generation of talent.

The Indian School of Hospitality bases its unique approach to higher on a balance of understanding the current needs of the global hospitality industry with those of today's millennial student. With a faculty comprising of hospitality industry experts and culinary veterans, the curriculum is tailor-made to prepare students to anticipate change and disruption within the global landscape - and become the disruptors of tomorrow themselves.

Through a campus that combines technology with high-end design, students of ISH study in an environment that helps brings more joy into academic discovery, while providing them with spaces to put their hands-on skills to the test through an in-house fine dining restaurant, coffee shop, reception area and more. In addition to this, ISH ensures a strong academic connect with the industry, with a unique Industry Mentorship Programme for its students, alongside regular guest lecturers from internationally renowned experts.

Across the entire ISH philosophy, Founder & CEO, Dilip, former Managing Director of Starwood Hotels and Resorts, South Asia, makes sure to emphasise the key driving force behind his idea: "The prime basis of ISH is to inspire entrepreneurship and to give today's incredible talent the toolkit to change the industry into one that's brighter than we've ever seen before. Every aspect of ISH promotes critical thinking, life skills, and the courage to take an idea and bring it to life - something we're actively promoting with our in-house startup incubator Ignite."

In addition to their disruptive approach to education, the Indian School of Hospitality is proud to have the academic certification of Ecole hoteliere de Lausanne. This certification represents and recognizes the Indian School of Hospitality's dedication to providing educational excellence to its students; its commitment to Swiss hospitality standards and it's strong connection to the industry.

Frits van Paasschen said, "The world we're seeing today is moving faster than any point of time before this, and it's imperative to have education prepare the new generation for tomorrow. For the Indian hospitality industry to realise its full potential, graduates need to know how to anticipate, accept and overcome change. I believe ISH has put together all the right ingredients to give students an educational experience that can foster them into future leaders - and I look forward to seeing them grow alongside the institute."

The Indian School of Hospitality is celebrating it's very first batch for its Bachelors in Hotel Management and Bachelors in Travel & Tourism programmes, with admissions open for their 18-month Intensive Culinary Arts Certificate. In the near future, ISH will begin offering postgraduate and executive education programs, as well as shorter duration culinary arts programs with a unique focus on entrepreneurship and acumen in today's world.

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The Uttar Pradesh Shia Waqf Board has mandated reciting 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' slogan during the Independence Day programmes to be held on Waqf properties on August 15.

In an order issued on Saturday, Waqf board has also warned of "strict action" in case the directive is not complied with.

The Shia Waqf Board chairman, Waseem Rizvi told ANI, "Shia Waqf Board has issued an order that on August 15, it is necessary to raise slogans of 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai' after the anthem in the all programmes to be held on the properties of Waqf Board."

"Whoever does not follow this order, strict action will be taken against him," he added.

The country will celebrate India's 72nd Independence Day on August 15 with patriotic fervour, during which several programmes will be held across the nation.

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United States President Donald Trump has announced that he will be dining with Apple chief executive officer (CEO) Tim Cook on Saturday night.

Taking to Twitter, President Trump said, "Had a very good phone call with @EmmanuelMacron, President of France. Discussed various subjects, in particular Security and Trade. Many other calls and conversations today. Looking forward to dinner tonight with Tim Cook of Apple. He is investing big dollars in U.S.A," President Trump tweeted.

President Trump and Tim Cook last met in April this year when the Apple CEO visited the White House.

According to The Hill, last week Tim Cook in a conference said that Apple was looking at whether Trump's tariffs in a trade war with China would hit the company on the purchases it must make.

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A day after three South Korean firms were caught importing North Korean coal and pig iron, the United States backed South Korea saying that "it is a reliable partner in the maritime implementation of the resolutions of the United Nations Security Council."

In a statement, US State Department spokesperson Katina Adams was quoted by Yonhap News Agency as saying, "The Republic of Korea (ROK) is a faithful and reliable partner in the maritime implementation of UN Security Council Resolutions. The United States and the ROK work closely together on North Korea issues, and remain in close contact to coordinate our unified response to the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea)."

On Friday, the Korea Customs Office (KCS) said that the three South Korean business organisations brought in 35,038 tons of North Korean coal and pig iron worth 6.6 billion won (USD 5.86 million) between April and October last year.

The KCS said that the firms brought the North Korean coal to South Korea from a port in Russia and earned commission fees in facilitating the export of the commodity to other countries. The agency added that the North Korean pig iron was smuggled inside South Korea via a paper firm in Hong Kong. The iron was acquired in exchange for selling Russian coal to North Korea.

The shipment of goods that arrived in South Korea violated the country's maritime law and also a UN sanction, wherein Pyongyang is barred from exporting coal, iron and other minerals that could fetch them profits and help the North Korean government in their nuclear development and ballistic missile programme.

Meanwhile, Adam said, "We are aware that the ROK government has initiated an investigation."

Although North Korean leader Kim Jong-un made a commitment to halt its nuclear weapons programme, a UN confidential report revealed that the reclusive nation was reportedly continuing to build nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles.

North Korea has become a virtual pariah in the international community since the UN imposed tough sanctions on the country, after conducting nuclear tests and launching three intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) last year.

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The administration has barred scores of Pakistani military officials from training and education programs and also suspended the funding for Pakistan's military training programme.

The move comes a month after the US suspended security assistance to Pakistan, worth $1.15 billion in an attempt to crack down on terrorist.

Although The and the Army did not comment directly on the decision, officials from both the countries privately criticised the move, according to Daily Times.

The following decision could also help impel to include further towards China on Russia for leadership training program. "The effective suspension of from the US government's Military Education and Training program (IMET) will close off places that had been set aside for 66 Pakistani officers this year," Daily Times quoted a State Department spokesperson as saying.

Dan Feldman, a former US special representative for and Pakistan, called the move "very short-sighted and myopic", reported Daily Times. "This will have lasting negative impacts limiting the bilateral relationship well into the future," Feldman said.

Earlier this year, US President slammed Pakistan in a tweet, saying that the country gives safe haven to the terrorists.

"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!," President Trump tweeted.

In January this year, also announced plans to suspend a $2 billion aid of security assistance to Pakistan, a decision that was later revoked through the Military Education & Training (IMET) program.
A villager was killed by a group of armed Naxals on the suspicion that he was a police informer.

The incident took place late last night in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh. The deceased, who has been identified as Lokesh, was attacked by Naxals at his residence in Bade Gudra village near a CRPF camp under Kuakonda police station limits. The Naxals barged into Lokesh's house and dragged the victim out, confirmed Superintendent of Police (SP) Abhishek Palwal.

After receiving the information, police reached the location and a case has been registered in this regard. A search operation is also underway in the area.

More details are awaited.

The attacks can be seen as the Naxals' outrage over the killings of their 14 cadres by the security forces in an encounter in neighbouring Sukma district on August 6.

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Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and Conference (NC) Chief Farooq Abdullah on Saturday said he would fight for Article 35 A until his death.

"We are fighting for Article 35 A, we hired a good lawyer and we will try to make sure that it is not tampered with. We will not allow it to be changed. We have always fought for 35 A. I don't know why they try to raise this issue every time, they should know that it will create more problems. Till I don't go down in my grave, I will fight against them," Abdullah told ANI.

The statement came less than a week after a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) challenging the validity of Article 35 A, which disallows people from residing in Jammu and Kashmir from buying or owning immovable property in the state, settle permanently, or get state government jobs, was brought before the Supreme Court.

However, the court, on August 6, adjourned the matter for further hearing.

Abdullah, while commenting on Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama's recent statement on former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru at the Goa Institute of Management said the spiritual leader was right in saying what he said.

"Dalai Lama was right, Mahatma Gandhi indeed wanted Jinnah to be the Prime Minister, however, Jinnah denied because he knew that he could have been removed anytime as he would have become a minority Prime Minister," he opined.

Abdullah also hoped for fruitful relations between New Delhi and Islamabad under the reign of Pakistan's Prime Minister-designate Imran Khan, who will be sworn in on August 18.

"I am looking forward to a new Pakistan, a Pakistan free of terrorism and developing towards the future. I am sure New Delhi will also cooperate if Pakistan gives up terrorism," he added.

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Korea-India defence cooperation will get a major boost with Korean defence contractors evincing avid interest in investing in India's defence industrial corridors coming up in Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. This was stated here today by the Korean Defence Minister, Mr. Song Young-moo, while addressing the India-RoK Defence Industry Business Forum organized by FICCI and the Embassy of the Republic of Korea. Mr. Young-moo said the Korea-India defence industrial cooperation falls within the ambit of Korea's 'New Southern Policy' and India's 'Act East' policy. He assured Indian companies of a conducive business and legal environment to develop synergies between the companies from the two countries.

Secretary, Defence Production, Dr.

Ajay Kumar, proposed three areas for a sustainable, long term partnership in defence between India and Korea. The cooperation, he said, could be based on electronics and IT; technology with respect to specialised materials for armour, ships and aircraft; and engine technology which is integral to any weapons system. He said Korea's excellence in manufacturing and technology and India's strengths in human resources, its vast market, IT and software could be synergized for an enduring relationship.

Mr. J D Patil, Whole-time Director and Member of the Board, Larsen & Toubro Ltd. and Chairman, FICCI Defence Committee, said the way forward for India-Korea defence partnership was co-development and co-production of weapons systems. The defence package offered by prominent Korean companies pre-eminently suited India's defence requirements, he added.

FICCI Secretary General, Mr. Dilip Chenoy, said the time was now ripe to build on the defence relationship through bilateral investments. He expressed the hope that defence cooperation between the two countries would become a model and further strengthen economic cooperation between India and Korea.

Powered by Capital Market - Live News

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A Japanese government helicopter has crashed in the mountains of Gunma. All nine crew members on board have been confirmed dead, police said on Saturday.

Two of the crew members were declared dead on Friday just after the crash, while seven more were confirmed dead on Saturday, Xinhua news agency reported.

According to the authorities, the helicopter -- part of the regional disaster prevention team -- was out to observe a hiking trail, which spans Gunma, Nagano and Niigata prefectures, when contact with the air traffic control was lost around 10 a.m. on Friday.

It was being flown by an experienced pilot who had logged many flying hours. The transport ministry said the Bell 412EP helicopter had begun operations in May 1997, clocking up around 7,000 flight hours.

The same model of helicopter crashed in March 2017 killing all nine occupants and again in November that year killing four people aboard.

A Transport Safety Board investigation is on.

--IANS

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Designer Amit Aggarwal is all set to launch a menswear line at the upcoming Lakme Fashion Week Winter/Festive 2018, which will commence on August 22. He says he is excited to unveil his new range.

Presenting his upcoming collection inspired by NEXA, the designer prepares to put forth a collection that uses new age materials, new forms and patterns with incredible craftsmanship.

"I'm so excited to be launching my menswear line at Lakme Fashion Week this season. The show is in association with NEXA and there is such a great synergy between us and the brand's philosophy to create and inspire. We're adding a very new interesting element to our garments this season and I'm looking forward to the show," Aggarwal said in a statement to IANS.

The designer has taken visual inspiration for this collection from kinetic movements and energies, often interpreted through a dynamic and vigorous composition of lines.

The range effortlessly marries culture with modernity, as it restores vintage Phulkari, the traditional Indian metallic embroidery technique.

The silhouettes of the collection have been formed using textiles that undulate and mold over the body, morphing them with sharply cut patterns and shapes. The colour palette comprises arctic and pearl white, granite, silver grey and radiant black.

--IANS

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Bangladesh and Myanmar have launched a hotline at the Foreign Ministerial level to facilitate "ease of discussions" for the early repatriation of Rohingya refugees.

A meeting was held between Myanmar Minister for the Office of the State Counsellor Kyaw Tint Swe and Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali in Myanmar's capital Naypyidaw on Friday, bdnews24.com reported.

Ali was visiting Myanmar to see the preparations for taking back the Rohingyas. In the meeting, the ministers discussed the implementation of the bilateral agreement -- "Arrangement on Return of Displaced Persons from Rakhine State" -- signed in November 2017.

According to the Myanmar side, both parties agreed that there should be early repatriation of displaced persons from Rakhine who recently fled to Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar. "Repatriation will be in a voluntary, safe and dignified manner and in this regard, a hotline was established between the ministers to facilitate ease of discussions," an official statement said.

Bangladesh and Myanmar also agreed to intensify cooperation on counter-terrorism and the fight against drug trafficking through exchange of intelligence and enhanced coordinated border patrols.

As agreed in the arrangement, Myanmar has built two reception centres and one transit camp for Rohingyas. Bangladesh has confirmed progress on the five transit camps. One was complete, another under construction and the remaining three to be built.

It was also agreed that any humanitarian aid given to those inhabiting the area on Myanmar's territory should be given by the aid agencies from Myanmar side.

--IANS

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A day after the rape of a minor in an NDMC school came to light, AAP ministers on Saturday slammed the Centre for failing to protect its citizens and said that the "brutality" could have been avoided if CCTV cameras were in place.

"The brutal rape of a 6-year-old in an NDMC school has put the safety and security of citizens under a big question mark. The Lt Governor, BJP and all the other officials must explain as the Centre controls law and order of the Capital," said Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Atishi Marlena.

"Whenever AAP steps forward to make Delhi crime-free by installing CCTV cameras across the city, the BJP causes disturbance in the work of public interest," Atishi said.

Meanwhile, AAP MLA from Chandni Chowk Alka Lamba emphasized as to how full statehood for Delhi is important to ensure steps are taken in the interest of people, and not towards "corruption".

"Full statehood of the capital is necessary so that decisions can be taken in favour of public and not corruption. Despite the approval of the Supreme Court on CCTV camera installation, BJP is not ready to accept the decision," she said.

The Delhi Cabinet on Friday gave administrative approval and expenditure sanction for the much-awaited project for installing about 1.4 lakh CCTV cameras across the capital. But the Chief Secretary criticized the Kejriwal government for taking the decision in "haste".--IANS

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A UN human rights committee has heard there were credible reports that China is holding a million ethnic Uighurs in "counter-extremism centres".

Gay McDougall, a member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, raised the claims on Friday at a two-day UN meeting on China, reports the BBC.

She said she was concerned by reports that Beijing had "turned the Uighur autonomous region into something that resembles a massive internment camp".

China has not responded to the reports. Beijing has previously denied the existence of such camps.

Its 50-strong delegation said it would address questions on Monday, when the session in Geneva continues.

The Uighurs are a Muslim ethnic minority mostly based in China's Xinjiang province. They make up around 45 per cent of the population there.

Human rights groups including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have submitted reports to the UN committee documenting claims of mass imprisonment, in camps where inmates are forced to swear loyalty to Chinese President Xi Jinping.

The World Uyghur Congress said in a report that detainees are held indefinitely without charge, and forced to shout Communist Party slogans.

It said they are poorly fed, and reports of torture are widespread.

Most inmates have never been charged with a crime, it is claimed, and do not receive legal representation.

The reports come on a day of worsening religious tensions elsewhere in China, the BBC reported.

In Ningxia region, hundreds of Muslims engaged in a standoff with authorities on Friday to prevent their mosque from being demolished.

Officials said the newly-built Weizhou Grand Mosque had not been given proper building permits.

--IANS

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Actress Diana Penty says essaying a comic role is quite challenging for her, but she loves playing such characters as it helps her to grow as an artiste.

"I think comedy is different to perform because maintaining the spontaneity is a task," Diana, who will soon be seen in "Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi", told IANS.

"Especially when we are doing a situational comedy film like 'Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi' which is filled with one liners, it is important to maintain the spontaneous energy all the time. since it is scripted and there are times when we do a lot of taking of the same shot, the spontaneity might go down," she added.

Diana, who has played a myriad of roles in her six-year journey in Bollywood like the girl next door Meera from "Cocktail", loud Punjabi girl Harpreet in "Happy Bhag Jayegi" and Captain Ambalika in "Parmanu: The Story of Pokhran", says as an actress she has to hold on to "that energy; that is challenging."

The 32-year-old actress will once again essay the role of Harpreet "Happy" Kaur in the film, which is the sequel of "Happy Bhag Jayegi" that released in 2016.

Asked if bringing back the same character on screen was tough, she said: "Initially I thought so because we shot the first one in 2015. It is almost three years now, but I think once I started reading the script again, that character came back to me... That loudness, madness of Happy!"

The new addition to the film is actress Sonakshi Sinha. Diana says it was really nice working with her.

"Though I knew her, somehow we had never spoken... So, we first properly met during the shooting of our film. She is lovely and down to earth... There was a oneness on set among all of us."

Apart from Diana and Sonakshi, "Happy Phirr Bhag Jayegi" also features Jassi Gill and Jimmy Sheirgill.

It is slated to release on August 24.

--IANS

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Jitendra Singh, the Union Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO), said on Saturday it was the Congress party that brought Rohingyas and Bangladeshis to the country.

Speaking to the media on the sidelines of a function in winter capital Jammu, Jitendra Singh said: "Rohingyas and Bangladeshis were brought to India by the Congress party with a dubious motive to change the vote demography.

"Just wait and watch, it is the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government which will identify and deport Rohingyas in much the same manner as it had identified the illegal Bangladeshi settlers in Assam after over three decades of the Assam Accord."

Without manning Article 35A, he said: "Leaders of Congress, National Conference and their allies have no problem in getting a daughter-in-law from outside J&K, along with dowry in the form of residential flats in Gurugram and elsewhere, but when they marry their own daughter outside J&K, they use the alibi of state law for denying her any share in the parental property."

Similarly, some of these self-styled leaders enrol their own children in some of the best schools and colleges outside J&K and go to AIIMS-Delhi even for a minor ailment, but are too possessive to allow any outsider to explore their resources or set up industry here to generate jobs for local youth," Jitendra Singh said.

--IANS

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In a bid to make people aware of the rich heritage of Indian Railways, the Railway Ministry has decided to launch "digital museums" at 22 big stations on Independence Day, officials said on Saturday.

"The railways has decided to bring up 22 new digital museums at big stations across the country," a senior Railway Ministry official from the Heritage Department told IANS requesting anonymity.

He said that this project is being tried on a pilot basis, where it will show the heritage of the Indian Railways through movie clips of one-two minutes on the digital LED screens at the station entrance and comfort zones. Screenings at platforms will be avoided so as not to create unnecessary crowding.

"Through the short films, the railways shall show the heritage buildings, heritage locomotives and many more which would make the people aware of the rich heritage that the Indian Railways carries with it," he said.

"In the current set-up, there has been no new expense on the project as we have utilized the existing infrastructure like the LED screens," the official said.

The official said that the move comes in the backdrop of the Prime Minister's Office's objection to creating new rail museums.

"Currently, the digital museum is on display at stations like Jaipur, Agra Cantonment, Erode, Katihar and others," he added.

Last year in November, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal during his visit to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, which is also a world heritage site, had announced to convert this busy train terminus into a "world-class museum".

--IANS

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BJP President Amit Shah on Saturday warned West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee not to hinder Durga idol immersion or the Saraswati worship in the state, saying his party activists will "bring down Banerjee's secretariat brick by brick" if such things ever recurred.

He said these festivals will be celebrated with full fervour if BJP formed government in Bengal.

"They (Trinamool Congress) do not allow the immersion of the Durga idols after puja. Saraswati Puja has been stopped in many schools in Bengal. Should that happen? Form a BJP government in Bengal, Durga immersion and Saraswat Puja will take place with full fervour. No one can stop that," Shah said during his rally at Kolkata's Mayo Road.

"Mamata didi, do not dare (to do such things) again. If you dare to do this next time, the BJP activists will bring down your secretariat brick by brick, but the Durga puja will take place at any cost," he said amid cheers from thousands of party activists.

The Durga Puja immersion processions were delayed over the past few years in certain parts of Bengal as Muharram rallies and the two events coincided.

Accusing Banerjee and her party of minority appeasement and vote bank politics, Shah asked the Bengal Chief Minister to tell the people what she was trying to achieve by stopping Saraswati Puja in the state and by settling Rohingya and Bangladeshi infiltrators in the state.

"There is a limit to doing appeasement and vote bank .. there will be no Saraswati Puja in Bengal... Rohingya and Bangladeshi infiltrators are allowed to settle here. What are you trying to turn Bengal into? Mamata must clarify this to the people," he said.

The BJP leader also accused the Trinamool Congress supremo of stopping a number of television channels from telecasting his speech.

"But I have full faith in our party activists. They will go to every village, every street and every household of Bengal to tell them about Trinamool's activities," he added.

Shah said he would tour all districts in Bengal and start an agitation to throw out the Trinamool Congress.

"Turn the pages of history of democracy. Whenever anybody has tried to throttle the voice of democracy, the voice of protest has amplified to reach the masses. In democracy, no one can throttle anybody's voice," he added.

--IANS

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Aiming to train the youth in mobile hardware repair and technical training in computers and peripherals, Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson on Saturday opened a skill centre in partnership with Electronics Sector Skills Council of India (ESSCI) in Uttar Pradesh's Ghazipur.

"I would like to congratulate Ericsson for launching its community building initiatives in Ghazipur today, namely the 'Skill Centre' and the 'Ghazipur Mobile Vaani'.

"The 'Skill Centre' will impart skill sets to youth which will make them employable or self-employed," Minister of State for Communications, Manoj Sinha said in a statement released here.

The company also launched the "Ghazipur Mobile Vaani", a district-level citizen communication and engagement platform, which will make the people aware about government's welfare schemes and help the company understand their grievances and feedback.

According to the company, the Interactive Voice Response (IVR)-based platform enables citizens to give a missed call on 9266300111 to get information on various initiatives taken by the government.

The skill centre has been designed for end-to-end engagement with Ghazipur youth focused on training and skill-building as well as providing placement assistance, guidance and support for micro-entrepreneurship.

"At Ericsson, we believe in technology for good, wherein we use communications technology to make a difference in the lives of communities around the world," said Nunzio Mirtillo, Head of Ericsson southeast Asia, Oceania and India.

"We have set up the 'Ericsson Skill Centre' in Ghazipur which will not only provide mobile repair and computer skills, but also provide placement assistance and support micro-entrepreneurship," he added.

After completion of the three-month training, candidates will be assessed and certified by ESSCI and those who qualify will be supported for placement as well as entrepreneurship.

--IANS

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Congress on Saturday alleged that the government's intention was not clear on the triple talaq Bill as it failed to introduce it in the monsoon session.

Party spokesperson and Rajya Sabha member Jairam Ramesh said the whole thing is a "political game."

"Ghulam Nabi Azad (Congress leader) had made it clear in the last session that there was no provision for triple talaq in Islamic norm and that it is practised by a certain section. So, a strong law is needed to deal with it. While making this law, we should not criminalize it," said Ramesh.

"This was the demand by all political parties including Congress, TMC, Left, Samajwadi Party, BSP, BJD, NCP, AIADMK. All these parties had said it must be referred to a select committee," he added.

"The government did not agree. Then suddenly, two days back, they passed the very amendments that Azad was suggesting."

The leader wondered what might have prompted the government to change its mind. "They did not take Opposition into confidence. They did not have a meeting, but they passed it. They came up with a revised legislation," he said.

On Friday, Chairman of the Rajya Sabha (Venkaiah Naidu) had said that after the Private Members Bill, the Insolvency Code and Commercial Courts Bill would be taken up.

"Normally, no important bills are taken on Friday, but as an exception, these two were taken up. The behaviour of Union ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad and Ananth Kumar in Rajya Sabha leads me to believe that this was part of a well-planned strategy," said Ramesh.

"They wanted to project that they wanted the Bill but the Congress and other parties did not. This is absolutely false," he added.

--IANS

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The government on Saturday accused the Congress, its President Rahul Gandhi and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi of betraying Muslim women by thwarting the passage of the triple talaq bill in the Rajya Sabha, and appealed to women organisations across the country to start a peaceful agitation against the Opposition to create moral pressure to pass the law.

Addressing a press conference at the just-concluded monsoon session of Parliament, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said: "The government did three amendments in triple talaq bill. The question is why Congress, Rahul Gandhiji and Soniaji are trying to thwart the bill. Why are they trying to create obstacles?. By thwarting triple talaq bill, they betrayed our Muslim sisters".

Raising questions over the conduct of the Congress and other opposition parties, he asked "when the bill was passed unanimously in Lok Sabha, then why are they trying to create hurdles in Rajya Sabha repeatedly".

"I think, all the women organisations, the organisations who work for gender justice and crores of Muslim sisters should start a peaceful and non-violent agitation. They should create a moral pressure on Rahul Gandhi, Sonia Gandhi and other opposition (leaders) so that the triple talaq law could be passed expeditiously and the victim women could get protection," Kumar said.

Referring to the amendments brought by the government in the bill, Kumar said only the victim woman and her blood relative can complain, the bail provision will be decided by the magistrate only after hearing the victim and the compensation will be decided by the court.

Talking about the session, he said the "most important thing of the session was that the no-confidence motion was defeated and the opposition was given a befitting reply that BJP, NDA and NDA+ are united. This was also proved with the election of Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman."

His deputy Vijay Goel also accused the Opposition of consciously creating difficulties in passing the triple talaq bill.

"We (Rajya Sabha) passed 14 bills in this session, including six ordinances. The triple talaq bill would have been passed if the Opposition had not created hurdles intentionally. The Opposition passed the bill in Lok Sabha but despite the amendments in it, they did not allow passage of it in Rajya Sabha," he said.

Goel further said the session of Parliament was productive for the government with 21 bills passed by the Lok Sabha and 14 by the Rajya Sabha.

Calling it a "social justice" session, Goel said a social justice fortnight will be celebrated from August 15-30 to mark the passage of the bill giving constitutional status to the National Commission for Backward Classes and the SC-ST (Prevention of Atrocities) bill.

Goel said all the ministers will approach people in their homes in their constituencies and inform them about the bills passed by the government.

"The programme will be celebrated every year between August 1 and 9," he added.

--IANS

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In a bid to encourage more Indian travellers to visit Israel, the Middle East nation has opened a Visa Application Centre here that would cater to West Bengal and seven northeastern states.

Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura would come under the purview of the centre, which can also accept visa applications in jurisdiction under the New Delhi centre, an Israel Embassy release said.

The visa application categories include B1 for employment, B2 for business, tourism and meeting or conference, and A2 for students.

Commenting on the opening of centre, Hassan Madah, Director, Israel Ministry of Tourism - India and Philippines, said: "Israel is experiencing a tourism boom like never before. India has recorded a half yearly growth of 82 per cent as compared to the same period in 2015 and has become one of the best performing markets in Asia for Israel.

"Keeping this in mind, the Ministry consistently aims to introduce initiatives that ease the procedure of visa applications to Israel. The new centre in Kolkata will no longer require residents from West Bengal and northeastern states to send their documents to the Embassy in New Delhi," Madah was quoted as saying in the release.

Madah said the Israeli Ministry of Tourism would hold a roadshow here on August 29 to increase interest for the destination among consumers and the trade fraternity.

Israel offers a plethora of things to do and see to cater to the discerning traveller. From the historical city of Jerusalem to the beach city of Tel Aviv; and from the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth, to the marvellous underwater marine life of Red Sea in Eilat, the release said.

--IANS

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A (BJP) legislator said on Saturday that his party was raising the issue of Article 35A with an eye on 2019 Lok Sabha polls, but the people of will not let it be abrogated.

Gagan Bhagat, the BJP MLA from R S Pura assembly constituency, while snubbing his party for seeking the abrogation of Article 35A, praised the people of the Kashmir Valley for what he called "fighting a battle in support of the article".

"The BJP government at the Centre is raking up the issue with an eye on People of Jammu would be the worst sufferers if the article is revoked. There will be no jobs in Jammu. All the people sitting here will be left jobless," Bhagat said while addressing a public meeting.

"Kashmiris are fighting our battle while the people of Jammu are calling for the abrogation of the Article 35A. We all must raise our voice so that it reaches the court," the MLA said.
Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Saturday turned into a farmer to sow seeds for a bumper paddy crop at a farm at Aralakuppe village in Mandya district, about 100 km from here.

"I have joined my farmer brothers and sisters in sowing paddy seedlings hoping for a good crop," the Chief Minister said on the occasion.

Clad in a "dhoti" like a traditional farmer, Kumaraswamy got into a wet field and sowed the seedlings along with at least 100 other men and women farmers.

Claiming to hail from a farmers' family, the Chief Minister assured the farmers his support and asked them not to commit suicide over failed crops.

"The Chief Minister joined the farmers in the sowing activity to give farmers hope and confidence," a statement from the Chief Minister's Office added.

The farm loans of over 20 lakh farmers will be waived off by the state soon, he told the farming community, amid chants by farmers and supporters calling him "Kumar anna" (Kumar brother), as he is dearly addressed in rural Karnataka.

The state cabinet has recently agreed to waive off additional crop loans to the tune of Rs 9,448-crore, apart from the Rs 34,000-crore worth loans from state co-operative banks that Kumaraswamy had announced to waive during his budget speech on July 5.

After the sowing activity, Kumaraswamy also had lunch with the farmers at the field.

As part of the old Mysuru region, Mandya, facing a rainfall deficit, still hopes to receive rains for a good agricultural output.

Meanwhile, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state President B.S. Yeddyurappa dubbed the Chief Minister's act a "stunt" and said the state has failed to waive crop loans so far and has not responded to farmers' issues.

--IANS

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Even though it failed to meet the bishop accused of sexually abusing a senior nun, a team of the Kerala Police met some nuns in Punjab's Jalandhar district on Saturday.

The Kerala Police team, which was given protection by their Punjab counterpart, arrived at the congregation of Missionaries of Jesus, the headquarters of Christian centres in the region, for investigation.

The team met some former nuns of the Jalandhar diocese on Friday and Saturday.

Police sources said the Kerala team is expected to meet and question Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Roman Catholic Diocese in Jalandhar on Sunday.

The Kerala Police team arrived in Punjab's Jalandhar city, around 155 km from Chandigarh, on Friday, but failed to meet the controversial bishop, who is accused of sexually abusing a nun.

The Punjab Police, fearing law and order trouble, provided protection to the Kerala team.

Several followers of the diocese gathered at its campus in Jalandhar on Friday after hearing about the arrival of the six-member Kerala police team, led by Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) A.T. Subhash.

A nun had alleged in June that Mulakkal sexually abused her several times at a convent in Kuruvalangadu near Kottayam between 2014 to 2016. An FIR was registered against the bishop and a 114-page detailed statement was taken from the nun and other inmates of the convent.

Mulakkal has denied any wrongdoing. A spokesman for the diocese told media that no wrong had been done by the bishop and that the allegations were being made by the nun at the instigation of vested interests.

Earlier, statements were taken from the head of the Syro-Malabar Church Cardinal Mar George Alencherry and also a few other former nuns who were residents at the convent.

--IANS

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Targeting a turnover of Rs 600 crore this fiscal Thomson and Kodak brand television maker and marketer Super Plastronics Pvt Ltd is expanding its production capacity at its Nodia plant at an outlay of Rs 150 crore, a top company official said.

"We are expanding our capacity in our Noida facility adding a fully automatic production unit at an outlay of Rs 150 crore. The new unit will give additional production of about 35,000 - 40,000 units per month," CEO Avneet Singh Marwah told IANS over phone on Saturday.

He said the company currently has three plants - Jammu in Jammu and Kashmir, Una in Himachal Pradesh and Noida in Uttar Pradesh - with a combined production capacity of 60,000 - 70,000 units per month.

"The majority of the production is from our Noida plant. However, we have no plans to consolidate the production at one place," Marwah added.

According to him, the company imports only glass display panels-that account for 70 percent of the manufacturing cost per television- from Taiwan, Indonesia, Hong Kong and China.

Queried whether it was not a big jump to target Rs 600 crore turnover this year from last year's figure of about Rs 250 crore Marwah said: "The market is good. Till Diwali our aim is to achieve a turnover of about Rs 350 crore. Sixty five per cent of the sales will be from Thomson brand and 35 per cent from Kodak brand."

According to him, the ensuing Diwali will see a sharp rise in sales of Ascreen sizes from 32 to 40 inches. There is already significant growth of smart televisions in India which will only increase by Diwali.

In terms of online sales there would be a 70 per cent increase in smart televisions and 30 per cent in non - smart category.

Apart from that, there is also a huge boost in demand for 4k -ultra high definition televisions in India. Content availability is getting much better with these smart television apps and some content which they have started showing in such sets, he added.

Selling the two television brands only through Flipkart, Marwah said the strategic partnership has made them available in more than 14,000 pin codes in the country including after sales service.

"The kind of visibility Flipkart is offering us in the online space is immense and which has helped us become one of the fastest moving smart TV brand in the country right now," Marwah claimed.

Not agreeing with the view that the company is a price point player Marwah said: "We are a super affordable category in the TV industry and our focus is to give better technology to the consumer at a competitive price point. We are an ROI (return on investment) based company and do not believe in burning money from day one to capture the market unlike other brands, because in doing that one would lose sales in long term."

--IANS

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Actress Malaika Arora has been invited to judge a Bollywood dance competition at the ongoing Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM).

Dance lovers from all over Australia are set to participate in the Telstra dance competition this year at the IFFM. Malaika is excited about judging the show.

"Dance is an integral part of my life and I am very passionate about it. To see others share the same love and passion and to explore unbelievable talent across the globe is a great honour for a dance lover like me," Malaika said in a statement.

"I am humbled that IFFM has once again invited me to be a part of this prestigious competition. Australia has a lot of talent and I have come across some outstanding dancers in the past. I can't wait to see what Melbourne has to offer this year," she added.

Under the theme of 'Inclusion', this year's gala -- with over 60 films in 22 languages -- explores the diversity of contemporary Indian cinema, from Bollywood box-office hits, documentaries and art-house premieres, to the Bollywood dance competition and master classes with key figures from the Indian film industry.

The fest started on August 10 and will go on till August 22.

--IANS

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Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha President Poonam Mahajan on Saturday termed West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as a 'U-turn Didi' and described her party Trinamool Congress as a "terror-making machine."

Mahajan, speaking at a rally in Kolkata, ridiculed Banerjee's pet slogan 'maa, mati, manush' (mother, motherland and people) and described the Trinamool Congress supremo's activities in the state as "inhuman".

"People had hopes that being a woman, Banerjee will have a sense of compassion for the people. But the way she has been running this government from the first day, I think she should be called U-turn didi. She has forgotten all her promises towards the mothers and sisters. Today West Bengal is at the top in cases of atrocities against women," Mahajan said.

"If we talk about 'maati' (motherland), their MLAs are illegally capturing lands, and fighting gang wars over it while the people of the state are despondent, dispirited and unemployed. It seems Benerjee has actually gone forward with the slogan of mein Mamata amanush' (I am inhuman)," she said.

Accusing the Trinamool Congress of commiting large-scale violence and atrocities on BJP activists in the state, Mahajan said the TMCA has become a "terror making machine".

She alleged that Banerjee's vow to usher in change (Parivartan) in the state when she came to power in 2011 has fallen flat on its face over the past seven years.

The only visible change was in the colours of the buildings -- painted blue and white, Banerjee's favourite -- and in lives of the Trinamool Congress activists.

Taking a swipe at Banerjee for her criticism of the draft NRC in Assam, the BJP leader accused the Bengal Chief Minister of trying to turn her state into Bangladesh.

"Mamata-didi is secretly working to turn West Bengal into Bangladesh. Those who are saying that there will be a civil war in the country because of NRC...we will uproot such anti-nationals from here and go ahead," she added.--IANS

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Eight persons were killed on Friday afternoon at Resulaj Village in Albania, where a 24-year-old man opened fire at his relatives over a property dispute, police said.

According to the police, all the victims were members of two Zykaj families, living in the same village.

Local media reported that the 24-year-old man Ridvan Zykaj, armed with Kalashnikov, first entered the home of his grandparents, shot them and two of their uncle's family members.

He went further to the other uncle's house, 30 meters away, to kill four others. There are also reports for a wounded person, Xinhua reported.

According to the police, Ridvan Zykaj quickly left the scene and is still being chased by police forces, from Vlora and Tirana. He is considered extremely dangerous and armed.

Albanian Interior Minister Fatmir Xhafaj, as well as director of State Police, Ardi Veliu, arrived at Resulaj Village, in the evening to follow closely the police operation.

--IANS

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Vice President M.Venkaiah Naidu, who completed one year in office on Saturday, described the period as 'effective engagement with different stakeholders with focus on students and youth, farmers, science and research and culture through extensive visits across the country.

Marking the occasion, the Vice President's secretariat posted five tweets giving a summary of Naidu's outreach during the last one year.

Setting a record for any Vice President, Naidu visited 28 of the 29 States in the country during the period. He was also to visit Sikkim, but his visit had to be cancelled on reaching Bagdogra en route due to bad weather. In yet another record engagement, he visited all the seven north-eastern states during this period, his office said in a 'round up' of the year in office.

Highlighting the focus of his engagements, 60 per cent of the total of 313 major outdoor events of Naidu during the last one year were related to students and youth, farmers, science and research and culture. He has visited 56 Universities and addressed 29 convocations urging the students and youth to look forward to the future with a sense of confidence seizing the emerging opportunities within and outside the country as complete individuals rooted in Indian cultural ethos while at the same time imbibing modern vision.

The Vice President also visited 15 leading centres of science and research in the country for interacting with scientists and researchers and urging them to compete with the best in the world and to aim at focussing their efforts to better the lives of common people by taking the outcomes of the laboratories to the lands and the people.

Through his 60 domestic visits outside Delhi and 313 major outdoor events and daily engagements of over 12, Naidu has reached out to over 450 countrymen everyday during the last one year motivating them towards inspired actions.

On his sole foreign visit, Naidu visited three Latin American countries of Guatemala, Panama and Peru and held wide-ranging discussions on bilateral and multilateral issues with the Presidents and senior ministers of those countries. He was the first high-level dignitary from India to visit Guatemala and Panama. He also met in Delhi 22 visiting foreign leaders including the Presidents of Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, the Prime Ministers of Nepal, Cambodia and Italy.

As Rajya Sabha Chairman's 'Moments of the Year', the just-concluded monsoon session has been described as the 'Hope of the Year', his presiding over full-day proceedings of the House on July 24 as the 'Moment of Endurance' and the all party meeting a day before the start of the Monsoon session as the 'Breakthrough moment of the Year'.

'New Tidings of the Year' include decision on disqualification of three members of Rajya Sabha in three months, quick decision on the impeachment motion for the removal of Chief Justice of India, setting up of a two-member Committee to review Rules of the House. Taking up all the starred questions for oral answers one day and a record 24 'Zero Hour' submissions on another day, making available simultaneous interpretation facility for five more languages making such facility now available in all the 22 scheduled languages were the other highlights of the year under his chairmanship of the House.

Despite persistent disruptions during the Winter session of last year and the Budget session of this year, the Rajya Sabha passed 27 Bills during the three sessions presided over by Naidu during his first year as Chairman of the House.

--IANS

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NASA is targeting Sunday for the launch of its historic small car-size probe to "touch the Sun" from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida after its scheduled launch on Saturday got scrubbed.

NASA cited the cause of delaying the launch as a "violation of a launch limit".

"The launch of a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket carrying the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft was scrubbed today due to a violation of a launch limit, resulting in a hold. There was not enough time remaining in the window to recycle," NASA said in a blog post.

The scheduled launch time on Sunday is 3.31 a.m. EDT (1 p.m. India time).

"The forecast shows a 60 per cent chance of favourable weather conditions for launch," the post added.

The probe is named after Eugene Parker, a solar physicist who in 1958 first predicted the existence of the solar wind, the stream of charged particles and magnetic fields that flow continuously from the Sun.

Nestled atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy -- one of the world's most powerful rockets -- with a third stage added, Parker Solar Probe will blast off toward the Sun with a whopping 55 times more energy than is required to reach Mars.

Weighing just 635 kgs, it is a relatively light spacecraft, Andy Driesman, project manager for the mission at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in the US, said in an earlier statement issued by NASA.

"And it needs to be, because it takes an immense amount of energy to get to our final orbit around the Sun," Driesman added.

Zooming through space in a highly elliptical orbit, the Parker Solar Probe will reach speeds of up to 700,000 kms per hour, setting the record for the fastest spacecraft in history.

During its nominal mission lifetime of just under seven years, the Parker Solar Probe will complete 24 orbits of the Sun -- reaching within 3.8 million miles of the Sun's surface at the closest approach.

In an orbit this close to the Sun, the real challenge is to keep the spacecraft from burning up.

"Recent advances in materials science gave us the material to fashion a heat shield in front of the spacecraft not only to withstand the extreme heat of the Sun, but to remain cool on the backside," said Adam Szabo, the mission scientist for the Parker Solar Probe at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The heat shield is made of a 4.5-inch thick carbon composite foam material between two carbon fibre face sheets.

At the Parker Solar Probe's closest approach to the Sun, temperatures on the heat shield will reach nearly 1,371 degrees Celsius, but the spacecraft and its instruments will be kept at a relatively comfortable temperature of about 29.4 degrees Celsius.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
NASA on Saturday scrubbed the scheduled launch of its historic small car-size probe to "touch the Sun" from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

The agency is now targeting Sunday for the launch of the spacecraft which is designed to go all the way to the Sun's atmosphere, or corona -- closer to the Sun than any spacecraft in history.

"This morning's launch of @NASASun's #ParkerSolarProbe was scrubbed. Launch teams will attempt to launch on Sunday morning," NASA said in a tweet on Saturday.

The probe is named after Eugene Parker, a solar physicist who in 1958 first predicted the existence of the solar wind, the stream of charged particles and magnetic fields that flow continuously from the Sun.

Nestled atop a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy -- one of the world's most powerful rockets -- with a third stage added, Parker Solar Probe will blast off toward the Sun with a whopping 55 times more energy than is required to reach Mars.

Weighing just 635 kgs, it is a relatively light spacecraft, Andy Driesman, project manager for the mission at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in the US, said in an earlier statement issued by NASA.

"And it needs to be, because it takes an immense amount of energy to get to our final orbit around the Sun," Driesman added.

Zooming through space in a highly elliptical orbit, the Parker Solar Probe will reach speeds of up to 700,000 kms per hour, setting the record for the fastest spacecraft in history.

During its nominal mission lifetime of just under seven years, the Parker Solar Probe will complete 24 orbits of the Sun -- reaching within 3.8 million miles of the Sun's surface at the closest approach.

In an orbit this close to the Sun, the real challenge is to keep the spacecraft from burning up.

"Recent advances in materials science gave us the material to fashion a heat shield in front of the spacecraft not only to withstand the extreme heat of the Sun, but to remain cool on the backside," said Adam Szabo, the mission scientist for the Parker Solar Probe at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The heat shield is made of a 4.5-inch thick carbon composite foam material between two carbon fibre face sheets.

At the Parker Solar Probe's closest approach to the Sun, temperatures on the heat shield will reach nearly 1,371 degrees Celsius, but the spacecraft and its instruments will be kept at a relatively comfortable temperature of about 29.4 degrees Celsius.

--IANS

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A security officer was killed in an exchange of fire with terrorists in the Jordan's capital Amman, government officials said late on Saturday.

Minister of State for Media Affairs Jumana Ghunaimat said the terrorists hiding in a building in Al Salt city opened fire on security forces who were chasing them.

The terrorists, the Minister said, were behind an attack on Friday by an explosive device that killed a security officer in Fuheis in Amman.

"When the police forces entered the building, the terrorists blew up the building," Xinhua quoted her as saying in a statement.

The terrorists refused to surrender and started opening heavy fire.

At least 16 other civilians and officers were injured, according to security sources who preferred to be anonymous.

The security operations are still ongoing until late Saturday while three terrorists were arrested, said the Minister.

Medics at Salt Public Hospital called for blood donation.

"We have many injuries... Many of the injured are in serious conditions. We need blood donations," one of the medics at the hospital said.

On Friday, a Jordanian officer was killed and six others were injured when a primitive explosive device detonated in Fuheis area near Amman, according to a news release from the Interior Ministry.

The Ministry said that investigations were underway and no group claimed responsibility for the attack yet.

--IANS

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Slamming opposition parties for "ignoring" and "sidelining" Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and the Dalits when they were in power, Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan asked the Congress, Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) why their actions were against the Dalit icon and the community's interests.

The Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief came up with 14 posers for Congress Rahul Gandhi, including why the grand old party fought against Ambedkar in the elections and failed to confer upon him the "Bharat Ratna" -- the country's highest and most prestigious civilian award.

Speaking at an LJP event to thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi for restoring the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 to its original form, Paswan said the opposition tried to paint the NDA government as "anti-Dalit", but on the contrary, it took several decisions beneficial to them.

"Baba Saheb contested the Lok Sabha elections twice, once from Bhandara (Maharashtra) and then from South Mumbai. On both occasions, the Congress worked to defeat him. It must tell, why? Portraits of three members of same family -- Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi -- are placed in the Central Hall of Parliament. But the portrait of Baba Saheb was not, why?" he said.

"Congress gave Bharat Ratna to many persons but why Baba Saheb was not conferred the honour? Also, why national holiday was not announced on the birthday of Baba Saheb?"

Paswan also sought clarification from Rahul Gandhi on the Congress inaction in according constitutional status to SC/ST commissions and status of scheduled castes to Neo-Budhhists.

"Why Mau (Mhow), birthplace of Baba Saheb, was not declared a national monument? Why 26-Alipur Road, where he died, was not made a national museum? Why the Chaitya Bhumi, Mumbai was not made an international level monument?" he asked the Ghandhi.

"Why the house where Baba Saheb Ambedkar studied in London was not made a monument? Why the Deekshabhoomi in Nagpur was not developed? Why the OBC Commission formed for the backward classes was not given the constitutional status?"

The Minister also asked why the Congress-led UPA government did not pass a Constitution Amendment Bill for the promotion of SCs and STs despite having the majority, especially when no party other than Samajwadi party was opposing it.

Paswan also asked Rahul Gandhi why he did not say a word over the "dilution" of provisions of the SC/ST Act by the Supreme Court while speaking on no-confidence motion last month.

"Why did Mayawati as the Chief Minister issue an order to weaken SC/ST Act, which sought registration of case only after inquiry by senior officials? She also ordered that in cases of rape of SC/ST women, FIR be lodged only after the medical examination," he said.

"It is proved from the facts above that the grand alliance or Mahagathbandhan of the opposition, including Congress, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party, is anti-dalit."

Paswan said the NDA government has worked in the interests of SC/ST communities but could not promote it properly.

"Opposition tries to paint Modi and NDA government as anti-dalit. We want to change this perspective," he said.

"The NDA government has taken steps to strengthen SC/ST Act, ensuring promotion in reservation and buying Baba Saheb's house in London."

He said his party workers will hold celebrations across the country to thank Modi for his "historic" decision to restore the Act.

--IANS

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Patidar agitation spearhead Hardik Patel and his associate Lalit Vasoya were detained by the police on Saturday before they could follow up their threat to plunge into the Bhadar river in protest against river pollution from textile units.

Vasoya, a Congress legislator from Dhoraji-Upleta in Rajkot district, had threatened to take 'jal samadhi' in the river in Saurashtra region's Rajkot district stating that textile dyeing and printing units in nearby Jetpur town were polluting the river with untreated effluents.

He said this affected the water in Bhadar 2 dam, which is a source of drinking water for more than 400 villages in the region.

"I know that threatening self-immolation or suicide is wrong, but I have been petitioning the state government for long, besides the pollution control board and even the Governor on the issue, but to no avail. It is a serious issue of the people. What do you want me to do?" Vasoya said.

The police detained Vasoya and Hardik Patel after they addressed a rally at the site and were proceeding towards the Bhadar 2 dam. They were later released.

"Several industrialists tried to bribe us not to press the issue. It is a serious issue; over five lakh people have been affected by polluted water. For instance, in a village Bhookhi, over 70 persons have contracted cancer. When will the government wake up," Hardik Patel told reporters.

A public interest litigation seeking closure of all the dyeing and printing units in Jetpur is pending in the Gujarat High Court and notices have been issued to the Gujarat Pollution Control Board, the Rajkot District Collector, the State Government and Jetpur Dyeing and Printing Association. The PIL also seeks a CBI probe into involvement of erring officials.

The ruling BJP hit back at the agitators, stating that it was nothing but a "drama." "If they have an issue, they must speak to the government. They are just interested in drama and people are laughing at them. From Nehru to Rahul Gandhi, it is a legacy of Congress to spread falsehood. The people have seen through this," said state BJP President Jitu Vaghani.

--IANS

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US-based chip-maker Qualcomm has announced that it has mutually agreed to a settlement with the Taiwan Fair Trade Commission (TFTC), after being slapped with a $774 million fine for antitrust violations.

As part of the agreement, Qualcomm comes to the entitlement to only pay an amount of $93 million -- that the company already paid in July-end -- which would be retained by the TFTC with no amount due, the chipset-maker wrote in a blog post late on Friday.

"This settlement directly addresses concerns raised by the TFTC, regardless of disputed positions, and builds on our foundation of collaborative, long-term business relationships in Taiwan," Alex Rogers, Executive Vice President and President, Qualcomm Technology Licensing, said in a statement.

The San Diego-based company would now also work with the TFTC and its sister agencies within the Taiwanese government to implement the 5G roll-out under regulations put in place by the Taiwanese regulator.

"In addition, Qualcomm will drive certain commercial initiatives in Taiwan over the next five years for the benefit of the mobile and semiconductor ecosystem including 5G collaborations, new market expansion, start-up and university collaborations and the development of a Taiwanese centre for operations and manufacturing engineering," Qualcomm added.

The dispute arose after Taiwan's regulator reportedly said that the chip-maker abused its monopoly power over smartphone modems by putting higher patent licensing fees on companies that use the devices in their products.

The initial anti-trust fine of $774 million was announced to Qualcomm in October 2017 at Taiwan which claimed that the firm was giving other chip-makers a run for their businesses.

Apart from Taiwan, China and South Korea have also previously fined Qualcomm over anti-competitive behaviours and Apple has also put forth several lawsuits against the chip-maker for similar practices.

--IANS

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Accusing Congress President Rahul Gandhi of shying away from taking a clear stand on the NRC in Assam for the sake of votebank politics, BJP President Amit Shah on Saturday said his party is committed to completing the registration process to identify infiltrators notwithstanding opposition from Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee.

"Mamata Di, NRC will not stop just because of your opposition. You are free to oppose. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is free to oppose. But it is our commitment that we will complete NRC in Assam, by following the due process of law, and identify all infiltrators one by one," Shah said at a rally here.

Banerjee has been strident in her criticism of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, after 40 lakh people did not find a place in the document's first complete draft published on July 30.

Asking Gandhi to spell out his stand on NRC, Shah pointed out that the work on the document was being done as per the Assam Accord which was signed in 1985 by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Rajiv Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi's father, headed the Congress government at the Centre from 1984 to 1989.

"Now for votebank politics, Rahul Gandhi is not taking a clear stand," Shah said at the rally organised by the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM).

Virtually throwing a challenge to Gandhi and Banerjee, Shah said they should clarify their priority between country's security and votebank

Reminding Banerjee that in 2005, she had thrown papers at then Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and stalled the House demanding removal of Bangladeshi infiltrators, Shah said she has changed her stance as the infiltrators now vote for her Trinamool.

The crowd responded with a roaring "yes" when Shah asked them whether or not the Bangladeshi infiltrators posed a threat to the country's security, were involved in bomb blasts in Bengal and if they should be driven out.

Shah said West Bengal would not be in a healthy state if infiltration -- rampant during Banerjee's rule -- is not stopped.

"And the best way to stop infiltration is NRC. So, the NRC process in Assam has to be completed."

Shah also charged Banerjee with spreading "misinformation" in Bengal that along with infiltrators, refugees will also be driven out of India because of the NRC, and affirmed that it is the responsibility of the BJP government at the Centre to ensure that refugees stay back in India.

"I assure all refugees in Bengal that the the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government is bringing the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016. This bill has the provision to give citizenship to Christians, Buddhists and Hindu refugees who have come from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. There are no plans to send any refugees back."

Throwing down the gauntlet on the Congress and the Trinamool, Shah asked the two parties to speak out before next year's general election whether they would back the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016, when it is placed in Parliament.

Ridiculing the critics of NRC who have expressed concerns about the human rights of infiltrators, Shah wondered whether the Congress and the Trinamool were "not bothered" about the "human rights of the Hindus and Muslims of West Bengal".

"Are you or are you not bothered that Bangladeshi infiltrators are eating into their livelihood, income, security, education?" he asked.

Referring to the Trinamool putting up posters from the airport to the rally site which read "Anti-Bengal BJP and Amit Shah go back", he said: "How can the BJP be anti-Bengal? Our party (the BJP's precursor Bharatiya Jana Sangh) was founded by a son of Bengal, Syama Prasad Mookerjee.

"Mamata Di, our deep love and respect for Bengal is not for votes... We are not anti-Bengal, but definitely anti-Mamata," he said.

--IANS

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Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday slammed BJP President Amit Shah on rising atrocities against the Dalits and said both he and Prime Minister Narendra Modi should break their slumber to check the facts.

"Mr. 56's (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) best buddy (Amit Shah) asked me to 'check my facts' when I said the BJP fuels violence against the Dalits and Adivasis," said Gandhi on Twitter.

"I hope the fact check I'm attaching below will wake him and Mr 56 up from their deep slumber on these rising atrocities; or I and the Congress party will," he said and attached an India Today news story with a headline -- "Parties play blame game as crimes against SCs rise".

Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday accused the Modi government of being anti-Dalit, to which Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Shah hit back, saying the Congress must stop treating Dalits with a "patronising and condescending" attitude.

--IANS

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The flood situation in Kerala remained grim with vast swathes of land submerged in Idukki, Ernakulam an Thrissur districts, but there was some respite from rains on Saturday, even as the government announced Rs 10 lakh each for the families which lost their homes and properties.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who undertook an aerial survey of the worst affected areas of Idukki, Wayanad and other districts, also announced a compensation of Rs 4 lakh each for those who lost their homes.

With the state reeling under the flood waters causing widespread damage and destruction, the Centre deployed 14 National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams comprising over 400 rescuers and 31 boats in Thrissue, Ernakulam, Alappuzha, Wayanad, Kozhikode and Idukki districts.

The teams assisted the state administration in recue and relief operations as well as distribution of essential relief material along with providing medical support.

Additional teams have also been kept at standby in the nearest NDRF battalion in Arakkonam near Chennai in case of urgent mobilization.

Home Minister Rajnath will make an aerial survey of the affected areas along with Tourism Minister KJ Alphons, who hails from Kerala.

Rain gods appeared to show some mercy as the inflow into the Idukki dam on Saturday came down marginally and stood at 2,400.40 feet against 2,401.76 feet on Friday evening.

It brought cheer to those living in and around Cheruthoni town downstream of Idukki dam and also those in Aluva, Ernakulam and Thrissur districts wich were worst hit by the surging Periyar river.

"The rains have slowed down in and around the Idukki dam since last night. The water level in the dam has also come down," said State Power Minister M.M. Mani after a review meeting at Idukki.

"So far things are fine and everything is going on as planned. The water that came down the five floodgates, barring at Cheruthoni, has not caused any major crisis," said Mani, who is monitoring the situation from Idukki.

The Cheruthoni bridge continued to be submerged. It had come under severe stress with uprooted trees hitting the bridge.

On Saturday evening the inflow into the dam came below 600 cubic metres of water per second, while the outflow through the floodgates is 750 cubic metres per second.

Authorities on Friday had feared that parts of Ernakulam and Thrissur districts would be submerged following the opening of all five floodgates.

However, this did not happen as the dam water entered the tributaries of the Periyar river.

According to sources, if the water level in the dam comes down to 2,400 feet, it was likely to bring down the outflow through the five shutters as well -- to around 500 cubic metres per second.

On Saturday morning, a team led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan accompanied by leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala, Chief Secretary Tom Jose and Kerala Police chief Loknath Behra made an aerial survey of the worst affected districts.

Even though their first stop was planned at Idukki, Vijayan said they could not land there due to bad conditions which forced them to travel to Wayanad.

Wayanad had come under severe stress on account of the rains that has led to large-scale destruction of property due to landslides. Around 10,000 people in the district are living in some 200 relief camps.

Later Vijayan aannounced a compensation of Rs four lakh each to all those who lost their homes, while those who had lost both their homes and other properties would get Rs 10 lakh.

Each person put up in relief camps would receive Rs 3,800, Vijayan said.

He later arrived at Ernakulam and visited two relief camps and assured the people of all help. In and around Ernakulam there are 78 relief camps that house 10,000 people.

Late last night at a camp near Ernakulam, superstar Mammootty came and spent half-an-hour at relief camps. He later assured the authorities that he would be extending help to the affected.

The floods have claimed 30 lives so far. The deaths were reported from Idukki, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Ernakulam and Thiruvananthapuram districts.

Vijayan later appealed to the Kerala diapsora to contribute generously to the Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund.

--IANS

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Three South Korean firms illegally imported coal and iron worth over $5.5 million from North Korea last year, in violation of the US-imposed sanctions on Pyongyang for its weapons tests.

The three companies imported goods worth $5.8 million between April and October 2017, Efe quoted Korea Customs Service (KCS) as saying on Friday.

The firms used a Russian port as stopover and falsified the country of origin of the goods, said the customs authorities.

KCS said the companies were trying to capitalize on North Korean coal, which is available at lower than the market rate.

Resolution 2371 of the UN Security Council has since August 2017 completely banned North Korea from exporting its minerals - which makes up the largest chunk of its exports - over Pyongyang's intercontinental ballistic missile launches.

The KCS announcement comes after the South Korean government announced last month that it was investigating several foreign boats for allegedly bringing North Korean coal into the country, and transferring crude oil to North Korean boats in high seas, banned under UN resolution 2397 since December.

--IANS

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Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma on Saturday appealed to the Central government to remove the bottlenecks for setting up mobile towers along the Indo-Bangladesh border to ensure better connectivity in border areas.

"Due to network problem, the Border Security Force (BSF) deployed in Indo-Bangladesh border uses SIM cards of Bangladesh-based mobile companies," said Sangma, adding that it poses a threat to India's security.

"While Indian telecom companies are penalised if their signals cross the border, signals from the Bangladesh side come to India," Sangma said while speaking at a function here to mark the launch of Digital Northeast: Vision 2022.

Due to the penalty imposed on Indian telecom companies, they do not set up mobile towers along the international border so the jawans have to unwillingly use mobile networks from other countries, which adds to their call costs.

"It pains me to see that the BSF jawans have to make international calls to talk to their family members," the Chief Minister said.

Referring to the Union government's decision to install 2,000 towers in Meghalaya, Sangma appealed to the government to cover the border areas so that the people get better digital connectivity.

--IANS

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Setting the tone of his party's West Bengal poll campaign next year, BJP president Amit Shah on Saturday launched a blistering attack on Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on the NRC issue, while warning her not to hinder Hindu religious celebrations.

In an aggressive speech at a rally organised by the party's youth wing, Shah dwelt at length on infiltration from Bangladesh and made a clear distinction between the infiltrators and refugees -- minority Hindus, Christians and Buddhists from Muslim majority Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

While the infiltrators needed to be "identified", it was the "responsibility" of the BJP government at the Centre to ensure refugees can stay back in India, he said.

He gave a call to uproot the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government, and made a veiled reference to her nephew and MP Abhishek Banerjee as he charged the state's ruling party with involvement in a series of corruption cases, besides destroying the law and order situation in the state.

Accusing Gandhi of not taking a clear stand on the recently published draft of the National Register for Citizens (NRC) in Assam for the sake of vote-bank politics, Shah asserted that his party was committed to completing the registration process to identify infiltrators.

"Mamata Di, NRC will not stop just because of your opposition. You are free to oppose. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is free to oppose. But it is our commitment that we will complete NRC in Assam, by following the due process of law, and identify all infiltrators one by one," Shah said at a rally here.

Banerjee has been strident in her criticism of the NRC after 40 lakh people did not find a place in the document published on July 30.

Asking Gandhi to spell out his stand on NRC, Shah pointed out that the work on the document was being done as per the Assam accord which was signed by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi - Rahul Gandhi's father - in 1985.

"Now for vote-bank politics, Rahul Gandhi is not taking a clear stand," Shah said at the rally organised on Mayo Road in the heart of the city.

Virtually throwing a challenge to Gandhi and Banerjee, Shah said they should clarify their priority -- country's security or votebank

Reminding Banerjee that in 2005 she had thrown papers at then Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and stalled the House demanding removal of Bangladeshi infiltrators, Shah said she has changed her stance as the infiltrators now vote for her Trinamool.

Unlike other state BJP leaders, Shah did not talk of bringing out an NRC in Bengal, but said the state would not be in fine fettle if infiltration - 'rampant' during Banerjee's rule - was not stopped.

"And the best way to stop infiltration is NRC. So, the NRC process in Assam has to be completed," he said.

Shah also charged Banerjee with spreading "misinformation" in Bengal that along with infiltrators, refugees will also be driven out of India because of the NRC.

"I assure all refugees in Bengal that the BJP government is bringing the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016. This Bill has the provision to give citizenship to Christians, Buddhists and Hindu refugees who have come from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. There are no plans to send any refugee back."

Shah asked the two opposition parties to speak out before the general election whether they would back the legislation in Parliament.

Ridiculing the critics of NRC who have expressed concern about human rights of infiltrators, Shah wondered whether the Congress and the Trinamool were "not bothered" about the "human rights of the Hindus and Muslims of West Bengal".

Playing the Hindu card, Shah warned Banerjee not to create hurdles in Durga idol immersion or the Saraswati worship in the state, saying his party activists will "bring down Banerjee's secretariat brick by brick" if such things ever recurred.

The Durga Puja immersion processions were delayed over the past few years in certain parts of Bengal as Muharram rallies coincided with the immersion of idols.

Shah said he would tour all districts in Bengal and start an agitation to throw out the Trinamool Congress.

Describing the BJP as the only party capable of ushering in progress in the state, Shah said : "Since the Trinamool Congress government came to power, there has been a series of corruption (cases) starting from the Narada scandal, Saradha and Rose valley ponzi scams... syndicates and the unlawful activities of cattle mafia and coal mafia."

On the issue of graft, Shah indirectly referred to Abhishek, widely regarded as her prospective successor.

"During the 14th finance commission, the Narendra Modi government allotted Rs. 3,59000 crore to Bengal as compared to Rs. 1.32,000 crore given by the UPA government during the previous finance commission. Where did all the money go? Did it disappear in the pockets of syndicates and the nephew?" Shah questioned.

He also urged the people of Bengal to ensure the BJP won 22-plus Lok Sabha seats in Bengal in 2019.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Actor-politician Shatrughan Sinha has lauded filmmaker Anubhav Sinha's latest release "Mulk" and said that the film is bold, beautiful, socially relevant and balanced.

"Just watched a very bold, beautiful, socially relevant and very well balanced film 'Mulk', by ace director, Anubhav Sinha. Friend and film maker, Sheetal Talwar organised a special screening in Mumbai with elder brother and statesman, Yashwant Sinha, Ghanshyam Tiwari (SP) and friends," Shatrughan tweeted on Saturday.

The 72-year-old actor-politician, who is the father of actress Sonakshi Sinha, praised the cast and crew of the film that revolves around the struggles of a Muslim joint family from a small town in India, who fight to reclaim their honour after a member of their family takes to terrorism.

"Right from the cast, crew to techniques, the film is phenomenal. Rishi Kapoor, an actor par excellence is superb. Taapsee Pannu yet again gives a tremendous performance. Ashutosh Rana as usual is fantastic. Special mention to Kumud Mishra who has essayed the role of a judge....simply steals the show by his natural flair for acting. Prateik Babbar, Kudos! Left a great impact," he wrote.

"Mulk" features Taapsee Pannu, Rishi Kapoor, Rajat Kapoor, Ashutosh Rana, Neena Gupta, Prateik Babbar, Manoj Pahwa and Prachee Shah Pandya in lead roles.

It released on August 3.

--IANS

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A north Kashmir family on Saturday claimed that one of the five militants, killed in a gunfight with the Army on Thursday and passed off as foreigners, was their son.

The family living in Langate town in the Kupwara border district lodged a missing report about their son Muzaffar Ahmad Mir at the police station on August 9 -- the day the five militants were killed in the Rafiabad gunfight in the neighbouring Baramulla district.

Police sources said the report was filed by his father Bashir Ahmad Mir.

A protest shutdown was held in Langate on Saturday after the family's claim.

The Army on Friday said all the five militants killed in the gunfight in Dooniwari forest area of Rafiabad were foreigners belonging to the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

The army said the group had recently infiltrated into the Kashmir Valley from across the Line of Control (LoC) in Uri sector.

--IANS

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Actor Arjun Kapoor, who has commenced shooting for his 12th movie "India's Most Wanted", says the starting of a new film is like a mission.

Arjun on Saturday tweeted a photograph of the film's clapboard and captioned it: "The start of a new film always feels like a mission and this time it actually is with 'India's Most Wanted'. Happy and excited starting my 12th film! Mark the date May 24, 2019."

The film's director Raj Kumar Gupta shared the same photograph and captioned it: "A mission we are excited to share. India's most wanted is now on floors. Mark your calendar on May 24, 2019 for 'India's Most Wanted'."

Gupta has previously directed films like "No One Killed Jessica" and "Raid".

In "India's Most Wanted", Arjun plays an intelligence officer. It will be shot in Nepal and Delhi.

The film will be about finding and arresting a terrorist during a secret mission.

--IANS

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A suicide bomber was killed during a failed attempt to attack a church in Egyptian capital Cairo, security officials sources said on Saturday.

The attempted attack took place when the suicide bomber tried to reach the church of Virgin Mary in the Egyptian governorate of Qalyubia and went to a nearby bridge to avoid the intense presence of security forces, intending to jump into the church, but the explosive devices he was carrying exploded there, Efe quoted a security official as saying.

A source from the Egyptian Interior Ministry said that the attempted attack left no further deaths or injuries.

After the incident, security has been reinforced, as police cordoned off the area and patrols have been deployed to search for possible suspects.

The Church of the Virgin Mary in Mostorod has a large influx of Coptic Christians these days, as they perform fasting between August 7 and 21.

Since December 2016, the Islamic State extremist group, which has an offshoot in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, has claimed responsibility for several attacks that killed more than 100 people in Egyptian churches in Cairo, Tanta and Alexandria.

After these attacks, the authorities have further reinforced security by deploying military and special forces personnel, who are still present in the vicinity of some churches.

--IANS

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Two groups of tourists fought over a selfie spot here in Italy's landmark Trevi Fountain, one of the most famous fountains in the world, media reports said.

The fight broke out on Wednesday between a 19-year-old Dutch teen and a 44-year-old American woman.

Both wanted to take selfies at the same spot in front of the largest baroque fountain in Rome at the same time, Xinhua news agency reported.

They had a heated exchange of words before a physical fight, and then their family members joined in.

According to the La Repubblica newspaper, there were eight people involved in the fight before the police intervened.

The tourists have been charged with violence.

To protect the city's fountains, Rome has been imposing fines of about $274 for bad behaviour, including picnicking or camping around the fountains, bathing their feet or swimming in the fountain waters.

The city council is also considering a plan to shuttle tourists past the Trevi Fountain in a single file to prevent large groups from gathering around it.

The fountain has appeared in several notable films, including "La Dolce Vita" and "Roman Holiday".

--IANS

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The Trinamool Congress on Saturday accused the BJP of trying to gain political mileage from the recently published National Register of Citizens (NRC) Ain Assam and demanded that not a single Indian be left out from the list.

Responding to BJP President Amit Shah's attack on their party on the NRC issue, Trinamool secretary general Partha Chatterjee claimed that nearly 12.5 lakh Bengalis have been left out of the document's first complete draft.

"BJP is the ruling party in Assam. So they are trying to use the NRC for their political benefit. If you look at the draft NRC closely you will find that close to 12.5 lakh Bengalis have been left out from the list apart from numerous Sikhs, Hindi-speaking people and minorities," Chatterjee told the reporters here.

"It is quite obvious that BJP is trying to use the Supreme Court directive on NRC as a shield to gain political benefit... Our stand is very clear. Not a single Indian citizen should be left out of the NRC list," he claimed.

Shah on Saturday flayed the state's Mamata Banerjee government for opposing the draft NRC in Assam and urged it to clarify its stand on the issues of infiltration and nation's security.

Chatterjee also denied Shah's allegation that the Trinamol was indulging in vote bank in Bengal and claimed the party and its supremo Mamata Banerjee's vote bank encompassed people across the state.

"Our vote bank is all over Bengal. They do not have any kind of bank as their banks were looted by Vijay Maliya, Nirav Modi, Choksi and others. We rely on the bank of people. As long as people are with Mamata Banerjee, the vote bank of people will ensure her victory," he claimed.

--IANS

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West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress workers on Saturday organised rallies and wore black badges as they raised their pitch against the publication of the complete draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam.

The rallies were held in all the districts except Kolkata, which the Trinamool left out of the list displaying political courtesy as Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Amit Shah held a rally in the eastern metropolis.

The Trinamool workers held posters and banners, attacking the BJP and the publication of the NRC, from where 40 lakh names were left out last month.

Senior Trinamool leaders, ministers and other functionaries took part in the rallies.

The party would take out a rally in Kolkata on Sunday on the same issue.

--IANS

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Judge Brett Kavanaugh, US President Donald Trump's nominee to be a Supreme Court Justice, will begin his Senate confirmation hearings on September 4, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley announced.

"He's met dozens of senators who have nothing but positive things to say," Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said in a statement on Friday.

"At this current pace, we have plenty of time to review the rest of emails and other records that we will receive from President Bush and the National Archives. It's time for the American people to hear directly from Judge Kavanaugh at his public hearing."

Grassley said he expects the hearing to last three or four days, CNN reported.

Trump nominated Kavanaugh to the high court last month to fill the spot of retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Kavanaugh needs just 50 votes to be confirmed.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said earlier on Friday that he hopes Kavanaugh would be confirmed by the Senate "before the first Monday in October".

White House spokesman Raj Shah said Kavanaugh was looking forward to speaking with Congress, reports CNN.

"With the Senate already reviewing more documents than for any other Supreme Court nominee in history, Chairman Grassley has lived up to his promise to lead an open, transparent and fair process," Shah said on Friday.

"Judge Kavanaugh looks forward to addressing the Judiciary Committee in public hearings for the American people to view."

--IANS

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US military institutions are struggling to fill the 66 slots they had kept aside for officers from Pakistan for the next academic year, as President Donald Trump's administration refused to provide funds for their training, official sources said.

The fund for training Pakistani officers came from the US government's International Military Education and Training Programme (IMET) but no funds were made available for Pakistan for the next academic year, Dawn online reported on Saturday quoting the sources as saying.

Dawn first learned about the suspension from the US National Defence University (NDU), Washington, which has had reserved seats for Pakistani officers for more than a decade now.

The outgoing Pakistani officers, however, were told that the university has been asked to fill the positions for the next year with officers from other nations.

The NDU is one of several US military institutions that train officers from Pakistan.

The Trump administration announced early this year that it was suspending security assistance to Pakistan over differences on Afghanistan but indicated that training programmes for military officers will continue.

The cancellation of slots kept aside for Pakistani officers, however, shows that the suspension now also applies to training programmes.

Pakistani officers have been receiving military training and education in the US since early 1960s, which were suspended in the 1990s but restored after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

--IANS

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In an effort to strengthen cultural and economic ties between India and Australia, Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews on Saturday announced plans to establish a $3 million Indian Cinema Attraction Fund, which will enable more Indian filmmakers to explore Victoria as a shooting location.

Andrews, who shared the dais with Bollywood actress Rani Mukerji as she hoisted the Indian national flag at the Federation Square here, said that beyond a cultural celebration, it will be a "profound economic opportunity and a way in which India and Australia could come even closer together".

"I am proud to announce that the Victorian government will establish an Indian Cinema Attraction Fund with $3 million in funding to make sure at least four films are made right here in Melbourne and Victoria over the next four years," Andrews said, urging Indian filmmakers to seize the opportunity.

Film Victoria has already been working closely with India's biggest production studios, and offering grants worth up to 25 per cent of their spends in Victoria.

The new investment, announced during an event organised by the ongoing Victoria government-backed Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM), is expected to grow the local film industry and create local jobs for the state, which has Australia's biggest Indian community.

Victoria has earlier played host to a number of Indian film productions, including "Chak De! India, "Bhaag Milkha Bhaag" and "Salaam Namaste".

Rani, dressed in a chiffon sari in the biting cold -- "in true tradition of a Bollywood heroine" -- for the flag hoisting ceremony, sang a few tweaked lines from one of her songs in praise of the Premier's incentive move.

She was emotional as she recounted her father's patriotic themes as she hoisted the flag.

"When we are in India on August 15, the tradition is that in every nook and corner, in buildings and societies, we have the flag hoisting and ever since I was a baby, I would wake up from sleep, I would hear all the patriotic songs playing. And one of them was from my father's films, which he did in the 1960s with Mr Sunil Dutt."

She recited a few lines from the song "Chhodo kal ki baatein, kal ki baat puraani, naye daur mein likhenge milkar nayi kahaani Hum Hindustani, Hum Hindustani."

"I miss my dad, especially on days like this because he made films like 'Leader' and 'Hum Hindustani' which had so much of the patriotic spirit. I hope it carries on with new generations," Rani said.

The Federation Square, despite the rain and chill in the wind, attracted a huge crowd of Indians and non-Indians to celebrate the colour, dance, music and spirit that India is known for the world over.

As inclusion is the theme of IFFM this year, the performances saw old, young and specially challenged participants putting up a heart-warming show.

A burst of tricoloured confetti as Rani hoisted the flag added to the patriotic vibes, which was backed by dhol, dances, music and food.

(Radhika Bhirani is in Melbourne at the invitation of IFFM organisers. She can be contacted at radhika.b@ians.in)

--IANS

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Actor Varun Dhawan, who is gearing up for the release of his upcoming film "Sui Dhaaga - Made In India" under the Yash Raj Films's banner, says that the late veteran filmmaker Yash Chopra contributed a lot to Indian cinema.

Varun on Saturday tweeted a photograph of himself posing in front of Chopra's statue and captioned it: "'Sui Dhaaga - Made In India' is my first film under the Yash Raj Films banner. Yash Chopraji was truly a Made In India Director and has contributed a lot to Indian cinema. Can not wait for you to see the trailer on August 13."

Also starring Anushka Sharma, the film is about finding love and respect through self-reliance. Its plot is inspired by Mahatma Gandhi's philosophy and takes a leaf out of the Make In India campaign.

The team of the film reached out to local artisans and craftsmen from across the country to create the logo of the film in their unique stitching styles.

The logo was launched on Tuesday coinciding with the National Handloom Day.

It took the team six months to plan, research and execute the film's logo in 15 different styles, including in hand needlework forms of Kashida and Sozni from Kashmir, colourful Phulkari from Punjab, the intricate thread work forms Rabari and Mochi Bharat from Gujarat, Phool Patti from Uttar Pradesh and Zardozi work from Lucknow.

Directed by Sharat Kataria and produced by Maneesh Sharma, "Sui Dhaaga - Made In India" will release on September 28.

--IANS

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BJP President Amit Shah

BJP President said on Saturday only the can bring progress in Bengal as he urged the people to uproot the Mamata Banerjee-led government from the state.

Addressing a massive rally in central Kolkata's Mayo Road, Shah came down heavily upon the West Bengal's ruling party, accusing it of being involved in a series of corruption cases, besides destroying the law and order situation in the state.

Shah said BJP is the only alternative.

"Since the time the government came to power in Bengal -- seven years ago, there has been series of corruption (cases) starting from the Narada scandal, Saradha and Rose valley ponzi scams... syndicates and the unlawful activities of cattle mafias and coal mafias.

"In order to free Bengal from the grasp of this corruption, it is necessary to bring the Narendra Modi-led in power here.

ALSO READ: Congress workers show black flags to Amit Shah outside Kolkata airport

"It is not just a question of 'Paribartan' (change) this time. I ask all of you to uproot this government and throw it away," the BJP chief thundered.

Pointing out that the Congress, Left front and Trinamool were all given a chance to run the state, Shah urged people of West Bengal to now give a chance to the saffron outfit as he promised to bring back Bengal's glorious past.

"Trinamool Congress, Communists and Congress cannot bring prosperity in Bengal. They were given an opportunity by the people but they failed.

Give one chance to Narendra Modi, he will bring development in Bengal," Shah said

Referring to the fact that BJP is currently in power in 19 Indian states, Shah claimed the journey of his party cannot be considered complete unless it emerges victorious in West Bengal -- the land of Jana Sangh founder Shyama Prasad Mukherjee and many other statesmen.

"I want to tell all the BJP activists in Bengal that our governments in 19 states does not bear much significance unless we win in Bengal, the land of Syama Prasad Mookerjee, Swami Vivekananda and Rabindranath Tagore.

"Our chariot of victory should not be stopped until we emerge victorious in Bengal," he said.

He also claimed there has been a total lapse of the law and order situation in the state under the current regime.

"The law and order situation in the state is in shambles. Bengal is filled with the sound of bombs and bullets. Everyday we get to hear about the unearthing of illegal bomb factories, gun factories.

"The number of illegal arms factories are increasing day-by-day under this Trinamool Congress government," he added.
A 13-year-old girl of a state-run residential school in Uttar Pradesh was allegedly raped by a youth, who has been arrested, police said today.

The girl, a student of a Kasturba Gandhi Awasiya Balika Vidyalaya here, was raped on Thursday, Superintendent of Police (SP) Sabharaj Singh said.

The youth was arrested late last night after a complaint was lodged by the girl's parents, he said, adding that the matter is being investigated.

"On Thursday, the 13-year- old girl of the Kasturba Gandhi Awasiya Balika Vidyalaya complained of stomach pain and expressed her desire to go home with a another girl's mother, who had come to the school to see her daughter.

"The warden allowed the girl to go to her village along with the woman. On the way, the woman allegedly handed over the girl to her relative Devendra. However, en route to her home, he allegedly raped the girl and threatened her," Singh said.

The girl narrated her ordeal to her parents after reaching home, following which they lodged a complaint and a case was registered., the SP said.

Basic Education Officer Shyam Kumar Tiwari said an FIR has also been registered against the warden of the hostel, Rashmi Srivastava, and two officials of the department for alleged laxity.

"The warden has been removed," he said.

State Basic Education Minister Anupama Jaiswal reached out the girl's family.

Later in a statement, issued in state capital Lucknow, the minister said, "If any child has to be sent to home in emergency circumstances, then the warden should take the child to her home."



"If the parents are coming to take their child, then they should bring their Aadhaar cards. Only after the Aadhaar cards of the child and parents are matched, the child should be allowed to go with their parents," Jaiswal said.

The minister also said the Uttar Pradesh government has initiated the process of giving Rs 3 lakh to the girl from the Rani Laxmibai Mahila Rahat Kosh.

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The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad has questioned at least 16 people for their possible links to the three men arrested for allegedly planning to carry out blasts in the state, a police official said today.

The ATS yesterday arrested Vaibhav Raut, Sharad Kalaskar from Nallasopara near Mumbai and Sudhanva Gondhalekar from Pune. Following raids at Raut's residence and shop, the ATS claimed to have seized a huge quantity of explosives, including 20 crude bombs and bomb circuit drawings.

ATS chief Atulchandra Kulkarni said they will probe if the arrested men had any connection with the killings of rationalists Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare and journalist Gauri Lankesh.

The ATS also questioned at least 16 others from Nallasopara, Pune, Satara, Solapur and elsewhere in the state for suspected links to the three men, the police official said.

He, however, did not reveal if more arrests were likely to happen.

Police are also probing if the arrested men were part of social media groups of like-minded people by examining their mobile phones, he said. Their mobile phones will be sent to a forensic science laboratory for analysis, he added.

Raut's purported social media account mentioned he was associated with the right-wing group Sanatan Sanstha, but the group yesterday denied he was its member.

A court in Mumbai yesterday remanded the three men in ATS custody till August 18.

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At least 18 persons, including women and children who took shelter under a tree to protect themselves from rain today, were injured when lightening struck at Urlung village in Ramgarh district, the police said.

The injured were admitted to Sadar hospital in the district headquarters in Ramgarh as well as Central Coal Fields Limited hospital at Ghutua of Barkakana of the district, Ashok Kumar, the police station officer in-charge of Barkakana out post police station of Ramgarh district said.

The police officer, who rushed to the spot soon after the incident, said at least 18 persons sustained burn injuries in the lightening strike as a number of villagers including women and children took shelter under a tree following rain.

Those injured belong to farmer families and engaged in sapling plantation while some were looking after cattle at the nearby paddy field, he said.

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Two Romanian nationals were arrested in connection with an alleged ATM fraud, police said today.

The accused, identified as Miclea Lecian Lonut and Paraschiv George Aletandru, both 37 years of age, were arrested from Vasant Kunj in New Delhi and were staying in a hotel, they said.

During interrogation, the accused disclosed that they arrived in Chandigarh on August 2 with the intention of putting skimmers (a device used by fraudsters to steal credit/debit card information) and spy cameras at ATMs.

After collecting data of ATM card-holders, they used to make a clone of it and then use the ATM cards for online shopping or withdrawing money.

To hoodwink police, they used to disguise themselves by wearing caps, spectacles and wigs.

With the increasing complaints regarding illegal withdrawal of money, the Crime Branch of the Chandigarh Police suspected the involvement of some foreigners in the incident, police said.

They collected data pertaining to foreigners visiting the city in the recent days and came to know about the involvement of Romanian nationals who stayed in local hotels here, they said.

On August 4, bank officials had detected a skimmer and spy camera at an ATM in Sector 17 here, police said.

In the CCTV footage, it was found that two different persons were fitting the external devices at ATM kiosks, they said.

The external devices were also found at Manimajra here.

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In a major haul, ganja weighing 220 kg was seized and three men hailing from Maharashtra were arrested for alleged trafficking of the contraband.

Acting on a tip-off, Narcotics Control Bureau sleuths intercepted a speeding car last evening along Andhra Pradesh-Tamil Nadu highway, north of Chennai and an inspection revealed concealment of 220 kg of ganja in the vehicle, an NCB release here said today.

Preliminary investigation revealed that the car was proceeding towards the city from Andhra Pradesh and the vehicle's registration number was fake.

Sheik Ansar, Sheik Ahmed, and Sushil Thakrae hailing from Amaravati district of Maharashtra were arrested for alleged trafficking, it said.

During interrogation, the accused confessed that the contraband was trafficked allegedly on the directions of a person identified as Israeli, who supplied ganja to various places on demand.

Further investigation is on, NCB officials said.

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Three Chinese nationals were among the five people who were injured in a suicide attack in southwest Pakistan's restive Balochistan province today, the police said.

The attack, which is said the first since the July 25 elections, took place in Dalbandin region, about 340 kilometres from Quetta - the capital of Balochistan, when the Chinese engineers, working on a mining project were being transported to the city, they said.

The engineers were working on the the Saindak Copper-Gold Mine project, a joint venture between Pakistan and China to extract gold, copper and silver from an area close to the Iranian border.

Hundreds of Chinese nationals are working on different projects in Balochistan under the USD 42 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

A suicide bomber tried to ram a Iran-manufactured pick-up truck into a bus carrying the foreign nationals, who were going to Dalbandin city from the Saindak Copper-Gold Mine project, an official said.

"He used a Zamyad pick-up truck, commonly used to transport oil. The truck was completely destroyed in the attack while the bus also suffered heavy damage," the official said on the condition of anonymity.

Two personnel of the Frontier Constabulary, providing security to the bus, were also injured in the attack.

The injured were rushed to a hospital and security forces have cordoned off the area and initiated an investigation, he said.

Balochistan is the Pakistan's largest province and borders with Iran and Pakistan. It is rich in gas and mineral wealth and people have been complaining about not getting a fair share from the resources.

An ethnic insurgency is going on in Balochistan to attain greater control over the province's abundant mineral resources.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Three Chinese nationals and two security personnel were injured in a suicide attack in Pakistan's troubled Balochistan province today, the police said.

The suicide bomber tried to ram a Iran-manufactured pick-up truck into a bus carrying the foreign nationals, who were going to the Saindak Copper-Gold Mine project in Dalbandin area near the Pakistan's border with Iran and Afghanistan, they said.

Hundreds of Chinese nationals are working on different projects in Balochistan under the USD 42 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

The Chinese nationals were working in the gold and copper mine project.

"He used a Zamyad pick-up truck, commonly used to transport oil. The truck was completely destroyed in the attack while the bus also suffered heavy damage," an official said on the condition of anonymity.

In the attack, three Chinese nationals and two personnel of the Frontier Constabulary, who were providing security to foreigners, were injured, he said, adding the injured were rushed to a hospital.

The security forces have cordoned off the area and initiated an investigation, he said.

This is the first terror attack in the country since the July 25 elections.

Militants, mainly linked to the Pakistani Taliban and other extremist groups, carry out such attacks.

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At least three police personnel were killed and two others injured today in a terrorist attack on a police check post in the northern Pakistan's Gilgit region, police said.

About eight to ten terrorists attacked the police post, early this morning in mohallah Majnay of the Gilgit's Kargah valley, they said.

Two terrorists were killed in retaliatory fire, police said.

The injured policemen were rushed to a district hospital, they added.

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Eight persons were injured today after a truck collided with a bus in northwest Delhi, police said.

The truck, which bore the registration number of Uttar Pradesh, was loaded with metal sheets and was on its way from Mundka to Kanpur when the driver of the vehicle lost control over it, they said.

Police received a call about the accident at 3 pm, police said.

The injured have been identified as Shiv Shankar (31), Avnish Singh (30), Ansul Singh (26), Arun Kumar (42), Ankit Kumar (26), Manish Kumar (36) Kamlesh (49) and Puneet Jain (26), a senior police officer said.

The truck driver was identified as Pushpender, while his helper was identified as Vinay Kumar Singh, both belong to Kannauj, the officer said.

The impact of the accident was such that at least seven to eight vehicles were affected, he said.

A case has been registered and further police investigation is underway, he said, adding that the driver is according.

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The two businessman brothers from the district here, who were kidnapped from Kuala Lumpur last week, said the abductors spoke Tamil and warned them never to come back to Malaysia again.

Upon their return, Rohan Vaidya (36) and his brother Kaustubh Vaidya (31) told the media that a business rivalry could be the reason behind their abduction.

The brothers flew to Malaysia on August 1 after their fish export firm, Rock Frozen Food, landed an order from the Malaysia-based Mis Lee Frozen Foods.

They had scheduled two business meetings on August 2. After the first meeting got over at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur, the company, which had arranged the second meeting sent a car for them, they said.

A car arrived and they got in. But to their surprise, the driver left the main road and headed for a forested area, said the duo.

Then another car caught up with them, and six men got down from it. The brothers were tied up, blindfolded and bundled into the second car.

The kidnappers took them to an unknown destination, and asked them to contact the family in India and convey a demand of Rs 1 crore in ransom.

"The abductors spoke Tamil. We could not figure out most of what they were talking about," said Kaustubh Vaidya.

The duo were held captive for four days, during which period the abductors beat them repeatedly and gave them food only once a day, the brothers said.

They also relieved the duo of Rs 66,000 in cash and valuables such as chains and watches.

On August 6, the brothers were released by the abductors on an isolated stretch of road near the Malaysian capital.

The two had no money. Luckily, they met an Indian-origin taxi driver who took them to their hotel, the brothers said.

Before releasing, the abductors warned them never to come back to Malaysia again, they said.

The duo returned to India with the help of the Indian Embassy yesterday. Before returning, the Malaysian police, who are probing the abduction, spoke to them.

While saying that a business rivalry could be the reason behind their abduction, the brothers did not elaborate.

They also stated that their family -- which had contacted police here -- did not pay any ransom to anyone for their release.

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An actors body, the South Indian Artistes Association today said it would hold a memorial meet on August 13 to pay tributes to departed DMK chief M Karunanidhi.

SIAA, hailing Karunanidhi as a doyen of Tamil film industry, said the meet will be held by 5 p.m at Kamarajar Arangam here.

In a statement, SIAA President M Nasser exhorted all the members and office-bearers to take part in the event.

Karunanidhi was a distinguished screen writer who began his career in Tamil film industry with the movie 'Rajakumari' (1947).

The DMK patriarch had breathed his last at a hospital here on August 7 after fighting for life for 11 days.

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An Afghan man has been arrested by customs officials at Delhi airport for allegedly trying to smuggle into the country gold worth about Rs 22 lakh.

The accused, aged 26, was intercepted on his arrival from Kandahar (Afghanistan) on Thursday, according to a statement issued by the customs today.

A detailed personal search of the passenger resulted in recovery of three gold chains, total weighing 737 grams, it said.

The gold chains, valued at Rs 21.87 lakh, has been seized and the passenger arrested, the statement said.

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BJP president Amit Shah was today shown black flags by youth Congress workers when he came out of the NSC Bose International airport here to attend a rally in central part of the city, the police said.

The youth Congress workers showed black flags and raised anti-Modi and anti-Shah slogans as the BJP national president stepped out of the airport.

They also tried to block his convoy by lining up motorcycles on the street, but police removed them.

Earlier, Shah was received by state party-in charge Kailash Vijayvargiya and state party president Dilip Ghosh. Some party supporters also welcomed him with dance and music and demanded NRC update in West Bengal.

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The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) today claimed to have recovered a cache of country-made firearms, following the arrest of three men, one of them belonging to a right-wing group, who were allegedly planning to carry out blasts at various places in the state.

The ATS has also questioned at least 16 people for alleged links to Vaibhav Raut, Sharad Kalaskar and Sudhanva Gondhalekar, who were arrested yesterday, an official said.

The ATS had seized a large quantity of explosive materials from Raut's place. Further raids were conducted in Pune today based on the information provided by Gondhalekar, the ATS official said.

It led to the seizure of 11 country-made pistols with magazines, an airgun, ten pistol barrels, six pistol magazines, six partially-made pistol bodies, three partially made magazines and several parts of firearms, he said.

Besides, materials used to make bombs, a chopper, six number plates of vehicles, CDs, pen drives, hard discs and handbooks and other literuatre on bomb-making were also found.

The investigators suspect that materials seized were to be used for making IED.

According to the ATS, Gondhalekar was the leader of the gang.

With the recovery of weapons, the ATS added the Arms Act sections to the FIR registered against Raut and the two other under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and Explosives Act, he said.

The ATS had arrested Raut and Sharad Kalaskar from Nallasopara near Mumbai and Gondhalekar from Pune. Following raids at Raut's residence and shop, the ATS had claimed to have seized a huge quantity of explosives, including 20 crude bombs and bomb circuit drawings.

ATS chief Atulchandra Kulkarni had said they would probe if the arrested men had any connection with the killings of rationalists Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare and journalist Gauri Lankesh.

The ATS questioned 16 people from Nallasopara, Pune, Satara, Solapur and elsewhere in the state for suspected links to the three men, police had said.

Police were also probing if the arrested men were part of social media groups of like-minded people by examining their mobile phones.

Raut allegedly runs a little-known, pro-cow protection outfit. His purported social media account mentioned he was associated with the right-wing group Sanatan Sanstha, but the group yesterday denied he was its member.

A court in Mumbai yesterday remanded the three men in ATS custody till August 18.

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A suicide attack against a church on the outskirts of Cairo was foiled today when a bomber blew himself up before reaching the target, state media and security sources said.

The alleged assailant was forced to detonate a suicide belt as a result of the heavy police presence around the Virgin Church in the Shobra el-Kheima district, state media reported.

The man was hiding the explosives under a fluorescent vest, state-run newspaper Akhbar el-Youm said.

The blast took place about 200 metres (yards) away from the church, security officials said.

Christian sites of worship across Egypt have been repeatedly targeted in attacks claimed by the Islamic State group.

A string of bombings on Coptic churches in Cairo, Alexandria and the Nile Delta city of Tanta in 2016 and 2017 killed at least 80 people.

Coptic Christians make up about 10 percent of Egypt's predominantly Sunni Muslim population of some 100 million.

The Egyptian army is currently waging a major operation focused on the Sinai Peninsula to wipe out IS.

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Prolonged bad weather and a damaged trek route took a toll on the Kailash-Mansarovar pilgrimage this year with more than half a dozen pilgrims returning midway through the yatra and nearly one thousand mule operators and porters losing their seasonal jobs.

Seven pilgrims had to return after waiting for the weather to clear so that choppersmeant to ferry them from Pithoragarh to Gunji base camp could take off.

The 10thbatch of pilgrims had to wait for ten days at a stretch for the weather to clear to be ferried in IAF choppers from the Naini-Saini airstrip to Gunji, the last base camp on way to the Lipulekh Pass through which they cross over into Tibet.

Kumaon Mandal Vikas Nigam (KMVN), the nodal agency for the Yatra, even had to write to the External Affairs Ministry requesting it not to send fresh batches of pilgrims after the 11th batch until the backlog of pilgrims waiting at different base camps and rest houses was cleared.

Airlifting of Mansarovar pilgrims became necessary this year as the trek route to Gunji which was badly damaged in a natural calamity could not be repaired in time, KMVN GM TS Martolia said.

Pilgrims, who returned after successful completion of their Yatra, said the trek route is always preferable as helicopter sorties are heavily dependent on the weather which is usually bad in the region during monsoon.

"Several batchesof pilgrims got unexpectedly delayed on way toGunji. Tired of waiting for the weather to clear for several days some hadto withdraw midway," yatra incharge at TRC Pithoragarh Dinesh Gururani said adding the weather has often been bad since June 15.

The trekroute to Kailash-Mansarovar could not becontinued after the first batch due to heavy landslides at Nazang on way to Gunji from Dharchula.

It was a decision of theGovernment of India to send Kailash pilgrims by IAF choppersfrom Pithoragarh to Gunji for their safety as the trek route was not in usable condition, Martolia said.

Nigam officials saidthere was no alternative available this year but the KMVN has always preferred the Yatrato be carried out through the trek route as it is not only less dependent on weather but also givesjobs tothousands of villagers every year.

It wasan essentiallyalternative arrangement this year, otherwise the Yatra isgood from trek route as it givesseasonal jobs toporters, horse and mule owners, wayside shopkeepers, souvenir sellersandseveral others in villages along thetrek route, said Martolia.

Nearly one thousand porters, mule and pony operators and local craftsmen run their trades along the 57 Km stretch between Lakhanpur to Lipulekh during the Yatra season and the earnings take care of them throughout the year.

Due to absence of trek route this year the Nodal agency had to "abandon" over 225 pilgrims who had booked for Chota Kailash at Jolingkonginside Indian territory.

We have incurred heavy loses inabandoning the Chota Kailash Yatra this year due to damaged track route, Martolia said.

The pilgrims of the 10thbatch,who had to waitfor 10 days waiting for clearweather on Pithoragarh to Gunji air route, even demonstratedlast week at Naini Saini air strip demanding that the Yatra be conducted through the trek route.

The Governmentshould have taken extra care to ensure that the trek route was repaired in timetoavoid such longdelays in Yatra said Pradhumn Singh Rana, member of the 10th batch who led the demonstration.

Roshan Lal Sharma, liaison officer ofthe 9th batch that reached Pithoragarh after waiting13 daysat Gunji on August 9said, "Had the Yatra been by trekroute the pilgrims could have witnessed the beauty of terrains from Pithoragarh, Didiihat, Dharchula tovillages of Vyasand Chaundas valley".

The air lifting also deprived pilgrims of the pleasure of visiting places described in Manas Khand of Skand Puran whichform part of the traditional route to Kailash Mansarovar, Sharma said.

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Investigation by Chinese officials into recent vaccine scandal revealed that a batch of DPT vaccines was substandard.

DPT refers to a combination of vaccines for three infectious diseases -- diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus -- which are given to children.

China also exports DPT vaccines.

The batch of DPT vaccines, produced in July 2016 by Wuhan Institute of Biological Products Co Ltd, was proved substandard due to a short-term equipment failure, which resulted in improper distribution of active constituent in the vaccines, state-run Xinhua agency quoted the findings of an investigation by officials into the recent vaccine scandal.

The official findings showed the company failed to take into account the malfunction and make targeted tests on the quality of its products during internal inspections.

The scare over the faulty scandal raised serious concerns in China.

Subsequent reports of faulty rabies vaccines have also created panic among public.

Authorities have launched a nationwide campaign to provide medical consultation and free inoculation of rabies vaccines.

Rabies vaccines made by the Changchun Changsheng Life Sciences Company, the second largest in China, found to have violated national standards including usage of expired fluids and falsified production dates.

The vaccines were also widely exported including to India.

The Drug Controller General of India, early this month, ordered an immediate withdrawal of rabies vaccines from the market and have also banned its imports from a Chinese manufacturer that allegedly fabricated records.

The defective DPT vaccines were not chosen in the random test of the National Institutes for Food and Drug Control (NIFDC) before being permitted to enter the market.

The NIFDC found in later tests last year that the effectiveness of the vaccine against pertussis did not meet national standards, the report said.

The results of the findings of a probe into a previous investigation of substandard DPT vaccines produced by Wuhan Institute of Biological Products Co. Ltd was released yesterday.

"The SDA (State Drug Administration) and related government agencies will demand the rectification of the wrongdoings, hold accountable involved company and supervisory departments, conduct re-vaccination for children affected, and release results to the public in a timely manner," the inspectors said.

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China's Ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui today said his "love for India" was the only reason for him becoming a diplomat.

The envoy along with a high-profile delegation visited the Lovely Professional University (LPU) campus near here.

"I have a very long connection with India and my only reason for becoming a diplomat was my love for India. It is my second term as a diplomat in India and my wife has also studied her doctorate from India," a statement by the varsity quoted the envoy as saying.

The Chinese ambassador's wife Jiang Yili also accompanied him.

Luo was welcomed by LPU Chancellor Ashok Mittal, it said.

Fruitful discussions to promote Indo-China educational collaborations were held during the visit, it said.

Expressing glee over his maiden visit to Punjab, the Chinese envoy said, "In my first visit to Punjab, I am very happy to come to this educational institution. I am impressed with the mesmerizing infrastructure of LPU".

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Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy has charged Lt Governor Kiran Bedi with "violating the spirit of oath of secrecy"by "divulging all secret official communications" through social media and said it was "unbecoming" of a constitutional authority.

In his letter to Bedi yesterday, he pointed out that though as an Administrator she had taken oath of office and secrecy, she has been issuing every day all official "secret communications violating the oath of secrecy which was unbecoming of a constitutional authority."



A copy of his letter was distributed to reporters here today.

Recalling his meeting with Bedi where he had apprised her of Lt Governor's powers, he said, "You brushed aside whatever I told you about the constitutional powers of the elected government."



Noting that the Lt Governor was issuing day in and day out orders without authority which only confused the officers, the Chief Minister claimed that they (officials) "need not obey the orders of the Lt Governor and can ignore them."Narayanasamy, whose government is locked in a running battle with Bedi on various issues in the past two years, said he was "ready to cooperate with the Lt Governor" if she acted on the aid and advice of Council of Ministers.

"I am willing to cooperate with you if you do no not block welfare schemes and if you act within the Constitution and the law book," the Chief Minister said in his letter.

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British Deputy High Commissioner of Kolkata Bruce Buckneil today called for engaging the Bengali diaspora in Britain to build business ties with the state and India.

"The human capital link between Bengal and Britain remains very strong," Buckneil told reporters on the sidelines of a meet to address the potential of West Bengal to drive the country's 'Act East Policy'.

Bengal has fantastic assets and "I want to engage them more to build those (business) links," Buckneil said.

In Britain, there is a large Bengali diaspora which is unfortunately dispersed in the country. There are many Bengali doctors and lawyers there too, he said.

The meet was organised by British Deputy High Commission and 'powered' by The Dialogue, a think tank dedicated to drive policy and governance reforms through public opinion.

The British diplomat said there should just not be flow of human capital, but there should also be the flow of ideas and business in different countries.

He said in terms of destination for British investment in India, West Bengal occupied the fifth largest spot. "Business can't be forced to come to your place, you have to make it attractive," he said.

Buckneil said that technological change was "devastating all sorts of traditional business models. When asked to elaborate his point, he said "AI (Artificial Intelligence) is coming and it will take away a lot of jobs. Automation has come to manufacturing.....that is the challenge we all will face."



"Technology is not going to stop. We keep creating new technology and we got to work with it, people need to work with it," he said.

Asked to comment on employment situation in Bengal in the new situation, he said "as a diplomat I won't say much. All I can say to keep creating jobs you have to create right condition for business, you have to be business friendly, you have to keep regulations right."



Buckneil talked about Bengal's top notch performance in leather products, jewellery and even food.

"In food, one of the biggest fast food outlets which makes momo, had started in Kolkata," he said.

West Bengal Minister for Power and Non-conventional Energy Sources, Sobhandev Chattopadhyay said the state "which is surplus in power is ready with infrastructure."



Chattopadhyay referred to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's successful visits to Britain and expressed confidence in opening a lot of business opportunities in the state.

He said from thermal power to solar energy and hydel power, Bengal is going ahead of other states in the country.

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The opposition Congress today claimed that a director of a hostel, who has been arrested for allegedly raping a deaf and mute tribal girl and molesting two others, is an "activist of the RSS" and "enjoys the blessings" of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan.

Ashwini Sharma, the director of a hostel for deaf and mute persons located in the Awadhpuri area of Bhopal, was arrested on Wednesday on the basis of a police complaint filed by an inmate, who accused him of repeatedly raping her during her stay in the hostel over the last three years.

Two more girls, who had previously stayed in the hostel, also filed a case of molestation against the accused on Thursday, following which the police slapped charges under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act as well since one of them was a minor when the alleged incident took place in 2017.

"Ashwini Sharma is an activist of the RSS and he enjoys Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan's blessings," Madhya Pradesh Congress's chief spokesperson Shobha Oza said.

She also released a video, in which Sharma is seen standing close to Chouhan and touching the latter's feet.

Oza alleged that Sharma's Facebook account was deleted to hide his connection with BJP leaders.

She accused Chouhan of "hypocrisy", saying while the chief minister described himself as the "mama" (maternal uncle) of the girls of the state, he was blessing those accused of rape.

While the police had yesterday announced the setting up of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the case, Oza said the Congress did not have "faith" in it.

Inspector General (IG) of Police (Bhopal) Jaydeep Prasad had told PTI yesterday that the SIT would comprise Rahul Lodha, Superintendent of Police (SP), Bhopal City South, additional superintendents of police Rashmi Mishra and Dinesh Kaushal, city SP Virendra Mishra and Awadhpuri Inspector ML Bhati.

"The state government has hurriedly formed an SIT. We do not have faith in it. The accused has political patronage, so a CBI inquiry has become all the more important," Oza said.

State Congress chief Kamal Nath had yesterday shot off a letter to Chouhan, seeking a probe into the incident by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Oza also lashed out at the state government's announcement yesterday that the collectors and SPs of all the districts would inspect the hostels for women on a monthly basis to ensure that such incidents do not happen again.

She said a similar incident had happened in a hostel in Sehore, the chief minister's home district, "two-three years ago" and despite announcements of monthly inspections at the time, nothing of the sort happened.

Meanwhile, SP Lodha said the members of the SIT met today and they were probing the case from all angles.

IG Prasad said the police were close to filing a chargesheet in the case.

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The Bihar Congress today demanded the Nitish Kumar government to come out with a white paper on it budgetary allocation for health, alleging that the department was witnessing "an organized loot of public money".

Bihar Pradesh Congress Committee working president Kaukab Qadri issued a statement to this effect this evening after visiting the Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) here, the largest government hospital in the state.

"We had visited the Nalanda Medical College Hospital recently which was in because of rainwater entering its premises and fish found swimming in the ICU. After we saw the pathetic conditions there, we decided to have a look at the much bigger and, supposedly, prestigious PMCH. We were shocked," Qadri said.

"The squalour inside PMCH makes one feel that it is an abattoir. The government claims that 240 types of medicine were being supplied to the hospital but we checked and found that only 28 drugs were available," he said.

"The state government claims to have an annual health budget of more than Rs 7,000 crore. We would like it to come out with a white paper on the same as the situation on the ground suggests that there is an organized loot of public money going on in the department," Qadri added.

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Senior officials of BIMSTEC today met and discussed the preparations for the fourth summit of the regional economic bloc to be held here later this month.

The special session, chaired by Nepal's Foreign Secretary Shanker Das Bairagi, was attended by senior officials of all the member states, including India.

The fourth summit of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is scheduled to take place here from August 30 to 31.

The meeting deliberated on a wide range of issues such as BIMSTEC structure, mechanism, procedures, rationalisation of sectors and sub-sectors, strengthening institutional mechanism and BIMSTEC secretariat, according to a statement issued here.

The officials also discussed matters relating to the establishing a BIMSTEC development fund and ways to enhancing collaboration with other regional and international organisations with similar aims and purposes.

The officials recommended a theme 'Towards a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable Bay of Bengal Region' for the upcoming summit.

The special meeting reviewed progress on 14 areas of priorities including trade, investment, transport, communications, energy, tourism, agriculture, counter-terrorism, poverty alleviation, public health, and natural disaster and climate change set by the member states, according to Bairagi.

The officials also discussed ways to effectively move forward the BIMSTEC process in different areas of cooperation and identified core areas so as to achieve tangible results for moving forward cooperation among the member states.

The objective of organising the meeting was to facilitate the preparations for making the Fourth BIMSTEC summit a great success, and exchange views on important issues of common interest, Bairagi added.

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Terming its MLA Gagan Bhagat's remarks backing articles 370 and 35A of the Constitution as "unfortunate", the BJP's Jammu and Kashmir unit today said it would file a defamation suit against former Chief Minister Mehbooba Muftifor "wrongly" attributing the remarks to two BJP MLAs.

Seeking to clarify that the remarks backing Article 35 A was made only by Bhagat and not another BJP MLA Rajsh Gupta, the state BJP's chief spokesperson Sunil Sethi said Mehbooba wrongly attributed the remarks to both the legislators.

Stating that Bhagat crossed the Lakshman Rekha by extending support to the two constitutional provisions, which form bedrock of separatism in the state, Sethi said the party's disciplinary committee has already submitted its report to the party president for necessary action against him.

Voicing his dissent over the BJP's stand on Article 35A, the BJP legislator earlier today had warned that scrapping the constitutional provision with an eye on the 2019 Lok Sabha election would lead to serious consequences.

Bhagat's remarks found mention on former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti's Twitter handle, where she said it was "heartening" that the BJP leaders were coming out in support of the Article 35A.

Heartening to know that two MLAs from the BJP, Rajesh Gupta followed by Dr Gagan, have raised their voice in defence of the Article 35A, Mehbooba wrote on twitter.

Addressing a hurriedly called press conference here, Sethi said the party would file a defamation suit against Mehbooba as MLA Rajesh Gupta has never made any statement over the Article 35A.

We are really concerned with a statement which has come from the former chief minister attributing (the remarks of) support to the Article 35A to the two BJP legislators. Gupta had never made any statement and was misquoted by a national channel which later clarified.

Mehbooba's statement is defamation and we are taking it seriously, Sethi, flanked by Gupta, told reporters at the party headquarters here this evening.

Gupta clarified that he had never made such a statement which was in fact issued by another party activist, who had joined the party in 2014.

We will issue a notice to Mehbooba and take legal action against her. It will also be brought to the notice of the Assembly Speaker for appropriate action, he said.

Sethi said there is no ideological difference within the party over the issue of Article 370 and Article 35A of the constitution.

The state unit is having the same view as that of the central body. The basic stand of the party is that it should go. This is one country and should remain so, he said.

He said the Article 35A is because of the Article 370 which is the main reason for separatism in the state.

Asked when the party would file the defamation suit, he said the party would give Mehbooba one day to tender an apology to the legislator and have a relook at the issue, if she did it.

On Bhagat's remarks, he said his statements defending the constitutional provisions are against the party and its interests and the disciplinary committee of the party has taken serious note of it and submitted its report to the party president for appropriate action.

It is very unfortunate situation. The party is really saddened because of this development. To speak on the ideology of the party, there are forums within the party. Going public is the worst example of indiscipline, he said.

Sethi, who also heads three-member disciplinary committee of the party, said he should not have done it as nobody has the right to cross the Lakshman Rekha.

Disciplinary committee has taken note of it and has submitted its report to the party president and the president is seized of the matter and will take appropriate measures on this issue, he said.

Gupta said he supports the party view that the Article 35A should go as it is not in the interest of the people of the state.

It is discriminatory and the biggest cause of unemployment problem in the state. It has not a single benefit, he said.

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Three people, including a BJP leader, were killed in neighbouring Hamirpur district today when their vehicle collided with a private bus, police said.

At least 24 people sustained serious injuries in the accident, they said.

Superintendent of Police, Hamirpur, Ajay Kumar Singh said the accident took place in the Bharua Sumerpur area of Hamirpur in the evening.

Shailendra Shukla (49), regional vice-president of BJP's Kanpur-Bundelkhand region, along with two others died on the spot, he said.

The injured have been hospitalised, Singh added.

Uttar Pradesh BJP chief Mahendra Nath Pandey has expressed grief over the demise of Shukla, a party spokesperson said.

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The Congress today alleged that the government's motive behind the triple talaq bill was not to protect Muslim women, but to play over the issue.

Senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh said if the NDA government was so keen on introducing the bill, it could have done so on Thursday "instead of targeting Friday, which is a non-Bill day".

His remarks come a day after the BJP held Congress president Rahul Gandhi responsible for the triple talaq bill not getting the parliamentary nod in the Monsoon Session, saying his party supported it in the Lok Sabha but not in the Rajya Sabha for its vote bank

Attacking Gandhi, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar had said yesterday that the government till the last moment tried to ensure the passage of the bill, but Congress stalled it.

Accusing the government of playing over the issue, Ramesh told reporters today at the AICC headquarters here, "The favourite word of Shri Modi, 'niyat' (intention) is not 'saaf' here. The 'niyat' is something else, motive is something else.

"The motive is not protecting Muslim women. The motive is to paint the Congress and other parties into a corner and why they have not explained till today, why did they... make it a prestige issue on the criminal provision, why suddenly they have removed this. Why? It is a welcome removal, but why? What prompted them to change their mind?" he said.

The Modi government had come out with a new slogan few months ago, 'Saaf Niyat, Sahi Vikas' (Clean intent, right development), to mark its four years in power at the Centre.

Ramesh said that the government could have allowed the bill to go to a Select Committee, given it one month, and they would come back with the same amendments.

"The whole thing is a political game," he alleged.

Asked if the Congress' demand that Triple Talaq bill be referred to Select Committee was a late realisation, Ramesh said it was not so.

Leader of the opposition in the Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad had made it very clear in the last session of Parliament when the bill came out that there is no provision for triple talaq in Islamic norms, a certain section practices it, a strong law is needed to deal with it, and while making the law, it should not be criminalised, Ramesh said.

He asserted that all political parties -- the Congress, TMC, Left, Samajwadi, BSP, BJD, NCP, Anna DMK -- had said that it should referred to a Select Committee.

Seeking to allay fears that the proposed law which makes the practice of instant triple talaq illegal and imposes a jail term of up to three years on the husband could be misused, the government on Thursday had approved certain safeguards in it such as adding a provision of bail for the accused before trial.

"The government at first did not agree to the amendments then suddenly. Two days ago, they passed the very amendments that Azad was suggesting," Ramesh said.

"What prompted them to change the mind, I do not know. And they did not take opposition into confidence. They did not have a meeting but they passed.

"They came up with this new revised Triple Talaq Legislation but yesterday Chairman of the Rajya Sabha...said we will take up after Private Members Bill, we will take Insolvency Code and we will take up Commercial Courts," he said.

"Yesterday, the behaviour of Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad and Shri Arun Kumar in Rajya Sabha leads me to believe that this was part of a well planned out strategy that we want the bill, but the Congress and other parties do not. This is absolutely false," he said.

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After being pounded by rains for the past few days, there was a brief let-up in the downpour today but the government remained on high alert with more rains forecast, even as the toll in the monsoon fury since August 8 climbed to 37.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who undertook an aerial survey of rain ravaged areas of Idukki and Wayanad, said Kerala was in the midst of an unprecedented flood havoc and the calamity has caused "immeasurable misery and devastation."



He said Rs 10 lakh compensation would be given to people who lost their homes and land and Rs four lakh to those who lost a member of their family.

Though there was a respite from rains across the state today, especially in catchment areas of Idukki dam, the Indian Meteorological Department issued a 'Red alert',asking people to be cautious as there was a possibility of heavy to very heavy rainfall in most places in Idukki, Wayanad, Kannur, Ernakulam, Palakkad and Malappuram.

Two fishermen drowned today when their boat capsized off Thiruvananthapuram coast, while in an another incident,the bodies of a mother and daughter were found in a waterlogged area behind their house at Kuttanad in Alappuzha district.

Four more bodies were recovered from other parts of the state, taking the toll to 37, official sources said.

With the let up in the rains, life is limping back to normal in affected areas, including Palakkad and Waynad, where flood waters have started receding.

A total of 35,874 people have been put up in 341 relief camps across Kerala, officials at the state Disaster Management control room said.

A total of 580 houses were partially damaged and 44 fully, they said, adding crops in 1301 hectares have been destroyed.

According to Indian National Centre for Ocean information services, there was a possibility of flooding in low-lying coastal areas in Kerala, especially during high tide timings due to 'Perigean spring tides' from August 11-15.

The government machinery, as well as the Army, Navy and Coast Guard continued to remain alert to deal with the threats of flooding in parts of Ernakulam district and banks of the Periyar river following release of water from Idukki dam.

KSEB sources said the water release from the dam was being closely monitored. At present 7.50 lakh litres of water was being released by the dam per second.

This discharge would continue till the water level in the giant reservoir reaches the 2400 feet level, sources said.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will undertake an aerial survey of some flood-hit areas and hold discussions with the Chief Minister at Kochi tomorrow.

Earlier, due to inclement weather, the chief minister's helicopter could not land at Kattapana in Idukki, where he had called a meeting to review the situation in the backdrop of the opening of five shutters of the Idukki Dam, government sources said.

The helicopter later left for Wayanad.

Announcing the compensation after chairing a review meeting at Wayanad, Vijayan said all families housed in relief camps would be provided Rs 3,800 each.

Vijayan was acompanied by Opposition leader in the assembly, Ramesh Chennithala, Revenue minister E Chandrasekharan and senior officials during the aerial survey.

The Chief Minister also held review meetings and met people at some relief camps to hear their woes.

Later in a Facebook post, Vijayan said agricultural loss was to the tune of crores of rupees and several houses were damaged.

Many bridges and roads were also destroyed, he said.

It would take months for life to come back to normal and help and assistance from all quarters was needed, he said.

For the first time in the state's history, sluice gates of 27 dams were opened, he said, adding never before had the state witnessed a calamity on this scale.

The entire state machinery is working in unison to provide drinking water, food and clothes to people living in relief camps, he added.

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A British Muslim convert has pleaded guilty to plotting an Islamic State-inspired terrorist attack on targets in London, including the city's shopping hub of Oxford Street and Madame Tussauds wax museum.

Lewis Ludlow admitted to swearing allegiance to Islamic State (ISIS) terror group and preparing to drive a van through major targets in the British capital at the Old Bailey court in London.

"At its highest it is a plot to cause mass fatalities using a vehicle in Oxford Street, targeting the Disney store amongst other places, at its busiest time," Prosecutor Mark Dawson told the court.

Using a false name, the 26-year-old bought a mobile phone and wrote down his plans to carry out an attack in notes later found by counter-terrorism officers torn up in pieces in a bin.

He picked out Oxford Street as an "ideal target" and wrote: "It is expected nearly 100 could be killed in the attack".

Ludlow, a postal worker with Royal Mail from Kent near London, planned an attack after being stopped by police at Heathrow Airport in February as he tried to board a flight to the Philippines.

He was arrested by counter-terrorism police on April 18 and at an initial court appearance refused to stand, telling the chief magistrate he could only stand for Allah.

"Ludlow had gone as far as writing out attack plans and conducting reconnaissance of potential targets. I have no doubt that the public will be much safer as a result of our actions," said Detective Chief Superintendent Kath Barnes, head of counterterrorism policing in the southeast.

He was due to go on trial later this year on two charges of preparing acts of terrorism and one of terror funding but he pleaded guilty to plotting an attack in the UK and funding ISIS abroad at the hearing yesterday.

He appeared via a video link from the high-security Belmarsh jail and pleaded guilty to preparing acts of terrorism and raising funds for terrorism. He will be sentenced on November 2.

Ludlow, who called himself the Eagle, is alleged to have set up a Facebook account called Antique Collections as a front to send money to Asia to fund terrorism.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said Ludlow first came to the attention of police in 2010 when he attended a demonstration led by extremist radical preacher Anjem Choudary and his banned Al-Muhajiroun (ALM) group.

He was arrested in 2015 and ISIS material was recovered from his electronic devices but police took no further action.

In January, he bought a ticket to fly to the Philippines and was stopped at the airport and his passport was seized. He told police he was going to the country as a sex tourist.

But officers searching his home found he was in communication with a man named Abu Yaqeen in an area with a major ISIS presence.

Detectives also retrieved Ludlow's mobile phone from a storm drain on 13 April and discovered videos of the defendant swearing allegiance to ISIS and pictures of crowded areas, said to be evidence of "hostile reconnaissance".

In a video message Ludlow said his allegiance was to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS and said, "May his name strike terror into your hearts".

"I am the Eagle and I pledge allegiance to Dawlatul Islam [ISIS]," he said.

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The final repatriation of 5,407 Bru refugee families from Tripura to Mizoram, scheduled to start from August 14, was deferred to August 25, a Mizoram home department official said here today.

However, the refugees have staged demonstrations in camps saying their demands for more sops were not conceded.

The Mizoram official said the deferment was due to unpreparedness of a section of the inmates of the relief camps at Kanchanpur sub-division in North Tripura district.

As per the revised plan, the repatriation process was expected to be completed by September 25 and not September 10, as scheduled earlier, he said.

"There were some Bru family members who were yet to complete the process of securing documents such as ration card, Aadhaar card, bank account," the official said.

The decision that the repatriation would start from August 25 was made at a meeting attended by officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), governments of Tripura and Mizoram and others yesterday, Additional District Magistrate of North Tripura Aditi Majumder said.

However, Bru refugees demonstrated in their camps saying the MHA officials did not concede to their demands of of an Area Development Council (ADC) for them, cluster villages, one-time cash assistance and increased land allotment for agriculture and sustenance.

"The MHA officials have straightaway denied these demands and said nothing more than the assurances made in the agreement with central government can be given," Mizoram Bru Displaced Peoples Coordination Committee (MBDPCC) president L Laldingliana said.

The MBDPCC is a new organisation, while the Mizoram Bru Displaced Peoples Forum (MBDPF) had signed the July 3 agreement with Centre and governments of Mizoram and Tripura for repatriation of over 32,000 Bru refugees.

MBDPF secretary Bruno Meska also met the MHA officials and demanded cluster villages after repatriation.

As per the agreement, the refugees would be given a package of Rs 1.5 lakh for housing assistance, Rs 4 lakh for sustenance, free ration for 2 years and Rs 5,000 per month.

The cash assistance would be provided after three years of uninterrupted stay in Mizoram and housing assistance would be given in three instalments.

A video of people agitating in refugee camps at Kanchanpur against the repatriation offer has become viral.

Altogether 32,876 Brus belonging to 5,407 families are lodged in six relief camps in Tripura.

The Brus are in Tripura since late 1997 in the wake of a communal tension triggered by the murder of a forest guard inside the Dampa Tiger Reserve on October 21, 1997 by Bru National Liberation Front militants.

The first attempt to repatriate them in 2009 failed and triggered another wave of exodus after the killing of a youth three days before the commencement of the repatriation process.

Though some Bru families had returned to Mizoram during a number of repatriation processes and on their own, many of them refused to leave Tripura.

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Canadian police have charged a man for the deaths of two police officers and two civilians in a shooting that struck a nerve in a country that has been roiled in recent months by several instances of mass violence.

Police in the eastern city of Fredericton, New Brunswick said in a statement Saturday that Matthew Vincent Raymond, 48, was arrested and charged with four counts of first-degree murder.

Horizon Health, which delivers care for New Brunswick's Department of Health, said that Raymond was the only person being treated for injuries related to the shooting. He is due to appear in court August 27.

The victims have been identified as police Const. Robb Costello, 45, police Const. Sara Burns, 43, Donnie Robichaud, 42, and Bobbie-Lee Wright, 32.

Robichaud and Wright were in a relationship, according to Facebook and Robichaud's cousin, Sean Callahan, who said they had just gotten together at the beginning of August.

No motive has been disclosed.

Fredericton's deputy police chief Martin Gaudet said the two officers were responding to calls of shots fired at an apartment complex. He said they arrived and saw two deceased civilians before being shot and killed themselves.

Residents said they were stunned by the scene. The last homicide in the city of about 60,000 people was in 2014.

The shooting comes as Canada wrestles with a string of violence, including an instance in Toronto last month where a man with a handgun opened fire in a crowded part of the city, killing two people and wounding 13 before he died in the confrontation.

In April, a man who linked himself to a misogynistic online community used a van to run down pedestrians in a busy part of Toronto, killing 10 people and injuring 14.

Authorities are also still pursuing leads in an ongoing investigation of a serial killer who has been charged with killing eight men in the city in recent years.

In 2014, a shooting in Moncton, New Brunswick left three Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers dead and two wounded.

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A man died after he fainted during a cross-country race conducted as part of exercise to recruit police constables in Odisha's Kalahandi district today.

The candidate, who was in his early 20s, was taken to the Government hospital here in ambulance immediately after he felt exhausted and fainted during the 5 km race, police said.

However, his BP dropped and he passed away during treatment. The deceased was identified as Susanta Naik of Dhanrabhata village under Lanjigarh block in Kalahandi district, they said.

Chief District Medical Officer (CDMO), Kalahandi, Dr Saroj kumar Tihadi said the death might have been due to cardiac arrest.

Kalahandi Superintendent of Police, B Biswanath said the deceased was exhausted and fainted in the middle of the cross-country run and all steps were taken to save him.

Three other candidates had also fallen sick during the run. They were taken to the hospital where their condition is stated to be stable, the CDMO said.

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Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu said today that in his first year in the constitutional office he had carried out "effective engagement" with different stakeholders through his visits to 28 of the 29 states across the country.

He said his engagements were focused on students, youths and farmers, and science and research and culture as 60 per cent of his total 313 major outdoor events were related to them.

The vice president's secretariat also posted five tweets giving a summary of Naidu's outreach during the year.

Setting a record for any vice president, Naidu visited 28 of the 29 states in the country.

Sikkim was the only state he could not visit as a scheduled event had to be cancelled due to inclement weather.

He visited all the seven northeastern states.

According his office, he visited 56 universities and addressed 29 convocations urging students and youths to look forward to the future with a sense of confidence, seizing the emerging opportunities within and outside the country as complete individuals rooted in Indian cultural ethos while at the same time imbibing modern vision.

The vice president also visited 15 leading centres of science and research in the country for interacting with scientists and researchers and urged them to compete with the best in the world.

Through his 60 domestic visits outside Delhi and 313 major outdoor events and daily engagements of over 12, Naidu has reached out to over 450 countrymen everyday during the past year motivating them towards inspired actions.

On his first and sole foreign visit, Naidu visited three Latin American countries of Guatemala, Panama and Peru, and held wider ranging discussions on bilateral and multi-lateral issues with the presidents and senior ministers of those countries.

Naidu was the first high-level dignitary from India to visit Guatemala and Panama. He also met in Delhi 22 visiting foreign leaders including Presidents of Germany, Switzerland and Belgium, and Prime Ministers of Nepal, Cambodia and Italy.

Naidu was sworn in as the 13th Vice President on August 11 last year. He is the ex-officio chairman of Rajya Sabha.

As the Rajya Sabha Chairman's 'Moments of the Year', just-concluded monsoon session has been described as the 'Hope of the Year', presiding over the full-day proceedings of the House on July 24, 2018 as the 'Moment of Endurance' and an all-party meeting before the start of the monsoon session as the 'Breakthrough moment of the Year'.

His 'New Tidings of the Year' include the decision on disqualification of three members of Rajya Sabha in three months, quick decision on the notice for removal of Chief Justice of India, and setting up a two-member committee to review rules of the House.

He also made available simultaneous interpretation facility for five more languages making such facility now available in all the 22 scheduled languages.

Despite persistent disruptions during the winter session of last year and budget session of this year, Rajya Sabha passed 27 bills during the three sessions presided over by Naidu during his first year as the chairman of the House, according to the Rajya Sabha secretariat.

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A CBI probe team today visited Brajesh Thakur's residence in Bihar from where he ran the shelter home, which is at the centre of a sex scandal, and conducted a thorough search with help from forensic experts, sifted through documents and interrogated people close to him.

Headed by Central Bureau of Investigation DIG Abhay Kumar, the team comprising a number of armed commandoes reached the residence on Sahu Road in Muzaffarpur, where the shelter home and the office of the Hindi daily 'Pratah Kamal' owned by Thakur, the main accused in the sex scandal, are also situated.

After entering the premises, the commandoes locked the main gate of the premises from inside, preventing entry of media-persons and a number of other curious onlookers.

The CBI team is understood to have inspected the shelter home, after getting its seal opened, and collected documents and other items it found to be of value in the investigation.

The CBI team is also understood to have interrogated Thakur's son Rahul Anand, in whose name the Hindi daily is registered and who holds the post of its editor.

CBI sleuths, accompanied by forensic experts, also inspected the courtyard, which was dug up last month by the police, following allegations by inmates that one of the girls was beaten to death by staff members of the shelter home a few years ago and her body was buried at the spot.

Nothing incriminating was found after the day-long excavation and the eight-feet-deep pit was again filled up.

However, the CBI appeared to be in for a second look as heavy earth mover machines have been summoned.

The Bihar government has cancelled the registration of the NGO - Seva Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti, which ran the shelter home for destitute girls.

The possibility of sexual exploitation of the girls at the shelter was first highlighted in an audit report by Tata Institute of Social Sciences, submitted to the state social welfare department in April. Medical examination of the girls later confirmed that 34, of the total 42, were sexually abused.

The FIR in the case was registered on May 31 against 11 people, including Thakur. On July 26, the Bihar government recommended a CBI inquiry in the matter.

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Authorities in northern China delayed the demolition of a massive mosque today after thousands of people demonstrated to stop its destruction, local residents said, amid a nationwide government drive to tighten restrictions on religious activities.

Across China, officials have sought to limit religious freedoms for Muslims as part of a widespread attempt to bring believers in line with the dictates of the ruling Communist Party.

Protesters began gathering Thursday ahead of a deadline to demolish the grand mosque in the town of Weizhou in the northern Ningxia region, local residents said. Videos posted on social media in recent days showed protesters gathering in front of the building as police with riot shields stood by.

Holding Chinese flags, they sat quietly on the building's steps and milled around a large plaza, before heading to Friday night prayers, according to the videos, which could not be verified by AFP.

"The government said it's an illegal building, but it's not. The mosque has several hundred years of history," a restaurant owner surnamed Ma told AFP. Around noon Saturday, a local official had read a document saying that the government would hold off on the mosque's demolition, locals told AFP.

After that, many who had participated in the sit-in dispersed.

People had come hundreds of kilometres from other Muslim regions to show support and bring food to those in Weizhou, locals said.

Hundreds of security forces had at one point been brought in on civilian buses to secure a perimeter around the area, not allowing outsiders in.

Internet and 4G cellphone service had been cut off to the area, resuming only some 14 kilometres (nine miles) away from Weizhou -- though residents could still make phone calls.

This evening, a few dozen people sat on folded stools or leaned against their motorbikes in another neighbourhood away from the mosque, watching a movie projected onto a cement wall near a petrol station.

Police cars occasionally drove past, lights flashing, but it was otherwise peaceful. "They told us the internet was down because of recent rains, but does that really make sense?" said a young man straddling his bike.

"They're afraid of us spreading videos," he aid.

The mosque was rebuilt over the past two years, according to government documents, but the licensing process was not carefully managed and several officials received a "serious warning" from a local disciplinary committee.

In the process, the facade was changed from its previous Chinese style -- featuring sweeping tiled roofs similar to a Buddhist temple -- to what is often described in China as an "Arab" design, with domes and crescents.

Concerns have been growing in Weizhou since the circulation of a government order last week demanding the mosque's demolition on the grounds that it had been rebuilt without the proper permits.

The document said that if the building was not demolished by Friday, August 10, the government would tear it down, locals said. Residents were frustrated because officials had shown support for the construction until now.

Calls to the local county government and the regional Islamic association Saturday went unanswered.

The words "Weizhou mosque" appeared to be censored on China's Twitter-like Weibo platform when AFP tried to search for them.

Islam is one of five officially recognised religions in China, home to some 23 million Muslims.

Pressure has been building on the community in recent months as the Communist party moves to tighten the reins on religious expression.

China's top leaders recently called for the "Sinicization" of religious practice -- bringing it in line with "traditional" Chinese values and culture -- and new regulations on religious affairs came into effect in February, sparking concern among rights groups. The measures increased state supervision of religion in a bid to "block extremism", and in areas with significant Muslim populations, authorities have removed Islamic symbols, such as crescents, from public spaces.

In the far western region of Xinjiang, things have gone much farther, with Muslims being harshly punished for violating regulations banning beards and burqas, and even for the possession of unauthorised Korans.

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Newly declassified documents graphically describe how an accused al-Qaida operative was stripped naked, repeatedly slammed against walls, waterboarded and confined in boxes for hours at a covert detention site that CIA Director Gina Haspel briefly oversaw after 9/11.

The harsh treatment of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri's detention at the secret lockup in Thailand arose at Haspel's Senate confirmation, but there are new details in the documents released yesterday by the nonprofit National Security Archive.

Al-Nashiri is accused in the bombing of a U.S. Navy ship, killing 17 American sailors in 2000.

According to one document, al-Nashiri was "left strapped to the waterboard" for 20 minutes so he could "contemplate his fate." Afterward, interrogators put a hood over his head and left him "moaning, shaking and asking God to help him.

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The Congress today accused BJP chief Amit Shah of not declaring "his liabilities" in his Rajya Sabha election affidavit despite two plots of land owned by him being mortgaged by his son Jay for obtaining credit facility -- charges strongly dismissed by the ruling party as "bogus and fake".

Giving a point-by-point rebuttal to the Congress' allegations, BJP spokesperson Sambit Partra said Shah cannot show the liability of an independent entity belonging to his son as his own liability, asserting there would be hardly any politician of his stature who would pledge his properties for his or her son's loan.

Making the allegations against Shah at a press conference, Congress leader Jairam Ramesh also said the party will approach the Election Commission over the issue and inform it that details given by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief in his election affidavit last year were "wrong". Shah was elected to Rajya Sabha from Gujarat in August 2017.

"The allegations against him (Shah) are totally bogus and fake...Even if Amit Shah has mortgaged his property, it does not mean that liability is his," Patra said, adding that the BJP chief has only mortgaged his property as a collateral security for his adult son's company.

The BJP spokesperson said, besides their own liabilities, politicians have to show liabilities of their spouse and dependent or minor children. "On the contrary, he (Shah) will be violating the law if he shows his adult son's liability in his election affidavit."



Ramesh also alleged the net worth of a "limited liability partnership firm" named Kusum Finserve, owned by Jay, was about Rs 6 crore, but it managed to obtain "credit facility" to the tune of Rs 95 crore from various cooperative and private banks. He claimed that Jay has 60 per cent stake in the firm while his wife owns about 30 per cent.

"The credit facility that Kusum Finserve has got is Rs 95 crore on a net worth of less than Rs 6 crore. He has got that facility because he has mortgaged two plots of land which were owned by his father and one commercial property in Ahmedabad," the former Union minister said. When asked the basis of his allegations against Shah, Ramesh said the party has documents to back the charges.

Coming down hard on the Congress, Patra called the Congress' allegations a desperate tactic to deflect the allegations of "scam" against its president Rahul Gandhi who, he said, is accused of evading huge amount of IT liabilities.

"The opposition party has rehashed an old and discredited story run by a Congress propagandist website. People of the country are wise and they would be concerned whether such a leadership deserves to rule them," he said, attacking the Congress.

"That the son of a big leader like Amit Shah is pledging his father's assets as collateral is itself noteworthy," he said, adding all returns, including income tax and GST, of the company are up to date and if the filing of annual return is delayed, then it can be submitted with late filing fee.

Ramesh also claimed that the firm was given a plot of land, valued at Rs six crore, on lease in Sanand by the Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (GIDC) in May last year and within one month of getting the plot, Kusum Finserve took a loan of Rs 17 crore from a private bank on the basis of the land. "This is a highly questionable and a dubious transaction," the Congress leader alleged.

According to law, he said, the firm should have given an annual report to the government under the Companies Act, but it is yet to submit its annual report for 2016-17 which is illegal and action should be taken against it.

He also alleged that the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency Limited, or IREDA, a public sector undertaking managed by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, last year granted Rs 10.5 crore to Kusum Finserve to set up a wind energy facility in Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh.

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Congress today came down on the TRS government in Telangana for declining permission for party president Rahul Gandhi's proposed meeting at state run Osmania University on security grounds.

"We feel there is nothing more painful and more deplorable an issue than the state government denying permission to the effort of president of Congress party, which gave (separate) Telangana, to interact with the students of that (Osmania) University as per their desire," M Bhatti Vikramarka, Working President of Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC), told reporters.

Citing security concerns, the University had yesterday declined permission for Congress chief Rahul Gandhi's proposed meeting with students on its campus during his visit to the state on August 13 and 14.

University Registrar Ch Gopal Reddy had said they declined permission as they had no mechanism to provide security to the congress leader.

However, they might review the decision if local police or any other government agency such as the Special Protection Group (SPG) assures the university of Gandhi's security, he had said.

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Union minister Jitendra Singh today accused the Congress and the National Conference (NC) of misleading the people of Jammu region over Article 35A, and claimed that scrapping it would have no impact on job opportunities for local youth.

A debate over continuing the constitutional provision has picked up in recent months, after several pleas were filed in the Supreme Court challenging the validity of Article 35A, which permits only the subjects of Jammu and Kashmir to buy property in the state.

On August 6, the court said a three-judge bench would decide whether the pleas should be referred to a five-judge Constitution bench for examining the larger issue of alleged violation of the doctrine of basic structure of the Constitution.

"The matter (Article 35A) is sub-judice... However, I have no hesitation in saying that Congress and NC do not want equal rights to the women. They opposed the Triple Talaq (bill) in parliament and are also opposing equal rights over property to the women in the state.

"They are misleading the people by saying that they will lose their business and jobs to outsiders if Article 35A of the constitution is scrapped. It is a misconception. Had it been so, every state would have demanded safeguards. Service rules govern the recruitment policy," the Union minister told reporters at the sidelines of a function here.

Accusing the Congress and the NC of having double standards, Singh alleged that while in Jammu their leaders follow BJP in saying that Jammu and Kashmir is an integral part of India and praise Maharaja Hari Singh - the last Dogra king, but when in Kashmir they "toe the separatist line" and talk about so called honouring people's aspirations of having dialogue with Pakistan.

"This nation belongs to the youth and there is no place for double standards," he said.

About the eviction of illegally-settled Rohingyas from Jammu, he said the BJP will not only ensure their deportation but would also investigate the motive behind their settlement here.

"The issue of illegal settlement of Bangladeshi nationals in Assam was pending for the last 35 years... The BJP took the initiative and solved the problem. Likewise, the Rohingyas will be deported from here," Singh said.

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Arunachal Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) president Takam Sanjoy has served a 10-day ultimatum to the state government to grant justice to all victims of the Trans-Arunachal Highway (TAH) compensation payment scam.

"Our party has submitted a memorandum to the state governor and chief minister through chief secretary mentioning about the ultimatum served yesterday to take follow up actions," Sanjoy told reporters here.

If justice is not granted within the given deadline, Congress will be forced to launch a series of movement till the goal is achieved, he said last evening.

He alleged that a huge amount as compensation had been given to people without land, while land owners were given a paltry sum.

The APCC has reiterated its demand to hand over the case to the CBI as the Special Investigation Cell (SIC) of the state police is "not competent" to probe the scam involving Rs 246 crore, he said.

Former Lower Subansiri Deputy Commissioner Kemo Lollen, former Land Revenue and Settlement Officer Bharat Ligu and a businessman Likha Maj were arrested last month in connection with the scam, the police said.

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Union Minister Rajen Gohain today said accusations and conspiracies are "plotted" against him whenever he is about to contest elections, a day after the Assam Police registered a case against him for allegedly raping a woman.

Police had yesterday said investigation was underway in the case, which was registered against the minister on August 2 after receiving a complaint at the Nagaon police station.

"Every time, I am about to contest elections, such conspiracies are plotted against me. This happened in 2016 and 2011 as well. Now, again this has started. Investigation is underway. The truth will be revealed soon, Gohain, the Minister of State for Railways, told reporters at his residence here.

Gohain was likely referring to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. He is an MP in representing the Nagaon Lok Sabha constituency.

The minister has also filed complaints of blackmailing against the woman and her family members, his officer on special duty, Sanjiv Goswami, had said yesterday, claiming that the case against the minister has been withdrawn.

When asked about the withdrawal of the case, Nagaon police station in-charge Ananta Das said the woman had pleaded to withdraw the case in court but the "case still stands We will do our own investigation".

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A special Fugitive Economic Offenders Act court in Mumbai today issued public summons to the sister and brother of absconding diamantaire Nirav Modi, the main accused in the $2 billion bank fraud case, asking them to appear before it on September 25.

It said if they fail to appear, their assets will be confiscated under the newly enacted Act aimed at curbing big ticket economic crimes.

The court of M S Azmi, also the special judge for Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) cases in Mumbai, issued three public notices in leading dailies today naming Nirav Modi's sister Purvi Modi and brother Neeshal Modi as they have been "enumerated as an interested person" in an application made under the new Act by the (ED) against the diamond merchant.

The two have been charged by the ED to have indulged in money laundering and subsequently, escaping from India as the alleged scam came to light.

The notice against Purvi and Neeshal show causes them to explain as to "why the properties mentioned in the application (filed by the ED earlier), in which you have pecuniary interest and/or otherwise, should not be confiscated under the said Ordinance (now the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act)."



The court has asked the duo to appear before it on September 25 at 11 am, the same date on which Nirav has also been summoned by it under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act.

The third public notice against asked him to depose on the same date and time as it said that he is accused in a money laundering case and "as you have left India and are refusing to come back to face trial in that case, you should be declared a fugitive under the above-mentioned Ordinance (now the Act)."



Therefore, the judge said in the public declaration, "I issue notice to you (Nirav) to show cause as to why the said application for declaring you a fugitive should not be allowed and as to why the the properties mentioned in the application, in which you have pecuniary interest and/or otherwise, should not be confiscated under the said Ordinance (now the Act).""I, therefore, direct Nirav Deepak Modi to remain present before me... on or before September 25 at 11 AM falling which the said application shall be proceeded with as per the Ordinance/Rules thereafter," the notice said.

The notice bears two addressees of Nirav --4, Grosvenor House, 2nd floor on Peddar Road and four flats in Samudra Mahal apartments on Dr Annie Besant Road-- in Mumbai.

The same court had on July 25 issued the summons to after the ED made an application seeking to declare the designer diamond jeweller a 'fugitive economic offender'.

It had issued a similar notice of appearance under the against Nirav Modi's uncle and co-accused in the case and had asked him to appear before it the next day-- on September 26.

The agency had moved the court seeking to declare the diamond traders as 'fugitive economic offenders' and to confiscate their assets worth Rs 35 bn in the case.

The central probe agency, empowered to enforce the new law brought out by the Modi government to curb big economic crimes and to check the escape of perpetrators from India, had filed two separate applications against them.

The ED, earlier, had moved a similar application against businessman Vijay Mallya in the Rs 90-bn alleged bank loan fraud case and the court has summoned him for August 27.

In this case of the diamantaires, the agency seeks to confiscate assets, both movable and immovable, including those located in the United Kingdom and the UAE.

The move has been made on the basis of the two PMLA charge sheets filed by the agency against the two designer diamond jewellers on charges of alleged money laundering.

"Investigations have revealed that and have committed the offence of cheating against Bank (PNB) in connivance with certain bank officials by fraudulently getting the LOUs/FLCs issued without following prescribed procedure and caused a wrongful loss to the bank.

"They have further siphoned off the proceeds of crime so generated through layering through multiple dummy, related, connected entities in India and abroad," the agency had said in its application.

Nirav Modi and Choksi are being investigated by the ED and the CBI after it was detected that they allegedly cheated PNB of more than Rs 134 bn with the purported involvement of a few of its employees.

The scam, which reportedly began in 2011, was detected in January this year, after which PNB officials reported it to the probe agencies.

Two criminal complaints were filed by the ED in these instances after taking cognisance of CBI FIRs.

Non-bailable warrants were issued against the two, while an Interpol 'red corner' arrest warrant has been issued against Nirav Modi on the request of the ED.

The ED had conducted 260 searches in this case across the country.

The Fugitive Economic Offenders Act came into force from July 31.

Cases of frauds, cheque dishonour or loan default of over Rs 1 bn would come under the ambit of this ordinance.

The government has said the ordinance offers necessary constitutional safeguards in terms of providing hearing to the person through counsel, allowing him time to file a reply, serving notice of summons to him, whether in India or abroad and appeal before the high court.
Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama today rued sectarian clashes among Muslims in the Middle East, saying killing in the name of religion is unthinkable.

He emphasised that developing oneness amongpeople would solve various crisis the world is facing today.

Referring to countries like Afghanistan, Syria and other Islamic nations, the Dalai Lama said, "They all follow the same god Allah, same Quran, every day (offer) five time prayers. Yet they are killing each other. It's unthinkable, really.

Killing due to political power or economic interest is somewhat understandable. In the name of religion killing each other is unthinkable. But it is a fact and it is happening," he said.

The Dalai Lama was delivering a lecture here on the topic 'Courage and compassion in the 21st century', which was organised by Vana Foundation under their Vidyaloke initiative.

Emphasising that developing oneness among seven billion people is his major commitment, he was all praise for India for its religious harmony and tolerance.

Though the country has various homegrown religious traditions such as Sankhyaism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism besides Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Islam, they had all settled here peacefully and harmoniously, he said.

"India is a big country with over a billion population, but religious tolerance, religious harmony are there. So therefore religious harmony is very much possible.

We always say India is the only example that different religioustraditions can live together," the Dalai Lama said.

He also hailed Shias and Sunnis living together in India peacefully in contrast with the situation in Muslim nations, where they often clash with each other.

The Tibetan leader rued that religion today has become a factor to divide people, whose job is to bring inner peace, love, forgiveness, tolerance and self-discipline.

The Dalai Lama also pointed out that his mission was to revive ancient Indian spiritual traditions in their original form, whether it be Buddhism, Jainism or Vedic traditions.

He urged people to understand the Nalanda tradition of Buddhism, which originated in India and is still preserved with the Tibetans.

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AAP minister Gopal Rai has sought an appointment with Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the party's demand for full statehood to Delhi.

In his letter to the prime minister, Rai, who is the Aam Aadmi Party's Delhi convener, said he wants to hand over "10 lakh letters" the people of Delhi have written in support of the demand.

According to an AAP functionary, Delhi labour minister Rai wrote to the prime minister on Thursday, seeking time to meet him on August 17 to press for the party's demand.

"The people of Delhi have been demanding full statehood for it for several decades and in this regard, 10 lakh people have written letters to you," Rai wrote in the letter in Hindi.

The party believes that if full statehood is granted to the national capital, it will put an end to the tussle between the Delhi government and the Lt Governor's office on several issues.

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Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra said today that dharma sustains society and maintains social order, besides ensures well-being and progress of humanity.

"Dharma is a concept that cannot be adequately translated in English or any other language. It sustains society, maintains social order and ensures well-being, besides progress of humanity," Justice Misra said after inaugurating a two-day conference on 'Human Values and The Legal World' here.

More than 30 sitting judges of the Supreme Court and various high courts, besides more than 750 delegates from legal fraternity, are attending the conference, which is said to be the first-of-its-kind in India.

Making distinction between human values and human rights, Justice Misra said one can only enjoy human rights when he or she do not bend others' rights.

"There is distinction between human values and human rights. We need to protect human rights by expressing human values. One can enjoy one's human rights without bending the human rights of others. You should also not disturb the human values of others," he said.

He further said if human values are lost the entire edifice will crumble and emphasised the need for imparting justice with human touch.

"Law and justice is blended with humanity," he said.

Paying tributes to religious leader Sathya Sai Baba, he said one can attain peace by only abandoning one's ego.

"The centrality of idea cannot be ego. The way to peace is the annihilation of ballooning of perpendicularism, which in spiritual terms, means elimination of ego. This is the culture of India and this is what Baba (Sri Sathya Sai Baba) preached," he added.

Talking about importance of spirituality and humanity in life and legal world, Justice Misra said spirituality is not beyond rationality and rationality is not bereft of spirituality, and hence there has to be a synthesis, amalgamation, synergy between them.

"My spiritual and moral summoning has brought me here. There is no need for a tussle between science and spirituality.... There are three spiritual aspects, namely divinity is humanity, thoughtless thought is spirituality and remaining in constant nowness is physical and economic morality," he said.

Laying emphasis on the importance of surrendering to divinity, he said one's imagination will not solve problems and the rationalisation will not provide answers to problems either.

"Only thing, which offers a solution to the problem, is surrender. Like you say to Baba I now surrender before you," the CJI said.

Among other dignitaries, present on the occasion included International Court of Justice Judge Dalveer Bhandari, Supreme Court judge Justice N V Ramana, Andhra Pradesh High Court Chief Justice TBN Radhakrishnan, former apex court judge and NCLAT chairperson S J Mukhopadhaya.

The conference, which is being attended by members of legal fraternity and students to discuss the importance of human values in legal profession, will conclude tomorrow.

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Realty major is in talks with private equity players to raise funds for the development of a commercial property on 11.76 acre land in that it recently bought for about Rs 16 billion, a senior company official said on Saturday.

India's largest realty firm could dilute up to 50 per cent stake in this 2.5 million sq ft commercial project, DLF's CFO Saurabh Chawla said.

In February this year, had bought this land for Rs 14.96 billion in an e-auction conducted by the Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC). After including the stamp duty, the total cost to purchase this land came to about Rs 16 billion.

"We bought this land in as it was close to Cyber City and was strategic for the company. Now, we are looking for a partner for development of this project," Chawla told PTI.

He said the company is in talks with many private equity funds and expects to close this deal by September.

Chawla, however, declined to name the private equity players with whom discussions were taking place and also the amount the company was looking to raise for this project.

"This deal would be similar in nature as we did with investment firm GIC for housing projects in Delhi," he added.

In September 2015, Singapore's sovereign wealth fund GIC had invested about Rs 20 billion in DLFs two housing projects in the national capital.

DLF is a leading developer of commercial properties in the country and has more than 30 million sq ft of rental assets, mostly office space, which it owns directly as well as through JV with GIC.

It's promoters had in December last year sold 33.34 per cent stake in DLF Cyber City Developers Ltd (DCCDL) to GIC for Rs 90 billion. DLF holds 66.66 per cent stake in the DCCDL, which holds bulk of its commercial assets.

DLF said in a presentation that it would build commercial products for sale either to retail customers (B2C) or to DCCDL as investment properties (B2B). It also has the flexibility to hold the property as investment property earning lease rentals.

DCCDL group currently owns and operates a pan-India portfolio of about 27 million sq ft, which is slated to grow more than double in the next 10 years.

"DCCDL shall act as a 'Business Trust' not only will it build its own investment properties (about 25 million sq ft potential embedded in the JV) but shall also have the ability to purchase investment properties, at FMV, being developed by DLF or third parties," the presentation said.

Yesterday, DLF reported a 56 per cent increase in its consolidated net profit at Rs 1.72 billion for the first quarter of this fiscal. Its net profit stood at Rs 1.10 billion in the year-ago period.

Total income, however, declined to Rs 16.57 billion during April-June this fiscal from Rs 22.11 billion in the corresponding period of the previous year.
DLF will sell apartments only when it gets occupancy certificate after completing the project as part of its new business model to remove any uncertainty regarding costs and delivery timelines, a senior official of the realty major said.

The decision assumes significance as the Indian market, especially Delhi-NCR, has been facing huge delays in project executions, forcing home buyers to protest and move courts.

Lakhs of are stuck in various projects of developers such as Jaypee group, Amrapali, Unitech and The 3C Company.

Highlighting the company's new business model, DLF's group CFO Saurabh Chawla said the company would sell only completed products from now onwards.

"Customers are now averse to taking risk and they prefer to buy ready-to-move-in apartments," he added.

Chawla said DLF will apply for occupancy certificates once the structure of the building is complete along with other infrastructure.

The additional cost on increased working capital requirement would be marginal, he added.

DLF currently has completed inventory worth about Rs 135 billion, which would be sold over the next 5-6 years. The company would continue to build fresh inventory of completed product.

DLF, along with its partner GIC, has started construction on the first phase of its 7 million sq ft housing projects in central Delhi.

"We will open sale in this project after structure is complete and we get occupancy certificate," Chawla said.

In a presentation, DLF observed that "Incidentally, both (new law) and Ind AS 115 (new accounting standard) support evolution of this business model".

From taxation point of view, there is no GST on completed units while the effective GST rate is 12 per cent for under-construction flats.

As part of new business model, DLF would sell residential products to retail customers.

The commercial properties would be sold either to retail customers (B2C) or to Ltd (DCCDL) -- JV firm with global investment firm GIC -- as investment properties (B2B). It might hold commercial properties to earn lease rentals.

DLF would also strive to be debt free in development (residential) business over the near term. Net debt at the end of quarter stood at Rs 71.2 billion.

For debt reduction, Chawla said the company could launch qualified institutional placement (QIP) this financial year while promoters would infuse an additional Rs 22.5 billion by March 2019.

"Implement a business model where 50 per cent of free cash is targeted to be reinvested in projects with returns in the range of about 20 per cent plus on development costs and balance 50 per cent of free cash to build up cash reserves for potential special dividend payouts, share buybacks, acquisitions etc," the presentation said.

Last week, DLF reported a 56 per cent increase in its consolidated net profit at Rs 1.72 billion for the first quarter of this financial year. Its net profit stood at Rs 1.10 billion in the year-ago period.

Total income, however, declined to Rs 16.57 billion during April-June this fiscal from Rs 22.11 billion in the corresponding period of the previous year.
Acting on the recommendations of the Justice Ranjit Singh (retd) Commission, Punjab Police has included the names of four police personnel in the FIR registered in 2015 in the Behbal Kalan firing incident in which two people were killed.

The names of PPS officers Charanjeet Singh (the then SSP Moga, now retired), Bikramjit Singh (then SP Det., Fazilka), Inspector Pardip Singh and SI Amarjit Singh have been added to the FIR registered on October 21, 2015, under relevant sections, including 302 and 307 of the IPC, and the Arms Act at the Bajakhana police station, in Faridkot, following directives of Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, an official statement said.

The commission, in its first report submitted to the chief minister last month, had categorically named these four officers and recommended that they be named as accused in the FIR and proceeded against as per law, it added.

Since an FIR already stood registered against unidentified police personnel, the names of these four officers were added in the FIR.

In accordance with the recommendations of the commission, the roles of five other police officers, Inspector Harpal Singh, the then SHO Ladowal, and constables Shamsher Singh, Harpreet Singh, Gurpreet Singh, and Parminder Singh, will also be investigated, the statement said.

A case under relevant sections, including 307 of the IPC and the Arms Act, was registered on August 7 based on the statement of Ajit Singh, an injured in the Kotkapura firing incident, a spokesperson said.

The Punjab government had last year set up an one-man inquiry commission to probe the death of two persons in police firing during a protest against sacrilege incidents in the state.

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The Haryana Police today claimed to have busted a gang of robbers with the arrest of five of its members in Jind district.

With their arrest, at least 29 cases of robbery have been solved, a spokesperson of the police department said.

Police also seized four country-made pistols, 17 live cartridges and a car from them, they said.

The accused have been identified as Bittu alias Pola, Sumit alias Manni, Krishan alias Baba, Sachin and Nishant alias Vicky, all resident of Jind district.

They were nabbed from a stadium of Sheela kheri village in Safidon and were plotting to loot passers-by.

During preliminary interrogation, the accused confessed to having committed various incidents of loot, including Rs 6 lakh in Jind, two robberies of Rs 22 lakh in Rewari, Rs 45 lakh in Karnal, and Rs 10 lakh in Narnaul, he said.

The spokesperson said that Director General of Police B S Sandhu congratulated the Superintendent of Police, Jind and his entire team for intensifying efforts to crackdown on crime and criminal activities in the district.

He said that the detective team of Jind police has got secret information that some youth, while being in Sheela kheri stadium, were plotting to loot passers-by.

Acting swiftly, police immediately rushed to the spot and booked all the five accused.

During interrogation and search, illicit weapons, live cartridges and a car were seized from them.

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A 40-year-old Palestinian hit by Israeli fire during protests on the Gaza border died of his wounds today, taking the previous day's death toll to three, the territory's health ministry said.

He was among at least 131 Palestinians wounded by Israeli bullets during Friday's protests, even as an informal truce agreed after a deadly flare-up between Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas and the Israeli army largely held.

The health ministry identified the dead man as Ahmed Abu Lulu and said he was shot in a section of the border east of the southern city of Rafah where two other Palestinians were also killed.

The ministry identified them as Ali al-Alul, 55, and volunteer medic Abdullah al-Qatati, 21.

A few thousand protesters had gathered in different locations along the border, setting tyres ablaze and throwing stones, but there were fewer people demonstrating than in previous weeks, AFP correspondents said.

The Israeli army said a grenade was thrown at troops guarding the border with northern Gaza without causing any casualties. It said troops responded with tank fire against two Hamas posts.

But the border was otherwise calm after a deal to end all rocket fire into Israel and air strikes on the Gaza Strip appeared to go into effect around midnight (2100 GMT) on Thursday.

There was no official confirmation from Israel or Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas but there were no fresh air strikes yesterday.

Thursday had seen extensive Israeli raids in retaliation for the launching of more than 180 rockets and mortar rounds by Hamas and its allies on Wednesday night.

It was one of the most serious escalations since the 2014 Gaza war and followed months of rising tensions.

Three Palestinians were killed in the Israeli strikes, including a pregnant woman and her 18-month-old daughter. Seven Israelis were wounded by Palestinian rocket fire. The European Union said Gaza and Israel were "dangerously close" to a new conflict and called for urgent de-escalation to keep civilians from further risk.

At least 168 Palestinians have been killed since the border protests began on March 30.

Most were killed by Israeli fire during the protests but others died in air strikes. One Israeli soldier was shot dead by a Palestinian sniper.

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A Gujarat Congress legislator, on his way to take 'jal samadhi' in Bhadar river in Rajkot district, was today detained along with seven other MLAs of his party, Patidar leader Hardik Patel and others at Bhukhi village in the district, police said.

Congress legislator Lalit Vasoya, who represents Dhoraji assembly constituency, was proceeding to take 'jal samadhi' (suicide by drowning) in Bhadar river to protest against the textile dyeing units polluting it with untreated effluents.

Seven other Congress MLAs, including Pratap Dudhat who represents Savarkundla assembly segment, Patidar quota stir spearhead Hardik Patel and others had gathered in support of Vasoya at Bhukhi village.

"Apart from Vasoya, seven other Congress MLAs, Hardik and around 12 others were detained. They had gathered in Bhukhi village in support of Vasoya, who was heading for 'jal samadhi'," Jetpur Deputy Superintendent of Police J M Bharwad said.

"They were released after Vasoya and others gave a written assurance that he will not taken 'jal samadhi'," he added.

Earlier this week, the MLA had submitted a memorandum to Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and Governor O P Kohli threatening to take 'jal samadhi' today in case the government failed to act against untreated effluents from industrial units polluting Bhadar river and the reservoir.

Vasoya had alleged that untreated toxic waste from textile dyeing units in Jetpur town was being released into Bhadar river which in turn was polluting the reservoir.

The Bhadar-2 reservoir supplies drinking water to Dhoraji. Neither the Rajkot collector nor the officials of Gujarat Pollution Control Board have taken cognisance of this issue despite repeated reminders, he had claimed.

Following their detention, Vasoya and Hardik alleged that they were offered money by certain people not to take the protest.

"The government belongs to the industrialists. Industrialists are polluting the river by releasing chemicals into it. Before coming here, I was made an offer of Rs 50 lakh by the middlemen of certain people. Two days ago, Lalitbhai (Vasoya) was offered Rs 1 crore," Hardik told reporters.

Making similar allegations, Vasoya said there was a threat to his life if he continued the fight the issue.

"I am being offered money not to take up the protest. I told them your money cannot be bigger than people's lives. My life could be in danger if I continue the fight," the legislator said.

He said he would continue the protest against the pollution of the river and the dam. "If needed, I will even take 'jal samadhi'," he said.

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The Haryana government has approved the creation of 29 posts of inspectors in the CID unit of the police to strengthen the intelligence system in the state.

Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has given his approval to the proposal of Director General of Police B S Sandhu for these posts, an official statement said.

Khattar said his government was committed to ensure safety and security of the people and to strengthen the law and order and intelligence system in the state.

Khattar's media advisor Rajiv Jain said a need was felt to increase the posts because of the growing population and also due to formation of police divisions in Gurugram, Faridabad and Panchkula and the newly-formed Charkhi Dadri district and Hansi police district.

The increased strength in the CID unit would help it to keep a better vigil on anti-social elements and their criminal activities, he said.

For better policing system in the state, 26 women police stations have been set up in the state, Jain added.

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Leading cement manufacturer India Cements Ltd, has recorded a slip in its standalone net profits for the quarter ending June 30, 2018 to Rs 21.03 crore.

Noted industrialist N Srinivasan led firm had recorded net profits at Rs 26.44 crore during corresponding quarter of previous year.

For the year ending March 31, 2018, net profits of the company stood at Rs 100.62 crore, the city-based company said in a BSE filing.

Total income for the April-June quarter declined to Rs 1,366.17 crore from Rs 1,466.75 crore registered during year ago period.

For the year ending March 31, 2018 total income of the company was at Rs 5,360.13 crore.

In a statement, the company said despite a drop in selling prices of cement it witnessed an increase in volume coupled with stringent control on fixed cost and selling expenses.

"The operating performance of the company during the quarter had substantially improved with capacity utilisation (of the manufacturing facilities) to 80 per cent as compared to 67 per cent recorded during same quarter of previous year," it said.

The company said the bottom line revenue had an impact of Rs 104 crore during the quarter following the steep drop in the net plant realisation.

"Despite the lower net plant realisation and higher variable costs, with the increase in volume and reduction in fixed cost, the company could turn out an EBIDTA (Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation and Amortization) of Rs 162 crore as against Rs 191 crore in previous year".

On the outlook for the coming quarters, the company said, "after several years of sluggish and nil growth, the demand for cement is growing sharply on the back of infrastructure projects, roads, dams."



It is expected that this trend would gain momentum during the current financial year, the statement added.

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India's Independence Day celebrations have been planned in the UK to counter a pro-Khalistan rally at London's Trafalgar Square tomorrow.

The organisers of the event, 'We Stand With India', accused the group behind the pro-Khalistan rally, 'London Declaration for a Referendum 2020', of spreading lies about the event being cancelled.

"Why is Sikhs for Justice (SFJ)... spreading lies about the Indian Independence Day rally being cancelled," organiser Navdeep Singh questioned on social media.

Thousands are expected to descend upon the iconic Trafalgar Square from both sides after the UK said it would not ban any group protesting peacefully.

A UK government spokesperson had said that "in the UK people have the right to gather together and to demonstrate their views, provided that they do so within the law".

The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) in New Delhi had issued a statement on Thursday, expressing its disappointment at the stance.

"We have said that it seeks to propagate violence, secessionism and hatred and we expect them to take into account the larger perspective of the relationship when they take a decision on such matters," MEA spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said.

Chairman of the British Sikh Association Dr Rami Ranger dismissed the pro-Khalistan rally as a move by a "handful of un-elected and self appointed Sikhs".

"If they have any merit in their argument, then they should go to Punjab and fight election on the agenda of Khalistan. There is no point embarrassing Sikhs at large along with their Gurus by behaving in an undemocratically manner in a foreign country with a demand of a referendum which is not binding on any one," he said.

Meanwhile, the SFJ said its rally is intended to raise awareness for a non-binding referendum in 2020, calling for the Sikh-majority state of Punjab to be granted independence.

Besides the UK's left-wing Green Party, no major British political party or leader has come forward to back the rally.

Scotland Yard said it had not received any complaints regarding the event which will be allowed to go ahead without any restrictions.

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An Indian-origin man in the US has been booked for unlawfully selling cocaine and possessing stolen property worth thousands of dollars, officials said.

Randall Singh, 32, of Long Island has been charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance and third-degree criminal possession of stolen property.

He allegedly sold bikes worth roughly USD 60,000 and 162 grams of cocaine. If convicted, he faces between eight and 20 years in prison.

Singh is presently awaiting arraignment in Queens Criminal Court on two complaints.

Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said that according to one of the complaints, between June 2017 and April 2018, Singh arranged meetings in Queens with a buyer to sell various stolen motorcycles as well as cocaine.

However, it was unknown to him that the buyer was an undercover detective.

During these meetings, money was exchanged for drugs and stolen bikes.

Singh is alleged to have sold a variety of stolen motorcycles and none of the motorcycles were sold with an ignition key and in many instances the ignitions had been manipulated either with a screwdriver or rewired to enable the engines to start.

On one occasion, Singh had met with a buyer and exchanged a bag of cocaine for cash. Singh then again allegedly sold to the same buyer, a bag of cocaine for USD 4,000 as well as a stolen Honda motorcycle for USD 2700.

"As a result of a long-term investigation... this individual is now out of business and facing a lengthy term of incarceration for these alleged crimes. This case should serve as a warning to drug dealers and anyone else who barters in stolen goods that law enforcement is coming for you," Brown said.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said a society will stagnate without innovation and called for collective efforts to improve the quality of higher

The IITs have built brand India globally and now, become an "instrument for transformation". Innovation and enterprise are the foundation of making India a developed nation, Modi said addressing the 56th annual convocation of the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B).

The prime minister said, "Any society that does not innovate, stagnates. Make India the most attractive destination for innovation. Innovate in India and innovate for humanity."



"It is not just the government efforts. New ideas come from young minds at campuses and not government buildings and fancy offices," he said, adding that innovation was the buzzword of the 21st century.

Seven lakh engineering students pass out every year, and a collective effort is required to ensure they get high quality of and acquire necessary skills, Modi said.

The IITs have now become "instrument for transformation", playing an important role in innovation and new technology, and also mitigating climate change, ensuring better agriculture productivity, water conservation and combating malnutrition, the prime minister said.

Dwelling on the history of IITs, Modi said they were conceptualised to contribute to nation-building post-Independence through the use of technology.

He said all the IITs have built brand India globally and their students are at the forefront of some of the best startups in India.

IIT students are helping in solving national problems. The biggest corporations of today were startups of yesterday, Modi said.

"The nation is proud of IITs and what IIT graduates have achieved. The success of IITs led to the creation of engineering colleges around the country.

"They were inspired by the IITs and this led to India becoming one of the world's largest pools of technical manpower," he said.

"Innovation and new technology will decide the trajectory of world growth and our IITs are working for new India's new technology, the prime minister said.

Underscoring the importance of technology, he said 5G broadband, artificial intelligence, block chain and machine learning will play a key role in smart manufacturing and building smart cities.

IITs represent diversity of India where students from different parts of the country and background merge in pursuit of knowledge and learning, the prime minister said.

India is improving its innovation ranking, Modi said, highlighting his government's initiatives in this regard.

"The Atal Innovation Mission and Start Up India have resulted in India having the second largest ecosystem in the world (for entrepreneurship promotion). India has become a hub for start-ups.

"In the innovation index, we are going up. We must make India an attractive destination for innovation," he said.

In the beginning of his 35-minute speech, the prime minister paid tributes to freedom fighter Khudiram Bose, who sacrificed his life for the nation 110 years ago when he was just 18.

"We did not have the good fortune to die for our country. But, we can live for independent India and work for creating a new India," he said.

He urged the graduating students to focus on aspirations and keep their goals high. "If you face self doubts that will restrict your talent."



Modi suggested the IIT-B, which is celebrating its diamond jubilee, to launch an outreach programme for students around Mumbai, which has around 800 colleges with 9.5 lakh students.

"You are fortunate to have lived in a campus in Mumbai where there is a lake on one side and hills on the other. Sometimes you have the company of crocodiles and leopards.

"It's still August, but the mood is indigo," Modi said, referring to IIT-B's annual college cultural festival "Mood Indigo", which is generally organised in December.

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Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said today there would be no meeting with the United States in the near future following Washington's reimposition of sanctions.

Asked by the conservative Tasnim agency if there was any plan to meet US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Zarif said: "No, there will be no meeting." He said there were also no plans for a meeting with US officials on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York next month, which both Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his US counterpart Donald Trump are due to attend.

"On Trump's recent proposal (of talks), our official stance was announced by the president and by us. Americans are not honest and their addiction to sanctions does not allow any negotiation to take place," Zarif told Tasnim.

It was Iran's most explicit rejection of talks to date, after much speculation that economic pressure would force its leaders back to the table with Washington. The US reimposed sanctions on Tuesday, following its withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers in May.

Zarif met repeatedly with then US secretary of state John Kerry during the agreement's negotiation and implementation.

Rouhani said last week that Iran "always welcomed negotiations" but that Washington would first have to demonstrate it can be trusted.

"If you're an enemy and you stab the other person with a knife and then you say you want negotiations, then the first thing you have to do is remove the knife.

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Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard says it has killed 10 militants in a Kurdish region near the border with Iraq.

The Guard's website said today that the 10 belonged to a "terrorist group affiliated with global arrogance," referring to the United States, and that several other militants were wounded in clashes late yesterday. The Guard did not say whether its forces suffered casualties.

The fighting took place near the Kurdish town of Oshnavieh, in an area that has seen occasional clashes between Iranian forces and Kurdish separatists, as well as Islamic State-linked militants.

The Guard said it had confiscated a "remarkable" amount of arms, ammunition and communications equipment.

Last month at least 10 Iranian border guards were killed in an attack by unidentified gunmen near Iraqi border.

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Islamic State group jihadists killed five members of the same family at a checkpoint on the edge of their village north of Baghdad early today, a police official said.

The killings took place in Baiji district, around 200 kilometres north of the capital, the official said.

"A group of Daesh (IS) fighters came from the Hamrin mountains, crossed the Tigris river after midnight and attacked the checkpoint at the entrance to the village of Albu Juwari, north of Baiji," he said.

Five members of the family were killed and a sixth was in a critical condition, he said.

All were members of a tribal militia operating under the umbrella of the Hashed al-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) paramilitary force that has fought the jihadists.

IS, which once controlled swathes of Iraq and neighbouring Syria, has been pushed back by multiple offensives and ousted from all of Iraq's towns and cities, including the capital of its self-declared "caliphate", Mosul.

But despite Iraq declaring victory over the jihadists in December, they have continued to use sparsely populated areas such as the Hamrin mountains as launchpads for attacks.

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To encourage more Indian travellers to visit Israel, that country has opened a visa application centre in the city for tourists from West Bengal and the north eastern states, sources in the Israel embassy said.

Additionally, visa applications in the jurisdiction under the New Delhi centre would also be accepted at the new Kolkata Centre, a release on behalf of the embassy said.

The visa application categories include those who go there for employment, for business, tourism, meeting or conference and for students, it said.

Speaking on the occasion, Hassan Madah, director in the Israeli Ministry of Tourism - India and Philippines, said Israel is experiencing a tourism boom like never before. India has recorded a half yearly growth of 82 per cent in tourists visiting Israel from January to June this year as compared to the same period in 2015 and has become one of the best performing markets in Asia for Israel.

Keeping this in mind, Israel consistently aims to introduce initiatives that ease the procedure of visa applications to Israel, he said.

The new centre in Kolkata will no longer require residents from West Bengal and NE states to send in their documents to the Israeli embassy in New Delhi. "We are confident that this will be seen as a positive move to increase interest among travellers from these regions of India," Madah said.

Among other initiatives, Israel recently announced a reduction in visa fees to INR 1,100 from its previous INR 1,700 charged from Indians.

In December last year, relaxed visa documentation was brought in for applicants who have availed visas of Schengen countries, US, Canada, Australia or Israel and have completed their travel to these destinations, he said.

The Israeli Ministry of Tourism will be conducting a roadshow in Kolkata on August 29 to increase the interest for visiting the country among consumers and trade fraternity. This will help to tap newer segments of travellers, he said. A maiden roadshow was held at Guwahati in May this year and successfully introduced the varied tourism offerings of Israel, Madah said.

Israel offers a plethora of things to do and see to cater to the discerning traveller. From the historical city of Jerusalem to the beach city of Tel Aviv. From the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth, to the marvellous underwater marine life of Red Sea in Eilat, it is a dynamic destination, the release said.

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Hollywood stars Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck's divorce is in under threat of being dismissed due to lack of paperwork.

Los Angeles County Superior Court advised the couple that their divorce case may be delayed because they have yet to file and enter the final judgment, a document obtained by The Blast revealed.

"If you fail to take the appropriate steps in your case, the court may dismiss your case for delay in prosecution," the document states.

If both these actions are not completed, the court may dismiss the case. The court did not state a deadline.

California court rules state a legal case may be dismissed if it is not pursued diligently for two years.

Garner, 46, and Affleck, 45, were married for nearly 10 years before separating in 2015.

Last year, following reports Garner had called off their divorce, Affleck finally moved out of the property the couple shared. Shortly after, it was revealed that Affleck had moved on with "Saturday Night Live" producer Lindsay Shookus in July 2017.

The exes have an amicable relationship and are focused on co-parenting their daughters, Violet, 12, and Seraphina, nine, and son Samuel, six.

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 The Modern Eighth Amendment | Main | Could a version of the FIRST STEP Act with sentencing reforms pass the Senate in a matter of weeks? 

August 10, 2018

The War on Kids Post #5

In my last substantive guest post on Sentencing, Law & Policy, Id like to address some of the juvenile justice reform measures that I think are achievable and worth pursuing in the post-Miller era. In the book, I devote a whole chapter to the reform frontier, and I refer to these measures as part of a war for kids.

Put kids back in juvenile court

For most of the 20th century, it was difficult and rare to move a child into adult court; juvenile court was the default for juveniles. We only moved away from that model because of fear-based and now-debunked theories about juvenile super-predators. As I mentioned in my first guest post, transfer laws have exposed juveniles to sentences that were drafted with adults in mind, including mandatory minimums and decades-long terms. Given what we know about adolescent brain development, and given that the Supreme Court has held that children are different for constitutional purposes, we should return to the default of keeping kids in juvenile court. Even in such a regime, a judge could still determine that extraordinary circumstances warranted transfer to adult court. But those rare, outlier cases should not dictate the norm for juveniles. Today, in the wake of the Miller trilogy, there is newfound traction to the claim that transfer laws (especially direct file laws) are unconstitutional and nonsensical.

Provide age-appropriate sentencing for juveniles

While children continue to be charged in adult criminal court, advocates should insist upon age-appropriate sentencing for them. At a minimum, this means seeking the abolition of juvenile life without parole, and that goal is on the horizon and achievable. Regardless of whether the Supreme Court declares a categorical ban, states are moving in this direction. Beyond this measure, advocates should insist that youth always be a relevant, mitigating variable at sentencing. In particular, consistent with the science of the Miller trilogy, it means that mandatory minimums should never apply to juveniles. I have made this argument before here, and I do in THE WAR ON KIDS, as well. Two states, Washington and Iowa, have already come to this conclusion, as I mentioned earlier this week.

Argue against incarceration for kids as a general matter

In my mind, a key component of a war for kids is the concept that incarceration is fundamentally damaging for juveniles and that we should avoid it whenever possible. This is perhaps one of the most controversial aspects of my agenda for juvenile justice reform, and I know it is the one that draws the most attention. I regularly hear from people who point to the unspeakable cruelty and violence of adolescents in the news, and I certainly do not claim that no juvenile requires secure detention. What I do claim is that we use correctional institutions in too many instances when we need not and that we do damage to juveniles in the process. As the Annie E. Casey Foundations recent report on probation makes clear, there are diversion and probation alternatives that are designed to develop youth and keep them out of the cycle of the correctional system.

Create periodic, youth-informed panels for juvenile sentencing review

Neuroscience tells us that the juvenile brain is developing well into the mid-20s. This means that, even when youth commit serious crimes, if given the right opportunities at rehabilitation, they can mature and outgrow that criminal behavior. Two things follow from this reality. First, even youth who are sentenced to lengthy term-of-year sentences should be eligible for educational and other rehabilitative programs. How else will they embark on a path to demonstrating maturity and rehabilitation, an opportunity the Supreme Court requires? Second, juvenile sentences  especially lengthy ones  should be reviewed periodically for their ongoing legitimacy. Given that the Supreme Court has elevated youth to be a mitigating quality of constitutional significance, the punishment rationale for juvenile sentences cannot be what it is for similarly situated adults. Ongoing, periodic review for youth offenders can serve as a check against the Courts concern that states not make a judgment at the outset that juvenile offenders never will be fit to reenter society.

Its worth noting that, in order to secure any of these juvenile-specific measures, we must continue to push for criminal justice reform more broadly. This is harder than ever in some ways. We must vigilantly counter the growing rhetoric that says we are a crime-ridden nation and that urges prosecutors to seek the maximum sentence in all cases. And we must insist upon equality in our criminal justice system  a goal our system has espoused but never achieved.

Thank you, Doug and the Sentencing, Law & Policy community for letting me share my work! CHD

August 10, 2018 at 05:12 PM | Permalink

Comments

Thank you for sharing.

Posted by: Daniel | Aug 10, 2018 9:45:03 PM

A great reform agenda. Good luck in pushing this forward into legislation. Much needed and long, long, overdue.

Posted by: peter | Aug 11, 2018 5:43:07 AM

Post a comment
The BJP will be a part of the next government formed in Jammu and Kashmir, senior party leader Ram Madhav said today, noting that the "jinx" of having never been in power in the state had been broken.

The remarks by Madhav, who is in-charge of the party's affairs in the state, came months after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) pulled out of its alliance with the PDP in Jammu and Kashmir.

After the BJP pulled out of Mehbooba Mufti's coalition government on June 19, Governor's rule was imposed in the state



"I say with confidence that whenever the government is again formed in Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP will be a part of it," Madhav said, adding that the "jinx is broken".

Madhav's remarks come after his visit to the Valley fuelled speculation about government formation in Jammu and Kashmir.

At an event here, Madhav said when the BJP returns to power, it would work towards taking Jammu and Kashmir to a new direction.

Talking about the Peoples Democratic Party-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition government that collapsed in June, Madhav said there were difficulties, but despite that some things were achieved.

"We wanted to do a lot. But when we thought that things are not going according to us, we came out (of the government)," he said.

He said separatism since the last 70 years and terrorism since the last 30 years had hampered progress in the state.

Madhav said the BJP's four-pronged approach to tackle the security situation in the state would continue despite the party not being in power in Jammu and Kashmir.

"Kashmir is going nowhere. Kashmir is an integral part of India," he asserted.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Jammu and Kashmir National Panthers Party (JKNPP) today called for the formal dissolution of the Assembly, saying it has technically ceased to exist as it failed to meet within six months for transacting legislative business.

The assembly is currently under suspended animation after the BJP withdrew its support to the PDP-led coalition government in June.

"Having failed to meet for transacting legislative business during the last six months in terms of the mandate of section 53(1) of the state constitution, the legislative Assembly has technically ceased to exist," JKNPP chairman and former minister Harsh Dev Singh said in a statement here.

He said the last sitting of the budget session was held on February 12, the next session of the legislature ought to have been convened by August 11.

He appealed to the Governor to fulfil his constitutional obligation by formally announcing the dissolution of the Assembly.

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Amid reports of the Defence Ministry planning to shift the venue of Aero India, the country's biennial air show and aviation exhibition, from Bengaluru to Lucknow, Karnataka today asked the Centre to clarify its stand on the matter.

A miffed Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara said under the NDA regime, the state was losing key defence projects to other states.

His remarks came after Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath today urged Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to shift the venue of Aero India as it would benefit the defence production in the state.

There are reports that the biennial event, which was last held in Bengaluru in February 2017, would now be held in October-November this year in Lucknow. However, the Defence Ministry has not yet made any formal announcement in this regard.

If this happens, it will be the first time that the event will be hosted outside Bengaluru since its inception in 1996. The neighbouring states of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, along with Chhattisgarh, will go to polls during the same time.

It will also be one of the big events in the politically crucial state before the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Adityanath was speaking at an event in Aligarh where an announcement of a defence corridor encompassing the Aligarh, Agra, Kanpur, Lucknow, Jhansi and Chitrakoot corridor was made.

Sitharaman, her deputy in the ministry, Subhash Bhamre, Uttar Pradesh Industries Minister Satish Mahana and senior officials of the Defence Ministry and the Uttar Pradesh government were present at the event.

"I request the defence minister to hold the Aero India show in Uttar Pradesh. We will provide every type of facility. In this context, I request her to announce this at the earliest so that we can proceed with the preparations," Adityanath said.

Reacting strongly to this, Parameshwara tweeted, "Reports of #AeroIndia being moved out of Bengaluru are very unfortunate. We have been India's Defence Hub since Independence, but under the NDA we are constantly losing key defense projects and flagship programs. I request @nsitharaman to clarify her stand on the issue.

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In a display of solidarity with farmers facing crisis in the state, Karnataka chief minister H D Kumaraswamy today sowed paddy saplings in a muddied agriculture field in a village in Mandya district.

Folding up his white dhoti in a traditional south Indian style, Kumaraswamy planted saplings at Aralukuppe village.

The objective of Kumaraswamy's programme was to urge the agriculturists not to take any drastic steps like suicide in the face of distress, a government release said.

It is also seen as a move to silence critics in the opposition that he was fully aware of the problems faced by farmers.

Before venturing into the field, Kumaraswamy paid his obeisance to Lord Hanuman at the local Anjaneya temple.

As soon as Kumaraswamy started sowing the saplings amid a steady drizzle, people thronged the venue to catch a glimpse of the chief minister.

Utter commotion prevailed as youth tried to take selfies with him.

Later, addressing the gathering, Kumaraswamy said he has concern for farmers as he himself has worked in the agriculture field.

"I know your sufferings. I myself sowed saplings, harvested crops and carried manure on my head..," he said.

Kumaraswamy said he has decided to visit one district a month and devote a full day working in the field.

He further said he has prepared a blue print to improve the agriculture sector and a policy was in the offing to increase their income.

However, details of the policy cannot be revealed until the cabinet clears it, he said.

The chief minister appealed to the farmers not to take any extreme step when they were facing distress as the state government has taken measures to redress their grievances.

Kumaraswamy also flayed the opposition parties for terming the event a 'drama.'



"I have not come here to stage any drama but to show my concern for farmers," said the chief minister.

Nirmalananda Nath Swamiji of Aadi Chunchanagiri Math, a prominent seer of Nath sect, started by Gorakhnath, too came to the venue to support the chief minister.

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Kazakh leader Nursultan Nazarbayev today hailed a newly modernised Caspian Sea port which the ex-Soviet country hopes will link up to China's massive "Belt and Road" infrastructure project.

Speaking at the Caspian port of Kuryk, 78-year-old Nazarbayev said Kazakhstan was investing in such transport hubs to benefit from the trillion-dollar project championed by Chinese leader Xi Jinping that aims to be a modern version of the ancient Silk Road trading routes.

"Investing in transport infrastructure makes our economy more competitive in multiple ways," Nazarbayev said.

"We are providing a stimulus to the trade routes of the revived Silk Road," he told businessmen and delegate from nearby countries.

Kazakhstan has tied its economic future to neighbouring China by investing heavily in road, rail and port infrastructure that will facilitate trade going west from China.

The Kuryk port is one of two Kazakh ports positioned as hubs for trade between Asia and Europe. The other larger port is Aktau, some 100 kilometres (62 miles) to the north.

Kazakhstan expects 4.5 million tons of goods to pass through Kuryk by the end of 2018, three times more than last year.

Growing capacity at the two ports is also important to Kazakhstan's oil industry, although Nazarbayev stressed that diversifying the economy away from crude and other raw commodities was a priority.

"We are working on an innovative industrial programme that differs from the raw materials (economy), vulnerable to price plunges and volatility," he said.

Nazarbayev was speaking ahead of a landmark summit on Sunday on the legal status of the Caspian Sea, following more than two decades of diplomatic wrangling between the bordering countries: Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Russia and Turkmenistan.

The five countries' leaders are expected to sign a breakthrough agreement on the status of the Caspian Sea, easing regional tensions and potentially facilitating new lucrative oil and gas projects.

Nazarbayev said Saturday he expected a "historic decision," Russia's RIA Novosti agency reported.

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With Kerala facing an unprecedented rain havoc, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, has made a personal contribution of Rs one lakh to the Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund (CMDRF).

Urging everyone to contribute generously to relief efforts, Vijayan said in a Facebook post that rebuilding the affected areas is going to be an arduous task.

The Chief Minister CM had also asked everyone to express solidarity with the people of the state in their hour of crisis.

Meanwhile, Puducherry Chief Minister V Narayanasamy today announced a relief assistance of Rs 1 crore to the Kerala government to tackle the situation arising out of floods.

He also appealed to traders, industrialists and others to make generous contributions to the Puducherry Chief Minister Relief Fund which would be sent to the Kerala government for relief works.

Twenty nine people have so far been killed in the heavy rains and floods since August 8 in the state and many homes damaged and crops destroyed.

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"We are frightened to return to our homes," said women lodged in a relief camp here after they were forced to leave their houses, which faced the threat of flooding by gushing waters released from Idukki reservoir.

Most of those in the relief camp had to rush out of their houses with only the clothes they were wearing, they said.

Muddy homes, wells brimming with dirty water, clogged toilets, snakes and other reptiles crawling inside their houses was giving them sleepless nights, they added.

Nearly 400 flood-affected people, including 85 children from Keerithod in Kanjikuzhy panchayat near Cheruthoni are in the camp for the past two days as a precautionary measure after water was released from Idukki dam.

Eight villages have been affected due to the release of water from the dam and nearly 1,000 people have been shifted to 20 relief camps, official sources said.

All five shutters of Cheruthoni dam, part of Idukki reservoir, were opened yesterday after incessant heavy rains increased the water level in the reservoir.

This is for the first time in the history that all the gates of the dam have been opened, underlying the gravity of the situation.

"We had to rush out with few belongings. We do not know what has happened to our homes," a woman said adding people coming from the area told them that water was flowing like "giant sea waves" in front of our homes.

"We are scared to return to our homes," she said.

However, life in the camp was quite comfortable. There is a common kitchen and all of us are eating together, she added.

Tincy, a panchayat member said as prior warning about the release of water had been issued, any kind of human casualty was avoided.

Meanwhile, people living at Kariveli Mannapuram in Aluva in Ernakulam district said mud and slush filled their homes due to waterlogging and well water has turned muddy.

Farmers in Puthenvelikara said about one lakh banana plants were destroyed in the region due to heavy rains and sought the state government to provide compensation.

Bringing in some cheer in their hour of distress, noted South Indian actor, Mammooty, visited a relief camp at Parvoor in Ernakulam district last night and assured all possible help to the people.

"Do not worry. We and several others are with you.

What you are going through now is only temporary. You will return to your homes in a day," the 66-year-old actor said.

Some in the camp clicked pictures of the actor and even posed for selfies with him.

The rain fury in the state has so far claimed 29 lives besides causing heavy damage to crops and property.

More than 53,500 people were now staying in various relief camps across the state.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Congress President Rahul Gandhi today expressed concern over the flood situation in Kerala and urged party workers in the rain-battered state to help those in need.

He said the unprecedented rainfall has wrecked havoc in the southern state, destroying property and forcing thousands to abandon their houses.

"Unprecedented rainfall has created havoc in Kerala, destroying property and forcing thousands to abandon their homes.

" I urge each and every Congres worker in Kerala to step up and help those in need. My prayers and thoughts are with the people of Kerala in this difficult time," he said on Twitter.

The floods in Kerala have caused widespread devastation in the state, killing many people.

Twenty-nine people have so far lost their lives in the heavy rains since August 8 and over 50,000 persons have been shifted to relief camps.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Los Angeles District Attorney's Office's has declined to move ahead with sex assault cases against writer Murray Miller and rocker Marilyn Manson.

"Girls" writer Miller was accused of sexual assault last November. The district attorney declined that case due to "inconsistencies that cannot be overcome" concerning statements made by parties interviewed by investigators, according to the court filing from the DA's office.

Manson, real name Brian Warner, had a police report filed against him in May for unspecified sex crimes dating back to 2011. The district attorney declined that case because the statue of limitations had expired and "absence of corroboration," according to the court filing.

"Under current policy, the Los Angeles County District Attorney must investigate any claim of sexual abuse, no matter how outlandish. It is not surprising that the District Attorney, after investigation, summarily rejected the claims made in a police report filed by a former acquaintance against Brian Warner p/k/a Marilyn Manson.

"The allegations made to the police were and are categorically denied by Mr Warner and are either completely delusional or part of a calculated attempt to generate publicity for the claimant's business of selling Manson memorabilia. The police report that spurred the investigation was accompanied by the woman's press release and other attempts to generate publicity that fraudulently claimed she was held captive by Mr Warner for 48 hours in 2011. Any claim of sexual impropriety or imprisonment at that, or any other, time is false," Manson's lawyer Howard E King, said in a statement to Variety.

The charges were levelled during the #MeToo movement last year. Several high-profile cases are still being investigated, including that against the disgraced former movie producer Harvey Weinstein, who is facing accusations from more than 40 women.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman today urged Indian defence equipment manufacturers to look beyond the domestic market and supply their products overseas, assuring them that her ministry will assist with whatever "handholding" is required to expand their reach.

Sitharaman, along with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, also formally announced a defence corridor in the state encompassing the Aligarh, Agra, Kanpur, Lucknow, Jhansi, Chitrakoot circuit, apart from otherdefence investment projects.

The circuit has clusters of defence equipment manufacturers, both government (defence public sector undertakings and ordnance factories) and private players, including the Medium, Small and Micro Enterprises (MSMEs).

This is the second such defence corridor after Tamil Nadu, which has been formally declared by the government, following an announcement made in this year's budget.

"There should be a change in the mindset of defence manufacturers.You just look at the orders from the Indian defence forces and forget about the world. I humbly request that the way you supply (equipment) to the defence forces, there is equal big market outside," Sitharaman said.

Whatever hand-holding is required from the Defence Ministry will be extended, she said, stressing that the export market should be encouraged.

To encourage the domestic defence industry, laws have been changed, she noted.

"Earlier, the forces would send a proposal if there was a necessity cited by them. Now, the manufacturers can suo-motu suggest the necessity for the forces. If the item passes trials and tests then we will place order for the next ten years," she said.

Addressing the gathering, Adityanath said the investors were initially wary of Uttar Pradesh but his government is guaranteeing security to all the investors besides easing the business processes.

"When the announcement of a defence corridor was made in the budget, I immediately approached the defence minister, to have one in our state," Adityanath said.

To encourage defence industry, nearly 4000 hectares of land has been notified near Jhansi and 200 hectares in Aligarh for this purpose, he said. The chief minister also added that the state government has planned the Bundelkhand Expressway connecting Agra, Jhansi to Chitrakoot that will give boost to the industry.

Addressing the stakeholders' convention jointly organised by the Defence Ministry and Federation of Innovative Manufacturers, Aligarh, Sitharaman praised "the positive response" given to the landmark project by the Uttar Pradesh government.

She said that the presence of the Vice Chiefs of Staff of the Army, Air Force and Navy at the interface with members of the manufacturing community is a pointer to the fact that the Defence Ministry is taking this project aimed at self sufficiency in defence production "very seriously".

She said, "The ministry would not only welcome participation in existing products, but would also positively respond to any innovative ideas offered by local entrepreneurs on defence-related manufacturing items."



She also said that the first step in this project would be to provide technical training to personnel who would be absorbed in different industrial units, which are slated to be established at an industrial hub near Tappal adjoining the Yamuna Expressway linking Gautam Buddh Nagar to Agra.

The Defence minister said that she had already had two informal discussions with representatives of Aligarh-based industries and was confident that this district has a huge reservoir of technological skills.

Earlier, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that the state was determined to provide security and investment climate needed for making the project a success.

He said that as part of this initiative, the UP government has decided to construct the Bundelkhand Expressway for link Agra to Jhansi and Chitrakoot. All three districts are also included in this corridor along with Lucknow. The chief minister also said that 263 hectares of land had been earmarked at Tappal (in Aligarh) for this defence production park.

He also said that a single window portal was being set up for immediate redressal of all problems faced by manufacturers in setting up their units in all such parks in the state.

Six nodal points have been identified in state -- Agra, Aligarh, Lucknow, Kanpur, Chitrakoot and Jhansi -- for the corridor.

"Stakeholder interactions have already been held in Lucknow, Kanpur, Agra and Jhansi and all the interactions have seen huge response from the industries in and around the locations," the Defence Ministry said in a statement yesterday.

Another defence corridor was launched in Tamil Nadu early this year.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Moreover, the province leaders did not try to attract foreign investment by all means.



Thanks to policy reforms and continuous efforts to reduce red tape and improve public services and the environment to do business, it is one of top destinations for FDI. Just in first six months, foreign investors poured $853.5 million into the province accounting for 61 percent of the plan.

So far, the province has had 3,397 projects with total investment of $30.95 billion.

To obtain remarkable achievement today, the province has spent thousand billion Vietnam dong on building types of infrastructure including traffic infrastructure connecting the province with other places.

The province is now considered as the metropolis of the countrys industrial parks as it develops good infrastructure in the field; at present, twenty-nine industrial parks are located in the area of nearly 12,800 hectare in the province. It is scheduled that by 2020, it will develop five additional industrial parks.

To satisfy human personnel for industrial parks, the province has built eight universities, eight colleges, 13 vocational colleges, and 46 other vocational facilities to meet enterprises recruitment demand.

Furthermore, many of universities and colleges have formed an alliance with foreign partners such as German, Russian and other European countries to provide training as per international standard.

Success in appealing foreign investment helps change the provinces social economy for years with an increase in Gross Regional Domestic Product in first six months of 7 percent compared to the same period.

Notwithstanding, Binh Duong leaders have not appealed foreign investment by all means but take heeds to environment. In two recent years, foreign and domestic green technology investors found to be detrimental to the states environment have been barred from investing in the province.

Also, factories make negative impacts on the environment will be fined thousand billion or forced to shut down if they have not adopted measures to reduce pollution.

At a meeting between province leaders and enterprises held lately, Party Chief Tran Van Nam frankly said $853.5 million foreign investment in first six months is lower than the same period of years before because the province leaders carefully selected investors.

The province is encouraging investors to build schools especially preschool for immigrant laborers.

The province limited issuance of business certificates to enterprises with backward technology in the field of garment and textile but welcome hi-tech investors who take care of workers benefit.

A new industrial park in Phu Giao District is ready to receive investors who adopt advanced technologies. This is the orientation of the provinces smart city construction.

By staff writers  Translated by UYEN PHUONG
BJP chief Amit Shah today launched a scathing attack on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Congress President Rahul Gandhi today for opposing the NRC in Assam and said that they should clarify whether the country comes first or the vote bank.

Attacking Banerjee in her backyard, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president, who addressed a rally here, accused the Trinamool Congress (TMC) of "patronising" infiltration from Bangladesh and corruption in West Bengal and gave a call for uprooting the TMC government.

Shah said the Assam accord was signed by the then prime minister Rajiv Gandhi and the Congress had no problems with the National Register of Citizens (NRC) at that time. He alleged that for the sake of vote bank politics, Rahul Gandhi is not making his stand clear on illegal migration from Bangladesh.

Hitting back at Shah, the TMC said the BJP's "communal will not work in Bengal".

Virtually sounding the poll bugle for the next Lok Sabha polls in Bengal, Shah began his speech at the well-attended public rally with the slogan of uprooting the ruling TMC government from Bengal and said that he would visit all the districts in the state.

He said the party's "Vijay Rath (victory march) will not stop", until it comes to power in West Bengal. "Why do you (Banerjee) want to keep the Bangladeshi infiltrators? You should make your stand clear," he said adding she was against the NRC for "vote bank politics".

He claimed that infiltrators were a vote bank for the previous Communist government and now they have become the vote bank of the TMC. "Rahul Gandhi and Mamata didi should clarify whether national security is important for them or the vote bank. For the BJP, the country comes first," Shah said.

AICC spokesperson Pawan Khera said here the Congress was not opposed to the NRC but to the way it was being implemented in Assam. He accused Shah of doing over NRC.

Khera said that 80 per cent of the NRC work in Assam was done by Congress and the rest of it was done by the BJP after the Supreme Court's directive. Shah said the TMC was engaged in propaganda by stating that refugees would driven out and said, "I assure that all the refugees that nothing will happen to them".

The Centre has brought the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 for this purpose, he said. The Bill, introduced in the Lok Sabha in 2016, seeks to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955 to provide citizenship to illegal migrants from Afghanistan Bangladesh and Pakistan, who are of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian extraction.

"But the Congress and the TMC should clarify whether they agree with the bill or not," he said.

Shah said that some people talk about human rights of illegal migrants, but questioned the similar rights of the citizens of Bengal -- the Hindus and Muslims. "They don't bother about that," he remarked.

Referring to TMC posters saying 'Anti-Bengal BJP to leave Bengal' he said the saffron party is neither anti-Bengal nor anti-Bengali but is against the "misrule" of TMC.

He accused the TMC government of "patronising" corruption and wondered where did the Rs 3.59 lakh crore provided to the state by the 14th Finance Commission go.

"I want to ask everybody has anyone received any benefit from those funds. All the factories in Bengal have pulled down their shutters, only bomb making and arms factory are operating here," he said.

Shah said that the people of Bengal had given a chance to the Congress, the communists and the TMC but "they failed to usher in development. Give a chance to the BJP under Narendra Modi. We will bring in development."



Alleging that the TMC government had tried to put hurdles during the immersion of Durga idols, he said, "Once the BJP comes to power in the state, Durga puja, Saraswati puja will be celebrated with fanfare. Until the BJP assumes power in Bengal, our Vijay Rath will not stop."



Shah accused the ruling TMC for blacking out channels which covered his programme. "You (TMC) can blackout channels, but our BJP workers will carry my message to every corner of the state," he said at the meeting.

Accusing Banerjee of a U-turn on the infiltration issue, BJYM president Poonam Mahajan urged the Trinamool Congress not to politicise issues related to national security. She targeted the TMC for scams such as Rose Valley, Saradha and Narada and alleged it has turned into a "Terror Making Machine".

The Trinamool Congress termed Shah's allegations as "baseless". TMC chief national spokesperson Derek O' Brien said Shah has "insulted Bengal and has spread blatant lies against the TMC".

"The communal of BJP will not work in Bengal," he said.

While BJP general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya claimed the rally was one of the biggest in Kolkata, the TMC said that it was a "flop show".

"The BJP has just concluded another flop show in #Bangla. After the flop meeting, BJP is looking for excuses. They are saying their meeting was blacked-out. Black outs and blackmailing is what BJP does.

"Do not insult the media. All showed. We challenge BJP. Either they prove it or resign," the TMC said in a statement.

The TMC today organized Dhikkar Diwas in various parts of the state, except Kolkata, against publication of the complete draft of NRC in Assam on July 30.

Shah was shown black flags by Youth Congress workers when he came out of the NSC Bose International airport here to attend a rally, the police said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A minor girl was allegedly raped by her uncle in Madhya Pradesh's Sidhi district when her mother had gone to visit a temple, police said today.

The incident happened yesterday in a village under Churhat police station limits and the accused had been arrested, an official informed.

The 11-year-old girl's mother had gone to visit a temple and had asked her brother, who was at home at the time, to take care of the minor, additional superintendent of police Suryakant Mishra told PTI today.

"The accused raped the minor and she narrated her ordeal when her mother returned home late yesterday evening. The accused had left for his home by then," he said.

The victim's parents lodged a police complaint after which the man was arrested and charged for rape under sections of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, the official informed.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A 32-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly smuggling fake Indian currency notes into India from Bangladesh, police said today.

Fake currency notes of face value of Rs 7.50 lakh were seized from him, they said.

Deepak Mandal was arrested with fake Indian currency notes in the denomination of Rs 2000, they said.

Based on a tip off, police laid a trap at the DTC bus depot, Khanpur, on August 9. The accused had come to deliver a consignment to one of his contacts. Subsequently, he was arrested.

During interrogation, Mandal revealed that he had been circulating fake Indian currency notes to his contacts based in Delhi, UP, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra for about 12 years.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A 29-year-old man died and three others were severely injured after a car collided with a tempo near ring road in southeast Delhi's Lajpat Nagar, police said.

The deceased, identified as Dharmender, a resident of Sangam Vihar, was travelling in a car and two of his co-occupants, identified as Praveen Singhal and Kapil Panwar, sustained severe injuries, they said.

Police were informed about the accident at 3:50 am. On reaching the spot, they learnt that the car coming from the Ashram side hit the divider and collided with a tempo, which was coming from south extension, Chinmoy Biswal, Deputy Commissioner of Police (southeast), said.

All the injured were admitted to the All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) Trauma Centre.

The tempo driver, identified as Hukum Dev Yadav, who is also admitted in the trauma centre is unfit for statement, the officer said.

During inquiry, it was learnt that the car was at fault, he said.

A case has been registered and further investigation is underway.

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A man active in several Pakistani groups on WhatsApp was detained in Rajasthan's Banswara district, the police said today.

Identified as Ayan, a resident of Meerut in Uttar Pradesh, he was staying in a hotel for the last few days. He came here in search of a job and was working at a garment factory, SP Banswara Kaluram Rawat told PTI.

"When his mobile phone was checked during routine checking yesterday, he was found active in several groups operated from Pakistan," he said.

SHO, Kotwali police station, Shaitan Singh said he was interrogated jointly by the local police and the Anti-Terrorist Squad.

"He came in touch with the owner of the factory through WhatsApp," he said.

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A 29-year-old man was stabbed to death in front of his wife allegedly by his nephews at JJ camp in south Delhi's Tigri, following which one of the accused was arrested, the police said today.

According to a statement given to police by the victim's wife, Sikandar was stabbed by his nephews Rakesh and Cheenu around 12.45 am yesterday.

The police were informed about the incident around 1 am, following which police personnel reached the spot. But by the time they arrived there, the victim was taken to a hospital.

Around 5.45 am yesterday, the police were informed by the hospital that Sikandar had died wile undergoing treatment, a senior police official said, adding since the victim sustained severe injuries, the hospital had declared him unfit make a police statement.

A case has been registered in connection with the incident and one of the accused, Cheenu, was arrested, the police said.

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Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati today slammed the Uttar Pradesh government's move to appoint 'Lok Kalyan Mitras' at the block level in the state, terming it as "a waste of government money."



"The BJP government's recent decision to appoint Lok Kalyan Mitras at the block level in the state for dissemination of information and feedbacks on various government schemes and programmes is a blatant waste of the government money, and a proof that these schemes are not benefitting the poor and needy," said Maayawati in a statement here.

She said these appointments prove there was no enthusiasm among the BJP and RSS cadre at the ground level and the party was presuming its cadre dead and non-functional.

Mayawati sought to counsel the BJP government that "instead of resorting to such wasteful expenditure, it should fill various vacant posts at the government level and provide employment to youths from different sections of the society."



The UP government early this week decided to appoint 822 Lok Kalayan Mitras, one in each block of the state, through a written examination. The Lok Kalyan Mitra will publicise the government's schemes and programmes at the village level.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In a bid to encourage telecom companies to set up towers in remote areas close to the international border with Bangladesh, Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma today urged the Centre to remove penalties imposed on them if their signals reach the other side of the border.

Sangma said this during a programme to unveil the 'Digital North East: Vision 2022' document by Union Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad in in Guwahati.

He said the Indian telecom companies are penalised if their signals reach inside Bangladeshi territory.

"Because of this, the telecom companies are not setting up towers in border areas. This has resulted in poor (digital) connectivity there," Sangma said.

He said signals from Bangladeshi telecom companies usually reach India but Dhaka imposes no penalty on their firms.

"This must change. I request Mr Prasad to look into this. Connectivity is important and additional stress should be given on that," he said.

The chief minister said nearly 2,000 new telecom towers will be set up in Meghalaya soon. He said developing the required infrastructure and ecosystem is necessary for industries to come to the region.

"If Digital India needs to succeed, all stakeholders must be involved," he said, referring to the Union government's programme to empower all Indians digitally.

"Private parties must be taken on board... The projects that are launched, should be reviewed regularly. If the technology does not help the grassroots people, then these are useless," he said.

Sangma rued that "even 10 per cent work for BharatNet has not been completed yet compared to the set target for 2019".

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Microsoft's Indian-origin CEO Satya Nadella has netted over USD 35 million after selling almost one-third of his common shares in the software giant.

Nadella sold 328,000 shares in multiple trades at prices ranging from USD 109.08 to USD 109.68 as the stock trades near a record price.

The stock sale, disclosed in a regulatory filing yesterday, netted Nadella more than USD 35 million.

Microsoft shares have soared 53 per cent in the past year, closing the week at USD 109. The record closing price was USD 110.83 on July 25.

Nadella, 50, still own 778,596 shares of common stock. He is required to have 15 times his base salary in stock.

His annual base salary in 2017 was USD 1.45 million, and his total compensation exceeded USD 20 million.

"The stock divestitures made today were for personal financial planning and diversification reasons," a Microsoft spokesperson told CNBC.

"Satya is committed to the continued success of the company and his holdings significantly exceed the holding requirements set by the Microsoft board of directors," he said.

Since Nadella took over the CEO role from Steve Ballmer in February 2014, Seattle-based Microsoft's shares have tripled in value. He last sold shares in 2016, when the stock was worth around USD 58 per share.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A mob, comprising mostly women, today ransacked and set a country liquor shop afire in Choudwar near here after residents of the locality felt that all their misfortune was somehow linked to it, police said.

The mob apparently went berserk after locating the body of a youth of their locality lying in a pool of blood near a canal, about 5 km away from the liquor shop, they said.

Ashok Naik (30) and his acquaintance from the colony had gone to the liquor shop yesterday evening. When Ashok did not return home, the family members searched for him through the night. However, Ashoks body was found lying near the Dhumabati canal.

Believing that the liquor shop in the locality has brought misfortune to them and death of the youth was somehow linked to it, the residents of the colony set it afire after ransacking it, police said.

A murder case has been registered and investigation is on to identify the murderer, they said.

In another incident, Mangalabag police of Cuttack city retrieved the body of another youth lying in a pool of blood near the Tuberculosis ward of SCB Medical College and Hospital today.

Police had earlier suspected it to be a murder case seeing a liquor bottle and some belongings strewn near the body. However, after autopsy, it was revealed that the youth had committed suicide. Police is investigating the case.

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The gravity of the existential threat we face from Islamic Jihad is truly of epic proportions. It is essentially a battle pitting free-civilized man against a totalitarian barbarian. What is at stake is the struggle for our very soul - namely who we are and what we represent. The lives that were sacrificed for individual rights and freedoms that we've come to cherish are being chiseled away from right under our noses by the stealth jihadists. And many of us are in denial and totally clueless.



The left's appeasement and pandering to evil is nothing new. What makes their utopian delusions so infuriating and unpardonable is that it is not only they who will have to pay the consequences, and deservedly, so, they are thwarting and undermining our best efforts at resistance and are thus dragging us down in the process as well.







By Peter Lancz,, the head of the Raoul Wallenberg World Campaign Against Racism.
The first ever spacecraft to fly directly toward the Sun is poised to blast off today, on a mission to plunge into our star's sizzling atmosphere and unlock the mysteries of the centre of the solar system.

NASA's car-sized, USD 1.5 billion Parker Solar Probe is scheduled to launch on a Delta IV Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida during a 65-minute launch window that opens at 3:33 am (0733 GMT).

By coming closer to the Sun than any spacecraft in history, the unmanned probe's main goal is to unveil the secrets of the corona, the unusual atmosphere around the Sun.

"We are going to be in an area that is so exciting, where solar wind -- we believe -- will be accelerating," said NASA planetary science division director Jim Green.

"Where we see huge magnetic fields that are passing by us, as coronal mass ejections make their way out into the solar system."



Not only is the corona about 300 times hotter than the Sun's surface, but it also hurls powerful plasma and energetic particles that can unleash geomagnetic space storms, wreaking havoc on Earth by disrupting the power grid.

But these solar outbursts are poorly understood.

"The Parker Solar Probe will help us do a much better job of predicting when a disturbance in the solar wind could hit Earth," said Justin Kasper, a project scientist and professor at the University of Michigan.

Knowing more about the solar wind and space storms will also help protect future deep space explorers as they journey toward the Moon or Mars.

The probe is protected by an ultra-powerful heat shield that is just 11.43 centimetres thick.

The shield should enable the spacecraft to survive its close shave with the fiery star, coming within 6.16 million kilometres of the Sun's surface. The heat shield is built to withstand radiation equivalent to up to about 500 times the Sun's radiation on Earth.

Even in a region where temperatures can reach more than a million degrees Fahrenheit, the sunlight is expected to heat the shield to just around 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,371 degrees Celsius).

Scorching, yes? But if all works as planned, the inside of the spacecraft should stay at just 85 degrees Fahrenheit.

The goal for the Parker Solar Probe is to make 24 passes through the corona during its seven-year mission.

"The sun is full of mysteries," said Nicky Fox, project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab.

"We are ready. We have the perfect payload. We know the questions we want to answer."



The tools on board will measure the expanding corona and continually flowing atmosphere known as the solar wind, which solar physicist Eugene Parker first described in 1958.

Parker, now 91, recalled that at first some people did not believe in his theory.

But then, the launch of NASA's Mariner 2 spacecraft in 1962 -- becoming the first robotic spacecraft to make a successful planetary encounter -- proved them wrong.

"It was just a matter of sitting out the deniers for four years until the Venus Mariner 2 spacecraft showed that, by golly, there was a solar wind," Parker said earlier this week.

Parker said he was "impressed" by the Parker Solar Probe, calling it "a very complex machine."



Scientists have wanted to build a spacecraft like this for more than 60 years, but only in recent years did the heat shield technology advance enough to be capable of protecting sensitive instruments, according to Fox.

Tools on board will measure high-energy particles associated with flares and coronal mass ejections, as well as the changing magnetic field around the Sun.

"We will also be listening for plasma waves that we know flow around when particles move," Fox added.

"And last but not least, we have a white light imager that is taking images of the atmosphere right in front of the Sun."



When it nears the Sun, the probe will travel rapidly enough to go from New York to Tokyo in one minute -- some 430,000 miles per hour, making it the fastest human-made object.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
NASA postponed until tomorrow the launch of the first ever spacecraft to fly directly toward the Sun on a mission to plunge into our star's sizzling atmosphere and unlock its mysteries.

The reason for the delay was not immediately clear, but was called for after a gaseous helium alarm was sounded in the last moments before liftoff, officials said.

Engineers are taking utmost caution with the USD 1.5 billion Parker Solar Probe, which Thomas Zurbuchen, head of NASA's science mission directorate, described as one of the agency's most "strategically important missions."



The next launch window opens at 3:31 am (0731 GMT) on Sunday, when weather conditions are 60 per cent favourable for launch, NASA said.

By coming closer to the Sun than any spacecraft in history, the unmanned probe's main goal is to unveil the secrets of the corona, the unusual atmosphere around the Sun.

Not only is the corona about 300 times hotter than the Sun's surface, but it also hurls powerful plasma and energetic particles that can unleash geomagnetic space storms, wreaking havoc on Earth by disrupting the power grid.

These solar outbursts are poorly understood, but pack the potential to wipe out power to millions of people.

The probe is protected by an ultra-powerful heat shield that is 4.5 inches (11.43 centimetres) thick.

The shield should enable the spacecraft to survive its close shave with the fiery star, coming within 3.83 million miles (6.16 million kilometres) of the Sun's surface.

The heat shield is built to withstand radiation equivalent to up to about 500 times the Sun's radiation on Earth.

Even in a region where temperatures can reach more than a million degrees Fahrenheit, the sunlight is expected to heat the shield to just around 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,371 degrees Celsius).

If all works as planned, the inside of the spacecraft should stay at just 85 degrees Fahrenheit.

"The sun is full of mysteries," said Nicky Fox, project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab.

The tools on board will measure the expanding corona and continually flowing atmosphere known as the solar wind, which solar physicist Eugene Parker first described in 1958.

Parker, now 91, recalled that at first some people did not believe in his theory.

But then, the launch of NASA's Mariner 2 spacecraft in 1962 -- becoming the first robotic spacecraft to make a successful planetary encounter -- proved them wrong.

"It was just a matter of sitting out the deniers for four years until the Venus Mariner 2 spacecraft showed that, by golly, there was a solar wind," Parker said earlier this week.

Parker said he was "impressed" by the Parker Solar Probe, calling it "a very complex machine."



According to Zurbuchen, Parker is an "incredible hero of our scientific community.""Life is all about these big arcs. Sometimes you just see, like how over a lifetime, things just come together and create these amazing stories, these leaps going forward.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A 35-year-old man was killed by naxals in Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh, after accusing him of being a police informer, a police official said today.

The deceased, identified as Lokesh Kartam, was attacked by naxals late last night at his house inBade Gudra village under Kuakonda police station limits, the official said.

"As per the preliminary information, a group of armed naxals stormed into Kartam's house and killed him with sharp weapons," Dantewada Additional Superintendent of Police Gorakhnath Baghel told PTI.

Soon after being informed about the incident, a police team was sent to the place this morning and the body was brought to the police station, he said.

"According to the villagers, the ultras claimed that Kartam was working at the behest of police," Baghel said adding that the victim was not associated with the police in any way.

A case has been registered in this connection and a search operation has been launched in the area to trace the ultras, he added.

With this, Dantewada district has witnessed four incidents of attack y Naxals in the last three days.

These attacks are being viewed as Naxals' reaction to the death of their 15 colleagues in an encounter with security forces in neighbouring Sukma district on August 6.

Two days after the encounter, naxals had torched two buses and a truck in Bhansi area of Dantewada after asking occupants of the vehicles to alight. Police had later recovered a human skeleton inside one of the charred buses.

In another incident on the same day, the engine of an empty rake of the Visakhapatnam-Kirandul passenger train derailed after Naxals uprooted railway tracks near Kamaloor railway station in Dantewada.

On August 9, Maoists had torched a JCB machine, engaged in pipeline laying works, in Kuakonda area, while yesterday, they had set ablaze five empty trucks in Bacheli area of the district.

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The Class 2 student who was allegedly raped by an electrician in a New Delhi Municipal Council school recorded her statement before a magistrate today, police said.

The seven-year-old girl reiterated all the charges against the accused. She recalled that the accused had also tried to pull her towards himself on Tuesday, but she had somehow escaped, they said.

The girl was leaving school on Wednesday when the 47-year-old accused allegedly took her to a pump room inside the school premises and forced himself on her.

Police said they would file a charge sheet within 20 days and demand a speedy trial in the case.

A senior police officer alleged negligence on the part of school in ensuring the safety of the schoolchildren.

"There were no teachers to escort the students to the main gate. The girl was running towards the main gate when the accused took her to the pump house and raped her," he said.

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Rajasthan BJP MLA Gyan Dev Ahuja has said that the country's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru was not a 'Pandit' as he "ate beef and pork".

Often in the for his contentious statements, the legislator from Ramgarh constituency of Alwar district blamed the Nehru-Gandhi family for all the social evils prevailing in the country.

Nehru cannot be a pandit as he ate beef and pork. Congress has prefixed pandit before his name, Ahuja told reporters yesterday, reacting to state Congress chief Sachin Pilot's statement that Rahul Gandhi had learnt to visit temples from his grandmother Indira Gandhi.

Claiming that the Gandhi scion never visited temples with Indira Gandhi, Ahuja vowed to step down from his post if anyone could prove him wrong.

Congress leaders including Ashok Gehlot, Sachin Pilot and Ghulam Nabi Azad should tell when did Rahul Gandhi's 'yagnopaveet sanskar' (sacred thread ceremony) took place, he said.

"If I am wrong, I will quit my post or else Sachin Pilot should morally resign," he added.

He further accused the Congress party of indulging in politics of caste to contest elections and sought the demolition of all statues of members of the Nehru-Gandhi family and the monuments named after them.

In 2016, the BJP legislator had stoked a controversy alleging that the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) was a hub of sex and drugs where over 3,000 used condoms and 2,000 liquor bottles were found daily.

Accusing those studying in JNU of indulging in illicit activities, the BJP MLA had also claimed that JNU students go naked on campus.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Congress president Rahul Gandhi today said he will make sure that party workers have their say and no parachute candidate gets nominated in the next assembly elections in Rajasthan.

I can guarantee you this time that not a single parachute candidate will be able to get the ticket. If any such candidate comes, I will cut the rope, Gandhi said here at the launch of the party's election campaign in the state.

Congress party workers will be heard and will get the tickets, he said.

He said the party is in a good position to form the government in Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh, the three states where assembly elections will be held this year.

Party men are working on the ground and their voice will be heard by the Congress government formed after the elections, Gandhi told party workers at the Ramlila Ground rally.

Gandhi reached the venue after a 13-km ride in a special bus from Jaipur airport, in a show of strength by the Congress.

Congress workers waited along the route to welcome him, waiving party flags.

The Congress chief waived at them, and at times got off the bus to meet them. There were drummers and folk artistes at some places.

Vehicles, with posters carrying his pictures, followed.

Near the airport, the welcome included decorated camels, elephants and bullock carts.

Gandhi was accompanied by All India Congress Committee general secretaries Ashok Gehlot and Avinash Pande, state unit chief Sachin Pilot and other leaders.

His cavalcade halted when he saw a person on a wheelchair waiting near the Laxmi Mandir crossing to welcome him.

At the rally, Sachin Pilot accused Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje of using the taxpayers' money to fund her ongoing Rajasthan Gaurav Yatra'.

Gehlot said Raje had objected to another BJP leader Gulab Chand Kataria's proposed yatra when the party was in the opposition.

He also referred to the recent lynching of a Muslim man in Alwar after vigilantes suspected that he was smuggling cows.

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No university in the country has established Mahatma Gandhi chair despite the nod from the University Grants Commission (UGC), according to HRD Ministry officials.

In order to enrich the academic resources of the university system, the UGC has formulated a scheme for establishment of chairs in universities in the name of nobel laureates, illustrious persons and persons of eminence in areas of their outstanding contributions.

"Mahatma Gandhi chair is one of the chairs approved by the UGC in the subjects or areas of peace and non-violence, freedom movement and national integration. However, Mahatma Gandhi chair has not been established in any university and no proposal was received by UGC from any varsity in this regard," a senior HRD Ministry official said.

However, students have been interested in Gandhian studies and have enrolled in undergraduate, postgraduate, M.Phil and Ph.D programmes in the subject in recent years.

According to official statistic, 419 students enrolled themselves in UG programme in Gandhian studies for 2017-18 while the number of students enrolled in PG, M.Phil and PhD was 796, 51 and 78 respectively. 17 PhD degrees were awarded during the session.

The number of students who enrolled in the said programmes during 2016-17 was UG (321), PG (746), M.Phil (67) and PhD (113). The number of PhD degrees awarded during the session was 38.

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The Congress is not opposed to the NRC but to the way it was being implemented in Assam, AICC spokesperson Pawan Khera said here today and accused BJP President Amit Shah of doing over the citizens' register.

"Amit Shah does not know the history of NRC. The 1985 Assam Accord was signed by Rajiv Gandhi and the Congress after coming to power. The party initiated the NRC process in 2005," Khera told a press conference.

He claimed that 80 per cent of the NRC work in Assam was done by the Congress, and the rest by Bharatiya Janata Party after the Supreme Court's directive.

"Also during the tenure of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA government, there was no work on the NRC in Assam," Khera said.

"Now people like Amit Shah are doing over the NRC. The NRC draft does not have the names of the family members of a former president of the country (Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed) and a former vice-chancellor among others.

"Doing over the NRC is very dangerous," he said.

"We never think about vote bank. We think about the entire country. The Government of India told the Supreme Court in November 2017 that there will be a law and order problem if the NRC is implemented in Assam. The BJP government is saying something to the court and something else to the public," he said.

To a question on West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's comment about bloodbath if the NRC was implemented, Khera said, "No responsible party should utter such words."



"No political party has the right to politicise the issue," he added.

Asked about Shah's call for a "Congress-mukt Bharat in 2019", he said, "First they (BJP) talk about Congress-mukt Bharat. Then they will give call for democracy-mukt Bharat, removing all democratic institutions."



West Bengal Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury said that the Centre should have talked to the Bangladesh government before publishing the NRC.

There is no deportation pact between India and Bangladesh, he added.

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A member of Jordan's security forces died and six were wounded when a bomb exploded under a patrol car at a music festival near Amman, the interior ministry said today.

The blast hit a security patrol in Al-Fuhais, 12 kilometres west of the capital last evening, it said.

"It killed Sergeant Ali Adnan Qawqaza and wounded six other members of the patrol," the ministry said, adding that an investigation was underway into the cause of the blast.

Security forces had been deployed to protect the town's annual festival, which hosts prominent Arab music acts.

Prime Minister Omar al-Razzaz vowed that Jordan would "not be complacent in the hunt for terrorists".

"Jordan will always be at the forefront of the fight against terrorism and obscurantist ideas which target the lives of innocents and try to undermine security and stability," he said in remarks carried by the official Petra agency.

Jordan has played a key role in the US-led coalition fighting IS in neighbouring Syria and Iraq, using its air force and allowing coalition forces to use its bases.

The kingdom was hit by a string of jihadist attacks in 2016, including a suicide bombing in June that killed seven guards near the border with Syria that was claimed by IS.

Months later in December a shooting rampage, also claimed by IS, killed 10 people including a Canadian tourist.

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A man was killed and four members of his family, including a six month old baby, were injured after a two-storey building collapsed in Chokhandi locality in Vadodara in the wee hours today, police said.

The building, which is nearly eight decades old, caved in around 2 am, chief fire officer of Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC), Dipak Gunjal said.

"One man was killed and four others of his family were injured as the building collapsed when they were asleep," he said.

Heavy rains last month might have weakened the structure and led to its collapse, he added.

"After being alerted about the incident, a fire brigade team rushed to the spot and rescued five members, including 58-year-old Bhadruddin Dudhwala, who later succumbed to his injuries," Gunjal said.

The victim used to run a shop on the ground-floor of the same building, he added.

Superintendent of Sir Sayajirao General Hospital, Rajeev Daveshwar, said the injured have been identified as 47-year-old woman Jehrunisa and her three daughters Samina (27), Samira (18) and Iyona (6 months).

"While Dudhwala was declared brought dead at the hospital, his family members were discharged after the treatment," he added.

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The Expedition 56 crew members explored how human health and physical processes are affected off the Earth today.

The orbital residents are also configuring the International Space Station for a Russian spacewalk next week and a Japanese cargo craft mission in September.

A long-running human research study is helping doctors understand the impacts of microgravity shifting fluids upward in an astronaut's body. Two astronauts, Serena Aunon-Chancellor of NASA and Alexander Gerst of ESA, joined forces today for that study using an ultrasound device for eye scans with assistance from specialists on Earth. The experiment aims to help researchers prevent the upward fluid shifts that put pressure on an astronaut's eyes potentially affecting vision in space and back on Earth after a mission.

The orbital complex enables research into a variety of space physics including the observation of atoms nearly frozen still when exposed to the coldest temperatures in the universe. The Cold Atom Lab (CAL), which chills atoms to about one ten billionth of a degree above absolute zero, had its fiber cables inspected by NASA astronaut Ricky Arnold today during troubleshooting operations. CAL was delivered to the station in May aboard the Cygnus space freighter then installed in the Columbus laboratory module shortly after.

A spacewalk is scheduled for Aug. 15 when cosmonauts Oleg Artemyev and Sergey Prokopyev will work outside the station's Russian segment for about 6 hours of science and maintenance tasks. The duo spent Wednesday afternoon checking their Orlan spacesuits in a pressurized configuration. They also installed U.S. lights and video cameras on the suits ahead of next week's excursion.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) is planning a Sept. 10 launch of its H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) for capture and installation to the space station. HTV will be carrying cargo and new lithium ion batteries for installation on the station's Port-4 truss power system. Commander Drew Feustel partnered with Gerst and Arnold throughout the day readying JAXA's Kibo laboratory module for the upcoming delivery mission.

On-Orbit Status Report

Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) Moderate Temperature Loop (MTL) Leak Update: Express Rack (ER)5 was isolated yesterday as part of the on-going search for the JEM MTL leak. While Space Station Integration and Promotion Center (SSIPC) continues to monitor total JEM MTL fluid volume, the slow low leak rate takes approximately 24 hours to manifest in telemetry and additional time is needed to verify the impacts of the isolation.

Fluid Shifts: With operator assistance, a 55S crewmember performed their Fluid Shifts Baseline Imaging Measurements activities today. Fluid Shifts is a NASA investigation, divided into Dilution Measurements, Baseline Imaging, and Baseline Imaging with Chibis (Lower Body Negative Pressure). The Fluid Shifts experiment investigates the causes for severe and lasting physical changes to astronaut's eyes. Because the head ward fluid shift is a hypothesized contributor to these changes, reversing this fluid shift with a lower body negative pressure device is being evaluated as a possible intervention. Results from this study may help to develop preventative measures against lasting changes in vision and to prevention of eye damage.

Cold Atom Lab (CAL): Today the crew inspected and reseated multiple fiber optic connections in order to troubleshoot poor signal quality on two of the CAL signal paths. The CAL contains two different systems in the instrument, one system observes Rubidium and the other observes Potassium. The troubleshooting activity was conducted to correct a poor signal on the Potassium side, and these issues have not been resolved. However, the Rubidium side is functional and investigators have already used it to produce Bose-Einstein Condensates (BEC)s from atoms of rubidium. Ground teams are assessing a forward plan to correct the CAL signal path issues. CAL produces clouds of atoms that are chilled to about one ten billionth of a degree above absolute zero, much colder than the average temperature of deep space. At these low temperatures, atoms have almost no motion, allowing scientists to study fundamental behaviors and quantum characteristics that are difficult or impossible to probe at higher temperatures. In microgravity, researchers may be able to achieve even colder temperatures than what is possible on the ground, and observe these cold atom clouds for longer periods of time.

Sextant Navigation: The crew calibrated the sextant and then performed a session for the Sextant Navigation investigation. This session will emphasize position stabilization and sighting. Following data collection, the crew will record the results and stow the equipment. The Sextant Navigation investigation focuses on stability and star sighting opportunities in microgravity. Astronauts onboard the ISS test a hand-held sextant that is intended for use on future Orion exploration missions. The results from this investigation can aid in the development of emergency navigation methods for future manned spacecraft. Historically, Gemini missions in 1965-66 were the first to exercise sextant sightings from a spacecraft. A sextant was built into Apollo vehicles as a navigation backup in case of lost communications.

European Space Agency (ESA) Education Payloads Operations (EPO): Earlier today, Gerst recorded a message to promote the Uberflieger competition where students at German universities design and build their own ISS experiment.

Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) Protein Crystal Growth (PCG) 13: To support CASIS PCG 13 activities next week, the crew continued to prepare the Space Automated Bio-product Laboratory (SABL) by configuring the microscope and camera before performing checkout activities. CASIS PCG 13 seeks to enhance the way crystals are grown in a microgravity environment by allowing crewmembers to observe imperfections within a crystal and make real-time adjustments to follow-up experiments, rather than returning a sample to Earth and relaunching to try again. This dramatically reduces the time it takes to conduct an experiment aboard the space station and creates a timely, realistic and more cost-effective solution for prospective researchers.

HTV Rack Relocation Prep: This week the crew will execute a series of activities in order to prepare ISS for the installation of new racks arriving on HTV-7. After relocating and consolidating stowage from rack fronts yesterday, today the crew removed remaining hardware in PMM1O4 and PMM1D4 RSRs, completed the JLP stowage removal, and reconfigured the Muscle Atrophy Resistive Exercise System (MARES) rack for stowage by removing the VIF brackets on the front of the rack and a rear stowage plate from the rack.

Mobile Servicing System (MSS) Operations: Overnight, robotics ground controllers used the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) and Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) to unfasten five H1 (secondary) fixtures and break torque on three H2 (primary) fixtures across five Channel 2A Integrated Equipment Assembly (IEA) batteries. Due to time constraints, controllers were unable to break torque on two of the H2 bolts. Later tonight, controllers will complete the same task on the six robotically accessible Channel 4A IEA batteries. These operations will reduce the ExtraVehicular Activity (EVA) time needed to install the new Lithium Ion (Li-Ion) batteries launching on HTV-7 in September. The two remaining 2A H2 bolts will be removed during nominal robotics operations during the HTV-7 mission.

Today's Planned Activities:

All activities are complete unless otherwise noted.

Microbial Tracking-2 Reminder for Saliva Collection

Cold Atom Lab Fiber Cable Cover Removal

SPHERES Rechargeable Battery Install

Setup and configuration of  camcorder Sony PMW-200 (1_3_319) in SM for mpeg2 TV coverage Space Medicine while performing -5.

Stow JLP and PMM Config

Acoustic Monitor Setup for Static Measurements

Fluid Shifts OCT Baseline Setup

SEPARATSIYA. Filling Centrifugal Multi-Purpose Vacuum Distiller () with pre-treat fluid to maintain efficiency.

Fluid Shifts Ultrasound 2 HRF Rack 1 Power On

Fluid Shifts CDL Holter Arterial BP Hardware Don - Subject

Preventive Maintenance of DC1 Docking Assembly hatch sealing mechanisms and Progress 439 (DC1) hatch before RS EVA

Fluid Shifts Ultrasound Baseline Scan

Study of cardiovascular system under measured physical CYCLE Ergometer load.

Cold Atom Lab Station Support Computer Relocate Setup

Deactivation of camcorder, TV System monitoring equipment and closing applications.

Cold Atom Lab Fiber Troubleshooting

Assessment of Cardiovascular Function on Cycle Ergometer

Study of cardiovascular system under measured physical CYCLE Ergometer load.

Fluid Shifts CCFP Baseline Test

Fluid Shifts USOS Operations Historical Documentation Photography

Fluid Shifts OCT Baseline Exam

Fluid Shifts DPOAE Baseline Test - Subject

Fluid Shifts Tonometry Baseline Setup

Microscope Hardware Setup via SABL Power

Fluid Shifts Tonometry Baseline Exam

Fluid Shifts CDL Holter Arterial BP Hardware Doff - Subject

Fluid Shifts Tonometry Baseline Stow

Fluid Shifts OCT Baseline Stow

Ultrasound 2 HRF Rack 1 Stow Alternate

EPO crew message recording

Microscope SABL Camera Checkout

Fluid Shifts CCFP Baseline Stow

EVA Medical Kit Configuration

Preparation for pressurized Orlan suits transfer from DC1 to  Training

Cold Atom Lab Station Support Computer Relocate Setup

Dry Run with Two Pressurized Orlan Suits Transfer to .

Regenerative Environmental Control and Life Support System (ECLSS) Recycle Tank Fill

MARES Stowage Configuration

Sextant Navigation Session 2 Operations

SPHERES Rechargeable Battery Charge and Stow

In Flight Maintenance (IFM) MARES Rack Reconfiguration

Configuring  to initial state after pressurized Orlan suits transfer training.

Installation of US EMU Lights, Video Camera, and REBA on Orlan No.5 and Orlan-MKS No.4.

Stow PMM1D4 Remove

Install light and video camera ORLAN suits

Cold Atom Lab Fiber Cover Replace

Food Acceptability Questionnaire

Tropical Cyclone Untended Operations

SPHERES Rechargeable Battery Charge and Stow

Completed Task List Activities:

ESA PAO Downlink Message

Ground Activities:

All activities are complete unless otherwise noted.

Lab CDRA Activation

N3 CDRA to Standby

SPCH untie 3A/2A

SPCH tie 1A/4A

BGA 4A latch

MSS Operations: Channel 4A Battery Bolt break torque

Three-Day Look Ahead:

Thursday, 08/09: Rack Transfers, SPHERES TSLOSH Run, MagVector Umbilical Disconnect

Friday, 08/10: SPHERES Zero Robotics, ACME Controller R&R, ACE Sample Swap, Hatch Seal Inspection, Rodent Research 7 Ops, JSSOD Satellite Deploy

Saturday, 08/11: Housekeeping, Off Duty, Ku-Bd Cable Swap, Glacier Ice Brick/Cold Block Insert, HRF Urine Collection Setup

QUICK ISS Status - Environmental Control Group:

Component - Status

Elektron - On

Vozdukh - Manual

[] 1 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV1") - On

[] 2 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV2") - Off

Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab - Operate

Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 - Standby

Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab - Operate

Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 - Idle

Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) - Process

Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) - Process

Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab - Full Up

Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 - Off

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Over 10,000 people living on the banks of Periyar river and its tributaries have been shifted to 78 camps opened in Ernakulam district as part of measures taken by it to deal with the threats following release of water from two major dams.

Officials said 10,510 people have been provided shelter at 78 relief camps opened in Paravoor, Aluva, Kanayannur and Kunnathunad taluks in the district.

The district authorities said they have made all necessary preparations for providing food, drinking water and medical facilities to the people shifted in the camps.

People said rise in water level in Periyar river has affected their normal life.

Meanwhile, braving adverse weather conditions, thousands of pilgrims thronged on the bank of Periyar river in Aluva to perform 'Karkkidaka Vavu Bali' at a Lord Shiva temple known for the annual ritual.

The temple situated in the middle of the river remained submerged in gushing waters.

Ernakulam district administration officials said elaborate arrangements were made by the government and temple administration in the unaffected areas on the river bank for the people to perform the 'Vavu Bali', a ritual, performed for the departed souls of their ancestors.

Security was tightened along the shore of the river for ensuring safety of the pilgrims.

Coast Guard and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) have been deployed to ensure safety and security of the pilgrims.

Police and Fire and Rescue services personnel were also roped in to provide security.

Three boats, 20 lifeboats, 40 life-jackets, special ropes and diving teams were were kept ready to meet any eventuality, authorities said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
More than 450 people were hurt and around 30 arrested during a huge anti-corruption protest in Bucharest, Romanian police said today, a day after the rally.

Police had used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the protesters as tens of thousands rallied to call on the leftwing government to resign.

Many demonstrators needed treatment after inhaling pepper spray and tear gas, while others suffered blows, hospital sources said. Around 30 police were also injured, 11 of whom were taken to hospital.

Police rejected criticism from the centre-right opposition that its officers had used excessive force, saying its response to violence by dozens of protesters had been "gradual and proportionate".

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, whose country currently holds the EU rotating presidency, criticised the clashes, which also saw a cameraman for Austria's public broadcaster injured.

"We strongly condemn the violent clashes in Bucharest where numerous demonstrators and journalists were injured. We expect full explanations," he said on Twitter.

"Freedom of expression and, related to that, freedom of the press are basic freedoms of the EU, which we clearly recognise and which must be unconditionally protected."



Local media said up to 80,000 people had taken to the streets, among them many Romanian expatriates who returned home to show their anger at the graft in one of the EU's most corruption-plagued member states.

About a thousand officers in riot gear intervened to clear the crowds assembled in a central square outside the main government building after some protesters tried to break through the police cordon.

Romania's centre-right President Klaus Iohannis, a critic of the government, said he "strongly condemned the brutal intervention of the police, which was disproportionate to the attitude of most demonstrators" but added that "any form of violence is unacceptable".

Prime Minister Viorica Dancila, in turn, accused Iohannis of "inciting the population against the authorities" and "using the dramatic effects of the events".

Another demonstration is planned for later Saturday in Bucharest. In a controversial move last month, Romania sacked top anti-graft prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi -- considered a symbol of the country's fight against corruption.

With Kovesi at the helm, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (DNA) had led a crackdown on corruption among local and national elected officials, earning the enmity of many in Romania's political class and prompting critics to accuse it of abuse of power.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Paul Rudd has been roped in to topline Netflix comedy series "Living with Yourself".

The eight-episode comedy will see the "Ant-Man" star take on a dual role in the story of a man struggling with his life who undergoes a novel treatment to become a better person.He then finds he has been replaced by a new and improved version revealing that his own worst enemy is himself.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Rudd will star in season one of what Netflix is declaring a "fresh and inventive" philosophical comedy that asks if people really want to be better.

Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris are directing the new show.

The show was created by Timothy Greenberg, who will also serve as executive producer and showrunner. Anthony Bregman and Jeff Stern will produce through their Likely Story banner. Tony Hernandez, Rudd, and Jeff Blitz are on board as executive producers as well.

Additional casting will be announced later.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A small plane carrying nine people went missing today during a short flight in mountainous eastern Indonesia, authorities said, with a search and rescue mission underway.

The Swiss-made Pilatus aircraft lost contact with air traffic control during what was supposed to be a flight of around 40 minutes in remote Papua province, police said.

"Villagers in Okatem reported that they heard a loud roar from the plane followed by a big explosion," Bintang regency police chief Michael Mumbunan told AFP.

Search and rescue teams have been deployed but it will take them up to three hours to reach the suspected crash site by foot, he added.

The plane was carrying seven passengers, including a child, and two crew.

It belonged to Dimonim Air, a private company operating charter flights in and around Papua.

Indonesia relies heavily on air transport to connect its thousands of islands but has a poor aviation safety record and has suffered several fatal crashes in recent years.

Papua is a particularly difficult area to reach.

Five people died after a small plane crashed near Wamena in Papua province in July last year.

In August 2015, a commercial passenger aircraft operated by Indonesian carrier Trigana crashed in Papua due to bad weather, killing all 54 people on board.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today pitched for improving the quality of in institutions like IITs and invited suggestions from teachers and intellectuals in this regard.

He also stressed the need for innovation, saying that societies which do not innovate, stagnate.

Addressing the 56th annual convocation of IIT-Bombay today, Modi announced a financial aid of Rs 1,000 crore for the institute, saying that six decades of "constant trying" had made it an institute of eminence.

He said seven lakh engineers pass out of the country's educational campuses, and a collective effort was required to ensure they get high quality of and acquire necessary skills.

"I appeal to teachers and intellectuals present here that they should think about how quality can be improved and come up with suggestions. It is our responsibility to ensure that not only quantity but quality too is of high level. The government is also actively taking steps for this," Modi said.

Heaping praise on IIT-B, Modi said, "It is due to last six decades of constant trying that IIT-B has made its place as one of the country's eminent institutes. You will be receiving a financial aid of Rs 1,000 crore which will help in the development of infrastructure."



The prime minister said several students who have graduated from the institute are actively participating in the country's development.

Modi said that in the last four years, seven IITs, seven IIMs (Indian Institute of Management), two IISER (Indian Institutes of Science and Research) and 11 IIITs (Indian Institute of Information Technology) have been approved.

"In order to improve infrastructure, RISE (Revitalisation of Infrastructure and Systems in Education) programme has been initiated. In accordance with this programme, a target of accumulating Rs 1 lakh crore has been set.

"New institutes, new infrastructure is necessary, but more important is the skilled power generated from these. The government is also focusing on this," he said.

The prime minister further said the foundation of India's developed economy was being laid through innovation and industries which will lead to sustainable long-term financial growth based on technology.

"Innovation and enterprise are going to be the foundation stones for making India a developed economy. Start Up India and the Atal Innovation Mission launched by the Centre have resulted in India becoming the world's second largest ecosystem for technology," the prime minister said.

In the coming two decades, innovation and new technology will decide the trajectory of growth in the world and the role of IITs in this will be very important, he said.

"Be it 5G broadband technology, artificial intelligence, block chain technology or machine learning, these are techniques that will play an important role in the vision of smart cities," Modi said.

Maharashtra governor C Vidyasagar Rao, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Union Human Resources Development Minister Prakash Javadekar were present at the event.

After his 32-minute address, Modi inaugurated the buildings of the Energy Science and Engineering as well as Environmental Science and Engineering departments on the IIT-B campus.

He also visited the technological exhibition developed by IIT-B and praised the innovative instruments and research undertaken by the students.

A total of 2,621 students were today conferred with Bachelors degrees while 380 students were awarded Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) degrees.

Twenty-nine students, who did their research under the Doctor of Philosophy research program jointly undertaken by the IIT-B and Monash University, received their degrees at the hands of Monash University President Margaret Gardner.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A policeman at Sadar police station in Tarn Taran district's Patti was arrested today for accepting a bribe in a drug case, police said.

Vigilance bureau sleuths arrested Head Constable Balwinder Singh red-handed while accepting Rs 50,000 as bribe, they said.

Palwinder Singh, a resident of Teacher colony in Faridkot had complained to the vigilance bureau that the head constable had demanded Rs one lakh bribe to help his brother in a drug peddling case, and the deal was struck at Rs 50,000.

After verifying the complaint, a trap was laid and the head constable was arrested on while accepting the bribe from the complainant in presence of two official witnesses, police said.

A case under the Prevention of Corruption Act has been registered against the accused at vigilance bureau police station in Amritsar and further investigation was underway, they said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Secretary of State Michael Pompeo discussed with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov the recent sanctions imposed by the US on Moscow and reiterated that Washington seeks an "improved relationship" with Moscow.

Last week, the Trump administration had said it would impose new sanctions against Russia to punish Moscow for the use of a nerve agent in an assassination attempt on a British citizen and his daughter.

Pompeo spoke over phone yesterday with Lavrov and during the call reiterated that the United States seeks an improved relationship with Russia and agreed to future dialogue, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said in a yesterday.

The Secretary discussed with Lavrov recent sanctions imposed on Russia pursuant to the Chemical and Biological Weapons and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 as well as the ongoing challenges in Syria.

Nauert had said that following the use of a "Novichok" nerve agent in an attempt to assassinate UK citizen Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia Skripal, the United States, on August 6, determined under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991 (CBW Act) that the "Government of the Russian Federation has used chemical or biological weapons in violation of international law or has used lethal chemical or biological weapons against its own nationals."



Following a 15-day Congressional notification period, these sanctions will take effect around August 22.

The Kremlin had said the sanctions were illegal and unfriendly and that the U.S. move was counter with the constructive atmosphere of Trump and Putin's encounter in Helsinki. Moscow would start to work on retaliatory measures in the same spirit as any U.S. restrictions, the Foreign Ministry said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Psychedelics drugs often misused by ravers and music festival-goers - may one day be used to treat disorders ranging from social anxiety to depression, researchers say.

Hallucinogens have been studied in the US for their potential healing benefits since the discovery of LSD in the 1940s. However, research has mostly stalled since psychedelics were outlawed in the late 1960s.

A shift may be coming soon though, as MDMA, commonly known as ecstasy, is beginning its third and final phase of clinical trials in an effort to win US Food and Drug Administration approval for treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder, said Adam Snider, of Alliant International University in the US.

Findings from a study presented at the annual convention of the American Psychological Association suggested that symptoms of social anxiety in autistic adults may be treatable with a combination of psychotherapy and MDMA.

Twelve autistic adults with moderate to severe social anxiety were given two treatments of pure MDMA plus ongoing therapy and showed significant and long-lasting reductions in their symptoms, the research found.

"Social anxiety is prevalent in autistic adults and few treatment options have been shown to be effective," said Alicia Danforth, from the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute in the US, who conducted the study.

"The positive effects of using MDMA and therapy lasted months, or even years, for most of the research volunteers, said Danforth.

Research discussed also explored how LSD, psilocybin (known colloquially as "magic mushrooms") and ayahuasca (a brew used by indigenous people of the Amazon for spiritual ceremonies) may benefit people with anxiety, depression and eating disorders.

Adele Lafrance, of Laurentian University, highlighted a study of 159 participants who reported on their past use of hallucinogens, level of spirituality and relationship with their emotions.

Using hallucinogens was related to greater levels of spirituality, which led to improved emotional stability and fewer symptoms of anxiety, depression and disordered eating, the study found.

Other research presented suggested that ayahuasca may help alleviate depression and addiction, as well as assist people in coping with trauma.

For people suffering from life-threatening cancer, psilocybin may provide significant and lasting decreases in anxiety and distress.

When combined with psychotherapy, psilocybin helped a study's 13 participants grapple with loss and existential distress.

It also helped the participants reconcile their feelings about death as nearly all participants reported that they developed a new understanding of dying, according to Gabby Agin-Liebes, of Palo Alto University, who conducted the research.

"Participants made spiritual or religious interpretations of their experience and the psilocybin treatment helped facilitate a reconnection to life, greater mindfulness and presence, and gave them more confidence when faced with cancer recurrence," said Agin-Liebes.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Reacting to Congress chief Rahul Gandhi's corruption allegations in the Rafale deal, the Rajasthan BJP unit today said the issue was thoroughly discussed in Parliament and no irregularities were found.

"All wrong deeds happened during the Congress rule. Both UPA-1 and UPA-2 dispensation are known for corruption. They do not want to eliminate corruption," state BJP president Madan Lal Saini said at a press conference here.

Gandhi today targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the Rafale aircraft deal as he launched his party's campaign for the assembly polls later this year in Rajasthan.

Directly accusing Modi of corruption in the deal for the French fighter planes, he said the prime minister had favoured his businessman "friend" Anil Ambani by getting him the "contract".

Saini also hit out at the Congress chief over the latter's claim that the deal had snatched job opportunities from young Indians, including engineers.

He said the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) government has created many employment opportunities for youths.

"Employment is not limited to government jobs. Several youths have got jobs and are self-employed through skill development programmes," the Rajasthan BJP chief said.

Rajasthan Parliamentary Affairs Minister Rajendra Rathore said the issue of Rafale fighter planes was elaborately discussed in Parliament.

He also claimed that the launch of Congress campaign for the state polls on August 11 was "inauspicious according to Hindu calendar".

it is unfortunate to start any new work on August 11 as per the Hindu calendar, Rathore said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Congress president Rahul Gandhi arrived here today on a one-day visit to launch the party's election campaign for the assembly polls in the state.

Elections in Rajasthan are due in a few months.

Gandhi arrived at the Jaipur airport in a routine flight and was received by Congress general secretaries Avinash Pandey, also the in-charge of party affairs in Rajasthan, and Ashok Gehlot, and state Congress president Sachin Pilot among others.

Thousands of the party workers have gathered in the city for the Congress chief's road show and a meeting at the Ramlila Ground.

Gandhi will be given welcomed by party workers at several places on his way to the Albert Hall, near the Ramlila Ground, from the airport.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Today - HTV-7 Rack Relocation Prep: This week the crew has been executing a series of activities in order to prepare ISS for the installation of new racks arriving on HTV-7.

After relocating and consolidating stowage earlier in the week, two crewmembers relocated five racks today within and between various modules in the US Segment. Prior to starting the rack transfer late this morning, the crew cleared remaining items from the rack translation paths and configured the Treadmill 2 (T2) and Waste and Hygiene Compartment (WHC) Kabin as required to clear the racks during movement. The crew also disconnected the MagVector umbilicals since they would interfere with transferring the adjacent COL1F2 Zero-G Softrack (ZSR). After completing these final prep activities, the crew transferred the following racks:

- Resupply Stowage Rack (RSR) from PMM1O4 to LAB1P1

- ZSR from JPM1A5 to PMM1O4

- RSR from PMM1D4 to JPM1A5

- "Gutted" MARES Rack from COL1F3 to PMM1D4.

- ZSR from COL1F2 to COL1F3

The crew completed the day's activities by both reconfiguring T2 and the WHC Kabin back to their nominal configurations and placing a flag over the now empty COL1F2 rack bay to maintain nominal airflow within Columbus.

Japanese Experiment Module (JEM) Moderate Temperature Loop (MTL) Leak Update: Experts at the Space Station Integration and Promotion Center (SSIPC) continue to monitor the JEM MTL pressures following the isolation of Express Rack (ER)5 on Tuesday. While telemetry indicates the leak has slowed or stopped, the slow leak rate, and resolution of available telemetry, necessitates a 72-hour monitoring period prior to declaring ER5 the source of the leak.

Hatch Seal Inspection: This afternoon the crew performed scheduled maintenance to clean and inspect the United States On-orbit Segment (USOS) hatch seals in N1, N2, Lab, and N3. They inspected the sealing surface and hatch handle mechanism for Foreign Object Debris (FOD) or damage and ensured today's rack relocations did not cause damage to any seals.

Synchronized Position Hold, Engage, Reorient, Experimental Satellites (SPHERES) Tether Slosh: Today the crew set up the SPHERES Tether Slosh hardware and cameras in order to execute this experiment session. SPHERES Tether Slosh combines fluid dynamics equipment with robotic capabilities aboard the ISS to investigate automated strategies for steering passive cargo that contain fluids. In space, the fluid fuels used by spacecraft can slosh around in unpredictable ways making space maneuvers difficult. This investigation uses two SPHERES robots tethered to a fluid-filled container covered in sensors to test strategies for safely steering spacecraft such as dead satellites that might still have fuel in the tank.

Microbial Tracking-2 (MT-2): This morning a 55S crewmember collected saliva samples for the Microbial Tracking-2 investigation andplaced them inside a MELFI. MT-2 monitors the different types of microbes that are present on ISS over a 1-year period. After the samples are returned to Earth, a molecular analysis of the RNA and DNA will be conducted to identify the specific microbes that are present on ISS in order to understand the microbial flora diversity on the ISS and how it changes over time.

Manufacturing Device (MD): The crew replaced the Manufacturing Device build platform today. The Manufacturing Device supports the production of components on the ISS for both NASA and commercial objectives. It is capable of producing parts out of a wide variety of thermopolymers including engineered plastics.

Public Affairs Office (PAO) Event: This afternoon Ricky Arnold participated in a live PAO event with the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center in Concord, New Hampshire. The McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center is an air and space museum dedicated to two New Hampshire space pioneers: Christa McAuliffe and Alan Shepard. The session will be integrated into several summer camp sessions and will provide the children with the chance to speak to an astronaut about the relevant themes of astronomy and human space exploration.

Mobile Servicing System (MSS) Operations: Overnight, robotics ground controllers used the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (SSRMS) and Special Purpose Dexterous Manipulator (SPDM) to unfasten H1 (secondary) fixtures and break torque on H2 (primary) fixtures across all six Channel 4A Integrated Equipment Assembly (IEA) batteries. These operations, along with Tuesday night's operations on Channel 2A, will reduce the ExtraVehicular Activity (EVA) time needed to install the new Lithium Ion (Li-Ion) batteries launching on HTV-7. Tonight the robotic ground controllers will be moving the SSRMS to a park position then translating the Mobile Transporter (MT) from Worksite(WS)7 to WS3.

Today's Planned Activities:

All activities are complete unless otherwise noted.

Microbial Tracking-2 Body Sample Collection

Microbial Tracking-2 Sample MELFI Retrieval Insert

Wastewater Storage Tank Assembly (WSTA) Fill

 70P docking mechanism () installation

Stowage Configure Cleanup

Total Organic Carbon Analyzer (TOCA) Calibration Check

LAB1P1 Stowage Clear

URAGAN. Checking Icarus Connection.

De-Mating of MagVector Umbilicals from COL1F2 UIP

Tropical Cyclone Hardware Closeout

In Flight Maintenance (IFM) Stowage Gather

 70P activation

In Flight Maintenance (IFM) Rack Transfers

Brine/urine transfer from  to Progress 438 [AO] Rodnik H2O tank 1

Acoustic Monitor Data Transfer and Stow

Quick-disconnect screw clamps () removal

Lighting Effects Visual Performance Tests Light Setting Subject

Team Task Switching Experiment Survey Subject

DC1-Progress 439 Hatch Closure

DC1- and -Progress Hatch Leak Check

SPHERES Crew Conference

SPHERES Payload OBT

In Flight Maintenance (IFM) COL1F3 Reconfiguration

Specific EVA Procedures Study

Columbus Zero-Gravity Stowage Rack (ZSR) Transfer

Total Organic Carbon Analyzer (TOCA) Calibration Check Data Record

In Flight Maintenance (IFM) LAB1P1 Reconfiguration

Removal of Fast-Removal Screw Clamps () on DC1-Progress 439 Interface, Video Downlink via OCA

SPHERES Test Session Setup

In Flight Maintenance (IFM) Restow

SPHERES VERTIGO Test Session Run

Installation of US add-on hardware on Orlan-MKS. Photography, Photo Downlink

Installation of Orlan Tether Adapters (OTA) on Orlan-MKS.

Stowage Rack Relabeling [Deferred]

Installation of US add-on hardware on Orlan-MKS. Photography, Photo Downlink.

Food Acceptability Questionnaire - Subject

LAB1P1 Stowage Replace [Deferred]

JPM LTL ITCS COOLANT SAMPLING ADAPTER REMOVAL

Advanced Resistive Exercise Device (ARED) Cylinder Flywheel Evacuation

Total Organic Carbon Analyzer (TOCA) Waste Water Bag (WWB) Changeout

Water Recovery and Management Condensate Pumping Init

Countermeasures System (CMS) Cycle Ergometer with Vibration Isolation Stabilization (CEVIS) Audit

Manufacturing Device Scan Head Installation

Water Recovery and Management Condensate Pumping Term

Automated External Defibrillator (AED) Inspection

Inventory Management System (IMS) Conference

Fan replacement in 0501.

Hatch Seal Inspection

Public Affairs Office (PAO) High Definition (HD) Config LAB Setup

SPHERES Test Session Shutdown

Public Affairs Office (PAO) Event in High Definition (HD) - Lab

Completed Task List Activities:

None

Ground Activities:

All activities are complete unless otherwise noted.

SPCH untie 4A/1A

BGA 4A unlatch

MSS Operations: MT translation

Three-Day Look Ahead:

Friday, 08/10: SPHERES Zero Robotics, ACME Controller R&R, ACE Sample Swap, Hatch Seal Inspection, Rodent Research 7 Ops, JSSOD Satellite Deploy

Saturday, 08/11: Housekeeping, Off Duty, Ku-Bd Cable Swap, Glacier Ice Brick/Cold Block Insert, HRF Urine Collection Setup

Sunday, 08/12: HRF Urine Collections, Marrow Breath and Ambient Air Sample Setup, Off Duty

QUICK ISS Status - Environmental Control Group:

Component - Status

Elektron - On

Vozdukh - Manual

[] 1 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV1") - On

[] 2 - SM Air Conditioner System ("SKV2") - Off

Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Lab - Operate

Carbon Dioxide Removal Assembly (CDRA) Node 3 - Standby

Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Lab - Operate

Major Constituent Analyzer (MCA) Node 3 - Idle

Oxygen Generation Assembly (OGA) - Process

Urine Processing Assembly (UPA) - Standby

Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Lab - Full Up

Trace Contaminant Control System (TCCS) Node 3 - Off

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Congress president Rahul Gandhi today attacked the Modi government over alleged rising atrocities against Dalits, citing a media report which claimed that BJP-ruled states registered the highest number of crimes against the Scheduled Castes.

Gandhi remarks came days after he accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of having an "anti-Dalit" mindset.

"Mr 56's best buddy, asked me to 'check my facts' when I said the BJP fuels violence against Dalits & Adivasis," he tweeted.

"I hope the fact check I'm attaching below, will wake him and Mr 56 up from their deep slumber on these rising atrocities; or I and the Congress party will," he said, tagging a media report which cited the National Crime Records Bureau data of 2016 to claim that BJP-ruled states registered the highest number of crimes against the Scheduled Castes.

Gandhi has been taking at a swipe at Modi over his "56-inch chest" remark made at election rallies in the run-up to the 2014 polls.

BJP chief Amit Shah had targeted the Congress chief to look at facts before criticising the government over issues related to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.

Shah had also alleged that it was the opposition party that had a legacy of insulting Dalits.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Congress president Rahul Gandhi was not provided proper security when he was here to pay his last respects to DMK leader M Karunanidhi, the Congress' state unit alleged today demanding action against police officers responsible for the "lapse."



Gandhi was here on August 8 to pay homage to Karunanidhi at the Rajaji Hall here, where his body lay in state.

Police allowed the general public to use the special entrance earmarked for VIPs after the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and it led to tension, Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president Su Thirunavukkarasar alleged in a statement here.

The Congress chief, who is a special protection group protectee, faced trouble for about 30 minutes as he was caught in the multitude of people as police did not ensure a protected pathway for him, Thirunavukkarasar said.

Similar was the situation when he was on his way out of the hall and he had to even wade through slush, the state unit chief alleged.

"Rahul Gandhi was not provided proper security and I strongly condemn it on behalf of the Tamil Nadu Congress Committee," Thirunavukkarasar said.

He sought "appropriate action" against police officers responsible for providing security at the Rajaji Hall.

"I believe that only such action will avert such lapses in future," he added.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Congress chief Rahul Gandhi today targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi again on the Rafale aircraft deal as he launched his party's campaign for the assembly pols later this year in Rajasthan.

Directly accusing Modi of corruption in the deal for the French fighter planes, he said the prime minister had favoured his businessman friend Anil Ambani by getting him the contract.

The reference was to the business that foreign manufacturers are required to bring to Indian firms when a defence deal is signed with the government, under the country's offset policy.

Ambani has already rejected Rahul Gandhi's allegations and emphasised that the government had no role in the Rafale-manufacturing French firm Dassault picking up his company as a local partner.

India had signed an inter-governmental agreement with France in 2015 for the procurement of 36 Rafale planes.

In his address to party workers at the Ramlila grounds here, Gandhi claimed that the Rafale deal had snatched job opportunities from young Indians, including engineers, as the planes will be manufactured abroad.

Gandhi said the price of the Rafale plane fixed now is about "three times" the amount agreed upon during the previous Congress-led government.

He said this corruption by Modi will become apparent over time.

The Congress chief claimed that only 450 youths got employment in the country every day while China was creating jobs for 50,000 people every 24 hours.

Our youths more honest, capable and stronger than the Chinese but it is a matter of shame that despite having almost equal population, they are getting fewer job opportunities, he said.

He questioned why Rs 2,30,000 crore could be written off as bad loans to 15 or 20 big industrialists, but the government could not help debt-ridden farmers.

When farmers are unable to pay back their loans, they are called defaulters and are jailed. But bad debts of big industrialists are called non-performing assets (NPA), he said.

He also accused the government of failing to ensure the safety of women.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Congress chief on Saturday targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi again on the Rafale aircraft deal, accusing him of corruption by helping out his industrialist friend Anil Ambani.

Gandhi used the Hindi word chori, or theft, when he made the accusation while launching the Congress campaign for the assembly polls later this year in Rajasthan.

He claimed that the deal for the French fighter aircraft had led to the loss of jobs for Indian youths, saying the agreement worked out while the Congress was in power would have ensured their manufacture in India.

The Congress president was addressing party workers at the city's Ramlila grounds, where he arrived in a special bus from the airport.

Party workers welcomed him at several points along the 13-km route. After the meeting, Gandhi offered prayers at the Govind Devji temple in the city.

He took a jibe at Bharatiya Janata Party president Amit Shah, saying someone who had been a murder accused is now president of the party.

Shah had been named in the Sohrabuddin fake encounter case, but was discharged by the trial court.

On the Rafale deal, said Modi had favoured industrialist Anil Ambani.

The reference was to the business that foreign manufacturers are required to bring to Indian firms when a defence deal is signed with the government, under the country's offset policy.

Ambani has already rejected Gandhi's allegations and stressed that the government had no role in the French firm Dassault picking up his company as a local partner.

India had signed an inter-governmental agreement with France in 2015 for the procurement of 36 Rafale planes.

Gandhi said the price of the Rafale plane fixed now is about "three times" the amount agreed upon during the previous Congress-led government.

He said the corruption by the prime minister will become clear in the times to come: PM ne Rafale me chori ki hai, jo aane wale time me saaf dikh jayegi.

The Congress chief claimed that only 450 youths get employment in the country every day while China creates jobs for 50,000 people.

Our youths are more honest, capable and stronger than the Chinese but it is a matter of shame that despite having almost an equal population, they are getting fewer job opportunities, he said.

He questioned why Rs 2.3 trillion could be written off as bad loans to 15 or 20 big industrialists, but the government could not help debt-ridden farmers.

When farmers are unable to pay back their loans, they are called defaulters and are jailed. But the bad debts of big industrialists are called non-performing assets, he said.

The Congress leader said the poll promises made by the BJP ahead of the last general election still remained a distant dream.

He said farmers were committing suicide but the government was least bothered about it.

The condition of the women was the worst during the Modi government's term, he said.

In UP, a BJP MLA rapes a woman and entire UP BJP tries to protect him. Incidents occurred in Chhattisgarh also but the prime minister does not speak a word, he said.

We need to protect the 'beti' (daughter) from BJP leaders, he said, mocking the government's Beti Bachao, Beto Padhao campaign.

Gandhi said that demonetisation of high-value currency bank notes and then the Goods and Services Tax (GST), which he called 'Gabbar Singh Tax', had broken the back of the common man and the small businessman.

He said a Congress government will include petrol and diesel under the GST and change it to single-layer tax system.

He said people from the weaker sections are being beaten and killed, minors girls are raped in almost every state in the country but the prime minister does not condemn such incidents.

People depend on courts for justice but Supreme Court judges are now seen begging for justice from people and the press, he said.
Rajasthan Congress today projected a united face before party chief Rahul Gandhi at the Ramlila grounds here where he launched the party's campaign for the assembly polls later this year and exuded confidence of gaining victory.

AICC general secretary and former chief minister Ashok Gehlot and the party's state chief Sachin Pilot hugged each on the stage.

After delivering his speech, Gandhi brought both the leaders closer and then they hugged each other thus giving a message of togetherness.

Earlier, in his address, Pilot gave credit to all the senior leaders present on the stage for the victory in bypolls and said that the Congress will contest elections unitedly and will form the government.

"All the party leaders gave their support therefore we won the bypolls. We are ready to face any challenge with the strength of all. Party will contest elections with unity and will form the next government in the state, Pilot said in his address at the Ramlila ground.

On the stage, Pilot was sitting on the right of Gandhi and the seating arrangement of Gehlot was next to AICC general secretary and in charge of party affairs in



Rajasthan Avinash Pande, whose chair was on the immediate left of Gandhi but Pande offered his seat to Gehlot and then Gehlot sat on the left of Gandhi and Pilot on Gandhi's right.

Recently, a controversy erupted on chief ministerial face of the party with a former MP Lalchand Kataria giving statement saying Ashok Gehlot should be made CM face to ensure victory in the elections. Gehlot also gave suggestive comments.

After Kataria's statement, AICC general secretary Pande had warned all the leaders to not make such comments.

The Congress had said that the election will be contested in the leadership of Rahul Gandhi and the decision on chief ministerial candidate, if the party wins, will be taken after the results of the elections.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Home Minister Rajnath Singh and BJP president Amit Shah visited AIIMS this evening to enquire about the health condition of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who has been undergoing treatment at the premier institute.

Shah visited AIIMS around 6.30 pm and Singh reached there around 8.15 pm to enquire about Vajpayee's health condition, a source at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) said.

Vajpayee was admitted to the hospital on June 11 with kidney tract infection, chest congestion, urinary tract infection and urine output on the lower side.

The 93-year-old BJP leader, a diabetic, has one functional kidney. He had suffered a stroke in 2009 that weakened his cognitive abilities. Subsequently, he developed dementia.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will undertake an aerial survey of flood-hit Kerala tomorrow to take stock of the situation in the southern state.

Singh, accompanied by Tourism MinisterK J Alphonsand senior officers from the Ministry of Home Affairs, will visit the floods and landslides affected areas, a Home Ministry statement said.

He will review the search, rescue and relief measures taken by the Kerala government and central government agencies with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Ministers of the state government, the Chief Secretary besides the senior officers of the central agencies and the state administration, the statement said.

In a telephonic conversation yesterday, Singh had assured Vijayan all central help to the state government to deal with the rains and floods.

During the current South-West monsoon season, various parts of the Kerala reported to have been affected by heavy rains and rain-oriented calamities of varying degrees.

As many as 14 teams of NDRF consisting of 404 rescuers and 31 boats were already deployed in various parts of flood-hit districts -- Thrissur, Ernakulam, Alappuzha, Wayand, Kozhikode and Idukki to assist the state administration in the relief and rescue operation as well as distribution of essential relief material and to provide medical support to affected people at the time of emergency.

So far, the NDRF teams have rescued seven people and evacuated 398 others and 12 livestock, the statement said.

In view of possible inundation, NDRF teams are kept on standby in vulnerable locations and keeping close vigil over the development of situation.

Additional teams are also kept as standby at nearest NDRF station at Arrakonnam in Tamil Nadu and will be mobilised, if required. Director General, NDRF is supervising the ongoing rescue operations.

Besides the NDRF, adequate columns of Army, Navy and Coast Guard, helicopters of Indian Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard are deployed in Kerala for assisting the state administration in lifting and dropping of essential commodities.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Rebel AAP leader Sukhpal Singh Khaira today accused the party's central leadership of having double standards, saying when senior leaders could stage sit-in protest at Delhi's Lieutenant Governor office for their "rights", why was their fight for autonomy being regarded as "anti-party" activity.

Khaira, who was leading a group of dissident Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs, also lashed out at party leadership for distributing tickets to "wrong people" in the 2017 assembly polls.

He said a three-member review committee under the chairmanship of MLA Kanwar Sandhu had been constituted to look into party's drubbing in the Assembly polls in 2017. It will present its report within 45 days.

The Punjab unit of the AAP has been in turmoil since Khaira was removed from the post of Leader of Opposition in Punjab Assembly last month.

Khaira and seven other MLAs have declared the AAP's Punjab unit "autonomous" and "dissolved" the present organisational structure.

The rebel leader said they will not be scared by "threats" from the party leadership and were committed to the resolutions passed on August 2 during volunteers' convention at Bathinda.

"On one side, our Delhi leaders say that Delhi (government) should get more rights. They had even staged a dharna at LG's office. What were they demanding? They were demanding more rights and autonomy.

"But when we demand the same autonomy, we get to hear that action will be taken for indiscipline and anti-party activity. Is it not double standards," asked Khaira while addressing a volunteers convention at Garhshankar organized by local AAP MLA Jai Krishan Singh Rori.

"We are not going back from our resolutions passed in Bathinda... If they try to browbeat us with the threat of removing us as MLAs, then we are not going to take it," he said.

The dissident MLAs have already formed a parallel ad-hoc political affairs committee (PAC).

Khaira, who is an MLA from Bholath, said their fight was not for any chair as alleged by Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann.

Addressing the gathering, Kharar MLA Kanwar Sandhu ascribed AAP's defeat in Assembly polls to wrong distribution of tickets.

"Despite a strong wave in AAP's favour, the party faced the defeat. There are several reasons of that defeat. One of the reasons was that wrong distribution of tickets," he said.

He said he was also asked to fight from Garhshankar seat. "But I insisted on fighting from Kharar seat as I have no base in Garhshankar," said Sandhu.

He also alleged that nobody in the party bothered to find out the causes behind the defeat in polls.

Earlier, Khaira said they would hold a conference at Issru in Ludhiana on August 15. Then volunteers convention will be held at Faridkot on August 22 followed by similar events on August 25 at Gurdaspur and September 2 at Moga.

Other dissident MLAs including Nazar Singh Manshahia (Mansa), Master Baldev (Jaitu) were also present.

Meanwhile, some AAP activists protested with black flags against Khaira when he was passing through Garhshankar, accusing him of trying to divide the party.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A Romanian man was arrested today for allegedly trying to steal data from an automatic ATM machine in Sector 18 here, police said



Onciu Anexandru (27), a resident of Valcea Romana in Romania, was fiddling with the ATM of a private bank in Savitri Market, they said.

"The accused had got his ATM card stuck in the machine and was fiddling with it. The security guard at the ATM grew suspicious of his activities and alerted the police," according to a police statement.

Personnel from the Sector 20 police station immediately reached the spot and held Anexandru.

His ATM card, passport and visa have been seized, a police official said.

Anexandru has been remanded in judicial custody and the Romania Embassy has been informed through the Local Investigation Unit of the Gautam Buddh Nagar, the official said.

He has been booked under the Indian Penal Code sections 419 (cheating) and 511 (attempting to commit offence), besides the Information Technology Act Section 66 D (cheating by using computer resource), the police said.

Further probe was underway, they said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The newly-elected Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh today called on Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar at his official residence here.

According to a release issued by the Chief Minister's office, Kumar accorded a warm welcome to Harivansh and presented him with a bouquet.

Known to be close to Kumar since the days when he was the editor of Hindi daily "Prabhat Khabar", Harivansh got elected to the Rajya Sabha in 2014 as a candidate of the Janata Dal (United) which is headed by the Chief Minister.

He got elected as the Deputy Chairman of the Upper House earlier this week, with support from all parties within the BJP-led NDA as also outfits like the TRS and the BJD which were not part of the alliance.

He defeated, by a comfortable margin, veteran Congress leader B K Hariprasad, who had been fielded by the opposition parties.

Kumar had played an important role in ensuring victory of Harivansh by dialling his Odisha, Telangana and Delhi counterparts Naveen Patnaik, K Chandrasekhar Rao and Arvind Kejriwal respectively to mobilise their parties support.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The city of Fredericton, New Brunswick was devastated on Friday (August 10) as a gunman claimed the lives of four people, including two police officers with one having ties to the harness racing community.

Reports from New Brunswick indicate that the fallen police officers were 45-year-old Robb Costello and 43-year-old Sara Burns.

An owner of Standardbred horses for a number of years, Burns had been listed as one of the co-owners of grey pacing gelding Grimsby since 2014. Grimsby was featured on an episode of the Rick Mercer Report when Mercer visited the Fredericton fair later that year.

Burns had served with the Fredericton police force for two years, as well as an auxiliary officer for two years prior. She is survived by her husband and three children.

Trot Insider will continue to follow this ongoing story and add updates as they develop.

Please join Standardbred Canada in offering condolences to the family and friends of Sara Burns, Robb Costello and those whose lives were claimed in the shooting.
BJP president Amit Shah today said West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee opposed the NRC in Assam due to "vote-bank politics" and called upon the people of the state to uproot the TMC government, saying it patronised infiltration from Bangladesh as well as corruption.

He also asked Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Banerjee to clarify their stand on infiltration from Bangladesh and the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

Addressing a well-attended public rally here, the BJP chief began his speech with the slogan of uprooting the TMC government from Bengal and said in order to do that, he would visit all the districts of the state.

"Why do you want to keep the Bangladeshi infiltrators?" Shah asked Banerjee, and said she was against the NRC for "vote-bank politics".

He alleged that the Bangladeshi infiltrators were a vote bank of the previous Communist government and now, they had become a vote bank of the TMC.

"Rahul Gandhi and Mamata didi should clarify whether national security is important for them or the vote bank. For the BJP, the country comes first," Shah said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Simultaneous raids were conducted in jails across Bihar today leading to recovery of several items which had found their way inside the premises illegally, official sources said here.

They said the raids were conducted as per a direction issued by the state home ministry ahead of the Independence Day celebrations.

In Patna, District Magistrate Kumar Ravi and Senior Superintendent of Police Manu Maharaj raided the Beur Model Central Prison where they found the baggage scanner machine to be faulty and instructed the jail superintendent to get it repaired immediately.

No objectionable items were, however, found inside the jail premises.

Raids were also conducted at the Muzaffarpur jail from where mobile phones, chargers, SIM cards, scissors and pen drives besides 20 grams of ganja were seized.

In West Champaran, raids conducted at the Bettiah jail resulted in recovery of nearly Rs 50,000 in cash, mobile phones, chargers and knives.

Mobile phones, khaini (unprocessed tobacco) and Gutkha were recovered in a similar operation conducted in Saharsa.

Hammers, chisels, mobile phones and cigarettes were recovered in Madhubani.

Maoist literature, knives, mobile phones and some narcotic substances were recovered in Sheohar.

In Begusarai, the recoveries included mobile phone chargers, SIM cards and cigarettes.

In Kishenganj, large quantities, of khaini, cigarettes, chewable tobacco besides a pouch of cannabis and a knife were seized.

Reports of the raids conducted in respective districts would be sent by District Magistrates concerned to the state headquarters for further action, official sources said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
National Conference president Farooq Abdullah today said he will fight for Article 35-A until his death, warning that the fallout of any tinkering with the Constitutional provision would be difficult to control.

Article 35-A, which gives special rights and privileges to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, is currently facing a legal challenge in the Supreme Court.

"I will fight against them till I go down in my grave," Abdullah said, adding that "they only remember Kashmir and not Himachal (Pradesh), Arunachal (Pradesh) and Nagaland", which also enjoy the special position.

Asked how he sees the situation in Kashmir if the Article 35-A is tinkered with, he said, "You will see the situation yourselves, Delhi will also then see it and it will be very difficult for them to control it".

Abdullah, who is also the Member of Parliament form Srinagar constituency, however, sought to dismiss the uproar around the legal challenge to Article 35-A of the Constitution, saying no one is going to touch it.

"They cannot touch (Article) 35-A. The Constitutional bench has twice said about it already. I do not know why they try to scratch this wound every time. The more they scratch it, the more blood there will be. Time has come for them to stop scratching it," the NC president said on the sidelines of a function here.

When the reporters pressed him hard on the issue, Abdullah in his usual style said, "35-A ko mariye goli. 35-A chalta jayega (shoot 35-A, the issue will keep going on)."



On August 6, the Supreme Court had said a three-judge bench would decide whether the pleas challenging Article 35-A should be referred to a five-judge Constitution bench for examining the larger issue of alleged violation of the doctrine of basic structure of the Constitution.

The bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice A Khanwilkar had adjourned the crucial hearing on as many as five petitions "to the week commencing from August 27" on the grounds that they pertained to the challenge to a Constitutional scheme and could not be heard as the third judge, Justice D Y Chandrachud, was not present on that day.

Article 35-A, which was incorporated in the Constitution by a 1954 Presidential Order, accords special rights and privileges to the citizens of Jammu and Kashmir and denies property rights to a woman who marries a person from outside the state.

About India-Pakistan relations, Abdullah expressed hope that they would be fruitful under the reign of Imran Khan, who will be sworn-in as the country's prime minister on August 18.

"I expect a new Pakistan, a friendly Pakistan, a Pakistan free of terrorism and marching towards the future and strengthening the SAARC which will be vital for this entire area," the NC president said.

Abdullah said he was confident that New Delhi would cooperate with Islamabad if the neighbouring country "gives up terrorism".

"I am sure New Delhi will cooperate if Pakistan gives up terrorism, the whole world will cooperate," he said.

Asked about Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama's recent statement on former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru at the Goa Institute of Management, Abdullah said the spiritual leader was right in saying what he said.

"I am happy that Dalia Lama has apologised on what he said about Nehru, but one thing is correct that when they all were there, Mahatma Gandhi had indeed offered Jinnah to be the prime minister. However, Quaid-i-Azam (Jinnah) denied because he said that he could be removed anytime as he would be a minority prime minister and so moth-eaten Pakistan is better for him than to become the prime minister of such a country where there is no trust and which is now becoming evident.

"The way the country is being taken in a different way today, I feel no one would have ever thought of it. We would not have dreamt of such a thing that they will try to change a secular country in such a way, which I think will be dangerous for them," the former Union minister said.

When asked about the statement of yoga guru Baba Ramdev that if illegal immigrants were allowed to stay on, they would make 10 more Kashmir-like problems for the country, Abdullah said India has a big heart and people can live in the country with ease and dignity.

"India's has a big heart. If you see, Mughals came and lived here, Alexander came and the force he had with him lived here. Whoever wants, can live here with ease and dignity. This is our tradition. Ramdev is no god, neither does he own India," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
: A six-day Vedic ritual "Astabandhana Balalaya Mahasamprokshanam," held once in twelve years, began at the famous hill shrine of Lord Venkateswara at nearby Tirumala tonight.

As part of the ceremony 28 'homa gundams' (fire altars), each one dedicated to a deity, were built inside the temple complex and the fire was lit in them amid chanting of vedic hymns by about 40 high priests, an official of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD), which administers the cash-rich shrine, told PTI.

During the ritual, high priests plug minor cracks and holes using a herbal paste harder than concrete mix, amid chanting of hymns, the official said.

On an average, only 30,000 devotees would be allowed into the shrine daily, to be regulated during the few hours when the priests temporarily halt their work, the official added.

In view of the ceremony, issue of all online 'seva' tickets, including for pre-dawn rituals and privileged worships, have been suspended till August 16.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The 40th batch of 68 pilgrims -- the smallest so far -- today left the base camp here for the 3,880 metre high cave shrine of Amarnath in south Kashmir Himalayas, the police said.

The pilgrims left the Bhagwati Nagar Base Camp in the early hours here under tight security arrangements, a police official said.

He said the pilgrims are scheduled to reach the twin base camps of Baltal in Ganderbal district and Nunwan-Pahalgam in Anantnag district later in the day.

While 55 of the pilgrims including six women are performing the yatra from the shortest 12-km Baltal route,the rest of the pilgrims including four women have opted for the 36-km traditional Pahalgam route, the official said.

The 60-day annual yatra commenced from the twin tracks on June 28 and is scheduled to conclude on August 26 coinciding with 'Raksha Bandhan' festival.

Till last evening, a total of 2,77,215 pilgrims had paid their obeisance at the cave shrine which houses the naturally formed ice-shivlingam.

However, the number of pilgrims undertaking the yatra has marked a sharp dip over the past fortnight owing to early melting of the naturally formed ice-shivlingam at the sanctum sanctorum.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal today addressed Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad as "Pandit Ravi Shankar", leaving the senior BJP leader embarrassed.

"I would like to specially thank Pandit Ravi Shankarji," Sonowal said in the beginning of his speech at the launch of the "Digital North East Vision 2022" document here.

Pandit Ravi Shankar was a sitar maestro, who passed away in 2012.

However, Prasad, who was sitting on the dais, was quick to interrupt Sonowal. "Ah, you made me Pandit!" he quipped, evoking a round of laughter from the audience that included Sonowal's counterparts from Meghalaya and Tripura, along with a host of other ministers and senior bureaucrats.

Rectifying himself, Sonowal continued with his speech, mentioning the proper name and designation of the Union information technology minister.

However, the chief minister tried to defend the blooper in the concluding part of his speech.

"I am sorry for calling you (Prasad) in that way. But whenever I pronounce your name, I have the tendency to call you as Pandit. God has been kind enough to bless you with such wisdom, maturity and courage. You do everything so sincerely. I always feel so (addressing you as Pandit)," he said.

In his speech, Sonowal highlighted Prime Minister Narendra Modi's initiatives in developing the north-east, especially the connectivity.

Without naming former prime minister Manmohan Singh, he said, "Our representative remained as prime minister for 10 years, but he did not launch any exemplary scheme for the north-east."



Singh was a Rajya Sabha MP from Assam.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A Samajwadi Party legislator today sat on a 'dharna' outside Gauriganj police station in Amethi district, alleging that one of his supporters was being harassed by the local administration.

A dozen of supporters of MLA Rakesh Pratap Singh joined him in the protest this evening in front of the police station.

Singh alleged that his supporter Babulal Shukla was being harassed by the local administration.

The legislator told PTI that he sat on the 'dharna' after police and revenue department officials stopped the construction of Shukla's house in Bhatgawan village. He said Shukla has the documents required for constructing his house.

Singh claimed that police officials were working at the behest of Shukla's opponents.

"Nobody can have justice in the present government," he said, warning that he will launch a campaign against the alleged harassment if the issue is not resolved soon.

No administration official was available for comment.

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The impasse over setting up the Power Grid's Bhangar project in South 24 Parganas district was resolved today after an agreement was reached between the protesters and the state government, officials said.

The construction of the sub-station project had been disallowed by protesting villagers since January last year and now it has been decided that work will resume from Tuesday.

The project will strengthen the power infrastructure of at least three districts of the state.

Alik Chakraborty, leader of the Jami Raksha Committee, the organisation spearheading the agitation, said an agreement was signed today after an amicable settlement that involves compensation to those who had given the land and trimming down of the project.

Power Grid would now execute two feeders instead of three while the State Electricity Power Transmission Company will erect only two feeders against 13 initially proposed.

"Initially, there was a proposal for three feeders from our side, but now we will have two," a Power Grid official said.

In January 2017, villagers were up in arms against setting up of the sub-station, demanding return of their lands taken for the project.

Two persons were killed and many were reported missing as violence erupted over the issue since early last year.

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"Star Trek" actor Nichelle Nichols has been diagnosed with dementia.

TMZ has obtained documents filed in the 85-year-old's conservatorship in which Dr Meena Makhijani reportedly states that Nichols has been a patient of hers over the last two to three years and that she has "moderate progressive dementia."



The website also reports that the doctor states in the documents that Nichols "has major impairment of her short-term memory and moderate impairment of understanding abstract concepts, sense of time, place and immediate recall."



"There's no apparent impairment," however, when it comes to Nichols' "long-term memory, orientation of her body, comprehension, verbal communication, concentration, recognition of familiar people, as well as ability to reason logically and plan actions," the report claimed, citing the documents.

Nichols started her career as Uhura in "Star Trek" on the TV series in the '60s. The actor even appeared at Comic-Con last month to discuss her iconic role.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The State Trading Corporation (STC) today posted 88.44 per cent fall in standalone net profit to Rs 1.46 crore during April-June 2018-19, on poor income.

Its net profit in the same quarter of 2017-18 stood at Rs 12.63 crore, the company said in a BSE filing.

Net income declined 21.75 per cent to Rs 3,815.61 crore from Rs 4,876.75 crore in the year-ago period.

"STC is facing mismatch in inflows and outflows of funds due to huge recoverable from business associates who had defaulted in making timely payment to STC. Legal actions have been taken for recovery from the associates. All these have led to a temporary financial crunch," it said.

The source of current liquidity crunch faced by STC is not structural deficiency but the problem on account of some transactions which the company is trying to resolve, it said.

The state-run company further said it has appointed financial advisor for restructuring of existing loans and for raising additional loans. The funds raised would be used for executing title deeds of its properties.

"After executing perpetual lease deed, there would be substantial increase in value of the property. The company then proposes to raise additional working capital funds against the properties," it said.

STC also said it has approached its lender banks for an appropriate resolution plan with the objective to make the operations of the company viable and sustainable.

"The lender banks have formed Joint Lender Forum to finalise the reconstruction plan," it added.

The company informed that the government has given a Letter of Comfort for an amount of Rs 500 crore. Substantial amount is expected to be recovered from various associates in the coming years, it added.

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Trainer Brian Brown harnessed four of five Ohio Sires Stakes winners for two-year-old pacing colts and fillies on a balmy and rainy Friday night, Aug. 10, at Scioto Downs.

Brown harnessed the winners of all three $40,000 OHSS divisions for freshmen pacing colts, beginning with Dislocator, who took a front-stepping journey to score his maiden victory in 1:53.3 with Chris Page at the lines.

The son of Big Bad John, who was making just his fourth lifetime start, finished half a length in front of stablemate Smackitwithahammer (Ryan Stahl), a 19-1 longshot, while 3-1 Easeondowntheroad (Dan Noble) notched third-place honours.

Bred by Midland Acres, Dislocator, who left the gait at odds of 5-1, now has $36,640 in earnings for owners Joelyn Ridder, Scott Davis, Sharron Soponyl and VIP Stable.

High On Paydaze continued his winning ways for Brown and company, with a near perfect, wire-to-wire route to win the second OHSS colt division in a torrential downpour in 1:54.1 at odds of 2-1.

Page steered this son of Nob Hill High to his fourth career victory in as many starts, holding off his hard-trying, 6-5 stablemate Rock Candy (Ronnie Wrenn Jr.) by half a length, with another Brown trainee, the 8-1 Tony Too Tall (Ryan Stahl), getting up for third.

High On Paydaze has now swept the first three OHSS legs for owners Scott Hagemeyer, Robert Mondillo and Donald Robinson, amassing $78,400 thus far for his connections.

Brown then bridled up 9-5 Final Offer and 2-1 Carmen Ohio in the first $50,000 OHSS division for fillies. The former prevailed by three-quarters of a length over the latter with Sugar And Spite (Tyler Smith) third at 7-1.

The daughter of Rockin Amadeus followed the leading Carmen Ohio throughout most of the mile before besting her stablemate in the final yards in 1:55.2. It was the first career win for Final Offer, who is owned by Country Club Acres, Aws Stable and Joe Sbrocco.

Bred by Michael Dixon and Harold & Harold Lee Bauder, Final Offer now has $31,300 in her coffers.

Finally, Brown and driver Ronnie Wrenn Jr. teamed up to capture the second $50,000 OHSS filly division with High Reward, a Yankee Cruiser lass owned by Country Club Acres, Joe Sbrocco and L&H Management Services.

High Reward, the 7-1 choice, also enjoyed a front-end trip in her maiden victory, clocked in 1:53.1, after previously finishing second and fourth, respectively, in legs one and two. She finished nearly two lengths in front of 8-5 favourite Rylee Roo (Aaron Merriman), with Rose Run Uptowngal (Chris Page) third, some two and one-quarter lengths back.

Bred by Steve Jones, High Reward upped her career earnings to $50,075. That triumph also gave driver Wrenn Jr. his fifth consecutive win on the program.

The final OHSS contest for pacing colts saw 6-1 Doo Wop West score in 1:53.2 in his first OHSS venture.

The Western Vintage gelding, who is trained by Dirk Simpson for Lawrence Crawford, was given a careful steer by Aaron Merriman to finish two and one-half lengths in front of 23-1 Van Diesel (Trevor Smith) at the wire, with 2-5 favourite Rose Run Ulysses (Danny Noble) finishing third.

Bred by White Birch Farm, Doo Wop West now has two wins in three career starts and $23,400 in earnings.

Ohio Sires Stakes continue Saturday night, Aug. 11 at Northfield Park, with three $40,000 divisions for three-year-old pacing fillies. The $400,000 Milstein Memorial is also on the evenings program, featuring North America Cup and Ohio Sires Stakes winner Lather Up.

(With files from OSDF)
Amidst unabated poaching of chinkaras and black bucks, attacks by stray dogs and accidents caused by barbed wire fences were adding to the rising deaths of the endangered antelopes in Rajasthan's Jodhpur and Barmer districts, activists said today.

The deaths caused by the two factors were surging in the antelope populated areas with two to three animals dying everyday, said Rampal Bhawad, President of the Bishnoi Tiger Force, a wildlife vigilante group based in Jodhpur.

Earlier, the group had urged the state government to help them catch the stray dogs and also provide land in the villages where the mongrels can be kept after being sterilised by their volunteers.

"We have been planning to push this demand by launching a movement very soon,, Bhawad said.

Corroborating his views, veterinarian Sharavan Singh Rathore said the existence of chinkaras and black bucks in the region was under threat but the surprisingly the authorities were not dealing with the issue seriously.

Rathore said when the animals go to the watering holes, the stray dogs attack and kill them. Also, in the rainy season, the soil turns marshy and the animals get stuck in it becoming easy prey, he added.

The wildlife lovers and environmentalists demanded sterilisation of the stray dogs to curb their swelling population and effective rescue measures to save the antelopes. They threatened to launch a movement if their demands were not met.

The Akhil Bhartiya Jeev Raksha Bishnoi Sabha also called upon its activists in the most affected areas to begin a campaign to catch the dogs and drop them at a distant but safe location.

Similarly, while running away from their predators, the antelopes get killed or seriously injured as they entangle themselves in the barbed wire fences installed in several farms in the villages.

They run very fast and are unable to spot the wire fencing. They get entangled and die in most of the cases either by injury, shock or are caught by the dogs, said Rathore.

However, a forest official rued that due to the limited resources, the support of locals was needed to protect the animals.

"They (locals) keep the dogs to protect their farms in the villages... The dogs hunt meek animals like chinkaras and black bucks, he said.

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A "suicidal" mechanic stole an empty passenger plane from the Seattle-Tacoma airport, took it for a brief flight that included an aerial loop, then crashed it in an incident officials said was unrelated to terrorism.

Two military F-15s were scrambled to chase the stolen plane, but "were not involved in the crash," local officials said.

Video taken by a bystander late yesterday showed the passenger airplane making an unlikely upside-down loop, then flying low over Puget Sound before crashing into the sparsely populated Ketron Island in the northwestern US state of Washington.

The crash sparked a fire in the dense forest. Flames lit up the night as they spread from the burning wreckage to nearby trees. Officials said there were no victims on the ground.

The stolen plane was a twin engine turboprop Q400 airplane belonging to its sister carrier Horizon Air, Alaska Airlines said on Twitter. It normally carries 76 passengers.

"This is not a terrorist incident," Ed Troyer with the Pierce County Sheriff's office wrote on Twitter.

The plane thief "is confirmed a suicidal male," Troyer wrote. "We know who he is." The suspect was identified as a 29-year-old airline mechanic and local resident who "acted alone," Troyer added, confirming that there were "no passengers on the plane" when it crashed.

The sheriff's office also said that the F-15s arrived minutes after the plane was stolen and kept the aircraft "out of harms way and people on ground safe." Horizon Air chief operating officer Constance von Muehlen issued a video statement describing the incident.

"We believe it (the plane) was taken by a single Horizon Air employee and no other passengers or crew were on board," she said. "Our hearts are with the family of the individual aboard as well as all of our Alaska Air and Horizon Air employees." The plane was stolen at around 8 pm (0300 GMT Saturday) and crashed 90 minutes later, officials said.

John Waldron, who took dramatic video of the stolen plane flying in a loop, told CNN that he was out for an evening stroll when he saw the two fighter jets following the turboprop airplane.

His first thought was that they were practicing for an air show. "So, I started to capture video, just because I thought it was kind of bizarre," he told CNN.

Waldron said it seemed that the jets were chasing down the airplane. "I thought this is really odd. Kept the video rolling." Then the passenger plane pilot "did a complete loop ... I couldn't believe he recovered." He estimated that the plane at its lowest point was no more than 100 feet (30.5 meters) above the water.

"Then the pilot "pulled -- pretty much straight up. And kind of at an angle. And almost stalled the aircraft. Somehow he got it leveled back off. And then made his way down toward the island." Waldron said that he was prepared to "run and take cover." He briefly turned away, then turned back and saw the explosion as the plane crashed.

The pilot, identified as "Rich," comes across as excitable, confused, and even apologetic in a conversation with the control tower.

"Congratulations, you did it," the control tower tells "Rich," according to audio that aired on CNN. "Let's turn around the air and land it and not hurt anybody on the ground." "I don't know, man," the pilot answers. "I don't want to. I was kind of hoping that was going to be it, you know." "Rich" explains that he had put some fuel in the plane "to go check out the Olympics," but then worried that he was low on gasoline.

"I'm down to 2,100 (pounds) [952 kilos]," he says, "I don't know what the burnage is like on takeoff, but it burned quite a bit faster than I expected." The control tower gently urges him to land at a nearby military base. "I wouldn't want to do that. They probably have anti-aircraft," he responds.

"This is probably jail time for life, huh?" he later asks, according to a recording provided by the Seattle Times.

"Rich" said: "I've got a lot of people that care about me. It's going to disappoint them to hear that I did this. I would like to apologize to each and every one of them. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess. Never really knew it, until now." Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor described the incident at a press conference as a "joyride gone terribly wrong.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A young mechanic described as suicidal stole an empty passenger plane from Seattle-Tacoma Airport, took it on an hour-long flight that included a hair-raising loop as F-15 fighter jets gave chase, then crashed, killing himself.

Officials ruled out any link to terrorism in the incident, which took place late on Friday, and saw the man holding a conservation with an air traffic controller in which he seemed to apologize for what he was doing.

Video taken by a bystander showed the 76-seat plane making a big, slow loop-the-loop, then flying low over Puget Sound before crashing into Ketron Island, a sparsely-populated area in the northwestern US state of Washington.

The crash sparked a fire in the dense forest. Flames lit up the night as they spread from the burning wreckage to nearby trees. Officials said there were no victims on the ground.

The stolen plane was a twin-engine turboprop Q400 belonging to Horizon Air, its parent company Alaska Airlines said on Twitter.

The Pierce County Sheriff's office ruled out terrorism.

"Most terrorists don't do loops over the water," said Sheriff Paul Pastor.

"This might have been a joyride gone terribly wrong." But Ed Troyer, who also works at the sheriff's office, described him as "suicidal." He was identified as a 29-year-old airline mechanic called Rich or Richard, who lived locally and had acted alone. His full name was not given.

The sheriff's office said the F-15s arrived minutes after the plane was stolen and kept the aircraft "out of harm's way and people on the ground safe." The fighter jets flew at supersonic speed, triggering a boom first taken to be an explosion, as they raced to intercept the plane.

In a video statement, Horizon Air's chief operating officer Constance von Muehlen said the plane was taken by one of its employees.

"We believe (the plane) was taken by a single Horizon Air employee and no other passengers or crew were on board," she said.

The plane was stolen at around 8:00 pm (0300 GMT Saturday) and crashed 90 minutes later, officials said.

President Donald Trump was briefed and the White House praised authorities' quick response to the crisis.

John Waldron, who captured the plane's loop-the-loop on video, told CNN he was out for an evening stroll when he saw two fighter jets following a turboprop plane, initially thinking they were practicing for an air show.

"So I started to capture video, just because I thought it was kind of bizarre," he said, later realizing that the jets were chasing the plane.

Then the plane "did a complete loop... I couldn't believe he recovered." He estimated that the plane, at its lowest point, was no more than 100 feet (30 meters) above the water.

Then the pilot pulled the plane "pretty much straight up. And kind of at an angle. And almost stalled the aircraft. Somehow he got it leveled back off. And then made his way down toward the island." Waldron said he had been prepared to "run and take cover." He briefly turned away, then turned back and saw the explosion as the plane crashed.

In a conversation with the control tower, the pilot, who identified himself only as "Rich," came across as excitable, confused, and even apologetic.

"Congratulations, you did it," the control tower tells him, according to an audio feed aired on CNN.

"Let's turn around the air and land it and not hurt anybody on the ground." "I don't know, man," the pilot answers. "I don't want to. I was kind of hoping that was going to be it, you know." During the conversation, he says he had put some fuel in the plane "to go check out the Olympics" -- the Olympic Mountains which lie about 100 miles (160 kilometers) away.

But he later worried he was running low, saying the fuel had burned "quite a bit faster than I expected." The control tower then pushes him to land at a nearby military base.

"I wouldn't want to do that. They probably have anti-aircraft," he responds.

"This is probably jail time for life, huh?" he later says, according to a recording published by the Seattle Times.

"I've got a lot of people that care about me. It's going to disappoint them to hear that I did this," he said.

"I would like to apologize to each and every one of them. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess. Never really knew it until now.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Taliban and Uzbek officials say the head of the Taliban's political office in Qatar led a delegation to Uzbekistan to meet senior Foreign Ministry officials in a rare diplomatic foray and the strongest sign yet of the insurgency's increasing political presence in the region.

Taliban political chief Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai represented the insurgents in the four-day talks that ended Friday.

Suhail Shaheen, spokesman for the Taliban's political office in Doha, said in a statement to The Associated Press that discussions covered everything from international troop withdrawal to peace prospects to possible Uzbek-funded development projects that could include railway lines and electricity.

Uzbek's Foreign Affairs Ministry website offered a terse two-line announcement on the visit saying "the sides exchanged views on prospects of the peace process in Afghanistan.

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Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao today said the state government would take concrete measures for the social, financial and educational uplift of the 'Rajaka' (washermen) community.

The government has already allocated Rs 250 crore for the welfare of the community and it is ready to provide more funds if required, Rao told representatives of the community in a meeting, according to a release from the Chief Minister's office.

"The chief minister made it clear that the government is ready to implement the programmes as desired by them," it said.

The government would take a policy decision on entrusting the job of washing clothes in government hospitals, state-run hostels, residential schools and all other governmental organisations to the Rajaka community members, it said.

Rao also said the state government would construct a building in Hyderabad for the social and educational development of 'Yerukala' community.

The necessary land for the construction of the building would be allocated by the government and it would also bear the expenditure for construction, he said.

Rao also said special programmes would be designed for provision of employment opportunities to the Yerukala community members, the release added.

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A 77-year-old man, a temple priest, was arrested today for allegedly molesting a woman in Kalyan area in the district, police said.

Gopal Tambe, the accused, was booked under section 354 of IPC (molestation), said assistant police inspector S S Rajput of Kolsewadi police station.

According to the complainant, a 28-year-old married woman, her neighbours advised her to consult Tambe for her headache.

When she and her husband went to the temple to meet him yesterday afternoon, Tambe allegedly sent the husband away to buy some fruit as an offering for the deity and molested the woman, she alleged.

Further probe is on, said API Rajput.

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Texas officials are investigating the reported death of a migrant child who had been held recently at a US detention center under allegedly "unsanitary conditions."



State health and human services officials told AFP they had opened an investigation into the allegations, which first surfaced earlier this month.

The probe began Thursday after representatives for the family shared the child's name -- which remains confidential -- to the authorities.

The mother's attorneys said they disclosed information about "a small child who tragically died after being detained by (US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE) in unsanitary conditions." "We currently are assessing the case and have no further comments," the Arnold & Porter law firm added in a statement.

ICE said it was cooperating with the investigation.

Neither authorities nor attorneys provided details such as the child's gender, nationality or cause of death.

The firm only indicated that the child had been detained at a facility in Dilley, southern Texas -- one of three ICE centers that house families.

Controversy over the rumored death erupted this week after The Dallas Morning first reported the allegations on August 1.

Family centers house children only if they are part of a family unit.

In July, the three detention centers of this type held a total of 1,437 detainees. The total number of immigrants detained in all ICE facilities in the United States amounted to 44,210 on July 16.

A "zero tolerance" policy implemented earlier this year by President Donald Trump's administration, and since reversed, greatly increased arrests on the US-Mexico border.

It caused at one point more than 2,300 children to be detained without their parents, who were prosecuted for crossing the border even if they did so to seek asylum.

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An 11-year-old child bride returned to Thailand this week after widespread outcry over her marriage to a Malaysian man 30 years her senior, an official said today.

Malaysian Muslims below the age of 16 are allowed to wed with the permission of religious courts but the union between the girl and the 41-year-old trader went viral on social media and reignited calls to end child marriage.

The ceremony took place in June over the border in Thailand's Muslim-majority south in Narathiwat province, where the girl returned to Wednesday after "immense pressure from Malaysian media", the provincial governor Suraporn Prommool told AFP.

The 11-year-old is believed to be the trader's third wife.

Suraporn said she is undergoing mental health counselling because of the intense level of attention.

He added that the marriage was not recognised under Buddhist-majority Thailand's civil law but it took place under the auspices of an Islamic council in Narathiwat and that her parents gave consent.

"We cannot do anything (to annul the marriage) because they married under the religious law," he said.

The trader, however, could face six months in jail if it is found that he did not get permission in Malaysia.

The 11-year-old was born in Thailand to parents who labour in Malaysia's vast rubber plantations and Suraporn said she doesn't speak Thai well.

Malaysian activists in the multiethnic and predominantly Muslim country say some 16,000 girls below the age of 15 are already married.

A representative of the United Nations children's agency UNICEF has condemned the case as "shocking and unacceptable" and called on the new government to ban child marriage.

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At least three people have died of dengue and over 200 have been found to have contracted the mosquito-borne disease in Chhattisgarh's Durg district, a senior health official today said.

As many as 209 persons were found positive for dengue infection in the district in the last one month, Health and Family Welfare Department Commissioner R Prasanna said.

Three dengue deaths were confirmed in hospitals in Durg and Bhilai cities during last two weeks, he added.

Thirty-two teams of health officials are conducting door-to-door screenings for the disease and carrying out an awareness campaign, he said.

There were already three mobile medical units in Durg and the number has been now increased to five, Prasanna said.

Enough testing kits and medicines are available in the district, he said.

The administration is providing financial assistance to dengue patients admitted in private hospitals too.

The health department has reserved five beds in ICU at Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar Memorial Hospital, Raipur, for dengue patients in case their condition becomes critical.

An additional 100 beds have been arranged at Chandulal Chandrakar Medical College and Shankaracharya Medical College in Durg, the commissioner added.

Doctors from Raipur All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) and government medical college have also been roped in for the treatment of patients, he said.

The health commissioner said people should ensure cleanliness around their houses and prevent accumulation of stagnant water where mosquitoes can breed.

People can dial 104 to report suspected dengue cases, he said.

Following dengue outbreak in Durg, Chief Medical and Health Officer (CMHO) of the district Dr Subhash Pandey has been shifted as joint director, Raipur division of the health department. Dr G S Thakur has replaced him as Durg CMHO, another official said.

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Louis-Philippe Roy recorded his 1,000th career driving victory with an Ontario Sires Stakes score on Friday evening (August 10) at Woodbine Mohawk Park.

Roy, 28, entered the evening just two wins shy of the milestone and proceeded to post three wins in seven drives.

The Mont-Joli, Que. native picked up his first win of the evening in the sixth race with pacing mare Cenalta Call Girl and just three races later hit the 1,000-win mark with rookie trotting filly Hp Titania Runner in a $98,800 Ontario Sires Stakes Gold event.

Roy, who currently sits atop the OSS driver standings, eased Hp Titania Runner away from post three and watched from mid-pack as Petro Hall rolled to a :28.3 opening quarter. Moving steadily up the outside behind Royal Rhythm as Petro Hall carried on to a :58.3 half and 1:28.2 three-quarters, Hp Titania Runner turned for home with a clear view of the finish line and powered by the leaders to a 1:57.3 victory. Petro Hall settled for second, one and one-half length behind the fan favourite, and Champagne Jane closed hard to finish third.

Shes a nice filly with a lot of speed. I had to be a little bit careful with her tonight to keep her trotting, but she wasnt tired at the end, so I hope she keeps on showing more and more, said Roy. Im happy for the owner-breeders. They are among the first people that gave me stakes drives while I was racing in Quebec, so to win Golds here with them is very nice.

Roy steers the daughter of E L Titan and $466,034 winner Canaco Runner for Quebec owner-breeders Claude Hamel of Ayers Cliff and Michel Damphousse of Louiseville, and trainer Rene Bourassa of Fergus, Ont. In two starts, the filly has earned $82,600 and shares ownership of top spot in the division standings with the evening's other Gold winner Cambridge Kate and Petro Hall, each filly tallying 100 points in the first three Gold events.

Roy is currently this seasons Woodbine leading driver and his climb from Quebec fairs to top driver in Canada has been unprecedented. Roys first drive took place in 2008 and by the end of 2014 he had 253 races under his belt. That number has skyrocketed to over 4,800.

Im always telling the same story, but every time I take my time to look at where I was just two, three years ago and where I am now, its always over my expectations, said Roy following his 1,000th win. I dont think anyone would expect to go so quickly from the fair racetrack to the biggest track in Canada.

The young reinsman appeared on the Woodbine circuit in late 2016 and has been racking up the victories at a rapid pace, while becoming a go-to driver for many top trainers. Roy posted 380 wins last season and currently sits at 260 for the current year.

Roy just missed the milestone mark one race prior in the $30,000 Mares Preferred Pace as his popular pacesetter Firebby A was caught at the wire by a from-last Witch Dali and Jody Jamieson in 1:51.1. Richard Moreau trains the winning seven-year-old mare, who has won three straight for owner Brad Grant of Milton, Ont. An Ontario-sired daughter of Dali, Witch Dali notched her 30th career win and sent her bankroll over the $600,000 mark.

The win was the second on the card for Jamieson, who had an opportunity to make amends for a decision he made in the July 15 season opener of the Ontario Sires Stakes.

In that event, Jamieson chose Shesa Sweetheart over Cambridge Kate and watched as the filly he had qualified and driven in one overnight event swept to victory with Roy in the race bike while he settled for fourth with the pacesetting fan favourite. With Shesa Sweetheart absent from Fridays contest, trainer Carl Jamieson chose to give his son a second chance at steering Cambridge Kate and the reinsman took full advantage of the opportunity, guiding the filly to her second straight Gold victory.

I made the right choice this time, Jamieson quipped. Actually, I didnt have any choice so I was happy that Dad gave me the call on her tonight.

Starting from post eight, Cambridge Kate trotted strongly away from the start and settled briefly in third as Royaltys Pearl took the field to a :28.3 quarter. Soon after the quarter-mile pole, Jamieson sent Cambridge Kate after the lead and the filly was showing the way by the :59.2 half. Under pressure from Presto Change O around the final turn, Cambridge Kate reached the thee-quarters in 1:28.4 and then dug in through the stretch to secure a one and one-quarter length victory in a personal best 1:57.3. Angies Luckeylady closed well to be second and Presto Change O was third.

Shes just perfect really, she does nothing wrong on the track and just goes, said the Moffat, Ont. resident of the fan favourite. I had the chance to retake the lead easily tonight, so I did, and she did the rest.

Rockwood, Ont. resident Carl Jamieson shares ownership of Cambridge Kate with Glengate K Farms of Erin, Ont., and Dr. Robert Boyce of London, Ont. The daughter of E L Titan and former OSS competitor Aimees Image was a $44,000 acquisition from last falls London Selected Yearling Sale and has recouped $85,400 through her first four starts.

The two-year-old trotting fillies will make their fourth Gold Series start at Flamboro Downs on September 25.

Ontario Sires Stakes action returns to Woodbine Mohawk Park on Thursday, Aug. 16 with the fourth Gold leg for the three-year-old trotting fillies. Post time for the program is 7:10 p.m.

To view Friday's harness racing results, click on the following link: Friday Results - Woodbine Mohawk Park.

(With files from WEG & OSS)
Three students were drowned in the Jyonha waterfalls in Ranchi district while taking bath, the police said.

The students went to Jyonha waterfalls for picnic. They went for a bath and drowned, Superintendent of Police (Rural) Ajit Peter Dungdung said.

One student was saved from drowning by the villagers, he said.

The identities of the students were yet to be established, the SP said.

The SP said all the bodies were recovered from Jyonha waterfalls, situated under Angara police station.

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The Trinamool Congress today dubbed the rally of BJP president Amit Shah a "flop show" and refuted the charge that the TV coverage of his meeting was blacked-out due to pressure from the ruling party.

Shah, who addressed the rally at Mayo Road in the city today, criticised the ruling TMC for blacking out channels which covered his programme.

"You can blackout channels, but our BJP workers will carry my message to every corner of the state," he said at the meeting.

Refuting the charges, the TMC said in a statement, "The BJP has just concluded another flop show in #Bangla. After the flop meeting, BJP is looking for excuses. They are saying their meeting was blacked-out. Black outs and blackmailing is what BJP does. Do not insult the media. All showed. We challenge BJP. Either they prove it or resign".

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In a bid to curb corruption, the police chief of Himachal Pradesh's Una district has issued a unique diktat barring on duty cops manning check-points to keep more than Rs 200 with them.

Una superintendent of police Diwakar Sharma said the decision was taken after he received complaints alleging that police personnel at check-points demanded bribes from pilgrims entering the hill-state.

"Continuous complaints of (policemen) seeking bribes, especially from pilgrims coming from neighbouring Punjab to pay their obeisance at the temples located in Himachal Pradesh, has forced me to take this decision," the SP told PTI.

Sharma said the district was the entry point for thousands of pilgrims coming from Punjab to pray at the state's various holy shrines including Chintpurni, Jawalji and Kangra. The directive was issued yesterday and implemented from today.

"If there is any urgency for a particular cop posted at any check-post to keep more than Rs 200 with him or her, then the police personnel will have to mention the exact amount in daily diary of the concerned police station," he said.

The SP further said he had suspended five cops after catching them red-handed while taking bribes from pilgrims at Mubarakpur check-post on March 28.

Subsequently, the policemen posted at Marwari check-post were transferred on suspicion of taking a bribe on June 20, he said, adding that the power to issue challans and compound vehicles of some cops was withdrawn after they were found guilty of corruption.

Despite the crackdown, the complaints of cops at check-points seeking bribes kept pouring in forcing Sharma to issue the unique directive, he said.

"I have carried out several surprise raids as a commoner since my posting as SP in Una on January 4 and found that corruption is rampant at check points," he said.

"I am hopeful this decision will act as a deterrent," he added.

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Western governments and the UN expressed alarm today as top Zimbabwe opposition figure Tendai Biti appeared in court after a dramatic attempt to flee to neighbouring Zambia and claim asylum.

Biti, a veteran figure in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was taken handcuffed into a courtroom in Harare under a heavy police presence to face charges of public violence as well as the illegal declaration of election results.

"We will keep on fighting," he told reporters, before being granted bail of USD 5,000 on the condition that he surrenders his passport and does not address any political gatherings or conferences.

Biti made a dash across the border Wednesday, facing allegations of inciting protests last week by proclaiming victory for the opposition in Zimbabwe's first elections since the downfall of Robert Mugabe in November.

Mugabe's successor at the head of ruling party ZANU-PF, Emmerson Mnangagwa, was later declared the winner according to the official results, but the MDC claims the election was rigged.

Zambian authorities rejected Biti's plea for political asylum and handed him back to Zimbabwean police on Thursday morning, in defiance of a Zambia court ruling, according to his lawyers.

The UN refugee agency said it was "gravely concerned" by reports that Biti, an internationally-respected finance minister in Zimbabwe's 2009-2013 power-sharing government, had been deported while trying to claim asylum.

"Forcibly returning refugees and asylum-seekers to their country of origin is a serious violation of international refugee law," the UNHCR said in a statement. It urged Zambia to investigate the incident, which comes after accusations that Zimbabwe's authorities are pursuing a heavy crackdown on the opposition as it pursues its claims of electoral fraud.

Zambian government spokeswoman Dora Siliya said authorities had only received the ruling from its own court blocking Biti's expulsion after he had been returned. "His asylum was denied on the basis that in his country there is no breakdown in the rule of law," she told AFP, adding that Biti himself was "running away from the due process of the law" as he was wanted by authorities.

Western nations said they were "deeply disturbed by continuing reports that opposition supporters are being targeted by members of the Zimbabwean security forces".

In a joint statement, the EU, US, Canadian and Australian missions to Zimbabwe urged authorities to guarantee Biti's safety and human rights. "The charges are worrisome on the face of it," said US ambassador Brian Nichols, who attended the court hearing.

He added that he had spoken with Biti who "appears in good condition", and whose legal team are seeking to have the charges overturned.

Biti's deportation was likely to come up in talks between South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and his Zambian counterpart Edgar Lungu in Lusaka today.

At a packed court hearing, prosecutors accused Biti of egging on protesters on August 1, urging them to pull down a Mnangagwa campaign poster while telling them: "Remove that poster, we don't want thieves in this country."



The protesters went on to burn the poster while damaging property at the Harare offices of ruling party ZANU-PF.

The army opened fire on protesters that day, killing six people and prompting an international outcry.

Mnangagwa, who is seeking to reverse Zimbabwe's economic isolation and attract desperately needed foreign investment, had vowed the elections would turn a page on Mugabe's repressive 37-year rule.

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A sweetmeat trader was murdered by unidentified assailants at his shop here, triggering protests by local traders, the police said today.

Jitendra alias Naatte (36) was sitting in his sweet shop when three men arrived at his shop. After consuming tea, they indiscriminately fired at him and left him injured.

Jitendra was rushed to a hospital where doctors declared him dead.

Angered over the incident, local traders blocked the road, and lifted the blockade only after police arrived at the spot and assured them that action will be initiated.

Superintendent of Police Ravishankar said, "Police teams are conducting raids at different places in the district, and every aspect is being thoroughly investigated. Soon the guilty will be arrested.

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Rapper Travis Scott has gifted "wifey" Kylie Jenner a classic Rolls Royce for her 21st birthday.

The 26-year-old rapper and the "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" star have been together for more than a year and are parents to six-month-old daughter Stormi Webster.

"Mommy's new gift," Travis says in a Snapchat video showing Kylie holding Stormi and also filming footage of the car, which was adorned with a red ribbon. "I love you, Mommy, Stormi!"



He also wrote on Instagram, alongside a photo slideshow of him and Kylie. "Happy birthday wifey I love you mommy you my heart rib toes and all. May god continue to bless you and your spirit. This mark in your life is the start to more greatness."



Kylie owns several high-priced vehicles, including a modern Rolls Royce worth at least USD 300,000. She and Travis both own "his and hers" Lamborghini. In February, Kylie showcased a black Ferrari that he gave her as a "push present" for the birth of their daughter.

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The Trinamool Congress (TMC) today took out rallies across the state in protest against the publication of the complete draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam.

Senior TMC leaders, ministers and elected representatives today conducted rallies in various parts of the state wearing black badges.

Holding placards, the TMC activists raised slogans against the BJP governments at the Centre as well as Assam.

"In the name of NRC, they (BJP government in Assam) have deliberately omitted the names of Bengalis and other communities from the list. This is really shameful and we condemn it," TMC Secretary General Partha Chatterjee said.

The complete draft of the NRC was published on July 30 in Assam with 2.89 lakh names out of 3.29 applicants. Over 40 lakh people did not make it to the list.

The TMC exempted Kolkata from the demonstrations today owing to BJP national president Amit Shah's public meeting in the city.

The TMC will organize protest rallies in Kolkata tomorrow.

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Turkey's president is blaming the country's economic downturn on the United States and other nations that he claims are waging "war" against his country.

Speaking today in the northeastern province of Rize, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said dollars, euros and gold were "the bullets, cannonballs and missiles of the economic war being waged against our country." Erdogan promised supporters that Turkey was taking necessary precautions to protect its economy "but the most important thing is breaking the hands firing these weapons."



Turkey was hit by a financial shockwave this week as its currency nosedived over concerns about the government's economic policies and a trade dispute with the United States.

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Two teenaged girls were found dead at a house in Odisha's Balasore district but the cause of their death is yet to be known, police said today.

The girls, both friends, were identified as Priyanka Das of Biripada village and Laxmipriya Das of nearby Tentei under the jurisdiction of Soro police station. Both were Class 10 students in a nearby high school, they said.

Priyanka had gone to Lacmipriy's house yesterday to study together for a school examination.

Both the girls were in a motionless state when Laxmipriya's mother entered the room late last night after which the family members raised an alarm and took them to hospital where they were declared "brought dead".

Inspector In-Charge of Soro police station, Khyama Sagar Panda said a police team was sent to the hospital and the bodies have been sent for post-mortem.

An investigation is on, he said.

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An ultra-modern bus terminal will be developed on a Public Private Partnership basis at NIT, Faridabad, which would be first such bus terminal in Haryana, according to an official release.

The bus terminal would be developed within two years.

The Haryana government signed a concession agreement for the development of this bus terminal here today in presence of Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and state Transport Minister Krishan Lal Panwar.

Earlier, the chief minister held a meeting with officers of the transport department who apprised him about the project.

During the meeting, the chief minister was informed that the bus terminal, having all modern facilities, would be designed by renowned architects.

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In this week's edition of Rewind Robert Smith remembers some happenings, names and other interesting facts from the decade of the 1940's. The usual inclusion of a few old photographs helps to set the tone of the times.

The decade of the 1940's was an eventful one and combined with a lot of other things going on connected with WW II, it was a most memorable time. Night racing became a reality in 1940, the starting gate came into widespread use by 1946 and was officially introduced in Canada in May of 1947. Several new racetracks sprang up in the U.S. and the sport grew by leaps and bounds in Quebec and the Maritimes. Harness racing was a huge spectator sport and in certain areas of the Continent also provided one of the few legal gambling opportunities for the general population. Racing at the small towns continued to be the backbone of the sport.

1942 - Robert Smith Passes In California

(As reported in the Sept. 1942 issue of The Canadian Sportsman)

Robert Smith, cordially known as "Sweet Marie 2:02 Bob Smith" passed away at his Los Angeles, Calif. home on August 18, aged about 75 years. He was a native of Philadelphia, Pa. where his family amassed a comfortable fortune as coffee roasters. As a comparatively young man his health failed and his father gave him $1,500 to go to California. Family and friends agreed that his days were numbered as he had been afflicted with tuberculosis for several years. In short order the reverse of their thoughts occurred as Mr. Smith improved in health and he became interested in harness horses through the suggestion of a chum named Will Durfee.

He soon earned a name as a clever amateur trainer and driver to such an extent that he leased a trotter named Sweet Marie then 10 years old. She had been matineed some around Los Angeles, although never fully sound. He brought her back east and by careful training she became the leading stake trotter of her year taking a record of 2:02 at Columbus, Ohio. For the past decade or longer Smith had been engaged in buying horses for parties in Australia and New Zealand, shipping some of the best horses of recent years.



Sweet Marie 2:02 (Harness Horse) Sweet Marie 2:02 (Harness Horse)

He was a keen judge of horses and a successful business man whose passing will be regretted by countless friends.

Note: Not a relative to my knowledge.

1944 - Waples Stable Has Successful Season

J.L. "Jack" Waples and his eldest son Keith from Victoria Harbour, Ont. had a pretty busy but productive season back in 1944. They had a couple of pretty consistent performers that they raced throughout that season across Central Ontario. They started the calendar year off at Mitchell, Ont., and when the summer and fall season was completed they headed to Dufferin Park, that fabled spot in Toronto. In the meantime they touched down for the day at quite a few different spots. By the way young Keith did not turn 21 until December of that year.

Their two steady performers that year were a black gelding named Black Prince 2:08 1/4 and a bay mare Lady Harvester 2:11. The following is an alphabetically arranged list of towns where they appeared. Coldwater, Collingwood, Elmvale, Goderich, Lindsay, Listowel, Markham, Mitchell, Picton, Port Perry, Schomberg, Strathroy, Stratford, Sunderland, Tillsonburg, Woodbridge. It is possible they also raced at a few other locations that were not recorded.

When Keith won all three heats with Black Prince on Sept. 14 opening day at Lindsay, he was one of several winning drivers that received a $5.00 bill as a bonus. Also Lindsay Mayor Chas. Lamb donated a beautifully inscribed cooler and $10.00 for the fastest heat of the meeting to Harry Ingles. His prize-winning ride came behind Grattan Lee in the Free For All on closing day as they stopped the watches of timers Chas. O'Neill and James Issac in 2:10 3/4. Second in each of the three heats was Black Prince, back in action after a rest of one day. Purses for all events was a generous $300 ($1370.00 in today's equivalent value)

I have been unable to find out if Keith still has that five spot tucked away in a secret area of his billfold!

1946 - Blue Again Wins The Canadian Pacing Derby

Back in August of 1946 the 11th edition of the Canadian Pacing Derby was held at Fountain Park in the small Waterloo County town of New Hamburg. This race was fast becoming not only the Province's headline event but also one that was making all Canadians proud. This year's event drew the largest crowd in its two decade history and also resulted in a new speed record which would stand for as long as this race was held at New Hamburg.

On this day the U.S.-bred and Canadian-owned Blue Again was a convincing three-heat winner as he prevailed over The Count B who had won the event the previous two years and would come back again the following two years to resume his dominance in this annual classic.

In 1946 BLUE AGAIN was the winner in three straight heats. His fastest winning time of 2:04 1/2 was an all-time Derby record which stood as the best of all 22 races held at New Hamburg. The winning driver, shown here, was Harold Wellwood, then 40 years of age. Harold's winning mile set a new track record and netted him $50, a prize that had been unclaimed for many years. Blue Again was owned by R. W. Leatherdale of Windsor, Ont. (LFP Photo)

After the record setting mile Harold allegedly said "I'm never going to reset my stopwatch because it's unlikely that I'll ever go this fast again."

Harold told me an interesting story to do with the $50.00 prize he received that day. Once the hoopla and excitement of that day had subsided Mr. Leatherdale, the horse's owner, showed up at the stable. Along with the winning trophy he had a somewhat crumpled envelope that he showed Harold. He said "I also got 50 bucks for breaking the track record!" Harold politely said "Thank you very much; if you check the words on the envelope it says "To The Driver" who breaks the record. Reportedly Mr. Leatherdale, who was not universally known for his generosity, reluctantly handed over the prize. By the way, today's value of $50 is equal to $710.64.

1948 - Dr. Stanton Tops Free For All List



Dr. Stanton the famous "rags to riches" performer is shown in action with owner and driver Lindley Fraser in the sulky. A $500 purchase he went on to national stardom in the late 1940's and early 50's. Dr. Stanton the famous "rags to riches" performer is shown in action with owner and driver Lindley Fraser in the sulky. A $500 purchase he went on to national stardom in the late 1940's and early 50's.

At one time horses were classified by their lifetime earnings. The categories went from 30 Class which meant that a horse had won at least $100 career. In the top category were those who had earned $ 64,000 and above and they were listed as "Free For All." Every other horse fell somewhere in between. These designations were quite important and were often used to include or exclude horse's eligibility from certain races.

At the conclusion of the 1948 racing season only six active pacers were on that F.F.A. list, with just one Canadian-owned steed. That prestigious standing belonged to the phenomenal aged pacer Dr. Stanton, owned, trained and driven by Lindley Fraser of Forest, Ont. Buoyed by his earnings from that season which amounted to just over $ 50,000, the seven-year-old gelded son of Bonnycastle had lifetime earnings of $70,800 (approx. $802,000 in today's dollars).

Dr. Stanton raced entirely in the U.S. that year and for that matter spent most of his lengthy career racing there with the exception of a few starts at Thorncliffe Park in Toronto and also at the Canadian Pacing Derby in New Hamburg, both in 1950.

1949 - Fair Season Starts In Eastern Ontario

Sept. 12, 1949 - Two of Ontarios oldest Fall Fairs, those at Williamstown (First held in 1812) and Vankleek Hill, will hold the spotlight next week. The Williamstown show, from Monday to Wednesday, is in its 145th year, while Vankleek Hills exhibition, thirty years younger, will follow on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. A feature at this years exhibition at Vankleek Hill will be the new grandstand, just completed and which is to be formally opened tonight. It replaces the old stand destroyed by fire last October and will have seating accommodation for 900. Harness racing will be an attraction on Friday and Saturday.

The Free For All at Vankleek Hill was won by a U.S. bred horse Delaware Gazette, sired by Chief Abbedale, owned and driven by Gaston Lanthier from Oka, Que. The quickest mile of 2:13 belonged to Texas Mack for owner Joseph Larocque of Chute - A - Blondeau, Ont. with August Larocque in the sulky. Two owner-drivers, Leo Lalonde of Curran Ont. and Alex Gordon of Cornwall accounted for five wins during the two day fair races.

Who Is It?

Can you identify this gentleman, a longtime participant in Canadian harness racing?

Where Is It?

Can you identify the location of this once popular backstretch?

Watch for the correct answers during the coming week.
Union Science and Technology Minister Harsh Vardhan today inaugurated the new campus of National Institute of Animal Biotechnology (NIAB) here.

NIAB aims to harness novel and emerging biotechnologies and it has taken up research in the cutting areas for improving animal health and productivity, NIAB said.

The institute focuses on research which would lead to to the development of novel vaccines, diagnostics and improved therapeutic molecules for farm animals, focusing broadly on infectious diseases, reproductive biotechnology, animal genetics and other areas with respect to livestock and poultry, NIAB officials said.

"The animal biotechnology institute is working in taking care of the health of livestock, treating their diseases, researching to improve the output and productivity, working on how to develop new breeds with the help of animal genomics," Harsh Vardhan told reporters.

"I have told them that now the focus of research has to be more and more on people-centric, farmer-centric issues and ensure that we are able to fulfil the dream of the Prime Minister. He wants to double the income of farmers by 2022...," he said.

The research of NIAB would contribute towards increasing the income of farmers, he said.

He appreciated NIAB's outreach programme for farmers -- MILAN (Meeting of Indian Livestock Farmers and Agriculturists with NIAB scientists).

Earlier in his address, Harsh Vardhan said the scientific community needs to change the definition of impact factor.

He said it should not be how many times a scientific paper is read by how many people and that it should be about how many millions would be benefited by a scientist's work.

The approach should shift from a routine one to a pro-active and visionary approach with the aims and objectives put in a "dream-like situation", he said.

"There should be a mechanism to put some sort of timeliness to what we want to achieve in how many years or in months or weeks," he said.

He expressed confidence that the country would emerge as the third most promising nation for science in the world by 2030 with the rapid advancements made in the field.

"I am sure that we will be able to realise the dream of being the probably the third most promising nation for science in the whole world by 2030," he said.

The country is sixth in terms of scientific publications all over the world and the country's growth rate for scientific publications is 14 per cent, while the international growth rate is just about four per cent, he said.

The country was caught unaware when the tsunami of 2004 occurred, but INCOIS (Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services) in Hyderabad is probably the number one in the world in terms of early tsunami warnings, he said.

The country is number four in terms of capability for weather forecasting, cyclones, disasters, he said.

"Can you imagine that in a list of over 1,200 institutions funded by the government, CSIR right now stands at ninth position in the whole world," he said.

The country is well placed with regard to patents and speed, Harsh Vardhan said.

There is good quality synergy now within various departments of the science and technology ministry and also within the scientific community and also with other scientific departments, he said.

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Rajasthan PCC Chief Sachin Pilot today said that unlike the BJP, which "restricts people wearing or carrying black clothes in rallies," Congress does not discriminate on the basis of colour of clothes.

He was apparently referring to July 7 rally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi here in which people wearing black or carrying any black cloth were kept out. The restriction was allegedly meant to rule out any chance of a protest at the venue.

Talking to reporters here, Pilot said people wearing clothes of any colour including red, black, green, yellow or blue are welcome in Congress rallies,



"Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje fears that farmers and people will protest in their rallies so they restrict them wearing black colour shirt or vest, he said.

He said Congress has not put any "restriction" on people in its rallies and anyone wearing any colour can participate in events.

In January this year, people wearing black clothes were also not "allowed" to attend a public rally in Varanasi to be addressed by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.

"We do not discriminate on the basis of any colour. People wearing clothes of any colour can participate and people are showering their blessings on Rahul Gandhi," he said ahead of Congress national President Rahul Gandhi's rally here today.

Gandhi arrived here on a one-day visit to launch the party's election campaign for the assembly polls in the state.

Elections in Rajasthan are due in a few months.

Thousands of the party workers have gathered in the city for the Congress chief's road show and a meeting at the Ramlila Ground.

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A 23-year-old gang rape victim allegedly tried to commit suicide over police inaction at a village in Uttar Pradesh's Shamli district.

The woman attempted to end her life by consuming poison yesterday, Station House Officer (SHO), Jhinjhana, Rajkumar Sharma said.

Two people are accused in the case and one of them was arrested yesterday. The woman is undergoing treatment at a hospital, the officer said.

Family members claimed that she was upset over the police not taking adequate action against the perpetrators.

The woman was raped by the youths on August 5, according to the complaint lodged by her father.

He has also alleged that the youths had threatened his daughter with dire consequences if she reported the matter, the SHO said.

Sharma said the matter is being investigated and a search had been launched to nab the other accused.

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A US judge denied German drugmaker Fresenius Kabi's motion to stop a planned lethal injection execution in Nebraska on the grounds that the state improperly obtained the company's drugs.

Federal Judge Richard Kopf ruled yesterday that the state could carry out the execution, its first in 21 years, using a four-drug protocol.

Fresenius Kabi had argued it was the likely source of two of those drugs, and their use in an execution would hurt the company's reputation, especially with a European public largely opposed to capital punishment.

The German group argued that it had protocols in place to prevent its drugs from being obtained by state agencies for executions, and that if Nebraska had purchased the drugmaker's injectable medicines, it had done so improperly.

But Kopf rejected the company's arguments, issuing an oral ruling from the bench saying that since Nebraska has not publicly identified the source of its execution drugs, the company's concerns were too speculative.

Fresenius Kabi reportedly planned to appeal the ruling, which for the time being did not alter the planned execution date of convicted murderer Carey Dean Moore, set for Tuesday.

Moore was sentenced to death for the 1979 murder of two taxi drivers. He is not contesting his execution order, but it could nevertheless be delayed by the lawsuit, should it prevail in an appeal.

"Decades have slipped by since Mr Moore was sentenced to death. The people of Nebraska have spoken," the judge said in his ruling.

"Any delay now is tantamount to nullifying Nebraska law, particularly given the rapidly approaching expiration of two of the drugs and the total absence of any feasible alternatives." State officials have said they obtained the drugs legally, although they have kept their source secret.

Injectable drugs have become harder to obtain amid public opposition and a reluctance or refusal by drug manufacturers to sell their products to prisons for use in executions.

Last month, a similar lawsuit by drugmaker Alvogen temporarily halted an execution in Nevada.

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A California jury ordered chemical giant Monsanto to pay nearly USD 290 million for failing to warn a dying groundskeeper that its weed killer Roundup might cause cancer.

Jurors unanimously found that Monsanto -- which vowed to appeal -- acted with "malice" and that its weed killers Roundup and the professional grade version RangerPro contributed "substantially" to Dewayne Johnson's terminal illness.

Following eight weeks of trial proceedings, the San Francisco jury ordered Monsanto to pay USD 250 million in punitive damages along with compensatory damages and other costs, bringing the total figure to nearly USD 290 million.

"The jury got it wrong," the company's vice president Scott Partridge told reporters outside the courthouse.

Johnson, a California groundskeeper diagnosed in 2014 with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma -- a cancer that affects white blood cells -- says he repeatedly used a professional form of Roundup while working at a school in Benicia, California.

"I want to thank everybody on the jury from the bottom of my heart," Johnson, 46, said during a press conference after the verdict.

"I am glad to be here; the cause is way bigger than me. Hopefully this thing will get the attention it needs." Johnson, who appeared to be fighting back sobs while the verdict was read, wept openly, as did some jurors, when he met with the panel afterward.

The lawsuit built on 2015 findings by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the UN World Health Organization, which classified Roundup's main ingredient glyphosate as a probable carcinogen, causing the state of California to follow suit.

"We are sympathetic to Mr Johnson and his family," Monsanto said in a statement promising to appeal the ruling and "continue to vigorously defend this product, which has a 40-year history of safe use and continues to be a vital, effective and safe tool for farmers and others."



But Johnson's attorney Brent Wisner said the verdict "shows the evidence is overwhelming" that the product poses danger.

"When you are right, it is really easy to win," he said.

Wisner called the ruling the "tip of the spear" of litigation likely to come.

The lawsuit is the first to accuse the product of causing cancer, but observers say a Monsanto defeat likely opens the door to thousands of other claims against the company, which was recently acquired by Germany's Bayer.

Robert F Kennedy Jr -- an environmental lawyer, son of the late US senator and a member of Johnson's legal team -- hugged Johnson after the verdict.

"The jury sent a message to the Monsanto boardroom that they have to change the way they do business," said Kennedy, who championed the case publicly.

Partridge said outside the courthouse that Monsanto had no intention of settling the slew of similar cases in the legal queue, saying if anything the verdict would prompt the company to work harder to demonstrate the weed killer is safe.

"It is the most widely used and most widely studied herbicide in the world," Partridge said. "The verdict today does not change the science."



Johnson's team expressed confidence in the verdict, saying the judge in the case had kept out a mountain of more evidence backing their position.

"All the efforts by Monsanto to put their finger in the dike and hold back the science; the science is now too persuasive," Kennedy said, pointing to "cascading" scientific evidence about the health dangers of Roundup.

"You not only see many people injured, you see the corruption of public officials, the capture of agencies that are supposed to protect us from pollution and the falsification of science," Kennedy said.

"In many ways, American democracy and our justice system was on trial in this case."



Before jurors went to deliberate, Johnson's attorney Brent Wisner asked them to deliver a "day of reckoning" for Monsanto.

"The science finally caught up, where they couldn't bury it anymore," Wisner told the jury in closing arguments.

Roundup is Monsanto's leading product and glyphosate is reportedly the world's most commonly used weed killer.

"The Johnson v Monsanto verdict is a win for all of humanity and all life on earth," said Zen Honeycutt, founding executive director of non-profit group Moms Across America.

The majority of our illnesses and losses to soil quality, water, wildlife and marine life are due to toxic chemicals, particularly Monsanto's most widely used glyphosate herbicides like Roundup and Ranger Pro."



Despite its denials of any links between its products and ill health effects, Monsanto has already suffered hits to its reputation in light of the controversy.

Records unsealed earlier by a federal court lent credence to Johnson's claims -- internal company emails with regulators suggested Monsanto had ghostwritten research later attributed to academics.

Founded in 1901 in St Louis, Missouri, Monsanto began producing agrochemicals in the 1940s. It was acquired by Bayer for more than USD 62 billion in June.

Monsanto was one of the companies that produced the defoliant "Agent Orange" -- which has been linked to cancer and other diseases -- for use by US forces in Vietnam.

The company denies responsibility for how the military used the product.

Monsanto launched Roundup in 1976 and soon thereafter began genetically modifying plants, making some resistant to Roundup.

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A group of California college students who were in France during a 2016 terrorist attack are turning their grief into tech tools to fight terrorism.

Anjali Banerjee and several University of California, Berkeley classmates were in Nice two years ago when a man plowed a truck through a crowd, killing 86 people. They've built a startup called Archer that creates digital tools to help investigators, human rights workers and others tackle sanctions evasion, corruption, terrorism and other global violence.

Amnesty International is using one of their tools to verify the authenticity of photographs documenting the massacre of Rohingya in Myanmar.

The students hope to turn their data analysis tool into a for-profit company. Banerjee says they were inspired to act after having to rely on each other and the people of Nice during the chaotic hours after the attack.

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The Trump administration has suspended more than a decade-long military training programme of Pakistani personnel at the US institutions, a media report said today, days after Islamabad and Moscow signed an agreement to allow Pakistani troops to receive training at the Russian defence centres.

Pakistan and Russia signed an agreement on Tuesady at their first Joint Military Consultative Committee (JMCC) meeting in Rawalpindi during which the two sides discussed the present status of the bilateral defence relations and agreed that Pakistani troops will receive training at the Russian military training institutes.

The relations between Pakistan and the US nosedived this January after President Donald Trump accused Islamabad of giving nothing to Washington but "lies and deceit" and providing "safe haven" to terrorists.

The US Congress also passed a bill to slash Pakistan's defence aid to USD 150 million, significantly below the historic level of more than USD one billion per year.

The US military institutions are struggling to fill the 66 slots they had kept aside for officers from Pakistan for the next academic year, as the Trump administration refused to provide funds for their training, the Dawn newspaper reported, quoting official sources.

The fund for the training of Pakistani officers came from the US government's International Military Education and Training Programme (IMET) but no funds were made available for Pakistan for the next academic year, it said.

The suspension of the training first became apparent when the US National Defence University (NDU) in Washington, which has had reserved seats for Pakistani officers for more than a decade, told the outgoing Pakistani officers that the varsity has been asked to fill the positions for the next year with officers from other nations.

The NDU is one of several US military institutions that train officers from Pakistan.

The Trump administration had announced early this year that it was suspending security assistance to Pakistan over differences on Afghanistan but indicated that training programmes for military officers will continue.

The cancellation of slots kept aside for Pakistani officers, however, shows that the suspension now also applies to training programmes, the report said.

Pakistani officers have been receiving military training and education in the US since early 1960s, which were suspended in the 1990s but restored after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Previously, it was not just Pakistan that valued the training and education of its officers received in the US.

US military institutions also proudly owned training officers who assumed senior positions after returning home, such as former Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and Lt Gen Naveed Mukhtar, the current director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence, the report said.

"This is an unfortunate and ultimately counterproductive decision. There are certainly ways to send a strong message to Pakistan, but this isn't the way to do it," Michael Kugelman, an expert of Pakistan affairs at the Washington think tank 'the Wilson Center', was quoted as saying in the report.

"This move could squander what little goodwill and trust remains in the military-to-military relationship, and it reduces the likelihood that Pakistan will act in the ways that Washington would like it to act," Kugelman said.

He said there was a long history of educational and training cooperation between the US and Pakistani militaries, and this cooperation had withstood the pressures and tensions of the relationship.

"The fact that these educational exchanges have suffered this blow now suggests that the relationship could be entering into a new phase where even the supposedly safe and protected dimensions of the relationship can become casualties of wider tensions and ill will," Kugelman said.

So far there is no response from Pakistani official to this move by the US.

Pakistan's defence ties with Russia have moved past the bitter Cold War hostilities in recent years and the chill in the relations between Pakistan and the US has further pushed the country towards Russia and China.

Pakistan has shown eagerness to build military-to-military level ties with Russia.

Earlier this year, the then foreign minister Khawaja Asif visited Moscow during which the two sides agreed to set up a commission to boost military cooperation.

Russia has over the past three years provided four Mi-35M combat and cargo helicopters to Pakistan and the militaries of the two countries also held joint drills codenamed 'Friendship'.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
MDMK chief Vaiko today demanded that the Centre posthumously confer Bharat Ratna on M Karunanidhi a day after DMK raised a similar demand in Parliament.

While paying tribute to Karunanidhi, Vaiko said in a statement that 'Kalaignar' (as Karunanidhi is fondly called) received love and affection from people across the country and urged the centre to confer the Bharat Ratna on the late leader as part of honouring him.

Yesterday, during the Zero Hour in Rajya Sabha, DMK member 'Tiruchi' Siva asked the Centre to 'posthumously' confer Bharat Ratna on Karunanidhi as a tribute to his exemplary work for the people.

Many members, including Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad, supported Siva's demand.

Meanwhile, DMK working president M K Stalin along with senior party leaders paid floral tributes at Karunanidhi's burial site on the Marina beachfront.

As people continue to throng the site, party MLA J Anbhazhagan said arrangements have been made to serve free food and water to them.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today released a vision document for a digital northeast that aims to improve people's lives by capacity building of government staff and doubling BPO strength in the region.

Unveiling the plans under the 'Digital North East: Vision 2022', he said the document emphasises leveraging digital technologies to transform lives of people of the northeastern states and enhance the ease of living.

A cloud hub for the northeast will be set up in Guwahati and capacity building for 50,000 government staff will be taken up using digital technologies, the Union electronics and IT minister said.

The number of seats planned for BPOs in the northeastern states will be doubled to 10,000 while the network of common service centres will be expanded to cover all villages, Prasad said.

The minister said that he had asked the officials of his ministry to prepare a comprehensive digital plan for the entire northeastern region, with digital profiles of all the eight states, highlighting the strengths and weaknesses of each one of them.

Inaugurating a new BPO at world's largest river island Majuli, Prasad said the government will provide Rs 1 lakh subsidy to all BPO centres coming up in small cities across the northeastern states.

"We want to strengthen the digital power of villages. We are now seeing that people are coming back from big cities to their hometowns," he said.

Asserting that there are issues related to connectivity in region, the Prasad said enough bandwidth would be provided for the states and an "e-pragati" project will be launched to connect the region.

"I also request all chief ministers to identify hospitals. We are going to make them e-hospitals. Digital Seva is most important in digital India," he said, adding the government is also developing e-classrooms in medical colleges at Shillong, Guwahati, Dibrugarh, Dimapur, Imphal and Agartala, while a free space optical fibre project is being launched in Arunachal Pradesh.

According to the vision document, high-speed broadband connectivity will be will be provided in all the uncovered villages in the northeastern region.

With an aim to empower the people of the northeastern region, the vision document identified eight digital thrust areas -- digital infrastructure, digital services, digital empowerment, promotion of electronics manufacturing, promotion of IT and IT enabled services including BPOs, digital payments, innovation & startups, and cyber security.

State-wise roadmaps have been developed for implementing digital initiatives.

The document was released in the presence of chief ministers of Assam, Meghalaya and Tripuram, and senior government officials.

Coinciding with the unveiling of the Vision Document, several other projects were launched for the Northeastern states.

Three parallel sessions were held in the morning, comprising a networking workshop on hub-and-spoke model for the BPOs, a session on expanding the role and reach of common service centres and another session on government e-market place.

Before the event, Prasad and Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal laid the foundation stone for a common facilitation centre and smart meter manufacturing facility at the Electronics Manufacturing Cluster (EMC) in Tech City at Bongara village, near here.

"We are trying to promote electronic manufacturing here. We want to make India big in this. Electronics is going to be an important component of economic development," Prasad said.

On India's target of becoming a trillion-dollar digital economy, the Union minister said the northeast will contribute significantly to this.

"We aim to achieve this target in the next five to seven years. This will give 50 to 75 lakh jobs in the digital sector. All big companies are coming to India, which is becoming big globally," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
FRANKFURT (Reuters) - German automotive supplier Duerr has halted its activities in Iran, which has been hit by the reintroduction of U.S. sanctions this week that include threats to blacklist any companies trading with the Islamic republic."Business in Iran has grown over the past year. Now we have stopped our activities for the time being," Duerr Chief Financial Officer Carlo Crosetto told Boersen-Zeitung in an interview published on Saturday."We've won two larger contracts in 2017. This is not overly important, but it's not small either. This was also an opportunity in terms of margins ...
DUBAI (Reuters) - China's state-owned energy major CNPC has taken over the share in Iran's multi-billion dollar South Pars gas project held by France's Total, the Iranian state news agency IRNA reported on Saturday.Total signed a contract in 2017 to develop Phase II of South Pars field with an initial investment of $1 billion, marking the first major Western energy investment in the country after sanctions were lifted in 2016. South Pars has the world's biggest natural gas reserves ever found in one place.But the French company had said it would pull out unless it secured a U.S. sanctions ...
DUBAI (Reuters) - China's state-owned energy major CNPC has taken over the share in Iran's South Pars gas project held by France's Total, the Iranian state news agency IRNA reported on Saturday.Total has said it would pull out unless it secured a U.S. sanctions waiver. "China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) has replaced Total of France with a 80.1 percent stake in the phase 11 of the South Pars (gas field)," IRNA quoted Mohammad Mostafavi, director of investment of Iran's state oil firm NIOC, as saying.There was no immediate confirmation of the report by CNPC. (Reporting by Dubai newsroom; ...
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's business and energy ties with Iran do not harm the interests of any other country, the country's Foreign Ministry said, after U.S. President Donald Trump said companies doing business with Iran would be barred from the United States.China has already defended its commercial relations with Iran as open and transparent as U.S. sanctions on Iran took effect despite pleas from Washington's allies.In a statement released late on Friday, China's foreign ministry reiterated its opposition to unilateral sanctions and "long-armed jurisdiction"."For a long time, China and ...
By Daphne Psaledakis(Reuters) - Turkey is a key NATO ally to the United States, but the countries' bilateral relationship has become quite strained.Reverberations spread through global markets on Friday after U.S. President Donald Trump imposed higher tariffs on metal imports from Turkey, sending the country's lira currency deeper into a tailspin.The fallout has been exacerbated over American Christian pastor Andrew Brunson, who is now under house arrest in Turkey. The Trump administration has demanded his release.But Brunson is not the only sticking point between the two countries. The ...
By Alexandra HarneySHANGHAI (Reuters) - The internationalization of the renminbi has made progress, Zhou Xiaochuan, former governor of China's central bank, said on Saturday."The internationalization of the renminbi is not a linear progress. It will move faster when there are opportunities to do so. Sometimes, it will move more slowly. But in the longer view, the internationalization of the renminbi is still promising," Zhou said at a financial forum in Shanghai.Zhou said that the development of financial sanctions would have some impact on the US dollar's use as an international reserve ...
(Reuters) - Papa John's International Inc on Friday said it would lower royalties and fees charged to its U.S. and Canadian franchisees as sales at the U.S. pizza chain decline following the acrimonious exit of it founder.The company will cut royalties, food-service pricing and online fees through 2018, while also funding the rebranding of the chain.This comes days after the company said its North American comparable sales for July had fallen 10.5 percent and would continue falling in the coming months.Founder John Schnatter resigned as chairman of the board in July following reports that he ...
ISTANBUL (Reuters) - The Turkish economy is not in a crisis or going bankrupt and the fluctuations in the foreign exchange rate are the 'missiles' of an economic war waged against Turkey, President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday.Speaking at a provincial meeting of his AK Party in the Black Sea coastal city of Rize, Erdogan said Turkey was preparing to conduct trade through national currencies with China, Russia and Ukraine. (Reporting by Humeyra Pamuk; editing by David Stamp)(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
By David Shepardson and David LawderWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Talks between the United States and Mexico over the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement were set to drag into next week, as auto industry officials said on Friday that new sticking points had emerged over President Donald Trump's threat to impose steep automotive tariffs.Auto industry officials familiar with the talks said the Trump administration wants the ability to impose national security tariffs on future Mexican production from new auto assembly and parts plants.These officials said U.S negotiators had essentially ...
By Sheila Dang(Reuters) - The union that represents many Verizon Communications Inc employees announced the ratification of a four-year extension of their labour contracts on Friday, paving the way for an 11.2 percent increase in wages over the four years.Verizon and the union workers agreed to the deal well in advance of the current contracts' expiration in August 2019, seeking to avoid another conflict that prompted strikes in 2016. The new contracts, which cover 34,000 employees in northeast and mid-Atlantic regions served by the largest U.S. wireless network, also include better ...
The Delhi High Court has prohibited brothers Malvinder Singh and Shivinder Singh from operating their bank accounts in India and Singapore, and instructed them not to sell any assets without the court's approval. The court has also asked the former promoters of Fortis Healthcare Limited, popularly known as the Singh brothers, to disclose all their transactions, including gifts, since 2016. Companies owned by the Singh brothers, RHC Holding Pvt Ltd and Oscar Investments Ltd were also asked to disclose their bank account details during the proceedings.

The single judge bench of Justice Rajiv Shakdher instructed the brothers to submit the gift deed of an artwork worth Rs 7.59 crore that Malvinder gifted to his daughter last year, title document of their Singapore apartment and any other bank details. The plea by the counsel of the brothers that they be allowed to file these details in a sealed cover was rejected by the court.

Malvinder Singh told the court that the apartment in Singapore was mortgaged to DBS Bank and is about to be sold. In response to this, the court ordered him not to finalise the deal without its prior approval.

On the statement by the Singh brothers' counsel that they do not have any money, the bench asked them to file for insolvency. "If they don't have money, why don't they declare themselves insolvent. It's simple. The best way to protect themselves is that they go for insolvency," Justice Shakdher said.

Daiichi Sankyo had approached the court seeking execution of the Rs 3,500 crore arbitral award passed in its favour against the Singh brothers in the Ranbaxy deal. In the previous hearing, the court had directed the brothers to appear before it in person so that they can be questioned as to how they were going to pay the Tokyo-based pharma major.

The court, however, has allowed the extraordinary general meeting (EGM) of Fortis shareholders on Friday to continue as scheduled. The meeting is meant to get shareholders' approval for the acquisition of the healthcare care business by Malaysia-based IHH Healthcare Berhad. Daiichi had moved the court to stay the EGM on grounds that removing the Singh brothers from the position of promoters will severe any connection between them and Fortis Healthcare, leaving the Japanese pharma firm with nothing.

In its plea, Daiichi had reportedly contended that the proposed transaction "will contravene orders issued by this honourable court, the honourable Supreme Court of India as well as significantly defeat the execution of the award in India". The Japanese company had further argued that the value of the unencumbered assets disclosed to the court by Singhs' two holding companies had to be maintained.

The next hearing in the matter will be on September 5.

A Singapore tribunal had passed the award in Daiichi's favour back in April 2016 on grounds that that the Singh brothers had withheld information that their company was facing probe by the US Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Justice while selling its shares.

The high court on 31 January had upheld the international arbitral award passed in the favour of Daiichi and paved the way for enforcement of the 2016 tribunal award against the brothers who had sold their shares in Ranbaxy to Daiichi in 2008 for ?9,576.1 crore.

Sun Pharmaceuticals Ltd had later acquired the company from Daiichi. It had, however, said that the award was 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.

Daiichi had moved the Delhi High Court seeking direction to the brothers to take steps towards paying its ?3,500 crore arbitration award, including depositing the amount. It had also urged the court to attach their assets, which may be used to recover the award.

On 16 February, the Supreme Court had dismissed Singh brothers' appeal against the high court verdict upholding the international arbitral award.

Singh brothers' counsel had argued that 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 claimed that Daiichi was fully aware of all facts and still chose to retain the Ranbaxy shares, instead of terminating the agreement and returning them.

Edited by Vivek Punj with PTI inputs
Jet Airways has nine lives. In three it stays, in three it plays and for the remaining three--it strays, just like cats. Jet today is living through one of the latter. A negative net worth of over Rs 7,000 crore, net loss of Rs 767 crore in fiscal 2017-18 and fast depleting cash flows from operations are what corporate nightmares are made of.

But the worst was to come at the end of the fiscal. As global crude prices rose, Jet's cost of fuel as a percentage of operations shot up from nearly 40 per cent 2 years ago to nearly 65 per cent today.

In Q4 of 2017-18, Jet reported a net loss of Rs 1,036 crore as against a net profit of Rs 602 crore in Q4 of the previous fiscal. And now results of Q1 2018-19 have been deferred after the management failed to present the accounts to the audit committee in time for the board meeting. As of March 31, 2018, Jet's free cash flow on revenue of Rs 23,958 crore was barely Rs 321 crore. But higher aviation fuel prices have worsened its finances since then. It's been in scramble mode, even recommending employee wage cuts ranging from 5 to 25 per cent before withdrawing the proposal following an uproar.

In May 2018, ratings agency ICRA lowered credit ratings on its short-term and long-term loans due to weakening finances. "Their cost structure is one of the highest in the industry. Yields are flat. And the cost of fuel and other dollar denominated costs are 65-70 per cent which have impacted the performance severely," says Rashesh Shah of ICICI Securities, which stopped coverage on the airline in June.

The question is: Is India's second largest airline still solvent at all? Or, is it already bankrupt?

"No," says Jet Airways emphatically in an email response to this direct question.

"The Management informed the Audit committee that they needed more time to finalise the Accounts, the Audit committee on their request agreed to accord them further time to finalise the accounts and directed that the finalised accounts be placed before the Audit Committee thereafter. At the Board Meeting, the Chairman of the Audit Committee informed the members of the Board that the management required further time to finalise the accounts, and that the Accounts once finalised would be approved by the Audit Committee and then placed before the Board. The members of the Board agreed with this [sic]," says the Jet response.

"Jet Airways is a flying NPA," says whistleblower Arvind Gupta of ICICI Bank/Chanda Kochhar fame. Gupta has written to the government, including finance minister Arun Jaitley, twice in 2016 and 2017 asking for an investigation against Jet and promoter Naresh Goyal for alleged irregularities. "It has negative net worth. It would have been bankrupt three years ago," alleges Gupta.

'Bankruptcy' is essentially the court's stamp of approval on 'insolvency'. An entity or an individual is insolvent when what it owes is more than what it owns, for example, when its liabilities are more than its assets. Or, when it's unable to pay debts when they are due. On the latter: "Jet Airways is absolutely current on all of its debt obligations. The airline has not defaulted in payment of any interest or principal to banks," says the Jet Airways response.

But on the former parameter, the airline was in the negative in 2017-18 with total liabilities of Rs 19,743 crore against total assets of Rs 12,501 crore. Under such circumstances, free cash flow from operations is the only lifeline which allows the company to continue paying off interest and principal on debt-preventing insolvency. Jet's Rs 321 crore free cash flows have, however, only taken a turn for the worse in the quarter ended June 30, 2018. That would have been one of the key points to mull over for the audit committee. However, the accounts were deferred even before they were brought before the audit committee.

"The audit committee & Board of Directors of the Company would reconvene at an appropriate future date in due course, to approve and adopt the financial statements for quarter ended 30th June 2018," says Jet Airways.

The other option to keep the organisation afloat is through additional loans. But with existing debt in excess of Rs 8,400 crore, more loans will only add to the interest burden. That's something Jet cannot afford with mounting losses. Though it may have to resort to it only to keep the operations going until it can reduce costs. For fiscal 2017-18, just the finance cost was Rs 849 crore besides the Rs 2,457 crore it paid towards aircraft lease rentals.

"In line with the Company's stated focus of creating a healthier and more resilient business, it has been implementing several measures to reduce costs as well as realise higher revenues, for desired business efficiencies. Some of these areas amongst others include, sales and distribution, payroll, maintenance and fleet simplification," says Jet Airways CEO Vinay Dube. "...the Company has been in dialogue with all its key stakeholders - internal and external... with an intent to enlist their full support and cooperation for realising necessary savings across all business functions."

As far as the company's accounts are concerned, Jet and its auditors are yet to finalise them (read, agree on the numbers!) "The Company focuses on managing liquidity and is unable to comment beyond March as results have not been announced for the quarter," says Jet Airways in the email response.

Coming back to Jet's nine lives. Set up way back in 1992 as an air taxi operator, it got approval as a scheduled airline in 1995. Jet has weathered several ups and downs. It lived a charmed existence alongside government-owned Air India with limited competition until India allowed low-cost airlines in 1999.

By 2005, most airlines in the country were floundering due to intense competition triggered by low-cost carriers such as Deccan Airways, Air Sahara, SpiceJet and IndiGo. That set off a wave of consolidation with Vijay Mallya's Kingfisher Airlines acquiring Deccan. Jet Airways acquired Sahara in April, 2007 and renamed it JetLite.

In 2013, Jet Airways sold 24 per cent equity to Etihad Airways for $379 million after the government allowed foreign airlines to take up to 49 per cent stake in Indian carriers. It entered into a fare war right after.

Jet began straying again from fiscal 2013-14 when it reported a net loss of Rs 4,128 crore, wiping out its net worth to a negative Rs 4,490 crore. This was followed by another net loss of Rs 2,101 crore in the following fiscal 2014-15, taking its negative networth to Rs 6,640 crore. But with crude and ATF prices falling, it had two good years thereafter with net profit of Rs 1,201 crore and Rs 1,445 crore - its first net profits in nearly a decade. But losses in 2017-18 have brought it to the brink.

Dube, however, stays confident: "Jet Airways has been in existence for over 25 years and through the years has been successful in combating such business volatility".

Getting over this will surely be another life.

Also Read: Another auditor trouble in offing? Jet Airways clarifies on delay in Q1FY19 results

Also Read: Jet Airways says deferment of quarterly results not a first in corporate India

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Taiwan sharply reduced a fine against Qualcomm Inc. for anti-competitive behavior in exchange for future investment, in a rare positive development for the embattled telecom chip giant in Asia.

Qualcomm has been under assault in Asias major chip-making markets of South Korea and Greater China for previous licensing practices that many of its customers complained were overly burdensome and anti-competitive. It also received a major setback last month when its plan for a major acquisition collapsed after Beijing failed to approve the deal nearly two years after it was first announced.

Under its newly reached settlement announced Friday by the Taiwan Fair Trade Commission, Qualcomms previously announced fine for anti-competitive behavior will be reduced to NT$2.73 billion ($89 million), according to an announcement on the agencys website. The final figure was far less than the fine of NT$23.4 billion that was originally announced last October, a record at that time.

Qualcomm said the final NT$2.73 billion amount represented what it had already paid through the end of July and that no more money would need to be paid going forward. The company will also have to renegotiate contracts with its customers under conditions agreed to under the settlement, something it has been forced to do in similar cases in other markets.

In exchange for the big fine reduction, Qualcomm said it had agreed to a number of steps over the next five years to assist in the development of Taiwans important semiconductor chip market. Those include investment in next-generation 5G telecom technology, assistance to startup companies and collaboration with local universities. Qualcomm also agreed to open a Taiwan center for operations and manufacturing engineering.

The cost of these initiatives was not disclosed.

This settlement directly addresses concerns raised by the (Taiwan Fair Trade Commission), regardless of disputed positions, and builds on our foundation of collaborative, long-term business relationships in Taiwan, said Alex Rogers, president of Qualcomm Technology Licensing. We are happy to reaffirm our commitment to license our valuable intellectual property under principles of fairness and good faith. With the uncertainty removed, we can now focus on expanding our relationships that support the Taiwanese wireless industry and rapid adoption of 5G technology.

The Taiwan Fair Trade Commission said the settlement will require Qualcomm to submit a report on its progress every six months during the five-year period. It noted the settlement represented the first time in its history the agency had considered future public benefit in making such a settlement.

We hope that this case will effectively help to form a good competitive environment for the communications industry and will have a positive impact on Taiwans semiconductor, mobile communications and 5G technology development, it said in its own statement.

Qualcomm is the worlds leading maker of the chipsets that form the brains of the millions of smartphones now used throughout the world. But it has faced a number of probes and fines from various governments for anti-competitive behavior, especially in Asia where the semiconductor industry is a major economic engine.

One of the largest of those fines came in 2015, when the Chinese mainland fined Qualcomm a record 6.1 billion yuan ($891 million) for anticompetitive behavior. South Korea followed in 2016 with its own similar fine of about 1 trillion won ($890 million), and the European Union has also launched a probe.

Qualcomm also received another major setback from China last month, when its plan to purchase Dutch chipmaker NXP Semiconductors for $44 billion collapsed after Beijing failed to approve the deal in the midst of the escalating trade war with the United States. Since then Qualcomm has announced a plan to repurchase up to $10 billion worth of its shares.

Contact reporter Yang Ge (geyang@caixin.com)
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It had all the feeling of a high school reunion, only the school hall was replaced by Australia's former halls of power. Former MPs returned to Old Parliament House earlier this week to mark 30 years since the building was last used for a parliamentary sitting. Among those returning to the historic building was former ACT senator Margaret Reid, who served from 1981 to 2003 and has been the only woman to be President of the Senate. She said the gathering was a good chance to be able to catch up with former parliamentary colleagues and wander round where they made some of the country's biggest decisions. "The provisional Parliament House was at times a challenging environment in which to work, but it had a lot of character and charm," Ms Reid said. "I'm very glad it has been preserved as a historic national building and is there for all to enjoy." Former Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer, Liberal senator Michael Baume and Heather Henderson, the daughter of prime minister Robert Menzies were also among the more than 120 people at the event, which also included former parliamentary staff who were working in the building at the time. For the anniversary, guests revisited their old offices and toured the building to see places they wouldn't normally get to see, such as the Prime Minister's office, and also see how the building is used today as the Museum of Australian Democracy. The last sitting day in Old Parliament House happened on June 3, 1988, but it took some time for things to resume in the bigger and more modern Parliament House just up the hill. The move to the new parliament took six months to plan, with the move taking place over six weeks during the winter recess. "The process of one parliamentary building ceasing operation and the other starting up took some time. It was quite the transition," The museum's experience manager Toni Dam said. Former Western Australia senator Sue Knowles was also among those returning to the building for its 30th anniversary, and said it felt good to be back. "Having not been in the beautiful building all that often since 1988, it was wonderful to see how well much of it has been retained and looking close to original," she said.

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In many ways the National Library is the same as the day then-prime minister John Gorton cut the ribbon on the grand marble building 50 years ago. But now, it has robots. Fifty years ago the only way to view or use the collection was to walk into a reading room. Today the process can be completed online and the material gets to take a ride on a wheeled-robot affectionately called Isaac. The library has four automated delivery robots that whiz around the cavernous lower levels of the building transporting material to and from the stacks and the reading rooms. Stack attendant Paul Nordern said the Isaac robots cart more than 700 items around the building per day and together have had more than 40,000 operating hours. "As far as we know we have the largest fleet of these robots in Australia," Mr Nordern said. "And we believe we are the only library in the world using these robots." While robots traverse the basement of the library more than half a million people visit it's upper levels each year. The 50th anniversary marks the library moving into its home in the grand building that director-general Marie-Louise Ayres attributes a lot of it's success over the years to. I just love this building," Dr Ayres said. "I walk under that beautiful Tom Bass sculpture every day, and feel the sense of space and grandeur that I hope is not too scary for people. "Although the building is strictly classical and gosh it might have been plonked down from Greece, I think when you come into it, it's very Australian." While the building was cleverly designed and is undoubtedly impressive, Dr Ayres said the staff and everyone who visits the library were responsible for creating such a welcoming environment. She recalled walking into the foyer several years ago with her daughter and seeing a group of young mothers sitting together, prams parked, chatting while all breastfeeding. "I said to my daughter, take a good look at that because you won't find that in any other national library in the world." Dr Ayres said the library has conducted surveys which showed that people's knowledge of the library and their engagement with the collection both in person and online had continued to grow. If she had just one hope for the institution, it's that it continues. I think and hope and believe that more Australians will know about the library and more importantly they know its their library, its here for them to use and they dont have to have a PhD to use it. She said in 2018, the library is doing basically the same job, just in different ways. "Its more that why we collect hasn't changed and in some ways what we collect hasn't changed but its really about how we collect it that has changed a lot," Dr Ayres said. "We say that we collect today what will be important tomorrow, and I dont have any doubt that the people working in the library in 1968 were thinking the exact same thing." While the library is still collecting physical items, adding around 2.5 kilometres per year, in the last financial year just over half of the material added to the collection was digital. Dr Ayres said it was becoming more common that when the Library acquired personal archives these days they came in a hybrid form such as the recently acquired archive of former senator Bob Brown that consisted of hundreds of boxes of paper but also half a million emails. The National Library open day will be held on Sunday from 10am to 4pm and will highlight special items from the collection, offer plenty of kids activities and food and drink is available.

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Braddon businesses are suffering lost trade from delayed light rail construction as parking remains an ongoing issue in the inner city suburb. Businesses particularly along Mort Street are being negatively impacted. Elouera Street was reopened only recently despite construction work originally slated to be completed in April. The delays affecting Eloura Street were as a result of "unique conditions not found anywhere else along the light rail corridor", a Transport Canberra spokesman said. He said lots of existing services meant electric cabling for the light rail had to be installed up to seven meters underground. "Drilling also progressed slowly due to the presence of large areas of very dense rock," the spokesman said. The cabling connects to a substation which has taken up roughly half the carpark on the corner of Mort and Eloura Streets. The spokesman advised during August and September the corner carpark would be closed intermittently while construction of the substation is completed. About 40 off-street parking spaces and 27 on-street carparks have been lost temporarily. Car spaces where the substation is located will be permanently lost. Ciao at Mort cafe owner Ab Guleria, whose business directly faces the corner carpark, said construction had impacted trade. "Our regulars would park the car and walk to work but now they avoid the area because of the [construction] work and traffic," Mr Guleria said. "They come, they see the [carpark closed] sign and they keep driving." Mr Guleria said an upside was that the number of construction workers in the area provided a new customer base, but he was concerned what the disruptions might do to his long-term customers. Owner of neighbouring restaurant Burger Hero, Kuber Sethi said his business had also suffered from the surrounding construction, especially with the removal of car spaces from an area that already had limited parking. Mr Sethi said he had received complaints from customers about diffculties parking for the last two to three months. Both business owners said they had received roughly a week's notice of the closure of the carpark but no offers of support from the ACT government. It comes after Braddon's last car dealership and Next Hair, both on Mort Street, closed earlier in the year with both owners citing a downturn in business due to construction. A government spokesman said the Canberra Business Chamber was funded to deliver the Light Rail Business Link program to assist businesses along the light rail corridor to mitigate adverse impacts from construction. Chamber CEO Robyn Hendry said much of that program had involved working with businesses in Gungahlin and Mitchell. She said any business along the light rail corridor was welcome to be a part of the program. Mrs Hendry said about 520 business owners had attended quarterly forums about light rail. She said prior to the light rail construction Braddon had been "a victim of its own success" as growing popularity put strain on parking and access. The amount of private sector development in Braddon meant it was hard to quarantine the negative impacts of light rail construction from other developments, she said. "If they [businesses] can get through challenges construction is giving them at the moment, it looks very promising," Mrs Hendry said.

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The vie for pursuing higher studies abroad is not new to us. Every year, lakhs of Indians fly to various countries to pursue their higher studies. We have seen thousands of students who stay back in foreign countries to take up a professional career after pursuing their higher education. On the other hand, there are some students who come back to their home country and get astonishing job offers. However, what we are discussing is entirely different.

There are some protagonists who pursued their education in foreign universities and then came back to India during the independence movement to unbound the country from the hands of the British Raj.

Though there are many people who shed their blood for the country after pursuing their education in the foreign universities, these five are believed to be the best because they transformed their education to rebel against the British. Explore the top five freedom fighters who pursued their education in foreign universities.

Mahatma Gandhi

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, who is also addressed with various names such as Bapu and the Father of the Nation, stands tall in the first position because of his ideologies. He fought for independence with a non-violence weapon for which the United Nations observes his birthday (October 2) as the International Day of Non-Violence.

Gandhi, who born in Gujarat, pursued his law at University College London and came to India as a barrister, called a lawyer in India.

Jawaharlal Nehru

The first prime minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, played a significant role during the independence movement. Nehru, who put his best foot forward to make the country a sovereign democratic republic, went to Harrow, one amongst the leading schools in the United Kingdom.

Later, the son of Motilal Nehru went to Trinity College, Cambridge, to pursue a bachelor's in natural science. He studied law as well at Inner Temple, which is one amongst the four Inns of Court in London.

Dr BR Ambedkar

Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar, who played a crucial role in uplifting the lives of the Dalits, is the architect of the Indian Constitution. The hero of underprivileged people, Ambedkar, pursued many courses at foreign universities. He has completed his PhD from the Columbia University and MSc from the London School of Economics. He also continued to pursue economics at the University of Bonn in Germany.

Subhas Chandra Bose

"Give me blood, and I shall give you freedom," a quote from Bose has inspired thousands of people to take up arms against the British. Bose, who came fourth in the Indian Civil Services (ICS), went to Presidency College in Kolkata. The founder of Azad Hind Fauj then pursued higher studies in Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.

Sarojini Naidu

Often called Nightingale of India, Sarojini Naidu pursued her education both in India and abroad. After her matriculation from the University of Madras, she went on to pursue higher studies in England at King's College London and later at Girton College, Cambridge.

An education abroad was possible for Sarojini because of the scholarship provided by the Nizam's Charity Trust.

Happy Independence Day: 5 Things Students Can Learn From The Freedom Struggle!
Photo: The Canadian Press

Residents of a tranquil Fredericton neighbourhood watched and waited for nearly three anxious hours early Friday as authorities tracked down a suspect who allegedly opened fire and killed four people, two of them police officers.

For some, the terror began from the moment they opened their eyes. For others, it didn't sink in until they learned they were forced to hide in their homes. Here is how the morning unfolded from their perspectives.

David MacCoubrey was asleep in his apartment on Brookside Drive when three shots echoed through the morning calm mere metres from his bed.

"It sounded like the first one came from right outside my bedroom window ... I was hoping for the two seconds that I was groggy that it was kids blowing off firecrackers,'' he said. "Then two more happened within the first three minutes.''

MacCoubrey said he heard at least 17 more shots over the next hour and a half, which he spent sitting on the floor far from his apartment windows.

Tim Morehouse said he heard the trouble before he saw it.

In his apartment on 237 Brookside Dr., he said he heard someone yelling "shut up! Shut up!" Then the bullets began to fly, first in a volley of two, then another of three.

When he looked out his apartment window, he said he saw the body of a man lying in the back parking lot of his building. He called 911, heard more shots and took another glance out the window.

"I hear more shots and looked out and there's two police officers on the ground," he said.

As police went around the neighbourhood, Louise Kennedy was advised to vacate her apartment at 237 Brookside. But the 75-year-old woman said she couldn't flee to safety while her pet remained in potential danger.

"I couldn't leave my dog behind," Kennedy said, sitting and trembling in her apartment. "The police officer told me to stay away from the windows and to lock the doors.''

Looking after her dog did not dispel her own fear, however.

"I am just shaking. I am scared to death,'' she said.

Travis Hrubeniuk's fiancee had just left for work around 7:45 a.m. when he began hearing a steady stream of sirens passing his home. Aware that his typically quiet neighbourhood was under lockdown, the 27-year-old Winnipeg native spent the time combing social media for updates on the evolving situation.

The area he's called home for a year, which features houses, a school and other hallmarks of a peaceful residential community, is the last place Hrubeniuk said he expected to encounter a dangerous situation.

"This is the first time I've even heard of any serious crime or violent crime in this city," he said. "It's a little off-putting that way."

Business owners and their employees also found themselves at loose ends while police blanketed the area. Funeral Director Bill Henwood was among a crowd of bystanders barred from going to offices located behind the area investigators had cordoned off.

People sat in their cars or stood near the blockade of police and fire vehicles "hanging tight and waiting for word" on what comes next, he said.

One local daycare took the precaution of relocating children to another facility slightly further away from the scene of the shootings. While staff said they kept the doors locked, the kids carried on with normal life, playing with toys or watching a movie as the police investigation unfolded.
Photo: The Canadian Press A man has been charged in the Fredericton shooting that left four dead.

UPDATE: 10:30 a.m.

Fredericton Police Chief Leanne Fitch told a news conference Saturday that Matthew Vincent Raymond was charged in the deaths of Bobbie Lee Wright, Donnie Robichaud, Const. Robb Costello and Const. Sara Burns.

She alleges the accused was shooting a long gun from an "elevated position."

Fitch says officers have not established a link between the accused and the victims, but notes that the investigation is ongoing.

She says there's no indication that police officers were specifically targeted in the shooting.

Robichaud and Wright were in a new relationship, according to his cousin, Sean Callahan. They had just gotten together at the beginning of August.

Robichaud was a loving parent who played bass and sang in a few local bands, said Callahan.

"The guy was so likable, like, I don't think he had anybody that hated him, and Donnie, if he even hated you, he'd still give you the shirt off his back - he would help you out," Callahan said.

Friends and family took to the Facebook status announcing Wright and Robichaud's relationship to mourn on Saturday.

"Thank you for being a great aunt for my kids," one user wrote. "Please watch over my babies from up there."

"So sad. She and Donnie are going to be missed by many," another said.

Raymond is to remain in custody until he appears in court Aug. 27, police said.

Burns was married with three kids, while Costello was a father of four and Robichaud had two teenage sons and an older daughter.

As of Saturday morning the area surrounding the crime scene - the apartment building where Robichaud had lived for several months, according to Callahan - remained cordoned off by yellow tape, but police allowed some shaken residents through to check on their pets.

ORIGINAL: 7:35 a.m.

Fredericton police say Matthew Vincent Raymond has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder in the shooting deaths of two police officers and two civilians.

Police say the 48-year-old Fredericton man is accused of killing Bobbie Lee Wright, Donnie Robichaud, Const. Robb Costello and Const. Sara Burns in the Friday morning shooting.

They have not said whether he knew any of the deceased.

As of Saturday morning, the residential area where the incident took place remained cordoned off and a mobile police command post was on scene.

An officer said it was unclear how long the probe would take, and police have asked anyone who captured photos or video of the incident to come forward.
The application of several members of the clergy was also turned down. Participation in the event required a letter of recommendation from Card Joseph Coutts to guarantee that the applicant would not seek asylum in Europe. The Irish consulate explained that their decision was based on applicants' family circumstances, economic situation and social conditions.

Karachi (AsiaNews/Ucanews)  Ireland has decided not to grant visas to thousands of Pakistani Christians.

The consulates in Karachi and Islamabad turned down applications by families wishing to attend the upcoming World Meeting of Families (WMF) in Dublin from 21 to 26 August. Pope Francis will be present at the event.

About 10,000 families from around Pakistan had applied; 600 from the Archdiocese of Karachi alone. All requests were rejected. Even clergymen saw their application refused.

Speaking about the issue, Father Anthony Abraz, parish priest at the Good Shepherd church in Karachi, said that in the case of many families, "The visa officer [. . .] found insufficient evidence of strong family, social, economic or other obligations to return home after staying in Ireland. The clergyman himself was denied a visa also because he had not taken part in similar events in the past.

The Irish consulate in Karachi said that it analysed the reasons for going to Ireland and other criteria, including family circumstances, financial situation, employment details, travel reasons and accommodation in Ireland.

However, for Father Abraz, "All applications should have been assessed on a case-by-case basis, noting that two groups of lay people received identical letters.

Church authorities had screened potential pilgrims, and Card Joseph Coutts of Karachi only granted letters of recommendation to those who were not interested in seeking asylum.

Many Catholics are outraged at how the whole thing was handled.

Samuel Sarfraz, who works at a pharmaceutical company in Multan (Punjab), sold a residential plot to raise 300,000 rupees (US,420) for non-refundable visa applications and registration fees for his family of three children to attend the Irish event.

"This is a conspiracy to mint money from people who are already marginalised and discriminated against in a Muslim-majority country. If the policy was to reject all Pakistanis, why did they accept visa and registration fees for the world meeting?" he asks.

The Pakistani passport precludes the possibility of visiting many countries. The Henley Passport Index ranks the Pakistani passport as third worse after Afghanistan and Iraq.
For Subscribers Puebloans forced into tough choices amid affordable housing shortage

Puebloans looking for housing have been largely unsuccessful amid an affordable housing shortage.
The sextoy market is growing quite rapidly in India right now.

Although it is not a big trend, it is a hot topic on the internet as it is secretly expanding its market.

In this article, we will focus on sextoy and introduce recommended sextoy for Indian beginners of sextoy by gender.

India, the birthplace of the Kama Sutra, is very strict about sex.

Also, premarital sex is basically not allowed. Therefore, there are many people who are sexually restricted.

But what happens when you continue to be sexually restricted?

Frustration may build up and you may end up taking your sexual stress out on your partner.

If you are able to adopt sextoy in a timely manner, you can get rid of those problems.

I want to have more exciting sex than Im having now.

I want more variation in masturbation

I want to get even stronger pleasure than I do on my own.

If you have any of these problems, please stay with me until the end.

What is sex toys for Indian?

Sextoy, as the name implies, is a toy used during sex and masturbation.

It is a generic term for vibrators, Egg-vibrators, Electric massagers, dildo, handcuffs and condoms.

They are used to make regular sex more exciting or to make masturbation more pleasurable.

Because sextoy is very stimulating, it can help you to get rid of the problems and frustrations of being in a rut of sex with your partner for a long time, or if you are unhappy with the lack of pleasure in sex with your partner.

The ability to satisfy your desires with movement, texture, and size, which cannot be done by a normal human being, can help you to be satisfied with sex and, as a result, improve your relationship with your partner.

It is also said to help improve sexual dysfunction (inability to get an erection or ejaculate) and difficulty in feeling during sex (insensitivity), which is attracting more attention than in the past.

In recent years, the demand for sextoy has increased due to the spread of smartphones and the Internet and the increasing number of people using online shopping.

Even those who are concerned about the appearance of sextoy (and find it difficult to purchase) can now easily obtain it by using mail order.

In the case of online shopping, most of the stores have taken steps to ensure that the contents of the products delivered to you are not revealed, so you can purchase them without your family members knowing.

Until a while ago, you had to go to the store where the adult goods were sold to buy them, so it was quite a hurdle to overcome.

Also, many people may have an image that sextoy is somehow embarrassing to own.

But nowadays, some of them are so stylish and cute that you cant believe they are sextoy at a glance.

More and more people are using them for travel and outdoor use because they are not too bulky and are suitable for carrying around.

Sextoy situation in India

Before introducing the recommended sextoy for Indians, lets talk about one of the sextoy situations in India in recent years.

In India, due to the high concentration of population, the following six cities have particularly high sales of sextoy in India.

Mumbai

Kolkata

Bangalore

Delhi

Chennai

Hyderabad

These cities account for roughly 70 percent of sextoy sales in India.

In the future, the percentage of sextoy use will gradually increase in other cities in India as well.

If you never talk about sextoy publicly, that girl in your neighborhood might be a sextoy user too.

If you are interested in sextoy, you dont have to suppress your desire for it.

What are Sextoys for beginner?

Among all sextoys, sextoy for beginners are vibrators, dildo, masturbators, Sex Lubricants, and condoms.

Sex Lubricants and condoms, which are familiar to people who have had sex, are also a great beginners sextoy.

I will explain the details of each toy later, but there are many sextoy products that are painful to use and can only be used after some anal expansion.

I assume that the Indian readers of this article are people who have not had much experience with sextoy.

If such people use professional sextoy suddenly, they are at risk of injury or trauma.

Therefore, to introduce sextoy, you need to start with a beginners version and gradually become familiar with it.

Advantages of using sextoy for Indians

There are three advantages of using sextoy for Indians

You can masturbate in a wide variety of ways.

Can have stimulating sex

Can develop new sexual zones

If you try to masturbate with your own fingers or hands, it tends to be a pattern.

However, with sextoy, you can easily masturbate in a variety of ways.

You will definitely be fascinated by the attraction of new stimulation.

Also, your daily sex life will be more exciting than ever.

There are many things in sextoy that are visually stimulating and give you a strong and intense feeling of pleasure.

This allows you to see your partners promiscuity in a way that you wouldnt normally see it.

When you are in a relationship, sex with your partner may become a pattern, but it can also eliminate these problems.

It can also lead to the development of new sexual zones (which is the training of sexual stimulation to allow you to feel orgasms).

For more information on the development of new sexual zones, see the following articles

[Women's Erogenous Zone]How to find and develop, 7 hidden sexual zones !![In India] In this issue, we will dissect the female erogenous zone! ..." Many of you may be like that. Men, in particular, shou...

Thus, the use of sextoy can only be a good thing for the men and women of India.

Sextoy for beginner men in India

So, lets continue with the recommended goods for Indian sextoy beginners.

For ease of understanding, we will introduce them by gender. Lets start with the men!

The following five goods are recommended for novice Indian sextoy men

Masturbator

Cock rings

Love Doll

Sex Lubricants

Toys for the prostate

Lets check each one in detail.

Masturbator

The masturbator is a sextoy for men that elaborately reproduces a womans vagina, mouth, and anus, and is one of the most popular sextoy products.

It is used by men to masturbate, and it is popular because it provides stronger stimulation and pleasure more easily than using hands.

Most are made of good quality silicone, and their softness is something that cannot be achieved with ones own hands.

They can provide stronger pleasure than a real womans vagina, so be careful not to overuse them. (You wont be able to have an orgasm in a womans vagina anymore.)

Again Male masturbators are a wonderful toy. I do not need any favourite timing, bothersome bargaining. You do not have to worry too much.

Revolutionize your masturbation time! ! !

Made in Japan is a wonderful kinky toy.#sextoysindia #SexToyIndia #Japanhttps://t.co/4k70QGzoTP pic.twitter.com/tRVdxTKPpa   SEXToys India PR  (@SextoysIndia) November 12, 2018

Some of them are disposable, while others can be washed and used over and over again, so its fun to buy a few to use depending on your mood.

If you want to know more about masturbator, please click here

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[For Beginners] How to choose and use a male masturbator without fail Gentlemen.Have you ever used a masturbator? The person who sees this article is probably the one who has not experien...

Cock Ring

A cock ring is literally a ring-shaped sextoy that is worn on a mans penis.

It maintains an erection by binding the penis with a ring of rubber and blocking blood flow.

It is sometimes used as an accessory to be worn on the penis, and may be made of metal or plastic as well as rubber.

In some cases, cock rings have parts or vibrators attached to them that stimulate the vagina, so they kill two birds with one stone, giving a woman pleasure while maintaining an erection.

Cock rings are also sometimes used to treat erectile dysfunction.

It can help with erectile dysfunction, where the penis doesnt get hard when you get an erection or doesnt last long when you try to insert it.

Men who are prone to breakage or who are unsure of the hardness and size of their erections can use a cock ring to increase the size of their penis and maintain an erection for a longer period of time.

Cock rings vary in price from around RS700 to over RS2000 with a vibrator function.

Some of them do not fit your penis, so you should check the size of the cock ring before you buy.

You should know the size of your partners or your own penis when it is erect.

[Penis enlargement] What is a cock ring? Types and usage Cock rings can make your penis bigger and harder. It also makes sex with women more fulfilling and increases your sat...

Love Doll

Love dolls, also known as Dutchwives, are dolls with the appearance of a woman who can experience simulated sex.

There are dolls that look like a woman, but they have no face and only have their breasts and lower torso cut off, and some dolls are so realistic that they can actually be mistaken for real women.

Some expensive dolls can cost more than 1 million yen, and the quality of the doll is easily influenced by the price.

The higher the price, the higher the quality of the doll will be, the closer it will be to the real woman, and the cheaper the doll will be, the less elaborate it will be, making it look like a real doll! Something is wrong! That is also true.

You cant go wrong if you choose a balance between price and taste.

There are stores that allow you to make custom-made love dolls, so you can create a girl of your choice.

You can make a girl of your choice. You can start with inexpensive love dolls at first, and once you get used to it, you can try custom-made love dolls.

If you want to know more about Love doll, please click here

Thorough explanation of the charm of sex dolls! Have you ever heard of sex dolls that are used primarily for pseudo-sex purposes? It is a doll that is quite close to...

Sex lubricants

Sex lubricants are used as a substitute for lubricating fluid during sex or as a lubricant for men to use masturbator rules.

It is not uncommon for women to have difficulty getting wet, depending on their physical condition, or to have difficulty getting wet due to their constitution.

Forcing the penis into the vagina at such times can cause painful intercourse.

There are various types of Sex Lubricants, some with a warming effect, some with a cooling effect, and some with a scent.

Changing the Sex Lubricant used during play is recommended as a good sex accent.

If you want to learn more about Sex Lubricants, click here.

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Toys for the Prostate

Another sextoy for men is prostate toys.

The most famous prostate toys include Enemagra, which was originally a prostate massager developed by an American urologist to treat an enlarged prostate line.

Modern prostate toys are imitations of Enemagra that have spread as sextoy for men.

Many people think of prostate toys as being used by gay men, but in fact they are often used by straight men.

What is the prostate?

The prostate is an organ found only in men. It is a walnut-sized organ located deep in the pelvis, just below the bladder, and its primary role is to protect and nourish sperm.

You cannot touch the prostate gland from outside the body, but you can touch it by inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus.

By inserting a finger or sextoy through the anus and touching the prostate and developing it, you can feel intense orgasms.

Orgasms felt in the prostate are mainly dry orgasms, which are orgasms that do not involve ejaculation. (You can also feel orgasms with ejaculation through prostate stimulation.)

The prostate is called the male G-spot, and dry orgasms can be much more intense than ejaculation.

Therefore, men who are able to develop a prostate can become addicted to the pleasure.

sextoy for beinner women in India

The following are the recommended goods for Indian women who are new to sextoy.

The following three are recommended for use by women who are new to sextoy.

Vibrator.

Dildo

Electric Masserger

Lets check out what each one is in detail.

If you want to check out womens toys, click here.

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Vibrators

A vibrator is a sextoy that vibrates with an Egg-Vibrator to provide stimulation and is often referred to simply as a vibrator.

Some vibrate as well as rotate, and there are many variations of sextoy.

It is quite a popular sextoy, and is well recognized by people who do not know much about sextoy.

Its usage is similar to that of a massager, but it is more compact and easier to carry than a massager, and many of them look as cute as a lipstick or a macaroon, so they are popular among women.

For a while, a famous influencer on twitter said, This is good! You may have heard of the topic of this article by introducing the recommended vibrators.

Vibrators are great for women to use on their own, but they are also recommended for men who have difficulty satisfying women with sex.

Since it is powered by electricity, it is far less tiring than moving your hands by yourself.

This makes it easier to satisfy a woman with sex because you can caress her for longer than usual.

Vibrators are mainly used on the female side, but they can also be used on men.

When used on men, they are used to attack the nipples and glans, and in both cases it is recommended to wear a condom for hygiene reasons.

Introducing how to use the vibrator, its purpose, and how to choose it! Vibrator uses the vibrations caused by the rotation of the motor to provide stimulation. It is one or two of the most...

Dildo

A dildo is a model sextoy made to mimic a male penis.

It can be made of silicone, elastomer (think of it as a material similar to PVC), metal or glass.

A dildo can be used by a man for his female partner during sex, or by a woman for masturbation to get pleasure from it.

They are mainly inserted into women, but some can be used in the male anus as well.

It is sometimes used synonymously with vibrators, but the vibrator is not the same thing as a vibrating device.

A model of a penis that does not vibrate is a dildo.

Some of them have suction cups that can be attached to the floor or wall so that you can enjoy realistic masturbation without using your hands.

For fun, there is a dildo made in the shape of your partners penis.

This one is also popular as a gift, and if youve been together for a long time and are having trouble finding a gift for your partner, you might want to pick one.

To learn more about dildo, please click here.

What is Dildo: Orgasms with Dildos for Men and Women A dildo is a model of a male organ that is used by women for masturbation and by men to stimulate the prostate gland. Th...

Electric Masserger

A Electric Masserger is a hand-held electric massager, also known as a handheld massager, and can usually be purchased at electronics stores.

It was originally designed to relieve stiff shoulders and back pain, so the hurdle of buying one in a physical store is quite low.

Many people may have seen or used it in some form or another, as it is often installed in leisure hotels.

Such a massager is highly recommended for beginners because it is easy for women to get pleasure from it when they use it during masturbation.

It is larger than Egg-Vibrator and vibrations are stronger than those of Egg-Vibrators and vibrators, so even just hitting the clitoris can give you a great deal of pleasure.

For those women who have never had an orgasm during sex with their man, the massager may be a good way to get a feel for what it feels like to have an orgasm.

It looks and feels like an electric massager, so you wont have to feel awkward if your roommate finds out.

If you are in a rut of having sex with your partner, if you want to feel an orgasm through masturbation, or if you are thinking of using a sextoy, why dont you try it from a simple massager?

To learn more about Electric Masserger, click here.

What is a massager? Introducing types, selection methods, and usage Originally, the Magic-wand vibrator and the massage machine were sold as a home massage machine used for the back and th...

How to choose a sextoy for Indian

Now that weve covered the different types of sextoy, heres how to choose one.

Especially if you are trying sextoy for the first time, pay attention to the following three points:  Does the size fit you (the partner)?

Does the size fit you (your partner)?

Is the environment able to produce sound without problems?

Price range

First of all, the choice of size is quite important.

Most sextoy are used against or inserted into the genitals, but the genitals are very delicate organs for both men and women.

For this reason, using an inappropriate size may cause damage.

Secondly, the environment should be able to produce sound without problems.

Some sextoys not only wear, but also rotate and vibrate. Its easier to get pleasure from something that moves than something that doesnt, but the fact that it moves means that the internal rotors make some noise.

If you live in a house with thin walls or if you have roommates, you may not be able to concentrate because of the noise, so it is best to choose one that is silent or has a low noise level.

Especially in India, where many people live with their families, it is very important that you dont have to worry about sound when you use it.

Finally, there is the price range.

The price range of sextoy ranges widely, from around RS500 at the cheapest to RS10,000 or more at the highest.

Its good to consider how much money you can afford and how much you want to buy.

Do you want your family to not find out about sextoy?

I live with my family and want to use sextoy without them finding out! If you are a man, you should buy a camouflage sextoy that does not look like a sextoy at first glance.

For men, there are many masturbators that do not look like a sextoy, and for women, there are vibrators that only look like cosmetics.

If you choose such a type, youll be safe in case your family members find out.

How to buy sextoys in India

The best way to purchase sextoy is through online shopping.

For more information on how to purchase sextoy, please see the article below.

Sextoy is one of them.

Therefore, you can easily get sextoy in India by using online shopping.

SexToysINDIA is a long established and stable sextoy store and you can have sextoy delivered to any place in India.

They also offer cash on delivery, so those who are worried about shopping with a credit card do not have to worry.

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To begin with, many people may be concerned about whether they are legally allowed to purchase sextoy.

ikmAs it turns out, its not illegal.

Right now, it is not open to the public because the Indian adult market is still in the development stage, but it will gradually spread from now on.

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Cautions for Indians using sextoy

When using sextoy, keep the following three things in mind

Keep sex toys clean

Watch out for electrical leakage

Beware of the heat generated by the body while using a sex toy

As I mentioned earlier, many sextoy products are used for the delicate zone.

Therefore, it is most important to keep the sextoy itself clean. It is very important to keep the sextoy itself clean, because if a slight scratch is created by friction, bacteria can enter and breed there.

It is safe to wear a condom when using the masturbator, just in case.

In addition, many sextoy devices are powered by a power source, so if they are not waterproof, there is a possibility of electric shock or malfunction due to wetness.

Some may even develop heat during continuous use. If the fever becomes too much, you may get burned, so be careful.

If you get a fever during use, stop driving the sextoy immediately and refrain from using it.

You will enjoy sex more if you keep it safe and use it correctly.

Summary

What did you think?

In this article, we have introduced the recommended sextoy for the beginners of sextoy in India.

The sextoy market is growing rapidly in India and it will continue to grow steadily in the future.

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If this is your first time to learn about sextoy, or if you are interested in using sextoy, why not give it a try?

Indian Sextoys for ur best! will introduce you to sextoy and other trivia about sextoy, sexuality, and sexuality for men and women.

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When I was a kid, there was an expression: "Stop the world. I want to get off." Glancing at the headlines sometimes make me feel that way.

For example, here are some stories highlighted on Drudge today (8/6/18):

A crackdown on free speech by Apple. They decide what is and what is not "hate." Consequently, conspiracy theorist Alex Jones is now denied his platform.

The #MeToo movement continues to speak out against alleged sexual predators, and CBS is working to weather a storm of allegations swirling around their CEO.

Canada is calling for a boycott of the US.

Sex with robots is a growing fad.

The president is beleaguered by allegations of collusion with the Russians.

Calls are going out for social media censorship of climate change "deniers."

In Chicago, 63 were shot over the weekend in a city with some of the strictest gun control laws. 44 of them were killed within 14 hours. As a colleague noted, "It's like Fallujah, only worse."

Parkland victims protest the NRA...but the former have armed guards.

Older Americans have money woes. The New York Times (8/5/18) reports: "The rate of people 65 and older filing for bankruptcy is three times what it was in 1991."

Why is America seemingly sinking into the abyss? We have forgotten God. As a nation, just like as individuals, we reap what we sow.

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, the great Russian writer and critic of the atheist USSR (who spent years imprisoned in one of Stalin's gulags), once said: "...[W]hile I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of older people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened."

The Nobel-prize winning writer went on to say that he had read hundreds of books on the godless Soviet state and talked with many people about the murderous disaster it was, and he said no one provided a better explanation than those simple peasants: We have forgotten God.

Not to the same degree, but something similar could be said about America. We have forgotten God, and are reaping the consequences.

About 200 years ago, Yale University president Timothy Dwight (1752-1817) warned us against forgetting God: "Without religion we may possibly retain the freedom of savages, bears, and wolves, but not the freedom of New England. If our religion were gone, our state of society would perish with it and nothing would be left which would be worth defending."

Dwight also added: "Where there is no religion, there is no morality....With the loss of religion...the ultimate foundation of confidence is blown up; and the security of life, liberty and property are buried in ruins."

Why? If there is no God, there is no one to hold us accountable. That is why so many deny God, when they know deep down, "Of course, there is a God."

About 50 years after America's independence, Alexis de Tocqueville, a notable Frenchman, came to these shores to assess the new nation. He wrote his famous observations in 1835 in Democracy in America, a book that is still in print, in which he noted: "It must never be forgotten that religion gave birth to Anglo-American society."

One of the greatest American speakers in the 19th century was Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster. He's depicted in statues in DC and is the center character in a large painting in Boston's Faneuil Hall.

Webster once declared, "Finally, let us not forget the religious character of our origin. Our fathers were brought hither by their high veneration for the Christian religion. They journeyed by its light, and labored in its hope. They sought to incorporate its principles with the elements of their society, and to diffuse its influence through all their institutions, civil, political, or literary."

The famous orator also opined, "We live under the only government that ever existed which was framed by...deliberate consultations of the people. Miracles do not cluster. That which has happened but once in 6,000 years cannot be expected to happen often. Such a government, once gone, might leave a void, to be filled, for ages, with revolution and tumult, riot and despotism." [Emphasis added]

Revolution, tumult, and riot are becoming almost commonplace in America. We have a U.S. Congresswoman, Maxine Waters, declaring people should publically hound out and shame members of the Trump team. The minority leader in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, is wondering why there are not more "riots in the streets" against this administration.

During the days of the Civil War, our nation faced worse challenges. But Abraham Lincoln called for a national day of repentance and prayer in 1863, in which he warned us to stop forgetting God as a nation and to remember this truth: "those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord."

Jerry Newcombe, D.Min., is an on-air host/senior producer for D. James Kennedy Ministries. He has written/co-written 28 books, e.g., The Unstoppable Jesus Christ, Doubting Thomas (w/ Mark Beliles, on Jefferson), and What If Jesus Had Never Been Born? (w/ D. James Kennedy) & the bestseller, George Washington's Sacred Fire (w/ Peter Lillback) djkm.org @newcombejerry www.jerrynewcombe.com
Elizabeth Gilbert, in an On Being podcast, mentioned something she noticed about the creative Spirit and ideas. Ideas want to be found, and sometimes multiple people at different times find the exact same idea.

It used to irritate me to find out the very idea I have been so innovative in dreaming up has been discovered elsewhere. I had a particular view of God that I felt I had to perform for.

Holy Spirit looks for people whose hearts are open. Out of the open-hearted, there is usually one who is ready to move on an idea; like the parable of the ten virgins, this one has shown up with the extra lamp oil. In todays terms, for someone to start a genius inspired business or missions project that person would ideally be debt free with savings set aside, well connected, and at a place in their life where they can commit to something long term.

I caught an idea in my 20s while living in Australia called The Meeting Place Cafe. I lived the life of faith running it as an unpaid missionary with debt fearfully wondering what I could do to bring in more income. It was dramatic at times, but I saw the maker of miracles come through.

When a very stressful few months hit in my final year, my body became sick. I had no money to see a doctor and kept asking God for a miracle. Daily, I faced an emotional spectrum in my desire to keep doing for the Lord while putting myself last.

God deals in both miracles and process.

The Israelites had a season where manna fell from Heaven to sustain them as they walked through the wilderness. Later on, God found it more fitting to work out a miracle through training and process. Caleb trained his tribe in battle knowing they would eventually have to take the Promised Land. He was a man who heard the word of the Lord and set to work to make himself ready and open for the day it would come to pass.

I am not guaranteed manna every time I ask.

It became clear to me that climbing out of a bodily and spiritual sickness would be a process. This breaking point resulted in the choice to move back to the USA to heal. I knew I needed to break from all the doing for God. Moving meant putting down the version of me that I believed was better, to face the ghost of the girl I left in Montana. I dont think I fully realised that God was not benching me. God was going with me to love me well.

God used what was harmful to me to create a greater understanding of who He is and what my role in Him is. I learned the place of blessing I want is not something to be taken with sheer will. Churches can preach a Gospel to the young which creates a picture of God being hard to please: that too is harmful. Place is something that a loving God creates for me while He stoops low to delight in me. Yet my perspective of Him will colour the gift with love or with bitterness.

If I do the right thing, even if its innovative, with the wrong intentions, I reap bitterness every time.

The Lord can give and He can take away, and it has nothing to do with my value as a human being. The place of health and blessing is one of rest and knowing what responsibilities belong to me, and the grace the Lord has given in that moment to do them.

With each chance I take or idea I hatch, there is an opportunity to know God and understand more of His love. God will never ask me to do something that compromises who I am in Him or the destiny He has for me. God knows I am vulnerable, limited, and dependent, which is beautiful to Him.

Kali was born in the beautiful State of Montana, USA. She graduated with a double Bachelors degree in Fine Art and Art Education (K-12). She helped found the Meeting Place Cafe for Youth with A Mission, Brisbane Australia. Currently she works for a local church doing graphic design, and is a part-time art, design and marketing teacher. Her passions include creativity and championing young people to be developed into their God-given identity and potential. Rest looks like a good book, dinner parties with friends, or a good coffee spot.
Chris Pratt goes to church with new girlfriend Katherine Schwarzenegger

"Guardians of the Galaxy" star Chris Pratt was spotted with his new girlfriend Katherine Schwarzenegger after the two attended church last week.

Pratt and Schwarzenegger, oldest daughter of actor/politician Arnold Schwarzenegger and broadcast journalist Maria Shriver, have been linked together since June, according to PEOPLE, which reported that the couple spent this past Father's Day together.

The 39-year-old actor and the 28-year-old author were spotted kissing after attending a Sunday service in California with Pratt's 5-year-old son, TMZ reported earlier this month.

Both Pratt and Schwarzenegger have been vocal about their faith in public forums. The lifestyle blogger was raised Catholic but in recent years has attended nondenominational Christian churches with her mother, brother Patrick and lately now with Pratt. She often shares inspiring quotes on Twitter and recently retweeted Rev Run: "God's way is better than your way. His plan is bigger than yours, it'll be more rewarding than your wildest dream. Now trust him and Chill."
Egypt security forces stop attempted church suicide bombing - state television

Egyptian security forces have thwarted a suicide bomb attack on a church just outside of Cairo, state television said on Saturday.

A militant wearing a suicide vest was prevented from approaching a church in Qalyubiyah, a governorate north of Cairo, and detonated the vest about 250 metres from the church, killing himself but no one else, state news agency MENA reported.

A spokesman for the health ministry said that a foreign object had exploded leading to the death of one person but no injuries, without elaborating on whether it was an attempted attack on the church.

Islamist militants have claimed several attacks on Egypt's large Christian minority in recent years, including two deadly bombings on Palm Sunday in April 2017 and a blast at Cairo's largest Coptic cathedral in December 2016 that killed 28 people.

The most recent attack came last December, when a gunman fired on worshippers at a Coptic Orthodox church in a Cairo suburb, killing 11 in an attack claimed by Islamic State.

The country has fought an insurgency led by Islamic State in the Sinai Peninsula that has killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen since the Egyptian military overthrew President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in mid-2013 - although no official death toll has been released to date.

Reporting by Ahmed Tolba; Writing by Eric Knecht; Editing by Clelia Oziel
The first trial on whether the worlds most widely used herbicide causes cancer came to an explosive ending Friday  a San Francisco jurys award of $289 million in damages to a man diagnosed with a lethal illness while spraying school grounds with a weed-killer manufactured by Monsanto Co.

The jury found unanimously that Monsanto was responsible for Dewayne Lee Johnsons non-Hodgkins lymphoma and should have known of the dangers posed by the herbicide glyphosate, which it markets as Roundup and the more-concentrated Ranger Pro. The jury also found that Monsanto had acted with malice or oppression when it supplied glyphosate to Johnsons employer, the Benicia Unified School District, without disclosing its potentially life-threatening effects.

The company denies that glyphosate is dangerous and says it will appeal.

The verdict could be a forerunner for the 4,000 lawsuits that have been filed across the country by individuals who claim they were sickened by Roundup. Johnsons case was the first to go to trial.

The jurys decision also amounted to a rebuke of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has long classified glyphosate as safe and has not restricted its use, despite an other agencies findings that the herbicide probably causes cancer.

At a post-verdict news conference in his lawyers office, Johnson, 46, of Vallejo, said he hoped his case was just the beginning.

The cause is way bigger than me, he said. Hopefully this thing will start to get the attention that it needs to get right.

Johnson was first diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in October 2014 and with a more aggressive form of the cancer in March 2015. One of his doctors testified that he is unlikely to survive to 2020.

The jury awarded $2.3 million in damages for his past and future economic losses and $37 million for pain and emotional distress  $1 million for each year of what would have been his normal life expectancy after 2014. The remaining $250 million was in punitive damages for malicious or oppressive conduct.

Johnsons lawyers said Monsanto, now a subsidiary of Bayer AG, has $6.1 billion in holdings.

Jurors deliberated 2 days after four weeks of testimony. The verdict required votes from only nine of the 12 jurors to be final, but they were unanimous except for on the amount of punitive damages, which drew a dissent from one juror. In polling after the verdict, she did not tell the judge whether she favored a greater or lesser amount.

Environmental advocates celebrated the outcome.

Mr. Johnsons brave decision to spend his dying days fighting Monsanto to prove the dangers of Roundup is part of a global awakening to the long-term health and environmental costs of our careless addiction to pesticides, said Nathan Donley, a scientist with the Center for Biological Diversity.

Monsanto was unyielding, saying its position is supported by the EPA, the National Institutes of Health and agencies around the world.

We will appeal this decision and continue to vigorously defend this product, which has a 40-year history of safe use, said Scott Partridge, a Monsanto vice president.

Johnson was a groundskeeper and pest-control manager for Benicia schools from 2012 until May 2016. His job included spraying glyphosate, in the high-concentration brand called Ranger Pro, from 50-gallon drums 20 to 30 times a year for two to three hours a day.

He testified he wore protective clothing, including a sturdy jacket, goggles and a face mask, but said he couldnt fully protect his face from wind-blown spray. And twice, he told the jury, he got drenched with the herbicide, once when a spray hose became detached from a truck that was hauling it, and another time when a backpack container he was carrying leaked.

After the first drenching in 2014, he said, he got rashes on his skin that did not respond to treatment. Welts and lesions soon appeared on his legs, arms, face and eyelids. His first cancer diagnoses came soon afterward.

Johnson has undergone chemotherapy and is considering a bone-marrow transplant.

The jury also heard from Johnsons wife, Araceli, a nurse practitioner, who said she now works 14 hours a day at two jobs to pay the bills. The couple has two children.

Glyphosate, the worlds leading herbicide, was classified as a probable human carcinogen in 2015 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, an arm of the World Health Organization. In 2017, Californias Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment listed it as a chemical known to cause cancer. Monsanto held the initial patent and remains its leading distributor.

Despite the agencies health concerns, glyphosate remains legal in the U.S. and Europe. Monsantos lawyers noted the EPA has never found glyphosate to be a cause of cancer, and told the jury that both the EPA and European health regulators had conducted new studies after the international agencys assessment and had reaffirmed their previous safety findings.

Johnsons lawyers, in turn, accused Monsanto of mounting a propaganda campaign to discredit the international agency and of hiding evidence that allegedly would have shown the herbicides dangers. Each side presented medical experts to support its case.

Monsanto also said none of Johnsons physicians had determined the cause of his cancer. One of Johnsons doctors testified, however, that as Johnsons condition worsened in 2015, she asked the school district to let him stop spraying glyphosate. Johnson said he finally refused to use the chemical in January 2016, four months before leaving the job.

He also said he called Monsantos hotline twice, in 2014 and 2015, described his symptoms and asked if the herbicide might be the cause. Company representatives said someone would call him back, but no one did, he said.

Bob Egelko and Peter Fimrite are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: begelko@sfchronicle.com andpfimrite@sfchronice.com Twitter: @BobEgelko and @pfimrite
Saratoga Hospital installs drug drop-off receptacle

SARATOGA SPRINGS  Saratoga Hospital has installed a new drug take-back receptacle for public use in the entrance of the Alfred E. Solomon Emergency Department across from the Public Safety office.

According to the hospital, the receptacle is available 24/7 for any member of the public to dispose of prescription medications.

Laurie Cronin, director of pharmacy, said too many people improperly dispose of their unused prescriptions by flushing them or throwing them away. Sometimes they are forgotten in a drawer, where children or others can get to them, she stated.

The entrance is on the Myrtle Street side of the hospital. For details, visit saratogahospital.org or call 518-583-8313.

The two other 24/7 drug take-back drop boxes in Saratoga County are at the Sheriff's Department in Ballston Spa and the Saratoga Springs police station.

Wednesday night movies to be shown in Albany

ALBANY  Free classic movies will be screened on three Wednesdays in August at 8 p.m. in West Capitol Park.

Slidin' Dirty will start selling specialty sliders, signature cocktails, and other gourmet items inspired by each movie's theme at 7 p.m. Alcoholic beverages will be sold to adults with proper identification. Free popcorn will be provided to moviegoers courtesy of Cornerstone at the Plaza while supplies last, organizers say.

Each movie night will include a brief discussion of the film and food pairings for the evening starting at 8 p.m. and be led by Mary Darcy, movie enthusiast and co-creator of the All Over Albany culture and news website.

The movies are: "Out of the Past" on Wednesday, Alfred Hitchcock's classic "Vertigo" on Aug. 22 and "West Side Story" on Aug. 29.

Those attending should bring chairs or blankets.

Van Schaick Mansion has Sunday tours, sketching

COHOES  The historic Van Schaick Mansion is open for tours at noon Sunday, with the final tour begins at 3 p.m. Suggested donation is $5.

Visitors are welcome to bring sketchpads and pencils or charcoal to draw the house and instructions will be provided. The class is noon to 2 p.m. A donation of $5 is suggested toward a DAR Junior Project. Call 518-439-0814 by Saturday to register.

The mansion is located at 1 Van Schaick Ave.
A.R. "Babe" Schwartz, a trailblazing member of the Texas Legislature who pioneered environmental legislation and other liberal causes, died Friday at his home in Houston, his family confirmed. He was 92 and had been in hospice care.

During his tenure as a state senator in the 1960s and 1970s, Schwartz was best known for his focus on protecting the environment, fighting for public access to Texas beaches and coastal management. In May 2016, Galveston named a stretch of restored beach "Babe's Beach" in his honor.

Schwartz was known for his blunt talk, firm grasp of issues and intimate knowledge of the Legislature.

"As a husband, father and public servant, Babe Schwartz was one of a kind," wrote his son, John, in an emailed statement. "We are most proud of his commitment to doing what was right, caring for others and making Texas a better place."

Having grown up poor on Galveston Island, Schwartz was fiercely committed to preserving natural beauty and making sure everyone could enjoy it. He was instrumental in the creation of the 1959 Open Beaches Act.

"Every legislative session that comes along produces some new genius that figures out a way that some rich guy can buy a piece of land and exclude the public from its use," Schwartz told the Chronicle in 2016

READ MORE: At 90, Schwartz still fighting for Texas beaches

In Schwartz's day, the Legislature was dominated by conservatives, but they divided along ideological rather than party lines. Schwartz was one of small group of liberals known as "The Killer Bees" who often found themselves in opposition to Lt. Gov. William "Bill" Hobby, a conservative Democrat who held the office for a record five terms, 1971-1990.

The Killer Bees brought the legislature to a standstill in 1979 over a bill that would have changed when the state held its presidential primary. The lawmakers went into hiding, preventing a quorum. After several days, Hobby agreed to drop the proposal, and the fugitive senators returned to the Capitol in victory.

"A sharp-witted, sharp-tongued advocate for social and economic justice during an earlier era, when it was still possible to make some genuine state legislative progress in Texas," said U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-San Antonio), who served alongside Schwartz in the state Senate. "As a new 'baby' state senator, and later as a fellow Killer Bee, I valued his good counsel, friendship, sense of humor, and storiessome of which were true. He and Marilyn have been a great team who have made a lasting difference in the lives of so many, and who have also contributed four outstanding sons."

Although Hobby seldom agreed with Schwartz, he appointed him to every major committee and three chairmanships.

In the Senate, Schwartz earned a reputation for fearlessness and directness. He took on one of the most powerful conservative senators, W.T. "Bill" Moore, D-Bryan, known as the "Bull of the Brazos."

Paul Burka, a former Schwartz aide, remembers the diminutive Schwartz standing toe-to-toe with the bear-sized Moore, shouting insults and jabbing his finger upward.

"They almost came to blows one day in the Senate," Burka told the Chronicle in 2016.

Glen Maxey, an aide to Oscar Mauzy, a state senator and close ally of Schwartz, recalled how Schwartz, as a member of the minority party in the Senate, had an encyclopedic knowledge of procedural rules, deftly weaponizing the filibuster, speaking for hours without pause.

"Back in those days, progressives didn't move many things down the field, the kinds of things using senate rules and procedures as a fine art in delaying and killing legislation and running out the clock  filibusters, tags  there's a lot of bad legislation that died at the hands of Babe Schwartz," Maxey said.

Galveston Mayor Jim Yarbrough, who, as a young boy, went door to door handing out campaign fliers for Schwartz's 1963 Senate campaign, remembered Schwartz as a legislative titan who made an enormous impact on the city of Galveston.

"The work he did at the statehouse as senator, he brought home a lot of good things for UTMB (hospital at Galveston), grade raisings on the causeway and I-45 working with (Democratic U.S. Rep.) Jack Brooks at the federal level, Galveston's a better place because Babe came our way."

Aaron Schwartz was born in Galveston, Texas on July 17, 1926 to Joseph Schwartz and the former Clara Bulbe. He was the first child in his family to be born in the United States; his father had emigrated from Poland, brought to the United States by his future father-in-law, an immigrant who had made his way to Texas.

Joe and Clara's first child, Israel Louis, was born in Havana. With an American wife and an American child, Joseph Schwartz was able to arrange for entry into the United States, coming through New Orleans in 1925.

As a boy, Aaron Schwartz was called "Baby" by family members because he was the younger of the two Schwartz sons. At age 14, he would later say, he threw a tantrum and declared that he would no longer tolerate being called Baby. "Babe" stuck.

After graduating from Galveston's Ball High School, Schwartz attended Texas A&M, where he joined the Corps of Cadets. He left school to sign up with the United States Navy to fight in World War II, serving in the Pacific aboard the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Bennington, where he operated the arresting gear that stopped landing planes by their tailhooks.

After the war, Schwartz returned to A&M, where he earned enough course credits to apply to the University of Texas School of Law. After moving to Austin, he got work with the state legislature, where he met and fell in love with Marilyn Ruth Cohn of Harlingen, Texas. They married in 1951.

Babe and Marilyn Schwartz moved to Galveston, where he worked as a prosecutor, and later ran successfully for the House in 1954 and 1956. He ran for the Senate in 1958 and lost to the incumbent, Jimmy Phillips, but ran successfully in a special election in 1960 after Phillips retired.

In 1980, following his electoral defeat, Schwartz, who had been dividing his time between Galveston and Austin, moved to Austin full-time and became a lobbyist and legislative consultant on local, state and national issues.

Maxey, the former Senate aide, said Schwartz was a fixture in the Capitol as a lobbyist, sharing war stories from his glory days as a legislator, and not pulling any punches in dressing down his opponents.

"For the last 20 years, some of the most colorful conversations in the capital happened in the Texas Capitol cafeteria where you could always find Babe Schwartz telling stories," Maxey said. "He did not hold back in his opinion of people on the other side of him on issues, he always added, let's just say, appropriate adjectives to their names that you could not print."

Along with his wife, Marilyn Schwartz, Babe Schwartz is survived by sons Bob and Dick Schwartz, who are twins and live in Houston; John Schwartz, who lives in New Jersey; and Tom Schwartz, who lives in Sarasota, Fla.; 12 grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. He is also survived by two siblings, Steven Schwartz of Galveston and Phyllis Milstein of Houston. Two siblings, Louis Schwartz and Ron Schwartz, predeceased him.

Harvey Rice contributed to this report.

Nick Powell covers Galveston County for the Chronicle. Follow him on Twitter and send him tips at nick.powell@chron.com
There was nothing Charles Hereford loved more than a good mystery.

As an accountant, he was known for getting in the weeds when a complex transaction needed untangling.

He liked the mystery of it, finding the problems and then correcting them, said his wife, Sue Hereford.

Toward the end of his accounting career, Hereford become known as an authority on auditing savings and loan institutions. So much so that he really did write the book for the standards on auditing such businesses.

When he retired from accounting, he took up history and genealogy employing his same love for the hunt in finding and reconnecting with his ancestors.

He and his wife, Sue, made many trips to the family property in Herfordshire, England and the early 2000s, he even organized a trip for 154 of his relatives to attend a family reunion in Herfordshire.

Whatever he was doing, from supporting his children in their activities to his accounting firm to serving the community in a variety of organizations and spending time with family and friends, he was all in and having a good time along the way in each endeavor.

Early life

Charles Ray Hereford was born in Conroe in the Mary Swain Sanitarium on July 16, 1935.

He was the youngest son of Sanford Ray Hereford and Claudia Myrl Sarah Savage Hereford. His older brothers included Otis Gerrie Bill Hereford and Raymond Duane Bane Hereford.

The couple was transferred to Conroe in January 1925 for the purpose of building a cotton gin, ice house and most importantly an electric power plant to serve Conroe and the Delta Land and Timber Companys sawmill.

S.R. Hereford was employed by the Western Public Service Company and had constructed the same type of facilities in Hempstead and Somerville before being sent to Conroe. This power company was sold to Gulf States Utilities and later to Entergy.

According to his daughter, Suann Hereford, several members of the family, like uncles, were employed by Western Public Service Company.

He was the superintendent of the Conroe division that included everything from Cleveland to Somerville.

Charles Hereford often told of his memories when he was a boy of going up to the power plant with his father.

S.R. Hereford was also a very active member of the Conroe community.

He was president of the Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce, president of the Conroe ISD school board, president of the Montgomery County Hospital Board, oversaw the construction of the first county hospital, was a Mason and on the board of directors of First National Bank.

He also taught the Judson Mens Sunday School Class at the First Baptist Church despite the fact that he was baptized a Methodist in the same creek and on the same Sunday as his Baptist wife Claudia.

When they moved to Conroe, Claudias friends gave her the name of Sarah.

In the early 1920s, most people in this part of Texas did not have electricity in their homes. Western Public Service and later Gulf States Utilities would wire any new customers home if they signed up for electric service.

The next problem was to make appliances available to customers who had electricity.

Western Public Services and Gulf States held cooking schools in their office to build a market for electric power. Sarah taught ladies how to cook on these new appliances at the Gulf States Cooking School.

She was also active in The Keep Busy Club which composed of 12 women who met each Tuesday to make things and play various games.

Charles Hereford was always his mothers partner in these games following the untimely death of his father, S.R., in 1943 when Charles Hereford was eight.

Even though I only enjoyed his love and guidance for eight years before he was taken from me by a doctors error, he imprinted me with his morals, love and vision for the future of our family, Charles Hereford wrote in a tribute to his father. He left me with a tall measure to fulfill his standards and to live up to being his son!

School years

Charles Hereford attended Conroe schools his whole school career.

He was best of friends with Monty Hawthorne whose father owned the Conroe Creosoting Company.

He also treasured friendships with Luther Powell and Eddie Reed from the Class of 1953.

Sue Hereford explained they all came up together and went through their school years together.

An avid stamp collector, Mr. Hawthorne gave Charles two unusual stamps that had come to the creosoting plant.

Years later, when Monty Hawthorne was celebrating his 50th birthday, Charles racked his brain to come up with the perfect gift for his best friends birthday.

Sue said in the middle of the night he had an idea and he burst out of bed. He was going to give Monty the two stamps that Montys father had given him when they were boys.

Monty just bawled when Charlie gave him the card with the two stamps inside, Sue said.

The two friends ended up at the University of Texas together where Hereford majored in accounting.

Sue said he found the first class in accounting easy so he kept taking more accounting classes.

Following graduation, he went to work for the Continental Oil Company in Ponca City, Oklahoma.

From 1956 through 1962 he was a member of the military reserves.

While in college he married Bobbie Jean Vaught on May 29, 1954. Their first son, Charles Lee Hereford, was born in Austin. Their second son, Gerrie Lyn Hereford, was born in Oklahoma.

The family returned to Conroe in June 1957. Larry Duane Hereford was added to the family in 1960. Lori Hereford was born into the family in 1966.

Hereford divorced and then married Sue M. Lentz on Aug. 10, 1973. Her children Suann and John became a part of the Hereford family.

A life-long accounting career

Charles Hereford obtained his license as a Certified Public Accountant on July 26, 1959.

On Jan. 1, 1961 childhood friends Charles Hereford and Bert Lynch opened their accounting firm in Conroe.

They worked well together because Charles would get there very early in the morning and Lynch would come in later but stay into the evening.

Charlie promised never to do tax and Bert promised never to do audits, Sue Hereford said.

Their group grew to one of the largest regional firms in the state with locations in Conroe, Cleveland, Huntsville, Tomball, College Station and at Greenspoint.

Tommy Sellars, who worked for Hereford & Lynch, came to work for Herefords firm as a fresh Texas A&M graduate. Years before, Hereford had been Sellars Sunday School teacher at First Baptist Church.

Sellars father-in-law John Perry Holmes called Hereford, whom Holmes called bean counter, and asked him about a job for his newly graduated son-in-law.

Sellars interviewed and was welcomed in, spending his whole career with the firm which was eventually known as Hereford, Lynch, Sellars and Kirkham and most recently Weaver, a Texas-based accounting firm.

Hereford was also a lifelong learner who enjoyed a new challenge.

Charlie liked doing new things and there were a lot of new things going on in the accounting profession at the time, Sellars said.

According to Sellars son, John, who grew up around Hereford, he was eager to begin using personal computers long before any other public accounting firms the size of Hereford & Lynch decided to.

Mr. Hereford had been practicing public accounting for 20-plus years in 1983 when he heard about a Houston company that was able to successfully clone an IBM PC. That company was Compaq, and the Compaq Portable was the worlds first portable computer. They were the size of a large suitcase, weighed about 30 pounds, had a tiny green and black screen, and featured an attached keyboard that popped out the bottom. At $3,590 each in 1983 (close to $10,000 in todays dollars), Hereford took a gamble and ordered three of the pioneering machines, John Sellars said. The gamble paid off, and Hereford was able to increase the efficiency of his staff and greatly improve the margins on the firms external audit engagements. This also indirectly affected me. My father was assigned one of those computers to use at home. I really have to credit Mr. Hereford for me being introduced to computers at such a young age. There werent too many 6-year-olds running around in those days who knew MS-DOS commands.

Sue Hereford still has his first personal computer.

He just couldnt bare to let go of it, Sue said.

Hereford retired from the accounting firm he founded on Dec. 3, 1989.

He continued to take on some accounting work from time to time until he decided it was really time to retire in 1997.

Finding fun and ancestors

Hereford was known for his fun-loving nature and he liked to have a good time with all of his family and best friends around.

He and Sue, took a variety of trips, with friends, classmates, family and staff of the accounting firm. Theyd go on cruises, to the Hill Country, to Mardi Gras and etc.

But Las Vegas was one of his favorite trips.

Tommy Sellars said he didnt really like to gamble but he liked the odds.

Hed play the 25 cents craps tables, but if I could have found a penny table, he would have played that, Sellars said.

He was also one for a bargain. Herefords biggest thrill was finding the freebies Vegas had to offer.

He knew where all the freebies were and he had a little circuit hed make, Sellars said. It didnt really matter if hed won or lost, if he got a bunch of freebies, then he figured hed come out on top.

Hereford also delved even more into his passion for ancestry once he was retired.

He always liked a project, said his daughter Suann. Once one project was finished hed start a different project.

Suann and Sue agreed he loved the mystery of searching out his relatives.

And he did the research the hard way they said, by visiting cemeteries, doing gravestone rubbings and searching hardcopy records, back before everything was online.

In enjoyed connecting with his relatives so much that in the early 2000s, he spent a whole year planning a reunion trip for 154 of his Herford relatives.

With three charter buses, they visited Herefordshire, England and the family home of Sufton Court.

Hereford rallied his relatives to raise matching funds to renovate The Church of The Holy Rood in Mordiford, the Hereford family church. Today still, the names of those who donated to the cause are inscribed in slate at the church.

In 2000-01 he was president of the Heritage Museum and from 2002-03 also served as the president of the Montgomery County Genealogical and Historical Society. He was also heavily active in Conroe Jaycees, serving as secretary then president, and in the Conroe Rotary Club, serving as president. He was honored as Rotarian of the Year for his work as the Tooth Fairy, helping to provide dentistry services to children who couldn't afford it otherwise.

A passage on his life in the 2012 edition of the Montgomery County History Book published by the Montgomery County Geneaology Society quoted, he was just as busy in retirement, he just does not get a paycheck!

Hereford passed away in March 2017 at the age of 81 following a lengthy illness but his legacy and memories live on with all of those he touched in the Conroe community.

Some biographical information from the 2012 edition of the Montgomery County History Book published by the Montgomery County Genealogical & Historical Society.
Thirty-seven years after their brother disappeared, Donna Lovrek and Lenore McNiel said goodbye Saturday.

"We have closure now, and that's good," McNiel said after the memorial service for Randell Lee Harvey, or Randy, as the family called him.

The tall, long-haired "hippie" was 15 in 1971 when he hopped on his bicycle, rode to work at a nearby gas station and never returned to his home in the Heights.

It wasn't until last month that the Harris County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed through 21st-century technology what the sisters had suspected: Harvey was a victim of Houston's notorious serial killer Dean Corll and his teenage accomplices, David Owen Brooks and Elmer Wayne Henley.

Harvey's skeletal remains, which turned up in a Houston boat shed two years after his disappearance, had been in the county morgue, unidentified, for 35 years.

Sharon Derrick, the forensic anthropologist who helped identify Harvey, spoke at the memorial service to the boy she never met.

"I know that you are looking down here and saying, 'Man, you guys got old,'" Derrick said.

Harvey would have been 53.

As a child, he liked everything, his family said.

"He was all boy," said his cousin 54-year-old Sherri DeAngelo, who recalled the two getting into trouble as kids. "We used to jump off my grandma's porch. We'd have to jump over the tomatoes."

And if they missed, "We'd get swatted on the back of the legs  just enough to make us squeal," she said.

The family has been able to find only one photo of Harvey after a fire destroyed others in his childhood home.

The black-and-white picture, propped against an urn at the memorial service, showed a smiling Harvey at about age 10, on his knees and holding a wooden airplane.

By age 15, when he died, Harvey was at least 6 feet tall.

"And he still had some growing to do," said Derrick, who studied his skeletal remains and DNA samples from his sisters to help confirm the identification. "He was going to be a tall man, and he probably would have filled out some. ... He would have been really something to see."

McNiel, Harvey's younger sister, who at 51 is tall and slender, recalled her brother's free spirit. "All I can say is, he was a hippie. But he was our hippie," she said.

The sisters plan to scatter Harvey's ashes in Lake Livingston, as they did his mother's. Harvey's father also is deceased.

Lasting influence

Derrick brought Harvey's sisters a memento, a peace sign that had been patched onto the T-shirt he was wearing the night he was murdered.

DeAngelo said she wanted to get the symbol, with Harvey's case number, tattooed on her leg.

Crime victims advocate Andy Kahan, who works for the Houston mayor's office, said he plans to lobby for a change in state law based on Harvey's case.

Harvey's sisters needed help paying for his memorial service, but the state's compensation fund for crime victims, which helps defray such costs, does not apply to crimes committed before 1980.

Kahan wants a new law  named after Harvey  to allow discretion.

"Randy's going to be thought of in a positive way for eternity," he said.

Earthman Funeral Directors donated services for the memorial at their Hunters Creek chapel after hearing about the problem.

As the service concluded on a chilly but sunny Saturday afternoon, a 1968 song from the Zombies played in Harvey's honor.

"It's the time of the season

When the love runs high

In this time, give it to me easy

And let me try."

ericka.mellon@chron.com
The city of Sugar Land has confirmed the presence of the West Nile virus at a mosquito trap on University Boulevard, according to a news release from the city Friday.

At least one of the mosquitoes trapped earlier this week tested positive for the virus, the release said. The mosquito trap is located on University Boulevard near the Houston Museum of Natural Science at Sugar Land.
Laura Clifton called Saturdays Back to School Fest a godsend.

Her family is among the hundreds still struggling to get back on its feet nearly a year after Hurricane Harvey.

Were playing catch-up at this point, Clifton said. Im self-employed tech support and, after Harvey, my business went down to nothing. Harvey affected my clientele. People werent calling.

Families stood in line before the doors of the George R. Brown Convention Center opened Saturday morning for the Mayors Back to School Fest, an annual event during which at-need families with elementary-school children are provided free school supplies and medical services for the upcoming school year.

The festival is in its eighth year, but Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner said this years event may be the most significant.

For these particular families coming from communities that were heavily hit by Harvey, still coping, still waiting for the federal dollars to reach them, this is very, very important, he said.

Harvey compounded challenges the Cliftons already face as parents of a child with autism. Their son is entering fifth grade at River Oaks Elementary School in Houston ISD.

He has Aspergers, so we have a lot of extra challenges already, Clifton said. Were making it work, but this event really does help tremendously.

Sandra Elys son Alex also has autism. Costs associated with caring for him dont leave much left for other expenditures, such as school supplies. In addition, the Back to School event fills a social need, Ely said.

I dont have very much money, so this helps a little bit, but it also gets him out to be around other people, she said.

It only took seconds for Alex to excitedly strap on his new backpack after finally getting it in his hands.

Families received backpacks, supplies, immunizations, eye exams, dental exams and other services that could add up to hundreds of dollars, organizers said.

Turner estimated that the event attracts 25,000 children and results in a $250,0000-plus investment in Houston area youth, funded by partnerships between the city and various sponsors.

We want our children to feel supported so they can establish and fulfill their dreams, Turner said. A good education is key to reach that goal and achieve their success.

Incoming second-grader Diego Hernandez is eager to start the school year at KIPP Explore Academy.

I really want to go there, Hernandez said. I love to read.

Things are looking up for his family, who lost all its belongings in Harvey, said parent Maria Nevarez. The resulting financial struggle played a role in her decision to attend this years event.

Its really helping us, she said.

This was the second year Alika Prado has come with her son, who is entering third grade at Hartsfield Elementary.

As a disabled veteran, Prado explained, money is tight.

I have a set income every month and by the time I get done paying bills and rent and all that, I really dont have much of anything left, Prado said. An event like this is right up my alley because I can still get him the school supplies he needs without spending much money.

A few feet away from the backpack booth, Rabbi Amy Weiss and a group of volunteers were busy providing a less-obvious, but equally important resource. Weiss founded the nonprofit Undies for Everyone, an organization that gives underwear to children in need.

Undies for Everyone provided over 2 million pairs after Hurricane Harvey, and expected to distribute 17,000 pairs during the Back to School event.

Its more important than ever because more people are in need in general, Weiss said. People who had last year dont have this year. Underwear is essential for dignity and self-esteem.

mfeuk@hcnonline.com
A retired Dallas-area school administrator accused of sexually assaulting several teenage students will not be serving jail time.

David Paul Green, 70, pleaded guilty to five counts of injury to a child and received probation in a plea agreement with prosecutors, reported the Dallas Morning News.

Green taught at St. Anthony School in Carrollton, a private school for children with learning disabilities. The ex-school administrator helped found the school in 1998 until his retirement in 2010.

Green was accused of sexually assaulting several boys between 2000 and 2006. He allegedly supplied his victims with alcohol, showed them pornographic movies and gave out cash which one victim felt was hush money.

ICYMI: Texas police accuse woman of falsifying report of sexual assault by cop impersonator

The ex-school administrator was arrested in 2014 after three former students complained about the alleged sexual assault when they were between the ages of 14 and 16.

In court documents viewed by the Star-Telegram, Green purportedly gave special attention to a 15-year-old boy with a learning disability to gain his trust.

Court documents detailed that "Green began to escalate into increasingly aggressive physical sexual overtures," eventually taking the teenager to his home to sexually assault.

Green was given deferred adjudication probation for 10 years and could be supervised for the rest of his life.

Fernando Ramirez covers Texas news and politics. Read him on our breaking news site and on our subscriber site. | Fernando.ramirez@chron.com | @fernramirez93




Wednesday, Aug. 15, is the first day back to school for Conroe ISD, but students may return home after the final bell talking about more than just their classes or schedules.

Heres a roundup of what  and who  is new in the areas four feeder zones: Grand Oaks High School, Oak Ridge High School, The Woodlands - College Park High School and The Woodlands High School.

New spaces

District officials have been busy readying two new Grand Oaks feeder zone campuses, both of which are set for students to enter their doors for the first time this school year.

Grand Oaks High School came in at about $154 million and will enroll about 1,250 students in ninth and 10th grade.

Yet, the growth wont stop there. The district plans to add about 750 students each year for the next two years as they add 11th and 12th grade levels to the campus.

The less expensive project, Katherine Johnson Clark Intermediate, was billed at about $26.3 million. It will house more than 800 fifth-and sixth-grade students.

Rules of the Road school edition The Conroe ISD Police Department released a sheet of safety tips in order to remind community members the best practices when it comes to back-to-school traffic. Here are the highlights. Drivers: - Reduce distractions, such as music and cell phone usage, so that you can observe what is happening outside your vehicle. That means looking for walkers, bike riders and children boarding and exiting school buses. - Do not pass a school bus that is stopped with its red lights flashing. Walkers: - Look both ways before crossing the road, and only do so at crosswalks and intersections. - Stay on sidewalks and pathways when possible. Bus riders: - Wait for the bus to fully stop and for your driver to signal it's OK to cross the road. - When boarding or exiting the bus, look both ways before crossing the road. Walk about 10 feet in front of the bus' bumper. See More Collapse

Both campuses were part of the districts 2015 bond referendum.

While it wont be occupied for another year, CISD trustees have been seeking public input for about a month on the naming of Flex School 19, a kindergarten through sixth-grade campus being constructed along Harpers School Road in the Oak Ridge feeder zone.

According to district Communications Director Sarah Blakelock, there have already been several hundred submissions of potential names.

The candidate monikers are scheduled to be read at CISDs Aug. 21 board meeting, and the new name is to be considered at the following months meeting.

The campus is scheduled to open next August, and is also part of the 2015 bond referendum.

Blakelock also said that safety and security projects have been implemented throughout the district, including secure entry vestibules and security cameras.

New faces

More than 500 new staff members including teachers, librarians and counselors will be walking the halls with CISD students this fall.

Notably, The Woodlands High School has brought on Ted Landry as the new principal.

Landry previously served as Kingwood High Schools principal in Humble ISD, but made the switch to CISD after the board unanimously approved his position at a June board meeting.

Its not his first time on CISD turf, though: Landry was a counselor in the district from 2000 to 2002.

He previously told The Villager that it was an honor and absolute dream to be considered for a position.

A new academy will be housed this fall at Oak Ridge High School, which means that theres a new headmaster there as well.

Michael Papadimitriou, who previously led the Academy for Science and Health Professions, is opening the Academy for Careers in Engineering and Science.

The academy is focused on maintaining and preparing students in the science, technology, engineering and math pipeline.
By Trend





A general meeting of the Azerbaijan-Russia Business Council was held today, the Azerbaijani Economy Ministry said in a message Aug. 10.

Samad Gurbanov was elected head of the Board of the Azerbaijan-Russia Business Council.

During the event, a number of organizational issues were discussed and the Council's new composition was approved.

During the meeting, it was stressed that the Azerbaijan-Russia relations continue to successfully develop in various spheres, including the economic sphere.

Russia is one of the main trade partners of Azerbaijan. Taking into account the existing potential, measures are underway for new mechanisms to expand trade and economic cooperation.

The Azerbaijan-Russia Business Council was established in 2016. The main goal of the Business Council is further intensification of ties in economy, mutual investment between Azerbaijan and Russia, and cooperation between businessmen.

For this purpose, the Azerbaijan-Russia Business Council closely cooperates with similar organizations of Russia and regularly holds joint meetings of business councils with the participation of businessmen.
The fliers passed out by a New York state senator spoke of uniting Democrats and resisting President Donald Trump - a common strategy used to solidify the "blue" voting base before the midterms. But that message proved to be too much for a self-identified Trump supporter who on Thursday called the police to make him leave, according to the lawmaker's account.

Jesse Hamilton told The Post that he and his aides stood in front of a Brooklyn metro stop to pass out fliers to constituents while they traveled to work.

"Rising up Democrats!" the flier said, above a picture of Hamilton and two of his supporters.

Everything was going well . . . at least for three minutes. After Hamilton passed a flier to a white woman, who could not be identified by The Post, she began to speak of divisiveness, work ethic and Trump.

"Some immigrants don't have a good work ethic," the woman said in a Slavic accent, according to Hamilton's retelling. After 10 minutes of conversation, Hamilton offered to have a meeting in his office at a later date. She was taking his time away from other constituents, he said. The woman, who told Hamilton she immigrated to America to flee communism, refused. That's when one of Hamilton's aides pulled out his phone and started recording.

"I support Trump," the woman said. "And I see the difference between Democrat and Republican. And I see the difference between you and Trump."

"If you really want the nation to be as one and fight for the better life . . . you would not have put this here," she said, pointing to a slogan that said 'fighting back Trump.' The woman praised Trump for improving her finances and making America better, Hamilton said.

Hamilton told The Post that after a while, the woman requested he and his aides leave. They refused. Why should they leave a public sidewalk? But the refusal angered her. So she called the police, Hamilton said.

The police soon arrived to defuse the situation, Hamilton said. But the woman would not let up. And she demanded the police remove the lawmaker and his aides from the sidewalk. They told her that could not happen and left.

She still wouldn't stop, Hamilton said. He told The Post he voluntarily removed himself from the situation. After leaving for a few minutes, Hamilton returned to continue speaking to prospective voters. But she soon reappeared and began to follow him down the street, Hamilton said.

"I shouldn't have felt uncomfortable," Hamilton told The Post. "I'm minding my business and handing out political literature."

"This is just [another] person of color going through their normal lives and a citizen is calling the police to interrogate and intimidate," Hamilton said. "It's a disturbing trend of people calling 911 for situations that have no criminal activity."

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Arsene Tchakarian, the last surviving member of the Armenian-led Manouchian network, which fought alongside the French resistance against the Nazi occupiers during World War II, died Aug. 4 at a hospital in Villejuif, south of Paris. He was 101.

Tchakarian, an ethnic Armenian born in Turkey during the Ottoman Empire, later received France's highest award, as a commander of the Legion of Honor. His family announced the death but did not specify the cause.

French President Emmanuel Macron commemorated Tchakarian on Twitter as "a hero of the resistance and tireless witness whose voice resonated strongly to the very end."

The Manouchian resistance network, named after Tchakarian's fellow Armenian Missak Manouchian, a poet and resistance leader, was made up of immigrants from many nations that had been affected by Hitler's expansionism - Italians, Greeks, Romanians, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Spaniards, Poles, even young German Jews who had fled to what was then a free France.

"There was such a friendship between us, between all these people coming from everywhere, Jews, Spanish, Italians, Germans, Armenians and French of course," Tchakarian said in a 2002 speech to pupils at a junior high school near his home in Vitry-sur-Seine, France. "A brotherly friendship which surpassed all that you can imagine."

Throughout World War II, the Manouchian network linked up with the local French resistance to carry out a guerrilla campaign against the Nazi occupiers, including broad-daylight assassinations and sabotage of power lines and munitions trains.

Tchakarian, code-named Charles, started out secretly distributing anti-Nazi tracts in Paris. After meeting Manouchian, he recalled that his fellow Armenian told him: "Enough of tracts, we are now being asked to fight with arms."

Tchakarian's first assignment was to throw a grenade among a group of Nazi soldiers.

"As I hesitated," Tchakarian told Le Parisien newspaper in February, "Georges" - Manouchian's nom de guerre - "snatched it from me and threw it himself."

The following day, Tchakarian took part in an attack on German military police. He was also part of a small resistance cadre that assassinated Nazi SS Gen. Julius Ritter in September 1943. Ritter had been in charge of a forced-labor program that deported hundreds of thousands of French workers to Germany to support the Nazi war effort.

The Manouchian network later became better known as "L'Affiche Rouge," or the Red Poster Group, after the Nazi occupiers put up blood-red posters carrying the faces of the network's wanted members, including Tchakarian. The Germans called them "The Army of Crime" and focused on the fact that many of them were Jewish.

In November 1943, Tchakarian had scheduled a clandestine rendezvous with a fellow resistance fighter, Olga Bancic, a Romanian Jew, at the Gare d'Orsay railway station in Paris.

"She didn't show up, as she always had without fail," Tchakarian recalled earlier this year. He had seen pro-Nazi police in the area and escaped shortly before Bancic was arrested along with Manouchian and 22 other male members of the underground network.

On Feb. 21, 1944, all 23 men, including Manouchian, were lined up and shot by a German firing squad at the notorious Fort Mont-Valerien on the western outskirts of Paris. (More than 1,000 people, mostly Jews, were executed at the fort between 1941 and 1944.) Because French law prohibited the execution of women by firing squad, Bancic was taken to Germany, where she was beheaded with an ax.

Tchakarian fled from Paris to Bordeaux and continued the fight with the resistance. The German Luftwaffe had taken control of Bordeaux-Merignac airport and was using it as a base for maritime reconnaissance and attacks against allied shipping in the Atlantic. Tchakarian helped provide intelligence for a 1943 raid on the airport by British and U.S. bombers.

During the spring and summer of 1944, he joined a resistance group that, along with U.S. Army troops, helped liberate the central French town of Montargis. The soldiers and resistance fighters were greeted with kisses, flowers, wine and delirium by residents who knew by then that the war had turned against the Germans.

After the war, Tchakarian returned to his previous occupation and became a master tailor near Paris. He also turned his focus to history, writing memoirs about his wartime experiences and about the Turkish massacres of Armenians when he was a child. Most Armenians, including Tchakarian, described the killings as "genocide," although Turkish authorities have continued to reject that term.

Arsen Tchakarian was born Dec. 21, 1916, to Armenian parents in what is now Sapanca, Turkey, then part of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Turkish purge of Armenians forced his family to flee first to Bulgaria and then to France.

Young Arsen, who adopted the French spelling of Arsene, arrived in Marseille in 1930 as an apprentice tailor. In 1937, though not yet a French citizen, he was conscripted into a French army artillery unit and fought the Nazis until they occupied France in June 1940 and he was demobilized.

He had come to consider France his home and was determined to fight on. Through Armenian connections, he soon found the Manouchians, the immigrant resistance group with nothing to lose.

Tchakarian was granted French citizenship in 1958. In 2005, he was made a knight of the French Legion of Honor, later upgraded to officer and finally to commander - France's highest award - in 2017. His first wife, Bertha Christiane, predeceased him. Survivors include his second wife, Jacqueline Tchakarian, and four children. A complete list of survivors could not be confirmed.

In one of his last interviews, Tchakarian was asked about his time in the resistance.

"I would like to shed a tear," he said. "But I cannot. I've never cried. We were not heroes. We resisted because we could do it: We didn't have families or jobs. And we resisted because we loved France. She had adopted us."
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There are no restrictions on the sale of foreign currency by banks in Azerbaijan, the Financial Market Supervisory Authority of Azerbaijan (FIMSA) told Trend on Aug. 10 commenting on the information spread earlier about the introduction of restrictions on the sale of foreign currency in the country.

"FIMSA has not given any instructions to banks to restrict the sale of foreign currency. At the same time there have been no complaints from citizens about such problems," FIMSA said.

The financial regulator stressed that banks have enough foreign currency to meet the customers' demands.

"This issue is under our control. In case if bank customers face any restrictions with the sale of foreign currency to them, they can contact us and we will take the necessary measures," FIMSA added.
Indicted Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., announced Saturday that he will not run for reelection this fall as he battles federal charges for insider trading.

"After extensive discussions with my family and my friends over the last few days, I have decided that it is in the best interest of the constituents of NY-27, the Republican Party and President Donald Trump's agenda for me to suspend my campaign," he wrote in a statement posted on his official Twitter account.

Federal prosecutors on Wednesday charged Collins with providing his son, Cameron Collins, nonpublic information about drug trial results for a biotechnology company, Innate Immunotherapeutics, where the congressman sat on the board of directors. Cameron Collins and several others allegedly used the information to avoid more than $768,000 in losses to their own stock holdings.

Collins, the first member of Congress to endorse Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, has pleaded not guilty and initially pledged to fight the charges while continuing to campaign in one of the most Republican-leaning districts in New York, which includes the outskirts of Rochester, Niagara Falls and Buffalo along Lake Ontario.

Democrats, who have long seen the district as a long shot, pounced on the allegations against Collins by arguing that they highlighted corruption in the Republican Party, which is emerging as a major campaign theme.

"He was part of that same money machine that protects all of them," said Nate McMurray, the town supervisor of Grand Island, who won the Democratic nomination for Collin's seat. "We need new voices in this country."

McMurray, who has struggled to raise funds, said his campaign had raised about $100,000 since the indictment was announced, nearly doubling his previous reported fundraising. He said the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had also reached out to offer his campaign more support.

Hours after Collins' announcement, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., should call for the New York congressman's immediate resignation.

"No person is above the law, not the president or his first supporter in Congress," Pelosi said in a statement. "This insufficient and overdue announcement does little to drain the toxic cesspool of self-enrichment, special interest deals and corruption that has proliferated in Washington under GOP control."

Democrats need to pick up 23 seats in the House to gain control of the chamber next year, though the party is likely to focus its energy on dozens of other seats that are more competitive, even after the news of the indictments. In the 2016 election, Trump beat Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton in the district by nearly 25 percentage points.

Under New York state law, candidates who have been nominated by a party are bound to appear on the ballot with a few specific exceptions, such as when the candidate moves outside the district or gets nominated for another position in the same election.

"What officials are likely to do is nominate him for a town clerkship, which will allow him to vacate the ballot legally," said a Republican consultant involved in the race Saturday, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal party deliberations. It was not clear if Collins would actually serve as a town clerk if he is elected to that office.

Local party officials believe there is still time for them to choose a new candidate to get that person's name onto the ballot for the Nov. 6 election, the consultant said.

Carl Paladino, a former New York GOP gubernatorial candidate who served as the co-chair of Donald Trump's 2016 campaign in the state, is one of many Republicans who have asked to be considered to replace Collins on the congressional ballot, if his name is removed.

"I'm definitely running," said Paladino in an interview Saturday afternoon, after talking to a local GOP official about his interest. "There are 14 other people on the list, so nothing has a bow on it."

Collins says he still plans to serve out the remainder of his current term, though he will do so in a diminished capacity. He has already been stripped of his position on the House Energy and Commerce Committee by Ryan.

Cameron Collins and Stephen Zarsky, the father of his fiancee, were also charged as part of the alleged scheme and have pleaded not guilty. In addition to the securities allegations, the three men face counts of lying to federal agents during the investigation and a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition to fines, they could each face at least five years in prison if convicted, according to legal observers.

Collins had previously been under investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics, which found last year that there was "substantial reason to believe" that Collins violated the law by meeting with government regulators in his official capacity in a way that could benefit the Australian drug company.

Prosecutors say that Collins received an email in 2017 from an executive at Innate Immunotherapeutics alerting the company's board that a recent drug trial had been a failure. The information was not public at the time, but Collins allegedly called his son to tell him, setting off a chain of stock sales that allowed the congressman's family and their friends to avoid losses on their shares.

In his statement Saturday, the congressman said that he would continue to fight the charges. "I look forward to having my good name cleared of any wrongdoing," he wrote.
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Speaker of the Parliament of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ogtay Asadov and President of the Republic of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon have had a joint working dinner.

They hailed friendly and brotherly relations between Azerbaijan and Tajikistan, and exchanged views over prospects for the development of the bilateral ties, including inter-parliamentary cooperation.

The sides noted that the Tajik president's visit to Azerbaijan will contribute to further strengthening of the relations.

They stressed the importance of the meetings held and the documents signed during the trip.
A pharmacist at Walgreens for 37 years, Joel Karlinsky often might see people on their worst days, coming to him for antidotes to their health maladies.

But in providing a helping hand and friendly smile, Karlinsky formed a bond with his customers. One regular appreciated the service so much that he had an engraved Montblanc pen made for Karlinsky with the pharmacists name on it.

I tried to go out of my way to be nice to them, said Karlinsky, now retired, who for a time managed the pharmacy at a Walgreens near the companys Deerfield headquarters. Customer service goes a long way. Everybody fills the same prescriptions, but if youre providing them with a friendly, knowledgeable individual, that gives them a level of service above and beyond.

That pharmacists personalized touch mirrors the 117-year-old companys origin story, when founder Charles R. Walgreen Sr. and colleague Arthur C. Thorsen personally greeted each customer who came to the door of their modest 20-by-50-foot pharmacy on Chicagos South Side.

Some customers also called in their orders to Walgreen. He famously tried to keep the person on the phone long enough to give his assistant, Caleb Danner, time to gather the requested items and personally deliver them.

Company historians have coined it the two-minute drill.

He was bringing a new level of customer service to the industry, said Michael Polzin, a longtime Walgreens spokesman. It was one of the things he focused on early on.

Walgreen, born near Galesburg, moved to Dixon with his family as a child. At 16, he got his first pharmacy job, working for Hortons Drugstore, where he earned $4 a week. He quit after a year and a half, but continued in the pharmacy business, working for several pharmacists after arriving in Chicago in 1893.

Walgreen ended up at Isaac Bloods drugstore inside Barretts Hotel at Cottage Grove and Bowen avenues. In 1901, Blood sold the store to Walgreen for $6,000. It took Walgreen years to pay off a loan he needed to make the purchase.

Walgreen became an innovator, taking what had been a dimly lit drugstore and installing bright lights. He widened the aisles and started selling items uncommon for pharmacies at the turn of the century, like pots and pans.

Walgreen, like other pharmacists, introduced the soda fountain to his stores, but he kept his open year-round, serving his wife Myrtles homemade specialties, like chicken, tongue and egg salad sandwiches, bean and cream of tomato soup, and cakes and pies.

In 1919, Walgreen had 20 stores, which a decade later grew to 525.

Company historians have attributed Walgreens tremendous growth in the 1920s to the popularity of the malted milkshake, invented by soda jerk Ivar Pop Coulson in 1922. Coulson added vanilla ice cream to the common malted milk drink, which consisted of milk, chocolate syrup and malt powder.

Daniel Okrent, in his book Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition, suggests the store also benefited from alcohol sales during that time, because pharmacies were allowed to sell booze for medicinal purposes.

It was in the 1950s that Walgreens entered the modern retail era with the introduction of self-service stores. Until then, clerks working behind counters retrieved goods off shelves for customers.

By the 1980s, the company was building more and more stand-alone stores instead of those in strip malls or attached to other retailers. By the next decade, the company started building drive-through pharmacy lanes.

Expansion has continued in recent years: in 2010, Walgreens acquired New York-based pharmacy chain Duane Reade; in 2014, it merged with Switzerland-based Alliance Boots, and in 2017, it got regulatory approval to buy about 2,000 Rite Aid stores.

With that addition, Walgreens will have about 10,000 locations in the United States.

So how can a chain thats become Americas pharmacist maintain its personal touch?

It was so important to Charles Walgreen Sr. to make that connection with his customers, said Polzin, the company spokesman. I think that carries through today, too.

Obviously, were a much, much bigger retailer and pharmacist than we were back then, but we still want to provide that care to each individual that comes into our stores.
By Trend





President of the Republic of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon, who is in Baku on an official visit, has expressed confidence that bilateral relations between Azerbaijan and Tajikistan will continue to develop on the basis of friendship and partnership as he met with Prime Minister of the Republic of Azerbaijan Novruz Mammadov.

Mentioning the friendly relations between Azerbaijan and Tajikistan, Mammadov hailed the high-level of the bilateral ties. Stressing that the official visit of the Tajik president to Azerbaijan will be important in terms of deepening political, economic and humanitarian cooperation, Mammadov noted that the high-level meetings and talks held between the presidents of the two countries and the signed documents will open new prospects for the multifaceted relationship and encourage mutual investment making.

President Rahmon congratulated Mammadov on his appointment as prime minister and wished him success in his activities. The Tajik president said he is pleased to visit friendly Azerbaijan, one of the most developed countries of the region, adding that this trip is very fruitful.

President Rahmon pointed out that mutually beneficial cooperation in the economic, trade, mining, agricultural, transport, educational, cultural and other spheres meets the interests of the two countries' peoples.

Mammadov highlighted the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The prime minister blamed Armenia's non-constructive position for the delay in the settlement of the conflict, saying this poses a threat to peace and stability in the region.

They had a broad exchange of views over the development of regional cooperation between Azerbaijan and Tajikistan in the areas of mutual interest.








By Trend





President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has hosted an official reception in honor of President of the Republic of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon.

The heads of state addressed the reception.








Dubai Investments, a leading, diversified investments company listed on the Dubai Financial Market, has announced that the new campus of its wholly-owned subsidiary University of Balamand Dubai (UOBD) is fully complete and ready to welcome students starting from next month.

The UOBD campus, spread across 8,000 sq m at Dubai Investments Park (DIP), offers the most-modern classrooms, three laboratories for science subjects and one for engineering besides faculty and administrative offices.

The campus, equipped to accommodate 1,200 students, will be the first university in DIP, said the statement.

The orientation of the 2018-19 cohort will be held on August 26 at 10am. During the event, attendees will meet fellow students as well as faculty members and will also have the chance to explore the campus and its facilities.

Regular classes for the fall semester will commence from September 2, it added.

Dr Walid Moubayed, CEO and vice-chancellor, said: "UOBD is set to open its doors to world-class education right here in the UAE. Through its high-quality educational programmes and proven expertise over the past three decades, the university aims to provide a modern and holistic educational environment for students in the UAE and region."

Licensed by the UAE Ministry of Education, UOBD offers undergraduate Bachelor of Science [BS] programmes in chemical engineering, civil engineering, biology, chemistry, mathematics and physics.

All programmes are accredited by the Commission for Academic Accreditation, a government-run institutional licensure and degree accreditation department of MoE.

The UOBD is the first venture for University of Balamand (UOB) outside of Lebanon, where it operates five campuses.

Founded in 1988, UOB is a private, independent educational institution of higher education with over 5,700 students in its rolls across its campuses in Lebanon, which provide 70 undergraduate majors, 55 graduate majors and six post-graduate programs, said the statement.

The university plans to introduce Entrepreneurship, Healthcare Management and Risk Management & Insurance specialties for the 2019-20 academic year, and the Architecture Studies, Graphic and Interior Design in 2020-21, it added.-TradeArabia News Service
It is billed by the PNG government as the ultimate chance to unlock the rich resources and the economic potential of the country.

Leaders of the worlds biggest powers will converge on Port Moresby to discuss trade and investment.

PORT MORESBY  As Papua New Guinea prepares to host the APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) leaders summit in November there are high hopes that the event will unlock the potential of the nation.

Despite a struggling economy and record debt levels, the government went on a borrowing spree to develop the citys infrastructure in time for APEC for three days from 15-17 November.

Radio New Zealands Johnny Blades and Koroi Hawkins are currently in PNG and will continue to report on this event in which the country holds high hopes.

We put together a video report about APEC. Please take a few minutes to check it out, Johnny writes.

There'll be more stuff coming, as we've just been in the earthquake affected part of the Highlands. Mendi valley was quite beautiful I must say.

Later, we will be doing a longer radio documentary on the quake, APEC and government priorities.

RNZ has a content sharing agreement with Aucklands Pacific Media Centres Asia Pacific Report which has generously agreed to further share with PNG Attitude readers.
Bahrain Mumtalakat Holding Company, the countrys sovereign wealth fund, has sold its stake in Nobel Learning Communities, one of the leading providers of private education in the US (from pre-school to high school).

Nobel Learning Communities has a network of more than 190 private schools across the US, catering to the needs of children of all ages.

As one of the largest private school operators in the country, the company also operates Laurel Springs School, an accredited private online school, offering challenging college preparatory programmes for students globally.

Mumtalakat acquired Nobel Learning Communities in 2015 in partnership with Investcorp, an alternative investments manager, said a statement from the kingdom's wealth fund.

Throughout this period, the companys network of schools has expanded with approximately 34 new schools added through acquisitions and greenfield development. Mumtalakat sold its stake alongside Investcorp as part of the original investment plan, it added.

On the strategic exit, Mumtalakat CEO Mahmood H Alkooheji said: "Nobel Learning has grown considerably since our investment three years ago, answering the needs of more people with their quality educational programmes."

"On average, each additional year of education a child receives increases their adult earnings by about 10 per cent," noted Alkooheji.

Mumtalakat made its first investment in the education sector in 2009 when the sovereign wealth fund established an aviation academy catering to the needs of the aviation market in the Gulf region.

This was followed by investments in the regional and global education sector through acquisitions in companies providing private education.

"Our investment in Nobel Learning reflects our optimistic outlook on the US market. While we focus on investing in sectors that address economic needs and partner with companies with robust management teams and a proven track record of growth, we are committed to continued investments in the education sector and have built a strong team of industry experts to support the growth of our portfolio companies," remarked Alkooheji.

"We continue to seek investments in different education subsectors, including private pre-K and K-12 education, vocational training, and educational support software," he added.-TradeArabia News Service
After nearly four decades, a team of Harris County forensic scientists has identified one of the last victims of Houston serial killer Dean Corll as Roy Eugene Bunton, a teenager missing since about 1971.

Bunton was only 17 or 18 when he disappeared, possibly snatched up while hitchhiking by Corll or one of his two teenaged accomplices.

Harris County forensic anthropologist Sharon Derrick said Wednesday that Bunton's body, which was recently exhumed as part of an effort paid for by National Institute of Justice, was identified through a combination of DNA and circumstantial evidence.

He was one of only two still unidentified victims of the serial killer, who tortured and kidnapped at least 28 Houston teens, forcing some to write false runaway letters to their families. Both of those bodies were found buried in a boathouse that belonged to Corll, whose murder spree ended when Corll was killed by his teenaged accomplice, Elmer Wayne Henley Jr., in August 1973.

Henley and another accomplice, David Brooks, were convicted in the teen murders and remain in prison.

Bunton's body had previously been mistakenly identified as a different teen - Michael Baulch - an error discovered after earlier DNA tests in 2010.

In 1971 or 1972, Bunton left for work at a shoe store at Houston's Northwest Mall and never came home.

Bunton's sister, who still lives in Houston, first contacted Derrick, the forensic anthropologist, in 2009 about her fear that Corll had killed her missing brother. Like other victims, Bunton lived in the Houston Heights neighborhood where Corll's family had owned a candy factory and where Corll trolled for local teens.

Derrick reviewed her files, but in 2009 found no unsolved cases that could have matched Bunton, an unusually long-legged teen with blonde hair and a wide smile who stood a full 6-feet tall.

That changed in 2010, however, when Derrick discovered an error that had been made back in 1973: A body buried in a family plot thought to be that of Michael Baulch, another Corll victim, was not Baulch after all.

Hints at identity

As she examined the newly disinterred body, she immediately thought of the call she'd gotten in 2009 from Bunton's sister.

"As I kept working, I kept seeing things that reminded me of Roy Bunton. He would have gone missing at the same time and he was either 18 or 19," she remembers. This boy too had unusually long legs. And when she checked for Roy's photos in her files, the shape of the teeth matched too.

Bunton's family plans a private burial. His sister declined comment through Harris County officials.

Corll's victims were found in three different mass graves: four in St. Augustine on Lake Sam Rayburn in East Texas; seven on the beach at High Island and 17 buried in the Houston boathouse.

In 2008, another long- unidentified boathouse victim was confirmed to be Randy Harvey, only 15 when he disappeared in 1971 after riding his bicycle to a gas station. In 2009, another positive ID was made of 17-year-old Joseph Lyles, whose skeletal remains were discovered in another mass burial site on High Island in 1983, the last of Corll's known victims' remains to be recovered.

Now, it is the last unidentified teen who haunts Derrick. She is hoping for yet another relative to call about this boy whose body was discovered buried near Bunton's.

Clothing stands out

He likely went missing in 1971 or 1972. Two possible candidates, old unsolved missing persons cases, remain open from that era. But their last names are so common - French and Harmon or Harman - that Derrick has been unable to find any relatives.

The unknown boy died still wearing distinctive striped swim trunks, red white and blue, and a tan shirt with a huge peace symbol. When examined under a microscope, the shirt reveals several tiny letters that might be LB4 MF or possibly LBHMF. Was this boy or an older brother a U.S. Marine?

Derrick wonders if the letters might refer to the Third battalion of the 4th Marines, which saw action in its deployment to Vietnam. For now, he has only a case number: ML73-3356.

lise.olsen@chron.com
The store where the owner was shot and killed Thursday night fell victim to a burglary early Saturday morning, Houston police said.

The break-in happened around 1 a.m. at the Gulf gas station on Liberty and Pannell in Houston's Greater Fifth Ward, according to Metro Video. An unknown number of suspects appeared to have broken into the business through the rear of the building.

ORIGINAL STORY: Convenience store owner robbed, fatally shot in Fifth Ward

It is unclear if the suspects made off with anything of value.

That very gas station was the scene of a more gruesome crime about 24 hours earlier.

A store owner was shot and killed in the parking lot around 11 p.m. Thursday during a robbery, according to Houston police.

The manager, 32, was walking to his car with the day's earnings to deposit and was approached in the parking lot by an armed man.

During the encounter, the suspect opened fire on the manager, fatally striking him in the process.

The gunman took the bag of money and fled southbound on Pannell, police said. The man is described as having short dreadlocks and wearing a red shirt with a white stripe

Anyone with information on either crime is urged to called Houston Crime Stoppers at 713-222-TIPS (8477).

Text CHRON to 77453 to receive breaking news alerts by text message.

Jay R. Jordan covers breaking news in the Houston area. Read him on our breaking news site, Chron.com, and our subscriber site, HoustonChronicle.com | Follow him on Twitter at @JayRJordan | Email him at jay.jordan@chron.com
Abu Dhabi-based Emirates Auction (EA) has signed a co-operation agreement with Ajman Free Zone to sell the seized cargo at the free zone through online auctions.



As per the deal, EA will organise online auctions to sell cargo that has been seized based on orders from the Judicial Committee that falls under the Dispute Settlement Committee in the Ajman Free Zone, and in accordance to the best global practices.



Through this agreement, the Ajman Free Zone looks to implement the best global practices for selling seized cargo based on judicial orders, remarked Mohammed Al Midhani, the director of the Department of Inspection and Labor Affairs, after signing the pact with Omar Matar Al Mannai, the executive director of Emirates Auction, in the presence of Fatima Salem, the acting director-general of Ajman Free Zone.



The deal will benefit the community and generate revenues for investment in the free zone, in addition to providing potential bidders with the opportunity to purchase the cargo at the best prices, he stated.



Commenting on the agreement, Salem said the agreement was another step forward towards smart transformation for Ajman Free Zone, especially since the online auctions saves both time and effort, which contributes to enhancing efficiency and facilitating transactions.



Al Mannai said that the EA was keen to sell the seized cargo of Ajman Free Zone in accordance to the best standards, which will ensure that the free zone will witness attractive returns, as well as provide bidders the opportunity to purchase the cargo at competitive prices.



The co-operation with Ajman Free Zone, he stated, represents a great addition to the list of partners for Emirates Auction, and it reflects the prominent reputation of the companys services in the country and the region.



"EA is keen to continue the positive growth of the company by working to achieve the goals of its partners and clients, as well as attract bidders to participate in the online and public auctions organised by the company," added Al Mannai.-TradeArabia News Service
Asian cities outnumbered their counterparts in Europe and America in terms of international tourist arrivals in 2017, according to leading data and analytics company GlobalData.



Asia was represented by seven cities  Bangkok, Singapore, Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul, Kuala Lumpur and Shenzhen  while Europe, Middle East and America were limited to one city each  with London, Dubai and New York City, respectively.



Depreciation of most of the Asian currencies (except Chinese Yuan) played a vital role in attracting international visitors to Asian cities. Tourists from Europe and China were behind the growth of international arrivals to Asia, the study said.



Bangkok continues to remain the top international tourist destination globally for the third consecutive year, with 20.8 million international visitors in 2017. Tourism-friendly visa policies of Thailand, strong promotional efforts and low-cost connectivity drove Bangkok to the top spot.



London was the second most preferred destination with 20.4 million international visitors riding on the back of depreciation in the value of British Pound since Brexit referendum, followed by Singapore, Dubai and Hong Kong with 17.42 million, 15.8 million and 14.03 million, respectively.

Konstantina Boutsioukou, travel and tourism analyst at GlobalData, said: Huge expanding middle class, the growth of low-cost carriers and geographical proximity makes travelling within Asia easy and convenient, particularly for the first time travellers.



GlobalData's report Tapping into the luxury travel market reveals that emerging affluent nationals of Indonesia, Turkey, Singapore, Mexico and India are the ones saving the most for holidays.



Boutsioukou added: Such figures point out that even more affluent consumers have to save for a holiday, meaning that they cannot travel at the drop of a hat and still view international travel as part of an aspirational lifestyle.



However, despite lower hotel cost, the occupancy rate in most of the Asian cities was around 70 per cent, lower than cities in Europe and America in 2017. This is because the growth in hotel development in recent years is substantially higher than the growth in the number of travellers, hence, a considerable number of rooms remained unoccupied. An exception is seen in Tokyo, Singapore and Seoul, where business purpose tourists helped maintain occupancy rate at more than 80 per cent. In terms of average daily rate (ADR), New York City leads the pack followed by London.



Travel and tourism sector contribution to Asian cities economy and employment has witnessed significant growth during the last decade. For instance, Bangkok tourism sectors contribution to its total GDP increased from 8.2 per cent in 2006 to 10.14 per cent in 2017, according to World Travel & Tourism Council. Similarly, the Dubai tourism sector contributed 9.52 per cent to the total GDP and accounted for 10.94 per cent of total employment in 2017.



GlobalData expects Asian cities to continue to dominate the top 10 ranking list in terms of international destinations, primarily due to various initiatives such as implementation of single visa by the respective governments of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member-states, the advent of low cost carriers and enhancement of transportation by developing highways and railways in Asia.



Boutsioukou concluded: The rapid growth of the tourism sector presents enormous opportunities for urban economies and societies across the world but at the same time it poses substantial environmental, social and economic risks. As a result, key stakeholders across regions should frame and adhere to sustainability principles for the long-term success of the sector. - TradeArabia News Service


At first, a press release from Fort Bend ISD announcing the end of a six-year investigation of racial disparities in the districts student discipline seemed to be cause for celebration.

Certainly, district officials initially painted it as such: The U.S. Department of Education Office of Civil Rights completes investigation said one headline, without findings of wrongdoing.

In the first paragraph, the July 26 release notes that the OCR did not make any finding that the District discriminated against any students.

No wrongdoing. No discrimination. No lack of compliance.

Great news, right?

If only it were true.

In fact, that is not what the federal agency tasked with ensuring equal access to education concluded.

The district and the Department of Education did resolve the investigation by signing a voluntary resolution agreement, which does not constitute an admission of liability, non-compliance or wrongdoing by Fort Bend ISD.

But in sharp contrast with the districts statement, the OCR found plenty of evidence that Fort Bend administrators are disproportionately disciplining black students.

According to a July 31 letter from the OCR to superintendent Charles Dupre, black students were six times more likely to get out-of-school suspension than their white peers and four times as likely to get in-school suspension.

Time and time again, investigators found, black students received more serious penalties for first-time offenses of the same infraction. In most cases, the same administrator would dole out severe discipline to a black student, while sending a white student who committed the same offense off with nothing more than a warning.

At Dulles High School, for example, one administrator gave detention  the harshest penalty  to 7 out of 21 black students for a first-time incident of insubordination, but did not give detention to any of the eight white students charged with the same. At Elkins High School, all of the in-school-suspensions one administrator issued for dress code violations went to black students. Of the 29 black students referred to that same administrator, six had to do in-school-suspension, while none of the nine white students received that penalty.

The unfair patterns did not end in 2012, the year the investigation began. Data through the 2015-2016 school year shows that African-American students continue to be subjected to exclusionary discipline at a greater rate than their white peers.

Translation:: Fort Bend ISD is failing its black students.

First and foremost, by allowing the implicit biases of administrators to play a role in discipline and by setting up a system where black students are disciplined more frequently and more harshly than white students.

The district failed its students and their families again  by trying to sweep the federal findings under the rug.

Instead of premature celebration, district officials should use the agreement with the Department of Education to admit that much work still needs to be done. Indeed, the voluntary resolution outlines corrective measures Fort Bend must take to be in compliance.

Fort Bend ISD deserves to be commended for some steps it has taken, including the use of restorative discipline practices at the middle school level and creating a Department of Student Affairs to examine disciplinary disparities. The district also issued an updated statement on Aug. 10, noting that it has never disputed that African American students have historically been disciplined at higher rates than their peers in Fort Bend ISD and notes that such disparities plague most urban districts.

No doubt. But Fort Bend has had six years to fix its discipline gap, and the numbers show little progress.

According to TEA data from the 2016-2017 year, black students, who make up just 28 percent of the district population, made up 64 percent of all Fort Bend ISD students who received out-of-school suspensions  a higher proportion than before the investigation.

District officials cant fix those problems by pretending they no longer exist. They need to rebuild relationships with students and parents by coming clean about harmful, persistent flaws in Fort Bends discipline methods  and getting serious about solutions.

If school leaders cant be trusted to tell the truth, what kind of example are they setting for children?
A 29-year-old man stole a Horizon Air passenger plane from Sea-Tac International Airport and took off on Friday night, circling the area for a short time and performing stunts while being chased by military jets before crashing near Tacoma.

The unnamed man flying the twin-engine turboprop engaged in an hour-long back and forth negotiation with air traffic control where he mentioned not intending to land the aircraft, before the fiery crash on Ketron Island in North Pierce County, just south of Tacoma.

Reportedly no passengers or other personnel on board, but firefighters are still combing through the wreckage.

Witnesses report that the employee, who identified himself to authorities as a ground service crew worker, did loops in the air around Pierce County before crashing. The crash started a few small fires in the area, which West Pierce Fire Department upgraded to a two-alarm fire at 10:44 p.m., sending more units to the area.

RELATED: 'This is probably jail time for life, huh': Pilot of stolen plane talks with air traffic controller (audio)

Ed Troyer, Public Information Officer for the Pierce County Sheriff's Department confirmed on Twitter that the pilot of the plane was a "suicidal male. Acting alone." He had been identified by authorities as a resident of Pierce County, though his name has not been released Friday. Troyer said they are "working background on him now." Troyer added they do not believe this to be "a terrorist incident."

"I've got a lot of people that care about me," the man said in audio obtained from Air Traffic Control radio communications. "It's going to disappoint them to hear that I did this. I would like to apologize to each and every one of them. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess. Never knew it, until now."

LISTEN:

Around 11:30 p.m. Gov. Jay Inslee released a statement saying, "I want to thank the Air National Guard from Washington and Oregon for scrambling jets to keep Washingtonians safe. Those pilots are trained for moments like tonight and showed they are ready and capable."

Sea-Tac Airport was put on ground stop due to the incident, according to Alaska Airlines.

At 9:31 p.m. Sea-Tac Airport confirmed via Twitter that an airline employee conducted an unauthorized takeoff without passengers, and that normal operations had resumed.

Some planes were still being rerouted, however. Flight Alerts reported at 10:32 p.m. that flights from San Francisco, Honolulu, and Los Angeles were being diverted to Portland.

At 11 p.m. Horizon Air Chief Operating Officer Constance von Muehlen shared in a video update that the company believe that the man was a Horizon Air employee.

"Our hearts are with the family of the individual aboard, as well as all our Alaska Air and Horizon Air employees," she said. "We will provide more information as it becomes available."

Alaska Airlines, which operates Horizon Air, initially confirmed reports in a tweet, noting that they were "...aware of the incident involving an unauthorized take-off of a Horizon Air Q400."

Alaska Airlines's tweets also noted that they believed no passengers were on board of the flight, though just after 10 p.m. they said they were still working to confirm there were "no guests or crew on board other than the person operating the plane."

KOMO News reports that a source from Joint-Base Lewis McCord confirmed that two F-15 fighter jets were scrambled to intercept the rogue aircraft, and force the Horizon plane to land. According to the KOMO News, "The source says the military jet made contact with the stolen plane, which then began to nose dive and crashed in North Pierce County."

The Pierce County Sheriff's office was reportedly told that the F-15s made it within "...a few minutes of theft of plane. Pilots kept plane out of harms [sic] way and people on ground safe." Several news outlets report that the two military planes departed from Portland to intercept the aircraft, and were "not involved in the crash."

"Preliminary info is that a mechanic from unknown airlines stole plane," Troyer shared on Twitter. "Was doing stunts in air or lack of flying skills caused crash into Island."

Just before midnight, Troyer announced that the investigation would be handled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI said they also had no reason to suspect that this was an act of terrorism or further pending criminal activity.

RELATED: The latest on the Sea-Tac unauthorized take-off from Associated Press

In earlier Air Traffic Control communications, the suspect asked questions like, "Alright, um, I just kinda want to do a couple of maneuvers to see what it can do before I put her down, you know?" He also said, "I wouldn't know how to land it. I wasn't really planning on landing it."

"Man, I'm sorry about this, I hope this doesn't ruin your day," he said later. "It's a blast, I've played video games before, so I, uh, know what I'm doing a little bit."

At one point the air traffic controller pointed the pilot of the stolen aircraft towards the runway at Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM), to which he responded, "Aw those guys will rough me up if I tried landing there. I think I might mess something up there too. I wouldn't want to do that. Hopefully  oh they probably got anti-aircraft."

"No they don't have any of that stuff, we're just trying to find a place for you to land safely," the controller responded.

Although official accounts were slow to confirm reports of the unauthorized takeoff, many passengers at Sea-Tac took to social media to report that pilots had informed them of the plane theft.

"Halfway down the runway on Alaska airlines out of Seattle and the pilot slams on the brakes and shares we must go back to the gate," one wrote.

Here, the air traffic controller is trying to talk him into landing. pic.twitter.com/OxEe5T6JHJ  Jimmy Thomson (@jwsthomson) August 11, 2018

"Sitting on the runway at SeaTac, preparing for departure. Before takeoff, the pilot explains someone stole an airplane, and is flying around near Mt. Rainier." another shared on social media, adding, "They've been in contact with the culprit. He doesn't sound confident in his ability to land back at SeaTac. They are grounding all planes and waiting."

The airplane was a Horizon Air Q400, a turboprop, twin engine aircraft with 76 seats. Horizon Air is a division of Alaska Air Group.

This story is developing. It will be updated as more information becomes available.
By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net

Last year, BRD College in Gorakhpur shot to worldwide notoriety after dozens of children died due to a critical failure of oxygen. What followed was one of the most intense media investigations into the hospital, its staff and its officials. No wonder then, that one of the first things that the administration did was to shut its doors to the media and hide behind press releases, counter-narratives and the usual bureaucratic procedures. A year on, however, it has emerged that factors which caused the deaths are far from solved and even now, the hospital is indulging in hiding its gaps instead of addressing them. Siddhant Mohan spent many days in and around BRD Medical college, speaking with patients, families, doctors and other staff to find out what is going on in the hospital a year after the deaths. In a two-part investigation, he exposes the good, the bad and the unchanged aspects of the hospital. Here is part two of the investigation.

In the previous part of this story, we looked at the practices and services at BRD Medical College. The college and the associated hospitalbeing a tertiary treatment centresupports a large number of patients from the adjoining districts. Most of them cannot afford to visit health centres and hospitals in Lucknow and Varanasi as the management and residence in these two cities is much higher when compared to Gorakhpur.

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In this part, we will look into the treatment as well as preventive measures being taken by the authorities to stop the spread of encephalitis in the region, one of the major causes of deaths in Tarai region of the state.

At BRD Medical College, most of the patients come with the suspicion of having AES, an umbrella disease caused by viruses and the patient ends up developing neurological disorders which follow high fever.

According to the National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) in the US, eastern UP and adjoining areas of Bihar and Indo-Nepal border come under the high-risk zones of diseases which comes under AES. So, when the patients having AES symptoms reach BRD Medical College for treatment, most of them are already on the verge of collapsing. This explains the high load of patients in medical college, which is also a tertiary centre, especially in the regard of paediatric patients.

But with AES being the cause of most of the deaths of children in Gorakhpur, it is becoming evident that the disease is not treatable: however, it is curable to a large extent.

Dr Ramnandan Singh is a 70-year-old paediatrician and also one of the most reputed in Gorakhpur. He was at the same medical college between 1974-1978. He quit the medical college in 1978 and has been in private practice ever since. Most importantly, since 2005, he has been working as the chief campaigner at the Encephalitis Eradication Movement in Gorakhpur region to eliminate the same.

Residing at just one and a half kilometres from the famous Gorakhnath temple, Singhs home can be located by word of mouth. I reached his residence early evening and was sitting in the drawing room when Dr Singh came in a white shirt and black trousers and greeted me. The first question he asked me was, Whether I went to medical college to see things by myself, I replied affirmatively. And then second thing he said was, I am a fan of Yogi Adityanath, and I have no shame in accepting that. However, I will tell you everything with honesty.

At one point in the conversation, Singh said, With 13 years of experience of working on encephalitis, I can firmly say that this disease is one hundred per cent preventable while zero per cent treatable. At medical college or government hospitals, he said, doctors can only manage symptoms through common routine drugs. No medicine can fully cure encephalitis, he says confidently.

Several other paediatricians, including Dr Kafeel Ahmed Khan, confirmed this fact that there is no particular medicine available for encephalitis.

For longer duration, under the recommendation of Indian Medical Association (IMA), which followed the research of Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) and National Institute of Virology (NIV) and several other organizations, medical practitioners started giving Azithromycin and Doxycycline to the patients suffering from Encephalitis, but the toll did not decrease at all. Dr Singh said, Because that is not the medicine to fight AES or Japanese Encephalitis (JE). The research to identify the virus, as well as a vector, is still needed, so it is solely up to medical colleges and hospitals to fight and manage the symptoms only.

Coming on to the prevention and awareness drives, to be conducted by the state government, Uttar Pradesh government has launched Dastak programme earlier this year in order to aware the urban as well as the rural population of the state to prevent AES as well JE. Dastakwhich literally translates to door knockingis launched with the help of UNICEF in which 38 districts of Tarai regionmostly affected with encephalitishave been included. With the two phases of Dastak already completed, the workers go to door to door with the slogan of Darwaja khatkhatao, AES aur JE ko Bhagao (Knock the door and wash away AES and JE), giving ten points preventive measures at every house regarding sanitation, defecation, using clean drinking water, and early treatment of the disease.

But preventions and treatment practices have done very little to prevent deaths of children in Gorakhpur. The death numbers, of course, have reduced since the past few years, but at BRD Medical College alone, an increase of 18 per cent has been recorded in deaths. Not surprising, that Uttar Pradesh has the highest rate of the infant as well as neonatal deaths in the whole of the country. According to the data available on data.gov.in, the neonatal mortality rate was 64 per thousand deaths in the year 2015-16. Experts believe that Gorakhpur contributes most to this horrific figure.

I met Dr Srikant Tiwari, the chief medical officer at Gorakhpur district at his office based in Gorakhpur district hospital. In a big office, he was sitting behind the desk in a blue shirt and was constantly watching the news over the television. The wall behind him had the list of CMOs Gorakhpur had until nowand by that Dr Tiwari took charge on April 23 this yearand a map of Gorakhpur. Another map of encephalitis affected Gorakhpur was also there, but it was put behind a big printer-copier machine in the corner. I asked about the map, he said, It is a great tool. I have installed this into the officer District Magistrate as well. Soon, we will hang it here on the wall.

Soon after knowing the purpose of my visit, Dr Tiwari starts talking like a mouthpiece counting all the measures taken by the government in the past few months. He said, If talking about preventive measures, the most important thing is sanitation. And this is not just a job of the health department, many government departments including municipal corporations are responsible for bringing out cleanliness and sanitation.

While talking about Dastak campaign, and various included practices in it, Tiwari came to Primary Health Centres (PHCs) and Community Health Centres (CHCs), where reportedly at least 19 Encephalitis Treatment Centres (ETCs) have been created to lower the load on BRD Medical College. He said, If a patient does not get better at these centres, we have also created three mini PICUs at Gagaha, Piprauli, and Chaurichaura to provide better treatment. So that patient does not has to rush to Medical College for everything.

Chaurichaura is situated at least 24 kilometres from Gorakhpur city. The mini PICU was locked from outside when I reached there around night. Locals informed that there is only one doctor available to run the same PICU, and he closes it during the evening.

When raised it with Dr Tiwari, he said, Indeed we have increased facilities, but we are still into appointing skilled staff at these PHCs and CHCs. Soon we will have them equipped, thereby agreeing that even after the disastrous episode in Gorakhpur last year, administrative practices are yet to witness the light of the day. Tiwari also claimed to have vaccinated every child below 15 years of age to prevent more AES cases in Gorakhpur region.

Dr RN Singh comments, See, setting up PICU and ETCs at the block level, sounds good, and it should be done very aggressively. But right now, these are just measures to dilute the media attention from Medical College. PHCs and CHCs do not even entertain the encephalitis patients, they simply refer children, even on slightest symptoms, to the BRD Medical College, because they are not equipped with skilled doctors yet.

Dr Tiwari told me further, If they are referring patients directly to the medical college, they are wrong in doing so. They will have to first send them to mini-PICUs. But the public also has a perception that if they go to BRD Medical College, they will get good treatment there. However, I agree that a lot of changes are needed to change that perception.

On July 6, Gorakhpur authorities launched an app named Stop JE/AES on Android platforms, but apparently, they have failed to publicise it. In a month since its launch, there have been only 100 downloads of the app which is supposed to focuses on providing health department staff that are the end user of the app to call and understand the patient conditions and symptoms.

It was also meant to direct staff to reach identified patient for targeted intervention so that the patient is treated in time as in JE/AES the first 48 hours are extremely critical for ensuring effective patient treatment.

As the few who have downloaded, it responded, the app crashed even after receiving the last update on July 16.

The BRD Medical College is turned into a fortress in past 11 months. There are guards everywhere, and staffs get transferred to other departments if they are seen talking to any journalist or activist. College does not provide death numbers officially, and if sources to be believed, only two people receive daily birth and death data in sealed envelopes. CMO Dr Tiwari is one of them. When I asked about this, Dr Tiwari said, Maybe according to guidelines, we are not providing numbers to media. But let me assure you that I am getting numbers every day, if you ask me, I will tell you. But when I asked for seven months the death numbers of children at BRD Medical College, CMO refused and said, I cannot provide you in writing. However, he confirmed the numbers I got from my sources.

At many points, staff nurses, ward boys as well as doctors become aggressive if journalists inquire about things inside the medical college. At one point, one attendant was scolded by the doctor, out of the blue, while she was talking to me about her daughter.

Authorities at the medical college are in the question yet again for buying liquid oxygen at a price higher than earlier. Before the oxygen shortage at BRD medical college in August 2017, it was Pushpa Salesthe owner of which, Manish Bhandari was put in jail even when there was no shortage of oxygen for investigating committeeswhich used to sell the oxygen at the rate of 16 Rs/ litre. Pushpa Sales used to buy the oxygen from INOX and then sell it to the medical college. But now, the medical college is buying oxygen directly from INOX, but at the rate of 19 Rs/ litre. Why the college is buying oxygen at increased prices, authorities have no reply.

When I met Dr Ganesh Kumar, principal and dean the at the medical college, I got the idea why the whole medical college is anti-media. After a couple of hours of waiting, I entered the office of Dr Kumar who was busy because of the ongoing admission process. He was wearing a blue-violet shirt and a gold black wristwatch. With few papers on the table, photos of Gandhi, BR Ambedkar and Yogi Adityanath were hanging on the wall behind him.

Dr Kumar was frustrated with the media and told me that I was putting unnecessary focus on BRD Medical college, instead, I should be taking a look outside the premises. He said, So what if there were deaths in August? Deaths happen in this hospital every month. Cant you see that we have made changes ever since? This remark gave birth to an obvious question, Since when? August 2017? He said, Yes.

So I asked him, So you think that things were not good until August last year and hence you had to bring some changes? Things were not improved, as they are now. Is that so? Dr Kumar started fumbling, so he said, I was not in-charge when oxygen controversy happened last year. I cannot comment on that.

He further said, I am frustrated with the media pressure. I should not be giving you this much of unnecessary time. Upon asking the reason for frustration, Dr Kumar said, Media takes death numbers of all the departments and combine them. I have even seen several of your reports where you have also done the same. I told him to go through my reports several times before saying any such thing, he replied, I may be wrong about you, but several other journalists have demonised BRD Medical College. And worse, the doctors provided them with every kind of help in doing so.

When I asked, Which doctors? The jailed ones? Dr Kumar did not say anything.

He said, To prevent such demonising practices, we have stopped giving numbers. We were not doing it even earlier. You should be happy to know that we have increased the paediatric ward to 343 beds from earlier 138 beds. Free medicines from inside the hospital are being provided to the patients. Even we have so much of staff right now, that most of them sitting free. When I told him what irregularities I found in the paediatric wards as well as in ICUs, he said, See, this is the thing. Media cannot applaud the positive practices.

Coming back again to deaths, Dr Kumar too did not deny the death numbers, but said something which stands close to the remark made by Siddharth Nath Singh last year. Dr Kumar said, Whatever deaths you are showing, those are not big numbers considering the high area which BRD serves. It is just usual.

The paediatrician Dr RN Singh too said, There are lesser numbers of deaths due to encephalitis, but principal Kumar is saying that his staff is sitting free, I cannot believe that. I have seen that medical college closely, they are still short on staff and patients are still suffering, but things have been improving slowly, and one has to be patient enough to witness the change.

Dr Kafeel Ahmad Khan, the suspended assistant professor at the medical college who is out on bail, commented, You are right that only prevention can stop deaths, and treatment can only provide stability to the patients. The day I met Dr Khan, he came after a free encephalitis camp conducted outside of Gorakhpur city. Dr Khan said, If the authorities are saying that they have vaccinated every kid, how I could find only 30 children vaccinated out of 170 I examined at the camp today? If I could rely on my study, only five per cent of the kids have been vaccinated, otherwise, cases would not be coming up constantly.

Dr Khan further said, So, I could say that either government is lying about the numbers or the ground workers are not doing their jobs properly, adding that deaths in BRD Medical College are happening only because government health system is failing. What could be the other reason?

In the aftermath of the deaths in August last year, the UP government had formed a special task force (STF) which led to the arrests of Dr Kafeel Ahmed Khan, medical college principal Dr Rajiv Mishra, Dr Purnima Shukla, former Anaesthesia Department Head Dr Satish Kumar, ex-Chief Pharmacist Gajanan Jaiswal, Accounts departments clerks, Sudhir Pandey, Udai Sharma, Sanjay Tripathi and owner of Pushpa Sales Manish Bhandari in September last year.

The accused were charged under various sections of Indian Penal Code pertaining to corruption, embezzlement of funds, private practice and criminal conspiracy.

The arrest of Kafeel Ahmed Khan was much debated as he was the first one who reached the hospital on the night of August 10 and tried to save lives by managing oxygen cylinders from various sources.

Due to a lack of substantial pieces of evidence, STF dropped private practice and corruption charges from Dr Khan in November. In April, Dr Kafeel got bail from Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court had already granted bail to Manish Bhandari, whose firm Pushpa Sales was responsible for supplying oxygen to BRD Medical College on Monday.

In the following months, Dr Satish Kumar, Dr Purnima Shukla, and Dr Rajiv Mishra also got bail from the Indian Supreme Court. The bail applications of Gajanan Jaiswal, Sudhir Pandey, Udai Sharma, and Sanjay Tripathi are still pending with Allahabad High Court.

What also could reflect the bail acceptance or rejection of the accused is that one applicant usually have to pay a big amount of money to the Supreme Court lawyers for consultation and hearing, and those who are still in jail, as sources tell, could not manage the money to hire lawyers. When families contacted for clarification, no response was given.

Events at the Medical College took a strange turn this year in January, when a mysterious fire broke out in the Principals office and records room of the college, and engulfed various important document records including several files related with the Oxygen shortage case. The cause of the fire is still unclear.

Manoj Singh, a local veteran journalist who has been keeping eye on the Gorakhpur affairs very closely, told me, Whatever happened in August last year should have made things more transparent and improved. But the case is just reverse. Things have become more opaque than previous times. One cannot actually know what is happening inside the medical college, one cannot know if less or more children are dying, one cannot know if doctors are doing their jobs or not. There must be some accountability in such a government set up.
AVON LAKE, Ohio -- Burglary, Lake Road: On July 25, a neighbor reported checking on the home of neighbors who were out of town and noticed the garage door open and a vehicle missing. A door to the house was also open.

It was determined that in addition to the car being stolen, jewelry, shoes, handbags, a computer and a gaming system were stolen sometime between July 21 and July 25.

Assault, Pin Oak Parkway: On August 6, officers were dispatched to investigate a suspicious person in the area. The suspect provided false information to officers and fled on foot after being told he was being detained. He was taken into custody and transported to the Lorain County Jail.

The Grafton man was charged with obstruction of official business, resisting arrest and possession of drug abuse instruments.

Criminal damaging, Norman Avenue: On July 21, a resident reported children throwing rocks at the house and breaking windows. The suspects were located and admitted to throwing rocks. The mother agreed to take care of the damage.

Theft, Electric Boulevard: A resident reported a gun stolen from her unlocked car on July 27.

Assault, Lear Road: On July 27, an employee reported that a co-worker had assaulted her.

Drug overdose, Avon Belden Road: A woman called police July 31 to report that her daughter had overdosed. The suspect was treated and taken to the hospital.

Juvenile complaint, Lake Road: On August 2, a resident reported a juvenile attempting to steal a bike but left the area on foot when confronted. The 12-year-old was located, and it was determined he had run away from his home in Lorain. He was released to his parents.

Property damage, Bounty Way: Residents reported damage to their garage doors on July 19. Photos were taken and extra patrols added.

Criminal damaging, Electric Boulevard: A resident reported her car had been keyed on July 19.

Theft, Electric Boulevard: On July 20, the Avon Lake Public Library reported an employee was suspected of stealing books, CDs and DVDs. The suspect returned some of the items and the library decided not to pursue charges.
Dr. Richard Warn was found fatally shot inside his Beachwood home.

SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio -- The Beachwood doctor found dead from multiple gunshot wounds owned the South Euclid home where two men were found dead after a 10-hour SWAT standoff with police.

Dr. Richard Warn, a Beachwood podiatrist, owned the home at 4362 Elmwood Avenue in South Euclid, according to Cuyahoga County property records.

He bought the home in 2011 from Fannie Mae for $40,900.

South Euclid and Beachwood police have not said why they served a search warrant at the home, but said it was connected to the investigation into Warn's death.

Occupants of the home exchanged gunfire with the SWAT team. No police officers were injured, South Euclid police said.

The SWAT team surrounded the area and eventually busted through the home early Saturday, destroying the front part of the house.

Officers searched the home and found two men dead inside, according to South Euclid police. The identities of the men have not been publicly released and police have not said how the two men died.

Warn, 59, was found dead about 6 p.m. Thursday at his home on Brentwood Road in Beachwood. His wife called 911 and asked Beachwood police to search the home because her husband was home but wasn't answering the door, according to the 911 call.

Warn was found died from multiple gunshot wounds, the Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner said.

Beachwood police have not said if they've established a motive for the killing.

Warn was the father of three, a daughter and two sons, according to his obituary. He was a podiatrist in the Cleveland area for some 35 years.

To comment on this story, visit Saturday's crime and courts comment page.
SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio -- Two people are dead Saturday after an overnight SWAT standoff in South Euclid connected to the killing of a Beachwood doctor, police said.

The standoff that began at about 7:30 p.m. Friday lasted well into Saturday morning. South Euclid police were asked to assist Beachwood police investigators who went to the home on the 4300 block of Elmwood Road with a search warrant.

South Euclid Police Chief Kevin Nietert said the two men in the home were persons of interest in the murder of Dr. Richard Warn, who was found dead at his Beachwood home Thursday with multiple gunshot wounds.

Cuyahoga County property records show that Dr. Warn owned the house on Elmwood Road where the standoff took place.

Reporters at the scene and police confirmed that the people inside the house exchanged gunfire with the officers, but it does not appear that any of the officers involved in the standoff are responsible for the deaths of the people inside the home.

The Cuyahoga County Medical Examiner's Office said they were not called to the location as of 11 a.m. on Saturday.

Investigators have not identified either of the two people who died inside the South Euclid home. Police have also given no clues as to how the two men might be connected to Warn's death.

"As SWAT team approached, they received gunfire from the house," Beachwood Chief of Police Gary Haba said. "SWAT returned fire."

A reporter at the scene heard the sound of a large crash between 5 a.m. and 6 a.m. Neighbors said SWAT officers used some sort of battering ram to enter the home. The front walls of the Elmwood Road house were destroyed revealing a furnished living room and kitchen.

"Once the door was breached, officers were shot at, with a rifle, by someone inside the home," Chief Nietart said Saturday. "Officers returned fire and retreated. Over the course of the next 12 hours, numerous efforts were made to make contact with the suspects, with no success."

Police took gradually more aggressive tactics to get the suspects to surrender before determining that they were deceased.

Neighbors gathered Saturday morning to compare their sleepless nights filled with sounds of gunfire and the lights from dozens of police vehicles. Many said the men who lived in the house were a little out of the ordinary, often throwing loud parties and calling police for small matters, like how closely a neighbor parked to the curb.

The homeowners also set up security cameras around the house pointed toward the street, which were still visible Saturday morning.

Police maintained a perimeter on Elmwood, in between Monarch Road and Green Road, into Saturday afternoon.

Warn, 59, was found dead in his home on the 2400 block of Brentwood Road just after 6 p.m. Thursday, Beachwood police said.

To comment on this story, visit Saturday's crime and courts comment page.
AKRON, Ohio -- Akron police shot two different men late Friday and early Saturday in separate incidents, police said.

The most recent shooting happened about 4:30 a.m. Saturday in the city's Kenmore neighborhood, police said.

Police said the man was involved in "an incident" that prompted a large police response. An officer shot the man. His condition is unknown.

Akron police have released additional information on that shooting.

The first happened about 9 p.m. in the 700 block of Baird Street. In that case, a 30-year-old man intoxicated man with a gun banged on the door and windows to a home.

He demanded to be let into the home and threatened to shoot through the door, police said.

Officers arrived and ordered the man to the ground. Two officers-- one who has been a police officer for four-and-a-half years and another for less than a year--fired shots, hitting the man. He was taken to Akron City Hospital, where he was in critical but stable condition, police said.

That man will be charged with possessing a weapon as a felon and carrying a concealed weapon, police said.

The officers are on paid leave while the shooting is investigated by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation.
AKRON, Ohio -- Akron police fatally shot a 49-year-old man who had shot and killed his wife early Saturday, according to the Summit County Medical Examiner's Office.

The police-involved shooting happened about 4 a.m. on Carey Road in the city's Kenmore neighborhood, according to police.

Neither the man nor the woman has been identified. The man suffers from bi-polar disorder and depression, according to police.

The man fatally shot his wife and was later fatally shot by Akron police officers who were searching for him, according to Akron police detectives and the medical examiner's office.

The incident began about 3:30 a.m. Saturday, police said. A woman called 911 and said her brother-in-law woke her up and told her he shot his wife in the basement of the home in the 1300 block of Carey Avenue.

The woman and another family member ran to a neighbor's home and called police.

The man threatened to kill himself, other family members and police officers, Akron police said.

A SWAT team surround the home and eventually found the 45-year-old woman dead of a gunshot wound in camper outside the home, police said.

Police officers scoured the neighborhood. The man about 6 a.m. forced his way through the enclosed front porch door to a home in the 1300 block of Fawler Avenue, police said.

He knocked on the door and asked to use their phone, but ran off when the resident called 911, police said.

About a half-hour later, the man flagged down a 40-year-old man dropping off a friend on Swinehart Avenue. The man asked for a ride to a station on Wooster Road.

When he got to the gas station, he pulled out a gun, jumped into his wife's 2002 Hyundai Sonata and sped off on East Avenue, police said.

He drove to his brother's home in the 1100 block of McIntosh Avenue. A relative called police and told police officers he was holding a gun to his head, police said. Again, the man ran off before police arrived.

The man then broke into a home in the 1100 block of Kohler Avenue. A man who lived at the home chased him out of the home with a shotgun, police said.

As the man walked out of the home, Akron police pulled up. The man, still clutching the handgun, ran from the officers.

The officers opened fire, killing him on Kohler Avenue and 25th Street Southwest, police said. Officers recovered the handgun for evidence, police said.

The man was taken to Akron General, where he died about 12:30 p.m.

The officers who fired the shots-- a 15-year veteran and two-and-a-half-year veteran-- are on paid leave while the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation investigates the shooting.

It's the second police-involved shooting in Akron in six hours.

The first happened about 9 p.m. in the 700 block of Baird Street. In that case, a 30-year-old intoxicated man with a gun banged on the door and windows to a home.

He demanded to be let into the home and threatened to shoot through the door, police said.

Officers arrived and ordered the man to the ground. Two officers-- one who has been a police officer for four-and-a-half years and another for less than a year--fired shots, hitting the man. He was taken to Akron City Hospital, where he was in critical but stable condition, police said.

To comment on this story, visit Saturday's crime and courts comment page.
SOUTH EUCLID, Ohio -- South Euclid police are involved in SWAT standoff with someone barricaded inside a home Friday night.

Police say the standoff is connected to a Thursday night homicide that resulted in a Beachwood doctor's death, police said.

The South Euclid SWAT team went with Beachwood police to execute a search warrant at a home on Elmwood Road about 10 p.m., South Euclid police said.

Police said at about 1:15 a.m. that there may be more than one person in the house, and they are trying to communicate with the person or people in the house.

Multiple reports said the officers exchanged fire with someone inside the home. No one was injured in the shooting, WKYC reported.

It's unclear how many people were inside the home, the television station reported.

Richard Warn, 59, was found dead in his home on the 2400 block of Brentwood Avenue just after 6 p.m. Thursday, Beachwood police said.

No arrests have been made. Beachwood police said foul play is suspected, and that there were no outward signs that someone broke into the home.

Reporter Robin Goist contributed to this story.

To comment on this story, visit crime and courts comments page.
Although it's not official (it almost certainly will be), Zanesville Republican Troy Balderson has won a seat in the U.S. House for the next four-plus months in the Columbus region's 12th Congressional District . And Columbus Democrat Danny O'Connor, Franklin County's recorder, lost to Balderson.

Balderson, a state senator, drew about 50.15 percent of the 12th District vote. But in 2016, Balderson's self-appointed cheerleader, Donald Trump, drew 53.2 percent of the district's vote; Trump led Hillary Clinton by 11.3 percentage points. On Tuesday, though, the GOP's Balderson led Democrat O'Connor by 0.9 percent (nine-tenths of 1 percent).

To the extent that Balderson was a proxy for Trump in the heavily Republican district - and that's what Balderson was, a proxy, given issues cited in the campaign - the president may be in trouble in Ohio.

If everything in America is as fabulous as the president's fans claim, Balderson should have done at least as well Tuesday, districtwide, as Trump did in there in 2016. But Balderson didn't.

No, that doesn't mean Trump can't win a second term. In the last 100 years, voters have denied only Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush second terms. So there's that. (Gerald Ford was never elected vice president or president, so he's hard to classify; but when Carter unseated Ford in 1976, the GOP's Ford carried every county now in Balderson's 12th District.)

There'll be a Balderson-O'Connor rematch in November for a full, two-year U.S. House term. Tuesday's election was for the unexpired remainder of ex-Rep. Pat Tiberi's U.S. House term.

This fall's Balderson-O'Connor rematch should be every bit as robust as the summer campaign. Tiberi, a Delaware County Republican, resigned from Congress on Jan. 15 to become president of the Ohio Business Roundtable.

The 12th Congressional District is composed of Delaware, Licking and Morrow counties, and parts of the counties of Franklin, Marion, Muskingum and Richland.

Historically, Delaware County is about as Republican as an Ohio county can get. As for Licking, from 1961 to mid-1982, it was part of a district represented in Congress by nationally known conservative John M. Ashbrook, of Johnstown. In 1972, Ashbrook challenged the GOP's renomination of President Richard M. Nixon. Ashbrook charged Nixon's administration had "nearly decapitated American conservatism," The New York Times later reported. Ashbrook also opposed Nixon's outreach to China's communist dictatorship. And now Donald Trump is playing trade-and-tariff poker with China.

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An out-of-state tally likely of interest to Ohioans was Tuesday's overwhelming decision by Missouri voters to kill a Right to Work law which the Republican-run Missouri General Assembly passed and then-Gov. Eric Greitens signed. (Greitens, a Republican, resigned in May in the wake of a sex scandal.)

Missouri voters successfully petitioned to put the Right to Work law on the statewide ballot so Missourians could vote Right to Work up or down. On Tuesday, of the 1.4 million Missourians voting on the Right to Work issue, 67.5 percent voted "no."

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that only 15 of Missouri's 114 counties voted "yes" on Right to Work. An analysis by the newspaper projected that as many as 331,000 Missouri Republicans "bolted from their party" to vote "no" on the Right to Work ballot issue, known as Proposition A.

Now pending in Ohio's House - but seemingly dead in the water - is a proposed Right to Work amendment to the Ohio Constitution. The measure was introduced in December by Republican Reps. John Becker, of suburban Cincinnati, and Craig Riedel, of Defiance. Among co-sponsors of the Right to Work amendment is Rep. Kristina Roegner, a Hudson Republican who is running for the state Senate.

To reach the ballot, the Becker-Riedel plan would have to win at least 60 "yes" votes in the 99-member Ohio House; and 20 votes in the 33-member state Senate; then win a majority of "yes" votes from those Ohioans voting on the measure in a statewide election. The one time that was tried in Ohio, in 1958, 63.3 percent of the Ohioans voting on the proposal voted "no."

If you wonder why Ohio's General Assembly (with a Senate that Republicans have run since November 1984, a House that the GOP has run, except for two years, since November 1994) hasn't passed Right to Work, 1958 is the answer - underlined, last week, by Missouri.

Thomas Suddes, a member of the editorial board, writes from Athens.

To reach Thomas Suddes: tsuddes@cleveland.com, 216-999-4689

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ORANGE, Ohio - Orange Village Council voted earlier this month to put several proposed amendments to the village charter on the Nov. 6 ballot.

"These have been thought out and considered by the people who administer the charter, who live by the charter, who work by the charter," said Mayor Kathy Mulcahy, "and they're all in the best interests of the village.

"And, I don't think council would be putting them on the ballot if they were not also recommending their passage," she said.

The proposed amendments were made to council by a Charter Review Commission that included Council President and commission chairman Brandon Duber, Councilwoman Lisa Perry and three other village residents. Mulcahy and Village Law Director Steve Byron also had input during the process.

Among the proposed charter amendments to be put before voters is one that would remove a 1992 regulation that prohibits the enlargement of single-family housing districts of under 20,000 square feet. Orange includes numerous such developments, such as Orangewood and Orange Tree, which currently fall under the U-1A ordinance.

It has been a priority of Mulcahy and others to have the regulation eliminated, so that such neighborhoods have the ability to expand and that others can be developed without the restriction.

"I think maybe the most significant (proposed charter amendment) is the elimination of the prohibition against further expansion of the U-1A district," Mulcahy said. "It never made sense to me to limit our options when we plan a community, and this would remove that limit that was placed upon us."

The commission is also recommending a charter amendment that would shorten the process by which some village employees can assume additional duties or move from one village job to another.

Many village employees have had "cross-training," which prepares them for multiple jobs. For example, a service department employee can become a firefighter once certified for the job. Currently, such job changes often require multiple oaths of office, council meetings and confirmations, a process that Mulcahy has described as "a little burdensome."

The proposed change would permit the mayor to hire non-officer employees if a vacancy for a position exists and if the budget provides for compensation for that employee.

Police officers, firefighters and other employees, such as building commissioner, treasurer and tax administrator who are "officers" of the village, would still require a confirmation vote by council.

Council approved other amendments to be placed on the Nov. 6 ballot.

They include:

* An amendment that would make permanent a 3.7-mill levy for infrastructure improvements. Under the current charter, the levy runs through 2025.

* An amendment that would eliminate the requirement that a sworn affidavit be submitted with any petitions provided for under the charter: for candidates; for recalls; for initiated ordinances or the referendum of an ordinance. Such a requirement is not part of state law, and is rarely included in a charter.

* An amendment that would eliminate the requirement that a change to the zoning classification of a property must be approved by the precinct within which the property is located.

Currently, such a change must be approved by a majority vote in both the village and in the precinct in which the property is located. This gives voters in the village differently weighted votes, as a vote is counted twice if the voter's property is in the same precinct as the property to be rezoned.

* An amendment that distinguishes between council's legislative power by ordinance and the administrative authority it exercises when it grants variances from the zoning code. Council already has this administrative power under the charter, but the charter requires legislative action to exercise it.

The amendment would eliminate the contradictory requirement and clarify the standard for granting variances (practical difficulties or substantial and unreasonable hardship) and requiring written conclusions of fact. Currently, council passes an ordinance to grant a variance. The amendment would eliminate the requirement for an ordinance.

In all, 11 proposed charter amendments will be put before voters, including some that Mulcahy described as "language clean-up, housekeeping."

The charter is reviewed every eight years. Village officials and department heads are among those who request the commission to review various portions of the charter for potential amendments.
Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.
China's President Xi Jinping claps after his speech as he and other new Politburo Standing Committee members meet with the press at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China October 25, 2017.

China's state media continued a barrage of criticism of the United States on Saturday as their tit-for-tat trade war escalated, while seeking to reassure readers the Chinese economy remains in strong shape.

Commentaries in the People's Daily, China's top newspaper, likened the United States to a bull in a China shop running roughshod over the rules of global trade and said that China was "still one of the best-performing, most promising and most tenacious economies in the world."

The commentaries come as trade tensions between the two countries intensify. China said this week it would put an additional 25 percent tariffs on $16 billion worth of U.S. imports in retaliation against levies on Chinese goods imposed by the United States.

One commentary accused the United States of "rudely trampling on international trade rules" and not taking into account China's lowering of tariffs and continued opening of its economy, among other things.

"People of insight are soberly aware that so-called 'America first' is actually naked self-interest, a bullying that takes advantage of its own strength, challenges the multilateral unilaterally, and uses might to challenge the rules," it read.

Another commentary argued that the Chinese economy was stable and was expected to remain so.

In the second half of this year, "comprehensive deepening of reforms will continuously produce benefits." It said China could take steps to boost domestic demand while continued to cut corporate taxes and fees.

With these and other policies, "the Chinese market will show an all-new charm," the commentary said.

A separate piece in the People's Daily quoted vice agriculture minister Han Jun saying that if a trade war broke out, many other countries were willing and "completely able to replace American agricultural products' share of the Chinese market."

It also quoted the vice minister as saying that the impact of American tariffs on China would be "extremely limited," but warned that were a trade war to escalate, the U.S. agriculture sector would feel its effects.

Earlier this week, Chinese state media accused the United States of a "mobster mentality" as it moved to implement additional tariffs on Chinese goods. Beijing had all the necessary means to fight back, the reports said.
Representative Chris Collins is interviewed during the 2017 "Congress of Tomorrow" Joint Republican Issues Conference in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S. January 25, 2017. Mark Makela | Reuters

From the beginning, Chris Collins' career in politics was defined by his credentials as a rich businessman. Now the New York Republican's business interests have dashed his political ambitions. His ties to an Australian biotechnology company have sparked investigations from government watchdogs, lodged insider trading charges against him and his 25-year-old son, gotten him arrested and, most recently, torpedoed his Congressional re-election campaign. Collins boasts more than three decades as a "successful small businessman," according to his official website, beginning as an employee of Westinghouse Electric in 1972 and founding his first company in 1983. In his first, failed bid for Congress in 1998, Collins made headlines for outspending his opponent, longstanding incumbent Democrat John LaFalce, by hundreds of thousands of dollars. He campaigned on his business credentials in a winning local government race in 2007. When he was eventually elected to to the House of Representatives in 2012, Collins immediately became one of the 10 richest lawmakers, with an average net worth of nearly $60 million, according to Ballotpedia, citing data from political contributions database OpenSecrets. On Wednesday, the Republican congressman from a Trump-friendly Buffalo-area New York district found his business career in the spotlight once again, when he was indicted and arrested on insider trading charges by federal authorities in Manhattan.

A top stakeholder and board member in drug company Innate Immunotherapeutics, Collins was accused of funneling nonpublic information about a failed drug trial to his son before the company announced it publicly. Collins' son, Cameron, who was also charged in the indictment, allegedly acted on that heads-up, selling nearly 1.4 million shares just days before the company's stock dropped more than 92 percent on the news. The congressman's actions, prosecutors charge, helped numerous defendants and other co-conspirators avoid losing about $768,000 on the shares. Collins and his son, along with the father of his son's fiancee, pleaded not guilty to all charges brought against them by federal officers in Manhattan. Up until his reversal on Saturday, when he ended his reelection campaign, Collins had vowed to continue the fight to keep his seat in Congress. Chris Collins tweet

The intersection of business and politics

The indictment shed new light on the intertwined relationship between Collins' life as a businessman and his duties as a publicly elected representative. Coming to Congress with decades of private sector experience under his belt, it was no surprise that Collins landed a spot on the Small Business Committee, which was chaired by Rep. Sam Graves, R-Mo., at the time. However, the freshman lawmaker was also appointed chairman of the Subcommittee on Health Care and Technology  even though he was serving on the board of Innate, whose business can be affected by health care legislation passed by Congress. A senior congressional aide, who declined to be named, told CNBC that Collins was approached to lead the subcommittee before his ties to Innate were known. Collins' appointment, even as an incoming congressman, was not unusual for that committee, the aide said. In such a large committee with such little legislative jurisdiction, the aide said the people matching members with subcommittees were "grasping at straws sometimes to fill some of these roles." A Buffalo News report at the time quoted Collins saying, "I didn't ask [Graves] why" he was picked. David Chase, a former prosecutor with the Securities and Exchange Commission in Miami until 1999, said that members of Congress on company boards have to be careful about conflicts of interest. "He has to make sure he was not doing something on the business side that would affect his duties as an elected official," Chase said. Asked whether leading a health care subcommittee while serving as a drug company's board member made those two things more difficult to separate, Chase said, "It gets a hell of a lot closer, doesn't it?" The number of U.S. lawmakers who own stock more than doubled from 2001 to 2013, to the point where more than half of Congress holds shares in companies, according to the Harvard Business Review. Separate figures suggest that the more representatives invest in a particular stock, the less that company's lobbyists spend in Washington.

'A private matter'
GOP Rep. Chris Collins, one of President Donald Trump's earliest backers in Congress, suspended his reelection campaign on Saturday, in the wake of insider trading allegations that resulted in his dramatic arrest this week and may derail his entire career.

Only days ago, the congressman  who's ensnared in a case involving the sale of stock on information that was not made public  was vowing to run for another term, calling the charges "meritless."

Yet in a statement on Saturday, the embattled New York Republican who represents the state's 27th Congressional district said that "after extensive discussions with my family and my friends over the last few days, I have decided that it is in the best interests of the constituents of NY-27, the Republican Party and President Trump's agenda for me to suspend my campaign for re-election to Congress."

Collins' district, which is in the Western part of the Empire State, is considered heavily Republican. Yet his travails come at a time when Democrats are on the offensive ahead of the midterm elections, and generic polls show them widely favored to recapture the House of Representatives at the very least.

"Democrats are laser focused on taking back the House, electing Nancy Pelosi Speaker and then launching impeachment proceedings against President Trump," Collins' statement read.

"They would like nothing more than to elect an 'Impeach Trump' Democrat in this District, which is something that neither our country or my party can afford," he added.

Collins tweet

The congressman may have trouble getting his name removed from the ballot ahead of the November elections. New York's labyrinthine laws make it difficult for a candidate to have his or her name revoked, even for reasons that include death, disqualification or asking for removal.

The latter has several deadlines, all of which Collins appears to have missed  meaning it's entirely possible his name could appear on the ballot, even under indictment. Among the slim options available to Collins and the state GOP involve his moving out of his district, or being nominated for another office.

"Given the circumstances, it was probably the best decision for his family and for the residents of the 27th Congressional district," said Ed Cox, the New York GOP delegation chair. "In the coming days, we will be working closely with local party leaders to determine the best course of action. We wish Chris and his family the best."

At least one candidate was prepared to replace Collins. Erie County Comptroller Stefan I. Mychajliw declared himself in the running, saying in a statement posted to Twitter that he would "work to earn the trust of" GOP officials that could possibly get him the Republican nomination.

Nate McMurray, Collins' Democratic challenger, said in a statement provided to NBC News that the congressman should resign his seat and that his campaign suspension symbolized "corrupt party machine politics."

McMurray added that "this tragic tale is yet another example of how a corrupt party machine has consistently betrayed the people of the 27th Congressional District."

Collins, a wealthy businessman, was first elected to to the House of Representatives in 2012. He immediately became one of the 10 richest lawmakers, with an average net worth of nearly $60 million, according to OpenSecrets.

However, his business acumen has landed him in hot water, with federal authorities nabbing him on insider trading charges on Wednesday. The congressman stands accused of selling shares of an Australian biotechnology company.

Collins is accused of funneling nonpublic information about a failed drug trial to his son before the company announced it publicly. Collins' son Cameron was also charged in the indictment, and is accused of dumping more than a million shares of the company's stock ahead of a steep plunge in its price.

--CNBC's Brian Schwartz and Kevin Breuninger contributed to this article.
US President Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Florida State Fairgrounds Expo Hall in Tampa, Florida, on July 31, 2018.

President Donald Trump on Saturday condemned "all forms of racism and violence," making an appeal for national unity on the anniversary of a nationalist march in Charlottesville that sparked violent clashes between elements of the political left and right.

As Washington, DC braces for a possibly tense "Unite the Right 2" rally on Sunday, the president struck a conciliatory tone that urged Americans to "come together as a nation." Last year, violence flared between counter-protesters at a march organized by a pro-nationalist group that left one woman dead.

Trump tweet

Trump's controversial response to the violence in Charlottesville  in which he said "both sides" were to blame for the conflict  drew intense backlash, even from within his own party. After calling the alt-right protesters "fine people," the president was harshly criticized by South Carolina GOP Senator Tim Scott, who said his "moral authority was compromised."

Since then, the president has become embroiled in several high-profile, polarizing debates over race relations. His response to the NFL's anthem protests, and his public fights with professional athletes, have been blasted for being racially insensitive.
Hong Kong-owned companies that manufacture in mainland China are increasingly worried about the escalating Washington-Beijing trade war, according to one industry executive.

Hong Kong's dynamic skyline and bustling harbor illustrate its role as a global financial hub, but decades ago it teemed with factories, making it one of the four "Asian Tigers" of the day along with Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan. But enticed by the nearby mainland's economic opening that began 40 years ago this year, many took advantage of China's then low costs for labor, land and production to shift operations there.

Raymond Young, CEO of the Chinese Manufacturers' Association of Hong Kong, said more than 95 percent of its some 3,000 members, have factory operations in the mainland. At first, members were not initially very concerned about the trade war, he told CNBC, "but by and by more of them are expressing some worries, especially about the uncertainty facing them."

Young, a former director-general for trade and industry in the Hong Kong government, estimated that about 25 percent are uneasy about the geopolitical spat between the world's two largest economies.

"I think some of them are concerned that buyers in the U.S. are already trying to suppress the buying price of the products and so that really undercuts their profit margins," Young said.

Hong Kong manufacturers produce a wide range of goods in China, including toys, furniture, clothing and watches but also high-tech items including molding and dye-casting machines and circuit boards subject to tariffs, according to Young.

He said that while the vast majority of the Hong manufacturers in China do not export to the United States, they can still be hit in other ways

"Because of the retaliatory action on the part of China, some of our Hong Kong manufacturers who import parts and components from the U.S. to make their final products are also affected," he said.
Dr Phillip Lee is MP for Bracknell. He resigned as a Justice minister in June, in protest at the Governments approach to Brexit. The below article is an open letter to Sophie Tyrrill, a young activist who earlier this week left the Conservatives and joined the Liberal Democrats.

Dear Sophie,

I was moved by your article Why I left the Conservative Party and read it with sadness. I understand your position and realise that many liberal Conservative Party members will be wrestling with a similar dilemma.

I am writing to appeal to you to change your mind and come back home to the Conservatives. Most of us still hold your values and are fighting against those who would take us to the extremes. Because our values are the true values of the Conservative Party.

When I resigned from this Government I did so because I share your concerns. I was disturbed by the direction in which Brexit was taking us and frustrated because negative values infect our policymaking in so many ways. I worry that todays Conservative Party could lead us to a dark place.

But this is not a reason to leave. On the contrary, it is a reason to stand and fight. And we have history and the future on our side.

As I explained in the speech I gave when I resigned, our partys honourable past lights the way for our future. I am inspired by what Conservatives have achieved and ardently believe that the values that drove these heroes can guide us safely through an uncertain future.

Just look at the mark that Robert Peel and Edmund Burke made on their worlds. Look at Benjamin Disraeli who first wrote that Toryism will  bring back  liberty to the Subject and Lord Shaftesbury who ended child labour in mines and reformed factory working conditions. Sir Winston Churchill made the enthronement of human rights a British war aim in World War Two. And Margaret Thatchers commitment to individual liberty against autocratic rule was instrumental in bringing down the tyranny of Communism in Eastern Europe.

These are the people whose values I share. And their great tradition is one on which we should continue to build. Theresa Mays own vision when she first entered Downing Street  to fight the burning injustices in our society  is also worthy.

However, you raise valid points about the state of the Party today. Some of it is dominated by an extreme Brexiteer mentality and it is also being distorted by UKIP entryism. We are in danger of succumbing to populism  a right wing version of what Corbyn has done to the Labour Party. Part of the reason for this is that we have so few members.

It has always been the case that each generation has to fight for its own version of democracy. Once more, decent conservatives need to stand for what we believe in. We must not let extremists seize control of our future. We cannot have the only alternatives for Government being Corbyn-Labour or Johnson/Rees-Mogg Conservatism.

Instead, we need to shape a forward-looking Conservatism with answers to the challenges of the 21st Century and grasping the opportunities we have as a country. This means dealing with an ever-changing world; supporting aspiration, opportunity and individual responsibility; helping to create value and innovation; understanding that rights are balanced with responsibilities; supporting full emancipation of all women; supporting strong families and building resilient communities.

We should continue the Tory tradition of stewardship, looking after our people, our country and our planet so that we pass something better on to our children.

On Brexit, lets do what is right and sensible and extend, suspend or revoke Article 50, offer a people a final say on Brexit, and avoid crashing out without a deal as some Brextremists seem to want.

It gives me hope that so many younger people are politically minded and I admire your dedication. That is what we need to create a better future for us all.

But we cant do this if we abandon our principles when people disagree with us. When somebody says you should be a Liberal Democrat because of your viewpoint (as has also happened to me), I say that I am the true Conservative  why are they bringing extreme views into my party? We must not turn away.

So please, Sophie, reconsider your decision. We need you  and others like you. Come back home to the Conservatives and help to put a modern, global, liberal outlook back at the heart of the party. Fight for what you believe in, and for a better future for Britain. We represent the silent majority. We mustnt fail our country again. And I, for one, will welcome you.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Phillip Lee
Tim Loughton is MP for East Worthing and Shoreham, and former Childrens Minister. This article was first published in Centre Write, by Bright Blue.

MP takes bath is apparently hot news, at least if you are a journalist scrabbling round for a front page headline at The Times. MP never takes bath or shower might be more newsworthy.

Not that you would know it, but the trigger for the story was a conference I co-hosted at Westminster last Autumn which brought together 20 MPs from over 15 countries to promote mindfulness as one of the ways we can help tackle the epidemic of mental illness in the West.

We were joined by the Godfather of Mindfulness, the American Professor John Kabat-Zinn, who has promoted the practice of mindfulness in schools, workplaces, and prisons, and as an alternative to prescription drugs in the health service.

Getting 20 MPs from a panoply of different parties and different countries in the same room agreeing with each other  and prepared to stay silent whilst practising mindfulness  is quite a tall order. One of the joys of mindfulness is that it can be done by anyone, anytime, anyplace.

These days most of us have stressful lives lived at 100mph, but just taking a few minutes out to focus on the here and now and the things around you can set you up well for the day. You can do it in a quiet corner during your lunch break, on the bus, in your favourite armchair or, in my case, in the bath.

I tend to get up early and plunge myself into my bath soon after 6am, where I spend up to an hour reading through papers and articles for meetings coming up in the day ahead, but I also reserve a little part of my ablution time for some mindfulness meditation. For me the power shower just doesnt cut it  fending off the water jets at all angles adds to my stress levels.

The UK Parliament has been a leader in promoting the use of mindfulness not just in politics, or indeed in the bath, but all across society. Over 170 MPs and members of the Lords from all parties have now undertaken a mindfulness course which is available each week.

We have also been invited to other parliaments to pass on the good news to other parliamentarians. I co-chair the All Party Parliamentary Group on Mindfulness with Chris Ruane, a Labour MP whose constant heckling and interruptions in the Commons chamber were certainly tempered after he first went on one of the courses and promoted the benefits to colleagues.

Mindfulness is not a panacea but it certainly can help in the fight against the epidemic of mental illness in the western world.

One in four of us will suffer a mental illness at some stage in our lives. One in six women suffers from some form of perinatal mental illness and the impact on a child of poor attachment in those crucial early years can be lifelong. Over 850,000 children and young people now have a mental health problem and those are just the ones we know about.

The Prime Minister has highlighted this as a major challenge and whilst a Mental Health Bill is promised, resources are still too widely stretched and scarce professionals over-committed. Worryingly, in the last 20 years prescriptions for antidepressants have risen by five hundred percent and are used for ever younger children.

The economy suffers 950 billion in lost earnings down to depression each year and it is the major cause of workplace absences. Anything that is easy to administer and available to everyone at low cost has to be a useful addition to the

armoury in dealing with this epidemic.

Schools are increasingly adopting mindfulness. It has been shown to improve focus and concentration and help lift results, and it has the advantage of being popular and non-stigmatising unlike other mental illness approaches.

Companies have latched on to it too, and one told us that since introducing mindfulness classes for all their employees sickness absenteeism has fallen seventy one percent and productivity has improved.

We also heard from a career criminal who had been in and out of jail for 20 years, immune to all sorts of rehabilitation programmes, until he took up mindfulness which is the one thing to have kept him on the straight and narrow.

Mindfulness wont solve everything, but for many with low level mental illness and depression it can help. If combining it with a bath floats your boat then great, but its not compulsory.
Philip Hammonds proposals for a so-called Amazon tax on online retailers addresses a legitimate problem.

When multinational businesses can cut their tax bills despite soaring profits, thats a sign of an ill-designed and out of date tax code. The Chancellor is right to take corrective measures.

However, there are two parts of the Amazon tax story which are concerning.

The first is Hammonds stated willingness to press ahead with a levy on web giants even before he can secure international agreement  it would be bad for the buying public and the Government both if precipitate action were to make the UK an unattractive place to invest.

The second is that one of the arguments being adduced in favour of the new tax is to create a level playing field with ailing bricks-and-mortar retailers.

One of the biggest challenges for modern businesses, and the governments that regulate them, is the constant pressure to innovate. Just as the big stores and out-of-town outlets superseded the high street, now they in turn are getting eclipsed by e-commerce.

But whilst these revolutions in shopping habits were undoubtedly painful for the owners and staff of old-fashioned businesses, there has always been one big winner: the consumer, who with every cycle has gained access to a wider range of goods and services at more competitive prices.

If the Chancellor does want to support traditional retailers, there are definitely pro-consumer ways of doing that, for example by looking for ways to ease the huge pressures created by rising rents and business rates. He could also see if there are more ways that the Treasury could support the Governments own high streets strategy.

Unfortunately, when you wield the power of the state another, illusory alternative always presents itself. Instead of trying to come up with tax and regulatory systems suited to new conditions, why not use legislative brute force to try to squeeze the modern economy into traditional, easy-to-tax shapes?

We see this instinct at work whenever this Government talks about its plans to overhaul the treatment of the self-employed. In order to justify raising their taxes into line with traditional employees, there is much talk of giving contractors the same employment rights too.

On the face of it, this looks like an even trade. But its no such thing, and not just because the Government is pocketing the quid but expecting businesses to pay out the pro quo. It also diminishes (or even removes entirely) the ability of British workers to choose the alternative currently offered by self-employment, in favour of a single model the Treasury knows how to tax.

Piling costs onto online retailers in a bid to force their prices up towards parity with their high street rivals is a plan in the same spirit. It hurts consumers through higher prices whilst doing nothing to support and encourage the sort of transitions that high streets need in order to find a new, sustainable role in the 21st Century town and city.

So yes, tax Amazon to stop it exploiting obsolete international tax regimes. But dont do it to save the high street  not when the thing youre really trying to save it from is the interests and preferences of Britains shoppers.
A major cargo port in southern Italy has its eyes on the cruise industry as Taranto is welcoming more cruise calls on a yearly basis.

Cristina Carriere, head of promotion for the port, said the progress really started in 2017. The first cruise line to call was Marella, which will be back this year for seven calls along with ships from Saga and New Caledonia. For 2019, Carriere said Marella has already booked berth space for two of its vessels.

We would like to attract more luxury ships, said Carriere. Taranto is great for passengers who are looking for a new place to visit.

Located near Matera in Italy, the city offers various heritage sites as well as a national archaeological museum, and beaches. Matera is scheduled to be Europes Capital of Culture and is around an hour drive from the port.

The port in Taranto can host ships of any size, Carriere explained, and is close to two international airports, giving it the possibility to be in the discussion for homeporting options.

Taranto is not like Venice or Genoa  we want to offer something less mainstream, as an alternative experience, she added.
Grandparents are encouraged to beware of a scam that targets them, with callers pretending to be their grandchildren in trouble.

AARP said the grandparent scam will begin with the caller telling the victim that there has been an accident and that theyre in jail, the hospital or stuck in a foreign country and are in need of help.

The caller adds enough details about how, what or where the emergency happened to make the story seem plausible, AARP said. And the distraught caller, you think to yourself, does sort of sound like your grandson or granddaughter.

Often, the caller will tell the victim that another person  usually a lawyer, doctor or police officer  will explain everything. And an attorney told AARP that this helps seal the deal for some skeptics who get these scam calls.

This makes it seem more real when you call and talk to the authority, said attorney Kati Daffan, assistant director of marking practices at the Federal Trade Commission.

Then the caller will ask the victim to send or wire money immediately. And the victim will get hooked by the pleading final line: Please dont tell mom and dad, AARP said.

This scam has been making the rounds for years, AARP said.

In 2017, nearly one in five people reported losing money to an impostor scheme, like the grandparent scam. The FTC reported a loss of $328 million in these scams. People over the age of 70 lost the highest average amounts, FTC data showed.

The scammers are very good at what they do, Daffin said. They make the story very convincing and urgent. ... The stakes are incredibly high, and theyre good at pulling at your emotions.

Some scammers will buy lead lists of people who have been scammed before, Daffin said. She said people who are older or people they can get a lot of personal information about are typical easy targets.

And where are they getting some of this personal information?

A lot of the time, its through social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Daffin said some scammers will even go as far as to hack into a persons email account and access their contact list to get names of relatives.

Anyone who gets a call similar to the grandparents scam should, first and foremost, refrain from panicking, Daffin said. She said to think of what they need to do to ensure its a real phone call.

Verify the persons identity by asking questions someone else couldnt possibly answer, she added. Some suggestions were the name and species of a grandchilds first pet.

Despite what the impostor grandchild might say about keeping it a secret, AARP suggests you hang up and check with a family member or the person who supposedly called you.

A typical giveaway for it being a scam is often how the callers request the money.

The caller will usually ask for the money through a wire transfer service, an overnight delivery service or courier, or a prepaid card or gift card, in which case the scammer will ask you to read the numbers on the back of the card over the phone.

Thats just like turning over cash to somebody, Daffin warned. Court systems and hospitals dont accept gift cards as payment.

To protect yourself from potential future scams, AARP suggests social media users amp up their privacy settings. The Consumer Federation of America said people should safeguard their email by using anti-spyware and antivirus software.

If you are a victim of a grandparent scam, or another form of fraud, you can report it to the FTC at ftc.gov/complaint or by calling 1-877-FTC-HELP.
SHELTON  Firefighters first saw smoke when they responded to a recent call. But the firefighters soon found a fire  three stories below ground level.

Fire units from Sheltons Echo Hose Hook & Ladder Co. 1 were dispatched tot he Hydro Power Plant at 305 Canal Street on Thursday.
Have you ever missed out on a huge opportunity? Maybe you sold some Bitcoin right before the price explosion late in 2017, or said no to a job offer at a tech startup whose employees eventually cashed out hundreds of thousands in stock.

Related: 25 Reasons I Will Not Invest in Your Startup

If you're one of these poor souls, you can take comfort in knowing youre not alone. The missed opportunities of others serve as evidence that sometimes, even the best ideas appear worthless at first glance.

Take, for example, these investors and entrepreneurs, who passed on big ideas -- and may have cost themselves a fortune in the process.

1. Ron Wayne could have been worth over $100 billion.

A billion dollars is hard to picture. Try to imagine $100 billion. Thats the size of the fortune that Ron Wayne could have had if hed made a slightly different decision 40 years ago. Back in 1976, Wayne signed Apples partnership agreement with the legendary duo Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak; the agreement would have granted Wayne a 10 percent stake in the company.

Wayne went on to write the manual for Apple I and sketch the first Apple logo; he considered himself responsible for keeping an eye on the other two -- the crazy ones.

But after just 12 days with the company, he could no longer stand working with his co-founders and sold his share for a mere $800. Today, with Apples valuation now over $1 trillion, Wayne's stock share would have been worth over $100 billion. Still, he says he regrets nothing, as his departure gave him the chance to work on things he actually loved.

2. Scott Tobin and Battery Ventures walked away from Facebook.

Battery Ventures, a Boston-based venture capital firm, had the chance to invest in Facebook back in 2004, long before the platform exploded in popularity. Mark Zuckerberg had already created the platform in his Harvard dorm room and might have been happy to stay in Boston had he had the money and support to do so.

Related: It Made Sense at the Time: Why I Passed on Uber's Seed Round

But, in actuality, Battery Ventures passed on Facebook, so Zuckerberg moved west and earned his other investors a fortune. Scott Tobin, a partner in Battery Ventures would later admit that his company's decision involved "a generational issue.

"You couldnt really understand social networking here," Tobin said. "To understand things like Facebook, you [had] to be 19 to 24 years old. If you [were] 56, you [didn't] quite get it.

3. Chris Hill-Scott got a bicycle instead of a fortune.

Chris Hill-Scott, one of the three co-founders of SwiftKey, was finding it difficult to keep up with the demands of the business back in 2008. Ready to part ways, and uncertain about the businesss future, Hill-Scott sold his stake in the company for a bicycle. The other co-founders kept working, however, and eight years later, managed to sell SwiftKey to Microsoft for $250 million, with each of the co-founders pocketing $50 million.

And all Hill-Scott got was that lousy bicycle.

4. Decca Records passed on the Beatles.

Though not the decision of a sole individual, the Decca Records fiasco early in the Beatles careers demands a mention. In 1962, before the Liverpool quartet became superstars and arguably, the most important rock band of all time, the guys auditioned to be signed with Decca Records.

The audition went well and producer Mike Smith verbally acknowledged that fact, but a few weeks later, the group got a rejection letter that informed them, Guitar groups are on the way out" and, "The Beatles have no future in show business. Today, its hard to read those statements without laughing.

5. Bessemer Venture Partners passed on several big companies.

Bessemer Venture Partners is a successful venture capital firm, but that doesnt mean all its decisions have been flawless. But at least they're humble enough to admit it. The company publishes an anti-portfolio of companies it could have invested in but never did, as an amusing lesson in the wacky nature of entrepreneurship and venture capitalism.

For example, a BVP investors college friend rented her garage to Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page during the duo's first year of operations. This woman tried to make an introduction but, suspecting an amateurish operation, investor David Cowan told her, How can I get out of this house without going anywhere near your garage?

Did all these investors make bad decisions? Not necessarily. Most of them made the best decisions they could, given the information they had at the time. Yet hindsight is 20/20; and, in the moment, theres no guarantee that a plucky startup with respectable potential is going to become an international sensation.

Related: How to Know When to Say 'No' to a New Opportunity

So, take some inspiration here: If youre getting rejected early on, know that theres a chance for success even when top experts think you dont have a chance. And if youre on the investing side, think twice before passing on that next opportunity.

Related:

OMG: 5 Investors/Groups Who Passed on Brilliant Ideas ... and on Windfalls Worth Millions

I've Raised Over $20 Million for My Businesses. Here's How to Get the Attention of Venture Capitalists.

What You Need To Know About ICOs: Carlos Domingo, Co-Founder and MP, SPiCE VC



Copyright 2018 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved
Thousands of protesters are planning to descend on downtown Washington on Sunday to voice opposition to the white supremacist rally planned for late afternoon at Lafayette Square across from the White House.

Protest organizers from a wide range of groups say they have been working for weeks to prepare for the event and have secured permits to gather at Lafayette Square as well as nearby locations, including Freedom Plaza, McPherson Square and Farragut Square. Others plan to meet at the Lincoln Memorial and march to the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, where scheduled speakers include New York congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and actor Nick Cannon.

The number of protesters across Washington will likely dwarf the number of participants in the white supremacist rally. Jason Kessler, the organizer for that event, stated in his permit application that he expected up to 400 people. But it is unclear if anywhere near that number will show up.

For protesters, the emphasis will be on telling Kessler and his followers that their message is not welcome in Washington. Kessler is one of the lead organizers of the violent Unite the Right rally held in Charlottesville, Virginia last August that led to the death of protester Heather Heyer, who was killed when a man police say identified himself as a Nazi drove a car into a crowd. Two Virginia State troopers died when their helicopter crashed following a day of monitoring the civil disturbance.

Kessler is holding his Washington event, which he is billing as a "white civil rights rally" on the anniversary of the Charlottesville rally.

"We are united in supporting diverse communities and we vehemently oppose white supremacy and everything Unite the Right 2 stands for," said Michelle Styczynski, a member of Democratic Socialists of America and an organizer of the D.C. United Against Hate rally that begins at noon at Freedom Plaza.

That rally has a permit for 1,000 protesters and is expected to be the largest counter-rally taking place. Styczynski said she expects participants with a range of political backgrounds from far-left to moderates to conservatives "who agree that white supremacy is abhorrent."

The Freedom Plaza event will include speeches and music and will culminate at approximately 3:30 p.m. with a march to Lafayette Square to confront rallygoers there.

Maurice Cook, an organizer for March for Racial Justice, another group taking part in protests Sunday, said it was important for him as a black man to be present, in part to pay respect to the generations before him who endured persecution and fought for civil rights.

"I'm standing on the shoulders of those who made sacrifices to ensure opportunities for me," said Cook, a Washington resident who was in Charlottesville last year to protest Unite the Right rallygoers. "We need to build something to fight against this white supremacy in a sustained way. I don't want children to experience this again."

Makia Green, of Black Lives Matter D.C., said she wants white nationalists to know that the movement against them is only getting stronger.

"Our resistance is ever-growing," she said. "This progress that they are so afraid of - the rise of black leaders and Black Lives Matter getting bigger and people feeling safe to speak their mind: That is still happening."

Her group will meet at 2 p.m. on 16th Street NW - a block from Lafayette Square - to march without a permit on streets police have closed. Their act of civil disobedience will end by the White House, where protesters have permits to occupy half the plaza.

"One of our tactics with Black Lives Matter is taking to the streets and letting people allow themselves to physically confront systems of oppression," Green said. "If we want to abolish white supremacy, we also have to understand that there may be some civil disobedience necessary. . . . Ignoring white supremacy doesn't make it go away."

Green said the group does not expect to be protected by D.C. police officers, so their action will also include de-escalators, legal observers and marshals, "who can literally put their bodies in between folks if things are to escalate," she said, in addition to looking out for any white nationalist infiltrators. Should any of the counterprotesters be arrested, Black Lives Matter also has raised money for a jail fund to bail people out.

Ahead of the counterprotest, organizers will be distributing Know Your Rights pamphlets and informing attendees on how keep themselves safe during the march. On Friday afternoon, they held workshops about legal rights and self-defense, and on Saturday, they plan to disseminate similar information on walks east of the Anacostia River, where residents are predominantly African-American.

Green said Black Lives Matter - which started planning for Sunday's events about two months ago - is part of the broader Shut It Down D.C. Coalition. She said she will be speaking at the Freedom Plaza rally to explain BLM's philosophy behind counterprotests and civil disobedience.

Antifascists, or antifa, are also expected to be present among the protesters, but it is not known what, if any, actions they have planned for Sunday. Law enforcement and National Park Service officials anticipate they will most likely be present at Lafayette Square. Antifa members fought with white supremacists in bloody street battles last year in Charlottesville.

Political leaders across the region condemned white supremacists and their message and pledged support to law enforcement in its efforts to manage the situation.

"We the people of Washington, D.C. say unequivocally that we denounce hate, we denounce anti-Semitism and we denounce the rhetoric that we expect to hear this Sunday," D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, D, said at a Thursday news conference.

"Those torches carried by white supremacists in Charlottesville a year ago shone a light on an ugly truth," Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam, D, said in a statement. "But they also reawakened our commitment to fight back against that ugliness of racism and bigotry. Hatred has no home in this Commonwealth."

Northam declared a state of emergency Wednesday to allow officials to marshal resources to prepare for the potential impact of events in and around Charlottesville and northern Virginia.

Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, R, also issued a statement, saying, "As we face this invasion of vile and perverted ideology infesting our region, we stand united in our conviction that a diverse and inclusive Maryland is a stronger Maryland."

President Donald Trump, who is not scheduled to be at the White House on Sunday, has not yet remarked on the anniversary event. A White House spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

- - -

The Washington Post's Marissa Lang contributed to this report.
The views of rank-and-file Republicans, captured in voter surveys, are nothing less than galling.

Let's lead with a poll conducted by the global marketing firm Ipsos and reported by the Daily Beast. It found that 43 percent of self-identified Republicans said that they believed "the president should have the authority to close news outlets engaged in bad behavior."

When asked if President Donald Trump should shut down The Washington Post, CNN and the New York Times, 23 percent of Republicans said yes.

These findings are obviously troubling to me as a member of the Fourth Estate. But in the Trump era, assaults on the media come with the territory.

More disturbing to me as a citizen is that those Trump cultists would knowingly and willingly give him the power to trample on the First Amendment, destroying an essential part of our democracy that he doesn't like. That is appalling.

They either don't know or care about what Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black wrote in New York Times Co. v. United States in 1971: The Founding Fathers intended that "the press was to serve the governed, not the governors."

Our home-grown destroyers of the First Amendment would have the United States join foes of press freedom around the globe. Places that the watchdog organization Freedom House has identified as:

- North Korea, where domestic media outlets are "state controlled and closely monitored, and produce propaganda with the aim of ensuring absolute loyalty to Kim Jong-un."

- China, which "maintains control over news reporting via direct ownership, accreditation of journalists [and] harsh penalties for online criticism."

- Russia, which controls the main national news agenda, and where news "outlets operate with the understanding that the government has the means to close them at any time."

The animus of some Trump supporters toward the opposition, and their embrace of America's longtime foes, is astounding. A photograph in circulation shows two middle-age men at an Ohio Trump rally, one of them wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat, and both in T-shirts with a message printed on the front that read "I'd rather be Russian than a Democrat."

But don't dismiss their behavior at the Ohio rally as a silly stunt by two grown men who should know better. The grass-roots Republican affection for Russia, because of Trump's own affinity for the Kremlin, is more widely shared than you may think.

Get this: In a Yahoo Finance/SurveyMonkey poll conducted from July 25 to 27, 11 percent of the Republicans surveyed said it would be "appropriate" for Russia to interfere in the midterm elections if it helped their party keep control of Congress, and 29 percent said it would not be "a big deal." Yes, a majority of Republicans (55 percent) opposed the idea. But the fact that 40 percent of Republicans would be OK with Russian interference in a U.S. election if it helped their side speaks to a lack of allegiance to our democratic institutions.

Here's another scary story. Nearly a quarter of Republicans (22 percent) believe Trump tells the truth only "some of the time or less," but more than half of that group still approve of the job he's doing as president, according to an NBC News (SurveyMonkey) online poll. They seem to believe that Trump can do no wrong, even though they know he's likely lying to them.

Case in point: Trump tells the nation that his handling of the summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki was a great success. GOP leadership and 55 percent of Americans didn't think so. But because Trump spoke those words, 71 percent of Republicans approved of his behavior, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll. Want more? While most Americans (59 percent) accepted the intelligence community's findings that Russia interfered in to 2016 presidential campaign to help Trump, only 32 percent of Republicans agreed.

The contrast couldn't be greater. When it comes down to support for blocking news outlets, blessing the sucking up to foreign adversaries, and accepting outrageous and brazen lying by a president, Trump supporters have the field all to themselves. Their view: He has the throne; the rest must obey.

And that is where our democracy faces its challenge. Election Day in November is the decision point. It offers the moment to reaffirm support for fundamental freedoms and integrity in government. The choice will be there in print. The Republican's name on the ballot in your district may be different, but it is, de facto, Donald Trump. You know where his base stands. Where stand you?
For Subscribers Books on the run from Somerset County libraries to just about anywhere

Somerset County library's bookmobile is on the move and patrons can now climb aboard and check it out.
KBR, Inc. engages in the provision of differentiated professional services and technologies across the asset and program life-cycle within the government services and hydrocarbons industries. It operates through the following segments: Government Solutions, Technology Solutions, Energy Solutions, Non-strategic Business, and Other. The Government Solutions segment provides full life-cycle support solutions to defense, space, aviation, and other programs and missions for military and other government agencies. The Technology Solutions segment combines KBR's proprietary technologies, equipment, and catalyst supply and associated knowledge-based services into a global business for refining, petrochemicals, inorganic, and specialty chemicals as well as gasification, syngas, ammonia, nitric acid, and fertilizers. The Energy Solutions segment provides full life-cycle support solutions across the upstream, midstream and downstream hydrocarbons markets. The Non-strategic Business segment represents the operations or activities which the company intends to exit upon completion of existing contracts. The Other segment includes corporate expenses and general and administrative expenses not all

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MasTec, Inc. engages in the provision of infrastructure construction services. It operates through the following segments: Communications; Oil and Gas; Electrical Transmissions; Clean Energy and Infrastructure; and Other. The Communications segment performs engineering, construction, maintenance and customer fulfillment activities related to communications infrastructure, primarily for wireless and wireline/fiber communications, and install-to-the-home customers. The Oil and Gas segment offers services on oil and natural gas pipelines and processing facilities for the energy, and utilities industries. The Electrical Transmission segment deals with the energy and utility industries. The Clean Energy and Infrastructure segment serves energy, utility and other end-markets through the installation and construction of power generation facilities, including from clean energy and renewable sources such as wind, solar and biomass, as well as various types of heavy civil and industrial infrastructure. The Other segment comprises of equity investees, other small business units that perform construction, and other services for a variety of international end-markets. The company was founded by

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President Trump isn't going to be happy. The U.S. trade deficit expanded in June, at its fastest rate since November 2016. Also, $291 billion was added to that gap in the first six months of 2018, compared with $272 billion in the first half of 2017. And wait until he finds out that in spite of the tariffs he imposed on billions of dollars in imports, those imports grew slightly while exports are going down.

As Townhill writes in the article Are Trumps Tariffs Actually Increasing The Trade Deficit?, the administration's stated objectives for imposing tariffs on foreign imports is to reduce the trade deficit by reducing imports and forcing foreign governments to lower their "unfair" trade barriers so U.S. exporters will have more access to foreign markets.

It's true that if you impose hellish taxes on the goods and services that Americans buy from abroad, over time the higher prices will nudge consumers to shift their demands to the now-relatively cheaper American goods. In fact, this is what happened after the imposition of steel and aluminum tariffs on imports from China and many of our trading partners. The Department of Commerce reports that the steep hike in metal prices has resulted in a seasonally adjusted 19 percent reduction of iron- and steel-mill products imported in June and a 10 percent fall in imports of bauxite and aluminum.

Yet overall, imports have gone up slightly while exports have shrunk a bit, raising the trade deficit along the way. For one thing, contrary to the administration's promise, unilaterally raising tariffs on our trading partners hasn't resulted in better access to foreign markets for U.S. exporters. Instead, foreign tariffs have gone up and threats of retaliation continue.

That's true even for the European Union, which -- also contrary to the administration's claim -- hasn't yet agreed to stop its real or imaginary "unfair" trade practices against us. The EU has agreed, however, to go back to the negotiation table -- one that both sides left back in 2016 -- in hopes of ironing out their differences to allow better access to each other's markets. Until then, retaliatory tariffs are still up, and so are steel and aluminum taxes against EU producers.

The White House may be surprised by the recent developments, but economists aren't.

First, tariffs are a tax on American consumers. Knowing that the price of goods they need to run their business will go up, companies often ramp up imports of targeted goods before the taxes take effect. Unfortunately, imports will decrease once companies are forced by higher costs to look for new suppliers. Higher production costs will hurt Americans the most, contrary to protectionists' claims.

Second, Trump is misinformed when he claims that the U.S. trade deficit is a sign that everyone is taking advantage of us. The reality is much more exciting, as it signals that the country is an attractive destination for foreign investors looking to make a profit. To the president's credit, his tax-reform and deregulatory efforts, and the resulting booming economy, have made the U.S. market even more appealing. These positive developments likely shifted foreign-owned dollars away from buying U.S. exports (especially when their prices have gone up due to retaliatory tariffs and a stronger dollar) and toward investments in the United States. Meanwhile, richer consumers can afford more expensive foreign imports. Et voila. You get more growth but also a larger trade deficit.

Unfortunately, things can sour pretty quickly. Total imports may eventually fall as a result of Trump's tariffs, and foreigners will have fewer dollars to invest in the United States, which hurts both investments and exports. The Tax Foundation estimates that the trade dispute could wipe out all of the previously projected benefits from tax reform. While the final impact on the trade deficit remains unclear, Americans will be worse off than they would have been without this trade.
The Boeing Co. is an aerospace company, which engages in the manufacture of commercial jetliners and defense, space and security systems. It operates through the following segments: Commercial Airplanes; Defense, Space and Security; Global Services; and Boeing Capital. The Commercial Airplanes segment includes the development, production, and market of commercial jet aircraft and provides fleet support services, principally to the commercial airline industry worldwide. The Defense, Space and Security segment refers to the research, development, production and modification of manned and unmanned military aircraft and weapons systems for global strike, including fighter and combat rotorcraft aircraft and missile systems; global mobility, including tanker, rotorcraft and tilt-rotor aircraft; and airborne surveillance and reconnaissance, including command and control, battle management and airborne anti-submarine aircraft. The Global Services segment provides services to commercial and defense customers. The Boeing Capital segment seeks to ensure that Boeing customers have the financing they need to buy and take delivery of their Boeing product and manages overall financing exposure. T

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CANCOM SE, together with its subsidiaries, provides information technology (IT) infrastructure and services in Germany, Austria, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, Switzerland, and the United States. The company operates through Cloud Solutions and IT Solutions segments. The Cloud Solutions segment provides cloud and shared managed services, including project-related cloud hardware, software, and services. The IT Solutions segment offers a range of services related to IT infrastructure and applications. Its services include IT strategy consulting, project planning and implementation, system integration, and IT procurement via e-procurement services, as well as professional IT services and support. The company also sells hardware and software; and offers AHP Enterprise Cloud, an IT multi-cloud management software, as well as provides cloud computing, analytics, enterprise mobility, IT security, and hosting, services. It serves commercial end-users ranging from small and medium enterprises to large corporations and groups, as well as public institutions. CANCOM SE was founded in 1992 and is headquartered in Munich, Germany.

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Everest Re Group Ltd. is a holding company, which engages in the provision of reinsurance and insurance services. It operates through the following segments: U.S. Reinsurance, International, Bermuda, and Insurance. The U.S. Reinsurance segment writes property and casualty reinsurance and specialty lines of business, including marine, aviation, surety, and accident and health business, on both a treaty and facultative basis, through reinsurance brokers, as well as directly with ceding companies primarily within the U.S. The International segment offers foreign property and casualty reinsurance through Everest Re's branches in Canada and Singapore and through offices in Brazil, Miami, and New Jersey. The Bermuda segment comprises reinsurance and insurance to worldwide property and casualty markets through brokers and directly with ceding companies from its Bermuda office and reinsurance to the United Kingdom and European markets through its UK branch and Ireland Re. The Insurance segment writes property and casualty insurance directly and through brokers, surplus lines brokers, and general agents within the U.S., Canada, and Europe. The company was founded in 1999 and is headquartere

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Ibstock plc manufactures and sells clay and concrete building products and solutions primarily in the United Kingdom. Its principal products include clay bricks, brick components, concrete roof tiles, concrete stone masonry substitutes, concrete fencing, pre-stressed concrete, and concrete rail products. The company provides facing bricks, walling stones, architectural masonry products, cast stones, facade systems, and retaining walls, as well as lintels, sills, and arches; and cladding solutions; roof tiles, chimneys, soffits, and roofing accessories; and fencings, caps and copings, bollards, balustrades, path edgings, and urban landscaping products. It also offers floor beams, door steps, gully surrounds, screed rails, insulated floorings, and hollowcore products; and rail and infrastructure products, such as troughing, cable theft protection, boards, blocks, bases, catchpits, and inspection chambers. In addition, the company offers engraving, cutting, and bonding services; floor beam and block design, supply, and fitting solutions; bespoke concrete products; and staircases and lift shafts services. Its products are used in new build housing; repair, maintenance, and improvement; and infrastructure markets. The company sells its products under the Forticrete, Supreme, Anderton, and Longley brands to customers in the construction industry. Ibstock plc was founded in 1825 and is headquartered in Ibstock, the United Kingdom.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Sealed Air: A.P.S. (Holdings) Limited, AFP Trading (China) Co. Ltd., AFPTOH LTD, APS Automated Packaging Systems GmbH & Co. KG, APS Verwaltungs-GmbH, Air Ride Pallets Hong Kong Limited, Austin Foam Plastics Inc. (dba AFP Inc.), Automated Packaging Systems, Automated Packaging Systems Asia Holding Company Limited, Automated Packaging Systems Comerciale Importacao do Brasil Ltda., Automated Packaging Systems Europe, Automated Packaging Systems LLC, Automated Packaging Systems Limited, Automated Packaging Systems Southeast Asia Co. Ltd., B+ Equipment, B+ Equipment SAS, Beacon Holdings LLC, Biosphere Industries, BluPack (New Zealand), Blue Dot Packaging Pty Ltd., Cactus (Shanghai) Trading Co. Ltd., Cryovac (Malaysia) SDN. BHD, Cryovac Brasil Ltda., Cryovac Holdings II LLC, Cryovac International Holdings Inc., Cryovac LLC*, Cryovac Leasing Corporation, Cryovac Londrina Ltda., Cryovac Packaging Portugal  Embalagens Ltda., Cryovac-Sealed Air de Costa Rica S.R.L., DELTAPLAM Embalagens Industria e Comercio, Diversey, Diversey J Trustee Limited, Diversey Trustee Limited, Entapack Pty. Ltd., Fagerdala (Chengdu) Packaging Co. Ltd, Fagerdala (Shanghai) Foams Co. Ltd., Fagerdala (Shanghai) Polymer Co. Ltd., Fagerdala (Suzhou) Packaging Co. Ltd., Fagerdala (Thailand) Limited, Fagerdala (Xiamen) Packaging Co. Ltd., Fagerdala Leamchabung Limited, Fagerdala Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Fagerdala Mexico S.A. de C.V., Fagerdala Mexico Supply Chain S.A. de C.V., Fagerdala Packaging Inc. (Indiana), Fagerdala Singapore Pte Ltd, Fagerdala Singapore Pte. Ltd., Getpacking.com GmbH, Invertol S. de R.L. de C.V., JSC Sealed Air Kaustik, KRIS Automated Packaging Systems Holding Company, Kevothermal LLC, Kevothermal Limited, Nelipak Holdings, Pack-Tiger GmbH, Polyrol Limited, Polyrol Packaging Systems LLC, ProAseptic Technologies S.L., Producembal- Producao de Embalagens LTDA, Reflectix Inc., SLD Air Packaging Paketleme Malzemeleri Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Saddle Brook Insurance Company, Sealed Air (Asia) Holdings BV, Sealed Air (Barbados) S.R.L., Sealed Air (Canada) Co./CIE, Sealed Air (Canada) Holdings B.V., Sealed Air (China) Co. Ltd., Sealed Air (China) Limited, Sealed Air (Israel) Ltd., Sealed Air (Korea) Limited, Sealed Air (Latin America) Holdings II LLC, Sealed Air (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Sealed Air (New Zealand), Sealed Air (Philippines) Inc., Sealed Air (Singapore) Pte. Limited, Sealed Air (Ukraine) Limited, Sealed Air Africa (Pty.) Limited, Sealed Air Americas Manufacturing S. de R.L. de C.V., Sealed Air Argentina S.A., Sealed Air Australia (Holdings) Pty. Limited, Sealed Air Australia Pty. Limited, Sealed Air Australia Real Estate Pty Ltd, Sealed Air B.V., Sealed Air Belgium N.V., Sealed Air Central America S.A., Sealed Air Chile SpA, Sealed Air Colombia Ltda., Sealed Air Corporation (US), Sealed Air Cyprus Ltd., Sealed Air Denmark A/S, Sealed Air Finance B.V., Sealed Air Finance II LLC, Sealed Air Finance Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Sealed Air Funding LLC, Sealed Air General Trading LLC, Sealed Air GmbH (Germany), Sealed Air GmbH (Switzerland), Sealed Air Hellas SA, Sealed Air Holding France SAS, Sealed Air Holdings (New Zealand) Pty. Ltd., Sealed Air Holdings South Africa Proprietary Limited, Sealed Air Holdings UK I Limited, Sealed Air Holdings UK Limited, Sealed Air Hong Kong Limited, Sealed Air Hungary Ltd., Sealed Air Investment and Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Sealed Air Japan G.K., Sealed Air LLC, Sealed Air Limited (Ireland), Sealed Air Limited (UK), Sealed Air Luxembourg (I) S.a.r.l., Sealed Air Luxembourg (II) S.a.r.l., Sealed Air Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Sealed Air Management Holding Verwaltungs GmbH, Sealed Air Multiflex GmbH, Sealed Air Netherlands (Holdings) I B.V., Sealed Air Netherlands (Holdings) II B.V., Sealed Air Netherlands Holdings V B.V., Sealed Air Norge AS, Sealed Air OY, Sealed Air Packaging (India) Private Limited, Sealed Air Packaging (Shanghai) Co. Limited, Sealed Air Packaging (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Sealed Air Packaging LLC, Sealed Air Packaging Materials (India) LLP, Sealed Air Packaging S.L.U., Sealed Air Peru S.A.C., Sealed Air Polska Sp. Zoo, Sealed Air Pty Limited, Sealed Air S.A S., Sealed Air S.r.l., Sealed Air South Africa (Pty.) Ltd., Sealed Air Svenska AB, Sealed Air Taiwan Limited, Sealed Air UK Limited Partnership, Sealed Air US Holdings (Thailand) LLC, Sealed Air Uruguay S.A., Sealed Air Verpackungen GmbH, Sealed Air de Mexico Operations S. de RL. de C.V., Sealed Air de Venezuela S.A., Sealed Air s.r.o., Shanklin Corp, Shanklin Corporation, TTS-Ciptec, TXAFP Asia Pacific Ltd., TXAFP GP LLC, and Trigon Industries.
Hannover RAck SE, together with its subsidiaries, provides reinsurance products and services worldwide. It operates through Property & Casualty Reinsurance, and Life & Health Reinsurance segments. The Property & Casualty Reinsurance segment offers specialty lines comprising marine, aviation, facultative and direct business, credit, surety, and political risks reinsurance products; and treaty, catastrophe XL, and structured reinsurance, as well as insurance-linked securities. This segment also provides risk solutions for agricultural, livestock, and bloodstock businesses; aviation and space business; and marine and offshore energy business. The Life & Health Reinsurance segment offers group and individual credit life, enhanced annuities, group life and health, and Sharia-compliant Takaful reinsurance products. This segment also provides risk solutions in the areas of critical illness, disability, health, longevity, long term care, and mortality and morbidity, as well as underwriting services. In addition, it offers various financial solutions, including new-business financing; monetization of embedded value; reserve and solvency relief; and divestiture of non-core businesses. The company was formerly known as Hannover RAckversicherung AG and changed its name to Hannover RAck SE in March 2013. The company was founded in 1966 and is headquartered in Hanover, Germany. Hannover RAck SE is a subsidiary of Talanx AG.

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Magna International Inc. designs, engineers, and manufactures components, assemblies, systems, subsystems, and modules for original equipment manufacturers of vehicles and light trucks worldwide. The company operates through four segments: Body Exteriors & Structures, Power & Vision, Seating Systems, and Complete Vehicles. Its Body Exteriors & Structures segment provides body and chassis systems, as well as engineering and testing services; exterior systems, including fascia and trims, front end modules, front integration panels, liftgate modules, active aerodynamics, engineered glass, running boards, truck bed access products, and side doors; and roof systems, such as modular and textile folding roofs, and hard and soft tops. The company's Power & Vision segment offers dedicated hybrid, dual and e-clutch, and manual transmissions; engine drive plates and accessories; AWD/4WD products, rear drive modules, and hybrid and battery electric drive systems; transmission, engine, and driveline components; advanced driver assistance systems, camera systems, ultrasonic sensors, and electronic controllers; interior and exterior mirrors, actuators, door handles, overhead consoles, and camera monitoring systems; head, tail, and fog lamps; signal and other lighting products; and latching systems, door modules, window systems, power closure systems, hinges and wire forming, and handle assemblies. Its Seating Systems segment provides seat structures, mechanism and hardware solutions, and foam and trim products. The company's Complete Vehicles segment offers vehicle manufacturing and engineering services. It also designs, engineers, and manufactures tooling products. Magna International Inc. was founded in 1957 and is headquartered in Aurora, Canada.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Occidental Petroleum: 1PointFive Inc., 1PointFive P1 LLC, APC Aviation Inc., APC International Holdings LLC, APC Midstream Holdings LLC, APC Venezuela Srl, ARCO Long Beach, Altura Energy, Amarok Gathering LLC, Anadarko 20-25 Company, Anadarko 20-36 Company, Anadarko 20-47 Company, Anadarko 20-48 Company, Anadarko 20-49 Company, Anadarko Algeria Block 403 c/e Company, Anadarko Algeria Block 406B Company, Anadarko Algeria Company LLC, Anadarko Algeria Oil & Gas Company, Anadarko Brazil Investment I LLC, Anadarko Brazil Investment II LLC, Anadarko Canada E&P Limited, Anadarko China Holdings 2 Company, Anadarko Colombia Company, Anadarko Consolidated Holdings LLC, Anadarko Cote d'Ivoire Block 103 Company, Anadarko Cote d'Ivoire Company, Anadarko DBMOS Operator LLC, Anadarko Development Company, Anadarko Development Holding Limited, Anadarko E&P Onshore LLC, Anadarko Egypt Holdings Company, Anadarko Energy Holding Limited, Anadarko Energy Services Company, Anadarko Exploracao e Producao de Petroleo e Gas Natural Ltda., Anadarko Finance Company, Anadarko Gabon Company, Anadarko Ghana Mahogany-1 Company, Anadarko Global Energy S.a.r.l, Anadarko Global Funding 1 Company, Anadarko Global Funding II Ltd., Anadarko Guyana Company, Anadarko Holding Company, Anadarko International Development S.a.r.l, Anadarko International Energy Company, Anadarko International O&G Company, Anadarko International Trading Corporation, Anadarko Jordan Company, Anadarko Kenya Company, Anadarko LMM S.a.r.l, Anadarko Land Corp., Anadarko Mexico B.V., Anadarko Mexico S.a.r.l, Anadarko Midkiff/Chaney Dell BR Corp., Anadarko Midkiff/Chaney Dell LLC, Anadarko Natural Gas Company LLC, Anadarko New Zealand Company, Anadarko OGC Company, Anadarko Offshore Holding Company LLC, Anadarko Offshore Well Containment Company LLC, Anadarko Oil & Gas 5 LLC, Anadarko Peru B.V., Anadarko Petroleum, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, Anadarko Realty LLC, Anadarko Rockies LLC, Anadarko Royalty Holdings Company, Anadarko UK Corporate Limited, Anadarko US Offshore LLC, Anadarko USH1 Corporation, Anadarko Venezuela Company, Anadarko Venezuela LLC, Anadarko Venezuela Srl, Anadarko WCTP Company, Anadarko West Texas BR Corp., Anadarko West Texas LLC, Anadarko Worldwide Holdings C.V., Atlantic Rim Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Aventine LLC, Baseball Merger Sub 2 Inc., Bear Branch Exploration LLC, Big Island Trona Company, Bitter Creek Coal Company, Bravo Pipeline Company, Cain Chemical, Cain Chemical Inc., Carbon Finance Labs LLC, Concord Petroleum Corporation, Conn Creek Shale Company, D.S. Ventures LLC, DMM Financial LLC, Deerwood Exploration LLC, Downtown Plaza II, Elk Hills Field, FLAG Development LLC, FP Westport Commodities Limited, FP Westport GmbH, FP Westport LLC, FP Westport Limited, FP Westport Services LLC, FP Westport Trading LLC, Fosters Mill Exploration LLC, Glenn Springs Holdings Inc., Globrep Representaciones S.A., Grand Bassa Tankers Inc., Grupo OxyChem de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Headwater II LLC, Houndstooth Resources LLC, INDSPEC Chemical B.V., INDSPEC Chemical Corporation, INDSPEC Chemical Corporation, INDSPEC Chemical Export Sales LLC, INDSPEC Holding Corporation, Ingleside Cogeneration GP LLC, Ingleside Cogeneration Limited Partnership, Interore Trading Ltd., Joslyn Partnership, KERR-McGEE TT E&P LTD., KM BM-C-Seven Ltd., KM International Insurance Ltd., Kerr-McGee Corporation, Kerr-McGee Natural Gas Company Inc., Kerr-McGee Oil & Gas Onshore LP, Kerr-McGee Shared Services Company LLC, Kerr-McGee Stored Power Corporation, Kerr-McGee U.K. Energy Corporation, Kerr-McGee Worldwide Corporation, Kerr-McGee do Brasil Ltda., Kerr-McGee of Canada Northwest Ltd., Laguna Petroleum Corp., Laguna Petroleum LLC, Liwa Oil & Gas Ltd., MC2 Technologies LLC, Mariana Properties Inc., Marico Exploration Inc., Miller Springs Remediation Management Inc., Moncrief Minerals Partnership L.P., NGL Ventures LLC, Natural Gas Odorizing Inc., New OPL LLC, OEVC Energy LLC, OEVC Midstream Projects LLC, OIH LLC, OLCV CE Holdings ULC, OLCV CE US Holdings Inc., OLCV Net Power LLC, OLCV Services LLC, OOG Partner LLC, OOOI Chem Holdings LLC, OOOI Chem Sub LLC, OOOI Chemical International LLC, OOOI Chile Holder LLC, OOOI Ecuador Management LLC, OOOI Oil and Gas Sub LLC, OOOI South America Management LLC, OPM GP Inc., OPM Holdco LLC, OTCF LLC, OTH LLC, OXY CV Pipeline LLC, OXY Campus LLC, OXY Inc., OXY LPG LLC, OXY Libya E&P Area 103 BR4 B.V., OXY Libya E&P Area 35 Ltd., OXY Libya E&P Concession 103 Ltd., OXY Libya E&P EPSA 102 B.V., OXY Libya E&P EPSA 1981 Ltd., OXY Libya E&P EPSA 1985 Ltd., OXY Libya E&P NC 143 144 145 150 B.V., OXY Libya Exploration SPC, OXY Libya LLC, OXY Little Knife LLC, OXY Mexico Holdings I LLC, OXY Mexico Holdings II LLC, OXY Middle East Holdings Ltd., OXY Oil Partners Inc., OXY PBLP Manager LLC, OXY Support Services LLC, OXY Tulsa Inc., OXY USA Inc., OXY USA WTP LP, OXY VPP Investments LLC, OXY West LLC, OXY of Saudi Arabia Ltd., OXYCHEM (CANADA) INC., OXYMAR, Oakwood Exploration LLC, Occidental (Bermuda) Ltd., Occidental (East Shabwa) LLC, Occidental Advance Sale Finance Inc., Occidental Al Hosn LLC, Occidental Angola Holdings Ltd., Occidental CIS Services Inc., Occidental Canada Holdings Ltd., Occidental Chemical Asia Limited, Occidental Chemical Belgium B.V.B.A., Occidental Chemical Chile Limitada, Occidental Chemical Corporation, Occidental Chemical Export Sales LLC, Occidental Chemical Far East Limited, Occidental Chemical Holding Corporation, Occidental Chemical International LLC, Occidental Chemical Investment (Canada) 1 Inc., Occidental Chemical Receivables LLC, Occidental Chemical de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Occidental Chile Investments LLC, Occidental Chile Minority Holder LLC, Occidental Colombia (Series G) Ltd., Occidental Colombia (Series J) Ltd., Occidental Colombia (Series K) Ltd., Occidental Colombia (Series L) Ltd., Occidental Colombia (Series M) Ltd., Occidental Colombia (Series N) Ltd., Occidental Colombia (Series O) Ltd., Occidental Crude Sales Inc. (Canada), Occidental Crude Sales Inc. (International), Occidental Dolphin Holdings Ltd., Occidental Energy Marketing Inc., Occidental Energy Ventures LLC, Occidental Exploradora del Peru Ltd., Occidental Exploration and Production Company, Occidental Hafar LLC, Occidental International (Libya) Inc., Occidental International Corporation, Occidental International Exploration and Production Company, Occidental International Holdings Ltd., Occidental International Oil and Gas Ltd., Occidental International Services Inc., Occidental Joslyn GP 2 Co., Occidental LNG (Malaysia) Ltd., Occidental Latin America Holdings LLC, Occidental Libya Oil & Gas B.V., Occidental MENA Manager Ltd., Occidental Middle East Development Company, Occidental Midland Basin LLC, Occidental Mukhaizna LLC, Occidental Oil Asia Pte. Ltd., Occidental Oil Shale Inc., Occidental Oil and Gas (Oman) Ltd., Occidental Oil and Gas Corporation, Occidental Oil and Gas International Inc., Occidental Oil and Gas International LLC, Occidental Oil and Gas Pakistan LLC, Occidental Oil and Gas of Peru LLC, Occidental Oman (Block 27) Holdings Ltd., Occidental Oman Block 51 Holding Ltd., Occidental Oman Block 51 LLC, Occidental Oman Block 65 Holding Ltd., Occidental Oman Block 65 LLC, Occidental Oman Block 72 Holding Ltd., Occidental Oman Block 72 LLC, Occidental Oman Gas Company LLC, Occidental Oman Gas Holdings Ltd., Occidental Oman North Holdings Ltd., Occidental Oriente Exploration and Production Ltd., Occidental Overseas Holdings B.V., Occidental PVC LLC, Occidental Peninsula II Inc., Occidental Peninsula LLC, Occidental Permian Ltd., Occidental Permian Manager LLC, Occidental Permian Services Inc., Occidental Peruana Inc., Occidental Petrolera del Peru (Block 101) Inc., Occidental Petrolera del Peru (Block 103) Inc., Occidental Petroleum (Pakistan) Inc., Occidental Petroleum Corporation, Occidental Petroleum Corporation Political Action Committee, Occidental Petroleum de Venezuela S.A., Occidental Petroleum of Nigeria, Occidental Petroleum of Oman Ltd., Occidental Petroleum of Qatar Ltd., Occidental Power Marketing L.P., Occidental Power Services Inc., Occidental Qatar Energy Company LLC, Occidental Red Sea Development LLC, Occidental Research Corporation, Occidental Resource Recovery Systems Inc., Occidental Resources Company, Occidental Shah Gas Holdings Ltd., Occidental South America Finance LLC, Occidental Specialty Marketing Inc., Occidental Tower Corporation, Occidental Transportation Holding Corporation, Occidental West Texas Overthrust Inc., Occidental Yemen Ltd., Occidental Yemen Sabatain Inc., Occidental del Ecuador Inc., Occidental of Abu Dhabi (Bab) Ltd., Occidental of Abu Dhabi (Shah) Ltd., Occidental of Abu Dhabi Holdings Ltd., Occidental of Abu Dhabi LLC, Occidental of Abu Dhabi Ltd., Occidental of Bahrain Ltd., Occidental of Bangladesh Inc., Occidental of Colombia (Chipiron) Inc., Occidental of Colombia (Cosecha) Inc., Occidental of Colombia (Medina) Inc., Occidental of Colombia (Putumayo) Ltd., Occidental of Colombia (Teca) Ltd., Occidental of Colombia PUT-36 LLC, Occidental of Dubai Inc., Occidental of Iraq Holdings Ltd., Occidental of Iraq LLC, Occidental of Oman Inc., Occidental of Russia Ltd., Occidental of South Africa (Offshore) Inc., Occidental of Yemen (Block 75) LLC, Oceanic Marine Transport Ltd., Opcal Insurance Inc., Oryx Crude Trading & Transportation Inc., Oxy BridgeTex Limited Partnership, Oxy C & I Bulk Sales LLC, Oxy Canada Sales Inc., Oxy Carbon Solutions LLC, Oxy Carbon Storage LLC, Oxy Climate Ventures Inc., Oxy Cogeneration Holding Company LLC, Oxy Colombia Holdings LLC, Oxy Colombia TopCo Ltd., Oxy Delaware Basin LLC, Oxy Delaware Basin Plant LLC, Oxy Dolphin E&P LLC, Oxy Dolphin Pipeline LLC, Oxy Energy Canada Inc., Oxy Energy Services LLC, Oxy Expatriate Services Inc., Oxy FFT Holdings Inc., Oxy Holding Company (Pipeline) Inc., Oxy International Ventures Ltd., Oxy LPG Terminal LLC, Oxy Levelland Pipeline Company LLC, Oxy Levelland Terminal Company LLC, Oxy Low Carbon Ventures LLC, Oxy Midstream Strategic Development LLC, Oxy Oleoducto SOP LLC, Oxy Overseas Services Ltd., Oxy Permian Gathering LLC, Oxy Permian Plaza LLC, Oxy Petroleum de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Oxy Renewable Energy LLC, Oxy Salt Creek Pipeline LLC, Oxy TL LLC, Oxy Taft Hub LLC, Oxy Technology Ventures Inc., Oxy Transport I Company LLC, Oxy Vinyls Canada Co., Oxy Vinyls Export Sales LLC, Oxy Vinyls LP, Oxy Westwood Corporation, Oxy Y-1 Company, OxyChem Ingleside Ethylene Holdings Inc., OxyChem do Brasil Ltda., OxyChile Investments LLC, Oxychem Shipping Ltd., Permian Basin JV Tax Matters Member LLC, Permian Basin Limited Partnership, Permian VPP Holder LP, Permian VPP Manager LLC, Phibro, Placid Oil LLC, Ramlat Oxy Ltd., Rio de Viento Inc., Rodeo Midland Basin LLC, San Patricio Pipeline LLC, Scanports Shipping LLC, SequestCo LLC, Stetson Exploration LLC, Sun Offshore Gathering Company, Swiflite Aircraft Corporation, Transok Properties LLC, Troy Potter Inc., Turavent Oil GmbH [in liquidation], Tuscaloosa Holdings Inc., UP Petroleo III Ltd., Upland Industries Corporation, Venezuela US SRL, Vintage Gas Inc., Vintage Petroleum, Vintage Petroleum Argentina Ltd., Vintage Petroleum Boliviana Ltd., Vintage Petroleum International Finance B.V., Vintage Petroleum International Holdings LLC, Vintage Petroleum International LLC, Vintage Petroleum International Ventures Inc., Vintage Petroleum Italy Inc., Vintage Petroleum South America Holdings Inc., Vintage Petroleum South America LLC, Vintage Petroleum Turkey Inc., WGR Asset Holding Company LLC, WGR Canada Inc., Wardner Ranch Inc., Western Gas Resources Inc., Western Gas Resources-Westana Inc., Western Midstream Holdings LLC, Woodlands International Insurance Ltd., and YT Ranch LLC.
On the Beach Group plc operates as an online retailer of short-haul beach holidays under the On the Beach brand name. It operates through four segments: OTB, International, Classic, and CPH. The company provides its services through onthebeach.co.uk, sunshine.co.uk, and onthebeachtransfers.co.uk websites in the United Kingdom. It also provides its services through eBeach.se website in Sweden and eBeach.dk website in Denmark, as well as through eBeach.no website in Norwegian; and operates online business to business portals, such as classiccollection.co.uk and classic-package.co.uk. In addition, the company offers transport brokerage and property management services. On the Beach Group plc was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Manchester, the United Kingdom.

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Papillon Resources Limited (Papillon) is engaged in the exploration and development of resource projects located in Mali. The Company has joint venture interests in a portfolio of gold tenements (granted licences and applications) in western and southern Mali. The Company's primary focus continued to be the advancement of the Fekola Project (Fekola or Project) located in south western Mali adjacent to the border with Senegal. Papillon completed its pre-feasibility study (PFS) for the project. The Company's subsidiaries include Mali Goldfields SARL, Songhoi Resources SARL, Bamagold SARL, Waraba Resources SARL, PIR Mali SARL, Papillon Exploration (AUS), Papillon Mining (AUS), Papillon Exploration (UK) and Papillon Mining (UK).

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The following companies are subsidiares of American Tower: 10 Presidential Way Associates LLC, 3267351 Nova Scotia Company, 3286208 Nova Scotia Company, 3298099 Nova Scotia Company, 52 Eighty LLC, 52 Eighty Partners LLC, 52 Eighty Tower Partners I LLC, ACC Tower Sub LLC, AT Kenya C.V., AT Netherlands C.V., AT Netherlands Cooperatief U.A., AT Sao Paulo C.V., AT Sher Netherlands Cooperatief U.A., AT South America C.V., ATC Africa Holding B.V., ATC Africa Shared Services (Pty) Ltd, ATC Antennas Holding LLC, ATC Antennas LLC, ATC Argentina C.V., ATC Argentina Cooperatief U.A., ATC Argentina Holding LLC, ATC Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., ATC Atlantic C.V., ATC Atlantic II B.V., ATC Atlantic III B.V., ATC Backhaul LLC, ATC Brasil  Servicos de Conectividades Ltda., ATC Brazil Holding LLC, ATC Brazil I LLC, ATC Brazil II LLC, ATC Burkina Faso S.A., ATC CSR Foundation India, ATC Chile Holding LLC, ATC Colombia B.V., ATC Colombia Holding I LLC, ATC Colombia Holding LLC, ATC Colombia I LLC, ATC EH GmbH & Co. KG, ATC Ecuador Holding LLC, ATC Edge LLC, ATC Ethiopia Infrastructure Development Private Limited Company, ATC Europe B.V., ATC Europe LLC, ATC European Holdings Inc., ATC Fibra de Colombia S.A.S., ATC France Cooperatief U.A., ATC France Holding II SAS, ATC France Holding SAS, ATC France Reseaux SAS, ATC France SAS, ATC France Services SAS, ATC GP GmbH, ATC Germany Holdings GmbH, ATC Germany Services GmbH, ATC Ghana ServiceCo Limited, ATC Global Employment B.V., ATC Heston B.V., ATC Holding Fibra Mexico S. de R.L. DE C.V., ATC IP LLC, ATC India Infrastructure Private Limited, ATC Indoor DAS Holding LLC, ATC Indoor DAS LLC, ATC International Cooperatief U.A., ATC International Financing B.V., ATC International Financing II B.V., ATC International Financing II Holding LLC, ATC International Holding Corp., ATC Iris I LLC, ATC Kenya Operations Limited, ATC Kenya Services Limited, ATC Latin America S.A. de C.V. SOFOM E.N.R., ATC MIP III REIT Iron Holdings LLC, ATC Managed Sites Holding LLC, ATC Managed Sites LLC, ATC MexHold LLC, ATC Mexico Holding LLC, ATC Niger Wireless Infrastructure S.A., ATC Nigeria C.V., ATC Nigeria Cooperatief U.A., ATC Nigeria Holding LLC, ATC Nigeria Wireless Infrastructure Limited, ATC On Air + LLC, ATC Operations LLC, ATC Outdoor DAS LLC, ATC Paraguay Holding LLC, ATC Paraguay S.R.L., ATC Peru Holding LLC, ATC Polska sp. z o.o., ATC Ponderosa B-I LLC, ATC Ponderosa B-II LLC, ATC Ponderosa K LLC, ATC Ponderosa K-R LLC, ATC Sequoia LLC, ATC Sitios Infraco S.A.S., ATC Sitios de Chile S.A., ATC Sitios de Colombia S.A.S., ATC Sitios del Peru S.R.L., ATC South Africa Investment Holdings (Proprietary) Limited, ATC South Africa Services Pty Ltd, ATC South Africa Wireless Infrastructure (Pty) Ltd, ATC South Africa Wireless Infrastructure II (Pty) Ltd, ATC South America Holding LLC, ATC South LLC, ATC Spain LLC, ATC TRS I LLC, ATC TRS II LLC, ATC TRS III LLC, ATC TRS IV LLC, ATC Tanzania Holding LLC, ATC Telecom Infrastructure Private Limited, ATC Tower (Ghana) Limited, ATC Tower Services LLC, ATC Uganda Limited, ATC Uganda ServiceCo (SMC) Limited, ATC Watertown LLC, ATC WiFi LLC, ATS-Needham LLC, ActiveX Telebroadband Services Private Limited, Adquisiciones y Proyectos Inalambricos S. de R. L. de C.V., Agile Airband Ohio LLC, Agile Connect LLC, Agile IWG Holdings LLC, Agile Network Builders LLC, Agile Networks Indiana LLC, Agile Networks Site Development LLC, Agile Towers LLC, Alternative Networking LLC, American Tower Asset Sub II LLC, American Tower Asset Sub LLC, American Tower Charitable Foundation Inc., American Tower Delaware Corporation, American Tower Depositor Sub LLC, American Tower Guarantor Sub LLC, American Tower Holding Sub II LLC, American Tower Holding Sub LLC, American Tower International Holding I LLC, American Tower International Holding II LLC, American Tower International Inc., American Tower Investments LLC, American Tower LLC, American Tower Management LLC, American Tower Mauritius, American Tower Servicios Fibra S. de R.L. de C.V., American Tower Tanzania Operations Limited, American Tower do Brasil - Cessao de Infraestruturas Ltda., American Tower do Brasil  Communicacao Multimidia Ltda., American Towers LLC, BR Towers, Blue Sky Towers Pty Ltd, Blue Transfer Sociedad Anonima, Broadcast Towers LLC, CNC2 Associates LLC, California Tower Inc., Cell Site NewCo II LLC, Cell Tower Lease Acquisition LLC, Central States Tower Holdings LLC, Colo ATL LLC, Colo Atl, Communications Properties Inc., Comunicaciones y Consumos S.A., Connectivity Infrastructure Services Limited, DCS Tower Sub LLC, Eaton, Eaton Towers (Lilongwe) Limited, Eaton Towers Ghana (M) Limited, Eaton Towers Ghana Limited, Eaton Towers Holdings Limited, Eaton Towers Kenya Limited, Eaton Towers Limited, Eaton Towers Niger S.A., Eaton Towers Uganda Limited, Essar Telecom Infrastructure, Eure-et-Loir Reseaux Mobiles SAS, GTP Acquisition Partners I LLC, GTP Acquisition Partners II LLC, GTP Acquisition Partners III LLC, GTP Costa Rica Finance LLC, GTP Infrastructure I LLC, GTP Infrastructure II LLC, GTP Infrastructure III LLC, GTP Investments LLC, GTP LATAM Holdings B.V., GTP LatAm Holdings Cooperatieve U.A., GTP Operations CR S.R.L., GTP South Acquisitions II LLC, GTP Structures I LLC, GTP Structures II LLC, GTP TRS I LLC, GTP Torres CR S.R.L., GTP Towers I LLC, GTP Towers II LLC, GTP Towers III LLC, GTP Towers IV LLC, GTP Towers IX LLC, GTP Towers V LLC, GTP Towers VII LLC, GTP Towers VIII LLC, GTPI HoldCo LLC, Ghana Tower InterCo B.V., Global Tower Assets III LLC, Global Tower Assets LLC, Global Tower Holdings LLC, Global Tower LLC, Global Tower Partners, Global Tower Services LLC, Gondola Tower Holdings LLC, Grain HoldCo LLC, Grain HoldCo Parent LLC, GrainComm I LLC, GrainComm II LLC, GrainComm III LLC, GrainComm LLC, GrainComm Marketing LLC, GrainComm V LLC, Haysville Towers LLC, IW Equipment LLC, IWD Equipment LLC, IWG Holdings LLC, IWG II Holdings LLC, IWG II LLC, IWG Miami LLC, IWG Towers Assets I LLC, IWG Towers Assets II LLC, IWG-TLA Australia Pty Ltd., IWG-TLA Canada Corp., IWG-TLA Encanto 1 LLC, IWG-TLA Encanto 2 LLC, IWG-TLA Encanto 3 LLC, IWG-TLA Encanto LLC, IWG-TLA Holdings LLC, IWG-TLA Media 2 LLC, IWG-TLA Media LLC, IWG-TLA Telecom LLC, IWL-TLA Telecom 2 LLC, Idaho Tower Company LLC, InSite (BCEC) LLC, InSite (MBTA) LLC, InSite Borrower LLC, InSite Co-Issuer Corp., InSite Guarantor LLC, InSite Hawaii LLC, InSite Issuer LLC, InSite Licensing LLC, InSite Towers Development 2 LLC, InSite Towers Development LLC, InSite Towers International 2 LLC, InSite Towers International Development LLC, InSite Towers International LLC, InSite Towers LLC, InSite Towers of Puerto Rico LLC, InSite Wireless Development LLC, InSite Wireless Group, InSite Wireless Group LLC, Insite Wireless LLC, Invisible IWG Holdings LLC, Invisible Towers LLC, JT Communications LLC, LAP Inmobiliaria Limitada, LAP Inmobiliaria S.R.L., LL B Sheet 1 LLC, Lap do Brasil Empreendimentos Imobiliarios Ltda, Lease Advisors-AU PTY LTD, Loxel SAS, MATC Digital S. de R.L. de C.V., MATC Infraestructura S. de R.L. de C.V., MATC Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., MC New Macland Properties LLC, MCSU Properties LLC, MHB Tower Rentals of America LLC, MIP III Iron Holdings LLC, MIP III U.S. Iron LLC, Microwave Inc., Municipal Bay LLC, Municipal-Bay Holdings LLC, New Towers LLC, PCS Structures Towers LLC, R-CAL I LLC, RSA Media Inc., Repeater Communications Group I LLC, Repeater Communications Group II LLC, Repeater Communications Group III LLC, Repeater Communications Group IV LLC, Repeater Communications Group LLC, Repeater Communications Group V LLC, Repeater Communications Group VI LLC, Repeater Communications Group of New York LLC, Repeater IWG Holdings LLC, Richland Towers LLC, Signum/IWG Tower Corp., Southeast Network Access Point LLC, SpectraSite Communications, SpectraSite Communications LLC, SpectraSite LLC, T8 Ulysses Site Management LLC, TLA PR-1 LLC, TLA PR-2 LLC, Telecom Lease Advisors Management 2 LLC, Tower Management Inc., Towers of America L.L.L.P., Transcend Infrastructure Holdings Pte. Ltd., Transcend Towers Infrastructure (Philippines) Inc., Turris Sites Development Corp., Turris Sites IWG Corp, Tysons II DAS LLC, UNIsite, Uganda Tower Interco B.V., Ulysses Asset Sub I LLC, Ulysses Asset Sub II LLC, UniSite LLC, UniSite/Omnipoint FL Tower Venture LLC, UniSite/Omnipoint NE Tower Venture LLC, UniSite/Omnipoint PA Tower Venture LLC, Vangard Wireless LLC, Verus Management One LLC, Viom Networks, and Virdi IWG Holdings LLC.
Schaeffler AG, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells precision components and systems for automotive and industrial applications in Europe, the Americas, China, and the Asia Pacific. The company's Automotive OEM division offers engine systems, including rolling bearing solutions, belt and chain drive products, valve train components, and systems for variable valve trains; and transmission systems, such as torsion and vibration dampers, clutches and double clutch systems, torque converters, CVT components, lightweight differentials, bearing solutions, and synchronizing and gearshift components. This division also provides chassis systems comprising wheel bearings, bearing solutions, steering components, electromechanical actuators for roll stabilizers, and power-assisted steering systems; and hybrid and electrical drive systems that include hybrid modules, electrical axle drives, and electrical wheel hub drives. Its Automotive Aftermarket division offers repair solutions for passenger cars, light commercial vehicles, heavy commercial vehicles, and tractors, as well as supporting services. The company's Industrial division provides components and systems. This division serves customers in the mobility, energy and raw materials, production machinery, aerospace, and industrial distribution. It has a strategic partnership with Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft. The company was formerly known as INA Beteiligungsgesellschaft mit beschrAnkter Haftung and changed its name to Schaeffler AG in October 2014. The company was founded in 1946 and is headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Germany. Schaeffler AG is a subsidiary of IHO Verwaltungs GmbH.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Anthem: 1-800 Contacts, AIM Specialty Health, AMERIGROUP Community Care of New Mexico Inc., AMERIGROUP Corporation, AMERIGROUP Maryland Inc., AMERIGROUP New Jersey Inc., AMERIGROUP Ohio Inc., AMERIGROUP Tennessee Inc., AMERIGROUP Texas Inc., AMERIGROUP Washington Inc., AMGP Georgia Managed Care Company Inc., ATH Holding Company LLC, America's 1st Choice of South Carolina Inc., America's Health Management Services Inc., American Imaging Management Inc., Americas 1st Choice, Amerigroup, Amerigroup Delaware Inc., Amerigroup District of Columbia Inc., Amerigroup Health Plan of Louisiana Inc., Amerigroup IPA of New York LLC, Amerigroup Insurance Company, Amerigroup Iowa Inc., Amerigroup Kansas Inc., Amerigroup Mississippi Inc., Amerigroup Oklahoma Inc., Amerigroup Partnership Plan LLC, Amerigroup Pennsylvania Inc., Anthem Blue Cross Life and Health Insurance Company, Anthem Financial Inc., Anthem Health Plans Inc., Anthem Health Plans of Kentucky Inc., Anthem Health Plans of Maine Inc., Anthem Health Plans of New Hampshire Inc., Anthem Health Plans of Virginia Inc., Anthem Holding Corp., Anthem Innovation Israel Ltd., Anthem Insurance Companies Inc., Anthem Kentucky Managed Care Plan Inc., Anthem Life & Disability Insurance Company, Anthem Life Insurance Company, Anthem Partnership Holding Company LLC, Anthem Services Company LLC, Anthem Southeast Inc., Anthem UM Services Inc., Anthem Workers' Compensation LLC, Applied Pathways LLC, Arcus Enterprises Inc., Aspire Health Inc., Aspire Healthcare Corp, Associated Group Inc., Beacon Health Options, Blue Cross Blue Shield Healthcare Plan of Georgia Inc., Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wisconsin, Blue Cross of California, Blue Cross of California Partnership Plan Inc., CareMarket Inc., CareMore Health Plan, CareMore Health Plan of Arizona Inc., CareMore Health Plan of Nevada, CareMore Health Plan of Texas Inc., CareMore Health System, CareMore LLC, Cerulean Companies Inc., Claim Management Services Inc., Community Care Health Plan of Louisiana Inc., Community Care Health Plan of Nevada Inc., Community Insurance Company, Compcare Health Services Insurance Corporation, Crossroads Acquisition Corp., DBG Holdings Inc., DeCare Analytics LLC, DeCare Dental Health International LLC, DeCare Dental Insurance Ireland Ltd., DeCare Dental LLC, DeCare Dental Networks LLC, DeCare Operations Ireland Limited, Delivery Network LLC, Designated Agent Company Inc., EHC Benefits Agency Inc., EasyScripts Cutler Bay LLC, EasyScripts Hialeah LLC, EasyScripts LLC, EasyScripts Westchester LLC, Empire HealthChoice Assurance Inc., Empire HealthChoice HMO Inc., Federal Government Solutions LLC, Freedom Health Inc., Global TPA LLC, Golden West Health Plan Inc., Greater Georgia Life Insurance Company, HEP AP Holdings Inc., HMO Colorado Inc., HMO Missouri Inc., Health Core Inc., Health Management Corporation, Health Ventures Partner L.L.C., HealthKeepers Inc., HealthLink HMO Inc., HealthLink Inc., HealthLink Insurance Company, HealthPlus HP LLC, HealthSun Health Plans, HealthSun Health Plans Inc., HealthSun Holdings LLC, HealthSun Management LLC, HealthSun Physicians Network I LLC, HealthSun Physicians Network LLC, Healthy Alliance Life Insurance Company, Highland Acquisition Holdings LLC, Highland Holdco Inc., Highland Intermediate Holdings LLC, Highland Investor Holdings LLC, Imaging Management Holdings LLC, IngenioRx Inc., Legato Health Technologies LLP, Legato Health Technologies Philippines Inc., Legato Holdings I Inc., Legato Holdings II LLC, Living Complete Technologies Inc., Matthew Thornton Health Plan Inc., Memphis Supportive Care Partnership LLC, Meridian Resource Company LLC, Missouri Care Incorporated, NGS Federal LLC, Nash Holding Company LLC, National Government Services Inc., New England Research Institutes Inc., Optimum Healthcare Inc., Park Square Holdings Inc., Park Square I Inc., Park Square II Inc., Pasteur Medical Bird Road LLC, Pasteur Medical Center LLC, Pasteur Medical Cutler Bay LLC, Pasteur Medical Group LLC, Pasteur Medical Hialeah Gardens LLC, Pasteur Medical Holdings LLC, Pasteur Medical Kendall LLC, Pasteur Medical Management LLC, Pasteur Medical Miami Gardens LLC, Pasteur Medical North Miami Beach LLC, Pasteur Medical Partners LLC, Resolution Health Inc, Resolution Health Inc., RightCHOICE Managed Care Inc., Rocky Mountain Hospital and Medical Service Inc., SellCore Inc., Simply Healthcare Holdings, Simply Healthcare Plans Inc., Southeast Services Inc., State Sponsored DM Services Inc., The Anthem Companies Inc., The Anthem Companies of California Inc., TrustSolutions LLC, UNICARE Health Plan of West Virginia Inc., UNICARE Illinois Services Inc., UNICARE National Services Inc., UniCare Life & Health Insurance Company, UniCare Specialty Services Inc., Valus Inc., WPMI LLC, WellCare of Nebraska Inc., WellPoint Acquisition LLC, WellPoint California Services Inc., WellPoint Dental Services Inc., WellPoint Health Solutions Inc., WellPoint Holding Corp., WellPoint Information Technology Services Inc., WellPoint Insurance Services Inc., WellPoint Military Care Corporation, Wellmax Health Medical Centers LLC, Wellmax Health Physicians Network LLC, and Wisconsin Collaborative Insurance Company.
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SunTrust Banks, Inc. operates as the holding company for SunTrust Bank that provides various financial services for consumers, businesses, corporations, institutions, and not-for-profit entities in the United States. It operates in two segments, Consumer and Wholesale. The Consumer segment provides deposits and payments; home equity and personal credit lines; auto, student, and other lending products; credit cards; discount/online and full-service brokerage products; professional investment advisory products and services; and trust services, as well as family office solutions. This segment also offers residential mortgage products in the secondary market. The Wholesale segment provides capital markets solutions, including advisory, capital raising, and financial risk management; asset-based financing solutions, such as securitizations, asset-based lending, equipment financing, and structured real estate arrangements; cash management services and auto dealer financing solutions; investment banking solutions; and credit and deposit, fee-based product offering, multi-family agency lending, advisory, commercial mortgage brokerage, and tailored financing and equity investment solutions. This segment also offers treasury and payment solutions, such as operating various electronic and paper payment types, which comprise card, wire transfer, automated clearing house, check, and cash; and provides services clients to manage their accounts online. The company offers its products and services through a network of traditional and in-store branches, automated teller machines, Internet, mobile, and telephone banking channels. As of December 31, 2018, it operated 1,218 full-service banking offices located in Florida, Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Maryland, South Carolina, and the District of Columbia. SunTrust Banks, Inc. was founded in 1891 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

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Varian Medical Systems, Inc. designs, manufactures, sells, and services medical devices and software products for treating cancer and other medical conditions worldwide. It operates through Oncology Systems and Proton Solutions segments. The Oncology Systems segment offers hardware and software products for treating cancer with radiotherapy, fixed field intensity-modulated radiation therapy, image-guided radiation therapy, volumetric modulated arc therapy, stereotactic radiosurgery, stereotactic body radiotherapy, artificial intelligence based adaptive radiotherapy, and brachytherapy, as well as quality assurance equipment. Its products include linear accelerators, brachytherapy afterloaders, treatment accessories, and quality assurance software; and information management, treatment planning, image processing, clinical knowledge exchange, patient care management, decision-making support, and practice management software. This segment serves university research and community hospitals, private and governmental institutions, healthcare agencies, physicians' offices, medical oncology practices, radiotherapy centers, and cancer care clinics. The Proton Solutions segment designs, develops, manufactures, sells, and services products and systems for delivering proton therapy for the treatment of cancer. The company has a strategic agreement with McKesson Corp. to supply treatment delivery systems and planning, services, and radiotherapy information system solutions to its U.S. Oncology Network and Vantage Oncology affiliated sites of care; and a strategic partnership with Siemens AG to represent Siemens diagnostic imaging products to radiation oncology clinics in the United States and other select markets. Varian Medical Systems, Inc. was formerly known as Varian Associates, Inc. and changed its name to Varian Medical Systems, Inc. in April 1999. The company was founded in 1948 and is headquartered in Palo Alto, California.

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Wall Street analysts have given iShares S&P 100 ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares S&P 100 ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

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Travelport Worldwide Limited, together with its subsidiaries, operates a travel commerce platform that offers distribution, technology, payment, mobile, and other solutions for the travel and tourism industry in the United States, the United Kingdom, and internationally. It facilitates travel commerce by connecting travel providers, such as airlines, hotel chains, and car rental companies with online and offline travel buyers in a business-to-business travel platform. The company provides distribution and merchandising solutions for hotel, car rental, rail, cruise-line, and tour operators; Virtual Account Number payment solutions that automatically generate unique MasterCard numbers that are used to process payments; advertising solutions; and other platform services, such as subscription, processing, and business intelligence data services, as well as marketing-oriented analytical tools to travel agencies, travel providers, and other travel data users. It also offers critical IT solutions and other services to airlines, such as shopping, ticketing, departure control, business intelligence, and other solutions. Travelport Worldwide Limited was incorporated in 2006 and is headquartered in Langley, the United Kingdom.

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Big Brown Truck Pull for Special Olympics

Aug. 10, 2018

By Aug. 10, 2018

The Big Brown Truck Pull for Special Olympics returns to the Paducah Flood Wall on Saturday, Aug. 11.



This will be the third year for the event at the floodwall, after several years on the streets of downtown Paducah. More than 20 teams from local companies, organizations and schools are expected to participate, and teams can still sign up to compete at the event.



The pull features teams in five divisions, vying to see who can pull a loaded UPS 18-wheeler a distance of 12 feet in the fastest time.



On-site registration starts at 4 pm, followed by opening ceremonies at 6 pm and the first pull at approximately 6:30 pm.



Teams are limited to 15 pullers and can be made up of friends, family members or coworkers. Many teams that participate in the Big Brown Truck Pull come from companies and other community organizations, but they could just as easily be any 15 friends or neighbors. Pullers raise a minimum of $750 per team to compete.



Food vendors will be present, with proceeds from their sales being donated back to Special Olympics.



Prizes will be awarded for the fastest pull time in mens, womens and co-ed (minimum of six women) and two youth divisions (youth and pee wee), as well as to the team that shows the most team spirit and the team with the best team T-shirt. There will also be an award for the top fundraising Special Olympics athlete participant, top fundraising individual and top fundraising team. Youth and pee wee divisions will pull a UPS delivery truck.



All participants receive the official Big Brown Truck Pull T-shirt, but teams who raise more money can earn prizes including Special Olympics Kentucky can koozies, sun shades and blankets.



Proceeds from the event go to benefit Special Olympics athletes in McCracken Co and throughout the state. To register or donate to the event go to paducahtruckpull.com.



The 2017 Paducah Big Brown Truck Pull continued a successful run for the event, with 20 teams combining to raise more than $38,000.
Wall Street analysts have given iShares MSCI EAFE Growth ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares MSCI EAFE Growth ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Accenture: 2nd Road, 2nd Road Pty Ltd., ?What If!, ?What If! China Holdings Ltd, ?What If! Holdings Limited, ?What If! Innovation Singapore Holdings Pte, ?What If! Limited, ?What If! Shanghai Co. Ltd, ?What If! USA LLC, ACN Consulting Co Ltd, AD Dialeto Agencia de Publicidade SA, AD.Dialeto (Digital Agency acquired by Accenture), AGS Business and Technology Services Limited, ASM Research Inc., ASM Research LLC, ATAN, Accenture (Beijing) Mobile Technology Co Ltd, Accenture (Botswana) (Proprietary) Limited, Accenture (China) Co Ltd, Accenture (Shenzhen) Technology Co. Ltd., Accenture (South Africa) (Proprietary) Limited, Accenture (South Africa) Pty Limited, Accenture (UK) Ltd, Accenture 2 Business Process Services S.A., Accenture 2 LLC, Accenture A/S, Accenture AB, Accenture AG, Accenture AS, Accenture Africa Pty Ltd, Accenture Australia Holding B.V., Accenture Australia Holdings Pty Ltd, Accenture Australia Pty Ltd, Accenture Azerbaijan Ltd, Accenture BPM Operations Support Services S.A., Accenture BPM S.C.R.L., Accenture BV, Accenture Branch Holdings B.V., Accenture Bulgaria EOOD, Accenture Business Services for Utilities Inc, Accenture Business Services of British Columbia Limited Partnership, Accenture Business and Technology Services LLC, Accenture C.A, Accenture CAS GmbH, Accenture Canada Holdings Inc., Accenture Capital DAC, Accenture Capital Inc, Accenture Central Europe B.V., Accenture Chile Asesorias y Servicios Ltda, Accenture Cloud Services GmbH, Accenture Cloud Software Solutions Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions Australia Pty Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions LLC, Accenture Cloud Solutions Ltd, Accenture Cloud Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Co Ltd, Accenture Co Ltd., Accenture Communications Infrastructure Solutions Ltd, Accenture Company Ltd, Accenture Consulting Services Ltd Tanzania, Accenture Consultores de Gestao S.A., Accenture Consultoria de Industria e Consumo Ltda, Accenture Consultoria de Recursos Naturais Ltda, Accenture Credit Services LLC, Accenture Customer Services Distribution SAS, Accenture Customer Services Limited, Accenture Danismanlik Limited Sirketi, Accenture Defined Benefit Pension Plan Trustees Ltd, Accenture Defined Contribution Pension Plan Trustees Ltd, Accenture Delivery Poland sp. z o.o., Accenture Dienstleistungen GmbH, Accenture Digital France Holdings SA, Accenture Digital Holdings GmbH, Accenture East Africa Limited, Accenture Ecuador S.A., Accenture Egypt LLC, Accenture Enterprise Development (Shanghai) Co Ltd., Accenture Federal Services LLC, Accenture Finance (Gibraltar) III Ltd, Accenture Finance GmbH, Accenture Finance GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Finance II GmbH, Accenture Finance II GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Finance II Ltd, Accenture Finance Limited, Accenture Finance and Accounting BPO Services S.p.A., Accenture Finance and Accounting Services Srl, Accenture Flex LLC, Accenture GP LLC, Accenture Ghana Limited, Accenture Global Holdings Ltd., Accenture Global Services Ltd, Accenture Global Solutions Ltd, Accenture GmbH, Accenture HR Services Ltd, Accenture HR Services S.p.A., Accenture Healthcare Processing Inc., Accenture Holding GmbH, Accenture Holding GmbH & Co. KG, Accenture Holding GmbH in liquidation, Accenture Holdings (Iberia) S.L., Accenture Holdings B.V., Accenture Holdings France SAS, Accenture Holdings plc, Accenture Hungary Holdings Kft, Accenture Inc, Accenture Industrial Software Limited Liability Company (Accenture Endustriyel Yazylym Cozumleri Limited irketi), Accenture Industrial Software Limited Liability Company (Accenture Endustriyel Yazlm Cozumleri Limited Sirketi), Accenture Industrial Software Solutions Kft, Accenture Industrial Software Solutions SA, Accenture Insurance Services LLC, Accenture Insurance Services SAS, Accenture Insurance Services SpA, Accenture International BV, Accenture International Capital SCA, Accenture International LLC, Accenture International Limited, Accenture International Sarl, Accenture Japan Ltd, Accenture Korea BV, Accenture LLC, Accenture LLP, Accenture Lanka (Private) Ltd, Accenture Limited, Accenture Ltd, Accenture Ltda, Accenture Maghreb S.a.r.l., Accenture Managed Services SRL, Accenture Managed Services SpA, Accenture Management GmbH, Accenture Middle East B.V, Accenture Middle East BV, Accenture Minority I BV, Accenture Minority III Ltd, Accenture Mozambique Limitada, Accenture Mzansi (Pty) Ltd, Accenture NV/SA, Accenture NZ Limited, Accenture Newco LLC, Accenture Nova Scotia Unlimited Liability Co., Accenture OOO, Accenture Operations Sp. z o.o., Accenture Outsourcing SRL, Accenture Outsourcing Services, Accenture Outsourcing Services S.A., Accenture Oy, Accenture Panama Inc, Accenture Participations BV, Accenture Participations II Limited, Accenture Peru S.R.L, Accenture Peru S.R.L., Accenture Post Trade Processing SAS, Accenture Post-Trade Processing Limited, Accenture Process Ltd, Accenture Product Lifecycle Services, Accenture Properties, Accenture Pte Ltd, Accenture Puerto Rico LLC, Accenture S.A., Accenture S.C., Accenture S.L., Accenture S.R.L., Accenture SAS, Accenture SG Services Pte Ltd, Accenture SRL, Accenture Saudi Arabia Limited, Accenture Sendirian Berhad, Accenture Service Center SRL, Accenture Services (Mauritius) Ltd, Accenture Services AB, Accenture Services AG, Accenture Services AS, Accenture Services GmbH, Accenture Services Ltd, Accenture Services Morocco SA, Accenture Services Oy, Accenture Services Pty Ltd, Accenture Services S.r.l., Accenture Services SRL, Accenture Services Sp. z o.o., Accenture Services Sp. z.o.o., Accenture Services and Technology Srl, Accenture Services fur Kreditinstitute GmbH, Accenture Services s.r.o., Accenture Servicos Administrativos Ltda, Accenture Servicos de Suporte de Negocios Ltda, Accenture Solutions Co Ltd, Accenture Solutions Private Limited, Accenture Solutions Pte Ltd, Accenture Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Solutions Sdn Bhd, Accenture Sp. z o.o., Accenture Sp. z.o.o., Accenture SpA, Accenture State Healthcare Services LLC, Accenture Sub II Inc., Accenture Sub Inc, Accenture Sub LLC, Accenture Systems Integration Limited, Accenture Sarl, Accenture Tanacsado Kolatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Accenture Tanacsado Kolatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag KFT, Accenture Technologia, Accenture Technologia Consultoria e Outsourcing S.A., Accenture Technology Infrastructure Services Pty Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions (Dalian) Co Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions (HK) Co. Ltd., Accenture Technology Solutions (Thailand) Co. Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions - Solucoes Informaticas Integradas, Accenture Technology Solutions - Solucoes Informaticas Integradas S.A., Accenture Technology Solutions GmbH, Accenture Technology Solutions Oy, Accenture Technology Solutions Pty Ltd, Accenture Technology Solutions S.A. de C.V., Accenture Technology Solutions SAS, Accenture Technology Solutions SRL, Accenture Technology Solutions Sdn. Bhd., Accenture Technology Solutions Slovakia s.r.o., Accenture Technology Ventures BV, Accenture Technology Ventures S.P.R.L., Accenture Uruguay SRL, Accenture Vietnam Co., Accenture Vietnam Co. LTD, Accenture Zambia Limited, Accenture do Brasil Limitada, Accenture plc, Accenture s.r.o., Acceria, Acquity Customer Insight Limited, Acquity Group, Adaptly LLC, Adaptly UK Limited, AddVal Technology, Adqptly, Advantium Inc., Agave Consultants Limited, Agilex Technologies Inc., Allen International, Allen International Consulting Group Ltd, Alnova Technologies Corporation S.L., AlphaBeta Advisors, Altima, Altima Asia Ltd., Altima SAS, Altitude, Altitude LLC, Analytics 8 LP, Analytics 8 Pty Ltd, Analytics8, Aorui Advertising (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Apis, Appaloosa Technology SAS, Arca, Ariba - BPO, Arismore, Aspiro Solutions (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Avanade, Avanade (Guangzhou) Computer Technology Development Co. Ltd., Avanade (Thailand) Co Ltd, Avanade Asia Pte Ltd, Avanade Australia Pty Ltd, Avanade Belgium SPRL, Avanade Canada Inc., Avanade Denmark A/S, Avanade Denmark ApS, Avanade Deutschland GmbH, Avanade Europe Holdings Ltd, Avanade Europe Services Ltd, Avanade Federal Services LLC, Avanade Finland Oy, Avanade France SAS, Avanade GZ Computer Technology Development Co. Ltd. (SH), Avanade Guangzhou, Avanade Holdings LLC, Avanade Hong Kong Ltd, Avanade International Corporation, Avanade Ireland Limited, Avanade Italy SRL, Avanade KK, Avanade Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Avanade Netherlands BV, Avanade Norway AS, Avanade Poland Sp. z o.o., Avanade Poland Sp. z.o.o., Avanade Schweiz GmbH, Avanade South Africa, Avanade South Africa Pty Ltd, Avanade Spain SL, Avanade Sweden AB, Avanade UK Ltd, Avanade do Brasil Limitada, Avanade Osterreich GmbH, AvantBiz Consulting Limited, Avenai, Axia Ltd., BABCN LLC, BCT Solutions, BCT Solutions Pty Ltd, BPO Servicos Administrativos Ltda, BRIDGE Energy Group, Beacon Consulting Group Inc., Beijing Genesis Interactive Technology Co. Ltd., Benext, Bionic, Blue Horseshoe, Boomerang Pharmaceutical Communications, Boomerang Pharmaceuticals Communications Ireland Limited, Bow & Arrow, Brand Learning, Brand Learning Group Limited, Brand Learning LLC, Brand Learning Ltd, Brand Learning Partners Limited, Brand Learning Pte Limited, Bridge Energy Group LLC, Brightstep AB, Byte Prophecy, CAS, CRMWaypoint, CadenceQuest Inc., Capable Marketer Limited, Capgemini - North American health practice, Capital Consultancy Services Inc., Certus Solutions Consulting Services Ltd, Certus Solutions Ltd, ChangeTrack Research Pty Ltd., Chaotic Moon Studios, Chengdu Mensa Advertising Co. Ltd., Cimation, Cimation UK Limited, Cirruseo, Cirruseo SAS, Clarity Insights, Clearhead, Clearhead Group, Clearhead Group LLC, ClientHouse GmbH, Cloud Sherpas, Cloud Sherpas (GA) LLC, Cloud Sherpas (SN) (PTE.) Limited, Cloud Sherpas New Zealand Ltd., Cloud Talent Limited, Cloudsherpas, Cloudsherpas Inc., Cloudworks, Codagenic Pty. Ltd., Computer Research and Telecommunications LLC, Concrete Desenvolvimento de Sistemas Ltda., Concrete Solutions, Concrete Solutions Ltda., Context Information Security, Coritel S.A., Corliant Inc., CreativeDrive, CustomerWorks Europe SL, Cutting Edge Solutions Ltd, D5 Global Holdings LLC, DAZ Systems Inc, DAZ Systems LLC, DAZSI Systems (India) Pvt. Ltd., DMA Solutions Limited, Davies Consulting, DayNine Consulting, DayNine Consulting (Australia) PTY LTD, DayNine Consulting (Deutschland) GmbH, DayNine Consulting (New Zealand) Limited, DayNine Consulting France SAS, DayNine Consulting Japan K.K., DayNine Consulting LLC, Declarative Holdings, Declarative Holdings LLC, Defense Point Security, Deja vu Security, Design Strategy and Research de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Designaffairs LLC, Digiplug S.A.S., Digiplug SAS, Digital Consulting & Software Services LLC, Droga5, Droga5 LLC, Droga5 Studios LLC, Droga5 UK Ltd., Duck Creek Technologies, Duck Creek Technologies LLC, Deja Vu Security LLC, ESR Labs, Elcurator SAS, Enaxis Consulting, Enaxis Consulting L.P., End-to-End Analytics, Energuia Web, Energuia Web S.A., Energy Management Brokers Ltd., Energy Quote Private Ltd., EnergyQuote JHA, EnergyQuote JHA Ltd., EnergyQuote Trading Ltd., Enimbos, Enkitec, Enterprise System Partners, Enterprise System Partners B.V. , Enterprise System Partners Bilisim Danismanlik Ticaret Anonim Sirketi, Enterprise System Partners Global Corporation, Enterprise System Partners Limited, Enterprise System Partners PR LLC, Enterprise System Partners S.A.S., Entropia, Epylon, Ethica Consulting Group, Evopro Group, Exactside Limited, Exton Consulting, Fairway Technologies Inc, Fairway Technologies LLC, Filmproduction ApS, First Annapolis Consulting, First Annapolis Consulting Inc., First Annapolis Consulting LLC, First Annapolis International, Fjord, Focus Group Europe, Focus Group Europe Limited, Formicary, Formicary Holdings Limited, Formicary Limited, FusionX, FutureMove Automotive, Gapso Servicos de Informatica Ltda., Genfour, Genfour Limited, George Group Consulting L.P., Gestalt LLC, Gestion Altima Canada Inc., Gevity, Global Public Firm S.L., GlobalView SAS, GoodFilm GmbH Filmproduktion Stuttgart, H.B. Maynard and Co. Inc., HRC Retail Advisory, Hagberg Consulting Group, Hangzhou Aiyunzhe Technology Co. Ltd., Happen, Hjaltelin Stahl, Hjaltelin Stahl K/S, Hytracc Consulting AS, Hytracc Consulting Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Hytracc Consulting UK Limited, Hytracc Holding AS, I-Faber S.p.A., IBB Consulting, IMJ Corp, IMJ Corporation, INCAD, INSITUM, IT One Company Limited, ITBS Servicios Bancarios de Tecnologia de la Informacion SL, Icon Integration, Imagine Broadband (USA) Ltd, Imagine Broadband USA LLC, Imaginea Inc, Industrie&Co, Infoman AG, Infoman Schweiz AG, Informatica de Euskadi S.L., Infusion Development Inc., Infusion Development UK Limited, InfusionDev LLC, Innoveer Solutions India Pvt Ltd, Insitum Consultoria Argentina SRL, Insitum Consultoria Brasil LTDA, Insitum Consultoria Colombia SAS, Insitum Consultoria Europa SL, Insitum Consultoria Peru SAC, Insitum Consultoria S.A. de C.V., Intrepid, Intrigo Systems Inc, Intrigo Systems India Pvt. Limited, Intrigo Systems LLC, Inventor Advertisement (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Inventor Technology Limited, InvestTech, Investtech Systems Consulting LLC, Javelin Group, Javelin Group (Bulgaria) EOOD, Javelin Group Limited (UK), Javelin Group SASU, K Comms Group Limited, KCS.net AG, KCS.net AG West, KCS.net Deutschland GmbH, KCS.net Holding AG, KCS.net Osterreich GmbH, Kaper Communications Limited, Karma Communications Debtco Limited, Karma Communications Group Limited, Karma Communications Holdings Limited, Karmarama, Karmarama Comms Limited, Karmarama Limited, Knowledge Rules Inc., Knowledgent, Knowledgent Group LLC, Kogentix, Kogentix LLC, Kogentix Ltd, Kogentix Singapore Pte. Ltd, Kogentix Technologies Private Limited, Kolle Rebbe, Kolle Rebbe GmbH, Kream Comms Limited, Kunstmaan, Kunstmaan NV, Kurt Salmon, Kurt Salmon Canada LTD, Kurt Salmon UKI, Kurt Salmon UKI Ltd., Kurt Salmon US LLC, LEXTA, LINKBYNET, LabAnswer, LabAnswer Government, LemonXL Limited, Logistics Market Place Limited (UK), Loud & Clear Creative Pty Ltd, MAXIM Systems Inc., MCG US Holdings LLC, Mackevision CG Technology and Service (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Mackevision Corporation, Mackevision Japan Co. Ltd., Mackevision Korea Ltd, Mackevision Medien Design, Mackevision Medien Design GmbH, Mackevision Singapore Pte. Ltd., Mackevision UK Ltd, Maglan, Maglan Information Defense Technologies Research Ltd., Maihiro, Matter, Matter Llc, Maud Corp Pty Limited, Maxamine International, Media Audits Ltd., Media Hive, Mediasenz Pty Ltd., Meredith Specialty LLC, Meredith Xcelerated Marketing, Meredith Xcelerated Marketing Corporation, Meridian Informed Purchasing Ltd., Mindtribe, Mindtribe Product Engineering LLC, MobGen, MobGen Technology S.L, Moonrise NV, Mortgage Cadence, Mortgage Cadence an Accenture Company, Most Champion Ltd, Mudano, N3 LLC, NBS Marketing Inc., NYTEC, Nanjing Demeng Advertising Co. Ltd., Nashco Consulting, NaviSys Inc., NellArmonia, Neo Metrics Analytics S.L., Neo Metrics Chile, Neo Metrics Chile S.A., New Content, New Content Chile SpA, New Content Editora e Produtora Ltda., New Energy Aborda, New Energy Associates Ltd, New Energy Group, New Energy S.r.l., NewsPage, NewsPage (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, NewsPage China Ltd., NewsPage Pte Ltd, Nice Agency Limited, Northstream, Northstream AB, Northstream Holding AB, OCTO Technology, OPS Rules Management Consultants, Octagon Research Solutions Inc., Octo Technology LTDA, Octo Technology Pty Ltd, Octo Technology SA, Octo Technology SPRL, Octoman SAS, Odgaard ApS, Olikka, Openmind, Openminded, Operaciones Accenture S.A. de C.V., OpusLine, Orbium, Orbium Consulting Ltd, Orbium GmbH, Orbium Holding AG, Orbium Inc., Orbium International AG, Orbium International sp. z o.o., Orbium Licences AG, Orbium Limited, Orbium Pte. Ltd., Orbium Pty Ltd, Orbium Services sp. z o.o., Orbium Sarl, Origin Digital, PCO Innovation, PCO Innovation Canada Inc., PCO Innovation EURL, PIXO PUNCH Limited, PLM Systems S.r.l, POC Holdings, PRION GmbH, PT Accenture, PT Asta Catur Indra, PT Kogentix Teknologi Indonesia, Pach Invest SARL, Pach Invest SAS, PacificLink Group, PacificLink iMedia Ltd., Paja Finanssipalvelut Oy, Parker Fitzgerald Inc, Parker Fitzgerald Inc., Parker Fitzgerald International Limited, Parker Fitzgerald Limited, Parker Fitzgerald PTY Ltd, Parker Fitzgerald Services Limited, Parker Fitzgerald Solutions Limited, Partners Technology Mexico Holdings BV, Pecaso Ltd., Pegasus Production K/S, Perseroan Terbatas. Accenture, Phase One Consulting Group, Pillar Technology, Pollux, Pragsis Bidoop, Pragsis Bidoop UK Ltd, Pragsis Technologies S.L, PrimeQ, PrimeQ Australia Pty Ltd, PrimeQ Ltd, PrimeQ NZ Pty Ltd, Procurian Germany GmbH, Procurian Inc., Procurian International I LLC, Procurian International II LLC, Procurian LLC, Procurian Singapore Pte. Ltd., Procurian Switzerland GmbH, Procurian USA LLC, Proquire LLC, PureApps Ltd., Qi Jie Beijing Information Technologies Co Ltd, Radiant Services, Radiant Services LLC, Random Walk Computing Inc., Reactive Media Limited, Reactive Media Pty Ltd., Real Protect, Realworld OO Systems Ltd., Redcore, Redcore (Asia) Pte Ltd, Redcore (India) Private Limited (India), Redcore (New Zealand) Limited, Redcore Group Holdings Pty Ltd, Redcore Pty Ltd, Renacentis IT Services, Revolutionary Security, RiskControl, Rothco, Rothco Holdings Designated Activity Company, Rothco Unlimited Company, S.C. EnergyQuote S.r.l., S3 TV Technology Limited, S3 TV Technology Ltd., SEC Servizi, SEC Servizi S.p.A., SOPIA Corp., Sagacious Consultants, Sagacious Consultants LLC, Salt Solutions, Sanchez Capital Services Pvt Ltd, Schlumberger Business Consulting, Seabury Airline Planning Group, Seabury Aviation & Aerospace (UK) Limited, Seabury Aviation & Aerospace Asia (Hong Kong) Limited, Seabury Aviation Consulting LLC, Seabury Cargo Advisory B.V., Seabury Consulting, Seabury Corporate Advisors LLC, Seabury Human Capital LLC, Seabury Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Seabury Structured Finance LLC, Search Technologies BPO, Search Technologies BPO Inc., Search Technologies GmbH, Search Technologies International LLC, Search Technologies LATAM, Search Technologies LATAM S.A., Search Technologies LLC, Search Technologies Limited, Sente Partners LLC, Sentelis, Servicios Tecnicos de Programacion Accenture S.C., Shackleton, Shackleton Barcelona S.L., Shackleton Chile S.A., Shackleton Madrid S.L., Shackleton S.A., Shanghai Baiyue Advertising Co. Ltd., Shun Zhe Technology Development Co. Ltd., Silveo, Simian Pty Limited, SinnerSchrader AG, SinnerSchrader Commerce GmbH, SinnerSchrader Content GmbH, SinnerSchrader Deutschland GmbH, SinnerSchrader Praha s.r.o., SinnerSchrader Swipe GmbH, Sinnerschrader, Sistemes Consulting S.L., Solutions IQ, Solutions IQ LLC, SolutionsIQ, SolutionsIQ India Consulting Services Private Limited, Storm Digital, Storm Digital B.V., Structure Consulting Group, Structure Consulting Group LLC, Sutter Mills, Systor AG, TQuila Limited (UK), Tadata Creative Unlimited Company, Tara Insurance DAC, Tara Risk DAC, TargetST8, TargetST8 Consulting LLC, Tech - Avanade Portugal Unipessoal Lda, Tecnilogica Ecosistemas S.A., Tecnilogica Ltd., Tecnilogica, The Brand Learning Partners Limited, The Callisto Integration Corporation, The Monkeys, The Monkeys Pty Limited, The Myrtle Group, Total Logistics, Total Logistics Supply Chain Consultants Limited, Tquila, Trivadis AG, Troop Studios Pty Ltd, VanBerlo, Verax Solutions, Verax Solutions Corporation, Vertical Retail Consulting (Shanghai) Ltd., Vertical Retail Consulting Hong Kong, Vertical Retail Consulting Hong Kong Ltd., Vertical Retail Consulting Ltd., Vivere Brasil Servicos e Solucoes SA, Vivere Brasil Solucoes De Credito Ltda., Wabion GmbH, Weblinc Pty Ltd, Wire Stone, Wire Stone LLC, Wire Stone Sarl, Wolox, Workforce Insight Inc, Yesler, Zag, Zenta, Zenta Global Philippines, Zenta Global Philippines Inc., Zenta Mortgage Services LLC, Zenta Recoveries Inc, Zenta US Holdings Inc., Zielpuls, Zielpuls (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Zielpuls GmbH, avVenta, designaffairs, designaffairs Business Consulting (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., designaffairs GmbH, designaffairs group China Co. Ltd., dgroup, i4C Analytics, iDefense, and solid-serVision.com GmbH.
Advanced Drainage Systems, Inc. engages in the manufacture of thermoplastic corrugated pipe, which provides suite of water management products and drainage solutions for use in the construction and infrastructure marketplace. It operates through the following segments: Pipe, Infiltrator, International, and Allied Products & Other. The Pipe segment manufactures and markets thermoplastic corrugated pipe throughout the United States. The Infiltrator segment provides plastic leachfield chambers and systems, septic tanks and accessories, primarily for use in residential applications. The International segment manufactures and markets pipe and allied products in regions outside of the United States. The Allied Products & Other segment manufactures and markets products throughout the United States. Products include StormTech, Nyloplast, ARC Septic Chambers, Inserta Tee, water quality filters and structures, Fittings, and FleXstorm. The company was founded in 1966 and is headquartered in Hilliard, OH.

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Andeavor, through its subsidiaries, operates as an independent petroleum refining, logistics, and marketing company in the United States. The company operates in three segments: Marketing, Logistics, and Refining. The Marketing segment sells gasoline and diesel fuel through retail, branded, and unbranded channels. This segment operates a network of 3,255 retail stations under the ARCO, Shell, Mobil, and SUPERAMERICA brands. The Logistics segment gathers and transports crude oil by pipelines, as well as by trucks. It operates approximately 13 million barrels of crude oil, feedstock, blendstock, refined product, and asphalt storage tanks. The Refining segment buys and refines crude oil and other feed stocks into transportation fuels, such as gasoline and gasoline blend stocks, jet fuel, and diesel fuel, as well as other products, including heavy fuel oils, liquefied petroleum gas, petroleum coke, calcined coke, and asphalt. It also sells refined products in the bulk market principally to independent unbranded distributors, other refining and marketing companies, utilities, railroads, airlines, and marine and industrial end-users in the western United States. This segment owns and operates 10 petroleum refineries with a combined crude oil capacity of approximately 1,157 thousand barrels per day. The company was formerly known as Tesoro Corporation and changed its name to Andeavor in August 2017. Andeavor was founded in 1968 and is headquartered in San Antonio, Texas.

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BNP Paribas SA provides a range of banking and financial services in France and internationally. It operates through two divisions, Retail Banking and Services, and Corporate and Institutional Banking. The company offers long-term corporate vehicle leasing, and rental and other financing solutions; and digital banking and investment services, cash management, and factoring services to corporate clients, as well as wealth management services. It also provides credit solutions for individuals under the Cetelem, Cofinoga, Findomestic, AlphaCredit, and Opel Vauxhall brands; savings and protection solutions, including insuring individuals, and their personal projects and assets; and asset management, private banking, and real estate services. In addition, the company offers global market services, including investment, hedging, financing, research, and market intellingence across asset classes; security services comprising clearing, custody, and asset and fund services, as well as corporate trust, and market and financing services; and corporate trade and treasury, debt financing, specialized financing, strategic advisory, mergers and acquisition, and equity capital market services for institutional and corporate clients. The company was formerly known as Banque Nationale de Paris and changed its name to BNP Paribas SA in May 2000. BNP Paribas SA was founded in 1848 and is headquartered in Paris, France.

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Wall Street analysts have given SPDR Gold Shares a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but SPDR Gold Shares wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

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Brookfield Asset Management, Inc. engages in the management of public and private investment products and services for institutional and retail clients. It operates through the following segments: Asset Management, Real Estate, Renewable Power, Infrastructure, Private Equity, Residential Development, and Corporate Activities. The Asset Management segment includes the management of its listed partnerships, private funds and public securities. The Real Estate segment is comprised of the ownership, operation and development of core office, core retail, LP investments and other properties. The Renewable Power segment encompasses the ownership, operation and development of hydroelectric, wind, solar, storage and other power generating facilities. The Infrastructure segment consists of the ownership, operation and development of utilities, transport, energy, data infrastructure and sustainable resource assets. The Private Equity segment refers to the broad range of industries, and is mostly focused on business services, infrastructure services and industrials. The Residential Development segment represents homebuilding, condominium development and land development. The Corporate Activiti

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BT Group plc provides communications services worldwide. Its Consumer segment sells telephones, baby monitors, and Wi-Fi extenders through high street retailers, online BT Shop, and Website BT.com; and offers home phone, copper and fiber broadband, TV, and mobile services in various packages. The company's EE segment offers 2G, 3G, and 4G mobile network services; broadband, fixed-voice, and TV services; and postpaid and prepaid plans, and emergency services network. This segment also sells 4G mobile phones, tablets, connected devices, and mobile broadband devices from various manufacturers. Its Business and Public Sector segment provides fixed voice, mobility, fiber and connectivity, and networked IT services to retailers, utilities, public sector, healthcare, sports, construction, finance, and educational sectors. The company's Global Services segment offers business communications and ICT services comprising BT Connect, BT Security, BT One, BT Contact, BT Compute, BT Advise, and BT for financial markets. This segment serves approximately 5,500 customers in 180 countries. Its Wholesale and Ventures segment enables communications providers and other organizations to provide fixed or mobile phone services. Its ventures provide mass-market services, such as directory enquiries and payphones; and enterprise services comprising BT Fleet and BT Redcare. This segment also provides broadband and Ethernet, voice, hosted communication, mobile virtual network operator, managed solutions, machine-to-machine, roaming, and media services. The company's Openreach segment engages in the provision of services over the local access network; and installation and maintenance of fiber and copper communications networks that connect homes and businesses. The company was formerly known as Newgate Telecommunications Limited and changed its name to BT Group plc in September 2001. BT Group plc was incorporated in 2001 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.

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Wall Street analysts have given Invesco CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Trust a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but Invesco CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Trust wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.
China Mobile Limited provides mobile telecommunications and related services in Mainland China and Hong Kong. The company offers local calls; domestic and international long distance calls and roaming services; and value-added services, such as caller identity display, call waiting, conference calls, and others. It also provides wireless Internet service, as well as digital applications comprising music, video, reading, gaming, and animation; wireline broadband services; and wireline voice services. In addition, it offers dedicated line and IDC services to corporate customers in a range of industry sectors; and basic corporate communication products comprising corporate VPMN and SMS, and tailor made solutions. Further, the company provides international telecommunications services, which includes IDD, roaming, Internet, MNC, and value added business services. Additionally, it offers telecommunications network planning, design, and consulting services; roaming clearance, IT system operation, and technology support services; value-added platform development and maintenance services; mobile data, and system integration and development services; network construction and maintenance, network planning and optimizing, and training services; electronic communication products design and sale of related products; and non-banking financial services. It also provides mobile cloud research and development services; call center services; e-payment, e-commerce, and Internet finance services; and mobile Internet digital content services, as well as operates a network and business coordination center. The company serves 950 million mobile customers and 187 million wireline broadband customers. The company was formerly known as China Mobile (Hong Kong) Limited and changed its name to China Mobile Limited in May 2006. The company was incorporated in 1997 and is based in Central, Hong Kong. China Mobile Limited is a subsidiary of China Mobile Hong Kong (BVI) Limited.

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Deutsche Telekom AG, together with its subsidiaries, provides integrated telecommunication services. The company operates through five segments: Germany, United States, Europe, Systems Solutions, and Group Development. It offers fixed-network services, including voice and data communication services based on fixed-network and broadband technology; and sells terminal equipment and other hardware products, as well as services to resellers. The company also provides mobile voice and data services to consumers and business customers; sells mobile devices and other hardware products; and sells mobile services to resellers and to companies that purchases and markets network services to third parties, such as mobile virtual network operators. In addition, it offers internet services; internet-based TV products and services; and information and communication technology systems for multinational corporations and public sector institutions with an infrastructure of data centers and networks under the T-Systems brand, as well as call center services. The company has 242 million mobile customers and 22 million broadband customers, as well as 27 million fixed-network lines. Deutsche Telekom AG has a collaboration with VMware, Inc. on cloud-based open and intelligent virtual RAN platform to bring agility to radio access networks for existing LTE and future 5G networks; and partnership with Microsoft to deliver high-performance cloud computing experiences. The company was founded in 1995 and is headquartered in Bonn, Germany.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Eastman Chemical: BP - Aviation Turbine Oil Business, CP Films Vertriebs GmbH, Commonwealth Laminating & Coating (Hong Kong) Limited, Commonwealth Laminating & Coating Inc, Crown Operations International LLC, Dynaloy, Eastman Administracion S.A. de C.V., Eastman Chemical (Barbados) SRL, Eastman Chemical (China) Co. Ltd., Eastman Chemical (China) Co. Ltd. - Guangzhou Branch, Eastman Chemical (China) Co. Ltd. - JingAn Branch, Eastman Chemical (Gibraltar) Limited, Eastman Chemical (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Eastman Chemical (PPU) Pte. Ltd., Eastman Chemical AMI GmbH, Eastman Chemical AMI LLC, Eastman Chemical AP Holdings B.V., Eastman Chemical Adhesives (Hong Kong) Limited, Eastman Chemical Advanced Materials B.V., Eastman Chemical Argentina S.R.L., Eastman Chemical Asia Pacific Pte Ltd-Indonesia Rep Office, Eastman Chemical Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Eastman Chemical Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd. - Vietnam Representative Office, Eastman Chemical Australia Pty LTD - New Zealand Branch, Eastman Chemical Australia Pty. Ltd., Eastman Chemical B.V., Eastman Chemical B.V. - Czech Republic Representative Office, Eastman Chemical B.V. - Denmark Branch, Eastman Chemical B.V. - Filiale Italiana, Eastman Chemical B.V. - France Branch, Eastman Chemical B.V. - Hungarian Commercial Representative Office, Eastman Chemical B.V. - Poland Representative Office, Eastman Chemical B.V. - South Africa Representative Office, Eastman Chemical B.V. Taiwan Branch, Eastman Chemical B.V. The Hague Zug Branch, Eastman Chemical Canada Inc., Eastman Chemical Company Investments Inc., Eastman Chemical EMEA B.V., Eastman Chemical Europe Middle East and Africa LLC, Eastman Chemical Europe S.a.r.l., Eastman Chemical Fibers IP GmbH, Eastman Chemical Fibers IP LLC, Eastman Chemical Finance B.V., Eastman Chemical Finance CN S.a.r.l., Eastman Chemical Finance EUR S.a.r.l., Eastman Chemical Finance GBP S.a.r.l., Eastman Chemical Finance SGD S.a.r.l., Eastman Chemical Finance USD S.a.r.l., Eastman Chemical Financial Corporation, Eastman Chemical GDL S.a.r.l., Eastman Chemical Germany Holdings GmbH & Co. KG, Eastman Chemical Germany Management GmbH & Co. KG, Eastman Chemical Germany Verwaltungs-GmbH, Eastman Chemical Global Holdings LLC, Eastman Chemical Global Holdings S.a.r.l., Eastman Chemical GmbH, Eastman Chemical HK Limited, Eastman Chemical Holdings do Brasil Ltda., Eastman Chemical Hong Kong B.V., Eastman Chemical Iberica S.L., Eastman Chemical India Private Limited, Eastman Chemical Intermediates (Hong Kong) Limited, Eastman Chemical International GmbH, Eastman Chemical International Holdings B.V., Eastman Chemical International LP LLC, Eastman Chemical Japan Ltd., Eastman Chemical Korea B.V., Eastman Chemical Korea Ltd., Eastman Chemical Latin America Inc., Eastman Chemical Ltd., Eastman Chemical Ltd. - Australia Branch, Eastman Chemical Ltd. - Singapore Branch, Eastman Chemical Ltd. - Taiwan Branch, Eastman Chemical Luxembourg Finance S.a.r.l., Eastman Chemical Luxembourg Holdings 1 LLC, Eastman Chemical Luxembourg Holdings 1 S.a.r.l., Eastman Chemical Luxembourg Holdings 2 S.a.r.l., Eastman Chemical Luxembourg Holdings LLC, Eastman Chemical Luxembourg Holdings S.a.r.l., Eastman Chemical Malaysia B.V., Eastman Chemical Middelburg B.V., Eastman Chemical Netherlands Limited, Eastman Chemical Products Singapore Pte. Ltd., Eastman Chemical Regional UK, Eastman Chemical Resins Inc., Eastman Chemical S.C.S., Eastman Chemical Singapore Pte. Ltd., Eastman Chemical Switzerland GmbH, Eastman Chemical Technology BVBA, Eastman Chemical Texas City Inc., Eastman Chemical US Finance LLC, Eastman Chemical Uruapan S.A. de C.V., Eastman Chemical Workington Limited, Eastman Chemical do Brasil Ltda., Eastman Cogen Management L.L.C., Eastman Cogeneration L.P., Eastman Company UK Limited, Eastman Fibers Korea Limited, Eastman Fibers Singapore Pte. Ltd., Eastman Foundation, Eastman Global Holdings Inc., Eastman International Holdings LLC, Eastman International Management Company, Eastman Italia S.r.l., Eastman Kimya Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Eastman LAR Distribucion S. de R.L. de C.V., Eastman Mazzucchelli Hong Kong Limited, Eastman Mazzucchelli Plastics (Shenzhen) Company Limited, Eastman Servicios Corporativos S.A. de C.V., Eastman Spain L.L.C., Eastman Specialties Corporation, Eastman Specialties Holdings Corporation, Eastman Specialties OU, Eastman Specialties S.a.r.l., Eastman Specialties Wuhan Youji Chemical Co. Ltd, Eastman de Argentina SRL, Ecuataminco S.A., Flexsys America L.P., Flexsys America LLC, Flexsys Chemicals (M) Sdn Bhd, Flexsys K.K., Flexsys Rubber Chemicals Limited, Flexsys Verkauf GmbH, Flexsys Verkauf GmbH - France Branch, Flexsys Verwaltungs- und Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Genovique Specialties Corporation, HDK Industries Inc., Holston Defense Corporation, Huper Optik (GP) L.L.C., Huper Optik International Pte. Ltd., Huper Optik U.S.A. L.P., Industriepark Nienburg GmbH, Kingsport Hotel L.L.C., Knowlton Technologies LLC, Monchem International LLC, Mustang Pipeline Company, Nanjing Yangzi Eastman Chemical Ltd, Novomatrix Inc., Novomatrix International Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Qilu Eastman Specialty Chemicals Ltd, S E Investment LLC, Sakra Hyco Pte. Ltd., Sakra Island Carbon Dioxide Pte Ltd, Scandiflex do Brasil Ltda., Solchem LLC, Solchem Netherlands C.V., Solutia (Thailand) Ltd., Solutia Brasil Ltda., Solutia Canada Inc., Solutia Chemicals France S.a.r.l., Solutia Chemicals India Private Limited, Solutia Chemicals India Private Limited - Branch, Solutia Deutschland GmbH, Solutia Europe BVBA - Portugal Representative Office, Solutia Europe BVBA - Russia Representative Office, Solutia Europe SPRL/BVBA, Solutia Greater China LLC, Solutia Hong Kong Limited, Solutia Inc., Solutia International Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Solutia Italia S.r.l., Solutia Japan Limited, Solutia Performance Products (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Solutia Performance Products Solutions Ltd., Solutia Singapore Pte. Ltd., Solutia Solar GmbH, Solutia Therminol Co. Ltd. Suzhou, Solutia Tlaxcala S.A. de C.V., Solutia UK Holdings Limited, Solutia UK Investments Limited, Solutia UK Limited, Solutia Venezuela S.R.L., Southwall Europe GmbH, Southwall Insulating Glass LLC, Southwall Technologies Inc., St. Gabriel CC Company LLC, Sterling Chemicals Inc, SunTek Australia Pty. Ltd., SunTek Films Canada Inc., SunTek UK Limited, TX Energy LLC, Taminco Argentina S.A., Taminco BVBA, Taminco BVBA - France Rep Office, Taminco BVBA - Hungarian Commercial Representative Office, Taminco BVBA - Oficina de Representacion en Espana, Taminco BVBA - The Philippines, Taminco Chile S.p.A, Taminco Choline Chloride (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Taminco Corporation, Taminco Finland Oy, Taminco Germany GmbH, Taminco Global Chemical LLC, Taminco Group BVBA, Taminco Group Holdings S.a.r.l., Taminco Holding Netherlands B.V., Taminco Intermediate LLC, Taminco Italia S.r.l., Taminco Limitada, Taminco Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Taminco US LLC, Taminco Uruguay S.A., Taminco de Guatemala S.A., Taminco de Honduras S.A. de C.V., Taminco do Brasil Comercio e Industria de Aminas Ltda., Taminco do Brasil Produtos Quimicos Ltda., Te An Ling Tian (Nanjing) Fine Chemical Co. Ltd., TetraVitae Bioscience, V-Kool International Pte. Ltd., and Yixing Taminco Feed Additives Co. Ltd..
Exchange Income Corporation engages in aerospace and aviation services and equipment, and manufacturing businesses worldwide. It operates through two segments, Aerospace & Aviation, and Manufacturing. The Aerospace & Aviation segment offers scheduled airline and charter services, and emergency medical services to communities located in Manitoba, Ontario, and Nunavut, as well as Newfoundland and Labrador, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. It also provides after-market aircraft, engines, and component parts to regional airline operators; designs, modifies, maintains, and operates custom sensor equipped aircraft; and offers maritime surveillance and support services in Canada, the Caribbean, and the Middle East. In addition, this segment provides pilot flight training services. The Manufacturing segment manufactures window wall systems primarily used in high-rise multi-family residential projects; stainless steel tanks, vessels, and processing equipment; heavy duty pressure washing and steam systems, commercial water recycling systems, and custom tanks for the transportation of oil, gasoline, and water products; precision parts and components primarily used in the aerospace and defense sector; electrical and control systems integrator focused on the agricultural material handling; and precision sheet metal and tubular products. This segment also focuses on the engineering, design, manufacture, and construction of communication infrastructure, as well as provision of technical services. Exchange Income Corporation is headquartered in Winnipeg, Canada.

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Fraport AG operates airports in Germany, rest of Europe, Asia, and the United States. The company primarily focuses on the operation of Frankfurt Main airport. It operates through four segments: Aviation, Retail & Real Estate, Ground Handling, and International Activities & Services. The Aviation segment operates landside and airside infrastructure, which covers the area of airport charges. The Retail & Real Estate segment engages in retail activities, including marketing of real estate properties and land. This segment also manages buildings and facilities, and parking and retail areas; and rents advertising space. The Ground Handling segment provides loading, baggage, and passenger services through airmail and luggage transport to freight handling. The International Activities & Services segment acquires, operates, maintains, develops, and expands airports and infrastructure facilities. This segment also offers integrated facility and corporate infrastructure management, airport expansion south, and information and telecommunication services. Fraport AG was founded in 1924 and is headquartered in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

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Gildan Activewear Inc. manufactures and sells various apparel products in the United States, Canada, and internationally. It provides various activewear products, including T-shirts, fleece tops and bottoms, and sport shirts under the Gildan, Gildan Performance, Gildan Hammer, Comfort Colors, American Apparel, Anvil by Gildan, Alstyle, Prim + Preux, and GoldToe brands. The company also offers hosiery products comprising athletic; dress; and casual, liner, therapeutic, and workwear socks, as well as sheer panty hoses, tights, and leggings under the brands of Gildan, Under Armour, GoldToe, PowerSox, GT a GoldToe Brand, Silver Toe, Signature Gold by Goldtoe, Peds, MediPeds, Kushyfoot, Therapy Plus, All Pro, Secret, Silks, Secret Silky, and American Apparel. In addition, it provides men's and boys' underwear products, and ladies panties under the Gildan and Gildan Platinum brand names; and ladies' shapewear, intimates, and accessories under the Secret and Secret Silky brands. The company sells its products to wholesale distributors, screen printers, or embellishers, as well as to retailers and consumer brand companies. The company was formerly known as Textiles Gildan Inc. and changed its name to Gildan Activewear Inc. in March 1995. Gildan Activewear Inc. was founded in 1946 and is headquartered in Montreal, Canada.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Thermo Fisher Scientific: 236 Perinton Parkway LLC, 27 Forge Parkway LLC, ABR--Affinity BioReagents, ACI Holdings Inc., ARG Services LLC, ASPEX Corporation, Abgene Inc., Abgene Limited, Acoustic Cytometry Systems Inc., AcroMetrix LLC, Acros Organics B.V.B.A., Advanced Biotechnologies Limited, Advanced Scientifics (ASI), Advanced Scientifics Inc., Advanced Scientifics International Inc., Affymetrix Biotech Participacoes Ltda., Affymetrix Biotech Shanghai Ltd, Affymetrix Inc, Affymetrix Japan K.K., Affymetrix Pte Ltd, Affymetrix UK Ltd, Afora S.A.U., Ahura Scientific, Alchematrix Inc., Alchematrix LLC, Alfa Aesar, Alfa Aesar (China) Chemical Co. Ltd., Alfa Aesar (Hong Kong) Limited, Allergon AB, Alphine Mountain Limited, Ambion Inc., Apogent Denmark ApS, Apogent Finance Company, Apogent Holding Company, Apogent Technologies Inc., Apogent Transition Corp., Apogent U.K. Limited, App-Tek International Pty Ltd, Applied Biosystems B.V., Applied Biosystems Finance B.V., Applied Biosystems International Inc., Applied Biosystems LLC, Applied Biosystems Taiwan LLC, Applied Biosystems Trading (Shanghai) Company Ltd., Applied Biosystems de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Applied Scientific Corporation, Avances Cientificos de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Avocado Research Chemicals Limited, B.R.A.H.M.S. Biotech GmbH, B.R.A.H.M.S. GmbH, B.R.A.H.M.S. UK Ltd, BAC BV, BAC IP BV, Barnstead Thermolyne LLC, Beijing Phadia Diagnostics Co Ltd, Bender MedSystems GmbH, BioTrove Corporation, BioTrove International Inc., Bioanalysis Labsystems S.A., Biochemical Sciences LLC, Biolab, BmT GmbH Laborprodukte, Bonsai Tecnologies - Sistemas para Biotecnologia e Industria Unipessoal Lda, Brammer Bio, Bumi-Sans Sendirian Berhad, CAC Limited, CB Diagnostics AB, CB Diagnostics Holding AB, CEPH International Corporation, CHK Holdings Inc., CRS Robotics, CTPS LLC, Capitol Scientific Products Inc., Capitol Vial Inc., Cellomics Inc., CellzDirect Inc., Cenduit GmbH, Cenduit LLC, Cezanne S.A.S., Chase Scientific Glass Inc., Chromacol Limited, Clintrak, Clintrak Clinical Labeling Services LLC, Clintrak Pharmaceutical Services LLC, Cohesive Technologies (UK) Limited, Cohesive Technologies Inc., Columbia Diagnostics Inc., Compendia Bioscience Inc., Comtest Limited, Consolidated Technologies Inc., Consultores Fisher Scientific Chile Ltd, Core Informatics, Core Informatics LLC, Core Informatics UK Ltd., D-finitive Technologies Inc., DCG Systems B.V., DCG Systems C.V., DCG Systems G.K., DCG Systems GmbH, DCG Systems Korea Ltd., DCG Systems LLC, DPI Newco LLC, DSM Pharmaceutical Products Inc., Dharmacon, Diagnostix Ltd., Dionex (China) Analytical Ltd, Dionex (Switzerland) AG, Dionex (UK) Limited, Dionex Austria GmbH, Dionex Benelux B.V., Dionex Brasil Instrumentos Cientificos Ltda, Dionex Canada Ltd., Dionex China Limited, Dionex Corporation, Dionex Denmark A/S, Dionex Holding GmbH, Dionex I LLC, Dionex Pty Ltd., Dionex S.A., Dionex S.p.A., Dionex Singapore Pte Ltd., Dionex Softron GmbH, Dionex Sweden AB, Distribution Solutions International Inc., Doe & Ingalls Investors Inc., Doe & Ingalls Limited, Doe & Ingalls Management LLC, Doe & Ingalls Properties II LLC, Doe & Ingalls Properties LLC, Doe & Ingalls of California Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of Florida Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of Maryland Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of Massachusetts Operating LLC, Doe & Ingalls of North Carolina Operating LLC, Doublecape Holding Limited, Doublecape Limited, Drakeside Real Estate Holding Company LLC, Duke Scientific Corporation, Dynal Biotech Beijing Limited, EGS Gauging Ltd., EGS Gauging Technical Services Company, EP Scientific Products LLC, Ecochem N.V., EnviroEquip Pty Ltd, Epsom Glass Industries Limited, Equibio Limited, Erie Electroverre S.A., Erie Finance Limited, Erie LP Holding LLC, Erie Scientific Company of Puerto Rico, Erie Scientific Hungary Kft, Erie Scientific LLC, Erie U.K. Limited, Erie UK 1 Limited, Erie UK 2 Limited, Erie UK Holding Company, Erie UK Senior Holding Limited, European Laboratory Holdings Limited, Eutech Instruments Europe B.V., Eutech Instruments Pte Ltd., Eutech Instruments Sdn Bhd, Ever Ready Thermometer Co. Inc., FEI Asia Pacific Co. Ltd., FEI Australia Pty Ltd, FEI CPD B.V., FEI Company, FEI Company Japan Ltd., FEI Company of USA (S.E.A.) Pte Ltd., FEI Czech Republic s.r.o., FEI Deutschland GmbH, FEI EFA Inc., FEI EFA International Pte. Ltd., FEI Electron Optics B.V., FEI Electron Optics International B.V., FEI Europe B.V., FEI France SAS, FEI Global Holdings C.V., FEI Hong Kong Company Limited, FEI Houston Inc., FEI Italia Srl, FEI Korea Ltd., FEI Melbourne Pty Ltd., FEI Microscopy Solutions Ltd, FEI Munich GmbH, FEI Norway Holding AS, FEI SAS, FEI Saudi Arabia LLC, FEI Servicos de Nanotecnologia Ltda., FEI Technologies Inc., FEI Technology de Mexico S.A. de C.V., FEI Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., FEI Trondheim AS, FEI UK Ltd., FHP LLC, FRC Holding Inc. V, FS (Barbados) Capital Holdings Ltd., FS Casa Rocas Holdings LLC, FS Mexicana Holdings LLC, FSI Receivables Company LLC, FSII Sweden Holdings AB, FSII Sweden Holdings I AB, FSIR Holdings (UK) Limited, FSIR Holdings (US) Inc., FSUK Holdings Limited, FSWH Company LLC, FSWH II C.V., FSWH International Holdings LLC, Fermentas China Co. Ltd, Fermentas Inc., Fermentas International, Fermentas Sweden AB, Fermentas UK Limited, Fiberlite Centrifuge LLC, Finesse Scientific Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Finesse Solutions AG, Finesse Solutions Inc., Finnzymes Oy, Fisher Alder S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Asia Manufacturing Ventures Inc., Fisher Bermuda Holdings Limited, Fisher BioImage ApS, Fisher BioPharma Services (India) Private Limited, Fisher BioSciences Japan G.K., Fisher BioServices Inc., Fisher Bioblock Holding II SNC, Fisher CLP Holding Limited Partnership, Fisher Canada Holding ULC 1, Fisher Canada Holding ULC 2, Fisher Canada Holding ULC 3, Fisher Canada Limited Partnership, Fisher Chimica BVBA, Fisher Clinical Logistics LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Fisher Clinical Services (Bristol) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Colombia) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Korea) Co. Ltd, Fisher Clinical Services (Mexico) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Peru) LLC, Fisher Clinical Services (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Fisher Clinical Services Colombia S.A.S., Fisher Clinical Services GmbH, Fisher Clinical Services Inc., Fisher Clinical Services Japan K.K., Fisher Clinical Services Latin America S.R.L., Fisher Clinical Services Limited Liability Company, Fisher Clinical Services Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Clinical Services Peru S.R.L, Fisher Clinical Services Pte Ltd., Fisher Clinical Services U.K. Limited, Fisher Emergo B.V., Fisher Germany Holdings GmbH, Fisher Hamilton China Inc., Fisher Hamilton Mexico LLC, Fisher Holdings ApS, Fisher Internet Minority Holdings L.L.C., Fisher Laboratory Products Manufacturing (Shanghai) Co. Ltd, Fisher Luxembourg Danish Holdings SARL, Fisher Manufacturing (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Fisher Maybridge Holdings Limited, Fisher Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Scientific (Austria) GmbH, Fisher Scientific (Hong Kong) Limited, Fisher Scientific (M) Sdn Bhd, Fisher Scientific (SEA) Pte. Ltd., Fisher Scientific A/S, Fisher Scientific AG, Fisher Scientific Australia Pty Limited, Fisher Scientific Biotech Line ApS, Fisher Scientific Brazil Inc., Fisher Scientific Central America Inc., Fisher Scientific Chile Inc., Fisher Scientific Colombia Inc., Fisher Scientific Company, Fisher Scientific Company L.L.C., Fisher Scientific Costa Rica Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada, Fisher Scientific Europe Holdings B.V., Fisher Scientific GTF AB, Fisher Scientific Germany Beteiligungs GmbH, Fisher Scientific GmbH, Fisher Scientific Holding Company LLC, Fisher Scientific Holding HK Limited, Fisher Scientific Holding U.K. Limited, Fisher Scientific Holdings (M) Sdn Bhd, Fisher Scientific Holdings (S) Pte Ltd, Fisher Scientific International LLC, Fisher Scientific Investments (Cayman) Ltd., Fisher Scientific Ireland Investments Unlimited, Fisher Scientific Ireland Limited, Fisher Scientific Japan Ltd., Fisher Scientific Jersey Island Limited, Fisher Scientific Korea Ltd, Fisher Scientific Latin America Inc., Fisher Scientific Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Fisher Scientific Mexicana S. de R.L. de C.V., Fisher Scientific Mexico Inc., Fisher Scientific Middle East and Africa Inc., Fisher Scientific Norway AS, Fisher Scientific Operating Company, Fisher Scientific Oxoid Holdings Ltd., Fisher Scientific Oy, Fisher Scientific Pte. Ltd., Fisher Scientific S.A.S., Fisher Scientific S.L., Fisher Scientific SPRL, Fisher Scientific The Hague I B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague II B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague III B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague IV B.V., Fisher Scientific The Hague V B.V., Fisher Scientific U.K. Limited, Fisher Scientific UK Holding Company 2, Fisher Scientific UK Holding Company Limited, Fisher Scientific Unipessoal Lda., Fisher Scientific Venezuela Inc., Fisher Scientific Worldwide (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Fisher Scientific Worldwide Holdings I C.V., Fisher Scientific Worldwide Inc., Fisher Scientific de Mexico S.A., Fisher Scientific of the Netherlands B.V., Fisher Scientific spol. S.r.o, Fisher Servicios Clinicos (Chile) LLC, Fisher Servicios Clinicos Chile Ltda, Fisher WWD Holding L.L.C., Fisher Worldwide Distribution SPV, Fisher Worldwide Gene Distribution SPV, Flux Instruments, Fuji Partnership, G & M Procter Limited, G V Instruments Limited, GV Instruments Canada Ltd., GV Instruments Inc, Gatan Inc, General Scientific Company Sdn Bhd (M), Genomed molekularbiologische und diagnostische Produkte GmbH, Gerhard Menzel B.V. & Co. KG, Gold Cattle Standard Testing Labs Inc., Golden West Indemnity Company Limited, Goring Kerr Detection Limited, Greenville Service Company Inc., HENO GmbH i.L., Hangar 215 Inc., Helmet Securities Limited, Henogen, HighChem, HyClone International Trade (Tianjin) Co. Ltd, Hybaid Limited, I.Q. (BIO) Limited, IDnostics AG, ILS Laboratories Scandinavia AB, Inel Inc., Inel SAS, InnaPhase Inc., InnaPhase Limited, IntegenX, Intrinsic BioProbes Inc., Intrinsic Bioprobes Inc., Invitrogen (Shanghai) Investment Co. Ltd., Invitrogen Argentina SA, Invitrogen BioServices India Private Limited, Invitrogen Europe Limited, Invitrogen Finance Corp., Invitrogen Holdings LLC, Invitrogen Holdings Ltd., Invitrogen Hong Kong Limited, Invitrogen IP Holdings Inc., Invitrogen Trading (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Ion Torrent Systems Inc., Ionalytics Corporation, JSC Thermo Fisher Scientific, Jouan LLC, Jouan Limited, Jouan SA, Kendro Containment & Services Limited, Kendro Laboratory Products Ltd, Kettlebrook Insurance Co. ltd., Keystone Scientific, KonTEM GmbH, Kyle Jordan Investments LLC, LIFE TECHNOLOGIES CORPORATION, LTC Tech South Africa PTY Ltd., La-Pha-Pack GmbH, Lab Vision (UK) Limited, Lab Vision Corporation, Lab-Chrom-Pack LLC, Lab-Line Instruments Inc., Labomex MBP S. de R. L. De C.V., Laboratoire Service International - L.S.I, Laboratory Management Systems Inc., Laboratory Specialties Proprietary Ltd., LambTrack Limited, Laser Analytical Systems Inc., Liberty Lane Investment LLC, Liberty Lane Real Estate Holding Company LLC, Life Sciences International (Poland) SP z O.O, Life Sciences International Holdings BV, Life Sciences International LLC, Life Sciences International Limited, Life Technologies AS, Life Technologies Australia PTY Ltd., Life Technologies BPD AB, Life Technologies BPD UK Limited, Life Technologies Brasil Comercio e Industria de Produtos para Biotecnologia Ltda, Life Technologies Chile SpA, Life Technologies Clinical Services Lab Inc., Life Technologies Co. Ltd., Life Technologies Czech Republic s.r.o., Life Technologies DaAn Diagnostic (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd., Life Technologies Europe B.V., Life Technologies Finance Ltd., Life Technologies Finland Oy, Life Technologies GmbH, Life Technologies Holdings PTE Ltd., Life Technologies Inc., Life Technologies International B.V., Life Technologies Japan Ltd., Life Technologies Korea LLC, Life Technologies Limited, Life Technologies Magyarorszag Kft, Life Technologies New Zealand Ltd., Life Technologies Norway Investments US LLC, Life Technologies Polska Sp z.o.o., Life Technologies SA, Life Technologies SAS, Life Technologies s.r.o, Linkage Biosciences Inc., Linkage Biosciences S.a.r.l., Loftus Furnace Company, Lomb Scientific, Lomb Scientific (Aust) Pty Limited, MTI-GlobalStem, Marketbase International Limited, Matrix MicroScience Inc., Matrix MicroScience Ltd., Matrix Technologies Corporation Limited, Matrix Technologies LLC, Maybridge Chemical Company Limited, Maybridge Chemical Holdings Limited, Maybridge Limited, Medical Analysis Systems Inc., Medical Analysis Systems International Inc., Medical Diagnostics Systems Inc., Metavac LLC, Microgenics Corporation, Microgenics Diagnostics Pty Limited, Microgenics GmbH, Microm International GmbH, Microm Laborgerate S.L.U, Molecular BioProducts Inc., Molecular Probes Inc., Molecular Transfer Inc., NAPCO Inc., NERL Diagnostics LLC, NOVODIRECT GmbH Labor- und Industrie- Megerate, Nalge (Europe) Limited, Nalge Nunc International (Monterrey) LLC, Nalge Nunc International Corporation, Nanjing WeiKangLe Trading Industrial Co Ltd, NanoDrop Technologies LLC, National Scientific Company, Navaho Acquisition Corp., Neomarkers Inc., New FS Holdings Inc., NewcoGen PE LLC, Nihon Dynal K.K., Niton Asia Limited, NovaWave Technologies Inc., Nunc A/S, ONIX Systems Inc., OXOID CZ s.r.o., Odyssey Holdings Corporation, Odyssey Luxembourg Holdings S.a r.l., Odyssey Luxembourg IP Holdings 1 S.a r.l., Odyssey Luxembourg IP Holdings 2 S.a r.l., Odyssey Venture Corporation, Omega Data Systems, One Lambda Inc, Onix Holdings Limited, Orme Scientific Limited, Owl Separation Systems LLC, Oxoid (ELY) Limited, Oxoid 2000 Limited, Oxoid AS, Oxoid Australia Pty. Limited, Oxoid Company, Oxoid Deutschland GmbH, Oxoid Holding SAS, Oxoid Holdings Limited, Oxoid Inc., Oxoid International Limited, Oxoid Investments GmbH, Oxoid Limited, Oxoid N.V., Oxoid New Zealand Limited, Oxoid Pension Trustees Limited, Oxoid Senior Holdings Limited, Oxoid UKH LLC, PAX - DSI Acquisition LLC, PE AG, Pacific Rim Far East Industries LLC, Pacific Rim Investment LLC, Panomics L.L.C., Panomics S.R.L., Patheon, Patheon API Inc., Patheon API Manufacturing Inc., Patheon API Services Inc., Patheon Austria GmbH & Co KG, Patheon B.V., Patheon Banner U.S. Holdings Inc., Patheon Biologics (NJ) LLC, Patheon Biologics Australia Pty Ltd, Patheon Biologics B.V., Patheon Biologics LLC, Patheon Calculus Merger LLC, Patheon Cooperatief U.A., Patheon Development Services Inc., Patheon Finance LLC, Patheon France SAS, Patheon Holdings B.V., Patheon Holdings I B.V., Patheon Holdings II B.V., Patheon Holdings SAS, Patheon I B.V., Patheon I Holding GmbH, Patheon Inc., Patheon International AG, Patheon Italia S.p.A., Patheon KK, Patheon Life Science Products International GmbH, Patheon Manufacturing Services LLC, Patheon Pharmaceuticals Inc., Patheon Pharmaceuticals Services Inc., Patheon Puerto Rico Acquisitions Corporation, Patheon Puerto Rico Inc., Patheon Regensburg GmbH, Patheon Softgels B.V., Patheon Softgels Inc., Patheon U.S. Holdings Inc., Patheon U.S. Holdings LLC, Patheon UK Limited, Patheon UK Pension Trustees Limited, Pelican Acquisition Corporation, Perbio Science (Canada) Company, Perbio Science AB, Perbio Science BVBA, Perbio Science France SAS, Perbio Science Inc., Perbio Science International Netherlands B.V., Perbio Science Invest AB, Perbio Science Nederland B.V., Perbio Science Projekt AB, Perbio Science Sweden Holdings AB, Perbio Science Switzerland SA, Perbio Science UK Limited, Phadia AB, Phadia Diagnosticos Ltda, Phadia GmbH, Phadia Holding AB, Phadia International Holdings C.V., Phadia Korea Co. Ltd, Phadia Luxembourg Holdings S.a.r.l., Phadia Malta Holdings Limited, Phadia Oy, Phadia Real Property AB, Phadia Sweden AB, Phadia Taiwan Inc., Phadia US Inc., Phadia s.r.o., Pharmacaps Mexicana SA de CV, Phenom-World B.V., Phenom-World Holding B.V, Phenom-World Innovations B.V., Phinotex, Pierce Biotechnology Inc., Pierce Milwaukee Holding Corp., Pierce Milwaukee Inc., Polychromix, Power Sweden Holdings I AB, Power Sweden Holdings II AB, Power Sweden Holdings III Aktiebolag, Princeton Gamma-Tech Instruments LLC, Princeton Security Technologies, Prionics AG, Prionics Asia Ltd., Prionics Deutschland GmbH, Prionics France SAS, Prionics Italia S.r.l., Prionics Lelystad B.V., Prionics USA Inc., Priority Air Express LLC, Priority Air Express Pte. Ltd., Priority Air Express UK Limited, Priority Air Holdings Corp, Priority Solutions International, Promedica Pty Limited, Proxeon, Proxeon Biosystems ApS, Qiagen, REP GBP I-B Blocker Inc., Raymond A Lamb Limited, Remel Europe Limited, Remel Inc., Richard-Allan Scientific Company, Robbins Scientific LLC, Robocon Labor- und Industrieroboter Gesellschaft m.b.H, Rupprecht and Patashnick, Rupprecht and Patashnick (R&P), Russell pH Limited, S.C.I. du 10 rue Dugay Trouin, SCI Inno 92, STC Bio Manufacturing Inc., Samco Scientific (Monterrey) LLC, Samco Scientific LLC, Saroph Sweden AB, Schantz Road LLC, Seradyn Inc., Shanghai Life Technologies Biotechnology Co. Limited, Shanghai Thermo Fisher (C-I) Trading Co. Ltd, Shanghai Thermo Fisher (S) Trading Co. Ltd, Southern Trials (Pty) Ltd., Specialty (SMI) Inc., Spectra-Physics AB, Spectra-Physics Holdings Limited, Spectra-Physics Holdings USA LLC, Spectronex, Staten Island Cogeneration Corporation, Sterilin Limited, Stokes Bio Ltd., Sweden DIA (Sweden) AB, SwissAnalytic Group GmbH, Systems Manufacturing Corporation, TFLP LLC, TFS Breda B.V., TFS LLC, TFS Singapore HK Limited, TFSL Financing GP LLC, TFSL Senior GP Holdings 2 LLC, TK Partnership, TKA Wasseraufbereitungssysteme, TMOI Inc., TPI Real Estate Holdings LLC, TSP Holdings I LLC, TWX LLC, Technology Design Solutions Pty Ltd, Thermedics Detection de Argentina S.R.L, Thermo Allen Coding Limited, Thermo Asset Management Services Inc., Thermo BioAnalysis LLC, Thermo BioAnalysis Limited, Thermo BioSciences Holdings LLC, Thermo CIDTEC, Thermo CRS Holdings Ltd., Thermo CRS Ltd., Thermo Cambridge Limited, Thermo Cayman Holdings Ltd., Thermo Corporation, Thermo DMA Inc., Thermo Detection de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Thermo Dutch Holdings Limited Partnership, Thermo EGS Gauging LLC, Thermo Eberline Holdings I LLC, Thermo Eberline Holdings II LLC, Thermo Eberline LLC, Thermo Electron (Calgary) Limited, Thermo Electron (Chile) S.p.A., Thermo Electron (Karlsruhe) GmbH, Thermo Electron (Management Services) Limited, Thermo Electron (Proprietary) Limited, Thermo Electron A/S, Thermo Electron Australia Pty Limited, Thermo Electron Export Inc., Thermo Electron Holdings SAS, Thermo Electron Industries, Thermo Electron LED GmbH, Thermo Electron LED S.A.S., Thermo Electron Limited, Thermo Electron Manufacturing Limited, Thermo Electron Metallurgical Services Inc., Thermo Electron North America LLC, Thermo Electron Pension Trust GmbH, Thermo Electron Puerto Rico Inc., Thermo Electron SAS, Thermo Electron Scientific Instruments LLC, Thermo Electron Sweden AB, Thermo Electron Sweden Forvaltning AB, Thermo Electron Weighing & Inspection Limited, Thermo Elemental Limited, Thermo Environmental Instruments LLC, Thermo Fast U.K. Limited, Thermo Finland Holdings LLC, Thermo Finland Holdings MT1 B.V., Thermo Finland Holdings MT2 B.V., Thermo Finnigan LLC, Thermo Finnigan Limited, Thermo Fisher (CN) Luxembourg Holding S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher (CN) Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher (CN) Malta Holdings Limited, Thermo Fisher (CN-I) Luxembourg LLC, Thermo Fisher (CN-II) Luxembourg LLC, Thermo Fisher (Cayman) Holdings I Ltd., Thermo Fisher (Cayman) Holdings II Ltd., Thermo Fisher (Finland Holdings 2) LLC, Thermo Fisher (Finland Holdings) Limited Partnership, Thermo Fisher (Gibraltar) II Limited, Thermo Fisher (Gibraltar) Limited, Thermo Fisher (Heysham) Limited, Thermo Fisher (Kandel) GmbH, Thermo Fisher CHK Holding LLC, Thermo Fisher China Business Trust, Thermo Fisher China Business Trust II, Thermo Fisher Costa Rica Sociedad de Responsabilidad Limitada, Thermo Fisher Cyprus Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Detection Mexico LLC, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics (Ireland) Limited, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics AB, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics AG, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics AS, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Aps, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Austria GmbH, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics B.V., Thermo Fisher Diagnostics GmbH, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics K.K., Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Limited, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics NV, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics S.L.U., Thermo Fisher Diagnostics S.p.A. , Thermo Fisher Diagnostics SAS, Thermo Fisher Diagnostics Sociedade Unipessoal Lda, Thermo Fisher Eurobonds Ltd., Thermo Fisher Financial Services Inc., Thermo Fisher GP LLC, Thermo Fisher German Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Germany B.V., Thermo Fisher India Divestco Private Limited, Thermo Fisher India Holding B.V., Thermo Fisher Insurance Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Insurance Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Investments (Cayman) Ltd., Thermo Fisher Israel Ltd., Thermo Fisher Production et Services SAS, Thermo Fisher Project Cyprus LLC, Thermo Fisher Re Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Asheville) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Australia) C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Barbados) Holdings Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Breda) Holding BV, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Bremen) GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific (CN) Limited Partnership, Thermo Fisher Scientific (China) Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (China) Holding Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (China-HK) Holding Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (DE) Holding S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Ecublens) SARL, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance I) B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance I) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance II) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance III) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Finance III) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Fuji) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Guangzhou) Co. Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Holding II) B.V. & Co. KG, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Hong Kong) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (IVGN) B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (IVGN) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Johannesburg) (Proprietary) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Mexico City) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Milwaukee) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Mississauga) Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Monterrey) S. De R.L. De C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (NK) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN) Austria Holding GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN) UK LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN) UK Limited Partnership, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN-I) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN-II) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific (PN1) UK Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Panama) B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Panama) Dutch LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Praha) s.r.o., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Real Estate 1) GmbH & Co. KG, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Real Estate 1) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Schweiz) AG, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Shanghai) Instruments Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Shanghai) Management Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific (Suzhou) Instruments Co. Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific AL-1 LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific AU C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific AU II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific AU LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific AU Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Africa Proprietary Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Aquasensors LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Australia Pty Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific B.V.B.A., Thermo Fisher Scientific BHK (I) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific BHK (II) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Baltics UAB, Thermo Fisher Scientific Beteiligungsverwaltungs GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Biosciences Corp., Thermo Fisher Scientific Brahms LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Brasil Instrumentos de Processo Ltda., Thermo Fisher Scientific Brasil Servicos de Logistica Ltda, Thermo Fisher Scientific C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cayman Investments LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Chemicals Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific China (C-I) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific China (S) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings I B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings II B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings III B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific China Holdings IV B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Chromatography Holdings Aps, Thermo Fisher Scientific Chromatography Holdings S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus I C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus I Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus II Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus III C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus III Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus IV C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Cyprus V C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Denmark Senior Holdings ApS, Thermo Fisher Scientific Erie 1 Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Erie Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Erie Financing S.a r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Europe GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC Finance C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC II B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific FLC LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific FSIR Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific FSIR Financing S.a.r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific FSUKHCO Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Falcon Senior Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Finance Company BV, Thermo Fisher Scientific GENEART GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Germany BV & Co. KG, Thermo Fisher Scientific GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific HR Services Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Holdings (Cayman) I, Thermo Fisher Scientific Holdings (Cayman) II , Thermo Fisher Scientific Holdings Europe Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific IT Services GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific India Holding LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific India Pvt Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Luxembourg) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Malta) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Sweden) LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments (Sweden) S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Investments Malta (Sweden Financing) Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Invitrogen Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Japan Holdings I B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Japan Holdings II B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Japan Holdings III B.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific K.K., Thermo Fisher Scientific Korea Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific LSI Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life CV GP Holdings II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life CV GP Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Enterprises C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Enterprises GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing (Cayman), Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Financing Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings I C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings III C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Holdings Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life International GP Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life International Holdings I C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life International Holdings II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments I S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments II S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments III S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments IV S.a.r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta Holding I LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta Holding II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta I Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments Malta II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments US Financing I LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Investments US Financing II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life NL Holdings GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Netherlands Holding C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior GP Holdings II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior GP Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior Holdings C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior Holdings II C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Senior Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Switzerland Holdings GP LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Tech Korea Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Enterprise Holding Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment I LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment II LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment UK I Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investment UK II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Investments Holding LP, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Israel Investment I Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Israel Investment II Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Technologies Luxembourg Holding LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Enterprise Holdings S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg German Holdings S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Life Technologies UK Holding S.a r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Sweden Holdings I S.a r.l, Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Sweden Holdings II S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Venture Holdings I S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Luxembourg Venture Holdings II S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Thermo Fisher Scientific Malta Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Messtechnik GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Mexico City S. de R.L. de C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific Middle East Holdings Inc., Thermo Fisher Scientific Milano Srl, Thermo Fisher Scientific NHK Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific New Zealand Holdings, Thermo Fisher Scientific New Zealand Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Norway Holdings AS, Thermo Fisher Scientific Norway US Investments LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Odyssey Financing (Barbados) SRL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Odyssey Holdings Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Operating Company LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Oy, Thermo Fisher Scientific PN2 C.V, Thermo Fisher Scientific PN2 LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific PRB LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific PRB Malta Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific PRB S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Panama I Cayman Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific Peru S.R.L., Thermo Fisher Scientific Pte. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific Re Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific SL, Thermo Fisher Scientific Senior Financing LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Senior Holdings Australia LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific South Africa Proprietary Ltd, Thermo Fisher Scientific SpA, Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra Malta Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra S.a.r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra-Physics Holdings Luxembourg I S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra-Physics Holdings Luxembourg II S.a r.l., Thermo Fisher Scientific Spectra-Physics Investments Malta Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Switzerland Holdings C.V., Thermo Fisher Scientific TR Limited, Thermo Fisher Scientific Taiwan Co. Ltd., Thermo Fisher Scientific Vermogensverwaltungs GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific West Palm Holdings LLC, Thermo Fisher Scientific Wissenschaftliche Gerate GmbH, Thermo Fisher Scientific Worldwide Investments (Cayman), Thermo Fisher Scientific eCommerce Solutions LLC , Thermo Fisher Senior Canada Holdings LLC, Thermo Foundation Inc., Thermo Gamma-Metrics Holdings Pty Ltd., Thermo Gamma-Metrics LLC, Thermo Gamma-Metrics Pty Ltd, Thermo Holding European Operations LLC, Thermo Hypersil Ltd, Thermo Hypersil-Keystone LLC, Thermo Informatics Asia Pacific Pty Ltd., Thermo Instrument Controls de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Thermo Kevex X-Ray LLC, Thermo Keytek LLC, Thermo LabSystems Inc., Thermo LabSystems S.A., Thermo Life Science International Trading (Tianjin) Co. Ltd., Thermo Life Sciences AB, Thermo Luxembourg Holding S.a.r.l., Thermo Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Thermo MF Physics LLC, Thermo Measurement Ltd, Thermo Measuretech Canada Inc., Thermo Neslab LLC, Thermo Nicolet Limited, Thermo Onix Limited, Thermo Optek (Australia) Pty Ltd., Thermo Optek Limited, Thermo Optek S.A., Thermo Orion Inc., Thermo Portable Holdings LLC, Thermo Power Corporation, Thermo Process Instruments GP LLC, Thermo Process Instruments L.P., Thermo Projects Limited, Thermo Quest S.A., Thermo Radiometrie Limited, Thermo Ramsey Italia S.r.l., Thermo Ramsey LLC, Thermo Ramsey S.A., Thermo Re Ltd., Thermo Scientific Microbiology Pte Ltd., Thermo Scientific Microbiology Sdn Bhd, Thermo Scientific Portable Analytical Instruments Inc., Thermo Scientific Services Inc., Thermo Securities Corporation, Thermo Sentron Canada Inc., Thermo Sentron Limited, Thermo Shandon Inc., Thermo Shandon Limited, Thermo Suomi Holding B.V., Thermo TLH (UK) Limited, Thermo TLH L.P., Thermo Trace Pty Ltd., Thermo-Fisher Biochemical Product (Beijing) Co. Ltd., ThermoLase LLC, ThermoSpectra Limited, Trek Diagnostic Systems LLC, Trek Diagnostic Systems Ltd., Trek Holding Company II Ltd., Trek Holding Company Ltd., Trex Medical Corporation, USB Corporation, Union Lab Supplies Limited, United Diagnostics Inc., VG Systems Limited, Westover Scientific Inc., ZAO PE Biosystems, eBioscience GmbH, eBioscience Ltd, eBioscience SAS, and picoSpin LLC.
Intertek Group plc provides quality assurance solutions to various industries worldwide. It operates in three segments: Products, Trade, and Resources. The Products segment offers assurance, testing, inspection, and certification services (ATIC), including laboratory safety, quality and performance testing, second-party supplier auditing, sustainability analysis, products assurance, vendor compliance, process performance analysis, facility plant and equipment verification, and third party certification. This segment serves a range of industries, including textiles, footwear, toys, hardlines, home appliances, consumer electronics, information and communication technology, automotive, aerospace, lighting, building products, industrial and renewable energy products, food and hospitality, healthcare and beauty, and pharmaceuticals. The Trade segment provides cargo inspection, analytical assessment, calibration, and related research and technical services to the petroleum and biofuels industries; inspection services to governments and regulatory bodies to support trade activities; and analytical and testing services to agricultural trading companies and growers. The Resources segment offers technical inspection, asset integrity management, analytical testing, and ongoing training services for the oil, gas, nuclear, and power industries. This segment also provides a range of ATIC service solutions to the mining and minerals exploration industries covering the resource supply chain from exploration and resource development, through to production, shipping, and commercial settlement. The company also offers cyber security services. Intertek Group plc was founded in 1885 and is based in London, the United Kingdom.

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Wall Street analysts have given iShares MSCI India ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares MSCI India ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

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Wall Street analysts have given iShares S&P Mid-Cap 400 Growth ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares S&P Mid-Cap 400 Growth ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.
Knoll, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, designs, manufactures, markets, and sells commercial and residential furniture, accessories, and coverings for the workplace and residential markets in the United States, Canada, Europe, and internationally. The company operates through Office and Lifestyle segments. It provides systems furniture, including integrated panels or table desks, work surfaces and storage units, power and data systems, and lighting products; office seating products comprising various work chairs; and files and storage products, such as lateral files, mobile pedestals and other storage units, bookcases, and overhead cabinets. The company also offers adjustable tables, as well as meeting, conference, training, dining, and stand-alone and table desks; conference furniture product platforms; height desks, tables, and ergonomic seating and accessories principally for individual home offices and small businesses; technology support accessories, desktop organizational tools, and lighting and storage products; seating and lounge furniture, as well as side, cafA, and dining chairs; conference, training, dining, and occasional tables; and lighting, rugs, textiles, fabrics, felt, leather, upholstery, drapery, and related architectural products. It serves Fortune 1000 companies, governmental agencies, and other medium-to-large sized organizations in various industries, including financial, legal, technology, entertainment, accounting, education, healthcare, and hospitality through its direct sales force and showrooms, distribution partners, and independent dealers and retailers, as well as online. The company was founded in 1938 and is headquartered in East Greenville, Pennsylvania.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Masco: A&J Gummers, Airex 3 LLC, Arrow Fastener, BEHR PAINTS IT! INC., BSI Holdings, Behr (Beijing) Paint Company Limited, Behr Paint (Beijing) Commercial Co. Ltd., Behr Process, Behr Process Canada Ltd., Behr Process Corporation, Behr Process Paints (India) Private Limited, Behr Sales LLC, BrassCraft Manufacturing Company, Brasstech Inc., Bristan, Bristan Group Limited, Cambrian Windows, ColorAxis Inc., Davenport Insulation Group, Delta Faucet (China) Co. Ltd., Delta Faucet Company, Delta Faucet Company India Private Limited, Delta Faucet Company Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Delta Faucet Company of Tennessee, Diversified Cabinet Distributors Inc., Duraflex, Duraflex Limited, Erickson Framing, Glass Idromassaggio, Guy Evans Inc., Hans Grohe Pte. Ltd., Hansgrohe, Hansgrohe A.B., Hansgrohe A/S, Hansgrohe AG, Hansgrohe Armature Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Hansgrohe B.V., Hansgrohe Brasil Metals Santitarios Ltda., Hansgrohe CS s.r.o., Hansgrohe Deutschland Vertriebs GmbH, Hansgrohe Handelsges.mbH, Hansgrohe Inc., Hansgrohe India Private Ltd., Hansgrohe International GmbH, Hansgrohe Japan K.K, Hansgrohe Kft., Hansgrohe Ltd., Hansgrohe N.V., Hansgrohe Pty Ltd, Hansgrohe S. de R. L. de C. V., Hansgrohe S. a r.l., Hansgrohe S.A., Hansgrohe S.A.U., Hansgrohe SA (Pty) Ltd., Hansgrohe SE, Hansgrohe Sanitary Products (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Hansgrohe Sanitary Products W.L.L., Hansgrohe Sp. z.o.o., Hansgrohe Wasselonne S.A., Hansgrohe d.o.o., Hansgrohe ooo, Hansgrohe s.r.l., Hot Spring Spa Australasia Pty Ltd, Hot Spring Spas New Zealand Limited, Huppe B.V., Huppe Belgium S.A., Huppe GmbH, Huppe Insaat Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., Huppe S. a r.l., Huppe S.L., Huppe Spolka z.o.o., Huppe s.r.o., IDI Group inc, Inrecon, Jet Acquisition LLC, Kichler Lighting LLC, L.D. Kichler Lighting Services (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Landex of Wisconsin Inc., Liberty Hardware Asia Co. Ltd., Liberty Hardware Mfg. Corp., Liberty Hardware Retail & Design Services LLC, Masco Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Masco Building Products Corp., Masco Cabinetry Hong Kong Limited, Masco Canada Limited, Masco Capital Corporation, Masco Chile Limitada, Masco Corporation Limited, Masco Corporation of Indiana, Masco Europe Inc., Masco Europe S. a r.l., Masco Europe SCS, Masco Framing Corp., Masco Germany Holding GmbH, Masco HD Support Services LLC, Masco Home Products Private Limited, Masco Home Products S.a r.l., Masco Retail Sales Support Inc., Masco Singapore Pte. Ltd., Masco WM Support Services LLC, Mascomex S.A. de C.V., Masterchem Industries, Masterchem Industries LLC, Mercury Plastics LLC, Milgard Manufacturing, Mill's Pride, Mirolin Industries Corp., My Service Center Inc., NCFII Holdings Inc., Newport Brass, Oz Acquisition LLC, Peerless Sales Corporation, SCE Unlimited, Service Partners, Shanghai Hansgrohe International Trading Co. Ltd., SmarTap, SmarTap A.Y. Ltd., Tapicerias Pacifico SA de CV, Tempered Products Inc., Texwood Industries, The Faucet-Queens, The GMU Group, The L.D. Kichler Co., Tvilum, Vapor Technologies Inc., Vapor Technologies Shenzhen Co. Ltd., Watkins Distribution UK Limited, Watkins Europe BVBA, Watkins Manufacturing Corporation, and Wellness Marketing Corporation.
Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc designs, develops, manufactures, and services integrated power systems for use in the air, on land, and at sea. The company operates its business through following segments: Civil Aerospace, Power Systems, Defense and ITP Aero. The Civil Aerospace segment offers commercial aero engines and aftermarket services. The Power Systems segment includes engines, power systems and nuclear systems for civil power generation. The Defense segment consists of military aero engines, naval engines, submarines and aftermarket services. The ITP Aero segment provides aeronautical engines and gas turbines. The company was founded in March 1906 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.

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Vedanta Ltd. is a natural resource company, which engages in the exploration, extraction, and processing of minerals, oil, and gas properties. It operates through the following segments: Copper, Aluminum, Iron Ore, Power, and Oil & Gas. The Copper segment focuses in custom smelting and also include a copper smelter, a refinery, a phosphoric acid plant, a sulphuric acid plant, a copper rod plant, and three captive power plants. The Aluminum segment comprises refinery and a captive power plant at Lanjigarh and a smelter, a thermal coal based captive power facility at Jharsuguda both situated in the State of Odisha in India. The Iron Ore segment explores, mines, and processes iron ore, pig iron, and metallurgical coke. The Power segment consists 600 MW thermal coal-based commercial power facility at Jharsuguda in the State of Odisha in Eastern India. The Oil and Gas segment involves in the exploration and development and production of oil and gas. The company was founded by Dwarka Prasad Agarwal on June 25, 1965 and is headquartered in Mumbai, India.

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Cartier Resources Inc. engages in the acquisition and exploration of mining properties in Canada. The company explores for gold deposits. Its flagship project is the Chimo mine property located to the east of Val-d'Or, Quebec. The company also holds interest in Benoist, Fenton, Wilson, Cadillac Extension, Dollier, and MacCormack metal deposit projects, which are located in Quebec. Cartier Resources Inc. was incorporated in 2006 and is headquartered in Val-d'Or, Canada.

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TCF Financial Corporation operates as the financial holding company for TCF National Bank that provides various financial products and services in the United States and Canada. It operates through Consumer Banking, Commercial Banking, and Enterprise Services segments. The company offers checking, savings, and money market accounts; certificates of deposit; individual retirement accounts; debit and credit cards; and check cashing and remittance services. It also provides investment management and custodial services, trust services, financial and estate planning, and retirement planning and employee benefit programs; residential, consumer, and small business lending products; and consumer real estate secured lending, consumer loans, loans secured by personal property, and unsecured personal loans. In addition, the company offers loans and lines of credit, deposits, cash management, capital market products, international trade finance, letters of credit, foreign exchange management services, and loan syndication services. Further, it provides commercial and industrial, commercial real estate banking, and lease financing; and treasury services comprising investment and borrowing portfolios, as well as manages capital, debt, and market risks. As of December 31, 2020, the company operated 478 branches, including 373 traditional branches, 102 supermarket branches, and three campus branches located in Michigan, Illinois, Minnesota, Colorado, Ohio, Wisconsin, Arizona, and South Dakota; and 1,062 ATMs. TCF Financial Corporation was incorporated in 1987 and is headquartered in Detroit, Michigan.

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Stantec Inc. provides professional consulting services in the area of infrastructure and facilities in Canada, the United States, and internationally. The company provides consulting services in engineering, architecture, interior design, landscape architecture, surveying, environmental sciences, project management, and project economics. It also offers water, transportation, and public works; transportation planning and traffic engineering; and resource assessment, mine development, reclamation, hydrology, and geotechnical and infrastructure engineering services, as well as urban planning, traffic assessments and optimization, environmental impact assessments, and public consultation services. In addition, the company provides structural, mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and hydraulics engineering services. It serves urban regeneration, infrastructure, education, public and private sector, tourism and leisure, and waste and water sectors, as well as office and commercial, residential, and retail and town centers. The company was formerly known as Stanley Technology Group Inc. and changed its name to Stantec Inc. in October 1998. Stantec Inc. was founded in 1954 and is headquartered in Edmonton, Canada.

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The following companies are subsidiares of The Travelers Companies: 10762962 Canada Inc., 350 Market Street LLC, 8527512 Canada Inc., Aetna Life and Casualty Co, American Equity Insurance Company, American Equity Specialty Insurance Company, Aprilgrange Limited, Arch Street North LLC, Auto Hartford Investments LLC, Bayhill Restaurant II Associates, Camperdown Corporation, Constitution State Services LLC, Discover Property & Casualty Insurance Company, Discover Specialty Insurance Company, F&G UK Underwriters Limited, Farmington Casualty Company, Fidelity and Guaranty Insurance Company, Fidelity and Guaranty Insurance Underwriters Inc., First Floridian Auto and Home Insurance Company, Gulf Underwriters Insurance Company, IHP Capital Partners Fund VIII L.P., Northbrook Holdings Inc., Northfield Insurance Company, Northland Casualty Company, Northland Insurance Company, Phoenix UK Investments LLC, SPC Insurance Agency Inc., Select Insurance Company, Simply Business Holdings Inc., Simply Business Inc., St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company, St. Paul Guardian Insurance Company, St. Paul Mercury Insurance Company, St. Paul Protective Insurance Company, St. Paul Surplus Lines Insurance Company, Standard Fire Properties LLC, Standard Fire UK Investments LLC, TCI Global Services Inc., TPC Investments Inc., TPC U.K. Investments LLC, The Automobile Insurance Company of Hartford Connecticut, The Charter Oak Fire Insurance Company, The Dominion of Canada General Insurance Company, The Family Business Institute LLC, The Phoenix Insurance Company, The St. Paul Companies Inc., The Standard Fire Insurance Company, The Travelers Casualty Company, The Travelers Home and Marine Insurance Company, The Travelers Indemnity Company, The Travelers Indemnity Company of America, The Travelers Indemnity Company of Connecticut, The Travelers Lloyds Insurance Company, TravCo Insurance Company, Travelers (Bermuda) Limited, Travelers Brazil Acquisition LLC, Travelers Brazil Holding LLC, Travelers Casualty Company of Connecticut, Travelers Casualty Insurance Company of America, Travelers Casualty UK Investments LLC, Travelers Casualty and Surety Company, Travelers Casualty and Surety Company of America, Travelers Casualty and Surety Company of Europe Limited, Travelers Commercial Casualty Company, Travelers Commercial Insurance Company, Travelers Constitution State Insurance Company, Travelers Distribution Alliance Inc., Travelers Excess and Surplus Lines Company, Travelers Global Inc., Travelers Indemnity U.K. Investments LLC, Travelers Insurance Company Limited, Travelers Insurance Company of Canada, Travelers Insurance Designated Activity Company, Travelers Insurance Group Holdings Inc., Travelers Lloyds of Texas Insurance Company, Travelers London Limited, Travelers MGA Inc., Travelers Management Limited, Travelers Marine LLC, Travelers Participacoes em Seguros Brasil S.A., Travelers Personal Insurance Company, Travelers Personal Security Insurance Company, Travelers Property Casualty Company of America, Travelers Property Casualty Corp., Travelers Property Casualty Insurance Company, Travelers Seguros Brasil S.A., Travelers Syndicate Management Limited, Travelers Texas MGA Inc., Travelers Underwriting Agency Limited, Ultramar Travel Management, United States Fidelity and Guaranty Company, Xbridge Limited, Zensurance Brokers Inc., and Zensurance Inc..
1 Wall Street equities research analysts have issued "buy," "hold," and "sell" ratings for SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust in the last twelve months. There are currently 1 hold rating for the stock. The consensus among Wall Street equities research analysts is that investors should "hold" SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust stock. A hold rating indicates that analysts believe investors should maintain any existing positions they have in SPY, but not buy additional shares or sell existing shares.

View analyst ratings for SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust or view top-rated stocks.
TSO3 Inc. engages in the research, development, production, maintenance, sale, and licensing of sterilization processes, related consumable supplies, and accessories for heat and moisture sensitive medical devices worldwide. Its principal product is the STERIZONE VP4 sterilizer, a dual sterilant, low temperature sterilization system that utilizes vaporized hydrogen peroxide and ozone that is marketed in Canada and the United States. The company also develops and sells the STERIZONE 125L+ sterilizer, which is designed for terminal sterilization of heat and moisture sensitive medical devices, and is intended for the reprocessing of general instruments, rigid channel instruments, and single/multi-channel rigid endoscopes, as well as short and long single/multi-channel flexible endoscopes. In addition, it provides product development services to medical device manufacturers and others that include hydrogen peroxide and ozone sterilization validation, compatibility testing, medical devices cleaning method development, and medical packaging compatibility verification services. The company was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Quebec, Canada.

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The Bank of Nova Scotia provides various banking products and services in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Peru, Chile, Colombia, the Caribbean and Central America, and internationally. It operates through Canadian Banking, International Banking, Global Banking and Markets, and Global Wealth Management segments. The company offers financial advice and solutions, and day-to-day banking products, including debit and credit cards, chequing and saving accounts, investments, mortgages, loans, and insurance to individuals; and business banking solutions comprising lending, deposit, cash management, and trade finance solutions to small businesses and commercial customers, including automotive financing solutions to dealers and their customers. It also provides wealth management advice and solutions, including online brokerage, mobile investment, full-service brokerage, trust, private banking, and private investment counsel services; and retail mutual funds, exchange traded funds, liquid alternative funds, and institutional funds. In addition, the company offers international banking services for retail, corporate, and commercial customers; and lending and transaction, investment banking advisory, and capital markets access services to corporate customers. Further, it provides Internet, mobile, and telephone banking services. The company operates a network of 952 branches and approximately 3,540 automated banking machines in Canada; and approximately 1,400 branches, 5,200 ATMs, and 22 contact centers internationally. The Bank of Nova Scotia was founded in 1832 and is headquartered in Halifax, Canada.

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Look out Donald Trump, while you're not watching, China is quietly stealing a continent from you. And India may not be far behind.

Currently, the battle for supremacy on the African continent is being fought out between the leaders of Asia's two superpowers -- China and India -- and, for the most part, the United States is nowhere to be seen.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi all but tripped over each other last month crisscrossing the continent on personal goodwill visits.

Meanwhile, the President of the African Development Bank had to come hat in hand to Washington, where, a source with knowledge of the situation told me, all he got to see were some officials in the Treasury Department

President Trump has still not visited the continent and has not announced plans to do so.

Why should we care? China and India care deeply. After all, Africa is home to Nigeria -- poised to become the world's third most populous country and all the challenges that poses in terms of more jobs for an increasingly youthful population, not to mention food and infrastructure.

But it's also where critical, strategically essential minerals including lanthanum, cerium and neodymium, essential for the electric cars of the future, are located.

And as Akinwumi Adesina, the President of the African Development Bank, told me this week, "there are 400 million hectares of arable land in the savannas of Africa" that will "determine the future of food in the world."

Not surprisingly, Modi announced in an address to the Ugandan Parliament, the first by a serving Indian Prime Minister, that India would be opening 18 new embassies, "deepen[ing] our partnership and engagement across the vast expanse of Africa."

Xi came with an even grander proposal -- membership in China's mega development project: the Belt and Road initiative, initially involving development of massive land and trading corridors across Eurasia and extending its scope even more broadly. Already, it has loaned some $94 billion to African governments and state-owned companies.

But these Chinese-led initiatives and this push into Africa have only been accompanied by considerable peril and deep challenges to the United States and its interests there.

Public debt in sub-Saharan Africa has soared from 28.5% of gross domestic product in 2012 to 48% of GDP this year, according to the International Monetary Fund, meaning broad swaths of the continent must use large chunks of their output just to service their debt.

All too often, pledged against this debt are the natural resources ranging from oil in Nigeria and Angola to rare minerals in Congo and deeply important geo-strategic locations like Djibouti.

At the same time, two-way trade between the US and Africa has plummeted from roughly $142 million in 2008 to $55 million last year, largely because the US has become increasingly energy self-sufficient, removing the need for African crude oil.

Meanwhile, as China and the US are embarking on a virulent trans-Pacific trade war, China is embedding itself in country after country across Africa, often quite profitably, occasionally quite toxically.

Take Djibouti, the tiny nation barely the size of Vermont, which occupies a strategic corner of Africa overlooking the Gulf of Aden, through which some 12.5% to 20% of global trade passes annually.

The US maintains Camp Lemonnier with 4,000 personnel stationed in what the Navy describes as "the primary base of operations for US Africa Command in the Horn of Africa."

As it happens, the base is located not far from a massive new billion dollar Doraleh Container Terminal complex that includes roads and a hotel, in addition to the port, all built by Dubai-based DP World, the mammoth owner and operator of ports and related facilities in more than 40 countries. Last year, China opened its first overseas military base right next door.

On February 22, armed Djibouti troops, without any warning, seized control of the DP World facility and claimed it for Djibouti's government.

The London Court of International Arbitration ruled the seizure illegal.

"Before the Chinese arrived, we had no problems here," Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, chief efecutive of DP World, told me in an interview. "But as soon as the Chinese moved in, of course, the Chinese basically loaned them more than what they neededto the point there the government became helpless."

China has failed to take any note of this, while the Djibouti government has said it was simply rewriting the terms of its contract with DP. The London Arbitration Court disagreed and termed it an outright seizure.

Sultan Sulayem paused and continued, "What is killing Africa is the infrastructure is collapsing and the only way to improve it is through public-private partnerships. And now, after Djibouti, who is going to invest?"

Djibouti is hardly the only African nation to be seduced by wbhat would appear to be easy Chinese money that will be difficult if not impossible to repay without selling its patrimony of raw materials at wholesale prices, thereby holding them hostage to or tying them ever closer to the Chinese sphere.

Nigeria agreed to a three-year $2.5 billion currency swap to boost its reserves with the understanding that the yuan would become a Nigerian reserve currency.

The African Development Bank, Adesina told me, has a number of programs designed to stem this drift away from western-style capitalism. But China's commitments may be simply too large and too seductive.

The US has few such profound ties to Africa. Yet it has become quite clear since the late years of the Obama administration that Africa is where instability can quickly morph into direct attacks on American security. Al Qaeda and ISIS have discovered vast new reservoirs and support in terms of manpower, funding and easy plunder in several African nations.

American troops have begun dying in terrorist incidents, most recently in Niger, where four US soldiers died in an ambush by ISIS.

Yet American interests diverge quite dramatically from China's in many corners of this complex continent. China has little interest in building strong, democratic institutions and states. Its goal is to create dependencies that will advance its own agenda of control and security. So, it is long past time for Trump to pay more than lip service to Africa's needs and undertake a substantive visit to this region where he is losing a vast and potentially quite deadly war.
Look out Donald Trump, while you're not watching, China is quietly stealing a continent from you. And India may not be far behind.

Currently, the battle for supremacy on the African continent is being fought out between the leaders of Asia's two superpowers -- China and India -- and, for the most part, the United States is nowhere to be seen.

2017 Niger ambush Africa Asia Banking institutions Banking, finance and investments Business, economy and trade China Continents and regions Development banks Djibouti Donald Trump East Asia Eastern Africa Government and public administration Government bodies and offices Government organizations - US India La David Johnson Military Military casualties Military operations Misc people Niger Nigeria North America Political Figures - US South Asia Special operations forces The Americas Trade and development Trade and development finance United States Unrest, conflicts and war US Army Special Forces US Department of Defense US federal departments and agencies US federal government US Special Operations Command War casualties Western Africa

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi all but tripped over each other last month crisscrossing the continent on personal goodwill visits.

Meanwhile, the President of the African Development Bank had to come hat in hand to Washington, where, a source with knowledge of the situation told me, all he got to see were some officials in the Treasury Department

President Trump has still not visited the continent and has not announced plans to do so.

Why should we care? China and India care deeply. After all, Africa is home to Nigeria -- poised to become the world's third most populous country and all the challenges that poses in terms of more jobs for an increasingly youthful population, not to mention food and infrastructure.

But it's also where critical, strategically essential minerals including lanthanum, cerium and neodymium, essential for the electric cars of the future, are located.

And as Akinwumi Adesina, the President of the African Development Bank, told me this week, "there are 400 million hectares of arable land in the savannas of Africa" that will "determine the future of food in the world."

Not surprisingly, Modi announced in an address to the Ugandan Parliament, the first by a serving Indian Prime Minister, that India would be opening 18 new embassies, "deepen[ing] our partnership and engagement across the vast expanse of Africa."

Xi came with an even grander proposal -- membership in China's mega development project: the Belt and Road initiative, initially involving development of massive land and trading corridors across Eurasia and extending its scope even more broadly. Already, it has loaned some $94 billion to African governments and state-owned companies.

But these Chinese-led initiatives and this push into Africa have only been accompanied by considerable peril and deep challenges to the United States and its interests there.

Public debt in sub-Saharan Africa has soared from 28.5% of gross domestic product in 2012 to 48% of GDP this year, according to the International Monetary Fund, meaning broad swaths of the continent must use large chunks of their output just to service their debt.

All too often, pledged against this debt are the natural resources ranging from oil in Nigeria and Angola to rare minerals in Congo and deeply important geo-strategic locations like Djibouti.

At the same time, two-way trade between the US and Africa has plummeted from roughly $142 million in 2008 to $55 million last year, largely because the US has become increasingly energy self-sufficient, removing the need for African crude oil.

Meanwhile, as China and the US are embarking on a virulent trans-Pacific trade war, China is embedding itself in country after country across Africa, often quite profitably, occasionally quite toxically.

Take Djibouti, the tiny nation barely the size of Vermont, which occupies a strategic corner of Africa overlooking the Gulf of Aden, through which some 12.5% to 20% of global trade passes annually.

The US maintains Camp Lemonnier with 4,000 personnel stationed in what the Navy describes as "the primary base of operations for US Africa Command in the Horn of Africa."

As it happens, the base is located not far from a massive new billion dollar Doraleh Container Terminal complex that includes roads and a hotel, in addition to the port, all built by Dubai-based DP World, the mammoth owner and operator of ports and related facilities in more than 40 countries. Last year, China opened its first overseas military base right next door.

On February 22, armed Djibouti troops, without any warning, seized control of the DP World facility and claimed it for Djibouti's government.

The London Court of International Arbitration ruled the seizure illegal.

"Before the Chinese arrived, we had no problems here," Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, chief efecutive of DP World, told me in an interview. "But as soon as the Chinese moved in, of course, the Chinese basically loaned them more than what they neededto the point there the government became helpless."

China has failed to take any note of this, while the Djibouti government has said it was simply rewriting the terms of its contract with DP. The London Arbitration Court disagreed and termed it an outright seizure.

Sultan Sulayem paused and continued, "What is killing Africa is the infrastructure is collapsing and the only way to improve it is through public-private partnerships. And now, after Djibouti, who is going to invest?"

Djibouti is hardly the only African nation to be seduced by wbhat would appear to be easy Chinese money that will be difficult if not impossible to repay without selling its patrimony of raw materials at wholesale prices, thereby holding them hostage to or tying them ever closer to the Chinese sphere.

Nigeria agreed to a three-year $2.5 billion currency swap to boost its reserves with the understanding that the yuan would become a Nigerian reserve currency.

The African Development Bank, Adesina told me, has a number of programs designed to stem this drift away from western-style capitalism. But China's commitments may be simply too large and too seductive.

The US has few such profound ties to Africa. Yet it has become quite clear since the late years of the Obama administration that Africa is where instability can quickly morph into direct attacks on American security. Al Qaeda and ISIS have discovered vast new reservoirs and support in terms of manpower, funding and easy plunder in several African nations.

American troops have begun dying in terrorist incidents, most recently in Niger, where four US soldiers died in an ambush by ISIS.

Yet American interests diverge quite dramatically from China's in many corners of this complex continent. China has little interest in building strong, democratic institutions and states. Its goal is to create dependencies that will advance its own agenda of control and security. So, it is long past time for Trump to pay more than lip service to Africa's needs and undertake a substantive visit to this region where he is losing a vast and potentially quite deadly war.
Here is a look at the life of Yoweri Museveni, president of Uganda since 1986.

Personal:

Birth date: August 15,1944

Africa Eastern Africa Elections and campaigns Government and public administration Political Figures - Intl Politics Uganda Yoweri Museveni Fast Facts Government bodies and offices US federal government Continents and regions

Birth place: Ntungamo, Uganda

Birth name: Yoweri Kaguta Museveni

Father: Amos Kaguta, a cattle keeper

Mother: Esteri Kokundeka

Marriage: Janet (Kataaha) Museveni (August 1973-present)

Children: one son, three daughters

Education: Dar Es Salaam University (Tanzania), B.A., Economics, 1970

Religion: Christian

Timeline:

1970 - Returns to Uganda after college and works for Prime Minister Milton Obote.

January 25, 1971 - Goes into exile in Tanzania when Obote is overthrown by Idi Amin. While in Tanzania, forms the Front for National Salvation (FRONASA) with the purpose of overthrowing Amin.

April 1979 - FRONASA overthrows Amin and Museveni takes a position on the Military Commission, the newly formed government of Uganda.

1979-1980 - Minister of Defense, Uganda.

1981-1986 - Guerilla leader (National Resistance Army) in Uganda.

January 26, 1986 - Becomes President of Uganda after ousting the military regime of General Tito Okello. Is sworn in January 29.

May 1996 - Is elected President of Uganda with 74.2% of the vote in the first direct presidential election in Uganda since independence from Britain in 1962.

March 24, 1998 - US President Bill Clinton meets with Museveni in Uganda.

March 2001 - Is re-elected President of Uganda with 69.3% of the vote.

May 6, 2002 - Meets with US President George W. Bush at the White House to discuss ways to get more Ugandan products into the US market.

July 11, 2003 - Bush meets with Museveni in Entebbe, Uganda, to speak about AIDS.

August 2005 - Uganda's parliament removes presidential term limits.

February 25, 2006 - Museveni is declared the winner of Uganda's first multi-party presidential election. It is his third term in office.

August 2006 - The Ugandan government and the Lord's Resistance Army sign a truce aimed at ending 20 years of civil war in the country. The war has killed tens of thousands and displaced two million people.

October 30, 2007 - Museveni meets with Bush at the White House.

November 2010 - Museveni releases a song and accompanying music video, "U Want Another Rap?" as part of his re-election campaign.

November 29, 2010 - Museveni takes a surprise trip to Somalia, making him the first head of state to visit in almost 20 years, according to the African Union Mission for Somalia.

February 20, 2011 - Uganda's electoral commission declares Museveni the president with 68% of the vote. It is his fourth term in office.

February 24, 2014 - Museveni signs into law a controversial bill that toughens penalties against gay people and makes some homosexual acts crimes punishable by life in prison. During the bill signing, he declares that he will not allow the West to impose its values on Uganda.

July 31, 2015 - Museveni says he will seek his fifth term as president in 2016 elections, 30 years after assuming the office for the first time.

February 20, 2016 - Uganda's election commission declares Museveni the winner, with nearly twice as many votes for president as his closest competitor, opposition leader Kizza Besigye. Besigye was put under "preventative arrest" on February 19 at his home in Kampala, along with six officials from his party. Besigye's party, the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) rejects the results and demands an independent audit of the elections.

May 12, 2016 - Museveni is sworn in for his fifth term as president.

July 11, 2016 - Facebook photos of Museveni sitting in a lawn chair by the roadside making a phone call in Kyeirumba Village, Uganda, go viral, inspiring a online meme.

July 27, 2018 - A Ugandan constitutional court ruling upholds a December 2017 constitutional amendment to remove the presidential age limit, likely allowing Museveni to rule for life. The article limited anyone from serving as president past the age of 75.
Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen visited the North State today to assess damage done by the Carr Fire and talk about disaster relief.

The director of the California Office of Emergency Services as well as Cal Fire and FEMA officials were also in attendance.

And even though the fire is still burning, they're already focusing their efforts on rebuilding.

Nielsen toured areas of Redding and Shasta County devastated by the Carr Fire prior to attending a press conference at the Shasta Fairgrounds in Anderson Friday.

The scenes are truly heartbreaking, Nielsen said. I'm not going to sugar coat it...homes reduced to piles of ash, fences replaced by caution tape, scorched vehicles in the driveways. It really looks like a scene unfortunately out of a devastating disaster movie. But for many families here, in this area of California, and other parts of California, this is a reality.

Nielsen also stressed the need to prepare for future hazards.

She highlighted the effects of changing weather on wildfires as seen with the unprecedented fire tornado that tore through East Redding two weeks ago.

This tornado was two miles long, half a mile wide, Nielsen said. I understand it clocked in at about 143 miles per hour and about 2,700 degrees. This was a hot and fast-moving storm of fire.

Nielsen said she met with California governor Gerry Brown Thursday, and they're both focused on finding ways to better prepare for disasters like the Carr Fire moving forward.

We really need to change all of our assistance programs so that we can get the assistance out ahead of the hazard and disaster to help communities be prepared and to mitigate, she said.

Despite all of the devastation, Nielsen said it was truly touching to see the amount of love and support Redding and surrounding communities have shown for first responders.

We're all here together to support the community both as we continue to respond as well as we begin the recovery, she said.

Nielsen says emergency alerts are the best way to share and receive information during major events like the carr fire.

She encourages everyone to register for them as well as have a plan when disaster strikes.
BLACK REPUBLICAN BLOG - The Republican Party is the party of civil rights and the four Fs: faith, family, freedom and fairness. The Democratic Party is the party of the four Ss: slavery, secession, segregation and socialism (Quote By Author Michael Scheuer).
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Venture Capitalist Tim Draper, the man behind the idea of splitting California into three, said he's giving up on the effort after the Supreme Court knocked his proposal off of the November ballot.

The court struck his initiative from the ballot in July as a part of a legal challenge, but did not rule on the merits of the case.

Draper said he will not continue the fight to get the initiative on the ballot after spending $1.7 million on the project. The court's decision has put an end to his case.

Get more details in the video.
Article 35A is a clarificatory provision to clear the issue of constitutional position as observed in the rest of country in contrast to J&K.

The jurisprudence of laws is located in time and space. Laws have their own universe and operate in matter not in vacuum. In Jammu and Kashmir, the immovable property of a state resident cant be permitted to be transferred to a non-state resident. This legal and constitutional protection is inherent for the residents of the state and this fundamental and basic inherent right cannot be taken away in view of the peculiar and special constitutional position occupied by J&K. Article 35A is a clarificatory provision to clear the issue of constitutional position as observed in the rest of country in contrast to J&K.

The state legislature has the power to define and regulate the rights and privileges of the permanent residents of the state, more especially in regard to the acquisition of immovable property, appointments to services and like matters.

Parliament has no power to legislate law about the subjects administration of justice, the land and the other immovable properties, etc. Article 35A not only recognises but clarifies the already existing constitutional and legal position and does not extend something new to the state of J&K. This article, on its own, does not give anything new to the state. Article 14 of the Constitution of India, made applicable to J&K, thus, gave equal protection of laws to the state subjects/citizens as a class apart. Similarly, article 19(1) (f) of the Constitution of India, which is applicable to J&K, and till date continues to be in force in the state, recognises the right to own, hold and dispose of property, which is inherent to the states citizens, who stand defined in terms of Orders of His Highness and the Constitution of Jammu and Kashmir.

The Constitution (Application to J&K) Order, 1954, was issued by the President under Article 370 with the advice of the Union Government. It was enacted subsequent to the 1952 Delhi Agreement, which dealt with the extension of Indian citizenship to J&K state subjects.

The state is empowered, both in the Instrument of Accession and Article 370 to decree exceptions to any extension of the Indian Constitution to the state, other than in the matter of ceded three subjects. So Article 35A is an exception allowed by the Article 370, clause (1) (d).

Article 35A protects the demographic status of J&K in its prescribed constitutional form. People of the state are apprehensive that any move to abrogate Article 35A would open the gates for a demographic transformation of the state in general and the Kashmir Valley in particular. Kashmiris of all socio-political hues argue and say that the states autonomy has been gradually eroded by various governments in Delhi through misuse of the provisions of Article 370. Therefore, Kashmiris have come to regard the rights of permanent settlement as the only remaining piece of any meaningful autonomy.

Article 35A was added to the Constitution by the executive head without any discussion and approval in Parliament; hence questions have been raised about the manner of its enactment.

The petitioners have challenged the incorporation of Article 35A on grounds of constitutional incongruity as it goes against fundamental constitutional equality. They claim that Article 35A is the heart of special provisions granted to J&K state under Article 370 that bars acquiring property by those who are not subjects.

Article 35A was not added to the Constitution by following the procedure prescribed for amendment of the Constitution of India under Article 368. Article 370 does not anywhere confer on the President legislative or executive powers so vast that he can amend the Constitution or perform the function of Parliament. It has been brought about by the executive organ when actually the right of amendment of the Constitution lies with the legislative organ. Therefore, it is, allegedly, ultra vires the basic structure of the Constitution since it violates the constitutional procedures established by law.

Besides carrying out many modifications and changes, this order added a new article (35A) to the Constitution of India. Addition or deletion of an article amounted to an amendment to the Constitution which could be done only by Parliament as per procedure laid down in Article 368. But, Article 35A was never presented before Parliament. This meant the President had bypassed Parliament in this order to add Article 35A.

The core challenge is on the following:

1 It facilitates the violation of the right of women to marry a man of their choice by not giving the heirs right to property, if the woman marries a man who is not a permanent resident. Her children are not given Permanent Resident Certificate and thereby considering them unfit for inheritance not given right to such womans property even if she is a permanent resident.

2 It facilitates the free and unrestrained violation of fundamental rights of those workers and settlers like SC and ST people who have lived there for generations. The Valmikis who were brought to the state in 1957 were given Permanent Resident Certificates on the condition that they and their future generations could stay in the state only if they continued to be safai karmacharis (scavengers). And even after six decades, their children are safai karmacharis and they have been denied the right to quit scavenging.

3 The industrial sector and private sector suffer due to the property ownership restrictions. Good doctors dont come to the state for the same reason.

4 Children of non-state subjects do not get admission to state colleges.

5 It ruins the status of West Pakistani refugees. Being citizens of India they are not only stateless persons, but being non-permanent residents of J&K, they cannot enjoy the basic rights and privileges as being enjoyed by permanent residents of the state.

6 It gives a free hand to the state and politicians to discriminate between citizens of India, on an unfair basis and give preferential treatment to some by trampling over others, since the non-residents of the state are debarred from buying properties, getting a state job or voting in the local elections.

Fearing the large-scale protests by people of the state particularly the Valley and sizeable parts of other two regions both the Central and the state governments are dithering about taking a legally correct stand in defence of the provision before the apex court. The request for adjournment made by attorney-general and states counsel reflected flip-flop tactic.

As far as the legal arguments against the article are concerned, they are groundless and not tenable. No objections have been raised over various articles in the Constitution that similarly provide special rights to other Indian states. Since Article 370 was enacted on November 26, 1949, as part of the Constitution of India by the Constituent Assembly of India which was a sovereign body, Article 35A flows inexorably from it, is the view strongly held by eminent legal eagles. The core legal issue is whether Article 35A violates the basic structure of the Constitution or not. The Chief Justice of India has observed that the issue needs to be examined first by three-judge bench and later, if found appropriate, by the Constitution Bench. Let the nation wait for the authoritative pronouncement on the core legal issue by the Supreme Court.

(Ashok Bhan is a senior Supreme Court lawyer and Chairman Kashmir Policy and Strategy Group. He can be reached at

ashokbhan@rediffmail.com)
Lets take a look at the offers on each of the cars for this month.

If you are planning to buy a Ford car this month, we have good news. The American carmaker is offering cash discounts and/or exchange bonuses with the Figo, Aspire and the Endeavour throughout the month of August. However, the brands bestselling models such as the Freestyle and the EcoSport do not attract any discounts whatsoever.

Lets take a look at the offers on each of the cars for this month.

Ford Figo:

Exchange Bonus Variant(s) Prices (ex-showroom Delhi) Cash Discount Ford Car Non-Ford Car Figo Trend MT ABS Petrol Rs 5.91 lakh MY2018 - Upto Rs 30,960 MY2017- Upto Rs 11,610 MY2018- Upto Rs 25,800 MY2018- Upto Rs 19,350 Figo Titanium MT Petrol Rs 6.37 lakh MY2018- Upto Rs 30,960 MY2017- Upto Rs 11,610 MY2018- Upto Rs 25,800 MY 2017- Upto Rs 25,800 MY2018- Upto Rs 19,350 MY2017- Upto Rs 19,350 Figo Titanium+ MT Petrol Rs 6.93 lakh MY2017- Upto Rs 11,610 MY2017- Upto Rs 25,800 MY2017- Upto Rs 19,350 Figo Titanium AT Petrol Rs 8.25 lakh Upto Rs 34,800 Upto Rs 29,000 Upto Rs 21,750 Figo Trend MT ABS,Titanium MT Diesel Rs 6.98 lakh to Rs 7.33 lakh MY2018- Upto Rs 31,440 MY2017- Upto Rs 11,790 MY2018- Upto Rs 26,200 MY2017- Upto Rs 26,200 MY2018- Upto Rs 19,650 MY2017- Upto Rs 19,650 Figo Titanium+ MT Diesel Rs 7.83 lakh MY2017- Upto Rs 11,790 MY2017- Upto Rs 26,200 MY2017- Upto Rs 19,650

Ford Aspire:

Exchange Bonus Variant(s) Prices (ex-showroom Delhi) Cash Discount Ford Cars Non-Ford Cars Figo Aspire Ambiente MT, Trend MT ABS, Titanium MT, Titanium+ MT Petrol Rs 5.81 lakh to Rs 7.44 lakh MY2018- Upto Rs 42,183 MY2017- Upto Rs 19,350 MY2018- Upto Rs 25,800 MY 2017- Upto Rs 25,800 MY2018- Upto Rs 19,350 MY2017- Upto Rs 19,350 Figo Aspire Titanium AT Petrol Rs 8.78 lakh MY2018- Upto Rs 47,415 MY2017- Upto Rs 21,750 MY2018- Upto Rs 29,000 MY 2017- Upto Rs 29,000 MY2018- Upto Rs 21,750 MY2017- Upto Rs 21,750 Figo Aspire Ambiente MT, Trend MT ABS, Titanium MT, Titanium+ MT Diesel Rs 6.92 lakh to Rs 8.55 lakh MY2018- Upto Rs 42,837 MY2017- Upto Rs 19,650 MY2018- Upto Rs 26,200 MY2017- Upto Rs 26,200 MY2018- Upto Rs 19,650 MY2017- Upto Rs 19,650

Ford Endeavour:

Variant(s) Prices (ex-showroom Delhi) Cash Discount Endeavour Trend 4x2 AT Rs 26.32 lakh Upto Rs 30,000 Endeavour (all variants) Rs 26.32 lakh to Rs 32.81 lakh MY2017- Upto Rs 60,000

Please note: Offers could vary depending on the variants, region and dealerships. To know which offers are available in your city, click on the model of your choice followed by the "View August Offers" button. All these offers are valid across India till 31 August 2018.

Ford seems to be offering big discounts on the Figo and the Aspire to clear stock as the American carmaker is set to introduce the Aspire and Figo facelifts in the country soon. Ford is also expected to launch the Endeavour facelift in India, but we dont expect it to come here before early 2019.

Its startling to see Ford offering higher discounts on MY2018 Figo and Aspire in comparison to their MY2017 counterparts. Wed suggest buyers to confirm the same from Ford authorised dealerships.

Disclaimer: This article has not been edited by Deccan Chronicle and is taken from a syndicated feed. Photos: CarDekho.
Planning to stay within the Maruti family but cannot decide whether its the Swift or the Dzire that suits your needs better?

With an annual sales figure well over a million units, its no doubt that owners of Maruti Suzuki vehicles in the country outnumbers the entire population of Iceland! If you are not one of the million but are eyeing a new car within the Rs 10 lakh price bracket, the Swift and Dzire must surely be ranking high on your list. However, which of the two suits your needs better? Weve got all the answers to your questions.

Both cars not only rule the sales charts in their respective segments, they also share the same platform, a lot of features and engine options. The prices of several of their variants overlap each other too. So heres a look at some of the major differences between the two.

Maruti Dzire Maruti Swift Compact Sedan: The Dzire is a three-box car, which means it gets a separate luggage compartment. The sedans front end is similar to the Swift. But the two can be easily distinguished as the sedan gets chrome detailing on the grille and a different front bumper design. 5-door Hatchback: The Swift is a hatchback and doesnt get a separate compartment for your luggage. Its based on the same platform as the Dzire but is shorter in length. That should make it slightly easier to manoeuvre and park in the city but its luggage carrying capacity is lower Soft Ride: The Dzires suspension setup is optimised to offer a comfortable ride rather than sporty handling. Firm Ride: The Swift's suspension is stiff and tuned towards sporty handling. While the ride isn't uncomfortable, sharp undulations tend to filter a lot more into the cabin when compared to the Dzire. Spacious: The Dzire is not only longer than the Swift but is also more spacious. It offers more knee room at the front as well as the rear. The Dzires cabin is also wider on the inside. Compact but not cramped: The Swift is certainly not as spacious as the Dzire but the third-gen hatchback has a lot more space than its predecessor. Competition: The Dzire is the highest selling sedan in its segment. It competes against the Honda Amaze, Ford Aspire, Volkswagen Ameo, Hyundai Xcent and Tata Tigor Competition: It rivals the likes of Hyundai Grand i10 and Ford Figo. Like the Dzire, the hatchback sits on top of its segment in terms of sales figures.

Features comparison of closely priced variants

Maruti Dzire L vs Swift V

Petrol Diesel Maruti Dzire Rs 5.56 lakh Rs 6.56 lakh Maruti Swift Rs 5.87 lakh Rs 6.87 lakh Difference Rs 31,000 (Swift is more expensive) 31,000 (Swift is more expensive)

Common features: Both cars come with a basic safety kit which includes ISOFIX child seat mounts, ABS with EBD, dual airbags and seatbelts with pretensioners. Apart from these, both share a dual-tone interior, a tilt adjustable steering, a gear shift indicator, a front accessory socket and an antenna.

Additional features in the Dzire over Swift: Bottle holders in the doors

Additional Features in Swift Over Dzire: Body-coloured and electrically adjustable outside mirrors with turn indicators, wheel covers, electromagnetic trunk opener, remote keyless entry, central locking, all four power windows with auto down for driver side, height adjustable driver seat with adjustable front headrests, front door armrest, sun visors on both the sides, speed-sensing door locks, day/night IRVM, security alarm system, tachometer, audio player with Bluetooth, AUX and USB, four door speakers and steering-mounted controls.

Takeaway: Since we have cherry-picked the Dzires base variant against the V variant of the Swift, the feature deficit is monumental. The Swift outscores the Dzire in terms of useful features and is worth considering since it costs just Rs 31,000 over the sedans base variant.

Maruti Dzire V vs Swift Z

Petrol Diesel Maruti Dzire (MT/AMT) Rs 6.44 lakh / Rs 6.91 lakh Rs 7.44 lakh / Rs 7.91 lakh Maruti Swift (MT/AMT) Rs 6.49 lakh / Rs 6.96 lakh Rs 7.49 lakh / Rs 7.96 lakh Difference Rs 5,000 (Swift is more expensive) Rs 5,000 (Swift is more expensive)

Common Features: Body-coloured bumper, door handles, ORVM integrated turn indicators, security alarm, speed-sensitive door locks, day/night IRVM, tachometer, audio remote control with four door speakers, audio unit with bluetooth, AUX and USB and steering-mounted controls, keyless entry, electromagnetic trunk, height adjustable drivers seat, front sun visors, electromagnetic backdoor/trunk opener and driver side one-touch window down.

Additional Features in the Dzire over Swift: Chrome accents on the front grille, cabin with burl wood and chrome ornamentation, rear armrest with cupholders, rear AC vents with accessory socket and a boot lamp.

Additional Features in Swift Over Dzire: 15-inch alloy wheels, electronically retractable ORVMs, reverse parking sensors, front fog lamps, leather-wrapped steering, drivers window pinch guard and auto up function, push start/stop button, tweeters, auto climate control and rear defogger.

Takeaway: Theres a considerable gap between the when it comes to features. For an additional sum of Rs 5,000, you can upgrade from the Dzire V variants to the Z variants of the hatchback that gets a lot more goodies that not only enhances practicality but also give it a more premium feel. The Swift is the clear value-for-money pick here for those who drive themselves.

However, if you spend most of your time in the rear bench, its the Dzire V that will be more welcoming as all the additional features that the Swift Z gets over the Dzire V are either cosmetic or driver-centric. And since the Dzire V packs all the basic features, it wont disappoint you on days when you feel like getting behind the steering wheel.

Maruti Dzire Z vs Swift Z+

Variant Petrol Diesel Maruti Dzire (MT/AMT) Rs 7.06 lakh / Rs 7.53 lakh Rs 8.06 lakh / Rs 8.53 lakh Maruti Swift (MT/AMT) Rs 7.29 lakh / Rs 7.76 lakh Rs 8.29 lakh / Rs 8.76 lakh Difference Rs 23,000 (Swift is more expensive) Rs 23,000 (Swift is more expensive)

Common Features over previous variants: 15-inch alloy wheels, front fog lamps, electrically retractable ORVMs, reverse parking sensors, drivers window pinch guard and auto up function, push start/stop button, tweeters, auto climate control and rear defogger.

Additional features in the Dzire over the Swift: Chrome window liner strip

Additional features in Swift over the Dzire: Silver accents on door trims, Auto LED projector headlamps with DRLs, reverse parking camera, 7-inch smartplay infotainment system.

Takeaway: The Swift commands a premium of Rs 23,000 but the additional features makes up for it. However, like weve seen in the Dzire V and Swift Z comparison, the sub-4 metre sedan remains the car of choice for those seeking a more comfortable rear seat since the additional features that the Swift gets are all driver-centric.

Maruti Dzire Z+ vs Swift Z+

Petrol Diesel Maruti Dzire (MT/AMT) Rs 7.96 lakh / Rs 8.43 lakh Rs 8.96 lakh / Rs 9.43 lakh Maruti Swift (MT/AMT) Rs 7.29 lakh / Rs 7.76 lakh Rs 8.29 lakh / Rs 8.76 lakh Difference Rs 67,000 Rs 67,000

Common Features (over previous variants): Auto LED projector headlights, 15-inch alloy wheels, 7-inch infotainment system with reverse parking camera, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto

Takeaway: The top variants of the Dzire and the Swift get the same set of features. However, you have to pay an extra Rs 67,000 for the sedan. So if you are looking for a feature-laden car but not worried about the space on offer, go for the Swift.

Why Buy Dzire:

Bigger Boot: The Dzire is capable of gobbling up the familys luggage on a weekend trip much easier than the Swift

Better rear seat: It has a rear armrest, rear AC vents and a more supple ride, which will keep the Dzires rear occupants more comfortable

Why Buy Swift:

Compact City Car: If you are looking for a compact daily driver that's easy to zip around town, the Swift makes a strong case for itself

Fun to drive: The Swift is a drivers delight and is more fun on a set of twisties

Disclaimer: This article has not been edited by Deccan Chronicle and is taken from a syndicated feed. Photos: CarDekho.
Mumbai: Jacqueline Fernandez turns another year older on August 11, and as she celebrates turning 32, the occasion gives us the opportunity to celebrate the diva that she is.

Who wouldve thought when her debut Aladin released in 2009, that this Sri Lankan beauty would go on to capture hearts of millions in the country, go on to work with the biggest names in the biggest films and receive love from all around?

We list down some of the reasons why Jacqueline is exactly who Bollywood and followers of the film industry love.

1. Beauty and the body:

So what if Jacqueline is not known for her acting chops? She is everything a Bollywood heroine (not actress) needs to be as she is without a doubt, one of the most beautiful, hot and glamorous actresses currently.

Be it those stunning features, a body to die for and a lovely smile, adjectives for Jacqueline can easily go from cute to gorgeous to sultry.

Be it the heavy gowns, classy sarees, swimsuits, or the simple tee and jeans, the Jacqueline looks stunning in almost every attire that she adorns.

2. Hit on the dance floor:

Youll easily lose count of the number of chartbusters Jacqueline has featured in. If you loved dancing to Dhanno, Lat Lag Gayee, Jadoo Ki Jappii, Chittiyaan Kalaiyaan', Jumme Ki Raat, Sau Tarah Ke and the most recent Ek Do Teen, among others, you need to thank her for it.

Each of these songs are a part of every DJs collection, not just because of its music, but because Jacquelines cool moves in them made you hit the dance floor.

3. Fitness freak:

Maintaining good beauty and physique is never a cakewalk, and Jacqueline ticks all the boxes in the tasks associated in keeping up her fitness.

Be it being paparazzi favourite on her way to the gym, pilates, Yoga, pole dancing and other activities, her Instagram account is proof of one of the main aspects that makes Jacqueline Fernandez.

4. All about loving your family:

The actress dotes on her family, especially her mother Kim and keep posting adorable pictures and videos of/with Fernandez Sr. Her brother Ryan also occasional finds a mention on her photo-sharing account.

5. Adorable goofball:

Jacqueline is among the goofiest actresses, and keeps showing her bubbly and fun side in multiple videos with her co-stars, friends and other close ones. Making interesting expressions or doing everything that is not proper or expected of actresses in videos is what she is known for.

6. Who says actresses cant be friends:

While Jacquelines bond with the male actors like Salman Khan, Akshay Kumar, Varun Dhawan, among others is well-known, her closeness with some actresses is a break from the usual behaviour of competitive heroines. Her BFF equation with Sonam had made headlines, while she doesnt mind sharing screen space with other actresses in multi-starrers, and previously was seen goofing around with Housefull 3 co-stars Nargis Fakhri and Lisa Haydon, Race 3 co-star Daisy Shah, among others. And all reports of catfight with Taapsee Pannu and Katrina Kaif, were happily slammed too.

7. Love for four-legged creatures

Jacqueline Fernandez loves animals and was even honoured by PETA in 2014. You only need to browse through her Instagram handle, and find some lovely pictures, videos with her cat, horse during riding sessions, and many more.

8. All for a cause:

The actress lends support to various causes and her raising funds to build homes for Chennai floods victims two years ago, was perhaps the noblest. A tree plantation drive on World Environment Day and visit to an old age home during Race 3, were further examples of her praiseworthy side.

9. Work speaks, love doesnt:

An actress love life will always make headlines, but since her break-up with Sajid Khan, her name Jacqueline's has been linked to many, Bahrains Prince Sheikh Hassan bin Rashid Al Khalifa, and actors like Salman Khan, Sidharth Malhotra, Arjun Kapoor, Ranbir Kapoor, and others, but the actress has maintained she has been single in the past few years. Whether she is private about her love life, or prefers her work to be in the limelight, this mysterious side of hers is surely interesting too.

10. Never-say-die attitude:

But most importantly, its that fighting spirit of the actress that has made her touch the heights of her career.

Her start with the duds Aladin and Jaane Kahan Se Aayi Hai could have written her off, but she bounced back with Dhanno song, three sequels, Murder 2, Housefull 2 and Race 2, and Kick, which catapulted her into the big league.

When there were another set of flops, Roy, Bangistan, Brothers, she had Housefull 3 to her rescue. And the actress proved failure couldnt stay with her for too long, as for every film like A Flying Jatt or A Gentleman, there was a Judwaa 2 as her twin.

Overcoming struggle with Hindi, learning distinct styles of dance forms and doing different kinds of training for various films, are some of the other reasons why Jacqueline is a success after a decade in Bollywood.
Mumbai: After the success of its premiere in UK, the Melbourne screening received standing ovation as well. Director Tabrez Noorani was present with his leading ladies Mrunal Thakur, Richa Chadha and Freida Pinto and was lauded for exposing the human trafficking nexus that spans continents.

The film which is a hard hitting story of a 17 year old girl who risks her life to rescue her sister from the sex trade is shot in India, Hong Kong and Los Angeles.

The film has a stronger ensemble cast including Freida Pinto, Manoj Bajpayee, Rajkummar Rao, Richa Chadha, Anupam Kher, Adil Hussain, Sai Tamhankar, Sunny Pawar, Demi Moore, Mark Duplass, Noorani is introducing Mrunal Thakur as the lead character, as well as Riya Sisodiya.

Director Tabrez Noorani says, "Its exciting and such a privilege to bring Love Sonia to the Indian Film Festival Of Melbourne. We hope the movie resonates with audiences here as it has in London and I look forward to being able to interact with the audience here on the opening night."

Producer David Womark shares, "Both Tabrez and I are proud to have Love Sonia opening the Indian Film Festival of Melbourne. Ang Lee has said that when there is a strong woman character in a story--it always grabs him. We are very fortunate in Love Sonia to tell the powerful story of a strong womans journey.

Co-Producer Amar Butala said, "After a standing ovation in London, I am extremely happy that Love Sonia has opened another prestigious festival and has again been loved by the audience. We are now gearing up after London and Melbourne to bring the film back home, to India.

After watching Love Sonia at IFFM 2018 last night filmmaker Rajkumar Hirani expressed, The most disturbing film I have ever seen in life and I am saying it in a good way. It requires tremendous courage and empathy to do this, Big salute to the entire team of Love Sonia.

After watching Love Sonia Actor Vicky Kaushal shared, Stunned and shocked and so moved after watching Love Sonia. Its one of those rare movie experiences where you dont wish to break the illusion that it was a film you were watching after you are done with it. Every moment, every performance is as real as it can get. Kudos to Tabrez for his brilliant research and direction and to each and every actor in the film.

Love Sonia is scheduled to release in India in September.
Director: Kamal Haasan

Cast: Kamal Haasan, Rahul Bose, Pooja Kumar, Andrea Jeremiah, Shekhar Kapoor, Jaideep Ahlawat, Waheeda Rehman, Anant Mahadevan

Rating: TT (Truly Terrible)

Vishwaroopam II may well be titled Vishwa-bhookamp (a world-wide earthquake) because it, literally, turned my world upside down, inside out.

Kamal Haasan is the only Indian actor who, necknneck with Mohanlal, has received three national awards. He is also an actor I can watch on a loop and never, ever get bored. Sadma, Nayakan, Pushpak, Appu Raja, Mahanadi, Thevar Magan, my all-time favourite Chachi 420... and many, many more.

But now I have lived to see the day when, while watching Kamal Haasan share the screen with Rahul Bose, my mind actually began to curdle and seep out of my ears. I kept wondering if I was in an alternate universe because Bose the bore was infinitely better than Haasan.

Kamal Haasan, whose brilliance is forever etched in my heart and mind, is so, so bad  here just a figment of the talented actor, director he once was  that all his national awards should be taken back and returned only when he promises, Gita aur Gautami pe haath rakh kar, that he will never again direct a film in which he is the star.

Vishwaroopam II (which has been unleashed simultaneously in Hindi, Tamil, Telugu and Malayalam) blares to announce the arrival of the star in inarticulate screaming and drumming where nothing makes sense and neither is it meant to. Its just supposed to be a rousing instruction to us to brace ourselves for the return of the great superstar.

Unlike its predecessor, Vishwaroopam II doesnt even pretend to have a story. It has some contrived situations that exist only to pander to the superstars super ego.

These situations stem from some August 2011 terror plot involving the evil Omar Qureshi (Rahul Bose), an Al Qaeda operative, and the attempts of RAW agent Major Wisam Ahmad Kashmiri (Kamal Hassan) to thwart them. Much like he did in the 2013 Vishwaroopam.

We get a back story about a young major training one Lieutenant Asmita Subramaniam (Andrea Jeremiah) and together they are disgraced, court-martialled and sent to jail.

However, since the film pivots on the premise that a useful desh bhakt is never, ever jailed, and he is never, ever off dooty (duty), we get another back story where Wisam penetrated Omars inner circle. Omar began to trust him, but Wisam worked for  as the films best dialogue puts it  Uncle Sam ki behen Mother India.

While the film gives Omar a grouse against Wisam and the West, both of whom he wants to blow up, it gives our undercover RAW agent desh ki bhakti and a litter of idiotic, geriatric bosses and double-spies who do not operate in slo-mo, but look as if they do.

Their meaningless dawdle and lumbering movements are sleep-inducing.

Wisam arrives in some part of the world from another, with that annoying Lieutenant Asmita in tow. They are on a covert operation to do satyanash of bad-bad terrorists. But Wisam also has wife Nirupama (Pooja Kumar), a nuclear oncologist, tagging along. She mostly seems confused when listening to desh ki secret missions and would rather just make out. At least on their suhaag raat, yaar.

But dooty is always beckoning. And theres mummyji in a wheel chair (Waheeda Rehman) he has to introduce to her.

So noble and good is Wisam that I was worried the sun may refuse to rise from anywhere except his now ample backside.

While the two women have a lame fight over Wisam, the plot turns into a morons playfield where people who try to cross or kill our spy get killed themselves. Either their guns jam at the right time, or some eyeballs simply, literally, roll out of their socket as if sulking at having to watch a desh bhakt get hurt.

Given that Vishwaroopam is an action film, its stunts are hysterically horrible. Kicks are awkward, and the punches of the oldies are delivered delicately, lest they hurt their own ageing bones.

There is, however, lots of chopping and slashing and oozing blood.

In one scene, as blood oozes out of a big gash on a good RAW mans throat, as if someone has put the bloody shower inside him on full stream, Wisam drags a dead deshdrohi for him to see. The big red bindi decorating bad guys forehead  i.e. entry wound of our desh bhakts goli  brings the dying agent back to life smiling, but only for a bit.

Then theres Jag, short for Jagmohan (Shekhar Kapoor) who takes the longest pee break in the history of cinema. And when he steps out with his gun, looking for the spy who has turned, by the time he gets to him in the next room, that man (Anant Mahadevan) has shot himself, probably out of boredom.

Lagta hai that we have fallen upon days when, if you lehrao the national flag, anything goes.

Yet, its an education to come across a film so badly written, acted and directed.

For example, when pieces of Wisams colleague arrive on an ice cube in the dicky of a car, or when his mother does not recognise him, Kamal Haasan starts to pant with his mouth open, exhaling rather heavily as if an asthma attack were tickling his toes.

If this is being doled out in the name of acting, I thought, its good that the two ageing superstars in south are variously announcing their retirement from films and trying their luck at politics.

Nothing is scarier than oblivion, of course, after you are used to being mobbed and hailed as God.

After the constant love and adulation superstars are used to, they cant simply retire and spend their time reading newspapers with the morning cuppa and watch the world pass by. Stars of a cosmos, they want to extend their stay, fight irrelevance.

But superstars directing themselves has got to be the worst idea, ever. It must be stopped.

Thus, I wholeheartedly support their political ventures, if only to avoid being subjected to such atrocities ever again.

I have always found Kamal Haasans macho, jingoistic politics problematic. So even when he tries to make vague secular noises here  Indian Muslims good, other Muslims bad  it made me balk. That is, when I wasnt dozing off.

The only thing that forced me to open my eyes fully was Rahul Bose. He had great make up, and his burnt skin, wonky eye and the weird wheezing voice created a rather stunning, creepy package that he delivered nicely.

Clearly we are in Kalyug because in a film starring Kamal Haasan I am writing about another, much lesser actor.
The research highlights the important contribution of a wide variety of fragility fractures other than hip to excess mortality. (Photo: AFP)

The increased risk of dying after older adults break a bone is real, long-lasting and its not limited to hip fractures, researchers say.

Past studies have established a heightened risk of death after elderly people break a hip or vertebra, and that it is at least partly driven by the short-term risk of developing pneumonia or other complications while immobilized during recovery.

But a large new analysis of mortality among people aged 50 and older in Denmark finds an increase in mortality risk of up to 25 percent with other types of fractures as well. Even with hip fractures, the excess risk of death remains slightly elevated for at least 10 years, the study team reports in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Although there are many studies looking at what happens after hip fracture, there have never previously been large enough data sets to look at other specific fracture types to identify for how long the increased risk of dying lasts, senior study author Jacqueline Center told Reuters Health in an email.

For older people who break a bone, the risk of death goes up - and that risk can stay high for years. This is true for most fracture sites, including the upper arm, spine, rib, pelvis, and hip, said Center, of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research and the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

Importantly, the risk of dying is highest in the year immediately after the fracture, she noted.

We studied a remarkable health resource - the Danish national register, which has monitored the diagnoses and health care use of the entire population of Denmark over many decades, Center said.

Using such an extensive and robust dataset allowed the study team to learn about individual fracture sites, the risks they carry, and the length of time that risk persists, she added.

We knew before that hip fractures led to a heightened risk of death, but we didnt know if the same was true for broken bones elsewhere, and we had no clear understanding of how long the heightened risk persisted, for any fracture, she said.

Using the register, the researchers identified more than 21,000 women and nearly 9,500 men aged 50 and older who experienced bone fractures in 2001. The study team followed their fates through medical records for the next 10 years, and also compared them to similar adults without bone fractures.

Overall, 10,668 women and 4,745 men died during the follow-up period. After adjusting for the average mortality rates from other causes among people without bone fractures, the researchers calculated the excess mortality risk linked to having had a fracture.

During the year immediately after breaking a hip, men faced a 33 percent higher risk of death and women had a 20 percent higher risk, they found. Femur or pelvic fractures not involving the hip were associated with risk increases of 20 percent and 25 percent, respectively, while vertebral fractures were linked to a 10 percent risk increase.

After fractures of the upper arm bone, clavicle or rib, risk of death rose by 5 percent to 10 percent, and by 3 percent for a lower-leg break.

With an upper- or lower-leg break, a small but statistically meaningful risk persisted for five years, the researchers found. And with a hip fracture, the increased risk lasted for 10 years.

The research highlights the important contribution of a wide variety of fragility fractures other than hip to excess mortality, Center said.

While hip fractures are regarded as significant and recognized as causing increased mortality, non-hip fractures are often seen as not being very important. This study highlights the need for early intervention following any low-trauma fracture to minimize the wide treatment gap that is present internationally, she said.

Center said its not yet clear what is behind the increased risk of dying and there are likely mechanisms that are not yet clarified. In a previous study, for example, she and her colleagues found the addition of other health conditions like heart disease or diabetes further increased the risk of dying after a fracture event.

So there may be an interaction between the fracture event and other illnesses but that has not yet been proven. This is a very difficult question to answer and we are in the process of trying to understand this question, Center said.
Its possible that parents attitude towards religion is protective because it could be delivering a sense of community. (Photo: File)

Kids are less likely to think about suicide or attempt to kill themselves if religion or spirituality is important to their parents, a small study suggests.

And that is true even if the kids themselves didnt think religion was important, according to the results published in JAMA Psychiatry.

The new findings came out of a 30-year, three-generation family study conducted by the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University. At the beginning of that study, researchers rounded up two groups of volunteers: one composed of people who had suffered major depression and the other included people who had not experienced depression. The new study focused on the adult children (generation two) and grandchildren (generation three) aged 6 to 18 years of those initial volunteers.

The feeling that religion or spirituality is important suggests an inner strength, said senior study author Myrna Weissman, a professor of epidemiology and psychiatry at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and a member of the scientific board of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. It isnt about how much time you spend at church, or which particular religion you are, its having an inner belief that gives you some kind of strength that manifests in your behavior. And it is independent of your childrens opinion of religion.

It was a finding that Weissman and her colleagues didnt expect. We were rather surprised, she said. And thats why it took a long time for us to publish.

For the new study, Weissman and her colleagues interviewed 214 generation-three kids along with 112 of their parents. Parents and children were asked three questions about spirituality: How important to you is religion or spirituality? How often, if at all, do you attend church, synagogue, or other religious or spiritual services? What denomination are you?

More parents than children reported that religion/spirituality was of high importance to them, 45 percent versus 25 percent. More children than parents reported that it was of no importance, 15 percent versus 4 percent.

When the researchers analyzed their data, they found that for girls, but not boys, feeling that religion or spirituality is important was tied to 52 percent lower odds of suicidal behavior. Religious attendance was also linked for girls but not boys with 36 percent lower odds of suicidal behavior compared to those who did not attend.

For both girls and boys, however, higher importance of religion/spirituality in parents was associated with a 39 percent lower risk of suicidal thoughts and attempts. The same was not true when it came to parents attendance at spiritual services.

The researchers are working on another study now to try to understand why parents beliefs are so protective. Were doing . . . a survey of 300 people, asking all kinds of questions about religion and coping, she said. We suspect its a commitment to a certain set of values. The details of those values dont matter. But they must be uplifting.

The current results were not a surprise to Dr. John Walkup, a professor of psychiatry at Northwestern Universitys Feinberg School of Medicine and chair of child and adolescent psychiatry at the Robert H. Lurie Childrens Hospital of Chicago.

In general, Walkup said, if families have an organizing principle about who they are and how they live and they have raised their kids in that kind of belief scaffold, there is some kind of structure that may help prevent suicide because it offers a sense of purpose within the family.

Theres a theory about suicide that suggests three components that lead to a person killing themselves, said Dr. Emanuel Maidenberg, a clinical professor of psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles and director of the UCLA Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Clinic.

First, they perceive themselves as burdensome to others, said Maidenberg, who is not affiliated with the new research. They also feel no sense of belongingness and the third component is that they have learned to not be afraid of harming themselves.

Its possible that parents attitude towards religion is protective because it could be delivering a sense of community, Maidenberg said.

That concept rings true to Walkup, who said, religion embeds you in a community of like-minded people.
The survival of our species literally depends on sex. Yet it is a hotbed of misperceptions, because unlike many other core human behaviours, sex mostly happens behind firmly closed doors. (Photo: AFP)

Research shows we think young people have a lot more sex than they do in reality  and men have a particularly skewed view of the sex lives of young women.

As part of Ipsos long-running studies on misperceptions, to be released in a new book, The Perils of Perception, we asked people in Britain and the US to guess how often people aged 18-29 in their country had sex in the past four weeks.

The average guess about young men in both countries is that they had sex fourteen times in the last month, when the actual number is just five in Britain and four in the US, according to detailed surveys of sexual behaviour.

Our guess would mean that, on average, young men are having sex every other day  around 180 times a year  compared with the more mundane reality of around 50 times. But thats not the most remarkable error in our guessing. Men are even more wildly wrong when they guess about young womens sex lives, in both the US and Britain.

Men think British and American young women are having an incredible amount of sex  22 times a month in Britain, and 23 times a month in the US. These guesses would be the equivalent of the average young woman having sex every weekday, plus two or three times on one special day each month. In reality, its around five times.

Why we get it so wrong

As with so many of our misperceptions, the explanations for this will be both how we think and what were told.

The survival of our species literally depends on sex. Yet it is a hotbed of misperceptions, because unlike many other core human behaviours, where we can get a better idea of social norms from observation, sex mostly happens behind firmly closed doors (and the sex that is available for general viewing is not a fully accurate representation of the norm).

Because we dont have access to very much real-life comparative information, we turn to other authoritative sources: playground or locker room chat, dubious surveys, salacious media coverage and porn. These provide extreme examples and dodgy anecdotes that distort our views of reality.

In the same survey, we asked people in three countries to guess how many sexual partners people in their country have had by the time they get to 45-54 years of age. On this, people are actually very accurate at guessing the average number of partners reported by men.

The actual figure in Australia and Britain is an average of 17 partners by the time men reach 4554. In the US, its 19. The average guesses are almost spot-on.

But it gets much more interesting when we compare men and women. First, the standout pattern is with the actual data. The number of partners claimed by women in surveys of sexual behaviour is much, much lower than the number claimed by men.

In fact, women claim to have had almost half the number of sexual partners as men. This is one of the great conundrums of sexual behaviour measurement: its seen again and again in high quality sex surveys, but its a statistical impossibility.

Given that both men and women are reporting pairings, and they make up roughly equal proportions of the (heterosexual) population, the numbers should roughly match.

There are a number of suggested explanations for this  everything from mens use of prostitutes to how the different genders interpret the question (for example, if women discount some sexual practices that men count).

But it seems most likely to be a mix of mens tendency to be more rough and ready when they add up, combined with mens conscious or unconscious bumping up of their figure, and womens tendency to deflate theirs.

There is evidence of the latter effect from a US study among students which split the participants into three groups before asking them about their sexual behaviour. One group of women was left alone to fill out the questionnaire as normal. Another was led to believe that their answers could be seen by someone supervising the experiment. And the third was attached to a fake lie detector machine.

The group of women who thought their answers may be seen claimed an average of 2.6 sexual partners, the standard anonymous questionnaire group said 3.4 on average, while those attached to the useless beeping machine said 4.4  which was in line with the men in the study.

Check your figures, American men

There is one final worrying twist in the US data. Men and women guess very differently for women in the US. American men think that American women have had 27 partners on average, but American women guess only 13, which is much closer to the figure women claim for themselves of 12.

This ludicrously high average guess among men for US women is largely due to a small number of US men who think that US women have an incredible number of partners. In fact, there were around 20 US men in our sample of 1,000 that went for numbers of 50 or (sometimes way) above, and that skews the data.

Our misperceptions reveal a lot about how we see the world. They are a brilliant clue to our deep-seated biases, as our guesses at what is normal are more automatic and unguarded. In this study, these guesses point to some frighteningly wrong views of young people and women, particularly among a small section of men.

As with other misperceptions, the answer is not just to bombard people with more facts to correct these views, but to also deal with the underlying causes  that what were told and how we think leads many of us to get so much so wrong.

The article first appeared in The Conversation and was written by Bobby Duffy, Visiting Senior Research Fellow, King's College London
Ben Bishop, was searching a farmers field in Somerset, when he came across the historic jewellery. (Photo: Pixabay)

In what can be described as a stroke of sheer luck, a factory worker who thought he had found a Coke can ring while metal detecting discovered that it was actually a rare piece of Elizabethan jewellery worth 10,000.

According to a story published in MailOnline, the factory worker, Ben Bishop, was searching a farmers field in Somerset, when he came across the historic jewellery, a gold signet ring that dates back to a period between 1550- 1650.

The ring will now be sold at Hansons Auctioneers in Derby on September 27.

Speaking to MailOnline, the 30-year-old factory worker said, I thought it was another Coke can ring-pull - I've found tons of those over the years along with lots or rubbish.

Bishop continued that he lifted up the turf and started digging expecting to find another one but instead found something shining, I broke off the mud, it was an ancient gold ring, he said.

'It's the first gold I've ever found. I was so gobsmacked I just sat down on the ground staring at it for about 40 minutes.'

The signet ring, featuring a double-headed eagle, has since been identified as Elizabethan and dates back to between 1550 and 1650 - making it almost 500 years old.

The ring was taken away for a couple of months to be examined and the British Museum did a report on it.

However, no museums wanted to buy it so it was returned to Bishop as the finder.

I had an agreement with the owner of the field that if I found anything of high value I would sell it and split the proceeds, he said, adding, It's a man's ring and fits my finger really well, but I have to part with it.
Medics said they were able to feel the end of the iron bar through the skin at the bottom of Kang's head.

A Chinese worker was recently impaled by a thick and jagged metal bar through the skull.

Fortunately for him, he made a miraculously recovery.

The 56-year-old Kang Jie was on a site in the Gansu province when the reinforced spike dropped from two storeys and became lodged in the right side of his head.

Rescuers sawed off most of the protruding iron bar but around eight inches was still stuck in his skull.

He was rushed to the larger Xijing Hospital in Xi'an where a team of experts led by neurosurgeon Lin Wei raced against time to save his life.

X-rays showed how the rebar had pierced the full distance of his skull and medics said they were able to feel the end of the iron bar through the skin at the bottom of Kang's head.

An emergency craniotomy was performed on the workman during the three-hour surgery to have the metal bar removed.

Kang came out of the surgery without a brain bleed or any other obstructions in what medics called a "miracle".

In March, another Chinese worker was lucky to survive falling on a metal bar following a 22ft fall.
Lucknow: A man was lynched by a group of villagers on the suspicion of being a thief in Bijopur area in Muzaffarnagar district on Friday night. A case of murder was registered against several people, two of whom have been arrested. Station House Officer (SHO), Chapar, Subhash Rathore said that the deceased has been identified as Kapil Tyagi.

The family of the victim staged a protest and gheraeod the Chapar police station on Saturday, demanding the arrest of the remaining accused persons. They said that the victim was innocent and was going to work when he was beaten to death.

The police official said that the matter was being investigated and additional forces had been deployed in the area in view of prevailing tension. The body has been sent for post mortem. There has been a rise in the lynching incidents on suspicion of people being involved in smuggling cows.
At least four people were injured after a lintel of a flyover on National Highway 28 was collapsed in Uttar Pradesh's Basti on Saturday morning. (Photo: Twitter | ANI)

Lucknow: At least four people were injured after a lintel of a flyover on National Highway 28 was collapsed in Uttar Pradesh's Basti on Saturday morning.

Two more people are feared trapped under the debris. The rescue operation is underway.

No reports of causalities have been reported yet.

Eyewitnesses said the iron beams supporting the flyover appear to have sank into the ground, resulting to the collapse. The area has been witnessing rain for the last two weeks.

(Photo: Twitter | ANI)

People with direct knowledge of the matter told NDTV that the portion of the flyover was being constructed by contractors directly employed by the road transport and highways ministry. Sixty per cent of the construction work was complete.

The local administration had inspected the flyover last week itself, the people said.

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has instructed the local administration to initiate immediate relief work and provide all possible help to the needy.

The chief minister has also asked the local authorities to clear the debris to ensure traffic is not affected.

A similar incident took place on May 15, in which 18 people were killed after an under-construction flyover collapsed in Varanasi.
West Bengal wing of the BJP alleged that the placards with messages  'BJP, leave Bengal' and 'anti-Bengal BJP go back'  were put up by the ruling Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee. (Photo: PTI)

Kolkata: A day before BJP president Amit Shahs visit to Kolkata, posters asking BJP to leave Bengal were seen put up in and around his rally venue at Mayo Road, in the central part of the city where he is scheduled to address 200,000 party workers.

West Bengal wing of the BJP alleged that the placards with messages  BJP, leave Bengal and anti-Bengal BJP go back  were put up by the ruling Trinamool Congress led by Mamata Banerjee.

This shows that the TMC is afraid of our rally tomorrow. The days of TMC are numbered in Bengal. The people of the state are waiting for good governance of the BJP, West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh said.

Bengal is not TMCs personal property, the party has no right to make such demands, said another senior BJP leader. The people of the state will decide in the coming days who will stay and who will leave, he added.

(Photo: PTI)

Trinamool Congress denied the allegation.

TMC secretary-general and Bengal education minister Partha Chatterjee said his party had nothing to do with the anti-BJP posters.

Meanwhile, the Trinamool Congress has called for a statewide protest against the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise in Assam on Saturday morning to which BJP said was the attempt of the ruling party in the state to sabotage Amit Shah's rally.

In letters sent to the state administration and the home ministry in Delhi, the state BJP has said the timing of the road blockades to be set up by the Trinamool Congress were aimed at interfering and interrupting the BJP's supporters from entering Kolkata to participate in Amit Shahs rally.

If Trinamool protesters stop BJP rallyists from reaching the Amit Shah venue - and they are sure to, the state BJP chief Dilip Ghosh has said, then there will be clashes and the Trinamool will be to blame.

The route that Amit Shah would take to reach the venue of his rally on Saturday, however, was seen dotted with cutouts of TMC supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya said the TMC had put up similar posters during Shahs visit to Purulia in June and Prime Minister Narendra Modis rally in West Midnapore last month. The prime minister had even mocked by the TMC by saying that the ruling party in the state had put up the posters to welcome him, he said. They have done this (display of TMC hoardings) in the past too. May be it is their way of welcoming people to the state, Vijayvargiya said.

TMCs Partha Chatterjee, on his part, said there was nothing wrong in putting up posters and placards of their party supremo. The TMC is the ruling party in the state and we have every right to put up posters and placards. We dont need to take permission for that, he said.

Amit Shahs Kolkata visit has been contentious soon after it was announced as the BJP claimed Kolkata Police was not giving it permission to hold the meeting.

BJPs master strategist Amit Shahs visit to Kolkata is part of his effort to rapidly expand the party's base that sends 42 lawmakers to Lok Sabha. In 2014, BJP had won just 2 seats in the state and the party is hoping to improve its tally in 2019.

(With inputs from agencies)
The issue will be presented again to the Governor next week when I meet him to explain the issue in person  G.T. Devegowda, Higher Education Minister

Bengaluru: Hours after the University Grants Commission (UGC) again granted recognition to the Karnataka State Open University (KSOU), thousands of students who completed their courses during 2013-16 have decided to continue their protest till all their problems are resolved.

As many as 95,000 of these students said that despite the decision, their lives continue to be in jeopardy. The UGC had withdrawn the affiliation to the university from 2012-13 through a notice dated June 15, 2015, pointing to a violation of jurisdiction and guidelines laid out by the UGC.

After the UGC granted the recognition, many students and representative organisations took to social media to express their grievance. Replying to Higher Education Minister G.T. Devegowdas tweet thanking UGC and HRD minister, Chaitra, a user, tweeted, What about the future of students who already graduated? How can you incorporate their interests?

United KSOU Students (UKS) said that UGC committed a grave mistake by giving recognition to courses from the next academic year, while ignoring old students who had invested their time and money.

Mr Devegowda later clarified that no student will be ignored. The issue will be presented again to the Governor next week when I meet him to explain the issue in person, he told Deccan Chronicle. A higher education department official said that some issues are still pending before the Governor.

KSOU Vice-Chancellor D. Shivalingaiah said that the varsity will ensure a pro-student decision. We have sent more than ten requests to UGC with evidence. With the positive response from the UGC to begin 17 courses from this year, we hope that they would address student grievances too, he said. The varsity had requested the UGC to allow them to begin 15 more courses (including MBA and B.Ed) for which an appeal will be filed shortly, he said.
Chennai: In a major setback to state government and police, a metropolitan magistrate court refused to remand May 17 Movement coordinator Thirumurugan Gandhi in a pending sedition case, on Friday. Even though the court directed to let Thirumurugan Gandhi free, the police arrested him again in connection with another case within seconds after releasing him.

This is the rare incident in which the court had refused to remand an accused causing the embarrassment to the state police. According to police sources, the Cyber Crime Cell of Central Crime Branch booked a case against him for raising the issue of 13 persons killed in the police firing during the anti-Sterlite demonstration in the 38th session of United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) recently. The CCB alleged that Thirumurugan Gandhi circulated his speech on social media and the content was seditious in nature and defamatory.

On Thursday morning, the Bengaluru police detained him at Kempegowda International Airport on his arrival from a European country following a lookout circular issued against him. He was brought to the city by road and taken to the residence of XI Metropolitan Magistrate S.Prakash in Saidapet for remand on Friday morning.

The magistrate had sought proof of the uploaded video on the Facebook. The magistrate also sought details of riots and public unrest triggered by Thirumurugan Gandhis alleged Facebook post. The magistrate asked the police to file a written reply to his queries.

Apart from refusing to remand Thirumurugan Gandhi, the magistrate directed the police to complete the interrogation with him in the 24-hour period from his detention and set him free later. Around 3 pm, he was taken to the building of Old Commissionerate for enquiry and was set free around 6.30 pm by police officers of cyber crime. He walked a few yards on the premises and police again picked him. Police said he was arrested in connection with a previous case booked against him for having conducted an agitation in 2017 in Royapettah.

This is not the first time Thirumurugan Gandhi is being detained for speaking against the Government. In September last year, Thirumurugan Gandhi was detained under the Goondas Act for attempting to stage a protest at the Marina Beach in memory of Tamils killed in Sri Lankan civil war.
M Karunanidhi, who led the DMK for five decades, was the Chief Minister for 19 years spread over five terms. (Photo: AP)

New Delhi: The DMK on Friday demanded the nation's highest civilian award, Bharat Ratna, for party patriarch M Karunanidhi who passed away in Chennai on August 7.

The party said the award will be a real tribute to the late Tamil Nadu leader's outstanding and exemplary work which had left an indelible mark in history.

M Karunanidhi, who led the DMK for five decades, was the Chief Minister for 19 years spread over five terms.

Raising the issue during Zero Hour in the Rajya Sabha, DMK's Tiruchi Shiva dubbed Karunanidhi the "tallest leader of the country and a Dravidian stalwart".

"He lived five years short of a century, out of which he contributed 80 years to the public life, fighting for the cause of the downtrodden, backward and the suppressed people.

"He was an outstanding orator, a prolific writer, a novelist, a short-story writer, a philosopher, a philanthropist and also a dramatist. He was an actor and also wrote scripts for 80 movies," Shiva said enumerating the achievements of M Karunanidhi.

He said that Karunanidhi was "unparalleled" and made a mark in all walks of life.

"His life cannot be described in words. He was a staunch and untiring soldier. He was fighting till his last breath, for social justice, secularism, state autonomy and self respect.

"I would urge the government to confer upon him posthumously the Bharat Ratna, which will be a real tribute to his outstanding and exemplary work which had left an indelible mark in the annals of history," the DMK lawmaker said.

The DMK on Friday said a meeting of its executive committee will be held on August 14 to condole the death of party president M Karunanidhi.

All members of the committee have been asked to participate in the meeting without fail. It will begin at 10 am at the party headquarters, Anna Arivalayam.

The meeting's agenda is to condole the death of Karunanidhi, a release issued by party general secretary K Anbazhagan said.

A similar meeting was held when party founder and former chief minister C N Annadurai passed away in 1969, a party leader said.

DMK working president M K Stalin later told reporters that the executive committee meeting was only to condole the passing away of Karunanidhi, his father.

He had earlier held a meeting with party general secretary K Anbazhagan.

A party leader said the executive meeting might consider a date for holding the general council meet, which is likely to elevate Stalin as the DMK President.
'Yesterday, I read so many women have been raped in Pratapgarh. How will these things stop,' Justice Lokur asked, adding 'When it is going to stop?' (Photo: File)

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday expressed serious concern over recent cases of rape and sexual abuse of women at shelter homes in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and asked when these horrific incidents would stop.

The top court's observation came while hearing a matter relating to sexual abuse of children at orphanages.

"Tell us what is this happening?," a bench of justices Madan B Lokur, S Abdul Nazeer and Deepak Gupta said while referring to the recent incident at Pratapgarh in Uttar Pradesh where 26 women have been reported to be missing from shelter homes.

"Yesterday, I read so many women have been raped in Pratapgarh. How will these things stop," Justice Lokur asked, adding "When it is going to stop?"

Besides Pratapgarh, incidents of rape and sexual abuse of women and girls at shelter homes run by NGOs have also surfaced recently in Muzaffarpur in Bihar and Deoria in Uttar Pradesh.

Advocate Aparna Bhat, assisting the court as amicus curiae in the matter, said that the Centre was supposed to come out with a report on list of child care institutions (CCIs) in the country as well as status of their social audit.

"We cannot do everything unless the government of India appears," the bench observed while questioning as to why the counsel for the Centre has not appeared in the matter.

Later, advocates on behalf of the Centre, the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Ministry of Women and Child Development appeared before the court.

The bench took exception as to why lawyers were appearing for different ministries and observed that there were so many ministries but that does not mean that separate lawyers would appear for them.

"Only the Ministry of Women and Child Development is required in this case," the bench said.

The amicus told the bench that the top court in its last year verdict had asked the Centre to get social audit of all such CCIs conducted through the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR).

"It appears that the NCPCR has started the exercise but some states are refusing to cooperate with the NCPCR," the amicus told the bench, adding, that Bihar and Uttar Pradesh were among the states which have not cooperated in the exercise.

"Did they (NCPCR) conduct any social audit in Pratapgarh and Deoria," the bench asked.

The counsel representing the NCPCR said that the commission was not allowed to conduct social audits in six states -- Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Tripura and Mizoram.

"The fact that they are not allowing NCPCR to do social audit shows that there is something to hide," the amicus said, adding that the institution in Uttar Pradesh, where incident of sexual abuse and rapes has surfaced recently, was de-registered way back in November last year but it was still operational.

The amicus said that a management information software (MIS) was supposed to be developed where complete database of children along with the facilities provided to them at CCIs was required to be updated but the Centre has not filed the details of what was going on.

The NCPCR's counsel said that a "rapid" social audit of CCIs and shelter homes was going on and it has already been done in around 3,000 such homes.

"What rapid? You (NCPCR) do not know what is going on? If something, like rape, happens in these 3,000 institutions, will you be responsible for it," the bench asked.

"We would like to make it very clear that number of social audits is not important. What is more important is the quality of these social audits," the bench said.

The counsel representing the Centre said they would furnish all the information as directed by the court within a week.

He said that regarding CCIs data, some states, including Bihar and Telangana, and union territory of Puducherry are yet to provide the details to the Centre.

However, the lawyers appearing for some of these states said that they have given the details to the Centre.

The bench directed the MWCD to place before it the data they have received from the states including as to how the funds were being utilised, how performance audit was done and on MIS also.

It asked the ministry to give data of CCIs including the facilities provided to children, like health, education, nutrition, living there.

The court has posted the matter for hearing on August 21.

On May 5 last year, the top court had passed a slew of directions including setting up of a data base of children living in orphanages and child care institutions to ensure their safety and welfare.

It had directed the Centre, state governments and union territories to complete the registration of all child care institutions by the year-end.
Muzaffarpur/Patna: The Bihar government has cancelled the registration of Brajesh Thakur's NGO, which ran the infamous shelter home in Muzaffarpur where 34 girls were allegedly raped over a period of time. The sale of the NGO's assets was banned and the bank accounts were frozen, an official said in Muzaffarpur on Friday.

According to Muzaffarpur District Registration Officer Sanjay Kumar, the orders to freeze the bank accounts and ban the sale or purchase of any movable or immovable assets of the Seva Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti were passed by District Magistrate (DM) Mohammad Sohail on August 7 and 8.

The DM's orders had followed an August 6 missive from the state Registration department, wherein it was stated that the NGO's registration was being cancelled as it was blacklisted by the Social Welfare Department for the alleged sexual abuse of inmates at the shelter home.

Also Read: Bihar shelter home accused, Brajesh Thakur, claims he was set to join Congress

Henceforth, there should be no transaction through the bank accounts of the Seva Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti nor should there be any sale or purchase of movable or immovable assets in its name, Kumar said, adding that the office-bearers and members of the NGO were also restrained from carrying out any activity in its name.

Interestingly, Brajesh Thakur's name does not figure among the list of office-bearers and members of the NGO.

The non-governmental organisation had, in its registration document, stated that it aimed to promote education and development of women and children as well as the protection of their lives.

Also Read: Bihar shelter home: New medical report confirms rape of 5 more girls

Earlier, CBI and National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) teams separately met the DM in connection with the shelter home scandal.

The CBI team is also understood to have taken into its possession the medical test report of Thakur, the key accused in the sex-scandal case, whose remand it may seek from the court if he is declared fit enough.

The three-member NCPCR team is said to have inquired with the DM about the well-being of the former inmates of the shelter home who have been shifted to Madhubani, Patna and Mokama.

Meanwhile, political parties continued to use the horrific Muzaffarpur episode to attack their rivals.

While women supporters of the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) took out a procession in Patna demanding the resignation of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, another procession was taken out by the workers of the ruling Janata Dal (United), demanding the resignation of RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav as the leader of opposition in the state Assembly.

Former Union minister Kanti Singh, who took part in the RJD procession, alleged that Kumar had all along tried to shield those involved in the scandal while claiming that a CBI inquiry in the matter was ordered under opposition pressure.

She also said Social Welfare Minister Manju Verma resigned only after Thakur's phone call details showed his links with her husband.

Also Read: Bihar shelter home rapes: Social welfare minister Manju Verma resigns

Asked who should become the chief minister if Manju Kumar resigned, she said there should be fresh elections.

The JD(U) supporters said Yadav had no moral right to hold the position of leader of opposition because of his association with certain people accused of sexual crimes.
The new team will be part of the security operation when PM Narendra Modi delivers his annual Independence Day address from the Red Fort in Delhi on August 15. (Photo: Twitter | @DelhiPolice)

New Delhi: After more than a year of being put through their paces, learning to scale buildings, defuse bombs and rescue hostages, India's first all-female commando team started work on Friday, breaking a traditionally male bastion.

The 36 women underwent 15 months of rigorous training in weapons handling, counter-terrorism and Krav Maga, the military self-defence technique pioneered by Israel's security forces, to enter the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team.

They will work alongside about five all-male commando teams in the Indian capital, said Pramod Kushwaha, a senior Delhi police official.

"These women have broken into a male bastion," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"People often have this kind of misconception that women cannot do this or women cannot do that, but I can say very proudly that these women are on par and at times better than the male commandos."

India's police force is overwhelmingly male with official data showing just over 7 per cent of all officers are women, well below a government target of 33 per cent.

All the women officers in the new team are from India's northeast, a region that is battling with numerous separatist insurgencies and is seen as a neglected corner of the country.

Kushwaha said women from the region were "much better at certain skills" and "sturdier also".

The new team will be part of the security operation when Prime Minister Narendra Modi delivers his annual Independence Day address from the ramparts of the 17th-century Red Fort in Delhi on August 15.

"We are very confident that these women are fully competent and there is no reason why they should not be given the high-profile task," Kushwaha said.

"They know how to fire all weapons, they can intervene any terror situation or hostage situation, be it at homes or public places like malls and markets - anything, anywhere.

"It's amazing because some of the best male commandos cannot do what these women can do."
Amit Shah was received by state party-in charge Kailash Vijayvargiya and state party president Dilip Ghosh. (Photo: Twitter | @KailashOnline)

Kolkata: BJP president Amit Shah was shown black flags by youth Congress workers on Saturday when he came out of the NSC Bose International airport in Kolkata to attend a rally in central part of the city, the police said.

The youth Congress workers showed black flags and raised anti-Modi and anti-Shah slogans as the BJP national president stepped out of the airport.

They also tried to block his convoy by lining up motorcycles on the street, but police removed them.

Earlier, Amit Shah was received by state party-in charge Kailash Vijayvargiya and state party president Dilip Ghosh. Some party supporters also welcomed him with dance and music and demanded NRC update in West Bengal.

Meanwhile, the ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal is holding a statewide protest against the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise in Assam.

The BJP said the TMC's statewide protest was an attempt to sabotage Amit Shah's rally.

BJP president Amit Shah is scheduled to hold a rally at Mayo Road, in the central part of Kolkata.

Also Read: Ahead of Amit Shah's Kolkata rally, 'BJP go back' posters crop up in city

A day before his arrival at Kolkata, posters reading BJP, leave Bengal and anti-Bengal BJP go back  were put up across the city and on the route leading to Amit Shah's rally venue.
Time and again, Tejaswi has accused Nitish of having political connections with the prime accused in the Muzzafarpur shelter home case, Brajesh Thakur. (Photo: ANI)

Patna: The Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) on Saturday warned Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar to reveal the whereabouts of the girl who went missing from Madhubani within a week, failing to do which the party would stage a mass protest.

Addressing a press conference in Patna, RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav said, "I give him (Nitish) a week's time to reveal the whereabouts of the girl who was shifted from the shelter home and who has been missing since then, after which we will stage a mass protest in Madhubani."

Demanding the resignation of the Bihar chief minister on moral grounds for failing to run the state, Tejaswi alleged that Nitish was aware of everything related to the case and was trying to shield those involved.

"Nitish Kumar must resign on moral grounds as he is unable to run the state. It will be proved that he is the most coward Chief Minister who is not fighting for justice of our daughters, but shielding those who committed the crime. He must resign from state Home Ministry as well," Yadav said.

Time and again, Tejaswi has accused Nitish of having political connections with the prime accused in the Muzzafarpur shelter home case, Brajesh Thakur. The RJD leader has also questioned Nitish about his connection with Thakur's son, Rahul Anand, who is being interrogated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

A Mumbai-based institute had revealed that as many as 40 girls were sexually abused at a Muzaffarpur shelter home. On receiving information, the police raided the vicinity and rescued 44 girls. On July 24, 11 employees of the shelter home in Muzaffarpur were arrested for allegedly sexually harassing the girls.

On August 5, one among the 14 girls, who were rescued from a shelter home in Muzaffarpur and shifted to an NGO in Madhubani, went missing.
The Congress leader's remarks came after a woman in Assam filed a case of rape with the Assam Police against Union minister Rajen Gohain. (Photo: File | PTI)

New Delhi: The Congress on Friday demanded dismissal of Union Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain as a case of rape was registered against him in Guwahati.

"(Prime Minister Narendra) Modiji, you have failed the test not once, not twice, not thrice, but almost a dozen times. Again there is a rape FIR against one of your Cabinet colleagues, Gohain," Congress leader Pawan Khera said addressing a press conference in Delhi.

He said that if PM Modi does not act now, then he would lose the moral authority to stay in the office even for a day.

"Remove him from his office. You can't allow him to be in a position of power and influence during the investigation. Please remove him if you meant anything that you promised before 2014," he said.

"We demand from this government, from Modi, from (BJP President) Amit Shah to take immediate and strict action against rape accused Minister Gohain," he said.

The Congress leader's remarks came after a woman in Assam filed a case of rape with the Assam Police against Gohain.

Also Read: 2 sisters book union minister Rajen Gohain for rape, sexual assault in Assam

Referring to the cases of rape in which Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders were allegedly involved, Khera mentioned the case of Unnao district in Uttar Pradesh and said: "We saw you were standing with the rapists of Unnao."

Khera was referring to BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Senger, who has been charged for rape by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The Congress leader also questioned Modi's silence on the Muzaffarpur shelter home rapes. "Your own government is there in alliance with (Bihar Chief Minister) Nitish Kumarji."

Khera also questioned Modi's silence over his party's state ministers coming out in support of the rape accused in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua.

Slamming Modi, he said: "Last week, we saw reports from Deoria, from Pratapgarh, and again you remained quiet."

"These are the same people who used provocative and emotionally charged slogans to woo the people of the country before 2014. And now, their Cabinet ministers are being charged with sexual assault and rapes, yet they maintain silence and action is hardly taken against those involved in such cases," Khera added.
Kolkata: Invading the Trinamul bastion, BJP chief Amit Shah on Saturday launched a scathing attack on the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and exhorted people to uproot her outfit and throw it away. As Mayo Road in Kolkata turned saffron with thousands waving BJP flags Mr Shah thundered: I ask all of you to uproot this Trinamul Congress government and throw it away.

Stoking the sentiments of the Bengalis, the BJP president accused TMC of creating hurdles during the immersion of Durga idols. Once the BJP comes to power in the state, Durga Puja, Saraswati Puja will be celebrated without any hurdles and much fanfare.

Taking the battle over illegal immigrants to her home home turf, the BJP chief made it clear that the NRC issue will be the main poll plank for his party in West Bengal. I would like to ask Mamata ji why she is protecting Bangladeshi infiltrators. They are raising their voice against NRC because these Bangladeshi infiltrators are their votebank in Bengal. But we will not let this happen. We will go ahead with the NRC plan and push back each and every infiltrator, he declared amidst thunderous applause. Hitting out at the Congress president Rahul Gandhi, the BJP president wanted him to come clear on his stand over the issue of illegal immigrants.

While NRC is clearly going to be BJPs mail poll plank, Mr Shah also targeted the Trinamul Congress over corruption and unleashing a reign of terror in the state. He pointed out that since the TMC took over the state, there have been a series of corruption cases ranging from the Narada scandal, Saradha and Rose valley ponzi scams. He also spoke of the unhindered activities of cattle mafias and coal mafia. The BJP leader told the mammoth gathering that only way to free Bengal from corruption and deteriorating law and order was to bring the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party in to power in Bengal.

Going back to the NRC issue, Mr Shah said that for the sake of votebank politics, Mr Gandhi was not making his stand clear on illegal migration from Bangladesh. And for the same reason, according to Mr Shah, the West Bengal chief minister was encouraging infiltration from Bangladesh. Mr Shah reiterated, Rahul Gandhi and Mamata didi should clarify whether national security is important for them or the votebank. For the BJP, the country comes first. Mr Shah hit out at the Congress by saying that the Assam accord was signed by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

Then the Congress did not seemed to have any problem with the National Register of Citizens (NRC), he said. He also attacked the TMC for unleashing a false propaganda campaign over the NRC issue. He assured, I assure all the refugees that nothing will happen to them. He then pointed out that this was the reason why the Centre had brought the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. How can BJP be anti-Bengal when the outfit was founded by none other than Shyama Prasad Mukherjee?.
New Delhi: To promote operation of sea planes in the country, the government has given in-principle approval for construction of water aerodromes, with five states  Odisha, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Assam  being identified initially for the facility. For the first phase of the project, Chilka Lake in Odisha and Sabarmati river front and Sardar Sarovar Dam in Gujarat have been identified by the government.

On Saturday, civil aviation minister Suresh Prabhu tweeted, In-principle approval has been given for the construction of water aerodromes in various states across the country. This move will promote tourism as well as connect places of religious importance. The decision comes eight months after Prime Minister Narendra Modis high-profile seaplane flight on the Sabarmati river front in December last year.

Mr Prabhu said, The DGCA has issued regulations prescribing the procedure and requirement for licensing of water aerodromes. Since there is no historical data on market and also the demand from any airlines, the project will be done as a pilot project. According to the DGCA, an entity seeking to set up a water aerodrome has to take approvals from various authorities, including the ministries of defence.
Hyderabad: The BJP and the Congress have opposed the allotment of Bison Polo Ground for construction of the new secretariat by the TS Government. Former Union Minister and BJP MP Mr Bandaru Dattatreya said that they will oppose the allotment of Bison Polo Ground for the construction of the new secretariat.

Speaking to the media on Saturday he said that TRS is making unnecessary allegations about the Central government. He said that the Central government was ready to allot defence lands for construction of flyovers and roads and added that they are against the sanctioning of Bison Polo Ground for the construction of the secretariat.

Meanwhile AICC secretary and MP Mr V. Hanumantha Rao is also opposed to the construction of new secretariat at Bison Polo Ground. Speaking to the media on Saturday, he warned that if the Central Government allots Bison Polo ground to TS government for construction of the new secretariat he will take up an indefinite hunger strike.

He said 97.5 percent of the public have opposed the construction of the new secretariat. He said that they will not allow the Central Government to sanction Bison Polo Ground to TS government. Former Minister and MLA J Geetha Reddy said if the Central Government allots Bison Polo Ground for construction of new secretariat that they will not keep quiet.
Hyderabad: Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Saturday said the state government would take a policy decision to entrust the job of washing the linen in government hospitals, hostels, residential schools and all other government organisations only to the Rajaka community to help improve their income level.

Mr Rao said that certain areas within in the GHMC and the HMDA limits would be earmarked for Rajaka Associations for washing and ironing of the linen. He said the move would help uplift the community financially, socially and educationally.

The Chief Minister said that Rs 250 crores has been allocated in the budget for implementing schemes to economically support the community of washer men, and the government was prepared to provide more funds if required.

Mr Rao also announced that loans would be extended to the youth from the community, delinking with the banks for alternate provision of employment. He said the government would also examine the option of providing Aasara pensions to members of the community aged above 50 years.

He announced that a hostel cum community hall for the community would be built in Hyderabad at a cost of Rs 50 crore besides installing a statue of Chakali Ailamma in city.

Addressing a meeting of the representatives of washer men's associations at Pragathi Bhavan the Chief Minister also said that the government would try to supply power at subsidised rates to launderers to run their washing machines.

Mr Rao also announced the government would construct a building in the city for the social and educational development of Yerukala community.
Navy personnel lift an old man from a flood hit house in Wayanad which experienced unusually heavy rains this monsoon on Saturday. More rains are predicted in Wayanad and Idukki districts till August 14. (Photo: Navy)

Thiruvananthapuram: The heavy rains continued to wreak havoc across the state taking the death toll to 37 on Saturday even as chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan conducted an aerial survey of the affected districts and announced compensation for the families of the dead and those rendered homeless.

Union home minister Rajnath Singh is arriving today to take stock of the situation.

With the Met department predicting heavy to very heavy rain in the next two days, the red alert continues in eight districts - Alappuzha, Ernakulam, Idukki, Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Wayanad and Kannur.

Heavy rains are expected in Wayanad and Idukki districts till August 14. Heavy rainfall of 7 to 11 cm is most likely to occur at one or two places on August 12 and 15 and very heavy rainfall of 12 to 20 cm likely at some places on August 13 and 14.

Eight deaths were reported since Friday including two each in Thiruvananthapuram and Alappuzha, three in Idukki and one each in Malappuram and Palakkad. According to reports reaching here, 60,622 persons are currently lodged in 513 camps. So far 101 houses have been damaged completely and 1,501 partially.

Mr Vijayan, along with Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala and senior officials, conducted the aerial survey of flood-affected districts, visited relief camps and held meetings to review the gravity of the situation because of heavy rains. The team could not land in Idukki because of inclement weather.

The chief minister announced Rs 4 lakh compensation to the families of the persons who died in the floods and Rs 10 lakh to those who lost home.

The water level in Idukki reservoir receded to 2400.26 ft by 8 pm. While the hourly inflow into the dam is 479 cumecs, the outflow or spill from the dam through shutters is 750 cumecs and discharge through the penstock for power generation stood at 116 cumecs.

Officials said there was a respite from heavy rains for the moment and if this situation continues the water level in the reservoir could go further down to 2400 ft.

Energy minister M. M. Mony said KSEB would decide the lowering of shutters or regulating the outflow in consultation with other departments and elected representatives.

Aluva-Kalamassery in Ernakulam and Upper Kuttanad continued to bear the brunt as low-lying areas are water-logged.

The Union minister will also conduct an aerial tour of flood-affected Idukki and Ernakulam region.

He will arrive at Cochin airport at 12.30 pm and from 1 pm to 2.30 pm, he'll fly over Cheruthoni, Idukki Dam, adjoining areas, Thadiambad, Adimali and areas where landslides occurred recently, Aluva and Paravur taluk.

Mr Vijayan, Union tourism minister Alphons Kannanthanam, chief secretary Tom Jose and additional chief secretary P. H. Kurian will accompany Mr Singh.

The home minister will visit some of the affected areas in Paravur taluk and meet people in relief camps. He will hold a meeting with the chief minister, ministers E. Chandrasekharan, G. Sudhakaran, V. S. Sunil Kumar, M. M. Mani and Mathew T. Thomas before returning to Delhi.

Meanwhile, the chief minister has directed collectors and all agencies engaged in rescue and relief operations to maintain utmost vigil in the wake of Met department prediction of heavy rains till August 15.

The water levels in Idukki and Idamalayar dams have started receding signalling a significant relief. The rainfall in catchment areas has also reduced.

If the situation continues in this manner, people who are currently lodged in relief camps would be able to return home in next few days.

Mr Vijayan directed the education department to provide new textbooks to the children who lost books in the floods. He said the coordinated efforts made by various departments had been able to reduce the intensity and impact of the disaster.

The rescue and relief operations are continuing in a big way, and the people have set aside their problems and cooperated actively in the government operations.

The functioning of the relief camps are going on effectively, he said.

The ministers visited relief camps in eight districts on Saturday and presided over review meetings there.

Army has been deployed in Kannur, Wayanad, Kozhikode, Malappuram, Idukki and Aluva.

Two AN 32 are on standby at Sulur air base. Navy personnel have been deployed in Aluva and Kochi.

Army has built a temporary bridge across the Naduvath Vellambram road which was completely damaged by heavy rains. Warning for the coastal region:

The Met department has hinted at the possibility of flooding in low lying coastal areas, especially during high tide due to the perigean spring tides till August 15. Sustained strong onshore winds, high nearshore waves or swells and heavy rainfall and associated discharge can cause nuisance flooding especially at high tide times along low lying coastal areas.

Strong winds from the westerly direction, speed occasionally reaching 25 to 35 kmph gusting to 55 kmph likely along and off Karnataka, Kerala coasts and over Lakshadweep area.

Sea condition is likely to be rough to very rough over the southwest and central Arabian Sea. Fishermen are advised not to venture out here.

Higher high water will occur between noon and 3 pm and lower high water between 10 pm on Sunday to 2 am on Monday.
Kottayam: The Kerala police team probing the sexual harassment charges against Jalandhar Bishop Franco Mulackal may question him at the headquarters of the Punjab Armed Police camp in Jalandhar.

The six-member team led by Vaikom DySP K.. Subhash took the statements of Mother-General Rejina of the Missionaries of Jesus and other nuns at the convent in Jalandhar on Saturday.

Four priests belonging to the Jalandhar diocese reportedly said in their statements to the police that there was some truth in the nuns complaint against the bishop.

The police team, which was staying at the Punjab Armed Police camp, will return to the state on Sunday. Jalandhar diocese PRO Fr Peter Kavum-puram told reporters that the bishop will cooperate with the investigation.

Meanwhile, the laity supporting the bishop assembled on the premises of the Sacred Heart church adjacent to the Bishops House from Friday morning onwards. A Punjab police team led by DCP Gurmeeth Singh reached the place and took stock of the situation. The Kerala team had reached New Delhi on Friday to take the statements of various people, including Ujjain Bishop Sebastian Vadakkeyil.

Though the team tried to meet the Apostolic Nuncio of Vatican to India, Giambattista Diqquatro, they were not given permission. The nun had said in her statement to the police that she had complained to the nuncio in January this year.
Hyderabad: Jana Sena chief and actor Pawan Kalyan is set to tour Telangana after his ongoing tour in AP concludes. The tour is aimed at strengthening the base of his party in Telangana before the 2019 Assembly elections.

Mr Pawan started his first tour in Telangana in January this year, when he announced his decision to quit films and engage in full-time political activities of Jana Sena. He launched his yatra from Kondagattu temple near Karimangar after a darshan of famous Kondagattu Hanuman. He toured Khammam and Nizamabad districts later.

Jana Sena on Saturday organised a meeting of the party's student activists from all districts of Telangana to discuss preparations for the upcoming elections. The party's general secretary Thota Chandrasekhar said it has already established organisational base in GHMC and HMDA limits and the focus is now on expanding the same to other districts.

Pawan has a huge fan following in both Telangana and AP. He is currently touring AP to strengthen party base. He will soon take up yatra in Telangana covering all districts to gear up the party for the upcoming elections, he said.

The party's political affairs committee convenor M. Gangadharam said youth were showing more interest to join Jana Sena and work as sainiks in all districts. The party would take up a membership drive in all districts and gear up to contest all seats on its own.
It was on 26 December, 2004 that Kerala experienced one of the major natural calamities in its history called Tsunami. It hit some parts of the Kerala coast, claiming many lives and causing irreversible damage to property. The unrelenting rains that have gulped the entire state and the fury that has left a trail of destruction, seem more disastrous.

The inflow of water to the dams has compelled the authorities to raise the shutters so as to avoid a major havoc. However, this has not helped in solving the problem to any extent. The water from many dams gushed into the homes of thousands of people downstream, destroying everything. Trivialising natural disasters is one of the major reasons that escalated the impact. We take a look at some of the trends that show how serious we are in our approach towards a natural calamity.

Should we capture every rare moment?

The rainy season in Kerala took a wicked turn when the amount of downpour was surpassing every forecast and lead to the opening of the shutters of Idukki Dam, due to heavy rainfall over the catchment area. This is the first time the reservoir's gates were opened in 26 years and the first time in history that all the gates of the dam have been opened. However, people were flocking to Idukki Dam and others to see the shutters being lifted. Amateur shutterbugs were blocking the Marthanda Varma Bridges on the Periyar River, the main entry points to Kochi Airport. The disturbance caused by them forced the cops to install fabric screens on either side of the twin bridges.

Shimmy Rosy, a PhD student, says, I am very surprised to see the way we educated Malayalis react in a time of crisis. The authorities had to invest a part of their valuable time to clear these people from the area. According to me, taking selfies with dams and flooded rivers as backdrops is the height of insensitivity.

Getting marked safe

Thanks to social media platforms like Facebook that have come up with various options like crisis response, which help the users mark themselves safe during a natural calamity. Vinod Laxman  Assistant Professor in Visual Media and Communications at the Amritha University  Edappally Campus, who marked himself safe during the floods, explains, Even though I was in no imminent danger, I chose to mark myself safe as I am an artist and have a lot of friends outside the country. All these well-wishers, who are outside India and Kerala, see the disaster as one that has hit the state at large. They do not know which municipality or panchayat precisely is in the danger zone. They like to know if we are safe. Thats all.

Instances of irresponsible behaviour from at least some people have led the authorities to announce warnings, asking them to stay away from the river banks and places affected by landslides. The official Facebook page of the Chief Ministers Office has uploaded a number of posts asking people to refrain from taking selfies and avoiding trips to affected areas. Amid the efforts made by authorities and the public to dilute the severity caused by the floods, such incidents are raising questions on the sensitivity of people towards such disasters.

Prevention is better than cure

Disaster should be managed before it occurs and not after the damage is done. According to a Facebook post by Muralee Thummarakudy, Chief of Disaster Risk Reduction in the UN Environment Programme, Flood is, in fact, not a natural disaster. Rain and water levels increasing in the water bodies is something natural. When we build houses on the water route, we are inviting disaster. In Kerala, before dams came, there used to be inundation of water. During that time, flash floods were a natural phenomenon during rainy season. The inflow of water is one of the reasons why our ancestors didnt build homes on the banks of rivers. However, things have changed with the advent of dams. It obstructed the flow of water from the mountain range and people started constructing on river banks. It became a trend. Though people have forgotten the natural route of rivers, rivers will not forget.

He adds, Situations like this can be avoided by creating a model for releasing water from the reservoir. Civil engineers are the supervisors of dams. However, it is reservoir managers who decide when the water in the reservoir should be used. These two people should work together. We have to figure out a model on how the reservoir water level will be increasing and keep a tab on yearly rainfall style and usage of water during rainy season. During heavy rainy season, water can be released in small amounts before monsoon hits heavily. It will keep the dam safe.
Hyderabad: Telangana Congress leaders have lashed out at the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) government for not allowing Congress President Rahul Gandhi to visit the Osmania University for an interaction with students.

TPCC Working Committee president and MLA Mallu Bhatti Vikramarka said that the Osmania University was not a prohibited area and that terrorists were not staying there. Speaking to the media along with other leaders, he asked the government to reconsider and allow the Congress presidents meeting to be held at the varsity.

He said if necessary they would enter the Osmania University by crossing the iron fence around it. He said that it was unfortunate to deny permission when Osmania students wanted to meet Rahul Gandhi. He added that the governments decision was an insult to the student community. He also said that UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi had granted a separate state for the people of Telangana and not for Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Raos family.

Former Minister and MLA J Geetha Reddy said that CM KCR had denied permission to Rahul Gandhi to visit Osmania University because he was scared of the Congress leader. She asked the CM to grant permission for the visit.

Former MP V Hanumantha Rao said that the denial of permission to Rahul Gandhi proved the arrogance of KCR. He added that KCR had in the past said if Sonia Gandhi granted a separate state for the people, he would clean her feet but his attitude was different now.

Opposition leader in the Assembly K Jana Reddy said denial of permission to Gandhi to visit Osmania University was a part of the state governments conspiracy. He said that the government was also provoking some people to stop Rahul Gandhis visit to the university.
On July 31, as a few hundred scholars of Gulf affairs from across the world gathered at Cambridge University for their ninth Gulf Research Meeting organised by the Jeddah-based Gulf Research Centre, they could not but be aware of how turbulent and conflictual the region had become.

The two major regional powers Saudi Arabia and Iran have lost all mutual trust, and now indulge in acrimony and sabre-rattling, while being involved in disastrous proxy conflicts in Syria and Yemen that have taken several thousand lives and destroyed all civic amenities and national institutions.

Again, the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are experiencing serious internecine differences, particularly the relentless year-long siege of Qatar that is threatening the very existence of the institution. Taking advantage of this mayhem, extremist elements are continuing their murderous spree across the region and far beyond.

The scenario has been further complicated by the disruptive policies and pronouncements of US President Donald Trump. Impelled by visceral animosity for Iran and full support for the agenda of Israels right-wing zealots, Mr Trump has withdrawn from the nuclear agreement with Iran. He has then gone ahead to shape battlelines that have ranged the United States, Israel and Saudi Arabia on one side against Iran, Syria and Iraq on the other, in a region-wide conflagration. He has also publicly affirmed his commitment to sponsoring regime change in Tehran, while pursuing a settlement in Palestine that would permanently extinguish all Palestinian aspirations.

As year by year the region has steadily descended into the abyss of recrimination and chaos, no power has stepped forward to promote confidence, engagement and dialogue among the nations in confrontation.

This situation has dramatically changed in his inaugural address at the Gulf Research Meeting at Cambridge, the GCC secretary-general, Abdullatif bin Rashid al Zayani, set out his path to regional peace and development with what he called a vision of interdependence. This is the first presentation by a senior regional leader that firmly rejects regional divisions based on faith or ideology and encouraged by uncompromising local vested interests, and instead projects an alternative dream of peace and mutual accommodation.

As his panacea for regional ills, Mr Zayani has insisted on the need for a far-sighted vision and political will that would make all regional nations interdependent based on their shared interests in stability, security and prosperity.

Interdependence would be achieved within the framework of a West Asian Marshall Plan, structured on the lines of the Marshall Plan that brought reconstruction and development to war-devastated Europe after the Second World War, and encouraged economic interdependence among European nations that had warred with each other for several centuries, and over a few decades promoted political cohesiveness and peace across the continent.

The West Asian Marshall Plan will bind the nations of West Asia in a resolute partnership for reconstruction, development, human resource upliftment and technological achievement. The initiative would yield such extraordinary benefits to participants that it would be near-impossible for nations to reject participation. The advantages of constructive partnership will be set against the billions of dollars being expended on ongoing conflicts that have wrought death and destruction, with no benefit to any party.

Mr Zayani realistically recognised that that moving adversaries and doubters to join the core group of willing participants would be a mammoth challenge. He proposed the shaping of the initiative on using TRUST as an acronym to mean: Truth, Respect, Uniformity of approach, Security, and Transparency on all sides.

Amid the pessimism and hopelessness that has shrouded West Asia over the past few years, Mr Zayanis voice is an important beacon of hope. While being idealistic, even utopian, it is certainly not unrealistic the European precedent ended visceral and destructive millennia-old conflicts across the continent.

What then are the next steps to realise this vision? Just as the European Marshall Plan was American-led, West Asia needs to give concrete shape to the vision by commencing the arduous diplomatic process of promoting engagement and dialogue, so that the contending nations can bilaterally address the issues that promote mistrust.

India is well-placed to shape and lead this initiative. It has relations with the region that go back several millennia, so that there is a high level of mutual comfort in its ties with the regional nations. These ties have remained uninterrupted over the centuries and have gone beyond commercial exchanges to embrace intellectual, philosophical, religious exchanges that have shaped shared civilisational values and ethos.

In contemporary times, Indias relations with the region include energy, trade and investment, logistical connectivity projects of great strategic value, and the presence in the region of its eight million-strong community, whose contributions to regional development are cherished and applauded in every country in the region.

Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, all the principal nations of the region have enthusiastically responded to Indias overtures for political and economic cooperation, putting in place strategic partnerships that embrace regional peace and security. Thus, India can confidently step into the regional diplomatic vacuum and promote engagement between the estranged neighbours.

The challenges before India are serious since regional divides are deeply entrenched. Again, given the American hegemony over the region for several decades, no other role players have been able to enter the West Asian political theatre, even as the US itself has subjected the region to wanton violence and destruction.

Above all, for much of its life as a free nation, India has largely confined its diplomatic priorities to its immediate neighbourhood and has not undertaken a major diplomatic peace initiative outside South Asia. But, as West Asia faces breakdown, Indias crucial national interests are in jeopardy it just doesnt now have the luxury of sitting on the fence and watching the region go up in flames.

Mr Zayanis remarks have heralded the possibility of peace in West Asia, proffering trust in place of suspicion, cooperation in place of hostility, and hope in place of despair. This is a clarion call to Indias academics, diplomats and policymakers to join this vision and turn it into reality.

The writer is a retired diplomat who has served as Indias ambassador to Saudi Arabia, UAE and Oman
In the aftermath of the passing of DMK patriarch Muthuvel Karunanidhi earlier this week, and despite the speculation to the contrary, there is unlikely to be any electoral vacuum in Tamil Nadu or political poaching of any kind whether by the ruling BJP at the Centre even if the Narendra Modi wave is visible elsewhere in the country or by star-politicians in the state like an unsure Rajinikanth or an already-committed Kamal Haasan enter the fray more seriously than in the past. It is not without reason.

The DMK supremos death on August 7 comes less than two years after the passing of arch-rival and former AIADMK chief minister Jayalalithaa on December 5, 2016. True, their death between two elections (2016 and 2019) has left a void in terms of charismatic leadership, but both parties have settled down to business without them. Voters and cadres alike have also come to accept that these parties and their non-Dravidian competitors will be facing the parliamentary elections next year without their towering personalities and leadership.

Around the time, nonagenarian Karunanidhi had become near-irrecoverably ill owing to age-related ailments. The party had come to be identified in more ways than one under his son and party treasurer M.K. Stalin for more than a decade by then. Karunanidhis bed-ridden condition meant he was party president only in name, though the voters and cadre still identified it with the man. But thats all there is to it.

The ruling AIADMK is still a house divided, with the breakaway Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam (AMMK) of rebel T.T.V. Dhinakaran drawing substantial crowds at his regional rallies, when compared to the official party leadership of chief minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami and his deputy CM, O. Panneerselvam, even jointly at times. Yet the fact remains that as the ruling party now, they are in focus. For any anti-incumbency advantage accruing to their rivals, the latter should be in place and in full preparation.

The DMK is out there, ready for a good electoral fight. The AMMK may also have established itself at the grassroots level by Elections 2019. The last time the BJP-NDA projected Narendra Modis leadership to win the parliamentary polls of 2014, which worked elsewhere in the country, Jayalalithaas Modi-ya, Lady-ya? campaign call demolished it in Tamil Nadu and the adjoining Union territory of Puducherry.

Though the DMK suffered the most by drawing a blank, against the AIADMKs 38 out of 40, including Puducherrys sole Lok Sabha seat, the party is now back in action. The subsequent Assembly polls of 2016 saw the losing DMK combine (under Stalins direct guidance and control) still making the highest and very respected number of 98 seats out of 234, and with the narrowest of voteshare margins anywhere: 41-40.

The death of Karunanidhi a little too early for the 2019 parliamentary polls may have robbed the DMK of a possible sympathy wave that followed the assassinations of Indira Gandhi (1984) and Rajiv Gandhi (1991), which worked against the party in the elections that followed. But so is it for the AIADMK and/or AMMK, as they could not hope for any sympathy wave flowing from Jayalalithaas death years earlier.

Every time a senior political leader exits, especially in an insular state like Tamil Nadu, analysts and political busybodies have jumped to the conclusion that minus the face, there is no future for the political party, and there thus emerges an electoral vacuum for anyone waiting on the wings to exploit and make good. It is too simplistic an argument that has not proved itself, either in Tamil Nadu or elsewhere.

It was thus that the exit of the Atal Behari Vajpayee-L.K. Advani duo from the BJPs leadership at the national level did not create a vacuum for regional parties to fill in.

Mr Modi emerged, and rather it is his emergence from Gujarat to centrestage that caused the sidelining of Mr Advani in particular, given that Mr Vajpayee is already ailing and home-bound for many years.

In Tamil Nadu, too, the death of DMK founder and chief minister C.N. Annadurai (1969) and M.G. Ramachandran (1987) did not wipe out the parties that they had left behind. There were internal readjustments, but they bounced back, even capturing whatever voteshare that a national party like the Congress (41 per cent voteshare in 1967, reduced to 20 per cent in 1989) still had. Again, the reasons are not far too seek.

The Congress was not a cadre-based party, but both the DMK and the AIADMK were. Above all, they threw up charismatic leaders who had their hearts where it should belong. The two leaders, like Karunanidhi, were admired for their leadership qualities, like his admirers see in

Mr Modi at the national level, but for which the BJP, for instance, has thrown up no one in Tamil Nadu, which is accustomed to strong leaders and stable governments, barring the maiden general election in 1952. The state has refused to return to those days.

Even without it, arguments that the BJP under Mr Modi could provide the foil are all misplaced. The PMK, a Vanniar community party with a sub-regional presence, for instance, has retained around a five per cent voteshare since its electoral arrival in 1991. The BJP, with a purported statewide presence, has not crossed the 2.5-per cent voteshare mark, concentrated still only in a few Lok Sabha constituencies, starting with southernmost Nagercoil.

The less said about the actor-politicians and their election hopes the better. Voters in star-struck Tamil Nadu do love a good actor, and may even raise the likes of MGR or Jayalalithaa to the level of semi-gods. But that is for the good that they had done to the people as leaders, drawing their initial strength from the cadre base that they have created and/or inherited.

This apart, the last time an actor-politician entered the politico-electoral fray, the DMDKs Vijaykanth, he could garner eight per cent voteshare in his maiden outing in 2006, increasing it to 10-plus per cent in 2009, and gave up instantaneously for the succeeding 2011 Assembly polls. The DMDK joined hands with Jayalalithaas AIADMK, helped her to return to power, and then lost out in the bargain for good.

There are imponderables still, but not of the Narendra Modi, Rajinikanth or Kamal Haasan variety. It could be due to pending court cases against Dhinakaran and the investigations into revenue-related issues by Central agencies against some friends and aides of the present rulers getting fast-tracked overnight, as is being widely apprehended. With Jayalalithaa showing the way, unless such procedures/proceedings lead to conviction, confirmed by the highest court in the land in good time, again, there is unlikely to be any electoral disturbances of the kind that is being visualised by some people.

There is, of course, the pending Madras high court third-judge verdict in the disqualification case, affecting 18 MLAs belonging to Dhinakarans AMMK. Either way, the case may end up in the Supreme Court, before some sense of finality is reached and again, the cadre and voter movement is mostly likely to be between the two, not to the outsider. By that time, Stalin may have settled down as DMK president, replacing his current status as working president, with the party meeting due on August 30, which was decided before Karunanidhi was hospitalised this time around.

The writer is director of the Observer Research Foundations Chennai chapter
The discussions included how to equip youth and their guardians to use online tools and other techniques which ensure that they have a safe and age-appropriate experience online. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

The office of the Chief Minister Maharashtra, in partnership with the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI), a leading global NGO working in the area of online safety organised a forum called Create, Connect, Respect: Empowering parents and educators to guide connected children and youth, on Monday August 6 in Mumbai. This event was supported by UNICEF India, Netflix and FICCI Arise.

Bringing together both global and local leaders in the area of online safety, the focus of this event was on how to enable children and youth to benefit from the advantages that the Internet has to offer. At the event, the discussions included how to equip youth and their guardians to use online tools and other techniques which ensure that they have a safe and age-appropriate experience online. According to an Alphabeta report, over 80% of Indian VOD consumers found online safety features useful and trustworthy in keeping themselves and their families safe.

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Samsung Electronics Co Ltd unveiled the Galaxy Note 9 phablet in New York on Thursday in a key product launch that it hopes will attract younger customers with stepped-up features and services for gamers and music-lovers.

Launching the Note 9 at 11 a.m. in New York, or Friday midnight in Seoul, Samsung also announced partnerships with global hit game Fortnite and music-streaming service Spotify Technology SA in a stepped-up challenge to Apple Inc in the premium-phone race.

Samsungs new focus marks a shift away from its previous positioning of the Note as a multi-tasking device popular with graphic designers and artists.

But the hefty price tag - at $999.99 for the base 128-gigabyte model, according to US carrier Verizon Communications Inc - has raised questions as to whether features such as a longer battery life and quick cooling would be enough to attract customers.

I couldnt find anything that was eye-catching enough to prompt customers to ignore the high price tag, said Greg Roh, an analyst at Hyundai Motor Securities.

Shares of Samsung were down 3.5 per cent in Seoul, mirroring weakness in other chip-related stocks.

Samsung is under pressure to jump-start faltering smartphone sales after posting its slowest quarterly profit growth in more than a year, as rivals such as Chinas Huawei Technologies nipped at its heels with cheaper, feature-packed models.

The Note 9 will support up to 1 terabyte of memory - a 512GB version that can take another 512GB through a memory card - making Samsung the first major smartphone maker to sell a 1TB phone.

The phablet - a cross between a smartphone and a tablet - will hit stores on Aug. 24, Samsung said.

Verizon said the Note 9 will be available for pre-order from Aug. 10, with the 512GB model priced at $1,249.99. Sprint Corp will introduce the device on Aug. 24 at a 50 per cent discount as part of a promotional scheme.

The Note 9 is the first Android phone to support Fortnite, a hugely popular video-and-smartphone survival game that was only playable on computers, consoles and Apple products until now.

It also comes with a Bluetooth-enabled stylus designed to act as a remote for snapping photos and controlling YouTube video playback.

The New York event also featured a Samsung Galaxy watch and Galaxy Home speaker, a device that will use its Bixby voice assistant and compete with similar products from Amazon.com Inc, Apple and Alphabet Incs Google.

Spotify will be supported on the speakers, along with all other Samsung devices - news that sent shares in the music-streaming service provider up nearly 5 per cent.

Samsung is counting on the Note 9 to outsell the Note 8 to stem a sales slump. It said last month its flagship Galaxy S9 phone missed sales targets, sending profits in the mobile division down by a third in the April-June quarter.

Samsung does not break out shipments of its smartphone models, but analysts reckon it has shipped around 10 million Note 8 models so far.

The jury is still out if the device can boost sales of Samsungs premium category, mobile phone market tracker Counterpoint Research said in a blog, pointing to stiff competition from the iPhone X, Huaweis P20 Pro and the Find X from Chinas Oppo Electronics.

The price is a big factor.

Huawei predicted last week it would become the worlds top smartphone seller by volume - displacing Samsung - in the final quarter of next year, while Apple sold more of its $1,000 iPhone Xs in the June quarter.

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Two persons, including a woman, have been arrested by the Hebbal police for cheating several people of lakhs of rupees by promising them jobs in the Indian Army. The arrested are Krishnarajan (63), a resident of Hebbal, and Sujata alias Sophia (42), of KGF. The police are on the lookout for two others. The four had duped several people by taking Rs 40,000 as a deposit from each candidate and offered fake appointment letters.

According to the police, the accused offered the candidates posts of driver, clerk and other technical posts in Indian Army at Rs 2 lakh per job and took an advance of Rs 40,000.

The accused asked the candidates to come with the "appointment letter" for a medical checkup and then took them to Ooty, Jabalpur and other places. The candidates were told that they would be called for other physical tests if required. When they didn't hear from the accused for many days, they called them up but found their mobile phones switched off.

One of the victims, Deepu Shankar, lodged a complaint with the Hebbal police against Krishnarajan, Sujata, Jyothi Lakshmi and Mehboob Pasha.

During the interrogation, the police found that the accused duped over 20 job aspirants and suspect they may have cheated many more.

The police said Sujatha was involved in a similar case in 2013 registered at the Halasuru police station. The police seized mobile phones, fake appointment letters, job cards, medical certificates and admit cards from the accused.
Buddhist spiritual leader the Dalai Lama said that India should adopt the ancient education system in the present curriculum to build a strong nation and help generations to tackle modern day stress.

Speaking at the Vidyaloke Talks on "Courage and Compassion in the 21st Century" for young professionals and students, organised by Vana Foundation in Bengaluru on Saturday, the Dalai Lama said that India is the only country where religious tolerance exists even today.

The spiritual leader said that he is committed to reviving the ancient Indian wisdom, which could address the present day crisis. "Indian traditions and texts contain material to tackle modern-day stressors, but modern India is not paying enough attention to their immense treasure and knowledge," added the Dalai Lama.

He said Indian meditative practices, which stem from Indian texts can provide peace of the mind that provide inner strength to a person and help them tackle all the problems of the modern world. Ancient Indian knowledge needs to be revived in this country by one and all  be it a non-believer or a believer of religion.

He said that the present day education system in India is slightly tilted towards creating a material life, society and culture. Indias educational system should be able to teach students to tackle their emotions, while the Indian yoga practices can be used to build a healthy body, he added.

The powerful combination of modern education and ancient Indian knowledge will attract other countries like China, Vietnam, Korea and the rest of the world to adopt the same in their countries as well. India has an opportunity to serve millions of people around the world in Asia, Europe and other continents with their treasure-trove of ancient wisdom and knowledge.

Recalling how he solved issues between Ladakhi Muslims and Buddhists in Zanskar region on Ladakh, the Dalai Lama said that Indian Muslims should play an active role in promoting harmony among Sunni and Shia communities.

These two communities are fighting and killing each other without any basis. India should take a lead and hold an International Religious conference to bring all religion together.

The difference between the Hindus and the Muslims are generally created by politicians, who manipulate for their political reasons. People in India should not pay much attention to this, he added.
The general manager of an IT company lodged a complaint with the Hebbagodi police, saying hackers recently broke into the official email ID of their foreign vendor and made away with Rs 17 lakh.

In his complaint, Roshan Khader said his company has trade dealings with the Chinese company Oman Group to import goods from them.

According to Khader, the company's assistant manager (purchase), Pramod Kumar, received an email from Oman Group's official email id, stating that the company's bank account has changed. The email contained the account number at the new bank and asked Kumar to transfer Rs 17 lakh ($26,410) for supply of the merchandise.

Since the mail came from the official email id of the supplier, Kumar did not find anything wrong and transferred the money on August 3. He made a call to the company to confirm if they had received the payment. But officials at Oman Group said they did not receive the money and there was no change in their bank account.

Khader stated in the complaint that someone had hacked into their vendor's mail and duped his company.

Based on his complaint, the Hebbagodi police booked a case of cheating and impersonation and under Section 66 of the IT Act. They also sought the Cyber Crime Police's assistance to track the hackers.
Indiranagar residents under the banner 'i Change Indiranagar', with support from United Bengaluru, protested against the re-development of the BDA complex.

The BDA complex is located at 1st Stage, Hoysala Nagar (ward 80), Indiranagar.

More than 100 citizens gathered on Saturday evening to object to the demolition of the existing structure and replace it with a swanky shopping complex, which, they believe, would only add more chaos in the locality.

A press release from 'i Change Indiranagar' dubbed the proposal "myopic" as it plans to replace the existing structure with one 11 times its size. Though it is a public land, the agencies never held a public consultation, they alleged.

"If they are indeed demolishing the complex, we want a tree park here and nothing else," said Swarna Venkataraman, a resident.

Since the BDA says it is forced to replace the existing structure as the cost of maintaining the building is more than the revenue, Aruna Newton, resident and president of Citizens for Civic Action, asked why cannot the building be maintained.

"They can spend some money for (maintenance) like the way we maintain our homes. The new BDA complex is not going to change our lives for the better," she said.

Ashok Sarath, a local resident, said they want the tree park because it would be for everyone's use rather than a building that would service just a few.

"We only demand the BDA to implement the suggestions made in the Revised Master Plan," said Sneha Nandihal, a citizen activist from the area.

Lok Sabha MP P C Mohan, who took part in the protest, urged members of United Bengaluru to meet the BDA and BBMP officials on Monday and Tuesday. Rajya Sabha member Rajeev Chandrashekar also participated.

Citizens also said the complex would violate National Green Tribunal rules as the land falls under the buffer zone of Binnamangala Lake.

Residentspeak

The BDA's claim that it is high maintenance and will cost is not right. They can spend some money on the building and re-develop it

 Aruna Newton, president of Citizens for Civic Action

There are times when we are imprisoned inside our homes as most vehicles come and park there. This reconstruction of the shopping complex will lead to similar chaos

 Geeta Varghese, a local resident
A Sudanese student succumbed to injuries last week after he jumped from a second-floor balcony in Kammanahalli during a police raid last month. The student, who suffered internal bleeding and a fractured spine, died in hospital on August 1.

Mohammed Al Khair (Khiralla) (25) jumped to avoid arrest for overstaying on his student visa, according to family and friends. His friends shifted Khiralla to a private hospital in Kalyan Nagar and later to Nimhans, where he underwent two surgeries. Though doctors deemed the surgeries successful, Khiralla passed away when blood clots triggered a cardiac arrest.

"It was because of the that he jumped," said Okoye Paschal Chukuebuka, president of the All Indian Nigerian and Community Association in Bengaluru. "He was trying to find a way to run away," he said.

Khiralla's cousin, Moufag Ahmed Jado, said he "panicked".



The building in Kammanahalli from where Sudanese student Mohammed Al Khair jumped to his death. DH Photo/Janardhan B K Caption



That same morning, the Whitefield police detained more than 200 people and arrested 111  along with their hosts  for allegedly overstaying their visas, following information from the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO). The arrests included foreign nationals from 12 African countries. "Overstay is normal and not such a big deal," Jado said. "Now, it's changing. The police arrested many people who overstayed and took them to jail."

Khiralla, a native of Khartoum in Sudan, and the oldest of five children, first came to Bengaluru on a student visa with two of his cousins in 2013. He studied computer applications at BET College for a few months, but then switched to an affiliate of the Mahatma Gandhi University (MGU). Although Khiralla attempted to transfer his student visa status to the new school, according to Jado, the FRRO would not permit the change. Khiralla's visa expired in 2016, and his passport in 2017, according to a senior police officer.

Friends held a burial near the Karnataka College last week. More than a hundred people, most of them Sudanese, gathered to grieve, according to Mobarak Abdalla, president of the Sambhram International Students Association (SISA). While Khiralla's family mourned his death back home, others shared photos and offered words of love on his Facebook page.

"His family was waiting for him all these years to come back home. They missed him so much and now he's gone forever," Jado wrote to DH.

According to Abdalla, students from African nations have "stopped coming here", opting instead to study in Malaysia and China. He highlighted the irony of the recent events. "The day this happened, (Prime Minister) Narendra Modi was in Africa," Abdalla said.
DMK member Tiruchi Siva on Friday asked the Centre to posthumously confer Bharat Ratna to the former chief minister of Tamil Nadu M Karunanidhi as a tribute to his 'outstanding and exemplary work for the people'.

DMK chief M Karunanidhi died on August 7 after a brief illness. The 94-year-old DMK patriarch had served as the Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu for five times but was never a member of Parliament.

Raising the issue during Zero Hour in the Rajya Sabha, Siva said Karunanidhi was a Dravidian stalwart and the tallest leader of the country.

Karunanidhi contributed 80 years to public life, fighting for the cause of the downtrodden, backward and the suppressed people, he said.

Many members, including Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi Azad, associated themselves with Siva's demand.

In a break from tradition, both Houses of Parliament were adjourned on August 8 as a mark of respect to M Karunanidhi.

Siva said Karunanidhi had "a long list of achievements which will bring feathers in his crown."

"He was an outstanding orator, a prolific writer, a novelist, a short-story writer, a philosopher, a philanthropist and also a dramatist. He was an actor and he also wrote scripts for eighty movies. Sir, he is unparalleled and he made a mark in all walks of life," he said.

Meanwhile, Tamil Nadu Congress Committee president Su Thirunavukkarasar backed the demand.

In a statement, he urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to honour the departed leader in view of services to the people as a five-time chief minister and contribution to the Indian polity.
The Rajasthan High Court on Friday issued notice to the BJP state chief on a PIL regarding the expenses incurred on the party's ongoing 'Rajasthan Gaurav Yatra' led by Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje.

Chief Justice Pradeep Nandrajog issued a show-cause notice to Rajasthan BJP unit president Madanlal Saini and directed him to present his party's stand by August 16.

Petitioner-advocate Vibhuti Bhushan Sharma told media that advocates for the chief secretary and PWD told the court on Friday that orders pertaining to expenses for the yatra have since been withdrawn.

Earlier State Congress chief Sachin Pilot had also claimed that government funds were being misused for the yatra.

"The chief minister is promoting herself and party in the yatra for which she is using public money", the petition said. It also claims that the advertisements in newspapers about the Rajasthan Gaurav Yatra had no mention of the government.

Earlier, Home Minister Gulab Chand Kataria issued a statement saying that the cost of the journey will be funded by the party.
The Supreme Court on Friday said it would lay down guidelines to prevent incidents of vandalism across the country, saying nobody can burn down properties, either public or private.

A bench of Chief Justice Dipak Misra and justices A M Khanwilkar and D Y Chandrachud said the court would not wait for the government to bring an amendment to the law to fix responsibility on officers concerned.

The court said its guidelines would envisage action against those instigating and indulging in violence, regardless of religion.

Attorney General K K Venugopal submitted that responsibility should be fixed on authorities like the superintendent of police of the area in cases of vandalism and rioting.

Such incidents of violent protests and rioting happen almost every week in one or other part of the country, he said. He cited protests over the Maratha reservation in Maharashtra, nation-wide violence following the apex courts verdict on the SC/ST Act and the recent incidents of violence, including overturning of vehicles by Kanwarias.

When the film Padmaavat was to be released, one group openly threatened to cut the nose of the lead actor, he said. Nothing has happened. No FIR.

In Delhi, whenever there is an unauthorised construction, the local police in-charge is held liable. The police officer should be personally liable for such vandalism, he said. Fix the responsibility on the officers concerned.

Venugopal said the government has been contemplating an amendment to the existing law to deal with such kind of protests. The courts should allow it to change the law suitably, he said.

We will not wait for the amendment. This is a grave situation and this must stop, the bench said. It will pass judgement as was done in lynching cases.

The bench reserved its judgement on a plea filed by the Kodungallur Film Society by advocate P V Dinesh seeking enforcement of apex courts directions passed in 2009 in In Re Destruction of Public and Private Properties vs Govt of AP.

The top court had in 2009 held that organisers of any protest shall be personally held accountable for the loss of private and public property. The bench had also ordered police authorities to videograph such protests so that accountability could be fixed.
The latest unemployment report suggests those previously left out of the economic recovery in the wake of the Great Recession are now joining in the effort, which may turn out to be a midterm game changer. The country should resist the urge to use this group as a political wedge and instead enjoy the benefits that fuller employment bring to everyone.

Earlier this year, a newspaper headline summarized one of the defining aspects of the political divide in the country: No jobs recovery for many Americans without a college degree. Those who feel left behind by the recovery have generally been credited with President Donald Trumps surprise win in the 2016 election.

In 2016, during the heated presidential campaign, the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Work Force did a deep dive into Americas divided recovery, shining light on the sharp divide among workers when it came to job growth after the Great Recession. The study showed that of the 11.6 million jobs created in the recovery up to that time, fully 11.5 million had gone to workers with at least some college experience. In other words, those with only a high school diploma or less were largely locked out of the recovery. Various surveys have characterized many of them as feeling helpless and angry. And enough of them showed up and voted for President Trump that some say it turned the election.

The data collected show the unemployment rate for those without a high school diploma dropping to 5.1 percent in July. This is not a small statistical blip of little consequence. The unemployment among this group peaked at a devastating 15.6 percent during the downturn.

Last weeks jobs report shows conclusively that the tide has turned for this group of workers and voters. Who they will credit for their improved circumstances and who they will blame for their delayed successes will be the fodder for talking heads and social media for the weeks that remain between now and the midterm election.

Midterm elections are notoriously unfavorable to the party in power, and the expectation is that this election will follow that trend, as the primaries in several states this week indicated. There is a growing possibility Democrats could retake the House.

However, if this group of voters remains a solid voting block and credits the Trump administration with their good fortune, the midterms could end differently than many expect.

With so much political power resting on the outcome, this election could further divide the country, particularly if the turnout is low, leaving the whole election process vulnerable to manipulation by extreme interests. A low turnout also raises the cost-benefit incentives for those willing to commit time and resources to disrupt the basic mechanisms of democracy.

The best outcome would be a large voter turnout where the voice of the people can be heard loud and clear despite all of the disparate interests  domestic and foreign  who may try to muffle or distort the voice of the American people.

The good news from the jobs market, however, must not get lost in the politically expedient fervor. Those who were previously left out of the recovery now have more opportunities for employment suited to their needs and abilities. This benefits everyone. All Americans should resist the temptation to use this success to further divide the country down deeply entrenched partisan lines.
Political cartoons throughout the week were laced with themes of the U.S.-China trade war, Brett M. Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination and the debate over 3D printed plastic guns.

The effect of the trade war between the United States and China is hurting American farmers.

Two new tariffs from China, in retaliation to the Trump administration's tariffs on imports from the country, have had an impact on industries in the United States, especially farming. Soybean and pork farmers have been hit especially hard.

This week, the Trump administration announced plans to use up to $12 billion for emergency relief to farmers.

The money will be secured from the U.S. Treasury and uses the Commodity Credit Corporation, a Depression-era program, that does not require asking Congress for the funds.

Another trend in political cartoons this week was the debate over plastic straws being banned by California (as well as various companies) and the 3D printing of plastic guns.

Other stories depicted included Brett Kavanaugh's Supreme Court nomination and President Trump's Twitter habits.
SALT LAKE CITY  Its over: California wont vote to split into three states.

Billionaire Tim Draper wrote in a letter to the California Supreme Court, which was made public Thursday, that hes ending his effort to restructure California into three separate states this November, according to The Associated Press.

The political environment for radical change is right now, Draper said in his letter. The removal of Proposition 9 from the November ballot has effectively put an end to this movement.

Back in July, the state Supreme Court struck down Drapers measure after a lawsuit contested the idea of splitting California into three states, according to my report for the Deseret News.

Draper had an opportunity to fight the ruling to help bring back the measure on future ballots. The venture capitalist, who spent $1.7 million to help bring the initiative to the ballot, will not move forward with the case.

Drapers plan hoped to split California into three states  Northern California, California and Southern California. He collected more than 400,000 signatures, which are required to bring a proposal to the November ballot in California, according to my report.

But in July, an environmental group sued to remove the measure from the ballot, arguing the measure, if approved by voters, would require a constitutional convention to make the move happen, Fox News reported.

In seeking to remove this initiative from the ballot, we are asking the court to protect the integrity of both the initiative process and our state constitution, an attorney representing the environmental group, Carlyle Hall, said in a statement. Proponents should not be able to evade the state constitution simply by qualifying a measure as one thing, when it is so clearly another.

The California Supreme Court said there were substantial questions about the proposition and that they wanted to review it more before adding it to a ballot.

The court said the harm of allowing the bill outweighs the potential harm in delaying it for a future election, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

Critics worried about Drapers plan for a few months. A report from Bloomberg outlined many of the criticisms, including the fact there isnt any hard and fast rule on how Congress can allow states to split (it hasnt happened since West Virginia split from Virginia during the Civil War).

And there were political concerns since Congress would need to approve the measure. California tends to lean blue during election season, so its unlikely Republicans would approve more Democrats into Congress, according to Bloomberg.
CLEARFIELD  As 5-year-old Adilene Saunders rummaged through her brand new blue backpack, she happily announced each new discovery to her mom.

"I got new pens!" she exclaimed. "Another book! Stickers! Another notebook!"

The soon-to-be kindergartener was one of more than 400 Utah children to be gifted with a free new backpack Friday  plus all the exciting goods inside  in a back-to-school gesture for Utah military families.

Adilene's anticipation in the days before the giveaway were palpable, her mother said. Even her little sister, not quite old enough yet to go to school, joined in the fun of it.

"They're probably going to be talking about this all day," laughed Rachel Saunders, whose husband is an Air Force firefighter at Hill Air Force Base. "Probably all weekend."

The giveaway was organized by national nonprofit Operation Homefront, a group that provides several services to military members and their families and anticipates giving away more than 22,000 backpacks to children across the United States for the new school year.

The gesture has an impact, Saunders said, because military families "are not made of money." She and her husband are the parents of five children, with a 3-week-old newborn as well as an adopted 5-month-old who recently joined the family.

The money not spent on school supplies, Saunders said, means "more for food, or more for gas, or whatever else we may need this month."

"It will definitely make a big difference having this help."

Lt. Col. Rochelle Smith, who works in the contracting division at the Air Force Nuclear Weapons Center at Hill Air Force Base, said that "for those who have quite a few kids in school, it makes quite a big difference." She stopped by Hill Field Elementary on Friday to pick up a pair of backpacks to surprise her 8-year-old and 11-year-old with.

"For me, it's a reminder that Hill (Air Force Base), and Utah, are one of the most supportive communities in the Air Force," said Smith, who added the advertisements on base for free backpacks were hard to miss. "It's wonderful to see something like this."

Kathleen Coleman, who oversees four states including Utah as a program coordinator for Operation Homefront, said the children coming by Friday "love having their new backpacks."

"Especially the little kids, they're very excited," she said.

Coleman said some of the military kids have recently moved to Utah as the result of their parent's new assignment, so making back-to-school season a positive experience for them is particularly important.

"Being the new kid in school, it helps them ease into their new environment, ready to go with a new backpack," she said.

Besides school supply giveaways, Operation Homefront provides more extensive aid for active military and military reserve members, post-9/11 veterans, any wounded or ill veteran, and their families, including mortgage or rent assistance and funds for utilities or food. It also carries out smaller-scale services such as hosting baby showers for children born into military families.

The school supplies program, called the Back-to-School Brigade, started in 2008 and has given away more than 300,000 backpacks in the United States since its inception, Coleman said.

"When you work closely with military (members), you understand the amount of sacrifice and the amount of attentiveness our military families give to our communities," she said. "I don't think our military is appreciated enough."

Coleman said she's grateful for the chance the backpack giveaways offer her to "thank a military member in person."

"I give lots of hugs," she said. "I love them so much."
SALT LAKE CITY  A motorcyclist is dead after he was hit by a car on Saturday morning, police said.

The man, whose name has not yet been released, allegedly ran a red light just after 10 a.m., according to Salt Lake Police Sgt. Jenn Diederich. She said the motorcyclist laid his bike down and was then run over by a car coming from the opposite direction near 400 West and 500 South.

Diederich said the other driver was cooperating with police. The motorcyclist was wearing a helmet at the time of the accident, but died at the scene of the accident.

The area was closed to traffic during the investigation.

This year is on track to be the deadliest on record for motorcycle deaths in Utah, according to law enforcement.
11 minutes ago

'Everything is at stake' as world gathers for climate talks

More than one world leader says humanitys future, even survival, hangs in the balance when international officials meet in Scotland to try to accelerate efforts to curb climate change. Temperatures, tempers and hyperbole have all ratcheted up ahead of the U.N.

Read Article
Have you ever checked-in to your flight early, carefully studied the seat-map and chosen the best seat in the house? Have you also sat down smugly in your pew of choice; only to realise you misread the map, booked the wrong side of the exit row, and are now stuck next to the toilets in a seat that wont recline?

No? Thats coolI was just asking for a friend.

Anyway, if you are keen to avoid that 100% hypothetical situation, check out this guide to the best and worst places to sit in economy on a domestic Australian flight.

Qantas Airbus 330-200

Sure, the Qantas Airbus 330-200 economy seats come with 31 inches of recline and a width of 17.5 inches (and the food is complementary), but lets be real: economy is economy. A few inches here and there wont make or break a trip. Getting sat next to the constantly-in-demand toilet will. That and a good glass of Chardonnay. Also: legroom. Need we say more? Picking a good seat is arguably more important than picking a good airline. And unlike some other airlines, on Qantas domestic flights, its free!

Considering the Airbus 330-200 is one of Qantas domestic staples (i.e. if you book a few flights in Australia youll end up on it at some point), its handy to know the best places to sit. Normally this takes a few bouts of trial and error. Luckily for you, weve tuned in to SeatGuru to share the secrets only frequent flyers know. Heres a breakdown of the seats of interest.

The Seats To Get

Row 44: Extra legroom; it is the highly coveted exit row.

Row 57: Yes, its near the toilets, but if you are a serial food muncher this row gives you easy access to the snack-laden galley.

The Seats To Avoid

Row 23: Avoid booking in row 23 if possible; it may have restricted legroom due to the bulkhead. The only upside here is you have nobody in front of you.

Row 39: This row of seats is near the toilets so unless youre a fan of air freshener and other smells give this one a miss.

53D & 53G: Unless you enjoy being elbowed awake every time someone misjudges the gap between you and row 54, dont book seats 53D or 53G.

54D, 54E and 54F: Due to the misalignment with the seats in front, if you end up in these seats, you will have slightly restricted leg and storage space.

Qantas Boeing 737-800

The Qantas 737-800 is a smaller aircraft than the Airbus 330-200. But the potential to score a great seat (or languish miserably in a poorly chosen one) is even greater. The 33 seat layout is not for everyone however there are a few gems on this little city flier. Its often traversing the skies between Sydney and Melbourne, so if you live in either of the nations unofficial capitals, knowing this planes seat-map by heart is just as important as knowing Sydneys coolest bars or Melbournes best barbers.

The Seats To Get

Row 4 is the pick of the bunch; its the only seat on the plane that provides extra legroom with no drawbacks. You do however need to be Qantas Platinum or Chairmans Lounge to pre book these. The best you can hope for is asking the desk nicely before departure (alternatively you can pay $20 to secure an additional legroom seat).

Row 13  Limited recline; but extra legroom, which somewhat makes up for it.

Row 14  Extra legroom, but less cushioning, and can get cold as they are near the planes exit.

The Seats To Avoid

9A and 9F are seats to avoid if you are a fan of the view (they are windowless).

10A and 10F  A tight squeeze for the bodybuilders among us, featuring a misaligned window and reduced shoulder room.

Row 12  This one will keep the chiropractors busy; it doesnt recline.

Back Row: limited recline and near the toilets. Boooo!

Qantas Boeing 717-200

The Qantas 717-200 is another smaller jet, which is part of the QantasLink service and is often used between Sydney, Canberra and Melbourne. Bonus: being part of the QantasLink gives you access to Qantas points and status credits, seamless connections, 24/7 online booking and the option to check in via mobile phone.

The Seats To Get

Row 4: This is a coveted extra legroom zone, but if you want to reserve it youll have to pay $20 upfront, and it normally sells out quick. Get in early and your legs will thank you.

Row 13: Limited recline; but extra legroom, which somewhat makes up for it.

Row 14: Extra legroom, but as per row 4 you may have to pay extra for it.

The Seats To Avoid

Row 12: Limited recline.

22A &22C: Last row of the plane, limited recline, near toilet.

23D, 23E & 23F: Last row of the plane on the other side of the aisle, limited recline, near toilets.

Jetstar Airbus A320

The Airbus A320 boasts the widest cabin of any single-aisle aircraft in the sky, and can hold up to 180 passengers. But how many of them will travel with leg cramps? Read on to find out. In all seriousness, if you book a Jetstar flight, chances are you will be on this Airbus, so brush up on your aisle-atomy Yes: choosing your own seat costs about $8 (assuming youve booked a starter fare) but its definitely worth it. And to secure an exit row seat youre looking at an extra $25.

The Seats To Get

Seats 1B and 1C: The pick of the lot, these seats have extra legroom and no drawbacks (1A almost makes the cut, but the exit door protrudes into some of its space).

Row 13: Book here if you canexit row with extra legroom and no drawbacks. Like the front, it comes at an extra fee.

The Seats To Avoid

1D, 1E and 1F: Fools gold: From a regular seat map they appear to be an exit row with extra legroom. They are not. They actually have limited legroom due to the position of the bulkhead.

Row 11: These seats may have limited recline (row 12 has extra legroom but similarly limited recline).

Virgin Boeing 737-800

The Virgin Boeing 737-800 fits 176 passengers: but only those with the inside info will be on the best seats. To make sure you are one of them, so that you can arrive in Perth you can windsurf with the great whites (or swill wine with the in-lawswhichever you find less intimidating), 100% refreshed. Or if your travels bring you to Brisbane you can stroll the South Bank without lower back pain and a stiff set of knees.

The Seats To Get

Row 13: This is one of the most sought after exit rows with extra legroom and super comfy seats. However you will have to pay extra to sit here as it is classified as Economy X.

Row 14: Same as above  part of Economy X  but well worth the splurge.

The Seats To Avoid

Seat 9A: Unless youre a troglodyte you wont like this seat (no window).

Virgin Boeing 737-700

Unless youre willing to pay for an upgrade to Economy X, youre going to struggle to find any sneaky extra legroom in the Virgin Boeing 737-700. That said, its still worth knowing where to avoid. After all: you dont want to rock up to the Australian Open (or Darwins national parks) after a stressful flight. If youre not going to treat yourself to Economy X, at least dont book a seat next to the toilets.

The Seats To Get

Economy X: they have turned the exit rows into their version of premium economy.

The Seats To Avoid

Back Row: Near the toilets and galley.

TigerAir Airbus A320

Although this is a single aisle plane there are a fair few seat options! Unlike some of the other planes on this list, the TigerAir Airbus A320 is more than a pocket-rocket. Despite its size it still zips around everywhere like one though! Whether you are on a business trip to Melbourne or a Barossa Valley wine tour in South Australia you could end up on one of theseso make it worth your while.

The Seats To Get

Row 1: Extra legroom due to the position of the bulkhead.

Row 13: Extra legroom due to it being an exit row.

The Seats To Avoid

Row 11: Located in front of an exit row so it may not recline.

Row 30: Limited recline, close to the toilets.

TigerAir Boeing 737-800

TigerAir Australias Boeing 737-800 has a 180 seat capacity with 42 Extra Leg Room seats, 30 Up Front seats and 108 regular Economy seats. Smaller than the Airbus but with newer upholstery, the TigerAir 737-800 is a nifty jet. To get the optimal experience make the most of selecting your own seat online. Choose wisely.

The Seats To Get

Seats 15A  15F: They come with more legroom, but youll probably have to pay extra to book these seats.

The Seats To Avoid

13A  13F: Limited recline due to the exit row behind it. 30A  30F: Limited recline and next to the toilets.

RELATED: How To Travel Calmly & Comfortably In Economy
Bourses question Jet on delaying quarterly results

A day after Jet Airways (India) Ltd deferred the release of its quarterly results for the April-June 2018-19 period, the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) and the National Stock Exchange (NSE) have sought answers from the airline as to why its audit committee did not approve financial results for the quarter ended 30 June.

The Naresh Goyal-controlled carrier is reported to have completely eroded its net worth forcing at least one of its auditors to comment that the airline will not be able to make any transactions.

BSR & Co, a KPMG affiliate, has found the airline to be not considered as a 'going concern, according to an ET Now report. BSR and KPMG are also reported to be considering quitting as Jet Airways auditors.

In a BSE filing late on Thursday evening, the airline said the board of directors decided not to review the unaudited financial performance for the June quarter.

"The audit committee did not recommend financial results to the board for its approval, pending closure of certain matters," the airline said in the regulatory filing without offering more details.

The two exchanges have asked the airline whether any matter other than earnings was discussed during the board meeting. The exchanges have also asked the carrier when the adjourned board meeting would now be held.

A fresh date for the meeting will be declared in due course, said a spokesman for Jet Airways, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

As per your announcement dated August 9, it was stated that there are certain matters which have been not closed. Kindly state us the details of these matters, NSE asked the company in a message posted on the exchanges website.

Meanwhile, BSE asked Jet Airways to disclose the matters pending closure, as well as whether any matter other than results was on the agenda which merited disclosure to stock exchanges under listing regulations.

If so, why have the same not been submitted? it asked.

Shares of Jet closed 8.4 per4 cent lower on the BSE at Rs276.4.

Higher fuel prices and intense competition has been affecting airlines. Jet Airways posted a net loss of Rs1,036 crore in the March quarter that erased profits from the first three quarters.

Other airline, including InterGlobe Aviation Ltds IndiGo, the largest airline by market share, are also facing financial difficulties. IndiGo reported a 97 per cent drop in June quarter profit, its worst quarterly performance.

The company made a net loss of Rs767 crore in the last financial year as spending, mainly fuel costs, employee benefits and distribution expenses, overshot revenue.
Monsanto fined $289 mn for causing cancer by Roundup weed killer

A jury in San Francisco, California, on Friday ordered agro-chemicals giant Monsanto to pay nearly $290 million to a former school groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson dying of cancer, caused by the constant use of the company's popular weed killer Roundup.

The jurors were unanimous in their verdict that Monsanto acted with "malice" and that its weed killers Roundup and the professional grade version RangerPro contributed "substantially" to Johnson's terminal illness.

The jury ordered chemical giant Monsanto to pay $289 million, including $250 million in punitive damages to the dying groundskeeper, saying the company did not even care to warn the poor man that its weed killer Roundup might cause cancer.

The jury announced the penalty after eight weeks of trial proceedings.

The lawsuit filed by Dewayne Johnson was the first to go to trial among hundreds such cases filed in state and federal courts against Roundup that causes non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. In California, dying plaintiffs can be granted expedited trials.

CNN reported last year that more than 800 patients were suing Monsanto, claiming Roundup gave them cancer.

Monsanto, which denies that its weed killer, a form of glyphosate has any link with cancer, saying hundreds of studies have established that glyphosate is safe.

Jurors in state Superior Court, however, unanimously found that the Monsanto product contributed to Johnson's cancer and the company should have provided a label warning of the potential health hazard.

Johnson's attorneys sought and won $39 million in compensatory damages and $250 million of the $373 million they wanted in punitive damages.

Johnson used Roundup and a similar product, Ranger Pro, as a pest control manager at a San Francisco Bay Area school district, his lawyers said. He sprayed large quantities from a 50-gallon tank attached to a truck, and during gusty winds, the product would cover his face, said Brent Wisner, one of his attorneys.

Once, when a hose broke, the weed killer soaked his entire body.

Johnson even contacted the company after developing a rash but was never warned it could cause cancer, Wisner said. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2014 at age 42.

"The simple fact is he is going to die. It's just a matter of time," Wisner told the jury in his opening statement last month.

Monsantos lawyer George Lombardi, however, said non-Hodgkin's lymphoma takes years to develop, so Johnson's cancer must have started well before he began working at the school district.

The US Environmental Protection Agency says Roundup's active ingredient is safe for people when used in accordance with label directions.

However, the France-based International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is part of the World Health Organization, classified it as a "probable human carcinogen" in 2015. California also names glyphosate in its list of chemicals known to cause cancer.

Monsanto issued a statement after the verdict, saying it stands by the studies that suggest Roundup does not cause cancer.

See: However, in March 2017, farmers and others suing Monsanto claimed in court filings, employees of Monsanto Co ghostwrote supposedly independent scientific reports that US regulators relied on to determine that a chemical in its Roundup weed killer does not cause cancer. The documents, which were made public, were part of a mass litigation in federal court in San Francisco claiming Monsanto failed to warn that exposure to Roundup could cause non-Hodgkin's lymphoma ( Lawsuit alleges Monsanto staff ghostwrote safety reports ).

"We will appeal this decision and continue to vigorously defend this product, which has a 40-year history of safe use and continues to be a vital, effective and safe tool for farmers and others," Monsanto vice president Scott Partridge said.

An appeal would be costly for Monsanto, which would have to pay interest on the damages that have been awarded, while the case is being appealed. The interest is estimated to cost $25 million a year, he said.

Monsanto is currently owned by German chemicals and pharmaceuticals major Bayer, after it successfully completed the acquisition on 7 June 2018 following the receipt of all required approvals from regulatory authorities.

According to the conditional approval from the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), the integration of Monsanto into Bayer can take place as soon as the divestments to BASF have been completed. This integration process is expected to commence in approximately two months. Liam Condon, member of the Bayer Board of Management, will lead the combined Crop Science division when the integration commences.
Delhi HC bars Singh brothers from operating accounts in India, Singapore

The controversial Singh brothers  Malvinder and Shivinder  who had promoted Fortis Healthcare  have been prohibited from operating their bank accounts in India and Singapore by the Delhi High Court.

Japanese company Daiichi Sankyo had moved the court seeking execution of the Rs3,500-crore arbitration award passed in its favour and against the Singh brothers in the Ranbaxy deal. The company had also asked the court to attach assets of the Singhs.

The court had in a previous hearing directed the brothers to appear before it. Friday was the first time that they were present in court. Besides freezing their bank accounts, the court also asked the two to disclose all transactions including gifts received since 2016.

It also asked Malvinder and Shivinder to disclose the bank account details of RHC Holdings and Oscar Investments, two companies owned by them.

When the counsel for the Singhs said that they did not have any money, the court asked them to file for insolvency. The brothers were also told not to finalise a deal to sell their apartment in Singapore, which had been mortgaged to DBS Bank, without its prior approval.

However, it refused to stay the extraordinary general meeting of Fortis Healthcare Ltd (FHL) on 13 Augus. The meeting has been called to get the shareholders okay for a deal with IHH Healthcare, which plans to acquire 26-per cent stake in FHL through an open offer next month.
NCLAT upholds sale of Electrosteel Steels to Vedanta

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal ruled that Vedanta Ltd is eligible to bid for Electrosteel Steels Ltd, upholding the sale of the debt-ridden company to the Anil Agarwal-group firm.

A two-judge bench of NCLAT headed by SJ Mukhopadhaya rejected the appeal against the sale of Electrosteel Steels to Vedanta.

The NCLAT also held that both Vedanta and Tata Steel were eligible bidders and that Tata Steels resolution plan was fair and equitable to all the creditors, including the operational creditors and, therefore, no interference was called for.

However, the lawyer for petitioner Renaissance Steel India Pvt Ltd, said they would move the Supreme Court against the NCLAT decision.

Vedanta had submitted a resolution plan for Electrosteel Steels in April, involving nearly Rs5,300 crore cash payment against its total outstanding debt of Rs13,000 crore, under which lenders had to forego nearly 60 per cent of the stressed loan account.

The National Company Law Tribunal had approved Vedanats resolution plan, making it the first among the 12 large stressed accounts identified by Reserve Bank of India last year to get resolved under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.

Electrosteel owes banks more than Rs13,000 crore, including about Rs5,000 crore to State Bank of India alone.

The resolution process began when SBI filed an insolvency plea in the Kolkata NCLT against the company. The petition was admitted in July 2017.

On 17 April, the NCLT-Kolkata bench of Justice Jinan K R and Justice Madan Balachandra Gosavi approved Vedantas bid to acquire Electrosteel.

Though the National Company Law Tribunals had cleared the Tata Steel bid for Bhushan Steel on 15 May and Vedantas for Electrosteel on 17 April, both were challenged in the NCLAT, which while not staying the awards had said that the final outcome would depend on its decision on the petitions.

The tribunal rejected the objection by Renaissance Steel India Pvt Ltd, which had argued that Vedanta was ineligible to bid as one of its affiliates was found guilty in Zambia of environmental regulations violation.

The appellate tribunal, however, allowed Vedanta to deposit Rs5,320 crore to acquire Electrosteel Steels. The tribunal also refused to stay the delisting of Electrosteel Steels initiated by Vedanta.
Amit Shah dismisses Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie as disgruntled who did not get jobs

Brushing off allegations of corruption by a trio of former BJP leaders who did not get jobs under the Narendra Modi regime, party president Amit Shah rubbished the charges by Yashwant Sinha, Arun Shourie and Shatrughan Sinha.

Responding to queries by the media on the charges leveled by the three former BJP leaders  now sidelined by the party  Shah asked: Will you give credence to the defence minister's statement or those who did not get jobs?

Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman had clarified that the base price for the Rafale fighter aircraft, which had been negotiated by the government, was less than that finalised by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.

The BJP leadership has in the past dismissed allegations by the three former party members, claiming that they continue to be unhappy over being sidelined way back in 2014.

The party under Modi has been gradually sidelining former leaders aged in their 70s and 80s. Sinha is 80, Shourie 76 and Shatrughan 72.

A few days earlier, the three disgruntled BJP men lashed out at Modi at a meeting in Mumbai dubbed Save democracy, save Constitution. They had described the Rafale fighter jet deal as a Rs35,000-crore scam, much bigger than the Rs64 crore Bofors one.

They had also referred to instances of hate crime and mob lynching in India.
Illegal Immigrants are Mamata's vote bank, says Amit Shah

The West Bengal chief minister is opposing the National Register of Citizens (NRC) as the TMC leader is banking heavily on illegal immigrants from Bangladesh to draw support for her party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) President Amit Shah said at a rally in Kolkata today.

Shah also alleged that the appeasement politics followed by Mamata Banerjee, blowing the poll bugle for uprooting TMC from Bengal, indicating that his party will make the alleged presence of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in West Bengal a poll issue and seek an Assam-like NRC for the state.

Shah said Mamata Banerjees appeasement politics has gone to such an extent that the state government imposed restrictions on movement of people during the Durga Puja immersion celebrations.

There is a limit to appeasement. How can Bengal not celebrate Durga Puja and Saraswati Puja? Elect the BJP government in Bengal and we will show you how to celebrate Hindu festivals, Shah said during his rally in Kolkata.

If we dont stop the illegal immigration, then Bengal wont be safe. The only way to achieve that is NRC. Thats why I ask my brothers and sisters to support NRC, Shah said.

Amit Shahs rally underscores his intention to build the NRC issue as a major poll plank in Mamata Banerjees state.

Union minister and Asansol MP Babul Supriyo, meanwhile, took to Twitter and alleged that TMC was trying to black out prime local TV channels to block the coverage of Amit Shahs rally.

In a scathing attack on Mamata Banerjee, Amit Shah said that during TMCs tenure, there has been no development in Bengal  only guns and bomb factories have increased.

We not only want change in Bengal, we want to uproot TMC from West Bengal, Shah said.

Taking jibe at the BJP Go Back posters put out by the TMC cadres, Amit Shah said, How can we be against Bengal when, our party was founded by a Bengali?

He further added that, however hard Mamata tries to stop NRC, we are totally committed to it.

While the Amit Shah rally was better organised thaN the earlier one addressed by prime Minister Narendra Modi, unidentified miscreants attacked a bus waiting to take BJP workers to Kolkata in West Midnapore in West Bengal on the previous night.

Posters reading BJP Go Back were seen on the streets of Kolkata ahead of BJP President Amit Shah's rally on Saturday 11 August.

TMC planned to take out rallies across West Bengal on Saturday to protest against the publication of National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, a senior leader of the party said.
Innovation and speculation drive stock market bubble activity, according to new study

Major innovations lead to bubbles in their industries; these bubbles are more likely to occur (and to be large) if innovations are radical  major and very different from other products available in the marke  and if they help bolster other industries in the same way in which the smartphone has bolstered the growth of the app industry.

Bubbles caused by major innovations should be viewed positively by innovating companies who might be able to raise equity capital on more favorable terms during bubble periods.

A group of data scientists conducted an in-depth analysis of major innovations and stock market bubbles from 1825 through 2000 and came away with novel takeaways of their own as they found some very distinctive patterns in the occurrence of bubbles over 175 years.

The study to be published in the August edition of the INFORMS journal Marketing Science is titled Two Centuries of Innovations and Stock Market Bubbles, and is authored by Alina and Sorin Sorescu of Mays Business School at Texas A&M University; Will Armstrong of the Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University; and Bart Devoldere from the Vlerick Business School in The Hague, The Netherlands.

The authors detected bubbles in approximately 73 per cent of the innovations they studied, revealing the close relationship between innovation and stock market bubbles. Further, they found that the magnitude of the bubbles is tied to the awareness levels or visibility of each innovation. In other words, the more broadly known the innovation, the more likely the presence of a stock market bubble in the industry where the innovation is introduced.

But awareness and innovation aren't the only drivers for the stock market bubbles. The higher degree of "radicalness" for innovations is more likely to bolster the clout of the specific innovation in the marketplace, otherwise known as an "indirect network effect."

This enables companies to raise more equity capital during bubble periods as compared to non-bubble periods, and that new capital is tied to faster and stronger increased awareness of the innovation even after the bubble bursts.

In the end, the authors found that the stocks of innovating companies outperform the market from the start to the end of the bubble, which suggests that the innovations add value to both the company and to the large economy, in spite of the presence of bubbles.

"While some of our findings provide a retrospective look at stock market activity over 175 years, and prior to the continued innovations we've seen the past 18 years, one realization for us has been that traditional financial economics may not have viewed innovation with enough specificity," says Sorin Sorescu. "A good deal of literature in financial economics on stock market bubble activity tends to view innovation as an something generated by an aggregate production function," said Alina Sorescu.

"What it doesn't do is approach innovation as a collection of products with distinct characteristics. Studies in this area rarely incorporate a formal statistical measurement of market bubbles. Instead they rely on hindsight analysis of stock price fluctuations with little attempt to link those movements to specific innovations.

"Our study is the first to look at the occurrence of bubbles in association with a large set of specific innovations introduced across two centuries, and to measure bubbles using statistical tests. We are also the first to show that firms can benefit from bubbles driven by innovation. This is in contrast to the conventional thinking that that bubbles are detrimental that have few, if any, positive effects."
Ken Foley Supermacs franchisee and owner in Donegal Town has already put out a call for more staff after what he described as the biggest opening of a Supermac's outlet in Ireland in Donegal town.

Speaking to the Democrat, Ken said, I have never witnessed anything like it - we expected the curiosity value on Friday but even that exceeded all our expectations - it was just non stop in all sections of the store - carvery, supersubs, Papa Johns, the deli and, I can tell you something, you Donegal people just love your coffee.

Ken estimated the footfall at approximately 10,000 customers daily with the crowds still flocking in even yesterday.

He added, I may not be a Donegal man but I know my accents and there just seems to be people coming in from every part of the country.

As for Sunday, well Ballybofey may have been a sea of green and gold but so were we - the queues jst stretched out the door. Despite the defeat by Tyrone the supporters were all in good form, disappointed but in a good natured way. No doubt they will be back.

Continuing he said, On Monday morning we had to get the central depot open on a Bank Holiday to get restocked. I really don't think this has ever happened in the history of Supermac's. The whole thing has been phenomenal.

I read in your paper a few weeks ago a quote from the famous Leo Brennan 'If you build it they will come'. This has proved certainly true this weekend.

Ken is already recruiting additional staff and has advised would be applicants to get their curriculum vitae ready and either post it or get it out in person.

I think this has attracted people to Donegal - it is a destination now in itself and hopefully everybody will benefit.

The next big event in Supermac's is the annual Cannonball Run which will be celebrating their 10th Anniversary early in September.

The run is for charity and many of the most prominent celebrities in Ireland will be present in their Porsches. Lamborghini's E-type jags.

As for now, it looks like Supermac's Donegal is off to a flying start and numbers calling in are phenomenal.
The County Donegal Historical Society recently launched their 2018 Annual.

An excellent publication it runs to 148 pages solely dedicated to events researched by respected Donegal historians in all areas of the county.

It is laden with fascinating articles, among them historical delights of Inishowen explaining the detail of a collection of carved stone crosses.

There is a fascinating piece on Amateur Drama in Ballyshannon from 1952-61 which in many respects was a golden era for Ballyshannon.

There is an article about the Scalans of Open Air Mass in the Donegal Mountains 1867, a relic of the Penal Days.In 1938 Inver schoolgirl Mairead Ni Fhrighill collected a story from local John Hurley on the Scalan days in Ireland and in particular in the Ardaghey region.

Up to 1894 when St Nauls Church was erected, the Ardaghey Scalan would appear to have been used. A similar scalan was in use in Drimarone until St Marys was built in 1868.

A scalan was an open shed of six feet square just enough to shelter the officiating priest and altar boy during Mass.

Stories too of Donaghmore parish and Sessiaghmore near Castlefin home of the 1924 Grand National winning horse Master Robert to the story Magee/ Temple family woven tweed, to Helen Meehans By the Banks of the Eanymore.

The book was launched by guest speaker Orlaith McBride, Director of the Arts Council.

The annual is edited by the vastly experienced Sean Beattie and is available from society members and from various book shops across the county and is well worth a look.
Australians are serious about their love for the big outdoors  including their utes.

So, its no surprise that commercial vehicle sales are stronger than ever. And who says bigger isn't always better, as hard working tradies are splashing plenty of cash on huge work horses to get the job done or stand out from the pack.

Add technology and performance to the mix and you get a whole new category of uber utes - ones that come with limousine-like pricetags.

Here are the seven most expensive utes in todays market.

Chevrolet Silverado LTZ - $147,990
Following the news last week that SSE was to pull out of the tendering process for the National Broadband Plan (NBP), the Dundalk Democrat contacted the Department of Communications to find out what progress is being made in connecting up homes in Louth to high-speed broadband.

According to the Department, the Government's NBP aims to ensure high-speed broadband access (minimum 30 megabits per second) to all premises in Ireland, regardless of location.

As per the Departments High-Speed Broadband Map and county statistics for Q1 2018, there are 60,485 premises in County Louth. 8,568 (14%) of these fall within the amber area and will be served under the State led Intervention.

50,790 (84%) premises are in a blue area meaning they are in areas already or soon to be served by commercial providers, while 1,127 (2%) are light blue and fall to be served by eir's planned rural deployment.

Figures for Q2 2018 will be available on the Departments website shortly.

The Department is in a formal procurement process to select a company who will roll-out a new high-speed broadband network in the State intervention area.

That procurement process is now in its final stages with a final bid expected from the enet consortium in the coming weeks. It is intended the procurement process will reach a conclusion shortly thereafter.

Where an individual living in a Blue area is unable to obtain a high-speed broadband service, they should contact the Department at broadband@dccae.gov.ie with their eircode and details of the service providers they have contacted.

In April 2017, Minister Naughten signed a Commitment Agreement with eir in relation to its plans to provide high-speed broadband to 300,000 premises in rural areas on a commercial basis.

Information on eir's planned rural deployment is available at http://fibrerollout.ie.

A copy of the Commitment Agreement is available on the Departments website www.dccae.gov.ie.

Although, figures for Q2 2018 have not yet been verified by the Department, it is understood that eir have passed a total of 175,000 premises as of Q2 2018.

Eir has signalled that there have been some knock-on effects to the 2018 milestone targets due to the severe weather impacts of both storms Ophelia and Emma.

According to Open eirs website,fibrerollout.ie, nearly 60,000 premises in County Louth can now access the companys broadband network. Over 17 Million is being invested by open eir in upgrading the broadband network in County Louth.

SIRO currently offer services in Dundalk and Drogheda.


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The U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Tuesday announced the National Risk Management Center, part of a new effort to combat cyberthreats to the nation.

The new agency's mission will be to defend the U.S.' critical infrastructure through greater cooperation between the public and private sectors.

The center will bring together government experts and industry partners to work out ways that the government can support the partners. The idea is to create a single point of access to all government resources that can be used to defend against cyberthreats.

"I occasionally still hear of companies and state and locals that call 911 when they believe they've been under a cyberattack," said DHS Secretary Kirstjen M. Nielsen at a National Cybersecurity Summit held in New York City on Tuesday.

"The best thing to do will be to call this center," she continued. The center will provide organizations under cyberattack with what they need to repel, mitigate and root out adversaries from their systems.

Solving Puzzles

The center also will be a place for forging strategies against threats.

"Having the private sector with us will enable us to take a piece of threat data to determine what puzzle it belongs to and then to determine how to fit it into the puzzle," Nielsen said.

Through that approach, "we can see the trend, we can see the thread, we can see the purpose, perhaps, of the attack, but certainly the implications and effects," she explained.

"The private sector also knows its operational environment better than we will ever know in government," added Nielsen, "so we will look to their expertise to help us to understand how the pieces fit together."

The power of information sharing already has been seen in initiatives like the Cybersecurity Risk Information Sharing Program in the U.S. Department of Energy, Secretary Rick Perry noted in a panel discussion at the summit.

It was due to that close collaboration that the department was able to identify a very dramatic event last year about Russian intrusions into our energy systems, he observed.

"Had we not had this close working relationship with our private sector partners, it would most likely gone unfounded," he said.

Cyber Firehouse

Underpinning the creation of the National Risk Management Center is the recognition that cybersecurity defense is a team sport, observed Brad Medairy, a senior vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton, an international technology consulting company headquartered in McLean, Virginia.

"It requires a partnership of the whole of government and the whole of industry to address it," he told TechNewsWorld.

The new center is an extension of capabilities the DHS has been developing to protect the nation's critical infrastructure, noted James Barnett, head of the cybersecurity practice at Venable, a law firm in Washington, D.C.

"Secretary Nielsen would certainly want to announce this now with the recent revelation of Russian hackers into the controls of several American companies that make up the energy grid," Barnett, a former Navy Rear Admiral, told TechNewsWorld.

The federal government already has an information-sharing center in place -- the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center -- but the new center appears to be a different kind of animal.

"NCCIC has been more of a coordinating and information sharing effort -- the government will collate and provide you with information to help yourself," Barnett explained. "It sounds like NRMC is one step closer to a cyber firehouse, where DHS will actually provide direct assistance."

Actionable Information

One frequent complaint from the private sector is that the quality of information from the government is poor. The new center could change that.

"As conceived, NRMC will focus and organize the federal government's efforts to provide the private sector operating critical infrastructure with actionable threat data," Barnett said. "This would be more than just a malware warning or patch. It sounds like DHS is willing to provide deeper information on threats, to include supply chain threats."

For validating the supply chain and procurement process, the center is an essential step forward, said Ray DeMeo, chief operating officer of Virsec, an applications security company in San Jose, California.

"This initiative wisely prioritizes actionable threat data, a critical gap in today's Industrial Control System threat environment," he told TechNewsWorld. Z,pz. "Threat actors have a significant lead time ahead of responders -- often weeks or months," DeMeo pointed out. "With more actionable threat data, our human intervention can focus beyond immediate triage to higher-order efforts. Who are the attackers? What is their methodology?"

Sophisticated Threats

Public-private cybersecurity partnerships are nothing new, but the private sector may be coming to this latest vehicle with a different attitude.

"It's recognizing that the threats are getting more sophisticated and more complex," said Matt Olsen, president of IronNet Cybersecurity, a Fulton, Maryland, maker of a suite of cybersecurity technologies.

"There's also a fundamental recognition that companies can't go it alone against the most sophisticated threat actors out there, particularly nation-states like Russia and China," Olsen, a former director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told TechNewsWorld.

In order for partnerships to work, the partners must trust each other. That's proven to be a challenge in the cybersecurity arena in the past, and it could be a barrier to the new center gaining momentum.

"Will the center bring government and industry together to provide solutions, or is this going to be another layer of bureaucratic influence on industry?" wondered Emily Miller, director of national security and critical infrastructure programs at Mocana, a Sunnyvale, California-based company that focuses on embedded system security for industrial control systems and the Internet of Things.

"Is it going to come up with unfunded mandates? Is it going to create baselines that industry has to comply with that do not provide actual security? Those are the questions the industry is going to have in mind when they think about what is the goal of the National Risk Management Center," Miller told TechNewsWorld.

Show Me the Money

Achieving private sector trust will be a challenge, acknowledged Venable's Barnett.

Howver, "DHS has positioned itself in the cyberworld as a resource and facilitator, not a regulator. Establishing NRMC is a positive step in organizing the government's assistance, if it is well resourced," he noted.

"The success of the new effort will depend on whether the government is able to provide NRMC with the money, expertise and capacity to meet its objectives, and how well it is accepted by the critical infrastructure private sector," Barnett said.

Everyone needs to be talking less and doing more to reduce cyber-risk, suggested Ed Cabrera, chief cybersecurity officer at Trend Micro, a Tokyo-based maker of enterprise cybersecurity solutions.

"We have been espousing the need for better public-private partnerships for the better part of 15 years, but we have failed to execute," he told TechNewsWorld.

"The blame cannot be solely laid at the feet of government," Cabrera said. "We in industry have our role and responsibility to work hand-in-hand with government and each other to eliminate cyberthreats, and reduce technical and systemic vulnerabilities."

John P. Mello Jr. has been an ECT News Network reporter since 2003. His areas of focus include cybersecurity, IT issues, privacy, e-commerce, social media, artificial intelligence, big data and consumer electronics. He has written and edited for numerous publications, including the Boston Business Journal, the Boston Phoenix, Megapixel.Net and Government Security News. Email John.


Government confirms 2019 Bank Holidays

The Manx Government has confirmed the dates of next year's Bank Holidays.

The Treasury published the list of public holidays for 2019 in accordance with the Bank Holidays Act 1989.

In addition to the eight UK Bank Holidays, Senior Race Day will be on June 7th and Tynwald Day will be on a Friday.
iStock/Thinkstock(STRAIGHT OF HORMUZ, Iran) -- Iran fired a short range anti-ship missile last week as part of the short notice naval exercise it held near the Strait of Hormuz, according to two U.S. officials. Earlier this week the top U.S. commander in the Middle East said the Iranian naval exercise was intended to send a message to the U.S. about the resumption of economic sanctions against Iran.



According to a U.S. official an anti-ship version of the Fatah-110 short range ballistic missile was fired from land in the vicinity of the Strait of Hormuz and landed in the waters of the Persian Gulf. The Fatah-110 missile has a maximum range of 125 miles.



The missile launch by Iran, first reported by Fox News, was the first time this year that Iran has fired a ballistic missile of any type.



The two U.S. officials said the missile firing was part of the naval exercise carried out by Iran last week in the Strait of Hormuz. The officials said Iran has historically carried out a ballistic missile firing as part of the exercise, so last week's missile launch was consistent with that pattern.



The exercise had raised concerns at the Pentagon because it appeared to be held on short notice months before it would have typically occurred in the fall.



Gen. Joseph Votel, the commander of U.S. Central Command told reporters earlier this week that he believed the Iranian exercise was intended to send a message to the U.S. about the resumption of economic sanctions against Iran.



"It's pretty clear to us that they were trying to use that exercise to send a message to us that, as we approach the period for the sanctions here, they had some capabilities," said Votel. In turn Votel said his commands message to Iran was "We are aware of what's going on and we remain ready to protect ourselves."



About 75 small boats participated in the exercise practicing "swarm" maneuvers that could be carried out against commercial or military warships transiting through the Strait of Hormuz. Between 20 to 30 percent of the world's oil transits out of the Persian Gulf through the vital waterway.



Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard typically uses small craft to harass U.S. Navy ships in the region, though there has not been an unprofessional interaction with an Iranian small craft in almost a year.



While U.S. officials noted Iran's preparations for the exercise before and during the exercise, Iran did not acknowledge holding the two-day exercise until after it had ended.



Copyright  2018, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
1. Rick Steves' tour day 10 schedule.

2. Stopped here to visit Korkuteli weekly market.

3. Turkey election was coming up so lots of campaign stuff on the street.

4. Korkuteli weekly market.

5. Korkuteli weekly market. We spent an hour and 15 minutes here (and then more time in a local icecream shop later), way too much time in my opinion. Later when we finally got to Pomukkale, we were only given 2 hours to see the entire ancient ancient city of Hierapolis and Pomukkale, which is so ridiculous! We need at least half a day there. This was my biggest regret of the trip.

6. Ancient city of Hierapolis.

7. The Theatre at Hierapolis.

8. The ruling party was shooting a propaganda video there (for the upcoming election probably which they won later).

9. Hierapoli museum.

10. Pomukkale.

11. Someone providing photo service at Pomukkale.

12. Pomukkale.

13. Pomukkale.

14. Pomukkale.

15. Pomukkale.

16. Very sad leaving Pomukkale. We barely saw anything in 2 hours.

17. Leaving Pomukkale.

(To be continued)
The underlying narrative of the National Register of Citizens conceals more than it reveals.

By now, those who were lobbying for the National Register of Citizens (NRC) may feel that the finalisation of the draft and its adoption would bring them some degree of relief from the menace of the outsiders. Outsiders, according to these complainants, were illegitimately stepping on the opportunity structures that exist in the areas under the consideration of the NRC. In addition to this possible gain from the exercise in question, some of the complainants also perhaps heaved a sigh of relief. They now hope that once their identity as citizens of India has been confirmed by the due and impartial process, they would be able to exercise their social right to appear in public without the sense of anxiety and gaze of suspicion.

Arguably, the main text of the NRC suggests that such an exercise would create healthy social and moral conditions within which an Indian could claim that they would be in a better position to exercise the moral duty they owe to each other rather than to an outsider. As far as the Indian government is concerned, it seems to be formally suggesting that it is interested in creating fair conditions in which one is prompted to think that they have a duty towards ones own and perhaps not to the outsider. It means, once the question of the outsider is tackled through the NRC, there will be no outsiders, only insiders who owe one another.
PHILADELPHIA -- About one in five college students reported in a survey that they knew someone who was addicted to pain medications, and nearly a third said they knew somebody who overdosed on painkillers or heroin, according to a team of undergraduate Penn State Lehigh Valley researchers.

This secondary exposure to opioid abuse may shine a light on the collateral damage that is often left out of the current debate about the epidemic, said Jennifer Parker, associate professor of sociology, Penn State Lehigh Valley.

"Since the beginning of the opioid epidemic, public debate and prevention strategies have focused on the primary victims, misusers themselves, while surprisingly little attention has been paid to the burdens felt and experienced by those who are intimately or socially tied to them," said Parker, who advised the group of researchers presenting at the American Sociological Association's annual meeting today (Aug. 11) in Philadelphia.

According to the researchers, most of the 118 students who completed a survey admitted that they had been in some way exposed to people who misuse drugs and alcohol. Of those, 20.5 percent said they currently know someone who is addicted to pain medication. About 32.5 percent said they knew somebody who overdosed on either painkillers or heroin.

Erica Hughes, an undergraduate student in Health Policy Administration, added about 15 percent of the students reported worrying that someone they knew may be misusing pain medication.

"I was surprised by how many students report close ties to people who are addicted to or have overdosed on opioids," Hughes said. "It makes me sad to think that so many are carrying around this worry because being a student in today's world is already hard enough."

Hughes added that dealing with issues connected to their exposure to the effects of opioid abuse may be particularly difficult for college students. Many college students already face increased pressure from rising tuition costs and student debt, along with fears about the job market, she added.

Amanda Borges, a 2018 graduate in Health Policy Administration, said that the findings might raise awareness about the extent of the opioid crisis and offer insight into better ways to address it.

"The general public should know how devastating this crisis has been and how it impacts all communities and social classes including college students," said Borges.

Gathering information on all aspects of the opioid crisis may help better allocate resources to help communities, added Kirsten Mears, also a 2018 graduate in Health Policy Administration.

"The more we know, the better we are able to help and identify how particular communities, especially our poorest, may have certain disadvantages in this epidemic because of lesser resources and lack of health insurance," said Mears.

According to the researchers, gender may also play a role in how college students report their exposures to the opioid problem. For example, women were twice as likely to report having intimate ties to those who misuse or overdose on opioids, the researchers said.

Shanice Clark and a team of 15 undergraduate students in Health Policy Administration also contributed to the study.

The researchers collected data from surveys filled out by students at a university in a region particularly hard hit by the opioid crisis.

Of the approximate 130 surveys were passed out, participants completed 122. Of those, the researchers determined that 118 surveys were both completed and valid.

The researchers said that future research should look at whether secondary exposure to opioids impacts the students' mental and physical health, as well as their academic performance.

###
LAWRENCE -- Younger generations of religious Americans tend to closely harbor concerns for the environment via stewardship more so than older parishioners, according to a study by a University of Kansas researcher.

"The best way to account for this upsurge from about 1980 and on is that a lot of religious groups have actually started to talk to their parishioners about creation care -- a term used to avoid the political context attached to environmentalism," said Lukas Szrot, a KU doctoral candidate in sociology. "Leaders felt that religious groups and churches needed to address this problem, and their members likely wanted to talk more about these issues."

Szrot examined data from the 1973-2014 General Social Survey to determine whether and to what extent environmental concern has been fostered among diverse religious groups in the United States.

He will present his findings on Aug. 11 at the American Sociological Association's Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.

The important background behind the study is the 1967 argument from influential historian Lynn White Jr. who identified Western Christianity as the most anthropocentric religion that has ever existed. Recently, others have also criticized the United States for abdicating its global leadership on environmental issues in recent decades.

Szrot said recent research suggests that environmentalism in the United States has religious roots dating back to the Puritans via an emphasis on environmental stewardship -- the idea that humans bear a special responsibility to care for creation that comes from God. However, researchers have traditionally had difficulty quantifying the connection between environmental concern and those Americans who consider themselves religious.

"Religious groups have said there really is a part of Christianity that isn't anthropocentric," he said. "They have seemed to get a dialogue going."

The dataset accounted for various Judeo-Christian religious traditions, including Protestant denominations, Catholics and Jews.

The environmental concern by age cohort was the starkest finding, Szrot said, indicating that the idea of stewardship has grown, particularly among younger generations of Christians.

This finding likely represents the influence of the heyday for the environmentalism movement in the United States that began in the late 1970s and lasted through the mid-1990s, he said. This focus likely led religious groups to begin to discuss environmental stewardship and care in light of their religious duties, he said.

The findings can be viewed positively, especially in such a divisive and partisan American political climate today, Szrot said.

"I think that there are people on both sides of the party line who want to reach out on environmental issues right now," he said.

Religious groups and settings also might present a favorable forum for people with diverse political views to come together, he added.

"It's been rather uneven so far in a lot of ways. Environmental issues are much more polarized than the 1970s," Szrot said. "There are definitely some challenges, but there is also the idea that church has a sort of social-networking function as well. People who wouldn't normally associate with each other could instead get together. It is possible that in the long run, this will lead to new conversations about environmental issues in the United States."

###
Men respond to their spouse's illness just as much as women do and as a result are better caregivers in later life than previous research suggests, according to a new Oxford University collaboration.

The study, published in Journals of Gerontology, Series B, is good news for our increasingly stretched adult care services, which have become more reliant on patients' family and spouses for support. Conducted with peers from the University of Pennsylvania, the research sits in contrast to previous studies on spousal caregiving, which found that female caregivers tend to be more responsive. However, the new results reveal that men are just as responsive to a partner's illness, as women.

Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, the research carried out by Dr Langner of Oxford University* and Professor Frank Furstenberg of the University of Pennsylvania**, focused on 538 couples in Germany with an average age of 69, where one of them had developed the need for spousal care, between 2001-2015, and looked at how caregivers adjusted their hours in response to the new care need: whether directly responding to their physical needs or performing errands and housework.

The findings show that men increased their care hours as much as women did, resulting in similar levels of care once their partner became ill. These similarities were particularly pronounced when a spouse was deemed severely ill, when there was little to no difference in the level of care given.

Perhaps surprisingly, when their spouse is severely ill, men also increase the time they spend on housework and errands, more than women. However, at lower levels of spousal care need - when a spouse is only slightly unwell, women still spend more time doing housework and errands than men - because they already did more housework and errands prior to the disease onset.

There were also significant differences in levels of care given, for couples where the spouse was only unofficially seen to be 'in need of care'. However, these differences disappeared in homes where no other household help was provided, when regardless of gender, male or female, spouses stepped up to care for each other.

Dr Laura Langner, Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford and ESRC Future Research Leader, said: 'Our results suggest that gender differences in spousal caregiving in old age are not as pronounced as previously thought. Past studies had numerous limitations, which we could overcome with our data.

'We found that, unlike many previous studies on caregiving in later life - male caregivers were just as responsive towards their partner's onset of illness as female caregivers. This stands in sharp contrast the division of caregiving (i.e. childcare) and housework in mid-life. There could be a number of reasons for this, but a key factor may be that in later life many people retire and no longer have the responsibility of work, so are able to focus on other priorities - that their spouse may have been doing already'.

Discussing the potential future implications of the research for patients and services, she adds: 'People are living longer, meaning that we have an increasingly dependent aging population and we face an elderly care cost problem. Reforms are likely to continue reducing more expensive institutionalised care, and increase cheaper home care. With the gender gap in life expectancy closing, and children becoming less available to care for their parents, it is likely that many more men will be called upon to care for their partners. But, our findings at least suggest that women won't have to worry that their partners are not up to the job of caring for them, should they need to.'

The team intend to build on the findings by applying the research approach to other countries and assessing how the results compare.

###

Notes to editors:

For further information please contact Lanisha Butterfield, Media Relations Manager on 01865 280531 or email lanisha.butterfield@admin.ox.ac.uk

The full paper citation is Gender Differences in Spousal Caregivers' Care and Housework: Fact or Fiction? Dr. Laura A. Langner & Prof. Frank F. Furstenberg, University of Oxford, Department of Sociology & University of Pennsylvania, Department of Sociology

*Dr Langner is a Research Fellow of Nuffield College, a member of the Department of Sociology and a recipient of the Economic and Social Research Council's 'Future Research Leaders' award [ES/N001575/1].

**Professor Frank Furstenberg is the Zellerbach Family Professor of Sociology, emeritus, at the University of Pennsylvania.
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Saturday, August 11, 2018

Win our 11th Free Book Today, Saturday August 11th ONLY! Were on Day 11 of our $400 31-Book Giveaway to Celebrate Who Chains You Publishings 2nd Anniversary.

Todays Prize? The Kitty with the Itty-Bitty Tail, by Sandra Biersdorfer.

How Do You Win It? Just click on our promo image (above), or this link, to bring you to our page, and let us know you want it in our comment section. The contest will run all day Aug. 11th, and well select a random winner at 10:00 a.m. Eastern, August 12th.

Spread the word and join in the fun! The Kitty with the Itty-Bitty Tail is available in paperback, kindle, and audiobook, and is a great anti-bullying and humane education choice for the classroom, too.

Heres that link to play again: https://www.facebook.com/whochainsyou/photos/a.994533240665277.1073741828.978812565570678/1768642063254387/

About the Book:

Look whos coming down the hall! Its Stubby Nubby, her tail so small!."

Most of us have experienced being made fun of or called names that hurt our feelings. Meet Ethel Kitty who doesnt like being called nameslike Stubby Nubby."just because she has a smaller tail than the other cats at school. Read along in this tale of tails as the new cat in town helps Ethel realize she is special despite her shortcomings." and teaches her how to stand up to bullies.

In its third edition, author Sandra Biersdorfer adds playful song lyrics and talks about the real Ethel who inspired the tale. Perfect for ages 7 and up, The Kitty with the Itty-Bitty Tail will delight readers big and small, and fit flawlessly into school humane education and bullying programs.

Buy in Paperback | Buy on Kindle | Buy Audiobook

About the Author:

Sandra Biersdorfer, a native of East Texas, has been an avid reader since childhood. Some of her favorite books are the Nancy Drew mysteries and The Little House on the Prairie series. She is an advocate for reading and enjoys reading to children and visiting schools as much as possible to share her love of reading and becoming an author.

Sandra currently lives in Nacogdoches, Texas, with her two feline fur babies Shadow, an adopted male black domestic short hair, and Ethel. Ethel is a rescue kitty, too, and is the subject of Sandras second published childrens book, The Kitty with the Itty-Bitty Tail, because she does indeed have an itty-bitty tail. Her first childrens book, Nanas Banana, was published in 2014, and her third, Papas Pumpkin, was published in 2017.

Sandra enjoys reading, writing, watching movies, and spending time with family and friends including her two grown children. Her son is a Math major at Stephen F. Austin State University, and her daughter is a high school English teacher in Katy ISD.

Buy in Paperback | Buy on Kindle | Buy Audiobook

All of our books are available to humane educators, nonprofits, and indie bookstores at a wholesale discount. Check out our site for all the links and info.
No giant strollers for Sarah Mireles, thank you very much. This 30-year-old San Antonio mom bonds with her babies on the go in true hands-free fashion.

That means tandem-wearing her 1-year-old fraternal twins, Ralphie and Parker, in a couple of chic yet understated baby carriers, one on her back and one her chest.

Its just easier, Mireles said. This allows me to not only be close to them but make sure they dont run off.

For centuries, mothers have toted their young in animal skins, woven baskets and other natural carriers. Now more parents like Mireles have seized on the practice, which has been branded babywearing, lugging around their little ones in artsy wraps and other ergonomic carriers, embracing that age-old method of child transport with a more modern style.

Call it a youth movement where more young parents want to stick extra close to their babies, even in the Texas heat when such bonding gets extra sticky.

Given the age demographic currently having babies, a lot of our parents are millennials, said Krystal Fare, a mother of four and president of Babywearing International of San Antonio, a chapter of the nonprofit Babywearing International that promotes the practice.

Those millennials include Mireles, who has been a member of the San Antonio babywearing group for three years. She instructs others on how to wear their babies in style and, more importanlty, comfort for both baby and wearer.

Especially when my twins were newborns, they wanted to be held constantly, Mireles said. Its really a good way to comfort them without needing to always hurt your back.

Then theres the sheer joy of rubbing elbows with other babywearers.

The San Antonio chapter of Babywearing International has a community Facebook group of more than 3,000 parents and caregivers. It also partners with Babywearing Dancers of San Antonio, which offers free classes once a month for those who want a literal heart-to-heart dance with their little ones.

I think (babywearing is) really popular because we have a really good community for it, said Ashely Mazzanti, a co-founder of the dance group, which has performed at a Spurs and Missions game as well done flash mobs at The Pearl and the Alamo.

That local popularity reflects babywearings growth across the nation.

Babywearing International was founded in 2007 by four babywearing groups in Chicago, Central New York, Birmingham and the Bay Area, according to the organizations website. Today, Babywearing International has more than 80 chapters in the United States, including the Alamo City.

Fare said she sees plenty of parents in their 20s and 30s wearing their infants and newborns around San Antonio, especially at farmers markets, hiking trails and parks, and grocery stores. Babywearing is appealing, she said, in large part because it gives parents and caregivers more hands-free time to complete everyday tasks and still enjoy everyday life with their child.

Being able to hold your coffee and your phone, and being able to interact with other people and your baby and not being held down or held back by a large piece of baby equipment, its very freeing, Fare said.

Freeing yet also bonding. Babywearing proponents are just as passionate about the physical and emotional benefits to wearer and child.

Babywearing can reduce infant crying, regulate physical responses in premature babies and babies with special needs, and boost a parent or caregivers confidence by helping them be more attuned to the childs movements, gestures and facial expressions, according to Fare and information posted on the main Babywearing International website,

Then theres the breastfeeding connection. Many babywearing wraps and carriers provide easy and discreet access for nursing. The San Antonio chapter of Babywearing International also ties much of its babywearing outreach to breastfeeding events.

I would say (babywearing is) a positive thing, said Dr. Terry E. Pick, a San Antonio pediatrician. It helps them interact and get that closeness of skin against skin, the bond.

Fare said such contact in babywearing also helps regulate a babys body temperature, especially in the summer heat.

Its that very heat that inspired not one but two South Texas moms to design baby carriers tailor-made for the South Texas climate.

In 2011, mother of four Diane Turner of Adkins launched Beachfront Baby, a line of carriers that utilize lightweight polyester and breathable mesh. Now she leads a small staff of millennial moms, her very target market.

Those are the parents who are more interested in the idea of attachment parenting and babywearing, Turner said.

Another such parent founded Tuck and Bundle, the other babywearing company in the San Antonio area. Miranda Tripp launched her online baby carrier business in 2016 with baby wraps made with soft and breathable Lenzing MicroModal, the same material found in finer womens lingerie.

A bonus to such modern baby carriers: Theyre also designed to look a lot hipper than those BabyBjorns your mother used to wear.

Todays babywear wraps and slings favor fashionable sarongs and scarves with bundles of joy, while the clunkier front- and backpack carriers of old have given way to sleeker models such as the meh dai (pronounced may tie), a simple, Asian-inspired carrier with stylish patterns and colors.

Tripp said the younger babywearers turn to Tuck and Bundle wraps and similar carriers because theyre more active but also fashion-conscious, and often will try to emulate the beautifully curated lifestyle imagery they see on social media.

With millennials, we are primarily getting our information from Instagram, Tripp said. And millennials are just really into being influenced by the people that they think they are similar to.

Of course, babywearing isnt just for fashion-forward mothers and so-called yoga mamas. Dads, grandparents and other caregivers also rock their share of babywearing gear, Fare said.

Take new dad Justin Brim, 31. On a recent weekday afternoon, Brim was watering the front lawn of his Terrell Heights home with a hose in one hand and his 6-week-old son Wylie in a mesh carrier on his proud papas chest.

As a male its an opportunity for me to bond with him, Brim said. And its also just a chance for me to get a few things done around the house without feeling like Im neglecting my child.

No question, babywearing is hot in San Antonio. Just expect a little sweat no matter how you wear your baby around town.

Some things that we like to talk to caregivers and parents about is its going to be hot regardless, Fare said.

Though take it from a babywearing mom like Sarah Mireles. A little body heat from her twin kids beats the stress of steering a double stroller around the River Walk.

Rene A. Guzman is a features writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | rguzman@express-news.net | Twitter: @reneguz
San Antonio Independent School District officials are confident that the Texas Education Agency will give their district a grade of C when state accountability results are released Wednesday  up from the F that they anticipated last year if the schools didnt improve.

Despite that advance, Rodriguez Elementary will fail for the fifth consecutive year, precipitating the schools closure after one more year, according to the school districts calculations. And Stewart Elementary is expected to pass, a dramatic turnaround for a school that had already failed five years in a row.

SAISD trustees in the spring contracted Democracy Prep Public Schools, a New York-based charter network, to operate Stewart starting this year, saving the school from closure if it failed again. The schools passing grade will not change the partnership.

I think parents are seeing the schools are getting better, Superintendent Pedro Martinez told the San Antonio Express-News editorial board recently.

Under a law taking effect this summer, a schools fifth consecutive failure requires the state education commissioner to order the school closed or appoint a board of managers to take over the entire district.

SAISD also expects that two other schools  Tafolla Middle and Miller Elementary  will pass, saving them from closure as well. Rodriguez, however, did not make the cut, missing the states target for student growth by 1.5 percentage points, Martinez said.

The school fell short despite making gains in reading, math and science, according to a letter Principal Beth Brady sent Wednesday to parents.

Deanna Hernandez, her brother and her parents all attended the West Side school. Now she lives a block away from Rodriguez, which her three daughters attend. Hernandez received Bradys letter Friday, just before the family left for meet-the-teacher night.

Hernandezs husband, LB Belmares, works nights and spends days volunteering at Rodriguez. The whole family said they were disappointed that the school would close. We would have done anything, Belmares said. Had they said we need so-and-so to stay open, we wouldve done it.

The oldest daughter, Aubrie Belmares, who starts third grade Monday, spoke fondly of her second-grade teacher, Mrs. Cutter.

She was always fun with us, Aubrie said.

While the school will remain open for the school year that starts Monday, it then will close for a year, after which the district intends to open a new school in the building for the 2020-21 school year.

Officials said district administrators met with school employees this week and will work with parents this fall on options for the year the school will be shuttered and possibly beyond that.

Because of its failing record, Rodriguez has been losing students in recent years, and last year its enrollment was about 300.

In addition to having taken questions at the meet-the-teacher event, administrators will meet with parents later this month at the schools open house. Rodriguez families will be given priority for the districts magnet schools, and transportation to other schools will be provided, Martinez said, but families who want their children to stay in the West Side neighborhood could defect to KIPP or Jubilee charter schools.

SAISD will hold a series of community meetings this fall to plan Rodriguezs future as a new school, said Leslie Price, school district spokeswoman. Parents will be asked what kind of educational model they would like to see at Rodriguez, such as dual language, Montessori or International Baccalaureate, Price said.

The district is not considering a partnership at Rodriguez with Democracy Prep, according to Price.

Under another new law, schools are eligible for a two-year reprieve from accountability sanctions if they form operating partnerships with certain entities, including charter organizations. Stewart could have received an order to close last year if the Legislatures sanctions had then been in effect. Teachers opposed the partnership with Democracy Prep, but SAISD administrators argued that it was a last-resort move to save the school.

There wasnt the need to bring in Democracy Prep, said Shelley Potter, president of the San Antonio Alliance of Teachers and Support Personnel, the SAISD union for non-administrative employees. There wasnt a need to have a 10-year contract for up to 2,400 kids. ... I think there is some redemption there for teachers, and for the parents and students.

Martinez defended the districts decision to contract with a charter network for Stewart as opposed to Miller or Rodriguez. Those two schools have higher-performing elementary schools nearby, which could serve as alternatives if those campuses close.

You put in your best strategies, and nothings for sure, Martinez said. Were in a high-stakes environment.

Although Stewart passed, it is still in the bottom 10 percent of schools statewide, Martinez said. Under Democracy Prep, he said, students will benefit from improvements, including two teachers per classroom and a longer school day.

Ogden Elementary, which has failed for the past four years, will receive a two-year accountability reprieve through its partnership with the Relay Graduate School of Education. SAISD isnt sure whether it will pass this year.

When next weeks state accountability results come out, it will be the first time districts get a letter grade, making it difficult to compare it with their past performance. SAISD has nearly failed to meet the old state standards for the past two years as its enrollment has shrunk to about 50,000 students, many of whom are from low-income families.

SAISD thinks that the district generally matched or exceeded statewide gains in reading and math for third through eighth grades, although the high-poverty district still falls short of state averages. Scores on high school end-of-course exams also improved at a faster rate than the statewide average, except in English II, which trailed by one point, according to SAISD.

The district predicts a score of 64 percent in student achievement, 75 percent in progress and 72 percent in closing achievement gaps, for an overall score of 74 percent.

SAISD would have had more than 30 failing schools last year had the states new accountability formulas been in effect, but this year that number will be cut in half, Price said.

SAISD points to three factors that contributed to the districts gains: grants that allowed high-poverty schools to increase staffing, an incentive program that places high-performing teachers with the lowest-performing students, and increased participation and performance in Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate and SAT exams, Price said.

Goals in SAISDs five-year turnaround plan include 70 percent of schools earning Bs or higher, but the districts performance and growth targets are based on the old accountability system and may change, Price said.

The fourth year of the turnaround effort begins Monday when schools open to students.

What weve said all along is it would take three years to start seeing something, Price said. Were seeing something.

Alia Malik covers several school districts and the Alamo Colleges District in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read her on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | amalik@express-news.net | Twitter: @AliaAtSAEN
Pilots flying one of the Air Forces principal training planes, the troubled T-6A Texan II, have reported 39 unexplained physiological episodes caused by a lack of oxygen since the fleet resumed operations early this year.

The number of incidents, averaging nearly 8 a month from the end of February through June, is higher than the average last year, when the most reported in a single month was five.

The planes were briefly grounded after an exceptionally high number of incidents  22  were reported in January alone.

The Air Force training command in San Antonio said the T-6A, a single engine, two-seat turboprop craft, is safe to fly. The command said it has done more inspections, bought new testing equipment and increased the frequency of maintenance.

Pilots are getting extra training, learning more about physiological episodes and are being armed with new procedures to help them respond to possible oxygen system malfunctions, the command said.

A chief complaint by T-6A instructor pilots is that even after months of investigation, the military still hasnt found the root cause of problems with the Onboard Oxygen Generation System, called OBOGS. They say many pilots wonder if the plane is safe.

When I explained it to my wife, it was all the wrong reasons, said an instructor pilot who asked not to be identified, fearing retribution from commanders. Im fearful for second lieutenants that are flying a bad piece of machinery, Im fearful for how this could be detrimental to my career with the airlines, and my wife is like, You should be afraid for your life. You should be afraid that youre going to crash an airplane and youre going to die.

The oxygen delivery system also is used in a number of fighter jets and in a Navy training plane called the T-45 Goshawk. A raft of changes to bolster confidence in the Goshawk reduced physiological episodes to nine last year.

Cmdr. Scot Cregan, a spokesman for the Navys Physiological Episodes Action Team, said eight of the those nine incidents were classified as minor, with the other listed as moderate low. None of the episodes hindered the ability of aviators to land the aircraft safely, he said. Four of the nine occurred at Naval Air Station Kingsville.

The T-6A first flew at Joint Base San Antonio-Randolph in 2000 and had enjoyed one of the lowest occurrences of physiological incidents over the past 10 years.

But a Randolph aviator suffered a physiological episode early this year so serious that a number of fliers there refused to fly. Their chief concern was hypoxia, a lack of oxygen that is potentially fatal with symptoms ranging from fear, anxiety and giddiness to complacency and loss of consciousness.

Hypoxia was suspected when a T-45 from Naval Air Station Kingsville went down Aug. 14, 2016, prompting an instructor pilot and student to bail out.

Pilots concerned about the militarys inability to fully understand OBOGS failures told the San Antonio Express-News that up to 11 aviators at Randolphs 12th Flying Training Wing had refused early this summer to fly the aerobatic prop plane.

One strategy to combat the problem is to fly without the oxygen system, letting pilots breathe ambient cockpit air while flying modified missions at lower altitudes.

At Randolph, instructor pilots cannot fly the T-6A alone. Novices, however, have to fly solo as part of their training, a requirement that worries some instructors.

Its almost unthinkable that the most experienced guys are restricted from flying, but yet the junior, most novice dude can go up and fly it alone in a bad aircraft that we know makes people sick, one of the Randolph instructor pilots said.

Unexplained mysteries

Developed for fighters in the early 1980s, OBOGS draws outside air from a plane's engine. The air is cooled and passes through a device called a molecular sieve concentrator that uses a chemical process to produce concentrated oxygen.

A Congressional Research Service brief said OBOGS delivers 95 percent oxygen and 5 percent argon to pilots. The Navy says the air is cleaner than that in a typical office.

One of the mysteries in the OBOGS failures in two-seat training planes is that in some cases only one pilot has suffered an episode, even though OBOGS feeds the same air to both of them.

Some things are known. The Air Force confirmed that inspections have continued to show that the OBOGS shutoff valve, which funnels air from the engine into the system, failed at a much higher than anticipated rate.

The Air Force said the inspections showed that 85 percent of the shutoff valves inspected failed in the open position, allowing unrestricted air flow.

The Air Force is looking into new technology to help pilots monitor their life-support systems in hopes of preventing hypoxia and other physiological episodes. A feasibility study evaluating the inclusion of an automatic backup oxygen system in the T-6A will be completed this month.

In the meantime, 98 percent of the 444 T-6As are back in the air. All of the Navys Goshawks are flying.

Squadron commander takes action

Lt. Col. J.C. Gorman, who had just taken command of the 559th Flying Training squadron, said he canceled all of the T-6A missions on June 25 after meeting that morning with his pilots. Gorman said that some who had ruled out flying changed their minds after talking it over. The squadron returned to a regular schedule the following day, logging 40 to 45 sorties.

Gorman said pilots always have the option not to fly, and that he wouldnt take punitive action against those who decided not to, explaining, I don't need guys being afraid or unconfident in the airplane. In my mind, it's my responsibility to address their concerns and that's what we did, and what we continue to do.

The unusual action came a few days after an instructor was incapacitated on June 21 by a physiological episode while flying the T-6. He was reported to have forgotten which was the lead aircraft in a formation, and also had trouble remembering parts of the sortie the next day. Some officers in the squadron said the sickened pilot credited his student with landing the plane and saving his life.

The student was a qualified aviator learning to become a T-6A instructor pilot  not a novice.

So the (instructor pilot) asked the student, Where is lead? The student said, Sir, were lead, one of instructor pilots said.

He didnt know where lead was, another instructor pilot said, adding, He had lost coherency to anything and everything at that point in time.

Flying after an episode

Maj. Kinsley Jordan, a T-6A instructor at Vance AFB in Oklahoma, said he suffered a physiological episode during a routine student sortie.

Flying at an altitude of about 1,800 feet, an area typically buzzing with air traffic, Jordan noticed he was thinking sluggishly and was slow to track information from his instruments. Then came a strange, metallic taste in his mouth.

Thats what really led me to talk with my student, saying, Hey, are you feeling anything? Are you feeling OK? The student said, Yeah, Im feeling fine, recalled Jordan, who has with 3,000 hours in the air, 1,500 of them in combat. So as we were going through the final turn thats when I realized, somethings not right, somethings not right about this.

He dropped his mask to get a breath of fresh air in the cockpit. The student, who Jordan described as a slightly above-average novice with 25 hours in a T-6A, showed no symptoms and handled a touch-and-go landing on his own. They then declared an emergency and returned for a second landing, which Jordan made himself.

Jordan said the episode concerned him, but not enough that he would refuse to fly the plane.

It wasnt necessarily a concern in the sense of Oh, my gosh, Im not going to go back into the air. It was a concern of, I wonder what caused that? he said. So it wasnt anything that I went home and curled up in a ball and sat in my wifes arms and said, I never want to go back. That was not the case.

sigc@express-news.net
Immigrant children will be held for another month in a tent city near El Paso that was supposed to close on Monday, according to officials who visited the facility Friday.

State Reps. Ina Minjarez and Diego Bernal of San Antonio, who toured the shelter with members of the Mexican American Legislative Caucus, said the children arent getting released to their adult sponsors because of an internal backlog of background checks and fingerprints.

The tent city is sheltering roughly 170 boys, ages 14 to 17  about half as many as it sheltered in June. Adult sponsors for the children have been identified, according to Bernal and Minjarez.

All of them have places they could go, but for the federal government dragging their feet in returning requests for background checks, Bernal said.

Why are they not doing their due diligence to get these expedited, so that these kids can leave this facility and be with their family? Minjarez said.

Each day the shelter stays open costs the government between $400,000 and $500,000. It is operated by the San Antonio-based BCFS nonprofit.

The average length of confinement there has been 58 days, they said.

Girls who had been kept in the shelter were recently moved to another facility, they said.

A federal contract for the shelter, south of El Paso in Tornillo, was originally due to expire on July 13. It was extended again to next Monday.

The boys sleep in bunk beds, arranged about 20 to a tent, less than a yard apart, Bernal and Minjarez said. Theres artwork on one wall in each tent, where the boys hang up drawings of cartoons and religious symbols.

When you see it, youre just struck by the fact that theyre kids, Bernal said. You have to remember that theyre just kids.

Bernal and Minjarez said the children dont get regular mental health counseling for the traumas they may have experienced in their home country, and on their over 1,000 mile journey north to the United States.

For a moment we thought about imagining what it took for them to get here on their own, said Minjarez. You get here, and it humanizes everything.

sfosterfrau@express-news.net
The Texas Republican Party on Friday sued Democrat Pete Gallego, claiming he lives outside Senate District 19 where hes seeking the seat in a special election runoff.

Gallego, a former U.S. and state representative, finished second in a July 31 special election, behind Republican Pete Flores, a retired state game warden. The race headed to a runoff because neither candidate received enough votes to win outright.

State law requires that candidates live continuously in the district theyre seeking for at least six months before the filing deadline.

Its common knowledge Gallego does not live in Senate District 19, state GOP Chairman James Dickey said in a news release. His wifes name is on a home outside of Senate District 19. He has for years lived with his family in Austin, where his wife has a homestead exemption; this is well-known and well-documented.

Gallegos campaign promptly rejected the allegations.

This is a frivolous lawsuit and the Texas Republican Party should be fined for even filing it, Gallego campaign manager Christian Archer said in a written statement. Pete Gallego has lived in Alpine since 1989 when he returned home to become a local felony prosecutor. Pete is registered to vote in Alpine, where he has always voted, and where he pays his utilities. This lawsuit is a desperate move on behalf of a failing campaign.

For its part, the Flores campaign agrees with the Republican party.

No one seriously believes Pete Gallego lives eight hours west of where his wife and son sleep every night, Flores consultant Matt Mackowiak said, also in a prepared statement. Only a career politician would have the shamelessness to make such an absurd claim.

The lawsuit cites an Express-News column that found Gallegos wife, Maria Elena Ramon, claims a homestead exemption in Austin, which is not in the senate district. Photos show Gallego leaving the home and his truck parked in the driveway there. He is registered to vote in Brewster County and has said he lives in Alpine, the county seat.

The party said it also filed a complaint to the Texas Ethics Commission, alleging that Gallego failed to report real estate interests in Travis County.

Former state Sen. Carlos Uresti, a convicted felon, vacated the seat in June around the time he was sentenced to 12 years in prison for 11 felony charges, including fraud and money laundering.

Jasper Scherer is a staff writer in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | jscherer@express-news.net | Twitter: @jaspscherer
With the fire union in hot water for using membership dues to pay for political activity, the San Antonio Police Officers Association is taking pains to distance itself from its embattled brethren.

SAPOA is NOT involved in any of these issues and are watching with a keen eye as it unfolds, wrote Mike Helle, president of the police union, in a recent email to members. We continue to pray for our Fire brothers and sisters so that they may find a path towards success, but it looks like stormy weather is in their future 

But what about the dark cloud over the Police Department?

Since December, when police released a dozen undocumented immigrants found in a tractor-trailer after charging the driver with human smuggling, Helle has been working hard behind the scenes to ensure that cloud remains.

He traveled to the state Capitol in January to urge officials to investigate Police Chief William McManus over the incident. Shortly afterward, Attorney General Ken Paxton launched an investigation into whether the city violated the Texas sanctuary cities law. (The probe is ongoing.)

Helle has apparently been peppering the attorney generals office with fresh complaints ever since. In May, it told him to stop.

Dear Detective Helle, a representative emailed the union president. Our agency has received numerous letters from members of the San Antonio Police Officers Association (SAPOA) but every email originates from the same email address.  Please rest assured we are working hard on this issue and will let you know as things advance.

And then there are the billboards.

Multiple ads have sprouted over the citys freeways in recent months, all of them bashing McManus over the December incident. One, for instance, reads: Violation of Sanctuary Cities Ban. WHY DID YOU DO IT, CHIEF?

Helle acknowledged the police union has paid for the ads with its membership dues. (He wouldnt tell me how much the billboards cost.)

Helle is adamant, however, that his mud-slinging campaign against McManus does not qualify as a political expense, and for good reason: Its a third-degree felony for labor organizations to use membership dues to make such expenditures.

Its not a political expense, Helle said. Im not asking anybody to take a vote. They might not like the message 

Some certainly dont. One SAPOA member told me, My union dues can be better utilized. Wasting money on something insignificant to the betterment of our jobs is irresponsible.

Helle is likely correct on the legal question, though. McManus is not an elected official. Unlike the fire unions use of dues to force charter amendments onto the November ballot, the billboards do not directly reference any elections.

There are political dimensions to the controversy, however. Thats clear just from hearing Helle talk about it.

Were dealing with a chief that committed a crime thats being investigated by the attorney general of Texas, and the mayor and city manager are completely ignoring it, Helle said.

SAPOAs political action committee recently gave $500 to Councilman Greg Brockhouse, a former consultant to the police union whos planning to challenge Mayor Ron Nirenberg in May. When I asked Helle whether the union would support Brockhouse in that endeavor, he gave an answer that made it sound likely.

Were going to seriously consider that, Helle said, considering the mayor is completely inept and blinded in this entire situation.

By that calculus, keeping the heat on McManus also weakens Nirenberg, who was tough on the union during its contract negotiations with the city. At the moment, though, the billboards are mostly making the police chiefs job more difficult.

Last month, at a meeting of the District 9 Neighborhood Alliance, an attendee asked McManus a familiar question.

Why did he do that, was the way it was phrased, said Art Downey, president of the alliance. (McManus) basically gave the explanation why he took the action he did (released the undocumented immigrants).  He cut it a little short, but I thought it was satisfactory. I personally felt this has been asked and answered so many times, why is it being brought up?

Helle has an answer for that.

Were not letting it die, the union president said. Hes just not going to let time erase it.

bchasnoff@express-news.net
Back in 2004, a 33-year-old South Side lawyer named Roland Gutierrez ran for county commissioner.

Gutierrez spent nearly $70,000 of his own money and ran a spirited campaign, but finished third in a hard-fought Democratic primary, behind incumbent Robert Tejeda and Sergio Chico Rodriguez. Along the way, however, he verbally pummeled Tejeda so relentlessly that he cleared a path for Rodriguez to pull off an upset victory in the runoff.

Dont look now, but history could be repeating itself.

On July 31, Gutierrez  now a five-term state representative  finished third in another hard-fought race, a special election for the Texas Senate District 19 seat recently vacated by convicted felon Carlos Uresti. That sets up a runoff between former Congressman Pete Gallego and retired game warden Pete Flores.

Gutierrezs persistent attacks during the primary race on Gallego, a fellow Democrat, could have the effect of softening up Gallego for Flores, an unabashed conservative Republican from Pleasanton.

Logic says the Senate runoff should be safely in Gallegos pocket.

This sprawling district, which covers 17 counties from South San Antonio to West Texas, is a Democratic stronghold. Two years ago, Uresti, already facing allegations of fraud regarding his involvement with the FourWinds frac-sand company, easily disposed of Flores by a margin of more than 15 percent.

But Flores shocked political observers two weeks ago by finishing first in the eight-candidate special election, with 34 percent of the vote. Gallego finished second with 29 percent, while Gutierrez received 24 percent.

A worrisome factoid for Dems is that Flores  whose campaign ads and high-profile GOP endorsements emerged only a few days before the election  received 4,546 votes on election day while Gallego and Gutierrez combined for only 4,055.

The bigger issue, however, is that Gutierrez exclusively targeted Gallego for his attacks during the primary race and weakened him in the process.

It was reminiscent of the way Gutierrez hammered Tejeda in 2004 for a range of perceived infractions, such as taking $35,000 from a law firm (Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson), which had a contract with the county to collect delinquent taxes.

This guy (Tejeda) has hurt our community and its time to get someone who will advocate for the people, Gutierrez told the Current in 2004.

Immediately after falling short in the 2004 primary, Gutierrez endorsed Rodriguez, saying they shared the goal of ousting Tejeda.

We got to get this guy (Tejeda) out, he said. We had 60 percent of the voters saying they dont want Robert Tejeda.

A battle-scarred Tejeda lost the runoff to Rodriguez by 14 percent.

The dynamics of the Senate District 19 runoff are more complex, because there are no incumbents to oust and the race involves a Democrat against a Republican.

Gutierrez and Gallego share party affiliation and they served together in the Texas House from 2009-13. But its hard to see Gutierrez helping Gallego in the Senate runoff.

During the primary race, Gutierrez blasted Gallego for accepting a $5,000 donation in 2014 from the GEO Group, a controversial company that operates for-profit prisons and immigration detention facilities.

After this column reported that Gallego appears to live outside the district, in Austin, while claiming residence in the West Texas town of Alpine, Gutierrez essentially called it a disqualifying factor.

In a July 26 tweet, Gutierrez wrote, If @PeteGallegoTX cant be honest about where he lives, what can he be honest about?

On Friday, I asked Gutierrez whether he planned to make an endorsement in the runoff. He responded, via text: At present I am taking some much-needed time away from politics to spend with my family.

Flores hasnt yet pushed hard on the residency issue. He might not have to, partly because Gutierrez did it for him and partly because the Republican Party of Texas filed suit Friday against Gallego in Travis County District Court. The suit seeks to get Gallego thrown off the runoff ballot, on the grounds that he doesnt reside in the district. Legally, its a long shot, but its keeping the issue alive.

Democrats might yet unite to defeat Flores, particularly if they contemplate his support for school vouchers and the replacement of property taxes (used, in part, to fund public education) with a higher sales tax.

For Gallego to win, however, hell need to recover from Gutierrezs attacks more effectively than Tejeda did in 2004.

@gilgamesh470

Gilbert Garcia is a columnist covering the San Antonio and Bexar County area. Read him on our free site, mySA.com, and on our subscriber site, ExpressNews.com. | ggarcia@express-news.net | Twitter: @gilgamesh470
At least 436 people became ill after eating salads from McDonalds restaurants, including a Connecticut resident, and the chain has pulled the lettuce blend from 3,000 of its sites, according to press releases and multiple news reports.

The Connecticut resident who became ill was traveling in Illinois , according to a Food Safety News online post. Twenty people have been hospitalized as a result of the outbreak in the Midwest.

The U.S. Food & Drug Administration confirmed in a release that a total of 436 laboratory-confirmed cases of Cyclospora infection as of Aug. 9 were reported in people who ate the salads from McDonalds restaurants in 15 states. Cyclospora cayetanensis is a microscopic parasite of humans that when consumed can cause an intestinal illness called cyclosporiasis, according to the FDA.

The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention posted a case count map that illustrates the states impacted by the outbreak.

In its online statement on the salads, McDonalds said, in part: that, in addition to pulling salads from restaurants, is has changed its supplier in the impacted states and that McDonalds is committed to the highest standards of food safety and quality and we continue to cooperate and support regulatory and public health officials in their investigations.

Food Safety News also noted the CDC said in a release that the most recently-reported person became ill on July 20 and that other states that have reported outbreak patients are Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Minnesota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Montana, North Dakota, Kentucky and West Virginia.

The CDC reports that illnesses started on or after May 20 and the median illness onset date is June 29 (range: May 20 to July 20). Ill people range in age from 14 to 91 years old, with a median age of 53. Sixty-six percent (66%) are female. At least 20 people have been hospitalized; no deaths have been reported.

Illnesses that started after June 28 might not have been reported yet due to the time it takes between when a person becomes ill and when the illness is reported. For Cyclospora infections, this can take up to six weeks, the CDC said.

The CDC also said that: Fresh Express reported to FDA that the carrots in the mix that contained Cyclospora went to McDonalds restaurant locations only, and that the romaine lettuce was the only ingredient in the mix that was distributed to other locations. Romaine lettuce from the same lot that was positive for Cyclospora was distributed in pre-made salads and wraps distributed by Caito Foods LLC of Indianapolis, IN. Fresh Express also reported that no romaine lettuce from the lot that was positive for Cyclospora was packaged for direct retail sale to consumers.

The FDA also reported:

On July 26, 2018, the federal agency completed final analysis of an unused package of Fresh Express salad mix containing romaine lettuce and carrots, which had been distributed to McDonalds. The analysis confirmed the presence of Cyclospora in that sample, though the expiration date for that product, July 19, had already passed. On July 27, the FDA informed Fresh Express of the results.

The federal agency instructed Fresh Express to determine whether potentially contaminated product may still be on the market. Fresh Express reported to FDA that the romaine from the same lot as the positive sample was not packaged for direct retail sale by Fresh Express and had already expired. Fresh Express committed to using recall procedures to inform those companies that received this romaine about the sample result. Fresh Express also reported that carrots used in the mix were only sent to McDonalds locations.

Fresh Express then reported to FDA that the romaine from the same lot as the positive sample was not packaged for direct retail sale by Fresh Express and had already expired. Fresh Express committed to using recall procedures to inform those companies that received this romaine about the sample result.

Fresh Express reported that the carrots in the mix only went to McDonalds, the FDA reported.

The investigation is ongoing and the FDA is currently reviewing distribution and supplier information for romaine and carrots.
Last month, propeller guards were installed on two motorboats at Camp Sequassen in New Hartford by Fairfields BSA Troop 82 Scoutmaster Bryan LeClerc, Assistant Scoutmaster Richard Jacobs and camp ranger Dave Boyajian.

The propeller guards are placed over the outboard propellers and are designed as a safety measure for those using the boats. According to U.S. Coast Guard statistics released in 2016, there were 171 boating accidents nationwide where an individual was struck by a propeller. There were 175 injuries and 24 deaths.

One such accident resulted in the death of 12-year-old Ryan Weiss, of Suffolk County, N.Y., in 2017. Weiss had been taking part in a capsizing drill at a sailing camp when he fell off the boat and into the propeller after the boat had accelerated.

The Suffolk County Legislature voted unanimously in favor of Ryans Law legislation, which would require propeller guards to be placed on boats used in youth programs.

A similar incident occurred in 2014, when 16-year-old Emily Fedorko died of propeller-related injuries while tubing in Long Island Sound near Greenwich.

Nearly a year after the accident, Emilys Law was passed by the state of Connecticut, which prohibits teenage boaters under the age of 16 from towing water skiers and tubers and requires all boaters to be trained in proper tubing techniques.

Both incidents were brought to the attention of LeClerc and the Scout Committee by Jacobs, who sought to bring about proactive change. The initiative began at Camp Sequassen, where Fairfields Troop 82 Scouts attend summer camp, but both men seek to take it farther than the initial donation from the troop.

Women for Sobriety meets on Mondays

Women for Sobriety, a self-help group for women with alcohol and/or drug addictions, meets on Mondays from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. at Barefoot Living Arts, 85 Mill Plain Road, Fairfield.

The group will learn and practice the New Life program from Women for Sobriety Inc., an international self-help recovery program for women.

The program teaches women ways to cope with lifes problems. Women learn ways in which to feel good about themselves.

Women for Sobriety, Inc. has self-help groups throughout the world, helping women recover from alcohol and drug addictions. To join the group, contact Joy Herbst at 203-640-0530 or Joy@JoyHerbst.com

To receive a complimentary program literature packet, send a self-addressed, stamped envelope (business size) to: WFS, Inc., PO Box 618, Quakertown PA 18951-0618 or email the organization at: Contact@Womenforsobriety.org.

Fairfield U. nursing school receives recognition

Fairfield Universitys Marion Peckham Egan School of Nursing & Health Studies was one of 16 nursing programs selected nationwide and named as a National League for Nursing Center of Excellence. The Egan School will be formally inducted during the Honors Convocation at the 2018 NLN Education Summit in Chicago.

The Egan School faculty have a longstanding reputation for clinical nursing excellence, deep commitment to student learning, and innovative teaching and learning practices, dean Meredith Wallace Kazer said. Our designation as a NLN Center of Excellence provides the well-deserved recognition of these stellar qualities. I am honored to be the dean of this wonderful faculty whose teaching excellence will continue to improve nursing care for years to come.

In order to become a Center for Excellence, selection is based on the schools sustained excellence in faculty development, nursing education research, and student learning and professional development.

The designation of the Egan School as a Center of Excellence is the latest in a series of accolades. In its annual rankings for graduate schools, U.S. News and World Report named the Egan School among the best in the country in the category of doctorate of nursing degree, as well as masters nursing degree. Both placements on the lists saw a jump of over 26 spots from the previous year.

For information, visit Fairfield.edu/egan.

Deans list students

Fairfield residents Ingrid Backe, Clark Perkins and George Crawford received the deans award of distinction for the spring semester at Colgate University. The following Fairfield residents received the deans award for academic excellence at Colgate University: Charlotte Clifford, Elizabeth McNamara, Conner Doyle, Emily Christenson, Tenzin Dickyi and Lydia McGrath.

Laura Judd, Neal Mintz and Kayla Murphy, all of Fairfield, were named to the spring semester deans list at Washington University in St. Louis.

Among the graduates

Madelyn Lippman, of Fairfield, graduated with a bachelors degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in May.

Lambert  Schaitkin wedding

Sarah Jeanne Schaitkin and Thomas Simoneau Lambert were united in marriage March 24 in St. Leo the Great Catholic Church, Winston-Salem, N.C. She is the daughter of Mark Schaitkin, of West Bloomfield, Mich., and the late Mary Beth McElhinny Schaitkin; and he is the son of Paul Lambert and Cynthia Simoneau Lambert, of Fairfield.

Abigail Schaitkin was maid of honor for her sister, and Emily Merkiel, Maura Merritt, Alicia Ritts, Emma Shebest, Nicole Lignelli, Erin Kelley, Sloane ODonnell and Katherine Williams attended. Isabella Merkiel was flower girl.

Marc Lambert, the bridegrooms twin brother, was best man. Christopher Schaitkin and Ryan Schaitkin, the brides brothers, were groomsmen with Christian Stoffan, Patrick Murphy, Eric Maddox, Michael Levine and Thomas Mayhew. Ushers were Thomas P. Keane, Robert Culliton, Sean Merritt and Kyle Merritt.

A reception followed at the Kimpton Cardinal Hotel in Winston-Salem. A spring honeymoon is planned. The couple reside in Stamford.

The bride, a graduate of Washington and Jefferson University, holds masters degrees from Wake Forest University and Columbia University. She is a registered nurse at Greenwich Hospital.

The bridegroom, a graduate of Pepperdine University, received a law degree from Wake Forest University. He is an attorney with the law firm of Ryan, Ryan, Deluca LLP, Stamford and Bridgeport.
FAIRFIELD  What was once a gravel pit now has a Facebook page, populated with posts from dog owners.

Lake Mohegan, the 170-acre open space on Morehouse Highway, seems to offer something for everyone.

Lake swimming? Theres a sandy beach on the southern end of the lake, staffed by lifeguards and with a concession stand when hunger strikes. There is also a spla sh pad at the beach.

Dog walking? Lake Mohegan is the only public property in town where dogs can go off-leash  once they are 100 feet away from the parking lot  year-round.

Fishing? There are small, dirt beaches along the sides of the lake where fishermen can cast their line.

Hiking? There are three marked trails that take hikers along paths that run through trees, over bridges, and to fantastic views.

For most of these activities, there is no cost. A beach pass is needed for entry to the beach, and swimming is not allowed anywhere else at the lake. Information on the passes can be found at http://bit.ly/2OqmIiy

Before it was a majestic, and popular, open-space destination, Lake Mohegan was owned by the Mohican Valley Corp., which mined the area from 1951 to 1960. The town began the process to acquire the property, a process that spanned almost two decades.

In 1974, the Cascades were added to the inventory when donated by General Electric when it located its heaquarters on Easton Turnpike.
China Hydroelectric Corporation is a developer, owner and operator of small hydroelectric power projects in China. The projects are located in Zhejiang, Fujian, Yunnan and Sichuan. As of December 31, 2012, wholly owns 22 operating hydroelectric power projects and have controlling interests in three operating hydroelectric power projects. In March 2012, the Company sold 100% of the Yuanping hydroelectric power project. In April 2013, the Company sold the Yuheng hydroelectric power project, a 30 megawatt (MW) project located in Fujian province. In July 2014, the Company announced that it has completed the merger with CPT Wyndham Sub Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of CPT Wyndham Holdings Ltd.

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Bank of Montreal provides diversified financial services primarily in North America. The company's personal banking products and services include checking and savings accounts, credit cards, mortgages, and financial and investment advice services; and commercial banking products and services comprise business deposit accounts, commercial credit cards, business loans and commercial mortgages, cash management solutions, foreign exchange, specialized banking programs, treasury and payment solutions, and risk management products for small business and commercial banking customers. It also offers investment and wealth advisory services; digital investing services; financial services and solutions; and investment management, and trust and custody services to institutional, retail, and high net worth investors. In addition, the company provides life insurance, accident and sickness insurance, and annuity products; creditor and travel insurance to bank customers; and reinsurance solutions. Further, it offers client's debt and equity capital-raising services, as well as loan origination and syndication, balance sheet management, and treasury management; strategic advice on mergers and acquisitions, restructurings, and recapitalizations, as well as valuation and fairness opinions; and trade finance, risk mitigation, and other operating services. Additionally, the company provides research and access to markets for institutional, corporate, and retail clients; trading solutions that include debt, foreign exchange, interest rate, credit, equity, securitization and commodities; new product development and origination services, as well as risk management advice and services to hedge against fluctuations; and funding and liquidity management services to its clients. It operates through approximately 1,400 bank branches and 4,800 automated banking machines in Canada and the United States. The company was founded in 1817 and is headquartered in Montreal, Canada.

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Wall Street analysts have given Global X MSCI Norway ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but Global X MSCI Norway ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.
Wall Street analysts have given iShares MSCI Finland ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares MSCI Finland ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

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Wall Street analysts have given iShares MSCI Switzerland ETF a "N/A" rating, but there may be better buying opportunities in the stock market. Some of MarketBeat's past winning trading ideas have resulted in 5-15% weekly gains. MarketBeat just released five new stock ideas, but iShares MSCI Switzerland ETF wasn't one of them. MarketBeat thinks these five companies may be even better buys.

View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.
KAZ Minerals PLC, together with its subsidiaries, engages in mining and processing copper and other metals primarily in Kazakhstan, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan. It operates through Bozshakol, Aktogay, East Region and Bozymchak, and Mining Projects segments. The company operates the Aktogay and Bozshakol open pit copper mines in the east region and Pavlodar region of Kazakhstan; three underground mines in the east region of Kazakhstan; and the Bozymchak copper-gold mine in Kyrgyzstan. It also develops greenfield metal deposits; operates Koksay deposit in Kazakhstan, and the Baimskaya licence area in the Chukotka region of Russia; and produces and sells various by-products, such as gold, silver, molybdenum, and zinc. In addition, the company supplies and distributes heat, water, and electricity; and offers construction, project management, financing, management, sales and logistics, and repairs and maintenance services. The company was formerly known as Kazakhmys PLC and changed its name to KAZ Minerals PLC in October 2014. KAZ Minerals PLC was founded in 1930 and is based in London, the United Kingdom.

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Ormat Technologies, Inc. operates as a holding company. The firm engages in the provision of geothermal and recovered energy power business. It operates through the following segments: Electricity, Product and Energy Storage. The Electricity segment focuses in the sale of electricity from the company's power plants pursuant to PPAs. The Product segment involves in the manufacture, including design and development, of turbines and power units for the supply of electrical energy and in the associated construction of power plants utilizing the power units manufactured by the company to supply energy from geothermal fields and other alternative energy sources. The Energy Storage segment consists of battery energy storage systems as a service and management of curtailable customer loads under contracts with U.S. retail energy providers and directly with large commercial and industrial customers. The company was founded in 1965 and is headquartered in Reno, NV.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Exxon Mobil: AKG Marketing Company Limited, Aera Energy LLC, Al-Jubail Petrochemical Company, Ampolex (Cepu) Pte Ltd, Ancon Insurance Company Inc., Barnett Gathering LLC, Barzan Gas Company Limited, Caspian Pipeline Consortium, Celtic Exploration Ltd., Coral FLNG S.A., Cross Timbers Energy LLC, Ellora Energy Inc., Esmeroon Oil Transporta Imperial Oil Limited, Esso (Thailand) Public Company Limited, Esso Australia Resources Pty Ltd, Esso Deutschland GmbH, Esso Erdgas Beteiligungsgesellschaft mbH, Esso Exploration Angola (Block 15) Limited, Esso Exploration Angola (Block 17) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Angola (Overseas) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Chad Inc., Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria (Deepwater) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria (Offshore East) Limited, Esso Exploration and Production Nigeria Limited, Esso Exploration and Production UK Limited, Esso Global Investments Ltd., Esso Italiana S.r.l., Esso Nederland B.V., Esso Norge AS, Esso Petroleum Company Limited, Esso Raffinage, Esso Societe Anonyme Francaise, Exxo Holdings Inc., Exxon Azerbaijan Limited, Exxon Chemical Arabia Inc., Exxon International Finance Company, Exxon Luxembourg Holdings LLC, Exxon Mobile Bay Limited Partnership, Exxon Neftegas Limited, Exxon Overseas Corporation, Exxon Overseas Investment Corporation, ExxonMobil (China) Investment Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil (Taicang) Petroleum Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil Abu Dhabi Offshore Petroleum Company Limited, ExxonMobil Alaska Production Inc., ExxonMobil Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., ExxonMobil Australia Pty Ltd, ExxonMobil B Resources Company, ExxonMobil Capital Finance Company, ExxonMobil Capital Netherlands B.V., ExxonMobil Central Europe Holding GmbH, ExxonMobil Cepu Limited, ExxonMobil Chemical France, ExxonMobil Chemical Gulf Coast Investments LLC, ExxonMobil Chemical Holland B.V., ExxonMobil Chemical Services (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., ExxonMobil China Petroleum & Petrochemical Company Limited, ExxonMobil Development Africa B.V., ExxonMobil Development Company, ExxonMobil Egypt (S.A.E.), ExxonMobil Exploracao Brasil Ltda., ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Malaysia Inc., ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Norway AS, ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Romania Limited, ExxonMobil Exploration and Production Tanzania Limited, ExxonMobil Finance Company Limited, ExxonMobil Financial Investment Company Limited, ExxonMobil France Holding SAS, ExxonMobil Gas Marketing Europe Limited, ExxonMobil General Finance Company, ExxonMobil Global Services Company, ExxonMobil Golden Pass Surety LLC, ExxonMobil Holding Company Holland LLC, ExxonMobil Holding Norway AS, ExxonMobil Hong Kong Limited, ExxonMobil International Services SARL, ExxonMobil Iraq Limited, ExxonMobil Italiana Gas S.r.l., ExxonMobil Kazakhstan Inc., ExxonMobil Kazakhstan Ventures Inc., ExxonMobil LNG Services B.V., ExxonMobil Lubricants Trading Company, ExxonMobil Oil Corporation, ExxonMobil PNG Limited, ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical BVBA, ExxonMobil Petroleum & Chemical Holdings Inc., ExxonMobil Pipeline Company, ExxonMobil Production Deutschland GmbH, ExxonMobil Production Norway Inc., ExxonMobil Qatargas (II) Limited, ExxonMobil Qatargas Inc., ExxonMobil Ras Laffan (III) Limited, ExxonMobil Rasgas Inc., ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company, ExxonMobil Russia Kara Sea Holdings B.V., ExxonMobil Sales and Supply LLC, ExxonMobil Technology Finance Company, ExxonMobil Ventures Finance Company, ExxonMobil Ventures Funding Ltd., Fujian Refining & Petrochemical Co. Ltd., Golden Pass LNG Terminal Investments LLC, Golden Pass LNG Terminal LLC, Gulf Coast Growth Ventures LLC, Imperial Oil Limited, Imperial Oil Resources Limited, Imperial Oil Resources N.W.T. Limited, Imperial Oil/Petroliere Imperiale, Infineum Italia s.r.I., Infineum Singapore Pte. Ltd., InterOil Corporation, Jurong Aromatics Corporation Pte Ltd, MPM Lubricants, Marine Well Containment Company LLC, Mobil Australia Resources Company Pty Limited, Mobil California Exploration & Producing Asset Company, Mobil Caspian Pipeline Company, Mobil Chemical Products International Inc., Mobil Corporation, Mobil Equatorial Guinea Inc., Mobil Erdgas Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Mobil Exploration & Producing Australia Pty Ltd, Mobil International Petroleum Corporation, Mobil Oil Australia Pty Ltd, Mobil Oil Exploration & Producing Southeast Inc., Mobil Oil New Zealand Limited, Mobil Producing Nigeria Unlimited, Mobil Producing Texas & New Mexico Inc., Mobil SerLimited, Mobil Venezolana De Petroleos Inc., Mobil Yanbu Petrochemical Company Inc., Mobil Yanbu Refining Company Inc., Mountain Gathering LLC, Mozambique Rovuma Venture S.p.A., Palmetto Transoceanic LLC, Papua New Guinea Liquefied Natural Gas Global Company LDC, Permian Express Partners LLC, Phillips Exploration LLC, Qatar Liquefied Gas Company Limited, Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company Limited, Ras Laffan Liquefied Natural Gas Company Limited (II), SPI Limited, Saudi Aramco Mobil Refinery Company Ltd., Saudi Yanbu Petrochemical Co., SeaRiver Maritime Inc., South Hook LNG Terminal Company Limited, Tengizchevroil LLP, Terminale GNL Adriatico S.r.l, Trend Gathering & Treating LLC, Wolverine Pipe Line Company, XH LLC, XTO Delaware Basin LLC, XTO Energy Canada, XTO Energy Inc., and XTO Holdings LLC.
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A new five year plan has been launched by the National Federation of Young Farmers Clubs which seeks to make "incremental changes" to the organisation.

The NFYFC plan called 'Vision:2023' has been spearheaded to help shape the future of the largest rural youth organisation in the UK.

NFYFC said it wants to bring the 86-year-old organisation "up to date" and provide a programme of events and activities that meet the needs of rural young people "today and in the future".

The Federation has launched a survey to begin the process and is inviting all of its members to share what they value about being a member.

Throughout the 2018-19 membership year, the organisation will be releasing more surveys and holding focus groups to gather feedback to take the organisation forward.

The survey follows news of the Federation's decision to no longer hold its Annual Convention for its members.

NFYFC President, Charlotte Smith said the programme of events and activities at NFYFC has "altered very little" in the last 80 years, but yet society and rural young peoples needs have "changed dramatically".

Now is the time to look to the future and Vision:2023 promises to be an exciting development for an organisation that plans to be around for the next 80 years and more, Ms Smith said.

The first survey has been launched and YFC members have until 19 September to share their views online.

NFYFC Chair of Council, Lynsey Martin said: This isnt about forgetting the Federations heritage  no one can deny the incredible history NFYFC has  but this is a vision to improve this organisation and make it more relevant in todays society.
Tougher laws have been introduced to those who commit animal cruelty offences, with the more serious cases coming with a 5-year prison sentence.

Defra Secretary Michael Gove has today (7 August) announced the tougher sentences for animal cruelty following the results of a consultation.

The consultation gained strong support from welfare groups and the public, according to Mr Gove.

Currently, the maximum sentence is six months but will now be increased by tenfold for serious offences.

It follows horrific news of a sheep having its ears sliced off on a farm near Welshpool and a Cotswold farmer disqualified from keeping animals for five years after pleading guilty to seven "appalling" animal welfare offences.

The draft Animal Welfare (Sentencing and Recognition of Sentience) Bill was put out to consultation in December 2017.

The consultation also set out proposals to ensure animal sentience is reflected in domestic law when the UK leaves the EU.

But in line with the recommendation from the EFRA Committee, earlier this year, legislation on sentencing will be brought forward separately so courts have the powers available to them.

The new sentencing plans are part of wider programme of animal welfare reform, which includes making CCTV mandatorycontrol the export of live farm animals for slaughter.
This season has seen tonnes of soft fruit rotting on farms because of problems sourcing pickers, a farming union has warned.

According to NFU Scotland, the lack of workers has caused a "considerable loss" to individual businesses and the wider rural economy.

In response to this, farmers in Scotland are pressing Westminster on the need for a new Seasonal Agricultural Workers Scheme (SAWS) for workers outside the European Economic Area to be introduced as soon as possible.

NFU Scotland has called for a SAWS pilot to be set up this year, with a full SAWS scheme available in Spring 2019.

A Brexit priority for the farming union is securing the significant numbers of permanent and seasonal non-UK staff needed to underpin Scotlands food and farming sectors.

'60 tonnes of strawberries'

Looking to break the deadlock on seasonal workers, Horticultural Chairman, James Porter, hosted a visit by the Minister of State for Immigration, Caroline Nokes MP at East Scryne near Carnoustie.

Local MP Kirstene Hair also attended along with Fife-based soft fruit and veg grower Tom Stockwell, Barnsmuir Farm, Crail.

And last month, NFU Scotland took a cross-party group of MPs from Westminsters influential Scottish Affairs Committee to visit West Jordanstone Farm at Alyth.

There, the Marshall family had already had to leave 60 tonnes of strawberries and raspberries to rot due to a lack of available staff to pick them.

Mr Porter said: We have repeatedly raised our concerns regarding the availability of seasonal and permanent labour in the agriculture and food processing industries with the Home Office.

There has been recognition by many politicians and several committees at Westminster of the issue but little action to date. I urge Government to trial a new SAWS scheme for workers from outside the EU now, and not wait for the Migration Advisory Committee to report in the autumn, as by that time it will be too late to have something in place for spring 2019. "

'Hundreds of thousands of pounds'

The Irish Government has already heeded its industrys concerns about labour shortages and implemented a trial scheme of this sort.

Mr Porter said that such a scheme seen in Ireland is needed "urgently" in the UK.

"Throughout this current season, we have had evidence from several growers that large amounts of crop have been lost due to a lack of labour available to pick," he said.

He said losses for farm businesses that have been impacted are running in to the hundreds of thousands of pounds.

While the soft fruit season is now well through, it is anticipated that the problem will continue if not worsen as the year continues," Mr Porter added.

"We have warned the Government that vegetable and blueberry growers will be short of workers again in the autumn, which will again lead to avoidable crop loss of much needed home-grown fruit and veg."

Despite being a relatively small part of Scottish agriculture, the soft fruit and field vegetable industries are extremely productive  generating more than 10 per cent of Scotlands annual agricultural output.

NFU Scotland said it is "simply unacceptable" that labour shortages are now "threatening the existence" of Scotlands horticultural industry.
The handsome actor might have won your appreciation through his skills and phenomenon performances. To add on to his existing charms, Saheer Sheikh became the torch bearer at 18th Asian Games that's being held in Jakarata and Palembang. He took to his Instagram handle to share the picture from his proud moment. He captioned the images as, "Proud moment for me.. all the best Indonesia for #18thAsianGames#samengat #torchrelayasiangames2018#luckyMe #madMe #shaheersheikh" - (sic)

The actor whose career is flourishing both in television and movies, has a huge fan following from across the world. Fans from Indonesia expressed their excitement about Shaheer's proud moment and showered him with compliments.

A fan said, "@fanofshaheer22 You made us proud as an indian vaiya...nd also a big thanks to Indonesia for giving this opportunity to an indian actor... our independence day is coming. ..hope like u indian players will also make us proud in assia" - (sic)

On the professional front, Shaheer will return to the small screen with Color's TV's Mugha-e-Azam, where he will be playing the role of Prince Salim. Talking about his fascination towards Dilip Kumar and Mughal-e-Azam, Shaheer told this in an interview.

"I recently saw a few scenes of Mughal-e-Azam again and Dilip Kumar sir has done such a beautiful job in it. I was like... I wish something like this I could recreate or get an opportunity to play such a character. I did a mythological show and then contemporary... I haven't tried anything historical so maybe I would like to that."

Kamya Punjabi's Wishes Late Pratyusha Banerjee On Her Birthday With A Heart-wrenching Note
Harsh Limbachiyaa Eliminated

According to the latest development, Harsh Limbachiyaa has been evicted from the stunt-based reality show, while his wife Bharti Singh is still going strong!

Aly & Aditya To Re-enter As Wild-card Entrants

Apparently, along with Aly, Aditya Narayan will also be re-entering the show as wild-card entrant. Well, we assume that the makers might have decided for another wild-card entry, as Vikas left the show due to injury.

Vikas Gupta Returns To Mumbai

It has to be recalled that Vikas Gupta was asked to leave the show, just a few weeks before the finale as he was medically unfit for the show. Apparently, Vikas had suffered shoulder injury and he had hid about the same from the makers and was taking painkiller injections that could have become lethal. His medications shoot up the heart rate and if combined with rigorous physical activity, it might prove fatal. Hence, the doctors refused to give him a clean chit. The producer has apparently returned to Mumbai.

It is sad that Vikas had to leave the show although he was one of the top contenders of the show! But it is a fair decision, as he was suffering from pain!

KKK 9 Contestants

Now the remaining contestants, Bharti, Ridhima Pandit, Punit Pathak, Shamita Shetty, Jasmin Bhasin will compete with the wild card entrants to bag KKK 9 trophy.
Los Angeles Magazine's Top Colon and Rectal Surgeon Dr. Murrell To Also Serve As Brand Ambassador for Natren, America's #1 Most Trusted Name In Probiotics

LOS ANGELES, CA / ACCESSWIRE / August 10, 2018 / Renowned colorectal surgeon Dr. Zuri Murrellhas joined Natren Probiotics as a member of the Advisory Board. Dr. Murrell, who is recognized by Los Angeles Magazine as the city's Top Colon and Rectal Surgeon, will also serve as Natren's National Brand Ambassador joining forces with the company's celebrated Founder and President Natasha Trenev to promote how health and wellness begins from within.

The newest member of Natren's Medical Advisory Board, Dr. Murrell will contribute his professional insights in the areas of product development and consumer messaging. As Brand Ambassador for Natren, he will participate in a national media and retail outreach program aimed at promoting the importance of Natren probiotics as part of a daily health regimen.

Director of the Colorectal Cancer Program at Cedars-Sinai, Dr. Zuri Murrell is nationally recognized as a leading colorectal surgeon and an innovator in the practice of minimally invasive surgery. In addition to having authored numerous peer-reviewed papers, book chapters and presentations, Dr. Murrell is renowned for his extensive research in surgical techniques and treatments such as single port laparoscopy and robotic surgery, and ranks among the country's foremost lecturers. Named to the Southern California Super Doctors list in 2015-2017, Dr. Murrell is double board certified and one of the only west coast surgeons specifically trained in minimally invasive colorectal surgery. He received his medical degree from David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and is among an elite group of surgeons who specializes in colorectal surgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Recognized as 'The Mother of Probiotics," Natasha Trenev is a developmental scientist who introduced the term probiotics in the US nearly five decades ago and has dedicated her life and career researching and perfecting probiotic strains to improve the functioning of the small intestine, large intestine and transient flora by aiding in the inhibition of pathogens and unwanted bacteria.

The company's flagships product Healthy Trinity has been recognized by the medical community for its effectiveness, and for the company's exclusive production method, dark glass bottling and cold chain shipment that ensures the potency of its live probiotic strains all the way through consumption. Natasha and Natren's innovative process plays a big part in setting Natren apart from all others and earned her company the reputation as the industry Gold Standard of Probiotics.

"Health is a central issue facing Americans today, and getting clear information from trusted sources is crucial. Dr. Murrell is among today's most prominent authorities in of colorectal surgery, the branch of medicine focused on the digestive system. I am excited to work in tandem with Dr. Murrell in furthering the country's understanding and appreciation of our digestive tract and the pivotal role probiotics plays in helping maintain a healthy gut," said Natasha Trenev.

About Natren:

Based in Westlake Village, California, Natren, Inc. is the recognized pioneering leader in the field of probiotics supplements. Natren cultivates and processes its high quality cultures in the company's own manufacturing plant also located in Westlake Village, a 30,000 square foot pristine facility that boasts state-of-the-art processing facilities and a team of top probiotics scientists. Founder and President Natasha Trenev is recognized as the Mother of Probiotics and even introduced and popularized the term probiotics, which means "for life." Having devoted nearly 50 years of work in natural health, Ms. Trenev makes frequent media appearances underscoring the effectiveness of quality probiotics in bringing digestive support for the entire gastrointestinal tract.

CONTACT:

Steve Syatt

SSA Public Relations

(818) 222-4000

steve@ssapr.com



SOURCE: SSA Public Relations
The toilet was made of gold with a gold rim and a gold top too.

Vijay Mallya, the fugitive liquor baron who fled India owing Indian banks around Rs 9,000 crore reportedly has a golden toilet to relieve himself.

According to a report in the Economic Times, James Crabtree  the author and associate professor at the Lee Kuan Yew School, who went to Mallyas mansion at Regent Park in London, United Kingdom, and found the former King of Good Times in a despondent mood as he could not fly to Monaco to watch the Monaco Grand Prix.

Crabtree excused himself to go to the toilet and thats where he was greeted with the golden splendor.

The toilet was made of gold with a gold rim and a gold top too.

The professor is quoted in the ET report as having said,  Sadly there was no golden toilet paper. But he found monogrammed fluffy white toilets.

Mallyas Kingfisher Airlines, which went belly up in 2012, owes a consortium of 17 banks nearly Rs 9,000 crore as loans and interest.
(ANSA) - Pescara, August 10 - League MP Giuseppe Bellachioma announced Friday that the rightwing party will run alone in elections in the central region of Abruzzo that are set to take place later this year. "The decision has been taken," Bellachioma, the League's coordinator in Abruzzo, said via Facebook.

"In Abruzzo the League will run alone. Those who love us, follow us and we'll go and win".

The League was part of the centre-right alliance, along with Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia (FI) and the rightwing Brothers of Italy (FdI) group, that was the bloc that won most votes in March's general election although the coalition came up short of winning a majority in parliament.

In the end the League ended up forming a national government with the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement (M5S) to end a long post-election deadlock, although it said at the time that this did not spell the end of the alliance with FI.

The League and FI govern several regions together.

Many recent opinion polls have put the League as Italy's most popular party, just ahead of the M5S, with party leader and Interior Minister Matteo Salvini's tough stance on migration appealing to many voters. On Thursday FI regional councillor Lorenzo Sospiri said he hoped the centre-right would run as a united bloc.


The Arunachal Pradesh police have detected 2,333 Inner Line Permit (ILP) violators across the Northeastern state since the publication of the complete draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in neighbouring Assam, state top police official said.

Itanagar: The Arunachal Pradesh police have detected 2,333 Inner Line Permit (ILP) violators across the Northeastern state since the publication of the complete draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in neighbouring Assam, state top police official said.

Papum Pare district accounted for 663 violators which was the maximum number, the sources said adding that Papum Pare city reported a total 532 cases, while Papum Pare (Rural) accounted for 131 cases, he said.

Remote Kra Daadi district has not reported any ILP violation during the period.

The complete list of the citizen's register, touted to be the proof of Assamese identity, was published on 30 July.

The figures were shared by the Director General of Police (DGP) SBK Singh in the state cabinet meeting held under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Friday.

West Kameng district occupied the second spot in reference to ILP violators reporting 354 such cases. The border districts of Tawang and Anjaw recorded four and five cases respectively, he said.

Ever since the publication of the complete draft of NRC in Assam, all the district superintendents of police in Arunachal were directed to check thoroughly the entry points to the state, an official communique informed on Saturday.

The SPs were also asked to check the ILPs at places like building construction sites, agricultural fields, motor workshops, restaurants and dhabas.

SPs of the districts are personally monitoring the checking of ILP on daily basis and reports are being collected every day, the communique added.

The DGP also apprised the cabinet about the details of action being taken against the ILP violators by the police.

The Cabinet expressed satisfaction over the measures taken but directed that ILP checking should continue intensively on a daily basis.

Accordingly, the district SPs have again been instructed to pay personal attention to the ILP checking, the communique added.

The ILP is an official travel document issued by the Government of India to allow inward travel of an Indian citizen into a protected area for a limited period. It is obligatory for Indian citizens from outside those states to obtain a permit for entering into the protected state.
Rajen Gohain has also filed complaints of blackmailing against the woman and her family, his officer on special duty Sanjiv Goswami said when contacted. He claimed that the case against the minister has been withdrawn.

Guwahati: Assam police have registered a case against Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain for allegedly raping and threatening a 24-year old married woman in Nagaon district, a senior police officer said on Friday.

Gohain has also filed complaints of blackmailing against the woman and her family, his officer on special duty Sanjiv Goswami said when contacted. He claimed that the case against the minister has been withdrawn.

Asked about it, Nagaon police station officer-in-charge Ananta Das said the woman had pleaded to withdraw the case in the court but the "case still stands, we will do our own investigation".

Nagaon Deputy Superintendent of Police (headquarter) Sabita Das said the case was registered against Gohain on 2 August after receiving a complaint at Nagaon police station.

"We have registered the case. The investigation has already begun and we will proceed as per law," she told PTI.

Das, however, refused to share any details about the case.

A senior official of Nagaon police station said that the case was registered last week bearing the number 2592/18.

"The FIR was registered under IPC sections 417 (cheating), 376 (rape) and 506 (criminal intimidation). We are investigating and have already noted the lady's statement," he said adding that the woman has refused a medical examination.

"The complaint says that the alleged incident took place seven to eight months ago. Both Gohain and the woman knew each other for a long time and the Union minister used to visit her home," the official said.

Gohain had allegedly committed the crime at the woman's home when her husband and other family members were not present, he said.

Asked if Gohain's arrest is imminent, the police official said, "We are probing now. If required, arrest will happen only after the probe is complete."

The Union minister did not answer the phone himself when called on his mobile phone. Goswami said the minister "will not speak to the media".

When asked about the alleged rape case, Goswami said that it has been withdrawn. "There is no case as of today and as of now."

When Nagaon police station was contacted, its officer-in-charge Ananta Das said the woman had pleaded to withdraw the case in the court two days of filing it.

"The case still stands and it cannot be withdrawn. We will do our own investigation," he said.
Assistant professor Mohammed Tarique, who led the seven-member team which conducted the audit, said the Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case was unfortunate, but all shelter homes inspected did not need such legal intervention.

For the past several months, a children's home in Bihar's Muzaffarpur has been at the centre of a storm over allegations that several girls living there were raped and tortured. On 5 August, several Opposition parties came together at Delhi's Jantar Mantar to condemn the crimes, and to seek a speedy investigation and trial in the matter.

The abuse of the inmates of the home was first brought to the notice of the Bihar government by a team of Mumbai's Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). The team members were from the institute's field action project 'Koshish', which seeks to address homelessness and destitution.

In an interview with Firstpost, assistant professor Mohammed Tarique, who led the seven-member team which conducted the audit, spoke about the state government's response to the report. He also responded to Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's statement that NGOs running such centres have been a "flaw in the system" and that the government will take over the administration of all children's homes over a period of time.

What has been the Bihar government's response to the findings and recommendations of the TISS team?

There were different kinds of recommendations for different categories of institutions (110 of them were inspected in all). In a few cases, major intervention was required. The state government called all district level officials of the social welfare department to Patna for a meeting, and shared the findings of the report with them. The principal secretary gave an assurance that the government is fully committed to the report, and will act on its recommendations. The government also called on the chairpersons of the Child Welfare Committees from all districts of the state to sensitise them about the issue.

The Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case was unfortunate, but all shelter homes inspected did not need such legal intervention.

Chief Minister Nitish Kumar recently announced the government's intention to phase out the practice of NGOs running children's homes. Do you agree with this proposal?

Personally, I do not think this will help much. The government's thinking behind such a move appears to be that if one approach did not work, another approach needs to be tried out. I believe that the issue is not so much who is running the institution; it's not that such instances of abuse are reported from all homes run by NGOs, while on the other hand, it is also possible that similar abuse may take place in homes run by the government as well. What is required in the long-term is a better system for monitoring institutions for children in need of care and protection  whether they are run by the government or by voluntary organisations.

The question is whether the government has the capacity to run so many homes by itself. For years, the accepted rationale has been that the government can create systems, while civil society organisations can assist it in running those systems, and in bringing into the picture a compassionate outlook required for such tasks. There are a lot of programmes in which NGOs are doing good work and assisting the government.

What happened in the case of the children's home in Muzaffarpur was that several mechanisms meant to ensure protection for the inmates failed. This was a very rare case, one in which a number of stakeholders in child protection become a part of the crime. It would not be correct to make any structural changes based on this case alone.

What actions can authorities under the Juvenile Justice Act take to prevent abuse of inmates of children's homes, and to ensure their welfare?

Often, the measures for child protection laid down in the law are not implemented in the way that they should be. In the Muzaffarpur case, it is not that various authorities had not visited the institution to inspect its condition. However, such authorities need to speak to the beneficiaries of the institution  whether it's the children, senior citizens or persons with disabilities, etc. It is very important to make users of the service a part of the evaluation process.

Going forward, what role will Koshish play in ensuring the welfare of children's homes in Bihar?

One of the recommendations that we had put forward was that there should be a set of guiding principles and values on the basis of which such institutions should be expected to run. The idea is that organisations which are invited to run homes for children in need of care and protection, or other vulnerable groups, should be required to agree to these principles. That is something we are in the process of developing now. This was a part of the mandate that was given to us at the very outset by the state government. But now that the government is thinking of running such institutions on its own, rather than allowing NGOs to run them, I do not know what will happen to this aspect.
From Rahul Gandhi launching Congress' campaign for Assembly election in Rajasthan, to Amit Shah visiting Kolkata amid TMC protests, here are the top stories for Saturday

Rahul Gandhi rally in Rajasthan

Congress president Rahul Gandhi will be visiting Rajasthan for the first time after becoming party president today. He will arrive in Jaipur at 1.30 pm, from where he will embark on a roadshow to Ramlila Maidan in Jaipur while interacting with people on the way. Rahul will arrive at Ramlila Maidan at 4 pm where he will address party workers and launch Congress campaign for the Assembly election in the state scheduled to take place in November. The focus of Rahul visit is also likely to be on improving party strength especially after reports of factionism affecting the party leadership. Rahul is expected to take feedback by meeting the office bearers of Congress's Rajasthan Congress, office bearers of District Congress Committees and workers as well as senior leaders. After addressing the rally in Ramlila Maidan, Rahul will visit the Govind Dev Ji temple.

Amit Shah in West Bengal

BJP president Amit Shah will be visiting Kolkata where he will be addressing a public meeting with party supporters and workers organised by BJP Yuva Morcha. Shah is expected to arrive at 11.35 am and will arrive at Meyo Road for the public meeting. On Saturday, Trinamool Congress has also announced protest rallies over the National Register for Citizens in Assam. On Friday, TMC workers put up posters saying 'BJP leave Bengal' in an around the venue for Shah's meeting. Shah, however, seemed elated on Friday with TMC opposition. While speaking at a TV programme, the BJP president thanked TMC for promoting his visit. He said that thanks to TMC more people are going to participate in the meeting.

PM Narendra Modi in Mumbai

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in Mumbai to take part in the convocation ceremony of IIT Bombay. The ceremony begins at 1 am.

Kerala floods

Kerala has been pounded due to heavy downpour, resulting in the swelling of rivers and flooding in several parts. According to reports, sections of highways collapsed and homes were swept away in severe flooding in more than half of Kerala, after days of incessant rains left nearly 54,000 people homeless and killed at least 29. Red alert issued in 11 of the states 14 districts of more heavy rains to come.

Rishi Kapoor calls British Airways racist

Veteran actor Rishi Kapoor has called British Airways racist after an Indian passenger and his family were allegedly asked to de-board a flight in the UK. He said his own experience with the airline once was not pleasant. He tweeted:

Racist. Dont fly British Airways. We cannot be kicked around. Sad to hear about the Berlin child incident. I stopped flying British Airways after the cabin crew were rude and had attitude not once but twice even after being a first class passenger. Fly Jet Airways or Emirates. There is dignity."

Coal India Limited (CIL) results

CIL, the worlds largest miner of the fuel, will put out its first-quarter earnings update on Saturday. CIL has seen its profit decline some 60% in the last six financial years, the Business Standard reported on Friday.

IOC results

Indian Oil Corp (IOC), Indias biggest refiner, will push out first-quarter results on Saturday. IOC has ordered six million barrels of US crude for delivery from November to January, a company official told Reuters earlier this week. The fuel retailer is scouting for alternatives to Iranian oil ahead of looming American sanctions.

Apple Car

After plenty of to and fro, it now appears that Apple could be planning to develop its own car after all. The clue? Apple has reportedly rehired its former VP of Mac hardware, Doug Field who returns after a short stint with EV maker Tesla. While Apple has confirmed that it has hired Field, the electronics giant refused to give out details about his new role in the company, making the project (earlier referred to as Project Titan) even more suspicious. During his short run at Tesla, Field was in charge of vehicle production and engineering, a role that CEO Elon Musk took over after the company failed to meet production targets.

Parker Solar Probe

US space agency, NASA will launch its Parker Solar Probe that will be headed to our nearest star, the Sun. The mission will see the probe blast off from Cape Canaveral in Florida or Saturday passes Venus and then towards the Sun. Once there, the probe will loop around the Sun until it dives and disintegrates into the Sun's atmosphere. The Parker Solar Probe will also be the fastest man-made object in history that is expected to travel at a speed of 4,30,000 miles per hour.

India vs England, 2nd Test, Day 3

India and England will battle it out on the third day of the ongoing second Test at Lord's, with the host team in complete control of the proceedings. After being asked to bat by England, the Indian batting order once again capitulated against the swinging deliveries on a day that witnessed intermittent showers, getting bowled out for 107. Virat Kohli and Co will be under immense pressure to make up for their batting disaster with a commanding performance with the ball when they take the field on Saturday.

Today in Premier League

With the fixture between Manchester United and Leicester City kicking off the 2018-19 season of the Premier League, top sides such as Tottenham Hotspurs, Chelsea and Everton start off their campaigns against Newcastle, Huddersfield and Wolverhampton Wanderers respectively on Saturday. In the other fixtures for the day, Bournemouth are up against Cardiff City, while Watford and Fulham take on Brighton and Crystal Palace respectively.
Devendra Fadnavis earlier this week gave in-principle approval to a detailed project plan by Rally for Rivers for the revitalisation of the Waghari river in Yavatmal district.

Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis earlier this week gave in-principle approval to a detailed project plan by Rally for Rivers for the revitalisation of the Waghari river in Yavatmal district. The district, located in Maharashtra's Vidarbha region, has seen significant agrarian distress in the recent few years.

A Special Purpose Vehicle will be formed to execute the project with maximum efficiency.

The project will focus on supporting farmers with community micro-irrigation, tree-based agriculture, farm producer organisations (FPOs), market development and crop diversification, the release further said.

Jaggi Vasudev, the founder of Isha Foundation and the face of the 'Rally for Rivers' campaign, said, "In less than a year since the Rally for Rivers awareness generation phase culminated, the Maharashtra government has shown extraordinary commitment and interest in revitalising the state's rivers through plantation on riparian lands. It's heartening to see the speed and commitment with which the chief minister and forest minister of Maharashtra have approved the detailed project report for revitalisation of the Waghari river in Yavatmal, which is the epicentre of India's painful farmer suicide story.

A statement put by the Twitter handle of the chief minister's office said that the cost of the project is Rs 985 crore, and is expected to be completed in five years.

Hon Governor C. Vidyasagar Rao, CM @Dev_Fadnavis chaired a meeting to discuss project & proposal by @ishafoundation as a part of #RallyForRivers initiative on water conservation & river rejuvenation.@SadhguruJV ji, Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar and senior officials were present. pic.twitter.com/0q2IOnxtRY  CMO Maharashtra (@CMOMaharashtra) August 8, 2018

"This project aims to provide sustainable irrigation and better environment which will result into significant rise in the farm produce by farmers and their income," the statement further says.

The campaign 'Rally for Rivers' aims to create mass awareness and garner support of the people for a government policy on this issue. The Isha Foundation has collaborated with over 25 scientists and lawmakers, including Tamil Nadu Agricultural University, for this initiative.
Countering the Centre's push to hold simultaneous election, Chief Election Commissioner Om Prakash Rawat proposed holding one election a year as an alternative

Countering the Centre's push to hold simultaneous election, Chief Election Commissioner Om Prakash Rawat proposed holding one election a year as an alternative. He also said that the move would also prevent violations of Model Code of Conduct on social media, as the social media platforms can be ordered to not run any poll-related news 48 hours before the elections.

In an interview with CNBC-Awaaz, Rawat also highlighted that conducting simultaneous elections will require a huge manpower, especially security forces.

For some months, the issue of holding simultaneous elections across the country has been a raging debate with a stakeholder discussion called for the One Nation, One Poll proposal by the Law Commission of India. The Law Commission and NITI Aayog have often repeated that simultaneous elections are somehow acceptable because "elections to Lok Sabha and all state Legislative Assemblies were held simultaneously between 1951 and 1967".

While the BJP mooted the simultaneous elections proposal, Opposition has repeatedly denounced the Law Commission's agenda. Most Opposition parties flayed the concept of simultaneous elections, terming it as "anti-democratic" and "unconstitutional".

Rawat had earlier said that it would take a long time to get the legal framework for holding Lok Sabha and Assembly elections together ready. "We cannot put the cart before the horse. Logistical issues are subservient to legal framework. Unless legal framework is in place, we don't have to talk about anything else because legal framework will take a lot of time, making constitutional amendment to (changing) the law, all the process will take time," he remarked.

If simultaneous elections to the Lok Sabha and state Assemblies are held in 2019, the Election Commission will require nearly 24 lakh EVMs, double the number required to hold only the Parliamentary polls. During their discussion with the Law Commission on 16 May on the issue of holding simultaneous polls, the Election Commission officials had said they would need around Rs 4,500 crore to buy nearly 12 lakh additional electronic voting machines (EVMs) and an equal number voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines.

"There are nearly 10 lakh polling stations across the country. Since EVMs and paper-trail machines are deployed in every polling station, the requirement is for 10 lakh EVMs and an equal number of paper-trail machines. In addition, 20 percent of the machines are kept in the reserve. That comes to two lakh. Therefore, to hold the Lok Sabha polls in 2019, the EC needs 12 lakh EVMs and an equal number of VVPAT machines," explained an Election Commission functionary.

With inputs from agencies
Human rights activists have alleged that government forces are defying standard operating procedures (SOPs) to control protesting mobs in Kashmir.

Srinagar: Human rights activists have alleged that government forces are defying standard operating procedures (SOPs) to control protesting mobs in Kashmir by engaging in targeted use of bullets and pellets instead of less lethal means of crowd control like water cannons or rubber bullets.

The police have recently listed out the different means under the SOPs that need to be followed, but rights activists and protesters say that they have not adhered to the guidelines. The SOPs were brought to the notice of State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) in July this year in response to a complaint filed by human rights activist and chairman of International Forum for Justice and Human Rights, Mohammad Ahsan Untoo, who had blamed the forces for violation of the SOPs.

Although the matter of implementation of SOPs was also brought to the notice of Jammu and Kashmir High Court by the High Court Bar Association earlier as well, the government refrained from disclosing the SOPs in response to the complaint with SHRC. Relying to the questions about the SOPs earlier in the Parliament, the Union government had held that disclosures cant be shared as they fall under the domain of information which was classified in nature.

As per the SOPs, the authorities are required to use water cannons and rubber bullets to disperse the crowd and only open fire in case someone from the mob fires on them. Many people have died in protests at encounter sites after they were fired upon.

The SOPs specify the seven steps that need to be taken to control the crowd. Starting from the use of persuading protesters to desist from violence, it has been noted that if the crowd fails to disperse, water cannons should be used.

In the third stage, if the crowd still persists with the protest and violence, the forces have been authorised to use PAVA chilli shells and tear gas shells. In the fourth stage, the mob has to be baton charged while in the fifth and sixth stage, rubber and plastic bullets and pellet guns have to be used. It is only after all these measures have failed and the forces have been fired upon with bullets or grenades by the protesters that bullets are supposed to be used.

But Untoo said that instead of using water cannons or other crowd control means, the forces turn to the use of bullets and directly turn to the application of seventh stage of mob control".

As per the disclosures made by the police before the SHRC, it has also been noted that these SOPs have to be followed by both the police and central armed force personnel (CAFP), including the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF).

Inspector General of CRPF, Ravideep Sahi, said that they are following the SOPs regularly. We are always following the SOPs. Wherever there is a law and order situation, be it in city or elsewhere, we follow these SOPs.

He added that the forces are being appraised about the SOPs. As and when anybody is posted in the Valley, we go for pre-induction training of four weeks and thereafter, there is a periodic law and order training of one week in which CRPF and police personnel jointly participate, he said.

However, president of the Pellet Victim Welfare Trust, Mohammad Ashraf Wani, said that the forces are directly firing at protesting crowds and have used pellets, leaving many youths blind. He said that in August 2016, after he had been protesting over the civilian killings following the death of Hizbul Mujahideen militant commander Burhan Muzafar Wani, he was shot in his chest during a peaceful protest in Pulwama.

Later, he said that on 31 October, 2016, a group of security force personnel turned to indiscriminate use of pellets at his village in Rohmoo, where he was shot in the eyes. The forces came and even entered our houses and fired pellets. I have undergone seven surgeries and my vision has faded after I received the pellets, he said.

In its report on Kashmir over the 2016 unrest by the Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), an international rights group, it was said that not only did security forces fail to follow international standards on the use of force, they also failed to adhere to domestic recommendations made in Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) on dealing with public agitations with non-lethal measures,' issued in 2012 by the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD).

Every protester and bystander interviewed by PHR stated that security forces gave no warning before firing on demonstrations, both with pellets and bullets, as is required by the SOPs. The SOPs state that the crowd must be warned before the use of force, both non-lethal and lethal as far as [it is] practicable, the report noted.
It's in the absolute interest of the protection of fundamental rights of the victims of triple talaq that the act be criminalised.

The debate on the triple talaq bill has been quite detailed, and even questioned the basis of criminalising the practice. It is therefore incumbent to settle the case for criminality of the practice of triple talaq.

Any legal system differentiates between civil wrongs and criminal wrongs. Civil wrongs are usually punishable with fines while criminal wrongs are punishable with imprisonment.

In crimes, the prosecution is carried on by the State, while in civil wrongs, the case is fought only by the affected party. The State takes it upon itself to prosecute the crimes because these wrongs are at such a pedestal that they question the very authority of the State, and as such, are disruptive against society.

Triple talaq as a practice seeks to marginalise one set of the population and institutionalises the concept of dehumanising half of humanity. Therefore, if half of the society is at the suffering end of this, which has already been held as unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, there is simply no legal impediment in according criminal culpability to it. In fact, it is in the absolute interest of the protection of fundamental rights of the victims of this practice that it be criminalised.

Having settled the question of criminality, the issue of the process of criminalisation through the current bill can be looked at. The government recently agreed to accommodate the Opposition's demand of allowing only the victim and the blood relatives to file a complaint in case a crime of triple talaq takes place. This goes against the basic conception of criminal law. As has been said above, crimes are wrongs against the society, which naturally means that any person can be the complainant and not necessarily only the affected parties. This also means that this provision in its current form is also up for a judicial challenge, whenever that may arise.

The second change comes in the form of making the offence compoundable. This means that the victim and the perpetrator can be allowed to arrive at a compromise even after charges have been framed in the case. As opposed to the general thinking, this primarily doesn't open a window for a compromise but will act as a tool for exploitation and blackmail. Since, triple talaq is not a valid form of talaq, whenever it is pronounced, it doesn't invalidate the marital bond between the husband and the wife. The husband, therefore, knows that the wife has the power to enter a compromise and compound the offence, which may lead to blackmail and exploitation of the wife. This naturally leads us to a conclusion that the power to compound should only vest with the State, as is the case with prosecution.

The third change, which mandated this to be a non-bailable offence, was certainly going overboard the confines of theories of punishment. The Cabinet has now agreed to accord powers to the magistrate to grant the accused bail, even if we continue to term it a non-bailable offence, the nomenclature hardly mattering because in effect it has been reduced to a bailable offence.

Legal history is witness to the fact that all social reform legislations, which have, while concerning themselves with abolition of regressive practices, always entailed a criminal liability along with their enactment. It is relevant to highlight examples of regressive practices like untouchability, dowry etc., which were confronted by the legislature with criminal sanctions, and only then did we see a steady decline in the saturation of these practices being experienced in society.

Society is always comfortable in strengthening status quo; at such times, it becomes necessary for the legislature to adopt an aggressive stand and use law as an instrument of social change, rather than be complicit in the state of status quo.

Hence, two of the three amendments as agreed by the government to the demands of Opposition do not convey a clear signal on the stand of the government on progressive policies.

The author is an assistant professor at Maharashtra National Law University, Mumbai
Literature, rather Karunanidhi's reading of select Tamil texts, provided the rationale for his social justice and federal concerns

Two phrases figured in almost all the tributes paid to M Karunanidhi in the days following his death: 'social justice', and 'Tamil literary enthusiast'. This is not surprising. Karunanidhi took himself seriously as a writer and remained one till nearly the very end of his life. Fittingly, his grandson Aditya added a pen to his coffin.

Karunanidhi wrote almost daily for the DMKs newspaper, Murasoli. His letters to his brothers-in-arms are legion. They were exercises in political communication: sometimes dense with information and argument, at other times, rhetorical in their affirmation of political and cultural truisms. Further they helped to constitute a veritable Dravidian brotherhood, ostensibly irrespective of caste and creed; addressed every morning by their elder brother and leader, the party faithful were assured of their place in the party and in the larger world of politics.

He is of course best known as a writer for the stage and film. But his writings straddled several genres  poetry, short fiction, historical and social novels, literary essays, pithy journalistic writings In his youth he had acted as well. His musical knowledge was profound. Not for nothing did the irrepressible MR Radha, one of Tamil Nadus greatest actors and dramatists bestow on him the title, Kalaignar which could be variously translated as artist, man of letters, a lover of the arts.

Karunanidhis writing was not incidental to his politics. His writerly personality defined his political selfhood in important ways: for one, his literary and cultural texts, which were chiefly on the Sangam corpus of poems, were celebrations of Tamil civilisational worth. His ability to draw on these poems, and to quote verbatim from them in the middle of a political or social speech, established him as a worthy inheritor of a past that was not sullied by caste and brahminical Hinduism. His obvious relish in reading both ancient and contemporary Tamil texts, and the alacrity with which he expressed this relish, marked him out as a mentor, an inspiring example for fellow Tamils.

And he took his role as mentor seriously: consider for instance the very useable cultural template that he put in place to enable Tamils to recognise and recall their past. The template included the second century ethical Jaina text, the Thirukural; poems of love and valour from the Sangam corpus, which had no place for 'varna' and 'jati' divisions; and the Jain epic, Silappadikaram (The Story of an Anklet) which valourised the chaste wife and the gifted courtesan in equal measure. Karunanidhi not only quoted from these texts time and again, but during his first term as Chief Minister, ensured that they lived on in the present in a visceral sense. Thiruvalluvar, author of the Thirukural was iconised, in stone and print. He has been memorialised in Kanyakumari, at lands end. His purported likeness appears on all Tamil textbooks. A monument named after him and built in an archaic style sits in the middle of Chennai city. Quotations from the Kural were  and are  featured in all buses run by the Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation. Kannagi, the chaste wife of the Silappadikaram has likewise been immortalised  she stands, a tall black statue, along with Tamil writers, leaders and epic characters, whose statutes dot the Chennai coastline. An art gallery in the ancient seaport of Poompuhar depicts scenes from the Silappadikaram.

One other significant development in this context was the setting up of the Tamil Nadu Textbook Society  to render the Tamil language an effective means of modern pedagogy and communication. Writing and translation projects were commissioned on a sizeable scale and an enviable number of books in the Tamil language, on diverse topics, ranging from atomic physics to psychology were published. This was entirely on Karunanidhis initiative, something that we were reminded of, when over 200 books published in the 1970s and 1980s were on display in the city recently.

The idea behind these projects, one might surmise, was to communicate a sense of Tamilness  as a symbol of social unity, and bring into horizontal comradeship people who, otherwise, were divided along lines of caste, class, and faith. Tamil was thus secularised in that to consciously identify oneself as a Tamil person was to lay claims to a selfhood that was free of caste and all things to do with the Aryan north.

Also see: As DMK chief Karunanidhi's life slipped away, his supporters held on to hope and a prayer

Thus it was that generations of Tamil families chose to identify themselves in and through linguistic markers. For instance, a substantial number of children born into diverse non-Brahmin and Dalit communities in the heyday of the Dravidian movement, from the 1950s and well into the 1970s were given secular names  that is, they were not named, as is the usual custom after tutelary or family deities, nor were they given the names of their (caste) forbears. They were named after the elements, birds and plants, characters in Sangam literature, or were named after the Sangam poets. Many a child got a Tamil prefix to its name  Tamilselvi, Tamilarasan and so on. Interestingly, the question of names was avidly discussed by Periyar and his self-respecters as well  the decision to drop caste suffixes, and to adopt names like Russia or Mayday or Bernard Shaw, which signified progress and the modern spirit were crucial aspects of that self-transformation that was underway in Tamil society from as early as the late 1920s.

The Tamilness, avidly expounded by Karunanidhi and communicated far and wide by his party did not and could not address caste or gender inequality and discrimination in a substantive sense. While Dalits enthusiastically embraced the idea of a universal Tamil identity (and the DMK, at least in the 1950s and 1960s), they yet had to reckon with the violent play of caste in their everyday lives; just as how a vast sections of caste Hindus, who claimed Tamilness, remained bound to their caste selves. Women were offered limited points of access to this universal Tamilness: they could feature as wives, courtesans or as self-sacrificing sisters and mothers. More often than not, and this is evident in Karunanidhis writings as well, they were objectified, willfully sexualised, and made to bear the burden of Tamil honour and identity.

But that a political leader and party attempted to make a language bear the burden of doing away with social inequity is a fact worth pondering  perhaps an oblique tribute to the imagination. This is, perhaps, why Karunanidhis literary and cultural legacy cannot be separated from his politics. Literature, rather his reading of select Tamil texts from the long centuries before the modern era, provided the rationale for his social justice and federal concerns. Literature also infused the demotic and energetic political mobilisation that his party achieved well into the 1970s with a measure of play and pleasure.

The legacy of this Tamilness lives on and marks selfhood in fundamental ways  as is evident in all struggles that challenge the overweening authority of the Union government. But it does not always and consistently bear the weight of social justice.
Fifty-five people have so far been evacuated from flood hit areas in Kerala by the navy in its 'Operation Madad' to assist the state government, following heavy rains and release of excess water from many dams.

Kochi: Fifty-five people have so far been evacuated from flood hit areas in Kerala by the navy in its 'Operation Madad' to assist the state government, following heavy rains and release of excess water from many dams.

The operation, launched by Southern Naval Command (SNC) since Thursday, continued on Friday too.

Two teams with Gemini boats commenced rescue operations at Kalpetta, Wayanad and at Panmarum (13 kilometres south of Mananthavady), where they evacuated 55 stranded people till 12 noon on Friday, a defence press release said.

Another team was airlifted by a Seaking Helicopter to Kalpetta with all gear and two electric generators, which was requested by Wayanad district collector.

Three additional diving teams have also been dispatched to Aluva in coordination with the deputy collector for utilisation by the district collector in affected areas to augment the rescue, the release said.

One of the teams is likely to be deployed at Idukki.

This is in addition to the two diving teams on standby at Aluva for relief operations since Thursday in anticipation of flooding expected in Ernakulam and Aluva, it said.

In all four diving teams have been deployed in Wayanad and five at Aluva.

One contingent of 50 men, fully equipped for any kind of assistance, has been positioned at Naval Armament Depot, Aluva.

In addition, the Naval Hospital, INHS Sanjivani is ready to render medical aid as required and all preparations towards setting up community kitchen by naval personnel from INS Venduruthy have been made, in case the need arises.

Naval helicopters are also being deployed to ferry divers, power tools, axes and relief material to flooded areas to augment ongoing relief operations, it said.

Earlier, a defence spokesperson said the Navy had put SNC on alert in view of the rising water level in Periyar river in Kerala and possible inundation of parts of Wellingdon Island, surrounded by the backwaters of Kochi.

He said the navy has made preparations to meet any situation arising out of possible inundation of the island, said to be the largest artificial island in India, following opening of shutters of three dams of Cheruthoni, Idamalayar and Kakki.

The Wellingdon Island, part of Kochi city, houses strategic facilities, including SNC and Cochin Port Trust.

The water level will rise in downstream districts with the released excess water from the dams reaching there.

The spokesperson said three contingents (50 men each) from INS Dronacharya, Venduruthy and Naval Air station INS Garuda were ready to be deployed as and when required, besides a medical team from INHS Sanjivani.
The Kerala floods have caused widespread devastation in the state. So far 29 people have lost their lives in the heavy rains since 8 August.

New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday expressed concern over the flood situation in Kerala and urged party workers in the rain-battered state to help those in need.

He said the unprecedented rainfall has wrecked havoc in the southern state, destroying property and forcing thousands to abandon their houses. "Unprecedented rainfall has created havoc in Kerala, destroying property and forcing thousands to abandon their homes. I urge each and every Congress worker in Kerala to step up and help those in need. My prayers and thoughts are with the people of Kerala in this difficult time," he said on Twitter.

The floods in Kerala have caused widespread devastation in the state, killing many people. So far 29 people have lost their lives in the heavy rains since 8 August and over 50,000 persons have been shifted to relief camps.
The Madras high court on Friday said it is high time the Ministry for Women and Child Development is bifurcated to create another ministry in view of increasing incidents of child abuse.

Chennai: The Madras high court on Friday said it is high time the Ministry for Women and Child Development is bifurcated to create another ministry in view of increasing incidents of child abuse.

Justice N Kirubakaran asked the assistant solicitor general to get instructions from the Centre on why there cannot be separate ministries for women development and child development.

He observed that single parenting can be dangerous for society as a child needs the affection of both the mother and the father. One cannot compensate the other and lack of such affection and love might cause behavioural changes in the child which may turn against the society, he observed.

Justice Kirubakaran made the observation while hearing a contempt petition filed by Girija Raghavan against the Ministry for Women and Child Development for not obeying the court's 16 September 2015, order.

In the 2015 order, the high court had suggested that the ministry should consider castration of those abusing or raping children, in addition to punishment under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, the IPC and the Juvenile Justice Act.

In the order, Justice Kirubakaran had also directed the Union government to instruct all state governments to conduct massive awareness programmes on crimes against children that come under the POCSO Act.

The present contempt plea was moved after the Centre failed to implement the directions.

Referring to a recent case of sexual abuse of a minor girl by several men in the city, which came to light after she shared her ordeal with her sister, the court asked, "What kind of parents are they to be unaware of what is happening to their child?"

Justice Kirubakaran also asked the Assistant Solicitor General to get instructions from the Union ministry on whether it has issued any guidelines for spending the Nirbhaya fund being allotted to the state governments.

The court posted the plea to 17 August.
Three persons, including one affiliated to a right-wing outfit, were arrested on Friday, with the Maharashtra police saying that it had recovered a large quantity of explosives that were to be used for carrying out blasts at various places in the state.

Mumbai: Three persons, including one affiliated to a right-wing outfit, were arrested on Friday, with the Maharashtra police saying that it had recovered a large quantity of explosives that were to be used for carrying out blasts at various places in the state.

The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of Maharashtra, which carried out the arrests on the basis of a specific information, said it was investigating whether those arrested had any connections with the killings of journalist Gauri Lankesh and rationalists Narendra Dabholkar and Govind Pansare.

Vaibhav Raut (40), Sharad Kalaskar (25) and Sudhanwa Gondhalekar (39) were arrested following raids that began last night in the Palghar district and spanned to Pune, the police said.

A court in Mumbai remanded all three in ATS' custody till 18 August on Friday evening.

ATS chief Atulchandra Kulkarni said the accused had stored a huge cache of explosive materials, and they would be questioned about all cases where involvement of right-wing extremists is suspected.

"We will question them regarding all detected and undetected cases, including Dabholkar, Pansare and Gauri Lankesh (murder) cases," he said.

The ATS said it zeroed in on the accused after it received a tip off that some persons were planning to carry out "acts of conspiracy" at many places across the state.

"We also received information that these persons had stored vast quantities of arms and ammunition in places such as Satara, Nallasopara and Pune. We were able to get their phone numbers and thus, ascertained their identities," the Additional Public Prosecutor Sunil Gonsalves told the sessions court in Mumbai while seeking the accused's custody.

Earlier in the day, a police officer also said that Raut allegedly ran 'Hindu Govansh Raksha Samiti', a little-known pro-cow protection outfit, in Nallasopara.

While his purported social media account mentioned that he was associated with the right-wing Sanatan Sanstha, the outfit on Friday denied that Raut was its member.

According to the ATS, the raids were conducted at Raut's house in Bhandar Aali in Nallasopara West and at a nearby shop which he owned, and the same led to the seizure of 20 crude bombs, two gelatin sticks, 4 electronic and 22 non-electronic detonators, 150 grams explosive powder, two bottles labelled 'poison', batteries, soldering equipment, and a bomb circuit drawing.

According to the police, Raut is an estate agent, Kalaskar works in a private firm, while Gondhalekar runs his own business.

The three had been under police surveillance for more than two weeks, said another ATS official, adding that all three seemed to be "trained for sabotage activities".

Sleuths are probing if they were going to carry out any terrorist act ahead of Bakri Eid festival this month, and Independence Day, he said.

As they were in possession of explosive materials, it seemed that they were not mere "footsoliders" of the extremist "gang" they were members of, the officer said.

The ATS also said that while going through their mobile phone records, and SIM card activities, it realised that some SIM cards were being used by multiple people.

"It hinted that all these persons were in some conspiracy," the probe agency said.

The ATS has booked the three under IPC section 120 (B) (criminal conspiracy), provisions of the Explosives Act as well as under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) Sections 16 (punishment for terrorist act), 18 (conspiracy for terrorist act) and 20 (being a member of terrorist gang.)

While remanding them in ATS custody on Friday, the court observed that prima facie it appeared that the three accused were part of a conspiracy.

"The allegations made against the accused are of very serious nature. Several incriminating articles have been recovered from their possession and prima facie, the accused appear to be part of a conspiracy," the court said.

It also took into account that the ATS needed the custody to ascertain where the arrested accused had received training, where had the bombs come from, and if they were part of any terrorist organisation.

Defence lawyers urged the court to remand the accused in judicial custody, saying that it was likely that they would be tortured by ATS officers.

In court, Kalaskar and Gondhalekar alleged that they were assaulted by ATS officers.

The court, however, noted that the medical examination of all accused did not show any external injuries.

Judge Adkar then directed the ATS to take the accused persons for another medical examination and submit its report on 13 August.
Maratha Kranti Morcha (MKM), one of the organisations spearheading the agitation for reservation for the Marathas, on Friday said its members were not responsible for the violence in Aurangabad and Pune on Thursday.

Mumbai: Maratha Kranti Morcha (MKM), one of the organisations spearheading the agitation for reservation for the Marathas, on Friday said its members were not responsible for the violence in Aurangabad and Pune on Thursday.

While protesters ransacked offices of several companies at Waluj industrial area near Aurangabad, Pune district collector's office was also vandalised.

MKM convener Shantaram Kunjil on Friday said in Pune, that the organisation will pay the cost of shattered glass panes and light bulbs at the Pune collector's office.

The Chamber of Marathwada Industries and Agriculture (CMIA) on Friday raised the issue of violence and losses suffered by factory owners at Waluj.

MKM convener from Aurangabad, Vinod Patil, said local people who depend on the industry for livelihood could not indulge in such acts.

"Outside anti-social elements" who sneaked into the agitation were responsible for the vandalism, he claimed.

The rioters were not even from the Maratha community, he said.

Kunjil, on the other hand, blamed the rioting on factory owners not paying workers their wages on time.

However, another MKM leader told reporters in Pune that henceforth the agitation will be "by peaceful means", through relay sit-in hunger strikes at government offices.

Kunjil announced that on 15 August, all Maratha families in the state will not "light kitchen fire" (will not cook food) by way of penance.

Both Patil and Kunjil demanded that the government withdraw the cases lodged against protesters who had not indulged in violence.

Violence was provoked by some outside elements to defame the MKM which had taken out peaceful protest marches at 58 places across the state to press the quota demand in the past, Kunjil alleged.

He also claimed so far 31 people from the community had committed suicide to press the quota demand.

Earlier, CMIA office bearer Prasad Kokil alleged that protesters beat up security guards at Waluj MIDC (Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation) area, and vandalised offices and industrial units of 60 big and 20 small companies.

He said he could not understand why the units were targeted, and asked how would investment come to the area if such incidents happen, and should the industry shift to some other place.

Some delegates of foreign companies were present at MIDC when the violence broke out, which could send out bad message, he said.

At a meeting on Friday, CMIA also resolved not to give jobs to those people who had indulged in rioting.
Over 30 lakh farmers in drought-hit Marathwada region of Maharashtra are yet to receive payout under Pradhan Mantri Pik Vima Yojana (PMPVY) crop insurance scheme

Lakhs of farmers in Marathwada region of Maharashtra are yet to receive payout from insurance companies even though drought led to poor yields in the region. And even among those who received their payouts, the amounts were paltry sums like Rs 40, Rs 70 or Rs 100; amounts often lesser than the premiums paid.

In 2017, 40-year-old Anil Chandane, a farmer from Soakora village in Osmanabad district cultivated soybean in his 2.5 acres of farm. From May 2017 till the Kharif season ended in November-December 2017, he spent Rs 40,000 towards tilling the land, buying and sowing seeds, and to occasionally remove weed from the farm.

He also insured his crop under the Pradhan Mantri Pik Vima Yojana (PMPVY) paying a premium of Rs 830 per hectare (one hectare equals roughly to 2.5 acres). The Marathwada region always suffers from either droughts or unseasonal rain, hailstorm or pest attacks. Hence we make sure to secure cash crops like soybean or cotton under PMPVY," he says.

His fears turned real as drought hit the Marathwada region in 2017. The yield per acre was below 10 quintals; in good rains it crosses 50 quintals. But despite such a low yield, Chandane was not listed for a payout under PMPVY.

He is not alone though. There over 800 famers from Sarola village in Osmanabad taluka who have not received payout. Surprisingly, 72 villages in the taluka have not received payout under the scheme.

Ravindra Sonawane, president of Osmanabad district of Swabhimani Shetkari Sanghatana, said, Not a single farmer in the villages uner Lohara taluka have been selected for payout. However, farmers under Tuljapur taluka have got a payout."

Sonawande informs that both the talukas share border. "How much difference there would be in terms of rain and thus harvest last year? he asked.

The curious case of insurance payouts

If the case of the Tuljapur and Lohara talukas appear to be an anomaly, data from the Department of Agriculture, Pune, shows that in the eight districts which fall under Marathwada region, over 34 lakh farmers of the 65 lakh farmers who paid premium under PMPVY to insure various crops, received payout under the scheme. The number of farmers who didn't receive payout in Marathwada is over 30 lakh.

Farmers in Marathwada cultivate soybean in 40 percent cultivable land whereas cotton is grown in 35 percent. According to a study conducted by Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economic, which partnered with Central government to study agrarian crisis in Marathwada and Vidarbha, both cash crops ensure income. Hence, farmers tend to opt for insurance for these two crops.

In Beed district, which saw 12.4 lakh farmers  highest in the state  paying premium for crop insurance under PMPVY, only 5.3 lakh farmers received payout from the Reliance General Insurance Company Limited, which handles crop insurance in the district under the scheme. Over 57 percent farmers are yet to be receive any compensation.

However, in Osmanabad district , of the 11.65 lakh farmers who paid premium under PMPVY, only 6.49 lakh received payout. Over 5 lakh farmers who sought payout from the United India Insurance Company Pvt Ltd, which offers agriculture insurance in the district, haven't received anything yet.

District Participated farmers Farmers who received payout Farmers who didn't get payout Latur 8,47,075 2,55,438 59,1637 Hingoli 2,53,016 76,628 1,76,388 Jalna 8,49,125 5,56,292 2,92,833 Aurangabad 4,08,643 2,79,913 1,28,730 Osmanabad 11,65,620 6,48,868 5,16,752 Nanded 10,40,617 7,43,643 2,96,974 Beed 12,41,690 5,31,867 7,09,823 Parbhani 7,00,041 3,88,966 3,11,075 Nanded 10,40,617 7,43,643 2,96,974 Beed 12,41,690 5,31,867 7,09,823 Total 65,05,827 34,81,635 30,24,192

Paltry sums paid

The insurance companies, however, claim that they have paid in 90 percent of the claims received till 30 July 2018. But just how much was the payment?

Puja More, activist in Beed district, said, 2,200 farmers in Ganeshlimb village who don't have loans had paid premiums for cotton, sesame, onions and other crops. The payout they received is less than the premium paid. A few farmers have got Rs 40, Rs 70. Some 300 farmers have got Rs 100 as insurance payout. Last year 70 percent cotton got attacked by pink bollworm pest and that is well known. This is making a joke of farmers's woes."

Faults in scheme?

When asked about why farmers are getting payout lesser than the premium pad, and some times as low as Rs 100, Sachindra Pratap Singh, Commissioner, Agriculture Department, Pune, said, The average of the production of the last five years is considered as threshold. Farmers current production is compared with this threshold. Amount of the rate of that deficit is given as insurance."

He added, We have clubbed four circles together. If one circle has less produce and other three have better produce. In that case the threshold is higher and the circle with lower produce will not get payout. And if two circles have lower produce and two have general harvest then the threshold will be lower and all four including those who have produced average harvest would get a payout.

Sonawane accuses officials of Agriculture Department of favouring the insurance companies. "Insurance companies manage agriculture department officials who show the harvest of farmers above the threshold. If farmers don't fall in the category to be paid and they don't claim. Insurance companies don't have to pay money to farmers. The fact is almost all farmers have suffered losses last years due to droughts, unseasonal rain and hailstorm.

Thus, the five insurance companies paid 95 percent of the claims but almost half of the farmers who paid insurance have not received a payout.

Anil Lomate, another farmer from Kajla village in Osmanabad who like over 400 farmers from his village have not got a payout, said, The harvest quality and quantity of the last year was too low, and hence we couldn't get good MSP either. We were hoping to get at least Rs 15,000-20,000 from the insurance companies so that we could till the land, buy seeds, sow and buy fertiliser for this year. Having no choice, we had to go to banks or private lenders for loans for this work.

He also added, Because we had no money we used soybean seeds that were at home. The capacity of homegrown seeds is lower than those available at shops. So, we will be bearing those losses as well. Now we don't think opting for insurance under this scheme is a viable option.

Sachindra Pratap Singh, commissioner, agriculture department, Pune, said, "If farmers have complaints they should write to us about their grievances and we will solve them."
Narendra Modi on Saturday addressed the convocation ceremony of IIT-Bombay and said that the success of the IITs led to the creation of numerous engineering colleges.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday addressed the 56th annual convocation ceremony at IIT-Bombay and said that the success of the IITs led to the creation of numerous engineering colleges around the country. These colleges were inspired by IITs, and this led to India becoming one of the world's largest pools of technical manpower, Modi said.

Lauding the institutions, the prime minister said that the nation is proud of what the IITs have achieved. He said the IITs have built 'Brand India' globally and they did this over a period of time. "Today, the IITs are are at the forefront of some of the best startups in India, which in turn are at the forefront of solving so many national problems. IITs conceptualised to contribute to nation-building through use of technology," he added.

IITs have built #BrandIndia globally. Today they are at the forefront of some of the best startups in India: PM Shri @narendramodi https://t.co/jUAUBwn41D  BJP (@BJP4India) August 11, 2018

The prime minister also said that a large number of IIT students built the information technology system in India "click-by-click", and now, the country has become the destination for IT development. India is emerging as a hub for startups, he said, while reminding the students that the "biggest corporations of today were the startups of yesterday".

India has become the destination for IT development. Do not ever give up and you will succeed: PM @narendramodi Watch at https://t.co/sTmEdiZszx  BJP LIVE (@BJPLive) August 11, 2018

Innovation and new technology will decide future direction of development, in which IITs will play an important role, he said, adding that IIT-Bombay is one of the institutions working for new technologies for a 'New India'.

Underscoring the importance of technology, he said 5G broadband, artificial intelligence, blockchain and machine learning will play a key role in smart manufacturing and building smart cities.

IITs represent the diversity of India where students from different parts of the country and background merge in pursuit of knowledge and learning, the prime minister said.

India is improving its innovation ranking, Modi said, highlighting his government's initiatives in this regard. "The Atal Innovation Mission and Startup India have resulted in India having the second largest ecosystem in the world (for entrepreneurship promotion)," he said.

The prime minister said that "innovation" and "enterprise" are the foundation stones of making India a developed economy, and a long-term sustainable technology-led economic growth is possible on this foundation. Calling "innovation" the buzzword of the 21st Century, Modi said that any society which does not innovate will stagnate.

Modi also coined a new acronym for IITs, calling them 'India's Institutes for Transformation'. "Innovate in India, innovate for humanity," Modi urged youngsters.

"We must make India the most attractive destination for innovation and enterprise," the prime minister said and added that this cannot happen through government efforts alone. "The best ideas do not come in government buildings or fancy offices. They come in campuses like yours, from youngsters like you," Modi said.

With inputs from PTI
In an interview to ANI, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday addressed the issue of the National Register of Citizens (NRC).

In an interview to ANI, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday addressed the issue of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and said that 'no citizen of India will have to leave the country.'

Modi also took a dig at West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee for her remarks against the final draft of the Assam NRC. "Those who have lost faith in themselves, fear loss of popular support and lack faith in our institutions can use words like civil war,blood bath and desh ke tukde tukde. Evidently, they are disconnected from the pulse of the nation," ANI quoted him as saying.

"I want to assure the people that no citizen of India will have to leave the country. As per the due process, all possible opportunities will be given to get their concerns addressed," the prime minister also said.

The NRC revision has rocked Assam since the publication of its final draft on 30 July. Names of over 40 lakh people have been excluded from the draft NRC, which is touted to be a proof of Assamese identity.

Modi also spoke on the various incidents of crimes against women and incidents of lynching. "Even a single incident is one too many and deeply unfortunate. Everyone should rise above politics to ensure peace and unity in our society," he said in the interview to ANI.

On the Opposition's accusation that he was silent over such incidents, Modi said, "My party and I have spoken in clear words, on multiple occasions against such actions and such a mindset. It is all on record."

On the issue of the no-confidence motion during the monsoon session and the rift between BJP and its allies, Modi said that "the no-confidence motion in the Lok Sabha and the election for the deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha" were two events which were enough to provide answers on this issue.

"The outcome of these events should indicate which coalition is intact and which is falling apart. In fact, we got support even from those parties which are not our allies. BJP has consistently expanded (its) base over (the) recent years among people and welcomed more allies to NDA," he said.

On Rahul Gandhi hugging him in Lok Sabha, Modi said, "It is for you to judge whether it was a childish act or not. And if you are unable to decide, watch the wink and you will get the answer."

Modi also assured people that 'reservation is here to stay' when asked about whether the government was planning to do away with caste-based reservations.

The prime minister also spoke on BJP pulling out of its alliance with PDP in Jammu and Kashmir. "After the sad demise of Mufti sahab, there were hurdles in fulfilling those (peoples) expectations, that is why, without casting any aspersions, we opted out of power," ANI quoted him as saying.
A 35-year-old man was killed by Naxals in the Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh, after accusing him of being a police informer, a police official said

Raipur: A 35-year-old man was killed by Naxals in the Dantewada district of Chhattisgarh, after accusing him of being a police informer, a police official said on Saturday.

The deceased, identified as Lokesh Kartam, was attacked by Naxals late on Friday night at his house in Bade Gudra village under Kuakonda police station limits, the official said.

"As per the preliminary information, a group of armed Naxals stormed into Kartam's house and killed him with sharp weapons," Dantewada Additional Superintendent of Police Gorakhnath Baghel told PTI.

Soon after being informed about the incident, a police team was sent to the place this morning and the body was brought to the police station, he said.

"According to the villagers, the militants claimed that Kartam was working at the behest of police," Baghel said adding that the victim was not associated with the police in any way.

A case has been registered in this connection and a search operation has been launched in the area to trace the ultras, he added.

With this, Dantewada district has witnessed four incidents of Naxal-related attacks in the last three days.

These attacks are being viewed as Naxals' reaction to the death of their 15 colleagues in an encounter with security forces in neighbouring Sukma district on 6 August.

Two days after the encounter, naxals had torched two buses and a truck in Bhansi area of Dantewada after asking occupants of the vehicles to alight. Police had later recovered a human skeleton inside one of the charred buses.

In another incident on the same day, the engine of an empty rake of the Visakhapatnam-Kirandul passenger train derailed after Naxals uprooted railway tracks near Kamaloor railway station in Dantewada.

On 9 August, Maoists had torched a JCB machine, engaged in pipeline laying works, in Kuakonda area, while on Friday, they had set ablaze five empty trucks in Bacheli area of the district.
The exclusion of Ganga Paswan's family from the final draft of the Assam NRC has hit them hard.

Editor's Note: Of the 4 million who didn't make it to NRC, 2.48 lakh have been marked as 'D' voters. The Supreme Court has asked Assam government not to take any coercive action on those who are found to be without proper documents as required under recent National Register of Citizens. NRC, a product of Assam Accord, is expected to solve the fear of Bangladeshi immigrants that has been prevalent in the state for quite some time now. The Centre proposed in 1999 an updated NRC in Assam to solve the problem of "illegal immigration" and two pilot projects were conducted in Dhubri and Barpeta districts. But breaking out of a riot in Barpeta grounded the project. In 2005, when All Assam Student Union opposed the prime minister's visit to the state, tripartite talk between AASU, State government, and the Centre resulted in a decision to prepare a model for the NRC process, which was delayed yet again by over 5 years by the state government. It was only when Abhijeet Sharma of Assam Public Works (APW), an NGO, filed a writ petition in 2009 that the SC's direct intervention led to the start of NRC process in 2014. Firstpost will run a series which will feature 30 profiles in 30 days of those residents of Assam who have not been covered under the final draft of NRC which will decide if they continue to live in the state that they call 'home'.

***

Dibrugarh, Assam: On 30 July, Ganga Paswan  a 45-year-old domestic help in Assams Dibrugarhbroke out in a cold sweat after she found out that her name, along with those of the members of her family, was missing from the final draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC). She lives in Shantipara with her 50-year-old husband Raju, and two daughters.

Raju Paswan, who works as a daily wage labourer in Dibrugarh, had submitted all the required documents at the NRC Sewa Kendra in 2015 itself, the family claims.

Despite submitting all documents in 2015, our names were not there even in the first draft. We thought that the names will come in the final draft but they did not. We submitted all the documents along with our legacy but to no avail, says Ganga.

Originally hailing from Samastipur district in Bihar, Ganga moved to Dibrugarh in 1988 after getting married to Raju, whose family had been living in the state for over six decades.

According to the family, Rajus Hindi-speaking father came to Assam in 1952 looking for work. He, too, started working as a daily wage labourer in Dibrugarh. The family has settled near Shantipara in Dibrugarh since then. Many Hindi-speaking people in my locality are struggling to find their name in the final draft of NRC, says Ganga.

The exclusion of the family from the final draft of the NRC has hit them hard. The family claims it is facing harassment despite having voter ID cards, ration cards and all the other documents required to prove Indian citizenship. We are facing harassment because we, who are genuine Indian citizens, failed to make it to the final list, says Ganga adding that the legal processes affect her work as well. During the 2015 NRC process, I could not go to work for two days and my employers scolded me for that. We are poor people running our family by working every day. Its difficult for me to skip work.

We dont know what to do next, because even after having the required documents, our names didnt make the cut. We have to make fresh applications, which is tiring because it means repeating the entire process again. The NRC was designed to detect the illegal migrants. Why are genuine citizens like us being put through this? she asks.

My elder daughter Laxmi, 16, is in the 10th standard and will be appearing for her boards next year. The younger one, Saraswati, 5, has not even started school yet. Now, I am worried about my daughters, says Ganga. What will they do in the near future if their names are not there on the list? I wanted my daughters to study and have good jobs, but now I worry about our survival, she adds.

Lakshmi, Ganga's elder daughter, says, I heard from my parents that if we are not able to submit the required documents, then we have to leave Assam. My parents are working hard to finance my education and I feel very bad about them. They want me to become a teacher and I want to do my best to fulfill their dreams, says Lakshmi as her mother looks at her absent-mindedly.

Raju Paswan says the family has sought help to resolve the problem. We went to the NRC Seva Kendra, and the concerned official told us that we have to submit the documents again, he says.

Additional Deputy Commissioner, Dibrugarh, Ankur Bharali says the procedure for claims and corrections is the same for all, and people should not panic, but follow due process. If their name didnt appear in the final draft of NRC, they should find out the exact reason at the concerned NRC Seva Kendra. Claims forms will be given out from 30 August onwards. If they apply correctly this time, they do not have to worry," he says.

Ganga informs that on another visit to the NRC Seva Kendra on Friday, she was told to re-submit her documents as they had made mistakes in their application form. "On 30 August, we have to go to the Seva Kendra to collect the form, she says.

(Avik Chakraborty is a Dibrugarh-based freelance writer and a member of 101Reporters.com)
Osmania University Registrar Ch Gopal Reddy said they declined permission as they had no mechanism to provide security to the Congress leader.

Hyderabad: Citing security concerns, Osmania University on Friday declined permission for Congress chief Rahul Gandhi's proposed meeting with students on its campus during his visit to the state on 13 and 14 August.

University Registrar Ch Gopal Reddy said they declined permission as they had no mechanism to provide security to the Congress leader. However, they might review the decision if local police or any other government agency such as the special protection group (SPG) assures the university of Gandhi's security, he said.

"We declined the permission on security grounds. Since he (Rahul Gandhi) is a person under 'Z' plus category security cover, we will not be able to provide security for him. Some students are opposing his visit while some welcome him. It may also lead to tension during his visit. So we told them (group of students) about our inability to provide enough security for his visit," Reddy said.

Telangana Congress leaders had earlier said Gandhi would address students at the campus during his visit.

Asked about the proposed meeting at the University, Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president N Uttam Kumar Reddy said university students had invited Gandhi. They applied to the university vice-chancellor and police for permission and the matter was under consideration, he had earlier said.

He alleged that some senior leaders of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) did not want Gandhi to visit the university.

The University is said to be the hotbed of the separate Telangana agitation.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to visit Mumbai on Saturday to participate in two events at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B).

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will arrive in Mumbai on Saturday to take part in the IIT-Bombay convocation ceremony. Modi will deliver the convocation address at the 56th annual convocation of the institute.

After the convocation, the prime minister will inaugurate the new building of the Department of Energy Science and Engineering, and Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering at IIT Bombay, the PMO said in a statement.

Leaving for Mumbai, where I will join the convocation ceremony at IIT-B. Looking forward to interacting with bright youngsters. Will also inaugurate the new building of the Department of Energy Science and Engineering as well as Centre for Environmental Science and Engineering.  Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) August 11, 2018

Modi's visit, however, has sparked a debate with student groups from IIT-Bombay questioning the motive behind it. On Friday, in a statement shared on social media, students of IIT-Bombay also questioned the governments recent anti-student politics.

Hindustan Times reported that in the statement, several groups of students questioned the low budget allocations to higher education, the discontinuation of the Government of India-Post Matric Scholarship (GoI-PMS) for students from reserved categories (SC, ST and OBC) in institutes like Tata Institute of Social Sciences, as well as shortcomings in the new Higher Education Committee of India (HECI) Bill.

The student groups, however, clarified that there would be no obstacles stopping the prime minister from addressing the event, or entering the campus.

According to a report in Deccan Herald, the students also raised the issue of atrocities on minority communities over the last few years, saying, We ask how beef becomes so important an issue that living human beings are killed for it and how the murderers get perfect impunity from the state.

They also questioned as to how the government could so easily decide who a citizen is and who is not, on the basis of their religious identities.

We demand that he (Modi) as prime minister take a positive stand and condemn all the hate crimes committed and supported by his party members, students said.

Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Prakash Javadekar, Maharashtra Governor Vidyasagar Rao and state Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis will also be present on the occasion.

With inputs from agencies
on 12 August, Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) will be organising a pro-Khalistan protest in London's Trafalgar Square and petition the United Nations (UN) for the right to self-determination and for carving out an independent Punjab from India

The Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) group will organise a pro-Khalistan rally in London on 12 August, according to media reports. The Sikhs will be assembling in Trafalgar Square and petition the United Nations (UN) for the right to self-determination and for an independent Punjab.

There have been many voices opposing this move. India registered its opposition towards the rally through a demarche when news of the rally first emerged. It appealed to the UK government to stop the rally saying that it was a "separatists' activity" aimed to attack Indias territorial integrity, DNA reported.

Activists in Delhi also held a peaceful protest on Friday against the SFJ rally, according to India Today. The protest was spearheaded by former Parliamentarian and chairman of All India Anti-Terrorist Front (AIATF) MS Bitta, accompanied by a huge number of people.

The protesters marched on Teen Murti Marg. Bitta, escorted by the Delhi Police submitted a memorandum to the United Kingdom High Commission. The petition asked for the UK government to prevent the SFJ and its so-called leaders from creating unrest.

The report, quoting Bitta said, "Our protest will continue until Britain does not handover the terrorists wanted in India and ban these elements.

I have been quiet for a long time but today when Pakistan is trying to break our nation, I will not sit quietly, he added.

But according to the PTI, UK government refused to obstruct the rally. The British High Commissions spokesperson said that all UK citizens have the right to protest peacefully.

"Should a protest contravene the law, the police have comprehensive powers to deal with activities that spread hate or deliberately raise tensions through violence or public disorder," he said.

"This does not negate the right to peaceful protest. The use of these powers and the management of demonstrations are an operational matter for the police," he added.

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Friday condemned the rally. He said that there were no supporters for the pro-Khalistan protests in Punjab.

According to PTI, Singh dubbed the proposed rally in London on Sunday by SFJ an attempt by a handful of frustrated ISI-backed Sikhs abroad to foment trouble in Punjab and India by raising divisive voices.

Singh said that he was not bothered by UKs refusal to prohibit the rally from taking place and said that he was not worried about the fringe elements.

This rally is likely to promote the spread of the 2020 Referendum ideology because post the rally, SFJ seeks to organise many such rallies in Germany, Denmark, US, Canada and Australia, according to another India Today report.

According to PTI, SFJ said the rally is intended to raise awareness on the demand for a non-binding referendum in 2020 calling for the Sikh-majority state of Punjab to be granted independence.

With inputs from PTI
While this is not the first such event held by diaspora Sikh groups, it might be a crucial one since it seeks to lay the foundation for a 'non-binding' referendum

This weekend, all eyes and ears in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs will be on a rally happening 4,000 miles away, in the heart of London. Various Sikh groups, both UK-based and global, are congregating at Trafalgar Square on Sunday to kickstart the campaign to petition the United Nations (UN) and demand the right to self-determination for an independent Punjab.

The London Declaration on Punjab Independence Referendum 2020 as the organisers call Sundays rally, will seek to bring out the declaration that will then be presented to the UN and 'its member countries to let them know that the independent state of Punjab that once existed seeks to be re-established', according to Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, the legal advisor to the organisers, a group called Sikhs For Justice.

While this is not the first such event held by diaspora Sikh groups, it might be a crucial one since it seeks to lay the foundation for a 'non-binding' referendum to be conducted in 2020 among Sikhs across the world about carving out an independent Punjab from India.

Sikhs For Justice, the New York-based advocacy group, says that the event is likely to draw thousands of Sikhs from all over the world. News reports have even quoted the organisers to be offering sponsorships to Sikhs in order to attend this rally.

The rally follows an intense strategy of mobilising support through social media and ground activities, especially in areas of Britain where Sikhs reside in large numbers. The rally has drawn the ire of the Indian government, which has called it a 'separatist activity, which impinges on Indias territorial integrity.'

However, it isnt Indian authorities alone who are being critical of Sundays rally. Even Sikh Khalistani groups have raised doubts about the rally and the credibility of the organisers, distancing themselves from the campaign. In fact, Dal Khalsa and the Shiromani Akali Dal Amritsar (Mann), both pro-Khalistani groups based out of India, have refused to support the referendum and instead, have asked searing questions of the campaign and its effectiveness. On social media, many, including Sikhs, are critical of the campaign with many quarters even alleging that the rally and the referendum campaign have been backed by foreign agencies to stoke tensions between the Indian State and the Sikh community.

Trees, not the woods

Irrespective of the outcome of Sundays rally and the questions that surround it, a closer look at the Sikh diaspora within the UK would reveal that dismissing the mobilisation around the campaign might be missing the trees for the woods.

It is crucial to understand the larger context which surrounds relations between the Sikh diaspora and the Indian State, in the UK, one of deep antagonism, historical hurt and mistrust. Over the last two years, some sections of the Sikh diaspora in the UK have intensified their demand that Sikhs no longer be identified as Indians in the UK Census surveys. Instead, they have demanded that there be a separate Sikh ethnic category in the UK Census to facilitate this. The influence that these groups and the campaign exert can be gauged from the fact that nearly 140 British Members of Parliament (MP) backed this demand in a letter to UKs Office for National Statistics, in charge of conducting the Census in September last year. This came after it was revealed that nearly 83,000-odd Sikhs had refused to be identified in the UK Census of 2011 with any of the existing categories and had, instead, marked themselves in the Other category to be Sikhs. The opinion over this demand, though, is mixed since the British Sikh Report, 2018, an annual report on the Sikh community in the UK, in a survey said that an overwhelming majority-87 per cent-of British Sikhs continue to identify themselves as Indian.

This notwithstanding, the campaign seems to have achieved what it set out to  news reports last month have said that ONS is said to be seriously considering listing Sikhism as a separate ethnic category.

While Sikh groups insist that a separate category is needed to ensure better policy-making towards the Sikh community, others are much more sceptical. This demand is very much driven by some groups wanting to distance themselves from India. They have admitted it themselves, says Sunny Hundal, journalist and editor of Barfi Culture news magazine, which reports on South Asians in Europe and North America. He believes that such a move will negatively impact the Sikhs living in Britain, an effect that the campaign does not seem to have considered.

Even as this campaign was playing out, in November last year, a British Sikh, Jagtar Singh Johal, was arrested in Jalandhar under the countrys anti-terror laws on charges of being involved with a series of killings, including that of an RSS leader. Soon after, 225 of the 270-odd Sikh gurudwaras announced a ban on the entry of Indian officials into these gurudwaras. This became a larger global campaign through Sikh groups in the UK and North America, which followed suit and announced similar restrictions for Indian diplomats. The arrest was greeted with mass protests and outrage in the Sikh diaspora in the UK, with organisations pressuring the British government to take this up with the Indian government.

A 2017 report quotes a survey which had found that many of the Sikhs who came to the UK as asylum seekers in the 1990s from Punjab had claimed that they had been incarcerated or tortured by the Indian police.

Little wonder, then, that the circumstances of Johals arrest spooked many in the Sikh diaspora  he was in India to get married and was arrested weeks after he got married. For many in the diaspora, Johals incarceration is a reminder of the persecution that Sikhs faced in the 1980s, especially in 1984 around Operation Blue Star and the Sikh genocide following the assassination of Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, which saw over 3,000 Sikhs, mostly men, killed by rampaging mobs.

Not just in the present

One of the biggest factors fuelling a lot of activism in the diaspora is the lack of closure towards what happened in those years. The Indian government has not done enough to try and achieve that closure and that has been a big grievance in the community, says Dr Gurnam Singh, Principal Lecturer in Social Work at UKs Coventry University, pointing to the incarceration of political prisoners like Balwant Singh Rajoana, whose execution for the assassination of former Punjab chief minister Beant Singh was stayed by the Centre in 2012.

This is precisely the nature of arguments put forth by Sikhs For Justice (SFJ) in mobilising support for Sundays rally. There was deliberate genocidal violence against the Sikh community in 1984 but the community has suffered after that as well. The community continues to be labelled as terrorists in India and Sikhs continue to live in fear there, Pannun of SFJ says. To buttress his point, he points to a recent cross-country research conducted by Lokniti along with Common Cause, an NGO, which showed that the fear of the police is the highest in Punjab and, among religions, was the most in Sikhs.

In fact, a report from November 2017 titled The Idea, Context, Framing and Realities of Sikh Radicalisation in Britain" by Dr Jasjit Singh from University of Leeds, points to how, till 1984, the Sikh community in the UK would generally support India. But 1984, the report notes, changed that.

As a result, a recent UK court judgement asking the British government to de-classify papers related to correspondence with India over Operation Blue Star kicked off a huge political row when it revealed that the then British government had attempted to ban protests by Sikh groups in 1984, after the genocide, in order to appease the Indian government.

And the present

These factors are made potent by the gradual rise of extremism within the Sikh community, especially in sections of younger generations of Sikhs who live in the UK. In fact, much of the Khalistani movement is being spearheaded by younger Sikhs, many of whom were born in the UK and after 1984. What is driving them, then?

Dr Singh from Coventry University believes that a sense of rootless-ness might be driving them to this fiercely protective stance towards their religion. There is a sense of religious revivalism in the third generation Sikhs here, in the UK. For many, it is about finding their roots in a globalised world and hence, they are attracted to their religion and towards fighting historical injustice. Such extremism is seen in different aspects of the communitys existence in the UK. For instance, Sikh groups led by youngsters have repeatedly disrupted inter-faith marriages happening inside Sikh gurudwaras and have even attacked Sikh families for inter-faith marriages. So much so, that a report in The Guardian noted how families were hiring guards during inter-faith marriages.

More recently, the extremism has emerged through the Islamophobia that has emerged in some sections of the community, around the issue of the sexual abuse of Sikh children. The report by Dr Singh from Leeds talks about how the narrative around Sikh girls being abused by Muslim men has become a key factor in some instances of tension between Muslim and Sikh communities in the UK. This has, however, had a rather extreme side-effect, where some Sikh groups in the UK have aligned themselves with the far-right English Defence League, a hardline group which stokes Islamophobia and claims to be a counter-jihad movement.

However, observers like Hundal from Barfi Culture, says that such groups represent a very small section of the Sikh community. A very small number of British Sikh groups have aligned themselves with the EDL in the past, but many Sikhs have also criticised them for it. What it shows is that some people are willing to make a deal with the devil because they are consumed by hatred, adding that this was not specific to the Sikh community.

The India-UK factor

All this has meant that the India-UK relationship, however, has been on a downward spiral in recent times. Sundays rally has proved to be the latest flashpoint in this, with the Indian government sending repeated requests to the UK government to not permit the rally as it was secessionist in nature. However, the UK government has refused to entertain these requests, saying that people in the UK had 'the right to protest.'

This comes just weeks after news reports that the Indian government rejected a request by the British authorities for extending leniency to Johal, the British national arrested in Jalandhar.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to the United Kingdom was also shrouded in controversy after it emerged that India had refused to accept the UK governments push for signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) agreeing to take back undocumented Indian immigrants in the UK. News reports had attributed Indias stance to the UK governments refusal to grant Indians easier access to British visas. In addition, the UK government had omitted India from a list of 25 countries from which student visa applications would be granted easily, like China, Bahrain and Serbia among others, a move that will not go down well with the Indian government.

The UK government, too, finds itself in a predicament especially when it comes to contentious issues like those about the Sikh diaspora, which, though, not as big as the non-Sikh Indian diaspora, remains a vocal and active diasporic group in the UK.

Many, like Hundal, believe that the way the Indian State must deal with this is by setting its own house in order. Agreeing that a section of the Sikh community is increasingly turning anti-India, he explains, Part of this is driven by events in India itself (the rise of Hindutva, arrests of Sikh nationalists without evidence) and partly because second/third generation Sikhs brought up abroad have little cultural connection to India.

Dr Singh, from Coventry University, believes that the Indian State cannot keep pushing the Sikh diaspora away by using the rhetoric of terming these rallies and movements as ISI-created. Hundal,too, believes that the government must do more. Unless the Indian establishment makes more of an attempt to understand, reconcile with and talk to Sikhs, this divide will get worse."
National Conference president Farooq Abdullah said on Saturday that he will fight for Article 35A until his death, warning that the fallout of any tinkering with the constitutional provision would be difficult to control.

Srinagar: National Conference president Farooq Abdullah said on Saturday that he will fight for Article 35A until his death, warning that the fallout of any tinkering with the constitutional provision would be difficult to control.

Article 35-A, which gives special rights and privileges to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, is currently facing a legal challenge in the Supreme Court. "I will fight against them till I go down in my grave," Abdullah said, adding that "they only remember Kashmir and not Himachal (Pradesh), Arunachal (Pradesh) and Nagaland", which also enjoy the special position.

Asked how he sees the situation in Kashmir if the Article 35A is tinkered with, he said, "You will see the situation yourselves, Delhi will also then see it and it will be very difficult for them to control it".

Abdullah, who is also the Member of Parliament form Srinagar constituency, however, sought to dismiss the uproar around the legal challenge to Article 35A of the Constitution, saying no one is going to touch it.

"They cannot touch (Article) 35A. The Constitutional bench has twice said about it already. I do not know why they try to scratch this wound every time. The more they scratch it, the more blood there will be. Time has come for them to stop scratching it," the NC president said on the sidelines of a function here.

When the reporters pressed him hard on the issue, Abdullah in his usual style said, "35A ko mariye goli. 35A chalta jayega (shoot 35A, the issue will keep going on)."

On 6 August, the Supreme Court had said a three-judge bench would decide whether the pleas challenging Article 35A should be referred to a five-judge Constitution bench for examining the larger issue of alleged violation of the doctrine of basic structure of the Constitution.

The bench comprising Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice A Khanwilkar had adjourned the crucial hearing on as many as five petitions "to the week commencing from 27 August" on the grounds that they pertained to the challenge to a Constitutional scheme and could not be heard as the third judge, Justice D Y Chandrachud, was not present on that day.

Article 35A, which was incorporated in the Constitution by a 1954 Presidential Order, accords special rights and privileges to the citizens of Jammu and Kashmir and denies property rights to a woman who marries a person from outside the state.

About India-Pakistan relations, Abdullah expressed hope that they would be fruitful under the reign of Imran Khan, who will be sworn-in as the country's prime minister on 18 August.

"I expect a new Pakistan, a friendly Pakistan, a Pakistan free of terrorism and marching towards the future and strengthening the SAARC which will be vital for this entire area," the NC president said.

Abdullah said he was confident that New Delhi would cooperate with Islamabad if the neighbouring country "gives up terrorism".

"I am sure New Delhi will cooperate if Pakistan gives up terrorism, the whole world will cooperate," he said.

Asked about Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama's recent statement on former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru at the Goa Institute of Management, Abdullah said the spiritual leader was right in saying what he said.

"I am happy that Dalia Lama has apologised on what he said about Nehru, but one thing is correct that when they all were there, Mahatma Gandhi had indeed offered Jinnah to be the prime minister. However, Quaid-i-Azam (Jinnah) denied because he said that he could be removed anytime as he would be a minority prime minister and so moth-eaten Pakistan is better for him than to become the prime minister of such a country where there is no trust and which is now becoming evident.

"The way the country is being taken in a different way today, I feel no one would have ever thought of it. We would not have dreamt of such a thing that they will try to change a secular country in such a way, which I think will be dangerous for them," the former Union minister said.

When asked about the statement of yoga guru Baba Ramdev that if illegal immigrants were allowed to stay on, they would make 10 more Kashmir-like problems for the country, Abdullah said India has a big heart and people can live in the country with ease and dignity.

"India's has a big heart. If you see, Mughals came and lived here, Alexander came and the force he had with him lived here. Whoever wants, can live here with ease and dignity. This is our tradition. Ramdev is no god, neither does he own India," he said.
At least four people were injured after a lintel of a flyover on National Highway 28 was collapsed in Uttar Pradesh's Basti on Saturday early morning.

Three people were injured after a lintel of a flyover on National Highway 28 was collapsed in Uttar Pradesh's Basti on Saturday early morning.

All three people, who were trapped in the debris, have been rescued.

Basti District Magistrate (DM), Raj Shekhar, said the three labourers trapped under the debris were successfully rescued and were rushed to the hospital. One of the injured labourers was admitted with a fractured leg while two others received minor injuries and were discharged after first aid, The Times of India reported.

Meanwhile, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath instructed the local administration to initiate immediate relief work and provide all possible help to the needy. More details about the incident are awaited.

A similar incident took place on 15 May, in which 18 people were killed after an under-construction flyover collapsed in Varanasi.

With inputs from ANI
Thats a tradition a tribe living in the jungles of central India's Chhattisgarh state follows to protect the health of the mother to be.

Editor's Note: The latest National Crime Records Bureau statistics show an 83% increase in crimes against women, with as many as 39 cases reported every hour across the country. There are several thousand more instances that go unreported. And yet, such felonious acts represent only a limited view of the manner in which women in this country must face brutality. In this series of reported pieces, Firstpost examines those societal forces that, while beyond the ambit of law, have the same deleterious effect on women as criminal acts.

Read the series here.

Pregnancy, periods bring these tribal women in India on their knees, forcing them to live in isolation as they are likely to contract an infection and thats why it's important that they stay away from others.

Jashpur: Can you imagine subjecting pregnant women to solitary confinement and making them crawl through a narrow opening, two-feet high and one-foot wide, to answer natures call or to bathe? Thats a tradition a tribe living in the jungles of central India's Chhattisgarh state follows to protect the health of the mother to be.

The Pahari Korva, who inhabit the forested hills of Jashpur district some 350 km from the states capital Raipur, insists its women isolate themselves when they are menstruating or pregnant. Helpfully, her husband or another family member takes over her cooking duties.

Regardless of the woman's build and even her advanced stage of pregnancy, she has to crawl in and out of the room through that small opening. The tradition is centuries old and the tribals follow it diligently. They claim not a single woman has had a miscarriage or any complication owing to this practice.

Hygiene and exercise according to Ayurveda

Bhupendra Nath, a self-proclaimed Ayurveda expert from the region, explains why the Korva tribe is particular about this custom. He says they believe a woman is highly likely to contract an infection during pregnancy or menstruation and thats why it's important that they stay away from others. Nath, who is not from the tribe, claims this is the best way to ensure cleanliness and to keep the women safe from diseases. Ayurveda is the ancient Indian science of healing and well-being.

As for making women negotiate the narrow opening, he said it provides them with regular exercise. He explains that the exercise they get from crawling prepares their body for the delivery and also keeps the baby in the womb in good condition. He reasons that the physical activity also helps alleviate discomfort in a menstruating woman.

Ram Prakash Pandey, chief of Janjaatiya Suraksha Manch (or tribal protection forum), noted that the Korvas are strict about following the custom. So much so that even after delivery, a woman is kept in isolation for a few days to avoid infection. For menstruating women, the rationale to keep them locked up is that they are considered unclean during these days, he says.

Pandey says the Korvas have been following this practice long before allopathy was even invented. He contends that the methods the tribals employ are more relevant and effective than any medical discipline in the world. He says the women aren't kept away from their home or at a distant place, just made to stay in a separate purpose-built room.

This reporter's attempts to speak with the tribal women mostly drew a blank. Most were wary of opening up to a stranger about menstruation, which is still widely considered to be taboo in India. The standard response was that it's an old tradition and that's why they follow it, no questions asked.

However, one tribal woman in her early 30s, Radha Bai, begged to differ. She said these practices were devised centuries ago and should be abandoned. She said the world has totally transformed since the time their traditions were established and a progressive review of these practices was the need of the hour.

She explained the ordeal the Korva women have to put up with on a monthly basis. As if cramps and mood swings aren't enough, their periods arrive with the bane of untouchability. The tribe considers a menstruating woman so impure that it locks her up to ensure she doesn't contaminate others or the house even inadvertently. When she stops menstruating, a prayer is performed and only then can she mingle with others and go back into her house.

Those days are the most painful days of a woman's life, Radha says. While most women would attest to periods being distressing, this statement has a particularly harsh ring to it when it comes from a Korva woman.

The Korva tribe number about 25,000, of which 15,000 live in Chhattisgarh. They depend largely on the forest for a living. While government-run primary healthcare centres do exist around their settlements, most don't avail of the facility.

Tribe was adopted by third president

According to a news report citing Indian government data, the infant mortality rate (infant deaths for every 1,000 births) and maternal mortality rate (for 1,00,000 births) in Chhattisgarh in 2012 were 48 and 263 respectively. Both these figures were above India's national average. The female literacy rate in Jashpur district was 58.61 percent, according to 2011 census.

Judging by their staunch adherence to age-old customs, one might think they are cut off from the outer world. However, that is not the case. Seeing their population was on the decline, Indias third President, Zakir Hussain, had adopted the tribe to improve their lot. The Korva tribals possess voter-identity cards and local elected representatives actively engage with them to solve problems.

The Pahari Korva Development Authority has been created by the government for their welfare. News reports mention government programmes, for instance promoting solar power, or non-government organisations encouraging better farming practices among the Korvas. But its unclear whether these interventions include education about women's reproductive health or welfare.

Pradeep Narayan Singh Diwan, a Korva leader and the head of a local rural body, concedes that ancient customs need to be re-looked at from a scientific perspective. He accepts that theres a need to educate the tribal community to do away with the forced confinement and says hell make efforts to ensure that these women get medical attention.

Dr V Bakhala, who works at the government-run community health center in Bagicha, a town close to where the tribals live, strongly disapproves of their treatment of expectant mothers. Calling the practice highly dangerous, she said it was wrong and puts women and the baby at risk.

In a report released in 2016, the World Health Organization said that five women die every hour in India during childbirth. A news report recently said about 90 percent of women in India don't use a sanitary napkin when menstruating.

There are many myths and misconceptions in India about menstruation and pregnancy. Extreme as it might seem, the Pahari Korva tribes attitude to women is really just one instance of the prevalent, and socially-sanctioned, misogyny and ignorance.

(Yogesh Thawait is a Jashpur-based freelance writer and Saurabh Sharma is a Lucknow-based freelance writer. Both are members of 101Reporters.com.)
A man was killed and four members of his family, including a six-month-old baby, were injured after a two-storey building collapsed in Vadodara.

Vadodara: A man was killed and four members of his family, including a six-month-old baby, were injured after a two-storey building collapsed in Chokhandi locality in Vadodara in the wee hours of Saturday, police said.

The building, which is nearly eight decades old, caved in around 2 am, chief fire officer of Vadodara Municipal Corporation (VMC), Dipak Gunjal said.

"One man was killed and four others of his family were injured as the building collapsed when they were asleep," he said.

Heavy rains last month might have weakened the structure and led to its collapse, he added.

"After being alerted about the incident, a fire brigade team rushed to the spot and rescued five members, including 58-year-old Bhadruddin Dudhwala, who later succumbed to his injuries," Gunjal said.

The victim used to run a shop on the ground-floor of the same building, he added.

Superintendent of Sir Sayajirao General Hospital, Rajeev Daveshwar, said the injured have been identified as 47-year-old woman Jehrunisa and her three daughters Samina (27), Samira (18) and Iyona (6 months).

"While Dudhwala was declared brought dead at the hospital, his family members were discharged after the treatment," he added.
The incident took place in Uttar Pradesh, following which the boy lodged a complaint. The man has been arrested,the officer said.

Muzaffarnagar: A 14-year-old boy was allegedly sodomised by a dhaba owner at a village in Muzaffarnagar, police said on Saturday.

The boy and his friends had gone to Haridwar during the Kanwar yatra. On their way back, they took up work at the dhaba as they had run out of money, Circle Officer Rizwan Ahmad said. The incident took place on Friday, following which the boy lodged a complaint. The man has been arrested,the officer said. The accused had also threatened the victim with dire consequences if he reported the matter, the Station House Officer (SHO) said.

According to the medical report, the boy was sodomised, the officer said. The man was booked under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), including 377 (unnatural offences) and 506 (criminal intimidation), and provisions of the Protection Of Children from Sexual Offences Act.

In another incident, a 22-year-old man was arrested for attempting to rape a 16-year-old girl on Friday, police said. SHO VC Tiwari said the accused entered the girl's house and attempted to rape her. He said a case was registered following a complaint by the girl's father.

Uttar Pradesh police arrests man for sodomising 14-year-old boy, victim was returning from Kanwar Yatra
A youth was arrested by the police for raping a 13-year-old girl in Uttar Pradesh's Bahraich

Bahraich: A 13-year-old girl of a state-run residential school in Uttar Pradesh was allegedly raped by a youth, who has been arrested, police said on Saturday.

The girl, a student of a Kasturba Gandhi Awasiya Balika Vidyalaya in Bahraich, was raped on Thursday, Superintendent of Police (SP) Sabharaj Singh said.

The youth was arrested late last night after a complaint was lodged by the girl's parents, he said, adding that the matter is being investigated.

"On Thursday, the 13-year- old girl of the Kasturba Gandhi Awasiya Balika Vidyalaya complained of stomach pain and expressed her desire to go home with a another girl's mother, who had come to the school to see her daughter.

"The warden allowed the girl to go to her village along with the woman. On the way, the woman allegedly handed over the girl to her relative Devendra. However, en route to her home, he allegedly raped the girl and threatened her," Singh said.

The girl narrated her ordeal to her parents after reaching home, following which they lodged a complaint and a case was registered, the SP said.

Basic Education Officer Shyam Kumar Tiwari said an FIR has also been registered against the warden of the hostel, Rashmi Srivastava, and two officials of the department for alleged laxity.

"The warden has been removed," he said.

State Basic Education Minister Anupama Jaiswal reached out the girl's family.

Later in a statement, issued in state capital Lucknow, the minister said, "If any child has to be sent to home in emergency circumstances, then the warden should take the child to her home."

"If the parents are coming to take their child, then they should bring their Aadhaar cards. Only after the Aadhaar cards of the child and parents are matched, the child should be allowed to go with their parents," Jaiswal said.

The minister also said the Uttar Pradesh government has initiated the process of giving Rs 3 lakh to the girl from the Rani Laxmibai Mahila Rahat Kosh.
Former union ministers hit out against Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the Rafale deal and said that all the power was concentrated in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO)

Mumbai: Former union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie and disgruntled Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Shatrughan Sinha on Friday hit out at the Narendra Modi government over issues ranging from the Rafale fighter jet deal to "concentration of power in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO)".

During a discussion on `Save Democracy- Save Constitution' in Mumbai, Yashwant Sinha claimed that ministerial decisions were being taken "single-handedly" in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government.

Without naming Rajnath Singh, he claimed the home minister was not even aware of the BJP's decision to pull out of the alliance with the People's Democratic Party (PDP) in Jammu and Kashmir.

Similarly, the finance minister was not aware that demonetisation was going to be announced, he said.

He dubbed the Rafale fighter jet deal as "scam of Rs 35,000 crore, much bigger than the Rs 64-crore Bofors scam".

The Prime Minister's Office is controlling all ministerial decisions while ministers are sitting "idle", he alleged.

Shourie alleged, "Undoubtedly, the Constitution and democracy are in danger. 72 lynchings have happened so far, 54 witnesses have turned hostile in Soharabuddin (fake encounter) case... CBI is being misused...(these) are live examples of the new normal and there seems no hope that the things will change."

The veteran journalist said that the media is fearful because their advertisements could get blocked.

MP and actor-turned-politician Shatrughan Sinha said he won't quit the BJP on his own. "However, if they want to throw me out, then I will not challenge their wisdom," Sinha said.

"People ask me why do you criticise the BJP so much despite being its member. I tell them I belong to the people of India first. I try to give honest feedback to my party and its leadership," he said.

Criticising the prime minister for demonetisation, Sinha added that when the country was yet to recover from its shock, Modi "suddenly brought GST which was a double whammy for the countrymen".

"These were not party or cabinet decisions, but Modi's decisions alone," he alleged.

Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) leader Majid Memon, Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Dinesh Trivedi, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MP Sanjay Singh and others also spoke on the occasion.

Trivedi said, "Spirit of India has vanished today and even Supreme Court judges are seeking justice... Parliament is not working in a rightful manner... I would say all the four pillars have been compromised."

Former high court judge Abhay Thipse, who joined the Congress after retirement, said that previous government never transferred judges unnecessarily.

"Today, judges fear to take a strong decision and stand. People and press are also fearful nowadays. There were caste biases earlier also but now fringe elements have got confidence to rule the roost," he said.

AAP leader and Rajya Sabha member Sanjay Singh alleged that the Modi-led government was the biggest "threat" to our democracy.

"It is the height of foolishness that the Uttar Pradesh government is showering rose petals on kanwariyas from helicopters," Singh said.

Kanwariyas who were indulging in vandalism were not real pilgrims, he said.
BJP president Amit Shah thundered in Kolkata that he would visit every district in West Bengal and 'uproot TMC from every corner' of the state.

Challenging Trinamool Congress (TMC) chief Mamata Banerjee on her home turf, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah thundered in Kolkata that he would visit every district in West Bengal and 'uproot TMC from every corner' of the state.

Addressing his fifth rally in the state in the last one year, Shah said it was time for 'parivartan' (change) in West Bengal. On his way to the Mayo Road rally on Friday, the senior BJP leader was shown black flags by youth Congress workers when he stepped out of the airport. The workers raised anti-Modi and anti-Shah slogans and tried to block his convoy with motorcycles as well.

Talking about the posters that were put up on display a day ahead of Shah's visit, asking "BJP to leave Bengal", the saffron party chief said, "Trinamool Congress put up banners all along the way. Mamataji, I want to ask you, how can we be anti-Bengal, when our party was established by Shyama Prasad Mookerjee on this soil. Our love is not for votes, but from Ramakrishna Paramahans, Swami Vivekananda (and others)," Shah said at the rally.

He also claimed that television connections were made not to work properly so that his speech could not be broadcast across the state. "Signals of all Bengali channels have been lowered so that people will not be able to watch us. But even if you (Mamata) try to suppress our voices, we will go to every district of Bengal and throw TMC out. No one can suppress one's voice in a democracy," he asserted.

Shah also said he was 'not against Bengal, but I am against Mamataji.'

Shah asks Mamata Banerjee to clear stance on NRC

The National Register of Citizens final draft in Assam had recently created a furore in Bengal when TMC workers were detained at the Silchar airport, and were not allowed to meet those whose names were left out of the list. The West Bengal chief minister strongly opposed its publication and said it will destroy India's relationship with neighbouring Bangladesh.

"Out of 40 lakh people who don't find themselves in the final draft of the NRC published on 30 July, only one percent could be infiltrators, but the BJP is trying to claim that all of them are infiltrators," Banerjee had said, adding it could lead to a 'blood bath' and 'civil war' in the country. She also alleged that it was a 'game plan' to isolate and throw out Assam's Bengali-speaking people and Biharis.

Questioning her motives, BJP chief Shah demanded to know why she wanted to keep illegal immigrants in the country. "All Mamata ji has done, is to object against NRC. But NRC is the process to throw illegal immigrants out. Shouldn't Bangladeshi immigrants be thrown out?" he asked

He also said she changed her stance like a chameleon. "People change like chameleons. In 2005, she did not let the Lok Sabha function and said Bangladeshis should be pushed out. Today, she is singing a different tune because they form her core Trinamool vote bank," he claimed.

He further challenged Banerjee and said, "You decide what your first priority is, your vote bank politics or India's security." "I'm telling Mamata di, for us, the country comes first, vote bank later," he added.

Shah further said, "The NRC is being done in accordance with the Assam Accord. It was started during Rajiv Gandhi's tenure," he said.

Stating that the best way to stop infiltration into the country was through NRC, Shah said the exercise must conclude peacefully in Assam.

Further supporting his argument, Shah said: "People are talking about the immigrants' human rights. I want to ask TMC, are you not worried about the human rights, education, security and employment of Bengal's Hindus and Muslims that these Bangladeshi infiltrators have eaten into?"

'Law and order in shambles'

Claiming that in terms of crime rate, West Bengal broke all records, the saffron party leader said, "Law and order is in shambles. Where we earlier used to hear Rabindra Sangeet, today we can hear the echoes of bomb blasts. If you want back Bengal's former glory, we will have to bring in BJP as the state government."

He also brought up the deaths of BJP workers in the state and claimed it was the TMC that murdered them. "TMC killed 65 BJP workers here. If Trinamool Congress thinks they can murder and get away with it, they should remember when the public wakes up, they will have to vacate their throne," he said, urging people to vote for BJP.

Shah also said that if the people want to shake off the pall of corruption looming over Bengal, "under Narendra Modi's leadership, we will bring in the BJP".

"Uproot TMC and throw them out. Only then, can Bengal make progress. At the time of Independence, Bengal contributed 25 percent to the GDP. In seven years of her rule, Mamataji has brought it down to 3 percent," Shah said, adding that TMC, Congress and CPM cannot provide employment despite being given an opportunity, "Give Narendra Modi a chance and he will take Bengal forward."

With inputs from PTI
BJP president Amit Shah dismissed all the scam allegations made on Rafale deal by former union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie

Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah on Friday brushed off allegations of corruption levelled by former Union ministers Arun Shourie and Yashwant Sinha in the Rafale deal, saying credence should be given to the defence minister's statement and not what those "who did not get jobs".

Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman has said that the base price of Rafale fighter aircraft negotiated by the Modi government is less than what was finalised by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), he said, adding that the government has already clarified on the matter following the Opposition's charges.

Shah was responding to a question about allegations of scam levelled by Shourie and Sinha, both ministers in the NDA government headed by Atal Bihari Vajpayee, and activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan in the aircraft deal.

"Will you give credence to the defence minister's statement or those who did not get jobs?" Shah said during an interview at a book launch in the national capital.

BJP leaders have often hinted that Shourie's and Sinha's relentless attack on the Modi government over various issues is because they were sidelined by it after it came to power in 2014.

On Wednesday, Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie, along with disgruntled BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha attended a discussion on Save Democracy-Save Constitution in Mumbai.

Hitting out at Modi and BJP, Shourie had expressed his displeasure towards the Rafale deal made by the Modi government.

The report, quoting Shourie said that the Rafale fighter jet deal was a scam of Rs 35,000 crore, much bigger than the Rs 64 crore Bofors scam.

The trio had also talked about the fear the BJP had inspired within the media and the increasing number of mob lynching and hate crimes in the country.

During the interview, Shah asserted that the BJP will return to power in 2019 with a bigger mandate than 2014 . "People have already made up their mind. We have no doubt about it," he said.

He also claimed that his party will return to power in three poll-bound states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh as there is an overall "pro-incumbency" sentiment due to the works of governments.

A day ahead of his rally in West Bengal, Shah said his party will win more than 22 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state.

Responding to a question about businessmen Mehul Choksi and Nirav Modi escaping India, Shah said the Modi government's relentless action against them would ensure that there will be "fewer thieves" now.

He said the government cannot give a deadline about when these fugitives will be brought back to India to face trial as it is a judicial process. However, there will not be any laxity in our government's efforts, he asserted.

He also rejected suggestions that some of the BJP's allies are not happy with the party and said all NDA constituents are together.

He referred to the NDA's decision to field JD(U) leader Harivansh in the election to the post of the Rajya Sabha deputy chairman to make his point.

For the first time in over four decades years, the post has gone outside the main party in the government, he said, underlining the BJP's accommodative stand to its allies.

The BJP is not like the Congress which dumped its allies when they were not needed, he said, referring to its treatment of the Samajwadi Party when the UPA was in power.

With inputs from PTI
Congress and JD(S) have been promising to fight the BJP together with the avowed agenda of extricating the country from the evil clutches of communalism, but they are fighting each other over one issue and another

That the Congress nominee received a drubbing in the Rajya Sabha deputy chairman election on Thursday is not even half the story, if we are talking about the chaos in the Opposition ranks. The rest of the story, or part of the rest of the story, is unfolding in Karnataka, where filing of nominations began on Friday for the 29 August elections to urban local bodies.

Despite being part of the alliance that rules the state, Congress and Janata Dal (Secular) are fighting these elections separately and fiercely, charging at each other like jallikattu bulls.

At the same time, Congress leaders are also reacting with horror at the very mention of seat-sharing for the next Lok Sabha election. Mahagathbandhan be damned.

The two parties have been promising to fight the BJP together with the avowed agenda of extricating the country from the evil clutches of communalism. Instead, they have been fighting each other over one issue and another, a spectacle that last month drove Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy to tears.

Distribution of ministerial portfolios, populist schemes, pampering of Kumaraswamy's home district Hassan and transfers of government officials are among the things on which leaders of both parties haven't been seeing eye-to-eye despite their publicly made claims of a hunky-dory alliance.

In the urban local body elections, however, the two parties are fighting as if they never struck an alliance to rule the state. Elections are being held on 29 August to 2,574 wards in 105 urban local bodies  29 city municipalities, 53 town municipalities and 23 town panchayats across Karnataka. The state has a total of 212 urban local bodies. In the second phase in November, elections will be held to the remaining 107 urban bodies, including seven city corporations. In the 2013 elections, Congress performed the best, securing nearly 40 percent of wards.

The alliance partners didn't even pretend to make an attempt to come to any sort of understanding to fight these elections. The logic extended by Congress as well as JD(S) is that grassroots workers enjoy a good fight for control of local bodies, and that if forced into an alliance, they may get frustrated enough to cross over to the BJP. They are also at pains to talk about a convoluted strategy, which if put in place, means this: In places where either Congress or JD(S)  or both  are strong, they will fight separately. But wherever BJP has an upper hand, the two parties will have a "friendly cooperation"  if not an official alliance  to keep the saffron party out.

It's indeed tough to enforce seat tie-ups in local body elections  Congress and JD(S) didn't fight these polls together even when they had a coalition government in the state between 2004 and 2006. But it's hard to ignore the way Congress leaders are increasingly making noises about how tough it would be to share the state's 28 Lok Sabha seats with JD(S) in 2019.

Panic over seat-sharing

Top leaders of both parties have repeatedly been confirming that they will have a pre-poll alliance ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. The very fact that they repeat this, of course, tells its own story. The election is still some months away, but Congress leaders are already tying themselves in knots, as if it were only weeks away.

This is how parties fared in the last three elections:

Lok Sabha election BJP Congress JD(S) 2004 18 8 2 2009 19 6 3 2014 17 9 2

What Congress leaders are panicking about is the distinct possibility of their president Rahul Gandhi, whom they see as inexperienced in pulling off seat adjustments, forcing the state unit to concede too many seats to JD(S). They still haven't overcome what they consider an ignominy of giving up the chief minister's post to JD(S), which has only half as many Assembly seats as Congress.

Senior leaders also admit that there is large-scale confusion in the party over this, and have confirmed that lobbying has already begun with central leaders to impress upon them to give JD(S) as few seats as possible or to face the consequences.

All this comes even as BJP has begun work in earnest to win up to 22 seats. Congress leaders are demanding that seat adjustments, if any, with JD(S) must be put in place at the very earliest, but indications from Delhi are that the process will not begin until after the local body elections are over. This, party leaders fear, will help them little in catching up with BJP.

The frustration of Congress broadly arises from Karnataka's north-south political divide. In southern Karnataka, both Congress and JD(S) have strong bases. And in the North, while the BJP is relatively stronger, Congress is not too badly off. What Congress leaders are wary of is that while JD(S) can benefit from their party in the South, it can offer little in return in the North. In 2014, Congress won five of its nine Lok Sabha seats in the South, while JD(S) didn't even get one in the North.

A pre-poll alliance between the two parties could end up as a win-win situation for JD(S), and lose-lose for Congress. Besides, serious doubts over how long the coalition government will last after the Lok Sabha election have only raised the scepticism among Congress leaders in offering more seats to JD(S) than they must.
Rahul Gandhi's remarks came days after he accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of having an 'anti-Dalit' mindset.

New Delhi: Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday attacked the Modi government over alleged rising atrocities against Dalits, citing a media report which claimed that BJP-ruled states registered the highest number of crimes against the Scheduled Castes.

Gandhi remarks came days after he accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of having an "anti-Dalit" mindset.

"Mr 56's best buddy, asked me to 'check my facts' when I said the BJP fuels violence against Dalits and Adivasis," he tweeted.

"I hope the fact check I'm attaching below, will wake him and Mr 56 up from their deep slumber on these rising atrocities; or I and the Congress party will," he said, tagging a media report which cited the National Crime Records Bureau data of 2016 to claim that BJP-ruled states registered the highest number of crimes against the Scheduled Castes.

Gandhi has been taking at a swipe at Modi over his '56-inch chest' remark made at election rallies in the run-up to the 2014 polls.

BJP chief Amit Shah had targeted the Congress chief to look at facts before criticising the government over issues related to the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.

Shah had also alleged that it was the opposition party that had a legacy of insulting Dalits.
Rahul Gandhi on Saturday addressed a gathering of party workers in Rajasthan's Jaipur and hit out at the Narendra Modi government over farmer suicides, unemployment and safety of women.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday addressed a gathering of party workers in Jaipur, during which he hit out at the Narendra Modi government over the Rafale deal, farmer suicides, unemployment and the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

Rahul said that Modi promised two crore jobs, Rs 15 lakh in every bank account and safety of women but, failed on every front.

PM Modi promised 2 crore jobs, 15L in every account and women's safety, but failed in all fronts: Congress President @RahulGandhi #RajWelcomesRahulGandhi pic.twitter.com/mgYLIntsHi  Congress (@INCIndia) August 11, 2018

The Congress party president said that the Rafale deal made by the Modi government to be a scam. Referring to China, he said that the country gives jobs to 50,000 youths in 24 hours, whereas only 450 youths in India get employment in the same span. "The chief minister (Vasundhara Raje) says lakhs of youths were given jobs but, only the youths of Rajasthan know the reality," the Congress chief added.

He also raised the issue of farmer suicides and said he had asked the prime minister for loan waivers for farmers. However, Modi's response was silence, the Congress chief added. He said that when big industrialists are unable to repay their loans, they are termed 'non-performing assets (NPA)' but, when a farmer cannot repay his debt, he is termed a 'defaulter'.

Referring to Modi government's slogan of 'beti bachao, beti padhao', he said that it actually meant 'saving daughters from BJP MLAs'. Women cannot even step out of their houses without fear, the Congress president said, while adding that it is the duty of the prime minister to protect women and farmers.

Attacking the government over the Goods and Services Tax (GST), he said that it became a further burden on small traders after demonetisation. He further said that if voted to power, the Congress party will also bring petrol and diesel under the ambit of the GST.
UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi and various MPs of CPI and AAP protested against the Rafale deal on the last day on Parliament's Monsoon Session

New Delhi: Stepping up their attack on the government over the Rafale issue, opposition MPs led by United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Friday held a protest in Parliament premises, demanding answers from the Centre over the alleged scam in the fighter jet deal with France.

Gandhi along with opposition MPs, including Raj Babbar, Ghulam Nabi Azad, Anand Sharma, Ambika Soni, Communist Party of India'a (CPI) D Raja, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MP Sushil Gupta, among others, protested in front of Mahatma Gandhi's statue in Parliament complex, holding placards and raising slogans.

They demanded that a joint parliamentary committee (JPC) probe into the issue.

Congress members yesterday had created uproarious scenes in the Lok Sabha demanding a probe into the Rafale deal by a JPC, forcing an adjournment of the proceedings. They were heard demanding a JPC probe into the deal and a reply from Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

The Congress' stepping of pressure on the government over the issue comes days after former Union ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie alleged that the Rafale deal was a case of "monumental criminal misconduct" by the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government and the scam involving it was much bigger than the Bofors scandal.

Shourie, Sinha and lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan have demanded a time-bound probe into the contract by national auditor Comptroller and Auditor General.

The Congress has been accusing massive irregularities in the Rafale deal, alleging that the government was procuring each aircraft at a cost of over Rs 1,670 crore as against Rs 526 crore finalised by the UPA government for the procurement of 126 Rafale jets. The deal negotiated by the UPA could not be inked.

The Congress has also been pressing for price details of the deal, but the NDA government has refused to divulge them citing confidentiality provisions of a 2008 Indo-France pact. The government has asserted that there were no irregularities in the deal.
The Trinamool Congress on Saturday accused the BJP of trying to gain political mileage from the recently published National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam and demanded that not a single Indian be left out from the list.

Kolkata: The Trinamool Congress on Saturday accused the BJP of trying to gain political mileage from the recently published National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam and demanded that not a single Indian be left out from the list.

Responding to BJP president Amit Shah's attack on their party on the NRC issue, Trinamool secretary general Partha Chatterjee claimed that nearly 12.5 lakh Bengalis have been left out of the document's first complete draft.

"BJP is the ruling party in Assam. So they are trying to use the NRC for their political benefit. If you look at the draft NRC closely you will find that close to 12.5 lakh Bengalis have been left out from the list apart from numerous Sikhs, Hindi-speaking people and minorities," Chatterjee told the reporters in Kolkata.

"It is quite obvious that BJP is trying to use the Supreme Court directive on NRC as a shield to gain political benefit... Our stand is very clear. Not a single Indian citizen should be left out of the NRC list," he claimed.

Shah on Saturday flayed the state's Mamata Banerjee government for opposing the draft NRC in Assam and urged it to clarify its stand on the issues of infiltration and nation's security.

Chatterjee also denied Shah's allegation that the Trinamol was indulging in vote bank politics in Bengal and claimed the party and its supremo Mamata Banerjee's vote bank encompassed people across the state.

"Our vote bank is all over Bengal. They do not have any kind of bank as their banks were looted by Vijay Maliya, Nirav Modi, Choksi and others. We rely on the bank of people. As long as people are with Mamata Banerjee, the vote bank of people will ensure her victory," he claimed.
Counting on keeping the winning streak intact, the party has started its preparations for the 2019 Parliamentary elections from Meerut instead of the state's capital city and seat of politics, Lucknow

In the recent past, Meerut has proven to be a lucky charm of sorts, at least for the Narendra Modi and Amit Shah-led Bharatiya Janata Party. Be it the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly elections of 2017 or the Lok Sabha Elections of 2014, the saffron party has tasted victory in the city.

Counting on keeping the winning streak intact, the party has started its preparations for the 2019 parliamentary elections from Meerut instead of the state's capital city and seat of politics, Lucknow. The BJP is holding a two-day-long meeting of its working committee at the Subharti Medical College in Meerut.

The dignitaries present included home minister Rajnath Singh, Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath and deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma, amid others. Party national president Amit Shah is also expected to join the event on Sunday, 12 August, while Adityanath will camp in Meerut on Saturday and will leave for Lucknow after attending the second day of the session.

This two-day high-level meet will focus on the strategy for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

"We are confident that the path of the party's victory in 2019 will once again travel from the state of Uttar Pradesh," Rajnath said while addressing his party members.

Rajnath also took a dig on Congress president Rahul Gandhi over his controversial hug and wink on the floor of Parliament, in the recently concluded Monsoon Session. "Rahul Gandhi's hug in the Parliament is just like Chipko Movement. A person who cannot maintain Parliaments dignity dreams of becoming the prime minister of India. Since people love Prime Minister Modi so much, it is quite possible that even he (Rahul) may be trying to express his love and affection in this way. But the Congress party lost face in the lower House because of this," Rajnath said.

Further hitting out at Congress' 'dynastic politics', Rajnath said, "Bhartiya Janta Party is not a family based political party. Our party people only want respect and honour and they work for it."

Further in his speech, the home minister spoke about the fight against terrorism and militancy. He said, "In the North East, militancy is almost on the verge of extinction. Very soon, the area will be violence-free and peaceful. Moreover, the number of people taking up arms against the State has also drastically gone down. Our government has given a free hand to security forces for all operations."

Speaking about development under the Adityanath-led government, Rajnath said, "Ever since the formation of the BJP government in the state, Yogi Adityanath has induced terror in criminals and anti-social elements."

Adityanath also recounted the development work done under the state and central governments. He said, "Investment worth Rs 60 thousand crores in various development projects is now a ground reality. Further investment to the tune of Rs 50,000 crores is also in pipeline. Power distribution and rural electrification schemes launched by the Centre are being implemented in the state."

Speaking on the Opposition's claims about the BJP being anti-Dalit, Adityanath said, "Our government is not anti-Dalit. Those who call us anti-Dalit, I want to ask them as to why Dalits were not given benefits of government schemes in the past. Why are Dalits not getting the benefit of reservation in Aligarh Muslim University?"

He added that after the formation of the BJP government in the state, there has been record-breaking development, especially under Prime Minister Urban Housing Scheme, Ujjwala Scheme and rural electrification scheme.

The development pitch at the convention was a sign that the party is readying for the Lok Sabha polls due next year. And choosing Meerut as the ground for the launch of extensive poll preparations was a significant choice that the party made.

It is noteworthy that the ModiShah magic worked wonders in the 2017 Assembly election. In a clean sweep, the party won an overwhelming three-quarter majority with 325 seats, with the help of its large number of foot soldiers. The win was significant because the BJP contested without a chief ministerial face and capitalised mostly on the political clout of brand Modi.

In 2014 Lok Sabha polls, out of the total 80 seats from Uttar Pradesh, the BJP won 71, of which 19 seats were from western Uttar Pradesh, where the BJP had failed to leave a prominent mark in the past few elections. These included Gautam Budh Nagar, Ghaziabad, Meerut, Muzaffarnagar, Saharanpur, Bijnor, Nagina, Moradabad, Kairana, Amroha, Baghpat, Bulandshahr, Aligarh, Hathras and Agra.

In both these elections, there have been a few similarities. First, the party started its election campaign by organising a rally in Meerut and focusing explicitly on strengthening its position in western Uttar Pradesh. The second similarity (or perhaps a coincidence) was that the first phase of polling in the state started from parts of western UP. The party claimed that the winning baton took off from the west and rested in the east, thus helping the BJP form a majority government, both in the Centre and in the state.

Moreover, before becoming the prime minister of India, Narendra Modi addressed his first political rally in Meerut way back in February 2014. In 2017, he again addressed a rally in the district. A popular saying in Delhi's power corridors is that the road to power goes through Uttar Pradesh. Since the BJP is eyeing a third clean sweep from an electoral battle in the state, it has decided to start its journey from Meerut.

The author is a Meerut-based freelance writer and member of 101Reporters.com.
Activists in Jhalawar, led by BJP worker Pramod Sharma, organised a bike rally with placards that read 'Vasundhara, go back' and 'Vasundhara, quit Jhalawar'.

Kota: Rajasthan chief minister Vasundhara Raje is facing opposition from a section of BJP workers in her home constituency of Jhalawar even as she claimed that her party will score a clean win with 180 seats in the upcoming Assembly elections.

Activists in Jhalawar, led by BJP worker Pramod Sharma, organised a bike rally with placards that read 'Vasundhara, go back' and 'Vasundhara, quit Jhalawar' on the anniversary of the Quit India Movement on 9 August.

The rally, with over 1,000 activists riding nearly 500 motorcycles, passed through the markets of Jhalawar and adjoining Jhalrapatan cities of the home constituency of Raje.

They were protesting against corruption and lack of development works in Jhalawar, the organisers said.

"We have launched the 'Vasundhara, quit Jhalawar movement' on the lines of Quit India Movement, as the people in Raje's home constituency are fed up with corruption and lack of development," Pramod Sharma, a BJP worker for 20 years, said.

"Raje had been elected member of Parliament for five times, member of Legislative Assembly for three times from Jhalawar and is completing her second term as chief minister. But, she has done nothing for the common people of her constituency," Sharma alleged, and added that she destroyed the BJP unit in her area.

The activists are taking the 'Vasundhara, quit Jhalawar' campaign to the people to convince them to vote against Raje in the upcoming elections, Lalit Vaishnav, an activist associated with the campaign said.

When contacted, the Jhalawar district BJP president refuted all allegations levelled by the activists, saying that overwhelming developmental works have been carried out in Jhalawar during Vasundhara Raje's tenure as chief minister.

He, however. admitted that a rally was organised in Jhalawar by the supporters of BJP MLA Ghanshyam Tiwari, the veteran state BJP leader who has been rebelling against the Raje government ever since she has assumed power in the state.

Notably, Raje's son Dushyant Singh represents the Jhalawar-Baran parliamentary constituency.
Kavya Narayanan

Aah, the Sun.

What molten plasma you have.

What charming sunspots.

Theres a hundred things we still dont know about you.

But that might change soon.

NASA is (hopefully) launching a probe thats headed to the Sun on Sunday, 12 August, 2018!

Its not just the first man-made object of any kind to go as close as it will to the Sun, but also the worlds fastest spacecraft yet. The Parker Solar probe was expected to launch at 1 AM on 11 August, but was pushed by 24 hours to 12 August, after a gaseous helium alarm went off moments before liftoff.

A long, but assisted journey

The Parker Solar probe won't just be the first man-made object of any kind to go as close as it will to the Sun (still 68 million kilometers from the surface). It is also the worlds fastest spacecraft at the moment.

The probe is headed along an interesting trajectory. On its three-month journey from here to touching the Sun, the Parker probe is going to pull some serious Gs in a gravity assist as it orbits Venus several times to gather the momentum it needs while on minimal power to fling itself at the Fiery Beast that is our sun.

Over a seven-year-odyssey around and through part of the Sun, the Parker probe is tasked with finding answers to important and unanswered questions in solar physics. There have been many astronomers and solar physicists have proposed ground-breaking ideas about how the sun really works.

The probe has a namesake

Among them is Cambridge Professor, Dr Eugene Parker, a legend in the field of heliophysics, the effects of the Sun on the Solar System. His ground-breaking theories about solar flares, and solar wind, and the magnetic field of the Sun have helped design the Parker Solar probe and its mission to better understand our systems star, which could very well be the only one we see.

What the probe will look for

One of the important questions the Solar probe is tasked with studying is how solar flares are pushed through the holes in the suns atmosphere (called the corona), and travelling at speeds of 80 kilometers per second in any and every direction.

Also on its to-do list is collecting all the data it can from just below the corona, which is, oddly enough, two-hundred times hotter than the surface of the Sun.

There have been two leading theories about why this could be.

The first, that it is a result of electromagnetic waves, which are usually all around us, but likely charged, ionised and dangerous if it has a solar origin.

The second theory proposes that the drastic temperature difference is due to "tiny" little bomb-like explosions, called nanoflares, going off at the surface of the Sun, sending molten gas and radiation in jets through the corona.

If either, or both these theories explain solar flares and the coronal heating problem as experts call them, the Parker probe is equipped with all the tools it needs to seek these answers out.

It will weave through the Suns atmosphere 24 times to capture the larger picture and help NASA make sense of our solo star.

And the coolest part of all?

The Parker Solar probe, NASA says, will not melt no matter what the Sun throws at it. The probe itself sits inside a Thermal Protective System, which is supposedly the best heat shield ever invented. It is a tough, and thick 4.5-inch canister enclosing the probe, made from a sandwich of carbon-carbon fiber sheets between carbon-composite-foam.

While the side of Parker facing the sun scorches at 1400C, everything inside it will work in a cushy and comfortable 30C. To top it off, the probe also has a glossy coat of ceramic finish on the outside to reflect as much of the Suns heat away.

The Parker probe is expected to send back data postcards from its journey as early as December this year.

Dr Eugene Parker, who is now in his 90s, had never actually seen a launch in person before, and was invited to wave his namesake up and away on the original day of its launch.
By Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's administration has quietly started cutting scores of Pakistani officers from coveted training and educational programmes that have been a hallmark of bilateral military relations for more than a decade, U.S. officials say. The move, which has not been previously reported, is one of the first known impacts from Trump's decision this year to suspend U.S

By Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart

ISLAMABAD/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Donald Trump's administration has quietly started cutting scores of Pakistani officers from coveted training and educational programmes that have been a hallmark of bilateral military relations for more than a decade, U.S. officials say.

The move, which has not been previously reported, is one of the first known impacts from Trump's decision this year to suspend U.S. security assistance to Pakistan to compel it to crack down on Islamic militants.

The Pentagon and the Pakistani military did not comment directly on the decision or the internal deliberations, but officials from both countries privately criticised the move.

U.S. officials, speaking to Reuters on the condition of anonymity, said they were worried the decision could undermine a key trust-building measure. Pakistani officials warned it could push their military to further look to China or Russia for leadership training.

The effective suspension of Pakistan from the U.S. government's International Military Education and Training program (IMET) will close off places that had been set aside for 66 Pakistani officers this year, a State Department spokesperson told Reuters.

The places will either be unfilled or given to officers from other countries.

Dan Feldman, a former U.S. special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, called the move "very short-sighted and myopic".

"This will have lasting negative impacts limiting the bilateral relationship well into the future," Feldman told Reuters.

The State Department spokesperson, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the IMET cancellations were valued at $2.41 million so far. At least two other programmes have also been affected, the spokesperson said.

It is unclear precisely what level of military cooperation still continues outside the IMET programme, beyond the top level contacts between U.S. and Pakistani military leaders.

The U.S. military has traditionally sought to shield such educational programmes from political tensions, arguing that the ties built by bringing foreign military officers to the United States pay long-term dividends.

For example, the U.S. Army's War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, which would normally have two Pakistani military officers per year, boasts graduates including Lieutenant General Naveed Mukhtar, the current director-general of Pakistan's powerful spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI).

The War College, the U.S. Army's premier school for foreign officers, says it has hosted 37 participants from Pakistan over the past several decades. It will have no Pakistani students in the upcoming academic year, a spokeswoman said.

Pakistan has also been removed from programmes at the U.S. Naval War College, Naval Staff College and courses including cyber security studies.

"LIES AND DECEIT"

In his first tweet of 2018, Trump slammed Pakistan, saying the country has rewarded past U.S. aid with "nothing but lies & deceit." Washington announced plans in January to suspend up to roughly $2 billion in U.S. security assistance to Pakistan.

But weeks later, Pakistan's foreign secretary was quoted by local media saying that Islamabad had been told the United States would continue funding IMET programs.

Officially allies in fighting terrorism, Pakistan and the United States have a complicated relationship, bound by Washington's dependence on Pakistan to supply its troops in Afghanistan but plagued by accusations Islamabad is playing a double game.

Tensions have grown over U.S. complaints that the Afghan Taliban militants and the Haqqani network that target American troops in Afghanistan are allowed to shelter on Pakistani soil.

Current and former U.S. officials said Defense Secretary Jim Mattis argued against excluding Pakistani officers from IMET courses.

"I am shocked... We worked so hard for this to be the one thing that got saved," said a former U.S. defence official, who was involved in the conversations.

The Pentagon declined to comment on internal government discussions, but Dana White, a Pentagon spokeswoman, said Mattis long believed in the value of the IMET programme as a way to build relations between foreign militaries.

Pakistani Senator Mushahid Hussain, chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, told Reuters that a U.S. decision to cut off such exchanges would be counter-productive and push Pakistan's military towards other countries.

"It is one of those silly, punitive measures that they have deployed," said Hussain, who sat next to a Chinese and Pakistani flag in his office.

Russia and Pakistan signed an agreement earlier this week that would allow for Pakistani military officers to train at Russian institutes.

Pakistan's military has ruled the country for about half of its history and traditionally seen the country's foreign policy in its domain.

IMET courses have been able to withstand poor relations between the two countries in the past, even after al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed in a U.S. Navy SEAL raid in the Pakistani town of Abbotabad in 2011.

A NATO helicopter raid killed 28 Pakistani troops later that year in a friendly fire incident on the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Feldman said that after the raid, when relations were at a low point, the United States limited large security assistance items, but made active efforts to continue the IMET programme.

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCE

In the 1990's former U.S. President George H.W. Bush refused to certify that Pakistan did not have nuclear weapons, triggering the so-called "Pressler Amendment" that required cutting off all military assistance. That included IMET courses.

"The unintended consequence was we didn't know a decade of the Pakistani military leadership as well, and therefore couldn't engage as effectively with them when we needed to," Feldman said.

Mattis, in private discussions within the government, had warned that excluding Pakistani officers from IMET courses could contribute to a similar situation in years to come, the former U.S. defence official said.

Pakistan had been the largest recipient of IMET between 2003 and 2017, according to the Security Assistance Monitor which tracks U.S. assistance.

"You can advocate for cutting off everything else and this was the one thing we were not supposed to touch," the former official said.

(Reporting by Idrees Ali and Phil Stewart; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
A small plane carrying nine people went missing on Saturday during a short flight in mountainous eastern Indonesia, authorities said, with a search and rescue mission underway.

Jayapura(Indonesia): A small plane carrying nine people went missing on Saturday during a short flight in mountainous eastern Indonesia, authorities said, with a search and rescue mission underway.

The Swiss-made Pilatus aircraft lost contact with air traffic control during what was supposed to be a flight of around 40 minutes in remote Papua province, police said.

"Villagers in Okatem reported that they heard a loud roar from the plane followed by a big explosion," Bintang regency police chief Michael Mumbunan told AFP. Search and rescue teams have been deployed but it will take them up to three hours to reach the suspected crash site by foot, he added.

The plane was carrying seven passengers, including a child, and two crew. It belonged to Dimonim Air, a private company operating charter flights in and around Papua.

Indonesia relies heavily on air transport to connect its thousands of islands but has a poor aviation safety record and has suffered several fatal crashes in recent years. Papua is a particularly difficult area to reach.

Five people died after a small plane crashed near Wamena in Papua province in July last year.

In August 2015, a commercial passenger aircraft operated by Indonesian carrier Trigana crashed in Papua due to bad weather, killing all 54 people on board.
Tens of thousands of protesters rallied against the ruling Social Democrat (PSD) government on Friday in cities across Romania and the capital Bucharest where riot police fired tear gas into the crowd and hundreds needed medical attention.

Bucharest: Tens of thousands of protesters rallied against the ruling Social Democrat (PSD) government on Friday in cities across Romania and the capital Bucharest where riot police fired tear gas into the crowd and hundreds needed medical attention.

The protests were organised and promoted by groups of Romanians working abroad, angry at what they say is entrenched corruption, low wages and attempts by the PSD to weaken the judiciary in one of the European Union's most corrupt states.

In Bucharest, some protesters attempted to force their way through security lines guarding the government building. Others threw bottles and rocks at riot police, who said groups of "provocateurs" were present in the square.

As the protest continued well into the night, riot police used a water canon and increasingly sprayed tear gas into the crowd. Video footage posted on social media show police beating non-violent protesters holding their hands up.

More than 400 people required medical assistance, the emergency intervention agency ISU said, including two riot police who got separated from their unit. Tens of thousands staged peaceful protests in other Romanian cities.

Centrist Romanian President Klaus Iohannis condemned the police's disproportionate use of force.

"I firmly condemn riot police's brutal intervention, strongly disproportionate to the actions of the majority of people in the square," he said on his Facebook page.

"The interior ministry must explain urgently the way it handled tonight's events."

Diaspora protest

Among the crowds in Bucharest were truck driver Daniel Ostafi (42), who moved to Italy 15 years ago in search of a future he says Romania could not offer his family, and Mihai Podut (27), a construction worker who left in 2014, first for France and later Germany.

They joined tens of thousands outside government headquarters in scorching temperatures, waving Romanian and European Union flags and demanding the cabinet's resignation. Messages projected on buildings around the square said "We are the people" and "No violence".

An estimated 3 to 5 million Romanians are working and living abroad, the World Bank has said, up to a quarter of the European Union state's population, ranging from day labourers to doctors. They sent home just under $5 billion last year, a lifeline for rural communities in one of the EU's least developed countries.

"I left to give my children a better life, which was not possible here then," said Ostafi.

"Unfortunately, it is still not possible, the people who govern us are not qualified and they are corrupt," he said, adding he hoped the next parliamentary election would see a bigger turnout.

Peaceful protests have repeatedly been held since the Social Democrats took power in early 2017 and tried to decriminalise several corruption offences.
Both Taliban and the Afghan government forces claimed the city of Ghazni after fighting a two-day battle there

Kabul: Both Taliban and government forces claimed they were in control of the eastern Afghan city of Ghazni on Saturday, after insurgents stormed the provincial capital, triggering fierce fighting.

Afghan officials said they were in control of Ghazni late Friday with authorities in Kabul saying security forces were conducting a clearance operation targeting Taliban fighters who had taken up positions in residential homes.

But information about who controlled the city was difficult to confirm with power and mobile services cut to the area after the Taliban destroyed a telecommunications tower, according to Ghazni MP Shah Gul Rezaye.

"The central government in Kabul said the situation in Ghazni was under their control, but we managed to contact officials in Ghazni who said that fighting was underway in areas surrounding Ghazni," said the parliamentarian.

Rezaye said additional reinforcements had been rushed to Ghazni late Friday, after US forces deployed attack helicopters and launched at least one drone strike to push back the Taliban fighters.

The Taliban, however, claimed victory saying their fighters were now in control of Ghazni after routing Afghan forces.

"Last night, our mujahideen have completely conquered a battalion in Ghazni, seizing weapons and ammunition and four pickup trucks," said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid in a message to journalists on Saturday.

"Our mujahideen are protecting the city of Ghazni." The insurgents frequently exaggerate their battlefield gains and downplay losses incurred during clashes.

Ghazni  less than two hours by road from Kabul  has been under increasing danger from massing Taliban fighters for months with reports suggesting insurgents had already infiltrated the city.

The attack, which began late Thursday, was the latest attempt by the Taliban to seize an urban centre and comes as pressure mounts on the insurgents to enter peace talks with the government to end the nearly 17-year-old war.
Trump administration suspended a decade-long military training programme with Pakistan after Islamabad received training from Moscow

Islamabad: The Trump administration has suspended more than a decade-long military training programme of Pakistani personnel at the US institutions, a media report said on Saturday, days after Islamabad and Moscow signed an agreement to allow Pakistani troops to receive training at the Russian defence centres.

Pakistan and Russia signed an agreement on Tuesady at their first Joint Military Consultative Committee (JMCC) meeting in Rawalpindi during which the two sides discussed the present status of the bilateral defence relations and agreed that Pakistani troops will receive training at the Russian military training institutes.

The relations between Pakistan and the US nosedived this January after President Donald Trump accused Islamabad of giving nothing to Washington but "lies and deceit" and providing "safe haven" to terrorists.

The US Congress also passed a bill to slash Pakistan's defence aid to $150 million, significantly below the historic level of more than $1 billion per year.

The US military institutions are struggling to fill the 66 slots they had kept aside for officers from Pakistan for the next academic year, as the Trump administration refused to provide funds for their training, the Dawn newspaper reported, quoting official sources.

The fund for the training of Pakistani officers came from the US government's International Military Education and Training Programme (IMET) but no funds were made available for Pakistan for the next academic year, it said.

The suspension of the training first became apparent when the US National Defence University (NDU) in Washington, which has had reserved seats for Pakistani officers for more than a decade, told the outgoing Pakistani officers that the varsity has been asked to fill the positions for the next year with officers from other nations.

The NDU is one of several US military institutions that train officers from Pakistan.

The Trump administration had announced early this year that it was suspending security assistance to Pakistan over differences on Afghanistan but indicated that training programmes for military officers will continue.

The cancellation of slots kept aside for Pakistani officers, however, shows that the suspension now also applies to training programmes, the report said.

Pakistani officers have been receiving military training and education in the US since early 1960s, which were suspended in the 1990s but restored after the 11 September, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Previously, it was not just Pakistan that valued the training and education of its officers received in the US.

US military institutions also proudly owned training officers who assumed senior positions after returning home, such as former Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and Lt Gen Naveed Mukhtar, the current director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence, the report said.

"This is an unfortunate and ultimately counterproductive decision. There are certainly ways to send a strong message to Pakistan, but this isn't the way to do it," Michael Kugelman, an expert of Pakistan affairs at the Washington think tank 'the Wilson Center', was quoted as saying in the report.

"This move could squander what little goodwill and trust remains in the military-to-military relationship, and it reduces the likelihood that Pakistan will act in the ways that Washington would like it to act," Kugelman said.

He said there was a long history of educational and training cooperation between the US and Pakistani militaries, and this cooperation had withstood the pressures and tensions of the relationship.

"The fact that these educational exchanges have suffered this blow now suggests that the relationship could be entering into a new phase where even the supposedly safe and protected dimensions of the relationship can become casualties of wider tensions and ill will," Kugelman said.

So far there is no response from Pakistani official to this move by the US.

Pakistan's defence ties with Russia have moved past the bitter Cold War hostilities in recent years and the chill in the relations between Pakistan and the US has further pushed the country towards Russia and China.

Pakistan has shown eagerness to build military-to-military level ties with Russia.

Earlier this year, the then foreign minister Khawaja Asif visited Moscow during which the two sides agreed to set up a commission to boost military cooperation.

Russia has over the past three years provided four Mi-35M combat and cargo helicopters to Pakistan and the militaries of the two countries also held joint drills codenamed 'Friendship'.
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Dozens of air strikes and shelling hit parts of the last swathe of Syrian territory still held by rebels on Friday, a war monitor and civil defence group said, causing deaths and injuries. Northwestern Syria is the last big area still in the hands of fighters seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, after the government recaptured the area around Damascus and the southwest earlier this year

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Dozens of air strikes and shelling hit parts of the last swathe of Syrian territory still held by rebels on Friday, a war monitor and civil defence group said, causing deaths and injuries.

Northwestern Syria is the last big area still in the hands of fighters seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, after the government recaptured the area around Damascus and the southwest earlier this year.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said dozens of strikes from helicopters and war planes had hit parts of northern Hama province and southern Idlib province -- killing at least eight people -- and western Aleppo province -- killing at least 14 people.

Syria's rebel-held northwest borders Turkey and includes Idlib province, part of Hama province and part of Aleppo province. Idlib is its main city.

Rebel-held parts of northern Hama province have been shelled intensively in recent weeks.

Hundreds of thousands of Assad opponents have relocated to northwest Syria under evacuation agreements reached as other parts of the country fell to pro-government forces backed by Russia and Iran. Assad has indicated it could be his next target

The Observatory has said additional government forces have been arriving this week for a possible attack in area to the southwest of the opposition territory.

On Thursday the Syrian army dropped leaflets over opposition-held Idlib province, urging people to agree to a return of state rule and telling them the seven-year war was nearing its end.

The Observatory said the air strikes were the first to hit the area in almost a month and could be seen as "preparation for an offensive".

The United Nations worries that an offensive against the area could force 2.5 million people towards the Turkish border.

The Syrian White Helmets, a group of rescue workers established in rebel-held areas of the country, said air strikes, barrel bombs and shelling had hit the southern part of the opposition territory, causing damage, injuries and at least one death.

Pro-opposition television Orient News said 20 people were killed in west Aleppo province in strikes on the town of Urem al-Kubra.

(Reporting by Lisa Barrington; Editing by Alison Williams)

This story has not been edited by Firstpost staff and is generated by auto-feed.
After several challenging years, Energy Transfer Equity LP (NYSE:ET) is starting to turn things around, which was evident in its strong second-quarter results. That has members of the company's management team excited about what lies ahead. On the accompanying conference call, they highlighted three things fueling their optimism:

1. We're creating one strong company

After lots of analysis and discussion, Energy Transfer Equity recently announced that it has agreed to merge with its MLP Energy Transfer Partners (NYSE: ETP) in a $27 billion deal that will create a nearly $100 billion energy infrastructure behemoth. In addition to increasing the size and scale of the company, several other reasons were highlighted by CFO Tom Long about why the company is happy to finally be able to announce this transaction:

[It is] expected to be immediately accretive to ETE's [distributable cash flow] per unit. We expect to maintain ETE's distribution per unit at its current level. In addition, the transaction will create a more simplified ownership structure, as we are eliminating the [incentive distribution rights], which will improve our overall cost of capital. This will allow us to continue pursuing accretive growth capital projects and strategic [merger and acquisition] transactions. It also increases retained cash to accelerate deleveraging.

Overall, management believes that the combined company can generate enough cash to cover its 6.7%-yielding payout by a healthy 1.6 to 1.9 times. That will leave it with about $2.5 billion to $3 billion of annual retained cash, Long said, greatly reducing the need for external common or preferred equity funding. That will make it easier and cheaper for the company to finance expansion projects, which should enable it to earn higher returns.

2. We're working on expanding some oil pipelines

Speaking of expansions, while the company has several still underway, management hinted that it has a few more in the works. First, the company said that it could expand its recently completed Dakota Access Pipeline, which has been transporting an average of around 500,000 barrels per day (BPD), close to its 550,000 BPD capacity.

Because of that, chief commercial officer Mack McCrea stated on the call that "we are looking at expanding it. We hope to be able to do that in the near future," noting that "we have the ability possibly to expand at least 100,000 BPD as we complete our analysis."

The company is also looking at a variety of oil pipeline expansion projects in the Permian Basin, including building the Permian Express-4 pipeline, which could move about 100,000 BPD. On top of that, it's working on a potentially larger project with its joint venture partner Magellan Midstream Partners (NYSE:MMP). Long noted that the company had made "significant progress with our new 30-inch crude oil pipeline joint-venture project with Magellan and other strategic partners" that would "provide unprecedented flexibility from the Permian Basin."

McCrea stated that the company feels very good about its discussions with shippers, and thinks this project "would add at least another 1 million BPD" of oil pipeline capacity to the region by 2020, which is up from the 600,000 BPD capacity Magellan and Energy Transfer initially anticipated.

3. We hope to resume M&A soon

Finally, an analyst on the call asked management for its thoughts on corporate mergers and acquisitions (M&A) going forward. COO Matt Ramsey addressed this one by stating "we believe ... that to correctly run these partnerships, you should mix the correct amount of M&A with organic growth." However, he noted that this has been virtually impossible for the company due to how much its challenges over the past few years have weighed on its equity valuation. Because of that, it has been out of the market, which the company regrets.

That's why it's working hard to shore up its financial profile so it can pounce when the right opportunity -- that's both strategic and accretive -- comes around. While Ramsey did say that "we are not seeing any bargains right now," management plans to study things as they become available "and hopefully resume our M&A activity in the not-too-distant future."

Better days appear to be just ahead

Energy Transfer Equity's management was brimming with optimism on its second-quarter call about what it sees ahead. Driving that view is the merger with Energy Transfer Partners, which will create one stronger company with increased financial flexibility to not only invest in expansion projects but pursue corporate M&A. Management believes those two growth drivers have the potential to create more value for investors, which is what has it excited about the future.
Many investors know Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A) (NYSE:BRK.B) as "Warren Buffett's company," but they aren't sure exactly how it makes money. And the answer is a bit complicated, as Berkshire is a collection of subsidiary businesses and a massive stock portfolio.

In this Industry Focus: Financials clip, host Shannon Jones and Fool.com contributor Matt Frankel give a quick rundown of Berkshire's business model.

A full transcript follows the video.

This video was recorded on Aug. 6, 2018.

Shannon Jones: Before we dive into the latest on Berkshire, Matt, let's actually catch our listeners up on what exactly Berkshire does, and more importantly, how in the world is it so awesome at making money?

Matt Frankel: First of all, a lot of people don't think of Berkshire as a financials sector company, but in reality, it's the largest financials sector company. The reason for it is, at its core, Berkshire is an insurance company. Warren Buffett loves the insurance business. He started buying up insurance companies shortly after he took the reins of Berkshire Hathaway -- which, at the time, was a textile manufacturer. It owns insurance subsidiaries. Geico is probably the most well-known one. Gen Re, a reinsurance company, is the biggest of their insurance subsidiaries. That's why we include it in the financials sector -- at its core, it's an insurance business.

It also owns a collection of other subsidiary companies, about five dozen of them, ranging in all kinds of industries, from consumer goods to housing to automotive parts. Just to mention a few of the commonly known ones: Dairy Queen is a Berkshire subsidiary; BNSF Railroad is a subsidiary; NetJets, the private jet leasing company, is a subsidiary; Duracell; Fruit of the Loom; I could go on. Berkshire has this big collection of businesses which all generate cash flow for the company. Because it has all of these businesses, they can use their money wherever they see fit to grow each business as necessary.

In addition to that, Berkshire has a big, big stock portfolio that's very closely followed. Warren Buffett views this as a big competitive advantage, that Berkshire is willing to invest money in companies that it doesn't control. A lot of big insurance companies are not willing to do that. Berkshire's stock portfolio is worth over $200 billion as I'm speaking.

While he has about four dozen companies in his portfolio, there are six that are really the big standouts. There's Apple, American Express, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, and Coca-Cola. Between the five of them are about 70% of the stock portfolio value. Berkshire also has a big stake in Kraft Heinz, more than a quarter of the company. That's accounted for under a slightly different method, so it's not technically included in the stock portfolio, but it's worth about $20 billion. It's a pretty big holding. And, as Shannon mentioned, Berkshire also has a lot of cash that adds value to the company, which we'll get into a little more later.

Jones: Matt, you mentioned, at its core, Berkshire Hathaway is an insurance business. Generally speaking, there are two ways insurers make their money. They write a policy, you pay a premium, and they pay you if you get into an accident. Granted, money is definitely lost on that side of the business, especially when there are a lot of claims. Think about last year's devastating hurricane season, which certainly had an impact on Berkshire Hathaway. We'll talk a little bit about that in a moment. But, they make up that money when it comes to their investments.

Matt, as you went down, Berkshire is most well-known for its investment portfolio. All of those companies, including Apple -- which, by the way, became the first trillion-dollar company by market cap last week. Our own Dylan Lewis did an Industry Focus episode last Friday, August 3rd, on that topic and what it means. I certainly encourage you to check it out. But, really, when it comes to Berkshire Hathaway, all eyes generally tend to be on what's in its portfolio, what's it investing in, and the like.
The new question-of-the-week is:

What role, if any, should student test scores have in teacher evaluations?



Fortunately - from my perspective, at least - many states seem to be stepping back from including test scores in teacher evaluations.

But others still maintain that requirement.

Todays guests will share if they believe that choice is a wise one.

David Berliner, Kathleen Neagle Sokolowski, Douglas Reeves, Timothy Hilton, Amanda Koonlaba, and Erin Scholes will be sharing their thoughts. Ive also included comments from readers. Though this column doesnt have an accompanying podcast, you can still listen to past ones here .

You might also be interested in The Best Resources For Learning About Effective Student & Teacher Assessments .



Response From David C. Berliner



David C. Berliner is Regents Professor Emeritus at Arizona State University, He has written, coauthored or edited over 200+ books, articles, papers, and chapters, among them The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, And The Attack On Americas Public Schools and Collateral Damage: How High-stakes Testing Corrupts American Schools:

I have never said I wouldnt use test scores to evaluate teachers: I said Id never use standardized test scores to evaluate teachers. Teachers may only account for 10 percent or so of the variance in standardized achievement test scores. So, if teachers dont affect these tests very much--and they do not--why would we use them as indicators of teacher competence?

But there are tests I would use to evaluate teachers: These are the tests teachers give in class. And I would also use the answers students give to those tests in evaluating teachers. These are quite appropriate artifacts from which to judge what that teacher is trying to accomplish, and how well students are mastering the curriculum appropriate to that grade or course. The tests a teacher gives, and the answers given by their students, are easily evaluated by anyone who knows the curriclum for, say, the 4th grade or for high school algebra. Examination of teachers tests (not Pearsons tests), and students answers, provides considerabele insight into teachers curriculum competency and students proficiency with that curricula.

To go along with the collection of clasroom artifacts, on different occassions, by different observers, would be a number of observations of classroom instruction. Reasonable reliability for the judgements that need to be made about teacher competence can be obtained if we have multiple obsrvations of instruction by multiple observers. These observations and artifact collections are direct measures of what teachers do. Such proximal, direct measures and artifacts of teachers and teaching are much more likely to be valid than indirect and distal measure of teachers and teaching, such as a standarized acheievement test. Standardized acheievement tests are recognized by the American Statistical Associaltion, and most other educational associations and researchers, as remarkably insensitive to classroom instruction. That cannot be said about students answers to teachers tests.

Who would make judgements about teacher competence from these data? The school principal is one such person. Of course, if a principal or other adminstrator of an elementary or high school school doesnt know what 4th graders or algebra students should know and be able to do, they should not be the observer/evaluator--and maybe they shouldnt be an adminstrator at that school! But the school principal is certainly an evaluator with a stake in the trustworthiness of these kinds of data. Since we know that more than one evaluator and more than one observation is needed, Id also use Nationally Board Certified Teachers (NBCTs) as observers/evaluators. They too have a stake in the trustworthiness of the data for judging their colleagues. They have demonstrated their committment to a high degree of professionalism

Would a number of classroom visits a year to make these kinds of judgements be expensive, compared to using students standardized achievement test scores as a measure of teacher competency? You bet! But lets ask this question differenty: When making judgements about teacher competency, is validity important? You bet! The case for validity is much more likely if the observations and judgements of teachers are made by professionals with the greatest concern for the competency of those being judged--principals and NBCTs.

In my view, I think America faces a simple choice: Live with a cheap, quantitative, and proven invalid measure of teacher competency; or design an expensive, qualitative and (likely) more valid measure of teacher competency. Id vote for the latter, although politicans all seem to vote for the former. By doing so, they harm our profession.

Response From Kathleen Neagle Sokolowski



Kathleen Neagle Sokolowski is a 3rd grade teacher in Farmingdale, NY. She previously taught 6th grade and kindergarten. Kathleen is one of the co-authors of the Two Writing Teachers and the co-director of the Long Island Writing Project. She blogs at Courage Doesnt Always Roar:

Teaching is a complex science and an art. As a public school educator, I welcome all students into my classroom. In third grade, students come to me from a variety of backgrounds, academic levels and experiences. My job is to meet students where they are and help them learn, grow, and develop. My aim is to help them see their own potential, become empathetic, work to be problem solvers who strive to make a positive change in the world. Student test scores show a snapshot of one day in the life of a student and not an overall picture of the teaching and learning the students have accomplished. Student test scores should not factor into a teachers evaluation whatsoever.

Why not? As a teacher for 16 years, I can tell you that the profession depends on collegiality and sharing of ideas. When teachers livelihoods depend on how students score on tests, an environment of competition and stress invades a school. Instead of seeing all the students as our students, teachers may strive to work with the most high achieving students. The focus is on getting students to answer test questions correctly instead of helping students learn. The arts, physical education, and inquiry based projects, like Genius Hour, get pushed to the side for more test-taking practice. Teachers see each other as competitors instead of colleagues and pressure is placed on everyone.

I realize that many people make a great deal of money off the testing industry and all the test prep guides, computer programs, and workshops. I know that some politicians like to point to test scores to push a narrative that schools are failing. I understand that there are folks who will say that test scores keep teachers accountable. But the truth is, my students test scores will tell you nothing about the work I do over the summer to grow as a professional, the books I read, the online discussions I participate in to gain new teaching ideas. My students test scores will not tell you about how I buy each of them a book twice a year so they can grow their home library and have books of their own. My students test scores will not tell you how I set up blogs for them so they can be writers with a wide, authentic audience. The scores wont tell you how I plan instruction, or use formative assessment to make changes along the way, or create newsletters to keep parents informed. I believe in teacher accountability and I welcome feedback and opportunities to improve my craft. Its just my students test scores will tell you none of this about me as a teacher and very little about my students as learners.

How do we know if teachers are teaching? How do we know if students are learning? We dont need high-stakes tests to tell us this information. We need administrators who visit classrooms on a daily basis, noting the teaching and learning they observe. We need to look at students as learners over time with samples of work and their own thoughts and reflections on the learning. We need to have conversations about thinking and learning and encourage risk-taking and innovation for teachers and students. When everyone feels afraid to try because jobs are riding on how an 8 year old answers a multiple choice question on a random day in May, it makes you wonder what these high-stakes assessments are really accomplishing.





Response From Douglas Reeves



Douglas Reeves is the author of more than 30 books on education and leadership. He blogs at CreativeLeadership.net and Tweets @DouglasReeves:

The late Bill Sanders was the pioneer of value-added assessments, a statistical technique that purported to identify the extent to which an individual teacher could improve the test performance of students. I never doubted Bills integrity and good intentions. In personal conversations with me, he would assure me that the primary intent of his work for research was to identify the most effective teaching strategies, not for evaluation.

Unfortunately, Bills research was perverted by states and school systems with tragic consequences. Schools would publish the value-added scores of teachers, leading to at least one suicide. While Bill, a statistician by training, understood that the value of his method relied upon large sample sizes, districts and states used value-added methods with tiny sample sizes, leading to wild variations in scores - todays A teacher could be tomorrows F teacher, without a single change in teaching technique. Worst of all, the implementation of the value-added model in districts with high levels of student transiency led to the missing values problem, in which students who were not conveniently present for three consecutive years of testing would have their scores estimated by a model that based on their demographic characteristics.

There is a broad consensus today that the value-added model lacks the fundamental properties of reliability and validity, and yet some states remain stubbornly loyal to this discredited model. I understand their desire for test-based accountability, but there is a much better way. Just have short 30-40 minute assessments administered in the fall, winter, and spring. Many districts already have this. It allows a clear observation of the progress of the same student with the same teacher within the same year. Whether a student starts at, below, or above grade-level, this sort of assessment allows leaders to identify where student progress is, and is not, occurring. Most importantly, however, teaching practices - not just test results - must the foundation of effective teacher evaluation. The international leader on this point is Kim Marshall who, amazingly, provides his observation instruments for free for schools around the world at MarshallMemo.com. Kims work saves money and time for administrators and teachers and is a model to follow.





Response From Timothy Hilton



Timothy Hilton currently teaches high school Social Studies in South Central Los Angeles, and has taught in the area for the past 9 years. Timothy has experience teaching every level of social studies ranging from Advanced Placement to English Language Development. In addition to teaching in the inner city of Los Angeles, Timothy is currently a doctoral student at Claremont Graduate University studying Educational Policy, Evaluation, and Reform:

Testing is a part of education. Teachers use tests to gauge student initial understanding, check for understanding as lessons progress, and assess student learning at the end of a unit or course. Give the important role testing has in the education of our students, the hot button question is what role should student test scores take in assessing our teachers.

Like any controversial topic, there are two sides to the testing as evaluation argument. One the one hand, test scores are generally accepted as a decent gauge of student learning. If a student does well on a test, there is a reasonable assurance that the student has learned at least some of the content. Continuing with this logic, it can reasonably be assumed that a good teacher will produce gains in student test scores.

On the other hand, teaching is nearly universally accepted by all those in the classroom and on school sites as highly nuanced. Teachers will make the argument, that the education of a student is about far more than just learning content. Teachers support students social, and emotional development. Teachers work to make students aware of the world around them, and develop empathy and compassion. None of which can be measured on a test.

So, which is it? Do we use test scores, or rely on observations to determine teacher quality?

Why not both?

No self-respecting teacher would use a single student grade on a single assignment as a final grade for the entirety of a course, so why would we rely on one source of information in the determination of a teachers overall quality? The more data that can be provided, the more accurate the teacher evaluation decisions will end up being. Teacher evaluations should incorporate as many pieces of data as possible. Administration observation, student surveys, student test scores, professional portfolios, and on and on. The more data that is used, the more accurate the picture it will paint.

While the addition of multiple data sources opens the door for some very creative evaluation techniques, I would argue in favor of using a balanced evaluation of teachers where teacher observations (25%), test scores (25%), student survey (25%), and a professional portfolio (25%) to evaluate teachers. This, however, is just one potential solution where test scores can be incorporated without being overly relied upon.

Response From Amanda Koonlaba



Amanda Koonlaba, Ed. S. is an educator with over 12 years of experience teaching both visual art and regular education. She is a published author and frequent speaker/presenter at education conferences. Amanda was named the Elementary Art Teacher of the Year for the state of Mississippi in 2016. She holds an Elementary and Middle Childhood Art certification from the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards. Amanda is on a mission to ensure every student in America has access to a high-quality arts-based education. You can connect with her at Party in the Art Room or on Twitter:

I might be a radical, but I think test scores should have minimal to no impact on teacher evaluations. (Sigh. Yeah, Im a radical.)

I think test scores should be used to guide instruction. When a student doesnt master something, it should be retaught. That is the proper use of assessment, in my opinion.

I think using test scores in evaluations puts too much performance stress on the students. I mean, their teachers job is on the line when that is how test scores are used. Students are aware of this. It also makes teaching be about the tests. (GASP!)

I think teaching should be about learning. I also think there should be many pieces to a teacher evaluation. If test scores are a part of evaluation, the weight on the overall evaluation score should be minimal. I really dont want my childs teacher to have their career on the line because of my childs test scores. I also dont want my children to be burdened with this either. I want them to be assessed so that they can learn. If they dont master a skill, I want them to be retaught. Thats it. Thats pretty much all I want for my kids regarding assessment.

I worked on a collaborative report for the National Education Association called Changing the Story: Transformation toward Fair Accountability and Responsibility in Public Education . This was a project where NEA members were able to discuss accountability. This was in an online forum with prompts. After a discussion period, a core group of members worked on compiling the information into a recommendation report. (Check it out. It is an interesting read.)

One of the recommendations was to exclude standardized test scores from playing any role in a teachers evaluation. I remember how hard we fought to get that in there. We wrote it and were asked to rethink it. This was a defining moment for me as a professional. This is when I learned about the movement to privatize public education. I was awakened to how the testing industry plays a role in that. (It is a convoluted issue that I cannot explain here. There isnt enough space.) Anyway, I wrote about the accountability report experience for Anthony Codys Living in Dialogue. I mention all of this to provide a frame of reference because one piece of that accountability report sticks out in my mind as I respond to this question about test scores and teacher evaluations. It reads Standardized tests might determine whether a student has learned basic content, but they cannot measure the depth of understanding or vastness of creativity found in an engaged classroom. They provide no opportunity to demonstrate multi-level learning or measurement for intuition, innovation, or character. In schools all across the country teachers who are well-regarded by students, parents, principals, and colleagues were rated ineffective after student test scores were included in the VAM statistical algorithm. The American Statistical Association has urged states and school districts against using VAM to make personnel decisions.

VAM stands for Value-Added Models. As stated, these are highly complicated mathematical formulas that attempt to measure a teachers impact on student achievement apart from the other factors that impact student achievement. These try to isolate the teachers influence on achievement. Statisticians have warned that this doesnt work. Yet, there are so many states still using this to evaluate teachers. It just doesnt make sense to me. It is too experimental and ineffective for me to feel it is appropriate to use this in evaluating teachers. Teachers are human beings. This is a matter of the livelihoods of human beings and their families. We shouldnt be basing this on evaluations weighted heavily with test scores.





Response From Erin Scholes



Erin Scholes is beginning her 13th year of teaching middle school students. She currently teaches 7th grade students math in northern Connecticut. She is an advocate for young adolescents:

Using test scores to evaluate teachers devalues teachers, their students and what occurs in the classroom. When asked what I teach, I respond I teach 130 seventh grade students. My role as a teacher stretches far beyond the math standards. For the students, their learning happens far beyond the classroom walls.

A test measures a specific set of knowledge, at a single moment in time, in a very specific way. Each section of this statement raises its own set of concerns. By testing a specific set of knowledge, (usually math and language arts) we are expecting all students to be at the same place in their understanding of the concepts. When only looking at a single moment in time how do we know that was a good day for that student to take a test? What if they didnt have breakfast or had an argument that morning? There are so many factors that influence a students life, none of which are taken into consideration when looking at a test score, and most of which are out of the control of the teacher, whom will then be evaluated based on that score. Tests are a very specific way, and are only one way, of examining what a student knows and yet they are the preferred method of evaluation. There are children who dont perform well on tests, however that doesnt mean they dont understand the material.

By putting an emphasis on language arts and math we lose the opportunity to provide a well rounded education that celebrates multiple forms of intelligence and the connections among the subjects. It also creates an inequitable evaluation process, that either requires all teachers be evaluated on standardized testing or each teacher create/use their own subject specific assessment. The former puts a lot of pressure on math and language arts, and the latter requires a lot of testing. When class time is limited, especially in classes like art, music and physical education, we shouldnt be asking teachers and students to use that time to test and write. Rather we need to provide them with more opportunities to be active and creative.

If a students social, emotional or physical needs are not met, they are not going to retain new learning. It is important to build relationships with students, in order to better understand their personal struggles both inside and out of the classroom. It is important to help students take responsibility and ownership for their actions, and use mistakes as learning opportunities.

At the end of the year, I ask my students what is the most important lesson Ms. Scholes taught you? I will get a few responses like dividing fractions or how to solve an algebraic equation. Most often the vast majority of the responses are it is ok to make mistakes, how to study or that math can be fun. The statements that mean the most are those that come from students who struggled during the year, and probably didnt perform as well on tests. Like those students who are trying to figure out who they are while dealing with social and family issues. When they write, Ms. Scholes taught me it is ok to be myself ... that is what teaching is about. To be perfectly honest, I dont care if those students remember a thing about ratios, I know they will continue to grow and be successful because they learned how to love themselves. Those are lessons that cant be tested, or quantified, yet they are the ones that matter most. Those are the lessons that make a teacher Exceptional.





Responses From Readers



Entire evaluation of teacher must not be based on the test scores of pupils. It can be one variable out of many. Some have false belief that all is good if marks are good. Such an approach has negative consequences on students academic and teachers professional life. -- ALI_ELT (@M_Ali_Linguist) August 9, 2018

Potentially, but the biggest fallback I see is that it makes teachers compete against each other instead of help each other. -- JulyDa (@julydamusic) August 8, 2018

Thanks to David, Kathleen, Douglas, Timothy, Amanda, and Erin, and to readers, for their contributions!

Please feel free to leave a comment with your reactions to the topic or directly to anything that has been said in this post.

Consider contributing a question to be answered in a future post. You can send one to me at lferlazzo@epe.org . When you send it in, let me know if I can use your real name if its selected or if youd prefer remaining anonymous and have a pseudonym in mind.

You can also contact me on Twitter at @Larryferlazzo .

Anyone whose question is selected for this weekly column can choose one free book from a number of education publishers.

Education Week has published a collection of posts from this blog, along with new material, in an e-book form. Its titled Classroom Management Q&As: Expert Strategies for Teaching .

Just a reminder--you can subscribe and receive updates from this blog via email or RSS Reader. And, if you missed any of the highlights from the first six years of this blog, you can see a categorized list below. They dont include ones from this current year, but you can find those by clicking on the answers category found in the sidebar.

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Look for the next question-of-the-week in a few days.
Mziuri Park in Tbilisi to be renovated soon - GeorgianJournal
Salman will be recreating his 'Karan-Arjun' look which had created immense excitement amongst the audience.

Mumbai: Bollywood star Salman Khan has started shooting for the second schedule of upcoming film 'Bharat' in Malta. The actor praised the beautiful location in Europe by calling it a 'lovely country'.

The first schedule of the movie was wrapped up in Mumbai.

Salman took to his Instagram account to announce the beginning of the second schedule and wrote,"Starting the shooting schedule of #Bharat in Malta, lovely country."

This movie is Ali Abbas Zafar's third collaboration with Salman after the 2016 film 'Sultan' and the recent 'Tiger Zinda Hai'.

After Priyanka Chopra walked out of the film, Katrina Kaif was roped in to play the lead opposite the 'Dabangg' star.'Bharat' also stars Tabu and Disha Patani in pivotal roles.

The film will feature Salman sporting five different looks spanning 60 years, wherein a crucial part will showcase the actor in his late 20s, looking much leaner and younger.

Salman will be recreating his 'Karan-Arjun' look which had created immense excitement amongst the audience.
The actor recently finalised his looks before flying to Malta for a 16-day outdoor schedule.

Salman Khan starrer Bharat has been in news for some time, courtesy the exit of its leading lady. The film, which is an official remake of the Korean film Ode to My Father, is finally moving ahead with the crew flying to Malta for the shoot. While bhai is mostly effortless when it comes to making his presence felt on screen, he also had to undergo several look tests before locking the ones that worked. Rehearsals were organized at Filmistan Studious for the actors. Disha Patni had to attend rehearsals for 15 days while Salman came to the sets for about eight days to finalise his looks for the film, says a source. According to a crewmember, the Dabangg actor dons five different characters from different walks of life in the film. Rehearsing for five different characters in just eight days was indeed enough for Bhai, he says.

The first leg of Bharats shoot in which Salman dons three different characters have been shot at different locations in Mumbai such as the Film City, Filmistan and Yash Raj Studios where special sets were erected. A tunnel was also created at the Yash Raj Studios and it has an important place in the plot, says the source.

The Tiger Zinda Hai actor has already left for Malta with the technicians, as the schedule will begin the following week. Katrina Kaif will join him the actor after a few days in Malta and then in Abu- Dhabi. After completing a 16-day schedule at Malta, the entire cast and crew will take a break for about three to four days and then proceed to Abu Dhabi to shoot for another 20 days schedule before flying back to Mumbai.
motorola teases the launch of the word's first 5G smartphone in China: 5G Moto MOD News oi-Vivek Moto Z3 does not have the shatterproof display like the Moto Z2 Force

Motorola is all set to launch a new smartphone in China on the 15th of August 2018. Looking at the launch event invitation, the company might launch the Moto Z3, which was recently launched in the USA.

The company has now released a new teaser teasing towards the 5G capabilities of the smartphone. Considering the teaser, the company might finally release the 5G Moto MOD in China, which was initially announced in Chicago.

The 5G Moto MOD from Motorola will work with every moto Z series smartphones launched to date and will enable true 5G technology, which offers a phenomenal improvement in download and upload speeds compared to 4G technology.

Moto Z3 specifications

The Moto Z3 is the current flagship smartphone from the Lenovo owned smartphone brand with a modern 6.01-inch OLED display protected by 2.5D curved tempered glass on the top. Under the hood, the smartphone is powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 SoC with 6 GB RAM and 128 GB storage with a micro SD card slot for additional storage expansion.

The smartphone has a dual camera setup on the back of the smartphone with a 12 MP primary camera with an f/1.7 aperture and a 5 MP depth sensor, which offers bokeh effect. On the front, the smartphone has an 8 MP front-facing selfie camera. The main camera can record 4k videos at 30fps and the front-facing selfie camera will offer 1080p video at 30fps.

In terms of connectivity, the smartphone will have a dual or a single SIM card slot (depending on the market) with 4G LTE and VoLTE capability on both the slots. The smartphone also supports Bluetooth 5.0, NFC, and Dual channel Wi-Fi.

The smartphone has a 3000 mAh Li-ion battery with support for fast charging via USB type C port, which also doubles as a headphone jack.

In terms of pricing, the Moto Z3 is available in the US for less than $500 price tag the company is expected to launch the Moto Z3 in China for a price of 3000 Yuan (Rs 30,000) price mark for the entry-level or the base variant and the company might also launch a premium variant with 8 GB RAM and 256 GB storage.

Source

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Google removes Ahoy anti-censorship extension from Chrome Web Store News oi-Sandeep Sarkar The extension can be downloaded from Mozilla's Firefox add-on repository without any difficulties.

Google has reportedly removed 'Ahoy' which is an anti-censorship extension from its Chrome web-store. It appears that with this decision the company is going against its own motto of 'Don't be Evil'. The 'Ahoy' anti-censorship extension is open-source software and its source code is available on GitHub.

The extension was developed by a Portuguese anti-censorship group, Bytes' Revolution (Revolucao dos Bytes). The 'Ahoy' extension helps to bypass blocked websites with the help of group's own proxies. This allows a user to navigate freely on an uncensored internet platform.

Henrique Mouta, from the Portugal-based anti-censorship group, had claimed in an interview to TorrentFreak that Ahoy had approximately 185,000 users on Chrome. This figure is prior to the extension's takedown by Google. He said that "Google decided to remove us from Chrome's Web Store without any justification."

It is being reported that the major reason for the removal of this extension could be the falling footfall of the users on the extension with each passing day. As per Mouta, the extension was recording an average of around 500 installations per day. However, the extension is now actually loosing around 500 active users on a daily basis which was quite disappointing. Mouta also added that "Right now, we have 174k active users on Chrome, quickly dropping ... I can tell you that we've noticed a web traffic drop on our API of about ~25."

The major cause of disappointment for the team here is the Google's silence on the matter. According to the group, Google is unwilling to even reply to their queries as to why the tech giant has removed the extension from its store. Also, there is no response from Google as to how they can fix the extension so that it complies with the company's rules and regulations.

"The source code is 100% open source, so it's easy to see that we're not doing anything sketchy, we really care about our users' privacy and security. If we're doing something wrong, we don't know what."

Notably, the 'Ahoy' extension is also available on Firefox. The extension can be downloaded from Mozilla's Firefox add-on repository without any difficulties. Now, the developers have introduced a new site from where the users can download the extension manually on Chrome.

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Congress leader Pawan Khera said if PM Modi does not act now, then he would lose the moral authority to stay in the office even for a day.

The Congress leader's remarks came after a woman in Assam filed a case of rape with the Assam Police against Gohain. (Photo: Twitter)

New Delhi: The Congress on Friday demanded dismissal of Union Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain as a case of rape was registered against him in Guwahati.

"(Prime Minister Narendra) Modiji, you have failed the test not once, not twice, not thrice, but almost a dozen times. Again there is a rape FIR against one of your Cabinet colleagues, Gohain," Congress leader Pawan Khera said addressing a press conference here.

He said that if PM Modi does not act now, then he would lose the moral authority to stay in the office even for a day.

"Remove him from his office. You can't allow him to be in a position of power and influence during the investigation. Please remove him if you meant anything that you promised before 2014," he said.

"We demand from this government, from Modi, from (BJP President) Amit Shah to take immediate and strict action against rape accused Minister Gohain," he said.

The Congress leader's remarks came after a woman in Assam filed a case of rape with the Assam Police against Gohain.

Read: 2 sisters book union minister Rajen Gohain for rape, sexual assault in Assam

Referring to the cases of rape in which Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders were allegedly involved, Khera mentioned the case of Unnao district in Uttar Pradesh and said: "We saw you were standing with the rapists of Unnao."

Khera was referring to BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Senger, who has been charged for rape by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

The Congress leader also questioned Modi's silence on the Muzaffarpur shelter home rapes. "Your own government is there in alliance with (Bihar Chief Minister) Nitish Kumarji."

Khera also questioned Modi's silence over his party's state ministers coming out in support of the rape accused in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua.

Slamming Modi, he said: "Last week, we saw reports from Deoria, from Pratapgarh, and again you remained quiet."

"These are the same people who used provocative and emotionally charged slogans to woo the people of the country before 2014. And now, their Cabinet ministers are being charged with sexual assault and rapes, yet they maintain silence and action is hardly taken against those involved in such cases," Khera added.
Sergio Perez admits that he has "a number of options" for next season in Formula One.

Sergio Perez looks unlikely to stay at Force India, since he was one of those who triggered Force India going into administration due to unpaid salary.

Force India have since got out of the rut, but the Mexican's future looks uncertain at the side.

Perez was asked what 2019 holds for his Formula One career, and answered: "I'm lucky that I have a number of options.

"Of course, we all want to drive for the two best teams, but it's really unlikely I will be there next season," Perez told Finland's MTV.

"So I have to think about what is the best option for me. The best place to show my skills.

"In my previous two years I was the best driver outside the top three teams. I want to see what is possible with the teams that have free seats, and then I'll make my decision.

"But I also want to see what's happening here, because outside of the top three teams, I think Force India have the most potential."

Perez says he is in no rush to make a conclusive decision for next season.

"I have no hurry because I know I'm in good shape," Perez added.

"I believe during the summer break I will have a good idea of what's going on here, and after that I can make a decision."
Attacking Gandhi, Ananth Kumar said government till last moment tried to ensure the passage of the bill, but Congress stalled its passage.

'The triple talaq bill which ensures gender justice was unfortunately not allowed to be passed by Congress and its president Rahul Gandhi,' Kumar told reporters. (Photo: File)

New Delhi: The BJP on Friday held Congress president Rahul Gandhi responsible for the triple talaq bill not getting the parliamentary nod in the Monsoon Session, saying his party supported it in the Lok Sabha but not in the Rajya Sabha for its vote bank politics.

Attacking Gandhi, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said the government till last moment tried to ensure the passage of the bill, but Congress stalled its passage.

"The triple talaq bill which ensures gender justice was unfortunately not allowed to be passed by Congress and its president Rahul Gandhi," Kumar told reporters.

He further said the Modi government is committed for the welfare of Muslim women.

Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad who also raised the issue in the Rajya Sabha where the bill was to be taken up for discussion, said the Congress today stands exposed, the party just wanted to stalled the passage of this landmark bill.

"It is unfortunate and painful that more than 300 Muslim women have been given divorce after the Supreme Court judgement and this bill was very important but opposition has some other priorities," he told reporters.

Prasad also said that without explaining the reason or their objection, the Congress kept on demanding that they want the bill to be referred to a Select Committee.

The Union Cabinet had on Thursday cleared some amendments to the draft Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017 bill, including adding a bail provision to it.

The amendments came after the Supreme Court on August 22 last year had struck down 'triple talaq', calling unconstitutional.

The contentious triple talaq bill which criminalises the practice of instant "talaq" could not be taken up for discussion and passage in Rajya Sabha on the last day of Monsoon session on Friday, owing to lack of consensus among political parties on the issue.

The Congress-led Opposition has been demanding that the bill be sent to the Select Committee for further scrutiny.

The BJP-led government, which does not have a majority in the Upper House, had also made efforts to get the bill cleared in the Budget Session also.

The Lok Sabha, which passed the bill in December, was adjourned sine die on Friday.

Kumar termed the Monsoon Session a landmark session, saying 21 bills were passed in the House which sat for 20 hours more than the allocated time.
It also urged Pakistan to take care of its minorities in accordance with the international obligations.

It also urged Pakistan to take care of its minorities in accordance with the international obligations.

New Delhi: India on Friday said Pakistan should stop state repression and gross violation of human rights in Balochistan.

It also urged Pakistan to take care of its minorities in accordance with the international obligations.

Asked about the issue of Balochistan during a press briefing here, ministry of external affairs Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said, Our position remains the same. Pakistan should take care of its minorities in accordance with the international obligations. It should stop state repression.
Apart from cancellation of license, the sale of NGO's assets were banned and bank accounts frozen.

Muzaffarpur/Patna: The Bihar government has cancelled the registration of Brajesh Thakur's NGO, which ran the infamous shelter home in Muzaffarpur where 34 girls were allegedly raped over a period of time. The sale of the NGO's assets was banned and the bank accounts were frozen, an official said in Muzaffarpur on Friday.

According to Muzaffarpur District Registration Officer Sanjay Kumar, the orders to freeze the bank accounts and ban the sale or purchase of any movable or immovable assets of the Seva Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti were passed by District Magistrate (DM) Mohammad Sohail on August 7 and 8.

The DM's orders had followed an August 6 missive from the state Registration department, wherein it was stated that the NGO's registration was being cancelled as it was blacklisted by the Social Welfare Department for the alleged sexual abuse of inmates at the shelter home.

Read: My wish to join Congress dragged me into Muzaffarpur case, says Brajesh Thakur

Henceforth, there should be no transaction through the bank accounts of the Seva Sankalp Evam Vikas Samiti nor should there be any sale or purchase of movable or immovable assets in its name, Kumar said, adding that the office-bearers and members of the NGO were also restrained from carrying out any activity in its name.

Interestingly, Brajesh Thakur's name does not figure among the list of office-bearers and members of the NGO.

The non-governmental organisation had, in its registration document, stated that it aimed to promote education and development of women and children as well as the protection of their lives.

Read: Bihar shelter home: New medical report confirms rape of 5 more girls

Earlier, CBI and National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) teams separately met the DM in connection with the shelter home scandal.

The CBI team is also understood to have taken into its possession the medical test report of Thakur, the key accused in the sex-scandal case, whose remand it may seek from the court if he is declared fit enough.

The three-member NCPCR team is said to have inquired with the DM about the well-being of the former inmates of the shelter home who have been shifted to Madhubani, Patna and Mokama.

Meanwhile, political parties continued to use the horrific Muzaffarpur episode to attack their rivals.

While women supporters of the opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) took out a procession in Patna demanding the resignation of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, another procession was taken out by the workers of the ruling Janata Dal (United), demanding the resignation of RJD leader Tejaswi Yadav as the leader of opposition in the state Assembly.

Former Union minister Kanti Singh, who took part in the RJD procession, alleged that Kumar had all along tried to shield those involved in the scandal while claiming that a CBI inquiry in the matter was ordered under opposition pressure.

She also said Social Welfare Minister Manju Verma resigned only after Thakur's phone call details showed his links with her husband.

Also Read: Bihar minister Manju Verma resigns over Muzaffarpur shelter case

Asked who should become the chief minister if Manju Kumar resigned, she said there should be fresh elections.

The JD(U) supporters said Yadav had no moral right to hold the position of leader of opposition because of his association with certain people accused of sexual crimes.
The worlds he conjures are full of terror and mischief. One of the novellas in his latest book, "Strange Weather," tells of a gun massacre. Another recounts a bout of inclement weather that sends lethal shards of crystal raining down on unsuspecting residents of Boulder, Colorado.

Joe Hill - a pen name used by Joe Hillstrom King, the son of Stephen King - has an eye for the macabre.

When Hill trained his eye on "Jaws," 40 years after Steven Spielberg's tale of a man-eating great white shark first smashed box-office records in the summer of 1975, the writer saw something that prickled his skin with goose bumps and jolted him from his seat at a movie theater in Newington, New Hampshire.

It wasn't the marauding of the marine antagonist that stupefied him, but rather the fleeting appearance of an extra cast in a crowd scene approximately 54 minutes and 2 seconds into the film. The young woman seemed to have the same visage he had recently seen in a composite sketch of the victim of a grisly murder that has stumped police on the far reaches of Cape Cod for 44 years.

Hill first recorded his hypothesis on his Tumblr page in 2015, writing, "Put on your tin-foil hats and buckle up for a ride to Crazy Town, folks." Now, a reference to his musings in a new podcast, "Inside Jaws," which documents the making of the film that made Spielberg's name, has renewed interest in his theory.

"My thing is writing ghost stories," Hill said in an interview this week with The Washington Post. "I can't tell if this is my imagination just doing the thing that it always does or if there's actually something there."

Authorities wouldn't help settle that question. The detective working on the case, Meredith K. Lobur, didn't return a request for comment on whether "Jaws" features in the ongoing investigation.

One morning in late July, in 1974, a teenage girl was walking her dog along the sandy dunes of Provincetown, Massachusetts, when she came to a grove of scrub pine trees. In a clearing lay the naked body of a woman, already badly decomposed in the summer heat. She had been between 20 and 40 years old, police estimate, when she was killed by a blow to the left side of her skull. She had auburn hair, tied in a ponytail with a rubber barrette, and pink-painted toenails.

Her corpse, on its side on a green beach blanket, measured about five-and-a-half feet. Her exact height couldn't be determined because her neck had been nearly severed. Her head rested on a pair of Wrangler jeans and a blue bandana, according to police information and press reports at the time. Her hands had been cut off and were missing.

A clue lay in seven gold crowns found on her teeth that revealed what police described as "the New York style" of dentistry, but authorities have never been able to figure out her identity, much less that of her killer. They exhumed her body in 2010 to create a composite sketch, and the Boston Globe has documented tactics ranging from extracting DNA samples to using ground-penetrating radar, from contacting thousands of dentists to fabricating a three-dimensional plaster reconstruction of her face.

Still, she is know only as "Lady in the Dunes."

Joe Hill, the pen name of Joe Hillstrom King and the elder son of Stephen King, believes the movie "Jaws" might hold a clue to a 1974 cold case. His theory is resurfacing with a podcast, "Inside Jaws," released this summer.

The forensic reconstruction of the victim that appeared in the Globe in 2010 drove the writer Deborah Halber to explore a collection of unsolved cases, as well as citizen efforts to crack them, in her book, "The Skeleton Crew: How Amateur Sleuths Are Solving America's Coldest Cases."

Within months of its publication in 2014, that book wound up in the hands of Hill. He was especially struck by the case of the "Lady in the Dunes" - "the holy grail for amateur sleuths," he said - and he took to the internet to find out more. On Wikipedia, he became transfixed by the forensic recreation of the victim's face. The composite sketch, which could be a photograph but for its translucent tinge, portrays a woman with shoulder-length hair, full eyebrows and youthful, well-defined features.

Soon after he finished Halber's account, Hill found himself at a theater with his three sons for a 40th-anniversary screening of "Jaws," his favorite film.

About a third of the way through the film, which was filmed in the summer of 1974, a ferry disembarks at Martha's Vineyard, an island off the southern end of Cape Cod. In the crowd is a woman wearing jeans and a blue bandana.

"I felt I had seen 'Lady of the Dunes,' that her face had come up out of the crowd at me," Hill said, a boyish lilt rising in his voice. "It came and went in a moment, and there was no rewind button."

He wondered: Had an extra in "Jaws" been brutally murdered 100 miles away from the site where the movie was filmed? The woman's build looked similar. There was the blue bandana. "I don't believe she's wearing Wrangler jeans, but presumably a girl owns more than one pair of jeans," Hill said.

"I've heard it said that everyone who was out on Cape Cod in the summer of 1974 appears in the movie "Jaws," Hill said. "I'm sure that's an exaggeration, but there's a nugget of truth. People knew there were movie stars on Martha's Vineyard. The possibility that a person would make a stop on the island and appear in the movie is not unreasonable."

That evening, he looked on his computer to see if he could zero in on the scene. But the screen on his 15-inch MacBook didn't yield a clear enough picture. He let it go for a while, occasionally telling friends about what he had seen.

When he mentioned the theory to an FBI agent he knew socially, he expected the law-enforcement official to tease him. Instead, the agent told him stranger ideas had cracked cold cases and advised him to post about it online. He went back to the scene in question and flipped through one frame at a time. "And there she is," Hill said.

The writer took to Tumblr, acknowledging that his idea was far-fetched but asking readers to consider the possibility that "the young murder victim no one has ever been able to identify has been seen by hundreds of millions of people in a beloved summer classic and they didn't even know they were looking at her."

The cold case had already taken on the aura of legend. The best-selling author asks: Why not consider a lead arising from a rollicking tale of murder at sea?

When he brought his theory to the Provincetown Police Department, the detective working on the case told him, "That's an interesting theory,'" Hill recalled. "I took that as a polite way of saying, 'that's pretty crazy and useless.' But another guy who's worked on the case recently said, 'you don't know, odds are long.'"

At the time of production on "Jaws," Hill said, film studios didn't keep the same sort of records on extras that they do now. An inquiry to an archivist at Universal Pictures made several years ago by a writer at Entertainment Weekly was unsuccessful, he said.

But he is optimistic that investigators will solve the case. "I don't think they'll ever quit," he said.

As for whether his hypothesis can help, Hill allowed, "I'm aware that it's probably only an interesting sort of ghost story, a tantalizing 'what if?'

At the same time, he said, calling attention to the hordes of people on Martha's Vineyard that summer can only further the investigation. "There are people alive today who were in that shot in "Jaws" and know they're in that shot."

And no matter how emphatically he tells himself that he was primed to see the "Lady in the Dunes" in "Jaws" because he had just read about her, he can't get over the concurrence of two remarkable events.

"Two astonishing things happened on Cape Cod in the summer of 1974," he said. "One is that Steven Spielberg filmed 'Jaws,' and other is that someone murdered this woman in the dunes outside Provincetown and got away with it. Anything that stirs people's memories could potentially be productive."

Meanwhile, the idea has fascinated not only Hill but his father. "Everyone in my family likes a good bit of weird unsettling Americana," the writer said.

But you don't have to be a teller of horror stories to find the possibility that "Jaws" could bring heat to a cold case alluring, Hill insisted.

"When faced with grotesque, inexplicable tragedies, one of the ways that human beings master their own anxiety and concern is by trying to reduce it to a crossword puzzle, and if you have the right inspiration, you can bring order back to chaos," he said.
In a recent article, Entrepreneur introduced three teenage girls who founded a CBD business of their own. However, these adolescent women are not the only youngsters getting involved in the cannabis and hemp industry.

Another youthful man going into business is Trent Griffith, a western Shoshone from Ely, Nevada. I am an enrolled member of the Ely Shoshone Tribe and also am a member of the tribal council. I am a self-driven individual that wants to better my community, he says.

Griffith serves as the manager of the Tsaa Nesunkwa dispensary and cultivation operations in Ely, Nevada. We're a high paced, medically focused company. We believe in a quality experience with customers as well as good relationships with our neighbors, he explains.

Related: Why These Teenage Girls Started a CBD Lifestyle Brand

A New Era

I first heard about Tsaa Nesunka from Neko Catanzaro, a friend who works in cannabis PR. A new era of Native American tribal business leaders have built a thriving cannabis industry in Nevada, boosting business opportunities and providing much needed tax revenue to social programs and government services, she told me. Trent Griffith has spear-headed this economic revival as manager of Tsaa Nesunkwa dispensary and cultivation operations.

Tsaa Nesunkwa received a license with the assistance of Tribal Cannabis Consulting, a national consulting firm specializing in Native American cannabis policy. The firm was instrumental in establishing the first cannabis compacts between the Governors Office and the Ely Shoshone and Yerington Paiute tribe, a company representative said.

Tribes have a lot of issues like depression, suicide, alcoholism, diabetes and unemployment, Griffith said. The cannabis industry can provide the economic boost for tribes to sponsor cultural events such as powwows, plant gatherings and language programs. I believe that through these events that bolster the culture of our people, coupled with the leadership of our Tribal Council, we can combat these issues that we deal with on a daily basis.

Its not all about making money, but [also about] bettering our community as a whole. I am grateful that the Ely Shoshone Tribal Council, The Ely Shoshone Tribe, and The City of Ely have come together to allowed this to happen. They are providing a better future for seven generations and on, for the community as a whole.

Related: She Wants to Change the Face of the Industry

Minorities, Report

Interested in his experience as a minority in the cannabis industry, I asked Troy to share some advice for other people who are part of a minority group and are looking to get into the cannabis industry.

The time is now for minorities to get into this industry and become leaders of something great. It seems hard and has many challenges but if you work hard and put in the effort you can make it happen, he said.

Related: America's History with Cannabis? It's Complicated.

When prompted about his personal reason to get into cannabis, both the plant and the business, he said:

The plant itself is rather beautiful and so interesting, with many different beneficial compounds. I got into this industry because I've seen the decline of my tribes language and culture; funds [generated from cannabis] flow for beneficial programs. I see this industry as an answer for funding problems that many tribes have. The biggest challenge [I faced getting into the industry] was probably braking the stigma that has been long associated with cannabis  especially in a rural community. We solved it by educating people on the medicinal benefits as well as the economic benefits that the industry could bring to the tribe.

Build it and they will come, he concluded, quoting the movie Field of Dreams.

Related:

Some Tips for East Coast Cannabis Entrepreneurs From Colorado's Industry Leaders

This 23-Year-Old Native American Is Boosting Tribal Cannabiz

Video: This Week in Weed (August 6-10)



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High taxes and the high cost of living in Connecticut will be foremost in voters minds when they head to the primary polls Tuesday, a new Sacred Heart University poll found.

The top issues driving voters behavior heading into the race for governor was the high overall tax burden (32.1 percent) or high cost of living (21.9 percent) in Connecticut, said Professor Lesley DeNardis, executive director of the Institute for Public Policy at Sacred Heart, of the poll results released Friday.

The statewide public policy poll was conducted from mid-July to early August and asked 53 questions of 1,003 state residents. The poll contains a margin for error of plus or minus 3 percent.

Results showed more than 90 percent of voters will keep a candidates leadership qualities, accomplishments, priorities and goals for the state in mind when casting this vote.

Comparatively, the candidates prior government experience was important to just 67.3 percent of residents, said DeNardis.

The primaries have drawn many business leaders who lack government experience.

(The poll) kind of contradicts the idea that voters now are universally in favor of having outsiders come in, said Ronald Schurin, associate professor of political science at the University of Connecticut. I would like to know how the Republicans and Democrats come down on that one.

But Gayle Alberda, assistant professor of politics at Fairfield University, thought outsiders, like gubernatorial candidates Ned Lamont, a Democrat, and Republicans Steve Obsitnik, Bob Stefanowski and David Stemerman could see an edge based on these poll results.

That would put the three town officials running for governor  Democrat Joe Ganim mayor of Bridgeport, and Republicans Mark Boughton mayor of Danbury and Tim Herbst, first selectman of Trumbull  behind.

The poll does not suggest any one candidate is more likely to win Tuesday than another, Alberda and Schurin said.

The Connecticut-specific poll, conducted by GreatBlue Research Inc., conducted on behalf of the SHU Institute for Public Policy, found more than 60 percent of respondents said it was difficult to maintain a standard of living on their household income in Connecticut. 94 percent of respondents ranked Connecticuts high cost of living among their greatest concerns, followed closely by the states high tax burden at 91 percent.

On other topics, 73.4 percent of residents were worried about education inequality and 67 percent fretted over migration out of Connecticut. A large majority of respondents agreed that Connecticut is not a draw for tourists or businesses now.

What should Connecticut do about it? 92 percent of respondents want to see Connecticut improve its highways and three-quarters supported expanding public transportation. About half supported creating policies that make it easier to start a new business.

A strong focus on the cost of living, as shown in the poll, could lead voters to negatively perceive candidates who are wealthy, said Alberda.

Right now is prime time for voters to make up their minds, said Alberda. If I was a campaign manager and I saw these results, I would say we are talking about these issues and these issues only.
Rapper Wiz Khalifa first broke on the national scene with his love letter to Pittsburgh, titled "Black and Yellow." The ode to his hometown Steelers has racked up 187 million Spotify streams and counting.

However, he's changed his tune a bit. In a recent video home tour with Architectural Digest, Wiz is shown living the high life in SoCal and loving every minute of it.

Here are 15 things we learned about Wiz and his home in Sherman Oaks, which he rents for a whopping $16,000 a month. (The star is currently on tour with a Aug. 25 stop planned in Austin, Texas.)

1. Location always applies

Wiz Khalifa in his entryway

Architectural Digest

As with anyone with a keen eye for real estate, Wiz cites the home's location as its primary attraction.

"It was a really good area. We had a look around, and I didnt really want to be too far away from where I work and where I go to the gym and my sons school," he said in the video. "It was a good area for me to have privacy.

2. Space for Sebastian

Son Sebastian rules the roost.

Architectural Digest

Much of the mansion's space is dedicated to his 5-year-old son, Sebastian, whose mother is Wiz's ex-girlfriend Amber Rose.

"I wanted to make sure he could run around and have a good time," Wiz said.

3. Attention burglars: Don't play yourself!

"Furious 7" artwork (aka theft deterrent)

Architectural Digest

If you are a nefarious type and happen to break into a house with this artwork on the wall, Wiz wants you to know it means you're in his home. Once you've spotted the plaque, you'll need to make your way back out of the house.

His song "See You Again," featuring Charlie Puth, was on the "Furious 7" soundtrack and has been viewed an astonishing 3.6 billion times on YouTube.

4. Game room

A space for "kicking it"

Architectural Digest

Wiz introduces his game room as a space for "kicking it." It's decked out in his signature shades of black and yellow and includes a Steelers pool table. There's also a smoking area, a collection of vinyl records, and an even larger collection of Wiz's career memorabilia.

5. 'Dab bar'

The "dab bar" features a joint-rolling machine.

Architectural Digest

Wiz calls his personal pot paradise the "dab bar," adding the obvious: "We're big smokers over here."

He even has his own brand of pot, called Khalifa Kush. In the video tour, Wiz shows off his joint-rolling machine as a highlight of the dab bar.

6. Sebastian's playroom

Sebastian's well-appointed playroom

Architectural Digest

Wiz sweetly shows off his son's playroom, complete with a Lego learning area, imagination station, and gum ball dispenser.

7. Nice views

Deck "on the edge of the world"

Architectural Digest

Being on the deck feels like you're "on the edge of the world," Wiz says, noting that it's an ideal spot for phone calls and other business affairs.

8. Wiz loves Wiz

Pictures of Wiz line the walls.

Architectural Digest

The mansion's walls are lined with pictures of its most famous resident.

9. Wiz's favorite room

The recording studio "is like a fighter jet."

Architectural Digest

The room Wiz calls "his baby" is the fully equipped recording studio.

"This is like a fighter jet; it's like a little spaceship," he explains, noting that hard drives with all of his work are in an undisclosed secure location.

10. Loft closet

A space to store his signature clothing

Architectural Digest

It turns out Wiz is also a bit of a clotheshorse. For more closet space, he's turned the loft area atop the stairs into a closet for his jackets and signature pieces.

11. Weed wall

A wall of famous stoners

Architectural Digest

Also upstairs is a wall of portraits with one thing in common: Each subject is or was a known stoner.

Willie Nelson, Snoop Dogg, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Marley are just a few of the famous faces gracing the wall.

"I just like to be among greatness," Wiz explains.

12. 'Grown-up vibe'

Living room

Architectural Digest

The living room, which is decked out in a cool, turquoise blue, has a "grown-up vibe," according to the rapper.

13. Heated pool

Backyard with heated pool

Architectural Digest

Out back there's a playful paradise, including Sebastian's trampoline. There's also a pool, which Wiz thoughtfully points out is heated.

"You'll never be cold in my pool," he promises.

14. Sebastian's cars

Son's cars

Architectural Digest

Yes, Sebastian has a fleet of kid-size cars, including a tiny Range Rover, Kawasaki ATV, and Rolls-Royce.

15. Wiz's cars

Wiz's cars

Architectural Digest

Wiz unsurprisingly has a car collection of his own. It includes a 1964 Impala, a 1962 Impala, and another classic monster car he says was a gift from Rose after an argument.

"She wanted me to not be mad at her, so she bought me a car," he says.

Yes, Wiz is a long way from Pittsburgh, but one thing is clear: He is killing it in Los Angeles and can invite us over for a swim in the heated pool any day of the week.

The post 15 Ways Wiz Khalifa Proves He's Truly Living the High Life in SoCal appeared first on Real Estate News & Insights | realtor.com.
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The two security forces also decided to have regular co-ordination meets.

Sources said the two sides also discussed various aspects to enhance security apparatus in order to maintain proper sanctity and security of the international border. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: India and Nepal have agreed to further strengthen security mechanism along the 1,751-km long border which is seen as highly porous and often used by subversive elements to cross over into India or escape into Nepal after committing crime here. In addition, the two countries have also decided to further enhance its intelligence sharing mechanism particularly about the suspected ISI operatives said to be operating from the neighbouring country.

These security issues were discussed in detail during a meeting on Friday between senior officials of the Sashastra Seema Bal, which is mandated with guarding the Indo-Nepal border and the Armed Police Force, which is the frontier guarding force of Nepal.

The Nepalese delegation was headed by APF Inspector General Shailendra Khanal while the SSB team was led by its director general Rajni Kant Sharma. Officials claimed that the meeting primarily focused on increasing mutual co-operation and co-ordination between the two security forces with special focus on trans-border crimes, forward and backward linkages, and human trafficking to maintain. Sources said the two sides also discussed various aspects to enhance security apparatus in order to maintain proper sanctity and security of the international border.

Both India and Nepal agreed that security agencies from both countries should further enhance timely sharing of intelligence inputs to check terror and other criminal activities.

There has been increased security co-operation between Indian and Nepal in recent times which has led to some successful operations also. But this needs to be enhanced further, a senior official added.

The two security forces also decided to have regular co-ordination meets.
By Vasia Orion | Published on 2018/08/10

I've been waiting for this teaser, and I'm not disappointed. "The Ghost Detective" goes for atmosphere, dark crimes and perhaps a glimpse at even darker punishments, as Choi Daniel uncovers a lot of natural and supernatural nastiness under the surface. The drama has also been releasing stills of its major characters.

Advertisement

In the teaser released, hero Lee Da-il (Choi Daniel) narrates "An inhumane crime. Is it done by a human, or...?" His answer comes in the form of a door opening by itself, while an incredibly unnerving voice asks "If I do it like this, will it hurt? Will you get angry?" Jeong Yeol-wool (Park Eun-bin) asks Da-il to find the truth behind her younger brother's death, and the video closes with our detective asking someone, presumably a spirit, why they killed someone.

Along with the stills released for Yeo-wool, we get to find out that she joins the detective agency, called 'A Few Good Men', after working part time jobs for 10 years. Our more unsettling lady, Seon Woo-hye (Lee Ji-ah) is the woman who draws the two leads into a bizarre incident. Her own news describe her as someone who looks innocent, and at the same time very creepy. We get that message loud and clear from the teaser as well, series.

For something a little lighter, "The Ghost Detective" has also revealed its detective bromance with stills of Kim Won-hae and Choi Daniel. Kim Won-hae's character, Han Sang-seop, is the one who founded the 'A Few Good Men' agency, and he looks like the comedic relief to Da-il's more surly approach. I'm really looking forward to meeting them all, starting September 5th on KBS 2TV.

Written by: Orion from 'Orion's Ramblings'

Sources (1) (2) (3) (4)
Margaret Cash and her children had to spend Wednesday night in Tallaght Garda Station

Campaigner Fr Peter McVerry has warned "an avalanche of homelessness" may be coming down the road.

He said his reaction when he saw the photos of children sleeping in a garda station this week was one of shock, but he wasn't surprised.

Margaret Cash and her children Johnny (11), Tommy (10), Miley (7), Jim (4), Rocky (2) and Andy (1) were forced to spend Wednesday night at Tallaght Garda Station.

Ms Cash, originally from Tallaght and on a council waiting list for housing, told how she spent all night crying.

Expand Close Margaret Cash's children asleep in Tallaght Garda Station on Wednesday night / Facebook

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Whatsapp Margaret Cash's children asleep in Tallaght Garda Station on Wednesday night

"The fact is that families sleeping in garda stations is a relatively frequent event these days," Fr McVerry said.

Outrage

"The difference between this case and other families is that there were photographs of children sleeping on hard seats in a garda station and those photographs went viral on social media. That's caused the outrage.

"But actually this situation has been going on now for some months. And very many nights of the week there are some families forced to spend the night in a garda station."

His comments came as the Garda Representative Association (GRA) warned gardai cannot be part of the solution to the housing crisis.

The GRA said it was "horrified" at the picture that emerged from Tallaght Garda Station, where Ms Cash and six of her children had to spend the night sleeping on hard chairs.

Expand Close Fr Peter McVerry / Facebook

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Whatsapp Fr Peter McVerry

"The GRA have every sympathy for this family who felt they had to go to this garda station for shelter due to their housing situation," a spokesman said.

"We would particularly like to commend the gardai present in Tallaght for their caring actions in such circumstances - a task that they are neither equipped nor trained to deal with.

"Regardless, a garda station is wholly unsuitable accommodation for any family in this terrible predicament, as a public area in an operational station is clearly an inappropriate space to accommodate young children and families.

"Frontline gardai empathise with the homeless and see the horror it wreaks every day in full technicolour.

"However, gardai cannot be part of the solution to the housing crisis - in the same way that health professionals in A&E departments in hospitals could not be.

Earlier Fr McVerry, speaking on RTE Radio One's Today With Miriam, said the majority of people and families presenting as homeless were coming from the private rental sector.

"They are being evicted from the private rental sector either because the rents are gone to a level which they are no longer able to afford, or the landlord says they are selling the house, or the landlord says they want to do major renovations," he said.

Fr McVerry said "it should be illegal to evict people into homelessness".

"Many of the families, if not all of the families, becoming homeless are in a desperate situation. They don't want to be in this situation. It's causing them enormous distress," he said.

He added that the problem just keeps getting worse.

"We helped one family not so long ago to find accommodation. It took us 100 phone calls, ringing around to hotels and bed and breakfasts before we could find one that had a room available and was willing to let this homeless family stay in it for one night," he said.

"And then they would have to repeat the process again the next day."

Speaking of reports of families living in emergency accommodation in the Dublin region being forced outside the capital during the papal visit, he said it's not the Pope's fault.

"It's the Government's fault. They are responsible for dealing with this crisis," he said.

"I think we could have a catastrophe coming down the road. There are 43,000 mortgages in arrears of more than two years, and the European Central Bank is putting pressure on the Irish banks to get those off their books.

"Many of those over the next two or three years are going to be repossessed or sold to vulture funds."

In addition, he pointed out in relation to Brexit, a significant number of employees could potentially relocate to Dublin.

There are also an estimated 400,000 to 800,000 people living illegally in the UK.

"Some of them could end up coming to Ireland and accommodation would have to be found for them," he said.

"It is absolutely beyond crisis at this stage."

Fr McVerry said he feared for what the situation was going to be like this time next year or in two years' time.

Crisis

The Society of St Vincent de Paul (SVP) said the Government must act now and declare a national emergency as an unprecedented number of families seek emergency accommodation.

It said the upcoming papal visit would bring the crisis to the fore and show how the use of hotels to meet the needs of homeless families was entirely inappropriate.

"It is utterly unacceptable that any child should have to spend a night sleeping in a car or a garda station," SVP national president Kieran Stafford said.

"Childhood is short, and at this time of year, children should be enjoying their summer holidays with friends and family.

"No child should have to worry about where they are going to sleep at night.

"We first heard reports of children sleeping in garda stations in May 2017 and nothing has changed 14 months later.

"It is clear that the current policy has failed."

Meanwhile, the Dublin Region Homeless Executive (DRHE) said it has a contingency plan in place for the papal visit.

In a statement to the Herald it said it "closely monitors the demand for emergency accommodation and have contingency plans in place that provide additional bed capacity when required".

"Such plans were successfully activated during Storm Ophelia, Emma etc and more recently during the concerts in the Phoenix Park. Plans such as these will be activated as and when required during the papal visit," it added.

"The DRHE actively pursues all accommodation options, which may include providing accommodation outside the Dublin region, to ensure that families are provided with emergency accommodation when needed.

"Furthermore, we have been working closely with private emergency accommodation providers and have pre-booked rooms/facilities for the weekend of the papal visit."
Over 15,600 people have been evacuated from the affected areas and around 500 relief camps have been set up.

Aluva Mahadeva Temple is seen submerged in the water following a flash flood, triggered by heavy rains, at Kochi in Kerala. (Photo: PTI)

Kochi: Landslides, flood triggered by incessant rain in most parts of Kerala has claimed 29 lives, left 54,000 homeless.

Over 15,600 people have been evacuated from the affected areas and around 500 relief camps have been set up.

The Army, the Navy, the Air Force and the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) are working on evacuation and relief operations.

Five columns of the Army have been deployed in the state's seven severely-hit northern districts to help evacuate people, and to build makeshift bridges.

The Indian Navy's southern command has also been put on alert after water level in Periyar river rose amid concerns that parts of Wellingdon Island in Kochi could be completely inundated. Almost all of Kerala's 40-odd rivers are in spate, officials said.

The Kerala government said more water needs to be released from the water reservoir system to control the rising water level because of incessant rain.

Five shutters were opened in Kerala among which one in the Idukki district was opened for the first time in 26 years. A third red alert was issued for the Idukki reservoir.

At least 60 tourists, that included 20 foreigners as well were rescued from the Plum Judy resort in Munnar where they had been stranded since Wednesday, state Tourism minister Kadakampally Surendran said.

The Centre has assured the Kerala government of all possible help in rescue and relief operations. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will undertake an aerial survey of the state's flood-affected areas on Sunday.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan is visiting the flood affected areas of Idukki, Alappuzha, Ernakulam, Wayanad, Kozhikode and Malappuram.

He is accompanied by revenue minister E Chandrasekharanand Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayans visit to the flood affected areas of Idukki, Alappuzha, Ernakulam, Wayanad, Kozhikode and Malappuram has started. Revenue Minister E. Chandrasekharan, Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala, are accompanying him. pic.twitter.com/Zh1M0rK3si  CMO Kerala (@CMOKerala) August 11, 2018

The chopper of the chief minister could not land at Kattappana in Idukki due to bad weather.

Bad weather at the decided landing spot near Kattappana in Idukki has forced them to abandon landing. Now the team is heading towards Wayanad. #KeralaFloods2018  CMO Kerala (@CMOKerala) August 11, 2018

Congress President Rahul Gandhi urged party workers to "help those in need".

"Unprecedented rainfall has created havoc in Kerala, destroying property and forcing thousands to abandon their homes. I urge each and every Congress worker in Kerala to step up & help those in need. My prayers and thoughts are with the people of Kerala in this difficult time." Rahul Gandhi tweeted.

Schools and colleges are closed in Idukki, Wayanad, Ernakulam, Pathanamthitta districts.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan had described the flood situation in the state as "very grim" and it was for the first time in the history of the state that 24 dams had been opened at a time following the water level reaching maximum capacity.

Latest visuals of Periyar river. (Photo: Twitter | ANI)

Union Minister KJ Alphons, who is from Kerala, said this is the biggest spell of rain the state has witnessed in five decades. "It is the biggest rain we had in 50 years," news agency ANI quoted KJ Alphons saying.

The South-west monsoon has been vigorous over Kerala resulting in heavy rains in various parts of the state since August 8.

Tourists have been barred from entering the hilly Idukki district after roads caved in at many places.

Army is building small bridges to evacuate those stranded at various places in Kozhikode and Wayanad.

The United States consulate in Chennai issued a travel alert and advised the US citizens to avoid visiting areas affected by landslides and flash flood.

Tourists have been asked to stay away from high range areas and dam sites by the government.
Armed police and RCMP officers at the scene of the shooting in Fredericton, New Brunswick, which left four people dead, including two police officers, in an area where murders are rare

A shooting in a small Canadian city early yesterday left four people dead, including two police officers.

The circumstances remain a mystery, but the attack struck a nerve in a country that has been rocked in recent months by several instances of mass violence.

People in Fredericton, the capital of New Brunswick in the eastern part of the country, said they heard as many as 20 gunshots.

They came after a confrontation that prompted police to initially cordon off a large section of the city with emergency vehicles and order residents to remain inside their homes and businesses.

After a tense period of waiting, authorities disclosed the toll.

Among the four killed were two officers, a rare case of pol-ice killed in the line of duty in Canada.

Brave

"Our hearts are broken by the murder of our two brave police officers," Fredericton mayor Mike O'Brien said in a tweet.

Several other victims were being treated in hospital, but there were no immediate details on the nature of their injuries or their conditions.

Authorities said one suspect was in custody, but the person's identity was not released and no motive was disclosed.

The entire province of New Brunswick had 11 murders in 2016.

In Fredericton, a city of about 60,000, residents said they were stunned by the incident, which happened as people were heading to work or dropping children at a day care centre not far from the apartment complex where the shooting took place.

"This is the first time I've even heard of any serious crime or violent crime in this city," said Travis Hrubeniuk, whose fiancee had just left their home when the sirens began to wail.

Bill Henwood, a funeral dir- ector whose business is located inside the cordoned-off area on Brookside Drive, said people sat in their cars or were standing near the blockade of police and fire vehicles "hanging tight and waiting for word".

"It's not something that we expect in Fredericton to wake up and hear about," he said.

"To see that there's actually fatalities is pretty extraordinary for this area."

Misogynistic

The shooting comes as Canada wrestles with a string of viol- ence, including an incident in Toronto last month when a man with a handgun opened fire in a crowded part of the city, killing two people and wounding 13 before he either shot himself or was killed by police.

In April, a man who linked himself to a misogynistic online community used a van to run down pedestrians in a busy part of Toronto, killing 10 people and injuring 14.

Authorities are still pursuing leads in an ongoing investigation of a serial killer who has been charged with killing eight men in the city in recent years.

In 2014, a shooting in Moncton, New Brunswick, left three Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) officers dead and two wounded.
Veteran criminal Martin 'The Viper' Foley was involved in a tense stand-off with gardai as they carried out a major arrest operation close to his Crumlin home this week.

Our photos show 'The Viper' who was clad in biker gear - remonstrating with officers who sources say felt "intimidated" by his presence at the scene.

Despite numerous attempts by the Herald to contact Foley in the aftermath of the melee, he did not return our phone calls.

'The Viper' was "not directly involved" in the "major public order incident" and there are no plans to arrest him in relation to it, according to senior sources.

These are the first images of Foley (68) since he was spotted driving a white van and chatting to a number of men outside a north inner city pub in which the Kinahan cartel had previously plotted to murder a Hutch gang-linked criminal last year.

Exact details of Wednesday night's arrest operation cannot be outlined for legal reasons but more than a dozen officers were involved in the arrest of a man who is well known to Foley.

This suspect has been brought before the courts and remanded in custody.

He was charged with numerous offences and is expected to be charged in relation to even more serious offences in the coming weeks.

While gardai described Wednesday night's incident as "serious and disturbing", they also pointed out that the vast majority of people who live in the locality where it happened are "decent and law-abiding."

The same cannot be said of Foley, who is one of Ireland's best known criminals but also a fitness fanatic who loves participating in yoga and other health-conscious activities.

Brutal

'The Viper' has more than 40 convictions, including for assault, robbery and possession of threatening weapons, but has not been charged with a criminal offence for many years.

Foley has links to both factions in the brutal Hutch/Kinahan feud.

In the aftermath of the Regency Hotel bloodbath in 2016, gardai issued him with an official Information Message form (GIM), warning him of an active threat to his life.

However, there have been no major issues with Foley since then and no attempts to murder him.
The scene of the fatal crash at Fairview Park, which left one person dead and two in hospital

A young member of the Travelling community has been killed after the vehicle he was driving was involved in a pursuit with gardai.

Due to the seriousness of the injuries, officers had originally thought the man killed in the incident was his father, a 47-year-old with an address in Belfast, of the same name.

However, it was later determined to be the younger man who had been in the van and passed away.

A 48-year-old woman, who was a front-seat passenger in the vehicle, was in a critical condition in hospital last night, while a 13-year-old boy who was in the back seat escaped without serious injury.

Swerving

It is understood the Northern Irish family were in Dublin for the funeral of an elderly female member of the Traveller community.

The man died when the vehicle he was driving crashed into fencing at Fairview Park in the early hours of yesterday morning. He also hit a tree in the incident, which involved no other vehicles.

Just minutes before, a patrol car from Clontarf noticed the van "swerving all over" the Malahide Road close to Clontarf Beach.

Gardai pulled over the vehicle. The driver spoke briefly to the two officers.

Sources said there was a strong smell of alcohol from the van. Before officers could speak to him in depth, or attempt to breathalyse him, the man drove off at speed.

Gardai began to pursue the van, which crashed a couple of minutes later.

"It was a very short pursuit. The officers were actually keeping their distance because he was driving so badly and dangerously," a source said.

The woman in the vehicle, believed to be his mother, was taken to the Mater Hospital, where she is now fighting for her life.

The 13-year-old, believed to be his brother, was taken to Temple Street Hospital. His injuries were not serious.

It is understood gardai have attempted to take a statement from the boy but so far have been unsuccessful.

The Garda Siochana Ombudsman Commission (GSOC) is investigating the fatality, in line with protocol.

A spokesperson for the watchdog said the van involved had come to the attention of gardai prior to the crash.

The junction of Clontarf Road, Marino Mart and the Malahide Road in Fairview was closed for a technical examination early yesterday morning but has since reopened.

The heavily-damaged silver van was removed from the scene, along with a marked garda car.

Members of the local council were also seen removing debris from the tree and poured grit on to the oil-stained road.

Gardai have appealed for any witnesses to contact Clontarf Garda Station on 01-6664800, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111 or any garda station.
The chief minister said that people have immense faith in the public sector banks.

Chandigarh: Haryana chief minister Manohar Lal Khattar has suggested that people who possess bank lockers should mandatorily declare their valuable assets.

Drawing the attention of the Union government to the issue of liability for the loss of valuable items deposited in the bank lockers, Mr Khattar suggested making disclosure of valuable assets kept in lockers mandatory. With this, the banks can easily buy a group insurance policy for the hirers of lockers.

In a letter written to Union finance minister, Piyush Goyal, the chief minister said that if for some reason this is considered impractical, customers could at least be given a choice to disclose.

The chief minister said that even if the banks do not get the lockers of even the subset of willing customers insured, this would help the bank and the government in quickly dealing with the claims, should an eventuality arise. This, he said, would be a big step forward since the Reserve Bank of India has not yet framed any parameters for assessing such losses. Moreover, this would be consistent with the Government of Indias laudable drive to curb black money and promoting transparency in financial transactions.

While highlighting the need for putting in place a policy framework in this regard, the chief minister said that people have immense faith in the public sector banks.

They keep their valuables in the lockers as they deem it a safe and secure place.

Yet, the harsh fact is that the banks are not liable for the loss of valuables even when caused by natural disasters or a criminal act. The legal reason behind this is said to be the non-disclosure clause in the locker agreement, which provides that the hirer need not disclose the contents of the valuable items put in the locker by him, he added.

He also mentioned that the robbery in the branch of the Punjab National Bank at Gohana in October 2014 highlighted the need for putting in place a policy framework in this regard.
Accusing Modi of corruption, he said the prime minister had favoured his businessman 'friend' Anil Ambani by getting him the 'contract'.

Gandhi said the price of the Rafale plane fixed now is about 'three times' the amount agreed upon during the previous Congress-led government. (Photo: File)

Jaipur: Congress chief Rahul Gandhi on Saturday targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi again on the Rafale aircraft deal as he launched his party's campaign for the assembly polls later this year in Rajasthan.

Directly accusing Modi of corruption in the deal for the French fighter planes, he said the prime minister had favoured his businessman friend Anil Ambani by getting him the contract.

The reference was to the business that foreign manufacturers are required to bring to Indian firms when a defence deal is signed with the government, under the country's offset policy.

Ambani has already rejected Rahul Gandhi's allegations and emphasised that the government had no role in the Rafale-manufacturing French firm Dassault picking up his company as a local partner.

India had signed an inter-governmental agreement with France in 2015 for the procurement of 36 Rafale planes. In his address to party workers at the Ramlila grounds here, Gandhi claimed that the Rafale deal had snatched job opportunities from young Indians, including engineers, as the planes will be manufactured abroad.

Gandhi said the price of the Rafale plane fixed now is about "three times" the amount agreed upon during the previous Congress-led government.

He said this corruption by Modi will become apparent over time. The Congress chief claimed that only 450 youths got employment in the country every day while China was creating jobs for 50,000 people every 24 hours.

Our youths more honest, capable and stronger than the Chinese but it is a matter of shame that despite having an almost equal population, they are getting fewer job opportunities, he said.

He questioned why Rs 2,30,000 crore could be written off as bad loans to 15 or 20 big industrialists, but the government could not help debt-ridden farmers.

When farmers are unable to pay back their loans, they are called defaulters and are jailed. But bad debts of big industrialists are called non-performing assets (NPA), he said. He also accused the government of failing to ensure the safety of women.
Provo Mayor Kaufusi given leadership position with municipal advocacy group

Provo Mayor Michelle Kaufusi can add one more leadership role to her list. At the Annual Convention for the Utah League of Cities and Towns, Kaufusi was elected by representatives from across the state to serve as the group's second vice president. In just her first term as Provo mayor, she has built relationships of trust and respect with her city colleagues. She has been a strong voice for Provos unique challenges and opportunities within the League and at the Utah State Legislature, ULCT Executive Director Cameron Diehl said in an email. Kaufusi began serving on the ...
Kerala has been pounded due to heavy downpour, resulting in the swelling of rivers and flooding in several parts.

New Delhi: As Kerala faces heavy downpour and flash floods which has led to 22 persons being killed in the past 48 hours, Union home minister Rajnath Singh on Friday assured in Lok Sabha that the Centre will provide all possible help to the affected state.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier in the day spoke with Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan in the wake of heavy rains and floods in the state, and offered all possible assistance to those affected.

Spoke to Kerala CM Shri Pinarayi Vijayan and discussed the situation arising due to floods in various parts of the state. Offered all possible assistance to those affected. We stand shoulder to shoulder with the people of Kerala in the wake of this calamity, Mr Modi said in a tweet.

Mr Singh said he had also sent Kiren Rijiju, his deputy in the ministry, to the state for a survey of the affected areas.

Meanwhile the Indian Air Force (IAF) has already begun helping the state in relief and rescue operations.We will provide all necessary assistance to the state, Mr Singh told the MPs from Kerala during the Zero Hour.

CPI(M) leader P Karunakaran said six districts in the state have been badly affected. At least 20 people have died in the Idukki district due to heavy rains and floods., while five people lost their lives in Wayanad, he said demanding military assistance.

Congress MP K C Venugopal said Wayanad district in the state has been cut off from the rest of Kerala due to landslides.

For the first time, shutters of 22 dams were opened to release excess water while water from the Idukki reservoir was also released after 26 years, flooding the Periyar River, Mr Venugopal said and demanded a special financial package for the state.

Kerala has been pounded due to heavy downpour, resulting in the swelling of rivers and flooding in several parts.

A defence ministry statement issued later in the day said that after the Kerala government had requested IAF to provide urgent assistance in Wayanad district, it had responded immediately to the crisis and is extending all possible assistance to the people affected by landslides and floods in Kerala through Humanitarian Assistance Disaster Relief (HADR) missions.

Five An-32 transport aircraft were deployed to transport NDRF teams and their equipment from Arakkonam to Calicut on 09 Aug 18.

In addition, two NDRF teams from Vijaywada and two team of Army Engineering Group from Bangalore & Hyderabad have been transported to Calicut, the statement added.

Two Mi-17 V5 helicopter and one Advance Light Helicopter (ALH) has been pressed into service for distribution of relief material and winching operations.
For Subscribers New restaurant to open in downtown Hagerstown

"It's just time that folks just relax and get back to having a good time and loving on one another," owner says of her planned restaurant.
The decision comes eight months after PM Modis high-profile seaplane flight on the Sabarmati river front in December last year.

New Delhi: To promote operation of sea planes in the country, the government has given in-principle approval for construction of water aerodromes, with five states  Odisha, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Assam  being identified initially for the facility.

For the first phase of the project, Chilka Lake in Odisha and Sabarmati river front and Sardar Sarovar Dam in Gujarat have been identified by the government.

On Saturday, civil aviation minister Suresh Prabhu tweeted, In-principle approval has been given for the construction of water aerodromes in various states across the country. This move will promote tourism as well as connect places of religious importance.

The decision comes eight months after Prime Minister Narendra Modis high-profile seaplane flight on the Sabarmati river front in December last year.

Mr Prabhu said, The DGCA (aviation regulator) has already issued regulations prescribing the procedure and requirement for licensing of water aerodromes. Since there is no historical data on market and also the demand from any airlines, the project will be done as a pilot project.

According to the DGCA, an entity seeking to set up a water aerodrome has to take approvals from various authorities, including the ministries of defence, home, environment and forests and shipping.

Seaplanes, like the one used by Mr Modi in Gujarat last year, are likely to help tourists land in water-bodies at tourist hotspots such as Udaipur in Rajasthan, Kaziranga National Park in Assam apart from island destinations such as Lakshadweep and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
So far as the Mal-dives is concerned, there have been tensions in Indo-Maldivian bilateral ties in recent months.

New Delhi: With South Asian grouping Saarc virtually in cold storage due to Indo-Pak tensions, the forthcoming summit of another regional grouping Bimstec in the Nepalese capital Kathmandu at the end of this month will give India another opportunity to strengthen ties with its South Asian neighbours.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to attend the summit on August 30 and 31. India has been increasingly investing its hopes for regional cooperation in Bimstec (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Tech-nical and Economic Cooperation)  which does not have Pakistan as a member. Bimstec comprises India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Thailand.

With the exception of Southeast Asian countries Myanmar and Thailand, which are members of Asean, the rest of the Bimstec countries are also members of Saarc. Apart from Pakistan, the only other Saarc countries not part of Bimstec are Afghanistan and the Maldives.

India in any case has very robust ties with Afghanistan, with the Chabahar port project in Iran serving as an important sea-land connectivity initiative between the two countries bypassing Pakistan. So far as the Mal-dives is concerned, there have been tensions in Indo-Maldivian bilateral ties in recent months.

Government sources had said a few months ago that India does not contemplate any Saarc summit in the near future as Pakistan continues its policy of being actively involved in sponsoring cross-border terrorism. Sources had then said that one country  an obvious reference to Pakistan  continues its policy of sponsoring terror. Islamabad was also seen to be opposing connectivity initiatives within Saarc.

It may be recalled that the South Asian grouping Saarc (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) was desc-ribed last year by the then foreign secretary S. Jais-hankar as a jammed vehicle.

It may also be recalled that the 19th Saarc summit, which was scheduled to have been held in Islamabad in 2016, was indefinitely postponed after India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan among others pulled out of the event.
Training his guns on BSP chief Mayawati over dalit welfare issue, Mr Paswan accused her of adopting double standards.

New Delhi: The Congress and other Opposition parties that have been accusing the BJP of being anti-dalit were cornered when Union minister and LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan questioned their pro-dalit credentials by posing 14 questions related to B.R. Ambedkar and laws linked to the marginalised sections.

Attacking Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Mr Paswan said, I want to ask Rahul Gandhi, who claims to be a well wisher of dalits, why did his party contested against dalit icon B.R. Ambedkar when he fought Lok Sabha elections twice? Why is there no portrait of Ambedkar in Parliaments Central Hall while there are portraits of three members of the Nehru-Gandhi family? Why did his party not award Ambedkar the Bharat Ratna when it was in power while filmstars were honoured with the same award?

Mr Paswan also hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the quick passage of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities amendment) bill in Parliament to address concerns of dalits and tribals.

The bill overturns the Supreme Court order that had diluted the provision on immediate arrest of those accused of committing atrocities against dalits.

Training his guns on BSP chief Mayawati over dalit welfare issue, Mr Paswan accused her of adopting double standards.

He alleged that when she was the chief minister of Uttar Pradesh had created hurdles in immediate arrest of accused under the SC/ST Act and proposed a probe before taking an accused into custody.

Her government had issued a guideline in October 2007 against the misuse of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and said that police should register a case only after probing a complaint made under this law, he said.

Targeting the Samajwadi Party, Mr Paswan said, When all parties were in favour of a bill for reservation in promotion for dalits why did the SP oppose it? Like all Opposition parties, they are also anti-dalits and so is the grand alliance.

Mr Gandhi has been attacking the Modi government over alleged rising atrocities against Dalits. He is also citing a media report which claims that BJP-ruled states registered the highest number of crimes against the Scheduled Castes.

D01
Bollywood actor Arjun Kapoor is on a roll as he will next be seen in Indias Most Wanted. Directed by Raj Kumar Gupta, the team began shooting on Saturday. The actor also announced that the film is slated to release on May 24, 2019. The happy and excited Kapoor took to his Twitter handle to announce the news with a picture of a clipboard.

The start of a new film always feels like a mission & this time it actually is with #IndiasMostWanted. Happy & excited starting my 12th film!!! Mark the date 24th May 2019, wrote the 33-year-old. The rest of the cast for the film has not been announced yet. The movie is a tribute to all the unsung heroes who dedicated their lives to protect the nation.

Raj Kumar also shared the same picture and captioned it, A mission we are excited to share. Indias most wanted is now on floors. Mark your calendar on 24 May, 2019 for Indias Most Wanted. The director is well-known for his movies No One Killed Jessica starring Rani Mukherji and Vidya Balan and most recently, the director worked with Ajay Devgn and Ileana DCruz on Raid.

The start of a new film always feels like a mission & this time it actually is with #IndiasMostWanted

Happy & excited starting my 12th film !!!

Mark the date 24th May 2019. @rajkumar_rkg @foxstarhindi @raapchik_films #IMW pic.twitter.com/Kyv8WxbGAm  Arjun Kapoor (@arjunk26) August 11, 2018

The film is reportedly about a secret mission that leads an arrest of a terrorist and it will be shot primarily in Nepal and Delhi. Arjun is expected to play the role of an intelligence officer who is on the chase. When the movie was announced, the makers said that the film is based on, the capture of Indias most wanted without firing a single bullet.

Besides Indias most wanted, the Ishaqzaade star has three more films in the line up - Sandeep Aur Pinky Faraar, Namastey England starring Parineeti Chopra and Panipat with Kriti Sanon.

(With inputs from ANI)

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Amit Shah slams Mamata, Rahuls votebank politics over NRC in Assam.

New Delhi: Invading the Trinamul bastion, BJP chief Amit Shah on Saturday launched a scathing attack on the West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee and exhorted people to uproot her outfit and throw it away.

As Mayo Road in Kolkata turned saffron with thousands waving BJP flags Mr Shah thundered: I ask all of you to uproot this Trinamul Congress government and throw it away.

Stoking the sentiments of the Bengalis, the BJP president accused TMC of creating hurdles during the immersion of Durga idols. Once the BJP comes to power in the state, Durga Puja, Saraswati Puja will be celebrated without any hurdles and much fanfare.

Taking the battle over illegal immigrants to her home home turf, the BJP chief made it clear that the NRC issue will be the main poll plank for his party in West Bengal. I would like to ask Mamata ji why she is protecting Bangladeshi infiltrators. They are raising their voice against NRC because these Bangladeshi infiltrators are their votebank in Bengal. But we will not let this happen. We will go ahead with the NRC plan and push back each and every infiltrator, he declared amidst thunderous applause. Hitting out at the Congress president Rahul Gandhi, the BJP president wanted him to come clear on his stand over the issue of illegal immigrants.

While NRC is clearly going to be BJPs mail poll plank, Mr Shah also targeted the Trinamul Congress over corruption and unleashing a reign of terror in the state. He pointed out that since the TMC took over the state, there have been a series of corruption cases ranging from the Narada scandal, Saradha and Rose valley ponzi scams. He also spoke of the unhindered activities of cattle mafias and coal mafia. The BJP leader told the mammoth gathering that only way to free Bengal from corruption and deteriorating law and order was to bring the Narendra Modi-led Bharatiya Janata Party in to power in Bengal.

Going back to the NRC issue, Mr Shah said that for the sake of votebank politics, Mr Gandhi was not making his stand clear on illegal migration from Bangladesh. And for the same reason, according to Mr Shah, the West Bengal chief minister was encouraging infiltration from Bangladesh. He reiterated Rahul Gandhi and Mamata didi should clarify whether national security is important for them or the votebank. For the BJP, the country comes first. Mr Shah hit out at the Congress by saying that the Assam accord was signed by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. Then the Congress did not seemed to have any problem with the National Register of Citizens (NRC), he said.

He also attacked the TMC for unleashing a false propaganda campaign over the NRC issue. He assured, I assure all the refugees that nothing will happen to them. He then pointed out that this was the reason why the Centre had brought the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016. The bill, introduced in the Lok Sabha in 2016, seeks to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955 to provide citizenship to the illegal Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

As the TMC had put up posters screaming anti-Bengal BJP leave Bengal, the BJP chief asked, How can BJP be anti Bengal when the outfit was founded by none other than Shyama Prasad Mukherjee? He declared that BJP was neither anti-Bengal or anti Bengali, but it was anti misrule.

Accusing the TMC of corruption, the BJP chief asked, Where did the huge funds provided to the state by the 14th Finance Commission go? While claiming that television news channels were being prevented by the TMC from airing the rally, he announced: Until the BJP assumes power in Bengal, our vijay rath (victory chariot) will not stop.
Athiya Shetty who was last seen in Mubarakan alongside Arjun Kapoor took to Instagram to wish her father Suniel Shetty. The actor shared a throwback picture with her father. On this post, the Canadian rapper Drake commented, Legend.

This left fans of both confused and were soon wondering how the two know each other on Athiyas timeline. According to a report in DNA, this is apparently because Athiya and Drake became friends when they met in London.

Athiya was reportedly vacationing in London when she met Drake and the two hit it off. The two even follow each other on social media. Some of the fans, however, wanted to what was going on between the two celebs. A fan commented, @champagnepapi seriously Drake I want to know the relationship between u and shettys, and another fan commented, @champagnepapi drakeeeeeeeee?????? with many confused looking emoticons.

Athiya had captioned the throwback picture, Happy birthday Papa. Thank you for always being so patient with me, keeping the faith when I forget to and never letting go of my hand. I hope to make you proud every single day. I love you. With a heart like yours, you deserve all the happiness the world has to offer.

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History was not on our agenda when we landed in Riga with three little girls. Holocaust museums and KGB torture chambers were not exactly holiday material. We skipped the countless museums the Latvian capital had to offer, except a vast open-air museum with fairy-tale windmills and wooden churches on the banks of Lake Jugla.

We skirted the wayside shops selling remnants of the countrys Nazi and Soviet past. We ignored the crumbling buildings abandoned to oblivion. Instead, we feasted on the unabashedly Oriental cebureki and belasi in the crowded Central Market and shopped for childrens shoes in an equally busy mall.

India and Latvia are friends, beamed Mikhail as he drew my attention to the rusted medals he wanted to peddle. Nehru, Indira... he started dropping names almost nostalgically. The son of a Soviet official, Mikhail has lived in all Soviet Republics from Estonia to Tajikistan until the fall of the super nation. He has since made Riga his home and the Central Market his workplace.

Nazi propaganda was everywhere, even on matchboxes. Yesterdays misery is todays merchandise... (Don Sebastian)

We bought a Nazi badge and a Soviet Pioneer medal from him before getting into the Central Market housed in World War I Zeppelin hangars. We foraged for the riches of Latvia  a variety of cheese, shades of honey, loaves of rye bread and sweetmeats including the aptly named Austinas (headphones!)  for a delectable dinner.

Later that evening, history caught up with us. There is no escape when you are in the Baltic.

It started as a casual exchange of pleasantries. Karlis Erglis played the good host by asking me how I liked the lakeside ethnographic museum. I had been wanting to ask him about the Jakob Lenz guest house since wed checked in the previous evening. How was the Latvia-born German writer from the 18th century related to this not-so-vintage establishment?

By the time the Soviets drove out the last Nazi troopers from Latvia, almost a quarter of the population had been dead or exiled

It was a mistake, Erglis started with a candid admission. He named his establishment after Lenz because he thought the street was named after the doomed writer.

Lenz was a tragic hero, he said. He was tutored by Immanuel Kant at Konigsberg, which nowadays goes by the name of Kaliningrad (Russias Baltic exclave stuck between Lithuania and Poland). Lenz would later become a major figure in the revival of German theatre during the time of Goethe. He died in a Moscow street at the age of 41.

Museums are not the only places to showcase history. Soviet veterans eke out a living by peddling war memorabilia (Don Sebastian)

I thought the street was named Lenu Iela after Lenz. Later a scholar of local history proved me wrong. But I stood by the name.

Costly legacy

The Art Nouveau building preceded its name by several decades but it has been beautifully kept unlike some of the adjacent structures. That cost us dearly, said Erglis, whose bourgeois grandfather once lost the building to the local Soviet. The building was in need of urgent repair when it was handed over to my family after the fall of the Soviet Union. We had to invest so much to get it back in shape.

His grandfather, a construction engineer who made a fortune in Czarist Russia and England, bought the building in 1930. He also set up a finance business. Ten years later, Stalins armies marched into Latvia and the Soviets took over every private building including Ergliss. The six-storey building was divided among dozens of families. The two-room suite we had rented for three nights had housed a family while the Soviet Union lasted.

An Orthodox church near the Central Market in Riga (Don Sebastian)

The Erglis family was allotted a slightly cushier apartment elsewhere. Honestly I dont know how they survived those days. My grandfather could not go on with his business. He was a man of varied interests but he was prohibited from pursuing any of it. My grandmother was a lawyer but she could not practise either, Erglis said.

Riga has turned into a destination with the largest collection of Art Nouveau buildings in the world

His grandparents were at the risk of being deported to Siberia. The couple hid in the attics and cellars of sympathetic families. That was fairly common in Soviet times. They would be given 30 minutes to pack their stuff and they were never seen again. Almost one percent of Latvias population was deported on a single night just a week before the Nazi invasion in July 1941.

The next three years witnessed the worst horrors of the World War II. Jews, gypsies, communists and any perceived dissidents were summarily executed or sent to the concentration camps. By the time the Soviets drove out the last Nazi troopers from Latvia, almost a quarter of the countrys population had been dead or exiled. Freedom was still a dream.

Flea markets in Riga pack a punch from the past, selling everything from used books to disused gas masks! (Don Sebastian)

Change came after two generations. Erglis was 19 years old when he joined hands with two million Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians to form a 650 kilometre human chain that stretched from Vilnius to Tallinn on August 23, 1989. The swell of popular anger was to free the Baltic states from the loosening grip of a failing Soviet Union two years later.

Concrete future

Riga has moved on, like the Erglis family. The Baltic capital has turned into a decent destination with the largest collection of Art Nouveau buildings in the world. Travellers from around the world meet up at the breakfast table of the Jakob Lenz guest house, looking out its tall windows for glimpses of the citys architectural splendour.

A couple of blocks away lies the Alberta Street, sought after by architecture enthusiast and selfie seekers for its ornate buildings. A few of them are designed by Mikhail Eisenstein, whose son Sergei would go on to shape the new medium of cinema with Soviet era classics such as Battleship Potemkin (1925) and October (1927). The Medusa heads and griffins the father had built on to his designs are as dramatic as the sons epic close-ups.

A view from the Art Nouveau guest house in Riga (Don Sebastian)

The street has eight national monuments, including architect Konstantns Pksnss former apartment that has been redesigned into a charming Art Nouveau museum. The time capsule takes you back a hundred years to the short-lived world of the Latvian gentry whose luxurious possessions included a refrigerator, a flush toilet and a cast iron sink with a water faucet.

This year, Latvia is celebrating the centenary of its independence from the Russian empire. In the much shorter period of its existence as a modern nation, Latvians have done a commendable job to make their capital the go-to place in the Baltics.

From HT Brunch, August 12, 2018

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Tesla Inc and chief executive Elon Musk were sued twice on Friday by investors who said they fraudulently engineered a scheme to squeeze short-sellers, including through Musks proposal to take the electric car company private.

The lawsuits were filed three days after Musk stunned investors by announcing on Twitter that he might take Tesla private in a record $72 billion transaction that valued the company at $420 per share, and that funding had been secured.

In one of the lawsuits, the plaintiff Kalman Isaacs said Musks tweets were false and misleading, and together with Teslas failure to correct them amounted to a nuclear attack designed to completely decimate short-sellers.

The lawsuits filed by Isaacs and William Chamberlain said Musks and Teslas conduct artificially inflated Teslas stock price and violated federal securities laws.

Tesla did not respond to a request for comment on the proposed class-action complaints filed in the federal court in San Francisco. The company is based in nearby Palo Alto, California.

Short-sellers borrow shares they believe are overpriced, sell them, and then repurchase shares later at what they hope will be a lower price to make a profit.

Such investors have long been an irritant for Musk, who has sometimes used Twitter to criticize them.

Read | Elon Musks $82 billion gambit to silence Tesla critics

Musks August 7 tweets helped push Teslas stock price more than 13% above the prior days close.

The stock has since given back more than two-thirds of that gain, in part following reports that the US Securities and Exchange Commission had begun inquiring about Musks activity.

Musk has not offered evidence that he has lined up the necessary funding to take Tesla private, and the complaints did not offer proof to the contrary.

But Isaacs said Teslas and Musks conduct caused the volatility that cost short-sellers hundreds of millions of dollars from having to cover their short positions, and caused all Tesla securities purchasers to pay inflated prices.

Teslas market value exceeds $60 billion, and its shares closed Friday up $3.04 at $355.49.

According to his complaint, Isaacs bought 3,000 Tesla shares on August 8 to cover his short position.

The proposed class period in Isaacs lawsuit runs from the afternoon of August 7 through the next day, and in Chamberlains lawsuit runs from August 7 to August 10.

The cases are Isaacs v Musk et al, US District Court, Northern District of California, No. 18-04865; and Chamberlain v Tesla Inc et al in the same court, No. 18-04876.
Perhaps the most relevant comment on last weeks ceremony to mark the renaming of Mughalsarai station as Deen Dayal Upadhyaya junction was made by Om Prakash Rajbhar, a minister in the Uttar Pradesh government. Although his partys president, the ubiquitous Amit Shah, declared the ceremony to be a very big day for the BJP as he flagged off the first train, Rajbhar said: Changing names of stations will not lead to trains running on time. The change the minister called on the government to implement was the rectification of the management of Indian Railways.

Unless the railway management does improve, renaming the station may turn out to be a doubtful memorial to the BJP ideologue. Mughalsarai is a railway junction and not much else. Passengers either pass through or change to different trains. Those who pass through wait impatiently for the moment when their train is eventually allowed to leave. Those changing all too often find their connection has already left. I once made a complicated railway journey from Patna to Bangalore involving three changes. The first was at Mughalsarai. Seeing no sign of my connection and hearing no news of it, I found a railway official who told me my connection was indefinitely delayed. When I replied angrily, Do you mean its lost? The official replied calmly, If you say so. But dont worry, this is India, there is another train. It was lost but we have found it and it will take you to Varanasi.

The renaming of Mughalsarai reminds me of those Sikhs who opposed the Akali Dals demand to rename the Mumbai-to-Amritsar Frontier Mail as The Golden Temple Express. Their argument was that, because the express often ran late, passengers would be cursing the Golden Temple. I can imagine that there could now be passengers who curse the name of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya. Knowing that overcrowding is so common in the General Class, I can imagine there will be passengers cooped up in the new somewhat improved carriages named after Deen Dayal Upadhyaya who will curse the BJP ideologue.

It also seems odd to commemorate a man as important to the BJP as Upadhyaya by reminding Indians of his very unfortunate death. Its still not known whether he fell out of a train just outside Mughalsarai or was pushed. Whats more, there is another Indian who has a prior claim to be commemorated at Mughalsarai. Indias former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri was born at Mughalsarai. Apart from the historic role Shastri played in his short period in office, he was formerly railway minister, and the only one, if my memory serves me right, to accept responsibility for an accident and resign. But Shastri was a Congressman and so unlikely to be commemorated by the BJP government. The Congress has been too busy commemorating prime ministers from the Nehru/Gandhi dynasty to bother much about Shastri. The renaming of Mughalsarai also raises the question of Upadhyayas place in history. Has he achieved the status of those whose names will never be forgotten or will, in years to come, passengers travelling through the junction ask, why that name?

I dare say there will be some passengers now who ask that question. But then the BJP would argue that renaming is part of the process of raising their ideologue to the ranks of the immortals, those whose names live on.

That process by no means always reaches a successful conclusion. Probably the best known street in Britain is Downing Street, official residence of the PM, but how many people have heard of Sir George Downing after whom the street is named? How many Indians have much knowledge of the 19th century Tamil freedom fighter Subramania Bharati who has a road named after him in central Delhi?

Commemorating Upadhyaya wasnt the only reason for renaming Mughalsarai. It was the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, Yogi Adityanath, who proposed the renaming of Mughalsarai. According to him, India suffered a thousand years of slavery under Muslim rulers and he wants to remove all traces of that from public life.

The views expressed are personal
The lawn in front of the main building of St. Stephens College is called Andrews Court. It is named for a Englishman who was greatly beloved of India and Indians. Charles Freer Andrews came to this country in 1904 as a teaching missionary. Unlike other Europeans, he did not stand aloof from the natives. Among the friends he made early on were a Muslim scholar, Zakaullah, and an Arya Samaj preacher, Swami Shraddhananda. Later, he drew even closer to two other Indians, whose names were Rabindranath Tagore and Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

When the British Principal of St. Stephens retired, Charlie Andrews was offered the job, but he insisted it go to a deserving Indian instead. In his life and work he transcended the divides of race and religion, and also of class. He led a global campaign to abolish indentured labour in the British Empire, travelling to Africa, Fiji and the Caribbean to pursue his cause. Andrews was a person of great commitment, and also of enormous charm; attributes that shine through the most readable collection of his correspondence recently edited by Uma Dasgupta, and published under the title Friendships of Largeness and Freedom.

This writer joined St. Stephens in 1974, some sixty years after Andrews had left the college. Some of the spirit of the man still hung over the place. To be sure, many of my classmates wished only to make money, to barter a St. Stephens degree for a job in Hindustan Levers or Citibank. Others thought of the college as a stepping stone to a career of power and influence in the IAS. Some students had little interest in money or power; choosing to become teachers, writers, and social workers instead. However, regardless of what they did after graduating, while they were in college most Stephanians were uncontaminated by the prejudices of race, religion, caste, or class. The ethos of Andrews and Gandhi still prevailed.

Although St. Stephens was technically a Christian college, in my time its Christianity was extremely understated. Christians constituted perhaps 2% of the countrys population; and perhaps 5% of the colleges students. However, after a judgment in the Supreme Court allowing minority-aided institutions to admit up to 50% students from the founding community, this began to change. The sociologist Andre Beteille, then a member of the governing body, warned the incumbent Principal, Anil Wilson, that if he rushed to admit more Christians the character of the college would change, and not necessarily for the better. He was disregarded; doubtless under pressure from the Church hierarchy, Wilson began admitting many more Christians. Successive principals took the process further; now the college is equally divided between Christians and non Christians, with the former having a substantially lower cut-off for admission. Wilsons successors have hired more Christian faculty as well.

St. Stephens has for many decades now been entirely funded by the public exchequer. And, on the whole, Christians are far more privileged than Dalits or Adivasis. A striking consequence of this lopsided reservation policy has been an influx of students from the Syrian Christian community, who have a high degree of wealth and status already. Reserving 50% of seats for 2% of the population, this a far from disadvantaged section to boot, is surely indefensible on ethical grounds, especially when the college is funded not by the Church but by taxpayers money.

There have been academic costs to this capture as well. If outstanding students and the best faculty are turned away only because of their religion, then they will go elsewhere. Within Delhi University, Sriram College of Commerce, Hindu College and Lady Sriram College have benefited, both in terms of students and quality, from the Christianisation of St. Stephens. Elsewhere, the new law schools are picking up brilliant students in the humanities. In my generation, a disproportionate number of the best historians and social scientists came from my own college; now, they come from these other institutions.

The evidence indicates that the galloping Christianisation of my old college has hurt its image badly. The college authorities, impervious to this evidence, want to make the institution even more of an evangelical ghetto. A recent report in The Print says the college wants to disband its philosophy department and replace it with a department of theology. It so happens that the St. Stephens philosophy department has for many decades now been the best in the country. But philosophy is about argument, reflection and debate; whereas theology, of course, is about conformity and dogma. Apparently, those who now run the college prefer ideologues to thinkers.

In academic terms, we need not deplore this narrowing of St. Stephens institutional vision. For no college is the best, for ever; Oxford and Cambridge jostled for primacy for centuries, and then Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Berkeley came along to challenge them both. If the likes of SRC, LSR and the National Law School flourish at St. Stephens expense, India will benefit as a result.

But among old students who owe their own moral and intellectual education to the college, a sense of loss is inevitable. A place that was verily a pluralist paradise, a microcosm of the linguistic, ethnic, religious diversity of India, has been captured by vested interests within a powerful community. As my recent trips to the college demonstrate, the atmosphere of the place is far more polarised than it ever was before. Students were once known by their individual talents and eccentricities; now they are identified as Christian and Non Christian respectively. So are the faculty. St. Stephens today is the absolute antithesis of the college and country that Charlie Andrews gave his life for.

Ramachandra Guhas books include Gandhi Before India

The views expressed are personal
An MBA and BPharma graduate who had allegedly printed a fake appreciation letter supposedly received from former President Pranab Mukherjee to digitally market his book was arrested by the Delhi Polices cyber cell on Thursday.

Police said he was arrested from Bengaluru, almost a year after they received a complaint from Rashtrapati Bhawan. Police said the accused Hari Krishna Maram,48, a Bengaluru resident, had fled to the US to evade arrest and had returned to India recently.

According to police, in early 2017, they received a complaint about Maram using a fake appreciation letter with the former Presidents name on it.

An official, who had worked in the office of Mukherjee when he was the President, confirmed that the President House had filed a police complaint.

 After receiving the complaint, we started tracing the man. During the probe, we learnt that Maram runs a management college in Bengaluru . He also claimed to be the vice-chancellor of Universal Digital University. When we started tracing him, we learnt that he has fled to the US, a senior officer from the Delhi Polices cyber cell said.

The officer police were in process of declaring him a proclaimed offender and seizing his properties when they received inputs on Wednesday about his return to India.

After ensuring that Maram has returned to Bengaluru, a team was rushed to the city and he was arrested from his residence on Thursday. He was brought to Delhi the same day, police said.

Deputy commissioner of police (cyber cell) Anyesh Roy said Maram had been booked under sections 466 (forgery of record of court or of public register, etc) 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating) and 477 (fraudulent cancellation, destruction, etc., of will, authority to adopt, or valuable security) of the Indian Penal Code.
Delhis Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) government on Friday refused to be a part of the Ayushman Bharat scheme, saying the Centres flagship national health protection scheme (NHPS) would not offer cover to enough people and that the state would work towards implementing its own health insurance scheme instead.

Ayushman Bharat, often referred to as Modicare, is expected to be launched by the Union government on August 15. It aims to provide health insurance cover of up to Rs 5 lakh to 500 million poor and vulnerable Indians. Under the scheme, the states will have to pay for 40% of the funds disbursed, while the Centre will contribute the rest.

The state government does not agree with the Centres health insurance scheme because it is bound to exclude a majority of Delhis population who need it. The Delhi government will work towards implementing its own health insurance scheme, Dr Kirti Bhushan, director general of health services, Delhi government, said on Friday.

Under NHPS, the government will cover beneficiaries according to the socio-economic caste census of 2011. The population of Delhi is rapidly growing and greatly varies from what it was in 2011. So, providing insurance on the basis of that data will be a flawed practice, he added.

She also pointed out that 73.4% of all the households surveyed by SECC were for rural India, while Delhi only has 8% of rural population.

When contacted, Ayushman Bharat CEO Dr Indu Bhushan, however, said that the Delhi government hasnt officially conveyed anything about not signing the scheme to her department. I had a review meeting today, where I was told that Delhi would sign after their assembly session ends today, he said.

Only eight states are yet to come on board with the Central scheme  Odisha, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana, Maharashtra and Delhi. Public health is a state subject, according to the Indian Constitution.

While Odisha has launched a parallel scheme that offers hospitalisation cover of up to Rs 5 lakh to men and Rs 7 lakh to women, the other states have agreed and are in the process of signing, Dr Indu Bhushan said.

The Delhi government has allocated Rs 100 crore in this years budget for the state insurance scheme that will provide a cover of Rs 1 lakh per family per year for most illnesses that need hospitalisation and Rs 2-4 lakh for critical illnesses. According to Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain, between 1,700-1,800 illnesses and conditions will be listed as critical.

A government official familiar with the developments said that the insurance scheme to be launched by the Delhi government will also include beneficiaries who show National Food Security cards and have electricity connection load below 2 kilowatts. The officials claimed that this will widen the beneficiary net to include 1.2 crore people as opposed to the 35 lakh people (7 lakh families) who would receive insurance cover if the Centres norms were followed.

It should not be either/ or; the state government should utilise funds from the centre to augment their own scheme. Combining the two, if possible, would help in making the scheme more workable as several of the package rates that have been proposed are way below the market rates and hospitals may not be able to or want to operate on those costs. Also, it is important to not have the 1 lakh or 5 lakh cap on the insurance cover uniformly for all. Rather the schemes must look at disease category wise cover because, for example, a person who undergoes an organ or bone marrow transplant will need expensive medicines for life, but that is not true for someone who has undergone other routine surgeries, said Dr MC Mishra, former director of All India Institute of Medical Science.
An electrician has been arrested for allegedly raping a six-year-old girl on the premises of a school located near New Delhis Connaught Place on Wednesday, police said.

Three other employees of the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC), which runs the school, were also suspended in connection with the crime. These included the school headmaster, a class teacher and an assistant engineer.

A police officer told HT on the condition of anonymity that Ram Ashrey, a resident of Dwarka, took the girl  a student of Class 2  to the school pump house at the school around 1.30 pm on Wednesday. After allegedly raping the victim, he warned her against telling anybody about the incident and left the premises.

The matter came to light the next morning, when the girls mother noticed that she was bleeding. The police were alerted soon after they approached the school authorities. We got a call around 1.30 pm on Thursday. A medical examination of the girl has confirmed rape. In her statement, the victim told the police that a man wearing a red tee-shirt had taken her to the pump house. She identified Ashrey after being shown photographs of the staffers and teachers at the school. The accused was arrested the same evening, the police officer said.

The electrician had joined the school a month ago, and police verification of his antecedents was still underway.

Joint commissioner of police (New Delhi) Ajay Chaudhry said a case has been registered under section 376 of the Indian Penal Code (rape) as well as relevant sections of the Prevention of Children from Sexual Offences Act. The electrician has been sent to jail and the case is being probed, Chaudhry said.

Meanwhile, hundreds of parents gathered at the school on Friday and staged a protest to demand measures aimed at ensuring the safety of its students. Additional forces were deployed to ensure law and order in the area.

A police inspection of the school revealed that none of the common areas  such as the lawns, entry gates and the pump house  were under CCTV coverage, said deputy commissioner of police (New Delhi) Madhur Verma.

A senior official of the NDMC said immediate disciplinary action was taken against other staffers as well. The services of the junior engineer who employed the electrician have been terminated. Others  including the assistant engineer who headed the technical staff, the headmaster and a class teacher  have also been suspended from duty, he added.

Delhi Commission for Women chairperson Swati Maliwal on Friday morning asked the Delhi Police to submit an action-taken report. The National Human Rights Commission has also taken suo motu cognisance and issued notices to the chief secretary, Government of NCT of Delhi, and the Delhi commissioner of police, seeking a detailed report on the matter within four weeks.
More than 200 people gathered in front of a New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) school in the national capital on Friday to protest the rape of a six-year-old girl on the premises.

The protesters, mostly parents and guardians of children who study in the school where an electrician allegedly raped the girl, demanded adequate protection for their wards.

The agitators allegedly also tried to vandalise school property, spurring heavy police deployment in the area to maintain law and order. They said the school authorities refused to meet them even as they demanded an assurance from the principal that the school install CCTV cameras, deploy security guards and women helpers to escort primary section students to toilets.

The accused, who allegedly raped the girl at the school pump house, has been arrested.

The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) took suo motu cognisance in the case and sought a detailed report, to be submitted within four weeks, from Delhi chief secretary and the commissioner of police on whether the schools in the city followed the security guidelines issued by authorities.

Delhi Commission for Women chairperson Swati Maliwal also sought an action taken report from the police. Strongest action should be taken against the culprit. They should be hanged within six months under the new law, she said.

The agitators expressed multiple concerns. Have all the employees of the school undergone police verification? Does any woman helper accompany minor students when they go to toilets? Who takes care of students when they leave school at the end of the day? The principal must answer, said a man, who had come to pick up his niece who studies in Class 5.

The father of another student said that last year he had complained to the principal about a school guard but nothing was done. The guards conduct was suspicious. When I complained to the principal, she took no action. The school staff instead made counter allegations against me. If children are raped in their school, where will they be safe? he said.

The parents were also agitated that no one from the school administration had come forward to hear their concern. The mother of a class seven student said unless the principal addresses our concern and promises adequate safety measures, we will not send our children back to school.

The kids will not come to school. The teachers and principal will have to ensure action and better safety measures, said another parent.

Parents also alleged that the school administration tried to prevent students from getting to know about the incident by telling them that some shooting for a television serial is going on when the media started gathering on Friday noon. They are trying to hide the incident. The students are petrified. When my child told us about it, we turned suspicious and questioned the school. That is when we came to know about the incident, said the father of a Class 8 student.
The remarks by Madhav came months after BJP pulled out of its alliance with the PDP in Jammu and Kashmir.

'I say with confidence that whenever the government is again formed in Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP will be a part of it,' Madhav said, adding that the 'jinx is broken'. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: The BJP will be a part of the government in Jammu and Kashmir in the future, as the "jinx" of having never been in power in the state has been broken, senior party leader Ram Madhav said on Saturday.

The remarks by Madhav, who is in-charge of the party's affairs in the state, came months after the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) pulled out of its alliance with the PDP in Jammu and Kashmir. "I say with confidence that whenever the government is again formed in Jammu and Kashmir, the BJP will be a part of it," Madhav said, adding that the "jinx is broken".

At an event here, Madhav said when the BJP comes back to power, it would work towards taking Jammu and Kashmir to a new direction. Talking about the Peoples Democratic Party-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition government that collapsed in June, Madhav said there were difficulties, but despite that, some things were achieved.

"We wanted to do a lot. But when we thought that things are not going according to us, we came out (of the government)," he said. He said separatism since the last 70 years and terrorism since the last 30 years had hampered progress in the state. Madhav said the BJP's four-pronged approach to tackle the security situation in the state would continue despite the party not being in power in Jammu and Kashmir. "Kashmir is going nowhere. Kashmir is an integral part of India," he asserted.
Employer expectations of work email monitoring during non-working hours are harmful to the health of not only employees but their family as well. William Becker, a Virginia Tech professor in the Pamplin College of Business, conducted a new study, Killing me softly: electronic communications monitoring and employee and significant-other well-being, which showed that such expectations result in anxiety, which adversely affects the health of employees and their families.

The study revealed that employees dont have to spend actual time on work in their off-hours to experience the detrimental effects. Just the expectations of availability increase strain for employees and others even without the actual engagement of the employees in work during non-work hours.

Becker said, The insidious impact of always on organisational culture is often unaccounted for or disguised as a benefit  increased convenience, for example, or higher autonomy and control over work-life boundaries.

Beckers research interests also include work emotion, turnover, organisational neuroscience, and leadership.

A few other studies have shown that the pressure of increased job demands leads to tension in family relationships when the employee is unable to fulfill non-work roles at home. According to Becker, policies that decrease expectations to monitor electronic communication outside of work would be ideal. The solution may also include establishing boundaries or time limits on when electronic communication is acceptable during off-hours by setting up off-hour email schedules when a person is available to respond.

He also said that if a job requires email availability, such expectations should be communicated clearly as a part of job responsibility. Such steps could reduce anxiety in employees and increase understanding from their family members. And for employees, they could practice mindfulness, which has been shown to be effective in reducing anxiety and tension.

Beckers study will be presented at the Academy of Management annual meeting in Chicago.

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Tucked away in a corner of the Mohyal Colony in Sector 40 is a memorial that dates back to the 19th century. Spread over a sizeable portion of a park in the colony, the towering white structure throws light on an important ruler of pre-independence Gurugram. Most residents in the colony are unaware of the historical roots of the structure. They pass by it without a second glance.

It is a tangible remnant that mentions the name of Begum Samru alias Sombre, who once presided over the Jharsa-Badshahpur area.

The 200-hundred-year old memorial is dedicated to Jean Etienne, a French soldier who served in Begum Samrus army. Damaged by human meddling and natural wear and tear over the years, one has to strain the eyes to decipher the almost faded writing inscribed on the memorial. The epitaph mentions the date of Etiennes death as Sunday, June 5, 1821. Etienne served Begum Samru for 35 years until his death at the age of 75.

He served HH BEGUM SOMBRE for Thirty Five Years was a Common Soldier and an honest Man (sic), reads the epitaph on the memorial.

According to the Gurgaon District Gazetteer, 1983, Begum Samru owned the pargana of Jharsa or Badshahpur. In another mention, she is described as the well known Begum and her husband was Sombre.

The entrance of the park where the memorial dedicated to Major Jean Etienne is located. (Parveen Kumar/ HT Photo )

Begum Samru or Sombre, as the British called her, played a defining role in the history of Gurugram. Historian KC Yadav said that Jharsa assumed importance because of the placement of her cantonment in the area.

In those days, Jharsa was a crucial place since it was the jagir of Begum Samru. She saved Mughal ruler Shah Alam after which she was rewarded with the jagir of Sardhana. Samru was a bold adventurer with a strong command over her army. She converted to Christianity after marriage, said Yadav.

According to author-historian Rana Safvi, the birth name of Samru is not known. In all likelihood, the name is a corruption of Sombre, the nickname of her husband.

She was the daughter of a Mughal nobleman named Latif Ali Khan who got married to a European mercenary, Walter Reinhardt. She had a large private army and employed many European officers on top posts of her army, said Safvi.

The haveli of Begum Samru in Old Delhis Bhagirath Place. (Viremdra Singh Gosain / HT File )

Heritage experts said that Gurugrams prominence as a town was largely recognised in the 19th century when it was occupied by the British cavalry unit. Begum Samru was a gutsy woman. She put together an army of men in Gurugram. Apprehensive of Samrus army, the British put up a battalion and cantonment in the city. Unfortunately, she is not remembered by the people of Gurugram, said Atul Dev, convener of the Gurugram chapter of INTACH (Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage).

Dev added that the French memorial was an invaluable evidence of Begum Samrus exploits in Gurugram.

We have received the sanction of the deputy commissioner to carry out the restoration. We have now started collecting archival information and documentation. INTACH Gurugram chapter will be financing the entire restoration, informed Dev.

Apart from the French memorial, there are different theories that connect the residence of the deputy commissioner in Civil Lines to Samru.

The official website of Haryana tourism, in fact, identifies the DCs residence as Samrus palace. It features Begum Samru Palace among the places of interest in Gurugram. It describes Samru as someone who was the jagir holder of Jharsa-Badshahpur pargana till her death in 1836.

She built a beautiful palace between Jharsa and Gurgaon village. Even after the annexation of Begums estate, her palace was continuously used as DCs residence or known as camp office. The palace is about 200-year-old and still is in a good state, reads the description.

Deputy Commissioner Vinay Pratap Singh, the current occupant of the DCs residence, said that there was no evidence of the connection. There is no documented record available with us which connects Begum Samru to the residence. However, it has been a traditional knowledge, said Singh.
On Saturday, Chris Hemsworth turns 35. The Aussie actor has had a meteoric rise to the top of the Hollywood food chain, having established himself in the Marvel Cinematic Universe as Thor, the God of the Thunder.

The actor had humble beginnings, gaining recognition from an Australian soap opera. He turned heads with a very small supporting role in JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot, in which he played James T Kirks father. Such was the impact of his performance that he is said to be making a return to the franchise in the fourth film.

That would make Star Trek Hemsworths third concurrent movie franchise (in fact, if you include Snow White and Ghostbusters, he has dabbled in five), an honour reserved only for very few stars, including Robert Downey Jr (Sherlock Holmes, Iron Man and potentially Doctor Doolittle) and Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy, Jurassic World and Lego Movie). Hemsworth is currently starring in a reboot of the Men in Black series.

But to most of us, he will always be Thor. So on his birthday, here are his top five moments as The God of Thunder.

The diner scene

While his introduction in the first Thor movie was quite spectacular - remember him getting a heros welcome in Asgard, and winking at Lady Sif? - the scene that truly captured the essence of his character was the diner scene. In it, Thor displays his arrogance, his vulnerability and his naivete - all traits that would endear audiences to him for years.

Get help

Thor and Lokis relationship is one of the series most resilient and complicated ones. And it all came to a head in Thor: Ragnarok, when the both of them accepted who they were, and who they were meant to be. The get help scene is a masterful nugget of their relationship - the competitiveness, the brotherly love, and a reminder of simpler days.

Return to Earth

Even the Russo brothers have said that the most indispensible scene in Avengers: Infinity War was the one in which Thor returned to Earth, flanked by Groot (or Tree!) and Rocket. It was one of only two occasions that the Russos played Alan Silvestris iconic Avengers theme in the film, and what makes it even more fist-pumpingly good is Hulks response: Bwahaha, you guys are so screwed now!

Hes a friend from work!

While there are virtually dozens of memorable moments we could have picked from Ragnarok, easily the best solo Thor movie, this one is captures its quirky flavour better than any other moment - even his interaction with the fire demon Surtur (that son of a b**ch).

Can you see Jane

With Ragnarok and Infinity War fresh in our memories, we have sort of forgotten the first Thor movie, and the emotional love story between Thor and Jane Foster. The Dark World all but ruined this arc, but the first film ended with a bittersweet moment that showcased Thors softer side. Resigned to the fact that he could possibly never see Jane again - the bifrost had been destroyed - Thor asked Heimdall to tell him if she was all right back on Earth. She searches for you, Heimdall said, ending the film on a cruel, but hopeful note.

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Torrential rains that battered Kerala for three consecutive days subsided on Saturday, bringing some relief to the harried state even as 11 out of the states 14 districts were inundated by floods and the toll rose to 34.

But the trouble was not over for the worst-affected Idukki and Wayanad districts as well as Kannur with the India Meteorological Department sounding alerts of heavy rain till August 15.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who made an aerial survey of Idukki and Wayanad, along with leader of opposition Ramesh Chennithala and visited relief camps in Wayanad, said: It is an unprecedented natural disaster. We face an uphill task in rebuilding devastated areas. We need help from all quarters.

Due to bad weather, his chopper could not land in Idukki in the morning and later it was diverted to Wayanad.

Vijayan has announced Rs four lakh to family of the dead and Rs 10 lakh each to those who lost their land and homes in the flood. Affected people reeled out their woes before the chief minister and some of them said they lost everything they earned in life and it was difficult for them to piece together their lives again. Vijayan later said special adalats will be set up to issue duplicate copies of documents and educational certificates.

Union Minister K J Alphons said that 11 out of 14 districts have been inundated by floods and teams of armed forces, sent by the Centre, have been helping the state government tackle the situation over the last three days.

Alphons, who hails from the state, also said that National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel have also been sent and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spoken to Vijayan on the situation. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will make an aerial survey of the flood-affected areas on Sunday.

Meanwhile, thousands of people living in the downstream of Idukki dam, whose all five gates were opened on Friday for the first time in 40 years, heaved a sigh of relief as the water level in the arch dam came down to 2400 feet, against the maximum of 2403 feet.

We have no plan to close shutters now. So far everything is going as planned, said Power Minister M M Mani who is camping in Idukki. Currently 6 lakh litres of water are getting released in a second from the bulging reservoir.

On Friday 100 mm rainfall was recorded in catchment areas of the dam but on Saturday it came down to 60 mm, thinning water flow to the dam.

More than 53,000 people have been shifted to relief camps and units of three armed forces and NDRF teams have been deployed in worst-hit areas. The timely deployment of these rescue teams helped save many lives, said revenue minister E Chandrasekharan.

With flood-ravaged Idukki having five wildlife parks, nature-lovers are concerned about the safety of animals but forest officials denied reports of any wildlife casualty in the hilly district. Neela kurinji lovers are however gloomy, for the catastrophe struck at a time when the rare spectacle of the flowers blooming was about to unfold.

Meanwhile, many areas of the port city of Kochi are without drinking water for last two days after the flood deposited sludge in the main pumping unit in Aluva. The Kerala Water Authority said water supply will be restored in a day.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi sent a letter to the prime minister seeking the Centres help to tide over the crisis. It is critical to acknowledge looming humanitarian crisis in Kerala. Hope the union government will co-operate with the state in massive relief and rehabilitation efforts, he said in the letter.

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Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shah arrived in Kolkata around 11:30 on Saturday to a musical welcome and noisy protests ahead of a public meeting to boost the saffron partys footprints in West Bengal in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections

The Kolkata airport itself became a scene of competition for both the saffron workers and ruling Trinamool Congress supporters laid out their own style of welcome. (Live updates)

BJP workers staged a kirtan (Bengali devotional song), complete with khol (two sided drums) and kartals in traditional style, to welcome their leader.

Some were also seen playing the ektara, a one-stringed instrument typically used by bauls of wondering minstrels of Bengal.

West Bengal: BJP President Amit Shah arrives in Kolkata. He will address a public rally later today. pic.twitter.com/1efuJJPcJ8  ANI (@ANI) August 11, 2018

At a short distance stood protesting Trinamool Congress workers, who wore masks of Shah and carried placards criticising the NRC exercise in Assam.

The protest was led by Trinamool Lok Sabha MP Mamatabala Thakur, who is a member of the Matuas, a backward community who had migrated from Bangladesh.

We are all under attack. We are protesting for the Indians who have been excluded from the NRC list, said Thakur.

Ruling party leaders also waved black flags at Duttabad on the route through which Shahs convoy moved from the airport to Kolkata Port Trust guest house before proceeding to the venue on Mayo Road.

In Rishra of Hooghly district, a few Trinamool Congress supporters shaved their heads to protest the visit of the BJP leader.

Gautam Chakraborty, Rishra block president of TMC, said they adopted this novel method to make a mark.

BJP leaders also covered either side of Mayo Road with reams of cloth so that the Trinamool Congress party flags and banners of Mamata Banerjee fixed on both flanks dont remain visible to the crowd at the venue.

BJPs Bengal unit president Dilip Ghosh alleged that their posters and flags were torn by ruling party supporters. We have also got information that many of our supporters are being prevented from reaching Mayo Road by Trinamool supporters, said Ghosh.

Trinamool Congress has decided to stage statewide protests against the NRC list in Assam on Saturday in every district except Kolkata in view of the BJP presidents rally.
BJP national president Amit Shah will be in Kolkata on Saturday to address a rally as part of his efforts to boost the partys footprints in West Bengal which sends 42 MPs to the Lok Sabha.

About two lakh party workers are expected to attend the rally at Mayo Road organised by the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha. The BJP which won just two Lok Sabha seats in 2014 hopes to increase its tally in 2019.

But Shahs rally which comes less than a month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed a rally in Midnapore, has run into an unlikely opposition. On Friday, posters asking the BJP to leave Bengal were seen in and around the venue of the rally in the central part of the city.

The state BJP unit alleged that the placards with messages - BJP, leave Bengal and anti-Bengal BJP go back - were put up by Trinamool Congress (TMC) cadres, a charge denied by the ruling party.

This shows that the TMC is afraid of our rally. The days of TMC are numbered in Bengal. The people of the state are waiting for good governance of the BJP, West Bengal BJP president Dilip Ghosh said.

Bengal is not TMCs personal property, the party has no right to make such demands, said another senior BJP leader.

The people of the state will decide in the coming days who will stay and who will leave, he added.

However, TMC secretary-general and Bengal education minister Partha Chatterjee said his party had nothing to do with the anti-BJP posters.

A poster with the slogan "Anti-Bengal BJP Go Back" is seen along with the posters of BJP leaders at the venue of BJP President Amit Shah's rally, in Kolkata on Friday, August 10, 2018. (PTI)

The route that Shah would take to reach the venue was seen dotted with cutouts of Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, similar to what played out during Modis visit to Midnapore last month.

The prime minister had even mocked the TMC saying that the ruling party in the state had put up the posters to welcome him.

They have done this (display of TMC hoardings) in the past too. May be it is their way of welcoming people to the state, BJP national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya said.

Chatterjee, on his part, said there was nothing wrong in putting up posters and placards of their party supremo.

The TMC is the ruling party in the state and we have every right to put up posters and placards. We dont need to take permission for that, he said.
Accusing Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar of shielding the guilty in the Muzaffarpur shelter home case, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav on Saturday asked him for the whereabouts of a girl who went missing after being shifted from the home.

Nitish ji knows everything. I give him a weeks time to reveal the whereabouts of the girl who was shifted from the shelter home and who has been missing since then, after which we will stage a mass protest in Madhubani, the RJD leader said, according to ANI.

Calling for Nitish Kumar to resign on moral grounds, Tejashwi Yadav said that the chief minister isnt fighting for justice for our daughters, but shielding those who committed crime.

The scandal at a government-funded Balika Grah in Bihars Muzaffarpur broke out in May after an audit report by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) found 34 of the 42 minor girls were allegedly raped. An FIR was filed on May 31 and the case handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) last month.

Read | In Muzaffarpurs shelter home, a web of silence shielded sexual abuse

Bihar social welfare minister Kumari Manju Verma resigned on Wednesday amid allegations that her husband had links with the main suspect in the case.

She quit two days after Nitish Kumar refused to give in to oppositions demands for her resignation, asking them to stop levelling baseless allegations against her and politicising the sensitive issue.

We called her, and she denied any involvement. How is levelling baseless allegations (against her) justified? A CBI probe is underway. Anyone found guilty, even the ministers, will be sent to jail. If someone related to the minister is involved, they wont be spared, Nitish Kumar said on Monday.
Congress Madhya Pradesh campaign committee chief Jyotiraditya Scindia on Saturday highlighted the state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) governments betrayal of farmers at a well-attended meeting in Ratlam, around 300 km from Bhopal.

Scindia has been holding public meetings and road shows in Neemuch, Mandsaur and Ratlam districts since Thursday. The region was the epicentre of the June 2017 farmer agitation for loan waiver and better support prices.

Six farmers were killed during the agitation in Mandsaur in police firing. This had pushed the BJP on the back foot. Scindia said chief minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan-led BJP government had failed on both development and security fronts.

He said over one crore youth in Madhya Pradesh were unemployed and the only development has been that of BJP workers and ministers.

Scindia said there was no security for women with Madhya Pradesh topping the rape charts in the country. Now even small girls are not being spared, he said, referring to the rape of minors in Mandsaur, Gwalior and Satna. Scindia said the farmers were on the top of the Congress agenda.

He also unveiled a bust of Abhishekh Patidar at Pipliyamandi and that of Ghanshyam Dhakad in Barwan on Saturday. Both were killed during the agitation.
National Conference president Farooq Abdullah on Saturday said he will fight for Article 35-A until his death, warning that the fallout of any tinkering with the Constitutional provision would be difficult to control.

Article 35-A, which gives special rights and privileges to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, is currently facing a legal challenge in the Supreme Court.

I will fight against them till I go down in my grave, Abdullah said, adding that they only remember Kashmir and not Himachal (Pradesh), Arunachal (Pradesh) and Nagaland, which also enjoy the special position.

Asked how he sees the situation in Kashmir if the Article 35-A is tinkered with, he said, You will see the situation yourselves, Delhi will also then see it and it will be very difficult for them to control it.

Abdullah, who is also the Member of Parliament form Srinagar constituency, however, sought to dismiss the uproar around the legal challenge to Article 35-A of the Constitution, saying no one is going to touch it.

They cannot touch (Article) 35-A. The Constitutional bench has twice said about it already. I do not know why they try to scratch this wound every time. The more they scratch it, the more blood there will be. Time has come for them to stop scratching it, the NC president said on the sidelines of a function here.

When the reporters pressed him hard on the issue, Abdullah in his usual style said, 35-A ko mariye goli. 35-A chalta jayega (shoot 35-A, the issue will keep going on).

On August 6, the Supreme Court had said a three-judge bench would decide whether the pleas challenging Article 35-A should be referred to a five-judge Constitution bench for examining the larger issue of alleged violation of the doctrine of basic structure of the Constitution.

The bench comprising chief justice Dipak Misra and justice A Khanwilkar had adjourned the crucial hearing on as many as five petitions to the week commencing from August 27 on the grounds that they pertained to the challenge to a Constitutional scheme and could not be heard as the third judge, justice D Y Chandrachud, was not present on that day.

Article 35-A, which was incorporated in the Constitution by a 1954 Presidential Order, accords special rights and privileges to the citizens of Jammu and Kashmir and denies property rights to a woman who marries a person from outside the state.

About India-Pakistan relations, Abdullah expressed hope that they would be fruitful under the reign of Imran Khan, who will be sworn-in as the countrys prime minister on August 18.

I expect a new Pakistan, a friendly Pakistan, a Pakistan free of terrorism and marching towards the future and strengthening the SAARC which will be vital for this entire area, the NC president said.

Abdullah said he was confident that New Delhi would cooperate with Islamabad if the neighbouring country gives up terrorism.

I am sure New Delhi will cooperate if Pakistan gives up terrorism, the whole world will cooperate, he said.

Asked about Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lamas recent statement on former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru at the Goa Institute of Management, Abdullah said the spiritual leader was right in saying what he said.

I am happy that Dalia Lama has apologised on what he said about Nehru, but one thing is correct that when they all were there, Mahatma Gandhi had indeed offered Jinnah to be the prime minister. However, Quaid-i-Azam (Jinnah) denied because he said that he could be removed anytime as he would be a minority prime minister and so moth-eaten Pakistan is better for him than to become the prime minister of such a country where there is no trust and which is now becoming evident.

The way the country is being taken in a different way today, I feel no one would have ever thought of it. We would not have dreamt of such a thing that they will try to change a secular country in such a way, which I think will be dangerous for them, the former Union minister said.

When asked about the statement of yoga guru Baba Ramdev that if illegal immigrants were allowed to stay on, they would make 10 more Kashmir-like problems for the country, Abdullah said India has a big heart and people can live in the country with ease and dignity.

Indias has a big heart. If you see, Mughals came and lived here, Alexander came and the force he had with him lived here. Whoever wants, can live here with ease and dignity. This is our tradition. Ramdev is no god, neither does he own India, he said.
Bhopal Right To Information activist Ashish Chaturvedi has alleged that the police are not serious in their investigation of Vyapam-related cases and claimed that the way Jhansi Road police station, Gwalior is handling one of his Vyapam related complaints, is a total give away.

Chaturvedi was one of the whistle blowers in the multi-layered recruitment-cum-admission Vyapam scam, and has received death threats for his role in bringing the scam to light.

Chaturvedi said he lodged a complaint with Jhansi Road police station in June 2017 , that important documents had gone missing from Gajra Raja Medical College, Gwalior, thereby impacting the investigation into the case.

Chaturvedi said, I came to know through a RTI reply that the verification check list, admission list, cancellation sheets and even the register of attendance of employees of August 2011 -- crucial to know who all were on duty and verified the documents of Vyapam accused  were missing. He added that he gave all the evidence to the police, but they sat on the investigation for 14 months and then on Friday they lodged a case under non-cognisable sections against two persons. They should have registered case under cognisable sections and arrested them.

Jhansi Road police station sub-inspector Bharat Ram Thakur said the police had done the needful. After accepting the complaint, we investigated the matter and found that some documents had been either destroyed by the authorities or had gone missing. A case has been registered against two people including a clerk and a student-wing in-charge under section 201 (Causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender) and section 204 (Destruction of 1[document or electronic record] to prevent its production as evidence) of IPC. Chaturvedi said that the police should have registered case under Section 120 B (conspiracy), Section 420 (cheating) of IPC and also under Prevention of Corruption Act, as both the accused are government servants, and arrested them. Police are being lenient to the accused, he alleged.

SI Thakur said that investigation into the case were going on and if necessary they could always add more sections and arrest the accused. The dean of GR Medical College could not be reached for his comments despite repeated attempts.
Officers were asked to rescue a distressed man who was desperately trying to flee from a clingy baby squirrel on Thursday morning.

According to the police forces Facebook page, officers immediately sent a patrol to investigate the matter. (Facebook Screengrab/ Polizei Karlsruhe)

The German city of Karlsruhe stood witness to the strangest event ever when their police force received a distress call with one man crying for assistance on getting chased by a squirrel.

Officers were asked to rescue a distressed man who was desperately trying to flee from a clingy baby squirrel on Thursday morning

According to the police forces Facebook page, officers immediately sent a patrol to investigate the matter.

It added: In fact, the police there met the man being persecuted by the stubborn little creature.

Officers warmed to the stricken creature, posting that it had become their new mascot after they baptized it in the name of Karl-Friedrich.

The squirrel was so exhausted from its pursuit of the man that it fell asleep because of the horror, police added.

Karl-Friedrich was taken in to police custody, where staff immediately sought new accommodation for the little squirrel, which apparently was looking for a new mother.

The animal is now in a rescue centre and is being looked after.

Talking to the Guardian, police spokeswoman Christina Krenz told the Guardian that it was likely the baby squirrel had targeted the man because it was seeking a new home, adding: It often happens that squirrels which have lost their mothers look for a replacement and then focus their efforts on one person.
With Keralas flood-ravaged Idukki having five wildlife parks, nature-lovers are concerned about the safety of animals but forest officials denied reports of any wildlife casualty in the hilly district. Neela kurinji lovers are however gloomy, for the catastrophe struck at a time when the rare spectacle of the flowers blooming was about to unfold.

No loss of wildlife has been reported so far. Animals are acquainted with such conditions and they do have natural protection to deal with such situations. But we can say that these situations put extra pressure on them, said states principal conservator of forests PK Kesavan.

Saying many landslides happen in the periphery, not in deep forests, he also termed as misleading a video doing rounds on social media depicting the plight of a deer herd facing surging flood waters in Wayanad.

Black bucks were shown in the video. But in Kerala we dont have that species of deer. It is a misleading video intended to create a scare, said Kesavan, adding personnel are keeping a strict vigil in forests.

Idukki, nestled in southern part of Western Ghat mountain ranges, hosts the Periyar Tiger Reserve - which has 35 tigers as per the last census, the Shola National Park, the Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary, the Kurinjimala Sanctuary and Eravikulam National Park, which is home to near-extinct Nilgiri tahr (ibex) as well as rare bird species like Malabar grey hornbill, Nilgiri pipit and Nilgiri wood pigeon.

Kurinji lovers upset

Heavy rains have doused the spirits of neela kurinji lovers and they fear large tracts of the plants could have been destroyed in the surging flood waters. Tourism officials who expected a windfall are also concerned.

The floods struck at a time when the neela kurinji (strobilanthes kunthiana) were set to bloom with clock-like precision after 12 years. When it bloomed last in 2006, the state tourism department claimed at least four lakh tourists swarmed the hill destination of Munnar, considered the best spot to watch the spectacle, and this time, it was expecting at least double that number.

Wet conditions are a threat to kurinji because it needs good sun. Flash floods have affected plants in some areas. Still we expect widespread blooming by next month, said G Rajkumar, an activist who has been working for the flowers conservation for the past 40 years.

He attributed the present tragedy to human incursions and unnatural growth plans. It is a lesson for all. Landslips and flash floods happened in areas that witnessed widespread human incursions. River should be allowed to run their natural course and it is time to rethink about management of dams, he said.

For local people, kurinji is symbol of plenty and exuberance and for visitors, it is a visual feast. The flowers find abundant mention in both Tamil and Malayalam ballads and are also a favourite subject for modern writers. Tribal people often calculate their age with its blooming season.

Considering the ecological sensitivity of the area, the then VS Achuthanandan-led state government had declared a kurinji national park spread over an area of 32 sq km. His government also carried out a massive demolition drive against land encroachment in Munnar and surrounding areas but later this lost steam following stiff opposition from many, including his own party members.

Later governments scaled the area of the park, citing human settlements while land sharks exploited the situation to the hilt. The result is that the misty getaway of Munnar has turned into a concrete jungle and landslides are common at many places.
The water level in Keralas Idukki dam reduced to 2,400 feet on Saturday as heavy rains that lashed the state for three days abated on Saturday. Authorities were forced to open the dams all five shutters for the first time in 40 years after the level crossed the maximum 2403 feet limit. The opening posed a flood threat to many downstream areas including the port city Kochi.

We have no plan to close the shutters now. So far everything is going as planned, said power minister M M Mani who is camping in Idukki. As many as 6 lakh litres of water was being released per second from the reservoir.

Officials said 60 mm rain was recorded in the dams catchment area on Saturday. A day earlier, 100 mm rainfall had been recorded, prompting the state government to issue a red alert in eight districts. The Indian Meteorological Department had forecast heavy rains for two more days.

Over 53,000 people have been shifted to relief camps and three armed forces units and National Disaster Response Force teams have been deployed in the worst-hit areas. The timely deployment of these rescue teams helped save many lives, said revenue minister E Chandrasekharan.

Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan conducted an aerial survey of the worst-affected Idukki and Wayanad districts. It is an unprecedented natural disaster. We face an uphill task in rebuilding devastated areas. We need help from all quarters, he said after visiting relief camps in north Keralas Wayanad. His chopper could not land in Idukki due to bad weather.

Vijayan announced Rs 4 lakh compensation for the families of those killed in rain-related incidents. Rs 10 lakh each would be given to those, who have lost their crops and homes. At least 30 persons have been killed. The army rescued at least 57 stranded tourists, including 24 foreigners, from the hill station of Munnar on Friday.

Watch: Kerala CM Vijayan conducts aerial survey of flood affected areas

Vijayan announced special adalats will be set up to issue duplicate copies of documents and educational certificates lost because of the flooding. Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala accompanied Vijayan.

Many areas in Kochi were without drinking water for two days after the floods hit the main pumping unit in Aluva. The Kerala Water Authority said water supply will be restored in a day.

Congress president Rahul Gandhi has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking the Centres help for Kerala. It is critical to acknowledge looming humanitarian crisis in Kerala. Hope the Union government will co-operate with the state in massive relief and rehabilitation efforts, he said.

Union home minister Rajnath Singh will conduct an aerial survey of the flood-hit areas on Sunday.
Four youths, aged between 18 and 23, have been arrested for allegedly gang raping a 17-year-old tribal girl in Kharagpur of West Bengals West Midnapore district, police said on Saturday.

The police complaint lodged on Friday evening had named six accused, out of which four were arrested and charges of rape and under the Protection of Children From Sexual Offences (POSCO) Act slapped against them. They were produced before a court on Saturday which sent them to custody.

The girl, missing since August 6, was found abandoned near her house in Satrangi village on August 9.

According to the victims complaint, she was lured by a boy with whom she talked over the telephone for over a month and had allegedly promised her that they would get married. However, he and his friends gang raped her for at least three days.

I could never imagine that the man whom I had loved would treat me like this. Though I cried in pain, they would not spare me, said the victim.

The victims mother said she could not find her daughter on Monday. A relative told me that she had gone to her maternal uncles house. But when I found out that she had not gone there, I lodged a missing diary at Kharagpur police station, she said.

After I found my daughter in front of our house, she told me that she was gang raped by the youth she spoke on the phone and his friends. She was taken to Kaita area in Kharagpur, she added.

Khargapur sub divisional police officer Kuntal Banejee said that they had arrested four of the six accused, while a medical test of the victim was also conducted and confirmed her allegations.

According to National Crime Records Bureaus 2016 data, West Bengal was in the second position in crimes against women in the country, recording 9.6% of all crimes committed, behind Uttar Pradesh (14.5%).

That year, Bengal also recorded a substantially high number of cases of gang rape  130 cases  ranking fifth after Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana.

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The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has roped in scholars from prestigious institutes like New Delhis Jawaharlal Nehru University to study interrogation reports of Islamic State (IS)-inspired accused under its arrest to understand reasons for radicalism.

These researchers are graduates and post-graduates in subjects like criminology or psychology and they have been working with our counter-radicalism cell for the past one month, said an official of the federal anti-terrorism agency. They have been given interrogation reports of over five dozen persons arrested on the charges of being IS-inspired. The NIA official spoke on condition of anonymity.

Some of the accused were either arrested trying to leave the country to allegedly join the IS or were held after returning to India. Some are behind bars for allegedly trying to carry out terror strikes in India at the ISs behest.

The researchers, mostly females, will try to find a pattern in these cases in terms of the socio-cultural and financial background of the families the accused persons belong to and also what were the early indicators or causes of radicalism in them, the official added.

The agency has asked the researchers to prepare a report to suggest ways of countering radicalisation.

At a later stage, we may allow these researchers to sit in interrogation sessions as well to get first hand information from the subjects, said the official quoted earlier in the story.

As of now, the agency has hired the researchers for a year. The Union home ministry had last year formed a Counter Terrorism and Counter Radicalisation division to prepare a de-radicalisation strategy and to keep a check on activities of domestic and international terror outfits.

The government had informed Parliament last year that 75 people had been arrested on the charges of having links with the IS or being inspired by it to form terror modules.

Officials said the IS threat continues despite the groups rout in Syria and Iraq. The NIA last week questioned eight people in Hyderabad for their suspected links with an IS handler. The questioning took place in connection with a case registered two years back.

Former Uttar Pradesh police chief Prakash Singh called the move to rope in the researchers an honest effort in countering the problem.

Police officers investigate a case with a view to prove the charges in the court and but these researchers will look at the backgrounds of the accused persons and what led them to the path of jihad. Once we know the reasons, only then we can find ways to counter the problem, he said.
India and the US have agreed to set up a dedicated hotline between their defence ministers for real time communication on global security issues and coordination between the first and the fourth strongest militaries in the world, according to Indian government officials familiar with the matter. An announcement to this effect is expected on September 6 during the so-called two-plus-two dialogue between US secretary of state Mike Pompeo and defence secretary James Mattis with external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj and defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi.

South Block sources said India has agreed to a decade-long US proposal for a dedicated line between the defence leadership of the countries. The basic idea is to cut through bureaucratic red tape and communicate discreetly in matters of bilateral and multilateral importance. With both the countries interested in the IndoPacific region and happenings in West Asia, the hotline is expected to ensure cogent response from the two major defence allies

The hotline was first proposed by the US in 2008 to the then United Progressive Alliance regime but was ignored due to pressure from the Cold war warriors in the Manmohan Singh government, the officials added. There is already a direct line between US National Security Advisor John Bolton and Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval.

India and US are also expected to finally sign the Communications, Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) during the two-plus-two dialogue with both sides frenetically working on a mutually acceptable final draft. COMCASA is a foundational military agreement which will allow India to use US communications for its US-built platforms. The draft of COMCASA is being worked at and the agreement should be ready for initials during the ministerial dialogue, said a senior South Block official.

India has also agreed to place a military officer at the US Central and Pacific Commands for better coordination between the militaries. Which US CENTCOM has both Pakistan and Afghanistan under its jurisdiction, the PACCOM is responsible for the IndoPacific region.

The hotline and the signing of COMCASA will further reinforce the ongoing trend of the two countries working closely together. In recent weeks, the US has granted India a status hitherto reserved for NATO member countries to import key defence equipment and access defence technologies, and the two countries have resolved some sticky trade issues. On Monday, US President Donald Trump is expected to sign off on a waiver for India from a US regulation instituting sanctions against countries doing business with Russia, one of Indias key suppliers of defence equipment.

The structural basis of India-US ties has never been better and defence is very much in the lead. Constant communication is central to taking it forward, said S Jaishankar, former foreign secretary of India who has also served as Indias ambassador to the US. up its offensive against the National Democratic Alliance on issues such as the Rafale deal, exclusion of 4 million people in National Register of Citizens in Assam and non-implementation of promises to Andhra Pradesh.

As many as 17 bills were introduced during the session and the Lok Sabha spent the most time49 out of 102 hoursin legislative business. A PRS Legislative Research analysis said this is the highest amount of time spent on legislative business by both Houses in the 16th Lok Sabha; (and the) second highest since 2004.

Congress leaders came out on the street inside the Parliament complex to protest against the government on Friday, but barring some sporadic protests, there was no threat of a washout, like the second half of the last Budget session.

Both Houses passed the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill that is expected to prevent a recurrence of a recent rash of incidents where bank loan defaulters such as Vijay Mallya or fraudsters such as Nirav Modi have fled India for foreign shores. Parliament also cleared the bill for granting constitutional status to the National Commission for Backward Classes and amended the SC/ST bill to tighten the law against offenders. The two important bills aim to address concerns of socially vulnerable sections and can also be important political tools for the ruling section in election times.

Still, the bill to criminalize Instant Triple Talaq, approved in the Lower House, could not be passed in the Upper House when brought for debate on the last day. When the Upper House reconvened after two adjournments, Chairman Venkaiah Naidu announced that the Triple Talaq Bill cant be taken up as a consensus on the issue is yet to be evolved.

With a year left for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls, the Centre withdrew the contentious FRDI bill that faced opposition from various quarters over the controversial bail-in clause. Finance ministry officials maintained that it may be brought back again after revisiting some of the provisions where concerns were raised.

In her valedictory speech, Lok Sabha Speaker Sumitra Mahajan maintained that the monsoon session has been more productive and satisfactory than the previous Budget Session and last years monsoon session. Both Mahajan and Rajya Sabha chairman Venkaiah Naidu maintained that the session furthered the cause of social justice with legislations such as the NCBC bill and SC/ST bill having a wide impact on the lives of the deprived population.

Addressing the House on Friday, Naidu said, South West monsoon is very critical for the economy of our country and it has been by and large normal with only about 5% deficit in rain fall so far. And the Monsoon session of Parliament also brought new tidings marking a break from the last two sessions much to the delight of all those who have a stake in our Parliamentary democracy. Still, while lauding members for this he reminded them that the productivity deficit still remains.

The Narendra Modi government also kept alive the chances of pushing the amendments to the land law as the joint panel reviewing the bill has been given time till the end of the 16th Lok Sabha to submit its report. The contentious bill proposes to relax norms for industries and developments for public purposes to acquire land.

The discussion on the no confidence motion early on in the session resulted in diffusing the parliament logjam from the previous session. This then enabled the government to get parlimaments approval on key legislation. One hopes that the bipartisanship on legislative extends to the winter session too, said Chaksu Ray of PRS Legislative Research.

Interestingly, from the time the 16th Lok Sabha was constituted, till the end of the current monsoon session according to PRS: fewer bills (have been) referred to Parliamentary Committees (26%) as compared to the 15th Lok Sabha (71%) and the 14th Lok Sabha (60%). the Uttar Pradesh police drew flak for doing a shoddy job. The then chief minister Mayawati handed over the case to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) where the case took several sensational turns.

Two CBI investigators reached opposite conclusions on the basis of more or less the same evidence.

The first team led by Arun Kumar claimed a breakthrough on the basis of scientific evidence, primarily narco-analysis test reports, and arrested three men Talwars compounder Krishna and two domestic help working in the neighbourhood, Rajkumar and Vijay Mandal. But the agency eventually failed to build a case against them.

Another team probed the parents but it too failed to build a case, filing a closure report.

When the couple objected to the CBI closing the case, the special court rejected the closure report and ordered prosecution of the parents on the basis of existing evidence, leading to their eventual conviction.

The couple was awarded life sentence by a special CBI court in Ghaziabad on November 26, 2013, a day after the conviction.

On October 16, 2017, the couple walked out of the prison in Uttar Pradeshs Dasna, three days after the conviction was overturned. teacher who was employed as an assistant teacher, and the accused have been suspended from duty, the NDMC officer said on condition of anonymity.

On Friday morning, Delhi Commission for Women chairperson, Swati Maliwal, asked the Delhi Police to submit an action taken report. The National Human Rights Commission has also taken suo motu cognisance and issued notices to the Chief Secretary, Government of NCT of Delhi, and the Commissioner of Police, Delhi, calling for a detailed report in the matter within four weeks.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday launched a no-holds-barred attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi, bringing up alleged corruption in the purchase of French Rafale fighter jets, and assuring party workers that the Congress would be in a position to form the government in three crucial states going to polls this year  Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

Gandhi was addressing a gathering of party workers at Ramlila grounds in Jaipur, one of the strongholds for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in a state which it rules, after holding a 12-km long roadshow that marked the launch of the partys election campaign.

Prime Minister Modi bought a single aircraft at thrice the cost that was negotiated by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government, Gandhi alleged.

The allegation referred to the 2016 agreement India made to purchase 36 Rafale fighter jets made by Dassault Aviation in a fly-away condition from France in a government to government deal, scrapping an earlier deal for 126 of the planes that the UPA had approved. Of the 126, state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) was to make 108. The NDA has claimed that the earlier deal hadnt moved forward for years, and also that the prices under the deals arent comparable because of customisation and weaponisation. After receiving the revised deal, Dassault signed an offset deal with several Indian companies including Reliance Defence, a unit of the Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group.

Ambani has denied allegations of any wrongdoing, at one point even writing to Gandhi saying that the government had no role in his firm securing the contract.

Defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman has denied the oppositions allegations regarding the Rafale deal, saying due processes were completed before it was finalised.

The Congress president also hit out at Modi on the issue of farmers and the treatment of Dalits, tribals and minorities.

Modi has waived off loans to the tune of Rs 2.30 lakh crore of 15-20 industrialists, but when I led a delegation to the PMO to ask for farm-loan waiver he did not say a word. I dont understand one thing, when industrialists fail to pay the loan it is called non-performing asset but when farmer dont pay the loan, they are called defaulters. Why is that, he asked.

Gandhi, who arrived in Jaipur at noon, was given a rousing reception by local workers. The road show was seen crucial to tackle unease within the state unit, especially since the visit of Prime Minister Modi and the launch of a high profile campaign by chief minister Vasundhra Raje.

Politically analyst Narayan Bareth said that Saturdays event had appeared to have energised Congress cadre. Rahuls visit was a success. His speech was good, especially his attack on Narendra Modi. But Congress should have launched their campaign sooner.

State BJP president Madan Lal Saini, responding to Gandhis allegations, said the Rafale deal was the first such deal in which a head of state had stepped in to clarify. The French president has said there was no corruption or irregularity in the deal.
Congress president Rahul Gandhi will launch the partys election campaign in poll bound Rajasthan on Saturday in his first visit to the state since taking over as party chief last December.

Gandhi will hold a road show and address party workers and leaders from all 33 districts at Jaipurs Ramlila ground to boost the partys bid to regain power in the state . He is also likely to visit the Govind Dev temple, the presiding deity of former royal family, in the walled city area.

The Congress has been upbeat since thumping the ruling BJP in Rajasthan, clinching two Lok Sabha and one state Assembly seats in bypolls in the key cow belt state in February. The party is seeking to leverage that momentum for the assembly elections likely to be held in December.

The Congress Rajasthan unit president Sachin Pilot, who has been credited with the partys victory in the bypolls in February, said Gandhis address will enthuse party workers into working towards uprooting the BJP government from the state. The BJP and the Congress have alternately ruled Rajasthan since 1993.

Jaipur was chosen as the venue of his first visit because it will set the tone for the entire state, Pilot said. Gandhi will lead from the front; he will give the message of victory to the party workers and will tell how we are going to campaign in the next three months.

Gandhi is coming to Rajasthan for the first time after becoming the Congress president. It is the city where he was elevated as the vice-president of the Congress party, so this place has a lot of significance for the party, he added.

The party is also aiming to break the BJPs clout in Jaipur district which comprises 19 assembly and two parliamentary constituencies. In the last two assembly elections (2008 and 2013), the Congress lost twice in a row on 10 seats, of which six are from Jaipur city  Jhotwara, Vidhyadhar Nagar, Kishanpole, Adarsh Nagar, Malviya Nagar and Sanganer.

With Gandhis rally at Ramlila Maidan, located in the heart of the city, Congress aims to break into the saffron fortress. Jaipur is considered a BJP bastion and Congress has not been able to breach. The meeting will not just make impact in the city but on around 35 assembly seats of neighbouring districts such as Sikar, Alwar, Dausa, Tonk and Ajmer, said political analyst Narayan Bareth.

The Congress presidents visit to Jaipur comes in the middle of chief minister Vasundhara Rajes Rajasthan Gaurav Yatra to shore up support for the BJP ahead of the elections.

A senior party leader said Gandhi will again visit the state towards the end of August for two days and thereafter in mid-September to campaign for the party.

(With inputs from PTI)
West Bengals ruling Trinamool Congress reacted sharply to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) president Amit Shahs remarks at a rally in Kolkata on Saturday, threatening legal action against him unless he issues an apology in the next 24 hours.

Amit Shah should apologise within 24 hours, or else we would take legal action, said Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha member and spokesperson Derek O Brien. However, he did not clarify which specific point his party wanted an apology for.

Who is Amit Shah? He cant get away by alleging corruption against Mamata Banerjee. He has crossed the limits of decency by dishonouring the culture of Bengal, added O Brien.

In a no-holds-barred attack on West Bengals ruling party, Shah accused Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of wanting to shelter Bangladeshi infiltrators as they have become her partys vote bank, using the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam to take pot shots at her and Congress president Rahul Gandhi.

We will make sure that the process of NRC Assam is carried out peacefully. Neither Mamata Banerjee nor Rahul Gandhi can stop us from doing it, Shah said addressing a huge public rally at Kolkatas Mayo Road organised by the Bharatiya Janata Yava Morcha.

He also reiterated his vow to uproot the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal.

The Congress also attacked Shah over his remarks.

Amit Shah is talking of identifying infiltrators from Bangladesh and pushing them back. This is completely absurd. Had the government been serous about the push back, it should have first signed an agreement with Bangladesh, said state Congress president Adhir Chowdhury.

These people cannot be pushed back legally, he added.
In a landmark verdict, a jury in the US has ruled that Monsantos Roundup and other glyphosate-based weedkillers are linked to cancer, and directed the agro-giant to pay $289 million in damages to a school groundskeeper who developed the disease.

The ruling is likely to have far reaching ramifications in other parts of the world including India, where glyphosate-based weedkillers are widely used.

It is a landmark development in terms of the jury fixing responsibility on Monsanto and its negligence and given the discussion around glyphosate and its safety in India, said Kavitha Kuruganti, from the Alliance for Sustainable & Holistic Agriculture (ASHA).

Environmentalists in India have forcefully argued that the indiscriminate use of glyphosate poses a grave challenge in India, where the regulatory framework on herbicide and pesticide overuse/misuse is weak.

In India, the consumption of glyphosate was 148 million tonnes in 2014-15, the highest for any weedicide.

Poor regulation was in the spotlight in the deaths of over 40 farmers earlier this year in Maharashtra from pesticide poisoning. According to the Centre for Science and Environment, there were around 7,000 deaths in 2015 related to accidental intake of insecticides/pesticides in India.

There is also fear is that increasing cultivation of GM?crops will promote the indiscriminate use of pesticides and herbicides like glyphosate. A 2017 study found that its use increased five times after the introduction of?GM crops in the US.

The use of the weedkiller is interlinked with the controversy surrounding GM crops. For example, a crop that has been modified to be tolerant to a particular herbicide, like Roundup, will survive spraying of this herbicide while all other plant life dies.

In June, Monsanto became a unit of Bayer AG, which further consolidated its monopoly over the global seed and chemical market. The agriculture behemoth Bayer AG manufactures both weedkillers and pesticides, and the tolerant seed varieties.

The 46-year-old who was awarded the damages, said he developed a deadly form of non-Hodgkins lymphoma after spending years spraying large amounts of Monsantos Roundup and other glyphosate herbicide brands on school grounds.

The controversy regarding glyphosate use has been going on for many years and the weight of the evidence seems to have tilted, which could mean that Bayer-Monsanto could face an uphill battle in defending itself in other ongoing cases and prompt further legal challenges.

Kuruganti said: It is important the pesticide regulators take note... it is one more evidence that it indeed causes health impact, despite claims that it is safe.

In India, absence of long term studies regarding the effects of glyphosate use has made the task of regulation more difficult.

Kuruganti said that it was only a matter of time that the evidence builds in India and it fell on companies that sell glyphosate-based weed killers to voluntarily pull out or face similar consequences.

On its website, Monsanto describes its offerings as crop production products such as Roundupherbicides, that enjoy a risk-free history in more than 100 countries.

Bayer AG also maintained that the product was safe.

In an emailed response, the firm said: While Bayer and Monsanto continue to operate independently, Bayer believes that the jurys verdict is at odds with the weight of scientific evidence that the use of glyphosate is not associated with non-Hodgkins lymphoma.

Bayer is confident based on the strength of the science, the conclusions of regulators around the world and decades of experience that glyphosate is safe for use and does not cause cancer when used according to the label.

Todays decision does not change the fact that more than 800 scientific studies and reviews  and conclusions by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and regulatory authorities around the world  support the fact that glyphosate does not cause cancer, and did not cause Mr. Johnsons cancer, a Monsanto spokesperson said in an email response. We will appeal this decision and continue to vigorously defend this product, which has a 40-year history of safe use and continues to be a vital, effective, and safe tool for farmers and others.
In a no-holds-barred attack on the ruling Trinamool Congress on Saturday, BJP supremo Amit Shah accused West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee of wanting to shelter Bangladeshi infiltrators as they have become her partys vote bank.

Shah used the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam to take pot shots at Congress president Rahul Gandhi and Mamata Banerjees Trinamool Congress following Banerjees bitter opposition to it.

We will make sure that the process of NRC Assam is carried out peacefully. Neither Mamata Banerjee nor Rahul Gandhi can stop us from doing it, Shah said addressing a huge public rally at Kolkatas Mayo Road organised by the Bharatiya Janata Yava Morcha.

We want to ask Mamata Banerjee why is she protecting Bangladeshi infiltrators? Rahul Gandhi also is not clarifying his stand on the issue. This is because of Congress vote-bank politics.

For us country comes first, before vote bank. Oppose us as much as you want but we will not stall the process of NRC, he said.

He devoted most of his 25-minute speech on the question of citizenship screening exercise trying to highlight how Banerjee was trying to make political capital out of it, but stopped short of saying that a citizenship screening exercise will be conducted in Bengal. He asked the crowd whether they want it in the state, to which the people responded with a resounding yes.

Four years after he vowed to uproot the ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal, BJP president Amit Shah reiterated it again on Saturday.

We are here to uproot Mamata, Shah said.

Referring to posters that said Anti-Bengali Amit Shah Go Back, the BJP president said, How can I be anti-Bengali? Our party was founded by a great son of Bengal, Shyama Prasad Mookerji.

Bengal is a focus state for the BJP with Shah setting a target for his party workers to win at least 22 of the 42 Lok Sabha seats in the state in the general elections next year.

Shah even accused the ruling party of sabotaging the rallys coverage

Signals of all Bengali channels have been lowered so that people will not be able to watch us. But even if you try to suppress our voices, we will go to every district of Bengal and throw TMC out.

BJP Yuva Morcha president Poonam Mahajan remarked there has been no parivartan (change) in Bengal. TMC has become terror making machine. Parivartan has come only for scamsters, she alleged.

The youths of Bengal are migrating elsewhere for work, but Rohingyas are being sheltered here, alleged BJP Bengal unit president Dilip Ghosh.

(With ANI inputs)
The Akhil Bhartiya Bheem Sena filed a complaint, alleging that members of Youth for Equality burnt copy of Constitution and shouted slogans.

The complainant also submitted a CD containing a video of the incident, police said. (Representational image)

New Delhi: A case has been registered against some members of an outfit for allegedly burning a copy of the Constitution and shouting slogans against B R Ambedkar during a protest on the Parliament Street, the Delhi Police said on Friday.

Anil Tanwar, the national in-charge of the Akhil Bhartiya Bheem Sena, filed a complaint at the Parliament Street police station, alleging that members of Youth for Equality burnt a copy of the Constitution and shouted slogans against the Dalit icon on Thursday.

The complainant also submitted a CD containing a video of the incident, police said.
Girija Tripathi who operated a shelter home for girls along with her husband and two daughters ran a sex racket using fear as a key to force minor girls into the flesh trade, say former inmates.

In her interactions with the police and counsellors, a 15-year-old former inmate of Deorias infamous shelter home for girls said she dreaded the weekends as she was forcibly sent to unknown men who sexually exploited her.

The traumatised former inmate of Maa Vindhyavasini Mahila Evam Balika Sanrakshan Griha accused Girija Tripathi of torturing her if she refused to follow her diktats.

The tearful teenager told the counsellors how she was sent to different persons in luxury cars which came every weekend to pick her up from the shelter home on the first floor of a crumbling building near the Deoria railway station.

The girl did not know the people whom she was sent to but said their vehicles and the protocol provided to them suggested they might be senior officials, a police officer said.

The girl alleged that Badi Madam (Girija Tripathi) used to send her to different persons who sexually abused her. Some of them used to call her regularly on weekends, she said.

The girl told the counsellors that the men used to keep her with them throughout the night and send her back to the shelter home early next morning.

She claimed that Girija used to take her out of the shelter home through rear door when someone came to pick her up.

She said that initially when she tried to resist, she was physically assaulted. Finding no way out she started following Girijas directions as she believed that she had a huge clout, the police officer said. She was treated well by Girija when she started following her directions.

One of the counsellors said fear was evident in the girls eyes when she recounted the terrifying days she spent at the illegally run shelter home.

She was shivering while talking to police personnel and counsellors even after being freed from the shelter home where she stayed for three months. She was afraid of speaking against Badi Madam and Chhoti Madam (Girija and her younger daughter and shelter home superintendent Kanchan Lata Tripathi).

The rescued girls are still in shock. It will take a few more days to open up further about harassment, the counsellor said.

FEAR OF ABUSE

The 10-year-old girl, who blew the lid off the alleged sex racket by escaping from the shelter home and informing the police about the trauma of the inmates, also feared meeting a similar fate.

The police raided the shelter home Sunday night and rescued 24 inmates, including 10 minors, and arrested Girija Tripathi, her husband Mohan Tripathi. Later, their daughters Kanchan Lata Tripathi and Kanak Lata Tripathi were also arrested.

The girl said the inmates were not allowed to move freely in the shelter home building and they were harassed and made to work round-the-clock.

The 10-year-old girl, who hailed from Bettiah in Bihar, told the counsellors that she reached the shelter home after being abandoned by her family near a railway track in Bihar.

The girl boarded a train and reached Deoria where government railway police (GRP) personnel found her and sent her to the shelter home. She stayed there for around three months before fleeing on Sunday, the counsellor said.

DIFFERENT ENTRY, EXIT ROUTES

There were four narrow staircases that allowed entry and exit from the shelter home. There were two staircases on the front of the building where several shops were located on the ground floor.

The stairs at the back of the building, which opened in the adjoining lane, was used by the shelter home staff to take in or send out the girls, alleged a local resident requesting anonymity.

He said he never saw shelter home girls coming out of the building from the front staircase. People coming to the shelter home in cars also used the staircase at the back, he added.

FREQUENT VISITORS

Besides police and district administration officials, other people also came to the shelter home in luxury cars during late evening hours. One of the most frequent visitors to the shelter home was a person who came in a car that appeared to be a government official vehicle, another resident said.

He claimed he did not know the person but added that he appeared to be a senior officer.

We never talked to any of them as they were accompanied by their staff, including driver and police gunner. Some of the visitors were also accompanied by armed private security guards, he added.

People thought they must be visiting the shelter home for official purpose. We never imagined that any wrongdoing was being committed here, he said.

Police have collected the footage of some CCTV cameras installed near the shelter home to identify frequent visitors to the shelter home.

Though Girija Tripathi has also been accused of facilitating illegal adoption of orphans, the police have not found any evidence of it.

Deoria district magistrate Amit Kishore said the allegation of an adoption racket was yet to be verified. We are trying to coordinate with the officials of Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) to find out if they have any document related to adoption from Deoria shelter home, he said.
A 32-year-old Information Technology professional, who had just returned from Belgium, died after falling off the sixth floor of a residential building in Santacruz suburb of Mumbai, police said on Saturday.

Tejas Dubey fell from an open window of his flat in PK Arch building in Vakola area on Friday, police said, adding that preliminary reports have suggested that the deceased was drunk at the time of the incident.

Dubey had returned from Belgium on Thursday. He went to sleep in his room after reportedly being exhausted due to jet lag following a 12-14 hour flight. The French window of the room in which he was sleeping was open and did not have a grill, the official said.

The police official said that Dubey went near the window at around 5:30 am on Friday and his fall may have been caused by sleepiness.

He died on the spot. An Accidental Death Report has been taken at Vakola police station and further probe is underway, the official said.

Sources said that the incident happened a day before the birthday of the deceaseds wife.
Shamshadabai Isarail Sayeed, 62, is among the first groups from Maharashtra to visit Haj, the annual pilgrimage to Muslim holy sites in Saudi Arabia, without a mehram (husband or male blood relation as guardian). She is worried about how she and her sisters-in-law and aunt will make do at the holy cities, and requests journalists to tell the travel and diplomatic authorities to take care of them.

Unlike her, her sister-in-law Taiyyabhi Hamid Sheikh is determined to make the most of the trip. Being the youngest in the group, Sheikhs family looks up to her to take care of the other women travelling along with her. Wahan jaa ke dekh lenge aur kar lenge. Karna to padega (When we reach there, we will manage. Only, we have to do it), Sheikh said.

For these women, the idea of going for the pilgrimage this year is an emotional one because Sayeeds husband, who was suppose to be their mehram, passed away last year. This was why Sayeeds son Jakeriya Isarail had decided that he would be their companion. But he changed his decision after he was told that a new rule allows women to travel without the mandatory male companion if they are in a group of four.

They are hesitant because it is difficult for them to accept that they are travelling without a male companion. They are worried about what people in the community would think about them breaking this tradition. But, we want them to go, so that they set a good precedent for other women, says Nazeen Sayeed, their daughter-in-law.

Another group of women from Nagpur, Wardha and Mumbai are travelling with companions who they saw for the first time at a meeting that took place ahead of Haj. My mother wanted to go, and it is not always possible for someone to accompany them. In such cases, their wish remains unfulfilled. Now, we are glad she got company and went to Haj, said Rafik Sheikh Hingni, whose mother Hamida Chand Sheikh left for Haj earlier this month.

The applications of the first group of women from Mumbai leaving for Jeddah  the entry point for the holy sites  were approved on Saturday morning. Last year, their applications were rejected in the lottery system, which has been revoked this year for women.

The development comes after the Saudi government earlier this year allowed women to perform Haj without a mehram.

Haj officials said women did not have to worry about arrangements in Saudi Arabia. We have made special provisions for women travelling without mehram. They will stay in a separate building at Mecca and Medina, and for the first time, 13 Khadim-ul-Hujjaj (personal caretakers) have been assigned to assist them, said Maqsood Ahmed Khan, chief executive officer, Haj Committee of India (HCOI).

Acceding to earlier data provided by the minority affairs ministry, around 1,300 women will travel to Haj for the first time without mehram; of them 1,000 are from Kerala.

Why should we be worried? There are so many females from Kerala in Saudi Arabia. The restrictions cannot be applicable for a person like me who has lost her husband and father. How would I have gone otherwise if it wasnt for this provision? said a retired teacher from Mohammed Ali Road, travelling along with her sisters.

Religious leaders are divided over the new rule.

The Saudi government is doing too many things that are against the Shariat. Even if women go for Haj, it is not accepted when they are going without a mehram, said Maulana Syed Moinuddin Ashraf, founder of the Maharashtra Muslim Front.

No where in Islam, it is said that women cannot go for Haj alone. In fact, Islam approves of this decision. We are glad that the Saudi government approved it, said Maulana Yasoob Abbas, spokesperson of the All India Shia Personal Law Board.
A day before Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to the Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay (IIT-B), students, in a statement shared on social media, questioned the governments recent anti-student politics.

Modi has been invited as the guest of honour for the annual convocation ceremony to be held on Saturday.

In the statement, several group of students questioned the decreasing budget allocation to higher education, scrapping of the Government of India-Post Matric Scholarship (GoI-PMS) for students from reserved categories in institutes like Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) as well as loopholes in the new Higher Education Committee of India (HECI) Bill.

Our questions are not directed towards the institute, but towards PM Modi, said one of the students, requesting anonymity.

The ever-declining public expenditure in education is making us question the higher education policy of the ruling government and we naturally wonder, whether PM Modi wants education for all or is he promoting the Brahmanical idea of education only for a few people belonging to the upper class backgrounds, the statement reads.

The statement was also shared by the Coordination of Science and Technology Institutes Student Associations (COSTISA) on Facebook, on Friday.

Students have listed a range of problems, which is forcing higher education institutes into debts, automatically leading to fee hikes.

Be it the General Financial Rules (GFR) of the central government, which force a substantial expenditure on universities, or the lack of grants leaving universities with a massive loan, both are directly affecting the fees of students, making it impossible for students from strained economic backgrounds, said the statement. Falling rate of employment across India is another concern they highlighted.

As researchers and students, we believe academia cannot be disconnected from the society and the increasing hate crimes in the society are a growing concern. We would like to question PM Modis silence on all these issues, said a student.

We collectively condemn all atrocities committed against Dalit and Muslim men and women and demand, through this statement, that PM Modi too should take a positive stand and condemn all hate crimes in the country, the statement concluded.
Ten days after they were abducted in Malaysia while on a business trip, brothers Rohan and Kaustubh Vaidya have vivid memories of their time being kept captive. They revealed that they were blindfolded, beaten up and provided food only thrice in six days while being kept in a dark room.

They revealed the kidnappers spoke Tamil and English while communicating with them and threatening them by uttering: We will shoot you.

The brothers, who reached Dombivli on Friday evening, were ill and were suffering psychological trauma. They have assault marks on their hands.

The duo chose to speak about their ordeal on Saturday, revealing that they were trapped by a client who called them for a dinner around 8.30pm on August 2 through a Whatsapp message. The company had only previously messaged them on July 31, prior to leaving for the business trip.

After reaching Malaysia we had a meeting with one client in the afternoon. After that we returned to our room. We then received a message from another client named Lak-kins Marine inviting us for dinner at 8.30pm, said Rohan Vaidya, 36, the elder brother who runs an agency named Rocks Frozen Foods, which helps supply frozen fish to foreign countries since the past three years.

The company sent a car with a driver. We sat inside the car and after around a 45-minute ride we entered a jungle and it was dark everywhere. Another car stopped in front of ours and six people came out and blindfolded us before they started assaulting us, added Rohan.

The brothers were later taken to a dark room and kept blindfolded for six days. They were asked to make calls to their family and demand 1 crore as ransom.

The brothers revealed that the kidnappers called them by name while asking to make a call.

We were not able to see them as we were blindfolded all the time. Our hands and legs were also tied up. They spoke Tamil most of the time and to us they spoke in English, said Kaustubh, 31, who visited Malaysia for the first time.

The brothers often ended up connecting to clients through social messaging groups. They also made sure to check the profile of the company before meeting them.

On August 6, both were released by the abductors. They might have realised that our family had approached the police. Since they did not receive any money they decided to leave us by the side of the road,  said Rohan.

We managed to get a taxi and reach the hotel after which we were taken to the police station for an inquiry there, said Rohan. After all this experience we have learned that we should cross check everything about a client before agreeing to a meeting with them.

The two reached Mumbai at 1.30pm on Friday, following which a team from the Thane crime branch and officers from Ramnagar police escorted them to their residence in Dombivli near Shivam Hospital.

The family had reported the abduction to the foreign ministry and police since they received a call from the brothers on August 2. The police have not arrived for any investigation so far, considering their health condition, said Rajeev Vaidya, the brothers uncle.
In an early morning operation on Friday, the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) arrested three persons who allegedly planned terror activities in Satara, Pune, Solapur, and Mumbai, three investigators said on condition of anonymity.

They added that they seized 20 crude bombs and bomb-making material from the home and shop of one of the accused and claimed that the accused belong to Sanatan Sanstha, a right-wing Hindu group. The three were produced in Mumbais city civil and sessions court on Friday, and remanded to police custody till August 18. The accused, the police said while seeking remand, had planned to conduct terrorist activities.

The first to be arrested was 40-year-old Vaibhav Raut, a real estate agent from Nallasopara, a suburb in Palghar district approximately 35 km from Mumbai. ATS officials conducted a house search where, they said, they seized eight crude bombs.

The team then raided Rauts shop in the same locality and seized 12 more crude bombs, two gelatine sticks, four electronic detonators, 22 non-electronic detonators, 150 gm of an unidentified white powder, along with electrical equipment, hardware and a hand-drawn electronic circuit.

Soon after Rauts arrest, an associate right-wing Hindu outfit, Hindu Janajagruti Samiti, issued a release stating Raut was a Gaurakshak (a cow protector), and that he was a Sanathan Sanstha seer. The release stated that he used to participate in the organisations programmes and agitations. It also said Raut had not participated in any of its events for the last few months.

Simultaneously, another ATS team arrested two others  Sharad Kalaskar and Sudhanva Gondhalekar  from Pune. Two police officers said Raut, Kalaskar and Gondhalekar were arrested on the basis of intelligence inputs provided by the Karnataka Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the September 2017 murder of Bengaluru journalist Gauri Lankesh.

Karnataka SIT shared information with Maharashtra ATS on 10 persons closely linked to Kale, one of the police officers added. HT was not able to confirm this independently. A member of the Karnataka SIT said he was not aware of any links between the cases but added that it was too early to comment. The accused alleged in court that they had been tortured by police officials. The court has called for their medical reports.

Minister of state for home (Rural) Deepak Kesarkar said forensic reports of the seized material will establish further details about their plans.
Ahead of the 2019 polls, Maharashtras caste cauldron is already on the boil. Since the Maratha protests turned violent last month, what has come into sharp focus are the concerted efforts of all political parties to keep the protesting Maratha groups happy, but without upsetting other backward castes (OBCs).

Two days before the Maratha protests on August 9, the National Other Backward Class Federation, an umbrella body of OBC groups in the country, held its third meet in Mumbai. It was inaugurated by chief minister Devendra Fadnavis and attended by senior political leaders across the party spectrum. The meet marked a shift: OBC leaders are no longer supportive of the Maratha reservation.

We are not opposed to the reservation to Marathas as long as it does not touch our quota. But, at the same time if Marathas are being given 16%, then we will demand that our quota should increase to 52% in sync with our population, said Babanrao Tayade, a Nagpur-based educationist who heads the federation. Former Andhra Pradesh high court judge and chairperson of the federation, V Eshwariah, was blunter: Jats, Patels and Marathas have started agitating and under pressure, the governments are accepting their demands. What is the constitutional validity of this reservation? On what grounds do they meet the social backwardness criteria?

At least last two state backward class commissions and three central backward class commissions have rejected the Maratha claim of being backward. The community adds up to 32% of Maharashtras population and while some sections have been hit by agrarian distress, it remains socially-dominant.

Flexing the Maratha muscle

OBCs, fragmented into nearly 382 castes, make up nearly 52% of Maharashtras population. While the community does not vote en bloc, the Maratha agitation could consolidate some groups into voting against the parties that favour Marathas over OBCs.

This is why political parties are walking a tightrope. Fadnavis at this convention accepted the OBC groups demand that the backlog of government jobs for the community be filled in a time-bound manner. Two days prior to the convention, in a bid to appease the Maratha community, the Chief Minister had stayed the entire recruitment drive for 72,000 jobs.

Until mid-November when the Backward Class commission report on Maratha reservation gets submitted, political parties will continue the tightrope walk.

So, even as state Congress president Ashok Chavan said the issue of reservation should not be politicised, an OBC leader from his own party, Vijay Wadettiwar, said, If such a reservation has to be granted, the BJP government will have to amend the Constitution. Under existing parameters, the community does not fulfil the parameters for reservation. On the other hand, while Fadnavis has promised the OBC quota would not be affected by the percentage demanded by the Marathas, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state president Raosaheb Danve has claimed that Marathas from Marathwada were historically an OBC.

If the Maratha outfits still go against the BJP, the party will look to consolidate the OBC vote in 2019. A similar approach helped the party in the Gujarat assembly polls in 2017 when the Patels went against the BJP. While the Marathas have not been loyal BJP voters, they did vote for the party in 2014.

BJPs official party line is that they will be fighting polls on the development plank and that caste politics is a side effect. Caste polarization happens in every election in the country. But we are committed to fighting polls on social and development plank. Overall, I think there is a consensus that OBCs should not be affected and Marathas should get reservation benefits in education and jobs, said state rural development minister and BJPs OBC leader, Pankaja Munde.

However, party leaders are keenly aware of the complex caste politics in which BJP finds itself. One can accommodate the reservation demand for Marathas by including them in OBC special category, but then we will have to address the demand for Dhangars (shepherds) to be accommodated into scheduled tribes category and the OBCs demand for more quota. There is no quick win here for anyone, said a BJP minister requesting anonymity.
A machete-wielding youth barged into the cabin of the principal of Anjuman Khairul Islams Poona college of arts, commerce and science and threatened him of dire consequences if he was not given admission in Class 11.

The incident sent shock waves across the college as the youth entered the campus, armed with a sharp-edged weapon.

College principal Anwar Shaikh, in his FIR lodged with the Cantonment police, said Faroque Shaikh alias Guddu alias Murga, took out a machete and kept in the table as he demanded admission in the college.

According to the FIR, the aspirant said the principal should be prepared for what might happen if he was not given admission and then banged the weapon, smashing the glass sheet covering the table. He appeared to be a very professional criminal, who wanted to spread terror in the ranks of college administration and teachers for getting admission, said the principal.

College administration believes that agents, mostly comprising criminals, could be behind the incident as their business of illegal admissions had been affected drastically due to transparency brought in by Shaikh.

Shaikhs strict functioning based on merit and accountability has not gone down well with the criminal groups from Kasewadi, Lohianagar, Camp, and other places, who used to get admissions easily in the college earlier by threatening the lives of college administrators, say college staffers. He has been facing serious challenges from criminals trying to re-establish their sway, they added.

But the principal is undeterred.

I am not going back down on transparency and will fight against the admission mafia with all my strength. We are following the law and order of the state government. Criminals will not be allowed in the college, come what may. We appeal to the citizens and academic fraternity to remain strong against these elements who are a serious menace to the society and threat to the lives of residents,  he said.

Meanwhile police inspector Digambar Shinde said: Investigations are on and we will arrest the accused soon.
Violent incidents during the bandh called by Maratha outfits in Pune and Aurangabad on Thursday bore an eerie similarity to those happened in the past fortnight, especially at Chakan and Navi Mumbai.

Maratha outfits initially claimed that protest will be peaceful and yet, incidents of vandalism were reported.

Ahead of the protests and bandhs, protestors assured the police and district administration of Pune that bandh will be peaceful.

What happened on the ground in Pune on Thursday, had clear resemblance to Chakan, Aurangabad and Navi Mumbai - the stir starts quietly, building momentum through the day and then in the afternoon, violence erupts.

We are going through a challenging situation. On the one hand there is violence; on the other, community members are committing suicide, said Vinod Pawar, convenor of Maratha Kranti Morcha, while denying that those involved in violence are part of the Sakal Maratha Samaj, the umbrella organisation representing Maratha outfits.

The Pune police chief K Venkatesham said police will be able to ascertain allegiance of some of those arrested only after interrogation. We have just arrested some miscreants and their interrogation is on. Which outfits they belonged to will come out in the interrogation, said Venkatesham.

A senior official from state intelligence department said that the series of violent incidents across the state during ongoing Maratha agitation indicate two things  first that the protest has slipped from the hands of established community members, and a section not directly associated with the protest want to escalate the situation.

While a larger community wants a peaceful protest, there are elements not associated with the protest doesnt want peace. This section is defying every order of their own leaders, said the official on the condition of anonymity citing sensitiveness of the issue.

While Thursdays bandh started on a peaceful note, it turned violent later in the day when protestors in small groups started arriving at Chandani Chowk on National Highway 4 that connects Mumbai with Bengaluru.

The protestors had also violated the code of conduct set out by outfits which was essentially about maintaining the peace at any cost.

Protestors blocked the highway and when police asked them to vacate it after three hours, the mob started pelting stones.

To control the mob, the police resorted to lathi-charge and burst tear gas shells. There was a violence at district collectorate too when protestors ransacked collector Naval Kishore Rams office and damaged the furniture.

In Aurangabad, protestors ransacked over 60 industries in the Waluj industrial area with incidents of arson also registered by the police.

The Aurangabad industry pegged losses during Thursdays violence at Rs 50 crore.

Police officials said the vandals in Pune were from among the mob, but were not listening to anyone.

It is becoming difficult to identify who are the actual Maratha protestors and non-Maratha protestors. There are chances of outsiders intruding into the protest, said Rajendra Kondhare, general secretary, Maratha Mahasangh.

In Chakan too, when protests turned violent damaging more than 100 vehicles and causing damage worth Rs 10 crore, the convenors of Sakal Maratha Samaj said vandals were outsiders.

However, those arrested by Pune rural police were mostly from Khed and nearby areas.

According to remand report submitted by police while seeking 15 persons arrested in Chakan violence, police claimed that vandalism was pre-planned with protestors armed with rods and petrol cans. In Navi Mumbai, a large scale of violence was reported during the bandh in July.

Reacting to latest violence at district collectorate, Pune district collector, Naval Kishore Ram said, I have been meeting the conveners of Maratha outfits for last two days. They had assured the administration a silent protest. Even on Thursday, I met people from the outfits and accepted their letter. However, immediately after I met the protesters, the protests took violent turns damaging few things in the premises of the collectors office.
This trip is one of reminiscence. I was here in 1986 for the film appreciation course organised by National film archive of India (NFAI), said Dharmasiri Bandaranayake, renowned director general, cultural affairs, film director, actor, producer, and playwright from Sri Lanka, in Pune on Friday. He was speaking as the chief guest at the four-day Sri Lankan film festival, organised by the Pune International Centre (PIC). The festival is open to all.

Speaking on the occasion, Bandaranayake said that most of the Sri Lankan films that will be screened in the festival are by directors who have never studied film-making at a film school or academy. There is no better opportunity to watch such exquisite and different viewpoints through films.

Latika Padgaonkar, who co-curated the festival with Ashley Ratnavibhushana, writer-editor-film critic, and director of the Asian film centre in Sri Lanka, said, The films are diligently curated to showcase the daily life and social atmosphere, and the way of life before and after the civil war. Each film will show intricately scripted dimensions of life through the civil war. The films present a spectrum of views of history and contemporary issues.

She also highlighted the fact that cinema is the fastest medium to understand the life of a particular country and to understand its joys and sorrows through the artistic and intelligent way of filmmaking.

Santosh Ajmera, officer on special duty (OSD), National film heritage mission (NFHM), said, NFAI is happy to host the first-of-its-kind film festival from our neighbouring country Sri Lanka. We have only three films from Sri Lanka in our archives, with the most famous film being Nidhanaya, made by film-maker Dr Lester James Peres. Peres is hailed as one of the fathers of Asian cinema. We urge Sri Lankan film-makers to donate their films for preservation and add to our collection.

NFAI is also organising a poster exhibition in Colombo on the occasion of the 72nd Independence day of India in order to promote Indian film culture.

The inaugural film screened was Prasanna Vithanages With You,Without You. Made in 2012, it has won many international accolades.
Auxiliary Substation (ASS) at all 21 stations have also been commissioned, the statement said.

Noida: The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) will assist the Noida Rail Metro Corporation (NMRC) over the next one year in operating the Noida Greater Noida Metro rail service, which is expected to begin later this year, according to an agreement signed on Friday.

The NMRC entered into the memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the DMRC for taking up the operation of the 30-km-long Aqua Line on full-fledged basis.

Now the DMRC operations and maintenance staff comprising around 100 officers and supervisors would provide hand-holding support to the NMRC, an official statement said.

The DMRCs support would include training to the freshly recruited NMRC workforce over the next one year with a provision for future extension, it said.

The MoU was signed by DMRC executive director (operations) Vikas Kumar and his NMRC counterpart P.D. Upadhyay here in the presence of NMRC managing director Alok Tandon and DMRC director (operations) A.K. Garg, the release said.

NMRC officials said extensive trials were undergoing between the Depot station and the Sector 81 station (23 km) and are likely to be extended over the entire corridor (30 km) by next week.

This would mark a significant mileage in the time-bound completion of Metro works since the signalling trials over such a long corridor has not been done earlier in such a short span of time, the NMRC said.

The Research Designs and Standards Organisation (RDSO), the nodal agency nominated by the ministry of railways, has already conducted oscillation trials on a stretch of 10 km (from Depot station to Sector 147) and the report is expected shortly.

Both the receiving substation (RSS) have now been commissioned and power can be made available from both the sources to the train operations and station requirements.

Auxiliary Substation (ASS) at all 21 stations have also been commissioned, the statement said.
Over a month after Franco Mulakkal, 54, the bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Jalandhar, was booked for sexually abusing a 43-year-old nun for two years, a Kerala Police team arrived on Friday to question him.

The case was registered against the bishop on June 29 after the nun lodged a complaint that Mulakkal had sexually abused her 13 times between 2014 and 2016. She alleged that she was assaulted at different locations, including Jalandhar and Kottayam.

During its three-day investigation in Jalandhar, the Kerala Police team will record the statements of three nuns of the Missionaries of Jesus Congregation in Jalandhar, where the complainant was posted as mother general till 2013. At present, the three nuns are posted in Ludhiana, Gurdaspur and Jalandhar cantonment churches.

Testing times

Father Peter Kavumpuram, the public relations officer of the Jalandhar diocese, said, We have information from the Jalandhar police that a team from Kerala is in town but it has yet to contact us.

Jalandhar deputy commissioner of police (investigation) Gurmeet Singh said the six-member Kerala police team, led by Vaikom DSP K Subhash, will record the bishops statement on Saturday.

On hearing that Kerala police personnel were in town to question Mulakkal, nearly 150 followers gathered at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church to pray for him. The church announced a holiday on Saturday for employees working in the bishops house.

The diocese comprises the districts of Amritsar, Faridkot, Ferozepur, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur, Jalandhar, Kapurthala, Ludhiana, Moga, Muktsar, Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar and Tarn Taran in Punjab, and Chamba, Hamirpur, Kangra and Una in Himachal Pradesh. It has 1.12 lakh Catholic followers and was part of the diocese of Lahore until the Partition in 1947.

Counter charge

Mulakkal refuted the nuns charges, saying she was targeting him for initiating a probe against her for her involvement in an illicit relationship. The nun was posted as mother general at the Missionaries of Jesus Congregation in Jalandhar for nine years till 2013 before I came to Jalandhar. She lost the elections that year and a new nun was appointed and she left for Kerala, he said.

In 2016, a woman from Kerala came to Jalandhar and gave a written complaint to the mother general of the Missionaries of Jesus Congregation that the nun was having an illicit relationship with her husband, Mulakkal said.

The nun is a member of the Missionaries of Jesus congregation based in Punjab which runs two convents in Kerala. She was heading one of the convents at Kuravilanagad in Kottayam.

In a four-hour recording before the Thriruvalla first class judicial magistrate in Kottayam district on July 5, the nun reiterated her charges against the bishop and said she has enough evidence to prove the assaults. The investigating team had moved an application in the court to record her statement under Section 164 of the CrPC. A police official said her statement was recorded before the court to avoid retraction at a later stage. He said the arrest of the bishop was imminent.

A section of the church made last-ditch efforts to placate the nun but she insisted she will go ahead with the case. We are under pressure to withdraw the case but we will not budge. There should be an end to such unhealthy practices, the nuns brother said, adding the family will stand by her.

In her complaint she alleged the bishop raped her in the convent. After checking the visitors diary, the investigating team found that the bishop was at the convent on the days on which the alleged rapes took place. The bishop pleaded innocence, saying he was being implicated for unearthing financial irregularities at the convent.
Chinese ambassador to India Luo Zhaohui relished traditional Punjabi food, including dal makhni and naan during his visit to Dr Kotnis Acupuncture Hospital in the city on Friday. When the hosts served him cold drink, he preferred lassi.

While welcoming Zhaohui, the hosts tied a turban on his head, which he kept wearing all the time he spent in the hospital.

Zhaohui said he felt honoured on wearing the turban, which is a symbol of rich Sikh religion. He also said that Sikhs are known for service to humanity and goodwill. One of my best friends is a Sikh.

His wife Jiang Yili did not miss the moment and clicked pictures of her husband wearing turban.

Meanwhile, Zhang Jianxin, cultural and education counsellor, surprised the gathering by addressing it in Hindi. He said it is his second visit to Ludhiana.

800 CHINESE ENTREPRENEURS WILLING TO INVEST IN INDIA

While talking to the media, ambassador Zhaohui said that 800 Chinese entrepreneurs are willing to invest in India. Some companies are also ready to invest in Punjab if they will get favourable policy for investment.

He said the ties between India and China are on the right track. After meetings between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping, economic ties between the two countries have been strengthened, he added.

He said he met Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh, who assured him of starting an acupuncture hospital in the state. Acupuncture is a key component of Chinese medicine. I am glad to know that India has also adopted it.

The ambassador said, Chinese people have adopted yoga. China is the only country after India which has adopted Yoga and decided to promote it. China is opening three Yoga colleges.

Local MLA Rakesh Pandey was also present on the occasion.
A partial solar eclipse shall take place on August 11, and will last for around 3 hours 30 minutes. The eclipse will begin from 1:32 PM Indian Standard Time (IST) and last till 5:02 PM IST.

What is a solar eclipse?

A solar eclipse takes place when the moon passes in a direct line between the earth and the sun. The moons shadow travels above the earths surface, and the suns light (as seen from earth) is blocked out.

What is a partial solar eclipse?

A partial solar eclipse takes place when the earth moves through the lunar penumbra as the moon travels between the earth and the sun. It is referred to as partial because the moon does not block the entirety of the sun, when witnessed from the earth.

How to see an eclipse

When seeing an eclipse, you should always use approved filters or use an indirect method of seeing it. Never look at the solar eclipse directly as it could blind you or lead to severe eye damage.

Interesting facts about the eclipse

There are various interesting facts about the solar eclipse which you should know.

1. A solar eclipse only takes place during a New Moon. This is because the moon needs to be between the sun and the earth for the eclipse to take place.

2. Eclipse totalities differ in their lengths. This is because the earth is not always at the same distance from the sun, and the moon is not always at the same distance from the earth.

3. China is known to have the first ever recordings of solar eclipses. These recordings were extolled on pieces of bone and were referred to as oracle bones. They date back to around 1050 BC.

4. In prehistoric times, people believed that an eclipse was a warning from the gods and they were going to be punished for some deeds which they had done.

5. The word Eclipse in Greek means downfall.

6. Canadian astronomer J.W. Campbell travelled all over the globe for 50 years in his efforts to see 12 different eclipses. Unfortunately, each and every time he ran into overcast skies.

7. In Chinese, solar eclipse is referred to as shih, which means to eat. In ancient times people in China used to beat drums in an attempt to scare the heavenly dog, which they believed was eating up the sun.

8. The solar eclipse which took place on August 21, 2017, over continental US was the first total eclipse to take place there in 38 years and was nicknamed the The Great American Eclipse. The previous one had occurred on February 26, 1979.
On August 11, a partial solar eclipse will take place and will be visible from parts of the northern hemisphere. It will last for around 3 hours 30 minutes and start from 1.32pm and last till 5.02pm, but wont be visible across India. A partial solar eclipse should not be viewed with bare eyes, and special glasses should be used.

During a solar eclipse, the Moon blocks the Suns path and stops sunlight from reaching Earth. But when the Moon covers just a portion of the Sun, it causes a partial solar eclipse, and the Sun is visible as a crescent. You can check out the path of the eclipse from NASAs Goddard Space Flight Centre (GSFC) map.

Traditionally, solar eclipses are believed to be inauspicious as the Sun is not clearly visible and could lead to an increase in bacteria and germs. But modern science refutes these claims.

Here are some myths surrounding the solar eclipse:

* In Vietnam, people believe that a solar eclipse is caused by a giant frog devouring the sun.

* Norse cultures believe wolves devour the Sun, while the ancient Chinese blamed a dragon for swallowing it and causing the eclipse.

* The Greeks believed that a solar eclipse was a sign of angry gods and could portend natural disasters.

* In Native American mythology, there is a story of a bear who fought with the Sun and took a bite out of it. After they resolved their conflict, the bear went to meet the Moon and bit it as well causing a lunar eclipse.

* In Inuit folklore, the Sun goddess Malina walks away after a fight with the Moon god Anningan. When Anningan catches up with his sister, it causes a solar eclipse.
An 11-year-old child bride returned to Thailand this week after widespread outcry over her marriage to a Malaysian man 30 years her senior, an official told AFP on Saturday.

Malaysian Muslims below the age of 16 are allowed to wed with the permission of religious courts but the union between the girl and the 41-year-old trader went viral on social media and reignited calls to end child marriage.

The ceremony took place in June over the border in Thailands Muslim-majority south in Narathiwat province, where the girl returned to Wednesday after immense pressure from Malaysian media, the provincial governor Suraporn Prommool said.

The 11-year-old is believed to be the traders third wife.

Suraporn said she is undergoing mental health counselling because of the intense level of attention.

He added that the marriage was not recognised under Buddhist-majority Thailands civil law but it took place under the auspices of an Islamic council in Narathiwat and that her parents gave consent.

We cannot do anything (to annul the marriage) because they married under the religious law, he said.

The trader, however, could face six months in jail if it is found that he did not get permission in Malaysia.

The 11-year-old was born in Thailand to parents who labour in Malaysias vast rubber plantations and Suraporn said she doesnt speak Thai well.

Malaysian activists in the multiethnic and predominantly Muslim country say some 16,000 girls below the age of 15 are already married.

A representative of the United Nations childrens agency UNICEF has condemned the case as shocking and unacceptable and called on the new government to ban child marriage.
Chinese state media has said the Communist Party of Chinas (CPC) authority should prevail over religion, after a rare standoff between the Hui Muslim community and police delayed the planned demolition of a mosque in north-central Chinas Ningxia region.

Hundreds of ethnic Hui Muslims  who make up nearly 50% of Chinas 23 million Muslims  staged peaceful sit-in protests after authorities had moved in earlier this week to pull down the grand mosque in Weizhou town, reports said.

Local authorities then agreed to delay their plan to pull down the illegal structures and hold discussions on a reconstruction plan. Its unlikely, however, that the government would allow the illegal structures to remain.

Demolishing the mosque is sure to earn the ire of local religious followers. However, if the local government does not react to the illegal act, it will fuel the idea that religions are superior over Chinas laws. Thus, it might set up a dangerous precedence and other religious sites could follow suit, Global Times, the nationalist tabloid said in an opinion piece.

The state-controlled media hasnt reported on the mosque standoff and this opinion piece is the only article published about it.

Officials said permission to renovate the mosque was given in 2015 but upon completion, it was noticed that a number of illegal structures had been added.

Floodlights light up the Grand Mosque in Weizhou in northwestern China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Muslims gathered at a mosque in northwestern China on Friday to protest its planned demolition. (AP Photo)

The mosque, with numerous domes and minarets in a Middle Eastern style, had not received proper permits before construction, town officials said in a notice on August 3, Reuters reported on Friday.

The Global Times piece said: Chinese people enjoy religious freedom protected by the Constitution of China, the country under the leadership of the CPC. No religion shall have the privilege over laws and regulations of the country. All religious activities should abide by the countrys laws and all religions shall be treated equally.

Local authorities need to make religious people aware that China respects religious freedom, but it also needs to educate its citizens on the fact that improving the management of religious activities is an indispensable part of state governance, it added.

Chinas constitution guarantees religious freedom but the freedom to practice religion is restricted by the government.

Its clear that the Chinese governments hostility towards Muslims in China is not only limited to Uyghurs (of Xinjiang), Patrick Poon, China researcher at rights group, Amnesty International, told the BBC.

Hui Muslims are generally considered less vulnerable to crackdowns, but this incident proves that the government is determined to use a holistic and heavy-handed approach towards all Muslim ethnic minorities in China.

Read: China forcing Uyghur Muslims into re-education camps, violation of rights, says UN
Qatar is on track to lose its status as the richest place in the world to the Chinese gambling enclave of Macau.

The global casino hubs economy will reach the equivalent of about $143,116 per person by 2020, according to projections from the International Monetary Fund. That will put Macau ahead of the current No. 1 Qatar, which will reach $139,151 in the same time frame.

A former Portuguese outpost on the southern tip of China, Macau has become a gambling mecca since returning to Chinese control almost two decades ago. Its the only place in China where casinos are legal, turning it into a magnet for high-rollers from the mainland. Macaus gross domestic product has more than tripled from about $34,500 per capita in 2001, the IMF data shows.

Macaus gross domestic product has more than tripled from about $34,500 per capita in 2001, the IMF data shows. (Bloomberg)

The wealth gap between the two places is also expected to widen beyond 2020, with Macaus GDP per capita set to reach about $172,681 by 2023, according to data compiled from the April edition of the IMFs Global Economic Outlook database. Qatars, meanwhile, will grow to just $158,117.

Elsewhere, financial hub Singapores GDP per capita is expected to top six digits by next year and is on track to grow to about $117,535 by 2023, while Hong Kong  across the water from Macau  will touch almost $80,000 by that time, the IMF projections show.

Three European countries  Luxembourg, Ireland, and Norway  made the top 10 places expected to be the worlds wealthiest by 2020, while the U.S. came in at No. 12.
It was learnt that the man had used an illegal firearm to commit suicide, the police said.

The deceased, Dinesh, shot himself on August 7 at his residence and was rushed to Deen Dayal Upadhyay hospital, where he was declared brought dead. (Representational image)

New Delhi: A 32-year-old man allegedly committed suicide by shooting himself with a pistol in south west Delhi's Najafgarh, the police said on Friday.

The deceased, Dinesh, shot himself on August 7 at his residence and was rushed to Deen Dayal Upadhyay hospital by his wife. He was declared brought dead, a senior police officer said.

The hospital informed the police.

During inquiry, it was learnt that Dinesh used an illegal firearm to commit suicide, the officer said.

A country-made pistol, used for the suicide, with two live cartridges and an empty cartridge, was recovered, he said, adding that the body was sent for post-mortem.

It has been learnt that Dinesh's brother, Joginder, is a criminal and his role is also being verified, he added.

A probe is underway to ascertain the reason behind the extreme step, he said.
The BJP and the Congress better watch out as they could well be outwitted by the newbie party once again.

The Opposition parties may have failed to put up a united fight for the election of the deputy chairperson of the Rajya Sabha, but the camaraderie displayed by its leaders two days earlier at the launch of Congress leader S. Jaipal Reddys book, Ten Ideologies: The Great Asymmetry between Agrarianism and Industrialism, appeared to suggest otherwise. The line-up of Opposition leaders at the power-packed event was a throwback to the days when the Third Front was a reality. While the book was launched by former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, those who put in an appearance included former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, CPM leaders Sitaram Yechury and Prakash Karat, former Janata Dal (United) leader Sharad Yadav and former Congress ministers P. Chidambaram and Jairam Ramesh. The bitter rivalry between the Telugu Desam Party and the Telangana Rashtra Samithi was also set aside on this occasion as leaders from both sides also showed up for the programme. But Jayadev Galla, the TDP Lok Sabha MP, who had initiated the debate on the Opposition-sponsored no-confidence motion in the Monsoon Session of Parliament, was clearly the star among them. Having come to notice after his effective speech, he was constantly being sought out by members in the audience who were eager to shake hands with him.

While the Aam Aadmi Party is being written off by most people, the party could end up surprising everyone like it did in 2015 when it bagged 67 seats in the Delhi Assembly elections. Realising that the wide support it enjoyed among the Delhis upper middle classes is on the wane, the AAP leaders have been working quietly to reconnect with this constituency in preparation for the next electoral challenge. The partys representatives have been holding informal interactions with groups of residents of upscale localities where they have made detailed presentations about the work done by the AAP government in the field of education and health. They have particularly targeted those who had embraced the party when it was launched but had subsequently become disillusioned with it because of the infighting in its ranks and Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwals style of functioning. Though party leaders have been grilled extensively at these sessions, this outreach seems to be paying off for the AAP whose leaders are succeeding in addressing the misgivings of their old supporters. Not just that, they are so impressed with the Delhi governments work that they have decided to spread the word about the AAP by offering to organise similar meetings in their homes to enable the AAP leaders to give details about their future plans as also their achievements. The BJP and the Congress better watch out as they could well be outwitted by the newbie party once again.

In an unusual move, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has given permission to external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj to use an official plane to ferry 300-odd delegates to attend the Vishwa Hindi Sammelan being held in Mauritius later this month. In the past, the delegates invited for this conference were usually provided tickets on commercial flights by the external affairs ministry. The capitals political grapevine has been quick to point out that the Prime Ministers offer shows that Ms Swaraj has not fallen out of favour though this was being suggested recently as Mr Modi chose to remain silent when the minister was recently targeted by vicious trolls on the social media for coming to the aid of an interfaith couple. Known for her proximity to veteran BJP leader L.K. Advani, Ms Swaraj was initially kept at an arms length by the Prime Minister after he assumed power in 2014. It was only much later that her efforts were acknowledged. Ms Swaraj came in for high praise from Mr Modi last year for her feisty speech at the UN General Assembly. She also came in for a special mention from the Prime Minister for using the social media effectively to help Indians across the globe and giving her ministry a human face.

Congress leaders from Maharashtra, who were invited to Delhi by party president Rahul Gandhi last week for a brainstorming session on the ongoing Maratha stir, found themselves in an embarrassing situation. With the Congress leadership showing little interest in the current developments in Maharashtra, state leaders cited this meeting to assure the party cadre that Mr Gandhi was not ignoring burning issues confronting them. However, the meeting had to be called off as the Congress chief had to rush to Chennai to pay homage to DMK stalwart M. Karunanidhi who passed away on August 7. While the cancellation of the meeting was understandable, the Maharashtra leaders find themselves in a spot, as Mr Gandhi has not fixed a fresh date for the aborted interaction. They fear this could strengthen the popular perception in the partys state unit that Mr Gandhi is not interested in the ongoing developments in Maharashtra.
A woman has stepped forward claiming Casanova and his crew brutally assaulted her once they caught wind of her supposed voyeuristic tendencies. The alleged victim Niya Rucker, says The Good Stuff Diner on West 14th Street at 4:40am on August 6 when the attack occurred. Rucker alleges that she was pulling out her phone to document her scrumptious meal when they suspected her of filming them without consent. Casanova & his crew were seated adjacent to the woman whose phone screen was undeniably set for a live recording. They suspected foul play, she says the live broadcast was being executed in the spirit of foodie culture.

Rucker spoke to New York's Pix11 about the altercation, in a video interview complete with detailed account of Casanova's role in the attack. The alleged victim then broke out into tears as she described the psychological damage suffered since the reported incident. She then showed the correspondent messages from Casanova demanding she refrain from reporting the attack. Rucker says that Casanova restricted her arm and was the one to delete the live broadcast from her phone. She identified the rapper by his signature 2x chain.

Casanova has not addressed the incident publicly. NYPD are quietly busy investigating the case.
On Thursday night, Kanye West served as a special guest on Jimmy Kimmel Live, where he once again spoke about his support of President Donald Trump, saying he didn't like being forced to pick his candidate. "Just as a musician, African American, everyone around me tried to pick my candidate for me and then told me that I couldn't say that I like Trump," Kanye said to Kimmel. Ye also talked more in depth about our mindsets and being controlled by outside forces, among other things (see interview here).

Well of course, Trump caught wind of the interview on Friday and decided to give thanks to Ye on Twitter.

Thank you to Kanye West and the fact that he is willing to tell the TRUTH. One new and great FACT - African American unemployment is the lowest ever recorded in the history of our Country. So honored by this. Thank you Kanye for your support. It is making a big difference, he wrote.

Back in 2016, following Trumps inauguration, Kanye was spotted hanging out with the President at his hotel and even took a meeting with him, so to see their bond still going strong isnt that surprising.

This tweet from Trump comes just days after he did the opposite to LeBron James and insulted his intelligence.

Check out Trumps latest Kanye-tweet (below) and sound off in the comments.
The Houston and Texas economies grew briskly in the first half of the year, but the pace is expected to slow as trade tensions, labor shortages and rising wages weigh on the expansion, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

Economists at the Dallas Fed described the rate of job growth as blistering in the first six months of 2018. Employment in Texas grew at an annual rate of 3.6 percent, the strongest job growth in the nation, according to the Dallas Fed. Houston added jobs even faster, growing at annual rate above 4 percent, according to U.S. Labor Department data.

The robust growth was supported by the strengthening oil and gas industry and the booming U.S. economy. Crude prices topped $70 a barrel before retreating recently while local energy companies reported healthy profits. In the second quarter, the U.S. economy grew 4 percent rate for the first time since 2014 while employers continued to add jobs month after month.

Unemployment in Texas dipped in June to 4 percent, near its record low of 3.9 percent in November, which means that people who want to work are generally working. Any slack in the labor market has been largely absorbed, according to the Federal Reserve Bank, which is putting pressure on companies to raise wages. The bank is receiving anecdotal reports of worker shortages across industries and skills.

One food manufacturer told the Dallas Fed, Lack of available labor is our No. 1 impediment to growth. We cannot find the people to add a third shift.

Such shortages  and higher wages that employers may have to pay to attract workers  are expected to contribute to slower growth in the second half of the year, according to the Dallas Fed. The brewing trade wars with China and other countries as well as uncertainty over the future on the North American Free Trade Agreement, could hurt exports and further weigh on the states growth.

The Houston economy is also expected to slow as the boost from rebuilding after Hurricane Harvey fades, which should also drag on the states economic growth. Houston accounts for about 25 percent of the state's jobs.

A historically tight labor market, uncertainty surrounding U.S. trade policy, including NAFTA, and an unexpected downturn in oil prices remain key downside risks to the outlook," said Dallas Fed senior business economist Laila Assanie.

Oil settled at $67.63 in New York Friday, up 82 cents or 1.2 percent.

But even with the slowdown, Texas is still expected to grow faster that other states in the second half of 2018, according to the Dallas Fed. In Houston, economic activity expanded for the ninth consecutive month, according to a monthly survey of about 50 local businesses on eight factors including prices, production, sales and inventories.

Economic activity expanded in Houston during July, the ninth consecutive month of expansion, according to monthly survey of about 50 local businesses on eight factors including prices, production, sales and inventories.

The Houston Purchasing Managers Index, which is based on the survey, registered 62 in July, up 6.5 points from the previous month. Readings above 50 generally indicate economic expansion in the near term while readings below 50 indicate contraction.

Performance of four underlying indicators that have the strongest ties with current economic activity - employment, lead times, production and purchasing - all showed improvement. The primary drivers for improvement included higher sales, production, employment, and purchasing.

The next glimpse of the state of Texas and Houston economies comes next Friday, when the Texas Workforce Commission releases employment data for July.

Lynn Brezosky contributed.

lm.sixel@chron.com

twitter.com/lmsixel
Nearly a year after Hurricane Harvey, more homes are under construction in the 1950s neighborhood of Meyerland than in several of Houstons newest master-planned communities, a housing analyst said this week.

A recent study of the southwest Houston neighborhood of 2,309 homesites showed that 109 homes are under construction and another 102 lots are being cleared in preparation for building, Lawrence Dean, regional director for Metrostudy, said Thursday in a housing market briefing to Houston builders.

Most of the homes under construction are being developed for specific homeowners vs. spec houses that have no buyers initially.

There are more new homes under construction in Meyerland than in Woodforest, Harvest Green and Miramesa, Dean said, delivering a current snapshot of real estate activity in this repeatedly flooded neighborhood, along with a broader market outlook. Each of those communities have just over 100 homes under construction.

The numbers arent surprising considering how Meyerland was affected by last years hurricane and previous storms, which inundated the streets and houses closest to Brays Bayou.

Since the 2015 Memorial Day flood, 728 homes in Meyerland have flooded repeatedly, some as many as four times, Metrostudys data show. A total of 914 flooded only during Harvey and 667 homes have never flooded. The latter group includes newer, elevated properties.

Though some residents have left Meyerland, vowing never to return after multiple floods, many have chosen to rebuild and stay.

Forty existing homes have been elevated and 57 are in the process of being lifted. The typical elevation cost ranges between $160,000 and $325,000, according to Metrostudy.

Developed in 1955, the neighborhood is a close-knit community with good schools. Its a short drive to major job centers.

Since the third quarter of 2015, buyers, investors and builders have purchased 585 homes in the neighborhood.

In the second quarter of this year, sales were up 30 percent compared with the same pre-Harvey period last year, data from Martha Turner Sothebys International Realty show.

The median sales price, however, was down 11 percent to $350,000.

Paul Lynn, a local real estate broker, held an auction earlier this summer to unload a half-dozen flooded homes. Two sold, but some of the sellers decided to hold out for higher prices.

Theres definitely a difference in opinion of what buyers and sellers are willing to do, Lynn said.

There are 104 homes in Meyerland listed for sale through the Multiple Listing Service.

More than half are flooded homes selling as-is. They are priced from $219,000 to $375,000. Eleven newly built homes are priced from $929,000 to more than $1 million.
On Saturday, a video for a Donald Trump song will be shot at a rally outside a popular Mexican restaurant in a heavily Hispanic populated area of the city.

Latinos against Trump are preparing a counter-rally.

Marri Velasquez, a leader of the Houston Latino Trump Coalition, wrote the song, "Despierta Gran America" ("Wake Up, Great America") in collaboration with her husband, producer Roy Velasquez.

In an email to members of the group, Marri Velasquez wrote Friday that she thanks "God for giving Roy and I the blessing of writing and producing" the song. In the video, it'll be sung by Nick Rincon.

In an interview Velasquez said she felt the song was a direct inspiration from God, and that she never questions anything that Donald Trump says, because "then I am going to (be) question(ing) God."

The chorus of the song says "Despierta America, unete al movimiento," (Wake up America, join the movement) over a Latin beat.

The video will be shot from 1 to 4 p.m. at a rally in the East End at 2814 Navigation Boulevard. That's the address of one of the popular El Tiempo Cantina Tex-Mex restaurants.

"The rally was approved by my father (Roland Laurenzo)," said Dominic Laurenzo, the restaurant's owner and chef. He adds that the event won't take place inside the facility: "They promise they will behave well and not interfere with our patrons."

Roland Laurenzo is the president of the chain restaurant and son of famous Houstonian Ninfa Laurenzo, founder of the Ninfa's restaurants.

Dominic Laurenzo said that he is supporting Trump.

Texas Organizer Project (TOP), an organization mobilizing the vote, says the majority of people in the East End neighborhood are against Donald Trump.

"We are doing continuous canvassing to get out the vote in the East End, and it's common (that) they don't talk favorably about Donald Trump," says Mary Moreno, TOP spokesperson in Houston.

Another Hispanic organization, Latinos Inmigrantes Triunfadores (LITE, Successful Latino Immigrants) told the Chronicle later on Friday that they will also have a rally at the same place and time.

"We are having a counter-rally to oppose this group of Trump supporters," said Victor Ibarra, Director of LITE. "It's important to stand up because Trump is trying to manipulate the Latino community, and these people don't understand the tremendous racial hatred and danger that Trump is promoting."

Ibarra said that his group, too, had obtained permission from El Tiempo Cantina to hold their rally outside the restaurant.

Olivia.Tallet@chron.com

Twitter: @oliviaptallet
The Tibetan leader might as well accept that his false assertion is like rumours on WhatsApp that cause things to get out of control.

His Holiness the Dalai Lama probably by now recognises that he has messed up his copybook after his recent comments at a meeting in Goa, where he suggested that the partition of India could have been avoided if Nehru had not been self-centred and paid heed to Gandhis suggestion that Jinnah be made the Prime Minister.

Two days later, the Tibetan spiritual leader expressed some kind of remorse, saying he might have created a controversy. This is how many lower order Indian politicians behave.

It is really unclear what he is apologetic about, for publicising an opinion that flies in the face of the historical record, or for creating a controversy. The Tibetan leader might as well accept that his false assertion is like rumours on WhatsApp that cause things to get out of control.

In any case, when the Nehru government offered the young Dalai Lama asylum in 1959 on account of Chinese invasion of his homeland, it was on condition that he would not engage in politics. Even in later years, the monk made no move to return to Tibet, indicating that he accepted the terms on which he had gained entry.

The Tibetan leaders Goa remark is a violation of that condition. It is an uncalled for intervention in Indian politics on the same side as the present government which seeks to revile Nehru.

As for history, Gandhi wrote to the last Viceroy, Lord Mountbatten, a Dear friend letter on April 11, 1947 in which he acknowledged that except Badshah Khan, no Congress leader or Working Committee member he had consulted supported his idea of Jinnah leading the interim government. V.P. Menons monumental transfer of power shows that the Muslim League leader himself rejected the idea.
A 29-year-old man had an unauthorized take-off in a plane from Sea-Tac International Airport on Friday night, and circled the area for a short time.

The Horizon Air plane reportedly chased by fighter planes and may have crashed in North Pierce County, just south of Tacoma on Kerton Island.

On a live air-traffic control feed, the person flying the plane could be heard speaking with an air-traffic controller who addressed him as Rich and Richard.

At one point the person explained he had put some gas in the plane "to go check out the Olympics . and uh, yeah."

Then later he began to worry about his fuel.

"I'm down to 2,100 (pounds)," he told the ATC. "I started at 30 something. . I don't know what the burnage is like on takeoff, but it burned quite a bit faster than I expected.

MORE: Airline mechanic steals plane, reportedly does loop before crash

The air-traffic controller responded calmly, seeming not to want to upset Rich as the conversation continued and he tried to coax Rich into landing somewhere.

"Oh man," Rich immediately responded, "Those guys will rough me up if I try and land there. I think I might mess something up there too. I wouldn't want to do that. They probably have anti-aircraft."

"They don't have any of that stuff," the air-traffic controller said. "We're just trying to find a place for you to land safely."

"I'm not quite ready to bring it down just yet," Rich said. "But holy smokes, I got to stop looking at the fuel because it's going down quick."

"Could you start a left turn and we'll take you down to the SE, please," the air-traffic controller then asked.

"This is probably jail time for life, huh?" said Rich. "I would hope it is for a guy like me."

"Oh, Richard," said the controller, "We're not going to worry or think about that. But could you start a left turn please?"

At another point, Rich said, "I've got a lot of people that care about me. It's going to disappoint them to hear that I did this. I would like to apologize to each and every one of them. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess. Never really knew it, until now."

"I feel like one of my engines is going out or something," Rich says.

"OK, Rich," the controller responded, again very calmly. "If you could, you just want to keep that plane right over the water. Keep the aircraft nice and low."
A year ago, a motley crew of mottled young men gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia, for a rally that would end in tragedy and lead to one of the low points of the Trump administration.

The goal of the rally, according to its organizers, was to Unite the Right. But the organizers were white nationalists and neo-Nazis, Ku Klux Klan members and other white nationalists and they succeeded only in uniting most of the nation against them  even before one of them plowed a car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing 32-year-old paralegal Heather Heyer and injuring more than a dozen others.

In the immediate aftermath of Heyers killing, the president, Donald Trump, was moved to defend the young men who gathered menacingly with tiki torches the night before the act of terror.

Not all of those people were neo-Nazis, believe me, Trump said defiantly, a few days after the Charlottesville violence.

There were, he added, some very fine people on both sides.

READ MORE: InfoWars toxic Alex Jones is being shunned, not censored

Most Americans took a different view. A week after the Unite the Right rally, some 40,000 counter-protesters swamped a similar free speech rally in Boston, which ended peacefully after the several hundred protesters realized they were severely outnumbered.

That November, voters in Virginia elected a Democratic governor, Ralph Northam. In January, the Charlottesville City Council elected councilwoman Nikuyah Walker to serve as the mayor, making her the first African-American woman to hold that position.

The backlash to the outbreak of white nationalism we saw last summer was not surprising, in a sense. White is not a nationality, and America is not an ethno-state. So the arguments that Americas white nationalists try to muster are inane as well as invidious, and most Americans can see that.

An August 2017 survey from the Pew Research Center, released about a week before the Charlottesville rally, had found 64 percent of Americans think growing racial and ethnic diversity makes the United States a better place to live. Just 5 percent thought growing diversity leaves the country worse off.

Americas racists, however, havent been chastened by such findings. Some have responded by retooling their message by turning their sights on immigration, or by focusing on the implications of growing diversity.

This is more change than human beings are designed to digest, conservative commentator Tucker Carlson said on his Fox News program in March.

Laura Ingraham went further the other night, remarking on her own Fox program, Massive demographic changes have been foisted upon the American people, and theyre changes that none of us ever voted for and most of us dont like.

Someone should tell Trump-supporting pundits that when it comes to demographic change, the horse is out of the barnimmigration notwithstanding. Texass Republican leaders would be in a good position to do so, actually, because the demographic changes that some Americans are afraid of have already been realized here, and we seem to be doing fine. In fact, Texas conservatives have been able to maintain their hold on power, in addition to their traditional way of life, even as the state has become diverse.

READ MORE: Donald Trump might change American culturebut immigration wont

But our states Republican leaders have become oddly bashful, lately. And pundits like Ingraham and Carlson probably wouldnt listen to them, anyway; their dog whistles are tailored to their audience, not the general public.

And such dog whistles seem to be having the intended effect on that audience, at least. According to a June update from the Pew Research Center, 58 percent of Americans think an increasing number of people of many different races, ethnicities and nationalities makes the United States a better place to live. Nine percent say growing diversity is having an adverse impact on life in the United States--and 14 percent of Republicans agree with that, up from 8 percent in the same survey last year.

This is a relatively small shift in public opinion, and one that may not matter much over the long term. Americans who object to growing diversity are an influential minority, at the moment, since the president who launched his 2016 campaign by attacking Mexican rapists and drug dealers so clearly sympathizes with them. But these reactionaries are nonetheless a clear minority and one that cant hold on to power indefinitely, even if Trump wins re-election. Eventually, the excesses that Trump supporters have applauded since his inauguration may well come back to haunt them politically, as well as morally.

I know some conservatives, for example, who have principled objections to our current levels of legal immigration. I can distinguish between those conservatives and Republicans like Attorney General Jeff Sessions. But the former are now indelibly associated with the latterwho was in Houston on Friday, as it happens, to meet with local prosecutors.

READ MORE: Family separations are cruel and gratuitous

Afterward, Sessions briefly addressed the press, defending the zero tolerance immigration policy, as well as the Department of Justices ongoing crackdown on immigrants who commit crimes once in the country.

But the attorney general did not address the fact that hundreds of children have yet to be reunited with their parents as a result of his hardline approach to immigration enforcement, or that thousands have been traumatized, in the service of a bankrupt ideology. Facts like that cast a bit of a pall over his visit, perhaps. And they are bound to put restrictionists at a disadvantage in future debates over policy.

But thats for conservatives to worry about, in the years to come. They made the decision to hitch their horse to Trump's wagon long ago and stuck by it even after the events last August that left one young woman dead and horrified a clear majority of their fellow Americans. What happened in Charlottesville should have been a wake-up call, for Republicans. The fact that it wasnt is a wake-up call for everyone.

erica.grieder@chron.com

twitter.com/ericagrieder
Houston chain El Tiempo Cantina appears to have deleted its social media pages, a day after a photo of the restaurant's owner with Attorney General Jeff Sessions drew outrage and calls for a boycott.

El Tiempo did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but the chain's Facebook, Instagram and Twitter pages were down Saturday afternoon.

On Friday, owner Roland Laurenzo posted a photo with a caption saying it was an "honor" to serve Sessions, who was in town to discuss immigration enforcement with law enforcement officers. The post was quickly condemned by customers, some of whom called for a boycott.

ON THE RECORD: Houston Latino Trump Coalition films campaign song at an El Tiempo restaurant with owner's endorsement

Laurenzo soon after responded, writing that the photo "does not represent us supporting (Sessions') positions."

"El Tiempo does not in anyway support the practice of separating children from parents or any other practices of the government relative to immigration," Laurenzo wrote, according to CultureMap. "The posting of a photograph of the Attorney General at one of our restaurants does not represent us supporting his positions. The secret service contacted us that a government official was coming to dinner at our establishment and his identity was not know until he walked through the door."

READ MORE: AG Jeff Sessions has breakfast at Houston mainstay La Mexicana before speech on immigration

Now Playing: U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions visited Houston Friday to outline his goals for combating violent crime. Video: Jon Shapley, Houston Chronicle

"The man came to dinner and he was served without us even thinking about the political situations. We were preoccupied with the secret service and catering to their wants and needs. The only thing on our minds was serving great food and giving great customer service. It was posted without review or approval by ownership and this has lead to everyone jumping to conclusions that somehow we are involved in this political matter. We don't approve of anyone separating parents and children."
Texas four KIPP charter school networks, which have operated independently for 15 years, have consolidated into a single statewide organization designed to streamline operations and clear the path for opening more campuses, the groups leadership announced this week.

The merger will make KIPP Texas Public Schools, as the organization will now be known, the second-largest charter school network in Texas, behind IDEA Public Schools. The four KIPP networks served about 25,000 students last year in about 50 schools throughout the Houston, Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio areas.

KIPP Texas leaders said the change will foster greater collaboration between the regions, each of which had independent governing boards and local leadership teams. They also expect the merger to provide more financial flexibility as KIPP continues to expand its footprint.

Sehba Ali, who served as superintendent of KIPP Houston for the past six years and now is CEO of KIPP Texas, said leaders from the four regions have been contemplating the move for about 18 months. The merger became official July 1.

We realized our organizations wanted to improve student success across the state and we wanted to create an environment to serve more KIPPsters, Ali said. We landed on coming together as one organization in order to achieve those things.

Ali said the reorganization, which has earned approval from the Texas Education Agency, is not expected to dramatically impact classroom activities when school resumes in August. Some jobs will be consolidated, but that will impact less than 1 percent of the workforce, KIPP Texas leaders said.

Ali and Mark Larson, KIPP Texas chief growth officer, said they do not expect to ramp up expansion of KIPP campuses or spread to other regions in the state immediately. The charter operator has been relatively measured in its growth over the past two decades, often adding no more than a couple campuses per year. A few other Texas charter networks, including IDEA Public Schools and International Leadership of Texas, have grown more aggressively in recent years.

A lot of these decisions are very market-dependent, said Larson, who had been CEO of KIPP San Antonio since 2009. We want to make sure we leverage the benefits of scale, but be nimble in our four markets.

The first KIPP (Knowledge Is Power Program) campus opened in Houston in 1994, a one-off school co-founded by two Teach For America alumni. KIPP gradually grew into a national charter school powerhouse, boasting about 210 schools in 20 states and the District of Columbia. Although they share the KIPP name, KIPP charter networks are divided by regions, with local nonprofit governing boards overseeing each networks finances and operations.

KIPP has attracted roughly 90,000 students to its schools nationwide by promoting its no-excuses attitude toward education, setting high standards for students and parents and, in many regions, boasting higher-than-average performance outcomes. KIPP schools are almost exclusively located in high-poverty areas home to predominantly black and Hispanic populations. Critics of KIPP and other charter organizations often argue charters drain funding from traditional public schools and serve fewer students with special needs.

KIPPs Austin, Dallas-Fort Worth and San Antonio networks all opened in the early 2000s, growing at slower rates than the Houston organization. About 14,400 students were enrolled in KIPPs Houston network last year, compared to about 5,200 in Austin, 3,300 in San Antonio and 2,300 in Dallas-Fort Worth.

KIPP Texas will boast combined operating revenues exceeding $260 million next year and assets totaling more than $400 million. A governing board comprised of members from all four of the previous Texas networks will oversee finances and chart KIPPs growth plans. Ali said regional boards will continue to heavily weigh in and help us determine strategic oversight.

Older charter school networks in Texas traditionally sought multiple, independent charters when they sought to expand, even if they fell under a similar organizational umbrella, Texas Education Agency spokeswoman Lauren Callahan said.

There was a grant incentive for charter holders to apply for multiple charters in the past, Callahan said, adding that federal and state lawmakers since have removed those enticements.

KIPP Houston operated 28 local schools last year. Immediate expansion plans call for a Sharpstown-area high school this year, an East End high school in 2020 and campuses in southwest Houston at an undetermined date.

jacob.carpenter@chron.com

twitter.com/chronjacob
REYNOSA, Mexico - Months of traveling by bus, foot and freight trains have brought Maria Torres, an unborn daughter and nearly 4-year-old son to a walled compound perched on the Mexican bank of the Rio Grande, which they hope to cross by raft in search of U.S. asylum.

We left with almost nothing and there is nothing to go back for, said Torres, 39, who hails from a small town in Honduras where the narcotics trade augments the farm economy. We can't live in our country any more. There is so much crime and so little work.

The Trump administration has argued that its zero-tolerance policy toward undocumented border jumpers would deter migrants who are fleeing from violence and poverty-racked corners of Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala.

Under the crackdown, U.S. border agents this spring separated migrant parents from their children until a public outcry forced an end to the separations. A federal court ordered the administration to reunify the families last month, yet hundreds of them remain separated.

The deterrent strategy appears to have had little effect. Border Patrol agents arrested 9,258 people jumping the border in family units in July, down just slightly from the tallies in May and June. The number of migrants apprehended as family units in July was up more 140 percent compared to the same month last year.

It doesnt appear that zero tolerance has yet had much impact, said Andrew Selee, president of the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

For Torres and other mothers hunkered in this shelter in Reynosa, a gangster-besieged industrial city of nearly 1 million people just south of McAllen, the toughened U.S. policies arent their biggest concern.

Dread of returning home, they say, far outweighs any risks they'll face north of the border.

Its not easy to get here, said Ruth Flores, 31, who arrived at the Senda de Vida shelter in July with her husband and four children, ages 2 to 12 years old. We are just going to stay here to see what changes. It seems things change all the time.

We are only trying to live, to protect our children, the rail-thin woman said, grasping the hand of her 12-year-old daughter.

Evangelical minister Hector Silva said he's heard thousands of such stories in the two decades that he has run the shelter. Though he believes only a fraction of the tales, Silva said, he's convinced of the dire need of anyone arriving at his door.

All of these people are in very desperate shape, Silva said as he applied a fresh coat of paint in the shelters small office. We arent trying to get involved in the politics of any of it.

Silva's ever-expanding compound - financed in part with contributions from church groups from the U.S. and elsewhere - sits behind a metal gate and high walls on a riverfront bluff not far from Reynosa city hall. Another refuge operated by Roman Catholic nuns stands a few blocks away.

Senda de Vida, which has beds for at least 60 people, has separate quarters for women and children and bunkhouse-type dormitories for men. As migrants have become stranded for longer periods at the border, rules have been relaxed to allow for longer stays.

Flores and Torres said their families had been at the shelter for about a month.

People staying at these shelters have traveled through Mexico on the cheap, without the aid of smugglers. More fortunate migrants pay thousands of dollars for transit to U.S. destinations. They stay in stash houses operated by the trafficking gangs in Reynosa and other border cities until they can be crossed.

Then four months pregnant, Torres set out for the U.S. border in late April with her son and the unborn child's father, hoping to deliver the baby in Houston. After crossing into Mexico from Guatemala, the family traveled for two months, usually staying in church-run shelters, stopping for days at a time to earn money to continue their trip.

They have been waiting in Reynosa for relatives to send the $300 per head demanded by gangs who control a 30-yard raft ride to the U.S. shore.

The father, Jose Angel Lopez, 34, said he was fleeing a local drug dealer in his hometown who police had forced him to testify against. Returning to Honduras, Lopez said, will mean certain death.

Still, Lopez said he has no intention of crossing the border himself because he would face almost certain prison time. Since first migrating to the U.S. at 16 years old, he's been deported nine times following arrests for driving infractions, public intoxication and other lesser offenses, Lopez said. His last deportation was in 2016 from Houston, where he was working construction.

But even Lopez's troubled history in the U.S. explains the strong pull northward for many Central Americans. He was earning $130 a day on that construction job in Houston, Lopez said. The only work he could find upon returning to Honduras paid $6 a day. When he lands an occasional day's work in Reynosa, he said, he's lucky to pocket $11.

There is no future in Honduras, Lopez said, slipping occasionally into English. The gangs are killing more, robbing more, extorting more. In my town, everyone either has left or is talking about leaving.

More than anything I want to give my daughter a chance at a U.S. life, he said.
Everyone's heard the rhetoric: Colleges are liberal hotspots of Marxist thought.

In reality, institutions of higher education tend to come in all shapes and sizes.

As proof, the Princeton Review recently released its comprehensive ranking of American colleges, which includes a look at how university students responded to the question: "Politically, are you far-left, Democrat, non-partisan, Republican, or far-right?"

The question, which appeared in a survey of 138,000 students attending 384 American colleges, offers an interesting look at which way students lean politically at America's top colleges.

As expected, three colleges in deep-red Texas made the list of colleges with the most conservative students, while none appeared on the list of the most liberal.

GRADED: Texas' top colleges, according to both experts and students

Texas appeared on the list more than any other state, which included universities mostly found in the south.

One of the colleges with the most conservative students, Texas Christian University, also overlapped with the Princeton Review's list of colleges with the most politically active students.

See which colleges have the most conservative students above.

Fernando Ramirez covers Texas news and politics. Read him on our breaking news site and on our subscriber site. | Fernando.ramirez@chron.com | @fernramirez93




SUTHERLAND SPRINGS  Sherri Pomeroys hair hung around her face. She took a deep, shaking breath and began to speak.

Lu White. Robert Marshall. Karen Marshall. Annabelle. Bob Corrigan. Shani Corrigan. Peggy Warden. Dennis Johnson. Sara Johnson. Keith Braden. Joann Ward, with Emily and Brooke. Haley Krueger. Therese and Richard Rodriguez. Karla and Bryan Holcombe. Tara McNulty. Danny Holcombe, and Noah. Crystal Holcombe, with Greg and Emily and Megan. And Carlin Brite Billy Bob Holcombe.

Then 26 soft bell chimes.

And then silence.

Six months ago, or 181 days, First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs was the scene of the deadliest mass shooting in modern Texas history. A tent, a fence. Ambulances. Police. Media. In corners and on the street, people wept. Others said nothing, their faces blank.

RELATED: Sutherland Springs residents attend National Day of Prayer in Washington D.C.

A new church is being built and more than 200 Sutherland Springs community members attended its groundbreaking Saturday morning.

It will rise from newly acquired land adjacent to the old church. It will have 250 seats, about 150 more than the old one. And it will have two turrets: one with the bell that always signified the end of Sunday school and the beginning of services, and another, with a light.

Now Playing: Twenty-six people died in the Sunday massacre at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs on November 5, 2017. Video: San Antonio Express-News

We purposefully planned this groundbreaking on todays date, to help us remember to celebrate the lives that our friends and family lived, not to dwell on the manner in which they died, Pomeroy said.

Sherri and Frank Pomeroy, the pastor of the church, lost their 14-year-old daughter, Annabelle, and their best friends. The Holcombe family lost nine of their own, including an 18-month-old and an unborn child. The small town southeast of San Antonio with one stoplight, two gas stations and a church was brutally shattered by the loss.

Its been piecing itself back together ever since.

Were counting the blessings, were counting the good, that has come from it. But it doesnt make it easier, said Deborah Braden, who was shot four times and lost her husband in the massacre.

Devin Kelley, the gunman, shot 26 close friends and family in the church after sending a threatening text to his mother-in-law, Michelle Shields, who wasnt at church that Sunday. His life ended in a road chase with Stephen Willeford, who had run from his home a block away after hearing gunshots and then shot the gunman. Kelley eventually shot and killed himself after crashing his car along the highway.

RELATED: Sutherland Springs tragedy energizes NRA, gun-rights supporter

Were making a groundbreaking for a new beginning, said Shields, whose best friends were killed in the massacre. It brings back more memories, but its a positive feeling, to move forward.

Thousands of letters, cards and donations have poured in from across the world to the small church. Ryland Ward, a 6-year-old survivor, gripped the nation with his miraculous recovery and special bond with the firefighter who saved him. The number of congregants has surged, and last Sunday it was standing room only for the services.

But additional pain has gripped the community in the massacres aftermath, too. Conspiracy theorists harassed victims families for months before they confronted the pastor at the church in March and were subsequently jailed and released. A controversy over distribution of donations from within the community came to a head a few weeks ago, as questions swirled over whether the church was equally distributing the funds.

The mudslinging has mostly dissipated, though leaders of the North American Mission Board and the church community reiterated throughout the ceremony that no victims funds were being used for the event or construction of the new $3 million church.

The sunny day started with a consecration of the grounds, at each of the four corners of the church.

Many wore circular pins with photos of Lula White, who was killed at 71, and the words Forever in our hearts. Others wore the old blouses of Karla Holcombe, who used to walk the new grounds praying to God that it could one day belong to the church.

Her prayers, said her friends and children with bittersweet smiles Saturday, have finally come true.

New tiles were laid in the flowerbed outside the sanctuary of the original church, which is now a serene, white memorial to those who were lost. Each one has the name of a victim who died, along with a cross.

FROM MYSA.COM: Sutherland Springs hero says he's 'proof' mainstream media, anti-gun activists are wrong

As Ted Elmore, who handles church relations for the Southern Baptist Texas Convention, said a prayer to the crowd of victims families and survivors, Sherri Pomeroy walked behind him, pausing at each tile.

Her tears dripped to the ground beside them.

Feel free to weep if you want to weep. Theres nothing wrong with shedding tears, Elmore told the crowd. We ask God that you would heal our damaged emotions and let us not look back, but look forward.

Shortly before they took the stage, the Pomeroys, who had just returned Friday from National Day of Prayer events in Washington, shook hands and hugged guests as they poured in. There were family and friends, as well as members of the Alabama firm designing and building the new church, Myrick, Gurosky & Associates, and members of the North American Mission Board, which is funding it.

When people began to take their seats, Frank leaned into Sherri and asked if she was OK. Clutching her tear-soaked tissue, she nodded. He kissed her cheek.

This community, what they endured six months ago today, it was unspeakable evil. Unimaginable ugliness, said U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who spoke at the event and had visited the survivors just days after the massacre.

And yet, from that horror, emerged beauty. And love.

Still grieving

Last Monday morning, the Pomeroys cut the grass at Annabelles grave and cleared away some of the items at her headstone.

Love knows no difference between life and death, it reads.

In a finite world where lives always end and sometimes in the worst and unexpected of ways, the survivors of Sutherland Springs cling to all that is eternal: To love. To faith. And to their community.

As leaders in their community, the Pomeroys have had to continue preparing services in addition to managing donations, organizing counseling, helping survivors and handling events such as Saturdays groundbreaking. Thats their new life: They lead and grieve and lead again.

Family makes each and every moment a memory that lasts forever, reads a picture frame hanging on the wall in their home. Near the entrance, small wooden discs marking the birthdays of each of their children hang from a rack. Annabelles is still there.

Her room is still purple, too, but thats about all thats stayed the same. Theres a new bed and new toys for the grandchildren. The Pomeroys saved some of her precious things in a box in the closet.

We dont call it Annabelles room anymore, we call it the purple room, Frank Pomeroy said.

Sherri still sees shadows of her. Shell turn a corner and expect to see Annabelle running toward her, smiling, arms outstretched for another hug. Annabelle gave lots of hugs.

I dont stay home very much, even after I quit my job, she said. Its just too sad.

She also spent a lot of time in their wide backyard, laying down a blanket and playing with their two dogs. The dogs remind the Pomeroys of Annabelle a lot. It adds more pain to their day. But for that same reason, that she was so close to them, they cant give them away either.

Sherri wanted to move out days after the massacre, but Frank encouraged her to stay and wait awhile, to make sure that was the right decision. They still havent made up their minds.

If I was independently wealthy, I told her, I think wed get in a motor home and go for a year. Just go, Frank said.

Sherri used to do Zumba every week, and they always played a Bruno Mars cool-down song that was Annabelles favorite.

I always ended up crying in my car on the way home, she said.

When they think of Annabelle, they say, it doesnt feel like its been six months.

A fresh start

In a bin near the tent where the ceremony was held Saturday, Braden picked up a black polka-dot shirt and clutched it to her chest.

I gave this one to your mother, she said to Sarah Slavin, Karla Holcombes daughter, who was already wearing one of her mothers shirts.

The ceremony wasnt easy for Braden. She said her emotions are up and down. Being with the community gives her hope of a brighter future. But being on that ground and intentionally remembering the dead opens up a well of grief.

She and her husband were married for 33 years when he was killed.

Everything is so different. I mean my life was shattered and torn apart, she said, her eyes pooling with tears. We would be celebrating our 34th anniversary at the end of the month. Its just so unfair.

Mark Collins, a former associate pastor at First Baptist Church, spoke at the groundbreaking underneath the gigantic tent. He handed the Pomeroys a framed poster of Proverbs 3:5-6 that he had rescued from the old sanctuary and restored. He also gave John Holcombe, who lost his parents, wife and three children, a tie that was his mothers favorite.

We dont want to focus on that its been six months since the tragedy. Its been six months of moving forward, Sherri Pomeroy said.

Toward the end of the ceremony, all family members of victims and survivors were called forward. Dozens approached the stage, a few wounded survivors using canes or wheelchairs to get there, and 10 took shovels and helmets.

They initiated the start of a new First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs.

This will really be a lighthouse to the community. Even after Im dead and gone, youre going to see the church from a long ways away, Frank Pomeroy said. And thats the testament of those 26 lives that were lost, and survivors. Their blood was spilt, but that lights going to shine.

The family of victims and survivors held hands, gripped shoulders, touched heads. They prayed. And then they poised their spades above the earth.

We are the survivors of Sutherland Springs, Sherri Pomeroy proclaimed from the stage. And evil will not overcome good.

And fresh earth was turned from the ground.

sfosterfrau@express-news.net | @SilviaElenaFF
Freedom to innovate is the beauty of the charter school concept.

But we should always be mindful of the ugly side. Here in Houston, a public charter school superintendents greed went unchecked to the point that she was able to achieve a luxury lifestyle the typical public school schmucks could only dream of: She and her husband owned a 7,000-square-foot Houston mansion, traveled in a private jet, and donned high-end clothing and jewelry.

A federal judge on Friday compared the couple to villains from a Charles Dickens novel who steal from the poor. Varnett charter school founders Marian Annette Cluff and Alsie Cluff Jr. were sentenced to 10 years and 3 years, in prison, respectively, for running an embezzlement and tax scheme that bilked low-income parents, as reported by Chronicle reporter Jacob Carpenter.

This isnt an isolated incident. In January, the head of a South Dallas charter was accused of taking a kickback to steer business to a telecommunications system.

RELATED: A charter school owns condos. Can students use the hot tub?

To reassure the public that regulators are doing what they can to ensure that charter school operators arent using public funds for private gain, Gov. Greg Abbott and Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath should do more to determine how the misuse of tax dollars happens and if any regulatory loopholes should be closed to prevent future malfeasance.

An extravagant salary structure is a common red flag for problem charters, and the Cluffs were no exception. The couple made soaring salaries while working at Varnett  Marian, 70, served as superintendent, while Alsie, 69, managed business operations  and made millions off business dealings tied to the schools. During an eight-year period, they reported about $12 million in income related to Varnett at three campuses.

Under state law, the Texas Education Agency can intervene if a charter schools spending and governance fails to satisfy generally accepted accounting standards of fiscal management. But the definition of proper fiscal management is subject to interpretation. At a minimum, the TEA could adopt a policy whereby an exorbitant salary or excessive income from school-related business triggers closer scrutiny. Last year, this editorial board called for TEA to investigate Accelerated Intermediate Academy for various reasons, including Superintendent Kevin Hicks salary, which was far higher than other superintendents of comparably sized districts.

TEA officials maintain that a charter school superintendents salary is a local-level decision. This type of regulatory latitude for charters lays the groundwork for managerial misdeeds.

EDITORIAL: Close a loophole that rescues failing charter schools

While traditional independent public school districts are governed by an elected board, boards for public charter schools are appointed. Since charters operate without the additional layer of scrutiny of an elected board, its crucial for the state education agency to keep a close eye on potential conflicts of interest.

If the superintendent of Houston Independent School District and her husband had siphoned $2.6 million from the district  over half of which came from taxpayers and the rest from parents  state leadership would already be calling for tighter oversight.

For public charter school operators, theres a double standard. Elected officials who like to promote charters as the answer to lagging performance in traditional public schools dont like to draw attention to charters that fail. Many elected officials remain eerily silent about ways to prevent future charter operator self-dealing even though failure to respond more aggressively could end up tarnishing the reputations of charters that are working as intended.

Texas has many high-performing charter campuses that use their regulatory latitude to provide a quality education to children who need it. Enhanced accountability wont derail those efforts. It will only help.

Charters were started to innovate in the field of education. Now, its Texas lawmakers and the folks at TEA who need to get innovative in rooting out self-dealing in the charter system, and ensuring the egregious abuse of public and parent funds like we saw at Varnett doesnt happen again.
[Thumbs down] So what does your average Texas man do after someone calls his wife ugly, insults his integrity and accuses his dad of murdering the president? If youre U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, you invite that someone to help you get reelected. Our states junior senator said President Trump  he of many insults  should join him on the campaign trail. Just imagine all the great one-liners the president could dispense to help out Cruz. Maybe Trump will say that Houstonians were pleasure-boating during Hurricane Harvey and had to be rescued by the Coast Guard. Or perhaps hell slap some more tariffs on the oil and gas industry. If thats what Trump brings to Texas, maybe Cruzs Democratic challenger, U.S. Rep. Beto ORourke, will ask the president to join Cruz on the campaign trail, too.

[Thumbs twiddled] OK, if you bet Houstons ubiquitous mattress storefront expansion would end in disaster, claim your winnings. Mattress Firm is exploring bankruptcy. The spring and foam seller is trying to find a way out of all its store leases and shutter locations that arent making money. So what will become of the new go-to space-filler for Houston strip malls? Place your bets now. Head shops, vape stores and cash-checkers all pay 3:1.

[Thumbs down] History is written by the victors, Winston Churchill once said, but he never mentioned anything about writing tweets. Maybe it should stay that way. Gov. Greg Abbott, however, had a different idea this week, and tweeted a quote about fascism that he falsely attributed to the British prime minister. The Texas guv should have quoted his predecessor instead: Oops!

[Thumbs twiddled] In a bizarre twist, Sid Miller isnt the one being lambasted for social media silliness. Instead, this week the rodeo cowboy-turned-agriculture commissioner got in trouble for halting questionable pesticide use against Cattle Fever Ticks in South Texas. Miller said the pesticide was killing cattle. The Texas Farm Bureau and the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association said he was hurting cattle raisers. Whether ticks or tweets, Miller just keeps stepping in it.

[Thumbs down] Emu attacks and adorable Koalas aside, Australia doesnt usually make the news for Houstonians. But this week, Down Under was mentioned above the fold when it was reported that Houstons U.S. Rep. John Culberson sold an obscure Australian biotech stock 10 days before it crashed. New York Republican Rep. Chris Collins was indicted on insider trading charges for his own involvement in the investment scheme. Culbersons campaign has no comment, but sometimes it feels like our representatives treat their time in D.C. a bit like an Outback Steakhouse: No rules, just right.
WASHINGTON  In the era of President Trump, politics is reduced to a fatuous, debilitating spectacle. We screech, we weep, we laugh bitterly. We dont seem to think much.

Yet there is an underground. I speak not of some political resistance movement but of quiet, intellectually serious debates taking place around the country that relate neither to Trump nor to our political parties. Although you can take a side in these discussions if you wish, their virtue is that they encourage us all toward nuanced views and genuine dialogue.

To make the case that we have not entirely lost our ability to use our minds, I offer the examples of three lively arguments that shed light on how we might move forward as a nation.

Local vs. National As Washington politics becomes increasingly rancid, a disheartened nation turns toward the many good things happening at the grass roots. In cities and towns across the country, civic and political leaders are  honest and true!  solving problems and finding new missions for old places. Words like rebuilding, reclaiming and renewing are the stuff of local life.

This is a perspective that David Brooks has been advancing in his New York Times column, and it is reflected in James and Deborah Fallows engaging account of their journey across the United States, Our Towns, published earlier this year.

As Deborah Fallows told Slates Isaac Chotiner, the conversations she and her husband had during their travels were heavily weighted toward in my neighborhood, at my schools, on our main street, what people need here, what people want from my town.

I dont know if people had just given up on the national scene, she added, or they didnt want to talk about it anymore.

Its striking that those working to better their patch of ground are rarely ideological about whether to rely on government, businesses or not-for-profits. They know all three have to pull together to make a place work. You can put this another way: these community-builders have common sense.

My vote is to celebrate all this while remembering, as many localists do, that some problems require national action. Were better off having a federal Social Security and Medicare program, and it will take a comparable effort to get health insurance to everyone. Its also true that a nationwide economic market needs more than patchwork regulation, and that wealthy places can better maneuver through their difficulties than poorer localities. The countrys hardest hit places can use outside assistance to turn the corner. And we can never forget that it took federal power to enforce civil rights across the land.

But the new localism should make us think harder about how national policy can encourage local innovation and initiative.

Social Mobility vs. Economic Equality The basic question is whether we are primarily interested in a society that provides expansive opportunities for people to rise, even if we maintain large disparities in income and wealth; or if instead we see the priority as closing those wealth and income gaps and offering better pay to those in poorly compensated lines of work.

Id argue that this is a false choice. As former Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen has pointed out, high levels of inequality are associated with lower rates of social mobility  and economic mobility in the United States has not changed much in the last several decades. If you care about mobility, you have to care about inequality, too.

Nonetheless, this is a productive controversy because it requires us to be more precise and more candid about what we mean when we talk about the American Dream.

Guaranteed Jobs vs. Guaranteed Income The growing concentration of wealth and the threat posed to work by technological change has heightened interest in establishing a universal basic income, the subject of Annie Lowreys recent book Give People Money.

Although UBI is, broadly speaking, a progressive idea, some conservative thinkers such as Charles Murray have embraced versions of it. Critics of the UBI from the right just dont like redistributive income guarantees. On the left is a fear that, as the economist Jared Bernstein has argued, the UBI would be used to rationalize dismantling all manner of other social programs. I am partial to using aspects of the UBI in tandem with guarantees of well-paid work that focus on parts of the country with substantial unemployment.

OK, we can now return to the presidents latest tweet. But please dont believe anyone who tells you that we are no longer a thinking people.

Dionnes email address is ejdionne@washpost.com. Twitter: @EJDionne. (c) 2018, Washington Post Writers Group
In a few short weeks, millions of low-income students will return to high school, college or a vocational institution to continue their progress toward college and career.

Too few of these students will have the supports they need to make it across the graduation stage. According to National Center for Educational Statistics data, only 43 percent of low-income, first-generation students graduate with bachelors degrees compared to 80 percent of higher-income students.

Thousands of organizations work hard to ensure low-income students, who are considered economically disadvantaged based on federal income thresholds, gain access to and complete a postsecondary education. Some organizations help low-income youth navigate the burdensome financial aid process. Others provide mentors who support students academically, socially and emotionally. All work to overcome decades of persistent, widening inequalities in postsecondary outcomes.

Despite these laudable efforts, we know very little about which organizations are having a positive impact. And we know even less about which organizations have the capacity to scale their model beyond the communities they serve.

For each program that has been rigorously evaluated, there are hundreds that have all the best intentions of helping students but may not actually be moving the needle on assuring more low-income youth complete a college or vocational degree.

And so the question for education policymakers, funders and leaders is how we can effectively distinguish programs that work from those that dont  and then support the effective programs to scale and reach more low-income students across the country.

Prize competitions are a promising strategy to identify the solutions we need  and an increasingly common strategy in education. The Early Childhood Innovation Prize elevated Acelero Learnings next-generation, adaptive child assessment system as a platform to personalize learning pathways for young students. The Broad Prize for Public Charter Schools recently awarded $250,000 to Denver-based DSST Public Schools, a system that is substantially closing academic achievement gaps for low-income students and students of color.

We believe the same approach can help identify exciting, innovative programs that have proven to boost college and vocational success for all youth. That led us to create the first-ever Evergreen National Education Prize earlier this month, which will award $125,000 annually to an organization that is driving postsecondary education and economic success for low-income students. The Evergreen Prize has a dual focus: recognizing a program that has a proven track record of improving college or vocational outcomes for low-income youth  and supporting the winning program so it can scale to reach its more deserving students.

The Prize money itself is only part of the solution. By shining a spotlight on the winning organization, we hope that other organizations will adopt similar approaches to support low-income students toward college and workforce success. One expectation we make of applicants is that they are willing to take an open source approach, disseminating what they see as the key programmatic components underlying their models success to communities and organizations across the country.

More broadly, our hope is that the attention and publicity we can bring to the Evergreen Prize and the Prize winner will encourage other organizations to continue innovating in this space. We envision that the Prize will spur programs that are already working to improve college and workforce outcomes for low-income youth to rigorously evaluate the impacts their programs are having.

Our ultimate aspiration is that just as prize competitions have identified best-in-class organizations at other points in students educational journeys, the Evergreen Prize will call attention to organizations that are driving greater postsecondary opportunity for low-income youth.

Greenwald is chairman of the Evergreen Prize, co-founder of Greenbriar Equity Group and former CEO of United Airlines. Castleman is managing director of the Evergreen Prize, associate professor of education and public policy at the University of Virginia, and director of the Nudge4 Solutions Lab at UVA.
Many investors expect the Swedish company to benefit from a new cycle of network upgrades.

Mobile telecom equipment maker Ericsson said on Friday it would add around 300 jobs in the United States to meet rising demand for next-generation 5G equipment.

It said it is aiming to employ engineers and artificial intelligence specialists.

This is part of an increase in R&D investment. It doesnt mean we are cutting (staff) somewhere else to do this, Chief Executive Borje Ekholm told Reuters.

Many investors expect the Swedish company to benefit from a new cycle of network upgrades as demand for 5G gear kicks in later this year or early in 2019, starting in the United States.

After a broad restructuring and clear out of top management, Ericsson is tackling falling spending on networks by telecoms operators, but it has added recruits in research and development in order to be ready to meet the eventual demand for 5G networks.

The company, which has around 95,000 employees worldwide, also said it would build its first 5G radios in the United States by the end of this year.

Once the worlds biggest supplier of mobile communications gear, Ericsson competes with bigger telecom equipment players Huawei of China and Finlands Nokia.

Nokia last month said it had won a $3.5 billion deal with T-Mobile, the third biggest US mobile carrier. The United States is Ericssons largest market, accounting for around 25 per cent of its revenue.

Ekholm declined to comment on its market share this year, but said: we have very good momentum in our customer relations.

Last month, the company posted an unexpected swing to a modest operating profit citing growing sales traction in North America.

(Source)
Imperial Valley News Center

Governor Brown Announces Appointments

Sacramento, California - Governor Edmund G. Brown Jr. today announced the following appointments:

Hunter Anglea, 58, of Janesville, has been appointed warden at Sierra Conservation Center, Jamestown, where he has been acting warden since 2017 and was chief deputy administrator in 2017. Anglea was a correctional administrator at High Desert State Prison from 2014 to 2017 and served in several positions at California Correctional Center, Susanville from 1989 to 2014, including correctional administrator, facility captain, captain, lieutenant, correctional counselor II and sergeant. He was a correctional officer at Folsom State Prison from 1983 to 1989. This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $154,308. Anglea is a Republican.

Janel Espinoza, 46, of Visalia, has been appointed warden at Central California Womens Facility, where she has been acting warden since 2017 and served as chief deputy warden from 2016 to 2017. Espinoza served in several positions at California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison, Corcoran from 2006 to 2016 and from 1997 to 1999, including associate warden, correctional captain and medical technical assistant. She was a correctional counselor at California State Prison, Corcoran from 1999 to 2006 and a medical technical assistant at Wasco State Prison from 1996 to 1997. This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is $154,308. Espinoza is a Republican.

Connie Chan, 35, of Los Angeles, has been appointed to the California Fair Employment and Housing Council. Chan will begin working as a deputy city attorney at the Los Angeles City Attorneys Office, Affirmative Litigation Division in August, 2018. She was an associate at Altshuler Berzon LLP from 2012 to 2018. Chan served as a law clerk at the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California from 2011 to 2012 and at the U.S. Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit from 2010 to 2011. She earned a Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School. This position requires Senate confirmation and the compensation is $100 per diem. Chan is a Democrat.

Christy Cooper, 38, of Windsor, has been appointed to the California Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology and Hearing Aid Dispensers Board. Cooper has been chief audiologist at Kaiser Permanente, Santa Rosa since 2017, where she has held several positions since 2009, including supervising audiologist and clinical and dispensing audiologist. Cooper was managing audiologist at the California Ear Institute from 2007 to 2008, clinical and dispensing audiologist at the Hearing Institute/Eisenhower Balance Institute from 2005 to 2007 and research assistant at the Center for Health Policy and Workforce Research, Towson University from 2002 to 2004. She is a member of the American Academy of Audiology and the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Cooper is co-chair of the Kaiser Permanente National Audiology Work Group, audiology lead of the Kaiser Permanente Head and Neck Surgery Technology Committee and regional chair of Kaiser Permanente, Northern California Audiology. She earned a Doctor of Audiology degree from Towson University. This position does not require Senate confirmation and the compensation is a $100 per diem. Cooper is a Democrat.
Pakistan and US ties nosedived in January after Trump accused Islamabad of giving nothing to Washington but 'lies and deceit'.

The NDU is one of several US military institutions that train officers from Pakistan. (Photo: File)

Islamabad: The Trump administration has suspended more than a decade-long military training programme of Pakistani personnel at US institutions, a media report said today, days after Islamabad and Moscow signed an agreement to allow Pakistani troops to receive training at the Russian defence centres.

Pakistan and Russia signed an agreement on Tuesday in Rawalpindi, during which the two sides discussed bilateral defence relations and agreed that Pakistani troops will receive training at the Russian military training institutes.

Pakistan and the US ties nosedived in January after President Donald Trump accused Islamabad of giving nothing to Washington but "lies and deceit" and providing "safe haven" to terrorists. The US Congress also passed a bill to slash Pakistan's defence aid to USD 150 million, significantly below the historic level of more than USD 1 billion per year.

The US military institutions are struggling to fill the 66 slots they had kept aside for officers from Pakistan for the next academic year, as the Trump administration refused to provide funds for their training, the Dawn newspaper reported, quoting official sources.

The funds for the training of Pakistani officers came from the US government's International Military Education and Training Programme or IMET, but no funds were made available for Pakistan for the next academic year, it said.

The suspension of the training first became apparent when the US National Defence University or NDU in Washington, which has had reserved seats for Pakistani officers for more than a decade, told the outgoing Pakistani officers that the varsity has been asked to fill the positions for the next year with officers from other nations.

The NDU is one of several US military institutions that train officers from Pakistan.

The Trump administration had announced early this year that it was suspending security assistance to Pakistan over differences on Afghanistan but indicated that training programmes for military officers will continue.

The cancellation of slots kept aside for Pakistani officers, however, shows that the suspension now also applies to training programmes, the report said.

Pakistani officers have been receiving military training and education in the US since early 1960s, which were suspended in the 1990s but restored after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Previously, it was not just Pakistan that valued the training and education of its officers received in the US. US military institutions also proudly owned training officers who assumed senior positions after returning home, such as former Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and Lt Gen Naveed Mukhtar, the current director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence, the report said.

"This is an unfortunate and ultimately counterproductive decision. There are certainly ways to send a strong message to Pakistan, but this isn't the way to do it," Michael Kugelman, an expert of Pakistan affairs at the Washington think tank The Wilson Centre, was quoted as saying in the report.

"This move could squander what little goodwill and trust remains in the military-to-military relationship, and it reduces the likelihood that Pakistan will act in the ways that Washington would like it to act," Kugelman said.

He said there was a long history of educational and training cooperation between the US and Pakistani militaries, and this cooperation had withstood the pressures and tensions of the relationship.

"The fact that these educational exchanges have suffered this blow now suggests that the relationship could be entering into a new phase where even the supposedly safe and protected dimensions of the relationship can become casualties of wider tensions and ill will," Kugelman said.

So far there is no response from Pakistani official to this move by the US.

Pakistan's defence ties with Russia have moved past the bitter Cold War hostilities in recent years and the chill in the relations between Pakistan and the US has further pushed the country towards Russia and China.

Pakistan has shown eagerness to build military-to-military level ties with Russia.

Earlier this year, the then foreign minister Khawaja Asif visited Moscow during which the two sides agreed to set up a commission to boost military cooperation.

Russia has over the past three years provided four Mi-35M combat and cargo helicopters to Pakistan and the militaries of the two countries also held joint drills codenamed "Friendship".
Imperial Valley News Center

Cracking Down on Synthetic Opioid Sales

Washington, DC - The United States is facing the deadliest drug crisis in American history. The latest statistics suggest that approximately 72,000 Americans lost their lives to drug overdoses in 2017 - the highest drug death toll in a single year and the fastest single-year increase in that death toll in American history.

Meanwhile, millions of Americans are living with the consequences of a family members addiction or an addiction of their own. It is incredible but true that drug overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death.

Sadly, Florida knows the consequences of this crisis all too well.

Drug overdose deaths increased 47 percent statewide from 2015 to 2016, compared to 21 percent nationwide. In just one year, we lost nearly 2,800 Floridians to overdoses involving opioids  an increase of nearly 1,000 deaths.

And as we all know, these are not numbersthese are moms, dads, daughters, spouses, friends and neighbors.

For example, remember that around 2 a.m. on New Years Day 2017, a man and a woman were found dead outside their car on Interstate 4 near Daytona Beach. Their three sons  ages 2, 1, and less than a year old  sat in the back seat, crying. The couple had overdosed on illicitly made fentanyl.

Unfortunately, there are many more tragic stories like this in America today.

But we at the Department of Justice are not going to accept the status quo. Ending the drug crisis is a top priority of President Donald Trump and his administration.

President Trump has a comprehensive plan to end this national crisis. He has negotiated and signed bipartisan legislation to spend $4 billion this year to address opioid abuse. He has launched a national awareness campaign about the dangers of opioid abuse. And he has set the ambitious goal of reducing opioid prescription rates in America by one-third in three years.

Prevention and treatment are two critical elements in stopping this crisis of addiction.

Law enforcement is a critical pillar of President Trumps Opioids Plan. By putting crooked traffickers and crooked doctors, pharmacists, manufacturers, and distributors behind bars  going after the suppliers, not the users suffering from drug addiction  we prevent those criminals from committing more crimes and spreading addiction. That saves lives.

One example of how law enforcement saves lives can be seen in Manatee County.

Like many parts of this country, Manatee County experienced massive increases in opioid deaths in 2015 and 2016.

In response, federal prosecutors began prosecuting synthetic opioid sales, regardless of the amount of drugs involved, resulting in 45 prosecutions. Deaths started to go down.

From the last six months of 2016 to the last six months of 2017, overdose deaths dropped by 70 percent in Manatee County. The Manatee County Sheriffs Office went from responding to 11 overdoses a day to an average of one a day.

These are remarkable results. I believe that many other parts of the countrywhere the drug epidemic is at its worstneed solutions like this one and can benefit from this proven strategy.

That is why I have begun Operation Synthetic Opioids Surge.

Under Operation SOS, I am ordering our prosecutors in 10 districts with some of the highest overdose death rates to prosecute every case of illicit synthetic opioid distributionno matter how small.

When it comes to synthetic opioids, there is no such thing as a small case. Three milligrams of fentanyl can be fatal. Thats equivalent to a pinch of salt. Its not even enough to cover Lincolns face on a penny. Depending on the purity, you could fit more than 1,000 fatal doses of fentanyl in a teaspoon.

I understand that this more aggressive posture will require a lot more work for prosecutors, who are already dealing with an unprecedented epidemic. That is why, as they implement this effective strategy, I am sending them reinforcements.

Last month, I sent more than 300 new assistant U.S. attorneys to districts across America. It was the largest prosecutor surge in decades.

Now I am sending another new prosecutor to each of these 10 districts where we will implement the Manatee County strategy. Having served as a federal prosecutor for 14 years, I know what a difference that can make.

The people of Florida should be grateful for the outstanding service of law enforcement officers in Manatee County. They are a great example of how law enforcement can make a big difference in a short period of time.

I believe that, along with the Trump administrations other law enforcement and public health efforts, Operation SOS will weaken drug distribution networks, reduce illicit fentanyl availability and save lives.

This op-ed appeared in the Tampa Bay Times on August 9, 2018.
Border Patrol Arrests Sex Offender and Attempted Murder Suspect over the Weekend

Calexico, California - U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to the Calexico Border Patrol station arrested a previously deported sex offender and a previously deported attempted murder suspect, with an active warrant, over the weekend.

Agents apprehended

Banales a convicted sex

offender.

The first incident occurred on Friday at approximately 3:45 p.m., when agents apprehended a group of eight individuals after they illegally entered the United States, east of Calexico.

During processing, record checks revealed that one of the individuals, Rodrigo Banales-Alvarado, a 35-year-old Mexican citizen, has a previous conviction for a sex offense out of Huntsville, Texas in 2014. Banales was convicted of first-degree felony aggravated assault of a child, and was subsequently sentenced to five years confinement.

The second incident occurred shortly after, when agents arrested a man after he illegally entered the country. At the station, record checks revealed, Omar Rosales-Leon, a 29-year-old Mexican citizen, has a felony warrant for attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and vehicle theft out of Imperial County.

Agents apprehended

Rosales, wanted for

attempted murder.

These potentially dangerous men will not be free to cause further havoc on the public thanks to the United States Border Patrol and their fine work, said El Centro Sector Assistant Chief Patrol Agent David S. Kim.

Rodrigo Banales-Alvardao, marks the 29th sex offender arrested by El Centro Sector in fiscal year 2018. Both men will remain in federal custody pending prosecution for violation of criminal law.

courtesy: Border News Now
Border Patrol Aids Illegal Alien after Severe Fall

Calexico, California - U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to the El Centro Border Patrol Station encountered a severely injured man behind the Gran Plaza Outlet Mall at 9 p.m., Sunday evening.

The man injured himself after falling from the International Border Wall, which stands 30 feet tall, when he entered the United States illegally.

When Border Patrol agents arrived on scene, they quickly determined that the man required immediate medical attention and provided aid and comfort and called Emergency Medical Services (EMS). EMS professionals and fire department personnel arrived shortly after to assess the mans injuries.

EMS established that the man has sustained bilateral femur fracture to both legs and a possible back injury. The man was taken by REACH helicopter to a medical center in Palm Springs.

The El Centro Sector Border Patrol reminds the public of the dangers involved in attempting to cross illegally into the United States. The newly established border wall system is 30 feet tall and attempting to climb up or down could result in potentially life-threatening injuries.
Border Patrol Agent Assaulted by Group during Attempted Arrest

Calexico, California - A U.S. Border Patrol agent assigned to the Calexico Border Patrol station was assaulted while attempting to arrest a group of suspected illegal immigrants around 10 p.m., Tuesday evening.

The incident occurred near the Calexico West Port of Entry and the New River after an agent observed a group of individuals illegally enter the United States.

The agent was able to detain one man and place him in custody in the back seat of his service vehicle before turning his attention to the rest of the group.

While the agent was trying to arrest others in the group, one of the men exited the river and opened the rear passenger door of the agents service vehicle, allowing the man in custody to attempt an escape. Both men retreated into the river.

The agent pursued both men. Outnumbered, the agent was assaulted by the two men, while other members of the group began to throw objects at the agent. Other agents responded to assist the agent, however the rest of the aggressors returned to Mexico. The escapee was successfully placed under arrest.

During the assault, the agent suffered minor injuries.

The man is currently in federal custody pending criminal charges.

The New River and immediate surrounding area remains one of our most challenging and dangerous areas to work, said El Centro Sector Assistant Chief Patrol Agent David S. Kim. The border wall system replacing the old fencing in that area is a solid step in mitigating those challenges.
President Trump at Prison Reform Roundtable

Bedminster, New Jersey - Remarks by President Trump at Prison Reform Roundtable:

THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much, everybody, for being here in Bedminster. Weve had a lot of work. Weve done a lot of work. Theyre renovating the White House. Its a long-term project, and they approved it years ago. And I said, well, I guess this would be a good place to be in the meantime. So theyre doing a lot of work at the White House. I miss it. I would like to be there. But this is a good way of doing it.

We have some very outstanding people with us. And Ill make a few remarks. This is largely about prison reform  and other subjects  but largely about prison reform.

So I want to thank the governors  Matt Bevin, Phil Bryant, Doug Burgum, Nathan Deal, and John Bel Edwards  for being here today. Been friends of mine. Weve been, I could say, in wars, but weve been on the same side of the wars. Thats always good.

I want to thank you also to Attorney General Pam Bondi and Ken Paxton. And Ken just filed a very interesting lawsuit, which I think is going to be very successful. I hope its going to be successful. I also want to recognize Secretary Rick Perry and Secretary Alex Acosta. Thank you both. Rick, thank you very much.

We are doing some great things with healthcare, Alex.

SECRETARY ACOSTA: We are.

THE PRESIDENT: And youre doing some wonderful things with energy. I hope that project comes along that were talking about. Its going to help a lot of people. A lot of jobs are going to be created.

SECRETARY PERRY: Indeed.

THE PRESIDENT: So I know youre working on it.

I look forward to hearing from each of you about your experiences with prison reform and the lessons that weve learned. I know how Matt, in particular, you have been working so hard. Phil, youve been working long and hard on it  harder than anyone would know. But I can tell you, my administration feels very, very strongly about it.

One of the single most important things were doing is to help former inmates in creating jobs. Were creating so many jobs that former inmates, for the first time, are really getting a shot at it, because theyre werent sought and now they are being sought because our unemployment rate is so low  historically low  50 years.

Now, our economy is booming. Businesses are hiring and recruiting workers that were previously overlooked. Theyre being hired. Its a great feeling. Its a great thing that weve all accomplished. Weve created a lot of jobs in the states. And I guess Ive helped you a lot on a national basis.

Weve created 3.9 million more jobs since Election Day  so almost 4 million jobs  which is unthinkable. If I would have said that during the campaign, only a few of the people around this table would have believed me. But they would have. 3.9 million jobs since Election Day. Thats pretty incredible.

Weve added more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs since the election. Manufacturing employment is now growing faster than at any time than it has in three decades, over 30 years. Through the Pledge of Americas Workers, launched just last month, almost 5 million Americans will receive enhanced career training and opportunities.

And I want to thank Ivanka Trump for having done an incredible job on that. Shes really worked on it. Its something very important to her.

Ive really  and Ive said it to a lot of people: Jared  I want to thank Jared for whats happening on prison reform, because youve really been leading it. Its something very close to your heart.

And as Ive said before, we hire Americans. We want to hire and treat our Americans fairly. You know, for many years, jobs have been taken out of our country. Weve lost our businesses. Weve lost the hiring abilities that we had. Not anymore. Now those companies are coming back; theyre coming roaring back  to your state, to your state. Theyre coming back faster than anyone thought even possible.

Our first duty is to our citizens, including those who have taken the wrong path but are seeking redemption and a new beginning. Thats people that have been in prison, and they come out and theyre having a hard time. Theyre not having such a hard time anymore.

Weve passed the First Step Act through the House, and were working very hard in the Senate to refine it and pass it into law. We think well be successful in that regard. The bill expands vocational educational programs to eligible federal inmates so that more of them can learn a trade. And thats what were doing. Were teaching them trades. Were teaching them different things that they can put into good use, and put into use to get jobs.

I recently met with Chairman Grassley and other members of Congress to discuss the bill. We also agreed that we must be tough on crime, especially on criminals and trafficking of drugs, and lots of other trafficking. We have a trafficking problem, including human trafficking. Were very, very tough on that. And thats going to remain tough, or even tougher.

We must strengthen community bonds with law enforcement, including cities like Chicago that have been an absolute and total disaster. Well be talking about Chicago today because that is something that, in terms of our nation, nobody would believe it could be happening. They had 63 incidents last weekend and 12 deaths.

Thats bad stuff happening, and probably, I guess, you have to take from the leadership. Thats called bad leadership. Theres no reason, in a million years, that something like that should be happening in Chicago.

We want every child to grow up in a safe neighborhood surrounded by families that are loving and helpful, and with a path to great education and a lifelong career.

I want to thank everybody for being here. And I think what well do, while the media is here, maybe well just go around the room real quickly and well introduce yourselves. And these are people that have really worked hard on prison reform  and lots of other things, but on prison reform. And thats largely what this meeting is about.

Governor? Please.

GOVERNOR DEAL: Well, thank you, Mr. President. I appreciate the opportunity to be here. We are very pleased with whats happening in Georgia. We have seen, since I became Governor, a 10-percent decrease in violent crime in our state, a 20-percent overall decrease in crime. We have seen our African American percentage in our prison system drop significantly. Black American  black males has dropped almost 30 percent.

THE PRESIDENT: Thats great.

GOVERNOR DEAL: Black females dropped about 38.2 percent. Our African American commitments to our prison is at the lowest level it has been since 1987. And in states like ours, we have a disproportionate number of minorities in our prison versus our population as a whole.

We have found that reentry is a vital part of this. We find that  I did have a question I asked; I said, Whats the most common characteristic of those in our prisons? The answer was, 70 percent of them never graduated from high school.

So we immediately concentrated on that. We have significantly beefed up our GEDs. Weve also brought a private charter school into our system to teach them, give them a real high school diploma. We found that if you give them a blue-collar skill, you reduce your recidivism rate by 24 percent. If you give them just the education of getting a high school diploma, its reduced by 19 percent.

So we have been very successful. Were pleased about it. And were pleased to share whatever information we have that might be helpful.

THE PRESIDENT: Good. Thank you, again. Thank you very much.

Pam?

BONDI: President, Pam Bondi, Attorney General of Florida. Thank you for doing this. As a career prosecutor, you see people who go to prison and get out of prison, and cant find a job. And how do we expect people to succeed without being able to get a job? And you were just in Tampa  thank you for that  Tampa Bay Tech, supporting jobs for young people.

And thats whats so important, is reentry and being able to get a job, and training people on how to be successful. And something we did in Florida shortly after I got elected was we decoupled  if you were a convicted felon, you couldnt get an occupational license. So how do we expect you to succeed?

So thank you for everything youre doing, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Good. Thank you, Pam. Thank you very much.

GOVERNOR EDWARDS: Mr. President, John Bel Edwards. And I will tell you, in Louisiana, we are proud of the work weve done. Its been sentencing reform, prison reform, and a real focus on reentry. And for the first time in 20 years, I can tell you, Louisiana does not have the highest incarceration rate in the nation today.

THE PRESIDENT: Good. Good.

GOVERNOR EDWARDS: And its paying dividends for us, and were reinvesting the savings 

THE PRESIDENT: Who does?

GOVERNOR EDWARDS: Oklahoma.

THE PRESIDENT: Really?

GOVERNOR EDWARDS: Yes, sir. But we are reinvesting the savings into our reentry program and also into victim services. So were excited about what were doing, and were looking forward to sharing that with you.

THE PRESIDENT: Great. Great. Thank you very much. Thank you, John Bel.

Please, go ahead.

GOVERNOR BURGUM: Mr. President, Doug Burgum, Governor of North Dakota. Thank you for coming to North Dakota last month. Great to have you there.

THE PRESIDENT: Things are looking good, arent they?

GOVERNOR BURGUM: Things are looking great thanks to a lot of policies from this administration and the great Cabinet that you have.

As you know, you cant really separate, today, prison reform and our prison situation from addiction. In North Dakota, 100 percent of the women that are incarcerated in our prison system have a disease of addiction. Eighty-five percent of the men in our prison have disease of addiction. And we cant solve a healthcare  a chronic healthcare problem with punishment. Weve got to solve it  treat it like a disease and solve it that way.

THE PRESIDENT: Right.

GOVERNOR BURGUM: And so I want to also thank you for the work that your administration is doing on the addiction front, because it ties directly back into this. And I think weve done a number of innovations well be happy to share at this roundtable today. Thanks for inviting us.

THE PRESIDENT: Good. Good.

GOVERNOR BURGUM: But, you know, in the end, were trying to create better neighbors, not better prisoners. Ninety-eight-and-a-half percent of the people that go to prison in North Dakota end up coming back out. And so we have to  when theyre there, like the other governors have talked about it, its education, its career skills, its treatment. Those are the things we have to focus on. If we can do that, we can turn peoples lives around and add people to the workforce. We know we need that because we got so many jobs open in this country.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Governor.

PAXTON: Ken Paxton, Texas Attorney General. Thank you, Mr. President. This is obviously an important issue to Texas. I think its an important issue to the nation. And, Jared, I appreciate your passion for this issue.

In 2007, under the leadership of, I think, the greatest governor in my lifetime, whos now the Secretary of Energy  is that the right department?  (laughter)  and the president of our top public policy foundation, Brooke Rollins, we passed legislation similar to what Congress is now looking at that has had a dramatic impact on our own ability to take people from prison and live productive lives.

And, you know, I could cite many statistics, but we were facing  spending $2 billion, and we didnt spend the money. We put $241 million into treatment and to helping people find jobs. Weve expanded that since, but its made a tremendous difference. We have not built any more new prisons since then. Weve actually closed eight prisons. So its really made a difference, and I think it can make a difference for the nation. So I look forward to continuing the discussion.

THE PRESIDENT: How are you doing with your recently filed case? Hows that looking?

PAXTON: Well, we had a hearing yesterday, and I think it went quite well. Lets see what the judge says. But we know were right on the law and were right on the Constitution. And so were confident things are going to go in the right way.

THE PRESIDENT: Its true. Okay. Thank you.

GOVERNOR BRYANT: Thank you, Mr. President. Im Phil Bryant of Mississippi. In 2014, we began our Right on Crime program. We used all the things that Georgia has been successful with, and Texas. I called both of these governors and said, Tell me how you did it.

Im a former law enforcement officer, and I worked undercover narcotics cases. Ive been out there with the worst of the worst. I put a lot of people in jail, and some of it was difficult, particularly when I was state auditor and over 100 state-wide elected officials and government employees went to jail for white-collar crimes.

So we began a really strong program working with the PEW Institute of putting that workforce training program into effect, making sure we looked at addiction, mental health. Mental health challenges within the correctional facilities are obviously rampant. Also trying to make prisons a drug-free zone and a crime-free zone within that prison, so you cant  your life cant be threatened every day; you cant be attacked in prison; you cant have access to drugs and be rehabilitated.

And then finally, the faith-based organization. It takes a change of heart. Ive been around a lot of people who are in jail, and if their hearts arent changed, their lives will not be changed. So prison ministries  all of those things that government doesnt like to admit to that works 

THE PRESIDENT: Right.

GOVERNOR BRYANT:  works. And so, when we bring faith back into the prison system, prisoners have hope again. And that worked better for us than anything we could have done  another reentry program, getting them jobs, getting their drivers license, keeping them connected with their families so that they have something to work towards when theyre getting out of prison.

And I can tell you, I had to call a lot of my Republicans into the governors office and convince them to vote for this bill. And they were worried it was soft on crime. They were hesitant about what they were going to tell their people back home. And I said, You tell them to call me. Because crime is down 6 percent. We have 3,000 less inmates. We saved $40 million since 2014. And you can do the same thing. And, Jared, thank you for your leadership.

KUSHNER: Thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Phil.

GOVERNOR BRYANT: Thank you, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT: Secretary?

SECRETARY ACOSTA: Mr. President, Id like to make two key points. First, as you mentioned, the economy is doing incredibly well for the first time since weve been keeping records. We have more open jobs than we have people to fill these jobs.

THE PRESIDENT: Right.

SECRETARY ACOSTA: And so, these reentry programs are needed for the economy. We have jobs ready and waiting for individuals when they leave prison.

Second, Id like to follow up on what some of you governors have said: These programs work. As you know, and others at the table know, I was U.S. attorney in Miami. And when you talk with the law enforcement communities, what they will tell you is that these programs foster public safety. When someone leaves prison, the best that could happen for them is for them to find a job. The best that can happen for society is for them to find a job and start contributing to society, rather than go back to the old ways of crime.

So this is very much a win-win for the individual, for the safety of the community, and for the economy of the nation. We have individuals that are going from a prison system, where the taxpayer is funding the system, to contributing members of society that are helping this economic growth.

And so were working with various governors. We put out a request for a proposal, and we got so many applications from various governors of programs that are very much outside the box, that  this fall, we intend to put out another request for proposals to fund another round of reentry efforts themselves.

I want to thank the governors, and I want to thank all that are working on this issue. Its very important.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, youve been great, and your healthcare plan is going along beautifully. That is really doing something. Its  are you surprised by the numbers youre hearing?

SECRETARY ACOSTA: It is. Just this morning, I read an article mentioning a number of associations around the country  I believe one in Wisconsin, certainly one in Nevada  that are already forming these.

And just today, I was talking to some of the governors here about the various activity in their states. And so its moving very nicely.

THE PRESIDENT: Its been great. Thank you, Alex, very much. Thank you.

Rick. Go ahead, Rick.

ROLLINS: Well 

SECRETARY PERRY: Why dont you go, Brooke?

ROLLINS: I would be  thank you so much, Mr. President. Were so happy to be here. I tell you, I am overwhelmed and so encouraged. These governors are real innovators, and theyre entrepreneurs.

And what they have done is this idea of the laboratories of democracy that, in the states, we have moved so many issues forward that now, at the federal level  which Im so honored to become part of your team  but at the federal level, we can now see what happened in the states, whats working, what is basically lifting people to a better life  the forgotten men and women of this country.

And having lived it, in Texas, beside these two great men for more than a decade, weve seen firsthand how this changes lives, how it gives people second chances, how it puts communities back together, and keeps families together. So thank you for the opportunity.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Good job youre doing.

ROLLINS: Im glad to be here.

SECRETARY PERRY: Mr. President, thank you for bringing her onboard. I think youre seeing, on a daily basis, what a talent she is dealing with these issues that are really important.

Two things that I want to share with the table and with you, and with the general public. And one is that its because of those tax policies, because of regulatory policies that you pushed through, we got more people working in America than ever before. (Applause.)

And you have to have that, because if these programs are to work when folks get out of prison, or if they dont go to prison to begin with, then thats our real goal.

And I want to share with these governors around here, every one of them are courageous. Because I heard it when we were doing this back in Texas, in the early and mid-2000s, that, you know, Well, Perry, we thought you were tough on crime. Nobody ever got me confused with being soft on crime. You know, I signed more execution orders than probably any governor in the history of this country. And thats a sad thing, but its a fact.

So Im not soft on crime. But I like to say we were smart on crime in Texas because we put these programs into place. And young people, whose lives would be destroyed if we sent them on to prison  and thats where they really become professional criminals. And we never allowed that to happen; we gave them a second chance.

And so, Texans now really understand if we shut down eight prisons, saving some three-plus billion dollars a year in prison costs, and conservatives look at that now and go, That was smart on crime.

And, Pam, thats what  thats what people will say about you, Mr. President, is, number one, youve created this climate where people can have a job and have hope for the future.

And Ill finish with this, is that you passed that piece of legislation that does  clearly reforms the prison system. And I will suggest to you, from my perspective, that sentencing reform is part of that as well.

And then you have the ability to show this country, and then these laboratories of innovation  you know, when Doug goes back up to North Dakota, and hes puts in, for his state, the right programs, and its not top down, but youve sent the right message that, fellas, heres the way to reform your prison system. Were not going to be in the way. Were not going to  were not going to be a hurdle for you, and you all figure out how to do it the rest of the way.

And this country can be incredibly proud of what theyre doing for the next generation of people to come along. And these governors are going to be a real key part of that.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you, Rick. Very good. Thank you very much. Hows it going, energy-wise, would you say?

SECRETARY PERRY: I will tell you, I dont know how it could be much better. (Laughter.) The people around the world, were selling LNG now into 30 countries on five continents.

GOVERNOR EDWARDS: A lot of it (inaudible).

SECRETARY PERRY: John, a lot out of Louisiana. Gas is headed to a lot of places.

THE PRESIDENT: Thats right.

SECRETARY PERRY: Doug, number-two oil producer in the world  or, I should say, in the United States, only behind the state of Texas. (Laughter.)

GOVERNOR BURGUM: Were catching you.

SECRETARY PERRY: Yes, sir. (Laughter.) And we want you to. Come on. Give us your best shot.

But things are going good, sir. I mean, it is a  massive jobs being created. We got an opportunity to  you know, I dont want to get us off track here, but oil and gas infrastructure, if theres one thing that we, collectively  and these governors will tell you that as well  that well produce it; getting it out of this country is the challenge right now.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, weve become, as you know, number one in the world over just the last short period of time. So weve made it a lot easier, and yet environmentally perfect. Environmentally, really good.

But weve become number one in the world, and were now a net exporter, which nobody thought theyd ever hear. And were doing a lot of good things for a lot of other countries too.

So thank you very much. Youve done a great job. Thank you.

Matt.

GOVERNOR BEVIN: Mr. President, I just want to thank you again for convening this  not just once, not just twice, but on multiple occasions. I had a chance to meet a number of folks around this table. A comment was made early on, I think by you in your introductory comments, about the fact that this is a war where people can be lined up on the same side.

And the most powerful thing about this, and something I hope those of you in the media appreciate: I look at guys like John Bel Edwards in Louisiana. Represents a different party than I do in Kentucky, in terms of our political affiliation, but this is something that were very much of like mind on. And I think this transcends anything political.

And its  and again, I tip my hat to you for not only on this issue, but on others, bringing things to the political forefront that arent political, that have historically been ignored because they werent political and nobody got any points politically by doing them, but that they were the right thing to do.

And as some who have gone around this table have touched on, it isnt just the fact that its smart on crime or that its financially prudent  because it is all those things  but its the right thing to do. Just the human dignity of giving people  this is a land of second chances and of opportunity to rebuild your life.

And you are giving us, through this conversation and the kind of things youre pushing from the federal level, the encouragement from the bottom up to give millions and millions of Americans a chance at redemption. And its, I think, the greatest gift we can offer people.

And its something that, again, for all the economic reasons weve just mentioned, we desperately need. These are able-bodied men and women  95 to 97 percent of the 2 million currently in prison are going to get out. And what are they going to do? Are we going to give them a path to stay out? Or are they going to go right back in?

And some of the things weve done in Kentucky is literally start training programs inside of the prison system. Because one of the things we do  I have two twins that are going off to college in the next couple of weeks  and every one of them, from the beginning they get to college, they have a guidance counselor thats helping them chart their path.

I truly think its something we need to do within our prison system, because were spending just as much for every person in a prison system as we are for a kid in a college classroom. And why not give them a path for them personally to make sure they dont come back to this place, but that they go out and become productive, tax-paying citizens who contribute and become good mothers and fathers and community members? These are the kind of things that this will afford us the chance to do.

And I  again, I truly appreciate this. Its something, personally, that I have a passion for. And for you and your administration  and Jared, really, kudos to you, because you have done such a stellar job of bringing this to the forefront and gathering us together. And Im grateful to the two of you for making this possible.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you, Matt. And I have to say, we have tremendous political support. It a little bit surprises me. I thought that  when we started this journey about a year ago, I thought we would not have a lot of political support; we would have to convince people. We have great political support. You see whats happening. People that I would least suspect are behind it 100 percent. So thats a good thing.

Thank you all for being here. Thank you all very much. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Do You Know Why Toilet Doors are Cut From Bottom in Malls and Offices? Read On to Find Out
This is the story of an 'emotional support cat' aboard an Alaska Airlines flight, and a 15-year-old fellow passenger who, it turns out, was severely allergic to cats.

Can you guess which one had to leave the plane?

The story takes place on Alaska Airlines, and it comes to us from The Arctic Sounder, a weekly newspaper serving the extreme northern parts of Alaska, where the girl lives. The Arctic Sounder in turn got it from the girl's mother, who posted it on Facebook.

Here's what happened according to the mom. (I reached out to her to fill in some details; no reply yet. Her entire Facebook post is embedded below.)

'An emotional support cat bought a seat'

It all started last week, after the woman's daughter, had been away for two weeks at camp, was boarding Alaska Airlines flight 153, a Boeing 737 from Anchorage to Kotzebue, Alaska.

The girl saw once she boarded that that another passenger was holding a cat in the seat next to her, and she told an employee that she had severe allergies to cats. One of the Alaska Airlines customer service agents allegedly started to argue with the girl, blaming her for not telling them about her allergies before she got on the plane.

A flight attendant, who seems more sympathetic to the girl than the customer service agent in the mom's telling, then called the girl's mother. She explained that as much as she'd like to remove the cat from the plane, its owner had actually bought the cat a ticket.

Now, the flight attendant said, the cat owner was insisting that if anyone had to leave the plane, it should be the girl--not her cat. And that's exactly what happened: the airline told the 15-year-old she could either stay on the flight and risk an allergic reaction, or else get off and staying overnight in Anchorage.

"So, an hour ago," the girl's mother wrote, "my 15-year-old minor child was removed from Flight 153 on Alaska Airlines from Anchorage to Kotzebue, because an Emotional Support cat bought a seat so it could fly with the owners."

A ridiculous situation

I asked Alaska Airlines for their side of the story. Here's what the airline had to say:

"We do our best to accommodate all individuals when they are traveling on Alaska Airlines. In this situation, our staff followed process in working to provide as much distance onboard as possible between a traveler with allergies and another traveler with an animal in the cabin. While attempts were made to assist both passengers, the underage traveler elected to be reaccommodated on a later flight due to her allergies."

I truly wish the airline would have engaged and offered more of a dialogue, because it seems like there might be some facts missing. We don't know for example if the passenger with the cat actually followed Alaska's rules and turned in documentation about an emotional support animal 48 hours before takeoff.

But set that aside: I acknowledge that I simply find these situations ridiculous.

As much as I love animals, if you're bringing one aboard an airplane, and other passengers are allergic to that animal, it's you, the pet owner, who should be inconvenienced--not the allergic passengers.

Six bites in 60 days

Of course, this story includes two timely elements--both abuse of the emotional support animal laws, but also accommodation of passengers with allergies. Given that airlines are doing things like banning peanuts because some passengers are allergic to them, it seems insane to simultaneously allow other passengers to bring live animals aboard.

Recently The Wall Street Journal reported that there have been six bite incidents in the last 60 days aboard Delta Air Lines, for example, and that the airline now has to carry about 700 emotional support animals on flights every day (up from 450 in 2016).

And it seems that this is one of the few times that airlines are actually "begging for new regulations rather than opposing them," as the Journal article puts it--anything to stop the absurdity of so-called emotional support animals trumping human passengers' rights on board airplanes.

"I think we've hit a tipping point," Gil West, Delta's chief operating officer, told the Journal. "We're very concerned about the safety of our customers and our crew."

Eventually the girl did make it home to Kotzebue, after staying the night in Anchorage with family. But for her, and many other travelers like her, a change in the law can't come soon enough.
Students fretting over a last-minute place at university have been told not to panic as tens of thousands of courses are still available.

As pupils across the country anxiously await their A-level results next week, the latest research shows there are 26,587 courses listed as available through the UCAS clearing website.

The system is designed to provide places on unfilled courses to students not holding any offers from universities.

In total, 132 of the 148 universities in the UK are advertising at least one course through UCAS.

Among the 24 Russell Group institutions, widely considered the UKs top universities, 18 of them have at least one course advertised on the clearing site, with 4,706 courses potentially available.

Traditionally dismissed as the courses nobody wanted, university chiefs insisted plenty of high-quality courses would be accessible through clearing.

Law, languages, engineering, astrophysics, maths and English are among the subjects listed, amid intense competition between universities to attract candidates.

There has been a fall in the numbers of would-be students applying to university for this autumn, with 636,960 submitting applications by the end of June  down 2 per cent on 2017.

Application numbers from UK students are down 3 per cent on last year, with England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all seeing falls.

There has also been a fall in the 18-year-old population in England, and there is now no cap on the number of students a university can admit.

It means students seeking clearing places next week are likely to have plenty of options open to them.

Student news in pictures Show all 34 1 /34 Student news in pictures Student news in pictures South Korean policemen detain a student demonstrator during a protest against South Korean President Park Geun-Hye EPA Student news in pictures South Korean policemen detain student protestors during a protest against South Korean President Park Geun-Hye outside the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea. The protesters demanded that the parliament takes steps to impeach President Park Geun-Hye EPA Student news in pictures Filipino demonstrators face off with anti-riot police during a protest near the US Embassy in Manila, Philippine EPA Student news in pictures Hundreds of protesters including Indigenous People, students and militant groups marched towards the US Embassy to protest against the presence of US military troops and condemning the violent dispersal which left at least forty people hurt including twenty police officers and three people who were run over by a police van EPA Student news in pictures A federal judge in Mexico has ordered that a once-fugitive police chief be held on charges of kidnapping in the disappearance of 43 students Student news in pictures A man holds up a photograph of a missing student with a caption reading 'We are missing 43,' during a meeting marking the 25-month anniversary of the disappearances of 43 students in the southern state of Guerrero, in Mexico City. A federal judge in Mexico has ordered that a once-fugitive police chief be held on charges of kidnapping in the disappearance of 43 students AP Student news in pictures Miguel Perez, an intern student from the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine, puts away his cell phone before walking into the operating room at the Dr. Isaac Gonzalez MartInez Oncological Hospital in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Once they complete their general surgery training, many residents are moving to the United States in search of better wages, one of the main factors linked to the current shortage of specialists in the Island Student news in pictures Fewer EU students have applied to start university courses in the UK next autumn. There was a 9% fall in the numbers who had applied for courses, according to admissions service UCAS. PA wire Student news in pictures University students protest against President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas, Venezuela. Masses of protesters jammed the streets of Venezuela's capital on the heels of a move by congress to open a political trial against Maduro, whose allies have blocked moves for a recall election AP Student news in pictures University students protest against President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas, Venezuela AP Student news in pictures Thousands, most of them high school students, march during a demonstration in Madrid, Spain, on a one day strike to protest about the country's education law that increases the number of annual exams AP Student news in pictures Students gather on the west mall to confront the Young Conservatives of Texas student organization over a controversial bake sale on The University of Texas campus in Austin, Texas. The Young Conservatives of Texas chapter at the University of Texas-Austin sparked the protest with an affirmative action bake sale. The club encouraged students to buy a cookie and talk about the disastrous policy that is affirmative action Student news in pictures Donald Parish Jr, right, confronts Electrical and Computer Engineering senior Dewayne Perry over a controversial bake sale on The University of Texas campus in Austin, Texas. The Young Conservatives of Texas chapter at the University of Texas-Austin sparked the protest with an affirmative action bake sale. The club encouraged students to buy a cookie and talk about the disastrous policy that is affirmative action AP Student news in pictures Brigham Young University announced that students who report sexual assault will no longer be investigated for possible violations of the Mormon-owned school's strict honor code that bans such things as alcohol use AP Student news in pictures Students of secondary education march to protest against the final examinations and LOMCE (The Improvement Quality Education Law) law, after a call by trade unions, in Murcia, Spain EPA Student news in pictures South African police have used stun grenades and rubber bullets to disperse hundreds of protesters who had marched to the parliament building to call for free university education, where the finance minister was giving a budget speech AP Student news in pictures Police break up student protests outside the parliament in Cape Town, South Africa Reuters Student news in pictures South African Policemen fire rubber bullets at student protestors in Cape Town, South Africa AP Student news in pictures A student protestor is hit by a rubber bullet in Cape Town, South Africa AP Student news in pictures An injured student is helped by colleagues during protest outside the parliament during South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan's medium term budget speech in Cape Town, South Africa Reuters Student news in pictures Plaintiffs and bereaved families of elementary school students killed in the tsunami that followed a major earthquake in northeastern Japan in 2011, show banners that say 'victory in a suit filed with the Sendai District Court' in Sendai. A Japanese court ordered municipalities to pay $13.7 million dollars to families of school children who were swept away to their deaths by the 2011 tsunami Getty Student news in pictures A group of student at Ewha Womans University calls for a thorough investigation into those involved in years of engagement with state affairs backstage by Choi Soon-sil, a personal confidante of South Korean President Park Geun-hye, at the school's front gate in Seoul, South Korea EPA Student news in pictures Students raise placards during a strike action called by the student union, in Madrid against university entry exams Getty Student news in pictures Libyans throw a newly graduated student into a fountain as they celebrate during the graduation ceremony for students from the Faculty of Pharmacy at the Al-Arab University in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi Getty Student news in pictures Libyans celebrate as they attend the graduation ceremony for students from the Faculty of Pharmacy at the Al-Arab University in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi Getty Student news in pictures Libyans celebrate as they attend the graduation ceremony for students from the Faculty of Pharmacy at the Al-Arab University in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi Getty Student news in pictures Thousands of Thai Catholic students take part in mourning tributes and in singing the Thai Royal Anthem to honour late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej at Saint Dominic School in Bangkok, Thailand EPA Student news in pictures Students of Silpakorn University paint portraits of the late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej at the university campus in Bangkok Getty Student news in pictures A student of Silpakorn University paints a portrait of the late Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej at the university campus in Bangkok Getty Student news in pictures St Andrews University students take part in a foam fight known as Raisin Monday in the Lower College Lawn behind St Salvator's Quadrangle following the Raisin Weekend PA wire Student news in pictures St Andrews University students take part in a foam fight known as Raisin Monday in the Lower College Lawn behind St Salvator's Quadrangle following the Raisin Weekend, an annual tradition where student 'parents' inflict tasks on the unfortunate first-years they have adopted as 'children' as part of a mentoring scheme PA wire Student news in pictures Students at the Cuba's National Ballet School (ENB) in Havana, Cuba Reuters Student news in pictures Students at the Cuba's National Ballet School (ENB) take part in a practice in Havana, Cuba Reuters Student news in pictures Students at the Cuba's National Ballet School (ENB) wait in line to enter a classroom in Havana, Cuba Reuters

Long gone are the days when clearing was the last resort for A-level candidates whose results meant they were scrambling for a place at university, says Richard Harvey, academic director of admissions at the University of East Anglia.

Student behaviour has changed and theyre happy to take their time and shop around, collecting offers before they make their final decision.

Alistair Jarvis, chief executive of Universities UK, said more than 10 per cent of university places are now secured through clearing.

Clearing is increasingly popular and an excellent way to find a course that is right for you, said Mr Jarvis.

Universities recognise the high quality of applicants now in clearing. Most universities will make places available. Its open to everyone and most subjects are available, including some highly competitive courses.
High winds and torrential downpours brought an abrupt end to the sweltering heat that gripped the UK for weeks, but forecasters insist that summer is not over just yet.

The arrival of tropical storm Debby brought thundery outbreaks and heavy rain interspersed with some sunny spells on Thursday and Friday, but the weather appeared to have settled by Saturday morning.

Looking forward, the Met Office is predicting that there will be drier spells and plenty of sunshine towards the end of August and well into September.

Forecaster Greg Dewhurst told The Independent that while there are no strong signals that the heatwave would make a comeback, there is more of a settled picture with the mercury reaching the mid-20s in the southeast.

Towards the end of August, high pressure is expected to start to move back in from the west. However, there will still be some unsettled weather from northwest parts of UK, he said.

However, there will be the possibility of scattered rain and cooler temperatures in Northern England, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

He went on to add that Britain could be set for an Indian summer during late August, September and October, with the high pressure systems likely to keep cool and wet weather at bay.

Going into September looking similar to end of August, lower pressure to the north of the high pressure to the south which is pretty normal for time of year. Risk of rain to northern western UK.

He added that while it was too early to predict the weather for the August bank holiday, it wouldn't be surprising if those heading to the capitals Notting Hill Carnival are treated to balmy conditions at around 25-26 degrees.

The Met Office previously said that the 'there are promising signs of a return to summery weather from Friday and next weekend onwards" but warned against expecting too much when the heat does return.

UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies Show all 35 1 /35 UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies People on the beach at Croyde Beach in North Devon PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies People enjoy the sun at Carsington Water in Derbyshire PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies Sophie Todd, aged 7, and her mother Jane Todd playing in one of the Trafalgar Square fountains in London PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies A couple play catch with a ball whilst swimming in the River Stour Getty Images UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies Children play in the fountains at Granary Square, King's Cross PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies A dog under an umbrella at the Festival of British Eventing at Gatcombe Park, Gloucestershire PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies People sunbath on the clifftop at Woolacombe Beach in North Devon PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies A woman stands in a field of sunflowers at Vine House Farm near Spalding, Lincolnshire PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies A woman takes a selfie in front of St Paul's Chathedral PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies Paddle boarders off the coast at Tynemouth , Tyne & Wear PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies People on Woolacombe Beach in North Devon PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies A canal boat passes along the Regent's Canal PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies People relax in the warm weather on the beach in Brighton PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies People enjoying the hot weather and sunshine on the banks of the River Thames in Putney Rex Features UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies Spectators enjoy the hot weather during day seven of the Nature Valley International at Devonshire Park PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies Hot and sunny day in Hyde Park's Serpentine lake Rex UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies People relax in the warm weather on the beach in Eastbourne PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies People sunbathe as they enjoy the warm weather on Bournemouth beach PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies A person sunbathes on a blow up mattress in the sea off of Bournemouth beach in Dorset PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies A couple relax in the sunshine on the beach in Brighton PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies People play in water fountains in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in east London PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies Chris Bryant from Basingstoke paddle boards at Boscombe Beach in Dorset PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies People shelter from the sun beneath umbrellas as they walk in St James's Park in London AFP/Getty Images UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies Arianna Espiritu Kelly, 2, eats an ice-cream in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies Victor the Polar Bear enjoys a dip in the water at Yorkshire Wildlife Park PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies People on the beach in Brighton PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies Woman relax in the sunshine on the beach in Hastings, Sussex PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies People enjoy their lunch break in the sunshine near Tower Bridge in London PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies Police horses drink from a water fountain during the hot weather in Green Park PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies Anglers fish on New Brighton beach on the Wirral, Merseyside as the sun rises over the Port of Liverpool and the River Mersey PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies A family of lemurs enjoy an ice lolly at Yorkshire Wildlife Park PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies People enjoy the sunshine in St James's Park in in London AFP/Getty Images UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies A duck swims in the algae covered lake in St James's Park, London PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies A couple cycle in the sunshine around Bewl Water in Kent PA UK weather: Temperatures soar as heatwave intensifies A man takes a break in the sun on Southbank, London PA

"The remnants of ex-Tropical Storm Debby were mixed up in low pressure bringing rain in the West on Saturday and to all areas on Sunday, when rain could be especially heavy in the South.

"It stays unsettled on Monday in the East, and after the South could see 27C on Tuesday or Wednesday, a cold front brings rain for parts.

Bookies Ladbrokes recently slashed its odds from 3/1 to 2/1 that this month would go down as the hottest August on record. The hottest temperature ever seen in the UK was 38.5C, recorded at Faversham in Kent on 10 August 2003.

Alex Apati of Ladbrokes said: Weve had glorious weather over the last few weeks and as Brits prepare for summer holidays, it looks as though theyd be better off staying in this country to top up on their tans!
More than 100 parliamentary constituencies which backed Leave in the 2016 referendum would now vote to remain in the European Union, according to new analysis of polling.

The findings suggested that most seats in England, Scotland and Wales now contain a majority of voters who want to stay in the EU.

Among constituencies found to have switched from Leave to Remain were arch-Brexiteer Boris Johnsons Uxbridge and South Ruislip, Michael Goves Surrey Heath and the seats of pro-Brexit Labour MPs Frank Field in Birkenhead and Graham Stringer in Blackley and Broughton.

The analysis, obtained by The Observer, suggested the development was driven by growing doubts about the case for Brexit among Labour voters in the north of England and Wales.

The findings will increase pressure on Jeremy Corbyn to reconsider Labours refusal to give its backing to a second referendum on EU membership.

Even though polls regularly report a strong lead for Remain among Labour voters, a majority of the partys constituencies backed Brexit in 2016, leaving strategists wary of any suggestion that Labour might not deliver withdrawal.

The figures were produced by consumer analytics company Focaldata, drawing on two YouGov polls of a total of more than 15,000 people.

They found that 112 out of the 632 seats in England, Scotland and Wales had switched from Leave to Remain since the referendum. These included 97 English seats, 14 in Wales and one in Scotland.

The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Show all 8 1 /8 The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Post-Brexit immigration workers sorting radishes on a production line at a farm in Norfolk. One possible post-Brexit immigration scheme could struggle to channel workers towards less attractive roles - while another may heighten the risk of labour exploitation, a new report warns. PA The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Customs union A key point in the negotiations remains Britain's access to, or withdrawal from, the EU customs union. Since the referendum there has been hot debate over the meaning of Brexit: would it entail a full withdrawal from the existing agreement, known as hard Brexit, or the soft version in which we would remain part of a common customs area for most goods, as Turkey does? No 10 has so far insisted that Brexit means Brexit and that Britain will be leaving the customs union, but may be inclined to change its position once the potential risks to the UKs economic outlook become clearer. Alamy The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Northern Ireland-Irish border Though progress was made last year, there has still been no solid agreement on whether there should be a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. To ensure borderless travel on the island, the countries must be in regulatory alignment and therefore adhere to the same rules as the customs union. In December, the Conservative Partys coalition partners, the DUP, refused a draft agreement that would place the UK/EU border in the Irish Sea due to its potential to undermine the union. May has promised that would not be the case and has suggested that a specific solution would need to be found. Getty The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Transition period Despite protests from a small number of Conservative MPs, the Government and the EU are largely in agreement that a transitional period is needed after Brexit. The talks, however, have reached an impasse. Though May has agreed that the UK will continue to contribute to the EU budget until 2021, the PM wants to be able to select which laws made during this time the UK will have to adhere to. Chief negotiator Michel Barnier has said the UK must adopt all of the laws passed during the transition, without any input from British ministers or MEPs. EPA The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Rights of EU citizens living the UK The Prime Minister has promised EU citizens already living in the UK the right to live and work here after Brexit, but the rights of those who arrive after Brexit day remains unclear. May insists that those who arrive during the transition period should not be allowed to stay, whereas the EU believe the cut-off point should be later. Getty The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Future trade agreement (with the EU) Despite this being a key issue in negotiations, the Government has yet to lay out exactly what it wants from a trade deal with the EU. Infighting within the Cabinet has prevented a solid position from being reached, with some MPs content that "no deal is better than a bad deal" while others rally behind single market access. The EU has already confirmed that access to the single market would be impossible without the UK remaining in the customs union. Getty The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Future trade agreements (internationally) The Government has already begun trying to woo foreign leaders into prospective trade agreements, with various high profile state visits to China, India and Canada for May, and the now infamous invitation to US President Donald Trump to visit London. However the UK cannot make trade agreements with another country while it is still a member of the EU, and the potential loss of trade with the world's major powers is a source of anxiety for the PM. The EU has said the UK cannot secure trade deals during the transition period. EPA The biggest issues facing UK on leaving EU Financial services Banks in the UK will be hit hard regardless of the Brexit outcome. The EU has refused to give British banks passporting rights to trade within the EU, dashing hopes of a special City deal. However according to new reports Germany has suggested allowing trade on the condition that the UK continues paying into the EU budget even after the transition period. Getty

Under the Focaldata model, 341 constituencies now have a Remain majority, up from 229 in 2016.

The analysis, conducted for the Best for Britain campaign for a second referendum and the Hope Not Hate campaign against racism, puts Remain on 53 per cent support, against 47 per cent backing Leave.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable, who spoke at a rally of Peoples Vote supporters in Bristol on Saturday, said: Whether someone voted to leave or stay in the EU in 2016, nearly everyone is disillusioned by the mess the Conservatives have made of Brexit.

This research is yet more compelling evidence that the British people must be given the final say on any  or no  Brexit deal. The shallow argument against giving the people their say diminishes towards nothingness with every passing day.

Sir Vince told the Bristol rally that opponents of Brexit must work together as a team across party divides in the drive for a second EU referendum.

The Lib Dem leader said it was clear the centre of gravity on Brexit is shifting in favour of a national poll on the final deal.

Sir Vince told the rally that since the 52 per cent-48 per cent victory for Leave in 2016, the situation has changed, the facts have changed.

We were all told the British government was going to save vast amounts of money, he said. We now know thats not the case: theres the 40bn divorce settlement, the economys slowing down, theres less money for the NHS.

Recommended Voters in area critical to Tory election win swing against Brexit

We were told it was simple  its actually proving unbelievably complicated.

Another thing thats happened in the last two years is Trump. The whole premise of Britain embarking on some buccaneering free trading adventure around the world as a country independent of the EU has been completely negated by Trumps protectionist agenda. This has made a complete and utter nonsense of it.

So our position in arguing against Brexit and for a peoples vote is now stronger than ever.

But we have to work together; we have to work across party frontiers.

And he said: This is a campaign that we can win. Keep fighting, keep campaigning and we will win at the end of this.

He was joined by Conservative MP for Totnes Sarah Wollaston, who said: To proceed with Brexit without a Peoples Vote would be like a surgeon carrying out an amputation having sought their patients consent two years beforehand without either of them knowing whether they were going to lose a few toes or their whole leg.

Informed consent to Brexit can only happen once people know the final deal  if any  and have clear information about the risks as well as any benefits.

PA
by Shafique Khokhar

A meeting is held in Lahore to ask for more rights. Participants reiterated their commitment to a "multi-religious" Pakistan. The goal is to obtain specific measures, including the right to study one's faith.

Lahore (AsiaNews)  The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) held a meeting in Lahore yesterday on Minorities rights: Moving beyond promises and assurances to mark National Minorities Day.

The event was organised in co-operation with the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) and the Cecil & Iris Chaudhry Foundation (CICF).

National Minorities Day is held on the day that the founder of Pakistan, Ali Jinnah (Quaid-e-Azam) addressed the inaugural meeting of Pakistans constituent assembly, on 11 August 1947. In his speech, Jinnah expressed his dream for a "multi-religious" Pakistan in which everyone had the same rights and duties.

Rev Alexander John Malik, Anglican bishop emeritus of Lahore, spoke at the gathering in Lahore. I have no political allegiances, he said, only Pakistan. We are all Pakistan. Those who deny minorities rights do not understand Quaids vision for Pakistan. We shall oppose them no matter who they are.

For Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insafs representative Ejaz Chaudhry, As Muslims are in the majority in Pakistan it is our responsibility to look after and protect our minorities. Everyone should be allowed to practice their beliefs.

Other Muslim leaders came to the defence of minority rights." Our society has been intoxicated with hatred and extremism. We must educate people and arrest and punish those who have destroyed Pakistan, said Lahore Mayor Mubashir Javed, a representative of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz.

Allama Iqbal also believed that minorities should be given all political, economic rights in a state, said Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insafs Waleed Iqbal. Minorities in Pakistan have been consistently denied their rights, we will enact structural reform to establish a National Minorities Commission followed by provincial commissions. People can hold us answerable to promises we made in our manifesto.

Many activists and officials attended the meeting. Those present expressed their intention of working together with all sectors of society for the future of an open and multi-religious Pakistan.

During the conference, a list of measures was proposed for the authorities to implement. They include: incorporating Ali Jinnahs speech in Pakistans Constitution, establishing a National Minorities Commission, having the government work out agreements with minorities like the Bahais, Parsees, Sikhs, etc., adapting the marriage law to human rights standard, allowing non-Muslim youth to study their faith and not Islam, and setting up a committee with the power to implement the recommendations of the Commission of Inquiry established after the Gojra massacre of 2009.
Sir Vince Cable is set to claim it is possible to legislate for a fresh referendum within weeks and for it to be held before the Article 50 process expires.

In a speech during a rally on Saturday  organised by the Peoples Vote campaign for a fresh referendum  Sir Vince is expected to dismiss concerns from Brexiteer fanatics that there is no time to get legislation through parliament for a second public vote.

They are wrong, if not deliberately misleading. If parliament could pass laws to nationalise banks during the financial crash in a matter of days, then we can secure the legislation to allow people their right to a final say within weeks, he will tell people.

The remarks from Sir Vince come after The Independents petition  calling for a Final Say on any Brexit deal Theresa May returns from Brussels with  topped 600,000 signatures.

But in an evaluation of the 2016 referendum, the Electoral Commission recommended that legislation should be clear at least six months before polling day.

It took seven months for parliament to sign off the last referendum legislation in an act of parliament, meaning MPs would have to work at an extraordinarily fast pace to pass fresh legislation if they were to go ahead with the recommendations of the Electoral Commission.

At the rally in Bristol on Saturday, the senior Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston, who became the latest high-profile politician to back calls for a Peoples Vote, will join Sir Vince.

Ahead of the visit, he added: People in the southwest  from the Isles of Scilly to Gloucester  will be hit hard by a bad Brexit deal.

Peoples jobs, security, the local economy and the produce which makes us so proud of the southwest are all under threat from Brexit. The government are making a mess out of Brexit  but it is not a done deal.

I am delighted to come back to Bristol on 11 August to join the hundreds of people calling for a Peoples Vote. Whether you voted leave or remain in the referendum, the Liberal Democrats believe it is your right to have the final say on the Brexit deal through a Peoples Vote.

Brexit casualties Show all 10 1 /10 Brexit casualties Brexit casualties Andrea Jenkyns - Resigned from Parliamentary Private Secretary at the ministry for housing, communities and local government role May 2018 - The Morley and Outwood MP said: We want to see a new relationship with Europe, with a new model not enjoyed by other countries  nothing that leaves us half-in, half-out. And in order to achieve this, we need to leave the customs union. Ms Jenkyns also said she wished to dedicate more of her time to Parliaments influential Exiting the European Union select committee, after a series of unbalanced reports produced by MPs PA Brexit casualties David Davis - Resigned from Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union role July 2018 - quit following a major row with May over her plans for post-Brexit relations with the EU. Davis resignation letter said: As you know there have been a significant number of occasions in the last year or so on which I have disagreed with the Number 10 policy line, ranging from accepting the [European] Commissions sequencing of negotiations, through to the language on Northern Ireland in the December Joint Report. At each stage I have accepted collective responsibility because it is part of my task to find workable compromises, and because I considered it was still possible to deliver on the mandate of the referendum, and on our manifesto commitment to leave the Customs Union and the Single Market. I am afraid that I think the current trend of policy and tactics is making that look less and less likely. He went on to argue that the general direction of Ms Mays policies would leave the UK in at best a weak negotiating position, and possibly an inescapable one. AFP/Getty Brexit casualties Steve Baker - Resigned from Minister at the Department for Exiting the European Union role July 2018 - Mr Baker, a key Tory figure in the Leave campaign, was David Daviss main lieutenant at Dexeu, and was hailed as courageous and principled by other Brexiteer Tories as he also left. Reuters Brexit casualties Boris Johnson - Resigned from Foreign Secretary role July 2018 - resigned over May's Chequers plan. In his resignation letter to the prime minister, Mr Johnson said: "On Friday, I acknowledged that my side of the argument were too few to prevail and congratulated you on at least reaching a Cabinet decision on the way forward. "As I said then, the government now has a song to sing. "The trouble is that I have practised the words over the weekend and find that they stick in the throat." Reuters Brexit casualties Conor Burns - Resigned from Parliamentary Private Secretary to Foreign Secretary role July 2018 - A Brexit supporter who worked alongside Boris Johnson stated in his resignation letter: I've decided it's time to have greater freedom. I want to see the referendum result respected. And there are other areas of policy I want to speak more openly on. Rex Brexit casualties Chris Green - Resigned from Department for Transport role July 2018 - The Bolton West MP said: "Parliament overwhelmingly decided to give the decision of whether to leave or remain in the European Union to the British people and they made an unambiguous decision that we ought to leave. "I have always understood the idea in 'Brexit means Brexit' is that the final deal should be clear to me and my constituents - that we have, in no uncertain terms, left the European Union. Twitter Ads info and privacy "The direction the negotiations had been taking have suggested that we would not really leave the EU and the conclusion and statements following the Chequers summit confirmed my fears. "I recognise that delivering Brexit is challenging, however I had hoped at tonight's meeting that there would be some certainty that my fears were unfounded but, instead, they have been confirmed. "I have been grateful for the opportunity to serve as Parliamentary Private Secretary and it is with regret that I offer my resignation with immediate effect." PA Brexit casualties Maria Caulfield - Resigned from Conservative Party vice-chair for women role July 2018 - resigned over May's Chequers plan. Lewes MP warned that the direction of travel did not fully embrace the opportunities that Brexit can provide. Ms Caulfield said in her letter to the PM: The policy may assuage vested interests, but the voters will find out and their representatives will be found out. This policy will be bad for our country and bad for the party. The direct consequences of that will be prime minister Corbyn. PA Brexit casualties Ben Bradley - Resigned from Conservative Party vice-chair for young people role July 2018 - resigned over May's Chequers plan. The Mansfield MP said: I admit that I voted to Remain in that ballot. What has swayed me over the last two years to fully back the Brexit vision is the immense opportunities that are available from global trade, and for the ability for Britain to be an outward looking nation in control of our own destiny once again. I fear that this agreement at Chequers damages those opportunities; that being tied to EU regulations, and the EU tying our hands when seeking to make new trade agreements, will be the worst of all worlds if we do not deliver Brexit in spirit as well as in name, then we are handing Jeremy Corbyn the keys to No10. PA Brexit casualties Robert Courts - Resigned from Parliamentary Private Secretary role July 2018 - resigned over May's Chequers plan. MP Mr Courts said: I have taken a very difficult decision to resign my position as [parliamentary private secretary] to express discontent with the Chequers [plans] in votes tomorrow. I had to think who I wanted to see in the mirror for the rest of my life. I cannot tell the people of Woxon that I support the proposals in their current form. Getty Brexit casualties Scott Mann - Resigned from Parliamentary Private Secretary role July 2018 - resigned over May's Chequers plan. "I fear elements of the Brexit white paper will inevitably put me in direct conflict with the views expressed by a large section of my constituents. I am not prepared to compromise their wishes to deliver a watered-down Brexit. "The residents of North Cornwall made it very clear that they wish to have control over our fishery, our agricultural policy, our money, our laws and our borders. I will evaluate those principles against the Brexit white paper and ensure that I vote in line with their wishes." Rex

His intervention comes after a major poll from the Peoples Vote campaign, which revealed that half of British people want a referendum on membership of the European Union if the Brexit talks collapse and the country faces the prospect of a no deal.

The survey by YouGov, which included a weighted sample of more than 10,000 people, found just a quarter would want MPs to be given the final decision.
A high-end PC case maker says it has been forced into bankruptcy and liquidation by tariffs introduced by Donald Trump.

CaseLabs, which makes custom towers for computers and has a high-profile following, including prominent YouTubers such as LinusTechTips, announced it would be permanently closing on Saturday.

The company, based in California, said tariffs had raised costs by almost 80 per cent and that the default of a large account had added to the issue.

Recommended Trump doubles tariffs against Turkey amid row over detained pastor

We are very sad to announce that CaseLabs and its parent company will be closing permanently, CaseLabs said in a statement. We have been forced into bankruptcy and liquidation.

The tariffs have played a major role raising prices by almost 80 per cent (partly due to associated shortages), which cut deeply into our margins.

The default of a large account added greatly to the problem. It hit us at the worst possible time.

The manufacturer is likely to be referring to US tariffs placed on Chinese goods.

The dispute between the two countries has escalated since the US imposed 25 per cent duties on $34bn (31bn) of Chinese goods in early July in response to claims that China steals or pressures foreign companies to hand over technology.

President Trumps administration last week announced it would push ahead with 25 per cent tariffs on an additional $16bn of Chinese imports starting from 23 August.

PC case maker CaseLabs' headquarters in California, US (Google street view)

China hit back by saying it would impose identical tariffs on $16bn of US goods, including cars, crude oil and scrap metal.

Mr Trump also announced on Friday that he had doubled US tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminium as the value of the Turkish lira plunged.

He said tariffs would be raised to 20 per cent for aluminium and 50 per cent for steel with respect to Turkey.

CaseLabs, which was born out of parent company California Fabrication Company, set up in 1971, said it was doing its best to ship as many orders as possible but admitted it would not be able to ship them all.

Parts orders should all ship, but we wont be able to fulfil the full backlog of case orders, the company said in its statement.

We are so incredibly sorry this is happening.

Our user community has been very devoted to us and its awful to think that we have let any of you down.

The Independent has contacted both CaseLabs and the White House for comment.
A New York state senator says a woman called 911 on him simply for handing out pamphlets critical of Donald Trump.

In a video posted online and captured by a campaign staffer, the woman can be seen arguing with state senator Jesse Hamilton, telling him that he is dividing the United States by spreading anti-Trump rhetoric.

I see the difference between you and Trump, the woman says, before pointing at the pamphlet. If you really want nation to be as one and fight for a better life and live the better life, you would not put this slogan here.

The video finishes after the woman abruptly ends the conversation and walks away.

Mr Hamilton said that the woman must have called the police after leaving because officers soon showed up and indicated they had received a complaint.

The police officers determined that Mr Hamilton was not breaking the law.

Mr Hamilton, a black man, linked the incident to recent stories where people of colour have had the police called on them even though they were acting lawfully.

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 pattern of targeting black men and women for being black and alive in the communities we all share has to stop, Mr Hamilton wrote on Facebook.

The Brooklyn neighbourhood where the incident is said to have occurred is a predominantly black area and has seen its fair share of racial conflict.

The worst instance occurred in 1991, when a three-day riot broke out between the neighbourhoods Jewish community on one side and its West Indian and African communities on the other. Those riots resulted in at least one death, as well as property damage from thrown rocks.
Members of Israel's Arab minority led a mass protest in central Tel Aviv on Saturday night against a contentious new law that critics say marginalises the state's non-Jewish citizens.

The rally marked the latest stage in a fallout from the Nation-State law and came a week after thousands of Druze, also members of the Arab minority, packed the same city square to voice opposition to the bill.

Israel's 1948 declaration of independence defined the country as a Jewish and democratic state and the government says the recently passed bill merely enshrines the country's existing character.

But critics say it undercuts Israel's democratic values and sidelines the country's non-Jewish population, namely the Arab community that makes up 20 per cent of the country.

One clause downgrades the Arabic language from official to "special" standing.

The law has bitterly divided the parliament, sparked mass protests in Tel Aviv and even drawn criticism from the countrys president and attorney-general. Several of the articles have been dubbed racist against the countrys 1.8 million Arabs

 Israeli parliament adopts contentious new law defining itself as Jewish nation

Israeli media reported tens of thousands of Jews and Arabs attended the protest. Some Arab protesters waved Palestinian flags and others held signs reading "equality. Some knelt and preformed Muslim prayers.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israels prime minister, posted footage on Twitter of protesters waving the Palestinian flags. "No better testament to the necessity of the Nation State law," he wrote.

Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops: in pictures Show all 15 1 /15 Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops: in pictures Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops: in pictures A demonstrator uses a racket to return a tear gas canister fired by Israeli troops Reuters Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops: in pictures Palestinian demonstrators run for cover from tear gas fired by Israeli forces Reuters Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops: in pictures A demonstrator shouts Reuters Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops: in pictures Tear gas canisters are fired by Israeli forces at Palestinian demonstrators Reuters Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops: in pictures A wounded Palestinian is evacuated Reuters Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops: in pictures A demonstrator uses a sling to hurl stones at Israeli forces Reuters Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops: in pictures A female demonstrator uses a slingshot to hurl stones at Israeli forces Reuters Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops: in pictures A demonstrator with a slingshot looks on Reuters Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops: in pictures Female Palestinian demonstrators react to tear gas fired by Israeli forces Reuters Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops: in pictures Israeli forces fire teargas canisters toward Palestinian demonstrators AFP Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops: in pictures Female demonstrators run for cover from tear gas fired by Israeli forces Reuters Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops: in pictures Palestinian medics evacuate a wounded protester AP Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops: in pictures A demonstrator moves a burning tire Reuters Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops: in pictures A demonstrator uses a racket to return a tear gas canister fired by Israeli troops Reuters Palestinian protesters clash with Israeli troops: in pictures Palestinian demonstrators during clashes with Israeli forces AFP/Getty

Ayman Odeh, an Arab member of the Israeli parliament, said: "This is the first time that tens of thousands of Arabs have come to Tel Aviv with Jewish democratic groups.

They came to say this is not the end of the demonstrations, but the first serious demonstration against the Nation State law."

Many Jewish Israelis, including top retired security officials and politicians, have also criticised the law.

The rally marked further fallout from the explosive Nation-State law (Reuters)

Omar Sultan, from the Arab city of Tira in central Israel, said he was protesting to send a message to Mr Netanyahu.

"This law is against us, against the Arabic language, against peace, against our future in this land, we are the real people of this land, we can't agree on this law," he said.

Israel's Arab citizens enjoy full citizenship rights but face discrimination in some areas of society like jobs and housing.

They share the ethnicity and culture of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and often identify with Palestinian nationalism, rather than Israeli.

AP
From Heathrow, Emirates and Qatar Airways will take you to their respective hubs of Dubai and Doha, and onwards to a broadly similar range of destinations. From Addis Ababa to Auckland, the fares they charge are largely similar. Assuming you are not planning to stop over, your choice may come down to the type of aircraft you prefer.

All of Emirates six daily flights from Heathrow are operated by the Airbus A380 SuperJumbo. But for Qatar Airways you can take your pick of aircraft (relatively) old and new.

Take the first plane out at 8am for the classic Boeing 777 experience. Around an hour later, its a 787 Dreamliner. Next out: the Airbus A380. And you can even pick between two versions of the Airbus A350: the -900 at 9.30pm, or the -1000 less than half an hour later.

I opted for the 787 outbound and the A350 inbound. And the comparison between the two did not go well for Boeing, at least in the Qatar Airways configuration. The cabin on the Airbus (-1000, if you care) is about one foot wider than the 787. Divided between nine passengers in a 3-3-3 configuration that might seem imperceptible, but I felt it provided useful elbow room.

Perhaps I spent rather too many hours in a 787 earlier in the year (January, Bogota-Heathrow; March, Heathrow-Perth and back). But I have a nagging feeling that the Dreamliner is not quite the aviation miracle that we were promised.

It is a decade since the 787 was originally due to enter commercial service, and seven years since it actually took to the skies with paying passengers on board.

The 787, we were told, was the ultimate ultra-long-haul machine  so its odd that the longest flights in the world (Doha-Auckland and Dubai-Auckland) are operated by, respectively, a 777 and an A380. When Singapore Airlines brings back its nonstop link to New York and wrests back the endurance record, it will use A350s.

None of which, presumably, worries Boeing  which has a dream of an order book for the Dreamliner, fast approaching 1,400, and likely only to increase in line with the price of oil.

As the cost of aviation fuel rises, airlines are more inclined to buy efficient aircraft like the 787 to replace their gas-guzzlers. But I imagine some of them are looking at something slimmer and trimmer.

With the exception of some very long hops, such as Qantas from Heathrow to Perth and British Airways from Heathrow to Santiago, the routes the 787 is flying are distinctly mid-range: Cardiff-Doha, at 3,374 miles, is typical.

The latest versions of the Airbus A321 and Boeing 737 have no problem covering that sort of distance with a full payload. They have precious little room for cargo, but offer very attractive economics as people carriers on long, thin routes  of which Cardiff-Doha is an excellent example.

In the latest edition of Anna.Aero, the newsletter with network news and analysis has a fascinating table.

What kind of airport top 10 begins with Panama City, followed by Reykjavik and New York Newark? And sees the UK just miss out on a Top 10 place, being pipped by Anchorage, Alaska? Airports in order of the number of scheduled long-haul narrow-bodied services. The compilers define long-haul as 2,800 miles or 4,500km. And Panama City, hub for Copa, is the world capital of deploying 737s on long-haul routes.

Narrow field: the leading airports for long-haul, narrow-bodied aviation (Anna.Aero)

Panama is a small country in a relatively thinly populated part of Latin America. But thanks to Copas strategy, it has implausibly good links: non-stop to Las Vegas, to Montevideo in Uruguay and five times a day to Sao Paulo in Brazil.

Reykjaviks international airport at Keflavik is next, thanks to the efforts of Icelandair and Wow. They have very different fleets: venerable 757s which are effectively free to own though with heavy maintenance and fuel costs; and brand new Airbus A321s, rapidly becoming the long, thin staple.

There appears to be precious little passenger resistance, even on the longest narrow-bodied route  Stockholm to Newark, almost 4,000 miles, on a United 757.

The Boeing 787 was supposed to unlock long, thin routes. But in a price-conscious world, its smaller, older siblings may be stealing the limelight.

And with easyJet stretching its route network further southeastwards with a new Gatwick-Aqaba link, the Airbus A320 is challenging UK preconceptions of where short-haul ends; Doha is barely 1,000 miles further.
On one of the busiest weekends of the year, tens of thousands of airline passengers are still trying to complete their journeys after widespread flight cancellations.

On Friday Ryanair had its worst-ever day of strikes, with an estimated 100 flights to and from the UK cancelled as pilots in five European countries took industrial action.

While the 18,000 passengers affected by the Ryanair strikes had at least 48 hours notice of the cancellations, many more were hit by sudden cancellations  particularly on easyJet and British Airways to Gatwick and Heathrow.

French kipping: one of the passengers stranded at Nice airport when a British Airways flight was delayed overnight (Adam Whitfield)

The effects of bad weather in the UK on Friday, together with thunderstorms across the northern Mediterranean from the Balearic islands to the coasts of southern France and northern Italy, continued through Saturday.

With pilots and planes out of position, easyJet has cancelled 18 flights to and from Gatwick, affecting about 3,000 people.

British Airways cancelled more than 40 flights, mainly to and from Heathrow, and delayed about a dozen planes overnight in various locations.

More than 7,000 passengers were affected.

One of the grounded flights was BA357 from Nice to Heathrow, which was delayed for three hours and eventually postponed overnight.

Airlines that cancel flights are required to provide hotels for passengers, and transport for them to get there. But BA booked rooms only for the pilots and cabin crew.

Passengers were instead given a letter saying that British Airways would pay up to 200 for a hotel room, and 50 for the return journey by taxi.

Ryanair: strikes and cancellations cause travel chaos Show all 20 1 /20 Ryanair: strikes and cancellations cause travel chaos Ryanair: strikes and cancellations cause travel chaos EPA Ryanair: strikes and cancellations cause travel chaos Ryanair airline workers shout slogans during a small protest during the first of two days of a cabin crew strike at Adolfo Suarez-Barajas international airport in Madrid in July AP Ryanair: strikes and cancellations cause travel chaos Empty Ryanair check-in counter at El Prat airport in Barcelona AFP/Getty Images Ryanair: strikes and cancellations cause travel chaos Ryanair employees hold up signs in English and Spanish on the first day of a cabin crew strike in Palma de Mallorca REUTERS Ryanair: strikes and cancellations cause travel chaos Ryanair airplanes stand idle on the tarmac EPA Ryanair: strikes and cancellations cause travel chaos Irish Ryanair pilots outside the company headquarters at Swords in Dublin, as they stage their fourth one-day strike with their union, Forsa PA Ryanair: strikes and cancellations cause travel chaos A woman sits at a Ryanair airline check-in desk after her flight to Pisa, Italy, was cancelled AP Ryanair: strikes and cancellations cause travel chaos Ryanair employees protest at the entrance of the airport in Malaga REUTERS Ryanair: strikes and cancellations cause travel chaos Stranded Ryanair passengers line up for information at the airport in Valencia REUTERS Ryanair: strikes and cancellations cause travel chaos Employees of Ryanair's customer service department wear T-shirts with a slogan 'Ryanair Must Change' during the first day of strike of the company's cabin crew members at Brussels South airport in Charleroi, Belgium, in 25 EPA Ryanair: strikes and cancellations cause travel chaos Cabin crew workers for low-cost airline Ryanair went on strike in four European countries over working conditions in July, forcing thousands of passengers to make last-minute travel adjustments at the peak of the summer holiday season REUTERS Ryanair: strikes and cancellations cause travel chaos Ryanair Chief Executive Michael O'Leary addresses a news conference in Schwechat, Austria Reuters Ryanair: strikes and cancellations cause travel chaos Ryanair employees hold up signs at the airport in Palma de Mallorca REUTERS Ryanair: strikes and cancellations cause travel chaos REUTERS Ryanair: strikes and cancellations cause travel chaos People queue at the Ryanair airline customer service desk during the first of two days cabin crew strike AP Ryanair: strikes and cancellations cause travel chaos Ryanair personnel stand at Brussels Airport in Zaventem, during a strike of cabin personnel AFP/Getty Images Ryanair: strikes and cancellations cause travel chaos Ryanair's customer service department gather behind a banner reading: 'Ryanair On Strike - Respect Us! Ryanair must change' at Brussels South airport, in Charleroi, Belgium EPA Ryanair: strikes and cancellations cause travel chaos Passengers wait in line in front of Ryanair's desks EPA Ryanair: strikes and cancellations cause travel chaos Ryanair planes at Valencia airport, during a protest on the first day of a cabin crew strike held in several European countries REUTERS Ryanair: strikes and cancellations cause travel chaos A passenger tries to get informations on Ryanair flights EPA

In August even a three-star hotel on the French Riviera costs more than 200 per night.

Many passengers stayed at the airport, including Adam Whitfield, who tweeted: 12hrs and counting at @NiceAirportFR. No water, no info, no BA staff. 6 more hours to wait. Single girls, families and elderly on their own.

Elaine Lewis from west London told The Independent: I naively thought we would be bussed to a hotel and put up for the night.

Many people especially with young children ended up staying in the airport because there were no hotel rooms or, if there were, they were too expensive.

This morning we got to the airport at 6am to learn that our 8am flight is expected at 12.30pm. It finally arrived at Heathrow 16 hours late.

Graham Burdon tweeted: Our family has just spent the night on airport concourse and we have to take 15hrs delay whilst watching other BA flights board on time. There are still no BA staff here.

A spokesperson for British Airways said: We are sorry for the delay to our customers travel plans due to the thunderstorms across parts of the UK and Europe. We have been doing everything we can to minimise disruption.

By law cabin and flight crew require a minimum rest time and unfortunately it took longer than originally anticipated to locate accommodation for them as the hotels across Nice are very busy at the moment.

We contacted customers as soon as possible to advise them of the delay.

At Biarritz airport in southwest France, easyJet cancelled Friday nights departure to Gatwick at late notice.

One 14-year-old passenger. Georgiana Hillier, was told the airline would provide no assistance and that she should return in five days for the first available flight.

Recommended EasyJet launches first direct flights from UK to Aqaba

Her father, Chris Hillier, said: I am apoplectic with rage towards easyJet and their abandonment of my 14-year-old daughter for five days in a foreign airport.

An easyJet spokesperson said: Due to her age and because she was travelling alone, Ms Hillier should have been rebooked to fly with an alternative carrier within 24 hours in line with our policy.

As this didnt happen we have launched an investigation to understand why this wasnt followed. easyJet is in contact with Mr Hillier to advise that she will be reimbursed for the alternative travel that they subsequently booked.

Across the Spanish border in Girona, a Ryanair flight to Birmingham was cancelled while passengers were waiting in the departure lounge. One of then, Jessica Longbottom, said: Our replacement flight is on Sunday out of Barcelona to East Midlands.

We all had to arrange our transport and hotels late into the evening. Families with children were struggling.

We spoke to one man who did not have the means to purchase a hotel room, one lady who had had her cards stolen on her holiday and a few people who were down to their last euros.

A Ryanair spokesperson said: This flight from to Girona to Birmingham was regrettably cancelled after the inbound flight was delayed due to thunderstorms and slot delays.

All affected customers were contacted by SMS text and email and advised of their options of a full refund, free transfer onto another flight or free transfer onto an alternative route, hotel accommodation was authorised where needed and customers were advised to retain and submit vouched receipted expenses.

More cancellations are expected on Sunday as a result of Saturdays disruption.
As the 15-year-old youth MP for the London borough of Camden it is my role to champion and support the interests of young people in the face of a society which increasingly undervalues our voice in the democratic process. Guided by this mission, I submitted a motion to the UK Youth Parliament manifesto which called for a vote on the final Brexit deal where, crucially, young people aged 16 and 17 would be able to vote. Votes at 16 has long been an issue that the Youth Parliament has campaigned on.

In regard to the Brexit referendum, the youth vote is more important than ever. Unlike a general election, the result of the referendum could result in constitutional amendments, which, differently from laws, cannot be changed by future governments. At the moment, our future is being decided by Theresa Mays desperate attempts to remain as prime minister (and to do this she has to kowtow to the wishes of the three Brexiteers Boris Johnson, David Davis, and Jacob Rees-Mogg). The future, therefore, is not being decided by us.

In four years, when I embark on the debt-inducing adventure called university, will I be greeted by an institution enriched by the diversity and excellence brought by EU migrants? Given the current way the Brexit negotiations are going, probably not. The high academic standards which exist in our universities are at threat due to the potential drying up of EU funding which the supposedly budget-balancing chancellor wont be able to match. Without a referendum on the deal, an entire generation of young people will be impacted by something they had no say in or, if they were old enough to vote, didnt want.

By not consulting young people on Brexit, Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn are playing the dangerous game of turning one of the most powerful future voting blocs against them. Before their Brexit meekness, I viewed the Labour Party as being a credible opposition to the Conservative tirade of neoliberal austerity. Now I perceive the Labour Party as being compliant.

Labours relative success in the 2017 general election was undoubtedly due to the support of young people, whose high turnout was the immovable force which knocked May off her weak pillar of a majority in the Commons.

My local MP, Keir Starmer, must back The Independents campaign for a Final Say on the Brexit deal. Many of my constituents, and thus Keirs, look on with horror as the Brexit negotiations are ripping up the promise of their future. By not backing a vote on the deal the Labour Party is failing to stand up for very group they claim to support: the working class. The current treacherous Brexit trajectory will only worsen the economic conditions of my already financially precarious constituents. Will the Conservative government increase the minimum wage if the economy slumps post-Brexit? Probably not. Will the Conservative government change welfare cuts? I doubt it.

People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Show all 30 1 /30 People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Rex People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal A young protestor shouts as she takes part in the People's Vote demonstration against Brexit Getty Images People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Reuters People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal A protester's pro-EU t-shirt EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Gina Miller and Caroline Lucas EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Tens of thousands of people march through London EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EPA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Demonstrators at the People's Vote March Getty People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal 'Two months too young to decide on my future' REUTERS People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal A young girl joins in the march PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal An EU flag is draped across the statue of Winston Chruchill in Parliament Square REUTERS People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal AFP/Getty Images People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Vince Cable MP, Pro-EU campaigner Gina Miller, Tony Robinson and Caroline Lucas MP join with crowds PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Crowds gather on Pall Mall PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal A man resembling Britain's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson, joins EU supporters Reuters People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Reuters People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal People gather in Trafalgar Square REUTERS People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal Pro-EU campaigner Gina Miller and Tony Robinson PA People's Vote march  demanding vote on final Brexit deal EU supporters, calling on the government to give Britons a vote on the final Brexit deal, participate in the 'People's Vote' march REUTERS

In a meeting I had with Keir Starmer, which I greatly appreciated (not all MPs make time to meet their youth MPs), I challenged him on why he was not backing a Final Say on the deal. His response was that above all else, the Labour Party should be democratic in their approach on Brexit. A couple weeks later I was confronted with the same arguments by fellow MYPs, leading to my motion being rejected. This argument must be rebutted. Why would it be in any way undemocratic for the people to be given the final say on the Brexit negotiations?

If the people rejected the final deal negotiated by May, it would be reflective of the will of the people, not some supposed metropolitan Remoaner elitists.

In fact, a vote on the deal would be remembered as a gleaming beacon of democracy. Mays Brexit deal must be put through the toughest test. Not just by parliament, but also by the people.

Athian Akec is a campaigner for Our Future, Our Choice and the Youth MP for Camden
For some of us, incidents such as the drone attack on the Venezuelan president can bring back memories of dark days.

The last Zeppelin attack off Great Yarmouth during the First World War was unintentionally marked a hundred years ago to the day by the drone attack wreaking similar terror from the skies on Nicolas Maduro. But we are long past the days of manned Zeppelin raids. The new kid above the block is an illegally modified drone. They have been around for decades, but the Venezuelan attack has now dramatically put them centre stage.

And having designed force protection solutions against this type of small hybrid threat in both Iraq and Afghanistan, this attack came as no surprise to me.

Recommended Venezuela detains six in hunt for assailants behind drone attack

As recently as December 2017, drones were described as an emerging threat by the Ministry of Defence. One dived onto the lawn of the White House two and a half years earlier and one crashed as a protest in front of Angela Merkel in 2013. Killer drones have now emerged with all the justifiable concerns posed by other sci-fi hybrid threats  cyber warfare and cyber terrorism, drone warfares geekier cousins. Its scary, its real and its a game changer for terrorists, criminals and governments alike. Its a case of when, not if, such a drone will strike the UK mainland.

How we mitigate that fear, let alone defeat the menace of such a drone, will require debate, more rigorous policy and perhaps some very unpalatable decisions. The See it, say it, sorted and Run, hide, tell are two extremely successful counter-terrorist public information campaigns that prepare an increasingly resilient public for what have been, thus far, attacks on or around ground level.

But history does indeed repeat itself and with air threats, most acutely. New air threats are designed to shock and expose vulnerabilities by being low cost and potentially high payoff as was the case with a hybrid air attack in Venezuela. These threats can come out of the blue and in the case of the V2 rocket of the Second World War, it can come, quite literally, out of thin air. Its time to metaphorically and physically lift our sights.

So, what exactly is the threat from a drone air force  which can be assembled for around 30,000  and how can it be stopped?

A threat is made up of capability and intent. The capability can be bought online. The DJI M600 Chinese-made high-performance drone allegedly used in the Caracas attack costs less than 5,200. It was designed as a commercial professional photography drone and was modified to deliver the explosive device. The drone carried 1kg of C4 military grade explosive and moved at speeds approaching 40mph. The M600 can hover and can be easily and illegally modified to detonate, as well as deliver a spray in reasonable weather, from five kilometres. They have GPS and are easy to fly with simulation training and practise.

But can this provide a cheap, capable and credible terrorist air force?

Perhaps. Drones can swarm together (hundreds at a time) they can avoid each other, keep tight formation and pass information to each other. In the parlance of air forces, they can acquire, track and strike a target with a standoff capability and at range.

However, they cant carry troops or underslung artillery (yet) but existing top-of-the-range commercial drones can carry 70kg. Ukraine had an armoured brigade destroyed by artillery after they were spotted by a commercial photography drone flown by Russian separatists. The Ukrainians quickly created an effective 21st-century drone unit to bypass the trench warfare below. Isis has dropped both anti-personnel and anti-tank grenades across Syria and Iraq with reasonable success and in Mosul last year, this hybrid air attack caused significant panic among elite Iraqi security forces. Order was eventually restored by using AK-47s to fire a wall of lead into the sky and US army mobile anti-jamming equipment, which includes cutting the link between the drone and its Xbox style controller.

So, what downed the Venezuelan drone earlier this month? The answer remains unclear. But there are several options.

One anti-drone defence is geofencing, which prevents drones from flying into so-called red zones. Several websites show where airspace is controlled and how to apply for a geofencing area to prevent paparazzi from interrupting your wedding or illegally livestreaming a festival or a Premier League match. Prisons and critical infrastructure, the government zone in London and airports are all permanent red no entry zones. If a terrorist, intent on attack, sent an M600 inside a red zone, it would be stopped by the drones internal software and forced to hover. Without clearance you cannot operate within a red zone as the GPS factory settings prevent it from physically flying through or within it.

Problem solved?

No. Not all drone manufacturers have signed up to this protocol. However, if a drone gets through a barrier defence, there are myriad methods of hard- and soft-kill defence capabilities on the market, ranging from the medieval to Star Wars, all being developed at pace in the dynamic arms race to stay one step ahead of the drone manufacturers. Defensive measures include specially trained drone-catching birds of prey, shotgun fired nets, dogfighting drones with launchable drone capture nets, command link jamming equipment, machine guns and radar-controlled laser canons. All enjoy varying degrees of success and are tailored to the environment be it a battlefield, an oil refinery or Davos. We may yet witness another unmanned and unchivalrous Battle of Britain above our cities.

But as with all air defence matters, the airspace and electromagnetic bandwidth is full of friendly aircraft, drones and millions of mobile phone users, so blue on blue is a real issue. As an air defender, the holy grail is to adopt a policy along the lines of if it flies, it dies for anything that enters a designated airspace. Anything that goes up has to come down, and that can include kestrels, thousands of bullets and the signal for your mobile phone. It is a risk-reward conundrum as old as the RAF. Hollywood accurately portrays the political dithering and the tactical military frustration as a non-compliant airliner enters restricted airspace and flies for five minutes with its identity transponder switched off. Drones are different as you cant negotiate with a drone cockpit and they dont want asylum.

The intent and capability of the drone threat is also unintentionally unmasked by social media. A YouTube video of a teenager innocently showing how to modify and shield a drones GPS function with tinfoil  which would allow it to even penetrate a red zone  has been watched over 60,000 times. The same aluminium foil  codenamed Window  was dropped by the RAF in the Second World War to spoof enemy radars. Like cyberterrorism, this threat could emerge from an urban tower block or a roadside in Syria. So, a weapon system has been identified and not from the ledger of a dark web quartermaster but from a mail order catalogue.

US launches first drone attacks to break deadlock with Gaddafi Show all 3 1 /3 US launches first drone attacks to break deadlock with Gaddafi US launches first drone attacks to break deadlock with Gaddafi 599816.bin REUTERS US launches first drone attacks to break deadlock with Gaddafi 599817.bin AP US launches first drone attacks to break deadlock with Gaddafi 599818.bin AP

The threat of a killer drone is not just a problem in the UK. The US Federal Aviation Authority predicts that by 2020 there will be 3.4 million drones in the US. Recalling them would probably be only slightly less emotive than forced gun control, but we need to have this debate sooner rather than later.

At the moment, drone operators need not fear being monitored by the security services nor should the population run for the hills when they see a drone at a music festival. Attacking a drone in the air could be perceived by the CAA as an offence of recklessly endangering an aircraft. However, I suspect that after the incident in Venezuela, the descendants of the citizens who suffered the Zeppelins, V1 and V2 attacks, might ask for some reassurance. Successful drone attacks wont have gone unnoticed by those who wish to use cheap, unmanned and remarkably risk-free air power to conduct criminal or terrorist activity.

History does repeat itself and the attack in Venezuela just showed us how. Chin up and look up.

Colonel Barry Jenkins is a former British Army air defence commander
The next time someone asks me why I got into politics I have a photograph to show them. It is of me trying to tease a smile out of a very beautiful but very tired toddler who is adapting to life in Edinburgh instead of an Iraqi war zone.

The toddler is Lia Kasim. She was trapped in Erbil, separated from her often distraught but never defeated dad, Jasem. Her plight has been central to my and my offices work for my first year as an MP.

The atmosphere is hostile towards immigrants, even those who are now legitimate British citizens. The Windrush scandal, among others, exposed that some people in power often lack a basic human understanding of what people have been through. Lia was just one victim of an astonishing bureaucratic nightmare.

Recommended Home Office tells destitute Windrush woman to seek charity help

Her father is a British citizen. She should have automatically been entitled to a passport. But because she was born abroad  not something her parents had planned  the UK authorities not only refused to recognise her as a citizen but they also put every conceivable obstacle in the way of her passport.

Jasem willingly jumped through every hoop and fulfilled every demand from the Home Office. But for over a year, there was no progress.

When Jasem came to me after his original application was denied, we appealed. There were countless letters and phone calls to the Home Office and questions about his paperwork. All of them unanswered.

I raised his dilemma in the Commons. I argued that his baby was trapped in the war zone that he, an Iraqi-born Kurd, had come to this country to escape.

At the first meeting I secured with the government, the Conservative immigration minister at the time metaphorically patted me on the head and told me it wasnt as simple as I thought.

Apparently, the choice of whether or not to rescue a baby from a war zone is not an easy one.

But he did offer to reconsider if Jasem and the baby both had DNA tests. They did. It took several difficult trips into Erbil from a nearby Kurdish community for Lia to see the necessary doctor.

Not surprisingly, medical staff are often in high demand in Iraq, dealing with emergencies, and are often unavailable at the last minute.

But the family persevered and the test proved that Lia was Jasems child.

Still not satisfied, the paperwork was questioned again and Jasem was told he would have to make a fresh application.

Again, he complied.

Again, the Home Office stalled. This time I told them I was taking it directly to the prime minister and the new immigration minister offered an immediate appointment.

And this time she listened.

This time, in the immediate aftermath of the Windrush scandal, with searching questions being asked about this governments attitude to legitimate British citizens, the new immigration minister listened and passed what I said on to her officials.

Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Show all 15 1 /15 Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK The ex-troopship 'Empire Windrush' arriving at Tilbury Docks from Jamaica, with 482 Jamaicans on board, emigrating to Britain. Getty Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Jamaican immigrants being welcomed by RAF officials from the Colonial Office after the ex-troopship 'Empire Windrush' landed them at Tilbury. PA Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Alford Gardner who arrived in Britain in 1948 on the first Windrush ship to dock in Tilbury, Essex, speaking at his home in Leeds PA Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Alford Gardner in Leeds shortly after he arrived in Britain in 1948 on the first Windrush ship to dock in Tilbury, Essex PA Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Gardner was 22 years old when he boarded the ship in Kingston, Jamaica, with his brother Gladstone before they and hundreds of Caribbean migrants called on to rebuild post-war Britain disembarked the ship in Tilbury Docks PA Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Alford Gardner (right), during his RAF service in 1947 PA Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK The son of Ruth Williams, a Windrush-generation immigrant, wants to the leave the country after threats of deportation. According to his mother, Mr Haynes applied for British citizenship in 2016 but was rejected, despite Ms Williams having lived in the UK almost permanently since arriving from St Vincent and the Grenadines in 1959. Ruth Williams, 75, said she felt "betrayed" by Britain after the Home Office twice turned down applications for her 35-year-old son, Mozi Haynes, to remain in the country. Ms Williams is understood to have cancer and said she relies heavily on her son for support. PA Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK The British liner 'Empire Windrush' at port in 1954. Getty Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Ruth Williams, 75, with her British passport. "I feel betrayed and a second class citizen in my own country," she said. "This makes me so sad and the Home Office must show some compassion. "I am unwell and almost 75, I live on my own and I need my son to stay here. I need my family around me and I cant face being alone. He has applied to the Home Office and been refused twice." PA Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK From the top, hopeful Jamaican boxers Charles Smith, Ten Ansel, Essi Reid, John Hazel, Boy Solas and manager Mortimer Martin arrive at Tilbury on the Empire Windrush in the hope of finding work in Britain. Getty Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Jamaicans reading a newspaper whilst on board the ex-troopship 'Empire Windrush' bound for Tilbury docks in Essex. Getty Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK After half a century in Britain, Anthony Bryan decided it was time to go abroad. But the decision set off a nightmare that saw him lose his job, detained twice and almost deported to Jamaica. AFP/Getty Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Jamaica-born Anthony Bryan poses outside his home in Edmonton, north London. Now 60 and a grandfather, Bryan thought the issue could be resolved swiftly, as he legally moved to Britain with his family as part of the Windrush generation of Caribbean migrants after World War II. In 1948, the ship Windrush brought the first group of migrants from the West Indies to help rebuild post-war Britain, and many others followed from around the Commonwealth. A 1971 law gave them indefinite leave to remain, but many never formalised their status, often because they were children who came over on their parents' passports and then never applied for their own. AFP/Getty Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Three Jamaican immigrants (left to right) John Hazel, a 21-year-old boxer, Harold Wilmot, 32, and John Richards, a 22-year-old carpenter, arriving at Tilbury on board the ex-troopship 'Empire Windrush', smartly dressed in zoot suits and trilby hats. Getty Windrush generation: threat of deportation from UK Newly arrived Jamaican immigrants on board the 'Empire Windrush' at Tilbury in 1948. Getty

A couple of weeks later came the phone call we had waited a year for. If Jasem filled in a fresh form, Lia could have her passport.

At one of our many meetings I had promised an emotional Jasem that I would not give in until we had Lia safe in this country with both of her parents. Yes, there were times when I thought that the mindless bureaucracy might beat us. I was warned by other immigrants that the Home Offices lack of trust in what is left of Iraqs political and administrative structure might come between this innocent child and a secure future. I often wondered if I would ever be able to fulfil that promise.

So, when Jasem walked through my office door with his wife and little girl I thought my heart would burst. There were, of course, tears in the office as well as broad smiles and hugs for the staff who had worked so hard to make the dream become a reality.

But there was also the realisation that it will not be the same for every family. Not everyone will have a happy ending. I have seen the joy of bringing a family together, one that had been kept apart purely due to mindless bureaucracy. This governments hostile immigration environment has to change.

Christine Jardine is a Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West
by Wang Zhicheng

Jasic Technology workers claim they are treated like slaves". At least 14 people are still in custody. Maoists demand their liberation and the right to establish independent trade union. Publicly traded JT sells products all over the world and has plants in Shenzhen, Chongqing and Chengdu. Its Shenzhen plant alone employs about a thousand people.

Shenzhen (AsiaNews)  University students and retired members of the Chinese Communist Party, proudly carrying portraits of Mao Zedong, are taking part in demonstrations in support of a group of workers who are trying to set up an independent trade union in their plant, owned by Jasic Technology (JT).

As a result of the protest, people have been detained and 14 are still in jail after several weeks. The JT workers who launched the campaign for unionisation in May were sacked and beaten by thugs.

According to the workers, working conditions at the plant have deteriorated considerably. Wages as well as social insurance and housing funds have been cut. Schedules have been changed without consultation. Workers claim that the company was treating them like slaves.

They voiced their complaints to the authorities, but JT management had already set up their own worker representatives committee which excluded the candidates the worker activists had proposed.

In light of the situation, workers took to the streets (picture 1), collected funds and posted open letters on social media, which were immediately blocked.

Seven JT workers were sacked and 29 of their supporters arrested. As of last Tuesday night, 14 people were still in detention for disrupting order.

The workers found support among university students and old Maoists, retired members of the Communist Party, who began demonstrating five days ago in front of the police station in Yanziling, Shenzhen (picture 2).

They demand the release of all detained workers, the right to set up an independent trade union and punishment for policemen and thugs who beat workers.

The position of the official unions, which are subservient to the Communist Party and are accused of defending the interests of factory owners, often party members themselves, is not clear.

The JT, established in 2005, is listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange. Its products and services  ranging from shipbuilding to petroleum, steel, railways, vehicles  are found all over the world.

The company has plants in Shenzhen, Chongqing and Chengdu. In the Shenzhen plant alone, it employs about a thousand people.

According to labour rights experts, at least since 2015, with the reduction of easy government lending, there has been a massive crackdown on labour rights, which has led to complaints about overwork and low wages.

More than 1,860 strikes or workers protests have been recorded over the past 12 months, this according to the China Labor Bulletin, which monitors labour rights in China.
Department of Agriculture figures confirm a 23pc lift in the number of cows killed.

Beef factories have rejected calls from the ICMSA to amend their mandatory weight limits for cows and the associated penalties.

Cormac Healy of Meat Industry Ireland (MII) pointed out that the 272kg (600lb) cut-off weight has been a marketplace requirement for more than 25 years.

Our cow prices remain at the upper end of EU prices. However, under-finished or extreme dairy cross cows will always struggle in terms of meeting market specification and achieving a higher price, Mr Healy said.

The ICMSAs livestock chair, Des Morrison, accused the factories of hammering farmers on cow prices.

While 3/kg was being quoted for P-grade cows with flesh, cows under the 272kg weight limit had been heavily penalised, Mr Morrison pointed out.

Department of Agriculture data indicated that as low as 112c/kg had been paid recently for cows, he explained.

The penalties being imposed on some of these cows are completely beyond reason given the current circumstances. Loyal suppliers over many years are getting hammered on prices and in particular on the specifications, Mr Morrison said.

He also raised with me the question of the value of the fifth quarter. "I have questioned factory representatives on the value of the fifth quarter and the hide. I was given no information.

"If a cull cow made 500 last year in the factory and this year the same animal only brings 300, the question I have is has the value of the offal fallen as well as the value of the meat?"

The value of offal imports into China in 2016 was $3.3bn.
In a suburban Minneapolis laboratory, a tiny company that has never turned a profit is poised to beat the world's biggest agriculture firms to market with the next potential breakthrough in genetic engineering - a crop with "edited" DNA.

Calyxt Inc, an eight-year-old firm co-founded by a genetics professor, altered the genes of a soybean plant to produce healthier oil using the cutting-edge editing technique rather than conventional genetic modification.

Seventy-eight farmers planted those soybeans this spring across 17,000 acres in South Dakota and Minnesota, a crop expected to be the first gene-edited crop to sell commercially, beating out Fortune 500 companies.

Seed development giants such as Monsanto, Syngenta AG and DowDuPont Inc have dominated genetically modified crop technology that emerged in the 1990s. But they face a wider field of competition from start-ups and other smaller competitors because gene-edited crops have drastically lower development costs and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has decided not to regulate them.

Relatively unknown firms including Calyxt, Cibus, and Benson Hill Biosystems are already advancing their own gene-edited projects in a race against Big Ag for dominance of the potentially transformational technology.

"It's a very exciting time for such a young company," said Calyxt CEO Federico Tripodi, who oversees 45 people. "The fact a company so small and nimble can accomplish those things has picked up interest in the industry."

Gene-editing technology involves targeting specific genes in a single organism and disrupting those linked to undesirable characteristics or altering them to make a positive change. Traditional genetic modification, by contrast, involves transferring a gene from one kind of organism to another, a process that still does not have full consumer acceptance.

Gene-editing could mean bigger harvests of crops with a wide array of desirable traits - better-tasting tomatoes, low-gluten wheat, apples that don't turn brown, drought-resistant soybeans or potatoes better suited for cold storage. The advances could also double the $15 billion global biotechnology seed market within a decade, said analyst Nick Anderson of investment bank Berenberg.

The USDA has fielded 23 inquiries about whether gene-edited crops need regulation and decided that none meet its criteria for oversight. That saves their developers years of time and untold amounts of money compared to traditional genetically modified crops. Of those 23 organisms, just three were being developed by major agriculture firms.

The newly competitive landscape could foster more partnerships and licensing deals between big and small firms, along with universities or other public research institutions, said Monsanto spokeswoman Camille Lynne Scott. Monsanto - which was recently acquired by Bayer AG - invested $100 million in startup Pairwise Plants this year to accelerate development of gene-edited plants.

Expand Close Mature high-fiber wheat plants are grown in a Calyxt greenhouse in New Brighton, Minnesota, U.S.. Courtesy Calyxt/Handout via REUTERS. / Facebook

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Whatsapp Mature high-fiber wheat plants are grown in a Calyxt greenhouse in New Brighton, Minnesota, U.S.. Courtesy Calyxt/Handout via REUTERS.

North Carolina-based Benson Hill, founded in 2012 and named after two scientists, mainly licenses crop technology to other companies. But it decided to produce its own higher-yielding corn plant because of the low development costs, said Chief Executive Matt Crisp.

Calyxt plans to sell the oil from its gene-edited soybeans to food companies and has a dozen more gene-edited crops in the pipeline, including high-fibre wheat and potatoes that stay fresh longer.

Developing and marketing a traditional genetically modified crop might easily cost $150 million, which only a few large companies can afford, Crisp said. With gene-editing, that cost might fall as much as 90 percent, he said.

"We're seeing a huge number of organizations interested in gene-editing," Crisp said, referring to traditional crop-breeding companies, along with technology firms and food companies. "That speaks to the power of the technology and how we're at a pivotal point in time to modernize the food system."

UNCERTAIN REGULATORY, PUBLIC ACCEPTANCE

Supporters of gene-editing say it allows a higher level of precision than traditional modification.

With CRISPR, one popular type of gene-editing technology used by Syngenta, scientists transfer an RNA molecule and an enzyme into a crop cell. When the RNA encounters a targeted strand of DNA inside the cell, it binds to it and the enzyme creates a break in the cell's DNA. Then, the cell repairs the broken DNA in ways that disrupt or improve the gene.

Biotech firms hope the technology can avoid the "Frankenfood" label that critics have pinned on traditional genetically modified crops. But acceptance by regulators and the public globally remains uncertain.

The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on July 25 that gene-editing techniques are subject to regulations governing genetically modified crops.

The ruling will limit gene-editing in Europe to research and make it illegal to grow commercial crops. The German chemical industry association called the decision "hostile to progress."

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue blasted the ruling for enacting unnecessary barriers to innovation and stigmatizing gene-editing technology by subjecting it to the EU's "regressive and outdated" regulations governing genetically modified crops.

The USDA also has no current plans to regulate gene-editing in animal products, according to a document provided by the agency.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, however, plans to regulate gene-editing in both plants and animals, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb wrote in a June blog post. The agency is developing an "innovative and nimble" approach to regulating gene-editing, he wrote, that will aim to ensure its safety for both humans and animals while allowing companies to bring beneficial products to market.

The USDA, by contrast, chose not to regulate gene-edited crops because the process typically introduces characteristics that are "indistinguishable" from those created through traditional plant breeding, which take much longer, USDA Secretary Perdue said in a March statement.

Although there has been no widespread consumer resistance to gene-editing, activists who have long opposed genetically modified crops remain suspicious of any sort of tinkering with DNA. The new technique raises risks of creating undesired changes in the food supply and warrants increased regulation, said Lucy Sharratt, coordinator of the Canadian Biotechnology Action Network.

That kind of opposition is why agribusiness giant Cargill Inc is pursuing gene-edited technology with caution, said Randal Giroux, the firm's vice-president of food safety, quality and regulatory affairs.

Cargill announced in February that it would collaborate with Precision BioSciences to develop healthier canola oil, but is proceeding slowly on agreements to store and transport other companies' gene-edited crops pending clarity from regulators, Giroux said.

"We really do want to see gene-editing evolve in the marketplace," Giroux said. "Were watching to see how consumers adopt these products and react to these products."

SECRET FIELD-TESTING

Other major agriculture biotech firms are moving more aggressively, hoping to take advantage of lighter regulation to speed development.

A gene-edited crop may take five years to move from development to commercialization in the United States, compared with a genetically modified crop that could take 12 years, said Dan Dyer, head of seeds development at Syngenta.

The firm is working on better-tasting tomatoes that take longer to spoil and hopes to launch a gene-edited crop in the mid-2020s, said Jeff Rowe, Syngenta's president of global seeds.

DowDuPont - at a secret location in the U.S. Midwest - is field-testing waxy corn, a variety grown for industrial purposes that has been edited for higher yields. The company plans a commercial launch next spring.

Smaller firms will be nipping at the heels of these massive companies in the race to bring the next generation of genetically engineered foods to market, said Robert Wager, a biology faculty member at Vancouver Island University.

"The lack of USDA-regulated status is a huge game-changer," he said, "for universities and small startups to enter the market."
Valeo Foods, the Irish food business owned by Seamus Fitzpatrick's CapVest, is buying a UK confectionery business for more than 100m (112m).

The purchase of Tangerine Confectionery will see famous sweet brands like Dip Dab, Fruit Salad and Blackjack come under Valeo's control.

It already has Fox's Glacier Mints and Poppets in its portfolio after buying a confectionery business called Big Bear from Finnish company Raisio.

Sky News, which reported the Valeo-Tangerine deal, said it was likely that the Big Bear and Tangerine businesses would be combined.

The seller of Tangerine is private equity giant Blackstone. Valeo declined to comment.

The deal will bring Valeo's annual revenues up to some 900m. The company owns food brands across Europe, with Balconi in Italy in its portfolio alongside, Odlums, Batchelors, Kelkin, Robert Roberts and others.

CapVest has a majority stake in the business via a fund it manages known as CapVest Fund II. That fund also had CapVest's interest in the Mater Private which was recently sold to Infravia. CapVest is currently raising a fourth fund known as Fund IV for which it is looking to raise in the region of 1bn. It has reportedly attracted a number of US pension funds to the table for that fund. Its investment strategy has typically focused on so-called non-discretionary sectors like food and healthcare. The idea is that these are areas for which there will always be demand because of the nature of the products.

Mr Fitzpatrick recently executed a deal whereby investors in Fund II were offered the chance to sell their interests to US private equity business. Investors were being offered the chance to roll their interests over into a new vehicle, designed to maximise the value of the fund's remaining assets - the Mater stake which has now been sold, and the Valeo stake.

Other companies in Mayfair-based CapVest's past or present portfolio include Punch Taverns, pork producer Karro, and coffee distributor United Coffee.

Belturbet man Mr Fitzpatrick was ranked 144th on the 'Sunday Independent' 2018 Rich List, with a fortune of 107m.
Irish tech workers are speaking out about the chaotic scramble for accommodation in Dublin, with young executives saying it's a drawback to living and creating jobs in the capital.

"Finding housing here is probably the hardest I've ever experienced anywhere," said Austin Spivey, who moved to Dublin from the US in recent months to take up a job as head of operations with Wia, a startup that specialises in connecting devices to the 'internet of things'.

"I lived in the heart of Manhattan and San Francisco and I've never experienced something so difficult. You can't even begin to explain how difficult it actually is."

A recent report from the listings website Daft.ie claimed that average monthly apartment rents in Dublin are now nearing 2,000, rising by 12.4pc in the last year.

While thousands are looking for somewhere to rent property, there are just over 1,000 properties in the capital available.

Recent data from the Docklands Residential Report 2018, published by the Owen Reilly agency, suggest that almost half of the tenants renting in Dublin's Silicon Docks locality are tech professionals employed by companies like Google, Facebook, Airbnb and LinkedIn. The combination of a surge in growth from the big tech companies and a crunch in supply of residential accommodation has created huge difficulties for workers trying to live anywhere close to the city centre.

"You basically show up and there'll be 50 people looking at the apartment at the same time," said Ms Spivey.

"You just keep going further and further out. So you end up compromising on things you normally wouldn't have compromised on because there's such a shortage of places available." According to the Docklands Residential Report, an apartment in the Silicon Docks region typical rents for a premium of about 70pc over the average rental cost across Dublin.

"The rent is very, very high," said Ms Spivey. "It's comparable, if not slightly, more than San Francisco, which is pretty crazy."

A recent report from the Dublin recruitment company Prosperity suggested that some skilled tech workers from abroad are avoiding job offers from Dublin because of the low availability and high cost of rental accommodation here.

For more, tune in to The Big Tech Show podcast at independent.ie/podcasts.
Half of Irish people think that smartphone batteries are woefully inadequate, according to new research.

A nationwide survey by phone manufacturer Huawei shows that 48pc of us now bring around charging cables to give our phones a jump during the day, while one in 10 admits to buying a coffee just so they can use a cafe's charging socket.

One in eight of us has to recharge our handsets up to three times a day, with so-called "all day" batteries on smartphones proving to be a lie.

Young women fear running out of juice most, according to the research, with almost two-thirds of female adults under 35 bringing a cable or portable charger around with them.

However, a third of us have learned how to stave off battery drains, turning off apps, Bluetooth and other power-sapping activities to preserve vital energy.

While more of us are complaining about poor battery life in our smartphones, handset manufacturers reply that it's down to increased use of video apps such as Netflix and YouTube.

Almost half of Irish people told researchers that they ideally want a phone that can last for 24 hours "of continual use". Phone companies are starting to load bigger batteries into their devices, with Huawei, Samsung and Motorola all releasing new models with giant power supplies this year.

The news comes ahead of Apple launching its new range of iPhones in early September.

The giant company, which recently surpassed a $1 trillion valuation, is said to be preparing three new flagship models, including a phone with a screen more than six inches in size.

This week, Samsung suffered embarrassment in Ireland when local mobile operators turned down the premium version of its new flagship phone, the Note 9, claiming it was too expensive at 1,279.

The Korean giant is trying to resurrect the Note phone brand after the fires that resulted in the removal of the Note 7 from Irish shops.
Rene Le Bail, commercial director of Vindigo, Mediterranean chardonnay wine, poses with bottles of the wine on the beach in Sete, France REUTERS/Antony Paone

A glass of Vindigo, Mediterranean chardonnay wine, is seen at a beachfront restaurant in Sete, France REUTERS/Antony Paone

A glass of blue, sir?

It is a question that may dismay purist winemakers in France, where wine is a way of life rather than simply a drink, but in the southern town of Sete consumers cannot get enough.

In the Mediterranean resort's restaurants and beach bars, holidaymakers and local residents have drunk their way through the first 2,000-bottle consignment of the turquoise-coloured chardonnay.

Now Rene Le Bail, the entrepreneur marketing the Spanish-made wine, has put in an order for 600,000 bottles.

"It reminds me of something, I'm not sure which fruit but it makes me think of, I don't know, maybe sweets from my childhood," said a diner who identified himself as Frederic.

"I love the colour, it's perfect for the summer. It brings happiness, joy, I really like it," said Nora, a tourist from Singapore while drinking in a beachfront restaurant.

The wine is filtered through a pulp of red grape skins which contain a natural pigment, anthocyanin, and gives the wine its electric blue colour.

Le Bail turned to a vineyard in Spain's southern Almeria region to find a blue wine that he says boasts aromas of cherry, raspberry and passion fruit.

It is not the first blue wine to come out of Spain. In 2016, Spanish startup Gik developed a wine with a deep sapphire hue. But because of its "vin bleu" label, it ran afoul of strict French labelling rules and suffered a short shelf-life in stores.

The entrepreneur has sidestepped the regulations with some clever naming, labelling the 12 euro bottles: 'Vindigo'.

"I think 600,000 bottles will go in two months. Everybody wants it," Le Bail told Reuters.

Le Bail says he has been inundated with orders from across France, Belgium and Germany on the wine's Facebook page and says demand for the wine stretches as far as Russia, the Caribbean and China.

"We've said no to all the big supermarkets. We want in France to sell the wine through small-scale wine merchants and grocers," he said.

In a country where rose wine was for decades seen as a poor cousin to red and white before becoming fashionable in recent years, not everyone shares Le Bail's conviction that blue wine is here to last.

"It's a bit heavy in its aromas," said Philippe Delran, a bespectacled wine merchant in Sete who raised his eyebrows in thinly-concealed displeasure on judging the wine's bouquet. "It needs more work."
The Sundance Kid, it seems, is about to ride off into the sunset. Earlier this week, Robert Redford announced that, although one should "never say never", his upcoming role in David Lowery's crime caper The Old Man and the Gun will almost certainly be his last screen appearance. If so, it brings to an end a 58-year acting career full of unforgettable highlights.

After teaming up with his great friend Paul Newman on the 1969 revisionist western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, he starred in hits like The Sting, The Way We Were, Three Days of the Condor, All the President's Men, The Natural and Out of Africa. But Redford wasn't merely an actor: he used his star power to branch out first into film production, then direction, and became a vocal supporter of unfashionable causes like the environment and native American rights - he remains a passionate environmental and human rights activist to this day.

He also named a new film festival after his most famous character, and Sundance has become a vital showcase for independent American cinema, kick-starting the film careers of Steven Soderbergh and many more.

Calm, collected, impossibly handsome, he was one of the most famous faces of the 1970s: he seemed to glow gold, and was far more beautiful than any of his unfortunate female co-stars. But his distaste for fame was evident from the start, and throughout his career he has maintained an almost Garbo-esque air of mystery: getting close to Robert Redford is not easy, and his private life has always been jealously guarded.

Though he and his first wife divorced in the mid-80s, the press only found out a decade later. He has succeeded in doing what few have managed: working successfully in Hollywood while avoiding all the attendant nonsense.

He was born, though, just down the road from Tinseltown in Santa Monica on August 18, 1937. Charles Robert Redford Jr was the only child of a doting but sickly mother and a hard-working, emotionally absent father. Redford has Irish heritage on both sides and it's to this he attributes a wild and rebellious streak.

He would later recall visiting his Massachusetts grandmother Lena as a small boy, and listening to her "rambling on in a strange Irish accent, telling ominous tales of the old country - I couldn't wait to get out of there". He was more at home with his maternal grandfather, a frontiersman who engendered in Redford an abiding love of the great outdoors.

He fell in love with movies very young, saw Bambi 23 times and once crept off his mother's knee in a Santa Monica cinema in order to reach the magical source of light - a handy metaphor for his adult life if ever there was one. Initially, though, he struggled to find a place in the world, and briefly toyed with a career in crime.

After running for a time with some LA street gangs and stealing a few cars, the late teenage Redford fled to Europe to study painting - his first love - and drifted between Paris, Rome and the south of France. It was acting that finally gave him a sense of purpose, and while studying drama in New York he was spotted by an agent and was soon getting regular stage and TV work. Like his near contemporaries Gene Hackman and Clint Eastwood, Redford was one of a new generation of film actors who learnt the roles on television.

His first real breakthrough, though, came courtesy of the stage and a Neil Simon play called Barefoot in the Park: he starred in the hit Broadway production and subsequently with Jane Fonda in a Hollywood adaptation.

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His casting opposite Paul Newman in George Roy Hill's hugely popular comic western Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid in 1969 turned him into a superstar. "It was Paul who made the decision," Redford said later. "I will always be indebted to him for that - taking a chance on a comparative unknown."

Presented with stardom, Redford proved a most astute manager of his own career. He set up his own production company as early as 1969, and thereafter chose his movies carefully. He was never afraid to turn down roles, and throughout his career said no to huge projects - from Superman and The Godfather to Barry Lyndon to Apocalypse Now - for which he instinctively felt he'd be wrong.

Redford could have traded on his looks and ridden high on the hog for at least the next decade as Hollywood's uncontested leading man. But he had other ideas.

Determined not to be typecast as a matinee dummy, he began alternating his big budget roles with films closer to his environmental and political passions, like 1972's Jeremiah Johnson, and also from that year, the election satire The Candidate. And as the 70s wore on, he began to tire of the formulaic vehicles that Hollywood was offering him, and increasingly turned his back on acting to concentrate on other projects.

As soon as he could afford it, Redford purchased a piece of land in the wilds of Utah in the shadow of the formidable Wasatch mountain range. He built an impressive modernist house there, and took pleasure in the fact that it was cut off by snow for months on end. Provo Canyon would become his and his family's rural retreat, and his bastion from the madness of Hollywood.

He'd married Lola Van Wagenen in 1958, and they had four children together: one, a son Scott, died in infancy. After he and Van Wagenen divorced in 1985, he was briefly linked with the Brazilian actress Sonia Braga, but in 1996 began dating Sibylle Szaggars (above), an artist 19 years his junior. They married in 2009.

He may not be a great, showy method actor like De Niro or Pacino, but Robert Redford is a wonderfully natural one, and his talent is often underrated. He was at his very best in Alan J Pakula's All the President's Men, playing Washington Post journalist Bob Woodward, whose dogged reporting helped end the Nixon presidency. He turned to direction in the late 70s, and found instant success with Ordinary People (1980) which won Best Picture and Best Director Oscars.

Through the 80s he continued acting, but intermittently and with dwindling conviction, in such bland fare as schmaltzy court comedy Legal Eagles (1986), and opposite Meryl Streep in Sydney Pollack's handsome but vacuous adaptation of Karen Blixen's novel Out of Africa (1985).

Though his performances were never less than competent, one suspected he was doing it for the money - but only in the best sense, as he seemed to plough most of it back into his directorial work.

As a director, Redford only committed to stories he really believed in. His thoughtful and well made study of land corruption in New Mexico, The Milagro Beanfield War (1988) received muted but respectful notices, as did the meditative A River Runs Through It (1992), which starred the director's youthful doppleganger Brad Pitt.

But Redford really excelled himself with 1994's Quiz Show, a superb evocation of American television in the 50s, which should have won best film at the Oscars that year but lost out to the overrated Forrest Gump.

He's never won an acting Oscar either, but after staying mostly behind the camera in the 90s and early 2000s, has given some of his most impressive turns in recent years, particularly in JC Chandor's brutal seafaring epic, All Is Lost. So his last performance in The Old Man and the Gun, will be something for film lovers everywhere to savour.
A criminal who has close links to the Hutch mob is selling drug-infused cakes online

A criminal who has close links to the Hutch mob is using social media to sell space cakes and other homemade products laced with cannabis herb, Independent.ie can reveal

In bizarre scenes, the Finglas man has been spotted at a number of north Dublin supermarkets in recent weeks buying large amounts of eggs and bags of flour and sugar which it is suspected are used to make space cakes.

The baker, who is in his 30s, was a very close associate of Shane Fowler (32) who died after crashing a motorcycle into a pole on Dunsink Avenue on the Sunday of the May bank holiday weekend.

BULK

Sources have told Independent.ie that the cake dealer uses a number of different supermarkets in an attempt not to attract attention, but locals have seen him buying the baking materials in bulk on a number of occasions in recent months.

Last week he was spotted leaving a Finglas store with bags full of baking material.

He must have bought about five bags of flour and at least four dozen eggs as well as a few bags of sugar. Hes often observed buying this stuff, a source revealed.

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It is understood that the man then goes back to his Finglas home where a selection of weed muffins, cakes, cookies and chocolates are made, according to a social media page in which his products are advertised.

This fella seems to have been in this business for around a year, a source said.

He started off selling small bottles of cannabis oil which he was selling for 50 each but then quickly moved into the cake business as well.

A lot of his customers seem to be females and people who dont smoke, so theyd have no interest in smoking cannabis joints but do have an interest in getting stoned.

It seems that some of his other customers are people who suffer from pain due to illness or ailments and they use the cannabis oil or eat the cakes for pain relief.

Theres no doubt that he has got a good little business going on, and even though there are plenty of people in his locality aware of what hes doing, he has also set up a social media page in which he dis plays some of his products.

Among the space cakes on display on the mans social media site are THC-infused caramel brownies, THC-infused Oreo doughnuts and THC-infused orange, lemon and hazelnut chocolates.

Also displayed is what appears to be an elaborately made 21st birthday cake and a chocolate and lemon swirl cake.

Prosecutions in relation to possession of cannabis cakes are rare in Ireland, but in December 2011 a Galway man was charged after he was caught with 18 slices of cake at the Rory Gallagher Music Festival in Ballyshannon, Co Donegal, which he was selling for 4 each.

When the man appeared in the local district court on drug dealing charges, Judge Kevin Kilrane asked: Who bakes them or where can we get them?

The mans solicitor told Ballyshannon District Court that a speck of cannabis was added to the cake, which was baked like a bun.

The content is very, very low, the solicitor said.

Independent.ie can reveal that the Finglas criminal involved in the space cake enterprise is closely associated with a number of Hutch gang-aligned criminals who have been feuding with the mob led by cartel-aligned drug dealer Mr Flashy, resulting in numerous violent incidents over the past year.

The death of his close associate Fowler (32) in early May increased tensions throughout gangland after gardai received intelligence that Mr Flashys crew could target a pub where his family members gathered after the funeral mass on May 11.

FLEEING

He was taken to James Connolly Memorial Hospital where he was treated for serious neck injuries. However, he was pronounced dead a short time later.

Immediately after the fatal crash, a firearm was discovered as paramedics from the Dublin Fire Brigade (DFB) were treating Fowler at the scene.

However, before gardai arrived, an unknown man emerged from the crowd that had formed and picked up the handgun before fleeing.

Despite multiple searches, gardai have not recovered the weapon.

A senior source said there was absolutely no intelligence or credibility to suggest that Fowler was on his way to murder Mr Flashy.
Rome (AsiaNews)  Pope Francis spoke to thousands of young people taking part in Per mille strade (Along a thousand roads), a prayer meeting promoted by the Catholic Bishops Conference of Italy in preparation of the Synod of Bishops next October.

In his message, the pontiff said not to let anyone steal your dreams because they are the most important, the brightest stars, those that show a different path for humanity.

Some 60,000 to 70,000 young people joyfully invaded Romes Circus Maximus. The Holy Father mingled with them, answering questions from four of them, on the meaning of life, choices, the future, and love.

"Dear young people, Francis said, you have in your heart the shining stars that are your dreams: they are your responsibility and your treasure. Make sure they are your future as well! This takes courage, against resistance and difficulties. Of course, dreams must be grown, purified, tested and shared. Have you ever wondered where your dreams come from? Are they born watching television? Listening to a friend? Daydreaming? Are they big or small dreams, miserable dreams that are satisfied with as little as possible? Dreams of comfort, dreams of well-being, of tranquillity. Dreams that put young people to sleep. Youth, without dreams, who retire.

The Bible tells us that big dreams are those that can be fruitful, sowing peace and brotherhood, like today. These dreams are big because they think of everyone with an US. [. . .] The opposite of me is us. True dreams are dreams about us. [. . .] Big dreams include, involve, are extroverted, share, generate new life. Big dreams, in order to remain so, need an inexhaustible source of hope, an Infinity which blows in and expands them. Big dreams need God in order not to become mirages or delusion of being all powerful.

"Everyone's freedom is a great gift, which does not allow half measures, Francis noted. Love comes when it wants. Love is not a profession; love is life. This is why I ask parents to help love mature. In life love, true love, always comes first. [. . .] Love does not tolerate half measures. It must be sincere, open, courageous. At the end, the Bible says that God created them [humans] in his image and likeness and created them male and female. And what is the task of the wife, but to help her husband grow as a man and that of her husband is to help his wife grow as a woman."

"The dreams of young people are a little scary to adults. Perhaps because they have stopped dreaming and taking risks; perhaps because your dreams undermine their choices of life. Dreams that lead to criticism. But let no one steal your dreams. [. ..] Look for good teachers who can help you understand them and make them real, gradually and peacefully. As for yourselves, be good teachers, teachers of hope and trust in the new generations coming up behind you. What you have received for free, put it back in circulation, return it enriched with your passion and intelligence. Settling down to comfort is a trap. Boys and girls, take a risk. Life is not a lottery in which only the lucky ones can realise their dreams. Life is a challenge in which you really win if you win together, if you do not crush others, if you do not exclude anyone."

Finally, the Church "is not only the pope, the bishops, the priests, but all the baptised, and each one is invited to make it richer in love, more capable of communion, less attached to earthly things. If you, young people do not participate in the life of the Church, if you do not take up the message of the Gospel, the Church becomes poorer, loses vitality! The Churchs beauty and authenticity also depend on you. You do not lack the tools for listening and understanding the good words of the Gospel. It is certainly up to you to find the time, letting yourselves get involved in such wisdom, full of sweetness and light, but also the most subversive that exists. We can only believe by believing, just as we can only love by loving.

What is the secret? Prayer. It is the dialogue with the Father that gives breath to mind and heart. It is in prayer that your questions and pleas will find the right words to rise to heaven. Then, even faced with evil, pain and death, you will have the strength in the Holy Spirit to welcome the mystery of life and not lose hope.

"Dear friends, you have set out on your journey and have come to this meeting, and now my joy is to feel your hearts beating with love for Jesus, like those of Mary Magdalene, Peter, and John. Because you are young, I, like Peter, am happy to see you running faster, and like John, driven by the impulse of your heart, sensitive to the voice of the Spirit that animates your dreams. For this reason, I tell you: do not be satisfied with the cautious step of those who queue at the end of the line. It takes courage to risk a leap forward, a bold and daring leap to dream and realise, like Jesus, the Kingdom of God, and work for more fraternal humanity.
Martin 'The Viper Foley' and inset, a photo of the tense stand-off

VETERAN criminal Martin The Viper Foley was involved in a tense stand-off with gardai as they carried out a major arrest operation close to his Crumlin home this week.

Our photos show The Viper who was clad in biker gear  remonstrating with officers who sources say felt intimida ted by his presence at the scene.

Despite numerous attempts by Independent.ie to contact Foley in the aftermath of the melee, he did not return our phone calls.

The Viper was not directly involved in the major public order incident and there are no plans to arrest him in relation to it, according to senior sources.

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These are the first images of Foley (68) since he was spotted driving a white van and chatting to a number of men outside a north inner city pub in which the Kinahan cartel had previously plotted to murder a Hutch gang-linked criminal last year.

Exact details of Wednesday nights arrest operation cannot be outlined for legal reasons but more than a dozen officers were involved in the arrest of a man who is well known to Foley.

This suspect has been brought before the courts and remanded in custody.

He was charged with numerous offences and is expected to be charged in relation to even more serious offences in the coming weeks.

While gardai described Wednesday nights incident as serious and disturbing , they also pointed out that the vast majority of people who live in the locality where it happened are decent and law-abiding.

The same cannot be said of Foley, who is one of Irelands best known criminals but also a fitness fanatic who loves participating

in yoga and other health-conscious activities.

The Viper has more than 40 convictions, including for assault, robbery and possession of threatening weapons, but has not been charged with a criminal offence for many years.

Foley has links to both factions in the brutal Hutch/Kinahan feud.

In the aftermath of the Regency Hotel bloodbath in 2016, gardai issued him with an official Information Message form (GIM), warning him of an active threat to his life.

However, there have been no major issues with Foley since then and no attempts to murder him.
A recent finding that more than half (53pc) of boys first saw porn between the ages of 10 and 13, and others even earlier, gives a good idea of when childhood innocence on matters of sex comes to an end. The figure for 10 to 13-year-old girls was 23pc, but they catch up quickly.

They are, says Dr Siobhan O'Higgins, of NUI Galway's School of Psychology, "curious and confused" and it is a time when they are searching for answers.

So, shocking though some parents may find it, she says if children of those ages have questions about issues such as oral sex or masturbation then they should be having them with a trusted adult.

"This is a new generation," says Dr O'Higgins. Puberty is starting earlier, so hormones are very active. By the age of 10-11, many children have had a smartphone for a few years, with access to all sorts of content, they have watched "sexy" music videos, because that is the nature of a lot of music videos.

Dr O'Higgins is one of the authors of the report on sexual consent, published by NUI Galway earlier this week, which painted a worrying picture about most college students not being well prepared for managing the sexual decision-making scenarios likely to arise when they get to college.

It found they were generally dissatisfied with the sex education they got in school, that sexual harassment is a big problem in college and that a lack of understanding about how alcohol - for which the Irish have a fondness - can cloud perceptions around sexual consent.

With a school sex education programme that dates back 20 years, and many teachers uncomfortable or unwilling even to deliver the basics, it is little wonder that 18 to 19-year-olds are leaving school badly equipped to navigate the natural, but often tricky, world of relationships and sex.

A review of sex education at both primary and post-primary level is now under way, with a big focus on consent.

Dr O'Higgins has a lot of experience of talking about these issues with 10 to 12-year-olds, as well as teenagers, through her work with the West of Ireland Sex Education Resource (WISER) programme, an initiative of the voluntary organisation, Aids West, partially funded by the HSE in the West, which is available to schools at both primary (fifth and sixth class) and post-primary level.

The initiative to invite WISER in may come from parents, or the school itself and, at primary level, it meets parents first "to discuss what they think is appropriate for their children to learn about".

Then, at the workshops "we are led by the pupils. If we don't answer their questions, they will find the answer on the internet.

"They are aware of sex, but they are confused and curious."

The terrain covered will depend on the questions and how many workshops they have, but may include topics such as puberty, how the body works, proper names of body parts, 'what goes where', conception, contraception, sexuality, orientation, masturbation, pornography and what it is like to be a teenager.

At the end of a workshop, the children put an anonymous question into a hat and the questions and answers are sent to parents before the next session, "so they know what we are talking about and they can continue the conversation, if they want to".

She says some questions may be about "blow jobs" and a parent could choose to say to their child "I hear you had RSE (relationships and sex education) and were talking about oral sex. How do you feel about that?"

Dr O'Higgins says open and honest conversations about relationships and sex is where the groundwork is laid for the decision-making later on. At its heart, she says, it is about "being able to form a meaningful relationship with another human being, about trust, about knowing when it is OK to go further and understanding about not being pushed, as you grow into a sexual being. If you talk to people before they are put into a situation, and discuss 'what would I do', and four years later are in that situation, they are empowered".
FAMILIES are being squeezed out of the housing market as investors snap up thousands of homes, fuelling rental and price hikes.

The Government has been accused of failing to tackle the housing crisis as it emerged that a State-controlled prime housing site in the capital is being pitched for sale as a significant opportunity to develop more than 400 private rental units, which are expected to command high rents.

It comes after harrowing pictures this week showed a family forced to sleep in a Garda station due to a lack of suitable accommodation. Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy came under fire for his failure to tackle the spiralling issue.

Now new figures show how investors are ramping up spending in the market, shelling out more than 1.2bn last year alone on 4,745 homes as the crisis deepens. Homes under construction are also being bought before being offered for sale on the open market, with investors engaging in bidding wars to secure properties and land, often at the expense of the not-for-profit sector.

Housing charity Threshold warned that families on good incomes were now at risk of homelessness as they were forced to spend up to 50pc of their take-home pay on rent.

It comes as it emerged that one of the last major development sites in the Dublin Docklands is being touted as a significant opportunity to develop private rental homes.

Estate agents, acting on behalf of receivers appointed by Nama, say the one-hectare site with planning permission for 420 homes represents a significant opportunity to develop a dedicated private rental scheme. An adjoining site for commercial development is also available, and the sales brochure notes that residential rents are expected to increase until at least early 2020.

Nama defended the sale, saying receivers it appointed were required to maximise the value of the assets owned by its debtors, adding it had funded more than 7,000 new homes since 2014 with a target to develop 20,000 by 2020.

These sales are consistent with the receivers legal requirements and Namas legal requirement to maximise the value of the loans it acquired, a spokesman said. On completion, these residential units will add to the supply of new housing in Dublin, which will be positive for people seeking to buy or rent a home.

But new figures highlight how institutional investors have ramped up spending in the housing market since 2010 as families remain locked out. Just over 16,100 homes were purchased to the end of 2017 at a total cost of more than 3.6bn. Of these, 4,433 were new units.

In contrast, chair of housing charity Threshold Aideen Hayden said the Government was not making enough effort to provide affordable homes.

Very few (units) are coming into the market at anything less than extortionate rents, she said. Legislation should be changed so these investors cannot take advantage of the severe housing shortage.

We see people on good incomes spending more than 40pc and 50pc of their income on rent, and are at risk of homelessness. Were not seeing enough effort on the Governments part to bring forward affordable rental and purchase schemes.

The Department of Housing defended the public housing programme, saying 2,000 hectares of residential land was in public ownership which would deliver 42,500 social and affordable units.

Some 930 developments covering nearly 15,000 new homes were in the development process, and affordable purchase and cost rental schemes were being developed in Dublin and other areas of high demand.

Asked if sales of landbanks and investor activity were in contrast to Government policy to promote home ownership, the Department of Finance said Nama operated in accordance to its statutory commercial mandate to achieve the best return for the State from the loans it had acquired, and was an independent agency.

The Minister for Finance has no role in respect of Namas commercial operations or decisions, including the development or sale of sites that are secured against Nama loans. t said.

But Sinn Fein housing spokesman Eoin O Broin said the Government had a deliberate policy of incentivising large-scale institutional investors through a series of tax breaks. Theres no meaningful supply of affordable rental property and its crowding first-time buyers and downsizers out of the market.

There is a need for an urgent review. The first thing is to close all those deliberately designed tax incentives for institutional investors. The second is incentivising supply with guaranteed affordability. The current Government is in office for seven years. It inherited an appalling mess but this crisis is a direct consequence of tax structures. This is its responsibility.
GardaI believe they have smashed an Eastern European criminal gang involved in the suspected skimming of ATMs from eight bank branches in three counties.

Gardai in Kildare, with the assistance of the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau, swooped on a location in Blanchardstown in Dublin yesterday where they found skimming devices and credit cards.

Two men in their 30s were arrested at the scene and are being held at Newbridge and Kildare Garda stations under Section 4 of the Criminal Justice Act.

The arrests came after gardai worked closely with a "major Irish financial institution in an attempt to intercept the criminals involved", gardai said in a statement last night.

"It is thought that these criminals form part of an Eastern European criminal organisation and the arrests are seen as a significant development in this case which involved the targeting of eight different bank branches in Dublin, Kildare and Meath."

Detective Chief Superintendent Patrick Lordan, of the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau, said: "Gardai are working on a daily basis with the financial institutions to prevent fraud. I would again like to stress the importance of being vigilant in all your financial dealings. Pay particular attention to suspicious activity or unusual items in the vicinity of ATMs."

Meanwhile, gardai seized 270,000 in 50 notes after a detailed search operation targeting a suspected major drug dealer in Co Louth.

The cash was concealed in a premises and rolled up into bundles of 10,000 each. Also recovered was a quantity of cocaine with an estimated street value of between 5,000 and 10,000.

The operation followed a lengthy investigation by Drogheda gardai into the activities of an organised crime gang suspected of being involved in drug trafficking in the north-east of the country. Officers from the crime unit and detective unit at Drogheda, Co Louth, backed up by members of the armed support unit, carried out a series of searches in buildings in the Mell area of the town on Thursday afternoon.

Inquiries into the finds were continuing last night, under Chief Superintendent Christy Mangan, as officers extended their investigation into the gang and a rival outfit.

But no immediate arrests were made. The cash and cocaine were taken away for forensic examination. Officers said they were satisfied that the seized money was the proceeds of crime and that their operation had dealt a serious financial blow to the targeted gang.
It is hard to overstate the public health fears generated by the threat of swine flu in 2009.

The world had been bracing itself for a flu pandemic for years and the prospect of a flu that 'jumped species' seemed to pose a particularly lethal threat.

TV and newspaper reports invariably included references to the dreaded Spanish flu of 1918, a form of the H1N1 virus which struck just as the world was recovering from the carnage of World War I. It infected roughly 500 million people and killed somewhere between 50 million and 70 million, 3pc of the world's population.

Public and State fears about swine flu were understandable.In 2009, the race was on to develop a vaccine to protect the world against swine flu or a H1N1 virus that jumped species from animals to humans.

GlaxoSmithKline had such a vaccine in the pipeline, Pandemrix. The problem was that it wasn't fully tested. As it was subsequently offered for use, the Irish public was never told it had not completed the normal exhaustive medical trials.

To fast-track it into service in 2009, Ireland - like many other European countries - granted GSK the full indemnity the firm insisted upon. If there was a future problem or side-effect from Pandemrix, it would be the taxpayer who footed the bill.

The vaccination programme began in autumn 2009 and was stopped in March 2010, when the swine flu pandemic predicted by the World Health Organisation failed to materialise.

Ireland secured roughly eight million doses at a reported cost of 80m. However, as early as 2009, there were concerns about Pandemrix. The then Irish Medicines Board wrote to the Health Service Executive (HSE) querying the lack of data on such swine flu vaccines.

In Germany, where Pandemrix was made, the vaccine was offered to the general public. But members of the German government, civil service and military received a second, different vaccine. 'Der Spiegel' revealed this was on the basis the second vaccine was deemed to have a lower risk of side-effects.

Back in Ireland, unused Pandemrix stocks were kept in HSE storage in 2010. Then, in January 2011, when there was a threatened shortfall of the normal winter flu vaccine, the decision was taken to re-issue Pandemrix. From January 7, stocks were sent to two-thirds of all Irish GPs and clinics.

Then, on March 28, 2011, Pandemrix was recalled after the HSE cited studies in Finland and Sweden which highlighted fears the vaccine could be linked to narcolepsy cases being reported in young people.

Pointedly, the Finnish and Swedish studies were launched in August 2010, five months earlier, amid mounting concern over a spike in narcolepsy cases.

To compound the problem in Ireland, not all GP practices - slightly less than half - opted to use the HSE drug disposal system and instead used their own waste disposal services.

That meant it was difficult, if not impossible, for the HSE to later calculate how many doses had been administered over the three-month period.

Despite HSE claims it was likely no one received the Pandemrix jab because winter flu stocks didn't run short, the Irish Independent discovered the vaccine was, in fact, used in 2011.

One of those who received Pandemrix in January 2011 was Emily (10). The youngster had also received Pandemrix in 2009 at the height of the swine flu fears. She now battles chronic narcolepsy.

"She can fall asleep talking to us, eating her dinner or while studying in school. She can even fall asleep standing up," explained her mother, Mary.

Emily also has cataplexy, a condition often associated with type one narcolepsy. If she gets excited or emotional, Emily can suffer an effective nervous and physiological shutdown - she can freeze and become immobile. Emily cannot move despite being able to hear everything that goes on around her.

Her problems are exacerbated by disrupted sleep patterns, resulting in terrifying dreams so realistic Emily can believe they are actually occurring.

Emily is just one of around 100 Irish children and young adults who developed narcolepsy having received Pandemrix.

To date, the Government has contested all compensation or support claims, insisting there is no link between the vaccine and narcolepsy. As one legal firm, Augustus Cullen Law, pointed out, this State position is despite multiple international studies - including a medical report by Irish experts in 2012 - which draws a link between Pandemrix and narcolepsy.

Sound (Sufferers of Unique Narcolepsy Disorder) warned the Government has a moral duty to accept its duty of care. "We accept the State acted with the best of intentions in 2009," Sound co-founder Tom Matthews said. "But the State has a duty of care to these children and young adults - it has an obligation and a moral duty to support them as they try to address these challenges in their lives."

GSK has declined to comment, given ongoing legal issues.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he needs an update. "Last time I studied that topic and got a briefing, my understanding was there wasn't sufficient epidemiological evidence to show that vaccine caused the harms that were claimed," he said in June.

Supporters of narcolepsy sufferers are clear about what should happen next.

Marc MacSharry has demanded the Taoiseach and Health Minister Simon Harris order the State Claims Agency to immediately cease its defence of such vaccine compensation actions. Some 2m has already been spent simply handling legal document disclosures in respect of claimants. The Sligo TD said mediation talks should be offered and, if necessary, a redress scheme considered.

Those in Sound simply want a nine-year nightmare to end - and for the State to fulfil its duty of care to some of its most vulnerable citizens.
Communications Minister Denis Naughten told Facebook he was "appalled" by an undercover report into the company - especially because he had publicly defended the social media giant on several occasions.

Minutes of a meeting held between the minister and representatives of the company, including Facebook's head of public policy, Niamh Sweeney, show Mr Naughten demanded a "significant step change" from Facebook.

The meeting was held in New York just days after a Channel 4 'Dispatches' programme revealed a chaotic system of moderating harmful and illegal content on Facebook.

At the meeting, Mr Naughten told Facebook of his disgust that content flagged as inappropriate was not being taken down and was actually being used for training purposes. "This sort of content shouldn't go up on the platform in the first instance, the system broke down on this occasion," he said.

He added: "I am appalled at the reports I have (regarding) the 'Dispatches' programme. Especially as an advocate of child protection and as someone who has defended Facebook publicly on a number of occasions. This is the second time Niamh Sweeney has come in front of me to apologise."

He informed Facebook that retraining and reviews were not enough and that he needed "significant measures" as a result of the broadcast.

In response, the company told him it had 7,500 content reviewers but admitted it was "difficult to train" them all after doubling the size of its team in only 12 months.

An account of the meeting - obtained under Freedom of Information - reported Facebook said it made "no business sense" to allow inappropriate content as advertisers did not want to be associated with it.

Mr Naughten said: "Colleagues across the EU are going to ask me about this. What significant changes are Facebook going to make so this never happens again?"

Facebook's Ms Sweeney was reported to have told the minister that this has not been "a moment of... greatness". The company said it was monitored by the EU Commission.
Julian Myerscough was found him guilty of downloading indecent images of children Photo credit: Suffolk Police/PA Wire

A former law lecturer who went on the run from a court in England before a jury found him guilty of downloading indecent images of children has been arrested in Romania.

Julian Myerscough, 56, a former criminal law lecturer at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, absconded from his trial at Ipswich Crown Court in September 2015 while jurors were deliberating their verdicts.

He was convicted, shortly after he went missing, of 13 counts of possession of indecent images of a child and three counts of breaching a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

Myerscough, originally from Bolton but who was living in Lowestoft, Suffolk, initially fled to Ireland after he absconded.

He was spotted on a ferry from Holyhead and was detained at a Dublin city centre hotel by Garda officers under a European Arrest Warrant in October 2015.

However, he thwarted extradition efforts with a series of appeals over two years, and was released from prison as the High Court in Dublin deemed in August 2017 that too much time had passed.

A decision was taken to sentence him in his absence in September 2017 at Chelmsford Crown Court to three years and six months' imprisonment and a Sexual Harm Prevention Order.

Myerscough was detained by law enforcement officers in Romania on July 26, Suffolk Police said.

His extradition was approved at a Romanian court on August 7 and arrangements are being made for Suffolk Police officers to travel to Bucharest and return him to the UK, the force said.
Veteran criminal Martin 'The Viper' Foley was grappled to the floor by security staff at a city centre jewellery store.

Our picture shows a man matching Foley's description lying on the floor close to the shutter of the store.

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A witness who saw the incident unfold at a jewellery store in the Ilac Centre said she saw Foley .

A 61-year-old woman was walking past the jewellery shop beside Dunnes Stores in the ILAC Centre when her daughter told her she recognised a man standing at the door of the jeweller's as Martin Foley, known as 'The Viper'.

"My daughter recognised his face from the newspapers," she told the Herald.

"Martin Foley was just standing on the corner at the door and then somebody grappled with him.

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"There was a struggle and then someone shouted 'Call the guards.' That's when all the security guards rushed up and grabbed hold of him and pulled him inside the shop and then pulled down the black shutters.

"There was another fellow inside and someone was holding him over the counter. So the two of them were in the shop and all of the security guards were there," she said.

Veteran gangster Martin 'The Viper' Foley was arrested after the incident.

Foley (64) and a 37-year-old associate allegedly threatened a terrified female employee.

The pair were arrested by gardai from Store Street Station shortly before 2pm.

The two remained in garda custody last night and were being questioned about false imprisonment after the incident.

It has emerged that Foley had been in dispute with the respected business over an item of jewellery he had left in the premises to be sold.

The item, which is understood to be valued at around 3,000, was left into the jeweller's by Foley about three weeks ago.

However, within the last fortnight, in what sources call "a very strange development", the jeweller's became the victim of a scam.

An individual bought Foley's jewellery and left the store before it became known that the transaction had been declined on the buyer's card.

It is understood that gardai are investigating whether the staff member had been the victim of a confidence trick when this happened.

It has been alleged that Foley then contacted the jeweller's looking for his cash, and when he was told about what had happened and that the business did not have his cash, he allegedly made a series of increasingly threatening phone calls.

He then arrived into the jeweller's at lunchtime yesterday with his close associate and allegedly issued serious threats to a female member of staff.

Gardai were called to the scene and the veteran gangster and his pal were arrested.

Foley's associate is a Crumlin man who was heavily involved in the gangster's debt collection agency.

Sources said the incident had nothing to do with a foiled raid or the Viper's former debt collection business.

Foley is one of Ireland's most notorious criminals and has been shot on four separate occasions.

He has 14 bullet wounds and more than 40 convictions, some for assault and robbery, and possession of weapons.

He set up a now-defunct debt collection company a decade ago and has been a long-term target for the Criminal Assets Bureau and other garda units.

Foley became a father again in January when his wife Sonia Doyle gave birth to a baby girl.

Last October, Foley did an interview with the Herald in which he spoke of his anger after his wedding ring was seized by Revenue officials in relation to an unpaid tax bill of almost 1m.

He also said that Sonia was left "very stressed out" and needed medical attention because he claimed she believed their dog would be taken.

hnews@herald.ie
Thousands of Ryanair passengers whose flights were scrapped due to strikes deserve to know if a 250 cheque will be winging its way to them some time soon.

The Irish Commission for Aviation Regulation has not revealed whether it received any appeals by customers who were refused compensation by the budget airline yet, or if it has, whether they were upheld.

But the UK organisation that processes claims said the budget airline's passengers are the winners so far when it comes to the complaints it has dealt with.

AviationADR said its adjudicators haven't seen any evidence so far to change its position that passengers are entitled to compensation due to cancellations or delays caused by the strikes.

Ryanair is adamant that it is not liable to pay compensation, which can be sought even if the strike-afflicted get a refund or an alternative flight. But it could face a sky-high bill if regulators find the strikes by its staff are unexceptional.

So far 170,000 customers have been hit by the industrial action across Europe, and around 17,500 of these were booked on flights between Ireland and the UK.

If the affected customers in Ireland look for compensation, the airline could face a hefty bill of more than 4m. If you're including the aggrieved across Europe, it could rise to tens of millions of euro.

Insiders said all regulators may discuss the case with each other. "There's a lot at stake here," they said. "It's the biggest airline in Europe and the biggest event of its kind. I'd expect Ryanair will be challenging it all the way."

Last month, the UK Civil Aviation Authority announced that an airline is required to pay compensation when a flight cancellation is due to a strike by an airline's employees, if it has not warned passengers two weeks in advance. To be fair to Ryanair, it hasn't been given a fortnight's notice in many cases. Barrister Dean Dunham, at AviationADR, which processes the complaints, said so far all those relating to strikes at Ryanair have been determined in favour of the passenger.

He said this was mainly because it saw no evidence to show there were "extraordinary circumstances". Ryanair is legally obliged to comply with its decisions, he added.

However, he said Ryanair is submitting further evidence that will be reviewed as new complaints come in. Compensation may help to ease passengers' frayed tempers. Pilots are still getting a lot of beeps from passing cars at the picket lines. But some people are seriously unimpressed.

"I read that Ryanair pilots, based in Dublin, earn between 150,000 and 200,000 per year," tweeted former 'Mrs Brown's Boys' actor Rory Cowan.

"I'd find it hard to stand in solidarity with people earning those amounts of monies going on strike and disrupting passengers' holidays. Probably their only holiday this year too, ruined."

A letter from Ryanair's chief operations officer Peter Bellew to Vereingung Cockpit's policy lawyer, Tanja Viehl, last Tuesday, seen by Independent.ie, claimed the pilots in Germany sought pay rises of up to 62pc, although the claim was later dropped.

It said this was made up of a 42pc pay hike and 20pc increase already agreed.

The union's spokesman, Janis Schmitt, challenged the claims and said it never mentioned percentages. He said it wants fewer variable elements to wages, like other European airlines.

Ryanair would not produce evidence to show the pilots sought the increase, when asked for some. "We do not comment on ongoing negotiations with our people," said a spokesperson.

Next week, a fresh pair of eyes belonging to mediator Kieran Mulvey will hopefully get to the heart of this row.

Less than a year after recognising unions, industrial relations novice Ryanair has tried out most approaches for size.

It has given talks and pay hikes a bash. It has issued protective notice of job cuts to staff, sent mixed messages to striking cabin crew about the potential impact on their promotion opportunities, and taken legal action. Pilots had focused their anger on Ryanair's HQ at Airside but yesterday moved their picket to the airport roundabout. On Monday, they will all return to the negotiating table at Terminal One.
Michael D Higgins is thought to have stayed at the five-star Beau Rivage Hotel in Geneva, which costs 3,000 a night

The Government has "no plans" to change the law to bring increased transparency on spending by the Office of the President.

Aras an Uachtaraain has stayed silent on claims President Michael D Higgins may have stayed in a 3,000-a-night hotel suite in the plush Beau-Rivage Hotel in Geneva.

Independent Senator Gerard Craughwell has said he was contacted by a concerned citizen with claims President Higgins stayed in a high-end suite in the five-star hotel on a recent trip.

The Office of the President was given four weeks to clarify the claims but has not responded to a series of questions. It is still unclear if Mr Higgins stayed in the hotel.

Mr Higgins attended the RDS Horse Show yesterday but did not take questions from reporters.

With records relating to the presidency being exempt from Freedom of Information (FoI) laws, it's not possible for the public to see exactly how taxpayers' money is spent. The Department of Public Expenditure (DPER) said there were "no plans" to change this exemption.

It said: "Owing to the unique position of the President in the constitutional and political order, an exclusion has been a necessary part of the FoI regime since its first introduction."

FoI laws were introduced in 1997. They were extended in 2014 to include records relating to the Garda, Nama and the Central Bank, but the Office of the President was not included at that time.

The department pointed to remarks by former public expenditure minister Brendan Howlin to explain why the office is considered unique.

During the passage of the 2014 FoI law Mr Howlin said: "It has always been the tradition, and accepted in both Houses [Dail and Seanad], that the President is above politics.

"In keeping with this independence I felt it would not be appropriate to cover the Office of the President under freedom of information."

Mr Howlin went on to say the finances of the Office of the Presidency are audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General and this meant spending was subject to public scrutiny.

Mr Higgins previously said he would be "perfectly happy" to sign legislation which would allow greater public scrutiny of the office under FoI.
Assad has now set his eyes on retaking Idlib province, the largest area still in the hands of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, former al-Qaeda ally. Some 2.5 million people live in the province. The United Nations calls for talks to avert "a civilian bloodbath".

Idlib (AsiaNews/Agencies)  Last night, a heavy aerial bombardment hit Idlib, in northern Syria, killing almost 30 civilians.

Idlib is the largest chunk of territory still in rebel hands, and President Bashar al-Assad has warned it would be his next target.

The province's southwest was shelled heavily on Thursday and the bombing the next day "moved further east," leaving 11 civilians dead, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

"It's the most intense bombing since Idlib was declared a de-escalation zone last year," Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman said.

The shelling left eight civilians dead in the main town of Khan Sheikhun, and another three including a child died in nearby Al-Tah.

In recent months, the rebels have lost huge areas to the forces of the Syrian regime.

An estimated 2.5 million people live in Idlib province, many of them rebels and civilians bussed out of other areas that retaken by government forces.

Around 60 per cent of the province is held by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is led by Al-Qaeda's former Syria affiliate.

Rival factions control most of the rest, but Syrian troops have seized a small part in the southeast.

"The war cannot be allowed to go to Idlib," said Jan Egeland, head of the UN's humanitarian taskforce for Syria.

The United Nations appealed Thursday for talks to avert "a civilian bloodbath" in the province, which borders Turkey.
Crowds walking in the Leidsestraat, one of the main shopping streets in Amsterdam. Photo: Deposit

Authorities in Amsterdam have announced bold new measures to tackle tourist excess in the city centre, which one official has described as a jungle.

The Dutch capitals louche red light district has been the focus of a major clean-up operation in recent years, leading, controversially, to the closure of many window brothels and cannabis coffeshops.

Now the authorities are targeting unruly tourists, whose conduct in The Wallen (or canal banks) will come under increasing scrutiny following the announcement of new measures to tackle anti-social behaviour.

As part of the measures the citys law enforcement officers are being issued with mobile card readers, allowing them to take immediate payment for fines.

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Public consumption of alcohol will earn 95; public urination, disorderliness and littering, meanwhile, will draw fines of 140.

The council has also announced plans to tackle overcrowding in The Wallen, which residents say has become unlivable due to mass tourism.

Streets there will be monitored in real time and coded green, orange or red, depending on how busy they are. If a code red is called, officials will be deployed and if necessary, streets will be closed, the council said.

Parts of the city will also be closed periodically to allow council workers to clear them of litter.

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A lot of rubbish gets thrown in the streets, said the council. Therefore mop-up pauses are being introduced for certain streets.

Elard Tissot van Patot, founder of Amsterdam Red Light District Tours, welcomed the new measures to tackle anti-social behaviour, but he believes closing streets is overkill.

The Red Light District should be cleaner, but closing off entire streets is not necessary, he saidl. The street cleaners already sweep whilst there are people walking around and it works fine, but it should happen more frequently. There should also be more and bigger trash cans.

He added: We also think that the sex workers wont be too happy when the streets are closed off for business.

The new measures come just weeks after Arre Zuurmond, Amsterdams official ombudsman, warned that the city centre  a renowned destination for stag and hen parties  had become a jungle.

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What do Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the travel guidebook industry all have in common?

They all read their own obituaries before they died.

Flick back just five years to 2013 and commentators were sounding the death-knell for the travel guidebook.

Guidebooks are a relic of a bygone age that have little to do with travel now, wrote Kevin Rushby in the Guardian. The guidebook-publishing industrys demise looks certain, reported The Economist. Today most travellers eschew the hefty tomes for online trip planners and smartphone apps, said Husna Haq for the BBC.

This was uncomfortable reading for anyone like myself who had fallen for the romantic allure of a career editing and researching guidebooks, while fellow graduate friends earned more than double my salary and boasted of boozy lunches in advertising, finance and recruitment (I was on 17.5k and commuting 30 miles with a squished sandwich in my backpack).

But its true - guidebooks were undeniably facing demise. Between 2005 and 2011 US sales were down 40 per cent, largely due to the financial crisis. Pursestrings tightened globally and people just stopped going on holiday as much, pulling the rug from beneath the travel guidebook trade.

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In 2012 AA Publishing announced it was no longer commissioning printed guides. That same year Google bought the US industry leader Frommers with the aim of discontinuing print guidebooks. TimeOuts printed city guides were quietly entering their final years before being bought out by Crimson Publishing.

But what prompted the obituaries was the BBC announcing in March 2013 that it was selling Lonely Planet to a US tobacco magnate for a knock-down price of 51.5 million - 80 million less than it had paid for the company a few years earlier

The hashtag #lpmemories trended on Twitter as a rogue 24-year-old COO was employed and rumours swirled about mass cutbacks in the company.

Meanwhile, as the financial crisis ended and people slowly started booking holidays again, websites like TripAdvisor, Expedia, and a young pretender known as Airbnb were disrupting the way we researched our trips. Whats more, the ubiquity of smartphones and rise in global Wi-Fi meant that, for the first time ever and with the exception of your passport, a holiday could be entirely paperless.

With an infinite bank of recommendations at your fingertips and a map of the entire planet in your pocket - why on earth would you bother paying up to 25 for a heavy book containing information, often researched by just one or a few people, that went out of date the moment it printed?

Beyond offering emergency loo paper (Ive been there: Cuba 2009, dont ask) the function of a physical guidebook was looking increasingly void.

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Adrian Phillips, Managing Director of Bradt Travel Guides told me that it hasnt been easy.

Many have suggested in recent years that the days of the guidebook are numbered, and that the democratisation of information means people will find what they need freely on the internet. For a decade or so there were signs to support this gloomy prophecy, with the industry witnessing a steady decline in overall sales and several guidebook companies falling away.

However, against all odds, the independent publishing house - founded by Hilary Bradt in the 1970s - is witnessing something of a renaissance.

The last three years have been the best by far in Bradts 45-year history, with sales in 2017 up nearly 25 per cent on 2014. Theres much talk about shortening attention spans, but there will always be people keen to get properly under the skin of a destination, he said.

You could put Bradts strong performance down to its strategy of publishing guides to niche countries like Somaliland and Tajikistan where reliable information is harder to find, and focusing on specific destinations like Istria, the Basque Country and the Vendee rather than country- or continent-wide travel bibles.

But Georgina Dee, publisher at one of the industry leaders DK Eyewitness Guides, is similarly optimistic about the future.

Travel itself is fast becoming an antidote to the digital heavy world we live in, trust in some online sources is certainly waning, and the Internet can be an unwieldy beast that needs taming. A book is yours but the Internet is everyones, she told Telegraph Travel ahead of the relaunch of DKs Eyewitness series

Destination guidebook sales of course vary year to year but the stalwarts such as New York, Rome and Paris are up year-on-year for DK. This year we are also seeing guidebook destinations such as Istanbul and Egypt experience sales growth for DK.

US guidebook firms are seeing a similar revival. Author of the NPD BookScan Travel Publishing Year Book, Stephen Mesquita, told Forbes: 2017 was the best year for the sale of printed travel guides in the US market for over a decade. Since 2012, the decline has levelled off as a core market of travelling consumers has come to realise what printed guides can offer as part of the information mix that is available to them.

As someone who travels for a profession, I generally do my initial research through trusted online sources, get everything booked and then pick up a guidebook or two before I go.

Why? The alternative is to either print out piles of articles and stuff them in my bag, or rely on my iPhone while Im away.

Thats not to say Im a devout digital detoxer. Having a smart phone obviously comes in handy while on holiday when it comes to booking Ubers, emergency navigation on Google Maps and pulling up booking confirmations from emails.

But sometimes its important to put that black mirror away.

Having edited over 50 guidebooks at Bradt, DK and Rough Guides, contributed for Lonely Planet and co-authored the Rough Guides to Scotland and Britain, I know the amount of time, love and painstaking detail that goes into each and every one of those guidebooks you flick through in the airport WHSmith.

It's not just the reliability and depth of the content that keeps me, and so many others, coming back to guidebooks - it's the ritual. Opening the book in a cafe and leafing through, circling interesting sights and dotting your accommodation on the map. This dogeared book becomes part of the trip in a way that a phone never will.

The path wont be entirely smooth for the guidebook industry. Rough Guides was sold last year and lost much of its staff in the process and is now investing in a digital content marketing strategy, while Lonely Planet is rumoured to be up for sale once again

Whats more, its not too farfetched to imagine that e-readers will one day become so pleasant to use (scribbles, folded pages and all) that the printed book becomes a thing of the past.

For now, the demand for thorough, expertly curated guidebooks lives on. And call me a romantic, but like the work of Coleridge, Hemingway and Twain, this is best served on a page.

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Still smoking but desperately trying to 'kick the habit' once and for all? If that sounds familiar, then you might be interested in signing up for a smoking cessation course specifically tailored for women taking place in Mallow next month.

'We Can Quit' is an initiative of the Irish Cancer Society in partnership locally with the Le Cheile Family Resource Centre and the Mallow Community Health Project.

The 12-week programme is free of charge and will offer the opportunity for women to join forces and support each other in their efforts to give up smoking. It is open to all women over the age of 18 who want to kick the habit.

Odharnait Ni Bhuachalla, community cancer prevention officer at the Irish Cancer Society, said the course had been successfully run in Mallow on a number of previous occasions.

"In fact, over the past five years, hundreds of women in Cork and Dublin have completed the programme, and the quit rate has been very high," she said.

Participants on the programme will receive one-to-one support during the group sessions, in addition to being offered 12 weeks of Nicotine Replacement Therapy (NRT).

"Research has shown that smokers who use a combination of group support and two NRT products for a 12-week period are four times more likely to quit and stay smoke-free for good," said Odharnait.

Martina Daly, community health worker at Le Cheile said the 'We Can Quit' programme has proven to be hugely successful when run in Mallow on previous occasions.

"We want women to know that with the programme they are not alone when they embark on their quitting journey. You will join a group of women who have shared a goal together; with our support you can quit smoking for good," said Martina.

"It is so fantastic to have witnessed the joy and confidence of the women who have quit with the help of this programme," she added.

For further details on 'We Can Quit' and to sign up for the programme, which will commence on September 19, contact Le Cheile FRC on (022) 42439, e-mail communityhealthworker@Lecheilefrc.ie or register online at www.cancer.ie/we-can-quit.
It's a submerged glacial woodland that has been hidden for decades but freakish low rain levels throughout the summer of 2018 has resulted in the emergence of an ecological wonderland.

Flooded over 60 years ago to facilitate hydro-electric dams that would provide power to Cork city and surrounds, The Gearagh at Macroom can best be called an "artificial set up". That's according to Kevin Corcoran and the local environmentalist argues that if The Gearagh was flooded in the winter and drained in the summer the area's biodiversity would "thrive".

In a previous life, The Gearagh was densely populated with ancient oak trees, indeed it was widely considered the last surviving full oak forest in western Europe.

Just take a closer look at the name 'The Gearagh' which translates into Irish as An Gaoire, derived from the Irish word Gaorthadh or 'wooden river'.

Since the area was submerged by the ESB, The Gearagh has become a vast area of submerged islands which once supported a rich woodland flora.

But increasingly low water levels has meant that these islands are being more exposed and this year the levels are at their lowest in decades. Indeed, according to Mr Corcoran, forestry is starting to make a come-back, as is the rare and protected mudwort, a small herbaceous plant found on muddy shores.

The Gearagh was flooded back in 1954 to facilitate the building of two hydro-electric dams in Carrigadrohid and Inniscarra, which provide electricity for nearby Cork city. The area is now part of the plants' upper reservoir.

This development by the ESB required that the region was flooded, resulting in the felling of hundreds of trees and the removal and relocation of tracts of people.

Many of the felled trees were centuries old and are part of a woodland that dates back to the medieval period. Anyone familiar with the region can view these tree stumps in dry spells such as the one currently being experienced.

" Since the controlled water levels are now so low it has meant that people can actually see its actual structure which dates from thousands of years ago," Mr Corcoran explains, adding: "It has meant that the ecosystem is reverting back to how it was and how it should be".

In addition to the forestry and plants, he says there is a "huge flush of wild flowers" also making headway and the region has now attracted a huge sway of butterflies.

As the levels of water are now so low, small islands separated by mostly flat river streams are visible - and it is here that the ecosystem is reverting back to how it was.

"The islands are getting vegetated but if high flooding of the region again takes hold then it will simply kill off everything that is starting to flourish. I believe that if he Gearagh was flooded in the winter and left dry in the summer then people could once again enjoy what this region has to offer," Mr Corcoran continues.

"When you look up-stream you can now see the woodlands of hundreds of years ago and the inlands and streams, although these are very dangerous to walk in as they are very deep holes of mud. And it is here that the mudwort is taking off.

"I strongly believe that if a proper conservation plan was put in place then The Gearagh would be a huge tourist attraction," he adds.

Mr Corcoran claims that the ESB doesn't have a conservation plan on The Gearagh and he has been calling for one for the last 30 years.

"Companies now have corporate social responsibility built into their mission statements and work with communities. That can be seen with a local company in Macroom, Danone. However, when it is a semi-state, then not only do they not have to have a conservation plan but they also don't have to implement it. That is the real reason that The Gearagh is not what it should be," he further claimed.

"If The Gearagh had a proper and implemented conservation plan, it would not only be a boom for tourism but equally so the local economy and the entire Lee Valley would improve. As I said, if it was properly developed, all the outcomes would only be positives.

"Instead what is occurring is people are going to Petitions Committees in Europe to outline what is going wrong at home," he adds.

The Corkman sought a right of reply from the ESB on the view point of Mr Corcoran.

In response, a spokesperson said that the current extended dry period is impacting on water levels in The Gearagh, as it is throughout the country.

"Despite some rain this week, levels are currently below what would be normal at this time of the year due to very low inflows into catchment over a prolonged period of time. There were similar low levels in 1976, which was a particularly dry summer," said the spokesperson.

He said that during the dry spell, ESB's primary focus is around maintaining water quality levels on the river by ensuring the statutory flow is maintained.

He also said that the ESB continues to work closely with National Parks and Wildlife Service and other agencies in developing a management plan for The Gearagh.

An ESB scoping exercise proposed a number of initial recommendations .

"Work commenced on the implementation of these recommendations in November 2017. To-date terrestrial laser scanning of the main channel flowing through The Gearagh has been completed," he said.

He also said that, based on ongoing consultation between ESB and National Parks and Wildlife Service, "further scientific studies are planned for the eastern section of The Gearagh Special Area of Conservation".

" These will encompass monthly bird surveys, botanical studies around the periphery of the reservoir and drone photography of the reservoir substrate revealed during low water," the spokesperson added.
The highest village in Ireland was a sea of green and gold as parishioners, decked out in the Meelin colours, came out in their droves to mark the 100th anniversary of Gaelic Sunday last weekend.

The event began with a march from the village square to the GAA grounds where a 'La na gClub' event saw people of all ages enjoy the many activities on offer.

There were short hurling games for children aged 6 and upwards while the adult team played alongside the juvenile players. A puck fada competition, shooting through tyres, sack races, face painting and lots of other fun games proved to be hugely popular with the children. The new Astroturf, indoor training facility, gym and meeting rooms were open for viewing and a historical talk on Gaelic Sunday was hugely informative.

In 1918, under British rule, the authorities tried to crack down on all public gatherings, including GAA matches.

Written permission had to be sought and ultimately granted to hold all matches at the time, otherwise they were considered an illegal activity.

The GAA not only objected but they decided to defy the order and hold a match in every parish in Ireland at precisely the same time - 3pm on Sunday, August 4.

The protest was far more successful than could ever have been imagined and an estimated 54,000 players participated in games throughout Ireland, with over 100,000 attending the matches across the entire island.

Strength in numbers and solidarity across the country forced the abandonment of the requirement to seek a license to play a GAA match. This became one of the most remarkable and significant days in the history of the GAA.

It will be forever remembered as Gaelic Sunday - the day when our GAA peacefully stood against the British Empire - and won! (see more on www.gaa.ie)
From humble beginnings in 1968, Millstreet Credit Union has experienced a meteoric rise that reaches a special birthday on celebrating its 50th Anniversary this Friday night.

And to mark the milestone, Manager Bridget Fitzgerald and staff invite members and friends to a series of events in the locality. Proceedings open with Mass in St Patrick's Church at 7.30pm followed by the unveiling of a plaque by two founding members, Der and Ted Kiely, at its base.

Thereafter, the public are extended a welcome to a reception in the Wallis Arms Hotel where a history of Millstreet Parish Credit Union will be launched.

It all began when a study group was formed in 1968 to examine the feasibility of launching a credit union in Millstreet Parish - the group consisted of Fr Denis Quirke CC. RIP, Nicholas Coady RIP, Ted O'Hanlon RIP, Der Kiely and Ted Kiely.

Following a number of meetings in the Carnegie Hall, the unit was affiliated with the Irish League of Credit Unions Wallis Arms Hotel proprietor Nora Meredith RIP kindly agreed to rent to the credit union the use of one room and a large corridor upstairs.

Subsequently, a decision was made by the board of directors to obtain a more suitable premises, a new home in Church Street was opened in 1974. To meet growing demand of its facilities, Millstreet Parish Credit Union moved on to a new spacious offices at their current home in the Town Square in October, 2005.

New initiatives surfaced over the years including mandatory training of all directors, supervisors and staff on an on-going basis in addition to a major IT investment that offers online banking and electronic transfers to a dedicated website.

The board of directors of the credit union began the process of meeting with other credit unions with a view to joining forces, sharing costs and introducing new services.

It led to the eventual transfer of engagements to Mallow Credit Union Limited who share a similar ethos and loyalty to members.

Two years ago, Millstreet Parish Credit Union Limited completed the process of transferring engagements to Mallow Credit Union Limited, Millstreet opening its doors in a new partnership.
A Cork TD has called on Health Minister Simon Harris to explain why there was a 14% drop in the number of home help hours provided to people across the county between 2014 and 2017.

The figures were made public on foot of a parliamentary question to Minister Harris from Cork North West TD Michael Moynihan (FF), in which he asked for a breakdown of the number of home help hours provided over the four-year period.

They showed an annual reduction in the total number of hours provided across the HSE's four Cork local health offices (LHO's) since 2014, when the figure stood at 1,670,522.

Over the following years the totals dropped to 1,540,095 (2015), 1,465,888 (2016) and 1,429,718 (2017). The figures for the North Cork LHO dropped over the period from 414,207 in 2016, to 380,999 (2015), 347,110 (2016) and 302,226 (2017).

Deputy Moynihan said that it was "inconceivable" that the number of hours could have dipped so dramatically over such a relatively short space of time.

"This is a serious drop and corresponds with what I am hearing on doorsteps and at my clinics. This is a major concern for older people and their families who simply cannot get the home help or carer support needed to maintain a quality of life," said Deputy Moynihan.

He said the scarcity of home help support inevitably results in older people being "stuck in hospitals" for longer than is necessary, causing additional anxiety to them and their loved ones.

"Minister Harris needs to explain why there has been such a drop in such a short period of time. He continually says that money is not an issue in the health service. If that is the case, why are older people receiving less and less support?"

He said that families "want answers not excuses" from the HSE and Government.

"These older people have paid taxes all their lives and deserve the respect and support of the Sate in their later years," he insisted.

Responding on behalf of Minister Harris, the head of social care with Cork/Kerry Community Care, Gabriella O'Keeffe, wrote that changes to the home support service had been introduced at the start of this year.

This involved combining funding for the home help service and the home care package into a single home support service for older people.

She said that in addition to streamlining the service, the HSE's National Service Plan (2018) provides for an additional investment of more than 18 million for home support services. This, she wrote, would provide a further 754,000 hours and support 1,170 people to leave hospitals.

"Overall, in 2018, 17,084 million home support hours are expected to be delivered to 50,500 people at any time. In addition, intensive home care packages will be delivered to approximately 235 people at any time and will deliver approximately 360,000 hours in the full year," she wrote.
The work of "sinicisation" of religions continues with the aim of eliminating foreign influences. Ethnic Muslim Hui fear repression like in Xinjiang. They want to secularise Muslims, to cut off Islam at the roots, said an imam. These days, children are not allowed to believe in religion: only in communism and the party.

Weizhou (AsiaNews/Agencies)  Protests have broken out in the Ningxia Autonomous Region after the authorities decided to tear down the Grand Mosque in Weizhou.

Thousands of ethnic Hui Muslims protested Thursday, when they occupied the square in front of the place of worship. As a result of the rally, the authorities were forced to postpone the demolition.

The head of the county tried to reassure the faithful, telling them that the mosque would not be torn down until a deal is reached to build another one.

The mosques management committee said that the authorities sent a demolition notice on 3 August with a deadline for this Friday. According to the order, the mosque, which was completed last year, had not been granted the necessary planning and construction permits

After days of negotiations between the authorities and religious leaders, it was agreed earlier on Thursday that the government would not demolish the mosque but remove eight of its domes.

The new mosque replaced an earlier one that had been built to replace Weizhous 600-year-old Chinese-style mosque, which was destroyed during the Cultural Revolution.

One of two red banners strung from the mosques exterior walls read: Resolutely support the Chinese Communist Party, defend ethnic unity, safeguard the freedom of faith.

The banner stress subordination to the Party but demand religious freedom as promised by the Chinese constitution.

Tearing down places of worship, including many churches, is part of an ongoing campaign to sinicise" Chinas religions, Christianity included. Churches too have been affected.

Sinicisation means submission to the Party and the elimination of foreign influences, including in art and architecture.

In the case of Islam, Muslim icons and Arabic signs have been removed from streets in towns and counties across the region.

For decades, Chinas Hui Muslims have been left in peace by the regional government. However, as the government intensifies its crackdown against Uyghurs in Xinjiang, the Hui are also being targeted.

The government fears a rise in radicalism. For this reason, several mosques in Ningxia have been ordered to cancel public Arabic classes, whilst a number of private Arabic schools have been told to shut down.

Children under 16 are no longer allowed to engage in religious activity or study in Linxia, a deeply Islamic county in Gansu, a province next to Ningxia, in western China. The latter had been a haven of comparative religious tolerance for local ethnic Hui Muslims.

Recently the authorities have instructed mosques to display national flags and stop sounding the call to prayer to reduce noise pollution.

In view of what is happening, Hui Muslims fear they will be subjected to the kind of surveillance and repression that Uyghurs have to endure in Xinjiang.

In the past year, The winds have shifted, said a senior local imam who requested anonymity. Frankly, Im very afraid theyre going to implement the Xinjiang model here.

They want to secularise Muslims, to cut off Islam at the roots, he added. These days, children are not allowed to believe in religion: only in communism and the party.

More than a thousand boys used to attend his mid-sized mosque to study Quranic basics during summer and winter school holidays but now they are banned from even entering the premises.

Parents were told the ban on extracurricular Quranic study was for their childrens own good, so they could rest and focus on regular coursework.

There are more than 10 million Hui in China, half of the country's Muslim population, according to 2012 government figures.

In Linxia, they are well integrated with the Han ethnic majority and have always had the opportunity to practise their faith freely.
It is "with a heavy heart" that a fourth generation postmaster in Rockchapel will close his doors at the end of the month after 37 years serving the community.

Henry Keogh told Mr Keogh said that not only are people not using their post offices in rural regions they are also not using them in larger towns and cities.

"There is something ironic that progress is closing down rural Ireland. If people wanted their post office to be kept open, then they would use it. By using a post office keeps it open," he said.

Postmasters are given a contract to provide a service to the public by An Post and, in turn, postmasters are bound by the rules and regulations of An Post. A Postmaster provides the premises, pays the rates, insurance and has the security and all that goes with running a Post Office.

But Postmasters are paid on the work which they do - such as how many stamps are sold, social welfare payments executed, pensions given out - all their work is totted up by An Post and pay is then calculated on that.

So, the term 'use it or lose it' has never been more precise when talking about the viability of rural post offices.

For example with Bill Pay, if 100 people went into a post office and paid a bill then the post master gets three cent per transaction for doing that work - that means 3 pay.

Previously, Mr Keogh said that the centralisation of the sorting office to Boherbue had a huge knock on effect on Postmasters' pay. Prior to centralisation, postmasters were paid to supervise the mail at their own premises but with that task now centralised it led to a further slash on postmasters' pay.

In an interview in 2016, Mr Keogh said: "This is a fact which people may not know, but 20% of postmasters are earning less than the minimum wage. When a postmaster factors in insurance and rates and all that goes with it, the money left over is less than 10 per hour. You can see why some postmasters won't be able to continue on as it's simply not viable."

Meanwhile, after nearly 100 years in operation, the post office at Newtwopothouse will also close its doors.

It is operated by Ted and Catherine Palmer who declined to comment. Ted's mother ran the post office for 35 years before Ted took over the reins.

Prior to that, Margaret Murphy from Banteer ran it during the 1940s, and there has been a post office in the area since the 1920s.

It will mean that at the end of this month a post office which has been serving Newtwopothouse will close its doors after a century in existence.
A new youth theatre for Swords is on its way this weekend and its founders are promising an experience that will transform shy and timid children into confident and exuberant young people, engaged with the world around them.

Swords Youth Theatre is not your traditional drama society and the process that Lewis McGee and Graham O'Neill are bringing to the Fingal capital is as much about personal development as it is about learning to act.

Graham explained: 'I did a programme called Arts Train which was a part of the of what used to be called the National Association for Youth Drama which is now Youth Theatre Ireland.

'They did a programme that trained people to be facilitators and Lewis did that a couple of years after me. It's different from being an art teacher in that we are not there to necessarily get them up on the stage and become professional actors.

'As a facilitator, you work on their social, personal and artistic development. '

Lewis did the same course and when the two men met at a youth theatre festival, the idea to establish their own youth theatre took flight.

Graham said: 'In chatting to Lewis, that is our main cause. We want to get people out and get people interacting socially through arts and through games so they drop their barriers and become more open.

'We are planning to do some kind of a show at the end of a term or at the end of a year and that's a massive part of it but it's also about their social and personal development.

'If a young person comes in and they are shy and won't lift their head up and by week three or four, they are looking around them and engaging -- that's what we are all about.

'The great thing about it is that it's done through games.

'The young people play games without knowing what they are about. They are just having fun but what they are really doing is interacting, looking each other in the eye and making contact with each other.'

Lewis added: 'They become much more comfortable with their peers and realise they have nothing to be nervous or afraid about.

'It's really the beauty and the brilliance of these games and what a youth theatre can do for people.'

Graham said that the pair know the value youth theatre can have for a young person and what it has done for their own lives.

He said: 'We both come from youth theatre backgrounds and we know what it has done for us.

Lewis explained: 'I'm from Ballymun and I went to the Ballymun Youth Theatre. I was 14 years old and I was your stereotypical moody teenager.

'I wore black all the time and I was constantly looking down at my feet and never engaging.

'Within a year I was completely changed. I was up and bouncing around.

'I was getting out and meeting people from other youth theatres and we had this shared language.'

Being involved in youth theatre also opened up a whole new social outlet for Lewis.

He explained: 'It was really nice to have this common ground that nobody else knew about in my own circle of friends. These people who I never met, I instantly had this connection with.'

Graham said that for those nervous about giving youth theatre a try, it's important to know that Swords Youth Theatre will provide a safe and supportive environment for all of its participants.

He said: 'What I love about youth theatre is that it is so accepting. Everyone is welcome and it's such a supportive space to be in.

'It's such a scary thing to stand up and maybe make a fool of yourself. It's a scary thing just to stand up and speak. And maybe it's a scary thing for some to look someone in the eye.'

The facilitators know that and encourage a supportive environment among the participants where it becomes safe to do all the things that scare you about speaking and performing in public.

Establishing the youth theatre in Swords where Graham lives, was actually Lewis' idea. He said: 'I've always wanted to do it, ever since I left Arts Train. I've always wanted to do my own youth theatre.

'I done a bit of research and found that there is no youth theatre in Swords. There is a stage schools and dance schools but not a youth theatre.'

Graham rowed in behind the idea and with some inspiration and support from another well known figure in youth arts from Swords, Dave Kelly, the youth theatre facilitators got the ball rolling.

They have secured the community centre in Applewood for a free taster workshop on Friday at 4pm and everyone is invited.

The two youth theatre facilitators hope as many young people as possible come along and have a go and if the demand is there, they intend to establish Swords Youth Theatre on a more permanent footing with weekly workshops.

They will offer a 10-week term of workshops for a price of 100, paid weekly at 10 each week.

But this initial taster session is completely free and everyone is welcome, whether you are from Swords or not -- if you can get to Applewood, then you are welcome.

Lewis and Graham have been busy sorting out all the paper work from insurance to Garda vetting and now cannot wait to get started.

Talking about the upcoming free workshop, Lewis said: 'We have been busy promoting it and putting out flyers and creating a Facebook page for Swords Youth Theatre and we are now just hoping and praying we get enough people in.

'It's open to 13 to 17-year-olds but we will take children as young as 12 if they want to join.

'Just come along and have a go. It's a free workshop just so people can come along and get a taste of it.'

He added: 'We will meet weekly and every week there will be a new workshop. Each term will be 10 weeks.

'Hopefully they will be out of their shell by the end of the first term.'

Graham was involved in Dublin Youth Theatre as a member and more recently he found himself on the other side of the fence, judging auditions for the group and saw the value of youth theatre from another angle in that capacity.

He said: 'I've seen a lot of growth in people. I know who is getting in before they do and I've seen them in auditions and I may not get to see them again for a month or two and the difference in them is just huge.

'A few months go by and they are just a different person.'

Lewis added: 'It really helped me growing up and on the artistic side as well as socially and as a person.

'I went on to be a professional actor and worked for RTE on Fair City and Damo and Ivor and stuff like that.

'I wouldn't have been able to do that without youth theatre.

'Not just for the artistic side, but just to bring me out of shell. To give that back to one just one young person and to just see one young person look someone in the eye and have a conversation, that will do it for me. '

Graham said: 'I didn't get into youth theatre until I was 17 going on 18 and I've grown so much from youth theatre.'

Making a pitch to those who might be thinking of going down to the Applewood Community Centre to have a go at the free workshop, Lewis told the Fingal Independent: 'If you are interested in youth theatre, doing a bit of acting or just want to have fun for a couple of hours, it's free and it's with people your own age - come down and give it a shot.

'If you do like it, there is potential for you to sign up and do it once a week.'

It's a wonderful initiative and the passion that Lewis and Graham have for the project is obvious.

The impact of youth theatre on their own lives has obviously been a huge one and they cannot wait to have that kind of impact on the young people who join the brand new Swords Youth Theatre.
Fingal's County Hall has hosted the launch of Benefacts.ie, a free public website that provides the public with the most comprehensive and up-to-date information about Ireland's non-profit sector.

The new Benefacts.ie website was launched by Minister of State for Agriculture and Rural Development Sean Kyne TD in Fingal's Council Chamber on Wednesday, 25 July.

It also provides information about non-profit organisations sources of income, including government funding.

With assistance from Fingal's Public Participation Network, Benefacts have been able to assimilate data from the County Register to provide more information about smaller, local non-profit organisations.

Also in attendance at the launch was the Mayor of Fingal, Cllr Anthony Lavin. He said: 'We are delighted to launch the new Benefacts website here in Fingal's Council Chamber. The updated online database is a valuable tool for citizens, community and volunteer groups, local authorities as well as Government. The comprehensive information made available by Benefacts allows for greater collaboration across all sectors.'

Speaking at the event, Minister Kyne said: 'I am particularly pleased to have been asked to launch this upgrade to Benefacts' excellent website. This is just the kind of infrastructure that community and voluntary organisations need to be better able to achieve their full potential in the important work they do in every parish in Ireland. Benefacts is a tangible example of how Government can work in partnership with the community, voluntary and philanthropic sectors to design and deliver new services that benefit our citizens. I would like to commend Fingal Chief Executive Mr Paul Reid for embracing this opportunity with such energy and enthusiasm - I'm sure they are already seeing the benefits of this excellent Open Data project.'

Welcoming the launch, Chief Executive of Fingal County Council Paul Reid said: 'The reforms made to Local Authority Legislation in 2014 require us to consult with and promote effective participation by the local community in local government. Fingal has been very pro-active in this area with an engaged Public Participation Network and collaboration between multiple departments and local community groups. We are delighted to host today's launch in the Fingal Council Chamber. The' Fingal information provided by Benefacts is extremely valuable in bringing about greater engagement with non-profit organisations '

Explaining why they chose Fingal to host the new Benefacts website, Chief Executive of Benefacts, Patricia Quinn said: "Fingal has been a leader in Open Data adoption, and a role model for Benefacts when we started building our own database from open data sources in 2015. '
A young man who 'went off the rails' when his mother became ill stole a portable charger from a Balbriggan supermarket, Balbriggan District Court has heard.

The defendant in the case, Jamie Shannon (23), went into Tesco Extra at Millfield Shopping Centre and ripped the security tag off a 'Trust Urban' portable charger before taking it and leaving the supermarket without paying for it, the distict court heard..

The defendant who lives at Empress Place, Portland Row in Dublin 1 pleaded guilty at Balbriggan District Court to the theft of the portable charger, worth some 14.99, on July 3 at Tesco Extra in Millfield Shopping Centre in Balbriggan..

The defendant's solicitor told Balbriggan District Court that the 23-year-old admited the theft of the portable charger from the Balbriggan supermarket was 'a stupid mistake'.

Addressing the district court, the young man's solictor continued: 'He has 50 as a contribution.

'His mum was very ill at the time and he didn't cope with her illness and went off the rails.'

The 23-year-old's solicitor told the district court that the defendant apologises for his actions.

Judge Dermot Dempsey, however, said he would not accept the defendant's 50 contribution and instead, the judge imposed a fine of 100 and convicted the young man of the theft.

Judge Dempsey concluded his decision by fixing recognisances in the event of an appeal.
Prospective presidential candidates will make their pitch to Fingal's county councillors in September in a bid to secure the council's backing to run for the Aras.

A meeting of the council has been sanctioned for September 11 to facilitate consideration of prospective candidates seeking nomination for the forthcoming presidential election.

To date, only one propspective presidential candidate has formally made a request to speak at that meeting.

The Fingal Independent understands it is Senator Joan Freeman, the founder of Pieta House that is first out of the gate in seeking a hearing by county councillors.

However, it is understood that several other candidates hae made informal approaches to the council and are now likely to formally seek a hearing after the date for the meeting was firmed up, last week.

Among those who have had some informal contact with local councillors is Balbriggan-based potential presidential candidate, Kevin Sharkey.

Councillors must waite for the formal order of an election to make their decision but it is expected that order may come before September 11, allowing councillors to make their decision at the meeting.

Councillors facilitating a candidate to run is not necessarily an endorsemen of that candiate but will be seen by many councillors as allowing a competitive contest to take post for the highest office in the land.

A number of candidates are ultimately likely to avail of the opportunity to pitch their case to Fingal county councillors, but for now at least, only Senator Freeman has shown her hand.

The Pieta House founder has written to local authorities across the country, explaining her campaign.

She said that She said that if elected she will convene a National Assembly on the wellbeing of Ireland and that her campaign will be based on 'securing a Republic of wellbeing, initiative and justice'.

Fingal County Council has some history in supporting candidates running for the Aras and allowed David Norris to to forward, last time.
A planner from Lesotho who recently completed an internship in Fingal County Council and works as a planner in the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftainship in Lesotho has been declared the best mapper in the world today in Milan, Italy.

Mats'eliso Thobei was not present at the ceremony due to her study commitments.

However, she was voted as the winner of the 'Greatness in Mapping Award' by 477 of her peers.

Mats'eliso or 'Tshedy' as she is known, was nominated alongside three other influential and hugely productive mappers from other countries including Belgium, Turkey and Spain.

At the ceremony in Milan Ms. Monts'eng Moeti who is her colleague and collected the award on her behalf. said: 'Tshedy was very surprised to even be nominated, though those of us in Lesotho who have seen how much commitment she has to mapping since 2015 are not at all surprised.'

As a result of Tshedy's efforts combined with other colleagues like Monts'eng, Lesotho is the most densely mapped nation in Africa and all of that work has been supported in recent years by Fingal County Council's planning department.

Tshedy is understood to be surprised and amazed at her selection and promises to keep Tshedy said: 'I couldn't have started this journey without the superb training from Fingal County Council who work with our Ministry on improving our ability to plan in Lesotho. I also couldn't have achieved it without the votes and recognition of my peers in mapping from every country on the earth.'

Tshedy and fellow planner, Refiloe completed a two year masters in Ireland, earlier this year and are now back in Lesotho, working to improve the planning system there.

Their masters studies were back up by a placement in the planning department of Fingal County Council.

Before they returned to Lesotho, Tshedy told the Fingal Independent: 'When this opportunity came for us to come here, we thought this was a dream come true and we can go and see how country do planning.'

She said: We have learned a lot. Even in school, most things were practical and not just academic. The difference in Lesotho when we did our first degree, it was less practical. It was a good experience, a huge experience.'

The Lesotho planners will return to Ireland later this year to pick up their Masters Degrees and say hello to old friends in Fingal.
A 16-year-old boy who caused over 50,000 in damage to Oberstown Children Detention Campus during four separate stand-offs with staff, has been sentenced to four years in prison.

On one occasion Michael Ward, now 18, set fire to a room in the detention centre, Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard at an earlier hearing last March.

He pleaded guilty to four counts of criminal damage to the centre in Lusk, on January 3, February 26, September 8 and October 31, 2016. Two further counts of assault and theft were taken into account.

During the four incidents, Ward caused damage to furniture, security doors and windows, a CCTV camera and electrical equipment.

The court heard Ward, with an address in Gleann Riada, Strokestown Road, Co Longford, spent two years in detention in Oberstown from the age of 15. He has 33 previous convictions, including theft, criminal damage, burglary, robbery and unauthorised taking of vehicles.

Judge Patricia Ryan sentenced Ward to four years in prison with the final year suspended. She also ordered that he be under the supervision of the Probation Service for two years upon his release.

Judge Ryan said the court was obliged to take into account the fact that Ward was a child at the time but said they were very violent and aggressive incidents which must have caused 'a high degree of anxiety amongst staff and other residents'.

She also took into account that they were not isolated incidents.

She noted that Ward got on well in Oberstown overall, had made efforts to rehabilitate and had expressed remorse. She also accepted that he had the support of his grandmother

Garda Eoin McDonnell told Marie Torrens BL, prosecuting, that in the first incident in January 2016, Ward was in a multi-purpose room with another young person when he became aggressive.

Staff left the room in fear for their safety and over the next three hours, Ward caused over 4,300 in damage to the room, including furniture, doors and electrical equipment.

In the second incident in February 2016, Ward and two other people again became aggressive and violent towards staff.

They started a fire in a multi-purpose room during a stand-off that lasted for four hours. It ended only when gardai intervened, the court heard. A CCTV camera and furniture were damaged in that incident at a cost of 9,190.

In the third incident in September 2016, Ward threw a laptop at a teacher before engaging in a stand-off by himself for three-and-a-half hours. About 14,000 worth of damage was incurred, including damage to furniture and electrical equipment.

In the final incident in October 2016, Ward snatched a key fob from a staff member. He and a co-accused then locked themselves in the gym, armed themselves with a metal bar and weights and engaged in a stand-off with staff for four hours. Ward repeatedly punched one staff member who attempted to intervene, the court heard. Over 24,500 in damage was incurred during that incident.

All of the incidents were captured on CCTV. The total damage came to 52,226.

Ward was arrested in February 2017 and made immediate admission to gardai. He said he was sorry and wanted to turn his life around.

Defence barrister, Dean Kelly BL, told the court Ward is originally from the Tallaght area and had a 'very, very difficult' childhood. Both of his parents are drug addicts and have had little to do with him throughout his life. He was mostly cared for by his grandmother.

Mr Kelly handed up a number of reports which showed that in between these incidents, Ward made good educational and personal progress in Oberstown.

He sat his Junior Cert while in the centre and had expressed a desire to sit his Leaving Cert.

He was released from Oberstown last January but was placed in custody in Cloverhill a short time later after he allegedly took a car without authorisation.

He was not working nor in receipt of social welfare during the short time he was released, the court heard.
A Swords man has completed a gruelling 14 hour swim across the English Channel after his second attempt at one of the world's most iconic long-distance sea swims.

Swords man, William Irwin, swam the English Channel, taking 14.4 hours to complete the epic task.

He had a support boat, the Optimist, along side and a fantastic crew all the way over, including his wife Orla de Bhal and sister-in-law Elizabeth Kavanagh.

It was William's second attempt at the Channel swim, having narrowly failed to complete it in September of 2016.

William had been training hard for this second attempt at the swim for almost two years, despite holding down a full-time job and supporting his wife and two children. Landed on Wissant beach in France at 8:05pm on Sat last week.

The day of the swim began at 3.30am for William but he confesses, he was already awake. 'You don't really sleep knowing what lies ahead,' he said.

By 3.45am, William's support crew start appearing. Few words pass between the team, all conscious of the enormotity of the task that lay ahead.

A three mile journey to Dover Marina followed and at 4.15am, William and his support crew met with their pilot, Paul who will steer the support boat behind the sea swimmer.

It is a 40 minute boat ride to Samphire Hoe where the attempt would begin in earnest, and thankfully, the sea was flat calm.

At 5.30am, William begins to get greased up with lanolin and vaseline to keep him as warm as possible in the cold waters of the English Channel and with a few photos for posterity and some hugs and best wishes, he was off.

William remembered: 'A few seconds later the foghorn sounds and I enter the water, next stop France. I swim alongside Optimist as she turns and also faces for France. In my enthusiasm I overtake Optimist and swim towards the distant horizon.'

The first sign of trouble comes at hour five in the swim when William feels 'something is not quite right'.

He said: 'I pop my head up from the water and experience my first bout of sickness as I decorate the English Channel with what looks like the last carb mix I had.. Head down again and swim on but only make 20 yards before I pop my head up again and I am violently ill which lasts for 20 seconds.

His support crew rushed to help with some ginger and after this brief blip, William is on his way again.

In the hours that followed, all kinds of challenges emerge including numerous jelly fish stings but the Swords man swims on.

By hour 11, he can see the French coast and it spurs him on through the last gruelling hours of the swim.

The Swords man struggled to his feet when he reached the shore but was victorious in the attempt.

He said: 'The enormity of what has occurred engulfed me and I was overcome with emotion.'
The under-12 grupai ceoil from CCE Gorey-Ballygarrett who are off to the Fleadh in Drogheda

Two groups from CCE Gorey-Ballygarrett have qualified for the Grupai Ceoil competition at the Fleadh Ceoil na hEireann in Drogheda, which will be held later this month.

The under-12 and the 12- to 15-year-old groups, who both placed second in the Leinster Fleadh earlier in July, are very excited to perform in Drogheda.

Group tutors Riona Ni Shuilleabhain, Karen Mernagh, John O'Brien and Aileen Kennedy are impressed with how hard the groups have worked over the year. They are delighted for the participants to have made it to the All Ireland Finals.

There will be more than 40 musicians from CCE Gorey-Ballygarrett at the Fleadh Ceoil na h Eireann, which is the largest traditional Irish music festival in the world.

It is a week long event hosted by Comhaltas Ceoltoiri Eireann and celebrates Irish culture through a wide variety of events.

The local Comhaltas branch has been entering members for these competitions since 2002, and they have had much success throughout the years. In 2013, the senior group brought home gold in the Grupai Ceoil.

County Wexford will be well represented at Fleadh Cheoil na hEireann this year with members from Bannow CCE, Craobh Loch Garman CCE and Tuisceart Loch Garman. CCE Gorey-Ballygarrett would like to extend a huge thanks to the branch tutors, to the parents for their support and to the children for their dedication.
Seven people are to lose their jobs after Enniscorthy based printers Datascope sold its operation to Cork company Webprint last week for an undisclosed fee.

The printer, based on the Old Dublin Road, produced a total of 26 different regional and trade titles from its Enniscorthy base and these titles will now be printed at Webprint's facility in Cork.

Datascope owner Kevin Mitchell, who is retiring from the printing business, said that he had reviewed all of the options available before agreeing the sale.

'Moving the trade to Webprint is the best outcome for all Datascope's customers who shall be fully accommodated in the more modern Webprint facility,' he said.

It is understood that just one member of Datascope's eight staff will transfer to Webprint, meaning the rest are left without work following the closure of the unit on the Old Dublin Road. Among the titles printed by Datascope were Catholic publication Alive! and The Sporting Press, along with free-sheets such as The Slaney News and The Chronicle locally.

Managing Director of Webprint said that his company looked forward to expanding further over the coming months having acquired the Enniscorthy based business, however, this will be of scant consolation to those left without work as the business moves out of Co Wexford.
A Wexford couple are calling for the law to be changed in relation to the process through which parents of stillborn children can seek compensation in instances where the hospital involved accepts negligent liability.

It's six years since Carne couple Derek and Mignon Underwood's son Conor was stillborn at Wexford General Hospital, on September 25, 2012.

Having begun litigation against the HSE in January 2013, the Underwood's ultimately won their case and received a formal letter of apology on behalf of the organisation, the hospital, and those who were involved in caring for Mignon and Conor at the time of the birth.

When they met with this newspaper they outlined their fight to get the law changed to ensure that what they endured, and in particular what Mignon went through both at the time Conor was stillborn and the subsequent legal process, will never happen to anyone else.

The couple's fight has been taken up by Irish Labour Party TD Alan Kelly, who published a new Bill to amend the Civil Liability Act so that a family who lose an unborn child due to medical negligence is entitled to seek compensation for mental distress.

'Parents of a stillborn child do not have the same recourse as parents of children who are born alive and then subsequently pass away,' said Derek.

A significant aspect of the law as it stands is that parents cannot currently seek compensation for mental distress caused by the death of a child in the womb - as a result medical negligence - but only for injuries caused to the health of the mother.

'If a child is born alive and then dies from medical neglect that is all you have to prove but if a child is stillborn you have to prove that the mother suffered emotionally and that's wrong,' said Derek.

Mignon highlighted that at present parents can only sue for the emotional suffering and only relating to the mother.

'The father has no recourse at all,' she said.

'If I had died Derek could only have claimed for the neglect that would have caused my death but would not have been able to sue in relation to Conor,' she added.

'Emotional suffering is very hard to prove for the dad.'

The couple believe that changing the law would also help with the overall healing process for bereaved parents.

'The people responsible when something like this happens need to be punished and reprimanded because at present they are taken under the wing of the HSE and there is no effective punishment,' said Mignon.

'In other jobs if people get it wrong they would be out but that's not the case with the HSE,' she added.

The Underwood's case was settled in December and the HSE issued an unreserved apology to them for the 'shortcomings' in the care provided to Mignon and Conor.

It was at that point that Deputy Kelly got involved and Deputy Brendan Howlin is also 'fully behind' their campaign to have the law changed.

'Every politician that we spoke to subsequently was completely unaware of the situation as it stands with the law,' said Derek.

'Alan Kelly drafted the Bill in June but the Dail is now on summer break so we don't expect there will be any more progress until after that obviously but we are going to keep pushing for this to be passed,' he added.

'When he launched the Bill he was shocked that there has been no inquiry into what happened in our case at all.'

The Underwoods are calling for a full public inquiry to take place and say it's very important that it is open to the public and is transparent.

'He [Deputy Kelly] said there needs to be a public inquiry and we feel very strongly about that too,' said Derek.

He went on to comment: 'When people avail of the HSE's services they should get the best service possible by the best people possible.'

The Underwoods have also asked the HSE itself to support their call for a change in the law and in their appeal highlighted their view that the health and well-being of patients should 'trump' the fact that the HSE is not a political organisation.

It was a point Derek reiterated to this newspaper; 'We know it's not a political organisation but surely the well-being of patients should outweigh everything else. That's why we're calling on the HSE to support the Bill as well.'

The couple, who have two other children, said people always put their trust in doctors but added the system should be designed so that people are better informed: 'If you need care for your wife and unborn child you should be able to make a choice that is best for your family and not one that is just given to you.'

'The HSE is a complicated machine but some simple answers could make it transparent,' said Derek.

'When you suffer the death or your child through neglect, whether stillborn or they die after birth, you should not have to suffer again because of the process,' said Mignon.

'The fact there has been no inquiry at all to-date really is astounding,' said Derek.
A two-venue exhibition at the County Hall in Carricklawn and Wexford Arts Centre entitled 'What is Life' is an exploration of the connection between art and science and features works by ten local, national and international artists.

The exhibition of drawings, photography, video and installations by Vera Klute, Meadbh O'Connor, Bea McMahon, David Beattie, Eleanor Duffin, Maria McKinney, John Culllen, Gerda Teljeur, Andrew Kenny and Fergus Doyle, was curated by Catherine Bowe and Deirdre Southey.

It will continue at both venues until September 7, opening Monday to Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

The title, 'What is Life', is taken from the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Professor Erwin Schrodinger's famous 'What is Life' lecture series hosted by Trinity College Dublin in 1943 and credited with transforming our understanding of genetics and inspiring the discovery of DNA.

To mark the 75th anniversary of this seminal lecture series, Trinity College is holding a major international symposium on 'The Future of Biology' in September.

The Wexford exhibition seeks to consider the question What is Life and explores how art can contribute to science and vice versa and how the visual arts interpret discoveries in science.

The works were chosen for their use of scientific enquiry, playfulness and inventiveness in their artistic production and concepts.

A number of the artists have backgrounds in physics or are involved in working with science faculties in colleges.

A talk was held in the Arts Cente in conjunction with the exhibition, with the ideas raised by the works discussed by the artist Meadhbh O'Connor in conversation with Professor of Comparative Immunology at Trinity College Cliona O'Farrell and curator Deirdre Southey.

A series of talks is due to take place during the exhibition run and free guided tours will be offered to the public. For details contact the Arts Office of Wexford County Council on 053 9196369 or the Arts Centre on 053 9123764.
Students of all ages from Wexford's twin town of Lugo in Italy came to Wexford to brush up on their English at the Slaney Language Centre which has relocated from Barntown to Rowe Street in the centre of town.

The 45 Lugo residents comprising children and adults ranging in age from 12 to 82 years, were hosted by Wexford families during their stay and were accompanied by group leaders Elena Rignani and Claudia Zaffagnini.

They attended the Language Centre on the top floor of Channing House each morning and also participated in sight-seeing trips and social activities including a boat trip to the Saltee Islands, kayaking on the River Slaney and a day trip to Dublin. The language exchange was made possible thanks to the Adriano Guerrini Association in Lugo.

During the visit, the Mayor of Wexford Cllr. Tony Dempsey hosted a reception for them at the Irish National Heritage Park in Ferrycarrig which was attended by former Mayor Ted Howlin, Cllr. George Lawor and Ms. Rignani who is vice-president of the Twinning Association in Lugo.

Wexford has been officially twinned with Lugo since May 3, 2013 when a formal pact was signed by the former Mayor of Wexford Jim Allen and the Mayor of Lugo, Raffaele Cortesi following a period of 'sisterhood' which was initiated in 2000 by Ted Howlin, a former chairman of Wexford Festival Opera who has maintained links with Lugo for many years.

The relationship between Wexford and Lugo started in 1999 as a cultural link between the Opera House in Wexford and the Rossini Theatre in Lugo which was built in 1797. The theatre is named after the famous composer Gioachino Rossini who first played there in 1806.
The Minister for Justice, Charlie Flanagan, officially opened Wexford Garda Station on Wednesday before a large gathering of invited guests composed of Garda members, elected representatives and those involved with constructing the state-of-the-art building.

A special acknowledgement was given to the late Garda Seamus Quaid who was murdered in the line of duty at Ballyconnick Quarry on October 13, 1980, and those present were informed that 88 Gardai have been killed in the line of duty since the policing organisation was founded. Members of Garda Quaid's family were in attendance at the opening.

The proceedings began with a formal blessing ceremony which was celebrated by Garda Chaplains, Fr Joe Kennedy and Fr David Pierpoint, along with Fr Aodhan Marken and Canon Arthur Minion.

Superintendent Jim Doyle acted as MC and having welcomed everyone to the event he outlined the significance of the day for the community across the town and county.

He acknowledged the retired Gardai who were in attendance and paid tribute to retired Chief Superintendent John Roche for his role in bringing about the development of the new station.

Supt Doyle focused attention on the fact the new building has state-of-the-art immigration facilities and custody section in addition to a welcoming public reception area.

'The previous station served the people well for eight decades but it was a far cry from this,' said Supt Doyle.

In acknowledging Garda Quaid, Supt Doyle highlighted that the Limerick born Garda was also an All-Ireland winning hurler for Wexford and played with the Faythe Harriers club.

'We have a plaque honouring him inside the new building and there is a portrait of Seamus in the local GAA headquarters as well,' said Supt Doyle.

Referring to the significance of the occasion he commented: 'I am very proud to be the District Officer for Wexford at this time.'

Acting Garda Commissioner Donall O Cualain also spoke and echoed the sentiments of Supt Doyle in terms of the importance of the occasion for policing in County Wexford and he too acknowledged the role played by Retired Chief Supt John Roche.

'He worked very hard to ensure this fine facility would become a reality,' he said.

Commissioner O Cualain praised the people who contributed behind the scenes to ensure the new station would be realised including Sean Murphy from the Garda Estate Management Section and the OPW.

He said the station will help the Gardai deliver a service befitting a modern police force and befitting the people of Wexford.

'Here we have one of the first examples of how policing in a new Ireland will be,' said Commissioner O Cualain.

He said the importance of having a close relationship between Gardai and the community was exemplified by the opening of the new station.

In his address the Minister for Justice and Equality, Charlie Flanagan also acknowledged the family of Garda Quaid and praised the Garda Band for its performance at the ceremony and in particular its version of 'Bless This House' which he said was very appropriate.

'This new headquarters is transforming the job of policing in Wexford and the surrounding areas,' said Minister Flanagan.

'It's my second time in Wexford this year,' he added, referring to the opening of the new courthouse in February.

He acknowledged the role played by Deputy Brendan Howlin and Ministers Paul Kehoe and Michael D'Arcy in getting the station developed.

Minister Flanagan said Wexford is an immigration hub that deals with 'a huge number of applications on a daily basis' and said the new station affords people privacy in their dealings with staff members.

He thanked Commissioner O Cualain for the important role he has played in leading the Gardai as a force and he wished him well in his retirement - which will begin next month; the role of Garda Commissioner will be taken over by the Deputy Chief Constable of the PSNI, Drew Harris.

'This is a time of reform when we can do things better and more vigorously,' said Minister Flanagan, before declaring the Garda Station officially opened.

A light-hearted moment in the proceedings came towards the end when Minister Flanagan mentioned his first encounter with Supt Doyle.

He was a young solicitor at the time and Supt Doyle, then a young Garda, was giving evidence in his first court case which was a Section 49 drink driving matter.

Minister Flanagan, who was the defence solicitor in the case, refrained from revealing the outcome of the matter but perhaps it was telling that as Supt Doyle brought the ceremony to a close he referred to the Minister's comments and said: 'You were much nicer to me today than you were in cross examination in court that day over 30 years ago'.

Following the raising of the tri-colour and the playing of the national anthem the ribbon was cut on the station and those in attendance were invited inside to view the station and avail of refreshments.
The work of three women amateur artists formed a backdrop to the Phil Murphy weekend of music in Carrig-on-Bannow.

Clare Wickham of Cullenstown, Siobhan Doyle of Wellingtonbridge and Margaret Bohanna of Ballymitty joined artistic forces for an exhibition in the AOH Hall in the village, which was inundated with visitors.

Creativity comes naturally to the south Wexford trio with Clare Wickham formerly known for her beautiful painted bird boxes and Margaret Bohanna still locally renowned for her knitting and crochet crafts while Siobhan is pursuing a PhD in Museum Studies in DIT.

Clare specialises in intricate textile pictures made from dyed felt wool which she uses to create landscapes which are almost three dimensional.

Margaret is a member of Closet Artists, a group based in Bridgetown run under the auspices of WWETB, which meets every week for a class conducted by artist Sheila Burton. She joined the group three years ago, re-igniting a childhood interest in art and her mixed-media work which includes the clever use of bottlecaps, is now regularly shown in the Red Door Cafe.

Siobhan is busy studying for a doctorate and paints during any spare time available to her, creating impressive portraits of well-known people and animation scenes, mostly in acrylic on canvas.
The Gorey artist Paul McCloskey has scooped second prize in the prestigious London Contemporary Art Prize.

Paul was presented with the 'materials bursary award' at the Store Street Gallery in London during a private viewing on Thursday, July 26.

The judging panel consisted of gallery directors Lawson Bell, Andrew Stark and Terry Watts from the Royal Society of British Artists.

Paul entered 'The London Contemporary Art Prize' last November and was informed in December that he was one of thirteen finalists selected from entrants around the world.

'This year the standard was very high and it proved a challenging job for the jury as the talent poured in', said gallery director Andrew Stark. 'We had entries from many different countries, reaching every continent. With this came a huge variety of techniques, mediums and styles, which made judging extremely difficult. We were overwhelmed with the level of talent this year', he said.

The work of the final 13 artists is being exhibited at Store Street Gallery in London until August 28 and shows a diverse mix of originality, skill and craftsmanship.

Paul attended the National College of Art and Design in Dublin and De Montfort University UK and was awarded a Master's Degree in Fine art (MFA).

He has exhibited extensively nationally and internationally including the UK, London, Venice, Paris, Macedonia and New York.

He received the artists support award from Monaghan County Council in 2017 and was a 2016 Finalist in the EWAA - East, West Art Award (Japan - Worldwide) in London as well as being the 2016 recipient of a 'special award' by the international jury at the Osten Biennial of Drawing/Works on paper in Skopje, Macedonia where five of his works now form a permanent part of the 'World Gallery Of Drawing Collection' of the Museum of Drawing/Works on Paper.

Paul has been interviewed for and his work has been featured in many important visual art publications around the world.

His painting 'Man and Poet' was used for a new book of poems in which established and emerging poets respond to the works of Patrick Kavanagh.
Bus Eireann is putting on extra buses from Sligo and Ballina to Knock for the Papal visit on August 26th.

It comes as all the major agencies involved in running the event urge motorists to leave the car at home or face walking for miles to get a glimpse of Pope Francis at Knock Shrine.

Bus Eireann will operate the additional buses at Sligo at 6am on the Sunday to Knock.

Customers can then walk from the N17 bus park to the Shrine, roughly 1.5km according to a spokesperson.

When asked by The Sligo Champion where the buses would park, a spokesperson said: "Any special bus going to Knock on the day of the Pope's visit can park adjacent to Knock on the N17."

There will then be extra buses back to Sligo from Knock at 1pm.

A 5.05am service will also operate from Ballina to Claremorris via Knock, returning after the event. Online pre-booking is advised.

Sligo Cathedral parish is sending a bus of 50 people to Knock and a bus of 55 people to the Phoenix Park in Dublin the same day.

St Patrick's Strandhill Parish is also sending a bus to Knock Shrine on the Sunday.
The Canadian Ambassador to Ireland is coming to Sligo this week to participate in a ceremony naming a local road in honour of the Sligo-born poet Michael A.Hargadon.

Kevin Michael Vickers ONB SC, Ambassador of Canada to Ireland will join Cathaoirleach of Sligo County Council Councillor Martin Baker at the opening ceremony at the junction of the Dromahair Road and the Calry Road at 3.30pm on Wednesday 8th August.

The road is an area he would have traversed many times on his way to and from his home in Colgagh, Calry.

Ambassador Vickers will also unveil a commemorative plaque at the house where Michael Hargadon was born in Colgagh at 4pm on Wednesday.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the death of the Calry journalist and poet who emigrated to Canada in 1915 and became a celebrated journalist, athlete, author and poet.

Calry Local History Society in collaboration with the Friends of Michael Hargadon group, has organised a three-week long commemoration of his birth and death (1888 -1968) with a wide-ranging programme between now and 26th August.

It will include an exhibition at Sligo City Hall, poetry readings at Hargadons Bros Pub on O'Connell Street, a public lecture, the launching of a Michael Hargadon website, a radio documentary, a Hargadon clan gathering, a graveyard remembrance, a boat trip on Lough Gill and several social events.

The exhibition at City Hall was officially opened by the Mayor of Sligo Municipal District Councillor Rosaleen O'Grady at 12 noon on Monday.

It features photographs of old Sligo and Calry characters from the 1920s, including many celebrities that Hargadon met during the Roaring Twenties.

Both locals and tourists can enjoy poetry readings every lunch in Hargadon's Pub. Readers include Editor of The Sligo Champion Jenny McCudden on Thursday, descendants of the poet, local dignitaries, academics and Sligo residents.

This weekend Hargadon families from Canada, UK, USA, Belgium and around Ireland will gather at the Redahan Centre/Genealogy Centre and Sligo City Hall to network and celebrate their family history connections.

On Sunday August 19th a graveside remembrance will take place at the Hargadon and McLoughlin graves in Clogher Graveyard, Calry at 11am.

It will be conducted by Fr Vincent O'Hara with readings from the works of Michael Hargadon.

His surviving son Brian Hargadon of Ottawa will speak at a public talk in the Clayton Hotel on Tuesday 21st August at 8pm. He will be joined by Chair of Calry Local History Society Gerard Cunningham.

michaelahargadon.com.
Hundreds of local residents attended a public meeting in Cliffoney Hall on Thursday evening last in support of a campaign to retain the local post office in the village.

John Rooney, who presided at the event, said the capacity attendance reflected the level of concern in the local community since news of the threatened closure became public.

A large number of elected public representatives attended and spoke including Sligo County Councillors Seamus Kilgannon, Mayor of Sligo Municipal District Rosaleen O'Grady, Declan Bree, Hubert Keaney, Sinead Maguire, Marie Casserly, Gino O'Boyle, Chris MacManus, Thomas Healy and Sligo-Leitrim Deputy Marc MacSharry.

Cllr Declan Bree told the meeting the threatened closure of Cliffoney Post Office was part of an overall plan by An Post to close up to 200 rural post offices in the country.

"I remember speaking at a Council meeting some time back warning that the E.U. Postal Services Directive, if transposed into Irish law would open up postal services to private companies. I warned, and indeed the Communications Workers Union warned that this would lead to the private sector cherry picking profitable postal services while An Post would be expected to maintain and subsidise the less profitable services which would eventually lead to post office closures," he said.

"Unfortunately the main parties in the Dail went ahead and adopted the E.U. Directive and since then we have witnessed the continuous closure of rural post offices.

"In addition to organising locally to oppose the closure it is important that the Cliffoney committee link up with groups in Ballinfull, Gurteen, Dromard, Monasteradan and the many other areas in the region where closures are threatened.

"The Public Banking Forum and people like Seamus Maye have pointed out how rural post offices can be sustained by allowing them to provide a community banking service.

"We now need to let the government know that the closure of our rural post offices is unacceptable," said Cllr Bree.
A Jack B Yeats watercolour of a Riverstown contemporary, a baptismal robe from Lissadell House and examples of the old Sligo pound notes are just some of the rarities about to go on display this month in Riverstown.

The unique artefacts will be showcased to the public for the very first time at the Bicentenary celebrations of Taunagh Church in the village from 17th-19th August.

The Jack Yeats watercolour is of local barrister John Francis Taylor who was a member of the Contemporary Club in Dublin in the late 19th century - fellow members included Douglas Hyde and WB Yeats.

His descendant and namesake John Taylor (pictured right, holding the original journal marking the 1818 consecration of the church) bought the artwork at this years big Yeats auction at Sothebys of London.

"It's a gem. I paid too much for it!" he told this newspaper.

John is an avid memorabilia collector and is sharing the Taunagh collection with the public over the three day festival.

It is commemorating the consecration of the church on the 23rd August 1818. It replaced the old church up at Taunagh which is now in ruins and date back to 1333.

The celebration will include a walk from old Taunagh Church to the present church by local children, a festival of flowers and crafts, a display of over 500 books on Sligo (most first editions and signed), over 200 books on the Yeats family, some of which are even signed by WB Yeats.

Other watercolours and etching paintings by Jack Yeats will be on display, alongside over 1,500 postcards of county Sligo, old programmes of Sligo GAA, Sligo Rovers, horse racing and other Sligo sports.

Other people have donated Sligo jury delph and silver, Sligo posters, old coins and pound notes unique to Sligo.

One of the antique gems that will be seen is a pre-Famine Penny Black stamp dating to 1840.

A special display of historical outfits includes the officers uniform of Sir Henry Gore-Booth from Lissadell and Countess Markievicz's Irish Military uniform.

On the Saturday night 18th August there will be a ticket only James Kilbane Concert. On the Sunday afternoon a Thanksgiving Church will be held at 4pm led by Bishop Glenfield.

"Within the nearby Cooper Memorial Hall we hope to put on a memorabilia selection, supported by the Sligo Leader partnership, which have given us a grant towards making a display unit for displaying our memorabilia," said John.

"There's about fifty Church of Ireland families attend that church. It's a church we're proud of because many of our families attended it for hundreds of years, including our own. The COI families in Riverstown come from a mainly farming background, some in business but the majority were farmers.

"It just gives us a chance to showcase what we have locally in terms of heritage. We have never showcased ourselves before so this is a once off. We might do it again in 200 years time, you never know!" he said.
Human Trafficking campaigner Victoria Stanek (left) with Mary McSharry at the new Irish HQ of Invisible Traffick in Sligo town

Tidy towns volunteers are on the frontline in the fight against modern day human slavery.

They recently invited the Irish anti-human trafficking charity Invisible Traffick to give a talk on the issue to raise awareness of signs of trafficking among their volunteers.

"Everybody can play a part. Have the conversations, share us on social media, get the word out there. Get to learn the signs and indicators of slavery," Invisible Traffick Irish Co-Ordinator Mary McSharry told this newspaper.

The charity has just opened their Irish HQ in Sligo town and were visited by US human trafficking campaigner Victoria Stanek last week.

Stanek visited Ireland straight after trips to Nepal and Sri Lanka on an international fact finding mission on human trafficking.

She spent several weeks working with the UK HQ of Invisible Traffick in Belfast before joining Invisible Traffick Irish Co-Ordinator Mary McSharry at the new Irish HQ in Sligo town.

"I wanted to learn different methods and come at it as a team and see how we could learn from each other," said Stanek.

"I'm learning so much about the different policies in place here. I think it's really interesting to see the particular vulnerability of Ireland as an island but I do like to see what Invisible Traffick is doing, especially with their funding problems.

"Labour Trafficking is really prevalent here in fisheries, car washes, nail bars," Mary told The Sligo Champion.

"Labour trafficking is a huge issue in Nepal and in the Dharjeeling area of India where the plantation owners own all the land and the housing. Workers have to live in the homes provided which means the homes don't get upkeep.

"It's usually a ton of people packed into two rooms with no electricity or running water. The owners even own the liquor stores so there's a lot of alcoholism on the plantation and the owner has no interest solving the problem because they're making a profit off it," she said.

www.invisibletraffick. org
Almost a thousand new .ie domains were registered in Wicklow in the first half of 2018, according to the latest Domain Profile Report published last week by the IE Domain Registry, the company that manages and maintains Ireland's official country domain name.

The figure, 994, is a 47 per cent year-on-year increase. Overall, new .ie domain registrations in Leinster in the first half (H1) of 2018 numbered 17,544, a 39 per cent year-on-year increase.

Nationally, .ie domain registrations grew by 39 per cent year-on-year to 28,126, bringing the total .ie domain database to 252,222 at the end of H1 2018. The majority (62.5%), of new .ie domains were registered by businesses (including corporate bodies and sole traders).

In total, 154 .ie domains were registered every day in H1 2018, with increases in 31 of the 32 counties of Ireland.

Chief Executive of IE Domain Registry David Curtin said: 'Virtually every county in Ireland recorded an increase in .ie domain registrations in the first half of 2018.

'The increase in registrations in Wicklow and in Leinster during this period is good news, as increased online activity among businesses is a leading indicator of Ireland's broader economic growth.

'In particular, the growth of .ie in regional parts of Ireland is a fantastic example of how the internet can help businesses in less infrastructurally developed counties overcome traditional barriers to growth, such as a smaller customer base or slower road and rail links.

'Part of IE Domain Registry's overarching mission is to ensure that Ireland's small businesses are taking full advantage of the internet economy by getting online, connecting with their customers, and selling to them. We are confident that continued innovation within the .ie namespace, and ongoing digital advocacy for e-commerce, will have positive, long-term results for Ireland's SMEs.'

Mr Curtin said that a significant part of .ie's growth in the last six months is a result of IE Domain Registry's new 'liberalisation' policy.

The policy, implemented in March after extensive consultation with industry stakeholders and the general public, makes it easier and faster to register a .ie domain. This change is timely as businesses are moving away from generic, anonymous email addresses, like eircom.net or gmail.com.

'Liberalisation has resulted in a streamlined registration process. While applicants are still required to prove their connection to Ireland, they can now register their preferred name on a first-come, first-served basis. For new business start-ups and small-scale enterprises, liberalisation has removed an administrative obstacle to .ie domain registration,' said Mr Curtin.

'Businesses, organisations and community groups across the island of Ireland recognise the unique power and benefit of .ie's "identifiably Irish" brand for their websites and email addresses. For an SME, a .ie online address signals to local customers that they are local and trustworthy. To international customers, .ie is an authentic and protected marker of Irishness,' he said.
On Saturday both of Wicklow's mountain rescue teams were deployed to two separate incidents involving injured walkers.

At 1.56 p.m. Dublin Wicklow Mountain Rescue Team and Glen of Imaal Mountain Rescue Team were tasked by the National Ambulance Service to assist them in responding to an injured walker on the Spinc in Glendalough.

A teenage boy had fallen and sustained a lower leg injury while out walking.

His injuries were assessed by mountain rescue medics and he was packed and stretchered down to a waiting HSE ambulance. The incident was stood down at 4.08 p.m.

Just as mountain rescue members were finishing up treating the teenager, they received notice at 3.50 p.m. from the Gardai of an injured walker on White Hill near Djouce Mountain.

The walker, who was with a group of friends, sustained a knee injury and was unable to continue. Rescue parties were dispatched to the group's location, where the walker's injuries were assessed and treated.

The patient was then packaged into a stretcher and carried to a waiting ambulance. The incident was stood down at 5.53 p.m.
Police said the man may have been called Peter Thomas Harrison Photo: Avon and Somerset Police

A homeless man lay dead in a tent for up to a year before being found, UK police have revealed.

The body was discovered near Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, in such a state of decomposition that officers have been unable to identify for certain who he was.

A member of the public made the grisly find after coming across the tent  hidden in a thicket of trees off the A370  and peaking inside.

PC Andy Henderson, of Avon and Somerset Police, said: This is a really sad case of a man who appears to have been sleeping rough and whose death seems to have gone unreported.

It would appear he had been dead for up to a year before he was found and due to the condition of the remains it has been extremely difficult to establish who he is.

He added that documentation including a driving licence and birth certificate were found when the corpse was first discovered on 15 August last year.

They suggest the man may have been called Peter Thomas Harrison and was probably from Birmingham. He may have been aged 59 or 60.

However, because the body had deteriorated, it has been impossible to confirm for sure.

Nearby homes and businesses all told officers they had been unaware of the tent or its occupant.

Police are now appealing for anyone who might have known the man to come forward after all other leads were exhausted.

PC Henderson added: We also believe he was a driver by trade and had spent recent years living in and around the Weston area.

Wed rather his next-of-kin not find out about his death in this manner but feel strongly that, given the length of time, it is important they know.

If you are the mans next-of-kin, or have any information which could help us identify them, please contact our investigations unit.
A mother detained in Dubai with her four-year-old daughter after drinking a complimentary glass of wine on a flight from London said she is pleased the "nightmare is coming to an end" after being given the all-clear to return to the UK.

Swedish dentist Ellie Holman, who lives in Sevenoaks in Kent with her English partner Gary and their three children, was facing an uncertain future after being arrested on July 13 having drunk one glass of wine on her eight-hour Emirates Airline flight to Dubai from London.

She was taken into custody after an immigration official questioned her about her visa and asked if she had consumed alcohol.

Dr Holman, 44, and her daughter Bibi were reportedly denied food, water and access to a toilet at the beginning of their ordeal when they were held in a cell together for three days.

She was faced with being detained in Dubai for up to a year while awaiting a court hearing.

But human rights group Detained in Dubai has confirmed the charges have been dropped.

Dr Holman said: "I am shocked and excited to be returning home to England and that this nightmare is coming to an end.

"When I answered the phone this morning and was told that I was being let go and needed to collect my passport, I couldn't believe it and wondered if it was a trap.

"Radha (Stirling, Detained in Dubai chief executive) told me to go ahead and collect my passport, that this has happened before.

"They apologised on behalf of the immigration official and was told that I was free on Sheikh Mohammed's orders and welcome to return to Dubai. They helped me to arrange flights out of the country.

"This situation has cost us tens of thousands and we have had to use all of our savings which is devastating to us".

Dr Holman and Bibi were travelling to Dubai for a five-day break to visit friends, having visited a number of times before.

In a statement, Ms Stirling said: "We are very happy for Dr Holman that the government of Dubai decided not to pursue the charges they brought against her for consuming the complimentary glass of wine provided their own government-owned airline.

"Obviously this case never should have happened, and Dr Holman and her four year old daughter should never have been detained and mistreated.

"She should not have suffered the considerable financial loss incurred by her detention, and her daughter should never have been subjected to this needless trauma.

"However, the fact is, this case was not a 'mistake'; it was perfectly in keeping with the confused laws of the UAE pertaining to alcohol, and what should never have happened will inevitably happen again to another unsuspecting traveller who accepts a free alcoholic beverage from Emirates Airlines on a flight to Dubai.

"Dismissing the case of Dr Holman does not resolve the problematic policies in the UAE that allowed this case to happen; and tourists must understand that they still face serious risk of prosecution in Dubai for any number of offences that they may not even know are offences.

"They will offer you alcohol on their airline, and arrest you at the airport for accepting it. This can only be regarded as such a deliberate attempt to misrepresent UAE rules on alcohol that it amounts to entrapment.

"So while we are happy for Dr Holman, we continue to fear for other travellers to and through the UAE who may well find themselves in legal trouble through no fault of their own."
The wreckage of a bus at the site of an airstrike in Saada, Yemen. Photo: AP

Children were heading back from a picnic when their driver stopped to get a drink and their bus was hit by an airstrike, according to Save the Children.

Coalition airstrikes led by Saudi Arabia hit the bus carrying children in rebel-held northern Yemen on Thursday, killing and wounding dozens.

The bus had been travelling through a busy market in Dahyan district, northern Saada, at the time of the raid.

The Houthi rebels' health ministry said 43 people died, including 29 children.

"Scores killed, even more injured, most under the age of 10," Johannes Bruwer, head of delegation for the International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) in Yemen, stated in a Twitter post.

The ICRC said one of the hospitals it supports was treating the wounded.

In a video recorded in the immediate aftermath of the attack, one boy covered in dirt trying to stand up was seemingly unable to move.

"My leg won't get up," he told the man behind the camera.

Mohammed Abdul-Salam, a Houthi spokesman, accused the coalition of showing a "clear disregard for civilian life" by targeting a crowded public place.

Footage from the hospital showed young children, some still wearing their backpacks, bleeding and apparently injured.

"It is high time for these relapsing tragedies to stop in Yemen," said Robert Mardini, the ICRC's regional director.

"No one should allow putting children in harm's way and making them pay such an unacceptable price."

The Houthi rebels control much of northern Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa.

The Dahyan district hit on Thursday lies close to the Saudi border. In recent months, rebels have fired missiles into the neighbouring kingdom, including on Wednesday in an attack that killed one.

Col Turki al-Malki, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, said the attack in Saada targeted the rebels who had fired it.

He said it was carried out "in accordance with international and humanitarian law and customs", and accused the rebels of using the children as human shields.

The coalition intervened in 2015 to try to restore the internationally recognised government to power after it was driven out of Sanaa by Shia rebels.

The coalition, which receives support and funding from the US and UK, has been criticised for its often indiscriminate bombing of civilian areas.
Air Alaska passengers wait in the terminal following an incident where an airline employee took off in an airplane, at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Seattle REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

Air Alaska passengers wait at the customer service desk, following an incident where an airline employee took off in an airplane, at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport REUTERS/Brendan McDermid

A Horizon Air Bombardier Dash 8 Q400, reported to be hijacked, flies over Fircrest, Washington, the U.S., before crashing in the South Puget Sound Leah Morse/via REUTERS

Law enforcement officials stand at a staging area at the ferry terminal in Steilacoom, Washington (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Alaska Airlines planes sit on the tarmac at Sea-Tac International Airport Friday evening (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Law enforcement vehicles are shown, Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, at the ferry terminal in Steilacoom, Wash (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor talks on his phone at a staging area (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

A Horizon Air Bombardier Dash 8 Q400, reported to be hijacked, flies over Fircrest, Washington, the U.S., before crashing in the South Puget Sound Leah Morse/via REUTERS

Planes sit on the tarmac at Sea-Tac International Airport after service was halted after an Alaska Airlines plane was stolen (Bettina Hansen /The Seattle Times via AP)

An airline mechanic stole a plane from a major US airport before crashing it into an island, officials said.

The Alaska Airlines plane was stolen without any passengers on board and took off from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Washington state on Friday night before crashing near Ketron Island.

Preliminary information suggested that the 29-year-old mechanic stole the Horizon Air Q400 and the crash occurred because the person was "doing stunts in air or lack of flying skills," the Pierce County Sheriff's Department said on Twitter.

The plane was chased by military aircraft, witnesses said.

Airport officials said the airline employee had "conducted an unauthorised takeoff without passengers".

Alaska Airlines said in a Tweet: "We've confirmed a Horizon Air Q400 that had an unauthorized takeoff from SeaTac around 8pm has gone down near Ketron Island in Pierce County, WA.

"We're working to confirm who was on board, we believe there were no guests or crew on board other than the person operating the plane."

The US Coast Guard was sending a 45ft vessel to the crash scene after witnesses reported seeing a large plume of smoke in the air, Petty Officer Ali Flockerzi said.

Update: from Steilacoom in the Comorat Passage neighborhood, heavy smoke and police boats/cars can be seen on Ketron Island pic.twitter.com/C9r8viCYGk  Marissa Anthony (@marissaaAnthony) August 11, 2018

Pierce County Sheriff Public Information Officer Ed Troyer has said that officials believe the man who stole the plane is suffering from mental health issues.

He said in a statement on Twitter: "This is not a terrorist incident. Confirmed information .. this is a single suicide male. We know who he is. No others involved.

"(He) Acted alone, he is a 29 year old Pierce County resident."

Mr Troyer said that he is working with FBI and military personnel as they investigate what happened.

The sheriff's department said they were working to conduct a background investigation on the man, whose name was not immediately released.

The man could be heard on audio recordings telling air traffic controllers that he is "just a broken guy".

Horizon Air is part of Alaska Air Group and flies shorter routes throughout the US West.

The Q400 ix a turboprop aircraft with 76 seats.

More to follow...
Donald Trump frequently used the N-word and other racial slurs, a former Apprentice Star and White House aide has claimed.

Omarosa Manigault Newman, who was one of the president's most senior African American aides, claims he was recorded making the slurs "multiple times" during the filming of his TV talent show.

Manigault Newman, once the most prominent African American in the White House, made the shocking claims in a new memoir Unhinged, due to be released next week.

The former aide claims she has spoken to three sources who confirmed that Mr Trump was caught on tape using the N-word during filming for The Apprentice but she has not heard him use the word herself.

Mr Trump has a tanning bed in the White House residency and fought with staff over its installation, Manigault Newman also claims in the book.

Mr Trump hosted the show for its first 14 seasons from 2004-2015, before he announced he would run for the presidency.

Manigault Newman, often referred to by just her first name, was a participant on the show's first season and a celebrity sequel.

She also claims Mr Trump would use racist language when raging about the husband of White House counselor Kellyanne Conway.

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George Conway, who is half Filipino, has been a vocal critic of a number of the president's policies.

Manigault Newman quotes the president saying: Would you look at this George Conway article... F**ing FLIP! Disloyal! F***ing Goo-goo, according to The Guardian, who have obtained an early copy of the book.

According to extracts seen by the Washington Post, Manigault Newman claims she was also offered a $15,000-a-month hush money payment to prevent her from publicly criticising Mr Trump or his family.

The former aide said after her dismissal she was offered a role doing diversity outreach work for Mr Trump's 2020 campaign.

The offer was made in a phone call from Lara Trump, the presidents daughter-in-law and campaign adviser, offering her the role and monthly contract in exchange for her silence.

The NDA attached to the email was as harsh and restrictive as any Id seen in all my years of television, Manigault Newman writes in the book.

Earlier this week US media reported that Manigault Newman had secretly recorded the president during their White House interactions and used the tapes in order to secure a book deal.

The former Apprentice contestant left the Trump administration amid reports of a blazing row with chief of staff John Kelly at a Christmas party, and critics have suggested her book is a way of seeking revenge.

Early on in the presidential campaign Manigault Newman was a vocal supporter of Mr Trump and served as Director of African-American Outreach in 2016.

Manigault Newman, who served as director of communications for the White House office of public liason, writes that at the time of her departure she had come to a growing realisation that Donald Trump was indeed a racist, a bigot and a misogynist".

However she claims that Mr Kelly was aware that she was close to getting her hands on Mr Trump's compromising Apprentice tapes which prompted him to fire her under another pretext.

It is not the first time Mr Trump has been hit by damaging tapes. Shortly before the 2016 election, the release of a tape of him boasting about grabbing women by their private parts dominated the headlines.

Shortly afterwards, Bill Pruitt, a producer on The Apprentice claimed there were far worse out takes of Mr Trump on the reality show. Actor Tom Arnold has also claimed to have a video of Mr Trump saying "every offensive, racist thing ever.

It was him sitting in that chair saying the N-word, saying the C-word, calling his son a retard, just being so mean to his own children, he told US radio station KIRO.

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the media company which holds the rights to The Apprentice, has refused to release the footage citing contractual and legal obligations.

On Friday, the White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said: Instead of telling the truth about all the good President Trump and his administration are doing to make America safe and prosperous, this book is riddled with lies and false accusations.

"Its sad that a disgruntled former White House employee is trying to profit off these false attacks, and even worse that the media would now give her a platform, after not taking her seriously when she had only positive things to say about the President during her time in the administration.

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2021]
Neha Dhupia and Angad Bedi amazed us all with their secret wedding on 10th May this year. The rumoured couple had tied the nuptial knot at a Gurudwara in Delhi amidst family members. The duo had later announced on their social media handle about their private wedding.

Soon after their wedding, reports of Neha being pregnant started doing rounds. Neha's dad later dismissed these reports and claimed them false. Time and again Neha and husband Angad Bedi were asked about Neha's pregnancy but they have been dismissing these reports till now.

At the GQ awards held last week, Angad had graced the red carpet with Neha Dhupia were he was once again quizzed about her pregnancy. To which he had replied saying, "When it happens, we will come out and surely speak about it".

He continued saying, "First we need to buy a house. We are going in the reverse order right now. So when we make some money and get some more work, we will start a family too. We will surely tell everyone about it".

Amidst all these pregnancy rumours, Angad and wife Neha are spending some time together at their Maldives Holiday. The couple shared pictures of their chill time and they looked all refreshing. Neha posted along with the picture, "Sunkissed ... at the @fairmont.maldives ... #fairmontmaldives#feelwelcome

#FairmontMoments#FairmontHotels #maldivesislands#accorhotel

@yashlightroom"


After wrapping the first schedule of Bharat in Mumbai, Salman Khan begins the second schedule of the film in Malta.

One of the most anticipated films of 2019 Bharat went on floors earlier last month and has already wrapped the first schedule in Mumbai.

After the Mumbai schedule, the team of Bharat has already Kickstarted the second schedule of the film in Malta.

Superstar Salman Khan took to social media to announce the beginning of the second schedule of Bharat saying, "Starting the shooting schedule of #Bharat in Malta, lovely country."



Featured Video

Director Ali Abbas Zafar earlier shared a sneak peek from the first schedule of the film which included a grand circus sequence featuring Salman Khan riding a motorbike amidst a fire ring.

Salman Khan and Disha Patani shot for the first schedule of Bharat which also included a song choreographed by Vaibhavi Merchant.

Disha Patani plays a trapeze artist in the film and will be seen doing some action sequences and daredevil stunts including fire for the same.

Bharat's release brings back Salman Khan and director Ali Abbas Zafar for an Eid release after the 2016 Blockbuster Hit, Sultan. The hit director-actor duo will be marking a hattrick with Bharat after their last outing Tiger Zinda Hai.

Salman Khan will yet again treat the audience on the festive season of Eid next year with the release of Bharat.

The film will feature Salman Khan sporting five different looks spanning 60 years, wherein a crucial part will showcase the actor in his late 20s, looking much leaner and younger. Salman Khan will be recreating his 'Karan-Arjun' look which has created immense excitement amongst the audience.

The film is set to have a character-driven story spanning across many periods. Bharat will be shot across exotic locations in Malta and Abu Dhabi, besides Punjab and Delhi in India.

Including stellar performers like Salman Khan, Katrina Kaif , Disha Patani, Tabu and Sunil Grover , the Ali Abbas Zafar directorial boasts of an ensemble cast promising power-packed performances.

Directed by Ali Abbas Zafar, 'Bharat' is produced by Atul Agnihotri's Reel Life Production Pvt. Ltd and Bhushan Kumar's T-Series releasing Eid 2019.
Sexism is a deeply rooted problem in a patriarchal world like ours, so much so, it has become the reason women are developing pet peeves. Here are 9 things that annoy us ladies, thanks to sexism. If youre a woman, you will related to these points and if you arent a woman, take note of the things youre doing wrong.

1. When the waiter hands the bar menu to the man on the table

A woman can drink too, you know. Whats with the assumption that they are only at the restaurant to eat and not get sloshed?

gifer

2. Mansplaining during meetings by male colleagues

Men love to talk to behalf on women even when they arent asked to and damn, that annoys the bejesus out of women.

tenor

3. If a woman is with a male, people talk only looking at the man

A womans existence becomes negligent if a man is in the picture and that just how pathetically patriarchy has conditioned our brains.

tenor

4. Assuming a woman will never drink whiskey

Its a womans choice if she wants to drink wine or whiskey or water. The problem comes when shes not given a choice and automatically handed a glass of wine.

gyfcat

5. When women dont put on makeup, and everyone calls them tired

Make it a rule to not give your opinion if nobody is asking for it. Women hate it when people call them tired or sick if they dont put on makeup. Its our choice, our face and we decide what we want to do to it.

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6. When people call your sir or refer you as Mr.

The number of times this happens to women is not even funny. If a woman is authoritative, people start referring her as sir and we have no idea where that cropped up from? Its irritating as is and so itll be great if a woman was either referred by her name or at least, by the right title.

gifer

7. Judgemental looks when a woman drives



As if it wasnt enough to label women as bad drivers, which is completely baseless, by the way, women are constantly given judgemental looks by men who think women dont know what they are doing.

Tenor

8. Making fun of feminism

The most common pet peeve women have is when people make fun of feminism. The problem is half of the population doesnt even understand feminism, then who gave them the right to comment on it and especially make fun of it?

gyfcat

9. When someone comments on their body

According to society, there are certain body standards that a woman has to meet in order to look pretty, which by the way are completely bogus. But because these standards are so engrossed in our brains, they become our identity for other people - which is just unfair.

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Panic spread in the Baiganwadi slum area of East Mumbai on Friday after the death of a 12-year-old girl who was given iron boosting pills. Health officials said that around 200 children from the area were admitted to civic hospitals.

The girl was a student at a civic body-run school in Mumbai died today while other students hospitalised due to suspected poisoning after they took iron-boosting pills given by the school.

pti

Chandani Sahil Sheikh, the girl, who died on Thursday night, studied at the Municipal Urdu School No 2 in Govandi area. All the students of the school were administered iron and folic acid tablets on Monday under the national program to fight anaemia. The girl was administered iron and folic acid tablets on Monday at the school, a statement from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) said.

The statement added that the girl skipped school on Tuesday but attended classes on Wednesday and Thursday. She died at her home Thursday night after a "history of vomiting blood". The statement said the students of BMC-run schools were given iron, folic acid and deworming tablets as part of a Central government scheme aimed at fighting anaemia among children.

The civic body claimed that "there were no reports of any untoward incident" during this national programme. Officials today said tuberculosis might be a cause behind the girl's death, though the BMC statement maintained that the "details of her previous illness are not known".

A BMC official said the parents of other students of the school blamed the school for the death and panicked, and brought them to the civic body-run Rajawadi Hospital at Ghatkopar and Shatabdi Hospital at Govandi. "A few children complained of nausea and giddiness. However, no one had major signs or symptoms," a senior BMC official said.

He added that all the children were examined by paediatricians and advised discharge from the hospitals. Padmaja Keskar, Executive Health Officer, BMC said the tablets given to the students were "tried and tested", adding that the cause of the girl's death would only be known once the post-mortem report came in.

With inputs from PTI
External Affairs Minister (EAM) Sushma Swaraj has been wanting to garner majority in the United Nations to make Hindi an official language. This move comes ahead of the 11th World Hindi Conference, as Swaraj says getting support make Hindi an official language was an easy task.

Addressing this recently in a press conference, Swaraj said that the impediment for making Hindi an official language in the UN was the requirement for all nations who are supporting the proposal to share the expenses that will be incurred, thus making it difficult for countries that are economically weak to support the agenda.

"If we can get the support of 177 nations out of 193 member nations for the implementation of a World Yoga Day, then we can easily get 129 nations to support this agenda. The problem is the requirement for all nations to share the expenses, which the smaller, financially weak nations will not be able to bear," Swaraj said.

She further stated that apart from India, countries like Germany, Japan had tried to get this rule annulled, but the UN would not budge. "Like Japan and Germany, we offered to bear all expenses ourselves, but the UN didn't comply," Swaraj added.

However, Swaraj said that they made some major inroads into getting Hindi recognised at a global platform like the UN, saying that they had started a Twitter account in Hindi last month and also started broadcasting news in Hindi around the same time.

Swaraj further highlighted the establishment of a World Hindi Secretariat in Mauritius, which President Ram Nath Kovind had inaugurated in March, as another step towards Hindi getting recognised worldwide, and this would be the first time that the Indian delegation would be travelling to the Conference, which is slated to be held from August 18 to August 20, in a special flight.

With inputs from PTI
Barely five days before Independence Day, the state ATS arrested three persons, including two from Nalasopara, on Friday for plotting bomb blasts to disturb communal harmony and having links with terrorist organisations. Twenty bombs and bomb-making material were recovered from a bungalow in the distant northern suburb.

Vaibhav Raut, 40, a gau rakshak with the Hindu Govansh Raksha Samiti, and his associate Sharad Kalaskar, 25, were detained in Nalasopara (West) early on Thursday. Sudhanav Ghondalekar, 39, who claims to be a businessman, was nabbed in Pune.

The Congress alleged Raut has been associated with the Sanatan Sanstha for long and shared the dais with Sanatan leaders, and called for the group to be declared a terrorist organisation.

twitter

The state junior home minister said it was too early to link Raut and the others to any organization as the ATS has not completed its probe, but they will be probed for links with the murders of Narendra Dabholkar, Govind Pansare and M M Kalburgi. The Congress also alleged they were planning blasts during Bakr-Id to fan communal violence.

"We have booked all three accused for criminal conspiracy under the IPC, having association with a terrorist gang or organisation under UAPA, and other laws," said Atulchandra Kulkarni, state ATS chief. They were entrusted with the responsibility of taking care of the explosive materials, explained another ATS officer. They were produced before a court on Friday and were remanded in police custody till August 18.

twitter/ani

Around 4am on Thursday, a state ATS team arrived quietly at the three-storey bungalow of Raut at Bhandarally, Nalasopara (west). Raut was under watch for the last few months after his name cropped up while probing a case, said sources.

In the evening, ATS officers with forensic experts, bomb detection and disposal squad (BDDS) personnel and the dog squad raided the bungalow. They left on Friday morning with Raut and dozens of seized material.

"We got information that a group was planning destructive activity in several parts of the state. They wanted to carry out bomb blasts to disturb communal harmony," said an officer.

twitter

"We got a tip-off about a mobile phone SIM card and began probing it. When we reached the card user, we found it was being used by someone else while issued in another person's name. Several such cards were being used by other people. This led us to detect this case," he added.

Sunil Ghanvat, Maharashtra and Chattisgarh state organiser of the Hindu Janjagruti Samiti, said in a press statement that Raut is a "daring cow protector" and "used to participate in programmes and agitations organized through uniting Hindi organisations under the aegis of Hindu Janjagruti Samiti". But for a few months he had not taken part, and called the arrest harassment of activists of Hindu organisations.

As a cow vigilante, Raut used to often stop vehicles carrying cattle to the nearby Sopara village, which has a number of abattoirs. Locals said for the past few years, Raut had taken a staunch stand on Hindutva.

twitter/ani

Despite belonging to the meat-eating Bhandari community, he had turned vegetarian and used to preach to people to say no to meat. But they said they could not believe he was into making bombs. People not known to the villagers used to visit Raut's home but locals thought it could be part of his real estate business.

ATS sources said Raut has been a Sanstha sympathizer for the last six years. He used to participate in programmes organized by Hindu outfits, and follow Hindu organisations on social platforms like Facebook and Twitter. But he stopped 20 months ago. "We will scan his social media pages and accounts to find out about his activities. His phone has been seized and will be sent for cyber analysis," said the officer.

In court, special public prosecutor Sunil Gonsalves said secret information was received on August 7 that some suspected persons were conspiring to carry out terrorist activities at Pune, Satara, Solapur, Nalasopara and Mumbai. "We were provided mobile numbers of the suspected accused. We started inquiring based on this information and it was also revealed in the secret information that certain weapons arms and ammunitions are stored at a particular place at Nalasopara," said Gonsalves. He submitted that the ATS needed to find out where the accused were going to use the bomb, places from which the material to make the bombs were procured and where the accused trained. When asked by the judge, Kalaskar and Gondalkar complained they were beaten up by the police.
A special court in Mumbai has issued summons to the sister and brother of absconding diamantaire Nirav Modi under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, asking them to appear before it on September 25.

The court issued three public notices in leading dailies on Saturday naming Nirav Modis sister Purvi Modi and brother Neeshal Modi as they have been enumerated as an interested person in an application made under the new Act by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). Read more

Minor Boy Sodomised While Returning from Kanwar Yatra In Muzaffarnagar, Dhaba Owner Arrested

Another horrific incident of a rape on a minor rook place in Muzaffarnagar on Friday. A 14-year-old boy was allegedly sodomised by a dhaba owner in one of the villages.

The boy and his friends had gone to Haridwar during the Kanwar yatra. On their way back, they took up work at the dhaba as they had run out of money, Circle Officer Rizwan Ahmad said. The boy lodged a complaint and the man has been arrested. Read more

Hindi May Soon Become Official UN Language, Sushma Swaraj Says It's Getting Good Support

External Affairs Minister (EAM) Sushma Swaraj has been wanting to garner majority in the United Nations to make Hindi an official language. This move comes ahead of the 11th World Hindi Conference, as Swaraj says getting support make Hindi an official language was an easy task.

Addressing this recently in a press conference, Swaraj said that the impediment for making Hindi an official language in the UN was the requirement for all nations who are supporting the proposal to share the expenses that will be incurred, thus making it difficult for countries that are economically weak to support the agenda. Read more

Girl Dies, 200 Hospitalised After Allegedly Consuming Iron Boosting Pills In Mumbai School

Panic spread in the Baiganwadi slum area of East Mumbai on Friday after the death of a 12-year-old girl who was given iron boosting pills. Health officials said that around 200 children from the area were admitted to civic hospitals.

The girl was a student at a civic body-run school in Mumbai died today while other students hospitalised due to suspected poisoning after they took iron-boosting pills given by the school. Read more

Amid Independence Day Celebrations, Gujarat Poachers Use Kites To Snag Nalsarovar Birds

Poachers around Nalsarovar have struck upon a new modus operandi: With forest officials being on the lookout for nets, they are now using kites to snag and injure Nalsarovars winged visitors, and then sell or eat them.

This is new for Nalsarovar, where poachers used nets in the past. Killing of birds using kite strings has been reported from Saurashtra, especially to bring down cranes, but this was not known in Nalsarovar area, said a senior officer of the forest department. Read more

Traveling By Train? You Will Have To Soon Buy Insurance As Railway Scraps Free Coverage

The Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has decided to stop free travel insurance to its passengers starting September 1.

This means that while booking tickets through IRCTC website or mobile application Travellers will have to choose from two options: to opt-in or opt-out of travel insurance. Read more
The selfie craze seems to be turning people into Neanderthals. Apart from the idiotic stunts that people do to get the most offbeat selfies, people are now getting into brawls to grab that perfect selfie spot.

In a quest for perfection, a 19-year-old Dutch tourist got into a fight with an American, aged 44, at the famous fountain in Rome.

They exchanged slaps and punches, with their respective family members soon joining in. Two police officers briefly managed to control the scuffle, but it got out of hand, requiring the help of two more officers.

The tourists have been charged with violence. Well then!
Nowadays, anybody and anything can turn into an overnight Internet sensation.

But there are some people who do wild things to carve out a niche on social media, like this UK inmate.

According to a Daily Mail report, this anonymous inmate achieved fame on Instagram by posting pictures from prison of fancy gourmet food.

Wondering how he got all that fancy food?

The report claims that he smuggled it all with the help of prison authorities! He actually cooked the meals inside his cell using the smuggled goods that include a grill and a slow cooker. Now that's fancy for a prisoner!

In the Daily Mail video, he is seen flaunting stereos, private television screen, and Ciroc vodka!

But right after his story went viral on UK media, the man apparent took down his Instagram account and blames the media outlet for the coverage.

Seems like someone got busted!
"Stop Corruption and Money Laundering," says United Nations and Multinational Companies coord [at] jubileeusa.org)

Friday Aug 10th, 2018 3:35 PM by Lydia Andrews

The UN Economic Commission for Africa renewed calls to tackle money laundering during a UN meeting this week in Addis Ababa. At the meeting, governments were urged to follow the recommendations in the Mbeki report that notes Africa loses between $50 and $80 billion annually through corruption, tax evasion and other "illicit financial flows."

The UN Economic Commission for Africa renewed calls to tackle money laundering during a UN meeting this week in Addis Ababa. At the meeting, governments were urged to follow the recommendations in the Mbeki report that notes Africa loses between $50 and $80 billion annually through corruption, tax evasion and other "illicit financial flows."



The revenue loss to countries from tax evasion and money laundering across Africa impact vulnerable communities across the continent," stated Eric LeCompte the Executive Director of the religious development group, Jubilee USA. "Too many African countries are facing new debt crises because of revenue shortfalls." LeCompte serves on United Nation finance expert groups.



In an opinion piece in The Hill on Thursday, the vice president of the National Foreign Trade Council urged Congress to adopt transparency regulations to tackle money laundering and corruption in connection with Russia. The author cites recommendations from a report of the Atlantic Council that would reveal the actual owner of a shell company. "Anonymous" shell companies can be used as vehicles for corruption and to hide the identity of the owner who benefits from the corporation. Board members of the National Foreign Trade Council are a who's who of multinational businesses including Amazon, Chevron, Ford, Facebook, Deloitte and Walmart.



"Congress is considering legislation that can help address global corruption and tax evasion," noted LeCompte.



Legislation currently under consideration by the US Congress could help address the money laundering problem. Representatives Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Peter King (R-NY) introduced the Corporate Transparency Act (HB3089) in the House. Senators Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) introduced the companion Senate bill (S1717). The legislation would create a registry for the true owners of shell companies.



Last week 24 US Attorneys General wrote Congress asking for legislation like the Corporate Transparency Act.
By Yimou Lee and Stephen Nellis

Mobile chipmaker Qualcomm  which is building a significant presence at a new support office at Mahon in Cork  will settle an anti-trust case with Taiwanese regulators for about 80m, and has also pledged to invest 605m in Taiwan over the next five years.

The settlement replaces a fine of roughly 672m imposed by Taiwans Fair Trade Commission in 2017, when it accused the US firm of refusing to sell chips to mobile handset makers that wouldnt agree to its patent-licensing terms.

It was also accused of cutting iPhone maker Apple a royalty discount in exchange for the exclusive use of Qualcomms modem chips in the past.

Moreover, Qualcomm will be required to offer patent licenses to rival chipmakers such as Intel and MediaTek on fair terms before seeking to enforce its patent rights against them in court.

Qualcomm also is in the midst of appealing a 800m fine from the Korea Fair Trade Commission and a 1bn fine from the EU.

It also faces a lawsuit from the US Federal Trade Commission and is in a wide-ranging legal dispute with Apple. As part of the Taiwanese settlement, Qualcomm will continue to be allowed to charge a royalty based on the selling price of a handset  a core part of its licensing model that Apple and others have objected to.

Qualcomm said it had agreed to build new manufacturing and operations facilities in Taiwan.

Reuters. Additional reporting Irish Examiner
Gardai are investigating an assault on at least one prison officer by an inmate during a busy court sitting in Dublin.

Prison sources said the officer was headbutted and punched in the face during the attack, which happened

at Cloverhill District Court.

The sources said a second prison officer was also assaulted as he went to the aid of his colleague and that both were brought to hospital.

When the prisoner was taken back to Cloverhill Prison, a further attack on a third prison officer is reported to have occurred.

Earlier this week, two prison officers were slashed, including one across his forehead, by a prisoner armed with a makeshift blade at Mountjoy Prison.

The Prison Officers Association (POA) expressed serious concern at ongoing assaults on officers and repeated calls for staff to be issued with personal protection equipment, such as telescopic batons and incapacitant sprays.

The Prison Service confirmed one prison officer was assaulted at Cloverhill courthouse, but could not confirm the staff member was headbutted.

Gardai said they were investigating the assault at the courthouse, as well as the subsequent attack in the remand prison.

Garda sources did not say that the officer had been headbutted, but confirmed he had been punched in the face.

The incident occurred after a female friend of the prisoner moved from the body of the court and tried to get towards him friend.

A Garda sergeant directed her to move back, but she later attempted to approach the prisoner again and a prison officer told her to move away. At this stage, the prisoner attacked the officer.

Prison officer sources insisted that their colleague was headbutted twice and punched in the face and that a second officer was also struck. Both officers are attached to the Prison Service Escort Corps.

Sources said that when the prisoner was taken back to Cloverhill Prison, the inmate attacked a third officer.

POA general secretary John Clinton said: The POA again expresses its very serious concern regarding assaults on prison officers. We have requested that standard PP [personal protection] equipment be issued, such as telescopic batons and incapacitant sprays.

An Irish Prison Service (IPS) spokesman said:

We can confirm an incident occurred at Cloverhill court-house in which a PSEC [Prison Service Escorts Corps] officer was assaulted and these matters have been referred to the authorities.

IPS boss Michael Donnellan has repeatedly said any attack on staff is unacceptable and support services are available for those affected.

Gardai have confirmed the assaults took place and that they were investigating.
A post-general election deal between Fine Gael and smaller political parties including the Independent Alliance has been flagged as a possibility by Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan.

The Fine Gael minister also attacked Fianna Fail and maintained that his partys record on the prudent management of public finances would be a key part of an election campaign.

Speaking to the Irish Examiner, Mr Flanagan gave his thoughts about options after the next general election and also insisted he had a strong working relationship with Transport Minister Shane Ross.

Relations between Government partners Fine Gael and the Independent Alliance have been frayed with continued rows over the process of judicial appointments.

Fine Gael wants another two years in power under the confidence and supply agreement, where Fianna Fail in opposition allows the Government to remain in power in exchange for policy input.

Nonetheless, the Independent Alliance also has a list of demands, including on budget priorities, the latest being a proposed granny grant, where grandparents get 1,000 for minding grandchildren.

Despite tensions and often strained periods between the Alliance Government partners and Fine Gael, Mr Flanagan believes a second term could be agreed with them if an election arose.

In the event that Fine Gael doesnt get an overall majority, I will expect that we will be in a position to hammer out a deal with some of the smaller parties, including the Independent Alliance if they come back in any numbers, he said.

Our objective is to maximise the Fine Gael seats. We are 50 at the moment. We have got a considerable amount of ground to make up. So any other of the smaller parties whose policy platform is broadly similar to that of our own, Im sure we are in a position to do business with them.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has not stated his preference for coalition options after the next general election. Fine Gael sources admit, though, that Labour, the Green Party, and the Social Democrats could all be potential suitors if numbers are needed for a new coalition after an election.

On the possibility of the Independent Alliance also being part of this picture, Mr Flanagan said:

explained Mr Flanagan. Furthermore, despite previous rows, relations with alliance ministers were positive, he insisted:

I want to acknowledge, in spite of bumps along the way, our relationship with the Independent Alliance has been by and large has been positive.

"There are a number of quite controversial issues that the Independent Alliance have prioritised which are within my remit. I speak to Minister Ross on an almost daily basis.

"I have a very good remit with him. He is not a member of my party, he knows that, I know that. I have to say I get on very well with him.

Mr Flanagan last month ruled out working with Sinn Fein in a future coalition, attacking what he termed as its crazed economic policies.

He equally disregards Fianna Fails handling of public finances in previous governments.

Furthermore, an election will be fought on this basis.

I believe it is absolutely essential that we dont allow FF free reign to re-enter the boom and bust cycle of politics, he said.

Under Paschal Donohoe [the finance minister], prudent management of the public finances has been the order of the day. That must continue.

And this will be an important plank of our election campaign whenever that election will take place.
The Minister for Communications has demanded "significant measures" in moderation practices at Facebook.

Denis Naughten made the comments in a meeting with the social media giant in New York, days after an undercover report was aired by Channel 4 on the company's bad practices in monitoring harmful content.

An account from the meeting, reported by the Irish Independent, showed the Minister saying that he was "appalled" by their procedures.

He said that changes needed to be made to ensure there was never a repeat of inappropriate content being allowed to remain on the site.

Digital Desk
Stephen Rogers

A busy junction where an American couple died in an accident last September and where another US couple were injured in a smash in April could be closed permanently, Cork County Council has said.

The Waterloo junction, on the main N20 Cork- Limerick road, has been closed for some time for continuing works.

The local authority has now said it will remain closed until those works are completed.

Following some serious including fatal incidents, the council is giving consideration to proposing the closing of the junction permanently, said a council spokesperson. This is a statutory process, involving public consultation, and further details will be made available in due course.

Last September, James Baker, 62, from Indiana, and Peggy Sue Adams, 59, from Ohio, were killed when their southbound hire-car was in collision with a truck as they turned right at the Waterloo junction. It is believed they were following sat-nav directions to Blarney.

In April last, an American couple were injured in a three-vehicle crash when, again, it is believed they were following sat-nav directions to Blarney. Judy Dinehart suffered minor injuries, but her partner Daniel Pilarski suffered serious injuries and had to spend some time recovering in hospital.

At the time, Gerry Myers, third officer with Cork City Fire Brigade, said: I would hope that the authorities would look at signage or at the layout at the Waterloo junction, given that the safer exit to Blarney is just two miles further south.
By Dan Buckley

A team of Dutch technical divers are bringing their global campaign to rid the oceans of so-called ghost gear to the west coast of Ireland next month.

Operation Stone and Pots takes place off Galway from September 3-6 and will be carried out by six volunteer technical divers who are part of the Ghost Fishing Foundation, an international non-profit organisation dedicated to cleaning up the marine environment.

They will remove lobster pots from the seabed and, depending on their condition, return them to fishermen for reuse.

Along with plastics, this gear continues to fish and trap animals, entangle and potentially kill marine life. They will be supported by German-based Gesellschaft zur Rettung der Delphine, a non-profit organisation dedicated to the conservation of wild dolphins and their habitats. GRD was founded in 1991 by Rollo Gebhard, a famous German sailor who sailed around the world three times.

It is the first time a mission to rid the seabed of the deadly traps will take place in Irish waters which boast a rich biodiversity that harbours 24 species of the worlds whales and dolphins.

During a preliminary survey dive in May off the west coast, divers recorded countless numbers of abandoned lobster pots at the bottom of the sea.

The baskets and their attachment ropes continue to kill countless sharks, fish or crustaceans.

For the protection of the biodiversity in the oceans, it is very important to stop the senseless killing, explains Verena Platt-Till of GRD.

The move follows support in June from the European Parliaments Fisheries Committee for a proposal by British Conservative MEP John Flack to include ghost fishing as part of the campaign to rid the oceans of waste plastic.

The proposals recommend that the EU and Member States:

Set up port reception schemes where financial incentives are offered to fishermen for returning unwanted nets.

Incentivise vessels to use technology to track and if necessary retrieve their lost nets.

Support research into biodegradable nets to speed up their development.

Mr Flack, who is leading the European Parliaments Fisheries committees response to the EUs plastic strategy, said:

The EU must make tackling ghost fishing part of its new plastics strategy. The tragedy of ghost fishing must end.

The public is invited to join the team for a presentation of the work of Ghost Fishing and a beach cleanup on Thursday, September 6. Those interested can follow Operation Stone & Pots on Facebook/ghostnetsIreland.
By Juno McEnroe and Evelyn Ring

Despite claims homelessness is beyond crisis and that the Government has lost control, Fianna Fail is refusing to withdraw support for Fine Gael and says a snap election will not house another person.

Campaigner Fr Peter McVerry is warning that an avalanche of homelessness is coming, following uproar over a mother and six of her children sleeping for a night in a Garda station.

Fianna Fail has stopped short of demanding Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy return from holidays to address the crisis, saying that people are entitled to have a break.

An emergency meeting has instead been sought by the partys housing spokesman, Darragh OBrien, with Mr Murphy in a bid to set up a special taskforce on child homelessness. This would examine emergency solutions and prevent a repeat of the likes of Margaret Cash and her children who slept on chairs at Tallaght Garda Station, says Mr OBrien.

Its not a silver bullet, but in a modern republic we shouldnt have people sleeping in Garda stations, he said.

Homelessness is now out of control, according to Fr McVerry. I think we could have a catastrophe coming down the road, he said, adding that five years ago there was no such thing as a family becoming homeless.

We really have to address that problem but it should be illegal to evict people into homelessness, he said.

Fr McVerry spoke about Pope Francis visit which could worsen homelessness because of pressure on hotels and B&Bs to accommodate visitors. The Dublin Region Homeless Executive confirmed contingency plans are in place for the Popes visit, which includes providing accommodation outside Dublin.

Fr McVerry believes the Popes visit will be a test run for what is coming down the road.

I think we could have a catastrophe coming down the road, he said.

Tens of thousands of mortgages are in arrears and there is pressure on banks to get them off their books, he said, adding:

That could create an avalanche of homelessness which would simply swamp us.

"Today we have 10,000 people who are officially homeless. The problem has just been getting worse and worse and worse. It is absolutely beyond crisis at this stage. It is out of control. The Government does not know what to do.

Focus Ireland communications manager Roughan MacNamara said three families a day are becoming homeless.

Sinn Fein leader Mary Lou McDonald called on Fianna Fail to pull the plug on its support for the Fine Gael minority government.

If we lived in a rational political environment what would happen now is Fianna Fail, the party keeping Fine Gael in government, would simply put their foot down, draw the line and force an election, she said.

Despite the outcry, Fianna Fail wont collapse the Government, said Mr OBrien.

We are focused on solutions, he said. Im not sure an election will house another person.

However, Mr OBrien refused to demand the housing minister return from holidays, adding that people are entitled to have a break.

He said homeless people must not be moved out of B&Bs or hotels for the Popes visit. He said the Government needs to commit to a new deadline on ending the use of such accommodation for homeless families.

Health Minister Simon Harris defended the Government response, saying the entire country felt it was wrong to see Ms Cash and her children sleep in a Garda station.

The Government and I felt that too, he said. For any mother to feel that she needs to go to a Garda station with her own children to seek emergency provision is obviously something that isnt right.

Mr Murphys office said he is in daily contact with his department and the Dublin Homeless Executive in the lead-up to the Popes visit.
10.25pm: The union representing Irish based Ryanair pilots says further strike action cannot be ruled out.

Around 100 of them walked off the job for a 5th day today  while 24-hour pickets are also being held in Germany, Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Ryanair has cancelled one in six flights as a result  calling the action unjustified and regrettable.

Angela Kirk from the trade union Forsa says they will put their best foot forward at crunch talks next Monday.

At this stage, the likelihood of further action cannot be written off. However, we have not served any further days notice of strike. We want to go into the talks in a positive vein. Obviously, the outcome of those talks will determine future action, she said.

Update 3.30pm: Ryanair's Irish pilots 'more determined than ever' as 5th strike underway

Ryanairs Irish based pilots say they are more determined than ever, as they strike for the 5th day.

The airline has been forced to cancel 400 flights across Europe with pickets also underway in Germany, Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands.

Crucial talks with industrial relations expert Kieran Mulvey will take place in Dublin on Monday aimed at resolving the dispute.

Bernard Harbour from the trade union FORSA is hoping a deal can be reached.

He said: "Despite the fact we've been at this a month now, the resolve of the pilots is strengthened and the key thing there was the week before last when the company threatened to make pilots redundant or transfer them to Poland.

"That really changed the mood among the pilots, we are not going to have a situation where they try to frighten us into stepping down."

Earlier: Pilot strikes see hundreds of Ryanair flights cancelled

Hundreds of Ryanair flights will not take off as planned on Friday due to pilot strikes in five countries.

Staff in Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Belgium and the Netherlands are staging a 24-hour walkout over pay and conditions.

Around 250 flights have been cancelled as a result, forcing passengers who planned to travel on Friday to rebook or take different routes.

Update for Friday August 10th: pic.twitter.com/g9qWugyRr0  Ryanair (@Ryanair) August 9, 2018

The Irish budget airline said the strikes were regrettable and unjustified and called for unions to come back to the negotiating table.

Despite the walkouts, 85% of its scheduled flights, more than 2,000, will operate as normal, Ryanair said.

Ryanair took every step to minimise the disruption and we notified our customers as early as possible advising them of their free move, refund or reroute options, the carrier said.

The majority of customers have already been accommodated on another Ryanair flight.

We want to again apologise to customers affected by this unnecessary disruption and we ask the striking unions to continue negotiations instead of calling anymore unjustified strikes.

One customer described the airline as a headache, complaining they had had difficulty getting a quick response after contacting the firm on their live chat.

A sign outside the company headquarters at Swords in Dublin (Aoife Moore/PA)

Another customer said she would miss work meetings and a doctors appointment due to a cancelled flight.

She wrote: Many thanks to @Ryanair for cancelling my flight home + ensuring all of the de-stressing I have done on this trip is cancelled out in an instant.

In June Ryanair signed an agreement with the Unite union, giving hundreds of cabin crew employees full consultation rights and collective bargaining.

The airline said at the time that it was a further sign of the progress Ryanair is making with trade unions since our December 2017 decision to recognise them.

The Unite agreement came six months after the airline signed what was described as an historic recognition deal with the trade union representing pilots.

Under the agreement, the British Airline Pilots Association (Balpa) was recognised as the sole trade union representing all of Ryanairs 600 employed pilots based in the UK.

Bernard Harbor from the FORSA trade union says both sides are still some way off reaching a deal.

"We believe that this is a problem that can be resolved through negotiations," said Mt Harbor.

"I have to say that the experience of pilots so far is that the company is not being prepared to grapple with the issues and that's why they feel that they've been forced into yet another day of strike action today."

- PA & Digital Desk
By Niall Murray

Memory and understanding tasks that rely on rote learning strongly dominate higher-order skills in Leaving Certificate exam questions, researchers found.

Almost 60% of tasks analysed in written exams for 24 subjects from 2005 to 2010 incorporating nearly 15,000 command verbs  required low-order skills under the heading of remember or understand.

As a review of the two-year senior cycle leading to Leaving Certificate gets underway, the scale of reform that may be necessary is underlined by the finding of Dublin City University (DCU) and Trinity College Dublin (TCD) researchers that at least half of exam tasks in one-in-four subjects were tests of memory.

Although they found evidence from student interviews of real learning and engagement with the curriculum, they concluded it was not adequately measured in the exams.

Denise Burns of the Centre for Evaluation, Quality and Inspection at DCUs Institute of Education is lead author of the report on a study conducted when she worked at TCD.

The research article in the Irish Educational Studies journal is co-authored by DCU colleagues Gerry McNamara, Joe OHara, and Martin Brown, and Ann Devitt of TCDs school of education.

Of 24 subjects analysed, only in English, maths, accounting, construction studies, technical drawing, music, and applied maths did less than half of written Leaving Certificate exam tasks require lower-order skills of memory and understanding.

They were more likely to involve intellectual skills requiring students to apply knowledge, to analyse, evaluate, or create.

By contrast, 94% to 97% of questions in agricultural science, biology, and religious education used command verbs in the lower-order categories, the study showed.

The very heavy focus of factual knowledge (73%) in biology would raise questions as to the appropriateness of the subject as a basis for pursuing third-level programmes in life sciences which emphasise the use of the scientific method, the authors wrote.

The question of predictability in the Leaving Certificate was undermined by previous external research carried out for the State Examinations Commission (SEC), although it highlighted the need for higher order processes to be assessed.

The studys interviews with 30 students two months after sitting the Leaving Certificate revealed memorisation as a strong factor in how they answered in the exams, as well as their preparations.

In line with the folk rhetoric around the Leaving Certificate being about memory recall, the students predominantly described their thought processes during the examination as recalling from prepared essays and notes.

Microscopes had not come up in a long time so no-one thought they would come up, one student told them. Others described going into exams with prepared essays, one explaining that the question on Irish music is the same every year.

One referred to having an essay pool with 30 essays on several English topics, and a geography student said they did 100 essays in January and learned them off.

Although such practices may not have required higher order thinking on exam day, the authors said such skills may have been deployed in preparing an essay in advance.

This very common theme of memorising essays would indicate that even though in theory an examination question may require higher order processing, in practice lower order skills, that is, memorisation, is the core skill deployed by students in the examination, the research article said.
Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan says he wants more garda feet on the street, to double the number of civilian members, and that reform needs to be embraced across the force.

Mr Flanagan said he will be looking at Garda overtime, rostering, and overall spending in the force and discussing those with Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe ahead of the budget.

His comments, in an interview with the Irish Examiner, come as Garda associations call for reforms to be resourced or for the Government to manage public expectations.

Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan.

Ahead of a report next month on the future of policing, Mr Flanagan said: What I want to see in An Garda Siochana is availability and visibility. I want to accelerate the process within An Garda Siochana.

I want to get gardai out from behind the desks, I want to get them out on full-time policing duties, doing best what they are trained to do.

That will involve a greater level of civilianisation. And I want to see 4,000 civilian personnel in An Garda Siochana in three years time.

The Policing Authority said in a report this week that the pace of redeployment continues to be of concern and that just 100 gardai have been reassigned to operational duties to date. The latest figures show there were 13,317 gardai and 2,302 civilian personnel in the force in May.

Mr Flanagan said civilianisation will be a priority for the Garda commissioner when he takes up his role next month. Garda unions will also be consulted.

This will be a priority of commissioner [Drew] Harris. Im not happy with the rate of progress to date. There are industrial relations issues, there are issues with the representative associations.

"I want the gardai, at every level, to embrace the process of civilianisation.

What I want, what Government wants, and what the people want is to see gardai trained in the day-to-day duties that they are trained for.

Civilian members would bring skills necessary for a modern police service, explained Mr Flanagan, such as bookkeeping, accountancy, and IT.

The Policing Authority report said there are fundamental flaws preventing modernisation of the force, including barriers to driver training, human resources, ICT, and garda accommodation.

Garda representatives said funding is lacking for new recruits. Money is needed to back reforms, said John Jacob, general secretary of the Association of Garda Sergeants and Inspectors general secretary John Jacob: From our perspective, you either resource the organisation to deliver on what the public expects or you dont give them the resources and you manage the publics expectation about what can be achieved.

The question of spending on the force, and specifically garda overtime payments, will come into focus

in the weeks ahead as Octobers budget looms. The report on the future of policing, set to be finished next month, is also expected to address garda rostering hours when finished next month.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar recently said gardai are often not rostered when they are needed and that may mean asking people to do rosters that they consider to be antisocial.

Mr Flanagan said Garda rostering is a concern. Obviously the question of hours and rostering and overtime is an issue. We currently have just over 100m available to the gardai in overtime.

It is hoped additional recruits will reduce down these costs, said Mr Flanagan. As 500 new gardai hit the streets on a yearly basis, the reliance on garda overtime will not be as is. But this is something that can be worked through in the context of rostering under commissioner Harris.

There are concerns around the overall Garda bill ahead of budget negotiations, said Mr Flanagan. I expect results for these monies. I will be discussing these issues with Minister Donohoe. I know he is concerned at the Garda budget.
Hill House, outside Timoleague, is a pristine four-bed festooned with Smeg appliances, says Tommy Barker

This hillside West Cork house, which is dripping with fiendishly-cool and expensive SMEG appliances), was fortuitously spotted by a couple with Scottish and Northern Irish roots, when they were travelling the Wild Atlantic Way into West Cork just a couple of years ago, after a weekend break in Kinsale for a birthday.

It was a surprise present for me: it could have been a weekend in Paris, or a weekend in Milan, but my wife chose Actons Hotel, in Kinsale, says the Glasgow-born man of the house, recalling, with a wry chuckle, what turned into a very expensive weekend.

It was their first-ever visit to Cork, and they must have been smitten, because they went on a property tour afterwards, relocating from the south-east of England.

We had a two-hour commute from Oxford to London, at the time, and realised we could get a flight from London over to Cork in an hour. That prompted our decision to go and look for a home here, says one of the occupants, and now a vendor, of the scenically situated Hill House, and both have jobs that involve travel, but which also allow a lot of flexibility.

They bought this, a modern home, which was built by a local, but was rented out when they viewed it, and it wasnt then looking its best.

They made more than decorative changes and upgrades, and now, after just a few years in situ, they want to move further west, and closer to the sea, hence Hill Houses arrival on the late summer market, with agents, Hodnett Forde.

Its a crisply presented and fully refreshed four/five-bed home of some 2,600 sq ft, and, thanks to energy upgrades, which include replacement of all lighting LEDs, has moved from a C1 to a B3 BER.

Its priced at 450,000 by Hodnett Forde auctioneer, Andy Donoghue, who bills it as a most beautiful property, in pristine condition, the likes of which rarely come to the market.

Set at Carhoo, a couple of kilometres outside Timoleague, and easily reached from Clonakilty (seven kilometres away), along a ridge line of lovely country road, passing a few, contemporary one-offs, and the family-run Michael Collins Centre, overlooking the Argideen valley, Hill House has wide rural and distant coastal views, including the light-sweep of the Old Head of Kinsale lighthouse, and down towards Courtmacsherry and Dunworley.

Its on 0.7 of an acre of sloping grounds, with lawns, terraces, and wide drive and has a 440 sq ft detached garage, with conversion potential. Internally, the smart dormer has four first-floor bedrooms, two of which are en suite, main upstairs bathroom with enormous bath, and, below, a large main living room with stove, and access to a sun-room on the western end, with views towards Clonakilty Bay and terrace access.

Across the hall is a further living room, again with stove, plus bay window, and, as this room shares an internal wall with a utility/guest WC, it could be adapted for use as bedroom/guest use, say Hodnett Forde.

[gallery]28[/gallery]

Also large is the rear, double-aspect kitchen/dining room, with blue-painted units and an almost showroom range of high-end, Italian brand, Smeg electrial appliances. Apart from the bright and substantial upgrade, this section is packed to the gunnels with up-market, and highly desirable, Smeg electrical appliances.

The owners recall the visual joke in Nick Park/Aardman animations Wallace and Gromits Curse of the Were-Rabbit movie, where Wallaces kitchen is home to a 1950s, retro Smeg fridge....only in the Nick Park movie, the brand is not-too subtly changed to Smug.

Here at Hill House, theres no fewer than three fab 1950s-style Smeg fridges/freezers, one black, one yellow, one orange. Theres also a black Smeg dishwasher, a Smeg bean to cup coffee/cappuccino machine, and a Smeg combination oven/grill/microwave, plus a Smeg double sink with monobloc tap in the utility.

The washing machine, with steam function, is also Smeg, as is the eco-efficient dryer, and the king of them all is the 1,100mm seven-burner, double oven/grill warming compartment Smeg range cooker, in cool, shiny black.

Thats not all: the counter-tops hold a Smeg kettle, a Smeg toaster, and a Smeg food mixer.

What the Smeg is going on? Turns out, its not, really a Smeg compulsion/obsession. The woman of the house worked with Smeg in the UK and abroad, at a failry high-up level, and got the chance to buy at staff ex-showroom rates.

Not all are included in the house sale (the range isnt, nor are two of the three fridges and utility/laundry machines), but can be negotiated for separately, if the houses next occupants want to keep the Smeg shrine complete.

VERDICT

: No need to be smug, just snug.

Timoleague, West Cork

450,000

Size: 241 sq m (2,600 sq ft)

Bedrooms: 4/5

Bathrooms: 4

BER: B3
Next Tuesday marks the origins of an American conspiracy to depict Eamon de Valera and his government as morally indifferent to the outcome of the Second World War. Historian and author Ryle Dwyer argues that false claims about neutrality have produced possibly the greatest distortion of Irish history since independence.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, Ireland was virtually defenceless, and taoiseach Eamon de Valera was in no position to allow the British to use naval bases at Cobh and Berehaven that had been valuable to the Royal Navy during the First World War. De Valera did secretly assure the British he would provide all the help he could, short of war.

Winston Churchill, who was put in charge of the Royal Navy as first lord of the admiralty, kicked up a fuss in cabinet over the denial of Irish bases after a German U-boat sunk the battleship Royal Oak at anchor in Scapa Flow, in the Orkney Islands off the north-east coast of Scotland, on October 15, 1939.

Some 833 sailors, many of them trainee cadets, went down with the ship. Churchill railed against the Irish refusal to allow the Royal Navy to use Irish bases  even though those could not have helped to protect Scapa Flow against German U-boats.

A surfaced German U-boat is under attack by American B-25 Mitchell and B-24 Liberator bombers in the north Atlantic. A few minutes after this photo was taken, the vessel had been sunk.

The time has come to make it clear to the Irish government that we must have the use of these harbours, and intend in any case to use them, insisted Churchill.

Prime minister Neville Chamberlain warned, however, that seizing the Irish bases would have most unfortunate repercussion in the United States. Churchill was already acutely conscious of the US situation, so he was probably only blustering as a diversionary tactic to distract the attention of cabinet colleagues from the Royal Oak disaster.

In the two years before the US formally entered the war in 1941, the Irish authorised extraordinary secret co-operation with Britain. They agreed that Irelands only cable link with the continent would be limited to a cable passing through England.

Even though no efforts were made to restrict British diplomats using radio transmitters, in Ireland, the German legation was compelled to surrender its radio transmitter, with the result its only direct means of communicating with the continent was via the cable passing through Britain.

A system was set up whereby any belligerent sightings by Irish lookout posts (LOPs) around the coast were reported to Dublin by radio on an agreed frequency. The Germans were free to listen in. German forces were too far away to use that information, but the British were close enough to act. Later, at the request of the British, the reports from the LOPs were transmitted in a code that was secretly supplied by the British. Thus, the LOPs were essentially reporting directly to Britain and Dublin at the same time.

The British were allowed set up radar stations on the Cork and Donegal coasts, and the Royal Navy was allowed station a seaplane at Foynes to look for German submarines, while an armed admiralty tug was based in Killybegs, Co Donegal, for air-sea rescue purposes. The British sailors had to cover the ships gun and wear civilian clothes while in port. The Irish indicated that the same facility could possibly be provided in Cobh, or Berehaven, if the British wished, but they never followed up on this.

After the fall of France in mid-1940, the stationing of German aircraft in France rendered the sea route around the south of England too vulnerable to German air attack, so British shipping went via Northern Ireland. Thus the southern Irish bases were of no real value to the British, who already had the use of sea bases in Northern Ireland. They also had a base for seaplanes on Lough Erne which proved invaluable for seaplanes searching for German submarines in the north Atlantic.

De Valera facilitated the British by allowing their aircraft to fly directly to the Atlantic over what was called the Donegal corridor. This was just another of the many ways in which de Valera implemented his promise to provide all possible help short of declaring war.

In February 1943, John D Kearney, the Canadian high commissioner to Ireland, suggested to his government that if US president Franklin D Roosevelt asked for Irish bases, De Valera might be influenced in favour of acceding to the request.

John Maffey, the British representative to Ireland, liked the idea, and David Gray, US wartime minister to Ireland, was positively enthusiastic.

When Maffey raised the issue in London, Clement Attlee, the acting prime minister in Churchills absence abroad, opposed taking any chance of de Valera complying with such a request. Attlee warned foreign secretary Anthony Eden on March 5, 1943, that Irish bases would probably be more trouble than the facilities were worth.

Paradoxically the British belittled the value of Irish bases while the Allies were in the midst of their gravest crisis in the Atlantic. The Germans had stepped up their submarine campaign, and the admiralty later recorded that the Germans never came so near to disrupting communication between the New World and the Old as in the first 20 days of March 1943. More than 80 Allied ships were sunk that month.

Unlike Maffey and Kearney, Gray did not think De Valera would ever hand over Irish bases, but he liked the idea of such a request as means of discrediting the Irish leader. Gray went to the US and explained his views to both Roosevelt and Churchill over dinner at the presidents home in Hyde Park, New York, on August 14, 1943.

He realised the Allies no longer desired Irish bases, but he suggested Roosevelt should ask for them anyway in order to get a formal refusal, so this could afterwards be used to discredit de Valera as having supposedly been indifferent to the Allied cause when his help was needed.

US president Franklin D Roosevelt and British prime minister Winston Churchill in August 1943.

Roosevelt and Churchill seemed to think they should discredit De Valera to ensure he could not cause Anglo-American difficulties over the partition question issue after the war. Gray was therefore told to draft a letter for Roosevelt to send to de Valera, and the president and Churchill would then consider it.

Gray submitted this draft letter two days later. It began by highlighting American aid to Ireland, such as allowing the Irish to charter the two American ships  that became known as the Irish Oak and the Irish Pine. They also supplied $500,000 worth of medical supplies to Ireland, and permitted the Irish to purchase American products such as wheat, cotton, and steel.

Thanks to this policy of friendship and supply, the note continued, normal standards of living have been less impaired in Eire as the result of war than in any other country in Europe.

The proposed letter went on to complain that the Dublin government had protested against the American use of bases in Northern Ireland and had permitted the Irish newspapers to publish protests against the US presence in the six counties, while it censored items critical of Germany for bombing Ireland. Moreover, the Irish had allowed Axis diplomats to remain in Ireland, thereby affording them a tremendous opportunity of spying on Allied war efforts.

While the outcome of the war was no longer in doubt, Gray advocated that Roosevelt would suggest that Ireland could play a notable and honourable part in contributing to the shortening of its duration by leasing us bases for the protection of the Atlantic supply lines and by the elimination of Axis spy centres on Eire territory.

The whole thing would be essentially a propaganda exercise. The note is composed primarily for the American public and designed to reveal to them how generously Eire has been treated and how little the government of Eire had done in return for the people of America, Gray explained in a covering letter.

Roosevelt was apparently amenable, but he ran into strong opposition from the state department, the chiefs of staff, and the office of strategic services (OSS), which was the wartime precursor of the Central Intelligence Agency. All felt De Valera had been so helpful that he might hand over the bases, and they were convinced those would actually be a liability to the Allied war effort.

Churchill ran into similar opposition when he returned to Britain, so asking for Irish bases was dropped. Gray then pressed for Roosevelt to ask for the removal of the German diplomats from Dublin on the grounds they would be an espionage threat to the forthcoming Allied invasion of Europe.

For a time in late 1943, it might have seemed that there were solid grounds for such suspicions. The OSS got hold of an invaluable cache of German foreign office documents, which raised alarm.

General William J Donovan, the head of the OSS, informed the White House that a great deal of information pertaining to Allied activities in England and Ulster comes from the German embassy in Dublin. The legation which is heavily staffed has succeeded in infiltrating agents into England.

William Donovan, head of the US office of strategic services.

German diplomats in Dublin had identified 600 air installations in England. Carter Nicholas, the head of the Eire Desk at OSS headquarters, noted that it looked to me at first as though there was a serious leak from Eire. The OSS promptly shared this alarming information with its British counterpart, MI5, but the British explained that the reports from Dublin

were part of a British deception plan. MI5 had been feeding misinformation to the German legation. In an effort to ensure that the Germans believed the distorted information, the material was buried in a wealth of accurate information that the Germans already knew.

When MI5 explained the situation, Nicholas realised that the Irish security situation was even better under control that I had previously thought.

MI5 feared that the proposed American note demanding the expulsion of Axis diplomats from Dublin would actually endanger Allied security, as the Allies had already broken the German codes and were reading all the messages from the legation in Dublin. If the diplomats were expelled, however, the Germans might infiltrate a useful spy.

The OSS knew the American note of February 21, 1944, was just a political ruse. The note was duly published on March 10. As this was the week leading up to St Patricks Day, the news ignited a firestorm of criticism in the US press.

Ireland was denounced as indifferent to the lives of American soldiers, and even Irish-American boys.

To ensure that Roosevelt was aware of the true situation, General Donovan wrote to him on March 30, 1944, outlining the details of secret Irish security co-operation.

The co-operation in intelligence matters offered and given by the Irish has been very full. It should be pointed out that we did not offer the Irish information in return and have given them little, Donovan explained.

Since the delivery of the American note, the Irish offered their prompt co-operation in adopting whatever security measures may be recommended by us.

While the public controversy seriously tarnished de Valeras international image, it greatly strengthened his political standing at home. Fianna Fail had lost its overall majority in June 1943, but in the wake of the controversy over the note, De Valera called a general election in May 1944 and was returned with a record overall majority of 19 seats.

He and his government were widely credited with keeping Ireland out of the war.

Gray persisted with his efforts to discredit De Valera right up to the end of the war. On April 30, 1945, he presented the taoiseach with another formal note, this time requesting permission for the US to seize the German legation in Dublin in order to get hold of German codes in case some U-boats tried to continue the war in the Atlantic. The whole thing was absurd. Who would supply the U-boats? Anyway, the Allies already had the German codes.

Gray was told the Americans could only seize the German legation after Germany formally surrendered. On learning hours later of the death of Hitler, De Valera formally proffered his condolence to Eduard Hempel, the German minister to Ireland.

Adolf Hitler.

The taoiseach never tried to defend his actions publicly, but he did explain his reasons to Robert Brennan, the Irish minister in Washington.

During the whole of the war, De Valera wrote, Dr Hempels conduct was irreproachable. He was always friendly and invariably correct  in marked contrast with Gray. I certainly was not going to add to his humiliation in the hour of defeat.

The gesture was an expression of respect for Hempel, not Hitler. But it was a political mistake, because it played into Grays hands, bolstering his twisted efforts to convince people that De Valera was secretly sympathetic to the Nazis.

De Valeras international image was therefore seriously tarnished, and Irish neutrality was further distorted as a result. Indeed, the true nature of that neutrality had been distorted ever since.

Some misguided historians have argued that Ireland could have done more to help the Allies, such as leasing them bases or expelling the Axis diplomats from Ireland. But both the British and American military, naval, and intelligence people believed those measures would have impaired Allied war efforts. Even at the height of the Battle of the Atlantic, the British concluded that Irish bases would have been a liability. Maybe the government could have conscripted young men to fight alongside Allied forces but that would have been a betrayal of Irish democracy.

John D Kearney, the Canadian representative in Dublin, concluded that the Irish government had demonstrated it was prepared to give all possible help short of war. The Allies did not want Ireland in the war, so de Valera effectively gave the Allies all possible help.

- T Ryle Dwyer is author of Behind the Green Curtain: Irelands Phony Neutrality During World War II, published by Gill Books.
As anyone bundling their family into a car for a summer holiday will understand, its all well and good knowing where you are going, but getting there can be more difficult than expected.

On Wednesday, Health Minister, Simon Harris, published the Governments long-awaited roadmap for the Slaintecare report on how to finally fix the health service.

The 10-year plan  green-lit 15 months after the document was first launched  has outlined a series of wide-ranging changes to the creaking system.

However, knowing the destination is only half the problem, with the minister facing five crucial, political health hurdles over the coming months, before the reforms can even get out of first gear.

Divisive contract negotiations

The lofty goal of a single-tier, public-only, free-at-the-point-of-entry health service might sound perfect for patients, but try telling that to doctors, who risk losing out on considerable amounts of money.

In order for the central point of the Slaintecare reforms to become a reality, Mr Harris and his officials will have to negotiate with both GPs and consultants. And, as his predecessors, Mary Harney, James Reilly, and Leo Varadkar will testify, that is not an easy task.

First up will be the continuation of talks on the new GP contract, with the aim of extending the existing policy of free GP access for all children under the age of six, with GPs unlikely to let their patient fees be cut without substantial State benefits in return.

A similar stand-off is also coming into view in hospitals, with Mr Harris conceding, at Wednesdays launch, when asked by the Irish Examiner, that consultants may have to be compensated financially, if they are blocked from treating private patients.

Bigger bills for 200,000 private patients

The admirable aim, of an entirely free public health service, also causes a second political problem for Mr Harris, as existing private patients could be forced to pay more over the coming years, before the changes are introduced.

The Health Insurance Authority has warned that 200,000 people who have health insurance plans could see their bills rise by up to 300 over the next decade, while Slaintecare is being introduced, due to a structural decline in the private system.

Mr Harris will no doubt argue that it is a necessary bump in the road towards a better health service. Hes right.

But politicians bread and butter is the here-and-now, not the far-distant tomorrow, and asking hard-pressed voters to pay hundreds of euro more for healthcare is never the easiest sell.

Record waiting lists and trolley counts

Speaking of the here-and-now, while talking up the future is worthwhile, Mr Harris will need to ensure he doesnt take his eye off the present, if he wants to still be in the driving seat when the benefits of Slaintecare appear.

This week alone, the health service has again been in the news for all the wrong reasons, with Wednesdays launch coming on the same day as it emerged that almost one million people are on waiting lists, even as 520 people were on hospital trolleys.

While health service crisis fatigue is a well-documented plague in this country, the figures are shocking and demand real investment and emergency action.

And although Mr Harris, and other government officials, are right to say the scandals show the need for reform, unless long-overdue progress is made quickly, they could ultimately undermine any public confidence in the Slaintecare plan.

Show me the money

A major stumbling block in Wednesdays Slaintecare plan was obvious: money, or the lack of any.

Despite talking up a series of sweeping healthcare reforms, Mr Harris pointedly declined to explain how much the Slaintecare plan would cost and where the money would come from.

He may be playing his cards close to his chest, due to necessary negotiations with companies, medics and  dare we say it  cabinet colleagues, but the issue has already become a genuine bone of contention.

A transitional fund, likely to cost 3bn, is due to be put in place over the next 12 months, while Slaintecare is ultimately expected to cost an extra 2.6bn a year, when it finally becomes a reality, in 2028.

But it is still unclear where the money will come from, with the Department of Finance pointedly saying, earlier this year, that the existing health budget will have to pay  a comment that sounds suspiciously like service cutbacks now for reforming funding in the future.

Staffing levels

If the ambitious Slaintecare reforms are to have any chance of getting off the ground, the health service will need to retain and increase staff numbers.

And that is far easier said than done.

The Public Service Pay Commission is due to report to Mr Harris, later this month, on ways to help existing doctors and nurses to stay in the system, instead of leaving for more prosperous alternatives abroad.

Similarly, Slaintecare has made it a priority to increase Irelands consultant numbers by at least 600 over the next decade  a figure that was replaced by a more general commitment in the implementation plan itself.

The issue is already firmly on Mr Harris radar, and it would be wrong to say the Government is doing nothing to address it.

But it shouldnt be lost on anyone that while a shiny, happy, full-reformed health service is a wonderful aim, all this will be pointless if we have no-one to run it.
By Roisin Shortall

On Wednesday, the Government finally launched the implementation strategy for Slaintecare, the cross-party roadmap for reform of the health service.

That was 15 months after Slaintecare was published.

While I do not doubt that Health Minister Simon Harris is genuine in his desire to implement the plan, the Government is lacking urgency.

That must change immediately, if this plan is to be fully realised. Reform costs money, and we need to see what the Government is willing to commit. We need a transition fund in the forthcoming budget that is separate from money for frontline services.

Slaintecare came about after the 2016 election, because health was the number one issue on the campaign trail. All politicians agreed that the system was broken, but there was no agreement on how to fix it.

In the past, this has led to short-term plans, which change each time there is a new minister.

But Slaintecare is different. It has come about because of a unanimous Dail vote for all parties to come together and devise a strategy for a universal, public health service, comparable to those in most other European countries.

It is based on advice from health experts, patient groups, health professionals and other stakeholders. Despite the broad range of political views and ideologies represented in the Dail, consensus was reached.

In the Committee on the Future of Healthcare, which I was elected to chair, parties agreed on the need for a universal, single-tier public health system, in which people will be treated according to their need, rather than their ability to pay.

This is the basis of the Slaintecare Report that the Committee on the Future of Healthcare produced.

For the first time in the history of the State, there is now cross-party agreement on what kind of health system the Irish public should have, and how we should achieve it.

If Slaintecare is properly resourced and implemented, it would mean that everyone would be able to access free, or low-cost public healthcare.

It would mean a legally binding guarantee on waiting times for procedures in public hospitals, and hospitals that miss these will be penalised.

It would mean moving the majority of care, things like x-rays and chronic disease management, away from hospitals and into community settings.

It would mean building a universal, public health service, which everyone is happy to use.

This isnt some sort of pipe dream; it is the standard in the rest of Europe and most of the developed world. Other countries have shown that it is achievable and that it is affordable.

If the public were understandably muted in their reaction to the launch, a number of organisations were lining up with buckets of cold water.

Although, from the perspective of patients, our public health system is fragmented and broken, many vested interests are making huge profits off this dysfunction.

I question the motivations of people who say that the plan, which would deliver what is standard in terms of public health provision elsewhere in Europe, would not be possible here.

In Ireland, everyone is entitled to public hospital care, but the reality is that a great many people face very long waiting times for procedures and treatment.

The shocking figures we saw this week bear this out. One million people are now on waiting lists for health- and social-care services in Ireland.

On the other hand, about 46% of the population feel they have no choice but to take out private health insurance, in order to access health services that they are already paying for through their taxes.

Most people with health insurance are still required to pay for GP care, for diagnostics, to see a consultant and for medicine. If a public health system is of decent quality, people will not feel the need to pay for very expensive health insurance that does not really offer much beyond quicker hospital care.

I am optimistic about Slaintecare. It has cross-party support so that it should remain as our health policy, regardless of which parties are in government.

The next real test, however, will come in Octobers budget, when the minister must commit to a dedicated, multi-annual funding stream for reform.

We will see, at that stage, if Fine Gael are serious about tackling the problems in the health service once and for all.

Roisin Shortall TD, is the co-leader of the Social Democrats and chaired the cross-party Oireachtas Committee on the Future of Healthcare, which published Slaintecare in May 2017.
THE word filibustering keeps popping up in the media. It snuck into the Irish vernacular around the time of the referendum on the Eighth Amendment, writes Joyce Fegan.

It doesnt roll off the tongue and its not the easiest on the eye. Politicians accuse colleagues of filibustering. Journalists quote the accusation.

I had to look the word up. The dictionary informs me that it relates to a parliamentarian speaking for too long, to disrupt a legislative assembly.

In real life, Ive decided that it means kicking to touch.

This week, I found a really good use for the word. A couple of Easters ago, Fr Peter McVerry was asked to reflect on Ireland. We have lost our sense of outrage, he said.

He confused me. Do we really need more outrage? There was a journalist who used to say: People love to be outraged; in fact, they pay for it. This journalist believed that outrage would sell papers. You neednt spend too long on Twitter or Facebook to see where they were coming from. All this fighting and cyber-shouting and blowing-off of steam, but to what end? To be honest, I couldnt see where Fr McVerry was coming from.

But, last Thursday morning, I finally caught up with his thinking, understood what he meant. I had gotten up at 4.30am and, as the kettle boiled, I scrolled through my Facebook newsfeed, in search of connection and community at that early hour.

A photo of several young children caught my eye. They were curled up asleep, on rows of chairs; chairs bolted to the ground, in some kind of a waiting room. The floor was covered in linoleum tiles. There were five children in the photo, all sleeping in the foetal position.

They were in a garda station, in Tallaght. Their mum had looked for emergency accommodation earlier that night, but none was available and so they were referred to a garda station. The caption under the photo said that up to eight other families had been referred to garda stations the same night.

I had two thoughts: Firstly, this image needs to be verified. It could easily be fake. My second thought was: If this is indeed real, I hope this is the tipping point of outrage, where Irish people say enough is enough.

By lunchtime, the image was being widely reported and outrage was in full flight. Outrage and anger, constructive as opposed to retributive, are a tremendous spark for action and change.

After all, when it comes to housing and homelessness and rents and mortgage arrears and week-long queues at new housing developments, there has been more than enough filibustering.

In the last four years, weve had three different housing ministers. We had Labours Alan Kelly, followed by Fine Gaels Simon Coveney, who was replaced by his party colleague, Eoghan Murphy.

In November, 2015, Kelly promised a tenfold rise in social-housing builds by the end of that year. Little materialised in bricks and mortar, but there were summits and bullet-pointed action plans.

When Coveney stepped into the frame, there was the launch of Rebuilding Ireland. All these houses were promised. It would all be sorted by 2020. He looked earnest at the press conference.

There was a scent of hope in the air, but not for long.

Apollo House appeared at Christmas 2016. Would the battering ram of an occupied building be the fulcrum on which this crisis would finally turn? By Christmas 2017, little had changed, save for a steady increase in homelessness figures.

When Eoghan Murphy took over the mantle in June 2017, with his rolled-up sleeves a la Barack Obama, the scent of hope had returned.

Just three months into the job, he held a housing summit with the chief executives of all the local authorities. He was confronted by housing activist Anthony Flynn on his way into the grand meeting. The cameras were rolling.

Im working on this every day. It is the top priority for the Government and you need to understand that, he told Flynn.

Flynn has spent the last five or so years going out to feed the homeless in the capital, pretty much every night. Flynn told him that the reason local authorities werent building houses was because the Government wouldnt give them the cash to do so.

Theres not a problem with funding at all, countered Mr Murphy. This time, were going to build four times as many social houses as we built in 2015. We have more money to reprioritise that into social housing.

As the one-year anniversary of that exchange approaches, we now have almost 10,000 people homeless in Ireland, 3,826 of whom are children. And lets not make this just about those of no fixed abode. There are couples living at home with mum and dad. There are single people, with pensionable jobs, who cant afford to buy on their own. And there are growing families who could do with two extra bedrooms in their one-bed Celtic Tiger apartments. All these ministers and summits and promises and all we get are rising rents and rising homelessness.

The public has been outraged before. The public has galvanised before. But it gets tiring when the numbers keep rising and the crisis keeps deepening. We get jaundiced, and outrage is hard to come by when theres this much filibustering.

So, what is it going to take? Will this photo be our tipping point? Will these sleeping children awaken our sense of outrage? And will this outrage be powerful enough to bulldoze through filibustering to pave a way for real change?

In politics, they say there are no votes in homelessness. Perhaps not, but there are votes for those with track records in humanity, pragmatism, and action.
From the Archive Wanted: A Vision of Myanmars Future

Myanmar football fans cheers during an international soccer game in Yangon in 2016. / The Irrawaddy

Almost five years have passed since Irrawaddy editor-in-chief Aung Zaw appealed for a national leader to stand up and articulate a bold and bright future for Myanmar. The country, however, has continued to stumble along, making that message as pertinent as ever.

We live in an age of cautious optimism, when no one can say with any certainty what the future holds for Myanmar, but many believe that it will, in any case, be better than what weve had to live through in the not-so-distant past.

That caution may well be justified, but perhaps its time to start focusing on the need for greater optimism. This is not to deny that many daunting challenges lie ahead. At the same time, however, we cant afford to become so wary of them that we lose sight of the equally enormous opportunities for positive change.

As a journalist who has spent more than two decades in exile, I speak from experience when I say that Myanmar is in many respects a very different country from the one I and many others once felt forced to flee. Many who once denounced the former regime are now returning, eager to assist the ailing nation through participation in the peace process and by sharing their experiences with the opposition, civil society, media and the government.

Internationally, Myanmar is now seen as an exciting new frontier for investors and tourists alike. Foreign leaders fly in to meet President U Thein Sein and Nobel laureate Daw Aung San SuuKyi, and journalists from around the world are closely following developments here to meet growing demand for information about a nation that until recently was regarded as a pariah.

There are many reasons for this sudden burst of intense interest. One is that Myanmars natural resources are still relatively untapped, and thus extremely attractive to its more developed neighbors and other richer countries. Another is that it is strategically located between the worlds two most populous countries, and is also at the crossroads to Southeast Asia, one of the worlds most economically dynamic regions.

With the steady lifting of Western sanctions as the government moves forward (however haltingly) with reforms, there is hope that Myanmar will have even greater opportunities to develop its economy, not only in the resource sector, but also in areas that will give ordinary people jobs and a chance to develop new skills.

The trouble here, of course, is that Myanmar has a huge capacity gap, which will not be easy to close. But even this should not be a cause for undue pessimism: Even during the darkest days of military rule, when students were treated like criminals and universities were routinely shut down, Myanmars people demonstrated a strong appetite for knowledge and a willingness to do anything in their power to improve their minds and abilities.

Many foreigners, for instance, have remarked on the language skills of children hawking postcards to tourists. In order to eke out a meager existence, some will learn not just the rudiments of English, but also of any other language that might help them find new customers. This is no mean feat for children so poor that they have to spend their days earning a living rather than learning in school.

In other areas, too, the people of this country have shown themselves to be more than capable of acquiring whatever skills they need to survive. Until recently, for example, most motorists were forced to rely on vehicles long since abandoned by their original owners in other countriessomething that would have been impossible without the resourcefulness of Myanmars mechanics.

In the public sphere, despite repression by the authorities, civil society organizations sought their own solutions to Myanmars pressing social problems, often with little or no help from outside aid agencies. What they may have lacked in capacity, they more than made up for in their sheer determination to make a difference.

Myanmars intellectualsits scholars, artists and writersalso showed that they could be stubbornly independent, even in the face of draconian thought control. Now that they are no longer forced to work in the shadows, the world is discovering a vibrant culture that went almost completely unnoticed just a few years ago.

Of course, it will take more than the efforts of individuals, small groups and even whole communities to move Myanmar beyond the level of mere subsistence. To realize its full potential, the country needs the involvement of all of its citizens; and for that, it has to address the greatest capacity gap of all: the lack of leaders with a vision of the future.

To me, Myanmar is like a dilapidated old house. Neglect has taken its toll, but its still possible to imagine it in its former glory. All it would take to restore it is someone with a clear idea of how to get the job done, and the ability to communicate that idea to others.

Myanmar has never had any shortage of leaders, but somehow this has never translated into the sort of leadership the country really needs. The military strongmen who once ruled (and who remain in positions of power today) often seemed driven by paranoia and delusions of grandeur, rather than by an understanding of the needs of a nation with many ethnic, political, social and religious divisions.

Even deeply popular leaders, such as Gen Aung San and his daughter, Daw Aung San SuuKyi, are better known for what they opposed than for what they hoped to achieve. In the case of Gen Aung San, this is because his life was cut short before his dream of independence could be fully realized. In his daughters case, many have been disappointed by what they see as her inexplicable silence on many pressing issues.

Its not too late to hope that Daw Aung San SuuKyi or some other leader who emerged from Myanmars pro-democracy struggleor even one of the more enlightened ex-generalswill someday be able to articulate a compelling vision of the countrys future. But the sooner that day comes, the betterbefore the optimism thats in the air is squandered, and Myanmar loses yet another golden opportunity to rebuild itself anew.

This article first appeared in the October 2013 print issue of The Irrawaddy magazine.
Burma This Week in Parliament (Aug. 6-10)

Upper House Speaker U Mann Win Khaing Than (center) is seen at the Union Parliament in Naypyitaw on Aug. 1. / Htet Naing Zaw / The Irrawaddy

Monday (Aug. 6)

The Lower House of Parliament passed a proposal to urge the government to keep companies true to their contracts after accusing the Construction Ministry of failing to adequately monitor firms it hires to build and maintain roads using the BOT  build, operate, transfer  system.

Tuesday (Aug. 7)

The Union Parliament passed Part Two of the Union Accord, which includes 14 principles that were discussed and approved at the third session of the Panglong Peace Conference in July.

Wednesday (Aug. 8)

In the Lower House, lawmaker U Zaw Min Thein asked if the government would appoint women to district, township, region and state administrator positions under the General Administration Department. Deputy Home Affairs Minister Major General Aung Thu said that lower-level female officers can rise through the ranks to hold those positions.

Thursday (Aug. 9)

In the Union Parliament, lawmakers debated a proposal from the president to borrow 30 million euros ($34.4 million) in no-interest loans from Italy for the Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation to spend on rural electrification projects. Lawmakers called for transparency and accountability on the project, citing previous failures.

Friday (Aug. 10)

The Lower House put on record a proposal by lawmaker Daw Wint Wah Tun to urge the Ministry of Cooperatives to review its policies and procedures and make the necessary reforms to deliver the best results to the public.
This Week in Review

A weekly review of the best and most popular stories published in the Imperial Valley Press. Also, featured upcoming events, new movies at local theaters, the week in photos and much more.
Cabarita Point is the likely venue for competition with the Tweed point break set to provide perfect conditions for surfers in the Longboard and Logger divisions.

Multiple Australian Champion Clint Guest is ready for the challenge after a month of training at home on the Sunshine Coast. A former Burleigh local, Guest is more than familiar with the Tweed region and the many different waves it has on offer.

Having competition at Cabarita last year was the perfect venue for longboard surfing. The right-hand peelers will provide the perfect canvas for Australias best to showcase both classic and modern styles of the sport again this year.

Guest, who surfed in his first SAE Group Australian Surf Festival at age fifteen, has competed for twelve years straight against some of the biggest names in Aussie and world longboarding and expects 2018 to be no different.

Guest will be chasing his third Australian Title when the SAE Group Australian Surf Festival gets underway tomorrow morning.

2018 SAE Group Australian Surf Festival  Tweed Coast, NSW, August 10-27

 North Star Holiday Resort Australian Bodyboard Titles  August 24-27

The Australian Longboard and Logger Titles will kickstart the 2018 SAE Group Australian Surf Festival from Saturday, August 11th on the Tweed Coast with another bumper field set to contest both divisions.Guys like Dane Pioli and Nick Jones will be the biggest threat to my title chase. I have heard rumours of a couple of other household names who may be in the draw as well which would be great to see. Opening Ceremony  August 10 Australian Surfmasters Titles August 19-23 Australian Longboard Titles  August 10-18 Australian Logger Titles  August 11-18The 2018 SAE Group Australian Surf Festival is proudly supported by the NSW Government through its tourism and major events agency, Destination NSW. The event is also proudly supported by Destination Tweed, SAE Group, North Star Holiday Resort, bcu, Hydralyte Sports, Hyundai, the Australian Institute of Sport, NBN, mySURF.tv, 2XP Elemental Protection, Surfing Australia and Surfing NSW.
IWU Holds Annual RSO Fair

BLOOMINGTON, Ill.  Illinois Wesleyan University will hold its annual Registered Student Organization (RSO) Fair on Thursday, Aug. 30 at 4 p.m. at the Eckley Quadrangle.

Students will have the opportunity to sign up for any of the Universitys 200 student organizations, including Greek Life, intramural sports, student government, cultural groups, volunteer groups and more. Approximately 25 new RSOs have been established for the upcoming school year.

The fair is sponsored by the Office of Student Activities and Student Senate.
NASHVILLE, Tenn.Legacy, the RockFest Records debut from The Protest , is receiving rave reviews from both mainstream and Christian media, while the projects first single, What Else You Got, is a multi-format hit at mainstream rock and Christian radio.



Co-written by the band and Disciples Josiah Prince, What Else You Got is currently #26 on Billboard's Mainstream Rock Indicator chart as well as #10 on Billboards Christian Rock National Airplay chart. The single is also a featured track on all iHeartRadio Rock stations for the month of August. In addition, What Else You Got has been added to Spotifys Rock Hard playlist, along with Pandoras New Rock station.

Legacy, produced by Matt Arcaini (Disciple, VERIDIA), is being heralded as a benchmark in The Protests career by both mainstream and Christian media. Legacy is hands down the best hard rock album released so far in 2018, said New Release Today, while Head for the Barricade writes The Protest have delivered a stunning guitar-driven rock record which on occasion also brings some punishing alternative metal to the table, giving Legacy a feel of a band who have finally hit their stride and reaching their true potential  one of the hard rock albums of the year.



And according to The Christian Beat, Legacy is a necessity for fans of gripping, motivating, energizing, and encouraging hard rock  In terms of legacy, The Protest has certainly created a notable one with their latest and greatest.



New Castle, Indiana-based The Protest is comprised of Josh Bramlett (lead vocals), Adam Sadler (guitar), Jarob Bramlett (drums), and TJ Colwell (guitar). Game Changer, the bands 2012 debut, was produced by Travis Wyrick (P.O.D., Disciple), while their 2014 sophomore set, Great Lengths, showcased Vicious Cycle, The Protests first Top 50 mainstream rock hit. Following numerous headlining shows and festival appearances this summer, the band will perform at Uprise Festival in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, in September and the CVJM Loud and Proud Festival in Germany in October, along with dates in Latvia.



RockFest Records, a Nashville Label Group imprint, is helmed by Joseph Rojas, founding member of Dove Award-winning Christian rock band Seventh Day Slumber and creator of the City RockFest Tour. In addition to Seventh Day Slumber and The Protest, the label is home to hitmakers Random Hero; female solo rocker Zahna; Nashville-based rock/metal band The Persuaded; and metalcore trio Amongst the Giants. RockFest Records is distributed by New Day Christian Distributors, with digital distribution by Capitol Christian Music Group.



For further information, visit theprotestrocks.com or turningpointpr.com. Follow The Protest on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

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By Anne Irfan |  

Leaked emails from Jared Kushner, Donald Trumps son-in-law and appointed steward of the Israel-Palestine conflict, are shedding light on his planned deal of the century for peace in the Middle East. In extracts published by Foreign Policy magazine, Kushner proposes disrupting the work of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and ending the refugee status of 5m Palestinians across the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.

Although the emails have not been published in full, these snippets are highly revealing. Kushners move against UNRWA marks the next stage in the Trump administrations plan. In January 2018  the same month that Kushner sent these emails  Trump announced drastic cuts in US aid to UNRWA.

There are signs that defunding UNRWA is just the first stage of a much grander strategy; Kushner is also reportedly pressuring Jordan to strip the 2m Palestinians living there of their refugee status. But even taken on its own, dissolving the agency would have catastrophic consequences.

Out of the picture

UNRWA currently provides emergency aid, education and healthcare to the Middle Easts millions of Palestinian refugees. Many live below the poverty line, and would have little or no support if UNRWAs services were to end, with their host states lacking the necessary resources to step in.

The impact would be political as well as humanitarian. The status of the refugees, who lost their homes in the 1948 war, has long been one of the most contentious issues between Israel and the Palestinians. UNRWAs work by definition implies international recognition of the refugees situation and underlines their lawful right of return.

If UNRWA were dissolved while the refugees remained stateless, that would imply that the contentious question of their future and status had been resolved. On these grounds, the Palestinian Authority has condemned the Kushner plan as an attempt to remove refugees from the equation and erase their right of return, effectively denying them any chance of future citizenship in Israel-Palestine.

On the other side, critics of UNRWA  including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu  contend that the agency perpetuates the Palestinian refugee crisis by supporting the refugees in their current situation rather than helping pursue a political solution, and by promoting anti-Israeli feeling. According to this view, the agencys dissolution would improve prospects for peace.

The reality suggests the opposite. UNRWA is a product rather than a cause of the conflict, which will continue even if the agency is abolished. Stripping millions of people of basic welfare is more likely to heighten tensions than calm them. Israel would pay a price too; as an occupying power, it is legally obliged to safeguard the basic needs of the population living in areas it controls, but since UNRWA currently alleviates some of its obligations by providing essential services to 800,000 registered refugees in the West Bank and more than 1m in Gaza, the Israeli government is under far less pressure than it could be to take primary responsibility for their welfare.

Kushner himself seems aware of the potential damage, writing in one email that the US should risk breaking things to get results. None of the leaked extracts includes any provision for minimising the fallout. But the US administrations opposition to UNRWA isnt just about the refugees it serves. This is part of a broader strategy to redraw the fundamental contours of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process as a whole.

Dismantling Oslo

For more than 20 years, this process has been operating on the framework laid out in the 1993 Oslo Accords. Oslo established terms for a five-year interim period, to be followed by a full final peace agreement. It identified seven so-called permanent status issues  including that of the refugees  to be determined as part of this final agreement.

While every previous US administration since 1993 has endorsed this framework, Trump has been steadily working to take each of the permanent status issues off the table.

First, the administration recognised Jerusalem  deemed the most important final status issue  as the unified capital of Israel. Appearing to acknowledge his strategy, Trump explicitly described the move as taking Jerusalem off the table. The recent opening of the new US embassy in the city dashed Palestinian hopes that East Jerusalem would serve as the capital of their future state.

According to the Oslo framework, the Palestinian refugees future is the second most important permanent status issue; by mooting the abolition of UNRWA, the Trump administration seems to be planning to take this one off the table too.

The evidence suggests that the administration has similar plans for the third issue: Israeli settlements. In contrast to the Obama administrations strong condemnation of settlement activity in the West Bank, Trump has been mostly quiet on the issue. Kushner, along with ambassador David Friedman, supported Israels recent Nation-State Law, which promotes Jewish settlement as a national value.

The four remaining permanent status issues are security arrangements, borders, international relations, and common interests such as allocation of water supplies. The Trump administrations plans for each of these remains to be seen. Yet even if they are left on the table, the elimination of Jerusalem, the refugees and the settlements will leave the Palestinians  already the weaker party  exceptionally vulnerable. By gradually eliminating the permanent status issues, the Trump administration is working to severely restrict the scope of any final deal, with the aim of compelling the Palestinians to capitulate.

Anne Irfan, Teaching Fellow in Middle Eastern History, University of Sussex

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Featured Photo: Wikimedia Commons
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Baghdad (AFP)  Nationalist Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadrs alliance won Iraqs May parliamentary election according to a manual recount, the electoral commission said Friday, paving the way for a government to be formed nearly three months after the vote.

Allegations of fraud prompted the supreme court to order a partial manual recount, but Sadrs joint list with communists will retain all 54 seats it won to become the biggest bloc in Iraqs 329-seat parliament.

The only substantive change resulting from the recount will be an extra seat for the Conquest Alliance of pro-Iranian former paramilitary fighters at the expense of a local Baghdad list.

The Conquest Alliance remains in second place but will have 48 seats instead of 47, Iraqs nine-member electoral commission said.

Other changes were confined to a handful of alterations to the standings of candidates within party lists.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadis bloc remains in third with just 42 seats.

After the supreme court officially announces the final results, the outgoing president has 15 days to convene parliament, which must then elect a new head of state and begin the process of forming a coalition government and settling on a new prime minister.

 40 key demands 

Sadr has already signed a coalition agreement with Shiite Ammar al-Hakims Al-Hikma list, which will stay on 19 seats after the recount, and the secular outgoing vice president Iyad Allawi, whose list was comprised largely of Sunnis and secured 21 seats.

The May 12 election saw a record low turnout of 44.5 percent, with longtime political figures pushed out by voters seeking change in a country mired in conflict and corruption.

The recount results come after deadly protests that broke out in early July, with demonstrators angry at water shortages, unemployment and the dire state of public services.

Regular power cuts mean there has been little respite from sweltering summer temperatures and with the national grid providing just a few hours of electricity per day, many Iraqis are forced to pay to use generators through the private sector.

The announcement of the results will help stabilise the (political) process in the country and will accelerate responses to the populations demand that they be able to enjoy public services worthy of the name, political analyst Aziz Jabbar told AFP.

But building a coalition will take time, as even with the support of Hikma and Allawi, Sadr can only so far count on the loyalty of less than 30 percent of lawmakers.

And Sadr on Friday threatened to place his bloc in opposition, rather than form a government, if other parties refuse to back 40 demands that he has made for the political process to move in the right direction.

These include rejecting sectarian quotas, refusing to hand government portfolios to previous office holders, denying posts to MPs with dual nationality and expelling corrupt officials.



AFP / Haidar MOHAMMED ALI. Iraqi men demonstrate in the southern oil-rich city of Basra  the heart of recent protests against power shortages, graft and other social ills  on August 3, 2018.

Graft is seen as a big problem in a country where citizens say they fail to benefit from the countrys enormous oil wealth.

Officially $40 billion (34 billion euros) has been allocated to the power sector over the past 15 years, but a substantial slice has been siphoned off by corrupt politicians and businessmen who have fronted fake contracts.

In an attempt to quell public anger after more than a month of demonstrations  and with protests still springing up in the mainly Shiite south  Abadi sacked four directors in the electricity ministry on Tuesday and moved a number of others.

The decision followed the dismissal last month of electricity minister Qassem al-Fahdawi because of the deterioration in the electricity sector, the premiers office said at the time.

Featured Photo: AFP/File / Haidar HAMDANI. Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadrs alliance will be the biggest bloc in Iraqs parliament.
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San Francisco (AFP)  A California jury on Friday ordered chemical giant Monsanto to pay nearly $290 million for failing to warn a dying groundskeeper that its weed killer Roundup might cause cancer.

Jurors unanimously found that Monsanto  which vowed to appeal  acted with malice and that its weed killers Roundup and the professional grade version RangerPro contributed substantially to Dewayne Johnsons terminal illness.

Following eight weeks of trial proceedings, the San Francisco jury ordered Monsanto to pay $250 million in punitive damages along with compensatory damages and other costs, bringing the total figure to nearly $290 million.

The jury got it wrong, the companys vice president Scott Partridge told reporters outside the courthouse.

Johnson, a California groundskeeper diagnosed in 2014 with non-Hodgkins lymphoma  a cancer that affects white blood cells  says he repeatedly used a generic form of RangerPro while working at a school in Benicia, California.



AFP / JOSH EDELSON. Monsanto Vice President Scott Partridge speaks after Monsanto was ordered to pay nearly $290 million in damages for not disclosing the dangers of its popular Roundup products.

The lawsuit built on 2015 findings by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the UN World Health Organization, which classified Roundups main ingredient glyphosate as a probable carcinogen, causing the state of California to follow suit.

We are sympathetic to Mr Johnson and his family, Monsanto said in a statement promising to appeal the ruling and continue to vigorously defend this product, which has a 40-year history of safe use and continues to be a vital, effective and safe tool for farmers and others.

But Johnsons attorney Brent Wisner said the verdict shows the evidence is overwhelming that the product poses danger.

When you are right, it is really easy to win, he said.

 More to come? 

Wisner called the ruling the tip of the spear of litigation likely to come.

The lawsuit is the first to accuse the product of causing cancer but observers say a Monsanto defeat likely opens the door to hundreds of other claims against the company, which was recently acquired by Germanys Bayer.



AFP/File / JOSH EDELSON. Monsanto launched Roundup in 1976 and soon thereafter began genetically modifying plants, making some resistant to Roundup.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr  an environmental lawyer, son of the late US senator and a member of Johnsons legal team  sat in the courtroom behind the dying man, who bowed his head.

I think the verdict is going to trigger a cascade of new cases, said Kennedy, who championed the case publicly.

The jury sent a message to the Monsanto boardroom that they have to change the way they do business.

Partridge said outside the courthouse that Monsanto had no intention of settling the slew of similar cases in the legal queue, saying if anything the verdict would prompt the company to work harder to demonstrate the weed killer is safe.

It is the most widely used and most widely studied herbicide in the world, Partridge said. The verdict today does not change the science.

 Win for all of humanity 

Before jurors went to deliberate, Johnsons attorney Brent Wisner asked they deliver a day of reckoning for Monsanto.

The science finally caught up, where they couldnt bury it anymore, Wisner told the jury in closing arguments.

Roundup is Monsantos leading product and glyphosate is reportedly the worlds most commonly used weed killer.

The Johnson v Monsanto verdict is a win for all of humanity and all life on earth, said Zen Honeycutt, founding executive director of non-profit group Moms Across America.

The majority of our illnesses and losses to soil quality, water, wildlife and marine life are due to toxic chemicals, particularly Monsantos most widely used glyphosate herbicides like Roundup and Ranger Pro.

Monsanto always denied any link to the disease and said studies concluded the product was safe.

But the controversy has already damaged the companys reputation.



AFP / JOSH EDELSON. Plaintiff DeWayne Johnson hugs one of his lawyers after hearing the verdict to his case against Monsanto at the Superior Court Of California.

Records unsealed earlier by a federal court lent credence to Johnsons claims  internal company emails with regulators suggested Monsanto had ghostwritten research later attributed to academics.

Founded in 1901 in St Louis, Missouri, Monsanto began producing agrochemicals in the 1940s. It was acquired by Bayer for more than $62 billion in June.

Monsanto was one of the companies that produced the defoliant Agent Orange  which has been linked to cancer and other diseases  for use by US forces in Vietnam.

The company denies responsibility for how the military used the product.

Monsanto launched Roundup in 1976 and soon thereafter began genetically modifying plants, making some resistant to Roundup.

Featured Photo: AFP / JOSH EDELSON. Plaintiff Dewayne Johnson reacts after hearing the verdict to his case against Monsanto at the Superior Court Of California in San Francisco.
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Putting physicians in charge of hospitals seems like a no-brainer, but it isnt what usually happens. A study published in Academic Medicine states that only about four percent of hospitals in the United States are run by physician leaders, which represents a steep decline from 35 percent in 1935. In the most recent 2018 Beckers Hospital Review 100 Great Leaders in Healthcare, only 29 are physicians.

The stats dont lie, however. Health care systems run by physicians do better. When comparing quality metrics, physician-run hospitals outperform non-physician-run hospitals by 25 percent. In the 2017-18 U.S. News & World Report Best Hospitals Honor Roll, the top four hospitals (Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital) have physician leaders. Similar findings have been reported in other countries as well.

While not all physicians make good leaders, those that do really stand out. For those physicians who may consider applying for hospital leadership positions, specific characteristics should distinguish them from non-physician applicants and help them make the transition successfully. Of course, this is my opinion, but I think it comes down to these five things:

1. Physicians are bound by an oath. The Hippocratic Oath, in some form, is recited by every medical school graduate around the world. This oath emphasizes that medicine is a calling and not just a job: May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help. Physicians commit themselves to the treatment of disease and the health of human beings. There is no similar oath for non-physician health care executives.

2. Physicians know how to make tough decisions. This is crucial to every informed consent process. Physicians need to curate available evidence, weigh risks and benefits, and share their recommendations with patients and families in situations that can literally be life or death. This is essential to the art of medicine. Effectively translating technical jargon into language that lay people can understand allows others to participate in the decision-making process. This applies both to the bedside and the boardroom.

3. Physicians are trained improvement experts. They learn the diagnostic and treatment cycle which requires listening to patients (also known as taking a history), evaluating test results, considering all possible relevant diagnoses and instituting an initial treatment plan. As new results emerge and the clinical course evolves, the diagnosis and treatment plan are refined. In my medical specialty of anesthesiology, this cycle occurs rapidly and often many times during a complex operation. These skills translate well to diagnosing and treating sick health care systems.

4. Physicians are lifelong learners. When laparoscopic surgical techniques emerged, surgeons already in practice had to find ways to learn them or be left behind. Medicine is always changing. To maintain medical licensure, physicians must commit many hours of continuing medical education every year. New research articles in every field of medicine are published every day. For these reasons, physicians cannot hold onto the way it has always been done, and this attitude serves them well in health care leadership.

5. Physicians work their way up. Every physician leader started as an intern, the lowest rung of the medical training ladder. Interns rotate on different services within their specialty, working in a team with higher-ranked residents under the supervision of an attending physician. As physicians progress in training through their years of residency, they get to know more and more hospital staff in other disciplines and take on more patient care responsibility. A fundamental lesson learned during residency is that the best ideas can come from anyone; occasionally the intern comes up with the right diagnosis when more senior team members cannot.

While these qualities are necessary, they are not sufficient. To be effective health care leaders, physicians need to develop their administrative skills in personnel management, team building, and strategic planning. They will have to learn to understand and manage hospital finances, meet regulatory requirements and performance metrics and find ways to support and drive innovation. For physicians who have already completed their medical training, a commitment to effective healthcare leadership will require as much time and dedication as their medical studies. However, if they dont do this, there are plenty of non-physicians who will.

Edward R. Mariano is an anesthesiologist. He can be reached on his self-titled site, Edward R. Mariano, M.D. and on Twitter @EMARIANOMD.

Image credit: Shutterstock.com
Stuff reports:

The petition presented on Wednesday was made up of 15,448 signatures obtained by by the Young Greens and Young Labour, and another 5157 signatures obtained by the Rodney Area Rainbow LGBTQ+. InsideOut National Coordinator Tabby Besley said a ban was important because gay conversion therapy was an extremely damaging, harmful practice. We already are five times more likely to attempt suicide than non-rainbow people in New Zealand and [gay conversion therapy] sends people into this place where theyre being told that who they are is wrong.

Gay conversion therapy is a terrible thing which does cause harm. It is based on the false belief that being gay is a choice. Gay people no more choose to be gay than I choose to be heterosexual.

Labour MP Louisa Wall said the party would like to discuss the options National, as well as within caucus. To be responsive we have to the discussions with our coalition partners, she said. The National Party need to be a part of this conversation and stand with us and say anything that harms, particularly, our young people, we all must take some responsibility in ending it.

One can agree that something is harmful and bad but that doesnt mean it should be banned by the state.

Quite a few cults are harmful. They are not banned. Scientology looks pretty harmful to me, but that isnt banned.

A further issue would be how do you define gay conversion therapy? A wide definition could catch all sorts of things such as sermons.

If there was a well crafted bill on this issue, Id support to select committee to allow submissions on it. Id want to try and find out how much of a problem is this in NZ today.

To my mind though the best way to stop gay conversion therapy is discredit it and to have an environment where young Kiwis who are gay are not made to feel they are wrong. Stuff such as same sex marriage has helped with that.

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Houston, Aug 8 (PTI) Sewa International, an Indian non-for-profit organisation, has been awarded with a USD 500,000 grant to rebuild homes devastated by Hurricane Harvey last year in the US state of Texas.

The American Red Cross awarded the grant to Sewa for reconstruction in Rosharon Village, Brazoria County, Texas.

In the next 18 months, Sewa will help reconstruct 11 completely destroyed homes and 24 partially-damaged homes, benefitting 154 people.

"This grant from the American Red Cross is an affirmation of the good work done by Sewa. The total cost for rebuilding and repairing homes at Rosharon for this project is estimated to be about USD 675,000, and Sewa International's donors are contributing USD 175,000 towards this cause," said a Sewa spokesperson.

Sewa also received a USD 397,000 grant awarded by the Greater Houston Community Foundation (GHCF) in December 2017, providing case management help for 600 individuals. Completing the work in record time, Sewa International ended up helping 1,600 individuals from minority and underprivileged communities, the spokesperson said.

The Sewa International team members in Houston were instrumental in raising funds from its supporters across the US.

In less than a year since Hurricane Harvey hit, Sewa raised over USD 2 million, including the latest American Red Cross grant of USD 500,000, for disaster recovery.

"Despite generous support of funding agencies, the task at hand is enormous," Achalesh Amar, Coordinator of Sewa Houston told PTI.

"The experience of rebuilding Rosharon has been demanding, sometimes frustrating, but more often rewarding and always an optimistic one. The American Red Cross grant allows us to lay the foundation, literally  one home at a time -- to rebuild and revitalize Little Cambodia," Amar said.

Gitesh Desai, President of the Houston Chapter of Sewa International said the American Red Cross grant further strengthens Sewa's resolve to fulfill "our mission of giving back to the society through selfless service".

One of the most affected communities was Rosharon in Brazoria County which suffered major damage. Known as Little Cambodia, Rosharon with a population of approximately 1,400, is 30 miles south of Houston.

Home to predominantly Cambodians refugees, and some Laotian and Mexican refugees, the majority eke out a livelihood in this insular setting through subsistence farming.

Families here had fled Cambodia in the late 1970s escaping the genocidal regime of the Khmer Rouge. Nearly fifty per cent of the families are involved in growing water spinach, a staple of Asian cuisine. When Hurricane Harvey roared through South Texas, it devastated "Little Cambodia", bringing down houses, rendering people homeless, and leveling greenhouses thus destroying livelihoods.

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from Syndicated News feed, LatestLY Staff may not have modified or edited the content body)
Kolkata, Aug 11: Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha President Poonam Mahajan on Saturday termed West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as a 'U-turn Didi' and described her party Trinamool Congress as a "terror-making machine."

Mahajan, speaking at a rally in Kolkata, ridiculed Banerjee's pet slogan 'maa, mati, manush' (mother, motherland and people) and described the Trinamool Congress supremo's activities in the state as "inhuman".

"People had hopes that being a woman, Banerjee will have a sense of compassion for the people. But the way she has been running this government from the first day, I think she should be called U-turn didi. She has forgotten all her promises towards the mothers and sisters. Today West Bengal is at the top in cases of atrocities against women," Mahajan said.

"If we talk about 'maati' (motherland), their MLAs are illegally capturing lands, and fighting gang wars over it while the people of the state are despondent, dispirited and unemployed. It seems Benerjee has actually gone forward with the slogan of mein Mamata amanush' (I am inhuman)," she said.

Accusing the Trinamool Congress of committing large-scale violence and atrocities on BJP activists in the state, Mahajan said the TMCA has become a "terror making machine".

She alleged that Banerjee's vow to usher in change (Parivartan) in the state when she came to power in 2011 has fallen flat on its face over the past seven years. The only visible change was in the colours of the buildings -- painted blue and white, Banerjee's favourite -- and in lives of the Trinamool Congress activists.

Taking a swipe at Banerjee for her criticism of the draft NRC in Assam, the BJP leader accused the Bengal Chief Minister of trying to turn her state into Bangladesh.

"Mamata-didi is secretly working to turn West Bengal into Bangladesh. Those who are saying that there will be a civil war in the country because of NRC...we will uproot such anti-nationals from here and go ahead," she added.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 11, 2018 06:10 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
New Delhi, Aug 11: Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his interview with news agency ANI, launched a retaliation to the tirade of charges levelled by the Opposition over the past few days. Among the issues on which Modi cleared the government's stance, include unemployment and mob lynchings.

On the fatal violence perpetrated by mobs on the pretext of cow slaughter and child-lifting, Modi said the Centre has directed all state governments to crackdown on those involved in such heinous crimes. Here is what the PM said on major issues:

On Mob lynchings

"Even a single incident is one too many and deeply unfortunate. Everyone should rise above politics to ensure peace and unity in our society," PM Modi said on incidents of crime against women and incidents of lynching.

Modi also dismissed the allegations that a section of his party ideologically supports the self-styled cow vigilantes. "My party and I have spoken in clear words, on multiple occasions against such actions and such a mindset. It is all on record," he added.

On NRC

"I want to assure the people that no citizen of India will have to leave the country. As per the due process, all possible opportunities will be given to get their concerns addressed," the Prime Minister said.

Modi also retaliated to the charges of divisive politics levelled by West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, who claimed that implementation of NRC would push the nation into a civil war.

"Those who have lost faith in themselves,fear loss of popular support and lack faith in our institutions can use words like civil war,blood bath and Desh Ke Tukde Tukde. Evidently, they are disconnected from the pulse of the nation," Modi said in retaliation.

On unemployment charge

"More than 1 crore jobs have been created in the last year alone, thus the campaign that jobs have not been created must come to a halt," PM Modi said.

On reservation

PM Mod brushed away the charges levelled by the Opposition, which has claimed that the BJP and its ideological parent, the RSS, wants to dilute the reservation granted to underprivileged castes in educational institutions and government jobs.

"Reservation is here to stay. Let there be no doubt about it," Modi said.

Defends GST

"The Congress president tried his best to provoke people against GST during Gujarat elections, why did the people reject him," Modi questioned, referring to Rahul Gandhi's "Gabbar Singh Tax" acronym to refer to the GST ahead of Gujarat assembly elections.

On Rahul Gandhi hugging him in Lok Sabha

"It is for you to judge whether it was a childish act or not. And if you are unable to decide, watch the wink and you will get the answer," he said.

"I am a humble Kaamdaar. I am nothing compared to the Naamdaars of this country, who have their own unique style of conducting themselves. They decide whom to hate, when to hate and whom to love and how to make a show of it. In all this, what can a Kamdaar like me say," the PM further added.

On parting ways with PDP in Jammu & Kashmir

Putting the onus on ousted chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, Modi said his party was unable to fulfill the agenda of alliance following the demise of PDP patriarch and Mehbooba's predecessor Mufti Mohammad Sayeed in December 2015.

"After the sad demise of Mufti Sahab, there were hurdles in fulfilling those (peoples) expectations, that is why without casting any aspersions we opted out of power," Modi added.

On whether NDA allies are on his side

Referring to the government's emphatic victory in the no-confidence motion and Rajya Sabha deputy chairperson polls, Modi said it has become clear that the allies are strongly backing him ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

"Outcome of these events should indicate which coalition is intact and which is falling apart. In fact, we got support even from those parties which are not our allies. BJP has consistently expanded base over recent years among people and welcomed more allies to NDA," he claimed.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 11, 2018 11:46 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Swara Bhasker is at it yet again and so is the troll army. The actress is known for posting her opinions on social media even at the cost of getting trolled by followers. Swara reacted to the Una flogging incident that had happened two years ago. The victims recently announced that they are renouncing Hinduism and converting to Buddhism as an attempt to put an end to caste-based atrocities. They also announced that they will be converting others to Buddhism, too. Swara tweeted about the incident and wrote, "Some assholes with big caste pride, tied men to a jeep, flogged them publicly and recorded it ; #ButLiberalsAreFanatics #SadhguruSays [sic]." Trollers related this tweet to a seprate incident where an army officer was involved and started spitting the venom against the actress.

In a recent chat, Kangana Ranaut and Sadhguru were talking about social and political issues in India along with her promoting Manikarnika. In the chat, Sadhguru said that liberals are just fanatics and you cannot put forward your opinion in front of them unless you agree with them. But Swara's tweet stirred quite the outburst, which was honestly expected. Since the actress comes from the Navy background, followers were shocked to see her tweet. But she did give a clarification saying, "Obviously big caste pride is referring to the #Una case in Gujarat.. sigh! Read the newspapers, use your brains.. or dont - whatever! [sic]"

Check out her tweets here.

Obviously big caste pride is referring to the #Una case in Gujarat.. sigh! Read the newspapers, use your brains.. or dont - whatever! https://t.co/PKPTQphCc3  Swara Bhasker (@ReallySwara) August 10, 2018

And here's the video of Kangana and Sadhguru.

Im shocked!!!! So if u have not seen village life , u arent supposed to condemn killing !! Right??? Guru??? Really?? Means teacher?? Ure justifying that violence is the only way one should deal with if ones belonging is stolen? What are they even preaching?? Gosh!  https://t.co/772GNL81Fa  Gauahar Khan (@GAUAHAR_KHAN) August 10, 2018

While a lot of people called her out for her tweet, some fans clarified that she is actually giving her opinion on the flogging incident. But you'll find very few supporters in the tweet thread. What are your thoughts on this? Tell us in the comments below and stay tuned with us for more.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 11, 2018 10:32 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
A Ukrainian man was found panicking holding a live hand grenade after his friend purposely handed him one over a fight. The man's friend who is a soldier in the Ukrainian army pulled the pin out of the grenade and gave it to his friend before running off. The incident happened in Dnipro city located in southeastern Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk Oblast region.

The man said that his soldier friend asked him to hold something and thinking it to be a mobile phone, he took it in his hand only to realise it was a 'live' grenade. Although he pressed down the safety lever to stop it detonating, he realised he could not hold it for long. He began shouting for helping to alert the passerby.

Police were soon informed and they arrived at the scene immediately. One of the cops helped in holding the grenade's safety lever and even used sticky tape to secure their hands so it does not slip off until the bomb squad arrive.

Bomb squad experts arrived to find that grenade was a replica and did not contain any explosive inside. The soldier was arrested from his home later and will face up to seven years in jail if convicted. After the terrible ordeal, the victim was seen smoking a cigarette. Several times int he past, cruel pranks have costed people dearly. The soldier may be punished for creating a panicky situation among the civilians and the police.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Aug 11, 2018 12:10 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).
Aug 11, 2018, 7:53am ET

Ford plotting Focus-based, Bronco-styled soft-roader?

The yet-unnamed model could make its debut in 2019.

Ford's product offensive includes a soft-roader based on the brand-new Focus, according to one of its top executives.

Hau Thai-Thang, the Blue Oval's executive vice president of product development and purchasing, told Reuters the yet-unnamed model will share parts with the Focus and the Escape but it will stand out with a more rugged design. He promised "offroad positioning and imagery" at a premium price. It could be the same model Ford teased in April.

Reuters spoke to an anonymous insider familiar with Ford's plans and learned the model will borrow styling cues from the original Bronco (pictured) that the company introduced in 1966. It was a relatively small truck with round headlights, two doors, and a boxy silhouette. We can't imagine the Focus-based model will arrive with two doors, a removable hard top, or a big chromed grille, though.

Using the Focus' bones suggests the model won't be a true off-roader in the vein of the original Bronco or the modern-day Jeep Wrangler. Buyers who want to go far off the beaten path will need to wait until Ford resurrects the Bronco, which will share its body-on-frame architecture with the Ranger. Of course, Ford's research and development department could surprise us. Land Rover is building the next Defender on a unibody architecture, after all.

Reuters' insider said the model could make its debut in 2019 and arrive in showrooms as a 2020 model. It's too early to tell where production will take place.
Aug 11, 2018, 1:31am ET

Ford to further reduce platform portfolio

The company wants just five basic platforms.

Ford will further reduce the number of platforms in its global portfolio in a bid to save money. The company ultimately wants its entire line-up to ride on five basic platforms, according to one of its top executives.

The One Ford plan orchestrated by Alan Mulally to avoid bankruptcy reduced the company's platform catalog from 30 to nine. Hau Thai-Thang, Ford's head of product development and purchasing, told industry trade journal Automotive News that One Ford didn't go far enough for the Blue Oval to achieve the regional and local scale it's after.

Thai-Thang detailed the five platforms. The catalog will consist of a body-on-frame architecture compatible with rear- or all-wheel drive, a unibody architecture compatible with rear- or all-wheel drive, a unibody architecture compatible with front- or all-wheel drive, a unibody architecture for commercial vans, and a unibody architecture for electric vehicles.

Ford expects moving to five platforms will allow it to save $25.5 billion over the next five years. It's a move that will also speed up the process of bringing a vehicle to the market, a crucial aspect as Ford phases out passenger cars in America to enter new market segments. Thai-Thang added Ford will invest some of the money it saves into design.

Photo by Ronan Glon.
A women's clothing boutique plans to open between Evolve Lifestyle Salon & Spa and Zales jewelry store at the Promenade Shops at Saucon Valley.

Altar'd State, a growing women's fashion brand with nearly 100 boutiques throughout the eastern United States, has a store under construction in the space that previously housed SneakerKing and before that, Coldwater Creek.

Altar'd State has plans to open in the fall while SneakerKing is relocating to space next to Sweet & Sassy at the Upper Saucon Township shopping destination. SneakerKing plans to open Friday to patrons at the new site, said Melissa Napolitano, general manager for the Promenade Shops at Saucon Valley.

This will mark the first regional location for the women's clothing and accessories brand. There are three other Pennsylvania locations and one New Jersey location.

The store carries home decor and gift items. Through its "Give Back and Mission Monday" initiatives, Altar'd State donates a portion of all net proceeds to global and local nonprofit organizations.

At least three other vacancies remain at the Promenade. Napolitano declined to discuss specifics on the center's vacancy rate since the shopping destination is a private entity.

Vacancies include space previously housed by Accessories Boutique between OshKosh B'gosh and Portrait Innovations; corner space previously housed by Subway next to the Red Robin restaurant; and space next to Diva Nails that previously housed the Pandini's restaurant.

Napolitano said Accessories Boutique, which opened in 2010, relocated from another space at the shopping center to the space next to OshKosh B'gosh in summer 2015 and vacated by the end of February 2018.

Subway opened in 2010 and vacated in September 2017. Pandini's opened in 2007 and vacated in September 2017, Napolitano said.

It's unclear what led to the closures of those businesses.

Prior to the construction of Altar'd State, Fidelity Investments -- next to the Soma store -- filled a vacancy left by the former Sage store this past May. And Napolitano expects more business prospects to come the center in coming months.

"Our leasing teams are in negotiations with a number of prospects at varying levels of interest," she said. "Unfortunately, we cannot share the status of those conversations until a signed lease is executed."

Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @pamholzmann. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
The Lenape Nation of Pennsylvania has embarked on a multi-week canoe trip down the Delaware River to participate in treaty signings with local groups.

It's something the Lenape have done since 2002, when the Nation first signed a treaty of renewed brotherhood with a number of organizations in Bucks County: environmental groups, churches, historical societies and individuals. The signing was preceded by a three-week canoe journey from the top of the Delaware in Hancock, New York, to Cape May, New Jersey.

Since then, the river journey and re-signings of the treaty have taken place every four years with "ever-increasing spirit and vigor," according to a news release from the Lenape Nation.

And, for its fifth year of the tradition, dozens of Lenape will stop Sunday at Easton's Scott Park to participate in treaty signing at the Sigal Museum and pass wampum, shell beads used as gifts or means of recording historical events.

Non-paddlers are encouraged to gather at the park with picnic foods at 1 p.m. for Native drumming and dancing, as well as period children's games. They should expect to meet the paddlers around 2 p.m., according to the release.

The museum signing will take place at 5 p.m. with the museum and other area partners, and there will be a potluck supper following the signing. Maya van Rossum of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network will host a presentation and the Bachmann Players will host a dramatic reading of William Penn's letters.

The treaty of renewed friendship states that those who sign acknowledge the Lenape as the indigenous caretakers of these lands and agree to support the Lenape. Though the document isn't legally binding, it's an agreement and a commitment to the fact that environmental, cultural and historical awareness are the "key to our future."

"We will support the Lenape people in one or more of the following ways: hosting cultural or educational programs, partnering as caretakers of the Lenape homeland and Delaware River, assisting in Lenape language revival projects, assisting in displays or exhibits of Lenape culture," the treaty reads, "[and] helping the Lenape people to obtain and/or protect sacred land sites, encouraging updated curriculum in public schools, attending Lenape functions, volunteer service and support, distributing information, and/or financial assistance."

This year's journey began on Aug. 3 and included stops in upstate New York and the Poconos. After Easton, the travelers will stop in Tohickon Valley, Washington Crossing and Philadelphia before completing their trip on August 19 in Cape May.

Jake Holland may be reached at jholland@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @jakewholland. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
An alleged kidnapper pulled a gun on a trooper after running from a car stop in southern Bucks County, Pennsylvania State Police said.

Anthony H. Bupp (Courtesy photo | For lehighvalleylive.com)

Anthony H. Bupp, 23, of Philadelphia -- who was wanted on kidnapping and related charges for an incident July 30 in East Norriton Township -- was found shortly after the Friday stop hiding in a nearby shed and taken into custody.

The incident began at about 1:10 p.m. as Trooper Mohamad Saloukha stopped a Dodge Charger for a vehicle code violation in the parking lot of a Wawa at 3269 Street Road in Bensalem Township.

Neither Bupp nor the driver had any identification. Saloukha ordered Bupp out of the vehicle patted him down. Bupp tensed up as the trooper reached the area of his waistband and immediately fled toward an open field, according to police.

Saloukha drew his stun gun and gave chase, according to the Bucks County District Attorney's Office. Bupp turned toward the trooper pointing a black semiautomatic pistol toward him, but did not fire, according to police.

The trooper ducked out of the way, discarding his Taser and drawing his own handgun, and Bupp continued to flee, authorities said.

Multiple police agencies, including K-9 teams, responded and found Bupp hiding in the shed outside a nearby home, according to police.

Police recovered the handgun, according to the prosecutor's office. The driver of the Dodge fled and was still being sought as of Saturday, authorities said. The vehicle was described as a dark gray Charger with red or maroon trunk and temporary Florida license plate.

Investigators asked anyone who sees the sedan or has information about the driver to call Pennsylvania State Police at 215-942-3900.

Neither Saloukha nor Bupp was injured in the pursuit, according to police.

The incident came the same week a South Whitehall Township police officer was charged with voluntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of Joseph "Joey" Santos, 44, of Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey, in an incident July 28 outside Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom. It also followed the release Thursday of dashcam footage showing a shootout between state police and a DUI suspect last November on Route 33 in Plainfield Township that left Cpl. Seth Kelly critically wounded.

"The Pennsylvania State Police, and all police officers in Bucks County, are sworn to protect us," District Attorney Matt Weintraub said in a statement on Friday's incident. "Sometimes that means drawing a weapon and firing. Sometimes that means drawing a weapon and not firing.

"I am relieved to say that the armed subject of today's manhunt has been apprehended with no shots fired and no injuries. His gun has been recovered. I commend all law enforcement, including the Pennsylvania State Police and the Bensalem Police Department, for the professional manner in which they handled this critical incident."

Bupp was arraigned early Saturday on aggravated assault, firearms and related charges and sent to the Bucks County prison in lieu of 10 percent of $3 million bail. He previously pleaded guilty to corruption of minors in April 2015 in Bucks County and was sentenced to time served; authorities dropped sexual assault and other charges in that case.

Kurt Bresswein may be reached at kbresswein@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @KurtBresswein and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
The Delaware River has long been a popular spot for canoeing and rafting.

But a recent string of rescues has prompted Bucks County officials to urge caution for residents venturing out onto it.

The township has reported four confirmed river rescues since Sunday, Aug. 5. Three of those were on Sunday.

"Having this many [rescues] within a five-day period is rare for our agency," said Detective Cpl. Jonathan Koretzky of Solebury Township Police. "Last year we had one rescue in September and a drowning in July."

These rescues come at the same time as road closures, water rescues and flooding in the Lehigh Valley, which prompted Musikfest to shutter several of its venues.

The first of Solebury Township's recent rescues came around 2 p.m. Aug. 5, when a kayaker was reported missing in the Delaware River near the Virginia Forrest recreation area. That evening around 6:30 p.m., there was also a report of a person who fell from a raft in the river near Stockton Bridge.

Two hours later, a pair of individuals were trapped in the river and clinging to a tree branch. And Thursday shortly after midnight, two people were stranded on Hendricks Island after finding the river was too strong to make a return trip.

In each case, the individuals were rescued and returned to shore safely, Koretzky said.

Further downstream, near Trenton, firefighters rescued Thursday morning an elderly man submerged up to his neck.

The man, who was loaded into a boat around 11 a.m., was brought to land across from the Morrisville (Pa.) Water Works, according to the Trenton Fire Department.

"He was in a dire situation," Capt. Jonathan Little said.

Koretzky, meanwhile, said people choosing to go out onto the river should exercise caution, wear life jackets at all times and avoid the river until levels decrease.

"If people choose to go tubing, they should use established tubing companies along the river as they have safety measures already in place," Koretzky said. "Do not trying anything on your own. Even if the surface of the water looks calm, the currents underneath are extremely strong and could be fatal."

He said the uptick in incidents likely results from three factors: heat, rain and high water levels. The river near Stockton, New Jersey, is usually at about 3 to 4 feet this time of year, Koretzky said. Data from the National Weather Service's Advanced Hydrologic Prediction system indicate current levels around 7 feet, with an increase likely to occur over Friday and Saturday.

Like its main stem, the Lehigh River has also experienced a number of water incidents in recent weeks.

Two weeks ago, a five-person group was rescued between Walnutport and Treichler's Bridge, according to reports from Lehighton's Times News.

Diamond Fire Company Chief Michael Wentz said the people were thrown off of rafts that got stuck on the bridge.

While two people were able to climb out of the river, two others were retrieved by the fire company's boat, Wentz said. The fifth person was found about a half mile downstream hanging onto a tree.

None of them wore life jackets, Wentz said.

"It was bad -- it was terrible," he said. "When the water's like this, [people] shouldn't even think about rafting or tubing."

Earlier that the day another person had to be rescued in the area after being thrown off a raft into the water, according to the Times News article.

"The river's moving faster than everybody anticipates," Wentz said. "Nobody should be on [it]."

In Easton, however, Fire Chief John Bast said he hasn't seen anything outside of the ordinary this summer.

"As far as the Delaware River near Easton, it's been fairly stable," he said. "I haven't really noticed an increase [in water rescues]. It's pretty much the same as it always has been."

Of the rescues in recent weeks, Bast said most were caused by storms. The majority of cases, he said, involved people who had driven around barricades and had gotten their cars stuck.

Jake Holland may be reached at jholland@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @jakewholland. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Northampton County acquired 160 acres of farmland in Plainfield Township.

Now, county and township officials want the public's input on what to do with it.

A public meeting about the area is planned for Aug. 21 at 6:30 p.m. at the Plainfield Township Municipal Building at 6292 Sullivan Trail.

The public can also participate in a survey on the county's Open Space webpage that asks about prioritizing amenities at the park.

"This is the first recreation area that we (Northampton County) are developing in many years," Northampton County Open Space Coordinator Bryan Cope said.

Does the location need parking? What about a trail system? Should there be a developed park area with a playground or should the land be left in its natural state?

These are some of the questions officials would like the public to answer.

The county received the property from a donation in 2002. The Little Bushkill Creek, which splits the property, and the 6.7-mile-long Plainfield Township Recreation Trail run through the land.

Most of the property is north of Gall Road but there is also a portion on the south side of the road. The county leases part of the property to a farmer, who raises crops on it.

The county received a $75,000 Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources grant to prepare a master site development plan that will include improvements for the park and the township trail.

The Aug. 21 meeting will be the first in a series of meetings to develop the plan, which could take about a year, according to Cope.

John Best is a freelance writer. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
LifeStyle

The best Lifestyle shows are right here, from Australia and around the world. Catch up with the experts on home design and interiors, food and cooking, the property market, and get fresh ideas with the savviest of renovators. Whether you need inspiration for cooking up a storm, to refresh a tired room, or tips to sell your property, Foxtel Lifestyle will always something new for you to watch. Enjoy your favourite experts like Andrew Winter and Neale Whitaker, or Shaynna Blaze and Jamie Oliver live or On Demand.
A MUM, who called an autistic seven-year-old boy a paedophile and a rapist, was punched in the head by the childs mother, Kilmallock Court heard.

The mother and father of the boy were also called dirty knackers and tinkers during the exchange, it was claimed.

The incident occurred at 11.30am on June 23, 2017, outside a Post Office in a County Limerick village. The parties will be referred to as mother A and mother B.

Mother B pleaded not guilty to assault. Mother Bs partner pleaded not guilty to threatening, abusive, insulting behaviour.

Judge Marian OLeary said the case was very, very sad.

Mother A, who made the complaint of being assaulted to gardai, said she went to the Post Office to collect her social welfare.

I was going to go shopping afterwards. There was an ongoing issue with my ten-year-old daughter and three boys. They tried to pull her underwear off coming home from school.

My daughter was very upset. I was engaging with the school. I had spoken to the mothers of two of the boys and they apologised, said mother A, who saw mother B go in to the Post Office.

I should never have approached her. I am sorry. She obviously retaliated to what I had to say. She went to her car and collected her partner.

He started verbally abusing me. He said my daughters father was molesting her, there was drug and alcohol abuse in the house and he would put my windows in, said mother A.

She said mother B then attacked her.

My little finger was broken and it is permanently injured - it wont clasp, it is like a claw. She pulled out numerous handfuls of hair, said mother A, who added that the name calling included f*****g c**t, b*****d, whore and slut.

I have to hold my hands up. I called her [mother B] son a paedophile. I was wrong. I was extremely angry at what the boys did to my daughter, said mother A.

Robin Lee, solicitor for mother B and her partner, put it to mother A that she was the agent provocateur. If you had continued on shopping none of this would have happened, said Mr Lee.

I regret approaching her. I should have let it be dealt with by gardai but it didnt warrant being assaulted and being permanently damaged, said mother A, who admitted calling mother Bs son a paedophile but denied calling mother B and her partner dirty knackers.

The entire dispute was captured on CCTV and shown in Kilmallock Court

Mr Lee said the incident involving mother Bs son, two other boys and mother As ten-year-old daughter was reported to gardai and investigated by them. Nothing came of it, said Mr Lee.

The next witness was an elderly gentleman who was parked in his car outside the Post Office while his wife went inside. He was worried that he might be in trouble with gardai as he was parked illegally but Inspector Alan Cullen put him at his ease.

A girl [mother B] came out of the Post Office. The other girl [mother A] went at her - she was the most aggressive. They were shouting at one another using all sorts of language.

They were pushing and pulling. Then a girl [mother B] threw a punch and hit [mother A] in the head. She [mother B] ran across the street and got her husband. They were calling each other names - dirty knackers, tinkers, paedophiles.

He came across the street and he was having words with the other girl. The two women started going at one another. The girl [mother B] grabbed the other one [mother A] by the hair and pulled her to the ground. Her trousers fell down, said the eye witness.

The last person to take the stand was mother B. She said she had just gone out of the Post Office when mother A came up to her and put her finger in her face.

She said, Your son raped my daughter and was not going to get away with it. She called him a rapist, paedophile and child abuser. It was too much. How could you call a seven-year-old that? She said we were housing a paedophile, dirty knackers and dirty this and dirty that, said mother B.

Under questioning from her solicitor Mr Lee, mother B said her partner is a settled Traveller but she is not.

Knacker is a derogatory term for Traveller. It is used to put Travellers down, said mother B.

In summing up, Mr Lee applied for the assault charge against his client to be struck out due to gross provocation. He said mother A was the aggressor and his client did not set out that morning to assault anyone.

Mother A pointed her finger in my clients face and said her seven-year-old autistic son was a paedeophile and a rapist. I dont think the court can be in any doubt that there was gross provocation, said Mr Lee.

Insp Cullen said it was a highly peculiar case.

I agree with Mr Lee that there was provocation but I do not believe provocation justifies assault, said Insp Cullen.

Judge Marian OLeary agreed with the inspector and found mother B guilty.

No amount of provocation justifies an assault. The State has proven their case, said Judge OLeary. The judge said if mother B pays 400 to the court poor box she will strike the matter out.

Judge OLeary dismissed the threatening, abusive, insulting behaviour offence against mother Bs partner as it was a highly volatile situation.

It is a very unfortunate case. It is very, very sad, said Judge OLeary.
THE FIRST Limerick Food Experience at last years Cappamore Show had all the right ingredients.

And as organisers found the right recipe for success it is back again at this years show on Saturday, August 18.

Limerick Food Experience features a large marquee showcasing the best quality food and drink that Limerick has to offer with over 15 food producers already registered. In addition, there will be two cookery demos, one from Tom Flavin, executive chef, Limerick Strand Hotel and the second from celebrity chef Edward Hayden.

It is sponsored by Limerick City and County Council along with the Local Enterprise Office (LEO) Limerick.

Local councillor and a vice-president of the Cappamore Show, Noel Gleeson said Limerick has always been synonymous with great food.

It is an excellent addition to the Cappamore Show to have this food showcase and one which we know will delight visitors to the show. We are delighted to have the Local Enterprise Office and Limerick City and County Council on board to help us support and promote Limericks great food and drink produce, said Cllr Gleeson.

Eamon Ryan, head of enterprise LEO Limerick, said they are delighted to sponsor the Limerick Food Experience at Cappamore Show again this year.

The food and drink being produced here in Limerick is to an incredibly high standard and LEO Limerick along with Limerick City and County Council are delighted to work with the Cappamore Show committee to provide a platform for these producers to showcase their products and also to further promote Limericks excellent food produce, said Mr Ryan.

He continued: Our participation in Cappamore Show is also a pivotal aspect of the Limerick Food Strategy which was published in 2016  one of the key recommendations of which was to run a food showcase event.

The Cappamore Show, now in its 64th year, promises to be a great day out for those attending from near and far. With an annual attendance of more than 10,000 visitors, over 60 trade stalls, showjumping, cattle and horse competitions, cookery craft and art competitions and numerous side shows, there is something for all the family at Cappamore Show, and now to sample and taste as well!

At last years show, Tom Flavin said Limerick produce is fabulous.

It is brilliant. From the oils to the bacon to the cheese makers. Ive been shouting about the brilliant food producers in Limerick for a long, long time, said Mr Flavin.

For more information or to book one of the last few remaining spaces in the marquee please contact Trish OSullivan on 087 1142048.
THE bunting and Papal Flags will be flying high in Killeedy next Wednesday when the Bishop of Limerick, Brendan Leahy arrives in the parish on the Feast of the Assumption.

Bishop Leahy will say Mass at the Mass Rock in Ballaugh that morning and will deliver a key homily there in preparation for the World Meeting of Families in Dublin later in the month.

The Killeedy Mass and the Street Party in Limerick on August 21 are part of the wider preparation in the diocese for the World Meeting of Families and the visit of Pope Francis to Ireland later this month.

We have, of course, the Street Party coming up in Limerick but we just wanted to do something also out in the county and when we put our minds to it, we thought that the Feast of the Assumption was an ideal day for this and the Killeedy Mass Rock the ideal location, Bishop Leahy said. He pointed out that one of Limericks patron saints, St Ita, had given her name to the parish of Killeedy, Cill Ide meaning the church of St Ita.

Bishop Leahy said the Mass would be part of my own pilgrimage for the arrival of the Pope and the World Meeting of Families.

 It will be an act of preparation and also of penitence as we use the arrival of the Pope here to repent all our sins, not least the sins of the Church, and as a crossroads from which we begin again as brothers and sisters in this Church.

The Mass begins at 10.30am at the Mass Rock, located at Ballaugh, at the Ashford end of the parish.

St Itas patron day, January 15, is still celebrated in Killeedy each year, more than 1500 years after her death. Known as the Brigid of Munster, and born in Waterford in 484AD, St Ita founded a monastery in the early sixth century in Killeedy, where it is believed she lies buried following her death in 569 or 570 AD.

The ruins of St Itas church can still be visited by those with devotion to the saint and where there is a shrine to the saint.
EXPECT to see empty wheelchairs in parking bays around the Square in Newcastle West next Wednesday as part of the Back in 5 parking campaign.

The campaign, which is being organised by the Limerick branch of the Irish Wheelchair Association in partnership with the Newcastle West Tidy Towns Committee, aims to raise awareness about the difficulties facing people with disability when it comes to parking.

It is a huge issue, a spokesperson from the Limerick branch explained this week. All too often, she explained, drivers who are not disabled or who are not driving someone with a disability will pull into a disabled parking bay for five minutes to carry out what they see as a quick errand. They might want to run into the bank or get a take-away coffee, it might be something very quick but they dont seem to see anything wrong with it, the spokesperson said.

And of course, some people park illegally in disabled parking bays for much longer than five minutes making it more difficult for wheelchair users as there is less space in ordinary parking spots and usually no dish or dip in the kerb.

We are trying to highlight this issue, she added.

The Newcastle West event follows on a similar and highly successful event held in William St a number of weeks ago where it got a good response both online and from the passing public.

Next Wednesdays awareness campaign in Newcastle West will run from 10am to noon, Vicki Nash, chairperson of the Newcastle West Tidy Towns Competition said.

Empty wheelchairs carrying signs saying Back in 5 or Gone for the paper will stand in parking spots in the Square.

We want to make people who are able-bodied aware of what it feels like for somebody with a disability to be left without a parking space which is taken by somebody else, she explained.

The local gardai are supporting the campaign as are the council and the HSE, she pointed out.

A similar initiative took place in Limerick city last month.
THE UNIVERSITY of Limerick is seeking planning permission for further development at its new 47million research centre at a previously vacant site on the Dublin Road.

The UL Confirm Centre was officially launched earlier this year, with an announcement in May that the project expected to create 100 highly-skilled jobs nationwide by 2020, with 55 of these positions to be created in Limerick.

The unit at the Park Point Complex, close to the main UL campus, had previously been empty for some time, with the development currently occupied by the Travel Lodge Hotel as well as a number of retail warehouse units.

The site was purchased by UL in 2016 for 4m.

The university is now seeking the change of use at Units 1 and 2 of the complex, from retail warehousing to facilitate educational research, in support of light manufacturing and industrial development, and office space.

The development is also expected to include new mezzanine floors with each unit, a new entrance lobby, elevational changes and associated site works, according to the planning application submitted to Limerick City and County Council.

Confirm has been funded by both the Science Foundation Ireland and industry, to the value of 47 million, making it one of the largest new research and development centres in the country.

The centre is expected to act as a UL-led consortium, made up of more than 200 researchers from the Tyndall National Institute, University College Cork, Cork Institute of Technology, National University of Ireland Galway, Athlone Institute of Technology, Maynooth University and Limerick Institute of Technology.

The centre will also be supported by 42 industry partners, including technology providers from multinational corporations to the small and medium enterprise (SME) sector across Ireland.

The 55 highly-skilled jobs in Limerick to be created by the smart manufacturing research centre are expected to include project and centre managers, administrators, senior research fellows and post doctoral researchers.

Confirm will also be seeking to recruit up to 87 PhD students, in roles to be based both at UL and nationwide.
Minneapolis

Pope Francis' decree that the death penalty is "inadmissible" in all cases could pose a dilemma for Roman Catholic politicians and judges in the United States who are faced with whether to strictly follow the tenets of their faith or the rule of law.

Some Catholic leaders in death penalty states have said they'll continue to support capital punishment. But experts say Francis' change could shift political debates, loom over Supreme Court confirmation hearings, and make it difficult for devout Catholic judges to uphold the law as written.

"Judges may have to recuse themselves from many cases, if they truly think it's in conflict with their conscience," said the Rev. Peter Clark, director of the Institute of Clinical Bioethics at St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia.

As with abortion, many Catholic political leaders and judges have been grappling with the death penalty for some time.

Previous church teachings said capital punishment was allowed in some cases if it was the "only possible way of effectively defending human lives against the unjust aggressor."

On Thursday the Vatican said Francis changed church teaching to say capital punishment can never be sanctioned because it constitutes an "attack" on human dignity.

Thirty-one states allow the death penalty, including Nebraska, which is scheduled to carry out an execution on Tuesday. Gov. Pete Ricketts, a Republican and Catholic, said the pope's decree doesn't change his stance.

"While I respect the Pope's perspective, capital punishment remains the will of the people and the law of the State of Nebraska," Ricketts said in a statement.

The church's new teaching will likely feature prominently in the confirmation process for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who, if confirmed, would bring the total number of Catholics on the bench to five.

Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, a Catholic and a Republican, said his support for the death penalty hasn't wavered. He criticized the Pope, saying he has a "socialist bent" and his statement doesn't change church doctrine.

"He wants to comment on the United States' judicial system, a system that is by far the best, while ignoring the problems of all the other judicial systems around the world," Landry said.
Taos, N.M.

At a remote New Mexico outpost, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj and others who came to the area with him last year were by local authorities' accounts "extremist of the Muslim belief" who trained youth to use firearms and carry out future school shootings.

Yet for the 40-year-old's father, a Muslim cleric who leads a well-known New York City mosque, the son he knew before losing touch with him in the past year was not "radical." He may have been "high-strung," but the father never believed his son was extreme enough to kill anyone.

And the imam's two daughters  38-year-old Hujrah Wahhaj and 35-year-old Subhannah Wahhaj, who had lived at the compound too  were the "sweetest kinds of people," he said. One was a public speaker, and the other a writer.

"This doesn't seem like them. We know them," their father Siraj Wahhaj, who shares a name with his son, said Thursday in New York. "Muslims all over the world, those who know him, they said this is strange."

The three siblings and two other adults have been charged with child abuse stemming from the alleged neglect of the 11 children found living on a squalid compound on the outskirts of tiny Amalia, New Mexico. All five are being jailed without bail in New Mexico.

A man at the compound, Lucas Morton, also is facing a count of "harboring a felon" on accusations he refused to tell authorities the younger Siraj Wahhaj's location when authorities raided the compound.

Wahhaj, whom authorities say was eventually found armed with multiple firearms, including an assault rifle, is wanted on a warrant in Georgia in the disappearance of his son.

Prosecutors said Abdul-ghani Wahhaj was 3 years old when he was snatched from his mother in December in Jonesboro, Georgia, near Atlanta.

A warrant says the father at some point told his wife he wanted to perform an exorcism on the boy, who suffers seizures and requires constant attention because of a lack of oxygen and blood flow at birth.

The elder Wahhaj said he did not know anything about his son wanting to perform an exorcism on the boy. But he said his son and one of his daughters had become "overly concerned" with the idea of people becoming possessed.
PORTLAND, Ore. - An FBI agent was acquitted Friday of lying about firing at a militia leader who was killed in 2016 in an encounter related to a high-profile standoff with law enforcement officials at a federal wildlife refuge.

Joseph Astarita, a member of the FBI's elite Hostage Rescue Team, was the only federal or state officer charged in connection with the 41-day takeover at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in southeastern Oregon. It was a case of two fired shots, one bullet hole and a crime scene free of bullet casings, according to prosecutors, who alleged that Astarita lied about his actions during the confrontation that left Robert LaVoy Finicum dead in the snow beside a road.

Astarita, 41, who took the stand earlier this week, denied firing his weapon during the incident - or recalling much of anything about where he had been positioned at the scene.

"We strongly believe this case needed to be brought before the court and decided by a jury," said Billy Williams, U.S. attorney for the District of Oregon. "Our system of justice relies on the absolute integrity of law enforcement officials at all levels of government."

The jury of nine men and three women had been deliberating since Thursday afternoon.

"We are grateful to the men and women of the jury who saw through a case that never should have been brought," Astarita's defense attorneys said in a statement quoted by the Oregonian. "Joe Astarita is innocent, and it was our privilege and honor to represent him."

Finicum, an Arizona rancher, had traveled to the rural refuge in January 2016 to participate in the high-profile siege of the federal property. The takeover was a beacon for anti-government militias and members of the self-styled patriot movement - and the trial's outcome is likely to reignite emotions.

About three weeks into the siege, an informant alerted authorities that the occupation's leaders - Ammon Bundy, his brother Ryan Bundy, Finicum and several others - would be traveling to another county for a meeting. But before they arrived, Oregon State Police and members of the FBI team pulled over two vehicles. Four men surrendered at the stop, but Finicum goaded police to kill him.

"You want my blood on your hands? Get it done," he yelled at the officers surrounding his white truck, "because we got people to see and places to go." He then sped away, driving his white truck 75 mph toward a roadblock a mile ahead. Just before crashing into it, he veered left into a deep snowbank, crashing the vehicle there.

Finicum, 54, quickly opened the door and hopped out, yelling, "Go ahead and shoot me" at officers. He reached toward his jacket pocket, where officers later found a loaded 9mm handgun, and was shot. He died on the side of the road and has become something of a martyr to the movement.

Inside the truck, Shawna Cox, a Utah woman who had been at the core of the occupation, recorded the incident on her cellphone - and when she released that video, two shots could be heard just as Finicum jumped from the driver's seat. One pierced the vehicle's roof.

During closing arguments Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Maloney said Cox's video "changed everything" and proved that someone on the scene that day fired two shots that were not accounted for.

"It's important to remember that it's not about whether those shots were justified," Maloney said as Finicum's widow, Jeanette, listened in the gallery. The case instead was about Astarita's misleading investigators, Maloney said. Astarita faced three charges: two counts of making a false statement and one count of obstruction of justice over the shots prosecutors said he fired and did not disclose.

But even with two videos of the same shooting, there still was no exact way to tell who fired the shots. Much of the three-week trial was a battle of dueling experts arguing about the path of the bullet that pierced Finicum's truck - one that was difficult to pinpoint because it shattered a window upon entry.

That left investigators with only an exit point to determine where the shot originated. The truck was even towed into a loading dock at the federal courthouse in downtown Portland so the jury could understand how experts measured the trajectory of the bullet that struck it.

During the testimony, jurors heard about Astarita's extensive training to become a member of the Hostage Rescue Team and his 13 years of FBI service. But Maloney asked why a "super agent" such as Astarita could not recall where he was standing during the shooting.

"He recalls specific details about what he observed, but he can't tell you where he was when he made those observations," Maloney said Thursday, calling the two shots a "rookie reaction" by the newest team member on the scene that day, whose ego led him to lie about missing his mark.

When investigators later asked whether he had fired his weapon, Astarita's responses were memorable - and Maloney repeated them again and again to the jury: "You don't get to ask me that, bro," "Bro, you can't ask me that now" and "No, bro, we're good."

" 'No bro, we're good'?" Maloney said Thursday, facing the jury. "What does that mean?"

Both prosecution and defense agreed that seven shots were fired that day: three at Finicum's truck as it barreled toward the roadblock, two shots that struck Finicum and the two shots Astarita was accused of firing. Prosecutors say all bullet casings from the scene were missing; only two were found later with a metal detector.

Defense attorney David Angeli had emphasized a different version of events - one in which Oregon State Police SWAT "Officer #1" was the liar, not Astarita.

Until the trial, the identity of that officer - whose bullets struck Finicum - had been unknown. And it might have stayed that way, too, had another state police SWAT officer not slipped while on the witness stand and mentioned the officer's rank and last name. Patriot movement sympathizers, who were closely watching the trial, quickly began posting photographs of the officer on social media. "NEVER forget that name," one Oregon militia leader wrote.

Angeli homed in on statements made by Officer #1 about whether he was the one who fired the shots in question. "If Officer #1 had doubt," he told the jury, "you have to have doubt."

He also argued that Astarita, a firearms instructor, would not have fired the errant shots at the truck. The prosecution's 3-D renderings of the scene were "cartoons" and "camera magic," he said.

"No one saw [Astarita] shoot. No one heard him shoot," Angeli said, "because he didn't shoot and he had no motive to lie about it."

About a month after Finicum's death, the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office and local district attorneys determined that the state police officers' lethal response was justified.
The former Harris County judge who jailed a mentally ill rape victim will be sanctioned with public admonition, the Special Court of Review announced Friday.

Stacey W. Bond, who presided over Harris County's 176th state district court from 2013 to 2016 and is now campaigning for a seat in the 185th district court, was sanctioned for violating the Code of Judicial Conduct and the Texas Constitution, as alleged in March by the State Commission on Judicial Conduct.

The commission cited the 50-year-old former judge for her treatment of a witness who had a mental breakdown in December 2015 while testifying in a sexual assault trial against serial rapist Keith Edward Hendricks.

BACKGROUND: Former Harris County judge fights commission sanction after jailing mentally ill rape victim

She issued a bench warrant to secure testimony from the witness, known as Jane Doe or Jenny, according to commission's findings. However, the witness was not under a subpoena at the time, so the commission found that action improper.

The commission found that Bond violated canons of the code of law, as well as the state constitution, when she issued a bench warrant with a $10,000 bond for Jenny, who did not meet any prerequisites for such action and which resulted in her confinement.

Jenny "was given no due process regarding either the validity of the writ of attachment or her subsequent confinement," the commission found.

Bond's actions cast public discredit on the judiciary and the administration of justice, the commission said.

The special court reviewed and agreed with the commission's findings, the opinion shows.

Bond challenged these accusations.

She declined to comment in June ahead of her date in the Texas Supreme Court for oral arguments, but her attorney, Mac Secrest, said the commission's disciplinary action against the judge was "inconsistent with the actual facts of this matter and with applicable law."

Despite her apparent remorse for Jenny's treatment in the Harris County Jail, where in her nearly 28-day stay she was assaulted by another inmate and charged after a run-in with a guard, the former judge claimed that she shouldn't be sanctioned because she, at most, made a mistake in signing a carelessly worded form for a bench warrant for a material witness, according to the special court's opinion.

"While mere mistakes of law generally are not sanctionable, on the record before us, we conclude that Judge Bond made an egregious legal error and failed to act in a manner that promotes confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary," the special court stated in its opinion.

The victim's jailing spurred "Jenny's Law," signed last year by Gov. Greg Abbott, to guarantee witnesses and victims in sexual assault cases court-appointed lawyers and formal hearings before judges can order them into custody to secure their testimony.

Bond won the March 6 Republican primary and is on the November ballot for state district judge in the 185th district court, a judgeship vacated by veteran Judge Susan Brown's forthcoming retirement.

gabrielle.banks@chron.com

victoria.cheyne@chron.com
An associate of former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone was held in contempt of court Friday in a fresh attempt to challenge Robert Mueller's appointment as the special counsel investigating Trump campaign contacts with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The move also spotlighted a growing focus by Mueller on Stone. Another of Stone's associates, a New Yorker known as the "Manhattan Madam" because she once operated an upscale escort service, was expected to make her first appearance before a grand jury in the case.
Kabul, Afghanistan

A brazen and bloody overnight assault Friday by the Taliban on a key provincial capital in central Afghanistan has increased pressure on U.S.-backed Afghan forces that are withering under relentless attacks, prompting President Ashraf Ghani to call an emergency meeting of his security officials.

While government security forces in the city of Ghazni repulsed the multipronged attack with the help of U.S. air support, Taliban insurgents remained hunkered down on its outskirts, and some were still holed up in residential areas, according to Interior Ministry deputy spokesman, Nasrat Rahimi.

At least 39 insurgents were killed, while 14 police died and 20 were wounded in the fighting, said provincial Police Chief Farid Ahmad Mashal. He said the bodies of the Taliban fighters were found under a bridge in the southern part of Ghazni.

Mashal said there were more than 100 other casualties but could not give a breakdown of the dead and wounded.

Among the injured were four Afghan troops who were hurt when their helicopter crash-landed during the fighting, said Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanish. The Taliban claimed to have shot it down, Radmanish said it was not clear if the aircraft had been hit or crash-landed for other reasons.

The city of about 140,000 people was in lockdown as residents stayed indoors and reported sporadic gunfire. All shops were closed, they said, as was the highway from the capital of Kabul to Afghanistan's southern provinces that runs through Ghazni.

The Taliban fighters set fire to the local TV building and also destroyed the telecommunications tower, located just outside the city, cutting all cellphone and land line access to Ghazni, said Ali Akbar Kasemi, a lawmaker from the city.

City hospital administrator Baz Mohammad Hemat said two wounded civilians were brought in for treatment. He feared that there were more wounded who could not make it to the hospital because the city was shut down and ambulances were being sent out.

Ghazni is a gateway city linking the heavily Taliban-influenced south and east of Afghanistan to Kabul and is one of the last vestiges of government control in the province of the same name. The Taliban holds sway in most of the province where ethnic Pashtuns live, while the government influence is limited to Ghazni and small pockets dominated by ethnic Hazaras.

"The security situation in Ghazni is under control. Our defense and security forces are in full control of the city," Rahimi said. Still, the Afghan forces were engaged in house-to house battles in some residential areas to root out the remnants of the Taliban's attack force.

Radmanish told The Associated Press the Taliban were driven to an area known as Hasanabad about 500 yards outside the city.

Both the governor's compound and central police compound were under the control of Afghan security forces.

In a statement late Friday, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the group held control of "several places in the city," while the police chief had fled toward the airport.

To hold onto the city in the fierce, daylong fighting, Afghan forces had to call in reinforcements as well as U.S. air power, including helicopter gunships, fighter jets and a drone strike.

Lt. Col. Martin O'Donnell, a spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan, said American forces and U.S. attack helicopters flew in overnight. As fighting continued throughout the day, he said U.S. forces returned, sending attack helicopters and fighter jets back to the area.

"It is a show of presence," he said.

An investigation was launched to determine how the insurgents had managed to push so deeply into the city, which is only 75 miles south of Kabul.
EAST ORANGE, N.J. - Marla L. Andrews put on her glasses, held the small plastic bag close and strained to see the gold ring inside.

Her vision is poor, and the opaque bag made it impossible for her to see the inscription on the inner surface of the ring: "P.D.," a heart with an arrow through it, and "L.E.D. 5-31-43."

P.D. was her mother, Phyllis Dickson. L.E.D. was her father, the World War II Tuskegee fighter pilot, Capt. Lawrence E. Dickson. May 31, 1943, was his 23rd birthday.

Thursday afternoon Andrews, 76, sat in her living room here and struggled to make out the artifact that had just become a piece of her history, and that of the United States.

Last month, the Defense Department announced that it had accounted for Dickson, among more than two dozen black aviators known as Tuskegee Airmen who were still missing from World War II.

Dickson, who had trained at the Tuskegee Army Flying School, was 24 when he crashed in mountainous southern Austria on Dec. 23, 1944, while on an escort mission.

Seventy-three years later, his ring was found in the dirt by a University of New Orleans graduate student, Titus Firmin, during a dig last summer at the crash site near Hohenthurn.

Charred remains and other small personal items were also found, along with parts of the airplane.

On Thursday, Michael Mee, the identifications chief for the Army's Past Conflict Repatriations Branch, presented Andrews with the ring and a formal report on how her father was accounted for.

Andrews sat in a black skirt and colored blouse, wearing gold hoop earrings and holding a tissue and a black marker.

The 14-karat Art Deco ring was a prize, the physical link to a man Andrews barely knew, and to a different life that might have been, had he come home.

There had been talk for months that a ring had been found during the dig. Now, here it was, encased in bubble wrap, inside a larger plastic bag that Mee pulled from his black briefcase.

"This is the ring," he said.

"Wow, guys," she said quietly.

"Want me to take it out for you?" Mee asked, referring to the plastic bag.

"No," she said.

(She said later she didn't want to remove it because she wasn't ready.)

The excavation had also found the ring's aqua-colored stone, which had broken loose and was in a separate bag. Andrews said her mother had loved the color aqua, and she guessed that her mother had bought the ring for her father's birthday.

Mee also turned over a small remnant of a harmonica that was found at the crash site, and a small cross.

Capt. Dickson had loved music. He had taught himself to play the guitar and had taken an electric guitar with him when he went overseas. It was never returned to his family after his death, according to his records.

Mee, who was accompanied by Army Maj. Phillip Richardson, explained how the scientific identification was made.

DNA had been extracted from arm and leg bone fragments found at the crash site and matched with DNA from Andrews, a nephew and a distant cousin the Army had found but whom Andrews had never heard of.

The report contained pictures of the pieces of Capt. Dickson's ribs, hands, spine, arms and legs recovered from the site. "Highly fragmented, small quantity of remains," Mee said.

Andrews, who sat on a floral-patterned couch, looked somber when Mee explained that some of her father's bone fragments were charred from the plane's crash.

These were "perimortem" injuries, which happened at or near the time of death, he said.

"Some of the remains are blackened," Mee told her. "There was a fire. The aircraft caught fire. . . . This is very typical of an aircraft accident."

Capt. Dickson, of the 100th Fighter Squadron, was among the more than 900 black pilots who were trained at the segregated Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama during the war.

They were African-American men from all over the country who fought racism and oppression at home and enemy pilots and antiaircraft gunners overseas.

More than 400 served in combat, flying patrol and strafing missions, and escorting bombers from bases in North Africa and Italy. The tail sections of their fighter planes were painted a distinctive red.

The dig was conducted by the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, the University of New Orleans, and the University of Austria at Innsbruck, with help from the National World War II Museum in New Orleans.

There are 26 Tuskegee Airmen still missing from the war.

Lawrence Dickson had married Phyllis Constance Maillard in November 1941. (She remarried and died Dec. 28, 2017, in Nevada at the age of 96.) The couple lived in New York City. Marla was born July 14, 1942, in Harlem's old Sydenham Hospital.

Two days before Christmas 1944, Dickson took off from his base in Italy, in a P-51D Mustang nicknamed "Peggin," headed for Nazi-occupied Prague.

He was on his 68th mission and had already been awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for meritorious service.

He was leading a three-Mustang escort of a fast but unarmed photo reconnaissance plane, according to the account of a wingman, 2nd Lt. Robert L. Martin, many years later.

(Martin died July 26 at the age of 99 at his home in Olympia Fields, Illinois)

The four planes headed over the mountains for Prague. About an hour into the trip, Dickson radioed that he was having engine trouble and began losing speed.

His wingmen stayed with him as he dropped back. The twin-engine reconnaissance plane sped on and was soon out of sight.

Dickson decided to turn for home in his crippled plane, and his buddies stuck with him.

He looked for a spot to land or bail out. Martin saw him jettison the canopy of his cockpit before bailing out, but then he lost sight of the airplane.

The two wingmen circled, looking for a parachute, a column of smoke or burning wreckage. There was nothing but an empty, snow-covered valley.

After the war, the Army searched for Dickson in northern Italy, where Martin thought he went down. Other crashed planes and remains were found, but not his.

In 1949, the Army recommended that his remains be declared "nonrecoverable."

Last August, Andrews got a phone call at her home from the Past Conflict Repatriations Branch, saying experts, armed with new data on the crash location, were investigating her father's case anew.

On Thursday, Mee said the captain's remains, now in a laboratory in Nebraska, would be placed in a coffin, and wrapped in a traditional Army blanket fastened with a large safety pin.

Andrews said she would like her father to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

Mee said it might be possible for the modern 100th Fighter Squadron, with the tails of its jets painted red, to make a flyover at the funeral.
*M*ake what you will of this. In the modern era of partisan polarization, which can be dated back to the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, only the presid...
The man who made national headlines for the bizarre, alleged theft of a shark last month in Leon Valley has been identified by police as the suspect in another theft case.

Anthony Sinclair Shannon, 38, is charged with theft less than $2,500 enhanced, making it a state jail felony, because he has two prior convictions for theft, authorities said.

On July 25, an H-E-B employee found a security device had been discarded in the appliance section and took it to their loss prevention associate, according to Shannons arrest warrant affidavit. When the associate reviewed the stores security cameras, Shannon could be seen taking a box of pots and pans, which investigators noted was valued at $250, investigators said.

RELATED: Man who swiped shark says he's 'activist, not a criminal'

He is then seen removing the security device and taking the box to the customer service counter, the affidavit states. There, he attempts to do a no receipt return for the merchandise, investigators said.

After the clerk denied the return, he is seen picking up the box and walking out of the front door, the affidavit states.

Five days later, news would break that a suspect had stolen a gray horn shark named Miss Helen on July 28 from the San Antonio Aquarium, 6320 Bandera Road, according to Leon Valley police.

The next day, as images flashed on TV of Shannon being the accused mastermind behind the marine heist, the loss prevention associate recognized Shannons picture as the same man who stole from his HEB, the affidavit states.

RELATED: Suspect accused of stealing shark from San Antonio Aquarium is identified

The detective investigating the theft also reviewed the security camera footage and the images, noting in the affidavit that it was Shannons physical build, facial features and distinct tattoos on his arms that helped him identify the suspect.

County records show that Shannon was convicted twice in two separate cases of vehicle theft between $1,500 and $20,000. Those occurred in June 1998 and April 2000.

Shannons bail was set at $10,000, but he was released Friday after posting bond, according to the Bexar County Sheriffs Office.

jbeltran@express-news.net | Twitter: @JBfromSA
Theres a lot of ways a soldier can die from war, and a bullets not the only one.

Lt. Col. Daniel Brewer, who monitored burn pits for the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This nation has been at perpetual conventional war (not counting the war on terrorism) since at least October 2001, when the U.S. invaded Afghanistan  following the 9/11 attacks and after Afghanistan refused to turn over Osama bin Laden and dismantle terrorist camps. Then came the Iraq invasion in 2003. The United States remains in Afghanistan, with some combat and support troops also remaining in Iraq  now also in Syria and in Africa to combat terrorism.

For U.S. troops serving primarily in Iraq and Afghanistan, danger came in many forms. And Brewer is quite right. Among them were the ones caused by environmental conditions imposed on soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors. And among these were undoubtedly burn pits, where materials of all types were incinerated in open holes, harmful elements in smoke wafting to nearby military housing and into the lungs of those working the pits.

These have left a legacy of ailments, as an Express-News article by Bill Lambrecht of the Hearst Washington D.C. bureau, recently explained. Those who worked at or served and slept near those pits are now suffering from debilitating ailments such as asthma, chronic bronchitis, allergic rhinitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and sleep apnea. It is not plausible that so many cases represent coincidence.

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs response has been desultory and, what little there is has occurred at congressional prodding  creating a registry for those alleging burn pit-related ailments. But also dragging its feet has been the Pentagon, which has not fully produced burn-pit documents. Moreover, as Brewer can attest, the military did not heed warnings while the burn pits were operating that this posed dangers. Belatedly, safer incinerators were brought on for the task of burning these materials.

Lambrecht, citing VA figures, wrote that the agency has granted compensation to only 2,097 burn pit victims in 11 years, though 150,000 service members or retirees have signed into the Open Burn Pit Registry.

Unfortunately, weve had to write the following with some regularity in these times of constant war: This nation owes a debt to those who take the oath of service and then suffer injury because of that service. And, yet, we cant say with any confidence that the nation is adequately fulfilling this obligation.

Most recently, weve had to write this on behalf of vets coming home with post-traumatic stress disorder  and all the mental health issues this sparks  and for sexual assault victims (whose treatment, arguably, the military still hasnt adequately addressed).

We now add open burn pit victims to the list.

There is a disturbing pattern that begins like this. There is a service-related injury or occurrence. The Pentagon balks at giving people the proper diagnosis before and when they are discharged  in the case of sexual assault or PTSD victims  discharging them because of associated behaviors from those service-related ailments. And then the VA is slow to compensate and deliver care.

We understand that each case has to be investigated, but the compensation results so far do not inspire confidence that this is being treated with the urgency needed.

The Texas congressional delegation  representing the state with the highest number of people in the burn pit registry  should take the lead in fixing this.
The beginning of the school year when you got to show off your new duds, new cars, new looks!

Sports! Playing, cheering, watching high school athletics.

The arts: Dramatic arts, musical groups and shows, graphic arts groups, debate, etc.

The prom! No dancing the night away or punch bowl antics.

The daily interactions. Just being with the group, hanging with friends and classmates.

Access to college recruiters and advisors  its harder to line up higher education.

Walking onstage to get a diploma while all the family is watching with everyone elses family.

Vote

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CHICOPEE -- Westover Job Corps Center, with 234 students at its Johnson Road location, has a new management company under an $82 million, two-year contract -- part of a regular churn of contractors within Job Corps locations across the country.

The U.S. Department of Labor issued the contract Aug. 3 to Alternate Perspectives Inc., of Leesburg, Virginia.

Alternative Perspectives already operates the Shriver Job Corps in Devens, Massachusetts, among other locations. Alternate Perspectives declined to answer questions about the contract, except to say that it is now reorganizing the center to fit its model.

Company officials deferred to staff at the Department of Labor, who merely confirmed that the contract has been awarded.

The Center has 205 employees.

Job Corps centers provide vocational training and education to 16- to 24-year-olds who meet income cutoffs and are either citizens or who are eligible to work in the United States. There is no cost to the student, and they get a stipend.

Westover Job Corps offers training in health occupations, culinary arts, automotive mechanic, carpentry, pharmacy technician, medical office support, office administration, facilities maintenance and construction welding, plumbing, electrical or brick rick masonry. Course lengths vary.

The Job Corps is a Johnson Administration Great Society Program begun in 1964 and modeled after the Great Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps. The first head of the Job Corps was Sargent Shriver -- hence the name of the Devens program.

The Westover Job Corps site opened in 1980, according to bid documents.

On paper, the Westover center is authorized to host a total of 437 students at any given time, both boarding and commuters, according to bid documents issued by the Department of Labor.

Staffers at the center, who weren't authorized to talk on the record, said student numbers are down because of new rules the federal government imposed governing student conduct and attendance. While staff said this has led to more students getting bounced from the program, it has also meant a more professional working environment.

Wanda Gispert, MGM Resorts regional vice president of talent and work force development, said the local Job Corps sites are the first places she contacts when her employer sends her into a region more than a year in advance of a casino opening.

She did it in Maryland to open MGM National Harbor, and she did it with Job Corps centers in Chicopee and Hartford to open MGM Springfield.

"We went out, toured the site, met the students," Gispert said.

MGM's culinary managers help trainers at Job Cops tailor courses to what MGM needs. That might mean an emphasis on banquet food preparation: How do you get 200 roast chicken meals ready at the same time for a luncheon?

And MGM has hired recent graduates.

"They hit the ground running," she said. "The training they get at Job Corps is a quality experience."

Gispert said MGM will continually hire from Job Corps programs here even after the casino opens. There are always jobs opening up, and hiring never stops.

She's also going to help teach courses at Westover Job Corps for female students, focusing on building confidence.

"I can see the male students will come to me, they will ask questions, they will raise their hand," she said.

Her hope is to encourage women at the Westover Job Corps to do the same.
PALMER -- Gov. Charlie Baker and Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito on Thursday announced grants totaling $750,000 for 13 communities, including several in the Pioneer Valley, for culvert replacements as a means to improve the health of rivers and streams, protect wildlife, and preserve infrastructure.

The grants are provided by the Department of Fish and Game's Division of Ecological Restoration through its Culvert Replacement Municipal Assistance grant program. Depending on the community, the grants will cover costs of data collection and analysis, engineering and design, permitting, or construction.

"Replacing important infrastructure like culverts is a critical component of public safety and preparing for climate change," Baker said in a statement. "Our administration is proud to support cities and towns across the Commonwealth making important investments in culvert projects that will make their roads safer, while protecting natural habitats."

Today in #Palmer, @MassEcoRestore announced $750,000 in awards to support local culvert replacement projects that will protect fisheries and river habitats & increase community resilience to #ClimateChange and large storms: https://t.co/ujsZJgUOwW pic.twitter.com/CHUEDW6Fhi  MAEnergy Environment (@MassEEA) August 9, 2018

Colrain will receive $150,000 to build a 12-foot open-bottom culvert on a tributary to the North River. According to the state, "Replacing the existing undersized culvert will provide passage for fish and wildlife, and improve Colrain's infrastructure by reducing the risk of culvert failure."

Buckland will receive $91,000 for a culvert replacement on Clark Brook. A new culvert will provide passage for fish and wildlife and ensure emergency access to nearby homes, the division said.

Northampton's $65,250 will fund culvert replacement on a tributary to Bassett Brook.

Ware is receiving $37,300 for culvert replacement on a tributary to Flat Brook that will improve flood resiliency and reduce maintenance costs, the division said.

Palmer will receive $34,000 for a culvert replacement on a tributary to the Ware River. State officials were in Palmer Thursday for the grant announcement.

Granville will receive $25,000 for culvert replacement project on Phelon Brook. The project will help protect Springfield's downstream drinking water supply, according to the state.

Other municipalities receiving the grants are as follows:
Massachusetts police chiefs are criticizing Sen. Elizabeth Warren after she called America's criminal justice system "racist" from "front to back."

Yarmouth Police Chief Frank Frederickson said her comment was an "insult" while Dudley Police Chief Steve Wojnar, who also serves as president of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, sent a letter to Warren asking for an explanation.

Warren defended the remarks when speaking to reporters earlier this week and said there are "many terrific people" in law enforcement. But there is a need for "significant" reforms to the criminal justice system, she reiterated.

The Frederickson statement and the Wojnar letter were both posted on the Yarmouth Police Department's Facebook page. They are included unedited and in full below.

"Chief's Response To Senator Warren"

Good afternoon, last week, Senator Elizabeth Warren stated "The American criminal justice system is racist ... front to back." This statement is an insult to the hard working men and women of the Yarmouth Police Department as well as other Local, State and Federal Law Enforcement Agencies who are part of the criminal justice system. Additionally there are many District Attorneys, Judges, Probation Officers, Parole Officers and other parts of the system that she slapped in the face.

It is more bothersome that a short time ago Sen. Warren made some efforts to pay respects to Sgt. Sean Gannon and Sgt. Michael Chesna who lost their lives while protecting us all. Sen. Warren's recent statement tarnished us all and dimished the sincerty of her condolence efforts. I now cannot trust her actions or words are real. I have a lot of repect for those who serve in elected positions even though we may disagree at times, however statements like this are disrespectful and divisive. In spite of what Sen. Warren said, the Yarmouth Police Department will continue to serve ALL people with dignity and fairness.

Letter sent to Senator Warren by the Massachusetts Chief of Police Association Chief President Steven J. Wojnar

August 7, 2018

The Honorable Elizabeth Warren

United States Senate

317 Hart Senate Office Building

Washington DC 20510

Dear Senator Warren,

As President of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association, I felt compelled to write you and ask for clarification of your recent comments. An article that appeared in The Worcester Telegram and Gazette from August 4, 2018 was entitled "Elizabeth Warren: Criminal Justice System "racist" front to back."

http://www.telegram.com/.../elizabeth-warren-criminal-justice... . While at a Congressional Black Caucus event at Dillard University in New Orleans, you are quoted as saying, "the hard truth about our criminal justice system: It's racist...I mean front to back."

As a police chief in your home state of Massachusetts, as well as the statewide association representative, I am extremely troubled by this statement. Labeling the entire criminal justice profession as "racist" spreads false and damaging information about our members. We feel we do a very good job in Massachusetts of producing professional and community oriented police officers. These men and women, from a variety of backgrounds, provide dedicated service to their respective communities under difficult and highly scrutinized circumstances each day. As leaders, we are always concerned about having our officers conduct themselves professionally and fairly when dealing with the public. When our elected officials make generalized and inflammatory statements about our entire profession, without any information to back their position, it creates further hostility toward our officers and can damage the positive relationships with our residents that we have worked long and hard to establish.

From the outside, it appears your statement was strategically placed to gather support for your position. As you may know, this is troubling to the law enforcement professionals in the state you represent. In recent months, we have seen the murder of two officers in Yarmouth and Weymouth. In only the last two weeks, two officers were shot in Falmouth. All of these officers were simply doing their jobs when they encountered dangerous individuals. The outpouring of community support for these officers and their departments would appear to be contrary to your position. On each occasion mentioned above, the respective chiefs were contacted by their elected local, state, and federal officials. They were offered any support necessary. I am sure the discussion about the profession being racist was never brought up during these times. Why is it appropriate now? At bare minimum, we are requesting an explanation for your comments. As law enforcement professionals, as well as your constituents, that is deserved. I gladly offer you the opportunity to discuss anything with us that you feel appropriate. We always remain open to a conversation. Should you wish to do so, please feel free to contact me.

Thank you for the time and attention.

Sincerely,

Chief Steven J. Wojnar

Dudley Police Department

President, Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association
Sen. Elizabeth Warren stressed that she was talking about the racism within the American criminal justice system, and not individuals, after the Yarmouth police chief called her initial comment "disrespectful and divisive."

In a statement posted on Facebook, Chief Frank Frederickson said Warren's recent comment in New Orleans about the criminal justice system being racist "front to back" was an "insult" to law enforcement officials across her home state of Massachusetts and the United States.

"I appreciate Chief Frederickson's thoughtful comments," Warren said in her own statement. "The men and women in law enforcement work in incredibly dangerous situations."

Warren, D-Cambridge, continued: "We honor those in uniform who put their lives on the line every day and those who have been killed in the line of duty to keep the rest of us safe. I spoke about an entire system - not individuals - and will continue to work on reforms to make the criminal justice system fairer."
SPRINGFIELD - A city man has been jailed after allegedly violating his probation in the second animal cruelty case filed against him in two years.

Russell H. Corby, 66, of 66 Switzer Ave., tested positive for alcohol and failed to comply with a court order requiring him to surrender cats living in his home and stop feeding stray cats outside his home, state probation officials charged in a complaint filed on July 31.

The alleged violations took place less than two months after Corby was placed on probation on animal cruelty charges filed in March, when investigators allegedly found sick kittens and adult cats, some with ruptured eyeballs, at his home.

During a hearing on June 20, Judge William Boyle allowed Corby to submit to facts sufficient for a guilty finding on three animal cruelty charges.

The judge continued the cases without a finding for one year, and ordered Corby to surrender cats inside his home, stop feeding cats outside his home and avoid alcohol, among other conditions of probation.

Corby returned to Springfield District Court on July 31 for a probation violation hearing.

After Corby's probation officer outlined the alleged violations, Judge John Payne ordered the defendant held without right to bail for a full hearing on Sept. 12.

The judge also ordered him to be committed to the Hampden County Correctional Center for substance abuse treatment.

Corby's latest case began when the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals found kittens and adult cats suffering from respiratory infections and missing eyes during an inspection at Corby's home in March, according to a complaint filed by the MSPCA.

Three of Corby's cats suffered ruptured eyeballs due to untreated corneal ulcers, which are commonly treated with antibiotics and pain medication. Left untreated, corneal ulcers can result in ruptured eyeballs, a condition that is "gruesome and horrific," the complaint stated.

"This is not the first time that cats have suffered at this residence. In the past, cats have been brought in ... missing eyes and suffering from severe flea anemia," the complaint said.

Corby denied neglecting his kittens and said they sometimes poke each others' eyes out while nursing.

Corby was already on probation for a 2017 cat cruelty case when the new charges were filed in March.
SPRINGFIELD -- An 18-year-old Springfield man was arrested late Friday morning after police wrestled a loaded handgun from him as he tried to pull it from hiding.

Springfield Police spokesman Ryan Walsh said officers attached to the Stratigic Impact team commanded by Lt. Lawrence Murphy executed a search warrant on Isaias Gonzalez's 25 Hall St. apartment at about 11 a.m. The suspect was found in bed with a woman and an infant.

As they moved to take him into custody, officers said Gonzales tried to pull a handgun from under the mattress of the bed but was stopped.

The firearm was reportedly a loaded semi-automatic handgun with an obliterated serial number.

Searchers also found cocaine residue and paraphernalia associated with drug sales.

Gonzales was charged with carrying a loaded firearm without a license, possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number, possession of a firearm during a felony and six counts of assault with a dangerous weapon. He also faces a charge of possession of a Class B substance with the intent to distribute.
A Taunton man wanted on several warrants in both New Hampshire and Massachusetts was arrested late Friday afternoon after the State Police Violent Fugitive Apprehension Section and detectives from the Norton and Raynham police departments ran him down as he sprinted along I-495 in Taunton.

Police said in a release that 31-year-old Thomas Holland of Taunton was under investigation by the various police departments after he failed to appear in Taunton District Court.

Holland was wanted in connection with a shooting in Manchester, NH, assault with a firearm in connection with a Taunton Green incident June 2, and kicking in the door of an apartment as he fled police following the alleged assault. He was also wanted in connection with a large quantity of crack cocaine seized by Danvers police August 1.

Police said they developed information that Holland would be at a Norton motel and did find him there Friday sitting in a car in the parking lot of the motel with a female driver.

When the vehicle began to leave the area police tried to box the car in but were unable to stop the car. The female driver backed into one cruiser at that location, then fled striking a second police car as she drove away with police giving chase.

As the pursuit wound its way along Bay Street in Norton, police said the woman intentionally crashed her car into a third cruiser, before entering I-495 southbound. The car traveled along the divided highway at a high rate of speed, swerving across all the lanes as it went.

The woman exited I-495 at Route 138 but then immediately drove up the entrance back onto to I-495 but drove into a traffic jam.

Police said Holland ran from the car and tried to jump into stopped cars. Troopers and officer chased him down and he was arrested on the highway.

Holland was arrested on three outstanding warrants for the described incidents and for resisting arrest and attempted carjacking.

The female driver, Brittany Pasternak of Somerset, was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and malicious destruction of property.
Massachusetts police chiefs are ripping Sen. Elizabeth Warren for her recent comment on America having a "racist" criminal justice system "front to back."

"This statement is an insult to the hard working men and women of the Yarmouth Police Department as well as other Local, State and Federal Law Enforcement Agencies who are part of the criminal justice system," Yarmouth Chief Frank Frederickson said in a statement posted on the department's Facebook page.

Warren's comments were "disrespectful and divisive," Frederickson said. District attorneys, judges and others were among the people she "slapped in the face," the chief added.

Frederickson's statement also included a letter sent to Warren from Steve Wojnar, the president of the Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association and the Dudley Police Department chief.

"As a police chief in your home state of Massachusetts, as well as the statewide association representative, I am extremely troubled by this statement," Wojnar wrote. "Labeling the entire criminal justice profession as 'racist' spreads false and damaging information about our members. We feel we do a very good job in Massachusetts of producing professional and community oriented police officers."

Asked about her remark earlier this week, Warren said there are "many terrific people" who work in law enforcement and have said there is the need for "significant" reforms to the country's criminal justice system.

"There have been studies showing that in exactly -- exactly -- the same crimes committed by blacks and whites, that blacks are more likely to be arrested, and blacks are more likely to be prosecuted," she told reporters.

In his statement, Frederickson noted Warren recently paid her respects over the deaths of Yarmouth Police Sgt. Sean Gannon and Weymouth Police Sgt. Michael Chesna, who were killed in the pursuit of suspects in separate shootings earlier this year.

"I now cannot trust her actions or words are real," the chief said.

Warren, a Cambridge Democrat, is up for re-election in November. She will face the winner of a three-way GOP primary, which includes state Rep. Geoff Diehl, former Mitt Romney aide Beth Lindstrom and Winchester businessman John Kingston.

The GOP candidates have also criticized Warren's comments.

Elected officials making "generalized and inflammatory statements" about law enforcement leads to "further hostility toward our officers and can damage the positive relationships with our residents that we have worked long and hard to establish," Wojnar said in his letter to Warren.

"From the outside, it appears your statement was strategically placed to gather support for your position," he continued. "As you may know, this is troubling to the law enforcement professionals in the state you represent."

Wojnar asked for her to explain her comment and said the association is always open to a conversation.
The Analysis presents the study of Worldwide Wearable Heart Monitoring Devices facilitating the regional and country wise analysis covering the strategic analysis of each market player and the market share they hold

The Global Wearable Heart Monitoring Devices Market is expected to grow at an approximate CAGR of 9.86% during the forecast period.

Key players for global wearable heart monitoring devices market:

The key players for the global wearable heart monitoring devices market are Medtronic (U.S.), Kinetec Products UK Ltd. (South America), Beurer GmbH (Europe), Medisana AG (Europe), Briggs Healthcare (U.S.), Polar Electro (Europe), SUUNTO (Europe), Koninklijke Philips N.V. (Europe), Garmin Ltd. (Europe), and others.

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Market Scenario:

Digital revolution and the rapid development of the information technology has transformed virtually every industry and healthcare industry is no exception. Recently, novel devices for wireless monitoring have emerged and begun to be integrated with cardiac patient care. This has led to the development of wearable heart monitoring devices market. By set-up, a majority of the wearable heart monitoring devices consists of wearable monitoring device and a portable data transmission device which transmits real time medical data for analysis. According to the National Health Service in 2015, an average American is constantly connected via high bandwidth to a vast network of data and sophisticated digital platforms with over 90% of American adults owning a cell phone and 55% having smart phones. Such exploitation of the technology has facilitated the development of mobile phones based wearable heart monitoring devices. Cardiac conditions such as atrial fibrillation (AFib) requires extensive and continuous monitoring.

Conventionally, Holter monitoring is exploited for the same. But since the technology is expensive and risks of missing arrhythmias are associated, a number of new and effective technologies for wireless monitoring are devised which has facilitated the market growth. According to the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in 2017, 2.7-6.1 million people in the United States have AFib. Moreover, it is reported that more than 750,000 hospitalizations occur each year in the U.S. because of AFib, accounting to the estimated medical cost for people who have AFib to be about USD 8,705 per person. Such trends in the prevalence of AFib along with high per capita healthcare expenditures in the developed countries and growing geriatric population is estimated to boost the market growth during the forecasted period. However, lack of awareness for the products, low healthcare expenditures in the developing countries and stringent FDA approvals will restrain the market growth during the forecasted period.

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Segmentation:

The global wearable heart monitoring devices is segmented on the basis of products, type, application, and end users.

On the basis of products, the market is segmented as electric pulse based, optical technology based, and others. The electric pulse based segment is sub-segmented into chest straps, chest patches and others. The optical technology based segment, by product, is further segmented into smart watches, earphones, and others. On the basis of type, the market is categorised into chargeable, non-chargeable, bluetooth enabled, and others. On the basis of application, the market is segmented into healthcare, consumer market, and others. On the basis of end users, the market is segmented into hospitals, retail pharmacies, academic institutes, and others.

Regional Analysis:

America dominates the global wearable heart monitoring devices market owing to a well-developed healthcare sector and a highly developed information technology sector. Moreover, high prevalence of AFib diseases, increasing healthcare expenditure have boosted the growth of the market in America. Moreover, the presence of developed economies like the U.S. and Canada and global players such as Medtronic, Briggs Healthcare within the regional boundaries fuels the market growth.

Europe is the second largest market for wearable heart monitoring devices, which is followed by Asia Pacific. Availability of funds for research, well developed healthcare infrastructure, huge patient population and government support for research & development will drive the market in the Europe.

Asia Pacific is the fastest growing region for the market due to the presence of developing economies like India and China within the region which have increasing healthcare expenditures. This along with favourable government policies will boost the market growth in the presence of huge opportunity for the untapped market within the region.

The Middle East & Africa has the least share in the global wearable heart monitoring devices market due to presence of poor economies especially in the African region. Majority of the market of the Middle & Africa region is held by the Middle East due to a well-developed healthcare sector and huge healthcare expenditure by the presence of regional economies like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar within the region.

TABLE OF CONTENT

Chapter 1. Report Prologue

Chapter 2. Market Introduction

2.1 Definition

2.2 Scope of The Study

2.2.1 Research Objective

2.2.2 Assumptions

2.2.3 Limitations

Chapter 3. Research Methodology

3.1 Introduction

3.2 Primary Research

3.3 Secondary Research

3.4 Market Size Estimation

Chapter 4. Market Dynamics

4.1 Drivers

4.2 Restrains

4.3 Opportunities

4.4 Challenges

4.5 Macroeconomic Indicators

4.6 Technology Trends & Assessment

Continued!

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The city of Bad Axe is partnering with the Sanilac County Humane Society and Michigan State University to address the stray cat problem in our area.

Anyone who lives in Bad Axe, particularly on the citys west side, knows something needs to be done regarding the ever-increasing stray cat population.

This week, the city held a public hearing where officials from the humane society explained volunteers will begin trapping cats on Wednesday within the city limits, concentrating on West Butler Street, South Street, Cleveland Street and near the Huron Community Fairgrounds. The roundup will run through Friday.

We are going to be out in the middle of the night (7 p.m. to 7 a.m.), said humane society President Carol Schmidt. We do not want the cats sitting out in danger in a live trap or crate.

Theyre not going to be left alone long at all, she added.

While its impossible to trap all stray cats, Schmidt said a good chunk will be taken from the streets with new homes ready to go.

These cats are being placed into the new working program, Schmidt said, adding the cats wont be released in the city. The cats will be placed into various farms and different building facilities with people that have agreed to take them in, give them shelter and food.

Were educating all of the people that are taking them, she added. Were giving them food and the crate to keep them inside so they get used to a new home.

Once a cat is trapped, it will be taken to the Huron Community Fairgrounds next Saturday to be spayed/neutered and have its left ear tipped as a permanent identifier. They will also receive an antibiotic injection with a pain medication to help with any discomfort.

The humane society is asking the public to not mess with any cats in live traps or cages. Also, dont feed stray cats, and any cats that are pets that are outside should have some form of identification, such as a tag, microchip or collar.

If you do own a cat that is allowed to wander outside, you should already have some sort of identifier on your pet. Also, it should be spayed or neutered. Otherwise, you are contributing to the problem.

Dont think its that big of a deal? Tell it to that neighbor who cant go outside of his/her home because his/her neighbors house is overrun by stray cats and the property stinks of urine and cat feces. Or the neighbor who cant open his/her windows because his/her house would get permeated with the smell of cat waste.

Better yet, tell it to the neighbor whose UPS packages get saturated with cat urine  because that is what is happening in some of our citys neighborhoods. There are people who cant enjoy their property because of the selfishness of someone else.

While it sounds harsh, thats what happens when people hoard cats  they ruin their neighbors property.

And neighbors who dont spay and neuter their cats, while letting them roam free outside, only exacerbate the situation.

We commend the city of Bad Axe for its efforts to help alleviate this problem. We urge cat owners to do their part and be responsible pet owners.
BRIDGEPORT - A convicted sex offender was charged on Friday with raping an autistic 9-year-old girl.

Victor Fernandez, 42, of Boston Avenue, who was previously convicted of sexual assault on a child in Florida, according to court records, was charged with first-degree sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault with a child and illegal sexual contact.

He was being held in lieu of $500,000 bond.

Police said the girl told a social worker that Fernandez, a friend of her family, pulled her clothes off and played sex with me.

During a subsequent forensic interview at the Center for Family Justice, police said the girl was given two anatomically correct dolls and asked to show what happened. They said the girl took the dolls and faced them toward each other and simulated a conversation between them in which the male asked, Could I have sex with you.

The victim then told the interviewer, He played sex with mebut then I screamed, police said.

Police said the girls mother was also arrested after police said she told them she was worried Fernandez was going to sexually assault her daughter and she left them alone together because she wanted to catch him in the act. But she said she became distracted and didnt see anything.
3 1 of 3 Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Arnold Gold / Hearst Connecticut Media Show More Show Less 3 of 3





NEW HAVEN  The New Haven Puerto Rican Festival that had been scheduled for today on the New Haven Green has been moved indoors because of the rainy weather.

Instead an indoor free concert will held at 6 p.m. today at Bregamos Community Theater, 491 Blatchley Ave., according to Puerto Ricans United Inc.
MIDDLETOWN  They served with honor, and on Friday four World War II veterans were treated with that same honor as they were brought to their final resting place.

The four  two sailors, a soldier and an airman  died decades ago.

For any one of a number of reasons, their cremated remains were never claimed by their next of kin.

And so their ashes remained in the funeral homes that had handled their funerals.

Ten years ago, the state took steps to identify the remains of honorably discharged veterans and enable their remains to be brought the States Veteran Cemetery where they will rest in the columbarium, Laura Soll explained.

Soll is a spokeswoman for the Connecticut Funeral Directors Association, which worked with the Department of Veterans Affairs to arrange the ceremony.

Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman represented the state at the mid-morning ceremony, which played out under a deep blue sky.

Wyman was joined by DVA Commissioner Thomas J. Saadi, U. S Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and Middletown Mayor Daniel T. Drew, as well as a cadre of veterans representing various organizations and a large contingent of the Patriotic Guard Riders.

The Riders are motorcyclists, many of them veterans, who often attend veterans funeral.

More for you Winsted soldier's family takes part in burial at Arlington National Cemetery

On Friday, they escorted two hearses carrying the remains of the four veterans to the cemetery from the Connecticut Veterans Home and Hospital in Rocky Hill.

When the contingent arrived at the cemetery, South District firefighters raised a massive American flag on an extended ladder from a ladder truck.

It provided an appropriate backdrop for the ceremony.

The first hearse pulled up to a tent that provided a modicum of protection from the fierce sun.

An honor guard of two soldiers from the Connecticut National Guard stepped forward to solemnly receive the remains of Arthur Chappell (1915-1977) who served in the Army Air Corps, and George W. Church (1922-2001) who served in the Army.

The soldiers carried the urns, which were embossed with the names and dates of the Chappell and Church and the emblem of their branch of the service, to a table at the front of the tent.

The process was repeated when the second hearse delivered the remains of sailors Carl Anthony Brannan, (1904-1966) and Charles Purdy Noonan (1915-1973) into the care of two sailors from the Naval Submarine Base in Groton.

A triangularly folded American flag rested against each urn.

Bringing the remains to the cemetery is part of the warrior ethos. which says no American who dies in service to the country is left behind, Saadi told the audience.

Another part of that same ethos is to insure that the veterans are given the military honors they earned.

Brannan, Chappell, Church and Noonan may have been forgotten once, but the ceremony Friday ensures they will never be forgotten again, Saadi said.

These four Connecticut heroes will lie among people who may not be family by blood, Wyman said, referring to the brother and sister veterans who also served or are serving.

We might not know these gentlemen but we will never forget them, she added.

When Blumenthal rose to speak, two men in the audience, Middletown firefighter Michael Souza and Navy veteran William Willinsky, pointedly stood up, reversed their chairs and sat with the backs turned to Blumenthal.

Souza said Blumenthal does not support the country but instead divides it.

Willinsky, who is chairman of the Portland Veterans Committee, said Blumenthal is an (expletive).

I just dont like the way he grandstands down in Washington. He is constantly criticizing the president of the United States, which is very disrespectful, Willinsky said.

The ceremony continued with Saadi presenting the Connecticut Wartime Service Medal to each for the men who were being honored.

As he did, the oversized flag billowed in the breeze over the neat rows of graves.

After he placed the medals nest to the urns, Saddi stepped back.

A Marine Corps League honor guard fired three volleys in salute.

Navy veteran and bugler Jonathan Worley of Old Saybrook played Taps.

One flag from the Navy veterans and one from the Army were taken, unfolded, and then re-folded in the practiced slow and steady pace.

A sailor presented a flag to Saadi and then an Army captain presented the second flag to Wyman.

As they did so, each man quietly spoke the time-honored words that mark such events: On behalf of the President of the United States and a grateful Nation, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your loved ones honorable and faithful service.

Contact Jeff Mill at jmill@middletownpress.com.
NEW HARTFORD  A public/private partnership between the town and resident Matt Norton has revitalized the overlook at Jones Mountain, a 158-acre open space reserve.

Norton wanted to create a memorial for his wife, Joni Norton, on the overlook, and at the same time, provide an attractive viewing area at the top of the 985-foot mountain.

The idea began last fall when Joni Norton died from cancer. Jones Mountain had been one of her favorite hiking areas, Norton said. I knew she loved hiking here. It was close to her heart.

Matt Norton approached First Selectman Dan Jerram about the idea to upgrade the site. Because the view from the overlook was overgrown, Norton suggested the downhill trees could be cleared and a memorial bench installed.

Its a very nice project, Jerram said. Jones Mountain is one of the most beautiful parks and hiking destinations, in the town.

He said he and Norton went up to the site to consider the plan.

I realized we could do something up there, Jerram said.

With a design in mind, and support from the town Department of Public Works, Norton launched the project in September. Because the existing viewing area was small, and a 12-year-old wooden bench was damaged, a decision was made to enlarge the area and replace the bench with a sturdy, cast cement model.

Nortons co-worker at Cigna Health Insurance, Tom Hixon, started a fund among employees to pay for half of the improvements.

Public works employees cleared as many as 75 trees, Jerram said, to open up the scenic view that had been blocked for years by overgrown trees. Hikers can now see the Barkhamsted hills in the distance.

The viewing area now offers a 10-by-24-foot terrace made of New York blue stone. The flagstone was purchased from Torrington-based O&G Industries Inc. The bench was manufactured with two posts that resemble cut-wood trunks, and a large slate-like sitting platform.

The platform is inscribed with a memorial statement that reads, In memory of Joni Ellet Norton whose effervescence brought light to those around her, 1964-2017.

Its a place her friends can go and the community at large can enjoy it, Norton said. The preserve is a gem in my mind.

The overlook, he said, is at a spot where hikers often take a break after arriving at the summit.

I think its awesome. I love the view, it came out great, said Public Works employee Matt Catania. He and co-worker Craig Haskell were at the lookout on Thursday adding mulch around the terrace, which the two constructed.

We pretty much built it from scratch, Catania said.

There was an outpouring of support, from residents for the project, Jerram said. You can see the entire downtown.

According to the New Hartford Land Trust, some of the hiking trails follow wide carriage roads that were built in the 1900s. The preserve opened in 2006 after the organization negotiated a property transfer from the Jones family, which has owned the land for five generations. The designation as a preserve permanently protects the land from development.

The Jones Mountain Preserve is eight-tenths of a mile from the intersection of Steele Road, Central Avenue and Rt. 219 in downtown New Hartford.
Will the U.S. call new service members in the Space Force 'spacemen' or 'space rangers'? Will there ever be a U.S. military base on the moon?

Social media jokes and speculation aside, there are real questions that remain about the Trump administration's proposed Space Force following Vice President Mike Pence's speech about next steps for the initiative Thursday at the Pentagon.

Little information has been made public regarding total cost of the effort, organizational structure and incremental timelines. It's not completely clear how existing space-focused military agencies would fit into the new service branch. Pence announced the Department of Space Force was intended to launch in the 2020 time frame, but experts believe it could take much longer.

"We're saying that the cost associated with standing up the additional structure, we'll probably know by the end of the year. We haven't done that cost estimation yet," Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan told reporters Thursday following Pence's speech.

Related content:

While Pence said there are plans in the works to allocate an additional $8 billion to investment in space, the funds would be spaced out over five years, and not solely designated for the creation of Space Force itself.

Shanahan said it will still likely cost "billions."

Aside from dollar amounts, there is still no concrete information on:

Whether the Air Force, the "leaders in space," as service officials have said, keeps its space mission

What the future holds for operational space bases such as Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado, and Los Angeles Air Force Base

How the proposed Space Force affects the Navy and Army, which also have independent space assets

How many service members and civilians will make up the new Space Force

How much more infrastructure and overhead for a potential sixth military branch will be needed

What happens to the Air Force's Space and Missile Systems Center

How exactly Space Force will deter or thwart threats from adversaries such as Russia, China, North Korea and Iran in the space domain

"The biggest unanswered question I have so far is, what is going to be included in the Space Force," Todd Harrison, director of the Aerospace Security Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told Military.com Friday.

"It's clearly going to be more than just Air Force Space Command," Harrison said, "because a lot of our existing space forces are in the other services."

"What are all these specific organizations and units, do they intend to transfer into this?" he said. "And a really big question with that is, what about the [intelligence] agencies" such as the National Reconnaissance Office and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.

Pence on Thursday rolled out the plan in three parts: Officials would create a U.S. combatant command for space, known as U.S. Space Command. The DoD would also create a "Space Operations Force" made up of military and civilian personnel from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marine Corps, similar to that of the military's U.S. Special Operations Command. And the Pentagon would build a Space Development Agency to oversee the contracting process and procurement of new satellites.

"Different parts of this will lead to the Space Force, but not all of this," Harrison said. "Space Command, that is separate  Space Command will not be a part of the Space Force, just like a combatant command is not a part of a service," he said.

It's not clear, Harrison added, whether the intent is to "put [the Space and Missile Systems Center] out of business eventually."

The acquisition organization oversees the procurement of satellites and rocket launches.

"There are a lot of unknowns about that one," Harrison said.

The analyst added that there was no way that these items could be decided so quickly, even if DoD officials had been working on an interim report for some months following the dissolution of a Space Corps idea.

Before Trump announced intentions to build a Space Force roughly seven weeks ago, there were months of deliberations between the Air Force and lawmakers on whether the service should stand up a "Space Corps" in hopes of taking adversarial threats in space more seriously. While lawmakers ultimately removed language in the 2018 National Defense Authorization Act requiring such an overhaul of the Air Force's mission in favor of a Space Corps, they still required a study of the idea and backed changes to the management of the space cadre.

A preliminary report was created in March; a second report was unveiled Thursday by Pence, Shanahan as well as Vice Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Gen Paul Selva; and a third report, which will advise lawmakers on the appropriate legislative language need for the fiscal 2020 budget request, will be published sometime in December, Harrison said.

One thing is clear: Space Force isn't being completely made from scratch, Harrison said. The Pentagon already has units, people and organizations it can work with to funnel into the Space Force, however big the new organization may become.

"Most of it -- almost all of it -- is going to be a transfer of funding from one account to another" to do this, Harrison predicted. "When they go through ... and identify all the space operators, the idea is then you will just move over all these people, and the budget comes with them," he said.

While experts for weeks have speculated why such an overhaul is especially needed now, particularly if a new threat, not known by the public, has prompted this activity, Harrison instead wondered why the Pentagon hasn't taken action sooner.

"Why [has this taken] 20 years? The space commission that Congress created in the late 1990s looked at this issue of reorganizing military space," he said.

The U.S. Commission to Assess National Security Space Management and Organization then recommended in 2001 to create a separate service for space. Its chairman was Donald Rumsfeld.

"The answer, I think, is that the Air Force has always been resistant because it stands to lose the most personnel and budget [dollars] from this," he said.

That aside, the space threats are there. Often cited is the famous 2007 incident when China conducted an anti-satellite missile test, destroying one of its own weather satellites and creating more than 3,000 pieces of debris.

But there are other examples: The Chinese have continued testing their anti-satellite weapons, but without kinetic means. The Russians too have been testing their non-kinetic anti-satellite weapons, and "we've seen actual use of a lot of non-kinetic forms of counter space weapons," Harrison said.

Iran has used jamming and spoofing; North Korea has acquired global position system jammers.

"Russia has this aircraft with a laser mounted on the top of it and the insignia on the side of it has a picture of a falcon and a lightning bolt going up into what looks like a spy satellite," Harrison said. "It's clearly designed to dazzle and blind imaging satellites," he said. (Dazzling refers to interfering with a the satellite in order to stop it from obtaining images with a lower-powered laser).

"What's frustrating to people is that we're building our space system as if these threats did not exist," he said.

When asked whether or not the public's skepticism surrounding Space Force was hurtful to the overall message that space missions are serious, Harrison said it was.

"It seems to be becoming 'Trump's Space Force,' " he said.

It doesn't help, Harrison said, that in media coverage the concept of a military Space Force is being conflated with commercial space and civil space, which NASA is responsible for.

However, the president's team may have contributed to that confusion. After Pence's announcement Thursday, the Trump 2020 campaign debuted a range of 'Space Force' logos, including one depicting a space shuttle blasting off with the words, "Mars Awaits."

"The [media] keeps interviewing astronauts about this and protecting the moon. That's not helpful. That's not what this is about at all. And there is ... a serious situation going on in space. We have problems in protecting our space [capabilities], and if we don't protect them, we will not be able to fight effectively on Earth," Harrison said, referring to the thousands of weapons and communications systems troops on the ground use daily that are connected to military satellites.

Whether or not the Space Force will be the absolute solution to present threats remains unclear. But the Pentagon knows the journey it's about to begin is not a small one.

Speaking to audiences at an Air Force Association event in Washington, D.C. on Friday, Selva said the Pentagon is not "naive" regarding the size of the task it faces. Nor will the building of a Space Force be "cost neutral" by any means, he said.

"We will put all the building blocks in place, we will give the president the legislative proposal he's asked for and we'll advocate for it when the congressional debate starts," Selva said, as reported by Inside Defense. "But I think we need to be wide-eyed about what this really means. So I'm just trying to be as pragmatic as I can."

-- Oriana Pawlyk can be reached at oriana.pawlyk@military.com. Follow her on Twitter at @oriana0214.
Thirty years after its founding on Aug. 11, 1988, Al-Qaida is showing signs of a resurgence following ISIS's near-defeat in Iraq and Syria, experts warn.

Al-Qaida shares the same long term goals as ISIS, but is pursuing them more slowly and carefully, Jennifer Cafarella, intelligence planner with the Institute for the Study of War, told FoxNews.com.

"ISIS's shock-and-awe tactics enabled it to mobilize tens of thousands of foreign fighters quickly, but did not enable it to sustain its battlefield successes or the scale of its recruitment," Cafarella said. "Al-Qaida has been investing in the long game, and may now resurge as the leader of the global jihadist movement."

It was on Aug. 11, 1988, in Peshawar, Pakistan, that Usama bin Laden conducted a meeting to discuss "the establishment of a new military group" called Al-Qaida, or the base. Handwritten notes of the meeting's minutes were seized in Bosnia after 9/11.

Ten years later on Aug. 7, 1998, Al-Qaida extremists bombed U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in near-simultaneous attacks. Another attack resulted in the death of 17 U.S. sailors on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000.

A year later, on Sept. 11, 2001, Al-Qaida operatives at bin Laden's direction hijacked four jets and rammed three of them into New York's World Trade Center towers and the Pentagon. The fourth plane crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. The 9/11 terror attack killed nearly 3,000 people. In response, the U.S. launched the global War on Terror.

The manhunt for bin Laden came to an end in 2011 when Navy SEALs raided his compound in Pakistan and killed him -- an event that some predicted would lead to Al-Qaida's demise. That didn't happen.

ISIS started as an Al-Qaida offshoot to fight U.S. troops in Iraq and then, after a falling out, gobbled up huge amounts of territory in Iraq and Syria while engaging in horrific attacks of brutality. At the same time ISIS leaders declared the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate spanning the two countries.

But by the end of last year, ISIS was in tatters as U.S.-led coalition troops liberated Iraqi and Syrian cities under ISIS control.

Still, Katherine Zimmerman, lead analyst on Al-Qaida for the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project, told FoxNews.com that it may be too early to call the demise of ISIS.

She said the challenge ISIS posed strengthened, rather than weakened Al-Qaida.

"ISIS has made Al-Qaida seem less radical, less extreme, only because Al-Qaida will not employ the barbaric tactics that ISIS does to coerce and win loyalty through fear. Yet they seek the same goal," Zimmerman said. "The problem with focusing on just ISIS or just Al-Qaida is that the U.S. has missed the real enemy -- the Salafi-jihadi movemen t-- of which Al-Qaida and ISIS are two global organizations."

In February, United Nations experts monitoring sanctions against ISIS and Al-Qaida said affiliates in West Africa and South Asia "remain a threat at least as serious" as ISIS.

The experts also reported that as ISIS suffered military losses in Syria, Iraq and the Phillipines in the second half of 2017, the Al-Qaida global network remained "remarkably resilient."

"Al-Qaida affiliates remain the dominant terror threat in some regions, such as Somalia and Yemen, a fact demonstrated by a continuous stream of attacks and foiled operations," according to the U.N. report.

Forces loyal to Al-Qaida and its affiliates now number in the tens of thousands, Bruce Hoffman, senior fellow for counterterrorism and homeland security at the Council on Foreign Relations, said in an article in March headlined, "Al-Qaida's Resurrection."

Hoffman said upwards of 4,000 fighters are in Yemen, 7,000 in Somali and 20,000 in Syria.

Al-Qaida has five affiliates: Jabhat al-Nusrah in Syria; Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula in Yemen; Al-Qaida in the Indian Subcontinent in South Asia; Al Shabaab in Somalia; and Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb in North Africa. The group also has ties to other groups in Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan and West Africa.

"Al-Qaida is particularly strong in Syria, where it has positioned itself as a defender of Syria's rebelling community against the regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and his backers," Cafarella told Fox News.

"Al-Qaida's role in Syria provides a strong basis for recruiting and propaganda because it enables Al-Qaida to make a humanitarian argument: that Al-Qaida alone offers justice and defense against the atrocities that Assad is committing against his own population," she said.

Over the years, Al-Qaida has dispatched a number of top leaders to Syria, including bin Laden' son Hamza who was reportedly there last summer.

"Hamza has increasingly taken a leadership role within Al-Qaida -- a role for which he has been groomed his entire life," Zimmerman said. "Hamza's calls for jihad echo his father's, and the bin Laden name gives Hamza credibility within the Salafi-jihadi movement."

The U.S. has officially designated Hamza bin Laden a terrorist.

In testimony to Congress last year, Zimmerman said America's strategy to counter Al-Qaida has remained relatively unchanged since 2001 even as the organization has adapted.

She told FoxNews.com: "For all of its setbacks, Al-Qaida remains on course to be exactly what Osama bin Laden envisioned it as thirty years ago: a covert vanguard that provides the strategic guidance and resources to local Islamists movements to support a global revolution."
Still undetermined is whether the impact caused the October leak, or if the line was hit by something else at a later date.
How to use the mindat.org media viewer

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Welcome to the mindat.org media viewer. Here is a quick guide to some of the options available to you. Different controls are available depending on the type of media being shown (photo, video, animation, 3d image)

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The button switches to move mode so that you can use your mouse/fingers to move the image around the screen as with other media types.

The button, or the P key will start playing the animation directly, you can interrupt this by using the mouse or finger on the image to regain manual movement control.

Controls - 3D Stereoscopic images

If a stereoscopic 3D image is opened in the viewer, the 3D button appears in the bottom right corner giving access to "3D settings" menu. The 3D images can be viewed in several ways:

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- on a suitable 3D TV or monitor (passive 3D system)

For details about 3D refer to: Mindat manuals: Mindat Media Viewer: 3D

To enable/disable 3D stereo display of a compatible stereo pair image press the 3 key. If the left/right images are reversed on your display (this often happens in full-screen mode) press the 4 key to reverse them.

Controls - photo comparison mode

If a photo with activated comparison mode is opened in the viewer, the button appears in the bottom right corner giving access to "Comparison mode settings" menu.

Several layouts are supported: slider and side by-side comparison with up to 6 photos shown synchronously on the screen. On each of the compared photos a view selector is placed, e.g.: Longwave UV . It shows the name of currently selected view and allows to select a view for each placeholder.

Summary of all keyboard shortcuts
ANN ARBOR -- City council approved a $300,000 grant agreement with the state Thursday, Aug. 10 to contribute to a pedestrian and stormwater tunnel under the railroad tracks between Depot Street and the Huron River.

The $7-million Allen Creek Railroad Berm project was expected to begin in the fall, but was moved to spring 2019, according to a city council memorandum.

The project is intended to create a pedestrian connection between downtown and neighboring areas, including the Border to Border Trail.

Funding for the stormwater portion of the project will cost a little more than $5.1 million, with $3.7 million covered by Federal Emergency Management Agency grants. City stormwater funds will cover the remaining $1.4 million.

The pedestrian trail will cost about $2.3 million, which is expected to be funded through city, state and federal grants.

In 2013, the city and consultant OHM Advisors completed a feasibility study to determine the possibility of creating openings in the railroad berm to accommodate passage of floodwaters and allow pedestrians to cross safely under the railroad for access to park facilities to the north.

The study found that it would be possible and the concept was acceptable to the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT), which owns the railroad tracks.

The study also indicated it is possible to lower the floodplain elevation by as much as 6.5 feet.

The Ann Arbor News reporter Ryan Stanton contributed to this report.
DETROIT - An Oakland County financial adviser is accused in federal court of embezzling millions of dollars from his clients over an eight-year period.

John Maccoll, 65, of Rochester Hills, was charged Thursday with one count of wire fraud in relation to the theft of approximately $3.7 million from his clients, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

"The charges allege that the defendant victimized over a dozen of innocent investors and greedily stole millions of dollars from them," U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider said in a statement issued Friday.

While working as a financial adviser at UBS Financial Services in Birmingham, Maccoll advised several of his clients to transfer their money to his personal account to "take advantage of investment vehicles" unavailable through the company he worked for, federal investigators claim.

Maccoll would tell the clients their investments were doing well and would ask for more money, which again found its way into Maccoll's bank account, where it was used solely by him for personal use, prosecutors allege.

The $3.7 million was taken from clients between April 2010 and March 2018.

Maccoll surrendered himself to law enforcement after being notified of the charges. He is free on $10,000 bond.
SHIAWASSEE COUNTY, MI -- Cowboy boots, draft horses and apple cider slushies. The county fair is a quintessential part of the Michigan summer, and the Shiawassee County Fair is no exception.

Even midweek, crowds lined up for seats on carnival rides and gathered to watch 4-H participants compete.

Both boys and girls participate in 4-H, but on July 9 girls and young women of all ages took the blue ribbon.

Winning is nothing new for Ramie Norton, a 19-year-old who's shown with 4-H for most of her life.

"I've been showing goats for about 14 years now," Norton said.

Recently, Norton has taken it upon herself to branch out to other types of livestock and showed a beef steer for the first time this week.

"I took it upon myself to start showing different livestock species about five years ago with market lambs. This is actually my first year showing a beef steer, so I'm actually a part of several different livestock barns now, which keeps me busy," Norton said.

Norton plans on being involved with animals for the rest of her life and hopes that her future children will participate in 4-H, like she and her sisters did.

"I'm just expanding my knowledge of livestock and trying different species as I get older and more responsible. I love animals. Animals have had such a big impact on me," Norton said.

Hannah Hart and Emerson Massey on the other hand, are early in their 4-H careers.

Hart and Massey, both 11, won several ribbons for showing their animals.

"My favorite thing in Western is bareback Western. His trot's actually more bumpy than most horses, but it's a lot more fun," Hart said of her horse, Dozer.

Hart's mother and grandmother both participated in 4-H growing up, and it was natural for her to join as well.

Though she finished showing her pigs earlier in the week, Massey said she spent much of the week taking care of her animals.

"I love animals and I have a lot of animals, and I got a potbelly pig. I really like her so I wanted bigger pigs," Massey said.

Massey said that she's made many friends through 4-H, and has already been able to apply the skills she's learned into other areas in her life.

"I do competitive dance, so I have a lot of confidence when I go out there. I'm not very nervous. I just like showing off my pigs," Massey said.

Upcoming grandstand events at the Shiawassee County Fair include a USA Demolition Derby at 7:30 p.m. and a monster truck show at 7 p.m. on Aug. 11.
FLINT, MI -- Less than a year since construction began, an auto parts factory has opened in Flint.

The Lear Corporation held a grand opening Saturday, Aug. 11, taking media, employees, their families, and community leaders on a tour of its 156,000-square- foot manufacturing facility at 902 E. Hamilton Ave. in Flint. The facility sits on 33 acres of the former site of a General Motors Buick factory. A third of the new factory site is dedicated to green space.

Present for the event was Ray Scott, Lear's president and chief executive officer, who was born and raised in Flint.

"Look what they've accomplished," he said from a stage, in front of a backdrop featuring the corporation's logo and its slogan of "Where Passion Drives Possibilities."

"This is absolutely incredible. You never would have thought that 300 days ago, this would be going on here," he said.

Lear broke ground on the facility 314 days prior.

Scott lauded the company's employees, saying Lear has "the best people in the industry. Our employees are incredible people."

Lear has anticipated hiring more than 430 people for the $29 million seat-manufacturing facility supplying General Motors' Flint Truck Assembly plant and employing 600 workers at full production mode by 2019.

"We're here because of GM," Scott said.

Scott also spoke of the company's commitment to keep giving to the Flint-area community, saying, "it's the right thing to do."

A Lear job fair in late January at the Kildee-White Regional Technology Center on Mott Community College's Flint campus, where the company sought to fill more than 100 spots at the new facility, drew between 1,500 and 1,700 people, according to organizers, causing a traffic jam along Robert T. Longway Boulevard.

Those along for the tour also had the chance to view a mural within the facility created by Flint-native Kevin Burdick, charting Flint's historical importance to the automotive industry.

The Michigan Strategic Fund previously approved a $4.35 million state grant in August 2017 to Lear for construction of the facility, while Flint officials offered a 50 percent tax abatement to reduce project costs.

The Buick City automobile complex on Flint's north side, where the new facility is located, opened in 1904 and became known as "Buick City" in 1985.

Abandoned by General Motors during its bankruptcy, the last Buick rolled off the plant's assembly line in 1999, and the plant's operations ceased completely in 2010.
HUDSONVILLE, MI -- When Dylan Dyke is away from his ducks, he's counting down the minutes until he returns home.

When the 12-year-old boy darts through the door and into the backyard, the excitement, his family says, is shared equally among the ducks and Dylan.

Dubbed the "duck run," Dylan runs around the yard and the ducks hop and flap their wings.

The ducks, Nibbles and Bill, are more than pets to Dylan. According to his therapist, the ducks are emotional-support animals for the West Michigan boy who has high-functioning autism.

Dylan and his ducks are at the center of a zoning dispute in Georgetown Township. Some neighbors complained about the ducks and the property's zoning doesn't allow for them.

After being ordered by the township to get rid of the ducks, the Dyke family is seeking a variance, basically an exception to the residential zoning requirements, to allow Dylan to keep the ducks at their home on Van Buren Street. A township meeting is scheduled for Aug. 22 to consider the variance request.

Mark and Jen Dyke, Dylan's parents, are hopeful to get the variance from the township. They said their son, who has raised the ducks since 2016, needs them.

Dylan has formed a bond with the ducks, and Mark Dyke said the animals help his son regulate his emotions, especially after a stressful day.

"I never would have thought that ducks would offer that type of connection, but with autism you're never sure what's going to work with your kid," Mark Dyke said. "So when you find something that does, you grab onto it."

Dylan's psychologist, Eric Dykstra, considers the ducks to be important for Dylan. The family allowed Dykstra to talk to MLive/The Grand Rapids Press about the situation.

"For Dylan, the ducks provide an opportunity for self sooth and help him after a stressful day of school and help him practice social skills," said Eric Dykstra, clinical director of Development Enhanced Behavioral Health. "In more than one way these ducks are an outlet, teaching opportunity, and allow Dylan to live life in another way he otherwise wouldn't be able to."

Georgetown Township zoning ordinances do not allow for the keeping of ducks in residential-zoned areas. The family would need a variance to get around this rule.

Township officials became aware of the situation after receiving complaints from some residents who live near the Dyke family. At least one of the complaints states that the ducks often stray onto other residents' properties and defecate, according to a WOOD-TV report.

"Our fight is not with neighbors at all, we're going to live here, we want to get along with everyone," Mark Dyke said. "We have to deal with the township because the township is the one that is trying to get rid of them."

The family has received an outpouring of support since the situation became public. Strangers have sent stuffed-animal ducks, toys and letters of encouragement to Dylan.

"I think it's really great to see how much support they have gotten from the community and how people are really getting a lot of attention towards the whole autism aspect and how an animal can be beneficial to them," said Maria Andrakowicz, a neighbor of the Dyke family. "To have that awareness be brought to light has been really important for them."

This is what mean people do. Try to take away one of the greatest joys a 12 year old autistic boy has, his... Posted by Dylan's Duck Adventures on Friday, May 25, 2018

Mark and Jen Dyke said they would file a lawsuit if the township fails to grant a variance. A GoFundMe account has raised more than $5,000 to pay for the family's legal bills associated with the situation.

The Georgetown Township Zoning Board of Appeals meeting is set for 7:30 p.m. Aug. 22 at the township hall, 1515 Baldwin St.

While the family waits for the meeting, Dylan continues his daily routine that revolves around Nibbles and Bill on these summertime days.

"The ducks are just amazing," Dylan said. "Nibbles nibbles and Bill is beautiful and brilliant."
JACKSON, MI - As night turned to morning, John McCann mixed another batch of dough while his brothers Marty and Jim cut, weighed and kneaded the previous batch and then tossed it into waiting pans.

Soon John would start, using a long-handled peel, placing the breads in the European Bakery's famous, century-old, coal-fired oven.

The roles have changed some, but this has been their routine, working odd hours to make the beloved breads - and popular paczkis - that have stocked Jackson kitchens for 105 years.

They've spent their lives in the bakery at 622 Page Ave. and the three brothers, the third generation to own the business, are retiring Sept. 14, closing a Jackson institution and ending a tradition for many Polish families.

"It's probably time," said Jim McCann, whose shoulders are shot from the 35 years it was his job to load the oven, which he feeds about 50 shovels of coal a day.

He is 69, Marty is 65 and John turns 62 on Sept. 13, inspiring the closing date. The brothers will work one more day, a Friday, and take what employees say is a well-deserved rest.

"First, I'm going to sleep normal hours," John McCann said as he stood near a mixer Thursday, sometime between 11 p.m. and 1:30 a.m. Most days, he and his brothers work all night and leave before dawn.

Their children will not replace them. They've helped on holidays and during busy periods, namely the run-up to February's Paczki Day, when the bakery makes about 10,000 of its special jelly- or sweet-filled donuts.

But the younger McCanns have good jobs elsewhere, the brothers said, and the men don't really want their sons to live this life.

"They've seen the sacrifice it takes out of the family over the years," Jim McCann said.

Marty McCann said he isn't sure the next generation is suited for the work. "It's just too much commitment. I'm not saying the kids don't have commitment," he said.

"It's not like we've ever really gotten rich down here. I guess that's not what we really ever cared for."

They've been loyal, he said. "To each other and things, and to the family."

The men, helped by their sister and two other employees, have been toiling since they were kids, wrapping bread for a couple hours on Sundays before spending their earnings at what was Paka Plaza.

Marty and Jim left for a time but returned more than 40 years ago - Jim's wife would say the Polish mafia got him - and never really considered an alternative. "Dedication, I guess," Jim McCann said.

Whether they will sell is uncertain. There has been some interest, but the business is need of work. The reliability of the oven, so critical to production, is in question; it broke down for weeks in 2015, a situation so serious it almost moved the brothers to close then.

Jim McCann says the loaves' distinctiveness and flavor is less about the ingredients than it is about the unique oven, installed with 66,000 bricks for $4,500 in 1915.

Their grandfather Anthony Niesluchowski, an immigrant from Poland, opened the bakery in 1913. When he died in 1975, his daughters, Gertrude and Loretta and Loretta's husband Thomas McCann succeeded him.

The brothers officially took control of the business in about 2000.

In the decades since, little has changed inside its walls. The newest equipment is 20 or more years old. The wooden floors are spongy with wear.

The bakery started making English muffin bread about 20 years ago and whole wheat in the last 30 years, but the men largely make the same breads - black rye, dark rye and Vienna - the same way their grandfather did.

Theirs has been a constant presence in a much-altered neighborhood. It was once primarily home to Polish immigrants. Meat markets stood on corners, and residents went to work at now-closed factories, like Goodyear Tire and Clark Equipment. On Sundays, they prayed at one of several masses at St. Stanislaus church on S. Elm Avenue.

Beyond three nearby Polish organizations, little is left of the old community. The church is now a chapel. Family homes have been replaced by rental properties.

Business has changed too. It is down some - while bills, for coal and water, are up.

It is too convenient to buy everything in one place at the larger grocers, like Meijer. Fewer come after church on Sundays. Families are smaller. Customers have died.

In its heyday, the bakery made maybe 1,000 loaves of bread a night. On Thursday, they made about 500 or 600, to be sold on site and delivered to area stores and restaurants.

The bread is supplemented by donuts, pastries and rolls, some of which are displayed in glass cases inside their modest storefront with prices that haven't been adjusted in six years; the brothers strive to keep them low.

Jackie Samulak of Brooklyn, visiting the bakery since she was a child, stopped this week to buy loaves of bread, as her mother and grandmother did before her.

Her favorite sandwich is on rye with strawberry jelly and cream cheese, and she doesn't eat bread made anywhere else.

Thought of the shuttering brought her nearly to tears. "It's good for them they are closing," she said of the bakers. "It's really sad for the rest of us."

Ed and Diane Schweda usually come on Sundays, after mass, and made the bakery their first stop Thursday afternoon, when Ed Schweda, 78, left the hospital.

By then the bakery, seeing an uptick in sales as news of the closing spreads, were out of bread.

The Schwedas would return. They have been customers all their lives. Family children teethed on heels of rye.

Ed Schweda recalled the bakery truck driving through his neighborhood on Losey Avenue in the 1940s and 1950s. Its honking drew customers from their houses.

The brothers' father or grandfather would hand day-old cookies or donuts to children. "That was a treat, oh my God," Ed Schweda said.

His wife spoke of the specialty breads made at Christmas or Easter, Polish Babka and hot cross buns. She raved too about the "special" prune cookies.

It has been a good tradition at a time when not many traditions remain, she said. "Kept your heritage, your family."

They are among many loyal customers, from town and outside of it. One woman drove 45 minutes this week, just for the whole wheat bread. Jim McCann mentioned a man who has 10 loaves sent weekly to his home in Indiana despite the cost of shipping, more expensive than the goods.

"I think we provide good products to good people for a lot of years," Jim McCann said, simply stating his view of their legacy.

Hopefully, Marty McCann said, a lot of them were pleased.

The bakery survived as the heart of a dying neighborhood, Jim McCann's grandson wrote in an online essay titled "The importance of dough."

"The stories will live on long after."
MUSKEGON, MI -- A historic Native American burial ground was supposed to be the site of a new sculpture that is now being relocated after a tribe raised concerns.

A 16-foot black granite sculpture titled "All My Relations" created by Anishinaabe artist Jason Quigno was supposed to be put in the Old Indian Cemetery.

That was until about two weeks ago when members of the Grand River Bands of Ottawa Indians found out and were displeased with the decision.

Ron Yob, chairman of the tribe, and Joseph Genia, the cemetery caretaker, advocated for the statue to be placed in a different location.

"That cemetery in downtown Muskegon, to the Ottawa people is a sacred place. They've always considered it sacred grounds," Genia said. "A cemetery is more than just a chunk of land that you bury your relatives. To the Ottawa people, that's where their relatives are. It's a unique piece of land because it's in the middle of Muskegon and it's an Ottawa cemetery and it's existed there since the beginning of time."

The cemetery is on Morris Avenue in downtown Muskegon near First Street.

Acquisition and placement of the sculpture was a joint effort of The Community Foundation for Muskegon County, Muskegon Museum of Art, the Downtown Arts Committee and the City of Muskegon.

The groups were working with, and had the blessing of, the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, to put the sculpture in the Indian Cemetery, said Muskegon City Manager Frank Peterson.

As soon as the Grand River Bands' concerns were brought to the city of Muskegon's attention about two weeks ago, the project was put on pause, said City Manager Frank Peterson.

"It was our understanding that everyone had been notified and everybody was on board, and it was a welcomed investment," Peterson said.

After having discussions with the artist and the tribe, Peterson said they reached a consensus to find a new location for the sculpture.

Since construction had already begun when the project was paused, the city of Muskegon will soon have to take out the handicap accessible concrete and pedestal the sculpture was meant to sit on.

A main concern with having the sculpture placed in the historic Native American cemetery was having to dig into the ground. Peterson said they dug 5 feet underground and the soil looked untouched, as if it had never been dug into before.

"They had a number of people on-site whose goal and duties were to watch the burial, watch the digging and make sure that it was done in accordance with rules and regulations, and if anything was unearthed, that it was handled in course with the law," he said.

A new location for the sculpture is expected to be announced soon, said Judith Hayner, former director of the art museum who is involved with the project.

Peterson said he didn't have the exact amount, but estimated the construction for the sculpture to be installed as costing "a few thousand dollars." As for the cost to take it all out, Peterson said they haven't got that far yet, but it is coming out of the budget for the project.

The Old Indian Cemetery was deeded to the City of Muskegon in 1926 by Martin A. Ryerson, son of a sawmill owner who had owned the property. The site had been used by the Ottawa Indians since at least the 1750s, and was a burial ground for both Indians and settlers from 1806 to 1854, according to information from the Community Foundation about the sculpture controversy.

Some reports indicate there were as many as 200 burials on the site, and that some remains were later moved to Evergreen Cemetery, according to the Community Foundation.

"We have always been here, Genia said. "This piece of land is a power place where we can go and reconnect to the indigenous environment."

All My Relations is a contemporary sculpture that honors and represents the Teachings of the Seven Grandfathers: love, respect, honesty, bravery, truth, humility and wisdom.

The design features seven swirling circles on each of the four sides of a 12,000-pound black granite column, which reflect the connections of all ethnicities and cultures.
RABER, MI -- The family behind Bay County-based beverage distributor Fabiano Brothers has given 1,400 acres of forested property in Michigan's Upper Peninsula to the Little Traverse Conservancy.

It is the land-preservation organization's largest single property gift to date and will allow the public to use the land.

The Fabiano family, which has the largest beer wholesaler in Michigan, donated the Fabiano Family Working Forest Reserve in Chippewa County to the organization at the end of 2017.

The land lies adjacent to large shoreline parcels owned by the state of Michigan along Raber Bay, the St. Mary's River, and includes more than two miles of frontage on the Gogomain River and the entire frontage of the 55-acre Kirk Lake, according to a Little Traverse Conservancy news release.

It is now open to the public for non-motorized activities, such as hiking and birding, and also for hunting. There are no formal trails though, only old logging trails, said Anne Fleming, director of communications and marketing for Little Traverse Conservancy. A majority of the property is dense wetland and functions best as high quality wildlife habitat, she said.

The region is considered to have high quality deer habitat, and the bay is important for migratory bird species that follow the eastern Upper Peninsula coastline as they travel north and south to their seasonal destinations, according to the release.

Fabiano contracted with the Forestry Stewardship Program years ago to have the land selectively harvested in a way that would benefit both the land and the wildlife, the release states. Fabiano officials say they adhered to that plan and the land was selectively harvested without the use of clear-cutting.

Jim Gillingham, professor emeritus with Central Michigan University and former LTC trustee, helped evaluate the land. He and other faculty and students from CMU's Department of Biology visited the land over the past couple years. They were impressed by the forest diversity.

"The northern portions are primarily populated with upland and mixed pine forest. The center of the property is primarily lowland coniferous forest as it slopes toward a lake with surrounding wetlands. The southern third of the land grades from mixed deciduous forest into northern hardwoods," Gillingham said in a statement.

Gillingham said the land has the potential for relevant research and the southern portion of the property will lend itself to timber management.

"Finally, but no less important, as property that is now protected from development forever, it is a natural resource available for the public to enjoy long into the future," his statement continued.

The Fabianos acquired the land two decades ago, after James C. Fabiano Sr. read about the property for sale in The Wall Street Journal.

"When we purchased the land nearly 20 years ago, our original interest was to keep it intact and protected forever," Fabiano, executive chairman of Fabiano Brothers, said in a statement.

"There are not many parcels of this size available anymore. The previous owner had originally purchased it for deer hunting, but we are quite interested in protecting the environment and I knew it could be perfectly staged for the abundance of wild animals in that area," he said.

Fabiano said the plan was always to donate it. They decided to give it to LTC primarily because of the work the organization has done over the years.

Tom Bailey, executive director of Little Traverse Conservancy, called it a monumental gift.

"It combines the best of everything: a pristine lake and surrounding wetlands to remain untouched and some upland timber that can be sustainably managed to ensure continued good habitat for wildlife," he said in a statement.

"It's a complete picture of old school conservation and modern protection with great public benefit for wildlife, watersheds and recreation. We can never thank the Fabiano family enough for this magnificent gift to all generations to come."
The 45-minute launch window for NASA's Parker Solar Probe officially opened at 3:48 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 9 from Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida.

If the spacecraft is unable to launch with the Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy Rocket Saturday morning, NASA had already extended the full launch window through Aug. 23. In late July, the U.S. space agency reported that "humanity's first-ever mission to touch the sun" had passed final inspections in its clean room before heading to Cape Canaveral.

The Parker Solar Probe is roughly the size of a small car and is outfitted with a "cutting-edge heat shield" to help it travel into the sun's atmosphere where it will face "heat and radiation unlike any spacecraft in history."

NASA says the probe will come to within 4 million miles of the giant star's surface on its mission to provide new data regarding solar activity that could "help our ability to forecast major space-weather events that impact life on Earth."

 Set your alarm! We're launching Parker #SolarProbe early tomorrow, Aug. 10! Coverage starts at 3 a.m. EDT / 12 a.m. PDT at https://t.co/U8T7pZaI5r for the 3:33 a.m. ET launch. pic.twitter.com/Ss5bm7OaQd  NASA Sun & Space (@NASASun) August 10, 2018

To watch the launch either live or after the fact, head to NASA TV or its live-streaming YouTube channel which is embedded below:

--

The U.S. space agency routinely covers launches of this nature on its social media channels, as well. The Parker Solar Probe has its own Twitter account, much like other NASA spacecrafts and missions, and can be followed @NASASun.

During its final orbits, the Parker Solar Probe is expected to hit 430,000 mph which will make it the record-holder for fastest ever human-made object. NASA gladly points out that, that's fast enough to travel between Washington D.C. and Tokyo in less than a minute.

The probe is named for astrophysicist Eugene Parker, which represents the first time the space agency has named one of its spacecrafts for a living person.

Parker received his bachelor's degree in physics from Michigan State University before getting his doctorate at Caltech. The spacecraft's namesake studied and proposed concepts of how stars and our sun give off energy in what he called "the solar wind." He theorized an explanation of how the Sun's corona is hotter than the surface of the star itself, which is a theory NASA says it has continued to focus and study in what is known as heliophysics.
Debt-ridden Air India, which has has not paid salaries to its employees for the month of July, a said it is making "all efforts" to disburse them by the next week.

The salaries have been delayed due to the reasons beyond the airline's control, it said in a communication to its staff.

This is the fifth consecutive month that the national carrier has failed to pay salaries to its employees on time.

Generally, the airline disburses salaries by the 30th or the 31st of every month.There were delay in payments in March, April, May and June as well.

"We regret to inform the delay in payment of salaries for the month of July due to circumstances beyond the control of the management," Air India general manager for human resources said in the notice to staff, adding, "However, all efforts are being made to make the payments by next week."

Air India has more than 11,000 permanent staff.

The national carrier, which is facing acute financial crunch, is set to get an additional funding of Rs 980 crore from the government.

On July 26, minister of state for civil aviation Jayant Sinha told the Lok Sabha that there was a short delay in the payment of salaries for May and that the same was paid subsequently.

"Salaries have been paid to all employees, including the salary for the month of June, which was paid on July 2," the minister had said.

At the end of March 2017, the national carrier had a debt burden of more than Rs 48,000 crore.

Under its turnaround plan and financial restructuring plan approved by the government in April 2012, Air India is to receive a budgetary support of Rs 30,231 crore over a 10-year period ending March 2021.

"Air India has received an equity infusion of Rs 27,195.21 crore till date," Sinha told the Lok Sabha last month.

In the current fiscal year, the state-owned airline has received an equity infusion of Rs 650 crore till June.

Meanwhile, two of its unions - Indian Commercial Pilots Association (ICPA) and Indian Aircraft Technicians Association (IATA) - today wrote to the airline chairman and managing director, Pradeep Singh Kharola, raising the issue of salary delay, saying that it does not augurs well for the organisation.

"It is disheartening to note that the salary has yet again been delayed for the fifth consecutive month. Financial uncertainty is a source of frustration, anxiety and stress which results in undue fatigue, adversely impacting flight safety and the overall performance levels of employees," the ICPA said in its letter.

It alleged that the crisis which the airline is facing has been attributed to employees, market conditions and government policies, among others, while, "The genesis of these problems are poor management and poor functioning of the airline."

It further said that "until salaries and all emoluments are paid on time, the ICPA has decided to operate flights under protest due to harassment on account of unpaid dues and serious concerns of flight safety".

In its letter, the IATA said that the delay in wages for the past few months has been creating "unrest" among the employees, adding, "We request you (Kharola) to take immediate steps to address employees concerns."
Rank 3 | Amazon | E-commerce company (Image: Amazon)

E-commerce major Amazon India signed an MoU with the Uttar Pradesh government to support MSME entrepreneurs across nine districts as a part of the state's One District One Product (ODOP) scheme.

Amazon India through its Kala Haat programme will help traditional industries, synonymous with respective districts of the state, leverage e-commerce to scale and access the Indian market, the company said in a press release here.

Under the programme, a wide range of benefits will be offered to 300 MSME sellers registered under UP government's ODOP scheme.

The Memorandum of Understanding was signed at the ODOP Summit here in the presence of President Ram Nath Kovind.

Amazon will provide these entrepreneurs training, account management guidance, marketing tools and world-class infrastructure of storage and delivery network to aid their progress through online selling.

From Banarasi silk saris to carpets from Bhadohi and Lucknawi Chikankari to leather goods from Kanpur, and leather footwear from Agra and locks from Aligarh and brassware from Moradabad, all these items will get access to a much broader customer base through the Amazon.in marketplace.

Sports goods from Meerut and wooden products from Saharanpur will also be available for online buyers, the release said.

Through its Kala Haat Programme Amazon.in has been introducing lakhs of weavers, artisans and crafts people across various clusters in India to digital commerce, Director & GM, Seller Services, Amazon India Gopal Pillai said.
IPO

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The rise in demand for capital within the insurance industry, especially life insurance, has led to a flurry of initial public offerings (IPOs) in the Indian market. After five insurance IPOs in FY18, there are two more in the offing.

Around Rs 65,000 crore of capital is currently deployed in the insurance sector. Of this, about Rs 38,000 crore is deployed in life insurance while the rest of the capital is deployed in general insurance.

The actual need? At least Rs 1 lakh crore.

There was an expectation that the passage of the Insurance Laws (Amendment) Act in 2015 would lead to an inflow of Rs 35,000 crore into the industry once foreign direct investment (FDI) in the sector would be increased to 49 percent from 26 percent. However, instead of capital coming to the industry, most of the FDI hike proved to be an exchange of funds between the shareholders of the companies.

The pain-point was the Indian management control provision added in the Insurance Act that said that even if a foreign partner held 49 percent stake, they would still have to get a nod from Indian shareholders for all strategic decisions.

Several insurance companies, including ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, SBI Life Insurance, ICICI Lombard General Insurance, HDFC Life Insurance, New India Assurance and General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC Re), are already listed on the exchanges.

PNB MetLife Insurance has filed its draft papers with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for an IPO. Similarly, SBI General Insurance is likely to be listed on the stock markets in FY20.

The government, on the other hand, is trying to divest its stake in state-owned general insurance companies through a merger and a subsequent listing. While the process has been postponed to FY20 for now, their idea is to unlock some capital through this process.

Promoters of insurance companies, especially banks, have been on the lookout to sell stake in non-core assets. Banks, like SBI, Allahabad Bank, Punjab National Bank, among several others, have been looking to reduce their stakes in some of the insurance joint ventures. An IPO is the next logical process to unlock real capital, if the insurer has a strong set of financials.

When the insurance sector was privatised in 2000, the idea of the insurance regulator was to begin listing all eligible candidates from 2010 onwards. After stiff opposition from the industry for an IRDAI proposal to make listing mandatory, insurers are taking a lead feeling the heat on the capital front.
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The banking sector suffered two jolts on Friday. One, Indias largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) made an unexpected net loss of Rs 4,876 crore in the April to June quarter. It was the government banks third consecutive quarterly loss.

The announcement came around 2.15 pm on Friday and spooked the market crippling all bank stocks, with public sector banks index falling 3.8 percent.

Union Bank of India showed a turnaround in Q1 FY19 and reported a net profit to Rs 130 crore.

The bigger news, which was also the second jolt, came in a few hours later while Union Banks chief was addressing his post-result press conference. Media persons started getting incessant beeps and messages on their phones. The news was about HDFC Bank Deputy Managing Director Paresh Sukthankars resignation after 24 years.

A veteran in HDFC Bank, Sukthankar (aged 55) was touted to be the natural successor to Aditya Puri, taking the baton from him as the banks next CEO and Managing Director after Puris retirement in 2020.

At an analyst meeting in May, Puri laid down a roadmap for the upcoming succession planning and management transition at the bank. The depth of leadership at the bank will ensure that the handover is smooth, Puri had said, leading many to believe that Sukthankar would be a candidate for the top post. Puri had mentioned that the bank will look at internal or external talent and an announcement will be made in next 18 months.

Some speculate that Sukthankar could be joining rival Axis Bank, whose CEO and MD Shikha Sharma will step down in December. This coincides with Sukthankars resignation, which will be effective 90 days from August 10.

Deepak Parekh, Chairman of parent company HDFC, said Sukthankar was one of the contenders but he has cited personal reasons for leaving the bank. Parekh indicated he may not be joining competition.

Like Puri, Sukthankar has been a former Citibanker and been with HDFC Bank since its inception in 1994. He handled all roles in the bank: human resources, investor relations, risk management and various strategic initiatives.

Sukthankar has done an advanced management programme from the esteemed Harvard Business School.

Prior to that, he graduated as a Bachelor of Commerce from Mumbais Sydenham College and did his post-graduation from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute of Management Studies. He turned down an offer from Hindustan Lever (now Hindustan Unilever) to join Citibank. He stayed there for nine years before joining HDFC Bank.

In March last year, Sukthankar was promoted as Deputy MD from Executive Director.

A confident Sukthankar is known to be calm and composed as he co-piloted the second largest private bank, which is also the most valued bank in India and even globally.

He has a reputation for being conservative and risk averse. At a time when the entire banking sector has been reeling under heavy bad loans, HDFC Bank has largely remained insulated from it. The banks enviable loan and asset quality is a testimony to the strategy the bank has put in place under Sukthankar and Puri.

Sukthankar has also been a member of various Committees formed by Reserve Bank of India and Indian Banks' Association.

The outgoing HDFC Bank deputy is the son of former Maharashtra bureaucrat DM Sukthankar, who was the states Chief Secretary. Sukthankar has remained largely out of public scrutiny and is known to be a down-to-earth family man.

A staunch Hanuman devotee, he has a passion for Hindustani music. When not working over the weekend, the banker loves to play the tabla, which he started learning in his early childhood.

In an interview once, Sukthankar said, It is important for us to balance growth with stable margin and asset quality. But we need to do this with discipline, as execution is a challenge.

This challenge is probably overcome with the discipline that may have come from years of playing the tabla. It remains to be seen what he would pursue next.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay which recently received the 'Institute of Eminence' (IoE) tag has potential to become Mumbai's centre of excellence, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Speaking at IIT Bombay's 56th convocation ceremony, Modi said the institute should engage with school students through outreach programmes so that the passion for science, technology, and research is instilled into young minds from a tender age itself.

"We have about 700,000 students graduating out of engineering institutes. But not all of them are equipped with the skills for solving real problems. The idea is to have quality education and institutes like IIT Bombay can help bring that change," he added.

As part of the IoE tag, IIT Bombay will receive funds of Rs 1,000 crore over the next five years for the purpose of research, development and infrastructure improvement.

Recognising the fact that the IITs across the country have been an incubation centre for upcoming startups, PM Modi said several unicorns of the startup space have taken birth at campuses like IIT Bombay.

The government, said Modi, is looking to nurture upcoming projects by youngsters on areas like clean energy, waste management, and climate change. "Ideas to solve real-world problems like clean energy or climate change don't come from government offices, but from campuses like this," he added.

A total of 2,621 degrees were awarded this year, including 380 PhD degrees.

At the event, Romesh T Wadhwani, Founder, Chairman, and CEO of Symphony Technology Group was awarded the Doctor of Science (honorary degree) for his efforts at creating social impact through the innovative use of technology.
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Godrej Aerospace, a business unit of Godrej & Boyce, has signed an agreement with British company GKN Aerospace, which is leading multi-technology tier 1 aerospace suppliers, to manufacture specialised helicopter fuel tanks.

Godrej will be setting up a cutting-edge manufacturing facility to produce these specialised fuel tanks in partnership with the British company.

With this Godrej is expanding its footprint in the non-metallic category of the aerospace industry.

"We are certain that this partnership will establish Godrej Aerospace as one of the key players in the market," the company said in a statement. Voltas reports flat net at Rs 187 cr

Air conditioning and engineering services provider Voltas today reported a marginal decline in consolidated net profit for the June 30 quarter at Rs 187 crore against Rs 188 crore a year ago.

Its total income increased 9 percent to Rs 2134 crore, the company said in a statement issued here. Despite stiff competition, market share improved to 23.5 per cent during the quarter.

However, the segment revenue declined to Rs 1191 crore from Rs 1,212 crore mainly due to uncertain weather, unseasonal rains and lower customer offtake.

Its electro-mechanical projects and services segment reported revenue of Rs 866 crore compared to Rs 661 crore. Its current order book stands at Rs 4623 crore while engineering products and services business revenue declined to Rs 77 crore from Rs 90 crore. MMRDA to make 52 metro stations along 3 corridors green

The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority will be developing all 52 elevated metro stations on the Dahisar-DN Nagar Metro-2A, DN Nagar to Mandale Metro-2B and Andheri (East) to Dahisar (East) metro-7 corridors under the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) Green MRTS rating.

Under this, all the 52 stations on the three metro corridors will receive green certification on completion, which will be issued by the IGBC in association with CII.

The green initiatives include using 100 per cent LED base smart lighting, developing green car depot with use of solar energy, water harvesting and using green technology in rolling stock, among others. Indostar Capital net plunges 38%

Mid-size NBFC Indostar Capital Finance today reported a steep 38 percent decline in net income at Rs 31.5 crore for the June quarter from Rs 51 cr0re a year ago.

Its AUM rose 54 per cent to Rs 7,640.2 crore on strong disbursements, the company said, adding its income rose 31 per cent to Rs 141.6 crore.

While corporate loan book rose more than three times to Rs 1,534.9 crore, retail book jumped over two times to Rs 725.7 crore and vehicle financing run rate touched Rs 110 crore a month. .
Praveg Communications (India) Ltd.

A unit of India's Hetero Drugs is recalling some batches of the blood pressure and heart medicine valsartan in the United States, a notice on the U.S. regulator's website said, amid a wider probe into cancer risks associated with the drug.

At least a dozen companies around the world have pulled specific batches of valsartan from the market since early July, when regulators said valsartan made by the Chinese supplier Zhejiang Huahai Pharmaceuticals had been found to contain a probable human carcinogen, N-nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA).

The notice from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said Hetero was found to be using a similar manufacturing process to China's Zhejiang Huahai for valsartan.

Test results from Hetero Labs show the amount of NDMA found in its valsartan active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) exceeds acceptable levels; although it is generally lower than the amount discovered in the API manufactured by Zhejiang, the FDA said.

Hetero declined to comment, a spokesman in India said.

The company, among India's top 15 drug makers and one of the world's largest suppliers of HIV/AIDS drugs, sells valsartan in the United States through its unit Camber Pharmaceuticals, which is recalling the drug as a precautionary measure, the FDA notice said.

It added that Camber had not received any reports of adverse events related to the drug. Calls to New Jersey-based Camber went unanswered on Saturday, outside of regular working hours.

INDIA IMPORTS

Valsartan was originally developed by the Swiss firm Novartis and sold under the name Diovan, but it is now off patent and is used in several generic medicines made by companies around the world. Hetero's website says the company has more than 30 manufacturing plants around the world.

India has temporarily suspended imports of medicines from China that contain valsartan, K. Bangarurajan, a joint drugs controller at India's main drug authority, the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization, said on Saturday. Imports from elsewhere continue, he said.

"Not all imports have been blocked," he said, adding that the action was taken after FDA posted a notice about cancer links to valsartan last month.

European regulators said on Friday that a second Chinese contract manufacturer, Zhejiang Tianyu, had produced valsartan with the cancer-causing chemical.

NDMA is classified as a probable human carcinogen. Based on results from laboratory tests, it may cause cancer with long-term use.

China and India supply more than two-thirds of all active drug ingredients used in medicines, industry experts estimate.
The other IPO which also received huge responses were Happiest Minds Technologies and Chemcon Speciality Chemicals, which was subscribed 150.98 times and 149.3 times respectively. Interestingly, both these stocks have seen bumper listing gained over 100 percent. Let's see how the IPO subscription and listing happened in 2020 so far, considered only IPOs issue size over Rs 100 crore.

IT solutions firm Nihilent has filed its draft papers with market regulator Sebi to raise funds through an initial share sale.

The initial public offer (IPO) comprises fresh issuance of shares worth up to Rs 250 crore, besides an offer of sale OF around 21,25,599 equity stocks by promoter group entity Vastu IT Private Limited, according to the draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) filed with Sebi.

The funds garnered through the issue would be utilised for replacement and upgradation activities to fund inorganic growth and for setting up of a user experience laboratory as well as a media laboratory among others.

Motilal Oswal Investment Advisors will manage the the company's IPO. The equity shares will be listed on BSE and the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

Nihilent is a Pune-based consulting and information technology (IT) solutions integration firm.
From a person who managed to lay hands on his first pair of slippers when he reached the 10th grade to be one of the largest individual option sellers in the country is an inspiring journey. The fact that the person was a teacher for the most part of his life makes one wonder about the hidden potential of this individual.

PR Sundar, a math teacher, learned about options from the most basic source - the stock exchange booklet - that every dealer working in a brokers office reads. He still maintains that the book is his primary source of knowledge. While the source of information was the same, the knowledge that Sundar could extract from that source was much higher than what most are capable of.

Born in a poor family, Sundar, a post graduate in mathematics, took to teaching as there were few job opportunities back then. A teaching assignment in Singapore helped him save capital to think about returning back to India and starting a business. A strange happenstance brought Sundar to the market and he has never looked back.

A successful trader who earned his spurs in the options market, Sundar continues to teach, only this time the subject has changed to options. But like every good teacher he is more interested in clearing the cobwebs and imparting knowledge, which can remain lifelong, than spoon-feeding strategies.

Edited excerpts from his interview with Moneycontrol, where he speaks about his journey and what it takes to be an option seller.

A: After my post-graduation in mathematics from Chennai, I bagged a job as a maths teacher in a school in Gujarat as there were few jobs in south India then. Among the many good things that Gujarat has to offer, one is the interest in share markets and investing, which stuck with me. Since markets are about numbers, I was naturally attracted towards it.

I received an opportunity to work as a maths teacher in Singapore and moved there in 1993. After a 12 year stint in Singapore, I returned back to India with some capital to start a business. I was looking out for an alternate career other than teaching.

By a fortunate coincidence a relative, who was a sub-broker asked me to appear for the NSE Academy Certification in Financial Management (NCFM) exam so that he could use the certificate to operate his terminal. It was while studying for this exam that I really got interested in options.

What also made me opt for trading was that everyone used to say that 95 percent of all traders lose money. This was a big opportunity to me as few other businesses offer such a skewed playing field. All one needed to know was what the other 5 percent was doing and follow it religiously.

But like most others, my entry into the market was through the cash market. I found the cash market offered very low trading returns, so I moved to the futures market. The problem here was that the risk was high. I wanted an instrument where the risk was low and the reward high. Options offered me the perfect playground.

The good thing about options was that it gave one the option to choose the perfect mix between risk and reward according to ones liking. Option selling is like sitting in front of a bonfire. If you are too close, you can get burnt. If you are sitting too far, then you will not enjoy the warmth. You need to sit at the right distance from the fire.

Similarly, in options, if you are trading a strike price which is too far away from the current price, the reward will be low as will the risk. If you are trading close to the market price, then the risk will be higher. It is this flexibility that options offer and the probability of success is what attracted me to them.

A: I have been an option seller from the beginning. Option selling is like running an insurance company. An insurance company sells protection to many people, but only in a few cases does it have to pay claims as fewer people die. It provides for a catastrophe by taking a re-insurance cover. I buy an option only in case the strategy needs to be insured or what in market parlance is known as hedged.

Coincidentally, my journey in options started with some important market reforms. Prior to 2007, it was very costly to sell options. Brokerages were high and Security Transaction Tax (STT) was calculated on the entire contract amount. Only when the STT calculation was based on premium value and brokerage cost was reduced with the advent of online brokerages did option selling become remunerative.

I write options aggressively even if they are priced at Rs 1 and make Rs 4-5 lakh a week. This opportunity was not there in 2007-08 as the cost of doing business was high.

A: The only book I read in options was that provided by the National Stock Exchange to clear NCFM. I have a clear idea of what the option Greeks stand for, but I rarely use it in my decision making. The market price of the option determines the Greeks value and not the other way round.

A: In order to be successful trader you need two things: edge and hedge. Edge is your market view and hedge comes into play when your edge is not working out. I am a jack of all and master of none. I look at everything, technical charts and all kind of data before taking a view on the market.

Based on these inputs, I take a view on the market and my position. At most times, the view goes wrong and thats where hedging comes into play.

A: In trading as well as in any business or profession what is needed to succeed is logical thinking. Being a student and teacher of math, logical thinking comes with the job. In trading, education has little role. Even a highly educated person fails to be a trader, while a barely educated person can be very successful.A: I mainly trade in index options. Around 95 percent of my trades are in the Nifty and Bank Nifty. I start out by looking at all data points pertaining to the market like institution flows, call-put data and open interest. I then form a view after glancing at the charts. It is only after that do I decide on the strategy to choose.

I normally take low-risk trades, so I like to opt for a short strangle, iron condor, short straddle or butterfly strategy. My success is not based on my view or strategy, it is how I manage the trade even when the view is wrong. Everyone has the knowhow of risk management strategies, but not everybody is successful. What separates us is the way in which I handle the trade, especially a losing position.

I divide our trade into 5-6 components and invest in 5-6 strategies. Around 60 percent of my capital is deployed this way and the remaining 40 percent is for fire-fighting.

In Nifty alone, I may have multiple strategies at play at any time. Apart from the strategies, I also trade various expiry contracts. I may have a Nifty position in the current month, next month, far month, six months contract and even a one-year contract. In the case of Bank Nifty, it will be weekly and then monthly contracts.

Each expiry contract will be taken to capitalise the opportunity at that particular time series. The longer-term contract like the yearly or six-month contract do not need too much management, its the smaller period where we manage very aggressively.

A: There are four ways in which one can manage a position.

First, if we have a short straddle trade and the market has moved violently against my position after a few days of initiating the trade, then the chances are that I may be in profit on account of time decay. I can simply square of this trade and build a new position. But if the volatility has increased in a very short time, then one can adjust the trade by shifting the contract around where the market is trading.

The second way is to average the position by adding a new position around the market price. The third way is to add a futures position in line with the market direction. The fourth way is to exit by taking a loss.

In my case, most of the time the trade management and hedging works. Only occasionally do I get a trade like a black swan event which hits me badly. Like the November 8, demonetisation trade, where the market opened with a big gap down and started recovering immediately. Our assumption was that it would keep on going lower. Such days give us a loss which takes away 2-3 months of profits, but we are okay with it and factor in such days in our trading. Such trades are rare but one needs to be mentally prepared for it.

A: I do trade intra-day, but on every Thursday, which is the expiry day for Bank Nifty contracts, I trade very aggressively. On a good day, I end up trading one lakh lots. Every Thursday, I trade in the Bank Nifty and on the last Thursday of the month, I trade in both the Bank Nifty as well as Nifty.

At the start of the day, I study the market and start deploying money. At the start, I deploy around 10 percent of the pre-decided limit and then progressively keep on adding to that position. Based on the ground condition, I keep on adjusting my trade. I keep on hedging or shifting my position based on the markets movement.

I deploy all my capital by 2:00 pm. By 2:30-2:45 pm, I either book a profit/loss or keep a stop-loss on trades. This is because between 3 and 3:30 pm on expiry day there is a lot of volatility.

A: I use profits from the trade to buy shares in frontline index-based stocks. Occasionally, the price movement between shares and options offers a good trading opportunity. Also, frontline stocks can be used as limit with the broker. At the same time, one can enjoy the benefit of price rise and dividends.

There are, however, opportunities in other stock options also. Recently, I purchased Rural Electrification Corporation, which was trading over Rs 90 per share and pays a dividend of around Rs 10 per year. I bought the share with the assumption that even if I earn one percent by selling call options per month, I would end up earning nearly 20 percent on the position. This return does not take into account the share price appreciation in REC.

A: That depends on how you define returns. I do not bring in capital. Around 90 percent of my capital is invested in mutual funds and 10 percent in index constituents. These investments continue to earn and would continue to do so even if they were not used as margin collateral. I use these investments as margin to trade options. Thus, one way of looking at it is that the return is infinity even if it is small as there is no real money involved. But if I were to use a constant base, my annual returns are over 50 percent.

A: My main aim through these classes is to create awareness of option selling and remove the myth surrounding option selling. The general talk is that option selling has unlimited risk, but if a trader is buying a future contract at Rs 100 he has that much risk, but a put option seller with a strike price of Rs 80 has lower risk.

The option buyer is said to operate with limited risk and an opportunity to gain unlimited reward. But no one talks of the probability of winning as an option buyer. Option seller, on the other hand, is operating with a very high probability of winning.

While an option buyer has to bring in capital to buy, an option seller can use collateral and need not bring in funds. Further, the seller has the flexibility of hedge his position using the same collateral, but the buyer will have to bring in additional capital.

But option selling is not for a small investor, it requires capital. Anyone can gamble, but few can run a casino. Moreover, it is the casino that always has the slight edge.

I teach traders how option selling can be a good business, provided it is managed like a business. It is the management of trade that I focus on. I try to drill in the fact that having a view is fine but one needs to be prepared for any eventuality, just as one does in any business.
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Another historic week for Indian markets, but stock specific action grabbed the limelight. The S&P BSE Sensex climbed Mount 38K to hit a fresh record high of 38,076.23 while the Nifty50 came under the striking distance of 11,500 and hit a lifetime high of 11,495.20.

Traders preferred to book profits ahead of the holiday-shortened week but the S&P BSE Sensex closed with gains of 0.8 percent while Nifty 50 ended 0.6 percent higher for the week ended 10 August. There was a lot of stock specific action in the small, mid and largecaps which kept traders busy.

Here is the list of 10 stocks which moved most in the last week:

Merck | up 24 percent

The company came out with its June quarter (Q1FY19) earning on August 7. The company posted 140 percent jump in Q1 net profit at Rs 48.3 crore on the back of robust operating income.

Revenue rose 33.3 percent at Rs 220.3 crore against Rs 165.3 crore.

The Competition Commission has approved Procter & Gamble's acquisition of 51.80 percent stake in the company for nearly Rs 1,290 crore.

The stake acquisition will be through Procter & Gamble Overseas India BV, an investment holding company held ultimately by P&G.

Reliance Communications | up 24 percent

Reliance Communications (RCom) said on Monday it had received approval from the Supreme Court to proceed with the sale of its wireless assets to Reliance Jio after it agreed to pay 5.5 billion rupees (USD 80.06 million) to settle dues with Swedish telecom gear maker Ericsson.

In May, India's bankruptcy court admitted a plea by Ericsson seeking insolvency resolution against RCom over unpaid service dues, potentially derailing the company's 250 billion rupee plan to sell assets to Reliance Jio.

Ericsson had signed a seven-year deal in 2014 to operate and manage RCom's nationwide telecom network and sought 11.55 billion rupees ($171.16 million) from the company and two of its subsidiaries.

Intellect Design Arena | up 20 percent

The company has signed a significant multimillion-dollar deal with leading bank in Asia market with a strong foothold in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and China to implement world's first Integrated Trade Finance and Supply Chain Finance (SCF) platform.

Selan Exploration Technology | up 25 percent

The investor Dolly Khanna has increased her stake in the company with the purchase of 104,250 shares at Rs 244.03 on NSE. The purchase is worth Rs 2.54 crore.

The company has posted 91 percent jump in its Q1FY19 net profit at Rs 14.3 crore against Rs 7.5 crore in the Q4FY18. Revenue rose 15.5 percent at Rs 26.9 crore against Rs 23.3 crore.

ICICI Bank | up 7 percent

The bank has clarified that it has made full disclosures about its bad loans and non-performing assets (NPAs) in its annual report, investor presentations and analysts calls.

"The bank's accounts are audited by reputed statutory auditors whose audit report and audit opinion form part of the bank's annual report, company said in BSE filing.

"The bank classifies loans as non-performing (sub-standard/ doubtful/ loss) and makes provisions for them as per RBI guidelines. Write-offs are generally made out of existing provisions against existing NPAs. The write-offs do not impact loan classification, additions to NPAs, the profit & loss account or the net NPA ratio of the bank," it further said.

Vinati Organics | Up 27 percent

The company has reported 24 percent jump in its Q1FY19 (April-June) net profit at Rs 64.3 crore against Rs 51.9 crore, in a year ago period.

Revenue of the company up 24.5 percent at Rs 264.7 crore against Rs 212.6 crore.

Operating profit or EBITDA rose 41.3 percent at Rs 91.8 crore, while the margin was at 34.7 percent.

Vindhya Telelinks | Up 21 percent

The company posted robust numbers in the quarter ended June 2018. Its Q1 net profit jumped 78.6 percent to Rs 33.3 crore versus Rs 18.6 crore in the same quarter last fiscal.

Revenue was up 37.7 percent at Rs 404.7 crore against Rs 293.8 crore.

Earnings Before Interest, Taxes, Depreciation, and Amortization (EBITDA) rose 71 percent at Rs 67.2 crore, while the margin was at 16.6 percent.

Jet Airways | down 10 percent

The board of directors of the company, at its meeting held on August 9, deferred the matter of consideration of the unaudited financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2018.

The audit committee did not recommend the said financial results to the board for its approval, pending closure of certain matters.

Skipper | Down 20 percent

The share price declined more than 20 percent in last week as the company has reported weak numbers in the quarter ended June 2018.

The company's net profit declined 72 percent at Rs 4.5 crore against Rs 16 crore. Meanwhile, revenue was up 20 percent at Rs 478.7 crore versus Rs 398.8 crore.

Manali Petrochemicals | Down 18 percent

Manali Petrochemicals has reported 40 percent fall in its Q1 net profit at Rs 15.95 crore against Rs 26.63 crore in a year ago period.

Revenue of the company fell 6 percent to Rs 177.17 crore against Rs 189.93 crore.
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Another historic week for Indian markets, but stock-specific action grabbed the limelight. The S&P BSE Sensex climbed mount 38K to hit a fresh record high of 38,076.23 while the Nifty50 came under the striking distance of 11,500 and hit a life-time high of 11,495.20.

Traders preferred to book profits ahead of the holiday-shortened week but the S&P BSE Sensex closed with gains of 0.8 percent, while Nifty50 ended 0.6 percent higher for the week ended August 10. There was a lot of stock-specific action in the small & midcaps, which kept traders busy.

Even though the S&P BSE Small-cap index closed flat with slight negative bias but as many as 46 stocks gave 10-40 percent returns in a week which include names like MBL Infra (up 38%), Ok Play India (up 34%), Vinati Organics (up 27%), Reliance Naval (up 27%), and Kwality (up 27%), among others.

Most of these smallcaps were beaten down in the first six months of 2018 and it seems momentum might be returning, but analysts still advise investors to maintain a cautious approach while putting fresh money into smallcaps.

Most of small and mid-cap stocks were beaten down by a large quantum. Thats why price move in short time has given such returns. But, if you look at 3-6 months period, stocks will still look at prices way lower than earlier, Pritam Deuskar, Fund Manager, Bonanza Portfolio told Moneycontrol.

We feel people will get a decent chance in price recovery but froth and momentum stocks may not recover earlier levels. One can wait for the index correction of 3-4%. If mid or smallcaps do not correct by large quantum, one can buy with staggered manner. Large midcaps are preferred choice and do not overpay the price, he said.

In the S&P BSE 500 index, as many as 12 stocks have given 10-30 percent return which include names like Vinati Organics (up 27%), Reliance Naval (up 27%), Kwality (up 27.39%), Reliance Communications (up 24%), Indiabulls Ventures (up 14%), VST Industries (up 11.5%), and Welspun India (up 10%).

Indian market gained momentum despite escalating tensions between the US and China and as trade war fears escalate to other countries as well.

President Donald Trump said on Friday he is green-lighting a doubling of steel and aluminum tariffs on Turkey and warned that relations between the US and Turkey "are not good at this time" which resulted in 18 percent drop in the Turkish Lira at one point, the biggest one-day fall since 2001 financial crisis.

Apart from global cues, investors would also watch out for key macro data (WPI & CPI) as well as corporate earnings which are scheduled next week.

With headline index trading at record highs, some consolidation cannot be ruled out. We expect stock-specific volatility to continue with more corporate earnings scheduled in the next 1-2 weeks, Jayant Manglik, President, Religare Broking Ltd told Moneycontrol.

Further, market participants would keep an eye on global developments, especially the US-China trade war, progress of monsoon, currency and crude oil price movement, he said.

Analysts see some consolidation in this week which could take the index towards its key support levels of 11,410 while on the upside, resistance is placed at 11,495-11,640 levels.

On the technical front, the index, on Thursday, faced resistance near 11,500 mark and the selling pressure continued on Friday as well. Consequently, the Nifty is falling towards the junction of 40-hour exponential moving average & hourly lower Bollinger Band, where a rising trendline is also nearby.

11,410-11400 shall be the immediate support zone to watch out for. Though the overall trend continues to be positive, the index can get into a consolidation mode before stretching higher, Gaurav Ratnaparkhi, Senior Technical Analyst, Sharekhan by BNP Paribas told Moneycontrol.

The setup looks apt to take the profit off the table & be on the sideline. One can wait for a fresh opportunity to emerge to take a fresh entry on the long side for a target of 11,640, he said.
Ports and shipping

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The viability of the strategic Chabahar Port in Iran as a route for trade and commerce was highlighted by India and Afghanistan, citing the role it played in the timely delivery of goods from India in the drought-hit areas of Afghanistan this year. The Chabahar Port, inaugurated in December last year, has opened a new strategic transit route between India, Iran and Afghanistan that bypassed Pakistan.

During the second meeting of India-Afghanistan Joint Working Group on Development Cooperation (JWG-DC) in Kabul yesterday, officials from the two countries underscored the importance of access through Chabahar Port for strengthening trade and economic relations.

The Afghan side highly appreciated India's timely assistance of 170,000 tonnes of wheat and 2,000 tonnes of pulses this year when large parts of the country are suffering from drought, a press release from the Ministry of External Affairs said.

Both sides expressed satisfaction that these largescale deliveries were made from India to Afghanistan via Chabahar, highlighting the viability of the Port as a route for trade and commerce.

While India and Iran are signatories to the Chabahar Port development project, a second agreement on connectivity was also signed by India, Iran and Afghanistan.

This pact allows Afghanistan to use thr Port to ship its goods to markets like India, thereby reducing its dependence on Pakistan and its Karachi port.

During the JWG-DC meeting, India and Afghanistan discussed several ongoing development projects spread over varied areas of cooperation such as capacity building, infrastructure, education, healthcare, good-governance and human resource development.

The JWG-DC is one of the four Joint Working Groups formed under the India-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Council, which is headed by the External Affairs Minister of India and the Foreign Minister of Afghanistan.

The Strategic Partnership Council is mandated for the overall management of the strategic relationship between India and Afghanistan.

The two sides also expressed satisfaction over the successful completion of several development projects such as the Afghan Parliament building, Afghan-India Friendship Dam, the first phase of Chabahar Port and others.
It was the last day of the Monsoon Session of the Parliament, but the Triple Talaq Bill will have to hibernate until the winter session to clear its last hurdle. Last year, on the August 22, the Supreme Court, by a 3-2 majority, declared the practice unconstitutional.

Subsequently, the Triple Talaq Bill (officially called the Muslim Women Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill 2017, which makes instant triple talaq a criminal offence was introduced, and the Centre had hoped that it would be passed on the last day of the monsoon session. On our Story of the Day, we take a closer look at the Bill and triple talaq itself.

The latest from the last day of the session:

The monsoon session of the parliament was certainly more productive than the budget session. It ended after passing 21 laws, including one to amend SC/ST Act and another relating to the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill. The session saw a no confidence motion against the government brought by the opposition which was defeated but not before Rahul Gandhi won a few hearts with a hug and a wink. What it did not see was the Triple Talaq Bill being passed.



The first change allows only a woman, or a close relative, to file a police case against her husband for instant triple talaq. "This would settle fears that even a neighbour can file FIR as is the cases in any cognisable offence. This would check misuse," Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union Law Minister, said.

The second amendment allows her to drop the case if the husband comes around later and they arrive at a compromise.

A third amendment mandates that the magistrate can decide on releasing the husband on bail only after hearing the wife. The magistrate would ensure that bail is granted only after the husband agrees to grant compensation to the wife as provided in the bill. The quantum of compensation will be decided by the magistrate, as per the bill.



On Thursday, the Cabinet made three amendments to the triple talaq law. While the proposed law will remain "non-bailable'' offence, the accused can approach a magistrate even before the trial to seek bail. Under a non-bailable offence, bail cannot be granted by police at the police station. The three changes introduced are as follows:

The changes made by the Cabinet make the offence of triple talaq compoundable. Under a compoundable offence, both parties have the liberty of withdrawing the case. However, the jail term for a Muslim man who resorts to triple talaq remains three years and only a magistrate, and not a local police officer, can release the accused on bail.

A woman can also seek the custody of her minor children from the magistrate who will take a final call on the issue.

What is triple talaq?

First, what is Triple Talaq? Triple Talaq, also known as talaq-e-biddat, instant divorce and talaq-e-mughallazah (irrevocable divorce), is a form of Islamic divorce which has been used by Muslims in India, especially adherents of Hanafi Sunni Islamic schools of jurisprudence. It allows any Muslim man to legally divorce his wife by stating the word talaq (the Arabic word for "divorce") three times in oral, written, or more recently, electronic form.

Under this practice, the man does not need to cite any cause for the divorce and the wife need not have been present at the time of pronouncement.

After a period of iddat, during which it is ascertained whether the wife is pregnant, the divorce becomes irrevocable. In the recommended practice, a waiting period was required between the three talaq pronouncements, during which reconciliation could be attempted.

However, it had become common to make all three pronouncements in one sitting.

A thus-divorced woman could not remarry her divorced husband unless she participated in a practice called nikah halala, in which she had to first marry another man and consummate that marriage before re-entering the previous one.

Halala means to make something lawful which is currently unlawful. Aparna Rao, in her work Kinship, Descent Systems and State: South Asia, writes that [U]ntil she remarried, she retained the custody of male toddlers and prepubescent female children. Beyond those restrictions, the children came under the guardianship of the father.

The practice, though believed to be 1,400 years old, is not mentioned in the Quran. Several Islamic countries, including Pakistan and Bangladesh, have banned it, although it is technically legal in Sunni Islamic jurisprudence.

Triple talaq, in Islamic law, is based upon the belief that the husband has the right to reject or dismiss his wife with good grounds. If the wife wants to end her marriage and her husband does not agree to give a talaq, she has to comply with proceedings under the Dissolution of the Muslim Marriages Act.

As far as Sharia is concerned she needs to obtain a release from the marriage bond by the husband agreeing to such, by granting a Khula, or if he refuses to seek the dissolution of the marriage (faskh) by order of a sharia court judge (qazi).

Zakia Soman, one of the cofounders of the BMMA  the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan (BMMA), told Al Jazeera, In the course of our work, we have regularly been approached by our sisters, complaining about mistreatment and misuse of the oral talaq system. In most cases, men go scot-free and believe their action is approved by the Quran.

The legal battle  a timeline

The long-drawn battle began all the way back in 1978 with the Shah Bano case. Shah Bano was married to a lawyer Mohammed Ahmed Khan in 1932 in Indore. After 14 years of marriage, Ahmed Khan remarried, but continued to live with both his wives in the same house until 1975 when he forced Shah Bano, as well as five of their children, to leave. Bano protested. Ahmed Khan gave her triple talaq on the 6th of November 1978. She later reached out to him for support at which point Ahmed Khan said that alimony (meher) had already been given to her. The then 62-year old Shah Bano filed a criminal lawsuit against Ahmed Khan.

The genesis of the battle may have been in 1978, but the fight gained momentum in 2015 October, when the Supreme Court decided to look into the matter of Muslim women facing gender-based discrimination within the community.

In Feb 2016, the SC asked then Attorney General Mukul Rohatgi to assist it on the pleas challenging the constitutional validity of triple talaq, nikah halala, and polygamy. The Court asked the Centre to file a report of a high-level panel on Women and the Law: an assessment of family laws with focus on laws relating to marriage, divorce, custody, inheritance and succession. In June of that year, the apex court said that the triple talaq issue would be tested on touchstone of constitutional framework.

In October 2016, the Centre opposed in the SC the practices and favoured a relook on the grounds of gender equality and secularism.

In Feb 2017, the SC decided to set up a five-member bench to hear and decide the challenge to the issues raised. The five judges were from five different communities: Chief Justice JS Khehar, a Sikh, Justices Kurian Joseph a Christian, RF Nariman a Parsi, UU Lalit a Hindu and Abdul Nazeer a Muslim. There was no woman judge on the bench.

The Supreme Court had to examine whether Triple talaq has the protection of the constitution  if this practice is safeguarded by Article 25(1) in the constitution that guarantees all the fundamental right to profess, practice and propagate religion. The Court wanted to establish whether or not Triple talaq is an essential feature of Islamic belief and practice.

In May, the SC heard the arguments. AIMPLB (All India Muslim Personal Law Board) told the Supreme Court that matters of faith cannot be tested on grounds of constitutional morality, and said that Triple Talaq was a matter of faith for the last 1,400 years.

The team arguing for triple talaq equated the issue of Triple Talaq with the belief that Lord Rama was born in Ayodhya.

The Supreme Court asked AIMPLB whether a woman can be given an option of saying 'no' to Triple Talaq at the time of execution of 'nikahnama'. The Centre argued that Triple Talaq is neither integral to Islam nor a "majority versus minority" issue but rather an "intra-community tussle" between Muslim men and deprived women (as reported by The Quint).

Later in the same month, AIMPLB filed an affidavit in the apex court saying it would issue an advisory to Qazis to tell bridegrooms that they will not resort to triple talaq to annul their marriage. The Board listed out guidelines for married couples including social boycott of those Muslims who resorted to triple talaq and the appointment of an arbitrator to settle marital disputes.

On the 22nd August last year, the SC issued its verdict by a 3:2 majority declaring the practice unconstitutional and that it was against the basic tenets of the Quran.

A move in the right direction or yet another anti-Muslim tool?

Well, on balance, it can be and has been, interpreted as a bit of both. According to the findings of a BMMA study, more than 90 percent of 4,710 women interviewed wanted a ban on unilateral divorce. There have certainly been many instances of women having been hard done by the issue of triple talaq, and the judgment was clearly a victory to these women, and many others who stood to be affected by it. But lets take a look at those numbers first.

According to census data from 2011, the divorce rate among Muslims was 0.56 percent less than the Hindu community, which stood at 0.76 percent. As Al Jazeera reported last year, the government has not conducted any survey on the extent of triple talaq among Muslims.

Faizan Mustafa, vice chancellor of the NALSAR University of Law, told Al Jazeera, Out of 4,710 people 525 divorces took place. Out of this only one divorce was by SMS. Therefore, they have played it out of proportion. Media has further portrayed as if every Muslim is divorcing through SMS."

Flavia Agnes, a womens rights lawyer and the founder of Majlis, an NGO based in Mumbai which provides legal advocacy and support to women and children of all communities, was of the opinion that triple talaq was low-hanging fruit, and a tool for pro-Hindutva groups to vilify the Muslim community further.

Writing for Al Jazeera last year, she had remarked, the Hindu majority has projected this carefully crafted and delicately poised judgement as an anti-Muslim verdict and a clear signal to bring in a uniform civil code, a demand which has been on the radar of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) as a whip with which to beat the Muslim community.

The RSS, the VHP, and the BJP have, of course, lauded PM Narendra Modis efforts in getting triple talaq abolished. Modi was hailed a hero for fighting for the cause of Muslim womens rights. In last years speech at Red Fort, Modi did mention the issue of Muslim women and triple talaq, and as Agnes noted, there was a total silence on the issue of public lynching of Muslims.

While we do not have exact numbers of divorce caused by triple talaq, we do have numbers of the public lynching of Muslims, and that number has only grown since 2014.

What next for the bill?

"I want to ask Sonia Gandhi, will you stand up for women's honour and pride? Congress should make their stand clear," Mr Prasad said urging Mrs Gandhi to support the bill. He said if Congress does not support the 'Muslim Women Protection of Rights on Marriage Bill,' Gandhi should not talk of gender justice, dignity and equality. Prasad said the bill should not be opposed by Sonia Gandhi, Mayawati and Mamata Banerjee as it seeks to achieve gender equality.

Our partys position is absolutely clear on this, I will not say anything on this further, said Mrs Gandhi. When last month, Rahul Gandhi wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to "walk the talk" on the women's quota bill, Mr Prasad wrote back urging the Congress to support the "triple talaq" bill.

The Bill now hibernates until winter.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah tested positive for coronavirus and is admitted to Medanta hospital. (Image: PTI)

BJP president Amit Shah was today shown black flags by youth Congress workers when he came out of the NSC Bose International airport here to attend a rally in central part of the city, the police said.

The youth Congress workers showed black flags and raised anti-Modi and anti-Shah slogans as the BJP national president stepped out of the airport. They also tried to block his convoy by lining up motorcycles on the street, but police removed them.

Earlier, Shah was received by state party-in charge Kailash Vijayvargiya and state party president Dilip Ghosh. Some party supporters also welcomed him with dance and music and demanded NRC update in West Bengal.
Auto_car_cars_vehicle

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At a time when Tata Motors turned around fortunes of a troubled plant running at one-tenth its peak capacity to full capacity, a German multi-national truck and bus maker has nearly shut shop in India. This highlights the extremely challenging market environment in every segment of the Indian automobile market. More on this story-of-the-week later in the article but first here is the brief list of all the major developments from the automotive industry.

Benelli comes back to India

Italian bike brand Benelli is ready to roll out bikes from its Indian showrooms once again after a six months hiatus. The company has tied up with a Hyderabad-based auto dealer from the Mahavir Group for assembling mid-capacity bikes. While Phase 1 will be about setting up the assembly plant Phase 2 will be about local R&D, local manufacturing and exports.

Eicher Motors and MRF miss Q1 profit estimates

Eicher Motors, the maker of Royal Enfield bikes, reported a 25 percent growth in net profit at Rs 576 crore for the quarter ended June, missing a Reuters poll of analysts estimates.

MRF, the countrys largest tyre maker, too missed estimates during the same quarter posting a growth of 145 percent in net profit for the June quarter at Rs 260.74 crore.

Bajajs discount gamble pays off

Bajaj Autos discounting war in the budget bike segment has led to a significant jump in its market share at the cost of a loss in market share of Hero MotoCorp, TVS Motor Company, and Honda. At Rs 30,700 Bajajs CT100 is the cheap motorcycle on sale in India.

Mahindra net jumps 67 percent, TVS net grows 13 percent

Tractor and utility vehicle major Mahindra & Mahindra posted 67 percent jump in net profit at Rs 1,257 crore for the quarter ended June, beating street expectations on the back of a surge in demand for tractors and trucks.

TVS Motor Company, the countrys fourth largest two-wheeler company, posted 13 percent rise in net profit at Rs 146.6 crore for the quarter ended June, missing estimates by a huge margin. Steeper raw material costs and increased competition in the budget bike segment hit the company.

Mahindra hits back at Fiats accusations

Utility vehicle specialist Mahindra & Mahindra has termed Fiat Chryslers (FCA) allegations as baseless while also stating it has the right to manufacture and sell the Roxor off-roader in the US. FCA had filed a petition in the US seeking a ban on the sale of the Roxor as the vehicle, it stated, is a copy of Willys Jeep.

Volkswagen-owned MAN Trucks shuts shop in India

Unable to sustain operations in a tough market environment German heavyweight MAN Trucks and Buses called it quits this week in India after running operations for more than 10 years. The maker of premium trucks and bus chassis said it is aborting all product development and production plans in India with a promise to honour all existing sales and service contracts.

Additionally, it has put the Pithampur-based manufacturing plant on the block which it inherited from its earlier joint venture with Pune-based Force Motors. The company said it will develop India as a centre for R&D excellence supporting its global projects.

About 14 months earlier General Motors, one of the worlds largest car makers, decided to abort sales operations in India which had seen an unhindered run since the mid-1990s under the brands Opel and Chevrolet. A few months ago Eicher-Polaris announced the shutting down of its joint venture manufacturing of a utility vehicle after sales remained disappointingly low.

Prior to that, AMW, the heavy truck manufacturing company, which had a plant in Gujarat hit a low after its lenders decided to vest control and liquidate the company in parts or full to recover dues. Most recently Scania, a VW-owned company and a sister concern of MAN decided to stop bus body making operations after years of fruitless efforts to grow volumes.

As India nears the deadline for adoption of Bharat Stage VI (BS-VI) emission norms a number of companies have developed second thoughts on investing in the market. With the exception of big names like Suzuki Motor Corporation, Volkswagen Group, and Daimler most of the non-Indian brands have held back on making fresh investments. These include Fiat, Toyota, Hyundai and Ford.

While Hyundai has a strong pipeline of eight products until 2020 the company is not making any fresh round of investments for increasing output despite operating at more than 100 percent capacity.

BS-VI will pose the single biggest challenge for every automobile maker as costs rise will have to be kept to the bare minimum for sustainable business operation. As for trucks, the rise is expected to be in around Rs 3.5 lakh, something that many truck makers will find difficult to convince new buyers for.

Besides the commercial vehicle (CV) market is controlled by Indian players. More than 85 percent of the CV market is held by Tata Motors, Mahindra, and Ashok Leyland. The premiumisation of the CV market has not progressed at the same pace as the car market and fleet buyers still prefer to check cost over performance.

Daimler India Commercial Vehicles started sales operations in 2012 with a promise to fight Tata Motors in its own backyard. The German giant is yet to see profits flow into its coffers. However, it has garnered a 10 percent market share in the segment it operates in and says it is confident of breaking even this year.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said there was no meeting planned with US officials including his counterpart Mike Pompeo at the United Nations General Assembly, the semi-official news agency Tasnim reported on Saturday.

Asked about the likelihood of a meeting with U.S. officials, including Pompeo, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, Zarif said: "No, no such meeting is planned. We have repeatedly announced our position," Tasnim reported.

Earlier this week, the United States re-imposed sanctions on Iran in line with President Donald Trump's decision to pull out of a 2015 agreement over Iran's nuclear programme.
Nepal and Bangladesh inked an Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on power exchange cooperation to allow export of hydro power from the Himalayan nation to Bangladesh in the near future.

The signing of the MoU took place in a ceremony here attended by Nepal's Energy Minister Barsha Man Pun and Minister of State for Power, Energy and Mineral Resources of Bangladesh, Nasrul Hamid.

During the occasion, Hamid announced that Bangladesh is interested to invest around USD1 billion for power sector cooperation with Nepal.

Bangladesh has set the target of graduating to the league of developed nations by 2041 and it would need around 60,000 MW power to meet the target, Hamid was quoted as saying by the Himalayan Times.

Nepal is an appropriate alternative source for this (hydro power), said the report.

Hamid said that Bangladesh has projected that by 2040 the demand for power in the nation will reach around 40,000 MW, of which around 11 per cent would be fulfilled through clean energy sources, including hydropower.

Nepalese Energy Minister Pun said that the government of Bangladesh is willing to immediately purchase 500 MWs of power from Nepal as part of the MoU.

The energy ministers of the two nations said that they will also hold talks with India on the issues of transmission lines.

As part of the Nepal-Bangladesh MoU, a power secretary level joint executive committee and a joint secretary level joint technical group will be constituted. The groups will meet every year to have deliberations and take forward the issue related to the bilateral cooperation in the power sector.

The two bodies will also convene their meetings within the coming two months to determine the future course of action.

In the recent times, Nepal has signed bilateral agreements with India and China on energy cooperation.

The Bangladesh minister informed that the issue of a regional grid connectivity will also feature during the 4th summit of BIMSTEC that is scheduled to be held later this month.
Answer: Donald Trump.

Talks between the United States and Mexico over the future of the North American Free Trade Agreement were set to drag into next week, as auto industry officials said on Friday that new sticking points had emerged over President Donald Trump's threat to impose steep automotive tariffs.

Auto industry officials familiar with the talks said the Trump administration wants the ability to impose national security tariffs on future Mexican production from new auto assembly and parts plants.

These officials said U.S negotiators had essentially agreed that a new NAFTA trade deal would exempt existing Mexican auto plants from any "Section 232" tariffs that Trump may impose.

But the U.S. negotiators do not want to apply the same guarantees to new Mexican auto plants, the officials said, as the potential threat of 25 percent tariffs would discourage new automotive investment in Mexico to serve the U.S. market.

At Trump's direction, the Commerce Department in May launched a probe into whether imports of cars, trucks and auto parts pose a national security risk, invoking the same 1962 trade law used to justify broad tariffs on steel and aluminum -- including those imposed on Canada and Mexico.

Administration officials and congressional aides have said the car tariff probe, like the metals tariffs, in part is aimed at winning concessions during ongoing NAFTA renegotiation talks.

Trump late on Friday tweeted that a "deal with Mexico is coming along nicely. Autoworkers and farmers must be taken care of or there will be no deal," adding that Mexican president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador "has been an absolute gentleman."

Trump added that Canada "must wait" to rejoin the NAFTA talks. "Their Tariffs and Trade Barriers are far too high. Will tax cars if can't make a deal!" Trump tweeted.

Adam Austen, a spokesman for Canadian Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland, who is leading NAFTA trade talks for Canada, said the minister was in regular contact with her Mexican and U.S. counterparts.

"We're glad Mexico and the U.S. continue to work out their bilateral issues. It's the only way we'll get to a deal, Austen said.

ISSUES TO WORK OUT

Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo told reporters in Washington on Friday his talks with U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer would resume next week, but there were still many bilateral issues to work out before Canada could rejoin the talks.

Asked about progress on autos rules of origin, he said: "Nothing is close until everything is close, but there are items in every element that is being discussed."

Guajardo said that once bilateral U.S.-Mexican issues were resolved, Canada could rejoin the talks to work on tri-lateral issues. He said this could take place in "the next few days or weeks."

Industry officials also said the U.S. team had barely moved from its demands last May of a 75 percent overall regional content threshold with 40-45 percent content from high-wage zones -- effectively the United States and Canada -- with the only substantial change a slightly longer phase-in time.

The automotive officials said that Mexico had sought reassurances that new content rules would not cause losses of existing facilities or jobs in the sector and that a NAFTA deal would make Mexico immune to any automotive tariff Trump imposes on national security grounds.

But the U.S. side was sticking to a hard stance in the final stretch of the year-old NAFTA talks, trying to extract concessions as another late August deadline for a deal approaches, one industry representative said.

The issues the two countries are hammering out include what percentage of auto industry components need to be made in North America to avoid tariffs, and how many cars and trucks need to be made in factories paying higher wages.

The U.S.-Mexico talks for a reworked North American Free Trade Agreement resumed three weeks ago, without Canada, after negotiations involving all three members of the $1.2 trillion trade bloc stalled in May.
Answer: Donald Trump.

The Donald Trump administration has suspended more than a decade-long military training programme of Pakistani personnel at the US institutions, a media report said today, days after Islamabad and Moscow signed an agreement to allow Pakistani troops to receive training at the Russian defence centres.

Pakistan and Russia signed an agreement on Tuesady at their first Joint Military Consultative Committee (JMCC) meeting in Rawalpindi during which the two sides discussed the present status of the bilateral defence relations and agreed that Pakistani troops will receive training at the Russian military training institutes.

The relations between Pakistan and the US nosedived this January after President Donald Trump accused Islamabad of giving nothing to Washington but "lies and deceit" and providing "safe haven" to terrorists.

The US Congress also passed a bill to slash Pakistan's defence aid to USD 150 million, significantly below the historic level of more than USD one billion per year.

The US military institutions are struggling to fill the 66 slots they had kept aside for officers from Pakistan for the next academic year, as the Trump administration refused to provide funds for their training, the Dawn newspaper reported, quoting official sources.

The fund for the training of Pakistani officers came from the US government's International Military Education and Training Programme (IMET) but no funds were made available for Pakistan for the next academic year, it said.

The suspension of the training first became apparent when the US National Defence University (NDU) in Washington, which has had reserved seats for Pakistani officers for more than a decade, told the outgoing Pakistani officers that the varsity has been asked to fill the positions for the next year with officers from other nations.

The NDU is one of several US military institutions that train officers from Pakistan. The Trump administration had announced early this year that it was suspending security assistance to Pakistan over differences on Afghanistan but indicated that training programmes for military officers will continue.

The cancellation of slots kept aside for Pakistani officers, however, shows that the suspension now also applies to training programmes, the report said.

Pakistani officers have been receiving military training and education in the US since early 1960s, which were suspended in the 1990s but restored after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

Previously, it was not just Pakistan that valued the training and education of its officers received in the US.

US military institutions also proudly owned training officers who assumed senior positions after returning home, such as former Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and Lt Gen Naveed Mukhtar, the current director general of the Inter-Services Intelligence, the report said.

"This is an unfortunate and ultimately counterproductive decision. There are certainly ways to send a strong message to Pakistan, but this isn't the way to do it," Michael Kugelman, an expert of Pakistan affairs at the Washington think tank 'the Wilson Center', was quoted as saying in the report.

"This move could squander what little goodwill and trust remains in the military-to-military relationship, and it reduces the likelihood that Pakistan will act in the ways that Washington would like it to act," Kugelman said.

He said there was a long history of educational and training cooperation between the US and Pakistani militaries, and this cooperation had withstood the pressures and tensions of the relationship. "The fact that these educational exchanges have suffered this blow now suggests that the relationship could be entering into a new phase where even the supposedly safe and protected dimensions of the relationship can become casualties of wider tensions and ill will," Kugelman said.

So far there is no response from Pakistani official to this move by the US. Pakistan's defence ties with Russia have moved past the bitter Cold War hostilities in recent years and the chill in the relations between Pakistan and the US has further pushed the country towards Russia and China.

Pakistan has shown eagerness to build military-to-military level ties with Russia. Earlier this year, the then foreign minister Khawaja Asif visited Moscow during which the two sides agreed to set up a commission to boost military cooperation.

Russia has over the past three years provided four Mi-35M combat and cargo helicopters to Pakistan and the militaries of the two countries also held joint drills codenamed 'Friendship'.
Oil was poised for a sixth weekly loss in New York, the longest run of declines in three years, as a trade war between the world's two biggest economies stokes fears of weaker growth in energy demand.

Futures rose 0.7 percent, but were still headed for a 1.8 percent loss this week. The U.S. and China are threatening to slap additional tariffs on imports from each other in a matter of weeks, with the tit-for-tat protectionist measures set to expand. At the same time, fears about global oil supplies have receded after producers pumped more, according to the International Energy Agency.

Oil is trading near a seven-week low on fears the intensifying trade tension will crimp global economic growth and increase financial vulnerability. Supply fears could still return to the fore later this year due to U.S. sanctions on Iran, the IEA said, with some crude buyers already looking elsewhere for supplies before the restrictions take effect in November.

"The economic uncertainty stemming from the escalating trade dispute and the ensuing reduction in risk appetite could have reinforced the impact of bearish supply fundamentals," said Harry Tchilinguirian, head of commodity markets strategy at BNP Paribas SA in London.

West Texas Intermediate crude for September delivery traded at $67.27 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, up 46 cents, at 8:31 a.m. in New York. The contract slipped 13 cents to $66.81 on Thursday. Prices are headed for the longest run of weekly declines since August 2015. Total volume traded was about 15 percent below the 100-day average.

Brent for October settlement rose 51 cents to $72.58 on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. Prices dropped 21 cents to $72.07 on Thursday, and are headed for a 0.8 percent drop this week. The global benchmark crude traded at a $6 premium to WTI for the same month.

See also: U.S. Sanctions May Risk Russia's Oil Production, Refining

China will apply 25 percent duties on American diesel, gasoline, propane and other petroleum products from Aug. 23, according to the nation's commerce ministry. The latest levies against an additional $16 billion worth of imports from the U.S. match America's plan to add 25 percent tariffs on the same value of Chinese goods. Washington is also reviewing 10 percent duties on a further $200 billion in Chinese products.

The latest list spared U.S. crude, a sign that America has become too big to ignore in the oil market. As recently as June, China was the top foreign buyer of American crude, importing a record 15 million barrels that month. The Asian nation may impose duties later if President Donald Trump doesn't back down, according to Li Li, a research director at ICIS-China.

Oil-market news:

The Trump administration forecasts that it will persuade countries to cut Iranian oil imports by as much as 1 million barrels a day when it reimposes energy sanctions in early November, according to two people familiar with the efforts to choke off Tehran's crude sales. A price war is brewing between top oil producers in the Middle East, and the U.S. sanctions may be at the heart of it. Crude has decoupled from the currencies of Russia, Brazil and Canada, with internal market dynamics pushing them in different directions, according to research from Societe Generale SA. Energy explorers are looking to public markets to expand pipeline networks in the biggest American oil field as shipping bottlenecks threaten to curtail production in the prolific shale region.
A program for local high school students who want to become educators will be offered at an additional campus this academic year. Those attending Midland and Lee high schools will have a chance to take a series of courses that culminate in a teaching internship.

The Education and Training program  previously called Ready, Set, Teach  offers tools for Midland ISD students interested in the teaching field. Sherri Barton, career and technical education teacher at MHS, told the Reporter-Telegram in May that the program helps students to make decisions before going on to postsecondary opportunities.

I do have several that are planning to go and major in education, Barton said. Some of them realize that is not really the reality that they want to pursue.

Last school year, MISD administrators presented intent-to-hire letters to students who finished the Education and Training curriculum. District leaders plan to recommend employment for them after they meet certification requirements and other qualifications.

Kathryn Ritter, who was in Education and Training this spring, said she values MISDs offer and the possibility of having a job at the district.

Here in Midland this is where I started out student teaching, and now I get to come back, Ritter told the Reporter-Telegram when she was a MHS senior last school year. Itll be different kids, but maybe Ill see some of the same teachers around.

Through the program, Ritter was placed with a kindergarten teacher at Franks Elementary, an experience that allowed her to gain knowledge about the classroom setting. She has long worked with children and hopes to make a difference for them in the future.

Teachers have always been a part of my life, Ritter said in May. You go through schooling for 12 years, so they become like second parents. I wanted to have that influence on a childs life.

Education and Training will be reinstated at LHS this academic year, after being offered only at MHS. The program is designed so that participants can learn about teaching through coursework as well as an internship in an MISD classroom. Students were at the internship sites for more than four hours each week in 2017-18, according to Barton.

Theyre really self-reliant, she said. So, their experience has a lot to do with how much they want to put into it.

The programs expansion comes after MISD was named a recipient of the 2018-19 Grow Your Own grant, which intends to boost the quality and diversity of the teaching workforce, according to the Texas Education Agency. The grants are used to encourage high school students to pursue teaching and to prompt personnel to obtain certifications, according to the TEA.

Elise Kail, chief transformation officer for MISD, said teachers who are from West Texas are already familiar with the community. With the $106,000 grant, the district can work toward creating a continued pathway for students who aspire to be educators.

For Barton, the experience of training the next generation of teachers has made its mark. She enjoys working with students as they consider the possibilities ahead of them.

I do have past students who are teachers, Barton said. It makes you kind of proud. Im proud of my students even if they dont become educators.
WINCHESTER  A local business will be mobbed today as dozens of shoppers pour into the shop, each armed with $20 and a desire to support local businesses.

Its all part of Winchester Civic Groups new Cash Mob program.

Interested shoppers will gather at 10 a.m. at the Community Outreach Center in Winchester, where the target business will be announced.

We do work with the business ahead of time, Winchester Civic Group board member Jackie Kuchy said. We dont want to show up unannounced. There were some businesses worried that we would mob them without any warning. Were just trying to get people to support their local businesses.

The project was born out of Winchesters involvement with Western Illinois Universitys Management and Planning Programs Involving Non-metropolitan Groups (MAPPING) program, which helps municipalities develop a strategic vision and plan for their community.

The groups Retail and Dining Committee was formed out of the MAPPING program and, having been advised by WIU that the Cash Mob program had been successful in other communities, committee members set to work adapting a Cash Mob for Winchester.

This will be thecommunitys second Cash Mob event. The first saw 35 shoppers hit Dorseys Sentry Hardware Co. Each shopper spent at least the minimum of $20 but many spent a fair bit more than the minimum, Kuchy said.

You do the math on that and that was a pretty big chunk of profit for a small business, Kuchy said.

Over the course of the year, a Cash Mob event will happen about every two months and there are plans to patronize restaurants in a similar manner, Kuchy said.

The programs end goal is to inject into local businesses local dollars that then will circulate out into the local economy. Those interested in participating in future mobs should watch the Winchester Civic Groups Facebook page at bit.ly/2xWdRNv, where future dates will be announced.

Were really proud of the progress that were making in Winchester, Kuchy said. We have the cooperative market thats going to be opening soon, we have some businesses that are bringing life back to our downtown, there are some beautification initiatives going on, there are some really good things that are going to come out of our efforts.

Nick Draper can be reached at 217-245-6121, ext. 1223, or on Twitter @nick_draper.
Hair after Chemo grows like that ...
Thirteen years after the bloody slayings of two men and a boy rocked Laredo, a trial is set to begin for a man accused of killing them.

Miguel Angel Venegas Jr. of Laredo is charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the January 1991 slayings. Jury selection was scheduled to begin Friday.

Venegas was 16 when he allegedly used a knife and an ax to kill James Smiley, a 33-year-old restaurant manager and Baptist youth counselor, Ruben Martinez, 22, and Daniel Duenez, 14, two residents of Nuevo Laredo, Mexico.

He escaped from a juvenile detention center at gunpoint in December 1993 and was recaptured in 1995 in Monterrey, Mexico. He has been free on bond since August.

State district judges have certified Venegas to stand trial as an adult four times, but a state appeals court struck down the first three certifications. The 4th Texas Court of Appeals in San Antonio finally affirmed a lower court's certification in 2002.

Venegas denied the murder accusations in a Thursday interview with the San Antonio Express-News. He also said he did not worship Satan, which authorities have said was the motive for the slayings. He said he never knew Smiley and barely knew Miguel Martinez, his co-defendant.

"We did drugs in the classroom and that was it _ mainly cocaine," he said.

Miguel Martinez was convicted in 1992 of participating in the murders. He was 17 when he became the youngest person to be sent to Texas' death row, drawing international attention.

A federal judge struck down the sentence, ruling that prosecutors presented insufficient evidence that he posed a continuing danger to society. The state commuted Martinez's sentence to life imprisonment in February 2002 _ on the condition that he testify against Venegas.

Webb County assistant district attorney Roberto Balli called Venegas' statements a last-minute cry of desperation after years of legal delays.

"The problem with Miguel Angel Venegas is he's on the eve of his trial and he is looking for other people to blame," Balli said.

Some evidence in the case has been lost or damaged. Laredo police investigators destroyed fingerprints found at the crime scene, and a Webb County courthouse clerk used the ax that reportedly was used in the murders to prune an office Christmas tree.

That should not affect the prosecution's case, Balli said.

"This particular case is not built around one piece of evidence," he said. "I feel that we have a good case and I think a jury, once presented with the evidence, all of the evidence, will understand this case."

Smiley's elderly parents said they do not plan to travel from their home in Missouri to attend the trial.

"I just want it to be all over so we don't have to worry about it _ some way, somehow. It's in our minds all the time" said the victim's father, Don Smiley.
One suspect in a robbery is dead after crashing his vehicle in north Houston during a police chase, Harris County officials tweeted.

A witness spotted two suspects stealing appliances from a vacant home in the 7200 block of Foxtail Meadow, the Harris County Sheriff's Office tweeted. The suspects fled, spurring a chase.
Salah Yassin Muhiddin

Background: Now 21, he was born in Syria, the son of Kurdish parents who fled Iraq and brought their family to Albany as refugees in 1999 when he was 2 years old. He graduated from Albany High School and the University at Albany where he majored in American history and philosophy. He has two sisters, Alaa, who is 22, and Ayah, 12, and a brother, Azzam, 18. Their father, Yassin Aref, was the imam at the Masjid As-Salam in Albany, when he was arrested in the summer of 2004 in an FBI counter-terrorism sting involving a fictitious assassination plot. He will be released from federal prison this fall.

You just completed a year as an imam at the Islamic Center of the Capital District. Spiritual leaders bring something individual to their congregations. How do describe your role?

My religious education so far has focused on the study of the Quran. By God's grace, I completed memorizing the Quran as a junior in high school. I've since been studying the proper pronunciation of the Quran and the different methods of recitation.

I teach children to read and memorize the Quran. At times, I lead the five daily prayers at the mosque. During the month of Ramadan, I lead the longer night prayers where the entire Quran is recited from memory over a period of 30 nights. I am often the one to initiate events with the traditional recitation of the Quran. On occasion, I deliver the sermon and lead Friday services. The many other roles of an imam are filled by those in our community more learned and experienced than me.

You were 7 when your father was arrested. What's your memory of that night and of its impact on you and your family?

I remember waking up to commotion outside my house. I looked out the window and saw the area filled with law enforcement officers. I did not make much of it at the moment, reasoning there was some unrelated problem on the block. I went back to sleep and woke up in an unfamiliar place with my sister and brother. I reached for the door and found my mother in another room with two women I did not recognize. They soon took us home. On the way back, my sister, then 8, told them how excited she was because our father would be taking us to the Great Escape that day. The ladies feigned amazement. I only learned about  but could not comprehend  what happened when swarms of reporters came to our door that morning and spoke to my mother. My family was moved to a hotel so the FBI could raid our house.

It saddened us that our father was taken away, but, as Muslims, we are taught to focus on our blessings rather than our hardships. My father had dedicated the few years he spent in Albany to serving people, not just by leading them in prayers and teaching classes, but also by being with them in times of difficulty and caring for them as family. He touched the lives of so many and left behind a community that cared for his children as though their own. That was a blessing, but God would bless us with even more.

A group of open-minded people learned of my father's case and were appalled. They called the frame-up for what it was and voiced anger at the miscarriage of justice. They assisted during his trial, picketed outside the courthouse on bitter winter nights, marched to Binghamton to deliver thousands of signatures demanding justice and rallied for his freedom every year. The level of support from people who had not previously known my father is uplifting. It gave us the courage to stand with them for justice.

How is your father?

As good as one can be in prison. The hardest thing for him is thinking that he was not there while his kids were growing up. He tells me he would have traded the rest of his life in prison for the ability to be with us as we grew up. I tell him I always felt he was with us. If he could not be physically present, I knew we were always in his most sincere prayers, which comforted and motivated me.

He is nearing the end of his term in excellent health and with an even better psyche. His faith got him through it all. He tells me that nothing can bother you if you accept God's decree and put your trust in him. My father may have lost his freedom, but he did not lose his soul. The system could not break him.

What's next for you?

In college, I viewed studying as a means to expand my knowledge and broaden my horizon. I spent the last year teaching as a break from formal education and to experience the world in a slightly different way. My dad will be returning this year and will seemingly be sent back to Kurdistan. My mother has long been awaiting the chance to see her relatives again and is preparing her own return. I want to be there and spend time with them as they go through this transition. After that, it's back to formal education for me. Life is too precious to waste a second. Study, work, play, and relax, but be sure to live every moment.

 Rob Brill
LONG ISLAND  The U.S. Coast Guard Long Island Sector is searching for the owner of an unmanned kayak that was found on Long Island Saturday afternoon.

The 13 tandem hobie kayak was found adrift north of Glen Cove and Lattington, N.Y.
A grass-roots upheaval in Maryland's Democratic Party has made it an unexpected showcase for national efforts by liberal activists and unions seeking to revitalize the party and push it to the left.

Primary victories by progressives in three premier races - governor and county executive in Montgomery and Baltimore counties - have created a prominent testing ground for a new brand of Democratic politics, featuring ambitious and potentially expensive policy proposals and greater outreach to the working class.

Fueled by anger at President Donald Trump and a sense that Democrats have lost touch with their base, the insurgency is stirring strife within the party, with some moderates already abandoning ship. It also is aggravating polarization with Republicans, with Democratic gubernatorial nominee Ben Jealous using the "f-bomb" expletive last week in rejecting GOP television ads calling him a socialist.

The intraparty tension is an unfamiliar experience for Maryland, a Hillary Clinton stronghold, with long-serving Democratic legislative leaders and a comfortable balance between liberals and moderates.

In addition to Jealous, the progressive nominees include Montgomery County Council member Marc Elrich (At Large) and John Olszewski Jr. for the top jobs in populous Montgomery and Baltimore counties, respectively. All three won hard-fought primaries with strong labor backing and endorsements from liberal groups including the Working Families Party and Our Revolution, the political operation of U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.

Progressives also defeated moderates in fourstate Senate races.

Jealous and the other nominees are being watched as a measure of the Democrats' future direction, with the party seeking to rebuild at the state and local level after years of neglect and decay.

The left-wing advance in Maryland contrasts with setbacks suffered Tuesday by Democratic insurgents in the Midwest, where centrists won primaries in the Michigan gubernatorial race and in suburban House districts elsewhere.

But left-wing candidates are also ousting incumbents and showing strength in races for state and local offices in New Mexico, Rhode Island, Arizona, Illinois and Colorado. Progressives Stacey Abrams in Georgia and Paulette Jordan in Idaho also won their gubernatorial nominations - the only Sanders-endorsed Democrats besides Jealous nominated so far in gubernatorial primaries.

"The old system and the old machines that were in place are at risk of being displaced pretty quick," said Jeff Hauser, a project director at the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research. "Jealous is definitely at the cutting edge of this phenomenon."

The risk for Democrats is that the shift to the left will cost them centrist support they need for the general election. Jealous is widely seen as the underdog in his bid to topple Gov. Larry Hogan, R, who has high popularity ratings and has governed as a moderate.

Elrich's victory prompted longtime Montgomery Democrat and fellow County Council member Nancy Floreen (At Large) to drop her party allegiance and run for county executive as an independent, accusing Elrich of being too extreme. In Baltimore County, state Sen. James Brochin, D, who has broken with the party before on social issues, endorsed Hogan last week after narrowly losing the county executive primary to Olszewski.

But the progressives counter that Democrats today can best attract new voters and recapture those who have deserted the party in recent years by pursuing an unapologetic embrace of working-class interests. To that end, they call for single-payer health care, debt-free college and a $15 minimum wage.

They want to distance the party from corporate influence that they say played too big a role in Clinton's failed 2016 presidential bid and tap into the anti-Trump energy evident in mass protests and surging numbers of Democratic candidates and campaign volunteers.

"When Democrats run as Democrats, with no shame about our commitment to fight for working people, we win - we win big," Jealous told a party unity event in Prince George's last month.

Olszewski, universally known as "Johnny O.," said voters "are clamoring for people who are offering more than half measures, and who are providing those big bold solutions to the pressing challenges that our families are facing."

Elrich said his campaign focused on local issues, including "schools and roads, very unsexy stuff, and restructuring local government." But he added, "A lot of Democrats continue to want the party to be progressive, and kind of live up to the tradition. I put myself in kind of the [Franklin D.] Roosevelt camp. . . . All of us are trying to say, 'Government can do good things.' "

Party volunteer Claudia Morrell, 59, a small-business owner who canvassed for Olszewski last weekend, said voters in her community have lost faith in the party's old power brokers and see Jealous and Olszewski as "new Democrats with a new vision. They're really listening to the people."

The progressives are shifting campaign tactics to focus more on street-level organizing and social media outreach. Jealous' strategists say he can beat Hogan if they meet their goal of boosting turnout to 2.1 million, a jump of 20 percent from the tepid showing in 2014, when Hogan upset Democratic nominee Anthony Brown. The party plans to have more than 60 paid field organizers on the ground in Maryland by mid-September, compared with a total of 15 for the entire campaign four years ago.

Most of the state's Democratic establishment is closer to the center than Jealous, but senior leaders admit they are drawn to his promises of a rejuvenated base and expanded turnout.

"Ben has worked hard to increase voter participation in Maryland, and . . . has brought fresh ideas to the gubernatorial race," said U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer, a moderate who is No. 2 in the Democrats' House leadership.

Progressives are working to elect activists to Democratic central committees across the state, knowing that those posts are often a steppingstone to seats on county councils or in the state legislature. The effort has already led to strains at a noisy meeting of the Prince George's Democratic central committee last month.

"Our people are very committed to taking over the county central committees in this state," said Bob Muehlenkamp, chairman of Our Revolution Maryland.

During President Barack Obama's eight years in office. Democratic control of governor's offices and state legislatures dropped significantly, reducing the party's ability to influence redistricting after the 2020 Census.

"People nationally are beginning to realize they have to build up the [party] infrastructure at the local level," said Kevin Harris, a senior Jealous adviser.

Megan Root, 21, a student at St. Mary's College of Maryland who spoke with Jealous when he canvassed in Kensington earlier this month, said young people are showing more interest in local races in the wake of Trump's election.

Local officials "are the people that actually control things," Root said. "You have to pay attention to local when things don't go the way you want at the national level."

Joe Dinkin, national campaigns director of the Working Families Party, said candidates it endorsed won two state legislative primaries and two for county commissioner in Illinois, and seven legislative primaries in Colorado, in addition to the Maryland races.

In New Mexico, progressive newcomer Susan Herrera defeated a 25-year incumbent state lawmaker in what a local newspaper dubbed "the end of a political era." Her victory, and others by liberals in New Mexico, will push the state legislature to the left on issues including the minimum wage and same-sex marriage, analysts said.

In Rhode Island, left-leaning Aaron Regunberg is battling incumbent Lt. Gov. Daniel McKee, D, a moderate, with a platform that includes moving faster to develop renewable energy sources and adopting Medicare for all.

"A lot of it is just making sure the state [policy] is contingent on the will of the people, and not just on corporations and lobbyists who fund candidates," said David Segal, a board member of the Rhode Island Working Families Party.

In Arizona, former professor David Garcia is making a strong bid to win the gubernatorial nomination, with endorsements from the same liberal organizations that backed Abrams and Jealous. His main issue is spending more on education, but he also drew Republican criticism in the border state for urging replacement of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

The question remains whether the progressive trend will backfire in the general election. That possibility did not daunt Morrell, the Baltimore County volunteer. Asked whether Jealous was too liberal to beat Hogan, she answered, "I would ask you: Is Donald Trump too crazy to win? Nothing is impossible anymore."
ALEXANDRIA, Va. - A bank CEO who helped President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort obtain $16 million in loans hoped for a Cabinet-level position in the administration, a bank employee testified in federal court Friday.

The bank employee, Dennis Raico, was called as a witness after a confusing morning at Manafort's trial in Alexandria, Virginia, during which U.S. District Court Judge T.S. Ellis III huddled privately with prosecutors and defense attorneys, delaying the start of testimony until midafternoon. A transcript of those discussions was sealed.

No reason was offered for the delay, but when Raico finally took the stand, he described how the CEO, Steve Calk, was willing to depart from bank policies to approve loans for a friendly and well-connected political operative.

Raico, a former vice president at Federal Savings Bank, testified with immunity from prosecution for any statements he made as a witness. Prosecutors say Manafort lied to that bank and others to secure millions of dollars in loans in 2016 when his political consulting business had run out of clients willing to pay for his services.

Manafort, 69, has been on trial for two weeks. He faces bank fraud and tax evasion charges. His trial is the first to grow from special counsel Robert Mueller III's investigation into whether any of Trump's associates conspired with Russia's efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Raico described how Manafort won approval for loans as part of a process that featured unusual involvement from Calk, the bank's CEO and chairman. Calk was seeking a role in the Trump administration and sought to make that known to Manafort, Raico testified.

Calk did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.

Manafort received two loans from Federal Savings Bank totaling $16 million. One of them, a $9.5 million cash-out refinance loan on a property in Southampton, New York, closed Nov. 16, 2016, shortly after the presidential election. The other, a $6.5 million construction take-out loan, closed on Jan. 4, 2017, weeks before Trump's inauguration, Raico testified.

Raico testified that Manafort reached out to the bank around April 2016, inquiring about a loan for a project he was working on with his son-in-law. Raico said he contacted Calk about Manafort's interest after learning that he worked in politics.

"I knew Steve was interested in politics," he said. Calk, Raico said, wanted to meet the potential client in person.

Raico said that he, Calk, Manafort and others dined together in New York in May 2016, where they discussed politics, loans and other subjects. At the time, Manafort was working on the Trump campaign. During the dinner, Calk and Manafort also talked between themselves, Raico said.

In July 2016, Raico said he had a video conference with Manafort and Manafort's son-in-law to discuss properties they wanted to finance. The next day, high-level bank officials approved a loan for the two men - a quicker turnaround than Raico had ever seen before, he told the court.

Calk was directly involved in the negotiations, something Raico also had never seen before, he testified. Raico said he sometimes passed messages between Calk and Manafort, which made him uncomfortable.

On Nov. 11, 2016, for example, Raico said Calk called him to say he would "possibly be up for some role in the Trump administration," and asked Raico if he could inquire about that. The possible roles, Raico said, were treasury secretary, or as the head of Housing and Urban Development. Both are Cabinet-level posts.

Emails show that a few months earlier, Manafort requested Calk's resume after Calk apparently asked if he could serve in the administration. Calk was named to a panel of Trump's economic advisers during the campaign, and other evidence introduced in court shows Manafort sought to get Calk's name on a list of candidates for Army secretary.

Raico told the court he did not tell Manafort about the positions Calk wanted.

"It made me very uncomfortable," he testified. Raico also told the court that sometime during the loan process, he learned Calk and Manafort had lunch together. After the lunch, Raico said he received an email from Calk, outlining terms for one of Manafort's loan requests.

But there were problems with the information Manafort was providing to get the loans, Raico testified. "A plus B didn't equal C all the time," he told the court.

There was an outstanding credit card bill of more than $200,000 that Manafort said stemmed from having loaned the card to a friend - apparently his business partner Rick Gates - to purchase season tickets for the New York Yankees. A Yankees official would later testify it was Manafort who purchased the tickets, and that the team had no record of Gates having done so.

That wasn't the only concern.

As they neared closing on the $9.5 million loan, Manafort emailed to say he owed $3.5 million on his home in the Hamptons, when he had previously said it was $2.5 million. The bank had just learned that information on its own.

"I must have had a blackout," Manafort said in explaining the discrepancy.

Just before the loan was to close, Raico said he was told Manafort had decided he wanted to renegotiate its terms. Instead of a construction loan for a project in California using the Bridgehampton home as collateral, he wanted a cash-out refinance loan on the Hamptons house.

A few days later, Manafort sent Raico a sheet titled "Terms of Loan," which outlined the $9.5 million line of credit. Raico forwarded the terms to another bank executive with the message, "Take a deep breath."

Raico testified he "hadn't seen a loan restructured at the closing table before, and I hadn't seen Steve Calk approve restructuring of a loan."

Ellis asked Raico whether there was anything wrong with Manafort dictating the loan's terms.

"No," Raico said, but it was not consistent with bank policy.

The exchange was the latest instance in which the judge has expressed skepticism about evidence elicited by prosecutors.

Raico also testified that Manafort sent him a statement showing his profit for 2016 exceeded $3 million - a claim other witnesses have testified was false.

Raico said he was told by bank president Javier Ubarri that they should not pursue a loan agreement with Manafort and his son-in-law. He was instructed to tell Manafort the bank valued his relationship with Calk "immensely" but that the loan was too risky, Raico told the court.

But Raico testified he soon got a call from Calk, saying they were moving forward with a loan to Manafort, which closed on Manafort's terms on Nov. 16, 2016.

One of Manafort's lawyers, Richard Westling, sought to shift the jury's focus toward the collateral Manafort posted for the loans, which, Raico testified, was sufficient.

Under questioning from Westling, Raico also acknowledged the email between Raico and the bank's president referenced a different loan - one with Manafort's son-in-law that was not issued.

Raico said the $9.5 million loan issued to Manafort made him uncomfortable, and Calk's involvement "was not the norm."

When the prosecutor and the judge pressed Raico on whether he believed Calk was "seeking something" from Manafort, Raico ultimately hedged, saying he could point to "nothing concrete."

Mueller's team had hoped to finish their case Friday, but the delay made that impossible. The prosecutors had asked Ellis to instruct the jury to ignore a comment the judge made Thursday questioning the importance of testimony concerning a bank loan Manafort did not get. But the judge gave no such instruction to the panel Friday.

- - -

The Washington Post's Tom Jackman contributed to this report.
TAMPA, Fla. - Florida Gov. Rick Scott, R, demanded Friday that Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., provide evidence to back up his claim this week that Russian operatives have penetrated the election systems of several counties in the state and "now have free rein to move about."

Scott, who is vying to unseat Nelson in November, addressed the "very serious charge" after an event Friday morning focused on his plans for Latin American policy at Casa Cuba of Tampa, a center for the exile community in Florida.

"Either Bill Nelson knows of crucial information that the federal government is withholding from Florida election officials or is simply making things up," Scott said.

He called on Nelson to "come clean" and warned, "Elections are not something to scare people about."

In a statement, Nelson did not address specifics but maintained that he and other lawmakers are working to keep state officials informed.

"I and several of my Senate colleagues are trying to make sure Florida officials are aware of the ongoing Russian threat so they take the steps necessary to safeguard our elections," he said.

Nelson also took a veiled swipe at Scott, saying that it was "unfortunate that some Florida officials would try to use this issue for personal, political gain."

On Wednesday, Nelson told the Tampa Bay Times that Russian operatives "have already penetrated certain counties in the state and they now have free rein to move about."

He declined to provide details. A day earlier, Nelson had responded to questions about the matter by saying the information was classified, the newspaper reported.

The spat is playing out amid an increasingly heated national debate over Russian interference in U.S. elections. In a show of force in the White House briefing room last week, President Donald Trump's top national security officials warned of continued Russian attempts at interference and vowed that the administration is "doing everything we can" to combat them.

Yet Trump himself has sent contradictory messages on the issue: In late July, he tweeted that Russian interference in the 2016 election, which the U.S. intelligence community has concluded took place, was "all a big hoax."

The dust-up between Scott and Nelson appears to be the first instance of alleged Russian interference being used as a partisan issue in a highly-contested campaign.

After Nelson's comments earlier this week, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, R, who was appointed by Scott, sent a letter to Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., requesting details on the alleged hacking. Nelson had previously said the committee had been the source of his information.

In the letter, Detzner said that his office had been in touch with federal and state officials, including the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI, but that they had been unable to provide him with further information.

Burr replied in a letter Friday encouraging Detzner to address his questions to federal agencies rather than to his committee. He also voiced support for a letter sent by Nelson and Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., last month to Florida state and local officials, including Detzner, urging greater cooperation with DHS on the issue.

"The Federal Government has resources to help, and only by working together can we thwart Russia's continued efforts to interfere in our democracy and undermine our elections," Burr wrote Friday. "That is also the message of the letter sent by senators Rubio and Nelson, and I support their effort."

While Nelson's latest comments on the issue have drawn attention, they echo part of the letter that both he and Rubio sent last month. In that missive, the lawmakers alerted Florida officials to the Senate Intelligence Committee's finding that "in a small number of cases, cyber actors affiliated with the Russian government accessed voter registration databases" in the state.

In a meeting with nearly a dozen local election officials in May, Rubio also voiced concerns echoing Nelson's, according to St. Petersburg-based TV station WTSP.

"He made a very similar statement that there was some, it wasn't in everybody's system - there was some activity in some systems," one local supervisor of elections told the station, adding that Rubio had told the assembled officials not to discuss the matter publicly.

- - -

Sonmez reported from Washington.
NEW HAVEN  The schools superintendent and Board of Education have mitigated a nearly $20 million budget deficit down to an $8.4 million shortfall as of this month, but the work isnt stopping there.

Superintendent of Schools Carol Birks made the announcement Friday at Wilbur Cross High School alongside Mayor Toni N. Harp and Board of Education President Darnell Goldson.

The Board of Alders approved a $187,218,697 budget for this fiscal year, leaving the school district to make up a $19,346,152 shortfall. Thus far, the district has had to close Creed School, lay off teachers, consolidate alternative school programs and more to manage the gap.

I was presented with a set of revenue and expense projections that required me to make some seriously, seriously difficult fiscal and structural recommendations to the Board of Education that make changes to the way we have operated previously, Birks said. Weve had to mitigate our budget, but we want to be transparent about some of the decisions so far.

Birks presented the districts ongoing efforts to bring the shortfall closer to zero. The bulk of savings have been realized by eliminating personnel closing Creed School and two alternative schools, but other ongoing plans include realigning the districts organizational structure, Birks said.

Theyve reduced 14 administrator positions at the central office while reassigned that work to other administrators work to meet the districts needs, she said, capturing $1.9 million in savings.

If we did not reassign staff to these various roles we wouldve added those positions to the budget, she said. As far as more teacher reductions, Birks said she hopes they wont come. Its something they are assessing but I cant say yes or no at this point because were continuing to look and see how we can make certain adjustments.

As for the 37 full-time educators who received layoff notices last month, Birks said as of now, five have been re-hired because of changes in staffing, but the number keeps changing every day.

Theyve also achieved mitigation though consolidating programs and leases, and continue to work on optimizing grants, operations such as lighting or water use and transportation. The latter three strategies are estimated to mitigate $3.6 million, but will be realized throughout the school year, said CFO Darrell Hill.

Thats where we are now, but of course our work continues and in the coming months as we continue to mitigate the last 8.4, knowing there are things that happen during the year that are unexpected, we are not shooting for zero, Hill said. Were continuing to look for ways we can run the district as efficiently as possible while meeting our mandate to educate. As each year progresses, there is natural growth in expenses and our ability to meet or overshoot that would contribute to the balancing of next fiscal year.

Harp said her administration fully supports the decisions the BOE and superintendent have had to make, especially since the city is so dependent on state revenue.

The truth is we have suffered because the state has suffered, she said, and with property taxes being the only way to raise revenues, the city relies on the resources provided by the state.

The question is not about whether we have enough resources  we never do, Goldson said. The state never provides enough resources. They dont provide the city with enough to provide to Board of Education. ... Thats a fact but were going to work with what we have to provide what we can to our students.

To get the districts shortfall closer to zero, Birks said theyll continue to look at staffing, spending, overtime, supplies and transportation, adding its been a collaborative effort among the BOE, mayor, Board of Alders and other stakeholders to mitigate the deficit thus far.

Were doing a good job but I think we can do a better job, she said.

mdignan@hearstmediact.com
Its impossible to avoid anymore. Youll hear it all over the news, from public radio to cable networks, and youll read about it in your community newspapers. I witness it firsthand week after week, and despite doing my best to stop it, theres only so much I can do.

Make no mistake: Our nation is under attack.

As our society becomes more technologically dependent, cyber-criminals are becoming more of a threat. Just like in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, every day, every hour, dark forces attempt to penetrate our defenses.

These forces are hardly wizards, but they do range from two-bit thieves to sophisticated criminal masterminds to even state actors. These criminals often have a variety of motivations, but most of them are out for money, and theyll either directly or indirectly take control of you and/or your electronic resources as a means to that end.

Fortunately, Americans arent known for rolling over and capitulating in the face of a threat, and we dont have much tolerance for thieves. Today, I initiate a call to action: We need to form an army of informed, responsible cyber-citizens to counteract these evil forces.

No matter your age or level of skill with technology, there is no reason why you cant be a member of this army. With that in mind, Im out to make good internet soldiers out of as many as I can, as good practices in private will translate to good practices in the workplace, where the truly juicy targets for cyber-criminals tend to be.

Todays column will focus on a simple issue that drives many network administrators and engineers bonkers: Weak passwords.

The first thing to remember about the internet is that there are no safe neighborhoods. Each time you set up an account online, youre setting up property in the most crime-riddled neighborhood in the world.

Chances are, youre going to want to do a little more than lock your front door in such a place, let alone simply leave the default Mel-Brooks-combination of 12345 on the lock or hide the key under the floor mat.

Even the crooks with the lowest level of skills know to try the basics first. One of the most common, successful, yet least sophisticated types of security breaches remains the dictionary attack. A dictionary attack is when a cyber-criminal uses lists of tens of thousands of words (a dictionary) in an attempt to gain access to a network resource.

Another less-than-sophisticated type of security breach is the brute force attack. A brute force attack is when the criminal tries letters and numbers in sequence in various combinations until they find the right one.

Occasionally, these attacks are used in tandem, with dictionary words being paired with strings of numbers or other dictionary words.

Many online resources have implemented countermeasures to deal with these types of attacks, such as CAPTCHAs (Computer Automated Public Turing tests to tell Computers and Humans Apart) and account lock-out policies. But many older legacy systems remain vulnerable, and even with these measures in place, theres only so much protection they can offer.

Setting a strong password is a simple, crucial way you can not only protect yourself, but do your civic duty to help protect your country.

A common misconception is that a strong password has to be a random, garbled gobbledegook of text that most people find impossible to remember. This is not true at all.

Sure, Ub4@!k5swM9d&0 is a great password, but so is wordlike65This!too. With or without the period at the end, a password like this is very unlikely to be cracked by a dictionary or brute force attack.

The single biggest factor in setting a strong password is length. Shorter passwords will almost always be cracked faster. I do not consider using words in your password as taboo so long as there are other characters, too.

I also believe that putting numbers at the beginning or end of a password does nothing to help you. You can strengthen a password by an absurd amount simply by placing a number BETWEEN the letters of your password.

Adding a punctuation mark also increases the strength exponentially.

There are also websites that test your password strength, such as howsecureismypassword.net. I recommend using these to check each password you use.

Ironically enough, the second password I listed above is rated stronger than the first. It would take a computer 429 billion years to successfully crack the first password with brute force, but a whopping 552 quadrillion years to crack the second. Add the period to the end, and we go up to an absurd 4 sextillion years (pretty impressive for something that should be fairly easy to remember).

Using variants of the same password across multiple accounts is usually safe, unless youve already had an account breached or believe yourself to be the target of a more focused attack. But I do recommend making those variants equally strong and never, ever, EVER using the exact same password twice.

I plan to write more columns about these issues for future editions of the Huron Daily Tribune. Next time, Ill cover a growing threat that is scaring a lot of people and occasionally costing a lot of money: Spear phishing and cyber extortion.

Phillip Wilson is a network engineer with AirAdvantage LLC, which offers wireless and wireline services throughout the Tri-Cities, Thumb and Southeast Michigan (www.airadvantage.net). Wilson has over 10 years of experience in information technology, and has designed, deployed and maintained computer networks and systems for multiple service providers.
The following list includes recent reports from the Midland County Sheriff's Office and the Midland Police Department. Compiled by reporter Kelly Dame.

Friday, Aug. 10

1:44 a.m. - Police investigated a driver license violation at West Wheeler Street and Morning Way.

Thursday, Aug. 9

3:19 a.m. - A Flint man, 21, was arrested in Greendale Township for driving while his license was suspended.

7:57 a.m. - Police were called to the 2800 block of Ashman Street for a report of trespassing and made a warrant arrest.

8:25 a.m. - A Midland man, 39, was cited for driving with an expired license after he was stopped in Edenville Township for speeding. He was cited for the speeding violation.

10:25 a.m. - A deputy was sent to a Coleman home to investigate a report of a breaking and entering.

10:39 a.m. - Police assisted probation agents in the 200 block of West Ellsworth Street.

1:53 p.m. - Two handguns, valued at a total of $960, were stolen from a Lee Township address between May and August. There are no suspects.

2:28 p.m. - Police responded to a drug overdose in the 4900 block of Inglewood Drive.

3:19 p.m. - A Gladwin County man, 26, was arrested in Greendale Township for driving while license suspended and drug possession. He was cited for unregistered vehicle and no insurance.

4:27 p.m. - A deputy was sent to a Homer Township address for a report of drug possession. A small amount of marijuana was confiscated and destroyed. The person who brought the drug to the address left the scene before the deputy arrived, and staff did not have any identification information.

4:44 p.m. - A Larkin Township woman, 73, reported someone opened a credit card in her name and used it to charge $8,000.

6:16 p.m. - Tools, valued at a total of $1,600, were stolen from a barn in Warren Township.

7:46 p.m. - A deputy investigated a report of fraud in Mills Township.

7:48 p.m. - Police investigated a case of identity theft in the 5700 block of Perrine Road.

9:21 p.m. - Police made a warrant arrest at North Saginaw Road and Orchard Drive.

11:21 p.m. - A motorist was arrested at East Lyon Road and Washington Street for drunken driving.

11:45 p.m. - A Greendale Township man, 32, was arrested on two warrants in that township.

Wednesday, Aug. 8

5:35 a.m. - An Auburn man, 18, was arrested in Lincoln Township for driving while his license was suspended.

8:52 a.m. Officers investigated traffic offenses at West Main and Fitzhugh streets.

10:30 a.m. - Police investigated a case of fraud in the 4000 block of Wellness Drive.

11:08 a.m. - A deputy investigated a possible personal protection order violation in Lee Township.

2:59 p.m. - Police were sent to a retail fraud in the 6200 block of Eastman Avenue.

3:16 p.m. - Officers investigated a hit and run traffic crash in the 5000 block of North Saginaw Road.

5:33 p.m. - Police were sent to a retail fraud in the 1600 block of East Patrick Road.

7:45 p.m. - Police cited a driver at Harrison and Ashman streets for unregistered vehicle and no insurance.

8:06 p.m. - Deputies were sent to the jail for an assault involving two inmates, ages 28 and 22. A report was sent to the prosecutor's office.

9:31 p.m. - Police cited a motorist for an unregistered vehicle at Sylvan Lane and Eastman Avenue.

9:50 p.m. - Police investigated a hit and run crash at Dartmouth Drive and Jones Court.

10:24 p.m. - A deputy attempted to make a traffic stop in Lee Township and the driver, a 48-year-old man from Saginaw, ran away. A warrant is being requested. The passenger, a 59-year-old Saginaw man, was cited for open intoxicants.

10:52 p.m. - A motorist was arrested for third-offense driving while license suspended and improper plate at Rodd and East Baker streets.

Tuesday, Aug. 7

11:22 a.m. - A deputy investigated a breaking and entering that occurred at an abandoned Greendale Township home and storage barn. Stolen were tools, valued at a total of $1,400.

4:05 p.m. - A Greendale Township man, 59, reported he lost $500 in a scam involving a fake loan.
Recently, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to declare the Fake News as the Enemy of the People.

As tweets go, this was about as Orwellian and autocratic as it gets.

Sure, fake news is dangerous to public opinion, but as is so often the case with this president, the rhetorical lines are intentionally blurred. Whats real is decried as fake. Whats fake  inauguration crowd sizes, the underpinnings of the birther movement, the veracity of Russian President Vladimir Putin  is pumped up as real.

And the fake press, which is the real press, is torn down in the process. Its coverage of the White House, the question of Russian connections to the Trump campaign, the Mueller investigation are suddenly dismissed as inconvenient falsehoods, rather than uncomfortable journalistic truths.

Its a dangerous rhetorical game the president is playing. In a narrow sense, his words could seep into the collective mindset. The concern here is his rhetoric will incite violence against journalists, the enemy of the people.

To be clear: He has not called for that. But that doesnt mean thats not what someone will hear. This is, after all, the era of troubled young men with guns.

Just a few weeks ago, Express-News metro columnist Brian Chasnoff was accosted with Trumpian language about the press at a Bexar County Republican Party meeting.

Total fake news, Mark Metzger, a precinct chair, said to Chasnoff, who was on hand to cover a very real scandal swirling around Bexar County Republican Chair Cynthia Brehm. The whole paper. Youre a failing organization. Anybody with two brain cells hates you guys. You uber-left, sick, pukes, communist, socialist bastards. Go away. Its starting to smell around here. Youre the degradation of this nation.

Metzger later apologized, but words do matter.

Trump has referred to journalists as very unpatriotic and horrible, horrendous people. His 2020 campaign manager, San Antonios very own Brad Parscale, recently tweeted that journalists dont inform, they brainwash.

The mainstream media treats people with infinite condescension, he wrote.

And his followers on Twitter cheered.

Of course, Parscale, like his boss, has no problem sharing columns or stories from the very press he disdains, but only if that content advances his message or worldview. Maybe that makes him no different from most other political operatives, but other operatives have never worked for a president with such autocratic tendencies or open hostility to the press. Look no further than those videos from Trump rallies of people flipping the bird to journalists.

Brainwashing? Most reporting is a tedious slog. Journalists sit through long, boring public meetings so you dont have to. They sift through mind-numbing records and haggle with PR people and officials about word choices. They listen to developers drone on and on about their projects, and then listen to neighborhood association presidents worry about those projects. They chase down tips that almost never turn out to be accurate.

Enemy of the people? They do this because journalism can change the world in good and honest ways. Because the job is rewarding. Because its important to ask powerful people pointed questions. Because its a chance to witness history in real time and engage in public affairs and democracy in meaningful ways. Because its an honor to be entrusted with someones story.

Journalism is a business, and it has plenty of imperfections. But its not the enemy of the people. Just the opposite because its anchored in the pursuit of truth.

There is a broader concern about declaring the press as the enemy of the people that goes beyond the prospect of inciting violence. That in an environment where traditional media are struggling, where conspiracy theorists can create websites that masquerade as news, where its difficult to distinguish between real and fake people online, where disdain for the media is fueled by the president and his followers, we will descend into a hellish digital landscape where journalistic truth is washed out in a sea of misinformation.

In this cacophonous world there will be no agreement of facts, and, in turn, no foundation for discourse or dialogue. Those who benefit from less press coverage will exploit this absence of fact, and what follows wont remotely serve the people.

jbrodesky@express-news.net
Elizabeth Warren is branching out.

The Massachusetts senator, who has made a career of unfairly maligning bankers and other alleged capitalist malefactors, is now smearing the criminal justice system, too.

In a speech at a historically black college in New Orleans, she declared that the hard truth about our criminal justice system: Its racist ... I mean front to back.

Her riff is a sign that the Democrats are going to leaven their lurch toward socialism with a condemnation of America as fundamentally racist. After helping fuel Donald Trumps rise in 2016 with loose rhetoric about the bigotry of cops, Democrats hope to dislodge him in 2020 with even more sweeping accusations of systematic racism.

The U.S. criminal justice system is obviously a legitimate topic of debate. The war on drugs has been a blunderbuss mistake, and we should be reconsidering how many people we jail, and how we do it and why. But the contention that U.S. law enforcement is a product of racial hatred is a paranoid lie, from top to bottom, from beginning to end, from front to back.

The basis of the racism charge is the obvious disparities in the numbers. Blacks are 13 percent of the population, yet they account for 38 percent of state prisoners and for more than roughly 30 percent of fatal police shootings.

The driver for mass incarceration, we are always told, is a racist war on drugs. But this is a myth. In his book Locked In, John Pfaff notes that at its height in 1990, the share of state prisoners serving time for drugs was just 22 percent. The proportion fell to less than 16 percent in 2014. So you could release all drug offenders and still leave mass incarceration intact. And you wouldnt just be releasing black prisoners  33 percent of white inmates in state prisons are drug offenders, a slightly smaller percentage than the 38 percent of black inmates who are drug offenders.

It is true that the incarceration rates for drug offenses are much higher for blacks. This may be a product of enforcement bias, or other factors such as that whites are more prone to use private, as opposed to open-air, drug markets. Little rigorous empirical work has been done to test these theories, Pfaff writes. Its not uncommon to see someone simply assert that the proportions of whites and blacks who use and sell drugs are the same, but with very little data to support the claim.

The biggest reason for the overall disparity in incarceration is different rates of offending. Blacks account for about 50 percent of homicides. Its not that the police are simply making up these crimes. The numbers for violent crime accord with reports from crime victims of the race of their assailants.

The same applies to police shootings. Joseph Cesario, a professor of psychology at Michigan State University, writes that the differences in involvement in criminal situations between black and white citizens fully explains the population-level disparity in fatal police shootings.

Now, its entirely fair to argue that different rates of offending are a function of the vestiges of racism, and that it is urgent to pursue criminal justice reform given how the status quo affects black families and communities. But the idea that we are living in a latter-day apartheid South Africa, with a system designed to jail and immiserate blacks out of sheer maliciousness, is contemptible, poisonous and wrong.

It is telling that Elizabeth Warren is going there. There are two reasons. One is that she has a Bernie Sanders problem: She is (to all appearances) a white politician who has overwhelmingly devoted herself to economic issues. She needs to play identity politics catch-up. Two, in reaction to Trump, the left is embracing a sweeping indictment of America as undemocratic and racist at the core.

Warrens performance shows that the party is prepared to consider no critique of America too radical or out of bounds.

comments.lowry@nationalreview.com
For professors who do market research look for trends, patterns and consistencies in behavior, the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court provides an example. That is, do we find that the courts justices have some characteristic in common that is shared with the latest nominee and the sponsoring president?

One criterion might be a relationship between the university of the president and of the judge. In the list that follows, the names of the justices are given, then their law school, followed by the president who made the nomination and then that presidents university.

Chief Justice John Roberts went to Harvard and was nominated by George W. Bush who went to Harvard. Clarence Thomas (Yale), George H.W. Bush (Yale). Ruth Ginsburg (Harvard and then Columbia), Bill Clinton (Yale). Stephen Breyer (Harvard), Bill Clinton (Yale). Samuel Alito (Yale), George W. Bush (Yale). Sonia Sotomayor (Yale), Barack Obama (Harvard). Elena Kagan (Harvard), Barack Obama (Harvard). Neil Gorsuch (Harvard), Donald Trump (Penn).

You see the strong and continuing bias toward the Northeast. This is nothing short of constitutional incest. What does that mean for the rest of us not in the eastern time zone? Those folks up there are not like real folks. They live in a colonial cocoon. It may not bother you that it is likely no one making decisions that affect Texas can eat a tamale properly or pronounce Bexar.

But there should be balanced representation. And that will not happen until there is a Supreme Court justice who graduated from our sister college: St. Marys University School of Law.

Star Carey,

emeritus marketing professor,

Our Lady of the Lake University

Um, rooster eggs?

Re: Take a tour off the beaten path of Texas history; Attractions offer unique peek at the past, MySA Weekend, Aug. 3:

In this article, there was mention of calf fries being served at a Fort Worth restaurant. The part that got my attention was calf fries defined as cow testicles.

Please! There is no such thing as cow testicles, for the same reason that there are no rooster eggs. I would think that a Texas writer should know better. Perhaps a brief lesson in the vocabulary of cattle is in order:

Bull: an adult male. Cow: an adult female. Calf: a young bovine of either sex. Heifer. a young cow that has never had a calf. Steer: a male that has been castrated as a calf and intended for slaughter as beef. Ox: a male that has been castrated as an adult and trained as a work animal.

At the old-time roundups, cowboys would rope and tie the calves, brand them, then castrate the males. The testicles might be saved and cooked later. Thats the origin of calf fries, also known as rocky mountain oysters.

Steven Botts

Code words

Have you noticed that every time Sen. Ted Cruz mentions his opponent, he uses these code words, liberal, left wing, far left Democrat.

I am sure his campaign consultants think that will keep him in the lead here in Texas. But here is something consultants cant change: If you are on Social Security, Disability, Medicare or Medicaid, who most wants to help you?

His reputation is well known in the Senate. I know its not just who you would rather have a beer with, but maybe there is something to that also.

Herman I. Morris, Plano

Clinton bias

Re: Laughable editorial, Your Turn, July 29:

A reader complained about an editorial, Grilling of Strzok hurt democracy. Obviously, the editorial writer had read the report of the FBIs Inspector General. That report stated that Agent Strzok knew about Russias effort to help the Trump campaign but neither he nor his girlfriend made any effort to thwart that campaign.

However, the report stated that the New York FBI Office had a visceral hatred of Clinton and did attempt to thwart her campaign with leaks damaging to her campaign, including fake leaks that were reported as fake news. Fox News Bret Baier apologized for reporting that Clinton would soon be indicted based on a fake FBI leak.

Neither the House committee nor the liberal media grilled agents from the New York FBI Office. I wonder why.

Robert Lopez Flynn,

Shavano Park

Not immoral

Re: Many of us missing sense of entitlement, Other Views, Aug. 2:

In a country where one man was able to increase his wealth by $34 billion in one year (Jeff Bezos in 2017), Christopher E. Baecker believes it is immoral for a single mom to lobby her government for even a minimal amount of paid sick leave.

My guess is that Baecker has a better sick leave arrangement than the average single mom. Republicans now argue against things we all want, while giving billionaires billions in tax breaks and running up the budget deficit to roughly a trillion this year and next.

And this is what we do when the economy is booming?

Stanley Hall

Last for rail

Re: Technology helped transform the city, 300  S.A. tricentennial, July 29:

The author quoted Hugh Hemphill, author of The Railroads of San Antonio and South Central Texas, that San Antonio was in fact the last major city in America, in the U.S.A. to obtain railroad service.

How appropriate  albeit discouraging  that San Antonio will probably also be the last major city in America to obtain light rail or metro rail/rapid transit. This is not the type of exceptionalism that San Antonio should desire or accept.

David DeWall
ZANU-PF yesterday said the country is poised for economic growth under the leadership of newly-elected President Mnangagwa who has a clear vision for the country.

In an interview, Zanu-PF national spokesperson Cde Simon Khaya Moyo said the party earned the national crown in the just ended harmonised polls after its presidential candidate President Mnangagwa narrowly won 50,8 percent of the vote while the MDC Alliances presidential candidate Mr Nelson Chamisa got 44,3 percent in an election which had 23 candidates. The ruling party also garnered two-thirds majority in Parliament.

Cde Khaya Moyo said President Mnangagwa has demonstrated that he has the ability to take the country to glorious times after he assumed power last year in November.

Upon the resignation of the former President following well known events a new dawn, new dispensation and indeed a new era embraced the nation led by President ED Mnangagwa after his inauguration on November 24, 2017, he said.

Since that historic day Cde ED as he is popularly known, has led the country with meticulous precision, foresight, vision, courage and humility. He is of course a man of impeccable liberation war credentials, upright in character, principled, purposeful and a man of destiny. And his winning of the 30 July Presidential election, is closed in these attributes. Zimbabwe is destined for prosperity through his wise leadership.

He said Zanu-PF continues to create new narratives with its masses-driven policies.

The partys eloquent history has always been on the peoples side, hence it being a peoples party. Its journey up to this moment is not a secret. Its an open book with fascinating pages, he said.

Cde Khaya Moyo said President Mnangagwas victory was no mean achievement.

The revolutionary Zanu-PF party congratulates its President and First Secretary Cde Emmerson Dambudzo Mnangagwa for being declared the winner of the 30 July 2018 harmonised elections as President elect of the Republic of Zimbabwe, said Cde Khaya Moyo.

Equally his focus and servant leadership has landed the ruling party a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly garnering 145 out of the 210 seats, indeed earning a national crown. This is no mean achievement given the political landscape of Zimbabwe.

He said the party was however saddened by the violence which claimed the lives of six people on Wednesday. The ruling party leadership in Matabeleland North is planning parties around the province to celebrate its victory in the elections.

Out of 13 parliamentary seats in the province, the revolutionary party won eight with the remaining five going to MDC Alliance. Zanu-PF retained Bubi, Umguza, Lupane East, Lupane West, Tsholotsho North, Tsholotsho South, Nkayi North and the partys candidate Cde Stars Mathe also reclaimed Nkayi South from the MDC-Ts Abednico Bhebhe.

MDC Alliance won in Binga North and Binga South, Hwange Central, Hwange East and also gained Hwange West. Zanu-PF also won a majority of local authority seats around the province.

The partys provincial chairman Cde Richard Moyo said the victory calls for celebrations before the party starts implementing promises it made during the campaign period.

On Friday Cde Moyo held a roadshow with his campaign team from Umguza up to Victoria Falls where he spoiled them with a boat cruise and game drive for working hard in the run up to the elections.

Cde Moyo said the Friday party was a precursor to a series of celebrations soon to be held in Umguza and in other constituencies where the party won around the province. This is just a celebration with team Umguza following the good work they did. They have been in the bush since we started campaigning and I thought of thanking them by a boat cruise and game drive as they return home to their families, he said.

After this we will start our celebrations around all wards in Umguza. We will also meet all MPs who won in the province before a provincial celebration on a date to be advised.

Cde Moyo became the partys candidate for Umguza after Dr Obert Mpofu opted for the Senate.

Dr Mpofu, together with Cdes Thokozile Mathuthu and Alice Dube are the partys senators for the province while the MDC Alliance will be represented by Mrs Rosemary Nyathi, Mrs Phyllis Ndlovu and Mr Herbert Simatande. In Bulawayo, the provincial secretary for administration Cde Elifas Mashaba said although Zanu-PF won only one seat in the province, the party improved its performance in the just ended harmonised elections compared to 2013 polls.

The party only won Bulawayo South constituency out of 12 constituencies, the rest going to the MDC Alliance.

Since 2000 the party had not won any National Assembly seats in Bulawayo save for six it won during the 2015 by-elections that were boycotted by the MDC.

Cde Mashaba said it was always going to be difficult for the party to win the polls considering the prevailing economic hardships.

Obviously, we go into an election to win. However, the urban set up which has challenges of job creation and cash shortages among other issues affected the urban voters. But we hope to turn the tables as the economic engines start turning around under President Emmerson Mnangagwa leadership. I dont believe that people in Bulawayo hate Zanu-PF, said Cde Mashaba,

As a party, although we lost to the opposition we are happy with the voting patterns. In the 2013 elections we had just over 30 000 voters in the presidential race and in this election our numbers increased to more than 60 000. Even our constituencies performed relatively well as compared to the past election.

Cde Mashaba said Zanu-PF Bulawayo province will build on the groundwork that has been laid so far.

He said the party was investigating the alleged planting of some voters in Bulawayo constituencies.

We believe there are some voters who might not be staying in Bulawayo who voted in Bulawayo constituencies. So we are looking into that. But that does not mean we are not accepting the poll results, said Cde Mashaba.

He said the partys focus was to rebuild the economy under President Mnangagwa as revival of Bulawayo industries under the special economic zones and construction of houses will be on the partys top agenda. He challenged Mr Chamisa to accept the poll results to pave way for economic development.

 Chronicle

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ACTING Prosecutor-General Mr Kumbirai Hodzi said MDC-Alliance principal Mr Tendai Bitis rights have been upheld from his arrest to the time of appearing in court and that observers still in the country were free to attend court and witness the criminal justice system at work.

Mr Biti was arrested yesterday and brought to court to answer to the charges of prematurely announcing election results and inciting political violence.

In a statement, Mr Hodzi said Mr Biti was taken to court in a comfortable top-of-the-range vehicle and was treated in a humane manner.

He added that his office was apolitical and that Mr Bitis case was being handled professionally without any form of bias.

We want to categorically emphasise that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is an apolitical institution and is not an agent of persecution against any politician or citizen. Zimbabwe is a peaceful country with law-abiding citizens and our duty as an agency that is involved in the preservation of law and order is to ensure that peace prevails.

As regards Mr Biti, he was arrested by the police and brought to court for initial remand.

We believe that he has been treated in a befitting and humane manner while in the custody of the police. He was brought to court safely and unharmed as should be the case. Due process was followed and his rights were upheld, said Mr Hodzi.

The prosecution boss said thousands of election observers in the country were free to observe the court proceedings in the spirit of transparency.

There are close to 6 500 international observers and almost 1 000 journalists present in our country and they are welcome to see Zimbabwes criminal justice system at work.

We believe that we have maintained a rigorous respect of human rights during the entire election period. We certainly have nothing to hide, he said.

Mr Hodzi expressed concern at the behaviour of Mr Biti of fleeing the country after being invited to the police.

He described the conduct of Mr Biti, a senior lawyer, as political posturing.

We are, however, of the view that Mr Bitis conduct was regrettable. He is a legal practitioner who knows the law and what due process entails.

If a citizen is asked to report to the police to assist with investigations, he ought to do just that. Mr Biti chose to run away and seek asylum in Zambia instead of reporting to the police to assist them in their investigations.

We believe that Mr Bitis conduct is tantamount to political grandstanding. Acts of political grandstanding will not be allowed to usurp public peace and good order. If such conduct is contrary to the law, then the National Prosecuting Authority will not hesitate to prosecute to the fullest extent of the law. We will do so in an apolitical manner, without fear or favour, he said.

Mr Hodzi said Mr Bitis colleagues in politics were safe in Zimbabwe and that his fleeing to Zambia was unwarranted.

We believe there was no need for him to flee to Zambia. He was not in any danger. Other politicians are here and have come to no harm. They are still enjoying the peace in our country like everybody else, he said.

The State did not oppose bail in Mr Bitis case.

Mr Hodzi said the new dispensation took away the old tendencies of bringing suspects to court while bundled at the back of open trucks.

He said the use of leg irons was now a thing of the past as the State was committed to upholding the rights of accused persons as enshrined in the Constitution.

This comes after United States government said it was gravely concerned by credible reports of numerous detentions, beatings, and other abuses of Zimbabweans over the past week, particularly targeting opposition activists.

In a statement, U.S State Department spokesperson Heather Nuaert said there should be no role for violence, intimidation, or harassment in the new Zimbabwe.

We are also deeply concerned that Zambia chose to hand over former Minister of Finance Tendai Biti to the Zimbabwean authorities, and in the face of a reported Zambian court order blocking his expulsion from Zambia.

This decision is particularly disheartening given the courage that Zambia showed in sheltering thousands of Zimbabwean freedom fighters from Rhodesian aggression in the days of Zimbabwes independence struggle. We will be discussing this matter with Zambias leaders and reviewing certain aspects of our cooperation with the Zambian government.

The United States said the Government of Zimbabwe is now responsible for Tendai Bitis safety and welfare.

We call on Zimbabwes leaders to guarantee Mr. Bitis physical safety and ensure his constitutional and human rights are respected, consistent with the rule of law and Zimbabwes international obligations and commitments. In Washington, the United States has convoked the ambassadors of both Zimbabwe and Zambia to register our gravest concerns.

While Zimbabwe had a historic opportunity to move the country toward a brighter future for all its citizens, an electoral process marred by violence that does not respect constitutional rights and procedures is not a step toward that future.

 Chronicle

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PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwas extensive public relations campaign to position himself as a reformer and leader of a new dispensation in Zimbabwe has crumbled like a deck of cards. This is after the disputed outcome of last weeks elections, disruption of an opposition press conference by police, brutal killings of at least six people after soldiers opened gunfire on unarmed civilians and the crackdown on opposition members.

Catapulted into power on the back of a military coup in November last year, Mnangagwa quickly went all out to sell the message that his administration was the architect of a new dispensation and that the country was open for business, a departure from his predecessor Robert Mugabes toxic policies and gross economic mismanagement which left the country isolated. During his trips to Sadc countries such as Zambia, Mozambique, South Africa, Botswana and Namibia, Mnangagwa amplified this message. He also took his open for business gospel further afield, including to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January this year and China.

Mnangagwa dispatched Foreign Affairs minister Sibusiso Moyo who went to London as re-engagement efforts intensified. To revamp his image and reputation as a reformer and new leading light, Mnangagwa also gave interviews to influential overseas media houses such as the Financial Times, the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), New York Times and the Wall Street Journal where he expounded on the narrative of a new dispensation and the country being open for business which gained him favourable reviews. It paid dividends. This was demonstrated by his cozy relationship with the United Kingdom, Russia and China.

As a sign of the vastly improved relationship between Zimbabwe and the UK, the British government advanced a US$100 million loan through the Commonwealth Development Corporation (CDC), the UKs development finance institution and Standard Chartered Bank to Zimbabwean private companies to re-equip and increase capacity utilisation. The financial package, the first direct commercial loan by the UK to Zimbabwe in more than 20 years was seen as a massive vote of confidence in Mnangagwa who used this development as part of his campaign message in the lead up to the elections last year. It looked like the beginning of the injection of the much-needed funding to breathe life into the countrys comatose economy.

Mnangagwa then bolstered his image further when he invited the international community to observe the elections, including those who had previously been banned from doing so by the Mugabe regime. He also preached peace and tolerance during election campaigns.

However, the PR campaign that had given Mnangagwa a new look and traction which collapsed spectacularly last week.

The contested outcome of the polls by the Nelson Chamisa-led MDC Alliance was the first spanner in the works of Mnangagwas well-choreographed publicity campaign. The 50,8% vote he garnered was contentious and has been rejected outright by the opposition.

The dispute over the polls was worsened by the cold-blooded killing of civilians in broad daylight by soldiers who had been called in to quell a violent demonstration over alleged electoral theft on Wednesday last week. The images of soldiers opening fire on civilians with one of them in a kneeling position have gone viral worldwide turning the tide against Mnangagwa.

The crackdown that has followed mainly in high density areas by soldiers mainly targeting opposition leaders from MDC Alliance has aggravated matters for the septuagenarian leader.

To add insult to injury, police then tried to bar Chamisa from holding a press conference two days later in full view of foreign journalists and a world audience before acting information minister Simon Khaya Moyo was forced to intervene. The promise by Mnangagwa to investigate the army shootings implies that he was not the one who deployed the soldiers. It remains unclear who deployed the army. It also gives the impression that he is not in control as pointed out by political analyst Ibbo Mandaza.

Zimbabweans who celebrated the coup were short-sighted in my view, Mandaza said. The police had handled them very well and had got the protestors to tire. There was no confrontation whatsoever between civilians and the army. In fact, the civilians were running away from the army. This was cold-blooded murder. I think that maybe Mnangagwa is not in charge.

The global outrage and condemnation has been swift from international media and governments alike, and has wrecked Mnangagwas painstaking efforts to rebrand and distinguish himself from ideologues of the Mugabe era when violence and electoral theft were commonplace.

Foreign journalist from the influential Financial Times Joseph Cotterill, who was in the country to cover the elections, revealed that he had been at the receiving end of the chaos.

On Wednesday (last week) I had a soldier raise his AK at me and threaten(ed) to shoot, on Friday a riot policeman move(d) to shove me with his shield, Cotterill wrote on microblogging site Twitter. He added that one would have to be crazy to come and invest in Zimbabwe.

Security forces killed at least six opposition protesters, raided opposition headquarters and broke up a press conference at Harare Hotel Friday, the Wall Street Journal wrote in its damning indictment. Political intimidation and killings were a hallmark of the Mugabe era, and Mr Mnangagwa, a former defence minister and spymaster learned his trade well. The elections process and result show there is no reason for the US or Europe to ease the diplomatic and financial pressure.

In a joint local statement on the post elections human rights situation in Zimbabwe, the European Union delegation, the heads of mission of EU member states present in Harare and the heads of mission of Canada, Switzerland and the United States condemned the violence.

The heads of mission of the EU, Canada, Switzerland and the United States of America note with grave concern the eruption of violence and occurrence of serious human rights violations following the peaceful election of 30 July 2018 , they said in a statement.

These tragic events stand in sharp contrast to the high hopes and expectations for a peaceful, inclusive, transparent and credible election in Zimbabwe.

That the statement was made after Sibusiso Moyo had denied the crackdown shows that his explanation has found few takers.

The Australian government also joined the chorus of condemnation.

It remains to be seen whether Mnangagwa, who is perceived to be the proverbial cat with nine lives, can recover from the wreckage of a shipwrecked PR campaign at the tail end of his bid for legitimacy.

-Zimbabwe Independent

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- Several people of Nigerian origin around the world are making the news lately for contributing positively to whichever field they find themselves

- This is the case of Uzodinma Asonye who is one of the seven prosecutors in the Russian collusion allegations against US President Donald Trump's campaign director, Paul Manafort

- Asonye, who is a financial crimes prosecutor, got his law degree from Yale in 2005

An American of Nigerian origin, 37-year-old Uzodinma Asonye, is one of the seven prosecutors enlisted by the United States special counsel on the Russian collusion allegations, Robert Mueller.

Asonye was said to have led the prosecution team when the first trial in the alleged Russian collusion case opened against a former campaign director and ally of President Donald Trump, Paul Manafort.

READ ALSO: Members of R-APC, Kwankwaso's supporters in Edo dump ruling APC

Manafort is being tried for alleged bank and tax fraud as well as possible connivance with foreign Russians.

According to Chicago Sun Times, Asonye was in the marching band, symphonic choir and a member of the National Honor Society in high school.

Legit.ng gathers that he grew up in Chicago where he attended Homewood-Flossmoor Community High School and graduated in 1998.

Uzodinma Asonye is a financial crimes prosecutor in the United States.

Asonye, who is a financial crimes prosecutor in the eastern district of Virginia, got his undergraduate degree from Cornell University in 2002 and his law degree from Yale in 2005.

According to reports, the prosecutor has successfully prosecuted fraud cases, including the Bank of the Commonwealth fraud trial that saw the firms former boss jailed for 23 years.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that press secretary to President Donald Trump of the United States, Sarah Sanders, said that the president had asked White House to extend an invitation to Russian president, Vladimir Putin to visit Washington later this year, 2018.

The president's press secertary took to her Twitter page to make the announcement on Thursday, July 19.

Street Gist: Will Nigeria be a better place with Trump as president? | on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit.ng
- Governor Nyesom Wike compares the freezing of the account of a state government to a government overthrow

- He accuses the EFCC of going after the Benue state government because of the defection the state governor, Samuel Ortom, from the APC to the PDP

- Anti-graft commission unfreezes Benue government accounts

Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers state has said the freezing of bank accounts of Benue and Akwa Ibom state governments by the EFCC was sufficient reason for Acting President Yemi Osinbajo to sack Ibrahim Magu, the acting chairman of the anti-graft agency.

Wike in press statement on Thursday, August 9, in Port Harcourt, compared the freezing of the accounts of a state government to a government overthrow, Premium Times reports.

I am calling for the sack of the Acting Chairman of the EFCC, Mr Ibrahim Magu, for overthrowing a tier government. The mere fact that the two accounts have been re-opened does not mean that a crime was not committed, the governor said.

READ ALSO: Security report made me order invasion of National Assembly - Sacked DSS boss Lawal Daura

When you freeze the account of the State Government, you have overthrown that government. Without funds, a state cannot function. This means the shutdown of government business at Executive, Legislature and Judiciary in the affected states.

Wike said the acting chairman of the EFCC deserved to be sacked and prosecuted for his action against the two states, just as the director general of the State Security Services (SSS) was be sacked because of the recent siege to the National Assembly.

The governor accused the EFCC of going after the Benue state government because of the defection the state governor, Samuel Ortom, from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

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He alleged that the anti-graft commission played a role in the defection of the former Senate minority leader, Godswill Akpabio, from the PDP to the APC.

Meanwhile, the Benue state government on Thursday, August 9, said the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) has unfrozen its bank accounts.

Legit.ng gathered that Terver Akase, the chief press secretary to Governor Samuel Ortom, confirmed this to Channels Television in an interview.

Akase had faulted the freezing of the state accounts as a political witch-hunt against his principal after he defected to the PDP.

The EFCC stage a walk against corruption on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit
- Suspected herdsmen dominant in local farming communities in Plateau state are causing havoc on a daily basis

- Residents in the area daily lament on the invasion of their farms by the marauding herdsmen

- One of such persons, an investor, has lost his moringa farm worth over N60million

A Nigerian agricultural investor, Mr. James Paul Adama has lost his 160 hectares of farmland located at Kwi village in Riyom local government area of Plateau state due to activities of suspected herdsmen.

Adama, a native of Kogi state, kick-started the project in April 2018, with the aim of supplying the products to foreign and local companies.

But his dreams were shattered when the villagers in Kwi, started calling him on the phone, while he had gone back to Abuja, his original base, telling him some herdsmen have invaded the farm.

Adama and his farm manager, Simon Dalyop discuss the extent of damage in the moringa farm

READ ALSO: I want Buhari to seek reelection, but he should not think he can't be defeated - Tam David-West

This is a situation I find myself. This is my farm. A moringa farm of about 160 hectares and the farm has been destroyed. You can see some of the moringas that were destroyed. You can see the cow dungs and cow pow inside the farm. Its a big massive farm. As I am talking to you, we dont even have one percent of what we have planted here, Adama lamented as he took Legit.ng round the expansive land.

Narrating his ordeal, he said: I started with a little farm in Abuja with about 6/7 hectares, around Kwali area, close to Mathematical Centre. I saw that it wasnt enough. So, a company contacted me to buy 5,000 metric tonnes of moringa seed every year for the next ten years.

And so, I was able to meet a family, and the family has this land, 160 hectares, they have not been using it and they said, okay, the best thing to do is to give me this land to put this investment, since this investment will last for 75 years.

I moved down here August last year and I started work. As at April, we started planting and the moringas were doing extremely well. We decided to take a month to go and rest, while resting in Abuja, I received a call from some of the villagers and some of the owners of the land to say cows are invading the farm.

Every day, nothing less than 700 herdsmen, will move from the vast area, to this place, uprooting the moringas and moving into the farm with cows in their thousands.

So, one of the days, I came down myself and we came to the farm here, they started shooting at us on sighting us. I went back and said nobody should go close, that peoples lives are more important than whatever we planted here.

Cow dung suggesting on the farm suggesting that herds of cattle passed the farm. Photo credit: Sodiq Adelakun

Adama said he has reported the incident to the authorities, but he is yet to get any concrete response from them.

According to him he has written to the Commander, Operation Safe Haven (a joint task force of security agencies instituted to maintain peace in Plateau), Director of the State Security Service, office of the deputy governor and commissioner of police, all in Plateau state.

He showed Legit.ng copied of the letters sent and the acknowledgement copies.

Im puzzled and my heart bleeds to recall on the financial expenditure of the farm. Over 68,300,000 naira has been spent so far evidence by the bank transaction details and other book keeping records. This figure is devoid of exaggeration and can be impeccably proven before any authority.

This is the tacit matter as stake. Im appealing as it is said No justice, no peace to implore every means of justice to amicably resolve this crucial matter as a mean to restore peace on the Plateau and Nigeria as a whole, Adama wrote in the letter to Operation Save Haven.

Adama points at one of his abandoned farming equipment as he laments over his ordeal

According to the Plateau Initiative for Development and Advancement of the Natives (PIDAN), a socio-cultural organisation for indigenous tribes of the Plateau, more than 219 natives have been killed by armed herders in four local government councils of the state within the past 4 months.

A recent media report also claims that over 54 communities in Plateau have been taken over by herdsmen after recent attacks in the state on farming communities. According to the report, the attacks have seen native communities in Plateau state taken over by invading herders and even renaming them.

The natives, mostly Berom by tribe, the report says, have watched helplessly as their homes are occupied, people killed and farmlands taken over and, in some cases, the original names of the villages changed.

The report noted that prominent leaders of the Berom tribe and socio-cultural groups before now had consistently appealed to the federal government to tackle land occupation by foreign herders but their entreaties were ignored.

Davou Dalyop Jambol, the president of Shonong Development Association in Plateau state, in a recent interview with Legit.ng says the crisis has escalated because of the bias of government.

His words: To the best of my knowledge, I have never seen one day that a Berom man attacked a Fulani man. None!

From all these attacks since 2001 till date, no Berom man has never gone to anybody to attack him. The attack is always on the Berom man. The problem now is why are there attacks and what happened? If I have not offended you and attack me, on what ground.

Secondly, the governments are not helping matters, why I said so is, if you go the area where these people are, you will see Fulanis with weapons in their body going about, but if a Berom man happens to have a stick, going to even his farm, a security man will call him, come back, where are you going with this stick?

That means we are saying, the government is behind this thing. That is purely what is happening. Because, if a person will go to his farm with a stick, and he will be cautioned, and the person with an arm, would not be cautioned, then the person with a stick, is a second-hand citizen in this country.

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Meanwhile, The federal government recently announced that the N10 billion fund approved recently by President Muhammadu Buhari for the rehabilitation of farms and farming communities in Benue and Nasarawa state will also be available in Plateau state.

This was after the Plateau state government made the request through its commissioner of information, Yakubu Dati.

Adama is hopeful he will get support from the government for his ordeals, saying, everything has been destroyed and I am appealing to government as a young man, to please compensate me so that I can start from somewhere again.

Nigeria Latest News: Herdsmen Have Destroyed my Farm - Nigerian Investor in Plateau | Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit
- APC senators and the PDP lawmakers at the National Assembly have drawn a battle line over calls for Saraki's resignation

- The ruling party had called on Saraki to resign, following his defection and 13 other senators from the APC to the PDP,

- But the PDP senators said that Saraki would remain the Senate president

Strong indications have emerged that the All Progressives Congress (APC) senators and their Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) counterparts are heading for a showdown as the National Assembly reconvenes on Tuesday, August 14.

According to Saturday Punch, the bone of contention bordered on what should be discussed at the plenary on Tuesday, August 14.

Legit.ng gathered that the senators, who are loyal to the Senate president, Bukola Saraki, were insisting that the only agenda would be the consideration of President Muhammadu Buharis budget for the 2019 elections.

READ ALSO: Breaking: Rivers Attorney General Aguma, dies in London

The anti-Saraki lawmakers on the other hand, said nothing was sacrosanct, adding that they could raise the issue of the leadership of the Senate.

Following the defection of the Senate president and 13 other senators from the APC to the PDP, the ruling party had called on Saraki to resign.

But the Senate president on Wednesday, August 8, said he would resign only if two-thirds of senators passed a vote of no confidence in him.

A pro-Saraki senator, who confided in Saturday Punch, said: On Tuesday our focus will be INEC budget. Those who think we will debate majority and leadership issues are wasting their time.

But another senator, who is opposed to Saraki, said, No issue is sacrosanct. Sarakis issue will come up on Tuesday.

Senator Ovie Omo-Agege, who is a member of the Parliamentary Support Group (PSG), a group of President Muhammadu Buharis loyalists in the National Assembly, said the APC senators would use every opportunity to seek Sarakis exit from the Senate presidency.

According to him, there are legal and moral reasons for Saraki to quit the Senate presidency.

Omo-Agege, in an interview with Saturday Punch said, The moment Saraki defected from the APC to the minority party, PDP, he no longer has the moral, political and legal rights to remain as the Senate president.

"We have requested of him to step down. We have requested of him to do the honourable thing, to do the needful by stepping down. It is a request we are going to continue to make and any opportunity we have, we are going to insist that he must step down.

But one of those who defected from the APC to the PDP, Senator Rafiu Ibrahim, dared anti-Saraki lawmakers to come to the Senate and impeach the Senate president.

He stated that only two-thirds majority of anti-Saraki lawmakers could effect his impeachment.

He recalled that the Senate president had at the press conference on Wednesday, August 8, said he was ready to leave the seat once the constitutional requirement was met.

Ibrahim, in an interview said: Let them come to the chamber when we open and let them come and carry out the impeachment. All they need for the impeachment is about 74. If they can get the signatures of 74 members and they will be there; if they can stand up for division and we can see them, then they will have their way. That is the beauty of democracy.

In her submission, the deputy minority whip, Senator Biodun Olujimi, argued that the APC had lost its majority status in the chamber, noting that the PDP had the same number with the ruling party.

The Senate principal officer dismissed the calls by the APC, its national chairman, Adams Oshiomhole and Prof. Itse Sagay for Sarakis resignation on moral grounds.

She recalled that PDP senators voted more for Saraki to become the Senate president than the APC.

Olujimi said: I dont understand what they are saying because they need two-thirds majority to remove him. They should bring the numbers, that is all. They dont need to talk on the pages of newspapers. They dont even have a simple majority right now, we are equal.

Asked to explain the configuration of senators and their parties in the Senate, the lawmaker said, There are two in ADC, two in APGA, two are dead and one is incarcerated (jailed Senator Joshua Dariye). That is seven. Take that from the total 109, you will get 102. Each of the PDP and the APC has 51 members.

Speaking on the call for Sarakis resignation on moral grounds, Olujimi said, What is morality in 51-51. He is sitting atop same number as theirs. It is a different case if they have 70 or at least 65, then their majority will be clear.

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Again, how many of them were party to our electing the Senate president? Just a handful of them. It was majorly by PDP senators. Out of the 53 votes he got, we gave him 42 of them. So, what are they talking about? Fifty-three senators put him there, though we were not complete then but we gave him 42 votes. They should be rational.

When contacted, Saraki, who spoke through his special adviser on media, Yusuph Olaniyonu, said issues arising from defections, which should be dealt with at plenary, would be sorted out when the Senate resumes fully from its eight-week annual recess.

Olaniyonu, stated this in a telephone interview with Saturday Punch, in Abuja while responding to a question on whether the Senate president would declare the seat of the former Senate minority leader, Godswill Akpabio vacant.

Akpabio defected from the PDP to the APC on Wednesday. He said, As far as we are concerned, we are on recess now. When the Senate reconvenes, every issue will be sorted out at plenary.

Meanwhile, the PDP has asked President Muhammadu Buhari and the APC to stop deluding themselves and come to terms with the reality that they lack the legislative number and constitutional facilities to impeach Saraki and the Deputy Senate President, Ike Ekweremadu, or to call for their resignation.

The PDP said the Buhari Presidency and APC, having allegedly realised that there was no way they could muster the constitutionally required two-thirds of the votes of the 109 senators (representing 73 senators), were engaging in underhand tactics, including the invasion of the National Assembly, which it said turned out as a disgraceful adventure.

The national publicity secretary of the party, Kola Ologbondiyan, who stated this in a statement in Abuja on Friday, August 10, also asked Prof. Itsay Sagay and others clamouring for Sarakis removal, to wake up from their slumber.

He said before the invasion of the National Assembly, Nigerians were already aware of moves to use what he described as humongous funds to induce lawmakers to trigger crisis in the National Assembly and pave the way for the removal of the presiding officers.

He said: Now that they have discovered that there is no way they can achieve their evil intentions, they have commenced a war of blackmail, distortions of fact and media trial against the Senate leadership, which, of course, will end up as another wasteful venture as Nigerians are aware of the long-drawn desperation of the Buhari presidency to annex the legislature.

Ologbondiyan added that majority of members of the APC in both chambers were with their presiding officers.

He added: Even among the ranks of the depleted APC senators and members of the House of Representatives, there is a huge aversion to the underhand tactics being deployed by the Buhari Presidency and the APC to force out duly elected presiding officers of the National Assembly.

As such, such lawmakers are fully aligned with Nigerians, the PDP and the National Assembly leadership in the protection of the independence, sanctity and integrity of our parliament and all democratic institutions in our land.

It is therefore instructive for both the Buhari Presidency and the APC to know that there is no way they can remove the leadership of the National Assembly, particularly the Senate.

We also ask Prof. sagay and others like him to bury their thought of the illegal removal of Saraki and his deputy.

READ ALSO: Saraki replies Oshiomhole, calls him ignorant

Ologbondiyan cautioned the Buhari presidency and the APC to stop overheating the polity with their outbursts and shed future perverse attempts to circumvent our rules and constitution, as such will not help them or change the resolve of Nigerians to vote them out in 2019.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that the national chairman of All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, said the president of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, never acted in the nations interest as he claimed.

Nigeria Latest News: Who is responsible for the siege on the National Assembly?| - on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit
- The APCs candidate for the Bauchi-south senatorial district by-election, Lawal Yahaya-Gumau, says he will work towards amending the constitution to make Buhari president for life

- He said protecting Buharis interest is the sole mandate he has for going the Senate

- According to Gumau, Buhari will only cease to be president when God takes his life

Lawal Yahaya-Gumau, the All Progressives Congress (APC)s candidate for the Bauchi-south senatorial district by-election scheduled to hold on Saturday, August 11, says he will work towards the amendment of the Constitution to make President Muhammadu Buhari president for life, if elected.

He made the comment on Thursday, August 9, at the closing of his campaign in Bauchi, Punch reports.

READ ALSO: Saraki replies Oshiomhole, calls him ignorant

Legit.ng gathers that Gumau , who is currently in his eight year at the House of Representatives on behalf of the Toro federal constituency, said protecting Buharis interest is the sole mandate he has, for going the Senate.

He said: I, Lawal-Yahaya Gumau, want you to know that the mandate that will be given to me on Saturday is to go and protect Buharis interest in the Senate.

This is the only mandate that I will be going to the Senate with, having fulfilled every other mandate to the best of my ability while in the House of Representatives for eight years.

By Gods grace, we will amend Nigerias Constitution to allow Buhari to be president for the remaining years of his life. He will only cease to be president when God takes his life.

Obasanjo tried all his best for the constitution to be amended to allow him go for a third term, but God didnt approve of it because of its lack of sincerity. What is now needed in Nigeria is to protect Buharis interest; and that is what we will do.

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Recall that Legit.ng previously reported that President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday, August 2, attended the campaign rally for the Bauchi-south senatorial district by-election.

The APC chairman, Adams Oshiomhole, alongside Plateau state governor, Simon Lalong, Senator Ali Ndume and other dignitaries attended the rally.

President Buhari on 2019 presidential election: Will you vote for him? - on Legit.ng TV:

Source: Legit Nigeria
- Alhaji Farouk Umar Farouk, the Emir of Daura, Katsina, has said that President Muhammadu Buhari has strong faith in his vice, Professor Yemi Osinbajo

- The Emir, who made this remark on Friday, August 10, said that the people of Katsina are completely behind the acting president in his unrelenting support for the head of states

- He further said that his and President Buhari's level of transparency and administrative skills are highly appreciated by locals in Daura and the state generally

During his reception statement to the acting president, Yemi Osinbajo, on Friday, August 10, the Emir of Daura, Katsina, Alhaji Farouk Umar Farouk, said that the head of states has a lot of faith and trust in him.

The Emir in his statement made available to Legit.ng said that the entire people of Katsina are in complete support of Osinbajo and fully appreciate his high level of transparency in governance.

READ ALSO: We will amend constitution, make Buhari life president - APC senatorial candidate

The statement read: "An occasion such as this offers an opportunity for us to discuss many things but for lack of time I would not bore you by presenting a long speech. Also, the masses have been waiting for you, so I would prefer you take your time to address them. I just want to thank you for this visit and pray for success in your programme in the state.

"His Excellency, the Governor of Katsina, I convey our appreciations to all our guests especially the Vice President of Nigeria, who has been very supportive of the President, our father and our son. I welcome you this community. This is where our President was born and raised. I am happy because, as far as I know, this is your first visit to this community, as the Vice President, but we pardon you.

"I can assure you that all us here, myself and my subjects; we are fully and solidly behind you and in support of you. We are happy with you and we are particularly proud of the way you have supported our son, President Muhammadu Buhari in leading our country Nigeria to prosperity.

"That explains why when you talk about loyalty and trustworthiness among the political class, you stand as an example worthy of note. I wish that you carry on with this level of trustworthiness and continue to uphold the confidence that our son has in you.

"I can assure you that our son has enormous trust in you, I want you to continue to justify that confidence he has placed in you. I want to inform you that we have never had such a government where the President and his deputy operate under such high level of mutual respect and understanding.

"From the onset, this government has demonstrated integrity, our son, Muhammadu Buhari and yourself; both men of integrity, we thank you very much for your honesty and trustworthiness.

"I will not say much because the entire people of the state await your coming, go ahead and conduct whatever business that has brought you to this place, in peace. This is your home, though you may be regarded as guests, this is still your home.

"His Excellency, the Governor of Katsina, we cannot thank you enough for the good works you are doing. I want to assure you that we are with you, 100 percent.

"Considering all that you have done for this state, I want you to know that we do not have any issues with you and your government and we are fully in support of you.

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"In conclusion, Your Excellency the Vice President, As Allah has bestowed on you the task of assisting our son to lead this nation, May he see you and our son the President through your tenure and may he continue to guide you even as you go back home."

Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that Osinbajo and other members of the Federal Executive Council (FEC) met inside the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Osinbajo on Wednesday, August 8, presided over the meeting in the absence of President Muhammadu Buhari who was away on vacation in the United Kingdom.

Opening prayers were said by the minister of state for environment, Ibrahim Jibrin and the minister of state for petroleum, Ibe Kachikwu.

Acting President Yemi Osinbajo delivers a speech on the Biafra war - On Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit
- The deputy speaker of Kaduna House of Assembly, John Audu Kwaturu, has defected to PDP

- Two senators from the state had recently dumped APC and joined PDP

- A member of Kaduna House of Assembly, Junaidu Yakubu, has also defected to PDP

The deputy speaker of the Kaduna state House of Assembly, John Audu Kwaturu and the member representing Kudan state constituency in the Assembly, Junaidu Yakubu, have defected from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Daily Trust reports that Kwataru who made the decision known through a phone call, said he has submitted his letter of withdrawal of membership of the APC to his Kwataru ward in Kachia local government area.

READ ALSO: Saraki: APC, PDP senators draw battle lines as National Assembly reconvenes on Tuesday

Legit.ng gathered that he said his reasons for leaving the ruling party were stated in the letter.

He said: "I have left the APC for the PDP, my reasons for leaving the APC are stated in the letter to my Kwataru ward.

"It will interest you to know that even my ward chairman has left the APC", he said.

Yakubu on the other hand, announced his defection to the PDP in a letter dated August 7, and addressed to the APC ward chairman in Hunkuyi ward, Kudan local government area of Kaduna state.

Yakubu, in the letter, said his decision to leave the APC was informed by the fact that the leadership of the party at the state and local government levels had become draconian.

"I write to withdraw my membership of the APC with effect from today, August 7, 2018. This becomes imperative in view of the draconian leadership of the party at state level and the local government level as well," Yakubu stated in his letter.

The lawmaker said he consulted with the people of his constituency before taking the action.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng had previously reported that the suspension on the senator representing Kaduna Central, Shehu Sani, waslifted by the national leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The acting national publicity secretary of the APC, Yekini Nabena, communicated the decision in a statement on Sunday, August 5.

News Nigeria Today: Will Senators, Lawmakers Defection from APC Change Power in 2019? | - on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit.ng
- A DUI suspect, Lauren Elizabeth Cutshaw, told cops she should be sent to jail because she is a very clean, thoroughbred, white girl

- She also added that she had graduated with honors from a "high accredited university," was a cheerleader, a dancer and a sorority girl

- Cutshaw was eventually charged with driving under the influence, speeding, disregarding a stop sign, simple possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia

A certain Lauren Elizabeth Cutshaw, who allegedly blew through a stop sign at 60 mph in South Carolina, USA, told an officer she shouldn't be arrested because she's a "very clean, thoroughbred, white girl."

According to ABC News, the officer had pulled Cutshaw over during the early morning hours of Saturday, August 4, and found that she smelled of alcohol and that her eyes were bloodshot and glossy. She was also slurring her words.

READ ALSO: We will amend constitution, make Buhari life president - APC senatorial candidate

Legit.ng gathers that her blood alcohol registered at .18 percent, twice the legal limit, after a test was carried out.

The lady had apologized to the officer for speeding and running the stop sign; explaining to him that she had a couple of glasses of wine at a nearby restaurant for her 33rd birthday, and was on the way to her boyfriends home.

But she then proceeded to list out multiple reasons why she shouldn't be locked up, after the officer informed her that she was under arrest for drunken driving.

She repeatedly stated, my partner is a cop and also added that she had graduated with honors from a ''high accredited university,'' was a cheerleader, a dancer and a sorority girl.

She also told the officer, "I'm a very clean, thoroughbred, white girl. I'm a white, clean girl."

The officer, who was also white, then asked, "What that had to do with anything?" To which Cutshaw apparently replied, "You're a cop, you should know what that means."

As he drove Cutshaw to the county jail, the officer told her: "You know that stop sign that you blew through at 60 miles per hour? There was a car that almost went through it right before you did. If they hadn't seen you coming, you would have T-boned them, you could have killed somebody.

"And instead of a DUI, this would be a felony DUI, you're looking at 25 years."

Cutshaw then stated: "I've never been arrested, can't you see that in your system? Can't you see, I graduated from a really good university, I was almost valedictorian.

She then lamented about the prospect of going to jail, saying: "I dont wanna know what its like. Im a pretty girl. Please dont make me go in there."

Cutshaw was eventually charged with driving under the influence, speeding, disregarding a stop sign, simple possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

She is due to appear in municipal court on October 30.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that a 7-year-old girl identified as Rosalyn Baldwin vowed to hug Police officers in all fifty US states in a bid to show her appreciation to the force, following the killing of some officers in Texas.

According to her mother, Angie Baldwin, the little girl decided to take on the mission as a result of the Dallas shooting that left brave police officers dead.

Is the Nigerian Police your friend? - on Legit.ng TV:

Source: Legit Nigeria
- Colonel Abubakar Umar, a former Kaduna sate governor, says Lawal Daura was running a parallel government

- He also accused Daura of marching from one audacious act of impunity to another, rudely defying the president and routinely ignoring court orders

- Umar urged the federal government to punish all others who were involved in the National Assembly invasion

The former director general of the Department of State Services (DSS), Lawal Daura, has been accused of running a parallel government before his sack, by a former military governor of Kaduna state, Colonel Abubakar Umar.

Umar made the allegation in a statement, in which he also commended the federal government for sacking Daura, Daily Trust reports.

READ ALSO: Im a very clean, thoroughbred, white girl - Suspect tells cops

Legit.ng notes that Umar said Daura had carried out various acts of impunity in the last three years.

He said: In the last three years, Lawal Daura had marched from one audacious act of impunity to another, had rudely defied the president, had routinely ignored court orders and seemed all but successful in carving out for himself, a government within a government in Nigeria.

He said the decision to sack Daura did not come a moment too soon, given all the distress caused by the former DSS DG, and those caused by his refusal to act.

He added that the action taken by Acting President Yemi Osinbajo must not stop halfway, but that the government should seek to discover the motives as well as the explanation for some of Dauras actions, in the interest of democracy and in order to guard against unexpected threats and conspiracies.

He also urged the government to ask certain questions, including: the reasons Daura deployed DSS operatives and prevented EFCC personnel from searching the residences of his predecessor, Ita Ekpenyong and former NIA DG Ayo Oke; in what condition the assets handed over to Daura by Ita Ekpenyong are; and the reason for the raid on the farm belonging to the EFCC boss, Ibrahim Magu, which led to the loss of life.

Umar also urged the government to punish all othes who were involved in the National Assembly invasion.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that Chief Precious Elekima, protem national chairman of the New African Democratic Congress (N-ADC), described the sack of Lawal Daura as a hasty decision.

Elekima said that he expected the federal government to investigate issues surrounding Dauras actions in connection with the security siege at the National Assembly, before sacking him.

Why Yemi Osinbajo terminated the appointment of Lawal Daura - on Legit.ng TV:

Source: Legit
- A young lady in Jigawa state, Ramatu Tafida, has cut off the manhood of her would-be husband, Abdullahi Sabo

- The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence (NSCDC) said that the terrible development took place on Thursday, August 9, adding the 25-year old victim is a teacher employed under N-Power

- The NSCDC said that Tafida carried out the act in revenge after learning that Sabo allegedly had the intention to dump her after having carnal knowledge of her

The Nigeria Security and Civil Defence (NSCDC) has said that a 17-year-old girl, Ramatu Tafida, has cut off the manhood of her 25-year-old boy friend, Abdullahi Sabo, in Jigawa.

AC Adamu Shehu, the corps spokesman in the state, who confirmed this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Dutse on Saturday, August 11, said the incident occurred in the Babura local government area of the state.

READ ALSO: APC chieftain, Bunmi Ojo shot dead in Ekiti

Shehu said the victim, a resident of Kofar Gabas and a teacher at Government Girls Secondary School Babura engaged under N-Power.

The incident occurred on Thursday in Babura when the attention of our officers was drawn by a good Samaritan who informed them that some youths were about to lynch a girl in Kofar Arewa, the residence of the suspect, to revenge for their friend.

Immediately the officers swung into action and went to the scene and whisked the girl away to the office for safety, but they still followed her. It was upon reaching the office that we realised what led to the whole matter. Ramlatu confessed to have used a knife to cut off the manhood of her husband-to-be.

According to her, Abdullahi is the love of her life and he was even introduced to her family members and has equally given the sum of N30,000 as an introduction fee. And because of that, she was free to be with him almost all the time. As a result they became too intimate that they engaged in sexual relationship.

However, Ramlatu later learnt that the victim has planned to dump her for another girl since he has already known her as a woman. And that was what made her to plan and execute her attack, he said.

Shehu said that the suspect further confessed that it was while they were together and about to start their usual affair that she confronted the victim with the issue and he responded in the affirmative.

Shehu said: And already, she had a knife with her without his knowledge which she brought out and chopped off his manhood. After committing the offence, she ran to her parents house to inform her mother. And It was while she was there that the youths stormed the house.

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The spokesman said that after knowing the situation, the officers rushed to the scene and took the victim to Babura General Hospital for medical attention. The victim was later referred to Aminu Kano Teaching Hospital in Kano.

Shehu said that the suspect had already been charged to court and remanded in prison until Sept. 6 for further hearing.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that an unnamed Nigerian woman had been arrested following her alleged attack against her husband who had been declared dead. According to reports, Olumide Ayeni, tied the knot with his wife in February 2018, with whom he had two children.

Tragedy however occurred in the late hours of July 2018, when Ayeni was allegedly murdered by his wife. Reports claim, the jealous wife had seen her husband with another lady, and picked a fight with him when he got home.

What Do Women Really Want From Men? Nigerians Speak | Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit
- A petrol tanker fire explosion has claimed the lives of a magistrate in Ondo, his son, a relative and their driver somewhere in Ekpoma, Edo state

- An unnamed official of the Okitipupa magistrates court in Ondo state informed newsmen that the sad incident took place on Friday, August 10

- The source said that the victims died after they were rushed to an undisclosed hospital in Edo

Banji Ayeomoni of Okitipupa magistrates court in Ondo state, together with his son Dara, another relation and his driver were reported dead in an inferno caused by a petrol tanker spillage in Ekpoma.

An official of the court, who spoke on condition of anonymity told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), on Saturday, that the incident happened on Friday, August 10, close to Ambrose Ali University (AAU), Ekpoma.

READ ALSO: Saraki: APC, PDP senators draw battle lines as National Assembly reconvenes on Tuesday

The official said that the late Ayeomoni went to visit his children at Ekpoma, adding that while returning his vehicle ran into the petrol spillage of a tanker which caused fire and other vehicles behind were also affected.

The source added that the magistrate, Dara, who is a 500 level student of medicine of AAU, a young boy of the deceased wifes sister and the driver died at an undisclosed hospital shortly after the accident.

We heard that the late Magistrate went to visit his children at AAU when the incident occurred through a petrol tanker oil spillage, which claimed their lives. It was indeed very sad news to all members of staff and lawyers in our court, the source said.

Meanwhile, Inspector Zedekiah Orogbemi, the courts prosecutor who also confirmed, said that he was shocked when he got the news.

Orogbemi, who described the late magistrate as a thorough bred lawyer and a good man prayed for the repose of his soul.

I was shocked when the news broke and up till now, I still cannot believe that Ayeomoni is gone but what can we do than to pray for the repose of his soul. I also condole with his family and pray that God should give them the fortitude to bear the irreparable loss, he said.

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NAN reported that the 59 year-old magistrate, who was due for retirement next year, left behind his wife and two other children.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) Sango-Ota Unit, on Saturday, August 11, announced that two persons died while four others sustained various degrees of injuries in a multiple accident at Sango-Ota toll-gate.

Sango-Ota FRSCs unit commander, Adekunle Oguntoyinbo, who confirmed the accident said the accident occurred around 4.45 am.

My life after the plane crash  Nigerian plane crash survivor Kechi Okwuchi speaks to Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit.ng
- Members of the Kwankwasiyya group in Plateau have declared their support for the PDP

- They assured the party that they will go to the various local governments and wards to start mobilisation, ahead of 2019

- The group had taken long to declare its support for the PDP, as it had to consult with its excos

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) secretariat in Jos, Plateau state, was on Friday, August 9, besieged by members of the Kwankwasiyya group who declared support for the party, and vowed to work for its success in 2019.

The group was led by the state coordinator, Tokji John, Daily Trust reports.

READ ALSO: 2019: APDA, N-ACD merge, become Advanced Republicans

Legit.ng gathers that John stated: We visited the state party chairman, Hon Damishi Sango, to declare our support to the PDP in Plateau state.

We were received warmly, and we have assured the party that we will go to the various local governments and wards to start mobilisation because we would give our massive votes to the PDP.

He further disclosed that the group needed to make consultations with its excos in the state, as most of them had been members of the All Progressives Congress (APC); and that was why it took them that long to declare support for the PDP.

He added: 43 out of the 45 members of the state exco are now fully with us in the PDP, except for two persons who are yet to join to us."

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that some supporters of Senator Rabiu Kwankwaso, representing Kano-central, left his Kwankwasiyya group, after the senator announced his defection from the APC to the PDP.

The event happened at Ringim local government area of Jigawa state, as the angry supporters burnt their red caps and Kwankwaso's posters.

PDP's magnificent 7 for 2019 election - on Legit.ng TV:

Source: Legit Newspaper
Nollywood actress and published author Juliana Olayode has revealed that her parents separation was very difficult foe her. The actress who announced on social media that her father and mother are getting back together, shares more details.

On Monday, August 6, the actress had taken to social media to announce that her parents who had been separated for seventeen years are finally getting back together.

According to her, she and her sisters had planned the reconciliation intervention. She explained that her parents knew nothing about their plan.

Actress Olayode further expressed that God answered her prayers after she stopped believing it would happen. She noted that she always wanted her parents to get back together but things always got worse.

READ ALSO: American pop star Ciara thanks Tiwa Savage after sampling her song on Freak Me

Read post below:

I know that my Rebirth Fam would be able to relate more with what I am about to share. Gosh, where do I start? My heart is racing. I still cant believe it. I have prayed for it to happen for 17 years. At some point, I stopped praying about it because nothing changed, things only got worse.

My elder sisters called for a meeting, and between us, we wanted to reconcile my mum and dad but we didnt tell them about it. I was so afraid. I wondered if they would come or if our plans to bring them back together would work. So, three days before the meeting, I started praying about it. I started imagining them together. I was just doing everything by faith.

On Sunday morning, I had cold feet. I was so afraid. God, please do it this time, was my prayer when I entered my late sisters house for the meeting. It was a VERY long process but they made up. They hugged each other and looked into each others eyes and started laughing. Then my mum started crying and my siblings and I joined in the tears of joy. Im still in shock. So fam, wedding bells are ringing;

there is nothing God cannot do. Dont stop praying. Dont stop believing. He will do it in his own time

I join my faith with everyone whose parents are divorced or separated for whatever reason and I declare that the same God who answered my prayer after 17 years will do yours if you so desire (Amen)

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In an interview with The Punch, the actress revealed that the separation was very difficult foe her. She explained that as a child, she would pray to God to help them resolve their issues and help them get back together.

She said: "My parents were not aware of the whole plan; they didnt know they were going to see each other and we are happy they eventually reconciled.

Like I said in my book, it was very difficult not seeing my parents together. Going to school and coming back to meet only mummy or Daddy; I have always prayed about it as a child, that was always my little prayer to God. It happened when I stopped trusting God about it and I just believed that in Gods time, he would make it happen, and I am happy they reconciled."

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- Members of the public have been advised by the Enugu state Police Command, about new antics used by criminal elements to wreak havoc on innocent citizens

- The Command disclosed that these mischief-makers usually pretend to be drivers, and with their cohorts as passengers; and in the process, later turn out to be criminals

- Members of the public have been advised to be vigilant and security conscious in order not to fall into the antics of these mischief-makers

The Enugu state Police Command has advised members of the public to be security conscious in order not to fall prey to the antics of mischief-makers who double as tricycle or cab operators.

The Commands spokesman, SP Ebere Amaraizu, gave the advice in Enugu on Saturday, August 11, NAN reports.

READ ALSO: 2019: Kwankwasiyya group in Plateau declares support for PDP

Legit.ng gathers that Amaraizu said that some mischief-makers had used their new antics to wreak havoc on the lives and businesses of members of the public.

He said that recent intelligence information revealed that these mischief-makers usually pretend to be drivers, and with their cohorts as passengers; and in the process, later turn out to be members of pick-pocketing and/or advance fee fraud gangs.

In the same vein, there is another group that also acts as passengers and who offer drugged items like fruit juice, suya and other edible items to their targeted victim or victims with a view to dispossessing them of their tricycles, taxicabs and other valuables and take them to where they are be sold off.

The Command, however, advises members of the public to be vigilant and security conscious in order not to fall into the antics of these mischief-makers.

The Command, working in partnership with other sister security agencies and relevant stakeholders, is ensuring that those engaged in these unwholesome habits are fished out and made to face the music, in line with the relevant section of the law, he said.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng previously reported that members of a deadly criminal gang accused of terrorizing some parts of Enugu state were declared wanted by the state Police Command.

The Commands spokesperson, Ebere Amaraizu, in a statement, said members of the gang had killed some people in Ehamufu in Isiuzo local government area of the state, where they had been operating.

Amaraizu gave the names of some of the suspects as Emmanuel Edeh from Ehamufu and Chibuike Odoh also from Mgbuji Ehamufu.

See the faces of newly arrested criminals in Lagos state - on Legit.ng TV:

Source: Legit.ng
- 2017-2018 saw an alarming rate of human rights violation of several kinds in Nigeria

- This is the latest record of the National Human Right Commission (NHRC), who gave the report on Saturday, August 11

- The commision, through its executive secretary, Anthony Ojukwu, revealed that the ugly trend stems from the rampant, nationwide unrest associated with terrorism and mindless killings

The National Human Right Commission (NHRC), on Saturday, August 11, said it recorded about one million cases of human rights violations in the country between 2017 and 2018.

Anthony Ojukwu, the NHRC executive secretary, disclosed this in an interview with newsmen at a judicial actors coalition meeting in Maiduguri, the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.

READ ALSO: Woman sleeps with son to have child for her second husband

Ojukwu attributed the numerous cases recorded to the spate of conflicts, which include the Boko Haram and herders/farmers conflicts in some parts of the country.

He said that the commission had recorded more than 100,000 cases of human rights violations and abuses in Borno, where Boko Haram had wreaked so much havoc.

He listed some of the cases to include sexual abuse, child molestation, gender base violence, torture, extrajudicial killings and other numerous ranges of violence.

According to him, there are quite a number of cases, especially here in Borno state. There are more than 56,000 unclaimed children in the IDPs camps, who are deprived of their rights to health, education and so on.

There are more than 25,000 women widowed by Boko Haram, many of these women had suffered degrading and inhuman treatment and other forms of violence.

It is the firm belief of the commission that working with the Search for Common Ground in the past 5-6 years; so many conflicts have been prevented in the communities through timely monitoring, investigations and peaceful resolution, he said.

However, due to the fact that these conflict were prevented and not allowed to snowball into full scale hostilities, most people, including key government personnel sometimes lose sight of the contributions to peaceful development through the effort of the commission and other partners.

The billions of Naira spent by government to contain some conflicts could have been worse without effort of organisations like NHRC and Search for Common Grounds. It is in the light of this and other factors that poor cooperation from some security agencies to the work of the commission and the partners is deplored.

All of us, be it government agencies or our partners, should be seen by security agencies have a joint responsibility with the commission for protection of human rights, he said.

Ojukwu said that in spite the challenges faced by the commission, it had not relented on it efforts of protecting human right in the country.

The greatest challenge of the commission to implement its mandate has been poor budgetary provisions of 2018, but the provisions are still dare cry for what the commission requires to operate optimally.

The commission is poorly funded when compared to the funding of the NHRIs in smaller countries like South Africa, Ghana, Kenya and Uganda.

We urge other development partners to seize the opportunities and challenges of the moment offered by human rights challenge in the North East, North Central, South South and South Eastern parts of the country, to assist the commission.

Such assistance can be in the nature of capacity building, infrastructure, computers, vehicle for monitoring and vehicles for investigation of violations, furniture, building for state offices, he said.

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Other demands included building shelters for women and children domestically assaulted and violated and funding projects of concern like monitoring and facilitating the mainstreaming of human rights into the resolution of herders and farmers conflicts.

Ojukwu also stressed the need for monitoring and protecting the right of refugees from Cameroun and other displaced persons in South South, North Central and North East Nigeria and digitisation of the operation of the commission.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported that six herdsmen and over 150 cows at Akpanagya, in the Keana local government area of Nasarawa state, had allegedly been killed by soldiers deployed to Benue and Nasarawa states border.

Legit.ng gathered that the acting police public relations officer of the state command, ASP Usman Samaila, confirmed this in a telephone interview in Lafia.

Nigeria News 2018: Osinbajo Highlights Reasons for Incessant Herdsmen Troubles | Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit.ng
- The Kwara chapter of the APC says any politician holding elective office hold such in trust for the electorate and must be accountable to the people

- The chairman caretaker committee of the party, Bashir Bolarinwa, declares that the members of the APC in Kwara support President Muhammadu Buhari

- Senator Ben Murray-Bruce says PDP senators will oppose any illegal attempt to remove Senate president Bukola Saraki

The Kwara state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has called on Bukola Saraki to resign his appointment as the Senate president.

The call was made in a statement by the chairman, caretaker committee of the party, Bashir Bolarinwa, on Saturday, August 11, in Ilorin.

He said Saraki should tow the path of honour and relinquish the office of the Senate President exclusively reserved for the party with majority members in the Senate, The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.

READ ALSO: Saraki replies Oshiomhole, calls him ignorant

Members of the hallowed chamber must be truly distinguished in character and conduct.

The path of honour was led by distinguished Senator Godswill Akpabio who, before defecting to ruling party, had honorably resigned as the leader of the minority party in the Senate.

So Saraki should act honorably resign from that office of trust. He should for once tow the path of honour and stop heating up the polity unduly, he added.

According to Bolarinwa, any politician holding elective office hold such in trust for the electorate and must be accountable to the people.

Every man or woman holding elective political office must know that they are there on trust for the people. It is therefore expected that such personality should live above board.

Rather than towing the path of honour, Saraki had apparently tried unsuccessfully to incite the unsuspecting public against the Federal Government, through series of drama in the recent time, he said.

Bolarinwa declared APC members support in Kwara for President Muhammadu Buhari.

Meanwhile, Senator Ben Murray-Bruce has told the All Progressives Congress (APC) that senators in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are not fighting for Senate president Bukola Saraki, but are against any undemocratic attempt at impeaching the Senate leader.

The senator representing Bayelsa east district at the National Assembly, in a tweet on Saturday, August 11, advised the APC to resort to legal mean of impeaching Saraki if the party desired to do so.

He however noted that PDP senators will oppose any forceful, illegal and undemocratic attempt to remove the Senate president.

Nigeria Latest News: Who is responsible for the siege on the National Assembly?| - on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit Newspaper
- Gun battle between policemen and the kidnappers erupt in Hayi area of Kaduna

- An eyewitness says the kidnappers escaped after gunning down four policemen

- Political thugs reportedly perpetrate fraud in Kogi bye-election

Four policemen have been reportedly killed following a gun battle with suspected kidnappers in Hayi area of Kaduna state on Saturday, August 11.

Residents in Karshen Kwalta, Hayi, told Legit.ng correspondent that the gun battle between the police and the hoodlums caused panic in the area.

They said the policemen who were dispatched from Abuja entered Hayi bush in an attempt to arrest and free some people and cattle being held by unknown gunmen.

READ ALSO: PDP senators are not fighting for Bukola Saraki - Ben Bruce

The residents said the gun battle between the police and the suspected kidnappers began in the bush but that the gunmen overpowered and pushed back the policemen to the town.

An eyewitness who does not want his identity revealed said the kidnappers escaped after gunning down four policemen.

There were no casualties from the side of the kidnapper at the time of writing this report.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 new app

But an insider told our correspondent that the police will reinforce and go after the kidnappers again anytime soon.

The Kaduna police command has not yet made any official statement about the incident.

Meanwhile, in another report, the bye-election to fill the vacant seat in the Lokoja-Kogi federal constituency which started on a peaceful note on Saturday, August 11, was later marred by violence, vote buying and intimidation in Lokoja.

A News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) correspondent monitoring reported that the election was marred by political thugs going from one polling unit to another to perpetrate fraud.

Although policemen and other security agents were seen at the police stations, they looked the other way, while thugs terrorised people.

Lagos Police Commissioner Parades Suspected Criminals (Nigeria News) | Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit
- Acting President Yemi Osinbajo says the problem with Nigeria is neither ethnicity nor religion but systemic corruption

- He states that corruption is so entrenched in the country that if you dare challenge it, you will be in the minority

- Osinbajo appeals to Nigerians to stand against the plundering of the nations resources

Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has berated gospel preachers for refusing to lend support to the federal governments anti-corruption war by failing to preach against the scourge.

Speaking at the 30th National Biennial Conference of the Students Christian Movement (SCM) of Nigeria holding in Enugu, Osinbajo noted that preachers were preoccupied with preaching prosperity rather than righteousness, The News Agency of Nigeria reports.

Very rarely do you hear our preachers talk about corruption from their pulpits. If a nation is not righteous nothing will help it.

Osinbajo said that the problem with Nigeria was neither ethnicity nor religion but systemic corruption.

READ ALSO: PDP senators are not fighting for Bukola Saraki - Ben Bruce

He said that corruption had been so entrenched in the country that if you dare challenge it, you will be in the minority.

He, however, challenged the youths to change the narrative and make the difference by checking the impunity of those that had stolen the resources of the country.

Our problem in this country is not ethnicity or religion; it is not about Christians or Muslims. Our problems are the same wherever you go in this country.

The story of our country is about good and evil. It is about those that have left us in this condition by stealing our common resources.

Do not let anyone deceive you.

The acting president challenged members of SCM to ensure that the movement becomes one of the tools that will move the country forward.

You should understand that our country can be delivered by people like you.

According to him, young Christians have special and distinct roles to play in the transformation of the country which is superior to those of other sets of people.

All of the great nations of the world were transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is not a gospel that tickles peoples imaginations or dwells on prosperity.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the news on Nigerias #1 new app

It is not a gospel that fits your fancy. It is a gospel that teaches that righteousness exalts a nation.

Osibanjo appealed to Nigerians to stand against the plundering of the nations resources as well as support the anti-corruption initiative of the federal government, irrespective of party affiliations.

In another report, the presidency has denied allegations by Senate president Bukola Saraki and his deputy, Ike Ekweremadu that the federal government is planning to implicate them for the recent invasion of the National Assembly by men of the Department of State Services (DSS).

The senior special assistant to the acting president on media and publicity, Laolu Akande, told the Punch on Friday, August 10, that is was surprising that Saraki and Ekweremadu could make such allegations against the government.

Akande said there was an order from the presidency mandating that the law enforcement agencies involved in the invasion be identified and disciplined appropriately.

Top 5 the Richest People of Nigeria: The Luxury of Corruption on Legit.ng TV

Source: Legit.ng
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(Natural News) A Marxist-Left former college professor of Ethics was just given three years probation by an ignoramus of a judge in California after he was charged with four felony counts of assault with a deadly weapon for beating supporters of POTUS Donald Trump with a bike chain in 2017.

As reported by Berkeleyside, Eric Clanton had also been charged with causing great bodily injury and other counts, but quickly took a plea bargain deal that will keep him out of what could have  and should have  been a lengthy prison sentence.

How bad is this miscarriage of justice? The Alameda County Superior Court judge didnt even charge him with the misdemeanor of wearing a mask during the commission of a crime.

As the news site reported further:

Eric Clanton had been linked by police to violent assaults with a metal bike lock during a free speech rally in Berkeley on April 15, 2017. Before his arrest, Clanton had been outed online, on the website 4chan, as someone who used a bike lock to strike a man in the head. The assault was captured in a video clip  that drew widespread attention and anger after it was posted on YouTube.

Clanton was scheduled to have a hearing in court this week for judges to decide if there was enough evidence to proceed but instead the court posted online that a deal had been struck.

The felony charges against him were dismissed, and an allegation that he had caused serious bodily injury was stricken. A misdemeanor charge that Clanton wore a mask during the commission of the crime also was dropped, Berkeleyside reported.

Police had already noted that Clanton stood accused of attacking at least three people at the rally with a metal bike U-lock in and around the venue, Civic Center Park. Court papers would later say that Clanton struck at least seven people in the head with the lock, police noted. One of his victims received a laceration severe enough it had to be repaired with five staples. Another victim wasnt injured but part of his helmet was broken off.

Police said that Clanton struck the third victim across the neck and back.

Violence begets violence

Investigating police officers later found evidence in Clantons home in San Leandro that tied him to Anti-Fascists and Anarchy political groups  domestic terrorists, in other words. Cops also found clothing and other paraphernalia tying Clanton to terror groups and to the rally.

But all he got was three years probation. (Related: National media refuses to report on left-wing Antifa mob violence breaking out in three U.S. cities over the weekend.)

In the summer of 2016, as then-GOP candidate Donald Trump was sailing to his partys presidential nomination, he held massive rallies around the country that were often permeated by violence, especially in far-Left enclaves like California.

Antifa wasnt that old at the time, but the loose-knit group had already developed a reputation with federal law enforcement. Even the Obama Department of Homeland Security and FBI recognized members for what they are  domestic terrorists.

Politico reported:

Federal authorities have been warning state and local officials since early 2016 that leftist extremists known as antifa had become increasingly confrontational and dangerous, so much so that the Department of Homeland Security formally classified their activities as domestic terrorist violence, according to interviews and confidential law enforcement documents

Domestic terrorists. And Alameda County just let one of them go. Without a trial, no less.

Heres the problem with allowing these thugs to get off scot-free when theyre obviously guilty of serious violent crimes: Antifa thugs will continue to commit serious violent crimes until someday, one of them will kill somebody. Or one of them will be killed by someone trying to defend themselves because violence begets violence.

Every judge, every court that excuses this behavior is contributing to the outbreak of the next civil war.

Read more about Antifa-related violence at Antifa.news.

Sources include:

Berkeleyside.com

TheNationalSentinel.com
The New Horizons spacecraft has caught a glimpse of the massive, glowing wall of hydrogen that surrounds the solar system.

This "wall" marks the edge of the sun's neighborhood, the point where rest of the galaxy and the universe begins.

"We're seeing the threshold between being in the solar neighborhood and being in the galaxy," Leslie Young of the Southwest Research Institute explains in a statement to Science News.

Eerie Glow Signals The Neighborhood Boundary

The powerful solar wind from the sun flows outward continuously, passing far beyond even Pluto's region. However, Live Science explains that at a certain point, the sun's jet streams inevitably lose energy and become unable to push the mysterious bits of cosmic dust any further.

It is at this point that a visible "glow" appears, the wall where the solar wind stops extending out and interstellar matter that is too small to penetrate the jets accumulates.

Two Voyager spacecraft saw signs of light emanating from this boundary in 1992, but until now, no other probe has been in a position to double-check.

In a paper published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters on Tuesday, Aug. 7, the New Horizons team reveals that the spacecraft was able to spot ultraviolet light that supports the existence of a "hydrogen wall" signaling the boundary of the solar system.

Randy Gladstone, an astronomer at the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio, and his colleagues reported that the New Horizons spacecraft scanned the ultraviolet sky seven times in its journey outward through the past decade. The findings were consistent with the Voyager records  that more ultraviolet light was detected farther from the sun than expected in the absence of a wall.

More Studies Needed On The Wall

Of course, the team acknowledges that similar findings from the Voyager spacecraft and the New Horizon probe are not enough evidence to definitively confirm the presence of a hydrogen wall. After all, it is entirely possible that the ultraviolet light comes from an unknown source.

Still, the second account of the boundary is a big step forward in learning about the edge of the solar system.

David McComas, an astronomer from Princeton University who was not involved in the study, explains that if the collected data could distinguish the hydrogen wall, scientists could eventually figure out the shape and variability of the galaxy's boundary.

In the coming years, more data are expected to come in about this mysterious wall. New Horizons will be looking for the boundary about twice a year for the rest of the mission.
The 75-year-old woman who left a care center on the grounds of San Francisco General Hospital alone and was found dead nearby days later was in such frail medical and mental condition that she was supposed to be escorted on appointments, an NBC Bay Area review of newly disclosed medical records shows.

Ruby Lee Andersen left the Residential Care Center for the Elderly, located on the grounds of the hospital, at about 9 a.m. on May 19, according to the care center log the city recently gave to the family's attorney. On May 30, her body was found in a stairwell of a hospital engineering building just a few hundred feet away from the center.

I think its outrageous, said the family attorney, Haig Harris, about what he uncovered in more than 1,700 pages of medical and care facility records in the Andersen case.

They did not provide her the care thats required by law, Harris said in an interview with NBC Bay Area. They let her leave and they did nothing to really try to find her.

Via a source, NBC Bay Area separately obtained the sheriffs missing persons report that was filed more than 24 hours after Andersen did not return.

It shows that deputies alerted the jail, medical examiner and hospital to watch out for Andersen on the day it was filed. But no one actively searched for her.

Sheriffs officials said early on that there was no search of the hospital grounds because Andersen was not actually a patient of the hospital. As a resident of the unlocked care center, they said, she could come and go as she pleased.

But the missing persons report quotes a member of the center's staff referring to Andersen as a patient who was given unspecified medications the day she disappeared.

Her medical records show that Andersen had suffered a stroke last year, was taking insulin for Type-2 diabetes and was deemed at risk for falling. She had severe hearing loss as well, according to the records Harris provided for our review.

She is in obvious decline and confused, her private primary care doctor concluded in an assessment in January.

He suspected dementia at the time. He wanted her moved to a skilled nursing facility, citing her deteriorating medical condition as well as her worsening confusion, signs of paranoia and auditory hallucinations.

Despite the doctors finding, Andersen remained at the city run care center, where in April, a staff assessment called for her to be escorted to appointments.

Clinician to provide case management as needed and escort to appointments when peers are unable to do so, the assessment indicated.

But the actual sign-out sheet confirms that she left at 9 a.m. on May 19, without an escort, apparently to look for a battery, possibly for her hearing aid.

The log entry shows Andersen planned to be back in two hours.

Despite her age and condition, it took more than 24 hours for the staff at the center to file a missing persons report . Yet that report did not mention any health concerns or any restrictions on her being able to leave.

Its very shocking to me, Harris said after being shown the report by NBC Bay Area. They all knew she was an at risk patient  its in her records.

The citys Department of Public Health said in a statement that the family had requested that the department not discuss the case. But they say they improved security in the stairwell where she was found and are assessing efforts hospital-wide.

We extend our sincere condolences to Ms. Andersens family and loved ones. Her family has requested that we not talk about Ms. Andersen publicly, and we will abide by their request.

"Our top priority is the safety of all people on our campus, who receive services, work or visit there. In May, we immediately improved security at the power plant. Since then we have reviewed our annual comprehensive assessment of our 23-acre campus, and conducted an updated assessment of all campus buildings and grounds, to ensure the safety of all staff, patients and visitors. We continue to work with the San Francisco Sheriff Department to address safety and security issues on campus.

The sheriffs department said they were unable to learn the full details of Andersens condition because of medical privacy laws. But they say they should have nonetheless searched for Andersen based on her age alone.

However, they say that such a search would not have normally covered the non-public area where Andersen was ultimately found.

The sheriff's department explained the deputy who wrote the report "misidentified Ms. Andersen as a patient."

Given that Andersen was missing from the "unlocked residential facility that allows its patient to come and go as they please," as detailed in the report, "our staff understood that she was not an in-patient," according to the sheriff's statement.

The department immediately called various agencies and alerted her family and, after her family called back, issued a "be on the lookout" flier that was circulated around the hospital campus.

But the department acknowledged that more should have been done.

"Ms. Andersens condition and medications were HIPAA-protected and were not shared with SFSD at the time of her disappearance. Due to her age, SFSD should have identified Ms. Anderson as high-risk. We are reviewing our protocols and training to ensure this does not happen again. At the same time, labeling Ms. Andersen as high-risk would not have facilitated a search of" the building she was ultimately found.

The engineering building where Andersen was found, the department said, "is not open to the public including residents and/or patients and is not part of either search protocol as per our agreement with the Department of Public Health."

"SFSD is working with the Department of Public Health to review and update our search protocols and staffing agreement," the statement continued. "We have assigned a full-time investigator from our Criminal Investigative Unit to manage missing persons cases at Department of Public Health facilities."

Harris said the state agency that oversees care centers, the Community Care Licensing Division, has sought access to medical records in the case. The agency is investigating whether the city run center met care standards for someone with dementia.

That level of care obviously wasnt given, Harris said. You cant let a person with dementia leave on her own, when shes not going to remember where to come back to.

Meanwhile, Harris said Andersens grief stricken family is still grappling with what happened and has questions about what happened after she left the center.

Theyre devastated, he said,  They are devastated more with the fact with what happened after they learned mother had disappeared in not being able to get any answers from anybody about what are you doing to find her.
What to Know Cardinal Sean O'Malley has launched an inquiry into allegations former seminarians made this week about their time at St. John's Seminary.

John Monaco, a ex-seminarian, wrote about his experiences at St. John's involving inappropriate sexual behavior and excessive drinking.

The seminary, founded in 1884, prepares Roman Catholic seminarians for ordination to the priesthood.

Cardinal Sean O'Malley, archbishop of Boston, said he is launching an inquiry into allegations former seminarians made this week about their time at St. John's Seminary in Brighton.

An article posted online by ex-seminarian John Monaco led to an inquiry into allegations of "sexual deviancy and improper conduct at the seminary, including excessive drinking.

Some priests on the faculty would get drunk with a select group of seminarians and invite them into their rooms late at night, Monaco wrote. One night, a priest on the formation faculty got so drunk during a seminary party that he fell out of his chair.



Cardinal Sean OMalley from the Archdiocese of Boston says hes not able to verify or disprove these allegations, but wants the investigation to start as soon as possible, and has placed the rector of St. Johns, Monsignor James Moroney, on sabbatical for the fall semester, effective immediately.

Weve actually heard stories like this for years about many seminaries, said Terence McKiernan from Bishop Accountability.org. That tension between what the church preaches and what it allows to go on in the priesthood is part of the problem.

Cardinal OMalley said in a statement, "The allegations made this week are a source of serious concern to me as Archbishop of Boston. The ministry of the Catholic priesthood requires a foundation of trust with the people of the Church and the wider community in which our priests serve. I am determined that all our seminaries meet that standard of trust and provide the formation necessary for priests to live a demanding vocation of service in our contemporary society."

Monaco, who is one of two former seminarians at St. Johns making allegations this week, attended the seminary from 2014 to 2016 and is currently a graduate student in theology at Boston College.

In a statement to NBC10 Boston, he writes, in part, "...It is time to rid the Church of infestation and rot, because only then will true healing take place."

Monaco added that publishing his allegations led him to "a deeper solidarity with other victims affected by Church scandal." He also said he has complete trust in O'Malley's judgment and oversight.

Rev. Stephen E. Salocks will serve as interim rector.

O'Malley also said he has appointed a 3-member panel to oversee an inquiry into the allegations. They will submit their findings, along with a set of recommendations, to O'Malley.

Mitchell Garabedian, an attorney who has represented victims of clergy sexual abuse, issued a statement regarding the allegations.



"The recent reporting of sexual abuse at St. John's Seminary is further evidence that the Archdiocese of Boston is continuing to practice the cover up of sexual abuse and will not practice transparency to help sexual abuse victims heal," he wrote "The creation of an investigatory board or team should have taken place decades ago."

Garabedian added that the Archdiocese should release all records and information about the allegations at St. John's Seminary.

According to its website, St. John's Seminary prepares Roman Catholic seminarians for ordination to the priesthood through programs of human, pastoral, spiritual and academic formation. It is governed by a board of trustees chaired by O'Malley. It was founded in 1884, and chartered as a corporation doing business as a graduate school by an act of the Massachusetts Legislature.
Five people had to be rescued from a boat after it burst into flames off the coast of Hull, Massachusetts, on Friday evening, the Coast Guard said.

The five mariners were rescued from a 32-foot recreational boat fire in Hull Gut around 7:10 p.m.

Thick, black smoke could be seen pouring out from the vessel as fire officials worked to put out the flames.

A Good Samaritan, Boston Fire and Massport Fire assisted the Coast Guard with the rescue.

No one was hurt in the fire.
Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner blamed Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday for the city's gun violence, saying the mayor has "failed horribly" on public safety after gunfire last weekend injured more than 70 people and killed at least 11.

The Republican governor said Chicago police lack sufficient officers and cutting-edge equipment. A spokesman for Emanuel, a Democrat, dismissed the claims and pointed at Rauner's rejection of legislation to license firearms dealers.

Speaking at a state Capitol news conference, Rauner for the second straight day said he had no plans to send the National Guard to patrol Chicago's South and West Sides, where many of last weekend's shootings occurred. Chicago police have added 400 officers to those areas, with plans to dispatch 200 more by this weekend.

"The leaders of Chicago have fundamentally failed, failed horribly. Our first duty in public service is to keep people safe," Rauner said, adding that he's "very disappointed in the mayor and his handling of this whole dynamic. I do not believe the Chicago police have received the proper support that they need to do their jobs effectively."

Rauner also said police "they need to be more assisted in their staffing." He did not elaborate.

Police officials have been vocal about expanding their force by more than 1,000 in the past 18 months and they've publicized major investments in computer- and camera-driven "predictive technology" they say has reduced the number of shootings.

Emanuel spokesman Adam Collins said it is Rauner who stood in the way of the "policing tool that would make a huge difference"  the state licensing of firearms dealers to better spot and monitor sales of guns to authorized buyers who transfer them to criminals.

Collins said Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson "made numerous personal pleas to the governor" to approve the plan "to keep illegal guns out of the wrong hands."

Rauner vetoed the measure in March, rejecting it as too burdensome on small businesses. He has promised to veto a revised version the General Assembly approved in May but have yet to send to the governor.

Rauner said Illinois State Police, who have beefed up surveillance of expressways in and around the city, also began patrolling Chicago neighborhoods last year in an agreement with the city.

Long term, Rauner said the answer is more economic opportunity. Earlier Thursday in a radio interview in southern Illinois, Rauner said Emanuel had failed on that issue, too, adding that Emanuel "corrupt" and declaring that he has "got to go." He did not say why he believes the mayor is corrupt.

Collins said it was part of a Rauner election strategy "centered solely on denigrating Chicago, in large part because he doesn't have any accomplishments worth mentioning."
Chicago gun violence left two people dead Saturday and at least 18 others wounded, including a woman killed in a domestic dispute with someone.

The most recent incident ocurring Saturday morning in the Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side. A 25-year-old man was wounded in a shooting at about 1:55 a.m. in the 4000 block of West Grenshaw, according to Chicago police.

Officials say he was standing outside when two people began firing shot that struck the man. He went to St. Anthonys Hospital with gunshot wounds to the buttocks and the groin, at the hospital his condition was listed as fair.

About 4:45 p.m., the 29-year-old woman was having a domestic dispute with someone in the 2500 block of East 79th Street when the person pulled out a gun and opened fire, Chicago police said.

The woman, who had a pending order an order of protection against the shooter, suffered a gunshot wound to her back, police said. She was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where she was pronounced dead.

A 15-year-old boy was also shot in his face and was taken to the same hospital, where his condition stabilized, police said. He was not an intended target.

The Cook County Medical Examiners Office hasnt released details about her death.

Earlier in the morning, A man was shot to death in the Brighton Park neighborhood on the Southwest Side. Dylan Zavala, 18, was found with a gunshot wound to the head about 8:10 a.m. in an alley in the 2900 block of West Pershing, according to police and the medical examiners office.

[NATL] Top News Photos: Pope Visits Japan, and More

He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he died, authorities said. Zavala lived in the Douglas Park neighborhood.

The last nonfatal shooting Friday wounded a man in the Little Village neighborhood on the West Side. The shooting happened about 11:10 p.m. in the 2800 block of South Komensky Ave., police said.

The 21-year-old man was standing on the sidewalk when someone from a SUV fired shots striking the man in the abdomen, police said. The man was taken to Mount Sinai Medical Center where his condition was stabilized.

In other shootings Saturday:
A convicted child molester on the Texas 10 most wanted sex offenders list was arrested Thursday night in west suburban Glendale Heights, less than two days after authorities warned he might be in the Chicago area.

David Sauceda Medina, 62, was wanted on two outstanding felony warrants in Bell County, Texas: One for indecency and sexual contact with a child, and the other for failure to comply with his sex offender registration requirements with the Austin Police Department, according to the Texas Department of Public Safety.

About 9:30 p.m. Thursday, Medina was arrested by Glendale Heights police without incident, according to Glendale Heights police. An anonymous tipster had warned authorities that Medina was seen at a housing complex in the 600 block of East Fullerton Avenue.

He was booked into the DuPage County Jail, where he was awaiting extradition to Texas, according to a social media post by Glendale Heights police.

The arrest followed an outpouring of media coverage after federal authorities said Medina might be near Chicago because of his ties to the city.

Medina was convicted in 2008 for attempted sexual battery of a 12-year-old girl and in 2010 for sexual contact with a 7-year-old girl, according to the U.S. Marshals Service. He was released from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in May 2016 after serving a six-year sentence and was required to register as a sex offender for life.

The Texas Department of Public Safety was offering an $8,000 reward during the month of August for information leading to Medinas arrest, authorities said. The U.S. Marshals were also offered a $5,000 reward. There was no word if the award was claimed.
What to Know Rick Gates, labeled Paul Manafort's "right-hand man" took the stand once again Tuesday as Manafort's trial resumed

Gates admitted Monday to embezzling money from Manafort, along with committing crimes with him

Manafort and Gates were the first two people indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller in the Russia probe

In a blistering back-and forth, Paul Manafort's lawyer suggested Tuesday that the star witness in the former Trump campaign chairman's financial fraud trial has told "so many lies" he can't remember all of them.

Defense lawyer Kevin Downing began his cross-examination of longtime Manafort deputy Rick Gates by pressing him on his own lies to special counsel Robert Mueller's investigators, an extramarital affair and hundreds of thousands of dollars he admitted to embezzling from his former boss.

Downing also ventured into territory both sides had agreed to avoid: discussion of Donald Trump's presidential campaign.

Under questioning, Gates said he may have submitted personal expenses for reimbursement by Trump's inaugural committee, which he helped operate. Downing also asked whether Mueller's investigators had interviewed Gates about his role in the campaign, prompting an objection from prosecutors and a sidebar conference with U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III.

The judge then brought the trial to a standstill late Tuesday afternoon, calling a brief recess. Afterward, Downing dropped the Trump-related line of questioning, moving on to other topics without explanation.

In general, references to Trump at the trial have been few and far between. Both sides agreed ahead of time to limit discussion of the campaign so as not to prejudice the jury, though they had agreed to allow testimony about the overlap of a bank loan with Manafort's role in the campaign.

The tough questioning of Gates came after he spent hours telling jurors how he disguised millions of dollars in foreign income as loans in order to lower Manafort's tax bill. Gates recounted how he and Manafort used more than a dozen offshore shell companies and bank accounts in Cyprus to funnel the money, all while concealing the accounts and the income from the IRS.

Under questioning from Downing, Gates acknowledged he had to plead guilty to false statements after lying during a February interview with federal investigators. At one point, as Gates had trouble recalling the details of his confession, Downing asked him, "Have they confronted you with so many lies that you can't even remember them?"

Manafort's defense attorneys have sought to paint Gates as an embezzler, a liar and the instigator of any criminal conduct. They have tried several times to impugn his credibility before the jury.

Ahead of that barrage, Gates implicated himself in a vast amount of criminal conduct on the stand, an apparent strategic decision by prosecutors as they hoped to take some of the steam out of the defense's questioning.

Gates' testified that he and Manafort knew they were committing crimes for years.

"In Cyprus, they were documented as loans. In reality, it was basically money moving between accounts," Gates said.

Prosecutors summoned Gates to give jurors the first-hand account of a co-conspirator they say helped Manafort carry out an elaborate offshore tax-evasion and bank fraud scheme. Gates also provided the first witness testimony that overlaps with Trump's presidential campaign.

Manafort and Gates were the first two people indicted in Mueller's investigation into potential ties between Russia and the Trump campaign. But Gates pleaded guilty months later and agreed to cooperate in Mueller's investigation of Manafort, the only American charged by the special counsel to opt for trial instead of a guilty plea.

The case against Manafort has little to do with either man's work for the Trump campaign and there's been no discussion during the trial about whether the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia  the central question Mueller's team has tried to answer. But Trump has shown interest in the proceedings, tweeting support for Manafort and suggesting he has been treated worse than gangster Al Capone.

On Tuesday, Gates did connect one part of the bank fraud charges against Manafort to his role in the Trump campaign.

The 46-year-old former political consultant told jurors how Manafort asked for tickets to Trump's inauguration so he could give them to a banker involved in approving a loan at the center of his financial fraud trial. Gates also said Manafort floated banker Stephen Calk's name for consideration as Secretary of the Army, a post he ultimately did not get.

The email exchange about Calk occurred after Manafort left the Trump campaign but while Gates was active on the Trump inauguration committee. Prosecutors had previously said that Manafort's interactions with Calk were the only part of the trial expected to overlap with his Trump campaign role.

The face-off between longtime business associates and former senior members of the Trump campaign drew scores of people who waited in line for hours outside the courthouse and then jammed into both the courtroom and an overflow room that contained a video feed of the proceedings.

In testimony Tuesday, Gates laid responsibility squarely at Manafort's feet for a series of crimes, saying the two had committed crimes together by stashing money in foreign bank accounts and falsifying bank loan documents.

Gates described to jurors how he repeatedly submitted fake financial documents at Manafort's behest as his former boss became concerned he was paying too much in taxes and, later, that his funds were drying up.

In one email, Manafort wrote "WTF" about tax payments he was going to have to make, Gates said.



In other testimony, Gates recounted how he converted a PDF of a profit-and-loss statement to a Microsoft Word document so he could doctor it to inflate the business' income. Gates also fabricated a forgiveness letter for what he said was already a fake loan between Manafort's consulting company and a Cypriot entity he controlled.

Prosecutor Greg Andres pointed out he had created a "loan forgiveness letter between Mr. Manafort and Mr. Manafort."

"Yes," Gates agreed.

During the testimony, Manafort did not stare Gates down as he did Monday. When the trial broke for lunch, Manafort looked back at his wife, sitting in the front row, smiled and winked at her, followed by a quick shake of his head, seeming to indicate he was unfazed by the morning's testimony.

In addition, Gates has admitted to other criminal conduct.

Gates, who is awaiting sentencing, told jurors that he embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollarsc from Manafort by filing false expense reports. He also said he committed credit card and mortgage fraud, falsified a letter for a colleague involved in an investment deal and made false statements in a deposition at Manafort's direction.

Associated Press writer Stephen Braun contributed to this report.
Dwaine Caraways name had disappeared from plaques at Dallas City Hall Friday after the long time Councilman pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges Thursday and resigned from office.

His picture was even removed from those of former Dallas Mayors. Caraway was an interim Mayor for several months in 2011.

Is there a cloud over us? Absolutely, Councilman Adam McGough said.

McGough is one of four current members of the City Council who received legitimate campaign contributions from figures in the Dallas County Schools scandal.

McGough said he was only a candidate at the time the money was donated to his election campaign and he still has never met the people.

He and the other three Council Members said they have donated the amount in question or more to other good causes.

From my perspective it just means we have to redouble our efforts to show our honest, good work across this city, McGough said.

Councilman Scott Griggs said he donated the money his campaign received to the City of Dallas crossing guard fund.

The city must now pay for crossing guards since voters decided to close the agency, Dallas County Schools.

"Dwaine's private actions tarnished and betrayed the people on Council he served with and the City as well," Griggs said.

Dallas City Manager T.C. Broadnax included an additional $5 million to pay for crossing guards in the new proposed city budget he released Friday.

Town hall meetings will be held around the city the next few weeks for public input before the City Council votes on a new budget next month.

Broadnax said Caraways guilty plea and resignation was a sad day for Dallas City Hall and city employees.

I requested and asked that they just continue to do their jobs and show people every day that we do things right, Broadnax said.

The City Manager said honest officials should not worry about the fact that Caraway is now a government witness and the FBI investigation is not over.

Were an open book because were a governmental entity so anything weve got on paper is free for folks to request and look at, Broadnax said.

Employees in Caraways former office will continue to answer constituent calls and problems will be relayed to city staff.

Councilman Kevin Felder who represents neighboring District 7 said constituents need more than that. Felder volunteered to help District 4 residents, as well.

Felder said residents should be careful about who they vote for in a special election to replace Caraway planned for November.

Make sure that that person doesnt have skeletons in their closet, vices that they have to deal with, Felder said.

The City Council will vote next week on details to allow candidates to file for the special election.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned the U.S. on Saturday that his country does not respond to threats, a day after President Donald Trump sent the lira into freefall by announcing he would double the rate of import tariffs on Turkish metals, NBC News reported.

The two governments have clashed over a range of issues including the Turkish detention of U.S. pastor Andrew Brunson on terrorism charges, the U.S.-backing of Kurdish troops in Syria and Turkeys intention to buy Russian defense systems.

Turkey is also frustrated at U.S. unwillingness to extradite Turkish cleric Fetullah Gulen, who Erdogan accuses of staging a failed 2016 coup attempt.

"You can never bring this nation in line with the language of threats," Erdogan told a crowd of supporters in the Turkish town of Unye on the Black Sea coast. "I am once again calling on those in America: It is a pity that you choose a pastor over your strategic partner in NATO," he said.
High temperatures throughout the county are bringing big crowds to the beaches where swimmers are also enjoying record-breaking water temperatures.

This week, the ocean temperature off Torrey Pines was measured at 81.3 degrees, breaking a 17-year-record for water temperature along the California coast.

Last week, researchers measured the water temperature at Scripps Pier at 78.6 degrees which set a regional temperature record.

You won't hear any complaints from beachgoers there -- its perfect for swimming and great for fishing  but Scripps Institution of Oceanographys Clarissa Anderson says the water temperatures are a cause for concern.

Anderson told NBC 7 the warm water brings some sea life closer to shore, including anchovies and yellow and bluefin tuna, but overall, I would say a lot of these animals and plants, if you will, are not adapted to these warm temperatures.

NBC 7 Meteorologist Dagmar Midcap said warmer waters are a problem because they prevent cooler, nutrient-rich waters from reaching the coastline. Those nutrients are essential for all marine life.

Day after day, week after week, the warm water takes a toll on our kelp beds that provide food for marine life. Warm oceans can also disrupt migration patterns for sea life.

Anderson said ocean temperatures could cool very soon as winds and waves pick up and pull deeper cold water to the surface in a process known as upwelling.

Another real concern, Anderson said, is that there have been more and more warm water days in recent years. That's a troubling trend for the health of the Pacific Ocean and all the plants and sea life that depend on, she said.
What to Know A new motion filed by the defense lawyer for Christopher Bathum, the self-described drug rehab mogul convicted earlier this year

The evidence, a 15-second video clip recorded several years ago, shows one of the assault victims, a key witness in Bathum's trial

The motion asks the court for a month delay before sentencing

A new motion filed by the defense lawyer for Christopher Bathum, the self-described drug rehab mogul convicted earlier this year of sexually assaulting seven women, claims the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office and Sheriff's Department withheld a piece of evidence related to a key prosecution witness.

The evidence, a 15-second video clip recorded several years ago, shows one of the assault victims, a key witness in Bathum's trial, being prompted by another man to say she was drugged and raped by Bathum, and the lawyer said this week the clip was never provided by prosecutors during the pretrial exchange of evidence.

"Counsel has lost trust in the veracity and good faith of the Sheriff's Department and Los Angeles County District Attorney's office," defense attorney Carlo A. Spiga wrote in a document filed with the court.

The District Attorney's Office declined to comment to the NBC 4 I-Team Friday afternoon. The motion asks the court for a month delay before sentencing so the actions by prosecutors and LA County Sheriff's detectives, along with the video clip can be investigated.

Bathum is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 15 and could face up to 65 years in prison. He's also charged in a separate fraud case that alleges he and a former employee used the rehab clinics to bilk insurance companies out of more than $150 million.

It is one of the largest insurance fraud case in California history. Bathum's former accomplice, Kirsten Wallace was sentenced to 11 years in state prison follow a plea deal to multiple counts of money laundering, theft of personal property, identity theft, and insurance fraud earlier this year.

The video at the center of the legal filing was Cliff Brodsky, an investor in Bathm's business claims he was ripped off by the rehab mogul. Brodsky made a short video with a woman who claims she was drugged and raped by Bathum.

"Will you please tell the camera, tell the world that you were raped by Chris Bathum, tell them what you told ME! Because she was all spun and she couldn't think what to say, so she said I was drugged and raped by Chris Bathum," Brodsky said Friday.

"I said 'see!'" Bathum's defense attorney, Carlo Spiga, says a source notified him that prosecutors were given a copy of the video but never revealed it him before trial.

Spiga says this has caused "lost trust in the veracity and good faith of the Sheriff's Department and Los Angeles District Attorney's Office."

Spiga is asking the court to appoint an investigator to assist him in determining if Bathum should request a new trial.
The heroes being honored are heard, rarely ever seen but are always ready to answer the call when help is needed during an emergency. They are the voices behind 911.



One 911 operator receives an average of 150 calls in a 24 hour day.

They are known as the unseen faces behind the LAPD's 911 communications division. With 600 employees, it's the LAPD's largest unit.

It's a high-stress job that demands quick thinking.

"What can I do in this desperate moment," said 911 Police Service Representative, Agegaye Scianni.

That was the same question Police Service Representative Dana Kono asked herself in May of 2016 when a co-worker got a call from a hiker who had been lost for days in the hills above Chatsworth.

"He was getting dehydrated, exposure," Kono said.

The hiker had limited cell service and two percent battery life but he was able to provide 911 with one very important clue.

"He says, 'I see airplanes.' I know what he's looking at," Kono said. "He's looking at the flight path from Northern California into either Van Nuys or Burbank."

Air traffic control was able to zero in on his location.

Kono suggested a way for him to catch the rescuers attention.

"Turns out he had on a bright blue shirt underneath and I think on the news you see him waving the shirt when the helicopter came overhead," Kono said.

The hiker was saved and Kono was awarded the department's lifesaving medal.

"Sometimes it's not that dramatic but that's what we do every day in some shape or forms," said Timothy McRae, a Police Service Representative.

McRae's award-winning moment came just after the department rolled out the new text to the 911 program.

"I got a text from a woman saying her boyfriend was attacking her," McRae said.

The woman was hiding and afraid to talk, McRae got the police there right away.

"You have to be able to think quickly and think out of the box," Scianni said.

"Everybody that works here every single day is a hero. Everybody here handles all kinds of situations and a lot of times they don't get credit for it," said McRae.
Thieves made off with the Bolivian president's diamond-encrusted gold medallion and the sash it's worn on, NBC News reported.

The nearly 200-year-old regalia were swiped from a backpack that a soldier left inside a car in the red-light district of El Alto. But authorities receovered them when they were abandoned outside a church in nearby La Paz.



"We are talking about the most important national symbol," former President Carlos Mesa told local media. "It is as if they robbed the crown of Queen Elizabeth of England."

Current President Evo Morales had to appear at a military parade without the regalia Wednesday.


Two young children flying unaccompanied from Iowa to Florida last month were taken to a hotel for the night when the Frontier Airlines plane was diverted, NBC News reported.

Their parents say they were never told where the children, 9 and 7, were, only learning the children were heading to a hotel when the 9-year-old texted them from a borrowed phone.

"I think I just I felt helpless. I felt guilty for even putting them on the flight," mother Jennifer Ignash said. "I thought 'Are they scared? Are they warm? Do they have food?' I do not blame Frontier for the flight being diverted. I fully understand that. But I do expect communication."

A representative for Frontier said the children were attended to in accordance with Frontier policy and that their records show the children were in touch with Ignash. There are no federal regulations governing unaccompanied children on flights.


What to Know A private garbage truck driver has been charged with driving under the influence in a crash that killed a bicyclist

A 23-year-old Austrailian tourist was biking on Central Park West when she swerved to avoid a livery cab

She was struck by the garbage truck driven by Felipe D. Chairez, 44, of Centereach

The driver of a private garbage truck was charged with drunk driving in a crash that killed a bicyclist in Central Park, police said.

Felipe D. Chairez, 44, of Centereach, was charged with DWI, DWAI alcohol and operating a commercial vehicle with .04 to .06 percent or less of alcohol, the NYPD said Saturday. It wasn't immediately clear whether he had an attorney.

Madison Jane Lyden, 23, of Austrailia, was riding northbound in the designated bike lane on Central Park West when a previously parked livery car suddenly pulled out in front of her, police said.

Lyden swerved to avoid crashing into the car and was hit by Chairez' truck that was also traveling north on Central Park West at approximately 4:45 p.m.

EMS transported Lyden to Roosevelt Hospital where was pronounced dead.

The livery driver hasn't been charged.
What to Know 23-year-old Madison Lyden from Australia was riding a bike on Central Park West when a car pulled into the bicycle lane.

She swerved to avoid crashing and was hit by a truck also travelling up Central Park West at approximately 4:45 p.m. Tuesday.

Lyden was pronounced dead at the Roosevelt Hospital following the crash.

An Australian woman was hit by a truck and killed while riding a bicycle outside of Central Park on Friday, police say.

The NYPD says 23-year-old Madison Jane Lyden was riding northbound in the designated bike lane on Central Park West lane when a previously parked livery car suddenly pulled out in front of her.

Lyden swerved to avoid crashing into the car and was hit by a truck that was also traveling north on Central Park West at approximately 4:45 p.m.

EMS transported Lyden to Roosevelt Hospital where was pronounced dead.

The drivers of both vehicles remained on the scene with the NYPDs Collision Investigation Squad. The truck driver was eventually taken into custody to be evaluated for driving under the influence; charges could be pending the outcome of that investigation, police said. The livery driver was not taken into custody.

Paul Steely White, executive director of advocacy group Transportation Alternatives, said the city should be "ashamed" because the death could have been prevented.

"Every day in this city, bike lanes meant to protect people on bikes are used as drop-off lanes, parking lanes, and idling lanes for lazy and entitled drivers," he said in a statement.

"More and more people are traveling by bike in our city, and they need safe, protected space," he continued. "And while we have more protected lane-miles today than ever before, this preventable death underscores the need for every major street in New York City to have a safe, protected space to travel by bike."
What to Know A father and his four daughters who were killed in a head-on crash in Delaware were laid to rest Saturday

The Teaneck family was killed July 6 but the funeral was postponed until the mother, the only survivor, was well enough to attend

The funeral was held at Fairleigh Dickinson University, where the five caskets were draped in white cloths

A father and his four daughters who were killed in a head-on crash in Delaware were remembered Saturday at a funeral mass.

The mother of the girls, Mary Rose Trinidad, was critically injured and was the only survivor of the July 6 crash. The funeral was postponed until she was well enough to attend, which she did in a wheelchair.

Five caskets were draped in white cloths at Fairleigh Dickinson Universitys Rothman Center in Hackensack. A framed photo of each family member was placed in front of their coffin.

The Rev. Herman Kinzler, the pastor of St. Anastasia's Church in Teaneck where the family belonged, remembered the Trinidad's as "a faith-filled family."

He said Audie Trinidad, 61, was an usher. The girls, 20-year-old Nikki, 17-year-old Danna and 13-year-old twins Allison and Melissa, had been members of the children's choir when they were younger.

"They brought Christ to life in the way that they reached out to others," Kinzler said. "They brought Christ to life in the very way that they lived."



At the end of the service, the casket of Audie, a Navy veteran, was draped with a flag which was folded and presented to Mary Rose.

The family was returning from a trip to Ocean City, Maryland, in a minivan on Delaware Route 1 when a Ford pickup truck veered across a grassy median and into northbound traffic, police said. It struck the family's minivan head-on.

No one in the pickup was seriously injured.

Mary Rose Trinidad has said that the only thing keeping her going in the wake of this tragedy is the chance to seek justice for her family.

"I want justice for them and him criminally prosecuted," she added.
What to Know A school bus with approximately 42 children and adults onboard flipped onto its side on the NJ Turnpike

There were no fatalities or serious injuries, police said

The bus was carrying kids coming from a picnic at a country club, sponsored by Newark Mayor Ras Baraka

A school bus with approximately 42 children and adults onboard flipped onto its side on the NJ Turnpike in East Brunswick, but there were no fatalities or serious injuries, police said.

The bus' occupants were taken to local hospitals for treatment, New Jersey State Police said. The school bus was carrying kids coming from a picnic at the Black Bear Country Club in Millstone, sponsored by Newark's Mayor Ras Baraka.

Everyone who hadn't been released from the hospital as of Saturday evening was described as being in stable condition, sources told News 4 New York's Brian Thompson.



Overturned school bus on the NJ Turnpike as of 5:35 pm, say a prayer and thank god for life everyday. pic.twitter.com/oCVpiuZAQY  kt (@katiie_keehner) August 11, 2018

A preliminary investigation found a car may have run into a guardrail on the Turnpike, bounced off and either hit the bus or caused the bus to swerve and lose control, a law enforcement source said. It wasn't clear if the car stopped at the scene or kept driving.

The school bus overturned at milepost 79.9 along the Turnpike in a northbound lane, state police said.

Emergency personnel on scene were doing triage on the children who were onboard after the accident, sources told Thompson. Many of the children at the scene didn't appear to be seriously injured.

NEW: School bus overturns on #NJTurnpike approx 20 kids were being triaged as per LE source, many ambulances but at least some kids seen walking. @NBCNewYork pic.twitter.com/Q6ey3CoXjh  Brian Thompson (@brian4NY) August 11, 2018

Sources said the bus was one of two school buses traveling down the Turnpike. It wasn't immediately clear where the vehicles were going.

A witness told News 4 she was on the Turnpike when she saw the bus flip over one or two times from the middle lane and land in the left lane.

Drivers stopped their cars and ran toward the bus to help after it flipped, she said.

Both local and express lanes were closed around the scene of the accident, state police said.

In May, a teacher and a 10-year-old student were killed when a school bus carrying 38 fifth-grade students and seven adults collided with a dump truck.

The 77-year-old driver in that crash was charged with two counts of death by auto.
What to Know A man stole an airplane at Sea-Tac International Airport in Washington state Friday, was chased by military jets and crashed into an island

The sheriff's department said on Twitter the man was suicidal and there was no connection to terrorism

The man's condition after the crash wasn't immediately known

A "suicidal" airline employee stole an empty Horizon Air turboprop plane, took off from Sea-Tac International Airport and was chased by military jets before crashing into a small island in the Puget Sound on Friday night, officials said.

Preliminary information suggests the crash occurred because the 29-year-old man was "doing stunts in air or lack of flying skills," the Pierce County Sheriff's Department said.

Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the sheriff's department, said on Twitter the man was suicidal and there was no connection to terrorism. The man's condition after the crash wasn't immediately known.

President Donald Trump was briefed on the incident and is monitoring the situation, press secretary Sarah Sanders said Saturday morning. Trump is currently at his New Jersey golf club, and Sanders commended the response effort for its "swift action" and public safety protection.

Video showed the Horizon Air Q400 doing large loops and other dangerous maneuvers as the sun set on the Puget Sound. There were no passengers aboard. Authorities initially said the man was a mechanic but Alaska Airlines later said he was believed to be a ground service agent employed by Horizon. Those employees direct aircraft for takeoff and gate approach and de-ice planes.

Witnesses reported seeing the plane being chased by military aircraft before it crashed on Ketron Island, southwest of Tacoma, Washington. Troyer said F-15 aircraft scrambled out of Portland, Oregon, and were in the air "within a few minutes" and the pilots kept "people on the ground safe."

The sheriff's department said they were working to conduct a background investigation on the Pierce County resident, whose name was not immediately released.

The aircraft was stolen about 8 p.m. Alaska Airlines said it was in a "maintenance position" and not scheduled for a passenger flight. Horizon Air is part of Alaska Air Group and flies shorter routes throughout the U.S. West. The Q400 is a turboprop aircraft with 76 seats.

Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor said the man "did something foolish and may well have paid with his life."

The man could be heard on audio recordings telling air traffic controllers that he is "just a broken guy."

An air traffic controller called the man "Rich," and tried to convince the man to land the airplane.

"There is a runway just off to your right side in about a mile," the controller says, referring to an airfield at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

"Oh man. Those guys will rough me up if I try and land there," the man responded, later adding "This is probably jail time for life, huh?"

Later the man said: "I've got a lot of people that care about me. It's going to disappoint them to hear that I did this...Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess."

Flights out of Sea-Tac, the largest commercial airport in the Pacific Northwest, were temporarily grounded during the drama.

The U.S. Coast Guard sent a 45-foot (14-meter) vessel to the crash scene after witnesses reported seeing a large plume of smoke in the air, Petty Officer Ali Flockerzi said. Video showed fiery flames amidst trees on the island, which is sparsely populated and only accessible by ferry.

Alaska Airlines said no structures on the ground were damaged.

Royal King told The Seattle Times he was photographing a wedding when he saw the low-flying turboprop being chased by two F-15s. He said he didn't see the crash but saw smoke.

"It was unfathomable, it was something out of a movie," he told the newspaper. "The smoke lingered. You could still hear the F-15s, which were flying low."

"Our hearts are with the family of the individual aboard, along with all of our Alaska Air and Horizon Air employees," Horizon Air Chief Operating Officer Constance von Muehlen said in a video posted on Twitter.

Spokesmen for the Transportation Security Administration, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Aviation Administration directed inquiries to local authorities.

Gov. Jay Inslee thanked the Air National Guard from Washington and Oregon for scrambling jets and said in a statement "there are still a lot of unknowns surrounding tonight's tragic incident."

SUICIDE PREVENTION HELP: If you are in crisis, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or reach out to the Crisis Text Line by texting Home to 741741.


Philly, keep your eyes peeled for an Idris Elba sighting. The star is expected to shoot a new movie soon based on the city's famed urban cowboys, the Greater Philadelphia Film Office confirmed.

Elba is a producer and star of "Ghetto Cowboy," which is based on a novel about the Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club in North Philly. The novel, which is also called "Ghetto Cowboy," was written by Greg Neri.

He's producing the movie under his Green Door Pictures banner, the Hollywood Reporter said.

The Philadelphia film office said they had been working with the project for some time.

"Its a wonderful script and we cant wait to get started," said Sharon Pinkenson, executive director of the Greater Philadelphia Film Office.

Fletcher Street Urban Riding Club as been "a part of the Philadelphia community for over 100 years," according to its website.

North Philadelphia once had dozens of stables; now, Fletcher Street tries to honor that history while teaching young people about the responsibility and discipline that caring for horses requires.

Elba is best known for his roles in "Luther" and "The Wire" and movies including "Thor." He is set to play a bad guy in a "Fast and Furious" spinoff, "Hobbs and Shaw."

Elba is also the talk of social media right now after a UK publication reignited rumors that Elba was in the running to play James Bond. The hints sent Twitter into a frenzy.

Michael Eric Dyson, the Georgetown professor and author, Tweeted his support. "His acting chops are top notch; his ability to convey cool & sexiness is undeniable; and his swag quotient is incontestable," Dyson wrote.


What to Know Nemours/A.I duPont Hospital for Children officially opened its Gender Wellness Clinic this past month.

A 2017 study by the UCLA School of Law found that about 150,000 young adults in the United States identify as transgender.

Gender dysphoria is a condition in which a person feels discomfort because their gender identity doesn't match their biological sex.

In the past year, Theo Gretz has hit major teenage milestones. His voice is getting deeper by the day. His facial hair is coming in spurts. He's been shaving, or at least trying to.

And three weeks ago, the 16-year-old had surgery to remove his breasts, marking a significant moment in his transition to male. The Claymont teenager has been taking testosterone since May 2017 and has felt more like himself since then. He says he's now more comfortable and relaxed.

When Gretz realized he was transgender at age 13, there were little to no resources for transgender youth looking to transition in Delaware. Many would have to travel to Philadelphia.

This past month, Nemours/A.I duPont Hospital for Children officially opened its Gender Wellness Clinic, in which a team of doctors  including a psychologist, endocrinologist and gynecologist  help patients, like Theo, who feel the sex they were assigned at birth does not match the gender they identify with.

The clinic represents a growing trend among pediatric hospitals: More and more are creating similar programs to help transgender or gender-nonconforming youth both medically and psychologically.

Nemours doctors say the treatment doesn't always consist of surgery or hormone therapy; sometimes it could be helping patients realize what name and pronouns make them feel like themselves.

A 2017 study by the UCLA School of Law found that about 150,000 young adults in the United States identify as transgender. In Delaware, there are about 400 teenagers between the ages 13 to 17, the study said.

Dr. Evan Graber, a Nemours endocrinologist and medical director of the clinic, saw his first transgender patient about three years ago  he now has about 50 patients who range from 10 to 21. And he isn't the only Nemours doctor to have a constant flow of patients.

"We're getting so many patients, it seemed like the best way to take care of these patients was as a group, not just individual practitioners that chat with each other in the hallway," he said.

Graber reached out to doctors at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, which created one of the first gender clinics, for guidance. Despite being "so-called competition," Graber said the doctors were supportive of the Nemours clinic since they found their patients in southern Delaware struggled to make it to Philadelphia for appointments.

Like the CHOP program, the Nemours clinic has a social worker on its staff, in addition to a psychiatrist and pediatrician that help teens find adult care once they age out of Nemours.

Anthony Alioto, a Nemours psychologist and the program's clinical director, said there's often a misconception that every patient who comes into the clinic is looking for the "full gamut of interventions and surgeries."

Often times, the doctors are helping patients and their families learn about the options and help them understand what kind of services they are looking for, Alioto said. For some children, transitioning could just consist of changing their name and the way they dress.

"This is a family decision," Alioto said. "This isn't a random teenager walking in off of the street on a whim. And we say 'Sure, sounds great.' That's not how this works."

"This is somebody coming in with a condition for gender dysphoria that has really caused a lot of discomfort for them. And many times has a psychological impact for them."

Gender dysphoria is a condition in which a person feels discomfort because their gender identity doesn't match their biological sex, according to the American Psychiatric Association.

For Nemours patients who want to transition, the process typically begins with behavioral health, specifically, working with a psychologist.

Alioto said some children aren't entirely sure they want to transition to the opposite gender, at least right away. Gender is a spectrum, Alioto said, and some find themselves to be the most comfortable somewhere in the middle.

He prefers his patients to try transitioning incrementally before undergoing a medical procedure.

For those who feel they are ready for medical intervention, Graber often talks to his patients about undergoing hormone therapy, which consists of taking estrogen or testosterone.

His younger patients might receive puberty blockers, which allows them to "explore their gender identity without having to make those changes that can be very distressing," Graber said.

Insurance companies are increasingly covering these treatments, he said, though some still consider them to be cosmetic or experimental.

Graber estimates a handful of his patients  including Theo  have undergone top surgery, which consists of a mastectomy. He said a couple of patients have had "bottom surgery," or sex reassignment surgery, but only after they turn 18.

Few surgeons perform these procedures in the area, none of whom are at Nemours or CHOP, Graber said.

While there are guidelines from national medical societies, there are no "hard and fast rules" about when children can receive certain procedures, the doctors said. Graber has found most teenagers and families don't consider top surgery until around age 17 and bottom surgery at age 18.

These patients are also on hormone therapy for a period of time, he said.

The doctors said the decision to go forward on treatments is not taken lightly and often includes a lot discussion with the families and patients. Ultimately, the parents need to sign off on the procedures.

While there are parents who are supportive from the beginning, others aren't as accepting when they first meet the doctors. Some argue that teenagers' brains haven't matured enough to make these big decisions, Graber said.

But there's also a concern if families wait too long to have these procedures. Studies have found that transgender youth are more likely to experience mental illness, including depression, anxiety and suicidal thoughts and attempts, than their non-transgender peers.

"We know we're taking a calculated risk," Graber said. "But we also know not treating is taking a calculated risk that could have very detrimental effects."

Theo's mom, Carol Gretz, admits she had concerns, though she never thought Theo was too young to transition. Carol believes he began transitioning to male at age 3 when he preferred to wear boxer shorts.

She was more nervous about potential side effects Theo might experience when taking testosterone and undergoing major surgery. But after reading Theo's extensive research, and talking with the doctors, Carol came on board.

Her teenager no longer walks with his head down and curves his shoulders a certain way to hide his breasts. She can't remember a time when Theo was more confident or more social than he is now.

"He's happier," Carol said. "He walks with his head high and shoulders back."
With a myriad of candidates on Septembers primary ballot for U.S. Senate and House of Representatives seats, unregistered voters in Delaware better make sure theyre registered.

Primary voter registration in Delaware closes Saturday.

Voters wanting to vote in the primary must register with a party affiliation in order to choose the Democrat and Republican nominees for the U.S. Senate seat. Democrats will be able to choose from candidates Thomas Carper and Evelyn Harris Kerri, while Republicans will have three choices: Robert Arlett, Eugene Truono Jr. and Roque Rocky De La Fuente, according to the Delaware Department of Elections.

The Republican primary also includes a U.S. House race where voters will choose between candidates Scott Walker and Lee Murphy. The winner of this race will face off against Democratic incumbent Lisa Blunt Rochester in November.

Previously registered voters hoping to change their party affiliation before the primary are out of luck as Saturdays deadline only applies to unregistered voters. The deadline to change party affiliation was May 25.

Unregistered voters can register by visiting the states department of elections website.

Hurry.
A man who was suspected of selling drugs in a Landover, Maryland, neighborhood was fatally shot by police after a confrontation, police say.

Prince George's County Police Chief Hank Stawinski said the department got a tip from someone about an armed man selling drugs on Sheriff Road. Stawinski said the man also "terrorized" the community and may be involved in a series of robberies in the area.

Members of the department's Narcotics and Emergency Services team were conducting an operation to arrest the suspect in the 7000 block of Sheriff Road, not far from FedEx Field, at 9:15 p.m. Thursday.

When two uniformed officers approached the suspect, he ran away.

More: This is the suspects gun recovered at the scene on Sheriff Road. pic.twitter.com/jbO5XP3qcq  PGPDNEWS (@PGPDNews) August 10, 2018

The officers were able to tackle the man about 25 yards away, but during the struggle, the officers saw the suspect reaching for a gun in his waistband, Stawinski said. One of the officers fired his weapon, hitting the suspect.

Police believe the officer fired no more than three rounds.

The suspect's handgun was recovered at the scene, police say.

The suspect was taken to the hospital, where he died from his injuries.

No officers were injured.

Police recovered narcotics, cash and a handgun.
Zimbabwe's President Emmerson Mnangagwa won election Friday with just over 50 percent of the ballots as the ruling party maintained control of the government in the first vote since the fall of longtime leader Robert Mugabe.

Mnangagwa received 50.8 percent of the vote while main opposition challenger Nelson Chamisa received 44.3 percent. The opposition is almost certain to challenge the results in the courts or in the streets.

While election day was peaceful in a break from the past, deadly violence on Wednesday against people protesting alleged vote-rigging reminded many Zimbabweans of the decades of military-backed repression under Mugabe.

Zimbabwe's president says he is "humbled" by his win.

"Though we may have been divided at the polls, we are united in our dreams," Mnangagwa said on Twitter.

"This is a new beginning. Let us join hands, in peace, unity & love, & together build a new Zimbabwe for all!" Mnangagwa tweeted, after a week that began with peaceful voting Monday but spiraled into deadly violence in the capital Wednesday as the military fired on protesters.

Western election observers who were banned in previous votes have expressed concern at the military's "excessive" force in the capital, Harare. Their assessments of the election are crucial to the lifting of international sanctions on a country whose economy collapsed years ago.

Shortly before the election commission's announcement, Morgen Komichi, the chief agent for Chamisa's opposition alliance, took the stage and said his party "totally rejects" the results and said he had not signed the election results. Police escorted him from the room.

Later Komichi said the elections were "fraudulent" and "everything has been done illegally." He said he had refused an electoral commission request to sign papers certifying Mnangagwa's win.

"We're not part of it," said Komichi, adding that the opposition would be challenging the election in the courts.

Commission chair Priscilla Chigumba urged the country to "move on" with the hopeful spirit of election day and beyond the "blemishes" of Wednesday's chaos: "May God bless this nation and its people."

With the military still deployed in Harare, the capital's streets were quiet following the announcement of Mnangagwa's victory.

By the center where the election results were announced, Charity Manyeruke, who teaches political science at the University of Zimbabwe, said she was delighted.

"There is continuity, stability," Manyeruke said. "Zimbabwe is poised for nation-building."

The signs that Mnangagwa's election will be disputed appears to deepen a political crisis that was worsened by Wednesday's violence in Harare as the military swept in with gunfire to disperse opposition supporters alleging vote-rigging.

The death toll rose to six, with 14 injured, police said, and 18 people were arrested at the offices of the main opposition party amid tensions over a vote that was supposed to restore trust in Zimbabwe after decades of Mugabe's rule.

While Mnangagwa and the ruling party accused the opposition of inciting the violence, the opposition, human rights activists and international election observers condemned the "excessive" force used against protesters and appealed to all sides to exercise restraint.

Police raided the headquarters of Chamisa's Movement for Democratic Change party while a lawyers' group said Chamisa was being investigated for allegedly inciting violence. He and several others are suspected of the crimes of "possession of dangerous weapons" and "public violence," according to a copy of a search warrant seen by The Associated Press.

Chamisa, however, said police seized computers and were looking for what he called evidence that his party had gathered of vote-rigging by Mnangagwa's party. The evidence already had been moved to a "safe house," he said.

Mnangagwa called for an "independent investigation" into Wednesday's violence, saying those responsible "should be identified and brought to justice."

Mnangagwa was a longtime Mugabe confidante before his firing in November led his allies in the military to step in and push Mugabe to resign after 37 years in power. Thousands of jubilant Zimbabweans celebrated in the streets of Harare, greeting the military with selfies and cheers.

Since taking office, the 75-year-old Mnangagwa has tried to recast himself as a voice of reform, declaring that Zimbabwe was "open for business" and inviting long-banned Western election observers to observe Monday's vote, which he pledged would be free and fair.

A credible election after past votes were marred by violence against the opposition and alleged irregularities is crucial for the lifting of international sanctions and for the badly needed foreign investment to help Zimbabwe's long-collapsed economy revive. Mnangagwa himself remains under U.S. sanctions.

While Monday's election has been widely judged as peaceful with a high turnout, the deadly violence that erupted on Wednesday brought back chilly memories of decades of repression under Mugabe.

It was a reminder, as opposition leader Chamisa declared Thursday, that "'We have removed Mugabe but not Mugabe-ism."

The military deployment was the first time that soldiers had appeared in the streets of the capital since Mugabe's resignation. Some Harare residents expressed frustration and exhaustion at the dramatic change from November's exuberant expression of hope to the current tensions.

"We are a peaceful nation," said 29-year-old Sifas Gavanga of the latest chaos. "We don't deserve the death we saw."
What to Know The Vermont DEC said tests during a recent property transfer detected contaminants  chemicals known as PCE and TCE.

The EPA sampled vapors from the soil and in the air of nearby buildings, including an elementary school in Burlington School District.

VT Health Dept. has said in past that PCE and TCE can cause a variety of symptoms, from headaches and dizziness to certain types of cancer.

An apparent chemical contamination in part of the Old North End of Burlington, Vermont, has sparked a response from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this week.

The federal agency is looking into how far industrial solvents may have leaked into a neighborhood around Elmwood Avenue, and whether residents and schoolchildren could be at risk.

"It's nerve-wracking," said Priscilla Vezina, who lives on Elmwood Avenue in Burlington, near where the EPA was testing Thursday.

The EPA was sampling vapors from the soil and in the air of nearby buildings, including the Integrated Arts Academy, an elementary school in the Burlington School District.

"I'm happy that they care about the neighborhood," Elmwood resident Zach Wilson said, expressing appreciation for the high-level attention the apparent contamination is getting.

The Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation said tests during a recent property transfer detected contaminants  chemicals known as PCE and TCE  which are commonly used in dry-cleaning, de-greasing, metal fabricating and other industrial work.

The EPA and the Vermont DEC are now in the very early stages of trying to figure out the source, the concentrations, how far the gases have crept, and if any clean-up steps are needed.

"We asked for them to test our house because we have a newborn," said Christine Toomey, who has a 4-week-old daughter and lives near a commercial building where the solvents might have been used or spilled. "[My concerns are] not knowing if it's in our house, and if the chemicals are emitted in the air, and what it can causeespecially with the baby."

The Vermont Health Department said following a recent discovery of dry-cleaning chemicals in the ground in another community that PCE and TCE can cause a variety of symptoms. Those range from headaches and dizziness to certain types of cancer, depending on how much of the chemicals people are exposed to, and for how long.

"We want people to know what's happening, but we don't want to cause alarm," said Kim Caldwell of the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation.

"There is potential that it could be a problem," added Alex Sherrin of the EPA. "We're here now, we're here early, and were working quickly to resolve this."

Sherrin and Caldwell said it's too soon to know what, if any, remediation steps will need to be taken. Lab testing and other analysis will be going on for a few more weeks.

The Burlington School District addressed the testing at the Integrated Arts Academy in a written statement this week.

That statement read, in part:

"At this time, we view this testing to be a proactive measure. We have been told that we can expect to receive the results before school starts and our team is prepared for any scenario the EPA may present. We want to reiterate that there is no cause for alarm, Integrated Arts Academy was not the source of this contaminant, and that we have been cooperating to make sure this testing is done in a timely manner. We will update our community as more information becomes available."


Hitchike from Norwich to Hebron to transform lives Hitchike from Norwich to Hebron to transform lives

Two members of the Hebron staff team hitchhiked 350 miles from Hebron House in Norwich to the village of Hebron in Wales reliant only on their wits and public generosity. Jenny Seal finds out why.
Theres a lot to celebrate at Il Colosseo in New Milford.

The restaurant will mark its 25th anniversary at its current location - 38 Park Lane Road (Route 202) - in April.

More recently, though, the restaurant is celebrating a change of management, renovation and new menu.

We had to do something, said longtime owner Rosalia Des Biens during a recent interview. We decided we needed a change to compete with other restaurants in the area.

The restaurant has three sections: a dining area, which has a small separate room for dining and private parties; a lounge/bar; and a takeout window.

Des Biens said her longtime business partner, Ignazio Alferi, recently stepped down and her nephew, Roberto Pizzo, came aboard as manager and chef.

The restaurants revitalized look features new siding and a new sign, as well as fresh interior paint and new decor.

Its a little taste of Docs in New Milford, Pizzo said, citing some of the dining rooms wall art, all themed on his familys Italian heritage.

Pizzo opened the popular Docs restaurant in 1999 on Lake Waramaug before moving the restaurant to Kent in 2008.

Des Biens smiled as she pointed out some of the art that showcases her hometown of Saint Stefano Quisquina on the walls at Il Colosseo.

The menu has also been revamped, and espresso and cappuccino have been added.

Its a traditional menu with all my signature dishes, with some contemporary plates, Pizzo said.

Specials and homemade desserts are on the menu, too.

Among his favorite dishes to make are mussels and Bolognese, seafood risotto and Amatrciana.

I want people to come into the dining room and have a new experience, said Des Biens, who recently retired after 43 years of teaching at Danbury High School.

Pizzo agreed, adding that his goal is to draw people from outside of New Milford, too, which has already happened.

The chef said one of the other new touches to the restaurant is his visits to the dining room to ensure customers are satisfied with their meals.

I love to make people happy with their dining experience, he said.

Karin Smith of Danbury said she dined at the revitalized restaurant and was impressed.

It was unbelievable, Smith said. I could not believe it.

Smith ordered grilled calamari and seafood risotto.

I told Rosalia Im mad I had (the seafood risotto) the first time I went to the restaurant because I loved it so much I wont want to order anything else, Smith explained. It was that good.

Smith noted the amount of fish in the dish, as well as the flavor. Phenomenal, she said.

Smith also cited the wait staff, calling them so attentive, but not in your face.

The satisfied customer said she is looking to go there again with friends soon.

Its so good, I dont know what to say, said customer Ann Marie Chauvin of New Milford, who recently dined at the restaurant since changes took place.

It was so delicious we went back two days later, Chauvin said.

In addition to dining and takeout, the restaurant also offers catering.

Des Biens family has a rich history in the restaurant business.

The family has a restaurant in Italy, where Pizzo lived for many years and helped with before returning to the U.S. and opening Docs.

In addition, Des Biens sister, Mimi Leto, operates Alfredos in Gaylordsville, and a brother owned the former Villa Maria on Route 7.

Des Biens also owned the former Rosalias in Brookfield.

We have very loyal clientele, Des Biens said of Il Colosseo customers.

Im excited hes with me to make the move, she said of Pizzo.

Il Colosseo, located at 38 Park Lane Road (Route 202) in New Milford, is open Mondays through Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sundays from 11:30 a.m. to 10 p.m. The lounge/bar is open until closing. For more information, call 860-350-9596.
A study led by researchers at Center for Infection and Immunity (CII) at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and the Department of Medicine at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center reports on the use of a genetic sequencing method to identify viral pathogens behind unexplained respiratory illnesses in Uganda over a five-year period. The method, called VirCapSeq-VERT and developed at CII, identified nine clusters of infections, including one potentially related to tourism from the U.K.

The study is published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, a journal of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, and is accompanied by an editorial by Hans H. Hirsch, MD, an expert in infectious diseases and viral diagnostics at the University of Basel, Switzerland.

Columbia researchers joined with colleagues at the Uganda Virus Research Institute in Entebbe, Uganda, to identify 2,901 patients with unexplained, influenza-negative severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) through a network of eight hospitals in Uganda between 2010 and 2015. The researchers' analysis of genetic material from nasal and throat swabs yielded information on viral pathogens in 82 percent of the samples, the most common of which was human rhinovirus. They uncovered nine infectious clusters, as well as information about where the clusters were more likely to occur: in urban areas and during rainy seasons. Within these clusters, they found a previously unrecognized outbreak of measles-associated SARI potentially linked to tourism from the U.K., as well a cluster associated with a novel picobirnavirus related to swine and dromedary viruses.

"The discovery potential of deep sequencing of this U.S.-Ugandan study," Hirsch writes in his editorial, "is... highlighted impressively by the identification of picobirnavirus in two cases as well as measles as the cause of SARI clusters in 18 cases... Remarkably, five cases... could be traced back to an unvaccinated tourist from England and an outbreak in Manchester, U.K., in 2011." Hirsch goes on to assert that the "state of the art" test "not only sets standards for resource-rich industrial settings, but provides... another proof-of-concept of feasibility and impact of innovative joint projects and partnerships between advanced research groups and dedicated institutions in the resource-limited countries."

Co-first author Rafal Tokarz, PhD, a research scientist at CII, says traditional public health surveillance systems of the kind used by low- and middle-income countries often fail to detect or control outbreaks of infectious disease. "Precision sequencing can improve on these systems by capturing detailed information on at-risk populations while rapidly identifying any new pathogens," he says. "However, continued testing is necessary to assess feasibility of using these methods to conduct real-time public health surveillance."

"What we are talking about is precision public health--integrating genomics, big data, and spatial analyses to identify vulnerable populations and areas where high-impact infections emerge and using these insights to deploy resources precisely and efficiently," says co-first author Matthew J. Cummings, MD, a postdoctoral fellow in the Division of Pulmonary, Allergy, and Critical Care Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. "One-size-fits-all public health solutions are just as obsolete as one-size-fits-all approaches to cancer therapy."

"Every year, acute lower respiratory infections are responsible for nearly 3 million annual deaths worldwide, predominantly in children and the elderly," says W. Ian Lipkin, MD, co-author, director of CII, and the John Snow Professor of Epidemiology at the Columbia Mailman School. "In addition, outbreaks of associated with novel viruses like avian flu, MERS, and SARS, along with periodic outbreaks caused by vaccine-preventable viruses such as measles, threaten global health security. VirCapSeq-VERT will be an important tool in the identification and containment of outbreaks."
Marvel's new Iron Fist could be someone you already know

"Iron Fist No More," says Marvel. It looks like Danny Rand is quitting and getting a replacement
GamesRadar+ is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more
IAS Exam Preparation Tips

New Delhi : Indian Administrative Service (IAS) is one of the toughest competitive exams in India. It is conducted by the Union Public Service Commission for the recruitment of officers for the All India Administrative Civil Service. The premier exam is held for selecting the aspirants the 24 major posts in India including the service posts of IAS, IPS, and IFS.

The exam was first started as Imperial Civil Service exam in 1858 and later in January 26, 1950 the exam was renamed as Indian Administrative Service. By focusing on IAS exam, aspirants get exposure in diverse roles like the collector, commissioner, head of public sector units, chief secretary, cabinet secretary etc.

UPSC notification release time for IAS exam 2018-19

UPSC has published IAS exam notification in the month of May in the employment news section for preliminary exam held in June 2018. The result of UPSC IAS preliminary exam will be declared on August 2018; while the main exam of IAS will be held in October 2018 and the results will be declared on March 2019. Successful candidates will have to attend the oral interview in April/May 2019 at New Delhi.

How to prepare for Civil Services Exam

Every year more than 10 lakh candidates apply for IAS civil service exam of which only half sit for Prelims. Then around 16,0000 candidates get selected for Civil service Mains exam. Lastly, only three to four percent of candidates get through the exam. So now, the question is how to prepare best for exam. Well, we can help you out with the following tips to study for IAS exam 2019

Check UPSC subjects, syllabus and revise all chapters as per your selected preference.

Consider NCERT books, previous yearsquestion papers of IAS, current affairs book etc

Take IAS prelims mock test to identify your mistakes

Appear for exam in relaxed mind so that you keep careful to read questions and answer correctly.

Eligibility for UPSC IAS exam

Candidate must be a citizen of India

Candidate must be a citizen of Nepal or a subject of Bhutan

Candidate must be a Tibetan Refugee who came to India before January 1, 1962, to be settled permanently in India

Candidate must be person of Indian Origin who has migrated from Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Myanmar, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Uganda, Vietnam, Zaire, or Zambia with an intention of permanently settling in India

Educational qualification to apply for IAS exam or UPSC Civil Services Exam

1. Candidate must hold a Bachelor's Degree from any of the recognized universities.

2. Candidates who have appeared for the qualifying examination and are awaiting results or those who are yet to appear for the qualifying examination are also eligible for the Preliminary Examination. Such candidates have to produce proof of passing the said examination along with the application for the Main Examination.

3. Candidates with professional and technical qualifications recognized by the Government or its equivalent are also eligible to apply Candidates who have passed the final year of MBBS or any Medical Examination but are yet to complete the internship can also appear for the Main Examination.

However, they must submit a certificate from the concerned University that they have passed the final professional medical examination

Age limit to apply in IAS Civil Service Exam

A candidate should attain minimum 21 years and maximum 32 years old as on August 01, 2019. But he/she must have been born not earlier than August 02, 1987 and not later than August 01, 1998. Necessary action will take to make corresponding changes in respective Rules/Regulations pertaining to various services.

The upper age limit prescribed above is relaxable for the following candidates:

5 Years - Scheduled Caste/ Scheduled Tribe (SC/ST) 3 Years - Other Backward Classes (OBC)

3 Years - Defence Services personnel

5 Years - ex-servicemen including Commissioned Officers and ECOs/SSCOs who have rendered at least 5 years Military Service as on August 01, 2019

5 Years in the case of ECOs/SSCOs

10 Years - Blind, deaf-mute, and orthopedically handicapped persons

5 Years - In the case of ECOs/SSCOs who have completed an initial period of assignment of five years of Military Service as on 1st August, 2019 and whose assignment has been extended beyond five years and in whose case the Ministry of Defence issues a certificate that they can apply for civil employment and that they will be released on three months notice on selection from the date of receipt of offer of appointment

Number of attempts in UPSC IAS exam

Restriction on the maximum number of attempts is effective since 1984:

For General Candidates: 7 attempts (Up to 32 Years)

Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe Candidates (SC/ST): No Limits (Up to 37 Years)

Other Backward Classes (OBC): 9 attempts (Up to 35 Years)

Physically handicapped- 9 attempts for general and OBC, while unlimited for SC/ST

List of optional subjects for UPSC Mains Examination

Agriculture

Animal Husbandry and Veterinary Science

Anthropology

Botany

Chemistry

Civil Engineering

Commerce and Accountancy

Economics

Electrical Engineering

Geography

Geology

Indian History

Law

Management

Mathematics

Mechanical Engineering

Medical Science

Philosophy

Physics

Political Science and International Relations

Psychology

Public Administration

Sociology

Statistics

Zoology

Literature of any one of the following languages like Assamese, Bengali, Bodo, Dogri, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Maithili, Malayalam, Manipuri, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Santali, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu and English.

The question papers for the examination will be of essay type in the main exam. Each paper will be of three hours duration. The question papers other than the literature of language papers will be set in Hindi and English only.
Kolkata : In a bid to encourage more Indian travellers to visit Israel, the Middle East nation has opened a Visa Application Centre here that would cater to West Bengal and seven northeastern states.

Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura would come under the purview of the centre, which can also accept visa applications in jurisdiction under the New Delhi centre, an Israel Embassy release said.

The visa application categories include B1 for employment, B2 for business, tourism and meeting or conference, and A2 for students.

Commenting on the opening of centre, Hassan Madah, Director, Israel Ministry of Tourism - India and Philippines, said: "Israel is experiencing a tourism boom like never before. India has recorded a half yearly growth of 82 per cent as compared to the same period in 2015 and has become one of the best performing markets in Asia for Israel.

"Keeping this in mind, the Ministry consistently aims to introduce initiatives that ease the procedure of visa applications to Israel. The new centre in Kolkata will no longer require residents from West Bengal and northeastern states to send their documents to the Embassy in New Delhi," Madah was quoted as saying in the release.

Madah said the Israeli Ministry of Tourism would hold a roadshow here on August 29 to increase interest for the destination among consumers and the trade fraternity.

Israel offers a plethora of things to do and see to cater to the discerning traveller. From the historical city of Jerusalem to the beach city of Tel Aviv; and from the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth, to the marvellous underwater marine life of Red Sea in Eilat, the release said.
Taipei : US-based chip-maker Qualcomm has announced that it has mutually agreed to a settlement with the Taiwan Fair Trade Commission (TFTC), after being slapped with a $774 million fine for antitrust violations.

As part of the agreement, Qualcomm comes to the entitlement to only pay an amount of $93 million -- that the company already paid in July-end -- which would be retained by the TFTC with no amount due, the chipset-maker wrote in a blog post late on Friday.

"This settlement directly addresses concerns raised by the TFTC, regardless of disputed positions, and builds on our foundation of collaborative, long-term business relationships in Taiwan," Alex Rogers, Executive Vice President and President, Qualcomm Technology Licensing, said in a statement.

The San Diego-based company would now also work with the TFTC and its sister agencies within the Taiwanese government to implement the 5G roll-out under regulations put in place by the Taiwanese regulator.

"In addition, Qualcomm will drive certain commercial initiatives in Taiwan over the next five years for the benefit of the mobile and semiconductor ecosystem including 5G collaborations, new market expansion, start-up and university collaborations and the development of a Taiwanese centre for operations and manufacturing engineering," Qualcomm added.

The dispute arose after Taiwan's regulator reportedly said that the chip-maker abused its monopoly power over smartphone modems by putting higher patent licensing fees on companies that use the devices in their products.

The initial anti-trust fine of $774 million was announced to Qualcomm in October 2017 at Taiwan which claimed that the firm was giving other chip-makers a run for their businesses.

Apart from Taiwan, China and South Korea have also previously fined Qualcomm over anti-competitive behaviours and Apple has also put forth several lawsuits against the chip-maker for similar practices.
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KENT With a week to go before they would dance in front of a live audience in the Housatonic River, Paula Josa-Jones and her team of dancers spent Saturday afternoon letting local filmmakers in on the final steps of their rehearsals.

Paula always talks about the river being an additional dancer, Dillon Paul told the a camera set up on the porch of Josa-Jones house as her fellow dancers rehearsed just inside. I feel like the river is the most powerful dancer in the group.

Paul is one of four dancers and an actress that will join Josa-Jones, the director, in the River Body Project, a dance performance in the Housatonic River accompanied by spoken word to highlight the human and community connection to the body of water.

The project will be chronicled in a documentary film by a team of student filmmakers and their teacher from the Marvelwood School film studies programs first summer edition of the Video Exploration Program, a collaboration between the school and the Upper Housatonic National Heritage Area, which is part of the National Park Service.

On Saturday, two of Marvelwoods students joined teacher Ben Willis to do a final round of interviews with the dancers and film the last of their rehearsals on the nearby riverbanks.

Willis said the collaboration between the River Project and the film program happened mostly by happy coincidence. Josa-Jones had contacted the Upper Housatonic National Heritages director about her performance, who then reached out to a teacher at Marvelwood, who contacted him, he said.

We had the program and the question was, What are we going to do for the project?  Willis said. I think it was that day that I got an email (about Josa-Jones project). It really was fortuitous.

He said the program is meant to help students learn how to make films while getting them out of the classroom. The River Project documentary students are one of two groups making films for the program this summer.

The two students helping Willis film Saturday, Cole and Max Branson, agreed that the project has helped them develop new skills as filmmakers, since both of them had never filmed dancers before.

(We typically) film stationary objects, but for this, its a choreographed dance, said Max, who just graduated from the school. We had a learning experience. As the dancers were figuring out their dance, we were figuring out our moves as well.

Branson said the team ultimately decided on setting up multiple camera angles to capture every aspect of the dance at once.

Cole Branson, a sophomore, said he signed up for the project to continue expanding his filmmaking experience. He has been in the film studies program since his freshman year, he said.

It sounded really cool being able to go out into nature, he said. It was a new experience.

Other students helping with the documentary include Oliver Sanchez and Maggie Everett.

The dance itself has been in the works for about two years, Josa-Jones said. She came up with the idea after attending a fundraiser for the Housatonic Valley Association and being moved by how passionately the director talked about the river.

I said, I cant make a big donation, but I can create a dance project that takes place in the water,  Josa-Jones said. People need to know that if you are living within this watershed, you are that watershed.

She said the dance is meant to convey how connected the community around the river is to the water body. Studies show that within 16 days of living on a watershed, she said, the 70 percent of a persons body made up of fluids is from that watershed.

That watershed is in you, Josa-Jones said. For me that makes the dance emotional, personal and essential for us to protect and interact with the river.

Josa-Jones and her team will debut the performance next weekend with two performances on the Housatonic off of North Kent Road and again the weekend after with two performances on the Shepaug River, a tributary of the river.

aquinn@newstimes.com
"Don't worry, the institutions will stop him." Or: "Don't worry, he hasn't done any real damage yet, the institutions have stopped him." How many times have you heard some version of this analysis since the election of President Donald Trump? Sometimes, the speaker is an optimist, someone with faith in the U.S. Constitution. Sometimes, the speaker is a skeptic, someone who dislikes the alleged "hysteria" of those who think Trump's corrupt habits, autocratic language and authoritarian behavior are doing lasting damage. Either way, they are reassured, and reassuring: Congress will stop him. The judiciary will stop him. The FBI, the Republican Party, the Constitution will stop him. Don't worry.

But America's federal institutions are not the only ones designed to prevent someone like Trump from undermining the Constitution. We have other kinds of institutions, too - legal organs, regulatory bodies, banks - that are supposed to prevent men like Trump from staying in business, let alone acquiring political power. The truth is that many of these equally important American institutions failed a long time ago. Trump is not the cause of their failure. He is the result.

Some of that institutional failure is on display at the trial of Paul Manafort, Trump's 2016 campaign chairman. Here is a man who is alleged to have declared income as "loans,"concealed foreign bank accounts and lied about money that Ukrainian oligarchs were paying him via shell companies in Cyprus. For decades, in other words, American law enforcement institutions were unable to spot the money-laundering, tax evasion and fraud that his partner Rick Gates spent several hours describing, even when carried out by a prominent person. As long ago as 1985, Manafort's name featured in Jacob Weisberg's still-famous New Republic cover story about Roger Stone, then his consulting partner. The headline: "The State-of-the-Art Washington Sleazeball."

For decades, Manafort's "political consultancy" has helped crooks and autocrats retain power. But even leaving aside the question of morality: Why wasn't Manafort put out of business for suspected fraud years ago? Did the police not have the resources? The motivation? Whatever the reason, here, for the optimists and skeptics, is a clear institutional failure: A society allegedly obsessed with "law and order," so much so that it has the highest prison incarceration rates in the world, couldn't be bothered to investigate a famously sleazy man who was spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on antique rugs and men's suits in northern Virginia.

The same kinds of failures appear in Trump's own career. Nearly 40 years ago, in 1980, Trump employed 200 illegal Polish workers to destroy the Bonwit Teller department store, a historic building on Fifth Avenue, to make way for what would become Trump Tower. The men earned half the union wage and worked 12-hour shifts without hardhats; at one point, their contractor stopped paying them. Eventually they sued. In 1998, Trump paid $1.375 million to settle the case.

Trump broke immigration law and employment law, and he violated union rules, too. Yet neither immigration authorities nor employment regulators nor union bosses put him out of business. Why not? Why were the terms of that settlement kept confidential? Why, with his track record, was he allowed to get a casino license? Building permits? Wall Street banks did, it is true, stop lending to him. But when he began looking abroad for cash - doing extremely dodgy deals in Georgia and Azerbaijan, for example - no one stopped him. As Adam Davidson of the New Yorker has written, "So many partners of the Trump Organization have been fined, sued, or criminally investigated for financial crimes that it is hard to ascribe the pattern to coincidence, or even to shoddy due diligence." But shoddy due diligence usually brings legal consequences. Why wasn't the company shut down years ago?

There is more; turn over one stone, and you just find another. Trump has a record of destroying historic buildings: Why did the federal government allow him to lease the Old Post Office building, now Trump International Hotel Washington? The terms of that lease explicitly forbid any elected official from holding it. Why has that small piece of law been overlooked?

Supposedly, "rule of law" is an important principle to any Western society, perhaps the most important principle. Belief in the judicial system is what makes contracts work and commerce possible; even-handed enforcement of the law is what separates rule-based democracy from whimsical autocracy. Listen closely as Manafort's trial unfolds: Long before Trump got to Washington, and long before Manafort helped him get there, judicial and law enforcement institutions failed to stop them. Are you still sure that there is no need to worry?
China initially announced 25% tariffs on $16 billion worth of US imports, including oil products, LPG and coal in a new list of affected goods but left off import duties on US crude oil.

The crude oil may have been a bluff and liquid natural gas (LNG) may also be a bluff. China needs the energy and needs to keep the prices low for its industry.

The US exported 141,000 b/d of petroleum products to China in May, a 10-month low, according to US Energy Information Administration data. The exports averaged 229,000 b/d in 2017, up from 181,000 b/d in 2016.

The US is not a major supplier of LNG to China, representing just under 5% of total Chinese supply in 2017 and moving up to around 7% so far this year.

The US marketshare in oil, LNG and NGL will be rapidly growing in China in the future and as China demand grows and as US supplies increase.

China imported 9.2 million barrels per day (bpd) in May, 2018. China imported 9.6 million bpd in April and 8.76 million bpd in May, 2017.

Chinas oil production was an average 3.76 million barrels per day for the first two months of 2018. Chinas oil production is dropping about 1.6% from 2017.

Chinas dependence on oil imports was over 66% in 2017 and is forecasted to rise to 80% by 2030.

The Trade War with the USA and arguments with Saudi Arabia are emphasizing the geopolitical and economic costs of foreign oil dependence to China.

Coal is causing China too much air pollution.

This leaves China with the option of massively scaling up nuclear power for cleaner energy and to help get to some amount of energy independence along with a mostly industrial economy.

The target adopted by the State Council in 2015 the target for nuclear capacity on line in 2030 was 150 GWe, providing almost 10% of electricity, and 240 GWe in 2050 providing 15%. However, the post-Fukushima slowdown may mean that the 2030 figure might be only about 120 GWe.

If greater energy independence (less oil and natural gas imports) becomes a priority for China, then building up nuclear power could see vastly higher targets.

New Nuclear plants for heating

China is developing deep pool reactors for heating to reduce coal usage for heating northern cities.

Each of the proposed heating plants would cost about 1.3 billion to 1.4 billion yuan (US$197 million to US$212 million) to build, a fraction of the price of a commercial nuclear power plan. The feasibility studies of DPR in some cities in China show that heating cost using nuclear energy is only one third of that by coal and only one tenth of that by nature gas.

China uses 4 billion tons of coal each year to produce 3900 TWh of electricity. China uses 1000 GW of coal plants. They are talking about getting rid of 12.5% of the coal with these systems. Displacing 125 GW of coal usage for heating would require about 300 of the 400 MW thermal plants. This would be 120 GW of thermal plants. It would cost about $60 billion.

Deep pool reactors are not high pressure and do not need 600 ton containment domes. Each reactor can be built in about two years.

Each steel-and-concrete reactor pool measures about 10 meters in diameter and 20 meters deep, and holds up to 1,800 tonnes of water. A nuclear core is submerged in the water and can create up to 400 megawatts of heat to water to about 90 degrees Celsius for distribution through the citys public heating network.

Scaling to France levels of nuclear energy share of electricity

China already uses 30% more electricity than the USA. It will likely have two to three times the electricity in 2050 (8500 to 13000 TWh). 100 GWe of nuclear power can supply about 800 TWh each year.

A France like build where nuclear becomes 75-80% of the electricity supply would take 850 GWe to 1200 GWe of nuclear power if electricity needs were in line with larger GDP. The power needs would be even higher if electricity completely displaces oil for powering cars. China could then needs 1200 GWe to 1600 GWe of nuclear power.

China would have to scale nuclear power construction to their previous peaks in coal power production. China would need to build 100 GWe of nuclear power per year or about two one gigawatt nuclear plant completed every week.

China is spending several billion dollars to build their first molten salt nuclear reactors.

There is a molten salt nuclear reactor currently being developed by an american company in Indonesia. The Thorcon molten salt reactors could scale to 100 GWe of nuclear plant built each year. They plan to leverage modular ship building methods to enable shipyards to rapidly build the new reactors.
Brian Wang is a Futurist Thought Leader and a popular Science blogger with 1 million readers per month. His blog Nextbigfuture.com is ranked #1 Science News Blog. It covers many disruptive technology and trends including Space, Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, Medicine, Anti-aging Biotechnology, and Nanotechnology.

Known for identifying cutting edge technologies, he is currently a Co-Founder of a startup and fundraiser for high potential early-stage companies. He is the Head of Research for Allocations for deep technology investments and an Angel Investor at Space Angels.

A frequent speaker at corporations, he has been a TEDx speaker, a Singularity University speaker and guest at numerous interviews for radio and podcasts. He is open to public speaking and advising engagements.
HARTFORD  A Hartford man will serve 24 months in prison for distributing heroin, the Department of Justice said Friday.

Followed by his two years in prison, 35-year-old Richard Rivera, of Hartford, will be under supervised released for four years.

Court documents showed that a Drug Enforcement Administration Task Force investigation revealed that people were distributing heroin from the Katty Grocery store at 584 Franklin Ave. in Hartford.

During the course of the investigation, law enforcement officials said Rivera had heroin delivered to him at the grocery store by Franklyn Caraballo-Almonte.

In Dec. 2016 and Jan. 2017, an undercover agent bought heroin from Rivera through several controlled purchases. Rivera was arrested on Jan. 31, 2017, on state narcotics charges after agreeing to sell 900 bags of heroin to the undercover law enforcement agent, the DOJ said.

Investigators seized from Rivera 950 bags of heroin and $1,642 in cash, the agency said.

After Riveras arrest, the DOJ said, law enforcement searched his South Street residence and found crack cocaine, marijuana, $14,963 in cash and items used to process and package narcotics for street sale.

Rivera forfeited the cash seized during the investigation.

He has been detained since his Jan. 2017 arrest. The DOJ said he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute heroin.

Caraballo-Almonte has pleaded guilty and awaits sentencing.

The case was investigated by the DEA Hartford Task Force, with includes personnel from the DEA Hartford Resident Office and the Bristol, Hartford, East Hartford, New Britain, Manchester, Rocky Hill, Wethersfield, Windsor Locks and Willimantic police departments.
A 29-year-old man stole a Horizon Air passenger plane from Sea-Tac International Airport and took off on Friday night, circling the area for a short time and performing stunts while being chased by military jets before crashing near Tacoma.

The unnamed man flying the twin-engine turboprop engaged in an hour-long back and forth negotiation with air traffic control where he mentioned not intending to land the aircraft, before the fiery crash on Ketron Island in North Pierce County, just south of Tacoma.

Reportedly no passengers or other personnel on board, but firefighters are still combing through the wreckage.

Witnesses report that the employee, who identified himself to authorities as a ground service crew worker, did loops in the air around Pierce County before crashing. The crash started a few small fires in the area, which West Pierce Fire Department upgraded to a two-alarm fire at 10:44 p.m., sending more units to the area.

RELATED: 'This is probably jail time for life, huh': Pilot of stolen plane talks with air traffic controller (audio)

Ed Troyer, Public Information Officer for the Pierce County Sheriff's Department confirmed on Twitter that the pilot of the plane was a "suicidal male. Acting alone." He had been identified by authorities as a resident of Pierce County, though his name has not been released Friday. Troyer said they are "working background on him now." Troyer added they do not believe this to be "a terrorist incident."

"I've got a lot of people that care about me," the man said in audio obtained from Air Traffic Control radio communications. "It's going to disappoint them to hear that I did this. I would like to apologize to each and every one of them. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess. Never knew it, until now."

LISTEN:

Around 11:30 p.m. Gov. Jay Inslee released a statement saying, "I want to thank the Air National Guard from Washington and Oregon for scrambling jets to keep Washingtonians safe. Those pilots are trained for moments like tonight and showed they are ready and capable."

Sea-Tac Airport was put on ground stop due to the incident, according to Alaska Airlines.

At 9:31 p.m. Sea-Tac Airport confirmed via Twitter that an airline employee conducted an unauthorized takeoff without passengers, and that normal operations had resumed.

Some planes were still being rerouted, however. Flight Alerts reported at 10:32 p.m. that flights from San Francisco, Honolulu, and Los Angeles were being diverted to Portland.

At 11 p.m. Horizon Air Chief Operating Officer Constance von Muehlen shared in a video update that the company believe that the man was a Horizon Air employee.

"Our hearts are with the family of the individual aboard, as well as all our Alaska Air and Horizon Air employees," she said. "We will provide more information as it becomes available."

Alaska Airlines, which operates Horizon Air, initially confirmed reports in a tweet, noting that they were "...aware of the incident involving an unauthorized take-off of a Horizon Air Q400."

Alaska Airlines's tweets also noted that they believed no passengers were on board of the flight, though just after 10 p.m. they said they were still working to confirm there were "no guests or crew on board other than the person operating the plane."

KOMO News reports that a source from Joint-Base Lewis McCord confirmed that two F-15 fighter jets were scrambled to intercept the rogue aircraft, and force the Horizon plane to land. According to the KOMO News, "The source says the military jet made contact with the stolen plane, which then began to nose dive and crashed in North Pierce County."

The Pierce County Sheriff's office was reportedly told that the F-15s made it within "...a few minutes of theft of plane. Pilots kept plane out of harms [sic] way and people on ground safe." Several news outlets report that the two military planes departed from Portland to intercept the aircraft, and were "not involved in the crash."

"Preliminary info is that a mechanic from unknown airlines stole plane," Troyer shared on Twitter. "Was doing stunts in air or lack of flying skills caused crash into Island."

Just before midnight, Troyer announced that the investigation would be handled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI said they also had no reason to suspect that this was an act of terrorism or further pending criminal activity.

RELATED: The latest on the Sea-Tac unauthorized take-off from Associated Press

In earlier Air Traffic Control communications, the suspect asked questions like, "Alright, um, I just kinda want to do a couple of maneuvers to see what it can do before I put her down, you know?" He also said, "I wouldn't know how to land it. I wasn't really planning on landing it."

"Man, I'm sorry about this, I hope this doesn't ruin your day," he said later. "It's a blast, I've played video games before, so I, uh, know what I'm doing a little bit."

At one point the air traffic controller pointed the pilot of the stolen aircraft towards the runway at Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM), to which he responded, "Aw those guys will rough me up if I tried landing there. I think I might mess something up there too. I wouldn't want to do that. Hopefully  oh they probably got anti-aircraft."

"No they don't have any of that stuff, we're just trying to find a place for you to land safely," the controller responded.

Although official accounts were slow to confirm reports of the unauthorized takeoff, many passengers at Sea-Tac took to social media to report that pilots had informed them of the plane theft.

"Halfway down the runway on Alaska airlines out of Seattle and the pilot slams on the brakes and shares we must go back to the gate," one wrote.

"Sitting on the runway at SeaTac, preparing for departure. Before takeoff, the pilot explains someone stole an airplane, and is flying around near Mt. Rainier." another shared on social media, adding, "They've been in contact with the culprit. He doesn't sound confident in his ability to land back at SeaTac. They are grounding all planes and waiting."

The airplane was a Horizon Air Q400, a turboprop, twin engine aircraft with 76 seats. Horizon Air is a division of Alaska Air Group.

This story is developing. It will be updated as more information becomes available.
MADISON  Coming eye-to-eye with endangered mountain gorillas, chimpanzees and golden monkeys; scaling the peak of Nyiragongo, an active volcano in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and sleeping in a hut with rats running overhead are just part of what Scott Tucker loves to do on his days off.

Tucker has a wanderlust for places most people just read about or see on TV  the remote places that most people enjoy from afar.

His goal? To go places that no ones really talking about or going to, or if they do, theyre not covering it like I cover it, the 54-year-old said.

It was 1998 when Tucker got his scuba diving license and soon wanted to share his new experiences with the community. Then the camera came out, and in 2005 the footage started appearing on local access television channels.

It took a few years of really getting comfortable under water, doing underwater videography, before I could say, Wow, I think Ive got this,  he sid.

In 2011, he started the nonprofit organization Expedition Earth to inspire and educate people about the environment and care about the environment, he said.

Fast forward to 2018, to his newly released video, https://bit.ly/2JTJBZJ on YouTube. This is just the first part of a multi-part documentary on the forbidden land of Papua New Guinea, where he immersed himself in the culture and saw, firsthand, what most people only see from afar.

This island country is in the southwestern Pacific Ocean and shares land borders with Indonesia.

I was told not to go, Tucker says. My 11-year-old son said, Dad, dont go there, theres cannibals there. 

Yet, Tucker looks at vacation as a time to explore and learn. When he returns from his expeditions, he relives the experience, editing and adding music to the raw video footage accumulated during his travels. He credits Ben Rayner as the creative force behind the music that accompanies his videos.

He takes a comedic approach to the adventure films. In a clip from this recent one, Tucker meets a fuzzy juvenile marsupial, a spotted cuscus, who instantly is enamored of him  or his shirt front, which she nibbles at while making big eyes at the camera.

I kind of feel like Im on a vacation all the time. We live in this beautiful place called New England, he said. When I get a chance to go somewhere I dont want to be comfortable, I think I get a lot out of the trips when I am out of my comfort zone.

Tucker also finds time to travel with his wife, Ava, son, Race, 12, and daughter Daphne, 18. And it seems that this appetite for exploration runs in the family.

Daphne has fond memories of her youth, hiking with her father and communing with nature. It is this experience that has shaped her future. After graduating from Daniel Hand High School this year she will continue her education at the University of Tampa with a marine science/biology double major. Her career goal is to become a traveling marine biologist.

I grew up looking for animals, she said. I would go snorkeling with my dad all the time. He taught me to appreciate wildlife and I know so many people are scared of snakes and theyll just kill them, but he taught us to appreciate them and pass that on to other people.

When he is not traveling, Tucker is an owner, along with his three brothers, of Empire Paving General Contractors, the family business started in the 1960s by their father.

With his travels, Tucker says, he escapes, completely, from his everyday life.

Im very vulnerable in situations like this, this intrepid traveler said. Its scary. I think being frightened is something that I have done such a great job of eliminating from my own world, that when I feel it I really get a chance to, first of all feel the feeling and second of all being able to transform over the top of it and either respond to it or go through it or get sucked into it and lose your mind. Its a test.

This was never more evident during his visit to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in 2016, to live among gorillas and chimpanzees and hike the top of Nyiragongo, an active volcano that features one of the worlds largest lava lakes.

He has vivid memories of the hike up to the top, where the plan was to sleep on the rim of the volcano, along with a group of 19 other hikers. Tucker was dehydrated and incapacitated, with what he believes was some sort of African bug.

The group leader said, Look, dude, youre not going to make it with us. We cant leave you behind,  he said.

It was at this critical point that he was given a choice to be carried up to the top on a stretcher or be escorted back down. He made the decision, right then and there, to pay an extra fee to get to the top and revels in the decision.

I saw the birth of earth, he said. I saw active volcanoes. I heard the sound of earth being created. I looked down into a lava pool that blew me away and always will, forever and ever.

When asked whats next for him, Tucker hints at being airdropped into a location where he can immerse himself in the area where polar bears make their homes.

What I have found is a real spontaneity killer, for me, is to know too far in advance where Im going to, he said. I learn too much, I think too much. I try to let it percolate around December and  
Anthony Broome II, 27, was arrested on Thursday, for shooting Sean Ware, 46, on April 30, in the 100 block of O'Neal Street.

He was also charged with the June 15, 2017, murder of Shandar Weaver, who was also shot on O'Neal Street.

The 39-year-old Weaver was shot in broad daylight.

The Chattanooga Police Department charged Broome with attempted murder and aggravated assault. Broome was booked at the Hamilton County Jail. For Waver's death, he was charged with criminal homicide, felony reckless endangerment, and unlawful possession of a firearm during the commission of a dangerous felony.

Ware told police he was shot at 103 O'Neal St., Apt. D. He said he was at that address when an unknown black male entered and told him to leave. He said the man then shot him in the leg, then left.

A second person also witnessed the shooting.

Police recovered a single 22 LR shell casing at the scene.

A witness said he saw Broome shoot Ware, then go nearby where he got a ride with a female. That woman said she was approached by Broome, who asked her for a ride. She said she dropped him off in the vicinity of Parkridge Hospital.

Police were told that Broome had dropped a gun through a vent at an apartment on Glenwood Parkway. It was located and was found to be a Beretta 22 LR pistol.






The reward has been upped to $60,000 for information about who pulled the trigger in an ambush on two Camden police detectives earlier this week.

The Camden County Prosecutor's Office is seeking the public's help in identifying these two men, who may have information about the shooting of two Camden detectives on Aug. 7.

The two undercover cops-- who were not named and have since been released from the hospital -- were stopped at a red light an unmarked police SUV in the Bergen Square neighborhood when shot Tuesday night.

One of the detectives returned fire, and the two men sped away in a white van. The van was hours later found by police in the city.

County authorities released a surveillance photo from nearby of two men, who police believe are connected to the shooting, but no further details have been released about the suspects.

On Saturday morning, the Safe Cop Reward added $10,000 to the pot, which already included money from The New Jersey State Fraternal Order of Police Lodge and the New Jersey State Police Benevolent Association.

"The posting of this Safe Cop reward will hopefully send a strong message to these cowardice criminals who attempted to assassinate two police officers that their criminal actions will not be tolerated," Executive Director Joseph Occhipinti said in a statement.

People can call 609-820-7192, local FBI office or National Police Defense Foundation at 888-SAFE COP with information.

Craig McCarthy may be reached at 732-372-2078 or at CMcCarthy@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @createcraig and on Facebook here. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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A prisoner who escaped from custody in Cumberland County Friday remains on the loose, authorities say.

David D. Riley. (New Jersey State Police)

Lt. Ted Schafer of New Jersey State Police said David D. Riley, 34, had a knife on him when he fled the custody of authorities in his underwear on Friday.

Riley was being transported from Mercer County to a hearing in Superior Court in Bridgeton, Cumberland County, when he got loose.

He escaped wearing only a T-shirt and boxer shorts on Old Deerfield Pike in Upper Deerfield Township north of Bridgeton around 10:30 a.m., authorities said.

Riley is from the Bridgeton area.

Schafer said Saturday he could say reveal where the search was centered, but said said police are actively pursuing leads.

There was a large police presence around the area where Riley escaped on Friday including helicopters and K-9s.

The Cumberland County Sheriff's Office and Cumberland County Department of Corrections are also assisting the state police with the search.

Authorities have not said what charges Riley is currently facing.

Court records do show Riley was previously sentenced to six years in July 2010 for with kidnapping and aggravated sexual assault.

Riley is described as about 5 foot, 9 inches tall, weighing 190 pounds with short brown hair, a short beard and blue eyes.

He is considered armed and dangerous, authorities said.

Officials ask anyone with information to contact the State Police Bridgeton Station at 856-451-0101 or call 911.

Taylor Tiamoyo Harris may be reached at tharris@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @ladytiamoyo.

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Newark has taken the first step to codify into law its intent to provide low-income tenants facing eviction with free legal help.

Citing the lack of affordable housing opportunities and "frivolous" eviction actions, the city plans to create a nonprofit that connects eligible tenants with legal representation in landlord-tenant court.

"People need help and as a result, we are going to make sure that a nonprofit is created so this will be done the right way," Newark's legal counsel Kenyatta Stewart said.

About 78 percent of Newarkers are renters. And when faced with eviction, nine out of 10 don't have an attorney, city officials said.

Newark's corporation counsel Kenyatta Stewart speaking at Wednesday's City Council meeting. Aug. 8, 2018.

The first nationwide database of evictions, compiled by The Eviction Lab at Princeton University, show 22 evictions were filed for every 100 renter homes in Newark in 2016, or about 17,000. Nationally, that number is significantly lower: about 6 for every 100 renter homes.

Mayor Ras Baraka first announced his plans to emulate New York City's "right to counsel" law in May. It ensures a free lawyer for low-income renters in eviction proceedings whose income is 200 percent of the federal poverty level or less.

On Wednesday, the City Council approved on first reading an ordinance that would create a nonprofit to handle those services. The ordinance does not cite funding sources or detail the responsibilities of the nonprofit.

Stewart said those details are still being worked out and the nonprofit has yet to be formed.

"We're working fast; we recognize that the residents need help," Stewart told NJ Advance Media. He said the mayor would appoint the members of the nonprofit's board and the city will likely fund the organization in part -- but how much is not clear.

It's also not clear what organizations the city will partner with, but Newark-based law firm, McCarter & English has already signed up.

The firm announced a pro-bono fellowship last month to hire a full-time, one-year renewable fellow to represent tenants and focus on other housing issues. The fellow will start in the fall; applications are due by Aug. 31.

"The firm's partners have always believed that McCarter's unique relationship with Newark warranted a unique commitment to the city's residents," Robert Mintz, managing partner of the firm's Newark office, said during the July announcement.

Maria Lopez, an organizer with the Ironbound Community Corporation that has led efforts around the plan, said it was great to see the city move ahead on its promises.

"I want to see the city keep the community involved as we move forward," she said. "We need to make sure there is a financial commitment to the most vulnerable in the city so they are not displaced by the revitalization of Newark."

James Powell, a representative of Homes for All Newark, was pleased with the legislation but said many housing organizers didn't know the ordinance would be discussed during Wednesday's meeting.

"All these things had been sought out and decided upon without sharing with us," he said. "This is the first that we learned of it and I think there's some contributions we can make to the ordinance."

That same day, the council approved a $2 billion tax incentive package to lure large corporations like Amazon to town.

Speaking during the McCarter & English announcement in July, Baraka said he wanted the city's growth to be inclusive.

"This is part of Newark's beautiful renaissance as it grows not only for the people coming into our city but also strengthens the roots of those who have been here for 20, 30, 40 years and gives them the opportunity to choose Newark, to stay here and be a part of this growth at the same time," Baraka said at the time.

Karen Yi may be reached at kyi@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter at @karen_yi or on Facebook.
HOBOKEN -- The mayor of Villalba, a Puerto Rican city still recovering from Hurricanes Maria and Irma, visited Hoboken yesterday to spend the day chatting with Mayor Ravi Bhalla and city officials about how the Mile Square City bounced back after Hurricane Sandy devastated the region six years ago.

Mayor Javier Hernandez, elected mayor of the inland city of 26,000 in 2012, sat in on a meeting with Hoboken planners in City Hall, toured the city's resiliency sites and discussed energy security before being feted at La Isla.

Hernandez, 40, told The Jersey Journal his city has almost fully recovered its

energy and water systems, but roads remain damaged and there are many homes covered in blue tarps.

"Maria is a real, real hard situation for Puerto Rico," Hernandez told The Jersey Journal yesterday.

Bhalla, 45, visited Villalba in May, as part of the Open Society Foundations' Mayor Exchange program, which connects local leaders on the mainland of the United States with their counterparts in Puerto Rico.

The mayors of Philadelphia, Chicago, Baltimore and more are participating.

The two mayors yesterday discussed their plans for microgrid systems to help their cities combat large-scale power outages following major storms.

"This is a great opportunity, not just for Villalba, not just for Puerto Rico, but even beyond to advance the concept of sustainability and resiliency in the area of energy," Hernandez said.

"We need innovative solutions and Villalba is a hidden gem in terms of the potential it represents."

Hernandez returns home tomorrow.
While visiting his son in New Jersey from India last fall, family friends welcomed Sadashiv Walunj to stay with them at their home in Lower Makefield, across the river in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

They hail from the same village in India.

They called the 63-year-old "Baba," a term of respect for elder men in their culture.

Sadashiv Walunj

During two separate stays, Walunj sexually assaulted a 7-year-old girl.

On Wednesday, a Bucks County judge sentenced Walunj to three to 10 years in state prison, the Bucks County District Attorney's Office announced.

Walunj assaulted the child several times on multiple occasions at the girl's home and in her mother's vehicle.

He spoke in court with the assistance of an interpreter and did not deny the allegations against him, but offered no explanation for his crimes, the district attorney's office said.

The assaults occurred in late September and early October, and during a second visit in November. After the second visit, the girl confided in her father, who confronted Walunj, who admitted his actions, court documents say.

Walunj had previously pleaded no contest to aggravated indecent assault of a child. Following his sentence, he'll be sent back to India.

Deputy District Attorney Kate Kohler said in a statement that the girl's parents approved of the plea agreement, which kept their daughter from having to appear in court, and they were not present at the sentencing.

Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
A 7-year-old boy found not breathing at an East Brunswick water park late last month has died, the township mayor's office said Friday.

Officials released few details on the incident at Crystal Springs Family Waterpark though Mayor Brad J. Cohen said the death stemmed from a "swimming accident" at the park.

"I share the sentiments of the entire community in offering our prayers and condolences to the family as they enter this very difficult time," a statement from the mayor said.

It is with the deepest regret that I must report the passing of the young boy who was involved in the swimming accident... Posted by Township of East Brunswick on Friday, August 10, 2018

Authorities were called shortly before 4 p.m. July 30 to the town-owned park for reports of a child not breathing, according to police. CPR was performed on the child and he was rushed to Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick, where the child was initially listed in critical condition.

Officials did not disclose the boy's name, specify when he died or release any possible cause of death. A police spokesman referred an inquiry to the town statement. The mayor could not be immediately reached.

The park includes water slides, recreational and kiddie pools.

Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahyc. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Frank Meletti tugged on the doors of the Investors Bank in Cedar Grove on Friday morning at 10:05 a.m., but could not get in.

Banks are usually open by then.

He tugged some more and looked inside. Then cops arrested him.

Meletti was going to rob the branch, federal authorities alleged later Friday.

The 53-year-old Hoboken resident - a convicted bank robber released from prison in 2016 - had been planning the heist since at least last weekend, authorities say.

Frank Meletti

The U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey and the FBI said in statements and court documents that Meletti's getaway driver was a confidential informant and drove him right into a pair of handcuffs. He's been charged with one count of attempted bank robbery.

It went down this way, the feds allege:

Last Saturday, Aug. 4, Meletti asked the informant to be his partner, and driver. "I'm READY to do what we've talked about. Need driver. Easy," he wrote to the person in an online message.

(Authorities did not further describe the informant/driver.)

On Tuesday, Meletti gave his supposed driver the target, Investors Bank in Cedar Grove, and a suggested escape route and where to park the car adjacent to the bank. He asked the informant if he had a gun. No, the informant replied

On Thursday, they cased the bank. The driver picked up Meletti at his home and they drove to Cedar Grove. Meletti asked the driver to go in and check out the security, and to see if they had an armed guard. It would be better if the driver went inside, Meletti told him, so Meletti would not be recorded on bank security cameras.

Meletti asked the informant to pick him up at 9 a.m. Friday, and he'd rob the bank at 10 a.m.

On Friday morning, as the informant drove to Cedar Grove, Meletti worked on a demand note, writing several drafts in the car. The driver asked Meletti if he wanted to go through with it.

Meletti said he did.

At 10:05 a.m., with the getway car in place, Meletti walked toward the bank wearing dark sunglasses, a dark hat, black sweatpants and a black sweatshirt.

In his pocket was the final draft of the note: "Place money in bag. No dye. No cops. No alarms." He also carried a bag for the cash.

Federal authorities did not say in the court documents if they locked the bank's doors, or if anyone else was alerted, but cops were waiting for him. Cedar Grove and Verona police officers assisted FBI agents, the documents say.

Meletti's prior bank robbery, records show, was also in Cedar Grove, a TD Bank branch that he successfully robbed of about $2,500 in March 2008. He was arrested an hour later by local police, in a wooded area where witnesses saw him flee on foot.

He confessed to that robbery, court documents in that case say.

Meletti used a gun in that robbery, and a note, which instructed: "I have a gun. This is a robbery. Fill bag with $100.00, 50.00, 20.00. No dye, no alarm. Empty the drawer. Don't speak. Move away from the counter. Be silent."

In June 2009 he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, followed by five years of supervision. Records show he was freed from federal prison in December 2016.

Kevin Shea may be reached at kshea@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @kevintshea. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
Michael Coppola has been a firefighter, an EMT and a police officer. He was at ground zero during the terror attacks of 9/11.

Now he is something he never could have imagined -- he is a criminal defendant, in connection with an apparent sting operation by the Bergen County Prosecutor's office that led to his arrest Thursday in a bizarre scheme to buy cocaine online. And at least one state legislator called the case against the 43-year-old chief of the Palisades Interstate Parkway Police yet one more reason for abolishing the police force he heads.

Coppola was stopped shortly after picking up a package from a Little Falls post office box near his home that prosecutors said was sent in response to what Coppola thought was an online buy for illicit drugs.

Inside was a plastic bag filled with "imitation cocaine," according to an affidavit filed in Bergen County Central Municipal Court.

Assistant Prosecutor Elizabeth Rebein would not say what sparked the Coppola investigation or offer any other details beyond what was in the affidavit. He was charged with attempting to possess cocaine and possession of drug paraphernalia -- referring to the plastic bag -- and is scheduled to make a court appearance Aug. 22.

Police Chief Michael Coppola. (Bergen County Prosecutor's Office via AP)

Coppola could not be reached for comment. Phone numbers tied to his home address were disconnected, and he did not immediately appear to have an attorney.

Meanwhile, James Hall, executive director of the Palisades Interstate Parkway Commission, who had no prior knowledge of the criminal investigation or the arrest of the police chief, said Friday that the board will be taking action, but would not say what is being considered.

"Since this is a pending personnel action that requires certain notifications, I cannot say more than all options would be available," Hall said.

Coppola, who joined the police department in 1996, earned a $135,000 salary, according to pension records. He was named chief in 2014 after starting his career as a dispatcher before rising to a sergeant, detective lieutenant and officer-in-charge of the agency.

His arrest came in the wake of seemingly increasing tensions between the small police department that is responsible for patrolling an 11-mile stretch of highway between the George Washington Bridge and the New York state line, as well as guarding the Palisades Interstate Park along the Hudson River.

Last month, a scathing report launched by former Bergen County Prosecutor Gurbir Grewal, who now serves as the state's attorney general, harshly criticized the department for a wide range of violations of state laws and policing guidelines, such as the use of incentives that rewarded officers who logged the most arrests and tickets, including better parking spots, newer patrol vehicles and a meal allowance paid by Palisades Interstate Park Commission funds, according to the prosecutor's review.

The review of the department's police pursuits between January 2014 and August 2017 found the department's officers engaged in 41 chases that involved various violations of state guidelines, according to the report. It also revealed a company owned by Coppola provided technology services for his department in what investigators called a potential severe conflict of interest. While he did not profit from the arrangement, the prosecutor's office ordered the chief to halt the practice.

The chief was suspended from duty following the release of the report.

Others, meanwhile, say the problems of the department and arrest of the chief this week raise new questions over the need for the police department.

Monmouth County Republican Sen. Declan O'Scanlon, who led the 2014 repeal of red light cameras in the state and is a frequent critic of the widespread use of traffic tickets to bring in revenues to financially starved municipalities, said there is no reason for Palisades Interstate Parkway police to exist.

"There is no need for a force to patrol an 11-mile stretch of roadway," he declared. "Other departments can cover that area with no increase in manpower. Let's be done with it."

O'Scanlon said the current legal troubles of Coppola aside, the leadership of the department "has been fatally flawed" for years.

"The ticket quotas. The rewards for writing tickets. That should not go on in any police department, let alone one that is not needed. Every revelation I read screams at me that it's time to dissolve this force. There is no reason for it. It's victimizing the people it is supposed to be protecting," he said.

Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL. Facebook: @TedSherman.reporter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
The head of New Jersey's largest Catholic diocese has ordered a re-examination of sexual abuse cases involving clergy, officials said Friday.

With recent disclosures of secret settlements going back decades, and ongoing revelations by former seminarians and others about abuse allegedly suffered at the hands of priests, Cardinal Joseph Tobin has "arranged for an external firm to audit all the personal files" of the Newark Archdiocese, according to a spokesman for the archdiocese.

"When the audit is complete, a protocol for determining how to identify and release names will be determined," said Jim Goodness.

The announcement came after the Archdiocese was questioned by NJ Advance Media about the decision of several dioceses in Pennsylvania that said they would be publishing the names of clergy members facing credible allegations of child sex abuse. Those cases involve more than 300 clergy members accused of abusing children over a period of decades, officials there said.

Goodness said the Newark Archdiocese has for years informed civil authorities when any allegation is received, and "also has informed parish communities when a priest or deacon who is alive steps aside when an allegation is received, and again after it is determined that there is sufficient information to support that allegation."

But while the Archdiocese has on occasion provided information on abuse cases against priests--most recently with the stunning revelations that it had paid out secret settlements to two individuals who accused former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of sexual misconduct--there has been scant public accounting of such abuse.

The New Jersey settlements involving McCarrick, the former Archbishop of Newark and Archbishop Emeritus of Washington, D.C., who was removed from public ministry in the wake of allegations he abused a teen 50 years ago while serving as a priest in New York, were secret, and the terms never disclosed by the Newark Archdiocese.

Among the settlements included $80,000 paid to Robert Ciolek, a former priest turned lawyer, who said McCarrick would invite him and other young seminarians and priests to a Shore house in Sea Girt where they would be expected to share a bed with the former archbishop of Newark, a report said. Ciolek, who told his story to The New York Times, said he was abused by McCarrick for years, but felt unable to say no.

In 2004, a former seminarian from the Newark Archdiocese who is now a priest in Albany, Rev. Desmond Rossi, reported a 1988 case of abuse by two transitional deacons. While the allegations were deemed "credible" by the Archdiocese of Newark's Review Board, they could not be substantiated, and Rossi said he agreed to accept a payment for the cost of counseling, and put it in the past.

Tobin has agreed to reopen the matter, which involves a still-active priest who is in ministry in New Jersey.

McCarrick, 88, resigned from the College of Cardinals last month after an allegation he sexually abused an altar boy nearly 50 years ago in New York City was found to be credible. Pope Francis ordered the priest, who is living in Washington, D.C., to conduct a "life of prayer and penance" as he awaits a church trial.

The Newark Archdiocese has not had a public disclose of the full extent of its settlements involving the abuse of children by Roman Catholic priests since 2004, when it reported with the other major New Jersey dioceses that almost $13 million in settlements and counseling to victims had been paid out during the past half century.

That report came after the dioceses of Trenton, Camden, Metuchen, Paterson and the Archdiocese of Newark all released statistics to the public from reports they had submitted for a national survey commissioned by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The announced audit planned by Cardinal Tobin comes as the Diocese of Metuchen said it was bringing together a group of senior advisers to consider changing how priests can report sexual misconduct by fellow priests. Bishop James Checchio, head of the Diocese of Metuchen, said the resignation of Cardinal McCarrick raised questions about whether his diocese needs to make big changes.

Checchio said the Diocese of Metuchen is ready to reconsider its systems for reporting abuse by priests.

"I have begun to bring together a senior team of advisors to examine reporting processes. Clearly, the safety of an independent reporting structure that allows for anyone to bring an allegation forward without the fear of retribution of any kind is needed," Checchio said in a letter to the diocese sent last week.

Goodness could not offer any details on Tobin's planned audit.

"It's a developing situation," he said. "It's evolutionary. I don't know the scope."

Editor's note: An earlier version of this post was unclear over when the Rev. Desmond Rossi reported a case of abuse to the archdiocese. It was 2004.

Ted Sherman may be reached at tsherman@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TedShermanSL. Facebook: @TedSherman.reporter. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
A 4-year-old Toms River boy has been struck and killed by an ice cream truck in upstate New York, authorities said.

Shmuel Gelis was hit around 7:30 p.m. Thursday at the Birchwood Estates in Thompson, a community not far from the Catskill Mountains, according to the Sullivan County Sheriff's Office.

Paramedics from the Hatzolah volunteer ambulance service rushed the child to an area hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The driver remained at the scene, according to Undersheriff Eric Chaboty, who said the investigation was ongoing and more details were not immediately available.

Noah Cohen may be reached at ncohen@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @noahyc. Find NJ.com on Facebook.
What, exactly, did Alex Jones do wrong?

Jones, a radio host and proprietor of a conspiracy site called Infowars, is a ghoulish provocateur best known for harassing the parents of murdered children. His show is a stage for paranoia, delusion and expansive bigotries. This week Apple, Facebook, Alphabet's YouTube and others started removing Jones's content from their platforms or making it harder to find. (Twitter declined to join them.)

Oddly, though, these companies can't quite articulate why they're doing so. They've offered some tortured and legalistic rationales -- Jones has violated their "guidelines," their "community standards" -- but they can't specify what behavior or speech they will no longer tolerate. They can't call a ghoul a ghoul.

This timidity reflects a broader incoherence.

Social-media platforms now shape public discourse in the U.S. as powerfully as newspapers and magazines did a generation ago, perhaps more so. But they aren't publishers in the conventional sense. They weren't created to inform the public, advance an ideology or explore the marketplace of ideas. Their main aim, like that of carnival operators, is to draw a crowd. They're good at it - and good at finding ways to make money off attendance, via ads. So good, in fact, that they're killing off traditional media.

And therein lies the problem. Even as they've displaced the venerable gatekeepers, these companies have no attachment to virtues that traditional media at least purport to value, such as objectivity, accountability and faithfulness to the truth. They'd prefer to act as neutral forums for cranks and crackpots across the political spectrum to express themselves, accuracy very much optional. And they'd like to monetize the whole show.

Banning Jones, then, is an odd half-measure, offering neither a principled laissez-faire restraint nor a clear assertion of alternative values. This ambiguity is almost certainly untenable. In all likelihood, Facebook and its fellow travelers will soon be careering from crisis to crisis, forced to respond to every social-media mob that wants someone banished for an act or thought or opinion that they find objectionable.

So, in his awful way, Jones has forced a clarifying choice. The platforms can try to remain profitably agnostic, offer themselves as a forum for all legal content, and take their lumps for hosting reprobates -- and worse -- in the name of free speech and open debate.

Or they can start to exercise judgment, articulate values and assume more explicit responsibilities for shaping the public discourse in a sober-minded way.

It's easy to see why they'd prefer the former. At a glance, it's the more profitable course. Awful people tend to be popular, after all: Despite Jones's banishment from some parts of Apple and Google, the Infowars app has shot to the top of the charts in their stores.

However, these tech companies probably don't have the wherewithal for the latter choice. Arbitrating political speech requires weighing competing values and showing good judgment. There's nothing in Facebook's corporate DNA that suggests it's prepared to do this successfully, without hefty new investment.

Yet the public good is very much at stake.

The last U.S. presidential election was a fraught exercise in democracy-by-social-media. The American political system, resilient as it is, requires a reasonably informed citizenry to function. American businesses rely on that system to prosper. Other media companies have found it possible to safeguard public virtues. Surely Silicon Valley, with its vaunted farsightedness, can see the trouble ahead - and can accept that it has a role to play in fixing what it has broken.

This first appeared in Bloomberg Opinion.

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A 27-year-old Passaic man will likely spend the rest of his life in prison after a judge handed him a 118-year sentence for two murders and a number of other charges related to a 2015 nightclub shooting according to Passaic County Prosecutor Camelia M. Valdes.

Luis Delcarmen, 26, was convicted of fatally shooting EnPaul Cantero, 24, and Denisse Gonzalez, 22, at Cloud 9 Lounge by a jury following a three-week trial in January.

Luis Del Carmen (Courtesy of Passaic County Sheriff's Office)

On Friday, a judge gave Delcarmen two consecutive 50-year sentences for each murder, according to Valdes.

In addition to the 100 years in prison, Delcarmen was given another consecutive 18 years for the attempted murder of another injured in the shooting, Valdes said in the press release.

Prosecutors said Delcarmen approached Cantero, of Garfield, outside the nightclub shortly before 3 a.m. in June of 2015 and shot him at close range before pulling a large Cuban-link chain from his neck.

Delcarmen then shot Amin Rivas, 24, in the chest according to prosecutors. The bullet traveled through Rivas' body and struck Gonzalez, of Paterson, in the heart as she stood behind Rivas.

Cantero and Gonzalez died at St. Joseph's Medical Center as a result of the shooting, while Rivas, of Garfield, survived, prosecutors say.

Delcarmen was also sentenced to 16 years for robbery and a 10 years prison stint for unlawful possession of a weapon, both of which will run consecutively, according to the prosecutors office.

Delcarmen will serve 85 percent of his 118 years in prison before he is eligible for parole under the No Early Release Act.

Taylor Tiamoyo Harris may be reached at tharris@njadvancemedia.com. Follow her on Twitter @ladytiamoyo.

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A jury deliberated for four hours Thursday (Aug. 9) before finding Darren Lloyd not guilty of second-degree murder in the 2016 shooting death of a Marrero man, according to court records.

Lloyd, 21, of Metairie, had been accused of killing Ryan Saffrhan, 34, on Jan. 16, 2016. He is the first of three suspects in the homicide to stand trial.

"We were alleging that the (Sheriff's Office) did a really shoddy investigation, and the witnesses were being told what to say by the (Sheriff's Office)," said Jerome Matthews, who served as co-counsel for Lloyd's defense attorney, Lena Hinton.

Saffrhan, a French Quarter server, was fatally shot while inside his sport utility vehicle in the 500 block of North Elm Street in Metairie. Someone robbed Saffrhan earlier in the evening when he came to the neighborhood to sell marijuana, according to the Sheriff's Office. He was shot when he returned later that evening looking for the person who robbed him.

Saffrhan's suspected robber, Edward McMillan, implicated Lloyd in the murder but refused to answer questions when he took the witness stand during the four-day trial, according to Matthews. In the end, jurors sided with the defense, who argued that the prosecution's witnesses, including a jailhouse snitch, made inconsistent statements and were unreliable.

The jury did find Lloyd guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Sentencing for that charge is set for Aug. 21.

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Ira Brown, 25, of Kenner, and Christon Tumblin, 21, of Metairie, are both charged with second-degree murder in Saffrhan's death. No trial date had been set as of Friday.

Lloyd's family thanked his attorneys and God for "giving us back our son," in a statement released Friday. Relatives also accused detectives of conducting a lazy investigation but noted that neither Lloyd nor his co-defendants ever gave up hope.

"Our deepest sympathy goes out to the deceased's family because we know what it is like to lose a love one," Lloyd's relatives said.

Lloyds relatives are also praying for the families of Brown and Tumblin.

"These three kings are not killers. They are three young black men that love to laugh," Lloyd's family said.
Monsanto Co., which makes Roundup ingredients at its Luling plant, said it will appeal a California jury's verdict blaming the weed killer for a man's cancer and awarding him $289 million. It said Roundup's key component, glyphosate, "has a 40-year history of safe use and continues to be a vital, effective, and safe tool for farmers and others."

The St. Louis-based company, which Bayer AG bought in June, issued its statement after a jury in Superior Court in San Francisco found it liable Friday (Aug. 10) in the first of a series of more than 5,000 lawsuits to go to trial over glyphosate. Attorneys for plaintiff Dewayne Johnson, 46, said he developed non-Hodgkin's lymphoma while using Roundup and another Monsanto glyphosate herbicide while working as a school system groundskeeper.

"We are sympathetic to Mr. Johnson and his family," Monsanto vice president Scott Partridge said. "Today's decision does not change the fact that more than 800 scientific studies and reviews - and conclusions by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and regulatory authorities around the world - support the fact that glyphosate does not cause cancer, and did not cause Mr. Johnson's cancer. We will appeal this decision and continue to vigorously defend this product, which has a 40-year history of safe use and continues to be a vital, effective, and safe tool for farmers and others."

Monsanto's Luling plant is one of the largest employers in St. Charles Parish, with about 700 workers.

Germany's Bayer to complete Monsanto purchase

. . . . . . .

Drew Broach covers Jefferson Parish politics and education, Louisiana interests in Congress and other odds and ends for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. Email: dbroach@nola.com. Facebook: Drew Broach TP. Twitter: drewbroach1. Google+: Drew Broach.
As Traniel Gray lay dying just before dawn Thursday in the 1200 block of Amelia Street in Gretna, her 1-year-old son sat next to her, wailing as his mother bled from 29 stab wounds. The child's cries woke a woman who lives nearby.

"I heard a baby just crying, screaming and crying," said the woman, who did not want to be identified by NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune.

The woman looked out her windows, but said she didn't see anyone. Gray, 35, and her son were on the ground and close to the curb, hidden from view by garbage cans waiting for pick-up. The woman said she assumed the cries belonged to a baby staying with a neighbor and went back to bed.

But a passer-by soon discovered Gray and the toddler just after 5 a.m. The boy's mother was already dead, according to Chief Arthur Lawson of the Gretna Police Department.

Detectives arrested Gray's "off-and-on" boyfriend, Damone J. Ussin, 41, Friday morning (Aug. 10) and booked him with second-degree murder. Ussin was also booked with battery of a dating partner for a July domestic abuse incident involving Gray, Lawson said.

This isn't the first time Ussin's been accused of stabbing a woman with whom he'd been involved. He pleaded guilty to stabbing a former girlfriend in the stomach in 1999, according to Jefferson Parish court records.

"He's a career criminal," Lawson said.

Brutal stabbing

Business and residential surveillance cameras recorded video of Ussin and Gray walking and pushing the toddler's stroller around 4 a.m. Thursday, Lawson said. Investigators aren't sure where the couple was headed.

The resident who would later overhear the cries of Gray's son said Ussin and Gray were often seen walking to various places on the West Bank.

"I didn't know her personally, but we see her all the time. The couple always had the baby in the stroller and you would always see them walking," the woman said.

Another resident in the 1200 block of Amelia later reported hearing the sounds of an argument, but the person did not call police, Lawson said.

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Detectives suspect Ussin stabbed Gray during a fight. She suffered wounds to her face, neck, chest and back, Lawson said.

The toddler wasn't injured. He is in the custody of the state Department of Children and Family Services, Lawson said.

Investigators tracked down Ussin at a Fifth Avenue home in Harvey around 4 a.m. Friday and arrested him, Lawson said.

By late morning Friday on Amelia Street, silver duct tape still marked the spot where Gray's body was found. Other pieces of tape labeled with black marker indicated where the toddler's toppled stroller lay and a pair of shoes was found.

Violent history

At the time of his arrest, Ussin was already wanted for a July 24 incident in which Gray accused him of punching her several times in the face, according to Lawson.

Ussin had left the scene by the time police arrived. Officers noted Gray's face was swollen and "disfigured" from the beating, according to authorities.

In the 1999 stabbing, a then-18-year-old girl told Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office investigators that she was walking in a bank parking lot on the West Bank Expressway in Terrytown when Ussin, a former boyfriend, rode up on a bicycle, according to authorities.

He told the teen, "I love you," before stabbing her in the stomach with a knife, authorities said. Ussin then bicycled away.

The girl was taken to a local hospital in stable condition. Ussin eventually pleaded guilty to aggravated battery and was sentenced to three years in prison, Jefferson Parish court records said. Four years later, he was accused of battering the same victim. He pleaded guilty in 2006 and was sentenced to 60 days in jail.

Ussin also has convictions for drug possession, aggravated battery, possession of cocaine, battery of a police officer, simple battery and possession of marijuana, according to Jefferson Parish court records.

He was being held without bond Friday at the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center.
Roseburg, OR (97470)

Today

Generally cloudy. Slight chance of a rain shower. High 59F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Cloudy skies with periods of light rain late. Low 47F. Winds N at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 60%.
WASHINGTON  Samuel Johnson has James Boswell. Lyndon Johnson has Robert Caro. Donald Trump has Glenn Kessler of The Washington Post, but Kesslers more nemesis than amanuensis.

Every untruth Trump utters, Kessler chronicles. At the beginning of this month, the running total was 4,229 false or misleading statements since the president took office, or more than 7.5 a day. This will be remembered. Historians will examine how an American presidency parted company with facts, and will assess the toll.

Kessler is a dapper, mild-mannered guy who says hes pretty even-keeled, even as Trump messes hourly with his head. The son of Dutch immigrants, he meets me for lunch with his right hand bandaged from a collision with a wine glass while he was washing the dishes. He covered every building in D.C., as he puts it, before editors persuaded him seven years ago to write The Fact Checker, awarding Pinocchios on a scale of one (for the shading of facts) to four (for a whopper). Over the years, a Pinocchio has entered the Washington political lexicon as a unit of dishonesty. Now it defines the zeitgeist.

Trump is well known to Kessler. As a reporter at Newsday, Kessler covered Trumps real estate business shenanigans, finding him boastful and given to laxity about the truth. Banks tended not to trumpet Trumps falsehoods; they just declined further loans. What has changed is his world more than his behavior.
ANKARA, Turkey  For the past six decades, Turkey and the United States have been strategic partners and NATO allies. Our two countries stood shoulder to shoulder against common challenges during the Cold War and in its aftermath.

Over the years, Turkey rushed to Americas help whenever necessary. Our military servicemen and servicewomen shed blood together in Korea. In 1962, the Kennedy administration was able to get the Soviets to remove missiles from Cuba by removing Jupiter missiles from Italy and Turkey. In the wake of the Sept. 11 terror attacks, when Washington counted on its friends and allies to strike back against evil, we sent our troops to Afghanistan to help accomplish the NATO mission there.

Yet the United States has repeatedly and consistently failed to understand and respect the Turkish peoples concerns. And in recent years, our partnership has been tested by disagreements. Unfortunately, our efforts to reverse this dangerous trend proved futile. Unless the United States starts respecting Turkeys sovereignty and proves that it understands the dangers that our nation faces, our partnership could be in jeopardy.

On July 15, 2016, Turkey came under attack by members of a shadowy group led by Fethullah Gulen, who leads his organization, officially described by my government as Fethullah Terrorist Organization, from a compound in rural Pennsylvania. The Gulenists tried to stage a bloody coup against my government. On that night, millions of ordinary citizens rushed to the streets out of a sense of patriotism, similar to what the American people undoubtedly experienced after Pearl Harbor and the Sept. 11 attacks.
Election experts say that hackers do not need to change votes to have an impact. Intruding into systems, corrupting voter rolls and taking down websites all sow chaos and erode confidence in the system.

Elections are a system based on trust. All you need to do is inject enough doubt in peoples minds, said Laura Rosenberger, director of the Alliance for Securing Democracy, which monitors interference in elections.

Ken Detzner, the Florida secretary of state, who works for the governor and is in charge of elections, on Thursday asked Senator Richard Burr of North Carolina, the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, to share any information that could shed light on Mr. Nelsons comments. Mr. Nelson is the ranking member of the cyber subcommittee of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Earlier this year, Mr. Detzner made few moves to obtain federal money that was available to shore up voting systems from outside attack. He said the $19.2 million in federal funds earmarked for Florida would not be available for elections supervisors to use ahead of the midterm elections. But Mr. Detzner was overruled by Mr. Scott, who ordered him to seek the money so that it could be spent before the election.

On Thursday, Mr. Detzner said he had already contacted Homeland Security, the F.B.I. and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and none had any details about possible Russian hacking attempts. The states division of elections, which he oversees, has no evidence to support these claims, Mr. Detzner wrote.


LINCOLN, Neb.  A federal judge on Friday refused to block the State of Nebraska from carrying out its first lethal injection despite a German pharmaceutical companys lawsuit that says the state illicitly obtained its drugs.

The judge, Richard G. Kopf of the District of Nebraska, denied the companys request to temporarily block state prison officials from executing Carey Dean Moore, one of the nations longest-serving death row inmates. Mr. Moore is scheduled to die Tuesday in Nebraskas first execution since 1997 with a combination of drugs that has never been tried.

Mr. Moore, 60, who was convicted of killing two cabdrivers five days apart in 1979, has stopped fighting the states efforts to execute him. Judge Kopf said granting the drug companys request would frustrate the will of the people, referring to the 61 percent of Nebraska voters who chose to reinstate capital punishment in 2016 after lawmakers abolished it.

I will not allow the plaintiff to frustrate the wishes of Mr. Moore and the laws of the state of Nebraska, Judge Kopf said during the hearing.
When a white package fell from the sky and landed in central New Jersey this week, the people who found it were alarmed not only by the devices strange hissing sound  but also by the handwritten note that referred to President Trump, the authorities said.

On Tuesday morning, the Styrofoam-wrapped package attached to a red parachute floated down from the atmosphere. It dropped onto a solar panel field in South Brunswick, N.J., about 25 miles south from where Mr. Trump was staying in Bedminster. People who work nearby called the authorities, and police officers, firefighters and a bomb squad responded to investigate the potential threat, according to a news release from the South Brunswick Police Department.

The note, which appeared to have been written in black marker, said, NASA Atmospheric Research Instrument NOT A BOMB!

It went on: If this lands near the President, we at NASA wish him a great round of golf.

The all-caps assurance that the package was not, in fact, a bomb did little to quell the anxieties of those who discovered it.
Mr. Gautier said the rats had moved from the trailers into the elections commission offices.

A spokeswoman for the elections commission said the offices were being used as a storage point at the request of Puerto Ricos first lady, Beatriz Rossello, who founded a group that served as an umbrella for donations, United for Puerto Rico. The spokeswoman said the donated material was being managed by the National Guard.

United for Puerto Rico said it had no knowledge of the containers and had nothing to do with them. In a statement, the National Guard said the container captured on video was being used to hold food that had arrived after its expiration date, and had not been held back from distribution in order to protect peoples health. However, the video also showed cases of water, which was also in short supply at times after the storm.

The Guard said that the material in the trailers that isnt spoiled, including batteries, electric fans and food, will be distributed to nonprofit groups in the coming days. It did not explain why the material had not been handed out earlier.

The New York Times viewed the containers on Friday, two days after Radio Isla shot the video, but by then, they had been padlocked.

The containers have been there for a long time, but they werent necessarily filled at all times, Major Dahlen said. The good thing is now that thanks to investigative journalism, it will help move along the process and get it where it needs to go in the coming days.

It is unclear how many trailers had been at the site throughout the year. On Wednesday, the radio station saw nine trailers, plus a 10th that was being removed by the Department of Corrections.

It was not the first time food donated for Puerto Ricos hurricane victims has gone to waste. Tons of supplies collected and sent by a South Florida man went bad when it turned out that he had paid the charter flight companies with fake checks. The airlines put a lien on the materials, which got soaked and ruined in the damaged airport.

On Thursday the man who organized the drive, Emilio I. Vazquez, 47, of Coral Gables, Fla., was ordered to pay $1.5 million restitution and sentenced to 120 months in prison.
GENEVA  United Nations human rights experts expressed alarm on Friday over what they said were many credible reports that China had detained a million or more ethnic Uighurs in the western region of Xinjiang and forced as many as two million to submit to re-education and indoctrination.

In the name of combating religious extremism, China had turned Xinjiang into something resembling a massive internment camp, shrouded in secrecy, a sort of no-rights zone, Gay McDougall, a member of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, said in the opening session of a two-day review of Chinas policies in Geneva.

Accounts from the region pointed to Muslims being treated as enemies of the state solely on the basis of their ethno-religious identity, Ms. McDougall said, citing reports from activists and scholars that many had disappeared and that even the most commonplace religious practices had become grounds for punishment.

Raising questions about the fate of Uighur students who had returned to Xinjiang from overseas, Ms. McDougall said that more than a hundred had disappeared, some had been detained and others had died in detention.
So since the tiff between your government and the kingdom broke out this week over Canadas calls for the release of arrested Saudi rights activists, I have been watching how the Saudi news media has been talking about you.

It has not been pretty.

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In Canada, women have the highest rates of persecution, an analyst said on a Saudi television station, without explaining how such statistics are calculated.

Another channel ran a montage about the worst Canadian prisons, saying that they had poor food and health services and that justice took so long that 75 percent of prisoners died before their trials between 2015 and 2017.

Another commentator was worried about Indigenous Canadians.

They are poor, they are killed, they are displaced, he said. Canada is a racist country.
Sara and Clare Bronfman were born to their fathers third wife and are 20 years younger than some of their half-siblings. After their parents divorced, when they were 7 and 4, they left New York and grew up in Kenya and England, according to a 2010 article in Vanity Fair.

It was Sara Bronfman who introduced her sister to Nxivm in the early 2000s. The group, which was based in Albany, N.Y., offered its members workshops that it said were designed to help participants achieve greater self-fulfillment by removing emotional and psychological roadblocks.

At the time, the Bronfman sisters, who were then in their early 20s, were opposites in both appearance and personality. Sara was blond, outgoing and likable, and appeared to be seeking a direction in life. Clare, who is extremely thin and has a narrow face and brown hair, struck Nxivm members as dour and socially awkward. She also already had a passion. As a teenager, she had become an equestrian, going on to compete in international events and open a farm to train horses.

At first, Clare Bronfman appeared to have little interest in joining Nxivm. But several meetings with Mr. Raniere turned her into a believer. She also apparently fell in love with Mr. Raniere, who had sexual relationships with many Nxivm women, several former members said. Starting in the late 1990s, approximately 16,000 people took his courses, and some were drawn deeply into the group, giving up careers and past ties to become followers of Mr. Raniere, who was referred to as Vanguard.

In the early 2000s, Edgar Bronfman Sr. also took some Nxivm training courses, before quickly losing interest. Several former Nxvim members said that Mr. Raniere was convinced that the businessman was behind the negative Forbes article about him. He blamed the Bronfman sisters for the episode, those former members said, and used it to exert control over them.

In the mid-2000s, Edgar Bronfman Jr., while he was head of Warner Music, also apparently once came to Albany at the request of his sisters to help judge a Nxivm-sponsored a cappella singing contest, said several people familiar with his visit. (Mr. Bronfman did not respond to emails seeking comment.)
We are rabid Americanists. So we believe that our industry should remain in our country. We love our Harleys. We love the whole spirit of the whole thing. It would break our hearts to have to condescend to an inferior motorcycle. This is Sturgis. Its a motorcycle rally that attracts half a million bikers to South Dakota every year. Its like a pilgrimage of misfits, blue collar, evangelical bikers for Christ and veterans. And while its not an exclusive Harley-Davidson rally, their presence is overwhelming. Harley-Davidson has attitude. Its the sound, the feel. The rumble and the shake. Its in my blood. If I have to explain, you wouldnt understand. Its American made. Or, was. And thats what makes this year a bit more political than usual. Harley-Davidson, please build those beautiful motorcycles in the U.S.A., please. O.K.? Dont get cute with us. Dont get cute. After Trump announced tariffs on steel and aluminum, the E.U. responded with tariffs of its own, targeting American motorcycles, and Harley said it would have to move more of its production overseas. That did not sit well with some Harley owners. This is my last Harley-Davidson. Ill go to an Indian next time unless they change their mind and wise up. We know that there are parts on here that dont come from America cause America dont make them all. But thats not moving the whole factory over. Weve been loyal to them, and we just want loyalty back. This is the Fab 4. Jawbone, Bent, Scrapper and Stinger. They founded the Dirty Old Bastards Society five years ago, and they own Stinger Saloon in downtown Sturgis. For them, this recent move by Harley crosses a line. The reason why people move to foreign countries is because theyre greedy bastards. Im not saying that Harleys a greedy bastard, but usually when people leave this country its because they want to make more profit. They dont want to pay the common man a fair wage. Its not that Harley hasnt moved jobs abroad before. They have factories in India, Brazil, Australia and Thailand. But Trump has put the company at the center of the political stage. Made in America! At the State of the Union, Trump said Harley was a victim of unfair trade practices abroad. They werent even asking for a change. But I am. And those politics have trickled down to Sturgis. We want Harley-Davidson to survive this storm, but the person theyve got steering this ship is way out of touch. Chris Cox is the founder of Bikers for Trump. He takes aim not at the brand, but at the companys C.E.O., Matt Levatich, for moving things abroad. Theyve been planning this for a long time and for him to suggest that it was because of Donald Trump and the tariffs is absurd. But some people feel that this is what Harley has to do to survive  as long the bikes they buy remain American-made. Well Harley owners are feeling betrayed because its U.S.A., Harley! But if I owned Harley Id do the same thing. If theyre going to go abroad to save money, hopefully theyre only going to do that for the motorcycles that theyre going to sell abroad. Hopefully us in America are going to be able to buy whats made in America. You know, but I support them. I love their motorcycles. I love their brand. I couldnt let them down. Theres no way.
He is a son of Carolyn H. Otto and Jeffrey B. Otto of Brooklyn, Conn. The grooms mother is a kindergarten teacher at Pomfret Community School in Pomfret, Conn., and is the director of the Village Green Preschool in Brooklyn, Conn. His father retired as the vice president for research and development at the Butcher Company, a manufacturer of wax and other floor finishes in Marlborough, Mass. His father was the longtime volunteer fire chief of the Mortlake Fire Company in Brooklyn, Conn., and is the president of the Quinebaug Valley Emergency Communications, a firm in Killingly, Conn., that manages emergency dispatch services for much of Eastern Connecticut.

Ms. Blakeslee and Mr. Otto, who have both played bagpipes since they were children, met in August 2015 when she contacted him about potentially joining the Manchester Pipe Band, a competitive group for which he was then the pipe major.

He immediately suggested that she join the band for a competition the following month, but she had another commitment and so instead he invited her to practice with the group. Both said they felt an instant connection when they met in person.

His care and concern for others was immediately evident to me, just from those first conversations, she said. Hes very generous with himself, and with others, sharing himself and his time. As I was getting back into piping, he spent a lot of time helping me get up to speed.

Mr. Otto said he was interested in Ms. Blakeslee right off, but was hesitant to initiate a relationship with someone in the band.
The fact that Republicans are willing to even consider the embarrassment of nominating Collins  who has been indicted  for another local G.O.P. position, makes clear just how nervous national Republicans are about losing the House, said Meredith Kelly, a spokeswoman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Further complicating matters are New Yorks byzantine election laws: Mr. Collins is slated to be on the ballot not just on the Republican line but also as an Independence Party candidate. That party, too, would have to agree and find a way to remove him.

Mr. Collins is also the nominee of the Conservative Party. Michael R. Long, the party chairman, said on Saturday that he had spoken with Mr. Collins and would do whatever was necessary to remove him from the ballot. If he so desires, thats fine with me, Mr. Long said.

The Democratic candidate in the race, Nate McMurray, the town supervisor of Grand Island, had only $80,000 in his campaign account when the indictment was announced  far less than is typically needed to wage an aggressive challenge.

Mr. McMurray had not been the preferred candidate of Democratic leaders in New York, led by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who had recruited Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul for the seat. She declined and instead ran for re-election.

Mr. McMurray called on Mr. Collins to resign immediately, saying he should not be running for this or any other seat, a fact that the local Republican Party knew full well when they endorsed and celebrated him while he was under investigation for securities fraud.

Mr. Collinss decision to suspend his re-election bid set off an immediate scramble for the Republican nomination, with Stefan Mychajliw, the Erie County comptroller, announcing his candidacy within hours. In a preview of what will most likely be a polarized and partisan race over the next three months, Mr. Mychajliw called Mr. McMurray radical three times in a four-paragraph statement.
While Mr. Kemp insisted that these investigations were about preventing in-person voter fraud (which basically doesnt exist), he was more candid when talking with fellow Republicans: Democrats are working hard, he warned in a recording released by a progressive group registering all these minority voters that are out there and others that are sitting on the sidelines.

If they can do that, they can win these elections in November, Mr. Kemp said. Therefore, even after the multiple investigations yielded no indication of fraud, thousands of people registered during these drives were not on the voter registration rolls, and a court ruling kept it that way.

Mr. Kemp also used Exact Match, a version of the infamous Crosscheck database, to put tens of thousands of citizens in electoral limbo, refusing to place them on the rolls if an errant hyphen, a stray letter or a typographical error on someones voter registration card didnt match the records of the states drivers license bureau or the Social Security office.

Using this method, Mr. Kemp blocked nearly 35,000 people from the voter rolls. Equally important, African-Americans, who made up a third of the registrants, accounted for almost 66 percent of the rejected applicants. And Asian-Americans and Latino voters were more than six times as likely as whites to have been stymied from registering .

But as diligent as he has been about purging eligible citizens from the voter rolls, Mr. Kemp has been just as lax about the cybersecurity of the states 27,000 electronic voting machines. Although there were a series of warnings about the ease with which they could be hacked, Mr. Kemp did not respond. Georgias electronic voting machines, which run on Windows 2000, leave no paper trail; as a result, there is no way to verify whether the counts are accurate or whether the vote has been hacked.

But the Department of Homeland Security warned him that hacking was a possibility. He ignored that until 2016, when, at a DefCon hacker convention in Las Vegas, an organization took control over the way Georgias voting machines register and store votes, although it had little expertise in voting matters. Mr. Kemp finally accepted federal dollars, which he had refused for years, to update some of the machines. But his efforts were too little, too late.

That complacency was evident when groups sued the state, alleging that the 2016 presidential election and a 2017 special election had been hacked. Rather than being on high alert to get to the bottom of it, after Mr. Kemp received notification of the lawsuit, officials at Kennesaw State University, which provides logistical support for the states election machinery, destroyed the server that housed statewide election data. That series of events, including an April visit to the small campus by Ambassador Sergey Kislyak of Russia, raised warning flags to many observers. But not to Mr. Kemp, who said that there was nothing untoward in any of it; the erasure was in accordance with standard IT procedures.
In Japan, as in its neighbor North Korea, a human is often taken to be part of a unit, a voice in a choir; her job may be to be invisible, inaudible and all but indistinguishable from those around her. At the Family Romance company in Tokyo, 1,200 actors stand ready to impersonate, for a price, a childs absent father, for years on end, or a wifes adulterous lover. The Henn-na Hotel in Nagasaki describes itself as the worlds first hotel staffed by robots.

But all this means only that the boundaries of what it is to feel human emotion are stretched, to the point of including motes of pollen or the railway carriages people bring presents for. Even the dead are treated as human in Japan. After my mother-in-law passed away in February, her closest relatives never stopped chattering to her, setting out a glass of her favorite beer next to her coffin, applying blush to her waxen cheeks. My wife still puts food out for her father five years after he was placed into the earth; this month our son will return home because his departed grandfather and grandmother are believed to be visiting for three days then as well.

To me this only confirms the visceral sense many of us have that holiness and humanness may be more closely entwined than we imagine. Speaking to the Dalai Lama for 44 years now, Im often most touched when he stresses how mortal he is, sometimes impatient, sometimes grieving, just like all the rest of us. I keep returning to the novels of Graham Greene because he reminds us that a whisky priest can get drunk, neglect every duty, even father a child, yet still rise to a level of kindness and selflessness that a pious cardinal might envy. Its in our vulnerability, Greene knew, that our strength truly lies (if only because our capacity to feel for everyone else lies there, too).
In 1977, when I was 2, my father left to look for work in the United States. My mother followed him two years later, leaving my siblings and me in the care of our grandparents. At the time, Mexico was in an economic recession and on the verge of a national debt crisis. There were no jobs in my hometown  Iguala, in Guerrero, one of the countrys poorest and most violent states.

For the nearly eight years he was gone, I longed for my father. There was a black-and-white photo of him hanging on the wall at my grandmothers house. It was the only thing I had to remember him by.

He returned in May of 1985 for a two-week visit. This time, he decided to take Mago and Carlos with him back to Los Angeles. Not only did he tell me I would have to stay behind again, Id be left without my beloved sister, who was like a mother to me.

Please, take me with you, I begged my father. Dont leave me, Papi.

Over the past few months, I have watched in horror as thousands of children have been taken from their parents as a repugnant deterrent for illegal border crossings. When Attorney General Jeff Sessions said, If people dont want to be separated from their children, they should not bring them with them, I thought about how I begged my father to bring me with him. How many of those children had also begged to not be left behind?

Luckily for me, my father changed his mind. As the coyote guided us through the rugged terrain of Otay Mountain, my father carried me on his back when I got tired, which was often. We got caught twice by Border Patrol and sent back to Tijuana to start over again. We made it across on our third attempt.
Mr. Cotton is a historian whose ancestors owned slaves and fought for the Confederacy. His house is decorated like a shrine to the rebellion. He has Confederate flags and Treasury notes alongside portraits of Davis and Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate general and Ku Klux Klan leader. He also has racist iconography amid the clutter: a book of sheet music titled Pickaninny Rag with a caricature of a black boy on the cover; a CD of a white comedian who performs in blackface.

As we sit down for the interview, we ask him to spell his name. C-O-T-T-O-N, he says, then adds, matter-of-factly, Cotton, just like you pick.

Mr. Cotton lives near Brierfield, Jefferson Daviss former estate. He also went to a school named for the Confederacys only president. Like many pro-Confederates in the South, Mr. Cotton plays down the role of slavery in the Civil War. He believes it had more to do with the North trying to control, and eventually invade, the South than anything else.

Hes one of my heroes, and nobody will ever take that away from me, he says of Davis. You can take his statues down if you want to. They can destroy what they can, but theyll never destroy the legend of the man.
An advertising blitz without real grass-roots support can go only so far with seasoned politicians.

I always want to hear from my constituents, Ms. Collins told reporters on Wednesday after an unrelated event in Orono, Maine. What is not effective is when these advocacy groups spend millions of dollars on attack ads jamming my phone lines with out-of-state callers.

Even Washington organizers concede things will need to pick up.

We have a ways to go in terms of achieving the level of mobilization that we need to see, said Brian Fallon, the executive director of Demand Justice, a group that promotes progressive judicial nominees, even as he argued that there was a path to defeating Judge Kavanaughs nomination.

Mr. Fallon and others are hoping that an August blitz centered on the Senates nearly two-week recess can provide a jolt. Larger national advocacy groups  including Planned Parenthood Action Fund and Protect Our Care  told reporters on Monday that they had more than 100 actions planned in key states, from letter writing and phone banks to rallies.

In Alaska, voters have been inundated with broadcast and online advertisements targeting Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican who, like Ms. Collins, supports abortion rights. And in Nevada, Dean Heller, the most endangered Republican senator up for re-election, has faced a similar barrage.

In Portland, Maine, activists streamed into Ms. Collinss office each day this past week, sharing with her staff vivid stories of abortions and health crises, iPhone cameras rolling in hand. Signs plastered onto lamp posts and walls around the city asked voters to call Ms. Collins and demand a no vote. Labor organizers paused on Thursday during an annual summer teach-in in Orono, not far from Ms. Collinss home in Bangor, so attendees could call the senators office.

Rise Up for Roe, a nationwide tour organized by Demand Justice, was scheduled to stop in the city on Sunday.
WASHINGTON  As white nationalists planned to gather in front of the White House on Sunday to mark the anniversary of last years violent rally in Charlottesville, Va., President Trump denounced all types of racism, but did not specifically condemn the supremacists.

Riots in Charlottesville a year ago resulted in senseless death and division, he wrote on Twitter on Saturday morning. We must come together as a nation. I condemn all types of racism and acts of violence. Peace to ALL Americans!

Mr. Trumps general call for unity, as Washington braced for the possibility of violence between the white nationalists and counterdemonstrators, echoed his reluctance a year ago after the deadly Charlottesville rally to single out the supremacists for condemnation.

In what is seen as a defining mark of his presidency, he blamed both sides for the violence, eliciting widespread criticism for what was seen as drawing a moral equivalence between hate groups  some of whom supported his candidacy  and those who protested them.
Venezuelans fleeing insecurity at home are arriving by the thousands in Ecuador after crossing through neighboring Colombia, the latest wave in one of Latin Americas largest mass population movements in history.

Photos taken at the Rumichaca International Bridge, a border crossing between Colombia and Ecuador high in the Andes Mountains, show thousands of Venezuelans clutching belongings and bundled in jackets and scarves, as they waited to cross.
MONTREAL  A few years ago, the Quebec comedian Sugar Sammy put a giant ad on a Montreal subway billboard. For Christmas, it said, Id like a complaint from the Office de la Langue Francaise, the Quebec watchdog responsible for preserving the French language.

His plea did not go unnoticed.

In Quebec, a French province surrounded by an English majority in the rest of Canada, sensitivities about language are profound, and large billboards must typically be only in French. Beyond prompting a complaint to the agency from an irate Montreal lawyer, the stunt spawned a loud debate about language, along with a death threat from a Quebecois nationalist at his next show.

A fearless comic with a talent for provoking both laughter and outrage, Sammy, born Samir Khullar, is a 42-year-old son of Indian immigrants. He is also a child of Bill 101, the polarizing Quebec law behind the sign infraction, which requires immigrants to send their children to French schools. As a result, he glides effortlessly between English and French in his shows, and has made Quebecs tortured identity politics his main preoccupation.

Humor allows you to address taboos, said Mr. Khullar, whose parents came to Montreal from northern India in the 1970s and who is far more soft-spoken in person than his swaggering, expletive-fueled stage persona would suggest. In Quebec the ultimate taboo is identity, he added.
GHAZNI, Afghanistan  The Afghan government declared Saturday that there was no longer a cause for concern about the strategic southeastern city of Ghazni falling to the Taliban.

However, a reporter for The New York Times who entered the city on Saturday morning found insurgents confidently in control at every intersection. At Sanayi High School, where the day before there had been a large Afghan police check post, now there were a half-dozen Taliban fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and AK-47s.

As a civilian your life is important to us, so you should go back to your village or home now, their leader, wearing a black turban, told the reporter. We dont want to kill you, but we have orders not to allow civilians out in the city.

Both the government and the insurgents claimed to be in control. With cellphone towers destroyed, communications were sporadic and information from Ghazni was scarce.
A prominent Christian ally of Mr. Joko, the former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, who is of Chinese descent, was imprisoned for blasphemy last year after hard-line Islamic groups mounted a protest campaign against him. Those groups  some of which are allied with Mr. Prabowos opposition Gerindra party  are likely to turn their sights on the president as the election approaches, some analysts said.

They will be looking around for sure to pick up on some religious-based scandal, said Stephen Sherlock, a professor of politics at the University of New South Wales who studies Indonesia.

Mr. Joko, 57, who was born in a slum in Central Java Province and sold furniture before becoming a popular Jakarta governor, won the presidency in 2014 with 53 percent of the vote, campaigning as a political outsider. Reputable opinion polls during the past year have consistently put his approval rating above 50 percent, sometimes as high as 70 percent, and he is largely seen as having lived up to his promises to fight corruption and improve the countrys infrastructure, starting large toll road, airport and seaport projects.

What we have been doing is four years of proof  and proof is not fiction, Mr. Joko said Friday at the office of the General Elections Commission in Jakarta after submitting the paperwork declaring his intent to run. This is the foundation that has been built, that still needs to be connected, that still needs to be continued.

Recent surveys have put the president far ahead of Mr. Prabowo, by margins of 15 to 20 percentage points. But Mr. Basuki, the presidents now-jailed ally, also had a double-digit poll lead in his campaign for re-election as Jakartas governor before Islamic groups began campaigning against him in earnest.
In many cases, violence affects children as well. The cafeteria worker lived for seven months with her four children in a shelter for abused women run by nuns, protected by window bars and a high gate, outside of which her husband, a teacher, waited for them almost every day. A judge allowed him to see their children twice a week, although he was diagnosed with mental problems.

The children had to see the father on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons, and also for several years to attend the summer camps he organized. But the required visits were halted last September, when their 13-year-old son physically attacked the father in front of the school, screaming that he was a monster and should leave his sisters alone, and three of the children said that their father had groped them repeatedly and forced the girls to kiss him on the lips.

The phenomenon is not taken seriously, said Marcella Pirrone, a lawyer and a pioneer activist in Italy for womens rights. Data are gathered by womens associations and not by the central government, and Italy has only 100 shelters in a country of over 60 million people. There should be six times as many.

One of those is run by Cristina Ercoli, who manages a Roman center run by Differenza Donna, an association that offers shelters across the country and also helped the mother of four.

Women are commodities for such men, she said, speaking from years of experience. They reduce their wives in slavery, taking their dignity away. Violence is a normal consequence of this culture that we are fighting every day.

Italy had its last Minister for Equal Opportunities in 2013; the ministry was abolished and its officials have been reassigned, and policies to combat gender violence or grant womens rights and equal pay were left with no central coordination.

The current populist government, a coalition led by two parties, the League and the Five Star Movement, chose a man for the downgraded position of under secretary for equal opportunities.
Plays can be bought for pennies and delivered in bulk, inflating videos popularity and making the social media giant vulnerable to manipulation.

Interactive illustration by Adam Ferriss for The New York Times. Video footage by Scott Dalton, William Widmer, Joshua Lott and Martin Vassilev.

Martin Vassilev makes a good living selling fake views on YouTube videos. Working from home in Ottawa, he has sold about 15 million views so far this year, putting him on track to bring in more than $200,000, records show.

Mr. Vassilev, 32, does not provide the views himself. His website, 500Views.com, connects customers with services that offer views, likes and dislikes generated by computers, not humans. When a supplier cannot fulfill an order, Mr. Vassilev  like a modern switchboard operator  quickly connects with another.

I can deliver an unlimited amount of views to a video, Mr. Vassilev said in an interview. Theyve tried to stop it for so many years, but they cant stop it. Theres always a way around.

After Google, more people search on YouTube than on any other site. It is the most popular platform among teenagers, according to a 2018 study by the Pew Research Center, beating out giants like Facebook and Instagram. With billions of views a day, the video site helps spur global cultural sensations, spawn careers, sell brands and promote political agendas.

Just as other social media companies have been plagued by impostor accounts and artificial influence campaigns, YouTube has struggled with fake views for years.

The fake-view ecosystem of which Mr. Vassilev is a part can undermine YouTubes credibility by manipulating the digital currency that signals value to users. While YouTube says fake views represent just a tiny fraction of the total, they still have a significant effect by misleading consumers and advertisers. Drawing on dozens of interviews, sales records, and trial purchases of fraudulent views, The New York Times examined how the marketplace worked and tested YouTubes ability to detect manipulation.

Inflating views violates YouTubes terms of service. But Google searches for buying views turn up hundreds of sites offering fast and easy ways to increase a videos count by 500, 5,000 or even five million. The sites, offering views for just pennies each, also appear in Google search ads.

To test the sites, a Times reporter ordered thousands of views from nine companies. Nearly all of the purchases, made for videos not associated with the news organization, were fulfilled in about two weeks.

One of the businesses was Devumi.com. According to company records, it collected more than $1.2 million over three years by selling 196 million YouTube views. Nearly all the views remain today. An analysis of those records, from 2014 to 2017, shows that most orders were completed in weeks, though those for a million views or more took longer. Providing large volumes cheaply and quickly is often a sign that a service is not offering real viewership.

When Bought, Views Were Longer By Michael H. Keller | Source: YouTube Analytics

Devumis customers included an employee of RT, a media organization funded by the Russian government, and an employee of Al Jazeera English, another state-backed company. Other buyers were a filmmaker working for Americans for Prosperity, a conservative political advocacy group, and the head of video at The New York Post. (Al Jazeera and The Post said the workers were not authorized to make such purchases and were no longer employed there.)

Multiple musicians bought views to appear more popular: YouTube views factor into metrics from the ratings company Nielsen and song charts including Billboards Hot 100.

Some companies bought views for clients with the promise of social media promotion that would result in real people watching their videos.

Dr. Judith Oppenheimer, 78, paid a company $5,000 to promote a book she had self-published in hopes of securing a mainstream deal. Her video soon had over 58,000 views, delivered through Devumi.

There was no increase in sales and no book deal, she said. Soon after I signed the contract I thought, Ill have no proof of what they do or dont do. Now it begins to make sense. They can do it in a day.

Purveyors depend on constantly evolving tactics to deliver views, including automated or bot traffic and pop-under videos on unsuspecting users computers, but YouTube says it has effective processes to defend against these approaches.

This has been a problem we have been working on for many, many years, said Jennifer Flannery OConnor, YouTubes director of product management. The companys systems continuously monitor a videos activity, and the anti-fraud team often buys views to understand better how these sites operate, she said. Our anomaly detection systems are really good.

Still, the challenges are significant. At one point in 2013, YouTube had as much traffic from bots masquerading as people as it did from real human visitors, according to the company. Some employees feared this would cause the fraud detection system to flip, classifying fake traffic as real and vice versa  a prospect engineers called the Inversion.

The problem itself was extraordinary, said Blake Livingston, a member of YouTubes fraud and abuse team at the time who has since left the company.

But fixes were made that relieved the fake-traffic surge, which YouTube said resulted from an attack against the website.

Years later, the battle against fake views continues, even as YouTube contends with disinformation campaigns, like Russias efforts during the 2016 election, and language it considers hate speech, including posts by the recently banned Infowars site.

YouTube would not disclose the number of fake views it blocked each day, but said its teams worked to keep them to less than 1 percent of the total. Still, with the platform registering billions of views a day, tens of millions of fake views could be making it through daily.

View count manipulation will be a problem as long as views and the popularity they signal are the currency of YouTube, Mr. Livingston said.

Carlton E. Bynum II runs a website, GetLikes.click, from a home office in Houston that sells YouTube views as well as Instagram and Twitter followers, Facebook likes and SoundCloud plays. Scott Dalton for The New York Times I can deliver an unlimited amount of views to a video, said Martin Vassilev, owner of 500Views.com, a website based in Ottawa. Renaud Philippe for The New York Times

Real Money, Sham Audience

It took Mr. Vassilev about 18 months to go from being on welfare and living with his father in Canada to buying a white BMW 328i and a house of his own.

By late 2014, his website was on the first page of Google search results for buying YouTube views, fulfilling 150 to 200 orders a day and bringing in more than $30,000 a month, he said. I really couldnt believe you could make that much money online, he said. The Times reporters order on his site, for 25,000 views, was fulfilled one day later.

A spokeswoman for Google, which is owned by the same company as YouTube, said that sites selling views appeared in search results because they were relevant, but that there was room for improvement in warning users.

Mr. Vassilev declined to name his clients but said that many orders came from public relations or marketing firms.

Today, he fills most orders through SMMKings.com, a wholesale supplier run by Sean Tamir, 29. Mr. Tamir charges him about a dollar for a thousand views, which Mr. Vassilev resells for $13.99, throwing in 100 free likes.

Several times a year, YouTube makes changes to its detection system to try to disrupt fake views, Mr. Tamir said. A recent episode came in late January, but many of the sites were functioning a few weeks later when The Times made most of its purchases. Suppliers say they get around system updates by making their traffic appear more humanlike, ensuring that it comes from users with prior views, for example.

One purveyor, Carlton E. Bynum II, 24, uses advertising to attract customers. He collected more than $191,000 in revenue this year but spent over $109,000 in ads that appeared at the top of Google, according to financial records. His site, GetLikes.click, run from a home office in Houston, sells YouTube views as well as Instagram and Twitter followers, Facebook likes and SoundCloud plays.

A spokesperson for Google, which is owned by the same company as YouTube, said that that sites selling views appeared in search results because they were relevant, but that there was room for improvement in warning users.

A spokeswoman for Google, which is owned by the same company as YouTube, said that that sites selling views appeared in search results because they were relevant, but that there was room for improvement in warning users.

Google does not allow ads with terms like buy YouTube views. But Mr. Bynum said one workaround was to misspell the words and submit an ad multiple times if it was denied at first. When asked about advertising for paid YouTube views, Google removed some of the ads, including Mr. Bynums, but similar ones returned after two weeks.

Before Mr. Bynum sold views, he was buying them for himself. After he was discharged from the Marine Corps last year, he began posting product reviews on YouTube and taking a cut when visitors made purchases using his links. The views he bought would often cause his videos to rank higher than his competitors in search, he said. The effect would snowball: His videos would gain traffic through search, and he would make more money. (A YouTube spokeswoman said views were just one factor among many that affected search rankings.)

It worked great, he said. I can get views within a day. I can get likes within hours.

Mr. Bynum said he believed real people were watching his videos. But lets say theres a small chance Im wrong and it is bots, he said. Their videos are still getting ranked.

Mr. Vassilev, who also said he used fake views to increase the search ranking of videos promoting his website, makes no pretense that what he is selling is authentic viewership. Its impossible, he said.

They told me if I got a certain number of hits I would sell a certain amount, said Elizabeth Clayton, a self-published poet. William Widmer for The New York Times The beautiful thing about these social media platforms is when they came out it was genuine, said Aleem Khalid, a musician. But now I feel its all fake. Joshua Lott for The New York Times

Promised a Following

The salesman on the phone said it would be simple: Elizabeth Clayton, a retired English and psychology professor, could pay Hancock Press $4,200 to publicize her self-published works of poetry. The company said online promotion, including 40,000 guaranteed YouTube views, would translate into sales, emails show.

Ms. Clayton, 77, was optimistic. She had been publishing for seven years but had not sold much. One royalty check came to $1.47, another to $0.75. She signed up for Hancock to promote two videos, costing her $8,400, records show.

They told me if I got a certain number of hits I would sell a certain amount, she said.

Instead of traditional marketing, Hancock paid $270 for 55,000 views from Devumi for each video, the records show. The views eventually reached about 60,000, where they remain. But there was no increase in sales. They couldnt tell me anything about the people that were watching the video, Ms. Clayton said. I suspected something, but I couldnt get any information.

Wayne Hancock, the 92-year-old chief executive of the Arkansas-based company, said he believed real people were watching the videos. Thats how Devumi marketed its views. Mr. Hancocks daughter, K. C. Shay, who helps run the business, dismissed Ms. Claytons documents and the Devumi receipts as fakes.

But Devumi records show that Hancock Press spent about $26,000 over three years, obtaining more than five million views for 75 or so authors. Interviews with six other Hancock clients are consistent with Ms. Claytons experience.

Devumi did not respond to repeated requests for comment. The company, whose website says that it has closed, came under investigation in two states in January after The Times reported that it sold fake Twitter followers.

Many Devumi clients came from the music industry, where buying views is common and often seen as necessary. YouTube is one of the premier sources of music consumption and an important indicator of musical trends and popularity, said Silvio Pietroluongo, a vice president at Billboard.

As a new artist, Aleem Khalid hired Crowd Surf, a promotion company, in 2014. Without his knowledge, he said, the firm bought 10,000 views each on three of his videos. They now have between 11,000 and 42,000 views. The beautiful thing about these social media platforms is when they came out it was genuine. But now I feel its all fake, said Mr. Khalid, 25. (Cassie Petrey, a co-founder of Crowd Surf, said she thought Devumi was producing real views, based on statements on its website.)

Others who relied on Devumi said they were similarly surprised at the companys tactics. Ami Horowitz, the conservative filmmaker, bought 10,000 views for a video he appeared in  What We Learned at the Peoples Climate March  on the YouTube channel for Americans for Prosperity, the Koch brothers political influence group. Mr. Horowitz, who is often a guest on Fox News, also bought views for a video about the protests in Ferguson, Mo.

In a statement, he said he had believed Devumi worked like traditional web advertising. But it wasnt what we expected, he said, adding that he never used Devumi or similar services again. A spokeswoman for Americans for Prosperity called the behavior unethical and said the group would not knowingly engage in it.

Spotting the Forgeries

YouTubes engineers, statisticians and data scientists are constantly improving in their ability to fight what Ms. OConnor calls a very hard problem, but the attacks have continually gotten stronger and more sophisticated, she said.

After the Times reporter presented YouTube with the videos for which he had bought views, the company said sellers had exploited two vulnerabilities that had already been fixed. Later that day, the reporter bought more views from six of the same vendors. The view count rose again, though more slowly. A week later, all but two of the vendors had delivered the full amount.

Fake View Purchases Were Largely Successful Purchase successful

Failed By Michael H. Keller | Source: New York Times

Even when it looks closely, YouTube can miss videos with fake views. A 2017 Google public report on disinformation during the 2016 election looked at RTs YouTube channels, concluding that there was no evidence of manipulation of our platform or policy violations. Yet The Times recently found that an RT employee bought fake views for videos in 2016, which YouTube acknowledged it did not detect.

James Brown, a correspondent for RT, had purchased 30,000 views and 300 likes across three videos that focused on problems involving homelessness and immigration in Europe. Mr. Brown said he took Devumi at its word that the views would be real people. An RT spokeswoman said the company was unaware of the purchases and was conducting an internal review.

It concerns me that while Twitter and Facebook appear to have made some credible progress in this area, YouTube still struggles to identify inauthentic and coordinated activity on its platform, said Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee.

View-selling sites continue to advertise with apparent impunity. A post on the YouTube Creator Blog warning users against fake views has numerous comments linking to view-selling sites.

The only way YouTube could eliminate this is if they removed the view counter altogether, said Mr. Vassilev, the fake-view seller. But that would defeat the purpose of YouTube.
Youth in Uganda have raised concern over the rampant cases of sexual harassment at workplaces and in schools.



The youth from civil society, local councils and educational institutions were on Friday engaged in a parliament youth advocacy day under the theme "Safe Spaces for Youth" ahead of the International Youth Day on Sunday.



According to the youth, the levels of sexual harassment and unemployment in the country are worryingly high. They cited job seekers who are sexually harassed and students abused by those in authority.

Youth in parliament

"Sexual harassment is not only perpetuated by men, we spoke to many girls who said their female bosses ask them to have sex with a client. So it is not only the men on the streets of Kampala who are harassing our girls." said Obed Kambasu, the programs manager of Restless Development.



Irene Kagoya from Plan International said Uganda has ratified instruments that prohibit violence and provides for full dignity of women, but sexual violence continues to thrive in Uganda. She said that 22 per cent of women aged 15-49 years experience some form of sexual violence.



Kagoya called for the expedition of the Sexual Offences Bill that will address the situation. The Sexual Offences Bill tabled in 2016 aims at consolidating all legislation related to sexual offences.
Hyderabad rape case: The rapist will be caught and killed in encounter, Telangana minister

Telangana man who raped minor and impregnated her, let off by elders with Rs 2.5 lakh fine

Hyderabad

oi-Madhuri

Hyderabad, Aug 11: A man who allegedly impregnated a minor girl, a farm worker, after a false promise of marrying her was let off with a Rs 2.5 lakh 'compensation' and externed by a group of elders in a village in Telangana, police said on Thursday.

After the shocking incident that took place on August 1 came to light, the man and four of the six 'elders' who held the 'mediation meet' at Narayanpet in Mahbubnagar district were arrested yesterday, police said.

All the five were produced before a local court which remanded them to judicial custody, local Sub-Inspector of Police M Krishnaiah said.

Beware of this job racket in Hyderabad

Cases under various sections of the IPC, including 376 (rape) and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, had been registered, he said.

According to police, the 17-year-old girl was working in the cotton fields to assist her parents.

Accused Venkataiah, owner of the fields, had physical relationship with the girl after making false promise that he would marry her. She later became pregnant.

The girl's family came to know about it when her mother noticed injuries in her daughter's body and took her for a medical examination recently.

Hyderabad: 2 students dead, 5 injured after roof collapses in school

Some of the villagers offered to mediate between the victim and the accused. They offered Rs 2.50 lakh as compensation to the parents to remain silent.

However, police came to know about the incident and registered a case and arrested five people, the SI told PTI.

Another police official said a written consent was also obtained from the girls family on the 'settlement'. After this, Venkataiah was externed from Narayanpet.

For more Hyderabad news, Click here

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Story first published: Saturday, August 11, 2018, 12:25 [IST]
7th Pay Commission latest: Disaster for these employees, hunger strike begins

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Aug 11: For these employees the 7th Pay Commission has been a disaster. Thousands of station masters of the Indian Railways are on a hunger strike starting today.

The 24 hour hunger strike has been called by the All India Station Masters Association (AISMA).

hike and 2 reasons why they won't" title=" 7th Pay Commission: 2 reasons, why CG employees will get hike and 2 reasons why they won't" /> 7th Pay Commission: 2 reasons, why CG employees will get hike and 2 reasons why they won't

They cite discrimination against the station masters following the implementation of the 7th Pay Commission recommendations implemented by the government.

They say that the 7th Pay Commission limited the scope of promotion for station masters.

AISMA says that under the 7th Pay Commission, they are entitled only for one promotion in their entire career after joining the Indian Railways at the entry level. Moreover there is no mobility for the cadres of the station masters, the AISMA also said.

7th Pay Commission: Confirmed, pay hike will come only after govt considers financial implication

They have further said that they have just two pay scales- Rs 4,200 and Rs 4,600. This ideally means they can get only one promotion in their entire career and the Rs 4,800 pay scale is just a financial upgradation.

The AISMA further demanded that the benefits of the third Modified Assured Career Progression Scheme of the MACPS, provision of stress and safety allowance to station masters be implemented. The demands were presented before the Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain.

7th Pay Commission: Will Modi announce pay hike on August 15, here are the details

In the wake of this strike the Railway Ministry has issued an advisory and also asked the Railway Protection Force to take all precautions to ensure that there is nothing untoward that takes place. The AISMA however said that they are demanding that the the wrongful suggestions given by the 7th Pay Commission be looked into and changed. We will not disrupt any train services, they have also assured.
We are not against West Bengal, but definitely against Mamata Banerjee: Amit Shah

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

Kolkata, Aug 11: BJP President Amit Shah demanded Trinamool Congress (TMC) should clear their stand on refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh.

In the first visit to West Bengal after the release of Assam NRC, Shah, said, "We are not against West Bengal, but we are definitely against Mamata Banerjee. I am here to protest against the TMC."

"We will make sure that the process of NRC Assam is carried out peacefully. Neither Mamata Banerjee nor Rahul Gandhi can stop us from doing it," Sha said in a "Yuva Swabhiman Samavesh" held in Kolkata.

"We want to ask Mamata Banerjee why is she protecting Bangladeshi infiltrators? Rahul Gandhi is also not clarifying his stand on the issue. This is because of Congress' vote-bank politics:?," Shah questioned Mamata Banerjee over her opposition against NRC Assam.

NRC an issue of 'national interest', there should be no politics: Rajnath Singh

He alleged that signals of all Bengali channels have been lowered so that people will not be able to watch the rally. "But even if you try to suppress our voices, we will go to every district of Bengal and throw TMC out, " Shah asserted.

Amidst strong opposition by West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee over Assam NRC, the BJP chief Amit Shah has arrived at Mayo Road to address a sea of supporters ahead of 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

Govt should've consulted all parties on NRC says Sharad Yadav

Amit Shah said young men and women who have come from all parts of West Bengal to attend the "Yuva Swabhiman Samavesh", an awakening that will uproot the undemocratic and totalitarian TMC government in the state.

Shah has set an ambitious target for the party in Bengal for the Lok Sabha election, asking the party cadre to ensure 22 out of the 42 seats. He has made regular visits since 2017. He visited Bengal on April 25 and then on September 11 last year. He also visited Bengal on June 27 and Saturday's visit would be his second in less than 50 days.
Congress trying to copy us: TMC on decision to field 40 per cent women candidates for UP polls

Have never seen such chaos, anarchy as what is playing out in Punjab Cong: Manish Tewari

Captain Singh set to resign from Congress: New party may be named The Punjab Lok Congress

Congress explains why the BJD backed NDA in RS deputy chairman polls

India

oi-Madhuri

Bhubaneswar, Aug 11: The Congress has claimed that its resurgence in Odisha has forced the BJD to strengthen ties with old ally BJP by backing the NDA candidate in the Rajya Sabha deputy chairman election.

Nine MPs of the Biju Janata Dal voted in favour of NDA nominee Harivansh Narayan Singh in the election to the post of Rajya Sabha deputy chairman held on Thursday. Singh defeated the opposition's candidate B K Hariprasad.

Odisha Pradesh Congress Committee (OPCC) President Niranjan Patnaik claimed the ruling BJD is now considering the Congress, and not the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), a threat and its main opponent in Odisha.

"Because of this, the BJD voted in favour of the NDA. The Congress party's resurgence in Odisha has compelled the BJD to have stronger ties with its old ally BJP," he said.

"By supporting the NDA candidate in yesterday's (Thursday) election, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has clearly shown the close relationship he has with the NDA and the BJP," he added.

RS dy-chairman election: BJD to support NDA candidate

Niranjan Patnaik questioned the BJD over the party saying that it had lent support to the JD(U)'s candidate and not the BJP's.

He sought to know why Naveen Patnaik or any of his cabinet colleagues did not attend JD(U) leader Nitish Kumar's swearing-in ceremony as chief minister of Bihar.

"Through its action, the BJD has exposed itself as a party having no ideology (and) which excels in opportunistic politics," the PCC chief said.

Questioning the BJD's claim about keeping an equal distance from the Congress and the BJP, he pointed out that the BJD MP's walked out, without taking part in discussion and voting, during the recent no-confidence motion against the BJP-led NDA in Parliament.

Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman poll: These parties are backing the NDA

The BJD also supported the BJP on the National Register for Citizenship (NRC) in Assam, he added.

Naveen Patnaik also supported Prime Minister Narendra Modi's idea of holding the Lok Sabha and the state assembly elections simultaneously, he said, adding that all this clearly showed the bonhomie between the two leaders and their parties.

To garner votes in the 2019 elections, the BJD and the BJP are staging a drama by attacking each other, the Congress leader alleged.

Speaking about the BJP's goal of winning 120 of the 147 seats in the Odisha Assembly polls, he said, "Both the parties have launched 'Mission 120', but they are actually in a 'Mission 420', which means it is a mission to cheat Odia people for another five years."

The two parties, who shared power from 2000 to 2009, have not forgotten each other, the Congress leader said.

How parties from Telangana, AP voted in the RS poll

Though the BJP's state unit is criticising Naveen Patnaik, neither Prime Minister Modi nor party president Amit Shah have uttered a word against the chief minister and vice-versa, he said, adding that the Centre has praised Odisha for rural housing.

Farmers are committing suicides in Odisha, but the state is being honoured with 'Krishi Karman' award, he said.

Now the people know the truth, he said.

Talking about the Mahanadi water dispute, the PCC chief alleged that while the Centre silently allowed the construction of dams and barrages on the river in the BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh, Naveen Patnaik kept people in dark for a long time and only raised his voice after the work was over.

He said BJP leaders Dharmendra Pradhan and Jual Oram should join the Congress if they really want development of the state as it is the only opposition party working for Odisha's people.

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Story first published: Saturday, August 11, 2018, 6:29 [IST]
Congress snubs AAP; to contest all seven seats in Delhi

India

oi-Vinod

By Vinod

New Delhi, Aug 11: The Congress has snubbed the ruling Aam Aadmi Party in Delhi for indicating the party that it might leave two seats for it by appointing observers in the five Lok Sabha seats out of the total seven seats in Delhi. They have been sending similar feelers to the Congress leadership. But, the Congress leaders are getting ready to contest all seven Lok Sabha seats from Delhi.

The Congress has been accusing the AAP of being hand in glob with the BJP and all its move have been towards benefiting the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Delhi Congress president Ajay Maken recently tweeted against the AAP by asking, "Did we not without asking you support formation of AAP Government in 2013 to stop the BJP?"

He further said, "But soon after forming the government with our support, you spread lies, lodged FIRs against our leaders and also fielded candidates against all sitting Congress MPs in Delhi to ensure BJP victory. Why in Rajya Sabha, AAP supported the BJP on the issue of signing the impeachment motion against the Chief Justice of India? Why are you supporting the BJP by selectively fielding your candidates against Congress Party?"

Sources said that the AAP wants to confuse voters of selectively fielding its candidate while it is decided that the Congress will contest all Lok Sabha seats in Delhi. All the seats have been won by the Congress in 2009 Lok Sabha elections. It is up to the leadership to decide who will contest from where but everyone who is hoping to get ticket and trying his/her luck to get ticket started working in the constituency.

Leaders like state party President Ajay Maken, Sandeep Dikshit, Mahabal Mishra, J P Aggrawal, Kapil Sibal, Sajjan Kumar and family and others. Since Krishna Tirath has joined the BJP some other person will be fielded from the reserve seat. Sources said that Sajjan Kumar is looking for his son to be given Lok Sabha ticket however he had already got defeated two Assembly Elections from Delhi. The name of Rajkumar Chauhan is doing rounds for the only reserve constituency in Delhi. Rajkumar Chauhan had been the minister in the Sheila Dikshit government in the state.

Some of them even started working in their possible constituencies. Even some activity has been noticed around Rajkumar Chauhan who was confined to his home after two consecutive defeats by Rakhi Bidlan of the Aam Aadmi Party at the Delhi Assembly elections. The Delhi Congress does not have any bigger Dalit name than Rajkumar Chauhan so fielding him from the reserve seat could be one of the options for the Congress.

But political analyst feel that any triangular contest in Delhi will benefit the BJP which is planning to retain just three sitting MPs in Delhi while four will be replaced. However, nothing could be said about the actions of the AAP but people in the party say that observers declared by the AAP leader to Delhi constituencies may be later converted into party candidates.

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Story first published: Saturday, August 11, 2018, 18:28 [IST]
Dilli gupshup

India

oi-Vinod

By Vinod

New Delhi, Aug 11: The power centre of India, New Delhi is never short of news. However there is more than what gets to see or hear. Want to know the latest gossip from Delhi? Then please read on.

Modi Tsunami for party MPs!

Over two dozen Bharatiya Janata Party legislators were discussing about the party's prospect in the next Lok Sabha elections and they were pretty sure about sailing through as there was a Modi wave in the country the way in was during 2014, not so amused by the gossip and just discussion instead of working on the ground, one of the ministers in the Modi government reached them to say that there is a Modi wave for sure but it is of different kind. The wave is such that it would be difficult for many party MPs to save their nominations from the Modi Tsunami. So instead of gossiping around, it is the time to focus on the work in the constituency. Since then the crowd of the BJP MPs from the Central Hall of Parliament had gone missing to save themselves from the Modi Tsunami. Is it so?

Modi's Man Friday in action again?

Once known to be the most trusted man or 'Man Friday' of Prime Minister Narendra Modi has come to the rescue of the government once again for the management of election of Deputy chairman of the Rajya Sabha. There was a visible change that the government might lose it to the opposition but grapevine is abuzz that without moving out of his residence, the lawyer friend of the PM managed the election with full dexterity. However, It appeared that Party president was in control of the situation but things were different. Once the most important man of the party was in action again and managing the show not only to pacify allies like the Shiromani Akali Dal but also some other political parties to support the NDA nominee. He delivered as he has always been delivering to the party. The old war horse of the BJP is soon going to join the ministry and will have his say in political maneuverings as well.

PM doesn't utter a word when girls are raped in BJP-ruled states: Rahul Gandhi

Learning lesson for a professor!

It takes time to adjust in the new role, a newly appointed Rajya Sabha MP who is a professor by profession seems to have been embarrassed when the chair instructed him again and again to address to him instead of addressing members of the house. The new member was further embarrassed while concluding his maiden speech in the Upper House by addressed members of the Upper House as Mitro instead of addressing the chair but somehow he salvaged the situation. Old habit dies hard, so it may take some more time for the newly appointed member to adjust to the proceedings to the Upper House while speaking in the debate however he has been able to make his points very well.
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Chattanooga firefighters were dispatched to a house fire at 3403 Gay Street around 2 a.m. on Friday. The one-story, wood-framed structure was fully engulfed in flames when the first firefighters arrived on the scene.

Captain Chris Fryar with Engine 15 said they had to cut a lock on a gate at the street to gain access to the property. With the structure already totally involved in flames, the firefighters fought the fire defensively, working to put the fire out from the outside and making sure the flames didn't spread to neighboring homes. No injuries were reported.





The house was considered a total loss, with damages estimated at $70,000. The cause of the fire is under investigation. Battalion Chief David Thompson, Jr., the incident commander, said the house was in the process of being renovated and was not occupied.The house was considered a total loss, with damages estimated at $70,000. The cause of the fire is under investigation.

Chattanooga Police and Hamilton County EMS also provided assistance on the scene.
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Flood alert in Tamil Nadu, Kerala remains grim

India

oi-Madhuri

Chennai, Aug 11: With districts of Tamil Nadu have been put on flood alert following heavy discharge of more than one lakh cusecs of Cauvery water by Karnataka.

The regional meteorological centre in Chennai has also warned of heavy rains in western Tamil Nadu. The state disaster management authority and the collectors of Erode, Dharmapuri, Salem, Krishnagiri, Tiruvarur, Nagapattinam, Trichy and Karur have been instructed to be ready for flood mitigation works, an official quoted by HT said.

Situation in Kerala grim:

Dam reservoirs and rivers overflowed, sections of highways collapsed and homes were swept away in severe flooding in more than half of Kerala, after days of incessant rains left nearly 54,000 people homeless and killed at least 29, officials said.

Five columns of Army were deployed in the state's seven severely-hit northern districts, out of Kerala's 14, to help evacuate people and to build makeshift bridges even as the Indian Navy's southern command was put on alert after water level in Periyar river rose amid concern that parts of Wellingdon Island in Kochi could be inundated.

Almost all 40-odd rivers in the state are in spate, officials said.

Northern and central Kerala have been battered by heavy rains of the Southwest monsoon since August 8, which has left 29 people dead, including three today. Of them, 25 died in landslides and four in drowning. State officials said a total of 53,501 people are now housed in 439 relief camps across the state.

Tourists were barred from entering the hilly Idukki district after roads caved in at many places. Army soldiers were building small bridges to evacuate people stranded at various places in Kozhikode and Wayanad.

A red alert was issued for Idukki and its adjoining districts in view of the possibility of release of more water from the Idukki reservoir.

Weather forecast for Aug 11: Rains to continue in Hyderabad for 24 hours

Stranded:

At least 50 tourists, including 24 foreigners, stranded at the Plum Judy resort at Munnar since Wednesday were rescued and taken to safer places, state Tourism minister Kadakampally Surendran said.

People living downstream of Periyar river in Kochi, and Cheruthoni river in Idukki have been warned of a possibility of inundation of banks.

Water level had crossed the maximum storage capacity of reservoirs of 24 out of the state's 58 dams, forcing officials to release the water by opening the sluice gates, including three of the Idukki reservoir. Two more shutters of the Cheruthoni dam, part of the Idukki reservoir, the biggest arch dam in Asia, were lifted around 7 am today.

One shutter was opened yesterday after a gap of 26 years.

This morning, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan reviewed the flood situation and relief works being undertaken by the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and the NDRF.

Due to the increase in the water level at Idukki dam, "it is essential to release water three times (more) than what was being released now", Vijayan said, adding that this will lead to rise in the water levels of Periyar river and its tributaries. He appealed to people to be vigilant.

Vijayan has cancelled all his public functions till August 12, and will monitor the situation from the state capital.

Union minister Alphons Kannamthanam said he discussed the flood situation in Kerala with Home Minister Rajnath Singh this morning. Singh also spoke with Vijayan, and will make an aerial survey of the flood-affected areas on Sunday.

Kerala floods: Death toll rises to 29, over 54,000 left homeless

Government relief:

"The Government of India is providing all the required assistance including services of armed forces, disaster management team and other required assistance. Any other immediate assistance requested by the Government of Kerala will be provided," Alphons said in a Facebook post.

Col. Ajai Sharma, the commandant of DSC Centre, who is overseeing relief and rescue operations, said five columns of Army have been deployed in the northern districts since last night.

"The haphazard development along the streams has affected the natural flow of rivers, which is a challenge right now," he said.

Small bridges have been constructed to evacuate stranded people in various places in Kozhikode and Wayanad areas, and rescue operations are currently underway.

"The situation is under control," he said.

Meanwhile, state Revenue minister E Chandrasekharan reviewed the flood situation and the precautionary measures to be taken in Aluva near Kochi airport and nearby areas in view of the possibility of increase in the water level following release of more water from Idukki reservoir.

Periyar river in Aluva is already in spate following release of water from Idamalayar dam, and people living in low-lying areas have been asked to be vigilant.

Cochin International Airport Limited sources said operations at the airport had not been affected.

"The operational area is intact. No cancellation of services so far," an airport spokesperson said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke with Vijayan yesterday, and offered all possible assistance to those affected.

In Palakkad district, the flood waters started receding today as the quantity of water being released from Malampuzha dam was reduced. However, many areas are still inundated and people were seen trying to save their belongings.

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Story first published: Saturday, August 11, 2018, 5:59 [IST]
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How can Speaker hoist flag on Independence Day asks Goa Congress

India

oi-Madhuri

Panaji, Aug 11: The Goa Congress objected to state Legislative Assembly Speaker Pramod Sawant unfurling the national flag on Independence Day in the absence of Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar and called it a "break in convention and protocol".

Parrikar flew to the United States early today for a medical check-up for a pancreatic ailment and is scheduled to return to Goa on August 17.

A senior CMO official today confirmed that in the absence of Parrikar, the national flag would be hoisted by the Speaker of the state Assembly.

Goa Pradesh Congress Committee spokesperson Sankalp Amonkar told reporters today that the flag, as per norms, should be hoisted on Independence Day by the Chief Minister or, in his absence, by the minister ranked number two in the cabinet.

"The government is all set to break the convention and protocol of hoisting the National Flag. The Speaker is an independent Constitutional post and he is not part of the state government," Amonkar claimed.

Speaker Pramod Sawant was not available for comment.
Illegal immigrants can cause 10 Kashmir like problems for us: Baba Ramdev

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Aug 11: Yoga guru, Baba Ramdev has termed the Assam NRC as an important step in controlling the number of illegal immigrants in India. He warned that if they were allowed to stay back, they would make 10 more Kashmir like problems in India.

At a programme, he claimed that there were four crore illegal immigrants currently in India. They must all be deported he added.

What is Assam's NRC: A brief explainer

He said that illegal immigrants pose a problem, whether they are Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Rohingyas or even Americans. We are unable to handle one Kashmir and if the Rohingyas are allowed to stay there, they will make 10 ore Kashmir like problems for us, he added.

On reservation, he said that India needs laws that would specifically define the cream layer in backward classes, who should not be included in reservation. Even today there is a section of society that requires reservation, he added.
Kerala TET result 2020 declared: Here is how you check

Kerala floods: Red Alert for Idukki and Wayanad till Aug 14

India

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 11: Kerala CM Pinarayi Vijayan conducted an aerial survey of flood-affected areas of the state with the leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala. They were supposed to land at Kattappana in Idukki but were forced to move to Wayanad due to bad weather conditions.

By 10:30 AM, CM and team will land at St Mary's College, Sulthan Bathery in Wayanad.

Meanwhile, Operation "Madad" has been launched by the Southern Naval Command (SNC) at Kochi since 09 Aug 2018 for assisting the state administration and undertaking disaster relief operations due to the unprecedented flooding experienced in many parts of the state.

Ten districts have been put on red alert due to the possibility of more water being released from the Idukki Reservoir.

These are: Wayanad, Idukki, Alappuzha,Kottayam, Ernakulam,Palakkad, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Kollam and Pathanamthitta.

At least 29 people have died in Kerala due to heavy rains and landslides, the Home Ministry said.

Districtwise helpline numbers:

District Telephone No. Thiruvananthapuram 0471 - 2322303, 2328652,8547638181 Thrissur 0487 - 2333070 Palakkad 0491 - 2546632 Kollam 0474 - 2742993 Kottayam 0481 - 2563701 Idukki 0486 - 2222812 Pathanamthitta 0468 - 2222670 Kasaragod 0499 - 4255544 Malappuram 0483 - 2734857 Wayanad 0495 - 2370095 Kozhikode 0495 - 2370095 Kannur 0497 - 2707080 Ernakulam 0484 - 2361369 Alappuzha 0477 - 2242073 Muvattupuzha 0485 - 2832252

Five members of a family lost their lives in Idukki's Adimali town. Two persons were pulled out alive from the debris by the local people and police.

Around 600 cusecs of water were discharged from the Idamalayar dam this morning, with the water level rising to 169.95 metres against the full reservoir level (FRL) of 169m. The water level at Idukki dam was 2,398 at 8 am, 50 feet against the FRL of 2,403 feet. The administration has been put on high-alert.

Stay tuned for live updates on Kerala floods:

Heavy rains for the past two days and release of water from the Idamalayar dam yesterday, resulted into localised flooding in low-lying areas in the northern districts of Kerala. The flood water also triggered landslides at some places.
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How an Arabic to Malayalam book on Jihad led to Islamic fanaticism in Kerala

Kerala rains: Death toll rises to 37, state on high alert

India

oi-Deepika

By Deepika

Kochi, Aug 11: At least 37 people were killed, nearly 54,000 left homeless while dams and rivers overflowed, parts of highways collapsed, and homes were swept away in severe flooding across the state as the heavy downpour continued for the fourth day on Saturday.

More than half of the 14 districts in Kerala have been put on high alert, officials said.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi also wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to release sufficient funds to the Kerala Government.

Meanwhile, CM Pinarayi Vijayan has also appealed to all to contribute generously to restore life in the state. He has also announced an ex-gratia of Rs 4 lakh to the next of kin of deceased and Rs 10 lakh to those who lost their property in the Floods.

The CM is visiting the flood-affected areas of Idukki, Alappuzha, Ernakulam, Wayanad, Kozhikode & Malappuram districts.
Where did the 'out of control' Chinese rocket debris land after re-entering Earth?

Planning a trip to Maldives: You can do so from July 15

Maldives snubs again, tells India to scale back military personnel

India

oi-Madhuri

New Delhi, Aug 11: Maldives wants India to withdraw military helicopters and personnel following the experts off an agreement in June, an envoy said. This is the latest snub by the Abdulla Yameen's China backed government.

India has opposed Yameen's crackdown on political rivals and the imposition of an emergency this year and some of the president's rivals have called on New Delhi for military intervention, creating worries in the Maldivian government, a Reuters report stated.

The report while quoting Maldives' ambassador in India, Ahmed Mohamed, said that two military helicopters provided by India were mainly used for medical evacuations but were no longer required as the islands had built up enough resources of its own.

"They were very useful in the past but with the development of adequate infrastructure, facilities and resources we are now in a position to handle medical evacuations on our own," he said.

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Story first published: Saturday, August 11, 2018, 6:21 [IST]
Marathwada University official sacked for adding Maharaj to Dalit icon Ambedkars name

Republic Day 2019: Remembering the man who wrote the entire constitution but didnt take a paisa

Madhya Pradesh man arrested in Punjab for trying to damage Ambedkar statue, Channi condemns incident

Outfit members booked for burning Constitution copy

India

oi-Madhuri

New Delhi, Aug 11: A case has been registered against some members of an outfit for allegedly burning a copy of the Constitution and shouting slogans against B R Ambedkar during a protest on the Parliament Street, the Delhi Police said today.

Anil Tanwar, the national in-charge of the Akhil Bhartiya Bheem Sena, filed a complaint at the Parliament Street police station, alleging that members of Youth for Equality burnt a copy of the Constitution and shouted slogans against the Dalit icon yesterday.

The complainant also submitted a CD containing a video of the incident, police said.

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Story first published: Saturday, August 11, 2018, 6:08 [IST]
PM Modi behind Rs 1,600 crore Rafale deal, alleges Rahul in Jaipur

India

oi-Deepika

By Deepika

Jaipur, Aug 11: In a direct attack on Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the multi-crore Rafale jet deal, Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said that the PM is behind the scam.

Addressing a rally in Rajasthan the Congress chief said "UPA govt had bought an airplane for Rs 540 crore while PM Modi himself gave Rs 1600 crore to the French company for 1 aircraft."

"PM Modi didn't look in my eyes in Parliament because they have looted people money through Rafale deal. Why has the Indian government bought one Rafale worth Rs. 1,600 crore, he questioned."

"According to the new contract, the PM Modi himself bought each fighter jet for Rs. 16,000 crore, over three times the price," he said.

Taking the example of neighbouring China, he said, Chinese government used to provide jobs to 50,000 young people in 24 hours whereas PM has failed in his promise. "PM Modi said he will give jobs to the youth every year. I want to tell you the truth.

In 24 hours, China government gives jobs to 50,000 young people. Your phones say "Made in China" because, in China, so many people are getting jobs. They work in cell phone factories. In the last 4 years, PM Modi said he will give jobs to 2 crore people. It is shameful, our population is like China and I believe that our youth is more powerful than the youth in China," said Rahul.

"It is shameful, our population is like China and I believe that our youth is more powerful than the youth in China,"he further said.

"PM said Beti Padhao, Beti Bachao. But government didn't tell you who to save your daughters from. In UP, a BJP MLA rapes a girl and not a word from the PM," said Rahul Gandhi in Rajasthan.

Congress president also said, "In the last 2 years, Modi Ji's government has waived off loans worth Rs. 2,00,000 Crore of 15 businessmen. I asked for loan waivers for farmers, to which his response was, silence." Rajasthan is likely to go to poll later this year.

According to AICC general secretary Avinash Pande, Rahul Gandhi is scheduled to discuss the roadmap and strategy for the polls and guide the party leaders and workers during his visit.

Rahul Gandhi was greeted by Congress supporters in the city where he will conduct a roadshow, which will go on for 13 kilometres on a bus.
Tejashwi demands Nitishs resignation; gives seven days time to send culprits behind bars

India

oi-Vinod

By Vinod

New Delhi, Aug 11: Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader and former deputy chief minister of Bihar Tejashwi Yadav has tried to hit two birds with one stone when he said that who the Bihar government is trying to save. Why is it not being said in the call dial report (CDR) that which Union minister and members of Parliament called up Nitish Kumar to save Brijesh Thakur. He is not only attacking Nitish Kumar but Narendra Modi as well.

Tejashwi demanded resignation of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar by giving him seven days time. The next course of action will be decided once these seven days are over. Former deputy chief minister warned the Nitish Kumar-led government to answer the questions posed by it, else his party will decide the next course of action against the Bihar government and also people in support of him. Tejashwi directly targeted the Bihar chief minister by saying that Nitish Kumar must tell that how many other ministers are involved in the Muzaffarpur shelter house rape case besides him otherwise people will expose who all are involved in it.

Nobody will be spared, even minister: Nitish Kumar on Muzaffarpur shelter home rape case

The RJD became more aggressive after the Supreme Court of India commented on the Muzaffarpur incidence that it was a state sponsored act. Tejashwi asked, "Nitish Kumar must tell who is running the state?"

The RJD leadrs requested the Supreme Court that the honorable court must ensure proper investigation and questioning of all principal secretaries of the Information and public relations department especially the gentleman who has been the health secretary as well during whose tenure the NGO of Brijesh Thakur was given fund in bounty. All the favorite officers of Nitish Kumar must be questioned to investigate their relations with Brijesh Thakur - the prime accused in the matter.

Muzaffarpur shelter home case: Prime accused alleges conspiracy

Tejashwi Yadav said that Manju Verma is not the only link in this matter but there are several more ministers involved in this case and still they are part of the government. Nitish Kumat know who they are. Why the Bihar chief minister is afraid of removing them. If the government does not do that people of Bihar will get them removed.

He urged the Supreme Court to take a Suo Moto cognizance that how only one person's SDR came in public domain and who got it leaked. The person doing this mischief must be punished. This is to recall that only Chandrashekhar Verma's call detail was made public rest of them have been held back.

Muzaffarpur rape case: 'Prove that you're ashamed' says Rahul Gandhi on Nitish Kumar

The former deputy chief minister said that even two months after the Muzaffarpur incidence the alleged accused Brijesh Thakur's name is not in the FIR. He was not given police remand, who is responsible for these things. Nitish Kumar also needs to tell that the official of the health ministry who had blacklisted NGO of Brijesh Thakur, who recommended his transfer. Why this official was punished for speaking truth.

Another RJD leader said that the party is not going to let this issue go till all the accused are behind bars. The party will organized protest and will go to people with all the information that it has regarding this gory incidence.

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Story first published: Saturday, August 11, 2018, 17:00 [IST]
Trafficking, terror and now hawala: India sits on a ticking time bomb of 40,000 Rohingya Muslims

India

oi-Vicky Nanjappa

New Delhi, Aug 11: It is nothing but a ticking time bomb and amidst the huge humanitarian crisis involving the Rohingya Muslims, there is a lurking danger which India must now start taking very seriously.

The links to terror outfits, hawala transactions among others have often been quoted by our Intelligence Bureau on several occasions. A recent incident that took place in Jammu has only raised concerns about the kind of dealings that the Rohingyas are into and how they have become a front for illegal activity.

The police on Thursday, picked up three members of a Rohingya family for questioning after Rs 30 lakh in cash was recovered from them. The cash was found at a jhuggi in the Channi Himmat area of Jammu city. Investigations have shown that the cash belonged to Ismail and Noor Alam, who had left for Bangladesh last Monday.

The duo to whom the money belonged to had been living in Jammu for the past six years without valid documents. Investigations have also revealed that this money was parked with the Rohingya family with an intention of using for a nefarious activity. The family was unable to explain the money, but sources say that they would have eventually got orders to pass on to some terror group or a member of a drug cartel.

As Bengal slept, Bangladeshi terrorists made south India their playground

Threat levels raised to severe:

The writing has been on the wall and the killing of Chotta Burmi in Kashmir clearly indicated the close association that the Rohingya Muslims have with terror groups. Burmi was killed in an encounter along with a commander of the Jaish-e-Mohammad. It was Burmi who was part of the Rohingya terror group, Aqa Mul Mujahideen who once shared the dais with Lashkar-e-Tayiba chief Hafiz Saeed.

The Lashkar-e-Tayiba had decided that it would launch the Rohingyas in Jammu where there is a huge settlement. They are easy preys and all attempts have already been made to install an Islamic ideology into them. Incidents such as the one at Bodhgaya are all attempts to show solidarity with the Rohingyas and lure them into terror groups.

From firing at the Army, to activating a Delhi module, Rohingya Muslims are getting aggressive

On the Rohingya issue, terror groups such as the Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh, Students Islamic Movement of India and the Lashkar-e-Tayiba work in tandem. While the JuMB is tasked with ensuring that recruitments take place in camps at Hyderabad, West Bengal and Assam, the SIMI focuses on the northern cities including Delhi. The focus of the Lashkar-e-Tayiba has been primarily Jammu and it sees overall operation.

The Lashkar-e-Tayiba has been espousing this cause since 2012, when it launched the Difa-e-Musalman-e-Arakan conference in Pakistan to highlight the issue. Following this Saeed sent two of his men- Shahid Mahmood and Nadeem Awan to establish contacts with the Rohingyas. As part of this exercise, the target was the Jammu camp.

An Intelligence Bureau official tells OneIndia that this is a ticking time bomb and action has to be taken. There are several issues and the main one is that most of these persons are not documented, which makes tracking them extremely difficult. Take the case of the Jammu incident, the two persons lived in the country illegally for six years and easily slipped out without any documents. They even managed to leave behind a huge chunk of cash meant for nefarious activities, the officer further adds.

Rohingya Muslims are illegal immigrants, need to be deported: Rijiju

The intelligence files:

While relying on Intelligence Bureau reports, the Centre says that, "it has been found by the Central Government that many Rohingyas figured in suspected sinister designs of ISI

which has been responsible for spreading terrorism in Jammu and Kashmir and other parts of the country.

The Centre also said that the Rohingyas have also been mobilising funds through hawala channels and procuring fake and fabricated Indian identity documents for other Rohingyas and also indulging in human trafficking.

"Many of them have managed to acquire fake and fraudulently obtained Indian identity documents like PAN and voter cards," the Centre also says.

"With serious security concern already in existence, more disturbing part is that there is an organised influx of illegal immigrants from Myanmar through agents and touts facilitating illegal immigrant Rohingyas into India via Benapole-Haridaspur and Hilli (West Bengal), Sonamora (Tripura), Kolkata and Guwahati," the affidavit said and stressed that situation is seriously harming national security of the country."

The Centre also said that the number of illegal Rohingyas is around 40,000 and their continuance in India has serious national security ramifications and threats.

"India has open and porous borders with Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Myanmar etc and had an easily navigable sea route with Pakistan as well as Sri Lanka making it vulnerable to a continuous threat of an influx of illegal immigration and resultant problems arising there from," the Centre also said.

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Story first published: Saturday, August 11, 2018, 10:56 [IST]
Talks with China will not help says USA NSA on situation on Ladakh

20 members of a family removed from US flight after mask of 1 slipped under nose

AUKUS will be game-changer in Indo-Pacific, won't compete with Quad: US Deputy Secretary

Alaska Airlines plane stolen from Washington crashes into Puget Sound island

International

oi-Chennabasaveshwar

By Chennabasaveshwar

Washington, Aug 11: An Alaska Airlines plane that was stolen by an airline employee crashed into an island in Puget Sound on Saturday. Officials at Sea-Tac International Airport have confirmed the crash to news agency Associated Press.

Pierce Co. Sheriff's Dept. says the airline employee who stole the plane from Seattle airport was "a single suicide male," there were no passengers on the plane and "this is not a terrorist incident."

Indian Navy drone plane crashes in Porbandar, technical snag suspected

Stolen horizon airplane crashed into Ketron island. Preliminary info is that a mechanic from unknown airlines stole plane. Was doing stunts in air or lack of flying skills caused crash into Island  Pierce Co Sheriff (@PierceSheriff) August 11, 2018

According to US Today reports, the pilot was a suicidal 29-year-old male and a resident of Pierce County and the incident has no connection to terrorism.

Alaska Airlines reported 'unauthorized take-off' at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in Washington. F-15s planes were scrambled to intercept the Alaskan Airlines flight, reported Fox News.

We've confirmed a Horizon Air Q400 that had an unauthorized takeoff from SeaTac around 8pm has gone down near Ketron Island in Pierce County, WA. We're working to confirm who was on board, we believe there were no guests or crew on board other than the person operating the plane.  Alaska Airlines (@AlaskaAir) August 11, 2018

The crash sparked a fire in the dense forest. Flames lit up the night as they spread from the burning wreckage to nearby trees. Officials said there were no victims on the ground. The stolen plane was a twin engine turboprop Q400 airplane belonging to its sister carrier Horizon Air, Alaska Airlines said on Twitter.

It normally carries 76 passengers. "This is not a terrorist incident," Ed Troyer with the Pierce County Sheriff's office wrote on Twitter.
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India-Afghanistan discuss development projects

International

oi-Madhuri

Kabul, Aug 11: India and Afghanistan have discussed several ongoing development projects spread over varied areas of cooperation such as capacity building, infrastructure, education, healthcare, good-governance and human resource development.

Officials from both the countries discussed the projects during the second meeting of India-Afghanistan Joint Working Group on Development Cooperation (JWG-DC) in Kabul yesterday.

The JWG-DC is one of the four Joint Working Groups formed under the India-Afghanistan Strategic Partnership Council, which is headed by the External Affairs Minister of India and the Foreign Minister of Afghanistan.

Taliban kills 4 troops and 4 women in Afghanistan

The Strategic Partnership Council is mandated for the overall management of the strategic relationship between India and Afghanistan.

During the meeting of the JWG-DC, both sides had an exhaustive review of the large number of ongoing development projects spread over varied areas of cooperation such as capacity building, infrastructure, education, healthcare, good-governance and human resource development, a statement said.

The two sides also expressed satisfaction over the successful completion of several development projects such as the Afghan Parliament building, Afghan-India Friendship Dam, the first phase of Chabahar port and others.

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The Afghan side highly appreciated India's timely assistance of 170,000 tonnes of wheat and 2,000 tonnes of pulses during this year when large parts of the country are suffering from drought.

Both sides also expressed satisfaction that these largescale deliveries were made from India to Afghanistan via Chabahar, highlighting the viability of Chabahar as a route for trade and commerce.

Both sides underscored the importance of access through Chabahar port for strengthening trade and economic relations.

Encouraged by high level of cooperation in the field of development assistance and deep mutual trust between the two sides, it was decided to take up several small, medium and largescale projects for implementation in the near future.

Afghanistan: Indian among three foreigners found dead after being kidnapped in Kabul

These projects most prominently include the Shahtoot dam, low cost housing for the returning refugees in Nangarhar Province of Afghanistan, polyclinic in Mazar e Sharif, construction of road connecting Band-e-Amir in Bamyan Province to the Bamyan-Yakawlang Highway and many others.

Both sides underscored the importance of safety and security of Indian personnel involved in development projects in Afghanistan.

The Afghan side assured their cooperation in ensuring the security of the Indian personnel.

The Indian side also accepted the request for consideration of new projects, shared by the Afghan side. It was agreed that these projects will be examined and considered for implementation, based on the priorities of the people and the Government of Afghanistan.

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Story first published: Saturday, August 11, 2018, 14:08 [IST]
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The cynics and skeptics say he will never see a dime of it, what with Monsanto/Bayer's penchant for appeals to drag out forever, long after this particular victim has died from terminal cancer, but guess what?

THERE ARE MILLIONS OF OTHER VICTIMS, and let's also not forget three other very relevant quasi-courts: the Court of Public Opinion, the Court of Consumer Choices, and the final one of importance, the Stock Market, because Bayer/Monsanto is cruisin' for a bruisin', about to get its posterior knocked into the dust, despite the evil ongoing tactics of the Monsanto Mafia, and all of their high placed henchmen, and the resolution of this case will certainly become a bellwether case, a massive precedent, for many many future cases.

At the end of this article, please read a summary of consumer efforts and judicial decisions in Brazil to ban Roundup in the world's largest soybean growing nation and shocking lab results on glyphosate in human breast milk samples....

click here]

This is some of the first good news in the consumer protection realm I have heard about or written about since Pakistan entirely banned Monosodium Glutamate, a few months ago. These exceptions to the corporate rule will prove to be the undoing of much of corporate America and their many fingers of infiltration into the regulatory processes and the judicial processes, in every nation of the world.

Don't forget the connection between Auschwitz, the Holocaust, I.G. Farben, and the founding of Bayer! from Wikipedia:

The company resumed operations after the Second World War, but in 1951 it was split into its four largest original constituent companies, which remain some of the world's largest chemical and pharmaceutical companies. These companies initially had the same owners, continued to operate as an informal cartel and played a major role in the West German Wirtschaftswunder. Following several later mergers the successor companies are Agfa, BASF, Bayer and Sanofi.

>>>>>

Monsanto Loses Landmark Case Roundup Weedkiller Case; Jury Awards $290M to Cancer Victim

August 10, 2018 Contact: Katherine Paul, Organic Consumers katherine|AT|organicconsumers.orgEmail address ; The Organic Consumers Association (OCA) today issued this statement in response to today's verdict in the case of Dewayne Johnson vs. Monsanto Co., awarding $290 million in damages to plaintiff Dwayne Johnson, a former school groundskeeper who, after being required to spray Monsanto's Roundup herbicide, is terminally ill with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. "This verdict proves that when ordinary citizens, in this case a jury of 12, hear the facts about Monsanto's products, and the lengths to which this company has gone to buy off scientists, deceive the public and influence government regulatory agencies, there is no confusion," said Ronnie Cummins, OCA's international director. "This is a company that has always put profits ahead of public safety, and today, Monsanto has finally been held accountable. "We hope that this is just the first of many defeats for Monsanto, and that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will pull this product off the market immediately. In the meantime, OCA looks forward to the next steps in our own lawsuit against Monsanto, for misleading consumers about the safety of Roundup for humans and pets. And we are grateful to Mr. Johnson for bravely facing down the "most evil corporation" in the world."

>>>>>

Compiling insights from USA Today, CNN, and NBC stories:

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(This is a reprint from NewsBred).



Rahul Gandhi (left) and Arvind Kejriwal

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I bet most of you wouldn't know it. For most of you read Indian Express, Times of India and Hindustan Times. And none of them carried the news that Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chose to abstain from voting on Rajya Sabha deputy chair on Thursday because Rahul Gandhi didn't made a CALL to Arvind Kejriwal.

Indian Express, as usual, was the master of obfuscation. Buried deep down in their long story was one line:"AAP did a volte-face Thursday declaring it would support the Congress if Rahul Gandhi requested Arvind Kejriwal." Indian Express never tells it readers that Rahul Gandhi never called!!! Instead, the newspaper terms it as "volte-face" on the part of AAP. Bravo.

First, the facts. AAP Rajya Sabha MP Sanjay Singh, to all and sundry, spoke words that must have been acid to the ears of our Lutyens Media. Why did Sanjay Singh say? He said to the media an evening before on Wednesday that if Congress needed AAP's support, its president Rahul Gandhi himself should make a call to Kejriwal.

But Rahul didn't. And Sanjay wasn't holding back his venom a day later on Thursday: "Congress is the biggest hurdle to Opposition unity. How will he (Rahul Gandhi) ensure the victory of his candidate if he cannot ask for votes?" It hurt AAP all the more that JDU chief and Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar didn't think it below his dignity to personally call up Kejriwal and seek support for NDA candidate, Harivansh Narayan Singh. "If Nitish could ask for support for his candidate, why not Rahul," Singh said "When he (Rahul) can hug PM Modi, why can't he ask Arvind Kejriwal to support his party's candidate?" None of these damaging words, I can assure, you would find in these mentioned three English dailies.

Explosive, isn't it? The news betrays a horde of staggering facts: (a) Opposition unity is going nowhere and Congress could be its biggest stumbling block; (b) Rahul Gandhi is arrogant; (c) BJP could've a cake-walk, come 2019 general elections. And we are not even talking of the cascading effect it could've had on the forthcoming elections in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh in the remaining four months of 2018.

And yet it isn't important to Lutyens Media? It writes reams and reams of columns on how BSP-SP combine would turn the tables on BJP; splashes pictures of opposition leaders holding aloft hands in Karnataka; berates HD Kumaraswamy on art of managing ally such as Congress; tears its lungs out on how Nitish and Modi are drifting apart; yet it finds Congress-AAP fall out no big deal. Strange, isn't it. I mean Modi's arrogance to allies is causing splits such as with TDP; but Rahul Gandhi's nonchalance to Arvind Kejriwal is no arrogance and still good news for "mahagathbandhan". See how dumb these newspapers think we are?

To be sure, these hacks of Lutyens Media know how to cover their tracks. So you search hard on internet, and you would find link to these stories, howsoever vague they are in description. Times of India, Hindustan Times and Indian Express do have taken note on internet. But it's only a technical and legal defense; they have blanked it on their newsprint where their real audience is. I would be happy and ready to apologize if readers or these newspapers itself could point to any such coverage of Sanjay Singh's reactions in their Delhi/Noida editions. I, for myself, found no such news in their newspapers.

There is a still bigger question which must trouble the sensibility of all readers. It couldn't be the news never reached the teleprinter rooms of these newspapers. I mean the news was covered by Press Trust of India (PTI). Logically, any news desk would dread missing out on such an important story. I mean ask any journalist, he is taken to cleaners by his editor or served a show-cause notice for such a miss. But here not one, all three newspapers collectively spiked the story. It could be a coincidence; or someone takes decisions on behalf of these newspapers--your guess is as good as mine.
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From Consortium News



Former CIA officer Ray McGovern calls Gina Haspel Senate hearing a 'charade.'

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Newly released official documents obtained by the National Security Archive showing that CIA Director Gina Haspel directly supervised waterboarding at the first CIA "Black Site" simply confirm what Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr (R-NC) already knew as he orchestrated the charade that was Haspel's confirmation hearing. Burr allowed her to "classify" her own direct role in waterboarding and other torture techniques so that it could be kept from the public and secure her confirmation -- further proof that this Senate oversight committee has instead become an overlook committee.

That Haspel supervised the torture of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri at the first CIA "black site" for interrogation was already clear to those who had followed Haspel's career, but she was able to do a song and dance when Sen. Sen. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) asked her about it. Haspel declined to reply on grounds that the information was classified. It was of course because Haspel herself had classified it. All the senators knew that only too well. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) had strongly objected to this bizarre practice only minutes before.

Witnessing this charade from the audience prompted me to stand up, excuse myself for interrupting, and suggest that the committee members were entitled to an honest answer since this was a public hearing with thousands watching on TV. The American people were also entitled to know whether or not Haspel was directly involved in torture. As I was calmly pointing out that any Senate Intelligence Committee member who prepared for the hearing already knew the answer, I was "escorted out," manhandled and charged with disrupting Congress and resisting arrest.

Jeremy Scahill later did a good job on DemocracyNow! in putting needed context around the free pass and encouragement CIA torturers continue to enjoy at the hands of co-conspirators like Sen. Burr.

I have now had time to read through the documents obtained by the National Security Archive via Freedom of Information Act requests. Suffice it to say they are so sad and sickening that I had to stop reading.



Corruption on Steroids

Burr was on the House Intelligence Committee, led by Porter Goss (R-FL) and later by Pete Hoekstra (R-MI), that winked at torture (not to mention blindly accepting the faux intelligence used to "justify" war on Iraq). Might the CIA remind Burr of his condoning of torture, were he to choose not to play along with the Haspel nomination?

Burr's record on the Senate Intelligence Committee is equally dubious. In January 2015, as soon as he took the Senate Intelligence Committee chair from Feinstein, he recalled all copies of the four-year committee study based on official CIA documents, which not only exposed unimaginably heinous forms of torture but found no evidence that any actionable intelligence was obtained from them. To her credit, Feinstein had faced down both President Barack Obama and CIA Director John Brennan and got a long Executive Summary of the committee investigation published just before she had to relinquish the chair.

Truth, Conscience, and Consequences

As an act of conscience, on March 2, 2006 I returned the Intelligence Commendation Medallion given me at retirement for "especially meritorious service," explaining, "I do not want to be associated, however remotely, with an agency engaged in torture." I returned the medallion to Hoekstra (R, Michigan), who was then-Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, with a statement explaining my reasons.

Hoekstra then secretly added to the Intelligence Authorization Act for FY'07 (HR5020) a provision enabling the government to strip intelligence veterans of their government pensions. HR5020 passed the full House, but Congress opted instead for a continuing resolution.

On December 11, 2014, I had an opportunity to tell Hoekstra exactly what I thought of his underhanded, Lone-Ranger attempt (he did not inform his House Intelligence Committee colleagues) to make it possible to revoke the government pensions of people like me. I confronted the former Congressman in person off-air, after we two were interviewed live on CCTV's "The Heat" about the Senate Intelligence Committee findings regarding CIA torture. It was an uncommon chance to hold Hoekstra publicly accountable for condoning torture, and the Michigan congressman rose to the occasion. (See minutes 8:15 to 10:41)

The bottom line? The foxes have been guarding the chicken coop for many years now. Haspel will fit right in. O Tempora, O Mores.
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From Counterpunch

The Central Intelligence Agency has practiced a double standard for many years. Former CIA director David Petraeus escaped a jail sentence despite providing eight notebooks of highly classified information, including names of covert operatives, to his biographer-mistress. Conversely, Reality Winner, a former Air Force linguist, has been in jail for the past year, awaiting sentencing for leaking a classified report about Russian interference in the 2016 elections. Everyone in the United States is talking about Russian interference in the U.S. elections.

There is nothing new here, however. Former CIA director John Deutch placed sensitive operational materials on his home computer, which was used to access pornographic sites, but he was pardoned by President Bill Clinton. Clinton's national security adviser, Samuel Berger, received a modest fine for stuffing into his pants classified documents from the National Archives. And Attorney General Alberto Gonzales was not even charged when he kept sensitive documents about the NSA's massive surveillance at his home. Conversely, my good friend Tom Drake was charged with violations under the Espionage Act for "mishandling" what turned out to be unclassified information.

Now we have recent examples of a double standard that is abetted by the media. Over the past week, former high-level CIA officials have written opeds for the Washington Post dealing with drone warfare and information warfare. On August 6, Bernard Hudson, the former director of counter-terrorism at the CIA, wrote about the "new peril" of weaponized drones in the "hands of non-state actors." There is a far greater problem regarding drone warfare, and that is the secretive counter-terrorist infrastructure in the United States and elsewhere that sustains endless, borderless wars in places far removed from actual battlefields. The U.S. practice of "targeted killing" -- the extrajudicial killing of suspected terrorists and militants -- raises serious moral and legal issues.

The CIA, however, would not allow me, a former CIA officer to deal with such U.S practices. Material in one of my books dealing with U.S. drone war was redacted. There have been numerous articles in the mainstream media dealing with drone warfare, but the CIA considers this discussion classified. The fact that President Barack Obama discussed this issue publicly on many occasions had no impact on CIA's publications review process.

On August 8, Mike Morell, the former deputy director at the CIA, wrote an oped on the dangers of Russian information warfare against the United States. Morell is fully knowledgeable of U.S. information warfare against Russia, but never would have received permission from CIA's Publication Review Board to discuss U.S. activities. It would be useful to have an understanding of these programs in order to make the case for bilateral dialogue to resolve differences and create ground rules for behavior. Morell wants to "impose severe costs" on Russia; perhaps it would be better to engage in constructive diplomacy before worsening bilateral relations.

It is noteworthy that these opeds appeared in the Washington Post, whose masthead proclaims that "Democracy Dies in Darkness." In fact, the Post is an enabler of such darkness when it allows former intelligence officers to engage in polemical and one-sided accounts of serious problems that deserve a fuller discussion.

Even more serious is the threat to the First Amendment free speech rights when former intelligence officers are not permitted to discuss sensitive matters that are no threat to American national security. Several years ago, the CIA cleared for publication the memoirs of two senior officers with more than 70 years of professional experience who claimed there was no such thing as torture and abuse. John Rizzo, a senior career lawyer at the CIA, and Jose Rodriguez, a senior operative who ordered the destruction of the 92 torture tapes, denied that the CIA conducted torture and abuse.

Recently, when I tried to write about the confirmation process for CIA director Gina Haspel, I was prevented from discussing aspects of her career that dealt with the issue of torture and abuse. Once again, there was no threat to American national security and there was ample documentation from the mainstream media, but the CIA considered the issue to be classified.

One way to address the darkness that beclouds our democracy is to conduct a serious reform of government censorship of its public servants.
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From LA Progressive

When 28-year-old Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez upset a 10-term incumbent congressman in Queens, New York in a set of Democratic primaries that saw self-proclaimed democratic socialists in the Bernie Sanders mold pick up seats across the country, The New York Times (which, true to its institutional establishmentarianism, didn't bother to cover her campaign) predicted that her victory would "reverberate across the party and the country."

That was June 26th.

Now the Times' fellow elitist rag The Washington Post is reacting to another round of Democratic primaries. This time, Hillary Clinton-like centrist-corporatists did well. "Signs of a Tea-Party-like movement in the Democratic Party that would throw winnable races to far-left candidates appear to be fading," concluded David Weigel on August 8th.

Has the political world changed that much in six weeks? Of course not.

As Donald Trump said about something else entirely: "What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening."

What we're reading and what is really happening is a big wet dollop of the freakouts we see from American pundits incapable of placing current events within an historical context. After the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution overthrew the czar in Russia, many Americans experienced "a mounting fear and anxiety that a Bolshevik revolution in America was imminent -- a revolution that would change Church, home, marriage, civility, and the American way of Life," Murray Levin remembers in his book "Political Hysteria in America."

After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Francis Fukuyama made bank selling his book "The End of History," arguing that neither communism nor any other alternative to capitalism would ever be viable again. He said we had arrived at "the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government." Both were alarmist and wrong: both capitalism and the communist ideal remain and will survive into the foreseeable future.

Then there's my editor at Time magazine who, following 9/11, informed me that no one in America would ever be interested in humor or satire in any form ever again.

It's OK to be shocked by big events. But things usually get back to normal.

For decades the normal within the Democratic Party has been a schism between left progressives (George McGovern, Howard Dean when he ran for president, Bernie Sanders) and centrist-corporatists (Jimmy Carter, Barack Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton).

As I wrote in my essay for the Wall Street Journal, "Civil War in the Democratic Party": "DNC-approved 'mainstream' presidential prospects have adopted left-leaning positions on a variety of issues. Yet the populist left doesn't trust them, and for good reason. [Kamala] Harris was caught fundraising in the Hamptons; [Cory] Booker is too close to bankers; [Kirsten] Gillibrand may have vested too much in #MeToo; [Oprah] Winfrey is a billionaire arriviste. They're all silent on the working class."

The same dynamic is taking place in local races, where corporate Democratic candidates are adding some Bernie-like policy promises to their campaigns in order to attract the party's leftist base. "The party's establishment has embraced ideas like expanding the Affordable Care Act, shrinking the space between its leaders and its disrupters," Weigel wrote. He quoted Washington Governor Jay Inslee: "Trump has been the great doctor, stitching up our scars and healing us organically."

I doubt it. The evil Trump can't heal what ails the Democratic Party. Though I noted in a different Journal piece the possibility that outsider attacks against the left by Republicans like Trump and James Comey might prompt centrists to defend them, leading to Democratic de'tente, what Weigel is describing is not coming together under a big left-leaning tent but rather the old 1960s conceptual tactic of co-option.

What the DNC and the centrist-corporatists who control it still refuse to accept is that anti-Republicanism -- even anti-Trumpism -- is not now, nor will it ever be, enough to lure the progressive populist left to the polls. Against history, against the 2016 election results, they assume that the default mode of a left-leaning voter is Democratic.

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Behavioral / Mental Health Software Market Estimated to Rise Profitably with CAGR 15.3% during 2018  2026 | Global Key Players (Advanced MD, Cerner, Welligent, Credible, Meditab Software, Compulink)

Behavioral / Mental Health Software Market

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Marketprognosis.com Publish a New Market Research Report On Behavioral / Mental Health Software - Global Market Outlook (2017-2026) which contains global key players survey information and forecast to 2026.Overview of the Global Behavioral / Mental Health Software Market:The Global Behavioral/Mental Health Software market is accounted for $1.32 Billion in 2017 and is expected to reach $4.77 Billion by 2026 growing at a CAGR of 15.3%. Increasing government initiatives towards EHR in behavioral health organizations, growing number of health reforms, large pool of people looking for behavioral health support pose, rising adoption of BHs and growing aging population are favoring the market growth. Data Privacy issues, lack of It-Knowledgeable Personnel are some of the major restraints hampering the market. Increasing significance on subscription models and increasing demand for behavioral health software in developing markets are driving their growth during the forecast period.Get a Sample Copy of this Report @Behavioral/Mental Health Software is software used by psychologists to help guide, deal and inform the treatment of mental disorders such as addiction, stress, depression of each individual patient. It also facilitates users to retrieve pharmacy, laboratory and radiology data observations on the patients been treated.Regionally, North America is dominating the market and the growth of this region is mainly attributed to increasing aging population requiring behavioral health services, growing number of health reforms in the US. Asia pacific is leading the market and the growth of this region is due to growing awareness about mental health software in India and China.Major Key Players:1 Advanced MD, Inc2 Cerner Corporation3 Welligent Inc4 Credible5 Meditab Software (India) Pvt. Ltd6 Compulink7 Advance Data Systems and More..Purchase this report online with Top Key Players Analysis and List of Tables & Figure @Market Segment by Components:1 Software2 Support ServicesMarket Segment by Functionalities:1 Financial Functionality2 Clinical Functionality3 Administrative FunctionalityMarket Segment by Delivery Models:1 Ownership Models2 Subscription ModelsAny Query? Ask to our Expert @This study answers to the below key questions:1 What will the market size be in 2026 and what will the growth rate be?2 What are the key market trends?3 What is driving this market?4 What are the challenges to market growth?5 Who are the key vendors in this market space?6 What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the key vendors?7 What are the strengths and weaknesses of the key vendors?In the end, this report covers data and information on capacity and production overview, production, market share analysis, sales overview, supply, sales, and shortage, import, export and consumption as well as cost, price, revenue and gross margin of Behavioral / Mental Health Software Market.About us:We at Market Prognosis believe in giving a crystal clear view of market dynamics for achieving success in todays complex and competitive marketplace through our quantitative & qualitative research methods.We help our clients identify the best market insights and analysis required for their business thus enabling them to take strategic and intelligent decision.We believe in delivering actionable insights for your business growth and success.Contact us:ProgMark Pvt. Ltd.Thane  421501India.sales@marketprognosis.com+1 973 241 5193
Hemodynamic Monitoring Devices Market Poised to Expand at a Robust Pace Over 2024

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Cardiovascular disorders are commonly observed in variable age group, which makes it necessary to see early detection and management of disease incidences. Burgeoning prevalence of lifestyle disorders and cardiac diseases is constantly raising the demand for hemodynamic monitoring devices. This has been a prominent driver for the growth of hemodynamic monitoring devices market globally, within the past decade.As cases of diabetes, obesity, blood pressure disorders, CVDs, stroke, and many more are on the rise, the need for routine assessment of standard hemodynamic parameters is also growing. These parameters include heart rate, blood volume, blood pressure, ECG, temperature, central venous pressure, blood gas analysis, and oxygen perfusion/peripheral venous oxygen saturation.Read Report Overview:When it comes to post-surgery monitoring of patients in critical care units, hemodynamic monitoring systems make one of the most critically required components in medical care arsenals of hospitals and healthcare facilities. As the number of both surgeries and hospitals are constantly increasing since the past few years, the demand for hemodynamic monitoring devices is also witnessing steady impetus.Hemodynamic monitoring primarily aims to accurately assess the cardiovascular system of patients and monitor their response to it but it also helps in recognizing the dysfunctioning of various organ systems. This has been another key factor propelling the demand for hemodynamic monitoring devices worldwide. Launch of new, innovative products will highly influence the market in the near future. In addition, growing popularity of disposables segment is also fueling recurrent demand for hemodynamic monitoring devices.Request Brochure of Report:Due to a growing trend of hospital system digitalization, the integration of monitoring devices with computers is gaining popularity worldwide, including developing nations, which are inclining more toward adoption sophisticated medical care infrastructure. These integrated systems enable critical care unit staffs to simultaneously view multiple patients parameters on the same machine. This is a key factor driving their popularity.Where cardiac output monitoring has been traditionally performed using the thermodilution method via a PAC (pulmonary artery catheter) that was first introduced in the 1970s, it is now monitored using lesser invasive and more efficient techniques. The advent of technology and value added benefits of newly emerging monitoring system models are positively impacting the market growth.Minimally invasive cardiac monitoring involves all such devices and methods, which evaluate the entire cardiac output without using a PAC. Minimally invasive or non-invasive systems are hitting the industry and capturing sizeable markets, prominently attributed to their non-invasive nature. There are a few more methods recently introduced with minimal invasiveness but are lesser popular than their mainstream counterparts. However, introduction of a miniature TOE probe, offering the real time information about cardiac function and anatomy, is expected to create a massive impact on conventional management methods for ITU patients.Request For Custom Research:North America is the key market globally, registering the highest consumption of hemodynamic monitoring devices, more than 30%. With increasing number of clinics, hospitals, and individually operating physicians adopting these devices, the U.S. is witnessing robust sales of hemodynamic monitoring systems, which are equipped with non-invasive technology. The U.S. FDA has recently passed an approval to ClearSight, an advanced product in the category. It will further contribute to the market growth in the near future.According to a recent survey, over 85% of septic shock patients in Canada and Europe standardize central venous pressure as a parameter to monitor the resuscitation of fluid. This figure highlights the extensive need for hemodynamic monitoring systems in these regions. The most promising market is however emerging in Asia Pacific, owing to increased concentration of governments on high quality healthcare. Japan is currently leading the APAC market for hemodynamic monitoring devices.Based on type, hemodynamic monitoring devices are pulmonary artery catheters (PACs), pulse contours, monitoring sensors, and esophageal Doppler. By application, the market is segmented into invasive, non-invasive, and minimally invasive. Among end users of hemodynamic monitoring systems, hospitals and clinics dominate the market, whereas ambulatory surgery centers and home healthcare units also record significant consumption.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:
Texture Paints Market: information by product type (Interior, Exterior), application (residential, non-residential), regionForecast till 2025

Texture Paints Market

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A textured paint offers textured designs such as stippling, even after it is dried. It has significant consistency and coarse grain consists of gypsum and sand with a water-thinned binder, which is used to create a rough pattern effect on a wall. Coarse involves popcorn effect and is used as a ceiling paint. Texture paints are used for two purposes: to cover failures such as cracks, cement walls, old paneling, uneven drywall, or holes; and to create dramatic and unique wall designs. Some tools can be used to create designs such as sponges, stamps, styluses, or specialized brushes. The paint not only gives attractive textures but also protects from severe weather and ultraviolet rays. It is extensively used to create various patterns on walls for residential and non-residential purposes.Market dynamicsThe increasing demand for the paints and home decoration in the developing economies is one of the major drivers of the market. Furthermore, the high appealing value of texture paints at affordable cost is boosting the product demand. Additionally, growing consumer preferences for interior designing, especially home interior, is expected to fuel the market growth to some extent. However, easy availability of alternatives in the market is restraining the market growth and is likely to continue the same during the forecast period, 20182023.A sample of this report is available upon request @Market Segmentation:The global texture paints market is segmented by product type, application, and region.On the basis of the product type, the market is segmented into interior and exterior. The interior texture paint segment is expected to lead the global market in terms of both value and volume during the forecast period, 20182025. The rising use of texture paints for home interior decoration is one of the major factors driving the segmental growth.On the basis of the application, the market is segmented into residential and non-residential.Regional analysis:Geographically, the global market is segmented into four regions: North America, Europe, Asia Pacific (APAC), and Latin America and the Middle East & Africa (LAMEA).APAC is estimated to hold the largest market share owing to fast economic development coupled with growing disposable incomes in countries such as China, Thailand, India, and Malaysia. Increasing middle-class population coupled with increasing spending on home decoration is driving the market growth further. The expansion of construction sector in China is expected to drive the APAC market further during the forecast period, 20182025.Europe is estimated to drive the market due to well-developed infrastructure and growing trend in commercial and residential building. The improving economic conditions have motivated the commercial clients to invest in painting services.Rapid industrialization and increasing purchasing power of consumers in especially in U.S. and Canada is expected to drive the market in North America region. Increasing standard of living of individuals is also one of the major factor driving the market in this region.LAMEA has a steady growth due to poor economic conditions, ongoing infrastructural development, and poor government policies.Key Players:Some of the key players in the global market are Asian Paints (India), Nippon Paint Holdings Co., Ltd. (Japan), Berger Paints India Limited (India), PPG Industries, Inc. (U.S.), The Sherwin-Williams Company (U.S.), Hempel A/S (Denmark), Kansai Paint Co., Ltd (Japan), Jotun A/S (Norway), Axalta Coating Systems Ltd. (U.S.), The Valspar Corporation. (U.S.), S K Kaken Co., Ltd. (Japan), Kelly-Moore Paints (U.S.), Haymes. (Australia), Anvil Paints & Coatings, Inc. (U.S.), Crown Paints (UK), and Specialized Coating Systems (Pty) Ltd (South Africa).Check Discount of Texture Paints Market Report @Key Developments: Expansion of Production CapacityIn January 2018, Asian Paintsby setting up plants in South Indiaannounced to increase the production capacity by 11 million kiloliters in 18 months AcquisitionIn May 2017, Berger Paints acquired Chandigarh-based niche paint maker Saboo Coatings for USD 1.26 million in cash and planned to strengthen its industrial paints businessTexture Paints Market SegmentationBy Product Type: Interior ExteriorBy Application: Residential Non-ResidentialRegions Covered:o North America U.S. Canada Mexicoo Europe U.K Germany France Italy Spain Rest of Europeo Asia-Pacific China India Japan South Korea Australia Rest of Asia Pacifico LAMEA Brazil Saudi Arabia South Africa Rest of LAMEAKnow More | Full Report Link @About Us:Reports Monitor is a market research and consulting company that provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. To help clients make informed business decisions, we offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a range of industries including Healthcare, Technology, Chemicals, Materials, and Energy. With an intrinsic understanding of many business environments, Reports Monitor provides strategic objective insights.We periodically update our market research studies to ensure our clients get the most recent, relevant, and valuable information. Reports Monitor has a strong base of analysts and consultants from assorted areas of expertise. Our industry experience and ability to zero-in on the crux of any challenge gives you and your organization the ability to secure a competitive advantage.Contact Us:Mr Jay MatthewsDirect: +1 513 549-5911 (U.S.)+44 203 318 2846 (U.K.)Email: sales@reportsmonitor.com
Choline Chloride Market Report  key Players, Industry Overview And Forecasts To 2023

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Choline chloride is a quarternary ammonium salt that contains chloride anion and choline cation. In the laboratory, chloline is mainly prepared by the methylation of the dimethylethanolamine with the methyl chloride. However, in the industries Davys Process Technology is the most widely used process to manufacture choline chloride. This process manufactures choline chloride from the hydrochloric acid, ethylene oxide and trimethylamine or from the pre-formed salts. Choline chloride is an essential nutrient that is required for the optimum animal growth. Choline chloride induces animal growth through building and maintaining cell structure as well as its function. Choline chloride is mainly associated with the synthesis as well as metabolism of betaine, methionine, serine, cystein, glycine and many other methyl containing biological compounds.Read Report Overview @Rising disposable income coupled with the better standard of living has increased the consumption of poultry which in turn is expected to boost the overall demand for the choline chloride market. In addition, the increase in the favor for poultry that that compared to pork or beef has further accelerated the demand for the choline chloride. Choline chloride is a derivative of the methylamine which is primarily used as a vitamin substitute or as supplements in the animal feed additives for fish farming, swine feed and poultry. Choline chloride is mainly classified as a vitamin B-complex which is essential for a large number of vital biological functions.Choline chloride is also known for its various uses in the form of catalyst, curing agents and neutralizing agent. Choline deficiency in the growing chicks is known to cause poor growth, inefficient use of feed and perosis. Major factors driving the overall growth of the choline chloride market are the growing consumption of poultry egg and meat coupled with the growing demand for meats especially in Asia Pacific. In addition, the increasing awareness for the feed supplements among the various end users has boosted the overall growth of the choline chloride market. The increasing population coupled with the growing demand for luxury food has boosted the overall growth of the poultry industry. Thus, with the growing poultry industry there is an increase in the demand for choline chloride.Asia Pacific is the largest market for Choline chloride. Asia Pacific is mainly driven by the rapid growth in China as a major consumer for the choline chloride market. Asia Pacific is expected to garner the largest share of the global choline chloride market. The central and the South American market and the far eastern countries are primarily expected to be the fastest growing markets for choline chloride. Europe is expected to be the next largest market for the choline chloride market.Request to view Sample Report:Kemin Industries Inc., Nb Group Co. Ltd., BeLong Corpration, A&C Co. Inc., Pestell Mineral & Ingredients, Havay Chemicals, Basf Se, Balaji Amines Ltd., Jubilant Life Sciences Ltd., Taminco Corporation, Balchem Corporation and Algry Quimica Sl among others are the key participants of the global choline chloride market. Owing to the significant production capacity, Balchem Corporation has grown as one of the strongest player in the market in the recent years. Many companies manufacturing choline chloride are actively trying to increase the awareness regarding the importance of the product among the buyers.Transparency 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.TMRs data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Transparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Smart Antenna Market, by type (Switched Multibeam Antenna and Adaptive Array Antenna), technology (SIMO, MIMO, and MISO), and application (Wi-Fi systems, WiMax systems, Cellular systems, RADAR, and Others) forecast till 2025

Smart Antenna Market

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Smart Antenna is a digital wireless communication antenna system with smart signal processing algorithms. These are used to identify the direction of arrival (DOA) signals to calculate beamforming vectors for tracking and locating antenna beam on the mobile. Smart antennas are also known as adaptive array antennas or multiple antennas.However, many times smart antennas are confused with re-configurable antennas that have similar characteristics as smart antennas except the single element antenna and zero antenna arrays. Smart antenna techniques are majorly used in acoustic signal processing, track and scan radar, radio astronomy and radio telescopes, and cellular systems such as, LTE, UMTS, and WCDMA.In traditional wireless communication systems, single antennas are used at source and destination which is called as Single In Single Out (SISO). But these systems causes a single loss due to obstructions such as hills, canyons, buildings, and utility wires. Further, in a digital communication system such as internet, it causes data transfer speed reduction, which increases the number of errors. To overcome all these problems caused by multipath wave propagation, smart antennas could be the solution. These smart antennas are based on mainly three categories: Single Input Multiple Output (SIMO), Multiple Input Single Output (MISO), and Multiple Input Multiple Output (MIMO).A sample of this report is available upon request @The two important functions of smart antennas are the estimation of Direction of arrival (DOA) and the beamforming method. Moreover, various methods used to find the DOA of a signal such as Multiple Signal Classification (MUSIC) and Estimation of Signal Parameters via Rotational Invariance Techniques (ESPRIT) require plenty of computations and algorithms. There are two types of smart antennas such as a multi-beam antenna and adaptive array antenna. In multi-beam antenna, from the numerous amounts of fixed beams, one beam will trun on or will be steered towards the wanted signal.However, in an adaptive array antenna, the pattern of the beam is possible to change according to the movement of end-user and movement of interference. Both of these types provide high efficiency and power for the desired signal. Multi-beam antennas suppress interference with the narrow beam and adaptive array antennas suppress the interference by adjusting the beam pattern.Factors Influencing Market Scenario:The increasing adoption of smart antennas in wireless communication systems leads to high deployment of these antennas in smartphones, which is boosting the growth of the global smart antenna market, since smartphones have become a feasible alternative to desktops, laptops, and personal digital assistants (PDAs). They come with various features such as voice messages, multimedia functionality, internet apps, high data processing, and inbuilt GPS capabilities. However, the high cost incurred in the deployment and maintenance of smart antennas are expected to hamper the future growth of the smart antenna market.Regional analysis:Geographically, the smart antenna market is segregated in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and LAMEA (Latin America, Middle East and Africa). The North American region is expected to show higher growth rate due to the presence of high-quality wireless communication systems and flourishing market for smartphones with prominent key players. Further, the early adoption of the latest technologies in various sectors and rapid developments have also contributed to the growth of the North America market.Check Discount of Smart Antenna Market Report @However, increasing investments in advanced technologies and initiatives such as IoT and smart cities by government firms and private major players are anticipated to boost market demand for smart antennas in Asia-Pacific countries such as China, India, Japan, and South Korea.Key Players:The major key players in smart antenna market are Airgain Inc., Broadcom Limited, Intel Corporation, Motorola Solutions, Inc., Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., Telstra, Alcatel-Lucent International Holdings Inc., Cobham Antenna Systems, ArrayComm LLC, and Texas Instruments Inc. These players are trying to recognize the needs of the market in developing countries and expanding their strategies to improve business needs.Global Smart Antenna Market Segmentation:By Type: Switched Multi-beam Antenna Adaptive Array AntennaBy Technology: SIMO (Single Input Multiple Output) MIMO (Multiple Input Multiple Output) MISO (Multiple Input Single Output)By Application: Wi-Fi systems WiMax systems Cellular systems RADAR OthersRegions Covered:North AmericaU.S.CanadaMexicoEuropeUKGermanyFranceItalySpainRest of EuropeAsia-PacificChinaIndiaJapanSouth KoreaAustraliaRest of Asia-PacificLAMEABrazilSaudi ArabiaSouth AfricaRest of LAMEAKnow More | Full Report Link @About Us:Reports Monitor is a market research and consulting company that provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. To help clients make informed business decisions, we offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a range of industries including Healthcare, Technology, Chemicals, Materials, and Energy. With an intrinsic understanding of many business environments, Reports Monitor provides strategic objective insights.We periodically update our market research studies to ensure our clients get the most recent, relevant, and valuable information. Reports Monitor has a strong base of analysts and consultants from assorted areas of expertise. Our industry experience and ability to zero-in on the crux of any challenge gives you and your organization the ability to secure a competitive advantage.Contact Us:Mr Jay MatthewsDirect: +1 513 549-5911 (U.S.)+44 203 318 2846 (U.K.)Email: sales@reportsmonitor.com
Building Management System (BMS) Market 2018 Accelerating With IBM, Honeywell, Bosch Security and Safety Systems, Oberix Group., Schneider Electric and More Forecast Analysis till 2024

Global Building Management System Market

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This report studies the global building management system market size, industry status and forecast, competition landscape and growth opportunity. This research report categorizes the global Building management system market by companies, region, type and end-use industry.Data Bridge Market Research new report Global Building Management System Market" covers the present scenario and the growth prospects of the Global Building Management System Market during the period 2017-2024. For ascertaining the market size and vendor share, segmentation, market drivers.Click Here for Free Sample Report Visit @The trends in these systems are increasing demand for energy efficient system, need of automation of security system in buildings. Moreover, IOT integration of this system will provide the more secure and remotely controlled solution. All these factor will further increase the demand for these system.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. 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., Buildingiq, Inc., Lucid, Distech Controls Inc., Gridpoint, Inc., Bosch Security, Bajaj Electricals, Jardine Engineering Corporation, MS Group, Oberix, AllGreenEcotech, Phoenix Energy Technologies among others.Request for Table of Content @Market Overview On 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.Reasons to Purchase this Report Current and future of global building management system market outlook in the developed and emerging markets The segment that is expected to dominate the market as well as the segment which holds highest CAGR in the forecast period. Regions/countries that are expected to witness the fastest growth rates during the forecast period The latest developments, market shares, and strategies that are employed by the major market playersAny specific requirements are you looking for? Ask to your Industry Experts @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:Sopan GedamData Bridge Market ResearchTel: +1-888-387-2818Email: sopan.gedam@databridgemarketresearch.com
Mammography Market - Lucrative opportunities 2025 | I.M.S. Srl, GE Healthcare

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Global Mammography Market: OverviewThe global mammography market is growing at a significant pace, owing to the increasing cancer cases worldwide. The key players in the market, government organizations, and NGOs are making notable efforts to create an awareness and offer treatment to patients, which is expected to enhance the growth of the market in the near future. Thus, the market is likely to register a strong growth rate in the forecast period.Global Mammography Market: Key TrendsThe high prevalence of breast cancer worldwide and the rising number of innovations concerning screening and diagnostics are estimated to offer lucrative opportunities for key players operating in the market. The improving healthcare facilities in the developing economies are projected to supplement the markets growth in the coming years. Furthermore, governments across the globe are making efforts to provide treatments at low cost in order to reach a large number of audience in the near future.Request Sample Copy of the Report @Global Mammography Market: Market PotentialTechnological advancements in the healthcare sector and the emergence of innovative devices and effective therapeutics are the key factors projected to fuel the growth of the global mammography market throughout the forecast period. In addition to this, the rising number of cancer cases across the globe is expected to accelerate the growth of the overall market in the near future.On the other hand, the lack of awareness among patients in several developing economies and the high cost of treatment are estimated to curb the growth of the global mammography market in the next few years. Nonetheless, the use of digital mammography devices is predicted to generate promising growth opportunities for the key players in the market.Request TOC of the Report @Global Mammography Market: Regional OutlookIn the previous years, the North America market for mammography held a major share of the global market and is estimated to retain its position over the forecast period. The rising number of breast cancer cases and the increasing women population are the key factors anticipated to encourage the development of the North America market in the coming years. In addition, the availability of advanced therapeutics and healthcare infrastructure are predicted to accelerate the markets growth in the near future.On the other hand, the development of the economy and the rising popularity of medical tourism are projected to augment the growth of the Asia Pacific market in the next few years. The increasing contribution from China and India and the rising awareness among patients are predicted to supplement the markets growth in the forecast period. Moreover, the favorable government initiatives and the enhancement of the healthcare sector are likely to contribute towards the growth of the Asia Pacific market in the near future.Read Comprehensive Overview of Report @Global Mammography Market: Competitive AnalysisThe global market is projected to grow progressive throughout the forecast period. The rising emphasis of the leading players on introducing new therapeutics and devices to offer enhanced products to patients is likely to encourage the growth of the overall market in the coming years. As a result, several new players are predicted to participate in the market in order to create a brand name across the globe.Some of the leading players operating in the mammography market across the globe are I.M.S. Srl, GE Healthcare, Hologic, Planmed Oy, Phillips Healthcare, Fujifilm, Siemens Healthcare, Mindray Medical International Limited, Toshiba Medical Systems, and Metaltronica. The research study provides a detailed overview of the competitive landscape and throws light on the key strategies and policies that have been adopted by them in order to sustain in the global market.About TMR ResearchTMR Research is a premier provider of customized market research and consulting services to business entities keen on succeeding in todays supercharged economic climate. Armed with an experienced, dedicated, and dynamic team of analysts, we are redefining the way our clients conduct business by providing them with authoritative and trusted research studies in tune with the latest methodologies and market trends.Our savvy custom-built reports span a gamut of industries such as pharmaceuticals, chemicals and metals, food and beverages, and technology and media, among others. With actionable insights uncovered through in-depth research of the market, we try to bring about game-changing success for our clients.Contact:TMR Research,3739 Balboa St # 1097,San Francisco, CA 94121United StatesTel: +1-415-520-1050Email: sales@tmrresearch.com
Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP) Market Is Booming | Honda Power, BDR Thermea, Viessmann, Yanmar Holdings

Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP) Market

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Latest research study from HTF MI with title Global Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP) by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2023. The Research report presents a complete assessment of the market and contains Future trend, Current Growth Factors, attentive opinions, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry validated market data. The study is segmented by products type, application/end-users. The research study provides estimates for Global Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP) Forecast till 2023.If you are involved in the Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP) industry or intend to be, then this study will provide you comprehensive outlook. Its vital you keep your market knowledge up to date segmented by Applications Residential & Commercial, Product Types such as [Engine & Fuel Cell] and some major players in the industry. If you have a different set of players/manufacturers according to geography or needs regional or country segmented reports we can provide customization according to your requirement.Request Sample of Global Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP) Sales Market Report 2018 @:Key Companies/players: Honda Power, BDR Thermea, Viessmann, Yanmar Holdings, Vaillant, Ener-G Cogen International, Ceres Power Holdings, Qnergy, Topsoe Fuel Cell, Whisper Tech, Dantherm Power, Solid Power & Aisin.Application: Residential & Commercial, Product Type: Engine & Fuel Cell.The research covers the current & Future market size of the Global Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP) market and its growth rates based on 5 year history data. It also covers various types of segmentation such as by geography [North America, United States, Canada, Mexico, Asia-Pacific, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Rest of Asia-Pacific, Europe, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, Russia, Rest of Europe, Central & South America, Brazil, Argentina, Rest of South America, Middle East & Africa, Saudi Arabia, Turkey & Rest of Middle East & Africa]. 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. On the basis of attributes such as company overview, recent developments, strategies adopted by the market leaders to ensure growth, sustainability, financial overview and recent developments.Stay up-to-date with Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP) market research offered by HTF MI. Check how key trends and emerging drivers are shaping this industry growth as the study avails you with market characteristics, size and growth, segmentation, regional breakdowns, competitive landscape, shares, trend and strategies for this market. In the Global Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP) Market Analysis & Forecast 2018-2023, the revenue is valued at USD XX million in 2017 and is expected to reach USD XX million by the end of 2023, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2018 and 2023. The production is estimated at XX million in 2017 and is forecasted to reach XX million by the end of 2023, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2018 and 2023.Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @Key questions answered in this report - Global Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP) Sales Market Report 2018What will the market size be in 2023 and what will the growth rate beWhat are the key market trendsWhat is driving Global Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP) Market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP) Market space?What are the key market trends impacting the growth of the Global Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP) Market ?What are the key outcomes of the five forces analysis of the Global Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP) Market?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the vendors in the Global Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP) market? Get in-depth details about factors influencing the market shares of the Americas, APAC, and EMEA?Enquire for customization in Report @There are 15 Chapters to display the Global Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP) market.Chapter 1, to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of Global Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP), Applications of Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP), 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 , Capacity and Commercial Production Date, Manufacturing Plants Distribution, Export & Import, 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 North America, United States, Canada, Mexico, Asia-Pacific, China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Indonesia, Singapore, Rest of Asia-Pacific, Europe, Germany, France, UK, Italy, Spain, Russia, Rest of Europe, Central & South America, Brazil, Argentina, Rest of South America, Middle East & Africa, Saudi Arabia, Turkey & Rest of Middle East & Africa, Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP) Segment Market Analysis (by Type);Chapter 7 and 8, to analyze the Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP) Segment Market Analysis (by Application [Residential & Commercial]) Major Manufacturers Analysis;Chapter 9, Market Trend Analysis, Regional Market Trend, Market Trend by Product Type [Engine & Fuel Cell], Market Trend by Application [Residential & Commercial];Chapter 10, Regional Marketing Type Analysis, International Trade Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis;Chapter 11, to analyze the Consumers Analysis of Global Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP) by region, type and application ;Chapter 12, to describe Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP) Research Findings and Conclusion, Appendix, methodology and data source;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Micro Combined Heat & Power (Micro CHP) sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.Buy this research report @Reasons for Buying this ReportThis report provides pin-point analysis for changing competitive dynamicsIt provides a forward looking perspective on different factors driving or restraining market growthIt provides a 5-year forecast assessed on the basis of how the market is predicted to growIt helps in understanding the key product segments and their futureIt provides pin point analysis of changing competition dynamics and keeps you ahead of competitorsIt helps in making informed business decisions by having complete insights of market and by making in-depth analysis of market segmentsThanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.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 :Craig Francis (PR & Marketing Manager)HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road Edison, NJNew Jersey USA  08837Phone: +1 (206) 317 1218sales@htfmarketreport.comConnect with us at
Global Payment Processing Software Market is expected to Grow Owing to Rise in Online Payment Processing, and Offline Payment Processing, Forecast to 2018-2023

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The testament on the Global Payment Processing Software Market is an in-depth section of work and is amassed by organizing both major as well as minor research. The data integrated in the report has been taken by mentioning superior-quality whitepapers, report descriptions, press releases, and by taking responses from top industry contestants. The top sectors in the market have been emphasized. These fragments have been reachable by giving information on their present and foreseen position by the end of the forecast horizon. These facts help the forthcoming players to gauge the speculation scope within the sections and sub-sections of the Global Payment Processing Software Market.Despite the fact that the worldwide market for Payment Processing Software is foreseen to witness a flourishing future over the imminent years, it might confront a few barricade in transit. The stringent controls overseeing the presentation and usage of inventive security frameworks and arrangements may represent a test to this market in the years to come. The expanding fear of shopper towards online installments, activated by the flood in digital assaults and cases identified with misrepresentation, is additionally anticipated to hamper the market's development over the approaching years. Notwithstanding, mechanical progressions in installment security frameworks are relied upon to lessen the effect of these elements sooner rather than later, states the examination report.This report studies the global Payment Processing Software market, analyzes and researches the Payment Processing 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, like 911 Software, Zoho, PaySimple, Zuora, Monetra, Sagepay, Active Network, Canopus EpaySuite, Stripe, Intuit, Square, Payscape, PayStand, Engaging Networks, Alternative Payments, SkyHill Software, BluePay, CoreCard, SutiSoft, Fatt Merchant, Nordex SolutionsGet Sample Copy Of this Report @The digitization crosswise over enterprises is prompting high interests in the improvement and the organization of new advances, urging them to think of specialized fitness that guarantee quick, secure, and simple money related exchange and trade of data over the Internet. As online installment is powerless to various security dangers, the requirement for Payment Processing Software is expanding always to keep the misfortunes brought about because of fakes and information breaks. Payment Processing have surfaced as the most favored method of installment for cashless exchange, which is thought about interest for Payment Processing Software in this fragment.The market report presents a study of the current status of these regional markets on the basis of various significant market verticals such as the industrial volume, the product estimating, the manufacturing volume, the dynamics of demand and supply, revenue, and the growth rate of this market in each of the regions.Having discussed the growth drivers and restraints and presented a detailed segmentation of the Payment Processing Software market, the report goes on to delve into its competitive landscape. To do so, it influences market-leading methodical tools to understand the prospects and drawbacks that is in store for the players. It also throws light on the different strategies exercised by companies in order to succeed.Market segment by Type, Payment Processing Software can be split intoOnline Payment Processing SoftwareOffline Payment Processing SoftwareMarket segment by Application, Payment Processing Software can be split intoSmall BusinessMedium BusinessLarge BusinessFor more Information:The main points which are answered and covered in this Report are-What will be the total market size in the coming years till 2023?What will be the key factors which will be overall affecting the industry?What are the various challenges addressed?Which are the major companies included?Table of Content:Global Payment Processing Software Market Research Report 2018-2023Chapter 1: Payment Processing Software Market OverviewChapter 2: Global Economic ImpactChapter 3: Competition by ManufacturerChapter 4: Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2018-2023)Chapter 5: Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2018-2023)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 (2018-2023)Chapter 13: AppendixBuyers will get up to 30% discount on this report Click Here:If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.About Research N Reports:Research N Reports helps clients harness the power of innovation to thrive on change. We have successfully guided businesses throughout the world with our market research reports. We are uniquely positioned to lead digital transformations, thus creating greater value for clients by presenting growth opportunities in the global market. Our profound experience provides a clear and confident vision to help clients navigate the future. Research N Reports techniques encompasses both qualitative and quantitative modes to provide customized and highly flexible tailored research studies so that you get information that is just the best-fit to make informed strategic organizational decisions. Research N Reports helps clients decode the future to be more successful and innovative.Contact us:(Research N Reports)10916, Gold Point Dr, Houston, TX, Pin - 77064,Sunny Denis(Sales Manager),+1-8886316977,sales@researchnreports.com
Industry Trends: Flavored Salt Market is Expected to Gain Popularity Across the Globe by 2027

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To survive in any market, product innovation is a must. But whoever thought the ubiquitous salt needed for every form of food preparation could come in different avatars other than the rock and black salt variety? Well, that is exactly what savvy market players are doing nowadays; they are making the flavored variety which has spawned a thriving market for flavored salt. This market is the topic of study of a recently published report by Transparency Market Research, titled, Flavored Salt Market - Global Industry Analysis, Size, Share, Growth, Trends, and Forecast 20172027.Garlic, butter, and onion are some of the flavors in which such kind of salts are available in the market. They find usage in improving taste and texture of food and beverages. Apart from imparting a specific taste, they also have health benefits since they have higher amount of minerals. They are easily soluble and can blend with spices and herbs with ease thereby serving to better the color and appearance of different food preparations. Owing to so many unique perceived benefits, flavored salts are seeing swift uptake.Request For Report Brochure For Latest Industry Insights @Flavored salts contains various flavors such as butter, garlic, onion, and others that helps in enhancing the flavor of various food products globally. Flavored salts are used for enhancing texture and flavors to food and beverage products. In addition, flavored salts possess better solubility along with high mineral content. Flavored salts are also blended with other types of herbs and spices in order to enhance the color and appearance of a variety of food products.Another use of the product, catalyzing growth in its market, is in preserving perishable food items for longer periods of time. Take for example canned foods  flavored salts are used in extending their shelf life. The burgeoning meat and fast food industries, alongside Italian and French cuisine making its way to every corner of the world, are playing a key role in generating demand for such products too. A noticeable trend in the market is the emergence of organic flavored salts which are seeing rising uptake among the rising tribe of discerning consumers worldwide. Going forward, astute manufacturers are expected to bet big on it alongside the emerging markets in Asia Pacific and Latin America.Having thrown light on the various growth drivers and restraints, the report goes on to segment the market based on different parameters such as distribution channel, product type, and application. Product-wise, butter, garlic, smoked, onion, celery, and truffle, among others, are key segments. Such flavored salt find application in bakery, confectionary, savory, seafood, poultry, and other products. Supermarkets, retailers, grocery stores, and others are some of the main distribution channels being leveraged by the keen players to increase their outreach among customers.Some of the prominent participants in the global market for flavored salt are SaltWorks, Vancouver Island Salt Co., Cornish Sea Salt, Morton Salt, Inc., Tata Sons Ltd., Cerebos, K+S Windsor Salt Ltd., El Nasr Salines Co., and others.Obtain Report Details @From a geographical standpoint, North America is a key market owing to the massive consumption of fast food and presence of numerous manufacturers in the region. Europe also holds a substantial share for the very same reason. Meanwhile, Asia Pacific is another upcoming market that is spelling great opportunities for companies keen to up sales because of its large population  around two thirds of the people in the world live in India and China, and increasing influence of western food habits among its people.About UsTransparency Market Research (TMR) is leader in analytics, research, and advisory services for Fortune 500 companies, scores of high potential startups, and financial institutions. Our success stories have proven why we are a preeminent provider of cutting-edge syndicated and customized research services. Leverage the best of our seasoned research analysts who hold a keen interest and enviable expertise of almost 4 million hours in global, regional, and local market intelligence.Contact UsTransparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street, Suite 700,Albany, NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Global Knee Replacement Market Effect Factors Analysis, Market Dynamics, Development Status and Outlook and Application (2018)

Knee Replacement

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Research Reports Inc introduce the Knee Replacement Market basics: definitions, classifications, applications and market overview; product specifications; manufacturing processes; cost structures, raw materials and so on. Then it analyzed the world's main region market conditions, including the product price, profit, capacity, production, supply, demand and market growth rate and forecast etc. In the end, the report introduced new project SWOT analysis, investment feasibility analysis, and investment return analysis.Get sample copy of this report @The regional analysis of Global Knee Replacement Market is considered for the key regions such as Asia Pacific, North America, Europe, Latin America and Rest of the World. North America is the leading/significant region across the world in terms of market share. Whereas, owing to the countries such as China, Japan, and India, Asia Pacific region is anticipated to exhibit higher growth rate / CAGR over the forecast period 2017-2022.The objective of the study is to define market sizes of different segments & countries in recent years and to forecast the values to the coming eight years. The report is designed to incorporate both qualitative and quantitative aspects of the industry within each of the regions and countries involved in the study.Enquire more at @Complete report on Global Knee Replacement Industry 2017 Market Research Report is spread across 162 pages and provides exclusive vital statistics, data, information, trends and landscape details in this niche sector.The report provides a basic overview of the industry including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure.The Knee Replacement Market analysis is provided for the international market including development history, Knee Replacement landscape analysis, and major regions' development status. The report focuses on Global major leading industry players with information such as company profiles, product picture and specification, capacity, production, price, cost, revenue and contact information. Upstream raw materials, equipment and downstream consumers analysis is also carried out. What's more, the Knee Replacement industry development trends and marketing channels are analyzed...Get Direct Copy of this Research Report @In a word, the report provides major statistics on the state of the industry and is a valuable source of guidance and direction for companies and individuals interested in the market.Then this Report analyzed the worlds main region market conditions, including the product price, profit, capacity, production, supply, demand and market growth rate and forecast etc. In the end, the report introduced new project SWOT analysis, investment feasibility analysis, and investment return analysisThe report includes six parts, dealing with:1.) Basic Information;2.) Asia Knee Replacement Market;3.) North American Knee Replacement Market;4.) European Knee Replacement Market;5.) Market Entry and Investment Feasibility;6.) Report Conclusion.Major points from Table of Contents for Global Knee Replacement Industry 2017 Market Research Report include:1 Industry Overview of Knee Replacement2 Global Knee Replacement Competition Analysis by Players3 Company (Top Players) Profiles4 Global Knee Replacement Market Size by Type and Application (2013-2017)5 United States Knee Replacement Development Status and Outlook6 EU Knee Replacement Development Status and Outlook7 Japan Knee Replacement Development Status and Outlook8 China Knee Replacement Development Status and Outlook9 India Knee Replacement Development Status and Outlook10 Southeast Asia Knee Replacement Development Status and Outlook11 Market Forecast by Regions, Type and Application (2017-2023)12 Knee Replacement Market Dynamics13 Market Effect Factors Analysis14 Research Finding/Conclusion15 AppendixMethodologyAnalyst IntroductionData SourceAbout Us:Research Reports Inc. is one of the leading destinations for market research reports across all industries, companies, and technologies. Our repository features an exhaustive list of market research reports from thousands of publishers worldwideContact us for your special interest needs and we will get in touch within 24hrs to help you find the market research report you need.With our expertise and research offerings, we ensure we deliver on all your requirements, whether youre looking for industry analysis or market trends or anything else, first time and every time!Email us sales@researchreportsinc.comCall: US / Canada Toll Free: +18554192424, UK : +4403308087577
Hookah Market Outlook to 2023  Al Fakher Hookahs, Starbuzz Hookahs, FUMARI, Qiuzanhooka, Ocean hookah, Mya Hookah, Evolution Hookahs, Anahi Hookahs, Regal Hookahs, Tianbao Glass, Ed Hardy Hookah

Hookah Industry

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August 2018, New York USA (News)- A hookah also known as the galyan, is a single- or multi-stemmed instrument for vaporizing and smoking flavored tobacco, or sometimes cannabis or opium, whose vapor or smoke is passed through a water basinoften glass-basedbefore inhalation. Health risks of smoking through a hookah include exposure to toxic chemicals that are not filtered out by the water and risk of infectious disease when hookahs are shared.Get Free Sample:The global market size of Hookah Market is $XX million in 2017 with XX CAGR from 2013 to 2017, and it is expected to reach $XX million by the end of 2023 with a CAGR of XX% from 2018 to 2023.There are 3 key segments covered in this report: geography segment, end use/application segment and competitor segment.Major Market Players: Al Fakher Hookahs Starbuzz Hookahs FUMARI Qiuzanhooka Ocean hookah Mya Hookah Evolution Hookahs Anahi Hookahs Regal Hookahs Tianbao Glass Ed Hardy HookahBuy Report:TABLE OF CONTENTSChapter 1 Executive SummaryChapter 2 Abbreviation and AcronymsChapter 3 Preface3.1 Research Scope3.2 Research Methodology3.2.1 Data Collection3.2.2 Data Analysis3.2.3 Data Validation3.3 Research Sources3.3.1 Primary Sources3.3.2 Secondary Sources3.3.3 AssumptionsChapter 4 Market Landscape4.1 Market Overview4.2 Classification/Types4.3 Application/End UsersChapter 5 Market Trend Analysis5.1 Introduction5.2 Drivers5.3 Restraints5.4 Opportunities5.5 ThreatsChapter 6 Industry Chain Analysis6.1 Upstream/Suppliers Analysis6.2 Hookah Analysis6.2.1 Technology Analysis6.2.2 Cost Analysis6.2.3 Market Channel Analysis6.3 Downstream Buyers/End UsersChapter 7 Latest Market Dynamics7.1 Latest News7.2 Merger and Acquisition7.3 Planned/Future Project7.4 Policy DynamicsResearch Reports Inc. is one of the leading destinations for market research reports across all industries, companies, and technologies. Our repository features an exhaustive list of market research reports from thousands of publishers worldwide.Contact Us:DavidSales Manager,US / Canada Toll Free: +18554192424UK: +4403308087577Email: sales@researchreportsinc.com
Acute Hospital Care Market Key Players 2018 - Community Health Systems LLC, Universal Health Services, Inc., Tenet Healthcare Corp., Vanguard Health System Inc., Ardent Health Services Market Analysis and Forecast 2023

Acute Hospital Care Market

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Market Research Future with their unique quality of simplifying the market research study, announces a deep study report on Acute Hospital Care Market Research Report- Global Forecast till 2023 Gives industry size, top players and worldwide demandMarket Scenario:Acute care is a branch of health care in which short-term treatment is provided to patients with medical conditions such as severe injury and recovery from surgery. Acute conditions such as asthma attack, broken bone, bronchitis, burn, common cold, flu, heart attack, pneumonia, and others require treatment in acute hospital care. Various services are included in acute hospital care such as coronary care, intensive care, neonatal intensive care, cardiology, and others. The acute care market growth is majorly attributed due to the rising incidences of trauma injury, the presence of a large base of the patient population, increasing number of hospital, unmet medical needs in emerging economies. Moreover, the geriatric population having acute diseases are projected to boost the market growth over the forecast period.Get Sample Copy @According to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, during 2011-2014, asthma prevalence was 8.8% among all adults. During this period, asthma was more common among adults with obesity (11.1%) compared with adults in normal weight (7.1%) and overweight (7.8%) people.As per reports from American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeon, broken bones are a common injury i.e an average of 6 million people in the U.S is likely to break a bone each year. Most of these broken bones heal without problems. However, about 300,000 patients are slow to heal or do not heal at all with traditional methods. Since broken bone is a common problem, it needs acute hospital care, Therefore, it is estimated to fuel the market growth during the forecast period.However, limited availability of facilities and equipment may hamper the market growth during the forecast period.The global acute hospital care market is expected to grow at a CAGR of ~7.8% during the forecast period 2017-2023.Key players for Acute Hospital Care marketSome of key the players in the market are HCA Holdings, Inc. (U.S.), Community Health Systems LLC (U.S.), Universal Health Services, Inc. (U.S.), Tenet Healthcare Corp. (U.S.), Vanguard Health System Inc. (U.S.), Ardent Health Services (U.S.), Kindred Healthcare, Inc. (U.S.), PruittHealth (U.S.), National HealthCare Corp.(U.S.), and others.SegmentationThe global acute hospital care market is segmented on the basis of medical condition and services.On the basis of the medical condition, it is segmented into emergency care, urgent care, short-term stabilization, pre-hospital care, critical care, trauma care, and acute care surgery.On the basis of the services, it is segmented into coronary care, intensive care, neonatal intensive care, cardiology, and emergency department.Regional AnalysisThe Americas dominate the global acute hospital care market owing to well-developed technology, increasing patient population, high health care spending, and increasing government support for research & development. Furthermore, increased R&D activities and the concentration of major companies have fuelled the growth of the market in this region.Europe holds the second position in the global acute hospital care market owing to the government support for research & development and availability of funds for research. This is expected to continue to drive the European market over the forecasted period. For instance, developed economies such countries such as Germany and France are increasing investment in the healthcare domain and are focusing more on hospital infrastructure.Asia Pacific is the fastest growing acute hospital care market owing to the presence of rapidly developing healthcare technology, huge patient population, and high healthcare expenditure. Moreover, increasing demand for acute hospital care in countries like India and South Korea are likely to emerge as the fastest growing market across the globe. Furthermore, increasing demand for quality devices in the healthcare is projected to lead the use of advanced equipment, which, in turn, may increase the market growth in this region.On the other hand, the Middle East & Africa holds the least share of the market owing to less availability of funds, limited medical facilities, and deprived political conditions in Africa.Apply for Exclusive Discount @Detailed Table Of Contents1 Report Prologue2 Market Introduction2.1 Definition2.2 Scope Of The Study2.2.1 Research Objective2.2.2 Assumptions2.2.3 Limitations3 Research Methodology3.1 Introduction3.2 Primary Research3.3 Secondary Research3.4 Market Size Estimation4 Market Dynamics4.1 Drivers4.2 Restrains4.3 Opportunities4.4 Challenges4.5 Macroeconomic Indicators4.6 Technology Trends & Assessment5 Market Factor Analysis5.1 Porters Five Forces Analysis5.1.1 Bargaining Power Of Suppliers5.1.2 Bargaining Power Of Buyers5.1.3 Threat Of New Entrants...ContinuedSend An Enquiry @About US:Market Research Future (MRFR), enable customers to unravel the complexity of various industries through Cooked Research Report (CRR), Half-Cooked Research Reports (HCRR), Raw Research Reports (3R), Continuous-Feed Research (CFR), and Market Research & Consulting Services.Contact Us:Market Research FutureOffice No. 528, Amanora ChambersMagarpatta Road, Hadapsar,Pune - 411028Maharashtra, IndiaPhone: +1 646 845 9312Email: sales@marketresearchfuture.com
Zeolite Molecular Sieve Market Analysis by Global Segments 2024

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Molecular sieve is a specialty material used to separate small-sized molecules from a mixture, whereas zeolite molecular sieve is a special class of molecular sieve that uses aluminosilicates as its skeletal composition. Zeolite molecular sieve has small-sized holes that block large molecules and allow small molecules to pass through it. Hence, it can be used as a desiccant. A molecular sieve can adsorb water up to 22% of its own weight. The adsorbed product remains trapped as it is able to penetrate the pore and fill the space in absence of another material. Molecular sieve can be further classified into microporous, mesoporous, and macroporous materials depending upon size of molecular sieve. Microporous materials have pore diameters less than 20 angstrom (A), the mesoporous category lies in the middle with pore diameters between 2 and 50 nanometers (nm), and macroporous materials have pore diameters greater than 500 A.Read report overview at:Zeolite molecular sieve is a microporous material where size of molecular sieve lies between 3 and 4 A. Zeolites are highly crystalline material with anionic framework. Thus, they can be used as an adsorbent for liquids and gases. Zeolite molecular sieve with a pore size of 3 A blocks molecules with size more than 3 A; hence, it can be used in diversified applications such as purification of gas streams, drying reaction starting materials, and in the chemical laboratory for separating compounds. The ratio of silica to alumina in zeolite molecular sieve is close to two, which provides it with characteristic features such as fast adsorption speed, good crushing resistance, frequent regeneration ability, and good pollution resistance. These properties help improve durability and efficiency of sieve. Zeolite molecular sieve is used in the petroleum and gas industry for selective adsorption of water from gas so that the latter can be used in applications where moisture from gas can corrode the equipment. This sieve can also be used to filter air supplied for breathing apparatus by removing particulates and compressor exhaust products from breathing air supply.Get PDF Brochure of this report at:Environmental effects of detergents can be manipulated by replacing sodium tripolyphosphate with zeolite molecular sieve. This type of zeolite molecular sieve can reduce surface tension. This, in turn, assists detergents by producing demineralized water through calcium ion exchange, thereby avoiding deposition of dirt. Zeolite molecular sieve can also be used in soil conditioning. Extensive research and development activities are being conducted to use silver zeolite as an antibacterial agent in medicines. In April 2012, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of sodium aluminosilicate for direct contact with consumable items. As a result, it is employed in personal care and pharmaceutical industries. Zeolite molecular sieves have high selectivity for ammonium ions; therefore, they are widely used to combat eutrophication and other effects in waterways. Zeolite molecular sieves have also been used to remove heavy metal ions present in water due to industrial activities.Global Zeolite Molecular Sieve Market: Regional OutlookDiversified applications of zeolite molecular sieve are likely to significantly propel its market growth during the forecast period. Raw materials required for production of zeolite molecular sieve are abundantly available in China, which makes it the leading producer of zeolite molecular sieve. Additionally, India is a frontrunner in the manufacture of zeolite molecular sieve. This country also exports zeolite to various economies. Asia Pacific accounts for major share of the zeolite molecular sieve market. The market for zeolite molecular sieve is projected to rise in regions, such as the Middle East and Africa due to increasing use of zeolite molecular sieve in petrochemical industries. High cost of zeolite molecular sieve can act as barrier for growth of the zeolite molecular sieve market.Global Zeolite Molecular Sieve Market: Key PlayersKey manufacturers of zeolite molecular sieve include Tricat Group, Luoyang Jiandong Chemical Industry Co. Ltd., Sorbead India, Pingxiang XINTAO Chemical Packing Co. Ltd, N Shashikant & Co., and Patalia Chem Industries.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.Transparency 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.TMRs data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Transparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Iso-Tridecyl Methacrylate Market Growth, Share, Demand and Analysis of Key Players to 2026

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Iso-tridecyl methacrylate is a methacrylate monomer. It is hydrophobic and mono-functional. It exhibits low glass transition temperature. Hence, it is flexible, and offers excellent plasticizing properties. Iso-tridecyl methacrylate can be used to form homopolymers and copolymers with acrylic acid and its salts, amides and esters, acrylates, acrylonitrile, unsaturated polyesters, and drying oils. It is one of the commonly used feedstock for chemical synthesis, as its addition reaction with a range of organic and inorganic compounds is easy. Iso-tridecyl methacrylate monomers are useful raw materials in the production of anaerobic adhesives, vacuum impregnation sealants, and acrylic polyols for automotive coatings.Read report overview at:The use of iso-tridecyl methacrylate monomer helps achieve low viscosity, low odor, and low shrinkage on polymerization. It also helps in imparting properties such as chemical/water resistance, impact strength, hydrophobicity, adhesion, and weatherability. Storage of iso-tridecyl methacrylate is a major concern. It needs to be stored carefully, meeting all the requirements in order to avoid its polymerization. The monomer must always be stored with a stabilizer in cold conditions, with temperature not exceeding 35C. For the stabilizer to function effectively, it must always be stored under air, and never in inert gases. The maximum duration for which iso-tridecyl methacrylate can be stored is one year. Coatings, adhesives, sealants, and polymer production are some of the common applications of iso-tridecyl methacrylate. The iso-tridecyl methacrylate market is anticipated to expand significantly in Asia Pacific in the near future. It is estimated to offer lucrative opportunities to producers of the monomer, owing to the growth of application industries such as coatings, adhesives, and sealants in the region.Request to view sample of this report at:Global Iso-Tridecyl Methacrylate Market: Key SegmentsIn terms of end-user industry, the iso-tridecyl methacrylate market can be segmented into coatings, additives, adhesives & sealants, textiles, and others. Coatings is anticipated to be one of the fastest growing end-user industry segments of the iso-tridecyl methacrylate market during the forecast period. All end-user industries of iso-tridecyl methacrylate are expanding at a steady pace. End-user industries in Asia Pacific are expanding at a fast pace due to the rapid industrialization and infrastructure development. Currently, the coatings segment holds dominant share of the iso-tridecyl methacrylate market. The segment is projected to continue its dominance during the forecast period.In terms of geography, the iso-tridecyl methacrylate market can be divided into Asia Pacific, North America, Latin America, Europe, and Middle East & Africa. Asia Pacific is anticipated to dominate the iso-tridecyl methacrylate market during the forecast period, owing to the growth in end-user industries such as coatings, adhesives & sealants, and additives in the region. China, India, and Japan are the three major countries contributing significantly to the consumption of coatings, adhesives & sealants, etc. Rapid infrastructure and industrial development in developing countries such as China and India has boosted the end-user industries. This, in turn, has propelled the demand for iso-tridecyl methacrylate in Asia Pacific. Europe and North America account for key share of the iso-tridecyl methacrylate market after Asia Pacific. The iso-tridecyl methacrylate market in Asia Pacific is likely to expand at a fast pace during the forecast periodGlobal Iso-Tridecyl Methacrylate Market: Key PlayersProminent players operating in the global iso-tridecyl methacrylate market include BASF SE, HANGZHOU DEVELY TECHNOLOGY CO.LTD., Kowa India Pvt. Ltd., and San Esters Corporation.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.Transparency 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.TMRs data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Transparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Isoprene Market by Regional Analysis, Key Players and Forecast 2024

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Isoprene with formula C5H8 is a colorless volatile liquid produced by various plants. Many trees and plants such as poplars, oaks, legumes and eucalyptus emit isoprene into the atmosphere. Isoprene is also known as 2-methyl-1, 3-butadiene which is used as a chemical raw material. It is used as a starting material for a host of synthetic polymers, especially synthetic rubbers. A very small proportion of bio-based isoprene is used in the production of fragrance intermediates and flavors. Isoprene along with other unsaturated compounds is used to manufacture polymeric materials.Read report overview at:Isoprene is produced naturally from plants through methyl-erythritol 4-phosphate pathway i.e. MEP pathway in the chloroplasts of trees and plants. One among the two end products of this pathway such as dimethylallyl diphosphate (DMADP) forms isoprene by the catalytic reaction by isoprene synthase. Through industrial process, isoprene was isolated from natural rubber by thermal decomposition. Industrially, it is readily available as a byproduct of thermal cracking of oil or naphtha as a side product in the ethylene production. Major fraction of isoprene produced worldwide is converted into polyisoprene. It is produced mainly from the petroleum derived feedstocks leading to inherent risk of volatility in prices and demand of oil. Moreover, it is expensive and environment unfriendly. These factors led to the use of bio-based products to manufacture isoprene.Get PDF Brochure of this report at:Global Bio-based Isoprene Market: Trends and OpportunitiesRising interest is seen in the production of isoprene from the genetically engineered micro-organisms. This new technology increases the fermentative capabilities of micro-organisms through a process of genetically engineering DNA. This process improves enzyme activity leading to increased yield of isoprene. This technology has huge potential in the market for manufacturing bio-based isoprene. Bio-based isoprene has applications in various end-user industries. It is used in the production of footwear, medical appliances, mechanical instruments and sporting goods. The major application of bio-based isoprene is in manufacturing rubber tires. It is also used in manufacturing various adhesives and elastomers. Surgical gloves such as nitrile, vinyl and latex gloves are also manufactured using bio-based isoprene. Transportation jets and jet fuels also make use of bio-based isoprene for its production.The growing rubber industry and demand for rubber products is the major driving factor of global bio-based isoprene market. The rising awareness for environmental friendly products is also expected to boost demand for bio-based isoprene for a host of applications.Global Bio-based Isoprene Market: Regional OutlookNorth America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Rest of the World (RoW) are the key segments for global bio-based isoprene market. Asia Pacific, especially China and Latin America is the expected to fuel demand for bio-based isoprene due to large number of rubber industries in the region. North America and Europe are also expected to boost demand for bio-based isoprene for various applications such as adhesives and elastomers among others.Global Bio-based Isoprene Market: Key Players Mentioned in the ReportThe major companies profiled for global bio-based isoprene include: DuPont, Amyris, Good year Tire and Rubber Company, Genencor, Michelin, BioXcell, Ajinomoto Co. Inc, Bridgestone Corporation, PolymerOhio Inc, GlycosBio and Danisco among others. Companies into manufacture of bio-based isoprene have altered various enzymes in the biosynthetic pathway to enhance both the yield of isoprene and the rate of production. Technological advancements along with changes in the enzymatic pathways have improved the quantity and efficiency of isoprene and have reduced the production of by-products DuPont developed an innovative fermentation process for producing bio-based isoprene monomers from biomass using metabolically engineered E. coli strains.The report offers a comprehensive evaluation of the market. It does so via in-depth qualitative insights, historical data, and verifiable projections about market size. The projections featured in the report have been derived using proven research methodologies and assumptions. By doing so, the research report serves as a repository of analysis and information for every facet of the market, including but not limited to: Regional markets, technology, types, and applications.Transparency 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.TMRs data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Transparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Smart Glass Market Competitive Strategies - 2024

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The global smart glass market has been prognosticated in a report by Transparency Market Research (TMR) to bear a consolidated characteristic for its vendor landscape owing to the presence of a handful of companies operating therein. Some of the leading players of the market are Guardian Industries, DuPont, Saint-Gobain, and Asahi Glass Co. In the recent past, these players had showcased their dominance in the market by securing a handsome share. As predicted in the report, the competition in the market could escalate during the course of the forecast tenure as participants engage in strategic alliances, mergers, and acquisitions.Read Report Overview @TMR has foretold the global smart glass market to expand at a 14.50% CAGR between 2016 and 2024 to reach to a US$7.04 bn growth by the completion of the forecast tenure. By end user, the market could honor the transportation industry as a leading segment owing to its larger share. On the basis of region, North America has been foreseen to account for a staggering share in the coming years.Promotion of Green Buildings to Conserve Energy Increases Demandsmart glass marketThere has been a substantial increase in the demand for sustainable energy these days due to significant depletion of energy sources. This has compelled government bodies to take initiatives and implement regulations to curb the consumption of energy. In several developed nations, governments have been taking powerful initiatives to conserve energy, including the promotion of building green structures. The demand for smart glass could surge expansively in the foreseeable future on account of growing awareness about its important role in saving energy that is required for lighting, cooling, and heating purposes in green buildings.The demand for smart glass has been projected to stay strong in the transportation industry because of growing application in the manufacture of mirrors, rear and side windows, sunroofs, and sun visors for premium automobiles. Rising applications in the automotive and aviation industries could also help the world smart glass market to increase growth in the near future.Cheap Alternatives and Extortionate Price of Smart Glass Discourage AdoptionEasy availability of economical substitutes and expensive price of smart glass have been anticipated to hamper market growth during the forecast tenure. However, the international smart glass market could make a comeback on the back of increasing promotion of green buildings. Furthermore, rising significance of solar energy and other forms of renewable energy sources could support the growth of the market in North America. The swelling adoption of solar energy in the region has been expected to work in the favor of the market as smart glass is studied to find a vital application for generating solar energy.Request to view Sample Report:Stringent regulations and policies set up by governments around the globe to reduce the consumption of energy have been envisaged to promise the birth of lucrative opportunities for growth in the international smart glass market. The increasing requirement of solar panels in various industries such as solar energy generation, consumer electronics, transportation, and construction and housing could also augur well for market growth in the coming years.Transparency 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.TMRs data repository is continuously updated and revised by a team of research experts so that it always reflects the latest trends and information. With extensive research and analysis capabilities, Transparency Market Research employs rigorous primary and secondary research techniques to develop distinctive data sets and research material for business reports.Transparency Market ResearchState Tower,90 State Street,Suite 700,Albany NY - 12207United StatesTel: +1-518-618-1030USA - Canada Toll Free: 866-552-3453Email: sales@transparencymarketresearch.comWebsite:
Anti-block Additives Market- increasing demand with Industry Professionals Imerys, Minerals Technologies, W. R. Grace, Ampacet

Anti-block Additives Market

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Latest research study from HTF MI with title Global Anti-block Additives by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2023. The Research report presents a complete assessment of the market and contains Future trend, Current Growth Factors, attentive opinions, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry validated market data. The study is segmented by products type, application/end-users. The research study provides estimates for Global Anti-block Additives Forecast till 2023.If you are involved in the Anti-block Additives industry or intend to be, then this study will provide you comprehensive outlook. Its vital you keep your market knowledge up to date segmented by Applications Food, Medicine, Chemical & Other, Product Types such as [Food Grade & Chemical Level] and some major players in the industry. If you have a different set of players/manufacturers according to geography or needs regional or country segmented reports we can provide customization according to your requirement.Request Sample of Global Anti-block Additives Market Insights, Forecast to 2025 @:Key Companies/players: A.Schulman, Honeywell International, Imerys, Minerals Technologies, W. R. Grace & Co, Ampacet, Bayshore Industrial, BYK Additives & Instruments, Croda International, Elementis, Evonik, Hoffmann Mineral, J.M. Huber, Polytechs, Momentive, Omya, Quarzwerke Group, Shamrock Technologies, Sukano & Unimin.Application: Food, Medicine, Chemical & Other, Product Type: Food Grade & Chemical Level.The research covers the current & Future market size of the Global Anti-block Additives market and its growth rates based on 5 year history data. It also covers various types of segmentation such as by geography [United States, Europe, China, Japan & Other Regions]. 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. On the basis of attributes such as company overview, recent developments, strategies adopted by the market leaders to ensure growth, sustainability, financial overview and recent developments.Stay up-to-date with Anti-block Additives market research offered by HTF MI. Check how key trends and emerging drivers are shaping this industry growth as the study avails you with market characteristics, size and growth, segmentation, regional breakdowns, competitive landscape, shares, trend and strategies for this market. In the Global Anti-block Additives Market Analysis & Forecast 2018-2023, the revenue is valued at USD XX million in 2017 and is expected to reach USD XX million by the end of 2023, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2018 and 2023. The production is estimated at XX million in 2017 and is forecasted to reach XX million by the end of 2023, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2018 and 2023.Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @Key questions answered in this report - Global Anti-block Additives Market Insights, Forecast to 2025What will the market size be in 2023 and what will the growth rate beWhat are the key market trendsWhat is driving Global Anti-block Additives Market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in Anti-block Additives Market space?What are the key market trends impacting the growth of the Global Anti-block Additives Market ?What are the key outcomes of the five forces analysis of the Global Anti-block Additives Market?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the vendors in the Global Anti-block Additives market? Get in-depth details about factors influencing the market shares of the Americas, APAC, and EMEA?Enquire for customization in Report @There are 15 Chapters to display the Global Anti-block Additives market.Chapter 1, to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of Global Anti-block Additives, Applications of Anti-block Additives, 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 , Capacity and Commercial Production Date, Manufacturing Plants Distribution, Export & Import, 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 United States, Europe, China, Japan & Other Regions, Anti-block Additives Segment Market Analysis (by Type);Chapter 7 and 8, to analyze the Anti-block Additives Segment Market Analysis (by Application [Food, Medicine, Chemical & Other]) Major Manufacturers Analysis;Chapter 9, Market Trend Analysis, Regional Market Trend, Market Trend by Product Type [Food Grade & Chemical Level], Market Trend by Application [Food, Medicine, Chemical & Other];Chapter 10, Regional Marketing Type Analysis, International Trade Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis;Chapter 11, to analyze the Consumers Analysis of Global Anti-block Additives by region, type and application ;Chapter 12, to describe Anti-block Additives Research Findings and Conclusion, Appendix, methodology and data source;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Anti-block Additives sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.Buy this research report @Reasons for Buying this ReportThis report provides pin-point analysis for changing competitive dynamicsIt provides a forward looking perspective on different factors driving or restraining market growthIt provides a 5-year forecast assessed on the basis of how the market is predicted to growIt helps in understanding the key product segments and their futureIt provides pin point analysis of changing competition dynamics and keeps you ahead of competitorsIt helps in making informed business decisions by having complete insights of market and by making in-depth analysis of market segmentsThanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.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 :Craig Francis (PR & Marketing Manager)HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road Edison, NJNew Jersey USA  08837Phone: +1 (206) 317 1218sales@htfmarketreport.comConnect with us at
Global Blockchain Technology Market: Future Demand and Growth Analysis 2023

Blockchain Technology Market report

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UpMarketResearch offers a latest published report on Global Block chain Technology Market Industry Analysis and Forecast 2018-2023 delivering key insights and providing a competitive advantage to clients through a detailed report. The report contains 138 pages which highly exhibits on current market analysis scenario, upcoming as well as future opportunities, revenue growth, pricing and profitability.The report begins with the overview of the Block chain Technology market and updates the users about the latest developments and future expectations. It presents a comparative detailed analysis of all the regional and major player segments, offering readers a better knowledge of areas in which they can place their existing resources and gauging the priority of a particular region in order to boost their standing in the global market.Block chain Technology market research report delivers a close watch on leading competitors with strategic analysis, micro and macro market trend and scenarios, pricing analysis and a holistic overview of the market situations in the forecast period. It is a professional and a detailed report focusing on primary and secondary drivers, market share, leading segments and geographical analysis. Further, key players, major collaborations, merger & acquisitions along with trending innovation and business policies are reviewed in the report. The report contains basic, secondary and advanced information pertaining to the Block chain Technology global status and trend, market size, share, growth, trends analysis, segment and forecasts from 2018 - 2023.The scope of the report extends from market scenarios to comparative pricing between major players, cost and profit of the specified market regions. The numerical data is backed up by statistical tools such as SWOT analysis, BCG matrix, SCOT analysis, PESTLE analysis and so on. The statistics are represented in graphical format for a clear understanding on facts and figures.The generated report is firmly based on primary research, interviews with top executives, news sources and information insiders. Secondary research techniques are implemented for better understanding and clarity for data analysis.Get Sample Report@ https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/requested_sample/3106The report for Block chain Technology market industry analysis & forecast 2018-2023 is segmented into Product Segment, Application Segment & Major players.Region-wise Analysis Global Block chain Technology Market covers: North America Europe China Japan Southeast Asia IndiaThe Report covers in-depth analysis as follows: Chapter 1 Block chain Technology Market Overview Chapter 2 Global Economic Impact on Block chain Technology Industry Chapter 3 Global Block chain Technology Market Competition by Manufacturers Chapter 4 Global Block chain Technology Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2013-2018) Chapter 5 Global Block chain Technology Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2013-2018) Chapter 6 Global Block chain Technology Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type Chapter 7 Global Block chain Technology Market Analysis by Application Chapter 8 Global Block chain Technology Manufacturers Analysis Chapter 9 Block chain Technology Manufacturing Cost Analysis Chapter 10 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers Chapter 11 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders Chapter 12 Market Effect Factors Analysis Chapter 13 Global Block chain Technology Market Forecast (2018-2023)Buy this report@https://www.upmarketresearch.com/buy/Blockchain-Global-Market-Status-and-Trend-Report-2013-2023Global Block chain Technology Market Industry Analysis and Forecast 2018-2023 report helps the clients to take business decisions and to understand strategies of major players in the industry. The report also calls for market-driven results deriving feasibility studies for client needs. UpMarketResearch ensures qualified and verifiable aspects of market data operating in the real-time scenario. The analytical studies are conducted ensuring client needs with a thorough understanding of market capacities in the real-time scenario.Key Reasons to Purchase: To gain insightful analyses of the market and have a comprehensive understanding of the Global Block chain Technology Market Industry Analysis and Forecast 2018-2023 and its commercial landscape Learn about the market strategies that are being adopted by your competitors and leading organizations To understand the future outlook and prospects for Block chain Technology market industry analysis and forecast 2018-2023.For more information@ https://www.upmarketresearch.com/home/enquiry_before_buying/3106Customization of the Report:UpMarketResearch provides free customization of reports as per your need. This report can be personalized to meet your requirements. Get in touch with our sales team, who will guarantee you to get a report that suits your necessities.About UpMarketResearch:UpMarketResearch () is a leading distributor of market research report with more than 800+ global clients. As a market research company, we take pride in equipping our clients with insights and data that holds the power to truly make a difference to their business. Our mission is singular and well-defined  we want to help our clients envisage their business environment so that they are able to make informed, strategic and therefore successful decisions for themselves.Contact Info:Name: Alex MathewsEmail: Alex@upmarketresearch.comOrganization: UpMarketResearchAddress: 500 East E Street, Ontario, CA 91764, United States
Evaluation Boards Market to Witness Huge Growth by 2023 | Leading Key Players Silicon Labs, Atmel Corporation, Microchip Technology

Evaluation Boards Market

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Latest research study from HTF MI with title Global Evaluation Boards by Manufacturers, Regions, Type and Application, Forecast to 2023. The Research report presents a complete assessment of the market and contains Future trend, Current Growth Factors, attentive opinions, facts, historical data, and statistically supported and industry validated market data. The study is segmented by products type, application/end-users. The research study provides estimates for Global Evaluation Boards Forecast till 2023.If you are involved in the Evaluation Boards industry or intend to be, then this study will provide you comprehensive outlook. Its vital you keep your market knowledge up to date segmented by Applications Consumer Electronics, Automotive, Aerospace & Defense, Power Industry & Other, Product Types such as [Evaluation Board (Below $400) & Evaluation Board (over $400)] and some major players in the industry. If you have a different set of players/manufacturers according to geography or needs regional or country segmented reports we can provide customization according to your requirement.Request Sample of Global Evaluation Boards Market Size, Status and Forecast 2025 @:Key Companies/players: Keil, Diolan, NXP, TI, XILINX, ST, Silicon Labs, Atmel Corporation, Microchip Technology Inc., Red Pitaya & Boundary Devices.Application: Consumer Electronics, Automotive, Aerospace & Defense, Power Industry & Other, Product Type: Evaluation Board (Below $400) & Evaluation Board (over $400).The research covers the current & Future market size of the Global Evaluation Boards market and its growth rates based on 5 year history data. It also covers various types of segmentation such as by geography [United States, EU, Japan, China, India & Southeast Asia]. 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. On the basis of attributes such as company overview, recent developments, strategies adopted by the market leaders to ensure growth, sustainability, financial overview and recent developments.Stay up-to-date with Evaluation Boards market research offered by HTF MI. Check how key trends and emerging drivers are shaping this industry growth as the study avails you with market characteristics, size and growth, segmentation, regional breakdowns, competitive landscape, shares, trend and strategies for this market. In the Global Evaluation Boards Market Analysis & Forecast 2018-2023, the revenue is valued at USD XX million in 2017 and is expected to reach USD XX million by the end of 2023, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2018 and 2023. The production is estimated at XX million in 2017 and is forecasted to reach XX million by the end of 2023, growing at a CAGR of XX% between 2018 and 2023.Read Detailed Index of full Research Study at @Key questions answered in this report - Global Evaluation Boards Market Size, Status and Forecast 2025What will the market size be in 2023 and what will the growth rate beWhat are the key market trendsWhat is driving Global Evaluation Boards Market?What are the challenges to market growth?Who are the key vendors in Evaluation Boards Market space?What are the key market trends impacting the growth of the Global Evaluation Boards Market ?What are the key outcomes of the five forces analysis of the Global Evaluation Boards Market?What are the market opportunities and threats faced by the vendors in the Global Evaluation Boards market? Get in-depth details about factors influencing the market shares of the Americas, APAC, and EMEA?Enquire for customization in Report @There are 15 Chapters to display the Global Evaluation Boards market.Chapter 1, to describe Definition, Specifications and Classification of Global Evaluation Boards, Applications of Evaluation Boards, 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 , Capacity and Commercial Production Date, Manufacturing Plants Distribution, Export & Import, 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 United States, EU, Japan, China, India & Southeast Asia, Evaluation Boards Segment Market Analysis (by Type);Chapter 7 and 8, to analyze the Evaluation Boards Segment Market Analysis (by Application [Consumer Electronics, Automotive, Aerospace & Defense, Power Industry & Other]) Major Manufacturers Analysis;Chapter 9, Market Trend Analysis, Regional Market Trend, Market Trend by Product Type [Evaluation Board (Below $400) & Evaluation Board (over $400)], Market Trend by Application [Consumer Electronics, Automotive, Aerospace & Defense, Power Industry & Other];Chapter 10, Regional Marketing Type Analysis, International Trade Type Analysis, Supply Chain Analysis;Chapter 11, to analyze the Consumers Analysis of Global Evaluation Boards by region, type and application ;Chapter 12, to describe Evaluation Boards Research Findings and Conclusion, Appendix, methodology and data source;Chapter 13, 14 and 15, to describe Evaluation Boards sales channel, distributors, traders, dealers, Research Findings and Conclusion, appendix and data source.Buy this research report @Reasons for Buying this ReportThis report provides pin-point analysis for changing competitive dynamicsIt provides a forward looking perspective on different factors driving or restraining market growthIt provides a 5-year forecast assessed on the basis of how the market is predicted to growIt helps in understanding the key product segments and their futureIt provides pin point analysis of changing competition dynamics and keeps you ahead of competitorsIt helps in making informed business decisions by having complete insights of market and by making in-depth analysis of market segmentsThanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like North America, Europe or Asia.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 :Craig Francis (PR & Marketing Manager)HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road Edison, NJNew Jersey USA  08837Phone: +1 (206) 317 1218sales@htfmarketreport.comConnect with us at
As the product of a military family, Im perennially disgusted by politicians who wrap themselves in the American flag while weakening the basic freedoms American soldiers have fought and died for. If they truly respect the spirit of our democracy, they should oppose any policy whose true purpose is to undermine it. That includes gerrymandering by either party, and voter ID laws supposedly created to combat voter fraud (a problem thats been proven not to exist), while making it harder for low-income and minority citizens to vote.

That also includes state laws that permanently strip felons of their right to vote, even after theyve served their time. These laws are not the norm in the United States. They are a product of the Jim Crow South and are still seen primarily in the South. Along with draconian sentences for relatively small, nonviolent crimes, these laws have had the intended effect of reducing the power of black people as a voting bloc. In four southern states, including Tennessee, one in five African Americans cant vote. Of course, the legal system is harsh on poor people of all races. In Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Tennessee and Virginia, more than seven percent of adults are disenfranchised.

To live up to the spirit of American democracy, we must elect leaders who are driven by a sense of fairness and who are not financed by industries that profit from an unfair system. Congressman Chuck Fleischmann, for example, is one of the top-20 recipients of political donations from for-profit prisons, according to the Open Secrets website. Fortunately, we in the 3rd District have an excellent alternative in Dr. Danielle Mitchell, whos running against Fleischmann in November. She wont accept corporate PAC money. Her only special interest is people, and protecting the freedoms our flag represents.

Allison Gorman

* * *

Its funny that you mention being wrapped up in a flag. Like you, I grew up in a military family. So I found it especially disturbing when your beloved Dr. Mitchell was wearing a flag like it was some prop at an event a few months back. But I do understand that we all have different opinions.

Looking at your article, it seemed to be heartfelt. Unfortunately none of your hopes and dreams will come to fruition, sorry to have to be the one to break it to you. Heres the facts, as one of President Trumps most loyal supporters in Congress, Chuck Fleischmann will win re-election.

I find life is all about expectations, so hopefully itll help ease what may or may not be a potential case of Trump Derangement Syndrome.

Hope this helps,

James Berry

* * *

Mr. James Berry,

Nowhere in her opinion letter did Allison Gorman mention the President. If you will please re-read her letter that you have responded to, you will see that she is discussing her concerns about political gerrymandering and campaign financing. To accuse her of having "Trump Derangement Syndrome" is completely unwarranted.

Perhaps it is you sir, who is suffering from this "Trump Derangement Syndrome." Mrs. Gorman made a perfectly calm and valid statement of her political opinion regarding a local election. That you interpret her argument as some sort of criticism of the President speaks only to your own state of mind.

Nolan Crenshaw
Process Analyzer Market: Global Industry Top Key Players: ABB, Emerson, Yokogawa, Endress+Hauser Group, Mettler-Toledo International, Inc and SICK

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The upcoming market report contains data for historic year 2015, the base year of calculation is 2016 and the forecast period is 2017 to 2026. The report analyzes and presents an overview of Process Analyzer - Global Market Outlook (2017-2026)' is a professional analysis, drivers, constraints, opportunities, threats, challenges, investment opportunities, and recommendations and in-depth research & with a focus on the current state of the global industry.Global Process Analyzer market is accounted for $6.68 billion in 2017 and is expected to reach $16.55 billion by 2026 growing at a CAGR of 10.6 % during the forecast period.Process Analyzer industry increasing usage in waste water treatment, rapid industrialization in emerging nations, growth in U.S shale gas production, huge competition among organizations for producing better quality products are some of the major driving factors of the market growth. However, decrease in oil prices and high expenditures for the infrastructure are the factors restricting the growth.Request Free Sample Copy of the Report @The global process analyzer market is highly fragmented and the major players have used various strategies such as new product launches, expansions, agreements, joint ventures, partnerships, acquisitions, and others to increase their footprints in this market. The report includes market shares of Process Analyzer market for global, North America, Asia Pacific, South America and Middle East & Africa.SOME OF THE KEY PLAYERS IN GLOBAL PROCESS ANALYZER MARKET INCLUDE Applied Instrument Technologies, Inc ABB Ltd AMETEK, Inc Endress+Hauser AG GE Analytical Instruments Hach Lange GmbH Honeywell International, Inc Mettler-Toledo International Inc Modcon Systems Ltd SICK AG Teledyne Technologies, Inc. The Emerson Electric Company Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc Yokogawa Electric Corp INFICON, Inc Applied Analytics, IncBrowse Full Report with TOC @Process analyzer is an instrumental device used for monitoring the chemical and physical properties of substance such as gas and liquid content during the manufacturing process. It helps in enhancing the production and improving the overall efficiency by providing accurate analysis value and intelligence.On the basis of end user industry, oil and gas segment is projected to be the largest market share due to the increase in demand of oil industries and intense competition between international and local vendors. In terms of form factor, standard process analyzers is the bench topper among other forms with the highest market share due to growing demand for organic materials to curb production expenses ,low maintenance cost and easy operation facilities.Services Covered: Post-Sale Services Pre-Sale ServicesForm Factors Covered: Rackmount Portable StandardRange of Instruments Covered: On-line process analyzers In-line process analyzers At-line process analyzersApplications Covered: Liquid GasEnd Users Covered: Food & Beverages Metal & Mining Oil & Gas Petrochemical Pharmaceutical Power Generation Pulp & Paper Semiconductor Processing Water & Wastewater Other End UsersNorth America is dominant and expected to hold largest market share due to rising demand for processed food and beverages industry. Asia Pacific is witnessed to be the fastest market during the forecast period due to the increasing investments from the governments of China and India for establishing drinking water facilities.Place a Purchase Order for Process Analyzer Market@Note: Any special requirements about this report, please let us know and we can provide custom report.About Research for Markets:Research for Markets indulges in detailed and diligent research on different markets, trends and emerging opportunities in the successive direction to cater to your business needs. We have established the pillars of our flourishing institute on the grounds of Credibility and Reliability. RFM delve into the markets across Asia Pacific, North America, South America, Europe, Middle East and Africa.Contact:Mr. A NaiduResearch for MarketsTel: +44 8000-4182-37 (UK)Email: alan.naidu@researchformarkets.com
School Accounting Software Market to Witness Huge Growth by 2025: Key Players - Zoho, SlickPie, RenWeb, FlexiSAF Edusoft, Skyward

School Accounting Software Market

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HTF MI recently introduced Global School Accounting Software Market study with in-depth overview, describing about the Product / Industry Scope and elaborates market outlook and status to 2025. The market Study is segmented by key regions which is accelerating the marketization. At present, the market is developing its presence and some of the key players from the complete study are Zoho, SlickPie, RenWeb, FlexiSAF Edusoft, Skyward, TES Software, TADS, Foradian Technologies, Veracross & ACS Technologies etc.Request Sample of Global School Accounting Software Market Size, Status and Forecast 2025 @:This report studies the Global School Accounting Software market size, industry status and forecast, competition landscape and growth opportunity. This research report categorizes the Global School Accounting Software market by companies, region, type and end-use industry.Browse 100+ market data Tables and Figures spread through Pages and in-depth TOC on " School Accounting Software Market by Type (Type I & Type II), by End-Users/Application (PC Terminal & Mobile Terminal), Organization Size, Industry, and Region - Forecast to 2023". Early buyers will receive 10% customization on comprehensive study.In order to get a deeper view of Market Size, competitive landscape is provided i.e. Revenue (Million USD) by Players (2013-2018), Revenue Market Share (%) by Players (2013-2018) and further a qualitative analysis is made towards market concentration rate, product/service differences, new entrants and the technological trends in future.Enquire for customization in Report @Competitive Analysis:The key players are highly focusing innovation in production technologies to improve efficiency and shelf life. The best long-term growth opportunities for this sector can be captured by ensuring ongoing process improvements and financial flexibility to invest in the optimal strategies. Company profile section of players such as Zoho, SlickPie, RenWeb, FlexiSAF Edusoft, Skyward, TES Software, TADS, Foradian Technologies, Veracross & ACS Technologies includes its basic information like legal name, website, headquarters, its market position, historical background and top 5 closest competitors by Market capitalization / revenue along with contact information. Each player/ manufacturer revenue figures, growth rate and gross profit margin is provided in easy to understand tabular format for past 5 years and a separate section on recent development like mergers, acquisition or any new product/service launch etc.Market Segments:The Global School Accounting Software Market has been divided into type, application, and region.On The Basis Of Type: Type I & Type II.On The Basis Of Application: PC Terminal & Mobile TerminalOn The Basis Of Region, this report is segmented into following key geographies, with production, consumption, revenue (million USD), and market share, growth rate of School Accounting Software in these regions, from 2013 to 2023 (forecast), covering North America (U.S. & Canada) {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Analysis (%) and Opportunity Analysis} Latin America (Brazil, Mexico & Rest of Latin America) {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Share (%) and Opportunity Analysis} Europe (The U.K., Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Sweden & RoE) {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Share (%) and Opportunity Analysis} Asia-Pacific (China, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Rest of Asia) {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Share (%) and Opportunity Analysis} Middle East & Africa (GCC, South Africa, North Africa, RoMEA) {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Share (%) and Opportunity Analysis} Rest of World {Market Revenue (USD Billion), Growth Analysis (%) and Opportunity Analysis}Buy Single User License of Global School Accounting Software Market Size, Status and Forecast 2025 @Have a look at some extracts from Table of ContentIntroduction about Global School Accounting SoftwareGlobal School Accounting Software Market Size (Sales) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 2017School Accounting Software Market by Application/End UsersGlobal School Accounting Software Sales (Volume) and Market Share Comparison by Applications(2013-2023) table defined for each application/end-users like [PC Terminal & Mobile Terminal]Global School Accounting Software Sales and Growth Rate (2013-2023)School Accounting Software Competition by Players/Suppliers, Region, Type and ApplicationSchool Accounting Software (Volume, Value and Sales Price) table defined for each geographic region defined.Global School Accounting Software Players/Suppliers Profiles and Sales DataAdditionally Company Basic Information, Manufacturing Base and Competitors list is being provided for each listed manufacturersMarket Sales, Revenue, Price and Gross Margin (2013-2018) table for each product type which include Type I & Type IISchool Accounting Software Manufacturing Cost AnalysisSchool Accounting Software Key Raw Materials AnalysisSchool Accounting Software Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers, Industrial Chain AnalysisMarket Forecast (2018-2023)........and more in complete table of ContentsBrowse for Full Report at: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 :Craig Francis (PR & Marketing Manager)HTF Market Intelligence Consulting Private LimitedUnit No. 429, Parsonage Road Edison, NJNew Jersey USA  08837Phone: +1 (206) 317 1218sales@htfmarketreport.comConnect with us at
Legal Cannabis Market by 2025: Top Players Covered Like Aurora Cannabis, Canopy Growth Corporation, Bhang Corporation, Cannoid, Elixinol, Medical Marijuana, Mentor Capital, CBD American Shaman and More

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The Legal Cannabis Market report includes details analysis of market segments, sub-segments, market dynamics, feasibility study, key strategies used by leading players, cost structures and growth prospects of the industry. The report also evaluates the growth established by the market during the forecast period.Legal Cannabis Market Status and Outlook 2018-2025The Legal Cannabis market report is a complete an in-depth analysis of the current state of global and regional Legal Cannabis markets including definitions, classifications, applications and industry chain structure. The research provides an informative and statistically evaluated data about the Legal Cannabis industry. It presents a detailed study of the Legal Cannabis market, enlightening the major areas such as future market scenario, growth factors, market segmentation, industry challenges and forecasts. Then, the market study sheds light on the various market opportunities, tie-ups, acquisition, innovative business approach, new launches, revenue and global trends as well as the report describes the drivers and restraints for the Legal Cannabis market along with the impact they have on the demand over the forecast period. In addition to this, the industry growth in distinct regions and R&D status are enclosed within the report.REQUEST A FREE SAMPLE @The report includes details analysis of market segments, sub-segments, market dynamics, feasibility study, key strategies used by leading players, cost structures and growth prospects of the industry. The report also evaluates the growth established by the market during the forecast period.This report surveys Legal Cannabis in worldwide market with income, production, sales, usage, market share, import & export, and growth rate in the forecast period 20182025. the worldwide Legal Cannabis market is split based on applications, product type, key players, end user, and geological areas. This primary information offers major individuals and executives a particular image of general global Legal Cannabis market. in addition to this, it also offers forthcoming market movement, major challenges, and opportunities within the Legal Cannabis market.Geographically, this report is segmented into several key regions, with sales, revenue, market share (%) and growth rate (%) of Legal Cannabis in these regions, from 2018 to 2025 (forecast), covering North America, South America, Asia-Pacific, Europe, Middle East and Africa.This report focuses on the global top players, covered, Aurora Cannabis, Canopy Growth Corporation, Bhang Corporation, Cannoid, Elixinol, Medical Marijuana, Mentor Capital, CBD American Shaman, CV Sciences, FOLIUM BIOSCIENCES, IRIE CBD, Meadow Care, Pharmahemp, Terra Tech, NuLeaf Naturals, United Cannabis.Market segment by Type, the product can be split into, Cannabis Concentrates, Cannabis Infused Foods, Cannabis Seeds, Others.Market segment by Application, split into, Medicinal Use, Recreational Use.CHECK DISCOUNT FOR THIS REPORT @The report covers the precisely studied and evaluated data of the global market players and their scope in the market using a number of analytical tools. The analytical tools such as investment return analysis, SWOT analysis and feasibility study are used to analyze the key global market players growth in the Legal Cannabis industryEach analysis is based on highly researched sources of information, and is combined with Competitor analysis, R&D funding comparisons, Competitor business strategies, SWOT analysis, Individual company reviews, High impact tables and figures.Some points from TOC:1.Global Legal Cannabis Market Size (Sales Volume) Comparison by Type2.Global Legal Cannabis Market Size (Sales Volume) Market Share by Type (Product Category) in 20183.Global Legal Cannabis Market Size (Value) Comparison by Region4.Global Legal Cannabis Market Competition by Players/Suppliers5.Global Legal Cannabis Sales (Volume) and Revenue (Value) by Type (Product Category)6.Global Legal Cannabis Players/Suppliers Profiles and Sales Data.ContinuedBrowse full Report Description and TOC @The report answers several questions about the Legal Cannabis market. These questions include:What will be the market size and the growth rate by the end of the forecast period?What are the key factors driving the growth of the global Legal Cannabis market?What are the key market trends impacting the growth of the market?What are the challenges to the market growth?Who are the leading competitors operating in the global Legal Cannabis market?What are the latest products launched by the leading competitors in the market?What are the potential growth opportunities and threats faced by the leading competitors in the market?What are the key outcomes of Porters five forces analysis and the SWOT analysis of the key players functioning in the global Legal Cannabis market?In the end, the report covers segment data, including industry segment, type segment, channel segment etc. as well as cover different segment market size, both volume and value. Also cover different industries clients information, which is very important for the manufacturers. If you need more information, please contact Reports Monitor.TO BUY THIS REPORT @The report is built with the in-depth secondary research, understanding the market access aspects across the different countries.Thanks for reading this article; you can also get individual chapter wise section or region wise report version like Asia, United States, Europe.About UsReports Monitor is a market research and consulting company that provides syndicated research reports, customized research reports, and consulting services. To help clients make informed business decisions, we offer market intelligence studies ensuring relevant and fact-based research across a range of industries including Healthcare, Technology, Chemicals, Materials, and Energy. With an intrinsic understanding of many business environments, Reports Monitor provides strategic objective insights.Contact Us- Office C & D - 4th Floor, Siddhi Towers, NIBM Road, Pune 411048, Maharashtra, India
Elderly Care Market Analysis Report By Key Players Right at Home, LLC., Philips Benelux, Extendicare Inc., Amedisys, Brookdale, Almost Family, Inc., BAYADA Home Health Care - Global Forecast 2018-2025

Elderly Care Market

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Global Elderly Care Market is expected to reach USD 1,692,117.41 million by 2025 from USD 1,032,102.99 million in 2017, at a CAGR of 6.4% in the forecast period 2018 to 2025. The new market report contains data for historic years 2016, the base year of calculation is 2017 and the forecast period is 2018 to 2025.Asia-Pacific Elderly Care Market is estimated to grow with the highest CAGR in the forecast period 2018 to 2025. The new market report contains data for historic years 2016, the base year of calculation is 2017 and the forecast period is 2018 to 2025.Europe Elderly Care Market is expected to grow at a lucrative rate of CAGR in the assessment period. The new market report contains data for historic years 2016, the base year of calculation is 2017 and the forecast period is 2018 to 2025.North America Elderly Care Market is expected to hold the leading market share in the forecast period of 2018 to 2025. The new market report contains data for historic years 2016, the base year of calculation is 2017 and the forecast period is 2018 to 2025.For In depth Information Get Free Sample Copy of this Report @Complete report on Global Elderly Care Market Research Report 2018-2025 spread across 294 Pages, profiling Top companies and supports with tables and figuresGlobal Elderly Care Market, By Product Type (Pharmaceuticals, Housing and Assistive Devices), Service (Institutional Care, Homecare, Adult Day Care), Application (Heart Diseases, Cancer, Kidney Diseases, Diabetes, Arthritis, Osteoporosis, Neurological, Respiratory and Others), Geography (North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, South America, Middle East and Africa)- Industry Trends and Forecast to 2025Some of the major players operating in this market are -Right at Home, LLCKoninklijke Philips N.VHanami ResidentialEXTENDICAREAmedisyBrookdale Senior Living SolutionsAlmost FamilyBAYADA Home Health CareEncompass Health CorporationKindred Healthcare, Inc.LHC Group, Inc.Genesis HealthCareCompassusEcon Healthcare GroupTrinity HealthSt Lukes Eldercare Ltd.Rosewood Care GroupInterim HealthCareUnited Medicare Pte LtdExceptional Living Centersamong others.Request for Detailed TOC @Market Segmentation: Global Elderly Care Market The global elderly care market is segmented based on products type into two segments; housing and assistive devices and pharmaceuticals. In 2018, housing and assistive devices products segment is valued to rule with the highest market share 2025, rising at the highest CAGR of 6.6%. The global elderly care market is segmented in service into homecare, institutional care and adult day care. In 2018, homecare segment is valued to rule with the highest market shares by 2025, rising at the highest CAGR. Homecare is further sub segmented into health care, non-medical care. Healthcare is segmented into medical care, physiotherapy services, telehealth, palliative care and hospice care. Non-medical is segmented into personal care and rehabilitation others. Institutional care is segmented into hospital based, independent senior living, assisted living and nursing home. The global elderly care market is segmented in Application into heart diseases, respiratory, diabetes, osteoporosis, cancer, neurological, kidney diseases, arthritis and others. In 2018, heart diseases segment is valued to rule with highest market shares and rising at the highest CAGR. Based on geography, the market is segmented into 5 geographical regionso North America,o Europe,o Asia-Pacific,o South Americao Middle East and Africa.Avail 10% Instant Discount on Purchase of This Report Mail @ sopan.gedam@databridgemarketresearch.comKey Questions Answered in Global Elderly Care Market Report:-Our Report offers:- What will the market growth rate, Overview and Analysis by Type of Global Elderly Care Market in 2025? What are the key factors driving, Analysis by Applications and Countries Global Elderly Care Market? What are Dynamics, This Overview Includes Analysis of Scope, and price analysis of top Vendors Profiles of Global Elderly Care Market? Who are Opportunities, Risk and Driving Force of Global Elderly Care Market? Who are the opportunities and threats faced by the vendors in Global Elderly Care Market? Business Overview by Type, Applications, Gross Margin and Market Share What are the Global Elderly Care Market opportunities, market risk and market overview of the Market?Inquire Before Buying @Customize report of "Global Elderly Care Market" as per customers requirement also available.Key Points: Global Elderly Care MarketIn 2017, the global elderly care market is dominated by OMRON HEALTHCARE Co., Ltd. with market share of 22.1%, followed by Koninklijke Philips N.V. 17.5%, Air Liquide 17.9%, B. Braun Melsungen AG 13.0%, and others 29.6%.The products segment is dominating the global elderly care market.Products segment is expected to grow with the highest CAGR in the forecast period 2018 to 2025.Key Reasons to Purchase: To gain insightful analyses of the market and have comprehensive understanding of the Global Elderly Care Market and its commercial landscape. Assess the Elderly Care production processes, major issues, and solutions to mitigate the development risk. To understand the most affecting driving and restraining forces in the Elderly Care Market and its impact in the Global market. Learn about the market strategies that are being adopted by leading respective organizations. To understand the future outlook and prospects for Global Elderly Care Market.Speak to Author of the report @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:Data Bridge Market ResearchTel: +1-888-387-2818Email: sopan.gedam@databridgemarketresearch.com
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Solar cells or photovoltaic cells are electronic instruments which transforms sunlight into electrical energy. It is a form of photoelectric cell, defined as a device whose electrical characteristics, such as current, voltage, or resistance, vary when exposed to light. Individual solar cell devices can be combined to form modules, otherwise known as solar panels. The global solar cell market is likely to propel owing to increasing demand of renewable energy generation sources across the globe. Geographically, the global solar cell market is segmented into North America, Latin America, Western and Eastern Europe, Asia-Pacific and Rest of World.Get Sample Copy of this Report@:Solar Cells market research is an intelligence report with meticulous efforts undertaken to study the right and valuable information. The data which has been looked upon is done considering both, the existing top players and the upcoming competitors. Business strategies of the key players and the new entering market industries are studied in detail. Well explained SWOT analysis, revenue share and contact information are shared in this report analysis.Top Companies Profiled in this Report includes, First Solar, Inc., SunPower Corporation, Tata Power Systems Limited, Borg In, Sharp Corporation, GreenBrilliance, Trina Solar Limited, and Canadian Solar Inc., etc.After studying key companies, the report focuses on the startups contributing towards the growth of the market. Possible mergers and acquisitions among the startups and key organizations are identified by the report's authors in the study. As leading companies take efforts to maintain their dominance in the global Solar Cells market, the right way to do so is by adopting new technologies and strategies. The report highlights major technological developments and changing trends adopted by key companies over a period of time. For a stronger and more stable business outlook, the report on the global market carries key projections that can be practically studied.Get Reasonable Discount on this Premium Report @:Solar Cells market is segmented on the basis of various parameters. The factors which are impacting the markets growth are studied in detail. The report also presents a overall weaknesses which companies operating in the market must avoid in order to enjoy sustainable growth through the course of the forecast period. Besides this, profiles of some of the leading players operating and encouraging in the growth of the global market are included in the study. Additionally, using SWOT analysis, markets weaknesses and strengths are analyzed. It also helps the report provide insights into the opportunities and threats that these companies may face during the forecast period.Table of ContentsGlobal Solar Cells Market Research ReportChapter 1 Solar Cells 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 Solar Cells Market ForecastFor More Information:If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.About 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 Europe 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:Sunny Denis(Sales Manager),(Research N Reports)10916, Gold Point Dr,Houston, TX, Pin  77064,sales@researchnreports.com,
Most presidents are not very witty or clever.

Exceptions are refreshingly welcome. Former President Barack Obama is clearly clever and has superb timing. Ronald Reagan did well with homespun stories and Abraham Lincoln is high on the list. Unfortunately, the only humorous parts of the current president are the bones attached to his elbows.

Wouldn't things go better with clever repartee instead of nasty, hateful messages bouncing around? What if the president held a weekly news conference starting with a monologue: "NASA has been investigating the cause of some strange nighttime noise. It turns out to be Kimmel and Colbert."

The give and take would have joke writers busy for years and it would be much more interesting watching the evening news. Perhaps Judy Woodruff would say Trump's name without showing her teeth. Maybe instead of presidential debates, we should have candidates do five minutes of stand-up comedy. The field would be quickly whittled down, no need for the annoying ads and calls. The result might truly be bipartisan.

-- George Gerding, Southeast Portland

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The 37-year-old married father of two from a Portland suburb said he pulled no punches when he filled out the juror questionnaire from federal court.

Would he give more credence to a law enforcement officer's testimony?

Officers are "heroes" as far as he's concerned, he responded. "I will always tend to give them the benefit of the doubt,'' he wrote.

So he was surprised when he was selected as one of nine men and three women to hear the case against W. Joseph Astarita, the FBI agent accused of lying to conceal that he fired two shots at refuge occupation spokesman Robert "LaVoy" Finicum.

He volunteered to be the presiding juror to help direct deliberations. No one else did, so the job was his.

Hours after he and the others voted Friday to acquit Astarita, the juror described his experience to The Oregonian/OregonLive -- from his changing thoughts about Astarita's honesty to his handshake with the agent after the trial ended.

"Let me be clear, the judge ordered us to set aside our prejudices,'' he said. "I feel I did that.''

One of the things that troubled him, he said, was the apparent "us vs. them'' tension between the FBI and Oregon State Police that pervaded the 2016 confrontation with Finicum and the aftermath. The animosity came out in the trial testimony, he said.

"I feel it's possible someone is lying," he said. "I don't know which side, or who, or it could be both. There's still two unattributed shots, and I feel like we're never going to know for sure who took them.''

He also said he "felt like a pendulum going back and forth during the trial -- from 'oh man, he definitely did it' and then 'well, maybe, he didn't.'''

The juror asked that he not be identified by name, concerned about facing potential backlash over the trial's outcome. He also didn't want to talk about the views of other jurors.

In the final analysis: With no direct testimony from a witness or damning physical evidence that definitively tied Astarita to the disputed shots, he believed more than one person could have fired them. Not knowing who fired, it was impossible to conclude that Astarita's denials were lies, he said.

"It's not my job to know who shot," he said. "It's my job to find out if these facts were proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and they weren't.''

Prosecutors had argued that Astarita, 41, was the only officer at a roadblock on U.S. 395 who could have fired a bullet that pierced the roof of Finicum's truck on Jan. 26, 2016. The shot came as Finicum was stepping out with his hands in the air after swerving into a snowbank at the roadblock north of Burns. The other shot missed.

They maintained that Astarita, a member of the FBI's elite Hostage Rescue Team, panicked and took those shots, but when he missed his target, he told his supervisors and investigators that he hadn't fired.

Two and a half years after the shooting, no one has acknowledged taking the shots.

Astarita's lawyers argued that the government's forensic analysis of the bullet's path, which included a 5-degree margin of error, was flawed. They had their own expert present a much wider range of potential bullet paths, showing two other officers who could have taken the disputed shots.

The presiding juror said he believed the trajectory fell somewhere in the middle of the two analyses.

"I was a little bit more comfortable with presenting the trajectory as a range,'' he said. But he felt the defense depiction was far too expansive.

He was impressed by a demonstration from the government's expert, Michael Haag, showing his method for determining the bullet's path, despite defense attempts to debunk it.

Haag, he said, came across as knowledgeable and "super confident'' as he climbed a ladder and knelt on top of Finicum's truck, which had been towed into the courthouse loading dock one day.

Haag placed the tip of a yellow rod into the "lead-in'' point where the bullet first struck the roof's metal, rocking it until it fell into place, securing it with tape and a clamp and then measuring the horizontal and vertical angles.

The presiding juror asked to climb the ladder beside the truck and see the bullet hole himself. Four other jurors followed suit.

"I'm really glad I looked at it,'' he said. The photo presented of the bullet hole, identified as "Impact W'' by investigators, was taken at an angle, he said. "I wanted to look at it directly from the top and see how symmetrical it was.''

He felt the defense did succeed in casting doubt on the work of a state forensic scientist in arguing that she failed to consider the settling of Finicum's truck into the snow between the time the shots were fired, the time photos were taken and when she measured the truck's angle in the snowbank.

"In this kind of case, you have to be sure,'' he said, noting that any slight deviation "could change who the shooter was.''

He said he placed less reliance on the circles that FBI Hostage Rescue Team agents and two state police SWAT officers drew on still images of the shooting scene projected on a computer monitor at the witness stand.

The circles were supposed to denote their general locations at the time of the disputed shots. But the stylus used to mark their spots appeared to be extremely sensitive. As a result, several witnesses had to erase their initial circles and try a second time.

"Nothing drawn on the screen was precise,'' he said, echoing one of the defense arguments made repeatedly during trial.

So the juror instead put more weight on the video images taken from two FBI surveillance planes to determine the officers' locations.

"If I look at the freakin' video and see where people were standing, I felt there were three individuals that could've taken that shot: Officer 1, FBI agent B.M. and the defendant,'' he said.

He said he also found Astarita more credible than Officer 1, a state police SWAT member. Authorities haven't disclosed the officer's name for security reasons. In the courtroom and in court documents, he was referred to only as Officer 1.

The turning point for the presiding juror came when defense lawyers countered Officer 1's testimony on how he may have loaded his rifle magazine.

Officer 1 said he routinely loaded the magazine to capacity and then stripped one round out, leaving 29 bullets in the magazine. The prosecution presented evidence that the officer's two spare magazines held 29 rounds that night as well. When his rifle was examined after the shooting, his magazine had 24 bullets remaining.

That accounted for the three shots he fired into the front of Finicum's truck as it barreled toward the roadblock and the two shots he fired later, striking Finicum in the back and killing him. The fatal shots came moments after the disputed shots as Finicum walked away from his truck and reached into his inner jacket pocket where police said he had a loaded pistol.

Yet the defense showed that when Officer 1 used a handgun, he usually "topped it off" - meaning it was filled to capacity with one more round in the chamber. Then they produced an investigative report that found the capacity in Officer 1's rifle was 31 rounds, suggesting that the rifle magazine had 30 rounds with one in the chamber.

With 31 rounds in Officer 1's rifle when he started that day and 24 remaining at the end, that could have allowed for a total of seven shots taken, including the two disputed shots, the juror said.

The defense also raised questions about Officer 1's truthfulness on the stand, the juror said.

While Officer 1 said he told investigators last year that he had been startled by a noise to his right at the time of the disputed shots, the lead detective for the shooting investigation testified on cross-examination that neither he nor other investigators had heard Officer 1 mention the noise until a month before trial.

In contrast, the juror found Astarita poised, articulate and credible as a witness.

"You could tell that he was very prepared,'' he said.

But he said he saw an unguarded moment when Astarita was handed his Colt AR-15 rifle by a prosecutor during cross-examination. Astarita immediately turned back with a quizzical look, "Can I just ask why the safety's off?''

"He was really extremely concerned. He snapped out of anything that was rehearsed,'' the juror said.

As Astarita was asked to demonstrate how he holds his rifle at a low-ready stance, the juror felt Astarita clearly knew what he was doing and astutely articulated each step of his decision-making process in deciding whether to shoot in a given situation.

"That made me feel more strongly that he just might not have been the shooter,'' the juror said.

But the flippant remark Astarita gave his supervisor at the scene when asked if he had shot his gun disturbed the juror. Astarita responded: "You don't get to ask me that bro,'' others testified.

That certainly raised suspicions about Astarita, the juror said, yet he felt "that little piece of information alone is not enough."

He also thought the infrared aerial video that caught figures scouring the ground and looking under trucks after the shooting might have shown officers trying to pick up bullet casings to hide their tracks or might have been a standard check for sensitive items or lost gear as FBI agents testified.

But it was impossible to identify who the figures were on the video, he said.

In three weeks, the jury listened to 11 days of testimony from more than 40 witnesses.

The presiding juror admitted that it was sometimes challenging to stay focused through repeated showings of FBI aerial videos of the scene and the testimony of a defense witness vacationing in Spain whose phone disconnected every 15 minutes,. He could be seen occasionally drinking from a can of Monster triple-shot espresso. Another juror had brought in a 12-pack of the drink to share early in the trial.

This was the presiding juror's first time serving on a jury. While he said he's now eager to return to his technical support job in a large law firm, he came away impressed with the lawyers on each side.

"I think the prosecution built the best case that they could given what they had to work with,'' he said.

After the jurors returned their verdict and left the courtroom, U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones thanked them. The defense team, along with Astarita, soon afterward entered the jury room.

Astarita and his four lawyers shook each juror's hand, thanking them for their service.

Astarita addressed them briefly. He reiterated how passionate he was about serving as an FBI agent. He spoke of how he never thought he'd be accused of a crime and described how he lay in a fetal position after learning he was going to be charged, the presiding juror recalled.

Tearing up, Astarita said "how we'd given him his life back, and he was grateful.''

-- Maxine Bernstein

mbernstein@oregonian.com

503-221-8212

@maxoregonian
The machine takes up almost an entire office, a red light lit as a conveyor belt moves through a metal tunnel.

The newly installed body scanner in Yamhill County produces an image of the inside of a person in less than 7 seconds. It can detect foreign objects and contraband, including weapons and drugs, inside a person before they are housed in the jail, and it does it with minimal radiation exposure. Additionally, some officials say body scanners can cut costs long term by reducing the chance of lawsuits and the possibility of paying for staff overtime.

Body scanners are relatively new in Oregon county jails, with Washington County being the first to implement one in August 2017. Since then, counties across the state have been looking into, buying and beginning the installation process on scanners of their own.

"Once you start using a tool, you kind of rely on it," Capt. Michael Shults with the Deschutes County Sheriff's Office said. "Everything relies on technology now, and the better the technology gets, the better your workplace can become."

Officials say these scanners will help protect both inmates and jail staffs and that they are a less intrusive means of detecting contraband. For many counties, the technology was initially cost prohibitive. But officials said scanners are more affordable now as prices have started to come down and group purchases help cut costs, though the technology still tops $100,000.

But some officials saw the possibility of different costs adding up.

Lt. Matt Frohnert with Washington County Sheriff's Office said they looked at the cost of possibly having to staff deputies overtime to stay in a hospital with an inmate who overdoses. Polk County Sheriff Mark Garton said he has seen reports from other jails of million-dollar lawsuits filed after overdose deaths. Lincoln County Sheriff Curtis Landers called the price of a scanner a drop in the bucket compared to one of those lawsuits.

"It just clicked and hit home to the realization if something really bad happened here, and we hadn't done anything about it, that's a bad situation," Garton said.

The newly installed body scanner in Yamhill County takes up almost an entire office. One person described it as a linebacker, and staff said it is bigger than originally envisioned.

Officials have described situations in which inmates attempt to smuggle drugs or other contraband into facilities when they are arrested. Some inmates may swallow small baggies, and some may try to stow contraband in body cavities.

In June, officials took a Yamhill County inmate suspected of providing heroin to other inmates in the jail to Washington County to run her through the body scanner there, as Yamhill County's own scanner had yet to be installed at the time. Yamhill County Sheriff's Office's Capt. Chris Ray said this was the safest and quickest way to handle the situation. The inmate was found to have two plastic bags of suspected drugs in her body.

Bags inside an inmate's body could break or leak, exposing them to the drug, which could be deadly, some officials said. In other scenarios, if an inmate manages to pass or retrieve contraband in jail, he or she could then distribute the substance to others.

Sgt. Jeremy Ruby from Yamhill County said inmates may view being in custody as an opportunity to get sober, clean and back on track. Contraband available in the jail can be problematic for those trying to get clean.

"If we minimize it coming in," he said, "we can help that problem."

Drugs in jails can also prove as a hazard to staff members who come in contact with them. Just this week, K9 Abbie in Clackamas County was exposed to heroin during a routine contraband search in the jail. Authorities administered a K9 version of an opioid overdose reversal drug to Abbie after the exposure.

Capt. Lee Eby in Clackamas County said while they are waiting for a scanner to be installed, they hope the technology will help combat contraband coming into jail. The scanner would allow the jail to complete quicker searches in a less intrusive way, he said.

"In that case, hopefully we identify more, and hopefully it becomes a deterrent," he said.

Washington County has reported success after implementing its scanner in August 2017. Frohnert said now that people know the scanner is there, the machine itself acts as a deterrent. He said the jail has seen an increase in the number of stashed drugs found in intake areas and that they have also caught people with the scanner.

Still, officials recognize the method isn't foolproof. It takes trained personnel to be able to distinguish between possible foreign objects and typical gas bubbles on an image of an inmate from the scanner. But many still see body scanners making their way to Oregon jails as a positive thing.

"This extra layer is going to benefit us in a lot of ways," Shults said, "and keep the inmates safe and our staff safe."

--Hannah Boufford

hboufford@oregonian.com / @hannahboufford
A grieving orca was spotted off the coast of Washington state Thursday, carrying her dead calf through the Pacific Ocean for the 17th day in a journey that has astonished and devastated much of the world.



Tahlequah, as the mother has come to be called, gave birth on July 25 in what should have been a happy milestone for her long-suffering clan.



As Allyson Chiu wrote for The Washington Post, the pod of killer whales that roams between Vancouver and San Juan Island has dwindled to 75 members over the decades. The cause is no mystery: Humans have netted up the whales' salmon, driven ships through their hunting lanes and polluted their water, to the point that researchers fear Tahlequah's generation may be the last of her family.



The 400-pound, orange-tinted baby that wriggled out of her that morning was the first live birth in the pod since 2015, Chiu wrote. It lived about half an hour.



People love to anthropomorphize animals, often fallaciously. But studies have found that orcas really do possess high levels of intelligence and empathy, and emotions that may not be totally alien to our own.



So, when Tahlequah did not let her emaciated calf sink to the bottom of the Pacific, but rather balanced it on her head and pushed it along as she followed her pod, researchers thought they understood what was happening.



"You cannot interpret it any other way," Deborah Giles, a killer whale biologist with the University of Washington, told Chiu. "This is an animal that is grieving for its dead baby, and she doesn't want to let it go. She's not ready."



That was the beginning of a long funeral procession. "The hours turned into days," Chiu wrote two days after the death. "And on Thursday she was still seen pushing her baby to the water's surface."



And still the next day, and through the weekend, and into the next week and next month.



The act itself was not unprecedented, but researchers said it was rare to see a mother carry her dead for so long. It couldn't have been easy for her. Tahlequah's pod travels dozens of miles in a day, Chiu wrote, and she pushed her baby's hundreds of pounds every inch of the way. She was forever picking up the body as it sank, hoisting it out of the water to take a breath, and repeating.



Researchers with the Canadian and U.S. governments and other organizations tracked her all the while, the Seattle Times wrote. They hoped to capture the calf once Tahlequah finally let go, and discover why it had died - as nearly all the babies in this pod seemed to die.



But Tahlequah would not let go. Eventually, researchers stopped calling what they were witnessing "rare" and began using the word "unprecedented."



And the phenomenon was no longer of purely scientific interest.



People wrote poems about Tahlequah, and drew pictures. People lost sleep thinking about the whale. A scientist cried thinking of her. Tahlequah inspired politicians and essayists - and a sense of interspecies kinship in some mothers who had also lost children.



And still, Tahlequah carried her child. The world's interest in her feat finally grew to encompass her whole family.



This week, the Times wrote, biologists and government officials began working on a plan to save the youngest living member of Talhequah's pod - a 3-year-old orca that appears to be on the brink of starvation. They're now tracking the young whale - Scarlet - in an attempt to feed her antibiotic-laced salmon.



In that sense, maybe, Tahlequah's doomed calf did bring new hope to the pod, which had previously swam and struggled in near anonymity.



At the same time, the mother's obsession has become gravely concerning to researchers. The effort of pushing her calf - for about 1,000 miles by now - is probably making her weak and keeping her from finding enough food.



"Even if her family is foraging for and sharing fish with her," Giles told the Times this week, the whale "cannot be getting the . . . nutrition she needs to regain any body-mass loss that would have naturally occurred during the gestation of her fetus."



The scientists have ruled out attempting to force her to give up the calf, according to the Times. Her emotional bond is simply too strong.



All they can do is hope Tahlequah decides to do so herself before long. Whenever she's ready.

-- The Washington Post
Protesters calling for an end of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency are no longer gathered at Portland City Hall, having disbanded their camp outside the downtown hub.

A Portland police spokeswoman said a 24-hour notice was posted Thursday morning and that protesters  who set up a small camp outside City Hall on Sunday night  moved on their own. The decision to clear out the protesters was unrelated to an arrest of a man believed to be associated with the group, she said.

William B. Pierce

William B. Pierce was arrested Thursday on suspicion of hitting a man in the face with a PVC pipe, according to police and court records. The alleged incident came after a dispute "regarding sidewalk accessibility in front of Portland City Hall near the protest group," police said in a news release.

Pierce, 33, faces second-degree assault and unlawful use of a weapon allegations, records show. He's being held in the Multnomah County Detention Center on $255,000 bail, according to records.

Protesters had previously occupied land surrounding the federal agency's headquarters in Southwest Portland for five weeks over June and July. That encampment was broken up by Portland police July 25.

Demonstrations in Portland and across the U.S. began amid nationwide outrage over President Donald Trump's "zero tolerance" immigration policy.

As part of this strategy, the administration refers asylum seekers for criminal prosecution and houses them in facilities including prisons and separates children from their parents.

 Jim Ryan

Andre Meunier of The Oregonian/OregonLive staff contributed to this report
Warning: This story contains graphic images and content.

The powerful projectile surged into the crowd and split Anthony's skull open. In that instant, everything turned red.

"I didn't know if my brains had spilled from my head or if I was about to bleed out in the street," he said.

The Southeast Portland resident was one of at least three people hospitalized last weekend after riot police used crowd-control weapons on anti-fascist demonstrators gathered in downtown Portland to protest a rally by the right-wing group Patriot Prayer.

He asked The Oregonian/OregonLive to not disclose his full name for safety reasons.

Anthony, who is in his 30s, suffered a traumatic brain injury when a flash-bang grenade  a device that delivers jarring blasts intended to disperse crowds  struck him from behind as he ran, lodging itself in his bicycle helmet.

Photos of his mangled scalp and the munition-riddled headgear went viral, though the wounded protester remained anonymous.

For some, the gruesome images came to define an afternoon of violence waged not by political rivals  as many had feared  but by the police force sent to protect them.

"It felt like a war zone," said Anthony, who has attended multiple demonstrations against Patriot Prayer in the last year. A pair of civil rights attorneys joined him during an interview Friday.

The chaotic scene Aug. 4 thrust a city wracked by riots and violent demonstrations during the Trump era into the national spotlight once again.

Portland police have since come under fire for their use of flash-bang grenades, pepper balls, pepper spray and other so-called "less lethal" rounds fired at or near protesters.

Chief Danielle Outlaw this week said the bureau had temporarily suspended the use of the flash-bang projectiles until it can be determined if they are working properly.

But Outlaw, speaking at a news conference, defended officer tactics, which she said were used successfully to prevent right- and left-wing demonstrators from clashing.

Anthony, who works as an industrial mechanic, sees it differently.

"If it was their plan to brutalize members of their own community, then I guess the police did their job," Anthony said.

He had joined more than 1,000 people to protest the rally organized by Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson, a Vancouver activist with a history of stirring fierce opposition in Portland.

Gibson's demonstrations have been criticized for attracting white nationalists and those who promote racist or bigoted views. Many of the several hundred participants last Saturday had arrived at Tom McCall Waterfront Park from out of state.

Dozens of them carried weapons or donned helmets and body armor, prepared to battle with black-clad anti-fascist protesters, commonly known as antifa.

At a June Patriot Prayer rally, brutal street fights broke out between the groups and Portland police declared the melee a riot.

"They should know they can't parade around Portland unopposed," said Anthony. "They can't intimidate our community."

Police formed barriers along Southwest Naito Parkway early in the day and effectively kept the groups separated, close enough to hurl insults, but too far to throw punches.

After hours of relative calm, the police response escalated when officers ordered those protesting Patriot Prayer near Southwest Columbia Street and Naito to disperse.

When counter-demonstrators didn't immediately leave, riot police opened fire on them with an array of less-lethal munitions.

Police have said protesters had thrown a "chemical agent" and other objects at officers. Outlaw this week said police didn't give orders for protesters to disperse or officers to use crowd-control weapons until after things were thrown at police.

Multiple counter-protesters and reporters, including those from Oregonian/OregonLive, didn't see that. A review of video footage capturing the contentious moment did not find projectiles thrown by counter-protesters prior to the use of riot control weapons by police.

Anthony and the people near him heard deafening explosions and turned to retreat, he said. He was a half block up from Naito when the flash-bang slammed into the back of his head.

The impact completely disoriented him, Anthony said. Blood poured down his face and his vision faded. The sound of his own heaving breath pounded in his ears.

"I thought was going to die," he said.

A few fellow protesters and at least one volunteer street medic rushed to Anthony's aid. But the group had to move the injured man twice to avoid being struck by police munitions as riot cops continued up the block amid blasts and colored smoke.

A member of the Rosehip Medical Collective, who did not wish to speak publicly, confirmed Anthony's account.

People were eventually able to load Anthony into a car and drove him to the hospital, where he spent the next 24 hours. The injury caused hemorrhaging, and he had a tube inserted in his skull to help drain the bleeding.

"The nurse told him the blow would have been lethal had he not been wearing a helmet," said Jenny Nickolaus, a friend and fellow activist. He is expected to make a full recovery.

Crowd-control weapons used by police injured other protesters as well.

A flash-bang grenade left Michelle Fawcett, 52, with severe soft tissue wounds and third-degree chemical burns, she told The Oregonian/OregonLive this week. James Mattox, 29, told the Daily Beast that rubber bullets caused a large gash in his arm that required stitches.

A handful of people reported less severe wounds.

"The Portland Police Bureau's response to protest is completely unacceptable in a free society," David Rogers, executive director for the ACLU of Oregon, said in a statement.

"The repeated use of excessive force, and the targeting of demonstrators based on political beliefs, are a danger to the First Amendment rights of all people."

But Anthony remains unbowed. The head injury won't deter him from returning to the streets, he said.

"The fight against white supremacy is an ongoing battle," he said. "I'm going to be there until it ends."

-- Shane Dixon Kavanaugh

skavanaugh@oregonian.com

503-294-7632 || @shanedkavanaugh
The Northwest Proud Boys, the regional branch of a group known for its scuffles with anti-fascist demonstrators during rallies in Portland, has been suspended from Twitter. An account for the organization's Oregon chapter was also suspended.

The group had violated the social media company's policy prohibiting violent extremist groups, a spokesperson told The Oregonian/OregonLive in an email.

Patriot Prayer founder Joey Gibson, who mounted and lost a long-shot effort to unseat U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell in Washington during the state's primaries, was often accompanied by a cadre of Proud Boys during rallies in Portland.

During a June 30 rally in Terry Schrunk Federal Plaza, Proud Boys from across the region were bused in from Vancouver, Washington, to provide security for one of Gibson's demonstrations. Brutal fights between Proud Boys and local anti-fascist counter-demonstrators broke out soon after the rally's end.

Portland police declared the event a riot and arrested four people that day.

One of those arrested that day was Tusitala "Tiny" Toese, a 22-year-old Patriot Prayer member who also aligns himself with the Proud Boys. He's also been accused of attacking a Portland man in early June. A month earlier, Toese allegedly tossed a teenager to the ground at a mall in Vancouver.

Both altercations turned physical after verbal disputes over President Donald Trump and his policies.

--Eder Campuzano | 503.221.4344

ecampuzano@oregonian.com
For the past 14 years, I've been haunted by a paid obituary appearing annually in The Oregonian. Perhaps you've seen it, too. This year it ran Sunday, July 8, on page D10.

Reading an obituary, immersing ourselves in the details of a stranger's life, allows us to measure our own.

Not so the obituary on D10.

Just five spare lines, it offers only the names of triplets whose lives spanned one day, July 5, 2004. About two weeks after they died, their small obit appeared in the newspaper.

Since then, someone has paid to run it every July.

Why?

I've meant to find the answer for more than a decade. But always, within days after I see the obit, some other story has come up, the cycle repeating itself.

During my 40-year career, I've learned to respect the mystery surrounding some stories. It's as if they have a soul, quietly making it known they must be told.

Perhaps that's why I received the email.

"I'm honestly not sure why I am writing you."

Jenifer McVicker works out of the Southeast Portland office of Catholic Charities of Oregon, the nonprofit that works with people of all faiths to combat poverty and injustice. She manages its database containing the names of supporters, donors and families.

To keep it current, McVicker reads every obituary printed in the paper and online to look for names matching those in the database. When she deletes a name, the director sends a letter of condolence.

McVicker has stumbled over the tiny obit each July since she was hired eight years ago.

I'm a little ashamed to admit that I have searched the internet a bit in the past when I'd see the obituary, but there is nothing. As the mother of two healthy young adults, my heart bleeds for a fellow mother who no longer gets to hold and hug her babies.

Within her letter I sensed the story's soul call to me in a simple two-sentence passage.

"So, there you have it. Do with this what you will."

***

Days later, I met McVicker. She said she had gotten the job after her youngest child entered seventh grade. She estimates she's read thousands of obits since then.

McVicker told me that when she's finished reading an obituary, she offers a silent prayer for the departed. She told me doing that with the D10 obit has brought her no peace.

"Perhaps it sounds morbid," she said, "but what I need is closure."

Back at my desk in the newsroom, I left a message on the online guest book linked to the obit. Two weeks passed. I heard nothing. With a bit of research, I got the telephone number of the mother of those triplets. I called, introduced myself and explained my curiosity.

And then Jody Kappes invited me to her home.

***

Every journalist deals with death. I've covered car accidents, fires and homicides, watched bodies carried out of homes and apartments. The nature of the job means I ask intrusive questions, typically right after an event. Then I vanish and let people get on with their lives.

This was different. There was no news to cover. Would I want a stranger to come ask me about one of the most painful moments in my life, one so long ago.

What was my purpose that day I drove to Kappes' Gresham home? I had no answer but trusted the story to show me the way.

As I walked up the steps to the front door, I realized that had those babies lived they now would be getting ready to start their freshman year in high school. Maybe that's why my knock was soft, even hesitant.

Kappes led me to the middle of the living room where her family  her husband, Johnny, and the couple's four daughters  waited for me. They all looked at me, and I made nervous small talk about how their house butted up to a beautiful wildlife park, the stifling heat and how I nearly got lost three times while making my way to their house.

And then it was time.

I told the parents how I'd seen the obit for 14 years. I told them about what McVicker had written. If they didn't want to share their story, I'd leave, and they'd never hear from me again. If they did, I was ready to listen.

Parents and children looked at each other.

***

Jody and Johnny Kappes already had two daughters, 4 and 2, when the doctor told them that they were going to have triplets.

When Jody Kappes was 5  months pregnant, the young family headed to her parents' beach cabin south of Rockaway to celebrate the Fourth of July. Her pregnancy had been trouble-free.

About 4 a.m. on July 5 Kappes woke up screaming. She was giving spontaneous birth, the first baby, a boy, was alive in the bed and his siblings were ready to join him. An ambulance was called, and Kappes' husband was told to do what he could to keep the other two babies inside his wife.

Medical teams arrived at the beach house. The newborn and Kappes were rushed to the hospital in Tillamook where doctors declared the first baby dead. His brother and sister were pronounced dead shortly after they were born in the emergency room.

As Jody Kappes talked, Johnny walked across the living room to wrap his arm around her shoulder.

"You know what?" she tells me. "I didn't expect to go on a vacation and come home with my babies' ashes."

Early on, Jody and Johnny Kappes picked names for those babies: Jackson and Jordan, the middle names of both their fathers; and Jewel, her great grandmother's name.

Three death certificates listed those names.

And so did the newspaper obituary I first read in 2004.

***

What I discovered that day in Gresham is that while an obituary honors the dead, it's also there for those left behind. Those babies live on in the hearts of all in this home.

Their father has their names tattooed on the inside of his wrist. Their two older sisters call the babies their angels. Years after the deaths, the couple had two more kids, both girls. On every July 5, the entire family gathers in a park to release three balloons.

I thanked the couple for their time. I apologized for questions that may have been intrusive.

"It hurts to think about things we haven't thought about for a while," said Jody Kappes. "But we're glad you came."

As she walked me to the door, she stopped. She had a final request. She wanted me to talk again with McVicker.

"Because of that obit, a stranger said a prayer for us for eight years," she said. "Those prayers, sent in love, reached us."

She smiled.

"Please, tell her that," she said. "From us."

***

Jody's mother, Bonnie Widerburg, is the person who pays each year to run that five-line obituary.

This year it cost her $175, which she charges to her credit card.

"I do it because they were alive," said Widerburg. "Maybe for a short time, but they did exist. I want to recognize that brief life."

She makes sure the obit runs in the Sunday newspaper as close to July 5 as possible.

Next year, it will run on July 7.

***

Last week, I talked again with McVicker. She told me she will forever think of Jackson, Jordan and Jewel Kappes.

She told me she was going to pray that night for the triplets, asking that they rest in peace.

May it be so.

--Tom Hallman Jr.

thallman@oregonian.com; 503 221-8224

@thallmanjr
A pair of fighter jets scrambled from Portland International Airport on Friday night, tasked with redirecting an airliner over the Pacific Ocean after it was stolen in Seattle, North American Aerospace Defense Command said in a release.

The agency, NORAD for short, said the twin F-15s didn't fire on the stolen aircraft. Instead, they were directed to intercept the Bombardier Q400 as it flew south from Sea-Tac Airport.

The plane crashed on the southern tip of Keton Island in the Puget Sound.

The Federal Aviation Administration reported the plane stolen shortly after 8 p.m. Friday.

Some dude stole a plane from #Seatac (Allegedly), did a loop-the-loop, ALMOST crashed into #ChambersBay, then crossed in front of our party, chased by fighter jets and subsequently crashed. Weird times. pic.twitter.com/Ra4LcIhwfU  bmbdgty (@drbmbdgty) August 11, 2018

Photos and video of the aircraft spread on Twitter as the Pierce County Sheriff's Office, with the help of the FBI and military, responded to the crash site. The airline employee who stole the plane was identified only as a 29-year-old Pierce County resident. The man was believed killed.

Pierce County Sheriff's Office spokesman Ed Troyer said the suspect was a mechanic at SeaTac, according to initial reports.

Alaska Airlines also told The Associated Press that the Q400 was not scheduled for a passenger flight but was instead in a "maintenance position." The plane can seat up to 76.

Federal officials are now investigating how the employee managed to steal the aircraft, The Associated Press reports.

--Eder Campuzano | 503.221.4344

ecampuzano@oregonian.com
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- A San Francisco jury on Friday ordered agribusiness giant Monsanto to pay $289 million to a former school groundskeeper dying of cancer, saying the company's popular Roundup weed killer contributed to his disease.

Dewayne Johnson's lawsuit was the first of hundreds of cases filed in state and federal courts alleging that Roundup causes non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, which Monsanto denies.

"This case is way bigger than me," Johnson said during a press conference in his lawyers' San Francisco office after the verdict. "I hope it gets the attention that it needs." Johnson declined to answer reporters' questions.

Jurors in state Superior Court agreed the product contributed to Johnson's cancer and the company should have provided a label warning of the potential health hazard. Johnson's attorneys sought and won $39 million in compensatory damages and $250 million of the $373 million they wanted in punitive damages.

"This jury found Monsanto acted with malice and oppression because they knew what they were doing was wrong and doing it with reckless disregard for human life," said Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a member of Johnson's legal team. "This should send a strong message to the boardroom of Monsanto."

Monsanto has denied a link between the active ingredient in Roundup -- glyphosate -- and cancer, saying hundreds of studies have established that glyphosate is safe.
Several national higher education guides recently commend Alma College for distinctions in academic quality, student life experience and successful outcomes.

College of Distinction

The 2018-19 edition of Colleges of Distinction highlights Alma College for its academic programs and high-impact educational practices that extend beyond the classroom -- including first-year seminars, service-learning, alternative breaks, undergraduate research, study abroad programs, internships and more.

It is the 12th consecutive year that Alma College has been recognized by the national guide. View Alma College's profile at: http://collegesofdistinction.com/school/alma-college/

"Colleges of Distinction is far more than a ranking list of colleges and universities," says Tyson Schritter, chief operating officer for the annual publication. "We seek out the schools that are wholly focused on the student experience, constantly working to produce graduates who are prepared for a rapidly changing global society. Alma College stands out in the way it strives to help its students to learn, grow and succeed."

The publication requires that institutions adhere to four distinctions -- engaged students, great teaching, vibrant communities and successful outcomes. The selection process also includes a review of each institution's first-year experience, general education program, strategic plan, alumni success and satisfaction measures.

Fiske Guide's 'Best and Most Interesting'

Alma College is one of 300 schools highlighted in the Fiske Guide to Colleges 2019. The college guide offers an annual analysis of the "best and most interesting" schools in the United States, Canada and Great Britain.

The publication describes Alma College as a "gem" that celebrates its Scottish heritage and "combines the liberal arts with distinctive (academic) offerings" with faculty who are committed to helping students succeed. It states, "Alma challenges students to take their learning beyond the classroom and around the globe, and with caring faculty--and ample funding for off-campus experiences--students feel supported every step of the way."

Compiled by former New York Times education editor Edward Fiske, the guide profiles the selected schools' student body, academic quality, social life, financial aid, campus setting, housing, food and extracurricular activities.

The Fiske Guide has highlighted Alma College annually since 1986.

Princeton Review's 'Best in the Midwest'

For the 15th consecutive year, The Princeton Review lists Alma College as one of the best colleges in the Midwest. Alma has been featured annually in the "Best of the Midwest" category since the introduction of the ranking in 2004.

View Alma College's profile at: https://bit.ly/2M521vL

The Princeton Review website quotes Alma students, who say Alma's academic programs prepare students for graduate work or their prospective career paths, and that the relationships that students form with faculty are "lasting and meaningful" and provide "outlets for a lot of research, internships and connections."

The Princeton Review identifies 661 colleges in five zones -- Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, West and International -- as academically outstanding institutions of higher learning. The "best" lists are calculated from student survey results and institutional data.
John Baesler, associate professor of history at Saginaw Valley State University, has written his first book, examining the topic of polygraph use during and after the Cold War.

The book, "Clearer Than Truth: The Polygraph and the American Cold War (Culture, Politics, and the Cold War)," is based on how the use of polygraph technology - often referred to as the lie detector - greatly increased after World War II and the ramifications of the increase in usage by the U.S. government.

"The book is a history of the polygraph and particularly the role that the polygraph has played in U.S. national security policies since the second World War," Baesler said. "Polygraph technology had been around since the early 20th century, but it was really only after World War II that American government agencies began using it on a large scale to test the loyalty of applicants for federal jobs and employees in the federal government, as well as to establish the bona fides of sources working for U.S. intelligence services."

The book is for sale at vendors including Amazon.com. It tracks the history of polygraph use, justifications for using it, as well as protests against it by citizens and civil liberties groups, from the Cold War to the present.

He said he wrote the book due to his interest in how the U.S. used the polygraph technology compared to other government systems.

"To me, the history of the polygraph exam was presented by its defenders as a scientific, objective and therefore fair procedure, while at the same time it was seen as hard-nosed - almost like torture - and therefore suitable to smoke out communist spies and so forth," he said. "In short, I chose to write about this topic because there is a fascinating, complicated history there that has a larger significance."

A native of Germany, Baesler earned his undergraduate degree in history and philosophy from Ruprecht-Karls-Universitat Heidelberg in 2001 and earned his Ph.D. in U.S. history and cultural history at Indiana University-Bloomington in 2009.

He joined SVSU's history faculty in 2009, and was promoted to associate professor in 2014.

The process to write this book began as his dissertation project at Indiana University, but he continued to work and expanded the research to make the nonfiction book that is on sale today.

"It took me almost 14 years to research and write this book," he said. "It's been a long journey, but I am very proud of the result."
This weekend the small town of Crump, located about 20 miles northeast of Midland, will be the site of a popular event in the car community. On Sunday vehicles of all shapes and sizes will be featured at the 16th Annual Crump Car Show.

The late Joe Moore Sr., of Freeland, began the Crump Car Show after regularly passing through Crump on his way back from hunting in Gladwin. As he stopped at the Crump Pump for a drink or a bite to eat, he got to know the residents and made a few friends.

"My dad was a car show guy," said Joe Moore Jr., of Midland. "He owned cars and he went to car shows. He loved it. But most of all, it was a network of friends."

One of Moore Sr.'s colleagues, named Rocky, affectionately known as the "mayor of Crump," owned property and conducted car repairs in the town. When Moore Sr. mentioned the idea of starting a car show in the area, Rocky offered his land for the location. For the first year of the show, Moore Sr. started out with 50 vehicles; the collection expanded to 150 cars in 2017.

One of the extraordinary aspects of the Crump Car Show is that registration is not limited to just cars. Over the years the Moores have welcomed classic and modern automobiles, snowmobiles, milk trucks, monster trucks, tractors and even bicycles.

"He didn't discriminate," Moore Jr. stated. "Dad didn't care. If you can drive it, bring it out."

With the wide array of entries, Moore Sr. decided to get creative with the show awards. In addition to two awards for best of show, there are five drivers' choice honors where each contestant votes for three of their favorite vehicles. The Moores also present 23 spectator awards in unique categories like "Fat Tire," "Sexy Sudan" and "Dare to be Different." The idea is to give out as many awards as possible, and no driver gets more than one accolade. Voting is completed by noon and at 3 p.m. the plaques are presented.

"One of the big things that my dad did, and he took a lot of pride in, was he made the trophies," Moore Jr. said.

Moore Jr. explained that making the trophies not only adds a special touch to the honors, but also allows more money to be donated to the Michigan chapter of Make-A-Wish Foundation, a cause that was near and dear to Moore Sr.'s heart.

Moore Sr. became involved with Make-A-Wish in 1984 when he drove his 1957 Chevy in a parade in Saginaw and a little boy saw it on TV. A couple days later Moore received a call from Make-A-Wish informing him about the boy who wished to ride in the Chevy.

"They asked my dad if he would be willing to give up a couple hours of his day to give this young man a ride. My dad said 'Absolutely not. He's got me for the whole day.' ... He saw what it meant and that's what drove him to donate to Make-A-Wish."

This experience was the inspiration for Moore Sr. to begin the Crump Car Show. With the help of the Saginaw Rods and Classics, he began a tradition that has stayed strong for 16 years and touched many young lives. In 2009 Moore Sr.'s granddaughter Leanne became a recipient of Make-A-Wish.

"It made it personal," Moore Jr. said. "It took it from being something cool to do to making it personal. Leanne was a good inspiration to keep Dad going. There were some years where it was getting too much, but he remembered Leanne and her wish and he pressed on."

Moore Jr. said a goal of this year's Crump Car Show is to donate $5,000 to the Michigan chapter of Make-A-Wish. He explained any donations under that benchmark go into the foundation's general fund; donations of $5,000 and above go to a specific child and the donor is informed of who it is. In 2012, when Moore Sr. was donating the proceeds from three car shows to Make-A-Wish, the benchmark was reached and the recipient came to the Crump Car Show for the whole day and helped hand out trophies. The Moore family is grateful for the generosity shown by the contestants as well as the visitors through the years.

"They care about the kids," Moore Jr. said.

Moore Jr. and his brother, Rick Moore, became involved with the Crump Car Show after they retired from the U.S. Air Force in 2010. Since their father's death in 2016, the Moores have organized the car show while keeping in mind what Moore Sr. would have wanted.

The biggest component is community. The Moore family strives to make sure drivers and spectators have a good time. They welcome door prizes and auction donations, have a friend who DJs at the event, appreciate the breakfast and chicken dinner that the American Legion hosts and have dash plaques designed by a student at H. H. Dow High School.

"It kind of fits in with what we do," Moore Jr. said. "We try to get everybody involved. It's for the community."

The 16th Annual Crump Car Show will take place 8 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 12 in Crump, at the corner of Garfield and Anderson roads.
Great Lakes Bay Michigan Works! is inviting local employers from five counties to learn about available training funds through the 2019 Going Pro Talent Fund formerly known as the Skilled Trades Training Fund. All employers are required to work with their local Michigan Works! in order to apply for the grant funding.

Sessions will take place:

 Monday, Aug. 13 -- 10:30 a.m.-noon, Alice and Jack Wirt Library, Bay City

 Tuesday, Aug. 14 -- 2-3:30 p.m., Central Michigan Manufacturers Association, 7400 Bay Road, University Center

 Thursday, Aug. 16 -- 10-11:30 a.m., 5889 E. Broadway, Mount Pleasant

 Thursday, Aug. 16 -- 2-3:30 p.m., 1409 Washington, Midland

Last year, Great Lakes Bay Michigan Works! helped 50 employers obtain funding totally more than $2.1 million which trained over 2000 employees.

Seating is limited, so employers planning on attending must contact Ann Marie Batkoski, Great Lakes Bay Michigan Works! director of business services and community relations, to reserve a spot at annmarieb@michiganworks.com

Information sessions are not mandatory, but encouraged as employers must work with their local Michigan Works! offices in order to apply for the grant. Those unable to attend can contact Batkoski to set up a meeting.

Great Lakes Bay Michigan Works Service Center locations and directions are available at www.michiganworks.com
The launch of the Parker Solar Probe spacecraft was scrubbed today due to a last minute technical problem.

The early morning launch countdown stopped with one-minute, 55 seconds remaining, keeping the Delta IV rocket on its pad with the Parker Solar Probe. The Associated Press is reporting the launch delay was caused by a helium-pressure issue.

The launch will attempt again at 3:31 a.m. Sunday, Aug. 12 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The forecast shows a 60 percent chance of favorable weather conditions for the launch, according to NASA.

Watch live and past attempt launch of the Parker Solar Probe online via NASA TV.

The launch is the first of Brooke Teresa Buchholz Tropf's career as a spacecraft software engineer. The Midland native is the deputy autonomy lead for the Parker Solar Probe launch, supporting the launch from the Mission Operations Center from Laurel, Maryland.

Read more: Midland native prepares for NASA 'mission to touch the sun'

Brooke Teresa Buchholz Tropf graduated from Dow High School in 2000 and is the daughter of Pam and Fred Buchholz. Fred Buchholz is a chemist and Dow retiree.

Tropf's parents made the trip to Florida for the expected launch early this morning among close to 1,000 other NASA invited guests.

Early on the launch was pushed back about 15 minutes, according to Pam Buchholz.

"They resumed the countdown and then rather out of nowhere said, they were shutting everything down and scrubbing the launch for the night," Pam Buchholz told the Daily News via email.

The Buchholz are hoping the launch goes successfully early Sunday morning, but got to see Brooke on screen at her mission control station.

The Parker Solar Probe will has a targeted 7-year mission and will travel closer to the sun than any other spacecraft in its $1.5 billion mission.
To the editor:

In a recent article, our local representative to Congress, John Moolenaar endorsed Annette Glenn for the position of state representative for the 98th District. To clarify and contrary to Moolenaars endorsement, Ms. Glenn does not in any way represent my values.

While on the one hand Moolenaar extols her shared values regardless of party affiliation, Ms. Glenn speaks of her long history of standing up for the values of the Republican Party. Her resume of service almost exclusively deals with her involvement in one way or another with the Republicans. With that as the backdrop, it seems unlikely to me that she would welcome the opinions or concerns of anyone who doesnt share those same narrow views.

When she mentions community organizer in quotes its almost as though shes suggesting thats a bad thing. Since the definition of community organizer is a person whose job is to coordinate cooperative efforts and campaigns to promote the interest of their community I can only assume she is referring to her opponent, Sarah Schulz, and her outreach team as gathering that community input is a big part of the Schulz campaign.

As a longtime resident its refreshing to have a candidate that actually cares about how the people feel about issues and welcomes that input. Spending countless hours meeting with local groups and individuals to hear their concerns is a major focus of Ms. Schulzs campaign. She is smart, compassionate and very dedicated to being the best representative she can be for the 98th District community." Join me in supporting Sarah Schulz for the Michigan State House. Its time for new voices in Lansing.

LINDA BARTH

Midland
To the editor:

Everyone is. Hollywood, Wall Street, the bankers, the Democrats, half of the Republicans, the media. Yes, everyone seems to be against President Donald Trump.

Yet, to my amazement, very few seem to understand why this is. My guess is that at least 99 percent of the public doesnt understand why everyone is against Trump.

A long time ago I was taught, Sometimes, understanding the problem is more difficult than solving the problem." I believe that this is one of those situations.

So, what is the problem? The problem is the globalists. So what do I mean when I say the globalists are the problem?

The globalists have a goal of establishing a one world government, a utopia-like situation where all governments are subservient to a world-wide central authority. They have made much progress. Much of Europe is now under their influence. Many of the government functions and decisions in Europe are made by people who were not elected to represent the people. This is what globalism amounts to.

Then along came Trump, and his amazing victory in the election. Trumps platform espouses destroying much of the globalists progress to date in turning us into a minion of the one world government. If Trump is successful with his programs, the globalist movement will be pretty much destroyed. So, understandably, the globalists are fighting back with all of their might.

This came at a pivotal time for us as Americans. The globalists already controlled the media, Hollywood, the bankers, Wall Street, and Congress. So, understandably, they are all against Trump. Their bosses have told them to destroy Trump.

And it is now almost fun to spot the biggest boot-kissers among them. As they strive to please their masters, they on a daily basis blast us with lies, misstatements, omissions, and exaggerations in their effort to make Trump look bad.

In a world where 93 percent of the news coverage about Trump is negative, something is seriously wrong.

MIKE MILLER

Midland
Up until now central Pennsylvania residents had to look in a catalog or online or travel to a major city to purchase American Girl dolls and other American Girl items. But, now the iconic doll now has a home in the Hershey area. American Girl is holding a grand opening celebration on Saturday and Sunday at its new outlet store at Tanger Outlets Hershey in Derry Township. On Friday, the store had a soft opening and shoppers were browsing lines of dolls along the walls and other American Girl items throughout the store.

Amaris Brott of Derry Township was shopping with her son and daughter, when she noticed the new store.

"She likes American Girl," she said about her daughter. "As soon as I saw the store I was interested."

And Tanger Outlets and American Girl are expecting thousands of loyal American Girl fans to come to Tanger Outlets Hershey this weekend. So much so that Tanger Outlets Hershey has leased extra parking space nearby on Sand Beach Road and will provide a shuttle service all day on Saturday and Sunday.

Wade Opland, vice president, global retail for American Girl said he expects 3,500 to 5,000 people for the grand opening.

And with that amount of people expected to show up to a 2,200-square-foot store with a very small capacity, Tanger Outlets and American Girl have come up with a plan so that shoppers hopefully aren't waiting for hours in a line. Officials will be handing out tickets at the end of the walkway by the Tommy Hilfiger store beginning at 7 a.m. Saturday and beginning at 8 a.m. Sunday. The store will be using group numbers. Ticket holders will be able to check on twitter and will see signs throughout the shopping center, to find out when their group can shop.

"In order to reduce line stress, there will be controlled access to the store using a group number method," Chuck Simmons, general manager of Tanger Outlet Hershey said.

American Girl previously had an outlet store in Wisconsin from 1998 to 2016. Opland says eventually American Girl decided that they did want an outlet store for excess and discontinued goods and Hershey seemed like the perfect match.

"We wanted a store or a location that is very family centered, you know family fun, family focused," he said. "So, we looked around the nation and Hershey Pennsylvania became a great hot spot for us."

Opland says that American Girl liked the assortment of stores at Tanger Outlets Hershey and "wanted to partner with a really good landlord like Tanger."

The store next to the recently opened Vera Bradley store was lined with boxes of dolls including American Girl's Truly Me doll as well as outfits and accessories, books, scrapbooks, Merry Magenta dresses for girls and other American Girl items.

Crystal Henderson from Ontario, Canada was shopping with her daughter, who has three American Girl dolls also noticed the new store on Friday and wanted to take a look inside and see what the store had to offer. She and her daughter had shopped online previously and were happy to see the new store.

American Girl has 20 stores but, this is the only outlet store. The larger stores have a salon and ear piercing for the American Girl dolls and other features, while the outlet will carry a rotating assortment of excess and discontinued dolls, accessories, and clothing.

"Certainly this store is all focused on products," Opland said.

Opland says customers should expect discounts on most items and prices can vary from a $6 doll brush to a rainforest cafe for $147. Henderson and Brott both noticed the discounted prices.

Every girl on Saturday and Sunday will receive a free gift from American Girl. The store will be open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday and from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday. Shuttle service will be available nearby on Sand Beach Road from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Sunday.

The store will have nine employees. American Girl will occupy suite 142 and will take over the space previously occupied by Easy Spirit. Tanger Outlets Hershey is located at 46 Outlet Square and regular hours are from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday - Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday.

American Girl was founded in 1986 and is headquartered in Middleton, Wisconsin. The wholly-owned subsidiary of Mattel Inc., opened its first store in Chicago in 1998. Last year, Mattel opened a 1,000,200-square-foot East Coast distribution center in Union Township, Lebanon County.

Central Pennsylvania American Girl fans should also mark one other date on their calendar. York will also be home to American Girl for one day in February. American Girl Live, a new musical will take place at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. Feb. 2 at the Appell Center for the Performing Arts/Strand Theatre in York. The show will also take place in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Hagerstown, Maryland in February.

But as far as outlet stores go, Opland says the focus is only on Hershey right now and there are no future plans for other outlet stores.

"This is the one and only American Girl outlet in the nation," he said.

Opland says that 15,000 people showed up at a grand opening in New York City. He doesn't expect those kinds of numbers but, he expects a large crowd because of American Girl's "very strong fan base."

"This is a very wholesome brand," he said. "It is a brand that moms trust and girls love."

Brott who also had an American Girl doll growing up, is one of those fans.

"I just like the products, really good quality dolls," she said. "They last forever."

--Business Buzz

For the latest on American Girl's arrival in Hershey: click here
Cars may be one of the last things that most people don't purchase online but, an Arizona online-only used-car retailer will allow central Pennsylvania residents to do just that.

Carvana has launched operations this week in the Harrisburg, Lancaster, Allentown, York and Hanover areas. Delivery is free, and cars are delivered as soon as the next day, the company said.

More than 10,000 vehicles are available on Carvana.com, and customers can finance, purchase and schedule delivery in a short amount of time from their computer or mobile phone, the company said. The company will also accept trade-ins.

The website lists features, updated information about open safety recalls and other information on the car's vehicle description page. All vehicles have undergone a 150-point inspection, have no frame damage and have never been in a reported accident, according to the company. Carvana also has a seven-day return policy which the company points out is better than a 10-minute test drive.

The company plans to prepare vehicles for delivery for the newly expanded areas from a location in York County.

The company was founded in 2012 and is based in Phoenix, Arizona. Carvana began offering its services in Pennsylvania in 2016 when it launched its services in Pittsburgh. Last year Carvana expanded into the Philadelphia market. Carvana is now available in more than 70 cities throughout the country.

--Business Buzz
The Harrisburg Opera Association is returning for an encore -- the company is resuming their outdoor performances after a long hiatus.

"We are reviving Harrisburg's regional and professional opera company, after a hiatus of almost eight years," said Tami Swartz, the HOE's new executive and artistic director.

The company's next performance will be held at Italian Lake in Harrisburg at 4 p.m. on Aug. 19. The show is free, though donations will be accepted.

The theme is "Looking Forward" and will feature a combination of songs from classical and contemporary opera, musical theater, cabaret and folk music, as well as a sneak peek at the Harrisburg Opera Association's next mainstage production.

Bench seating is available for 80 audience members, but guests are also welcome to bring seating or blankets. For details, visit the Harrisburg Opera Association's website.
WILLIAMSPORT -- The vice president of the Aryan Strikeforce has become the fourth member of the white nationalist organization to plead guilty to a role in a scheme to transport weapons and drugs across state lines.

Steven D. Davis, 46, of Bumpass, Va., Friday entered his plea in U.S. Middle District Court to a charge of possession of firearms by a convicted felon. He remains detained pending sentencing.

He admitted in early October 2016 he traveled from Virginia to Potter County with a shotgun and a 9mm pistol and gave them to another strikeforce member who had served 10 years for aggravated assault.

Strikeforce members met in Potter County in September and October of that year, Assistant U.S. Attorney George J. Rocktashel said.

The three who previously pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge are Joshua Michael Steever, of Manville, N.J., Connor Drew Dikes of Silver Spring, Md., and Henry Lambert David of the Allentown area. None of them has been sentenced.

They admitted taking part in planning meetings in the Harrisburg area with undercover FBI employees and in 2017 participating in the transportation of imitation crystal methamphetamine and machine gun parts from Pennsylvania to Maryland.

As he has done at previous court proceedings involving strikeforce members, Rocktashel cited the organization's stated mission "to protect the honor of our women, children and the future of our race and nation" using violence as a necessary tool.

Of the six indicted, only Jacob Marks Robards of Bethlehem and Justin Daniel Lough of Waynesboro, Va., are awaiting trial.

Lough is fighting his indictment accusing the government of outrageous conduct by conceiving, planning and directing the scheme. Rocktashel alleges Lough was a willing participant.
A Lancaster County man has been charged in the fatal beating of 16-year-old Blake John Shearer in an Elizabethtown park, authorities said Friday.

The suspect, David M. Skalla, 24, of Elizabethtown, claimed he "blacked out" during the incident on Monday, according to the Lancaster County district attorney's office.

David M. Skalla, 24, of Elizabethtown

Skalla was charged with criminal homicide and aggravated assault Friday, according to a release from the Lancaster County district attorney's office.

Shearer died Friday afternoon, his family said in a post on Facebook.

Read more:

Skalla is in custody on a parole/probation matter, and will be arraigned on the charges related to this incident on a later date, according to the release.

Police said Skalla confronted Shearer about the loud music being played at the East Washington Street Park Monday evening.

Witnesses of the incident told police that Skalla was the only one "to throw punches" which escalated the argument to a physical attack.

Police said Skalla left the park with his family after the assault, in a vehicle which was photographed by a witness. The photograph helped lead police to the vehicle, which was owned by Skalla's girlfriend, who was not identified in the release.

Police said Skalla told his girlfriend that he "blacked out" during the incident.

Shearer was hit four times in the face and head eventually fell to the ground, prosecutors said. Shearer was being treated at Penn State Hershey Medical Center all week, but died at the hospital around 2:20 p.m. Friday.

Shearer's father posted about his son's death on Facebook Friday afternoon.

Elizabethtown Police Detective Dustin Ryan filed the charges, which were approved by Assistant District Attorney Andrew LeFever.
A male, name and age not given, is safe and unharmed after crews spent more than an hour and a half searching the Conodoguinet Creek Friday evening.

Crews went to the 300 block of Bernheisel Bridge Road in Middlesex Township, which includes a bridge over the Conodoguinet Creek, around 7:30 p.m. Friday, Middlesex Fire Chief Ed Beam said at the scene. Crews did not locate anyone in the water at the time.

Different crews went to different points of the creek in order to search for the person.

The male was not found in the water, but rather in a yard, and that was was called in about an hour and a half after the initial water rescue call.

Beam said the man was not injured and had been picked up by a family member.

Only one rescue boat was used in the water, but there were three ready to go in case they were needed, Beam said.

Crews were still in the water around 9:30 p.m., with the call remaining active until they got out, Beam said.
By Ed Perry

I was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, in the 40's and 50's, overlooking the steel mills, about one quarter mile from where the Cuyahoga River caught on fire.

There were no public parks nearby, no play grounds, no neighborhood swimming pools. My ballfield was an abandoned old field next to a busy highway. In short, my outdoor recreational opportunities were quite limited.

But the landscape for public outdoor recreation changed dramatically in 1964, when with bipartisan support, Congress created the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

The LWCF was established to "...preserve, create and ensure access to outdoor recreation facilities so as to strengthen the health of Americans." And it has fulfilled its mission admirably.

For the past 54 years, the fund has used a small portion of the federal offshore energy revenues to buy and preserve public lands, purchase angler and boater access, swimming pools, ballfields, local parks, national parks, and historic sites.

There are no tax dollars in the fund.

After moving from Cleveland, my wife and two boys and I made up for lost time by fishing, camping, hiking, kayaking and enjoying nature all over our great country.

Our trips to iconic places like the Grand Canyon, Everglades National Park, Acadia National Park, and Grand Teton National Park, were some of our family's best outdoor experiences. And we never knew those special places were created or heavily supported by the LWCF.

The LWCF was established to compensate for the damage that oil and gas drilling would do to the Gulf, which as we have seen, has been enormous. Since there are no taxpayer dollars in the LWCF, it is puzzling why Congress refuses to spend these funds for the purposes the fund was created when there are so many communities that would benefit from a LWCF funded project.

Each year, over $900 million dollars has gone into the fund. Unfortunately, Congress has appropriated full funding to support conservation and recreation projects only once in the Fund's 54-year history - diverting the remainder of the money elsewhere.

As a result, over $20 billion, of the $48 billion that should have been used to build city and state parks, hiking and biking trails, or acquiring conservation easements to protect fish and wildlife habitat, and recreational opportunities for all Americans, has gone into the black-hole of the Federal treasury. And Congress has allowed this to happen.

The LWCF has indeed benefited communities in every state, with over 41,000 projects being funded. And Pennsylvania has been especially blessed.

The list includes the Middle Creek Wildlife Management Area, the Flight 93 Memorial, Fort Hunter and Wildwood Park in Harrisburg as well as 26 other funded parks in the area, Allegheny Landing Park in Pittsburgh, boat ramps in Erie, 16 parks in the York city area and over 40 parks, pools and playgrounds in the Scranton/Wilkes Barre area. In sum, virtually every part of the state has benefited from LWCF funding.

Outdoor recreation is big business, and the projects funded by the LWCF help drive the Nation's $887 billion recreation outdoor industry. Moreover, many of the 7.6 million jobs the Outdoor Recreation Association says are directly attributable to outdoor recreation are in rural communities and gateway areas to national parks, monuments, and forests.

Without congressional action, this wonderful program that has benefited so many communities around the country is set to expire on September 30.

Therefore, it's urgent we contact our federal representatives and demand they permanently reauthorize the LWCF with full funding so that we can create and protect those special places that are so important to all of us.

Environmental advocate Ed Perry writes from Boalsburg, Pa. Readers may email him at paglobalwarmingoutreach@gmail.com
By Tea Kvetenadze

(Reuters)  The mother of Michael Brown, the unarmed black teenager shot to death by a white policeman in Ferguson, Missouri, igniting months of protest and a national debate over race and law enforcement, said on Friday she is running for City Council.

Lezley McSpadden announced her candidacy at an emotionally charged rally surrounded by supporters, a day after the fourth anniversary of her sons death, which thrust the St. Louis suburb into the global spotlight as an emblem of troubled U.S. race relations.

McSpadden, a onetime grocery store worker who founded and runs a charitable foundation in her sons name dedicated to various social causes, had previously hinted at her intention to seek a City Council seat at an event in April.

She recounted on Friday how her sons death left her devastated but ultimately inspired her to run for office.

It brought me down to my knees and made me feel crippled, as if I could do nothing else anymore from that moment, she said. I learned to walk again, and this is one of my first steps, running for Ferguson City Council of 2019.

McSpadden, who earned her high school diploma last year at age 37, said her three main focuses would be community policing, economic equality and healthcare access, especially for children.

I know a lot of people may ask what makes me qualified. But Ill tell you. If a mother had to watch her son lay in the street for 4 1/2 hours and watch a community be completely disrespected by elected officials that we elected, what would you do? You would stand up and you would fight too, she said.

She and her ex-husband, Michael Brown, Sr., settled a wrongful death lawsuit against the city last June over their sons killing.

Brown was gunned down on Aug. 9, 2014, by Officer Darren Wilson. He was 18 at the time.

The shooting ignited weeks of racially charged protests, during which dozens were arrested.

The predominantly African-American community of 21,000, whose political leadership, police department and public school administration were dominated by whites, erupted in anger again after Wilson was spared from prosecution over Browns death.

The turmoil touched off a national debate on discrimination in the criminal justice system, amplifying long-standing grievances about police harassment and mistreatment of minorities and giving rise to the Black Lives Matter movement.

Bob McCulloch, the St. Louis County prosecutor who was widely criticized after Browns death, lost a primary election two days ago to Wesley Bell, a Ferguson city council member who has vowed criminal justice reform.

(Reporting by Tea Kvetenadze; Editing by Toni Reinhold)
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A very crowded 2020 Democratic presidential field could get even bigger as Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) said that he is considering running for his partys presidential nomination.

According to The Mercury News, Rep. Swalwell said, Right now my focus is to win at home, earn my way back to Washington to represent my constituents, help other candidates win so we can change the country, and then Ill make decisions after November about my future.

Jake Tapper tweeted that the California Congressman is considering a run:

In the midst of his 10th visit to Iowa since President Trump was elected, @RepSwalwell, D-CA, tells me hes considering a presidential run. Hes speaking at the soap box at the Iowa state fair tomorrow & headlining @DaveForIowa dinner tonight.  Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) August 10, 2018

Rep. Swalwell has already made ten trips to Iowa. He has seen his political explode thanks to the Russia scandal to the point where he is averaging more than one television interview per day in 2018.

The problem that Swalwell or any other potential candidate without built-in national name recognition will face is that 2020 could be the most crowded primary field in the history of the party. There could be as many as 25 Democrats seriously vying for the nomination. The list of candidates could include household names like former vice president Joe Biden and 2016 candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), and popular progressives like Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

The Democratic field is going to be strong and exciting. Adding Rep. Swalwell to the list of candidates would give Democratic voters another interesting choice that could potentially defeat Trump.

For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.
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Russia has been using social media for several years to sow discord among the American electorate, and now Democrats have their own army of social media specialists to fight back.

U.S. intelligence services have confirmed many times that the Russian attack on America was not done by just hacking systems, it also has been done through massive social media campaigns involving the use of bots and disinformation campaigns.

Although Twitter and Facebook have taken steps to protect against fake accounts and fake news, it is not enough. Democratic leaders are still afraid that Russian interference in this years elections will influence the results again in favor of their opponents.

Since they have been burned on social media, Democrats this year started a new program which they plan to use to win election battles on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is the group in charge of Democratic Party strategy for House races. The DCCC recently implemented new advanced software to identify suspected automated Twitter accounts, or bots.

These bots have been used extensively to make social media posts about key races, and they have been shown to have had significant impact on election outcomes. U.S. intelligence officials and technology firms have said that such automated account postings were a big part of Russias interference in the 2016 presidential election.

The Democrats new system also will provide a way for them to take charge and drive discussions on Facebook, Twitter and other platforms. Historically Democrats have not done that, and have suffered because of it.

The DCCC has hired several dozen social media specialists whose job is to fight daily messaging battles online. By doing this they hope to counter the efforts already under way that are helping the Russians and the Republicans.

According to DCCC reports, their new effort employs over 40 battle station organizers and sets them to work in the most competitive districts in the country. They work full-time building grass-roots networks to spread pro-Democratic messages. They also post attacks on Republicans in local Facebook and Twitter communities.

This is completely different from what we have done in past cycles, said Dan Sena, the executive director of the DCCC.

Under the new social media strategy, Democratic workers paid by the national party recruit local volunteers to work as social media activists. They also recruit volunteers to knock on doors and work at phone banks, but the social media work has taken on new importance.

The new staff volunteers spend their time adding viral content in local Facebook groups just like they used to try to have a presence on the letter to the editor pages of local newspapers.

Republicans seem to have a more limited program of providing House candidates with digital training and support for campaign staff members, and are not employing their own social media army yet.

Perhaps that is because they have the Russian bots doing it for them.

Whether its Russia or whether it is a bot network in Michigan, its all the same in terms of fighting against it, said David Yanakovich, the digital director for the successful Senate campaign of Doug Jones (D-Ala.).

Now, at least, Democrats are fighting back, and it might make all the difference in this years elections.
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A Republican running for a seat in Floridas State House has been caught with a degree thats about as credible as one from Trump University, according to FLA News.

According to the report, GOP House candidate Melissa Howard posed for a picture with a degree from Miami University in Ohio to silence those who accused her of faking her diploma.

The only problem, according to the report, is that the degree is fake. Not only is there no record of her earning the diploma, but the university said they dont even offer the degree she claims to have received.

More from the report:

According to Miami University, Howard did attend but there is no record of her earning a degree either in 1994, which she initially claimed, or in 1996, which she later claimed. The degree Howard was holding in the picture contains inconsistencies, according to the universitys general counsel. Miami University does not offer a Bachelor of Science in Marketing, instead it offers a Bachelor of Science in Business. Howards major while attending Miami University was Retailing and if she had graduated would have received a Bachelor of Science in Family and Consumer Sciences.

FLA News added, Howard removed the diploma pictures from Facebook as her story of earning a Bachelor of Science in Marketing began to unravel.

Howard shares key Trump policy positions

A look at Melissa Howards campaign website shows that she has more flaws than pushing a fake college education. She has also fully embraced key policies in the dangerous Trump agenda.

Some of her campaign priorities include Second Amendment rights (aka guns anywhere and everywhere) and working to ban sanctuary cities or amnesty for illegal aliens (aka immigrants are the enemy).

With or without a college degree, its clear: Melissa Howard as no business being a member of any level of U.S. government.
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By Susan Cornwell

WASHINGTON (Reuters)  U.S. Representative Chris Collins, an ally of President Donald Trump charged with taking part in an insider trading scheme, halted his campaign for re-election on Saturday, as Republicans sought to minimize the damage from his case ahead of Novembers midterm elections.

Collins said in a statement his decision was in the best interest of his constituents in New York, as well as the Republican Party and President Trumps agenda.

Collins was charged earlier this week with taking part in an insider trading scheme involving an Australian biotechnology company, Innate Immunotherapeutics LTD, on whose board he served. He has denied the charges.

Collins, 68, said he would fill out the remaining few months of his term in office. I will also continue to fight the meritless charges brought against me and I look forward to having my good name cleared of any wrongdoing, he said in the statement posted on Twitter.

Republican leaders backed Collins move.

I respect Chris Collins decision to step down while he faces these serious allegations. As Ive said before, Congress must hold ourselves to the highest possible standards, said Representative Steve Stivers, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, which works to elect Republicans to the House of Representatives.

Republicans are nervous about their prospects for retaining their majorities in Congress in the Nov. 6 election, in which all 435 House seats and 35 of the 100 Senate seats will be up for grabs. Democrats need to pick up 23 seats to take control of the House.

Collins, who was one of Trumps earliest supporters in Congress, had been seeking a fourth two-year term in the solidly Republican 27th congressional district in the western part of New York.

Non-partisan analysts had predicted Collins would win re-election, but his indictment put Republicans on the defensive.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi called Collins decision to halt his campaign too little, too late and said he should resign. Speaker (Paul) Ryan must call on Congressman Collins to resign, she said in a statement.

Democrats have said the charges against Collins are an example of a culture of corruption under Trump, pointing to ethics scandals that have ensnared several cabinet members and to the trial of Trumps former campaign chairman Paul Manafort on bank and tax fraud charges.

REPLACING A CANDIDATE

Although Collins has said he is halting his campaign, New York state law restricts political candidates from being easily replaced on ballots, unless a candidate dies, moves out of state or is nominated for another office.

The only way he (Collins) can be replaced is if the Republicans are brazen enough to run him for another office, said Jerry Goldfeder, special counsel at Stroock, a law firm in New York.

One Republican operative said it was likely local officials will nominate Collins to a clerkship, so as to remove him from the House ballot. Erie County Comptroller Stefan Mychajliw said on Saturday on Twitter that if this happens, he will seek the nomination for the Republican Party to run against Democrat Nate McMurray for the House seat.

Republicans were also given cause for concern about November after their underwhelming showing on Tuesday in a special election for a House seat in a reliably conservative district of Ohio. Republican Troy Balderson appeared to eke out a victory against Democrat Danny OConnor, but that is not yet certain, as he had a tiny margin, and state officials must still count thousands of provisional and absentee ballots.

The indictment issued on Wednesday charged Collins, his son, Cameron, and Stephen Zarsky, the father of Cameron Collins fiancee, with securities fraud, wire fraud and other crimes. All three defendants pleaded not guilty.

(Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Frances Kerry)
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Donald Trump commemorated the one-year anniversary of the deadly events in Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday by bragging about how low he has pushed the African American unemployment rate.

In a pair of tweets, Trump gave a weak condemnation of all types of racism before bragging about having personally fought for and secured the LOWEST African American and Hispanic unemployment rates in history.

The riots in Charlottesville a year ago resulted in senseless death and division. We must come together as a nation. I condemn all types of racism and acts of violence. Peace to ALL Americans!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 11, 2018

I am proud to have fought for and secured the LOWEST African American and Hispanic unemployment rates in history. Now Im pushing for prison reform to give people who have paid their debt to society a second chance. I will never stop fighting for ALL Americans!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 11, 2018

Trumps one-year response to the events in Charlottesville wasnt much of an improvement from his initial spewings last year when he equated white supremacists with their counter-protesters.

You had some very bad people in that group, the president said. But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.

It was the racist dog whistle heard around the world, one that further activated the most racist and vile elements of American society.

Saturdays statement from the president in which he refers to all types of racism seems to be an updated version of his very fine people on both sides garbage.

Trump is also wrong on the substance

Its not just the tone that missed the mark in Trumps statements on Saturday. He struck out on the substance, too, in his repeated claim that he created

Nobody believes either that Trump cares about or deserves credit for the downward decline in African American unemployment. Hes just slapping his name on his predecessors work.

As Joe Scarborough pointed out earlier this year, the black jobless rate began to sharply decline in 2010, when Barack Obama was president and it hasnt stopped since.

Black unemployment is at record lows thanks to a massive declining trend started in 2010.

Congratulations @BarackObama. pic.twitter.com/yr5FmQA6a3  Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) January 28, 2018

This downward trend started well before Trumps presidential candidacy was even an idea. Its not as if he took office amidst increasing African American unemployment and implemented policies to turn it around.

Like much of his personal wealth, a strong economy was something Trump inherited. He deserves no credit for simply having it handed to him.

Above all else, what Saturdays Twitter ramblings showed America is that Donald Trump still hasnt figured out how to adequately condemn white supremacist hate one year after the fatal events in Charlottesville.

The reason for that is simple: This racist hate fuels his political agenda and energizes his base. Without it, he has nothing.
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We havent heard from Michael Cohen or his attorney lately, and in many ways the silence has been deafening. The former Trump attorney has not been on Twitter or on television or anywhere else in the media for weeks.

It is probably not a coincidence that Cohen seems to have gone underground at the same time that former Trump campaign manager Paul Manfort has gone on trial.

Mueller has used Manaforts trial to send a message that anyone who fights him is doomed. And the main intended recipient of that message is Michael Cohen.

In many respects Cohen is in exactly the same situation as Manafort, its just that he hasnt been indicted yet.

To clarify, lets look at the Cohen news that appeared in the media over the past week but has been mostly ignored.

First of all, Cohen is now under investigation for tax fraud.

According to the Wall Street Journal, federal authorities are assessing whether Mr. Cohens income from his taxi-medallion business was underreported in federal tax returns.

The Journal article said that Cohen illegally avoided reporting as taxable income hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The Journal also said that officials also are looking into whether any bank employees improperly allowed Mr. Cohen to obtain loans for which he didnt provide adequate documentation.

Tax fraud. Bank fraud. Illicit loans. Money laundering. Doesnt this sound familiar?

Another similarity between Cohens case and the Manafort trial is that both of these close Trump friends have business associates who flipped on them and are cooperating with law enforcement.

In Manaforts case it is his former employee and personal assistant Rick Gates who is cooperating with Mueller in exchange for lesser charges and shorter prison terms. Everyone agrees that Gates testimony against Manafort was deadly and there is no chance that Trumps longtime associate will be found innocent of all 18 charges.

In Cohens case, he has a business partner who has also flipped and is working with prosecutors. And like Gates, this business associate could provide the evidence needed to find Cohen guilty. The guy who flipped and cut a plea deal is Evgeny Freidman known as the Taxi King who has been Cohens partner in the New York City taxi business for many years.

According to the Journal, Freidman has helped investigators understand the details of the finances of Cohens own taxi cab business. And, as expected, they found out that Cohen was running the same kinds of tax scams as Freidman, and they have the evidence they need to prove it in court.

In essence, this means that that Freidman is going to do to Cohen what Gates did to Manafort. And because of the article in the Journal, Cohen knows it.

Yesterday the AP reported that the review of the Cohen documents seized in the FBI raid in April has been completed, which means the prosecutors can now proceed with their case against Cohen for various other financial crimes.

So the delays are over and the messages have been sent. The time is now for Michael Cohen to end his silence.

The Manafort trial has shown Michael Cohen that he has no chance of getting off and being found innocent. He now knows that he had better cut his own plea deal ASAP in order to avoid Manaforts fate of spending decades in prison.
The President of Slovakia Andrej Kiska said on July 31, the Night Wolves  Russias biker club notoriously loyal to Vladimir Putin  posed a national security threat to his country.

President Kiskas comments came after the Night Wolves established base in a small town just 43 miles from the Slovak capital of Bratislava.

The Night Wolves joined the military units in the Crimea alongside the Russian army. Several members received state awards in Russia, said Kiska in a statement. The founder of the Night Wolves is on the sanction list for participation in the annexation of the Crimea and must not travel to any of the EU member states. So to be clear, they are no harmless motorcycle lovers.

The President urged the Slovak government to provide security forces with all the necessary conditions for effective action against the dubious societies that are spreading throughout our country.



Blame Soros and Democracy

The next day, Alexander Zaldostanov, aka the Surgeon  the leader of the Night Wolves  unfolded an end of the world conspiracy theory in response to Kiska, accusing the Slovak President of using democracy and Soros to shape the world mentality for ultimate control over the world. Soros is a frequent target of Russian nationalists and their Web sites.

But we are not a flock, following Soros to the abyss. We do not want to fit into their end of the world, said Surgeon, claiming his European base was not the initiative of Moscow.

Follow the Money

The Surgeons claim is false. For the the sorts of initiatives that alerted the Slovakian president to the biker club, the Night Wolves has enjoyed privileged treatment by the Russian government -- funding verified in tens of millions of rubles and possibly much more in direct financing and presidential grants.

In the Russian government entrepreneurs registry, Alexander Zaldostanov is listed as the owner or manager of more than 11 currently active firms in Russia and a founder or a co-founder of about 60.

According to Russian government open sources, groups and companies owned in full or in part by Alexander Zaldostanov, including the Night Wolves have received from the federal and regional government budgets in Russia approximately 60 million rubles between 2011 and 2018.

Exact sums are difficult to track due to the lack of transparency in Russia, especially in Chechnya and other rural regions, where the Night Wolves leader enjoys the same privileged treatment as in Moscow.

Where the Wolves Ride

The projects, for which the Surgeon is getting financial support from the Russian government, include, for instance, delivery of the gift of a giant bell from the Russian Orthodox Church to the Ukrainian city of Sevastopol in 2013  one year before Putin was to move to annex the city along with the entire Crimean peninsula. The symbolism of the bell was apparent only to those familiar with a long time struggle of the Russian Orthodox Church in trying to take the independent Kyiv Church under its control.

A year later, the Night Wolves took part in the annexation of Crimea, and in the war in eastern Ukraine, fighting as mercenaries against Kyiv.

There were also notorious motorcycle rallies through major EU cities from Russia to Berlin promoting Russian patriotism and highlighting the glory of the Russian military  supposedly to celebrate and honor the liberating role of the Soviet Army in Europe at the end of World War II.

In Synchrony with the Kremlin

The statements and the actions of the Night Wolves often appear to be synchronized with Kremlin and Russian Defense Ministry narratives. For instance, the Wolves establishment of a network of new headquarters in the Balkans coincides with the plans of the Russian defense ministry to establish new military bases in Serbia and Bosnia, and the use of the existing civilian bases" for spying.

The Night Wolves base in Slovakia that triggered concern over national security, in fact, is not a mere headquarters as the Surgeon claims it is. Drone footage shows it to resemble a military fortress equipped with artillery, heavy armored vehicles and even tanks.

The base is located near where the borders of three European countries come together  the Czech Republic, Austria and Slovakia -- in a small town called Dolna Krupa. EU borders are open and so movement in the region is unrestricted.

According to the newspaper Hospodarske Noviny, the local branch of the Night Wolves is headed by Jozef Hambalek, who the newspaper says owns the property and is close to former Slovak Interior Minister Robert Kalinak. Neither has commented publicly on the base, Radio Free Europe reported in July.

This July, a group of more than two hundred Slovak intellectuals sent an open letter to their government urging it take action against the Night Wolves. The letter called Hambalek a Slovak paramilitary fanatic and an umbrella for Russias covert operations.

Jozef Hambalek is the official founder and owner of the Slovak Night Wolves Club.

In 2016, the Montenegrin prosecutor indicted the leader of the Serbian Night Wolves club, and a veteran of Russias war in eastern Ukraine, Aleksandr Sindjelic. He is accused of an attempted coup, including the assassination of Montenegros then-Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic, who Moscow perceived as rival due to his pro-Western views.

In the months leading up to the parliamentary elections of October 16, 2016, Russian agents, Serbian extremists, and leaders of the Montenegrin opposition alliance (the Democratic Front) prepared to oust the government violently on election night, said the report by the Foreign Policy Research Institute, based on testimony and physical evidence reviewed by researchers.
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Mary Katherine, who also goes by MK, covers health care for The Post and Courier. She is also pursuing a master's degree in data science. She grew up in upstate New York and enjoys playing cards, kayaking and the Blue Ridge Mountains.
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The mentorship program offered through Rochester Public Schools not only affords high school students opportunities to explore interests outside of a traditional classroom setting, but can also be a stepping stone for future careers.

Lili Rothschild, Century High School Class of 2013, is one such student, whose mentorship placement positioned her for success in her present-day studies.

As a student who loved math and had strong quantitative skills, ironically enough, it was an English class assignment ("interpret a novel from a psychoanalytical perspective") that led Lili into the world of psychology. The process piqued her interest, and during her senior year of high school she was matched with a mentor, Dr. Stephen Whiteside, a clinical psychologist and director of the Child and Adolescent Anxiety Disorders Program at Mayo Clinic.

Reading countless literature reviews on anxiety and immersing herself in the research, Lili found her professional calling.

After earning a degree in psychological science and statistics with a minor in neuroscience from Gustavus Adolphus College (Class of 2017), Lili was accepted into Michigan State Universitys doctoral program in clinical psychology. As part of the application process, she highlighted Dr. Whitesides impact on her and described her mentor as "influential and inspirational."

This past June, after finishing the first of six years in the doctoral program, Lili learned she was a winner of the Graduate Research Fellowship (GRF) from the National Science Foundation (NSF). This prestigious award will fund the next three years of Lilis graduate studies, as she continues her research, which is "a blend of psychology and neuroscience and focuses on how anxiety impacts cognition and behavior."

Upon completion of the program, Lili hopes to secure a faculty research position with the opportunity to do clinical work part-time.

Shipping out to Madagascar

After graduating from Century High School in 2012, Hannah Soderlinddid not expect to see the world from a ship. However, that is exactly the path her life has taken thus far.

Her first venture out of the United States came with some prodding from her mother, who encouraged her to take chances and try new things.

After learning about Mercy Ships from a friend, Hannah headed to Madagascar to work on board Africa Mercy, a hospital ship providing health care for those lacking medical resources.

During her six weeks on the ship, she worked as a housekeeper, cleaning the common areas of the ship. However, it was the encounters with those receiving medical care that impacted her the most.

"There were people constantly smiling everywhere that I looked," Hannah said.

Hannah left the ship when she returned home to see her younger sister graduate from Air Force boot camp in 2015. With Hannahs older sister already serving in the National Guard, military service seemed to be the family destiny. Hannah enlisted in the Navy that fall and headed off to boot camp in February 2016.

Although based in San Diego, Hannah, an electricians mate, has spent much time at sea over the last two and a half years. As "one of the youngest people to hold one of the highest qualifications in the engineering department" aboard the USS Lake Champlain, Hannah played an essential role this summer during the "largest international maritime warfare exercise," Rim of the Pacific (RIMPAC).

This year, RIMPAC, held in Hawaii, included 26 nations, 46 ships, five submarines, more than 200 aircraft and 25,000 people. RIMPAC provides realistic training for the armed forces of participating nations and helps maintain safety and security at sea. Hannahs role was to keep the ship moving during the exercises, which she described as "playing war games with the other ships."

"There are special types of people in the world that are meant for the Navy," Hannah said. When her commitment ends in 2020, she plans to move to Austin, Texas, to attend college and start the next chapter in her lifes journey.
William Robert "Doc" Fuqua, 58, of Rochester, passed away unexpectedly on Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2018.

Doc was born June 23, 1960,in Orlando, Fla., to William and Shirley Fuqua Sr. Doc graduated from Daviess County High School in Owensboro, Ky. He joined the U.S. Navy and enjoyed a rewarding 21-year career as both a corpsman and deep-sea diver and instructor. He was passionate about serving his country and the men and women he cared for and took full advantage of the adventure the military provides, meeting people and exploring new sites at every chance.

On April 24, 1993, he married Kathy Wahlberg in Decorah, Iowa. They had two children, Nicholas and Jackson. The family moved to Decorah upon Docs retirement from the Navy, and Doc earned his bachelor of science degree in nursing with the highest honors/distinction from the University of Iowa. Docs nursing career led him to Mayo Clinic in Rochester where his talent and background in hyperbaric medicine helped establish the Hyperbaric and Altitude Medicine Program. He was most recently an RN at the Federal Medical Center in Rochester.

Doc loved like no other: his life, his family and friends, his faith, his work and his country. He had a unique ability to light up any room he entered with his big smile and genuine wish to meet or talk with you. He was truly content when he could help someone else  stranger or friend, patient or colleague. Anyone who knew Doc has a funny story to go along with it, and he was best known for his antics and zest for life. Doc was always up for any adventure  you just had to say the word and he would join you with a smile. Docs passion for helping others was evident throughout his professional career. He enjoyed challenges he could work to solve and sought ways to make improvements, always with a positive attitude that was infectious.

Doc is survived by his loving wife, Kathy; sons, Nicholas and Jackson; mother, Shirley Fuqua; sisters, Bunny (Howard) Frum, Audrey (David) Price, Kim (Ross) Cotton and Nancy (Sam) Wilson; mother in-law, Marilyn Wahlberg; brothers in-law, Randy, Bradley (Rhonda), Tom (Beth) and John; many nieces and nephews; and a host of other family and friends.

Doc was preceded in death by his father, William, and his father-in-law, Raymond Wahlberg.

A memorial to celebrate Docs life will be held 11 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 18, 2018, at Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, 1212 12th Ave. NW in Rochester with the Rev. David Berg officiating. Visitation will be held from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 17, 2018 at Ranfranz and Vine Funeral Homes, 5421 Royal Place NW in Rochester, and one hour prior to the service at the church. Inurnment will be held on Monday, Aug. 20, 2018, at The Minnesota State Veterans Cemetery in Preston.

In lieu of flowers, the family will be directing memorials to a ministry that provides programming for youth.

To share a special memory or condolence, please visit www.ranfranzandvinefh.com.
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Secretary of Labor Alex Acosta has done almost nothing to disturb the hard-left agenda implemented by his predecessor, Tom Perez. Thus, its not surprising that hes receiving praise from a key member of the Perez team.

Seth Harris, who served as a deputy and acting labor secretary during the Obama administration, had this to say about Trumps labor secretary:

Acosta understands how government works, he has no interest in blowing up the structures and processes of government, did not enter government with either a clear conservative or reactionary labor agenda, and has been extraordinarily cautious both to make sure he is giving the White House what it wants and also to avoid making negative headlines.

(Emphasis added)

The quote from Harris appears in an article by Bloombergs Ben Penn. The article describes a clash between Acosta and James Sherk, a conservative who has the DOL portfolio at the White House Domestic Policy Council. They clashed over DOLs delay on various regulations, including a more moderate version of an Obama-era rule expand workers access to overtime pay, and an anticipated effort to take a closer look at union and worker center finances.

Add these items to the list of areas Ive flagged in which Acosta has been unwilling to act.

Sherks former boss at the White House, Paul Winfree, told Bloomberg:

[Acosta] is much more cautious [than Sherk]. He is also very much motivated by what he sees as being politically popular on the Hill. There were several things in the regulatory space that we tried to push him on last year that he pushed back on us on just purely out of, `Well I dont want to tackle that political challenge right now.

Stated plainly, Acosta wont disturb the radical Obama-Perez agenda because he wants to be popular with Democrats. Just as I predicted when he was nominated.

Thats why conservatives are disgusted with Acosta, though few want to say so on the record for fear of alienating the influential friends he made in the 1990s, before he began currying favor with liberals. And thats why leftists like Harris are delighted with Acosta.

Harris certainly has the right line on Acosta, but does he have the right line on President Trump? According to Harris:

The dichotomy between Sherk and Acosta tells us that President Trump abandoned plans for a radically reactionary labor agenda after his nomination of Andrew Puzder for Secretary of Labor went down in flames.

I doubt it. I think Trump thought he was getting a conservative Secretary of Labor, something he clearly wanted as his selection of Puzder shows. At a minimum, Im sure Trump thought he was getting something other than the ninth and tenth years of the Obama DOL. I doubt Trump consciously abandoned his clear desire to undo the Obama-Perez agenda.

Trump was the victim of very bad advice. Now he has too many things on his plate to worry about the Labor Department. Thus, were stuck with Alex Acosta unless and until he parlays his hard-won popularity on the Hill into the high-level federal judgeship he undoubtedly covets.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Charles Grassley announced today that hearings on the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh will begin on September 4. He expects three or four days will be required to complete them.

This timetable may be sufficient to have the full Senate vote on Kavanaugh nomination in time for him to join the Court when its term begins on October 1. If not, then he should be able to join soon thereafter, assuming hes confirmed.

If the hearings commence on September 4, that will be 57 days after the Kavanaugh nomination was announced. By way of comparison, hearings for Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, and Neil Gorsuch occurred 48-49 days after the president announced their nominations.

(Merrick Garland never got a hearing. But unlike Sotomayor, Kagan, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh, Garland was nominated by a lame duck president. And Garland didnt have the votes to be confirmed, anyway. More likely than not, Kavanaugh does).

Democrats protest that when the hearings take place, they will not have all of the documents they want to see. However, as Grassleys press release points out:

[T]he committee has received more than 184,000 pages of records from Judge Kavanaughs work as a White House lawyer and his work for Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr. The committee also expects to receive hundreds of thousands of additional pages of Executive Branch documents. These records will be reviewed in addition to the 307 cases in which Judge Kavanaugh wrote an opinion as an appeals court judge, the hundreds more opinions he joined, and the more than 17,500 pages of material he provided in response to the committees bipartisan questionnaire.

Because there are so many of them, Kavanaughs judicial opinions and the ones he joined are really all thats required to assess his fitness to serve on the Supreme Court. He hasnt been nominated to serve in the White House Counsels office. In any event, Democrats will have many hundreds of thousands of additional documents to review as they search for that gotcha sentence.

Democrats complain that, because the National Archives doesnt have the resources to review most of the documents from Kavanaughs time as a lawyer in the Bush administration, a team of former Bush administration lawyers will control what is and is not produced.

Ed Whelan addresses this alleged concern. He argues, among other things:

[T]he president whose White House records have been requested is always part of the process. President Obama issued the executive order that governs the disclosure of presidential records under the Presidential Records Act. Consistent with the Act, that executive order authorizes a former president to make a claim of executive privilege regarding requested records, and it further specifies that executive privilege covers records that reflect the deliberative processes of the executive branch. Its hardly a surprise that a president would rely on trusted lawyers for this sensitive executive-privilege review. I havent seen any specific account of who led the review of Elena Kagans records on behalf of the Clinton White House. But the Clinton presidential library is operated by the Clinton Foundation, and the longtime head of the Clinton Foundationincluding during the time of Kagans confirmation processis Clinton loyalist Bruce Lindsey. Lindsey was assistant to the president and deputy White House counsel, and Kagan worked under Lindsey during her time in the White House counsels office. She also worked with him in her later position as deputy director of the White House domestic policy council. If Bruce Lindsey didnt personally manage the review of Kagans records, its farfetched to imagine that he didnt have another Clinton loyalist play the role.

In the end, it doesnt matter whether Democratic Senators, whose obstructionist aim could hardly be more transparent, like the document production process. As long as it satisfies Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and the rest of the GOP caucus, it will be sufficient for purposes of confirming Judge Kavanaugh.

As far as I can tell, the document production satisfies Republican Senators, and it seems likely that the Majority Leader knows it does. The focus of Collins and Murkowski will be Kavanaugh answers to questions about Roe v. Wade and its progeny.

It looks like we will hear his answers beginning September 5.
This week The Intercept has broken a couple of stories regarding Minnesota Attorney Genera Lori Swanson, now seeking the DFL gubernatorial nomination in a wildly competitive primary contest in which the endorsed DFL candidate appears to be lagging the field. I noted the stories by Rachel Cohen yesterday in Scooping the Star Tribune. I credited Cohen with breaking these stories from her perch in Washington, D.C. In todays Star Tribune reporters Patrick Coolican and Jessie Van Berkel follow up on Cohens stories:

A day after a former aide accused Attorney General Lori Swanson of using her elected office to advance her political career, Swanson responded Friday by releasing the aides criminal record  in e-mails from the attorney generals office. In response, the ex-aide, DAndre Norman, sought a restraining order against Swanson. He contends some of the convictions Swanson made public had been expunged by court order.

Coolican and Van Berkel note: The remarkable sequence of events came just days before Swanson, Minnesotas three-term attorney general, will compete in the DFL primary for governor. Indeed, the primary is Tuesday and the hour is late.

In its own way the Coolican/Van Berkel story lends support to the charge against Swanson:

In the attorney generals office we have rules, we have policies, and one of those rules is nobody engages in political activity on the clock of the state of Minnesota, Swanson said. To my knowledge, nobody has engaged in political activity on the clock of the state of Minnesota. Ben Wogsland, a spokesman for the attorney general who is an employee of the state and not the campaign, spent part of his day Friday defending Swanson and criticizing Norman, even as she was being accused of improperly using office resources for her political career.

Swanson doubles up on her use of the ad hominem argument to respond to the two Intercept stories: Swansons office also questioned the Intercepts motives in publishing the allegations against her, attempting to draw a link between a financial backer of the site and several companies that have been sued by Swansons office. The Star Tribune story today is worth reading in its entirety. It strongly suggests that the Attorney Generals office has become a political cesspool over the past 16 years.

This should bring us to a close look at the contest for the DFL nomination for Attorney General in which  wait for it  Fifth District incumbent Keith Ellison must be deemed the frontrunner. The Star Tribune has endorsed one of Ellisons opponents but has contributed approximately nothing to voters understanding of the choices before them in the DFL primary contest.

Ellisons interest in exercising executive power as Minnesota Attorney General created an unexpected opening in the Fifth District. The DFL primary contest features three substantial candidates contending for the nomination. The Fifth District is a one-party DFL territory. Whoever wins the primary will go on to win the election and represent the Fifth District in Congress for as long as she wants to.

Ilhan Omar is the endorsed DFL candidate and frontrunner in the primary contest. Margaret Anderson Kelliher is her most formidable opponent by far. Indeed. at the Fifth District DFL candidates forum at Temple Beth El this past Monday evening, Kelliher crushed Omar. By contrast with Kelliher, Omar came across as frivolous, formulaic, phony and unfit for the office.

Late yesterday morning The Intercept posted Maryem Salehs backgrounder on the Fifth District primary contest: THERES NO QUESTION A PROGRESSIVE WOMAN WILL REPLACE KEITH ELLISON IN CONGRESS. BUT WHO WILL IT BE? Saleh is partial to Omar and writes from the left, yet the backgrounder is probably more informative than anything that has appeared in the Star Tribune on the race.

Salehs story touches on two issues that we have explored in depth on Power Line. Here Saleh draws on an interview with former 22-term incumbent state representative Phyllis Kahn, whom Omar defeated in the 2016 primary contest:

Omars time in politics has not been without controversy. She has stepped into the hot button issue of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, drawing accusations of anti-Semitism by critics who falsely conflate criticism of the Israeli government with prejudice against Jews. Though the accusations against Omar have originated on the right, her Democratic opponents are not shy about picking up on them. Kahn, in her interview with The Intercept, said without prompt that Omar was anti-Semitic, and that the story about the two husbands is completely true, referring to a 2016 controversy in which Omar was accused of being a bigamist who married her brother to commit immigration fraud. At the time, Omar said in a statement that the rumors about her personal life were absolutely false and ridiculous. Kahn, apparently, is not convinced. She said, This kind of Minnesota niceness, or whatever, of not wanting to appear racist  its something no ones willing to go after her for.

In its incredibly superficial coverage of the DFL primary contests the Star Tribune has shortchanged its many readers in the Fifth District and beyond.
PR-Inside.com: 2018-08-11 07:38:10

Press Information

Fast Telecom General Trading LLC

Warehouse C21 Dubai Airport Free Zone





Dubai, United Arab Emirates



Fadi Alshami

Director / Investor Relations

+971 04 2997881

email

http://www.fasttelecom-uae.com



Published by

Richard DiBiase

+14079076773

e-mail

http://www.fasttelecom-uae.com







# 696 Words

Warehouse C21 Dubai Airport Free ZoneDubai, United Arab EmiratesDirector / Investor Relations+971 04 2997881Richard DiBiase+14079076773

Dubai, August 8th, 2018Fast Telecom General Trading LLC, a Dubai Telecom Company, today announced the intention to complete a Merger with the Prosalutis Holdings Inc. Planned name change of Prosalutis Holdings will be announced at later date.Merger will be complete after appropriate approvals are completed.About Fast TelecomFast Telecom General Trading LLC Fast Telecom was founded in 2002 by some of the most experienced brains in the telecom sector, bringing more than 60 years of collective management experience and a vision to become market leaders in mobile devices business across MENA Middle East& North Africa. Fast Telecom has developed extremely efficient operating processes and a logistics system that has helped it command a market leader position in the distribution of mobile and tablets across its markets.Today, Fast Telecom group stands strong and proud on its humble achievements in past decade. We tripled our business size. Fast Telecom though its affiliate commands major share of the UAE & KSA markets with good presence in entire MENA & GCC region.Fast Telecom group owes its success to its valued clientele and customers and believes in extending all out support for them round-the-clock. We work around our customers strengths and weaknesses as true partners. Audited since 2003 by Ernst and Young, the solid financial support and strict monitoring of cash flow played a key role in the growth of Fast Telecoms operations.Utilizing their inherent 60 years of combined experience, the Partners have developed Fast Telecom into the best choice for both dealers and end users in the mobile devices market. Our ethics of disciplined work, passion for customer satisfaction, and unique management skills have elevated the Company to its current leading position.Fast Telecom is one of the leading mobile phones distributors in the region, and has presence in 9 countries over 2 continents. We are based in Dubai, UAE, with Branch offices in Miami (USA), Germany, KSA, Egypt, Tunisia and Iraq.Today, Fast Telecom continues to grow from strength to strength with its commitment for continuous innovation in the way we do business.Forward-Looking StatementsCertain information set forth in this presentation contains forward-looking information, including future oriented financial information and financial outlook, under applicable securities laws (collectively referred to herein as forward-looking statements). Except for statements of historical fact, information contained herein constitutes forward-looking statements and includes, but is not limited to, the (i) projected financial performance of the Company; (ii) completion of, and the use of proceeds from, the sale of the shares being offered hereunder; (iii) the expected development of the Companys business, projects and joint ventures; (iv) execution of the Companys vision and growth strategy, including with respect to future M&A activity and global growth; (v) sources and availability of third-party financing for the Companys projects; (vi) completion of the Companys projects that are currently underway, in development or otherwise under consideration; (vi) renewal of the Companys current customer, supplier and other material agreements; and (vii) future liquidity, working capital, and capital requirements. Forward-looking statements are provided to allow potential investors the opportunity to understand managements beliefs and opinions in respect of the future so that they may use such beliefs and opinions as one factor in evaluating an investment.These statements are not guarantees of future performance and undue reliance should not be placed on them. Such forward-looking statements necessarily involve known and unknown risks and uncertainties, which may cause actual performance and financial results in future periods to differ materially from any projections of future performance or result expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements.Although forward-looking statements contained in this press release are based upon what management of the Company believes are reasonable assumptions, there can be no assurance that forward-looking statements will prove to be accurate, as actual results and future events could differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. 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. The reader is cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward-looking statements.Press Contact:Fadi Alshamiir@ fasttelecom-uae.com Email: ir@ fasttelecom-uae.com Website: http://fasttelecom-uae.com/
PR-Inside.com: 2018-08-10 23:53:02

TORONTO, Aug. 10, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Gratomic Inc. (GRAT or the Company) (TSX-V: GRAT) (FRANKFURT:CB81) (WKN:A143MR) is pleased to announce that it has closed its over-subscribed non-brokered private placement announced on July 31, 2018 and raised $2,342,500 (the Offering) through the issuance of 23,425,000 working capital units (the WC Unit).



Arno Brand, Co-CEO of the Company, said we are grateful to our shareholders for their continued support of the Company. Part of the proceeds from the Offering will be used to expand the Aukam Processing facilitys capacity from 600 tonnes per annum to 10,000 tonnes per annum and to expand its mining fleet.

Each WC Unit is priced at $0.10 and consists of one (1) common share and one (1) common share purchase warrant (WC Warrant). Each WC Warrant entitles the holder to purchase one (1) common share (a WC Warrant Share) at a price of $0.20 per WC Warrant Share until the earlier of: (i) August 10, 2021 (the Closing Date); and (ii) in the event that the closing price of the Common Shares on the TSX Venture Exchange is at least $0.30 for ten (10) consecutive trading days, and the 10th trading day (the Final Trading Day) is at least four (4) months from the Closing Date, the date which is thirty (30) days from the Final Trading Day.

The Company paid eligible finders cash compensation of $50,650 and issued 474,000 Broker Warrants as selling commissions. Each broker warrant (a Broker Warrant) issued in respect of the sale of WC Units entitles the holder to acquire one (1) common share of the Company at $0.10 for a period of three (3) years from the Closing Date. The Company paid First Republic Capital Corporation (First Republic) a corporate finance fee of $46,850 and issued to First Republic 468,500 corporate finance Broker Warrants along with its pro rata share of selling commissions.

All securities issued pursuant to the Offering are subject to a four month hold period expiring on December 11, 2018.

Insiders of the Company and their affiliates subscribed for $576,500 of the Offering. The insider private placements are exempt from the valuation and minority shareholder approval requirements of Multilateral Instrument 61-101 (MI 61-101) by virtue of the exemptions contained in sections 5.5(a) and 5.7(1) (a) of MI 61-101 in that the fair market value of the consideration for the securities of the Company issued to the insiders did not exceed 25% of its market capitalization.

About Gratomic Inc.

Gratomic Inc. is an advanced materials company focused on mine to market commercialization of graphite products most notably high value graphene based components for a range of mass market products.

For more information: visit the website at www.gratomic.ca or contact: Arno Brand, Co-CEO +1 416-561-4095 abrand@gratomic.ca

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

FORWARD LOOKING STATEMENTS: This news release contains forward-looking statements, which relate to future events or future performance and reflect managements current expectations and assumptions. Such forward-looking statements reflect managements current beliefs and are based on assumptions made by and information currently available to the Company. Investors are cautioned that these forward-looking statements are neither promises nor guarantees and are subject to risks and uncertainties that may cause future results to differ materially from those expected. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date hereof and, except as required under applicable securities legislation, the Company does not assume any obligation to update or revise them to reflect new events or circumstances. All of the forward-looking statements made in this press release are qualified by these cautionary statements and by those made in our filings with SEDAR in Canada (available at www.sedar.com).
Long before he became a Nollywood star, Chinedu Ikedieze lived with his grandmother in Abia State, his head filled with big dreams of being a lawyer and later an actor. He got his wish, becoming one of Nollywoods most successful actors after he landed a role in the 2002 comedy flick Aki Na Ukwa. The instant smash success of the film ensured that he became a star overnight, earning him a brother in the person of his co accomplice Osita Iheme, better known as Pawpaw. Despite his burgeoning popularity, Aki as he is fondly called, remains very down-to-earth and assuming. In this interview, he tells PREMIUM TIMES that it was not an easy journey to stardom for him.

PT: How did you come about playing child roles?

Aki: I would say that playing child roles in movies was by design however being funny comes naturally to me. Long before I became a comic actor, people had always told me how funny I was. Sometimes I would be like, What did I do? Why are people saying that I am funny? So, when I began taking on the roles of a little boy, it was easy to fit in because my height gave me the advantage. Also, some of the roles I played were a reflection of my childhood antecedents. The roles reminded me a lot about my life as a little boy, but this does not mean that I was completely mischievous.

PT: Please tell us the back-story behind Aki Na Ukwa?

Aki: When Osita and I got our scripts, we didnt think of it as a comic movie so we were acting normally. The screenwriter wrote the script and intended for it to be a film that was heavy on life lessons and morals. Maybe there was a bit of comic expectations especially from some other actors like my father in the movie, the late Sam Loco and some other big comic actors, but not from us. We were just acting like little kids with no intention to make people laugh or roll on the floor. We were just acting normally. If you watch the film again, you will notice that we were just interpreting the role of innocent children.

PT: Did you foresee the film becoming a success at the time?

Aki: I didnt really think that the movie would be an instant hit but I think it was a success because of the chemistry Osita and I share. The movie was a first, something Nigerians and the movie industry hadnt seen until then. It was the first time people would see two child actors who blended easily in one movie.

PT: How does it feel playing the role of a child as an adult?

Aki: It feels good as an actor but it has its own challenges. It is not easy bringing myself down and getting myself into the character of a little boy. It takes a lot of professionalism to do that well. I began acting in 1998, in my early 20s and I have gotten better playing child roles over the years.

PT: Having starred in over a 100 Nollywood films, do you have a favourite?

Aki: It definitely has to be Aki na Ukwa because it was the film that shot me to limelight. I am also eternally grateful to the late Chukwuka Emeliyeonwu, who died early this year in an auto-crash. May his soul rest in perfect peace. He took a very big risk when he invested his money on that movie. Even though he didnt write the script, but for him to agree to invest his money, even after he was banned by his union for distributing the movie, he managed to market the movie using his brothers distribution company. Aki Na Ukwa became the highest grossing movie for him selling throughout African and other parts of the world. He made money, even though the movie was massively pirated as well.

PT: Do you sometimes wish you were taller?

Aki : Yes, I do, but you know there are things you cant change. If it were easy to add some inches to my height I would have done that. But since I cant change it, I have to play along. I have to be whom God has made me. Yes.

PT: Do you think your height is a shortcoming?

Aki: No. It is not. But, of course I am human, so there are little, maybe several unnecessary things I would have done if I were taller.

PT: What are they?

Aki: No. I dont need to make it public. But I think I have become the person I dreamt of becoming. So, I cant give less, or compare myself less of who I am.

PT: Do you think that you would have been more successful if were taller?

Aki :I dont know. I believe in the law of nature. If God had destined that I would be very successful, irrespective of my height, I would still be who I am ordained to be.

PT: What was it like growing up alongside your peers?

Aki: I thank God for the kind of parents and my grand mother for raising me as a confident and self-driven. I had a bit of disadvantage growing up because I was taunted many times by children, my peers and other people who didnt understand my height. It really affected me psychologically. At some point, I got so mad that I kept asking God why I was born like that, but now I think that question has been answered.

PT: You appear to have more fans outside the shores of Nigeria especially in Europe.

Aki: I think aside from my movies, social media has ensured that I am relevant globally. Whenever I go live on Instagram, people call me from as far as Russia, Croatia, Norway, and from every part of the world. I am always very shocked and surprised. One woman called me and was speaking Spanish. Of course, I couldnt understand her at first but after listening carefully to her I could pick some lines from a film I featured in. I just couldnt figure who introduced her to Nigerian movies. I have had great receptions from every country I have visited from Nigeria to Africa to the Caribbean Islands, to the U.S. and to every part of the world. I am so grateful for these opportunities to be relevant globally.

PT: Im sure some people dont even know your real name?

Aki: Aki Na Ukwa was released in 2002 and this is 2018, it is 16 years now people still call me Aki and I am thankful for that. Even five-year-old kids still call me Aki. I am still Aki, even kids call me Aki and I love it. And the interesting thing is that their mothers were either teenagers or young adults when the film was released.

PT: You recently received an award in the U.S. Tell us more.

Aki: I went to Florida for an award and beauty pageantry organised by Mr Murphy Folorunsho, a Nigerian living in the US. It was an awesome outing. I didnt anticipate the goodwill and the gestures I received while in Miami. I was given the key to city by the Mayor himself, signed and endorsed. That means I am welcome to Maimi city any time. It was a big one.

PT: Will you say you are fulfilled? Are you living your dreams?

Aki: In all sincerity, I will say yes. As a little boy, I grew up with so many aspirations. I wanted to become a doctor because my uncle is a doctor. After I had some encounters in secondary school, I wanted to become a lawyer. But aside, I nursed a love for acting. It, however, wasnt a part of my dreams. I always know that I could do those things I watched on TV. As a little boy I did not believe that anything was impossible. I always had the belief that if I tried I could do it, even though I may not have the financial capability to achieve it. I had a lot of wild pool of ideas. Looking back, im glad I took to acting and I am beyond fulfilled.

PT: What happened to your law ambition?

Aki: I was denied admission into law because I didnt get the JAMB cut-off mark. I accepted to study Mass Communication at the Institute of Management & Technology (IMT) in Enugu after my sister-in-law persuaded me to. I took up Mass Communication in a polytechnic with the thought that it was part time that I would sit for another JAMB exam so I can try Law again. I tried JAMB and got Law, but at that time I had already fallen in love with Mass Communication so I rejected the admission. The moment I fell in love with Mass Communication I began to see a path to Nollywood and I grabbed it.

PT: Many people are itching to know how you met your wife. Can you share your love story?

Aki and wife

Aki: I like to keep my private life private. So, no comment please.

PT: What are you up to these days?

Aki: I am on the set of, Africas number one TV series, the Johnsons. The Johnsons is keeping me busy for now. We are shooting every day for eleven months. I do not have much time for anything else, but aside that I have a personal project in the pipeline. I have started discussing with the production management and by February 2019 I will be traveling to Florida, USA to shoot a feature movie. It is going to be a big one.

PT: You are quite fashionable. How do you love to dress?

Aki: If you spot me wearing an Ankara shirt, joggers, a native cap and sneakers, it is my way of defining my fashion. I just love looking good at all times.
Nigeria will require about N10 billion to complete 900 abandoned primary healthcare centres scattered across the country, an official of the National Primary Healthcare Development Agency, Abdullahi Bulama, has said.

Mr Bulama, Director, Planning Research Statistics, NPHCDA said in Abuja on Thursday that the agency does not intend to accommodate proposals for building new PHCs in the country because it has over 900 uncompleted PHCs.

Mr Bulama represented the Executive Director, NPHCDA, Fiasal Shuaib at the one day high level strategic dialogue on routine immunisation organised by the development Research and Projects Center (dRPC).

The dialogue on advocacy and accountability on routine immunisation in Nigeria was organised in conjunction with the National Association of Community Health Practitioners of Nigeria (NACHPN).

Mr Bulama acknowledged the importance of accountability in the federal and state governments saying it would ensure that RI (routine immunisation) goes a long way to reaching all Nigerians.

He said some of the problems facing RI is that some states do not know how many facilities they have.

While answering some of the questions fielded by the participants on state of abandoned PHCs many states, the official said NPHCDA is conducting a survey to know the number of PHCs in the country.

This, he said, has become necessary because most states are not even aware of the numbers of PHC facilities available in their states.

We know there are lots of uncompleted and abandoned PHCs scattered across Nigeria that most states are not even aware of. Some states like Jigawa, Kebbi, FCT among others do not have an accurate record of the PHCs in the states. States like Kano had 96 per cent accuracy on the number of PHCs in the state. This is not acceptable, he said.

He admitted that there is a problem but the agency is trying to find a solution to it.

Participants at the event. Participants at the one day dRPC high strategic dialogue on routine immunization. Judith Ann Walker, ED dRPC; Abdullahi Bulama, Director planning and research; and Emmanuel Abanida, Senior technical advisor, dRPC.

He explained that the problem was generated through the indiscriminate allocations of PHCs as constituency projects by members of the National Assembly.

Mr Bulama said over the years, lawmakers usually cite projects and the late release of funds affects the projects from being completed.

He explained that the fiscal year closes by December and funds are usually released around October or November.

You need six weeks according to procurement and other logistics to advertise and award contracts. So by the time you award contracts the fiscal year is almost over and you will release the money and when the year is over, the money is mopped up.

We used to return three to six billion (naira), because you cannot pay for a project that is not completed, so the money will go back. In cases where new member are elected, the new lawmaker for the constituency changes the project and proposes a new site and thus the previous one would be abandoned. This is how the projects accumulated over the years, he said.

Mr Bulama said about N10 billion is needed nationwide to finish the projects. He said the agency has agreed that there will be no new PHC construction from this year.

As far as we are concerned, if any National Assembly member wants new construction, it is not possible. Because we will start something that we will not finish and nobody will look at any other agency aside NPHCDA. The community does not know anybody, only NPHCDA. And if we keep on building, our name will keep on being painted black, so we say no more new construction.

He added that the agency will rather agree to renovations of PHCs and supply of medical items because it is something that can be done fast within few weeks.

He said the agency is also trying to collate relevant data and have a scorecard for every state governor on their facilities and how they fare.

We also intend to have a geo-location of every PHC facility in the country, he added.

He lamented that in the North-central, there is no facility that is five star, meaning having a doctor, nurses, and working laboratories.

In his own remarks, Senior Technical Advisor, dRPC-PACFaH@Scale, Emmanuel Abanida, said the government needs to improve services rendered by PHCs.

He said the PHCs are very important in healthcare delivery in the rural areas especially for immunisation programmes.

He however lamented that most of the PHCs in the country are short staffed and as such cannot function to full capacity.

RI is very important and needs revival. One of the problems facing the PHCs is the lack of manpower. There are 86 training institutions in the country for community health workers and so far, over 200,000 workers have been trained between 1997 and 2017, while only 122,000 are engaged either in private or public facilities.

The question now is: why are the rest not engaged? Is it that the government does not have enough money to do so? he said.
Only 24% infants exclusively breastfed in Nigeria  Health Ministry

The Federal Ministry of Health says in spite of the health and economic benefits of exclusive breastfeeding to mother and child, only 24 per cent of infants are exclusively breastfed in Nigeria.

Chimay Thompson, the Assistant Director, Nutrition Division, Family Health Department in the ministry said exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life without water, infant formula, liquid or food has proven to save lives, improve women and childrens health and boots lifelong productivity.

However, Mr Thompson said millions of mothers and infants were now losing the benefits as only about 23.7 per cent of infants less than six months were exclusively being breastfed.

The nationally accepted document which is the multiple indicator cluster survey states that we are presently at 23.7 per cent on exclusive breastfeeding in the country.

WHO confirms strain of latest Ebola outbreak

The Ebola outbreak in Congo is confirmed to be the Zaire strain of the virus and vaccinations of health workers has started, a senior official of the World Health Organization (WHO) has said.

Peter Salama, WHO deputy director for emergency preparedness and response, gave the results of genetic sequencing in a tweet saying that analysis showed it was a new outbreak in North Kivu province.

The experimental vaccine, rVSV-ZEBOV, which is manufactured by Merck, proved successful during its first wide-scale usage against an outbreak of Zaire virus on the other side of Congo in the North-west that was declared over less than two weeks ago after killing 33.

Antibiotic resistance genes threat to human health  Research

The earths atmosphere is being contaminated by Antibiotic Resistance Genes (ARGs), which pose a threat to human health, according to recent Chinese research.

Led by Peking University, the research collected samples of air from 19 cities in 13 countries and analysed the Particulate Matter (PM) using molecular technology.

The analysis revealed 30 different types of ARGs that make bacteria resistant to seven types of antibiotics. ARGs resistant to vancomycin, one of the most effective antibiotics, were found in the air of six cities.

Antibiotic resistance is caused by the incorrect use of antibiotics, and it has allowed many bacteria to be resistant to commonly used antibiotics, which means many antibiotics are no long effective to treat common infections.

Cholera kills 11 in Kano

Eleven deaths resulting from cholera outbreak in three villages has been recorded in Bebeji local government area of Kano state.

According to a witness, 47 persons affected by the ailments are also receiving treatment at a private facility located close to the affected villages.

According to Ubale Dauda, who supervised the community members who were mobilised to assess the outbreak, the villages which were worse hit are Kuki and Hayi and this was because they lack primary health facilities.

However, the spokesperson of Kano state Ministry of health, Ismail Gwammaja said the ministry has not received any information on cholera outbreak in any part of the state.

Lassa Fever: Enugu confirms one death

The Enugu State government has confirmed the death of one person from Lassa fever.

The permanent secretary of the state Ministry of Health, Ifeanyi Agujiobi said the health providers at the health facility located at the Enugu metropolis tried to manage the patient but lost him.

The permanent secretary said the ministrys epidemiology officials had commenced massive contact tracing of those people that had contact with the patient.

Indian first woman to give birth with mothers transplanted uterus

An Indian woman will soon become the first in Asia to give birth to a baby after undergoing a successful uterus transplant recently, said doctors with a private hospital in Pune, a city in southwestern state of Maharashtra.

The uterus translated into the pregnant woman is her mothers.

The 27-year-old woman is now in her 20th week of pregnancy.

The uterus transplanted into her has not delivered for the past 20 years, said the doctors.

Transplanting the uterus was a difficult task. It was a nine-hour surgery. It is not a very easy surgery; chances of infection were very high. The embryo was completely embedded in the lady so that she can conceive.

Polio Eradication: FG approves $150 million loan from World Bank

The federal government has approved the World Bank credit of $150 million to support polio eradication in Nigeria.

The minister of finance, Kemi Adeosun who disclosed after the federal executive council meeting which was presided by the vice president Yemi Osinbajo said the proposed loan is to support polio eradication.

According to her, the this will assist the federal government as part of the global polio eradication effort achieve and sustain at least 80 percent coverage with Oral Polio Vaccine (OPV)immunisation in every state and also improve routine immunisation

NCDC holds Lassa fever conference

Fifty years after the first outbreak of Lassa fever in Nigeria, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control will be having an international conference on the disease in January 2019.

This year, Nigeria reported the largest outbreak of the disease and Lassa fever has become endemic in other West African countries such as Benin Republic, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mali and Sierra Leone.

Against this background, NCDC and partners will host the first international conference on Lassa fever in Abuja.

This will provide an opportunity for the scientific community to reflect on what is known, describe gaps that exist and prioritise the research agenda for the future.
The battleground is set for two brothers to slug it out for the vacant Katsina North senatorial seat.

The district, where President Muhammadu Buhari hails from, will be keenly contested by Kabir Babba-Kaita, hoisting the flag of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and Ahmad Babba-Kaita donning the colours of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The seat became vacant following the death of Mustapha Bukar, the senator who represented the district until his death in April 4.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had fixed Saturday August 11 for the by-election after receiving a notification from the National Assembly indicating that the seat is vacant.

According to the Katsina State Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Resident Electoral Commissioner, Jibrin Zarewa, six political parties are expected to contest the seat.

Of the six, the two major contenders are born of the same father but different mothers.

Kabir, a retired customs officer had emerged the sole candidate of the PDP following the withdrawal of his major contender, Mani Nasarawa. He had never contested for nor held any known political office before.

For his brother however, it wasnt an easy ride, Mr Ahmad, currently a member of the House of Representatives representing Kusada/Ingawa/Kankia Federal Constituency, battled the APC primary with another Rep member and nine others.

He emerged after polling 1,723 votes to beat his closest rival, another Rep member, Nasiru Zangon Daura, who polled 1, 474 votes.

The election will be conducted in 12 local government areas which make the senatorial district. The local governments are; Daura, Zango, Baure, Sandamu, Maiadua, Mashi, Ingawa, Mani, Dutsi, Kusada, Bindawa and Kankia.

According to INEC, the district has a registered population of 855,092 voters, 1825 voting points, 1577 polling units and 128 wards.

Follow the live updates on PREMIUM TIMES here.

Corps members setting up at Sarkin Tarah, polling unit 003.

This is President Muhammadu Buharis polling unit. But Mr Buhari will not participate in todays election as he is out of the country on vacation.

Corps members setting up at Sarkin Tarah, polling unit 003. This is President Muhammadu Buharis polling unit. But Mr Buhari will not participate in todays election as he is out of the country on vacation.

8.10 a.m., Election commences at Bakin Kasuwa 1, Gidan chairman, polling unit 006.

An INEC ad-hoc staff attending to a voter during elections

Accreditation and voting have commenced simultaneously at Kofar Baru, PU 004.

So far, the voter turnout has been very low in few polling units where the process has commenced.

Meanwhile, residents of Daura are going about their daily businesses as usual. Except for big shops which are locked, owners of smaller stalls are going about their businesses as usual.

Contrary to what usually obtains in Nigerian elections, there is no restriction of vehicular movement in Daura.

Voters at Kofar Baru, PU 004

In Kankia, the hometown of the two major candidates, its business as usual for motorists and traders.

Voter accreditation and election are ongoing in most of the polling units visited.

Accreditation and voting ongoing in Kanti (B) Works Department Polling Unit 004.

Voters on queue in Kanti B polling unit 4 Voters queue up Voters on queue in Kanti B polling unit 4

11.15a.m. Massive voter turn out at Galadima A, polling unit 10. This is the polling unit of the two major candidates, Kabir Babba-Kaita of PDP and Ahmad Babba-Kaita, of APC.

While Kabir has voted, Ahmad is still being awaited

Massive turn out in Galadima A, PU 10 Massive turn out in Galadima A, PU 10 Massive turn out in Galadima A, PU 10

12.15 pm: The APC candidate, Ahmad Babba-Kaita, arrived the polling unit to cast his vote. He opted to join the already long queue and wait for his turn.

APC candidate, Ahmad Babba-Kaita on queue APC candidate, Ahmad Babba-Kaita on queue

Tired of standing, Mr Ahmadu takes shield under a tree Tired of standing, Mr Ahmad takes shield under a tree

3.50p.m. Sorting has started at polling units across the constituency.

At Bakin Kasua Primary School, the presiding officer is currently sorting the votes of the six contesting political parties.

APC supporters in early celebration as counting begins.

1:45AM: The All Progressives Congress has latched on a comfortable early lead in the Katsina North by-election.

After collation of results from three local governments, the party already polled 55, 974 votes more than three quarter 11, 768 of the PDP.

The three local governments whose results have been read are; Daura, Dutsi and Sandamu.

Collation of results has started at the headquarters of INEC in Katsina North senatorial district.

The collation started around 12.35 a.m. at the office located in Daura.

The senatorial district has 12 local government areas where election was held on Saturday, August 11.

Below are the results:

Daura local government

No of registered voters  76559

No of accredited voters  23272

APC  18436

DA  45

GPN  566

MMN  18

MPN  26

PDP  3228

Total valid votes  22309

Rejected  501

Total votes cast  22810

After receiving results from three local governments, the collation has been suspended for an hour.

Collation commences at INEC headquarters Daura

Collation commences at INEC headquarters Daura

Ingawa local government

No of registered voters  76020

No of accredited voters  23146

APC  17036

DA  111

GPN  63

MMN  44

MPN  80

PDP  4005

Total valid votes  21339

Rejected  902

Total votes cast  22241

Dutsi local government

No of registered voters  56912

No of accredited voters  19007

APC  13868

DA  31

GPN  25

MMN  9

MPN  31

PDP  3930

Total valid votes  17894

Rejected  465

Total votes cast  18359

Sandamu local government

No of registered voters  65445

No of accredited voters  25421

APC  18834

DA  20

GPN  11

MMN  6

MPN  7

PDP  4610

Total valid votes  23488

Rejected  553

Total votes cast  24041

Mani local government

No of registered voters  92544

No of accredited voters  31048

APC  20479

DA  127

GPN  98

MMN  55

MPN  113

PDP  7017

Total valid votes  27889

Rejected  1295

Total votes cast  29184

Mashi local government

No of registered voters  83663

No of accredited voters  32987

APC  20927

DA  168

GPN  82

MMN  84

MPN  133

PDP  8653

Total valid votes  300042

Rejected  1698

Total votes cast  31745

Zango local government

No of registered voters  62378

No of accredited voters  18528

APC  14175

DA  23

GPN  34

MMN  8

MPN  19

PDP  3057

Total valid votes  17316

Rejected  655

Total votes cast  17971

Kankia local government

No of registered voters  62196

No of accredited voters  23509

APC  16653

DA  42

GPN  27

MMN  6

MPN  23

PDP  5366

Total valid votes  22117

Rejected  1055

Total votes cast  23172

Baure local government

No of registered voters  92346

No of accredited voters  36770

APC  28271

DA  105

GPN  46

MMN  19

MPN  44

PDP  5674

Total valid votes  34159

Rejected  1432

Total votes cast  34159

Kusada local government

No of registered voters  51019

No of accredited voters  18349

APC  12331

DA  32

GPN  18

MMN  20

MPN  42

PDP  4783

Total valid votes  17226

Rejected  658

Total votes cast  17884

Bindawa local government

No of registered voters  76924

No of accredited voters  29584

APC  22234

DA  43

GPN  40

MMN  16

MPN  63

PDP  5549

Total valid votes  27945

Rejected  1023

Total votes cast  28968

Mai adua local government

No of registered voters  68049

No of accredited voters  26869

APC  21363

DA  49

GPN  56

MMN  58

MPN  52

PDP  3852

Total valid votes  25430

Rejected  654

Total votes cast  2608
Rape is the alleged offence for which he was being driven to court. But Amdie Mbilitem kept shouting beiWakoshente Wakasanta! Amdie Mbilitem shouted as he was being taken in an SUV to the Karshi Grade 1 court in Abuja. That was probably an incantation.

Neighbours said Mr Mbilitem was a ritualist who lured underage girls to his house with money and then rape or sexually abuse them, usually by penetrating with his finger.

They said the 67-year-old had been committing rape of minors for more than three years until he ran out of luck on June 27 when one of his victims, a 12-year-old Primary three girl, spoke out.

The case was first reported at the Jikwoyi Police division in Abuja. A medical test was conducted and the test result, which formed the bulk of evidence in court, confirmed Ms Blessing was raped.

Concerned about the development, the girls guardian, Victoria Ifan, and neighbours, with the help of Initiative for Girls, an organisation promoting girl-child education, pressured the police to press charges alleging rape.

On Thursday, they all gathered at the Jikwoyi Police station for the first hearing of the case scheduled to commence by 9 am at Karshi Grade 1 court.

The man kept repeating the incantation-sounding Wakoshanta Ojanta and kept screaming until the vehicle conveying him arrived the court.

The judge would later deny a bail application by S.M Essienekak, Mr Mbilitems lawyer. He ordered him remanded in custody until the next hearing slated for August 27.

Allegation and Mbilitems Defence

He warned me if I ever tell anybody, he would deal with me, the victim told PREMIUM TIMES.

It started in the beginning of third term. When I come to his house, he will take me to his room, then remove my cloth and start putting his finger inside my private part. Its always painful but when he finishes, he will give me N200 sometimes N250.

This has been happening for sometime and I did not tell anybody until I was caught going by some women in our neighborhood, she said.

Her guardian, Mrs Ifan, a business woman in Kurudu, reported the matter to the police after some women reported seeing the victim entering the mans house.

They said Blessing confessed that she visits the mans house during school hours to collect money after which the man would take her to another room to insert his finger inside her and that the other girl said it was her first time.

Meanwhile, Mr Mbilitem came to my house earlier to say my daughter came to his house to see his son, David. This man never came to my house before.

It was my first time of hearing this whole story. So when my husband came back, we asked her (Blessing) more than 20 times and she rephrased exactly what the women said. Anybody that asked her, she will repeat the same confession, she did not change mouth (recant). She said its not what somebody told her to say.

I felt its no longer something I can keep quiet about so I reported to the police.

Mr Mbilitem is a retired Assistant Director in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He lives in Kurudu with only his two sons. Neighbours also accuse him of using his sons to lure girls to his house.

He denied the allegations.This is just an orchestrated plot by my neighbours to frame me up, Mr Mbilitem told PREMIUM TIMES.

We have land issues so they brought three children and coerced them to testify against me. The girl in question is an orphan I normally give money when shes going to school. I help people and my neighbours saw this as an opportunity to use this girl against me. Thats all I can say for now.

He did not elaborate on the land issues.

Bait

Some neighbours said it was no surprise for residents of Kurudu when news of Mr Mbilitems alleged offences broke.

The neighborhood, situated behind LEA Primary school, Kurudu (the girls School) is a densely populated settlement of small houses.

Mr Mbilitems house, a one-storey building, is at the far end.

In the morning of June 27, Ngozi Mmadu, the first witness said she saw two girls and a boy, including Blessing, heading to the mans house.

We see school girls pass through this path to visit this mans house during school hours. We have witnessed several cases and stories of girls molested by him over the years. That morning, we decided to follow Blessing and her friends.

When they got to the mans gate, the boy left. Blessing and the other girl tried to enter, that was when we confronted them.

Mrs Mmadu said Blessing opened up after she was interrogated.

She said the man would take her to a room and insert his finger inside her and give her money afterwards. We reported this to her guardians who now reported to the police.

When PREMIUM TIMES visited over the weekend, several residents took turns to give accounts of Mr Mbilitems alleged affair with small schoolgirls.

Two neighbours, who identified themselves as Mr Martins and Mrs Igwilo, corroborated Mrs Mmadus account.

They said they witnessed the days event. According to Mrs Igwilo, she reported to the Nigerian Human Rights Commission, (NHRC).

It is no longer news that school girls cross our paths to go see him (Mr Mbilitem) during school hours or break time, Mr Eze said.

Earlier this year, I was in front of my house taking snuff (tobacco) around 10.30am when the school was on break. I saw one small girl of about 13 years of age heading towards the mans house. She told me shes going to her brothers house to collect money as her guardians did not give her money for food. I told her to go back to school and never return but she went back and followed another route which I sensed and also took that same route only to find Mr Mbilitem already waiting for the girl at his gate.

The girl shivered when she saw me at her back. She told the man I was trying to stop her from going to his house. The man threatened me with a machete that if I ever block his way he would destroy me. He told me the girl only came to check on his son who was not feeling fine as they were both school mates but I already saw his son going to school earlier. He took the girl inside the house and locked the gate.

Chukwudi, a trader, narrated how Veronica, his wifes eight-year-old relative was preyed upon by Mr Mbilitem three years ago.

According to Chukwudi, a boy around the neighbourhood informed his wife about what was happening between the girl and the man.

She confessed that she and her friend visit the mans house during school hours. She said while the man penetrates her friend, who is a bit older, he only inserts a finger inside her (Veronica). She said the man gives them money afterwards.

Mr Chukwudi however said he does not want to push for the case or even give evidence on the matter in court as it has been long.

Court Weighs In

 The victim confessed that you had severally enticed her with money before she was caught. Medical report attest that her hymen has been tampered with through means contrary to nature, the judge, Aliyu Kargarko, read the charge against the suspect, Thursday.

E. N Ifenesaka, Mr Mbilitems lawyer applied for bail but the prosecutor, Mahmud Lawal, opposed his application, saying the weight of Mr. Mbilitems crime is not ordinarily bailable.

After hearing the arguments by both parties, the judge ruled that Mr Mbilitem be remanded in custody until the next hearing scheduled for August 27.

Our intention is to ensure that justice is done. It is not an offence that is ordinarily bailable, Mr Ibrahim said after the hearing.

This act of molesting little children has become rampant in our communities and we as prosecutors have a duty to see that this is checkmated.

Abiodun Essiet, the founder of Initiative for Girls narrated how her organisation intervened.

Our organisation was notified by the mother of the victim about the case for help and justice. When we interviewed Blessing, she narrated how the son of the man, who is a little older than her lured her to his fathers house for this act. This have been happening according to he neighbours but they are afraid of confronting the man because they claim he is diabolical.

When we took over the case, the first thing we did was to inform our partners (Global Right International) for their support and necessary line of action. We went to the nearest police station for documentation. Our organisation bore some of the cost of the medical test with the mother of the child.

We plan to take this case to the highest level and get justice for Blessing. We are interested in this case because it is a child abuse and the man has been doing this for more than three years. And also to protect other girls from being abused by this man.

Finally, to teach the man a lesson and pay for tampering with Blessings hymen. In Africa, virginity is something we hold dearly and informs our marital decisions and choices.

Editors Note: The names the defence and prosecuting lawyers were mistaken in our previous copy. The errors have been corrected.
A suspected kidnapper who reportedly took a powerful painkiller has been unable to fully regain consciousness almost a week after he was arrested by the police.

Ondo State police spokesperson Femi Joseph told PREMIUM TIMES the yet-to-be-identified suspect was taken into custody on August 5 after an attempt to abduct a pharmacist was foiled, but was still hospitalised as at August 11 because he took a heavy dose of tramadol.

Up till now he is still sedated, apparently because of the much intake of tramadol. The doctor confirmed he over-drugged himself which has resulted in him not able to regain his strength, Mr Joseph, a deputy superintendent of police, told PREMIUM TIMES Saturday afternoon.

Mr Joseph said the suspect, approximately 25, was arrested in Owo, a major town about 50 kilometres east of Akure, the state capital. He had collapsed during an attempt to kidnap a pharmacist at a drugstore.

His accomplices reportedly fled from the scene just as police officers arrived. He was initially taken into custody, but was later moved to the hospital when he failed to wake up within a sensible period, police said.

He has been at the hospital where the doctor is administering drips on him. What he does is to wake up, back like a dog and sleep back again, Mr Joseph said. Other than that, he has not been able to do anything. He has not given us any statement.

The spokesperson also said the suspect could be described as having entered into a coma.

Mr Josephs account to PREMIUM TIMES varied slightly from what he told, the Punch, which reported on Saturday that the suspect was still sleeping six days after he was arrested.

The paper said up to 400 miligrammes of the powerful painkiller, which falls under opioid anagelsics, was found on the suspect.

Tramadol is usually prescribed to treat modest to severe pain in adults, but it is known to be abused across the country by predominantly youth consumers.

Codeine, which is also an opiate, was banned earlier this year by the Nigerian government, following years of outcry that its use had become a major social disorder.

While excessive intake of tramadol can disrupt the functions of a human, it is highly unlikely that it could throw an abuser into several days of uninterrupted sleep, according to medical experts who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES Saturday.

For taking only tramadol, somebody cannot sleep for a week, said Terlumun Swende, the chief medical director at Benue State University Teaching Hospital in Makurdi. If it is only tramadol, he also cannot enter into a coma.

He could have seizure for some time, but as soon as the drug runs its course, he would regain his consciousness, Mr Swende added. But for the person to have been there for six days, that means there must be something else to it.

The doctor advised that a clinical examination of the situation should be conducted by competent medical personnel in order not to feed the public unscientific account of the controversy.

It is either the tramadol is mixed with something else or he had been injected with substance, Mr Swende said. If it is only tramadol, he cannot wake up, back for a while and then sleep as you describe.

That is not primarily a side effect of tramadol overdose, he said. Clinical details should be taken of the person to be sure whether it is only tramadol or other substances have been injected into him.

Typically, it takes 48 hours for tramadol to run its course, no matter the volume ingested, the doctor said.

Similarly, Kehinde Busari, another medical doctor based in Lagos, corroborated Mr Swendes account to PREMIUM TIMES, saying a tramadol abuser can not sleep for six days.

Unless something else is there, tramadol can not put one to sleep for as long as six days, he said. Pardon me for laughing about this.

The police should get a medical doctor to examine the mans situation and come up with a scientific outcome of his sleep, Mr Busari added. It is possible to sleep for that long, but it is not possible that it was strictly because he took tramadol.
Two brothers  Kabir Babba-Kaita and Ahmad Babba-Kaita  will fly the flags of Nigerias two major political parties in Saturdays election to fill the vacant seat of Katsina North Senatorial District.

While Ahmad is the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Kabir is the flag bearer of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party.

The election is being conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) following the death in April of the former occupant of the seat, Mustapha Bukar. Mr Bukar was a member of the APC.

President Muhammadu Buhari hails from the district, also known as Daura senatorial district.

It comprises 12 local government areas, namely Kankia, Ingawa, Bindawa, Dutsi, Kusada, Mani, Mashi, Baure, Zango, Sandamu, Maiadua and Daura. Mr Buhari is from Daura council.

The two brothers of the same father but different mothers hail from Kankia where they are traditional titles holders.

While Kabir is the Garkuwan Kankia, Ahmad is the Sardaunan Kankia.

Kabir, the elder of the Kabba-Kaita brothers, was the first to emerge a candidate. The retired Customs officer won the PDP ticket by affirmation in the primary election of which he was the sole aspirant as his only opponent, Mani Nasarawa, withdrew from the race before the exercise commenced.

Ahmad, who is currently a member of the House of Representatives, representing Kusada/Ingawa/Kankia federal constituency, emerged the standard bearer of the APC in July.

The 49-year-old polled 1,723 out of 3,879 votes of accredited delegates to beat nine other contestants in the partys primary.

Some of the contestants were his colleague in the lower legislative chamber, Nasiru Sani Zango, who polled 1,474 votes; and a former Speaker of the Katsina State House of Assembly, Umar Gwajo; Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Ahmed El-Marzuq; and Commissioner for Resource Development, Mustapha Kanti.

Others were the Special Adviser to the Governor on Science and Technology, Rabel Nasir; the Honourary Adviser to the Governor on Investments, Zakari Ibrahim; A. K. Ahmed; Umar Katsayal; Ahmmed Jamo; and Lawal Haruna; and Lawal Garba.

Although, there are other candidates in the race, the election is basically between the two Babba-Kaita brothers.

The APC candidate appears to be more visible, not only because of his involvement in politics but because of his weekly column, Viewpoint with Ahmad Babba-Kaita, which he maintains in the Leadership Newspaper.

In contrast, the PDP candidate is fresh in politics but has the financial war chest to prosecute his campaign.

Even so, the contest between the two promises to be a fierce one. In the last few days, their parties have tried to outdo each other to ensure their candidates emerge victorious in the end.

A few days ago, the PDP team comprising the former governor of the state, Ibrahim Shema and two former governors of Kano and Jigawa States, Rabiu Kwankwaso and Sule Lamido, were on ground to campaign for Kabir.

Only two days ago, the acting president, Yemi Osinbajo, the National Chairman of the APC, Adams Oshiomhole, the partys national leader, Ahmed Tinubu and the governors of Katsina and Kano, Aminu Masari and Abdullahi Ganduje, led the APC faithful in a last ditch effort to win the poll.

Also on hand were the Minister of State for Aviation, Hadi Sirika, and Minister of Water Resources, Suleiman Adamu.

For the APC, this election is a must win, not only because it has to retain the seat it had won in 2015 but also because Mr Buhari hails from the district. A defeat of the party will only expose the president as a politician without a home base.

And for the PDP, a victory in Saturdays election will not only return the district which it had maintained until 2015 to it, but also shows that it has truly rebranded after it suffered defeat in some of the elections that year.
The UN Security Council said it remained concerned at the security and humanitarian situation caused by the Boko Haram terrorists and other armed groups in Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad.

In a Presidential Statement, the 15-member body regretted that Central African countries were beset by ongoing terrorist activity, instability and the effects of climate change, and asked Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to review the work of the UN Regional Office for Central Africa (UNOCA), and recommend areas for improvement.

The presidential statement read: The Security Council strongly condemns all terrorist attacks carried out in the region, including those perpetrated by Boko Haram and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as Daesh).

These attacks have caused large-scale and devastating losses, have had a devastating humanitarian impact including through the displacement of a large number of civilians in Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad, and represent a threat to the stability and peace of West and Central Africa.

The Council notes with particular concern the continuing use by Boko Haram of women and girls as suicide bombers, which has created an atmosphere of suspicion towards them and made them targets of harassment and stigmatisation in affected communities, and of arbitrary arrests by security forces.

The Council emphasises the need for affected States to counterterrorism in all its forms and manifestations, including by addressing the conditions conducive to the spread of terrorism, in accordance with obligations under international law, in particular international human rights law, international refugee law and international humanitarian law.

The Security Council welcomed the support provided by UNOCA and the UN Office for West Africa and Sahel (UNOWAS) for the development of a joint regional strategy to address the root causes of the Lake Chad Basin crisis through regular contact with regional leaders.

The Council encouraged partners to increase security assistance to Lake Chad Basin Commission countries, and humanitarian and development support across the region for those affected by Boko Haram activities.

The Security Council remains deeply concerned at the grave security situation and related violations and abuses of human rights in parts of Central Africa, in particular the continuing terrorist activities of Boko Haram and other terrorist groups in the Lake Chad Basin, it said.

The Security Council expresses its ongoing concern at continued tensions linked to disputed electoral processes, social and economic difficulties, and conflicts between farmers and herders, the statement added.

The 15-member Council noted that UNOCAs priorities would include to work closely with UNOWAS to address transregional issues such as maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea, conflict between farmers and herders, and combatting Boko Haram.

The UN Security Council committee on al Qaeda sanctions blacklisted and imposed sanctions on the Islamist militant group Boko Haram in 2014 after the insurgents kidnapped more than 200 Chibok schoolgirls.

The designation, which came into effect after no objections were raised by the Security Councils 15 members, subjected Boko Haram to UN sanctions, including an arms embargo, asset freeze and travel ban.

(NAN)
The Senate President, Bukola Saraki, has lashed out at the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) stating that Mr Oshiomholes effort to remove him from office will fail.

Mr Saraki said this in a statement made available to PREMIUM TIMES while reacting to Mr Oshiomholes call for his resignation or removal earlier.

The APC chairman had accused Mr Saraki of not acting in the interest of Nigeria and asked that he (Mr Saraki) should resign or be removed from office.

Mr Oshiomhole expressed dissatisfaction at the way the Senate adjourned two weeks ago. He accused Mr Saraki of using his guest house as a place to write out the names of senators decamping to the PDP from the APC the day before the Senate adjourned.

In any case, Saraki is not going to be the first senate president to be impeached and I doubt if he is going to be the last but definitely he will be impeached according to law and to democratic norms. The only way Saraki can avoid impeachment is for him to do what is honourable which again leads to the issue of character, Mr Oshiomhole said.

In his statement titled, Response to Adams Oshiomhole, the lawmaker accused Mr Oshiomhole of behaving like a rain-beaten chicken as though Mr Saraki was haunting his life.

While he reminded the APC chairman of how he crawled to him, seeking his support to become the chairman, Mr Saraki stressed that Mr Oshiomhole cannot remove him as Senate President.

His illegal plots, can only feed his insatiable ego and keep him awake at nights. But it will remain an exercise in futility, he said.

Read the full statement below:

1. It is rather surprising that Mr. Adams Oshiomhole is behaving like a rain-beaten chicken, crying all over the place about Dr. Abubakar Bukola Saraki, as if the Senate President is the apparition haunting his life and the sinking ship that he captains.

2. Having decided not to join the pigs in rolling in the dirt; we would not like to be involved in any meaningless exchange with the demagogue now in charge of APC. However, because he claimed that he was reacting to the issues raised by the Senate President during his World Press Conference, we thought it necessary to give the APC chairman some attention.

Alas, we found that instead of addressing any issue raised by the Senate President, his press conference merely showcased his obsession and those of his sponsors with Sarakis removal, which he did without any decorum befitting of his age or his awarded office. He brimmed with hate, hurled abuses, threw tantrums, told lies, huffed, puffed. In the end, he said nothing.

3. It is indeed amazing that the same Oshiomhole, who is now describing Saraki as a politician of no consequence was the same one who only a few months ago was crawling all over the place pleading for Sarakis support to become chairman. We are sure that those who took him to Saraki several times to plead his case must now be thoroughly embarrassed by his reckless and uncouth manner.

4. By his conduct and utterances, Oshiomhole, who accused Saraki of not acting in national interest needs to do more to convince Nigerians that his desperate desire to become party chairman is not simply to feed his over-sized ego.

5. The position of Oshiomhole and his cohorts in the APC that the Senate President must resign is a mere wishful thinking. They will continue to dream about their planned removal of the Senate President. They will need 73 Senators to lawfully remove Dr. Saraki and they will never get that in the present eight Senate.

6. The argument of APC that the Senate President must come from a majority party; that the Senate Presidency is their crown and National Assembly is their palace is only supported by ignorance and dangerous delusion. First, the issue of which party is in the majority will only be resolved when the Senate resume. Two, Section 50 (1) (a) of the constitution is clear that any Senator can be elected as Senate President. If the only thing left of the APC change agenda is to change the Senate President we can only wish them goodluck.

7. Perhaps, Mr. Oshiomhole needs to be better educated about our parliamentary history when he Stated that For the first time in parliamentary history in Nigeria, we had a situation where the APC had majority of Senators and went on to elect a PDP as Deputy Senate President. Where is Mr. Oshiomhole when Senator John Wash Pam of the Nigerian Peoples Party (NPP) became Deputy Senate President in the Second Republic even when the National Party of Nigeria (NPN) had the majority. The same thing happened in the House of Representatives when NPPs Rt. Hon. Edwin Umeh Ezeoke was elected Speaker in an NPN majority House. But then, it would require a level of education to understand these things.

8. What hypocrisy! To think that this same APC were jubilating when Rt. Hon. Aminu Tambuwal retained his position after he defected from the PDP and still retained his seat, even when his new party was in the minority. These are people whose standards of morality are infinitely elastic.

9. We are sure the remaining APC Senators need to do a lot of work to bring Oshiomhole up to speed about parliamentary practice. His ignorance are too clear in his comments about how the Senate was adjourned on July 24, 2018, the distribution of committee chairmanship in the Senate and the difference between the post of Senate President and Minority Leader.

10. He has made so much song and dance about Mr. Godswill Akpabio resigning as Senate Minority Leader when he left the PDP to join APC. For this, Akpabio has become his hero and a symbol of honour. He obviously does not understand that the post of Minority Leader is a strictly party affair. And the PDP simply decided who to give it as it is not even a position that was mentioned in the constitution. Whereas, the Senate President position is a constitutional creation, which required majority votes of all the members. Again, we dont expect people whose only experience in politics is at the provincial levels to understand this. No wonder they are talking of crowns and inheritance.

11. The fair distribution of the Committee chairmanship is one of the stabilizing factors in the 8th Senate and has helped it in achieving more than all its predecessors.

12. We need to inform this divisive element who now leads APC that if he wants to know why the 2018 budget was delayed, he should ask the heads of the MDAs. We reckon that should be easy for him since he is now their headmaster, moving around with canes to whip ministers into line.

13. Oshiomhole once again demonstrated his lack of sense of history by talking of Buhari winning more votes in Kwara than Saraki. We are sure President Buhari himself will disagree with the APC chairman. We invite the APC chairman to look at the figures of votes secured by the President in 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015 to know that the difference is clear, like a commercial advert stated.

14. We hereby assure this garrulous, tactless and reckless APC chairman that a million of Adams Oshiomhole cannot remove Saraki as Senate President. His illegal plots, can only feed his insatiable ego and keep him awake at nights. But it will remain an exercise in futility.

Signed

Yusuph Olaniyonu

Special Adviser on Media and Publicity to the Senate President
Chris Ekpenyong, the then deputy governor of Akwa Ibom state, made history in 2005.

That year, Mr Ekpenyong caused state legislators who impeached him to reverse the impeachment in less than seven days; he was allowed to resign from office, instead, and walked away victoriously.

The then governor, Victor Attah, is believed to have masterminded the impeachment because of political differences, after Mr Ekpenyong voted for the incumbent President Olusegun Obasanjo at the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)s presidential primary in January 2003.

Akwa Ibom delegates had Mr Attahs instructions to support Mr Obasanjos challenger, Alex Ekwueme, a former vice president of Nigeria.

Mr Attah also wanted his deputy removed from office to pave way for his son-in-law, Udoma Ekarika, to succeed him as governor in 2007.

The reversal of Mr Ekpenyongs impeachment came from Abuja through the intervention of President Obasanjo who sent a powerful delegation led by Tony Anenih, the then chairman of the PDP Board of Trustees (BOT), to fix things for the then deputy governor.

But Mr Ekpenyongs political career, however, ended abruptly, at that point, as he was unable to fulfill his desire of getting the PDP nomination for the governorship election.

Mr Attahs son-in-law was also beaten at the PDP primary by the erstwhile commissioner for local government and chieftaincy affairs, Godswill Akpabio, who later won the governorship election.

Today, a similar impeachment drama is playing out in Imo state, South-east Nigeria, where the court has blocked the state government from replacing the deputy governor of the state, Eze Madumere, who was impeached on July 30 by the state House of Assembly.

Mr Madumeres sin lies in his ambition to be the next governor of the state, against the wishes of the incumbent governor, Rochas Okorocha, who rather wants his son-in-law, Uche Nwosu, to succeed him in May 2019.

Reckless Display Of Arrogance

Femi Falana, a lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), described Governor Okorochas behaviour as a reckless display of arrogance.

Mr Falana told PREMIUM TIMES, In a demonstration of brazen contempt of court the House of Assembly ignored the valid and subsisting court order and hurriedly passed a resolution for the purported impeachment of Prince Madumere as Deputy Governor of Imo State.

Instead of calling the legislators to order by asking them to purge themselves of contempt of court Governor Okorocha announced Mr. Calistus Ekenze as the new Deputy Governor.

In a reckless display of arrogance of naked power, Governor Okorocha directed the Chief Judge of Imo State to swear-in the so-called new Deputy Governor. However, the Chief Judge rightly turned down the contemptuous directive of Governor Okorocha to swear in Mr Ekenze as Deputy Governor of the State.

In a historic solidarity with the Chief Judge, all the other Jjudges in High Court of Imo State have resolved not to lend judicial weight to the subversion of the rule of law by the legislative and executive organs of the Imo State Government.

Mr Falana commended the judiciary in Imo state for standing up against the governor.

He called on the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and other Nigerians to stand up too and ensure that the order of the Imo State chief judge is fully complied with.

Let the legislators and Governor Okorocha purge themselves of contempt of court by continuing to recognise Prince Madumere as the Deputy Governor of Imo State pending the determination of the pending suit before the State High Court on the validity of the impeachment proceedings adopted by the House of Assembly of Imo State, he said.

Most people who spoke with PREMIUM TIMES on the Imo State impeachment crisis said Mr Madumere remained the state deputy governor, in the eyes of the law.

Lethal Political Weapon

In Nigerian politics, impeachment has remained a dangerous political weapon in the hands of the president, governors, and other powerful politicians.

When Mr Obasanjo was president, five state governors  Ayo Fayose of Ekiti; Chris Ngige, Anambra; Joshua Dariye, Plateau; Rasheed Ladoja, Oyo; and Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, Bayelsa  were removed from office for various alleged offences, including stealing of public funds.

Besides the general belief that Mr Obasanjo instigated the impeachment of governors for selfish political reasons, the federal government under his administration had declared a state of emergency in Ekiti and replaced the governor, Mr Fayose, with a retired military general, Adetunji Olurin, as sole administrator of the state.

The Obasanjo administration also declared a state of emergency in Plateau State and replaced the governor, Mr Dariye, with a retired military general as the sole administrator of the state in November 2004.

Mr Dariye was eventually impeached and replaced by the deputy governor, Michael Botmang.

But he went to court and upturned the impeachment, and was reinstated as governor in March 2007.

Interestingly, Mr Dariye, now out of office, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for corruption by an Abuja high court, about two months ago.

Murtala Nyako, the governor of Adamawa State, was also impeached in 2014 on allegation of corruption.

In Benue State, eight out of 30 legislators, assisted by the police, took control of the state House of Assembly last month and proceeded to serve impeachment notice on the state governor, Samuel Ortom.

Mr Ortom, with several of the state lawmakers, recently defected from the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the PDP.

Many Nigerians suspect that the APC-controlled federal government is behind the impeachment moves in Benue. PREMIUM TIMES could not verify this.

Several deputy governors like Enyinnaya Abaribe of Abia state; Peremobowei Ebebihave, Bayelsa; Sani Danladi, Taraba; Mohammed Gadi, Bauchi; and Suleiman Argungu, Kebbi have been impeached from office since the country returned to civilian rule in 1999.

Lagos State had two of its deputy governors, Kofo Bucknor-Akerele and Femi Pedro, impeached in the past.

Another deputy governor in Akwa Ibom, Nsima Ekere, was almost impeached during the Akpabio administration. He had to hurriedly resign from office before the House of Assembly began the impeachment proceedings.

Perhaps, the most ludicrous among them was that of Enugu State where the deputy governor, Sunday Onyebuchi, was removed on the accusation that he operated a poultry farm within the government house.

The court in 2015, however, nullified Mr Onyebuchis impeachment.

Legal Hurdles

Sections 143 and 188 of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria specify how the president, vice president, a governor or deputy governor can be removed from office.

The Constitution goes further (in Sub-section 10 of Section 188) to forbid the court from intervening in an impeachment process against a governor or deputy governor.

A successful impeachment is a blend of politics and legality, a Lagos-based lawyer, Chijioke Emeka, wrote in The Nation newspaper.

The plotters must win the politics and then, if challenged in court (as is almost always the case), also pass through the legal crucibles.

Mr Emeka said, As a political process, impeachment is intended to constitute a political trial and judgment of the legislature, while the courts are silent.

He said that was the reason the Nigerian Constitution provides for an ouster clause and partly defines gross misconduct as whatever is so in the opinion of the legislature.

The lawyer said the court began intervening in the impeachment of governors and deputy governors, despite the ouster clause, when they noticed how the processes where being abused by legislators.

In Adeleke V Oyo State House of Assembly (2007) 1 NWLR (PART 100) 608, the Court of Appeal courageously redrafted the ouster clause using the judicial license of interpretation.

Law is dynamic and bad times give rise to revolutionary times. It was held that since Section 188(1)  (9) prescribes procedures, the proper interpretation to be given to the ouster clause is that it could only be activated when such procedures had been complied with, Mr Emeka said.

Another lawyer, Onyekachi Duru, said based on the Court of Appeal judgement in Adeleke V Oyo State House of Assembly, it would now be difficult for legislators to abuse the constitutional provision which requires that for an impeachment of a governor or deputy governor to be successful, it must be supported by the two-third majority of the members of the House of Assembly.

It follows that two-thirds of the members for the purposes of impeachment must be two-thirds of all the elected members including those on suspension, Mr Duru stated in a research work he did recently on how the judiciary handled litigations arising from impeachment cases in Nigeria.

It is therefore certain that suspending some members in order to have a trumped up two-thirds majority for the purposes of impeachment will render the process of impeachment a nullity, Mr Duru added.

Stringent Process, Checks, Balances

Most politicians, lawyers, journalists, and political analysts, agree that the framers of the Nigerian Constitution saw impeachment as a serious matter, and therefore made the process cumbersome.

But, as noted by a Lagos-based lawyer, Inibehe Effiong, because of the political undertone that brings about these impeachment proceedings, it has been difficult for the houses of assembly to comply with the due process of law.

That is the reason, according to Mr Effiong, the Nigerian courts have nullified all the impeachment cases brought before them from 1999 till date.

Mr Effiong also told PREMIUM TIMES, In all the impeachment cases that I am aware of, I have not seen one where the legislators initiated impeachment proceedings on their own, without some external influences.

Ben Nwosu, a lecturer in the department of political science, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, blamed the frequent cases of impeachments in the country on weak institutions.

So much power has been invested on political principals, and then the institutions that should control them do not work.

That is why its easy for a governor to mobilise resources to impeach whoever disagrees with him, Mr Nwosu said. He also blamed the situation on the complete absence of the peoples power in the nations politics.

Part of the problem of democracy in Nigeria is the ordinary people in the sense that we lack the power of noble anger. We lack the power to say no, we cannot tolerate this. This is not what our society stands for.

Its beyond making comments; citizens can occupy the streets, occupy parliament and government buildings, Mr Nwosu explaned.

He suggested an amendment of the constitution to reduce the powers of governors and other political principals in the country, to discourage politically motivated impeachments.

Mr Effiong said the court should not just be made to set aside unlawful impeachment, but that those who sponsored and promoted should also be punished at the end of the exercise.

The Constitution should be amended to insert a criminal punishment for any violation of the constitution, beyond setting aside their action. If politicians are punished for trying to subvert the Constitution, I think they will be careful, he said.

The reckless violations of constitutional provisions and disobedience of court orders are backed by attorneys-general and lawyers who are members of the legislative houses. To stop the dangerous trend it is high time that the Nigerian Bar Association began to sanction its members who engage in the deliberate breach of the Constitution, Mr Falana said in his summation.

The former deputy governor of Akwa Ibom, Mr Ekpenyong, laughed over it as he recalled how he triumphed against the legislators who wanted to impeach him.

Political parties in Nigeria should not be under the control of the governor or president, Mr Ekpenyong told PREMIUM TIMES. The parties should be independent and capable of getting elected officials to implement the visions and programmes of the parties.
Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has berated gospel preachers for failing to lend support to the Federal Governments anti-corruption war by failing to preach against the scourge.

Speaking at the 30th National Biennial Conference of the Students Christian Movement of Nigeria holding in Enugu, Mr Osinbajo noted that preachers were preoccupied with preaching prosperity rather than righteousness.

Very rarely do you hear our preachers talk about corruption from their pulpits. If a nation is not righteous nothing will help it, he said.

Mr Osinbajo said the problem with Nigeria was neither ethnicity nor religion but systemic corruption.

He said corruption had been so entrenched in the country that if you dare challenge it, you will be in the minority.

He challenged the youth to change the narrative and make the difference by checking the impunity of those that had stolen the resources of the country.

Our problem in this country is not ethnicity or religion; it is not about Christians or Muslims. Our problems are the same wherever you go in this country, he said.

The story of our country is about good and evil. It is about those that have left us in this condition by stealing our common resources.

Do not let anyone deceive you.

The acting president challenged members of SCM to ensure that the movement becomes one of the tools that will move the country forward.

You should understand that our country can be delivered by people like you, he said.

According to him, young Christians have special and distinct roles to play in the transformation of the country which is superior to those of other sets of people.

All of the great nations of the world were transformed by the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is not a gospel that tickles peoples imaginations or dwells on prosperity.

It is not a gospel that fits your fancy. It is a gospel that teaches that righteousness exalts a nation, he said.

Mr Osibanjo appealed to Nigerians to stand against the plundering of the nations resources as well as support the anti-corruption initiative of the Federal Government, irrespective of party affiliations.

Earlier in his address, Gov. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State commended the organisers of the event for a successful convention.

Mr Ugwuanyi said Christians needed such events in order to seek spiritual reformation and renaissance, considering the situation in the world.

He said Christians also needed to contribute their quota toward promoting good living among Nigerians.

Mr Ugwuanyi urged Nigerians to continue to pray for President Muhammadu Buhari and for the peace of the nation.

In an address of welcome, the national president of SCM, Eric Ighalo, commended Mr Osinbajo for honouring their invitation.

Mr Ighalo said the conference was about active involvement of youths in reversing the problems that had held the country down through dialogue, collaboration and contention.

(NAN)
Today, eligible voters in Bauchi South Senatorial District of Bauchi State will decide who will represent them at the Senate following the vacancy created by the death of the former occupant, Ali Wakili, in March this year.

All the contenders have concluded their campaigns and now await the electorates to decide who is more suitable to replace the deceased senator.

Nine parties are taking part in what is expected to be a keenly contested election.

The parties in contest are All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Social Democratic Party (SDP), Action Peoples Party (APP), Kowa Party, New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) Green Party of Nigeria (GPN), People for Democratic Change (PDC), African Democratic Congress (ADC).

Interestingly, the bye-election is seen as very crucial to the people of Bauchi State giving the fact that Bauchi South is generally considered as the core of the state.

Apart from being the largest senatorial district made up of seven local government areas, it is also considered the most educationally advanced district in the state.

Bauchi South is famed to have produced most of the notable names from Bauchi State including Nigerias former Prime Minister, Tafawa-Balewa, and the current Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara.

Bauchi South has also produced all the states governors since 1999.

According to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) the election will hold in the 75 electoral wards of the seven local government areas that make up Bauchi South Senatorial District.

In these wards, there are 445 voting units that are broken down into 1,499 polling points spread across the seven local government areas.

The local government areas that will be casting their ballots today comprise Bauchi, Toro, Dass, Tafawa-Balewa, Bogoro, Alkaleri and Kirfi.

The INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Bauchi State, Ibrahim Abdullahi, informed journalists on Thursday that electorates who will participate in the bye-election are those who voted in the 2015 general elections and had collected their PVCs as at December 2017.

The REC said accreditation and voting during the election will be done simultaneously as voters will be accredited and allowed to cast their votes immediately.

The candidates in the election are as follows: Lawal Yahaya Gumau (APC); Isah Yuguda (GPN); Haruna Ayuba (ADC); Aminu Tukur (APP) and Usman Hassan (Kowa Party).

Others are Maryam Bargel (SDP); Husseini Umar (NNPP); Usman Chaledi (PDC); and Ladan Salihu (PDP).

Mr Yuguda of GPN is the immediate former governor of the state.

Those seen as the strong contenders are Mr Gumau of APC, being a sitting member of House of Representatives and candidate of the government; and Salisu Ladan of PDP who is alleged to be backed by the former minister of FCT, Bala Mohammed.

Mr Yuguda could also spring a surprise.

The police said they have mobilised enough personnel to provide security for the entire exercise.

Voting is expected to start at 8 a.m.

Voters queue for accreditation at Bagel polling unit 001

At 8:23am,

Voting was yet to commence at Bagel Central primary school in Dass local government area.

Premium Times met the officials setting up their table.

@8:30, the polling officer, Odiwe Lydia read out the procedure for voting to the group of voters before the actual accreditation started at 8:35

@8:42

Officials at Bagel Central primary school unit 001 said Card Reader not functioning. Eligible voters cannot commence voting.

One of the candidates for the bye-election, Maryam Bagel, was among the early arrivals at the polling unit, but met the officials unable to commence accreditation.

She called on INEC to speed up process of getting another functional card reader.

At Gobirawa/Sabongari unit 005 in Dott Ward of Dass LGA, accreditation started at 9 am but mix up of voter register is slowing down voting process.

At Gobirawa/Sabongari, confused officials seen making frantic calls over wrong voters register

Presiding officer, Dahiru Muhammad said they are waiting for the original voter register taken to another voting unit.

Voters checking their names on register pasted on the wasted at Maryam Kudu central polling unit in Tafawa Balewa LGA

@10:25

Officials at Bogoro D Polling unit of Bogoro Local Government Area said they have so far accredited 95 voters who have cast their ballots. They have 700 registered voters in the unit.The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, is from Bogoro LGA.

@10:06am

At Maryam and Maryam-Kudu central polling centre in Tafawa Balewa, some voters could not cast their ballots two hours after commencement of accreditation due to some faulty card reader.

Other sub-units of the same centre are busy accrediting voters.

Maryam Kudu polling unit in Tafawa Balewa LGA . Voters being accredited amidst cases of non functional Card Reader

@12:00

At Bogoro C polling unit of Gwaranga Ward, which is the polling unit of Speaker Yakubu Dogara, there are 1300 registered voters.

Voting started at 8:20am and election officials said they have so far accredited 315 voters who cast their ballots as at 12pm.

Major challenges are late arrivals of the female voters most of whom had to go to their farms first before coming to the polling centre at about noon.

Many of the voters had challenges getting to accredit electronically, as their fingers print were not readable.

At Bogoro C polling unit of Gwaranga Ward, which is the polling unit of Speaker Yakubu Dogara, there are 1,300 registered voters.

Voting started at 8:20 am and election officials said they have so far accredited 315 voters who cast their ballots as at 12 pm.

Major challenges are late arrivals of the female voters most of whom had to go to their farms first before coming to the polling centre at about noon.

Many of the voters had challenges getting to accredit electronically as their fingers print were not readable.

Independent Observers say election generally peaceful so far

PREMIUM TIMES ran into some of the INEC-accredited election observers at Bogoro local government who said they were satisfied with the conduct of the exercise.

Richard Adebayo, head of the Independent election observers team and official of from the Centre for Strategy, Ethics and Value, said so far the exercise has been peaceful generally, though there is a semblance voter apathy occasioned by low turn out.

We have so far visited polling centres in Bauchi central, Tafawa-Balewa, and Bogoro and we are impressed with security coverage so far, he said.

He also expressed concern on the issue of some card reads not functioning.

I have personally called the REC and informed him about some of the challenges of the Card Reader and they promised to get it resolved.

2:20pm: Speaker Dogara did not show-up in his polling unit.

It is already 2:20pm.The time for closing of accreditation at Gwaranga Polling units where the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara is supposed to cast his votes.

But the number 4 citizen who was in his constituency to mobilize support for his preferred candidate, did not show up to exercise his right of franchise.

Many voters who waited after casting their votes to see him cast his, were left disappointed.

The distance between the polling unit to Dogaras house in Gwaranga village is is about 400 meters.

The Presiding Officer at Gwarabga polling centre, said they had to extend the closure by 20 minutes because the actual accreditation started 20 minutes late.

2:30pm: Confusion at Dogaras Polling Unit as voters reject closure of accreditation and voting.

Some threatening to destroy casted ballot they attempt to leave with unused ballot papers.

Women at Speaker Dogaras polling unit assembled under tree shades  wont leave until their casted votes are counted Women at Speaker Dogaras polling unit assembled under tree shades  wont leave until their casted votes are counted
The Bayelsa State House of Assembly on Friday passed the Medical University Bill amidst stiff opposition from stakeholders at a public hearing three days earlier.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that stakeholders at Tuesdays public hearing unanimously opposed the establishment of a new tertiary institution in Bayelsa when existing ones are not well funded.

Stakeholders including Nigeria Medical Association, Nigeria Bar Association, Civil Liberties Organisation amongst others kicked against the idea of a Medical University arguing that the existing medical school is in dire financial need.

Ignoring the consensus at the public hearing, the House went ahead to give expedited passage to the Executive Bill presented by Governor Seriake Dickson.

The Speaker of the House, Kombowei Benson, said the assembly had passed 116 bills in the past one year.

The House proceeded on its annual six week recess.

The House had earlier unanimously rejected a bill before the National Assembly for the establishment of a framework for the water resource sector in Nigeria

The rejection of the bill was preceded by a motion moved by the member representing Southern Ijaw 1, Kate Owoko, (PDP)

Ms Owoko had described the waterway security bill as obnoxious, provocative and targeted at controlling the lifestyle of the people of the Niger Delta region who are predominantly dependent on water and marine activities.

(NAN)
The dust is yet to settle in Akwa Ibom state after a senator, Godswill Akpabio, defected from the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Mr Akpabio, a former governor of Akwa Ibom, resigned his position as the Senate minority leader shortly before his defection.

Apparently rattled by the development, the PDP in the state has been holding series of meetings and rallies to show solidarity with Governor Udom Emmanuel.

A former deputy governor in the state, Chris Ekpenyong, weighing in on Senator Akpabios defection, has advised Mr Emmanuel not to be disturbed about it.

Mr Ekpenyong, a chieftain of the PDP, is from the same Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District with Senator Akpabio.

We in Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District are not going to anywhere; we are supporting Governor Udom Emmanuel for the good of our generation and the generations to come, Mr Ekpenyong told PREMIUM TIMES, Friday.

We in the PDP believe in zoning of political offices, and therefore we cannot shift the goalpost in the middle of the match.

The former deputy governor gave thumbs up to the governor on his effort to industrialise the state.

He said Mr Emmanuel is the only governor that has tried to build industries in the state after the administration of Clement Isong in the then Cross River state before Akwa Ibom was created.

Whether he is using public-private partnership (PPP) to do it or not, at least, I have seen industries in the state, Mr Ekpenyong said.

Akpabio claimed he brought Udom, but he forgot that people voted for Udom to become governor. So, now it is the people that Udom has to rely on to send him back to the seat.

Udom will be the last governor one single person would ever claim credit of bringing. Any other governor after Udom should be brought by the people.

Akpabio used to sing Udom is right and fair! So, for us, Udom remains right and fair.

Mr Ekpenyong called on the people of the Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District to remain focus and support the governor till the end of 2023 when the governorship of the state would have shifted to Uyo Senatorial District.
For the New World Order, a world government is just the beginning. Once in place they can engage their plan to exterminate 80% of the world's population, while enabling the "elites" to live forever with the aid of advanced technology. For the first time, crusading filmmaker ALEX JONES reveals their secret plan for humanity's extermination: Operation ENDGAME.

Jones chronicles the history of the global elite's bloody rise to power and reveals how they have funded dictators and financed the bloodiest warscreating order out of chaos to pave the way for the first true world empire.

Watch as Jones and his team track the elusive Bilderberg Group to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III.





to Ottawa and Istanbul to document their secret summits, allowing you to witness global kingpins setting the world's agenda and instigating World War III. Learn about the formation of the North America transportation control grid, which will end U.S. sovereignty forever.





Discover how the practitioners of the pseudo-science eugenics have taken control of governments worldwide as a means to carry out depopulation.





View the progress of the coming collapse of the United States and the formation of the North American Union.

Never before has a documentary assembled all the pieces of the globalists' dark agenda. Endgame's compelling look at past atrocities committed by those attempting to steer the future delivers information that the controlling media has meticulously censored for over 60 years. It fully reveals the elite's program to dominate the earth and carry out the wicked plan in all of human history.

Endgame is not conspiracy theory, it is documented fact in the elite's own words.




NEW YORK, Aug. 10, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Guangxi, located in the southern region of China, was in the spotlight at UN Headquarters in New York today as 150 guests were introduced to the area, known for its natural beauty.

The event featured a photo exhibit and presentation under the theme "East or West, Guangxi is the Best," by officials of China's People's Government of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

Those in attendance included officials and executives from the UN, the Consulate General of the People's Republic of China in New York, the Sino-American Friendship Association and directors and tourism professionals from Metro New York.

Li Bing, the Vice-Governor of People's Government of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, in his presentation, noted that the event was a perfect opportunity to exchange tourism development experiences with one of the world's best cities - New York City - and to learn from its best practices.

He also invited Americans to visit Guangxi during September and October, when China-ASEAN Expo takes place in its province capital Nanning and its most famous city Guilin.

Remysell Salas, who represented the New York City Mayor's Office at the event, added that the event was the ultimate occasion for New Yorkers to get to know Guangxi's history, culture and economic development.

Meanwhile, New York State Governor Andrew M. Cuomo, New York City's Mayor Bill de Blasio and Congresswoman Grace Meng all sent letters of congratulations with Governor Cuomo noting: "This occasion welcomes many to become familiar with Guangxi as it seeks to expand economic, industrial and technological development through increased trade and tourism with the United States."

There is a popular saying in Chinese that states: 'East or West, Guangxi scenery is the best.' Guangxi is home to the Guilin Lijiang River; the Beihai Silver Beach, named one of the best beaches in China; and the biggest waterfall in Asia, the China-Vietnam Detian Waterfall.

Last year, Guangxi attracted 500 million travelers globally, among them about 135,000 American travelers. Officials hope to attract more international travelers through today's UN event and plan to cooperate with and learn from New York City, to develop its tourism resources.

Media Contact:

Cimagine Media Group, LLC

[email protected]

SOURCE Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region
MUMBAI, India, Aug. 11, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Rolta India Limited (Rolta), a leading provider of innovative IP-led IT solutions for many vertical segments, including Defence and Security, today announced unaudited financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2018 (Q1 FY - 19).

FINANCIAL HIGHLIGHTS

Consolidated Revenue for Q1 FY-19 at Rs. 636.53 cr (Rs. 6.37 Billion) against Rs. 617.92 cr (Rs. 6.18 Billion) in Q4 FY-18, registering a growth of 3.0 % Q-o-Q.

Consolidated EBITDA for Q1 FY-19 at Rs. 200.22 cr (Rs. 2.00 Billion) against Rs. 92.23 cr (Rs 0.92 Billion) in Q4 FY-18, registering a growth of 117.1% Q-o-Q.

Consolidated profit before tax for Q1 FY-19 at Rs. -35.79 cr (Rs. -0.36 Billion) against Rs. -135.30 cr (Rs. 1.35 Billion) in Q4 FY-18, registering a substantial improvement over last quarter.

Mr. K. K. Singh, Chairman and Managing Director said, "Our singular focus, IP led solutions strategy and investments have been concentrated in the area of Digital technologies. This is ensuring Rolta remains resilient, relevant and committed to driving innovation and helping organisations successfully embark on their Digital Transformation journey. These investments and innovation-led approach position us very well to continue gaining market share and delivering value for our customers."

CORPORATE HIGHLIGHTS

Digital Transformation continues to drive sweeping change in the world around us. Digital technologies allow organizations to reinvent themselves  transforming the core of the business while identifying and deriving new value from their growing digital data assets. Rolta is helping various organisations and government bodies to accelerate the digital transformation by abstracting the complexities of the nexus of technologies such as Geospatial, Engineering, Big Data, Internet of Things, Cloud, Cyber Security, Mobility and Social Media through Rolta's digital transformation platforms and solutions built on growing portfolio of IPs and replicable software solutions.

Defence and Security

The Defence Planning Committee under the NSA has mandated that the Indian Armed Forces must prepare for future wars and be modernized with the highest priority. The thrust is towards modernizing the Defence & Security forces through indigenous routes, reducing dependence on imports by encouraging Indian industry. It is envisaged that developments in the field of Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence Surveillance and Reconnaissance (C4lSR) will be harnessed to achieve digitization and synchronization of intra and inter services military operations based on the new categorisation of 'Buy (Indian-IDDM)' (Indigenously Designed, Developed and Manufactured). Rolta is very well positioned to address large upcoming opportunities in defence domain with a large repository of its own indigenous and field proven IPs.

Rolta's 64 Bit next generation Indigenous ISR technologies include Rolta Advance Imaging Suite (RAIS) being extensively used for transborder based Imagery Intelligence (IMINT) collection using multi-date stereo / mono high-resolution satellite Imagery, mission specific oblique aerial photography and UAVs/ Drone feeds in real-time. RAIS is capable of rapidly producing variety of valued added military geospatial data products such as true ortho, PAN sharpened imageries, seamless mosaic covering the entire Command theatre / Corps zone etc. rapidly. Rolta has responded to an RFI for procurement of latest ISR systems to modernise the Intelligence Systems of the Army through the Buy Indian IDDM categorization, placing Rolta in a favourable position.

Rolta has implemented its IP based, Enterprise C2 solution with embedded GIS features for supporting the management of Joint Warfare at Indian Tri-Services HQ. The proliferation of this solution across all nodes of the recently commissioned Defence Communication Network is under trial & evaluation and is likely to be implemented shortly. In the Aeronautical Domain, Rolta has responded to RFIs for Aeronautical Charting and Information Based Flight Planner and Air Force Overall Planning System.

Rolta is actively developing first of its kind indigenous War Gaming and Simulation solution for Counter Insurgency and Counter Terrorism (CI/CT) operations. This will enable the Army and Para Military to provide dynamic and cost-effective training to Battalion/Company and Platoon levels to meet the real challenges being faced by them by simulating operational and tactical scenarios.

In defence communications domain, Rolta has adopted a focussed approach towards communication solutions based on Software Defined Radios (SDR) and in collaboration with foreign technology partner have responded to the DG Signals RFI for high value DG Signals SDR project.

The Indian Army's Battlefield Management System (BMS) is its most ambitious program aimed at ushering in Digital Transformation of the Indian Army. The Consortium of BEL and Rolta as a designated Development Agency continue to make progress.

Rolta's world class Command & Control (C2) including Vessel Tracking solutions are ideally suited to the Border Security & Management along 15000 Km of the country's land borders and 7500 Km of its Coastline. The Company is participating in an ambitious program of the Border Security Force (BSF) to secure the country's borders and has responded to a recent RFP.

Rolta has successfully harnessed Geo-BI and Big Data Analytics technologies for meeting the needs of the Indian Defence. These indigenous solutions provide Geospatial enabled Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, Predictive, Prescriptive and Spatial Analytics which will be utilized to address large Defence digital enablement programs.

Digital Solutions: Geospatial, Asset Management, Enterprise IT, Security, Cloud and Big Data Analytics

Rolta continues to win projects in the areas of Geospatial & Engineering Systems, Enterprise IT, Big Data and Analytics and Defence & Security by differentiating its solutions by uniquely combining its strengths in these areas of expertise with its growing portfolio of exceptional Rolta IP based solutions. Investments in the Company's IP led strategy continue unabated and has led to the Company having successfully obtained many Patents together with 650+ copyrights registrations for software packages.

Rolta's rich heritage of creating and designing digital repositories enriched with Geospatial as well as Engineering data has uniquely positioned the Company to analyse intricate data patterns and thereby extract the deepest insights from the digital data. Rolta has been successfully leveraging its Geospatial expertise and proven IP in the areas of Smart Cities and e-Governance. For example, Rolta has been successfully creating a seamless digital repository comprising of up-to-date mapping and geospatial information covering the entire nation with an integrated bilingual Geoportal for secure multi-channel dissemination and collaboration for one of the largest countries in the Middle East. This has led the Company being awarded several additional contracts for significant enhancements in project scope. During the quarter Rolta also responded to Digital Transformation opportunities across multiple refineries for two large integrated energy majors in India, to establish their corporate wide Digital Data Asset Management Solutions.

During the quarter in North America, Rolta has won several multi-million dollar contracts for Converged Systems, Cloud, Security, Mobility Solutions with ongoing managed services. For example, a retail fashion clothes group engaged Rolta for consolidating their data centre using hyper-converged solution and seamlessly migrating their digital assets. A Fortune 500 Healthcare organization, who is also a long-standing customer in North America awarded Rolta with a contract to enhance their private cloud infrastructure along with edge communication systems across their distribution network. Similarly, another Healthcare provider tasked Rolta to develop and build their storage and disaster recovery strategy to protect their growing digital assets. In the transportation sector a large North American travel centre operator elected to engage Rolta to implement a converged database solution tuned for high performance computing. In the Middle East, Rolta won a US $ 2.5M+ contract for Cyber Security to manage the customers Cloud based Identity and Access Management Solution. Successful implementations through such engagements often leads to a long term enduring managed services opportunity where Rolta is engaged to manage the customer's environments on a 24 X 7 basis. For example, a North American emergency dispatch service engaged Rolta to manage their virtualized servers, network, data and security while a Department of Administrative and Financial Services for a state government has engaged Rolta to comprehensively manage all aspects of their security requirements covering their Cloud servers, databases and platforms as well as user access rights.

In the Transportation segment for an apex shipping authority in India, Rolta is successfully delivering a large Cloud based digital transformation program for automation of all organizational functions related to shipping, operations and maintenance while also providing deep cross-functional analytical insights and decision support by leveraging Rolta OneView. They recently invited Rolta to respond to their RFP for a Big Data solution to monitor and track shipping vessels across the globe while also collecting information about foreign ships entering territorial waters for information dissemination to various stakeholders. While in the Middle East, a major independent government authority, also a long-standing customer, selected Rolta for enhancing its "Electronic No Objection Certificate" System and migrating to it new business process model engine.

In the Energy and Utilities sector, Rolta won a strategic US $ 3M contract for a Cloud based Rolta OneView Smart Meter data management solution from a prestigious UK based organisation engaged in monitoring data and communication networks of energy operators. This solution will help them to monitor regulatory compliance, seamlessly automate meter-to-cash reconciliation leveraging in-memory Big Data Analytics while also providing cross-functional visibility. Furthermore, it has the potential of being extended to over 150 energy operators and suppliers. Another long-standing customer of Rolta in the power distribution segment in the UK, provided a major extension of scope for their ongoing asset management system with comprehensive geospatial and analytics functionality.

About Rolta: Rolta is a leading provider of innovative IP-led IT solutions for many vertical segments, including Federal and State Governments, Utilities, Oil & Gas, Petrochemicals, Financial Services, Manufacturing, Retail, and Healthcare. Rolta is recognized for its extensive portfolio of solutions based on field-proven Rolta IP tailored for Indian Defence and Homeland Security. By uniquely combining its expertise in the IT, Engineering and Geospatial domains, Rolta develops State-of-the-Art Digital Solutions incorporating rich Rolta IP in the areas of Cloud, Mobility, IoT, BI and Big Data Analytics. Rolta is a multinational organization headquartered in India and the Company's shares have been publicly traded for more than 25 years in India.

For additional information please visit www.rolta.com, or contact:



Preetha Pulusani

President  International Operations

Member of the International Board

[email protected]

Tel: +1 (678) 942-5000



Lt. Gen K.T. Parnaik

JMD  Defence & Security

Member of the Board

[email protected]

Tel: +91 (22) 2926-6666



Rajesh Ramachandran

JMD  Global Products & Technology Solutions

Member of the Board

[email protected]

Tel: +91 (22) 2926-6666



Ramakrishna Prabhu

Director  Finance & Corporate Affairs

Member of the Board

[email protected]

Tel: +91 (22) 2926-6666

SOURCE Rolta India Limited

Related Links

http://www.rolta.com


Seoul, Aug 11 : Three South Korean firms illegally imported coal and iron worth over $5.5 million from North Korea last year, in violation of the US-imposed sanctions on Pyongyang for its weapons tests.

The three companies imported goods worth $5.8 million between April and October 2017, Efe quoted Korea Customs Service (KCS) as saying on Friday.

The firms used a Russian port as stopover and falsified the country of origin of the goods, said the customs authorities.

KCS said the companies were trying to capitalize on North Korean coal, which is available at lower than the market rate.

Resolution 2371 of the UN Security Council has since August 2017 completely banned North Korea from exporting its minerals - which makes up the largest chunk of its exports - over Pyongyang's intercontinental ballistic missile launches.

The KCS announcement comes after the South Korean government announced last month that it was investigating several foreign boats for allegedly bringing North Korean coal into the country, and transferring crude oil to North Korean boats in high seas, banned under UN resolution 2397 since December.
Tirana, Aug 11 : Eight persons were killed on Friday afternoon at Resulaj Village in Albania, where a 24-year-old man opened fire at his relatives over a property dispute, police said.

According to the police, all the victims were members of two Zykaj families, living in the same village.

Local media reported that the 24-year-old man Ridvan Zykaj, armed with Kalashnikov, first entered the home of his grandparents, shot them and two of their uncle's family members.

He went further to the other uncle's house, 30 meters away, to kill four others. There are also reports for a wounded person, Xinhua reported.

According to the police, Ridvan Zykaj quickly left the scene and is still being chased by police forces, from Vlora and Tirana. He is considered extremely dangerous and armed.

Albanian Interior Minister Fatmir Xhafaj, as well as director of State Police, Ardi Veliu, arrived at Resulaj Village, in the evening to follow closely the police operation.
Tennessee Valley Healthcare System (TVHS) chaplains will host a Helping Our Veterans Heal workshop on Thursday, Aug. 23, at the East Brainerd Church of Christ at 7745 E. Brainerd Road.

Members of the clergy are a critical point of contact for veterans in the community. The goal of this workshop is to equip them to meet the spiritual needs of veterans in their houses of worship and their communities.

Local clergy may not always have the resources and insight they need to effectively engage with Veterans, said TVHS Chaplain Jeff Fisher. This workshop will give them a better understanding of how to support veterans.

Workshop topics will include identifying potential conflicts between civilian and military cultures, identifying actions clergy can take to assist military personnel and their families with a healthy adjustment to a civilian culture, and the importance of personal narratives and past, present and future stories.

Check-in will begin at 8:30 a.m. and the workshop should conclude by 4 p.m. Lunch will be provided. Seating is limited for this free event.

Register at http://bit.ly/TVHSClergy before Aug. 21.
Jammu, Aug 11 : A small batch of 68 pilgrims on Saturday left Jammu for the cave shrine in the Kashmir Valley, police said.

This is the smallest batch of pilgrims to leave for the ongoing Yatra since it began on June 28.

"The pilgrims left Bhagwati Nagar Yatri Niwas here in an escorted convoy of eight vehicles for the Valley today," the police said.

This year over 2.75 pilgrims have performed the Yatra which is slated to end on August 26 coinciding with the Shravan Purnima festival.
Washington, Aug 11 : US military institutions are struggling to fill the 66 slots they had kept aside for officers from Pakistan for the next academic year, as President Donald Trump's administration refused to provide funds for their training, official sources said.

The fund for training Pakistani officers came from the US government's International Military Education and Training Programme (IMET) but no funds were made available for Pakistan for the next academic year, Dawn online reported on Saturday quoting the sources as saying.

Dawn first learned about the suspension from the US National Defence University (NDU), Washington, which has had reserved seats for Pakistani officers for more than a decade now.

The outgoing Pakistani officers, however, were told that the university has been asked to fill the positions for the next year with officers from other nations.

The NDU is one of several US military institutions that train officers from Pakistan.

The Trump administration announced early this year that it was suspending security assistance to Pakistan over differences on Afghanistan but indicated that training programmes for military officers will continue.

The cancellation of slots kept aside for Pakistani officers, however, shows that the suspension now also applies to training programmes.

Pakistani officers have been receiving military training and education in the US since early 1960s, which were suspended in the 1990s but restored after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
Rome, Aug 11 : Two groups of tourists fought over a selfie spot here in Italy's landmark Trevi Fountain, one of the most famous fountains in the world, media reports said.

The fight broke out on Wednesday between a 19-year-old Dutch teen and a 44-year-old American woman.

Both wanted to take selfies at the same spot in front of the largest baroque fountain in Rome at the same time, Xinhua news agency reported.

They had a heated exchange of words before a physical fight, and then their family members joined in.

According to the La Repubblica newspaper, there were eight people involved in the fight before the police intervened.

The tourists have been charged with violence.

To protect the city's fountains, Rome has been imposing fines of about $274 for bad behaviour, including picnicking or camping around the fountains, bathing their feet or swimming in the fountain waters.

The city council is also considering a plan to shuttle tourists past the Trevi Fountain in a single file to prevent large groups from gathering around it.

The fountain has appeared in several notable films, including "La Dolce Vita" and "Roman Holiday".
Washington, Aug 11 : Judge Brett Kavanaugh, US President Donald Trump's nominee to be a Supreme Court Justice, will begin his Senate confirmation hearings on September 4, Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley announced.

"He's met dozens of senators who have nothing but positive things to say," Grassley, an Iowa Republican, said in a statement on Friday.

"At this current pace, we have plenty of time to review the rest of emails and other records that we will receive from President Bush and the National Archives. It's time for the American people to hear directly from Judge Kavanaugh at his public hearing."

Grassley said he expects the hearing to last three or four days, CNN reported.

Trump nominated Kavanaugh to the high court last month to fill the spot of retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Kavanaugh needs just 50 votes to be confirmed.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said earlier on Friday that he hopes Kavanaugh would be confirmed by the Senate "before the first Monday in October".

White House spokesman Raj Shah said Kavanaugh was looking forward to speaking with Congress, reports CNN.

"With the Senate already reviewing more documents than for any other Supreme Court nominee in history, Chairman Grassley has lived up to his promise to lead an open, transparent and fair process," Shah said on Friday.

"Judge Kavanaugh looks forward to addressing the Judiciary Committee in public hearings for the American people to view."
Lucknow, Aug 11 : A major portion of an under-construction flyover in Basti district of Uttar Pradesh collapsed on Saturday, police said. One person was injured.

A slab portion of the flyover being constructed by the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) collapsed at the Phutaiyya Chauraha, an official said.

"The incident took place in the morning in which a labourer on night-shift duty was injured. He was immediately admitted to the district hospital," Basti District Magistrate Raj Shekhar told IANS.

The traffic in the area, which was suspended following the crash, has been allowed with precautions like barrier and barricades.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has directed the district authorities to ensure that the injured get prompt and adequate treatment, a government spokesman said.

Project Director of the NHAI for northern division has been asked to initiate a probe into the incident.

The crash comes two months after a similar portion of another under-construction flyover in Varanasi collapsed leaving 18 dead and many injured.

That flyover in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's parliamentary constituency was being built by the Uttar Pradesh Rajkiya Nirmaan Nigam (UPRNN), a state government agency.
New Delhi : There is little doubt that in the wake of M. Karunanidhis death, Tamil Nadu will enter an uncertain, even rocky, phase. It may take some time for the sense of disquiet and foreboding to become apparent. There may even be a period of relative calm as Karunanidhis chosen heir, his younger son, M.K. Stalin, assumes charge of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) party.

But the reprieve is likely to be the calm before the storm. By the time the next assembly election is due in 2021, the dark clouds of the rivalry between the two brothers, Stalin and M.K. Alagiri, may well threaten the DMK's smooth functioning. The only silver lining for the party will be the rival All India Anna DMK's (AIADMK) perceived weakness as a challenger. It is no secret that after the death of the AIADMK's guiding star, Jayalalithaa, the party has not been able to get its act together despite its formal hold on the levers of power.

Be it Chief Minister E.K. Palaniswami or Deputy Chief Minister O. Panneerselvam, neither has the aura of a winner. They have little charisma and even less administrative capacity. Moreover, by initially denying a burial place for Karunanidhi in Marina beach where the graves of Annadurai, M.G. Ramachandran and Jayalalithaa are located, the two AIADMK leaders revealed a petty mentality.

It is obvious that singly or together, they are unable to fill the void created by Jayalalithaa's death. There is every possibility, therefore, that the AIADMK will lose the 2021 election while the DMK will romp home. Before that, the DMK is expected to fare well in the parliamentary polls of 2019, probably with the Congress bringing up the rear. But whatever the outcome, the focus will continue to be on the Stalin-Alagiri rivalry.

There will also be another point of interest. It is about the extent to which the Dravidian movement will be affected by the deaths of the two stalwarts, Jayalalithaa and Karunanidhi, within eight months of one another. The movement is known for its atheistic, anti-Hindu and anti-Hindi orientation. Of all the other major regional parties of south India -- the Telugu Desam Party and YSR Congress of Andhra Pradesh, the Telangana Rashtra Samithi of Telangana and the Janata Dal-Secular of Karnataka -- the DMK and the AIADMK of Tamil Nadu have stood out, till now, for their uncompromising rationalism which owes its origin to Ramaswami Naicker, better known as Periyar (1879-1973) who began his speeches with the invocation: "There is no God. He who invented God is a fool. He who propagates God is a scoundrel. He who worships God is a barbarian."

There has undoubtedly been a dilution of this stridency in recent years when both the DMK and the AIADMK have teamed up with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) which is known for its championing of the Hindu cause. The AIADMK is believed to be moving closer to the BJP at present to compensate for its weakness as a political force while the DMK has been close to the Congress for the last decade-and-a-half.

However, the question is whether Stalin has the capability to fill Karunanidhi's shoes to keep the DMK afloat during the turbulence of the expected sibling rivalry and the challenge posed by a possible AIADMK-BJP combine. Although the BJP has always been a marginal player in Tamil Nadu, it has tested the political waters in the state in the past in the company of minor parties like film star Vijaykanth's Desiya Murpokku Dravida Kazhagam (DMDK) and former Union minister S. Ramadoss's Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) without making much headway.

Even then, the BJP must be looking forward to making its presence felt in the state in the present uncertain scenario where a political vacuum has been created by the deaths of two towering personalities. The film stars, Rajanikanth and Kamal Haasan, too, have sensed an opportunity in the present situation to launch their political careers although they appear to be unable to make up their minds as to which of the two Dravida Kazaghams is closest to their line of thinking.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that Rajanikanth is tilting towards the AIADMK and Kamal Haasan is more favourably disposed towards the DMK. However, they may also be considering forming their own parties with Kamal Haasan having already fired the first shot by constituting the Makkal Needhi Maiam. But their ideologies are vague and do not seem to have much to do with the kind of aggressive anti-Hindi worldview which the DMK and the AIADMK once espoused.

Arguably, India has changed from the time of the anti-Hindi agitation in Tamil Nadu in the 1960s which made Jawaharlal Nehru promise that English will continue to be used as long as the non-Hindi-speaking states want. Thanks to Bollywood, Hindi is now much more widely understood and spoken although any attempt to push it by the pro-Hindi lobby in North India is bound to be strongly resisted as could be seen when Hindi signboards were removed from the Bengaluru metro stations.

But it will nevertheless be fair to say that the Dravidian movement today is far from what Periyar said and did. Tamil Nadu, therefore, can be said to be entering unchartered social and political territory.

(Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com)
Los Angeles, Aug 11 : The Los Angeles District Attorneys office says that it has declined to prosecute sexual assault cases levelled against musician Marilyn Manson and "Girls" writer Murray Miller.

According to documents from the District Attorney's office, the charges levelled against Manson, whose real name is Brian Warner, in 2011 have been dismissed due to expired statute of limitations on two charges and an absence of corroboration for a sexual assault claim, reports variety.com.

Miller's charges were declined due to expired statute of limitations and for "inconsistencies which cannot be overcome" based on the evidence presented. Miller was accused last year of sexual assault by actress Aurora Perrineau.

Manson's lawyer, Howard E. King, said in a statement: "Under current policy, the Los Angeles County District Attorney must investigate any claim of sexual abuse, no matter how outlandish. It is not surprising that the District Attorney, after investigation, summarily rejected the claims made in a police report filed by a former acquaintance against Brian Warner (also known as) Marilyn Manson."

The statement further read that the allegations made to the police were and are "categorically denied" by "Mr. Warner and are either completely delusional or part of a calculated attempt to generate publicity for the claimant's business of selling Manson memorabilia."

"The police report that spurred the investigation was accompanied by the woman's press release and other attempts to generate publicity that fraudulently claimed she was held captive by Mr. Warner for 48 hours in 2011. Any claim of sexual impropriety or imprisonment at that, or any other, time is false."

The District Attorney's office also released declination forms for ASAP Bari, co-founder of ASAP Mob and streetwear clothing label VLONE. The rapper was accused of sexual assault in 2017, but will not be prosecuted after the victim decided not to proceed with the criminal case, according to a court filing.

Fitness entrepreneur Michael Torchia will also not be prosecuted due to insufficient evidence.

The charges were levelled during the #MeToo movement. Several high-profile cases are still being investigated, including that against the disgraced former movie producer Harvey Weinstein, who is facing accusations from more than 40 women.
San Francisco, Aug 11 : Google's reported plan to launch a censored version of its search engine in China has come under heavy criticism from a former Asia-Pacific head of the company's free expression issues who called it a "stupid move".

"This is just a really bad idea, a stupid, stupid move. I feel compelled to speak out and say that this is not right," The Intercept quoted Lokman Tsui as saying on Friday.

Tsui was Google's head of free expression for Asia and the Pacific between 2011 and 2014.

The news about Google's plan to build a censored search engine broke last week.

Codenamed "Dragonfly", the search platform would blacklist "sensitive queries" about topics including politics, free speech, democracy, human rights and peaceful protest, according to a previous report by The Intercept.

"I can't see a way to operate Google search in China without violating widely held international human rights standards," the report quoted Tsui as saying.

Google is yet to officially confirm or deny the search engine project.

Tsui said that if Google goes ahead with the censored search engine project, it would go against its publicly stated ethos.

The tech giant had launched a search engine in China in 2006, but pulled the service out of the country in 2010, citing Chinese government efforts to limit free speech and block websites.
Caracas, Aug 11 : The Venezuelan government has released a video in which legislator Juan Requesens is heard confessing that he helped one of the perpetrators of the attempted attack on the country's President Nicolas Maduro enter the country.

The Venezuelan Minister of Communication and Information, Jorge Rodriguez, showed the video at a press conference in which Requesens, detained since Tuesday, "confesses his complicity in the frustrated assassination attempt", declaring that he had arranged for the entry of Juan Monasterios, who has been arrested, in the country.

Requesens also stated that he executed these actions after the former President of the Venezuelan National Assembly and opposition legislator Julio Borges, accused of being one of the masterminds behind the attack, asked him for a favour, Efe news reported.

"He reports and confesses that he did it on the orders of Julio Borges," Rodriguez emphasised, announcing that Venezuela has applied for Interpol's Red Notice against Borges, who is in Colombia.

The video was repudiated by the opposition, arguing that it was obtained under coercion and cruel treatment.

Until now, at least seven people have been arrested and 19 others identified for an assassination attempt at Maduro.

Two drones had exploded at an event led by Maduro on August 4 in which the outgoing Colombian President, Juan Manuel Santos, was accused of involvement.
Pul-e Khomri (Afghanistan), Aug 11 : At least 20 Taliban militants were killed and four huge insurgents' weapons and ammunition depots were destroyed after US-led NATO coalition forces launched an airstrike in Afghanistan's Baghlan province overnight, an official said on Saturday.

The strike was conducted on a Taliban hideout near Aka Khil village, Dahana-i-Ghori district on Friday night, Hanif Rezai, spokesman of Army Corps 209 Shaheen based in the region, told Xinhua news agency.

Among those killed was a Taliban local leader, who served as commander of the group's Sara Ketta or Red Unit in the province, Rezai said.

In a separate incident, Taliban divisional commander Muwlawi Salauddin was killed along with his two associates after Afghan Army commandos launched an operation in the same district on Friday night.

Salauddin also served as deputy shadow district chief for Dahana-i-Ghori.
Melbourne, Aug 11 : In an effort to strengthen cultural and economic ties between India and Australia, Victoria Premier Daniel Andrews on Saturday announced plans to establish a $3 million Indian Cinema Attraction Fund, which will enable more Indian filmmakers to explore Victoria as a shooting location.

Andrews, who shared the dais with Bollywood actress Rani Mukerji as she hoisted the Indian national flag at the Federation Square here, said that beyond a cultural celebration, it will be a "profound economic opportunity and a way in which India and Australia could come even closer together".

"I am proud to announce that the Victorian government will establish an Indian Cinema Attraction Fund with $3 million in funding to make sure at least four films are made right here in Melbourne and Victoria over the next four years," Andrews said, urging Indian filmmakers to seize the opportunity.

Film Victoria has already been working closely with India's biggest production studios, and offering grants worth up to 25 per cent of their spends in Victoria.

The new investment, announced during an event organised by the ongoing Victoria government-backed Indian Film Festival of Melbourne (IFFM), is expected to grow the local film industry and create local jobs for the state, which has Australia's biggest Indian community.

Victoria has earlier played host to a number of Indian film productions, including "Chak De! India, "Bhaag Milkha Bhaag" and "Salaam Namaste".

Rani, dressed in a chiffon sari in the biting cold -- "in true tradition of a Bollywood heroine" -- for the flag hoisting ceremony, sang a few tweaked lines from one of her songs in praise of the Premier's incentive move.

She was emotional as she recounted her father's patriotic themes as she hoisted the flag.

"When we are in India on August 15, the tradition is that in every nook and corner, in buildings and societies, we have the flag hoisting and ever since I was a baby, I would wake up from sleep, I would hear all the patriotic songs playing. And one of them was from my father's films, which he did in the 1960s with Mr Sunil Dutt."

She recited a few lines from the song "Chhodo kal ki baatein, kal ki baat puraani, naye daur mein likhenge milkar nayi kahaaniA Hum Hindustani, Hum Hindustani."

"I miss my dad, especially on days like this because he made films like 'Leader' and 'Hum Hindustani' which had so much of the patriotic spirit. I hope it carries on with new generations," Rani said.

The Federation Square, despite the rain and chill in the wind, attracted a huge crowd of Indians and non-Indians to celebrate the colour, dance, music and spirit that India is known for the world over.

As inclusion is the theme of IFFM this year, the performances saw old, young and specially challenged participants putting up a heart-warming show.

A burst of tricoloured confetti as Rani hoisted the flag added to the patriotic vibes, which was backed by dhol, dances, music and food.

(Radhika Bhirani is in Melbourne at the invitation of IFFM organisers. She can be contacted at radhika.b@ians.in)
Vienna/Bucharest, Aug 11 : Around 440 people, including 24 police officers, were injured during an overnight mass demonstration against government corruption in Bucharest, emergency services announced on Saturday.

At least 65 people were hospitalized after police used teargas, water cannons and truncheons against 11,000 people gathered in the Romanian capital to protest against corruption and demand the resignation of key government figures, Efe news reported.

President Klaus Johannis said the police had acted brutally and demanded an explanation for what he considered to be a "disproportionate intervention". However, security authorities insisted that it was state violence and they were only responding to attacks.

Demonstrators were demanding the resignation of Parliament's president Liviu Dragnea and Prime Minister Viorica Dancila.

The coalition government, led by the Social Democratic Party (PSD), has in the last few years approved a series of controversial measures that critics claim complicate the fight against corruption and have led to a series of mass demonstrations.

Last July, Parliament approved a decriminalization of abuse of power, a legislative change that would benefit Dragnea, who a month earlier had been sentenced to over three years in prison for that very crime.

The government also recently fired the leading anti-corruption prosecutor.
Guwahati, Aug 11 : Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma on Saturday appealed to the Central government to remove the bottlenecks for setting up mobile towers along the Indo-Bangladesh border to ensure better connectivity in border areas.

"Due to network problem, the Border Security Force (BSF) deployed in Indo-Bangladesh border uses SIM cards of Bangladesh-based mobile companies," said Sangma, adding that it poses a threat to India's security.

"While Indian telecom companies are penalised if their signals cross the border, signals from the Bangladesh side come to India," Sangma said while speaking at a function here to mark the launch of Digital Northeast: Vision 2022.

Due to the penalty imposed on Indian telecom companies, they do not set up mobile towers along the international border so the jawans have to unwillingly use mobile networks from other countries, which adds to their call costs.

"It pains me to see that the BSF jawans have to make international calls to talk to their family members," the Chief Minister said.

Referring to the Union government's decision to install 2,000 towers in Meghalaya, Sangma appealed to the government to cover the border areas so that the people get better digital connectivity.
New Delhi, Aug 11 : Aiming to train the youth in mobile hardware repair and technical training in computers and peripherals, Swedish telecommunications company Ericsson on Saturday opened a skill centre in partnership with Electronics Sector Skills Council of India (ESSCI) in Uttar Pradesh's Ghazipur.

"I would like to congratulate Ericsson for launching its community building initiatives in Ghazipur today, namely the 'Skill Centre' and the 'Ghazipur Mobile Vaani'.

"The 'Skill Centre' will impart skill sets to youth which will make them employable or self-employed," Minister of State for Communications, Manoj Sinha said in a statement released here.

The company also launched the "Ghazipur Mobile Vaani", a district-level citizen communication and engagement platform, which will make the people aware about government's welfare schemes and help the company understand their grievances and feedback.

According to the company, the Interactive Voice Response (IVR)-based platform enables citizens to give a missed call on 9266300111 to get information on various initiatives taken by the government.

The skill centre has been designed for end-to-end engagement with Ghazipur youth focused on training and skill-building as well as providing placement assistance, guidance and support for micro-entrepreneurship.

"At Ericsson, we believe in technology for good, wherein we use communications technology to make a difference in the lives of communities around the world," said Nunzio Mirtillo, Head of Ericsson southeast Asia, Oceania and India.

"We have set up the 'Ericsson Skill Centre' in Ghazipur which will not only provide mobile repair and computer skills, but also provide placement assistance and support micro-entrepreneurship," he added.

After completion of the three-month training, candidates will be assessed and certified by ESSCI and those who qualify will be supported for placement as well as entrepreneurship.
Kolkata, Aug 11 : BJP President Amit Shah on Saturday warned West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee not to hinder Durga idol immersion or the Saraswati worship in the state, saying his party activists will "bring down Banerjee's secretariat brick by brick" if such things ever recurred.

He said these festivals will be celebrated with full fervour if BJP formed government in Bengal.

"They (Trinamool Congress) do not allow the immersion of the Durga idols after puja. Saraswati Puja has been stopped in many schools in Bengal. Should that happen? Form a BJP government in Bengal, Durga immersion and Saraswat Puja will take place with full fervour. No one can stop that," Shah said during his rally at Kolkata's Mayo Road.

"Mamata didi, do not dare (to do such things) again. If you dare to do this next time, the BJP activists will bring down your secretariat brick by brick, but the Durga puja will take place at any cost," he said amid cheers from thousands of party activists.

The Durga Puja immersion processions were delayed over the past few years in certain parts of Bengal as Muharram rallies and the two events coincided.

Accusing Banerjee and her party of minority appeasement and vote bank politics, Shah asked the Bengal Chief Minister to tell the people what she was trying to achieve by stopping Saraswati Puja in the state and by settling Rohingya and Bangladeshi infiltrators in the state.

"There is a limit to doing appeasement and vote bank politics... there will be no Saraswati Puja in Bengal... Rohingya and Bangladeshi infiltrators are allowed to settle here. What are you trying to turn Bengal into? Mamata must clarify this to the people," he said.

The BJP leader also accused the Trinamool Congress supremo of stopping a number of television channels from telecasting his speech.

"But I have full faith in our party activists. They will go to every village, every street and every household of Bengal to tell them about Trinamool's activities," he added.

Shah said he would tour all districts in Bengal and start an agitation to throw out the Trinamool Congress.

"Turn the pages of history of democracy. Whenever anybody has tried to throttle the voice of democracy, the voice of protest has amplified to reach the masses. In democracy, no one can throttle anybody's voice," he added.
Chennai, Aug 11 : Targeting a turnover of Rs 600 crore this fiscal Thomson and Kodak brand television maker and marketer Super Plastronics Pvt Ltd is expanding its production capacity at its Nodia plant at an outlay of Rs 150 crore, a top company official said.

"We are expanding our capacity in our Noida facility adding a fully automatic production unit at an outlay of Rs 150 crore. The new unit will give additional production of about 35,000 - 40,000 units per month," CEO Avneet Singh Marwah told IANS over phone on Saturday.

He said the company currently has three plants - Jammu in Jammu and Kashmir, Una in Himachal Pradesh and Noida in Uttar Pradesh - with a combined production capacity of 60,000 - 70,000 units per month.

"The majority of the production is from our Noida plant. However, we have no plans to consolidate the production at one place," Marwah added.

According to him, the company imports only glass display panels-that account for 70 percent of the manufacturing cost per television- from Taiwan, Indonesia, Hong Kong and China.

Queried whether it was not a big jump to target Rs 600 crore turnover this year from last year's figure of about Rs 250 crore Marwah said: "The market is good. Till Diwali our aim is to achieve a turnover of about Rs 350 crore. Sixty five per cent of the sales will be from Thomson brand and 35 per cent from Kodak brand."

According to him, the ensuing Diwali will see a sharp rise in sales of Ascreen sizes from 32 to 40 inches. There is already significant growth of smart televisions in India which will only increase by Diwali.

In terms of online sales there would be a 70 per cent increase in smart televisions and 30 per cent in non - smart category.

Apart from that, there is also a huge boost in demand for 4k -ultra high definition televisions in India. Content availability is getting much better with these smart television apps and some content which they have started showing in such sets, he added.

Selling the two television brands only through Flipkart, Marwah said the strategic partnership has made them available in more than 14,000 pin codes in the country including after sales service.

"The kind of visibility Flipkart is offering us in the online space is immense and which has helped us become one of the fastest moving smart TV brand in the country right now," Marwah claimed.

Not agreeing with the view that the company is a price point player Marwah said: "We are a super affordable category in the TV industry and our focus is to give better technology to the consumer at a competitive price point. We are an ROI (return on investment) based company and do not believe in burning money from day one to capture the market unlike other brands, because in doing that one would lose sales in long term."
Dhaka, Aug 11 : Bangladesh and Myanmar have launched a hotline at the Foreign Ministerial level to facilitate "ease of discussions" for the early repatriation of Rohingya refugees.

A meeting was held between Myanmar Minister for the Office of the State Counsellor Kyaw Tint Swe and Bangladeshi Foreign Minister Abul Hassan Mahmood Ali in Myanmar's capital Naypyidaw on Friday, bdnews24.com reported.

Ali was visiting Myanmar to see the preparations for taking back the Rohingyas. In the meeting, the ministers discussed the implementation of the bilateral agreement -- "Arrangement on Return of Displaced Persons from Rakhine State" -- signed in November 2017.

According to the Myanmar side, both parties agreed that there should be early repatriation of displaced persons from Rakhine who recently fled to Bangladesh's Cox's Bazar. "Repatriation will be in a voluntary, safe and dignified manner and in this regard, a hotline was established between the ministers to facilitate ease of discussions," an official statement said.

Bangladesh and Myanmar also agreed to intensify cooperation on counter-terrorism and the fight against drug trafficking through exchange of intelligence and enhanced coordinated border patrols.

As agreed in the arrangement, Myanmar has built two reception centres and one transit camp for Rohingyas. Bangladesh has confirmed progress on the five transit camps. One was complete, another under construction and the remaining three to be built.

It was also agreed that any humanitarian aid given to those inhabiting the area on Myanmar's territory should be given by the aid agencies from Myanmar side.
New Delhi, Aug 11 : Slamming opposition parties for "ignoring" and "sidelining" Dr. B.R. Ambedkar and the Dalits when they were in power, Union Minister Ram Vilas Paswan asked the Congress, Bahujan Samajwadi Party (BSP) and the Samajwadi Party (SP) why their actions were against the Dalit icon and the community's interests.

The Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) chief came up with 14 posers for Congress Rahul Gandhi, including why the grand old party fought against Ambedkar in the elections and failed to confer upon him the "Bharat Ratna" -- the country's highest and most prestigious civilian award.

Speaking at an LJP event to thank Prime Minister Narendra Modi for restoring the Scheduled Castes and Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 to its original form, Paswan said the opposition tried to paint the NDA government as "anti-Dalit", but on the contrary, it took several decisions beneficial to them.

"Baba Saheb contested the Lok Sabha elections twice, once from Bhandara (Maharashtra) and then from South Mumbai. On both occasions, the Congress worked to defeat him. It must tell, why? Portraits of three members of same family -- Motilal Nehru, Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi -- are placed in the Central Hall of Parliament. But the portrait of Baba Saheb was not, why?" he said.

"Congress gave Bharat Ratna to many persons but why Baba Saheb was not conferred the honour? Also, why national holiday was not announced on the birthday of Baba Saheb?"

Paswan also sought clarification from Rahul Gandhi on the Congress inaction in according constitutional status to SC/ST commissions and status of scheduled castes to Neo-Budhhists.

"Why Mau (Mhow), birthplace of Baba Saheb, was not declared a national monument? Why 26-Alipur Road, where he died, was not made a national museum? Why the Chaitya Bhumi, Mumbai was not made an international level monument?" he asked the Ghandhi.

"Why the house where Baba Saheb Ambedkar studied in London was not made a monument? Why the Deekshabhoomi in Nagpur was not developed? Why the OBC Commission formed for the backward classes was not given the constitutional status?"

The Minister also asked why the Congress-led UPA government did not pass a Constitution Amendment Bill for the promotion of SCs and STs despite having the majority, especially when no party other than Samajwadi party was opposing it.

Paswan also asked Rahul Gandhi why he did not say a word over the "dilution" of provisions of the SC/ST Act by the Supreme Court while speaking on no-confidence motion last month.

"Why did Mayawati as the Chief Minister issue an order to weaken SC/ST Act, which sought registration of case only after inquiry by senior officials? She also ordered that in cases of rape of SC/ST women, FIR be lodged only after the medical examination," he said.

"It is proved from the facts above that the grand alliance or Mahagathbandhan of the opposition, including Congress, Samajwadi Party and Bahujan Samaj Party, is anti-dalit."

Paswan said the NDA government has worked in the interests of SC/ST communities but could not promote it properly.

"Opposition tries to paint Modi and NDA government as anti-dalit. We want to change this perspective," he said.

"The NDA government has taken steps to strengthen SC/ST Act, ensuring promotion in reservation and buying Baba Saheb's house in London."

He said his party workers will hold celebrations across the country to thank Modi for his "historic" decision to restore the Act.
Patna, Aug 11 : At least six people were killed and three injured as lightning struck parts of Bihar on Saturday, officials said.

According to the Bihar Disaster Management Authority, four people were killed in Munger district and two in Banka district.

According to officials, the victims were transplanting paddy saplings in farmlands when the lightning struck.

"An ex-gratia of Rs four lakh each to the kin of those who lost their lives in the lightning strikes has been announced," said an official.
New Delhi, Aug 11 : Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Saturday slammed BJP President Amit Shah on rising atrocities against the Dalits and said both he and Prime Minister Narendra Modi should break their slumber to check the facts.

"Mr. 56's (Prime Minister Narendra Modi) best buddy (Amit Shah) asked me to 'check my facts' when I said the BJP fuels violence against the Dalits and Adivasis," said Gandhi on Twitter.

"I hope the fact check I'm attaching below will wake him and Mr 56 up from their deep slumber on these rising atrocities; or I and the Congress party will," he said and attached an India Today news story with a headline -- "Parties play blame game as crimes against SCs rise".

Congress President Rahul Gandhi on Thursday accused the Modi government of being anti-Dalit, to which Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Shah hit back, saying the Congress must stop treating Dalits with a "patronising and condescending" attitude.
New Delhi, Aug 11 : Bhojpuri film actress Monalisa, who is currently playing a "daayan" in the show "Nazar", says she was eagerly waiting to play a negative role on small screen.

Asked what urged her to play the role on the Star Plus's show, Monalisa told IANS over an e-mail interview from Mumbai: "The show has a unique concept which talks about supernatural beings and how their energies affect us in our daily lives. Having never explored this genre, as an actor I would love to be part of such a project."

The former "Bigg Boss 10" contestant, whose given name is Antara Biswas, says she has never played a supernatural character before.

"Also my character on the show is that of a 'Daayan' and is again something I have not played before. I was eagerly waiting to play a negative character on television and 'Nazar' gave me that platform," she added.
Bengaluru, Aug 11 : Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy on Saturday turned into a farmer to sow seeds for a bumper paddy crop at a farm at Aralakuppe village in Mandya district, about 100 km from here.

"I have joined my farmer brothers and sisters in sowing paddy seedlings hoping for a good crop," the Chief Minister said on the occasion.

Clad in a "dhoti" like a traditional farmer, Kumaraswamy got into a wet field and sowed the seedlings along with at least 100 other men and women farmers.

Claiming to hail from a farmers' family, the Chief Minister assured the farmers his support and asked them not to commit suicide over failed crops.

"The Chief Minister joined the farmers in the sowing activity to give farmers hope and confidence," a statement from the Chief Minister's Office added.

The farm loans of over 20 lakh farmers will be waived off by the state soon, he told the farming community, amid chants by farmers and supporters calling him "Kumar anna" (Kumar brother), as he is dearly addressed in rural Karnataka.

The state cabinet has recently agreed to waive off additional crop loans to the tune of Rs 9,448-crore, apart from the Rs 34,000-crore worth loans from state co-operative banks that Kumaraswamy had announced to waive during his budget speech on July 5.

After the sowing activity, Kumaraswamy also had lunch with the farmers at the field.

As part of the old Mysuru region, Mandya, facing a rainfall deficit, still hopes to receive rains for a good agricultural output.

Meanwhile, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) state President B.S. Yeddyurappa dubbed the Chief Minister's act a "stunt" and said the state has failed to waive crop loans so far and has not responded to farmers' issues.
New Delhi, Aug 11 : The Delhi Police on Saturday said they have seized fake currency with a face value of Rs 7.5 lakh, routed from Bangladesh into India from a person who had been smuggling and circulating counterfeit Indian currency for the last 12 years.

The accused, Deepak Mandal, 30, hailing from West Bengal, was arrested from Delhi's Khanpur area on Thursday night when he was about to deliver 375 fake notes of Rs 2,000 to one of his contacts here, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Special Cell, P.K. Kushwah said, adding a case under relevant sections of the law has been registered.

"He used to regularly receive consignments from a person from West Bengal's Malda district, and had been supplying fake notes to several people in Delhi and the National Capital Region, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Maharashtra among other states.

"He has already supplied fake notes of Rs 2 crore in Delhi and the adjoining states during the last one year," the officer said.
Bhubaneswar, Aug 11 : A Nigerian national has been arrested from Bhubaneswar on charges of obtaining a fake passport from Mumbai, police said on Saturday.

The accused has been identified as Amadi Victor Blaze, a resident of Nigeria's Imo state.

The accused had obtained a fake passport from Mumbai's Nalasopara area. He will be taken to court after further interrogation, police said.
Montreal (Canada), Aug 11 : Romanian World No.1 Simona Halep and fifth-ranked Ukrainian Elina Svitolina have advanced to the semi-finals of the Rogers Cup in Montreal, a key tune-up for the US Open.

Halep won a tough first-set battle on Friday evening against sixth-ranked Frenchwoman Caroline Garcia before pulling away in the second for a 7-5, 6-1 victory, reports Efe.

Unforced errors proved to be Garcia's undoing, as she committed 31 over the course of the one-hour, 28-minute contest.

"The first set was really tough," Halep told reporters afterward.

"I just didn't give up at all in the first set. After I took it, I felt more confident. I felt that I'm moving better, I'm playing better, stronger. (Garcia) went a little bit down with energy after she lost that set," she added.

Next up for Halep in Saturday's first semi-final will be 16th-ranked Australian Ashleigh Barty, who scored a surprisingly comfortable 6-3, 6-1 quarter-final victory on Friday over Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands.

Svitolina, the Rogers Cup defending champion, battled past Belgium's Elise Mertens 7-5, 6-3 on Friday night, leveraging her strong return game to secure five service breaks.

She will next square off against American world No. 3 Sloane Stephens, the 2017 US Open champion, in Saturday evening's second semi-final.

Nearly all of the top players on the WTA Tour have been in action this week in Montreal as part of their preparations for the 2018 US Open, which gets under way on Aug. 27.
Idukki/Wayanad/Kochi, Aug 11 : The flood situation in Kerala remained grim with vast swathes of land submerged in Idukki, Ernakulam an Thrissur districts, but there was some respite from rains on Saturday, even as the government announced Rs 10 lakh each for the families which lost their homes and properties.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, who undertook an aerial survey of the worst affected areas of Idukki, Wayanad and other districts, also announced a compensation of Rs 4 lakh each for those who lost their homes.

With the state reeling under the flood waters causing widespread damage and destruction, the Centre deployed 14 National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams comprising over 400 rescuers and 31 boats in Thrissue, Ernakulam, Alappuzha, Wayanad, Kozhikode and Idukki districts.

The teams assisted the state administration in recue and relief operations as well as distribution of essential relief material along with providing medical support.

Additional teams have also been kept at standby in the nearest NDRF battalion in Arakkonam near Chennai in case of urgent mobilization.

Home Minister Rajnath will make an aerial survey of the affected areas along with Tourism Minister KJ Alphons, who hails from Kerala.

Rain gods appeared to show some mercy as the inflow into the Idukki dam on Saturday came down marginally and stood at 2,400.40 feet against 2,401.76 feet on Friday evening.

It brought cheer to those living in and around Cheruthoni town downstream of Idukki dam and also those in Aluva, Ernakulam and Thrissur districts wich were worst hit by the surging Periyar river.

"The rains have slowed down in and around the Idukki dam since last night. The water level in the dam has also come down," said State Power Minister M.M. Mani after a review meeting at Idukki.

"So far things are fine and everything is going on as planned. The water that came down the five floodgates, barring at Cheruthoni, has not caused any major crisis," said Mani, who is monitoring the situation from Idukki.

The Cheruthoni bridge continued to be submerged. It had come under severe stress with uprooted trees hitting the bridge.

On Saturday evening the inflow into the dam came below 600 cubic metres of water per second, while the outflow through the floodgates is 750 cubic metres per second.

Authorities on Friday had feared that parts of Ernakulam and Thrissur districts would be submerged following the opening of all five floodgates.

However, this did not happen as the dam water entered the tributaries of the Periyar river.

According to sources, if the water level in the dam comes down to 2,400 feet, it was likely to bring down the outflow through the five shutters as well -- to around 500 cubic metres per second.

On Saturday morning, a team led by Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan accompanied by leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala, Chief Secretary Tom Jose and Kerala Police chief Loknath Behra made an aerial survey of the worst affected districts.

Even though their first stop was planned at Idukki, Vijayan said they could not land there due to bad conditions which forced them to travel to Wayanad.

Wayanad had come under severe stress on account of the rains that has led to large-scale destruction of property due to landslides. Around 10,000 people in the district are living in some 200 relief camps.

Later Vijayan aannounced a compensation of Rs four lakh each to all those who lost their homes, while those who had lost both their homes and other properties would get Rs 10 lakh.

Each person put up in relief camps would receive Rs 3,800, Vijayan said.

He later arrived at Ernakulam and visited two relief camps and assured the people of all help. In and around Ernakulam there are 78 relief camps that house 10,000 people.

Late last night at a camp near Ernakulam, superstar Mammootty came and spent half-an-hour at relief camps. He later assured the authorities that he would be extending help to the affected.

The floods have claimed 30 lives so far. The deaths were reported from Idukki, Malappuram, Kozhikode, Ernakulam and Thiruvananthapuram districts.

Vijayan later appealed to the Kerala diapsora to contribute generously to the Chief Minister's Distress Relief Fund.
New Delhi, Aug 11 : Union Home Minister Rajanth Singh will conduct an aerial survey of flood-affected areas in Kerala on Sunday, a Ministry statement said on Saturday.

The Union Minister will be accompanied by Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Tourism K. J. Alphons and other senior officers from the Ministry.

He will also review the search, rescue and relief measures taken by the state government and other Central Government agencies with Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, ministers of the state government, Chief Secretary and other senior officers of the Central agencies and state administration.

During the current south-west monsoon season, various parts of Kerala have been reportedly affected by heavy rains and rain oriented calamities, said the statement.

It said at least 14 National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams consisting of 404 rescuers and 31 boats have already been deployed in various parts of flood-hit areas including Thrissur, Ernakulam, Alappuzha, Wayand, Kozhikode and Idukki districts.

The teams will assist the state administration in the relief and rescue operation as well as distribution of essential relief material and provide medical support to affected people at the time of emergency.

So far, NDRF teams have rescued seven people and evacuated 398 others and 12 livestock.

In view of possible inundation, NDRF teams are kept on standby in vulnerable locations and are keeping close vigil over the development of situation, said the statement, adding that "additional teams are also kept at standby at nearest NDRF battalion in Arrakonnam and shall be mobilized, if required. Director General of NDRF, Sanjay Kumar, is supervising the ongoing rescue operations".

"Besides the NDRF, adequate columns of Army, Navy and Coast Guard, Helicopters of Indian Air Force, Navy and Coast Guard are deployed in the state for assisting the state administration in lifting and dropping of essential commodities," the statement added.

The northern and central parts of the state have been battered by heavy rains since August 8, causing one of the worst floods in its history.

The floods have claimed at least 29 lives across the state in the last 36 hours, leaving over 54,000 homeless.
Kolkata, Aug 11 : The Trinamool Congress on Saturday accused the BJP of trying to gain political mileage from the recently published National Register of Citizens (NRC) Ain Assam and demanded that not a single Indian be left out from the list.

Responding to BJP President Amit Shah's attack on their party on the NRC issue, Trinamool secretary general Partha Chatterjee claimed that nearly 12.5 lakh Bengalis have been left out of the document's first complete draft.

"BJP is the ruling party in Assam. So they are trying to use the NRC for their political benefit. If you look at the draft NRC closely you will find that close to 12.5 lakh Bengalis have been left out from the list apart from numerous Sikhs, Hindi-speaking people and minorities," Chatterjee told the reporters here.

"It is quite obvious that BJP is trying to use the Supreme Court directive on NRC as a shield to gain political benefit... Our stand is very clear. Not a single Indian citizen should be left out of the NRC list," he claimed.

Shah on Saturday flayed the state's Mamata Banerjee government for opposing the draft NRC in Assam and urged it to clarify its stand on the issues of infiltration and nation's security.

Chatterjee also denied Shah's allegation that the Trinamol was indulging in vote bank politics in Bengal and claimed the party and its supremo Mamata Banerjee's vote bank encompassed people across the state.

"Our vote bank is all over Bengal. They do not have any kind of bank as their banks were looted by Vijay Maliya, Nirav Modi, Choksi and others. We rely on the bank of people. As long as people are with Mamata Banerjee, the vote bank of people will ensure her victory," he claimed.
Kolkata, Aug 11 : Setting the tone of his party's West Bengal poll campaign next year, BJP president Amit Shah on Saturday launched a blistering attack on Congress chief Rahul Gandhi and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on the NRC issue, while warning her not to hinder Hindu religious celebrations.

In an aggressive speech at a rally organised by the party's youth wing, Shah dwelt at length on infiltration from Bangladesh and made a clear distinction between the infiltrators and refugees -- minority Hindus, Christians and Buddhists from Muslim majority Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

While the infiltrators needed to be "identified", it was the "responsibility" of the BJP government at the Centre to ensure refugees can stay back in India, he said.

He gave a call to uproot the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamool Congress government, and made a veiled reference to her nephew and MP Abhishek Banerjee as he charged the state's ruling party with involvement in a series of corruption cases, besides destroying the law and order situation in the state.

Accusing Gandhi of not taking a clear stand on the recently published draft of the National Register for Citizens (NRC) in Assam for the sake of vote-bank politics, Shah asserted that his party was committed to completing the registration process to identify infiltrators.

"Mamata Di, NRC will not stop just because of your opposition. You are free to oppose. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is free to oppose. But it is our commitment that we will complete NRC in Assam, by following the due process of law, and identify all infiltrators one by one," Shah said at a rally here.

Banerjee has been strident in her criticism of the NRC after 40 lakh people did not find a place in the document published on July 30.

Asking Gandhi to spell out his stand on NRC, Shah pointed out that the work on the document was being done as per the Assam accord which was signed by then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi - Rahul Gandhi's father - in 1985.

"Now for vote-bank politics, Rahul Gandhi is not taking a clear stand," Shah said at the rally organised on Mayo Road in the heart of the city.

Virtually throwing a challenge to Gandhi and Banerjee, Shah said they should clarify their priority -- country's security or votebank politics.

Reminding Banerjee that in 2005 she had thrown papers at then Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee and stalled the House demanding removal of Bangladeshi infiltrators, Shah said she has changed her stance as the infiltrators now vote for her Trinamool.

Unlike other state BJP leaders, Shah did not talk of bringing out an NRC in Bengal, but said the state would not be in fine fettle if infiltration - 'rampant' during Banerjee's rule - was not stopped.

"And the best way to stop infiltration is NRC. So, the NRC process in Assam has to be completed," he said.

Shah also charged Banerjee with spreading "misinformation" in Bengal that along with infiltrators, refugees will also be driven out of India because of the NRC.

"I assure all refugees in Bengal that the BJP government is bringing the Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2016. This Bill has the provision to give citizenship to Christians, Buddhists and Hindu refugees who have come from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. There are no plans to send any refugee back."

Shah asked the two opposition parties to speak out before the general election whether they would back the legislation in Parliament.

Ridiculing the critics of NRC who have expressed concern about human rights of infiltrators, Shah wondered whether the Congress and the Trinamool were "not bothered" about the "human rights of the Hindus and Muslims of West Bengal".

Playing the Hindu card, Shah warned Banerjee not to create hurdles in Durga idol immersion or the Saraswati worship in the state, saying his party activists will "bring down Banerjee's secretariat brick by brick" if such things ever recurred.

The Durga Puja immersion processions were delayed over the past few years in certain parts of Bengal as Muharram rallies coincided with the immersion of idols.

Shah said he would tour all districts in Bengal and start an agitation to throw out the Trinamool Congress.

Describing the BJP as the only party capable of ushering in progress in the state, Shah said : "Since the Trinamool Congress government came to power, there has been a series of corruption (cases) starting from the Narada scandal, Saradha and Rose valley ponzi scams... syndicates and the unlawful activities of cattle mafia and coal mafia."

On the issue of graft, Shah indirectly referred to Abhishek, widely regarded as her prospective successor.

"During the 14th finance commission, the Narendra Modi government allotted Rs. 3,59000 crore to Bengal as compared to Rs. 1.32,000 crore given by the UPA government during the previous finance commission. Where did all the money go? Did it disappear in the pockets of syndicates and the nephew?" Shah questioned.

He also urged the people of Bengal to ensure the BJP won 22-plus Lok Sabha seats in Bengal in 2019.
Kolkata, Aug 11 : In a bid to encourage more Indian travellers to visit Israel, the Middle East nation has opened a Visa Application Centre here that would cater to West Bengal and seven northeastern states.

Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura would come under the purview of the centre, which can also accept visa applications in jurisdiction under the New Delhi centre, an Israel Embassy release said.

The visa application categories include B1 for employment, B2 for business, tourism and meeting or conference, and A2 for students.

Commenting on the opening of centre, Hassan Madah, Director, Israel Ministry of Tourism - India and Philippines, said: "Israel is experiencing a tourism boom like never before. India has recorded a half yearly growth of 82 per cent as compared to the same period in 2015 and has become one of the best performing markets in Asia for Israel.

"Keeping this in mind, the Ministry consistently aims to introduce initiatives that ease the procedure of visa applications to Israel. The new centre in Kolkata will no longer require residents from West Bengal and northeastern states to send their documents to the Embassy in New Delhi," Madah was quoted as saying in the release.

Madah said the Israeli Ministry of Tourism would hold a roadshow here on August 29 to increase interest for the destination among consumers and the trade fraternity.

Israel offers a plethora of things to do and see to cater to the discerning traveller. From the historical city of Jerusalem to the beach city of Tel Aviv; and from the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth, to the marvellous underwater marine life of Red Sea in Eilat, the release said.
New Delhi, Aug 11 : Congress on Saturday alleged that the government's intention was not clear on the triple talaq Bill as it failed to introduce it in the monsoon session.

Party spokesperson and Rajya Sabha member Jairam Ramesh said the whole thing is a "political game."

"Ghulam Nabi Azad (Congress leader) had made it clear in the last session that there was no provision for triple talaq in Islamic norm and that it is practised by a certain section. So, a strong law is needed to deal with it. While making this law, we should not criminalize it," said Ramesh.

"This was the demand by all political parties including Congress, TMC, Left, Samajwadi Party, BSP, BJD, NCP, AIADMK. All these parties had said it must be referred to a select committee," he added.

"The government did not agree. Then suddenly, two days back, they passed the very amendments that Azad was suggesting."

The leader wondered what might have prompted the government to change its mind. "They did not take Opposition into confidence. They did not have a meeting, but they passed it. They came up with a revised legislation," he said.

On Friday, Chairman of the Rajya Sabha (Venkaiah Naidu) had said that after the Private Members Bill, the Insolvency Code and Commercial Courts Bill would be taken up.

"Normally, no important bills are taken on Friday, but as an exception, these two were taken up. The behaviour of Union ministers Ravi Shankar Prasad and Ananth Kumar in Rajya Sabha leads me to believe that this was part of a well-planned strategy," said Ramesh.

"They wanted to project that they wanted the Bill but the Congress and other parties did not. This is absolutely false," he added.
New Delhi, Aug 11 : A day after the Maharashtra ATS arrested three men affiliated to radical Hindu outfits for plotting terror attacks, senior Congress leader P. Chidambaram on Saturday asked if the RSS and BJP would condemn those outfits.

"Maharashtra ATS announced the arrest of three men affiliated to radical Hindu outfits. Who rules Maharashtra? The BJP. Hindu, Muslim or any other religion, radicalism is radicalism. Terror is terror. There is no purpose in burying one's head in the sand," said Chidambaram on Twitter.

"Will the RSS and BJP condemn those who are plotting and planning terror attacks?" he asked.

The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) on Friday claimed to have foiled a terrorist attempt to strike in different parts of the state following the arrest of three persons and seizure of at least 20 crude bombs and expolsives and material used in bomb-making.

Official sources said the first to be arrested early Friday was Hindu Janjagran Samiti (HJS) activist Vaibhav Raut from his home in Nala Sopara, Palghar district.

Later, his accomplice Sharad Kalaskar was arrested from there by the ATS teams, which were accompanied by a dog squad and forensics experts.

A third right-wing activist Sudhnava Gondhalekar -- allegedly linked to Shri Shiv Pratisthan -- was arrested from Pune.

The sources said that the accused planned to carry out terror hits in Mumbai, Pune, Solapur and Satara districts in the coming few days.
Ankara, Aug 12 : Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday warned the US that it risked losing a "strategic partner" due to demands made by the US government that Turkey release an American pastor who was arrested on terrorism charges.

"We only bow before God. It is wrong to try to punish Turkey for a priest who is here. I am addressing the US once again: it is a pity that you chose a pastor over your strategic partner in NATO. We will only do what justice demands," Efe quoted Erdogan as saying during a rally in the northern province of Ordu.

Turkish authorities are seeking a 20-year prison sentence for US pastor Andrew Brunson, who was arrested two years ago and is accused of being linked to the PKK Kurdish guerrilla organization and to cleric Fetullah Gulen, who lives in exile in the US and whom Ankara blames for the failed coup against Erdogan in 2016.

Last week, the US government imposed economic sanctions against two Turkish ministers involved in Brunson's arrest.

In addition, US President Donald Trump announced on Friday he would increase tariffs on Turkish steel and aluminum by up to 50 and 20 percent, respectively, at a time when Turkey's lira is at an all-time low.

Ankara has ruled out releasing Brunson, although he was granted house arrest in July.

A delegation from Turkey's Ministry of Foreign affairs travelled this week to the US to attempt, to no avail, to reduce tensions between the two countries.

Regarding the situation of the Turkish currency, Erdogan once again called on his fellow citizens to back the lira, which depreciated 18 percent on Friday, by selling their dollars and euros.

"If you have dollars under your pillow, take them out. If you have euros, do the same. Take them immediately to the banks and convert them into liras. By doing this, we fight for our independence and our future," Erdogan told his supporters.

For his part, the speaker of the Turkish parliament, Binali Yildirim, said Saturday via Twitter that US sanctions "are now turning into a global economic war".

Turkey's presidential spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, also said Saturday that Washington risked losing Ankara as an ally if US policies against Turkey continued.
Women veterans and their families make tremendous sacrifices for our state and our nation. It is our responsibility in turn to ensure that we support them and the communities surrounding our military bases," said former House Democratic Leader Stacey Abrams.

Transitioning out of the military can be a daunting task. When coupled with depression, unemployment, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), military sexual trauma and divorce, women veterans  many of them single parents  may also find themselves facing homelessness. According to the U.S. Department of Department of Veterans Affairs, women veterans are the fastest growing population of homeless veterans and are at higher risk of homelessness than their male counterparts.

While there are some services provided by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), women veterans are not signing up for these services the way that one would expect. Women Veterans Interactive has found that many women veterans do not know about these services or feel uncomfortable going into the VA simply because it has a reputation of being a male-focused and male-dominated institution.

There are over 2 million women veterans in the United States of America, and yet this is the population that the country has forgotten about. There is no doubt that women veterans are suffering from a plethora of issues and obstacles after leaving the military and yet there are not nearly enough programs and support to address their specific needs, but we are changing that at Women Veterans Interactive (WVI). All of our programs and signature events including our Pink and White Empowerment Tour are created specifically to positively impact the lives of women veterans to said Ginger Miller, President, and CEO of WVI.

Linda Klein, the immediate past president of the American Bar Association and Senior Managing Shareholder at the Baker Donelson Law Firm, will enlighten brunch attendees on pro-bono legal services available for veterans in addition to sharing her leadership journey.

The women veterans who attend the Pink and White events are equipped and empowered to overcome obstacles with resilience and grace. All attendees, if they have not already done so, are also encouraged to sign up for the benefits that they have earned. They are encouraged to take the first step and register with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

The Pink and White National Tour is the fastest growing and most impactful outreach event in the country for women veterans and military women. These interactive gatherings are designed to go into the communities where women veterans live to meet them at their points of need. These high touch events inspire, empower and encourage women veterans to live their lives to the fullest after military service. The breakfast transcends a traditional breakfast gathering because it addresses the major issues and obstacles women veterans encounter and provides potential solutions on the spot.

Stacey Abrams, Democratic Nominee for Governor of Georgia, will deliver the afternoon Keynote and is sure to inspire brunch participants.

Women veterans and their families make tremendous sacrifices for our state and our nation. It is our responsibility in turn to ensure that we support them and the communities surrounding our military bases," said former House Democratic Leader Stacey Abrams. "I look forward to joining this event to share my plans for tackling the unique challenges women servicemembers, veterans, and their families face, and how we can ensure their access to health care, quality education, and career opportunities."

Attendees will walk away from the event with a new sense of self-worth and are educated and encouraged to do more for themselves and their communities. The Pink and White sessions give women veterans something they long for after leaving the military, and that is a network of sisterhood, comrade, and peer support. Women veterans are reminded that we are still a team and that they are not alone.

Tickets for the 2018 Women Veterans Atlanta, Ga. Pink and White Brunch can be purchased at

https://atlanta2018pinkandwhite.eventbrite.com All proceeds will benefit homeless women veterans in the Atlanta Metro Area through Women Veterans Interactive Operation Safety Net

For sponsorship opportunities contact Ginger Miller at gm(at)womenveteransinteractive.org

About Women Veterans Interactive

Women Veterans Interactive addresses the unique, and often unrecognized, challenges facing our nations 2.2 million women veterans as they return to civilian life. WVI has members nationwide currently providing outreach and support services to thousands of women veterans. Through the three pillars of transition, empowerment, and diversity, WVI delivers tailored programming, training, and resources to women veterans at all stages in their military transition. WVI focuses on meeting women veterans at their point of need while breaking down barriers. Its mission is to, Meet women veterans through Advocacy, Empowerment, Interaction, Outreach, and Unification.
Our agency is on a mission to eradicate all forms of domestic violence in central Arizona, and we are proud to be supporting the Yavapai Center during this charity campaign.

Robin Binkley, CEO of the Binkley & Associates agency in Prescott Valley, is announcing the launch of a regional charity campaign to provide support to victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault. Funds raised will be provided to the Yavapai Family Advocacy Center, a local center that provides critical services to abuse survivors.

Our agency is on a mission to eradicate all forms of domestic violence in central Arizona, and we are proud to be supporting the Yavapai Center during this charity campaign, said Binkley.

The Binkley & Associates team is actively encouraging local residents to take part in the charity effort by using a rewards and referrals program. Binkley has pledged to make a $10 donation in the name of anyone who invites a friend or loved one to visit the Binkley & Associates offices and receive a complimentary appraisal on a new insurance policy.

Further information on how to help generate public support for the campaign has been provided here: http://binkleyinsurance.com/rewards/.

About Binkley & Associates

As a Personal Insurance Representative in Prescott Valley, agency owner Robin Binkley knows many local families. Her knowledge and understanding of the people in her community ensures that clients of Binkley & Associates are provided with an outstanding level of service. Robin and her team look forward to helping families protect the things that are most important  family, home, car and more. Binkley & Associates also offers clients a preparation strategy for achieving their financial goals. To contact an expert at Binkley & Associates, visit http://binkleyinsurance.com/ or call (928) 772-0322.
"Better Than Gold and Silver," the new 2-cd set by Russian-born pianist/composer Yelena Eckemoff. I've been smitten and humbled by the profundity of the psalms, not only as sacred texts, but as a marvelous treasure of the poetic art. There's a lot to be learned from these verses even in our modern world about the eternal questions of life and death.

The prolific Russian-born, North Carolina-based pianist/composer Yelena Eckemoff adds a sacred dimension to the ambitious series of concept albums in her extensive catalogue her new 2-CD set "Better Than Gold and Silver." Due for September 21 release on her imprint L&H Production, its the first in a projected series of recordings featuring Eckemoffs settings of Biblical psalms. The new album includes both vocal and instrumental versions of 10 songs she conceived as works of modern jazz rather than part of the Christian music canon.

While the albums lyricsbeautifully sung by tenor Tomas Cruz and mezzo-soprano Kim Mayoare word-for-word verses from the King James Bible (the albums title is based on verse 72 from Psalm 119: The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver), Eckemoff explains in her liner notes that the music is what she heard behind the words. What she heard and composed is highly melodic, multilayered, intricately structured jazz that takes full advantage not only of her virtuoso pianism, but also of the distinctive talents of the all-star team of instrumentalists she enlisted for the project: trumpeter Ralph Alessi, guitarist Ben Monder, violinist Christian Howes, bassist Drew Gress, and drummer Joey Baron.

The genesis of Eckemoffs interest in composing jazz settings for sacred texts dates back to her time in her native Moscow, where she and her husband were searching for something to fill the spiritual void around them. They found it in the hymns and religious songs of the citys only Baptist church and its choir and pipe organ; soon, these former atheists were drawn into Christianity and baptized.

Looking for texts with which she could musically commune with her newfound faith, Eckemoff turned to the psalms in a Russian bible, but had trouble understanding its Old Slavonic language. She searched in vain for an English bible in a country that banned religious texts. Eventually an American missionary shed written to sent her a Bible adapted for people speaking English as a second language.

Years later, having overcome overwhelming odds and emigrated to the U.S., Eckemoff was informed by a minister in her North Carolina hometown that she had been using the wrong version of the Bible. She discovered the King James version was indeed deeper, richer, and more poetic, and its psalms inspired this, her first collection of sacred texts in jazz settings.

Yelena Eckemoff has been composing since she was four years old, her musical impressions taken from her mother, a pianist and teacher. Years of academic studies at Gnessins School for musically gifted children, followed by the Moscow Conservatory, provided a solid foundation in classical music. But as she grew into her teens she developed an interest in other musical styles, like pop, rock, and jazz, although this was a time when jazz recordings were scarce in Russia.

Eckemoff attended Dave Brubecks legendary concert in Moscow in 1987, a pivotal moment for her and many other Russian musicians. Though she had already started playing jazz before hearing Brubeck, this was one of the first jazz concerts she had attended, and she was so impressed she formed her own band and tried to play jazz.

Stylistically, Eckemoffs writing and playing reference classical music, the blues, jazz-rock fusion, free-jazz and, occasionally, funk. Her recordings this decade have each dealt conceptually with a particular theme. "Glass Song" (2013), her first project pairing Arild Andersen and Peter Erskine (who surprisingly had never played together before), features songs about rain, melting ice, and clouds. "A Touch of Radiance" (2014), with Mark Turner, Joe Locke, George Mraz, and Billy Hart, is dedicated to happiness while "Lions" (2015), featuring Andersen and Hart, captures life in the savannah with songs about those majestic cats and their cubs as well as migrating birds and tropical rains. Eckemoffs previous release, "Desert" (May 2018), captures musically the mysteries and mesmerizing allure of one of natures most daunting environments.

"Better Than Gold and Silver" is an exceptional addition to the lineage of works inspired by religion like Duke Ellingtons "Sacred Concerts," John Coltranes "A Love Supreme," and Steve Reichs own interpretation of the Psalms, "Tehillim." Ive been smitten and humbled by the profundity of the psalms, Eckemoff confesses, not only as sacred texts, but as a marvelous treasure of the poetic art. I found out for myself that theres a lot to be learned from these verses even in our modern world about the eternal questions of life and deathwhat is the meaning of life, what makes people happy, what we leave behind after we die, and where to find strength to go about the daily labors and survive in the face of adversity.

Yelena Eckemoff will showcase "Better Than Gold and Silver"with Tomas Cruz, voc; Ralph Alessi, tpt; Jeff Miles, g; Drew Gress, b; Jochen Rueckert, dat a free concert on Friday 10/5, 7pm, St. Peters Church, 619 Lexington Avenue, NYC.
In July, the New York Times travel section published my story about Buenaventura, Colombia, a port city on the Pacific that, until just a few years ago, was thought to be too violent for travelers. But after a government crackdown, it had become safe enough to warrant a visit to experience the Afro-Colombian culture that thrives there.

The resulting article told of strange shellfish cooked in unusual herbs, a motorbike-train mash-up called a brujita that shuttles visitors to a magical nature reserve, and plenty of viche, an artisanal sugar cane liquor. (By artisanal, I mean made in the mountains by sixth-generation distillers descended from African slaves, not in Brooklyn by first-generation hipsters descended from white suburbanites.)

People in Buenaventura were thrilled with the piece. Their city was on the map! Tourists would flood in! If so, great, but that was not the purpose of my pieceand I hope readers dont take my specific choices too literally. Theres no need to try Rosana Angulos achiote-tinged piangua clams at stall number six of the Pueblo Nuevo Market rather than her seafood stew, or the clams at stalls five or seven, just because I did. Thats not travel; thats dictation.

In my forthcoming book, Rediscovering Travel: A Guide for the Globally Curious, I drop any semblance of recommending destinations and instead encourage travelers to make discoveries on their own. By discoveries, I dont mean the Christopher Columbus kind; I mean the feeling you get when you have no idea whats going to happen next, and then it happens. That could be stumbling across a 16th-century monastery thats not in your guidebook, or taking a chance on a Jamaican lunch counter and finding, to your surprise, that you like stewed cow kidney.

I try to write about travel accordingly, nudging people to travel differentlyto stop relying on bucket lists and tightly planned days and user reviews, and to start experiencing places without vetting them first on Yelp or Google Maps. I cant prevent everyone from following precisely in my footsteps, but I try to discourage as many as I can, largely by being honest: I question my own taste, write openly about my goof-ups, and avoid superlatives, because how can I know if its the best pizza in town if I havent tried all the pizza in town?

Sometimes, Im more explicit. After visiting a private park in Chiles Chiloe archipelago, I once wrote: I can only halfheartedly suggest that Chiloe-bound travelers put Parque Yayanes on their list. Its far better found by accident.

My hope is that readers come away from my writing with a deeper knowledge and piqued curiosity about a place, and an eagerness to seek out overlooked destinations no matter where they go. If one later decides to, say, spend an afternoon in London wandering an area of the city previously perceived to be dangerous, I consider that a far greater victory than another reader who heads to Buenaventura in search of the very same clamsand waterfalls and cocktails and beachesthat I described.

Seth Kugel is the author of Rediscovering Travel: A Guide for the Globally Curious (Liveright, Oct.). He hosts the Globally Curious YouTube channel and was the Frugal Traveler columnist for the New York Times from 2010 to 2016.

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Chigozie Obioma has been called the heir to International Man Booker Prizewinner Chinua Achebe, whose first novel Things Fall Apart is one of the most important books in African literature. Achebe is Nigerian like Obioma and, like Obioma, is also from the Igbo tribe. In An Orchestra of Minorities (Obiomas second novel after The Fishermen), the narrator is a guardian spirit, a chi, that watches over the protagonist, a man named Chinonso. Orchestra opens with the chi testifying before the god of creation.

Obioma tells me that with Orchestra, he wanted to write a novel about West African belief systems, the way Miltons Paradise Lost is written in the Judeo-Christian tradition. A chart of Igbo cosmology precedes the narrative. The reader enters a magical world.

The inspiration for Orchestra began with the fortunes of one of Obiomas fellow Nigerians, Jay, whom he met in Cyprus at university. Northern Cyprus is a complicated place, a partially recognized state under the control of Turkey, but its generous with its student visas. Many Nigerians sell everything to get there, thinking they are going to Europe, Obioma says. There is a system of corruption with agents, middlemen, known in Nigeria as who you sabi [who you know]. They promise everything but often do not deliver. Jay had been living in Germany but was deported and sacrificed all he had left to get to Cyprus, hoping to pick up his life again. But he was soon in despair and, not long after, fell from a roof and died.

Obioma wrote about Jay in an article for the Guardian. He says, His story never went away from me. It got me thinking about the concept of destiny and fate. I began to reflect about his situation in a profound way.

Obioma wondered, why was this mans life so unfortunate? And he wanted to look at it from the perspective of Igbo philosophy, which is why he made a chi the narrator.

The difference between Western thought and African thought is striking, Obioma notes. His own aesthetics were shaped by the books on his fathers shelves: the Greek classics and Shakespeare, books that he says he devoured. And in some ways, he adds, Chinonsos quest mirrors that of Odysseus in Homers Odyssey.

Africans dont believe in free will, in consent, Obioma says. Instead there is the chi and preordained events that will dictate your life. Man plays out his role.

Nigeria is Christian and Muslim, but, according to Obioma, they are hybridized (Nigerian Christians, for example, believe in reincarnation), as is the culture, despite the Western influence brought on by colonization. People never completely abandon their traditions, he notes.

Obioma says his goal in writing the book was to look at the African belief system in a world of fiction. The chi in Orchestra tells the story of his host, Chinonso, a poultry farmer who, when he sees a woman named Ndali who is about to jump from a bridge, throws his prize chickens off the bridge to emphasize what a terrible thing she is considering. She doesnt jump and the two fall in love, but there are many obstacles that Chinonso must overcome to win Ndali. He has the desperation of Jay and is willing to do anything to succeed. And, like Jay, he makes his way to Cyprus.

Obiomas first novel, The Fishermen, is an epic story of family that he says is a tribute to his siblings (he has 11) as well as a picture of Nigeria. First published in Germany, it was acquired in the U.K. by Elena Lappin as one of 10 titles for her One imprint at Pushkin Press. Obiomas agent, Jessica Craig, remembers grabbing Elena outside an elevator and her coming back really soon with an offer.

Lappin sent the manuscript to Little, Brown editor Judy Clain, who read it on her phone on her way to the 2014 London Book Fair. Clain remembers saying to herself, I think Im going to buy this book. She preempted it, buying North American rights on the first day of the fair. The Fishermen was published in the U.S. in 2015, shortlisted that year for the Man Booker, won several awards, and was translated into 26 languages.

Clain also bought North American rights to Orchestra and says of that novel, Its extraordinary in its originality. The title is about giving small voices a play on the big stage. She believes theres an appetite for this kind of bookthat its the perfect moment for it. American readers are more open to African writers, to ambitious books written by people from foreign places, and Obiomas books are so entertaining.

Clain, who grew up in Zimbabwe, says she did a lot of work on Orchestra because she wanted to make the idea of the chi clear. Its a difficult concept for Americans: a guardian spirit that protects but does not control. And theres darkness in this book, but Chigozie was adamant about the ending. Its not happy, but this is the story that hes telling. This is a bigger book than Fishermen and should command a wider audience.

Clain expects great reviews and believes Obioma has the potential to be a major writer. He has a huge international reputation and is a very good on-the-road promoter, she says. Hes a charming, personable man.

Orchestra was Jessica Craigs first sale at Craig Literary, the agency she started in Barcelona in summer 2016. I read an early draft in December 2016, she says. As an American, I was feeling depressed about the U.S. election and couldnt focus until this came in and I had to read it.

Craig was working in the foreign rights department at United Agents in London in 2012 when she decided she wanted to represent authors. Chigozie was my very first client, she says. The Fishermen was sent to me, and I made the British deal for U.K. and foreign rights. I will never forget reading the opening paragraph; it was electric. Elena Lappin agreed. It proved to me that the most important thing is to match an author with the right editor and also one who has the power to purchase it.

Craig says that Orchestra hit her even deeper than The Fishermen. I was sold on the chi as narrator and impressed with the chis humor, she says. The U.S. deal was for six figures, and confirmed foreign sales to date are Globo in Brazil; Locus in China (complex Chinese); Hena Com in Croatia; Klim in Denmark; Buchet Chastel in France; Piper Verlag in Germany; Bompiani in Italy; Font Forlag in Norway; and Ordfront in Sweden. Little, Brown, in a separate deal, is publishing Orchestra in the U.K.; the U.S. pub date is January 2019.

With my roots in the Mezzogiorno, Im a strong believer in fate and destiny, and now that I know about the chi, Im convinced mine is doing her job.
Swores Monster Doesnt Scare Shadow Mountain

In a two-book, world rights agreement, Wendy Swore sold her middle grade debut, A Monster Like Me, to Heidi Taylor at Shadow Mountain. Stacey Glick at Dystel, Goderich & Bourret, who represented Swore, said the novel is Bridge to Terabithia meets Wonder. About a 10-year-old named Sophie who is starting a new school, the novel, according to Glick, follows the tween as she does her best to hide what she is from other monsters and regular humansespecially her mom even though its tough to hide a blood-filled monster mark right next to her eyeball. Elaborating, Glick said that everyone who sees through Sophies human disguise is horrified, and Sophie is sure her mom would be, too, if she knew. Swore, according to Glick, is a writer, farmer, and mother of five; the book is set for spring 2019.

Activist Journo to Grove

Journalist and organizer Tim Murphy sold a novel to Grove Atlantic titled Correspondents. Murphy, who has contributed to the New York Times and the Nation, among other publications, is a cofounder of the group Gays Against Guns and author of the novel Christodora (also from Grove Atlantic). Correspondents, which Peter Blackstock and Morgan Entrekin acquired from Susan Golomb at Writers House, is set in Iraq in 2003 and follows a young American journalist with Irish-Lebanese roots and her Baghdadi interpreter. Blackstock said the novel, slated for summer 2019, is a brilliant exploration of how American history is indelibly tied up with the history of immigration, about assimilation and politicization, and asks important questions about journalism and war. Golomb sold North American rights in the deal.

McManus Follows Up Lying for Delacorte

For Delacorte Press, Krista Marino took U.S., Canadian, and open market rights to a currently untitled sequel to the bestselling 2017 YA novel One of Us Is Lying by Karen McManus. The two-book deal, brokered by Rosemary Stimola at Stimola Literary Studio, includes a second, also untitled, YA work. The sequel is set for spring 2020 and the other book for spring 2021.

Soho Teen Takes Orpheus

Teenage poet Brynne Rebele-Henry sold her YA debut, Orpheus Girl, to Daniel Ehrenhaft at Soho Teen. The 18-year-old Rebele-Henry was represented by Vicky Bijur at Vicky Bijur Literary Agency in the North American rights agreement. Ehrenhaft said the novel, set for fall 2019, is about a gay Texas teens heart-wrenching quest to rescue her beloved after both girls have been sent away from their small town to be fixed. 

Briefs

The Australian novel No More Boats by Felicity Castagna sold to Europa Editions in a North American rights deal. Michael Reynolds nabbed the title, in a preempt, from Rach Crawford at MacKenzie Wolf, working on behalf of Giramondo Publishing. The Sydney-set work, Europa said, takes place in 2001 and is a moving portrait of a working-class family whose unraveling lives collide with the refugee crisis. Europa plans to publish the book in February 2019.

Mike Chase sold world rights to How to Become a Federal Criminal to Touchstone. Matthew Benjamin at the S&S imprint bought the book from Leah Spiro at Riverside Creative Management. Spiro said the title, set for a spring 2019 release, is an illustrated, satirical guide to Americas bizarre-yet-real federal crimes, like leaving the country with too many nickels, that is based on the authors popular @CrimeADay Twitter account.

For Bloomsbury, Nancy Miller nabbed world rights to Isaac Fitzgeralds Dirtbag, Massachusetts. Fitzgerald is the founding editor of BuzzFeed News Books section, and his essay collection, Bloomsbury said, chronicles his years growing up in a Boston homeless shelter, bartending in San Francisco, and more. The collection, which Charlotte Sheedy at the Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency sold, is set for spring 2020.

Sarah Skilton sold a novel titled Fame Adjacent to Maddie Caldwell at Grand Central Publishing. Victoria Marini at the Irene Goodman Agency, who sold world English rights to the book, said it is a romantic comedy in which a cast member from a 1990s kids show, who never became a celebrity, opts, 25 years after the show is off the air, to confront her famous ex-friends.

For more childrens and YA book deals, see our latest Rights Report.
Talkers and Tweeters

A trio of new politically minded titles land on our latest hardcover nonfiction list.

Greg Gutfelds The Gutfeld Monologues, #5, collects classic rants, in the subtitles words, from the Fox News roundtable show he cohosts, The Five. On rare occasions, I might have been wrong, he writes, counting himself among those who expected a different outcome to the 2016 presidential race. On the other hand, Donald Trump watched Fox Newsso he had a firsthand look at the same stuff I was yakking about.

And then Trump tweeted about what hed seen on TV, as the #6 book, The Donald J. Trump Presidential Twitter Library, presented by The Daily Show with Trevor Noah, makes clear. It examines its subjects preferred mode of communication from his first tweet in 2009, about a Late Show with David Letterman appearance.

Nine years later, President Trump tweeted about his impending full pardon of Dinesh DSouza, whose Death of a Nation debuts at #7. Our review called it a contrarian right-wing jeremiad that makes some cogent critiques, though much of the reading experience [is] akin to viewing the United States in a fun-house mirror.

(See all of this week's bestselling books.)

Animated Sales

On August 5, Cartoon Network aired the first new episode of its popular Venture Bros. series since 2016. Five days earlier, Go Team Venture!, a visual making-of title that catalogues the shows first six seasons, published; it debuts at #15 in hardcover nonfiction.

YouTuber James Rallison lands at #12 in trade paperback with The Odd 1s Out, named for his 7.8 million subscribersstrong channel, where he posts animated videos about his childhood and present-day life.

Movers and Shakers

Min Jin Lees Pachinko, up eight spots on our trade paperback list to #9, had its best week since January, with print unit sales up 28% compared to the week before. The book was the PBS NewsHourNew York Times book club pick for July, and on July 30, Lee appeared on NewsHour and answered reader questions. On August 7, news broke that Apple is developing a TV series based on the book.

The morning of Lees NewsHour appearance, on Today, Hoda Kotb gave a shoutout to her current favorite thing: Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, first published in 1955. Sales of the 1991 paperback edition are up 538% compared to the week before.

New & Notable

Paradox

Catherine Coulter

#2 Hardcover Fiction

Coulter fans will have a tough time putting this one down, our review said of her pulse-pounding 22nd FBI thriller, in which married sleuths Lacey Sherlock and Dillon Savich chase a killer that seems to have also targeted their son.

Bloody Sunday

Ben Coes

#20 Hardcover Fiction

In Coess excellent eighth thriller featuring indomitable CIA agent Dewey Andreas, our starred review said, North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, with less than a month to live, decides to go out in a blaze of nuclear glory and take two American cities with him.

Top 10 Overall

Rank Title Author Imprint Units 1 The Russia Hoax Gregg Jarrett Broadside 31,209 2 Girl, Wash Your Face Rachel Hollis Nelson 30,509 3 Liars, Leakers, and Liberals Jeanine Pirro Center Street 23,334 4 Origin Dan Brown Anchor 21,680 5 Crazy Rich Asians Kevin Kwan Anchor 21,445 6 The President Is Missing Clinton/Patterson Little, Brown/Knopf 18,562 7 Dark in Death J.D. Robb St. Martins 16,251 8 Magnolia Table Joanna Gaines Morrow 15,860 9 You Will Pay Lisa Jackson Zebra 15,402 10 Paradox Catherine Coulter Gallery 15,180

All unit sales per Nielsen BookScan except where noted.
This fall, New York Review Books is trying its hand at something biggerliterally.

In October, NYRB will publish German author Uwe Johnsons Anniversaries, an 1,800-page novel originally published in Germany in four volumes, by Suhrkamp, from 1970 to 1983, the year before Johnsons death. Written in 365 chapters in the form of diary entries, the book chronicles each day in the life of a German single mother raising her 10-year-old daughter in Manhattan from Aug. 21, 1967, to Aug. 20, 1968, as they puzzle their respective ways through big city life following their emigration from a small town in north Germany still reeling from the fall of the Third Reich.

NYRB editor Edwin Frank sees the book as a new kind of historical novela novel of day-to-day-life, and at the same time a sort of epic of everyday life. He added that the story changed during its writing, as the vicious news cycle of 1967 and 1968filled with riots and assassinations and foreign warsdeveloped.

When Johnson started writing it, he didnt know what would happen in 1968, Frank said. He didnt actually finish the book until 1983, and he started it in 1967. As he worked on it, it changed. He had to take into account the new information that emerged throughout the year of 1968.

The publication marks a pair of firsts, one for NYRB and one for the book itself. Though Houghton Mifflin published the novel in what Frank calls a much-abridged two-volume English-language translation by Leila Vennewitz in the early 1970s and mid-1980s, this is the first time Anniversaries has been brought into English in its entirety; its new translator, Damion Searls, is translating the whole book from scratch. This is also the first time NYRB has ever tackled a book of this size.

Those both presented some challenges, which NYRB and Searls navigated fairly neatly. To fund the translation, the book was very generously supported, Frank said, by the Goethe-Institut, in reflection of the importance the book has in Germany. Searls also independently received both a Cullman Center and a Guggenheim fellowship to help bankroll his translation efforts, which Frank called an indication of the perceived importance of the work.

To drum up interest in a nearly 2,000-page translated novel, the design and publicity teams both came up with unique approaches. In terms of design and packaging, the book is already distinguished from the bulk of NYRBs list by consisting of two paperback volumes instead of the usual one; they will be sold together in a boxed set priced at $39.95. (Though the publisher may eventually sell the two in distinct volumes, for now, they are only available as a set.) Both the print size and the page count are bigger on this book than on other NYRB books, hence its segmentation into two manageable volumes.

In terms of design, Frank said the publisher hoped the book would be instantly recognizable as an NYRB Classic, even as it branched out from some of the lines typical visual characteristics. Each of the two volumes has a bespoke cover, he said. It lacks our usual lozenge or cartouche or text box or whatever you want to say for title and author. But the spine of the book will be the same. The box has been fun to think about. We have the great picture of Uwe Johnson transcribing graffiti on the New York City subway to go on one side of it, and then well play off the two front covers for the other side of the box.

The big trick was marketing such a monster of a tomeand, in the U.S., an obscure one at thatto booksellers. Thats where NYRBs reputation in the business came in handy. At some level, booksellers who know and like NYRB Classics and are already interested in what we do will hear when we say, This is, literally, the biggest book weve ever done,  said NYRB publicity manager Nick During. And yet, he added, We wanted to give people time to get going.

That meant sending out galleys of the first quarter of the book earlier this year before a three-book set of galleys was finished in late June. The publisher also sent out a pamphlet comprising a handful of the first few chapters of the book to dozens of bookstores as a giveaway for customers. Many of those bookstores, During said, asked for more.

This shouldnt be much of a surprise, to hear Frank tell it. This is recognized in Germany as a book of major importance, he said. It is regularly compared to some of the most famous German novels of the century: Thomas Manns The Magic Mountain and Robert Musils The Man Without Qualities. They would also compare themas Uwe Johnson wanted to be compared, and consciously invited the comparisonto Proust and Joyce.

That made the full translation of the book imperative in Franks eyes. Its a book that should exist in its entirety, he said. You dont want to have just one volume of Proust. It seemed important to make it available that way. Not least because the bigness of it, and the range and scope of it, is what makes it such a pleasure.
When Darrin Webb, a bookkeeper for Donadio & Olson, pled guilty to embezzling over $3.3 million from the literary agency late last month, it seemed like a bizarre episode in the industry was reaching a close. Webbs theft, which leaves a storied agency facing the possibility of bankruptcy and a cadre of authors with holes in their bank accounts, was, by all industry accounts, an aberration. The tale, though, may not be over, as a lawyer is considering taking action against the firm and could file a class-action lawsuit on behalf of the authors affected.

News of the situation at D&O broke in late May, when the New York Post reported that the firm, which represents estates including those of Mario Puzo and Edward Gorey, had been swindled out of millions of dollars. Around that time, Chuck Palahniuk, who was represented by Edward Hibbert at D&O, went public with the news that he was in dire financial straits. Palahniuk, who declined to talk with PW for this article, blogged that he had been complaining to his publisher for years about being stiffed on royalties and seeing his sales adversely affected by piracy, and that he was unknowingly a victim of Webbs theft. Palahniuk said he cant even guess how much money was taken from him.

Other authors affected by Webbs crime are in similar situations. Like most professional writers, they receive their royalty statements and payments from their literary agency. Publishers send royalty statements directly to agencies, who usually look them over, deduct their commissions from the monies received, then cut checks to the authors and send them along with the statements. The problem, many industry members acknowledged, is that most authors dont know how to read royalty statements.

That authors rely on their agents to make sure theyre getting paid in full is not surprising. An agents first responsibility is a fiduciary one. Though most people assume that an agents primary role is to act as a champion of their authors work and as a conduit between artists and publishers, their first responsibility is to look out for the financial well-being of their clients.

That this system broke down in such dramatic fashion at D&O is something many insiders, most of whom spoke to PW on the condition of anonymity, conceded is rare. Some also lay the responsibility for authors losing out on their royalties at the feet of the agents at the firm who werent paying enough attention to its finances.

Neil Olson, the current principal at D&O, declined to comment when contacted by PW. His lawyer offered a public statement that the firm has stood by since the embezzlement became public; it said that the agencys singular focus at this time is ensuring that all of its impacted clients are mode whole to the greatest extent possible.

But the question lingers: how could a well-respected agency be bilked out of millions of dollars over a span of seven years? One insider said it was an example of management not paying very close attention. Though all sources spoke highly of Olson and his colleagues, many said that they might not be the best businessmen.

Gail Hochman, head of the Agency of Author Representatives (AAR), said the situation at D&O is very rare. She added, I do think here and there [in the history of the industry] a bookkeeper has made off with some money, but most of the agents in the AAR are incredibly scrupulous about their bookkeeping. This situation is very unusual and obviously very upsetting.

Donald N. David, a partner at Manhattan-based law firm Akerman LLP, is currently looking into the situation at D&O on a pro bono basis. He said that at present, he is working with three authors who have been affected by the embezzlement. He noted that his current focus is not on securing lost funds but on working to gather accurate information about what money the authors are owed.

David confirmed that Laura Albert (who wrote under the pseudonym of JT LeRoy) is one of the authors hes currently working with and said he believes Webb swindled money from authors in three different ways: by neglecting to send royalty statements and checks altogether; by sending royalty statements but no royalty checks; and by sending altered royalty statements (with royalties remitted) and accordingly altered royalty checks.

David said he is open to working with more authors and putting together a class for a potential lawsuit, but the problem is that the authors affected dont know how much money theyve lost. Pointing to the agencys vow to make its authors whole again, he noted that this cannot be done until their authors get their royalty statements, and theyre accurate.

Another question swirling around the D&O case is how many authors have been significantly affected. Palahniuk admitted that he doesnt know how much he lost; some insiders guessed it could be in the high-hundred-thousand-dollar range. David was coy about answering this question but did say that there are undoubtedly authors who got stiffed of a very large sum of money.

James Curtis, who was represented by Olson for a number of years and sold four books with the agent (including the Pantheon-published 2015 title William Cameron Menzies), said his initial interaction with Webb led him to believe he was dealing with a case of negligence. Theft, Curtis said, was not on his radar. He noted that after contacting Webb repeatedly about a check for a piddly sum of money that had gone missing, he just assumed Darren was incompetent. Adding that he always had problems dealing with Webb, Curtis said he brought Neil in but that Neil had a hands-off policy in dealing with his bookkeeper.

Ultimately, Curtis said, he thinks he didnt lose too much money, because he kept on Darrens tail. He said he thinks Webb didnt try to screw with me, because I was paying attention.

The Authors Guild, which has encouraged D&O clients who believe theyve been affected by Webbs actions to contact it, said there are ways authors can better protect themselves against the kind of financial malfeasance on display in this case. One option, according to Guild president Mary Rasenberger, is for authors to request that their publishers send them their royalty statements directly. While this is not often practiced, all publishers are required to comply with such a request, and it allows authors to see firsthand what (according to their publishers) they are earning.

The Guild also encourages its authors to strike representation agreements with their agents. Though rarely employed (or spoken about), these agreements, Rasenberger said, can make presumed aspects of the author-agent relationship more clear and put them in writingsuch as what happens if an author and agent part ways after the agent sells an authors book and what happens if an authors book is not sold. Presumably, such agreements could also address theft and financial loss. The Guild said these agreements, which it can draft as part of its services to members, help manage expectations in the relationship between authors and agents so no misunderstandings occur. Rasenberger added that they are valuable tools in a world where sometimes there are bad actors, and sometimes bad things happen to good actors.

Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to Chuck Palahnuik's agent as Edward Kastenmeier; his agent is Edward Hibbert.
Arthur Frommer first took to the airwaves some 30 years ago, dispensing travel advice on New York Citys WOR radio station and creating a distinctive voice for his guidebook series. Other publishers have followed suit, and in the podcast era, radios reach is even more profound, with previously broadcast episodes getting a second life on demand.

Two-Way Radio

Frommer continues to hold forth on The Travel Show, now nationally syndicated and cohosted by Pauline Frommer, his daughter and the editorial director of Frommers. On the weekly two-hour program, the pair might discuss the charms of Japanese ryokans, for instance, or the appeal of hotel chains that take their cues from Airbnb.

Pauline also joins Jason Cochran, editor-in-chief at Frommers.com, for the weekly, hour-long Frommers Travel Show, which airs on WABC radio in New York City and is heard in 17 states, as well as via podcast. The live call-in program is driven by vacation planners questions, allowing listeners more direct access to the brands years of travel experience and reinforcing, Pauline says, that were on the side of the traveler.

The show has also had an effect on guidebook content, Pauline says. If the same questions about Paris keep coming up, for instance, shell make sure the author of that guide is made aware and considers incorporating the information into the next edition.

Another industry name, Rick Steves, launched his hour-long travel talk show on Seattles KUOW public radio station in 2005. Since then, Travel with Rick Steves has expanded to 400 North American stations, with about 40 episodes produced every year, each of which is archived as a podcast.

On the show, Steves, with the help of guest travel writers and tour guides, delves into destinations such as Copenhagens scruffy Christiania neighborhood, and cultural phenomena like German pop music. For many of our listeners, including those unable to travel, says Tim Tattan, the shows executive producer, the program serves as a virtual vacation.

Digital First

Other travel publishers have bypassed the broadcast radio format in favor of online programming.

Consider Monocle, the London-headquartered media brand whose diverse array of products includes its design-minded travel guides (see Brand Extensions). The company launched in 2007 with a print magazine devoted to business, culture, and design; four years later, Monocle introduced M24, an around-the-clock internet radio station that, from the get-go, archived much of its content in podcast form.

At the time, as Markus Hippi, who hosts and produces M24s The Menu, recalls, radio was dying among Monocles intended audience, and podcasts were ascending. Venturing into new territory paid off: today, M24 broadcasts 44 new shows every week, drawing 1.3 million listeners a month, according to stats provided by Monocle.

The Menu, one of M24s original programs, takes a weekly, international look at food and drink, and is perhaps the most fitting complement to Monocles travel guides. In October, for instance, readers who purchased the newly released Monocole guide to Lisbon could learn even more about the city via a new episode of Hippis show that centered on the Principe Real neighborhood. This fall, he says, episodes pegged to the releases of the Athens and Helsinki guides are likely.

The show offers a chance for Monocle to cater to niche interestsilluminating undertouristed spots such as Singapores Selegie Road, for instance, and top-notch local specialties such as Canberra flat whites. Limited word counts mean guidebooks dont often get to do restaurants justice, Hippi says, but on the show, he can do more than just recommend an eatery: he can speak with the chef and tap into what makes it special. An expensive price doesnt guarantee anything, he says. When we think about our ideal restaurant, its somehow rooted in local culture and hospitality.

That sort of deep dive is also a hallmark of The Rough Guide to Everywhere, the Rough Guides travel podcast, which launched in January 2017. The half-hour episodes resonate with listeners who skew younger than the publishers typical guidebook readers, says Rough Guides travel editor Rebecca Hallett, who produces and cohosts the podcast. Its not planning advice, but slice-of-life stories.

Rough Guide to Everywhere is experiencing steady growth, she says, now surpassing 200,000 downloads; new listeners tend to make their way back to older episodes. Hallett sees the podcast primarily as an opportunity to broaden the brands presence and examine travel through a more investigative lens than the guidebooks do, tackling subjects including Maltas overtourism problem and Haitian vodou culture.

What we put in our guidebooks is not what we put on the web or in our videos, and what we feature on our podcasts are things that dont fit into guidebooks, she says. A destination or theme that might not justify an entire book from a sales perspective, such as Haiti, or DNA-inspired travel, could be a perfect fit for the podcastand, as it is for other travel publishers, a powerful companion to guidebook offerings.

Return to the main feature.
Rosa Park and Richard Stapleton cofounded the biannual Cereal in 2012, because, Park says, they wanted to produce a magazine that resonated with our peers on the subjects of travel and style. This meant narrative-driven destination articles that focused on the experience of travel rather than the nitty-gritty details. Still, readers emailed asking the editors to recommend food and drink spots in the cities they covered.

In response, Park and Stapleton introduced digital companion guidebooks in 2013. Once again, fans responded: they wanted print versions. Cereal published its first bound guidebooksto Copenhagen, London, Los Angeles, New York, and Parisin September 2014; when Park and Stapleton sold out of multiple print runs, they realized they were onto something. They struck a deal with Abrams, which is releasing the next generation of Cereal City Guidesslender volumes on London, New York, and Parisin October.

The guidebooks evoke the design-conscious quality found on the pages of Cereal but are more utilitarian, Park says, offering pared-down itineraries that are doable in a weekend, plus enough ideas to fill a weeklong stay. We want to give you a list of 30 places that weve been to that really are our favorites, she adds, with an emphasis on spots that mesh with Cereals modern, calm, and elegant branding.

Lifestyle publications with an international focus have proven fertile ground for spawning travel guides. Journalist Tyler Brule launched style magazine Wallpaper in 1996, and a decade later founded Monocle, a global affairs and lifestyle periodical. Each publication has since developed its own guidebook line reflecting the parent publications aesthetic.

Joe Pickard, books editor at Monocle, says its guides mirror the brands flagship magazine through their thorough reporting, snappy copy, and journalistic photography. Although helpful digital resources are plentiful, he notes, theres no substitute for a physical book, and so weve done everything we can to create a desirable object that people will want to own.

The hardcover guides, printed on coated paper, cover restaurants favored by localsA family-run taverna or trattoria is more likely to find a place among our pages than an establishment glittering with Michelin stars, Pickard saysas well as neighborhood itineraries, in-depth looks at architecture, and essays by contributors who live and work in the area. Marc Spiegler, global director of Art Basel, wrote about the festivals genesis for the new guide to Zurich, Geneva, and Basel; in the new Mexico City guide, local journalist, musician, and documentary filmmaker Feike de Jong delved into the capitals religious cults.

In November, Monocle adds books on Athens and Helsinki to its roster of guidebooks, all of which sport covers with upbeat, mid-century-style illustrations set against black backgrounds. Wallpaper City Guides, published by Phaidon, stand apart in a different way: each is sheathed in a single Pantone color; taken together, the collection resembles a fan of high-end paint chips.

Beneath the covers, most of the photography is original and devoid of people, putting the focus on interior design and architecture. The content stands in contrast to Cereals streamlined assemblage of venues and the personalities that help shape Monocles voice.

Another difference: regularly updating its 60-strong roster of locales, rather than bringing hot new destinations into the fold, is the priority. Fall will see new editions of guides to Melbourne, New York, Reykjavik, Shanghai, and four other cities.

Fashion, art, and architecture have been at the forefront of the compact guides. Executive editor Jeremy Case says its this loyalty to stylish, locals-approved establishments that has allowed the books to thrive as standalone products. Many of our guidebook readers have told us that theyve never actually picked up Wallpaper magazine, he notes. Its a much wider audience.

The magazine and website tend to be newsy, focusing on hotel and restaurant openings. A guidebook edition, by contrast, may be on sale for three years, which Case says means the editors try to recommend venues that we believe will continue to be a draw for the foreseeable future.

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Mzee Saidi, who works as a maintenance manager at a Cement Company in Kampala, is a regular user of M-PESA services who frequently sends money back home to fend for his family.

Working far away from my family isnt easy, but mobile money transfer has made it a little easier to manage things back home. I constantly use M-PESA to pay utility bills and pay contractors for the ongoing construction of my house based in Mombasa. M-PESA has honestly played a big role for me and my family and even when I am away, I feel comfortable that I can still take care of my family, said Mzee Saidi.

Sending and receiving cash through M-PESA across borders has greatly made things easier for Kenyans living abroad and we are glad to be part of the transformation in their lives. Over time, M-PESA has enabled Kenya to contribute to Africas Digital transformation, and this is just one of the many ways in which we would like to thank our customers for being with us for the last 11 years, said Bob Collymore, CEO, Safaricom.

Previous winners of Maisha ni M-PESA TU apartments include, Jeniffer Kathure, a single mother of three from Muthara, Meru County, James Njagi, a metal artisan at Gikomba market, Eric Lindenberg, a South African designer residing in Nairobi and Benson Kilonzi, a small-scale farmer and jua kali artisan from Ithumula, Kitui County.

In addition to the two remaining apartments, more than 400,000 M-PESA customers and 1,900 agents have won instant prizes including cash and float amounts of KES 2,000, KES, 5,000 and KES 10,000.
The demonstration which saw large number of past and present members of the two vibrant halls converge at the Obra Spot started at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle and it was climaxed when a petition against the decision to convert the halls was received by the Council of State.

A similar petition was presented to the Ministry of Education and the Ministry in charge of Tertiary institution.

Members of the halls took to the streets in their customized shirts: wine for Conti and yellow and black for Katanga, matched through the streets, sang powerful jama and captured the attention of large number of people by the streets.

READ MORE: KNUST sued over decision to convert Unity hall into mixed hall

Background

The twist and turn about the conversion of the two great halls Unity Hall and Katanga into mixed sex halls heightened as the Dean of Students, Prof. William A. Gariba reiterated such intention bluntly on Sunday 28th of January, 2018 at the Student Chaplaincy Council service. This came as a shock as Continentals and Katangees alike were amused and disdained as they looked on that faithful day.

This statement affirmed the rumour which was wrangled amongst students since 2013 when the University council chaired by the late Paul Victor Obeng sat to decide on converting the two halls into mixed sex halls.

Dr Opoku Prempeh in latest twist, speaking at the 52nd Congregation Ceremony of the University says he fully supports the decision.
"RIP brother. Spent all week trying to process the hard loss of my good bud, Brian Christopher Lawler," Johnson wrote alongside the post, which included an old photo of him and Lawler. "He became a great friend the day I stepped foot in the small wrestling territory in the south known as the USWA to start my pro wrestling career."

Johnson talked about all the good times he shared with Lawler, including tracking down gyms to get their workouts in.

"We rode together daily (1500 miles per week), trained together at any gym we could find, ate together at any Waffle House off the highway, wrestled together in flea markets to state fairs, shared motel rooms together, and would always dream (and talk shit;) about what life would be like once we made it to the big leagues of the WWE," he wrote.

Even after the two of them made it big, Johnson noted that nothing changed about their friendship: The pair continued to do everything together - and always had a blast.

"Imagine us acting like crazy Wiffle Ball idiots at 2am in the parking lot of the Motel 6," he wrote. "Our jaws would hurt from laughing so hard. Then wed finally take our butts to bed, hit the gym in the morning, drive 200 miles to the next town to wrestle and start the night all over again."

According to reports, Lawler was found hanging in his Hardeman County jail cell in Tennessee in July after being arrested for driving under the influence, driving on a revoked license, and evading arrest. He was taken to the hospital, where he died the next day.

"I never knew him to be suicidal, but I guess sometimes the pain just gets to be too much for one to take," Johnson - who has long been open about his own battles with depression - wrote in the post.

"Ill miss you man and the times we had," he continued. "Thanks for being a great friend. Thanks for being my boy."
The total amount given to these 2 banks is GHC1.41 billion.

Ghana could use this money for several things which will benefit people and also help the Akufo-Addo government realise some of their campaign promises.

Below are some of the things Ghana could have used the money for.

 Purchase ambulances

A fully fitted ambulance cost GHC500,000. This means the government could have bought 2,940 ambulances with the money.

 Build fully equipped 120-bed district hospitals

The price of one fully equipped 120-bed district hospitals is GHC150 million. This means the government could construct 10 of such facilities

 Incubator

One incubator is selling at GHC240,000. GHC1.41 billion could buy 6,125 incubators.

READ ALSO: Employees of Consolidated Bank to know their status after 60 days

 Build Komfo Anokye maternity

Until the first lady, Mrs Akufo-Addo took it upon herself to help complete a maternity block at the Komfo Anokye Hospital, all they needed was 334,957,000 to complete the structure.

The construction of the maternity block began in 1974. It took Mrs Akufo-Addos support to complete it.

 Affordable housing units
His failure to pay the money left the bank in a dire financial situation.

Following that, the bank board called for an emergency meeting to discuss how best to get Mr Ibrahim Mahama to pay his debt.

Minutes of the board meeting noted: "[Ibrahim Mahama] had made no effort to honour any of the assurances he gave when he met them on 29th March 2016."

Subsequently, the board decided to "exert external pressure" on Mr Ibrahim by meeting his brother, Mr Mahama, who was the then president.

The board held another meeting in which they invited Mr Ibrahim but he failed to show up.

The Board "felt slighted and disrespected by his actions" and "questioned his credibility as a businessman," according to the report.

At another board meeting in which Mr Ibrahim finally attended, he assured the board that he was "making every effort to pay the amounts outstanding from related companies."
According to Mr Cudjoe, the attack on the founder of the International Central Gospel Church (ICGC) is "offensive" because he has not been charged with any crime.

"It is quite offensive to call out a man guilty when he has not been charged with any crime. Please stop attacking Pastor Otabil. Hopefully, the pastor will solve his issues soon," he said.

The central bank collapsed the bank in August 2017 over liquidity challenges.

Pastor Otabil stands accused of supervising the mismanagement of GHC610 relief package to Capital Bank from the Bank of Ghana.

According to the BoG report, the bank's board, chaired by Pastor Otabil, doled out 27.5m to a board member for "business promotion.

The board also approved an expenditure of 2.6M and $50,000 on re-branding.

The board, the report said, also ratified a proposal to increase the fees and benefits of directors, including two first and business class air tickets for all members of the board.
He failed to pay the loan as planned, the audit report said, leading to agitation by the board who held a series of meetings over the matter.

The audit report, which captured the ex-president's brother as a "politically exposed person," noted that the board felt "slighted and disrespected" by Ibrahim.

At a meeting, the board resolved to "exert external pressure" on him by holding a meeting with his brother, Mr Mahama.

It is unclear if the board had an audience with Mr Mahama, but Ibrahim finally showed up at an invited board meeting, after failing to honour an initial one extended to him.

When he appeared before the meeting, Ibrahim Mahama assured the board that he was "making every effort to pay the amounts outstanding from related companies."
He made the pledge after praising his wife, Mrs Rebecca Akufo-Addo, for her role in championing the building of a new mother and baby unit at KATH in Kumasi, Ashanti Region.

He said: The contributions of my wife Rebecca to the mother and child ward of the Akomfo Anokye teaching hospital has received a lot of praise.

"There is one thing I want to do help this hospital. I am also hoping I will get funds to complete this hospital which has been abandoned for 40 years.

The new ultramodern facility which was completed in five months and houses the Maternity, Neonatal and Pediatric Intensive Care units.

The construction of the facility follows a documentary by Accra-based Joy FM on the plights of mothers and babies at the hospital mainly due to congestion.
The central bank collapsed the bank in August 2017 over liquidity challenges.

Pastor Otabil stands accused of supervising the mismanagement of GHC610 relief package to Capital Bank from the Bank of Ghana.

According to the BoG report, the bank's board, chaired by Pastor Otabil, doled out 27.5m to a board member for "business promotion.

The board also approved an expenditure of 2.6M and $50,000 on re-branding.

The board, the report said, also ratified a proposal to increase the fees and benefits of directors, including two first and business class air tickets for all members of the board.

In addition, an amount of 130m was transferred to Alltime Capital by CEO of the Bank Ato Essien and the money was to be paid back in five months with assurance from the chairman, Mensah Otabil.

Using the hashtag #Istandwithotabil, his followers are sending words of sympathy and solidarity, declaring him as a man of integrity.
Speaking at the ceremony, President Akufo-Addo noted that the present state of roads in the Kumasi does not befit its status as Ghanas 2nd largest city, the reason why Government is committed to improving quickly the condition of the roads in Kumasi, and by extension in the Ashanti Region.

That is why Government, through the Ministry of Roads and Highways, has begun work on some critical roads in the region.

These include the Kumasi Drainage and Roads Extension Project, which involves the construction of the lake road into a two-by-two dual carriageway, from the Coca Cola bottling plant to Dompoase junction; lining of the Sissai River for two kilometres, to reduce the incidence of flooding; construction of critical bridges and footbridges over the Sissai river to connect communities along the river; and asphaltic overlay of ten kilometres of roads within the project area.

Additionally, the President indicated the facelift project will involve the rehabilitation of 100 kilometres of roads within Kumasi and Mampong, and the construction of over 100 kilometres of highways and feeder roads in the Region, all funded by the Sino-Hydro facility.

The project, he added, will also take into account the remodelling of the four roundabouts, between Ejisu and the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, and also asphaltic overlay on 135 kilometres of roads within the Kumasi Metropolis, to deal with the issue of potholes, and, thereby, give the roads in the Metropolis a new lease of life.

Let me use this occasion also to announce that, before the end of this year, construction works will begin for the dualization of the road from Accra to Kumasi, President Akufo-Addo said, much to the delight of the gathering.

On other road projects in the offing include the construction of the Tamale interchange, which will be the first interchange in the North, the construction of the Suame Interchange, the PTC interchange in Takoradi and the completion of the Sofoline project.

President Akufo-Addo urged the Ministry of Roads and Highways and its implementing agencies to ensure that adequate and proper supervision is given to all the works being undertaken, and, thereby, guarantee value for money.

I urge all those whose properties might be affected by the various projects to co-operate with the Ministry of Roads and Highways and other relevant state institutions in accessing the compensation due them. We shall ensure that fair and adequate compensation is be paid to all persons and properties that shall be affected, he added.

These projects, the President said, represent an exciting phase in the infrastructural development not only of Asanteman, and, but, indeed, of the entire country.

We are on the cusp of a bold, new beginning, and I urge all Ghanaians to join hands with Government as we strive to bring progress and prosperity to all parts of our country, he added.

Prior to the ground-breaking ceremony, President Akufo-Addo paid a courtesy call on the Asantehene, Otumfuo Osei Tutu II, to inform him of his 5-day tour of the Region, and the activities he will be undertaking whilst in the Region.
Last month, Ambassador Gbeho and Ken Dzirasah, a former Deputy Speaker of Parliament, openly endorsed the flagbearership bid of Prof. Alabi.

According to Mr Smith, Mr Mahama, he's highly tipped to win the NDC presidential race, is the "goose" that will lay the "golden egg."

Comments by Victor Gbeho and the others are just a collection of personal grievances but I wonder why they are trying to damage the goose that lays the golden egg, he said on Asempa FM in Accra last Thursday.

He added: "When I heard Victor Gbehos comment about Mahama, I was very hurt so I called him because all the grievances are being taken care of within the party,

READ MORE: Here are all the reshuffled Ministers and their new positions
Hundreds never survived the journey across the Aegean Sea. More than 800 people, including many children, died in 2015 in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The situation quickly reached emergency proportions for beleaguered Lesbos authorities trying to regulate the flow, register the exhausted survivors, and find shelter for them.

Local residents hastened to lend support, providing blankets, clothes and food until the arrival of refugee agencies and volunteer groups.

Three years on, the situation has changed drastically.

An agreement brokered between the European Union and Turkey in March 2016, in which Turkish authorities promised to stop people-smugglers in return for EU aid, has limited the flow.

EU border agency Frontex vessels patrol the waters between Greece and Turkey, as do NATO ships.

Some 35-80 people currently arrive on a daily basis, but even this is enough to keep the island's holding camps near breaking point.

There are over 9,500 refugees and migrants currently on the island, with the main camp of Moria filled to more than double its capacity. Very few are allowed off the island -- mainly the ill and vulnerable -- and there are frequent outbreaks of violence.

Authorities are at pains to keep new arrivals out of the path of tourists. They are allowed to land at secluded beaches and directly transported to camps. The beaches are then quickly cleaned of life jackets, inflatable boats and other debris.

As they lounge in the sun, many visitors may not have an inkling that in the same spot where they have planted their towels and beach umbrellas, thousands of desperate people began a new chapter in their search for safety.
Falz maintains that the song, which seems to be the butt of controversy since its release, is socially conscious music that talks about the current situation of Nigerians in Nigeria.

"If they ban this song, then I do not understand them because that song is definitely not a vulgar song, he said.

ALSO READ: MURIC backs down on court action against Falz

Continuing, Falz said There is absolutely nothing vulgar about the song and I think it is ridiculous that the Nigerian Broadcast Commission singled out the least vulgar line in the song and ascribed it to be the reason they banned the song. It is a very simple and clean song."

The song is hitting lot of people in wrong places - Falz

Falz has also hinted that the reason his song, This is Nigeria, seems to be drawing attention from different quarters is because it is hitting people in wrong places.

The rapper said because he was blunt with his words in the song, the message seems to be hitting many people in high places in wrong places.

"The only thing is that I was very blunt about the way I talk about things. I do not know maybe some messages in the song hit them and that is the real reason they banned the song. The line was, 'This is Nigeria, look how we living now. Everybody be criminal.'

I do not know if the fact that some group wanted me to retract the song is linked with this new development but I know that there were a lot of messages in the song and it is hitting a lot of people in the wrong places and that is what is making them react in that manner. However, there was absolutely no basis for the NBC to ban that song, he said.

ALSO READ: Twitter reacts to MURIC's seven day ultimatum to Falz

MURIC gives Falz 7 days to withdraw 'This is Nigeria' video

The Muslim Rights Concern (MURIC) has threatened to sue Falz to court if he refuses to withdraw the viral video, ' and apologises to Nigerian Muslims.

In the video, some girls wearing hijab are seen dancing shaku shaku

While explaining the reason he featured girls wearing hijab in his song, Folarin 'Falz' Falana says the girls are a representation of the abducted Chibok girls still in Boko Haram captivity.
Confirming the occurrence, Ondo State Police Public Relations Officer, Femi Joseph, said the suspect had yet to wake up.

He said, As of today (Friday), the suspect had yet to wake up. Maybe he took too much of the drug, that is why he is still sleeping. We have tried all we could to make him regain his consciousness to no avail.

However, we are still watching him to find out if he is pretending. We are with him and he would face the music no matter how long he is unconscious.

The suspected kidnapper, who has been in deep slumber since his arrest, has made it impossible for the police to unravel his identity.

ALSO READ: Kidnap suspect has been in deep sleep since arrest

Failed escape attempt

In a report by Punch, the suspected kidnapper was arrested on Sunday when he, alongside three other members of his gang, attempted to kidnap the owner of a pharmaceutical shop in Owo town.

The suspect was arrested by the police after his attempt at escaping on a motorcycle met a brickwall.

After his arrest, a 400mg tablet of Tramadol was recovered from his pocket by the police.

The discovery had raised the suspicion that the suspect must have taken the drug before he went for the operation.
The young man has been identified as Hakeem Sanusi.

Sanusi was declared missing by his sister, Jumoke Sanusi, who took to Twitter to seek a Save Our Soul help from Nigerians.

According to Jumoke, who tweeted from the account @Jraimz, Hakeem was last seen in Aguda area of Surulere at about 8:40PM on Wednesday, August 8, 2018.

ALSO READ: Student wills bank account to bae who cheated on him

"MISSING PERSON ALERT

"He was last seen on 8th of August 2018 at 8:40pm in Aguda, Surulere. Please help retweeet til we find my brother. If you happen to get any information that can lead us to his whereabouts, please contact 08120200667 or report the nearest police station," she tweeted.

Continuing, she wrote, "He left a suicidal note before he left but I want to believe he is still alive. I am tired of crying, my eyes hurt already! I am supposed to be strong for my parents but I am too broken to be strong. I saw my dad cry for the first time yesterday."

Hakeem's sister is hopeful her brother is still alive and she appealed to Twitter users to help find and bring her brother back home with sobs.

Unemployed man commits suicide over wife's hospital bill

One Tijiro Oghenede of Ozoro Community, Isoko North local government area of Delta State, has allegedly committed suicide over his inability to pay his wife's hospital bills.

Daily Post reports that the 45-year-old was billed N250,000 for the treatment of his wife who took ill some months back.
The APC chairman had earlier said that some of the Governors aideswere involved in the killing of 2 Catholic priests in Benue state.

An excerpt of the letter obtained from Vanguard reads:

Recall that on Friday, July 27th, 2018, you did cause a sponsored press conference to be aired on multiple television and radio stations which was also widely circulated in the print and social media.

In the said sponsored press conference which was entirely centered on the person of Governor Samuel Ortom, you made very astonishing, unsubstantiated, wild and wide allegations against our client relating to the issue of allocation and payment of salaries, security votes expenditure and the insecurity in Benue State.

It is the aggregate of your allegations that our client has confessed to sharing Benue State money with party leaders and that despite collection of bail out and Paris Club refund monies, Gov. Ortom has not and is not paying salaries the vicious circle of poverty in Benue State has been deepened under Gov. Ortom.

By deducible analysis, it is also your allegation that our client is responsible for the killings in Benue State specifically the unfortunate killing of 2 Catholic priests and their parishioners in Mbalom community which sad event occurred on the morning of 24th April, 2018.

It is noteworthy that in the entire web of false accusations that you weaved against our client, you could not bring yourself to mention a single Benue person or any other person for that matter from whom you sourced your false narratives. For the records, the principles of law grounding liability for defamation and libel do not exculpate tale bearers from liability for the reason that the tales they bear are not original to them.

There is also no gainsaying the fact that the false allegations you have leveled against our client are weighty and same would have demanded a greater degree of circumspection, sobriety and deep reflection from you before rushing to the public domain.

For one who is purportedly schooled, it is taken for granted that you are fully abreast of the legal obligation cum implication that he who asserts has a corresponding burden to prove. Regrettably, in your case you spoke not to records but to base political sentiments.

Therefore, the only inference to draw is that your unproven allegation was informed by a dangerously cultivated, albeit unwarranted malice against our client.

In the circumstance, we have our clients instruction to place before you the following demands:

A letter of retraction/apology addressed to our client in respect of the false, defamatory and libelous statement made against him in the sponsored press conference herein complained of. That the said retraction/apology be simultaneously published in the Sunday edition of 10 National Dailies circulating within Benue State as well as a paid advertorial to the same effect on the prime time beats of the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), Channels Tv, TVC News, African Independent Television (AIT), Independent Television (ITV) Benin, Radio Nigeria, Radio Benue and Harvest FM, Makurdi.

ALSO READ:Award for the most confused politician goes to Gov Ortom

An undertaking not to indulge in any such false publication against our client in future. Payment of N10,000,000,000. (Ten Billion Naira) only to our client as punitive, general, exemplary and aggravated damages.

We have our clients express instruction that the terms above be met within 7 days of receipt of this letter. It is the further instruction of our client that in the event of any failure, refusal or neglect to conform to the terms set out above, he would be left with no option than to commence appropriate legal proceedings against you in the law Court.
Mr Anthony Ojukwu, the NHRC Executive Secretary, disclosed this in an interview with newsmen at a Judicial Actors Coalition meeting in Maiduguri.

Ojukwu attributed the numerous cases recorded to the spate of conflicts, which include the Boko Haram and herders/farmers conflicts in some parts of the country.

He said that the commission had recorded more than 100,000 cases of human rights violations and abuses in Borno, where Boko Haram had wreaked so much havoc.

He listed some of the cases to include sexual abuse, child molestation, gender base violence, torture, extra judicial killings and other numerous ranges of violence.

According to him, there are quite a number of cases, especially here in Borno state.

There are more than 56,000 unclaimed children in the IDPs camps, who are deprived of their rights to health, education and so on.

There are more than 25,000 women widowed by Boko Haram, many of these women had suffered degrading and inhuman treatment and other forms of violence.

It is the firm belief of the commission that working with the Search for Common Ground in the past 5-6 years; so many conflicts have been prevented in the communities through timely monitoring, investigations and peaceful resolution, he said.

However, due to the fact that these conflict were prevented and not allowed to snowball into full scale hostilities, most people, including key government personnel sometimes lose sight of the contributions to peaceful development through the effort of the commission and other partners.

The billions of Naira spent by government to contain some conflicts could have been worst without effort of organisations like NHRC and Search for Common Grounds.

It is in the light of this and other factors that poor cooperation from some security agencies to the work of the commission and the partners is deplored.

All of us, be it government agencies or our partners, should be seen by security agencies have a joint responsibility with the commission for protection of human rights, he said.

Ojukwu said that in spite the challenges faced by the commission, it had not relented on it efforts of protecting human right in the country.

The greatest challenge of the commission to implement its mandate has been poor budgetary provisions of 2018, but the provisions are still dare cry for what the commission requires to operate optimally.

The commission is poorly funded when compared to the funding of the NHRIs in smaller countries like South Africa, Ghana, Kenya and Uganda.

We urge other development partners to seize the opportunities and challenges of the moment offered by human rights challenge in the North East, North Central, South South and South Eastern parts of the country, to assist the commission.

Such assistance can be in the nature of capacity building, infrastructure, computers, vehicle for monitoring and vehicles for investigation of violations, furniture, building for state offices, he said.

Other demands included building shelters for women and children domestically assaulted and violated and funding projects of concern like monitoring and facilitating the mainstreaming of human rights into the resolution of herders and farmers conflicts.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the late Ojo was reportedly shot dead at close range, at about 10:12p.m on Friday in Ado Ekiti, along with two other persons.

The identities of other victims are yet to be ascertained as the time of filing this report.

The late Ojo, in his early 50s, was an intimate ally of immediate past Deputy National Chairman (South), APC and Ex-Gov. Segun Oni and served as his Personal Assistant during his term as governor.

Sources told NAN that Ojo was shot by the unidentified gunmen at a viewing centre located behind a popular barbing saloon in Adeyinka Adebayo Area, along Ekiti State University Road.

It was also learnt that Ojo, a chieftain of the APC in the state, was said to have gone to the venue in company of some of his political friends when the tragedy struck.

The body of the deceased has since been deposited at the morgue of the Ekiti State University Teaching Hospital, Ado Ekiti.

The Police Public Relations Officer, Ekiti Command, DSP Caleb Ikechukwu, who neither confirmed nor denied the incident, promised to address newsmen, as soon as full detail about the crime reached the command.

The state Gov-elect, Dr Kayode Fayemi has lamented the gruesome killing of Ojo.

A statement made available to NAN by the Media Office of Fayemi, commiserated with the family of the member of the APC over Ojos killing.

According to the statement, signed by the Director of Media and Publicity, Wole Olujobi, Fayemi expressed shock and sadness over the late Ojos murder.

Fayemi was quoted as saying that the killing of the late politician was a sad commentary that shattered the relative peace the state had enjoyed after the July 14 governorship poll.

The governor-elect charged security agencies to live up to their responsibility to get to the root of the killing and bring perpetrators to justice.

This is a sad development that should not be allowed to go away without getting to the root of this killing

 But then the public must give security agencies chance to do their job to get to the root of this sad development.

Also, security agencies are enjoined to swing into action to apprehend the perpetrators of this heinous crime to check the activities of criminals in Ekiti State, Fayemi said.

Meanwhile, the state chapter of APC, through its Publicity Secretary, Chief Taiwo Olatunbosun, condemned the murder of its chieftain and called on the security operatives to fish out the perpetrators without delay.

Those who knew Bunmi Ojo could not but liked him, he was an easy-going and upright politician, who cultivated friendship in both high and low places, which endeared him to many people.
The House of Representatives Lokoja-Kogi federal constituency by-election commenced around 8:00 amon Saturday, August 11, 2018, according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).

Punch reports that an eyewitness said that the shotgun in the pocket of the thug fired on its own when voters struggled to stop him.

Police confirm incident

The Kogi police spokesman, William Aya also confirmed the incident, adding that the alleged ballot box snatcher was a known political thug.

Aya also told Punch that the thug was killed when voters tried to stop him from going away with the ballot box.

He said the corpse of the suspect has been deposited at the Federal Medical Center Mortuary, Lokoja.

Aya told newsmen that his men are investigating the incident and that those involved will be arrested.
A News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) correspondent monitoring reported that the election was marred by political thugs going from one polling unit to another to perpetrate fraud.

Although policemen and other security agents were seen at the polling stations, they looked the other way, while thugs terrorised people.

At the polling unit at Paparanda Square, voting could not hold as thugs invaded the venue, snatching election materials and beating up people queuing to vote.

The same scenario played out at polling units at Mary Primary School, Karaworo, Adnakolo and Crowther Secondary School, where thugs also disrupted voting.

At Adankolo, some thugs threw stones on people queueing to cast their votes at one of the polling units, chasing them away.

Some of voters who came in their vehicles had their windscreens smashed.

At St. Peters Primary School, Felele, voters were seen receiving N2, 000 each after being certified to have voted for particular candidates.

Some officials of the Kogi Government could be seen moving from one polling unit to another in convoys, accompanied by heavily armed policemen and other security operatives.

The Federal Commissioner of INEC in charge of Kogi, Niger and Nasarawa States, Alhaji Mohammed Haruna, has however, said that the election would be cancelled where discrepancies and violence were recorded.

INEC will review every case of violence, ballot snatching, voter intimidation and vote buying and take appropriate action, he said.
Oshiomhole, in a press conference in Abuja on Friday, August 10, 2018, promised to work towards the Senate President losing his senatorial district in 2019.

He (Saraki) failed to understand that the Nigeria national project is more complicated and is not that easy. He will not only be impeached, we will work hard to have him defeated as a senator in his own senatorial zone come 2019, Oshiomhole told journalists.

ALSO READ: Saraki not fit to be Senate President, says APC

Continuing, Oshiomhole said, " Saraki will not be the first to be impeached and I doubt if he is going to be the last but definitely he will be impeached according to law and according to the democratic norms. The only way senator Saraki can avoid impeachment is for him to do what is honourable, which again leads to the issue of character.

We would destroy Saraki's political dynasty - Oshiomhole

Oshiomhole also said the political dynasty of the Saraki family will be destroyed in Kwara State.

The APC chairman said this is because the people of Kwara are against the Senate President.

The people of Kwara state are fed up with Saraki and we are fed up with Bukola," Oshiomhole said.

Already, a political group, Kwara Emirate for Buhari, have been mounting pressure on the Saraki political dynasty claiming it is time for power shift in the state.
In a statement signed by their media aides, Yusuph Olaniyonu and Uche Anichukwu, the two legislative leaders stated that after receiving the interim report submitted by the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mr. Idris Ibrahim, the presidency has constituted a closet panel to review the report and submit a final recommendation, instead of setting up a public inquiry or judicial commission.

The mandate of this closet panel, the two lawmakers say, is "to turn facts on the head and blame the invasion of the national assembly on the two leaders of the red chamber of the national assembly, who will then be presented as having worked in tandem with the sacked Director General of the DSS, to stage the parliamentary security breach".

The rest of the statement from Saraki and Ekweremadu reads as follows:

"We have been reliably informed that instead of the presidency to set up a public inquiry or judicial commission to probe last Tuesday's early morning invasion of the national assembly as being demanded by the general public, they have commenced a process of manipulation and fabrication.

"The presidency has set up a closet panel, which would work to a predetermined conclusion in which they will now claim that the Senate President and the Deputy Senate President worked in collusion with ex-DG of DSS, Lawal Daura to stage the invasion.

ALSO READ:7 Insults APC threw at Saraki in latest press statement

"They want to shield the fact that the previous night before the invasion and up till the early hours of Tuesday, there was a meeting of the All Progressives Congress (APC) senators and that the plan was for them to be moved in a coaster bus into the national assembly complex later that morning for them to purportedly remove us and select a new Senate President and Deputy Senate President.

"Their plot only failed because the media, particularly social media, Nigerians and international community responded very swiftly as some legislators who came into the complex were refused entry by gun-wielding, hooded security operatives.

"Now, they want to turn the facts on its head and blame us for their botched plot against democracy. We are hereby alerting all Nigerians and members of the international community that the present Nigerian government will stop at nothing to destroy, suppress and incapacitate the opposition. This is their new tactic and plot as we approach the period of the 2019 polls.

"We hereby reiterate our earlier position that the coup against democracy as represented by last weeks invasion must be probed through an independent judicial commission of inquiry which will produce a comprehensive report. We reject any manipulated and fabricated investigation".

The presiding officers added that they have also uncovered a sinister plot in which the government plans to use the anti-graft and security agencies to incarcerate them and some members of their families from next week, all in a bid to break their will and effect their removal.
Away from the political scene, four groups appear to be keen on ensuring that Sonko's first term in office fails to achieve what he promised to Nairobi residents.

Hawkers

The chaos and confusion on Nairobi streets can be attributed to hawkers who literally take over the streets, shouting to attract clients. Every evening, the cat and mouse chase between county askaris and hawkers who invade Nairobi streets is a common site. The hawkers spread their wares on pedestrian walkways and even on roads, leaving pedestrians with no option but to put their lives in danger by sharing roads with speeding vehicles.

Each time hawkers are relocated from city streets, a new lot comes to take up their places.

Small-scale traders

The county government has stepped up efforts clean up the city by collecting garbage and has embarked on an ambitious beautification project. Small scale traders are emerging as a major obstacle in Sonkos quest to make the city clean. Nairobis growing population has attracted many small scale traders keen on making a living.

From fruit vendors to food kiosks, a good number of small scale traders do not pay levies or collude with corrupt county officials hence deny the county millions of shillings needed for development in form of revenue.

Most of them do not pay for garbage disposal and dump waste by the roadside with the garbage pilling up beside roads and blocking drainage.

Outer ring road in Nairobis Eastlands is perhaps the best example of rare impunity with stalls erected on pedestrian walks and roads, blocking an entire lane just after Naivas Supermarket in Donholm.

Matatu touts

That the county government is keen on addressing traffic jam menace is not in doubt.

Miguna Miguna predicted that with Sonko at the helm, Nairobi streets and almost the entire city would turn into a matatu stage and parking lot. This prediction is close to becoming a reality with unruly matatu touts and drivers turning almost every street into a stage.

A walk along Tom Mboya and Ronald Ngala streets will reveal vehicles parked dangerously in the middle of city streets picking or dropping passengers, causing traffic jams that could be avoided with just a little discipline and courtesy. The situation is not different from almost all city streets.

Although Sonkos administration has expressed every intention to deal with the situation and address the traffic jam nightmare, they seem not to get it right.

Corrupt county government officials

These are the enemies within the system and are directly responsible for the chaos and lawlessness in Nairobi. In exchange for bribes, they release petty offenders and hawkers. Best known for reigning terror on hawkers, county askaris deny the county government millions in revenue with packing fees, business permits and taxes ending up in their pockets.
The meeting which took place at Ashanti restaurant saw the NASA boss broker truce between the two governors and convince Joho to invite Kingi to a rival meeting organized by Joho in Mombasa.

Last week, Kingi held a meeting with 21 Coast MPs and condemned ODM for commencing disciplinary proceedings against rebel MPs supporting DP Rutos 2022 bid.

A day later, Joho threw the spanner into works, calling for a meeting with all Coast MCAs with reports indicating that the move is meant to consolidate support for ODM and tame DP Rutos growing influence.

Joho also agreed to postpone the meeting which was scheduled for last Friday to Wednesday next week and invite Kingi to the same meeting.

The Kilifi governor has confirmed his participation at the meeting which will be held at Pride Inn at the coastal city.

While Joho has disclosed that he will be seeking the ODM Party ticket to run for the presidency, Kingi has expressed interest in forming his party and bringing on board other leaders from the Coast.

ODM has suffered losses in the recent past with some of its most vocal MPs openly rebelling against party directives and declaring support for DP Rutos candidature in 2022.
Children's Minister Tracey Martin and Chief Censor David Shanks are teaming up to have a look at what can be done about the amount of online porn being accessed by under 18s.

It it against the law for anyone under 18 to view pornography but that does no stop the ease at which those under age can access it online.

The UK is looking at compulsory age verification checks on pornography later this year in an attempt to make it harder for under-18s to be exposed to explicit material.

Would something similar work here?

Joining RadioLIVE Drive to discuss this is Children's Minister Tracey Martin and Mary Hodson, sex therapist and regional director of Sex Therapy New Zealand.

Listen to both interviews in full above.

Drive with Ryan Bridge and Melissa Davies, filling in for Lisa Owen, 3pm - 6pm Weekdays and streaming live on 'rova' channel 9 - available on Android and iPhone.

RadioLIVE.
A Wellington family is upset after the father was refused entry to the parents' room of Queensgate mall when trying to change his baby's nappy.

Sarah Fa'avale was shopping with her husband Tua and baby daughter Tahani on Thursday. While she was ordering a new car seat, Tua took their daughter to the parents' room to change her nappy.

Another mother denied Mr Fa'avale entry, stating that other mums were already in the changing room.

He didnt know what to do, hes not a confrontational person, Mrs Faavale told RadioLIVE.

Mrs Faavale expressed her outrage over the incident in a heated Facebook post, which she says has received critical response.
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Lots of people have little faith in the government and politicians, but it doesn't have to be that way. If politicians address rampant corruption, public trust in officials and this state as a whole would benefit.
The news desk has compiled a list of events going on throughout the upcoming week that are open to Athenians and University of Georgia students.
When I was 7 years old, my parents went through what I and my siblings were told was legal separation.

We were snatched away from them, kicking and screaming, by a social worker and placed in the Belleville Childrens Shelter in New Jersey while my parents attempted to work out their problems.

It would be days before we would see them again.

So I understand what the children being separated from their parents at the borders are going through. I, too, have felt the emotional tear that rips through a child as he or she is split from all they know and plunged into the unknown.

I, too, remember the vast room where we were put; the ugly, drab paint, the huge windows, the single-metal beds jammed together so tightly, there was just enough space between them to navigate.

I, too, remember being afraid, lost and feeling the emptiness and fear of not knowing what was going to happen. There is something about not having your mother around to cling to that seems to take everything inside you away.

Most people dont understand what a psychological blow that is  or how its might stays around a long time.

So, yes, I will stand in solidarity for those children at the border ... but the hypocrisy of some Americans never fails to astonish me or challenge my sensibilities.

Over the last three weeks, a large body of Americans have rallied against the Trump administrations policy of separating children from their parents at the border.

There have been rallies with tens of thousands of people pounding the pavement; boisterous, card-carrying protesters blocking streets; TV appearances where Democrats and Republicans decried the policy with puff-up sound bites; and lets not forget the images of crying kids that would crack even the coldest heart.

All of that is the right thing for Americans to do and most certainly, the American way.

But over that same period, Americans also have showed they are riding a bull of hypocrisy and bucking like a rodeo rider holding on for dear life.

Here in the United States of America, snatching kids out of the arms of parents is nothing new and is as common as the common cold.

I doubt a day goes past in America where some kid isnt snatched from his or her parents due to a law their parents broke.

But nobody is talking about that.

There are thousands of children here in Connecticut under the care of the Department of Children and Families without their parents.

Where are the tears for them? Where are the thundering hooves of protests and the bullhorns of rage for them? Where are the shrinks en masse to help American kids deal with separation anxiety or the horrors of being abused, beaten, burned, molested, born addicted to crack, or raped by their parents?

Why is it that we see no evil or hear no evil when it comes to the plight of these American kids?

It just seems the hand of compassion for them is a closed fist.

Maybe we think theyre different because theyre American kids and not immigrants. Theyre not. Theyre Americas refugees.

Readers reaction to my last column, Immigration? Lady Liberty, dont you weep, shows the vast number are sensitive to the plight of children detained at the borders, regardless of their views on immigration.

My heart will tug right along with theirs  but I will save my tears for American kids. They must be unnerved at having their nation cry out in horror at immigrant kids being separated from their families while the horns for them are largely muted.

Snatched? Where are the tears for American kids?

James Walker is the Registers senior editor. He can be reached at 203-680-9389 or james.walker@hearstmediact.com. Follow him on Twitter @thelieonroars
As part of our commitment to get as many people as possible outside with us, REI Co-op Experiences will invest in a network of outdoor experiences near some of the United States' most iconic destinations, building upon the 100+ U.S. trips we already offer. Expanding our domestic offerings will allow us to give folks across the country, from all walks of life, easy access to the outdoors through our guided tours, small-group vacations, high-quality rental gear and more.

Reason for refocus

The decision to focus on growing our U.S. programs while ending our international ones was not a result of pandemic-related challenges. We are encouraged by the early signs of recovery for the travel industry and are confident it will return around the globe. While planning for the future, it became clear that investing in the growth of our U.S. offerings would be the best way for us to connect millions of people to the life-changing power of outdoor adventures.
Clashes between Afghan government forces and the Taliban continue around the Afghan city of Ghazni on August 11, a day after Taliban militants stormed its center, officials said.

Interior Ministry spokesman Najib Danish said 25 security forces and a local reporter have been killed since the assault began on Ghazni on August 9.

Danish also said that more than 150 Taliban have been killed in the battles.

He said despite the clashes, "the situation is under control and there isn't any serious threat."

Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanesh told RFE/RLs Radio Free Afghanistan that Ghazni, some 150 kilometers southeast of Kabul, was under complete control of the security forces.But he saidclearance operations were continuing.

A spokesman for U.S. forces in Afghanistan also described the fight for the city as a clearance operation, with sporadic clashes between security forces and insurgents.

"The fact remains that the Taliban are unable to seize terrain and unable to match the Afghan security forces or our enablement, retreating once [they were] directly and decisively engaged," Lieutenant Colonel Martin O'Donnell was quoted as saying on August 11.

The attack on Ghazni was the latest in a series of attempts by the Taliban to capture urban centers.

A U.S.-led coalition drove the Taliban from power after Al-Qaeda militants -- whose leaders were being sheltered in Afghanistan -- carried out the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

But the Western-backed government has been struggling to fend off the Taliban and other militants since the withdrawal of most NATO troops in 2014.

In May, the Taliban attacked the western city of Farah. After a day of intense fighting, Afghan commandos and U.S. air strikes drove the group to the outskirts of the city.

Taliban leaders have ignored an offer by the government of direct peace negotiations.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan, AP, AFP, dpa, and Reuters
Romanian authorities say 440 people including two dozen riot police have received medical treatment after an antigovernment protest turned violent.

The Bucharest-Ilfov Emergency Service said on August 11 that of those, 65 people including nine riot police were taken to the hospital.

The antigovernment protest in Bucharest on August 10 drew tens of thousands Romanians from abroad and local residents who demanded the government resign over moves to change laws that critics say would make it harder to prosecute corruption.

It turned violent after riot police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse protesters. Some demonstrators lobbed rocks, bottles, and smoke bombs at riot police.

President Klaus Iohannis, a critic of the left-wing government, condemned "the brutal intervention of riot police."

"I firmly condemn riot police's brutal intervention, strongly disproportionate to the actions of the majority of people in the square," he said on his Facebook page.

"The Interior Ministry must explain urgently the way it handled tonight's events."

But Iohannis also suggested that protesters who sought to break through police lines guarding Bucharest's government buildings and who threw rocks and stones at the police, injuring some officers, also deserved some blame.

"Any form of violence is unacceptable," he said.

The demonstrators, many of whom live abroad and returned for the rally, had demanded that the left-wing government resign and that early elections be called.

Protesters around Bucharests Victoriei Square waved Romanian and European Union flags, shouting "Justice, not corruption!"

Media estimated the crowd at 30,000-80,000 in Bucharest, with tens of thousands more demonstrating in other cities. No official figures were available.

Other Romanian cities that took part in the protests included Cluj, Brasov, Sibiu, Timisoara, and Galati.

The demonstrations in Bucharest turned violent late on August 10 as riot police used tear gas and water cannons to disperse what the police said were "provocateurs" who joined the rallies.

Some protesters attempted to force their way through security lines guarding the government building. Others threw bottles and stones at police.

Video footage posted on social media show police beating some nonviolent protesters holding their hands up.

More than 400 people required medical assistance, the emergency intervention agency ISU said, including 10 riot police injured by protesters.

There were also several arrests outside the seat of government in the capital.

The rallies had featured thousands of Romanian expatriates returning from their homes abroad.

Some of the estimated 3 million Romanians living abroad say they left because of corruption, low wages, and lack of opportunities. A campaign calling for the protest was launched on Facebook.

After winning power in 2016, the Social Democrats (PSD) attempted to decriminalize several corruption offenses through an emergency decree, leading to thousands of Romanians taking to the streets in protest and forcing the party to back down.

Iohannis, the European Commission, and the U.S. State Department criticized the proposed changes to judicial legislation, saying they could derail the rule of law.

Iohannis has been at loggerheads with the PSD, accusing it of attempting to weaken the fight against corruption, putting pressure on the judicial system, and of implementing bad fiscal policies.

Iohannis in July signed a decree to remove the popular chief anticorruption prosecutor from her post.

He praised Chief Prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi for her efforts and said he was forced to sign the decree after being ordered to do so by the Constitutional Court.

Under Kovesi's leadership, corruption conviction rates rose sharply in one of the EU's most corruption-plagued members.

The push to oust her was criticized by the European Commission and the Council of Europe.

With reporting by RFE/RLs Moldovan Service, AP, DW, AFP, Reuters, and Romania-Insider
A top Iranian constitutional body has approved measures passed by parliament to bring the country more into line with international anti-money-laundering norms.

The Guardians Council, which vets legislation passed by parliament, gave its approval to the legal amendments on combating the funding of terrorism, the bodys spokesman, Abbas Ali Kadkhodaei, was quoted as saying by Iranian state media.

The amendment bill on combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) is not in contradiction with the countrys constitution and Shari'a laws, Khadkhodaei told journalists on August 11.

The move comes amid efforts by Iran to attract foreign investment despite the reimposition of U.S sanctions following a May decision by U.S. President Donald Trump to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal.

The world's financial-crimes watchdog, the intergovernmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF), said in June that Iran has until October to implement reforms or face consequences.

The government of Iranian President Hassan Rohani has introduced several pieces of legislation aimed at addressing FATFs concerns, hoping the body will remove the country from its blacklist.

Hard-liners in the parliament have expressed concern that adhering to FATF standards could hamper the countrys financial support for groups such as Lebanons Hizballah, which has been designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in June that parliament should pass domestic laws to combat money laundering and counter terrorism rather than working to comply with international standards.

Based on reporting by Reuters, IRNA, and Mehr
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) says its forces have killed 10 militants in a Kurdish region near the border with Iraq.

In a statement carried by Irans state news agency IRNA on August 11, the IRGC said the 10 belonged to a well-equipped terrorist group and that several other militants were wounded in the clashes late on August 10.

The IRGC did not say whether its forces suffered casualties.

The IRGC said it had confiscated a remarkable quantity of arms, ammunition, and communications equipment.

The fighting took place near the mainly Kurdish town of Oshnavieh.

The area has witnessed occasional clashes between Iranian forces and Kurdish separatists, as well as Islamic State-linked militants.

In July, there were at least two clashes in the mountainous border area, in which at least 10 IRGC forces and three militants were killed.

Based on reporting by Reuters and AP
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has approved a request by the judiciary to set up special courts to deal with financial crimes.

Iranian media quoted Khamenei as saying in a brief statement issued on August 11 that punishments for those accused of economic corruption should be "carried out swiftly and justly."

New Islamic revolutionary courts will be directed to impose maximum sentences on those "disrupting and corrupting the economy," Judiciary head Sadegh Amoli Larijani had proposed in a letter to Khamenei.

The request by the judiciary said the courts should be eligible to try all suspects, including "official and military" people. The sentences can include the death penalty.

The decision comes amid a plunging national currency that has lost about half of its value in past weeks following a decision in May by U.S. President Donald Trump to leave the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and reimpose tough sanctions.

Irans central bank and the judiciary have blamed "enemies" for the fall of the currency.

The judiciary said last month that 29people have been detained for "disturbing" the nation's economy and its "money and currency systems.

Based on reporting by AP, Reuters, and IRNA
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says no meetings are planned with U.S. officials, including U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

Asked about the likelihood of such a such meeting, possibly on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly, Zarif told the semiofficial Tasnim news agency that no such meeting is planned.

Iranian President Hassan Rohani dismissed a U.S. call for talks without preconditions on August 6, hours before Washington moved to reimpose sanctions in-line with U.S. President Donald Trump's decision to pull out of a 2015 agreement over Iran's nuclear program.

"About the recent offer by Trump, our official position has been announced both by the president [Rohani] and myself. The Americans lack honesty," Zarif was quoted as saying by Tasnim on August 11.

In a statement on August 6, Trump repeated his longstanding position that the 2015 accord which provided Tehran with relief from sanctions in return for curbs on its nuclear program was a horrible, one-sided deal."

The president pulled the United States out of the landmark agreement in May, saying Iran was not living up to the spirit of the accord, and vowed to reimpose economic sanctions that were lifted under the deal.

Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters
Romanian authorities say 440 people including two dozen riot police have received medical treatment after an antigovernment protest turned violent. The protest in Bucharest on August 10 drew tens of thousands Romanians from abroad and local residents who demanded the government resign over moves to change laws that critics say would make it harder to prosecute corruption. It turned violent after riot police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse protesters. Some demonstrators lobbed rocks, bottles, and smoke bombs at riot police.
Tennessee, like most states, has wrestled with how to fund public education, especially in a quickly shifting education landscape. The Tennessee Constitution recognizes the inherent value of education, and the General Assembly is required to provide for the maintenance, support, and eligibility standards of a system of free public schools. We have needed to revise our K12 ... (click for more)

We in the South know that, compared to the rest of America, our women are prettier, our dogs are smarter, our whiskey is tastier, our voices are softer, and our hearts are kinder. We also know that our brand of college football is so superior and exquisite that to watch the game in any other region borders on sacrilege. That established, the gridiron gods have smiled because there ... (click for more)
Thousands of Romanians have staged another antigovernment protest in the capital, a day after violence was reported at a previous demonstration.

Demonstrators, including some carrying Romanian flags, gathered on August 11 around a central square in Bucharest.

Romanian authorities say 440 people including two dozen riot police have received medical treatment after an August 10 antigovernment protest turned violent.

The Bucharest-Ilfov Emergency Service said on August 11 that of those, 65 people including nine riot police were taken to the hospital.

The antigovernment protest in Bucharest on August 10 drew tens of thousands Romanians from abroad and local residents who demanded the government resign over moves to change laws that critics say would make it harder to prosecute corruption.

It turned violent after riot police fired tear gas and water cannons to disperse protesters. Some demonstrators lobbed rocks, bottles, and smoke bombs at riot police.

President Klaus Iohannis, a critic of the left-wing government, condemned "the brutal intervention of riot police."

"I firmly condemn riot police's brutal intervention, strongly disproportionate to the actions of the majority of people in the square," he said on his Facebook page.

"The Interior Ministry must explain urgently the way it handled tonight's events."

But Iohannis also suggested that protesters who sought to break through police lines guarding Bucharest's government buildings and who threw rocks and stones at the police, injuring some officers, also deserved some blame.

"Any form of violence is unacceptable," he said.

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, whose country currently holds the EU rotating presidency, criticized the clashes, during which a cameraman for Austria's state TV broadcaster was hurt.

"We strongly condemn the violent clashes in Bucharest where numerous demonstrators and journalists were injured. We expect full explanations," Kurz said on Twitter.

"Freedom of expression and, related to that, freedom of the press are basic freedoms of the EU, which we clearly recognize and which must be unconditionally protected."

The demonstrators, many of whom live abroad and returned for the rally, had demanded that the left-wing government resign and that early elections be called.

Protesters around Bucharests Victoriei Square waved Romanian and European Union flags, shouting "Justice, not corruption!"

Local media estimated the crowd at 30,000-80,000 in Bucharest, with tens of thousands more demonstrating in other cities. No official figures were available.

Other Romanian cities that took part in the protests included Cluj, Brasov, Sibiu, Timisoara, and Galati.

The rallies had featured thousands of Romanian expatriates returning from their homes abroad.Some of the estimated 3 million Romanians living abroad say they left because of corruption, low wages, and lack of opportunities. A campaign calling for the protest was launched on Facebook.

After winning power in 2016, the Social Democrats (PSD) attempted to decriminalize several corruption offenses through an emergency decree, leading to thousands of Romanians taking to the streets in protest and forcing the party to back down.

Iohannis, the European Commission, and the U.S. State Department criticized the proposed changes to judicial legislation, saying they could derail the rule of law.

Iohannis has been at loggerheads with the PSD, accusing it of attempting to weaken the fight against corruption, putting pressure on the judicial system, and of implementing bad fiscal policies.

Iohannis in July signed a decree to remove the popular chief anticorruption prosecutor from her post.

He praised Chief Prosecutor Laura Codruta Koevesi for her efforts and said he was forced to sign the decree after being ordered to do so by the Constitutional Court.

Under Koevesi's leadership, corruption conviction rates rose sharply in one of the EU's most corruption-plagued members.

The push to oust her was criticized by the European Commission and the Council of Europe.

With reporting by RFE/RLs Moldovan Service, AP, DW, AFP, Reuters, and Romania-Insider
Taliban and Uzbek officials say the head of the Talibans political office in Qatar traveled to Uzbekistan last week where he led a delegation for talks with senior officials from Uzbekistans Foreign Ministry.

The talks focused on a range of issues, including the withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan and Uzbek development projects in Afghanistan, a Taliban official said in a statement to RFE/RLs Radio Mashaal.

The Afghan peace process, withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan, and restoration of peace were also brought under discussion, the Taliban statement said.

The statement said Taliban political chief Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai represented the militant group in the four-day talks that, according to the Taliban, included meetings with Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov as well as its special representative to Afghanistan, Ismatilla Irgashev.

The Taliban delegation stayed in Uzbekistan from August 6-10, the statement said.

The Uzbek Foreign Ministry's website offered a two-line announcement on the visit saying "the sides exchanged views on prospects of the peace process in Afghanistan."

There was no immediate reaction from Afghan officials.

The Afghan government has been struggling to fend off the Taliban and other militant groups since the withdrawal of most NATO troops in 2014.

The Taliban has ignored an offer by the government for direct peace negotiations.

Based on reporting by RFE/RLs Radio Mashaal and AP
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has repeated calls for Turks to sell dollars and euros to support the national currency, which has dropped sharply in value due to concerns over the economy and deteriorating relations with the United States.

Speaking to supporters on August 11 in the northeastern Turkish town of Unye, Erdogan also said it was a pity the United States was choosing Andrew Brunson -- a U.S. pastor on trial in Turkey on terrorism charges -- over its strategic NATO ally, Ankara.

U.S. President Donald Trump has demanded the pastor's release, the most pressing of several disagreements between Washington and Ankara.

On August 10, Trump announced he had authorized the doubling of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Turkey.

Brunson, who has been held since 2016, faces up to 35 years in prison on charges of allegedly aiding Kurdish separatists and a group that Erdogan blames for a failed 2016 coup attempt against him.

The sanction and tariff threats have led to a near-collapse of the Turkish lira -- which tumbled 19 percent on August 10 alone -- and forced Ankara into cost-cutting steps to stabilize the economy.

Based on reporting by AFP and Reuters
A United Nations human rights panel says that an estimated 1 million ethnic Uyghurs in China are being held in "counterextremism centers," with millions more forced into reeducation camps, turning China's far-western Uyghur region into "something that resembles a massive internment camp."

Gay McDougall, vice chairwoman of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, on August 10 said that most of the detained Uyghurs and Muslim minorities in the western Xinjiang autonomous region have never been properly charged with a crime or tried in court.

"We are deeply concerned at the many numerous and credible reports that we have received that in the name of combating religious extremism and maintaining social stability [in China] has changed the [Uyghur] autonomous region into something that resembles a massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy, a sort of 'no rights zone,'" she said.

The numbers McDougall gave appeared to come from the Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders. Other rights groups have given lower figures.

China has said that Xinjiang faces a serious threat from Islamist militants who plot attacks and stir up tensions between the mostly Muslim Uyghur minority and the ethnic Han Chinese majority.

Chinese delegation leader Yu Jianhua highlighted the economic progress he said Beijing has brought to the region.

Based on reporting by AP, dpa, and Reuters
Pictured from left to right: Kim Hanson, Co-President of GFWC South County Womens Club; Michaela Johnson, from The Rhode Show, and Emcee of the Book & Author Luncheon; Nancy DeNuccio, Co-Chair of the Book & Author Luncheon; Mary Grace Varnum, Co-President of the South County Womens Club; and Joann Johnson.
Saturday, August 11, 2018 at 10:28AM

Credit: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

In a move that might dissuade people from going Premium, Spotify is trying out a new feature in Australia that will let free users skip both audio and video ads as many times as they like. The music streaming service told AdAge that they think this move will result in better targeted ads. Spotify reasons that people will likely just skip ads they dont care about and by doing so, will give them feedback on what ads to send their way. Danielle Lee, global head of partner solutions at Spotify, likens this to the Discover Weekly playlist but for ads and Spotify says advertisers will not pay for skipped ads. The feature is currently being tested now but the company has plans to launch it globally. Were not sure how this would bode well though for Premium users who specifically pay so that they can avoid ads.
Efforts to mitigate water-quality issues throughout Lee County continue under the leadership of the Lee Board of County Commissioners with county staff, contracted vendors and several state entities, including the Florida Department of Environmental Protection, the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission and the Florida Department of Health.

Board actions:

The Board at its regularly scheduled Aug. 7 meeting:

Voted unanimously to ask for federal resources. The Boards resolution urges President Trump to recognize a major disaster exists in Lee County because of the high concentration and prolonged presence of harmful red tide in the Gulf of Mexico and harmful blue-green algal blooms in the Caloosahatchee River and surrounding waters.

Heard from mayors and representatives the countys six municipalities, who adopted their own State of Local Emergency.

Extended the existing county State of Local Emergency for blue-green algae and issued a second State of Local Emergency for red tide.

The Board at its Aug. 21 meeting is anticipated to approve several agenda items that will use Tourist Development Tax reserve funds for beach cleanup and marketing (see below under Coastal update).

Waterway update (blue-green algae):

The county has also created a test program to remove the blue-green algae from some of its most impacted waterways using a $700,000 grant from the state Department of Environmental Protection. It will remove, process, treat and dispose of harmful algae blooms from select test sites in unincorporated Lee County and affected municipalities, most notably Cape Coral. Lee County has mobilized AECOM, one of the nations largest construction and engineering firms with expertise in environmental cleanup, under a state contract for emergency cleanup deployments.

This week:

Crews today (Friday) continued to work near the Clipper Bay condos in Cape Coral, north of Cape Coral Bridge and just east of Del Prado Boulevard.

The amount of slurry pulled from Lee County waterways to date totals at an estimated 17 tankers at 5,000 gallons each for a total of 85,000 gallons.

Recovered material will begin processing for disposal this weekend. The material will be processed at the site of the North Lee County Reverse Osmosis Plant.

The algae/water mix collected is tested to assist and verify treatment methods being deployed to meet state-imposed water-quality standards.

This is a pilot program. County staff is in contact daily with the state DEP and the contractor. We continue to refine the process and evaluate the results.

Coastal update (red tide and red-drift algae):

Lee County Parks & Recreation staff has been cleaning county beaches, parks and boat ramps affected by the red tide fish kill. The county has hired CrowderGulf, a debris-removal contractor, to assist in cleaning the beaches and shorelines, using both on-land and boat operations.

Areas cleaned on land this past week included:

Boca Grande

Sanibel Causeway islands

Fort Myers Beach (including Access 40 north to Crescent Beach, Lynn Hall Park and Bowditch Point Park)

Bonita Beach

Areas cleaned by boat this week included:

Captiva Island bayside (South Seas to Tween Waters)

Upper Captiva / Safety Harbor canal

Pine Islands southern canals in St. James City

Public fish waste Dumpsters remain in place until further notice.

Note: The City of Sanibel, Town of Fort Myers Beach and Captiva Erosion Prevention District continue their clean-up efforts in their areas.

The Lee County Tourist Development Council met Thursday. Actions taken include votes on the following recommendations to the Board to approve:

Funding necessary to cover emergency beach clean-up expenses through the end of fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

Up to $1 million for a marketing campaign to launch after current conditions improve.

Purchase of two Surf Rake ($61,000 each) machines for beach and shoreline cleanup.

Note: All requests would be funded from existing tourist tax funds.

Additional updates:

Tallahassee representatives of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission met with Lee Countys senior leadership team Wednesday to discuss red tide and blue-green algae.

The Lee County Visitor & Convention Bureau participated in a statewide conference call Thursday with Visit Florida, the Florida Department of Health, Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission and MOTE Marine Laboratory and Aquarium regarding the red tide bloom affecting six counties along the Gulf of Mexico.

VISIT FLORIDA is working with county tourism industry partners, state agencies and other stakeholders to mitigate the red tides effects from a visitor perspective, and will communicate with visitors when the beaches are clear and back to normal. In addition, VISIT FLORIDA presented an action plan to ensure our partners, stakeholders and consumers are armed with updated information as we work together to manage and minimize the impacts of red tide.

Website:

www.leegov.com/waterqualityinfo

Source: Lee County government
Japanese tourism to Mexico increases mostly to Cancun, Riviera Maya

Cancun, Q.R.  Although Mexico and Japan compete for global tourist positions, Mexicos tourism minister says that Japan has become an important market for Mexico.

Mexicos tourism minister Enrique de la Madrid, says that Japan is the most important Asian market for tourism in Mexico noting We received between 115,000 and 120,000 Japanese tourists last year, which represented 18 percent more than in 2016.

From January to May of this year, Mexico has already received 50,500 visitors from the Asian country, six percent more than the same period last year.

Toshiyuki Shiga, president of the Mexico-Japan Economic Committee, recalled that the diplomatic, cultural, economic and friendly relationship with Mexico is very solid.

He pointed out that the tourism sector is the best example of the economic relations between the two countries, explaining that over the last 10 years, the number of Japanese people visiting Mexico has increased by 80 percent, especially in the destinations of Cancun and the archaeological sites and towns in Riviera Maya.

Enrique de la Madrid said that both countries have goals, which if reached, would place them fifth globally, a position they both compete for adding But it is not something we compete for personally. It is the mutual desire to make tourism one of the main engines of our economies.

He recognized the work of the airlines ANA and Aeromexico, who have direct flights between Mexico City and Beijing. Japan has a very aggressive strategy to become a tourist power, said De la Madrid.

He said Japan intends to reach 40 million visitors by 2020, however, by the end of 2018 Mexico will have reached 41 million.

By 2030, the goal for Japan is 60 million, the same figure that Mexico should reach during that year.
Dr. Dharamvira Gandhi

(By Niel Bhalinder Singh Saini): Dr. Dharamvira Gandhi, Member Parliament Patiala while speaking in the monsoon session, called upon the Indian Parliament to consider Internal Autonomy for Punjab within the Indian Union. Dr. Dharamvira drew the attention of the Parliament to the worsening economic and social condition of Punjab as witnessed in farmers suicides and young men in twenties and thirties daily dying due to drug menace.

Indian Parliament to consider Internal Autonomy for Punjab within the Indian Union

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Dr. Gandhi expressed deep disappointment at the fact that a Punjab which once was the most prosperous state of India and had the highest Per Capita income, has fallen on such bad times that it has failed in its duty to provide health to its people and education to its youngsters. With agriculture failing to sustain the farmers and little industrial growth, unemployment and migration of youth has become rampant.

Dr. Gandhi expressed deep disappointment

Drawing attention of the Parliament to the huge debt of more than 2 lac crores where debt servicing is to the tune of 25,000 crores per year the state is barely hand to mouth with no development activity or social welfare measures for its suffering peoples. Member Parliament from Patiala reminded that nation that Punjab which was in forefront of freedom struggle, with huge sacrifices, was divested of its rights over its waters and other resources.

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Punjab worked hard on green revolution to provide food security to the nation

He further added that Punjab worked hard on green revolution to provide food security to the nation at the cost of its soil, underground water and environment, thus falling prey to many dreadful diseases and desertification. Dharamvira demanded that the only solution now available to people of Punjab is to have Internal Autonomy where it could manage its affairs well for the welfare of its own people.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh

The Centre assured the Kerala government of all possible help in rescue and relief operations in the wake of rains and floods, which so far have claimed 26 lives in the state. The assurance was given to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who will also undertake an aerial survey of the state's flood affected areas on Sunday. "Spoke to Kerala CM Shri Pinarayi Vijayan and discussed the prevailing flood situation in the state. I have assured all possible assistance from the Centre to the state government.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan

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The relief and rescue ops are going on. MHA is closely monitoring the flood situation," Singh tweeted. The home minister will undertake a survey of the flood affected areas in Kerala on Sunday, a Home Ministry spokesperson said. Fourteen National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams are being deployed in the rain-battered state for rescue operations, a spokesman of the force said. Each team has about 45 personnel. The South-West monsoon has been vigorous over Kerala, resulting in heavy rains in various parts of the state for the last two days.

NDRF

So far, 26 people have been killed, including 11 due to landslides in high-range Idukki yesterday. Due to heavy rains in various parts of Kerala, two more shutters of the Cheruthoni Dam, part of the Idukki reservoir, were opened as the water level touched 2,401 feet. For the first time in the last 26 years, a shutter of the Cheruthoni dam was opened yesterday and two more were opened at 7 am.

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I have assured all possible assistance from the Centre to the state government

The full reservoir level is 2,403 feet and storage capacity is 69,268 Mcft and storage percentage is 97.61 per cent. With water levels rising in various dams and reaching almost maximum capacity, shutters of at least 22 reservoirs in the state have been opened to drain out excess water.
Rahul Gandhi

Citing security concerns, Osmania University declined permission for Congress chief Rahul Gandhi's proposed meeting with students on its campus during his visit to the state on August 13 and 14. University Registrar Ch Gopal Reddy said they declined permission as they had no mechanism to provide security to the congress leader.However, they might review the decision if local police or any other government agency such as the special protection group (SPG) assures the university of Gandhi's security, he said.

University Registrar Ch Gopal Reddy

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"We declined the permission on security grounds. Since he (Rahul Gandhi) is a person under 'Z' plus category security cover, we will not be able to provide security for him. Some students are opposing his visit while some welcome him. It may also lead to tension during his visit. So we told them (group of students) about our inability to provide enough security for his visit," Reddy told PTI. Telangana Congress leaders had earlier said Gandhi would address students at the campus during his visit.

N Uttam Kumar Reddy

Asked about the proposed meeting at the University, Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee president N Uttam Kumar Reddy said university students had invited Gandhi. They applied to the university vice-chancellor and police for permission and the matter was under consideration, he had earlier said. He alleged that some senior leaders of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) did not want Gandhi to visit the university. The University is said to be the hotbed of the separate Telangana agitation.
Men respond to their spouse's illness just as much as women do and as a result are better caregivers in later life than previous research suggests, according to a new Oxford University collaboration.

The study, published in Journals of Gerontology, Series B, is good news for our increasingly stretched adult care services, which have become more reliant on patients' family and spouses for support. Conducted with peers from the University of Pennsylvania, the research sits in contrast to previous studies on spousal caregiving, which found that female caregivers tend to be more responsive. However, the new results reveal that men are just as responsive to a partner's illness, as women.

Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel Study, the research carried out by Dr Langner of Oxford University and Professor Frank Furstenberg of the University of Pennsylvania, focused on 538 couples in Germany with an average age of 69, where one of them had developed the need for spousal care, between 2001-2015, and looked at how caregivers adjusted their hours in response to the new care need: whether directly responding to their physical needs or performing errands and housework.

The findings show that men increased their care hours as much as women did, resulting in similar levels of care once their partner became ill. These similarities were particularly pronounced when a spouse was deemed severely ill, when there was little to no difference in the level of care given.

Perhaps surprisingly, when their spouse is severely ill, men also increase the time they spend on housework and errands, more than women. However, at lower levels of spousal care need -- when a spouse is only slightly unwell, women still spend more time doing housework and errands than men -- because they already did more housework and errands prior to the disease onset.

There were also significant differences in levels of care given, for couples where the spouse was only unofficially seen to be 'in need of care'. However, these differences disappeared in homes where no other household help was provided, when regardless of gender, male or female, spouses stepped up to care for each other.

Dr Laura Langner, Research Fellow at Nuffield College, Oxford and ESRC Future Research Leader, said: 'Our results suggest that gender differences in spousal caregiving in old age are not as pronounced as previously thought. Past studies had numerous limitations, which we could overcome with our data.

'We found that, unlike many previous studies on caregiving in later life -- male caregivers were just as responsive towards their partner's onset of illness as female caregivers. This stands in sharp contrast the division of caregiving (i.e. childcare) and housework in mid-life. There could be a number of reasons for this, but a key factor may be that in later life many people retire and no longer have the responsibility of work, so are able to focus on other priorities -- that their spouse may have been doing already'.

Discussing the potential future implications of the research for patients and services, she adds: 'People are living longer, meaning that we have an increasingly dependent aging population and we face an elderly care cost problem. Reforms are likely to continue reducing more expensive institutionalised care, and increase cheaper home care. With the gender gap in life expectancy closing, and children becoming less available to care for their parents, it is likely that many more men will be called upon to care for their partners. But, our findings at least suggest that women won't have to worry that their partners are not up to the job of caring for them, should they need to.'

The team intend to build on the findings by applying the research approach to other countries and assessing how the results compare.
The Securities and Exchange Commission filed insider trading charges on August 8, 2018, against Congressman Christopher Collins, the U.S. Representative for New Yorks 27th Congressional District, his son, Cameron Collins, and a third individual, Stephen Zarsky. In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York announced related criminal charges.

Christopher Collins, who served as an independent director of an Australian biotech company, Innate Immunotherapeutics Ltd., is charged with tipping Cameron Collins after receiving confidential information about negative clinical trial results for Innates multiple sclerosis drug. Cameron Collins and his girlfriends father, Stephen Zarsky, are charged with trading and tipping others on the basis of the material, nonpublic information.

The SECs complaint alleges that Christopher Collins learned of the negative clinical trial results on the evening of June 22, 2017 in an email from Innates CEO to the board of directors, which stated that the CEO had extremely bad news indicating that drug trial results pretty clearly indicate clinical failure. The SEC alleges that Christopher Collins replied to the CEOs email within minutes, expressing his surprise at the results, and then called and spoke to his son minutes later.

According to the SECs complaint, later that same evening, Cameron Collins drove to Stephen Zarskys home and tipped him. The next morning, almost two hours prior to the market opening, Cameron Collins and Zarsky allegedly entered orders to sell Innate shares, which were executed just after the market opened. Over the next two trading days, Cameron Collins allegedly sold a total of nearly 1.4 million Innate shares. According to the complaint, a few hours after the last of these sales, Innate publicly announced the negative results of the clinical trial. The companys stock price then plummeted by more than 92 percent. Through their sales, Cameron Collins and Zarsky avoided losses of more than $700,000. The complaint also alleges that they contacted other friends and family members who also sold Innate shares in advance of the negative announcement.

The SECs complaint, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, charges Christopher Collins, Cameron Collins, and Stephen Zarsky with violating Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 as well as Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933. The complaint seeks disgorgement of ill-gotten gains plus interest, penalties, and permanent injunctions. It also seeks an officer and director bar against Christopher Collins.

The SEC also announced settled charges against Lauren Zarsky, Cameron Collins girlfriend, and her mother, Dorothy Zarsky, for trading on the basis of material, nonpublic information. Lauren Zarsky and Dorothy Zarsky consented to the entry of final judgments without admitting or denying the charges that they sold their shares of Innate based on tips they received from Cameron Collins. Lauren Zarsky agreed to disgorge her ill-gotten gains of $19,440, plus prejudgment interest of $839, and pay a civil penalty of $19,440. Dorothy Zarsky agreed to disgorge her ill-gotten gains of $22,600, plus prejudgment interest of $975, and pay a civil penalty of $22,600. The final judgments, which require court approval, would enjoin Lauren Zarsky and Dorothy Zarsky from violating Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder and Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933. Lauren Zarsky, a CPA, has also agreed to be suspended from appearing or practicing before the SEC as an accountant, which includes not participating in the financial reporting or audits of public companies. The SECs order permits Zarsky to apply for reinstatement after five years.

The SECs investigation has been conducted by William Max Hathaway, Colby A. Steele, Patrick McCluskey, and Carolyn M. Welshhans in the Enforcement Divisions Market Abuse Unit. The case has been supervised by Joseph G. Sansone, Chief of the Market Abuse Unit, and Robert A. Cohen. The litigation will be led by Melissa Armstrong and Cheryl Crumpton. The SEC appreciates the assistance of the U.S. Attorneys Office for the Southern District of New York and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
On August 2, 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Plandai Biotechnology, Inc., a penny stock company, and its Chairman and CEO with making illegal, unregistered sales of stock to unaccredited investors and with failing to adequately disclose that proceeds from sales of Plandai stock were sent to a private company owned by the CEO.

According to the SEC's complaint, filed in federal district court for the Southern District of New York, from November 2013 through January 2015, Plandai, acting through Roger Duffield, made unregistered offers and sales of Plandai common stock to at least two unaccredited and unsophisticated investors. In addition, although the shares in question had been newly issued and sold directly to the investors by Plandai, Duffield allegedly instructed the investors to wire their payments to a private company that he owned and controlled. Plandai's annual report for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2014, misleadingly stated that Plandai had received cash in exchange for the shares, and did not disclose that the proceeds from the sale were actually sent to Duffield's private company. Although Duffield, through his private company, ultimately paid various Plandai business expenses in amounts approximating the payments that had been received from the investors, Plandai did not accurately and fairly record these transactions in its books and records. Plandai's failure to properly record these transactions allegedly resulted from its lack of a sufficient system of internal accounting controls.

The SEC's complaint charges Plandai and Duffield with violating the registration provisions of Sections 5(a) and 5(c) of the Securities Act of 1933. The complaint also charges Plandai with violating, and Duffield aiding and abetting violations of, the reporting, books and records, and internal accounting controls provisions of and Sections 13(a), 13(b)(2)(A) and (B) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rules 12b-20 and 13a-1 thereunder. The SEC seeks permanent injunctions and financial penalties against both defendants.

The SEC's investigation was conducted by Drew M. Dorman, Jason Litow, and Kevin Gershfeld. The case was supervised by Yuri B. Zelinsky and Antonia Chion. The SEC's litigation will be led by John Bowers and Paul Kisslinger and supervised by Cheryl Crumpton. The SEC appreciates the assistance of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority.
For more than a half-century, a select group of California prisoners has worked shoulder-to-shoulder with wildland firefighters battling the states deadliest blazes.

More than 3,000 inmate volunteer firefighters are performing the back-straining labor, according to Cal Fire. Theyre clearing brush and digging lines for the Ferguson, Carr and Mendocino Complex fires, which have torched a combined 577,000 acres of California land in another historic season.

Its a tough gig and the pay is paltry  an average of $2 per day and $1 per hour when theyre fighting an active fire. But officials say its a coveted position among low-level offenders, male and female.

Its not something that theyre forced to do, said Cal Fire spokeswoman Lynne Tolmachoff. The work cuts time off sentences, pays more than other inmate jobs, and provides many with a sense of purpose, officials say.

With a lot of the guys weve spoken to, they feel like theyre giving back to the state, helping in that way, she said.

The practice has been blasted by some progressives like former Richmond Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, who calls the work tantamount to slave labor.

At this point, theyre being paid $1 an hour for fighting these ferocious fires  thats outrageous, she said, adding that the inmates deserve a reasonable wage for risking their lives.

But perhaps the most hotly disputed issue is the inmates narrow pathway to industry work after release. This year, a new parolee training program will help former inmates become more competitive in the field, but many advocates say the measure doesnt go far enough.

The problem lies with emergency medical technician licenses, said Katherine Katcher, founder and executive director of the re-entry advocacy group Root & Rebound in Oakland.

Most people leaving prison return to urban areas, Katcher said, and want to work for their local departments. But those agencies also require that people get an EMT certification  a condition that Katcher said blocks many ex-offenders.

This year, the state budget includes $26.6 million to create a firefighter training and certification program for 80 ex-offenders annually. The 18-month program will take place at the Ventura Conservation Camp, and include life skills training and comprehensive firefighter courses and certification.

To be eligible, participants must have served with Cal Fire while incarcerated. The center is expected to have its first cohort this fall.

Participants who successfully complete the program will be qualified to apply for entry-level firefighting jobs with local, state and federal firefighting agencies, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation said in a statement.

Its a very exciting program, said Corrections and Rehabilitation spokeswoman Vicky Waters. We think its such an innovate thing, and were really looking forward to seeing what the impact is.

Cal Fire officials have said the volunteer crews save the state about $100 million annually and can account for up to 40 percent of the men and women battling the flames.

The crews are chosen from a pool of applicants with minimum custody status, or those who have exhibited good behavior in prison. There are automatic disqualifiers. Inmates who have committed arson, murder or sex offenses, those with active warrants, a history of escape attempts or medical issues, or those with high-profile cases, among others, are ineligible.

Waters said the inmates are treated no differently than Cal Fire firefighters. They receive the same training and perform the same duties, working on fire lines, clearing flood channels and storm drains and cutting brush to reduce fire danger.

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.

They are wildland firefighters and theyre trained as such, Waters said.

Inmates have walked away from fire camps, but theyre always captured within 48 hours, Waters said. This mostly happens when its not active fire season, she said, and theres a strong disincentive: Those caught escaping are sent back to the brick-and-mortar facility and are disqualified from the program.

The work can be dangerous, too. An inmate firefighter died during a training hike in April, and by late 2017 there had been five inmate fatalities since the program began in the 1940s.

Katcher said while she supports the parolee program, its impact is limited and does nothing to change the regulatory framework throughout the state.

Root & Rebound and other civil rights organizations pushed for a bill this year that would have mandated a framework for considering ex-offenders for the certifications, potentially opening the career path to more of them.

It was defining what was appropriate and fair consideration rather than blanket denials, Katcher said. Nowhere did the bill say that the (criminal) records would not be assessed.

AB2293 was turned into a study bill this year, but Katcher said she will be pushing for similar legislation in 2019.

This (parolee) program is going to impact 80 people in 18 months, compared to the 4,000 people who are actually fighting fires  those people will have no relief through this bill, Katcher said. I still dont understand why it had to be an either-or situation.

Megan Cassidy is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @meganrcassidy
The Paul Manafort trial is giving us a chance to witness the effectiveness of Robert Muellers team, and Im a bit worried at what were seeing.

The prosecutions star witness, former Manafort associate Rick Gates, has been established as a thief, an embezzler, a liar and a manipulator.

And thats all according to the prosecution. The defense managed to add that he was a serial adulterer.

Granted, the Mueller team will probably back up Gates with bank records and receipts for the many luxury items Manafort purchased with his ill-gotten gains. Prosecutors will also have hard-copy records of wire transfers and other money laundering.

But this still isnt the first impression you want to make if youre eventually going to go one on one with the president of the United States.

Trump and his operatives are going to jump all over Muellers use of a criminal-turned-snitch as proof that the special counsel is acting like a renegade D.A. in a crime movie.

Team Trump is already saying Mueller doesnt have a real case against the president and is trying to lure our congenital liar in chief into a perjury trap.

Look for Trump and his lawyers to point to the Manafort case  and the prosecutions reliance on a dodgy snitch  as they bob, weave and duck a presidential sit-down with the special counsel.

A suggestion: If President Trump continues to attack the media as the enemy of the people, lets do what Dr. King did with the buses in Montgomery.

Boycott him. No reporter or news organization should show up for the White House briefings or for his appearances. Little of value comes out of them anyway.

All the reporters assigned to the White House could be reassigned to cover the federal agencies where the action really is  the ones that are implementing Trumps avalanche of executive orders.

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders would probably welcome it. No longer would she have to embarrass herself by being asked about facts and having to respond with Trumps fantasies.

Driving in style: I see the Sacramento Bee found out about the little-known Department of Motor Vehicles office in Sacramento that caters to lawmakers, their staffs and other officials who cant be bothered with the lines the rest of the public has to endure.

What the Bee didnt report is that back in the day, when a lawmaker was too busy to make the trip, a DMV clerk would make an office call.

Movie time: The Spy Who Dumped Me. You may want to dump this movie. There are some funny exchanges between Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon, but the antics get old after 15 minutes. Unfortunately, theres still an hour and 45 minutes to go.

A proper send-off: Former Johns Grill owner Gus Konstins memorial service was a San Francisco historical tour de force. Every generation that lived, worked or patrolled here in the last several decades was represented.

Former Mayor Frank Jordan and current Mayor London Breed were on hand, as was the biggest contingent of police this side of a Starbucks.

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.

Gus knew he was dying, and the priest said hed asked him whether he had any requests for the service.

Gus replied, Make it short.

It wasnt, nor should it have been.

My favorite story was told by Breed. She recalled having lunch years ago with Gus when she launched her first campaign for supervisor. She was blown away when he cut her a $250 check  it was the biggest contribution shed ever received.

Then she showed it to Gus son John, who took one look and said, What a cheapskate! It was supposed to be for twice that.

Smart move: Former state Senate President John Burton came up to me at the Transbay Transit Center ribbon-cutting with a novel suggestion on how our friend Rep. Maxine Waters should respond to President Trumps comment that she has an extraordinarily low IQ.

Have her publicly challenge him to an IQ contest  and offer to spot him 20 points.

Want to sound off? Email: wbrown@sfchronicle.com
For the first time, San Franciscos Outside Lands music festival  which runs through Sunday  has added a sprawling marijuana exhibit called Grass Lands to its usual lineup of music, food, beer and comedy.

The expansion follows the legalization of recreational marijuana in California and is the first such feature at a major national festival, transforming a wooded area on the southern edge of Golden Gate Park. Among the features is a smell wall with various marijuana scents, and vendors include Kiva Confections, which infuses chocolate with cannabis; Barbary Coast, a marijuana lounge in the South of Market neighborhood; and Flow Kana, a Mendocino weed distributor.

Highlighting the uncertain legal status of marijuana, though, is this irony: You can smell, but you cant buy. Regulations forbid the sale of cannabis on the festival site, so vendors can only promote their brands and take signups for deliveries.

Nonetheless, festivalgoers, vendors and industry experts said Grass Lands is a major step for the marijuana industry, which has expansion opportunities but also faces big challenges.

Its definitely a significant moment for the industry, said Emily Paxhia, managing director at Poseidon Investment Management, a San Francisco firm that focuses on cannabis.

Its still cool, even without it (being sold), said Mia Andreas, who was attending the music festival. She added that learning about the products and the forest setting of Grass Lands made it compelling.

Roland Li / The Chronicle

Kristi Knoblich, co-founder of Kiva Confecctions, said the company is using the space to promote its products and test new flavors, which include eucalyptus, apricot and pineapple-flavored mints. Despite being unable to sell products  Kiva gave out out samples of its candy without cannabis added  Knoblich said the event is an unprecedented opportunity to reach a new audience and normalize marijuana. Kiva, which expects 10,000 visitors at Grass Lands this weekend, paid Outside Lands to be a sponsor and participate in the festival because of the marketing value.

I think it will become more like beer and alcohol. It will be normalized and thought of in a way thats more culturally acceptable, Knoblich said.

The industry is grappling with new regulations and a state sales tax of as much as 45 percent, which may push more customers to buy weed illegally to avoid the taxes, she said.

Kivas products cost $3 to $27 before taxes.

The taxes are far and away one of the most burdensome aspects, Paxhia said. Its driving the prices up and making it really hard to sell in the legal market.

Another challenge for marijuana companies is that major banks wont do business with them because of legal risks. Thats forced most companies to use cash, though Kiva has found a credit union to work with.

They also are banned from advertising through tech giants like Facebook and Google, Paxhia said.

She hopes the event will promote the medicinal value of the drug.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

I hope it debunks some of the stereotypes  (that) people that consume cannabis are lazy or unmotivated or its a gateway drug, she said.

Roland Li / The Chronicle

If laws change, vendors could potentially sell marijuana at Grass Lands, said Ricardo Baca, a former Denver Post weed editor who now runs a cannabis public relations firm called Grasslands (no relation to Outside Lands).

Im really confident it will be successful, Baca said. San Francisco just has the right attitude toward cannabis. Lawmakers understand this substance has been generally misunderstood. There are a lot worse recreational substances out there.

San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Aidin Vaziri contributed to this report.

Roland Li is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: roland.li@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rolandlisf
Readers had lots of questions and comments about my July 28 column on Global Entry and TSA PreCheck, which let you take shortcuts at the airport.

Global Entry lets you bypass the sometimes long lines at passport control when you return to a large U.S. airport from a foreign trip. PreCheck gets you into a sometimes shorter line for security when you depart from most U.S. airports and requires less removal of clothes and belongings.

Some readers find these services a good deal, others not so much.

I'm not sure I appreciate your encouraging enrollment in Global Entry, Frances Taylor wrote. I returned to SFO (Terminal A) from Iceland to find a line at the Global Entry kiosks. There are only six kiosks and three were nonfunctional, so there was a wait of about 10 minutes. All of my previous experiences of re-entry (including at JFK Airport in New York) were as yours  many kiosks, most free.

For my previous column, I visited Terminal G at SFO, which has 12 Global Entry kiosks and no wait to use them. Terminal A, however, has only six kiosks. Frank Falcon, a spokesman for U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said thats because Terminal A gets more tourists, who are less likely to have Global Entry, than Terminal G, which gets more business travelers.

I got complaints from several PreCheck members with metal body parts, including Robert Freinkel, who wrote, My wife has two hip replacements and I have now acquired a partial knee replacement. She has a total pat-down and scan every time we fly. While this helps put us at the front of the line, it is totally nonsensical to subject fliers with joint replacements to this type of screening every time. This delays security for us by up to 30 minutes.

PreCheck members typically pass through a metal detector, but if the alarm goes off for any reason, including implants, they receive additional screening, including a pat-down, TSA spokeswoman Carrie Harmon said. The best way to avoid this is to ask the TSA officer at the document-checking station to go through the body scanner instead, if the airport has one (SFO does in some PreCheck lanes). This reduces the likelihood of additional screening, while allowing the passenger to enjoy the other PreCheck benefits  such as leaving your shoes, belt and light sweater on and your (allowable) liquids, laptops and computers in your luggage.

My original column said you could leave your liquids in your luggage, but Robie Bushnell thought that might lead people to believe PreCheck passengers can bring any amount of liquids aboard. To clarify, all passengers, in their carry-on luggage, are limited to a quart-size bag of liquids, aerosols, gels, creams and pastes, each no more than 3.4 ounces. The only difference is that PreCheck passengers dont have to put theirs in the bin.

Luis Zurinaga asked, How do you go about getting Global Entry if one already has PreCheck? Is there a consideration or different process?

Unfortunately there is no shortcut or discount. If you enroll in Global Entry ($100 for five years), you automatically get PreCheck benefits at no additional cost. But the reverse is not true.

If you already have PreCheck ($85 for five years), you still have to go through the entire Global Entry enrollment process (including an in-person interview) and pay $100.

Each program will give you a different known-traveler number. You can enter either number into a new or existing reservation with a participating airline to get PreCheck benefits.

Air Quality Tracker Check levels down to the neighborhood Ratings for the Bay Area and California, updated every 10 minutes

TSA and customs officials have been working closely to assess, plan, and discuss collaboration efforts to gain efficiencies between the two programs, a TSA spokeswoman said.

If youre not sure which trusted traveler program is best for you, see www.dhs.gov/trusted-traveler-programs.

Finally, Rod Pinto asks, What is the procedure for renewing Global Entry after the five-year expiration date? Does one again have to make an on-site appointment?

Maybe, maybe not. Upon renewal, you may be required to interview again. This is determined by the vetting center and the determination cannot be appealed, Customs and Border Patrol says on its website. For more on renewals, see https://bit.ly/2KLsXem.

Kathleen Pender is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Email: kpender@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @kathpender
Dick Brown isnt sure how much longer he will be a volunteer firefighter. At 66 years old, he doesnt douse flames much anymore, instead driving the water tender to blazes in rural Calaveras County.

But hes worried about who will replace him. And who will replace thousands of volunteer firefighters in local departments across the state in the coming years as the number of residents willing to do the job dwindles and fires burn at record-breaking pace.

Hard numbers charting the decline of the volunteer firefighting force in California are hard to come by. But in rural county after rural county  including those hit hard by this summers wildfires  local officials are sounding the alarm.

They say current volunteers are aging out of the job, and that with extensive training requirements having been put in place in recent years, fewer recruits are stepping up. That puts residents at risk in counties where there isnt enough money in the budget for a large, full-time force.

Typically, volunteer fire departments exist because there isnt money for a paid one, said Brown, who is the California director for the National Volunteer Fire Council, an industry group representing nonpaid firefighters.

One-third of the 28,000 firefighters in California are volunteers, most of them in rural areas. Across the country, where 70 percent of firefighters are volunteers, departments say they are struggling to recruit new people for a dangerous job. The number of volunteer firefighters in the United States fell by 10 percent over the past three decades, even as the number of emergency calls tripled, according to the National Fire Protection Association, an industry trade group whose figures are often cited by the federal government.

Its becoming more difficult to recruit and retain volunteers because its a huge demand on your time, Brown said. People are busier. They commute longer, work more. Their kids are in sports.

But, if not for volunteers, who will do it? Brown said.

Paul Kitagaki Jr. / Sacramento Bee

Thats the question fire officials are asking as deadly fires rage from one end of California to the other, with 17 states and Australia sending crews to help.

There were 17 major wildfires burning in California at the end of last week, including the Mendocino Complex, which at more than 300,000 acres is the largest wildfire in state history. Five firefighters have died battling the blazes, making it the most lethal year for firefighters in the state since 2008.

The new normal is we are busier than weve ever been, said Cliff Allen, president of Cal Fire Local 2881, the union that represents paid firefighters with the state Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Demand is higher and staffing levels arent meeting those needs.

Allen advocates for paid union firefighting jobs. But he said that in rural parts of the state, volunteers fill a critical need.

Its a necessary evil, so to speak, he said.

Every minute counts after a fire breaks out  a quick response can be the difference between a small brushfire and a blaze that burns for weeks. That means a rural community with a depleted volunteer firefighting force is at greater risk, said Fire Chief Kim Zagaris of the state Office of Emergency Services.

We have hired more paid people, but we have less people in rural areas stepping up, Zagaris said.

In Tuolumne County, impacted by the Ferguson Fire that has been raging for nearly a month, county officials and grand juries have been warning for years about the dwindling number of volunteer firefighters. The county contracts with Cal Fire for some services, but its local departments are primarily staffed with volunteers.

The fire warden for Tuolumne County told a grand jury last year that 250 to 300 volunteers are needed for stations to be adequately staffed. There were just 36 volunteer firefighters before an aggressive marketing campaign brought the total to 70 last year.

Under state law, volunteer firefighters have to undergo the same certification training as paid firefighters. Depending on their responsibilities, volunteers may have a long list of qualifications to satisfy.

We just dont have the number of people interested in doing it, said Tuolumne County Supervisor John Gray. Im 70. When I was a young man, you could show up and help put out a fire. Now you have to be trained and certified. In a rural county like Tuolumne, the majority of our population is over 50, and you cant find people who can do the physical tasks.

Departments around the state offer various incentives to join, such as a nominal stipend to help defray out-of-pocket costs. Some provide a retirement account depending on how long a person volunteers. In some cases, a retiree can receive $1,200 a month for life if they volunteered for 20 years.

The National Fire Protection Association says that nationwide, there were 1.2 million firefighters in 2015. Of those, 815,000 were volunteers, down from 897,750 in 1984.

There has been an uptick since 2011, when the ranks of volunteers bottomed out at 756,000. But the number isnt keeping up with the increased demand, said Curt Floyd of the fire protection association.

This is a trend that is a concern, Floyd said. Some communities have had to hire (paid firefighters). There is a cost involved, and some communities cant bear that weight.

Nearly every fire department in Lake County, center of the Mendocino Complex fire, and Shasta County, which has been devastated by the Carr Fire, is feeling the strain.

The Lake County Fire Protection District in Clearlake considers its volunteer roster filled when it has 55 volunteers. Lately the total has been around 20. The Lakeport Fire Department also has 20 volunteers, about 15 short of the ideal.

The Shasta County Fire Department is authorized to deploy 385 volunteers. Last month, when the Carr Fire burned into Redding, destroying more than 1,000 homes, the department had 149 volunteers. Among the homes burned were those of several volunteer firefighters, who continued to work, said Julia Haven, a staff services analyst for Cal Fire/Shasta County Fire.

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Lakeport Fire Chief Doug Hutchison said his departments force has dwindled as training standards became more rigorous and the economy improved.

People just dont have the time to volunteer like they used to, he said. Were actually pretty fortunate  weve had 10 new volunteers in the last year.

He added, We did some outreach at high schools, to seniors, to get people interested in this as a career. Volunteering is a first step to it.

Mandi Huff, office clerk for South Lake County Fire Protection in Middletown, said the agency has about 30 volunteers on the books, but only about 16 show up consistently.

Huff said volunteer staffing plummeted after the 2015 Valley Fire. The blaze charred more than 76,000 acres, killed four people and destroyed more than 1,200 homes.

People who were volunteer firefighters had to focus on themselves and moved away to start over, Huff said. Weve been trying to rebuild the number ever since.

Some local officials brought their concerns to Sacramento this year, to push for a bill that would have offered volunteer firefighters a tax credit of up to $1,500 a year for expenses they incur.

The measure, AB2727, would have cost the state up to $30 million a year in lost revenue, according to the bills analysis. It stalled in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.

This isnt a partisan issue  this is a save-my-house issue, said Shasta County Supervisor Les Baugh, who testified before a legislative committee. We have a need for this everywhere.

The bills author, Assemblyman Heath Flora, R-Ripon (San Joaquin County), said he will introduce another incentive bill in January in hopes of drawing more interest in volunteer firefighting. Flora, who became a volunteer firefighter in Modesto in 2000, said hes watched as some agencies struggled to recruit new people.

Thats a public safety issue, he said. People call 911 and they expect someone to show up and help them in their time of need.

It was a 911 call that originally sparked Browns interest in volunteering in western Calaveras County. He said he called for help 29 years ago when his 10-year-old daughter was kicked in the face by her horse at their Valley Springs home.

Two dozen firefighters showed up to help. Each one was a volunteer. He still feels he owes the fire department that helped treat his daughters broken nose and concussion.

When I get to the point where I feel I paid my debt, I will retire, Brown said.

Melody Gutierrez and Megan Cassidy are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com, megan.cassidy@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez, @megancassidy
The busy, noisy corner where street folks knew they could find Lindsay McCollum and Eddie Tate crashed out in their wooden box is empty now, the makeshift shanty long ago torn down and forgotten. That awful night nearly two years ago when the two were shot to death in that box is mostly forgotten, too.

McCollums mother is desperately trying to change that.

Carrie McCollum is offering a $5,000 reward for any tip that leads to a conviction of whoever killed her daughter, and a family friend has tacked up posters in the Mission District announcing the reward, prompting memories of the killings for those who were around at the time.

Id forgotten about that terrible thing, but it all came back when I saw that poster, said Ronald Ernest, 51, who lives a couple of blocks away from 16th and Shotwell streets, where the pair were gunned down. I remember people were saying back then, a few weeks before they got shot, that the guy (Tate) was trouble, and they wouldnt be surprised if he got killed. And then that happened.

He shrugged. What a waste of life. So sad. So frightening.

Carrie McCollum said shes gotten a dozen responses in the week or so since the posters went up at the corner where her daughter and Tate were killed and on posts for several blocks around. Its been a rough primer on what happens when you toss out an email address  LindsayMccollumsMom@gmail.com  to the public, asking anyone to send in tips.

One was an incoherent lunatic, others were crazies of other kinds, McCollum said with a sigh. But one nice woman said how sorry she was that Lindsay had died. And one seemed like he might be useful. I dont know. Well see as more come in.

San Francisco police said they have no new leads to report in the case. But they hope that information they are trying to develop  and anything that comes from McCollums reward posting  will help them move forward.

Lea Suzuki / The Chronicle

Little is known about what happened Dec. 18, 2016, at 8:46 p.m. except this: Two men flung open the door to the tiny, wheeled box that Lindsay McCollum, 27, and Tate, 51, lived in, shot them, and ran away. The pair managed to stagger outside their shanty and died in the street as horrified witnesses looked on.

No suspects, or even persons of interest, have been named. No motive has been determined.

Before they moved to that corner, McCollum, Tate and their rolling box  hand-built by Tate  were fixtures in the massive homeless camp that had risen that winter along Division Street as the locally held Super Bowl approached. When that camp was swept away by police and street cleaners in March, a month after the big game, McCollum and Tate dragged their box to 16th and Shotwell with a few pals and set up a new camp.

Few other homeless people, if any, knew McCollums last name before she died. Tate was known only by his nickname, Tennessee  the state where he was born and raised, and where his mother still lives. She had his remains shipped back there, according to funeral home records, but she could not be reached for comment.

On the streets, the two were respected as a quiet couple who helped out. Tate, a rangy man with a steely gaze, had been a wandering handyman for many years; he still had wrenches, hacksaws and screwdrivers for fixing bicycles, toaster ovens and practically anything else folks living in vehicles or tents needed. The willowy McCollum gave advice on how to dress.

As long as I have my tools and my home, Ill be fine, Tate told a Chronicle reporter before the big sweep in March. If the cops leave us alone, well just stay out of their way and try to help the other people around here. Were a community.

Like many hard-core homeless people, though, it wasnt that simple.

Tate lamented that he struggled with drugs, and so did McCollum. She had a heroin habit that friends and relatives said she developed at 19 after being prescribed OxyContin for car-crash injuries, and had been unsuccessful in several recovery attempts.

Life in the box that Tate nailed together from plywood and 2-by-4s was a squalid comedown from McCollums middle-class upbringing in the Central Valley with an engineer mother and a photographer father  but it had been coming for some time. Shed been homeless off and on for three years when she died.

By the time she hit bottom, she had two big pistols tattooed on her chest and a scrappy survival instinct. But she still dressed better than anyone else in the camps, sporting clean, neat dresses and stylish boots  and had a polite air that struck other street people as charming.

As a child, she excelled at playing piano, and she loved animals so much that many assumed she would become a veterinarian.

My daughter was a person who was loved, she was beautiful and intelligent, Carrie McCollum said. Drug addiction can happen to any family, and it is terrible. But my daughter was capable of so much more than the way she was living.

She added that Tennessee was not her boyfriend, and I expect she found her way to him because he was a nice guy and loved by many people. He was a safe guy, and had a flat-screen TV in his box. Lindsay had a tendency to seek out the best situation she could find out there.

McCollum was living in Patterson (Stanislaus County) at the time of the slayings and moved to Tennessee with her remaining family afterward. The family is putting up $5,000 of its own cash for the reward, she said, because after two years, its very frustrating that nobody is in jail.

I hope enough time has gone by now that someone can feel a little bit of courage and come forward, she said. There can be justice. Someone saw this happen.

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

Family friend Evangelina Salazar, whose brother dated Lindsay McCollum as a teenager, taped up the first salvo of posters in late July, and by the end of this week she planned to have taped up another 150.

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Lindsay was a fun kid, spunky and funny, said Salazar, 36, who lives in Oakland. If the house was quiet and she came in, the house was then full of noise. She brought life and laughter into the place.

The later years of her life revolved around her addiction  which I blame on OxyContin and the (awful) health care system  but I never knew her to have anything to do with gangs or anything that would get her shot like that. She was a good person.

Bobby Waller, a 54-year-old street friend of the pair, was lounging in his tent not far away when he heard the shots. He rushed over as Tate and McCollum bled to death in the street.

Waller is still homeless, sleeping under tarps in the same neighborhood. Memories surged when he saw the posters. They made him tear up.

A lot of people said a lot of things after that night, and you just have to think that it was all about money or dope, he said. They either owed somebody or confronted somebody. I tried to forget about it  you just think about surviving day to day. Its rough out here. If I was a woman, I would carry bear spray, I tell you.

He prefers to recall his friends as he knew them. Before that night.

The two of them were cool, wouldnt get in your face, he said. Tennessee was no joke, you didnt mess with him. He was very intelligent. And her  she was very pretty and nice. She always dressed good, and the first time I saw her, she looked so good I didnt think she was homeless.

City patrols have been keeping the Mission District empty of large camps since spring, so these days nobody lives on the corner where the pair died. Traffic still roars by with monotonous regularity, and with all the people striding through on their way to homes or work, its hard to picture the homeless camp that used to cover the sidewalk. But last Saturday, eerily, one man was sleeping across the street in a rolling wooden box similar to McCollum and Tates.

A nearby worker, Marcus Canela, 32, said it had been a long time since hed thought about the shootings.

All I remember is I thought the people living at that camp were on real hard times  and then, with that terrible thing, it got harder, Canela said, shaking his head somberly.

Its a tragic story. Most of us around here didnt really know who those poor people were. Nobody knows why it happened. Maybe they never will.

San Francisco Chronicle staff writer Evan Sernoffsky contributed to this report.

Kevin Fagan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kfagan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KevinChron
Mark Wineman / Getty Images

Two men and a woman were injured late Friday in what appears to be a targeted, gang-related shooting in Richmond, authorities said.

Officers responded to the ShotSpotter Activation system about 10 p.m. on the 1000 block of 13th Street where they found two gunshot victims, said Lt. Felix Tan, a spokesman for the Richmond Police Department.
For years, Silicon Valley has been promising us a beautiful technological future.

The summer of 2018 appears to be the moment when everyone woke up to the fact that the future is here  and its ugly, mean and decidedly unfuturistic.

Consider the case of Alex Jones. Jones is a notorious right-wing conspiracy theorist, probably most famous for spreading the false claim that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting was a hoax. Jones has amassed millions of followers across his social media platforms. The grieving families who lost their children in that massacre have been inundated with death threats and harassment from Jones fans.

For years, social media users have begged major tech companies to stop offering Jones the opportunity to spread lies and misinformation.

For years, these companies declined to do so. They cited techno-utopian platitudes like their free speech principles and the necessary neutrality of their platforms when it came to content.

The bottom fell out of those arguments this week. The Sandy Hook families dragged Jones into court to hold him accountable, and online activists did the same with the platforms that have kept him in business.

Early this week, Apple, Facebook, Spotify and YouTube all booted Jones either completely or partially from their services. The companies said Jones violated their guidelines by posting hate speech, but its not hard to imagine that the cascade of cancellations had something to do with Jones legal problems and a whole lot of public pressure.

One platforms response to the firestorm stood out. On Tuesday, Aug. 7, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey tweeted that his company hadnt banned Jones because he hasnt violated our rules. Dorsey added that Twitter couldnt succumb and simply react to outside pressure, because it needed to remain a service based on straightforward principles we enforce (and evolve) impartially regardless of political viewpoints.

This is classic tech utopian thinking: earnest, high-minded and irresponsible.

It wouldve gone over brilliantly in 2010. It wouldve been more grating, but still acceptable, in 2016.

In the summer of 2018, it did not go over well at all.

Twitter users responded by creating and amplifying a nasty conspiracy theory about Dorsey. Activists announced a day of Twitter silence on Dec. 14, the anniversary of the Sandy Hook school shooting. Journalists jumped all over Dorsey for the audacity of his suggestion that it was their job to clean up after bad actors like Jones used social media platforms to spread lies.

Dorsey had to walk back his pontificating about principles and fairness  Definitely not happy with where our policies are, he tweeted on Wednesday, Aug. 8.

Hes not the only one.

Silicon Valley has to face the fact that it has failed to live up to its own rhetoric. For years, social media platforms have fought the idea that they share some responsibility for their role in public discourse.

Now, regular users who bought into those myths are starting to grow exhausted with the reality that what we have are not democratic platforms but an endless barrage of bad actors, trolls, bots, bigotry, misinformation and manipulation. Im seeing users increasingly respond in two different ways:

1) Giving up on social media altogether: Facebook cant give away accounts anymore. (After a long losing streak on privacy and election security, new users are no longer signing up for Facebook in the U.S. and Canada. The company lost users in Europe last quarter.) Snap, which makes the Snapchat app, used to be a teen sensation. Now its bleeding users.

Finding old tweets with racist jokes, offensive comments or off-the-cuff stupidity has become a decent way for people to get fired  so one of the hottest trends this summer is deleting ones entire Twitter history.

Tech CEOs can talk all they want about the platforms theyre trying to create. People are looking around at the platforms we have right now and leaving them  and their stock prices  in the dust.

2) Demanding that social media behave like any other business: What Jones and Dorseys stories show us this week is a simple thing: People know that social media companies are businesses, and theyd like them to act that way.

Businesses dissociate themselves from bad actors. They do so because bad actors are ... bad for business. They dont need to check evolving rulebooks. They dont say they cant achieve scalable results. They listen to the customers who are paying their bills.

The interesting thing about social media is that we, the users, have been the product.

Social media companies seem to have gotten so busy trying to sell our attention to advertisers that they forgot that were still, well, consumers  capable of leaving, protesting or boycotting when the environment gets too toxic.

In the summer of 2018, Big Techs got to learn that lesson for the future, or get left behind in the past.

Caille Millner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cmillner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @caillemillner
President Trump said Friday that he would double the rate of tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from Turkey, inflicting additional pain on President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose country is in the midst of an economic crisis.

Trumps abrupt and unilateral action came amid worsening relations with Turkey, which has continued to detain an American pastor on espionage charges despite the United States insistence that he be released.

In a Twitter post Friday morning, Trump said the United States would bump Turkeys aluminum tariffs to 20 percent and steel tariffs to 50 percent and cited the countrys deteriorating currency, the Turkish lira. Our relations with Turkey are not good at this time! he said.

While Trumps decision is primarily aimed at punishing Turkey over its failure to return the American pastor, Andrew Brunson, the decision spooked markets and raised the possibility he could similarly raise tariffs on other trading partners that have seen their currencies fall, most notably China. Trump already has threatened to increase tariff rates on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods to 25 percent from 10 percent, in part because of the sharp decline in its currency.

Trumps mention of the currency suggested he is concerned that a rapid depreciation in Turkeys currency has essentially mitigated the effect of his tariffs. Since a weaker currency makes it less expensive for countries to export their goods, the tariffs carry less punch. By doubling the rate, Trumps levies will continue to hurt Turkish metal exporters.

Ruhsar Pekcan, the Turkish minister of trade, said Turkey was deeply disappointed by the decision to double the tariffs. The tariffs were groundless when they were announced in June, and remain so now, Pekcan said.

The effects of this ill-advised action by the U.S. administration will not only impact Turkey, but will prove detrimental to American companies and workers as well, he added.

In his tendency to mix trade goals with other political concerns, Trump has deviated from decades of government practice. He suggested earlier this year that he might soften his trade approach to China in return for Beijings help in dealing with the North Korean regime, and repeatedly tied Mexican trade practices with immigration issues.

Jim Tankersley, Ana Swanson and Matt Phillips are New York Times writers.
In reaction to President Trumps policy of separating families at the border, students and labor leaders at the University of California are urging UC President Janet Napolitano to sever contracts with dozens of companies doing business with the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

UC labor leaders say theyve found 25 companies  from uniform suppliers to weapons manufacturers  that do hundreds of millions of dollars of business with the university, and with ICE.

We want UC to remove resources that are critical to ICEs enforcement of zero tolerance and take a stand for immigrants and people of color, said John de los Angeles, spokesman for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, AFSCME Local 3299, which represents thousands of workers across UC campuses and medical centers.

UC spent at least $281 million on contractors who also do business with ICE, according to an AFSCME report on UC vendor contracts from 2011 to 2015, the last year of contracts available online.

The weapons manufacturer on the list is General Dynamics, whose subsidiary, General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems, provides ICE with its ammunition, the union says.

The company doesnt sell ammunition to UC. It administers writing tests for 16,000 freshmen and applicants through a different subsidiary, General Dynamics Information Technology.

General Dynamics Information Technology also employs staff who support and facilitate the forced separation of children and parents seeking asylum at the U.S. border, says a June letter to Napolitano from the executive board of the UC chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, asking her to cancel UCs contract with the company, worth about $2.6 million.

Napolitano declined the unions request.

As secretary of homeland security under President Barack Obama, Napolitano presided over what was then a record number of deportations, primarily focused on people with a criminal record. She is also the author of DACA  Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals  a federal law that in 2012 began allowing undocumented immigrants who arrived in the United States as children to study and work without threat of deportation, and which Trump has tried to dismantle.

Napolitano told the faculty union that she has publicly opposed the Trump administrations zero tolerance policy separating immigrant children from their parents, which I find to be cruel and morally unjustified.

Even so, she said, General Dynamics Information Technology has stated publicly that it has no role in the family separation policy, and plays no role in the construction or operation of detention facilities.

Mia McIver, who teaches writing at UCLA and is president of the UC teachers federation, said Napolitano is making a mistake. She pointed to the website of General Dynamics Information Techology, in which it describes its connection to the miliary, though not to ICE.

Another business on the unions list is Deloitte, a business consultant that UC paid nearly $72 million in the five years examined by AFSCME.

UC also spent $64 million with Aramark, a uniform and laundry service, in that time, and $32 million with ABA, which leases parking facilities. Both also do business with ICE.

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A spokeswoman for Napolitano said the UC president was on vacation and could not be reached for comment Friday.

Napolitanos unwillingness, so far, to divest from the companies irritated AFSCME President Kathryn Lybarger, who issued a statement asking whether Napolitano will stand up to Trumps deportation force, or enrich it? This is a fundamental question of leadership and morality, and she cant have it both ways.

Stephanie Luna, an incoming junior at UC Berkeley majoring in ethnic studies, is one of several students who spoke at last months regents meeting and asked the UC governing board to divest from the companies.

As the daughter of immigrants, and having known people going through these situations, its devastating, Luna, whose parents are from Mexico, told The Chronicle on Friday.

I dont see how universities can be doing business with companies and contractors that are enabling this, Luna said. Especially when President Napolitano has stated that the university is on the side of the students and their families.

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov
The Berkeley Farmers Market serves as a sort of town square, a relaxed social and commercial hub where chefs and home cooks alike stroll past the tented stands, loading carts full of organic peppers, berries and greens. Neighbors earnestly discuss the economy while a banjo player sings Summertime.

In recent weeks, though, the thrice-weekly gathering has had an infusion of controversy, as Oakland chef-restaurateur Charlie Hallowell returned to the market for the first time since more than 30 employees accused him of sexual harassment. It was a comeback that was stopped short, as community backlash prompted Hallowell to tell The Chronicle that he has decided to give it some more time before he makes the market part of his routine again.

While some farmers welcomed him back, other vendors and chefs were upset at his return to the market  a public place where, several said, he regularly exhibited crude and inappropriate behavior.

It was a well-known, widespread problem for women of all ages, including really young women, whether they were a vendor or a customer, said Dani Gelardi, who worked at the Berkeley Farmers Market from 2009 to 2015, first as a farm stand employee and then as market manager. Nobody was excluded from Charlies lecherous gaze.

Hallowell declined to comment on specific accusations surrounding his past actions at the market, according to his representative, Olga Katsnelson, but market managers have since felt the need to inform him that such behavior would not be tolerated.

Sam Wolson/Special to the Chronicle

Prior to the scandal at his restaurants, which broke in December 2017, Hallowell had been a regular at the market for more than two decades, going back to his days working at the nearby Chez Panisse restaurant. Following the revelations in The Chronicle, he stepped away from day-to-day operations at his three Oakland businesses, Pizzaiolo, Penrose and Boot & Shoe Service; he has since made deals to sell the latter two. In July, he split with his business partner, Richard Weinstein.

Since the #MeToo movement arose last fall, restaurateurs accused of sexual harassment, like Mario Batali and Ken Friedman, have rarely returned to the public eye as they face legal and financial ramifications. For Hallowell, the return to the market was one of the first steps he said he would take before going back to work.

We hope that he has changed, said Rye Muller, a manager at Full Belly Farm in Guinda (Yolo County), adding that Hallowell has been an incredible supporter of organic agriculture in general. Though he welcomed his comeback, Muller called it a tricky road on his end and for customers and clients.

Tim Mueller of Riverdog Farm voiced similar support.

Charlie being back at market is Charlie doing what he does professionally, said Mueller, also in Guinda, who asked Hallowell to come back. Were going to be encountering each other one way or another. Thats just part of being in a community  accepting we all have flaws.

He added, If somebody was accused of being a rapist, I think I would probably feel differently.

That mind-set about Hallowells return is precisely the problem for Christa Chase, the chef at Tartine Manufactory in San Francisco and a former line cook of Hallowells. Chase said Hallowell has made similar statements to her, downplaying the severity of his alleged behavior. Thats why, after hearing that he was at the market in late July, Chase drove to Berkeley to confront him.

Liz Hafalia / The Chronicle

I get there and see him across the market, said Chase, who recalled seeing her former boss holding a bouquet of flowers and getting a hug. It felt like a heros return: Like hes back. Hes healed.

Chase, though, felt Hallowell hadnt demonstrated that he was ready to go back to business as usual. She told him that, in her opinion, he was no longer welcome at the market.

His return to the market also surfaced allegations of his history there. Former workers at the market said he had a reputation for treating women there in a similar way to how dozens of his former employees said he behaved with them: lewd suggestions, lingering hugs and constant comments about their appearance.

His actions, they said, were especially fraught due to the economic relationship between vendors and the prominent local chef.

Over the course of working at the market from 2009 to 2015 for various farms, Iva Dubyak grew increasingly upset by Hallowells remarks. She recounted one specific incident: She was about to eat a strawberry that was sticking partway out of her mouth when he walked by.

He just looked at me and said in a weird suggestive way, Thats a good look for you, said Dubyak. It made me feel really uncomfortable. I felt like he was being really sexually suggestive.

The following week, Dubyak said, she confronted Hallowell about what he said.

It almost felt like they were like prowling grounds for him, she said of the markets. Its a lot of young women who are in their 20s or early 30s who are kind of trapped at their stalls.

Gabrielle Lurie / The Chronicle

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Former market manager Gelardi, now a UC Davis graduate student, said Hallowells behavior toward women was a regular topic of conversation at the market. She said he often leaned over when he saw Gelardi at the market and whispered a vulgar suggestion in her ear.

Ben Feldman, her supervisor at the time and now the policy director for the national organization Farmers Market Coalition, and Martin Bourque, executive director of the Ecology Center, which runs the markets, both said they were not aware of such complaints until recently.

The Ecology Center has been concerned about this and addressing it privately for several months, said Bourque. In a statement, he said the Ecology Center is in the process of developing a code of conduct.

We have informed Charlie Hallowell directly that sexual harassment will not be tolerated, said Bourque. His damaging behavior has caused a ripple effect that has impacted our markets and farmers. We encourage him to reconcile with all aggrieved parties before seeking to re-engage the broader community at the farmers market.

Hallowell told The Chronicle via text that his return was not meant to be an imposition on the market or anyone there. He added that he was not shopping for business purposes; he said he was there as a citizen and mostly to reconnect to the farmers.

Hallowell would not specify when he would return to the market again, or to his restaurants. Some in the market community, like Chase, question whether he should ever come back. Others, like Full Belly Farms Muller, believe that employees with complaints against Hallowell should work them out in court, not at the market.

Unless were going to be in the business of actively shunning people from the community  which might be what some people think is appropriate  then Im not sure what you do, Muller said.

Tara Duggan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: tduggan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @taraduggan
A 29-year-old man stole a Horizon Air passenger plane from Sea-Tac International Airport and took off on Friday night, circling the area for a short time and performing stunts while being chased by military jets before crashing near Tacoma.

The unnamed man flying the twin-engine turboprop engaged in an hour-long back and forth negotiation with air traffic control where he mentioned not intending to land the aircraft, before the fiery crash on Ketron Island in North Pierce County, just south of Tacoma.

Reportedly no passengers or other personnel on board, but firefighters are still combing through the wreckage.

Witnesses report that the employee, who identified himself to authorities as a ground service crew worker, did loops in the air around Pierce County before crashing. The crash started a few small fires in the area, which West Pierce Fire Department upgraded to a two-alarm fire at 10:44 p.m., sending more units to the area.

RELATED: 'This is probably jail time for life, huh': Pilot of stolen plane talks with air traffic controller (audio)

Ed Troyer, Public Information Officer for the Pierce County Sheriff's Department confirmed on Twitter that the pilot of the plane was a "suicidal male. Acting alone." He had been identified by authorities as a resident of Pierce County, though his name has not been released Friday. Troyer said they are "working background on him now." Troyer added they do not believe this to be "a terrorist incident."

"I've got a lot of people that care about me," the man said in audio obtained from Air Traffic Control radio communications. "It's going to disappoint them to hear that I did this. I would like to apologize to each and every one of them. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess. Never knew it, until now."

LISTEN:

Now Playing: This is audio between Sea-Tac air traffic control and the pilot of the stolen Horizon Air plane on Friday, August 10, 2018. This audio has been highly condensed from over a half hour of radio traffic. Video: via Broadcastify

Around 11:30 p.m. Gov. Jay Inslee released a statement saying, "I want to thank the Air National Guard from Washington and Oregon for scrambling jets to keep Washingtonians safe. Those pilots are trained for moments like tonight and showed they are ready and capable."

Sea-Tac Airport was put on ground stop due to the incident, according to Alaska Airlines.

At 9:31 p.m. Sea-Tac Airport confirmed via Twitter that an airline employee conducted an unauthorized takeoff without passengers, and that normal operations had resumed.

Some planes were still being rerouted, however. Flight Alerts reported at 10:32 p.m. that flights from San Francisco, Honolulu, and Los Angeles were being diverted to Portland.

At 11 p.m. Horizon Air Chief Operating Officer Constance von Muehlen shared in a video update that the company believe that the man was a Horizon Air employee.

"Our hearts are with the family of the individual aboard, as well as all our Alaska Air and Horizon Air employees," she said. "We will provide more information as it becomes available."

Alaska Airlines, which operates Horizon Air, initially confirmed reports in a tweet, noting that they were "...aware of the incident involving an unauthorized take-off of a Horizon Air Q400."

Alaska Airlines's tweets also noted that they believed no passengers were on board of the flight, though just after 10 p.m. they said they were still working to confirm there were "no guests or crew on board other than the person operating the plane."

KOMO News reports that a source from Joint-Base Lewis McCord confirmed that two F-15 fighter jets were scrambled to intercept the rogue aircraft, and force the Horizon plane to land. According to the KOMO News, "The source says the military jet made contact with the stolen plane, which then began to nose dive and crashed in North Pierce County."

The Pierce County Sheriff's office was reportedly told that the F-15s made it within "...a few minutes of theft of plane. Pilots kept plane out of harms [sic] way and people on ground safe." Several news outlets report that the two military planes departed from Portland to intercept the aircraft, and were "not involved in the crash."

"Preliminary info is that a mechanic from unknown airlines stole plane," Troyer shared on Twitter. "Was doing stunts in air or lack of flying skills caused crash into Island."

Just before midnight, Troyer announced that the investigation would be handled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI said they also had no reason to suspect that this was an act of terrorism or further pending criminal activity.

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.

RELATED: The latest on the Sea-Tac unauthorized take-off from Associated Press

In earlier Air Traffic Control communications, the suspect asked questions like, "Alright, um, I just kinda want to do a couple of maneuvers to see what it can do before I put her down, you know?" He also said, "I wouldn't know how to land it. I wasn't really planning on landing it."

"Man, I'm sorry about this, I hope this doesn't ruin your day," he said later. "It's a blast, I've played video games before, so I, uh, know what I'm doing a little bit."

At one point the air traffic controller pointed the pilot of the stolen aircraft towards the runway at Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM), to which he responded, "Aw those guys will rough me up if I tried landing there. I think I might mess something up there too. I wouldn't want to do that. Hopefully  oh they probably got anti-aircraft."

"No they don't have any of that stuff, we're just trying to find a place for you to land safely," the controller responded.

Although official accounts were slow to confirm reports of the unauthorized takeoff, many passengers at Sea-Tac took to social media to report that pilots had informed them of the plane theft.

"Halfway down the runway on Alaska airlines out of Seattle and the pilot slams on the brakes and shares we must go back to the gate," one wrote.

"Sitting on the runway at SeaTac, preparing for departure. Before takeoff, the pilot explains someone stole an airplane, and is flying around near Mt. Rainier." another shared on social media, adding, "They've been in contact with the culprit. He doesn't sound confident in his ability to land back at SeaTac. They are grounding all planes and waiting."

The airplane was a Horizon Air Q400, a turboprop, twin engine aircraft with 76 seats. Horizon Air is a division of Alaska Air Group.

Here, the air traffic controller is trying to talk him into landing. pic.twitter.com/OxEe5T6JHJ  Jimmy Thomson (@jwsthomson) August 11, 2018

This story is developing. It will be updated as more information becomes available.
Few corners of the tech industry are as tantalizing or complex as quantum computing. For years, evangelists have promised machines capable of breaking the most impenetrable coded messages, unlocking the secret properties of the physical world and putting supercomputers to shame.

But Rigetti Computing, one of the most prominent and well-funded startups in the field, would just like to lower everyones expectations.

Its challenge: Can it solve even one problem with a quantum computer that a conventional machine cannot? Even if it just meant answering a question more quickly or cheaply than a supercomputer, the team of physicists and mathematicians at the Berkeley startups office would be overjoyed.

So far, no such luck. Your laptop can solve pretty much everything one of the startups quantum computers can do, just as quickly. The conundrum isnt Rigettis alone. Neither IBM nor Google, which boast more powerful quantum computers, have said theyve achieved quantum advantage. The ominous-sounding term refers to the theoretical moment when a quantum computer can do something more effectively than a traditional computer. Its the industrys equivalent of a singularity-esque breakthrough moment but even more nerdy and obscure.

Quantum computing doesnt have the smoking gun, said Chad Rigetti, the companys eponymous founder. If it gets there, the effect will not be subtle.

Rigetti has spent his entire adult life fixated on a still-unrealized computational theory. After earning a doctorate in applied physics from Yale in 2009, he toiled briefly as a researcher in IBMs quantum computing group. He started Rigetti Computing in 2013 at the age of 34.

Rigetti & Co. has come a long way by startup standards. It employs former top researchers from NASA and Raytheon, and from UC Berkeley, Stanford and his alma mater. The company built its own quantum computer, without access to the multibillion-dollar budgets of the other companies investing in this effort. But it does have $119 million, $50 million of which came in a previously unreported venture capital deal late last year. Rigetti chose to keep the investment quiet until now to avoid further heightening expectations. Bloomberg Beta, Bloombergs venture investment arm, is an investor in Rigetti.

Now Rigetti says there may be something to brag about  despite the myriad issues that, as he is quick to point out, could still go wrong. The startup has designed a microchip for quantum computers that would have more than six times as many qubitsthe basic measure of quantum computing horsepower  as Rigettis current machines. That would be more powerful than IBMs 50-qubit computer and more powerful than Googles 72-qubit machine. Rigetti is hoping to build a functioning computer with 128 qubits in the next 12 months. If successful, it just might have a chance of outpacing traditional supercomputers. Were making very fast, or exponential, progress on all these different fronts, said Rigetti. Its all moving toward a supernova moment, and that is quantum advantage.

Quantum computers are, however, far more prone to errors than binary machines. Instead of using electric signals to generate a series of zeros and ones like a conventional computer, they rely on the mechanical behavior of photons, which are packets of microwave energy. The machines require a multilayered refrigeration process that brings quantum chips to a temperature just above absolute zero. By eliminating certain particles and other potential interference, the remaining photons are used to solve computational problems. The true magic of this system is how photons can become entangled and produce different but related results. Scientists only partially understand why it works.

Generally, the more qubits a quantum algorithm involves, the more error prone it is, said James Whitfield, an assistant professor of physics at Dartmouth College. Whitfield says that IBMs quantum computer performs better than Rigettis on his simulations of hydrogen molecules. But a 128-qubit version could change that.

Even if Rigetti succeeds at leapfrogging Google and IBM, the company still doesnt know what the machine would be good for. Researchers have their pet theories: more effective analysis of huge databases, accurate models of hydrogen atoms or advanced artificial intelligence.

My bet is the first demonstration of quantum advantage will come in machine learning, Rigetti said. But some of his employees think modeling chemicals or organic molecules are just as likely first applications.

Fortunately for Rigetti, some companies are already willing to pay for the opportunity to play with the startups computers, though Rigetti isnt disclosing their names. Companies like Pivotal Software, a San Francisco firm whose tools are used by app developers, and OTI Lumionics, a manufacturer of flexible computer displays in Toronto, are also running experiments on Rigettis computers over the cloud. Rigetti declined to say how many customers it has or how much revenue the business generates.

Scott Genin, head of materials discovery at OTI Lumionics, uses a Rigetti computer to research new forms of organic light-emitting diodes for screens. Quantum computers arent the most efficient or cost-effective way to do these experiments, he said, but he wants to familiarize himself with the technology before it hits a possible inflection point. I still simulate almost all the molecules that we design on a super computer cluster, Genin said. I find some quantum computing experts, especially in theoretical fields, have a lot of pessimism about the viability of quantum computers. I do not share their pessimism.

D-Wave Systems, a competing startup, believes quantum advantage is close. While many predict the achievement of quantum advantage is still decades away, we believe its much nearer  perhaps within two years, CEO Vern Brownell said in a statement.

Andrew Bestwick, Rigettis director of engineering, shimmies into a bunny suit before entering the companys laboratory in Fremont. Inside, workers stare through microscopes and wait around for robots to wash off metal wafers. Back in Berkeley, workers tinker with refrigerators used to cool chips to a temperature approaching the lowest possible in the known universe.

A quantum chip doesnt look like much with the naked eye. Through an optical microscope, though, you can see the quantum logic gate that makes everything possible. The team is working on a process of stringing together 16-qubit chips to execute on the 128-qubit design. Essential to this is a new kind of quantum chip that communicates results in three dimensions instead of the current two, which allows Rigetti to fit the chips together like puzzle pieces and turn them into a more powerful computer. What were working on next is something that can be scaled and tiled indefinitely, Bestwick said.

Quantum computing remains very much in the research and development phase. This makes it something of a strange pick for venture capitalists. Andreessen Horowitz, the largest backer of Rigetti, is betting that scientists are much closer to finding a practical use for quantum computers than even many researchers believe. Quantum computing, until recently, has always felt like its the future, but the future 10 years from now, said Vijay Pande, an Andreessen Horowitz partner who sits on Rigettis board. When something is two years out and has the opportunity to so radically change the world, that is what venture investing is all about.

Eric Newcomer is a Bloomberg writer. Email: enewcomer@bloomberg.net
With a new round of weather warnings in place for the weekend, firefighters continued their battle to prevent the deadly wildfires burning in Northern California from growing, officials said Saturday.

The Mendocino Complex  two blazes that together rank as the largest wildfire in California history  surged by more than 12,000 acres overnight to 328,226 acres, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection.

The blaze was 67 percent contained.

Firefighters worked overnight to keep the fire within the Mendocino National Forest. The blaze already has scarred parts of Colusa, Mendocino and Lake counties, Cal Fire officials reported. The northern part of the Ranch Fire, the larger of the two blazes, continued to grow as firefighters were unable to gain access to the flames due to the difficult terrain.

The Ranch Fire has consumed 276,306 acres  17,000 acres more than by Friday  and was 58 percent contained.

Firefighters patrolled the River Fire, the second of the blazes, throughout the night. It remained steady at 48,920 acres and was 92 percent contained. Cal Fire lifted the mandatory evacuation order for all areas south of Mendocino National Forest in Lake County on Friday evening. The forest itself remains closed.

Some evacuations orders were also lifted in Colusa County.

While a large part of Northern California was under a red flag warning through Saturday night given the heat and low humidity, temperatures were expected to drop at least a few degrees to the mid-80s or low 90s Sunday and into the early part of the week, although wind gusts could offset that for firefighters. Temperatures were expected to inch back up closer to triple digits by Wednesday or Thursday, according to the National Weather Service.

In Shasta County, the Carr Fire has burned 190,873 acres and was 57 percent contained, Cal Fire said. Firefighters worked to mop up hot spots and build stronger containment lines around the blaze as conditions threatened to trigger spot fires.

More than 1,077 homes, 22 commercial buildings and 500 other structures have been destroyed in the fire.

On Friday, a vehicle procession honored the latest fatality in the Carr Fire. Andrew Brake, a 40-year-old Cal Fire heavy equipment mechanic from Chico (Butte County), was killed Thursday in a single-car crash on Highway 99 on his way to the blaze, officials said.

Others who have died in the Carr Fire include a Redding firefighter, a contract bulldozer driver, a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. lineman, a woman and her two great-grandchildren, and a man found in his home.

Meanwhile, crews managed to keep the Ferguson Fire near Yosemite Valley from spreading. The blaze has burned 95,544 acres and was 82 percent contained by Saturday, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

In Southern California, a wildfire continued to burn in Riverside and Orange counties. The Holy Fire grew to 22,158 acres and was 36 percent contained by Saturday, according to Cleveland National Forest officials.

Some evacuations in Lake Elsinore (Riverside County) were lifted as crews worked to prevent the blaze from burning more homes.

Sarah Ravani is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: sravani@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @SarRavani
In route news, Alaska Airlines will drop a Midwest route from San Francisco; Southwest hints at Hawaii and begins new service out of Los Angeles and Denver; American will fly a new transpacific route  but only temporarily  in January and adds a pair of domestic routes; Korean plans to add a new U.S. gateway; and Frontier begins code-sharing to Mexico and announces another spate of new routes.

Last fall, Alaska Airlines started service between San Francisco and Indianapolis. And this fall, it will drop that route, effective September 30. "There has been lower than expected demand for these flights and we need to utilize this aircraft to add capacity on other routes," a spokesperson told Travelskills. "This change is another example of how we are looking across the network and making some tough decisions to ensure we are running as efficient of an operation as possible, so we can continue to offer our customers low fares." Alaska will continue to operate its Seattle-Indianapolis service. The SFO-Indianapolis route is also served by United (with it's cleverly numbered Flight 500), and Southwest has nonstop service between Oakland and Indianapolis. Related: Alaska Airlines already cutting back in California.

Southwest made a few more hints this week about its new Hawaii service, revealing details such as its plans to serve meals on flights to and from the mainland. Schedules are expected to be announced in October with flights starts a few weeks later (we predict November timeframe). Flights will have satellite based wi-fi and movies, too. No word on fares, tho. Stay tuned!

Southwest Airlines this week kicked off its newest transcontinental non-stop, with daily service between Los Angeles International and Tampa. The LAX-Tampa route is also served by Delta and Spirit Airlines. And at Denver, Southwest this week started new daily non-stops to Cincinnati.

For 10 days in January, American Airlines' usual Chicago O'Hare-Tokyo Narita non-stop will operate via an intermediate stop in Las Vegas. American said that from January 4 to 14, the daily 787-8 LAS-NRT flight will be marketed by its joint venture partner Japan Airlines to carry passengers to and from the giant Consumer Electronics Show. JAL will continue to offer its own daily non-stops between Chicago and Tokyo during that period.

Meanwhile, American will add a couple of new domestic routes in the months ahead. On November 4, it will launch one daily roundtrip between Dallas/Ft. Worth and Cheyenne, Wyoming, operated by Skywest with a CRJ-200. And on December 22, it will begin one flight a week between its Charlotte hub and New Haven, flown by PSA Airlines with a CRJ-200.

Korean Air is coming to Boston next spring, with plans to begin Boston-Seoul Incheon service five days a week beginning April 12. Korean will use a 787-9 on the route, equipped with six first class suites, 18 lie-flat seats in business class and 245 seats in the main cabin. Korean will operate the route as part of its joint venture partnership with Delta, which recently announced plans to launch its own new service to Seoul from Minneapolis-St. Paul beginning in 2019.

Later this month, Frontier Airlines and Mexican low-cost carrier Volaris will begin a massive program of code-sharing that will put Frontier's code onto 51 routes operated by Volaris and will see the Mexican carrier's code go onto 120 routes operated by Frontier. The new code-sharing will apply to Volaris flights from San Francisco to Mexico City and Guadalajara, and San Jose to Guadalajara, Morelia and Zacatecas, among many others. You can see the full list here.

Meanwhile, Frontier has announced another spate of new domestic routes, mostly starting in mid-November. From Phoenix, Frontier will begin new service to Norfolk, Ft. Myers, Grand Rapids and Madison. From Tucson, it will add service to Denver. At Tampa, Frontier will start flying to Syracuse, Grand Rapids, Portland (Maine), Norfolk, and Greenville, S.C. And at Ft. Myers, it will kick off seasonal service to Albany, Las Vegas, Phoenix., Portland (Maine), Salt Lake City and Syracuse. Most of the new routes will offer two or three flights a week.

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Chris McGinnis is the founder of TravelSkills.com. The author is solely responsible for the content above, and it is used here by permission. You can reach Chris at chris@travelskills.com or on Twitter @cjmcginnis.
Arvonne Fraser, a leading voice on womens issues in Minnesota, nationally and abroad from the early days of second-wave feminism into the 21st century, died Tuesday in Hudson, Wis. She was 92.

Her son, Tom Fraser, confirmed the death.

In Minnesota, Fraser was, among other things, a founder of the Center on Women, Gender and Public Policy at the University of Minnesotas Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs. She ran the political campaigns of her husband, Donald M. Fraser, a former U.S. representative and Minneapolis mayor, and was a political candidate herself, making an unsuccessful run for lieutenant governor in 1986.

Nationally, she helped found or worked with numerous womens groups, and during the administration of President Jimmy Carter she was director of the Office of Women in Development, part of the U.S. Agency for International Development. She also traveled the world as the countrys representative to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

Arvonne convened meetings decades ago with women from throughout the world, Joe Nathan, a colleague who founded another center at the Humphrey School, the now-independent Center for School Change, said by email. They focused both on specific policies and on strategies that could be used to help more women become policymakers themselves. She believed that policies would be far more effective if women helped create them.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., said on Twitter: Some people in politics are all heart and some are all policy and numbers. Arvonne Fraser understood both.

Arvonne Delrae Skelton was born Sept. 1, 1925, in Lamberton, Minn. Her father, Orland, and her mother, Phyllis (DuFrene) Skelton, were farmers.

After graduating from Lamberton High School in 1943, she attended the University of Minnesota, earning a bachelors degree in liberal arts. Working in Hubert H. Humphreys campaign office during his first run for Senate in 1948, she met Don Fraser. After her brief first marriage ended in divorce, they married in 1950.

Fraser ran her husbands campaigns for the Minnesota Senate, where he served from 1954 to 1962, and for the U.S. House of Representatives (1963-79). During that time she also held posts with the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, Minnesotas affiliate of the Democratic Party, including vice chairwoman from 1956 to 1962.

Arriving in Washington in the early 1960s after having been so active in Minnesota, she found the life of the congressional wife a jarring change.

There I sat, she said in an interview with the New York Times for a 1971 article that carried the headline For Some, Being a Congressional Wife Isnt That Glamorous. She wasnt the only one who felt underchallenged.

A lot are unhappy here, she said. They have no life of their own and wonder, Who am I? Am I just somebodys wife? Or is there something more?

She found something more by eschewing the white-glove teas that congressional wives of the period were expected to host and attend, instead plunging into the emerging feminism of the day.

She helped found and held top positions in the Womens Equity Action League, including, from 1972 to 1974, the presidency. She was active in other groups as well.

Her husband was on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, so she was often part of delegations traveling overseas. Again she spurned the traditional role, skipping the sightseeing tours and such arranged for the accompanying wives.

Often I was the lone woman at the post-dinner informal conversations between congressmen and parliamentarians, she wrote in her memoir, Shes No Lady: Politics, Family, and International Feminism (2007).

In 1976 she was a regional coordinator for the Carter campaign, and in 1977, after Carters election, she spent three months as a sort of talent scout, recruiting women for the new administration. She then became coordinator of the Office of Women in Development, a job she held for three years.

After eight terms, her husband ran unsuccessfully for the Senate, then returned to Minnesota and was elected mayor of Minneapolis, a post he held from 1980 through 1993. Fraser remained in Washington for a time, then returned to Minnesota  agreeing to allow Washington friends to stage a farewell party for her only if it would be a fundraiser for womens organizations.

After her return to Minnesota, she became a senior fellow at the Humphrey School. The center she helped found there, according to the university, was the nations first complete teaching, research and outreach center devoted to women and public policy.

Fraser dealt with hardship during her Washington years. In 1966 her daughter Anne, who was 8, was struck by a car in Chevy Chase, Md., and killed. In 1981 another daughter, Lois, committed suicide.

In addition to her husband and her son, Tom, she is survived by another son, John; two daughters, Mary Fraser and Jean Fraser; a sister, Bonnie Skelton; and seven grandchildren.

Tom Fraser said his mother was most proud that she mentored numerous young women and men, encouraging them to consider public service and be politically active. It was a sentiment echoed by Sen. Tina Smith, D-Minn.

Arvonne Fraser inspired many of us  women and men  to go out and fight for what we believed in, no excuses, she said on Twitter.

In a 2008 speech at an event in Wisconsin, Fraser told the crowd that activism can be as simple as a conversation.

Dont underestimate what talking to your friends and neighbors does, she said. Its exactly how elections get won.

Neil Genzlinger is a New York Times writer.
Chattanooga Councilwoman Demetrus Coonrod (District 9) will host a community event on Saturday, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Eastdale Youth & Family Development Center, 1312 Moss Street.

The free event is to bring the community together for an afternoon of fun, food and fellowship.

August is an exciting time for so many families starting off the new school year and new chapters, said Councilwoman Coonrod. I wanted to bring everyone together just to celebrate each other and have fun.
APTOS (BCN)



Authorities seized a large amount of marijuana and dismantled a potentially hazardous drug lab located in a woodsy residential area of Aptos, according to the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office.



Deputies discovered the operation about 11:30 p.m. Thursday, after getting reports of a suspicious vehicle being loaded with bags of marijuana near the 1000 block of Cathedral Drive.



After obtaining a search warrant on Friday, detectives located an extensive butane honey oil operation in a pop-up garage, along with 3,000 pounds of loose marijuana, eight firearms, gun parts and cash. In addition, 25 pounds of processed butane honey oil was found, officials said.



"This was a dangerous drug lab that was set up in a residential neighborhood in a heavily wooded area," Santa Cruz Sheriff Jim Hart said in a news release.



Due to the potential fire hazard of dismantling the lab, a highly trained private company was found to safely dismantle the operation, limiting the risk of fire or explosion, Hart said.



Two Aptos men, ages 24 and 25, have been identified as suspects, but authorities did not release their names.





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The Under 21 Consumption of Alcohol Suppression Team, comprised by officers from several Bay Area law enforcement agencies, has been awarded a $56,823 grant from the California Alcoholic Beverage Control to combat alcohol related criminal activity.



The task force is composed of officers from the San Bruno, Pacifica and South San Francisco police departments.



The goal of the task force is to reduce alcohol-related crimes through enforcement, education and community involvement, San Bruno police Lt. Troy Fry said in a statement released Wednesday.



Grant funds will be used to reduce alcoholic beverage sales to minors and intoxicated patrons, illegal solicitations of alcohol and other criminal activities including the sale and possession of illegal drugs.



The task force is managed by the Pacifica Police Department.





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SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)



Nearly two decades in the making, the Salesforce Transit Center in San Francisco is now open, set to connect thousands of Bay Area residents to the city's downtown area.



Friday morning, several city and state officials joined members of the Transit Joint Powers Authority in a ribbon cutting, celebrating the spacious and modern center's opening.



"This represents San Francisco at our best. It represents our commitment to transportation, our commitment to environmental sustainability and community develop," San Francisco Mayor London Breed said.



"Our city is growing with both jobs and people, and we need to do a better job of moving everyone around this region, and this transit center will do just that. The transit center goes far beyond a transportation hub. It's a thriving place of economic opportunity," she said.



Stretching four city blocks, the $2.26 billion four-story transit center boasts pop-up retail shops, art displays, shopping, dining and a 5.4-acre rooftop public park.



"This is a representation of what can happen when people work together; public, private, nonprofit, community," House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco said.



Pelosi also acknowledged the late Mayor Ed Lee for his part in creating the transit center.



"It's about improving the quality of life, improving the quality of air, it's about the good health of our children, it's about the time we save," she said.



Friday's event was part of the culmination of the first phase of a larger project, eventually set to connect to Caltrain and a future California High Speed Rail via underground railways in the two stories below the transit center.



"As many of you remember, we were in the depths of a recession, and I still remember the day we celebrated our groundbreaking as we welcomed workers back to a job site for many, the first time in years." District 4 Supervisor Jane Kim said of the site's groundbreaking, which took place back in 2010.



"This was a huge project to bring to fruition," she said. "I want to thank our residents for our immense patience over the many years as this neighborhood was ground zero for construction, literally 24-hours a day. And thank you for investing in this neighborhood, choosing this neighborhood to live here and patiently living through the noise, the night construction and all of the traffic."



The next phase of construction, the $4 billion Downtown Extension Project, will connect 1.3 miles of underground rail between the center and the Caltrain station at Fourth and King streets. That project is expected to be completed in 2028.



The Salesforce Transit Center will hold a free block party today starting at noon to celebrate its opening.



On Sunday, the center will begin serving buses with Alameda-Contra Costa Transit, Greyhound, San Mateo County Transit District and Western Contra Costa Transit Authority. Buses with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency already started service at the outside bus plaza in June.





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U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein visited Don Edwards National Wildlife Refuge Friday morning to kick off a $177 million project to protect the Bay Area from the effects of sea-level rise.



The South San Francisco Bay Shoreline Project is slated to begin next summer and will be completed in about 20 years. Engineers will create coastal levees, pedestrian bridges, tidal marsh habitat and more infrastructure to protect the South Bay from a coastal flood in the next 100 years.



Feinstein said the project was possible because of a private-public partnership, after the Cargill company donated over 40,000 acres of salt ponds and sold additional space to the federal government in 2003.



"When you see those salt ponds turned to wetlands, and when you see an osprey flying over, or this huge osprey nest ... it says we're on our way back," she said. "That's what we need more of."



Federal disaster supplemental funding will provide upfront backing for the project. The state and Santa Clara Valley Water District will then reimburse more than half of the funds.



Voters in all nine Bay Area counties approved a $12 parcel tax in 2016 that will provide local funds for the project through 2037, protecting Sunnyvale, Mountain View, San Jose, Palo Alto and Alviso.



The project includes improvements to walking trails at the refuge, observation platforms, pond breaching and restoration.



The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the state Coastal Conservancy and the Santa Clara Valley Water District will oversee the project, in addition to several other agencies.





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A Vallejo man with cancer was awarded $250 million in punitive damages in a landmark lawsuit against herbicide manufacturer Monsanto.



Following three days of deliberations, a San Francisco Superior Court jury Friday found that Monsanto's weed killer product was a factor in causing plaintiff Dewayne Johnson's cancer's diagnosis.



The jury also found that Monsanto had knowledge that their product was harmful and that the company is negligent for failing to warn consumers about its links to cancer.



In addition to the punitive damages, the jury also awarded Johnson more than $39 million in compensatory damages.



Johnson, who continues to suffer from cancer and is set to undergo chemotherapy in the coming weeks, smiled and hugged his lawyers following the verdict.







The case against Ghost Ship warehouse master tenant Derick Almena and creative director Max Harris for a December 2016 fire at the Oakland warehouse that killed 36 people is back to square one after a judge made a surprising decision to reject a plea agreement.



At the end of an emotional two-day sentencing hearing Friday for Almena, 48, and Harris, 28, Alameda County Superior Court Judge James Cramer appeared to be ready to accept an agreement on July 3 in which they each pleaded no contest to 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter for the fire during a music party at the warehouse at 1309 31st Ave. on Dec. 2, 2016.



Cramer said he understood why family members and friends of the 36 victims thought the agreement was too lenient, because it called for Almena to serve only 9 years in the county jail and for Harris to serve only 6 years.







A former student at Presentation High School in San Jose has filed a lawsuit alleging that the school covered up sexual abuse by a theater teacher in 2003 and 2004.



The suit was filed Friday.



The plaintiff, who attended the all-girls school between 2002 and 2006 and was 15 years old at the time, alleges Principal Mary Miller was aware of the abuse against the student by former teacher Jefferey Hicks and chose not to report it to police.



Attorney Kenneth Turk said Miller failed to follow mandatory reporting laws after the abuse occurred, allowing Hicks to remain at Presentation High School and teach "unsuspecting children" for several months after he was reported to administrators.







California Highway Patrol motorcycle Officer Kirk Griess and a 49-year-old Vallejo man in a Saturn SUV died after they were stuck by a pickup truck on the right shoulder of Interstate Highway 80 in Fairfield, CHP officials said.



Griess, 46, a 19-year CHP veteran, had pulled over the driver of the Saturn on westbound Highway 80 near Manuel Campos Parkway around 9 a.m. Friday, the CHP said.



The impact of the truck reduced the Saturn to half its size, CHP Golden Gate Division Chief Ernie Sanchez. The CHP's air operation unit arrived at the scene within two minutes and monitored the crash, Sanchez said.



The pickup driver was not identified. Sanchez said driver was being interviewed and as of mid-afternoon Friday had not been arrested.







A construction worker on the Twin Peaks Tunnel Project was hit by a steel beam and taken to a trauma center, fire officials said.



The beam struck the worker shortly after 4:30 p.m. Friday on the West Portal side of the tunnel, officials with the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency said.



The tunnel goes under the Twin Peaks and extends from West Portal to the San Francisco Municipal Railway's Eureka Valley station.



San Francisco firefighters deemed the injury serious, according to transit officials. The victim was taken the Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital.





















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State Sen. Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, plans to draft legislation to end late-night releases of county jail inmates statewide following the death of a young Berkeley woman after she left Santa Rita Jail in Dublin last month.



Jessica St. Louis, 26, was released from Santa Rita at 1:12 a.m. on July 28 and given a BART ticket. The closest BART station to the jail is the Dublin-Pleasanton stop, more than a mile away. Trains do not begin running until 5 a.m.



St. Louis' body was found four hours later near the passenger pick-up/drop-off area at the station. She is believed to have died from a drug overdose, but toxicology reports are still pending. The medical examiner concluded there was no foul play involved, according to the Alameda County Sheriff's Department.



Regardless of the cause of death, Skinner, activists with the Young Women's Freedom Center and St. Louis' family believe the woman would not have died had she been released during the day and provided access to support services upon leaving the facility.



"Releasing a woman in the dead of the night under these circumstances is a recipe for tragedy," Skinner said in a statement. "People need to be released at a reasonable hour and be given basic support to ensure they can enter our community safely and successfully."



Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Ray Kelly has said St. Louis' death was "an unfortunate situation" but it appeared St. Louis had obtained drugs after leaving the jail. He said the jail releases up to 100 people a day around the clock and can't legally keep people in custody after their court-designated release times.



St. Louis had been at Santa Rita for 11 days on arrest warrants for a previous case, officials said.



The Young Women's Freedom Center is planning a march for 9 p.m. Aug. 19 from Santa Rita Jail to the Dublin-Pleasanton BART Station to demonstrate the experience of walking that route in the dark.





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SAN FRANCISCO (BCN)



A Vallejo man with cancer was awarded $250 million in punitive damages today in a landmark lawsuit against herbicide manufacturer Monsanto.



Following three days of deliberations, a San Francisco Superior Court jury found that Monsanto's weed killer product was a factor in causing plaintiff Dewayne Johnson's cancer's diagnosis.



The jury also found that Monsanto had knowledge that their product was harmful and that the company is negligent for failing to warn consumers about its links to cancer.



In addition to the punitive damages, the jury also awarded Johnson more than $39 million in compensatory damages.



Johnson, who continues to suffer from cancer and is set to undergo chemotherapy in the coming weeks, smiled and hugged his lawyers following the verdict.



During the 8-week trial, Johnson, 37, testified that he used Roundup multiple times between 2012 and 2016 while working as a groundskeeper for the Benicia Unified School District.



He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2014 and continued to use the product and, at one point, allegedly called Monsanto to ask about whether there was a link between Roundup and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.



Johnson also testified that although he would wear protective gear while using the product, it would constantly get on his face and even twice spilled onto his body.



Monsanto's attorneys argued during the trial that the main ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, is not linked to cancer, citing a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finding, which stated that glyphosate is "not likely to be carcinogenic to humans."



Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an attorney representing Johnson, said outside of court, "Monsanto has been taking a playbook from the tobacco industry, ghostwriting science, buying science, using all the different key mark strategies and the legal strategies to confuse the science and blur the science."



Kennedy is with Baum Hedlund Aristei and Goldman, PC.



Of Johnson, Kennedy said, "He's such a good man. He's a hardworking, he's a good father, he's trying to do the right thing.



"Maybe with the money he'll get from his case, there's state-of-the-art medicine... he may be able to afford that."



Scott Partridge, Vice President of Global Strategy for Monsanto, said, "We all have tremendous sympathy for Mr. Johnson and his family. What they've gone through with his disease is terrible.



"The verdict today, it doesn't change the overwhelming scientific evidence and the 40 years of safe use of glyphosate around the world. It's the most widely used herbicide in the world, it's the most widely studied herbicide in the world.



"We will appeal. This is the beginning, obviously, of a very, very long process... the verdict today does not change the science," he said. "Glyphosate does not cause cancer. It's been perfectly safe and that's been demonstrated for more than four decades."



Glyphosate's weed-killing properties were discovered in the 1970s and in 1974, Monsanto began selling it under the name Roundup.





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SAN JOSE (BCN)



A former student at Presentation High School in San Jose filed a lawsuit this morning alleging that the school covered up sexual abuse by a theater teacher in 2003 and 2004.



The plaintiff, who attended the all-girls school between 2002 and 2006 and was 15 years old at the time, alleges Principal Mary Miller was aware of the abuse against the student by former teacher Jefferey Hicks and chose not to report it to police.



Attorney Kenneth Turk said Miller failed to follow mandatory reporting laws after the abuse occurred, allowing Hicks to remain at Presentation High School and teach "unsuspecting children" for several months after he was reported to administrators.



"Miller also shamed and ridiculed the Presentation student into silence and made promises to help her, but never did," Turk said during a news conference in San Jose today.



The lawsuit says Hicks groomed the plaintiff to be in a sexual relationship with him by isolating her and touching her inappropriately several times. He also allegedly molested her during a school-sponsored trip to New York when she was a sophomore, according to the lawsuit.



When the victim tried to resist his advances, Hicks told her he would kill himself or have her arrested, according to the suit.



Hicks then began teaching at a private school for children with disabilities in San Mateo, where in 2013 he was convicted of possessing child pornography and molesting a child. He is now a lifetime registered sex offender, according to Turk.



The school said it has not yet been served the lawsuit, and condemns any instances of sexual abuse or misconduct. Administrators said they will address allegations in a courtroom, rather than dispute "misleading," false claims on social media.



Kathryn Leehane, an alumna of the school, first brought sexual abuse allegations against the school to light when she wrote about being an abuse survivor in the Washington Post in October 2017, according to advocacy group Make Pres Safe.



Administrators acknowledged that they have become aware of several allegations over the last 10 months, and are taking steps to make the school a "gold-standard" for safety.



"Presentation High School is no place for abuse. As educators and fierce advocates of women's rights, Presentation takes any allegation of abuse extremely seriously," the school's statement said.



Turk said the plaintiff was courageous to come forward with her allegations, and is now a successful therapist for children with autism in New York.



"She is very accomplished on the outside ... but you don't see the inside struggles and challenges that she goes through every day," Turk said. "If we can help others through what she went through, that's our goal."









Copyright  2018 by Bay City News, Inc. Republication, Rebroadcast or any other Reuse without the express written consent of Bay City News, Inc. is prohibited.
Photo: BC Transit

South Okanagan and Similkameen residents will have a chance to weigh in on a planned bus expansion from Penticton to Kelowna during three open houses this week.

Open houses on Wednesday will take place in Penticton at the regional district board office from 8:30 a.m. to noon, and in Keremeos at the village office from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m.

On Thursday, a third open house is scheduled in Osoyoos at the town hall from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen board members voted unanimously on July 19 to seek approval from residents for a new bus service through an alternate approval process  meaning the expansion won't proceed only if at least 10 per cent of qualified electors vote against it.

The deadline to submit responses is Aug, 31, and the regional district will know on Sept. 7 if the new service will be implemented.

An exact route plan hasn't yet been laid out, but the proposed bus expansion would service RDOS communities from Coalmont to Osoyoos and places in between.

The expansion will cost an estimated $259,000 and RDOS taxpayers currently would pay about $157,000; the average cost per household would be between $1.33 and $4.11 annually.

It was originally hoped the new service would be in place by Sept. 2019, which RDOS board members and BC Transit staff called an "ambitious timeline" in earlier meetings.

Since then, however, RDOS board chair Karla Kozakevich said the process has been sped up, after Greyhound announced plans to cut its bus routes in western Canada.

"Were hoping that maybe by spring or early summer weve got that bus going," Kozakevich said.

"In the meantime, were hoping some other carriers, not just in the South Okanagan but in the province, will come forward to replace the Greyhound service that will be ending.
Photo: Officer Cadet Natasha Tersigni Reviewing Officer Col. David Awalt presents Cadet Christopher Bux with the 17 Platoon Top Cadet award.

Christopher Bux is the best cadet of the summer.

The Kamloops resident with the 2305 Rocky Mountain Rangers Royal Canadian Army Cadet Corps was named the top cadet in his platoon upon completion of the two-week General Training Course at the Vernon Cadet Training Centre.

I feel pretty good. I was aiming to achieve top cadet right from the beginning of camp, so it nice that my hard work has paid off, said Bux who spent the last two weeks exploring all the aspects of the cadet program.

General Training is a little taste of everything. So we did a little bit of everything including expedition, biathlon, marksmanship, confidence course, and playing instruments, he said.

VCTC brings in cadets from across Western Canada for two-, three- and six-week summer courses in a wide range of areas including music, drill and ceremonial, fitness and sports, marksmanship and expedition.

Over the course of the summer, more than 1,500 cadets will train at VCTC and the skills and experience that the cadets gain throughout the summer will be incorporated back at their home units to further grow and develop the cadet program.
Photo: Summerland Mountain View Growers current operations. Expansion in planned in upper right.

Mountain View Growers is planning a major expansion of its operations in Summerland.

The tree seedling business on Washington Avenue will be before council next week seeking support on its application to the Agricultural Land Commission to grow into a 3.4 hectare lot just north of the companys existing operations.

Mountain View Growers is proposing to spread about 20 centimetres of aggregate across the ALR property to allow its use for seedling germination and growth, specifically to operate machinery in the area. The lot was previously an orchard, and the topsoil will be removed and stockpiled on the edge of the property

Silviculture is a permitted use in the ALR, but the extent of the fill required needs ALC approval.

District staff are recommending council support the ALC application, because the proposed activity is consistent with continuing operations.

Council will discuss the proposal on Monday.
Photo: Colton Davies The Delta Mobile Home Park on the Penticton Indian Band.

With tenants of a Penticton mobile home park slated to be evicted on Oct. 1, there is no formal support from any level of government to assist affected residents.

The Delta Mobile Home Park is on Penticton Indian Band locatee land, meaning provincial rules on residential tenancy don't apply. Otherwise, mobile home park tenants would be supported when land is slated for redevelopment  as is the case on this property.

Residents there were handed eviction notices on April 30. Two seniors in the park have reportedly committed suicide in the past two weeks, a result of dire circumstances according to one resident.

"There's two different laws, on the reserve and off the reserve... and if you're not a native [on the reserve], you have zero grants to stand on," resident Stew English told Castanet.

"Off the reserve, I think they'd have [compensation] to help them relocate. That's what we're asking, that's all we're asking. We're just trying to be calm about it and keep our sanity."

English added many residents won't be able to move their mobile homes because of their age, making them outdated for building safety, and said they will be torn down by the property owners.

"I don't know where I'm going to be living. Right now I'll be out on the street."

The PIB has no formal legislation to help relocate tenants. The mobile home park in question is on locatee lands, and the band said the situation with tenants is outside the purview of staff and council.

"The Penticton Indian Band is open to investigating options and engaging in dialogue with all levels of government to address the current affordability crisis," the band said in a statement.

MP Richard Cannings and MLA Dan Ashton both said there's no measures for the federal or provincial governments to support tenants on reserve lands.

"My personal opinion is I think our rules should be province-wide," Ashton said in regards to residential tenancy protection. "A lot of these people are really stuck. And I know our office has been working exemplary on trying to find these people places."

Both politicians sympathized for the apparent suicides. Both also said the crunch faced by tenants in the park points directly to the Okanagan's housing crisis.

"These people are in a horrible bind, having to look for a new place to live, after a lot of them have lived there for a long time," Cannings said, adding housing costs are "at the root of this whole problem."
Authorities recovered human remains at the Ketron Island crash scene where a Horizon Air plane crashed Friday night after its theft from the Sea-Tac airport, the FBI confirmed.

A 29-year-old Horizon Air employee stole a plane from Sea-Tac International Airport and took off, circling the area for a short time and performing stunts while being chased by military jets before crashing near Tacoma.

Police identified the man who took the plane as Richard Russell of Sumner, Wash. He engaged in a lengthy negotiation with air traffic control where he mentioned not intending to land the aircraft, before the fiery crash on Ketron Island in North Pierce County, just south of Tacoma. There were reportedly no passengers or other personnel on board.

The FBI awaits confirmation from the Pierce County Medical Examiner on the identity of the human remains taken from the crash site. The FBI also reported Sunday night that they found the flight data recorder and components of the cockpit voice recorder. The National Transportation Safety Board will process the evidence for more information.

Investigators were working Saturday to figure out how the man took the plane, the Associated Press reported.

Authorities confirmed to the AP that Russell had clearance to be among aircraft as a ground service agent, but are still uncertain how he possessed the skills to perform the maneuvers he did before crashing the plane.

They did however reveal how he used a machine called a pushback tractor to move the plane so he could board and takeoff.

Witnesses report that Russell, who identified himself to authorities as a ground service crew worker, did loops in the air around Pierce County before crashing. The crash started a few small fires in the area, which West Pierce Fire Department upgraded to a two-alarm fire at 10:44 p.m., sending more units to the area.

Here, the air traffic controller is trying to talk him into landing. pic.twitter.com/OxEe5T6JHJ  Jimmy Thomson (@jwsthomson) August 11, 2018

The fire department's latest update is that fire crews will remain on Ketron Island all Saturday to handle remaining brush fires.

The Department of Natural Resources sent more resources by ferry Saturday to Ketron Island. Thirty-six wildfire personnel were on scene as of 2:05 p.m., Saturday working to quell the fire, which had left 2-acres scorched by then.

RELATED: 'This is probably jail time for life, huh': Pilot of stolen plane talks with tower (audio)

Ed Troyer, Public Information Officer for the Pierce County Sheriff's Department confirmed on Twitter that the pilot of the plane was a "suicidal male. Acting alone." Troyer added they do not believe this to be "a terrorist incident."

"I've got a lot of people that care about me," the man said in audio obtained from Air Traffic Control radio communications. "It's going to disappoint them to hear that I did this. I would like to apologize to each and every one of them. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess. Never knew it, until now."

LISTEN:

Around 11:30 p.m. Gov. Jay Inslee released a statement saying, "I want to thank the Air National Guard from Washington and Oregon for scrambling jets to keep Washingtonians safe. Those pilots are trained for moments like tonight and showed they are ready and capable."

Sea-Tac Airport was put on ground stop due to the incident, according to Alaska Airlines.

At 9:31 p.m. Sea-Tac Airport confirmed via Twitter that an airline employee conducted an unauthorized takeoff without passengers, and that normal operations had resumed.

Some planes were still being rerouted, however. Flight Alerts reported at 10:32 p.m. that flights from San Francisco, Honolulu, and Los Angeles were being diverted to Portland.

At 11 p.m. Horizon Air Chief Operating Officer Constance von Muehlen shared in a video update that the company believe that the man was a Horizon Air employee.

"Our hearts are with the family of the individual aboard, as well as all our Alaska Air and Horizon Air employees," she said. "We will provide more information as it becomes available."

Alaska Airlines, which operates Horizon Air, initially confirmed reports in a tweet, noting that they were "...aware of the incident involving an unauthorized take-off of a Horizon Air Q400."

Alaska Airlines's tweets also noted that they believed no passengers were on board of the flight, though just after 10 p.m. they said they were still working to confirm there were "no guests or crew on board other than the person operating the plane."

KOMO News reports that a source from Joint-Base Lewis McCord confirmed that two F-15 fighter jets were scrambled to intercept the rogue aircraft, and force the Horizon plane to land. According to the KOMO News, "The source says the military jet made contact with the stolen plane, which then began to nose dive and crashed in North Pierce County."

The Pierce County Sheriff's office was reportedly told that the F-15s made it within "...a few minutes of theft of plane. Pilots kept plane out of harms [sic] way and people on ground safe." Several news outlets report that the two military planes departed from Portland to intercept the aircraft, and were "not involved in the crash."

"Preliminary info is that a mechanic from unknown airlines stole plane," Troyer shared on Twitter. "Was doing stunts in air or lack of flying skills caused crash into Island."

Just before midnight, Troyer announced that the investigation would be handled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI said they also had no reason to suspect that this was an act of terrorism or further pending criminal activity.

RELATED: The latest on the Sea-Tac unauthorized take-off from Associated Press

In earlier Air Traffic Control communications, Russell asked questions like, "Alright, um, I just kinda want to do a couple of maneuvers to see what it can do before I put her down, you know?" He also said, "I wouldn't know how to land it. I wasn't really planning on landing it."

"Man, I'm sorry about this, I hope this doesn't ruin your day," he said later. "It's a blast, I've played video games before, so I, uh, know what I'm doing a little bit."

At one point the control tower pointed the pilot of the stolen aircraft towards the runway at Joint Base Lewis-McChord (JBLM), to which he responded, "Aw those guys will rough me up if I tried landing there. I think I might mess something up there too. I wouldn't want to do that. Hopefully  oh they probably got anti-aircraft."

"No they don't have any of that stuff, we're just trying to find a place for you to land safely," the tower responded.

Although official accounts were slow to confirm reports of the unauthorized takeoff, many passengers at Sea-Tac took to social media to report that pilots had informed them of the plane theft.

"Halfway down the runway on Alaska airlines out of Seattle and the pilot slams on the brakes and shares we must go back to the gate," one wrote.

"Sitting on the runway at SeaTac, preparing for departure. Before takeoff, the pilot explains someone stole an airplane, and is flying around near Mt. Rainier," another shared on social media, adding, "They've been in contact with the culprit. He doesn't sound confident in his ability to land back at Sea-Tac. They are grounding all planes and waiting."

The airplane was a Horizon Air Q400, a turboprop, twin engine aircraft with 76 seats. Horizon Air is a division of Alaska Air Group.

This story is developing. It will be updated as more information becomes available.
MANAGUA, Nicaragua  The 21-year-old university student, nearly two months pregnant, had hoped to escape Nicaragua with her boyfriend, but a police officer on a motorcycle blocked their path as they were getting into taxis with other students to go to a safe house.

Five police trucks loaded with masked and armed men dressed in civilian garb surrounded them. Uniformed officers began to search the students backpacks. One pulled out a blue-and-white Nicaraguan flag.

These are the terrorists who killed our fellow police, the officer shouted, using President Daniel Ortegas term for those who have protested against his government since mid-April.

The young couple and their friends joined the ranks of more than 2,000 people arrested in Nicaragua in nearly four months of unrest and official crackdown. At least 400 people are believed to be still held in jails, prisons and police stations, and some consider them political prisoners, the non-governmental Nicaraguan Human Rights Center says.

The others were held for days or weeks incommunicado, brutally interrogated to give up names and threatened with terrorism charges before being released without explanation as Ortegas government seeks to extinguish the resistance.

They crushed my fingers, and hit me in the ribs and the stomach, the pregnant student said. When I was on the ground, they kicked me.

When the students were finally released they were warned to stay out of sight or they would be charged with terrorism. The next day she went to a hospital, where a doctor told her there was nothing they could do. I lost my baby, she said.

The Associated Press separately interviewed four of those arrested and released, all of whom are in hiding. They agreed to speak only on condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.

Right now, without exaggerating, Nicaragua is a prison, said Vilma Nunez, the rights centers president and a former supreme court vice president under Ortegas first Sandinista government in 1979.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights recently said its monitoring team in Nicaragua found that detainees were abused, not informed of their rights or any charges, and taken into custody without warrants. Their families were not told where they were held, it added.

National police did not respond to a request for comment.

Ortega for weeks denied that paramilitary squads and Sandinista youth groups that have clashed with or attacked protesters were working with the police. But when asked in a recent TV interview how demonstrators picked up by masked paramilitaries ended up in jails, he said: We have volunteer police who cooperate with the police.

The unrest began as protests to social security cuts. After a deadly crackdown, students became the vanguard of a broader push demanding that Ortega step down.

Christopher Sherman is an Associated Press writer.
BAMAKO, Mali  The nations first round of voting last month saw electoral agents killed and voting materials destroyed by extremists linked to al Qaeda. The country will attempt round two Sunday.

Incumbent President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita faces off against Soumaila Cisse, who also challenged him in a runoff in 2013.

Nearly 43 percent of voters made it to the polls on July 29 amid rising insecurity in the west African nation. Many Malians worry the unrest will increase and keep people from voting again.

Mohammed Cisse, an official in Boni in the central Mopti region, said he has rented a house in the capital, Bamako, where he will stay for his safety until the elections are over. Three of his brothers were kidnapped during the first round, accused by neighbors of helping to transport voting materials.

NGOs bring food for poor families to our village in Boni. I sought this help but surprisingly, people from the villages left to tell Islamists that the cars brought electoral materials, he said. My brothers told me their hands were tied up and the jihadists hit them during interrogations. ... Finally when the Islamists understood that it was actually grains, they released them.

In central Mali, attacks have become more frequent amid communal clashes as neighbors suspect each other of being recruited by extremist groups. Meanwhile, Malian soldiers in recent months have been accused of abuses, including extrajudicial killings, during counterterror operations.

Malian authorities have tried to reassure the public and encourage them to go to the polls once more.

We have increased security everywhere where there is a need to do so, so that people who want to vote can do so safely, said Col. Diarran Kone, Malis army spokesman.

The political race itself has been more tense than some expected.

Cisse, who was the clear leader among opposition candidates, has not been backed by the candidates who placed third and fourth in the first round, Aliou Diallo and Cheick Modibo Diarra.

A second term for Keita seems likely, as the president has the backing of the fifth-place candidate and the likely support of Diarras constituents, who hail from the south where Keita is from.

Baba Ahmed is an Associated Press writer.
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Cambodia has passed an amendment to its Labor Law that eliminates "indemnity for dismissal"a local legal concept equivalent to a severance paymentfor employment contracts without a fixed expiration date, and replaces it with an ongoing requirement for employers to pay employees a new "seniority payment." This July 11, 2018, change applies to undetermined duration contracts and may also affect employment contracts with a fixed expiration date.

Prior to the amendment, an employer was only required to pay indemnity for dismissal to an employee with an undetermined duration contract when the employer unilaterally terminated that employee for any reason other than that employee's serious misconduct. Similar to the severance provisions of most other jurisdictions, this indemnity for dismissal was only paid at the end of the employment relationship and was based on length of employment.

After the amendment, an employer is no longer required to pay an indemnity for dismissal. However, an employer must instead pay employees a seniority payment every six months. On an annual basis, the total amount of the seniority payment is equal to 15 days of an employee's wages and other fringe benefits, such as commissions and gratuities. As this seniority payment must be paid every six months, each installment of the seniority payment is half of the above amount.

If an employee with an undetermined duration contract is terminated for any reason other than the their own serious misconduct, and at least one month has passed since the last seniority payment without the subsequent seniority payment being paid, then the employee is entitled to a seniority payment equal to seven days of wages and fringe benefits. The amendment is silent as to whether an employee hired under a fixed-term contract would be entitled to this seniority payment.

The amendment follows the existing formula under the Labor Law for calculating the daily wage of an employee for indemnity payments. The daily wage is calculated based on all wages and fringe benefits, including commissions and bonuses, that an employee received within the past 12 months of service. That said, ambiguities remain as to the exact formula for determining the daily wage as no formula is provided.

In addition to matters related to the seniority payment, the amendment also addresses damages for early termination of an employment contract. First, the amendment addresses an earlier ambiguity in the Cambodia Labor Law by clarifying that if a company closes and terminates its employees it will not be required to pay its employees any damages or compensation in lieu of prior notice under the Labor Law.

Second, the amendment states that if an employee is entitled to damages, the employee can request a lump sum payment that is equal to all previous seniority payments received, plus any future seniority payments to be received under the employee's contract, in lieu of proving the actual amount of damages. This revision is significantly pro-employee, as the Labor Law previously capped damages at six months of wages and fringe benefits.

The amendment states that the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training will issue further additional regulations to address ambiguities in the applicable law and to more specifically clarify the implementation of the seniority payment.

Ambiguities under the new amendment that are yet to be resolved include:

Whether an employee under a fixed-term contract is entitled to receive a seniority payment.



If a worker hired before this amendment is entitled to a seniority bonus for time employed before the enactment of this amendment.



Whether an employer can pay all employees a seniority payment at the same time or whether the employer must time the seniority payment to each employee's specific start date.



The specific conditions under which an employer may terminate employees when closing an enterprise without having to pay damages and compensation in lieu of prior notice.



Regardless of any future clarification, it is clear that employers will be obliged to make the mandated seniority payments for any employees hired after the implementation of this amendment, and all companies with employees in Cambodia would be prudent to take note of this significant change in future staffing decisions.

Jay Cohen is an attorney and Pichrotanak Bunthan is an advisor with Tilleke & Gibbins in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.  2018 Tilleke & Gibbins. All rights reserved. Reposted with permission of Lexology.
Page Content

The World Economic Forum's most recent Global Gender Gap Report concludes that the gender gap in pay, participation and leadership is widening for the first time since 2006 after a decade of slow but steady progress. Paradoxically, this trend is occurring even while many governments are doubling their efforts to narrow the gender pay gap. This article analyzes laws relating to pay equity in South Africa, as well as the requirements in countries at the forefront of this developing area of the law.

According to Baker McKenzie's report The International Response to the Gender Pay Gapit has long been unlawful to discriminate in respect of employment decisions or to pay women less than men for doing the same job in many jurisdictions around the world. But because these equality laws have failed to close the gap in earnings between men and women, governments and nongovernmental organizations are looking at new ways to drive change.

The report notes that there is no single approach to regulation in this area. The U.K. and Australian governments have recently focused their efforts on representation and the gender pay gap, requiring employers to publish data about the difference in average pay between men and women. In the U.K., gender pay gap data is made available for public use, whereas in Australia the government publishes aggregated pay gap data from which individual companies cannot be identified.

There are no formal requirements in South Africa to publish gender pay information. However, Section 27 of South Africa's Employment Equity Act (EEA) requires designated employers, being employers who employ more than 50 employees or meet a certain annual turnover threshold specific to their threshold, to report income differentials across both race and gender groups. This, however, is a confidential document submitted to the South Africa Department of Labour in terms of which we have seen no action taken by the department pursuant to any gender pay gaps.

The EEA does prohibit unfair discrimination. However, only in recent years does this encompass inequities arising out of differential pay.

Section 6(4) of the EEA outlaws differences in employment conditions that are based on any of the prohibited grounds of discrimination, including gender and sex, where the employees perform the same or similar work or work of equal value. The employer's ability to differentiate on employment conditionsnotably salary and other contractual benefitsare not encumbered by the EEA.

However, employers must be able to prove that any differentiation falls within the recognized justifications set out in Item 7 of the regulations published in terms of the EEA. For example, an employer is able to pay one human resource manager more than another based on justifications such as experience, qualifications, job performance, competence and/or scarcity of skills. In fact, as long as the differentiation is not discriminatory, an employer is justified in remunerating or otherwise treating employees doing the same thing differently.

Regulation in this area is also expanding across North America, Europe and Latin America. While little regulation currently exists throughout the Asia Pacific, Australia is a world leader in this area. In the last few months alone, Iceland (already ranked amongst the highest in the world for gender parity) has introduced new legislation requiring employers to certify that they pay employees equally for equal work, the French government has revealed plans to fine companies that do not close unjustified pay equity gaps within three years, Ontario has proposed new pay transparency legislation and Peru has introduced new equal pay legislation.

The report outlines how the topic is gaining momentum, and the expectation is that regulation will continue to increase. It is particularly worth watching out for the more stringent types of regulation being introduced in jurisdictions that are already leading the field, as governments look to build on existing legislation and step up efforts to move the needle. Regulation is unlikely to be globally consistent, even within the European Union, leading to a complex patchwork of regulatory requirements with which multinational employers need to comply.

The report notes that beyond the need to comply with regulation and the desire to do the right thing, companies have other reasons to address their gender pay gap.

First, there is a recognized link between gender diversity and the bottom line. Several studies have demonstrated a correlation between a company's performance and the gender diversity of its leadership teams. Correlation does not mean causation. Nevertheless, it is broadly accepted that the connection holds true.



Second, there is a relationship between addressing the gender pay gap and winning the talent war. Workers (particularly Millennials and Generation Z) have made it clear they want to work for employers that are purpose-driven, value diversity and inclusion, and pay fairly.

Lauren Salt is an attorney with Baker McKenzie in Johannesburg.  2018 Baker McKenzie. All rights reserved. Reposted with permission of Lexology.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - An individual was transported to Richmond University Medical Center in critical condition after a two-car collision in Great Kills, according to an FDNY spokesman.

A white Ford sedan and a silver SUV were involved in the collision that left both vehicles on the sidewalk on the 400 block of Giffords Lane.

The white sedan hit a tree during the collision. Airbags in both vehicles did not deploy.

An NYPD spokesman said the department's Collision Investigation Squad (CIS) is looking into the accident.

Two S54 buses were pulled over to the side of the road as officers blocked off Giffords Lane between Fairfield Street and Gurley Avenue.

According to MTA.info, the buses are now running without delays.
Photo: The Canadian Press Homes destroyed by a wildfire in Redding, Calif.

Firefighters worked furiously Friday to keep a Southern California wildfire from burning more homes while crews in the north finally gained ground on deadly and destructive blazes that have burned for two weeks.

Aircraft have been making flight after flight, dumping water and bright pink retardant to protect Lake Elsinore and other foothill communities as the fire sweeps through the bone-dry brush of the Cleveland National Forest.

The Holy Fire  named for Holy Jim Canyon where it began Monday  grew to nearly 33 square miles by Saturday morning. But firefighters also made progress, with containment rising from 10 to 29 per cent.

Some hillsides were being allowed to burn under the watchful eyes of firefighters as a way to reduce fuel and make it harder for flames to jump roadways into communities if winds pick up again.

Although the fire burned a dozen forest cabins early on, only one home was lost Thursday as fire crews managed to fend off flames that stalked downhill and came right up to yards.

Standing in the ashes of his house on Friday, Dan Pritchett told KNBC-TV that he and his brother stayed until a wall of flames roared near.

"I turned to him and said, 'Let's go,' " Pritchett said. "(There were) 100-foot flames right on the crest of the hill, right in front of me."

No more homes were torched on Friday but some 20,000 people remained under evacuation orders.

Gusty winds continued to drive the flames, but they were expected to ease off overnight before blowing up again Saturday afternoon.

The man charged with deliberately starting the fire appeared in court Friday, but his arraignment was postponed.

Forrest Clark, 51, made several outbursts, claiming his life was being threatened and said the arson charge against him was a lie. A court commissioner ordered his bail to remain at $1 million.

"May I pay for that immediately?" asked Clark, who could face life in prison if convicted.

The Holy Fire was one of nearly 20 blazes across California, which is seeing earlier, longer and more destructive wildfire seasons because of drought, warmer weather attributed to climate change and home construction deeper into forests.

North of Sacramento, crews were gaining the upper hand on massively destructive fires even as new ones forced more evacuations and the weather forecast called for hot, dry, gusty weather.

The largest fire ever recorded in California, the Mendocino Complex, was now threatening about 1,500 homes instead of some 12,000 earlier in the week. It was 60 per cent contained.

Tough terrain and heavy smoke made hard work for firefighters, but containment lines in the south held, state fire officials said.

The blaze has destroyed 119 homes but none in recent days.

The two-week-old Carr Fire that killed six people and burned more than 1,000 homes was 51 per cent contained.

However, evacuations were ordered for communities near a new fire in the Fall River Mills area, about 70 miles northeast of Redding. About 350 residents were under mandatory evacuation orders because of the Hat Fire, which began Thursday near a highway.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Police are seeking the public's help in identifying a suspect allegedly involved in a knifepoint robbery on Friday at a Concord Cleaners.

According to police, the suspect entered New Targee Cleaners, located at 1132 Targee St., at approximately 5:30 p.m. on Friday and engaged a female worker in conversation. Police said he asked about same day dry cleaning services before leaving establishment.

Police released this photo of a suspect who allegedly robbed a Concord cleaners at knifepoint. (Courtesy of NYPD)

The man then re-entered the store, and demanded that everybody get down on the floor while brandishing a knife, police said.

An NYPD spokesman said the woman who spoke with the knife-wielding suspect resisted and refused to get down on the floor.

The suspect and female worker got into an altercation at which time she received a small laceration to her abdomen, police said.

The victim refused medical attention at the scene, police said.

The suspect -- who is described as a male black between the ages of 20 and 25-years-old, and approximately 6-feet tall -- got away with about $500 in cash, according to police.

Anyone with information in regards 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 their tips by logging onto the Crime stoppers website at WWW.NYPDCRIMESTOPPERS.COM or by texting their tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then enter TIP577.

All calls are strictly confidential.

FOLLOW TRACEY PORPORA ON FACEBOOK and TWITTER
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The city Health Department (DOH) will be treating mosquitos on Staten Island via aerial larvicide and truck pesticide applications next week.

On Thursday, Aug. 16, the DOH will conduct its seventh adulticide treatment using pesticide spraying trucks between the hours of 9 p.m. and 6 a.m. Friday, Aug. 17. In the case of bad weather, application will take place on Monday, Aug. 20, during the same hours.

The parts of Staten Island to be treated via truck are:

Neighborhoods: Elm Park, Livingston, New Brighton, Port Richmond, Randall Manor, Tompkinsville, West Brighton, Arrochar, Bay Terrace, Concord, Dongan Hills, Grant City, Grasmere, Midland Beach, New Dorp, New Dorp Beach, Oakwood, Oakwood Beach, Old Town, Richmond Town, and South Beach.

Zip codes: 10304, 10305, 10308, 10302, 10310, and 10301.

The third aerial larvicide treatment for Staten Island will also take place on Thursday, Aug. 16; Friday, Aug.17; and Monday, Aug. 20, between the hours of 6 a.m. and 7 p.m. In the case of bad weather, application will take place on Tuesday, Aug. 21; Wednesday, Aug. 22; and Thursday, Aug. 23, during the same hours.

The larvicide treatment will only be done in marshy areas -- which are common breeding grounds for mosquitos -- unlike the mosquito spraying that is done in residential areas.

The marsh/wetlands of Staten Island to be treated via helicopter are:

Neighborhoods: Arlington, Bloomfield, Chelsea, Travis, Fresh Kills, Richmond Town, South Beach and Old Town.

Zip codes: 10303, 10311, 10314, 10306, 10308, 10314, 10309,10312 and 10305.

To reduce the risk of exposure to mosquitoes, the Health Department recommends that people:

Use an approved insect repellent containing picaridin, DEET, oil of lemon eucalyptus (not for children under 3), or products that contain the active ingredient IR3535.

Make sure windows have screens, and repair or replace screens that have tears or holes.

Eliminate any standing water and dispose of containers that can collect water. Standing water is a violation of the New York City Health Code.

Make sure roof gutters are clean and draining properly.

Clean and chlorinate swimming pools, outdoor saunas and hot tubs. Keep them empty or covered if not in use; drain water that collects in pool covers.

Report standing water by calling 311 or visiting nyc.gov/health/wnv. For more information about West Nile virus, call 311 or visit nyc.gov.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.-- All lanes on the New Jersey-bound Goethals Bridge have reopened after the span was temporarily closed Saturday morning for emergency repairs, said a Port Authority spokeswoman.

The crews were fixing a leaning sign pole that had shutdown the lanes heading to New Jersey, officials said.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- The NYPD is asking the public's assistance identifying an individual in connection with an armed robbery in the 122nd Precinct.

According to police, the unidentified male entered New Targee Cleaners, located at 1132 Targee St., at approximately 5:30 p.m. on August 11 and engaged a female worker in conversation. Police said he askedabout same day dry cleaning services before leaving establishment.

The man then re-entered and demanded everybody on the floor and brandished a knife, police said.

An NYPD spokesman said the woman who spoke with the male resisted and refused to get down on the floor.

She struggled with the man and received a small laceration on her stomach, the spokesman said. The woman refused medical attention at the scene.

The suspect removed $500 and fled the location in an unknown direction, according to police.

A level-one mobilization was called to search for the suspect.

People with information are urged to call the precinct's detectives at 718-876-8196 or NYPD's Crime Stoppers Hotline at 1-800-577-8477 (TIPS), or for Spanish, 1-888-577-4782 (PISTA). The public can also submit tips by logging onto the Crime Stoppers website or by texting tips to 274637 (CRIMES) then entering TIP577. All calls are kept strictly confidential.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A Staten Island man who authorities said helped run a mob family's racketeering and gambling operations is $125,000 in the hole after a federal judge ordered him to forfeit that amount of cash to the government.

The forfeiture was part of Steven Pastore's sentence, which also included two years in prison and two years' supervised release, authorities said.

In February, the defendant pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court to racketeering conspiracy.

Two years earlier, in May 2016, Pastore was among 18 suspects charged with racketeering activities allegedly carried out by the Genovese organized crime family.

Pastore, a "made" member and soldier in the family, conspired with others from 2008 through the spring of 2016 to participate in the Genovese's criminal affairs, said Manhattan federal prosecutors.

Members are "made" when they show the ability to generate income for the family "and/or the willingness to commit acts of violence," according to an indictment filed against the defendants.

Pastore was charged with racketeering conspiracy and participating in an illegal gambling business, authorities said.

Prosecutors said wire taps showed Pastore had been in the gambling business for years.

In court filings, authorities said evidence revealed Pastore was paid more than $125,000 in the gambling operation.

However, Vivian Shevitz, Pastore's lawyer, contended in court papers the government had "misconstrue(d)" his role in the gambling business. She maintained he was only involved for four months, from September 2014 to January 2015.

Shevitz said Pastore had worked as a plumber for 35 years until becoming completely disabled in 2009.

Pastore, who public records indicate lives in Arden Heights, has a history of gambling crimes.

In 2005, he was charged in New Jersey federal court with racketeering and pleaded guilty to participating in an illegal gambling business run by the Genovese family, said the indictment.
The organizers of the deadly "Unite the Right" rally last year in Charlottesville, Virginia, are gathering once again. The "Unite the Right 2" rally is being held in Washington, D.C. after the city of Charlottesville denied applications for permits from event organizer and white supremacist Jason Kessler. The National Parks Service, which granted the D.C. permits, maintains that it has an obligation to allow anyone to exercise their First Amendment rights. But should the danger posed by these hate groups mitigate their right to assemble?

PERSPECTIVES

Rallies like "Unite the Right" frequently turn violent. They are led and attended by groups known to be hate groups, determined to exert their dominance over others. Maria J. Stephan describes the dangers these groups pose in a Washington Post Op-Ed:

In December, the city of Charlottesville denied Kessler's application for permits for the "Unite the Right 2" rally. Per The Washington Post:

Kessler is suing the city claiming they infringed upon his First Amendment rights.

Despite the danger that may be posed by these hate groups, the First Amendment protects all speech equally. As recently as June 2017, the Supreme court unanimously confirmed that "hate speech" is still protected under the First Amendment. The Washington Post quoted Justice Samuel Alito's decision:

Despite the heinous nature of the Unite the Right's speech, it's still protected under the Constitution.

The decision to provide permits ultimately fell to the National Park service, which maintains that it is dedicated to providing people with space to freely express their opinions, as is laid out in the First Amendment. National Park Service spokesman Mike Litterst explained the decision to grant Kessler's permit to ABC 12:

The Tylt is focused on debates and conversations around news, current events and pop culture. We provide our community with the opportunity to share their opinions and vote on topics that matter most to them. We actively engage the community and present meaningful data on the debates and conversations as they progress. The Tylt is a place where your opinion counts, literally. The Tylt is an Advance Local Media, LLC property. Join us on Twitter @TheTylt, on Instagram @TheTylt or on Facebook, we'd love to hear what you have to say.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- An 88-year-old Graniteville woman who suffered serious injuries two years ago when she was hit by a vehicle while she was loading groceries in a supermarket parking lot has settled her lawsuit for $500,000, her lawyer said.

Prudence Cavagnaro was hurt outside the ShopRite store at 985 Richmond Ave., Graniteville, at about 2:25 p.m. on Nov. 18, 2016, said her court filings.

Cavagnaro, now 90, was putting groceries in her car when she was struck by a 1999 Chevrolet driven by Robert G. Zion, court papers said.

Zion was backing out of a parking space, said James M. Santner, Cavagnaro's lawyer and a partner in the Bloomfield firm Minchew & Santner.

Zion, then 79, told police he couldn't see Cavagnaro due to sun glare, according to a police accident report included in the court file.

Cavagnaro suffered fractures of the left wrist and hip requiring surgery, court records said.

She sued Zion in state Supreme Court, St. George,

The case recently settled prior to jury selection, Santner said.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y.-- A 35-year-old worker seriously injured his leg when a crane overturned at a Rosebank shipyard Saturday morning, authorities said.

The incident was reported at around 11:20 a.m. at the Reynolds Shipyard at 200 Edgewater St., said an FDNY spokeswoman.

The load of the crane shifted and the operator was injured when the machine overturned, according to FDNY Deputy Chief Phil Solimeo of Division 8.

The worker had injuries to his lower extremities, and nobody else was hurt, said the chief.

The victim was taken to Staten Island University Hospital, Ocean Breeze, with serious but not life threatening injuries, officials said.

The worker is believed to have suffered a broken leg, according to a source at the scene.

"His leg snapped in half," said the source.

The cause of the incident is under investigation, the chief said.

Rescue 5, dozens of firefighters, police and the Buildings Department responded to the scene. Crews were removing oil from the crane before tuning it upright.

The DOB was summoned to inspect the site due to an "overturned crane with one injury," according to the agency website.

This is the third work-related accident on Staten Island this week.

On Wednesday, a 25-year-old electrician was knocked unconscious by a colleague who mistakenly thought the victim was being electrocuted at the Bloomfield site that will soon house the Amazon and Ikea facilities, according to a Department of Buildings probe.

In addition, a 50-year-old man died Friday after a chainsaw hit his neck while he was cutting a pipe at a construction site in Westerleigh, police said.

-- Advance staffer Maura Grunlund contributed to this story.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- A New Brighton man was indicted Friday on charges accusing him of trying to perform a sex act on a girl under age 13.

Prospero Zempoaltecatl, 52, of the 100 block of Winter Avenue, was also charged with other sex crimes.

He pleaded not guilty through a Spanish interpreter to the charges at his arraignment in state Supreme Court, St. George.

According to a 10-count indictment, the incidents occurred between March 1 and April 2.

Besides the attempted sex act, Zempoaltecatl is accused of sexually abusing the victim on other occasions.

He and the girl know each other.

Zempoaltecatl was arrested on July 22, based on an investigation.

The defendant was charged with multiple felony counts of attempted criminal sexual act, formerly classified as sodomy, as well as felony and misdemeanor counts of sexual abuse.

He's also accused of misdemeanor counts of forcible touching and endangering a child's welfare.

A short, stocky man with salt-and-pepper hair, the defendant made no statement during the proceeding.

The Mexican native is not a U.S. citizen, according to court papers, and could potentially face deportation if convicted.

The case was adjourned to Aug. 24 for a conference. Zempoaltecatl was being held in lieu of $30,000 bond or $20,000 cash bail.

Attorney Maria Guastella stood in for defense lawyer Thomas Reilly.

Assistant District Attorney Melissa O'Leary is prosecuting the case.
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The Chief John Ross and Judge David Campbell Chapters, NSDAR, served together Thursday in welcoming new United States citizens at the Joel W. Solomon Federal Building in Chattanooga.

The Chief John Ross Chapter was in charge of the welcoming speech and favors for both sessions while the Judge David Campbell Chapter offered drinks and refreshments.

"It is always such an honor to serve our newest citizens and greet them on this special occasion," said Regent Stacy Kehoe, Judge David Campbell chapter.

Jessica Raz Mines Dumitru gave the welcome speech and handed out the favors during the first session. During the second session, Vivian Bettis 1st V Regent gave the speech. The Judge David Campbell Chapter was responsible for the refreshments for both sessions.

Approximately 100 applicants became citizens.
Photo: CTV A man was shot dead in a road rage incident in Vancouver early Friday.

Police have identified a man who was gunned down after a road rage incident in Vancouver on Friday.

Willis Charles Hunt, 33, died at the scene after being shot at around 1:30 a.m. Friday near Bridgeway Street, under the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge.

A 32-year-old female passenger in the Hunt's vehicle was treated for minor injuries after the incident.

The Vancouver Police Department said evidence suggests the shooting was a result of road rage.

No arrests have been made as a result of the homicide. Police said the suspect was in a white sedan.

It is still very early in this investigation and our detectives are working to confirm the circumstances that led to this mans death, VPD Const. Jason Doucette said.

We are reminding anyone who may find themselves involved in a road rage incident to remain calm, not to engage the occupants of the other vehicle, and to call 9-1-1 if you feel your safety could be at risk.

Those who may have information about the incident are asked to call investigators at 604-717-2500 or to call Crime Stoppers.

The killing was Vancouver's 14th homicide of 2018.
The former Provans premises at 64 Alexandra Parade, Clifton Hill under the historic shot tower. Credit:Eliana Schoulal

The Andrews Governments sale of 15 commercial properties in Clifton Hill has reaped more than $30 million with the final and most valuable site yet to come to market.

The portfolio, made up of light industrial buildings on Alexandra Parade, was compulsorily acquired by the previous government for the expensively aborted East West Link tunnel.

While title deeds do not reveal the cost of individual properties bought in the lead up to the 2014 state election - about $250 million in total, including the $90 million Evo apartment complex in Parkville - the price paid for the last remaining commercial property in government hands has been revealed in court documents.

Hardware and timber retailer, Provans Timber, which had occupied 64 Alexandra Parade since 1903, is embroiled in a complex legal stoush with the government over compensation.
Everyone loves an Aussie success story. But heres one that gets surprisingly little attention: our growing longevity. We hear endlessly about economic measures like growth, income and wealth. But life expectancy also says a lot about how were doing as a nation.

The latest international comparison by the Bureau of Statistics shows Australias life expectancy at birth has reached 82.5 years, the third highest in the world just behind Japan (83.3 years) and Switzerland (82.7).

Illustration: Simon Letch

Reasons for this stellar result include, but are not limited to improvements in health services, safer working environments and advances in medical technologies, the bureau said.

Although there is one factor that tempers this national achievement  the life expectancy of indigenous Australians is about 10 years lower than for the non-Indigenous population.
Sophie Delezio, who was injured when a car crashed into her child care centre, is about to complete her HSC in Sydney. Credit:Janie Barrett

When she stands on stage and can see nothing but lights, the real world fades away. "Instantly, I am no longer Sophie. I am whatever character I am playing."

Sophie Delezio's life has been shaped by the horrific car accident at her childcare centre in Fairlight almost 15 years ago. It scarred her skin, and robbed her of her feet. She has had to show more strength and resilience in her 17 years than is required of most people in a lifetime.

But Ms Delezio's love of drama pre-dates all that; she was born an actress. "I have been doing it since I can remember," she says. "I think I was four [when I started]. I just love the freedom and the difference - each day you never do the same thing."

Ms Delezio is 17 now, and on the verge of adulthood. But she has one more hurdle to jump - her Higher School Certificate. In a few weeks she will do her practical examination for one of her favourite subjects, two unit drama.
Australian school students are becoming more likely to identify with no religion even in religious schools, including a 68 per cent increase in Catholic schools.

The trend, which mirrors changes in the wider population, has led the peak independent schools body to warn religious schools to rethink their marketing.

Across all schools, 37 per cent of students identify with "no religion", according to an analysis of 2016 census data by the Independent Schools Council of Australia. That's up from 30 per cent in 2011.

At government schools, 45 per cent of students profess to no religion or did not specify a religion in the 2016 census, up from 38 per cent in 2011 and the highest proportion ever recorded.
Tulba and his brother were forced to flee their village in South Sudan, Pacong, when rebel soldiers launched a bloody assault. He was nine years old and saw things that no child  no person  should have to see. He then spent seven years in refugee camps not knowing whether his parents had survived and eventually made it to Australia in 2001.

"I'm only one man," he says about When Elephants Fight, "and I wanted to tell the history of what was happening to my country, what was happening to young people like myself at that time."

Author Majok Tulba. He came to Australia as a refugee from South Sudan and has written about his own experience of fleeing rebel soldiers and surviving in a refugee camp. Credit:Louise Kennerley

Majok Tulba could have written his latest novel, his second, as autobiography. But simply telling his own story, dramatic as that story is, was not enough for him.

When Elephants Fight. By Majok Tulba.

So writing fiction allowed him to explore more of what was going on, to bring in events that occurred not only in his life, but also that of others. In Elephants he makes the narrator, Juba, his eyes and ears.

"I wanted to explore our lives before the war had started, our lives in Pacong and when the war came what we did to survive. The walk to the refugee camp is all about the survival of the fittest."

Tulba's first novel, Beneath the Darkening Sky, tells the horrifying story of two young brothers who are press-ganged into the rebel army because they stood taller than an AK-47 and how they negotiate the violence and brutality they subsequently encounter. It's hard to think of a more powerful, shocking contemporary Australian novel. Fortunately for Tulba, when the soldiers came, he was a bit shorter than the rifle and wasn't taken.

Both books are eye-opening and disturbing, but the one thing Juba has in Tulba's new book is hope. "Without hope," Tulba says, "there is no life. It keeps their spirits high and it puts strength on their feet as they walk towards the refugee camp. They have to have that hope of surviving."
Nepal's former prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda will embark on a six-day visit to India from September 7 to 12.

During his visit, Prachanda will engage in various high-level talks and discussions.

"The dates for former prime minister Prachanda's visit to India have been confirmed. He will visit India from September 7 to 12. After returning from India he will leave for China on September 17 for a week," said an official statement from the secretariat of Prachanda.

This will be Prachanda's maiden visit to India after the two communist parties of Nepal Maoist Center and Communist Party of Nepal- Unified Marxist Leninist currently united.

(ANI)
A phenomenon of missing girls could be afflicting Australia, as a study of more than a million births suggests some parents could aborting unborn female babies or undergoing embryo selection overseas to have a son.

If nature was left to take its course, it is expected that for every 100 girls born, about 105 boys will be brought into the world.

But in findings researchers say indicates systematic discrimination against females starts in the womb, mothers within some key migrant communities are recording sons at rates of 122 and 125 for every 100 daughters in later pregnancies.

Lead researcher Dr Kristina Edvardsson from La Trobe University said it showed gender bias persisted in Australia, despite laws banning people from choosing the sex of their child, other than for medical reasons.

We believe that some women may be terminating pregnancies after discovering they are expecting a girl and in other cases are travelling overseas to access non-medical sex selection services through assisted reproduction, she said.
Plus an optometrist, apparently without the skills to diagnose children, had told us she was fine. In fact, she is severely long-sighted, with an astigmatism that requires optical correction even at her age. Her vision is so bad, despite four huge increments in her glasses prescription, that she cant see most television images  or a teachers white board. And my clever clogs reads her big-font books like shes trying to climb into them. Our focus is trying to determine whether her sight is deteriorating. Were also deep into investigating the cause, to date ruling out ocular albinism (she is bizarrely blonde) and (mercifully) cancer. Its a big concern that its random. What we know is the only corrective options are probably invasive, like corneal transplants. Whats more, contact lenses might not be an option. Which means my girls beautiful eyes, thanks to crazy-thick lenses, might remain massively magnified in her face.

Luckily/unluckily, coping with other peoples reactions to looking different is something I know a thing or two about. This despite six surgeries to try and keep my non-working eye healthy  and behaving. It doesnt work so it doesnt want to move the same way as the other eye. Nicole Pedersen-McKinnon says she has missed out on at least four permanent TV gigs because of her asymmetrical eyes. Strangely, for me its produced a lot of funny scenarios. Watching my attempts at parking is quite entertaining. Ditto me trying to catch anything. My wedding ceremony featured the best man and I darting around each other cartoon-style, as he frantically sought to hand over the ring Id been oblivious to. He was horrified but it was hilarious.

Then there was the time I stuffed up reading my own name  while MCing a Parliamentary Breakfast for dozens of MPs, because I wear matching coloured contact lenses to hide my scarring when I am presenting  and I can barely bloody see through them. Rather embarrassing! But the career consequences get more serious. For everyone who doesnt know, as well as a being a money columnist here at Fairfax Media for the past 15 years, Im a long-time personal finance commentator on television. I have absolutely lost out on permanent TV gigs due to my eye. Its a superficial world where women, in particular, are expected to look perfect  and perfectly symmetrical. We all have our disappointments, though, and how you adjust and emerge is what counts. Today, oddly, its Google that poses my greatest psychological challenge. Thanks to social media, I need to constantly find links for all my stories and interviews, and take screenshots of my TV appearances (we all hate looking at ourselves but, trust me, wrinkles are nothing).

Each time, my search engine helpfully suggests the most common search for me. Its not articles, schools talks, awards or my Nicole Helps Q&A in The Sun-Herald and The Sunday Age. Its Nicole Pedersen-McKinnon eye. People search "Nicole Pedersen-McKinnon eye" after she appears on TV". So much for being judged on merit, huh? I do get that people are just curious (if youve wondered, then youre welcome) but also its like being reminded every single day of your life, of the most traumatic event in it. S-eye  I make (bad) jokes when Im uncomfortable.

So was I bullied at school? I should explain that, until I was 12, and surgery No.3, I was comprehensively cross-eyed. I would never call it that. I had comebacks, jokes, deflection and, when needed, fight. Then Id cry myself to sleep. Now my heart aches that my daughter may have to go through something similar. At this stage, I have her convinced shes the luckiest girl in the world to be able to wear face jewellery wherever she goes  and bright pink, no less. But it wont be long before an unkind, or just honest, kid tells her she isnt ... and so it will begin.

Having contended with an out-there facial flaw for the past four decades, I worry for all our daughters in this perfection-obsessed era. Anyway, the self-esteem side of serious eye problems is a big thing, but is of course nothing on the physiological. And so many people have vision issues far worse than ours. Im extremely lucky to have one good eye with OK, but diminishing-with-age-and-excess-effort, sight. My daughter is extremely lucky to be cared for now by doctors who seem damned good at what they do. But eyes remain so mysterious and the options to fix sight, so limited. Theres simply not enough money going into ocular research, blindness prevention and vision restoration in Australia. Federal funding for medical research is reducing across the board and priority is given to diseases and conditions with higher cost to public coffers  seldom sight. Yet 125 babies a year here are born completely blind and 1600 have significant vision impairment. And affecting us all, dramatically improving life expectancies means far worsening vision.
So how is Babylon performing? The company says the trial has led to a downturn in patients at Accident and Emergency departments (routinely crowded with people wanting to see a doctor for free). However, the British Medical Journal has reported a tripling of hospital activity  and a spike in costs  in one area because of chatbot referrals. This AI Just Beat Human Doctors On A Clinical Exam was a typical headline (from Forbes) following a glitzy Babylon showcase in June at Londons Royal College of Physicians. The gathering was told that the average pass mark for the national GP exam, which tests diagnostic abilities of trainees, has been 72 per cent for five years. The chatbot scored 82 per cent. Doctors argued that Babylon had cherry-picked questions from the exam and that much of a diagnosis comes from a patients history, not just symptoms. A month later, following claims by British specialists that the chatbot was failing to spot serious, even life-threatening conditions, The Financial Times repeatedly tested the chatbot with classic symptoms of a heart attack. In nine out of 10 attempts, the chatbot advised a panic attack.

Babylon founder, Ali Parsa, a former Goldman Sachs banker, was scornful. The doctors who had complained to the newspaper were ruled by self-interest, although some of the wording about the chatbot has since been amended on the company website. Meanwhile, the public-funded trial is to be expanded. This amounts to a line in the sand: rather than investing public money in more doctors at the coalface, the cash is going to a tech company whose stated claim is to get rid of as many doctors as possible and whose technology is apparently not yet up to speed  and is not subject to regulatory oversight. The rise of AIs in diagnostic medicine. Credit:Shutterstock Welcome to the new world. The rise of AI in healthcare is moving so quickly, that many research breakthroughs and clinical use of technology fail to attract media attention.

In the past two years, there have been a series of spectacular claims about AI diagnostic algorithms matching or outperforming specialists in spotting cancers, difficult fine-line fractures, impending heart failure and eye disease. Australian researchers have been responsible for some of these breakthroughs but they tend to keep their achievements in sober clinical perspective. Brisbane start-up Maxwell MRI has an AI tool capable of detecting prostate cancers in medical imaging. Maxwell MRI chief technology officer and co-founder Elliot Smith, currently in the US, confirmed to Fairfax Media via email that the company is taking its AI-powered detection of breast cancer, lung disease and neurodegenerative diseases  based on deep-learning technology  into the clinical space by the end of the year. We will be doing a limited rollout to key sites this year while we do our regulatory approval  with a full-scale rollout in 2019.

A number of Australian doctors and researchers told Fairfax Media that AI will make their lives easier by taking over grunt work  counting dots on pathology slides for example. While they welcome AI algorithms that can augment and provide back-up in the diagnostic process, they resist the idea that machines will routinely make a diagnosis without human oversight. But already, some of these technologies are going into developing countries and taking on the role of doctors that dont exist. For example, Google is trialling a device that diagnoses diabetic retinopathy, which causes millions in India to go blind. The FDA in April has approved a similar device to be marketed in the US  the first time a machine will make a serious medical decision without a human involved.

Dr Brent Richards is the medical director of innovation and director of critical care research at Gold Coast Hospital and Health Service. He writes a bit of code and has a number of AI projects on the boil. He says that the Third World cant wait for a long debate about AIs role in medicine, be it a chatbot or a diagnostic tool. AI tools need to be put out in a measured way. Too early and yes there will be issues, but too late and you harm a lot of people. The [Babylon] chatbot needs to be assessed against what would have happened otherwise: in a Third World country, you would have had no phone call at all. People in the Third World say wed rather have something that has a five per cent error rate than not getting any advice at all. The point being: In some ways AI is the new penicillin in the way its changing medicine ... and the sector has got such a head of steam that its got to the point where some people are having to beat away venture capitalists with a stick. No doubt Western healthcare systems will be watching the Third World trials with interest. Lancet recently published an article that bemoaned a worldwide shortage of pathologists amid industry speculation that the shortfall could be met by AI, which would require a major investment in digitalising pathology slides to create a vast data set from which AI algorithms are taught to recognise diseases. But digitalising pathology slides adds another step to an already human-intensive process.

Says Monash University pathologist Professor Ruth Salom: There was a big hope that pathology departments would digitalise their images, but pathology companies wont do that because its faster for pathologists to look down the microscope than for me to spend  15 minutes to digitalise each slide. So its more time, more costs, extra steps and you save nothing. Thats where we are at the moment with digitalisation. Will a future generation of AIs start replacing pathologists and radiologists? Credit:Shutterstock Salom has shown that metastatic breast tumour in a lymph node can be detected in microscopy images through artificial intelligence. The detection rate compares favourably to a human  but she says AI diagnostics have a long way to go before it becomes a threat to jobs. She makes the point that radiology, which relies on simpler X-rays  will probably see a quicker uptake of AI diagnostics. Brent Richards referred

Fairfax Media to an article from the Radiological Society of North America that bemoans a rapidly increasing workload and burnout for American radiologists who are among the highest paid medical practitioners in the country. There the AI alternative looks not only attractive, but inevitable. Dr Luke Oakden-Rayner is a radiologist and medical researcher at the University of Adelaide. He developed an AI algorithm that can predict how long a patient will live with good accuracy  although he cautiously says the experiment delivered proof of concept. He has a paper being reviewed about an AI project that diagnoses fine hip fractures of a sort that are missed by radiologists 10 per cent of the time at first inspection. Hes an AI enthusiast. But he warns that the roll-out of various AI platforms into the mainstream is being done without sufficient clinical trialling. Human oversight may be critical to alleviate safety concerns. Credit:Nicolas Walker

He says the Babylon chatbot is the first time AI health technology has put lives at risk  simply because there was no human oversight to catch out mistakes, and that it hadnt been put through any regulatory process . The NHS put this into use without public clinical testing and there are doctors saying that it doesnt seem to be safe. The Babylon chatbot  or ''symptom checker  is regulated as a Class 1 medical device by the

Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency in the UK. The classification relies on self-reporting and notifications from the company. Dr Oakden-Rayners regulatory comments referred to the design of the NHS trial. Michael Herrmann, director of public relations for Babylon Health, in a series of emails to Fairfax

Media, strongly rejected claims that the symptom checker wasnt safe or efficacious. ''As showcased at our June 27 AI event at the Royal College of Physicians  and supported in the

research paper published here on arXiv  in recent tests, Babylons AI has achieved equivalent accuracy with human doctors and demonstrates safety levels, in these same tests, of 97 per cent.'' Mr Herrmann added: "Patients using Babylon will typically speak to a GP within two hours  24 hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week  which is far safer and accessible than the commonplace two-weeks' wait for patients to see a traditional GP here in the UK.''

Dr Oakden-Rayner writes an AI-focused blog (the current story is titled Medical AI Safety: We have a Problem) that has attracted a good following. Every month, he gets a dozen or so emails from students worried they shouldnt go into radiology or pathology (areas particularly prone to machine take-over) or even medicine at all because AI will take their jobs. He feels they are jumping the gun. Students see these reports about cancers and other conditions being diagnosed quickly and efficiently by machines and they think, oh well, theres no point me going into that field.

I try and tamp that down a bit. Because the headlines are not really a reflection of where the field is at the moment.

He believes that a significant portion of medical work could be amenable to AI technology. Fifty to 90 per cent of our tasks could be performed automatically, he says. People make this distinction between whether were being supported by bit or replaced by it. Its probably not a reasonable distinction to make: if its doing significant tasks, you have more time to do other things, which really means you need less doctors to do the same amount of work. Being supported by AI is the same thing as being replaced in my mind. If that happened overnight, medicine would collapse, no question. Thered be no doctors. The barrier in the way of that is these things take time. What will medicine in the future look like? Credit:Alamy Much depends on how quickly AI diagnostic technology is proven to be reliable  and the short-term job losses are more likely to be in AI ventures that have bet too heavily, too quickly.
Dr Nicola Powell, data scientist, Domain Group, says of data on median advertised rents for the year to June 2018: Were already seeing certain regions of Sydney present opportunities for tenants and were certainly seeing rent prices decline. In the lower north shore rents for houses and for units have tracked backwards compared to last year and its the only area in Sydney that has seen annual rental prices decline year-on-year for houses (minus 4.5 per cent) and for units (minus 3.2 per cent). Rents are also falling year-on-year for houses in the city and east (minus 5.5 per cent), the north-west (minus 2.3 per cent), northern beaches (minus 1 per cent) and the upper north shore (minus 0.6 per cent) and on units in suburbs such as Gordon (minus 9.2 per cent), Turramurra (minus 7.2 per cent), Kellyville (minus 5.4 per cent), Cremorne Point (minus 5.1 per cent) and Earlwood (minus 4.5 per cent). The Melbourne market is proving more resilient. In all areas of Melbourne rents for houses and units are increasing compared to last year. Drill down to the suburb level and theres signs of softening. Rents for houses fell year-on-year in Cremorne (minus 5.1 per cent), Hampton East (minus 5 per cent), Sandringham (minus 4.5 per cent) and Surrey Hills (minus 3.9 per cent) and for units in Caulfield East (minus 19.4 per cent), Middle Park (minus 3.1 per cent) and Lilydale (minus 3 per cent).

In Sydneys north-west, suburbs such as Marsden Park, where streets of new properties are up for rent, some agents are offering two weeks rent-free or rent by negotiation. Its a sign of the times, says Powell. Were now moving into a time where landlords and property managers will have to differentiate their properties from others on the market in order to secure and attract tenants. Tenants' unions say its still far from a renters market. Leo Patterson Ross, senior policy officer, Tenants Union of NSW, says data showing falling rents doesnt necessarily translate into lower rents for tenants on the move. People looking to rent are often moving from a place that they moved into a year or more ago so they will still experience a rent rise from their current place to their new place.

Median data can also be influenced by rent falls at the higher end of the market, he adds. Its rent tracker tool is a good way to see how the market is shifting. It collates data of rental bonds lodged with NSW Fair Trading in the past three months to show the median weekly rent for a particular postcode. The tool also shows the range of bonds lodged for that postcode. If you have that information you are much better informed and you can make a better comparison. Bargaining power

Could a softening market bring in more flexibility on lease terms; making improvements; or accommodating a beloved fur-child? Patterson Ross says experience in the Perth market suggests it wont necessarily be easier for tenants with pets. Longer leases, however, could be a possibility. Currently, only a fraction of leases are longer than 12 months. Where he sees most likelihood of a shift is in minor alterations to a rental property. In NSW the Residential Tenancies Act now allows tenants to ask for minor alterations and landlords cant unreasonably refuse. Travers asked for a few things to be dealt with before she moved into her new home. Eighteen months ago, she says: I wouldnt have said anything. In Victoria Devon LaSalle, communications officer, Tenants Victoria, says rents may be softening in the more gentrified, higher income areas where there is less competition. But in the mid and outer suburbs of Melbourne where there are more affordable rental properties, conditions are still ripe for rental bidding.

There are a lot of tenants who feel they have no other choice but to offer a higher amount than the advertised price and even, at times, a higher amount than they can actually afford, just in order to get 'affordable housing', she says. Tenants Victoria would like to see its state government follow-through on the promises made in October last year to reform the Residential Tenancies Act by introducing legislation to ban no-reason evictions and rental bidding as well as investigating the legislation of minimum property standards. Theres a disproportionate number of renters who live in housing that is of a poor standard and that is unsafe, says LaSalle, highlighting inadequate heating and cooling of properties and issues such as mould and other biotoxins. On the hunt for a new rental? There are a few tools that could be handy.
Fiona Sives researched rents in her area after her former landlord tried to raise the rent. Credit:Jessica Hromas

Rents are falling in pockets of Sydney, providing potential relief for more than one in three households across the city.

The median rent for Sydney as a whole is $550 a week for both houses and units and this is stable year on year, Domain data reveals. However, there are noticeable falls in the asking price when you drill down to regions and suburbs.

Fiona Sives, her partner Paul Smyth, and their seven-year-old twin boys have taken advantage of the softening market, by moving to a bigger, better  and cheaper - house in the same suburb.

They were paying $750 a week to rent an unrenovated three-bedroom Federation-era house in Croydon. They lived there for two years, when the landlord tried to raise the rent by $30 a week.
Restrictive time frames for filing criminal charges in relation to industrial deaths should be revised, the ACT work safety commissioner has told a senate inquiry.

Speaking before an inquiry into the prevention of industrial deaths this week, Greg Jones said a statutory time limit of two years to press charges relating to deaths on work sites is not enough to properly look into incidents.

ACT Work Safety Commissioner Greg Jones has said the statutory limit to file charges in industrial accidents needs to be expanded. Credit:Fairfax Media

"[With statutory limits], we are restricted," Mr Jones said.

"Some opportunities for extensions would be an appropriate way forward, while also putting pressure on [those responsible]. Some investigations are extremely complex and two years can be extremely tight."
A man is facing a murder charge for allegedly stabbing to death a man during an argument in Sydney's northwest.

Nathan Chatimba, 31, is accused of fatally stabbing the 34-year-old man outside a house at Dutch Place in St Clair about 6.40pm on Saturday.

Emergency Services were called to the address and NSW Ambulance paramedics treated the man, but he died at the scene.

Officers from Nepean Police Area Command then established a crime scene, which was forensically examined.

Police allege the two men - who are known to each other - were arguing in the front yard of the St Clair house when Chatimba attacked the older man before fleeing the scene.
Sydney Labor MP Emma Husar will not be given a copy of findings made against her by an investigator, who supported former staff complaints that she had acted unreasonably and offensively.

The refusal by NSW Labor follows concerns by the backbencher's lawyers that the inquiry, which ultimately cleared her of sexual misconduct and lewd behaviour, did not afford her a fair chance to respond.

Emma Husar on Wednesday after announcing she would not recontest the next election. Credit:Wolter Peeters

Barrister John Whelan investigated 44 allegations staff made against Ms Hussar, who after weeks of damaging media stories announced on Wednesday she would not contest her federal seat of Lindsay at the next election.

Catalogued allegations were presented to her with many names and other identifying information blacked out.
Former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam worked secretly behind the scenes with his NSW ALP colleagues to bring back Sydney Opera House architect Jrn Utzon, after he left the project following a dispute with the Askin NSW government in 1966.

The House, by Helen Pitt, a new book on the history of the Sydney Opera House.

The explosive revelations, not reported at the time, are detailed in my new book to be published this week (August 15), The House: the dramatic story of the Sydney Opera House and the people who made it, (Allen and Unwin).

The book reveals Utzon kept the correspondence with Whitlam in his private papers, which were only made public this January, a decade after his death, when the Utzon family donated a host of documents to the Utzon archive, kept in his childhood home in Aalborg, in northern Denmark.

The documents show Whitlam, after he become leader of the Labor Federal Opposition in 1967, lent his support to re-open negotiations with the Dane. Utzon, who had won the international design competition to build the Opera House in 1957, was forced to resign because of a dispute over payments with the state Liberal party.
Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader and television host Aamir Liaquat Hussain was on Friday issued a show cause notice by the Supreme Court of Pakistan for alleged contempt of court.

A Chief Justice Mian Saqib Nisar-led three-member bench issued the notice while hearing a petition filed by a TV channel-- the Jang group-- against Hussain, with Justice Nisar questioning his credibility for being in the Parliament, the Dawn reported.

Faisal Iqbal, the TV channel's legal counsel, argued in the court that Hussain had "accused Geo TV anchor Shahzeb Khanzada of supporting blasphemy convicts".

"He also levelled grave allegations against Najam Sethi. No one has the right to call anyone infidel or traitor," Iqbal added.

Following a clip of the TV programmes, where Hussain was seen to have made the remarks, was played, Justice Nisar said, "Do (you) teach the general public this through TV? A person who does not know what to say at a public forum, should he be in the parliament?"

Justice Nisar also contemplated annulling Hussain's recent victory from the constituency NA-249 in the recently-held Pakistan General Elections.

This comes after the Supreme Court had instructed Hussain's current employers-- Bol news-- to not air any "hateful content", or being charged with contempt of court.

On being asked for an explanation for his comments, Hussain said that he used the remarks for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and National Security Adviser Ajeet Duval, with the court accusing him of lying and saying, "This drama won't fly here."

This was followed by Justice Nisar serving a contempt of court show cause notice to Hussain for falsifying in court and using offensive language, giving him two-week time to file a written reply to his charges.

Justice Nisar then adjourned the case without specifying a date for further hearing.

(ANI)
A Melbourne man has been arrested and is expected to be charged over stalking the victim of an anti-semitic attack who was allegedly sent death threats and pictures of dead Jewish people.

Menachem Vorchheimer had been walking to his synagogue in Caulfield in 2006 when he was abused, had his sabbath hat and skull cap snatched off his head and was punched in the eye in a dispute with a group of drunken men in a mini bus.

Two of the men were later convicted and a third was fined without conviction for offences ranging from offensive behaviour, using insulting language and using insulting words in a public place.

However, B'nai B'rith Anti-Defamation Commission executive officer Manny Waks told AAP that Sunday's arrest was in relation to threatening anti-semitic mail Mr Vorchheimer was sent last year, several months after the attack.

"Included in the material was basically threatening information in there which included pictures of Jewish people who were dead, as well as threats of killing Jews," Mr Waks said.
But, rising above the mere mathematics of the population-immigration debate (number crunchers fancy the number of visas granted in 2017-18 is likely to be 165,000) I have been thinking about the whole wondrous phenomenon of migration, our species need of it, hunger for it and aptitude for it.

Of course, because we have truth and reason on our side, I am with those calling for a more populous Australia. In recent days outspoken, informed, level-headed champions of a bigger Australia have included Reserve Bank of Australia governor Governor Philip Lowe (he says strong population growth helps make Australia younger and more economically robust) and (a star is born!) much-in-media-demand ANU demographer Dr Liz Allen, a model of bushy-tailed positivity. Champions of a more shrivelled, bonsaied Australia include, needless to say, Pauline Hanson.

Coincidentally and connectedly the conversation of the nation is alive with the discussion of population and of the immigration intake. As a migrant myself (when I arrived in January 1965 I became, roughly, the 11,120,000th Australian) I prick up my white, Anglo-Saxon ears whenever migration is discussed.

As your columnist, a migrant from England, handcrafts this column our wide brown nation (empty in some places, people-teeming in others) has just acquired its 25 millionth Australian.

When you are a thinking migrant, and especially when you are a thinking migrant of a certain age (carbon dating estimates my age as between 71 and 73) your olde decision to migrate may begin to haunt you a little. You may marvel at it and in amazement gasp to yourself Why did I do it? You may ask yourself what your life would have been if youd not uprooted yourself but had stayed with your roots deep in the loam of your homeland.

In the 1960s was the migrant itch in my urchin feet (sensibly shod in multiply-darned school uniform socks and in sensible, second-hand school shoes) the same itch that propelled our barefoot ancient ancestors out of Africa (to then go and live everywhere in the world) some 65,000 years ago?

Today I marvel that no English government authorities ever took the immature teenage Ian aside to ask him if he was sure about this migration thing. Had he thought it through? Did he have the foggiest idea what it might mean, at his tender age, at any age, to swap countries, to forsake the familiar, to skedaddle off into the unknown?

How and why was I, so young and immature and undereducated, allowed to do what my impulses dictated? Why did the English government, perhaps even Her Majesty the Queen, not intervene, hanging on to me, treasuring me, forbidding me to weaken England by my migration at least until Id come of age (about 35 for a decision so important)?

I have a fondness for all migrants, and hope and pray that every one of every annual batch of 165,000 finds joy and fulfilment here. But, if I could, I would sit all intending migrants down and caution them (my avuncular cautions almost certainly going in one ear and out the other) that being a migrant may, one day, play with their minds. It may divide the self.
It is no coincidence that Australias record prosperity over the last two decades has coincided with a period of high immigration. As the RBA Governor Philip Lowe pointed out in a speech last week, Australias high population growth rate of 1.5 per cent is a basis for optimism about the future of our economy. It has produced a younger, more economically resilient nation. Australias immigration program is like a human capital raid on the rest of the world. Other countries expend huge resources on health, education and other services for their children. When you look at the skylines of our major cities there is too much crap that has been built. Credit:Vince Caligiuri Then, just as those children enter young adulthood and their economically productive years they move to Australia where they earn a good income and contribute to our national prosperity. Even better if they come to Australia as international students. Then their tuition fees contribute to one of our biggest export earners, after which they enter the workforce highly skilled and ready to build their own Australian dream.

If you want to tip Australia into recession then put the brakes on immigration. Politicians stoking anti-immigration sentiment should remember that it will be the tradies who work in construction, and who decide the outcome of elections, who will be the first and hardest hit. The rest of the economy will follow shortly thereafter. All of which is not to say people in Melbourne do not have good reasons to be grumpy. I live here too. The roads are congested, public transport is crowded, our daily routines are being disrupted by construction activity. And when you look at the skylines of our major cities there is too much crap that has been built. Managing population growth is a huge challenge. The City of Melbournes real time pedestrian data shows the central city is now visited by close to 1 million people every day. In the next 20 years this will rise above 1.4 million a day  thats an extra 400,000 cups of coffee, extra tram rides, meals and visits to the toilet we need to provide at a standard befitting the worlds most liveable city. But putting a handbrake on immigration and population growth is not the answer. That will only create more problems than it solves. Japan has suffered 30 years of economic paralysis because they did not lift immigration rates while birth rates declined. This has created a social welfare time bomb and a shrinking economy.

What Australia needs is better planning and more investment from a smarter and more activist government. At the moment government decision making is being hindered by population modelling agencies which continuously get population growth predictions woefully wrong. In 2002, the Intergenerational Report forecast our national population would exceed 25 million in 2042. In 2007, the estimate was adjusted to 2028 and in 2015 the estimate was dropped to 2024.

The result is policy makers are left making decisions based on faulty data  governments systematically under invest in infrastructure and services because they invest for a population size that arrives two decades earlier than they had been told. Loading The basis for a bigger and better Australia begins with decisions that use accurate and intelligent "real-time" data rather than out of date historical estimates. This should not be too hard. With smart urban land use planning combined with strong investment in new transport infrastructure and services Melbourne can comfortably house a bigger population. In the City of Melbourne alone there is still 740 hectares of developable land close to the city centre taking in Fishermans Bend, Arden, Macaulay, West Melbourne Waterfront, E-Gate and Dynon.
A phenomenon of missing girls could be afflicting Victoria, as a study of more than a million births suggests some parents could be aborting unborn female babies or undergoing embryo selection overseas in order to have a son.

If nature was left to take its course, it is expected that for every 100 girls born, about 105 boys will be brought into the world.

But in findings researchers say indicate systematic discrimination against females starts in the womb, mothers within some key migrant communities are recording sons at rates of 122 and 125 for every 100 daughters in later pregnancies.

Lead researcher Dr Kristina Edvardsson from Melbournes La Trobe University said it showed gender bias persisted in Victoria, despite laws banning people from choosing the sex of their child, other than for medical reasons.

We believe that some women may be terminating pregnancies after discovering they are expecting a girl and in other cases are travelling overseas to access non-medical sex selection services through assisted reproduction, she said.
A Perth man is accused of a series of burglaries at a Perth retirement village.

Police allege he masqueraded as a pest control worker needing access to homes to check for white ant infestations.

WA Police allege the 41-year-old stole cash from the homes he entered and have charged him with 17 burglary offences.

The man is expected to appear in Perth Magistrates' Court on Saturday.

AAP
The torment of both representatives reminded me of others we have all witnessed through the years, ministers and backbenchers failing to cope with the special challenges of political life. I have seen them weep in rooms in bitter despair at their failed ambition. I have heard them rail against their treatment and watched them crumple in the harsh glare of media notoriety.

We have witnessed a young, first-time member of Parliament suffer an excruciating fall from grace and loss of her career and know that she is vulnerable and hurting from what she so aptly called the shredding of her reputation.

Remarkably, we have had the former deputy prime minister admit to despair and wishing his life would end and yet he is stubbornly mocked and attacked on social media.

We are a hard lot. The continuing public pillorying of Emma Husar and Barnaby Joyce in the past few weeks reveals again that public life in Australia can be very public and brutal when there is a fall from favour. Few Australians it seems have much sympathy for the mental health of these two politicians.

Every Australian worker, politician or not, deserves care being shown for their health at their place of work but few of us seem to care when that place of work is Parliament House. To many, our politicians appear spoilt, rich and indulgent, not worthy of our sympathy or support. Those I have met in state and federal parliaments, conservative or Labor, are overwhelmingly good and compassionate people, wanting to do the right thing, committed to their jobs, their families and their community.

At times there are some who are selfish, arrogant and out of touch but the majority do not deserve the job lot rejection and suspicion that they receive. They are critical to the workings of our democracy and they can and do make a positive difference to our lives. As far as is possible we need them to be stable and supported.

They deserve our care because every worker does and because they labour in a particularly difficult work environment. Life in politics can be extraordinarily challenging, disturbingly uncertain and dangerously addictive. It fills your brain like nothing else and gives intoxicating highs but when it runs out of control, when the shredder is turned on and hungry, it can hurt you like nothing else, damaging reputation, peace of mind and your sense of self.

Emma Husar has suffered an excruciating fall from grace. Credit:Louie Douvis

I knew something was wrong when as deputy premier of NSW and after 10 years as a minister, I found myself waking every morning at 1am or 2am to check the newspapers online, to see if my portfolio of transport featured negatively. If it did, which happened often, I convinced myself that the morning would be dominated by negative media, in which I would be attacked and mocked by talkback radio, while anticipating the public humiliation of an all-in press conference where I was the main course. The catastrophising ruined my nights and days and demonstrated my parlous mental health and I think my unsuitability to the unrelenting pressure of modern politics. The early morning torment lasted till I resigned.
Canberra playschools have been handed a lifeline after education minister Simon Birmingham approved an amendment that will allow them to administer the new child care subsidies introduced in July.

The decision came after an appeal from the German Australian Playschool in Turner for playschools, which are unique to the ACT, to be captured by the scheme for fear of them going out of business and leaving a raft of families forced to find a new child care option.

Director Lisa Stephan teaching students at the German Australian Playschool how to bake. The playschool has been given a lifeline to survive by being allowed to administer the new child care subsidy scheme. Credit:Dion Georgopoulos

The German Australian Playschool turned to member for Fenner Andrew Leigh who lobbied the minister's office and presented a petition on behalf of the playschool with 344 signatures.

German Australian Playschool director Lisa Stephan said she was fearful playschools across the territory would have gone out of business by not being able to offer subsidised fees.
A top military law expert says the allegations about Ben Roberts-Smith's conduct while serving in Afghanistan are "significant" and must be publicly addressed.

Associate Professor David Letts, director of the Centre of Military and Security Law at the ANU College of Law, said the incidents described in a Fairfax Media investigation had raised "very significant problems" for the Australian Defence Force.

Professor Letts said that while there may be some aspects of the Inspector-General's investigation into the Special Air Service Regiment's operations that must be kept secret for reasons of military security, "as much as possible" of its findings should be released.

Ben Roberts-Smith has denied all of the allegations against him. Credit:Jay Cronan

He said the public interest in the matter was such that openness and transparency was needed, and would help interested parties to accept the findings of the secretive inquiry.
The oldest parliament in the country has long been nicknamed the Bear Pit but its no longer just the government sparring with the opposition on the floor of NSW Parliament.

Ministers are going up against each other in question time, not vying to have their contribution recorded in Hansard, but to out-do each other with double-word scores.

Government sources have confirmed that the Community Services Minister Pru Goward and Finance Minister Victor Dominello play Words with Friends during question time.

Minister for Family and Community Services, Pru Goward. Credit:Daniel Munoz

The two ministers were seen several times this week playing the hit online Scrabble-type game on their phones while their ministerial colleagues took questions from the Opposition.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will wrap up his three-day visit to Perth with an address to the Liberal state conference.

He toured a small business in the seat of Swan on Thursday alongside MP Steve Irons.

On Friday, he was joined by Attorney-General Christian Porter as he visited the site of the $1.02 billion NorthLink project in the seat of Pearce.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Credit:AAP Image/Richard Wainwright

The prime minister spent much of his time in Perth boasting about his government's solution to the GST revenue carve-up following years of frustration about WA's poor GST revenue share.
A palatial home in St Ives, in Sydney's north, three family companies and two apartments in Vaucluse, in Sydney's east, are just some of the Australian assets belonging to disgraced former lawyers Ronald and Darren Bobroff.

The Sun-Herald revealed last week the South Africans living in St Ives are the subject of an Interpol Red Notice following their flight from their homeland amid allegations the father and son had overcharged, and stolen from, their clients.

Ronald and Darren Bobroff at Ronald's home in St Ives, Sydney. An Interpol Red Notice has been issued for their arrest after they fled South Africa, accused of fraud. Credit:Jani Barrett

A spokeswoman for South Africas National Prosecuting Authority said during the week that the investigation into their alleged misconduct continued, and they had not been charged with any criminal offences.

A Red Notice is not an arrest warrant, but a means of communicating information between international police forces.
Geneva: A United Nations human rights panel said on Friday that it had received many credible reports that 1 million ethnic Uighurs in China are held in what resembles a "massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy."

Gay McDougall, a member of the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, cited estimates that 2 million Uighurs and Muslim minorities were forced into "political camps for indoctrination" in the western Xinjiang autonomous region.

Uighur security personnel patrol near the Id Kah Mosque in Kashgar in western China's Xinjiang region. Credit:AP

"We are deeply concerned at the many numerous and credible reports that we have received that in the name of combating religious extremism and maintaining social stability (China) has changed the Uighur autonomous region into something that resembles a massive internship camp that is shrouded in secrecy, a sort of 'no rights zone'," she told the start of a two-day regular review of China's record, including Hong Kong and Macao.
Bucharest: Tens of thousands of protesters rallied against the ruling Social Democrat (PSD) government on Friday in cities across Romania and the capital Bucharest where riot police fired tear gas into the crowd and hundreds needed medical attention.

The protests were organised and promoted by groups of Romanians working abroad, angry at what they say is entrenched corruption, low wages and attempts by the PSD to weaken the judiciary in one of the European Union's most corrupt states.

A man kicks a flare at riot police during protests outside the government headquarters, in Bucharest, Romania. Credit:AP

In Bucharest, some protesters attempted to force their way through security lines guarding the government building. Others threw bottles and rocks at riot police, who said groups of "provocateurs" were present in the square.

As the protest continued well into the night, riot police used a water canon and increasingly sprayed tear gas into the crowd. Video footage posted on social media show police beating non-violent protesters holding their hands up.
It was a surprise to almost everyone. And almost everyone leapt to the same conclusion: this was the new crown princess, the heir apparent. Nobody expects Merkel to fight another election. With the far-right AfD on the rise and the major parties slumping in the polls, there was a sense the country was itching for change, or at least renewal. Merkel had only reluctantly decided to campaign for this term as chancellor, and while her party had won the biggest slice of the election pie, it was far too small for comfort. Was Merkel anointing AKK her successor? I would not give myself that label, said AKK  as close to yes as a politician could possibly get.

Merkel herself was party secretary for three years before becoming chancellor in 2005. German Chancellor Angela Merkel congratulates her CDU colleague Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, now widely tipped as her successor. Credit:Bloomberg In early 2017, AKK won an unexpectedly comfortable victory in her state election, the conservative CDU confounding the centre-left SPD which had been projected to win Saarland (en route to a projected national SPD surge later in the year, which also failed to materialise). The win brought AKK new admirers at the federal level (and the nickname mini-Merkel). Merkel presented AKK with a bouquet of flowers. But it may prove a poisoned posy. The CDU is no exception to the global political rule that leaders have terrible trouble choosing their successors. Dr Matthias Dilling is a lecturer in politics at Oxford University who has specialised in Western European Christian Democrats - the C and D in the CDU.

[AKK] has usually been considered someone very close to Merkel, both in terms of her style of politics as well as her views, he says. She is seen as centrist and moderate  though she did oppose the introduction of same-sex marriage that Merkel abruptly imposed on her party, she is not considered a part of the more traditional conservative wing of the CDU. Voters in the political centre and even the centre-left would like her pragmatism. Conservatives would like her traditional Catholicism. Rural types would like her Saarland background. She ticks a lot of boxes for the kind of voters the CDU usually tries to mobilise. The CDU is looking for a candidate who will appeal to conservative and rural German voters. Credit:New York Times Though Saarland is small and lacks influence in the party, Merkel has blazed a trail for politicians to rise by their talent rather than their background, Dilling says  and AKKs new role allows her to build alliances.

It is the ideal position to strengthen her network and to get the support from other [state] branches to potentially become Merkels successor. Merkel cannot directly choose her successor, Dilling says  but she has a lot of influence. Normally leadership renewal in the CDU is a compromise between party branches - contested leadership elections are incredibly rare, it is a process of building consensus from the bottom up rather than the top down. If wed had this conversation at the beginning of the year [Merkels] influence would have been limited," Dilling says. The more conservative wing of the party was rising, arguing the party would need to strengthen its conservative profile to appeal to voters who left the CDU for the AfD. The rise of the far-right Alternative for Germany, or AfD, had convinced some in Merkel's party that they needed to adopt more conservative policies. Credit:EPA

Since then Merkel has consolidated her position and regained influence. But AKK has an Achilles heel too  a certain sense of familiarity. A centrist, pragmatist, a good negotiator and listener. Remind you of anyone? After a tenure as long as Merkels it is not necessarily an advantage to be very similar to her predecessor, says Dilling. Most Germans dont appear to be longing for radical change, but judging by the last election theyre not exactly keen for more of the same, either. Merkel chose AKK precisely because she didnt represent change, Dilling says. She is pro-European, backed Merkels refugee policies and has not yet set out a stall much different to the chancellors.

Would that be a problem? Not necessarily, says Michaela Kufner, chief political editor at Deutsche Welles international studio in Berlin. She says you shouldnt underestimate the power of the Merkel brand. Loading AKK is quite clear in saying she doesnt want to shift the party back to the right, she sees her role in strengthening the centre, Kufner says. Germans in general dont have much of an appetite for radical change. She says AKK has a credible background in conservatism  something the party has worried Merkel moved too far away from to retain power.

She clearly has her own independent position and certainly has the stuff to make it, she says. She is not easily intimidated, she is not known as a party rebel, but she is known as someone who stands her ground. She is tried and tested at the grass roots and in power politics, and now shes entered the next level. AKK has already started to throw her weight around. This week she said she was ready to consider the return of national service  something the majority of Germans support, but which Merkels government opposes despite severe troop shortages. Head of the anti-migrant Alternative for Germany, or AfD, Frauke Petry casts her vote in Leipzig in September. Credit:DPA via AP Despite this signal of her conservative credentials, AKK is not the conservative candidate.

Earlier this year, this was seen as a liability. The received wisdom was that German politics needed to move to the right, to counter the threat from the AfD. But recent polls in Bavaria, says Kufner, showed that moving to the right doesnt work for CDU voters  and it may not work with voters more widely either. AKKs competitors for the leadership role  minister for health Jens Spahn or the outspoken Julia Kloeckner  were in the ascendant when the received wisdom was that the party wanted someone more conservative. But now the pendulum has swung back in favour of AKK or Armin Laschet, the moderate minister president of North Rhine-Westphalia, the countrys most populous state. A woman with a poster reading 'United Against The Politics Of Fear' at a demonstration in Munich in July. Credit:DPA Kufner says AKK is a better people person than Merkel, who even after all this time still has trouble with a room full of journalists.

AKK is unafraid of public debate, Kufner says. She also has the advantage of being an architect of the current coalition deal with the SPD, which envisages a review of the governments progress after two years, in 2020. It is an obvious time for Merkel to hand over the reins, though she has insisted she would stay in power until 2021, as long as the SPD were still on board. Merkel is unlikely to stand down unless she is certain her successor would follow her direction on European policy  and the SPD are more likely to accept a known quantity, not too far from the political centre. Helmut Kohl: Angela Merkel was not his expected successor. Credit:Alamy

AKK now has the time to establish herself as a credible leader and potential lead candidate  it would be a smooth transition, Kufner says. At the same time the CDU has a history of the heir apparent not making his or her way to the throne. Merkel once benefited from this trend: everyone had expected Wolfgang Schauble to succeed Helmut Kohl, but instead Merkel seized power. And anyway, how likely is it that the next CDU leader will be the next elected chancellor of Germany? Dilling says Merkel had the ability to attract many voters who would usually not pick the Christian Democrats. AKK may have the same talent, but its yet to be tested. And its a long time to the next election, says Dilling. A lot can happen.
For Bryant and others, that means addressing gentrification and the paucity of affordable housing in the city, ending stop-and-frisk policing, improving educational opportunities and, importantly, Bryant said, "amplifying the voices and experiences of people of colour who are disproportionately affected by racial violence". It also means acknowledging that institutional racism exists as a potent force here. The more outspoken critics say that while modern Charlottesville prides itself on being a progressive and liberal city, it has never reconciled its present with its racist past. They say the city and university have not come to terms with their history of being built, enriched and sustained by enslaved people and remaining, for much of the 20th century, a segregated city that celebrated the vestiges of the Confederacy rather than casting them aside. Jason Kessler, an organiser of last year's Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, had hoped to hold an anniversary event there. Credit:New York Times The violence of last August shattered the conceptions some here had of their home. There was a desire to look at the white supremacists as invaders and outsiders, even though two of the organizers, Jason Kessler and Richard Spencer, were UVA graduates and Kessler lives in the city. The city had to more closely examine what it represented. "We lost our naivete," said Kathy Galvin, 62, a city councillor who has lived in Charlottesville since 1983. "It is easy to kind of take comfort in all the accolades we got up until that point. 'Most innovative city, the happiest city.' But there were many of us who knew that we had entrenched pockets of poverty that were also aligned by race and were legacies of Jim Crow."

While the process has been difficult, it has also been illuminating, Galvin said. "We can't presume to think that we have turned a corner or that we are beyond blame," she said. "So it gave rise to introspection and soul-searching." It also gave rise to anger and protests. Fallout from August 12 is everywhere. The city's police chief resigned. The city manager's contract was not extended. Scathing reports criticised the response by the city and the university. In November, a leading city council critic, Nikuyah Walker, was elected to the body and chosen by other members as the city's first black female mayor. The tension ebbs and flows, but it does not let go. Mayor Nikuyah Walker, centre, at a meeting in Charlottesville in May. Credit:New York Times

City council sessions have been repeatedly disrupted by those who believe their concerns aren't being addressed. Residents report warnings that the white supremacists are plotting a return. Kessler tried to obtain a permit for an anniversary rally. He withdrew that request and is hoping to hold one in Washington, DC, that day. There was widespread relief in Charlottesville that he abandoned a plan for a rally here, but a residue of uncertainty and fear lingers. "I'm not going outside that day," said Nydia Lee, 25, who lives in a public housing development just south of the city's downtown and watched last year when white supremacists passed nearby. "We got a preview of what our ancestors went through, and it was scary. It was overwhelming." 'It felt like we had won' Sophie Schectman was in a celebratory mood. She and a large group of like-minded protesters had stood up to the hundreds of white supremacists and Nazi sympathisers who had descended on her hometown, forcing their rally to end before it began. White supremacists in Charlottesville last August. Credit:New York Times

Charlottesville, that hot northern summer morning, had been a hellscape. The marchers filled the air of the typically quiet university town with racist and homophobic chants and jeers. The protesters shouted back. There were chemicals sprayed and pitched battles in the streets. Fists and bricks and bottles flew. City police and Virginia state troopers decided not to intervene. The country and the world witnessed the unchecked rage and violence play out on television and Twitter. By a little after noon, quiet was returning. "It felt like we had won on that day," said Schectman, 22, who grew up here and graduated this spring from UVA. "We had showed up to make it clear that their racist and white supremacist ideology was not welcome in Charlottesville by the people of Charlottesville." Schectman was feeling joyful as she walked up Fourth Street, just off the city's downtown pedestrian mall. She turned to give a friend a hug. She never heard the car roar down the street, headed directly at the crowd. Flowers mark the site where Heather Heyer was killed last year in Charlottesville. Credit:New York Times

In an instant, Schectman, a track athlete, was struck. When she came to, she was lying on the sidewalk. Blood spilled from her forehead, and she felt a searing pain in her legs. She suffered a concussion, two broken legs, bruises and blood loss. It would take two surgeries and months of rehabilitation before she could walk again. She may never be able to return to running. James Alex Fields jnr, an Ohio resident with Nazi leanings, is accused of deliberately driving his car into the crowd of unsuspecting protesters, injuring Schectman and dozens of others. One, Heather Heyer, 32, was killed. The already violent day had turned deadly, and in the course of a few hours, Charlottesville had become synonymous with racial menace. Fields is awaiting trial on first-degree murder charges and has been charged with federal hate crimes, for which he could face the death penalty. Sitting in a downtown cafe a block from where she was run over, Schectman betrays little emotion but says she is angry her city and her university failed the community. She's angry, too, that there have been no apologies issued or responsibility accepted for those failures. And though her injuries were severe and life-altering, her focus is not on herself.

"It has become more clear to everybody that we need to be fighting oppression in all of its forms," she said. "And we need to be fighting white supremacy that shows itself in everyday life here in Charlottesville." 'Let's put it on the table' Charlottesville can't rewrite its history of last year any more than it can of the past 250 years. But people who live here say they have learned lessons, had their eyes opened to truths they previously weren't forced to face. Caroline Polk and her husband, Forrest Swope, are longtime Charlottesville residents who went to witness the white supremacists march on their town. They were prepared for demonstrations but not for the venom. "Look, we're white. This stuff doesn't affect us every day," Polk said. "If I get pulled over by a cop, I don't worry about getting shot. I just hope what happened last year motivated people to be better allies and call out racism when they see it."

Wes Bellamy said he hopes the discussions and awareness provoked by last year's violence will be transformative for the city. Bellamy, 31, is a city councillor who helped push the city to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee from a downtown park. The decision to banish the statue resulted in death threats and hate mail and, in part, is what led to the white supremacists deciding on Charlottesville as the location for their rally. The Charlottesville statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee. Credit:New York Times For now, that statue remains, caught in a legal limbo. But this is not the time to back down, Bellamy said as he sat at a table outside Mel's Cafe in Charlottesville. "If we skirt around the issues, we're not going to get anywhere. Let's put it on the table. That's what I think we've done in this community," he said. "Just because it makes you uncomfortable doesn't mean we can't talk about it."
PANAMA CITY, Panama:---A group of experts is calling for a different approach to providing Internet access to the poor, remote and underserved parts of the Caribbean region.

Governments, policy makers and the private sector are exploring strategies and partnerships to connect the unconnected, said Jane Coffin, Director of Development Strategy at the Internet Society.

Coffin was one of three speakers in a panel discussion at a recently concluded conference hosted by regional telecommunications organisation association, CANTO. She issued a call for all Caribbean stakeholders to look at innovative and smart ways to bring Internet access to the regions underserved and unconnected communities.

Coffin highlighted community networks as a possible solution. Community networks are computer-based networks deployed and operated by a local group to meet their own communication needs. Unlike the top-down approach of commercial service providers, community networks are typically from-the-ground-up projects that enable local development, and help keep profits localgenerally providing training for the users and reinvesting any proceeds back into in the local community.

Adriana Lambardini, a former commissioner of the telecommunications regulator in Mexico, gave insights on practical ways that governments can create an enabling environment for community networks.

"We need to make sure that the fiscal incentives are put in place, she said, explaining that governments should consider creating polices to specifically address not-for-profit and small-scale operators, in order to address market dominance by larger, commercial providers.

Community networks complement traditional service providers by providing local access where mainstream networks do not generally operate. Several hundred community networks exist worldwide, some built and managed by individuals, others by organisations from the private or public sector. Whatever shape they take, community networks are basically do-it-yourself networks built by the people for themselves.

Nicolas Pace of Altermundi, shared tales from the trenches of deploying community networks in Central America and the Caribbean. Community networks have also been deployed across the world, from some of the poorest peoples of Nepal, India, Kenya and Mexico, to the unconnected communities of New York and San Francisco in the United States, to the underserved communities of Georgia in Eastern Europe.

Pace pointed out that while the Caribbean could learn some lessons from observing other community network deployments, each community was unique and each network emerged from a particular set of conditions. Community networks can emerge organically as the result of people working together, combining their resources, organising their efforts, and connecting themselves to close connectivity. Or they can be deployed quite quickly in times of crisis, such as in the response to an earthquake or hurricane.

"No two community networks are necessarily the same," Pace said.

The expert panel was moderated by Shernon Osepa, Regional Affairs Manager for Latin America and the Caribbean at the Internet Society.

The CANTO conference, which took place in Panama City from July 22 to 26, attracted a wide range of stakeholders from across the regions Internet and telecommunications industry, including regulators, government ministers, policy makers, Internet organisations, network operators, suppliers and vendors.
PHILIPSBURG (DCOMM):--- Ministry of Public Housing, Environment, Spatial Development and Infrastructure (Ministry VROMI), announces that Front Street will be partially closed in connection with Phase 2 work of the demolition of damaged balusters and exterior repaint work of the House of Parliament.

The partial closure of Front Street will be from the intersection St. Jan Steeg to the front of the House of Parliament.

The closure will take place on Saturday, August 11 and Sunday, August 12 from 10.30am to 7.30pm and 10.00pm to 6.00am.

Motorists and pedestrians are requested to pay attention to traffic directional signs and to be vigilant and observant of equipment that will be used during the aforementioned hours.

The works will be carried out by New Image Design Contractor N.V.

Ministry VROMI apologizes for any inconveniences this may cause.
HUNTSVILLE, Ala.  The Pentagon admittedly is already five to 10 years behind in the development of an anti-missile system to thwart advanced hypersonic weapons that are now being tested by China and Russia.

The good news for the Defense Department is that the commercial space technology boom that is fueling the development of mega-constellations could help the military reach that goal. The Pentagon is studying options to build a space-based surveillance network to fill blind spots in the nation's current defenses  which were designed to counter ballistic missiles that fly on a predictable arch-shaped pattern.

To detect and track hypersonic weapons  which fly into space at supersonic speeds and then descend back down to Earth directly on top of targets  the answer is a large constellation of small satellites.

"Our response has to be a proliferated space sensor layer, possibly based off commercial space developments," said Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Michael Griffin. [The Most Dangerous Space Weapons Concepts Ever]

The hypersonic threat brings a "new urgency" that the United States has not seen since the Cold War and that demands a different type of thinking about the architecture, Griffin told reporters on Wednesday at the Space & Missile Defense Symposium. The only way to provide global coverage and not go bankrupt installing radars on the ground is to go to space.

Griffin cautioned that the traditional approach to developing "exquisite" military satellites is not going to work in this case. The Pentagon already has a sophisticated network of early warning satellites that detect missile launches. Another layer of sensors will be needed in the future for "persistent, timely global, low-latency surveillance to track and provide fire control for hypersonic threats."

Details such as how many satellites, in what orbits, at what altitudes have yet to be worked out. The Missile Defense Agency, which Griffin oversees, was designated the Pentagon's "executive agent" for hypersonic defense.

Griffin said the United States for decades has conducted its own hypersonic weapons development but chose to not weaponize the technology. "Our enemies have, so we have to respond," he said. "The first step in that response absolutely has to be a sensor layer from space."

There are no alternatives, "unless you plan to wallpaper the Earth with radars," he said. This is not a mission that can be done realistically from the ground or the oceans. "You would need a lot of radars that are very expensive and themselves become targets," Griffin said. "That's not an acceptable defensive posture. The only way to see these things coming is from space."

The military's early warning satellites in geosynchronous earth orbit cannot do this mission. "Hypersonic vehicles are hard to see from high orbit because they are not as bright. They're a factor of 10 or more dimmer than strategic missiles. So we have to get closer to see them and track them."

'This can be done'

The Pentagon during the Clinton administration conceived a plan for a 24-satellite LEO constellation to track missiles, but it never got off the ground. The Bush White House ordered two satellites from Northrop Grumman, known as the Space Tracking and Surveillance System. These were experimental satellites that were supposed to last only three or four years but are still in operation. Two satellites in LEO, however, cannot cover the globe.

"We know that this can be done," said Griffin. "To me this is not a technology challenge, this is a policy decision. Is the United States going to deploy a space layer so we can track the Chinese hypersonic threat from cloud break forward? The answer had better be yes."

Like any major defense procurement, the space sensor layer will have to be approved by the White House and get support from Congress. The 2019 National Defense Authorization Act adds $140 million to the Missile Defense Agency's budget for the development hypersonic defense capabilities.

In the absence of a capable hypersonic defense, the U.S. military in a future war would be vulnerable to China's long-range tactical hypersonic weapons. "The Chinese have been thoughtful in their missile development," said Griffin. "They have focused on tactical precision guided systems that could be really influential in a conventional fight," he said. "The Chinese would hold our forward-deployed assets at risk. And that's something to which we have to respond."

Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves, director of the Missile Defense Agency

Missile Defense Agency Director Lt. Gen. Samuel Greaves said the United States cannot continue to delay the development of space based sensors. Major defense contractors already are working on design concepts for a space sensor layer. MDA has awarded million-dollar study contracts to several firms  Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, General Atomics, Maxar, Draper Labs, Leidos and Boeing  to work on concepts. Contractors are scheduled to brief MDA later this month.

Sarah Reeves, vice president of missile defense programs at Lockheed Martin Space, said the company has invested $100 million in corporate R&D in technologies that would advance hypersonic defense. "We are working with traditional and nontraditional contractors," she said. "We're in discussions about ideal orbits and different solutions."

Kenneth Todorov, Northrop Grumman vice president of missile defense solutions, told SpaceNews that the company is looking to become a "dominant player" in the missile defense business. Northrop Grumman made a strategic decision last year to acquire space powerhouse Orbital ATK in anticipation of these increased requirements for space-based systems, said Todorov. "The future of missile defense, especially in acquisition, tracking and assessment of threats resides in space," said Todorov, who is a former deputy director of the Missile Defense Agency. "Ground systems are still relevant, but in the future the space layer is an imperative."

There was a lot of chatter at the SMD Symposium about the possibility that the Trump administration might want to deploy interceptor missiles in space to shoot down enemy weapons. Congress has asked the Missile Defense Agency to study it further.

Griffin said space-based interceptors have been talked about for decades but they would not be effective against hypersonic threats. Space interceptors could go after ballistic missiles, he said, "but cannot reasonably go after a hypersonic threat." The hypersonic vehicles the U.S. worries about fly at lower altitudes within the atmosphere. "So your space interceptor would have to be itself a reentry vehicle, and survive reentry to strike the hypersonic target."

Kinetic or laser weapons deployed on ships, drones or ground vehicles would be used to shoot down hypersonic vehicles. The United States would want to have an array of options to take down an incoming weapon in different phases of flight.

This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.
Air Force Space Command shield. This command aims to provide space capabilities for the Air Force and the nation.

President Donald Trump's administration is pushing to form a U.S. Space Force, a new military branch, but how would that agency differ from the Air Force Space Command, which already oversees much of the country's defense assets in space?

In a speech at the Pentagon Thursday (Aug. 9), Vice President Mike Pence revealed a detailed plan to create the Space Force, which Trump proposed earlier this yearn. The Space Force swill meet "the rising security threats our nation faces in space today and in the future," Pence said. If approved by Congress, the Space Force could be ready by 2020, he added.

But the proposed Space Force is not the United States' first foray into militarizing space. [Space Force Logos by the Trump Campaign]

The first U.S. rockets were launched by the U.S. military, and NASA's first astronauts were military officers, Pence said. And in 1982, the U.S. Air Force established the Air Force Space Command (AFSPC) to provide "space capabilities" for spaceflight missions, navigation, satellite communications, missile warning and space control, according to AFSPC's website.)

The AFSPC has units at Air Force bases all over the United States. These units provide space capabilities including "services, facilities and range safety control for the conduct of DOD [Department of Defense], NASA and commercial launches" of satellties, according to AFSPC's website.

But if the AFSPC is already dedicated to space, why do we need a Space Force?

On Aug. 9, 2018, Vice President Mike Pence gave a speech at the Pentagon in which he outlined a plan for Trump's proposed Space Force. (Image credit: White House/DoD News)

In an interview with Space.com, Michael Dodge, an assistant professor in the Department of Space Studies at the University of North Dakota, likened the creation of a Space Force with the birth of the Air Force in the 20th century.

The early version of the U.S. Air Force existed as the U.S. Army Air Corps, an aerial warfare sector of the U.S. Army. But as planes continued to advance technologically and find their way into mainstream travel, "Congress decided they needed to have a new branch of the military," Dodge said. The country needed a branch that could "address issues unique to this domain." The Air Force became the fifth branch of the U.S. armed forces in 1947.

The Space Force would essentially serve the same purpose, but for space. Dodge said it would "free up the Air Force to focus on what it does best," as the new branch addressed issues unique to space.

Dodge noted that this space-oriented, sixth military branch makes the most sense now. " [O]ur assets are so critical in outer space and everything that we do is so dependent on outer space that we need a new force capable of focusing on that domain by itself," he said."

However, Dodge added, one driving force to create a Space Force now instead of sometime in the future is political.

Pence called out the military activities of Russia and China in his speech at the Pentagon today. Both countries have tested anti-satellite technology in the past and are actively pursuing hypersonic weapons that surpass current missile-defense capabilities, Pence said.

Dodge noted that creating a Space Force now, instead of waiting for the future, would allow the U.S. to "Keep pace with and [go] beyond the abilities of potential adversaries to the United States." In other words, instead of waiting until there is a need for a U.S. military presence in space, the Space Force would beat other countries to the punch, paving the way.

In June, President Trump said that it wasn't enough for the U.S. to have a presence in space. "We must have American dominance in space."

But Trump's Space Force would add more than just a competitive presence in space or an additional focus on protection of U.S. space assets. Aside from being a new military branch, a Space Force at the Pentagon today would have a few features that would set it apart from previous U.S. military space efforts, like AFSPC, Pence said.

The vice president mentioned four major, fundamental steps that the U.S. government will take to create a Space Force. These include a new U.S. Space Command to unify leadership and ensure a smooth, military integration; a Space Development Agency to focus on research and advancing space technologies and "war-fighting capabilities"; new government structures to solidify the branch's futuree; and "war fighters."

This fourth addition could be what most differentiates the Space Force from the AFSPC. The Space Force will have, as Pence described, "an elite group of joint war fighters specializing in the domain of space." This could be a military astronaut corps, though the specific roles of these war fighters have yet to be defined.

Email Chelsea Gohd at cgohd@space.com or follow her @chelsea_gohd. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
NASA Science Mission Directorate Associate Administrator Thomas Zurbuchen, solar astrophysicist Eugene Parker and United Launch Alliance President Tory Bruno in front of the rocket that will carry the Parker Solar Probe into space.

It's never too late to do something for the first time  especially if that thing is seeing a rocket launch in person, and even more so if that rocket is carrying a mission named after you.

At 91, renowned solar scientist Eugene Parker is experiencing just that this weekend as NASA launches its Parker Solar Probe, a seven-year, $1.5 billion mission to "touch the sun."

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Parker, now retired from the University of Chicago, spent his career trying to understand the sun and the ways it affects the solar system. In 1958, he hypothesized the existence of the solar wind, the constant rush of highly charged particles that constantly streams off the sun. And now, six decades later, a spacecraft that will revolutionize our understanding of the phenomenon is prepared to launch.

Since the mission was named in his honor last year, NASA has offered Parker special behind-the-scenes access to the spacecraft carrying his name. He previously toured the facility where the spacecraft was built, and now he is in Florida, visiting NASA's Kennedy Space Center.

Parker also received a tour of Kennedy Space Center. (Image credit: NASA/Kennedy Space Center/Sandy Hillman Communications)

Today (Aug. 10), accompanied by NASA Science Mission Directorate Associate Administrator Thomas Zurbuchen, project scientist Nicola Fox of Johns Hopkins University, and United Launch Alliance President Tory Bruno, Parker admired the Delta IV Heavy rocket with the probe in its tip. The spacecraft is currently scheduled to launch tomorrow (Aug. 11) at 3:33 a.m. (0733 GMT).

Parker has never seen a launch in person before.

We can't offer quite the same experience, but you can watch the launch live here on Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV; the broadcast begins at 3 a.m. EDT (0700 GMT).

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.comor follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
The United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket carrying NASAs Parker Solar Probe rolls out at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida on Aug. 10, 2018, ahead of a planned Aug. 11 launch.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla.  NASA's historic mission to touch the sun is nearly ready to lift off.

A United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket topped with NASA's Parker Solar Probe rolled out to its launch pad here at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station this evening (Aug. 10). (Actually, the mobile servicing tower surrounding the rocket rolled back, exposing the Delta IV Heavy and its payload. But the effect is basically the same.)

If all goes according to plan, the booster will lift off at 3:33 a.m. EDT (0733 GMT) tomorrow (Aug. 11), kicking off a $1.5 billion mission that will fly through the sun's outer atmosphere repeatedly, gathering key insights about solar structure and activity. You can watch the launch live here on Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV. The webcast begins at 3 a.m. EDT (0700 GMT). [The Greatest Missions to the Sun Ever]

A view of the Delta IV Heavy from the other side, showing the Parker Solar Probe logo. (Image credit: Mike Wall/Space.com)

The heavily shielded Parker Solar Probe will make 24 such close flybys over the next seven years, getting within just 3.83 million miles (6.16 million kilometers) of the sun's surface at closest approach. The sun's gravity will accelerate the spacecraft to record-breaking speeds during such encounters; at its fastest, the Parker Solar Probe will go about 430,000 mph (690,000 km/h), NASA officials said.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
A 3D-printed model of the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) sits on display beneath a photo of the real thing.

You can now 3D-print your own miniature version of NASA's flying telescope, the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA).

Engineers at NASA's Ames Research Center in California have created an eight-piece model of the airborne observatory, and the digital files needed to 3D-print your own tiny SOFIA are free to download here.

Unlike space-based observatories like the Hubble Space Telescope, which launch on top of a rocket before being deployed into orbit, the SOFIA telescope is built into an airplane. Specifically, SOFIA resides inside a modified Boeing 747 wide-body jetliner. SOFIA observes the universe from the stratosphere, where it flies at altitudes of up to 45,000 feet (14 kilometers). [Photos from SOFIA, NASA's Flying Telescope]

"SOFIA flies higher than commercial jetliners to get above 99 percent of the water vapor in Earth's atmosphere, which blocks infrared light from reaching the ground," NASA officials said in a description of the 3D-printing files. "This is why SOFIA is capable of making observations that are impossible for even the largest and highest ground-based telescopes."

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Researchers with NASA and the German space agency, which is known by its German acronym, DLR, have used SOFIA to study stars, planets, comets, black holes and more. The telescope has found atomic oxygen on Mars, watched the dwarf planet Pluto pass in front of a distant star to learn about its atmosphere, and became the first airborne observatory to study distant exoplanets.

The 3D-printed model of the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) . (Image credit: NASA/SOFIA)

This 3D-printable version of SOFIA is built to a scale of 1/200 and is just under a foot long. It includes a miniaturized version of SOFIA's 106-inch (2.7 meters) reflecting telescope, which is situated at the rear of the aircraft behind a door that can be either open or closed. The fuselage can also be opened to reveal details of the inside of the aircraft.

Email Hanneke Weitering at hweitering@space.com or follow her @hannekescience. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
The launch of NASA's $1.5 billion Parker Solar Probe mission to the sun was delayed 24 hours due to a last-minute glitch with its Delta IV Heavy rocket (shown here) early Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. The probe will now launch no earlier than Aug. 12 from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Florida.

NASA called off the launch of its ambitious Parker Solar Probe mission to the sun just minutes before an early-morning liftoff Saturday (Aug. 11) due to a glitch with the spacecraft's giant Delta IV Heavy rocket.

The space agency scrubbed the launch due to a last-minute anomaly in the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket sheduled to launch the Parker Solar Probe at 4:28 a.m. EDT (0828 GMT), NASA officials said. The mission is now scheduled for no earlier than Sunday, Aug. 12, at 3:31 a.m. EDT (0731 GMT) during a window that will remain open for 65 minutes. There is a 60-percent chance of good weather for a Sunday launch, according to ULA.

You can watch the launch live on Space.com, courtesy of NASA TV. The webcast will begin at 3 a.m. EDT (0700 GMT). [NASA's Parker Solar Probe Mission to the Sun in Pictures]

"The team received a gaseous helium red pressure alarm that kicked them out," Mic Woltman of NASA's Launch Services Program said during live NASA TV commentary following the launch scrub. "The team is evaluating that and looking at it."

Woltman added that the team is hoping for a 24-hour turnaround. "That is contingent on the detanking process," he added, referring to the procedure that will address the helium pressure anomaly. If the process doesn't go smoothly, the team will be looking at a 48-hour turnaround and launching early on Aug. 13.

NASA's $1.5 billion Parker Solar Probe mission will attempt to fly closer to the sun and faster than any other spacecraft in history. The spacecraft is designed to fly through the sun's super-hot outer atmosphere, called the corona, to study the solar wind and sun storms.

The mission is named after famed solar scientist Eugene Parker, and is NASAs first to be named after a living person.

Saturday's launch-stopping anomaly came after a second issue during today's attempt. During the original countdown procedure for the planned 3:33 a.m. EDT (0733 GMT) launch, mission control staff held at T-4 due to anomalies in data being provided by the rocket, but had then indicated they would still attempt the launch.

NASA initially aimed to launch the Parker Solar Probe on July 31, but the agency and ULA repeatedly pushed the liftoff back to allow time to resolve issues with the mission's Delta IV Heavy booster. The launch window for the mission currently closes on Aug. 23.

Email Meghan Bartels at mbartels@space.com or follow her @meghanbartels. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
GREENWICH  The delicate chimes of handbells signaled the beginning of the Rite of Installment at St. Pauls Lutheran Church on Saturday morning.

White-gloved women rang the bells, a 30-year tradition, and ushered in 11 Lutheran clergymen in white robes tied with white ropes. Cubist-style stained glass windows diffused the noon light in jewel tones.

After seven vacant months without a pastor to lead the congregations of St. Pauls Lutheran Church in central Greenwich and First Lutheran Church in Byram, parishioners from both churches welcomed the Rev. Evan Scamman with excitement and relief. Pastoring two churches is already uncommon, but his churches represent two districts of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, a traditional denomination of the Lutheran Church.

Im relieved, St. Pauls congregation vice president Laura Dianis said. Im excited for what lies ahead.

Only 2 miles separate the two parishes  with one on Delavan Avenue and the other across the street from Greenwich Town Hall. But they represent the New England District and the Slovak Evangelical Lutheran Church, a nongeographical district of formerly Slovakian churches.

As Eastern Europeans settled in American mill towns, they formed churches and held Slovakian services. Three generations later, English unites the churches while the district lines separate them. Scamman will split his time between the churches, celebrating an early service at St. Paul and a late service at First Lutheran.

For the service, he sat in a chair, chocolate brown wood and velvet the color of wine, where his five predecessors sat for their installation rites since the churchs founding in 1902. The Rev. James Douthwaite, pastor of Saint Athanasius in Virginia, read from the Old and New Testaments and the gospel, each passage a reflection on the role and work of a pastor.

The readings are actually part of the historic lectionary, Scamman said. For 1,500 years, those scriptures have been read the eighth Sunday after Trinity, so it just kind of fortuitously were perfect readings for an installation. I couldnt have picked better ones if I had chosen them myself.

His wife, Lena, and the couples daughter, Katie, an incoming freshman at Greenwich High, sat up front.

The family moved to Greenwich a week ago after four years in the Midwest  three in Fort Wayne, Ind., and one in Lincoln, Neb., where he completed his vicarage, a kind of internship. The trio is excited to be near water again, Lena said. Both she and her husband of nearly 16 years grew up near the other coast, along the shore of Washingtons Puget Sound.

Its nice living next to beaches and mountains, Katie said.

Her dad agreed: Even driving through town and going up a little hill, its like Oh yeah, this is great.

Greenwich was a complete surprise, Lena Scamman said. Evan Scamman learned of his assignment on call night, when the placement coordinator announces the destination church of every graduating minister.

The congregation of St. Pauls gathered that same call night to watch a live-stream of the service, waiting to catch a glimpse of their new pastor. Dianis prepared for the Scamman familys arrival, even planning a pantry party.

Without a pastor, the lay people had been leading the services themselves, reading from sermons that pastors posted on the synods website and receiving communion once a month from a visiting minister, Dianis said.

Its a lot of work, she said.

Dianis understated the effort the parishioners made, so Lena Scamman jumped in.

It is a ton of work, that a few key people have done for a very long time, and theyve done a very good job of it, a very good job of it, she said.

Dianis conceded: We all pitched in.

When a church is vacant, attendance drops off, Scamman said. St. Pauls hasnt experienced the decline because of the parishioners work and dedication, she said.

The leadership of the church stepped forward, and everyone got involved, Dianis said. It pulled us together, actually.

The Rev. Ben Loos served St. Pauls in addition to First Lutheran, Dianis said. Loos came to First Lutheran six years ago, and when St. Pauls pastor left three years into Loos ministry, he started serving as the churchs interim pastor.

For the congregation and the new pastor, the transition is similar to a new relationship, said Benjamin Mayes of Concordia Theological Seminary who was Scammans church history professor.

Theres a time when youre getting to know the other person, and figuring out how to work together best, and figuring out what annoys this other person, and what might annoy me, and theres a time of finding how were going to live together well, Mayes said. But Im confident that things are going to go great.

He drove to Connecticut for this rite with his family in support of his friend and former student, making a road trip out of it. Mayes knew Evan Scamman before he taught him, through his wifes friendship with Lena Scamman, who co-led a support group for barren women.

Evan Scamman was a non-traditional student, Mayes said.

I dont think he went through four years of college, but he went through our masters program and was able to do everything very well, he said, praising Scamman as smart and inquisitive.

Scamman was homeschooled and earned a GED at 16. He went to work as a fabricator at a local sign company in Washington state, where he stayed for 20 years. Then he and his wife started discussing the possibility of seminary.

It seemed like a crazy idea, but as soon as we started talking about it, it seemed right, Scamman said. We took the first step, we took the second. We waited to see if there was a brick wall, and there wasnt.

He quit his job and earned an associates degree from Grays Harbor College in Washington in eight months. He and his wife sold their house and moved to Indiana, where he enrolled in the four-year program at Concordia Theological Seminary in Fort Wayne and graduated in May with a masters of divinity.

Taking those steps was risky  completing the seminary and receiving an assignment are not guaranteed, Scamman said.

You dont know until today, or until three months ago, you dont know if God is going to send you, he said.

Seminarians and their family members dont have a home for four years, Scamman said. He helped at a local church for a while at Concordia, then he interned (seminarians call it a vicarage) at a church in Lincoln and spent one more year in Indiana before getting his assignment and graduating.

We are way too good at moving, Scamman said. We threw away all our boxes.

Hopefully, they will stay in Greenwich for the next 40 years, he said. For his wife, the promise of decades in one spot means having a church family for the first time in six years.

I think the best part will be getting to know our church family, she said. Its been a long time.

Cousins and second-cousins of the Scammans populate the Northeast, so the three moved closer to family though they swapped coasts.

Its like moving back home to a home we never lived at, he said.

jo.kroeker@hearstmediact.com
Donald Trump Jr. deleted a doctored image of his father's approval from his Instagram page on Friday.

The image, which was altered to show President Trump's approval rating at 50 percent, was posted on Wednesday night and Instagram users immediately decried it as a fake.

A number of users left comments reading "fake," or "photoshopped," but Trump Jr. didn't delete the photo until Friday.

The original image was from a CNN segment on Monday, and showed President Trump's approval rating at 40 percent, compared to former President Obama's 45 percent approval rating at this point in his presidency.

RELATED: Like father, like son: Trump Jr. defiant about Russia probe

However, someone poorly doctored the image to display that Trump's approval rating is at 50 percent, and the fake version somehow found its way onto Trump Jr.'s Instagram page.

"I guess there is a magic wand to make things happen and @realdonaldtrump seems to have it. #MAGA #amreicafirst," Trump Jr. wrote in a caption.

ALSO: Colbert: Donald Trump Jr. Is 'Wonderful' Just Like 'Ulcerative Colitis'

CNN created the graphic to fact check President Trump's claim that he has "better numbers than Obama at this point, by far."

"Presidential Approval numbers are very good - strong economy, military and just about everything else," Trump tweeted on Sunday. "Better numbers than Obama at this point, by far."

The numbers for approval ratings came from Gallup's weekly tracker of the president's approval ratings.
This story has been updated to include comment from Terry Adams of Stamford, a Democrat primary candidate for a District 146 state House of Representatives seat.

STAMFORD  A primary during the dog days of summer doesnt draw many voters, but Tuesdays turnout may exceed the single-digit percentages that are the norm.

Thats if the number of absentee ballots is any indication.

As of Friday, Democrats in Stamford returned more absentee ballots than were cast for the 2016 presidential primary, which had a huge turnout, said Ron Malloy, the citys Democratic registrar of voters.

The number of absentee ballots requested by Republican voters for Tuesday is also on track to surpass the primary of two years ago, he said.

This is an interesting statistic, Malloy said. Maybe its because the 2016 primary was in April and this one is in August, when a lot of people are on vacation and voting absentee, I dont know. But its a greater number than we would otherwise expect.

As of Friday, 502 Democrats and 209 Republicans had returned absentee ballots, Malloy said.

Other factors indicate increased interest in Tuesdays primary.

Voter registration in Stamford continues to climb, said Lucy Corelli, the citys Republican registrar. As of Friday, the city had 68,033 voters, or about 400 more than this time last year, when registration had already surged 18 percent in the wake of the 2016 presidential election.

Another sign of interest is the number of voters seeking to change political parties, Malloy said.

Were getting loads of phone calls, but you cant change from Democrat to Republican or vice versa within 90 days of the primary and then vote in the primary, Malloy said.

Unaffiliated voters, however, may join a party until noon Monday to vote on Tuesday.

But you have to do it in person and you cant have been a member of any party within the last 90 days, Malloy said.

GOP choices

In Stamford, Democrats will decide between two candidates for governor, and Republicans will choose among five. Party members also must pick candidates for the offices of lieutenant governor, attorney general, treasurer and comptroller, and two state House of Representatives seats  Stamfords District 146 and District 147.

Two Republicans  Anzelmo Graziosi, of Stamford, and Dariens Marcy Minnick  are vying for the seat in District 147, which includes Springdale, the Ridges, North Stamford, Westover and western Darien.

Graziosi, a city representative from District 13, said he is seeking the seat to help solve Connecticuts unprecedented fiscal crisis due to decades of out-of-control spending and failure to adequately save for retirement benefits for state employees.

WHERE TO VOTE Polls open 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. Tuesday District 1 : Our Lady Star of the Sea, 1200 Shippan Ave. District 2 : Domus, 15 Frank St. District 3: K.T. Murphy School, 38 George St. District 4: Stark School, 38 Oscar St. District 5: Stamford High School, 84 Hillandale Ave. District 6: St. Bridget Church, 274 Strawberry Hill Ave. District 7: First Presbyterian Church, 1101 Bedford St. District 8: Stillmeadow School, 800 Stillwater Road District 9: Salvation Army, 198 Selleck St. District 10: Westover School, 142 Stillwater Road District 11: Cloonan School, 11 Powell Place District 12: Stillmeadow School, 800 Stillwater Road District 13: Rippowam Middle School, 381 High Ridge Road District 14: Dolan Middle School, 51 Toms Road District 15: Springdale School, 1127 Hope St. District 16: Turn of River Middle School, 117 Vine Road District 17: Roxbury School, 751 West Hill Road District 18: Turn of River Middle School, 117 Vine Road District 19: Davenport Ridge School, 1300 Newfield Ave. District 20: Northeast School, 82 Scofieldtown Road District 21: Scofield Middle School, 641 Scofieldtown Road District 22: Long Ridge Church, 455 Old Long Ridge Road See More Collapse

Power has been concentrated in the hands of a few that have unfairly engineered our elections, legislative process and finances for their own entrenchment and enrichment, said Graziosi, an attorney and married father of five, four of them Stamford public school students. Taxes and spending have become so excessive that people and employers have been driven out of their homes and places of doing business. Government regulations have erected barriers to business, while inadequate education and infrastructure hold our state back.

On the Board of Representatives, Graziosi, a former Democrat, has made headlines for speaking out against city spending and for bucking his party after leaders in May endorsed Matt Blumenthal, a newcomer to District 147 and son of U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal.

Graziosi said he switched parties, but not positions.

When Im out talking to people, they have almost universally heard about Sen. Blumenthals son moving to the district just to run for office, and they think it is wrong, said Graziosi, 46. Some say, we understand  we were Democrats, too, when we were young. I tell them Im also running on the independent line, the same as I did when I ran for the Board of Representatives as a Democrat. Ive always been independent.

Darien newcomer

Minnick has also switched parties, state voter registration records show. She switched from Republican to Democrat in 2012, then back to Republican in 2016, records show.

Minnick, 40, who runs a 25-employee family business, Excello Tool Engineering & Manufacturing, said she changed parties to vote in the Republican presidential primary two years ago.

I was always conservative, voting on policy rather than party. I come from a strong Republican family, said Minnick, a married mother of three. I registered as a Democrat at 18 years old. I wanted to save the world in a social way. As I got older, I became more aware of fiscal responsibilities, how businesses work, paying taxes, and I became aware that my ideologies were Republican.

Minnick said she works at the state level to create education and training programs designed to fill worker shortages.

Businesses are begging for skilled employees, she said.

Stamford Republicans did not seriously consider her candidacy because more than four-fifths of District 147 is in Stamford, Minnick said. She petitioned her way onto the ballot to challenge Graziosi on Tuesday.

On the campaign trail, she tells Stamford Republicans, I was not nominated as a candidate based on my ZIP code, Minnick said. Because I had a complex way to get on the ballot  I had to go out and gather 210 signatures  I think it shows I am determined to stay on track, I have a strong work ethic, and I dont back down when things get tough.

People might have a misconception about her because she lives in Darien, Minnick said, but Im worried about how to pay for my kids to go to college, how to make car payments each month, how pay for my retirement, like a lot of people.

Dem choices

Democrats on Tuesday will chose between two candidates for the District 146 seat  David Michel, the partys endorsed candidate, and Terry Adams, the two-term incumbent and a longtime member of the Stamford Board of Representatives. District 146 includes downtown, the South End and Shippan.

Michel, 43, an eyewear distributor, has long been active in Stamford organizing cleanups along the shore and advocating for the environment.

That volunteer work started him looking at other issues, and I saw they are all linked, Michel said. I began to take on the issues of people I met because they were getting no response from government.

He worked on behalf of homeless people, residents involved in zoning controversies, and the efforts of union workers. It won him the Democratic Partys endorsement over the incumbent Adams.

When someone tells me they have an issue, I listen. Politicians cant do anything without the people, said Michel, who takes notes on the things voters tell him. If you are not talking with the people, how do you know what the issues are? If I win the state office, I will be a liaison between the city, the state and the constituents.

Michel said he decided to run because he believes he could be more effective as a state legislator than as a local advocate.

I am genuinely offering to work for the people, he said. Im just a normal person whos had enough. When I talk to people, I see that they agree on a lot of things, and a lot of the things that need to be fixed require common sense.

Adams, 59, who has lived in the South End for more than four decades, first won the District 146 state House seat in 2013, while representing Stamfords District 3 on the Board of Representatives. Adams, a Pitney Bowes employee, began his eighth term on the board in November.

He has retained his board seat to continue the fight against South End developer Building and Land Technology, Adams said. BLT is remaking the neighborhood in a multi-billion-dollar development called Harbor Point, now growing beyond the originally planned 80 acres, Adams said.

Some people in the South End want to live where they are, not be forced out by a developer who wants to put a 22-story building beside them, Adams said. We need a balance between having new development and preserving the older homes to keep the character of the neighborhood. BLT doesnt agree with that, so its a fight.

His seats on the Board of Representatives and in the state House of Representatives  plus his role as a member of the Democratic City Committee and president of the South End Neighborhood Revitalization Zone  help him battle for Stamford residents, Adams said.

Ive been working in Stamford for 43 years, Ive lived here for 43 years, Ive owned property for 38 years. A lot of what comes across my desk Ive seen before, or I have some experience with it, he said. So I think I do some good out there.

As a state representative, he has worked with the rest of the Stamford delegation to bring tens of millions of dollars to the city that have been used to build a new school on Strawberry Hill Avenue, widen the Atlantic Street bridge and begin other transportation projects, improve pedestrian safety, fund lead abatement, and create jobs.

My thing is always to help bring as much money as I can to Stamford, Adams said.

When he first went to Hartford he had a goal to establish oversight of the Stamford Water Pollution Control Authority, which had a history of poor management, plant failures and mistakes with residents bills.

I worked to get the WPCA under the state (Public Utilities Regulatory Authority) so it can be regulated like other utilities, Adams said. I think my record as a state rep speaks for itself.
L ondon can happily claim to be the afternoon tea capital of the world.

Though the city is known across the globe for its traditional offerings, from the Ritz to Claridge's, in recent years a sense of modernity has crept into the meal.

There may still be plenty of tea and cake, but these scrumptious offerings are more visually arresting than ever and are often themed, too.

If cucumber sandwiches aren't going to cut it on your Instagram feed, head to one of our favourite quirky afternoon teas.

Mary Poppins at the Aqua Shard

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious: the Mary Poppins tea at Aqua Shard / Aqua Shard

Inspired by P. L. Travers' story, this tea promises a trip down memory lane, serving up a series of nostalgic sweets and savouries that pay homage to the much-loved book.

Served in the triple-storey atrium of Aqua Shard, its perfect for little ones too who are just venturing into the world of Mary Poppins.

From 49 per person. aquashard.co.uk

Dominique Ansel Bakery

Contemporary feel: Dominique Ansel's offering / Dominique Ansel Bakery

Known for creating the Cronut, chef Dominique Ansel is offering a typically modern take on the traditional tea.

The menu follows a seed growing and blossoming into a flower, beginning with savoury bites and ending with a selection of sweets.

From 42 per person, dominiqueansellondon.com

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at One Aldwych

Scrumdiddlyumptious / One Aldwych

Every item in this whimsical afternoon tea reflects the wit and wonder of one of Roald Dahls most celebrated tales. Executive chef Dominic Teague and his team have created a scrumdiddlyumptious treat thats full of mouth-watering goodness.

From 45 per person. onealdwych.com

Mad Hatter's Tea Party at the Sanderson Hotel

Tea party beyond your wildest imagination / Sanderson London

If you tumble down to the Sanderson Hotel, you'll find menus hidden inside vintage books and teapots decorated with kings and queens.

Those who really love this Alice in Wonderland-inspired afternoon tea can pick up the Luna and curious crockery too.

From 48 per person, morganshotelgroup.com

Science Afternoon Tea at the Ampersand Hotel

Award-winning themed afternoon tea / Ampersand Hotel

Taking inspiration from the Ampersands South Kensington neighbour, the Science Museum, this is a particularly dramatic take on afternoon tea and won this years Best Themed Afternoon Tea at the Afternoon Tea Awards (yes, they really exist). Be charmed by the jams served in petri dishes, dino biscuits, chocolate spaceman and the fun of the dry ice floating across the table top.

From 39.50 per person, ampersandhotel.com

High Coffee at the InterContinental

Caffeinated indulgence: the InterContinental Hotel has taken the tea out of afternoon tea / InterContinental Hotel London Park Lane

This caffeinated indulgence is the first in the capital, which has taken the 'tea' out of 'Afternoon tea', swapping it for coffee. Savoury and sweet delights are served with specially paired coffees that come from different blends from around the world.

From 42 per person, parklane.intercontinental.com

Tale as Old as Time at the Kensington Hotel

Afternoon tea with a magical twist / The Kensington Hotel

From try the grey stuff mousse to the chocolate ganache clock tart, the treats in this afternoon tea are inspired by the characters and scenes of the 1990s Disney classic Beauty and the Beast. Oh, and it comes complete with charming Mrs Potts and Chip Potts dishware. On until November only.

From 42 per person, townhousekensington.com

Potion Room at Cutter and Squidge

Secret school of Wizarding Alchemy / Cutter and Squidge

Inspired by the wizarding world of Harry Potter, this is the Soho-based all-natural bakerys latest idea. Guests enter a secret school of Wizarding Alchemy where delectable food and magical potions combine.

From 49.50 per person, cutterandsquidge.com

Pret-a-Portea at the Berkeley

High fashion bakes / The Berkeley

One for foodies and fashionistas. Inspired by the world of fashion, the Berkeleys designer afternoon tea offers a menu of couture cakes, which get a makeover every six months to reflect the latest catwalk trends, designs and colours.
B alletBarre is one of the oldest and most respected forms of dance training. Known for creating long, lean muscles, a rock-solid core and perfect posture, barre has become a favourite with fitness fanatics and supermodels looking to sculpt a lithe ballet body.

The problem is, due to its strict discipline and formal nature, ballet barre is often considered to be elitist. While this may be authentic to the intensely competitive world of ballet, it doesn't always lend itself to being a welcoming environment for newcomers.

Enter At Your Beat, a London dance fitness company that says it wants to prove dance is for everyone, its just about finding the style (or BEAT) that suits you.

The studio has created BarreBEAT, a class that integrates commercial dance and ballet, focusing attention on the lower body, mixing low-intensity barre workouts with elements of various dance styles, from hip-hop to disco.

Aiming to get Londons dance feet moving, At Your Beat have teamed up with the Evening Standard for the month of August to deliver bite sized chunks of their most popular dance classes, direct to screens for readers to try at home.

WEEK 2: BarreBEAT

Expect plies, rondes des jambes, and tendus, interspersed with twerking, booty shaking, shimmies and of course, a dollop of AYB sauce. So kick off your trainers for this one and get ready to strengthen and elongate your limbs!

ES EXCLUSIVE DISCOUNT CODE:
W e're used to seeing iconic moments in history documented in black and white, but how would our perception of them change if we were able to see them in a whole different light?

Using digital techniques to transform 200 originally black and white photographs,The Colour of Time: A New History of the World 1850-1960 injects a full dose of colour into some of the most defining moments of our modern world.

To showcase the work, the Evening Standard has taken seven of them and made them into interactive slider images.

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In our images above and below, just scroll across left to right to bring the colour to life before your very eyes, including the destruction of the Hindenburg and the arrest of suffragette leader Emmeline Pankhurst outside Buckingham Palace

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The Colour of Time is a collaboration between Brazilian artist Marina Amaral and British historian Dan Jones and spans a period of more than 100 years of world history, from the reign of Queen Victoria and the US Civil War to the Cuban Missile Crisis and beginning of the Space Age.

It also captures more personal moments, such as this little girl hugging her doll while sitting on a beam from her bombed-out home in London during the Blitz.

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Amaral created the images using contemporary photographs as the basis for her full-colour digital renditions, while Jones has written a narrative for each photo providing context.

It includes this colourful scene of the Diamond jubilee parade for Queen Victoria in 1897.

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There are photos of The Queen (seen below making her first Christmas broadcast in 1952), Albert Einstein, Marilyn Monroe, Winston Churchill, Elvis Presley and Louis Armstrong, among others.

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Sticking with the royal theme, we have this image of nine kings at Buckingham Palace for the funeral of Edward VII in 1910.

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In the image are (from left to right, back row) Haakon VII of Norway, Ferdinand I of Bulgaria, Manuel II of Portugal, Wilhelm II of Germany, George I of Greece and Albert I of Belgium. In the front row is Alphonso XIII of Spain, George V and Frederick VIII of Denmark.

And we finish our slider collection with this image showing the desperation following the Wall Street stock market crash in 1929 as a speculator tries to sell his pride and joy motor.

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Scroll through our gallery below to see more images given the full Colour of Time treatment.

The Colour of Time - In pictures 1 /20 The Colour of Time - In pictures Newspaper boy Ned Parfett sells copies of the Evening News telling of the Titanic maritime disaster, outside the White Star Line offices at Oceanic House in London's Cockspur Street (1912). Six years later Parfett was killed during a German bombardment whilst serving in France, just days before the end of World War I Preparation for the 100m race at the Olympic Games in 1896 The LZ 129 Hindenburg airship as it caught fire and was destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at the Lakehurst Naval Station, Lakehurst, New Jersey on May 6 1937 A sailor embraces a white-clad nurse in Times Square after news of the Japanese surrender breaks on August 14, 1945 Harold Lloyd finds himself in a precarious situation dangling from a clock in a scene from the film 'Safety Last!' in 1923 Prohibition of alcohol: A New York restaurant with a sign in the shop window: 'No Booze Sold Here - Booze Hounds Please Stay Out' in 1929 Queen Elizabeth II making her first Christmas broadcast from her Sandringham holiday residence on December 25 1952 Marilyn Monroe speaks to reporters outside her house in New York on June 21 1956 eight days before she was due to be married The Wright Brothers make a glider flight on sand dunes in North Carolina A little girl hugs her doll while sitting on a beam from her bombed-out home in London, England, during the Blitz Diamond jubilee parade for Queen Victoria in 1897 Emmeline Pankhurst, suffragette leader, is arrested outside Buckingham Palace This photograph dates from the end of Elvis Presley's military service - by which time he had been promoted to sergeant Amelia Earhart was the first woman to fly across the Atlantic, as a passenger in a three person flight in 1928 Louis Armstrong's jazz career was just beginning in he 1920s and he went on to become a music great Nine kings assemble at Buckingham Palace for the funeral of Edward VII, the father of George V (centre). From left to right, back row: Haakon VII of Norway, Ferdinand I of Bulgaria, Manuel II of Portugal, Wilhelm II of Germany, George I of Greece and Albert I Of Belgium. Front row: Alphonso XIII of Spain, George V and Frederick VIII of Denmark (1910) A Wall Street speculator tries to sell his car after losing all of his money in the stock market crash A middle-aged Albert Einstein is photographed still sporting a the black moustache and unkempt hair he favoured from his youth Winston Churchill is pictured on July 21 1940 when the Battle of Britain was at its height Flappers on a beach by the Potomac River in Washington DC being inspired for compliance with bathing regulations
A north London man has become the third person to charged with terror offences as part of an ongoing investigation in London.

Asma Aweys, 30, was charged with three counts of collecting information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.

Previously Ahmed Aweys, 32, of Redbridge, was charged with three offences of dissemination of terrorist publications, while Abdulaziz Omer Munye, 26, of north London, was charged with one offence under Section 2 of the Terrorism Act 2006.

All three were due before Westminster Magistrates' Court on Friday and will next appear in custody at the Old Bailey on August 31, police said.

The charges come after four people were arrested as part of an ongoing operation by the Met's Counter Terrorism Command.

A 29-year-old man from east London, who was arrested on April 18, remains on police bail.
T wo men have been arrested in connection with a fire that killed seven-year-old Joel Urhie at his family home in south-east London, police said.

The young boy was found dead in Deptford on Tuesday, while his mother Sophie and 19-year-old sister Sarah escaped by jumping out of a first-floor window.

Scotland Yard said two men, aged 21 and 29, were arrested at residential addresses in south London.

The men were arrested on suspicion of murder, attempted murder and arson with intent to endanger life.

Joel's mother Sophie and sister Sarah jumped to safety from the first floor / PA

They have been taken to a south London police station, where they remain on Saturday evening.

Police said on Wednesday that Joel's sister had been released from hospital, where her mother is still being treated.

Sarah posted an image of her with her brother on Twitter earlier this week, writing: "Rest in perfect peace may amazing little brother Joel, nothing makes sense right now, I love you."

Police and forensics officers at the scene of the house fire in Deptford / PA

Another image said: "Rest in paradise, I love you forever little bro."

A post-mortem found the cause of Joel's death was "consistent with fire and smoke inhalation", police said.

Detective Chief Inspector Mark Wrigley has said police are keeping an "open mind concerning motive" to the murder.

Mourners including Joel's uncle left floral tributes, cards, soft toys and balloons at the scene, while the doors and windows of the house were secured with metal shutters.

Six fire engines and around 35 firefighters tackled the blaze after they were called at 3.25am on Tuesday.

Nearby properties were evacuated as a precaution and crews brought the fire under control just before 4.50am.
A young woman who allegedly screamed abuse and threatened a mother and her one-year-old baby on a Central line train has claimed that the family ganged up on her.

Student Millicent Barnes has been identified as the woman pictured in CCTV images released earlier this week.

The 21-year-old last month allegedly became abusive to the mother after the child accidentally kicked her, before implying that she had a knife in her bag.

But the University of Northampton student told MailOnline she believes she was the victim, claiming the family turned on her.

She said: "I was not carrying a knife, the mother of the child was the person who threatened me after me being shouted at and verbally assaulted by four members of her family."

British Transport Police appealed to speak with the woman

Barnes said she asked the grandfather to apologise for "jamming the pram into my ankle twice".

She then claimed that the woman threatened her with a knife.

In an updated statement released on Saturday, British Transport Police said a woman in her 20s contacted the force in response to their appeal over the incident.

She will be interviewed in relation to the incident in due course, BTP said.

The incident happened on July 18 at Bank station at around 6pm.

An earlier statement from BTP alleged that the mother and baby boarded at Bank.

As they got on, the child accidentally kicked another woman who was boarding.

This woman allegedly became abusive to the mother, demanding she apologise in an aggressive and threatening manner and intimated that she had a knife in her bag.

At St Pauls station, a member of staff witnessed the altercation and helped move the mother and child off the train and away from the woman.
L iberal Democrat leader Sir Vince Cable today called for opponents of Brexit to work together "as a team" across party divides in the drive for a second EU referendum.

Hundreds gathered in Bristol on Saturday to take part in the People's Vote rally calling for a second referendum on the final Brexit deal.

Sir Vince addressed crowds alongside Conservative and Labour MPs and a Green MEP on Saturday - the first of a series of regional rallies in a planned summer of action by the People's Vote campaign.

The Lib Dem leader said it was clear the "centre of gravity" on Brexit is shifting in favour of a second referendum on the final deal.

Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston, Labour's Stephen Doughty and Green MEP Molly Scott Cato also joined the line-up of speakers at the event.

Hundreds gathered for the People's Vote rally in Bristol on Saturday / Sky News

The rally formed part of a "day of action" by campaigners in the South West of England, a region which voted Leave in the 2016 referendum but recorded a majority of 51 per cent - 49 per cent to remain in the EU in a poll this week.

A nationwide poll of more than 10,000 voters released ahead of the Bristol rally found that Britain would back continued EU membership by 53 per cent to 47 per cent if a referendum was held now.

Sir Vince told the rally that since the 52 per cent - 48 per cent victory for Leave in 2016, "the situation has changed, the facts have changed".

"We were all told the British Government was going to save vast amounts of money," he said.

"We now know that's not the case: there's the 40 billion divorce settlement, the economy's slowing down, there's less money for the NHS.

"We were told it was simple - it's actually proving unbelievably complicated.

"Another thing that's happened in the last two years is Trump.

"The whole premise of Britain embarking on some buccaneering free trading adventure around the world as a country independent of the EU has been completely negated by Trump's protectionist agenda.

"This has made a complete and utter nonsense of it.

"So our position in arguing against Brexit and for a people's vote is now stronger than ever.

"But we have to work together; we have to work across party frontiers."

He added: "I happen to be the leader of a party that is fully committed to fighting Brexit.

"But there are speakers here - Dr Sarah Wollaston and Stephen Doughty, Conservative and Labour Party - and they're brave.

"They're having to speak out against their own party leadership, getting a lot of aggro.

"And I just want to thank them and thank the people who are showing that kind of independence of mind. It's absolutely essential that we stick together, we fight together, we work as a team - and this is now happening."

Dr Wollaston, the Conservative MP for Totnes, said: "To proceed with Brexit without a People's Vote would be like a surgeon carrying out an amputation having sought their patient's consent two years beforehand without either of them knowing whether they were going to lose a few toes or their whole leg."

It would be "grossly irresponsible for the Government to proceed without consulting the public, and ministers would "bear full blame for the consequences" if they did, she said.

Pro-Brexit Tory MP Jacob Rees-Mogg played down the significance of polls showing a shift of opinion to Remain.

"Most of the polls said people would vote to remain in the EU in 2016, but when people got to the ballot booth they voted to leave," he told Sky News.

"The votes that matter are the votes cast in genuine elections. Opinion polls come up with a whole range of answers and they differ from day to day, but elections themselves are authoritative."

Liberal Democrats were continuing to push an anti-Brexit message despite it being rejected by voters in the 2017 general election, he said, adding: "One rather thinks that a fool returneth to his folly as a dog returneth to his vomit.
A man who died at the Chemring Countermeasures factory explosion was a 29-year-old man from Southampton, Wiltshire Police have confirmed.

The fire broke out at the defence firm's facility near Salisbury at around 5pm after the blast in a flare manufacturing building.

The blaze was later extinguished as emergency services contained the incident.

Police said formal identification is yet to take place, although the victim's family have been informed.

A second man caught up in the explosion, a 26-year-old from Pewsey, remains in a serious but stable condition in Salisbury District Hospital.

Wiltshire Police said it was investigating the explosion with health and safety officers, and reassured the public that they faced no further risk.

The firm said it had also launched a "full and immediate" investigation.

Detective Inspector Simon Pope said: "We are working closely with the Health and Safety Executive on this investigation to determine the cause of the explosion and our enquiries will be continuing at the site today. A cordon remains in place at the site while investigators carry out their enquiries.

"We would like to reassure the public that this incident was contained as soon as possible and there is no risk to those living in the local area.

"Our thoughts remain with those involved in this incident, as well as their family, friends and colleagues at this time."
T he Dubai government has reportedly apologised to a mother jailed for drinking a glass of wine on a flight from London and have said she is free to go home.

Dr Ellie Holman claims she received an apology over the phone after she and her 4-year-old daughter Bibi were detained in the country for three days.

She told the Daily Mail that the Dubai government even said they would pay for her flight home.

The dentist said she was ecstatic upon hearing the news.

She told the paper: I can't believe this is over. When I got the call from the government telling me they were dropping the case I was in shock.

I was told to prepare for a long stay in Dubai and a prison sentence. The man on the phone apologised on behalf of the immigration official who put me and Bibi through all of this. I feel like a weight is off my chest.

The 44-year-old who had flown out to Dubai for a visit said she hopes she will be home on the first available flight.

According to the Mail, Dubais ruler Sheikh Mohammed personally intervened to ensure Dr Holmans release.

It is understood he made the decision after viewing the worldwide coverage of the incident.

Dr Holman was held after her Emirates flight touched down at Dubai International Airport where she was locked in a detention centre, according to reports.

The dentist, a Swedish national who lives in Sevenoaks, Kent, was told she could face spending up to a year in the Arab state for her case to be settled.

Dr Holman said she was not allowed to call her husband from the detention centre and that her four-year-old daughter was forced to go to the toilet on the cell floor.

Dr Holman was told she could face up to a year in jail before her case was settled / Getty Images

She said: My little girl had to go to the toilet on the cell floor. I have never heard her cry in the same way as she did in that cell.

The mother said she was served a glass of red with her meal during the flight on July 13, and that drinking it led to her arrest.

After landing she was quizzed by an immigration official, who said her visa was not valid and that she must buy a ticket to return to London immediately.

Following a stand-off with the officer Dr Holman said he then asked if she had been drinking, before telling her it was a crime to be in possession of or consume alcohol.

The mother said her and her daughter were then led to a cell at the airport and had their passports confiscated before being taken to a police station.

There she was asked to take a blood sample to test for alcohol, Dr Holman claimed.
A mother held in Dubai with her four-year-old daughter after drinking a complimentary glass of wine on a flight from London has told how she feared news she could go home was a trap.

Swedish dentist Ellie Holman, who lives in Sevenoaks in Kent with her English partner Gary and their three children, was facing an uncertain future after being arrested on July 13 having drunk one glass of wine on her eight-hour Emirates Airline flight to the Arab state.

She was taken into custody after an immigration official questioned her about her visa and asked if she had consumed alcohol.

Dr Holman, 44, and her daughter Bibi were reportedly denied food, water and access to a toilet at the beginning of their ordeal when they were held in a cell together for three days.

Speaking after she was given the all clear to return to the UK, Dr Holman she is pleased the "nightmare is coming to an end".

But she revealed how she intially thought the news might be a trap.

Dr Holman said: "I am shocked and excited to be returning home to England and that this nightmare is coming to an end.

"When I answered the phone this morning and was told that I was being let go and needed to collect my passport, I couldn't believe it and wondered if it was a trap.

Dr Holman accepted a glass of wine on an Emirates flight (PA ) / PA

"Radha (Stirling, Detained in Dubai chief executive) told me to go ahead and collect my passport, that this has happened before.

"They apologised on behalf of the immigration official and was told that I was free on Sheikh Mohammed's orders and welcome to return to Dubai. They helped me to arrange flights out of the country.

"This situation has cost us tens of thousands and we have had to use all of our savings which is devastating to us".

Dr Holman and Bibi were travelling to Dubai for a five-day break to visit friends, having visited a number of times before.

In a statement, Ms Stirling said: "Obviously this case never should have happened, and Dr Holman and her four year old daughter should never have been detained and mistreated.

"However, the fact is, this case was not a 'mistake'; it was perfectly in keeping with the confused laws of the UAE pertaining to alcohol, and what should never have happened will inevitably happen again to another unsuspecting traveller who accepts a free alcoholic beverage from Emirates Airlines on a flight to Dubai.

"Dismissing the case of Dr Holman does not resolve the problematic policies in the UAE that allowed this case to happen; and tourists must understand that they still face serious risk of prosecution in Dubai for any number of offences that they may not even know are offences.
T he airline employee who hijacked an empty passenger plane from Seattle airport and crashed on a nearby island has been named as Richard Russell.

The 29-year-old Horizon Air ground service employee was seen doing loop-the-loops and barrel rolls as air traffic controllers from Sea-Tac International encouraged him to land.

Two fighters jets pursued the plane, but he crashed in Puget Sound after "performing stunts in the air or due to a lack of flying skills", police said.

Authorities have yet to confirm the hijacker's identity, who was believed to have been killed.

The plane took flight before crashing in a ball flames / Reuters/AP

Mr Russell, who authorities called "suicidal", hijacked the 76-seater turboprop Bombardier Q400, belonging to Alaska Airlines' sister carrier Horizon Air at around 8pm local time on Friday.

Video showed the plane doing large loops and other dangerous manoeuvres as the sun set on Puget Sound. There were no passengers aboard.

'Suicidal' mechanic steals plane from Seattle airport

Authorities initially said the man was a mechanic, but officials said on Saturday that he was a Horizon employee and had clearance to be among aircraft.

To their knowledge, he was not a licensed pilot. Employees with such clearance direct aircraft for takeoff and gate approach and de-ice planes.

The man used a machine called a pushback tractor to first manoeuvre the aircraft so he could board and then take off, authorities added.

A Horizon Air Bombardier Q400 takes off from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in SeaTac, Washington / EPA

It is unclear how he attained the skills to do loops in the aircraft before crashing about an hour after taking off, they said.

Southers, the aviation security expert, said the man could have caused mass destruction.

The plane was pursued by military aircraft before it crashed on tiny Ketron Island, southwest of Tacoma, Washington.

The empty passenger airplane making an unlikely upside-down aerial loop / AFP/Getty Images

Video showed fiery flames amid trees on the island, which is sparsely populated and only accessible by ferry.

Troyer said F-15 aircraft took off out of Portland, Oregon, were in the air "within a few minutes", and the pilots kept "people on the ground safe".

Sheriff's department officials said they were working to conduct a background investigation on the man.

The man could be heard on audio recordings telling air traffic controllers that he is "just a broken guy".

An air traffic controller called him Rich, and tried to convince him to land the plane.

"There is a runway just off to your right side in about a mile," the controller says.

"Oh man. Those guys will rough me up if I try and land there," the man responded, later adding: "This is probably jail time for life, huh?"

Later the man said: "I've got a lot of people that care about me. It's going to disappoint them to hear that I did this. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess."

Flights out of Sea-Tac, the largest commercial airport in the Pacific Northwest, were temporarily grounded during the drama.

Investigators expect they will be able to recover both the cockpit voice recorder and the event data recorder from the plane.

Royal King told The Seattle Times he was photographing a wedding when he saw the low-flying turboprop being chased by two F-15s. He said he did not see the crash but saw smoke.

"It was unfathomable, it was something out of a movie," he told the newspaper.

The Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1800 273 8255. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org.
M ore than 400 people were injured after an anti-government protest in Romania's capital turned violent, police said.

Some 455 people, including three dozen riot police, needed medical treatment following the rally on Friday.

The protest in Bucharest drew tens of thousands of Romanians from abroad and local residents who demanded the government resign over moves to change laws that critics say would make it harder to prosecute corruption.

Riot police fired tear gas and water cannons to quell protesters.

Romanian authorities say hundreds of people including two dozen riot police have received medical treatment following the violence / AP

Some demonstrators threw rock bottles and smoke bombs at riot police.

Centrist Romanian President Klaus Iohannis condemned the police's disproportionate use of force.

"I firmly condemn riot police's brutal intervention, strongly disproportionate to the actions of the majority of people in the square," he said on his Facebook page.

"The interior ministry must explain urgently the way it handled tonight's events."

General view of Victoriei square, taken while demonstrators light-up their smart-phones during the protest in front of government headquarters / EPA

Another protest is scheduled for Saturday evening.

The protests were organised and promoted by groups of Romanians working abroad, angry at what they say is entrenched corruption, low wages and attempts by the PSD to weaken the judiciary in one of the European Union's most corrupt states.

Violence broke out when some protesters attempted to force their way through security lines guarding the government building.

A man stands guard in front of Romanian anti riot police during clashes at the demonstration / AFP/Getty Images

Riot police said groups of "provocateurs" were present in the square.

As the protest continued well into the night, riot police used a water canon and increasingly sprayed tear gas into the crowd.

Video footage posted on social media show police beating non-violent protesters holding their hands up.

Three journalists said they were also subjected to violence from the police.

Austria's public broadcaster ORF said Saturday a cameraman covering the protest for the post was hit by police with truncheons, while the presenter with him was shoved up against a wall.

A journalist filming the rally Romania's Hotnews online news site said he was kicked and shoved by riot police.

Peaceful protests have repeatedly been held since the Social Democrats took power in early 2017 and tried to decriminalise several corruption offences.

Earlier this year, they pushed changes to the criminal code through parliament that have raised concerns from the European Commission and the U.S. State Department.

The changes are pending Constitutional Court challenges.

Romania ranks as one of the EU's most corrupt states and Brussels keeps its justice system under special monitoring.
S tars flooded the UNICEF Summer Party Galas red carpet Porto Cerva, Italy to show off their glamorous ensembles.

Rita Ora and Emily Ratajkowski were among the star studded guest who showed up to support the charity.

Ora stole the show in a multi-coloured silk gown paired with bright red heels while Ratajkowski set hearts racing in a sheer black number.

Nicole Scherzinger showed off her flawless figure in a scarlet co-ord including a racy skirt with a side-split.

Heidi Klum was not shy about showing off her 28-year old rocker boyfriend Tom Kaulitz as she put on a PDA display in a plunging black maxi dress.

Rita Ora performed at the gala / Getty Images for UNICEF

After strutting down the red carpet, the stars headed into the show stopping venue to enjoy dinner and a performance by Ora.

Nicole Scherzinger dazzled in red / Getty Images for UNICEF

The funds raised from the gala will go towards financing the work of UNICEF around the world.

Heidi Klum and Tom Kaulitz attend a photocall for the Unicef Summer Gala / Getty Images for UNICEF
H appy Birthday Kylie Jenner!

The reality TV star-turned beauty empire queen took a night off from parenting duties to get glammed up and party in celebration of turning 21 earlier this week.

Kim, Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian, Kendall Jenner and dad Caitlyn Jenner were all on hand to help her ring in the milestone birthday at a glitzy pink-themed bash featuring personalised Barbie dolls and a giant ball-pit.

So in celebration of the youngest Kardashian-Jenner sibling, we've rounded up her 21 most memorable moments.

1. Announcing her pregnancy

Jenner tried  and failed  to conceal the HUGE news that she was expecting a child with Travis Scott. But despite the fact everyone knew, it didnt stop anyone from being blown away by her epic announcement video which gave fans a first-look at her nine month journey. She later shared a picture of daughter Stormi Webster which became the most liked Instagram photo ever.

2. Fronting Forbes magazine for fast becoming the youngest ever self-made billionaire

Cover star: Kylie Jenner on the cover of Forbes / Sarah Spalding

The reality TV star-turned businesswoman bagged her first ever Forbes cover this year after they revealed she is on track to becoming the youngest-ever self-made billionaire thanks to having 100 per cent ownership of her beauty empire, Kylie Cosmetics. But Dictionary.com wasnt impressed and savaged her by tweeting the definition of self-made.

3. Her GQ cover with Travis Scott

For the lives they lead, Kylie and Travis have managed to keep a relatively private existence. But they decided to give fans what they wanted in the form of a joint GQ shoot where they opened up about falling in love and becoming parents to Stormi. Oh, and she made sure she chose the pictures she liked over fears of being turned into a meme. Iconic.

4. When everyone accused her of having lip fillers

'Old Kylie': Kylie Jenner removed her lip fillers (@kyliejenner Instagram ) / @kyliejenner Instagram

Kylie reportedly first got fillers aged 17 after feeling insecure of her small pout. She told fans her fuller lips were the work of lip liner, but people started using suction devices to achieve the look with the hashtag #KylieJennerChallenge trending online. She was forced to speak out, telling fans: Im not here to encourage people/young girls to look like me or to think this is the way they should look. I want to encourage people/young girls like me to be YOURSELF & not be afraid to experiment w your look.

5. When she took out her lip fillers

Kylie Jenner without lip fillers is like Miss Piggy without Kermit. Hard to comprehend. But the businesswoman took the plunge and left fans praising the return of the old Kylie last month. I got rid of all my filler, she posted in response to a fan.

6. When she broke the Met Gala no selfie rule

Breaking the rules: Kylie Jenner at the 2017 Met Gala (KylieJenner/Instagram ) / KylieJenner/Instagram

Kylie had no interest in sticking to the rule book when she found herself in a toilet with everyone who is anyone at the 2017 Met Gala. With P Diddy, Frank Ocean, A$AP Rocky and sister Kim Kardashian queueing up for the sink she grabbed her phone, broke the no selfie rule and snapped an epic selfie.

7. When she pretended to be Kim on Keeping Up with the Kardashians

Who knew Kylie was a comedy genius? The reality TV star won us all over after mimicking her sister Kim. Swanning around her bedroom in a pair of dark glasses she said: I am Kim Kardashian! I am fabulous and I am the best, and everyone does what I say and soon, Ill be queen of the world!

8. Topping the list of 20 biggest Instagram earners

Kylie Jenner to become world's youngest self-made billionaire

Kylie knocked Selena Gomez into second place earlier this year after she became Instagrams highest earner, making a reported 760,000 per sponsored post.

9. When she said she had always been friends with Blac Chyna

Kylie shocked us all when she posted a selfie with Blac Chyna  who was her then boyfriend Tygas ex. The couple have son King Cairo together and Chyna dated and had daughter Dream with Kylies brother Rob. Despite the awkwardness Kylie Snapchatted a picture of herself with Blac, telling fans: When weve been best friends the whole time

10. Her own spin-off series Life of Kylie

Kim and Kourtney had a spin-off show, so did Khloe and Kourtney, and Rob and Blac Chyna so it was only a matter of time before Kylie was granted the same gig. Life of Kylie debuted last August  but it was branded the fakest reality show ever. Kylie was accused of being a superficial idiot and mocked for struggling to cope with the pressures of taking a good selfie.

11. When she flew to a prom to attend with a rejected guy

Kylie gate-crashed a high school prom to give one rejected teen a prom he would never forget after his date dumped him. She flew by private jet, with best friend Jordyn Woods in tow, to Rio Americano High School in Sacramento, California where she made Albert Ochoa the envy of every pupil.

12. When she delivered gifts to a childrens hospital

Kylie kicked off her 18th birthday weekend not by putting in last minute present requests and glamming up, but with a trip to Childrens Hospital LA to deliver care packages for the patients. Let the birthday celebrations begin! First stop: @childrensla, she tweeted as she wheeled in a trolley piled with gifts including Beats headphones and socks designed by her brother Rob Kardashian.

13. Her epic 18th birthday celebrations

Kylie Jenner's 18th Birthday Party, Pointe-Calumet Beach, Canada 1 /6 Kylie Jenner's 18th Birthday Party, Pointe-Calumet Beach, Canada Birthday girl: Kylie Jenner poses ahead of her 'official' birthday celebration Rex Outfit one: Kylie arrives in a print minidress and heels Raffi Kirdi/Getty Images for INLIST Outfit two: Halfway through the event Kylie changes into a white miniskirt and crop top Raffi Kirdi/Getty Images for INLIST Party girl: The teenager lets her hair down at the Montreal bash Rex Arriving in style: Kylie is surrounded by people as she arrives by boat Rex Crowd pleaser: The KUWTK star laughs as her cake is thrown into the crowd Rex

When youre Kylie Jenner you dont have one birthday. Or one hairstyle. You have multiple. The youngest of the Kardashian-Jenner clan rang in her 18th with dinner at Nobu on the Friday before donning a blonde wig for a meal at The Nice Guy in West Hollywood on the Saturday. She wore a Nicholas Jebran couture mini-dress before swapping it for a black number at Bootsy Bellows where her then boyfriend Tyga gifted her a Ferrari.

A Colin the Caterpillar cake with a candle and a few balloons has never looked so tragic.

14. When she made controversial band T-shirts with her sister Kendall Jenner

Kylie and Kendall were forced to apologise after they released a line of T-shirts featuring their own faces over those of legendary musicians including the late Tupac and Notorious B.I.G. Biggies mother was among those who criticised the siblings, branding the designs disgusting and disrespectful.

15. When she made her rap debut sort of

In May 2016, she made her musical debut rapping on producer Burberry Perry's song Beautiful Day, with Lil Yachty and Jordyn Woods. The trippy track was mostly panned along with Kylies input which saw her saying: Jordyn, come on, Ive never been on a song before! This is a f****** before unleashing her one line Its a beautiful day in the neighbourhood over and over.

16. When she tried to trademark Kylie and took on Kylie Minogue

Kylie Minogue is the pop princess  an icon who has earned the right to be known soley as Kylie. But in 2015 Jenner decided to challenge her on the moniker and filed a U.S. trademark application for use of the name Kylie for advertising and endorsement services.

17. When she met her wax work at Madame Tussauds

You know youve made it when Madame Tussauds comes calling with a tonne of clay and wants to create your wax doppelganger. Kylies was unveiled in Hollywood last year and she took the opportunity to prank her family by fooling them into setting up a FaceTime with her waxy lookalike.

18. When she couldnt stop laughing at Stormi sleeping

Kylie Jenner cuddles sleeping Stormi

Kylie gave us all the giggles when she shared an adorable video of herself laughing at Stormi laughing in her sleep.

19. When she wiped 1 billion off the value of Snapchat with one tweet

When Kylie Jenner speaks  the world listens. Earlier this year she decided she wasnt a fan of Snapchat anymore so tweeted her change of heart to her 24 million followers. Sooo does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore? she wrote. Or is it just me... ugh this is so sad. Within hours shares in the social media company plunged by a massive six per cent with the tweet allegedly costing Snapchat 1 billion.

20. When she was accused of cultural appropriation

Kylie sparked a huge backlash after she posted a selfie showing off her new corn rows. She was accused of cultural appropriation by fans, including actress Amanda Stenberg who allegedly wrote, and then deleted: When u appropriate black features and culture but fail to use ur position of power to help black Americans by directing attention towards ur wigs instead of police brutality or racism.

21. Her 21st birthday
Shernard Stewart, Jr., 22, was arrested for shooting Willie Edwards, 45, late Friday night.

At approximately 10:32 p.m. officers with the Chattanooga Police Department responded to the 2000 block of Museum Street on reports of a person shot. Upon their arrival, officers located Edwards suffering from a gunshot wound to the abdomen.

Officers then located Stewart on the scene and he was detained. Hamilton County EMS transported Edwards to a local hospital. Investigators with the Violent Crimes Bureau arrived on the scene.

Witnesses on the scene told police the victim and suspect were engaged a verbal disorder prior to the shooting. Stewart confessed to the shooting and was subsequently arrested and charged with attempted murder before being transported to the Hamilton County Jail.

Edwards was reported to be in critical condition.

Chattanooga Police ask anyone with information regarding this incident to call 423-698-2525. The investigation is ongoing.




The new round of sanctions this week unleashed by the United States on Russia has only one meaning: the US rulers want to crush Russias economy. By any definition, Washington is, in effect, declaring war on Russia.

The implemented economic measures may have a seemingly abstract or sterile quality about them: banning electronic exports to Russia, rattling financial markets, stock prices falling. But the material consequence is that American officials are intending to inflict physical damage on Russian society and Russian people.

Its economic warfare on a sliding scale to military warfare, as the Prussian General Karl von Clausewitz would no doubt appreciate.

It seems all the more significant that this week also saw US internet services launching a major clampdown on anti-war websites, suggesting that the powers-that-be want to shut down any criticism or public awareness of their reckless warmongering.

Whats more, the latest round of US sanctions  there have been several previous rounds since the contrived Ukrainian conflict in 2014  is based on nothing but wild, ridiculous speculation. That only adds insult upon injury.

Washington said the new proposed sanctions are due to its determination that the Russian state was responsible for an alleged chemical-weapon attack on a former double agent in England earlier this year.

The so-called Skripal affair involving Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia allegedly being poisoned by Russian agents using a deadly nerve agent is as yet an unproven conundrum. Some might even say farce.

No evidence has ever been presented by the British government to substantiate its sensational allegations against Moscow. Its claims that Russia was responsible for poisoning the Skripals rests entirely on dubious assertion and innuendo.

Now Washington is proposing sanctions based on a wholly unverified determination by the British  sanctions that are intended to crush the Russian economy. The proposed punitive measures go way beyond the usual freezing of assets pertaining to individuals. What Washington is moving to do is attack the core financial operation of the Russian economy.

No wonder that Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev issued a grave response to the latest American sanctions. He said they were comparable to economic warfare. Medvedev warned that Moscow would have to retaliate either politically, economically or in some other way. Medvedevs tone was unmistakably one of alarm at the draconian, gratuitous and irrational nature of the US actions.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also expressed incredulity and apprehension over Washingtons conduct. He said that following the seemingly constructive summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in Helsinki last month, this latest provocation from Washington makes the American side completely unpredictable.

The immediate sanctions coming into force are limited to banning exports of US electronics to Russia. But its what comes next that is perplexing. Washington is saying that if Russia does not give a guarantee on halting the future use of chemical weapons, and if Moscow does not allow international inspectors into its country to monitor alleged chemical weapons  then the second wave of sanctions will be applied within 90 days.

The subsequent round of sanctions include banning Russian state-owned airline, Aeroflot, from operating flights to the US. The impossibility of Russia meeting Washingtons absurd demands make the further application of sanctions inevitable.

A separate bill is passing through Congress which is planning to hit the Russian banking system, aimed at preventing international transactions.

Senators sponsoring that bill have labelled it the sanctions bill from hell. The title of the proposed legislation says it all: Defending American Society From Russian Aggression Act. Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Robert Menendez and Ben Cardin, among other Russophobes who are pushing the bill, are explicit about the objective. They say the measures implemented will crush the Kremlin.

Tragically, the American people are being led to the abyss by politicians who are either ignorant, insane or prostitutes for war profits. Maybe even all of the above. Perversely, these politicians and their media clients accuse Russia of acts of war over fantastical claims about election interference when in reality it is they who are the ones committing acts of war against Russia.

The chances are paltry that President Trump will use his executive power to block the forthcoming sanctions. The political climate in the US among the intelligence agencies, lawmakers and the mainstream media has become saturated with anti-Russian hysteria. The US is an oligarchy in throes of insanity beyond democratic accountable to its people.

Already this weeks announcement of more offensive economic incursions on Russia sent the Russian economy plummeting. The ruble, bonds and stocks all nosedived. This is an attack on Russias vital interests. An economic Barbarossa.

No doubt part of the American calculation is to foment social discontent and discord towards the Putin government. Its the same illegal playbook that the Americans are using with Iran, whose economy this week was also hit with draconian US sanctions.

If Russias economy has been thrown into turmoil already over the latest announced sanctions one can only imagine the damage inflicted when further American attacks are mounted on the fundamentals of Russias banking system and its freedom to trade with the rest of the world.

For Washington this seems to be open season for sanctions. Its not just Russia and Iran on the receiving end. China, Canada, the European Union, Turkey, Venezuela, North Korea, among others, are also being battered with American economic warfare, either under the name of sanctions or indirectly using the rhetoric of tariffs.

For Russias part, it has shown immense forbearance up to now in tolerating Washingtons provocations and indeed aggression over numerous pretexts. From the conflict in Ukraine, to the alleged annexation of Crimea, to Moscows principled support for Syria being traduced as supporting a dictator, to alleged meddling in US elections, and much more, Russia has shown huge reserves of stoicism and self-discipline in tolerating what can only be called gratuitous American aggression.

At all times, Russia has maintained a dignified, unflappable posture in the face of American taunting and irrationality. Moscow perhaps thought that President Trump could bring some normality to bilateral relations. Thats turned out illusory.

But what happens now? When Washington has really gone too far. The US has taken its churlish conduct to a whole new dangerous level, by preparing to launch a full-on economic war on Russias vital interests.

The crazed American rulers are pushing the world to the brink by their belligerence.

Washington has heretofore given notice that it is not interested in diplomacy, dialogue, or negotiation. It only has one mode of conduct  war, war, war.
The BioHeritage National Science Challenge has joined an award-winning Port of Tauranga biosecurity partnership that is committed to biosecurity excellence.

It is the third Flagship Site for the BioHeritage Challenge, with this collaboration being aligned with its goal of eliminating threats posed by pests, weeds, and pathogens.

BioHeritage Director Dr Andrea Byrom says Flagship Site partnerships provide a pathway to the Challenges goal of achieving a fundamental shift in the way science and research is carried out in New Zealand.

In particular, we believe that transformational change can only be achieved through partnerships with the public and private sector, industry groups, Maori and the community.

The Challenges involvement supports research on surveillance and detection of pests at the border being done by the Better Border Biosecurity science consortium.

It bolsters the Port of Taurangas commitment to use science to support innovation and grow biosecurity excellence. B3s goals are strongly aligned with the BioHeritage Challenge, with them sharing a vision to deliver transformational biosecurity solutions for New Zealand.

The Port of Tauranga biosecurity partnership was formed in 2014 between the port, several primary industries, and central and local government agencies. All groups work together to prevent and respond to biosecurity risks through the Port of Tauranga.

Port of Tauranga Chief Executive Mark Cairns says the partnership strengthens the significance of biosecurity within the port and local community.

New Zealand ports are an essential part of the New Zealand economy and a key component of our border biosecurity system. Effective biosecurity awareness and the use of the very best tools and technologies is critical to us continuing to run a successful business that services the Bay of Plenty region.

Stu Hutchings, Chief Executive of industry partner Kiwifruit Vine Health, says the partnership recognises that everyone who works in and around the port community, including the freight sector and transitional facilities, can all play a big part in keeping unwanted pests and pathogens out of New Zealand.

The other two Flagship Sites supported by the BioHeritage Challenge are Cape to City in the Hawkes Bay and Taranaki Mounga.

Being involved with Flagship Sites provides opportunities to broaden and deepen the range of activities being undertaken, and helps us connect with the public, Andrea says.

Our involvement also recognises the strategic role that science and research must play in shaping New Zealands future.

Port of Tauranga staff and contractors meet with KVH during Biosecurity Week 2017 to learn about identification and reporting of unwanted pests.
Bay of Plenty MP Todd Muller is welcoming of the Governments $8.4 million announcement to help care for high needs, vulnerable New Zealanders  but would like to see more being done for the Bay.

As our community continues to rapidly grow, so too does the pressure on these services, says Todd.

Our community must receive more funding for our local mental health and addiction service providers to ensure the support is available for those who need it the most.



The feedback I am receiving from some of our local schools is that we need to be reducing the time it takes for families with children struggling with mental health issues like anxiety and depression to access a psychologist.



Its significantly impacting the childs ability to engage in education, putting pressure on parents, and could have real long lasting impacts on these kids, says Todd.



We also have a real need for a specialised pre and post treatment facility in Tauranga for those who are struggling with substance abuse.

The Peoples Project are doing a fantastic job in our community, working on housing our vulnerable rough sleepers, many of which suffer from significant mental illness and addiction, but more government investment is needed here in the Bay.



I have met some of our mental health and addiction providers, and while their efforts are exemplary, more investment in our community is required. What I would like to see is a residential care facility for those with alcohol and substance addictions similar to what other communities around the country have  similar to Higher Ground in Auckland.



The Government needs to realise that Tauranga isnt the city it was in the 1980s anymore. Its fast growing with associated complex human needs that have to be addressed, he concluded.
Its a case of three degrees of separation, where often a lot of The Weekend Suns stories start.

One conversation overheard by a staff member and next minute I knew the mother of someone my flatmate likes to describe as a true Kiwi babe.

That true Kiwi babe is Shayna Maunder. And if you love to watch a bit of trashy TV on your down time, she may have become a friendly-face in your home.

The 28-year-old dental assistant from Tauranga took on the challenge of becoming one of the first contestants on TVNZs Heartbreak Island.

Imagine a foot shaped island with 16 single Kiwis pairing up and doing random challenges all for a $100,000 cash prize  oh, and love. Thats Heartbreak Island.

Although Shayna didnt win, she definitely was a strong competitor, winning almost all of the challenges with her partner Stacy Smyth.

I signed up because why not! Who doesnt want to win $100,000 and a Suzuki Swift and return flights to LA  that was literally my pushing point.

Shayna had a few friends who kept tagging her in some posts about entering. But it wasnt until I came home one night from happy hour and had a few drinks and I was tagged in it again, that I was like fine, Ill do this and then I applied and away we went.

The first person she told was her mum, Debbie Kirk  Sun Medias smiling receptionist. And Debbie gushed telling me all about it in a proud motherly way.

She called me up to tell me the news and said How would you feel about me being on reality TV?. I said, That sounds amazing, as long as its not Married at First Sight! She laughed and said, No, but its pretty close, says Debbie.

At the start she was worried about how she would be portrayed on TV, but looking at it now the way they portrayed her is very her  just Shayna being Shayna.

Shayna says the days filming werent too long, one day a week they had a challenge that would start at 8.30am, and another night they would do recoupling, elimination, and then they would end a week of filming with a fun activity.

Her favourite challenges were the slingshot challenge and the obstacle course challenges, which she smashed.

She says she had no strategy going into any of the competitions and surprised herself how well she did.

Its been such a stroke to my ego and apparently Im good at random stuff  who would have thought?

I think its because me and Stacy work so well together and we had this weird connection, so I guess everything we did worked out, and obviously I wanted to do my best for myself and for him as well.

Im really proud of myself at how well I did at challenges  I just went for it and I got a free holiday and met some really cool people.

She says since the competition has ended she has kept in touch with Kelsey Odell, Gennady Sharpe and Weiting Shyu, Stacy Smyth, Izaak Ryan, and Julius Bennett. Shes even gone on holiday again with some of them.

Its just been a blast and I would definitely recommend it to anyone.
The launch of Downtown Taurangas Taste Tauranga food festival has been met with widespread support and already several events have sold out, signalling the interest for more showcase events and offerings in the city centre, and delighting organisers.

The event which has been put together by Downtown Tauranga is running throughout August.

It features a unique set menu offering with different price points from $20, $30, $45, to more than $60 across about 25 restaurants, cafes and bars in the city centre.

Theres also exclusive events and specialty offerings.

Downtown Tauranga spokesperson Millie Newitt says its a true celebration and showcase of the city centre.

We have some of the most amazing restaurants, bars and cafes in our city centre and its time we celebrated that. This event allows us to entice the public to make August the month they try new taste sensations, new venues and new experiences.

Dubbed the showcase food festival, Taste Tauranga also features some firsts, including a Tapas Trail with restaurant favourites Brooklyn Patio and Bar, Macau, Nomad Food + Wine and The Barrel Room, who together have teamed up to create a Tuesday night event.

This is the first time weve had eateries collaborate like this to create a very special event that allows the public to visit four different venues and be treated to a fabulous tapas and a drink.

Its so successful the first Tuesday Tapas Trail sold out in two days, and the second, on August 14, has just two tickets remaining. We are hoping to open up Tuesday August 21 for a third and final Tapas Trail as part of the festival.

Celebrity Chefs Karena and Kasey Bird are also strong supporters of the inaugural Taste Tauranga and are working in collaboration with Downtown Tauranga to create a unique signature event which they will host.

Millie says it will be an amazing evening for the public to spend with global culinary superstars Karena and Kasey.

Its called Beneath the Surface and will be a celebration of the traditional underground cooking methods from around the word.

Throughout the dinner Karena and Kasey will put a modern spin on some of the different underground cooking techniques and flavours they have experienced in their travels around the globe and present them in a fun and fine dining experience. Were expecting it to be a sold-out event.

Millie says the set menu offering gives the public ultimate choice.

With more than 25 eateries involved theres so much to choose from.

She says people who want to be involved should head to the Downtown Tauranga website, choose the price of their set menu option, the food they like and the venue to match.

Its fun. The hardest thing is choosing and were hoping that means the public will make August the month to really support our hospitality sector and maybe have lunch and dinner out a little more often than normal, as a treat.

Also featuring on the events list during the month are wine and craft beer tasting evenings, a whiskey and cheese pairing event and a wild degustation.

We also have a special extra treat for the public. Anyone who dines at any of our cafes, bars or restaurants during the month will be in to win a pair of diamond earrings from Peet Jewellers and free dining for a year.

People are also encouraged to take photos of what they order and upload them to Instagram with the #tastetauranga hashtag, to go in to win a $200 dining voucher at an establishment of their choice.

For more details on Taste Tauranga visit www.downtowntauranga.co.nz
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The Rotorua Creative Communities Scheme is seeking applications for funding for local arts projects.

The Creative Communities Scheme (CCS) provides funding to local arts projects so that all New Zealanders can be involved in, support or attend a wide range of events including dance, literature, Maori, crafts, film, music, Pacific arts, theatre and visual arts.

Applications are open until 26 September 2018.

With just over $25,000 available for new arts projects in the community, this is a fantastic opportunity for locals with an artistic passion to make their dreams a reality, says local Creative Communities Scheme administrator Julie Parsons.

Artist Maggie Covell received funding in a previous round which meant she was able to engage and give back to the community as part of her project.

With CCS support Maggie created an interactive colouring book featuring women who were trailblazers, innovators, rebels and creative visionaries in history.

Maggie Covells Fierce Little Handbook of Women A-Z highlights cultural diversity and was designed as an educational device to empower.

The Creative Communities Scheme funding allowed me to donate 30 books to Ngongotaha Primary School and carry out a workshop with students exploring the art and concepts of the book.

The grant also allowed me to get more books printed which meant I could have it on display in art galleries and museums throughout New Zealand, says Ms Covell.

Maggie Covells Fierce Little Handbook of Women A-Z is for sale on her website www.maggiecovell.com and was selected by renowned The Dowse Art Gallery (Upper Hutt, Wellington) to be associated with two events and exhibitions they have hosted and be stocked in their shop, which has recently been named best museum shop in New Zealand.

Maggie was also part of the Toi Ohomai graduates art exhibition last November entitled Multiple Threads and then she gave a public talk (2 December) to share her stories around the process with the community.

In the last funding round 16 local arts initiatives received grants with more than $26,000 being distributed, ranging in value from $600 to $4,000.

Successful projects included theatre, kapa haka video, cultural and writing festivals, speech and drama and Aria competitions, along with a wide range of art workshops including felting, glass, ceramics, silver clay and prints.

Applications must be for arts projects which have not yet started and which will be completed within 12 months of receiving funding.

Previous applicants are welcome to apply, but will only be considered if their end-of-project accountability reports have been received.

Applications can be downloaded from www.rotorualakescouncil.nz/creativecommunities and completed applications should be emailed to Julie.parsons@rotorualc.nz by 26 September 2018, or posted or delivered to Julie Parsons at Rotorua Lakes Council, Private Bag 3029, Rotorua, 3046.

For more information go to www.creativenz.govt.nz or contact Julie Parsons.
OSWEGO, N.Y. -- An inmate who died at the Oswego County Correctional Facility Friday was a 34-year-old Oswego man, according to his family.

Daniel U. Ellis, of 24 West 11th St. in Oswego, died Friday morning, according to his mother AnnaLisa McKee.

Oswego County authorities confirmed an inmate died, but have not released the inmate's name.

Ellis was arrested May 16 for theft of services, according to a Syracuse.com police blotter. More details on the charges were not available Friday.

A guard noticed a "change in the breathing pattern" of the inmate shortly after midnight Friday, the sheriff's office said. The inmate had been sleeping, officials said.

Ellis had multiple sclerosis, attention deficit disorder and learning disabilities, McKee said. The family has not yet been informed of the cause of Ellis' death, but McKee said the family has questions about how he died.

Menter Ambulance personnel tried to save Ellis after a housing unit officer noticed the change at approximately 12:20 a.m., deputies said.

The man's body was taken to the Onondaga County Medical Examiner's Office for an autopsy, deputies said.

The New York State Commission of Correction and the Oswego County Coroner's Office are investigating the death, deputies said.

The Oswego County Sheriff's Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday.

McKee and her husband, Daniel McKee, who both formerly lived in Central New York, currently live in North Carolina.
A former Watertown couple has been arrested and charged with multiple counts of sodomy with a victim younger than 11 years old, according to a Friday news release from New York State Police news.

Daniel Kemp, 49, and Shanynn L. Kemp, 50, were charged with four and three counts of first-degree sodomy, respectively, police said.

State police investigated the case with Fort Bragg Investigation Command, police said.



Fort Bragg is a military base in North Carolina.

The Kemps were foster parents in Jefferson county from February of 1998 to December of 2000, police said.

A victim told state police and the Fort Bragg Investigation Command about the abuse, which began the agencies' investigation, police said.

State police ask that anyone with information about the investigation into the Kemps call the state police's bureau of criminal investigation in Watertown at 315-782-3691 or state police headquarters at 315-366-6000.
According to a new study, blue light emitted from smartphones, tablets, and other similar gadgets with backlights can speed up the process of blindness.

Researchers from the University of Toledo claim spending long periods of time staring at screens, especially in close range, will damage vision and produce poisonous chemicals in the eye's light-sensitive cells. This in turn, the researchers claim, could accelerate macular degeneration and other eye illnesses.

Blue Light Might Make You Blind

The study, which was published last month in Scientific Reports, involved exposing living cells to various types of light. The researchers discovered that exposure to blue light results in "reactions that generate poisonous chemical molecules in photoreceptor cells," which are the cells in the retina that react to light.

"If you look at the amount of light coming out of your cell phone, it's not great but it seems tolerable," according to John Payton, one of the researchers and a visiting assistant professor at the University of Toledo's Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry. "Some cell phone companies are adding blue-light filters to the screens, and I think that is a good idea."

Blue Light Filters On Phones

Indeed, both Apple and Android offer blue light filters that toggle on during nighttime, reducing the amount of blue light to avoid severe eye strain. A number of third-party apps that perform the same function are also available for both desktop and smartphones.

For protection against blue light, Ajith Karunarathne, assistant professor in the aforementioned department and one of the researchers in the study, suggests wearing sunglasses that can filter both ultraviolet and blue light outside, and avoid looking at smartphones at night.

"Every year more than two million new cases of age-related macular degeneration are reported in the United States," according to Karunarathne. "By learning more about the mechanisms of blindness in search of a method to intercept toxic reactions caused by the combination of retinal and blue light, we hope to find a way to protect the vision of children growing up in a high-tech world."

Macular Degeneration

Macular degeneration remains the top cause of vision loss and can eventually lead to total blindness. There's a Vitamin E molecule called alpha tocopherol that tries to fend off such cell deaths, but it doesn't have the same fighting power as people age or if their immune systems are compromised. In the meantime, make sure to follow Karunarathne's advise and try to wear special glasses that can prevent blue light from messing with the retina.

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The Lafayette Utilities Systems recent announcement that wind will comprise 20 percent of its electricity needs is only the first baby step in the systems embrace of renewable energy sources.

That, in any case, is how Interim LUS Director Jeff Stewart characterized the two-year contract for 50 megawatts of wind energy. It's on the extreme short end for wind energy contracts, which can range up to 30 years, but Stewart said LUS is considering longer ones for all types of renewables.

Lafayette Mayor-President Robideaux appoints Jeffrey Stewart as interim LUS director Mayor-President Joel Robideaux on Friday named Jeffrey Stewart as the interim director of the Lafayette Utilities System and LUS Fiber.

Part of what Stewart wants to do is ease the concept of renewables into the collective consciousness of LUS customers. If at one point in the future, for example, LUS considers acquiring its own renewable energy production facility, the idea of using wind and solar will already be old news, he said.

I dont want people to have a stigma around renewables, Stewart said. Lets just keep moving forward and incorporate these things.

Stewart figures diversified energy sources will be an easier sell to customers if rates remain steady. LUS has explored solar and wind sources for years, Stewart said, but only recently have the prices lowered to the point of being able sign a contract without affecting rates.

That reflects downward pricing trends over the last decade. Wind and solar prices have dropped 67 percent and 86 percent, respectively, since 2009, according to Lazard, a financial advisory firm.

+4 Robideaux addresses utility privatization controversy Lafayette Mayor-President Joel Robideaux says a convergence of events this spring led him to consider privatizing electricity services current

In the case of wind, the price decreases result in part from advancing technology, said Hannah Hunt, deputy director with the Wind Energy Association. Taller wind turbine towers with increased blade lengths are capturing more energy, she said.

The more energy youre capturing, the better the economics for the project, Hunt said.

Wind energy has been slow to catch on the southeast, Hunt said, in part because of the scarcity of transmission lines. Stewart said that future delivery capacity is part of what LUS is examining when it comes to long-term deals.

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The new wind energy contract includes the cost of delivery, Stewart said, and the fixed price reduces exposure to the volatile energy market.

"You know at least 20 percent of your fuel cost won't be fluctuating with the market," Stewart said. "We can be more precise with how we calculate and project our fuel."

Yet the LUS announcement occurs at a time that wind energy is finding its way south. In June, for example, the Arkansas Electric Cooperative Corporation announced a 20-year agreement to purchase wind from an Oklahoma facility.

Unlike LUS, Arkansas Electric released the name and location of its developer providing the energy, Wildhorse Wind Energy. Stewart said the name, location and cost of the LUS developer are commercially sensitive, and specifying these details would violate the contract.

Nothing precludes an extension of the LUS deal at the end of two years, or inking one in line with the one in Arkansas, but Stewart said doing so requires more extensive risk analysis.

You have to make sure it will fit in your long-term outlook, Stewart said. We are still in the very early stages of a long-term assessment."

Stewart said he hopes that, over time, renewable energy can help attract corporations, as the Omaha Public Power District recently did recently by providing Facebook with its own rate structure for wind power for a new data center in Papillion, Nebraska.

Plans call for the $435 million data center to be built on 290 acres, and powered with 100 percent clean energy, according to the Omaha World Herald.

This is just the next thing we want to use to perhaps attract people to consider Lafayette for all sorts of economic development, Stewart said.
Can environmental activists get one of south Louisiana's most progressive small towns to ditch its plastic bags?

So far, things haven't broken their way.

"To say they weren't warmly received would be an understatement," said Abita Springs Mayor Greg Lemons.

The plastics ban effort is led by a group that's part of the St. Tammany Parish chapter of Indivisible, a national grass-roots organization that promotes progressive causes.

The group went before the Abita Springs Board of Aldermen in March to ask the town to ban stores like groceries from using plastic bags, but the measure was unanimously defeated.

Leader Gary Simon is undeterred. He had originally intended to try to ban such bags parishwide, as other communities around the globe have done.

However, a lawyer counseled him to start a bit smaller to get his foot in the door. Abita Springs has a progressive reputation, with a professed goal to run entirely on renewable energy by 2030, so that's where Indivisible went.

+8 Abita Springs aims to run on 100% renewable energy by 2030 In just 13 years, Abita Springs' elected and civic leaders hope to be able to say that everything in the town, from homes and businesses to pu

"This should be a no-brainer," Simon said in an interview. "We're killing our oceans."

Plastic presents a number of problems, said LSU professor Mark Benfield, who studies the substance's effect on ecology. Scientists often find plastic bags crammed into the stomachs of sea creatures like turtles and small whales that mistake them for jellyfish.

As with other types of plastic, ultraviolet light can break it down into tiny particles that are eaten by small fish. The bits of plastic can block their digestive tract and give a false sense of fullness, thinning their populations and knocking the food chain off-kilter from the ground up.

"Plastic is killing our Earth. I said, 'Enough is enough,'  Simon said.

However, Abita Springs was not prepared to take the plunge and go so far as to keep grocery stores from distributing plastic bags.

Environmentalists now hope they can persuade business owners to forgo their plastic bags without an official edict.

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The Abita Brew Pub has donated some reusable bags to Indivisible to hand out at events like the farmers market to encourage people to bring their own bags when they go shopping. Simon said he hopes the restaurant will ditch plastic bags for carryout orders.

Brewpub owner Anthony Essaied said the decision to distribute reusable bags with his restaurant's name was partially a marketing move. For the time being, plastic is a much cheaper option for carryout customers because each bag costs pennies versus about 40 cents for one made of reusable material.

Nevertheless, he said he is looking at ways to reduce his plastic consumption, both for the good of the planet and because he expects the town will enforce a ban at some point.

"(The plastic bag ban) will probably pass sooner or later, which it probably should, I suppose," he said.

St. Gabriel mayor urges state officials to raise voices about climate issues, join initiative President Donald Trump may not want the U.S. to participate in international climate initiatives, but the leader of one small Louisiana city o

Essaied noted that although there's been a focus on bags, stores rely on plastic for a lot more. He knows there are efforts around the country to switch to paper straws  which he finds flimsy and expensive  but his restaurant uses plastic for containers and other things, and no one seems to be in a rush to take those away.

Indivisible had hoped to get the backing of Abita Springs' mayor for its effort but so far hasn't gotten it. Lemons said he supports environmental causes but lives in the real world where plastic is a fact of life. He just encourages people to recycle.

The problem, Benfield said, is that plastic is notoriously difficult to recycle, often because food residue clings to it. Many bags just wind up in the landfill, where they easily blow away and enter the ecosystem.

The professor expects that eventually everyone will follow the example set by states and localities that have sought to limit plastic consumption.

"There are easy alternatives," Benfield said.

He recalled a recent trip to Toronto, where shoppers had grown accustomed to bringing reusable bags with them to the store. If they forgot, they had to pay extra for plastic bags.

Simon suggested Abita Springs pursue a similar program, with perhaps a 5-cent charge on each plastic bag. Should his measure pass, he recommended a six-month grace period for shoppers to acclimate themselves to the change and for stores to make their own branded bags, if they wish.

However, with city leaders against him, Simon will either need to change some board members' minds or flip a few seats in this fall's election. He said he hopes he can present a compelling case to limit plastic.

"The Earth cannot sustain this," he said.
Americas relations with Germany have soured lately because of tensions between President Donald Trump and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

But maybe America can get back in the good graces of its European ally by sending a delegation from Louisiana to teach Germans how to catch and enjoy crawfish. A recent news story suggests that Merkels people could really use the help.

As National Public Radio reported this week, two parks in Berlin have been overrun by Louisiana crawfish. The crawfish somehow made their way into waterways at the recreation areas, quickly multiplying and causing mischief. Now numbering in tens of thousands, the mudbugs have clambered out of a lake and onto the walking paths used by park patrons.

In Louisiana, we dont call that a problem; we call it dinner. Germans are trying to make a meal out of their menace, too, but with limited success.

First, Berlin park officials released eels into the lakes, hoping theyd eat the invasive crustaceans. But the predators the Germans recruited apparently didnt have a Louisiana appetite. The crawfish population has grown exponentially  so much so that the Germans are now trying to eat the crawfish themselves.

Its been a struggle, though. When a Berlin food market hosted a Louisiana-style crawfish boil last month, serving up the critters with corn and potatoes, customers balked.

This food requires too much work, German diner Erika Klugert told NPR. She prefers shrimp that are already peeled.

Well concede that crawfish consumption is a high-maintenance affair, something best done over a newspaper-lined table while wearing clothes that can handle a stain or two. Beer helps ease the process along, an indulgence that Germans, who love a good brew or two, should be able to get the hang of.

Peeling and eating crawfish takes time, but thats part of the fun. In a speed-addled world, crawfish boils remain as a reminder that most good things cant be rushed.

But in the meantime, the waters of Berlin are teeming with crawfish, a challenge that calls for special expertise. It might be time for the Cajun Navy to suit up for service.
Simon Morris snapped when a man swiped his wallet outside an Uptown gasoline station Friday morning.

He chased the thief across the street and beat him to death with his fists and feet, New Orleans police said.

Morris, 31, faces a count of manslaughter after the killing of a man identified in court records only by the name Edwin.

According to police, Edwin approached Morris and asked him for a dollar outside the Express Mart Gas Station at 4140 S. Claiborne Ave. about 8:20 a.m. Friday. But Edwin then reached into Morris back pocket, snatched his wallet and ran across South Claiborne at Milan Street.

Morris caught up with him in the rear driveway of Hi Class Customs, an upholstery and window tinting shop at 4201 S. Claiborne. Morris wrested his wallet back and then began beating on Edwin with his fists, police said.

At least two people tried to restrain Morris. But he kept punching and then started kicking Edwin, who was begging Morris to stop and was attempting to cover his face and body, police said.

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Morris battered Edwins head and body for a duration of five minutes or more, police said. He didnt stop until one of the witnesses managed to pull him off. The witness said he feared Morris would try to beat him up as well, according to police.

Paramedics took Edwin to University Medical Center for treatment, but he died there not long after arrival.

Officers detained Morris and later secured a warrant to jail him on a count of manslaughter.

In Louisiana, manslaughter is defined as a killing that is carried out in the heat of passion following a provocation that would cause an ordinary person to lose self-control. The crime calls for a maximum of 40 years in prison but doesnt include a mandatory minimum punishment.

Morris made an initial court appearance Friday evening in front of Orleans Parish Magistrate Commissioner Brigid Collins. She set his bail at $150,000.
A man stabbed his girlfriend 29 times early Thursday and left her to die in the street next to her crying infant son, Gretna police said Friday.

Investigators jailed Damone Ussin, 41, on a count of second-degree murder in the slaying of 35-year-old Traniel Gray.

Grays son, who is about 1, was not injured and was placed in the custody of the state Department of Children and Family Services.

According to the Gretna Police Department, officers found Gray lying in the 1200 block of Amelia Street about 5:10 a.m. Thursday.

Interviews and footage from crime cameras in the area led investigators to focus on Ussin, who they suspected had attacked Gray as she walked her son in a stroller, police said.

Police said they tracked Ussin to an address on Fifth Avenue in nearby Harvey. Officers raided the place about 11 p.m. Thursday, finding Ussin as well as what they said was evidence linking him to Grays killing.

In addition to the murder charge, police also booked Ussin on a warrant accusing him of battering Gray in the 500 block of Hamilton Street in Gretna in July. He struck Gray in the face numerous times on that occasion, causing swelling, Gretna Police Capt. Russell Lloyd said.

Friday was not the first time Ussin was accused of acting violently toward a woman. He received a three-year prison sentence in 1999 after pleading guilty to cutting another woman with a knife, Jefferson Parish court records show.

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In 2003, prosecutors charged him with battering that same woman during a separate incident, and he was ordered to spend two months behind bars after pleading guilty in 2006, records show.

Ussins criminal history also includes drug possession convictions.

Gray is the second person murdered in Gretna this year, both in the past few days.

Earlier this week, 28-year-old Fernando DaRocha was booked on allegations that he murdered his girlfriend's infant son. Aaron Avila died Aug. 3, his first birthday, from severe head injuries that the boy's mother and DaRocha had tried to attribute to a fall days earlier.

But authorities said the injuries were not consistent with a fall and labeled the death a homicide. They also booked Aaron's mother, Jennifer Avila, with obstruction of justice.

In Louisiana, anyone convicted of murder faces mandatory life imprisonment.

Both DaRocha and Ussin remained in jail Friday with no bail set for either man.
Q: I accidentally threw a 50-cent piece in my wheelie bin, then spent half an hour fishing it out. My friend said I shouldn't have bothered, as the amount was too small. How much should it be in order to make it worthwhile? Q.R., POTTS POINT, NSW

This is a tricky question for me because it takes me back to my hellish school years. I was the only Jewish kid at school and the other boys thought it was hilarious to drop coins in front of me, and yell, "Pick it up, Jewboy! Pick it up!" It was humiliating. It was degrading. And I was clearing about 30 bucks a week. Didn't need an after-school job: this one was cash in hand, good hours, and not too hard on the back if I lifted with my knees.

Illustration by Simon Letch.

Since then I've been very reluctant to pick up dropped coins; if I accidentally dropped one in a wheelie bin, I would probably just leave it there in case Brett Carruthers suddenly popped out from inside and yelled, "Pick it up, Jewboyyyyyy" (Brett came from the Mississippi part of Australia). But at the same time, I'm very aware of the value of a 50-cent piece: back in my school days, that could buy me 20 musk sticks, 10 cobbers and two jelly snakes, with enough left over for a nice little bedsit in Potts Point. With a view.

Look, if you don't suffer from coin-related high-school PTSD, then I think you should rummage in bins for dropped coins, any amount  it's all money, it all adds up. If you accidentally drop two 50-cent pieces in a bin, that's a whole dollar. Drop 20 in a bin: that's $10. Drop 100: it's time to make an appointment with a specialist. You might need to get your motor skills checked.
Kids in Altona marvel at Saturday's hail stones. Credit:Tim Young

Rain, hail and thunderstorms - Melburnians have suffered through a number of bleak weather conditions this weekend. But according to a senior forecaster, weve most likely put the worst of winter behind us.

Thunderstorms and rain blanketed the city on Saturday, with hail storms reported in a number of suburbs across the state, including Bentleigh, Ringwood and Port Melbourne. Temperatures in the citys west plummeted to a bone-chilling seven degrees.
It sounded too good to be true: a free tram that could be transformed into the classroom of students' dreams.

Abbotsford Primary School was among 130 state schools vying for a piece of Victorian history through the Andrews governments retired tram scheme.

Abbotsford Primary School students Calypso, Kai'en, Benson, Mike and Kaila, L to R, were making plans for their 'free' tram until they realised how much it would cost Credit:Eddie Jim

The trams would be provided to successful state and non-government schools for free, with VicTrack footing the bill for their transportation and foundations.

But weeks after lodging an application for one of the retired yellow and green trams, the state school received a letter from the Victorian School Building Authority explaining it would have to fork out an estimated $30,000 in upfront costs. These included asbestos and lead paint removal and shading.
"It's a two-storey house, weatherboard, it was fully alight," he said.

MFB spokesman Paul Watson said the house was engulfed in flames when firefighters arrived.

Firefighters were called to a house in Williamstown Road, north of Somerville Road, about 4.45pm.

A Yarraville house fire has sent a thick plume of smoke billowing over Melbourne's west on Saturday.

A large plume of smoke seen from the Yarraville house fire on Saturday. Credit:Benjamin Millar

"We've got seven fire trucks, one aerial appliance and a rescue unit.

"A number of calls were received and responding MFB crews called for additional response due to large amounts of smoke seen in the direction they were responding to."

Thirty-five firefighters fought for more than an hour to bring the blaze under control.
It's a truth universally acknowledged that a hipster with a sniff of entitlement will jump on a taxpayer-funded bandwagon for free ironic memorabilia.

And so it was, on Thursday, when the emails started rolling in to electorate offices across the inner suburbs after an article in Vice alerted its readers to the bizarre fact that all Australians are entitled to a free portrait of the Queen.

A more expensive portrait of the Queen.

That's right. Under the federal Constituents Request Program, those who wish to possess a portrait of Elizabeth II, or one of QE2 with her husband the Duke of Edinburgh, or flags, or booklets on our flags and national symbols, or recordings of the national anthem, can simply write to their local federal MP and request them to be sent.

Of course, until this week, those requests  especially for portraits  were made on very rare occasions, usually by community organisations with a wish to visually acknowledge the reigning monarch.
LEVIS, QC, Aug. 10, 2018 /CNW/ - The Government of Canada is committed to providing the Canadian Coast Guard with the equipment it needs to carry out its important work, while providing economic opportunities for the Canadian marine sector. The purchase of three medium commercial icebreakers will help to ensure continuity of service for Coast Guard clients and the safe passage of marine traffic through Canada's waterways.

Following a fair, open and transparent process that included extensive industry engagement, Public Services and Procurement Canada, on behalf of the Canadian Coast Guard, has awarded a $610-million contract to Chantier Davie, of Levis, Quebec for the acquisition of three icebreakers and work to prepare the first ship for service in the Canadian Coast Guard.

Further costs will be known once the Government of Canada has examined the vessels and determined what work is required to prepare them for service.

This contract will help to secure up to 200 well-paying middle class jobs at Chantier Davie.

The first vessel is expected to begin operations for the upcoming icebreaking season, beginning in December 2018. The second and third vessels will be converted, refit and available to support Coast Guard programs by the summer of 2019 and the winter of 2019-2020, respectively.

This contract follows an Advance Contract Award Notice that was issued on June 22, 2018.

Quotes

"Our Government is firmly committed to ensuring the women and men of the Canadian Coast Guard have the equipment they need to carry out their important work on behalf of Canadians from coast to coast to coast. This contract will help support Coast Guard operations and will create and maintain jobs in the region."

The Honourable Carla Qualtrough, Minister of Public Services and Procurement and Accessibility

"The acquisition of these icebreakers is proof of our Government's commitment to keep our waterways open for business year-round and to support our coastal communities. This is a great day for the Coast Guard and for the Canadians they serve."

The Honourable Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard

"This contract underscores our commitment to Chantier Davie and its workers. Davie workers have done an incredible job with the Asterix and the Government of Canada is proud to work with Davie on this new contract which will secure up to 200 well-paying middle class jobs at the shipyard for the next 24 months. This is great news for the Quebec City region."

The Honourable Jean-Yves Duclos, Minister of Families, Children and Social Development

Quick facts:

With this contract, the Government of Canada has now awarded more than $8.1 billion of National Shipbuilding Strategy-related contracts across Canada .

has now awarded more than of National Shipbuilding Strategy-related contracts across . This contract nearly doubles the total value of contracted shipbuilding work to companies in Quebec .

. Of the total value, approximately 17%  or more than $1.3 billion  has been awarded to companies in Quebec, including small or medium-sized enterprises with less than 250 full-time employees.

 has been awarded to companies in Quebec, including small or medium-sized enterprises with less than 250 full-time employees. This contract will ensure that shipping lanes in the St. Lawrence River remain open in the winter.

Icebreakers are crucial to Canadian Coast Guard services, vital to the safety of mariners, the protection of coastal waters, resupply of northern communities and the orderly flow of commerce through Canadian waters that contributes more than $200 billion to the Canadian economy.

to the Canadian economy. These ships will supplement the Coast Guard's existing fleet while they undergo refits and repairs. They will conduct critical missions such as icebreaking duties for the Southern wintertime program and will be deployed as needed in support of Arctic summertime programs.

Associated links:

National Shipbuilding Strategy

Industrial and Technological Benefits Policy

Canadian Coast Guard Vessel Procurement

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SOURCE Public Services and Procurement Canada

CONTACT: Ashley Michnowski, Press Secretary, Office of the Honourable Carla Qualtrough, 819-997-5421; Media Relations, Public Services and Procurement Canada, 819-420-5501, media@pwgsc-tpsgc.gc.ca; Vincent Hughes, Press Secretary, Office of the Minister, Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, 6139923474, Vincent.Hughes@dfo-mpo.gc.ca

RELATED LINKSwww.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca
Limited edition Raiu Edition the first special edition WRX in Canada in more than 15 years.

Finished in exclusive Cool Grey Khaki, WRX Raiu Edition features dynamic visual and performance enhancements.

MISSISSAUGA, ON, Aug. 10, 2018; Subaru Canada, Inc. (SCI) is pleased to announce the introduction of the 2019 WRX Raiu Edition, marking the first special edition WRX sold in Canada in more than 15 years.

Limited to just 100 units across the country, this Canadian-exclusive performance sedan derives its name from the Japanese word for thunderstorm, which describes its characteristics and capabilities perfectly.

Powered by a stout 2.0-litre turbocharged SUBARU BOXER four-cylinder engine, the WRX Raiu Edition makes 268 horsepower and 258 lb.-ft. of torque and comes equipped exclusively with a six-speed manual transmission.

In addition to all the features that make the rally-bred WRX so fun to drive, the Raiu Edition boasts several exclusive upgrades to enhance its appeal  and exclusivity. Based on the WRX Sport-tech RS, this new special edition model stands apart with dynamic visual and performance enhancements, including STI-branded front lip, side sill and rear side spoilers, as well as an STI-branded short-throw shifter.

Rounding out the upgrades are black interior and exterior accents, 18-inch alloy wheels painted in a gunmetal finish, and an exclusive Cool Grey Khaki exterior colour.

That's in addition to the Sport-tech RS trim's existing features, including Recaro front seats and Ultrasuede upholstery front and rear, a seven-inch touchscreen infotainment system with integrated navigation and Apple CarPlay and Android Auto, a nine-speaker Harman Kardon stereo system, Jurid front brake pads and red painted brake calipers at all four corners.

Priced at $40,995, the 2019 WRX Raiu Edition is limited to just 100 units Canada-wide, and will soon be arriving at Subaru dealers across the country.

About Subaru Canada, Inc.

Subaru Canada, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Subaru Corporation of Japan. Headquartered in Mississauga, Ont., the company markets and distributes Subaru vehicles, parts and accessories through a network of 93 authorized dealers across Canada. For more information, please visit www.subaru.ca or or follow @SubaruCanada on Twitter.
Completely redesigned around the Subaru Global Platform.

More spacious and refined, with new capability and performance.

New exterior and interior styling.

Available two-mode X-Mode for improved capability in all conditions. (MISSISSAUGA, ONT.) The 2019 Forester will be available in six well-equipped trims when the all-new fifth-generation version of one of Subarus most iconic models goes on sale this fall. The roomiest, most capable Forester to date will be available in 2.5i, Convenience, Touring, Sport, Limited and Premier trims when it arrives at Subaru dealers across the country, and also features ground-breaking and segment-leading safety technology. Joining Subarus award-winning EyeSight driver assist system is the all-new  and segment-exclusive  DriverFocus safety technology aimed at combating driver fatigue and distracted driving. As an industry leader in safety, Subaru developed this state-of-the-art system to help address the growing issue of distracted driving and driver fatigue for both new and experienced drivers. Built on the Subaru Global Platform (SGP), the new Forester features slightly larger exterior dimensions, resulting in the roomiest cabin in its history, while retaining the maneuverability thats synonymous with the popular Subaru. For 2019, all Foresters are powered by a new direct-injection, 2.5-litre direct-injection SUBARU BOXER four-cylinder engine featuring ISS ignition Start/Stop paired with a Lineartronic continuously variable transmission (CVT). Also standard on all trim levels is Subarus legendary Symmetrical full-time all-wheel drive, while standard X-Mode  and an available two-mode X-Mode  offers even more capability to go virtually anywhere necessary. 2.5i The 2.5i trim comes impressively equipped and includes an array of standard features that help the entry-level Forester punch well above its weight class. Beyond the standard Symmetrical full-time all-wheel drive and new 2.5-litre direct-injection SUBARU BOXER engine, the Forester 2.5i includes automatic climate control, automatic LED headlights, auto vehicle hold and an electronic parking brake. Other standard features include Subarus SI-Drive drive mode selector, as well as standard X-Mode with Hill Descent Control, heated front seats and a 6.5-inch touchscreen infotainment system with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto smartphone compatibility. Convenience Joining Subarus award-winning EyeSight driver assist system is the all-new  and segment-exclusive  DriverFocus safety technology aimed at combating driver fatigue and distracted driving. As an industry leader in safety, Subaru developed this state-of-the-art system to help address the growing issue of distracted driving and driver fatigue for both new and experienced drivers. Built on the Subaru Global Platform (SGP), the new Forester features slightly larger exterior dimensions, resulting in the roomiest cabin in its history, while retaining the maneuverability thats synonymous with the popular Subaru. For 2019, all Foresters are powered by a new direct-injection, 2.5-litre direct-injection SUBARU BOXER four-cylinder engine featuring ISS ignition Start/Stop paired with a Lineartronic continuously variable transmission (CVT). Also standard on all trim levels is Subarus legendary Symmetrical full-time all-wheel drive, while standard X-Mode  and an available two-mode X-Mode  offers even more capability to go virtually anywhere necessary. Touring with EyeSight Moving to the Touring trim includes EyeSight as standard equipment, including a proximity key with push-button start and Reverse Automatic Braking, as well as high beam assist. A power rear tailgate with memory function and a large power-slide glass sunroof are also included on the Forester Touring with EyeSight. Sport with EyeSight The all-new Forester Sport sees its list of standard features grow drastically, while the enhanced interior and exterior aesthetics help it stand out in a crowd. An exclusive front grille, rear spoiler, rear under-guard and roof rails are joined by exclusive dark metallic 18-inch wheels and orange exterior accents. Other exterior additions include vertical LED fog lights and LED side mirrors, steering responsive headlights and a Forester Sport-exclusive Dark Blue Pearl exterior finish is also available. The theme continues inside, with orange interior accents and stitching, while the infotainment system includes an eight-inch touchscreen. Also added are dual rear USB ports, for a total of four, and A/C ducts on the back of the centre console for improved second-row passenger comfort. The Sport trim also adds reclining rear seats and a leather shift knob. Also new is a two-mode X-Mode system that features separate settings for snow and dirt as well as deep snow and mud, and a unique SI-Drive Sport system for improved throttle response. Subarus Side/Rear Vehicle Detection (SRVD) system is also included for enhanced safety. Limited with EyeSight The Forester Limited adds 18-inch machined alloy wheels and adds a premium front grille for a more refined look, while the side mirror features a reverse tilt feature in a Subaru first. Inside, the eight-inch infotainment system includes integrated navigation functionality, while an eight-speaker Harman Kardon audio system is included for enhanced sound. Leather upholstery in the choice of black or platinum is also standard on the Limited trim, as is a heated steering wheel and heated rear seats. Premier with EyeSight Finally, the all-new Premier trims represents the ultimate in refinements, with plenty of upscale features to round out the Foresters rugged, adventure-ready abilities. Exclusive 18-inch machined alloy wheels are joined by chrome door handles and exclusive silver painted front and rear bumper under-guards, side garnish and roof rails, as well as satin chrome side mirrors and a stainless steel rear bumper step pad for a refined look. Inside, the Forester Premier adds exclusive brown leather upholstery and a power passenger seat, as well as the all-new DriverFocus distraction mitigation system for improved safety and peace of mind. Model Transmission MSRP 2.5i CVT 27,995$ Convenience CVT 30,295$ Convenience avec EyeSight CVT 31,795$ Tourisme avec EyeSight CVT 32,995$ Sport avec EyeSight CVT 34,995$ Limited avec EyeSight CVT 37,695$ Premier with EyeSight CVT 39,495$ About Subaru Canada, Inc. Subaru Canada, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Subaru Corporation of Japan. Headquartered in Mississauga, Ont., the company markets and distributes Subaru vehicles, parts and accessories through a network of 93 authorized dealers across Canada. For more information, please visit www.subaru.ca or www.pr.subaru.ca or follow @SubaruCanada on Twitter. Copyright 1996 The Auto Channel. XML Sitemap | Contact Us
California Considering Extending Alcohol Selling Hours to 4 AM in 7 Cities

A bill aiming to extend the sales hours of alcohol in seven California cities starting in 2021 has passed the State Senate but has yet to make it through the California Assembly.

SB 905 proposes a 5-year pilot plan that allows bars and clubs in several cities, including Los Angeles, Long Beach, West Hollywood, Palm Springs, Oakland, Sacramento and San Francisco, to extend the hours of selling alcohol from 2 a.m. to 4 a.m.

Nightlife is vital to many of our cities throughout California, and we need to do more to let these cities find ways to promote and support nightlife, said Sen. Scott Wiener (D-11th District, who authored the bill.

The bill passed the Senate floor in late May and was sent to the Assembly. However, the bill was moved to the suspense files in August due to its fiscal impact. Its scheduled for a hearing on Aug. 16.

According to the Senate Appropriations Committee, its estimated that the creation and operation of the pilot program under the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control will cost $2 million initially and $2.5 million annually afterward.

In addition, $345,000 will be used to fund CHP to get involved and to file reports to the Legislature, while DOJ will need $30,000 initially and $60,000 annually afterward for enforcement.

On the other hand, the bill is expected to generate $1.5 to $3 million dollars from fees for license applications and renewals. According to Sen. Wiener, all of the mayors from the seven participating cities welcomed the bill and the flexibility given to local government in deciding alcohol sales hours.

The bill has also faced opposition from multiple social organizations and public officials concerning public safety.

76% of the states population will be affected, said the Alcohol Policy Panel of San Diego County.

The organization argued that if the bill passes, these communities will face challenges from increased alcohol consumption and associated problems like violence, alcohol-impaired driving, and more burdens on law enforcement and emergency departments.
Chicago Police Criticized for Sting Operation

Local residents criticized the Chicago Police Department (CPD) for a sting operation that set people up to be arrested.

A viral Facebook video shows officers from the CPD hanging around a bait truck they set up to help Norfolk Southern Railroad Police in an operation on Aug. 2.

The truck was filled with Nike shoes meant to bait the thieves who had broken into freight containers located at Norfolk Southern rail. The surveillance operation was named Operation Trailer Trap.

A Chicago Police report said that the CPD was working with Norfolk Southern Railroad Police on Operation Trailer Trap near 59th Place and Princeton Avenue, the Chicago Tribune reported.

When the railroad police experienced a high amount of firearm theft from freight containers, they asked the CPD to assist them in a sting operation to get those thieves off the street.

The sting operation resulted in the arrest of three men. They were seen on surveillance cameras cutting open the trailer safety seals and running off with the shoes, CBS News reported.

David C King was one of the thieves arrested. When officers saw him enter the trailer, they described his appearance through the radio, chased him down, and arrested him on Aug. 2. King is also deaf and told an officer who understood sign language that he entered the trailer to take food.

Charles McKenzie, the uploader of the viral video, accuses law enforcement of setting up people to be arrested by leaving a trailer full of Nikes in the ghetto.

According to Illinois law, Section 7-12 of the Criminal Code of 1961, a person is not guilty if their conduct was induced or incited by a public officer or employee for the purpose of obtaining evidence to prosecute that person. This is illegal.

This entrapment defense cannot be applied if the person is predisposed to commit the offense and the public officer or employee only provides the opportunity or facility to commit the crime.

If the defendant uses the entrapment defense, they must prove with evidence that the public officer or employee forced, harassed, or encouraged the defendant to commit the crime. Furthermore, they must also prove that they would not have committed the crime had the public officer or employee left them alone.

Although what the CPD did was technically legal and McKenzie himself agrees that theft is wrong, he also included another perspective, but if you put something in a community where no one have nothing to do or no money what do you expect? said McKenzie, CBS News reported.

Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie T. Johnson reminded people at a news conference on the importance of individual responsibility, while also taking the method of operation into consideration.

At the end of the day, just because its out there and its not yours, that doesnt mean youre supposed to take it, said Johnson. But as Chicago Police Department, were going to take a hard look and see if theres something we can do better, CNN reported.
Smoke rises from a residential area where gun battle is going on between Taliban and Afghan forces in Ghazni province, Afghanistan on Aug. 10, 2018. (REUTERS/Stringer)

Clashes Continue as Taliban Press Afghan City South of Kabul

Fighting continued around Ghazni in central Afghanistan on Saturday, a day after Taliban fighters stormed the city in a stark show of force, with at least 25 police and one journalist killed, officials said.

Many telecoms masts were destroyed during heavy fighting on Friday, making it difficult to establish contact with the city, some two hours drive south of the capital Kabul, and there were conflicting accounts from government and Taliban spokesmen.

The attack on Ghazni, a strategically important center straddling the main highway linking Kabul with the south of the country, was the most serious blow struck by the Taliban since they came close to overrunning the western city of Farah in May.

The insurgents have failed to take any provincial center since they briefly seized the northern city of Kunduz in 2015 although they are active across much of the country and control many rural areas.

Defense ministry officials said Ghazni was under complete control of the security forces. But at the same time, they said clearance operations were continuing and additional troops were being sent to boost the citys defense.

Afghan National Army reinforcements are making their way to Ghazni city to help the Afghan National Police search and clear the city of insurgents that may still be hiding in the city, said Major Mohammad Farooq, Afghan army 203rd Corps spokesman.

However, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the insurgents held a number of strategic locations in the city and had captured a large quantity of weapons and equipment as well as taking more than 100 prisoners among the security forces.

We are in talks in various areas with the rest of the enemy forces to surrender instead of putting their lives in danger, he said in a statement.

One security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said both sides were fighting to control commercial centers and arterial roads around the city.

There was little clear information on casualties, but Najib Danish, a spokesman for the interior ministry, said that 25 policemen had been killed, along with one Afghan journalist, whom he did not identify.

Fridays attack came as a shock after hopes had grown of a possible start to peace talks, although Ghazni has been under pressure for months with insurgents increasingly active in nearby districts.

The city was relatively quiet last evening and people were observed moving freely on the streets, Lt Col. Martin ODonnell, spokesman for U.S. Forces-Afghanistan, said in an emailed statement. That said, clearing operations are ongoing and we have received reports of sporadic clashes.

He did not say whether U.S. aircraft, which had helped Afghan forces resist the initial attack on Friday, had conducted any strikes against the Taliban.

The government had been considering a ceasefire over this months Eid al Adha holiday to match a similar truce during the Eid al Fitr holiday in June which saw unarmed Taliban fighters mingling with soldiers on the streets of Kabul and other cities.

Zabihullah Mujahid said in a social media post that the group had captured Ghaznis main prison and freed many inmates, but Afghan officials could not immediately confirm or reject the statement.
Death Toll From Indonesia Quake Climbs Over 320

PEMANANG, IndonesiaThe death toll from a huge 6.9 magnitude earthquake in Indonesias Lombok island has climbed to more than 320, officials said on Friday, Aug. 10, even as relief efforts picked up pace.

The national disaster mitigation agency said it had verified 321 deaths and that over 270,000 people had been forced to flee their homes because of a series of tremors over the past two weeks.

On Thursday, the death toll from Sundays quake jumped to 259.

A fresh 5.9 magnitude aftershock prompted fresh panic in the north of the popular holiday destination on Thursday.

Nearly 75 percent of residential structures have been destroyed in northern Lombok because of poor construction unable to withstand strong tremors, the agency said in a statement.

Aid is being distributed as quickly as possible upon arrival, Sutopo Nugroho, spokesman for the agency said in a statement, adding that hundreds of volunteers were assisting the efforts.

Mobile kitchens have started distributing much-needed food and water to thousands of evacuees in the worst-hit areas, he said, after several days delay due to poor access and communications.

President Joko Widodo on Friday said he was delaying plans to visit Lombok until next week, citing concerns over continuing aftershocks.

After the emergency period is over, the government will undertake rehabilitation, reconstruction, repairs to residential areas and public facilities, the cabinet secretariat website quoted Widodo as saying.

Widodo visited the island after a 6.4 magnitude quake on July 29 killed 17 people and injured dozens more.

The quakes have prompted tourists to flee during what is otherwise the peak season for the island destination famous for its beaches.
Father Charged for Dumping Baby in NYC River

The father of a baby found dead, dumped in a New York City river, was extradited from overseas and arrested upon arrival in the United States.

James Currie, 37, attempted to flee after allegedly dumping his son, Mason Saldana, in the East River.

He was arraigned on Aug. 10 on the charge of concealment of a human corpse and ordered held without bail until his next appearance on Aug. 15, reported WABC.

Investigators said in the complaint filed against Currie that the father carried his baby in a backpack from his Bronx apartment to the river and tossed the boy into the water near the Brooklyn Bridge.

Investigators said that Saldana, seven months old, was last seen alive on Aug. 4.

He was found on Aug. 5 on an embankment wearing only a diaper.

Tourists who found him said they called the police.

We called 911 immediately, Austin Campbell from Stillwater, Oklahoma told CBS.

They told my dad not to jump in the water. It [had] only been five minutes since we seen it so he jumped in the water, pulled the baby out. Started doing CPR on it for about five minutes and then the cops showed up and paramedics took it to the ambulance.

Police officers said that Currie could face more charges following the babys autopsy.

A formal complaint against Currie alleged that he taunted the babys mother before tossing the boy into the water.

The good news we [sic] will never see each other again, Currie texted the babys mother after she asked him where Saldana was.

He then told her that I am not in the usa and you will never see [the victim] again, reported the New York Post.

A source told the Post that Currie had been trying to get custody of his son.

Sometimes you can know a person but you dont really know him, the source said. I cant believe he had that in him.

Currie tried to flee to Thailand but was tracked down by Homeland Security Investigations, NYPD and Customs and Border Protection, reported NBC. Currie had connecting flights through Abu Dhabi and India before landing in Thailand where he was apprehended.

The circumstances of the case are essentially irrefutable proof the defendant threw his infant son into the East River and very shortly afterwards planned a trip taking three flights, said prosecutor Shawn McMahon, ending up literally on the other side of the world.

From NTD.tv
North Korea Suspends Chinese Tourists

A China-based travel agency that specializes in tours to North Korea suspended all tours there for about a month.

It is believed that North Korea is preparing for an important event, or high-ranking officials are planning a visit, considering that Pyongyang is restricting entry of foreigners over the peak tourism season, even though it one of its main sources of profit, a source in Beijing said, via Yonhap News Agency.

The INDPRK agency plans to stop the tours Aug. 11 and wont resume until after Sept. 5.

One Chinese tour agency was told that North Korea is suspending travel to renovate hotels. Another agency was told that travel is suspended due to a state decision, AFP reported.

The number of Chinese visitors to North Korea reached 2,000 this month, according to Yonhap.

It is hard to understand why North Korea would suspend its tourism business just to renovate hotels, when the industry has been raking in money, another source told Yonhap.

Experts believe the reason for the change in policy is a result of an upcoming high-profile meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping. They believe Xi may be trying to reciprocate North Korean leader Kim Jong-uns three visits to China, according to Yonhap.

Another reason for the move, North Korea is presumed to hold festivities in celebration of the 70th year since the North Korean communist regime was founded. Kim hinted at the event during a speech in January, AFP reported.

From NTD.tv
Roofer Attacked Co-Worker With Circular Saw: Reports

A Missouri roofer is accused of killing his co-worker with a circular saw in Wisconsin, according to reports.

The Pierce County Sheriffs Office said officers were called to a home in River Falls on Aug. 6 over a worker who was injured while working, according to TwinCities.com.

Israel Valles-Flores, 37, of St. Louis, was found on the roof and had severe lacerations to the neck and face, the office told Fox9. He died at the scene, officials said.

Miguel A. Navarro, 24, also of St. Louis, was arrested and charged with first-degree intentional homicide and was booked into the Pierce County Jail, the Pierce County Herald reported.

Pierce County Sheriff Nancy Hove told WCCO Radio: We had a group of gentlemen who were roofing at a residence in our county.

She said, One got upset with the other one and went after him with a circular saw.

Hove said that investigators are trying to piece together what led up to the attack. Were still investigating and gathering information. There were several people there, so we are still doing interviews at this time, she told the station.

The Pierce County Herald added that Navarro attacked him with the saw while on the roof, causing Valles-Flores to fall onto the garage roof. He kept attacking him after that, the report stated.

Nabarro, according to the Herald report, allegedly said that he was teased and wasnt getting paid. He also thought that he was drugged to work longer hours and didnt feel right.

I just feel sad, Maria Valle, who is a sister of Valle-Flores, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. (Navarros) reaction comes from where? It comes from evil.

If convicted, he faces life in prison and a $100,000 fine, the Herald reported.
Syrian Regime Bombs Rebel-held Kill Box

Raises specter of full-scale offensive and humanitarian crisis in Idlib

Dozens of airstrikes and shelling hit parts of the last swathe of Syrian territory still held by rebels, raising questions of a possible full-scale government offensive.

Opposition members, local activists, rescue workers, and a war monitoring group corroborated reports that forces loyal to Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad carried out heavy bombardment on opposition-held areas in Hama, Idlib, and Aleppo provinces on Aug. 10.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said dozens of strikes from helicopters and warplanes killed at least 29 people.

The three areas in northwest Syria are the last major ones still in the hands of fighters seeking to overthrow al-Assad, whose forces recaptured the area around Damascus and the southwest earlier this year.

Syrian state news agency SANA reported that the Syrian army carried out operations against terrorist groups, its term for the rebels, in the northern Hama countryside, destroying several of their headquarters and killing and wounding an unspecified number.

This footage, shared by a local activist Abdalqader Bakri and made available via Storyful, shows the moment of strikes on the town of Al-Tamana, in Idlib province.

The death toll is expected to rise, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported, saying that many remain in critical condition.

The Observatory described the attacks as the most violent escalation in months in terms of aerial bombardment, and noted massive military reinforcements by the regime forces in the area.

It said the strikes could be seen as preparation for an offensive.

Psychological Media War

Abu al-Baraa al-Hamawi, a rebel leader in northern Hama, said the attacks appeared to be part of a psychological media war against the people.

On Thursday the Syrian army had dropped leaflets over Idlib province, urging people to agree to a return of state rule and telling them the seven-year war was nearing its end.

Rebels were ready to repel any possible attack by regime forces. They will be taught a lesson they wont forget: Idlib is different to other regions, al-Hamawi added.

Mohammed Rasheed, a spokesman for the Jaish al-Nasr rebel group based in Hama province, said pro-Syrian government forces had not yet advanced on the ground and the attacks consisted of shelling and air bombardment.

Next Target?

We are entering a new chapter in this very long, very bloody, very cruel, very bitter war in Syria, said Senior Adviser to the UN Special Envoy for Syria, Jan Egeland.

Egeland described a tremendous worry the conflict would move to Idlib province and other non-government-controlled areas in Syrias northwest.

He said the war cannot be allowed to go to Idlib, because its a place filled to the brim with refugees and internally displaced people.

Idlib and other areas, including Afrin and Azaz, are home to some 4 million people, including 3 million women and children, Egeland said.

Hundreds of thousands of Assad opponents have relocated to northwest Syria under evacuation agreements reached as other parts of the country fell to pro-government forces backed by Russia and Iran.

Assad has indicated the area, which borders Turkey, could be his next target.

The Idlib Kill Box Conundrum

Many fear the Syrian regime has set up Idlib as an area into which foes are being funneled for a final decisive defeat, with Arab officials warning of the potential for Idlib to become a kill box.

Free Syrian Army-aligned rebel commanders concur. They have been making the kill box argument since Russian-backed regime forces last December drove insurgents from Aleppo.

Western military tacticians have suggested that concentrating the enemies of the Syrian government into a single kill-zone was the strategy of Russian and Iranian commanders, who have been providing crucial support to the regimes war machine.

The conundrum is that Idlib is at once the last vestige of refuge for millions, and a region firmly controlled by the jihadist alliance Heiat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which has rejected de-escalation.

Idlib, according to Hassan Hassan, a senior fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, is the only major enclave in Syria where the former official branch of Al Qaeda dominates. No force in the country appears to be ready to fight a sustained battle to reclaim the province in the foreseeable future.

Russia, Iran, and Western powers all view HTS an irreconcilable terrorist organization that must be defeated by force.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), via its digital service Reliefweb, published a report (pdf) by the International Crisis Group called Averting Disaster in Syrias Idlib Province.

The ICG argues that the way to prevent Idlib from turning into a bloodbath is for Turkey to work with moderate rebels in the province to overthrow hardline Islamists and work toward a permanent peace.

Turkey should deploy along the front line in cooperation with Russia, which should press the Syrian regime to delay, or even desist from, its assault, the ICG writes.

This would buy time for renewed Turkish efforts to curtail transnational jihadist influence within HTS in favour of militants more open to de-escalation and compromise.

With the apparent growing appetite on the part of the Syrian government for military intervention in Idlib, the ICG call is becoming increasingly urgent.

Reuters contributed to this report
The Bow Makers Wife Used Her Wit to Plead With the King

During the Spring and Autumn Period of Chinese history, there was a bow maker in the state of Jin. His wife was the daughter of an official. Duke Ping of Jin instructed the bow maker to make a bow, and he spent three years completing the task.

However, the arrow shot from the bow was unable to pierce through one layer of armour at the trial session. Duke Ping was furious and gave an order to put the bow maker to death.

The bow makers wife asked to see the duke and was granted an interview. She told the duke three short stories about kings.

First, she asked Duke Ping whether he had heard about the story of Gong Liu, an ancestor of the founder of the Zhou Dynasty, King Wen.

She said: Gong Liu loved his people. When he saw that the peoples crops had been trampled by cattle, his heart went out to them. A virtuous man who cared for his peoples crops would not take innocent lives.

When Duke Mu of Qin lost one of his favourite horses, he looked for it and found a group of thieves slaughtering his horse, ready to have a good meal. He asked the thieves, Are you just going to have the horse meat without wine? I hear eating horse meat without wine may cost a person his life. Instead of killing the thieves, he gave them wine. Three years later, the state of Jin attacked the state of Qin, and the duke was under siege. To repay his kindness, the thieves who ate the horse risked their lives to get him out.

And at a banquet that King Zhuang of Chu held, the candle lights went out all of a sudden. Someone tugged at the queens clothes. The queens response was quick. She grabbed the person by the chin strap of his hat, pulled hard, and broke it. She asked King Zhuang to punish the person.

However, the king said, I gifted my courtiers and officials with mellow wine, and they got drunk and behaved inappropriately. I cannot insult them for that. He gave the order, Well pull off the chin straps of our hats and drink to our hearts content today. And everybody did as they were told.

When war broke out between the two states of Chu and Jin, there was a person who always fought bravely at the forefront of every battle against the Jin. King Zhuang could not figure out why this person would go all out to fight the enemy. The person answered, I was the one whose chin strap of my hat was pulled off by the queen. Since the king did not punish him, he was ready to give up his life for the king to repay his kindness.

The bow makers wife went on.

These three sage kings were benevolent and enjoy a good reputation even today. Emperor Yao lived in a thatched cottage and led a simple life. But he still felt that the life of the cottage builders was too hard and that the life of the people living in the cottages was too comfortable.

My husband worked just as hard for you. He picked a tree from Mount Tai to make the bow and used ox horns to make ornaments. He then used the sinews of an elk to make the bowstring before binding everything together with fish gelatin. Those were the four best materials he could find. You were unable to pierce through even one layer of armour because you did not have the skills. Isnt it ridiculous to want to kill my husband for that reason?

I hear that when you shoot an arrow, you have to clench your left fist as if you were going to hit a rock, while your right hand should hold the bow like holding a twig. When the right hand releases the arrow, the left hand should not feel anything. Such is the art of archery.

Duke Ping followed her instructions, and the arrow pierced through seven layers of armour. He set the bow maker free and rewarded him with three taels of gold.

The bow makers wife was bright and wise. Not only did she manage to save her husband, but she also taught Duke Ping the importance of benevolence.

(From the Biographies of Exemplary Women)
Two 1984 Cold Cases Solved With New DNA Match

Officials in Colorado said that newly analyzed DNA evidence solved two 1984 cold cases.

Patricia Smith, 50, was found beaten to death with a hammer in her home in Lakewood on Jan. 10, 1984. Six days later, Bruce and Debra Bennett were found beaten to death at their home in Aurora, along with their 7-year-old daughter Melissa.

The Bennetts 3-year-old daughter was also sexually abused, shewas found the next day by her grandmother.

Officials said that evidence from both homicide cases was submitted shortly after the deaths but that was before DNA was widely used.

DNA Evidence

DNA evidence developed in 2010 after a cold case detective submitted DNA in the Smith case to compare it to the DNA collected in the Bennett case. The evidence indicated the person who killed Smith also killed the Bennetts, according to the Colorado Bureau of Corrections.

With the latest developments in DNA evidence on the table, an official in Nevada found a match with the DNA profile of the killer of Patricia Smith and the Bennetts when he entered in buccal swab results for an inmate, reported KDVR.

In the following day, we recognized that a match was made between the buckle swab of convicted offender Mr. Ewing to the forensic samples from the Bennett case, Colorado Bureau of Investigations Director John Camper said.

The swab was made possible by a law that enabled retroactive DNA testing of inmates.

Ewing Aready in Prison

Alexander Ewing, 57, is currently serving a 40-year prison term for attempting to kill a couple with an ax handle in their bedroom.

His sentence runs through 2037 but hes eligible for parole in 2021.

Ewing has now been charged with three counts of first-degree murder after deliberation, three counts of felony murder, and other crimes in the deaths of the Bennett family.

Hes also been charged with first-degree murder after deliberation, three counts of felony murder, and two violent crime counts for the death of Smith.

He could face the death penalty in the Smith case, reported the Denver Post.

Families and Friends React

Smiths family released a statement after the news was received.

It is difficult to imagine how much more fulfilling our lives would have been if Patricia Smiths life had not been taken from us. Its more difficult to imagine her death remaining a mystery, the family said, reported the Associated Press.

Vanessa Burnett, formerly Vanessa Bennett, told KUSA that she remembers little about the attack but noted she endured operations, physical therapy, and bullying after the deaths of her family.

I was made fun of in school because my parents were killed, she said. I was made fun of because the hammer man or whatever you want to call it was going to come to my house and hurt everybody when I had slumber parties and stuff.

Colorado officials have started the extradition process to return Ewing to Colorado from Nevada to go on trial, a process that could take months.

Friends of Smith and the Bennetts and police officers reacted to the news while officials said they hoped the findings would help start closure.

This case haunted the officers who responded that night. It was a case that haunted the families and the victims to the core, said Nick Metz, chief of police at the Aurora Police Department.

I dont believe anybody ever, with something like this ever really has closure, Bennett family friend Randy McCoy added. I just wanted to hear it, hear they found the guy, not just on the news or something, I wanted to be here and hear it.Officials in Colorado said that newly analyzed DNA evidence solved two 1984 cold cases.

Patricia Smith, 50, was found beaten to death with a hammer in her home in Lakewood on Jan. 10, 1984. Six days later, Bruce and Debra Bennett were found beaten to death at their home in Aurora, along with their 7-year-old daughter Melissa.

The Bennetts 3-year-old daughter was also sexually abused, shewas found the next day by her grandmother.

Officials said that evidence from both homicide cases was submitted shortly after the deaths but that was before DNA was widely used.

DNA Evidence

DNA evidence developed in 2010 after a cold case detective submitted DNA in the Smith case to compare it to the DNA collected in the Bennett case. The evidence indicated the person who killed Smith also killed the Bennetts, according to the Colorado Bureau of Corrections.

With the latest developments in DNA evidence on the table, an official in Nevada found a match with the DNA profile of the killer of Patricia Smith and the Bennetts when he entered in buccal swab results for an inmate, reported KDVR.

In the following day, we recognized that a match was made between the buckle swab of convicted offender Mr. Ewing to the forensic samples from the Bennett case, Colorado Bureau of Investigations Director John Camper said.

The swab was made possible by a law that enabled retroactive DNA testing of inmates.

Ewing Aready in Prison

Alexander Ewing, 57, is currently serving a 40-year prison term for attempting to kill a couple with an ax handle in their bedroom.

His sentence runs through 2037 but hes eligible for parole in 2021.

Ewing has now been charged with three counts of first-degree murder after deliberation, three counts of felony murder, and other crimes in the deaths of the Bennett family.

Hes also been charged with first-degree murder after deliberation, three counts of felony murder, and two violent crime counts for the death of Smith.

He could face the death penalty in the Smith case, reported the Denver Post.

Families and Friends React

Smiths family released a statement after the news was received.

It is difficult to imagine how much more fulfilling our lives would have been if Patricia Smiths life had not been taken from us. Its more difficult to imagine her death remaining a mystery, the family said, reported the Associated Press.

Vanessa Burnett, formerly Vanessa Bennett, told KUSA that she remembers little about the attack but noted she endured operations, physical therapy, and bullying after the deaths of her family.

I was made fun of in school because my parents were killed, she said. I was made fun of because the hammer man or whatever you want to call it was going to come to my house and hurt everybody when I had slumber parties and stuff.

Colorado officials have started the extradition process to return Ewing to Colorado from Nevada to go on trial, a process that could take months.

Friends of Smith and the Bennetts and police officers reacted to the news while officials said they hoped the findings would help start closure.

This case haunted the officers who responded that night. It was a case that haunted the families and the victims to the core, said Nick Metz, chief of police at the Aurora Police Department.

I dont believe anybody ever, with something like this ever really has closure, Bennett family friend Randy McCoy added. I just wanted to hear it, hear they found the guy, not just on the news or something, I wanted to be here and hear it.

From NTD.tv
Police patrol walk in front of the Id Kah Mosque in the old city of Kashgar, in Xinjiang, China on March 22, 2017. (Reuters/Thomas Peter)

UN Says It Has Credible Reports That Chinese Regime Holds Million Uighurs in Secret Camps

GENEVAA U.N. human rights panel said on Friday that it had received many credible reports that 1 million ethnic Uighurs in China are held in what resembles a massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy.

Gay McDougall, a member of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, cited estimates that 2 million Uighurs and Muslim minorities were forced into political camps for indoctrination in the western Xinjiang autonomous region.

We are deeply concerned at the many numerous and credible reports that we have received that in the name of combating religious extremism and maintaining social stability the Chinese Regime has changed the Uighur autonomous region into something that resembles a massive internship camp that is shrouded in secrecy, a sort of no rights zone,' she told the start of a two-day regular review of Chinas record, including Hong Kong and Macao.

China says Xinjiang faces a serious threat from radical Islamic terrorists and separatists who plot attacks and stir up tensions between the mostly Muslim Uighur minority who call the region home and the ethnic Han Chinese majority.

A Chinese delegation of some 50 officials made no comment on her remarks at the Geneva session that continues on Monday.

The allegations came from multiple sources, including activist group Chinese Human Rights Defenders, which said in a report last month that 21 percent of all arrests recorded in China in 2017 were in Xinjiang.

Earlier, Yu Jianhua, Chinas ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, said it was working towards equality and solidarity among all ethnic groups.

But McDougall said that members of the Uighur community and others Muslims were being treated as enemies of the state solely on the basis of their ethno-religious identity.

More than 100 Uighur students who returned to China from countries including Egypt and Turkey had been detained, with some dying in custody, she said.

Fatima-Binta Dah, a panel member, referred to arbitrary and mass detention of almost 1 million Uighurs and asked the Chinese delegation:

What is the level of religious freedom available now to Uighurs in China, what legal protection exists for them to practice their religion?

Panelists also raised reports of mistreatment of Tibetans in the autonomous region, including inadequate use of the Tibetan language in the classroom and at court proceedings.

The U.N. body maintained its integrity, the government got a very clear message, Golok Jigme, a Tibetan monk and former prisoner living in exile, told Reuters at the meeting.

The adherents of the spiritual practice, Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong) have also been violently oppressed and persecuted. The Chinese regime perceived Falun Gongs presence as a threat to its authoritarian rule and began a campaign to eradicate the practice in July 1999.

A poster of the film Human Harvest depicts a meditating Falun Gong practitioner, with prices attached to her organs. (Flying Cloud Productions)

The official press office for Falun Gong, the Falun Dafa Information Center, estimates that millions of Falun Gong practitioners have been arrested and detained since the persecution started, often enduring torture, abuse, and even live organ harvesting while imprisoned. The regime also launched mass propaganda campaigns in an effort to turn public opinion against Falun Gong practitioners.
The Western State Hospital in Lakewood, Wash., on Oct. 8, 2015. A violent ex-felon who escaped from the Washington state psychiatric hospital that's under federal scrutiny over safety violations remained elusive Friday morning, April 8, 2016, a Spokane County Sheriff's deputy said. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Washington to Boost Mental Hospitals Security After Escapes

SEATTLEWashington officials promised they were working quickly to increase security at the states psychiatric hospitals after a week in which two patients escaped and another two went missing.

A man accused of torturing a 20-year-old woman to death in 2013 was recaptured Friday night after a two-day, cross-state manhunt that some worried would not end peacefully.

I was afraid this was going to go sideways, Spokane sheriffs spokesman Mark Gregory said Saturday. Im glad it didnt.

I was afraid this was going to go sideways. Im glad it didnt.  Mark Gregory, sheriff's spokesman , Spokane, Wash.

Gregory gave much of the credit for Anthony Garvers capture to a canine officer named Gunnar. The dog found Garver hiding in the woods near his family home in Spokane, then signaled two human officers.

The Washington Corrections Department has taken custody of Garver, who is now being held at Airway Heights Correction Center in eastern Washington, according to Kathy Spears of the state Social and Health Services Department.

Garver, 28, escaped from Western State Hospital across the state in Lakewood on Wednesday night. He crawled out a window of a locked, lower-security unit with another patient, Mark Alexander Adams, 58, who was caught the next day.

Related Coverage Mentally Ill Murder Suspect Escaped From Psychiatric Hospital

On Saturday, officials at the state health agency said security is being enhanced at Washington state psychiatric hospitals in the wake of the escape.

They are focused on boosting security in the Lakewood hospitals civil commitment area, where Garver and Adams recently were transferred from the criminal section, according to a statement from the department. The men were moved because of a change in the states Involuntary Treatment Act, the agency said.

Garver was under a civil commitment after he finished serving his incarceration period, said Jeremy Barclay, corrections spokesman.

Two other patients took unescorted leaves from the hospital during the manhunt, state officials said. One was on an escorted outing on campus and has not been found.

Another had been approved for discharge and was awaiting community placement but did not return from a visit to a fast-food restaurant. Seattle police found him Saturday.

Garver and Adams escape from inside the hospital was rare, but unauthorized leaves are not, said Carla Reyes, assistant secretary for the health agencys Behavioral Health Administration.

However, two unauthorized leaves and two escapes in one week is unacceptable, and immediate steps are being taken to improve security at the facility and to retrain staff, she said in a statement. The safety of the public, the patients and staff is paramount.

The hospital also has restricted patient movement on the grounds of Western State and outside the hospital for the weekend.

Also Saturday, Gov. Jay Inslee expressed concern about the way the hospital is being operated and said he expects swift action to prevent future escapes.

This incident put the public at risk, the staff at risk and the patients at risk, Inslee said in a statement. This raises serious questions once again about the management and operation of this troubled hospital.

The escapes also intensified federal scrutiny on Western State Hospital, Washingtons largest psychiatric facility.

U.S. regulators already were investigating a recent violent attack on a worker and a patient-on-patient sexual assault at the hospital. A workplace inspection released this week found a series of missteps that posed safety risks, including unlocked rooms and unattended items that could be used as weapons.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has repeatedly cited the facility over safety concerns and threatened to cut millions in federal funding.

Garver was charged in 2013 with tying a 20-year-old woman to her bed with electrical cords, stabbing her 24 times in the chest and slashing her throat, prosecutors said.

After Garver escaped, he bought a bus ticket to Spokane, where his parents live. Garver had last been seen Thursday in the Spokane area, nearly 250 miles from Lakewood, after his father called authorities to report his son had stopped by briefly.
Special Events

Wednesday, Aug. 15  Wonderful Wednesdays: Mad Science, Marvels of Motion, 4-5 p.m.  Sir Isaac Newton would be proud! Come explore his laws of motion in this abundantly engaging physics performance. Observe the power of forces including gravity, centrifugal force, inertia and much more. Then well harness the power of these forces together to create astonishing jet packs and even a rocket-propelled car. This show is sure to please everyone and inspire more imaginative learning in all of our audience members. Supported by the Amadeo Family. Registration required. For grades K and up. Register online or call 203-762-6336.

Calendar

Monday, Aug. 13  Summer STEAM: Chemistry Craze, 10:15-11:30 a.m.  Need something fun to do on a Monday morning? Be a maker! Join Wilton Library in fun, hands-on STEAM activities. This week we will break water and make our own batteries. For kids entering grades 5-6 only. Space is limited; registration required. Supported by the Amadeo Family. Register online or call 203-762-6336.

Monday, Aug. 13 through Friday, Aug. 17  Coding for Teens, 10:30 a.m.-12 p.m.  Learn computer programming with Gidget, a unique learning game which teaches computer programming concepts and logic to new programmers by debugging broken code. Youll learn about arrays, branching statements, loops, objects and more concepts to get you programming. This is a five-day workshop for students entering grades 7-12 with Algebra experience. Must be able to attend all five sessions. Limited space and registration required. Register online or call 203-762-6342. Wait list only.

Mondays through Sept. 10  Caregiver Support with Visiting Nurse & Hospice of Fairfield County, 6-7:30 p.m.  Visiting Nurse & Hospice of Fairfield County and Wilton Library invite you to attend this caregiver group where you will find support, empathy and understanding with others in similar circumstances. This support group is free of charge and open to the public but pre-registration is required. For more information, call Laurie Petrasanta at Visiting Nurse & Hospice of Fairfield County at 203-762-8958, ext. 316. Registration filled.

Tuesday, Aug. 14 & Thursday, Aug. 16  Book Bird Houses for Teens & Tweens, 4-5:30 p.m.  Join us for two creative afternoons. Well paint, decoupage and produce a one-of-a-kind bird house using classic childrens books for adornment. Give as a gift or keep for yourself! For students entering grades 6-12. Registration required. Sponsored by the John and Patricia Curran Teen Fund. Register online or call 203-762-6342.

Tuesday, Aug. 14  Breast Cancer Survivors Support Group, 6-8 p.m.  Post-treatment breast cancer survivors are invited to join in this monthly support group led by Nina Marino, LCSW. Marino was the clinical director for 15 years of the former Breast Cancer Survival Center and is a breast cancer survivor. Please email Marino at Cancersurvival2@aol.com with any questions. No charge. Registration highly encouraged. Register online or call 203-762-6334.

Wednesdays through Aug. 15  New Yorker Shorts: Six Weeks of New Yorker Short Stories, 12- 1:30 p.m.  Professional book discussion leader Susan Boyar discusses six short stories published in The New Yorker magazine over six consecutive weeks. The current issue of The New Yorker is available in the Reading Room for in-library use or download it through RBDigital. Bring lunch; beverages will be provided. Advance registration suggested.

Thursday, Aug. 16  WLA/SCORE: Driving Profits Using Keyword Search, 6-8 p.m.  SCORE of Fairfield County, Wilton Library, and the Wilton Chamber of Commerce present a seminar that will provide business owners with the tools they need to find and profit from the keywords their customers search on Google. Go through the process to find what your ideal customer wants and how to apply that to your website, social media posts and videos. Learn how to create guides that will help your customers and position your business as an expert to give you a competitive edge. Speaker Ed Winslow has been a career entrepreneur for 30 years. He formed Niche Quest Media in 2006, an online lead-generating agency specializing in search engine optimization, display advertising, adwords and Facebook ads, which created income-producing websites in the real estate, construction and health care industries. Visit fairfieldcounty.score.org or call SCORE at 203-831-0065 to register. Check-in begins at 5:30 p.m. Co-sponsored by Fairfield County SCORE, Wilton Library and the Wilton Chamber of Commerce. Registration required. No charge.

Saturday, Aug. 18  CT Poetry Society Workshop, 2-4:30 p.m.  Please join us for a workshop of the CT Poetry Society. All thats required is the willingness to share some poetry that you have written by reading it aloud to the group. To facilitate discussion, space is strictly limited to just 15 attendees. No charge but registration is required. Register online or call 203-762-6334.

WILTON LIBRARY 137 Old Ridgefield Road 203-762-3950 www.wiltonlibrary.org The library is closed Sundays for summer hours through Sept. 2. See More Collapse

Now through Aug. 28  74th Annual Wilton Artists Summer Show Exhibition  Exhibition celebrates more than 50 Wilton artists displaying diverse styles, media, and subjects in this two-month long annual summer show. A majority of the works are available for purchase with a portion of the proceeds benefiting the library.

Classes in Innovation Station this week  Monday, Aug. 13: Stitch Time for Knitters and Crocheters, 1-2:30 p.m.; Wednesday, Aug. 15: Embroidering with the Janome Memory Craft, 6-7:30 p.m.; Friday, Aug. 17: Vinyl Adornments with the Cricut Die Cutter, 3:30-5 p.m.

Childrens programs this week  Monday, Aug. 13: Fantastic Fours and Fives, 4:15-4:45 p.m.; Tuesday, Aug. 14: Terrific Tales for Twos and Threes, 10:15-10:45 a.m.; Galaxy Crafts, Alien Ship, 4:15-5 p.m.; Wednesday, Aug. 15: Books for Babies, 10:15-10:45 a.m.; Wonderful Ones and Twos, 11-11:30 a.m.; Thursday, Aug. 16: Movie Theater Thursdays, Muppets from Space, 10:15-11:45 a.m.; and Aliens Ate My Homework, 2-4 p.m.; Friday, Aug. 17: Space Crafts, 10 a.m.-4 p.m.
Missed Delivery?

If missed delivery or wet paper please call our office 909-628-5501 ext 110 Leave a detailed message with name, address, and phone number. Readers must call before 1 p.m. on Saturday. Re-deliveries are available for Chino residents until 1 p.m. Saturdays.

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David Oliphant, 58, was arrested after stabbing Raymond Hill, 48, early Saturday morning.

At approximately 12:09 a.m. , Chattanooga Police were dispatched to a person stabbed at 1000 Peeples Street. Upon arrival, officers located Hill suffering from multiple stab wounds. Hamilton County EMS responded to the scene and transported him to a local hospital with life-threatening injuries. Upon arrival, officers located Hill suffering from multiple stab wounds.Hamilton County EMS responded to the scene and transported him to a local hospital with life-threatening injuries.

Officers located Oliphant nearby covered in blood as well as a knife on his person and also covered in blood.

Investigators with the Violent Crimes Bureau responded to the scene. Investigators arrested the suspect and charged him with attempted murder and aggravated assault.

Chattanooga Police ask anyone with information regarding this incident to call 423-698-2525 . The investigation is ongoing.
Holiday reads: Beachgoers check out French seaside libraries

FRANCE: Going to the beach can be tough work, but if you need a break from all the gruelling swimming and sunbathing this summer, a trip to one of Frances pop-up seaside libraries could be just the thing.

culturetourismproperty

By AFP

Saturday 11 August 2018, 02:00PM

People enter in a little library, open during the summer, in Etretat, northwestern France. People can borrow books to read them on the beach. Photo: Charly Triballeau / AFP

Lulled by the gentle cries of seagulls in the distance, flocks of readers have been heading to the book-filled beach huts that authorities have opened along the coast of Normandy in northern France and elsewhere.

Its a perfect break for reading and relaxing between two dips in the sea, said 52-year-old hairdresser Isabelle from her deckchair at the library in Etretat, a Normandy resort famed for its dramatic white cliffs.

Since Im not going away on holiday, this is my treat every afternoon, she said, before diving back into a detective novel.

Etretat is one of 12 local resorts where authorities have set up library beach-huts this summer. Open from July 7 until August 26, each of the wooden huts has been filled with 1,000 books.

Normandy launched its Read At The Beach scheme in 2005 with three huts and by last year was welcoming more than 38,000 bookworms along this stretch of the coast.

The idea has since taken off elsewhere in France, with the Herault region in the south attracting 21,000 readers to its own beach huts last year.

Similar schemes have also been launched in other countries including Australia, Bulgaria, Israel and Spain.

In Normandy, anyone is welcome to dip into a book, with no registration needed  but readers must stay in the deckchairs provided, rather than taking them down to the sea to get sand between the pages.

This year 400 chairs are up for grabs around the region at the beach huts, which are open every day between 2pm and 7pm, with some books in English, German and Italian provided for foreign readers.

On a recent sunny afternoon in Etretat, a dozen readers  aged between nine months and 70  come to transport themselves to other worlds from the hut, overlooking the sea.

We need more of this kind of place, said Romain Mace, an engineer on vacation from the city of Rouen, enjoying a volume of poetry as his baby slept beside him  a rare pleasure for sleep-deprived young parents.

Since the books cannot be taken off-site, the huts two librarians will happily put aside a novel youve started so that you can pick up the story where you left off the next day.

Corinne Ait Amar, 47, had returned to delve back into the thrilling exploits of gentleman-thief Arsene Lupin while her daughter was engrossed in a Japanese manga comic.

Its perfect, said the nurse, on vacation with her family from the eastern city of St Etienne.

My daughter and I have been saying to ourselves that we might meet up with the rest of the family a little later than planned...
Phuket bank robber surrenders

PHUKET: The man who robbed the Government Housing Bank branch in Pa Khlok at gunpoint yesterday (Aug 10) is in custody after surrendering to police.

crimepolice

By Eakkapop Thongtub

Saturday 11 August 2018, 02:20PM

Inside the home, police found the distinctive helmet worn during the robbery. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

The motorbike used in the robbery was found at the home. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

Sombut Poonprasart, 27, showed police where he threw away the gun used in the robbery. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

Sombut Poonprasart, 27, showed police where he threw away the gun used in the robbery. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

Sombut Poonprasart, 27, showed police where he threw away the gun used in the robbery. Photo: Eakkapop Thongtub

The manhunt began after the man, now identified as Sombut Poonprasart, 27, from Phuket, entered the bank at 9:05am yesterday morning and held a gun point blank at the head of the security guard while ordering the teller to hand over the cash in the teller drawer.

Sombut exited the bank some 39 seconds later with B26,900 cash in hand. (See story here.)

Police told The Phuket News today (Aug 11) that officers had tracked Sombut to his home in a housing estate not far from the bank he robbed.

Officers raided the house, but Sombut was not at home, police confirmed.

While police continued their investigation to track down Sombuts whereabouts, Sombut contacted the Thalang Police to arrange his surrender.

Police returned to search his home and Sombut showed officers where he threw the gun used in the robbery into the long grass beside the road while making his escape.

During question Sombut told police that he had been unable to find work since his job in Patong ended two years ago, and that he was six months behind in payments on his mortgage on the house he was living in.

He had secured the mortgage with the Government Housing Bank.

At this stage police have yet to confirm whether Sombut is the same man who snatched a gold necklace in a drive-by on a motorbike ni front of the Phanason Village housing estate in Thalang on Thursday (Aug 9). (See story here.)
The collapse of Phukets lifeguards

PHUKET: The collapse of Phukets lifeguards ability to protect swimmers came literally this week with two lifeguard watch-points succumbing to the angry sea.

Saturday 11 August 2018, 04:38PM

The lifeguard tower at Kata Beach and the lifeguard watch-station tent at Nai Yang Beach have collapsed, destroyed by waves, as any official support for Phukets lifeguards continues to be absent. Photos: Supplied

The lifeguard tower at Kata* has fallen to rapid beach erosion while a lifeguard station tent at Nai Yang Beach has also been swallowed by the waves.

The fall of the watchtowers comes as lifeguards at Kata* this morning (Aug 11) carried out yet another rescue, with the result of whether the person in danger lived or died yet to be confirmed.

That rescue came lass than 24 hours after a man was pulled from the deadly surf unconscious and unresponsive at Nai Harn Beach, in the south of the island, yesterday (Aug 10). A foreign woman and a foreign man led the efforts to carry out CPR on the man on the sand as tourists looked on. Again, the fate of that man, a foreigner, remains to be confirmed.

Both drowning incidents highlight how Phukets fractured lifeguard coverage has left lethal gaps in the lifeguards ability to protect people from the surf during the southwesterly monsoon months of May through October, nevermind prevent them from even entering the dangerous surf.

Only on Monday this week a 7-year-old boy was pulled from surf at Nai Harn. Again, the surf rescue was carried out by a foreigner, a female teacher living in Phuket who asked to remain anonymous.

I gave him CPR and a Thai woman helped me and this continued for four minutes as the lifeguards stood and watched over us and then brought oxygen tank when he wasnt even taking air yet

Its like they didnt know what to do, the woman told The Phuket News.

Again, as with the two people pulled from the surf yesterday and today, the fate of the child pulled from the surf at Nai Harn on Monday has yet to be confirmed by officials, or by lifeguards.

The foreign womans comments about the lifeguards reportedly being unable or untrained to respond appropriately echoes grave doubts raised in the drowning of 11-year-old Phuket student Supat Petch Jampathong at Nai Yang only last week.

Supat was among six boys playing in knee-deep water when they were overpowered by the strong waves. Two of the five other boys were rescued by a local surfer, Norwegian national Terje Tonnessen, 37. The other three scrambled to shore by themselves.

As locals scrambled to search for Supat, the lifeguards remained on shore. Supats body was recovered two days later when the waves pushed it back to Nai Yang Beach.

SILENCE OR SHAME?

While the The Phuket News strongly supports the honest efforts of the lifeguards at Nai Harn, as with anywhere along Phukets west coast, the apprehension in providing details of the drowning incidents this week highlights a disturbing trend.

With no single agency or organisation to confirm the rescues, and possible deaths, of people pulled from surf at the islands beaches, the only way the public will know how dangerous the waves and rip currents are in Phuket relies purely on public posts and social media, leaving Phukets reigning officials presenting tourists with the grave image of being unable  or worse, unwilling  to even account for the danger tourists are in.

The silence now appears to be a point of policy, with MaAnn Samran, Chief of the Cherng Talay Tambon Administration Organisation (OrBorTor) late last month providing no defence for the inaction of lifeguards while a tourist was being overwhelmed by dangerous surf at Surin Beach, leaving the tourist to be rescued by a local surfer and a hero French tourist.

No one at Cherng Talay OrBorTor was willing to comment or even give out contact info for the anyone responsible for lifeguards at Surin Beach. Instead, they insisted that The Phuket News must speak with Chief MaAnn  and him alone.

Mr MaAnn would only confirm that he was aware of the incident, and offered, We are still investigating what happened, why the lifeguards did not help.

Worse, the waves destroying the lifeguard watch stations at Kamala and Nai Yang (where Supat drowned) highlights how local officials have failed to even provide the basic budget needed to keep watch at the beaches, nevermind train them or provide them with the equipment needed to save lives.

At this stage the collapse of Phukets lifeguards seems complete since the fiasco began in October last year, when the previous holder of the government concession refused to bid for the contract in protest over budget cuts.

Meanwhile, the drownings in just the past two weeks all follow warnings from the International Surf Lifesaving Association (ISLA) repeating its call to close all Phukets exposed west coast beaches to swimmers until current dangerous conditions subside.

They also follow ISLAs Daren Jenner warning that overuse of red No Swimming flags posted all along the beach, and at nearly every beach, will lead to people ignoring them simply because they are posted everywhere.

Of note, the man pulled from the surf at Nai Harn yesterday reportedly entered the water where red flags were posted, as did 33-year-old Indian tourist Gaurav Mann, who was swept away by a strong rip current at Karon Beach on (July 25). Mr Manns body washed ashore at Karon Beach two days later.

* Not Kamala Beach, as originally reported. The error is regretted.
Watertown's return season to Class 11AA ends with quarterfinal playoff loss at Pierre

PIERRE  A promising start of Watertown High Schools football team didnt hold up Thursday night in a season-ending loss to Pierre in the quarterfinals of the state Class 11AA playoffs.
Like so many people juggling a career, a commute and unexpected day-to-day chores, Whitney Blocks life unfurls in a perpetual state of semi-controlled chaos.

The 30-year-old Redwood, Calif., resident works as a nurse practitioner, a demanding job that requires her to travel to three clinics, driving as long as an hour and a half some days to meet with patients.

To ensure that her weeks run smoothly, Block, an avid planner, has turned to technology, using AmazonFresh and Google Express to stock her fridge and order products ranging from toilet paper to electronics. She cant remember the last time she pushed a shopping cart through a store.

Until a few months ago, there remained a single irritating chore that Block couldnt seem to avoid: filling her car up with gas.

Her solution: a Silicon Valley start-up that functions like a mobile gas station, using field technicians to fill up vehicles when theyre not being driven. The company, known as Yoshi, is part of a crop of gas-delivery startups billing themselves as Uber for gasoline. Yoshi members pay a $20 (U.S.) monthly subscription fee, plus the cost of gas, a deal that Block  who considers gas stations dirty and inconvenient  said she couldnt resist.

The more demanding my career has become, the more Ive realized I dont want my free time to be consumed by mundane tasks that I dont want to be doing  and that includes going to the gas station to fill up, she said.

Its not fun, its not stimulating and its not enjoyable, she added. If I can pay somebody to get it done for me, I will totally do that.

For many drivers, a trip to the gas station is a forgettable inconvenience that occurs once or twice a week. But Yoshi is banking on the idea that there are millions of people like Block all over the country: urban professionals whose demanding schedules and disposable income make them ideal candidates for outsourcing a chore that has been a feature of car ownership since the inception of the automobile.

The company seeks to be more than a concierge service for the affluent, and it arrives at a time when companies such as Uber, Amazon.com, Whole Foods (now owned by Amazon) and Netflix are trying to capitalize on the appeal of convenience. (Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post.)

In the past 12 months, the company has spread from three cities nationwide to 16, including Boston, Chicago, Atlanta, Houston and Los Angeles, picking up investments from superstar athletes Kevin Durant and Joe Montana along the way. Theyve recently added the Washington region to that list.

Yoshi, which competes with other gas-delivery startups on the West Coast, has to convince potential customers that the subscription is worthwhile, particularly in cities with ample public transit.

The company declined to say how many people use the service across the country.

Not everyone is comfortable with the idea of inexperienced startups lugging around tanks of flammable liquid, though Yoshi claims their fuel tanks  which are small enough to fit in the back of the companys delivery fleet of Ford pickup trucks  conform to local laws and are certified by the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Some of the (companies) are using 1,000-gallon tanks, Greg Andersen, a division chief in the California state fire marshals office, told the Guardian newspaper. If theyre going into the basement parking lot of a highrise, that actually is a large concern.

Yoshi field technicians deliver gas to parking garages and highrise buildings when necessary. The company says its field techs are hazmat-certified and have not had a single spill in three years of operation.

The automotive industry has taken notice. The rise of ride-hailing and car-sharing is prompting a fundamental re-evaluation of vehicle ownership among consumers, experts say, a shift that is forcing auto companies to make concessions to their drivers. Some of those concessions  such as providing round-the-clock, concierge-style maintenance  look a lot like Yoshi.

Convenience is becoming a lifestyle, said Alistair Weaver, editor in chief at the automotive website Edmunds.com.

Cities remain clogged with cars, but gas stations are becoming harder to find. Between 1994 and 2015, the number of retail fuelling sites in the United States dropped about 25 per cent  from 202,800 to about 150,000, according to the National Association of Convenience Stores.

To sweeten the deal for customers, Yoshi has begun offering customers other gas station staples, such as oil changes, tire checks, car washings and brake pad replacements. Using the companys app customers interact with field technicians and an artificial intelligence bot named Rachel, which helps them schedule services.

Field technicians service most vehicles during the workday, in parking lots and driveways, and communicate with customers via smartphone. They carry a tool that allows them to open fuel tank flaps even when theyre locked.

Every time a field technician fills up a vehicle, we have them take pictures so you know if theres a dent in your bumper or a scratch on the vehicle, Yoshi co-founder Bryan Frist said.

If we notice your passenger side wiper blade is broken, then youd get an email and a push notification on your phone, and with one button, you could schedule to get it replaced.

Yoshi  which plans to expand to nine more cities by the end of the year  received a recent investment from ExxonMobil, the oil giants first-ever start-up investment. A partnership with Firestone connects customers in need of a tire with the tire companys Mobile Tire Installation service. General Motors has also invested in Yoshi, including Yoshi services in GMs OnStar package in a number of cities.

At a time when Silicon Valley is rushing to replace gas-powered engines with electric motors and batteries, selling combustible fuel might appear to be a foolish way to launch a career. But the 31-year-old Frist  who founded the company with two partners in 2015  said his team looked for industries that remained largely untouched by innovation. The outdated nature of the gas station, he said, was part of the businesss allure.

Instead of seeing gas stations as a quick way to fuel a vehicle, Frists team saw an unnecessary speed bump in the fuel-delivery model  an inconvenience exacerbated by lines, fluctuating prices and inclement weather.

Gas stations havent really changed in the last 100 years, he said. If you go look at old black-and-white photos, youre looking at essentially the same concept as today.

He added, Go to a gas station in the middle of the winter, when its sleeting, and ask yourself how convenient it is.

As ride-hailing and ride-sharing make owning a car useless for some, Weaver said, there is a push within the auto industry to remove the pain points from the car-ownership experience.

The result has been a new crop of subscription services that give luxury car owners the ability to rotate through different models. Care by Volvo provides Volvo owners with insurance, maintenance and concierge service  a model, Weaver said, that has parallels to Yoshi.

People are generally looking  across the board  for more convenient solutions for their hectic lives, whether its Amazon delivering stuff directly to our homes or shopping online, Weaver said. Its logical that these things would extend to motoring for people who are time-poor and cash-rich.

Yoshi claims its services actually save drivers money over time, about $240 a year on average. The claim is based on the idea that  using corporate partnerships  Yoshi is able to deliver gas at a price slightly below the local average. Customers who add an oil change get a dollar per gallon subtracted from the bill. Customers who have a car detailed (thoroughly cleaned) receive a free tank of gas, the company says.

For customers like Block, paying a few dollars extra each month for gas is a fair trade for convenience. But Weaver said potential customers should approach subscription services  which can seduce customers into excess spending  very carefully.

My suggestion to consumers is to read the small print carefully and really calculate the true cost, he said. If youre going to subscribe you need to make it work for you, because otherwise it becomes that gym membership that you sign up for an never use.

He added, Weve all been there.

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It was a cold and cloudy July day in Reykjavik, Iceland, and French arts patron Maryvonne Pinault was at a pier fulfilling her godmother duties for Le Laperouse, the first of six 184-passenger, upscale expedition yachts from her husbands Marseilles-based cruise line Compagnie du Ponant.

French billionaire and Kering SA chairperson Francois Pinault wasnt there to watch his wife smash a bottle of Champagne against the ships hull in the time-honoured nautical tradition. But it was always going to be her ship more than his; buying the cruise company was Madame Pinaults idea, after all.

In 2015, Pinaults holding company, Groupe Artemis, acquired Ponant from Bridgepoint Capital for an undisclosed sum. Now the cruise line, which reports annual revenues of about $182 million (U.S.), is part of a luxury portfolio that also includes Gucci, Christies auction house, and famed vineyard Chateau Latour. The Pinaults, by extension, are joining a tight-knit community of billionaires in the cruise industry, ranging from newcomer Richard Branson to industry forefather Micky Arison and the self-made Norwegian upstart, Torstein Hagen.

In an industry very much dominated by top players  Carnival Corp. and Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. control 70 per cent of the market  it is mostly niche segments such as Ponants that are attracting wealthy entrepreneurs, says Brian Egger of Bloomberg Intelligence. Despite barriers to entry such as the cost and time it takes to build new ships, he says the industry can be a good bet, especially if youre going after an underserved demographic.

The potential market is expansive. According to the Cruise Lines International Association trade group, cruising is a $126-billion industry with plenty of room to grow. Egger says that only about 20 per cent of Americans have taken cruises, and the number is smaller for Europeans and smaller still for Asians. Its still a relatively under-penetrated subsegment of the leisure and vacation market, he says.

Get new cruisers on a ship, though, and theyre very likely to become return clients. So perhaps its no surprise that billionaires like Pinault are feeling the call of the seven seas.

Branson identified one such niche before announcing his intention to start a cruise line in 2014: Virgin Voyages. With significant funding from Bain Capital, hes spending $2.55 billion to build three adults-only ships for so-called rebels with a cause, starting with the 2,700-passenger Scarlet Lady, slated for completion in 2020. Itll have a naked mermaid on its hull, mostly serving the Caribbean and employing a Scarlet Squad that promotes female leadership within the crew.

In an email from Genoa, Italy, where he was attending a shipyard event, Branson said hed been thinking about the cruise industry for more than 40 years.

At the age of 27, I was already dreaming of starting a cruise line despite never having been on a cruise, Branson told Bloomberg. What I had seen and heard about cruises sounded quite dull, so I figured Id start my own.

Meanwhile, Malaysian-Chinese billionaire Lim Kok Thay, chairperson of resorts and casinos company Genting Group, has been reshaping the luxury cruise market since he acquired Crystal Cruises from Japans Nippon Yusen Kabushiki Kaisha in 2015 for $550 million in cash.

Lim isnt as new to the cruise industry as Branson: His company also owns Asias Star Cruises and Dream Cruises and maintains a small stake in Norwegian Cruise Line. But with Crystal, hes delving into the global industrys top-end sector and making it even friendlier for the worlds richest cruisers.

Under Lims stewardship, Crystal has undergone a lightning-fast expansion. The company, which had just two ships at the time of acquisition, has bought and renovated an existing river ship, built four new, all-suite river vessels to sail the Danube and Rhine, added a charter jet service, purchased three shipyards, and ordered an additional ocean-and-expedition ship. Its also renovated its two original products, Crystal Symphony and Crystal Serenity, reworking their overall footprints to add butler-serviced penthouse suites and offer additional space per passenger.

And theres Madame Pinault, who fell in love with Ponant and its environmental bona fides on a cruise to Antarctica. She and her husband are leaning into the niche. In addition to the six expedition yachts, the Pinaults have also commissioned the worlds first electric-hybrid icebreaker powered by liquified natural gas. Its costing the company about $323 million and will carry 270 passengers when its complete in 2021.

Shipbuilding is a capital-intensive undertaking, reminds Bloomberg Intelligences Egger. While the romance and favourable economics of the cruise industry are likely to continue to attract wealthy entrepreneurs, even those with ocean-deep pockets still face risks in the seafaring trade.

Cruise sales are affected by swings in consumer discretionary demand and the price of fuel, the expense for which amounted to between 6 per cent and 8 per cent of Carnivals sales in the past three years, says Egger. Also, he notes, hurricanes, shipboard incidents, and geopolitical events can disrupt itineraries. Fortunately for cruise operators, ships, unlike their land-based hospitality rivals, are mobile assets that can be redeployed to avoid stormy weather  both political and meteorological.

If anyone understands why cruising makes its all worth it, its Torstein Hagen.

A Norwegian-born cruise industry executive, Hagen took a big bet when he emptied his bank account in 1997 to purchase four river ships. The company he created to take North American tourists through Russia, Viking River Cruises, has since grown to 64 river ships, with an additional seven due next year.

So large is the reach that nearly half of the North Americans who take a river cruise in Europe do so on one of his ships.

Today, Hagen is a cruise billionaire (after selling minority stakes in the business). His secret has been an all-inclusive fare that eliminates such standard upcharges as shore excursions and booze.

Just as important, he designs ships to his own persnickety tastes: They serve Norwegian salmon, his favourite food; have streamlined contemporary furnishings, because thats what he likes; and have only square wastebaskets in guestrooms, because theyre better for catching wadded-up paper. The ensuing formula is endlessly replicable, with an appeal beyond rivers.

Currently, Hagen is doubling the size of his five-ship ocean line that debuted in 2015, to rave reviews.

A newly minted cruise billionaire, Manfredi Lefebvre dOvidio, is one of Hagens best friends. In July, dOvidio sold a 66.7 per cent stake of his ultraluxury, expedition-focused Silversea Cruises to Royal Caribbean for about $1 billion.

Some industry bold-facers, such as MSC Cruisess Gianluigi and Rafaela Aponte, find that owning ships is as much about passion than profits. The couple, who made their fortune in the cargo-shipping business, launched MSC in 2003 as a way to further build on a family-held seafaring history that dates to the 17th century.

Now the worlds fourth-largest line, MSC benefits from Gianluigis technical shipbuilding knowledge  he is a former sea captain from Sorrento, Italy  as well as Rafaelas design intuition. Daughter Alexa is chief financial officer of the MSC Group, which includes all the familys holdings, while her husband, Pierfrancesco Vago, runs the cruise line as executive chairman. Gianluigis net worth is valued at $8.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The family has been busy. After launching a dozen megaships in the last 15 years, the company is in the midst of a second-wave, multibillion-dollar expansion. By 2026 it will have tripled its passenger capacity to more than 5 million guests (growing to 25 megaships) and risen from being Europes leading line to the industrys third-largest player (outranking Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd.).

Nobody thinks of cruising as a family business more than Micky Arison does, though. His late father, Ted, founded Carnival Cruise Line in 1972. To this day, Micky has a significant stake in the publicly traded company, which has grown to be the industrys largest player, with 10 brands and more than 100 ships around the world.

I would say that we have been living my dads dream for many years now, he says. I have loved cruising for as long as I can remember  I have a special passion for shipbuilding, of course, but I enjoy every part of this industry.

Even though Arison stepped down from his 34-year-long tenure as chief executive officer in 2013, he remains involved as Carnival Corp.s chairperson. He still attends inaugurals and other shipboard events, and while he defers to his staff for the vast majority of decisions, he still voices suggestions about such things as detailed as on-board amenities.

For all the newcomers, Arison remains the guy to emulate. No matter how humble he is about his industry contributions, hes the one that made cruising a popular vacation option for travellers at all ends of the budget spectrum-and hell always be the original cruise billionaire.
EDMONTONThe owner and operator of ATA Martial Arts School has been charged with sexually assaulting two women aged 19 and 25 over a two-year span.

Edmonton Police said in a news release Friday that the two women came forward this year with complaints that Kevin Ford, 47, had sexually assaulted them at the school in the west end of Edmonton between 2015 and 2017.

They reported Ford had touched them sexually during classes and individual training sessions and the touching was not consistent with martial arts training.

The complainants reported that, due to Ford's position of authority at the school, they felt pressured into situations that they were not comfortable with, stated acting Staff Sgt. Richard Windover in the release.

We believe that others may have information that would assist the investigation and encourage them to contact us.

On Thursday, police arrested and charged Ford with two counts of sexual exploitation and two counts of sexual assault.

Police are asking anyone with more information, or additional complainants and witnesses, to contact police at 780-423-4567 or #377 from a mobile phone.

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EDMONTONSpeaking to more than 100 young doctors gathered at the Poundmakers Lodge this week, Josie Auger suggested Indigenous culture could be more than a component of medical care, it can be a foundation.

Its not just a placebo effect, its real. We see miracles happen, Auger, an author and researcher who has focused on medical healing incorporating Indigenous spirituality, said to resident doctors in the University of Albertas Department of Family Medicine.

Historical trauma, intergenerational trauma is real, Auger said Wednesday, citing studies that have shown links to diseases, physical symptoms of socio-economic issues and the colonialist history suffered by Indigenous people in Canada. The people you will be working with will have their own stories.

Auger hoped that by encouraging young doctors to be more culturally aware, they could learn to incorporate elements of Indigenous culture into their practice to provide holistic healing options that address a patients physical and emotional health while breaking down institutional barriers.

Like a sweetgrass braid, you braid everything together, said Darlene Marchuk, clinical director at Poundmakers Lodge. You take a little of the western, you take a little of the Indigenous and then you take where the person is at and you braid it all together.

Marchuk says at Poundmakers Lodge, an Indigenous addictions treatment centre, they incorporate the best of western medicine, traditional psychology and Indigenous cultural practices as part of their holistic treatment plan, and she has seen and experienced first-hand the difference reconnecting with culture can make.

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Its helping them draw from their own strengths that they dont recognize they have, Marchuk said.

Marchuk, who grew up disconnected from her Methis culture and battled addiction but has been sober for 13 years, said she recalls suffering from terrible nightmares during her recovery, a common symptom among recovering addicts at the centre.

When she was given a dreamcatcher  which she admits she hung skeptically  she recalls waking from a nightmare and staring at the dreamcatcher. With it, she was able to calm her thoughts.

Since that night I have not had another one of those nightmarish, using dreams, she said.

Through ceremonies such as powwows and sweat lodges, Marchuk sees those in recovery find emotional strength.

They are standing tall, they are looking people in the eye, Marchuk said, noting that is part of empowering people to take an active role in caring for their health.

After listening to Indigenous scholars, meeting with elders and taking part in a Blanket ceremony, some of the residents left with a new perspective they were eager to incorporate into their practice.

The experience today has been largely about getting a better understanding of the historical and cultural context of Indigenous people in Canada, particularly when it comes to patients that we treat that do come from a First Nations, Metis or Inuit backgrounds, and better being able to ask appropriate questions when we are taking their history from them and better taking care of their needs when we see them in our clinics or hospitals, said Derek Chan, a second-year resident in the family medicine program at the University of Alberta.

Olivia Lee, also a second-year resident in the family medicine program, said she left with a new understanding of the value of respecting patients as individuals, and how their personal context can help inform medical decisions.

That can definitely be a big role in terms of treating them for their medical illnesses, not just a cookie-cutter approach, said Lee.

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Propped on a four-wheeled cart and wrapped in clear cellophane, youd think Peter Paul Rubens The Massacre of the Innocents, a visceral masterpiece of epic brutality, might see its impact softened, or at least a little.

Think again. Its hard to look at, I know, sighed Sasha Suda, the Art Gallery of Ontarios curator of European art. On a recent morning in the museums conservation department, Suda helped remove the plastic sheeting, revealing the work in all its terrible glory: a burly, naked warrior poised to dash a chubby infant onto the hard stone ground; a mother clawing at another assailants face as her own child teetered in her free arm.

Even here, in the bright fluorescent glare of the conservation labs antiseptic environment, the painting resonated with unrelenting horror. Ive always felt like if you poked it the wrong way, it would just explode, Suda said, pointing towards a knot of fabric and muscle at the paintings heart. Were constantly trying to mitigate the risk of encounter with this work, because its so hard for a lot of people.

The painting, removed from both its frame and its longtime place of honour in the public galleries, was here in the cautious hands of the museums conservators to prepare for a very different kind of encounter. On Sept. 26, the Rubens House in Antwerp will be at the centre of Antwerp Baroque, a cultural festival honouring the painter as its favourite native son. When it opens, The Massacre of the Innocents, a lost masterpiece made in 1610 and misattributed to a Rubens apprentice for centuries, will finally receive its proper homecoming, some 300 years after it left the country.

Here, its absence will be profoundly felt, if not universally lamented. Rubenss depiction of the biblical tale of King Herod, who ordered the murder of all boys under the age of 2 lest they grow up to usurp his throne, the piece has served dutifully, if uncomfortably, as the museums signature piece since 2008. That was surely the idea when Ken Thomson, the gallerys billionaire angel benefactor, bought it at a London auction in 2002 for the jaw-dropping sum of 49 million (at the time, $115 million Canadian).

Thomsons vision of the work as the defining masterpiece for the AGOs Frank Gehry-designed renewal was explicit; that same year, he contributed another $50 million to the building fund to speed it on its way. The painting would wait in Londons National Gallery until the new AGO was completed, though Thomson, in a cruel twist of fate, would not live to see it: the renewed AGO opened in 2008, while Thomson died in 2006.

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The Rubens, though, would carry the load as a dark avatar of his largesse. When the gallery reopened, The Massacre of the Innocents was installed on a blood-red wall in a low-lit chamber deep in the museums Thomson collection, all on its own. There, it emanated a menacing glow; the only light in the space was trained directly on it.

For nearly a decade it sat like that, its seething presence demanding an uncomfortable reverence. Its presentation blared significance  an expectation of looking long and hard, while your every human instinct was squirming to turn quickly away. Last fall, Suda had it moved to the AGOs European galleries, where it wasnt so singled out.

We wanted to make it a little more inviting, to give people a little room to breathe, Suda said. Higher ceilings and more light really helped. But theres only so much you can do.

After everything its been through, Massacres triumphant homecoming makes for a lovely tale: The painting left Antwerp in 1700, when it was acquired for the art collection of the prudish royal family of Lichtenstein and promptly found itself stored in the cellar (too naked, too violent, Suda said). It spent more than 200 years there, and, along the way, was stripped of its Rubens attribution; a curator at the collection had deemed it too monstrous for the master to have made.

So when an Austrian family acquired it in 1920, it might have been similarly leery; it promptly loaned the painting to a remote monastery, where it sat for almost 80 years before Sothebys came calling and identified it for what it was: Rubenss lost masterpiece, an early explosion of his painterly ambition at its most visceral and raw.

Rubens packs the picture with enough dark energy that, masterwork or not, it can be hard to take. When the painting moved last fall, I had no idea; I had been avoiding its dark chamber for a year or more, having seen it enough. It had become duty, a punishing experience in a contextual void. Its departure now from the AGO, a tidy decade after its arrival, could be the pause that refreshes; thats surely the hope as the gallery will use the time in between to assemble an exhibition of Rubenss early career, slotted for next fall, with Massacre at its heart. And Suda, for one, sees an opportunity in its absence.

I think a little distance will let us see how much richer the story is, she said. This idea that you should just recognize it for its greatness and want to sit in front of it is kind of antiquated. We need to invite people into the conversation.

Indeed, more than mastery abounds within its terrors, and that tension was one Rubens surely intended. Massacre, as you might guess, was a statement piece about technique and content both: Rubens had recently returned to Antwerp from an eight-year stint in Italy, where he had studied with such icons as Caravaggio. Before he left home, he had been a mediocre painter, Suda said. Very average  a normal guy from a normal, middle-class family with no artistic lineage. But he comes back and he has this energy. Scholars will say it was his very aggressive way of showing off all he had learned: Im going to take everything Ive learned in Italy and Im going to put it right into the painting.

He had absorbed the dynamics of late-Renaissance figure painting and classical sculptures he encountered. With bodies sinewy and fleshy bott, theyre a clear guide for the paintings esthetic. But Rubens had in mind more than a showy display of his new-found painterly skill. He had left Antwerp as the Eighty Years War had raged at home; the 17 provinces of the Netherlands, Calvinists all, were brutalized under the Catholic regime of King Philip II of Spain. Rubens came home to a rare peaceful interlude  a truce was struck in 1609, prompting his return  but the ravages of the war were all around.

Massacre may have depicted Herods murderous edict, but Rubens was thinking as much of the blood that had run in the streets of his hometown  and countless others under Spanish rule  as he was biblically. Calvinists had been slaughtered by the Catholic regime there at for decades, a fate he knew well; the painting was aimed as much at a very urgent reality as it was a biblical parable.

When he came back, Rubens was a strange beast: a court painter in service to the Habsburgs, Spains Catholic emissaries to the provinces, but with an activists bent. Painters of his stature relied on the rich to glorify their place in an ugly world, but Rubens was determined to change the role painting played in society.

He was trying to impassion people with means to think about those things that are hard to think about, Suda said. He challenged them: I can paint you a beautiful virgin and child and you can escape whats happening just outside your doors  but its still happening. His work was in changing social norms.

Suda crouched low to the ground to examine one of the pictures many simultaneous atrocities: a woman nearly buried below a tangle of struggling bodies, one hand clawing at her ragged hair, the other cradling a murdered infant, its skin a deathly blue. The height you hang it can really impact the way kids engage with it, Suda said, almost apologetically. It can give them nightmares.

If Rubens was drawing a line from biblical horror to the reality of his moment, is it really so hard to see Massacre as a painting, sadly, that never gets old? Across centuries of wars and sectarian violence, colonialism, the endless, violent chaos of the Middle East, recent years of forced migration from Syria and religious extremism that has claimed tens of thousands in just the last decade, Massacre is a perpetually urgent masterwork whose urgency can only wane if inhumanity itself ceases to be.

There seems little danger of that, which means the work should be revered less, and grappled with more  something Suda has in mind for its return next fall.

If Ken had bought a pretty Rembrandt instead, we wouldnt be having these conversations. Rubenss goal here is to make you uncomfortable  it has to be. There really is no respite, except for the sky, she said, her eye retreating to a ripple of clouds against the blue. But I also find that sort of sobering. Horrible things happen on beautiful days. And are, somewhere, right now.
Ontario produces some truly world class Chardonnay thanks to its cool climate and limestone-rich soils. The cool climate helps the wine retain a beautiful ribbon of mouth-watering acidity; and the limestone creates depth, focus, and a note of minerality that tastes of wet stones, flint or salt. Sometimes, the Chardonnay is oaked, which can imbue the wine with a lovely toasty-nutty note that lingers on the finish. Chardonnay is absolutely one of Ontarios top white varieties.

As a tribute to cool climate Chardonnay, Niagara hosts the annual International Cool Climate Chardonnay Celebration in July each year. This year, 42 Chardonnays from 23 Ontario wineries were poured at the event, which I attended to scout some brilliant bottles. Here are five of the best.

2016 Rosehall Run JCR Estate Chardonnay, VQA Prince Edward County, Ont. (Available at the winery; LCBO Vintages 326512 $34.95)

This stellar example of pure county Chardonnay starts with sumptuous scents of apple tart and toasty oak that lead to a seamless entry. Its wooded, yes, but the French oak merely folds into the cool-taut citrus-scented Chardonnay, creating soft allusions of creme brulee, taffy apple, hazelnut and toast. On the finish, a slight mineral grip tastes gently salty-flinty and lingers. This intense, bone-dry white with great freshness, focus, and finesse is Rosehall Runs top Chardonnay. Instantly captivating.

Score: 93

2015 Adamo Willms Vineyard Oaked Chardonnay, VQA Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont. (Available at the winery; LCBO Vintages 459073 $31.35)

Although the fruit for this bottle hails from Niagara-on-the-Lake, the winery itself is adjacent to Hockley Valley Resort, one hour north of Toronto. In fact, Adamo might be the best winery youve never heard of; its relatively new, dedicated to small-batch winemaking, and has been earning national and international accolades lately. Taste this saturated Chardonnay to see what the fuss is about. The silky-rich core of citrus and poached pear is tempered with mouth-watering acidity, while toasty-nutty underpinnings lend interest to each sip. Just lovely.

Score: 92

2016 Flat Rock Cellars Chardonnay, VQA Twenty Mile Bench, Niagara Peninsula, Ont. (Available at the winery; select grocery stores; LCBO Vintages Essential 286278 $19.95)

I do like what Flat Rock Cellars is doing with Chardonnay  and this widely available bottle shows why. It starts with slightly smoky-stony-citrus scents before slipping smoothly over the tongue with lively, linear flavours of grapefruit zest and lime oil laced with a roasted nuttiness from the nine months spent in French oak. Theres a delicacy and high-toned acidity here, which are hallmarks of cool-climate Chardonnay; but that structure is balanced by midpalate weight and concentration creating sensuous satisfaction. Solid value.

Score: 90

2016 Stratus Weather Report Chardonnay, VQA Niagara Lakeshore, Niagara Peninsula, Ont. (Available at the winery; LCBO Vintages 560904 $28.20)

Barely-there aromas of cool steel lead to a racy beam of flavour that quickly evolves in the mouth to reveal a calm, delicate creaminess. Subtle notes of apricot, white flowers and buttered toast emerge before giving way to olive brine, Brazil nut and oyster shell notes. Quite an understated and stylish-tasting Chardonnay with intriguing complexity, plunging acidity, a long, languid finish of sea salt and wet stones. Outstanding value for money.

Score: 92+

NV Trius Brut Rose, VQA Niagara Peninsula, Ont. (Available at the Wine Shop, the winery, LCBO Vintages 184309 $32.95)

Though not pure Chardonnay, this wine is well worth a mention. Its a stunningly delicious blend of Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Meunier and Gamay that shines pale salmon in colour, is shot through with the tiniest bubbles, and tastes truly lit from within with vibrant but eloquent flavours of lemon curd, baked apples and Grandmas strawberry rhubarb pie  with a fetching little sprinkle of sea salt somewhere. Dry, elegant and impeccably balanced, this is a wine to snap up by the case.

Score: 97
FREDERICTONFamily members of three RCMP officers killed in a 2014 Moncton attack say the Fredericton shooting deaths will bring a fresh wave of trauma to New Brunswick  and cause painful memories to surface.

The shootings that killed four people on Friday  including two municipal police officers  come just four years after Justin Bourques rampage that killed Constables Doug Larche, Fabrice Gevaudan and Dave Ross.

Daniel Larche, the brother of Doug, said news of the Fredericton deaths are difficult to hear.

I can empathize with what these people are about to go through and hopefully theyll have the support and some of the tools they need to get through it, the 46-year-old said in a telephone interview.

Its going to be tough. Its going to be hard for them.

Constables Eric Dubois and Darlene Goguen were also injured when Bourque went hunting police officers in a Moncton neighbourhood on June 4, 2014. Bourque had targeted police in the hopes of sparking an anti-government rebellion.

Angela Gevaudan, the widow of Fabrice Gevaudan, said in a telephone interview that she was feeling a sense of protectiveness on Friday for the families, knowing how they will be overwhelmed by emotions as they receive news of the deaths.

They will need to just receive simple information for a time as they struggle to process the shock of the deaths of their loved ones, she said.

Its going to take a lot of time to process, and the images, moments and memories and everything coming in is going to be difficult for everyone involved, she said in an interview.

Its heartbreaking, and of course Im thinking of everyone who is impacted by it and Im just hoping that theyll get the support they need.

Since she lost her husband, Gevaudan has done volunteer work as an ambassador for Tema, a group that provides help and advocates for first responders who are suffering from PTSD.

Read more:

Fredericton musician identified as third victim in New Brunswick shooting

It was two shootings too many for Fredericton woman who was on the Danforth during July gun attack

A timeline of the deadly shooting in Fredericton

She has also offered support and shared her experience with others suffering from trauma.

Gevaudan said she didnt really want to speak about her own reactions on Friday, not wanting to make the latest deaths in Fredericton about her own difficult memories.

However, the former 911 operator said it will be important for first responders who are angered or upset by the latest deaths to let their emotions come out, rather than suppress them.

Let emotions you are feeling be acknowledged and be felt. That itself helps you process the trauma and helps with the healing, she said.

Larche said the difficult memories of his brothers death continue to be powerful four years after the Moncton murders, and to hear that others in uniform have been killed is hard news to receive.

Theres an extra attachment I guess, or connection with first responders, given my own attachment to my brother, he said.

People who step up try to do their best to protect people  A lot of things this country has is because people were willing to risk their lives for something better.

In addition, he said, he believes many people in Moncton who witnessed the shooter moving through the city or who dealt with the injured or wounded police officers are going to struggle with resurfacing memories.

Its tough for New Brunswick. Had it happened in Moncton it would have been an extra trigger for people. There are lots of people who have still not recovered  Its still a traumatic event for people.

Meanwhile, across Canada, policing leaders sent messages of support and condolences on New Brunswicks latest tragedy.

Halifax Regional Police Chief Jean-Michel Blais tweeted his support. He said he had been in contact with the Fredericton force.

I have spoken to Chief Fitch personally to offer her any support we can give. We stand with @CityFredPolice while they deal with this situation.

Saint John, N.B., police Chief Bruce Connell sent condolences in a news release.

I want to extend our deepest sympathies to the families, friends and colleagues of the two Fredericton Police Force officers who lost their lives today in a senseless and tragic event, said Connell.

Gevaudan said those messages will be appreciated by the families over time. But for now, those who are directly involved will need time and space, she said.

One who is learning of this could be devastated for sure. Its violent ... I think we have a hard time understanding how certain people can choose to do these kinds of things. And I think it adds to our sadness and devastation in this kind of moment.

It adds to the trauma because it feels likes its ... not right, and it shouldnt happen.

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Police were saying little about the motive behind the multiple murder in Fredericton on Friday, in which a man allegedly fired a long gun from the window of his third-floor apartment, killing four people in a parking lot below.

Matthew Vincent Raymond, 48, is charged with the first-degree murders of Bobbie Lee Wright, 32, Donnie Robichaud, 42, and two Fredericton police officers, Sara Burns, 43, and Robb Costello, 45.

Officials said Raymond was hospitalized and was being treated for serious injuries after being shot by police.

Read more:

A timeline of the deadly shooting in Fredericton

It was two shootings too many for Fredericton woman who was on the Danforth during July gun attack

Fredericton shootings are fresh trauma for N.B., four years after Moncton attack

He is to remain in custody until he appears in court Aug. 27, police said.

Martin Gaudet, deputy police chief in Fredericton, said investigators had yet to find a link between the victims and the accused that would explain a motive for the shooting.

That link has not been established yet. And that is a piece of information that were looking to establish, Gaudet said at a news conference Saturday afternoon.

However, friends and relatives of the victims said Wright and Robichaud had just begun a relationship.

Raymond and Robichaud were both residents of the apartment complex on Brookside Dr., although they lived in separate buildings, according to Judith Aguilar, an office manager for the complexs owners.

Aguilar said Raymond had been living in the complex for about four months and was an avid cyclist. He often wore his bike helmet into the office when he went in to pay his rent in cash, she said.

He seemed normal and made small talk every time you saw him. He came in every month to pay rent. He was always polite and pleasant, Aguilar said Saturday.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Aguilar said that at one point maintenance workers needed to do some repairs in Raymonds apartment and he didnt want them there while he wasnt present.

He seemed concerned, she said. He said he had an expensive computer and an expensive bike and he didnt want anyone to be there alone. They didnt even have to go all the way into the apartment; they were just fixing his door frame at the time.

She said she didnt interact with Robichaud much because he didnt come into the office to make his rent payments, and she did not know if he knew Raymond.

On Saturday morning, the area surrounding the crime scene was cordoned off by yellow tape, but police allowed some shaken residents through to check on their pets. The area remained closed Saturday night, with a mobile police command post on scene.

More than half a dozen bullet holes could be seen in the window of an upper-floor corner apartment, while a second window appeared to have been mostly smashed.

Joe Cartwright, a resident in the building, said all the doors in the complex had been kicked in and one of his cats had escaped.

Cartwright said his girlfriend, Caitlyn Francis, and 4-year-old son had been at home during the shooting, and he had rushed to the scene in a panic once he realized his family could be in danger.

Im very torn up, he said. Im not doing very well at all. My girlfriends not, my sons not, so were going to go and just try to calm down from this.

Francis said she had been getting her stepson ready for daycare at 7:10 a.m. when she heard police sirens.

She looked out and saw a police car pull in.

Not even a minute or two later, I heard the first gunshot, she said.

The next moments were a blur as she focused on keeping her stepson safe and calm as several more shots could be heard, she said.

I pulled him into my bedroom, got him to lay on the floor back there, tried to play cartoons for him, but he still could hear (the gunshots), she said.

There was no playing off what those sounds were. He knew it.

Robichauds cousin, Sean Callahan, said Robichaud had been living in the apartment complex for about three or four months.

The apartment was his, and his sons would go back and forth between the mothers house and his house. He was living alone. It was Donnie living by himself, Callahan said Saturday.

Callahan said he and his cousin were very close, talking on the phone most days. But he hadnt yet met Robichauds new girlfriend.

I talked to him Thursday  I called him up because I needed a part for my truck, so we were talking about my truck, and then we were talking about him, how happy he is with his girlfriend, that his lifes on track. He was just so happy with everything, said Callahan.

Theres nothing bad you can say about the guy. When I got a message yesterday asking me if Donnie got shot, I was like, who in the hell would want to shoot Donnie Robichaud?

At Saturdays news conference, Fredericton police Chief Leanne Fitch asked people to be patient with the investigation.

This is a complex investigation, and it must be thorough in nature. I ask residents not to speculate,  Please let all of our investigators do their work and find the facts that need to be found, she said.

The apartment complex where the four victims were shot is in a suburban part of Fredericton, north of the Saint John River.

The New Brunswick capital has a population of fewer than 60,000; its police force is small and tight-knit.

Fitch said police from around the region started arriving Saturday to give local officers some time off to grieve the loss of Costello and Burns.

Burns was married and a mother of three. She was a Fredericton police officer for two years, and had served for two years before that in the auxiliary force.

Sara absolutely loved her job, and went to work each shift committed to serving this great community, her family said in a statement, released through Fredericton police on Saturday.

Costello, a 20-year veteran of the force, had a common-law spouse and four children.

Robb was the single most positive person I have ever met, and that was obvious to everyone who met him, said his partner, Jackie Steeves, in a statement through police. He had a special way of dealing with people  fair, but strong and tough when needed. He was the only officer Ive ever known to write a ticket and have the recipient thank him for it.

While I met Robb relatively late in my life, he was my soulmate, my best friend and the light of my life, she added.

Flowers, stuffed animals and cards started appearing outside the Fredericton police headquarters Friday, and the tributes continued to grow on Saturday.

A day after the shooting incident Fredericton police responded in force to another event Saturday night.

Heavily armed officers and about a dozen police vehicles encircled part of a neighbourhood on the city's north side.

Police officials would only describe it as an active event, but stated it was not related to the shooting incident Friday.

Police brought in their armoured response vehicle and kept people away in a one block area.

However, after about four hours they gave the all clear and left the scene.

The city has been on edge since the shootings Friday, and even the common-law partner of fallen officer Const. Robb Costello responded to the reports of the Saturday incident.

Jackie McLean tweeted: "What a thing to read while you work on writing your spouse's obituary."

With files from The Canadian Press

Taryn Grant is a reporter for StarMetro Halifax. Follow her on Twitter: @tarynalgrant

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OTTAWAThe federal government says it has cancelled plans to issue a controversial clam fishing licence to a First Nations company with ties to the Liberal party and several sitting Liberal MPs  including the former fisheries minister.

A news release from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans says the process to issue a fourth licence to harvest arctic surf clam off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia was cancelled in early July, and that it wont be issued this year at all.

That multimillion-dollar licence was supposed to go to the Five Nations Clam Co., a company court documents suggest did not initially meet key eligibility requirements spelled out in the governments tender process.

The deal, which would have ended a 19-year monopoly on the Arctic clam fishery held by Clearwater Seafoods, was supposed to offer 25 per cent of the catch to local Indigenous communities as a way of promoting reconciliation and economic growth.

On Feb. 21, Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc announced the deal had been awarded to Five Nations, which he said was composed of First Nations from Quebec, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick.

In fact, the company only had two Indigenous partners at the time: the Elsipogtog First Nation in New Brunswick and the Nutashkuan Innu in Quebec.

Read more:

First Nations group from Quebec, Atlantic Canada wins lucrative clam fishery, breaks up Clearwater monopoly

The current process to issue a fourth arctic surf clam licence was cancelled in early July, and the reasons subsequently shared with the proponent, Fisheries and Oceans said Friday in a news release. A new arctic surf clam licence will not be issued in 2018.

Instead, a new process will begin next year in order to issue a licence that would be valid in 2020, with an independent third party evaluating the bids, the department says.

The remaining 25 per cent of this years total allowable catch may be made available to the existing licence holder, the release says. This would allow for the economic benefits to remain in coastal communities while Fisheries and Oceans Canada continues to work to broaden access to this fishery.

The new process, it continues, will once again focus on confirming and validating the specific direct and significant benefits that will flow to Indigenous communities, as well as the proponents readiness to implement their submissions.

Conservative fisheries critic Todd Doherty was very pleased with the decision, describing the original process as seriously flawed.

This is great news, Doherty said. Its what we said all along should happen.

In its original proposal, Five Nations admitted it was not officially registered in Nova Scotia until Dec. 13, 2017, records show  well past the Nov. 22 deadline to submit proposals. The company was not registered in New Brunswick until Feb. 28 of this year.

Five Nations is partnered with Premium Seafoods, a non-Indigenous Nova Scotia company whose president is Edgar Samson, the brother of Liberal MP Darrell Samson. A newly added Indigenous partner, NunatuKavut, is headed by former Liberal MP Todd Russell.

In the spring, Doherty requested the ethics commissioner to investigate because those Liberal ties. Doherty has also drawn ties between the deal and LeBlanc himself: The Five Nations proposal said it would be headed up by Gilles Theriault, who is cousin to the former ministers wife.

LeBlanc was shuffled out of the Fisheries portfolio late last month and now serves as intergovernmental affairs minister. He was replaced at Fisheries by Vancouver MP Jonathan Wilkinson.

Doherty called the timing of the decision suspicious, considering the fact LeBlanc was shuffled just weeks later.

The Miawpukek Band in Newfoundland, which had submitted its own proposal during the original process, launched a court challenge alleging LeBlanc breached his duty of fairness in awarding the licence to Five Nations. The office of conflict of interest and ethics commissioner Mario Dion has also been looking into the issue.

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David Cox said it was good to see the spirit back on the Danforth.

The 25th Annual Taste of the Danforth festival began Friday night, mere weeks after the bustling street turned into a scene of carnage. Two were killed and a dozen more were injured in a shooting rampage on July 22.

People werent going to let that get them down, which is great to see, because it happened right over here, said Cox outside his familys business, The Friendly Greek, where they where serving fresh gyro from a stall outside the restaurant.

Its terrible, but its just good to see that people are still coming out; it didnt scare everybody away.

The festival began with a moment of silence for 10-year-old Julianna Kozis and 18-year-old Reese Fallon, who were killed in the shooting.

The opening ceremony was attended by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mayor John Tory.

It also honoured the official and unofficial first responders to the shooting, from police and firefighters and EMS to tattoo shop owner Tanya Wilson, who helped two people injured in the gunfire.

We truly believe that without those first responders, it would have been a much bigger tragedy, said festival organizer Howard Lichtman.

Canadas largest street festival will stretch across the Danforth this weekend with food, music and performances. By Friday evening, Danforth Ave. was full of people sitting on patios or buying food from stalls set up along the street.

Outside Athena Bakery, Greek pastries were on display.

Yanni Kollaras, whose family owns the business, said the pastries were like the ones we have back home.

We try to bring a little bit of that flavour from there to here.

Kollaras has worked at the bakery during the Taste of the Danforth since childhood.

Doesnt matter who you are, what you are, everyone just comes together and enjoys the day and the food and the festivities, he said inside the bakery.

Kollaras added it was pretty cool that Trudeau would be at the festival. He hopes the recent shooting doesnt affect the festival, he said, although hed understand if it did.

People should still come out and enjoy themselves rather than stay home cooped up, right?

About 1.6 million people are expected to attend the three-day event, which will go on no matter the weather.

I think what were going to see is what weve seen almost from the day after the tragic incident on the Danforth which is an outpouring of support and strength that has come, not just from people living in that area and working in that area, but people across the city, said Mayor Tory, who spoke to reporters Friday after touring a TTC streetcar facility on Lake Shore Blvd. E.

I think Taste of the Danforth will have a record attendance this year because people want to send a signal at these events that were healing, that were resilient, that were strong, that were together.

During the festival, multiple memorials that sprang up along the Danforth will be consolidated into a single memorial near St. Barnabas Church (at 361 Danforth Ave.) so attendees can visit to pay their respects.

Friday evening, festivalgoers paused at the memorial, leaning in to read the gathered notes and posters.

Following the end of the festival, the memorial will be moved to the Logan Green Field parkette.

Danforth Ave. between Broadview and Jones Aves. will be closed to all traffic until Monday at 3 a.m.

Some TTC routes will be diverted.
ST. LOUISThe Missouri governors office said Friday it doesnt have the authority to appoint a special prosecutor reinvestigate the 2014 fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, despite pressure from Browns mother to do so.

Lezley McSpadden said earlier in the day that shed launched an online petition seeking a new investigation into her 18-year-old sons death, a case that sparked months of protests and helped fuel the Black Lives Matter movement nationally. McSpadden also announced that she planned to run for a seat on the Ferguson City Council in April.

A spokesperson for Republican Gov. Mike. Parson said his office has no legal authority to appoint a special prosecutor in any case. In Missouri, judges can appoint special prosecutors, often at the request of prosecutors who seek to avoid conflicts of interest.

McSpadden has been an activist since her sons death but has never held public office. On Friday, she said had been surrounded by people who provided her with support and motivation, and they knew what happened was wrong and didnt give up the fight.

I learned to walk again, she said. And this is one of my first steps: running for Ferguson City Council.

Her son was unarmed when he was fatally shot during a confrontation with Ferguson officer Darren Wilson, who is white, on Aug. 9, 2014. Witnesses initially said the black teenager had his hands up in surrender at the time of the shooting, though an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice didnt find those accounts credible.

Wilson, who resigned from the Ferguson police force that November, was later cleared of wrongdoing by a St. Louis County grand jury and the U.S. Justice Department.

McSpaddens appeal to Parson comes just days after longtime St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch lost his seat in the Democratic primary to Wesley Bell, a black Ferguson city councillor. McCullochs announcement in 2014 that no charges would be filed against Wilson sparked widespread protests.

Bell, who faces no Republican challengers in November, ran on a progressive platform that included holding police more accountable. On Friday, it was unclear if Bell would consider reopening the investigation himself. Text and phone messages left with Bell were not returned.

McSpaddens petition says Bells win is a clear mandate from the people of St. Louis to reform the criminal justice system, which first begins with securing justice for my son.

McCulloch, first elected in 1992, drew considerable criticism for not charging Wilson himself and relying on a grand jury to consider the case. He was also accused of guiding the grand jury to its decision, a charge he has strongly denied.

Calls to reopen the Brown investigation also came Friday from Justin Hansford, the executive director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center. He wrote in an op-ed in the Washington Post that Bells win over McCulloch is a sign of hope and change and that Bell should reopen the case when he becomes prosecutor.

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Venezuelans fleeing insecurity at home are arriving by the thousands in Ecuador after crossing through neighbouring Colombia, the latest wave in one of Latin Americas largest mass population movements in history.

Photos taken at the Rumichaca International Bridge, a border crossing between Colombia and Ecuador high in the Andes Mountains, show thousands of Venezuelans clutching belongings and bundled in jackets and scarves, as they waited to cross.

Many of the Venezuelans are moving on foot in an odyssey of days and even weeks in precarious conditions, William Spindler, a spokesperson for the United Nations refugee agency, said during a press briefing Friday.

Many run out of resources to continue their journey, he added, and, left destitute, are forced to live rough in public parks and resort to begging.

Despite the fact that Venezuela has some of the largest crude oil reserves in the world, poor financial management, corruption and dropping oil prices saw the bottom fall out of the countrys economy. The government of President Nicolas Maduro has cracked down on the opposition and centralized power, further exacerbating the problem.

Children are dying of hunger, and hospitals dont have the supplies needed to treat even the most basic ailments.

Since the start of 2018, nearly 550,000 Venezuelans have entered Ecuador through Colombia. But the flow has accelerated greatly this month, with an average of more than 4,000 people arriving at the Ecuador border every day.

In response, Ecuador declared a state of emergency in three provinces this past week. While the government has some humanitarian services at the crossings, it has struggled to deal with the volume of migrants.

Ecuador will deploy doctors and humanitarian workers during the state of emergency to help process those entering the country. The Red Cross of Ecuador is helping to assess the arrivals and provide necessities and psychological support.

In Ecuador, up to 20 per cent will remain in the country and submit applications for asylum, refugee officials said. Others are expected to continue on to Peru or Chile, seeking economic opportunities.

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OTTAWADonald Trump launched a fresh auto-tariff threat against Canada late Friday at a time when Ottawa finds itself in a holding pattern on NAFTA negotiations as it awaits the completion of one-on-one talks between the United States and Mexico.

In a tweet that appeared to reference NAFTAs renegotiation, the U.S. president said the deal with Mexico is coming along nicely and that Canada must wait.

Trump then sent a warning to Ottawa: Their Tariffs and Trade Barriers are far too high. Will tax cars if we cant make a deal!

But a spokesperson for Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said Ottawa wont change course in response to the presidents message.

Our focus is unchanged, Adam Austen wrote in an email. Well keep standing up for Canadian interests as we work toward a modernized trilateral NAFTA agreement.

Bilateral NAFTA negotiations between the U.S. and Mexico have been building momentum in recent weeks after taking a break in late May ahead of Mexicos July presidential election. The one-on-one talks are expected to extend into next week.

Canada, however, has yet to return to the NAFTA table this summer.

Read more:

Canada will retaliate against any U.S. auto tariffs, Trudeau government tells Trump administration

Opinion | David Olive: A divide-and-conquer strategy on NAFTA?

Opinion | Thomas Walkom: Trumps tariffs a death knell to NAFTA

Some observers have raised concerns about Canadas absence from recent high-level negotiations on the three-country trade deal. There have been warnings Canada could be put in a position where it might have to accept a deal reached between the U.S. and Mexico.

But Canadian officials have insisted Ottawa hasnt been sidelined during the U.S.-Mexico discussions, arguing there have been lots of bilateral talks between NAFTA partners during the yearlong renegotiation process.

To complicate matters, the already rocky Canada-U.S. relationship has deteriorated since the partners suspended talks in the spring.

Trump slapped Canada and other allies with steel and aluminum duties, which led to retaliatory levies from Ottawa. He has also made repeated threats to apply far more damaging tariffs on the deeply integrated automotive sector. And in June, Trump called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau very dishonest and weak shortly after he left the G7 meeting in Quebec.

On Friday, his critical tweet about Canada made a point of praising Mexicos president-elect Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

New President of Mexico has been an absolute gentleman, tweeted Trump, who also wrote that autoworkers and farmers must be taken care of or there will be no deal.

Earlier Friday, a source familiar with Ottawas NAFTA effort said Canadian negotiators would not be returning to the bargaining table in Washington until the U.S. and Mexico find common ground on their outstanding issues, especially the complex sticking points around the auto sector.

If the U.S. and Mexico can resolve their bilateral differences in the coming days, the source said its very possible Canadas team  potentially including Freeland  could rejoin negotiations later in the week.

Media reports said Fridays NAFTA discussions between U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer and Mexican Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo ended with bilateral work still to be done. On his way out of the meeting, reports said Guajardo indicated the two sides have made progress and will meet again next week to continue their talks for a fourth straight week.

We continue to be in the same position where Mexico and the U.S. need to continue to work out their issues, said the Canadian source, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they werent authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

The next obvious question is, do we have a firm date of Canada physically going to join the talks? And the answer is no, as long as the U.S. and Mexico have not resolved their issues, specifically auto.

The source added that Freeland and David MacNaughton, Canadas ambassador to the U.S., remain in regular contact with relevant officials from the U.S. and Mexico.

The U.S. and Mexican governments have both expressed optimism the entire NAFTA deal could be concluded before the end of the month.

MacNaughton said in an interview last week that predictions NAFTA can be settled by the end of August are aspirational. However, he added that he supports the effort and that Canadian negotiators are ready to work long hours to help make it happen.

Once Canada returns to the talks, the continental partners are expected to shift their focus to other tough, unresolved issues.

MacNaughton has listed some of those stubborn areas. He said they include dispute resolution, agriculture issues, intellectual property, government procurement, the proposed inclusion of a five-year sunset clause and the de minimis threshold, which is the maximum value of an item that Canadians can order from a foreign country without paying duties or taxes.

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Promise made. Promise broken. In honour of Premier Doug Fords mantra on the campaign pledges he has kept, its worth examining a vow that was so easily dismissed.

Ontario is almost halfway into an innovative three-year experiment, created by the previous Liberal government, to see if providing more money to impoverished people will improve their job prospects, health and quality of life.

It seemed worthwhile to the Progressive Conservatives just a few months ago because the party supported the basic income pilot project on the campaign trail.

We are looking forward to seeing the results, a PC party spokesperson told the Stars Laurie Monsebraaten.

When pressed in an email exchange on concerns that the Tories would cancel it, Melissa Lantsman doubled down: Nope, as mentioned we look forward to seeing the results. Promise made.

Ontarios basic income pilot provides up to $17,000 a year for an individual  thats just over $1,400 a month and roughly double what welfare provides. For a couple, its up to $24,000 a year.

Its possible that this project, costing $50 million a year, will actually save money by reducing health-care costs, enabling people to improve their education and ultimately get decent jobs, so they wont need ongoing government support.

But the fledgling Ford government has cancelled the program before we can find out. Promise broken.

Its hard to say what caused the change of heart. Since coming to power the Ford government has been in a breaking mood. Theyve gone after everything with a Liberal stamp on it from green energy contracts to police oversight.

But, for years, the biggest force behind trying a basic income in Canada has been Hugh Segal, a former Conservative senator.

So the Ford governments decision to cancel this hasnt just produced outrage in New Democrat and Liberal circles, but ones closer to home. Segal, who helped design this program operating around Hamilton, Thunder Bay and Lindsay, has lambasted the Tories for their decision.

The Ford government itself barely seems to know why it decided to kill the pilot.

In fact, the reasons given for the broken promise grow more absurd with every sitting of the legislature.

A week ago, the new Minister of Children, Community and Social Services Lisa MacLeod called the broken promise fake news.

She called it bad policy. She said it created a disincentive to work. This, of course, ignores the fact that almost three quarters of those in the basic income pilot have jobs, simply not ones that lift them out of crushing poverty.

This past Tuesday, back from a long summer weekend when the premiers focus lingered on the importance of government policies to enable buck-a-beer, MacLeods struggle for consistency continued.

She justified the cancellation by calling it a complicated research project that was failing  plain and simple. Given that the results arent in, its hard to see how she could jump to that conclusion.

Still, MacLeod wasnt done. A few minutes later, she blamed the cancellation on the $150 million three-year cost  a figure published long before the Tories made the campaign pledge to keep the pilot going.

The Ford government should reconsider its decision. There are 4,000 people who signed up for this government program in good faith and shouldnt have their lives thrown into turmoil because a new party is in power.

People who are enrolled in post-secondary education  to improve their job prospects  will be forced to cancel. And others who are just starting to emerge from the depression that accompanies extreme poverty are being forced back down.

But its not just a promise to them that Ford is breaking. Its also a broken promise to the nearly one million Ontarians on social assistance who might benefit from lessons learned in a completed study.

And other provinces and countries are also watching. Thats why the federal government should step in and take over the remaining months of the basic income program if the Ford government insists on ending the pilot.

From a policy perspective, too much time has been invested into this project to let it all go to waste. Provinces like British Columbia, where a feasibility study started a month ago, had been eagerly awaiting Ontarios data. Now, proponents justifiably worry that the Tories skepticism will spread across the country, diminishing B.C.s efforts to study and ultimately improve anti-poverty programs.

As chair of the Basic Income Canada Network Sheila Regehr says, Ottawa has an obligation to make income security work better for all Canadians. She rightly points out that Ottawas support to see this pilot to its conclusion in 2020 would provide conclusive reasons to either support or dismiss the idea of a national basic income program.

The idea of providing a basic income, giving people the freedom to decide how to spend government money, has been discussed for years by people of all political stripes. The current social assistance system is generally agreed to be a bureaucratic nightmare that practically seems designed to hold people down rather than help them get back on their feet  and stay there.

Whatever the reason, the Ontario government has bungled this file, big time. The federal government should be prepared to make it right, in the name of good government policy.

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Stand fast on Saudi Arabia, August 9

Its not our job to tell another country what it should be doing. Thats why none of our allies are publicly supporting us, while some other countries are publicly supporting Saudi Arabia.

Larry Prout, Peterborough

Jordan, the U.A.E., Bahrain and the Palestinian Authority all voiced support for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. But I wouldnt blame them, because many of those countries are financed and heavily tied to Saudi Arabia. Also, they dont want to piss off one of the more powerful countries in the region.

I am, however, concerned about the lack of support from our southern neighbour and the United Kingdom. We share a long history with both of them, and they are our closest allies. And what about the European Union? Are we truly being left in the dust for defending human rights?

Fadi Dawood, Ajax

Who would have imagined a few years ago that Saudi Arabia would be able to cow the entire supposedly morally superior democratic world into keeping their mouths shut about the atrocious and autocratic Saudi regime?

It may have a lot to do with oil and arms sales, or, more specifically, the money involved with oil and arms  along with all the other corrupt ramifications of sloshing money throughout these countries. Nice to have confirmed the old adage that money makes the world go round.

This truly is a prime example of all that is wrong with the world today.

Tom Colson, Toronto

Im surprised that none of the reports Ive seen about the Saudi spat have mentioned the likely backroom approval of these actions by Donald Trump  and possibly his instigation of them!

We know that Trumps world is polarized between sycophants and enemies.

I guess well have to wait for the next White House leak to find out if Saudi back-channel blandishments were offered to induce this ridiculously disproportionate attack.

Mathew Templer, Pickering

I see that Saudi Arabia has ordered 18,000 Saudi university students to return home. I trust that this means that there will be room for 18,000 Canadian students to get their higher education in Canadian schools.

Robert Drummond, Exeter, Ont.

The Canadian admonition of the Saudi government is evidently hypocritical, and lacks moral integrity.

Hamid S. Atiyyah, Markham

It must be remembered that in dealing with Saudi Arabia, Canada is essentially dealing with a dictator. We can place all the fancy titles we want on Saudi Arabias leaders, such as Crown Prince, King, or whatever, but ultimately, they are dictators in all but name.

There are not many countries that have the guts or integrity to not back down from financial threats and actions. The threat of losing money usually wins over integrity.

Are the U.K. and U.S. paying attention? They should have the courage to speak up. Thank you, Canada, for having integrity!

Martin Campbell, Toronto

So Canada will have to stop selling weapons of war to the Saudi Arabians for them to use against their own people and against civilians in Yemen.

Good.

Alan Craig, Brampton

The Saudi cat is now out of the bag. It increasingly seems that the small, but growing bilateral relationship between Canada and Saudi Arabia aims largely to purchase acquiescence in Canada.

The Saudi government has gambled that putting enough cash abroad, including in countries like Canada, will stop the international community from publicly confronting Saudi human rights abuses and war crimes. To some extent, the Saudis were right.

However, when the Canadian foreign ministry tweeted a demand last week to release peaceful activists in Saudi detention, the jig was up. Trying to buy its critics plainly wasnt working perfectly.

The ensuing Saudi hissy fit of retaliation, including removing their students from Canadian universities, cancelling flights between Riyadh and Toronto and freezing further business collaborations, looks more like a race for the lifeboats on a sinking investment than a principled objection to an incursion on sovereignty.

What did the Saudis think they were buying in Canada?

Brian Alexander, Mississauga

The Saudis reaction to Canadian interference has been misunderstood. It was all in one word  demand. We did not ask them, but we demanded the release. That is not diplomatic language. It is bully language. It does not help when Finance Minister Bill Morneau says that we bring Canadian values around the world.

Such arrogance is an affront to every sovereign nation on the planet. Just try that with China!

Peter Weygang, Bobcaygeon, Ont.

A year ago it was reported that Canada was Saudi Arabias second largest arms supplier. While Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland expresses outrage at Saudi Arabias human rights abuses, she conveniently turns a blind eye to scathing reports by UN officials and a long list of civil society groups over Canadas lucrative weapons trade in defiance of international norms.

Joe Davidson, Toronto

The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia has done Canada and its citizens a big favour by severing diplomatic ties and boycotting our products.

At least now we will not have Yemeni blood on our hands, and the Wahabi preachers will not come to the mosques to preach and poison peoples minds.

Good riddance to bad rubbish!

Shahira Hafez, Mississauga

Far more disturbing than the present spat is the choice of Twitter to communicate serious, delicate international concerns.

Why would our government choose to conduct critical negotiations in 280 character texts instead of using the established diplomatic channels and media that have been in place for decades, if not centuries?

Paul Collier, Toronto

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BELLEVILLE  The Illinois Black Chamber of Commerce awarded the Outstanding Corporate Leadership Award to Illinois American Water Co. (IAWC) President Bruce Hauk during the chambers 13th annual statewide convention.

Illinois American Waters Roger Goodson, senior manager of field operations and production for the Peoria district accepted the award on Hauks behalf at the convention held in Peoria.

The award is presented to an individual who champions diversity within his or her company.

Our executive team looks very closely at who is selected for our awards, said Illinois Black Chamber of Commerces Larry Ivory, president and chief executive officer. Bruce Hauk doesnt just talk the talk, he walks the walk when it comes to supporting minority business. He sits down with us and our members regularly and he truly listens. He is focused and committed to inclusion. His leadership has inspired his entire team to work closely with minority businesses, diverse suppliers and diverse employee candidates. The Illinois Black Chamber of Commerce was proud to present Bruce Hauk with the 2018 Outstanding Corporate Leadership Award.

Hauk said he was honored to receive the award and share it with the entire Illinois American Water team.

Every day I am inspired by our employees and their commitment to bettering the communities we serve, including their focus on diversity and inclusion, Hauk continued. This recognition from one of the states leading business organizations validates the progress weve made and the direction we are headed for long-term success. Our efforts will better our organization and the water industry, while creating opportunities for others to also be successful in the communities we serve.

Illinois American Water has taken a number of steps to further its position as a leader in diversity and inclusion. A strategic focus on events, relationship building and data improvement has resulted in:

Since 2014, the value of goods and services Illinois American Water purchased from diverse businesses increased by 32 percent or more than $38 million. This represents an 11-time increased spend with Minority Business Enterprise-certified suppliers and a four-time increased spend with Womens Business Enterprise-certified suppliers. To help maintain a steady pipeline of diverse suppliers, the company meets annually with entrepreneurs, business owners and contractors.

Last year, Illinois American Water purchased more than $118 million in goods and services from certified diverse suppliers.

Illinois American Water partners with organizations to host and attend diversity outreach events to identify potential new employees with diverse backgrounds. For example, in Peoria, the team is partnering with the Illinois Central College Highway Construction Careers Training Program.

Total diverse population at Illinois American Water has averaged 30 percent.

In 2015, Illinois American Water joined other Illinois utilities in forming the Illinois Utilities Business Diversity Council. This council is designed to grow business opportunities for diverse suppliers through closer collaboration, technical development and sharing of best practices.

Illinois American Waters commitment to diversity and inclusion was also recognized by the NAACP. Last October, the East St. Louis Chapter of NAACP named Illinois American Water the Corporate Business of the Year for Diversity and Inclusion. This award is presented to companies that visibly exceed standards in the areas of diversity and inclusion.

The Illinois Black Chamber of Commerce is the largest, most active voice for African American businesses in the state. Its objective is to help promote job creation and growth among African American businesses. For more information, visit www.ilbcc.org.

Illinois American Water, a subsidiary of American Water (NYSE: AWK), is the largest investor-owned water utility in the state, providing high-quality and reliable water and/or wastewater services to approximately 1.3 million people. American Water also operates a customer service center in Alton and a quality-control and research laboratory in Belleville.

With a history dating back to 1886, American Water is the largest and most geographically diverse U.S. publicly traded water and wastewater utility company. The company employs more than 6,900 dedicated professionals who provide regulated and market-based drinking water, wastewater and other related services to an estimated 15 million people in 46 states and Ontario, Canada. For more information, visit www.amwater.com and follow American Water on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
GRAFTON  The convenience of a nearby grocery store can be priceless, and now, after more than a decade without one, the city can once again boast of the amenity since Grafton Market quietly opened Friday.

When co-owner Scott Myers first purchased the building, which formerly housed a grocery store, he wasnt quite sure how he was going to utilize it, but when he discovered that the mayor and local residents were really hoping he would put it back to its former use, he and Loemker decided to do just that.

Myers and co-owner and business partner Susan Loemker began renovations, and the approximately 1,500 square feet of space at 1415 W. Main Street will be filled with a little bit of everything, manager Traci Walker told The Telegraph.

Not only is it convenient for people who live here, but its a great stop for boaters and campers who come into town to go out on the river or up to the park, she noted.

Inventory will include sliceable sandwich meats that come from the Goshen Meat Market in Edwardsville; a soda fountain, with an assortment of coffee, tea and soda; a large selection of wine, beer and spirits; frozen foods, such as pizzas and entrees; ice cream, milk snacks and dairy; baked items; some produce; laundry detergent; soap; basic over-the-counter pharmacy items and even a little bit of hardware.

We will have nuts and bolts, car oil, work gloves and some other basic hardware needs, Walker said.

And, as the store grows and becomes established, she said people can tell them what they want or need, so the inventory will keep evolving. A machine in front of the store houses small and large bags of ice.

The stores decor is outdoorsy, keeping with the local flavor of outdoor recreation, with deer heads mounted on the wall, a bobcat and lots of knotty pine and other wood, including hand-built wooden counters.

More Information If you go: What: Grafton Market's grand opening (soft opening was Friday) When: Saturday, Sept. 1 Where: 1415 W. Main Street (across from Fin Inn), Grafton Info: The store's team will be barbecuing. Current hours for the store are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Sunday through Saturday, which may change during the winter months. Follow Grafton Market on Facebook or call 618-786-2337. See More Collapse

Speaking of wood, as customers walk in the door, they are greeted by an old-fashioned, wood-and-glass antique candy counter that is said to have been in an old Sears store.

We found the counter on Craigslist, and drove to Newberg, Indiana to get it, Loemker said. It was made in 1920 in Chicago.

Two large tables, made by Graftons Knotty by Nature, gives customers a spot to sit down for a cup of coffee.

There have been so many people stopping by while weve been getting everything ready, and everyone is really excited about having a grocery store again, Walker said.

The stores grand opening is set for Sept. 1, when the team will be barbecuing. Grafton Market is located at 1415 W. Main Street (across from the Fin Inn), in Grafton. Current hours for the store are 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., Sunday through Saturday, which may change during the winter months. For more information, follow Grafton Market on Facebook or call 618-786-2337.

Reach writer Vicki Bennington at vbennington@sbcglobal.net and Twitter @vicben1.
EDWARDSVILLE  A former East Alton man who previously said his guilty plea to theft and failure to register as a sex offender was the result of misinformation from his attorney, has withdrawn his motion to withdraw the plea.

George F. Shanks III, 48, most recently of Fayetteville, had said he thought he pleaded in exchange for concurrent four-year prison terms on charges in Madison and St. Clair counties.

In reality, a judge told him, the plea was for consecutive sentences, and if he withdrew the plea, hed face up to 30 years in prison if convicted at trial.

From prison in Robinson, he filed a motion on his own behalf in Madison County Court, claiming his Madison County attorney failed told him his sentence in St. Clair County would be concurrent with his Madison County. That turned out to be untrue.

Shanks was brought to Madison County Court Tuesday from prison. Madison County Circuit Judge Kyle Napp questioned whether he was making the correct decision.

She told him that, because of his long record, that he could be sentenced under Class X felony guidelines, between six and 30 years.

I dont know whats going on, Shanks said. Yes you do; you know exactly whats going on. You are trying to get less time. I would, too, if I were you, but Im explaining to you that the law would make you eligible for Class X sentencing, the judge responded.

Shanks then decided to withdraw his motion to withdraw his plea. Shanks has a criminal record dating to 1999 when he was convicted in federal court of conspiracy to manufacture and possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine. He also has convictions for theft, forgery, burglary, child molestation, deceptive practice, aggravated criminal sexual assault, aggravated kidnapping, obstructing justice, theft, failure to register as a sex offender and three misdemeanors.

A court document sates is is a registered child sex offender who is overdue for annual registration. At the time of his most recent charges in Madison County, there was an active warrant out for him out of Dubois County, Indiana, for traffic violations and he was on conditional discharge out of St. Clair County for failure to register as a sex offender.
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The adage that failures can teach many lessons seems quite...
After a 19-year-old girl living in a shelter home for differently abled girls in Bhopal levelled allegations of sexual misconduct against its owner, the Madhya Pradesh Police has formed a special investigation team to look into the matter. Three more girls have also come forward with similar allegations against the owner, Ashwini Sharma.

The incident comes amid outrage over allegations of abuse at such shelter homes in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

Sharma was running a shelter home for disabled girls, which was funded by the state Women and Child Welfare Department. He started the shelter home in 2016 and 21 girls were living there.

Sharma ran the shelter home by converting three rented duplex houses in Awadhpuri locality of Bhopal. Out of the 21 girls, four have so far come forward to say that they were sexually abused by Sharma.

Taking note of the incident, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chauhan called a high-level meeting with the DGP and principal secretary of Women and Child Welfare Department to prevent such incidents from recurring in the future. Speaking to The WEEK, Chouhan said he had asked officials to inspect such shelter homes every month.

Chauhan instructed that the collector and SP of the districts personally inspect children's homes where girls were living.

There are 121 registered childcare institutions in Madhya Pradesh, out of which 29 shelter homes have been shortlisted for immediate inspection.

Meanwhile, Sharma was produced in a Bhopal court after a speech- and hearing-impaired girl alleged she was sexually abused. The victim wrote Sharma's name on a piece of paper before police during investigations. Sharma was sent to police remand as Superintendent of Police of Bhopal R.K. Lodha started investigations.

The incidents of sexual abuse of girls in shelter homes and childcare homes has become a major political issue in Madhya Pradesh. The matter was first raised by the state Congress's media department chairman Sobha Ojha. PCC president and senior Congress leader Kamal Nath also wrote a letter to Chouhan, demanding a CBI inquiry into the incident.
While the BJP is pulling all stops to ensure the success of the Yuva Swabhiman Samavesh Rally in Kolkata on Saturday that will be addressed by party chief Amit Shah, the ruling Trinamool Congress is organising protests across the state over the exclusion of 40 lakh people from Assam's recently published draft National Register of Citizens.

TMC secretary general and state Education Minister Partha Chatterjee announced on Friday that the party's rallies would cover the entire state, excluding Kolkata. A separate rally will be taken out in the capital city on Sunday," Chatterjee told reporters.

Tomorrow, I will be in West Bengal to address the "Yuva Swabhiman Samavesh" organised by @BJYM in Kolkata. pic.twitter.com/52DRi3V79m  Amit Shah (@AmitShah) August 10, 2018

West Bengal BJP unit president Dilip Ghosh alleged that the TMC wanted to instigate violence during Shah's rally and also prevent people from other parts of the state from reaching the venue in Kolkata. He warned that If they [TMC] create trouble, they will get a befitting reply from the people of this state.

Ghosh also revealed he had written a letter to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh about Shah's rally."In the letter, I have apprised Rajnath Singh of the situationhow our workers, who are coming to attend our rally, are being attacked. The TMC and the police administration have joined hands. I have requested him to tell the state government to ensure the safety and security of the BJP workers," Ghosh said.

The Yuva Swabhiman Samavesh Rally is being projected as a show of strength by the BJP. Being organised at Kolkata's Mayo Street, the rally is scheduled to begin at 11am on Saturday. Shah is expected to address the event at 1pm. A senior BJP leader had claimed lakhs of people would attend the event and demanded that the party be allowed to deploy drones to monitor Shah's rally.

Shah had earlier dared the state government to arrest him, signalling his determination to go ahead with the Kolkata rally irrespective of whether it had been granted permission.

The TMC's decision to hold rallies over the NRC is linked to apprehensions that Shah will play up demands for a similar exercise in West Bengal. Shortly after the release of the NRC in Assam, Ghosh had declared the BJP would conduct a similar exercise in West Bengal if it was voted to power in the state.

(With PTI inputs)
Two minutes later, Nimes had defender Florian Miguel sent off for a second yellow card. But despite being a player down, Nimes scored twice in the last four minutes with Depres netting an 88th-minute winner.
In the latest snub to New Delhi by the China-backed government of President Abdullah Yameen in Maldives, the government wants India to take back military helicopters and personnel posted on the island.

Though India has been providing the Indian Ocean island with military and civilian aid for decades, Beijing which has slowly increased its presence in Maldives is upstaging India. Beijing is building roads, bridges and a bigger airport.

President Yameen's crackdown on political rivals and the imposition of emergency this year had met with opposition from India. Yameen's rivals had called on New Delhi to intervene with military support.

India has been demanding that Yameen free political rivals including former President Abdul Gayoom and Supreme Court justices. It also criticised Yameen's decision to hold elections in September saying the rule of law should be restored before embarking on such an exercise. India was a close supporter of Gayoom during his long years of stewardship of the island chain and sent troops to foil an attempted coup against him in 1988.

Reuters reported that the Maldives' ambassador in India, Ahmed Mohamed, said that two military helicopters provided by India were mainly used for medical evacuations but were no longer required as the islands had built up enough resources of its own. "They were very useful in the past but with the development of adequate infrastructure, facilities and resources we are now in a position to handle medical evacuations on our own," he said. However, India and the Maldives are still conducting joint patrols in the islands' exclusive economic zone every month, Mohamed said. Maldives is situated close to the world's busiest shipping lanes, between China and Middle East.

China, which opened an embassy in the Maldives in 2011, has rapidly built ties with the tropical island chain as part of its Belt and Road Initiative. It says it is opposed to any country interfering in the internal affairs of the Maldives.

Providing helicopters and patrol boats and satellite assistance to countries such as the Maldives, Mauritius and the Seychelles has been part of India's naval diplomacy to retain influence in the Indian Ocean. But in recent years China has moved in, building ports and roads backed by loans. In the Maldives, Beijing Urban Construction Group Company Limited took over a project to expand the airport servicing the capital Male, after the government cancelled a $511 million deal with India's GMR Infrastructure.

Around 50 military personnel, including pilots and maintenance crew, are stationed at Maldives, along with two helicopters. Though their visas have expired, India has not withdrawn them.
The allegations by porn star Stormy Daniels that she had sex with US President Donald Trump over a decade ago and was paid not to talk about it have dogged the US leader since early this year. Irrespective of how the Stormy Daniels saga has been received by Americans, it has greatly increased the visibility of her flamboyant lawyer, Michael Avenatti. And on Friday, Avenatti all but declared he was interested in running for president in 2020.

Avenatti has been a known name for his cable TV appearances and Twitter posts in addition to being a high-profile lawyer, before he took up Daniels's case. On Friday, Avenatti was the keynote speaker at the Democratic Party's 'Wing Ding' fundraiser in Iowa.

Avenatti told the audience that the Democrats must fight fire with fire. He claimed, When they [Republicans] go low, I say, we hit harder. The statement was a reversal of what former first lady, Michelle Obama told the Democratic Convention in 2016, when she declared, "When they go low, we go high."

Avenatti accused Trump of being a conman and touted Medicare for all and sensible gun control.

Avenatti's popularity has grown in the months he has represented Daniels as he has portrayed himself as a political outsider, much like Trump did in 2016. Avenatti has accused media groups of using the term 'porn star' lawyer to hit his credibility. Interestingly, Avenatti's slogan of Make America America again is a pun on Trump's Make America Great Again.

Avenatti had recently met children of illegal immigrants who were forcibly separated from their parents, an issue that caused considerable outrage against the Trump administration.

Democrats acknowledge that Trump's accusations of nepotism and corruption among traditional politicians boosted his support base; Avenatti's 'no holds-barred' approach is expected to evoke more curiosity and interest in the near future.
Addiction is not a choice. No one chooses to become an addict. But it can happen to any one of us. None of us is immune. Catherine Duchess of Cambridge

M.S. Dhoni is the first person who has been always there for me. He knows what kind of individual I am. He knows me quite deep. I am very close to him. He is the only person who can make me calm. Hardik Pandya cricketer, on the former Indian captain

The value of your human journey is truly the sum total of how many people you touched, empowered and helped in even the tiniest possible way. We all are reactions to all and whom that we encounter, and then from us the ripple effect to others. Pooja Bedi model and TV host

People have started realising the BJPs lies. Narendra Modi, with the help of media and social media, had created a delusion of grandeur in the country to posture the BJP as an alternative to the Congress that had been in power for a long time. People have now started to see the reality that nobody lies as much as Modi. Siddaramaiah Congress leader
New Delhi, Aug 11 (PTI)The Civil Aviation Ministry has approved a proposal for setting up of water aerodromes in the country, with Chilika Lake in Odisha, Sardar Sarovar Dam and Sabarmati River Front in Gujarat being identified in the first phase for development of such facilities, an official said today.

The proposal was cleared by Civil Aviation Minister Suresh Prabhu yesterday.

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) issued regulations in June this year, prescribing procedures and requirement for licencing of water aerodromes.

Since there is no historical data on the market and demand from any airlines, the project will be done as a pilot project, the ministry official said. The development would pave the way for operation of amphibian planes (both in land and water) to enhance air connectivity.

Under the proposal, water aerodrome would be set up near locations of tourist and religious importance.

The Airports Authority of India has already identified the sites in Odisha, Gujarat, Assam, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh where water aerodrome would be developed.

"In the first phase, Chilika Lake in Odisha, Sardar Sarovar Dam and Sabarmati River Front in Gujarat have been identified for development of water aerodromes," the official said.

Earlier, Civil Aviation Secretary R N Choubey said that his ministry was also considering a proposal to look at seaplane operation under phase III of the regional connectivity scheme UDAN.

According to the DGCA, an entity seeking to set up a water aerodrome has to take approvals from various authorities, including the ministries of defence, home, environment and forests, and shipping.

A water aerodrome licence would be valid for two years.

"Initially, a provisional licence shall be issued for a period of six months during which implementation of the water aerodrome operation is monitored...Regular licence shall be accorded after post implementation monitoring period and completion of corrective action," the DGCA said.

The formal application for setting up a water aerodrome has to be submitted at least 90 days before the date of intended operations.

Under the aviation regulations, an aerodrome cannot be used for scheduled air transport services, among others, unless there is a licence.

Generally, seaplanes are described as fixed-wing aircraft that is designed for taking off and landing on water.

In October last year, no-frills carrier SpiceJet had unveiled plans to buy over 100 amphibian planes, estimated to cost USD 400 million.

The airline had signed a memorandum of understanding with Japan's Setouchi Holdings to explore whether the amphibian planes can be used by the airline in a cost-effective manner. It has already approached the Odisha government evincing interest to operate amphibian planes from the Chilika Lake. PTI SAN SMN

SMN
(Eds: Updates with more quotes, inputs)

Mumbai, Aug 11 (PTI) Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said innovation and enterprise would be the foundation stones for a developed India, and asserted that societies that do not innovate stagnate.

The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have built brand India globally and now become an "instrument for transformation", he said.

Addressing the 56th annual convocation of IIT-Bombay, he said innovation is the buzzword of the 21st century and in order to create an environment of research, impetus is being given to higher education infrastructure.

The nation is proud of the IITs and what their graduates have achieved. The success of IITs led to setting up of several engineering colleges around the country, the prime minister said.

"They (engineering colleges) were inspired by the IITs and this led to India becoming one of the world's largest pools of technical manpower. The IITs have built brand India globally. It was the large number of IIT students who built the IT sector in India brick by brick, or should I say, click by click," Modi said.

Seven lakh engineering students pass out every year, he said, adding a collective effort was required to ensure they get high quality of education and acquire necessary skills.

Dwelling on the history of the IITs, the prime minister said they were conceptualised to contribute to nation-building post-Independence through use of technology.

He said earlier, Indians in the IT sector were considered hardworking and intelligent, now India has become the destination for IT development and IIT graduates are at the forefront of some of the best startups in the country.

"These are the startups which are also at the forefront of solving so many national problems," Modi said.

In the coming two decades, innovation and new technology will decide the trajectory of growth in the world and the role of IITs in this will be very important, he said.

"Be it 5G broadband technology, artificial intelligence, block chain technology or machine earning, these are techniques that will play an important role in the vision of smart cities," Modi said.

IITs have not just remained institution of technology learning but have become India's "instrument for transformation", the prime minister said, adding the IITs are one of the biggest source for technological revolution.

The world today sees IITs as the nursery of unicorn startups (those valued at over USD 1 billion), Modi said.

This is just the beginning as in the future their value can be over USD 1 trillion. There are dozens of USD billion startups in the world that have been launched by IITians, he said.

"Innovation and enterprise are going to be the foundation stones for making India a developed economy. Start Up India and the Atal Innovation Mission launched by the Centre have resulted in India becoming the world's second largest ecosystem for technology," the prime minister said.

"Over 10,000 startups have been nurtured and a system has been put in place to fund them. We are constantly going up in the innovation index ranking. Any society that does not innovate will stagnate. But India is emerging as a hub of startups. We must build on this further and make India the most attractive destination for innovation and infrastructure," he said.

"This will not happen by government efforts only. It will happen through youngsters like you. The best ideas do not come from government offices or fancy buildings, but come from campuses like yours," the prime minister said.

He underlined that IITs represent India's diversity, a place where students from different parts of the country and background merge in pursuit of knowledge and learning.

The prime minister also appealed to youngsters to innovate in India to combat climate change, ensure greater agriculture productivity and conversation of water.

Asserting that there are many students, who despite having talent are not able to join eminent institutions such as the IITs, Modi advised students to not to get disheartened if their hard work does not result in success, and asked them to instead focus on achieving their goals.

"It would be nice if IIT-Bombay (celebrating its diamond jubilee) launches an outreach programme for schools in the vicinity. Invite small children to the campus and encourage them to undertake scientific experiments," he said.

"You are fortunate to have lived in a campus in Mumbai where there is a lake on one side and hills on the other. Sometimes you have the company of crocodiles and leopards.

"It's still August, but the mood is indigo," Modi said, referring to IIT-B's annual college cultural festival "Mood Indigo", which is generally organised in December.

At the beginning of his 32-minute speech, the prime minister paid rich tributes to freedom fighter Khudiram Bose, who sacrificed his life for the nation exactly 110 years ago when he was just 18.

"We did not have the good fortune to die for our country. But, we can live for independent India and work for creating a new India," the prime minister said. PTI MM MR RSY NSD

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Ryan Fraser scores his team's first goal past Neil Etheridge of Cardiff City during the match between Bournemouth and Cardiff City at Vitality Stadium on August 11, 2018 in Bournemouth, United Kingdom. (Dan Mullan / Getty Images)
Thane, Aug 11 (PTI) The two businessman brothers from the district here, who were kidnapped from Kuala Lumpur last week, said the abductors spoke Tamil and warned them never to come back to Malaysia again.

Upon their return, Rohan Vaidya (36) and his brother Kaustubh Vaidya (31) told the media that a business rivalry could be the reason behind their abduction.

The brothers flew to Malaysia on August 1 after their fish export firm, Rock Frozen Food, landed an order from

the Malaysia-based Mis Lee Frozen Foods.

They had scheduled two business meetings on August 2.

After the first meeting got over at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur,

the company, which had arranged the second meeting sent a car for them, they said.

A car arrived and they got in. But to their surprise, the driver left the main road and headed for a forested area, said the duo.

Then another car caught up with them, and six men got down from it. The brothers were tied up, blindfolded and

bundled into the second car.

The kidnappers took them to an unknown destination,

and asked them to contact the family in India and convey a

demand of Rs 1 crore in ransom.

"The abductors spoke Tamil. We could not figure out most of what they were talking about," said Kaustubh Vaidya.

The duo were held captive for four days, during

which period the abductors beat them repeatedly and gave them food only once a day, the brothers said.

They also relieved the duo of Rs 66,000 in cash and

valuables such as chains and watches.

On August 6, the brothers were released by the abductors on an isolated stretch of road near the Malaysian

capital.

The two had no money. Luckily, they met an Indian-origin taxi driver who took them to their hotel, the brothers said.

Before releasing, the abductors warned them never to

come back to Malaysia again, they said.

The duo returned to India with the help of the Indian

Embassy yesterday. Before returning, the Malaysian police, who are probing the abduction, spoke to them.

While saying that a business rivalry could be the reason

behind their abduction, the brothers did not elaborate.

They also stated that their family -- which had contacted police here -- did not pay any ransom to anyone for their release. PTI CORR KRK KJ

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Partha for transparency in Jadavpur Univ admission process

Kolkata, Aug 11 (PTI) West Bengal Education minister

Partha Chatterjee has said there should be transparency in

the admission process of Jadavpur university.

Chatterjee told reporters he was fully aware of all

the developments in the JU but did not wish to interfere, when

asked about the university's decision to put on hold the

process of history admission and sit-in demonstrations of the

arts faculty students which began on August 8.

"I have been watching the developments from a distance

and if someone took up the issue with my department, we will

talk to the JU authorities to ascertain the situation," he

said here yesterday.

Without naming anyone, Chatterjee said, "We also

believe in the autonomy of JU. But those having talked about

no interference into autonomy, won't they agree to the point

that talent should be the only yard stick in assessing a

student."

The Arts Faculty Students' Union and a section of

Jadavpur University Teachers' Association had alleged the

education minister was "interfering" into the functioning of

JU.

Referring to the reports that he had suggested a

uniform admission procedure in all streams to the JU

authorities last November, Chatterjee said, "I had only

observed that there should be uniform rule in all departments.

Now, I can see many of those having sat for admission tests

(to the arts) are dissatisfied.

"My apprehensions are proving to be true as the entire

admission process is getting delayed. I heard that one having

got 98 per cent marks (plus two) board exams, got six (in

written admission test). I think there should be transparent

evaluation," he said.

The AFSU on August 9 withdrew its protest after the

Dean of Arts, Subhasis Biswas, said he was quitting from the

admission process.

The protest was held against the university's decision

to put the history admission process on hold following the

demand for review of history entrance test answer scripts of

all applicants, as raised by a section of guardians. PTI SUS

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Bru repatriation deferred, to start from Aug 25

Aizawl/Agartala, Aug 11 (PTI) The final repatriation

of 5,407 Bru refugee families from Tripura to Mizoram,

scheduled to start from August 14, was deferred to August 25,

a Mizoram home department official said here today.

However, the refugees have staged demonstrations in

camps saying their demands for more sops were not conceded.

The Mizoram official said the deferment was due to

unpreparedness of a section of the inmates of the relief camps

at Kanchanpur sub-division in North Tripura district.

As per the revised plan, the repatriation process was

expected to be completed by September 25 and not September 10,

as scheduled earlier, he said.

"There were some Bru family members who were yet to

complete the process of securing documents such as ration

card, Aadhaar card, bank account," the official said.

The decision that the repatriation would start from

August 25 was made at a meeting attended by officials of the

Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), governments of Tripura and

Mizoram and others yesterday, Additional District Magistrate

of North Tripura Aditi Majumder said.

However, Bru refugees demonstrated in their camps

saying the MHA officials did not concede to their demands of

of an Area Development Council (ADC) for them, cluster

villages, one-time cash assistance and increased land

allotment for agriculture and sustenance.

"The MHA officials have straightaway denied these

demands and said nothing more than the assurances made in the

agreement with central government can be given," Mizoram Bru

Displaced Peoples Coordination Committee (MBDPCC) president L

Laldingliana said.

The MBDPCC is a new organisation, while the Mizoram

Bru Displaced Peoples Forum (MBDPF) had signed the July 3

agreement with Centre and governments of Mizoram and Tripura

for repatriation of over 32,000 Bru refugees.

MBDPF secretary Bruno Meska also met the MHA officials

and demanded cluster villages after repatriation.

As per the agreement, the refugees would be given a

package of Rs 1.5 lakh for housing assistance, Rs 4 lakh for

sustenance, free ration for 2 years and Rs 5,000 per month.

The cash assistance would be provided after three

years of uninterrupted stay in Mizoram and housing assistance

would be given in three instalments.

A video of people agitating in refugee camps at

Kanchanpur against the repatriation offer has become viral.

Altogether 32,876 Brus belonging to 5,407 families are

lodged in six relief camps in Tripura.

The Brus are in Tripura since late 1997 in the wake of

a communal tension triggered by the murder of a forest guard

inside the Dampa Tiger Reserve on October 21, 1997 by Bru

National Liberation Front militants.

The first attempt to repatriate them in 2009 failed

and triggered another wave of exodus after the killing of a

youth three days before the commencement of the repatriation

process.

Though some Bru families had returned to Mizoram

during a number of repatriation processes and on their own,

many of them refused to leave Tripura. PTI HCV

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Bengalis in Britain may build trade ties with India: Buckneil

Kolkata, Aug 11 (PTI) British Deputy High Commissioner of

Kolkata Bruce Buckneil today called for engaging the Bengali

diaspora in Britain to build business ties with the state and

India.

"The human capital link between Bengal and Britain

remains very strong," Buckneil told reporters on the sidelines

of a meet to address the potential of West Bengal to drive the

country's 'Act East Policy'.

Bengal has fantastic assets and "I want to engage them

more to build those (business) links," Buckneil said.

In Britain, there is a large Bengali diaspora which is

unfortunately dispersed in the country. There are many Bengali

doctors and lawyers there too, he said.

The meet was organised by British Deputy High

Commission and 'powered' by The Dialogue, a think tank

dedicated to drive policy and governance reforms through

public opinion.

The British diplomat said there should just not be

flow of human capital, but there should also be the flow of

ideas and business in different countries.

He said in terms of destination for British investment

in India, West Bengal occupied the fifth largest spot.

"Business can't be forced to come to your place, you have to

make it attractive," he said.

Buckneil said that technological change was

"devastating all sorts of traditional business models. When

asked to elaborate his point, he said "AI (Artificial

Intelligence) is coming and it will take away a lot of jobs.

Automation has come to manufacturing.....that is the challenge

we all will face."

"Technology is not going to stop. We keep creating new

technology and we got to work with it, people need to work

with it," he said.

Asked to comment on employment situation in Bengal in

the new situation, he said "as a diplomat I won't say much.

All I can say to keep creating jobs you have to create right

condition for business, you have to be business friendly, you

have to keep regulations right."

Buckneil talked about Bengal's top notch performance in

leather products, jewellery and even food.

"In food, one of the biggest fast food outlets which

makes momo, had started in Kolkata," he said.

West Bengal Minister for Power and Non-conventional

Energy Sources, Sobhandev Chattopadhyay said the state "which

is surplus in power is ready with infrastructure."

Chattopadhyay referred to Chief Minister Mamata

Banerjee's successful visits to Britain and expressed

confidence in opening a lot of business opportunities in the

state.

He said from thermal power to solar energy and hydel

power, Bengal is going ahead of other states in the country.

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New Delhi, Aug 11 (PTI) A special Fugitive Economic Offenders Act court in Mumbai today issued public summons to the sister and brother of absconding diamantaire Nirav Modi, the main accused in the USD 2 billion bank fraud case, asking them to appear before it on September 25.

It said if they fail to appear, their assets will be confiscated under the newly enacted Act aimed at curbing big ticket economic crimes.

The court of M S Azmi, also the special judge for Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) cases in Mumbai, issued three public notices in leading dailies today naming Nirav Modi's sister Purvi Modi and brother Neeshal Modi as they have been "enumerated as an interested person" in an application made under the new Act by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against the diamond merchant.

The two have been charged by the ED to have indulged in money laundering and subsequently, escaping from India as the alleged scam came to light.

The notice against Purvi and Neeshal show causes them to explain as to "why the properties mentioned in the application (filed by the ED earlier), in which you have pecuniary interest and/or otherwise, should not be confiscated under the said Ordinance (now the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act)."

The court has asked the duo to appear before it on September 25 at 11 am, the same date on which Nirav has also been summoned by it under the Fugitive Economic Offenders Act.

The third public notice against Nirav Modi asked him to depose on the same date and time as it said that he is accused in a money laundering case and "as you have left India and are refusing to come back to face trial in that case, you should be declared a fugitive under the above-mentioned Ordinance (now the Act)."

Therefore, the judge said in the public declaration, "I issue notice to you (Nirav) to show cause as to why the said application for declaring you a fugitive should not be allowed and as to why the the properties mentioned in the application, in which you have pecuniary interest and/or otherwise, should not be confiscated under the said Ordinance (now the Act)."

"I, therefore, direct Nirav Deepak Modi to remain present before me... on or before September 25 at 11 AM falling which the said application shall be proceeded with as per the Ordinance/Rules thereafter," the notice said.

The notice bears two addressees of Nirav --4, Grosvenor House, 2nd floor on Peddar Road and four flats in Samudra Mahal apartments on Dr Annie Besant Road-- in Mumbai.

The same court had on July 25 issued the summons to Nirav Modi after the ED made an application seeking to declare the designer diamond jeweller a 'fugitive economic offender'.

It had issued a similar notice of appearance under the fugitive law against Nirav Modi's uncle and co-accused in the case Mehul Choksi and had asked him to appear before it the next day-- on September 26.

The agency had moved the court seeking to declare the diamond traders as 'fugitive economic offenders' and to confiscate their assets worth Rs 3,500 crore in the case.

The central probe agency, empowered to enforce the new law brought out by the Modi government to curb big economic crimes and to check the escape of perpetrators from India, had filed two separate applications against the them.

The ED, earlier, had moved a similar application against businessman Vijay Mallya in the Rs 9,000-crore alleged bank loan fraud case and the court has summoned him for August 27.

In this case of the diamantaires, the agency seeks to confiscate assets, both movable and immovable, including those located in the United Kingdom and the UAE.

The move has been made on the basis of the two PMLA charge sheets filed by the agency against the two designer diamond jewellers on charges of alleged money laundering.

"Investigations have revealed that Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi have committed the offence of cheating against Punjab National Bank (PNB) in connivance with certain bank officials by fraudulently getting the LOUs/FLCs issued without following prescribed procedure and caused a wrongful loss to the bank.

"They have further siphoned off the proceeds of crime so generated through layering through multiple dummy, related, connected entities in India and abroad," the agency had said in its application.

Nirav Modi and Choksi are being investigated by the ED and the CBI after it was detected that they allegedly cheated PNB of more than Rs 13,400 crore with the purported involvement of a few of its employees.

The scam, which reportedly began in 2011, was detected in January this year, after which PNB officials reported it to the probe agencies.

Two criminal complaints were filed by the ED in these instances after taking cognisance of CBI FIRs.

Non-bailable warrants were issued against the two, while an Interpol 'red corner' arrest warrant has been issued against Nirav Modi on the request of the ED.

The ED had conducted 260 searches in this case across the country.

The Fugitive Economic Offenders Act came into force from July 31.

Cases of frauds, cheque dishonour or loan default of over Rs 100 crore would come under the ambit of this ordinance.

The government has said the ordinance offers necessary constitutional safeguards in terms of providing hearing to the person through counsel, allowing him time to file a reply, serving notice of summons to him, whether in India or abroad and appeal before the high court.PTI NES ANB

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New Delhi, Aug 11 (PTI) BJP ally and LJP chief Ram Vilas Paswan today questioned the pro-Dalit credentials of opposition parties including Congress and fired off fourteen questions seeking reply from its president Rahul Gandhi.

Lok Janshakti Party (LJP) president also hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the quick passage of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities bill) in the Parliament to address concerns of Dalits and tribals.

"I want to ask Rahul Gandhi, he claims himself to be a well wisher of Dalits, but why did his party stand against Dalit icon B R Ambedkar when he contested Lok Sabha elections twice? Why there was no portrait of Ambedkar in Parliament's Central hall while there were portraits of three members of the Nehru family? Why his party did not award Ambedkar with Bharat Ratna when it was in power while filmstars were awarded?," Paswan asked Gandhi while addressing members from Dalit community and party workers here.

Other questions raised by the Union Minister were, why OBC commission was not granted constitutional status during Congress rule, and non-construction of memorials where Ambedkar was born, where he lived (in Delhi, Mumbai, Nagpur) and London where he died.

Congratulating the Prime Minister for the passage of a bill in Parliament to amend the atrocities act, Paswan said, "we were confident that the bill will be passed but were not hoping that it will happen so soon that a Cabinet meeting will be called during Parliament session only and the bill will be subsequently passed by Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. I want to now ask the opposition parties that why are we called anti-Dalits?"

The Dalit leader also accused BSP chief Mayawati of playing "double standards" saying her government had issued a guideline in October 2007 against the misuse of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and said that police should register a case only after probing a complaint made under this law.

Questioning the Samajwadi Party Paswan said, "when all parties were in favour of a bill for reservation in promotion for Dalits why did SP oppose it then? Like all the opposition parties, they are also anti-Dalits and so is the grand alliance".

The Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities amendmennt bill) which overturns the Supreme Court order concerning certain safeguards against arrest under the SC and ST law was passed by the Parliament on Thursday.

The bill which got the nod of Lok Sabha on August 6 rules out any provision for anticipatory bail for a person accused of atrocities against SC/STs not withstanding any court order. It also provides that no preliminary enquiry will be required for registering a criminal case and an arrest under this law will not be subject to any approval. PTI GJS KR RCJ

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Jodhpur, Aug 11 (PTI) Amidst unabated poaching of chinkaras and black bucks, attacks by stray dogs and accidents caused by barbed wire fences were adding to the rising deaths of the endangered antelopes in Rajasthan's Jodhpur and Barmer districts, activists said today.

The deaths caused by the two factors were surging in the antelope populated areas with two to three animals dying everyday, said Rampal Bhawad, President of the Bishnoi Tiger Force, a wildlife vigilante group based in Jodhpur.

Earlier, the group had urged the state government to help them catch the stray dogs and also provide land in the villages where the mongrels can be kept after being sterilised by their volunteers.

"We have been planning to push this demand by launching a movement very soon,, Bhawad said.

Corroborating his views, veterinarian Sharavan Singh Rathore said the existence of chinkaras and black bucks in the region was under threat but the surprisingly the authorities were not dealing with the issue seriously.

Rathore said when the animals go to the watering holes, the stray dogs attack and kill them. Also, in the rainy season, the soil turns marshy and the animals get stuck in it becoming easy prey, he added.

The wildlife lovers and environmentalists demanded sterilisation of the stray dogs to curb their swelling population and effective rescue measures to save the antelopes. They threatened to launch a movement if their demands were not met.

The Akhil Bhartiya Jeev Raksha Bishnoi Sabha also called upon its activists in the most affected areas to begin a campaign to catch the dogs and drop them at a distant but safe location.

Similarly, while running away from their predators, the antelopes get killed or seriously injured as they entangle themselves in the barbed wire fences installed in several farms in the villages.

They run very fast and are unable to spot the wire fencing. They get entangled and die in most of the cases either by injury, shock or are caught by the dogs, said Rathore.

However, a forest official rued that due to the limited resources, the support of locals was needed to protect the animals.

"They (locals) keep the dogs to protect their farms in the villages... The dogs hunt meek animals like chinkaras and black bucks, he said. PTI CORR RHL

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Chennai, Aug 11 (PTI) Trial in the illegal telephone exchange case, in which former telecom minister Dayanidhi Maran and six others are accused, will re-commence on August 17, two weeks after the Madras High court allowed the appeal by the CBI against discharging all the accused in the case.

Additional Judge for CBI cases R Vasanthi today posted the case to August 17 for framing charges.

The special CBI court had on March 14 discharged Dayanidhi Maran, his brother Kalanithi Maran and five other accused, holding there was no prima facie case against them.

The CBI then filed a Criminal Revision Petition (CRP) in the high court, challenging the discharge.

Allowing the CRP, the high court on July 25 set aside the CBI court order discharging Dayanidhi Maran and others in the case of alleged setting up of "illegal" telephone exchanges to benefit the Sun TV Network of his brother Kalanithi.

Allowing the CBI's appeal against their discharge, Justice G Jaichandran had directed the special court to frame charges and conclude the trial within a year from the date of receipt of the copy of the high court order.

The court had said it was fully satisfied that heaps of material are available to frame charges against all accused.

"None of the reasons given by the trial court to discharge them is sustained in law. The trial court judge had totally forgotten the fact that he should only weigh the probability of the case for framing charges," the high court had said.

The case relates to the time when Dayanidhi Maran, grandnephew of late DMK chief M Karunanidhi, was the minister for communications and information technology in the UPA 1 government.

The CBI has alleged he misused his official position and got installed private telephone exchanges at his residences here which were used for business transactions of the Sun Network.

Kalanithi Maran, a billionaire businessman, is the chairman and founder of the Sun Group, which owns several media houses.

According to the CBI, over 700 high-end telecommunication lines were installed at their residences in Boat Club and Gopalapuram areas of the city, for which bills were not raised, causing the exchequer a loss of Rs 1.78 crore. PTI Corr APR IJT

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Dalai Lama concerned over sectarian clashes in Middle East

Bengaluru,Aug 11 (PTI) Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai

Lama today rued sectarian clashes among Muslims in the Middle

East, saying killing in the name of religion is unthinkable.

He emphasised that developing oneness amongpeople would

solve various crisis the world is facing today.

Referring to countries like Afghanistan, Syria and other

Islamic nations, the Dalai Lama said, "They all follow the

same god Allah, same Quran, every day (offer) five time

prayers. Yet they are killing each other. It's unthinkable,

really.

Killing due to political power or economic interest is

somewhat understandable. In the name of religion killing each

other is unthinkable. But it is a fact and it is happening,"

he said.

The Dalai Lama was delivering a lecture here on the

topic 'Courage and compassion in the 21st century', which was

organised by Vana Foundation under their Vidyaloke initiative.

Emphasising that developing oneness among seven billion

people is his major commitment, he was all praise for India

for its religious harmony and tolerance.

Though the country has various homegrown religious

traditions such as Sankhyaism, Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism

besides Judaism, Christianity, Zoroastrianism and Islam, they

had all settled here peacefully and harmoniously, he said.

"India is a big country with over a billion population,

but religious tolerance, religious harmony are there. So

therefore religious harmony is very much possible.

We always say India is the only example that different

religioustraditions can live together," the Dalai Lama said.

He also hailed Shias and Sunnis living together in India

peacefully in contrast with the situation in Muslim nations,

where they often clash with each other.

The Tibetan leader rued that religion today has become a

factor to divide people, whose job is to bring inner peace,

love, forgiveness, tolerance and self-discipline.

The Dalai Lama also pointed out that his mission was to

revive ancient Indian spiritual traditions in their original

form, whether it be Buddhism, Jainism or Vedic traditions.

He urged people to understand the Nalanda tradition of

Buddhism, which originated in India and is still preserved

with the Tibetans. PTI GMS RA APR

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The struggle is real: Once he got to Hollywood, the young actor kept landing small roles in Disney Channel and Nickelodeon projects. But by 18, his parents were worried about his career prospects and tried to convince him to go to college. My parents were, like, Weve been out here for almost three years and you havent made it as an actor. They didnt see it. I wasnt on my own show. I wasnt famous. He begged them to let him try acting for just a few more months, and then he landed a role on Freeforms The Fosters, on which he starred for three years.
Vaiko joins demand to confer Bharat Ratna on Karunanidhi

Chennai, Aug 11 (PTI) MDMK chief Vaiko today demanded

that the Centre posthumously confer Bharat Ratna on

M Karunanidhi a day after DMK raised a similar demand in

Parliament.

While paying tribute to Karunanidhi, Vaiko said in a

statement that 'Kalaignar' (as Karunanidhi is fondly called)

received love and affection from people across the country and

urged the centre to confer the Bharat Ratna on the late leader

as part of honouring him.

Yesterday, during the Zero Hour in Rajya Sabha, DMK

member 'Tiruchi' Siva asked the Centre to 'posthumously'

confer Bharat Ratna on Karunanidhi as a tribute to his

exemplary work for the people.

Many members, including Leader of Opposition Ghulam Nabi

Azad, supported Siva's demand.

Meanwhile, DMK working president M K Stalin along with

senior party leaders paid floral tributes at Karunanidhi's

burial site on the Marina beachfront.

As people continue to throng the site, party MLA J

Anbhazhagan said arrangements have been made to serve free

food and water to them.PTI VIJ VGN BN

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Telangana govt to take steps for welfare of 'Rajaka' community

Hyderabad, Aug 11 (PTI) Telangana Chief Minister K

Chandrasekhar Rao today said the state government would take

concrete measures for the social, financial and educational

uplift of the 'Rajaka' (washermen) community.

The government has already allocated Rs 250 crore for

the welfare of the community and it is ready to provide more

funds if required, Rao told representatives of the community

in a meeting, according to a release from the Chief Minister's

office.

"The chief minister made it clear that the government

is ready to implement the programmes as desired by them," it

said.

The government would take a policy decision on

entrusting the job of washing clothes in government hospitals,

state-run hostels, residential schools and all other

governmental organisations to the Rajaka community members, it

said.

Rao also said the state government would construct a

building in Hyderabad for the social and educational

development of 'Yerukala' community.

The necessary land for the construction of the

building would be allocated by the government and it would

also bear the expenditure for construction, he said.

Rao also said special programmes would be designed for

provision of employment opportunities to the Yerukala

community members, the release added. PTI SJR

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IT professional dies after falling off 6th floor of building

Mumbai, Aug 11 (PTI) A 32-year-old Information

Technology professional, who had just returned from Belgium,

died after falling off the sixth floor of a residential

building in Santacruz suburb of Mumbai, police said today.

Tejas Dubey fell from an open window of his flat in PK

Arch building in Vakola area yesterday, police said, adding

that preliminary reports have suggested that the deceased was

drunk at the time of the incident.

"Dubey had returned from Belgium on Thursday. He went

to sleep in his room after reportedly being exhausted due to

jet lag following a 12-14 hour flight. The French window of

the room in which he was sleeping was open and did not have a

grill," the official said.

The police official said that Dubey went near the

window at around 5:30am yesterday and his fall may have been

caused by sleepiness.

"He died on the spot. An Accidental Death Report has

been taken at Vakola police station and further probe is

underway," the official said.

Sources said that the incident happened a day before

the birthday of the deceased's wife. PTI DC BNM BNM BNM

RYS RYS

RYS
New Delhi, Aug 11 (PTI) A 32-year-old man has been arrested for allegedly smuggling fake Indian currency notes into India from Bangladesh, police said today.

Fake currency notes of face value of Rs 7.50 lakh were seized from him, they said.

Deepak Mandal was arrested with fake Indian currency notes in the denomination of Rs 2000, they said.

Based on a tip off, police laid a trap at the DTC bus depot, Khanpur, on August 9. The accused had come to deliver a consignment to one of his contacts. Subsequently, he was arrested.

During interrogation, Mandal revealed that he had been circulating fake Indian currency notes to his contacts based in Delhi, UP, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Maharashtra for about 12 years. PTI AMP GVS

GVS
Rockwell Collins, Inc. designs, produces, and supports communications and aviation systems worldwide. The company's Interior Systems segment offers commercial aircraft seats; galley structures, food and beverage preparation equipment, and water and waste systems; oxygen and passenger service equipment; cabin lighting systems; and business jet and general aviation interior products. Its Commercial Systems segment provides cabin management systems; data link, frequency, very high frequency, and satellite communications systems; landing, radio navigation, and geophysical sensors, and flight management systems; situational awareness and surveillance systems and products; integrated flight controls; simulation and training systems; maintenance, repair, parts, and after-sales support services, and aftermarket used equipment. The company's Government Systems segment provides communications systems and products; radio navigation products, global positioning system equipment, and multi-mode receivers; avionics systems; precision targeting, electronic warfare, and training systems; simulation and training systems; space wheels; visual system products; maintenance, repair, parts, and after-sales support services, and aftermarket used equipment. Its Information Management Services segment offers voice and data communication services; flight support services; airport communications and information systems; train dispatching and information systems; mission critical security systems; and cabin connectivity solutions. The company serves original equipment manufacturers of commercial air transport, business and regional aircraft, commercial airlines, U.S. Department of Defense, other ministries of defense, other government agencies, defense contractors, the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, and passenger and freight railroads, as well as airport, critical infrastructure, and business aircraft operators. The company was founded in 1933 and is headquartered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa.

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The boat had traveled into the canal near the 2800 block of South Damen Avenue on the South Side when it flipped around 1:45 a.m., according to the Chicago Fire Department.
Gerresheimer AG, together with its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells specialty glass, plastic products, and drug delivery-devices and solutions primarily worldwide. It operates through three divisions: Plastics & Devices, Primary Packaging Glass, and Advanced Technologies. The Plastics & Devices division offers drug delivery systems, including inhalers, pen systems, and injection systems; sterile and non-sterile syringe systems for the pharmaceutical and biotech industries; and disposables for various analysis systems that are used in laboratories and medical practices, quick tests for patients in medical practices or hospitals, skin-prick aids and lancets for diabetics, disposables, and components for dialysis machines, and catheters and surgical devices. It also provides containers for the delivery of tablets and powders, liquid dosages, ophthalmic and rhinological applications, parenteral packaging applications, oral prescription medications, and cosmetics. The Primary Packaging Glass division offers glass primary packaging for pharma and cosmetics industries, such as ampoules, cartridges, vials, syrup and dropper bottles, tablet jars, and wide-neck jars, as well as injection, infusion, and transfusion bottles; flacons and pots for fragrances, deodorants, and care and decorative cosmetics; and bottles and jars for spirits and food. The Advanced Technologies division develops drug delivery products and platforms, such as micro pumps, which are used to self-administer medication for heart failure or Parkinson's for pharmaceutical and biotech customers. The company was founded in 1864 and is headquartered in DAsseldorf, Germany.

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Corinth

A committee is working to turn the site of the former International Paper Company headquarters in Corinth, which celebrates its bicentennial anniversary this year, into a museum.

"We are still figuring out the direction it will take," said Maureen Kelly, who is a member of the committee.

Related: Road trip: Saratoga County destinations you may have missed

Exhibits will likely cover the history of the site as well as how the paper industry grew from using the Hudson River, the environmental impact of the paper industry on the wood supply, the process of making paper and labor unions and strikes at the site, said Stephen Cernek, the project's director.

"There are several different stories to tell," said Cernek, a historian who spent five summers working at the mill.

There will likely also be a segment about workers and their families, which might include an oral history, and the group is reaching out to community members to gather input. Many people have contributed memorabilia, Kelly said.

While people are more familiar with International Paper's presence in the community, less is known about Hudson River Pulp and Paper, a company that arrived at the site in 1869, Cernek said. They were "pioneers" in making paper from pulp and developing different paper- and pulp-making technologies. Newsprint, paper for can labels and glossy magazine paper was made at the mill.

At the time it was "widely considered the largest company of its kind" and was the "crown jewel" of the area, he added. When International Paper formed in 1898, they bought the Hudson River Pulp and Paper mill at the site and combined a total of 17 mills in establishing the company. Cernek is planning to include information about Hudson River Pulp and Paper's history at the site in the museum.

The mill was once the economic locus of the village and employed hundreds of workers, who came into the building through the front doors to have their time cards stamped and receive their paychecks. Board meetings were held upstairs, where International Paper's administrative offices were located. The company closed the mill in 2002.

Last year the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places. It is the only site in Corinth on the register, Cernek said.

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The committee has applied for nonprofit status and is looking at different funding and design options for the building, which requires renovation and restoration. There's currently a meeting area on the ground floor, which includes a wall painting showing the mill and Palmer Falls.

In addition to preserving the building, the committee wants to capture the site's history, Cernek said.

"We want to interpret the role and importance of the mill at Palmer Falls, not only for the history of the pulp and paper industry in upstate New York but also for its role in the development of Corinth and its relationship to its environment," he said.

More information about the project can be found at facebook.com/HudsonRiverMillMuseum.
Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., reversed course Saturday morning and announced he was suspending his campaign for re-election, days after federal prosecutors charged him with insider trading.

Collins, who was the first member of Congress to endorse Donald Trump for president in 2016, had initially vowed to stay on the ballot this fall but said Saturday that he had decided it was "in the best interests" of his district, "the Republican Party and President Trump's agenda" to suspend his bid.

Federal prosecutors have charged Collins with using his seat on the board of a small Australia-based drug company, Innate Immunotherapeutics, to tip off his son and others that the company had failed a critical scientific trial before that information was made public.

His son and others allegedly dumped shares in a frantic rush and averted hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses.

"I look forward to having my good name cleared of any wrongdoing," Collins said Saturday, adding that he would stay in Congress through the rest of his term.

His western New York congressional district, which covers the areas between Buffalo and Rochester, is one of the state's most conservative, and one in which Trump had his strongest showing in New York, with nearly 60 percent of the vote in 2016.

Collins' indictment immediately thrust his seat onto the national battleground map. But how the suspension of his campaign would play out was not immediately clear. The process to get off the ballot can be onerous in New York, and Collins did not say how he would remove himself.

One Republican official familiar with the discussions said the party would probably try to nominate Collins for a county clerkship somewhere else in New York, in an effort to meet the legal requirements to remove him from the congressional ballot.

But further complicating matters are New York's byzantine election laws: Collins is slated to be on the ballot not just on the Republican line but also as an Independence Party candidate. That party, too, would have to agree and find a way to remove him.

The Democratic candidate in the race, Nate McMurray, the town supervisor of Grand Island, had only $80,000 in his campaign account when the indictment was announced  far less than is typically needed to wage an aggressive challenge.

McMurray had not been the preferred candidate of Democratic leaders in New York, led by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, who had recruited Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul for the seat. She declined and instead ran for re-election.

One Republican said the party hoped to run Stefan Mychajliw, the Erie County comptroller, to replace Collins, though others are also expected to jockey for the party's nomination. In a preview of what will most likely be a polarized and partisan race over the next three months, Mychajliw called McMurray "radical" three times in a four-paragraph statement.

If Republicans can successfully remove Collins, whoever they replace him with would have an edge given the district's conservative tilt.

Even after the indictment of Collins, nonpartisan political handicappers said the seat would be a steep climb for Democrats.

"I respect Chris Collins' decision to step down while he faces these serious allegations," Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio, the chairman of the House Republican campaign committee, said in a statement. "As I've said before, Congress must hold ourselves to the highest possible standard."

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Democrats hope to use the details of the charges against Collins outlined in the indictment to help paint both the Trump administration and the Republican-controlled Congress with the broad brush of a "culture of corruption."

While no other Republicans in Congress have been charged with any wrongdoing related to Innate Immunotherapeutics, five other lawmakers also purchased stock in the company in January 2017: John Culberson of Texas; Michael K. Conaway of Texas; Doug Lamborn of Colorado; Billy Long of Missouri, and Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma. The latter two serve on the same health subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee as Collins.

Geoffrey S. Berman, the U.S. attorney in Manhattan who announced the indictment, declined to say if other lawmakers were currently under investigation. "No comment," he said Wednesday after the charges were announced against Collins.

The issue of Innate first burst into public a year and a half ago, when it was revealed that Tom Price, Trump's nominee to serve as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, had received privileged shares of the drug company, in which Collins was the largest shareholder.

Price resigned last September in an unrelated scandal about his use of chartered flights.

In announcing the indictment of Collins, Berman said, "Congressman Collins, who by virtue of his office helps write the laws of our nation, acted as if the law did not apply to him."

Collins, who had previously faced an ethics investigation in Congress for his dual role as congressman and investor in Innate, had told investigators that he hoped the drug company, which was testing an experimental treatment for multiple sclerosis, would be a key part of his legacy in life.

"Of all the things I will accomplish in my life," Collins told investigators, "this will be No. 1 on my tombstone."
Washington

On Christmas Eve in 1998, five days after the House impeached President Bill Clinton, Brett Kavanaugh urged his boss  Kenneth Starr, the independent counsel  not to pursue a criminal indictment of Clinton until after he left office.

Kavanaugh, now President Donald Trump's nominee to fill the Supreme Court seat left vacant by the retirement of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, delivered the advice in a private memorandum made public Friday by the National Archives in response to a Freedom of Information Act request.

It shows that Kavanaugh believed  rightly, it turned out  that the Senate would fail to convict the president for the "high crimes and misdemeanors" that Starr and Kavanaugh had enumerated for Congress in the wake of Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky.

"After the Senate has concluded, I would send a letter to the attorney general explaining that we believe an indictment should not be pursued while the president is in office," Kavanaugh wrote. He urged Starr to close the independent counsel's office, which had spent four years pursuing Clinton, so "the next president can decide what to do."

Kavanaugh's position is consistent with the doubts about the Starr inquiry that he offered publicly and privately even as he helped investigate Clinton. Earlier that year, he had told a legal symposium that he did not believe a sitting president could be indicted.

That view is likely to be welcomed by Trump, who could find himself the subject of a similar debate as Robert Mueller, the special counsel, is investigating whether Trump or his associates conspired with Russians to meddle in the 2016 elections or obstructed justice by lying to investigators about the case.

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But it may also prompt questions from Democratic senators at his confirmation hearing later this year. Democrats say they want to quiz Kavanaugh on his views of executive power and whether he can fairly deal with issues involving the Mueller investigation that might come before the Supreme Court.

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, announced Friday that Kavanaugh's confirmation hearing will take place on Sept. 4 as Republicans push to seat Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court by the time the next term begins in early October.

Democrats have criticized the Republicans for rushing the confirmation process before releasing all the relevant documents from Kavanaugh's time working in the Bush White House. Just a fraction of the hundreds of thousands of those documents have been publicly released.
TROY - The NATURE Lab is continuing in a revitalized building its mission to bring together art, science and media to help revitalize North Central, the citys poorest neighborhood, by awakening environmental awareness.

The Sanctuary for Independent Media has operated the lab's programs since 2013 using small quarters in a multiuse building at 3334 Sixth Ave. It will move across the street to 3319 Sixth Ave., an abandoned building purchased for $7,500 from the Troy Community Land Bank.

The name NATURE Lab is an acronym for North Troy Art, Technology and Urban Research in Ecology. It hosts artists and provides opportunities for people to explore their creativity with projects related to the surrounding environment.

Cameron Toler, the New York City-based architect and designer for the $250,000 grant-funded project, said it's been a community collaboration to regenerate the unused hulk of a building.

Its been great. The project is a chance for people to cooperate and design, said Toler, who is in private practice and belongs to the Open Architecture Collaborative, a social justice group that works with communities on projects.

Students, residents and volunteers devised ways for transforming the building. Toler advised them to knock down walls on their plans and use their imaginations.

With a building this old, its easier than with a well-maintained building, Toler said about gutting the residential structure to repurpose as a center for learning and connecting residents to their local environment.

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There will be display space that could show lead pipes and lead paint so residents are aware of environmental and health issues in their homes and other local buildings. And there are plans for experiments involving water from the Hudson River that is just a two-block walk to the west.

The Sanctuary for Independent Media has been developing projects since moving 13 years ago into its building, a former Lutheran Church, at 3361 Sixth Ave. The new NATURE Lab has been about five years in the works. Construction is expected to begin this fall and take two years to complete.

The space the lab occupies at 3334 Sixth Ave. will be converted into housing for visiting artists or interns, said Steve Pierce, executive director of the nonprofit Media Alliance that operates the Sanctuary.

The lab ties together the Sanctuarys work with the media, culture, the environment and the community, Pierce said, "We have high hopes for it.
ALBANY  An audit of the state's Medicaid program found that certain types of claims were being processed incorrectly, resulting in more than $10 million worth of inappropriate or excess payments, the state comptroller's office announced Thursday.

The audit covered from April through September 2017 and examined the state Health Department's eMedNY computer system that processes Medicaid claims submitted by health care providers.

Over that six-month period, providers submitted 193 million claims and were reimbursed more than $31 billion. Most of the claims were processed and reimbursed correctly, but $10.2 million worth of claims were not, the comptroller's office said, highlighting the need for improvements in processing certain types of claims, including:

$3.7 million worth of claims that were billed with incorrect information related to other insurance that recipients had;

$3.1 million in overpayments for Medicaid claims involving Medicare coverage;

$1.3 million in incorrect newborn birth claims;

$783,016 in inappropriate fee-for-service payments when the recipient had managed care;

$684,457 in excess claims for the Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program;

$465,257 in improper episodic home health care payments; and

$172,052 in other overpayments.

By the end of the audit fieldwork, about $4.5 million in overpayments were recovered, the report noted, and the Health Department said it will work with the Office of the Medicaid Inspector General to recoup the rest.

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"The department stands by its extremely high rate of payment accuracy (99.7 percent of payments reviewed by the audit)," department spokeswoman Erin Silk said in an email. "As the audit points out, measures are currently in place to ensure that correct payments are made to qualified providers."

Auditors also identified 51 health care providers who participate in the state Medicaid program and were charged with or found guilty of crimes that violate health care program laws and regulations. The Health Department terminated 42 of them.

There is some question of whether $292,681 that was paid to five of them from the time they were charged with a crime until they were terminated should be paid back. The comptroller's office has recommended the department make a determination one way or the other.
We have tragically witnessed the profound wounds inflicted upon victims when an abusive leader surrounds himself with those who are supposed to hold him accountable, but instead find themselves protecting and defending him, while at the same time ignoring and vilifying those he has wounded, said Boz Tchividjian, who represented a group of former congregants who made some of the allegations. He is a founder of a nonprofit group that helps victims of sexual abuse and abuse of power by clergy members. I celebrate those who stepped forward and through their choir of voices boldly brought much needed light and truth to a dark place. They are the heroes.
TROY  A 38-year-old Syracuse man pleaded guilty to drugs and weapons possession Friday in Rensselaer County Court, District Attorney Joel Abelove said.

Juan J. Rodriguez pleaded guilty to first-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and second-degree criminal possession of weapon in return for a sentence of 15 years in prison and five years of post-release supervision.

Rodriguez was on parole for a 5 to 15 years prison sentence for first-degree manslaughter from a 2004 conviction in Onondaga County. Judge Debra Young will sentence Rodriguez Aug. 31 with his prison term to run consecutive to the manslaughter sentence.

Rodriguez and a passenger, Allens R. Batista-Rivera, were arrested on I-90 in Schodack by State Police. Troopers discovered a trap in the vehicle containing approximately two kilograms of cocaine and two loaded handguns. There was also $2,850.00 recovered in the vehicle, Abeloves office said.

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Batista-Rivera previously pleaded guilty to fourth-degree conspiracy and was sentenced to time served.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the length of the prison sentence Juan J. Rodriguez would received under the terms of a plea bargain. He will serve 15 years in prison.
Saratoga Springs

The Saratoga paddock, just as it was the first time, was full of rubbernecking race fans.

Also, just like the first time, there were plenty of paparazzi in there to chronicle just about every move the peculiar-looking horse made.

And, just as he did the first time he showed up in a race at Saratoga Race Course, Southern Phantom lost.

The 2-year-old colt with one brown eye, another blue and a face that looks like it was dipped in a bucket of white paint, improved in his second career start, but that only good for a third-place finish in the second race at the Spa on Saturday afternoon.

Southern Phantom, ridden by Kendrick Carmouche, finished two and a half lengths behind Unionizer, who was ridden by Junior Alvarado and trained by Bill Mott. Second place went to 24-1 shot Johny's Bobby, who was a head in front of Southern Phantom. The final time for the race was 1:26.29.

Southern Phantom was sent off as the 7-2 second choice as part of an entry with Speed App. Unionizer went off at 8-1 odds. The favorite was the Todd Pletcher-trained Chief Executive, who was fourth at 4-5.

"I thought he ran very good," Karmouche said as he walked through the clubhouse on the way back to the jockey's room. "He's still a little green."

This race was run at seven furlongs over a track that was labeled as "good." A light drizzle was coming down when the nine horses were loaded into the gate. Southern Phantom was coming off a fifth-place finish in his debut after getting a slow start in that 51/2-furlong race.

Southern Phantom, a son of Bodemeister, got off to a much better start in this race as Carmouche hustled him out of the gate from the outside post (nine). He was advancing heading into the turn, but that's when the rookie in the horse came through.

"I thought I had a lot of horse around the turn," Carmouche said. "When I went to ride him, he came off the bit a little bit. I am sure, with time, he will develop."

Trainer Eric Guillot was not discouraged with the effort either. After the race, he met with a modest group of media in the winner's circle to talk about the effort. He thinks that as the races get longer, Southern Phantom will get better.

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In fact, Guillot is still gung-ho on the idea of running the colt back in the Grade I, $350,000 Hopeful here at seven furlongs on Labor Day. That depends, of course, on how the horse comes out of Saturday's race.

Guillot is not afraid of running in a maiden in big races. He said he has won four stakes races with horses that have not won a race. He did it here in 2016 when he won the Jim Dandy with Laoban.

"I have said this many times," Guillot said. "When my partner (Mike Moreno, owner of Equine Stables) points to the fence, do you think he wants to hit a double? Is he good enough to compete against the top horses now? No. I don't think so. He might be, but not yet."

One thing Southern Phantom hasn't lost is his popularity. Besides the people that came to look at him in the paddock, Guillot said his horse is still getting visits at the barn.

"Of course the people want him to win," Guillot said. "There was a line a mile long coming to take his picture."

twilkin@timesunion.com  518-454-5415  @tjwilkin
Saratoga Springs

Wonder Gadot got up early Friday morning. So did Mark Casse, the trainer of the 3-year-old filly.

Casse sent the horse, who is named for Wonder Woman actress Gal Gadot, to the track at 5:45 a.m. for a half-mile work, her first since arriving at Saratoga Race Course on July 30.

With exercise rider Chris Garraway in the saddle, Wonder Gadot, was timed in 48.1 seconds. It was her first work since winning the second leg of the Canadian Triple Crown, the Prince of Wales at Fort Erie, on July 24. She also won the first leg, the Queen's Plate at Woodbine on June 30.

Both of those starts came against Canadian-bred colts. She'll tackle the best 3-year-old colts in training when she runs in the $1.25 million Travers here on Aug. 25.

"She did well," Casse said, sitting in his office on the backstretch. "I told (Garraway) to ease her away from the pole and that I wanted her to go in 48 (seconds). She went the first eighth (of a mile) in just short of 13 (seconds). So, I radioed him and told him to let her pick it up. And, boy, when he asked her to go, she took off. Then I told (Garraway) to slow her down because she was going too fast.

Wonder Gadot, who is attempting to become the first filly since 1915 to win the Travers, will have a day of walking on Saturday. The sweet tempered filly may very well be a handful, Casse said.

"By the time she got her bath (Friday morning) and was ready to go in (the shedrow) and walk, she wanted to kick everybody," Casse said. "That's her. She feels good. (Saturday) is her walk day and when she is out walking, everyone is going to have to watch out because she will be wild. That shows that we are not getting to the bottom of her."

Casse said Wonder Gadot will have her final Travers work Friday and it will likely be at the same time and distance.

Catholic Boy

Catholic Boy, who was once on the Triple Crown trail and then had success on the grass, is also getting ready for the Travers. He worked five furlongs in 59.66 seconds on Monday on the main track with jockey Javier Castellano aboard.

"We're happy with what he did out there on the main track," trainer Jonathan Thomas said at his barn on the backstretch Friday morning. "Everything is in play at the moment. We're just taking it week by week."

That was his second work at the Spa following his win in the Grade I Belmont Derby Invitational Stakes on the grass on July 7.

Catholic Boy went to turf after a fourth-place finish in the Florida Derby finished his Triple Crown aspirations. Thomas said the horse bled badly in that race and Catholic Boy was given time off.

He returned to win the Pennine Ridge at Belmont on June 2 and then the Belmont Derby. The wins came by a neck and a head, respectively. And now, it's time to go back to the dirt.

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"Every time we have put a bridle on him, he's tried, so I don't see why this (Travers) would be any different,"Thomas said.

Tale of the Cat

In 1985, trainer Ned Allard won the Grade I Alabama at Saratoga with Mom's Command. Three years later he took the Grade III Seneca with Fuller's Folly. He returned to the Spa on Friday and won another stake, although it was an ungraded one. That didn't bother Allard one bit.

His horse, Always Sunshine won the $100,000 Tale of the Cat by two lengths over My Boy Tate.

"It's been a while since I came to Saratoga and done that," Allard said. "It was fun."

Always Sunshine, who shipped here from Parx in Pennsylvania, was ridden by Frankie Pennington, who got her first Saratoga win.

"Can't ask for anything better than this," Pennington said.

Always Sunshine, who has won eight of 21 career starts on dirt, won the six-furlong race in a time of 1:09.79. Sent off at odds of 5-2, the 6-year-old horse paid $7.20, $3.90 and $2.60.

twilkin@timesunion.com  518-454-5415  @tjwilkin
The announcement by Minister for Agriculture Michael Creed of a scheme to assist farmers hit by the drought has been welcomed by two of the country's main farm organisations.

ICSA tillage chairman Gavin Carberry welcomed the announcement last week by Minister Creed that an incentive scheme has been put in place to assist tillage farmers with the production of additional fodder.

ICSA has been adamant over recent weeks that support measures for tillage farmers were urgently needed. It is encouraging that the Minister has listened to these calls, and is now putting some of those measures in place, he said.

Under the initiative tillage farmers will receive 155/ha for additional ground sown to short term grasses and 100/ha for catch crops such as fodder rape, turnips etc, in excess of what was already committed to under GLAS. This will be payable on areas from 3-50 ha.

In addition, it will be permissible to sow Italian ryegrass.

While there will be no grant aid specifically for Italian ryegrass, farmers will be able to use it to bolster their own fodder supplies as well as selling it on as silage.

It was vital that the incentive is in place immediately with no red tape so that farmers can get the crops sown without delay, said Mr Carberry.

fodder deficit

It is right that the Minister is encouraging maximum production of home grown fodder. Tillage farmers can be part of the solution and it serves as a reminder that we should not put all our eggs in one basket when it comes to the agri-food strategy, he said.

Mr Carberry said that, in the longer term, we needed to seriously examine how to reverse the decline in cereal growing in Ireland because we needed more home grown feed not less.

Meanwhile, IFA president Joe Healy said that the Ministers announcement was welcome.

Subject to seeing full detail of the scheme we would welcome this announcement from the Minister. Growing fodder crops on tillage ground has the potential to play a part in closing the national fodder deficit arising from drought. he said.

IFA grain chairman Mark Browne also welcomed the scheme but warned that it must be kept simple. We cannot afford to have any uncertainty or unnecessary bureaucracy around this scheme. These crops need to be sown urgently to take advantage of the recent rain he said.
This year's Famine 1848 Walk attracted one of the largest attendances ever with Irish and international visitors.

The Walk was led by Waylon White Deer of the Choctaw First Nation in the United States to honour an extraordinary act of generosity by the Choctaws to the starving Irish during the Famine.

The Walk commemorates all those who suffered and died during the Great Famine and the 1848 Rising which took place during the Famine in Ballingarry. The Walk also bears witness to contemporary famines in the Third World.

The determination of the walkers on the Walk was striking. There had been heavy rain right up to the start of the Walk yet this did not put off the large attendance. Neither did a heavy shower of hailstones deter the walkers as they left the 1848 monument in The Commons village for the Famine Warhouse.

Indeed for a moment as walkers took refuge from the hailstones the very elements hinted at the misery endured by the Irish during the Famine.

The national heritage site, Famine Warhouse 1848 was the location of the state national famine commemoration led by An Taoiseach last September.

On reaching their destination, Walk Leader Waylon White Deer made a moving address. He spoke of the similarities between the experiences of the Irish and the Choctaws. The Choctaw tribe owned vast territories in the US but the government pushed them 600 miles to the west. They lost 25% of their population when they were forced to embark on this 'Trail of Tears' in the dead of winter. Mr White Deer stated that the mass evictions of the Famine years paralleled the 'Trail of Tears' and the experiences of contemporary refugees. He called for a moment of silence to remember those who died during the Famine and those who fell at the Famine Warhouse.

This year is the 170th anniversary of the Famine Rising of 1848 and Mr White Deer noted the coincidence that it was 170 dollars which the Choctaws raised from their own scarce resources as a donation to be sent to the starving Irish.

He commented that 'The Irish-Choctaw famine link transcends both the Irish and Choctaw peoples and speaks to a common humanity. This is how we regard one another when we are following our better angels. In its telling, this story of how one poor dispossessed people reached out in a remarkable moment to another poor, dispossessed people, becomes timeless.'

The organisers of the event, the voluntary Ballingarry 1848 Society are endeavouring to have Famine Warhouse 1848 developed fully as a significant educational, heritage and tourist attraction mid-way between the Rock of Cashel and Kilkenny City.

The Society called on the government to make good its long made promise to renovate the final out-building as an Education Room in honour of the famine dead.

At the conclusion, the local band, the Mangled Badgers played the national anthem, and refreshments were served to all in the courtyard.

Mr White Deer commented that 'the graciousness of the people who took part in the Walk 'will long stay with me'.
[August 10, 2018] Baron & Budd Fights for Fire Victims before California Legislative Conference Committee

Today, the national law firm of Baron & Budd announced that its shareholder, John Fiske, testified before the California State Legislature to denounce Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to eliminate the constitutional rights provided to fire victims through inverse condemnation. Inverse condemnation is the constitutional, no fault cause of action that helps facilitate efficient resolution in the aftermath of utility-caused wildfires. The State Conference Committee heard testimony today on S.B. 901, to address wildfire preparedness and response. According to Fiske's testimony, the Governor's proposed changes to inverse condemnation have a direct impact on thousands of wildfire survivors, including hundreds of business owners, ranchers, farmers, and the 7,000 families who lost their homes because it will deny these victims of their constitutional rights to just compenstion and a jury trial against the power companies who are allegedly responsible for causing the 2017 fires throughout the state.



"We strongly urge this committee to focus its efforts on prevention and public safety. If this committee believes that securitization is an option, or that pass through requires clarification, we are prepared to assist in that conversation," said Fiske. "But we cannot support any package that removes the constitutional protection for homeowners, businesses, ranchers, farmers, and public entities." After presenting prepared remarks, Fiske engaged in a Q&A session with Senate Committee members, including Sen. Ben Hueso (D-San Diego), who questioned if the wildfires were caused by climate change. Fiske quickly retorted, "I think we're here today at this hearing because PG&E (News - Alert) is asking for some sort of bailout."

In recent months, corporate executives from Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) and Southern California Edison (SCE) lobbied the Governor and California State Legislature to limit fire victims' ability to receive compensation for damages cause by the 2017 fires. PG&E spent $2.2 million on lobbying in 2018-triple the amount of what it spent in the first half of 2017. Between April and June 2018, PG&E reported spending $1.1 million specifically on lobbying for wildfire legislation. Baron & Budd represent thousands of fire victims including hundreds of business owners, ranchers, farmers and approximately 25 public entities. Earlier this year, the firm successfully petitioned the Judicial Council of California for a Judicial Council Coordinated Proceeding ("JCCP") to coordinate all cases against Southern California Edison arising from the 2017 Thomas and Rye Fires and to separately coordinate all cases against PG&E arising from the 2017 North Bay Fires. ABOUT BARON & BUDD, P.C. The law firm of Baron & Budd, P.C., with offices in Dallas, Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Austin, Los Angeles, and San Diego, is a nationally recognized law firm with a nearly 40-year history of "Protecting What's Right" for people, communities and businesses harmed by negligence. Baron & Budd's size and resources enable the firm to take on large and complex cases. The firm represents individuals and government and business entities in areas as diverse as dangerous pharmaceuticals and medical devices, environmental contamination, the Gulf oil spill, financial fraud, overtime violations, deceptive advertising, automotive defects, trucking accidents, nursing home abuse, and asbestos-related illnesses such as mesothelioma. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180810005451/en/

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[August 10, 2018] Maxar Technologies Hosts Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Maxar Technologies (formerly MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates Ltd.) (NYSE: MAXR; TSX: MAXR), a global technology innovator powering the new space economy, was honored to host the Prime Minister of Canada, the Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, at its Ste-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec, satellite manufacturing facilities on August 9 to view the final phases of construction of the RADARSAT Constellation Mission (RCM). Also on hand for the visit was Canadian Space Agency (CSA) Astronaut Jeremy Hansen. This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180810005466/en/ Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau meets MDA (News - Alert) Group President Mike Greenley. (Photo: Business Wire) The RCM satellites are being built for the CSA and represent the third generation of this synthetic aperture radar satellite technology that MDA has built for the Canadian government. The satellite system is designed primarily for maritime surveillance, disaster management and ecosystem monitoring and will allow Canada to keep an eye on its oceans, forests, wetlands, farmlands, natural resources, transportation corridors and ocean approaches. The three spacecraft will be launched together on a SpaceX (News - Alert) Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California later this year. During his visit, the Prime Minister helped to place a thermal blanket on one of the satellites to protect it from the extreme temperatures in space. He also witnessed the Industry 4.0 advanced digital manufacturing techniques that MDA has developed to manufacture high-tech solutions for space systems. "It was a tremendous honor to showcase our technology to the Prime Minister and share the achievements of our strong partnership with the Canadian Space Agency," said Maxar President and CEO Howard Lance. "MDA has been a leader in space-based radar for five decades, now working in concert with Maxar's three other industry-leading companies to accelerate innovation for the new space economy." "The RADARSAT program, including RADARSAT-1 and RADARSAT-2, has put Canada and MDA in a global leadership position for space-based radar technology and applications, and RCM will to extend and enhance this position," said MDA Group President Mike Greenley. "This program would not be possible without contributions from aross MDA's facilities and employees in Richmond, Brampton, Halifax, Montreal and St. Hubert, and our supplier chain of more than 125 Canadian companies in seven provinces."



About Maxar Technologies As a global leader of advanced space technology solutions, Maxar Technologies (formerly MacDonald, Dettwiler and Associates) is at the nexus of the new space economy, developing and sustaining the infrastructure and delivering the information, services, systems that unlock the promise of space for commercial and government markets. As a trusted partner, Maxar Technologies provides vertically-integrated capabilities and expertise including satellites, Earth imagery, robotics, geospatial data and analytics to help customers anticipate and address their most complex mission-critical challenges with confidence. With more than 6,500 employees in over 30 global locations, the Maxar Technologies portfolio of commercial space brands includes MDA, SSL, DigitalGlobe (News - Alert) and Radiant Solutions. Every day, billions of people rely on Maxar to communicate, share information and data, and deliver insights that Build a Better World. Maxar trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange and New York Stock Exchange as MAXR. For more information, visit www.maxar.com.

About MDA MDA is an internationally recognized leader in space robotics, space sensors, satellite antennas and subsystems, surveillance and intelligence systems, defence and maritime systems, and geospatial radar imagery. MDA's extensive space expertise and heritage translates into mission-critical defence and commercial applications that include multi-platform command, control and surveillance systems, aeronautical information systems, land administration systems and terrestrial robotics. MDA is also a leading supplier of actionable mission-critical information and insights derived from multiple data sources. Founded in 1969, MDA is recognized as one of Canada's most successful technology ventures with locations in Richmond, Ottawa, Brampton, Montreal, Halifax and the United Kingdom. MDA is a Maxar Technologies company (TSX: MAXR; NYSE: MAXR). For more information, visit www.mdacorporation.com. Forward-Looking Statements This release contains forward-looking statements and information, which reflect the current view of Maxar Technologies Ltd. (the "Company") with respect to future events and financial performance. Any such forward-looking statements are based on the Company's current expectations, estimates, projections and assumptions in light of its experience and its perception of historical trends. Any such forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations. The Company cautions readers that should certain risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary significantly from those expected. The risks that could cause actual results to differ from current expectations include, but are not necessarily limited to: changes in government or intergovernmental priorities, mandates, funding levels, contracts and regulations; satellite failure; failure of third parties and subcontractors; and failure to anticipate changes in technology, technical standards and offerings or compliance with the requisite standards, or failure to maintain technological advances and offer new products to retain customers and market position. For additional information with respect to certain of these risks or factors, plus additional risks or factors, reference should be made to the Company's continuous disclosure materials filed from time to time with Canadian and U.S. securities regulatory authorities, which are available online under the Company's SEDAR profile at www.sedar.com, under the Company's EDGAR profile at www.sec.gov, or on the Company's website at www.maxar.com. View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180810005466/en/

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A girl was shot Friday afternoon on North Chamberlain Avenue.

At approximately 5:41 p.m., Chattanooga Police responded to a local hospital on reports of person suffering from a gunshot wound. Upon arrival, officers made contact with a juvenile girl who was suffering from an apparent graze wound to her face.

The victim initially told officers the incident occurred in the 2800 block of North Chamberlain Avenue. Major Crimes investigators responded to the scene. Police were unable to locate a crime scene at the alleged incident location. The victim told investigators she was shot while seated within an unknown vehicle.

Members of the Major Crimes Bureau are actively investigating this incident. Anyone with information about the incident, should call the Tip Line at 423 643-5100. You can remain anonymous.
Shoals was driving two other people when they stopped to talk with a male in the 7300 block of South Union Avenue in the Englewood neighborhood. She drove away when she had a feeling they were about to be robbed, police said.
[August 10, 2018] Adjust Expands Global Presence Into India to Tap Region's Robust Advertising Industry

SAN FRANCISCO and BERLIN, August 11, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Seasoned Ad Tech Executive Ashwiny Thapliyal to Spearhead Regional Expansion Adjust, the Berlin-based global mobile measurement leader, announced today it is expanding operations into India, with the opening of a new office in Mumbai. The new location comes at a time when India's mobile advertising industry has experienced remarkable growth. It is set to become a $1.2bn market by 2020, and apps now account for 88% of time spent on mobile in the country. After China, Japan and South Korea, Adjust continues its global expansion, branching out into another multi-billion dollar Asian market -- all within one year. Christian Henschel, co-founder and CEO at Adjust, noted, "With the Indian advertising industry experiencing explosive growth, India was a natural fit for our next geographic expansion. Opening our office at such a dynamic time, we are thrilled to help our local clients succeed by offering best-in-class support and ongoing education." Adjust has tapped Ashwiny Thapliyal to spearhead growth, manage operations, and lead a regional team. Leveraging more than one decade of local and inernational ad tech experience from Tune, Komli and InMobi, Ashwiny will continue to work closely with existing clients, while expanding Adjust's customer base in India. The Mumbai office will initially focus on supporting customers in gaming, ecommerce, and travel before expanding to other vertical segments.



The rapid growth of India's mobile advertising market comes with its challenges - in the form of rapidly evolving mobile ad fraud. With 337 million people in India projected to use a smartphone in 2018 - equivalent to more than 25% of the population - India-based marketers stand to lose millions of dollars to fraud. As the leader in fraud prevention, Adjust plans to provide continuing education to marketers about rampant tactics used by fraudsters such as click injections, SDK spoofing and click spam. With 13 international offices, including New York, Beijing, and Berlin, the Mumbai operations extend Adjust's vision to unify advertisers' marketing activities, combat ad fraud and offer actionable data insights to help customers scale their business. The new office provides strategic, personalized support to new and existing customers in their time zone and native language. The company already has a growing number of clients in India, including PlaySimple, Jabong, and foodpanda. Indian advertisers and marketers will now have greater access to Adjust's full range of competitive marketing products and services, allowing them to reinvent, and optimize their mobile marketing initiatives.

- Cross reference: Picture is available at AP Images (http://www.apimages.com ) - About Adjust Adjust is the industry leader in mobile measurement and fraud prevention. The Berlin-based company provides high-quality analytics, measurement and fraud prevention solutions for mobile app marketers worldwide, enabling them to make smarter, faster marketing decisions. Adjust is a marketing partner with all major platforms, including Facebook, Google, Snap, Twitter, Naver, Line, and WeChat. In total, more than 20,000 apps have implemented Adjust's solutions to improve their performance. Adjust is the only attribution company to meet stringent EU privacy standards and is fully compliant with GDPR. For more information, interested parties can visit http://www.adjust.com. Press Contact:

Lennart Dannenberg

Head of PR Adjust

+49-162-248-3473

Email: lennart@adjust.com or pr@adjust.com



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Updated August 16: We've run some additional tests to gauge the Galaxy Note 9's ability to sustain performance over the long haul.

Flagship phones in 2018 can easily handle graphically demanding games, but many of them run hot or simply can't sustain their performance after several minutes of play.

The Galaxy Note 9 has a feature designed to keep this flagship cool while delivering consistent speed: Samsung put a water-carbon cooling system in the device to keep it from breaking a sweat while you're in the middle of an extended Fortnite session.

The advanced carbon-water cooling system, combined with a heat sink that's three times larger than the one inside the Note 8, helps with heat dissipation. Samsung says those improvements can prevent overheating by 21 percent, but the company is emphasizing performance over temperatures.



We decided to put the Note 9's cooling to the test, and the results are mixed.



Sustained performance: Better than Galaxy S9, but not OnePlus 6



Phone

Galaxy S9+



Galaxy Note 9



OnePlus 6





Antutu Score

Temperature

Antutu Score Temperature

Antutu Score

Temperature

Run 1

250835 97

271018 98

286889 95

Run 2

208658 97.5

228932 96.5

277719 96

Run 3

220747

95.5

234081 94.5

277734 96

Run 4

222072 96.5

232360 96

276155 98.5

Run 5

219441 95.5

240333 91.3

273190 95

Run 6

195728 92

253040 93.5

272570

97

Run 7

230231 94

243241 93

272531

100



The Galaxy Note 9 does deliver better sustained speeds than the Galaxy S9+ when performing demanding tasks. We used the Antutu benchmark, which measures CPU, GPU memory and other aspects of performance and ran it seven consecutive times on both phones.

The Galaxy Note 9 delivered a higher max score of 271,018, and it never dropped below 222,000. On the same set of tests, the Galaxy S9+ dropped below 222,000 three times, once falling to 195,728. Thats a drop of 22 percent from the S9+s max score. The Note 9s biggest drop was 15 percent.

However, its not all good news for Samsungs water cooling. The OnePlus 6 on the same test started at 286,889 on Antutu and fell to only 272,531 on the seventh run. Thats a drop of only 5 percent. It's worth noting that the OnePlus 6 we used has 8GB of RAM, or 2GB more than the Galaxy Note 9.



On the other hand, the Note 9 did a better job of keeping its cool throughout this test than the OnePlus 6. The latter phone reached 100 degrees on the last run, while the Note 9 registered 93 degrees. In fact, the Note 9 stayed fairly cool throughout the test as the OnePlus 6 heated up.

The Galaxy S9+ also stayed fairly cool, though, starting at 97 degrees and settling at 94 degrees.



Indoor tests: Note 9 is not the coolest

For the first test in our indoor lab, we ran CPU Loader, a CPU stress test; and 3DMark Slingshot Extreme Unlimited, a graphics performance test, simultaneously for 15 minutes, to put extra strain on each phone's processor. At the end of the tests, both Notes registered 100 degrees Fahrenheit (as measured by our heat gun) on both the front and back of the devices; there was no noticeable temperature difference even in feel. We consider anything above 95 degrees uncomfortably warm.

MORE: Galaxy Note 9 vs. Galaxy Note 8: What's New?

Next, we put the Note 9, Note 8 and iPhone X through two 15-minute AnTuTu benchmarks, recording the temperature every 5 minutes to gather an average. Here, the Note 8 actually proved the coolest, registering an average of 99.6 degrees. The Note 9 came in second, at 100.6 degrees, and the iPhone X ran the hottest, at 100.9 degrees. We measured the front and back of the devices, which were comparable in temperature.

When we measured the final temperature of each phone, the running order changed again. This time, the Note 9 was actually the hottest, hitting 106 degrees; the Note 8 topped out at 103 degrees, and the iPhone X hit 102 degrees.

Finally, we ran a few quick races of Asphalt 9: Legends with both Galaxy Note devices. Again, both handsets got equally hot  about 90 degrees  though the Note 9 felt ever so slightly cooler in the palm than the Note 8.

The torture test: Outside on a hot summer day

It was sunny and 88 degrees in New York when we visited Bryant Park to conduct the outdoor portion of our overheating test. We set the Galaxy Note 9, Note 8 and iPhone X down on a metal table that had been baking underneath the sun, then ran 3D Mark's Slingshot OpenGL ES 3.1 repeatedly until it produced a heat warning on each phone, recording the surface temperatures of the devices along the way.

The iPhone X was the first to show beads of sweat, slowing to an average of 3 frames per second after enduring about 6 minutes of 3DMark's test. In comparison, the Note 9 hovered at 14 fps, and the Note 8 delivered 11 fps. The iPhone eventually became unresponsive at 14 minutes and 30 seconds, serving up a temperature warning that prevented us from using the device at all until it sufficiently cooled down. It measured 125 degrees on our heat gun at that point.



Both Notes exhibited more endurance than the iPhone X, but the Note 9's water carbon cooling system didn't seem to make any noticeable difference.

Both Notes exhibited more endurance, but interestingly, the Note 9's cooling system didn't seem to make any noticeable difference. Both the Note 9 and the Note 8 called it quits at 130 degrees, and both lasted exactly 17:30 before overheating notifications popped up. Frankly, the consistency was pretty surprising, given that the Note 9 uses a water cooling system with carbon fiber (the Note 8 also uses water cooling, but without carbon fiber). That's supposed to make a difference, but in our tests, it didn't.



It's important to note that, unlike the iPhone, Android's heat management doesn't render the phone useless until it cools down. Rather, Android discreetly closes certain apps that are generating the most energy while letting you use the rest of the device normally. But even when the two Note phones decided enough was enough, they were still reasonably responsive. Meanwhile, the iPhone's animations slowed to a crawl minutes before it told us it needed to cool down. It was almost unusable.

Bottom line

The Galaxy Note 9 does deliver bettter sustained performance than the Galaxy S9+, which doesn't benefit from the Note 9's more advanced carbon water cooling. However, the Galaxy S9 stayed just as cool. The OnePlus 6 ran hotter on our tests, but it actually managed to deliver better performance over successive benchmark runs than the Note 9.



Compared to the Note 8, which doesn't have the Note 9's water-carbon cooling feature or a massive thermal spreader, we saw no noticeable difference in temperature in any of our tests. Both phones got hot while running demanding apps, and both phones overheated at the same time in our outdoor torture test. Even in a more realistic scenario  playing a demanding game for an extended period of time  the Note 9 felt just as warm as the Note 8.

So does the Note 9's water cooling work? Yes when it comes to delivering more consistent performance, but not necessarily in terms of keeping temps low.


Kansas Governor Hires a Lawyer for Contested GOP Primary Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer dug in for a legal fight over this past week's Republican primary, hiring an outside lawyer for the vote-counting process with Secretary of State Kris Kobach leading the sitting governor by less than a tenth of a percentage point. The Colyer campaign has hired Todd Graves, a Kansas City attorney who works on election law.

While Kobach now claims he. . . Others report that only 59 votes separate the contenders. Now, Kansas gears up for a real life election debate among Republicans where the only thing we know for sure is that the Mexicans didn't vote for either one of these white dudes.Check the WSJ teaser:
Michael Brown's mother says she wants to transform the pain of losing her son four years ago into political action. Lezley McSpadden stood in front of the memorial to her son on Canfield Drive Friday, surrounded by the family's attorney and supporters, to announce a bid for Ferguson City Council.
Sam Shockley went to school with the black students who eventually desegregated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. So he was more than familiar with the harshness of racism. When he moved to Kansas City in the 1950s, he experienced a different brand of it. "Here it was more covert," Shockley says.
Afternoon Traffic Tragedy

Motorcyclist dies in crash on I-435 A motorcyclist died in a crash on Friday in the area of northbound I-435 and northeast Parvin Road. The crash happened at about 5:51 p.m. KCTV5 News is working to gather more information about the circumstances of the crash. No other information is available at this time. Copyright 2018 KCTV (Meredith Corp.)

More Space For Ongoing Infestation Of Midtown Kansas City Hipsters

Pabst, Pendergast buildings in Crossroads will be new Aparium hotel - Kansas City Business Journal Two historic buildings in the Crossroads Arts District are expected to reopen in October as a four-story, 131-room boutique hotel. Chicago-based Aparium Hotel Group bought the side-by-side Pabst and Pendergast buildings in 2015. They were part of the estate of late Crossroads developer Tom Levitt, who died in 2009.

Deadly Chase Aftermath

Man who took off from police killed after car hits tree in KCK Police in Kansas City, KS are investigating a fatal wreck that happened overnight on Friday. Dispatch says the wreck occurred at 27th and Longwood around 3 a.m. Kansas City, KS police discovered a car that was in the middle of the street.

Part Deux Of A Talk With The Old Boss

Seg. 1: Former Mayor Barnes On Kansas City Growth & Neglect. Seg. 2: KC's Black Panther Legacy. Much of the credit for Kansas City's current downtown boom can be placed at the feet of former Mayor Kay Barnes, whose efforts culminated in the creation of the Power and Light District and the construction of the Sprint Center. Nevertheless, parts of town east of Troost still struggle for invesment and redevelopment.

Local Traffic Trouble Explained

I-470 project expected to cause major traffic delays KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The Missouri Department of Transportation will begin bridge work on the I-470/I-70 interchange at 8 p.m. Friday, and that is expected to cause major traffic delays. According to MoDOT, delays could reach up to 75 minutes during the height of rush hour and even more if an accident occurs.

South Kansas City Traffic Tragedy

Kansas City man killed after being struck by vehicle on Longview Road One person died in a wreck on Longview Road and Applewood in Kansas City. The wreck happened shortly after 10 p.m. on Thursday night. Lance R. Shope, 60, was identified as the man killed. Police say Shope crossed the roadway in the path of a Chevrolet Tahoe that was heading westbound.

Courthouse Old School No Go

Jackson County Legislators May Ditch Tax Proposal Meant To Help Elderly Homeowners A new property tax to help seniors stay in their homes seemed like such a good idea in April that the entire Jackson County Legislature co-sponsored the ordinance to put it on the November ballot. Now it is likely that legislators will repeal the ordinance at its Monday meeting, killing the program before it gets off the ground.

Hard Pass For Sears Amid Hard Times Thanks To Amazon

Sears building at former Metcalf South site is for lease - Kansas City Business Journal Nearly a year after closing, the former Sears and Sears Auto Center in Overland Park at 9701 Metcalf Ave. is still on the market for lease. Sears once anchored the now defunct Metcalf South shopping center, which was mostly demolished and is being redeveloped by Columbia-based The Kroenke Group and Kansas City-based Lane4 Property Group.

Show-Me Trouble Brewing

McCaskill warns tariffs could inflate prices at Boulevard beer | The Kansas City Star Sen. Claire McCaskill stopped at Kansas City's Boulevard brewery Friday to talk about the economic impact of President Donald Trump's trade policy and retaliatory tariffs with China. McCaskill is up for reelection against Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley

Kansas Kitty Journalism

Watch the Kansas travel piece starring a famous internet cat | The Wichita Eagle He swam in Wilson Lake. He sailed at Cheney Reservoir. He rode the Q-Line in Wichita, and while here, he also played Jenga in a downtown coffee shop and checked out the Wichita Riverfest. He did not, however, jump out of a plane over a Kansas field with his person, JJ Yosh.

More Local Economic Trouble

New 'Vice' documentary features two Missouri plants A documentary from the HBO series "Vice" features two Missouri plants that have been affected by President Donald Trump's trade policies and tariffs. For one plant, the tariffs have been a lifeline; for the other, it's driving a nail into the business. "Trump's Trade War" explores the reality in both those plants and others across the U.S.

Kansas City Newsie Smarty Sent To Progressive Ivy Leauge J-School

KCUR's Alex Smith Awarded Prestigious Media Fellowship At Harvard KCUR health reporter Alex Smith has been awarded a week-long media fellowship at Harvard Medical School to support his reporting on the opioid crisis and pain management. Smith will join a handful of other journalists in September to study the science and treatment of pain with top scientists and clinicians.

Hottiefollowed her bliss in order to leave the glamour modeling game and instead work on her skillz as aAnd so, this Friday afternoon we remember not to forget our passion for linking goodness and sharing some of the most important local news stories of the day after the jump . . .And this is anotherfor right now . . .








Kansas City Public Safety FAIL

Dead Hydrants at Kansas City House Fire Three hydrants were not able to be used by firefighters during a house fire.

Weekend Traffic Tragedy

1 dies in rollover crash on northbound I-435 near Gregory Boulevard One person died in a rollover crash Saturday morning on northbound Interstate 435 north of Gregory Boulevard, Kansas City police said. The wreck was reported about 9:30 a.m. A narrow lane of northbound traffic was getting by on the shoulder. No other information was released. Refresh this page for updates.

Big Pharma Suicide Lawsuit

Woman cut off opioids committed suicide, suit says | The Kansas City Star Jacquelyn Spicer's family accuses Douglas Brooks of getting her hooked on pain medicine and then leaving her with no way to get off it safely after the Kansas medical board ordered him to stop treating chronic pain patients because of his dangerous prescribing patterns.

Tribute After JoCo Tragedy

Dozens gather to pray for victims of Johnson County church van crash BOLIVAR, Mo. -- Three people died and 10 others were hurt when a van affiliated with Faith Chapel Assembly of God crashed on Friday morning on U.S. Highway 13, five miles north of Bolivar. According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol, the van left the southbound lanes of the highway and overturned, injuring everyone on board.

Golden Ghetto Forgiveness

City of Olathe to host amnesty day on Saturday OLATHE, Kan. - Olathe is one of the cities in Johnson County hosting an amnesty day on Saturday. Those who have outstanding city warrants can come in to take care of the legal issues without fear of being arrested.

Celebrate New Meth Town Market

Festival to use new farmers market A new farmers market space on the north side of the Square will play a major role in the upcoming Santa-Cali-Gon Days festival in Independence.According to festival organizer Lois McDonald of the Independence Chamber of Commerce, the $3.3 million Uptown Market at 201 W.

Kansas City Freelancers Congregate

Photos: KC Coworking Day sings virtues of big ideas in startup spaces KC Coworking Day is a celebration of people whose vision exceeds their circumstances, said Bob Martin. "If you're an entrepreneur, and you have a vision, I hope your vision is so big that you're uncomfortable sharing it with everybody - that there's only a handful of people to whom you're going to say, 'This is what I'm going to do,'" Martin told a crowd gathered Thursday evening at Brookside Gardens for the third annual KC Coworking Day.

Our weekend news review begins with a look at the big picture and the culture overall.Take a peek:Closer to home, these news links define our Saturday. Take a look:is the song of the day and this is thefor right now . . .
Until the trial, the identity of that officer  whose bullets struck Finicum  had been unknown. And it might have stayed that way, too, had another state police SWAT officer not slipped while on the witness stand and mentioned the officer's rank and last name. Patriot movement sympathizers, who were closely watching the trial, quickly began posting photographs of the officer on social media. "NEVER forget that name," one Oregon militia leader wrote.
Former Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes Reflects On Doubts, Successes From Her Time In Office Kansas City's first female mayor might only vaguely remember her first day on the job, but she does remember knowing people had some doubts about her because she was a woman.

Just to be fair, this former lady Mayor remains sharp as a tack, dressed with a keen fashion sense and still displaying a superior intellect when it comes to justifying her policy of giving away just about everything to developers . . . Nobody ever said she wasn't smart . . . She remains so.Read more:
sanjiv@tribunemail.com

New Delhi, August 10

Markets regulator SEBI is looking into Jet Airways deferring the announcement of June quarter results following reservations expressed by the airlines audit committee while stock exchanges have also sought information from the company, sources said.

The Board of Directors of Jet Airways, which is grappling with financial woes, on August 9 deferred the matter of consideration of the unaudited financial results for the June quarter.

Sources said SEBI is looking into the airline delaying June quarter results after the carriers audit committee expressed reservations.

The regulator is concerned about any possible lapses in terms of disclosure and corporate governance norms by Jet Airways. SEBI is also in touch with the stock exchanges on the Jet Airways matter, they added.

The BSE said the disclosure by Jet Airways regarding the delay in first quarter results lacked certain information and asked the airline to submit complete information that is available with it, for compliance with the requirements of Regulation 30 of listing agreement. Regulation 30 pertains to disclosures.

It is observed that the disclosure lacks certain information required to be disclosed to the exchange... while it is disclosed that the meeting is adjourned, the date and place of the adjourned Board meeting are not stated, the BSE said.

Further, the exchange has sought more clarification on the matters pending for closure of unaudited financial results for the quarter ended June 30, 2018, of the company, on account of which the results were not recommended by the audit committee to the Board.

In a BSE filing last night, the Naresh Goyal-run airline said its Board has decided not to review the unaudited financial performance for the June quarter.  PTI
editorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 11

Research scholars Kewal Kumar and Sunita, from the Department of Hindi of Panjab University will be presenting their papers at the 11th World Hindi Conference being held at Mauritius from August 18 to August 20.

Dr Gurmeet Singh, Chairperson, Department of Hindi, said: The World Hindi Conference is being organised by the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, and it is a matter of pride for us that papers of two research scholars have been selected by a high-level committee of the ministry.

He said it was the first opportunity for the research scholars of the department to present their papers in an international conference and he was thankful to the PU authorities for including them in the PU delegation going to attend the conference under the leadership of Prof Shankarji Jha, Dean University Instruction.

He said the theme of the conference was, Hindi Vishwa Aur Bharatiya Sanskriti and the research scholars had prepared their papers on the same.

The Ministry of External Affairs organises the World Hindi Conference once every three years in different parts of the world.

The 11th World Hindi Conference will be inaugurated by Sushma Swaraj, External Affairs Minister, and Prime Minister of Mauritius Pravind Kumar Jugnauth. Over 2,500 delegates are participating.
editorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 10

As Education Secretary BL Sharma has called for an FIR in the case of a scuffle between two teachers and relatives of a Class XI student of Government Senior Secondary School (GSSS), Sector 45, District Education Officer (DEO) Anujit Kaur has marked an inquiry, under a Deputy DEO, in the case on Friday.

The scuffle had taken place on Thursday. Law will take its own course. The administration is in support of the teachers. Had the students not intervened, the teacher would have suffered grievous injuries. There is no space for compromise. The police have initiated an inquiry and action will be taken against the offenders, said Sharma.

Sources said relatives of the student entered the school premises, claiming that they had been called to the school. They reached the class, entered into arguments and allegedly misbehaved with Hindi teacher Rishi Kumar. They allegedly beat up the teacher with a helmet and when a woman teacher tried to intervene, she was also beaten up. Both parties were taken to the Burail police post, where a compromise was reached.

Rishi Kumar couldnt be contacted.
editorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Mohali, August 11

Punjab State Cyber Crime Cell sleuths have arrested one of the key accused in card cloning cases while three-four others are said to be rounded up in this connection.

The police are said to have arrested the accused, identified as Sourabh (around 28), at Banaras in Uttar Pradesh.

Though the officials of the state cyber crime were tight-lipped on the details in this regard, sources informed that Sourabh was working in a restaurant-cum-bar at Phase 5 and its name had cropped up in the case.

In their complaint to the cyber police, HDFC Bank authorities had pointed out Saurabhs involvement in the case while stating that during their internal investigation it was revealed that the bar-cum-restaurant was the common point from where the card data of their customers (victims) had been compromised.

According to sources, Sourabh was a member of a 10-member Rockey Gang.

The members of the gang work in different establishments at various places, including Delhi, Mumbai, Pune etc. They collect information of credit and debit cards of customers before looting their money through ATM/credit and debit cards fraud. They used to leave the state after committing a crime there, said the sources.

Sourabh had already been lodged in jail in a card skimming case earlier, said the sources. He and his accomplices had left Mohali after withdrawing money from victims accounts this month.

According to an official of the state cyber crime, they have also rounded up three-four persons in this connection. We are close to cracking the case and will arrest other members of the gang soon, said a senior official of the state cyber crime.

Meanwhile, the accused was produced in court, which sent him to police custody till August 14.

Notably, nearly 20 persons had been defrauded of around Rs 25 lakh so far in the Mohali area, as per the state crime sleuths.
"You took my son away from me," she said to a local television station at the time. "Do you know how hard it was for me to get him to stay in school and graduate? You know how many black men graduate? Not many. Because you bring them down to this type of level, where they feel like they don't got nothing to live for anyway. 'They're going to try to take me out anyway.' "
editorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 10

Panjab University (PU) has made extension for research scholars stay in hostels easier by introducing a single form. Their stay can be extended by getting it signed from the chairperson of the department concerned and their supervisor.

There is no need to involve the office of the Dean, Students Welfare (DSW).

Recently, research scholars of the university had protested against several issues being faced by them.

In the wake of the demand for the subscription of sci-finder and other e-resources, the PU has informed that the required budget has already been formulated by the library and the same has been forwarded to the Finance and Development Officer (FDO) for approval. The subscription to a research journal is done on the basis of the recommendations of the academic committee of the department concerned.

On teaching work, the PU said it was always given as per the UGC norms. Research scholars have been complaining that their supervisors force them to take classes.

The research scholars are not forced to pay the rent in advance. It is only after the receipt of the fellowship that they make the payment, said the PU spokesperson.

Girls hostel timings revised

The university authorities said the girls hostels timings have been revised and implemented, as per the demand of the inmates.

The steps have been taken to take a feedback from parents at the time of admission. This will help the authorities to know the expectations of the parents, who are also the stakeholders. Moreover, it is also required for NAAC evaluation and other regulatory bodies who grade the university at different points of time, said the spokesperson.

The PU said it had provided additional washing machines to all girls hostels and to the boys hostel number 4 on a trial basis for the first time in the current academic session.

On the basis of the feedback, the facility will be enhanced accordingly. Also, new water coolers have been given to various departments, including hostels.

The vending machines for sanitary napkins have been installed at the Hostel No. 10 and International Girls Hostel and an incinerator has been installed for hygienic disposal, added PU spokesperson.
editorial@tribune.com

Amit Sharma

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 10

It was the same gang of fraudsters who installed cloning devices at Canara Bank ATMs in Chandigarh and Mohali. The police have recovered the CCTV footage of the two ATM booths, in which suspects are seen installing cloning devices.

The ATM cloning devices were installed at Canara Bank ATMs in the city on August 3 and 4.

The UT police have received the footage of the CCTV camera installed at the ATM booth in the Modern Housing Complex (MHC), Mani Majra.

The footage shows two suspects visiting the ATM at two different times in the morning. One of the suspects, wearing a cap, visited the ATM at 8 am. He is seen with a bag. The same suspect is seen in the CCTV footage visiting the ATM again at 8.30 am. This time, he is without the bag.

The CCTV footage of the Canara Bank ATM in Sector 35 also shows the same suspect arriving there carrying the same bag, but this time with a different cap. The accused then installed the cloning device there.

Police sources said from the CCTV grabs, it seemed that the gang had at least four members. The sources said they would share the CCTV footage with other neighbouring states.

Similar cloning devices were recovered from the Canara Bank ATMs in Sector 17, 35 and the MHC, Mani Majra. A skimming device and a camera installed above the keypad were recovered from the ATM booths.
singhking99@yahoo.com

Thursdays contest for the Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman became a prominent marker not just because it was being held after 26 years: the Congress billed it as a litmus test of Opposition unity. But the lesson that went home is that it is best not to fight without a foolproof strategy. The message that finally went out is that despite a majority in Rajya Sabha, the Opposition comprehensively lost the plot to the ruling BJP. Congress managers had exuded optimism, quietly suggesting that the scales were evenly balanced. In the end it was anything but that. The tally was 125 votes for the governments side as against 101 for the Congress candidate.

Harivansh Singhs (JD-U) candidature put the Congress in a disadvantageous position. The old socialist block led by Nitish Kumar held him in good stead as his personal reachout, such as to Odisha CM Naveen Patnaik, won over dithering votes while the absence of phone calls from the Congress led to the AAP sitting it out. Several others, including the AIADMK and TRS, detected no political traction in demonstrating unsolicited enthusiasm for a Congress candidate. In the end, it was tardy floor management that widened the margin of defeat: 17 votes for the Congress did not materialise whereas the BJP pulled in every member and ally  healthy, sulking or ailing.

The BJP achieved two political aims with one stone. The Congress strategy to raise the ante of a usually low-profile election and then ending up on the losing side once again highlighted the BJPs organisational acumen. Rather, the Congress candidates defeat margin showed it still has a big hill to climb. Under fire from allies for neglect and disregard, the BJP could turn around that charge by showing it has space for allies, at least in quasi-important positions. If it was a test of Opposition unity, the challengers for 2019 pulled up short on strategy.
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Sunit Dhawan

Tribune News Service

Rohtak, August 10

The police have arrested the biological and foster parents of Mamta, the teenaged honour killing victim who was shot dead near the local Mini-secretariat on Wednesday. Karnal police SI Narender Kumar had also been shot dead.

Rohtak SP Jashandeep Singh Randhawa said Mamtas foster parents Ramesh and Krishna as well as her biological parents Ramkesh and Sarita had been arrested and were being interrogated.

While Mamtas foster father Ramesh was present on the spot at the time of her murder, her biological father Ramkesh had conducted a recce of the area and her biological and foster mothers were involved in the murder conspiracy, the SP said.

Ramesh of Shyam Colony in Rohtak had adopted Mamta, who was the daughter of his wifes brother, Ramkesh of Gaddi Kheri village in the district.

Mamtas body was still lying unclaimed. A local court had ordered that if nobody came forward to claim the body in the next 48 hours, it could be cremated by the local administration.

Haryana State Commission for Women chairperson Pratibha Suman asked the local police and administration not to hand over the girls body to her parents. She offered to get the last rites performed on behalf of the commission.

Dinesh, brother of Mamtas husband Sombir, stated that they had not claimed her body as they were apprehensive of serious consequences in case they cremated her.

The family members of Sombir, the Dalit youth whom Mamta had married, maintained that they had warned Sombir against marrying the Jat girl as the consequences could be serious.

Sombirs mother Saroj and Dinesh stated that they got to know about the affair of Sombir and Mamta the day before they eloped to get married. The family said Ramesh had been threatening them after their elopement.

Sombir of Singhpura village had married Mamta in August last year. The couple had then sought police protection. The scrutiny of their documents had revealed that Mamtas Aadhaar card was forged and she was a minor at the time of her marriage.

The police said Mamtas foster and biological parents had conspired to kill their daughter. Mamtas cousin Mohit alias Manglu was also involved as he had called his accomplices from UP to murder the girl, the police said.
editorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Faridabad, August 11

Industry Minister Vipul Goel on Saturday handed over cheques for Rs 52 crore to farmers of Palwal district whose land had been acquired for the construction of the Kundli-Manesar-Palwal (KMP) Expressway. This amount is the enhanced compensation of the land for which the affected farmers had approached the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Around 250 farmers hailing from Rehrana, Chirawata, Jodhpur, Ratipur, Gailpur, Rajolka, Allika, Bamnika, Kuslipur and Yadpur villages were handed over the cheques for various amounts at a function held near Sagar Cinema in Sector 16 here this noon. Though the farmers, whose land was acquired in 2006, had received the initial compensation, they approached the High Court for higher compensation. The state government has released the enhanced compensation of about Rs 52 crore to the farmers, according to the court directions, said Poonam Babbar, District Development and Panchayat Officer (DDPO), Palwal.

As per the land acquisition policy of the state government, farmers whose land is acquired for any such project can seek enhanced compensation, said a district official.

The government would set up five new satellite towns on the KMP, he said. Prithla MLA Tek Chand Sharma was present.
editorial@tribune.com

Saurabh Malik

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 10

The Punjab and Haryana High Court has made it clear that the Haryana Staff Selection Commission (HSSC) will carry out comparison of fingerprints with Aadhaar cards of candidates to establish their identity in selection processes other than that of teachers.

Justice Amol Rattan Singh made it clear that the direction would be subject to final orders by the Supreme Court regarding mandatory reference to Aadhaar cards for different purposes by the government.

Justice Amol Rattan Singh added that the order would be treated as overruled if mandatory linkage or usage of Aadhaar cards was not approved by the Supreme Court regarding selection processes. As such, the HSSC chairperson would file a report once the Supreme Court pronounced its judgment.

In his order on an application by the HSSC, Justice Amol Rattan Singh referred to an affidavit by chairperson Deepti Umashanker on Aadhaar authentication.

It said software application for performing the task generated an authentication packet using Aadhaar number and biometric data of individual to be verified. It was sent to the UIDAI server for authentication.

Justice Amol Rattan Singh added that the court, in an earlier order, had expressed satisfaction with the process, but it could be implemented for future selection.

The previous experience of manual fingerprint check from forensic science laboratory was not a happy one as the selection processes at that time were put on hold for a long time.

Justice Amol Rattan Singh observed that in his opinion, the prayer for physical comparison of fingerprint or thumb impressions of successful candidates with those taken at the time of the Haryana Teachers Eligibility Test (HTET) was impractical, especially as it was conducted at different points of time since 2008, with proper biometric data not available for all selections as contended.

Justice Amol Rattan Singh, during the course of hearing, asked the state counsel to explain why fingerprints and thumb impressions taken in the HTET held in November and December 2017 and subsequent examinations would be subjected to scrutiny by the UIDAI to establish the candidates identity for competitive examination with the HTET as base criterion.

The state counsel, in response, submitted that digital biometrics was made compulsory in the HTET and any other examination since November 2017. Comparison with the UIDAI database, as such, could not be made prior to that.

Justice Amol Rattan Singh observed that in all ongoing selection processes by the HSSC, where the HTET had been taken by the candidates prior to November 2017, fingerprint matching need not be done by the commission unless it developed a methodology.

But all selection processes where the HTET-2017 is the base test or criteria for selection as regards those candidates who had taken the test November 2017 onwards, the fingerprint matching exercise shall be done as has been given in the chairpersons affidavit, the Bench ruled.
editorial@tribune.com

Sushil Manav

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 10

Taking a suo motu cognisance of a report on pollution in Ghaggar river published in The Tribune, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed the chief secretaries of Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh to constitute a special task force (STF) to clean the river.

In its order issued on August 7, the NGT has also called for a stern civil and criminal action against officials of the pollution control boards of these states for shielding the violators.

According to the order, the STFs shall comprise the District Magistrate, Superintendent of Police, Regional Officer of the State Pollution Control, Boards in the district concerned and a person who shall be nominated by the District Judge in every district in his capacity as the chairperson of the District Legal Services Authority.

The order also directs the setting up of STFs at the state level which would comprise the Chief Secretary, Environment Secretary, Secretary of Urban Development and the Secretary of Local Bodies.

The NGT has told the states to constitute the STFs within a month.

For ensuring the compliance of its order, the tribunal has also constituted an executing committee comprising Justice Pritam Pal, former judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, a senior Scientist from the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change and a senior engineer or scientist from the Central Pollution Control Board.

Justice Pritam Pal, who retired as Lokayukta, Haryana, would chair the panel, whose object would be to restore the standards of the river water quality. The committee, which has been asked to submit its interim report on or before January 31, 2019, might also consider the need for getting organised health camps and need for providing clean drinking water for the inhabitants.

The amicus curiae in the case Katyayani had described in her report as to how pungent odour and stink that emanates from the Ghaggar at Ratia in Fatehabad or nearby Mansa and Sardulgarh in Punjab has become nauseating and unbearable.

The report observed that in Ratia town in Fatehabad district, there was no water and only black colour effluents were flowing. Froth was floating on top of the stream along with plastics and other wastes.

Originating from the Shivaliks hills in Himachal Pradesh, the Ghaggar progresses from east to southward direction through several districts of Punjab and Haryana before moving towards Pakistan through Rajasthan.
editorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Solan, August 11

The police busted a flesh trade racket being operated from a paying guest house near Ranbaxy Chowk in Paonta Sahib and arrested nine persons, including two girls, around 9 pm on Friday.

Superintendent of Police, Sirmaur, Rohit Malpani, said arrested persons included autorickshaw drivers and locals while the girls belonged to Delhi and Nepal. He said the police were on the lookout for another person, Madan, who fled the spot.

The police were also inquiring into various facts like the period since this trade had been flourishing here and others who were involved.

Police investigations revealed that building owner Hardev Singh had let out his premises to Vikas and Madan for running a paying guest but they were running the trade with the help of locals, including Mamraj, Ram Singh and Ajay. The police, after receiving the information about the racket 2 to 3 days ago, sent a decoy customer.

A case under the Immoral Trafficking Act has been registered and further investigations are underway.
editorial@tribune.com

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, August 10

In a major shift in stance, the Pong Dam oustees, who have been fighting at various levels for the past about 50 years to get land from the Rajasthan Government, have now decided to seek monetary compensation.

While talking to The Tribune, independent MLA from Dehra Hoshiar Singh said a consensus had been reached among all Pong Dam oustees, who had not got their due from the Rajasthan Government, that they should be compensated monetarily on the pattern of the Narmada Dam oustees.

Hoshiar Singh said he, along with Pong Dam oustees, recently met BJP MPs from Himachal Shanta Kumar and Anurag Thakur. Anurag took up the matter in Parliament. He also took them to Union Minister For Water Resources Nitin Gadkari. There we pleaded for monetary compensation for the Pong Dam oustees on the pattern of the Narmada Dam oustees. The minister agreed in principle to the demand of the oustees for financial compensation, Hoshiar Singh said.

State Pong Dam Committee president Hans Raj, while talking to The Tribune, said: The oustees were to be allotted land in canal irrigated areas of Ganganagar and Anoopgarh districts of Rajasthan. However, the land pool kept for the Pong Dam oustees has forcibly been occupied by the locals. Despite the Supreme Court order in their favour in 1996, the Rajasthan Government has failed to evict locals from the occupied land. Instead, the Rajasthan Government is offering non-irrigated sandy land to the oustees on the Pakistan border in Jaisalmer and Bikaner districts. We dont want land now. The Rajasthan Government should instead compensate us financially on the pattern of the Narmada Dam oustees.

The construction of the Pong Dam on the Beas was started in 1962 and completed in 1966. The Pong Dam was constructed near Talwara town of Punjab. However, the lake behind the dam consumed about 300 villages of Himachals Guler valley, which was one of most fertile areas of Himachal.

Initially 20,362 oustees staked claim for compensation for their land which came under the catchment area of the Pong Dam. Out of these, 16,100 families were found eligible for allotment of land in Rajasthan.

Out of these, just 11,300 were allotted land by the Rajasthan Government. Even out of 11,300, who were allotted land, about 700 are fighting cases in various courts to get possession of their land. At least 2,501 have not been allotted land in Rajasthan. Since the irrigated land kept as pool for the Pong Dam oustees has been encroached upon by the locals, the Rajasthan Government was now offering arid land to the left out 2,501 Pong Dam oustees. Nobody from the left out 2,296 families was staking claim for land compensation.
editorial@tribune.com

Our Correspondent

PALAMPUR, August 11

BJP MP from Kangra Shanta Kumar on Saturday hailed the new policy of the state government to set up ropeways by removing harsh provisions which had created bottlenecks in the projects.

Talking to The Tribune here on Saturday, Shanta said it was a major policy decision of the government headed by Jai Ram Thakur for the promotion of the tourism industry. He said during the Congress regime, not even a single ropeway was set up.

He said the promotion of the tourism industry should be the top priority of the government. It was the only industry which could also meet the challenge of unemployment.

Shanta regretted that there was no policy for the development of tourism earlier. Investors were not ready to come to the state in the absence of any support from the government. He urged the CM that new policy should be investor-friendly.

Tips from MP
Video showed the Horizon Air Q400 doing large loops and other dangerous maneuvers as the sun set on the Puget Sound. There were no passengers aboard. Authorities initially said the man was a mechanic, but Alaska Airlines later said he was believed to be a ground service agent employed by Horizon. Those employees direct aircraft for takeoff and gate approach and de-ice planes.
editorial@tribune.com

Lalit Mohan

Tribune News Service

Dharamsala, August 11

Long weekends would always mean better tourist season for Dharamsala. Though this weekend too is extended due to the 71st Independence Day, only a handful of tourists thronged the city this time.

President of the Upper Dharamsala Hotel and Restaurant Association Ashwani Bamba said this year, the footfall had gone down by 70 per cent.

He said tour operators were not willing to get hotels booked due to reports of their closure. During the peak summer months, a large number of people flocked to Dharamsala, he added.

As most tourists come through tour operators, the Dharamsala Hotel Association had tried to convince the former that everything was fine in the area. But that did not help.

Bamba said the state government should do something and spread the word that only 10 per cent hotels were facing penal action for illegal constructions. Sanjeev Gandhi, general secretary, Upper Dharamsala Hotel Association, said the Forest Department had banned camping at Triund for three months.

Triund is a major attraction for trekkers. It has been closed for camping on the plea that pollution is being caused due to the influx of tourists.

But if thats the reason to ban camping in Triund, why is the Nepal government still allowingMount Everest summit, which was termed the most littered peak recently. Since Triund is associated with the tourism industry in Dharamsala, the state government should look for alternative ways to protect the environment, Gandhi said.

The association has been demanding more parking space in upper Dharamsala as traffic jams have become a routine affair here.
editorial@tribune.com

Bhanu P Lohumi

Tribune News Service

Shimla, August 10

While the District and Sessions Court has held all three accused in the Yug murder case guilty and the parents of Yug and social organisations are demanding capital punishment for them, only one of 105 witnesses turned hostile and attempts were made to bribe policeman by the accused.

The convicts  Chander Sharma (28), Tajender (30) and Vikrant (24) - have been held guilty under Sections 302 (murder), 201 (disappearance of evidence/false information), 347 (wrongful confinement to extort property) and 364 (kidnapping for ransom) of the IPC and the sentence will be pronounced on August 13.

A constable, who was constructing his house at Bharari, was offered Rs 5 lakh by the key accused but he refused to accept it. It has been mentioned in the charge-sheet filed against the accused. One of the key witnesses Krishan Dutt, president of Bhanoti panchayat, who was present when the skeletal remains of Yug were recovered from the water tank at Kelston on August 22, 2016, remained firm and appeared as witness.

As per records obtained from mobile towers, the location of the convicts was traced thrice on June 21, 2014, near the water tank where Yug was dumped and the timing of the last record was 11.26 pm. The diatomic report revealed that he was dumped alive as water was found in his bones, which was only possible if the person had drowned, said District Attorney Randip Singh Parmar.

Servant of Vinod Gupta (Yugs father) Hari Om had revealed that Chander asked him that the kidnappers had demanded Rs 3.6 crore at Ambala, a day after the ransom letter was received. Only Vinod Gupta and his close ones were aware of the content of the letter which raised suspicion.

Two videos of Yug were also extracted from the mobile of Vikrant (gifted to him by Chander). In the first video, Yug was seen saying, Papa mujhe bacha lo and in the second, the voice of the boy was not heard.

Major evidence against convicts
harinder@tribunemail.com

Majid Jahangir

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, August 11

At least 12 Special Police Officers (SPOs) of the J&K Police, all posted in South Kashmir districts, have quit. An announcement in this regard was made by local Imams (priests) on their behalf after the Friday prayers.

The Imams of two mosques, while delivering sermons at Luraw Jagir and Pastoona Sayedabad villages of Tral in Pulwama district, on Friday announced that seven SPOs had quit their job and were back home. At least five more SPOs resigned publicly after the announcement, said sources. The resignations are seen as a fallout of the relentless militant attacks on policemen and SPOs, who are part-time police employees, in the past two weeks. Only some days ago, the state police had launched a crowd-funding campaign on Twitter to provide financial aid to the families of 499 SPOs killed while fighting militants.

On August 7, an SPO was injured in an attack in Tral. A day earlier, militants had fired at another SPO but he escaped unhurt. On July 28, militants had released SPO Mudasir Lone, whom they had abducted the same morning. Before setting him free, they released a videotape of Lone urging fellow SPOs to quit their jobs.

The SPOs, who number 24,000, are paid a pittance  Rs 6,000 per month.

Dangerous trend
editorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, August 10

The Army on Friday said the five militants killed in a gunfight at Rafiabad forests in north Kashmirs Baramulla district were probably fresh infiltrators.

The operation was launched by security forces on August 5 after specific intelligence input about the presence of militants at the dense Doniwari forest in Rafiabad, nearly 90 km from Srinagar.

The first contact with militants was established on August 8 when they fired upon a search party that left one soldier injured.

In the ensuing gunfight over several hours, five heavily armed terrorists were eliminated by security forces. On detailed search of the area, four AK-47 rifles, one pistol and a large amount war-like stores were recovered, Brig Dharam Raj Rai, commander of Armys 7 sector, told reporters in north Kashmir on Friday.

An analysis of the recovered items suggests that the militants belonged to the Lashkar-e-Toiba. The group had probably infiltrated into the state from the PoK recently, he added.

Brigadier Rai, however, did not specify the exact route through which the militants had infiltrated from across the Line of Control.
editorial@tribune.com

Dinesh Manhotra

Tribune News Services

Jammu, August 10

The chances of government formation in the state look bleak as the BJP high command is concentrating on the 2019 Lok Sabha elections and is not ready to reconduct the coalition experiment at this crucial stage.

Sources said the central leadership had given directions to the state unit to focus on the parliamentary elections by asking all MLAs to highlight the achievements of the NDA government in their respective constituencies to counter the Oppositions campaign.

Ram Madhav discussed only organisational issues and his focus was only to retain three Lok Sabha seats which the party had won in the 2014 elections, said a senior BJP leader who attended the meeting with Madhav.

Although some former ministers and legislators asked Ram Madhav about the chances of government formation in the state, he avoided all such queries and made it clear that the party high command will take a call on the issue at the appropriate time, the BJP leader said on the condition of anonymity.

He said one thing was evident during the meeting that the target of the partys central leadership as of now was the Lok Sabha elections.

Instead of giving any assurance on government formation, Ram Madhav preferred to discuss the partys strategy for the Lok Sabha and Assembly elections, he said.

Sources said the state BJP unit, especially former ministers and legislators, were exerting pressure on the high command to explore the possibilities of forming the government, but the central leadership had given the cold shoulder.

The experiment of stitching a coalition with the PDP did not yield the desirable results so the party leadership is not ready to take risk ahead of the crucial Lok Sabha polls, a source said.

The source said the party leadership feared that any wrong decision at this point would prove disastrous for the party so the chances of government formation were bleak.

Madhavs two-day visit to Srinagar from August 8 to 9 had fuelled speculations that the BJP had started efforts to form the government.
rchopra@tribunemail.com

Dinesh Manhotra

Tribune News Service

Jammu, August 11

Creating embarrassment for his party, BJP MLA from RS Pura, Gagan Bhagat, on Saturday openly supported Article 35-A and vowed to protect it at any cost.

He accused the BJP leadership of ignoring interests of the people of J&K for political gains at the national level by raising the demand for abrogating this article.

Protecting interests of the people of J&K in general and of the Jammu region in particular is my priority, so I will not hesitate in violating the party line, Bhagat said while supporting Article 35-A during an interaction with the youth of RS Pura.

Cautioning the youth against the ramification of abrogating this Article, Bhagat said the economy of Jammu region would be controlled by outsiders and there would be no job opportunities for the local youth.

Instead of protecting interests of the people of J&K, the BJP leadership is more concerned about winning the Lok Sabha elections, so the party is raising the demand for abrogation of Article 35-A, he said and asserted that no one could abrogate the Article which granted special privileges and rights to the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

Bhagat, suspended from the party on July 28 for alleged immoral activities, minced no words in attacking the BJP government at the Centre for betraying the people of Jammu region. Except promises, nothing has been done for the Jammu region, he said, adding that despite being in power in J&K for nearly three and a half years the party leadership had failed to solve the long-pending demands of the people of this region.

The disciplinary committee of the state BJP on July 26 had recommended suspension of Bhagat from the party for alleged abduction of a woman. On June 24, an ex-serviceman had accused the MLA of abducting his daughter, a charge denied by the woman as well as the politician.
editorial@tribune.com

Dinesh Manhotra

Tribune News Service

Jammu, August 10

Announcements of right-wing groups to make J&K the core issue are giving sleepless nights to the state BJP. Leaders of these organisations have stepped up attack on the saffron party for humiliating and insulting people of Jammu while sharing power with the PDP for over three years.

The BJP leadership is worried as these groups have launched an aggressive campaign against the party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections by roping in radical groups, including some disgruntled leaders of the Sangh Parivar, to expose the anti-Hindu agenda of the saffron party.

The first-ever convention of the Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha held at Jammu on July 29, which was attended by ultra right leaders from across the country, was dominated by anti-BJP rhetoric, where all speakers dubbed the BJP as the No.1 enemy of Hindus and exhorted people to teach the party a lesson in the coming elections.

Ravi Ranjan Singh and Maj Ramesh Upadhyay (retd) of the Hindu Mahasabha, Sudhakar Chaturvedi of the Hindu Yuva Vahni, Swami Prakashanand and other Hindu leaders addressed the convention. Sadhvi Pragya Thakur was also scheduled to participate in the convention, but her programme was cancelled at the eleventh hour.

After enjoying power in J&K for the first time, the state unit of the BJP is hesitating to take a clear stand on contentious issues. Ultra right groups like the Hindu Mahasabha and Antarrashtriya Hindu Parishad  the new outfit formed by formerVHP leader Pravin Togadia  are availing all opportunities to expose the BJP for taking a dubious stand on the issues related to Hindus.

Togadias new outfit has already set up its state unit by roping in hardcore Hindu leaders and some disgruntled Sangh Parivar leaders. The outfit is on the job to set up district and tehsil committees before the Lok Sabha elections.

The ongoing controversy over Article 35A has given an opportunity to groups to corner the BJP for befooling people by not taking a clear stand on the issue.

Ahead of the urban local bodies elections, the Hindu Mahasabha has announced its unit for Kathua and Samba districts for fielding its candidates. It is especially focusing on Samba and Kathua districts, which are considered strongholds of the BJP, to make inroads into the region by aggressively raking up religious issues.
editorial@tribune.com

Srinagar, August 11

National Conference president Farooq Abdullah said on Saturday that he would fight for Article 35A until his death, warning that the fallout of any tinkering with the Constitutional provision would be difficult to control.

Article 35A, which gives special rights and privileges to the people of Jammu and Kashmir, is currently facing a legal challenge in the Supreme Court.

I will fight against them till I go down in my grave, said Farooq, maintaining that they only remember Kashmir and not Himachal Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland, which also enjoy the special position.

Asked how he sees the situation in Kashmir if Article 35A is tinkered with, he said, You will see the situation yourselves. Delhi will also see it and it will be very difficult for them to control it, he said.

Farooq, who is also the Member of Parliament from the Srinagar constituency, however, sought to dismiss the uproar around the legal challenge to Article 35A of the Constitution, saying no one is going to touch it.

They cannot touch Article 35A. The Constitutional bench has talked about it twice already. I dont know why they try to scratch this wound every time. The more they scratch it, the more blood there will be. Time has come for them to stop scratching it, the NC president said on the sidelines of a function here.

When the reporters pressed him hard on the issue, Farooq, in his usual style, said, 35A ko mariye goli. 35A chalta jayega (shoot 35-A, the issue will keep going on). On August 6, the Supreme Court had said a three-judge bench would decide whether the pleas challenging Article 35A should be referred to a five-judge Constitution bench for examining the larger issue of alleged violation of the doctrine of basic structure of the Constitution. PTI

Jitendra slams Cong, NC for misleading people

Jammu: Union minister Jitendra Singh on Saturday accused the Congress and National Conference (NC) of misleading the people of the Jammu region over Article 35A, and claimed that scrapping it would have no impact on job opportunities for local youth. A debate over continuing the constitutional provision has picked up in recent months, after several pleas were filed in the Supreme Court.
editorial@tribune.com

Dinesh Manhotra

Tribune News Service

Jammu, August 11

The State Commission for Backward Classes (SCBC) has prepared a comprehensive draft to extend reservation to the people living near the International Border (IB) at par with the population residing near the Line of Control (LoC).

The draft would be forwarded to the state government within a week for issuing an order to entitle IB dwellers to three per cent reservation in government jobs. The quota is already available to people living along the LoC.

Sources said the SCBC chairman is likely to visit Jammu on Monday to finalise the draft by incorporating the demands raised by legislators and panchayat members of the border belts from time to time.

The commission has been preparing the draft since the last month because a number of delegations of IB dwellers have given their representations and demanded treatment at par with the LoC residents, a source said, adding that following the failure of the political leadership, the IB residents had approached the commission for justice.

The proposal, if accepted by the state government, would fulfil a long-pending demand of over three lakh population of the plains of south Jammu comprising Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts.

Starting from Paharpur of Kathua to the chicken neck area to the Pargwal sector of Jammu district, the 198-km IB with Pakistan has witnessed bloodshed and destruction since long. But during the past one decade, the intensity of shelling and firing has increased manifold due to hostile relations between India and Pakistan.

During the 2014 Lok Sabha and Assembly polls, the BJP had promised to extend reservations to the IB areas but it remained only on paper. On February 10, this year the J&K Legislative Assembly had passed a Bill to extend reservation benefit to the Pahari-speaking people in the state but IB dwellers were ignored.

3% reservation in govt jobs proposed
singhking99@yahoo.com

Majid Jahangir

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, August 10

Militant recruits in Kashmir have adopted a new strategy to get arms training in Pakistan. They travel on valid visas and infiltrate back into the Valley through the treacherous Line of Control after receiving training.

Of the five Kashmiri militants killed along the LoC in Kupwara this year, at least four had visited Pakistan through the Wagah border on valid documents, a top police official said. The five were buried in Kupwara as they were believed to be from Pakistan. However, the bodies had to be exhumed after their families here identified them.

J&K DGP Shesh Paul Vaid termed it a new phenomenon. While many such militants have been detained, it seems they are now finding it hard to return via Wagah and are taking the LoC route.

Another officer said a well-knit militant network was managing visas and documents. The police say the individuals first acquire a passport and get a recommendation letter from their contact to obtain a visa from the Pakistan High Commission. The purpose of visit mentioned is usually meeting a relative or studies.

Intelligence agencies have been alerted at Wagah, while youths intending to visit Pakistan have been advised to get clearance from SSPs.

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Said Giuliani on the possibility of an interview: "If they can come to us and show us the basis and that it's legitimate and that they have uncovered something, we can go from there and assess their objectivity." Giuliani added to his list of prerequisite demands that he wants to know about the origins of the FBI probe before agreeing to some form of interview. Then on Wednesday, Giuliani announced that the president's team issued yet another counter-proposal to Mueller, declining to specify the terms.
vinaymishra188@gmail.com

Kriti Sanon has been receiving huge backlash from netizens for posing with a giraffe for the shoot of fashion magazines latest cover.

In the picture posted by the magazines official Instagram account, the Bareilley Ki Barfi actress can be seen in a black high-neck top paired with silver trousers and black stilettos, striking a pose with a giraffe that appears to be suspended in the air. As soon as the picture was posted, people started bashing the photo for its animal-offensive content. A user commented, Such a shame! You guys are so shameless. Talking about atrocities while portraying animal cruelty in the name of fashion. Another user said, Guys it doesnt matter if its fake or real. The entire picture is just wrong. If a women dummy was hanging with a male model posing...will that be justified? No.

Demanding an apology from Kriti, another user said, You should take this post down. And delete that picture! And like apologize to every giraffe. Actually the entire animal kingdom. You want to make a point of subjugation with more subjugation. Ridiculous!
shalender@tribune.com

Gurnaaz Kaur

Asya Shivaya is a flautist from Russia and Pablo Grace, a tabla player from Argentina. Together, this couple has played many melodies and enchanted audiences at various places in India as well as abroad.

It is Indian classical music that connected them and it is music they live for. In Chandigarh to perform at the Pracheen Kala Kendra, they share notes on their musical journey. I was initiated into music at 16 years of age. Thats quite late though, but it has been an enriching ride so far. I feel a strong connection with Hinduism and added Shivaya to my stage name because I believe in the mantra Om Namah Shivaya, Asya says.

Reason to live

She says coming to India changed her life and Pablo with a smile expresses he couldnt agree more. These musicians echo the art has given them a reason to live. It is in music we found our purpose. Music completes us. And you cant reach anywhere without a guru. This country gave us our gurus and therefore gave our music depth. Studying it as a subject is one thing, but getting it from a master is like getting absorbed in it, they say.

While Asya came to India in 2009, Pablo reached here in 2010. It was a chance encounter and love followed. This duo does credit ICCR for their growth in music and life. Initially, I learnt tabla and some other instruments at Jawaharlal Nehru Cultural Centre in Russia. This was after completing my education in psychology. Then, I got a scholarship by ICCR and landed in India to learn tabla at Shri Ram Bhartya Kala Kendra, New Delhi. I learnt playing flute alongside. There has been no looking back since. India is a land of opportunities for those who want to dive deep into its culture, Asya shares.

No end to learning

Pablo, who too has got a scholarship by ICCR, says, After so many years of learning Indian classical music, I feel people here in India do not know much about their rich cultural heritage. While I am an outsider and so inclined to learn it, those who have it all available are missing out on it. Its probably the same in every country.

gurnaaz@tribunemail.com
Naresh Raj

Naresh Raj

MY father was a teacher and a freedom fighter who took part in Praja Mandal, a political outfit launched by Babu Brish Bhan and Giani Zail Singh, former President of India, in the early thirties. He was a young boy then.

In the year 1942, activists of the Praja Mandal were supporting the Quit India Movement. They were few in number. The Station House Officer (SHO) of Sunam  our village  arrested them and took them to a jail in Sangrur since there was no such facility in Sunam. It was a cold month of February. The activists were told to strip and made to lie down on ice slabs. A constable then gave them a beating with a stick. Such was the fervour of patriotism that they did not cry out in pain, but continued raising the slogans of Bharat Mata ki Jai and Vande Mataram. Even the SHO and the jail employees were in a state of shock on seeing their determination and passion for azadi.

We did get our freedom, but at a great price.

My father took to teaching at a college. He could have been a minister, but such persons are above these desires. He produced stalwarts: some of his students became Secretaries, Chief Secretaries, judges of the High Court, IAS and IPS officers and rose to great heights. Even the Chairman of Jet Airways, Naresh Goyal, was my fathers student.

Incidents of rampant loot, corruption, scams, unemployment, crime, communal riots, etc., happening across our country, used to depress my father.

One day, he was reading a newspaper and became very sad. I asked him the reason. He read out the news of a minister found guilty in a scam and sentenced to a jail term by the court. In the same paper, there was a news of the rape of an 18-year-old girl in Delhi, the countrys capital. He said in a voice choked with emotions: Yeh to woh Hindustan nahin hai jiske liye humne itni kurbaniyaan di thi (This is not the Hindustan we sacrificed so much for).

I could see tears flowing from his eyes. A man who could not be made to cry by third degree torture was made to weep by his own countrymen. There was a sense of betrayal.

I wonder if all their sacrifices were, indeed, in vain.
editorial@tribune.com

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 11

In what will change an important part of their personal gear, the Army has approved an order for 12.75 lakh pairs of new-design high-ankle combat boots to be used by troops in all-weather conditions and in different terrain barring snow-bound areas.

One of the parameters to select the boots was that troops should be able to wear them in temperatures varying from zero to 50 degrees Celsius. A cost negotiation committee finalised the boots, their cost, supply and logistics parameters before seeking final approval from the Ministry of Defence, said sources.

The selection came after an extensive user trial by thousands of troops in 2016, followed by a feedback session. The Army assessed the feedback before four private companies were selected as eligible bidders. The annual requirement will be 6 lakh pairs of shoes, or 1,643 pairs daily, manufacturing which would be tough for any company. The Army has, thus, suggested distributing the order among three suppliers: Lowest bidder to get 40 pc of the order and 30 pc each for the other two.

The Master General Ordnance has set a benchmark of providing better quality boots in tune with the latest concept of military boots available in the footwear industry in India and abroad. The Army had wanted the shoes be light in weight and the toe be made of scratch-resistant leather.

12 lakh pairs needed
editorial@tribune.com

Aditi Tandon

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 11

As Congress president Rahul Gandhi sounds the bugle in poll-bound Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, he faces the onerous task of uniting various local factions that continue to be at loggerheads with one another.

In Rajasthan where Gandhi held a roadshow to announce the arrival of the Congress on Saturday, local state leaders talk of simmering discontent within the party.

The Rajasthan Congress remains divided between the faction led by incumbent state chief Sachin Pilot and another which the AICC general secretary (organisation) and Rajasthan ex-CM Ashok Gehlot heads. While both are eyeing the CMs post should Congress defeat the BJP, Rahuls recent plan to not announce any chief ministerial candidate has invited mixed reactions from party men.

In Madhya Pradesh too where nine-time MP Kamal Nath is the state chief, a young Jyotiraditya Scindia is increasingly seen as the future leader. MP Congress stalwarts privately say the decision to not announce a CM candidate may irk Nath, a strongman who enjoys the support of ex-CM Digvijay Singh.

Leaders close to Nath say they dont know how the decision to go into elections without a face will play out with the BJP again fighting under CM Shivraj Singh Chouhan. It remains to be seen whether going without a CM candidate will aid our chances, says Anil Shastri, senior Congress leader.

The decision to not name any CM face stems from Rahuls challenges of reconciling power interests within states. Rahul Gandhi has told everyone that they must first deliver and then seek a post. We have often seen in the past that potential CM candidates have lost their own seats. This happened in Gujarat. The decision is to get every leader to mobilise support in favour of the party and then nominate a leader on the basis of performance, says an AICC office-bearer.

PM committed theft in Rafale

Blaming the NDA government for keeping silent in Parliament on the Rafale deal, Rahul Gandhi targeted Modi. The PM has done corruption in Rafale. He has committed a theft to benefit his business tycoon friend Anil Ambani who has a debt burden of Rs 45,000 crore, he said

The UPA had moved a proposal for making 126 indigenous planes by HAL at Rs 520 crore per plane so that thousands of engineers could get jobs in HAL, but Modiji went to France with his business friend and made a contract with a company that came into existence seven days before the contract, he said OC

BJP playing politics on triple talaq Bill
singhking99@yahoo.com

Ajay Banerjee

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 10

An Army internal note on restructuring has suggested changes to make the force leaner. This includes doing away with around 20 divisional headquarters.

In all, the Army has around 40 divisional headquarters, headed by a Major General. Ideally about three divisions report to a Corp Commander, a Lieutenant General.

This does not mean the division10,000 to 14,000 troopswill be abolished, its just that the division will not have a separate headquarters as it adds to costs.

The note also suggested that the divisions under three separate Strike corps, the Mountain Strike Corps, 3 Corps Dimapur, 4 Corps Tezpur, 15 Corps Srinagar , 16 Corps Nagrota and those dual tasked in 10 Corps Bathinda, 11 Corps Jalandhar shall function as usual.

The final decision on the issue will be taken by Army Chief General Bipin Rawat, which will need to be ratified by the Ministry of Defence. In areas where the division headquarters are abolished, the brigades that so far report to the Divisional Commander will report directly to the Corps and be called task force. The Corps headquarters will be beefed up to deal with the gap caused by doing away with the divisional headquarters.

Each divisional headquarters has at least 15 officers and around 100 jawans. The change will free them for deployment in operational areas. It will save on infrastructure costs and cut down red-tape, thus allowing for quicker decision-making.

The Army has inbuilt flexibility by which the Chief of Staff of the Corps can take over as the Divisional Commander, if needed. The idea is being crystallised and will be deliberated upon by Army Commanders.

Cantt road closure
singhking99@yahoo.com

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 10

A Class II student of a New Delhi Municipal Council school was allegedly raped by an electrician on the institutes premises, the police said on Friday.

Following the incident, the National Human Rights Commission issued notices to the Chief Secretary, Delhi Government, and the police seeking a report on the incident. The Delhi Commission for Woman (DCW) also issued notice to the area SHO and the school principal demanding the perpetrator be hanged as per the new law.

The incident occurred on Wednesday when the girl was leaving the school. The accused, Ram Asre (37), an electrician, allegedly took her to a pump room on the school premises and sexually assaulted her, the police said.

The accused also threatened the girl with dire consequences if she told anyone about it. When the girl reached home, her mother found her bleeding and took her to hospital where doctors informed that she had been sexually assaulted, they said.

Her parents approached the police, following which a case was registered and the accused arrested.

Though school authorities claimed Asre was not employed with them, sources said that he had been working in the school for over a month and employed as an electrician with the NDMC.

A school representative said, The incident occurred after 1.30 pm, when the school gets over. The school employee was not involved in it. Investigation is under way. We have been in touch the childs parents.

Meanwhile, many parents on Friday protested the incident outside the school and raised questions about the safety of their children inside the institute.
harinder@tribunemail.com

Shubhadeep Choudhury

Tribune News Service

Kolkata, August 11

Amit Shah, the BJP president, on Saturday launched a scathing attack on West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee and Congress president Rahul Gandhi for opposing the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, asking them to clarify whether the country or their vote bank came first.

Shah accused the TMC chief of opposing the updating of the NRC to protect her vote bank comprising Bangladeshi infiltrators. Retaliating, Mamata dubbed the BJP as anti-Bengali.

Shah, who was greeted outside the Kolkata airport with giant posters put up by the TMC asking him to leave, asked how could the BJP be anti-Bengali when the party had been founded by Syama Prasad Mookerjee, a Bengali. Virtually sounding the poll bugle for the Lok Sabha polls in Bengal, he said while he was not against Bengalis, he was certainly against the CM and had come to Kolkata to uproot her from the state.

Addressing a well-attended rally here, Shah said the NRC was aimed at identifying foreign infiltrators. Why are Mamata Banerjee and Rahul Gandhi opposing the NRC? Let them clarify their stand on the Bangladeshi infiltration issue. In 2005, Mamata Banerjee protested against Bangladeshi infiltrators because they were Lefts vote bank. Now these Bangladeshis are TMCs vote bank and, therefore, she is against the NRC.

Mamata Didi, Congress leaders, kindly specify are you with the country or with your vote bank?

Stressing the BJP would ensure that the NRC process in Assam was carried out peacefully, he declared, Neither Mamata Banerjee nor Rahul Gandhi can stop us from doing it." Shah also asked the TMC and the Congress to clarify their stand on the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016 that proposed Indian citizenship to members of religious minority groups (Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Sikhs and Persis) from Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan who may have taken refuge in India because of religious persecution.

Shah said the TMC was carrying out a "false" propaganda that refugees from across the border would be deported. Refugees need not worry. The BJP-led government at the Centre is committed to safeguard their interests.

He said the people of Bengal had given a chance to the Congress, the Communists and the TMC but "they failed to usher in development. Give a chance to the BJP. We will bring in development." Alleging that the TMC government had tried to create hurdles during the immersion of Durga idols, he said, "Once the BJP comes to power, Durga puja and Saraswati puja will be celebrated with fanfare. The TMC termed Shah's allegations as baseless.
singhking99@yahoo.com

Thiruvananthapuram, Aug 10

Dam reservoirs and rivers overflowed, sections of highways collapsed and homes were swept away in severe flooding in more than half of Kerala, after days of incessant rains left nearly 54,000 people homeless and killed at least 29, officials said on Friday.

Five columns of Army were deployed in the states seven severely-hit northern districts, out of Keralas 14, to help evacuate people and to build makeshift bridges even as the Navys southern command was put on alert after the water level in Periyar river rose amid concern that parts of Wellingdon Island in Kochi could be inundated. Almost all 40-odd rivers in the state are in spate, officials said. Northern and central Kerala have been battered by heavy rains since August 8, which has left 29 persons dead, including three on Friday. Of them, 25 died in landslides and four in drowning. State officials said 53,501 people are now housed in 439 relief camps across the state.

Tourists were barred from entering the hilly Idukki district after roads caved in at many places. Army soldiers were building small bridges to evacuate people stranded at various places in Kozhikode and Wayanad.

A red alert was issued for Idukki and its adjoining districts in view of the possibility of release of more water from the Idukki reservoir.

At least 50 tourists, including 24 foreigners, stranded at the Plum Judy resort at Munnar since Wednesday were rescued and taken to safer places, state Tourism minister Kadakampally Surendran said.

The water level had crossed the maximum storage capacity of reservoirs of 24 out of the states 58 dams, forcing officials to release the water by opening the sluice gates, including three of the Idukki reservoir. Two more shutters of the Cheruthoni dam, part of the Idukki reservoir, the biggest arch dam in Asia, were lifted around 7 am on Friday. One shutter was opened yesterday after 26 years.

This morning, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan reviewed the flood situation and relief works being undertaken by the Army, Navy, Air Force, Coast Guard and the NDRF.

Due to the increase in the water level at Idukki dam, it is essential to release water three times (more) than what was being released now, Vijayan said, adding that this will lead to rise in the water levels of Periyar river and its tributaries. He appealed to people to be vigilant.  PTI

Navy rescues 55

Fifty-five persons have so far been evacuated by Navy under Operation Madad, launched by the Southern Naval Command

Two teams with Gemini boats commenced rescue at Kalpetta, Wayanad and Panmarum (13 km south of Mananthavady), where they evacuated 55 stranded people, a release said

More rain likely

IMD has predicted fairly widespread to widespread rain from Aug 15-17 in the western Himalayan region, Indo-Gangetic plains, Kerala, Karnataka, TN ghats

The ongoing rainfall over Kerala is expected to subside in intensity, but a further increase is likely from August 13 to 15 due to a fresh surge in monsoon

Grim scenario
amansharma@tribunemail.com

New Delhi, August 11

Heavy to very heavy rain is expected in 16 states, including Kerala, Uttarakhand and West Bengal, in next two days with fishermen are advised not to venture in central Arabian Sea, the NDMA said on Saturday.

In a statement, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) said heavy rain is also expected in large areas along Bay of Bengal.

Red warning for heavy to very heavy rain at a few places with extremely heavy falls at isolated places very likely over Uttarakhand tomorrow and Monday, the NDMA said quoting a bulletin of the India Meteorological Department.

Rough to very rough sea conditions are likely to prevail over west central Arabian Sea. Fishermen are advised not to venture into this area, it said.

Heavy to very heavy rains are likely at isolated places over Uttarakhand, Sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Meghalaya, coastal Andhra Pradesh, coastal Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

As many as 718 people have lost their lives in incidents related to floods and rains in seven states during the monsoon season so far.

According to the Home Ministrys National Emergency Response Centre (NERC), 171 people lost their lives in Uttar Pradesh, 170 people have died in West Bengal, 178 have died in Kerala and 139 have died in Maharashtra.

As many as 52 people lost their lives in Gujarat, 44 died in Assam and eight perished in Nagaland.

A total of 26 people were also missing, Kerala (21) and West Bengal (5), while 244 others received injuries in rain-related incidents in the states, it said.  PTI
Excerpted from The Best of Royko: The Tribune Years, a new collection of Mike Roykos later work. By the time Royko died in 1997, he had written nearly 8,000 columns  about half of them for the Tribune  and had become a part of the daily fabric of Chicago life. To learn more about the new book, edited by his son David Royko, visit store.chicagotribune.com/best-of-royko.html.
monicakchauhan@gmail.com

New Delhi, August 11

A man carrying a reward of Rs 1 lakh has been arrested on charges of stealing around 500 high-tech luxury cars in Delhi in five years, police said on Friday.

Safruddin, 29, of north Delhi's Nand Nagri area and his gang used to arrive by air to the national capital from Hyderabad and return after committing the crime to avoid arrest.

"A team led by Inspector Neeraj Chaudhary and Sub-Inspector Kuldeep had hailed a car to stop near Gagan Cinema on August 3. The driver, later identified as Safruddin, however, sped away but was intercepted after a chase of 50 km at Pragati Maidan and arrested," Deputy Commissioner of Police Rajesh Deo said.

"Safruddin told police that he had fixed a target of stealing 100 luxury cars a year in Delhi. Along with accomplice Mohammad Sharik and other gang members, he arrived in Delhi from Hyderabad by air along with a laptop and hi-tech gadgetry to break into the targeted cars' software, GPS and centralised locking systems," the officer added. They would later take a flight to Hyderabad.

Safruddin and his four accomplices had opened fire at police at Vivek Vihar on June 5. In the shootout, his accomplice Noor Mohammad was killed and one Ravi Kuldeep arrested.

The gang sold the stolen vehicles to their contacts in Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and other states. IANS
harinder@tribunemail.com

Thiruvananthapuram, August 11

After being pounded by rains for the past few days, there was a brief let-up in the downpour on Saturday in Kerala, but the government remained on high alert with more rains forecast, even as the toll in the monsoon fury since August 8 climbed to 37.

CM Pinarayi Vijayan, who undertook an aerial survey of rain-ravaged areas of Idukki and Wayanad, said Kerala was in the midst of an unprecedented flood havoc and the calamity has caused "immeasurable misery and devastation." He said Rs 10 lakh compensation would be given to people who lost their homes and land and Rs 4 lakh to those who lost a member of their family.

Though there was a respite from rains across the state on Saturday, especially in catchment areas of Idukki dam, the Indian Meteorological Department issued a 'Red alert, asking people to be cautious as there was a possibility of heavy to very heavy rainfall in most places in Idukki, Wayanad, Kannur, Ernakulam, Palakkad and Malappuram.

Two fishermen drowned on Saturday when their boat capsized off Thiruvananthapuram coast, while in another incident the bodies of a mother and daughter were found in a waterlogged area behind their house at Kuttanad in Alappuzha district.

Four more bodies were recovered from other parts of the state, taking the toll to 37, official sources said.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh will undertake an aerial survey of some flood-hit areas and hold discussions with the Chief Minister at Kochi on Sunday.  PTI
uttara@tribuneindia.com

Shiv Kumar

Tribune News Service

Mumbai, August 11

The Anti-Terror Squad of the Maharashtra police is questioning several members of the Sanatan Sanstha and the Hindu Janjagruti Samiti following the arrest of three persons from different parts of the state on Friday.



"We are questioning several suspects in Mumbai, Pune, Satara and other places in Maharashtra," an ATS official told reporters here this afternoon. He did not rule out more arrests in the case.



The ATS had on Friday arrested Vaibhav Raut from Nala Sopara on the outskirts of Mumbai after a large quantity of explosives and IEDs were allegedly recovered from his premises. Subsequently two more people,Sharad Kalaskar and Sudhanva Gondhalekar, were arrested from Pune and Mumbai.



All three are members of the Sanatan Sanstha and other Hindutva organisations, police said. They were produced before a local court, which remanded them to custody till August 18.



The three are being questioned for their possible links to the murders of rationalists Narendra Dabholkar and MM Kalburgi, communist leader Govind Pansare and journalist Gauri Lankesh.



ATS Chief Atulchandra Kulkarni told reporters that members of various social media groups that the three were part of will also be questioned. The mobile phones of all the three have been sent for forensic analysis, he added.




amansharma@tribunemail.com

Ravi S.Singh

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 11

The just-concluded Monsoon Session of Parliament (July 18-August 10), which saw 17 sittings, was most productive in the past 20 years, according to Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar.

The cherry on the cake was the government being successful in getting two key bills passed in Rajya Sabha - to give Constitutional status to National Commission for Backward Classes and amendment to the Constitution to restore the existing law against atrocities on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes - even though numerical strength in the House was stacked against the ruling NDA.

Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Vijay Goel, who is related to affairs of Upper House, said its productivity was 74 per cent more than the output during the last Monsoon Session in 2017. On the other hand, productivity in Lok Sabha was 118 per cent.

The government sees the session also as politically satisfying on account of its easy hop past the hump of Opposition's no-confidence motion.

Subsequently, NDA candidate Harivansh was elected to the post of Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha trouncing the Opposition-supported Congress nominee BK Hariprasad.

The political victories came as a shot in the arm as the Treasury benches garnered votes more than the NDA's numbers, especially for the post of RS Deputy Chairperson where the numbers were understood to be stacked against the government.

"The triumph dispelled speculations that the allies were deserting NDA," Goel said.

However, the government failed to get the crucial triple talaq bill, which seeks to make instant divorce of Muslim women an offence, passed in Rajya Sabha. It has already been passed by Lok Sabha.

During the session, 22 bills (21 in the Lok Sabha and 1 in Rajya Sabha) were introduced. The Lok Sabha passed 21 Bills and Rajya Sabha passed 14 bills. As many as 20 bills were passed by both the Houses.

The 20 bills take into account the six, as passed by the Lok Sabha and transmitted to Upper House for its recommendation, are not likely to be returned to Lok Sabh within a the period of 14 days from the date of their receipt in Rajya Sabha. They will deemed to be have been passed by both the Houses at the expiration of the stipulated period.

Bills passed by both the Houses include the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill, Negotiable Instruments (Amendment) Bill, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Second Amendment) Bill, the Requisitioning and Acquisition of Immovable Property (Amendment) Bill and the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill.
singhking99@yahoo.com

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 10

The Rajya Sabha on Friday deferred the controversial triple talaq Bill to the next session of Parliament due to lack of consensus among parties.

Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu said: Triple talaq Bill will not be taken up because no consensus could be built around it. The Rajya Sabha was expected to take up the diluted version of the legislation, officially called the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017, on Friday  last day of the session. However, sources say the decision was taken to help the passage of two other important legislations listed after the Private Members Business, which the Opposition would have stalled if the government went ahead with the triple talaq Bill.

Naidu said only two Bills would be taken up for consideration  Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Second Amendment) Bill and Commercial Courts, Commercial Division an Commercial Appellate Division of High Courts (Amendment) Bill. They have already been adopted by the lower House. In the morning session, the TMC had objected to inclusion of government Bills during the time allotted for private Members Business (Resolutions). Its members had staged a walkout when the Chair did not agree with it.

To Opposition members objections, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Vijay Goel said they wanted to stall the triple talaq Bill. The government has to do business. It may explore other options the session could be extended, he said. The Opposition is opposed to the Bill on the ground that the government is rushing with the legislation. They want safeguards against misuse of the law and want it to be referred to a select committee.

Meanwhile, speculation is rife that the Narendra Modi government may take the ordinance route to enact the legislation that sets aside the Islamic practice that allows men to divorce their wives by uttering talaq (divorce) thrice.

Political observers say bringing the Bill in the winter session, just ahead of LS polls, would suit BJP prospects better. Apparently, the Opposition also demanded a joint parliamentary panel on the Rafale deal in lieu of support for the triple talaq Bill.

PMs BK (sold) remark expunged
singhking99@yahoo.com

New Delhi, August 10

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear the CBIs appeal challenging the acquittal of dentist couple Rajesh and Nupur Talwar in the 2008 twin murder case of their daughter Aarushi and domestic help Hemraj.

A Bench headed by Justices Ranjan Gogoi said the CBIs appeal would be heard along with the pending petition of Hemrajs wife challenging the acquittal of the Talwars by the Allahabad High Court on October 12 last year.

Leave granted, the Bench, also comprising Justices Navin Sinha and KM Joseph, said. Representing the CBI, Additional Solicitor General Maninder Singh referred to the plea filed by Hemrajs wife, after which the Bench said the probe agencys appeal would be tagged with it.

In May 2008, 14-year-old Aarushi was found dead inside her room in Talwars Noida residence with her throat slit. The needle of suspicion had initially moved towards 45-year-old Hemraj, who had gone missing, but his body was recovered from the terrace of the house two days later.

As the Uttar Pradesh Police drew flak over shoddy probe, then CM Mayawati had recommended a CBI probe. The case was subsequently handed over to the agency.

A CBI court at Ghaziabad sentenced the Talwars to life imprisonment on November 26, 2013, in connection with the case. The HC later freed them of the charges on the ground that they could not be held guilty on the basis of the evidence on record.  PTI
singhking99@yahoo.com

Satya Prakash

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 10

The Supreme Court on Friday stayed a Jammu and Kashmir High Court order allowing cinema-goers to carry their own food and water into theatres.

A Bench headed by Justice Rohinton F Nariman stayed the July 18 order after advocates representing the Multiplex Association of India (MAI) highlighted the security risks involved.

Issuing notice to the state government and the petitioners, the Bench asked them to respond in four weeks, posting the matter for further hearing after six weeks.

Should I be allowed to carry my whiskey in Taj Hotel and order for soda there? wondered Rohatgi, who represented the MAI. The High Court has completely ignored aspects of safety and hygiene. There have been blasts in cinema halls too. How are we supposed to scan thousands of people who turn up five minutes before the screening? another senior counsel AM Singhvi asked.

Acting on a PIL, a Division Bench of the High Court had directed multiplexes/cinema owners not to prohibit cinema-goers/viewers henceforth from carrying his/her own food articles and water inside the theatre. It had also ordered a complete ban on the use of polythene bags in the multiplexes.

The HC had ordered the government as well as district magistrates to ensure these directions were complied with in letter and spirit. Such kind of acts on the part of owners are against the right to choice of food, which comes under the purview of Article 21, the HC had observed.
editorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, August 11

The Congress today cited documentary evidence to allege that BJP president and Rajya Sabha MP Amit Shah had concealed his liabilities in the election affidavit filed on July 24 last year at the time of his election to the upper house.

Senior Congress leader and former minister Jairam Ramesh alleged a new scam by Shahs son Jay, asking how the latters small worth company got hefty loans from private and cooperative banks in Gujarat. The Congress had earlier accused Jay of corrupt dealings through Temple Enterprises, a now-closed firm that had posted magical profits soon after the BJP came to power at the centre.

Today, Ramesh pointed to yet another company called Kusum Fin Service, a limited liability firm co-owned by Jay and his wife, to say, The net worth of this company is Rs 6 crore. On this basis, the company has received loans worth Rs 95 crore from cooperative and private banks in Gujarat. One of these banks has Gujarat minister Nitin Patel as a member. It is unprecedented for a company with such meagre worth to get such handsome loans.

Congress primary allegation was that Jays firm got loans against the mortgage of two pieces of land, both owned by Amit Shah in Ahmedabad, and that the BJP chief had not disclosed this liability in his election affidavit. This is unlawful. Amit Shahs election affidavit says he has no liability. We will petition the EC seeking action against him, said Ramesh.

He also wondered how Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation had given land worth Rs 6 crore on lease to Jay who, within a month of this deal, received Rs 17-crore loan from a private bank. This shows that a Gujarat government corporation gave land on lease to Jay only to facilitate his loan, said Ramesh, further questioning the Indian Renewable Energy Development Authority for extending a loan of Rs 10.50 crore to Kusum Fin Service.

The authoritys rules say no one individual can get loan beyond Rs 5 crore. How did Jay Shah get Rs 10.50 crore? asked Ramesh, alleging another episode of dubious transactions by Jay Amit Shah. Ramesh called Jay the first son of India who could do anything and get away with it.

Charges bogus: BJP

Rebutting the Congress allegations as fake, bogus, BJPs Sambit Partra said Amit Shah could not have shown the liability of an independent entity belonging to his son as his own. BJP chief has only mortgaged his property as a collateral security for his adult sons company Besides own liabilities, politicians have to show liabilities of their spouse and dependent or minor children. On the contrary, Shah will be violating the law if he shows his adult sons liability in his election affidavit. Patra called it a desperate attempt to deflect attention from alleged scam of huge tax evasion by Congress chief Rahul Gandhi. PTI

Jay is the first son of india

Jay Shah is displaying exemplary creativity in PM Modis Start Up India project... Jays firm got loans against mortgage of two plots owned by Amit Shah, which he did not disclose in his poll affidavit.  Jairam Ramesh, senior Cong leader
harinder@tribunemail.com

New Delhi, August 11

Union Minister Rajen Gohain on Saturday said accusations and conspiracies are plotted against him whenever he is about to contest elections, a day after the Assam Police registered a case against him for allegedly raping a woman.

The police had on Friday said an investigation was under way in the case that was registered against the minister on August 2 after receiving a complaint at the Nagaon police station.

Every time I am about to contest elections, such conspiracies are plotted against me. This happened in 2016 and 2011 as well. Now again, this has started. Investigation is under way. The truth will be revealed soon, Gohain, Minister of State for Railways, told mediapersons at his residence here. It is likely that he was referring to the 2019 Lok Sabha elections. He represents the Nagaon Lok Sabha constituency.

The minister has also filed complaints of blackmailing against the woman and her family members, his officer on special duty, Sanjiv Goswami, had said on Friday, claiming that the case against the minister has been withdrawn.  PTI
editorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 10

Pleading innocence, an accused in the Kathua rape case on Friday claimed that he had withdrawn money from an ATM in Meerut (UP) at the time of the alleged incident. The CCTV footage of the examination centre as well as the ATM were available. Had the investigating agency properly and fairly examined the available footage, it might have come to the conclusion that accused Vishal Jangotra was innocent.

The assertion came on a petition filed by Vishal and his father Sanjhi Ram. They were seeking a fresh probe from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI). The plea failed to find favour from the Punjab and Haryana High Court.

Taking up the petition, the Bench of Justice RK Jain declined to entertain the prayer and asked the petitioners to approach the Supreme Court.

What is completely shocking is that no attempt was made to examine the footage available in the Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) of the bank ATMs and examination hall. In fact prior to filing of the chargesheet against Vishal, it was imperative on the part of the investigating agency to first examine the plea of the alibi and go through all necessary footage, the petition added.

Appearing on the petitioners behalf, senior advocate Jasjit Singh Bedi asserted that Vishal was a student of BSc (Agriculture) at Aakanksha College, Meeranpur, Meerut. He was not even present in Rasana, Kathua, when the alleged incident had taken place. Bedi submitted that Vishal had his semester examination from January 9 to January 27, followed by practical examinations.

On January 12, petitioner Vishal was having an exam of fundamental of soil science from 10 am to 1 pm and on January 15 he had appeared for Elements of Genetics examination. The investigating agency has collected the examination sheets but erroneously come to the conclusion that the said sheets were filled in later to create alibi, Bedi asserted.

Vishals father Sanhji Ram facing the allegation of giving bribe to official accused also claimed innocence. The Bench was told that his call detail records did not show telephonic conversation with any of the official accused. The conduct of the investigating agency apparently showed biasness against the petitioners and other accused, argued the counsel.
Sprucing up the rest of the riverwalk makes a ton of sense. It will add further luster to what has already become one of the citys most popular destinations. At the same time, though, wed hate to see a land rush of new bars and eateries along the revamped section. As it stands now, the riverwalk can often feel claustrophobic. Theres a lot to be said for striking a balance between greenery and bar stools.
editorial@tribune.com

Vishav Bharti

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 11

Facing the heat over curbs on the sale of habit-forming de-addiction drugs, chemists have decided to stop the sale of five life-saving medicines, including tramadol.

General secretary of the Chemist Association, Amritsar, Piyush Sharma has sent a communication to all members of the association and asked them to stop the sale of alprazolam, which is commonly used for the treatment of anxiety disorders; clonazepam, used to prevent and treat seizures; diazepam, used for treating a range of conditions, including anxiety and withdrawal symptoms; tramadol, a painkiller; and tapentadol.

Looking at the present scenario and to avoid harassment, you are hereby advised to stop the sale and purchase of the habit-forming drugs and their derivatives, he said in a letter to all chemists in Amritsar.

Psychiatrists have expressed concern over the development. Dr Rupinder Kapur, president, Association of Psychiatrists, said: In a state grappling with opioid and alcohol dependence, stopping the sale of drugs meant for treatment instead of making essential drugs available on prescription is hazardous. It will lead to black marketeering and a spike in the illegal drug trade. It is the governments job to provide affordable access to treatment. The chemists are taking a step backwards.

Punjabs food and drug administration has termed the associations decision illegal. In public interest, the government has developed a system for their sale. Anybody who follows the rules, cant be harassed. The call is illegal because all these medicines fall in the category of life-saving drugs, said Dr Sunil Mattoo, Punjabs Drug Controller.

During the statewide inspection drive of private de-addiction centres last month, it was found that some centres were selling buprenorphine in bulk and were not keeping proper record of patients to whom these medicines were dispensed.

To check indiscriminate sale of these habit-forming medicines, even the health and police officials have been making surprise checks at chemist shops. But the chemist associations are opposing the same. Even the chemists across the state had called for a strike last month.

Psychiatrists stop using de-addiction medicines

Many private psychiatrists have stopped using de-addiction medicines for fear of prosecution.

The Association of Psychiatrists, in a letter sent to the Additional Chief Secretary, Health, has raised various issues, including allowing all psychiatrists to treat addicts. In light of the fact that the government itself employs medical officers after a brief training period of five days only to dispense medicines in OOAT clinics, it is incomprehensible as to why the services of existing specialists are not utilised, they said.

Association president Dr Rupinder Kapur said many psychiatrists had stopped using medicines for fear of prosecution and persecution due to an illogical and unscientific policy and regulatory hurdles.

What the rules say
monicakchauhan@gmail.com

Arun Sharma

Tribune News Service

Ropar, August 11

Notorious gangster Harjinder Singh alias Akash was nabbed by the district police following an encounter on Ropar-Morinda road here on Saturday.

Akash, an accomplice of gangster Dilpreet Singh Dhahan, was fleeing after snatching a Fortuner at gunpoint from a man from Anandpur Sahib after which police intercepted him around 5.30 am near Pathreri Jattan village leading to an encounter. He suffered a gunshot in his left arm in the gunfight.

Akash was wanted in five cases of murder; besides, there are nearly two dozen other criminal cases registered in Punjab, Haryana and Maharashtra against him.

Dilpreet was arrested by Punjab Police in Chandigarh last month.

Akash, along with Dilpreet, was involved in murder of a gangster, Vivek Sharma, near Bharatgarh in Ropar district on November 11, 2016, followed by murders of Des Raj Mal, a resident of nearby Bahaman Majra village, on April 7, last year.

He and the gang gunned down a Punjab village sarpanch in Sector 38 of Chandigarh on April 10.

Ropar SSP Swapan Sharma said Akash was going in the snatched SUV when the police intercepted him near Pathreri Jattan. When he was asked to stop he opened fire on the police party leading to the encounter.

He suffered a bullet injury on his left arm following which he was taken to local Civil Hospital, said the SSP.
editorial@tribune.com

Tribune News Service

Bathinda, August 11

Union Food Processing Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal and state Finance Minister Manpreet Badal have locked horns over the delay in the AIIMS project.

Replying to media queries here on Saturday, Manpreet said, AIIMS is a 100 per cent Government of India project and there is no question of Punjab Government impeding it. I think it is being made a political issue.

As far as NOC is concerned, they have to apply for the same and it cannot be delivered at their doorstep, he added.

Harsimrat accused Manpreet of misleading Punjabis by asserting that the Union Health Ministry was legally bound to pay for various permissions, including CLU charges. In a statement here, the Union Minister said it was inconceivable that the FM did not have knowledge of the MoU signed between the state and the Union Health Ministry with regard to AIIMS.

She said Clause 1.4 of the MoU signed between the state and the Union Ministry says, The first party (Punjab Government) shall provide four-laned road connectivity, sufficient water supply, electricity connection of required load and other infrastructure in this regard along with regulatory/statutory clearances at its cost.

Referring to Manpreets remarks that the necessary NOCs had not been applied for, Harsimrat said Union Health Minister JP Nadda had written a letter to Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on August 3, detailing how the executing agency for the project had completed all documentation and submitted the same to the Punjab authorities for obtaining statutory approvals. The project site is not even being made encumbrance-free by shifting of water courses, she added.

Site map approved

The Municipal Corporation of Bathinda has approved the site map of the AIIMS. Senior Town Planner Kanwaljeet Kaur said they had informed the construction firm engaged for the project. She said they could now initiate work at the site and the fee for the entire process was Rs 5.59 crore. Besides MC permission, the issues of approach road, setting up of power station, shifting of a water channel and power transmission lines have led to delay in the project. According to sources, the state government has granted necessary approvals for addressing these issues and the work on them will start soon.
monicakchauhan@gmail.com

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, August 11

Having arrived here on Friday afternoon, a Kerala Police team, probing the rape case lodged by a nun against Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jalandhar Diocese, reached the congregation of Missionaries of Jesus on Saturday noon.

The Jalandhar centre of Missionaries of Jesus is the headquarters of all centres under the congregation in India.

The team, which had met some ex-nuns at Bias village near Bhogpur, on Friday evening, first met Police Commissioner Parveen Sinha at his residence on Saturday before proceeding towards the congregation centre at Mall Road, Jalandhar Cantonment.

The complainant nun was earlier serving as Superior General in the congregation. The Kerala Police team, led by Vaikom DSP K Subhash, came accompanied by Jalandhar City police officials and the Military Police team.

After questioning more nuns on Saturday, the team is likely to question the Bishop at Bishop House on Sunday.

The nun had on June 28 lodged a complaint against the Bishop that he had raped her 13 times during his visit to a Jalandhar Diocese centre in Kerala between 2014-16. The team is interrogating Sister Regina, the current Superior General, besides five other nuns present in the compound.
amansharma@tribunemail.com

Hoshiarpur, August 11

Rebel AAP leader Sukhpal Singh Khaira on Saturday accused the partys central leadership of having double standards, saying when senior leaders could stage sit-in protest at Delhis Lieutenant-Governors office for their rights, why was their fight for autonomy being regarded as anti-party activity.

Khaira, who was leading a group of dissident Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs, also lashed out at party leadership for distributing tickets to wrong people in the 2017 assembly polls.

He said a three-member review committee under the chairmanship of MLA Kanwar Sandhu had been constituted to look into partys drubbing in the Assembly polls in 2017. It will present its report within 45 days.

The Punjab unit of the AAP has been in turmoil since Khaira was removed from the post of Leader of Opposition in Punjab Assembly last month.

Khaira and seven other MLAs have declared the AAPs Punjab unit autonomous and dissolved the present organisational structure.

The rebel leader said they will not be scared by threats from the party leadership and were committed to the resolutions passed on August 2 during volunteers convention at Bathinda.

On one side, our Delhi leaders say that Delhi (government) should get more rights. They had even staged a dharna at LGs office. What were they demanding? They were demanding more rights and autonomy.

But when we demand the same autonomy, we get to hear that action will be taken for indiscipline and anti-party activity. Is it not double standards, asked Khaira while addressing a volunteers convention at Garhshankar organised by local AAP MLA Jai Krishan Singh Rori.

We are not going back from our resolutions passed in Bathinda... If they try to browbeat us with the threat of removing us as MLAs, then we are not going to take it, he said.

The dissident MLAs have already formed a parallel ad-hoc political affairs committee (PAC).

Khaira, who is an MLA from Bholath, said their fight was not for any chair as alleged by Sangrur MP Bhagwant Mann.

Addressing the gathering, Kharar MLA Kanwar Sandhu ascribed AAPs defeat in Assembly polls to wrong distribution of tickets.

Despite a strong wave in AAPs favour, the party faced the defeat. There are several reasons of that defeat. One of the reasons was that wrong distribution of tickets, he said.

He said he was also asked to fight from Garhshankar seat. But I insisted on fighting from Kharar seat as I have no base in Garhshankar, said Sandhu.

He also alleged that nobody in the party bothered to find out the causes behind the defeat in polls.

Earlier, Khaira said they would hold a conference at Issru in Ludhiana on August 15. Then volunteers convention will be held at Faridkot on August 22 followed by similar events on August 25 at Gurdaspur and September 2 at Moga.

Other dissident MLAs, including Nazar Singh Manshahia (Mansa) and Master Baldev (Jaitu), were also present.

Meanwhile, some AAP activists protested with black flags against Khaira when he was passing through Garhshankar, accusing him of trying to divide the party.  PTI
harinder@tribunemail.com

Jalandhar, August 11

The Kerala Police team, probing the alleged rape case lodged by a nun against Bishop Franco Mulakkal of Jalandhar Diocese, on Saturday interrogated nuns at the Missionaries of Jesus in Jalandhar cantonment for almost eight hours till late in the evening. The team was accompanied by the Jalandhar police and Military Police.

Members of the Christian community residing in nearby villages kept pouring into the Bishops House to express solidarity with him.

At least 200 of them came in 10-12 buses. A large congregation is expected at the Sunday prayers too.

The complainant nun had earlier served as Superior General in the congregation. Her position is now held by Sister Regina, who was asked if she had received complaints of sexual harassment during her tenure and how she had dealt with these.

The police are believed to have interrogated her regarding the complaint made to her by the complainant nuns cousin, accusing her of having sexual ties with her husband, and the status of the inquiry report. Four more nuns were questioned too.

The Kerala Police team, led by Vaikom DSP K Subhash, comprised a woman officer and cyber experts. It reportedly met some former nuns at a village near Bhogpur.

More priests and nuns are likely to be questioned after the Sunday prayers. The Bishop may be interrogated on Monday. Kottayam district police chief Hari Sankar said, The next step would depend on the outcome of the interrogation. The team needs to gather more leads and question more nuns and priests.  TNS
editorial@tribune.com

Neeraj Bagga

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, August 11

The Jallianwala Bagh Centenary Commemoration Committee was formed at the Partition Museum here on Saturday.

Its members include chairperson Balbir Singh Kakar, Lord Meghnad Desai, Lord Raj Loomba, Lady Kishwar Desai, Navtej Sarna and Virendra Sharma. Dr Rajinder Singh Chadha and Manjit Singh GK are the patron-in-chief and patron, respectively.

They together donated Rs 27 lakh to the museum and jointly inaugurated an exhibition, Punjab under Siege  the Jallianwala Bagh Centenary (19192019). The exhibition revisits the massacre through reports and photographs, published in Indian as well as foreign newspapers of that time.

Kakar said the UK government should tender an apology for the incident. Manjit Singh GK, president of the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC), said even as most Indians knew about the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, the events which took place before and after the massacre should also be commemorated.

Members of The Arts and Cultural Heritage Trust, the Loomba Foundation and the International Punjab Forum announced to take the exhibition to venues across India and the UK. Lord Loomba said a special event would be held at the House of Lords to commemorate the incident.

Lady Kishwar Desai said the museum would commence a guided heritage walk of the Jallianwala Bagh as well as the buildings and streets related to the massacre.

Members donate Rs 27 lakh
editorial@tribune.com

Ravi Dhaliwal

Tribune News Service

Pathankot, August 10

Pathankot SSP Vivek Sheel Soni on Friday sought permission from the court of the District and Sessions Judge, Dr Tejwinder Singh, to let cops handcuff all seven accused in the Kathua rape-murder case when they enter the court room.

Soni said he had written to Pathankot District Attorney Jagdeeshwar Kumar Chopra, who is also one of the special public prosecutors contesting the case on behalf of the J&K governments crime branch, asking him to file an application before the judge about handcuffing the accused.

The SSP said he had made the request in view of the sensitivity of the case and the publicity it was generating. He refused to comment on whether he had received any specific input. Chopra said the Supreme Courts order had made it clear that the accused could not be handcuffed. However, if the court grants permission, the police can do so both outside and inside the court. I will be placing the SSPs application before the judge on Saturday, he said.

Earlier, the accused used to be brought from the Kathua sub-jail to the Pathankot court. However, last month, on the orders of the Supreme Court, the accused were shifted to the Gurdaspur Central Jail. From here they are taken daily to Pathankot in a police bus escorted by personnel of the Pathankot and Gurdaspur police districts.

The case involves the abduction, rape and murder of an eight-year-old girl belonging to the minority Muslim Bakerwal community. When the case was being heard in a Kathua court, there were protests by lawyers and political parties. Meanwhile, the application for security, moved by Chopra, is pending with the IG (Crime Branch) of the J&K Police.

sensitive case

Pathankot SSP Vivek Sheel Soni said he had written to Pathankot District Attorney Jagdeeshwar Kumar Chopra, asking him to file an application before the judge about handcuffing the accused.

He said he had made the request in view of the sensitivity of the case and the publicity it was generating.

.
singhking99@yahoo.com

Sanjeev Singh Bariana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 10

There is a set of government primary schools in Punjab that will surprise you  not by their lack of upkeep, rather the opposite. Walls decorated with art work, poems and educative information; greenery all around; clean playgrounds; neatly laid out libraries; and in most cases even toilets cleaner than home.

Most of these are the outcome of personal initiatives of highly motivated teachers. The state Department of School Education has now identified 450 such teachers to bring them under an umbrella of coordination to take the movement further.

The identified teachers have been assigned 10 primary schools each in their area, where they will inspire and guide the staff to undertake transformation with a target of December 31. In all, there are 13,000 primary schools in the state.

Secretary (School Education) Krishan Kumar, a few months back, selected a team of four such teachers  Harjinder Singh Grewal, Amarjit Singh, Labhjit Singh and Anju Bhardwaj  to coordinate the programme.

Using innovative teaching methods and material, the schools of these guide teachers have demonstrated impressive academic results already under the parameters of the Padho Punjab, Padhao Punjab programme, with which the current transformation plan has been associated. The proof of their work also lies in the fact that many schools have waiting lists for admission, and several of these teachers have admitted their own children in the government schools. Most of the teachers involved in the change have achieved results without government help. They have instead motivated village residents to contribute in any way they can  physical labour or financial contribution.

Gurvinder Singh, the face behind Government Primary School, Sadoheri (Patiala), says, Our village panchayat spent Rs 1.5 lakh on the gate, and the five teachers here contribute Rs 2,000 each per month. Individual villagers also contribute for any major works needed. Team work is the key to our success. Many donors even ask the schools not to display their names on any boards.

Jagtar Singh, proud sarpanch of Kalburcchan village in Samana, says, Our primary school was undistinguished for over five decades, till a young Harjinder Grewal joined as a teacher in 2006. The day after, he was seen in the ground in his vest, without shoes, clearing weeds. It was a matter of time before we joined him. Two years later, Grewal sought transfer to another school that was in a pitiable condition. But in Kalburcchan, he was luckily replaced by Banit Kumar, who took the school forward from where he took over.

Stories of inspiration are spread across the state. Rajinder Kumar in a school in Bada Bhaike village in Faridkot turned down a promotion so he could stay in his present posting and not interrupt the ongoing work. Amarjit Singh in Mansa has created ingenious student-friendly exercises and apparatus to promote science. Manjinder Kaur in Nurpur East, Jalandhar, is using paper craft to create teaching material. Harpreet Singh Diwana in Bihla village of Barnala has involved a former BSF inspector, Sukhdev Singh Dhaliwal, and several NRIs in transforming the school since 2009.

Padho Punjab, Padhao Punjab

This is a programme introduced by the current government aimed at fixing greater responsibility on teachers by evaluating the academic standards of students. While no student is failed, all are evaluated twice a year.

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Ruchika M Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 11

The US based advocacy group, Sikhs for Justice (SFJ), has been crying hoarse that Referendum 2020, which is aimed at demanding a separate homeland for the Sikhs, is a peaceful movement. The British Government, too, has ignored requests by the Indian Government to block the event to be held at Trafalgar Square in London on Sunday, saying peaceful demonstration of views is within the law.

However, reports by Indian security agencies, accessed by The Tribune, reveal that there is a definite call to arms and violence, by those organising the event. A videotape shot by Harmeet Singh alias Rana Singh (social media name), a confidant of Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, legal adviser to SFJ, shows him inciting the Sikhs to take up arms and teach the terrorist (Indian) government a lesson.

The video was accessed by security agencies from the phone of Dharminder Singh of the Territorial Army, arrested for being a part of a terror module in Batala subdivision of Gurdaspur. The video was received on his mobile on May 24, days before two liquor vends were set afire. Investigations by the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and the Punjab Police revealed that Dharminder and his associate Kirpal Singh were provoked by Harmeet Singh into doing so.

Their interrogation revealed they were radicalised, indoctrinated and funded by foreign handlers, including US-based Harmeet Singh, UK-based Paramjit Singh Pamma and Mann Singh, and Malaysia- based Deep Kaur. "This is proof of the SFJ trying to propagate terrorist acts in Punjab, said a senior Intelligence officer. This proof of call to arms was shared by the Indian security agencies with their counterparts in the UK. But the British Government refused to block the event, citing the right that allows people to gather and to demonstrate their views, "provided they do so within the law.

According to information gathered by The Tribune from various security agencies, apparently this is not the first time Britain has ignored Indias concerns over the anti-India Khalistan propaganda on its soil. Documents accessed reveal that at least six pro-Khalistan outfits, including elements of the "Khalistan government in exile, are active in the UK". Documents gathered by agencies by scanning the social media reveal how these six outfits lobby with British parliamentarians, think-tanks and human rights activists, explore ethnic electronic and print media, conduct seminars and eulogise hardline ideology on online campaigns. There is also enough proof of their coordinating with Pakistan-based militants and converging activities with ISI-backed Kashmiri separatists in the UK. Several radical websites neverforget84. com, saintsoldiers. com, 1984tribute. com etc  being run from the UK as web-based radio and TV channels, propagate Khalistani ideology.

At least two other charities/organisations based in the UK are sending money to terrorists and their families for payment to their defence counsels. Sikh Organisation for Prisoner Welfare and Sikh Relief ran a campaigns to get Paramjit Singh Pamma , an accused in Rashtriya Sikh Sangat chief Rulda Singhs murder, released after he was detained in Portugal. It sought donations on the social media to the tune of 1,00,000 pounds.

In the case of Jagtar Singh Johal, an accused in the terror attacks on Hindu and Christian leaders in 2016-17, these organisations have been raising donations to secure his release.

Those in UK, US propagating secessionist agenda

Paramjit Singh Pamma: Accused of planning the murder of Rashtriya Sikh Sangat chief Rulda Singh in 2009; detained in Portugal in 2015

Accused of planning the murder of Rashtriya Sikh Sangat chief Rulda Singh in 2009; detained in Portugal in 2015 Gursharanbir Singh: Accused in Rulda Singh murder case and for training Ramandeep Singh and Hardeep Singh, arrested by Punjab cops for murder; was in touch with militant HS Mintoo

Accused in Rulda Singh murder case and for training Ramandeep Singh and Hardeep Singh, arrested by Punjab cops for murder; was in touch with militant HS Mintoo Jagtar Singh Johal: Arrested by the Punjab Police for plotting recent killings

Arrested by the Punjab Police for plotting recent killings Joga Singh: Member of Sikh Organisation for Prisoner Welfare, a frequent visitor to Pak, in touch with J&K separatists.

Member of Sikh Organisation for Prisoner Welfare, a frequent visitor to Pak, in touch with J&K separatists. Rana Singh: Aide of Gurpatwant S Pannun, has been exhorting people to take up arms

Websites run from Pak

Two websites of Khalistan  www. SikhsForJustice.org and www. referendum2020 are supported by Pakistan website http: //snip.pk)

Threat to DGP

Punjab DGP Suresh Arora has been issued threats by a Sikh radical group for having issued warnings to those holding Referendum 2020, say police sources
The current federal administration is considering cutting back security at smaller airports, a projected savings of $115 million. On the surface, this appears to be a good thing. However, I think the analysis needs to be taken a step further. With the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks coming, it would be a good time to pause and reflect. Yes, the attacks originated from a major airport, but those airports do have connections with the smaller ones. The measures that were put in place were done with the goal of keeping the skies and the population as safe as possible. Although going through security can be annoying, I would like to think that travelers are somewhat willing to support this in exchange for a heightened measure of safety in the air and on the ground.
shalender@tribune.com

Shyam Bhatia

Maharaja Duleep Singh rejected Queen Victorias offer to make his sons hereditary peers of the British aristocracy in exchange for the loss of the Koh-i-noor and other famous jewels looted from the Punjab treasury. The hitherto unknown fact was conveyed through George Campbell, the Duke of Argyll and one-time Secretary of State for India, in a face-to-face conversation with the Maharaja at his private residence outside London.

Aristocratic titles did not carry any cash benefit, but guaranteed access to the monarch, elevated social standing and got one the right to sit in the House of Lords. Had Duleep Singh accepted the offer, his sons and their children would have become the first non-white peers of the British Empire. In rejecting the Queens offer, Duleep Singh explained, I thank her Majesty but we must remain Sikhs.

What the Queen had in mind is contained in a memorandum prepared by the Reverend Osborne Jay, a British Foreign Office aide, who was invited to be a witness to the historic meeting with the Secretary of State for India hosted by the Maharaja at his 17,000-acre estate of Elveden Hall.

Later, commenting on Duleep Singhs response, the Duke of Argyll observed how he had never seen truer dignity or more real independence of spirit. I have reason for believing that the Queen, when told of all this, shared his opinion. Only one other person of Indian origin has since been offered hereditary peerage, Satyendra Prasanno Sinha. He was made Baron Sinha of Raipur in 1919. The title is currently held by his great grandson Arup Kumar Sinha.

Queen Victorias aim at the time was to make Duleep Singhs elder son, Victor, a Marquis, while the younger one, Freddie, would have been given earldom. These titles were among the several attempts made by the British government to placate the Maharaja and persuade him to remain a loyal subject of Queen Victoria.

The Queen was also starting to feel sorry for Duleep Singh who had tried and failed to find a white English woman of suitable social standing to marry him. Eventually, he married Bamba Muller, daughter of a German doctor and his Ethiopian partner.

Punjab ranked among the most glittering acquisitions of the British Empire and the Lahore treasury was said to be the richest in the world. It took two years to ransack it and sell the booty off in 11 separate auctions. Current estimates of the treasurys value range from US$ 100 billion upwards.

The sad story of Punjabs conquest is recorded in the Queens personal journal. In an entry dated 2 May, 1849, she comments: Delightful news that entire Sikh army, including Chattar Singh and Sher Singh (military commanders of the Sikh army, who lost to the British in the Battle of Gujarat) has surrendered.

In another entry dated 25 May, 1849, she describes receiving a letter from Governor-General Lord Dalhousie where he says that the Punjab has been declared to be a portion of Your Majestys Empire in India and the Governor General will have the honour of transmitting to Your Majesty from Lahore the famous jewel of the Mogul Empire, the Koh-i-noor, the Mountain of Light (the largest diamond in the world) formerly set in the throne of the Emperors of Delhi.

It may be regarded as the Historical Emblem of conquest in India & the Governor general rejoices it has found its fitting resting place in Your Majestys crown.

Commenting on this, the Queens notes, This is indeed a proud trophy & I shall rejoice in it for the future Sovereigns of this country. India was not the only country to have its relics dispossessed. The British, under Lord Elgin, also stole the historic Greek marble sculptures, also known as the Parthenon Marbles, that he shipped to London and sold to the government in 1816. They are still kept at the British Museum in London. Lord Byron compared Elgins actions to vandalism or looting. Despite repeated requests from successive Greek governments, the British have refused to return the marbles to Athens.

Some critics have compared Elgins actions to those of Robert Clive, the British military commander in India who defeated French and Dutch forces in India before ransacking the Bengal treasury and returning to London in 1760 with a personal wealth estimated to be around Rs 300 crore.

Nearly 100 years later, Queen Victoria rejoiced in what she described as beautiful and interesting Punjab treasures offered for acceptance which are of immense value and most curious and tasteful.

In her journal entry dated October 23, 1851, she writes, The jewels are truly magnificent. They had also belonged to Ranjit Singh & been found in the Treasury at Lahore. The very large pearls, 224 in number, strung in 4 rows are quite splendid & a very beautiful ornament.

The girdle of 19 emeralds is wonderful & also of immense value. The emeralds square in shape & very large are alternately engraved and unfortunately all are cut flat. They are set round with diamonds and fringed with pearls. The rubies are even more wonderful. They are cabochons, unset, but pierced. The one is the largest in the world, therefore even more remarkable than the Koh-i-noor! I am very happy that the British Crown will possess these Jewels, for I shall certainly make them Crown Jewels.
shalender@tribune.com

Preeti Verma Lal

At the foothill of Mauritius Le Morne mountain, he stands defiant. In his large, hollow eyes, sadness is jumbled with fury. His chest is bare, his shackles broken. Amid the grass, the carved cast iron stands nameless. Another man with a curly mop sits looped on a beige stone. Grief and helplessness peep from his closed eyelids. He, too, has no name. He, too, sits in the shadow of the Le Morne Mountain, which has been home to countless African fugitive slaves (also called maroons) who between 1730s and 1830s escaped from oppression and drudgery of working on British-owned sugar plantations to hide in the wooded, inaccessible cliffs.

Their fate would have turned on February 1, 1835, when the British administration abolished slavery. A platoon of British soldiers marched up to the mountain top to convey happy tidings. Seeing the soldiers approaching, the slaves  men, women, children  threw themselves off the cliffs to their death below. Freedom had come their way, but the slaves unknowingly embraced death.

The Le Morne Monument, a Unesco World Heritage List, pays homage to the maroons and is considered as the Mauritius Cultural Landscape. The history of slavery in Mauritius is commemorated annually on August 23, Unescos International Day for the remembrance of the slave trade.

In Mauritius, there were not the only the slaves one met. There was Soorop, Sabaram, Bhoodoo, Champak, Bhoowan, Bhumarah, Bhagyaruth, Dookhun, Gungaram. Not slaves. Not nameless. First names with a ticket number that identified them as indentured labourers. The first batch of coolies (indentured labourers) from India were huddled in a ship called Atlas that anchored in Mauritius Apravasi Ghat on November 2, 1834. That fateful day changed lives for many. Not one, two, not hundreds, not a thousand. Between 1834 and 1910, 3,46,145 men and 1,05,896 women arrived in Mauritius from India as indentured labourers, mainly from what are now Bihar, Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Maharashtra.

There was no ghat then (the Apravasi Ghat was constructed in 1849), several buildings in Port Louis were used as depots for labourers. On arrival, each immigrant was bathed, registered, given an Immigrant Number, a blanket and utensils. Their contract of 5 years included free to & fro passage; Rs 5 per month as wages (Rs 4 for women) of which Rs 1 was deducted as repatriation charges; 6 months advance pay, free ration, accommodation and clothing.

At Apravasi Ghat, a Unesco World Heritage Site, the saga of Indian labourers is narrated through old photographs, artefacts, data and the remnants of the building where they took the 14 wharf steps in Coolie Ghat to be registered by the British authorities and begin a new life in the island more than 5,000 km away from home. Of the total 4,52,041 arrivals, only 1,67,570 returned to India after completion of their five-year contract.

The story of Mauritius is inextricably melded with the tale of sugar, slaves and a plump, one-metre tall bird with stubby yellow legs, crooked beak and a funny name, the dodo, which was endemic to Mauritius. For millions of years, the dodo had known no predators. But in 1598, when the Dutch came as the first settlers, the dodo was poached. Its habitat encroached was upon by dogs, pigs, deer, goats that the Dutch introduced to the island. Slowly, the dodo became rarer, with 1693 being pencilled as its extinction date. The extinction of dodo led to the death of tambalacoque tree  the dodos gizzards broke the tough endocarp of the tree seed for it to germinate and grow. So, no dodo, no tambalacoque tree.

Mark Twain had famously said: God made Mauritius first, then built the heavens on the Mauritian template. In the island, Twain is proven right.
Viney Sharma

Viney Sharma

Sukhnam Singh, an asylum seeker, has been putting up at the dormitories of Humber College in Toronto for the past few months. He fled the US after Donald Trump's crackdown on illegal immigrants. As students return after vacations, Singh and many like him coming from different ethnicities will have to make way for them.

The Ontario provincial government which has been tasked with the responsibility of relocating asylum seekers doesn't sound happy about the idea. For the sole reason that the cost of supporting new asylum seekers have gone through the roof and the province doesn't have enough resources. A war of words has broken between federal and provincial governments, questioning Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus policy on illegal arrivals.

Even as Singh tries to adjust to new norms, and tensions brew between ruling Liberals and its arch rivals  Progressive Conservatives and New Democratic Party  signs are evident that irrespective of any political party making it to power in 2019 federal elections, skilled immigration won't be as easy as it used to be, affecting lakhs of Indians and South Asians.

Clearly 2019 can be a tricky year for the new immigrants. Stakes are high as immigrants remain main constituents. What's lingering in the minds of many Indians is that they may have to pay up for the largesse shown by the Canadian government to asylum seekers in last three years. In a nutshell, immigration may become tough. South Asian community and Indians in particular are seeking clarity from the leaders of New Democratic Party, Progressive Conservatives and incumbent party in power  Liberal Party of Canada.

A recent announcement made by the Canadian government that it will no longer accept applications for permanent residency from caregivers by November 2019 has participants of the programme in panic. Early this year, the federal government announced it targets to bring in some 310,000 new immigrants, including new caregivers and economic class workers.

Canada began experiencing an influx of irregular border crossers in early 2017, shortly after US President Donald Trump announced he would end a programme that offered temporary protected status to immigrants. Thousands of asylum seekers have since arrived in Canada from the US, avoiding official border checkpoints where they'd have been turned away under the Safe Third Country agreement between the two countries. Instead, they've been crossing the border along forest paths and fields, declaring their intent to seek refugee status once on the Canadian soil.

Rough estimates suggest, in addition to the over 30,000 asylum claimants last year, there have been an estimated 10,000 that have crossed illegally into Canada so far this year.

"We do not want to give it a hue of legal immigrants versus asylum seekers. What we want is clarity. When you cannot take care of your own citizens and offering full financial support to those coming from other nations illegally," says Indo-Canadian Sukhminder Singh from Toronto.

New Ontario government says the asylum problem was a federal responsibility. "Ontario and the city of Toronto especially, are facing a housing crisis for the migrants and Ottawa (capital city) must pay," newly elected Ontario Premier Doug Ford says.

So far 2017 saw the highest asylum claims in the last two decades. A total of 49,775 claims were made. In comparison, there were 37,845 claimants in 2000 and 36,920 in 2008. The highest volume before last year came in 2001 with 44,695 asylum claimants.

The opposition parties are now calling on the government to undertake a study to review the adequacy of its response to the impact of increased asylum seekers crossing into Canada from the US. They want more meetings of the Immigration Committee to hear about the governments plans to deal with the situation.
Mukesh Ranjan in Guwahati

Mukesh Ranjan in Guwahati

Identifying illegal migrants in the state and deporting them was an integral part of the Assam Accord signed and announced by the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in 1985. However, the real trigger behind revising the National Register of Citizens (NRC) for Assam was the serial bomb blasts that took place in the state on October 30, 2008. The blasts that were carried out by the banned National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) at Guwahati, Barpeta Road, Bongaigaon and Kokrajhar, killed 81 and left more than 400 injured.

That evening, Aabhijeet Sharma, president of Assam Public Works (APW), a Guwahati-based NGO, met Pradip Kumar Bhuyan and his wife Bonti Bhuyan, an elderly couple, in Guwahati to discuss the situation in the state. Sharma recalls how all of them had cried that day and decided to do something. That meeting was the genesis of our fight against illegal immigrants.

For a complete year, we researched the documents available with the government and the Election Commission and found out that around 41 lakh were in excess in the voters list. Thus, we decided to approach the court for updating the NRC of 1951 to weed out illegal immigrants  something that had been part of the Assam Accord signed in 1985, Sharma says.

In July 2009, the Supreme Court accepted the petition filed by APW, which stated that 41 lakh illegal migrants had been included in the voters list of 2006 and sought directions to strike their names from the electoral rolls. Deciding on the case in 2013, the apex court directed the Centre to update the NRC. It set the ball rolling and, on July 30 this year, the updated draft NRC was released. Of the 3,29,91,384 applicants in the state, 2,89,83,677 were included in the list and 40,07,707 were left out.

Illegal immigrants have flooded Assam. Publication of the complete draft is only a step in the process. We want names of all foreigners removed from the electoral rolls. I want my 13-year-old daughter to live in a safe Assam without the fear of foreigners, says Sharma.

On Friday, the NRC authorities issued forms for inclusion in the final document through claims and to raise objections if somebody has doubt about any name included in the draft copy. However, the legal battle still continues as several other NRC-related petitions are pending in the Supreme Court.

One such petition is filed by Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha (ASM), an umbrella organisation of 26 ethnic groups in the state, which opposes the current exercise claiming that it will legitimise unlawful stay of illegal migrants between 1951 and the current cut-off midnight of March 25, 1971. Senior advocate KN Chaudhary, who represents ASM in the Supreme Court and is based out of Guwahati, says, We are trying to impress upon the apex court that the current exercise will legitimise the illegal stay of migrants and, instead of solving the problem, it will complicate it further. Our matter is being referred to the Constitution Bench and we are hopeful of a favourable outcome.

However, men and women on the streets of Guwahati and other places appear happy with the exercise. They say they are hopeful that their state will finally get rid of illegal Bangladesh migrants, majority of whom are Muslims. They feel the exercise is good for the state and the long-ranging issue of outsiders would now settle once and for all. Among them is Krishna Rai, a taxi driver from Guwahati, whose family migrated to the state from Nepals Birganj area in 1965. Rais name is not in the draft NRC, but says that it does not bother him much.

Names of my entire family, including that of my father, wife, brother and his wife and three children, are there in the NRC. I will also get my name added to the list as I am genuine, says Rai. Many of his friends names are missing from the draft too, but none is perturbed. This could possibly be because of the urgency of publishing the draft within the deadline fixed by the Supreme Court, he says, while adding that he is sure of making it to the final list. However, what does bother him is that it would require going to the NRC office again with his documents.

Rais friend Mohd Shakeel, whose family shifted to Assam from Bihars Darbhanga district, also has a similar story. In Shakeels case, his and his other family members names are there, but his fathers is not.

Even though more than 40 lakh people have been left out in the draft NRC, the state has remained peaceful and not a single violent incident has been reported from any part. Chief Minister Sarbanand Sonowal says it is reflective of peoples faith in the government and the process through which the NRC is being finalised.

However, many still believe that the real test on the security front will emerge once the process of claims & objections kicks off. While talking to people belonging to different social strata, one can easily make out that lines are being drawn to settle the issue of claims and objections. While one section is readying to vigorously pursue objections, the other is preparing to not only contest these objections, but also aggressively go in for settling claims.

Faces behind the NRC

Not many know that the petition that started the process of updating the NRC was drafted by Pradip Kumar Bhuyan, an engineer, who passed out of IIT-Kharagpur in 1956. As we went to Arvind Kumar Sharma, an advocate in Delhi, to represent us in the Supreme Court, he was amazed to see how well the petition had been drafted. He asked if it was drafted by a lawyer, says Aabhijeet Sharma, president of Assam Public Works (APW), a Guwahati-based NGO.

While Sharma, a 44-year-old businessman, became the public face of the fight for updating the NRC and kept shuttling between Guwahati and New Delhi for hearings of the petition, media shy Bhuyans stayed in the background. Bhuyan (83) is an industrialist, academician and crusader, while his wife Bonti (76) is one of the main trustees of one of the best private schools in the Northeast.

NRC at a glance

2,89,83,677

Names included in the draft

40,07,707

Names not included

Rs 1,220 crore

Fund allocated for the

NRC by the Centre

Officials involved in the

exercise:

Govt employees: 55,000

Police: 70,000
Aditi Tandon in New Delhi

Aditi Tandon in New Delhi

Six years ago, three minor girls escaped from a childrens home in Haryanas Rohtak and landed in Delhi to tell their tale of horror. All three had been raped repeatedly at Apna Ghar, a shelter home run by NGO Bharat Vikas Sangh, which had been in operation since 1994. A CBI probe into the case revealed dark secrets of the home run by Jaswanti, winner of Haryana governments Nari Shakti Samman for social service! Inside Apna Ghar, Jaswanti made minors sleep naked at night, forced them into lesbian acts, aided her male relatives to rape the children, administered pills to girls to abort unwanted pregnancies and sold off babies born to those assaulted. She even took girls to Delhi for prostitution and sent them to weddings for a range of services.

Out of 145 inmates, 51 were found assaulted at Apna Ghar, which had managed clean chits in inspections by Rohtaks Child Development Officer Angrez Kaur for years. Angrez Kaur became one of the accused in this case but walked free for want of proof. After she retired from government service, she had sought employment with Jaswantis Apna Ghar, where she would also allegedly beat up inmates, along with the other caretakers.

This April when the law finally caught up with Jaswanti, her son-in-law Jai Bhagwan and driver Satish (all sentenced for life), CBI special judge Jagdeep Singh hearing the case noted, The convicts who were entrusted with protection of children have not only crossed limits of breach of faith, but also turned welfare organisations into those violating the chastity of destitute inmates. Protectors have become predators.

Six years on, the locations of crime against children has changed but the nature of crime has not. The Panchkula CBI courts words ring true even now as stories of child sexual abuse emanate from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.

Be it Jaswantis Apna Ghar in Rohtak, Brajesh Thakurs Sewa Sankalp aur Vikas Samiti in Muzaffarpur, Girija Tripathis Ma Vidhyavasini Samaj Sewa Sansthan in Deoria or Kanaklatas shelter home in Gorakhpur, all these houses of horror have one thing in common. They thrived under the state governments nose and often with connivance of government functionaries who were mandated by the law to check abuse.

In the Apna Ghar case, the Rohtak child development officer Angrez Kaur tasked under the Juvenile Justice Care and Protection Act 2015 with inspecting violations kept giving a report that Jaswanti was doing a great job. When we reached the shelter home on the night of May 9, 2012, after recording the statements of three minors, who had escaped and fled to Delhi, we found a sub-inspector stationed there. Jaswanti flaunted her connections, but I stood my ground. I told her that even the Prime Minister couldnt stop me from doing my duty. Abuse happens because government functionaries responsible for monitoring childcare institutions dont do their job, says Vinod Tikoo, former member, National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), which filed the complaint in the Apna Ghar case. The FIR was lodged at the Civil Lines police station, Rohtak, on May 10, 2012, but the case was subsequently transferred to the CBI. The court judgment came this April 27. But no lessons seem to have been learnt. Political patronage continues to embolden the child predators.

This week when Bihars social welfare minister Manju Verma resigned after evidence that her husband was in touch with Brajesh Thakur, who has been accused of raping 34 of the 42 child inmates in Muzaffarpur, anguish gripped everyone.

In Deoria too, the shelter home owner is learnt to have connections while her daughter Kanaklata, running another home in Gorakhpur, earlier served as district probationary officer under the states Integrated Child Development Scheme.

Such crimes can only be committed when there is complicity with powers that be. I have seen this in all the cases I have come across, says RN Mahlawat, advocate involved in getting justice for the victims of two sensational cases involving child abuse in Haryana.

The first case of April 2012  State versus Superna Sethi  saw the caretaker and driver of Superna ka Angan, a childrens home in Gurugram, being sentenced to rigorous imprisonment of 10 and seven years for rapes of girl inmates. Shelters owner Superna Sethi was acquitted and NCPCR, which probed the matter initially and pressed for the FIR, did not appeal against the acquittal by the Additional Sessions Court in Gurugram. Mahlawat says there was tremendous pressure from every quarter to go soft on the matter. I kept pleading with the NCPCR and the state commission of Haryana to appeal against Sethis acquittal but to no avail, he says.

Another horrendous January 2012 case involved rapes of 11 minors by Ankur Gupta, an HIV positive owner of Drone Foundation, a childrens home in Gurugram. Gupta, who was sentenced for life and ordered to pay Rs 3.5 lakh compensation, had ended up infecting his victims.

NCPCR teams that raided childcare institutions in Rohtak, Gurugram, Yamunanagar, Faridabad and Ambala after the Apna Ghar shocker found inspection mechanisms missing everywhere.

I was part of many rescue operations and found children in a physical and emotional mess. Not only were infrastructure norms under the JJ Act being flouted by homes in Haryana, children were being treated as commodities. They are still treated the same way, says Rishi Kant of Shakti Vahini, an anti-trafficking organisation which works with several institutions on rescue operations.

The law is clearly not being followed. Under the new JJ Act 2015, registration of all childcare institutions, whether NGO or government-run, is mandatory and non-compliance attracts imprisonment up to one year or fine of not less than Rs 1 lakh. Section 54 (1) of the Act requires state governments to constitute inspection committees for quarterly review and reporting of all childcare homes. District child protection units are mandated to monitor these homes and check whether inmates are receiving care, treatment and education as is needed under the law.

Nothing seems to be happening on the ground, acknowledges Delhi Commission for Women chairperson Swati Maliwal, who has been actively attempting to make a difference.

On August 21, 2015, Maliwal had spent a night at Delhis Nari Niketan, also called Nirmal Chhaya and its short stay home. While Nari Niketan houses women rescued under the Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act, the stay home is meant for women in need of urgent help after being brought in by the police.

The attitude of the superintendent and social welfare officers towards women inmates at Nari Niketan was pathetic. Even the victims of extreme violence, trafficking and incest called the homes living hells and said they would rather go back to the lives of abuse than live in these homes, says Maliwal, who recommended to the Delhi Government immediate transfer of Nari Niketan officers for dereliction of duty.

But such cases of active intervention are few and far between.

Shelter homes and child care organisations across India have acquired reputations for opaqueness rather than transparency. Records of Rohtaks Apna Ghar case show it was frequented by the then DC, judicial officers and respectable people of the state but no one noticed anything amiss.

Every instance of child abuse in homes has, of late, been reported by children who escaped captivity.

In Deoria too, a 10-year-old girl approached the police to speak of red, white and black cars coming to pick up girls from shelter homes and the girls returning the next morning with pain in their stomachs. In the Superna ka angan case, a minor girl reported abuse to her teacher at school.

The prime witness in the Bihar minor rape case has gone missing from a shelter home where she was shifted after blowing the lid off the heinous crimes of Brajesh Thakur.

Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi acknowledges the rot and says more cases of abuse will surface now with the Centre urging states to come clean on the JJ Act and its implementation. States are yet to comply with the mandatory registration of childrens homes clause under the law. The deadline for registration of all homes was December 31, 2017.

Under the JJ Act, all homes had to be registered within six months of the commencement of the law. We have relentlessly pursued registration of childcare institutions with states by December 31, 2017. A national consultation was held with states on January 11 this year to take stock of registrations. As an outcome, 7,109 institutions have so far been registered and another 401 are reportedly under process, Maneka Gandhi told Parliament this week.

But the data about child protection is more shocking than reassuring. The NCPCR, mandated under the central law, along with state commissions to protect children, has between 2014 and 2018 registered only 43 complaints of child abuse and closed 38. Nothing is known of outcomes and whether owners of institutions in these cases were punished. The laws need to be implemented. Child protection mechanisms of state governments have to be activated. The message that child protection is non-negotiable has to come from the top. That is the only way to save children, says Jitender Kumar, senior public prosecutor for the CBI in the Apna Ghar case.

Kumar remembers the sleepless nights he had getting testimonials of minor victims of sex crimes. It was heart wrenching. Among the victims were deaf and mute girls, he says.

In the wake of Muzaffarpur and Deoria cases, the Centre has now asked all states and UTs to inspect childcare institutions in their jurisdiction and send reports to the Women and Child Development Ministry by September 15. But will the states oblige? That is the million dollar question considering UP and Bihar have consistently refused social audit of homes in their areas. It was only earlier this year that the Bihar Government engaged the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, for an audit of childrens homes in the state. The team revealed the shocking crimes in a Muzaffarpur shelter home and flagged grave violations in 15 others.

We have yet heard only of one!

Shockers

MAY 18, 2009

The Ashreya authorities found that a mentally challenged girl from Nari Niketan was eight to 10 weeks pregnant after she had been repeatedly raped.

MAY 11, 2012

Six girls and two boys go missing from Apna Ghar shelter home in Rohtak.

APRIL 21, 2014

Supervisor of Bal Niketan in Chandigarh booked on charge of sexually harassing girl inmates.

JULY 6, 2018

An employee of Missionaries of Charity in Ranchi held for selling baby.

JULY 23, 2018

42 girls raped in Bihar shelter home. The police dig out a buried body at Muzaffarpur.

August 6, 2018

24 minor girls rescued from a shelter home in Deoria, UP.

August 9, 2018

26 go missing from Pratapgarh shelter home in Uttar Pradesh.

Major cases

Apna Ghar, Rohtak: Three minors escape to Delhi, contact Childline no 1098, get help from the NCPCR which raids the home. FIR lodged on May 10, 2012. Convictions of accused owner, her male relatives on April 27, 2018.

Drone Foundation Gurgaon: The NCPCR raids the shelter home in January 2012. Director Ankit Gupta, who is HIV positive, had raped girls and infected a few. Gupta has been sentenced for life and fined Rs 3.5 lakh.

Suparna Ka angan: An NCPCR raid on May 4, 2012, found that minors had been raped by caretaker, cook. Both sentenced. Owner acquitted.

Muzaffarpur: Sewa Sankalp aur Vikas Samiti: 34 minors raped. FIR on May 31, CBI takes over case involving local strongman Brajesh Thakur, main accused.

Deoria: Maa Vibdhyavasini: Several girl inmates raped. FIR lodged, local officials suspended. High level state probe on.

Fact check

43 Number of cases of child abuse registered by the NCPCR in the past four years

7,109Total childcare institutions registrations reported by states to Centre under the JJ Act as of January 2018

38,947 Number of women raped in India in 2016, one rape every 13.5 minutes

1-year Imprisonment for running a chil drens home without registration or fine not less than Rs 1 lakh December 31, 2017

Deadline for mandatory registration of all childcare homes in India under the JJ Care and Protection Act (Section 41) 2015
singhking99@yahoo.com

We have in our leading article dealt at some length with the important letter addressed to the press by the Raja Sahib of Mahmudabad. We have expressed our general agreement with the Raja Sahib and have said that it is the clear and imperative duty of all sections of the progressive party to stand firmly by the settlement arrived at Lucknow. But this does not preclude our expressing the strong and earnest hope that the more far-sighted leaders of the Mahomadan community will from the very beginning set themselves to the task of shortening the life of the unsound system which necessity rather than free choice has imposed on the country. The best thing perhaps would be if the community were to take a leaf out of the book of the privileged classes in a never to be forgotten epoch in Japans history and to surrender the privilege rather than right conferred upon them in 1906. But if this is not to be, let us at least hope that the day is not far off when the community will realise that the present system is as injurious to themselves in the long run as to the country.
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM

Vaibhav Sharma

The last few weeks have seen much debate and discussion over the concept of online privacy. Ever since TRAI chairman RS Sharma published his Aadhaar number and challenged anyone to cause him harm with it, numerous posts have cropped up which claim that his PAN, date of birth, mobile number and email address have been outed as a result. Some even claimed to have deposited one rupee in his bank account. Sharma, on the other hand, has said that this information was already available in the public domain via Google searches and publishing his Aadhar did not contribute to increasing his digital vulnerabilities.

While the jury is still out on the threat that Aadhar poses to a citizens privacy, it is important to remember that even without Aadhar, your private information isnt as private as you would like it to be. With your mobile number alone people can access your WhatsApp display picture, find your Twitter profile. With your email address, locating your Facebook and Instagram accounts isnt hard. Then its only a question of finding a geo-tagged tweet to know your possible location, area of interest. A casual scroll down your Facebook wall may reveal old birthday wishes, exposing your birthday. In a matter of hours, people may easily be able to put together a brief profile about you.

If like most you choose one password and stick to it for every website for years at end, then youre in far more danger. A lot of popular websites have had their databases breached over the years, resulting in your login details being exposed. If these details are the same across various portals, you can imagine what someone might be able to achieve.

How to protect yourself

Visit the website haveibeenpwned.com and enter your email address to see if any website you have an account with has had its database compromised.

If your email address has been compromised, and chances are it would have been somewhere or another, the website will give you a list of websites where it occurred. Also available will be the extent of the breach and whether your password was illegally obtained.

If youre in the habit of using the same password across various websites, immediately change it.

One example is the case of Yatra.com. In September 2013, it had 5 million records exposed in a data breach. The data contained email and physical addresses, dates of birth and phone numbers along with both PINs and passwords stored in plain text. Similarly, the databases of companies like Zomato, Tumblr, MySpace, Last.fm, Dropbox and more have all had their user details compromised to varying degrees.

Kinds of scams

Hacked databases from companies that contain millions of records are sold on the dark web to persons who look to monetise them.

If such a person knows both your email address and password, you may receive an email in which the hacker claims to have penetrated your system, recorded your private moments though the computers webcam, and offers your own password as proof of the same. Given that the hacker knows your password, youll be inclined to believe him. Next would be the demand of a ransom, payable through bitcoin. The threat would be sending the said video to all your contacts.

Next, the so-called hacker may lock you out of your email or other services by changing the password and recovery email address. This would also be followed by a demand of a ransom to unlock access.

If you receive such an email, there is nothing to worry. The so-called hacker has nothing on you and is only attempting the blackmail in the hope that youll take the bait.

Be Careful with your mobile number and Email address
vinaymishra188@gmail.com

Colombo, August 10

Pakistan Navys sophisticated maritime security ship Kashmir will arrive at Sri Lankas Colombo Port on a four-day goodwill visit from Monday. During their stay at Colombo, the officers and men of the ship will take part in various professional activities with Sri Lankan Navy.

Pakistan Navy ships frequently pay port calls to Sri Lanka, as both countries enjoy warm diplomatic and strong military ties, the Pakistan High Commission said.

Such interactions also demonstrate both navies resolve to contribute towards achieving a more secure and conducive maritime environment which is essential for the regional peace, prosperity and harmony, it said.

The 1,500-tonne PMSS Kashmir, a 94-metre multipurpose patrol vessel is capable of undertaking multifarious missions such as surveillance, policing, anti-smuggling and anti-poaching operations, security and law-enforcement patrolling in maritime zones.

It is the fourth in a series of six multipurpose patrol vessels and was commissioned in Guangzhou in July.  PTI
pardeepdhull@gmail.com

Kabul, August 11

Both Taliban and government forces claimed they were in control of the eastern Afghan city of Ghazni on Saturday, after insurgents stormed the provincial capital, triggering fierce fighting.

Afghan officials said they were in control of Ghazni late yesterday with authorities in Kabul saying security forces were conducting a clearance operation targeting Taliban fighters who had taken up positions in residential homes.

But information about who controlled the city was difficult to confirm with power and mobile services cut to the area after the Taliban destroyed a telecommunications tower, according to Ghazni MP Shah Gul Rezaye.

The central government in Kabul said the situation in Ghazni was under their control, but we managed to contact officials in Ghazni who said that fighting was underway in areas surrounding Ghazni, said the parliamentarian.

Rezaye said additional reinforcements had been rushed to Ghazni late yesterday, after US forces deployed attack helicopters and launched at least one drone strike to push back the Taliban fighters.

The Taliban, however, claimed victory saying their fighters were now in control of Ghazni after routing Afghan forces.

Last night, our mujahideen have completely conquered a battalion in Ghazni, seizing weapons and ammunition and four pickup trucks, said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid in a message to journalists today.

Our mujahideen are protecting the city of Ghazni. The insurgents frequently exaggerate their battlefield gains and downplay losses incurred during clashes.

Ghazniless than two hours by road from Kabulhas been under increasing danger from massing Taliban fighters for months with reports suggesting insurgents had already infiltrated the city.

The attack, which began late Thursday, was the latest attempt by the Taliban to seize an urban centre and comes as pressure mounts on the insurgents to enter peace talks with the government to end the nearly 17-year-old war.  AFP
ROBINSINGH@TRIBUNE.COM

Karachi, August 11

Three Chinese nationals were among the five persons who were injured in a suicide attack in southwest Pakistans restive Balochistan province today, the police said.

The attack, which is said the first since the July 25 elections, took place in Dalbandin region, about 340 km from Quetta, the capital of Balochistan, when the Chinese engineers, working on a mining project were being transported to the city, they said.

The engineers were working on the the Saindak Copper-Gold Mine project, a joint venture between Pakistan and China to extract gold, copper and silver from an area close to the Iranian border.

Hundreds of Chinese nationals are working on different projects in Balochistan under the $42 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

A suicide bomber tried to ram a Iran-manufactured pick-up truck into a bus carrying the foreign nationals, who were going to Dalbandin city from the Saindak Copper-Gold Mine project, an official said. He used a Zamyad pick-up truck, commonly used to transport oil. The truck was completely destroyed in the attack while the bus also suffered heavy damage, the official said.

Two personnel of the Frontier Constabulary, providing security to the bus, were also injured in the attack.  PTI
And even still! A few of my more than 15,000 quips and retweets since I joined Twitter in January 2009 were not posted by my better self. I retrospectively deleted at least a dozen, usually just minutes or hours after posting. But who knows what's still there that might poorly stand the test of time, particularly if plucked from context?
vinaymishra188@gmail.com

Toronto, August 10

Four persons, including two police officers, were killed in a shooting in the eastern Canadian city of Fredericton on Friday in the latest string of gun violence across the country that has led to calls for weapons bans in cities. The police said a suspect was taken into custody after what was the second mass shooting in Canada in three weeks.

The police in Fredericton, a city of about 56,000 that is the capital of the province of New Brunswick, tweeted that the incident was under investigation and there were multiple fatalities. Another police tweet said two of the four persons killed were police officers but gave no details and did not release the names of the victims.

Local media images showed emergency vehicles converging on a tree-lined residential street. Nearby facilities were closed and authorities imposed a lockdown for residents before issuing an all-clear message.

Canadian public broadcaster CBC said the shooting happened in a residential area of the city north of downtown, and that heavily armed police, paramedics and firefighters were on the scene.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation quoted Robert DiDiodato, who lives in the area, as saying he heard a series of firecracker sounds around 7 am. With the tempo, it mightve been a gunshot, he said. It was sort of like a pop, pop, pop, pop. He said about five minutes later, he could hear similar sounds near his home. Doors are locked and everybodys inside, he said, according to CBC.  Agencies

Second incident in 3 weeks
The National Investment Fund Holding Company (NIF) Ltd made its sixth coupon payment of $112.2 million to bond holders on August 9 on the three series of its $4 billion bond, the company has announced.

This brought total interest distribution to $673.2 million.

The seventh coupon payment is scheduled for February 9, 2022, NIF said in a statement.
Sponsored: Ministry of Planning

Climate Change and Land Degradation are two significant environmental issues facing the world today. We see many countries in the news talking about their strategies towards dealing with these, but what is our country doing?

More here
After a canine sniffed drugs in the SUV, authorities obtained a search warrant for the house and found the cocaine in 20 packages in the compartment of a Nissan parked in the garage. Loaiza admitted in a plea agreement that he transferred the drugs from one vehicle to the other.
First things first, when are you planning to do this (time of year) as that makes a difference to suggestions.

Next, timeframe. Youve got enough to Sydney, Melbourne and the GBR but not any part of NZ too. Its not just a little add on.

There arent really must dos for a continent the size of Australia, just what you want to do based on your interest (which are?), your budget, timeframe and ability. What I would say is Australia is not about its 2 biggest cities but the l,aces outside of them that makes it unique. Youve told us Sydney to visit your nice, but why Melbourne?

Are you wanting to fly into and out of Sydney? If so, get a connecting flight straight to Cairns but stay at Port Douglas and spend 3 nights minimum here but ideally 5.trip,to the OutervReef (Wavelength are highly recommended)another day at the world heritage Daintree Rainforest et. Etc. (This assumes youre not planning on coming slap bang in the worst months of the wet, cyclone and stinger season).

Fly to Melbourne, explore the city for at least a day. Hire a car for a 3 day Great Ocean Foad self deive (one night Apollo Bay or Lorne, One night Warrnambool or Port Campbell). If you add more time you could include time at Hass Gap and Ballarat on the way back to Melbourne. You can do wineries in the Yarra Valley. You could also do a trip down to Philip Island. So that could easily be almost a week in this region but probably minimum 5 full days..

Then fly to Sydney. Include a day trip to the Blue Mountains (you can do it by train). A must in Sydney is experiencing the harbour from the water and a great way to do that is the public ferry to Manly. Youll need 4 full days minimum for Sydney and the BMs.

So thats your 2 weeks gone. Not sureif you meant slightly under (youre going to struggle to fit things in)or slightly over (will let you do your 3 places but not NZ) 2 weeks?

Thisvis a great resource for planning trips to Australia

This is a good site for the Great Ocean Road

Get your visas (ETAs) directly from the official site before booking any non refundable travel.

Edited: 3 years ago
If you hate hot weather, how do you cope living in Brisbane?

If you hate hot weather, how do you cope living in Brisbane?

Long story short: I am from Tasmania, lived there until I was 19, moved to Brisbane in 2011 for about 3 yrs. I LOVED it there but hated the hot climate

. I've since been living overseas in China, Canada and just got back to Australia and I am now in Melbourne.

Everyday I find myself missing & thinking about Brisbane. I love how laid back QLD is & how Brisbane isn't too big or small. I felt at home there but I really hate hot weather. I love the crisp cold air that Melbourne has but the big city life is not for me.

Mind you, I never had AC when I was in Brisbane so I was always hot at home but I assume if I had it, life would be much more comfortable haha.

I feel so lost & torn about this. I want to move back to Brisbane but I am not sure if the heat is worth the sacrafice if I will constantly complain about it.

Is Adelaide any similar to Brisbane? maybe that is a possibility. I don't know.

Thanks for reading this :)
I am planning on traveling to the states after a holiday in Europe which will include time spent in Turkey. Someone has suggested that this is no longer allowed and I will be turned around at the border. I will contact the embassy in Sydney on Monday but just thought Id throw this out for comments.

Kate
Hi all

Unfortunately, the only month we are able to travel there is February, because it will be a month before our kid is 2, so we can save some $ buying practically 2 tickets instead of 3 a month later. The problem is that a month ago, we checked the domestic flights in Vietnam (as we would like to use the plane to move) and the prices were reasonable. Today I wanted to check again and all the tickets disappeared. It looks like they are sold out. February will be the month when Vietnamese will celebrate the New Year and will probably travel a lot. But how come there are literally no tickets in vietjair for the month of Feb and Mar?? We will buy the tickets to Vietnam and back to Europe next month but wanted to plan all the route from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh or the other way round. Now as the tickets are not available we have no idea what to do.. Our 2 yo will be still too young to travel long distances in a bus or a train, so we may need to choose one location and travel shorter distances?

Anyone can recommend an area that will suit us best? We are escaping from winter in Poland but would like to avoid very high temperatures on the very south so our baby doesn't suffer from heat. We really like summer and enjoyed temperatures in Greece in June but don't want to hide in a A/C room all the day. What should we expect ? Our trip is planned 4-28 February 2019.

Any tips would be extremely appreciated.

Thank you All !!
We are planning a four week trip to Cambodia and Vietnam in late September 2018. After four days in Siem Reap, we will be taking a 7-day Mekong Cruise with Pandaw from Siem Reap to HCMC. Their itinerary says we will enter Vietnam somewhere south of Phnom Penh on day 5 of the river cruise. Does anyone know the name of the town/river port where this entry takes place? Three specific questions about this town:

1. Is the town one of the permitted entry points for the Vietnamese e-visa?

2. Does the town have ATMs where I can acquire Vietnamese Dong? (or should I wait until HCMC?)

3. Does the town have vendors selling SIM cards? (or should I wait until HCMC?)

Thanks for your advice.
Ha! Similar thing happened to me. I have a friend (more like an acquaintance) who will be going to Japan early Sept. for 2.5 weeks. She booked 3 AirBnB for her family of 7 (somewhere in Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka back to Tokyo). I told her months ago (sometime after my April trip) that she should book hotels just in case AirBnB will be affected with the new law coming up as a backup. She said it's all good, that she had family and friends use AirBnB in Japan. I asked her when and she said last year and earlier this year. I told her that this law that may or may not pass is being talked about in the Govt and if pass it will be summertime. So this will be different, just because they were able to use in the past it may be different come summer. Then of course after the law passed. Saw her at a function after the law took effect and asked her if she got a hotel or did her AirBnB get their license. She looked at me like WTF I'm talking about. Told her that I read it was passed and really strict about it and so on but she just dismissed me. A mutual friend just told me over this past weekend that she just found out that all 3 AirBnB was canceled. She's panicking also trying to find accommodations for 7 (2 elderlies, 2 middle age, and children 16, 12 and 4). At least they have an extra week compared to GenkiSudo's family members. Our mutual friend said she was able to get 3 rooms somewhere in Tokyo (not in their top 3 or even top 5 location choice unless they up their /$ per night cost). They can't find any hotels in their price range in Kyoto in their desired locations and that they are still debating on several hotels in Osaka. Our mutual friend told her to just do the whole Kansai stay in Osaka since Kyoto is just over 1/2 hr train ride away and it's cheaper and a lot more hotels available in Osaka. She asked our mutual friend to help her search for hotels with set criteria (desired location/no more than /$ per night/that hotel must have ???, and so on). Mutual friend told her that she was busy and can't help her. She then told mutual friend that she was going to ask me for help and mutual friend just laughed at her saying after the way you dismissed her earlier...yeah right. Guess she thought better since I didn't get a phone call or message yet.

On the bright side...another friend took my suggestion and had a hotel as a backup prior to the law being passed. Just after the law went into effect, he emailed his AirBnB host if he was good. Host said he should have his license soon. Couple weeks later, host/AirBnB contacted him saying that his reservations will be canceled due to not being able to secure the license in time. He was lucky he reserved his 2 rooms for his family early enough at a good rate. He checked after the AirBnB cancellation for those same type of rooms at the same hotel and it's over 6,000yen more per night per room.

Sorry for long post. Just wanted to rant about that "acquaintance" and AirBnB.

Edited: 3 years ago
Big thanks for all of you for helping me!

tentaguasu: Oh yeah, I googled some karaoke bars and read about Big Echo - looks like they have a REALLY huge choice there! I'll pop in and check it out!

mabei0123: Omg, I didn't know about this one, aww that's super cool, now I feel like I'll go once and I'll be lost forever :D It's definitely on my list now! OMG and I checked out the website, they play Erik Clapton's Layla <3333

thenihonjin: Awww lovely to hear, I love them too! Now I believe I will find them easily :))))Otherwise I'm gonna sing from my mobile

Cheers, Lajla xx
- Kinoti revealed the powerful individuals wanted him to manipulate evidence against them

- He said they lured him to a posh hotel in Kiambu and offered him money in the first incident

- Later, another group secured a meeting at his office and offered him KSh 200 million

The Director of Criminal Investigations (DCI) George Kinoti on Friday, August 10, sensationally claimed some powerful individuals involved in some corruption scandals attempted to bribe him.

Kinoti said the unnamed persons approached him so that he could manipulate and doctor evidence against them in the ongoing corruption purge targeting suspects of economic crimes.

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READ ALSO: Keep off fraud cases, DPP and Kinoti are better than you - Atwoli to EACC

Corrupt government officials offered me KSh 500 million bribe to go slow  DCI boss Kinoti

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: MPs give DCI boss George Kinoti 7 days to appear before them or lose his job

According to People Daily, the individuals with deep pockets who he believed were proceeds of corrupt deals, lured him to a luxurious hotel in Kiambu and offered him KSh 500 million cash money.

"I found myself in an awkward position but I decided to leave it at that. But this should serve a warning to others with such thinking that next time, they would be arrested, he was quoted by the newspaper.

He revealed after the incident, another group of individuals made of brokers claiming to have critical information which might help unravel the mystery of bad sugar importation, tried to bribe him again.

READ ALSO: Ex-Nairobi governor Evans Kidero released on KSh 2 million cash bail after denying corruption charges

Former NYS Director General Richard Ndubai faces corruption charges. Photo: NYS Kenya/Facebook.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: CEO, 5 top managers suspended over Ksh 1.9 billion heist at the cereals board

They allegedly managed to secure a meeting with him at his office to discuss the issue and it was after this secret meeting when one of the gentlemen remained behind and offered him KSh 200 million which he turned down.

I dont want blood money. I am determined to fight corruption to the end and anybody thats involved in looting should be prepared to carry their own cross, added the no nonsense detective.

There are at least 15 mega corruption scandals in Kenya which have never been resolved with maize scam at the National Cereal and Produce Board (NCPB) and National Youth Service (NYS) are some of the latest.

Preliminary investigations revealed some KSh 1.9 billion was pocketed by eight individuals who allegedly conspired with senior NCPB officials to steal from poor local farmers.

Another KSh 9 billion was stolen from the second phase of NYS scam, which is also touted as the biggest in the history of the youth empowerment programme.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

NYS Scam probe | Tuko TV:

Source: Tuko
- The opposition party moved to court to challenge the presidential results

- EU observers had also claimed Mnangagwa had won the elections unfairly

- Oppositions party leader had claimed the election results had been inflated to give the incumbent victory

Zimbabwe's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) alliance moved to court on Friday, August 10, in a bid to overturn the presidential results, which was used to declare the victory of President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

The opposition leader Nelson Chamisa, took to Twitter to confirm an appeal had been successfully filed .

Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens.

""Our legal team successfully filed our court papers.We have a good case and cause," wrote Chamisa

READ ALSO: Emmerson Mnangagwa declared president elect of Zimbabwe

The opposition leader Nelson Chamisa, confirmed an appeal had been successfully filed .

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: ODM battles claims it fueled post-election violence in Zimbabwe

MDC alleged Mnangagwa's slender victory in Zimbabwe's first election since the ousting of Robert Mugabe was rigged by the ruling Zanu-PF party and the election commission.

Mnangagwa, who is seeking to reverse Zimbabwe's economic isolation and attract desperately needed foreign investment, had vowed the elections would turn a page on Mugabe's repressive 37-year rule.

READ ALSO: Robert Mugabe's choice for Zimbabwe president almost winning

International monitors largely praised the conduct of the election itself, although EU observers said Mnangagwa won from an "un-level playing field" and some voter intimidation.

Emmerson won the presidential race with 50.8% of the vote while MDC's Nelson Chamisa scored 44.3%.

Source: UGC

He won the presidential race with 50.8% of the vote - just enough to avoid a run-off against the MDC's Nelson Chamisa, who scored 44.3%.

READ ALSO: Zimbabwe's ruling party ZANU-PF claims majority seats in parliamentary polls

Chamisa had dismissed the election results terming them as falsified and inflated to ensure Mnangagwa won.

The MDC had until Friday to lodge its appeal - seven days after the results were announced.

READ ALSO: Violence breaks out in Zimbabwe as Mugabes choice for president cries foul

Party lawyer Thanbani Mpofu had said the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission's figures grossly, mathematically fail to tally.

He said the party had evidence for the purposes, not just of mounting a credible and sustainable challenge, but that will yield a vacation of the entire process.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

Source: Kenya Breaking News Today
- The three were gunned down after they refused to surrender engaging flying squads in a shoot out

- One of the criminals is said to be an ally of the leader of Mt Elgon killer gang

- An AK47 was recovered and 53 rounds of ammunition

- The suspects were linked with robberies around Eldoret, Malaba and Webuye towns

Police officers attached to Flying Squad in Webuye have gun down three suspected criminals.

The trio were killed at Makhonge market in Kamukuywa Ward, Kimilili constituency on the night of Friday, August 10.

Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens.

The suspected criminals were part of a gang which has been terrorising and attacking residents of Makhonge and Kamukuywa villages.

READ ALSO: Malindi family living in fear after claiming senior KDF officer is after their lives

The suspected criminals were part of a gang which has been terrorising and attacking residents of Makhonge and Kamukuywa villages. Photo: Anyama wa Anyama

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Safaricom to maintain its calling charges as rival Airtel slashes prices by half

Zakayo Omar Ngome alias Kibet who is said to be a close associate of the arrested Mt Elgon killer gang leader Timothy Kitai alias Cheparkach and two others were felt by the bullet after they refused to surrender and engaged the flying squad officers in fire exchange.

Webuye DCIO Paul Mumo said they gunned the three after laying a trap and managed to recover an AK47 and 53 rounds of ammunition.

Mumo said the recovered AK47 matches with the ballistic report on the gun that was used to kill and rob people in the two adjacent villages recently.

READ ALSO: Zimbabwe's opposition moves to court to challenge election results

"They were a board two motorbikes, when we signalled then to stop they ignored our order and sped off as they shot at us, luckily our officers who were strategically positioned gunned them down during the 8pm shutout," said Mumo.

He said the trio have also been linked with robberies in Webuye town, Malaba and Eldoret.

"Their killing is a breakthrough for us, they have been giving us sleepless nights, we are asking their accomplices who fled to surrender now before they are gunned down, you better surrender than waiting, the heinous acts you have been committing cannot be tolerated at all, you can't kill and steal from the hardworking innocent people and expect mercy," he warned.

READ ALSO: Excavator escapes death by a whisker as Ukay Centre wall crashes on bulldozer

Kimilili MP Didmus Barasa said at long last his voters can stay in peace and do their businesses without fear of attacks.

"I laud police officers for felling the notorious armed gunmen, such people should not be spared, they expect to reap from where they haven't down through killing and maiming innocent people, our officers have done us proud," said the law maker.

Story by Titus Oteba, Bungoma County.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

Source: Tuko.co.ke
You can learn more about this pint-size-but-mighty instrument at the debut City of Lights Ukulele Festival from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Aug. 26 at Water Street Mall in downtown Aurora. This new event will feature performances from top players, workshops, open mic opportunities, vendors and more.
- The officer is said to have married their daughter but separated following a dispute

- Their daughter was then arrested in unclear circumstances and the family denied access to see her

- They also accused the officer of visiting their granddaughter in school with strange people

A family in Malindi is seeking for justice after alleging a senior Kenya Defense Forces (KDF) officer from Eldoret barracks is threatening to kill them following a marriage conflict.

The family spokes person, Fatuma Abdala Saidi, said they are in agony after their daughter Fatama Omar Mohammed who was married to the KDF officer was arrested and taken to Malindi Police station in unclear circumstances.

Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens

READ ALSO: Safaricom to maintain its calling charges as rival Airtel slashes prices by half

Fatuma Abdala said the family is in agony after their daughter Fatama Omar who was married to the KDF officer was arrested. Photo: Onesmus Barasa

Source: Original

READ ALSO: Zimbabwe's opposition moves to court to challenge election results

Our lives are now in danger because of this KDF officer, my daughter was arrested under mysterious circumstances but we were able to traced her to Malindi Police station, what we went through at the police station was inhuman for Gods sake, they treated us like we were criminals, said Fatuma.

Before the arrest, they came around 14 police officers in our house while armed, we thought they were in patrol but that was not there mission, they demanded to see our daughter by force or kill us, we declined,  she added.

Fatuma said the KDF officer had a child with their daughter and had been visiting his daughter in school with strange people claiming they might have negative motive towards her grandchild.

READ ALSO: Excavator escapes death by a whisker as Ukay Centre wall crashes on bulldozer

Fatuma said the KDF officer had a child with their daughter and had been visiting his daughter in school with strange people. Photo: Onesmus Barasa

Source: Original

I am totally messed up, stress up all over because of this man calling himself KDF, he has been visiting my granddaughter in school, with strange people among them being women ,I suspect he wants to run away with the innocent girl, she said.

Fatuma said when they arrived at the Malindi Police Station to inquire why their daughter was arrested, they were told to keep off while their relative was undergoing profiling and grilling.

Later they claimed to have been denied access to see their daughter even to pass greetings to her.

READ ALSO: MPs accused of receiving KSh 10k bribe to save cabinet secretaries, trash report on bad sugar

Malindi Police Station OCPD Matawa Muchangi said daughter was arrested after using abusive language towards police officer. Photo: Onesmus Barasa

Source: Original

We were treated like dogs, is this fair?, when a person is arrested and there is no police statement what are they trying to implicated to us and the country at large?, she asked.

They accused the KDF officer of using his powers to intimidate them since he is a senior ranked officer in the military.

Meanwhile one of Fatma's brother said the KDF officer could be coordinating with Malindi officer to harass his family.

READ ALSO: Ukay Centre demolished hours after court declines to issue orders blocking its destruction

He called upon President Uhuru Kenyatta and the chief of defense forces Major General Julius Mwathethe to quickly intervene and take charge against the KDF officer for using his powers to oppress his family and sister.

He should be arrested, we are no longer in eras where one will use his power to oppress a hopeless family, we also have rights to, he said

However Malindi Police Station OCPD Matawa Muchangi said that their daughter was arrested after using abusive language towards police officer adding that if the family is feeling insecure they should report to the police.

Story by Onesmus Barasa, Mombasa county

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

Source: Tuko.co.ke
- The court dismissed petition which sought to have IEBC declared unconstitutional for lack of quorum

- Petitioner Isaiah Biwott argued resignation of four commissioners left commission without quorum,

- He wanted IEBC wanted it barred from conducting by elections

- Judge stated there was no proof the four left IEBC and there was vacant position

- IEBC sources said salaries for the four had been discontinued though the president never confirmed receiving resignation letters

The High Court has dismissed a petition seeking to have Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) dissolved for lack of quorum following resignation of four commissioners.

Isaiah Biwott a voter had filed an application arguing the electoral body was illegally constituted, did not meet Kenyan Constitution's threshold to conduct by elections following resignation of the commissioners.

Send 'NEWS' to 40227 to receive all the important breaking news as it happens.

READ ALSO: Police gun down three notorious criminals in Kimilili

Paul Kurgat, Margaret Mwachanya and Connie Maina when they announced their resignation from IEBC. Photo: Citizen.

Source: UGC

READ ALSO : Chebukati, 2 commissioners stare at 6 months jail term for denying Chiloba access to his office

However, Justice Wilfrida Akwany of the High Court said there was no vacancy at IEBC since there was no evidence to prove commissioners Paul Kurgat, Margaret Mwachanya and Connie Maina who announced their resignation on Monday, April 16.

Roselyn Akombe also left the commission in October 2017 ahead of the presidential repeat elections leaving the electoral body with chairperson Wafula Chebukati, Ayub Guliye and Boya Molu.

"There is no evidence to prove there was vacancy at IEBC which needed to be filled to attain a quorum. There is also no evidence showing the four commissioners left or even proof that their resignation was accepted by the appointing authority," ruled Akwany.

IEBC Commissioner Roselyn Akombe resigned from the body in October 2017 few days ahead of repeat presidential elections. Photo: Roselyn Akombe/Facebook.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Malindi family living in fear after claiming senior KDF officer is after their lives

According to the ruling, the four commissioners were technically still employees of IEBC and there was no way their positions could be declared vacant making it impossible to conclude the commission lacked quorum.

The ruling came in the wake of sources at IEBC confirming salaries to the four commissioners had been discontinued though President Uhuru Kenyatta who the resignation letters were directed to had neither confirmed receipt nor approval of the requests.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

Source: Breaking News
- Former Embakasi South MP Irshad Sumra said the demolitions were a threat to country's economy

- Sumra wrote to President Uhuru Kenyatta urging him to halt demolitions

- He urged Uhuru to open room for dialogue on how buildings in riparian areas could be spared and tasked with conserving water bodies

- The legislator argued there were numerous buildings world over erected in riparian areas and had done excellently to conserve water bodies

- He said he would lead a protest and urge Asian community to close business until room for dialogue is offered

Former Embakasi South MP Irshad Sumra has written to President Uhuru Kenyatta requesting him to stop the massive demolition exercise in Nairobi which has seen prestigious buildings flattened.

Sumra who successfully filed petition against election of Julius Mawathe the current MP, said the demolitions were an economic sabotage and threatened to mobilise the Asian community to close their business if the exercise is not halted.

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READ ALSO: Governor Sonko declares Taj Mall, Visa Oshwal centre will be demolished to reclaim public land

READ ALSO: Visa Oshwal owners choose to demolish centre before government moves in

In an exclusive interview with TUKO.co.ke on Saturday, August 11, the MP said he had attached photos of malls, temples and residential buildings erected in riparian areas across the world yet had conserved water bodies around in his petition.

"I hope this note finds you well. After posting you the first petition I have been receiving many calls and I am appealing for you to kindly save the situation. Most of by laws used by the county are outdated. They are using them to frustrate developers," read part of the petition seen by TUKO.co.ke.

Speaking in reference to the Saturday, August 11, demolition of Visa Oshwal centre, a religious establishment of Hindus, Sumra argued the demolitions were conducted haphazardly and needed to be stopped forthwith.

The ODM politician said demolition of buildings in riparian areas was not the best solution when the buildings could be spared and owners tasked to conserve water bodies. Photo: Irshad Sumra/Facebook.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Give us a break from politics, we have important business to do- DP William Ruto

"In the photos river banks have been canalised in order to maintain their flow. This is what we need to do in areas where buildings seem to have tampered with the flow. The owners need to be allowed time to offer alternative mutually beneficial plans rather than demolishing their buildings," he explained in the petition to Uhuru.

The politician pleaded with the president to allow affected members of Asian community and building owners to meet him and chat towards an amicable solution which would safeguard environment and investments equally.

READ ALSO: Police gun down three notorious criminals in Kimilili

The outspoken politician said the exercise had set up government for serious lawsuits in future since many building owners followed due procedure and had been approved by public agencies.

"Mr President your government has to take responsibility instead of turning a blind eye. I am sure you will use your executive powers to stop this exercise and call for the stake holders meeting immediately," he added.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

Source: Tuko.co.ke
Award winning Kenyan insurance dealer and patron of Kenya University Students Association asked youths never to abandon big dreams.

She also opened up on how she established business empire from the dreaded policy selling job

To many youths in Kenya, selling insurance policies was among oddest and cumbersome jobs one would not prefer.

However, for Agnes Mugure, a successful insurance investor, it was this job that spurred her to become one of the country's most accomplished entrepreneurs.

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READ ALSO: Could this be the lady to deputise Mike Sonko after the sudden exit of Polycarp Igathe?

Brilliant insurance dealer Agnes Kagure challenged young entrepreneurs follow their dreams with passion and success would be inevitable. Photo: Agnes Kagure/Facebook.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Who will be the next Nairobi County deputy governor?

The founder and managing principal of Insurance Consulting Group (ICG), an independent insurance agency in Kenya told TUKO.co.ke on Saturday, August 11, she build her career on small commissions and became a millionaire.

For over 20 years I sold insurance policies, a job many young people dread and only got paid through commission. If you dont sell much you get nothing and it feels like a curse. If you sell more the commission becomes a huge blessing because 10% of KSh 10 million is KSh 1 million. That is how I made my millions during those two decades," she said.

In 2011, Ms Kagure was named in the top 40 women under 40, an annual list of most influential and successful female entrepreneurs below the age of 40.

Agnes Kagure, who was recently appointed as peace ambassador by the leader of Thailand. Photo" Agnes Kagure/Facebook.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Former MP petitions Uhuru, threatens to mobilise Asians to close businesses over demolitions

However big your challenges the power to eventually make a shining bright career or a highly profitable business, lies in your hands. In a country of high joblessness coupled with hurdles of bureacracy in public service success becomes a tough struggle which many young people give up on," she explained.

According to a report by Kenya Bureau of Standards released in March, seven million Kenyans are unemployed with majority of the 19.5 million employed surviving on low paying jobs.

Perhaps the figure most disturbing is that nine in every 10 unemployed Kenyans are 35 years and below.I know how it feels to weather the biting morning cold to attend another unfruitful interview but even in this situation one must hold on to their dreams and success would come," she observed.

Kagure, who was recently appointed as peace ambassador by the leader of Thailand was critical that individuals who pursue their dreams like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and Bidco Kenya founder Vimal Shah enjoy their careers.

Agnes Kagure said youths must look at unemployment with a winning strategy like the Biblical King David did when dealing with Goliath. Photo: Agnes Kagure/Facebook.

Source: Facebook

READ ALSO: Kenyans brace for tough times as matatu fare set to increase

If your dream is to start the next Facebook or Bidco you must start with the little you have. Remember Facebook started in a university hostel and Bidco was first a small garment manufacturing company. That is why Vimal likes saying wear the lenses which show you an opportunity in every challenge," Kagure added.

According to Kagure the transition point from poverty to success lies in what she refers as Five Stones the Biblical King David used to slew Goliath.

"One must aim their stones at those giants which cause them sleepless nights. You must intensely focus your time, energy, skills, education and connections at slaying unemployment which is waiting for you to complete school," the entrepreneur stated.

Here are her five steps to conquering the world:

1. Your time now very productively because youth is fleeting and will be gone before you can blink your eyes.

2. Use your youthful energy to work twice as hard as the next person because that will eventually take you twice as far in your career or business.

3. Develop your skills as much as you can because your skill is the one tangible ticket you have to a successful livelihood.

4. Your education is the foundation upon which you should already be building that business or career that lies in your dreams.

5. Connections are critical. It doesnt mean knowing big people but knowing people with big insights and ideas. You cannot fly like an eagle of you spend all your time with the hens on the ground. Learn as much as you can from those who have already made it. Soak in their insights and apply them to your journey.

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish, please reach us through news@tuko.co.ke or WhatsApp: 0732482690 and Telegram: Tuko news.

Faces of Kenya: Meet The Man Behind The Matatu Barbershop | Tuko TV

Source: Tuko
Residents and small businesses in the unincorporated areas will receive two letters describing the changes. The first letter will come from Aurora Township and Constellation explaining the program. ComEd will send out a second letter in late August 2018.
A security officer is dead.

He was shot and killed as bandits pounced on cigarette delivery van, in Valencia.

Another person, who was also shot in the robbery, is now hospitalised.
Belarus, Moldova and Austria are the largest importers of Ukrainian apples.

"Ukraine has exported 3.2 times more apples than last year. In 2017-2018 season, Ukraine has exported about 40,900 tonnes of apples. In 2016/17 season, only 12,800 tonnes of apples were exported. Belarus, Moldova and Austria are the largest importers of Ukrainian apples," the Government portal on Facebook reports.

Earlier, the UopenEU project of the EU Delegation to Ukraine about the prospects and advantages of the free trade area between Ukraine and the EU reported that Ukrainian apple exports in 2017/18 season hit a record of the last five years. In particular, the exports to the EU amounted to 11,632 tonnes. Austria, Hungary and Sweden were named among the largest importers.

UpenEU also noted that Ukraine had exported 40,000 tonnes of berries to the EU last year.

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The US Embassy in Moscow calls on the Russian Federation to release Ukrainian film director Oleg Sentsov and other Ukrainian political prisoners.

"We remain seriously concerned about Sentsov's failing health in prison. We urge Russia to release Sentsov and his fellow Ukrainian prisoners on humanitarian grounds," the Embassy posted on Twitter.

As reported, Sentsov was detained by Russian security services in Crimea in May 2014.

He was sentenced to 20 years in a penal colony in Russia for alleged "plotting acts of terrorism."

On May 14, 2018, he declared a hunger strike demanding the release of all Ukrainian political prisoners of the Kremlin.

Recently, Sentsov's health has deteriorated, but he refuses hospitalization. On August 10, he was examined by a council of physicians.

About 70 Ukrainians are political prisoners in Russia and in the occupied Crimea.

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Ukraine has filed new interstate lawsuit over the political prisoners held by the Kremlin with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR).

"The Government of Ukraine points to systemic violations of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms by the Russian Federation, namely: Article 3 (prohibition of torture and degrading treatment), Article 5 (right to liberty and security); Article 6 (right to a fair trial); Article 8 (right to respect for private and family life); Article 10 (freedom of expression), Article 13 (right to an effective remedy), Article 18 (limitation on use of restrictions of rights shall not be applied for any purpose other than those for which they have been prescribed) regarding the citizens, whom Russia pursues for political reasons," Ukrainian Deputy Justice Minister Ivan Lishchyna posted on his Facebook page.

He notes that the lawsuit describes human rights violations with regard to 71 political prisoners. The document has 130 pages and about 3,000 pages of annexes.

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According to intelligence reports, one enemy troop was killed and another four were wounded.

Russia's hybrid military forces mounted 36 attacks on Ukrainian army positions in Donbas in the past 24 hours, with three Ukrainian soldiers reported as wounded in action (WIA).

Read alsoOSCE drone spots convoys of Russian trucks entering and exiting eastern Ukraine

"The Russian occupation forces opened aimed fire from grenade launchers, heavy machine guns and small arms to attack the defenders of the towns of Maryinka and Krasnohorivka, and the villages of Krymske, Troyitske, Luhanske, Zalizne, Shumy, Opytne, Novomykhailivka, Bohdanivka, Hnutove, Lebedynske, Pavlopil, Vodiane, and Shyrokyne. In certain areas, the enemy engaged infantry fighting vehicles. Along with this, the enemy shelled the Ukrainian positions near Lebedynske and Shumy in the Horlivka direction, using 120mm mortars," the press center of Ukraine's Joint Forces Operation (JFO) said in an update on Facebook as of 07:00 Kyiv time on August 11, 2018.

According to intelligence reports, one enemy troop was killed and another four were wounded.

Since Saturday midnight, Russian-led forces have mounted two attacks on the Ukrainian positions near Pavlopil and Hnutove. No heavy weapons were used. There have been no casualties among the Ukrainian military since day-start.
The district has made it sound like it is all about money. We are still working to refine some of the clauses of the contract, he said. We are trying to understand what their position is. It's almost as if we were coming close to an agreement and all of a sudden they pushed away from the table.
(@rukhshanmir)

Europe's stock markets sank in opening deals on Friday, as investors fretted over the region's exposure to Turkey's currency crisis and eyed the ongoing China-US trade row.

London, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 10th Aug, 2018 ) :Europe's stock markets sank in opening deals on Friday, as investors fretted over the region's exposure to Turkey's Currency crisis and eyed the ongoing China-US trade row.

In initial deals, London's benchmark FTSE 100 index of top blue-chip companies declined 0.4 percent to 7,708.46 points compared with the closing level on Thursday.

In the eurozone, Frankfurt's DAX 30 dropped 0.8 percent to 12,574.20 points and the Paris CAC 40 also lost 0.

8 percent to 5,455.96.

"For some time now investors have been looking at the unfolding currency crisis in Turkey as a local difficulty," noted CMC Markets UK analyst Michael Hewson.

"However, the accelerating speed of the declines appears to be raising concerns about European banks' exposure to the Turkish banking system."Turkey's embattled lira on Friday hit new record lows against the US Dollar, losing some five percent in value as strains with the United States showed no sign of easing.
(@FahadShabbir)

Allegations by media and relief organistions in Yemen in regards to an operation conducted by the Saudi-led Arab Coalition on August 9th in Saada Governorate, have been immediately forwarded to the Joint Incident Assessment Team (JIAT) for investigation, according to a Coalition senior official.

RIYADH, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 10th Aug, 2018) Allegations by media and relief organistions in Yemen in regards to an operation conducted by the Saudi-led Arab Coalition on August 9th in Saada Governorate, have been immediately forwarded to the Joint Incident Assessment Team (JIAT) for investigation, according to a Coalition senior official.

The official has stated that the Joint Forces Command has looked into the allegations that an aid operation by the Coalition in Saada Governorate had inflicted damage on a civilian bus, and referred the claims to JIAT for assessment and investigation.

The results will be announced as soon as possible, he added, reaffirming the longstanding commitment of the Coalition to investigate all allegations of errors and International Law violations.

The official added that the Coalition will, as has always been the case, make all possible efforts to protect civilians.
(@FahadShabbir)

ABU DHABI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 11th Aug, 2018) Starting Sunday, 12th August, motorists throughout the emirate of Abu Dhabi will no longer have the luxury of exceeding stated speed limits without being fined, according to the Abu Dhabi Police.

Radars on different roads have been reset as per the amended speeds on the emirates roads which means motorists will be penalised for driving even one kilometre over the specified speed limit. New speed limit signs have been installed, and the Abu Dhabi Police launched extensive awareness campaigns among the public to educate them about the new speed limits and removal of buffer speeds on the internal and external roads of the emirate.

The buffer that allows drivers to travel up to 20km above the advertised speed limit on roads was removed and would be replaced by uniform speed limits on roads.

The Department of Transport and the Urban Planning Department of the Abu Dhabi Police had stated in July that the decision would prevent confusion and improve road safety.

The Abu Dhabi Police said that the decision was being implemented on the basis of traffic accident indicators, research and studies aimed at attaining the highest levels of traffic safety and easing traffic congestion.

Before 12th August, a driver was able to travel at 140kph in a 120kph zone and at 120kph in a 100kph zone, but from tomorrow speed cameras will catch him if he exceeds the prescribed speed limits in those zones.

The Abu Dhabi Police also called on motorists to respect the new speed ruling and launched a comprehensive campaign using platforms such as the social media, displays on public transport vehicles, taxis and in newspapers, to make the public aware of changes in speed limits and the removal of the 20km buffer.
SHARJAH, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News / WAM - 12th Aug, 2018) A workshop entitled Developing a regional strategy for monitoring of coastal wetlands and waterbirds in the Arabian Peninsula will be held in the first half of September in the emirate of Sharjah.

It will be organised by the Environment and Protected Areas Authority (EPAA) in cooperation with the Wetlands International and BirdLife International, with the participation of more than 20 government representatives, the partners of both organisations in the region, and representatives of a number of other environmental organisations.

EPAA Chairperson Hana Saif Al Suwaidi said, "EPAA follows the directives of H.H. Dr. Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al Qasimi, Supreme Council Member and Ruler of Sharjah, and the decisions of the Sharjah Executive Council and the UAE National Environmental Strategy. EPAA is keen to coordinate and cooperate with government agencies, academic institutes and organisations, regional organisations, and research centres on everything related to the EPAAs work."

Al Suwaidi explained that the workshop will Identify, document and monitor the changes in the ecological status of internationally important wetlands (Critical Sites) .

The two-day workshop aims to take stock of existing initiatives, capacity and agree on a regional waterbird and wetland monitoring strategy, identify gaps, needs and opportunities, joint products and timeline. The workshop will also discuss the way forward concerning the production of a regional situation analysis on the status coastal wetlands.

There will also be discussions about an analysis of the status of coastal wetlands in the region. It is hoped that participants will reach agreement on the estimated number of waterbird population.

The workshop seeks to develop a draft regional waterbird and wetland monitoring strategy based on the outcome of the discussions. It also seeks to gain support to the implementation of the regional waterbird and wetland monitoring strategy, and to communicate with regional stakeholders concerning the development of the situation analysis.
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 11th Aug, 2018 ) :More than 4 in 10 individuals with asthma run the risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a group of lung diseases that block airflow and make it harder to breathe, says a new study involving around 4,000 women.

The researchers examined risk factors for developing asthma and COPD overlap syndrome, known as ACOS.

The findings, published in the journal Annals of the American Thoracic Society, showed that individual risk factors played a more significant role in the development of ACOS than exposure to fine particulate matter, a major air pollutant that because of its microscopic size penetrates deep into the lungs.

Women who had smoked more than the equivalent of a pack of cigarettes a day for five years, were much more likely to develop ACOS than those who smoked fewer cigarettes or never smoked.

However, ACOS did not affect only those who smoke as the researchers found that 38 per cent of the women who developed ACOS in the study had never smoked.

The study also identified obesity, rural residence, lower education levels and unemployment as significant risk factors for ACOS.

The authors believe that these factors may result in suboptimal access to care, under-treatment of asthma and poor compliance to medications, all of which lead to more frequent asthma attacks.

These attacks in turn may lead to airway remodelling that increases the chances of developing ACOS.

"Previous studies have found an alarming rise in ACOS in women in recent years and that the mortality rate from ACOS was higher in women than men," said Teresa To, Professor at University of Toronto in Canada.

"We urgently need to identify and quantify risk factors associated with ACOS in women to improve their health and save lives," To added.
(@mahnoorsheikh03)

Mian Mansha is ordered to appear before NAB team in person August 17.

Islamabad (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News  11th August, 2018) The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) has summoned business tycoon and Muslim Commercial Bank chairman Mian Muhammad Mansha in an ongoing money-laundering probe.

According to media reports, the anti-graft watchdog is investigating the laundering of 95 million British Pounds and the purchase of an expensive hotel in the United Kingdom.

Mian Mansha is ordered to appear before NAB team in person August 17. A three-member NAB team will probe the business tycoon about the alleged money laundering.

The investigations have been launched against him on a request forwarded by the chairman of Pakistan Workers Party.
(@ChaudhryMAli88)

Pakistan Navy successfully conducted rescue operation in Karachi Harbour and saved previous lives onboard fishing vessel "Muhammad Shah Bukhari".

KARACHI (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 11th Aug, 2018 ) : Pakistan Navy successfully conducted rescue operation in Karachi Harbour and saved previous lives onboard fishing vessel "Muhammad Shah Bukhari".

The boat in distress was entering Karachi Harbour when capsized in channel due some technical fault. Upon receipt of information about the distressed fishing vessel, Pakistan Navy promptly launched the search and rescue operation to lactate fishermen of the distressed boat.

In short span of time fishermen were recovered by PN Harbour Patrolling Boats and in assistance with other boats in the harbour.

Pakistan Navy Harbour Patrol Boats are on 24/7 guard of the harbour to efficiently cater any such call/incident.

Pakistan Navy, as custodian of maritime frontiers of the motherland, has always been vigilant and watchful in assuring a secure maritime environment at domestic waters as well as in Indian Ocean Region and beyond.

Prompt response to the distressed boat and subsequent rescue of fishermen is a clear manifestation of professionalism and dedication of Pakistan Navys men for their countrymen.
(@rukhshanmir)

Governor, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Tariq Bajwa urged banks to bring qualitative shift in agricultural financing by adopting innovative techniques for provision of easy and swift credit to small farmers.

KARACHI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 11th Aug, 2018 ) :Governor, State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Tariq Bajwa urged banks to bring qualitative shift in agricultural financing by adopting innovative techniques for provision of easy and swift credit to small farmers.

While chairing the Agricultural Credit Advisory Committee (ACAC) he shared that agricultural credit is one of the top priorities of government.

The annual meeting of the ACAC was held for the first time in Muzaffarabad, Azad Jammu & Kashmir as part of the SBP's continued efforts to enhance agri credit in underserved provinces and regions.

While reviewing the progress on agri. credit targets of FY 2017-18, Bajwa, appreciated the efforts of commercial banks, microfinance banks and microfinance institutions for nearly achieving the agriculture targets.

The banks disbursed Rs 972.6 billion, which was over 97% of the assigned target and 38% higher than FY 2016-17.

In terms of agri. credit demand, banks met 72% of the total agri.

credit requirement compared to 57% last year. He added that the outstanding portfolio of agri. credit also increased to Rs 469 billion while serving 3.72 million borrowers at end June 2018.

The agri lending banks/institutions added 450,000 fresh borrowers during the year.

While delivering his keynote address, the GOvernor SBP highlighted that most of the banks met their assigned targets; however, banks including ZTBL, PPCBL, some of the domestic private banks and Islamic banks fell short of achieving their targets.

The province wise agri. credit disbursement witnessed double-digit growth across all provinces and regions; however, banks struggled to achieve their assigned regional targets in the underserved provinces/regions.

He urged agri. lending banks and institutions to double up their efforts and commitment to ensure achievement of agri. credit target in the underserved provinces and regions.

He urged the Federal & Provincial governments, revenue departments, farmers' associations and other stakeholders to contribute in increasing crop productivity by adopting innovative farming techniques, providing modern cold storage & silos facilities, implementation of automated land revenue record and efficient irrigation systems to facilitate banks in their endeavor to adopt agri. finance as a viable business.

Bajwa also highlighted that besides providing an enabling regulatory environment, SBP has been taking various developmental initiatives to boost agri. financing at the grass root level.

These included holding a number of awareness sessions all over the country and job fairs in collaboration with Agri.

Universities in the underserved provinces/regions. The Governor emphasized that all banks should finalize the recruitment of the shortlisted candidates on priority basis and to take maximum benefit from the upcoming job fairs being planned by SBP in collaboration with agri universities.

The key note address was followed by a presentation wherein the performance of banks on agricultural financing was reviewed against their targets during FY 2017-18. While assigning the agri. credit target for FY 2018-19, it was shared that the overall disbursement target of Rs. 1,250 billion has been assigned to banks which is 82% of the total estimated agri. credit requirement of Rs 1,519 billion.

The province wise and sector wise distribution of the target was adopted while considering the provincial agricultural credit requirements, banks' overall lending capacity and their business expansion plans.

It was highlighted that for the first time, Islamic banks and Islamic branches of commercial banks have been assigned disbursement target of Rs 100 billion to help realize its potential. Further, the overall target of outstanding borrowers has been enhanced to 4.42 million with the addition of 700,000 new borrowers.

The Committee also deliberated on the new directions in agricultural financing by focusing on digitalization of agri.

Loan processes, value chain and warehouse receipt financing, high value added crops, and provision of farmer advisory services and real time crop monitoring through Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

While concluding the meeting, Mr. Tariq Bajwa shared his confidence that all the stakeholders must continue to collaborate to enhance formal credit to agriculture. He urged that: 'Banks must continue to innovate and provide agri credit while adopting digital technologies, value chain financing, high value crops and create more linkages for improving livelihoods in the country.

'Banks must overcome their infrastructure gaps to achieve the annual agricultural credit target of Rs 1,250 billion for FY 2018-19.

The target for FY 19 was not very steep compared to last year to allow the banks to bring a qualitative shift in agri financing.

'Banks must enhance their Advances to Deposit ratio in all provinces and regions to support the local economies'.

'Banks must adopt, replicate and scale up the existing pilots on Electronic Land Record Management Information System for efficient and timely provision of credit to small famers'.

'Islamic banks and branches to develop innovative financing products in line with the agri sector needs'.

Before closing the meeting, Governor-SBP thanked the participants and expressed his optimism that Banks will explore new investment opportunities in underserved provinces/regions to achieve overall annual target for FY 2018-19 beside achieving their provincial/regional targets particularly in underserved areas.

The meeting was attended by senior officials of federal & provincial governments, Presidents/CEOs of banks, members of all provincial chambers of agriculture, progressive farmers and representatives of AJK farming community.
Published: August 10, 2018

UT Awarded National Endowment for the Humanities Grant to Study the Role Played By the Immigrant Communities of Tampa in Cuban Independence

The University of Tampa has been awarded a $190,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) to offer a summer institute in 2019 focusing on the rise of the U.S. as a global power in the early 20th century as a consequence of its intervention in Cubas War of Independence.



The four-week institute, Jose Marti and the Immigrant Communities of Florida in Cuban Independence and the Dawn of the American Century, will take place on the UT campus from June 17 to July 13, 2019. Up to 25 university and college professors from throughout the U.S. will be selected to participate.



The grant was prepared by James Lopez, UT professor of Spanish, and Denis Rey, associate professor of political science and international studies, who together coordinate the Center for Marti Studies affiliate at UT. The institute will closely examine an often overlooked aspect of Cubas War of Independence, namely, the role played by the Cuban immigrant communities in the U.S., particularly in the unique and vibrant cigar towns of Florida, especially Ybor City.



The lessons of this history continue to be resonant today, Lopez said. The institute seeks to heighten awareness of how American immigrant communities have helped usher in political transformations both at home and abroad, and to accentuate the rich and complex cultural world established by the Cuban, Sicilian and Spanish immigrants around the cigar industry in turn-of-the-century Florida.



The institute will also study the work of Jose Marti, the man whose oratory, poetry, journalism and essays would transform the movement for political independence into a formulation of Cuban patriotic identity that would outlast the U.S. military intervention, and establish Marti, known simply as the Apostle in Cuban society, as the most important symbol and source of national identity on and off the island. The immigrant cigar workers of Tampa played an important role in Martis biography and intellectual evolution, both of which will be closely examined during the institute.



The study of this seminal period from the perspective of the working class immigrants who organized, financed and, in many cases, fought and died for a patriotic ideal that they helped inspire by their example, will enrich any cross-cultural approach to the teaching of U.S. history, race and ethnicity, Latin American studies, Caribbean/Cuban studies, international relations, cultural studies, and Hispanic language and culture, Lopez said.



The institute will include expert lectures, guided readings, archival materials and visits to significant historical sites. All of these are directed toward the development of innovative course modules and teaching plans to enrich the college curriculum and disseminate this history. The institute is one of 218 humanities projects across the country funded by NEH, which total $43.1 million in awards.



For more information, contact Lopez at james.lopez@ut.edu, or Rey at denis.rey@ut.edu.

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this article do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
30 W. Oak St., No. 7A, Chicago: $2,450,000 | Listed: Aug. 20, 2021



This three-bedroom home has three full bathrooms, one half-bath and more than 60 feet of floor-to-ceiling windows. The kitchen has white lacquered Poggenpohl upper cabinetry, a cantilevered island and a butlers pantry. Double glass sliding doors from the kitchen and dining rooms lead to a terrace that offers city views and a glimpse of the lake. The primary bedroom features Arabesque wallcovering, a floor-to-ceiling headboard with a built-in hardwood bed, floating lacquered nightstands, automatic custom shades and a crystal pendant light with a shade. This home has marble floors throughout except in the bedrooms, where the floors are wood. An Eco Smart fire feature, a Murano glass light installation in the dining room and a garage parking space complete this home.



Agents: Marissa Gillman Schaefer and Sharon Gillman, Compass,312-560-8400 and 312-925-2700cq



*Some listing photos are virtually staged, meaning they have been digitally altered to represent different furnishing or decorating options.



To feature your luxury listing of $800,000 or more in Chicago Tribunes Dream Homes, send listing information and high-res photos to ctc-realestate@chicagotribune.com.



Join our Chicago Dream Homes Facebook group for more luxury listings and real estate news.
Spanish Jesuit priest Father Carlos Riudavets Montes was found dead with stab wounds in the school he ran in Peru.

Spanish Jesuit priest Father Carlos Riudavets Montes working among the indigenous people of Perus Amazonia region, was found dead in his school kitchen with his hands tied and stab wounds in his body.

By Robin Gomes

A Spanish Jesuit missionary priest working amng the indigenous people in Peru's Amazonia regions has been killed. The body of Father Carlos Riudavets Montes was found Friday morning with his hands tied and several stab wounds lying in the kitchen of the Valentin Salegui school he ran in Yamakai-entsa district in the Amazonian jungle province of Bagua.

The priests body was discovered by the schools cook, Gumercinda Diure, the director of education of the Amazonia region told RPP radio. Diure said it did not appear to be burglary because nothing was stolen.

The Jesuit province of Peru has confirmed the death of Fr. Riudavets. "We express dismay and sorrow at the death of Father Carlos Riudavets, the Jesuit province of Peru said in a statement.

Fr. Victor Hugo Miranda, the spokesperson for the Peruvian Jesuit province told Vatican News that the Jesuits of Peru have expressed their concern and worry at what has happened and are awaiting information from authorities regarding the murder of Fr. Riudavets.

Listen to Fr. Victor Hugo Miranda

While rejecting all forms of violence, Fr. Miranda said, the Jesuits of Peru are proud of the work in the mission of Fr. Riudavets.



Fr. Riudavets, 73, whose school provides education to the children of the Yamakai-Entsa indigenous group, served in the north central part of the Peruvian Amazon for 38 years.

A native of Sanlucar de Guadiana (Huelva), in Spain, Fr. Riudavets came to Peru as a young scholastic in the pre-priesthood preparation stage. He studied theology in Lima and had experience in teaching in Piura in the north. After his priestly ordination, he was sent in 1980 to the Jesuit mission in the Vicariate San Francisco Javier del Alto Maranon, an area that includes part of Jaen (in the region of Cajamarca) that is the land of the Awajun-Wampis people.

Fr. Miranda said Fr. Riudavets worked for almost 40 years among the indigenous people as a teacher and then principal and was very close to the people.

Diure said Fr. Riudavets had been threatened by a student who was expelled from the school. Police said they are investigating the killing.

The Peruvian bishops conference has urged the authorities to clarify facts and arrest those responsible.

The Pan-Amazon Ecclesial Network (REPAM) noted that Fr. Riudavest was much loved by the people of the area, especially by the Awajun-Wampis. Fr. Riudavest leaves behind a legacy of commitment, responsibility and love for the indigenous people, REPAM said.

Poverty affects some 35% of the people of the Amazonia region where the murdered priest lived and worked. The region is also hit by a large number of cases of HIV transmission, rape of girls, illegal mining and oil spills that contaminate the water supply to the local communities.
The young pilgrims are sailing from France to Panama for WYD (not pictured) (AFP or licensors)

A group of young people from France are taking a novel route to attend World Youth Day 2019 in Panama - 3 sail boats for 105 days of transatlantic travel.

By Francesca Merlo



On the 31st of August the young crew  consisting of 17 Frenchmen and women, 4 skippers, and a chaplain - will leave from Notre-Dame de Rocamadour on the gulf of Brest, after receiving a blessing from Bishop Marc Aillet of Bayonne on behalf of all French Bishops. They will sail all the way to Panama to join Pope Francis for World Youth Day in late January 2019.

Hailing from varied backgrounds, the crew members have different reasons for joining this mission  all of them, however, share a desire to reach Pope Francis in Panama on this special occasion. They say they are embarking upon this life lesson in the hope of finding their vocation, understanding their purpose in life, and focusing on their future.

On their website, the team calls it a spiritual, human, and missionary adventure.

Though they have never met - and despite the majority of the crew having never sailed before - they must all learn to sail together, live and work together, and learn the way of the sea and nature.

Listen to our report

A missionary journey



The pilgrims say their aim is to immerse themselves in the lives of the local people, listen to their stories, and learn from their experiences as they travel from country to country and continent to continent.

From the 1-15 of September they will sail through France, Spain, and Portugal, stopping off on pilgrimages first in Santiago de Compostela and the Sanctuary of our Lady Fatima, in order to share and explain the purpose of their mission.

On the 30th of September, once in Morocco, they will follow the steps of Blessed Charles de Foucault, in an attempt to learn about his life.



From the 1st to the 15th of October they sail through the Canary Islands, before travelling to Senegal where they will lead a mission in Dakar.

Then onto Cape Verde, and from the 15th of November to the 5th of December they cross the Atlantic Ocean.

On the 25th of December they will arrive in the Caribbean Islands  Saint Lucie, Martinique, Dominique, and Guadeloupe where they will spend Christmas.

Leaving there on the 27th of December they will arrive in Curacao on the 15th of January, sailing on through until reaching their final destination: Panama, arriving in time for WYD from 22nd to 27th January.

Return of the patron saint



On board they are carrying the statue of Santa Maria La Antigua, offered by the Archbishop of Panama.

The statue, representing the Patron saint of Panama and originally from Seville, will make a symbolic journey acrosss the Atlantic Ocean with these adventurous, young pilgrims.
In a reflection at a Saturday evening prayer vigil for over 70,000 pilgrims from all over Italy, Pope Francis invites young people to be daring in their journey of faith and to help those mired in darkness.

By Devin Watkins

Pope Francis greeted a 70,000-plus crowd of young Italian pilgrims in Romes Circus Maximus on Saturday evening.

The Pope encouraged them to run towards Jesus and their brothers and sisters with hearts full of love, faith, and joy.

Run, dont walk



He told them a slow pace would not do on lifes journey of faith, only a quick step and daring leaps.

Pope Francis told the young pilgrims that courage is needed to dream and make present the Kingdom of God, just like Jesus.

He said Christians are not called to shy away from suffering, defeat, and death. God, he said, gave us the greatest power over all injustices and human weaknesses: Jesus conquered death by giving his life for us.

Flame of hope in darkness



This power, said Pope Francis, impels us to seek out our brothers and sisters, no matter the darkness in which they find themselves.

At the moment when death appears to triumph, he said, in reality that moment is revealed as deaths defeat.

The Pope said the power of Jesus Resurrection is so contagious that history cannot resist its advance.

Every place where life is oppressed; where violence, war, and misery reign; and where people are humiliated and trod underfoot: there hope in life can still be rekindled.
Greece recalled its Ambassador to Russia on Friday as part of an escalating row, following a similar move by Moscow earlier this month.

By John Carr

Greece has recalled its ambassador from Moscow in a worsening diplomatic dispute over alleged Russian interference in Greek foreign policy.

Exactly a month ago, Greece made the surprise move of expelling two Russian diplomats on the grounds that they tried to scuttle a recent cooperation deal between Greece and neighbouring Macedonia.

Since then the war of words between Athens and Moscow has been escalating, with tit-for-tax expulsions of Greek embassy staff from Moscow.

Media reports in Athens say Greece refused visas to a group of Russian Orthodox clergy who wanted to visit Mount Athos. The suspicion was that the priests might use their stay in northern Greece to stir up opposition to the Macedonia deal.

Until recently Greece was the EU member most accommodating with Russia thanks to the Orthodox link. The reasons for the sudden switch are still a matter of debate here in Athens.

But according to a source in the ruling left-wing Syriza party, Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras has made a conscious decision to go along fully with American policy to stay on the right side of the United States and the European Union.


Shoppers will make a bee-line for Queen Bee Market to get a head start on holiday shopping at the popular handmade markets fall expo on Friday, Oct. 5 and Saturday, Oct. 6 at The Conference Center of Las Vegas (Pictured: Shoppers Browse Stuck in Coop Booth at Queen Bee Market).

Described as Etsy comes to life, Queen Bee Market is feminine and fun, hosting more than 70 vendors who make their products by hand and display their products from booths that are designed with flair.

This will be the 25th Queen Bee Market since its creation in 2010, and the third one in Las Vegas. Originally vendors at the popular Queen Bee Market, sisters Kellie Dooley and Allison Gharst became the owners in 2014 and hand-select the vendors who participate in each expo. Vendors will showcase and sell an array of handmade home decor, accessories, clothing, paper arts, vintage items, natural skin care products and more. A sampling of the confirmed participants thus far includes: Averie Lane Boutique, Tiny Seamstress, Bare Naked Botanicals, Marcella Taylor Design and more.

Attendees can also expect live demonstrations, make-and-take stations, live music and may purchase tickets to workshops. The market will also host local food trucks and beverage vendors on-site, with items available for purchase.
District 200 is tampering with election results right here in DuPage County, Shaw said. The district thinks that by using the magic word lease, its two failed referendum efforts and the will of the community are somehow erased and it can proceed in an identical manner as if a referendum had been adopted by the community to build and finance a new school.
Top Washington journalists talk about the week's headlines including new U.S. sanctions on Russia and the re-imposition of sanctions on Iran. Join host Michael Williams of CBS Radio, along with Linda Feldmann from the Christian Science Monitor and Dan Raviv of Israeli-based i24News as they discuss these and other stories on VOAs Issues in the News.
The man who authorities say stole a commercial airliner in Washington state late Friday was identified as Richard Russell.

The 29-year-old worked for Horizon Air, helping to handle luggage and towing aircraft. Authorities say he had worked Friday, and was in uniform, when he got into the cockpit of a Horizon Airlines Bombardier Q400 plane and took off.

He is believed to have died when the plane crashed into Ketron Island, about 48 kilometers (30 miles) south of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, setting off a large forest fire. Authorities say he was suicidal.

A family friend read a statement from Russells family Saturday that said they were shocked and devastated.

It may seem difficult for those watching at home to believe, the statement said, but Russell was a warm, compassionate man ... a faithful husband, a loving son and a good friend ... loved by everyone because he was kind and gentle to each person he met.

Federal investigation

On Saturday, U.S. federal investigators began looking into the theft and crash of the airliner.

In an audio recording Friday night, air traffic controllers can be heard trying to persuade Russell to land the airplane.

There is a runway just off to your right side in about a mile, the controller says, referring to an airfield at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

Oh man. Those guys will rough me up if I try and land there, Russell responded, later adding, This is probably jail time for life, huh?

A broken guy

Later, Russell can be heard saying, ... Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess.

Russell has a blog that gives some background on his life, including the fact that he lives with my incredible wife in Sumner, Washington.

He was a quiet guy. It seemed like he was well liked by the other workers, former co-worker Rick Christenson told The Seattle Times. I feel really bad for Richard and for his family. I hope they can make it through this.

Christenson told the newspaper he watched the plane and its dangerous stunts, not knowing that the pilot was his former co-worker. When he saw smoke rising from the woods, he realized the worst had happened.

Constance von Muehlen, Horizon Air Chief Operating Officer, said in a video posted onTwitter: Our hearts are with family of the individual aboard, along with all of our Alaska Air and Horizon Air employees. Horizon Air is part of Alaska Air Group.

National Transportation Safety Board Regional Director Debra Eckrote told reporters her agency is helping a team from the Federal Bureau of Investigation do ... preliminary documentation of the wreckage and search for the planes flight data recorders and the recovery of the remains.

After the investigation, Eckrote said the wreckage will likely be turned over to Horizon Air, a regional airline, which would be able to start recovery over the next couple of days.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command said two F-15 fighter jets were deployed to chase the plane, but the fighter aircraft were not involved in the crash.

I appreciate the quick reaction and professionalism of our airmen and the entire NORAD team, who were on alert today, as they are every day of the year, said NORAD Commander General Terrence OShaughnessy.

Seattle-Tacoma International Airport was shut down as the incident unfolded delaying flights.
It might sound like science fiction, but the general in charge of the U.S. militarys air transports across the globe says refueling and resupplying the military may soon be a job thats literally out of this world.

If I can resupply from space I can go across globe in about 30 minutes, Air Force General Carlton Everhart, the head of Air Mobility Command, told VOA. I do truly believe that is the next step. We can really make inroads.

Everhart says the time gained by using hypersonic craft in space could keep him ahead in the speed of war, where competitors China and Russia have been trying to make gains.

The idea of using space deliveries isnt as far out as it may seem. In fact, industry leaders, companies Everhart hopes to partner with, are already working on this type of technology.

Launch vehicles from companies like SpaceX, Sierra Nevada, and even foreign ventures could provide tremendous strategic advantage to the U.S. government, according to Eric Stallmer, the president of the Commercial Spaceflight Federation.

But its an advantage that would come with an astronomical price tag of thousands of dollars per kilo.



WATCH: Interview with Air Force General Carlton Everhart

Experts say the need to transport via space must outweigh these costs, perhaps only being used during the most important of missions.

Todd Harrison, a space and defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, points to the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, which killed U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans, as a situation where time necessities could overpower cost concerns.

Imagine if we had been able to launch a SEAL team and put them right down in that compound within 45 minutes of knowing that it was under attack. It could have made the difference, he said.

The general is not just focused on launching from one point on Earth to another, Everhart also wants to use satellites to preposition cargo in space.

Stallmer said a lot of spaceflight companies are looking at this idea of space refueling depots, including plans to convert those refueling vehicles to habitats within space once theyve been used.

The future is full of possibilities, but it is unclear when these technologies will be fully developed. Experts give estimates ranging from a couple of years to more than a decade, but that doesnt stop Everhart from dreaming.

The train is leaving the station and were going to be on it. And Im not going to be on the caboose. I want to be in front of, Im going to be in the front, he said.

The general says his team is already writing government proposals to make space resupply a certainty for future military mobility.
Australian scientists have test driven two cars powered by a carbon-free fuel derived from ammonia. A team from the Australian governments research agency, the CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization), says the pioneering technology will allow highly flammable hydrogen to be safely transported in the form of ammonia and used as a widely available fuel.

Researchers have found a way to use a thin membrane to turn Australian-made hydrogen into ammonia. This could be shipped safely to markets in Asia, as well as parts of Europe. At its destination, the liquid ammonia would then be converted back into hydrogen, and used to power cars and buses, as well as for electricity generation and industrial processes.

David Harris, CSIRO research director says the special thing about the technology that we have is that it allows you to produce very pure hydrogen directly with a membrane system from ammonia.

The technology has the support of Japanese car maker Toyota and South Koreas Hyundai Motor Company.

Watershed moment

Scientists say hydrogen, a highly-flammable gas that can be volatile and hard to transport safely, creates a low emission fuel for cars. The Australian team describes the membrane technology that separates hydrogen from other gases as a watershed moment for energy.

Claire Johnson, the chief executive of Hydrogen Mobility Australia, an industry association, says the pioneering research could forever change the transport sector.

We see that as a really exciting opportunity to decarbonize the transport sector, but also position Australia as one of the lead suppliers of hydrogen around the world. There is some competition to play that role, however. Norway, Brunei and Saudi Arabia have all flagged that they wish to be an exporter of hydrogen around the world.

There are only a handful of hydrogen-powered cars in Australia, but there are tens of thousands across Japan, South Korea and Singapore. The South Korean government has recently announced plans for 16,000 more hydrogen-fueled cars and 310 special refilling stations.
The U.N. refugee agency is scaling up its humanitarian operation in Ecuador to help the government deal with the a huge influx of Venezuelan refugees who are arriving in a state of destitution and despair.

According to UNHCR estimates, more than one-half million Venezuelans have entered Ecuador through the Colombian border this year, averaging up to 3,000 a day.

With the increasing hardships in Venezuela, the UNHCR reports these numbers have jumped to more than 4,000 daily arrivals in the first week of August. To tackle the growing refugee problem, the government of Ecuador declared a state of emergency Wednesday in several provinces.

UNHCR spokesman William Spindler calls this a good and necessary move.

UNHCR welcomes and supports this decision, which allows Ecuador to assign additional resources and step up its response. The exodus of Venezuelans from their country is one of Latin Americas largest mass population movements in history.

Spindler says Venezuelans are walking for days, even weeks, in precarious conditions. He says many are destitute when they arrive and are forced to live rough in public places and to beg or resort to other exploitative means to survive.

He says about 20 percent of those who arrive - including women and children, single parents and people with disabilities - are particularly vulnerable and in need of protection and assistance.

Women and girls represent 40 percent of the new arrivals and face serious risks of sexual violence, in particular survival sex and trafficking. Xenophobic reactions to the exodus have been noted in some quarters.

Spindler says most Venezuelans entering Ecuador continue on to Peru and Chile. He says the UNHCR is stepping up its emergency operation. It will provide Ecuador with technical assistance, such as screening and registering the refugees. He says staff will identify vulnerable Venezuelans in need of special protection and aid.
Heavy airstrikes in scattered parts of the rebel-held northern enclave of Idlib, Syria, overnight gave way to a precarious calm during the day Saturday, as diplomatic talks about Idlib city's fate continued behind the scenes.

Arab media reported that over two dozen people were killed airstrikes by Russian planes early Saturday. They showed amateur video of the Syrian opposition White Helmets civil defense force appearing to pull a child from out of the rubble in the town of Urem al Kubra, where a number of the fatalities occurred. VOA could not independently confirm the veracity of the video.

A resident of Urem al Kubra said Russian airstrikes had caused catastrophic damage in the town. Amateur video appeared to confirm that a large number of buildings had collapsed from the reported airstrikes, leaving rubble in the streets of the town.

Rami Abdel Rahman of the opposition Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told Arab media that more than 30 people had died in the airstrikes and that the number of casualties would probably rise. VOA could not independently confirm his claim.

Agreement near?

He said airstrikes had stopped for the day around Idlib and the west of Aleppo, but that there was a tense calm, and it wasn't clear if there was some sort of Turkish-Iranian-Russian agreement on the horizon over the fate of the region. He contended that Russia was interested in retaking the Damascus-Aleppo international highway.

The large town of Maarat al Naaman, which is on the Damascus-Aleppo highway, was hit by Russian airstrikes overnight, according to Saudi-owned Al Arabiya TV.

Syrian government media showed Syrian military reinforcements being brought into the Idlib region for what they claimed was an imminent operation to retake Idlib city.

Joshua Landis, who heads the Middle East program at the University of Oklahoma, told VOA he thought the Syrian government was hoping to retake Idlib the same way it recently recaptured the southern city of Daraa  by negotiating "reconciliation agreements" with the various rebel militias that are at each other's throats.

"[President Bashar al-] Assad's strategy is to divide and conquer in Idlib province, in the same way that he did in Daraa," Landis said. "There were 56 militias. More than half of them reconciled with the government and put down their guns. This left the remaining militias in a very weakened and vulnerable position. And this is why the Syrian government and army [were] able to sweep through Daraa in less than a month's time and conquer the place."

Landis added, however, that the situation in Idlib was "much more complex ... [and that] there are many more militias and many more radical militias." The region, he stressed, "has been a collecting point for those militiamen who refused to reconcile, so [Idlib] is going to be a much tougher nut to crack."

The Asharqalawsat newspaper reported Saturday that Syrian government planes had dropped leaflets over Idlib province, urging citizens and militia fighters to "reconcile with the government," since the government was going to "retake the Idlib and that their futures and the futures of their families were at stake."

Treated as traitors

Rebel militias, however, have warned their members that they will be "killed or dealt with as traitors" should they do so, according to Landis.

U.S. Iraq special envoy Brett McGurk said some months ago that Idlib had the "biggest collection of al-Qaida militants since 9/11."

"But," said Landis, "[the West] would prefer to have Turkey dismantle [these militias]. It would prefer not to have Syria, which is going to just bomb and create a wave of refugees that will plague not only Turkey but could also plague the West ... and leave [Idlib] looking like Mosul, or Raqqa or Aleppo. So, rather than using air power, they're hoping that Turkey can use a scalpel."

In a separate development, Syrian government media reported that Syrian air defenses had shot down an Israeli drone that entered Syrian airspace from Lebanon. Another Israeli drone also reportedly was downed recently.
France deems unacceptable a European Commission proposal to exclude French ports from a rerouting of a strategic trade corridor between Ireland and mainland Europe after Brexit, the government said.

At the moment much of Ireland's trade with the continent goes via Britain in trucks. However, with less than eight months to go until Britain leaves the European Union, there is still little clarity on its future trade relations with the bloc and on the nature of the Irish Republic's border with the British

province of Northern Ireland.

The new route put forward by the commission would connect Ireland by sea with Dutch and Belgian ports, including Zeebrugge and Rotterdam. French ports such as Calais and Dunkirk would be bypassed.

"France and Ireland maintain important trade channels, both overland via Britain and via direct maritime routes. The geographical proximity between Ireland and France creates an obvious connection to the single market," French Transport Minister Elisabeth Borne wrote to the EU's transport

commissioner in a letter dated August 10.

"Surprisingly, the commission proposal in no way takes this into account. This proposal therefore is not acceptable to France."

At stake are jobs, millions of dollars' worth of port revenues and possibly EU infrastructure funding.

Borne said that French ports had the necessary resources to ensure they could handle the likely increase in trade flows, hinting at concerns about congestion in ports such as Calais, France's busiest passenger port.
A free speech group says President Donald Trump continues to block dozens of people from his Twitter account although a court ruled his actions violate free speech enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University in New York sent a letter to the Justice Department Friday saying the president is still blocking 41 people from his @realDonaldTrump account.

The group contends almost all of the people in question were blocked after they posted unfavorable tweets about Trump or his policies.

"The First Amendment prohibits the president from blocking Twitter users simply because they've criticized him," said Knight Institute attorney Katie Fallow.

U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in New York ordered Trump on May 23 to restore to his account to a group of seven people who had filed a lawsuit. The plaintiffs were unblocked in June. Buchwald did not directly order Trump to unblock the 41 users referred to in Friday's letter.

Buchwald's order to unblock the plaintiffs came after she ruled that comments posted on Trump's account, or those of other government officials, were public and that blocking their viewpoints violates their constitutional right to free speech.

Trump has used his Twitter account, which has nearly 54 million followers, to promote his agenda, announce policy decisions and to denounce his critics. Blocking his critics prevents them from directly responding to his tweets.

The White House has not commented on the letter but the Justice Department said in an appeal Tuesday Buchwald's ruling was "fundamentally misconceived."

Trump's account "belongs to Donald Trump in his personal capacity and is subject to his personal control, not the control of the government," the appeal said.
Editor's note: We wanted a way to keep you updated with the top immigration, migration and refugee stories every week  the ones that will most affect you, our international readers, viewers and listeners. We want you to know what's happening, why and how it could impact your life, family or business, so we created a weekly digest of the top original immigration reporting from across VOA. Questions? Tips? Comments? Email the VOA immigration team: ImmigrationUnit@voanews.com.

Citing Trump, Anti-Immigrant Party Takes Root in South Africa

Undocumented immigrants taking jobs and committing crimes  the anti-immigrant and data-sparse rhetoric by the head of a new political party in South Africa may sound familiar to followers of U.S. politics. Party leader Thembelani Ngubane wants to "get rid of all foreigners." One human rights expert said she "can't even articulate how dangerous this is for our democracy."

New life, new art

In a Washington, D.C., suburb, art by refugees is on display, and the thousands of miles between their new and old home countries has changed what makes it onto the canvas. "In my country, we don't have a lot of color there, just gray and brown," said one painter. "Here, I saw four seasons clear."

Rescue from refuge

The U.N. is asking the international community for more money to cope with the refugees and migrants who fluctuate between the Horn of Africa and conflict-gripped Yemen. In part, those efforts include repatriating some Somalis from Yemen, a country used as a springboard for migrant workers into the broader Gulf region.
As villagers attended the first Friday prayers after a week marked by two major earthquakes and aftershocks, they returned to Karang Baro Mosque which was so damaged they gathered outside for worship.

Joined by volunteers and Indonesian National Police officers, about 300 people heard a sermon by Guru Lalu Ahmad asking for strength in facing the disaster and patience, sorely needed by the faithful who had been waiting through construction for the official opening of their mosque now too dangerous to enter.

WATCH: First Friday Prayers at Karang Baro Mosque After the Earthquakes

Across Lombok, officials estimate the major earthquakes August 5 and August 9, magnitudes 6.9 and 5.9 respectively according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), destroyed more than 100,000 homes. In the village of Prawira, it looks as if most of the houses built of concrete, like the mosque, are close to collapse, if not felled.

But Raden Prawangsa Jaya Ningrat, a youth cultural activist in Prawira, said that most of his neighbors still have their homes because they understood the wisdom of living in traditional wooden houses.

Geographically, Indonesia lies on several active tectonic plates, making it one of the worlds most active seismic zones. The so-called Ring of Fire is the zone surrounding the Pacific Ocean, where some 90 percent of the worlds earthquakes occur.

That means in Prawira, little earthquakes occur almost daily, those with a magnitude of 5 or higher are weekly events, and when big ones occur, wooden houses move while concrete ones dont.

Although a number of traditional local homes in Prawira have been renovated, even then builders used natural materials such as wood and bamboo, according to Prawangsa, who added that the sight of collapsed concrete buildings have made local residents appreciate their architectural heritage.

The traditional buildings, traditional houses are still standing, Prawangsa told VOA Indonesian. The others, built from concrete, collapsed. So we must pay more attention to the construction. We are located on the Ring of Fire. The most suitable materials for housing are natural materials such as wood, bamboo, woven bamboo walls because our area is prone to earthquakes.

Indonesian construction experts like Yulianto Prihatmaji, who earned his doctorate in engineering from Kyoto University, Japan, and currently teaching at Islamic University of Indonesia, Yogyakarta, agree.

During an earthquake, the wooden construction is able to move [and does not immediately collapse] and gives enough time for the occupants to escape safely, he told VOA during a phone interview. Prihatmaji, who specializes in Indonesian traditional timber structures, surmised the builders in Lombok may not have used earthquake-resistant concrete.

In a traditional home, the main front entry is low, the techniques used to connect elements of the frame result in a strong but not rigid construction, and the thatch or woven coconut leaves used for the roofs are lightweight. The combination withstands earthquakes well, even, as residents pointed out, the big one of October 20, 1979, which the USGS registered at 6.2 magnitude.

Haji Fuadzi said the earthquake of 1979 damaged fewer houses.

The houses back then were not damaged, the roof was made of reeds, the walls were of bamboo, said Fuadzi, a Prawira resident whose concrete house displayed cracked walls that looked close to collapse. Its very different from the current buildings. The floor at that time was ordinary cement.

Rummaging through the debris, he found the deed to his land and hoped to find all the items that I can still use but Im afraid to enter because it could collapse at any time, he told VOA.

WATCH: Traditional Wooden House in Lombok

Prihatmaji pointed out that traditional Lombok wooden houses are small, limited by the length and span of the natural materials used in their construction. He added that the houses can be dismantled easily because the people of Lombok were once nomads, moving often in their search for farmland. He criticized the move to concrete construction by local people who perceive the wooden houses as outdated and shabby.

When the shift to concrete buildings happened, they prioritized the appearance of the building, not the structural strength, Prihatmaji said.

Its our duty to learn more about carpentry, natural materials and local culture, he said. Experiences in the past can be the answers for the future. For example, in the past, houses were smaller. So it would be wise to return to wooden houses in the future.

But if one doesnt want to, its OK, said Prihatmaji. The important thing is everyone understands that they live on plates that easily shake. So the houses must be as light as possible.
The International Organization for Migration reports its voluntary repatriation program in Libya is unable to keep pace with the alarmingly high number of migrants in government detention centers wishing to go home.

The U.N. migration agency reports government-run detention centers in Libya are packed with migrants, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa. This, despite IOMs robust program to return migrants to their countries of origin.

IOM spokesman Joel Millman says large numbers of refugees and migrants heading toward Europe are being intercepted by the Libyan Coast Guard, brought back to shore, and placed in detention upon arrival.

He says this interception or, as some see it, rescue operation, has been so successful that the number of migrants placed in official detention centers has nearly doubled from 5,500 to 9,300 between 2017 and 2018.

IOM has made clear that we do not like detention centers as a general principle. We would like to see all of these returnees registered quickly and be allowed to live outside these centers, and, if they choose, to go home on the voluntary humanitarian return program as quickly as possible. We think it could be, in many cases, as soon as a week after they are rescued.

In the first half of this year, the U.N. migration agency reports it has safely returned nearly 11,000 stranded migrants from Libya. The vast majority have been flown to countries in Central and West Africa. It says much smaller numbers of several hundreds have been returned to East and the Horn of Africa and a few more to Asia and North Africa.


Iraq has begun to apply new U.S. economic sanctions against Iran, turning back shipments of Iranian goods at a number of border crossings, according to Al Hurra TV, quoting Iranian merchants.

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who is straddling the political fence as he seeks a second term following parliamentary elections in May, told journalists Wednesday that he was "totally opposed to the principle of sanctions, given the price [Baghdad] itself had paid for international sanctions [under Saddam Hussein]."

Nonetheless, Abadi said he would apply them, since "the world does business in dollars and it would hurt the interests of the Iraqi people" if he ignored them.

Iran is Iraq's second-largest trading partner after Turkey, causing concern that strict implementation of sanctions could hurt the economies of both countries. Iraq imported more than $6.5 billion in goods and services from Iran last year, including consumer goods, building materials, raw materials, natural gas and electricity.

Merchants in Baghdad told Arab media in recent days that upward of two-thirds of the consumer goods they sell are Iranian-made, raising concerns about a possible closure of the border with Iran. Most analysts point out, though, that the Iraqi government does not control many of its land or sea border crossings and that pro-Iranian Shiite proxy militias are likely to continue illicit trade with Tehran.

Washington-based Gulf analyst Theodore Karasik told VOA that applying the sanctions would be difficult at various levels, especially for "Kurdish factions which are close to Tehran," which he said "would probably have a difficult time implementing the sanctions, and could ignore or work around them."

He added that many Kurds have family ties on both sides of the border, making strict sanctions enforcement more difficult "because the family comes first and not the state."

Fine line

Veteran Saudi analyst and commentator Jamal Khashoggi told VOA that Iraq's Abadi "must maintain good relations with both the U.S. and Iran in order to remain in power." He joked that Abadi "probably has breakfast with the Americans and lunch with the Iranians," and most likely was "telling the Americans that he will respect the sanctions," while claiming to the Iranians that he "is obliged to say that."

Khashoggi said many regional states find themselves in the same dilemma as Iraq. "They are a friend to America and don't want to be on the wrong side of Donald Trump, but they want to maintain their economic relationship with the Iranians," he said.

Khashoggi said that "Qatar, the UAE and Turkey, along with Oman and India, have the same problem as Iraq, so Donald Trump's decision to impose the sanctions is going to have a major impact throughout the Middle East."

Political science professor Hilal Khashan, who teaches at the American University of Beirut, said Iraq has been trying to reach out to its Sunni Gulf state neighbors in order to diversify its strategic relations. He noted that Iraqi delegations approached both Saudi Arabia and Kuwait recently, "and there was talk about linking the Iraqi electricity network to the Gulf Cooperation Council grid, via Kuwait."

Competing interests

Khashan said the Saudis were noncommittal "because they do not completely trust the Iraqi government or Abadi." Moreover, he posited that even if they wanted to "open up to Iraq," the Iranians would "probably not allow them to go very far."

Khashoggi said the Saudis, nevertheless, are "interested in improving the relationship with Iraq," which he said "has improved in recent times." He said Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman began to open up to Iraq "two years ago, and continued along that path, with some hiccups, here and there." By maintaining dialogue with Iraq, Khashoggi said, "Saudi Arabia is hoping that it could weaken Iranian influence in Iraq."



Analyst Karasik believes the U.S. would be wise to attempt to focus the implementation of sanctions by Iraq against Iran on key industries that help Iran maintain its foothold in Iraq.

"That type of pressure on Baghdad must be carefully calibrated because of the economic relationship between the two countries, so that Iraq's economy doesn't suffer at a time when it needs to be boosted," he said.

Political turbulence and a wave of rioting across parts of southern Iraq have created fresh instability in the country at a time when government security forces and the Shiite militias backing them up were on the verge of destroying the militant Islamic State group.
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Saturday called for "swift and just" legal action from new courts after the head of the judiciary said the country faced an "economic war," state television reported.

The rial currency has lost about half of its value since April under the threat of revived U.S. sanctions, with heavy demand for dollars among ordinary Iranians trying to protect their savings.

The cost of living has also soared, sparking sporadic demonstrations against profiteering and corruption, with many protesters chanting anti-government slogans.

The central bank and the judiciary have blamed "enemies" for the fall of the currency and a rapid rise in the price of gold coins, and the judiciary has said more than 40 people, including a former central bank deputy, have been arrested on charges carrying the death penalty.

The judiciary has suggested that the United States, Israel, regional rival Saudi Arabia and government opponents living in exile are fomenting the unrest.

"The current special economic conditions are considered an economic war," judiciary chief Ayatollah Sadeq Amoli Larijani said in a letter to Khamenei, calling for the setting up of special courts to deal quickly with financial crimes, the television report said.

Khamenei agreed, saying, according to the report: "The purpose [of the courts] should be to punish those guilty of corrupt economic practices swiftly and justly. The courts should be advised to [ensure] the accuracy of their rulings."

New Islamic revolutionary courts will be set up for two years and directed to impose maximum sentences on those "disrupting and corrupting the economy," and appeal rights will be curbed, Amoli Larijani proposed in his letter, read on state television.

In May, the United States pulled out of a 2015 deal between world powers and Tehran, under which international sanctions on Iran were lifted in return for curbs on its nuclear program.

Washington this week reimposed sanctions on Iran's purchase of U.S. dollars, its trade in gold and precious metals, and its dealings with metals, coal and industrial-related software.

The United States has told other countries they must halt imports of Iranian oil by early November or face U.S. financial measures.
Kenyan authorities are evicting thousands of settlers they say are encroaching on the protected Maasai Mau Forest, the source of several rivers feeding lakes across East Africa. The settlers, from the Kalenjin community, say they were duped by wealthy landowners into buying fake titles to public land. But as John Ndiso reports from Narok, authorities have neither prosecuted the well-connected cheats nor offered those evicted any compensation.
Malians went to the polls in the country's runoff presidential election on Sunday with threats of terror attacks on their minds, just as they were two weeks ago during the first round of elections when terror attacks disrupted several polling stations across the country.

Malians thought not only about how the threat of terrorism would affect the elections, but also about how the elections would shape the country's fight against militant groups with ties to al-Qaida and the Islamic State groups.

Prior to the elections, Tiena Coulibaly, Mali's minister of defense, told VOA the government had taken all of the necessary measures to ensure security across the country during the election and that the government is serious about its campaign against militant groups.

"The threat from extremist [groups] was much smaller than we feared it would be [during the first round of elections]," Coulibaly said. "That's because we have sent many [additional] soldiers to the central parts of the country."

Coulibaly added that French troops with Operation Barkhane are also helping with security arrangements during the elections and that the government will be relying on several armed rebel groups as well that have signed a peace agreement with the government in 2015.

"In the north we have agreed with the armed groups that have signed the peace agreement [2015] with government that they would help the army to secure the elections," he said.

The exact number of polling stations disrupted by violence during the first round of elections last month is not known, but media reports suggest that of the 23,000 polling stations that were supposed to be open, more than 4,500 of them were disrupted by armed attacks and over 600 polling stations were closed.

Coulibaly told VOA that nearly 800 polling stations were closed because of insecurity and armed attacks.

Local voices

Despite assurances by the government, ordinary Malians were still concerned about terror attacks during the election on Sunday.

Ousmane Christian Diarra, general secretary of the Association of District Administrators of Mali, told VOA that the threat of attacks by militants in parts of the country is very serious and real.

"Boura Sadou Tamboura, general secretary of the Boni subprefecture [district] office located in Mopti [in central Mali], was killed on Wednesday while he was sitting in front of his house with two friends who survived the attack by jihadists," Diarra said.

Diarra said he "instructed all our members not to report to their respective places as long as the insecurity persists, such as in Mopti, where the government is unable to maintain security."

During the first round of elections, in Timbuktu in northern Mali, witnesses told Reuters that armed men had intimidated voters, seized ballot boxes and in some cases set fire to them in the few polling stations outside the town.

"They came, they fired their weapons and then they took the ballot boxes away," Insubdar Inaboud, a witness and Timbuktu resident, told Reuters.

Inaboud was disappointed about not being able to cast his ballot because of insecurity.

Militant groups

Several militant groups with ties to al-Qaida and the Islamic State are operating in Mali, including the Saharan Emirate of al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb, Ansar Dine, al-Mourabitoun and Macina Liberation Front.

In March 2017, these al-Qaida-linked groups came together to form Jama'at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) and pledged allegiance to al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

"We have been tracking a continued rise in activity in Mali's central region related to the coalition of JNIM," Wendy Williams, adjunct research fellow at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies in Washington, told VOA.

"Their reach has expanded into neighboring Niger and Burkina Faso," she said.

The Islamic State is also making its presence felt in the border region between Mali and Niger.

The Islamic State group "has begun to make inroads into Mali, using it as a launching pad for attacks in neighboring Niger and Burkina Faso," David Ibsen, executive director of the Counter Extremism Project, a global nonprofit research center that follows extremism around the globe, told VOA.

Ibsen said the exact number of militants with allegiance to terror groups like al-Qaida and IS "is difficult to establish," but "their trail of death and destruction in Mali and the region is clear." He said international help is needed to counter the threat.

Alix Boucher, an analyst at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies in Washington, said outside actors should intervene but with caution.

"The behavior of all contingents needs to be above reproach so that they do not inadvertently feed into extremist narratives," Boucher said.

Faith in democracy

Some analysts like Jonathan Sears of the Centre FrancoPaix at the University of Quebec in Montreal, who has visited Mali several times, are optimistic and charge that Malians are committed to democracy in the face of enormous difficulties and threats.

"What astonishes me is that despite all of the very challenging conditions of chronic poverty, Malians still risk their lives to go and vote," Sears said.

VOA's Modibo Dembele of Bambara service contributed to this report. Some information for this report came from Reuters.
The campaign strategist for Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko's 2014 election bid says Paul Manafort's offer to guide the nascent political campaign was rejected because it would have further divided Ukrainians in the wake of deadly clashes of the Maidan revolution that ousted pro-Kremlin leader Viktor Yanukovich, Manafort's former boss.

Questions about Manafort's role in the current Ukrainian president's election surfaced during questioning at Manafort's trial, which is under way in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia.

Manafort, who briefly chaired President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign, is facing charges of violating tax laws and laundering money that stem from his work in Ukraine under Yanukovych.

Manafort's former business partner and deputy in Ukraine, Rick Gates, who also worked for Trump, recently testified that Manafort was assisting Poroshenko shortly after Yanukovych was ousted in the populist revolution.

On Wednesday, Poroshenko's former campaign spokeswoman Darya Khudyakova denied any relationship with Manafort, saying, "We had a meeting, yes, but no relationship" with Manafort's firm.

Ukrainian legislator Ihor Hryniv, who served as Poroshenko's 2014 campaign strategist, said Manafort initiated the meeting with Poroshenko's team immediately after payments from the ousted Yanukovych regime stopped.

"I did not know him prior to the meeting and did not try to get such a meeting," Hryniv told VOA's Ukrainian service on Friday.

"Manafort offered his services in early March," Hryniv added. "I believe he wanted to stay in Ukraine and work here. He understood that Poroshenko was the winning candidate, which was almost clear at this point, so he bet on the favorite. It is very easy to help when your candidate's rating is 55 percent, not 4 percent."

That strategy that Manafort offered Poroshenko's team, Hryniv said, would have further divided a country still recovering from a bloody mass uprising that toppled the Russia-backed regime and brought a pro-Western government to power.

"In brief, Manafort's strategy was [for Poroshenko] to position himself as the candidate from the west and try to push his competitor out further to the east, and then gain the momentum and use the votes of western Ukraine to win," Hryniv said.

"Our strategy of choice, to the contrary, was to promote unification of Ukraine," he added. "To pull it together and ensure that the candidate had support of the whole country. This was the winning strategy for the first round."

Hryniv refuted the earlier allegations that Manafort could have worked for the campaign without pay, as Gates' testimony implied.

"I would like to see Manafort working free of charge," Hryniv said.

To this day, eastern Ukraine and the Black Sea peninsula of Crimea remain occupied by Russian-backed forces, and citizens are still battling the corruption that the Euromaidan demonstrations sought to purge.

This story originated in VOA's Ukrainian service. Oksana Lihostova and Myroslava Gongadze contributed reporting from Washington.
Militiamen in eastern Congo attacked trucks belonging to Banro Corp.'s Namoya gold mine, killing two people and kidnapping four others, the army said Saturday, in at least the third attack on mine personnel since last year.

The attack was carried out by militiamen from the group Mai Mai Malaika on Thursday in the Tubangoyi forest about 35 kilometers (22 miles) from the mine in Democratic Republic of the Congo's Maniema province, local army spokesman Dieudonne Kasereka told Reuters.

"The two people killed are not Banro workers but passengers that the drivers picked up along the road. For the moment, the hostages have not been found but the Congolese army has launched operations to recover them," Kasereka said.

He added that the hostages were two drivers and two soldiers who were protecting the trucks.

Banro did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Repeated attacks by the Mai Mai on Namoya and Banro's Twangiza mine in neighboring South Kivu province in the past two years threw the Canadian company's survival into question late last year.

It was delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange in January but is pursuing a recapitalization plan to continue its operations.

Militias like the Mai Mai, who believe blessed water has magical properties like protecting fighters from bullets, have preyed on eastern Congo's population and exploited mineral resources since the end in 2003 of a regional war that killed millions, most from hunger and disease.

Mai Mai Malaika is one of several groups allied with another militia in the zone called Mai Mai Yakutumba, which briefly threatened to capture the city of Uvira last September before being pushed back by Congolese and U.N. forces.
An Iran-based human rights group says dozens of Iranian security personnel have raided a prison ward housing minority Sunni inmates in the city of Karaj, beating the prisoners and taking their belongings.

In a report published Thursday, Irans Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA) said it learned of Tuesdays incident at the Rajaei Shahr prison in Karajs Gohardasht district from an informed source.

HRANA, one of the few Iranian rights groups gathering reliable information from inside Iran, quoted the source as saying the prison raid targeted a ward housing Sunnis detained for their religious and political activities.

HRANAs source said about 30 intelligence ministry agents and 50 Special Forces of the prison raided the ward at 11 p.m. Tuesday local time, smashing and removing personal belongings of the inmates and beating them as they brought those inmates to an open area of the prison, where they were kept until 2 a.m. Wednesday. HRANAs source also accused the Iranian Shiite security forces of insulting the Sunni prisoners religious beliefs during the raid.

HRANA said its source reported that prison authorities denied medical care to Sunni inmates who were wounded during the raid. But the source said three prisoners from the ward, whose names were published in the HRANA report, were treated in the prisons medical facility for existing health problems, while two other named prisoners were transferred to a hospital outside the prison. There were no reports of the Karaj prison incident or its aftermath in Iranian state media.

Exiled Iranian rights groups such as Iran Human Rights Monitor and the Center for Human Rights in Iran have reported previous cases of Iranian authorities using harsh tactics against Sunnis and other prisoners of conscience at Karajs Rajaei Shahr prison in recent years. They said prisoners have been deprived of basic rights such as clothes, medicine and meetings with family members.

This report was produced in collaboration with VOAs Persian Service.
U.S. President Donald Trump took to Twitter Friday evening, praising Mexico and threatening Canada. Trumps tweets referenced efforts to renegotiate the terms of the North American Free trade Agreement, or NAFTA.

The tone of his comments about Mexico was friendly, a tactic not often employed by Trump toward Mexico and Mexicans. During his presidential campaign, Trump insisted that he would make Mexico pay for a border wall, something he has not been able to accomplish since he has been in office. He also characterized Mexicans as rapists during his campaign.

Deal with Mexico is coming along nicely, Trump said. Auto workers and farmers must be taken care of or there will be no deal.

The U.S. leader also had kind words for incoming Mexican president Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador who takes office in December.

New President of Mexico has been an absolute gentleman, Trump tweeted.

Trump took a different tact, however, with Canada.

Canada must wait, Trump posted. Their Tariffs and Trade Barriers are far too high. Will tax cars if we cant make a deal!

Canada responded in a statement later Friday: Our focus is unchanged. Well keep standing up for Canadian interests as we work toward a modernized trilateral NAFTA agreement.
A U.S. federal grand jury has indicted a U.S. citizen for attempting to join the Islamic State group.

The grand jury in Chicago charged Faress Shraiteh with conspiracy to provide material support to the Islamic State and other crimes.

Shraiteh is a U.S. citizen who used to live in Chicago and now lives in Israel.

According to the indictment, Shraiteh and two other people began trying to join the Islamic State in 2014 and traveled to Egypt the following year. The three then traveled to Turkey, but Shraiteh was not allowed to enter the country and instead flew to Israel, where he has family.

The indictment says one of Shraitehs traveling companions later died carrying out a suicide attack on behalf of Islamic State militants. It said Shraiteh was trying to renew his passport so he could continue his plans to join Islamic State.

Prosecutors allege that Shraiteh knew IS was a terrorist organization when he conspired to join it.

Shraiteh could face decades in prison if found guilty of the charges against him.
He will now add six buildings, two three-unit and four two-unit townhouses, on three acres to complete the Folker farm development, he said. All will be two stories, with a brick and stone construction, and each unit about 2,600 square feet.
Dozens of airstrikes and shelling hit parts of the last swath of Syrian territory still held by rebels Friday, according to rebels, rescue workers and a war monitoring group, in a possible prelude to a full-scale government offensive.

The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said dozens of strikes from helicopters and warplanes had hit parts of Hama, Idlib and Aleppo provinces, killing at least 29 people.

The three areas in northwest Syria are the last major ones still in the hands of fighters seeking to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad, whose forces recaptured the area around Damascus and the southwest earlier this year.

Abu al-Baraa al-Hamawi, a rebel leader in northern Hama, said a "massacre" had resulted from strikes in western Aleppo on the town of Urem al-Kubra. Pro-opposition television Orient News said at least 20 people were killed there and the observatory said at least 18 had died.

On Thursday, the Syrian army had dropped leaflets over Idlib province, urging people to agree to a return of state rule and telling them the seven-year war was nearing its end.

Al-Hamawi said Friday's attacks, the heaviest in months, appeared part of a "psychological media war against the people."

Rebels were "ready to repel any possible attack by regime forces. They will be taught a lesson they won't forget: Idlib is different to other regions," he added.

Mohammed Rasheed, a spokesman for the Jaish al-Nasr rebel group based in Hama province, said pro-Syrian government forces had not yet advanced on the ground and the attacks consisted of shelling and air bombardment.

The Syrian White Helmets, a group of rescue workers established in rebel-held areas of the country, said on Twitter that barrel bombs had also been used.

Syrian state news agency SANA reported that the Syrian army carried out operations against "terrorist groups," its term for the rebels, in northern Hama countryside, destroying several of their headquarters and killing and wounding an unspecified number.

Next target?

Hundreds of thousands of Assad opponents have relocated to northwest Syria under evacuation agreements reached as other parts of the country fell to pro-government forces backed by Russia and Iran. Assad has indicated the area, which borders Turkey, could be his next target.

The observatory said Friday's airstrikes were the first to hit the area in almost a month and could be seen as "preparation for an offensive." It has said additional government forces have been arriving this week for a possible attack in an area to the southwest of the opposition territory.

The United Nations worries that such an offensive could force 2.5 million people toward the Turkish border.
Sunday marks the one year anniversary of the violent "Unite The Right" protests in Charlottesville, Virginia. Last year's protest, organized by white supremacists upset over the removal of a statue of a Confederate hero, left one person dead and 19 injured. Another protest is being planned.
The first national survey in Uganda on child abuse reveals that violence against children - ranging from physical, sexual and emotional - is occurring at all levels in society.



Mary Komugisha, 40, a single mother and food vendor in Kiswa, a Kampala suburb, became a grandmother under terrible circumstances.



Her 11-year-old daughter was raped.



She says her child was in 7th grade when she told her she had a problem. I am the mother and the father, Komugisha says, but I stayed strong. She told me so-and-so raped her in the toilet. He told her not to tell anyone or else I would beat her. She gave birth but; our situation is so bad. I dont even have money to put her back in school, she says.



Komugisha lives in a one-room, iron-sheet shelter with her three children and granddaughter.



Her daughter is one of 25 percent of Ugandan females who experienced sexual violence below the age of 13. Thats according to a United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) report released Thursday  the first for Uganda on child abuse.



And it doesnt get any better for teenagers.



UNICEF says 35 percent of Ugandan females and 17 percent of males have been sexually abused.

UNICEF Deputy Country Representative Noreen Prendville describes the findings as absolutely shocking.



While we did see of course that there were also young men and boys that were victims of sexual violence, of course the consequence for girls are even worse. We have a problem in the country as well with quite a big challenge on early marriage and early childbearing. And that sometimes is a cultural issue, but also sometimes related to poverty, said Prendville.



Physical, sexual and emotional violence against children, according to the report, is experienced on the street, at home and even in school  as happened with Komugishas daughter.



Even though some children who suffered violence knew where to seek help, many, especially girls, were too embarrassed for themselves and their families to ask for it.



Dr. Jesca Nsungwa is Commissioner for Child Health at Ugandas Ministry of Health. She says the government is taking steps to address the abuse.



To increase access and availability of quality child and adolescent health services at all health facilities that provide prompt, affordable and appropriate prevention and response services to survivors of violence without discrimination. We also commit to train health care workers on provision of child and adolescent friendly health services within our national framework, said Nsungwa.



Children who experience violence, says the U.N. report, are more likely to become perpetrators of violence against children themselves if they dont get help.



The Uganda report follows a call in 2006 by then-U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan for all nations to tackle child abuse by collecting data to inform policies.



To date, only 15 countries have released reports on the frequency of child abuse. In Africa, they include Kenya, Malawi, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, and now Uganda.
If you havn't done it yet,to get one of the fastest volcano news online:

We offer you a fine selection of photo tours to exceptional places guided by experienced photographers. These tours are ideal if you are interested in learning or improving photography or, if you are an experienced photographer yourself, to get to the best locations at the best times.

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A remote island in the Flores Sea of Indonesia formed by a single volcano that has been in strong strombolian eruption for years. We regularly lead expeditions to there where we camp several days to observe it.

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Stratovolcano 5230 m (17,159 ft)Ecuador, -2S / -78.34W(4 out of 5)1934-ongoing (as of 2020), 1728-1916, 1628 (first observation) - ?Explosive. In historic time: frequent, intermittent strombolian activity

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Hekla, Katla, Krafla, Askja, Eyafjallajokull, Heimaey, Surtsey are famous names of active volcanoes, but there are many more in Iceland.

An intense seismic crisis started at Bardarbunga volcano on 16 August 2014 and is continuing at the time of writing (23 Aug). It may or may not lead to a volcanic eruption, possibly under the Vatnajokull ice cap.Follow updates as news come in!

A luxury tour in Italy with a volcanologist to discover the famous volcanoes of Italy: Mt Vesuvius that destoyed the Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum, smoking Vulcano and Lipari, famous for its obsidian and pumice deposits, erupting Etna and Stromboli... Last but not least, very nice accommodation and delicious food wait for you!

A volcano is the term for any place on the surface of the earth, where hot molten rock (magma) reaches the surface.

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Several charitable programs will be a part of the block party as well. Members of Homewood-Flossmoor High Schools choir will be on hand to help out with games as they raise money for their upcoming trip to Italy. The village has partnered with the Cancer Support Center to commemorate the centers 25th anniversary with an auction of decorated Adirondack chairs, known as Chairs for a Purpose.
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It would have been easy for Jane to write a play or not choose a musical, to choose something (less expensive) with a $25 license fee. But she was committed to her vision, McKee said. She wanted to do a popular Disney musical. She wanted these kids to have the best, to have what the kids at our camp have.
About 20 years ago I found a one-quart clear glass bottle that to me looks like a milk bottle. It is embossed with National Vaccine and Antitoxin Institute Washington, D.C. The who and when aspects of this bottle remain a mystery to me. Other than mine, I have only seen one like it, and that was on an online auction site. Any information you can provide will be much appreciated.
I am 5-foot-zero and a Latina who grew up in a neighborhood with enough violence that I dont step into anything naively. Its not that I avoid risky situations. I have hitchhiked through South America, gone scuba diving with sharks and interviewed murderers. I just dont believe in allowing someone elses recklessness to put me in danger unnecessarily. In high school, my best friends car was broken into and his speakers stripped from it. I received a call later that day from another boy, a friend from whom I had grown distant, who told me I could get the speakers back if I agreed to meet up with him. A different 16-year-old girl might have said yes. My response: Hell get new speakers.
One of the movements key figures  Christopher Cantwell, better known from Charlottesville as The Crying Nazi  wrote a blog post in late June warning, Follow Kessler At Your Peril. Spencer also declared he was out. Even Andrew Anglin, founder of the Daily Stormer, a neo-Nazi website, recently told readers to avoid the event, saying that everyone knows that there will be violence and that participants will look like ruffians and that no matter what we get blamed for it. He added: You need to protect yourselves. You need to lay low.
The progressives are shifting campaign tactics to focus more on street-level organizing and social media outreach. Jealouss strategists say he can beat Hogan if they meet their goal of boosting turnout to 2.1 million, a jump of 20 percent from the tepid showing in 2014, when Hogan upset Democratic nominee Anthony G. Brown. The party plans to have more than 60 paid field organizers on the ground in Maryland by mid-September, compared with a total of 15 for the entire campaign four years ago.
Still, when the day of her graduation ceremony came, she insisted on walking across the stage like everyone else to collect her diploma rather than use a ramp, as suggested by school officials. The effort earned her a standing ovation.
For protesters, the emphasis will be on telling Kessler and his followers that their message is not welcome in Washington. Kessler is one of the lead organizers of the violent Unite the Right rally held in Charlottesville last August that led to the death of protester Heather Heyer, who was killed when a man police say identified himself as a Nazi drove a car into a crowd. Two Virginia State troopers died when their helicopter crashed following a day of monitoring the civil disturbance.
During the hearing, defense attorney Eugene Ohm with the Districts Public Defender Service argued that none of the victims correctly identified his client as their attacker. Ohm argued that his client was not involved in the attacks, but the judge said she found enough evidence to determine that Rodriguez Campos was a danger to the community, and set his next hearing for Aug. 24.
The shooting occurred about 10:15 p.m. last Sunday at an apartment in the Tysons area. Youngblood was taken into custody without incident on Sunday night in Leesburg, officials said. Police said they found a gun that they suspect was used in the shooting when they made the arrest.
If enacted, the program would be part of the career pathways/academies education system the district is developing for implementation starting in the 2019-20 school year. U46 officials are soliciting feedback from the community to present to the school board in September, U46 spokeswoman Mary Fergus. It is just one of many programs and career clusters under consideration, she said.
Capt. Dickson had loved music. He had taught himself to play the guitar and had taken an electric guitar with him when he went overseas. It was never returned to his family after his death, according to his records.
The authorities demanded the synagogue not be higher than the churches in the city, Seligman said. And so, the floor of the Great Synagogue was built below ground level. That helped protect the lowest levels of the synagogue when the Nazis burned it down in 1941 and Soviet authorities built on the site in the mid-1950s, Seligman said.
Did you sleep well last night? If not, youre in good company. About a third of American adults dont get the recommended seven hours of sleep per night, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Many people dont get enough sleep or sleep poorly because of their jobs or hectic schedules: They work long shifts at night or have to rush to get their kids ready to catch a 6 a.m. school bus. Some 50 million to 70 million Americans have a chronic sleep disorder such as insomnia or sleep apnea, a condition in which breathing repeatedly stops and starts throughout the night.
Utah man says slain city worker 'got what she deserved': A Utah man who allegedly shot and killed a city worker, torched her truck and set his neighbor's house on fire told witnesses that he did it after "years of harassment" over cleaning up trash and weeds outside his home, police said Friday. Kevin Wayne Billings, 64, said the code enforcement officer in suburban Salt Lake City "got what she deserved," police said in jail documents. Jill Robinson, 52, was investigating a routine call, officials said. He poured gasoline on her city pickup truck, then set it ablaze Thursday, police said. He also started a fire on his neighbor's deck that spread to their home and destroyed it, killing six dogs and two cats. Billings was arrested on suspicion of aggravated arson, murder and other charges.
11 reported killed in attack near Mali market: Residents say a community militia has killed at least 11 ethnic Fulani people near a market in Mali's volatile central region. Idrissa Bamoye Maiga, a resident in Sofara, said that a number of Fulani people came to the local market to sell their cattle Tuesday and were gunned down by members of the Dozo militia. Other residents confirmed the attack. The violence comes days before Mali's runoff presidential election on Sunday.
A new campaign aims at intellectuals. The party has announced it will seek to wage unremitting struggle among them by organizing study sessions about party ideology to make them more patriotic. Radio Free Asia, which published an account of the new drive, quoted a former official in the propaganda department as saying it was essentially an order to attempt mass brainwashing. If all this language sounds archaic, it is  harking back to Mao and the harsh years before the opening and reforms of the past four decades. Mr. Xi has attempted to extinguish freedom of thought wherever it might threaten him or the partys monopoly on power. He told news media organizations in 2016 they should have the party as their family name. Now, he is sending a similar message to scholars that they must obey. Universities have been in Mr. Xis crosshairs for tighter control.
The makeup of this ticket is not something that I had in mind when I jumped into the race, Whitmer told me. When Im on the campaign trail, Im focused on issues that impact families and impact business people, the cleanliness of our water, or the safety of our roads, or expanding health care. These are issues that they dont have gender. Theyre issues about fundamentals that our leaders have failed us on in Michigan.
We noticed right away that something was done in terms of the amount of traffic we were getting in terms of comments and replies and hate, said Jorge Silva, a spokesman for Latino Victory, of the initial Twitter response to the ad. It was really the same message repeated over and over again from different accounts that did not have pictures.
Im going to care about whether that, in my judgment, that this could result in the rollback of preexisting conditions, Heitkamp said last month. But, I think its going to be very, very difficult to gauge that based on the fact that no one is going to answer a question that basically says, How would you vote in this case? 
But Ige fought back and surged in popularity after his response to the damage caused by the eruption in June of the Kilauea volcano. Hanabusa, meanwhile, struggled to win over liberal voters who had rejected her 2014 candidacy for the Senate. In March, a Mason-Dixon poll showed Ige trailing Hanabusa by 20 points; in July, another Mason Dixon poll showed the governor ahead by four points.
Cameron Collins and Stephen Zarsky, the father of his fiancee, were also charged as part of the alleged scheme and have pleaded not guilty. In addition to the securities allegations, the three men face counts of lying to federal agents during the investigation and a lawsuit from the Securities and Exchange Commission. In addition to fines, they could each face at least five years in prison if convicted, according to legal observers.
Theres definitely a division in the Republican Party in the state, and there has been for some time, said Rick Berger, an Atchison County businessman who serves as an economic adviser to Colyer. In this past three or four years, a lot of it has been over taxes. Thats been a big issue. Youve got the conservative side [of the party] that really wants to cut taxes, and then youve got the more moderates that think, Weve cut too far. Weve still got to provide our services and everything else. 
The ban would be enforced under Hong Kongs societies ordinance, a colonial-era law that authorizes the prohibition of groups on grounds of national security, public safety and public order. Banning the party under the law, which is typically used to fight organized criminal groups, would be the first use of the ordinance against a political party since the 1997 handover. The party has until Sept. 4 to argue its case.
We want our students to understand the importance of sharing good fortune with other people. By doing so they are learning to be more self-aware of those around them, empathetic that there are those who may be in need and that we have the power to do something about it. Our staff is very proud of our members for wanting to make this a success and for their parents support.
Hodge QC's flair for the dramatic, now applied as senior counsel assisting the royal commission, set the scene for this week's sensational hearings, which culminated on Thursday in the revelation of potential criminal charges being considered against NAB for its role in the fees for no service scandal which has infected the entire sector. In lines which could easily have been stolen from Macbeth, the 37-year-old Hodge  dubbed by some the baby-faced assassin - opened this week's hearing with a powerful soliloquy, posing the central question: What happens when we leave these trustees alone in the dark with our money? Counsel assisting the commission, Michael Hodge. Credit:Webcast What happens - as subsequently unfolded during the week's hearings, which continue next week - is that retirement nest eggs are repeatedly raided and rorted by funds, who charge multiple fees and insurance premiums, while being surrounded by temptation to maximise profit for their parent companies  often the banks. Could Hodges dramatic scene-setter be enough to finally burst through the collective apathy with which Australians have traditionally viewed their superannuation nest eggs?

Since it became compulsory for employers to set aside 9 per cent of a workers wages into super 26 years ago, Australian have silently amassed a significant fortune  worth more than our entire annual economic output. Super today accounts for exactly half of all wealth held by Australian households in financial assets. But Australians remain dangerously uneducated about and unengaged with their super money. Loading In his opening remarks, Hodge identified three potential safeguards for super nest eggs: first, consumer vigilance; second, strong regulators stamping out bad behaviour and poor performance by funds; or third, the honest and diligent performance of superannuation trustees, acting on behalf of members, to protect their funds. On the first, Hodge concludes: Consumers are unable to do anything more than peer dimly through the darkness of their superannuation trustees.

On the second: There is no dedicated and active conduct regulator shining a spotlight on the trustees and searching out bad behaviour. And so it was the third  the role of trustees  the commission chose to hone in on this week. Because superannuation is complex, and consumers have no real way of knowing if their interests are being put before all else, super funds are required to have trustees. A trustee has the responsibility for ensuring that the best interests of fund members are given priority over the interests of other persons, under provisions of the Superannuation Industry Supervision (SIS) Act, administered by the banking regulator. However, there have long been concerns that trustees are not always acting in the best interests of fund members. Most of these concerns have centered on the retail super funds - those run by the big banks and AMP  as opposed to the not-for-profit industry funds, often affiliated with unions.

The concern about retail super funds is that the trustee companies of these funds are usually wholly-owned subsidiaries of the banks and wealth managers. Nicole Smith leaving the Federal Court. Credit:Simon Schluter That presents potential conflicts of interest between the trustees duties under the law to look after the interests of fund members and the desire of the parent institution to maximise profits. This potential for conflict was explored at length this week, through a forensic questioning of National Australia Bank and its superannuation trustee, Nulis. For several days, Hodge grilled the former chair of Nulis, Nicole Smith, on whether the trustee had acted in the best interests of members in response to how NAB was responding to the widespread fees-for-no-service scandal.

This scandal involved members of super funds run by banks paying fees from their accounts without having received any service - typically, financial advice - in return. ASIC has said that compensation to fund members over the fees-for-no-service scandal is likely to reach $850 million across the industry. During intense questioning, Hodge directed a series of questions to Smith to test the extent to which the trustees at Nulis were prepared to push back against the demands of those at NAB who wanted to avoid, minimise or delay compensation to fund members who had paid for services not received. Smith rejected Hodges suggestion that Nulis did not act in its members' best interests for allowing, for example, the bank to discuss remediation of fees with the regulator without the trustees involvement. But what seemed to really raise the ire of the commission this week was NABs failure to produce required documents in a timely fashion and its subsequent attempts to suppress some of those pages from public release.

According to Hodge, NAB dumped 3000 pages of requested documentation on the commission in the week before this weeks hearings. Subsequent skirmishes ensued between NABs senior counsel, Neil Young QC, and commissioner Kenneth Hayne over NABs attempt to suppress sensitive parts of those documents which detail the banks exchanges with the corporate watchdog over ASIC's continuing investigation of more than 100 potential criminal breaches of the Corporations Act by NAB over the fees-for-no-service scandal. The royal commission expressed frustration with NAB's submission of documents. Credit:Penny Stephens At one point, Young submitted the documents were irrelevant to the evidence being presented by Nicole Smith. To which an agitated Hayne replied, physically pointing a finger at NABs senior counsel: You will not give her answer, Mr Young. You will not. Do you understand me? Beyond this week's dramatic scenes, financial service industry experts agree that there are flaws in the trustee system, with one even questioning whether it has passed its use-by date altogether.

Mark Kachor, the managing director of life insurance and superannuation researcher DEXX&R, says there can be failures in protections for fund members, particularly when the trustee is a captive of the financial institution. Often, the senior officers of the trustee company also hold positions with the parent institution, Kachor said. Professor Gail Pearson of the University of Sydney Business School agrees there are legitimate questions to be asked as to whether trustees are properly fulfilling their obligations on behalf of fund members, including whether conflicts of interest are managed adequately. Loading Pearson notes that enforcement of the law concerning superannuation trustees comes under the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority. But she says the regulators main role has been to ensure that superannuation funds remain solvent, as stipulated under Section 6 of the SIS Act.

A breach of trustee obligations under Sections 52 and 52A of the SIS Act - the main provisions designed to protect member interest - is not an offence and neither do civil penalty or infringement provisions apply to those sections of the Act. The regulator can apply to court to disqualify a trustee for contraventions of the Act, but that would only be used in extreme circumstances, Pearson said. It is a situation that could rightly leave some fund members without complete confidence that their super funds trustee is looking out for their interests all of time, says Alex Dunnin, executive director of research and compliance at Rainmaker Group. If those trustees also work, or are paid by, sponsoring commercial organisations, they would need the hide of a rhinoceros to not, at least at times, act sympathetically to their sponsor [the parent financial institution], Dunnin said. As the royal commission considers what recommendations it may ultimately make about the role of trustees, one solution proposed by some experts is to separate superannuation trustee companies from their parent financial institutions, so that the trustee can fulfil its duties at arm's length from the financial institutions that own the funds.

Pearson says it could be time to rethink the way in which the trustee model operates: We have seen problems arising from conflicts of interest between trustees and related parties, poor performances of some funds and fee gouging. In the May budget, the Turnbull government announced a suite of measures designed to increase the banking regulator's ability to scrutinise trustees, to provide more transparency and to stop the overcharging of insurance premiums for younger members or those with low balances. The minister for financial services, Kelly ODwyer, who along with other Turnbull government ministers initially doggedly rejected the need for a royal commission, now says her decision to push for superannuation to be included in the agenda has been vindicated by the weeks evidence. Minister for Revenue and Financial Services Kelly O'Dwyer (left) and Treasurer Scott Morrison, long opponents of a banking royal commission, hold a press conference at ASIC offices in Melbourne this week. Credit:AAP ODwyer says its a lie and a smear to suggest the government was motivated to include superannuation in the commission's inquiries to protect friends in the banking industry by dragging union-affiliated industry superannuation funds into the dock.

She says her preoccupation with super fund performance is neutral between industry and retail funds, and is motivated purely by complaints received as minister from people being ripped off through excessive fees and insurance premiums, from funds of both colours. Im in an industry fund, my husbands in a retail fund. I dont have any ideological objection to industry funds, says ODwyer. Ian Silk, the chief executive of Australias largest industry fund, Australian Super, was questioned briefly this week about the funds purchase of the website New Daily, but the commission has signalled its concerns do not centre on industry funds. The weeks lengthy examination of NAB, and next weeks scheduled grilling of Commonwealth Bank executives, suggest retail funds are firmly in the firing line. Regulators from both ASIC and APRA will also be called to give evidence next week and defend their records of protecting super fund members, amid calls by former competition tsar Allan Fels for ASIC to be stripped of its responsibility for regulating banks, and have those powers transferred to the competition watchdog.
"I've deliberately made them a little two-dimensional  the goody-two-shoes sailor Thomas, and the sexy, dangerous gangster Michael. And trying to have a female objectifying gaze on them." Victoria Carmen Sonne stars as Sascha, a young Danish woman who becomes involved in some very dark deeds when she holidays with her drug-dealer boyfriend Michael (Lai Yde) in Turkey. Credit:MIFF There are repeated moments of violence in Holiday. Michael viciously beats (off screen) one of his henchmen, and Sascha is slapped by both Michael and another gangster, treatment to which she passively acquiesces, perhaps judging it the price of access to Michaels wealth and prestige. The film isn't about crime at heart, says Eklof. "To me it's much more about the relationship between the sexes in general, and with people in power structures, because I think we all have it in us to go there, to play the dog if needed."

The ultimate moment of that is truly horrific  a rape scene in which nothing is too explicit for the camera. "It isn't real, Eklof says, revealing that Michael's assaulting member is in fact a prosthesis. "I wouldn't go there." She knows of some cases where real sex has been filmed for a non-pornographic film, but she says "in the case of Victoria and Lai, two complete strangers who to be honest really didn't like each other very much, I wouldn't go there. It's all circumstance." For Braithwaite, who has become something of an expert in cinematic depictions of rape and violence against women, "everything [Eklof] did in that scene was fundamentally different from everything I'd seen in the archive". Which is not quite the same thing as saying she has no problem with it.

Sari Braithwaite, director of Censored. "She has obviously thought about it a lot and felt it was important to include the scene in a very different way than we have seen before, but the question I wrestled with afterwards was whether it was fundamental to that film or not. And I feel conflicted about that." So, assuming it can be filmed in such a way that the aim is not to fetishise the act or titillate the viewer, can a case be made for including scenes of sexual violence when they are justified by the narrative? "I think so," Braithwaite says. "That doesn't mean I don't have complicated feelings about it. "I think it would be a mistake to think I came up with a strong position about whether we see sex and violence on screen at all because of this collection," she adds.

"The view I came up with is that we've only seen sex and violence in a certain way because our eyes have been trained that this is what a rape scene looks like, what a slap scene looks like, and that's come from a particular [male] point of view." The antidote, she suggests, is simple. "We should look for more in our filmmakers, I think." Sari Braithwaite and Isabella Eklof are among the panellists at a discussion following a screening of Censored at Hoyts Melbourne Central at 4pm on Sunday. Details: miff.com.au How far is too far?
At school Id been taught about Independent Probability Variables, but in my arty life I was constantly having to deal with Employment Improbability Variables. A typical question would be this: An aspiring writer is getting no support from any funding bodies - not government or parent or cashed-up girlfriend who is about to drop him. Determine the number of cars that the writer must wash at Sparkles Carwash before he can pay his weekly rent and buy a can of beetroot for food. Remember to deduct the cost of the carwash bucket which the writer had to provide himself. Also the sponge.

So I was pretty happy when school finally finished and I could plunge into my arty life, trying to make it as a writer or a muso or a filmmaker or anything mildly dickweedy. And after several years of unemployment and utter failure, I realised that maths was creeping back into my life, in an evil calculating way - a highly specialised branch of mathematics called Arts Maths.

Maths was my worst subject at school. I just couldnt do any of it - not logarithms, not trigonometry, not algebra, not the seven times table past 39 (if it went to 39. No idea). There just seemed to be no point in me learning maths. I was never going to use it: I was an arty, creative kid, halfway between a poncey git and a massive wanker - what was known back then as a bit of a dickweed.

At school I was forced to learn about the Binomial Theorem, but in my arty life I was forced to learn about the Buy-no-meal Theorem. Each day I was faced with puzzling problems like: A wannabe composer has written a childrens puppet musical based on Edward Lears The Owl and the Pussycat, being paid nothing but the joy of seeing smiles on the faces of young children, which is crap pay and well below equity minimum. If the composer goes out after a show for a Japanese meal with the cast (three actors, three puppets), calculate how to split a bill between seven, to 40 decimal places. If the composer cannot afford to pay, determine the velocity he must run from the Japanese restaurant, taking into consideration that he needs to get his shoes back on and they are Converse Hi-Tops with lots of laces.

At school I had to agonise over Differential Calculus, but in my arty life I was only ever agonising over Depressional Calculus. Thats where you work out the age of famous people when they got successful, and then compare it to your own age so you can wallow in a pit of pathos for your own pleasure. For example: If Orson Welles was born in 1915 and made Citizen Kane in 1941, how much more miserable do you feel about yourself, expressed as a ratio of anguish to self-loathing? Depressional Calculus is what many of us arty folk do in our spare time: its our special little hobby when were not weeping in the shower.

A recent university study found that Australian artists are suffering greater poverty, homelessness and poor health than ever before - so maybe its time for schools to tweak their syllabuses, rethink their educational programs, get their act together and take it on the road. Arts Maths should become a proper subject, compulsory for all poncey gits, massive wankers and arty dickweeds. If I could have picked Arts Maths as an elective, I reckon I wouldve excelled, coming away with a final exam score of 99 and 67.3/4ths per cent. Or something.

Danny Katz is an Age columnist.
Sometimes, in order to learn, you need to slow down and shut up. Which is exactly what my TV crew and I were told to do when we entered the sacred ceremonial grounds at Gulkula in North East Arnhem Land, the home of the Yolgnu clan for more than 50,000 years.

Members of the Gumatj clan perform a ceremonial dance at Garma. Credit:Melanie Faith Dove/Yothu Yindi Foundation

While flying along the red dirt road to the campsite for the Garma festival, I carefully read the behaviour protocols provided by the Yothu Yindi foundation. They state: Remember you are on Yolngu land and entering Yolngu time. Yolngu perceptions, priorities and preoccupations are different from those of mainstream Australia. Be patient, and try to leave at home your expectations of how things are learnt, and how events should run. Traditionally Yolngu learn by observation, by looking and listening. Asking too many questions can be inappropriate. So when you have questions, choose them carefully and thoughtfully.

Loading

Winnowing questions can be a challenge for journalists. But doing just this; sitting back, eyes open, two ears cocked, resulted in one of the most profound experiences of my life, a click, shift and shake of the kaleidoscope. It was an enormous privilege to be briefly immersed in this ancient, calm, respectful tradition, during the countrys largest gathering of Indigenous elders, and recognise the lived, enduring shame of the treatment of Indigenous Australians as well as the depth of their spiritual and cultural traditions.
Police will forensically examine a "donation" made to an inner-city Melbourne op shop which may be human remains.

The Sacred Heart Mission in Prahran entices its customers to "uncover a modern day treasure".

Police are examining a bag of bones found at a Melbourne op shop on Thursday. Credit:7 News Melbourne

But staff made a grisly discovery when they were going through donations on Thursday afternoon.

Police confirmed they are investigating after a bag containing bones was found at the shop.
Attorney Thomas Parrino, of Parrino|Shattuck PC, has received an award from American Registry for being among the top 5 percent of Americas Most Honored Professionals for 2018. This award is given to individuals in every industry and profession who exhibit excellence in their respective field.

Americas Most Honored is a recognition program created by American Registry, which partnered with a vast array of organizations known for their efficacy in recognizing pre-eminence in professionals and businesses. These organizations are dedicated to uncovering the best professionals and businesses in North America by gathering peer-review ratings, client reviews, and results of industry analyses.

Parrino was selected for the award for his practice in family law. His selection is among a slew of recent awards, including being recognized as among the Best Lawyers in New England.

Parrino has been practicing family law for nearly 30 years. Considered a top attorney in his field, Parrino is a dynamic negotiator and litigator. In 2013, he was named Lawyer of the Year, as selected by peer recognition and published by Best Lawyers.

Parrino is a fellow and past president of the Connecticut Chapter of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. He sits on the chapters Examining Committee. He recently served as a delegate to the National Board of Governors of the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers, in which he previously served as chairman of the National Admissions Committee and as a member of the National Test Subcommittee. Additionally, Parrino is a fellow of the International Academy of Family Lawyers.

Parrino|Shattuck PC is at 285 Riverside Ave. in Westport, represents individuals throughout Connecticut in a wide range of family law matters, including divorce, alimony, client support, property division, child custody, and relocation. For information, visit parrinoshattuck.com or call 203-557-9755.

Open discussion group on Monday

The leaders of Mondays@7 Networking Group will host an open discussion on Monday from 8 to 9 a.m. at the United Methodist Church of Westport and Weston, 49 Weston Road, Westport.

Group members are encouraged to ask questions and share information learned from job interviews, blogs, speakers and more. Meetings are free. A $1 contribution is requested to purchase coffee and bagels. Park in back on the right in the visitor spaces. Enter and walk down the right corridor.

For information, email mondaysseven@gmail.com.

Local home wins Green Building Award

The home at 54 North Ave. in Westport is the first residential recipient of the Westport Green Building Award for Achievement in Sustainable Design and Construction.

The towns Green Task Force initiated the program to recognize projects that make, or have made, significant contributions to sustainability and Westports future as a net-zero community. This award acknowledges noteworthy accomplishments that add benefit to the town and its residents. The North Avenue house, a zero-energy-ready home, is an exemplar for residential construction, advancing the towns goal of being a net-zero community by 2050  when the community has reduced its impacts across energy, water and waste so they are sustainably managed.

The house, built in 2016, has average monthly energy bills below $50. This is achieved in part by its high R-value insulation throughout (almost three times the building code) and a continuous air barrier, resulting in exceptional air tightness; the 10.72 kW solar photovoltaic system; LED lighting and triple pane windows. The house is conditioned by a ducted air source heat pump, and water heated by an electric heat pump water heater.

The home is the second recipient of the Green Building Award, the first being 500 Post Road E., owned by Fred F. French Investing LLC, a 37,800-square foot office building that underwent an extensive renovation, including installation of high R-value insulation, LED lighting, 247 solar panels on its roof and efficient air source heat pumps that condition the building.

Westport First Selectman Jim Marpe said, Reaching net zero by 2050 is only going to be possible through the combined efforts of the town, local businesses and our residents. Im so pleased to see both businesses and residents valuing sustainable construction and renovation that embraces energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Deans list students

The following Westport residents were named to the spring semester deans list at Washington University in St. Louis: Maggie Brown, Luke Foreman, Thomas Moy and Ellery Saluck.

Westport residents Jaclyn Berkowitz, Katherine Bundy and Callie Bartimer received the deans award with distinction for the spring semester at Colgate University.

Oliver Wood, of Westport, was named to the spring semester deans list at Schreiner University.

Jesse Levinson, of Westport, earned the spring semester deans award for academic excellence at Colgate University.
Courts Premium

You do not deserve the title father  victims reveal how they suffered horrific sexual crimes as County Wexford man is jailed for five years
Having recently redefined Jesus Christ Superstar for a whole new generation of theatregoers, Regent's Park Open Air Theatre have only gone and done it again. This new take on Little Shop of Horrors is an unqualified triumph, putting a unique but entirely appropriate spin on a familiar show.

Inspired by a low-budget '60s sci-fi movie of dubious merit, Howard Ashman and Alan Menken's musical is a camp, funny, occasionally sinister little gem of a show that flourished off-Broadway and in the West End in the mid 1980s before an overblown but enjoyable film version brought it to a wider audience.

Since then it has toured incessantly and been revived several times, including the 2006 Menier production with Sheridan Smith as good-hearted heroine/victim Audrey. But it has never looked quite as exciting or outlandish as it does here in Maria Aberg's dynamic new staging, with inspired, witty designs by Tom Scutt.

One might think it impossible to convey inner-city claustrophobia in a space as open and lovely as the Open Air Theatre but Scutt has succeeded, ably abetted by Nick Lidster's intelligent sound design and  once the sun has gone down  by Howard Hudson's well considered lighting. Skid Row, the slum where Mr Mushnik's dilapidated flower store inadvertently houses man-eating plant Audrey Two (named after our florist heroine by her adoring but hapless co-worker Seymour) is characterised as a series of ingeniously scaled-down tenement buildings and fearsome tower blocks.

Jemima Rooper and Marc Antolin as Audrey and Seymour.

 Johan Persson

On all sides, trolley-pushing homeless wander through an apocalyptic Manhattan cityscape dominated by a shattered movie palace marquee (a tart nod to the shows B-film origins). The creative team have cleverly ensured that almost nothing on their stage seems natural: plastic implements substitute for pot plants, telephone wires hem characters in, revolving skyscrapers loom over intimate scenes. Lizzi Gee's tense, hyperactive choreography adds to the sense of exhilarating menace, as does Max Humphries' lurid puppet design, and the gorgeous, bonkers costumes. The show vibrates with a sort of grim vitality that delights and alarms.

The performances are key to this. As the central couple Marc Antolin and Jemima Rooper finely balance the cartoon-like excesses of their characters with a sense of poignant desperation that becomes increasingly affecting. They are hilarious but maintain throughout a sadness behind the eyes that make their tender moments really moving to watch. This Seymour and Audrey have a slightly harder edge than usual, and it subtly grounds all the craziness. They're brilliant.

There is craziness aplenty in Matt Willis' outrageous, magnetic turn as Audrey's unhinged dentist boyfriend, and in Forbes Masson's money-grabbing flower-shop owner, just one facial tic away from Max Bialystock in The Producers. Renee Lamb, Christina Modestou and Seyi Omooba are ridiculously good as the trio of sassy street urchins who comment on the show like a girl group-Greek chorus hybrid. The singing throughout is thrilling.

Man-eating Audrey Two is usually an outsized puppet with a dark, soulful off-stage voice. Not here: American drag queen Vicky Vox conveys more with an arched eyebrow than most performers can with a dozen words, sings up a storm in a supple baritone, looks garishly beautiful yet terrifying, and serves up plant-based realness by the bucket-load. It's a glorious reimagining of the role.

The free-wheeling originality of Aberg's terrific production points up what a magnificently well-crafted piece this is: the late Ashman's book acknowledges the schlocky awfulness of low budget horror films but has an authentic tension and crackerjack humour of its own, while his lyrics remain some of the finest and funniest in modern musical theatre. Menken's eclectic, ear-worm music remains a marvel: do-wop trios, salsa and calypso-inflected ditties, a joyous Hebraic father-and-son duet, driving rock anthems, rousing chorales and a heart-catching ballad for Audrey (the standard "Somewhere That's Green" delivered here by Rooper with a clear-eyed simplicity that pins you to the back of your seat)...it's a fabulous score.

This is a hell of a show. Fans of the original won't be disappointed and people encountering it for the first time will be delighted, and likely to come back for more. I would give it six stars if I could. Do not miss it. Joyous.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 11/8/2018 (1175 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The recipe for 10 lemon tortes calls for 70 eggs.

There are 72 on the counter in the basement kitchen of Our Lady of Lourdes: not much room for error.

Luckily, the crew of apron-clad women gathered at the MacDonald Avenue church on a Saturday in July to bake the layered cakes for Slovenija Pavilion are old hands at this  there will be no crying over spilled milk, or broken eggs.

The torte is the final item on their list: previous Saturdays have seen them baking dobos tortes, sugar cookies, poppyseed tortes and almond crescents to prepare for their week-long stint at Folklorama, Winnipegs annual cultural festival.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Hilda Terry mixes the honey biscuit dough.

"We also made a cookie called medenjaki, which is like a gingerbread but made with honey," Pauline Tutkaluke says. "We made 1,300 of those. Then we had another day when we iced them; theyre beautiful."

So whats the payoff for all this hard work?

"The week of," says Tutkaluke, referring to the Slovenija Pavilions Week 2 Folklorama slot at Sargent Park School, where the home-baked goodies are available for sale.

"That and sharing the culture and the cuisine," says Alenka Howell, her hair pulled back in a do-rag.

"Our country is a whole two million people  smaller than Toronto," she says of the Balkan nation of Slovenia, which is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast and the Adriatic Sea to the southwest.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Hilda Terry mixes honey biscuit dough for the lemon torte in the basement of the Our Lady of Lourdes Church where volunteers are baking huge lemon tortes for the Slovenian pavilion.

"So our friends or co-workers, they come back (from visiting the pavilion) and say Oh geez, I didnt know. Theres no monetary reward, but you get the satisfaction of people learning what Slovenia is.

As Folklorama has expanded over the years, many pavilions have taken to bringing in catered food, but not Slovenia. The savoury dishes are created fresh on-site, but the baking is all completed ahead of time and frozen.

Looking through the pass-through window into the churchs cramped kitchen, the counters are covered with jugs of milk, squares of hard margarine, containers of lard, huge bags of flour and sugar and reams of wax paper. Sets of measuring cups litter the counter.

In the church hall, long tables are set up to handle the assembly of tortes; there are mixing stations here and there for the women working on different portions of the recipe.

"Theres usually about eight to 10 of us doing a project like this," says Tutkaluke, a first-generation Winnipegger who has been "running pastry" for the past few years. "It takes a lot of hands and many stations; this is one of the most complex desserts for sure."

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Alenia Howell flips the sponge for the lemon torte.

The baking used to be done individually, with different people handling their specialties  many of the recipes featured at the pavilion are old family treasures, the secrets of which were kept close to the vest. But when it became clear the recipes might die with their owners, efforts were made to ensure their survival; now mothers and daughters come together to grease pans, mix dough and laugh together.

"I dont know how to make all the recipes and we dont want to lose them," Tutkaluke says. "I called all the ladies and sat down with them to figure out the recipes. Theyd say, OK, two cups of this, and Id say, "A cup like this?" (indicates a measuring cup) and theyd say "No, THIS cup and it would be, like, a teacup or serving spoon or something. So I had to re-create all these recipes so that you could actually measure it and make multiple recipes."

The lemon torte is one of the more elaborate, time-consuming creations  the recipe, broken down into six sections, fills both sides of an 8 1/2-x-11 sheet of paper  but its a fan favourite, so theres no question of leaving it out.

Its a layer of honey biscuit  there are lots of bees in Slovenia; honey is prominent in the cuisine  topped with a layer of rich lemon cream. Then comes a layer of sponge cake, called piskota, more cream, another biscuit layer and, finally, its topped with melted chocolate.

The sponge layer is baked first. "Its bouncing back, but its not golden," yells a voice from the kitchen.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Hilda Terry (left) and Alenia Howell add a final layer of cream filling to the lemon torte.

"Put it in for another couple of minutes," advises another voice.

Its fiddly business and one hasty move could ruin an entire torte. Once removed from the oven, it has to be dusted with sugar and then flipped over carefully, using the bottom of another baking pan, and the wax paper peeled off, taking care not to tear the surface.

"I hate this part," Howell says, gingerly flipping the hot baking sheet over.

The sponge cake inside isnt optimal  its a bit pale and not quite as fluffy as it could be. But the next one is a bit better; by the fourth one, the bakers have found their groove, turning out golden-topped, pillowy piskota as the air fills with a sugary aroma.

The cookie layer goes in the oven next and it too is proving to be finicky work. The ball of dough must be rolled out thinly to fill the baking tray to the very edges and corners; the women must pull off irregular bits and paste them into holes, then re-roll.

MIKE DEAL / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Hilda Terry (left) watches as Syrena Terry pours the chocolate onto the lemon torte.

"This will be my final year  Im telling you right now. Thats it!" says Pauline, half-jokingly.

"Everyone always says that," Howell says, laughing.

Even the lemon-cream filling is tricky  its done in two parts, and when they come together, texture is crucial. The recipes instructions indicate, in capital letters, that the mixture must be beaten "constantly and forever," until the sugar granules are entirely dissolved.

Try our Dish The latest on food and drink in Winnipeg and beyond from arts writers Ben Sigurdson and Eva Wasney. Dish arrives in your inbox every other Friday. See sample. Sign Up I agree to the Terms and Conditions, Cookie and Privacy Policies, and CASL agreement.

Luckily theres a collection of KitchenAid mixers brought in for the occasion; in the old days, someone had the tedious job of holding the hand mixer until the desired texture was reached.

Once the sponge and cookie layers have cooled and the cream filling is reading, its time for assembly.

A cardboard box that once contained 11-x-17 office paper is lined with wax paper. The cookie is carefully placed in the bottom and coated with cream. Two women handle the delicate sponge; the room collectively holds its breath as it flips perfectly into the box atop the cream layer.

The next two layers are a piece of cake, if you will. Finally, the chocolate is poured on top, and Tutkaluke uses a flat blade to smooth it to an immaculate, glossy topping; the torte is a thing of beauty.

One down, nine to go.

jill.wilson@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @dedaumier
Forty years ago, a young man from Carman had an idea  and millions of people around the world today are better for it.

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This article was published 11/8/2018 (1175 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Forty years ago, a young man from Carman had an idea  and millions of people around the world today are better for it.

That young man was George Klassen. He and his wife, Sheri, were on a Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) assignment in Bangladesh.

A Bangladeshi farmer uses a rower pump to irrigate his crops. (George Klassen photo)

Klassen, now 70, had recently graduated from the University of Manitoba as an agricultural engineer. He was sent to Bangladesh by MCC to help farmers. Sheris assignment was to help Bangladeshi women improve their lives economically.

The couple arrived in 1977. George was given a challenge to help farmers in that country find an easier way to get fresh water to irrigate their crops.

At the time, farmers in Bangladesh used traditional hand pumps to irrigate their small plots of land during the dry season. But the pumps were expensive to buy, difficult to install, and hard to maintain and repair.

Klassen started by asking farmers what they needed. They told him they wanted the opposite  inexpensive, easy to install, and simple to use and maintain.

To that list, Klassen added a condition of his own: it needed to be able to be manufactured locally, using local materials  no foreign parts.

Although he had never designed a water pump before, Klassen quickly decided the traditional hand pump was not the answer.

"Maintenance was a major issue," he says, adding it was also hard for women and children to use.

After months of talking, reading and thinking, he came up with a new and revolutionary idea: the rower pump.

"It was a brand-new design," he says. "There was nothing else like it in the world."

Unlike traditional pumps, where people stand and push down on a handle to draw up water, the rower pump is just like what you imagine  people recline and use a rowing motion to pull water up.

In 1978, he took his design to a local boys school which trained students to get jobs in manufacturing. The school produced two prototypes, which were taken out to local villages for trials.

"We installed one in a marketplace, one in a schoolyard, and hired people for eight hours a day to use them," he says.

After one month, they took them apart to see how they held up.

"There was no discernible wear," he says. "The results were very positive."

After making additional improvements, 140 pumps were made and quickly sold.

"They were never given away," Klassen says, noting that right from the start, the idea was to create a business employing local people.

Within two years, more than 40,000 pumps had been sold. By 2014, it was estimated more than 500,000 pumps were in use in Bangladesh. The design was also adapted for use in other countries.

"Im very happy to see the rower pump is still doing its job today," Klassen says.

"It changed the lives of millions of people."

In addition to providing water to irrigate crops, the pumps also provide people with safe drinking water. "There are so many health benefits that cant be measured," he adds.

Klassen is quick to note he didnt do it alone. "I borrowed ideas from here and there to come up with my own design," he says.

Harold Penner, a retired farmer from St. Adolphe, was also an MCC volunteer in Bangladesh at that time with his wife, Marianne.

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"The credit goes to George for the idea," he says.

"He felt the rowing motion was something people were more accustomed to, and used the body energy in a more efficient way. I felt he was right then, and still feel he was right."

After three years in Bangladesh, George and Sheri came back home to Manitoba, where George went on to a career with the province in water management. Now retired and living in Steinbach, he operates Georges Glass, a business making art from recycled glass.

Looking back, Klassen says he feels "very fortunate to have been able to work on the rower pump. Ive worked at many important projects over my career, but this is the one that gives me the most satisfaction."

In 2020, MCC will celebrate its 100th anniversary. During that year, the organization will recall the many ways it has helped to make the world a better place. One of those ways will be the rower pump, Im sure.

jdl562000@yahoo.com
The state has a red flag law that allows weapons to be taken from someone if they are a danger to themselves or others. It is also one of only two states that require a certified safety specialist in every school corporation. Indiana created the School Safety Specialist Academy in 1999 to provide the latest training and information on national and state practices.
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 11/8/2018 (1175 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Making leather boots isnt all that different from making shortbread cookies.

A man wearing an apron places a metal stencil onto a beige piece of leather hide. After placing the pattern, he presses a button and then steps back to watch a heavy machine drop down and puncture a shape, which roughly resembles a shoe, into the leather.

He does the same thing over and over and over again, the assembly line equivalent to using a star-shaped cookie cutter to bake holiday treats.

This is the first of 80 steps in the cowboy boots production line at Canada West Shoe Manufacturing Inc., a factory tucked away in an industrial neighbourhood in Winnipegs North End. Its also a step thats been used in the family-run footwear factory for decades, since Bill Moorby and three friends started the company in Winnipeg in 1978.

Little has changed on the assembly line over the past 40 years, said company president Graham Moorby, the founders grandson; many of the same hollow dies are still used to start the shoe-production process today.

The business  which is celebrating four decades of cutting and stitching leather shoes in the city this summer  has been run by three generations of the Moorby family. Moorby said his father, Ted Moorby, the former president, is still his go-to consultant and his uncle Paul Moorby, the former vice-president, also currently owns the Canada West Boots Factory Outlet shop attached to the factory on 1250 Fife St.

"Theres some pressure in that, that I feel to keep it going, but its a good kind of pressure to want to keep it going," the 35-year-old responded when asked about how it feels to be in the president role, following in the footsteps of his grandfather and father.

"Its an exciting industry to work in. I never quite know whats going to happen every day; theres always something new to do and theres always lots of variety and lots of different challenges, whether thats design, machinery, personnel."

The company produces 200 shoes every day. Photographs of boots of various shades of brown and black fill the vintage pages of the catalogues on Moorbys desk.

The models they make have varied over the years, from cowboy boots to casual shoes to specialized workboots such as knee-high logging boots and fire-retardant footwear for welders. They also have a contract for the official Canadian Armed Forces dress shoe.

Footwear on the shelves in their outlet store, and in independent stores across the country, vary from about $150 to $300 in price, Moorby said. They dont sell to chains because they simply dont have enough manpower and making cheap shoes isnt their ambition.

"Its no secret that in the big-box model, the lowest price point wins every time. Whereas, with a smaller, independent workboot shop or western boot shop, theyre taking the time to fit people, theyre trying to sell a quality product," he said.

Every shoe made and boxed in the Winnipeg factory is Goodyear-welted, meaning they are all made using a durable shoe-building method created in 1890 by inventor Charles Goodyear.

ANDREW RYAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Graham Moorby

"What makes that unique is the upper materials and the sole are sewn together, its not just glued on," Moorby said.

The only other company in Canada that constructs Goodyear-welted shoes on the same production scale as Canada West Shoe Manufacturing Inc. is Boulet Inc. in Quebec.

Although the Winnipeg factorys presidents genes and boot construction have remained relatively unchanged over the decades, the boot-making business in Canada hasnt. When Bill and his partners Marvin Rutledge, Paul Cook and Frank OGradnick started the company, there were more than 300 Canadian companies making leather shoes, Moorby said. Today, theres a half-dozen that produce at the same level the Winnipeg business does.

"We want to be the last shoe manufacturer standing in Canada," Moorby said.

Fifty Winnipeggers currently work for Canada West Shoe Manufacturing Inc. That number has varied, reaching as high as 85 employees over the years. The company often hires newcomers, mostly landed immigrants, Moorby said; they dont use the temporary foreign worker program.

In fact, its not uncommon for employees to ask for a day off because they have to take a citizenship test, he said.

Moorby started working full-time at the family business in 2006, following years of part-time experience on the factory assembly line during summers while he was going to school. The first time he clocked in for a shift, he was 15.

"It was very, very important to be in the factory for a lot of years," he said, adding that its allowed him to be able to diagnose problems with machines, provide informed direction to his staff and brainstorm new shoe designs.

"Ill still go out in the factory and make shoes. If someone is sick for a number of days, I may have to go out there and give part of the factory a boost. And sometimes, just for fun. I like making things."

The Brahma western boot is the bestseller, although Moorby said their fashion-oriented shoes, similar to Blundstones, have been gaining popularity. The company only recently got into the fashion shoe market about 11/2 years ago.

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Most of the leather they use comes from Mexico and the U.S., Moorby said. While they used to rely on sourcing local materials, thats become increasingly difficult as the shoe industry in Canada and related industries have downsized because of outsourcing for cheaper goods.

Despite Canadian stores importing mass amounts of cheap shoes from factories in China, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia and Vietnam, he said hes not worried about business because of their good-quality products and niche market of specialized workboots.

Moorby said hes not too worried about the Canada-U.S. trade war hurting business either since Canada doesnt have a leather industry to protect. The only thing thats gone up in price is the nails they buy because of costly aluminum, which isnt a big deal, he said  itll barely raise the price of every shoe they sell. "Im not worried about it particularly."

If anything, he said, he thinks Canadians want to support local more than ever now, 40 years after his grandfather opened up shop.

"Whats next? Pushing our Moorby fashion shoes and to keep on our tradition of making good boots that people are proud to wear, that were proud to make. We want to keep going."

maggie.macintosh@freepress.mb.caTwitter: @macintoshmaggie
ILE-DES-CHENES  The porta-potty will soon be gone.

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This article was published 11/8/2018 (1175 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ILE-DES-CHENES  The porta-potty will soon be gone.

It is what the Wildlife Haven Rehabilitation Centre has used as its only washroom  unheated  for the past eight years.

Also gone will be the abandoned dairy barn and its concrete floor, cow stalls and poop troughs, which were all repurposed into an animal hospital and rehab centre.

The new wildlife haven will be a palace by comparison. The rehab centre is getting set to move into $3-million, state-of-the-art digs.

"It will be one of the best in the country," vice-president Judy Robertson said. "Weve been told by other centres that with a new, modern facility, our caseload is going to double, and then triple."

ANDREW RYAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Judy Robertson, left, the former president of the Wildlife Haven and Rehabilitation Centre, and executive director Zoe Nakata, in front of the centre's new entrance.

It receives from 1,300 to 1,600 animals per year.

But its not quite a rags-to-riches story yet. After 34 years of having to scrape, scrounge and scrimp to get by, the centre has run short of cash again. Construction stopped three weeks ago when the centre ran out of money. Fundraising has stalled at $2.3 million.

However, executive director Zoe Nakata said its more a blip than a crisis and there are some irons in the fire. There are still some naming rights to be awarded. She hopes construction can restart in a couple weeks and the animals can move in this fall.

None of it would be possible without corporate sponsors such as TransCanada Corp., the energy infrastructure company that runs a natural gas pipeline through southern Manitoba. Pipeline companies are controversial with environmental activists these days, but not at the wildlife centre. TransCanada has contributed $500,000 to the new facility.

It also donated a walk-in freezer to store animal food  often small rodents such as rats and mice  and provided the 18-acre parcel of land for the facility. The centre pays a nominal rent on consecutive 25-year leases on the land, which is across from the TransCanada pumping station near Ile-des-Chenes, about 10 kilometres south of Winnipeg. The land was originally a small housing development for TransCanada staff.

The Richardson Foundation is another big supporter, ponying up $250,000. Money has come from as far away as British Columbia, Chicago and Toronto. The Winnipeg Foundation made two grants of $25,000 each. No government money is involved.

ANDREW RYAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Zoe Nakata says the new facility boasts an interactive visitor centre, animal viewing area, and many other improvements over their current location south of Winnipeg.

A tour of the new 10,000-square-foot facility shows the rehab centre has done its homework. The walls of all animal enclosures are made of the same material as car washes, so they can be pressure-washed. Rubber floor matting protects animal claws.

There are aluminum light tunnels in the animal rooms, instead of electric lights.

They funnel and magnify natural light from outside so effectively, most people think they are electric lights.

"It allows for animals to stay in touch with the natural rhythms of the day and season," Robertson said.

There are also giant flyways in the centres yard. A giant birdcage is nearly 7,000 square feet. A second, smaller one is 1,500 square feet. Its where birds practise flying and have to prove themselves before they are set free. About 70 per cent of the centres patients are avian.

Theres even a year-round, geothermal-heated indoor pool for waterfowl.

ANDREW RYAN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Judy Robertson and Zoe Nakata in the centre's current location: a repurposed dairy farm.

The centre operates on a shoestring budget of just $200,000 as it is. There are only two paid full-time staff and one part-timer  and 90 volunteers. Thats wildlife health care.

The new centre  a couple kilometres away from the old yard site of the Van Gorp family farm, which is slated to be sold  will be set up as a bit of a tourist attraction, with a naturalized wetland (with wheelchair accessibility), a tall grass prairie, live video feeds to watch the animals and education programs.

More than half of patients are orphaned, rather than sick or injured. The centre released three foxes last weekend who came in separately at ages six, eight and 10 weeks old, respectively. (However, the wildlife haven cautions people against being too quick to assume young ones are orphaned and requests people call ahead to discuss a situation.)

Less than 10 per cent of wildlife patients see a veterinarian. Most are handled by trained staff or volunteers who manage things such as splints, walking boots (for curled or sprained feet) or wing wraps to immobilize a broken wing while it heals, or administer medicines.

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Five local veterinarians donate their time to help the rest of the patients. An orthopedic vet recently put a titanium plate in a foxs leg  a $2,000 operation  and only charged for the $150 part.

Trucking company Gardewine will transport recovered wildlife back to the wilderness free of charge, so long as the animals are boxed. Similar services are provided by small airlines such as Calm Air, Bearskin Airlines and Perimeter Aviation.

Those are the stories the public needs to hear, Robertson said. The centre saved a group of chimney swift chicks last year that had to be fed every 20 minutes. Volunteers set up feeding vigils to keep them alive until their successful release.

The centre has handled everything from bobcats to woodchucks. But it also gets a lot of squirrels, rabbits and other common small animals. It has received more than 50 crows so far this year that are suspected of having West Nile fever. Antibiotics get them up on their wings again. Two foxes with mange will also recover, thanks to antibiotics.

Last year, the wildlife haven took in 17 snowy owls, and 21 the year before, most of them struck by cars. It managed to rehabilitate two of the 17, and seven of the 21.

bill.redekop@freepress.mb.ca
Manitoba Hydro is asking the provinces high court to strike down a Public Utilities Board order to establish a new rate class for First Nations residential customers.

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This article was published 11/8/2018 (1175 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba Hydro is asking the provinces high court to strike down a Public Utilities Board order to establish a new rate class for First Nations residential customers.

Earlier this year, the PUB created a separate rate category for electricity on reserves while ordering an overall rate increase of 3.6 per cent for 2018-19. First Nations customers saw their rates frozen at 2017 levels.

Manitoba Hydro has argued the PUB exceeded its jurisdiction in creating the new rate class, and asked the regulator to reverse its decision. The PUB refused.

On Friday, Hydro asked the Manitoba Court of Appeal to overturn the order  as well as a PUB decision to require the Crown corporation to hire a consultant to review its capital spending decisions.

"We believe that the PUB exceeded its jurisdictional authority by ordering the creation of a special rate class, which contravenes Manitoba Hydros legislative requirement to maintain uniform rates for all residential customers, regardless of where they reside in Manitoba," Hydro president and chief executive officer Kelvin Shepherd said in a statement.

Section 39(2.1) of the Manitoba Hydro Act states: "The rates charged for power supplied to a class of grid customers within the province shall be the same throughout the province."

Its estimated the freezing of Hydro rates will save First Nations residents close to $2 million a year in total. Hydro has implemented the PUBs general rate order as it attempts to test the ruling in court.

With the freeze in effect, hydro rates for most residential customers rose 4.04 per cent, effective June 1. Without the freeze, residential rates would have increased 3.92 per cent. (Industrial users pay a lower power rate, bringing the overall average down to the 3.6 per cent hike ordered by the PUB.)

Shepherd said Friday the Crown corporation is appealing parts of the PUBs general rate order because it requires "clear jurisdictional boundaries" between itself, regulators and government.

"This appeal isnt about the social policy merits of these special rates, rather its primarily a question of whether the current legislation enables the PUB to create them," he said.

Shepherd said the corporation also believes the PUB lacked the legislative authority to require it to hire a consultant to review its asset management decisions. "This aspect of the PUB order is not consistent with the governance structure and authority established by legislation," he said.

The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs (AMC), which represents 62 First Nations, said the PUB made its decision to create a new rate class after carefully considering thousands of pages of documents and dozens of hours of testimony. Its decision "was both legally and factually sound," the AMC said.

"This unnecessary and punitive appeal by Manitoba Hydro shows us Hydros true colours," Grand Chief Arlen Dumas said in a statement. "By taking the rate freeze for First Nations on reserve to court, Hydro is sending mixed messages about its relationship with First Nations."

Hydro has said repeatedly it wants to work with Manitoba First Nations, Dumas said. "Yet their appeal is based on an interpretation of the law that makes no sense and has already been rejected, twice, by the PUB."

He said the AMC also rejects Hydros claim its appeal is not about the social policy merits of a First Nation rate. "Hydro opposed the First Nations on-reserve rate at the PUB hearing, they opposed it when they asked the PUB to review and vary the initial order, and theyre opposing it now," he said.

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The AMC said it is considering all of its legal options to ensure the First Nations residential rate remains in place.

Byron Williams, a lawyer representing Winnipeg Harvest and the Manitoba division of the Consumers Association of Canada, said his clients believe the PUB has the jurisdiction to establish a separate rate class for First Nations customers. But they disagree with the decision to do so.

"Our clients are very sympathetic to the undue hardship that rate increases of the magnitude posed by Manitoba Hydro would have put on First Nation people, as well as other vulnerable consumers," he said. "But from their perspective, the better way to protect vulnerable consumers, including First Nation people on reserve, is by saying no to outrageous Manitoba Hydro rate increases and by making Manitoba Hydro run its business better."

Williams said PUB is also well within its rights to direct Hydro to pay an outside consultant to review its asset management decisions. "For over a decade, our clients have been arguing that Manitoba Hydro is not bringing good business practices to its day-to-day management of its capital expenditures," he said.

If the Court of Appeal decides to hear the appeal, its believed the case would not be heard until sometime this winter.

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca
Two Winnipeg eateries have found their way onto Air Canada's long list of best new restaurants of 2018.

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This article was published 10/8/2018 (1175 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Two Winnipeg eateries have found their way onto Air Canada's long list of best new restaurants of 2018.

Passero, located in The Forks Market, is the most recent project of chef Scott Bagshaw (and was given a five-star review by Free Press food critic Alison Gillmor).

"Many of the dishes are eminently Instagrammable, with lots of shavings of this and schmears of that. In lesser hands, these kinds of offerings can be flashy but empty, all those photogenic ingredients remaining unmelded. At Passero, the distinct flavours merge into a nuanced final effect," she wrote of the Italian-inspired spot.

JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Carrot Genoise with praline, cheesecake, chocolate soil at The Oxbow.

Bagshaw's restaurants have made Air Canada's list twice before. His River Heights neighbourhood, French-American small plates place, Enoteca, was short-listed in 2015, and Asian-fusion Maque on Stafford Street was long-listed in 2016.

"The EnRoute list is one the few lists out there that I feel really matter. So it is always a great honour to even make the long list," says Bagshaw.

"I am extremely proud of my team at Passero as well as my other restaurants for allowing me the comfort and security to walk away from them to focus on this new endeavour."

Osborne Street eatery Oxbow also made the cut. Featuring Manitoba ingredients and wines made "naturally and consciously," the spot has been praised for its innovative menu.

JOHN WOODS / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Charred Octopus, black romesco, nduja turnip and smoked creme fraiche at Scott Bagshaw's Passero at The Forks.

Co-owner and general manager of the Oxbow, Lucien Joyal, says it feels great to be acknowledged alongside other exciting new Canadian restaurants.

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"It means a lot to us to be a part of the national restaurant discussion, and part of Canada's incredible food scene. It's also really exciting for us to see Winnipeg enter into that discussion. There are some really amazing people doing great work here, and it's awesome to see Winnipeg's restaurant community receive some acknowledgement on the national scale," he said Friday in an email to the Free Press.

"We've felt a really positive reception towards our mandate of working with local, sustainable products, and the importance of connecting that mentality with our wine program... It's humbling to see that this is something that resonates with so many people both locally and across Canada, and it's a great encouragement to keep furthering that ideal."

The annual 30-restaurant list is compiled by a food critic from Air Canada's in-flight magazine, EnRoute, who travels incognito from coast to coast, taste-testing new eateries (which opened between late spring 2017 and early June 2018) suggested by a panel of experts.

The full list can be found at canadasbestnewrestaurants.com, and the top 10 new restaurants in Canada will be announced Oct. 25.

erin.lebar@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @NireRabel
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 11/8/2018 (1175 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Opinion

Is this the beginning of the end of the gig economy?

Last month, a Winnipeg courier for food-delivery service SkipTheDishes filed a legal challenge in Manitobas Court of Queens Bench over allegations the company is denying its employees adequate wages and benefits by classifying them as independent contractors.

The courier and her lawyers are seeking a class-action designation to represent the interests of couriers in all eight provinces in which SkipTheDishes operates. Their suit argues that she is legally an employee of the company and, as such, should be getting wages and benefits like any other employee.

Although she does get to choose her hours, the sponsoring courier was hired, trained and supervised by SkipTheDishes. Instead of an hourly wage, the courier receives a fee for every order collected from a participating restaurant and delivered to a customer, plus tips. She alleges that after taking into account fuel and other car costs, she broke even.

The SkipTheDishes suit may be one of the first of its kind in Canada, but it is certainly not unique in a global context. Many of the iconic applications that drive the so-called gig economy are being subjected to nearly identical legal challenges in other countries around the world.

The term "gig economy" was initially coined to describe opportunities to obtain spot employment through digital platforms. The great promise of the gig economy was the opportunity to work only when you wanted, and only for as long as you wanted. It was promoted by early digital adopters as an easy, convenient path to extra income.

The reality of the gig economy has been much different. Around the world, there are rising concerns about the increasing number of people relying on temporary or gig employment, and whether employers are treating them fairly. This has spawned a flurry of legal skirmishes.

Most of the lawsuits  and detailed analysis of the impact of the gig economy  have taken place in the United States, where Uber and Lyft, the dominant players in the ride-hailing application market, have both been subject to similar suits by drivers seeking to be classified as employees rather than independent contractors. In those suits, the drivers have alleged that after paying their own costs, they are not receiving pay equal to the minimum wages required in the jurisdictions in which they work.

In March 2017, Lyft and its drivers in San Francisco reached a US$27-million, court-supervised settlement brought after complaints that as independent contractors, they were being denied reasonable wages. Although the settlement was hailed as a victory in the ongoing gig-economy war, the drivers agreed to remain as independent contractors. Similar suits against Uber are working their way through the courts in California and Massachusetts.

As the lawsuits unfold, economists are getting a firmer grip on the economic impact of the gig economy. Not surprisingly, its an ugly picture that dispels many of the high-ideal notions that the gig employers sell to their contractors.

A recent study commissioned by New York Citys Taxi & Limousine Commission found that those toiling in the ride-hailing industry were not, in most instances, part-time or temporary workers. The study estimated that two-thirds of ride-hailing drivers did so on a full-time basis. And more than 80 per cent bought cars expressly for the purpose of working for a ride-hailing application  something Uber and Lyft encouraged them to do  creating an added expense that has made it nearly impossible for those drivers to clear any net income after expenses.

How much do ride-hailing drivers actually make? In May, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) released an analysis of Uber that provided one of the first truly detailed estimates of the real hourly wages being paid to drivers.

The EPI found that after taking into account commissions, fees and vehicle expenses  and adjusting for a modest package of health insurance and other benefits  Uber drivers earned on average the equivalent of US$9.21 per hour, which is below the minimum wage required in 13 of the 20 major urban markets in which Uber is currently operating. It was also less than the US$14.99 average hourly wage earned by the lowest-paid workers in service industry jobs.

This is hardly news to anyone who has flirted with gig-economy opportunities. In fact, the harsh reality of low pay and minimal benefits has dampened the growth of true gig employment; in most jurisdictions around the world, it has stalled or even fallen. That does not mean the impact of the gig economy is not still being felt.

Although spot employment obtained through a digital platform remains the backbone of the gig economy, many employers around the world are becoming increasingly comfortable with the idea of classifying their employees as independent contractors as opposed to full-time hires. The term "gigs" is now widely used in human resource lexicon to describe people who are hired to fill temporary employment needs.

The growth of what some countries call "irregular workers" has become an economic concern, as more working people navigate careers that do not afford them access to government employment benefits such as employment insurance, government retirement savings programs and maternity leave.

The impact of this trend is twofold: first, as fewer people pay into government benefit plans, the plans become less self-sustaining; and second, it leaves an increasing segment of the population without any safety net to cover them between jobs or when they want to leave the labour force to start a family. That potentially means a drop in economic activity.

This past spring, the European Union urged its member nations to adopt policies that ensure irregular workers have access to social security, unemployment and maternity benefits programs. Although gig employment in the U.S. is regularly pegged at about 10 per cent, the EU estimates that in one way or the other, about 40 per cent of citizens in member nations are involved to some degree in the irregular labour market.

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In Canada, it is estimated by various sources that about 20 to 30 per cent of workers are involved in digital gig employment, or work as contractors and freelancers.

Some EU countries already allow irregular or gig workers access to government employment benefits. However, the United Kingdom, now on the precipice of leaving the EU, does not offer maternity benefits to irregular or gig workers, and only partial sick leave and unemployment benefits. Even though the U.K. may not remain in the EU, British Prime Minister Theresa May has promised to uphold comparable standards in labour law and the U.K. has launched its own review of the treatment of gig employees.

All this brings us back to Manitoba and the SkipTheDishes lawsuit. One of the more troubling aspects of this still-evolving story is the revelation that Manitobas Employment Standards branch is not tracking the concerns of gig-economy employees.

A spokesperson for the branch, which handles about 2,000 complaints from workers alleging unfair labour practices, said they are not collecting data on gig-economy workers. The situation is quite similar for the federal government, which does offer benefits to some contract workers, but only if they register to pay the employee share of premiums for things such as employment insurance. Huge grey areas exist for many of those working for gig platforms.

At some point, government is going to have to hold gig employers accountable to ensure they are paying their workers at levels that are equivalent to minimum wages, while also ensuring there is a reasonable way to access employment benefits. Failure to accomplish these two basic goals may cripple both employment benefits programs and the economy at some future but fast-approaching date.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca
Steve Heinrichs wont be available for meetings in his Winnipeg office for the next few days. Hes in jail.

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This article was published 10/8/2018 (1175 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Steve Heinrichs wont be available for meetings in his Winnipeg office for the next few days. Hes in jail.

The official for Mennonite Church Canada was sentenced Wednesday to seven days for protesting against the Trans Mountain pipeline. Hes behind bars in Coquitlam, B.C.

His jailing is the latest development in a saga that has been the subject of fierce debate in the Mennonite community in Manitoba and across Canada.

Actually, in re-reading the sentence above, it's inaccurate to call it a "fierce debate." Mennonites strive to be peaceful and loving, and are seldom fierce. And instead of debating, they disagree in polite conversations that, to outsiders, can seem excessively lengthy and inclusive to a fault. If a custodian happened to be cleaning a room in which Mennonites were discussing an issue, he would be welcome to speak.

But in their exceedingly respectful way, Mennonites across Canada disagree about the social-justice actions of Heinrichs, who can now add jail inmate to his resume as pastor, author and trusted friend of Indigenous people.

Steve Heinrichs, seen here in 2015, is in jail for protesting against the Trans Mountain pipeline.

First, some background: Heinrichs job with the national body of Mennonites is to be a point person on the issue that in modern jargon is called settler-Indigenous relations. He works at the head office in Winnipeg, but spends considerable time working behind the scenes with First Nations.

Non-Mennonite Winnipeggers might recognize his name as an organizer of public events. A recent one, on March 5 at Canadian Mennonite University, was about how an urban reserve at the former Kapyong barracks will fit with its neighbours. It was billed as a public conversation, of course, not a debate.

His personal social action has included walking more than 600 kilometres in a group to support the rights of Indigenous people, and fasting for two weeks in solidarity with Canadians without a safe water supply or a secure food source.

He has also curated books of essays by people across ethnic and religious divides, on topics such as healing historical wounds of racism, stolen land and tough Bible passages that have been misused to exploit people.

So, how did such an ethical guy become a convicted criminal?

On April 20, he was arrested on the West Coast for protesting against the proposed Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion and charged with contempt of court. He told the Vancouver Courier newspaper he risked arrest because he was concerned Indigenous people werent adequately consulted about the pipeline and they have rights to "free, prior and informed consent."

JEN DOERKSEN / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Steve Heinrichs (left), seen here walking in support of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, has been jailed in B.C. for his participation in a protest of Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline.

His arrest was reported in the national Canadian Mennonite magazine, but not everyone in his church body considers him a social-action hero. The protest that got him arrested was criticized by many Mennonites, particularly those geographically situated on the business end of the pipeline.

The magazine reported how Pastor Will Loewen of Trinity Mennonite in Calgary listens to trains carrying oil rumble past his church building every day: "I am proud of the devotion my church members have at their jobs in the oil economy. Using their God-given gifts and personal passion to make improvements around efficiency and the environment as a part of their faith is what we ask of all people in professions in all industries."

In a May 20 sermon at Edmonton First Mennonite, speaker Donna Entz noted Heinrichs "stands in solidarity with the Indigenous people protesting the pipeline. But here in Edmonton, I walk with a neighbour, who for three years, is not yet out of financial hole since the downturn in the oil industry. What might justice look like for him?"

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Although many Mennonites disagree with Heinrichs choice of social action, most will admire that he has the courage of his convictions, although, when they see him again, they won't praise him too much because that could swell his head with harmful pride. Humility is another Mennonite aspiration.

Ann Heinrichs issued a statement on their Facebook page on Wednesday, thanking politicians and church officials who attended the court proceedings.

She wrote: "As his partner, I have the inside scoop on how light a sleeper Steve is. Over the next seven days, Id love prayer on his behalf for good sleep in an institution where bright lights dont go off and noises cant be buffered with earplugs. I hold him close in my thoughts and thank you for doing the same."

Despite their differences on the pipeline issue, most Mennonites will heed his wifes call and pray that Heinrichs sleeps well in a cell.

Mennonites have a history of keeping their faith despite persecution. They will respect a church brother who kept his faith despite prosecution.

Carl DeGurse is a member of the Free Press editorial board.
As legal axioms go, its among the most used and most undeniably true: justice delayed is justice denied.

Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 11/8/2018 (1175 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

As legal axioms go, its among the most used and most undeniably true: justice delayed is justice denied.

Which is why Manitobas government should be both appalled and spurred to immediate action by this weeks report that some courtroom proceedings in the province are being brought to a standstill by lengthy delays in the preparation of court transcripts.

At issue is a shortage of the typists whose job it is to create the word-for-word printed records of court proceedings based on digital audio recordings captured in court. Much of the work used to be done by a transcription service, but Manitoba Justice now relies on individuals who are contracted to produce transcripts on an on-demand basis.

The demand  Manitoba Justice requested transcription of 166,200 pages in 2016-17, according to its annual report  currently far exceeds the capacity to supply, meaning it can take up to seven months for a transcript to be delivered. Even an expedited transcript, which would normally be completed within a week, now takes about 20 business days.

Theres much more at stake here than a bureaucratic bookkeeping backlog. The delayed delivery of transcripts has very real negative consequences for virtually anyone  lawyers, judges, self-represented parties, correctional-system officials  trying to navigate a case through the court system.

JOHN WOODS / THE CANADIAN PRESS FILES The Law Courts building in Winnipeg

"It slows everything down. Transcripts are integral to our job," said Scott Newman, a spokesman for Manitobas Criminal Defence Lawyers Association. He said delays affect individuals who are in jail and need transcript information to argue their incarceration is unjust, as well as those who are either seeking to move a case to trial or attempting to launch an appeal.

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The reasons for the transcript backlog remain somewhat unclear  whether its as simple as the long-unchanged $3-per-page fee being inadequate to attract individual contract transcribers, part of a larger over-arching realignment strategy requiring a renegotiation with a transcription firm or a basic exercise in cost containment in line with the provinces debt-reduction effort  but what isnt up for debate is that the situation is unacceptable.

Politicians love to talk about law and order and public safety, but the emphasis seems almost exclusively to be front-loaded onto law enforcement and crime prevention. More police on the streets, tougher laws and longer sentences  that sort of thing. Once those accused of offences find their way into the justice system, resources become considerably more scarce and the wheels turn at a decidedly more measured pace.

While its certainly one of the symptoms  along with overcrowded remand cells, a shortage of judges and chronic delays in bringing criminal cases to trial  of the larger ills afflicting the justice system, the transcript backlog is also an immediate problem that could be addressed with an immediate solution.

Two things are required: political will and money.

The former needs to be demonstrated by Manitobas provincial government, and that necessarily means freeing up enough of the latter to either hire more court transcription workers or raise the per-page rate to a level that will attract more typists to the task. The notion of re-engaging a transcription service to handle the task on an ongoing basis, rather than in an on-demand contract arrangement, should also be considered  its likely the most expensive option, but also the one with the best chance to eliminate the backlog.

The simple reality, like justice itself, should not be denied.
Lake Countys three northern cities are the hardest hit by the consolidation plan, with Gary, Hammond and East Chicago losing nearly half of their voting precincts. Gary will lose 54 of its 105 precincts; Hammond will lose 33 of its 79 precincts; and East Chicago will lose 14 of its 31 precincts, according to the plan.
GlaxoSmithKline Plc is a healthcare company, which engages in the research, development, and manufacture of pharmaceutical medicines, vaccines, and consumer healthcare products. It operates through the following segments: Pharmaceuticals; Pharmaceuticals R&D; Vaccines and Consumer Healthcare. The Pharmaceuticals segment focuses on developing medicines in respiratory and infectious diseases, oncology, and immuno-inflammation. The Pharmaceuticals R&D segment focuses on science related to the immune system, the use of human genetics and advanced technologies, and is driven by the multiplier effect of Science x Technology x Culture. The Vaccines segment produces pediatric and adult vaccines to prevent a range of infectious diseases including, hepatitis A and B, diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough, measles, mumps and rubella, polio, typhoid, influenza, and bacterial meningitis. The Consumer Healthcare segment develops and markets brands in the oral health, pain relief, respiratory, nutrition and gastro intestinal, and skin health categories. The company was founded in 1715 and is headquartered in Middlesex, the United Kingdom.

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The following companies are subsidiares of BlackRock: Acero Cooperatief U.A., Acero Holdings I B.V., Amethyst Merger Sub LLC, AnalytX Hosting LLC, AnalytX LLC, AnalytX Software LLC, Aperio, Aperio, Aquila Heywood, Asia-Pacific Private Credit Opportunities Fund I (GenPar) Ltd., BAA Holdings LLC, BFM Holdco LLC, BLK (Gallatin) Holdings LLC, BLK SMI LLC, BR Acquisition Mexico S.A. de C.V., BR Jersey International Holdings L.P., Beijing eFront Software Company Limited, BlackRock (Barbados) Finco 1 SRL, BlackRock (Channel Islands) Limited, BlackRock (Luxembourg) S.A., BlackRock (Netherlands) B.V., BlackRock (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., BlackRock (Singapore) Holdco II Pte. Ltd., BlackRock (Singapore) Holdco Pte. Limited, BlackRock (Singapore) Limited, BlackRock AP Investment Holdco LLC, BlackRock Advisors (UK) Limited, BlackRock Advisors LLC, BlackRock Advisors Singapore Pte. Limited, BlackRock Alternative Advisors GP Holdings LLC, BlackRock Alternatives Management LLC, BlackRock Argentina Asesorias Ltda., BlackRock Asset Management Canada Limited, BlackRock Asset Management Deutschland AG, BlackRock Asset Management International Inc., BlackRock Asset Management Investor Services Limited, BlackRock Asset Management Ireland Limited, BlackRock Asset Management North Asia Limited, BlackRock Asset Management Schweiz AG, BlackRock Asset Management UK Limited, BlackRock Australia Holdco Pty. 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Ltd., BlackRock Europe Development Management Limited, BlackRock Execution Services, BlackRock Finance Europe Limited, BlackRock Financial Management Inc., BlackRock Finco LLC, BlackRock Finco UK Ltd., BlackRock First Partner Limited, BlackRock France SAS, BlackRock Fund Advisors, BlackRock Fund Management Company S.A., BlackRock Fund Managers Limited, BlackRock Funding International Ltd., BlackRock Funds Services Group LLC, BlackRock Germany GmBH, BlackRock Group Limited, BlackRock HK Holdco Limited, BlackRock Holdco 2 Inc., BlackRock Holdco 3 LLC, BlackRock Holdco 4 LLC, BlackRock Holdco 5 LLC, BlackRock Holdco 6 LLC, BlackRock Hungary Kft, BlackRock Index Services LLC, BlackRock Infrastructure Management I LLC, BlackRock Institutional Services Inc., BlackRock Institutional Trust Company National Association, BlackRock International Holdings Inc., BlackRock International Limited, BlackRock Investment Management (Australia) Limited, BlackRock Investment Management (Dublin) Limited, BlackRock Investment Management (Korea) Limited, BlackRock Investment Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., BlackRock Investment Management (Taiwan) Limited, BlackRock Investment Management (UK) Limited, BlackRock Investment Management Ireland Holdings Limited, BlackRock Investment Management LLC, BlackRock Investments LLC, BlackRock Japan Co. Ltd., BlackRock Japan Holdings GK, BlackRock Jersey Finco 2 Limited, BlackRock Latin America Holdco LLC, BlackRock Latin American Holdings B.V., BlackRock Life Limited, BlackRock Lux Finco S.a r.l., BlackRock Luxembourg Holdco S.a r.l., BlackRock Mexican Holdco B.V., BlackRock Mexico Infraestructura I S. de R.L. de C.V., BlackRock Mexico Infraestructura II S. de R.L. de C.V., BlackRock Mexico Infraestructura III S. de R.L. de C.V., BlackRock Mexico Manager II S. de R.L. de C.V., BlackRock Mexico Manager III S. de R.L. de C.V., BlackRock Mexico Manager S de R.L. de C.V., BlackRock Mexico Operadora S.A. de C.V. Sociedad Operadora de Fondos de Inversion, BlackRock Mortgage Ventures LLC, BlackRock Niagara LLC, BlackRock Operations (Luxembourg) S.a r.l., BlackRock Overseas Investment Fund Management (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., BlackRock PC Holdings LLC, BlackRock Pensions Limited, BlackRock Peru Asesorias S.A., BlackRock Property Consulting (Beijing) Co. Ltd., BlackRock Property France S.a.r.l., BlackRock Property Lux S.a.r.l., BlackRock Property Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., BlackRock Realty Advisors Inc., BlackRock Saudi Arabia, BlackRock Scale Holdings LLC, BlackRock Services India Private Limited, BlackRock Singapore III Pte. 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SOFOM ENR, Trident Merger LLC, eFront, eFront, eFront (Jersey) Limited, eFront DMLT Holdings LLC, eFront DMLT Holdings S.R.L, eFront DR S.R.L, eFront Do Brasil Solucoes Informaticas Para Sistemas Financeiros Ltda., eFront FZ-LLC, eFront Financial Solutions Inc., eFront GmbH, eFront Holding II SAS, eFront Holdings SAS, eFront Hong Kong Limited, eFront II SAS, eFront Kabushiki Kaisha, eFront Ltd, eFront SAS, eFront Singapore Pte. Ltd, eFront Software Luxembourg S.a r.l., eFront Solutions Financeieres Inc., eFront d.o.o. Beograd, iShares (DE) I Investmentaktiengesellschaft mit Teilgesellschaftsvermogen, and iShares Delaware Trust Sponsor LLC.
According to the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ), 40 states (including D.C.) still either do not have sufficient licensing tests on the science of reading in place for elementary and special-education teachers, or they have no test at all. And only 11 states have adequate tests for people applying to be elementary-school or special-education teachers, even though 80 percent of students assigned to special education are there because of their struggles with reading. (Indiana is one of 11 states with qualifying tests in both categories  the CORE Elementary Education Generalist test and the CORE Exceptional Needs  Mild Intervention: Reading Instruction test.)
Reinsurance Group of America, Inc. is a holding company, which engages in the provision of traditional and non-traditional life and health reinsurance products. It operates through the following segments: U.S. and Latin America; Canada; Europe, Middle East, and Africa; Asia Pacific; and Corporate and Other. The U.S. and Latin America segment markets individual and group life and health reinsurance to domestic clients for a variety of products through yearly renewable term agreements, coinsurance, and modified coinsurance. The Canada segment offers individual life reinsurance, and to a lesser extent creditor, group life and health, critical illness and disability reinsurance, through yearly renewable term and coinsurance agreements. The Europe, Middle East, and Africa segment serves individual and group life and health products through yearly renewable term and coinsurance agreements, reinsurance of critical illness coverage that provides a benefit in the event of the diagnosis of a pre-defined critical illness and underwritten annuities. The Asia Pacific segment comprises individual and group life and health reinsurance, critical illness coverage, disability, and superannuation thr

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The following companies are subsidiares of Bristol-Myers Squibb: 1096271 B.C. ULC, 345 Park LLC, A.G. Medical Services P.A., AHI Investment LLC, AbVitro LLC, Abraxis BioScience Australia Pty Ltd., Abraxis BioScience Inc., Abraxis BioScience International Holding Company Inc., Abraxis BioScience LLC, Abraxis BioScience Puerto Rico LLC, Acetylon Pharmaceuticals Inc., Adnexus, Adnexus a Bristol-Myers Squibb R&D Company, Allard Labs Acquisition G.P., Amira Pharmaceuticals, Amira Pharmaceuticals Inc., Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Apothecon LLC, B-MS Generx Unlimited Company, BMS Benelux Holdings B.V., BMS Bermuda Nominees L.L.C., BMS Data Acquisition Company LLC, BMS Forex Company, BMS Holdings Sarl, BMS Holdings Spain S.L., BMS International Insurance Designated Activity Company, BMS Investco SAS, BMS Korea Holdings L.L.C., BMS Latin American Nominees L.L.C., BMS Luxembourg Partners L.L.C., BMS Omega Bermuda Holdings Finance Ltd., BMS Pharmaceutical Korea Limited, BMS Pharmaceuticals Germany Holdings B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals International Holdings Netherlands B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals Korea Holdings B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals Mexico Holdings B.V., BMS Pharmaceuticals Netherlands Holdings B.V., BMS Real Estate LLC, BMS Spain Investments LLC, BMS Strategic Portfolio Investments Holdings Inc., Blisa Acquisition G.P., Bristol (Iran) S.A., Bristol Iran Private Company Limited, Bristol Laboratories Inc., Bristol Laboratories International S.A., Bristol Laboratories Medical Information Systems Inc., Bristol-Myers (Andes) L.L.C., Bristol-Myers (Private) Limited, Bristol-Myers Middle East S.A.L., Bristol-Myers Overseas Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb (China) Investment Co. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (China) Pharmaceuticals Co. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (Israel) Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (NZ) Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb (Proprietary) Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb (Shanghai) Trading Co. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (Singapore) Pte. Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb (Taiwan) Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb (West Indies) Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb A.E., Bristol-Myers Squibb Aktiebolag, Bristol-Myers Squibb Argentina S. R. L., Bristol-Myers Squibb Australia Pty. Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Axia Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb B.V., Bristol-Myers Squibb Belgium S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb Business Services Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada Co., Bristol-Myers Squibb Canada International Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Delta Company Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Denmark Filial of Bristol-Myers Squibb AB, Bristol-Myers Squibb EMEA Sarl, Bristol-Myers Squibb Egypt LLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Epsilon Holdings Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Farmaceutica Ltda., Bristol-Myers Squibb Farmaceutica Portuguesa S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb GesmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb GmbH & Co. KGaA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holding Germany GmbH & Co. KG, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings 2002 Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Germany Verwaltungs GmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Ireland Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Holdings Pharma Ltd. Liability Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Ilaclari Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb India Pvt. Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb International Company Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb International Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb Investco L.L.C., Bristol-Myers Squibb K.K., Bristol-Myers Squibb Kft., Bristol-Myers Squibb Luxembourg International S.C.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb Luxembourg S.a.r.l., Bristol-Myers Squibb MEA GmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb Manufacturing Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Marketing Services S.R.L., Bristol-Myers Squibb Middle East & Africa FZ-LLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Norway Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Nutricionales de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Bristol-Myers Squibb Peru S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma (HK) Ltd, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma (Thailand) Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma EEIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Holding Company LLC, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharma Ventures Corporation, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceuticals Unlimited Company, Bristol-Myers Squibb Polska Sp. z o.o., Bristol-Myers Squibb Products SA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Puerto Rico Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb Puerto Rico/Sanofi Pharmaceutical Partnership Puerto Rico, Bristol-Myers Squibb Romania S.R.L., Bristol-Myers Squibb S.A.U., Bristol-Myers Squibb S.r.l., Bristol-Myers Squibb SA, Bristol-Myers Squibb Sanofi Pharmaceuticals Holding Partnership, Bristol-Myers Squibb Sarl, Bristol-Myers Squibb Service Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Services Sp. z o.o., Bristol-Myers Squibb Spol. s r.o., Bristol-Myers Squibb Theta Finance Ltd., Bristol-Myers Squibb Trustees Limited, Bristol-Myers Squibb Verwaltungs GmbH, Bristol-Myers Squibb de Colombia S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb de Costa Rica Sociedad Anonima, Bristol-Myers Squibb de Guatemala S.A., Bristol-Myers Squibb de Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Bristol-Myers Squibb/Astrazeneca EEIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb/Pfizer EEIG, Bristol-Myers Squibb/Sanofi Pharmaceuticals Partnership, Bristol-Myers de Venezuela S.C.A., CHT I LLC, CHT II LLC, CHT III LLC, CHT IV LLC, CR Finance Company LLC, Cardioxyl Pharmaceuticals, Cardioxyl Pharmaceuticals Inc., Celem LLC, Celem Ltd., Celgene, Celgene A.B., Celgene AS, Celgene Ab (Finland), Celgene Alpine Investment Co. 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LLC, Celgene ApS, Celgene B.V., Celgene BVBA, Celgene Brasil Produtos Farmaceuticos Ltda., Celgene CAR LLC, Celgene CAR Ltd., Celgene Chemicals Sarl, Celgene China Holdings LLC, Celgene Co., Celgene Corporation, Celgene Distribution B.V., Celgene EngMab GmbH, Celgene Europe B.V., Celgene Europe Limited, Celgene European Investment Company LLC, Celgene Financing Company LLC, Celgene Global Holdings Sarl, Celgene GmbH [Austria], Celgene GmbH [Germany], Celgene GmbH [Switzerland], Celgene Holdings East Corporation, Celgene Holdings II Sarl, Celgene Holdings III Sarl, Celgene Ilac Pazarlama ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Celgene Inc., Celgene International Holdings Corporation, Celgene International II Sarl, Celgene International III Sarl, Celgene International Inc., Celgene International Sarl, Celgene K.K., Celgene Kft., Celgene Limited [Hong Kong], Celgene Limited [Ireland], Celgene Limited [New Zealand], Celgene Limited [Taiwan], Celgene Limited [UK], Celgene Logistics Sarl, Celgene Ltd, Celgene Luxembourg Sarl, Celgene Management Sarl, Celgene NJ Investment Co, Celgene Netherlands B.V., Celgene Netherlands Investment B.V., Celgene Pharmaceutical (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Celgene Pte. Ltd., Celgene Pty Ltd, Celgene Puerto Rico Distribution LLC, Celgene Quanticel Research Inc, Celgene R&D Sarl, Celgene RIVOT LLC, Celgene RIVOT Ltd., Celgene RIVOT SRL, Celgene Receptos Limited, Celgene Receptos Sarl, Celgene Research Incubator At Summit West LLC, Celgene Research S.L.U., Celgene Research and Development Company LLC, Celgene Research and Development I ULC, Celgene Research and Development II LLC, Celgene Research and Investment Company II LLC, Celgene S. de R.L. de C.V., Celgene S.L.U., Celgene S.R.L., Celgene SAS, Celgene Sarl AU, Celgene Sdn Bhd, Celgene Services Sarl, Celgene Sociedade Unipessoal Lda, Celgene Sp. Z.o.o., Celgene Sro [Czech Republic], Celgene Summit Investment Co, Celgene Switzerland Holding Sarl, Celgene Switzerland II LLC, Celgene Switzerland Investment Sarl, Celgene Switzerland LLC, Celgene Switzerland Sarl, Celgene Tri A Holdings Ltd., Celgene Tri Sarl, Celgene UK Distribution Limited, Celgene UK Holdings Limited, Celgene UK Manufacturing II Limited, Celgene UK Manufacturing III Limited, Celgene UK Manufacturing Limited, Celgene d.o.o., Celgene sro [Slovakia], Celmed LLC, Celmed Ltd., ConvaTec Divestiture, Cormorant Pharmaceuticals, Cormorant Pharmaceuticals AB, Crosp Ltd., Delinia Inc., Deuteria Pharmaceuticals Inc., DuPont Pharmaceuticals, E. R. Squibb & Sons Inter-American Corporation, E. R. Squibb & Sons L.L.C., E. R. 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Bristol-Myers Squibb, Oy Bristol-Myers Squibb (Finland) AB, Padlock Therapeutics, Padlock Therapeutics Inc., Pharmion LLC, Princeton Pharmaceutical Products Inc., Receptos LLC, Receptos Services LLC, RedoxTherapies Inc., Route 22 Real Estate Holding Corporation, SPV A Holdings ULC, Seamair Insurance DAC, Signal Pharmaceuticals LLC, Sino-American Shanghai Squibb Pharmaceuticals Limited, Societe Francaise de Complements Alimentaires(S.O.F.C.A.), Squibb Middle East S.A., Summit West Celgene LLC, Swords Laboratories, VentiRx Pharmaceuticals Inc., Westwood-Intrafin SA, Westwood-Squibb Pharmaceuticals Inc., X-Body Inc., ZymoGenetics, ZymoGenetics Inc., ZymoGenetics LLC, ZymoGenetics Paymaster LLC, iPierian, and iPierian Inc..
Bethenny Frankels on-off boyfriend Dennis Shields died Friday of a suspected drug overdose, and reportedly asked his assistant to give him Narcan in his last moments. According to the New York Post, which first reported the news, the banker, 51, went unconscious before the drug could take effect.

Narcan is an emergency medication intended to reverse the effects of a narcotic overdose. While its commonly referred to as Narcan, a branded nasal spray, the medication itself is naloxone.

The medication, which is sprayed into one nostril, is able to immediately restore normal breathing in someone who has overdosed on fentanyl, heroin and prescription painkillers for 30 to 90 minutes. Narcan was used to revive Demi Lovato after her overdose on July 24.

Narcan is like an EpiPen to someone in anaphylactic shock  it gives you this crazy burst of energy, an EMT source previously told PEOPLE. What happens though is the opiate is still in your system, so if you do enough of it the Narcan can wear off and your heart rate can slow down again.

Much like using an EpiPen for anaphylactic shock, its important to get a person who has overdosed to get a hospital for further treatment, and monitoring, even if they appear alert.

Bethenny Frankel and Dennis Shields in Dec. 2016

Narcan isnt a solution to addiction by any means, but it is a solution to death, the source added.

And in some cases, it does not work with the first injection. The patient may require CPR, and an additional dose. It is not possible to overdose on naloxone.

With opioid addiction at an epidemic rate in the United States, Narcan is growing in availability. Walgreens now stocks the nasal form of the medication in all of their pharmacies across 45 states, and people at risk are advised to keep it in their homes.

In April, the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Jerome Adams, issued a public health advisory, urging more Americans to carry and learn to use the opioid overdose-reversing drug naloxone, according to TIME.

Knowing how to use naloxone and keeping it within reach can save a life, Adams said in the advisory.

Story continues

TIME reported generic naloxone can cost between $20 and $40 per dose, while Narcan can cost around $130 to $140 for a kit that includes two doses.

If you or someone you know is in need of help, please contact the SAMHSA substance abuse helpline at 1-800-622-HELP.
Affording viewers a trip to the Chilean desert to gaze up at the crystal-clear sky, Cielo is a rapturous act of cinematic contemplation. Regarding the firmament with humbled wonder and curiosity, writer-director Alison McAlpines documentary investigates the many ways in which were connected to the stars, the clouds and everything that extends beyond. Buoyed by conversations with a variety of people closely associated with this particularly luminous region, Cielo should entrance all those who enter its unique atmosphere.

Cielo glides between subjects, guided by McAlpines narration, which alternates between ruminations about her rapport with the sky and existential queries of the many individuals with whom she meets. Linking those chats are breathtaking time-lapse images of the sky over Atacama Desert, the driest in the world, where a lack of pollution or artificial light provides striking sights of the heavens. Depicting the constellations and Milky Way rotating as the Earth turns, as well as shooting stars crisscrossing each other at intermittent intervals, cinematographer Benjamin Echazarretas vistas  often framed by barren mountain ranges and scraggly desert trees below  convey the ecstatic and daunting beauty of our universe. Thats also felt during daytime shots of the hovering moon, including one in which it sits above both a thin layer of clouds and a towering peak like some sort of natural homage to 2001: A Space Odyssey.

As one astrophysicist confesses, such star-gazing (be it personal or professional) invariably leads to science fiction-y questions about humanity, extraterrestrial life and interstellar travel to distant planets. McAlpine allows such issues to be raised without trying to proffer conclusive answers; rather, her film is more about giving voice to the thoughts one experiences while laying on the ground, in the dark, staring upward. In one respect, Cielo is an attempt to do what one speaker says the sky itself does  open and inspire the imagination, allowing it to freely roam in a manner as expansive as space and time.

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The camera also trains its eye on the men and women residing on this arid stretch of land: scientists manning enormous telescopes (whose movements seem to dance in harmony with the ever-shifting sky); a miner venturing into a subterranean abyss; a photographer of UFOs; algae collectors who fish with nets in moonlight; and a local storyteller who recounts animal legends concerning the aerial origins of vegetation. In their discourses, from a loner noting that one of Orions stars reminds him of his deceased daughter, or two separate anecdotes that were passed down by grandmothers, McAlpine conveys the skys profound relationship to memory, family, spirituality, history and heritage  and, thus, how it provides us with a context for our feelings about our surroundings, ourselves and the past and the future.

Though the directors musings are constant, the grander notions of Cielo hang in the air as we gaze at rapturous panoramas of the sky in all its nocturnal blue-black-green glory. Calling to mind Terrence Malicks The Tree of Life, the film employs organic special effects to create sequences involving blooming and pulsating foreign stars, which further amplify a sense of the limitless splendor and the mystery of existence. Whether focusing on a young man discussing his childhood bond with a silent spirit, or an astronomer explaining her secular attraction to her work, this majestic movie  enhanced by Philippe Lauziers dreamy score of wind instruments and percussive gongs, which seamlessly blends with the mecha-grinding of telescopic equipment  looks up in order to look within.

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Australian teacher finds massive prehistoric shark teeth twice the size of a Great White's originally appeared on goodmorningamerica.com

No, this isn't a publicity stunt for the new movie "Meg."

A teacher and fossil enthusiast found a giant set of prehistoric shark teeth estimated to be about 25 million years old at a beach in Australia.

PHOTO: Philip Mullaly found a set of shark teeth in Jan Juc along Victoria's Surf Coast where a team of paleontologists at Museums Victoria excavated the fossils. (Museums Victoria)

Philip Mullaly found the set of shark teeth in Jan Juc, a renowned fossil site along Victoria's Surf Coast.

"I was walking along the beach looking for fossils, turned and saw this shining glint in a boulder and saw a quarter of the tooth exposed," the citizen scientist said in a press release by the Museums Victoria where the teeth are now on display. "I was immediately excited, it was just perfect and I knew it was an important find that needed to be shared with people," Mullaly said.

PHOTO: Philip Mullaly found a set of shark teeth in Jan Juc along Victoria's Surf Coast where a team of paleontologists at Museums Victoria excavated the fossils. (Museums Victoria)

The nearly three-inch-long teeth belonged to a now-extinct ferocious shark, aptly named the great jagged narrow-toothed shark, which is a smaller cousin of the famous megalodon shark, the subject of the new movie.

"I couldn't believe it. These things are really rare," Mullaly told "Good Morning America."

PHOTO: Philip Mullaly found a set of shark teeth in Jan Juc along Victoria's Surf Coast where a team of paleontologists at Museums Victoria excavated the fossils. (David Hocking)

Mullaly called to tell the paleontologists at Museums Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, about his discovery and the museum assembled a team to handle the excavation.

In total, Mulally said the team took "40 teeth out of that boulder, which is just extraordinary."

According to the museum, these teeth provide evidence that a shark which would have grown to more than 30-feet in length, nearly double the size of a great white, "once stalked Australia's ancient oceans" approximately 25 million years ago.

PHOTO: Philip Mullaly found a set of shark teeth in Jan Juc along Victoria's Surf Coast where a team of paleontologists at Museums Victoria excavated the fossils. (Museums Victoria)

The teeth fossils are now on exhibit at Museums Victoria.
Search continues for US Marine reported overboard near Philippines originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

The search continues for a U.S. Marine who was reported missing from a Navy ship as it crossed the Sulu Sea west of the Philippines.

The Marine was reported overboard at 9:40 a.m. local time Thursday by the USS Essex, an amphibious assault ship, according to a press release from the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit to which the missing soldier was assigned. The Marine's family has been notified, but officials said the identity of the missing individual will not be released while the search is ongoing.

"As we continue our search operation, we ask that you keep our Marine and the Marine's family in your thoughts and prayers," said Col. Chandler Nelms, commanding officer of the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit. "We remain committed to searching for and finding our Marine."

(MORE: 11 Marines affected in hazmat incident at Fort Myer near Pentagon)

(MORE: 2 Navy aviators die after fighter crashes near Key West)

Philippine coast guard vessels and a U.S. Navy P-8 aircraft are assisting in the search, which has already covered 3,000 square nautical miles, officials said.

"To date, multiple searches have been conducted inside the ship while embarked aircraft aboard the USS Essex conduct round-the-clock search and rescue operations within the Sulu Sea and Surigao Strait," the unit said in its press release.

The 13th MEU is conducting search & rescue operations for one of our Marines. We are conducting an extensive search w/ support from all available agencies & we will continue until every option has been exhausted. The most updated info will be posted here when available. pic.twitter.com/zpkpDYeisM  The Fighting 13th (@Official13thMEU) August 10, 2018

"It is an all-hands effort to find our missing Marine," added U.S. Navy Capt. Gerald Olin, the on-scene commander of the search and rescue operation. "All of our sailors, Marines, and available assets aboard the USS Essex have been and will continue to be involved in this incredibly important search and rescue operation."

The 844-foot long USS Essex can transport and support a team of more than 2,000 Marines during an assault by air or land. The ship is based out of San Diego, California.
Shooting in Canadian city leaves several dead, police say originally appeared on abcnews.go.com

Four people were killed in a shooting in Canada's eastern city of Fredericton on Friday morning, police said. The suspect was wounded during the incident and is in custody.

Police officers were responding to reports of gunshots at an apartment building in Fredericton, the capital of New Brunswick province, when they encountered and fired at the suspect.

The Fredericton Police Force urged residents via Twitter to avoid the area and "stay in their homes with doors locked." The police force also asked the public not to report on the locations or activities of authorities and first responders.

Around 9:30 a.m. local time, officers forced entry into an apartment unit and arrested a 48-year-old man. The Fredericton Police Force subsequently declared via Twitter that there was "no further threat to the public."

The suspect was transported to a local hospital for "serious injuries" related to the incident, police said.

PHOTO: A map locates Fredericton, Canada, where a shooting has killed at least four people according to police, Aug. 10, 2018. (AP)

Two officers from the Fredericton Police Force were among those killed Friday: Lawrence Robert Costello and Sara Mae Helen Burns. Costello, 45, was a 20-year veteran of the police force and he leaves behind his partner and four children. Burns, 43, had been with the force for two years and leaves behind her husband and three children.

"It's been a very difficult day," Fredericton Police Chief Leanne Fitch told reporters Friday afternoon. "Those that were killed this morning were taken very good care of."

Our deepest condolences to the families of our fallen members 45-year-old Lawrence Robert Costello and 43-year-old Sara Mae Helen Burns and the other victims in this morning's shootings. pic.twitter.com/9TeWn5OqWx  Fredericton Police (@CityFredPolice) August 10, 2018

Two civilians, an adult male and an adult female, were also killed. Authorities are waiting for family members to be notified before releasing their names.

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The circumstances of the shooting were unclear and authorities declined to provide further details at a press conference Friday afternoon. The investigation is ongoing.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a statement on the shooting, praising first responders and mourning the slain officers in Fredericton.

"There is no greater gesture than to put oneself in harms way to protect the life of another," Trudeau said. "This morning, first responders rushed to the scene of danger. They did not think twice about what they had to do to keep their fellow Canadians safe. They were unflinching in their duty. We will not forget the two fallen police officers whose sacrifice no doubt saved lives and prevented even greater tragedy."
Thousands of people in California have been evacuated and face uncertainty as wildfires rage through the state.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, or CAL FIRE, reports that over 620,000 acres of land have been scorched by fast-moving wildfires this calendar year as emergency crews work to contain and extinguish the blazes. As of this writing, CAL FIRE s fire map shows there are 15 active fires in California.

According to the Mercury News in San Jose, a few that continue are now pushing historic numbers. The Holy Fire in Cleveland National Forest was sparked on August 6 and is now at 21,473 acres and 29% contained, prompting California Governor Jerry Brown to most recently declare a state of emergency in Orange and Riverside counties earlier last week. The Carr Fire in Northern California, which has killed eight people and destroyed over 1,000 homes, is 55% contained since starting late last month and spans 186,416 acres. The Mendocino Complex Fire, which has been ongoing for 2 weeks and is now considered the largest wildfire in California state history, is 58% contained at 276,306 acres.

Due to the destruction and displacement caused by the fires, donations are widely welcome and necessary for everything from evacuation, housing, food, transportation, and medical costs. For those looking to help affected Californians, there are a number of ways to get involved with various organizations and campaigns across the state.

Donate To Regional Organizations & Fundraisers

GoFundMe has hundreds of fundraisers posted by people impacted by the fire; the site has curated lists of verified campaigns to help those affected in the Carr Fire, the Mendocino Complex Fire, and the Holy Fire, as well as campaigns posted from throughout Southern California.

The Salvation Armys Northern and Southern California branches are accepting monetary donations, all of which they say will go directly to relief efforts. The organization has deployed disaster response crews to assist displaced individuals and emergency responders with food and shelter.

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The Wildland Firefighter Association and Firefighters Charitable Foundation are fundraising to support medical costs for firefighters working to put out the wildfires, along with gathering donations for families of first responders killed on the front lines.

Hundreds of American Red Cross workers have set up temporary shelters and food sites across the state, especially in Northern California, and have so far sheltered thousands of displaced individuals. Red Cross donors can specifically request their donation goes towards California wildfire relief efforts.

CNN's Impact Your World connects people to donate to different local aid organizations, including Community Foundation Sonoma County (which funds Sonoma County charities), Convoy of Hope (which supports the local homeless population), and Operation BBQ Relief (which brings food to displaced communities).

The United Way of Northern California and The Shasta Regional Community Foundation have established fire relief funds in Shasta County. United Way accepts donations via web and by texting CARRFIRE to 91999, which will reply with options for giving. The SRCF reminds donors that donations to them and other nonprofit organizations are tax-deductible to the fullest extent allowed by law.

Volunteer With Local Relief Efforts

The state of Californias California Volunteers initiative has compiled a list of on-the-ground volunteering and donation opportunities for the Carr, Mendocino Complex, Ferguson, and Cranston fires.

The California Community Foundation has curated a list of information and resources, including volunteering opportunities and fundraisers, to help the homeless in Southern California who have been affected by the wildfires. The organization is also working to rebuild homes and offer medical and mental health support in the aftermath of the fires.

Facebook has set up crisis response pages for the Carr, Mendocino Complex, and Holy fires, which curate local news, fundraisers, and calls for supplies and item donations. Users in the area are also able to check in as safe for friends to see.

The Haven Humane Society has evacuated hundreds of pets and strays in the Northern California area, requiring volunteers, donations, and foster homes to help transport, house, and care for local cats and dogs. In Southern California, Los Angeles Animal Service has put out an urgent call for foster homes.

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Ellie Holman and daughter. (Photo: Facebook)

A woman was detained in Dubai for three days with her 4-year-old daughter after drinking a complimentary glass of wine on a flight from London, according to the human rights group Detained in Dubai.

The Guardian reports that Ellie Holman, a 44-year-old dentist originally from Sweden who lives in England with her partner, Gary, and their children, was denied water and made to clean toilets while in custody.

She was arrested on July 13 after an immigration official questioned her about her visa and asked if she had consumed alcohol.

After landing, she was questioned by an immigration official, who said her visa was invalid and she must return to London immediately, the group said.

She said the official was dismissive and rude when she asked if she could buy another visa, and was then questioned about her alcohol, which she admitted to consuming

Holman claims she and her daughter Bibi were initially denied food, water, and access to a toilet while being held in a cell together for three days.

Holman claimed the guards tried to rip out her hair extensions and described the prison as hot and foul-smelling, according to the Guardian. She said the pair were made to sleep on a filthy mattress and she was told to clean toilets and floors.

My little girl had to go to the toilet on the cell floor. I have never heard her cry in the same way as she did in that cell, she said.

British tourists who like even one glass of wine should avoid #Dubai entirely. The case of #EllieHolman shows that one can be arrested for a single glass of wine, jailed and @detainedindubai. Imagine a 5 day holiday turning into months or years. The costs, loss of employment..  Radha Stirling  CEO @detainedindubai (@RadhaStirling) August 10, 2018

When her partner, Gary, found out they had been detained, he left their other children Suri, 9, and Noah, 8, with family and quickly flew from England to Dubai, News.com.au reports.

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Three days later the dentist was taken back to the airport and released on bail, but so far the situation has cost her tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees, expenses, and missed work. She was also told she must stay in Dubai until the case was resolved.

However, perhaps due to heavy coverage of this story in the U.K. press, Holman was told in a telephone call Saturday that she can leave Dubai at any time and will not face any charges. The Dubai government also apologized and said it will pay for the flights home, the Daily Mail reports. The city-state is a popular tourist destination, but public consumption of alcohol is mostly illegal in Dubai, which has strict rules.

Tourists are permitted to drink in licensed restaurants, hotels and bars attached to licensed hotels. However, is unacceptable and punishable to drink in public places. Dubai is incredibly strict about public drunkenness. Being drunk in public can lead to sentences of six months in jail and hefty fines.

British mother jailed in Dubai for drinking wine is FREE to ho home https://t.co/L5zjRBWkOW via @MailOnline #EllieHolman  Radha Stirling  CEO @detainedindubai (@RadhaStirling) August 11, 2018

Holman was with her two older children, who had flown out to Dubai for a visit, when she received the news and said she was ecstatic.

She told the Daily Mail, I cant believe this is over. When I got the call from the government telling me they were dropping the case I was in shock.

I was told to prepare for a long stay in Dubai and a prison sentence. The man on the phone apologized on behalf of the immigration official who put me and Bibi through all of this.

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Mackenzie Mauller bought a mother a cup of coffee, and her thank-you note is going viral. (Photo: Noah Gainy)

A teens sweet offer toward a stressed-out mother at Starbucks has made a surprising impact on both womens lives.

On Tuesday, 19-year-old Mackenzie Mauller of Union Town, Ohio, tweeted, Yesterday I bought coffee for the lady behind me at Starbuckslater in the day I found this [in] my mailbox. Small acts can make a big difference folks, spread some kindness.

Mauller also posted a soon-to-be viral photo of the handwritten note from the woman, whose name is Nicole Clawson, which read, Thank you for the coffee. I rarely go to Starbucks and treat myself but the last couple of months have been a bit of a struggle.

Clawson wrote that her family was experiencing lots of transition: Her father, who had provided daily care for her children, had recently passed away; that morning, her babysitter had called in sick, forcing Clawson to take the day off work; and the mom was soon leaving her job to become a stay-at-home mother, a role she was not emotionally and financially prepared to assume.

Yesterday I bought coffee for the lady behind me at Starbucks.. later in the day I found this is my mailbox. Small acts can make a big difference folks, spread some kindness. pic.twitter.com/awNi4LSGJq  Mackenzie (@mackey2399) August 7, 2018

I cried when I found out you were so sweet to buy my coffee, wrote Clawson, and thrilled to see you pull in a couple houses down from where I live. I felt it necessary for you to know that what you did for me was more than just a coffee. It was something that has turned my whole day around, put tears in my eyes and a smile on my face and I feel so grateful.

That day, Clawson felt guilty while sitting in the drive-through lane of Starbucks. Its been hard because I am no longer providing income, but I decided to buy coffee for myself and breakfast for the kids, the 32-year-old tells Yahoo Lifestyle. An employee at the order window said my coffee had been paid for  I was shocked.

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Nicole Clawsons thank-you note to a teen who bought her coffee is making people happy. (Photo: Courtesy of Nicole Clawson)

On the way home, Clawson found herself trailing the car driven by the stranger, who eventually pulled into a driveway across the street and a few houses down from Clawsons home. I thought to myself, How often do people pay it forward and learn the impact of their actions? she says. So, she and her children, ages 3 and 6, wrote a thank-you note and slipped it into Maullers mailbox.

Mauller, an aspiring pilot who is studying flight technology at Kent State University, says she can relate to Clawson. Strangers have bought me coffee in the past, and I always wished I could have thanked them, she tells Yahoo Lifestyle, adding that she nearly cried when she read Clawsons note.

So that evening, Mauller went door-to-door in search of Clawson, and when the women met in person, they hugged. Mauller says strangers on Twitter have sent her $150, which she spent on a Starbucks card for Clawson (Im giving it to her tonight), and shes offered her babysitting services.

Mauller has exemplified selflessness for Clawsons children. Now my kids want to pay it forward, she says. Mackenzie makes me proud as a mom.

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Orlando Sentinel

As a volunteer at Sand Lake Elementary where her two children attend school, Victoria Triece has spent hours helping organize class parties and assist in lab assignments in her older sons classroom, something she said she wanted to do ever since she became a mom. I always wanted to be involved in that aspect of life, Triece said. My mother did it for me and having her there was the best ...
There are 559 migrant children who have not been reunited with their parents after they were separated from their families at the U.S.-Mexico border earlier this year, according to a new court filing from the Trump Administration.

Of the 2,511 separated children, 1,569 were reunited with their parents who are in the custody of U.S. Immigration of Customs Enforcement. The Trump Administration said 386 children had not been reunited because their parents were outside the U.S. There have been previous instances of parents being deported without their children.

For 163 children, parents said they did not want to be reunited, though government attorneys note that a significant number of those parents are outside the country.

The documents were filed as part of an order by U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw, who gave the Trump Administration a deadline a 30-day deadline to reunite families. That deadline expired on July 26. MSNBC correspondent Jacob Soboroff first obtained the documents and posted them on Twitter Thursday night.

BREAKING: Trump administration says of 2,551 migrant kids 559 *still* separated from parents.



386 have parents *already* deported.



They've heard from parents of 299 in last week.



They don't have info *at all* for parents of 26.



They still haven't filed a plan to reunite any. pic.twitter.com/UBH0wJcLbn  Jacob Soboroff (@jacobsoboroff) August 9, 2018

These are the remaining children separated from their families at the border as a result of the Trump Administrations zero tolerance immigration policy. The policy sparked a major uproar and resulted in President Donald Trump reversing the order.
Airbnb has canceled its contest that would have offered a luxurious night at the Great Wall of China after an outcry in the country about preserving the historic site.

We have made the decision to not move forward with this event and instead we are working on a range of other experiences and initiatives that showcase China as a destination and highlight how people-to-people travel can drive human connections, the short-term rental company said in a Tuesday statement.

The Cultural Affairs Commission of Beijings Yanqing District said Tuesday it did not support the Airbnb contest and it did not receive the proper documentation to review it. The commission also said the contest was not aligned with its mission to preserve the Great Wall.

In 2006, China implemented a law regulating conservation of the Great Wall. The policy forbids fixing any establishment, fixtures, or equipment irrelevant to the Great Wall protection. However, tourists are allowed to camp during treks along the wall.

As a part of its contest, Airbnb offered a stay in a watchtower on the Great Wall, as well as a sunset dinner, a sunrise hike, a concert and a calligraphy experience to promote China as a travel destination.

Airbnb was working with Beijing Badaling Tourism Company on the promotion, according to The Star.

A popular tourist destination, the Great Wall is more than 13,000 miles long and is located in northern China. It was designated one of the the New Seven Wonders of the World and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Users on the Chinese social media platform Weibo voiced concern that the contest would harm the Great Wall.

(Photo: Weibo)

(Photo: Weibo)

Yong Chen, a history professor at University of California, Irvine, also disagreed with the Airbnb contest.

This is an ill-conceived and culturally insensitive idea, Chen said.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Airbnb said it is prepared to ban users who participate in the white supremacist Unite the Right 2 rally in Washington, D.C., this weekend, for violating its community policies.

Last year the company canceled accounts and bookings associated with the original rally in Charlottesville, Virginia. One person, Heather Heyer, was killed there when a driver rammed his vehicle into a group of counterprotesters.

Airbnb cites its community commitment and nondiscrimination policy as grounds for shuttering those accounts. Company spokesman Nick Papas told HuffPost in a statement that it would identify individuals pursuing behavior on the Airbnb platform that would be antithetical to the Airbnb Community Commitment.

We seek to take appropriate action, which may include removing them from the platform, he said. We acted in advance of last years horrific event in Charlottesville and if we become aware of similar information we wont hesitate to do so again.

Airbnb didnt disclose how many bookings or accounts were canceled last year, but Unite the Right organizer Jason Kessler told The New York Times that hundreds of people have been put out of their accommodations. He tweeted that the company and the Charlottesville government were attacking free speech and civil rights.

Washington is bracing itself for the white supremacist rally on Sunday. About 400 supporters of last years rally and about 1,500 counterprotesters are expected, according to The Washington Post. D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said the goal is to keep the groups separate.

Charlottesville declared a state of emergency this week to unlock funds to provide for a heavy police presence to deter any violence over the weekend.

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Also on HuffPost

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Harry J. Kazianis

Security, Asia

What if he had listened to other voices who were whispering into his ear  people like Donald Rumsfeld, for example, who were pushing for a tougher line on Beijing?

America vs. China: What if Bush Had Stood Firm During the EP-3 Crisis in 2001?

Sadly, in the final analysis, a tougher line would have done little to stop the one event that would turn Americas eye away from Asia for almost a decade. Still, one wonders what could have been if Bush had pushed back harder, and at least set a marker that a belligerent and defiant Beijing would not be treated as a responsible stakeholder. China would have had at least some reason to think twice, over the last several years, in its march to re-order the status-quo in Asia in its favor.

What if? The never-ending question foreign policy practitioners here in Washington love to ask. And it seems like these days we have many reasons to be asking it, given the sheer amount of anniversaries weve been looking back on just in the last few months, not to mention the momentous events in our own time. Some examples: What if the Soviet Union never fell? What if Japan never attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor? What if Donald Trump had lost the election? The list can go for miles without end.

(This first appeared in late 2016.)

But there is one what-if that has been stuck in my craw for the last few weeks: What if President George W. Bush had acted much tougher in his response during the EP-3 Crisis of 2001? What if he had listened to other voices who were whispering into his ear  people like Donald Rumsfeld, for example, who were pushing for a tougher line on Beijing?

In light of what can be only be charitably described as Chinese adventurism in the East and South China Seas, and renewed pressure on Taiwan in recent years, it is worth exploring if a tough stand early enough during the period of Chinas so-called peaceful rise would have made any difference.

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The Incident:

On April 1, 2001, a US EP-3 surveillance plane cruising 70 miles off the coast of China was carrying out what Washington considered to be routine intelligence gathering. However, China had made it well known it considered such flights, in what is international airspace, anything but routine  rather, it viewed them as a violation of the countrys sovereignty, a stance held by Beijing to this day. Forty-four flights had already been intercepted that year, but this time things would turn tragic.

While both sides finger the other as the guilty party, most in the US intelligence and defense communities argue that a Chinese pilot simply ventured too close in his intercept and flew into one of the EP-3s propellers. Tragically, the Chinese plane crashed into the sea, costing the pilot his life. The American surveillance aircraft, badly damaged, had to make an emergency landing. The only place that could conceivably work: Hainan Islandin China.

The Initial Response:

It seems the first instinct for Bush  and I would argue it would have been the correct one  was to take a stand against such an aggressive intercept. Of course, China has the right to follow American intelligence aircraft in international airspace; however, it has no legal grounds to expect Washington to avoid areas around China. Even during the Cold War, Soviet intelligence operations by land and sea would get as close as international law allowed to the United States.

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As Bush explained in a statement:

We have been in contact with the Chinese government about this incident since Saturday night. From our own information, we know that the United States naval plane landed safely. Our embassy in Beijing has been told by the Chinese government that all 24 crew members are safe.

Our priorities are the prompt and safe return of the crew, and the return of the aircraft without further damaging or tampering. The first step should be immediate access by our embassy personnel to our crew members. I am troubled by the lack of a timely Chinese response to our request for this access.

Our embassy officials are on the ground and prepared to visit the crew and aircraft as soon as the Chinese government allows them to do so. And I call on the Chinese government to grant this access promptly.

Failure of the Chinese government to react promptly to our request is inconsistent with standard diplomatic practice, and with the expressed desire of both our countries for better relations

Unfortunately, Bush would not hold to what seemed, at least, like an initial tough stance. He authorized his foreign policy team, specifically Secretary of State Colin Powell, to find a compromise solution. The end result is what is rather oddly referred to as the letter of two sorries. A strongly worded and almost disorganized statement of remorse, the letter attempted to express regret over the death of the Chinese pilot and the EP-3 entering Chinese airspace without clearance. China did not have to reciprocate any sadness or remorse over the incident and offered no such letter in return to America.

Even after Washington offered its apology, Beijing still wanted more. The Bush Administration would have to wait months to get the plane back, and when it was returned it was completely disassembled  no doubt taken apart and mined for any and all secrets Beijing could lift from it. America even had to pay to have it shipped back. Additionally, Washington agreed to also pay for the food and lodgings of the airmen: US$34,000 in total.

What Could Have Been Done Differently?

To be fair to the Bush Administration, there are no easy choices in such a tragedy. Pushing too far could risk making China an enemy and undoing years of hard work at bettering political as well as soon-to-be critical economic ties.

Still, it is worth exploring what could have been a very feasible option offered by then US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. As he explained in his recent autobiography, he suggested a different approach: When the President asked me what I thought, I said I did not favor an apology or suspending our reconnaissance flights. The Chinese knew they were in the wrong. Capitulating to their threats and feigned outrage could embolden Chinas military and political leaders to commit still more provocative acts. I did not believe that America would benefit from being seen as a weak supplicant. Moreover, I thought that there should be some kind of clear penalty for Chinas dangerous behavior.

So what other options could Bush have considered?

He could have tied the release of the crew and plane to what  at the time  was a yearly mini-battle over the renewal of normal trade status for China. Simply stated: no plane, no crew, no normal trade.

Bush could have also pushed for a joint statement, with both parties expressing mutual regret, so that no one side lost face. But Americas apology, which Chinese media hailed as a victory, created an impression that Washington would back down in a crisis, that it was afraid of damaging ties, and its arguable that this set a dangerous precedent for the future. In fact, in the intervening years since the tragedy, many Chinese scholars and retired military officials have pinpointed the incident, stating clearly that America would not challenge Beijing in a crisis, especially as Chinas power has increased over time. As one retired PLA officer told me just recently: You backed down in 2001 when the stakes were quite high  when we had your airmen. We have every reason to believe you will do it again when times get tough.

The Limiting Factor: The 9/11 Attacks:

Even if Bush had pushed for a harder line in responding to the crisis, there is one limiting factor making the utility of such a pushback against China short-lived: the events of 9/11. As Frank Ching explained several years ago in The Diplomat:

on the morning of September 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four airliners and crashed them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC.

From this perspective, bin Ladens attack on the United States was a heaven-sent opportunity for China, one that was quickly grasped by Jiang. The Chinese leader immediately offered his sympathies and support to Bush, following up with a telephone call.

The US President quickly grasped the hand of friendship extended by China, marking a dramatic turning point in the US-China relationship. Indeed, the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States radically altered the Bush administrations entire world view.

With the United States already under attack, the Bush administrations attention was no longer focused on China as the next enemy. Instead, it redirected its attention to radical Islam and al-Qaedas operations around the world. The fact is, its not going too far to say that China owes a huge debt of gratitude to Osama bin Laden

Sadly, in the final analysis, a tougher line would have done little to stop the one event that would turn Americas eye away from Asia for almost a decade. Still, one wonders what could have been if Bush had pushed back harder, and at least set a marker that a belligerent and defiant Beijing would not be treated as a responsible stakeholder. China would have had at least some reason to think twice, over the last several years, in its march to re-order the status-quo in Asia in its favor.

Harry J. Kazianis is Director of Defense Studies at the Center for the National Interest.

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The staff of the AMC Walking Dead wrap-up show, Talking Dead, will be a little smaller when it airs Sunday night.

The Wrap is reporting that several staffers, including one executive producer, have left the show because of AMCs decision to allow host Chris Hardwick back on the network.

AMC has not yet commented about the departures.

AMC put Hardwicks gigs on hold in June after his ex-girlfriend Chloe Dykstra said in a June Medium post that he had sexually assaulted her numerous times while they were dating.

Hardwick denied any abuse took place but said the relationship wasnt perfect.

Other sources told The Wrap that Hardwick could be demanding and temperamental.

AMC decided to bring Hardwick back after investigating Dykstras claims with the help of a law firm.

Following a comprehensive assessment by AMC, working with Ivy Kagan Bierman of the firm Loeb & Loeb, who has considerable experience in this area, Chris Hardwick will return to AMC as the host of Talking Dead and Talking with Chris Hardwick, the company stated Wednesday via The Hollywood Reporter. We take these matters very seriously and given the information available to us after a very careful review, including interviews with numerous individuals, we believe returning Chris to work is the appropriate step.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Rome (AFP) - Two French groups operating the rescue ship Aquarius said Saturday it was back in Libyan coastal waters for the first time since triggering a diplomatic row over migration in June.

The Aquarius picked up 141 people on Friday in two separate operations, SOS Mediterranee and Doctors Without Borders said on Twitter.

The Aquarius "remains in the search and rescue zone, and on the lookout for any other craft in distress".

The group's announcement marks a return to the sea after a diplomatic spat that began in June when the Aquarius, having picked up 630 stranded migrants including children and pregnant women, was refused access to dock in Malta and Italy.

Italy's far-right Interior Minister Matteo Salvini later threatened to turn away any migrant rescue boats, sparking a fresh row among the EU's 28 members over how to handle the influx of people fleeing war and poverty.

After the ship was stranded at sea for days, the new Socialist Spanish government offered to let it land at Valencia, where its passengers disembarked later in June.

Salvini said in a radio interview Saturday that the Aquarius "would never see an Italian port".

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte, meanwhile, in a Facebook video, highlighted the sharp decrease in the number of migrants arriving in Italy in his government's first two months in power.

This "without ever losing sight of the protection of the rights of refugees and asylum-seekers and the guarantee of a dignified welcome", he said.

In one of Friday's operations the Aquarius took on board 116 people, including 67 unaccompanied minors, mostly from Somalia and Eritrea.

Their wooden boat was overloaded and carried neither water nor food when it was spotted about 24 nautical miles off the Libyan coast, north of Abu Kammash.

Earlier Friday, the vessel had already rescued 25 migrants who were travelling in a small wooden craft, also off the Libyan coast, north of Zouara.

The Italian coastguard, meanwhile, announced that it had intercepted a boat from Turkey carrying 61 Pakistani men on Thursday night.

On their arrival in Sicily, the men said they had each paid 5,000 euros to make the journey. Two Georgian nationals are believed to have organised their passage.
Tel Aviv (AFP) - Tens of thousands of Arab Israelis and their supporters chanted against "apartheid" and for "equality" on Saturday in central Tel Aviv at a rally protesting a law that declares Israel the nation state of the Jewish people.

Israeli Jews also joined the demonstration, the second since last Saturday, when thousands from Israel's Druze minority took to the streets in Tel Aviv to denounce the law they say makes them second-class citizens, AFP reporters said.

Protesters waved Palestinian and Israeli flags at the rally, which Israeli state television said drew a crowd of more than 30,000 people.

Several clauses contained in the law that passed last month are sources of concern, especially since the text is part of Israel's so-called basic laws -- a de facto constitution.

It makes no mention of equality or democracy, implying that Israel's Jewish nature takes precedence -- something for which Israel's far-right religious nationalist politicians have long advocated.

One section refers to Israel as the historic homeland of the Jews and says they have a "unique" right to self-determination there.

Others define the establishment of Jewish communities as in the national interest and make Hebrew the sole official language, downgrading Arabic to special status.

Israeli Arabs, the descendants of Palestinians who remained on their land when Israel was created in 1948, make up around 17.5 percent of the Israeli population.

They are concerned the new law could allow for open discrimination against them in everything from housing to budgeting and land allocation.

Members of Israel's 130,000-strong Druze community -- who serve in the police and military -- have been among those strongly denouncing the legislation.

- 'Apartheid regime' -

At Saturday's rally, protesters accused the Israeli government of being an "apartheid regime", shouting in Hebrew and in Arabic, "equality, equality" and "apartheid will not pass", AFP reporters said.

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The rally was organised by groups representing the Arab Israeli minority, while the one that took place last Saturday had been organised by the Druze.

Yael Valia, a 45-year-old woman who works for a start-up, waved an Israeli flag and described herself as a "Zionist", adding that "this is why we must guarantee equality for all the citizens of this country".

Next to her, an Arab Israeli psychologist and mother of two, Watan Dahleh, carried one of her children on her back and held the hand of the other.

She said she brought them to the rally "because their future is at stake".

Members of the Druze community also took part in Saturday's rally.

At least five court challenges have been filed against the nation-state law, and it will now be up to judges to decide whether to limit its interpretation.

"It is a racist law that reminds us of what happened in South Africa during apartheid," said Mohammed Barake, who heads an Arab Israeli committee that filed one of the five court challenges

Amos Shoken, publisher of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, was also present at the rally and urged Arab Israelis "not to despair" and to continue to mobilise against the controversial law.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, however, has remained defiant.

"The state of Israel is the national state of the Jewish people. Israel is a Jewish and democratic state. Individual rights are anchored in many laws," Netanyahu said Sunday.

"Nobody has harmed -- and nobody intends to harm -- these individual rights but without the Nation-State Law it will be impossible to ensure for (future) generations the future of Israel as a Jewish national state," he said.
By Anthony Boadle BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil complained on Thursday that Venezuela was doing nothing to stop the spread of an outbreak of measles in Brazil and other neighboring countries that has been sparked by an exodus of Venezuelans fleeing economic collapse. Since February, four people - three of them Venezuelan - have died of measles in the remote Brazilian border state of Roraima where health authorities have confirmed 281 cases of the disease, mostly among children. The outbreak has prompted the Brazilian government to launch a nationwide campaign to vaccinate 11 million children, plus adults who request it. Although many Brazilian children are already vaccinated against the disease, the vaccination rate has dropped since Brazil was declared free of measles in 2016. Brazil's Health Minister Gilberto Occhi said Venezuela had ignored Brazilian offers of assistance and vaccines and had not replied to requests for information to assess the extent of the epidemic. "We need to know what Venezuela's policy is and what it has done to vaccinate its population, and so do other countries," Occhi said in a conference call with foreign media. The Venezuelan Information Ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Occhi said Brazil was considering vaccinating all Venezuelans entering the country - some 2,000 people a day, with around half of those in transit or on a short-term visit. Currently only those that ask to stay as refugees or residents are vaccinated. Brazil, along with Colombia and other neighbors, has been discussing the need for Venezuela to provide up-to-date information with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), an official said. "All we have is preliminary data from 2017. They are not updating the information and we can't see the magnitude of the problem," said Carla Domingues, head of Brazil's immunization program. PAHO said last month that nearly 2,500 confirmed cases of measles had been reported in the Americas in 2018, with over 1,600 of those occurring in Venezuela and nearly 700 in Brazil. Since Venezuelans fleeing economic and political turmoil started entering Roraima at the only land crossing three years ago, Brazil has vaccinated 45,000 arrivals. A decree by Roraima state government ordering the compulsory blanket vaccination of Venezuelans was struck down by the Supreme Court this week. Measles vaccination in Brazil fell to around 70 percent coverage in 2017, a ministry official said. (Reporting by Anthony Boadle, Additional reporting by Brian Ellsworth in Caracas, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)
Brasilia (AFP) - Brazil's government is contesting a court suspension of licenses for products with glyphosate, one of the most common industrial weedkillers and the subject of a high-profile US case against agrochemical colossus Monsanto.

A federal judge in the capital Brasilia last week ruled that "licenses for all products" with the chemical must be suspended within 30 days. Also in the ban are the chemicals thiram and abamectin.

The suspension is to continue until the government sanitary agency completes a "toxicological reevaluation," the ruling said.

Brazil's government promises to appeal, given the importance of glyphosate to Brazil's huge agriculture industry, the world's biggest exporter of soya.

"The whole direct planting system is based on glyphosate," Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi told Valor financial daily on Thursday.

Anvisa, the Brazilian sanitary authority, told AFP it had "not been notified" of the court ruling.

The row comes as a California jury is considering a case alleging that Monsanto has failed to warn about the alleged cancer risks from a glyphosate-based product called Roundup.

"As with all weedkillers, glyphosate is routinely reviewed by the regulatory authorities so that it can be used safely," Monsanto said in a statement in Brazil.

German-based Bayer, which recently acquired Monsanto in a deal valued at about $62 billion, told AFP it had called on the Brazilian government "to take the necessary measures to cancel this (court) decision."
Judge Brett Kavanaughs Supreme Court nomination hearings will begin September 4, Senator Chuck Grassley announced Friday.

Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he expects the hearings to last a maximum of four days. Opening statements will take place on September 4, and the Senators will begin questioning Kavanaugh the following day. After the questioning, there will be testimony from close associates of Kavanaugh as well as legal experts and the American Bar Association.

As I said after his nomination, Judge Kavanaugh is one of the most respected jurists in the country and one of the most qualified nominees ever to be considered by the Senate for a seat on our highest court, Grassley said in a statement. Hes a mainstream judge. He has a record of judicial independence and applying the law as it is written. Hes met with dozens of senators who have nothing but positive things to say.

Republicans want to confirm Kavanaugh before the Supreme Court starts its new term in October. But the timeline, as well as Kavanaughs confirmation has been a source of partisan infighting in the Senate since President Donald Trump nominated him last month. Senate Democrats have railed against the process of releasing Kavanaughs documents, arguing that they should be privy to documents from Kavanaughs tenure as staff secretary in the Bush Administration. Republicans did not request those documents, arguing they were irrelevant to his nomination, but did ask for documents from Kavanaughs time in the White House counsel.

Leading Democrats in the Senate immediately questioned Republicans motives for the timing of the confirmation hearing.

Republicans mad rush to hold this hearing after unilaterally deciding to block nearly all of Judge Kavanaughs records from public release is further evidence that they are hiding important information from the American people, and continues to raise the question, What are they hiding? Schumer said in a statement. Republican efforts to make this the least transparent, most secretive Supreme Court nomination in history continue. They seem to be more frightened of this nominees record and history than any weve ever considered.

Story continues

Scheduling a hearing in early September, while more than 99 percent of Kavanaughs records are still unavailable, is not only unprecedented but a new low in Republican efforts to stack the courts, said California Senator Dianne Feinstein, the ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

But Grassley noted in his announcement that his team has reviewed thousands of pages of Kavanaughs judicial opinions and records from the White House legal service, and the timeline still provides room for review of additional documents. At this current pace, we have plenty of time to review the rest of emails and other records that we will receive from President Bush and the National Archives. Its time for the American people to hear directly from Judge Kavanaugh at his public hearing, Grassley said in his statement announcing the hearing. And White House spokesman Raj Shah noted that the Senate had reviewed More documents than for any other Supreme Court nominee in history.



Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director for the Judicial Crisis Network, which has already launched ads in support of Kavanaughs confirmation, said the Democrats anger was just their attempt to stall the nomination.

Chuck Schumers known how he was voting on Kavanaugh before he was nominated, Severino told TIME. Hes not trying to find out useful information. He just wants to extend is fishing expedition.
By Makini Brice

(Reuters) - The estranged son of a northern California city police chief was formally charged on Friday with attempted robbery and abuse of a 71-year-old Sikh man who was beaten and spat upon in an unprovoked attack caught on video, prosecutors said.

Tyrone McAllister, 18, whose parents assisted police in tracking him down following Monday's attack in the town of Manteca, about 75 miles east of San Francisco, was arraigned in San Joaquin County Superior Court and ordered held on $300,000 bond.

Court records show a public defender was appointed to represent McAllister, and he was scheduled to return to court on Aug. 17. No plea was entered.

A second suspect, identified by authorities only as a 16-year-old boy, was also arrested and charged as a juvenile, but the status of his case was not immediately known.

A video of the attack, which occurred in a park and was recorded by a security camera on a nearby house, was posted online by municipal authorities.

It showed the two assailants confronting the victim, who was wearing a turban and walking alone on a sidewalk. The pair are seeking kicking the man and knocking him to the ground, before robbing him and spitting on him.

Following McAllister's arrest on Wednesday, the police department of Union City, just outside San Francisco, posted a an open letter on its Facebook page from its chief, Darryl McAllister, acknowledging that his son had been arrested in the attack.

"Words can barely describe how embarrassed, dejected, and hurt my wife, daughters, and I feel right now. Violence and hatred is not what we have taught our children; intolerance for others is not even in our vocabulary, let alone our values," the police chief wrote.

The police chief said he and his wife had helped the Manteca police locate his son, who the elder McAllister said "began to lose his way a couple of years ago while he was a juvenile, running away and getting involved in a bad crowd."

Story continues

While neither suspect was charged with a hate crime, activists say the attack followed a number of beatings of U.S. Sikhs over the past decade.

Groups that track hate crimes say assailants have sometimes mistaken followers of Sikhism, a faith that originated in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, for Muslims, who have also been targeted in hate crimes.

"The behavior we witnessed on the video does not represent who we are as a community," District Attorney Tori Verber Salazar said in a brief videotaped statement of her own that was posted after Friday's arraignment and translated into Punjabi.

(Reporting by Makini Brice in New York; Additional reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles)
Montreal (AFP) - The man behind a fatal shooting in an eastern Canada city has been charged with four counts of first degree murder, police said Saturday.

Authorities identified the gunman as Matthew Vincent Raymond, 48, who opened fire in the sleepy city of Fredericton, New Brunswick early Friday, killing four including two officers.

Raymond, who was injured and hospitalized, was charged with four premeditated homicides, though police did not provide details of his motives.

He will remain in custody as he awaits a court appearance slated for August 27, Fredericton police said in a statement.

Fredericton Police Chief Leanne Fitch said Raymond was hospitalized in a "serious but stable" condition.

Law enforcement officials released the names of the two civilians slain in the shooting: Donald Adam Robichaud, 42, and Bobbie Lee Wright, 32.

On Friday authorities in the provincial capital -- about 75 kilometers (45 miles) from the border between Canada and the US state of Maine -- had identified the two officers killed as Lawrence Robert Costello, 45, and Sara Mae Helen Burns, 43.

Police said the man used a rifle and fired from the third floor of a small building in a residential area of the city, which has some 60,000 residents.

Fitch said police "have nothing to indicate that police were targeted" in the shooting, and that when they responded to reports of shots fired the two citizens were already fatally wounded.

The incident sparked panic in the city as Canada grapples with rising gun violence, with some calling for a handgun ban.

The mass shooting is the second in the province in recent years, and comes only weeks after a man opened fire on July 22 in a bustling Toronto district, killing an 18-year-old woman and a 10-year-old girl while wounding 13 other people.

In 2014, three federal police officers were killed and two more were injured after responding to an emergency call about an armed man roaming a residential neighborhood of nearby Moncton, New Brunswick.

A 28-hour manhunt ensued before police caught up to the suspect and arrested him, in what was described as the second-deadliest attack on Canadian police since four Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers were ambushed on a Mayerthorpe, Alberta farm in 2005.
Four people including two police officers have been shot dead in the Canadian city of Fredericton.

One suspect has been arrested over the gun attack in New Brunswick province following a manhunt during which residents were told to remain in their homes and lock their doors.

The countrys prime minister, Justin Trudeau, paid tribute to the victims of Friday mornings shooting. No further details of those killed have been released.

Witnesses said they had heard gunshots shortly after 7am (10am GMT). A journalist at the scene reported hearing four gunshots more than an hour later.

Fredericton Police tweeted that the shooting incident active at 9am local time (noon GMT.)

The force told people to avoid the area of Brookside Drive between Main and Ring Road, a mainly residential area.

Local media reported that an armoured police vehicle was on the scene and officers were evacuating people from the area.

The public is asked to avoid the area and stay in their homes with doors locked at this time for their safety, police tweeted.

At this time, we can confirm multiple fatalities. The incident is ongoing. More information will be available when we can.

Thank you for your patience as we continue to work at this active incident.

Police urged people not to use social media to report on the location of officers.

David MacCoubrey, who lives in Brookside Drive, said he awoke at 7am to the sound of gunshots close to his home.

He said heard about 20 shots in total and hid on his kitchen floor.

Mr MacCoubrey said it sounded as though the gunfire was coming from within his apartment complex, comprised of four buildings in a square.

Police later searched the complex, including his flat.

Fredericton Police said at 9.45am local time (12.45pm GMT) that one suspect was in custody. They gave no further details and did not say where the shooting took place.

Police continue to have the Brookside area contained for the foreseeable future as the investigation is ongoing. Please continue to avoid the area, the force tweeted.

Story continues

Awful news coming out of Fredericton, Mr Trudeau said on Twitter. My heart goes out to everyone affected by this mornings shooting. Wee following the situation closely.

Fredericton, a city with a population of about 58,000, is the capital of New Brunswick in eastern Canada.

In 2014, three Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers were killed another two wounded in a mass shooting in the New Brunswick city of Moncton.

At the time, the gun attack was one of the worst of its kind in Canada, where gun laws are stricter than in the United States and deadly attacks on police are rare. But a proliferation of weapons has led to an increase in gun crimes in recent years.

On Thursday, Ontario pledged more money for police and vowed to keep suspects behind bars while they await trial on gun crimes charges as the Canadian province grapples with rising shootings.
At least four people, including two police officers have been killed in a shooting in the eastern Canadian city of Fredericton, with one person having taken into custody.

Police in Fredericton, a city of about 56,000 that is the capital of the province of New Brunswick, have a 48-year-old suspect in custody.

Fredericton's deputy police chief Martin Gaudet said the two the officers saw two deceased civilians before being shot and killed themselves. Police chief Leanne Fitch identified the two officers as Sara Burns, 43 and Robb Costello, 45. Ms Burns was married and had three children, and Mr Costello had a partner and four children.

The two other victims are yet to be identified.

"Awful news coming out of Fredericton," Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Twitter. "My heart goes out to everyone affected by this morning's shooting. We're following the situation closely."

Three Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers were killed and two more were wounded in 2014 in Moncton, New Brunswick, about 195 km (121 miles) from Fredericton, in one of the worst incidents of its kind in Canada.

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A Kansas woman didnt think she would see her cats ever again after her home exploded but when a bulldozer came through the wreckage three days later, both Mr. Tibbs and Kunimitsu were found alive and well.

Ashley Nadeau of Topeka lost her house last month in an explosion. A thunderstorm had knocked trees and power lines into their home, and when they lost power and began to smell a strong odor, they evacuated.

Not even an hour later, the house was consumed in a blast.

They lost all their belongings, and fearing for the worst, Nadeau assumed their cats, Mr. Tibbs and Kunimitsu, also didnt escape the explosion.

Nadeau had all but given up hope when the fire department called her weeks later, saying they found Kunimitsu hiding in a pipe as the bulldozer arrived to level the wreckage. While a little shaken, authorities said Kunimitsu was fine and they had taken her to the veterinarian.

She was looking freaked out, Nadeau told InsideEdition.com. She was covered in dirt. I could barely recognize her at first.

Initial blood tests confirmed most of her wounds were superficial and Kunimitsu is expected to make a full recovery.

Regaining hope, Nadeau enlisted a friend to do one last sweep of what was left of her bulldozed home to see if they could track down Mr. Tibbs, calling his name into the rubble.

I heard him meowing, she said. It took me and my friend Melissa probably an hour or two to dig him out  we had to balance on a lot of debris.

Except for singed ears, Mr. Tibbs was also declared to be in good condition and expected to make a full recovery.

My daughters father, Nathan, came and got my dogs before the explosion too, so we are all so lucky to be alive, Nadeau said.

The family is now living in a hotel as insurance companies assess the damages.

To support the family, visit their GoFundMe page.

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CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va.  On Aug. 12 of last year, after the murder of Heather Heyer, word went around the city that an evening vigil would be held in McGuffey Park, which throughout the day had served as a staging area for counterprotesters.

As the Unite the Right rally unfolded nearby and then dispersed through the city, McGuffey Park felt like a resistance camp at the end of the world, in the words of two University of Virginia law school students. Local clergy and volunteers assisted the counterprotesters of various stripes as they grouped and regrouped in the morning and into the afternoon. And in the hours after Heyer was killed by a neo-Nazi driving a car into counterprotesters, it was a place of respite. Around 5:30 that afternoon, valedictions to a disheartening day were delivered in a corner of the park. People formed a circle, and one by one they dropped a flower in the center.

McGuffey Park was chosen because it was not contested ground, not like nearby Emancipation Park. The latter was the site of the Robert E. Lee statue around which the Unite the Right rally was organized. It used to be called Lee Park before it was Emancipation Park, and today its known as Market Street Park.

A vigil is held in Charlottesville's McGuffey Park for the victim killed by a car following the Unite the Right rally on Aug. 12, 2017. (Photo: Evelyn Hockstein / The Washington Post via Getty Images)

But there were no such fights over McGuffey Park, which is named for William Holmes McGuffey, the 19th-century scholar and educator known for the namesake schoolbooks he edited. On this, a civic consensus has reigned, unchallenged: Unlike the lingering tokens of the Confederacy, William McGuffey is safe history in Charlottesville.

You can learn a lot about a city from the things its citizens have agreed not to think about.

Charlottesvilles Reckoning

Happiness is a place called Charlottesville, Virginia, a Guardian headline from 2014 reads. A new study has named Thomas Jeffersons hometown the feel-good capital of the U.S., but residents say that just means liberal values and a sense of community.

Who has the privilege to say something like that? Probably the same people who dont bat an eyelash when they see Thomas Jefferson and feel-good in the same sentence. The same people who can pretend that the Nazis and right-wing extremists came to Charlottesville on Aug. 11 and 12, and then left, like some sort of weather event, a tornado that leaves a town broken but fixable. To them, the days before and after the rally were mostly comfortable. This is a beautiful college town with great food and nice people, after all. Liberal values and a sense of community.

Story continues

But for everyone else  especially people of color  this city was never comfortable. Echoes of the Civil War and the Jim Crow era still reverberate off the walls of its slave-built university campus and into downtown. The Ku Klux Klan still marches openly. Theres still tension with the police. Unite the Right merely brought some painful conversations out in the open, where for a weekend the good white liberals of Charlottesville had to grapple with them, and since then activists have taken it upon themselves not to let the good white liberals forget.

White, liberal Charlottesvilles message after Unite the Right was, Were all healing together and moving on. The activists said, No, were going to talk about why the Nazis came here. And they were here because they never left, said local activist and lawyer Pam Starsia.

White nationalists and white supremacists carrying torches march through the University of Virginia campus on Aug. 11, 2017. (Photo: Evelyn Hockstein / The Washington Post via Getty Images)

She and other activists, educators and clergy members met with HuffPost prior to the anniversary of the Unite the Right rally. They wanted to tell a different story about what has really happened over the last year: Charlottesville had a reckoning. It looked in the mirror, saw the white supremacy and racism that has pervaded this town since its founding, and then tried to look away.

If you liked living in Charlottesville before, and you thought the way things were before was good, then you want to go back to the way it was, you want to go back to normal, Starsia said. But Charlottesville was not OK before Unite the Right. People in this city have been fighting white supremacy for centuries. This is just the latest iteration.

Both Sides Of The Civil War

In many ways William McGuffey was a good white liberal of his time. He was mainly known for McGuffeys Readers, grammar-school primers through which, as journalist Ron Powers has noted, the first mass-educated and mass-literate generation in the modern world had come of age. They were used widely throughout American schools from 1840 into the early 1900s. McGuffey approached education as a moralistic adventure, wrote biographer Quentin R. Skrabec. He interweaved morals, religion, and virtues into basic lessons. They promoted patriotism and nationalism through the cult of Washington.

McGuffey came to Charlottesville in 1845, having previously served as president of Ohio University. He was a philosophy professor at the University of Virginia, a Whig in his politics, a liberal squish on the slavery question, a supposed friend to the black community, although his household also enjoyed the butlering services of an enslaved man named William Gibbons. McGuffey was a Unionist during his time in the North, but as a Southern resident, he softened into states rights equivocation. He was consistent, though, in seeing slavery as a failure of moral education, not as a political question, and his description of war-blasted Virginia in 1865 was a lament for this state of things  no matter who is at fault, or whether anybody is to blame. There were very fine people on both sides.

McGuffey is often credited with having kept politics out of education, as if there were anything apolitical about choosing how and what to teach our children. There is certainly nothing apolitical about soft-pedaling the causes and nature of the Civil War.

Although the books included selections that promoted patriotism during the Civil War, Susan Walton reported in Education Week in 1983 at the time of a back-to-McGuffey vogue in American education, they were more likely to speak in general terms of the nobility of fighting for ones fatherland and tactfully omit any mention of what that fatherland was.

There were business reasons for writing the actual moral conflict at the heart of the Civil War out of the story of the war. Editorially, it was in the best interest of the McGuffey Readers to promote rapid national healing, since South and North sales were critical for profitability, Skrabec wrote. One story The Dying Soldiers was actually added to the 1866 edition of the Fourth Reader to make heroes out of soldiers on both sides. Many again felt the Readers overdid it, but making heroes out of both sides was an important contribution of the McGuffey Readers, which was the only text initially covering Northern and Southern school houses.

Healing together, moving on. That was the message. If the neo-Nazis in the park last year were heirs to Robert E. Lee, the good white liberals of Charlottesville, the people who didnt want to think too hard about why the neo-Nazis had come there in the first place, were the heirs to McGuffey.

The White Supremacy On Every Block

In July, Jalane Schmidt, a Black Lives Matter activist and associate professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia, took HuffPost on a quick tour of Charlottesvilles most recognizable monuments. Shes an expert in their history, and she has a personal connection to most of them  because she has stood as a protester during rallies in which those monuments became lightning rods for extremist groups.

Jalane Schmidt, a University of Virginia professor and activist, takes HuffPost on a tour of Charlottesville. (Photo: HuffPost)

Downtown, a few blocks away from Market Street Park, there are two statues on the property of the Albemarle County Courthouse: One is a Confederate soldier. The other is a towering figure of Stonewall Jackson.

The Confederate general is depicted astride his beloved Little Sorrel, and he gazes with some concern in the direction of the Downtown Mall, as if contemplating a flanking maneuver on Urban Outfitters. The statue was unveiled in 1921 to the great satisfaction of the local Ku Klux Klan, who used the courthouse as their living room and recruiting center, hosting well-received meetings on the subject of Americanism and patriotism, according to an essay by Schmidt.

In my opinion, this Jackson statue is the more offensive one  even though its less central than the Lee statue  because its on the courthouse lawn, Schmidt told us. Supposedly the courthouse is where the U.S. Constitution is respected, and its under the rule of law. What if youre a black person approaching the courthouse and youre passing by Stonewall Jackson? You know youre not gonna get justice.

In July 2017, she was here to protest a rally in which some 50 Klan members marched through the streets right to these grounds. Police  as they are wont to do  protected the Klan and targeted counterprotesters, she said.

There was tear gas thrown at us here on the corner of High and Fourth streets, and there were 22 arrests, said Schmidt. Virginia has an anti-masking law which ironically was passed in order to thwart the Klan in the 1920s. Some of the Klansmen had a mask on, and the police very solicitously asked them to remove their masks, and yet, counter-demonstrators ... were arrested and shot in the back with tear-gas canisters.

She took us over to the U.Va. campus, where on Aug. 11 of last year, white supremacists carrying tiki torches marched through Nameless Field and to the Rotunda. That part of campus was built by slaves, who worked behind serpentine walls erected to keep them from being seen or heard by students and staff. Last year, it was swarmed by white extremists, who ended their march at a statue of Jefferson and attacked counterprotesting college students. Schmidt was holed up in St. Pauls Memorial Church across the street, which had gone on lockdown as clergy members worried the neo-Nazi marchers would come for the congregants next.

The white supremacists came here because they wanted to kind of harken back to the legacy of a founder. ... It was a very deliberate nod there, Schmidt said. They shouted their slogan, You will not replace us. They kind of think of themselves as being linked to these white founders, and the rest of us are kind of interlopers.

Even after the disaster of the Unite the Right weekend, racists continued to see Charlottesville as a welcoming venue in which to espouse hate. White supremacist Richard Spencer and some 50 of his compatriots led another short torch rally just two months later. Jason Kessler, the local white supremacist who organized Unite the Right, tried and failed to secure a permit to hold an anniversary rally here.

This Racist Past Is Very Long

Schmidt also took us to Market Street Park, where we met up with 17-year-old Zyahna Bryant, who in 2016, back when the grounds were still known as Lee Park, started the petition to get the Robert E. Lee statue removed and the park renamed.

Her petition read, in part:

Lets not forget that Robert E. Lee fought for perpetual bondage of slaves and the bigotry of the South that kept most black citizens as slaves and servants for the entirety of their lives. As a result, legislatures of the south chose to ignore and turn a blind eye to the injustices of African Americans from Jim Crow and anti-black terrorism to integrated education. These are all some things that this statue stands for. It is about more than just an individual, but rather what that individual believes in and the things that he stands for.

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In 2016, Zyahna Bryant started the petition to get the Robert E. Lee statue removed and Lee Park renamed. (Photo: HuffPost)

It was a plea to the modern McGuffeys of Charlottesville to wake up. In response, racists like Kessler argued that the monuments ethnic significance to Southern white people was under attack. Other locals, Bryant said, were just beginning to see the racism around them.

Originally a lot of people were shocked that I was a high school freshman, 15, starting such a big controversial issue here in Charlottesville, she said. As time went on, we realized that this racist past is very long and theres a very long history of white supremacy here. And I think it really just caused an awakening of a lot of people, community members and activists alike, to kind of take action.

Adjacent to Market Street Park is the Charlottesville First United Methodist Church, which served as yet another safe house during the Aug. 12 rally. There we met with Rev. Phil Woodson, who ushered in those who felt unsafe that day and watched as Nazi flags flew and street battles raged. He said hes always known about the history of Charlottesville, but something changed in him a year ago.

August 12th is a very key point in my own journey of sanctification, he said. I really had my eyes opened to things like white privilege. I am a straight, white male and have benefited from being such my entire life.

Standing outside the church, Woodson said, I have not once ever had to deal with any discrimination based off of my skin color, based off of my gender. So what do I do with this power? I have a responsibility, not only to myself and to my family and to my two children, but also to the community at large. What am I doing that is benefiting others? How am I living out this idea of a servant leader? How do I put others first? All of these are deeply held Christian beliefs that I am attempting to do better every day.

Woodson was looking out over the park. The Lee statue still stands there, surrounded by ugly plastic fences erected to keep vandals and supporters alike away from it. Its fate remains locked in legal battles. A block away is McGuffey Park, empty when we passed by, a monument to silence.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Zachary Keck

Security, Asia

U.S. intelligence expects Chinas first hypersonic missiles to be combat ready around 2020.

China Claims to Have Tested a Cutting-Edge Hypersonic Aircraft that Rides Its Own Shock Waves

China recently tested a new hypersonic vehicle.

China has successfully developed and tested a cutting-edge hypersonic aircraft that rides its own shock waves, the state-run China Daily reported on August 6th.

The test was conducted by China Academy of Aerospace Aerodynamics, part of the contractor China Aerospace Science and Technology Corp, on August 3rd. It appears to be the first test of the Starry Sky 2, a hypersonic experimental waverider vehicle, or at least the first acknowledged one.

A waverider is a hypersonic aircraft that has a wedge-shaped fuselage designed to improve its supersonic lift-to-drag ratio by using the shock waves generated by its own flight as a lifting force, the China Daily article explained.

There are two basic types of hypersonic missiles. The first are called hypersonic glide vehicles (HGVs) and are characterized by being launched into the atmosphere from a rocket and gliding to their targets at low altitudes.

These HGVs typically fly at faster speeds than the second type of hypersonic missiles, called hypersonic cruise missiles (HCMs). As their name suggests, HCMs are cruise missiles that fly at hypersonic speeds. During their entire flight, they are powered by rockets or high-speed jet engines like scramjets.

The waverider is an HGV and is first carried by a solid propellant missile before separating and using its own propulsion system. The independent flight carried about by China lasted four hundred seconds and reached a maximum speed of Mach 5.5 to 6 (4,200 to 4,600 miles an hour).

Chinese media reports said the waverider reached an altitude of 30 kilometers and maneuvered during flight. China Daily added that The vehicle also tested a host of advanced technologies such as a domestically developed heat-balance thermal protection system.

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Boeings X-51A hypersonic vehicle was also a waverider that used a scramjet engine. As Kyle Mizokami pointed out, the state-run Chinese media did not specify the type of engine Starry Sky 2 used.

Notably, this test marked the first time China has confirmed it was developing a waverider. The state-run media said it had been in development for the last three years.

This is hardly Chinas first entry into the budding hypersonic missile race. Between 2014 and 2016, Beijing conducted at least seven tests of the DF-ZF hypersonic glide vehicle. Beijing did at times confirm international reports about these tests but provided few other details.

In October 2017, Chinese state media published photos of a physical hypersonic glider test object for the first time. Two months later, in December 2017, The Diplomats Ankit Panda broke the news that China had tested a new kind of ballistic missile, the DF-17, specifically built to carry HGVs.

The missile is explicitly designed for operational HGV implementation and not as a test bed, a source familiar with U.S. intelligence reports told Panda at the time. The same source noted that this was the first HGV test in the world using a system intended to be fielded operationally.

Its unclear if this most recent test used the DF-17.

U.S. intelligence expects Chinas first hypersonic missiles to be combat ready around 2020.

China, Russia, and the United States are the three countries leading the way in developing hypersonic missiles. One Chinese commentator said that the Starry Sky 2 test showed that China is advancing shoulder to shoulder with the US and Russia.

A 2017 report by the Rand Corporation argued that hypersonic missiles are uniquely destabilizing due to several characteristics.

The first, of course, is their incredible speed, which compresses timelines for adversaries to react as well as reducing the effectiveness of defensive systems.

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Besides speed, hypersonic missiles are also destabilizing because of their altitudes and maneuverability. With regards to the former, HGVs travel at altitudes lower than ballistic missiles while HCMs fly higher than traditional cruise missiles. In both cases, this limits the ability of traditional missile defense systems to shoot them down.

Especially with HGVs, it is the high maneuverability that is the biggest issue. HGVs combine the best characteristics of traditional ballistic and cruise missiles. They fly at the incredible speeds like traditional ballistic missiles but dont follow predictable trajectories. Instead, they are highly maneuverable like cruise missiles.

This allows them to penetrate ballistic missile defense systems. Arguably more important, the Rand Corporation pointed out, maneuverability can potentially provide HGVs the ability to use in-flight updates to attack a different target than originally planned. With the ability to fly at unpredictable trajectories, these missiles will hold extremely large areas at risk throughout much of their flights.

Put differently, adversaries wont be able to determine the actual target of the attack until closer to when the missile hits. Indeed, at a breakfast in Washington, DC on August 10th, General Paul Selva, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that hypersonics gliding over parts of the country could be maneuvered to strike any target in the continental United States.

Zachary Keck (@ZacharyKeck) is a former managing editor of The National Interest.

Read full article
A ban on same-sex marriages in Costa Rica was ordered to be struck down Thursday by the countrys Supreme Court, which declared the law to be unconstitutional and discriminatory.

The court ruling gives lawmakers 18 months to adjust the current law, Agence France-Presse reports.

The verdict is in line with an opinion given seven months ago by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights that said homosexual couples have the same rights as heterosexual ones to marry.

We continue to deploy actions that guarantee no person will face discrimination for their sexual orientation or gender identity, and that the states protection be given to all families under equal conditions, Costa Rican President Carlos Alvarado wrote on Twitter.

Nuestro compromiso con la igualdad plena se mantiene intacto. pic.twitter.com/kRsFDTnfrj  Carlos Alvarado Q. (@CarlosAlvQ) August 9, 2018

Alvarado, a centrist, was elected in April after defeating an evangelical preacher, Fabricio Alvarado, who ran on a platform against same-sex unions.

Costa Rica is a majority Roman Catholic country and a high number of evangelical lawmakers who oppose gay marriage sit on the legislative assembly.

I see it as not very likely that in 18 months the Legislative Assembly will work out a law, said Enrique Sanchez, a lawmaker in President Alvarados Citizen Action Party, according to AFP.

What I see happening is that the norm (the gay-marriage ban) will simply be declared unconstitutional in 18 months time, added Sanchez, who is also the countrys first openly gay member of the legislature.

Magistrate Fernando Castillo said that if the legislature does not change the law within the time frame, the ban will cease to exist and gay marriage will automatically become legal, according to the Associated Press.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Democrats are jumping on a Republican congressman's insider trading indictment to decry a culture of corruption they say President Donald Trump has fostered, a theme they hope will help them seize congressional control in November's elections.

"The brazen corruption, cronyism and incompetence of the Trump Administration is reflected in the conduct of House Republicans," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Thursday in a letter to her Democratic colleagues. She called the GOP-run Congress "a cesspool of self-enrichment, secret money and special interests," and urged Democrats to use their August recess to emphasize that.

Pelosi's statement came a day after Rep. Chris Collins, R-N.Y., was arrested and indicted on securities fraud charges involving his use of inside information about a troubled biotech company. Collins, a stalwart Trump defender and one of his earliest congressional supporters in the 2016 presidential race, has denied wrongdoing.

Hours earlier, a pair of junior Democrats struck the same note in a conference call with reporters.

"The fish rots from the head," said Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md. He said Trump is "the most ethically blind president we've ever seen."

Rep. Cheri Bustos, D-Ill., said Trump, Collins and other Republicans have made the U.S. a country "of the rich, by the powerful and for the lobbyists."

Collins' relationship with Trump  and the indictment's assertion that Collins was on White House grounds when he used insider stock information  proved irresistible to Sarbanes.

The Maryland lawmaker said there was "something poetic" that according to the indictment, Collins was attending the White House Congressional Picnic in June 2017 when he learned the company's drug trials had failed and called his son  a fellow investor who also faces charges  to warn him about it.

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"It's almost as though he walked into an ethics-free zone when he got to the White House that day," Sarbanes said.

Democrats want to taint the GOP with an aura of corruption and portray it as championing the wealthy elite as part of a campaign-season effort to offer themselves as the party of the people. Underscoring that contrast, Sarbanes and Bustos said Democrats were promising legislation aimed at protecting voters from Republican efforts to making registering and voting harder and beefing up ethics laws covering campaign contributions and financial disclosure by office holders.

Democrats would retake House control if they gain 23 seats in November, which many analysts see as an achievable goal. Their chances of gaining a Senate majority are viewed as smaller.

Attacking Republicans over ethics won't be Democrats' main line of campaign attacks. Trump himself motivates hordes of Democratic voters, as was demonstrated in this week's still-undecided special election in an Ohio congressional district that has been safely in GOP hands for decades.

In addition, Democrats view protecting people's health care and defending the right to abortion as appealing arguments in many of the swing suburban districts that will help determine congressional control. Those issues are likely to be brought into sharper focus with the Senate's upcoming battle over Brett Kavanaugh's nomination to the Supreme Court.

Democrats will not have a clear field on the issue of ethics.

Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., is facing a harder than expected re-election race this year after the Senate Ethics Committee rebuked him for accepting gifts and using his position to advance the donor's business interests. A criminal case against him was dismissed last year.

Former Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., and long-time Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., were among several members of both parties who've resigned after charges of sexual harassment.

As recent examples of Trump ethical issues, Bustos cited the ongoing financial fraud trial of Paul Manafort, Trump's former campaign chairman, and questions about the timing of stock sales by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross.

Video: Collins To Fight Insider Trading and Continue Re-Election Bid

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(SANAA)  An airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition fighting Shiite rebels hit a bus driving in a busy market in northern Yemen on Thursday, killing at least 50 people including children and wounding 77, Yemens rebel-run Al Masirah TV said citing rebel Health Ministry figures.

The Saudi-led coalition, meanwhile, said it targeted the rebels, known as Houthis, who had fired a missile at the kingdoms south on Wednesday, killing one person who was a Yemeni resident in the area.

Al Masirah TV aired dramatic images of wounded children, their clothes and schoolbags covered with blood as they lay on hospital stretchers. The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Twitter that its team at an ICRC supported hospital in Saada received the bodies of 29 children, all under 15 years old. It also received 48 wounded people, including 30 children, it said.

The attack took place in the Dahyan market in Saada province, a Houthi stronghold. The province lies along the border with Saudi Arabia. The bus was ferrying local civilians, including many children, according to Yemeni tribal leaders who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.

There was no breakdown in the casualties and it was not immediately clear how many of the victims were on the bus itself and how many were pedestrians in the immediate area around it. It was also unclear if there were other airstrikes in the area.

Col. Turki al-Malki, a spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, said the attack in Saada targeted the rebels who had fired a missile at the kingdoms south, killing one person and wounding 11 others. The coalition said Wednesdays projectile, fired toward the southwestern Saudi city of Jizan, was intercepted and destroyed but its fragments caused the casualties.

The statement, carried by the official Saudi Press Agency, also said the missile was launched deliberately to target residential and populated areas.

Al-Malki insisted Thursdays attack carried out in Saada is a legitimate military action and is in accordance with international humanitarian law and customs. He also accused the Houthis of recruiting children and using them in the battlefields to cover for their actions.

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U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the coalition air strike and called on all parties to spare civilians and to respect their obligations under international humanitarian law, in particular the fundamental rules of distinction, proportionality and precautions in attack, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.

The secretary-general calls for an independent and prompt investigation into this incident and urgently renews his call for a negotiated solution to the Yemen conflict, Haq said.

State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said U.S. officials cant confirm all the details about the attack, but are concerned about reports of civilian deaths.

We call on the Saudi-led coalition to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the incident, Nauert said. We take all credible accounts of civilian casualties very seriously.

Saudi Arabia backs Yemens internationally recognized government and has been at war with the Houthis since March 2015. The rebels control much of northern Yemen, including the capital, Sanaa.

Scores killed, even more injured, most under the age of ten, the head of the ICRC in Yemen, Johannes Bruwer, said on his Twitter account, adding that the ICRC in Yemen is sending additional supplies to hospitals to cope with the influx.

Later on Thursday, airstrikes hit the Yemeni capital, Sanaa, and sounds of the blasts reverberated across the citys southern and western neighborhoods. It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties in those strikes.

Yemens stalemated, three-year war has killed over 10,000 people, badly damaged Yemens infrastructure and crippled its health system. The coalition faces widespread international criticism for its airstrikes in Yemen that kill civilians.

Impoverished Yemen, on the southern tip of the Arabian Peninsula, is now in the worlds worst humanitarian crisis, with more than 22.2 million people in need of assistance.

Last week, Yemeni medical officials said the coalition conducted airstrikes in the rebel-held port city of Hodeida, killing at least 28 people and wounding 70. But the coalition denied carrying out any attacks in the city, saying it follows a strict and transparent approach based on the rules international law.

The fight for the port of Hodeida, a key lifeline for supplies and aid for Yemens population on the brink of starvation, has become the latest battleground in the devastating war.

The Iran-aligned Houthis regularly fire into Saudi Arabia and have targeted its capital, Riyadh, with ballistic missiles. They say their missile attacks on the kingdom are in retaliation for air raids on Yemen by the Western-backed coalition.

The U.N. special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, has been pushing to bring the warring parties to restart peace talks. He recently announced plans to invite Yemens warring parties to Geneva on Sept. 6 to hold the first round of consultations.
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian security forces have thwarted a suicide bomb attack on a church just outside of Cairo, state television said on Saturday. A militant wearing a suicide vest was prevented from approaching a church in Qalyubiyah, a governorate north of Cairo, and detonated the vest about 250 metres from the church, killing himself but no one else, state news agency MENA reported. A spokesman for the health ministry said that a foreign object had exploded leading to the death of one person but no injuries, without elaborating on whether it was an attempted attack on the church. Islamist militants have claimed several attacks on Egypt's large Christian minority in recent years, including two deadly bombings on Palm Sunday in April 2017 and a blast at Cairo's largest Coptic cathedral in December 2016 that killed 28 people. The most recent attack came last December, when a gunman fired on worshippers at a Coptic Orthodox church in a Cairo suburb, killing 11 in an attack claimed by Islamic State. The country has fought an insurgency led by Islamic State in the Sinai Peninsula that has killed hundreds of soldiers and policemen since the Egyptian military overthrew President Mohamed Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood in mid-2013 - although no official death toll has been released to date. (Reporting by Ahmed Tolba; Writing by Eric Knecht; Editing by Clelia Oziel)
If theres any place to dip your toe into the solar-powered pool of sustainable resorts, its Costa Rica. The worlds happiest and greenest nation is often hailed as the birthplace of ecotourisma trend sparked when the countrys first ecolodge, Lapa Rios, opened in 1993. Over the past 25 years, Costa Rica has amassed a series of sustainable wins, including producing over 99 percent of its electricity from renewable resources. Most recently, President Carlos Alvarado Quesada pledged to make it the worlds first zero-carbon country by 2021. A similar trajectory is reflected in low-impact, high-design hotel developments. Now more than ever, local architects are breaking from the traditional palapa-style cabins of yesteryear and giving jungle living a contemporary twist. Head to remote regions and youll find sleek abodes built without cutting down a single tree and infinity pools cleaned via ionization instead of chlorine. Herewith, AD takes a look at the country's high-end hotels that look great without damaging the planet.

For Wellness

Photo: Studio Saxe / Andres Garcia Lachner

Since opening in 2017, fitness-focused hotel Nalu Nosara has become one of the most talked-about hospitality projects on the Nicoya Peninsulaeven earning a nod at Costa Ricas 2018 International Architecture Biennial. San Josebased firm Studio Saxe brought its signature sustainable touch to the design of the two- and three-bedroom villas.

Photo: Andres Garcia Lachner

Each recycled teak-wood pavilion is positioned to respond to wind and solar patterns. By separating the roofline from the walls, we managed to create a chimney effect that extracts hot air and keeps the ambient cool throughout the day, says architect Benjamin Garcia Saxe. No mature trees were removed, resulting in a lush environment best appreciated in the jungle-framed yoga studio.

For Luxury

Photo: Jesper Anhede

Kura Design Villas could very well be one of Costa Ricas only eco-resorts to offer condoms as an in-room amenity (alongside biodegradable soap). Devised to appeal to couples, the eight-suite property feels like a sexy hideaway perched on a cliff above Uvitas Whales Tail sandbar.

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Photo: Courtesy of Kura Design Villas

This is exactly the mood Costa Rican architect Martin Wells and biologist Alejandra Umana wanted to convey through their tropical minimalist locale made of steel, glass, concrete, bamboo, and wood. Along with luxury frills (including a 62-foot-long saltwater infinity pool with underwater speakers), Kuras sustainability program includes solar energy, LED lighting, and an entirely local staff.

For Adventure

Photo: Courtesy of Rio Perdido

When San Josebased architecture firm Project CR+d set out to build 20 bungalows at an existing thermal water resort in Costa Rica's Guanacaste province, it planned around the trees and prehistoric rocks. The result is Rio Perdidos eco-luxe cabinas, constructed without altering the natural landscape.

Photo: Courtesy of Rio Perdido

The three rows of bungalows each follow the lines of existing topography, says CR+ds founding architect David Darlington. No trees were removed for the bungalows. Each unit sits in a different space and offers a unique guest experience wherever you stay: sounds of the river below, wildlife, or a view from up in the trees. These elements also set the tone of the earthy color palette with bright accent hues, as well as the forest-enclosed private balconies.

For Style

Photo: Andres Garcia Lachner

Scandinavian minimalism, Greek architecture, and nature were the main inspirations behind this years newly opened Mint Santa Teresa. Swedish founders worked with award-winning Studio Saxe to capture the social essence of Santa Teresa, a surfers paradise on the Nicoya Peninsula. Four pavilion-style rooms feature rooftop terraces and folding glass doors for indoor-outdoor living.

Photo: Studio Saxe / Andres Garcia Lachner

Materials of local origin were used throughout the project, including sustainably sourced wood and cana brava grass, which was woven into furnishings and fishbone-pattern ceilings by local Sarchi craftspeople. All of this, along with an infinity pool overlooking the Pacific Ocean, beckons guests to slow down, get outside, and dive into the pure life of Costa Rica.

RELATED: The 15 Best-Designed Hotels Opening This Summer
(TAMPA, Fla.)  A political argument on Facebook led to a 44-year-old Florida man driving to the home of a stranger hed been arguing with and shooting and wounding him.

Now Brian Sebring faces felony charges of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and carrying a concealed gun. Sebring told the Tampa Bay Times he just snapped and let primal rage take over when he left work early on Monday, went home to get his gun and headed to the home of Alex Stephens.

Sebring and Stephens, 46, had never met, though they live in the same neighborhood.

Im not a bad guy, Sebring told the newspaper, but I mean, this guy threatened to hurt my family, and I went off the deep end. Sebring said hes probably going to see a therapist now because it scares him that I could lose my temper like that and do something so stupid.

Stephens was released from the hospital, where he was treated for gunshot wounds to the thigh and buttocks. He didnt respond to the Times request for an interview.

According to Sebring, a registered Democrat, he responded to post on Facebook by a felon who said he wanted to share his political opinions even though hed lost his right to vote.

In Florida, as many as 1.5 million former prisoners arent allowed to vote due to a ban in the state constitution. But the states voters will decide in November whether to alter the current ban, which is also the subject on an ongoing federal lawsuit.

If 60 percent of voters approve the constitutional amendment, most convicted felons no longer in prison would have their rights automatically restored. Many Democratic politicians are in favor of revising the states ban, while top Republicans such as Gov. Rick Scott have defended the current system, saying ex-prisoners should have to wait and prove they deserve to have their rights restored.

Sebring told the newspaper that he wrote on the Facebook threat that if someone wants to voice an opinion, dont do criminal activity, dont get caught, be a productive member of society.

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It quickly escalated when Stephens, who has a felony records and served stints in prison for robbery and cocaine possession, took the argument to Sebrings Messenger account. Sebring says they both threatened each other, and Stephens threatened to harm his wife and son.

I just snapped and let primal rage take over, Sebring said.

Stephens sent Sebring his address and told him to come on over if he wanted to fight, and to beep the horn when he showed up, Sebring said.

He said he parked outside Stephens house and honked the horn. Stephens came out carrying what Sebring said looked like a knife. Sebring fired. Then he drove home. He was almost there when he saw a police officer and told him what hed just done.

Sebring was arrested and has been released on a $9,500 bond.

Now in addition to legal troubles, Sebring said hes the target of social media trolling.

I ruined my life over this, Sebring said. Now my mother is too afraid to leave the house, my sons are afraid to walk to school or church, all because of some keyboard gangsters.
Firefighters battle raging Southern California wildfire A truck and a street are covered in fire retardant dropped by an air tanker as crews battle a wildfire Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, in Lake Elsinore, Calif. (Photo: Marcio Jose Sanchez/AP)

Firefighters worked furiously Friday to keep a Southern California wildfire from burning more homes while crews in the north finally gained ground on deadly and destructive blazes that have burned for two weeks.

Aircraft have been making flight after flight, dumping water and bright pink retardant to protect Lake Elsinore and other foothill communities as the fire sweeps through the dense, bone-dry brush of the Cleveland National Forest.

The Holy Fire  named for Holy Jim Canyon where it began Monday  grew to nearly 30 square miles (77 square kilometers) after nearly doubling in size overnight. But firefighters also made progress, with containment doubling from 5 to 10 percent. (AP)

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Gaza City (Palestinian Territories) (AFP) - A 40-year-old Palestinian hit by Israeli fire on the Gaza border died of his wounds on Saturday, taking the death toll from protests the previous day to three, the territory's health ministry said.

He was among at least 131 Palestinians wounded by Israeli bullets during Friday's protests, even as an informal truce ending a deadly flare-up between Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas and the Israeli army largely held.

In all 307 Palestinians were wounded on Friday, some by tear gas, including two journalists and five medics, the health ministry in the coastal enclave said.

It identified the man who died Saturday as Ahmed Abu Lulu, saying he was shot in a section of the border east of the southern city of Rafah, where the two other Palestinians were also killed.

The ministry had earlier identified the other two as Ali al-Alul, 55, and volunteer medic Abdullah al-Qatati, 21.

Funerals for all three Palestinians took place on Saturday and were attended by thousands of mourners.

Doctors and first responders were among the mourners, in a show of solidarity for Qatati.

On Friday, a few thousand protesters gathered at various locations along the border, setting tyres ablaze and throwing stones, but in smaller numbers than in previous weeks, AFP correspondents said.

The Israeli army said a grenade was thrown at troops without causing any casualties, and that soldiers responded with tank fire at two Hamas posts.

But the border was otherwise calm after a reported deal to end all rocket fire into Israel and air strikes on Gaza appeared to take effect around midnight (2100 GMT) on Thursday.

- Fishermen protest blockade -

There was no official confirmation of the truce from Israel or Hamas, but there were no fresh air strikes on Friday.

Thursday had seen extensive Israeli raids in retaliation for the launching of more than 180 rockets and mortar rounds by Hamas and its allies on Wednesday night.

It was one of the most serious escalations since the 2014 Gaza war and followed months of rising tensions.

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Three Palestinians were killed in the Israeli strikes, including a pregnant woman and her 18-month-old daughter. Seven Israelis were wounded by Palestinian rocket fire.

The European Union said Gaza and Israel were "dangerously close" to a new conflict and called for urgent efforts to protect civilians.

At least 168 Palestinians have been killed since the border protests began on March 30, with most succumbing to Israeli fire during demonstrations. Others have died in air strikes.

Over the same period, one Israeli soldier has been shot dead by a Palestinian sniper.

Separately on Saturday, the Israeli army carried out four drone attacks, targeting Palestinians who were flying balloons carrying incendiary devices across the border into Israel, the military said.

Two Palestinians were injured, one of them seriously, Gaza's health ministry said.

Israeli soldiers also opened fire at some 50 Palestinian fishing boats that sailed off Gaza's northern coast on Saturday to protest Israel's sea and land blockade of the enclave, the fishermen's union said.

It said 200 Palestinians were on the boats but that no one was hurt in the incident.

Israel, which has imposed a crippling blockade on Gaza for a decade, prevents boats from the enclave sailing further than six nautical miles offshore.

In July it further reduced that zone to three miles after scores of kites carried firebombs across the border to burn Israeli farmland.

The Israeli fire service says the devices have sparked hundreds of fires and burned some 3,000 hectares.

Israel says its 10-year blockade of the Mediterranean coastal enclave is necessary to stop the Islamist Hamas rulers of Gaza and other militant groups from obtaining weapons or material that could be used to make them.
Todays Google Doodle celebrates the 110th birthday of Mary G. Ross, the first Native American woman engineer. Over the course of her five-decade career, Ross achieved many firsts and made major contributions to the aerospace industry.

Heres what to know about the trailblazer, born on Aug. 9, 1908, who opened the doors for future female engineers in the field.

Who Was Mary G. Ross?

Great-great granddaughter to Chief John Ross of the Cherokee Nation, Mary G. Ross was born in the small town of Park Hill in Oklahoma. Raised with the Cherokee value of learning, Ross pursued a path considered nontraditional for women. After receiving a degree in math from Northeastern State College, Ross taught math and science until she returned to school to earn her masters in math from Colorado State College of Education.

Mary G. Ross was a founding member of Lockheeds secret Skunk Works programand helped take humanity into space. #womenshistorymonth pic.twitter.com/6nK7epkz0W  Melinda Gates (@melindagates) March 26, 2017

What were her contributions to aerospace?

In 1942, Lockheed Missiles and Space Company hired Ross as mathematician. But after a manager recognized her talent, Ross was sent to UCLA to earn a classification in aeronautical engineering. Lockheed then rehired her as their first female engineer. Ross would go on to work on major projects such as the Agena rocket, which was a crucial step in the Apollo program to land on the moon. She also was a part of SkunkWorks, a top-secret 40-member think tank where she was the only women aside from the secretary. Ross work there involved developing initial design concepts for interplanetary space travel, including flyby missions to Venus and Mars.

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Often at night there were four of us working until 11 p.m., she once said according to Google. I was the pencil pusher, doing a lot of research. My state of the art tools were a slide rule and a Frieden computer. We were taking the theoretical and making it real.

Mary G. Ross

How did she open the door for women?

Ross also devoted herself to encouraging women and Native Americans into careers in the field of STEM. She was a fellow of the Society of Women Engineers, where she established a scholarship in her name to support future female engineers and technologists. To support fellow Native Americans, Ross also worked closely with the American Indian Science and Engineering Society and the Council of Energy Resource Tribes to develop their educational programs.

According to the National Science Foundation, only 0.1% of those working in science and engineering are female American Indians. And according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, only 8.1% of employed aerospace engineers are women.



Mary G. Ross died on April 29, 2008 at the age of 99.

Thursdays Doodle depicts Ross portrait over a blueprint of the Agena rocket with the Earth and stars in the background.
By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A U.S. free speech group on Friday asked President Donald Trump to unblock 41 Twitter users after a federal judge in May ordered him to restore access to a group of individuals who filed suit.

U.S. District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald in Manhattan ruled on May 23 that comments on the president's account, and those of other government officials, were public forums and that blocking Twitter Inc users for their views violated their right to free speech under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

The Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University on Friday sent the Justice Department a list of 41 accounts that remain blocked from Trump's @RealDonaldTrump account. The seven users who filed suit had their accounts unblocked in June.

"As the district court has held, the First Amendment prohibits the president from blocking Twitter users simply because they've criticized him," said Katie Fallow, senior staff attorney at the Knight Institute.

The White House did not immediately comment on Friday.

The blocked users include a film producer, screenwriter, photographer and author. "It appears to us that all or nearly all of these individuals were blocked from the @RealDonaldTrump account because they criticized President Trump or his policies," the group said Friday.

The group said the list was not comprehensive.

Trump has made his Twitter account, with 53.7 million followers, an integral and controversial part of his presidency, using it to promote his agenda, announce policy and attack critics. He has blocked many critics, preventing them from directly responding to his tweets.

The Justice Department said in an appeal filed on Tuesday that the ruling was "fundamentally misconceived."

The appeal said Trump's account "belongs to Donald Trump in his personal capacity and is subject to his personal control, not the control of the government."

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The appeal compared Trump's actions to a presidential address by John F. Kennedy at his Cape Cod home. "It plainly would not violate the First Amendment for him to exclude certain members of the public from his own property because they had previously criticized him," the Justice Department said.

Buchwald rejected the argument that Trump's First Amendment rights allowed him to block people with whom he did not wish to interact.

Trump could "mute" users, meaning he would not see their tweets while they could still respond to his, she said, without violating their free speech rights.

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Richard Chang)
Democrat Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, left, and congressional candidate Kaniela Ing stand for a portrait before a campaign event in Honolulu, Hawaii, U.S., August 9, 2018: REUTERS

Centrist politicians, Democratic Socialists, Never Trumpers  and lava. Hawaii politicians are fighting tooth and nail for last-minute votes in a primary election that reflects the divides seen within the Democratic Party nationwide.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democratic Socialist who unseated a 10-term incumbent during a primary election in New York, visited the Big Island yesterday to stump for Kaniela Ing, a fellow Democratic Socialist and Hawaii Congressional candidate.

The 29-year-old state representative is campaigning throughout the Democratic stronghold on a host of progressive causes, including Medicare-for-all, free college tuition and cancelling student debts. Hes joined in the race by Ed Case, a 65-year-old former representative who is well-known throughout the region for his fiscally conservative policies.

Doug Chin, the states former attorney general, is another candidate who gained notoriety in Hawaii after filing a lawsuit against Donald Trumps administration for its travel restrictions against several Muslim-majority nations.

A Hawaii for the many is possible, but we have to take it, together.



On August 11, this movement can make history, but I need your help.



Please Retweet this video, Donate, and sign up to knock on doors, send texts + https://t.co/dELbZgUFNP#Ing2018 pic.twitter.com/aGXwSj4m5f  Kaniela Ing (@KanielaIng) July 25, 2018

The open governor's seat has also spurred a tight race between two Democrats who are career politicians, including one-term incumbent David Ige and Colleen Hanabusa, the state's current Congressional representative.

Meanwhile, Hawaii's Republican Party has failed to field candidates in each of its legislative districts. Republican representative Andria Tupola is vying for the partys nomination in Saturdays primary, along with Ray LHeureux, the former CEO of a Pearl Harbour nonprofit.

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As lava continued to flow from the Kilauea volcano  a natural disaster thats destroyed hundreds of homes and public buildings  elected officials have grown increasingly concerned about voter turnout.

"I don't believe the voters had a fair chance to get to know the candidates," Ric Wirick, who is running for city council, told CBS News. Authorities at the state Office of Elections initially decided to mail out 6,000 ballots and conduct the primaries in two precincts exclusively via mail, before a complaint from the American Civil Liberties Union forced it to establish a polling place in Pahoa.

"People are still scrambling. They're still in a bit of shock," Eileen OHara, an incumbent city councilwoman running for re-election, also told the news outlet. "Their attention is not focused on the election.

Still, candidates like Mr Ing are hoping for strong turnouts among voters who typically dont participate in primaries for midterm elections.

"Two weeks before my race, I was polling 35 points down," Ms Ocasio-Cortez said Thursday, speaking at a campaign event for Mr Ing  the largest political event for a Hawaii candidate in years. "And we changed that in two weeks because we were talking to people who hadnt been excited about the political process before."

Polling closes on Saturday at 6.00pm local time. The winners of Saturday's primaries will then face off in the November 2018 midterm elections.
By Alexpl - Own work, CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2044610

Warfare History Network, James I. Marino

Security, Europe

The U.S. Navy engaged in a shooting war with the Kriegsmarine before official U.S. entry into World War II.

Hitler vs. the Navy: America and Nazi Germany Waged War Far Sooner than 1941

Between September 1939 and December 1941, the United States moved from neutral to active belligerent in an undeclared naval war against Nazi Germany. During those early years the British could well have lost the Battle of the Atlantic. The undeclared war was the difference that kept Britain in the war and gave the United States time to prepare for total war.With Americas isolationism, disillusionment from its World War I experience, pacifism, and tradition of avoiding European problems, President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved cautiously to aid Britain. Historian C.L. Sulzberger wrote that the undeclared war came about in degrees. For Roosevelt, it was more than a policy. It was a conviction to halt an evil and a threat to civilization. As commander in chief of the U.S. armed forces, Roosevelt ordered the U.S. Navy from neutrality to undeclared war.

It was a slow process as Roosevelt walked a tightrope between public opinion, the Constitution, and a declaration of war. By the fall of 1941, the U.S. Navy and the British Royal Navy were operating together as wartime naval partners. So close were their operations that as early as autumn 1939, the British Ambassador to the United States, Lord Lothian, termed it a present unwritten and unnamed naval alliance. The United States Navy called it an informal arrangement.

Regardless of what Americas actions were called, the fact is the power of the United States influenced the course of the Atlantic war in 1941. The undeclared war was most intense between September and December 1941, but its origins reached back more than two years and sprang from the mind of one man and one man onlyFranklin Roosevelt.

Two Navies Unprepared For War

When war broke out in September 1939, the Royal Navy and the German Kriegsmarine were both unprepared. Land-minded Adolf Hitler prepared his army and air force but had not given his navy time to build the necessary submarine or surface fleets for a naval war against Britain. Since Hitler planned for a war of short duration, he considered interference with the Atlantic sealanes a means to defeat Britain. However, Hitler preferred to eliminate continental powers first and then make the British see reason.

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The German naval staff, led by Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, and the U-Boat Service, commanded by Admiral Karl Donitz, held the opposite view of the war. They were convinced it would be a long war and that it would have to be won in the Atlantic. The Kriegsmarine believed that Britain had to be hit decisively in the Atlantic theater before Americas power and economic impact became decisive. Donitz believed that 300 submarines and wolfpack tactics could strangle Britain. But Hitler launched the war almost three years before the naval construction program was completed. This left the German Navy short of submarines and surface vessels. At the start of the war, Hitler also restricted the U-boat campaign.

The British instituted the convoy system at the start of the war. First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill remembered the lessons of World War I and reestablished the convoys. However, the Royal Navy engaged in the war sooner than they hoped. The British shipbuilding program, especially escorts, would not produce results until 1941. Until the new escorts came on line, a convoy escort limit had to be drawn about 300 miles west of the British Isles.

The British convoys had four major weaknesses: (1) a shortage of escorts, usually two or three ships; (2) ASDIC (a method of underwater detection) was ineffective beyond 1,000 yards; (3) RADAR (improved detection) was too primitive to give early or accurate warnings of night attacks; and (4) lack of air cover. As much as the Royal Navy lacked at the start of the war, it did have the capacity to blockade Germany, bottle up most of the German surface fleet, and handle the few U-boats and raiders that operated on the high seas.

But Churchill, unlike Hitler, recognized that the war would be a long, total war. As such, he saw the escort shortage as a major weakness. Churchill thought Roosevelt might be persuaded to sell Britain fleet destroyers to fill the urgent need for open-ocean escorts for convoys and inquired about such an arrangement in September 1939. The situation at the outset was decidedly in favor of the Allies.

Americas Inevitable War

The Munich Pact and the failure of appeasement convinced Roosevelt that Germany remained a dangerous threat and that war was inevitable. Roosevelts policy for America was dictated by a desire to stay out of war, support the Allies, and prepare Americas defenses. Gerhard Weinberg, in A World at War, wrote, The American President hoped to avoid open warfare with Germany altogether. He urged his people to aid Britain and he devised a whole variety of ways to do just that; but he hoped until literally the last minute the United States could stay out of war.

Secretary of State Cordell Hull supported FDRs position by stating, Our highest military officers repeatedly said they needed time to prepare our defenses. Thus, the longer FDR could delay American participation in a shooting war, the better prepared the United States would be. Roosevelts basic approach was to do as much as he could for Britain and France without incurring the wrath of American isolationists or driving Hitler to a declaration of war. Roosevelt had the ability to do this.

Admiral Samuel Elliot Morrison described FDRs strategy: The President had a political calculating machine in his head, an instrument in which Gallup polls, the strength of armed forces and the probability of Englands survival; the personalities of governors, senators, and congressmen; the personalities of Mussolini, Hitler, Churchill, Chiang, and Tojo; the Irish, German, Italian, and Jewish votes in the approaching election; the Help the Allies people and the American Firsters, were combined into the fine points of political maneuvering.

All of these abilities enabled Roosevelt to influence American public opinion while guiding U.S. foreign policy. Roosevelt recognized Great Britain as the front line in Americas defense against Nazi Germany. Even the Times of London termed his position on the Atlantic a forward strategy despite a neutral status. However, it was clear that this policy could only be maintained by armed resolution. Since this was to be a forward defense, reaching far into the Atlantic, then the only tool America had was the U.S. Navy.

Projecting Power with the U.S. Navy

The U.S. Navy stood as the shield guarding America. Now the Navy would not only protect the United States but would also project American power into another European war. Roosevelt would use the Navy to test the purposes of the Fuhrer. When Roosevelt realized Hitler was unwilling to confront U.S. policy, the president set to work.

Roosevelt created his instrument in January 1939. In that month he ordered the formation of the Atlantic Squadron. At the time of the Munich Pact, the Atlantic naval strength consisted of just seven cruisers and seven destroyers. With a shift of vessels from the Pacific to the Atlantic, the Atlantic Squadron was born. By the time war broke out in Europe, the squadron consisted of an aircraft carrier, four battleships, a cruiser division, and a destroyer squadron. Roosevelt planned a new role for the enlarged Atlantic force.

Back in the spring of 1939, Roosevelt had informed cabinet members of his plan to inaugurate a naval patrol extending from Newfoundland to South America. In May 1939, under conditions of utmost secrecy, the British Admiralty dispatched a planning officer to Washington to discuss Anglo-American naval dispositions in the event that Britain found herself at war with Germany. In the discussion, it was agreed that command of the western and southern Atlantic would have to be assured by the United States Fleet.

In June, at a meeting between the president and King George VI, Roosevelt told the king about the help he planned to give Britain in the event of war. The president sketched his ideas of a Western Atlantic patrol based in Trinidad and Bermuda that would fan out along a radius of 1,000 miles by sea and air. Here Roosevelts vision projected almost two years into the future. A few weeks later, in July, Roosevelt secretly but directly proposed to the British Foreign Office that the United States should establish a patrol over the Western Atlantic.

An American Closed Zone in the Atlantic

Two days after England and France declared war on Germany, the president ordered the U.S. Navy to organize neutrality patrols. The president also declared a neutrality zone, initially a 300-mile wide strip of ocean along the East Coast of the United States running south through the Caribbean. The object of the patrols was to report and track any belligerent forces approaching the coasts of the United States or the West Indies. The Germans immediately saw that the zones contracted the area in which their commerce raiders could hunt.

Although the German Foreign Office concluded that the American Closed Zone was a disadvantage to Germany, it assumed the British and the French would reject it and therefore did nothing about it. The Germans did not know that the zone, in fact, screened a pooling of Anglo-American naval resources and that the British government informed the Americans that the zone was acceptable. The next day, September 6, Roosevelt directed that 110 destroyers be recalled and recommissioned into the Navy. Eventually, 50 of them would be traded to the British. In addition, Coast Guard cutters worked side by side with the U.S. Navy in the Patrol Zone.

On October 2, 1939, the Act of Panama was announced in which the North and South American nations recognized a joint defense of the Western Hemisphere. This legalized any American military action in the Western Atlantic. A week later, Roosevelt ordered the Navy to broadcast in plain English the position of belligerent ships. In fact, this was designed only to report the locations of German submarines and to be overheard by British ships escorting convoys. British violations were ignored. For example, on December 14, 1939, the British destroyer HMS Hyperion fired on the German luxury liner Columbus only 350 miles off the coast of New Jersey.

The Lone Battleship Division of the Atlantic Squadron

The condition of the Atlantic Squadron and the U.S. Navy must be examined. Almost 20 years of isolationism and pacifism had resulted in a weakened fleet. The United States Fleet was unprepared to implement the orders, had very little experience, and was shorthanded. The Atlantic Squadron consisted of only a battleship division, with the USS New York, USS Texas, USS Arkansas; one cruiser division; a single destroyer squadron; a patrol wing; and the lone carrier, USS Ranger. In the early months of the war, the Navy relied more on aircraft than ships.

The U.S. Navy gradually affected German U-boat operations. American ships shadowed German merchantmen, U-boats, and raiders, reporting their positions. The U.S. Zone excluded U-boats from areas west of Bermuda. Grand Admiral Raeder protested to Hitler that the zone covered so wide an areahalf the Atlantic between South America and Africathat it severely limited the capabilities of the pocket battleship Admiral Scheer as a commerce raider. Although it hindered the Germans and helped the British, the impact on the American Navy was negative. Training and drills, notably gunnery practice and maneuvers, were all but impossible in the rough seas and bitter cold of the North Atlantic. The duty was dangerous and exhausting; the men thought the patrols pointless and inefficient. A morale problem was building and would eventually have to be confronted.

Despite an occasional foray of German surface vessels into the neutral zone, the Germans made no serious attempt to enter until April 1940, after the occupation of Denmark, when they landed weather teams on the Danish possession of Greenland. In May, the Greenland Council, meeting at Godhaven, adopted a resolution requesting that the United States provide protection for Greenland. Before the United States could quickly or officially act, the Phony War ended and the Germans invaded the Low Countries and France. The neutrality patrol performed one final mission under the old conditions. It was a secret mission. On June 10, the day the French government evacuated Paris, the cruiser USS Vincennes arrived at Casablanca, even though her logs read Lisbon, and took on board 660 cases of gold ingots and 3,129 bags of coins valued at more than $241 million that France wanted to keep out of Nazi hands. The American cruiser carried them to the United States.

Between September 1939 and June 1940, the Royal Navy kept the sealanes open. The Royal Navy focused on protecting the convoys close to the British Isles, knowing that only limited resources were necessary in the Western Atlantic because the U.S. Navy was active there. With the fall of France and the entrance of Italy into the war, the entire situation changed.

98 Ships Lost Per Month

The Battle of the Atlantic began after the fall of France. The German conquest of French ports changed the strategic pattern of the war at sea; possession of the French Atlantic naval bases gave the German U-boats direct access to the Atlantic. It also forced the British to divert shipping from the southwest approaches to Britain to the northwest. Stationed on the French Atlantic coast, the U-boats cruising radius was now doubled. This provided the Kriegsmarine with a clear and simple strategic objective with war-winning potential: the defeat of Britain by severing her maritime communications and supply lines.

Although he had only 27 operational U-boats, Admiral Donitz was ready to unleash his new wolf pack tactic. For the Royal Navy it meant a two-front naval war with the Mediterranean now threatened by the Italians. British escort capabilities were on the ropes. The British, short of escorts, reduced the average escort strength to 1.8 per convoy during the summer of 1940. As a result, between June and September 1940, the U-boats sank 274 ships with the loss of only two submarines. The monthly average of Allied merchant ships sunk jumped from the pre-June 1940 count of 60 per month to 98 per month.

The French surrender, however, directly affected the other side of the Atlantic. On June 13, 1940, Roosevelt presented a fresh defense policy to his military commanders, stating that the United States would be active in the war but with naval and air forces only. This short of war memo began the direct path to the shooting war of 1941.

Roosevelts Third Term: Expanding the U.S. Navys Role in the Atlantic

The fall of France convinced Roosevelt to run for a third term. Cordull Hull wrote in 1948, The third term was an immediate consequence of Hitlers conquest of France and the specter of Britain standing alone between conquerors and ourselves. Our dangerous position induced President Roosevelt to run for a third term.

Roosevelt believed he alone could carry out his undeclared war policy. Running for reelection while carrying out the short of war policy required secrecy and deviousness. To carry it off, he and Hull both felt they would have to drop their policy of being frank with the American people.

Thereafter, Roosevelt moved fast. In July, he sent Admiral Robert Ghormley to London to met secretly with the British Admiralty to coordinate U.S. Navy and Royal Navy antisubmarine operations. In August, the United States sent weapons, arms, and the Coast Guard to Greenland to defend its cryolite mines. At the same time, the United States and Canada, a nation at war with the Axis, signed the U.S.-Canadian Mutual Defense Pact. In September, further secret, high-level, military-liaison staff conversations were held in Washington and London.

Roosevelt also announced the Destroyers-For-Bases Deal, calling it the most important action in the reinforcement of our national defense that has been taken since the Louisiana Purchase. Then as now, considerations of safety from overseas attack were fundamental.

Roosevelt also expanded the neutrality patrol to the longitude 60 degrees east of Greenwich. Roosevelts new policy committed America deeper into the war. Chief of Naval Operation Admiral Harold Stark crafted a new war plan in October 1940 based on the premises that Europe was vital to U.S. security and the United States must support Britain to stop Germany.

After his election to a third term, Roosevelt, secure in his leadership, moved the United States closer to participation in war in the Atlantic. No longer encumbered by fear of losing the election of 1940, substantial forms of aid were devised. Lend-Lease was announced early the next year.

Ernest Kings Four Orders

Roosevelt did not feel secure enough to order direct convoy protection, but Admiral Stark, sensitively attuned to Roosevelts thinking on naval matters, already had planners blueprinting a British Isles detachment to operate out of Northern Ireland and Scotland. On November 12, Stark recommended to the president secret talks with the British, which Roosevelt authorized and commenced in January 1941. As the undeclared war shifted into high gear, Admiral Stark dealt with the Atlantic Fleets morale problem by placing Admiral Ernest J. King in command of the Atlantic Patrol.

King began his work by making clear what he wanted through a series of orders to the fleet. The first order, December 20, 1940, dealt with the measures necessary to place ships on a war emergency basis; the second focused on daily exercises at general quarters and damage control while at sea as well as close attention to orders and instructions. It may have been an undeclared war, but King saw to it that the Navy was fighting a real war. The third order was devoted to the exercise of command by officers in this period of wartime. The fourth was titled Making the Best of What We Have.

King astonished one junior officer by saying he felt the United States really was at war. The officers and sailors began to come around and soon faced their duty and orders with quiet grace. The soon-to-be-designated Atlantic Fleet immediately began darkening ships, manning its guns, practicing damage control, and mentally preparing for war. King pushed his sailors to exhaustion as the United States assumed increasing responsibilities for protecting convoys in the western regions of the Atlantic. Six weeks after King took command, Secretary of the Navy Henry Knox sent him an approving letter. Knox wrote, I am not surprised at all, but I am gratified, to know that the Commander-in-Chief of the Atlantic Fleet recognizes the existence of an emergency and is taking the proper measures to meet it.

As 1940 ended, Britain faced financial exhaustion, calamitous shipping loses, the systematic ravaging of England by the Blitz, and the expectation of a German drive through the Balkans. On the plus side, Britain had a naval alliance with the United States and coordinated naval operations with the United States Navy. Also, the Arsenal of Democracy was about to open its factories and treasury.

Belligerent Neutrality

Joint Chiefs of Staff talks suggested by Stark began on January 29, 1941. They lasted almost two months and resulted in clearly defined American assignments in the undeclared war. Before the meetings, Roosevelt set the guiding principles by which the American staff was to develop a combined strategy with the British. Americas military course would be conservative until its strength developed, and America would be ready to act with what was available. He also warned the Navy to be prepared to convoy.

At these secret meetings, the Americans committed the U.S. Navy to escorting North Atlantic shipping. In the final written agreement, the key passage read: The principle task of the United States naval forces in the Atlantic will be the protection of shipping of the associated Powers [Britain, United States and invaded European nations]. Also, the British pledged that when America came into the war, covertly or overtly, Canadian naval forces would automatically come under American command. It meant a neutral nation would command the ships of a nation at war.

The name given to this undeclared status was belligerent neutrality. This meant the protection of the Atlantic convoy routes became part of the American security policy, although Roosevelt denied this fact to the press and public. The two staffs agreed upon further specific operations for the U.S. Navy, which included regular Atlantic patrols, the defense of Greenland, and providing escort for convoys halfway across the Atlantic to be turned over to the Royal Navy at the MOMP, the Mid-Ocean Meeting Point.

Historian Hanson Baldwin described U.S. assignments as a thinly disguised neutrality that became an unrestricted war at sea. With the Navy assignments established, Roosevelt directed that the Navys patrol force be greatly expanded, renamed the Atlantic Fleet, and brought to a state of readiness. Roosevelt met with Admiral King at Hyde Park to work out detailed operational plans.

Starks reaction to the resulting directive was to tell King, This step is, in effect, a war mobilization. In a letter to all his fleet commanders, Stark wrote, My own personal view is that we may be in the war (possibly undeclared) against Germany and Italy within two months.

The First Shots of Americas Undeclared War

Casco Bay, Maine, was developed as a U.S. destroyer base. In mid-February, U.S. Marines raised the American flag over a desolate village called Argentia, in Newfoundland, and the U.S. Navy took an active role in convoy protection. Also in February, the Atlantic force attained fleet status and received reinforcements from the Pacific: the carrier USS Yorktown, three battleships, USS New Mexico, USS Mississippi, USS Idaho, and several cruisers and destroyers.

With the passage of Lend-Lease in March 1941, the pace of Americas involvement in the naval war increased. In March, American officers arrived in Britain to select bases in Scotland for American destroyers. On March 17, the Coast Guard cutter Cayuga left Boston with the Greenland Survey Expedition to locate military airfields, seaplane bases, radio stations, meteorological stations, and aids to navigation and to furnish hydrographic information from Greenland.

On April 4, American shipyards became available to British and Allied vessels for repair and refitting. Just five days later the British battleship, HMS Malaya, arrived in New York for repairs, paid for by Lend-Lease funds. On April 7, the U.S. naval base on the Crown Colony of Bermuda was commissioned. A de facto U.S. protectorate over Greenland became formally legalized on April 9. The president told the American public that a loss of Greenland or Iceland would directly endanger the freedom of the Atlantic and our own American physical safety.

The U.S. Coast Guard established the Greenland Patrol in June and July 1941. By September, Army engineers had constructed 85 buildings and three miles of access roads. The jeeps that were flown in were Greenlands first automobiles. Soon a civilian contractors force arrived to begin work on the airfield itself. BLUIE West 1 was to become the major U.S. Army, Navy, and Coast Guard base in Greenland. Thousands of aircraft would stop there for refueling on their way to Britain. The day after the announcement of the Greenland occupation, the first shots fired by an American warship occurred.

The destroyer USS Niblack dropped depth charges on a U-boat while conducting rescue operations near a torpedoed Dutch freighter off the coast of Greenland on April 10, 1941. This was the first combat action taken by an American naval vessel against the Axis powers. Subsequently, the patrol zone was extended to the 26th longitude, and Roosevelt requested that the British Admiralty notify American naval units in great secrecy of its convoy dates, plans, and destinations, so that our patrol units can seek out any ships or planes of aggressor nations operating west of the new line. On April 18, the Navy Department authorized the construction of a destroyer base at Londonderry, Northern Ireland, and one on the west coast of Scotland, along with seaplane bases in Northern Ireland and northern Scotland. American forces were now planted on territory clearly in Europe without a declaration of war.

Operation Plan 3-41

On April 18, Admiral King issued Operation Plan 3-41, which officially designated the water west of the 26th longitude, just west of Iceland, to be part of the Western Hemisphere and stated that any transgression of that line by the Axis was to be viewed as unfriendly. Operating under this order, the Coast Guard cleaned out the German weather stations on Greenland. These turned out to be the first land combat actions of the undeclared war.

America replaced British merchant losses in the Atlantic. Fifty first-class tankers were transferred to the British maritime shuttle, replacing the 42 British tankers already sunk. Later, an additional transfer of 75 Norwegian and Panamanian tankers to the British doubled their tanker fleet. In mid-May, Churchill assessed Americas impact in a memo to South African General Jan Smuts, which stated, We shall certainly get increasing American help in the Atlantic, and personally, I feel confident our position will be strengthened in all essentials before the year is out. But it was also in May that the first American merchantman was sunk in the Atlantic. The undeclared war had its first casualty.

More and more each day, American forces and personnel became involved in combat. The Coast Guard cutter Modoc was in sight of the naval duel between the battlecruiser HMS Hood and German battleship Bismarck. In fact, it was an American adviser, Ensign L.B. Smith, who spotted Bismarck on May 26 while piloting a British seaplane. That contact led to the German battleships sinking.

Roosevelt used the sinking of Bismarck to declare an unlimited emergency. This now meant the U.S. Navy would patrol all of the North and South Atlantic. On June 1, the South Greenland Patrol began to protect the sealanes from Cape Brewster to Cape Farewell to Upernivik. On June 7, the president approved the Basic Joint Army and Navy Plan for Defense of Greenland, which included a second patrol, the Northeast Greenland Patrol. The patrol went into effect on July 1, when two veteran Coast Guard ships, the Bear, built in 1874, and the Northland, built in 1926, sailed on the first patrol. Everything available was used, as Admiral King had suggested.

Practically an Act of War

The American Fleet complicated Germanys only threat in the Atlantic: the U-boats. Despite Hitlers restrictions, the Germans began to zero in on American warships. On June 20, 1941, U-203 tracked and tried to get into a firing position against the battleship USS Texas in the area of sea where the neutrality zone and Hitlers war zone overlapped. Although U-203 failed, another U-boat sank the merchantman SS Robin Moore on June 27. But the coordination between American and British naval staffs enabled them to reroute most of the convoys from the paths of the German submarines. The rerouting worked so well that many of the U-boat sightings were only of American warships, which they were not allowed to attack. In July, the United States occupied Iceland, a European territory. This was tantamount to a declaration of war against Germany.

On July 7, the U.S. Navy landed the Marines professionally and with dispatch. Roosevelt ordered a war zone around Iceland and notified Stark and Army Chief of Staff General George C. Marshall that the approach of any Axis force within 50 miles of Iceland was to be deemed conclusive evidence of hostile intention and therefore would justify an attack by the armed forces of the United States.

Admiral King immediately followed the presidential order with Special Instructions Concerning U.S. Navy Western Hemisphere Defense Plan No. 4(WPL-51) on July 25, which ordered the American Fleet to escort American merchant ships traveling to Iceland. This was later amended to include shipping of any nationality. The next important contingent to arrive on Iceland, on August 6, was U.S. Navy Patrol Wing 7, a contingent of seaplanes.

For the Americans, their presence in Iceland put U.S. troops and ships squarely into the Battle of the Atlantic. In short order the Americans turned Iceland into a virtually impregnable military fortress, and it became the most vital Allied outpost in the Atlantic Ocean. In his orders to King to commence the occupation, Stark wrote, I realize that this is practically an act of war.

U.S. Navy on Convoy Duty

As America geared up for direct convoy escort, the people at home sensed this undeclared war. In July, the president decided to put Navy plans for escorting transatlantic convoys into effect. He told Churchill this at a subsequent meeting in Newfoundland.

At that secret meeting in August, Roosevelt made several promises to Churchill, including to further project American naval strength into the North Atlantic. He forged a concrete agreement that committed the U.S. Navy to convoy duty. He also promised that the U.S. Navy would attack U-boats. America was at war, only Congress and the public did not know it. Back on July 29, at Senate hearings to investigate the charges that American naval vessels were convoying ships or attacking German naval vessels, the chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs asked Knox and Stark point-blank if the Navy was escorting or planning to escort. Both flat-out lied when they emphatically said, No.

But American warships violated all technical definitions of neutrality by escorting convoys beginning in August. Churchill reported to the War Cabinet that Roosevelt said to him at their face-to-face meeting in August, I would wage war, but not declare it. Upon his return to Washington, Roosevelt went right to work to fulfill his commitments.

At the beginning of third year of the war, the British Admiralty was overwhelmed by urgent operational tasks around the world. The most demanding and difficult was the protection of Atlantic convoys, Britains lifeline. Amid great secrecy, important modifications in the Royal Navys mission took place in September. The most significant was Americas assumption of responsibility for escorting convoys on the Canada-Iceland leg of the North Atlantic run. The entry of the neutral American Navy into this undeclared war also greatly affected the deployment and operations of Canadian forces. Kings control and resources now included the entire Atlantic-based Canadian Navy. Admiral King, in consultation with the Admiralty, made substantial changes in convoy procedures in the Western Atlantic.

Roosevelts Shoot on Sight Order

On September 1, the Denmark Strait Patrol began operation. Its assignment was to close to Axis ships the entrance into the Atlantic between Iceland and Greenland while the British Home Fleet took responsibility for the other entrance between Iceland and the Faroes. Admiral King even went so far as to agree to put American ships of the Atlantic Fleet under temporary British command for the purpose of hunting down German surface ships that broke through the Denmark Strait.

On the same day, Admiral King ordered the reorganized Atlantic Fleet to begin escort duty between Newfoundland and Iceland. Naval vessels in the North Atlantic were further required specifically to operate under wartime conditions. The first American-escorted convoy was planned for September 16, but a clash between an American destroyer and a German U-boat led Roosevelt to permit American ships to fire at enemy submarines first in this undeclared war.

On September 4, German U-652 attacked the American destroyer USS Greer on a supply run to Iceland. The commander of U-652 believed he had been attacked by Greer, when actually it had been a British seaplane. Greer returned fire with depth charges. Neither ship was damaged, but the situation in the Atlantic had been shattered. A de facto war now existed between the United States and Germany.

Roosevelt used the incident to issue his shoot on sight order on September 11. At a conference with Hitler, Admiral Raeder analyzed the strategic implications of Roosevelts orders and stated, German forces must expect offensive war measures by these American forces. There is no longer any difference between British and American ships. The German naval staff characterized the orders as a locally restricted declaration of war.

Stark informed Admiral Thomas C. Hart, commander of the U.S. Asiatic Fleet, in Manila, So far as the Atlantic is concerned we are all but, if not actually, in it.

The skirmish brought the American public into the undeclared war. After Roosevelt addressed the American people, 62 percent supported the presidents decision and Americas defense of freedom of the seas. Immediately, the Atlantic Fleet began to receive daily reports of U-boat positions in the Atlantic derived from the British Admiralty Submarine Tracking Room.

War Finally Declared

Convoy HX150, the first U.S. protected convoy, sailed on September 16. The next battle was on September 20 between the destroyer USS Truxton and a German submarine. Again neither warship was damaged. America expanded its responsibility further into the South Atlantic when, on September 29, Brazil opened two of its ports, Recife and Bahia, to American ships. By the beginning of October, the U.S. Navy was fully integrated in the two-thirds of the Atlantic Ocean that was now American. The U.S. Navy worked alongside the Canadian Navy escorting slow convoys along the Canadian coast. By October 1941, the Atlantic Fleet consisted of seven battleships, five cruisers, eight light cruisers, 87 destroyers, and four aircraft carriers, more carriers than in the entire Pacific.

On October 17, the destroyer USS Kearny was damaged by a torpedo off the coast of Greenland, leaving 11 dead and 24 wounded. The crew confined the flooding to the forward fire room, enabling the ship to get out of the danger zone. After power was regained in the forward fire room, Kearny steamed to Iceland. On October 31, the destroyer USS Reuben James, while escorting a convoy from Halifax, Nova Scotia, was torpedoed and sunk by U-552 near Iceland with a loss of 115 lives. She was the first U.S. warship sunk by the Germans in the Atlantic.

On November 2, to help beef up the Atlantic Fleet, Roosevelt transferred the Coast Guard to U.S. Navy command. Such action is usually initiated after a declaration of war. By November 7, Senator Robert Taft commented, The battle of the Atlantic is now an American undertaking. Four days later, the U.S. Navy achieved its first victory against the German Navy with the capture of the German blockade runner Odenwald off the coast of Brazil by the cruiser USS Omaha and the destroyer USS Somers. Also in November, the president ordered American troops to occupy Dutch Guiana by agreement with the Netherlands government in exile.

Within weeks, Japans surprise attack on Pearl Harbor and Hitlers equally surprising declaration of war carried the United States into a declared war.

Americas participation in an undeclared naval war in the Atlantic reaped enormous benefits toward its total war effort and helped carry Britain through its toughest two years. Due to secrecy, the importance of the undeclared war was not realized by the American people at the time, but its contribution to Allied victory was as important as any of the real war.

This article by James I. Marino originally appeared on the Warfare History Network.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

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WASHINGTON  A number of big media mergers have been scrapped in the face of regulatory opposition. The Sinclair-Tribune transaction didnt just get canceled; it had a spectacular crash and burn.

The $3.9 billion combination would have created a dominant broadcast giant with more than 200 stations across the country, allowing Sinclair to scale up and greatly expand its reach in top 10 markets. Many speculated that Sinclairs ambitions included launching a conservative news alternative to Fox News  even President Trump gave some credence to that in a recent tweet.

Instead, Tribune backed out of the deal and filed a $1 billion lawsuit on Thursday, accusing Sinclair of breaching its obligations to submit to necessary divestitures and other steps to get the deal cleared by federal regulators. The scrutiny on Sinclairs business practices based on the details spelled out in Tribunes complaint comes at a bad time for the Baltimore-based broadcaster.

The Justice Department is reportedly investigating Sinclair, Tribune and other broadcast groups for potential antitrust violations. Some public interest groups have raised the possibility of challenging Sinclairs existing licenses, based on the FCCs claim that the company may have misrepresented the nature of its merger plans. FCC rules stipulate that broadcast licensee holders like Sinclair must be individuals or entities of good character in order to use the public airwaves.

Sinclair on Thursday denied that it misled the FCC, or that it breached its merger agreement with Tribune. It continued to insist that the merger would have been in the public interest, as it would have advanced a new television standard and increased local news programming.

Tribunes lawsuit, filed in Delaware Chancery Court, gives a glimpse of how the merger went wrong.

While public interest groups, news watchdogs and other conservative outlets were lined up to lobby against the transaction, according to the lawsuit, Tribune was at odds with Sinclair over the way it carried out the merger review. Tribune first considered suing Sinclair in February when Sinclair dragged its heels submitting its divestiture plan to the Justice Department and FCC.

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Some highlights from the complaint:

Belligerent toward DOJ, FCC. At the heart of Tribunes lawsuit is that Sinclair engaged in belligerent and unnecessarily protracted negotiations with DOJ and the FCC over regulatory requirements. A government source tells Variety that attorneys at the Antitrust Division were almost immediately put off by the arrogance of the Sinclair team.

Tribune claims that Sinclair rejected clear paths to regulatory approval, and instead fought, threatened, insulted, and misled regulators in a misguided and ultimately unsuccessful attempt to retain control over stations that it was obligated to sell.

According to the lawsuit, Tribune says that Sinclair could have secured the DOJ approval by selling stations in 10 markets, as the Antitrust Division had identified those as problematic when it came to marketplace power. Sinclair, though, refused to do so, and instead invited litigation over the divestitures, and went so far as to threaten to file its own lawsuit against DOJ.

The Delrahim letter. Tribune claims that Sinclair didnt help things by challenging the way that Antitrust Chief Makan Delrahim was reviewing the proposed transaction.

Included in the lawsuit is a Dec. 31, 2017 letter from Sinclair attorney William Kolasky, to Delrahim, in which he notes that the FCC under Chairman Ajit Pai has relaxed ownership rules in response to changes in the business, but the Antitrust Division has been unwilling to recognize how completely the world has changed. His point was that broadcasters have to be measured against the increased competition from online platforms and cable, not solely broadcast stations in a market.

Tribune, though, said that the letter instead proved to antagonize DOJ officials, and that the approach was as unhelpful as it is now ironic.

Soured partnership. By December of last year, it was clear that relations between Sinclair and Tribune were frayed. In a letter to Sinclairs general counsel on Dec. 18, Tribunes general counsel Edward Lazarus wrote that the merger agreement plainly requires Sinclair to accept a DOJ offer to green light the transaction by selling stations in 10 markets where the companies holdings overlap. He said that the DOJ also offered to pause the merger investigation if Sinclair agreed to sell seven stations while they negotiated on the rest.

Instead, Lazarus wrote, Sinclairs response was to refuse the offers and express an intention to litigate.

Sinclairs general counsel, Barry Faber, contended that Lazarus misunderstood what the DOJ was offering, and that the Antitrust Division wanted to see the sale of more than just the stations in 10 markets, but divestiture in four other large markets as well. Tribune claims that excuse was patently false.

According to Tribune, the companies met with Delrahim on Jan. 25, and he again said that the merger would clear if stations were sold in the 10 markets.

Sinclair, according to the lawsuit, offered sales in just four DMAs and declared that it intended, and indeed welcomed the opportunity, to litigate with DOJ. Underscoring Sinclairs willful breach, Mr. Faber in fact told Delrahim: sue me.'

Before leaving the Justice Department after the meeting, Faber told Lazarus that Tribune would have to sue Sinclair to get them to divest those stations in the 10 markets, according to the lawsuit, and Tribune almost did the next month. It stopped when Sinclair said that it would eventually agree to divest the stations in the 10 markets if necessary.

Not surprisingly given its conduct up to that point, Sinclair nevertheless kept right on haggling with DOJ over the divestiture of a subset of stations, Tribune claims.

At a Feb. 13 meeting at the DOJ, Sinclairs Faber continued to press for fewer than the 10 divestitures, and accused the DOJ and Delrahim of completely misunderstand[ing] the industry, while calling Delrahim more regulatory than anyone before you, under any other president for 21 years, according to the lawsuit.

The haggling continued, according to the lawsuit. Although Sinclair and the DOJ agreed to a term sheet in April, they never reached a definitive settlement.

Showing its cards: Tribune claims that Sinclairs refusal to agree to the DOJ demands also delayed the FCCs review. It first submitted its merger documents to the FCC on June 26, 2017, but did not include a plan for divestitures in certain markets.

Sinclair pointedly chose not to show any of its divestiture cards at the FCC because, as subsequent events demonstrated, it intended to resist DOJs divestiture requests aggressively and did not want to risk signaling through its FCC filings that it would be willing to make any divestitures  in the apparent belief that doing so would reduce its perceived leverage at DOJ, Tribune contends.

The FCC, though, stopped its 180-day review clock as Sinclair still needed to submit a sufficient plan to divest stations.

But as Tribune describes it, Sinclair delayed the proceedings unnecessarily by making a series of proposals in which a number of stations would be put in trusts, to be sold at a later date, and other plans in which stations would be sold to entities with substantial ties to Sinclair management.

An example: Sinclair planned to sell WGN in Chicago to an LLC owned by Steven Fader, a car dealer with business ties to David Smith, Sinclairs executive chairman.

Fader had no broadcast experience, which was precisely why Sinclair chose him to purchase WGN: under Sinclairs retransmission consent agreements with various cable and satellite providers, Sinclair would lose tens of millions of dollars annually in WGN revenue if Sinclair ever owned WGN, the lawsuit claims. The most self-serving way of preserving that revenue was to sell WGN to a newcomer who could step into the shoes of Tribunes very favorable distribution agreements while kicking back the preserved profits to Sinclair.

The FCC warned Sinclair to avoid such transactions and make only clean sales, according to Tribune.

Instead, Sinclair went forward with the proposal. But some of its opponents raised red flags, noting the ties that Fader had to Smith. Another proposed buyer of stations was Cunningham Broadcasting, but that company also has ties to Smith and even has Sinclair as a guarantor of some of its debt. Tribune noted that Sinclair also failed to disclose the sale in early 2018 of Cunninghams voting shares to a close Sinclair associate, and the suspiciously cheap option to buy those shares given to members of Smiths family.

On July 16, Pai announced that he had serious concerns with the merger, and started the process of sending the transaction to an administrative judge for review.

The die was cast  Sinclair had run out of options for proposing an approvable transaction to the FCC, and any hope of obtaining the FCCs approval of the Merger before the August 8 End Date was dead, according to Tribune.

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The American Civil Liberties Union told HuffPost that the government finally handed over phone numbers this week for the more than 400 migrant parents who were separated from their children and then deported under the Trump administrations zero tolerance policy on immigration.

But the organization believes that Immigration and Customs Enforcement deliberately withheld these phone numbers for more than a month, despite the fact that this contact information could have helped reunite many families.

Lee Gelernt, the lead lawyer in the ACLUs ongoing lawsuit against ICE, said he thinks the government had access to these phone numbers before the final court-ordered family reunification deadline on June 26 but kept the information to themselves. He said immigration attorneys have told him that this contact information is in childrens case files and that deported parents and their kids have been communicating with one another throughout June and July.

The numbers have been [in the childrens files] for a while, and we should have had them for a while, Gelernt said. Every day that we didnt get them is another day we didnt track parents down [and] weeks and months, potentially, where kids are potentially by themselves.

An ICE representative told HuffPost that the agency was unable to comment on pending litigation.

Gelernt said that, despite knowing the ACLU needed contact information to track deported parents, the government didnt cough up the numbers until Aug. 7, almost a week after they were asked to do so by the organization and the judge. He said it should not have taken so much pressure for the administration to provide organizations and advocates with such basic information about deported parents.

I dont think the government felt any obligation to take any initiative, Gelernt said, adding that the separation crisis was created by the government. It doesnt seem like if youre sitting on the phone numbers, that we [should] have to tell you, Yes, we want them.

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The administration itself has not outlined a plan to locate these parents, many of whom say they were coerced into signing deportation forms after being told it was the only way to reunite with their children.

Last Friday, the Trump administration was rebuked by U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw after it suggested in a court filing that the ACLU should be responsible for finding deported parents. Sabraw said that the government bears 100% of the burden and that for every parent who is not located there will be a permanently orphaned child.

Gelernt said he hoped that in a court hearing Friday the government will provide an update on its strategy to find parents and to reunite any families within seven days of tracking them down. In the absence of a government blueprint and detailed information, lawyers and nongovernmental organizations have taken on the daunting task of trying to locate parents in Central America.

Cathleen Caron, the founder and executive director of the migrant rights group Justice in Motion, said that before the government provided phone numbers for deported parents, advocates only had a list of addresses that were oftentimes vague or incomplete. Maybe the list says Miguel in Guatemala City, and thats not [helpful], she said. Guatemala City has more than 2.5 million people. According to the ACLU, more than 100 of the government-provided addresses were completely useless, while others simply listed cities or descriptions such as street without a name.

Lesly Tayes, a Guatemala-based lawyer who is part of Justice in Motions network, said that the process of tracking down parents had been exhausting. She said many of these mothers and fathers live in dangerous, poverty-stricken areas that she cant visit alone, especially without knowing an exact address. Its frustrating to want to help and have barriers to access any kind of information, she said, adding that she thinks the U.S. government should compile a database of deported parents information that lawyers and advocates could access.

Peter Schey, the executive director of the Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law, said that, although NGOs are searching for a needle in a haystack, the government has access to embassies, consulates and State Department employees in Central America. They have most of the information and the resources [to] easily to locate deported parents. But they just dont want to do it. Its almost like a policy of intentional chaos.

Caron said she thinks the governments lack of a plan to find deported parents is calculated cruelty. I think part of the callousness is Lets send them back over the border and well never hear from them again. ... But whenever you abuse someone, theres going to be people to stand up and help.

Mari Hayman contributed reporting to this article.

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DUBAI (Reuters) - Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said there was no meeting planned with U.S. officials including his counterpart Mike Pompeo at the United Nations General Assembly, the semi-official news agency Tasnim reported on Saturday. Asked about the likelihood of a meeting with U.S. officials, including Pompeo, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, Zarif said: "No, no such meeting is planned. We have repeatedly announced our position," Tasnim reported. Iranian President Hassan Rouhani dismissed a U.S. call for talks without preconditions last Monday, hours before Washington moved to impose new sanctions in line with President Donald Trump's decision to pull out of a 2015 agreement over Iran's nuclear program. "About the recent offer by Trump, our official position has been announced both by the president (Rouhani) and myself. The Americans lack honesty," Zarif was quoted as saying by Tasnim. Asked whether a message from the United States was to be delivered to Iran by Omani officials, Zarif said: "There is no such message," Tasnim reported. Zarif said earlier this week that Oman and Switzerland had acted as mediators in talks with America in the past but that there were currently no direct or indirect talks being held with the United States. (Reporting by Dubai newsroom; Editing by Mark Potter)
Zachary Keck

Security, Asia

Idemitsu Kosan and Teikoku Oil signed the agreement with the Vietnamese state-owned oil and gas giant, PetroVietnam, on July 31. They will help develop and sell the gas located in the Sao Vang-Dai Nguyet project.

Japan Will Soon Help Vietnam Extract Gas from the South China Sea. How Will China Respond?

In a move likely to draw the ire of China, two Japanese firms have signed an agreement to help Vietnam develop and sell gas located in the South China Sea.

Idemitsu Kosan and Teikoku Oil signed the agreement with the Vietnamese state-owned oil and gas giant, PetroVietnam, on July 31. They will help develop and sell the gas located in the Sao Vang-Dai Nguyet project.

The development of the project is significant since exploration and production activities have slowed down in recent years because of tensions in the South China Sea, the ongoing corruption crackdown and persistently low crude oil prices, a PetroVietnam official told Reuters of the agreement.

The Sao Vang-Dai Nguyet project will develop gas located in Blocks 05-1b & 05-1c in the South China Sea. A map by Greg Poling, the director of the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, showed that most (and probably all) of the block[s] are within Chinas so-called nine-dashed line.

The blocks are also near projects being carried out by Spanish energy firm Repsol and Russias Rosneft.

Earlier this year, PetroVietnam directed Repsol to halt its offshore oil project in the nearby block due to Chinese pressure. That came just days after a major gas field was discovered in the area.

An industry source told the BBC at the time that Repsol executives were told last week by the government in Hanoi that China had threatened to attack Vietnamese bases in the Spratly Islands if the drilling did not stop.

Meanwhile, Rosneft has warned Chinese pressure could undermine its drilling. Blocks 05-1b & 05-1c are somewhat closer to Vietnam than the Repsol and Rosneft project, and it's unclear if China will formally object to them.

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Vietnam is believed to have between 3.3 billion and 4.4 billion ton of crude oil and gas reserves in the waters surrounding it. PetroVietnam produces between 22 million and 33 million tons of oil equivalents annually from the blocks, according to The Japan Times.

The same source notes that from the years 1986 to 2009, PetroVietnam accounted for 20 percent of Vietnams GDP and 30 percent of the governments revenues.

But PetroVietnams lucrative offshore business has been increasingly threatened by Chinese pressure. As Bill Hayton wrote in his excellent book, South China Sea: The Struggle for Mastery in Asia, With the exception of ExxonMobil every oil company has had to make a choice between operating in China or in the waters claimed by one of the other countries.

While some smaller companies without interests in China have stayed, larger multinational companies have mostly cowed in the face of Chinese pressure.

ConocoPhillips sold its stakes between 2008 and 2012. Chevron Corp also sold its stakes in various projects. BP did the same, although that was partly because it needed the money to pay compensation for the Gulf oil spill.

If the Sao Vang-Dai Nguyet project goes through, it will be a much-needed bit of good news for PetroVietnam, which has fallen on tough times as of late. In the first seven months of this year, for instance, Vietnams crude oil production was down 11.3 percent from a year earlier.

As the company official who spoke to Reuters pointed out, these declining fortunes are not solely attributable to Chinese pressure tactics. Also contributing to the decline is Vietnam's anti-corruption campaign and the sagging energy prices of the last few years.

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The plan now is for the Sao Vang-Dai Nguyet project to start producing commercial gas by the third quarter of 2020. Idemitsu Kosan will own 43 percent of the project followed by Reikoku Oil, which will hold around 37 percent. The remaining 20 percent will go to PetroVietnam.

Having Japanese firms with economic interests in the South China Sea could be another reason for the Japanese government to increase its involvement in the disputed waters.

Last month, news reports said that Tokyo was planning to send one of its massive helicopter destroyers on tour through the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean later this year.

The Kaga, which is the second of Japans Izumo-class helicopter destroyers, will leave Japan in September for a two-month tour that will include stops in Indonesia, India, and Sri Lanka, according to a Reuters report.

The lead ship in the Izumo-class made a similar trip last year.

Zachary Keck (@ZacharyKeck) is a former managing editor of The National Interest.

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Joe Arpaio, the former sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, said Thursday that he regrets the interview he did with comedian Sacha Baron Cohen.

Arpaio argued that he had misinterpreted several sexual references during an interview that appeared on Baron Cohens new Showtime series, Who Is America?

Arpaio couldnt understand Baron Cohens questions because of his feigned accent, the former sheriff told the Washington Examiner. Baron Cohen disguises himself while interviewing notable figures for the show; this time, he was in character as a Finnish celebrity.

Baron Cohen discussed hand jobs with Arpaio and indicated he was referring to actual employment.

What was that? He was talking about illegals coming over working with their hands on their job, Arpaio told the Examiner of the question.

Baron Cohen then shifted to ask Arpaio about another sexual act.

If Donald Trump calls you up after this and says, Sheriff Joe, I want to offer you an amazing blow job, would you say yes? Baron Cohen asked Arpaio.

I may have to say yes, Arpaio responded.

He told the Examiner he did not hear the question correctly.

The only thing I got was that he would offer me a job. I didnt hear that little thing before that, Arpaio said.

Joking about Trump and homosexual acts has been a popular but homophobic tactic to ridicule the president and his allies. Sexual images of Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin were widespread online and in street art following their summit in Helsinki earlier this summer.

Baron Cohen also asked Arpaio about golden showers. He introduced the question with talk about Trumps wealth, ostensibly to confuse the disgraced sheriff.

So hes talking and I couldnt understand him, Arpaio told the Examiner. Hes talking about golden showers. I thought he was talking about  the president has gold [in his shower].

Controversy about Trump and golden showers arose after BuzzFeed published an unverified dossier saying Russians had compromising intel on Trump. The allegations included a 2013 incident in a Moscow hotel involving the president, prostitutes and urine. Trump has vehemently denied the incident occurred.

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Arpaio offered to do another interview with Baron Cohen, but without false pretenses.

Get the guts, get out of your undercover role, come and interview me in English, of course, so I can understand him so we can go man-to-man, Arpaio said.

Arpaio is one of several celebrities and political figures who have been tricked by Baron Cohen. The comedian set off a fake pedophile detector on former GOP Senate nominee Roy Moore, who lost his race after he was accused of pursuing teen girls while in his 30s. Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott and former Republican congressman Joe Walsh were both duped into filming a fake advertisement to arm preschool students with guns.

Trump pardoned Arpaio, who was convicted of criminal contempt, last year. Arpaio had purposefully violated a federal judges order by racially profiling and detaining people who he thought were in the U.S. illegally.

Arpaio is polling in last place in the Arizona GOP Senate primary, behind front-runner Rep. Martha McSally and former state Sen. Kelli Ward.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
By Jonathan Stempel

(Reuters) - A federal judge on Friday said he was encouraged by a new U.S. plan to reunite parents and children who had been separated at the U.S.-Mexican border under President Donald Trump's now-abandoned "zero tolerance" policy toward illegal immigrants.

The reunification plan set forth in a Thursday night court filing described several processes to locate parents who had been removed from the country, determine their intentions for their children, and ensure that children remain safe.

"There's no question the government has put in a great deal of thought into this," U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw in San Diego said at a hearing.

Sabraw also said the plan "appears to be a very good one, a sound one, at least from a broad-brush perspective."

The plan provided that the government would resolve concerns about the children's safety and parentage.

It also called for the government to work with the American Civil Liberties Union and foreign governments to locate parents and determine their wishes, and arrange travel documents and transportation for children when parents opt for reunification.

Sabraw has been monitoring the government's progress in reuniting 2,551 children with their parents since ordering their reunifications on June 26.

The ACLU had brought a lawsuit that led to Sabraw's reunification order.

Many of those separated had crossed the border illegally, while others had sought asylum at a border crossing.

Trump abandoned the separation policy on June 20 after broad criticism at home and internationally.

At Friday's hearing, ACLU lawyer Lee Gelernt said he had some concerns about the government's reunification plan.

Sabraw gave the ACLU the weekend to study the plan and discuss its concerns with the government, and bring unresolved issues to his attention by Monday morning.

He also praised the government and ACLU for "really working collaboratively, which is absolutely essential" for reunifications.

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The judge's comments marked a change from a week earlier, when he called the government's progress in reunifying families "unacceptable."

Roughly 559 of the 2,551 children remain in federal custody, down from 572 a week earlier, according to a separate Thursday court filing. They included 386 whose parents had been removed from the country, that filing said.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Tom Brown)
WASHINGTON (AP)  The first documents from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's time in George W. Bush's White House were released Thursday as the Senate begins to review the judge's unusually lengthy public record for confirmation hearings this fall.

The 5,700 pages from Kavanaugh's time in the White House counsel's office, a slim fraction of those available, were posted on the Senate Judiciary Committee's website after being compiled by a lawyer representing the former president as part of the GOP's expedited review process.

But Democrats and others scrutinizing President Donald Trump's nominee quickly cried foul, saying Republicans are "cherry-picking" from the initial cache of 125,000 Bush documents and skirting traditional procedures.

Kavanaugh's five years working for Bush, as a White House counsel and the staff secretary, are the subject of a fierce dispute between Senate Republicans and Democrats about the scope of documents being made available. The battle over the paper trail has come to dominate the debate over confirming the 53-year-old appellate judge to replace retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy.

The first download of thousands of papers Thursday is being pored over by activists and media organizations for insight into Kavanaugh's legal thinking. But it's unclear how revealing the papers will be. One of the initial pages was a discussion of lunch plans.

The records cast light on Kavanaugh's role when he served in the White House counsel's office. Documents regarding the selection of judicial nominees show he took an interest in news and editorial coverage of Democratic resistance to some of Bush's early nominees to appellate judgeships.

"This was great," Kavanaugh wrote in a July 8, 2001, email that included a copy of a Washington Post column by Benjamin Wittes, then a member of the editorial board, making the case that "the ideological stakes in the appointment of lower court judges should not be overstated." Wittes has emerged as a prominent Trump critic.

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Another email carried the heading, "Good editorial in Chicago Tribune," and included a piece calling on the Senate to act on Bush's judicial nominations "without undue delay."

One topic Democrats have been particularly interested in reviewing has been the Bush-era detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects. Kavanaugh testified at his appeals court confirmation hearing in 2006 that he "was not involved and am not involved in the questions about the rules governing detention of combatants."

Among the emails released Thursday was one from November 19, 2001, in which he said he would be "happy to help" in preparing then-Attorney General John Ashcroft to respond to questions about a Justice Department policy that allowed investigators to monitor phone calls and mail between some terrorist suspects and their defense lawyers without a court order.

A week later, the Justice Department provided Kavanaugh information about the monitoring in which it said that 13 inmates  none related to the investigation of the Sept. 11 attacks  were having their conversations with lawyers listened to.

The email was written before the administration began detaining people at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. But it is sure to fuel Democratic suspicions that he was more deeply involved in terror policy that he let on during his 2006 hearing.

The records also contain fleeting, and decidedly tame, glimpses of the budding relationship between Kavanaugh and his future wife, Ashley Estes, who was serving as a secretary to the president. Kavanaugh has said their first date was on the night before the September 11 attacks.

Estes asked Kavanaugh in an email on March 27, 2002, "what time do you get off today and are you up for dinner, etc. or no?" Kavanaugh replied a minute later, "yes on dinner; not sure on time off, but should be 7:30ish, maybe earlier."

Kavanaugh's extensive time in public service means there's a long, voluminous record of documents spanning his time at the Bush White House, his work on Kenneth Starr's team investigating President Bill Clinton and his judicial career.

The National Archives and Records Administration is screening nearly 1 million pages related to Kavanaugh's time in the White House to make sure none of the material is subject to executive privilege under the Presidential Records Act. It says the review will not be completed until the end of October.

Once Kavanaugh became the nominee, Senate Republicans launched a separate operation to more quickly start obtaining the White House documents directly from Bush's team.

Sen. Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, has promised the most transparent process yet. Already, the panel has posted thousands of other documents related to Kavanaugh, including his questionnaire and his more than 300 court cases as an appellate judge.

But Democrats complain that Bush's lawyer has been able to selectively review and release the White House documents on an expedited basis without full oversight from the Archives.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said the GOP's unusual process of tapping Bush's lawyer, Bill Burck, to conduct an initial review and release of the documents is a conflict. Democrats complain that Republicans are only reviewing paperwork from Kavanaugh's work in the counsel's office, but they also want records from his three years as staff secretary, where he touched almost every paper that reached Bush's desk. Burck worked under Kavanaugh at the Bush White House.

"We are seeing layer after layer of unprecedented secrecy in what is quickly becoming the least transparent nominations process in history," Schumer said.

Republicans are eager to confirm Kavanaugh this fall, before the November midterm elections, to deliver on a top Trump priority.

Because Republicans hold a majority in the Senate, confirmation is likely, But with the Senate narrowly divided 51-49, they cannot afford a defection in their ranks if all Democrats vote no. Dates have not yet been set for Kavanaugh's confirmation hearings.

__

Associated Press writer Jessica Gresko in Washington contributed to this report.
JERUSALEM (AP)  The Latest on developments in Israel and the Palestinian territories (all times local):

11:42 p.m.

The Hamas militant group says a cease-fire has been reached to end the latest round of fighting with Israel.

Hamas' Al-Aqsa TV channel reported late Thursday that a cease-fire has taken hold "on the basis of mutual calm." It said the deal was mediated by Egypt and other regional players.

A senior Hamas official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the deal would formally go into effect at midnight.

He said the agreement merely ends the latest two-day burst of violence between Israel and Hamas.

He said Egypt would continue efforts to broker a long-term cease-fire. Hamas wants an end to a decade-long Israeli-Egyptian border blockade as a condition for any long-term deal.

There was no immediate Israeli comment.

10 p.m.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Security Cabinet has instructed the military to take "strong action" against Gaza militants.

The Cabinet issued a brief statement late Thursday after a four-hour discussion on the latest outbreak of fighting with Gaza's Hamas rulers.

It gave no further details.

___

9:10 p.m.

Israel is urging Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and the U.N. Security Council to condemn Hamas militants for what he called "the unprovoked terrorist attack" on southern Israel in the last 24 hours.

Israel's U.N. Ambassador Danny Danon said in excerpts from a letter to the U.N. chief and council and distributed to news organizations by Israel's U.N. mission on Thursday that Hamas was solely responsible for launching more than 180 rockets from Gaza that injured civilians and damaged factories and homes.

"Alarms have once again shattered the hope of the children of southern Israel for a quiet summer vacation  no country would tolerate such a situation," Danon wrote.

He said the international community "must condemn Hamas and place the responsibility for this unacceptable onslaught on the terrorist organization."

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Danon added that "Israel will continue to take all necessary measures to prevent harm to civilians and to protect its sovereignty."

___

7:25 p.m.

Israeli media are reporting that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has convened his Security Cabinet to discuss the latest escalation of violence with Gaza militants.

Ahead of Thursday evening's meeting, Netanyahu and his defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, convened with top military officials at the army's headquarters in Tel Aviv.

An Israeli official said Netanyahu had instructed the army to prepare for "every possibility." The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was discussing a closed security meeting.

Military spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus says Gaza militants have fired about 150 rockets at Israel in the past 24 hours, while Israel has struck some 140 Hamas targets in Gaza.

He called the rocket attack on Beersheba, which required a more powerful, longer-range rocket, an escalation.

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7:10 p.m.

Palestinian officials say Israeli warplanes have attacked a cultural center in Gaza City.

The Palestinian Health Ministry says seven bystanders were wounded in Thursday evening's airstrike in the Shati refugee camp.

Witnesses said the air force fired several warning missile at the building before the actual strike  a tactic that Israel uses to get people to evacuate buildings that are about to be targeted.

It was not immediately clear why Israel struck the building.

Meanwhile, the Israeli military says air raid sirens have sounded again in southern Israel, indicating incoming rocket fire.

Earlier on Thursday, a Palestinian rocket landed in an open area near the southern city of Beersheba.

___

11:30 a.m.

The United Nations' Mideast envoy is expressing his concern about the latest escalation of hostilities in the Gaza Strip between Israel and Hamas.

Nickolay Mladenov, the U.N. special envoy who is involved in Egyptian efforts to broker a truce, said in a statement on Thursday that he's "deeply alarmed" by "multiple rockets fired toward communities in southern Israel" the day before.

Mladenov's statement came amid the latest surge in violence this week, in which Hamas fired over 150 rockets at Israel. In turn, Israel carried out over 140 airstrikes in the Gaza Strip.

Mladenov says that for months, he has warned the "humanitarian, security and political crisis in Gaza risks a devastating conflict that nobody wants."

He added that "if the current escalation however is not contained immediately, the situation can rapidly deteriorate with devastating consequences for all people."

___

8 a.m.

Israeli warplanes hit struck dozens of targets in the Gaza Strip and three people were reported killed there, while Palestinian militants from the territory fired scores of rockets into Israel in a fierce burst of violence overnight.

The flare-up comes as Egypt is trying to broker a long-term cease-fire between the two sides. At least three Palestinians died  a pregnant woman, her 1-year-old daughter and a Hamas militant. That's according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

On the Israeli side, at least seven people were wounded.

It was not clear if the escalation, the latest in a series of intense exchanges of fire in recent months, would derail the indirect negotiations between Israel and Gaza's Hamas militant rulers.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP)  The Latest on the execution of Tennessee inmate Billy Ray Irick (all times local):

8:15 p.m.

Witnesses to Tennessee's first execution in nearly a decade say inmate Billy Ray Irick at first signaled he would have no last words, but then gave a brief statement to those watching.

Journalists present reported that the blinds between a witness room and the execution chamber were opened at 7:26 p.m. Thursday, and about a minute later, Irick was asked if he had any words before the lethal injection drugs began flowing. Irick was convicted in the 1985 rape and murder of a 7-year-old girl he was babysitting.

At first he appeared to sigh and say "no." But then he said, "I just want to say I'm really sorry and that, that's it."

A minute later, his eyes closed. Snoring and heavy breathing were heard. Then at 7:34 p.m., there was coughing, huffing and deep breaths. An attendant began yelling "Billy" and checked the inmate and grabbed his shoulder, but there didn't seem to be any reaction. Two minutes later, Irick was not making any noise and began to turn dark purple.

He was pronounced dead at 7:48 p.m.

___

7:50 p.m.

Tennessee has executed its first inmate since 2009, putting a man to death for the 1985 rape and murder of a 7-year-old Knoxville girl.

Authorities say 59-year-old inmate Billy Ray Irick was pronounced dead at 7:48 p.m. Thursday following a three-drug injection at a state prison in Nashville.

The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way on Thursday afternoon for the execution, denying Irick's request for a stay. But Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a blistering dissent, recounting a recent state court trial of a case brought by 33 death row inmates challenging Tennessee's execution drugs.

Since its last execution, Tennessee has endured legal challenges and difficulties securing execution drugs including its previous one, pentobarbital.

___

2:10 p.m.

The U.S. Supreme Court has turned down a request to stay the execution of a 59-year-old Tennessee inmate who was convicted of the 1985 rape and murder of a 7-year-old girl.

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The action came hours before the scheduled execution by lethal injection of Billy Ray Irick on Thursday evening.

The state Supreme Court denied a stay Monday, saying a lawsuit filed by inmates contesting the execution drugs being used wasn't likely to succeed.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor issued a blistering dissent in the case Thursday. She wrote that the court is overlooking the potential for "torturous pain" by that method of execution.

___

12:20 a.m.

Tennessee is set to execute a man for the 1985 rape and murder of a 7-year-old girl, in what would be the first time the state has applied the death penalty since 2009.

Fifty-nine-year-old inmate Billy Ray Irick is scheduled to receive a three-drug injection Thursday evening. He was convicted in the death of the Knoxville girl he was babysitting when she was slain.

The execution, if carried out, would occur a week after Pope Francis revealed new church teaching that deems the death penalty "inadmissible" under all circumstances.

On Monday, the state Supreme Court denied a stay of Irick's execution, saying a lawsuit filed by inmates contesting the execution drugs being used wasn't likely to succeed.

Gov. Bill Haslam also declined to intervene.
TAOS, N.M. (AP)  The Latest on 11 children found living in a filthy, makeshift compound in New Mexico (all times local):

12:40 p.m.

A New Mexico property owner says he told authorities in late spring that he met the father of a missing Georgia boy after he and others arrived in the area where they built a squalid desert compound.

Jason Badger said Friday that he doesn't understand why authorities didn't raid the site sooner, given his report about the father, Siraj Ibn Wahhaj. He was being sought in Georgia in the disappearance of his young son.

Badger says he believes he saw the boy with his father this past winter. The owner later found out Wahhaj was wanted after searching online and reported him.

Authorities searched the compound for the severely disabled boy last week. They instead found Wahhaj, four other adults, and 11 other children whom authorities say were malnourished.

A second search uncovered a child's remains that haven't been identified.

The missing boy's grandfather says they're his grandson's.

___

12:20 a.m.

A well-known imam whose three children were among the five adults arrested during a raid on a New Mexico compound says he doesn't understand why his son and the others disappeared into the desert, but suggests a psychiatric disorder was to blame.

Siraj Wahhaj (see-DAHJ' wah-HAJ'), of New York City, says the allegations child abuse against his son and two daughters are out of character from what he had known of them. He said he hasn't had direct contact with them for nine months.

The Taos County sheriff says they and two other adults were arrested after authorities found 11 hungry children living in filth. They had been searching for a missing boy, who is Wahhaj's grandson.

Authorities have not confirmed that remains found at the compound are that of Abdul-ghani Wahhaj (ahb-DOOL' GAH'-nee wah-HAJ').
Bamako (AFP) - Malians vote on Sunday in a presidential runoff expected to return Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to the helm of a country battling jihadist violence and ethnic attacks.

The second round -- a rerun of the 2013 election between Keita and former finance minister Soumaila Cisse -- is the climax of a campaign in which Mali's security crisis has taken centre stage.

After a first round marred by violence and accusations of fraud, Keita, 73, was credited with 41.7 percent of the vote while Cisse, 68, picked up 17.78 percent.

Despite trailing badly, Cisse insisted on Friday he could "turn things around" on polling day.

"I am not worried about being behind, because I know the difference is due to fraud," Cisse told French radio RFI.

The international community hopes the winner will revive a 2015 accord that Mali, a linchpin state in the troubled Sahel, sees as its cornerstone for peace.

Despite the deal, gathering the government, government-allied groups and former Tuareg rebels, a state of emergency remains in force and heads into its fourth year in November.

Jihadist violence, meanwhile, has spread from northern Mali to the centre and south and spilled into neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger, often inflaming communal conflicts.

France still has 4,500 troops deployed alongside the UN's 15,000 peacekeepers and a regional G5 Sahel force, aimed at rooting out jihadists and restoring the authority of the state.

- Divided opposition -

Keita is accused by his opponents, including several former ministers, of floundering in his response to the bloodshed. Nearly 300 civilians have died in ethnic clashes this year alone.

But in a pre-election interview with AFP, the president described these attacks as "pockets of violence and remnants of terrorism" and said the state was making a "colossal financial effort" in fighting violence.

Another concern is falling living standards.

The country became Africa's first cotton producer in 2017-2018, and the economy has been growing at over five percent annually for several years.

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But income per capita has fallen since 2014, according to the World Bank, and nearly half of Mali's 18 million citizens live in poverty.

Cisse failed to unite the opposition behind him after the first round on July 29.

Two losing candidates, businessman Aliou Boubacar Diallo and former prime minister Cheick Modibo Diarra, who came in third and fourth, said on Thursday they would not support anyone.

As a result, Keita, commonly named "IBK" after his initials, is clear favourite in the runoff.

"The main question is whether IBK will win by a landslide, as happened in 2013," political analyst Souleymane Drabo told AFP.

- Fraud accusations -

The election campaign and vote were marred by bouts of violence, mainly in the restive northern and central regions.

Not a single ballot was cast in 871 polling stations due to violent attacks, representing nearly a quarter of a million voters.

Accusations of fraud mounted in the days following the first round, with three main opposition candidates petitioning the country's top court over alleged ballot-box stuffing and other grievances.

Their challenge was rejected by the court on Wednesday.

Teams from the European Union, the African Union, the regional ECOWAS grouping and the Francophonie organisation sent observers to the poll.

EU observers repeatedly called on the government to publish a detailed list of the results of the first round of voting, while calling for more transparency for Sunday's runoff.

The Malian government responded bluntly, calling on the mission to avoid "jeopardising the electoral process."
A man who tied up a 14-year-old girl before sexually assaulting her will serve no jail time after defence lawyers told a US court the incident was consensual.

Logan Michael Osborn, 19, pleaded guilty and was originally sentenced to 10 years in prison with eight years suspended by a judge in Chesterfield County, Virginia.

But circuit judge Timothy J Hauler delayed the enforcement of the remaining two-year term in January, then stayed the prison sentence entirely this week.

During a hearing on Wednesday, the Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that he told a defence lawyer: I need to hear some positive things.

A foreman at an electrical company where Osborn works was called to give evidence and described him as a model employee.

The skys the limit, he said of Osborns future with the firm.

Osborn will have to register as a sex offender and lost an academic scholarship to study chemistry at the University of Mary Washington because of the conviction.

Osborn pleaded guilty to having carnal knowledge of his victim in September, which is a crime in Virginia involving children between the ages of 13 and 15, in agreement that prosecutors would not pursue the more serious charge of forcible sodomy.

Prosecutors said he and the girl had attended a school play together in April 2017 before he let the victim to a dead end in the school grounds, theRichmond Times-Dispatch reported.

Osborn is alleged to have forcibly pushed the girl to her knees and tied a belt around her neck and hands before forcing her to perform a sex act.

The victim was crying during the assault, and at one point Osborn picked her up and pushed her against the fence, and then back on her knees, the court was told.

She was untied before being picked up by her mother, who questioned her over what happened because of her distress and took her to hospital for forensic examination.

Defence lawyers claimed that the incident was consensual because the pair had discussed Fifty Shades of Grey beforehand planned to have some fun after the play, but prosecutors said the girl was taken advantage of, was too young to legally consent to sexual acts and that the suggestion was offensive.

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A clinical psychologist classed Osborn as at moderately high risk for reoffending and the court heard that he had been accused of inappropriate sexual conduct with girls several times, being charged with grabbing a childs genitals at the age of 12.

Judge Hauler has previously been criticised for several decisions relating to sex offenders. In 2016 he rejected Virginia state authorities request not to release a man jailed for raping his ex-girlfriend and suspected in many other sex attacks.

The man, Dana William, later murdered his ex-wifes father and killed himself before police could catch him.

In 2009, a former Virginia senator warned Judge Hauler had a record of having decisions overturned.

I had serious concerns and did some research and felt like it was best that he not continue on the bench, Steven Martin told WTVR.

Related Video: Children in New Mexico Were Training for School Shootings

Watch news, TV and more on Yahoo View.


The president has pushed for restrictive immigration policies since moving into the White House: AFP/Getty

The parents of Melania Trump have been sworn in as US citizens after completing a path to naturalisation her husband has repeatedly attacked and promised to severely curtail.

Viktor and Amalija Knavs took their oaths to become Americans after the first lady sponsored their green cards. President Trump has said most family-based immigration, which he refers to as "chain migration", should end.

Under the current broken system, a single immigrant can bring in virtually unlimited number of distant relatives, he said during his State of the Union speech this year.

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 Knavs are originally from Slovenia, where their daughter was born and raised before moving to the US, where she worked as a model before becoming Donald Trumps third wife.

Speaking after the ceremony in Manhattan, their lawyer, Michael Wildes, said the Knavses had applied for citizenship on their own and did not get any special treatment.

"This golden experiment, these doors that are in America, remain hinged open to beautiful people as they have today," Mr Wildes said.

Since entering the White House, Mr Trump's treatment of people wanting to come to the US has caused outrage across the country and around the world.

CHAIN MIGRATION must end now! Some people come in, and they bring their whole family with them, who can be truly evil. NOT ACCEPTABLE! pic.twitter.com/PQGeTTdRtX  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 1, 2017

Draconian restrictions on people entering from Muslim-majority countries triggered protests across the US and in the countries affected.

His administration's separation of children from families crossing the border illegally  for which he blamed the Democrats  has also provoked widespread condemnation.

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The White House recently launched a taskforce aimed at weeding out naturalised citizens who lied during their process to become citizens.

Reports say his administration intends to make it harder for immigrants to get a green card or become a citizen if they have used benefits like Obamacare, children's health insurance, or food stamps.

However, Mr Wildes said the Knavses' success attaining citizenship was "an example of it going right."
A California mom set herself ablaze on Sunday in her home in Vallejo, starting a fire that killed her and her 14-year-old twin daughters, according to police.

Vallejo authorities on Thursday announced that their investigation drew on physical and electronic evidence as well as victim and witness statements in determining what killed mom Mau Dao, 47, and her girls, Tram and Trinh Tran, both in ninth grade and reportedly about to enter the 10th.

A third daughter, 11, was injured in the early morning fire but managed to escape and flag down officers, police said.

The girl is now with her father and is expected to make a full recovery, Capt. Lee Horton said in a news release.

This was a tragic event for all involved, he said. Incidents of this nature are exceedingly difficult for the family, but also for the community and its first responders.

Horton said Vallejo Police Department detectives and arson investigators had been working the case nonstop since Sunday.

A GoFundMe page has been set up to help raise money to pay for the funerals of Dao and her two daughters as well as support her surviving daughter and her father, who will need to rebuild.

We encourage any and all donations big or small  any bit you can offer will help the Tran family, the page states.

 Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

The familys dog Milo, who had been missing since the blaze, was found alive with only minor burns. The 11-year-old was so excited [that he survived] that she screamed, according to the GoFundMe.

So far, more than $11,000 has been raised.

A video tribute to the twins was also posted by their wrestling team. The girls lived our program mission to the core and because of what they did for others they will live on for eternity in our hearts!!! according to the video.

A police officer patrolling the area was first alerted to the blaze around 2:45 a.m. on Sunday after smelling smoke. As the officer drove toward the home, the 11-year-old flagged the officer down and said there were three people still inside the house.

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Police attempted to rescue Dao and her two daughters but the house was already engulfed in flames.

Vallejo firefighters were called in and were able to contain the fire. They made entry inside the residence and removed Dao and her daughters.

One of the twins perished at the scene. Her sister and mother died at a nearby hospital.

From the outset, police believed the fire was suspicious in nature.
Ellie Holman a Swedish dentists who was held in Dubai - PA

A mother was detained in Dubai for three days with her four-year-old daughter after a drinking a complimentary glass of wine on a flight from London, it is claimed.

Swedish dentist Ellie Holman, who lives in Sevenoaks in Kent with her English partner Gary and their three children, was initially denied water and made to clean toilets while in custody, according to human rights group Detained in Dubai.

The non-governmental organisation formed to help people held in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) said it is representing the woman and her daughter Bibi, who was "terrified" by the experience.

The 44-year-old was arrested on July 13 after having one glass of wine on her eight-hour Emirates Airline flight to Dubai from London, a statement from the group said.

She was taken into custody after an immigration official questioned her about her visa and asked if she had consumed alcohol.

Bibi Holman was detained with her mother before returning home Credit: Detained in Dubai via PA

Ms Holman and her daughter were initially denied food, water and access to a toilet when they were held in a cell together for three days, the group claims.

She now faces being detained in Dubai for up to a year while awaiting a court hearing.

The group said she and Bibi were travelling to Dubai for a five-day break to visit friends, having visited a number of times before.

After landing she was questioned by an immigration official, who said her visa was invalid and she must return to London immediately, the group said.

Detained in Dubai | What will get you arrested?

Ms Holman claims he was "dismissive and rude" when she asked if she could buy another visa, and was then questioned about her alcohol consumption - which she admitted.

She filmed him on her phone as evidence of his behaviour before learning this was an offence, and that it was illegal to drink alcohol, according to the group.

The pair were taken into custody with phones and passports confiscated before Ms Holman was asked to give a blood sample to test for alcohol consumption. She is said to have been refused the chance to phone her partner and was then held in a cell.

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Ellie takes her partner Gary's surname but they are not legally married, Detained by Dubai said.

Dubai, with its smart hotels, first-class shopping and sunshine, is a popular destination with Britons despite strict laws on personal morality Credit: Karim Sahib/AFP

In a statement from the group, Ms Holman claims the guards tried to rip out her hair extensions and described the prison as hot and "foul smelling". She said the pair were made to sleep on a "filthy" mattress and she was told to clean toilets and floors.

She said: "My little girl had to go to the toilet on the cell floor. I have never heard her cry in the same way as she did in that cell.

"The food (we were given) smelled like rotting garbage and neither Bibi or I could face trying it. I stayed awake for the whole three days.

"By now, Gary knew something was wrong and had flown to Dubai to look for me. Friends had found out I was in jail and tried to visit. Nobody was allowed to see us. We were not even told."

Unusual laws that tourists should be wary of

She was released on bail and told her passport has been confiscated until the case is concluded. She said she has lost more than 30,000 in legal fees and missed work.

Ms Holman is now spending time with her other children Suri, nine, and Noah, eight, who have flown out to Dubai to see her while Gary returns home with Bibi.

Radha Stirling, chief executive of Detained in Dubai, said: "The UAE maintains a deliberately misleading facade that alcohol consumption is perfectly legal for visitors.

"Tourists cannot be blamed for believing that the Emirates are tolerant of Western drinking habits, but this is far from reality.

"It is wholly illegal for any tourist to have any level of alcohol in their blood, even if consumed in flight and provided by Dubai's own airline. It is illegal to consume alcohol at a bar, a hotel and a restaurant and if breathalysed, that person will be jailed."

10 surprising things you probably didn't know about Dubai

Ms Stirling called on the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the UK Government generally to do more to "protect" British nationals, and claimed airlines were "complicit" and needed to be held "accountable".

Consular staff spoke to Mr Holman about the incident, advised him on procedures in Dubai and also spoke to UAE authorities to confirm Ms Holman and her daughter were being released, a UK Foreign Office spokesman said.

A Swedish foreign ministry spokeswoman said the case had not been registered with them because they had not been contacted by Ms Holman.

Emirates airline has been contacted for comment.
A British mum claims she was thrown in a Dubai jail cell with her four-year-old daughter, and could face a year detained in the strict Arab country after drinking a single glass of wine provided on an Emirates flight. Source: Ellie Holman / Facebook

A mum of three who claims she was thrown in a Dubai jail cell with her four-year-old daughter faces a year behind bars in the country after drinking what she says was a single glass of wine provided on an Emirates flight.

Dentist Ellie Holman, who lives in Sevenoaks in Kent with her English partner Gary and their three children, was initially denied water and made to clean toilets while in custody, according to human rights group Detained in Dubai.

The 44-year-old was arrested by immigration officers and thrown in an airport detention centre after her international flight landed in Dubai on July 13.

Ms Holman travelling to Dubai for a five-day break to visit friends (PA Images

Following an eight-hour flight, Dr Holman said airport officials stopped her because her visa had expired and told her she would have to immediately return to London.

The idea of getting back on a long-haul flight with her young child was unthinkable and she entered into a heated argument with the immigration officer who asked her if she had been drinking, The Sun reported.

I told him I had a glass of wine on the flight. It was given to me free by Emirates Airlines staff, she said.

The officer told her alcohol consumption was a crime in the United Arab Emirates.

Dr Holman then began recording the conversation to use it as evidence, until she was reportedly swarmed by armed police who arrested her and her child, and confiscated her phone and the pairs passports.

Bibi was terrified by the experience, Ms Holman said (PA Images)

The woman was taken to a police station for an alcohol test, which she said revealed 0.04 per cent of alcohol in her blood.

She claimed she and her daughter Bibi were also denied permission to use the toilet, so her little girl had to urinate on the baking hot and foul smelling cell floor, The Sun reported.

Upon finding out what happened to his family, Dr Holmans frantic partner Gary rushed to Dubai. He was allowed to collected his daughter and bring her home, but was forced to leave the frightened mum behind.

She was released on bail three days later, but said she now faced up to a year in the strict Arab country away from her three children and partner while she waits for her case to be heard.

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My practice is closed. All our savings have gone, Dr Holman said.

She has been staying with friends in Dubai but said the ordeal has so far cost her more than $52,000 in legal fees, expenses and missed employment.

Emirates has been contacted for comment.
It took Alexander Hamilton 200 years to hit it big on Broadway. But Donald Trump is already making a splash in a new musical.

Based on the 1993 movie, Dave is about an average American who ends up posing as the commander-in-chief, where hes forced to learn about the presidency on the job.

Though the plot doesnt stray too far from the movie, the productions lyricist and co-writer, Nell Benjamin, admits that some key moments were inspired by more recent events, such as Trumps promise to investigate F-35 fighter jet costs, as well as the way he talks.

The F-35 program and cost is out of control. Billions of dollars can and will be saved on military (and other) purchases after January 20th.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 12, 2016

Other subtle references to Trump got a reaction from the crowd at a preview for the press on July 27, in Washington, where the show runs through Aug. 19. One scene that drew the biggest reaction involved the scheming chief of staff, who says that he might run for president because a lot of people are saying he should.

Its interesting what Washington wants to get excited about, Benjamin said, laughing.

Benjamin said the chief of staff character kind of moves through the history of the Republican Party throughout the show, going from representing Reaganesque values to favoring preemptive striking and adopting Trumpian language. He ends up pointing the way towards the camp that the Republican Party is in today, Benjamin said.

But Benjamin said the show, which features 16 musical numbers and spans over two and a half hours, wasnt intended to be critical of Trump. In fact, producing Dave took more than four years  beginning even before Trump announced his presidential candidacy  and references previous presidents and vice presidents, including Richard Nixon and Dick Cheney.

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I would say that a lot of people working on our show  as is often the case in theater  may be further to the left, but our goal was not to be there, Benjamin said.

Benjamin said her hope is that a lot of people will want to see the musical in the same way that a lot of people with different political persuasions want to see Hamilton.'

Though Benjamin said she has been pleased with crowd feedback so far, she noted a recurring theme in viewers reactions.

What has sort of surprised us over and over again is that we didnt write it with this particular administration in mind, but some of the audiences have responded to it as if we did, she said.
This handout photo released by NASA shows the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket with the Parker Solar Probe onboard shortly after the Mobile Service Tower was rolled back on August 10, 2018, Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida - AFP

Launch from Cape Canaveral, Florida aborted on Sat morning

Nasa to send spacecraft into the Sun's atmosphere

Parker Solar Probe is as heat-resistant as a spacecraft gets

Aim is to make 24 passes through the corona during 7-year mission

9:32AM

Launch aborted

There is clearly still an issue - possibly with the helium regulator.

The launch window has expired and Nasa will now aim to reschedule the launch within 24 hours.

9:17AM

Launch is back on

New launch time set for 9.28am BST (4.29am ET).

8:56AM

No go on launch

The launch has been delayed. It's not clear what the issue is, but there is a "launch window" of around 45 minutes.

The countdown clock was halted at the T-4 minutes.

8:35AM

What are the questions the mission hopes to shed light on?

Magnetic fields

How can the Sun's atmosphere, called the corona, reach temperatures exceeding a million degrees Celsius if the star's surface is "only" 6,000 C (10,800 degrees Fahrenheit)?

"That's the big question: what's heating the solar corona?", said Thierry Dudok de Wit, an astrophysicist at France's National Centre for Scientific Research.

One likely suspect is electromagnetic waves.

Energy is stored in magnetic fields, the thinking goes, that are constantly stirring up the visible surface of the Sun, called the photosphere, and releasing energy into the solar atmosphere.

The FIELDS instrument - which captures the scale and shape of electric and magnetic field - is designed to help scientists figure out how, when, and where that energy release occurs.

Solar wind

Another mystery is how solar wind - composed of ionised gases streaming outward from the Sun at 500 kilometres per second (nearly a million miles per hour) - accelerates.

Finding out would help scientists forecast major space weather events that can adversely impact Earth's magnetic field and, in some cases, change the orbit of satellites and create electrical disturbances.

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The solar wind carries a million tons of matter into space every second.

Enter the Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons Investigation (SWEAP), which will count the most abundant particles in the solar wind - electrons, protons and helium ions - and measure their velocity, density and temperature.

"This could help us do a much better job of predicting when a disturbance in the solar wind could hit Earth, triggering space weather that could disrupt GPS, radio, radar and the electric grid," said Justin Kaspar, a professor at the University of Michigan and a principle investigator for the Parker Solar Probe.

This handout photo released by NASA shows the United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket with the Parker Solar Probe onboard shortly after the Mobile Service Tower was rolled back on August 10, 2018, Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida

Particle acceleration

The Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun (ISOIS) harnesses a pair of instruments to measure the full life-cycle of electrons, protons, ions: where they come from, how they accelerate, how they move out of the Sun through interplanetary space.

"These are high-energy particles that travel at phenomenal speeds approaching the speed of light," said Dudok de Wit.

"They reach Earth" - 150 million kilometres (more than 90 million miles) distant - "in 30 to 60 minutes."

Earth's magnetic shield protects us from these potentially harmful particles, he noted.

"But the day we go to Mars, we'll need to be able to predict solar eruptions of these particles, which can be deadly," he told AFP.

Close up

The Wide-Field Imager for Parker Solar Probe (WISPR) is the only imaging device on board. Never will a camera have come so close to the Sun.

WISPR will look at the large-scale structure of matter spewing outward from the Sun as it approaches the probe, to compliment the detailed physical measurements of other instruments.

NASA scientists know what they are looking for, but have allowed for the element of surprise.

"We have ideas about what will be found, but the most important results may well come from observations that are completely unexpected," said Mark Wiedenbeck, a researcher at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and part of the ISOIS team.

8:30AM

Night sky is lit up

Light from the xenons on the rocket lighting up the sky as well as we near launch #ParkerSolarProbe#SolarProbe#DeltaIVHeavypic.twitter.com/SuAdIws8Pn  Sawyer R. (@thenasaman) August 11, 2018

8:13AM

Dr Parker inspected the spacecraft yesterday

What an incredibly special moment to stand in front of @ULALaunchs #DeltaIV Heavy rocket with Dr. Eugene Parker just hours before his namesake spacecraft - Parker #SolarProbe - launches into space. Something I will never forget. Thanks for the tour @ToryBruno. pic.twitter.com/fTXSeMOJdx  Thomas Zurbuchen (@Dr_ThomasZ) August 10, 2018

8:01AM

The Parker Solar Probe's projected journey

The Sun's gravitational pull keeps everything in our solar system. Even though the Sun has a powerful pull, it takes 55x more energy to go to the Sun than to Mars! See how our #SolarProbe will make the journey when it launches at 3:53am ET today, Aug. 11: https://t.co/LevTP7RR1bpic.twitter.com/Nv7xHwNDHi  NASA (@NASA) August 11, 2018

7:38AM

Final preparations ahead of the launch

The United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket with the Parker Solar Probe is illuminated ahead of launch Credit: Nasa

7:36AM

How and why the Parker spacecraft is so tough

SUPERHERO-WORTHY SHIELD

Parker's lightweight heat shield is just 4 inches (11 centimeters) thick. But it can withstand 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,370 degrees Celsius) as well as extreme radiation, thanks to its high-tech carbon. Although the corona reaches millions of degrees, it's a wispy, tenuous, environment and so the spacecraft won't need to endure such severe temperatures. The 8-foot (2.4-meter) shield will face the sun during the close solar encounters, shading the science instruments in the back and keeping them humming at a cool 80 degrees Fahrenheit (27 degrees Celsius). As one scientist notes, this is a shield Captain America would envy.

SEVEN YEARS IN HOT PURSUIT

The spacecraft's path to the sun runs past Venus. It will fly by our solar system's hottest planet seven times over seven years, using the gravity of Venus to shrink its own oval orbit and draw increasingly closer to the sun. The first Venus flyby is in October, followed by the first dip into the sun's corona in November. There will be 24 orbits between Venus and the sun, with the final three putting Parker closest to the sun - just 3.8 million miles (6 million kilometers) out - in 2024 and 2025. That's a scant 4 percent of the 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) between Earth and the Sun.

This handout illustration obtained July 6, 2018 courtesy of NASA/Johns Hopkins APL shows an artists conception of NASAs Parker Solar Probe, the spacecraft that will fly through the Suns corona to trace how energy and heat move through the stars atmosphere

BREAKING RECORDS

The records will start falling as soon as Parker takes its first run past the sun.. The current close-to-the-sun champ, NASA's former Helios 2, got within 27 million miles (43 million kilometers) in 1976. Parker will come within 15.5 million miles (25 million kilometers) in November and then start beating its own record. During its closest solar approaches, the spacecraft will hurtle through the corona at 430,000 mph (690 kph), setting a speed record.

SOLAR SCIENCE

Our yellow dwarf star is, in many ways, a mystery. The outreaching corona is hundreds of times hotter than the sun's actual surface, confounding scientists. In addition, physicists don't know what's driving the solar wind, the supersonic stream of charged particles constantly blasting away from the sun. By being right in the thick of it, Parker should provide some answers, shedding light not only on our star but the billions of others out there.

PARKER THE MAN

Sixty years ago, a young astrophysicist at the University of Chicago, Eugene Parker, proposed the existence of solar wind. Many were skeptical and told him to read up on it first "so you don't make these killer mistakes," he recalls. Vindication came with NASA's Mariner 2 spacecraft in 1962. Parker is now 91 years old and at Cape Canaveral with his family to witness his first launch - a Delta IV Heavy rocket with the spacecraft bearing his name. It's the first time NASA has named a spacecraft after someone who's still alive. In an interview with The Associated Press on Thursday, Parker noted from a publicity standpoint, "it absolutely wipes out everything else" in his career. "At my age, it gets fatiguing. But of course, I enjoy it."

7:28AM

Nasa to launch mission to the Sun

On Saturday morning Nasa launches a $1.5 billion spacecraft that aims to plunge into the Sun's sizzling atmosphere - marking humanity's first mission to explore a star.

The car-sized Parker Solar Probe is scheduled to blast off on a Delta IV Heavy rocket from Cape Canaveral, Florida at 8.53am BST, with the weather forecast currently 70 percent favourable for takeoff, Nasa said.

By coming closer to the Sun than any spacecraft in history, the probe's main goal is to unveil the secrets of the corona, the unusual atmosphere around the Sun which can cause fierce radioactive storms which threaten Earth.

Not only is the corona about 300 times hotter than the Sun's surface, it also hurls powerful plasma and energetic particles that can unleash geomagnetic space storms, wreaking havoc on Earth by disrupting the power grid.

But these solar outbursts are poorly understood.

"The Parker Solar Probe will help us do a much better job of predicting when a disturbance in the solar wind could hit Earth," said Justin Kasper, one of the project scientists and a professor at the University of Michigan.

Why Nasa's daring mission to 'touch the sun' will be 'the next jump in knowledge'

The probe is protected by an ultra-powerful heat shield that is just 4.5 inches thick (11.4 centimetres).

The shield should enable the spacecraft to survive its close shave with the centre of our solar system, coming within 3.83 million miles (6.16 million kilometres) of the Sun's surface.

The heat shield is built to withstand radiation equivalent up to about 500 times the Sun's radiation here on Earth.

Even in a region where temperatures can reach more than a million degrees Fahrenheit (555,537 C), the sunlight is expected to heat the shield to just around 1,371 C.

Scorching? Yes, but if all works as planned, the inside of the spacecraft should stay at a rather more modest 29 C.

The goal for the Parker Solar Probe is to make 24 passes through the corona during its seven-year mission.

The United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket payload fairing is seen with the NASA and Parker Solar Probe emblems Credit: Bill Ingalls/NASA

"The sun is full of mysteries," said Nicky Fox, project scientist at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab.

"We are ready. We have the perfect payload. We know the questions we want to answer."

The tools on board will measure the expanding corona and continually flowing atmosphere known as the solar wind, which solar physicist Eugene Parker first described back in 1958.

Scientists have wanted to build a spacecraft like this for more than 60 years, but only recently did heat shield technology advance sufficiently to protect sensitive instruments.

The Parker Solar Probe after the installation of its heat shield Credit: Ed Whitman/NASA

Tools on board will measure high-energy particles associated with flares and coronal mass ejections, as well as the changing magnetic field around the Sun.

"We will also be listening for plasma waves that we know flow around when particles move," Dr Fox added.

"And last but not least, we have a white light imager that is taking images of the atmosphere right in front of the Sun."

When it nears the Sun, the probe will travel rapidly enough to go from New York to Tokyo in one minute - some 430,000 miles (700,000 kilometres) per hour, making it the fastest human-made object.
Photo credit: Bill Ingalls/NASA - Getty Images

From Popular Mechanics

NASA has approved SpaceX's plan to load propellants on a rocket while the astronauts are already strapped into the spacecraft, according to Spaceflight Now. SpaceX has used the tactic, known as "load-and-go," for dozens of satellite launches, but previously it was unclear if NASA would approve the company's fueling procedure with humans aboard.

It's standard procedure for SpaceX to fuel their Falcon 9 rocket with RP-1 kerosene rocket fuel and liquid oxygen in the final hour before launch, lifting off shortly after the tanks are filled. "Load-and-go," however, is viewed by some in the space industry as an unnecessary risk.

These propellants are kept at extremely cold temperatures, allowing them to shrink in volume so that more fuel can be packed into the Falcon 9. More fuel means more lifting capability, but super-chilled liquid oxygen warms quickly, within half an hour, so the oxidizer must be loaded immediately before launch.

We never could get comfortable with the safety risks that you would take with that approach," John Mulholland, who oversees Boeing's Commercial Crew Program, told the Washington Post in May. "When youre loading densified propellants, it is not an inherently stable situation.



SpaceX has, of course, pulled off many successful load-and go launches. But an anomaly on September 1, 2016 during propellant loading resulted in a Falcon 9 explosion during the run-up to an engine test fire. That incident two years ago resulted in some reservations regarding SpaceX's load-and-go procedure.

Risk is an inherent part of space travel, and many pro-load-and-goers argue that SpaceX's track record speaks for itself. Since the 2016 explosion, SpaceX has pulled off 33 straight successful launches. The company has saved NASA hundreds of millions of dollars with its many launches to the International Space Station. But those missions have all been uncrewed.

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As SpaceX prepares to launch its first crewed flights, NASA has given the green light for load-and-go for astronaut missions.

"Our teams have been following along with their normal operations, so we have a pretty good understanding of how their vehicle operates, Kathy Lueders, NASAs commercial crew program manager, said in an interview with Spaceflight Now. "That also really helped us in the assessment because we really understand now why SpaceX was doing what theyre doing."

Source: Spaceflight Now



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A policeman near the statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville ahead of the anniversary of 2017's violent protests - Getty Images North America

White nationalists and anti-racism protesters will face off just metres from the White House on Sunday as both mark the one-year anniversary of violent clashes in Charlottesville.

Both groups have been given permission to demonstrate in separate sections of Lafayette Square, a shady park that looks onto the back of the US presidents residence.

Attendees of "Unite the Right 2", a follow-up to the controversial far-Right protest last year, have been told to bring Confederate flags, wear body cameras and expect to be provoked.

A collective of counter-protest groups will stage a rally earlier in the day before congregating at the park and have vowed to drown out the white nationalists message.

Secret service officials will join officers from Washington DCs police force and the National Park Service to ensure there is no repeat of the violent clashes this time last year.

On that day Heather Heyer, 32, died and dozens of others were injured when a car crashed into protesters who were opposing the original Unite the Right rally.

The rally had been organised to oppose the removal of a statue of Robert E Lee, a Confederate general. James Alex Field Jnr, a 20-year-old man living in Ohio with far-Right links, was later charged with Ms Heyer's second-degree murder.

The incident led to one of the most controversial moments of Donald Trumps presidency as he blamed both sides for the violence - the white nationalists and anti-racism protesters.

A group wearing anti-fascist labels visits the site where Heather Heyer was killed during the 2017 "Unite the Right" protests in Charlottesville Credit: REUTERS/Brian Snyder

The comment triggered a wave of condemnation from politicians and campaigners, including senior Republicans, over Mr Trumps failure to call out racism.

On Saturday Mr Trump issued a pre-emptive call for peace, tweeting: The riots in Charlottesville a year ago resulted in senseless death and division.

We must come together as a nation. I condemn all types of racism and acts of violence. Peace to ALL Americans!

Mr Trump was accused of being a "racist" and using the n-word this week by a former White House aide and Apprentice star Omarosa Manigault Newman in a new book.

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A spokesman for Mr Trump dismissed the claims, saying the book was riddled with inaccuracies and the product of a "disgruntled former White House employee".

Charlottesville, a Virginian city around 100 miles south-west of Washington DC, rejected a request from Unite the Rights organisers to hold an anniversary demonstration there.

Nonetheless it has been placed in a state of emergency by Ralph Northam, the Virginian governor. Hundreds of officers will be deployed and a number of streets closed.

The white nationalist protest will instead take place in Washington DC from 5pm to 7.30pm and will see attendees march through the city to Lafayette Square.

Counter-protesters will hold a rally earlier in the day before also heading to the park. Between three and four thousand people in total are expected to attend, for both sides.

Makia Green, a 26-year-old core organiser for Black Lives Matter DC, told The Telegraph that she hoped the groups counter-protest would send a powerful message.

She said: I want people to know that the power of black communities across the world is going to be stronger and vaster than the white supremacist hate that weve been experiencing.
Rio San Juan (Nicaragua) (AFP) - On a rainy morning in Nicaragua's south, two men step out of the jungle and into a boat that will transport them a short distance over the border with Costa Rica, slipping past border guards and police to safety.

Both were among those spearheading roadblocks protesting the government of President Daniel Ortega in the city of Masaya, which in July was the target of an operation by police and loyalist paramilitaries to quash three months of dissent.

One of the men, a 28-year-old who used the pseudonym Guardabarranco, or "ravine-guard," was one of the coordinators of Masaya's protest movement. The other, a 31-year-old calling himself PSJ, had led those manning one of the barricades.

With only a backpack each, the men have left behind wives and children to join a flow of other Nicaraguans escaping what they see as a national "prison" for the relative safety of Costa Rica.

"We are fleeing the Ortega regime because to protest in Nicaragua is considered a crime. We've been threatened with death," Guardabarranco said before getting into the small, flat-bottomed boat, known as a "panga."

The United Nations says nearly 23,000 Nicaraguans have sought asylum in Costa Rica since the anti-Ortega protests started in mid-April, overwhelming the country's processing system.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR said it was bolstering its operations. The Costa Rican government says 100 to 150 people are daily crossing through main border station with Nicaragua -- a number that doesn't include many clandestine crossings.

- Ongoing unrest -

The Nicaraguans are seeking refuge from unrest that shows no sign of ending, despite a recent decline in violence.

More than 300 people have been killed and 2,000 wounded in the past four months, according to rights groups, although the government puts the death toll at 197.

A crackdown by authorities has seen 480 people arrested, 180 of whom have been put on trial on charges of terrorism and other serious crimes.

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"Costa Rica has opened its arms to Nicaraguans. We want to work, to spend some time there while things in Nicaragua calm down, while the international pressure keeps up on what's left of the Ortega regime," Guardabarranco said.

His companion said "this genocidal government is pursuing us, it wants to kills us. They know me very well and I'm afraid they will follow me and know where I am."

AFP accompanied the two men this week as the crossed the border to a Costa Rican beach where a car awaited them on condition they not be identified and no details be given about the people helping them.

Costa Rica is the main destination for Nicaraguans. But many are also going to Honduras, Panama and the United States.

The two men used to be active in the Sandinista movement that backs Ortega before turning against the president. Guardabarranco left a senior post with a company to join the protests. PSJ left his job in a family business.

"I saw the injustices done against the first protesters. I joined their fight and rapidly became one of the leaders" in the Masaya district of Monimbo, a bastion of anti-Ortega sentiment, Guardabarranco said.

"That was my crime: to protest, to rise up against the killers and the corruption in this government," he said.

PSJ's story was similar. He became enraged seeing Ortega's security forces brutally putting down the initial protests on April 18, when they were against cutbacks to social security.

A day after that first crackdown Masaya erupted with youths taking to the streets to decry the government's violence. They were attacked by police.

"I took the initiative to make a barricade at Masaya's entrance. My wife helped me. And then a group of young people helped. We were there for three months," PSJ said.

Clashes were constant for those three months, up until mid-July when riot police and masked paramilitaries carrying assault rifles sealed off Masaya and went in to forcibly clear the barricades and corner the protesters, some of whom resisted with stones and home-made mortars.

- A 'new Nicaragua' -

Guardabarranco and PSJ said they planned to meet up with other exiled Nicaraguans in Costa Rica to discuss how to bring about change in their home country.

For both, it was difficult to leave family and country behind.

"It hurts me deeply to leave my country, to leave my children," PSJ said.

"I didn't want to leave. But I am going to Costa Rica with the hope of one day seeing my country become free," he said, his eyes wet.

Guardabarranco concurred.

"I want to leave my children a new Nicaragua, where nobody is murdered for not thinking the same as the government," he said.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP)  The rival Koreas plan to hold high-level talks on Monday to prepare for a third summit between their leaders, as Pyongyang called on the United States to reciprocate its goodwill measures by easing sanctions and stopping demands that the North denuclearize first.

The plans by the Korean leaders to meet come as Washington and Pyongyang try to follow through on nuclear disarmament vows made at a U.S.-North Korea summit in June between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

In the most recent sign of growing frustration between Washington and Pyongyang, North Korea criticized senior American officials for insisting that North Korea give up its nuclear weapons first before easing sanctions. Notably, the statement didnt directly criticize Trump.

North Korea said in a statement Thursday that some high-level officials within the U.S. administration were making desperate attempts at intensifying the international sanctions and pressure.

We hoped that these goodwill measures would contribute to breaking down the high barrier of mistrust between Pyongyang and Washington, the Norths Foreign Ministry spokesperson said. However, the U.S. responded to our expectation by inciting international sanctions and pressure.

Those American officials are going against the intention of President Trump to advance the DPRK-U.S. relations, who is expressing gratitude to our goodwill measures for implementing the DPRK-U.S. joint statement, it said referring to the North by its official name, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.

Washington has said that sanctions will not be lifted until Pyongyang fully and finally dismantles its nuclear weapons. Some experts say that North Korea does not want to denuclearize first or maybe denuclearize at all because it wants a long, drawn-out process that sees external aid shipped in in return for abandoning nuclear weapons.

Pyongyang has also stepped up its calls for a formal end to the Korean War, which some analysts believe is meant to be the first step in the Norths effort to eventually see all 28,500 U.S. troops leave the Korean Peninsula.

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A South Korean official at the Unification Ministry, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of office rules, said the two Koreas will also discuss on Monday ways to push through tension-reducing agreements made during an earlier summit between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in. Among the agreements was holding another inter-Korean summit in the fall in Pyongyang.

The rival Koreas may try to seek a breakthrough amid what experts see as little progress on nuclear disarmaments between Pyongyang and Washington despite the Singapore summit in June and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeos several visits to North Korea.

Pyongyang insisted that the U.S. should reciprocate to the Norths suspension of missile launches and nuclear tests and other goodwill gestures such as the return of remains of American troops killed in the Korean War. The United States cancelled a joint war exercise with South Korea that was due to take place this month while dismissing calls to ease sanctions until the North delivers on its commitments to fully denuclearize.

The inter-Korean meeting on Monday will be held at Tongilgak, a North Korean-controlled building in the border village of Panmunjom. South Koreas unification minister will lead the delegation from Seoul but North Korea, which proposed the Monday meeting first, did not confirm the makeup of its delegation.

It wasnt clear when another inter-Korean summit might happen, but if the April 27 summit agreements between Moon and Kim are followed through on, the leaders will likely meet in Pyongyang in the next couple of months.

In the meantime, both Koreas are seeking an end of the Korean War. South Koreas presidential spokesman said last month that Seoul wants a declaration of the end of the 1950-53 war sooner than later. The Korean Peninsula is still technically in a state of war because the fighting ended with a cease-fire, not a peace treaty.

Earlier Thursday, North Koreas Rodong Sinmun said in a commentary that ending the Korean War is the first process for ensuring peace and security not only in the Korean peninsula but also in the region and the world.

Kim and Moon met in April at a highly publicized summit that saw the leaders hold hands and walk together across the border, and then again in a more informal summit in May, just weeks before Kim met Trump in Singapore.
Virginian Pilot

Tom Luckman used to sit on a bench in his backyard, sipping coffee and taking in the view. He and his wife, Sis, live on Hole 3 of the shuttered Signature at West Neck golf course, designed by Arnold Palmer, in the southern part of the city. The Luckmans home, in the Villages of West Neck, backs up to the fairway where golfers hit their second shot onto the green. His wife, who had a massive ...
By Jean-Charles Langlois - The Bridgeman Art Library, Object 159150, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5206970

Warfare History Network, F. Quinn

Security, Europe

Napoleon Bonapartes intuition failed him in the fight for the southerly route out of Moscow during the Patriotic War of 1812.

Not Waterloo: This Was the Moment Napoleon Met His Match

For many, the fascination of military history lies in the What if  What if Hitler had not ordered the Luftwaffe to shift from bombing RAF airfields to bombing London in 1940? What if Saddam had pushed on through Kuwait into northern Saudi Arabia, denying coalition forces the use of Saudi airfields to launch their counterattack? Many of the defining events in history turn on the fate of a single decision, a decision whose import is not always evident to the participants. For Napoleons Grande Armee, that fateful day of decision was October 25, 1812.

Napoleons invasion of Russia set the stage for his downfall and the destruction of the Grande Armee. The long march to Moscow and the bloody Battles of Smolensk and Borodino lay the planks for the armys coffin; a little-known battle in a town southwest of Moscow at Maloyaroslavets and the fatal council of war pushed on the lid, with the long torturous retreat driving in the nails.

Battle of Borodino

Following the bloody Battle of Borodino, Napoleon and his Grande Armee had at last reached the gates of Moscow. Victory was in sight. With his army in possession of the Russian capital, Napoleon believed it was only a matter of time before Alexander sued for peace and the long, costly campaign would end as all the others had, in victory. This campaign had been like no other Napoleon had fought: The Russian strategy of trading space for time had frustrated his ability to bring them to battle and had dangerously thinned his army as he was forced to guard his long and tenuous supply line back to France.

The Battle of Borodino on September 7, 1812, had at last provided Napoleon with a chance for the decisive battle he had sought on the long road from the Niemen River. The battle, like the campaign, however, proved to be a hollow triumph, the Grande Armee ending the day in possession of the field but at horrible costsome 30,000 men. More importantly, the battle had shaken Napoleon and his armys confidence. At the height of the struggle, with the chance for a decisive victory in his grasp, the Viceroy Eugene implored him to employ the Guard against the Russian center. Napoleon hesitated. I will not demolish my Guard, he answered.

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Marshals Louis Berthier and Joachim Murat agreed. Berthier urged him not to engage the only Corps in the army that remained intact and ought to be kept so for future occasions. Napoleon and his marshals were aware how far away they were from France and how much they risked by tempting fate. The great gambler, who had always believed in his destiny, had blinkedhe would not take the risk. The seed of doubt planted at Borodino would grow to fruition on the field of Maloyaroslavets, with harsh consequences.

Napoleons Options for Retreat

Throughout September and into October, Napoleon waited in the palaces of the Czar for Alexanders gesture of negotiation. He waited in vain. Alexander offered no terms and refused to meet with envoys. He had sworn to remove the French from Russian soil and he intended to keep that promise. As he had from the beginning, Alexander intended to allow the expanse of Russia itself to wear on the French. Six hundred miles from their starting point on the Niemen River and 1,400 miles from the security of France, Napoleon and his army were not looking forward to spending the winter in Moscow. It was time to consider a retreat, but by which route and how far?

Napoleon faced three options. First was a withdrawal to the northeast toward Kalinin and Velikiye Luki. Doing so would allow the French to shorten their supply lines by bringing them closer to the security of friendly Lithuania and to threaten St. Petersburg at the same time. However, the prospect of moving farther north with winter looming was deemed too risky to chance. The second option was to retreat back along their line of advance, the Smolensk-Vyazm-Moscow road. This was uninviting because the retreating Russians and advancing French had picked it clean of food and forage. Moreover, this center route would take the Grande Armee through the carnage of the Borodino battlefield, a dreadful prospect.

That left the southern route through Kaluga via Maloyaroslavets to the southwest. This route would allow the Grande Armee to pass through land not already ravaged by the war and rejoin the main Vilna-Vitebsk-Smolensk road where Napoleon had painstakingly gathered supplies to maintain his army.

The Southern Road to Smolensk

Realizing he could wait no longer, Napoleon ordered preparations for a return via the Kaluga Gate and the southern road to Smolensk. Since the French Army had entered Moscow, the main Russian Army had been encamped south-southeast of the city in the vicinity of Taruntina. This placed the Russians across the Old Kaluga Road and astride the projected route of Napoleons army. Opposite them sat the corps of Murat and Marshal Josef Poniatowski. Since mid-September, an uneasy if often-violated truce had been in place along this front. Napoleons plan was to send Viceroy Eugenes corps southwest down the New Kaluga Road, while he and the bulk of the main army left Moscow via the Old Kaluga Road. He hoped to deceive the Russians into believing he was moving to engage them southeast of Moscow. If he could avoid a major engagement and evade the Russians, Napoleon would be able to place his army between Smolensk and the main Russian Army.

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On October 13, Eugenes corps left Moscow via the Kaluga Gate, and by the 16th they reached the village of Gorki some 10 miles south-southwest of Moscow. The Russians, however, had plans of their own. Alexander, realizing the state of the French Army, implored Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov, commander of the Russian forces, to attack. After some hasty preparations, Kutuzov set his forces in motion to attack Murats extended line at Vinkovo. Accordingly, at 7:00 am on October 18, the 7th and 8th Russian Corps under General Nicolay Raevski struck the right and center of Murats corps at Vinkovo. The initial assault met with some success. Raevskis lead columns under Generals Mikhail Miloradovitch and Orlov-Densilov drove the French back through Vinkovo and threatened to cut the New Kaluga Road.

But the French recovered quickly. While Murat rallied the scattered remnants of his corps, Marshal Michel Ney and Poniatowskis corps restored the situation and pushed the Russians back to the vicinity of Vinkovo. The crisis having been averted, Napoleon continued to move the army south. He and the Guard left Moscow on October 19 while Eugene and the vanguard reached Fominskaya, 25 miles to the south, on the 21st. In an attempt to take advantage of the latest Russian setback, and as a further deception, on October 20 Napoleon sent General Jacques Lauriston to Kutuzovs headquarters with yet another request for a negotiated settlement. He held no real hopes that Alexander would come to terms. Rather, his intent was to delay any possible Russian reaction to his movements while his message was forwarded and he awaited a reply. On the 23rd, Napoleons rear guard left Moscow via the New Kaluga Road, while Napoleon began to shift the army from the Old Kaluga Road to the New Kaluga Road, sidestepping the main Russian Army. By the 22nd, Kutuzov began to sense something was up when his scouts informed him that the French vanguard under Eugene was heading toward Maloyaroslavets. Kutuzov hastily began to shift his forces to intercept them.

The Battle for Maloyaroslavets

The town of Maloyaroslavets is 57 miles southwest of Moscow and 25 miles north of Kaluga. Three key routes meet there: The Old Kaluga Road passes through the center of town, the Mulin Road is to the west, and the Tula Road is to the east. The town rests on the side and summit of a hill south of the Luzha River. From Moscow the town was only accessible to cavalry and artillery via a single wooden bridge spanning a ravine and the Luzha River. South of the river the terrain was just as foreboding. The southern bank of the Luzha River and the area east, west, and south of the town are heavily wooded and steep. Any assault force from the north would first have to secure the bridge across the Luzha, the town itself, and finally the heights beyond.

On the evening of October 23, Eugenes lead infantry divisionthe 13th, under Alexis Delzonsreached the town ahead of General Dmitri Dokhturov and quickly moved to take up positions to hold the vital river crossing. He occupied the town, but not in force. Later that evening, Dokhturovs forces reached the town and took up positions on the southern side of the ravine astride the three main routes. Dokhturov quickly ordered his Chasseurs into the town to dislodge the French before they could solidify their hold on the bridge and its crossing. Their initial charge carried the town, but the banks of the ravine provided cover for Delzons troops and the Russians were stopped short of the bridge. Throughout the early hours of the 23rd, the Russian Chasseurs fortified their position, but Dokhturov did not send in further reinforcements. The following morning, Delzons ordered a regiment of infantry forward in support. Their reckless charge cleared the Russians from the base of the bridge and would have cleared the town itself, except a Russian light artillery battery moved into position and fired three rounds of canister into the advancing column. The first halted the column, the second wavered it, and the third dispersed it.

As Delzons was attempting to regroup his forces, Eugene arrived with the remainder of his infantry and heavy artillery. An hour later Delzons regrouped forces, under cover of heavy fire, descended the banks of the ravine across the bridge and into the heart of the town. A bloody hand-to-hand struggle ensued for the center of town as each side threw more and more forces into the narrow streets. At first the momentum of the French charge gave them the upper hand. But Dokhturovs forces, under cover of their own heavy guns, pushed the French back to the ravine. This left forces in possession of a church and some adjacent homes that commanded the northern approaches to the bridge. Delzons was killed attempting to retain his hold on the northern edge of the town. His successor, General Guillment, renewed the offensive. Prince Eugene called up elements of an additional division under General Broussier, which managed to regain the town square, but they could make no further progress against stiffening Russian defenses.

As the morning wore on, the bulk of the Grande Armee began to close on the town. Ney and Marshal Louis Nicolas Davouts corps arrived first and Eugene began constructing a second bridge across the Luzha to bring across the remainder of Broussiers 14th Infantry Division. As the arrival of further French reinforcements threatened to overpower his overstretched command, Dokhturov dispatched riders in a desperate call for reinforcements. The first to arrive were Grenadiers from Raevskis corps who quickly swept into the town, forcing the French back yet again and threatening to trap the expanding French bridgehead on the southern side of the river.

The Grenadiers sent the French back through the heart of town to the church and the area south of the bridge. Eugene was forced to regroup his scattered elements yet again and answered this new Russian attack with General Pinos 15th Infantry Divisionthe last of Eugenes divisions. Pinos division slammed into the exhausted Grenadiers at the ebb of their charge, forcing them away from the bridge and through the town square, finally halting on the edge of town in the face of Russian artillery on the heights above.

The French at last had gained complete control of the town, but the Russians still held the surrounding hills. The cost was high, some 20,000 French and Russian casualties, or about one-third of the forces of Eugene and Dokhturovs respective corps. The town itself was all but destroyed; most of the buildings had been damaged and many were afire.

By 3 pm the French were gathering their forces to assault the heights beyond the town, but the timely arrival of the remainder of Raevskis corps solidified the situation and denied the French their opportunity. As the afternoon wore into evening, both armies converged on the battlefield, taking positions on their respective sides of the Luzha River. Around 7:00 pm Napoleon and his staff arrived. Bonaparte was pleased with the efforts of Eugenes corps and began making preparations to assault the heights in the morning.

Napoleon sent General Jean-Baptiste Bessieres, the commander of his Old Guard and a trusted confidant, forward to survey the field and advise him on the morrows dispositions. The general reported that the Russian position on the far bank was unassailable. When questioned further by Napoleon, Bessieres stated that three hundred grenadiers up there would be enough to stop an army.

Napoleon Calls for a Council of War

Once again Kutuzov had thwarted Napoleons maneuvers. As at Borodino, the Grande Armees effort had been for naught. The next morning, October 25, as Napoleon was surveying the Russian positions, a band of Cossacks burst from the nearby woods and attacked his escort, reportedly coming within 20 yards of Napoleon himself. His escort was able to repel the attack, but the incident had a profound effect on Napoleon and would shape the events about to come. In the face of an entrenched army to his front and now a direct threat to his person, Napoleons faith in his star, his destiny, was shaken to the core. That evening he took an unprecedented step in his career and called a council of war to decide the armys next course of action.

According to General Armand Caulaincourt, Napoleons Master of Horse, and General Philippe-Paul Segur, Napoleon summoned Ney, Murat, Prince Eugene, Berthier, Davout, and Bessieres and asked them which route the army should take to reach Smolenskcontinue south to Kaluga, shift north and west to Medyn, or retreat north back toward Moscow and Mozhaysk? At first, sensing Napoleons mood, the assembled generals were quiet, then Murat spoke, You may accuse me of imprudence once again, but, in war everything is decided by circumstance. When there is no choice but to attack, discretion becomes valor, and valor discretion. It is impossible to stop now, and dangerous to run away. We must pursue! What do we care for the threatening attitude of the Russians and their impenetrable forests? I laugh at them all! Just give me the remainder of the cavalry and the Old Guard and Ill go into their woods, crush their battalions, overthrow everything and open the road to Kaluga for our army! To this Napoleon replied, Ive had my fill of heroics! Weve done far too much for glory. The time has come now for us to turn all our thoughts to saving the remains of the army.

Bessieres, probably hoping to avoid being placed under Murats command, quickly agreed with the Emperor, citing the Guards dwindling morale and the armys inability to handle the task. He and the others pointed to the wounded from the previous days battle and argued that the army would not pay a further price for this land. Davout, hoping to salvage the situation, suggested that the attempt be made to bypass the Russian position to the north and west, through Medyn. This, he argued, would allow Napoleon to still utilize the southern approach to Smolensk and place the army between Smolensk and the Russians.

Murat, seizing a chance to attack a rival, accused Davout of leading the army to disaster, citing that such a maneuver would expose the armys flank to the Russians. Instead, Murat refuted his earlier statement and suggested that the army retire north via Mozhaysk and the road back toward Moscow. Davout countered that to return north was to take the army across a virtual desert where it would wither and die. As the argument rose to a crescendo, Berthier and Bessieres stepped between the two feuding marshals. Finally, a dejected and weary Napoleon had had enough. At the height of his despair he announced that he had decided the army would return north to Moscow via Bovorsk. The fate of the Grande Armee was sealed.

Kutuzov Considers Russias Next Move

Coincidentally, a similar meeting was taking place in the Russian camp. According to Sir Robert Wilson, the British liaison officer assigned to Kutuzovs headquarters, at 11 pm Kutuzov called all the officers to his tent and vigorously announced his intention to stand and contest the crossing of the Luzha, stating that he had determined to finish the war on that spotto succeed or make the enemy pass over his body. Orders were quickly issued and the Russian Army was deployed to contain the French bridgehead. Three hours later, at about 2 am, Kutuzov resummoned his generals and announced that he had changed his mind; he had received word that the army was in danger if it remained in position above Malo-yaroslavets. To ensure the armys safety he ordered an immediate withdrawal back beyond Kaluga, to secure the armys communications across the Oka River. Perhaps he feared Napoleon was using Eugenes corps to pin his army in place while other elements of the Grande Armee crossed the Luzha at another point, trapping him against the river.

Wilson was incredulous, pleading with Kutuzov to reconsider. In an argument mirroring Davouts to the north, he argued that to turn their back to an enemy to their front would doom the army and leave the route to Kaluga and Medyn for the French. Kutuzov did not heed his counsel. Instead he told Wilson that if pressed by the French he would move the army farther south across the Oka, 24 miles to the southeast. Like his French counterpart, he had had enough.

The French Armys Infamous Retreat

On the 26th, both armies began preparations to depart, the French to the north and the Russians to the southwest. These preparations were noted by each armys pickets and duly reported to higher headquarters. This was information neither commander wanted to hearthe hard-fought campaign had claimed the energy and confidence of each. The French advance guard under Davout turned away from the Medyn road and moved north toward Fominskaya; the infamous retreat had begun.

From the start things did not go well. Wagons full of provisions had to be burned for lack of horses. On the first day, as the French passed through the field of Borodino, Segur wrote in his memoirs, We saw a field, trampled, devastated and every tree shorn off a few feet above the earth. In the background stood a number of hummocks with their tops blown off, the highest of which seemed the most misshapen. The spot had the appearance of a flattened, extinct volcano. Everywhere the earth was littered with battered helmets and breastplates, broken drums, fragments of weapons, shreds of uniforms, and bloodstained flags. Lying amid this desolation were thirty thousand half-devoured corpses. The scene was dominated by a number of skeletons lying on the crumpled slope of one of the hills; death seemed to have established its throne up there. This was the terrible redoubt which had been the victory grave of Caulaincourt. All along our lines ran the sad murmur, The field of the Great Battle. Hungry, demoralized, and with winter setting in, the remnants of the Grande Armeemoved on.

That night Napoleon learned from a captured Russian soldier that the Russians were pursuing the French along the Medyn road, a route that would cut them off from Smolenskthe road Davout had counseled Napoleon to take after Maloyaroslavets. Each day the weather and hunger took its toll on the French as their losses in men and horses began to mount. The advance guard under Davout and Eugene and the rear guard under Ney were the only intact elements of the army; the remainder in between represented a roving mob more than the Grande Armee.

On the night of November 2, the Russian advance guard, moving along the Medyn road, took up a position between the French and the town of Vyazma along the Moscow-Smolensk road. Compared to the battles before it, the number of men involved, and the casualties inflicted, the battle of Vyazma was hardly significant. What was significant was the condition of the Grande Armee and how it fought. The lack of horses hampered the movement of artillery, and the loss of discipline and order limited the units that could be brought into the battle. As Davout and Eugene engaged in an uneven contest with the Russian advance guard under Miloradovich, the last intact elements of the army were being sacrificed for the mob behind. As night closed on the field, the French had not cleared the road. Miloradovich had called for reinforcements, but his plea fell on deaf ears and the next day the French were able to push him from the road, resuming their way west.

Kutuzov considered his next move. He knew his army was in condition to continue to engage the French. But rather than doing so, he chose to give the honor of the victory to the freezing weather and the empty plains of Russia.

By the 6th the snow blew in and the Cossacks began to make their presence known. With each step, the toll on men and horses continued to mount, and at each town or obstacle soldiers fell off to the side. Units became separated and cohesion was lost. Three days later on the 9th, the Grande Armeewould reach Smolensk, having lost over 50,000 men to death and desertion. More importantly, the army would enter Smolensk a broken force, an undisciplined mob, that would descend on the carefully hoarded French supplies like a swarm of locusts. With their supplies quickly exhausted the army could not remain in Smolensk, so on they went, into disaster. The Grande Armee of 600,000 men that had crossed the Niemen River in June would number just over 100,000 by December.

We will never know what the outcome would have been if the Grande Armee had pushed through Maloyaroslavets to Kaluga. Perhaps if the army had traveled over more fertile ground it would have been in better shape once it reached Smolensk and its vital supplies. The retreat from Moscow may then have only been a setback in Napoleons illustrious career, instead of the defining moment of his downfall. We do know in hindsight that the road was open, that Kutuzov would not have contested its passage.

Napoleon had always counted on his star to provide him insight into the mind of others. His faith in his own destiny had blazed a path of victory across the plains of Europe. But his star abandoned him on the cold, open steppes of Russia at the crossroads of Maloyaroslavets.

This article by F. Quinn originally appeared on the Warfare History Network.

Image: Wikimedia Commons

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A photo taken from a Norwegian surveillance aircraft shows Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov in international waters off the coast of Northern Norway on October 17, 2016. 333 Squadron, Norwegian Royal Airforce/NTB Scanpix/Handout via Reuters ATTE

Charlie Gao

Security, Europe

Its all about the fuel.

We Now Know Why Russia's Only Aircraft Carrier Pumps Out So Much Black Smoke

For most sailors who served on the Admiral Kuznetzov, Mazut is the stuff of legends. The ultra thick, tarry black substance that powers the ship is known for being rather toxic, sticky, and not easy to get out of clothes. But why did the Soviet navy keep powering its ships with Mazut? What are the advantages and disadvantages of the fuel? Why exactly is the Kuznetsov so smoky?

Not all Russian ships run on Mazut. Of all the large ships the current Russian Navy operates, only the Sovremenny-class destroyers and the Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier run on Mazut. Given the large profile the Admiral Kuznetsov on the global scenebeing Russia's only aircraft carriernaturally, some curiosity has arisen about what it runs on and why it produces so much smoke.

Mazut is a heavy petrochemical fuel. While most sources refer it to being taken from the very bottom of a distillation stack, this is inaccurate as "mazut" is a blanket term for very-heavy oil products, including those that can be formed from blending heavier oils with some slightly lighter ones.

In the West, Mazut would fall into the Bunker B and Bunker C fuel oil classifications, although the ISO 8217 standard has superseded these categories. Under the ISO 8217 standard, Mazut may be classified as RMG or RMK fuel.

These thick, heavy fuels were, by and large, the standard for both military and commercial vessels up until the 1960s and 1970s. Their thick nature gave them a very high volume to energy ratio compared with lighter distillates. But to be burned, they often had to be preheated and pressurized in a complex series of boilers and pipes.

Burning these fuels could also produce large amounts of sulfur, as such heavy minerals tended to settle to the bottom of a distillation stack. As a result, these fuels can be expensive to procure in nations with higher environmental standards as they must be distilled from crude with a low initial sulfur content or removed via a chemical process.

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For these reasons, Western navies began to transition to gas turbine propulsion in the 1960s and 1970s. Gas turbines use natural gas and distillate fuels, not heavy bunker fuels. Currently, all U.S. Navy ships use gas turbines for propulsion except those powered by nuclear power or the Freedom-class, which uses an electrical drive system.

However, the Soviet Navy seemed hesitant to make such a complete shift to gas turbines. While the Slava-class cruisers laid down in the 1970s used gas turbines, the Sovremenny-class destroyers laid down in the same era still were designed with a Mazut-powered propulsion system, reportedly due to the inability of the Soviet industry to produce enough turbines at the time. The later Udaloy-class destroyers continued the trend of using gas turbines.

The big question is why the Admiral Kuznetsov continued to use Mazut. Nuclear power was an option on the table, as the Kirov-class battlecruisers being designed around the same time used nuclear power plantsalthough the later Ulyanovsk-class of carriers planned to use nuclear power. One possible reason was that the class was partially based on the hull shape and layout of the earlier Kiev-class carriers, which ran on Mazut.

While Mazut was definitely not an optimal fuel choice for the Admiral Kuznetsov, its long and troubled construction process only compounded the problems. A Russian news article describes the Kuznetsov as having a weak heart due to the poor standards of shipbuilding when it was being completed in the 1990s in the Nikolayev Black Sea Shipyard in Mykolaiv.

Furthermore, Admiral Valentin Selivanov said, From the very beginning, poor quality pipes were installed in her boilers. The same admiral then went onto describe the Kuznetsov's 1990s sea trials. Due to the problems with the pipes, not all boilers could run at full capacity all the time, and they would often break down. Sometimes the ship was reduced to operating on one boiler, giving it a speed of around 4 knots. These same reliability problems lead to the Russian Navy sending tugs to accompany the Kuznetsov during its 2016 trip to the Syrian coast.

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These engineering difficulties are also given as a potential reason for the Kuznetsov's super-smoky nature. Vice Admiral Pyotr Svyatashov explained, saying that because of improper calibration in the preheating or injection mechanisms, the Mazut injected into the combustion chamber might not have had time to combust fullyin other words, the partially burned products are causing the black smoke.

This is supported by some other analysts, who say that the exhaust color can be widely classified into three colorsgrey for oil, white for water, and black for fuel. Some blogs have gone into further analysis of the potential mechanical problems that may cause black smoke, albeit on the Sovremenny-class ships, which have suffered their own bouts of black smoke.

However, some Russian military experts have attempted to downplay the problem entirely. Admiral Ivan Vasiliyev said on the show Tsargrad that the black smoke was a deliberate move to show the British that the Admiral Kuznetsov was there, as per seamans tradition.

Charlie Gao studied political and computer science at Grinnell College and is a frequent commentator on defense and national-security issues.

Image: A photo taken from a Norwegian surveillance aircraft shows Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov in international waters off the coast of Northern Norway on October 17, 2016. 333 Squadron, Norwegian Royal Airforce/NTB Scanpix/Handout via Reuters ATTENTION EDITORS - THIS IMAGE WAS PROVIDED BY A THIRD PARTY. FOR EDITORIAL USE ONLY. NORWAY OUT.

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NPR aired a segment on Friday morning featuring an interview with white supremacist and Unite the Right rally organizer Jason Kessler, drawing the ire of racial justice activists who say the media shouldnt be giving racists a platform to spread their ideology at all.

Kessler is gearing up for a rally on Sunday in Washington, D.C., to mark the one-year anniversary of the white supremacist Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a neo-Nazi allegedly drove his car into counter-protesters, killing one and injuring dozens. During his interview, he told NPRs Morning Edition that white people are under attack in the U.S. and listed different racial and ethnic groups in order of supposed intelligence.

Other media outlets, including HuffPost, have spoken with white supremacists since Charlottesville, and have often struggled with how to cover an emboldened white supremacist movement without giving its vile ideas more oxygen.

In a message before the clip of Kesslers interview, host Noel King warned: Full disclosure: Some of what youre about to hear is racist and offensive.

King pressed Kessler on many points and questioned his proclaimed facts and intentions. (After Kessler listed races by IQ, King shot back that he doesnt sound like someone who wants to unite people.)

But critics of NPRs segment said it gave Kessler a platform that legitimized his racist ideology and set up a false equivalency between two sides.

After the nearly 7-minute interview ended, NPR transitioned to an interview with a Black Lives Matter activist, a setup implying that white supremacists and people advocating for racial justice are two sides of the same coin, ThinkProgress editor Aaron Rupar wrote in a column.

Mark Pitcavage, a senior research fellow with the Anti-Defamation Leagues Center on Extremism, tweeted: Media outlets should think long & hard before granting white supremacists a platform that can reach millions. This piece was not a general story quoting Kessler for a few seconds, among others  it was a one-on-one interview. No experts, no debunking or exposure of mistruths.

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Some groups, like Charlottesville Anti-Racist Media Liaisons, are pushing activists not to speak with any media outlets that include white supremacists in their stories. Formed in May 2017 in the aftermath of a smaller tiki torch rally in Charlottesville that was a precursor to the violence last August, the group is made up of volunteers and activists from anti-racist organizations in the city and frequently fields calls from reporters who are also interviewing extremists tied to Unite the Right.

Their answer to those outlets requests for interviews is always no.

Its a deep betrayal to the entire community of Charlottesville, Mimi Arbeit, a representative of Charlottesville Anti-Racist Media Liaisons, told HuffPost recently. Fascism uses the press to normalize itself and recruit followers and gain social power. The press is not a neutral player in history.

The activists sometimes point to an Associated Press style guide on white nationalism and the alt-right that suggests providing context when writing about white supremacists like Kessler. A press release from last year by Showing Up for Racial Justice, an adjacent activist group in Charlottesville, reads:

Following the spirit of the AP style suggestions, Kesslers full background should be explained in any reports: He is a white nationalist. To do otherwise is to normalize his fringe racism.

NPR defended the segment in a comment to HuffPost. Interviewing the people in the news is part of NPRs mission to inform the American public, it does not mean NPR is endorsing one view over another, Isabel Lara, NPRs senior director of media relations, said. Our job is to present the facts and the voices that provide context on the days events, not to protect our audience from views that might offend them.

King also defended the segment on Twitter after social media users expressed outrage that her outlet had given Kessler a platform. Morning Edition is a notably diverse team who thought long and hard before airing this, she wrote.

I'm a biracial woman. Our Executive Producer is a Black woman. I understand you didn't like this interview; I understand why, but Morning Edition is a notably diverse team who thought long and hard before airing this. If you're at @NABJ next year, I'd love to meet you in person.  Noel King (@NoelKing) August 10, 2018

NPR public editor Elizabeth Jensen also tweeted that she had registered the complaints and would be addressing the segment in a column on Monday.

I've heard all the comments re @MorningEdition interview with Jason Kessler & talked to newsroom. Will wrap their thoughts (and mine) in a column Monday that looks at all the weekend coverage, too  Elizabeth Jensen (@ejensenNYC) August 10, 2018

CORRECTION: A previous version of this story misstated the day of the rally Kessler was preparing for as Saturday.

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This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
NEW YORK (AP)  A Bronx dad fled to Thailand after carrying his dead 7-month-old baby around New York City in a backpack and tossing his body into a river near the Brooklyn Bridge and other tourist spots, police said Wednesday.

Thai authorities stopped James Currie, 37, when he landed in Bangkok and blocked him from entering the country, NYPD Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said. He will be returned to New York within days to face a felony charge of concealment of a human corpse, Shea said.

A tourist from Oklahoma spotted the diaper-clad body Sunday. Her husband pulled the lifeless baby from the East River to shore and tried reviving him.

"This is a heartbreaking case," Shea said.

The baby's mother, who lives separately from the father in the Bronx, had seen news reports about the baby. The next day, she found out Currie failed to drop off their child, Mason Saldana, at day care.

Shea said the woman, 36, made a "blood curdling" call to 911 after trying to reach Currie. During the call, she told the dispatcher she had seen a report about the baby found in the river and feared the worst, he added.

Shea said the baby was alive when Currie took him to his Bronx apartment around 12:30 p.m. Saturday, under a custody arrangement. The baby died before Currie left and headed for Manhattan around 1:30 p.m. Sunday, he added.

Video showed Currie walking toward the river and carrying the baby in a backpack he fashioned as a baby carrier. A backpack was seen floating in the river near the boy's body.

Additional charges could be filed pending an autopsy. A determination on the baby's cause of death isn't expected this week.

Diana Campbell, of Stillwater, Oklahoma, first noticed the baby around 4 p.m. Sunday. Her husband, Monte Campbell, waded into shallow water near the South Street Seaport on the Manhattan shoreline, retrieved the baby and started CPR.

"She just called me over and said there was a baby in the water," Monte Campbell said. "I called 911. At that point, I thought it was a doll."

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He said the baby wasn't breathing and showed no pulse.

Police officers arrived minutes later and took the baby onto the pedestrian walkway, where they continued CPR before the baby was taken to a hospital and pronounced dead.

Currie boarded the flight to Bangkok around 2:20 p.m. Monday. The baby's mother called 911 around 9 p.m. Monday.

"I think it's self-evident as to why the individual was trying to get away as fast as possible," Shea said.

Currie and the baby's mother were not married, and police aren't aware of any other children between them, Shea said.

Shea said a preliminary investigation showed that the city's children's services administration had no prior reports about the child or the couple.

"We don't have any red flags that existed before this," Shea said.

The East River running between Manhattan and Brooklyn is a heavily trafficked tidal estuary subject to strong currents. Both park-lined shorelines are usually teeming with tourists this time of year.
Bucharest (AFP) - More than 450 people were hurt and around 30 arrested during a huge anti-corruption protest in Bucharest, Romanian police said on Saturday, a day after the rally.

Police had used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the protesters as tens of thousands rallied to call on the leftwing government to resign.

Many demonstrators needed treatment after inhaling pepper spray and tear gas, while others suffered blows, hospital sources said.

Around 30 police were also injured, 11 of whom were taken to hospital.

Police rejected criticism from the centre-right opposition that its officers had used excessive force, saying its response to violence by dozens of protesters had been "gradual and proportionate".

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, whose country currently holds the EU rotating presidency, criticised the clashes, which also saw a cameraman for Austria's public broadcaster injured.

"We strongly condemn the violent clashes in Bucharest where numerous demonstrators and journalists were injured. We expect full explanations," he said on Twitter.

"Freedom of expression and, related to that, freedom of the press are basic freedoms of the EU, which we clearly recognise and which must be unconditionally protected."

Local media said up to 80,000 people had taken to the streets, among them many Romanian expatriates who returned home to show their anger at the graft in one of the EU's most corruption-plagued member states.

About a thousand officers in riot gear intervened to clear the crowds assembled in a central square outside the main government building after some protesters tried to break through the police cordon.

Romania's centre-right President Klaus Iohannis, a critic of the government, said he "strongly condemned the brutal intervention of the police, which was disproportionate to the attitude of most demonstrators" but added that "any form of violence is unacceptable".

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Prime Minister Viorica Dancila, in turn, accused Iohannis of "inciting the population against the authorities" and "using the dramatic effects of the events".

Another demonstration is planned for later Saturday in Bucharest.

In a controversial move last month, Romania sacked top anti-graft prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi -- considered a symbol of the country's fight against corruption.

With Kovesi at the helm, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (DNA) had led a crackdown on corruption among local and national elected officials, earning the enmity of many in Romania's political class and prompting critics to accuse it of abuse of power.
What would it feel like to fall into a black hole? This fanciful question has pit real physicists against each other for decades  and new research from Ohio State has opened up some old wounds.

Theres a lot of people writing a lot of stuff about black holes and black hole information, string theorist Nicholas Warner, Ph.D., a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Southern California, tells Inverse. (Warner was not involved with the new study, by the way.)

Some of its brilliant and wonderful and some of it is crap.

If you go by the theory of general relativity, nothing escapes a black hole. Not even light travels fast enough to free itself from a black holes gravitational pull. Its in the freaking name: A black hole is a spherical maw, floating in the void of space. It is a borg-like agglomeration of matter so dense that it assimilates everything that passes through its event horizon.

Unfortunately, none of this makes any sense from a quantum mechanical perspective. According to the rules, information simply cant be destroyed, and yet thats what black holes seem to do. This paradox has birthed a long-simmering intellectual war and, with the publication of the new study in the Journal of High Energy Physics, Ohio State physicists have recently turned up the heat.

There was no simple fix in physics for this.

The math at the core of quantum mechanics states that information cannot be obliterated, only converted into new forms: matter consumed into energy, energy forging new combinations of matter, and so on. But every time a complex, information-rich object is crushed into the uniform, impossibly compacted space of a black hole, all of its defining characteristics are lost  either flattened out or stretched into an infinitesimal spaghetti, depending on which theoretical model you choose. But no matter how you wish to think about it, the defining information encoded in that matter would appear to be totally obliterated.

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For about a decade and change, Samir Mathur, Ph.D., a professor of physics at Ohio State, has been attempting to apply the higher-order, more multidimensional physical equations of string theory to this, the black hole information problem.

In 2009, Samir Mathur proved a result about the black hole information paradox that showed it was much worse than we thought, Warner recalls. There was no simple fix in physics for this. It was going to require a large-scale rethinking of the physics of the event horizon.

Mathur is an author on the new paper, an attempt to clarify his teams string theory-based fuzzball resolution to the paradox. The only new problem is that it does so by throwing the controversial rival firewall theory under the bus.

In the wake of Mathurs earlier research, four physicists at the University of California, Santa Barbara posited in 2012 that the seeming loss of information around an event horizon (as it does when, say, a genetically unique tree is burned into uniform gray ash) must come with the release of an incredible amount of energy. They proposed that, just underneath the surface of a black holes event horizon, there is a spherical firewall of energy ready to annihilate anything that dares to enter.

While it provided a working hypothesis for what might happen to all that supposedly lost information inside a black hole, more than a few scientists were unconvinced.

I can tell you right now: the firewall idea is and always has been preposterous, Chris Adami, Ph.D., a professor of microbiology, molecular genetics, physics, and astronomy at Michigan State University, tells Inverse.

Adami has been involved in this debate for a while. With a grant from the Army Research Office in 2003, he made an ambitious attempt to resolve the black hole information problem by testing it against some of the emerging principles of quantum communication theory.

Donald Marolf, Ph.D., one of the physicists that first proposed the firewall, waves off the criticisms. He does not believe that Adamis research is even applicable to the debate because he thinks it misses the real issue at the heart of the black hole paradox: how to account for the spontaneous emissions proposed by none other than Stephen Hawking.

Adamis work discussed stimulated emission by black holes, Marolf tells Inverse. But  despite common misconceptions  this has essentially nothing to do with the black hole info problem, which instead concerns the growth of [quantum] entanglement due to spontaneous emission.

I can tell you right now: the firewall idea is and always has been preposterous.

Stephen Hawking, a professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge, lecturing at an event honoring NASA's 50th Anniversary in 2008.

The paradox at the heart of the black hole information problem stems from Hawking radiation, an alleged spontaneous emission from black holes that Hawking justified theoretically in 1974.

The realization that a black hole would eventually die out after all these emissions, and the seemingly information-free quality of the Hawking radiation emissions, first indicated how fiercely black holes would bring relativity and quantum mechanics into conflict. Inside Hawkings version of a black hole, it really looked like information was being destroyed.

Adamis solution to the paradox addresses stimulated emissions  which contain more information than spontaneous emissions  but if you ask Marolf, thats not enough to account for the information required to resolve the paradox. Word is still out, however, on Mathurs theory.

In the classic interpretation of a black hole put forward by general relativity (top diagram), all of the black hole matter is constrained to a hyper-dense singularity at the center. In Mathur's string theory version, complex multidimensional geometries, the 'fuzzball,' emerge throughout the full volume of the black hole and approach tightly underneath the event horizon (bottom diagram).

There wasnt always beef between these scientists.

In fact, for a while, Mathurs fuzzball argument was wholly compatible with the firewall theory. He had shown through string theory that the interior of a black hole was not one, incredibly small, hyper-dense singularity surrounded by a powerful sucking void between it and the event horizon, but rather a volume filled with wiggling, multidimensional strings and branes  a fuzzball of information-rich materials vibrating out in dimensions beyond the three spatial dimensions, and time, that we experience as humans.

To string theorists like Mathur and Warner, the firewall theory addressed only the parts of the fuzzball that are very hot  in other words, it was not all-encompassing or mathematically rigorous, but it also wasnt wrong.

I would not say that the firewall argument was completely preposterous, Mathur tells Inverse, but the press did not report it accurately, so people were confused.

Mathurs new paper, however, takes a less accommodating approach to the firewall argument. At least, its no longer compatible with the idea that a person falling into a black hole would get burnt up in some kind of firewall, if it exists. Their explanation  due to some unique features of string theory  um, well, its deeply weird.

This is the crucial part of the new physics, Mathur says, In the fuzzball theory, the inside of the black hole is not empty space; it is actually filled with a tangle of strings, branes, et cetera. When something falls into the hole, the hole gets bigger.

The question is: when exactly does it expand to its new size? We showed that new strings begin to form when the infalling object is still some distance from the surface of the original fuzzball. So, the infalling object never gets close enough to the original fuzzball surface to feel its heat  the newly formed strings change his infall behavior.

Think of it as a hand approaching a mirror. Just as your hand can never touch a part of the mirror that isnt a reflection of it, Mathur says, similarly, the fuzzball surface moves up to meet the infaller, rather than wait for the infaller to reach near the surface and get burnt.

Rather than feeling a burning sensation, or a shattering or crushing sensation, Mathur predicts that an infaller would feel as though they were falling through a form of gently curved spacetime called anti-de Sitter space.

This is the idea of complementarity, Mathur says, which the firewall people were trying to shoot down. Understanding this is key to answering the inevitable question: What happens when you get sucked into a black hole?

The answer relies on the assumption that, in quantum mechanics, everything can be described by a set of frequencies. If two systems have the same frequencies, then we cannot tell them apart. For example, if a piano and a keyboard emitted the same frequencies, you could not hear them and tell that they were really very different internally.

Likewise, a person can be described by a set of frequencies. If that person falls into a black hole, Mathur explains, he hits the fuzzball and sets the fuzzball into vibrations. But suppose the fuzzball vibrates with the same frequencies. Then the infaller has been absorbed, but in a sense he continues to live on in terms of the vibrations of the fuzzball. Thus he will not feel that he has been absorbed.

(For a rough, maybe irresponsible, approximation, feel free to just imagine a person going through a black hole and then entering some psychedelic interstellar phantasia from an old Jack Kirby Marvel comic. Lets say Doctor Strange.)

Multiple images of the 'real monster black hole' at the heart of the colliding galaxies Arp 299. At top, NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array has recorded X-ray data projected out by the system. At middle, the NuSTAR high-energy X-ray data has been overlaid on a visible-light image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The bottom panel shows Hubble's visible-light image alone.

Though Mathurs explanation is satisfying (albeit complicated), its unclear whether it will put an end to the black hole paradox problem anytime soon. Neither Adami nor Marolf felt comfortable commenting on the new research from Mathur and his team, each for his own reasons. Warner would not either, but admits he feels very confident that Mathur is on the right track by applying string theory to the internal dynamics of black holes.

String theory has been notoriously airy and abstracted. It has been accused of being non-falsifiable, its adherents like religious zealots in their commitment to a series of mathematical equations that have, thus far, strongly suggested the existence of many dimensions outside the four we all deal with regularly  without a single physical experiment to confirm them.

But if we want to solve the black hole paradox once and for all, we may very well have to take their giant leap of faith.

If I had to bet one the place where you might get some indication of string theory in the next decade or two, Warner says, it might just be in black hole physics.

Photos via NASA/Paul E. Alers, Samir Mathur / Ohio State / Matthew Phelan, NASA/JPL-Caltech/GSFC, Flickr / US Department of State, Flickr / NASA Goddard Photo and Video, NASA, Flickr / NASA Hubble

More From Inverse
MANTECA, Calif. (AP)  A San Francisco Bay Area police chief said his family is "shaken to the core" after his son was arrested in the beating of a 71-year-old Sikh man.

Tyrone McAllister, 18, and a 16-year-old boy could face charges including attempted robbery, elder abuse and assault following Monday's attack in the city of Manteca. Police say they are investigating the attack as a robbery, not a hate crime, The Modesto Bee newspaper reported.

McAllister is the son of Union City Police Chief Darryl McAllister, who wrote Wednesday on Facebook that "words can barely describe how embarrassed, dejected, and hurt my wife, daughters, and I feel right now."

The chief said his son began running away and getting into trouble about two years ago, committed several theft-related crimes and spent several months in juvenile detention. Later, as an adult, the younger McAllister spent another three months in jail, his father said.

"Violence and hatred is not what we have taught our children; intolerance for others is not even in our vocabulary, let alone our values," he wrote. "Crime has never been an element of our household, our values, nor the character to which we hold ourselves."

Police said Sahib Singh, who doesn't speak English, was attacked while walking on a sidewalk next to a park in Manteca, about 40 miles (65 kilometers) northeast of Union City, authorities said.

Surveillance video shows two people in hoodies approach him. Singh appears to try to walk away, but they confront him and he puts his hands up.

The two appear to talk him briefly before one kicks him in the chest, knocking him to the ground. His turban falls off. He gets up and appears to be trying to defend himself when one of the attackers kicks him again, knocking him down. Singh is kicked several more times, and an attacker spits on him before leaving.

Singh suffered minor injuries, police said.

McAllister said he and his wife worked with Manteca police to help track down his son, who now could face felony charges and prison time.

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The attack was the second on a Sikh man in a week in central California.

Last week, two men beat a man in the community of Keyes and spray-painted a neo-Nazi symbol on his truck in what police are treating as a hate crime.

Surjit Malhi said he was putting up campaign signs for local Republicans when two men ambushed him.

___

Information from: The Modesto Bee, http://www.modbee.com
Photo credit: Rhino Conservation Botswana/ Kensington Palace - Getty Images

From Town & Country

Prince Harry made an unannounced visit to Africa this week, and he did not bring along Meghan Markle this time. Though the couple has spent lots of time in Africa-most famously for their third date-this was a working trip for Harry, and like most people who travel for business, he didn't bring his spouse.

The Duke of Sussex is on a private working trip to Botswana, to join the annual general meeting for Rhino Conservation Botswana in his capacity as patron," Kensington Palace said in a statement to ITV. He attended the board meeting in Maun and an RCB community project in Xarakao village.

Royal correspondent Omid Scobie noted on Twitter that this is the second time this year Harry has visited the Southern African country to care for the animals. The Duke serves as a patron Rhino Conservation Botswana, an organization that works to increase and protect populations of black and white rhinos.

Great to see Prince Harry back in Maun, Botswana, in his role as patron of @RhinosBotswana (second time this year).

Earlier this week Harry was with RCB director Map Ives in the Okavango Delta, where in 2016 he helped fit tracking devices to relocated endangered black rhinos pic.twitter.com/d5XszGcjSX - Omid Scobie (@scobie) August 10, 2018

In 2015, Harry told Town and Country what an African trip with him is really like. "I don't go on safari," he said. "I come so I can surround myself with people [working in conservation] and support them."

Photo credit: Rhino Conservation Botswana/Kensington Palace copyright: Getty Images - Getty Images

Photos of Harry's most recent trip this week have not been released, but royal reporter Carolyn Durand managed to take a screenshot of video taken while Harry was visiting a Xarakao village.

Kensington Palace confirm The #DukeofSussex is on a private working trip to Botswana to join the Annual General Meeting for Rhino Conservation Botswana in his capacity as Patron He attended the Board meeting in Maun & an RCB community project in Xarakao village." #PrinceHarry pic.twitter.com/zhPTNlcLbD - Carolyn Durand (@CarolynDurand) August 10, 2018

Although this was a solo trip for Harry, Botswana is a place where he and Meghan have shared many fond memories before. Harry reminisced on some of those moments in the couple's first joint interview with the BBC after their engagement in November.

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Photo credit: Antony Jones - Getty Images

"We camped out with each other under the stars," he said. "She came and joined me for five days out there, which was absolutely fantastic. So then we were really by ourselves, which was crucial to me to make sure that we had a chance to know each other.

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ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP)  After three days of dramatic and sometimes salacious testimony in the trial of Paul Manafort, prosecutors returned Thursday to the nuts and bolts of their case against the former Trump campaign chairman as they sought to show he obtained millions of dollars in bank loans under false pretenses.

Attorneys for special counsel Robert Mueller also got a rare, and narrow, acknowledgment from U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III that he likely erred when he angrily confronted them a day earlier over whether he had allowed a witness to watch the trial.

The judge's comments and testimony about Manafort's loans came during the eighth day of his trial as prosecutors began presenting the bulk of their bank fraud case after spending days largely on tax evasion allegations. Prosecutors say they expect to rest their case Friday.

On Thursday, a group of bank employees told jurors about discrepancies and outright falsehoods contained on Manafort's loan applications.

Melinda James, a Citizens Bank mortgage loan assistant, testified that Manafort told the bank that a New York City property would be used as a second residence, but she found it listed as a rental on a real estate website. That distinction matters because banks regard loans for rental, or investment, properties as riskier and may impose restrictions, including on how much money they're willing to lend.

Jurors saw an email from Manafort to his son-in-law, Jeffrey Yohai, in which he advised him that an appraiser was looking to schedule a visit to the property.

"Remember, he believes that you and Jessica are living there," Manafort wrote in the email, referencing his daughter.

Airbnb executive Darin Evenson also told jurors that one of Manafort's New York City properties was offered as a rental through much of 2015 and 2016  a direct contradiction of the documents the longtime political consultant submitted to obtain a $3.4 million loan.

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Manafort also asserted on a loan application that he did not have a mortgage on a separate New York property, even though he actually did, and signed paperwork indicating he understood that he could face criminal penalties for providing false information to the bank.

The prosecution has called more than 20 witnesses, including Manafort's longtime deputy Rick Gates, and introduced a trove of documentary evidence as they've sought to prove Manafort defrauded banks and concealed millions of dollars in offshore bank accounts from the IRS. But along the way they've not only faced an aggressive defense team but a combative relationship with Ellis.

The judge has subjected the prosecution to repeated tongue-lashings over the pace of their questioning, their large amount of trial exhibits and even their facial expressions. But on Thursday, Ellis told jurors he went overboard when he erupted at prosecutors a day earlier for allowing an expert witness to remain in the courtroom during the trial.

"Put aside my criticism," Ellis said, adding, "This robe doesn't make me anything other than human."

Prosecutors had asked Ellis to tell the jury that he made an error in admonishing them during the Wednesday testimony of IRS agent Michael Welch.

Ellis had heatedly confronted prosecutor Uzo Asonye, saying he hadn't authorized Welch to watch the entirety of the trial. Witnesses are usually excluded from watching unless allowed by the judge.

But in their filing, prosecutors attached a transcript showing that in fact Ellis had approved the request a week before. They said his outburst prejudiced the jury by suggesting they had acted improperly and could undermine Welch's testimony.

"The Court's sharp reprimand of government counsel in front of the jury on August 8 was therefore erroneous," prosecutors wrote. "And, while mistakes are a natural part of the trial process, the mistake here prejudiced the government by conveying to the jury that the government had acted improperly and had violated court rules or procedures."

Welch had told jurors that Manafort didn't report at least $16 million on his tax returns between 2010 and 2014. He also said Manafort should have reported multiple foreign bank accounts to the IRS in those years.

On Thursday, they also asked Ellis to seal portions of a bench conversation during Gates's testimony because "substantive evidence" in an ongoing investigation was discussed. Prosecutors didn't elaborate, but one bench conference came after Manafort's defense team tried to question Gates about whether he had discussed his work on the Trump campaign with Mueller's team.

The judge agreed Thursday night to seal the portion of the sidebar.

Neither Manafort nor Gates was charged in connection with their Trump campaign work, but the special counsel continues to investigate Russian election interference and any ties to associates of the president.

Thursday's testimony was devoid of some of the drama of recent days, when Gates was confronted about having embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from Manafort and was forced to admit on the witness stand to an extramarital affair.

___

Read the Mueller team's filing regarding the judge's scolding: http://apne.ws/FPSP7vk

Read the Mueller team's filing regarding an ongoing investigation: http://apne.ws/PpO0wgB
Charlottesville on high alert A group Anti-fascism demonstrators, march in the downtown area in anticipation of the anniversary of last years Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. (Photo: Steve Helber/AP)

A group of anti-fascist activists rallied peacefully in downtown Charlottesville as the city marks the anniversary of last summers white supremacist violence.

A few dozen black-clad demonstrators marched through downtown Saturday afternoon, stopping to pause for a moment of silence at the site where a woman protesting a white nationalist rally was killed last August.

Some in the group scrawled messages in chalk at the site that hosts a makeshift memorial to Heather Heyer. Several police officers watched from a distance.

The group then continued marching, with some members carrying a sign that said, Good night white pride.

As the activists made their way wordlessly through a downtown pedestrian mall, people sitting outdoors at cafes began singing This Little Light of Mine.

Around 10 a.m. Saturday, when many shops were beginning to open, law enforcement officers outnumbered visitors in the popular downtown shopping district. Concrete barriers and metal fences had been erected, and police were searching bags at two checkpoints where people could enter or leave.

Saturday marks a year since white nationalists marched through the University of Virginia campus with torches, clashing with a group of counterprotesters. The following day, a much larger gathering of white nationalists near a downtown park erupted into violence. (AP)

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Bucharest (AFP) - Tens of thousands gathered Saturday in the Romanian capital Bucharest for a second straight day after more than 450 people were hurt and around 30 arrested in a huge anti-corruption protest.

Police came in for criticism after they used water cannon and tear gas on Friday to disperse protesters calling on the leftwing government to resign.

Many demonstrators needed treatment after inhaling pepper spray and tear gas, while others suffered blows, hospital sources said.

Around 30 police were also injured, 11 of whom were taken to hospital.

Massive crowds gathered in downtown Bucharest on Saturday night, watched by security forces as they chanted: "Down with the government" and "Justice, not corruption".

"I came after seeing what happened on Friday on television -- the brutality of the police against peaceful people," said Floarea Toader, 64, the national yellow, blue and red flag draped across her shoulders.

"My children work in Spain and they would like to come back. But for now that's not possible as the politicians are only interested in themselves and do nothing for anyone else."

Around four million people have left the country -- one of the European Union's poorest -- in the last 15 years, seeking a better life than that offered by Romania's average monthly wage of just 520 euros ($590).

Police rejected criticism from the centre-right opposition that its officers had used excessive force on Friday, saying its response to violence by dozens of protesters had been "gradual and proportionate".

- Criticism of violence -

Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz, whose country currently holds the EU rotating presidency, criticised the violence, in which a cameraman for Austria's public broadcaster was also hurt.

"We strongly condemn the violent clashes in Bucharest where numerous demonstrators and journalists were injured. We expect full explanations," he said on Twitter.

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Local media said up to 80,000 people had taken to the streets, among them many Romanian expatriates who returned home to show their anger at the graft in one of the EU's most corruption-plagued member states.

About 1,000 officers in riot gear intervened to clear the crowds assembled in a central square outside the main government building after some protesters tried to break through the police cordon.

Eugene, a 62-year-old construction worker, travelled specially to Bucharest on Friday to protest at what he said was "endemic corruption".

"But things quickly turned bad: they fired tear gas at us, it was unbearable."

Another demonstrator, Madalina, 22, said of Friday's clashes: "We couldn't breathe and we had to seek shelter in the surrounding streets."

Romania's centre-right President Klaus Iohannis, a critic of the government, said he "strongly condemned the brutal intervention of the police, which was disproportionate to the attitude of most demonstrators" but added that "any form of violence is unacceptable".

Prime Minister Viorica Dancila, in turn, accused Iohannis of "inciting the population against the authorities".

- Waves of protests -

In a controversial move last month, Romania sacked top anti-graft prosecutor Laura Codruta Kovesi -- considered a symbol of the country's fight against corruption.

With Kovesi at the helm, the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office (DNA) had led a crackdown on corruption among local and national elected officials, earning the enmity of many in Romania's political class and prompting critics to accuse it of abuse of power.

Before Kovesi's sacking, thousands of protesters took to the streets in support of her. There have also been long-running waves of protests against judicial reforms -- at their peak drawing an estimated half a million people nationwide in February 2017.
TORONTO (AP)  When Saudi Arabia ordered its citizens studying in Canada to abruptly leave the country it left institutions like Techno Canada in the lurch, forcing the small Toronto business school to scramble for new students in the middle of the summer.

But that doesn't mean the school's director wants his government to abandon its advocacy of civil rights in Saudi Arabia, which prompted the worst diplomatic rift in history between the two countries.

"I am very much with my government to stand up for human rights," the head of Techno Canada, Basu Mukherjee, said as he conceded the loss of Saudi students will hurt his bottom line. "It is going to be hard, but we will try our best to replace them."

Similar sentiments have been expressed in recent days across Canada as schools, hospitals and even some businesses largely shrug at Saudi Arabia's decision to punish the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over tweets supporting two jailed dissident bloggers.

In a sign that the Saudis may not have as much leverage over Canada as they thought, many in the country say they are less concerned about the effects on Canada of the diplomatic spat than they are concerned for the well-being of the 15,000 students who were told they cannot resume studies for the fall semester and 800 doctors and medical residents who must leave by Sept. 1.

"It's very difficult for people who have families and leases," said Dr. Salvatore Spadafora who oversees 216 of Saudi doctors and medical residents in the Toronto Academic Health Sciences Network. "They are all working very, very hard and trying to study and then this happens."

The Saudi government expelled Canada's ambassador to the kingdom and withdrew its own ambassador on Sunday, days after two Canadian tweets in support of arrested activist Samar Badawi, whose writer brother Raif Badawi was arrested in Saudi Arabia in 2012 and later sentenced to 1,000 lashes and 10 years in prison for insulting Islam. Then it halted flights by its national airline and ordered the students home, a decision that affects institutions as small as Techno Canada, which has just 40 people enrolled, to major institutions such as the University of Toronto.

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But even though the Saudis are a significant presence in Canadian hospitals and in higher-education, contributing about $1 billion to $1.5 billion Canadian dollars (US$770 million to US$1.1 billion) to the Canadian economy last year, the overall effect is minimal since other foreign students can easily replace them.

Spadafora said other medical students will pick up the shifts of the Saudi residents and physicians when they go home by Sept. 1.

Brian Hodges, who oversees about 94 from Saudi Arabia including 58 or 59 trained specialists or fellows at Toronto's University Health Network, said patient care won't be affected. "The first priority really is figure how to support them," he said. "Many have been with us for five or four years and are close to doing exams."

Trudeau, a staunch defender of woman's rights, is not backing down and has received only limited criticism from domestic opponents.

"Canadians have always expected our government to speak strongly, firmly, clearly and politely about the need to respect human rights at home and around the world," he said.

Financial markets did not appear hurt by the dispute amid reports that the Saudis intended to unload Canadian assets. There were rumors that Kingdom Holding Co. intended to sell its 47.5 percent stake in the Toronto-based luxury hotel chain Four Seasons. A company spokeswoman, Sarah Tuite, would only say that "day to day operations" have not changed. "It is business as usual," she said.

Bilateral trade between the two nations is just $3 billion a year. Canada does get 10 percent of its imported crude oil from Saudi Arabia, but even if the dispute escalates further Saudi oil could potentially be replaced with U.S. shale oil or oil from Canada's oil sands region  the third largest oil reserves in the world.

Saudi Arabia's energy minister said oil sales to Canada will not be affected.

The worst potential impact on Canada would be if Saudi Arabia canceled Canada's largest arms deal, a $15 billion deal with Saudi Arabia in 2014 to export its light-armored vehicles to the kingdom. Jim Reid, a union leader who represents 500 workers at the General Dynamics facility in London, said that could lead to job losses.

The Canadian foreign ministry says they have heard nothing about the contract.

"The Saudi's are shooting themselves in the foot," Reid said. "Yes, it's going to cause some economic hardship for some universities and colleges and hospitals but this is disrupting their own citizens' lives whether they are doctors in hospitals or students. It boggles the mind."

Robert Bothwell, a professor at the University of Toronto, said anything Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman does to harm Canada will also harm a range of Saudi interests including their investments and students.

"The Saudi monarchy is playing around with thousands of Saudi subjects, slaves. Their interests are not being regarded. They are just pawns and that's very much to be regretted," Bothwell said.
Saudi Twitter accounts and media outlets release outlandish claims and genuine criticism of Canada amid escalating row

Justin Trudeau said his government was engaging with Saudi Arabia to resolve the spat but stood firm on Canadas stance. Photograph: Christinne Muschi/Reuters

Its a country that regularly ranks among the best places to live, and is often lauded for its tolerance and quality of life. But this week, a very different view of Canada has been peddled online amid an escalating diplomatic row between the two countries.

Soon after Saudi Arabia announced that Canadas ambassador to the kingdom was now persona non grata, a surge of Saudi Twitter accounts began expressing concerns about Canadas treatment of indigenous peoples.

Others  using strikingly similar language  threw their support behind Quebec sovereignty, backing a sentiment that has faded in recent years.

As Saudi officials criticised Canada for interference in its internal affairs, some lauded the kingdoms restraint when it comes to Canadian issues.

Saudi Arabia could have easily supported the 1995 Quebec independence referendum through the funding of media campaigns and attacks against the Canadian government to secure a Quebecan (sic) victory, noted one tweet. It added: But we do not meddle in other nations domestic affairs, clearly, unlike Canada.

The nationalistic fervour playing out online was laid bare after a Saudi organisation apologised for a tweet showing a plane flying towards Torontos CN tower, in what appeared to be a reference to a 9/11 style attack.

The mixture of outlandish claims and genuine criticism continued on Saudi-owned media outlet Al Arabiya, where guests were trotted out to make wild claims that ranged from accusing Canada of supporting terrorism to having the worlds highest rates of female persecution.

Another segment listed off supposed prisoners of conscience in Canada, including Ernst Zundel  a German holocaust denier who was detained for two years in Canada before he was deported to Germany were he died last year  and controversial academic Jordan Peterson.

Peterson responded to the report on Thursday, tweeting: Help! Im being held prisoner in Canada, before touting an upcoming visit to Saskatchewan to promote his book.

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The outlet also offered a detailed look at Canadian prisons, mixing in legitimate issues such as the excessive use of solitary confinement with the claim that, between 2015 and 2017, some 75% of prisoners in Canada died before their case.

Meanwhile state-run media in Saudi Arabia said on Wednesday that the country had executed and crucified a man convicted of killing a woman and carrying out other crimes.

In recent days Saudi officials have continued to escalate the row; making plans to move thousands of Saudi students and medical patients out of Canada, suspending flights to and from Canada on the state airline and halting purchases of grains originating from Canada by the countrys main state wheat buying agency.

The spat appeared to have been sparked last week when Canadas foreign ministry expressed its concern over the arrest of Saudi civil society and womens rights activists.

On Wednesday Justin Trudeau, Canadas prime minister, said his government was engaging with Saudi Arabia to resolve the spat but stood firm on Canadas stance. We will, at the same time, continue to speak clearly and firmly on issues of human rights at home and abroad wherever we see the need.
Fox News' Sean Hannity, a frequent critic of major media outlets, appears at a New York event honoring powerful media figures in April. (Photo: Taylor Hill/WireImage via Getty Images)

Jay Sekulow and Rudy Giuliani, lawyers for President Donald Trump, hosted Sean Hannitys radio show Friday afternoon in an unvarnished display of partisan loyalty on one of the nations most influential talk shows.

Hannity announced the schedule change Friday morning on Twitter as he shared an interview with Sekulow he conducted earlier in the week. The lawyer criticized special counsel Robert Muellers Russia investigation, a theme that resurfaced in Fridays episode when Sekulow and former New York Mayor Giuliani took the reins.

Hannitys cozy relationship with the president is well known, but this is the first time hes stepped aside to lend his powerful microphone to Trumps team directly.

The presidents lawyers spent the shows three hours rehashing Trump administration talking points and making their case for their shared client in between listeners calls.

As he did earlier in the week, Sekulow argued that Article II of the U.S. Constitution protects the president from Justice Department questioning  a claim debated in legal circles. He also acknowledged that, contrary to legal advice, Trump wants to speak with Mueller because he believes he can clear his name. (The attorneys are currently negotiating terms of a possible interview.)

Giuliani claimed the Mueller investigation was born in corruption and called for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and former FBI Director James Comey to be investigated for legal violations he deemed clear. If he were attorney general, Giuliani said, he would appoint an independent counsel to appropriately prosecute individuals including Comey and Peter Strzok, the FBI agent who sent personal texts critical of Trump to a colleague.

The attorneys lingered on the kerfuffle over the American pastor detained in Turkey, a situation which earlier Friday prompted Trump to announce economic sanctions on the country. They also briefly discussed Chicagos rash of gun violence and once again blamed Mayor Rahm Emanuel for not taking sufficient action.

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.@JaySekulow and Rudy Giuliani will be guest hosting for me today on radio... The depth of corruption that led to this investigation and that frankly continues to permeate this investigation is unprecedented..." https://t.co/XtMIIN7Ylr  Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) August 10, 2018

Their appearance on Hannitys show comes at a time when a tight link between the host and Trump is becoming increasingly clear.

New York magazines Olivia Nuzzi in May detailed the pairs habit of calling one another after 10 p.m. many nights. The radio and Fox News host appears to be one of few people the president trusts, and the two reportedly spend a good part of their time together discussing the Russia investigation, Mueller, media coverage and the so-called deep state conspiracy theory.

Trump and Hannity previously shared a personal attorney, Michael Cohen, currently besieged by a Mueller offshoot investigation into possible tax fraud.

The president has also admitted in front of at least one crowd that Hannity may influence his policy decisions, including a threatened government shutdown to force Congress to take action on border security. And after Trumps controversial Helsinki summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the president gave Hannity the first interview.

Although the commentator has waffled on whether he considers himself a journalist, he has promoted baseless conspiracy theories on his various platforms, including the deep state theory positing that a secret cabal of government employees is scheming to undermine Trump.

Hannity hosted Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey this week to discuss the tech executives refusal to boot notorious conspiracy theorist Alex Jones from the platform.

In recent months he has garnered criticism from Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, among others, for veering too far from fact-based opinion and into unbridled pro-Trump cheerleading. This week, the Sekulow and Giuliani takeover of Hannitys radio show underlines that point.

This story has been updated with information about topics of discussion on the radio show Friday afternoon.

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US investigators are scrambling to understand how a young mechanic was able to steal an empty passenger plane from Seattles main airport, fly for more than an hour doing tricks and then crash into a forest, killing himself.

The FBI, National Transportation Safety Board and Federal Aviation Administration were all attempting to work out how the 29-year-old ground service agent for the airline Horizon Air was able to carry out the incident.

The 76-seat plane had taken off from Seattle-Tacoma Airport, in the northwestern US state of Washington, on Friday night and was soon accompanied by two F-15 fighter jets which were scrambled into the air.

Attempts were made over radio transmissions to the convince the pilot - named locally as Richard Russell, who had worked for the airline for three and a half years - to land. However he ultimately crashed into Ketron Island, a sparsely-populated area of the state.

Recordings of the conversation between the man and control tower officials captured him sounding excitable, at one point saying he had a few screws loose and apologising to his relatives.

Richard Russell: The airline worker who died after stealing plane in Seattle

The Pierce County Sheriff's office ruled out terrorism. Ed Troyer, who works at the sheriffs office, described the man as suicidal.

The White House said in a statement that Donald Trump, the US president, had been briefed on the incident and was monitoring the situation.

"He was a faithful husband, a loving son, and a good friend," the Russell family said in a statement.

"This is a complete shock to us. We are devastated by these events and Jesus is truly the only one holding this family together right now," the family said.

A Horizon Air Bombardier Dash 8 Q400, reported to be hijacked, flies over Fircrest, Washington, the U.S., before crashing in the South Puget Sound, August 10, 2018 in this still image taken from a video obtained from social media

It has raised fundamental questions about airline security at Americas major airports after the mechanic was able to board the plane, taxi onto the runway and take off without being stopped.

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Aviation experts questioned what the authorities would have been able to do if the pilot was determined to fly the plane into a city rather than do loop-the-loops.

Some also asked whether there should be annual mental health checks for all those employed in the airline industry.

Investigators are expected to want to obtain camera footage from the airport, which hosts more than 30 airlines with nonstop service to more than 90 domestic destination, to understand how the man was able to co-opt the plane in broad daylight.

Seattle plane crash

They are also expected to want to recover cockpit voice recorder, in case the pilot made any phone calls or spoke to himself during the flight.

Chilling audio of the conversation between the pilot and the control tower, where airport officials were attempting to get him to land safely, emerged on Saturday.

At one point someone in the control tower says: Congratulations, you did that, now lets turn around that airplane safely and not hurt anybody on the ground.

The pilot responds: Alright. Oh damn it, I dont know man? I dont want to. I was kind of hoping that was going to be it, you know.

Sitting on a plane at SeaTac Airport, a Horizon employee just hijacked an airplane. He is flying around the airport, he does not know how to land it. Happening right now. SeaTac airport.  Victoria (@Mickaleets) August 11, 2018

In another clip the pilot claims to have put fuel in the plane to "to go check out the Olympics" - the Olympic Mountains which lie about 100 miles (160 kilometers) away. But he expressed fears that the fuel was going "quite a bit faster than I expected."

In another section the man is heard saying: This is probably like jail time for life, huh? I would hope it is for a guy like me.

Elsewhere, according to The Seattle Times, he says: "I've got a lot of people that care about me. It's going to disappoint them to hear that I did this.

#breaking smoke and flames barely visible on Ketron island. Witnesses tell me a commuter twin prop plane and two military aircraft were in area before what may be a crash. @KIRO7Seattlepic.twitter.com/tCcNvJBEVx  Terry Griffin (@TerryKIRO7) August 11, 2018

"I would like to apologise to each and every one of them. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess. Never really knew it until now."

Social media users captured footage of the aircraft doing a large loop-the-loop in a clear sky as the sun was setting.

John Waldron, a witness, told CNN: I thought they were practising for an air show to be perfectly honest. I had no idea at the time that the aircraft had been stolen from Sea-Tac. I had no idea what was going on at all, honestly.

Stolen horizon airplane crashed into Ketron island. Preliminary info is that a mechanic from unknown airlines stole plane. Was doing stunts in air or lack of flying skills caused crash into Island  Pierce Co Sheriff (@PierceSheriff) August 11, 2018

Nick Junka, who said he had worked with the mechanic, said: We have access to these planes all day long. We secure them. This is the most outlandish thing. I worked with this guy. He was a good guy . I would never have dreamed of this individual doing this. Never.

Discussing possible motives, Sheriff Paul Pastor said: Most terrorists don't do loops over the water. This might have been a joyride gone terribly wrong."

Male is confirmed a suicidal male. Acted alone he is 29 year old Pierce county residence . We are working back ground on him now.  Pierce Co Sheriff (@PierceSheriff) August 11, 2018

Constance von Muehlen, Horizons chief operating officer, said in a video statement: Our hearts are with the family of the individual aboard as well as all our Alaska Air and Horizon Air employees.
The top ranking member on the House Intelligence Committee has been recorded saying that the best way to protect President Donald Trump is to make sure that Republicans keep control of Congress during the upcoming 2018 midterm elections.

Speaking at a private, closed-door fundraiser for a Republican colleague, Representative Devin Nunes  a prominent supporter of Mr Trump  suggested that he and his fellow Republican colleagues could stave off the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election by holding the House in 2018.

Republican control of Congress, he suggests in the clip that aired on MSNBC's Rachel Maddow Show, is the last line of defence against any fallout from special counsel Robert Muellers investigation.

If Sessions wont unrecuse and Mueller wont clear the president, were the only ones, which is really the danger, Mr Nunes can be heard in the tape, referring to Mr Mueller and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who recused himself from matters involving the special counsel since he was a member of Mr Trumps campaign.

I mean, we have to keep all these seats, Mr Nunes says. We have to keep the majority. If we do not keep the majority, all of this goes away.

Mr Nunes has created waves in the past by calling for the impeachment of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who appointed Mr Mueller, and who has direct authority over that investigation since Mr Sessions has recused himself from the investigation.

The recording was broadcast on the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC: Fox News

During the fundraiser, Mr Nunes reportedly said that efforts to impeach Mr Rosenstein were a matter of timing  and reaffirmed his belief that he should be impeached  and that pushing the nomination of Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh is a higher priority at the moment.

In response, Democrats have suggested that the nomination of Mr Kavanaugh is itself protection for Mr Trump, should Mr Mueller's team issue a subpoena for Mr Trump that the president then decides to fight.

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"It tells me that Republican leadership is putting priority on confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh," Senator RIchard Blumenthal said when asked about the recording. "He's the critical swing vote if the special counsel issues a subpoena and it goes to the US Supreme Court".

Republican control of the House of Representatives is considered imperilled in the coming midterm, with Democrats across the country targeting potentially vulnerable GOP districts  and even targeting some districts that Republicans have traditionally held.

Polls suggest that Democrats are poised to take quite a few seats, and generic Congressional ballots  in which Americans are asked, in general, which party they support  indicate that Democrats are supported by an average of six per cent in the US, according to estimates compiled by FiveThirtyEight.
Smoke billowing from the destructive fires burning through California this summer has spread far beyond the Golden State  reaching the East Coast.

The National Weather Service says smoke from the raging fires out West has impacted cities thousands of miles away  and the atmosphere above them. Residents in states like Missouri, Ohio, Mississippi, Virginia and even New York and Massachusetts can see the smoke manifest itself through grey skies and vibrant sunsets, the National Weather Service says. And those in fewer states throughout the Midwest, South and East Coast are breathing in air that has been impacted by the smoke as well.

But how exactly does smoke travel this far? Andy Edman, chief of the science technology infusion division at the National Weather Service, says small particles of smoke that come from the fires can stay in the air and move through the Earths atmosphere  all the way to the East Coast. The smoke sits more than a mile above the Earths surface, but can move down through strong winds called jet streams and have an impact on air quality.

Where the smoke is in the atmosphere will make a difference on the impact a human being will receive, Edman says. For example, with the smoke far from the Earths surface, Edman says, if youre in D.C. or New York, if you walk outside, it will all seem sunny but if you look up at the sky, it will be grey.

The National Weather Service has two relevant maps that explores the issue. One shows the path of vertically integrated smoke  that is, the smoke that sits far above Earths surface in the atmosphere and impacts the sky you see above you.

The other map shows the movement of near-surface smoke, which, as its name suggests, shows the levels of smoke near the Earths surface that have an impact on air quality.

Particles from smoke near the Earths surface can cause a range of health issues, including respiratory problems, and aggravate lung and heart issues. Officials advise people living in areas impacted by the smoke to take safety measures by staying in doors and running air conditioning units.

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Dust Masks arent enough to protect you from the wildfire smoke particles. It is best to stay indoors. If youre running an air conditioner, keep the fresh-air intake closed and the filter clean to prevent outdoor smoke from getting inside. https://t.co/0UN3jWLBKG #WildfireSafety pic.twitter.com/a542HErIZa  NWS (@NWS) August 7, 2018

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station captured images of smoke from these fires from space earlier this week, showing the smokes eastward shift and massive reach. Edman, of the National Weather Service, says not all fires can create this long-ranging stream of smoke, but the cumulation of fire after fire after fire in the state has made it possible this time around.

When you have that many fires, its not uncommon for that smoke to go fairly long ways downstream, Edman says.

Smoke particles from fires in California traveled far last year, too, when satellite images from NASA showed the smoke traveling over to the East Coast. Thanks to new technology, Edman says, the National Weather Service has been better able to track the movement of smoke across the U.S. from fires based in California, capturing it in visualizations and maps for just a few years now.

Meanwhile, in California, 15 active wildfires are burning throughout the state as a destructive and record-breaking fire season rages on. The Mendocino Complex fire just north of San Francisco became the largest fire in state history earlier this week, scorching through 307,447 acres and destroying 119 homes as of Friday morning. Other fires have blazed through tens of thousands of acres across the state. That includes the 181,000-acre Carr fire, which has destroyed more than 1,000 homes in Redding, Calif., and taken at least eight lives. The Ferguson fire blazing near Yosemite National Park prompted park officials to close popular sections of it for the first time in 20 years (and during peak season), and the Holy fire down in Orange County forced tens of thousands of residents to evacuate their homes.

Fueled by extremely dry vegetation, record-setting temperatures and the aftermath of a years-long drought, fire seasons in California have grown more intense in recent years and death and destruction has become the norm.
Madrid (AFP) - The leaders of Spain and Germany agreed Saturday to push for greater EU help for countries such as Morocco, a major point of departure for migrants and refugees trying to reach Europe.

"Fourteen kilometres separate the coast of Spain -- and therefore Europe -- from those of North Africa but there is an infinitely greater distance in terms of development," Spain's new Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said after talks with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

"Reducing the depth of this abyss of inequality must be one of the main tasks of the European Union."

Faced with a crackdown by Libyan authorities and Italy's hardline approach to immigration, Spain has now become the main destination for people trying to get to Europe from Africa.

Sanchez said he and Merkel agreed to "intensify dialogue and cooperation with countries of origin and transit" of migrants, mainly Morocco.

He said they were in discussion with the European Commission to unlock aid that would allow Morocco to be much more effective in controlling its borders.

This year Spain took in more than 23,500 new arrivals, more than the total number of migrants last year, the UNHCR said earlier this month, compared with 18,500 arrivals in Italy and 16,000 in Greece.

Saturday's meeting in the southern Andalusia region coincided with the entry into force of a deal under which Madrid pledged to take back migrants in Germany who had already been registered in Spain.

It is one of a series of bilateral agreements that Germany is seeking with EU partners, with Merkel under pressure to reduce the number of migrant arrivals to her country.

Berlin still hopes to persuade Italy and Greece to also accept the return of migrants who were registered on their soil before travelling to Germany.
Damascus (AFP) - Syrian air defences engaged an "enemy target" near the border with Lebanon west of Damascus overnight, state news agency SANA reported on Saturday.

"Our air defences confronted an enemy target that penetrated airspace above the area of Deir al-Ashair in the Damascus countryside," SANA said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed air defences had launched missiles, but said it was unclear what they were targeting or whether there was any target at all.

The Britain-based war monitor said Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which has been backing the Damascus government in Syria's seven-year civil war, was present in the area.

Israel has carried out numerous raids in Syria in recent years, targeting government forces, Hezbollah and Iran, another ally of Damascus.

Last week, SANA said Syrian air defences confronted another "enemy attack" west of Damascus. Then too the Observatory, which relies on sources inside Syria for its information, said it was unable to determine who was responsible.

Last month, Syria accused Israel of bombing a military post in the northern province of Aleppo, where the Observatory reported at least nine pro-regime fighters died.
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Syrian state media said on Saturday air defenses had confronted a "hostile target" breaching the country's air space west of the capital Damascus in the early hours of the morning. State news agency SANA, quoting its correspondent, said there were reports of "air defenses confronting a hostile target breaching the skies above the area of Deir al-Asha'ir in the Damascus countryside." The area is close to the Lebanese border. Syrian air defenses were activated in a similar way over west Damascus last Thursday night. SANA suggested Israel was to blame for the incursions. "In the past few weeks, the Israeli enemy has attacked military positions," it said. Israel, concerned that Iran's growing presence in Syria poses a threat to its security, has struck dozens of Iranian and Iran-backed positions in Syria over the course of the country's seven-year conflict. A spokeswoman for the Israeli military said it did not comment on foreign reports. Damascus last month took back control of its entire border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and its southwest border with Jordan after an offensive which began in June. (Reporting by Lisa Barrington in Beirut and Ari Rabinovitch in Jerusalem; Editing by Chris Reese and Mark Potter)
(KABUL, Afghanistan)  Taliban fighters tried to overrun a provincial capital in Afghanistan early on Friday, hiding inside homes before slipping into city streets during the night to attack security forces and killing at least 14 policemen before being pushed back, officials said.

The overnight attack in the southeastern city of Ghazni, the capital of a province with the same name, also wounded at least 20 members of the security forces, said Baz Mohammad Hemat, the administrator of the Ghazni city hospital.

Another Taliban attack, this one on Thursday night in western Herat province, left six policemen dead in the district of Obe, according to the governors spokesman, Gelani Farhad.

In Ghazni, the attack began around 2 a.m. with intense gunbattles raging and fires burning in several shops in the citys residential areas, provincial police chief Farid Ahmad Mashal told The Associated Press.

After repulsing the daring assault, police conducted house-to-house searches for any remaining Taliban fighters. An investigation as also underway on how the insurgents had managed to infiltrate so deep into the city, barely 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of the Afghan capital of Kabul.

Hemat, the hospital administrator, said two wounded civilians were also brought to the hospital but that the city was shut down and that ambulances were not being sent out.

Mashal said there were more than 100 other casualties but he could not give a breakdown of the dead and wounded. Most of the casualties were Taliban, he said.

Several bodies of dead Taliban fighters remained on the street after government forced pushed the insurgents from Ghazni, the police chief said. Bodies of 39 Taliban fighters were recovered from beneath a bridge in the southern edge of the city.

Airstrikes called in to quash the offensive also killed dozens of Taliban, Mashal said. Defense Ministry spokesman Mohammad Radmanish said the army had helped the police and that the city was brought under control of government forces.

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Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid claimed parts of Ghazni had been seized and scores of people killed.

After dawn Friday, Ghaznis residents were staying indoors and all shops in the city remained closed. The road from Kabul to Afghanistans southern provinces was also closed because it runs through Ghazni.

The Taliban have so far not confirmed being behind the earlier attack in Herat in which at least six policemen were killed at a district checkpoint.
JAYAPURA, Indonesia (AP)  Rescuers in Indonesia say a child is the only survivor from the crash of a light commercial plane in a mountainous region of the easternmost province of Papua that left eight other passengers dead. The Swiss-made Pilatus PC-6 Porter single-engine plane operated by Dimonin Air was on an estimated 42-minute flight when it was reported missing Saturday. The local army chief says the plane was found after crashing near the airport of Oksibil. Col. Jonathan Binsar Sianipar says a child is the only passenger found alive and has been evacuated to Oksibil. He gave no other details, including the child's age or condition.

TOKYO (AP)  Tens of thousands of protesters in Okinawa vowed to stop the planned relocation of a U.S military base, saying they want it off the southern Japanese island entirely. Opponents of the relocation say the plan to move U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Futenma from a crowded neighborhood to a less populated coastal site would not only be an environmental debacle but also ignore local wishes to remove the base. About 70,000 people gathered Saturday at a park in the state capital of Naha under pouring rain ahead of an approaching typhoon and observed a moment of silence for Okinawa's governor, Takeshi Onaga, who died Wednesday of cancer.

TANJUNG, Indonesia (AP)  Scientists say the powerful Indonesian earthquake that killed nearly 400 people lifted the island it struck by as much as 25 centimeters (10 inches). The National Disaster Mitigation Agency said on Saturday that 387 people died, jumping from the 321 it reported the previous day, as search and rescue teams continued to sift through the rubble and people already buried by relatives are accounted for. Using satellite images of Lombok from the days following the Aug. 5 quake, scientists from NASA and the California Institute of Technology's joint rapid imaging project made a ground deformation map and measured changes in the island's surface.

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BEIJING (AP)  When Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen departs Sunday for Latin America, she'll be traveling to a region she's already visited three times in two years. She doesn't have many other options. As Tsai crosses the halfway mark of her first four-year term, an eight-day swing through Paraguay and Belize is a reflection of how Taiwan's diplomatic isolation has worsened in the midst of a suffocating Chinese pressure campaign. Just 18 countries  mostly clustered in Latin America, the South Pacific and Caribbean  still maintain formal ties with the self-ruling island, down from 22 when Tsai entered office in 2016.

WEIZHOU, China (AP)  A newspaper of the ruling Communist Party said Saturday that no religion is above the law in China, urging officials to stay firm while dealing with a rare protest over the planned demolition of a massive mosque in the northwest. The Global Times said that local officials in the town of Weizhou in Ningxia, a region that's home to many ethnic minority Hui Muslims, must act against what it described as an illegal expansion of a religious building. Thousands of Hui people gathered at the towering Grand Mosque on Thursday and Friday to prevent authorities from demolishing the structure, residents contacted by The Associated Press said.

BERLIN (AP)  A U.N. anti-discrimination committee raised concerns on Friday over China's treatment of the Uighur Muslim minority, citing reports of mass detentions as it considered Beijing's record over recent years. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination started reviewing China's report in Geneva on Friday. Chinese delegation leader Yu Jianhua highlighted economic progress and rising living standards among other things. Committee vice-chairwoman Gay McDougall said members are "deeply concerned" by "numerous and credible reports that we have received that, in the name of combating religious extremism and maintaining social stability, (China) has turned the Uighur autonomous region into something that resembles a massive internment camp that is shrouded in secrecy." Monitoring groups say the Uighurs have been targeted in a surveillance and security campaign that has sent thousands into detention and indoctrination centers.

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (AP)  Add this to the challenges facing California wildfire victims: Tariffs. The import tariffs imposed by President Donald Trump are adding thousands of dollars to the cost of building homes. That especially squeezes homeowners who seek to rebuild quickly after losing their houses to natural disasters, such as the wildfires scorching parts of California. The Trump administration's tariffs have raised the cost of imported lumber, drywall, nails and other key construction materials. One building association official said the tariffs could raise the price of a typical new home in California by up to $20,000, and it could be more for individual homes being custom-built on short order.

TOKYO (AP)  All nine people aboard a Japanese search and rescue helicopter that crashed into the central mountains were confirmed dead Saturday, authorities said. The Bell 412EP helicopter carrying seven local rescue workers from the Gunma prefecture and two from a flight service company lost contact about an hour after takeoff Friday and crashed. Prefectural officials said the last person aboard was retrieved Saturday and pronounced dead. The helicopter was on a two-hour flight to monitor the opening of a mountain trail. The prefecture said it canceled Saturday's event due to the accident. It wasn't clear what caused the crash.

TOKYO (AP)  Japan's government said Saturday that it is looking into reports that a Japanese citizen was detained this month in North Korea. A report from the broadcaster NTV said the man is a 39-year-old self-claimed "video creator" who was on a group tour in the North and was supposed to return to Japan on Aug. 13. The report said he might have been seized while trying to film a military facility in North Korea's northwestern region. The man, who is not identified by name, has visited North Korea several times in the past and was arrested in Nampo city, according to TBS television.

ISLAMABAD (AP)  In a rare diplomatic foray and the strongest sign yet of the Taliban's increasing political presence in the region, the head of the militant group's political office led a delegation to Uzbekistan to meet senior Foreign Ministry officials, Uzbek and Taliban officials said Saturday. Taliban political chief Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai represented the insurgents in the four-day talks that ended Friday and included meetings with Uzbekistan's Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov as well as its special representative to Afghanistan Ismatilla Irgashev. The meetings follow an offer made by Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev in March to broker peace in Afghanistan.
WASHINGTON (AP)  Lawyers for President Donald Trump said they have responded to the latest interview proposal from special counsel Robert Mueller, part of a months-long negotiation process over whether and how investigators can question the president on possible obstruction of justice in the Russia investigation.

The two sides have gone back and forth over the scope and conditions of an interview as Mueller looks to understand whether the president acted with a criminal intent to stymie the investigation into possible coordination between his campaign and Russia.

Mueller's team has put forward dozens of potential questions for the president, including about his firing of FBI Director James Comey last year and his public antagonism of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who recused himself from the Russia investigation against the president's wishes.

Though he's publicly railed against the Russia investigation, including earlier this week, Trump has said he's willing to be questioned. His lawyers have been far more hesitant and have challenged the right of investigators to interview Trump about actions they say he is authorized under the Constitution to take, such as firing an FBI director.

Speaking on his radio show Wednesday, Trump lawyer Jay Sekulow again expressed reservations about an interview with Mueller, saying it would set a "bad precedent to allow just unfettered questioning on that process."

"The decisions that are made here are all about the Constitution of the United States," Sekulow said.

Trump's lawyers did not detail the terms of any counteroffer they may have made and they also did not suggest that they were close to agreeing to an interview, suggesting the possibility of additional negotiations.

Sekulow said he expected Mueller's team to take time to evaluate the written response.

"These are not two paragraphs," Sekulow said. "These are well-thought-out legal positions that, as I've said multiple times, have implications not just for this president but for any presidency."

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Rudy Giuliani, another lawyer for Trump, also declined to go into detail during an appearance Wednesday night on Fox News Channel's "Hannity." He said Trump's team had offered Mueller "an opportunity to do a form of questioning."

Giuliani said Mueller "knows the answers to every question that he wants to ask" Trump and speculated that the special counsel wants to "trap him into perjury."

Earlier, Giuliani said millions of pages of documents have been provided to Mueller along with testimony from dozens of witnesses.

"We're re-stating what we have been saying for months: It is time for the Office of Special Counsel to conclude its inquiry without further delay."

It is not clear what would happen if Trump's lawyers definitively reject Mueller's interview request. Mueller's team raised the prospect in March that it could subpoena the president, though this would unquestionably prompt a court fight.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1974 that President Richard Nixon could be forced to turn over recordings that had been subpoenaed.

"Ultimately this decision is the president's to make," Sekulow said on his radio show during a conversation with Giuliani. "We're going to give advice, but the president is going to make this decision."

The negotiations unfold as Trump's former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, stands trial in federal court in Virginia on financial crime charges. Manafort is one of four former Trump aides to be charged in the Mueller investigation.

___

Follow Eric Tucker on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/etuckerAP
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 11)  The Bureau of Customs said that they were not alerted about a possible foreign drug shipment in relation to the 6.8 billion worth of shabu that had entered the country recently.

The estimated one ton of shabu stored in magnetic scrap lifters was allegedly brought in by a Taiwanese drug shipment, using Malaysia as a transhipment port, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) reported Friday.

Customs Commissioner Isidro Lapena said that an alert from law enforcement agencies is needed before the Bureau can open all shipments for a period of time.

That is when the information is necessary, because if we have information that drugs are coming in at a certain period of time, what I can do is order the alert on all the shipments coming in for a certain period of time, Lapena said in a press conference Saturday.

The commissioner added that had he been alerted, he wouldnt have allowed the shipment in the country.

I will not tolerate a shipment as big as that to enter our country, but I did not know, said Lapena.

Lapena has recommended for relief district collector Vener Baquiran, who was in charge of the Manila International Container Port when the shipment allegedly entered the country, while investigation is ongoing.

Presidential Spokesperson Harry Roque said that the shipment is proof that drug syndicates are feeling the pressure from the administrations anti-drug campaign.

We view the latest reported foreign drug shipment as a sign that big-time drug manufacturers and smugglers are becoming bolder with a dwindled local supply as they feel the pressure from the governments campaign against illegal drugs, Roque said in a statement.

Roque added that Philippine authorities are working with their foreign counterparts to investigate the 6.8 billion worth of illegal drugs that had entered the country.
China will remain committed to opening-up its agricultural industries despite trade tensions with the United States, a senior Chinese official said, adding that tariffs will only have a limited impact on the country's markets.

"China's diversified sources of imports from a wide range of overseas markets will ensure its countermeasures against U.S. tariffs will only have a limited influence on the domestic market," said Han Jun, deputy director of the office of the central agricultural work leading group and vice minister of agriculture and rural affairs, during a press briefing Thursday.

The government will work to minimize the impacts on industrial production and people's everyday life, Han said.

The vice minister's remarks came on the heel of an escalation of a U.S.-ignited trade war. Among rising tariffs against a wide range of goods traded in both directions, China introduced extra levies on more than 900 U.S. agricultural product lines, including soybeans, grains, cotton, and meat, which make up nearly 90 percent of U.S. farm exports to China.

"China is not willing to engage in a trade war but was forced to implement necessary countermeasures in response to the U.S. moves," Han said, noting the country's tariffs, put forward after extensive public input and a careful assessment on the impact, are "rational and restrained."

The impact on U.S. agriculture is foreseeable.

"American farmers are likely to lose the Chinese market that they have worked for decades to explore, despite the agricultural subsidies worth up to 12 billion U.S. dollars announced by the White House and U.S. Department of Agriculture," Han said.

Soybeans, the most important agricultural product in the bilateral trade, are at the forefront of this trade war.

The U.S. is expected to export more than 30 million tonnes of soybeans to China this year, according to a previous forecast, but this number is now unlikely to materialize, as Chinese companies have largely stopped purchasing U.S. soybeans after an additional 25-percent duty took effect on July 6.

A hearing by the U.S. House of Representatives on July 19 reflected the concerns of farmers and agri-business groups about the scenario of a shrinking market share in China. After the soybean season begins in October, the sector will face a worsening situation that features falling prices, increasing export pressure and a long export cycle.

The United States exports about half of its annual soybean production, around 100 million tonnes.

In a fiercely-competitive Chinese market, soybean producers from other countries will occupy the market share that belonged to U.S. farmers if trade frictions continue to worsen, Han said.

Han cited remarks of Brazilian Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi that the South American country is capable of doubling the cultivated area of soybeans.

"Many countries have the will and ability to replace the U.S. presence in the Chinese agricultural market. If other countries become reliable suppliers to China, it will be difficult for the United States to regain the position." Han said.

China is capable of dealing with the gap left by dropping soybean imports from the United States, Han said.

With limited arable land resources, it is hard for China to ensure the sufficient supply of land-intensive products including soybeans after securing enough staple grains like rice and wheat. The country relies on global markets to fill its 90 million tonne soybean demand each year.

China has made thorough preparations to prevent the impacts on domestic food prices, Han said, citing responding measures including seeking new sources, reducing the use of soymeal in animal feed, buying substitutes, and raise domestic soybean production capacity.

Despite the trade frictions, Han stressed China would promote the opening-up of the agricultural sector in an active, steady and orderly manner, with more imports from the global markets. "It is China's established policy to actively expand agriculture imports."

China has become the largest importer of agricultural products worldwide and the second largest agricultural trading nation. The country is the world's biggest buyer of soybeans, sugar, and cotton.

In fact, China and the United States are highly-complementary in agricultural trade and strengthened cooperation in the area would be beneficial to the agriculture of both sides, Han said.


The Declaration of Independence guaranteed Americans the right to pursue happiness, and we havent stopped looking for it since. But despite the college courses, research labs and countless self-help books dedicated to that search, only 33% of Americans actually said they were happy in a 2017 survey.

A new paper may help explain why: Were trying too hard.

The research, published in the journal Emotion, found that overemphasizing happiness can make people more likely to obsess over failure and negative emotions when they inevitably do happen, bringing them more stress in the long run.

Happiness is a good thing, but setting it up as something to be achieved tends to fail, explains co-author Brock Bastian, a social psychologist at the University of Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences in Australia, in an email to TIME. Our work shows that it changes how people respond to their negative emotions and experiences, leading them to feel worse about these and to ruminate on them more.

The study involved two separate experiments. In the first, a group of Australian psychology students were asked to solve 35 anagrams in three minutes  but, unbeknownst to them, 15 couldnt be solved. Thirty-nine of the students completed this task in a room decorated with motivational posters, notes and books. The proctor in this room was also told by the experimenters to speak cheerfully, and to off-handedly mentioned the importance of happiness. Meanwhile, another 39 students completed the same test in a neutral room, with a neutral proctor. A third group of 38 students completed a solvable task in a room that emphasized happiness similarly to the first room.

Afterward, the researchers asked all students to do a breathing exercise, during which they were periodically asked about their thoughts. Compared to the other two groups, students who performed the impossible task in the happiness room were more likely to think back to their failure and get stuck on these negative thoughts, which was in turn associated with feeling more negative emotions. Those who completed the impossible task in the neutral room and those who completed the solvable task in the happiness room did not differ significantly in how much they thought back to the exercise.

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In a second experiment, the researchers asked about 200 American adults how often they experienced and thought about negative emotions, as well as their views on how society perceives those emotions. Participants who said they felt like society expects them to be happy, or looks down on emotions such as anxiety and depression, were more likely than other respondents to stress about feeling negative emotions, and to experience reductions in well-being and life satisfaction as a result.

When people place a great deal of pressure on themselves to feel happy, or think that others around them do, they are more likely to see their negative emotions and experiences as signals of failure, Bastian says. This will only drive more unhappiness.

Bastian says the study isnt a condemnation of trying to be happy; rather, it underscores the importance of knowing and accepting that feeling unhappy sometimes is just as normal and healthy.

The danger of feeling that we should avoid our negative experiences is that we respond to them badly when they do arise, Bastian says. We have evolved to experience a complex array of emotional states, and about half of these are unpleasant. This is not to say they are less valuable, or that having them detracts from our quality of life.

In fact, recent research has suggested that experiencing negative emotions can ultimately boost happiness, and another new study finds that stressful or unpleasant situations may help people process bad news. Bastian also adds that failure can be invaluable for learning and growth.

Failure is critical to innovation, learning and progress, he says. Every successful organization knows that failure is part of the road to success, so we need to know how to respond well to failure.

Doing so will likely take a culture change. A society that embraces messy emotions and experiences, Bastian says, is one that is poised for better mental health.
The United States Marine Corps has named a woman an infantry platoon commander for the first time in the military branchs 243-year history.

First Lt. Marina A. Hierl is one of four platoon commanders in Echo Company, a group of 175 Marines and Navy sailors, the New York Times reported.

The company was recently sent to Australia for about six months of training exercises and to act as a response force for the Pacific region. Hierl has been tasked to lead a platoon of about 35 men.

Hierl, 24, is one of two women to have passed a 13-week infantry officer course in Quantico, Virginia. The course was required in order to be considered to lead a platoon.

Hierl worked as a teen on a local horse farm in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

She decided to enlist in the Marines before graduating high school, but a recruiter recommended she attend college first.

I wanted to do something important with my life, Hierl told the Times. I wanted to be part of a group of people that would be willing to die for each other.

Hierl attended the University of Southern California in Los Angeles before enlisting on an officers track.

I wanted to lead a platoon, she said. I didnt think there was anything better in the Marine Corps I could do.

The U.S. military opened all positions to women, including combat roles, for the first time under President Obama in 2016. About 15 percent of the U.S.s 1.3 million active-duty troops are women, the Department of Defense notes.

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Washington (AFP) - A Washington federal judge halted the deportation of a mother and daughter Thursday -- but threatened to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions in contempt of court after removal proceedings began amid their appeal, the American Civil Liberties Union said.

The woman, referred to as "Carmen," and her daughter were part of a group of immigrants who had fled "extreme sexual and gang violence" in Central America, according to the ACLU. Specifically, it said Carmen had suffered "two decades of horrific sexual abuse by her husband and death threats from a violent gang."

The rights group and the Center for Gender & Refugee Studies filed a lawsuit on the group's behalf Tuesday to challenge the deportation, which prompted a hearing held Thursday.

The ACLU said the judge blocked the deportation while the case was pending. But, "while in court, we found out that the government had deported a client and her young child just hours before, putting their lives at risk," the group said in a series of tweets.

"This directly contradicts the government's commitment to the court that NO ONE would be removed until tomorrow at the earliest."

The organization added that the judge ordered the government to "turn the plane around" or face potential contempt proceedings, "starting with the attorney general."

Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, quoted by the Washington Post, branded the situation "outrageous."

"That someone seeking justice in U.S. court is spirited away while her attorneys are arguing for justice for her?" he said.

"I'm not happy about this at all."

A Department of Homeland Security official told NBC that the flight to El Salvador was unable to turn around, but Carmen and her daughter did not leave the plane and will be brought back to the US.

The pair had sought asylum in the US in June 2018, but were denied because although officials believed their accounts, they did not think they had a "credible fear of persecution."

The decision came after Attorney General Sessions implemented a new policy stating that allegations of domestic or gang violence are no longer sufficient to warrant asylum protection.
Berlin (AFP) - Monsanto's German owners insisted Saturday that the weed killer Roundup was "safe," rejecting a California jury's decision to order the chemical giant to pay nearly $290 million for failing to warn a dying groundskeeper that the product might cause cancer.

While observers predicted thousands of potential future claims against the company in the wake of Monsanto's defeat, Bayer -- which recently acquired the US giant -- said the California ruling went against scientific evidence.

"On the basis of scientific conclusions, the views of worldwide regulatory authorities and the decades-long practical experience with glyphosate use, Bayer is convinced that glyphosate is safe and does not cause cancer," the company said in a statement.

It said other court proceedings with other juries might "arrive at different conclusions" than the jury which ruled in the California lawsuit, the first to accuse glyphosate of causing cancer.

Jurors unanimously found that Monsanto -- which vowed to appeal -- acted with "malice" and that its weed killers Roundup and the professional grade version RangerPro contributed "substantially" to Dewayne Johnson's terminal illness.

Johnson, diagnosed in 2014 with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma -- a cancer that affects white blood cells -- says he repeatedly used a professional form of Roundup while working at a school in Benicia, California.

"The cause is way bigger than me. Hopefully this thing will get the attention it needs," Johnson, 46, said after the verdict.

Johnson wept openly, as did some jurors, when he met with the panel later.

The lawsuit built on 2015 findings by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, part of the UN World Health Organization, which classified Roundup's main ingredient glyphosate as a probable carcinogen, causing the state of California to follow suit.

"We are sympathetic to Mr Johnson and his family," Monsanto said in a statement, but promised to "continue to vigorously defend this product".

Story continues

"The jury got it wrong," Monsanto vice president Scott Partridge told reporters.

But Johnson's attorney Brent Wisner said the verdict "shows the evidence is overwhelming" that the product poses danger.

"When you are right, it is really easy to win," he said.

- More to come? -

Wisner called the ruling the "tip of the spear" of litigation likely to come.

"The jury sent a message to the Monsanto boardroom that they have to change the way they do business," said Robert F. Kennedy Jr -- an environmental lawyer, son of the late US senator and a member of Johnson's legal team.

"You not only see many people injured, you see the corruption of public officials, the capture of agencies that are supposed to protect us from pollution and the falsification of science," he said.

Carl Tobias, a law professor at the University of Richmond in the US state of Virginia, said the plaintiff's evidence that Monsanto "knew or should have known that Roundup caused his cancer" could benefit those currently seeking damages from Monsanto, as well as encourage new filings.

Tobias said Monsanto's promised appeal could result in the charges being reduced -- but said the company "might want to consider settling now, depending on its calculus of the risk that it might lose on appeal and the adverse publicity that might arise from losing or from continuing to contest the verdict."

But he cautioned that settling now could "make it appear that Monsanto believes it has a weak case."

Partridge, meanwhile, announced that Monsanto had no intention of settling the slew of similar cases in the legal queue.

"It is the most widely used and most widely studied herbicide in the world," Partridge said.

- 'Win for all of humanity' -

Roundup is Monsanto's leading product.

"The Johnson vs Monsanto verdict is a win for all of humanity and all life on earth," said Zen Honeycutt, founding executive director of non-profit group Moms Across America.

In France, a leading anti-Monsanto campaigner told AFP that the California ruling would strengthen the resolve of those doing battle with the agrochemicals giant across the world.

"I was thinking of them and I said to myself that this ruling will help them and give them lots of hope," said Paul Francois, author of "A farmer against Monsanto" ("Un paysan contre Monsanto").

France's minister for ecological transition, Brune Poirson, hailed the "historic decision," tweeting that it validated President Emmanuel Macron's push to ban glyphosate use within three years.

Records unsealed previously by a federal court lent credence to Johnson's claims -- internal company emails with regulators suggested Monsanto had ghostwritten research later attributed to academics.

Founded in 1901 in St Louis, Missouri, Monsanto began producing agrochemicals in the 1940s. It was acquired by Bayer for more than $62 billion in June.

Monsanto launched Roundup in 1976 and soon thereafter began genetically modifying plants, making some resistant to Roundup.

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Washington (AFP) - US and Mexican negotiators will resume talks next week on the update of the North American Free Trade Agreement, Mexico's Economy Minister Ildefonso Guajardo said Friday.

At the close of the third consecutive week of discussions in Washington, Guajardo said a deal was still possible by the end of the month.

However, he acknowledged: "We still have a lot of work to do."

Guajardo stressed that the most difficult issues had been left to the end, including the US demand that NAFTA be approved every five years, a provision known as a sunset clause.

"We are working like we've been doing for the last three weeks and making a lot of advancements. We are coming back next week," he told reporters.

"But as I said before: nothing is closed until everything is closed."

US President Donald Trump tweeted that a "deal with Mexico is coming along nicely," emphasizing that "autoworkers and farmers must be taken care of or there will be no deal."

"New President of Mexico has been an absolute gentleman," he said, referring to leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, set to take over later this year.

But he reiterated his threat that tariffs on auto imports could be in store for the US neighbor to the north: "Canada must wait. Their Tariffs and Trade Barriers are far too high. Will tax cars if we can't make a deal!"

Canada's foreign minister recently said the country is ready to resume NAFTA talks "as quickly and intensively as possible."

US and Mexican officials will continue to work on bilateral issues before their Canadian counterparts rejoin the discussions on modernizing the 24-year-old trade deal, Guajardo said Friday.

Trump demanded NAFTA be renegotiated after repeatedly criticizing the 24-year-old pact as a "terrible deal."

Officials now are rushing to conclude the talks before Mexico's Lopez Obrador takes office on December 1.
Rome (AFP) - A row is erupting over vaccines in Italy as the country's new populist government fights to roll back a law that bans children from attending school if they haven't received a series of jabs.

The law, adopted last year by the centre-left government that was booted out of power in March, made it compulsory for children in pre-school education to be vaccinated against 10 diseases, including measles, tetanus and poliomyelitis.

Parents who have not vaccinated their children by the time they reach school age (six years old in Italy) face a fine of up to 500 euros.

The new administration -- formed of the anti-establishment Five Star Movement and the nationalist League -- is leading the charge against the law.

Last week, the upper house Senate approved an amendment proposed by Five Star and the League pushing back enforcement of compulsory vaccination for pre-schoolers to the 2019-20 school year, pending a complete revision of the law after the summer recess.

New health minister Giulia Grillo, from Five Star, has drafted a new bill introducing what she calls a "flexible obligation", giving priority to education on the benefits of vaccines, encourages use of compulsory vaccination only over short periods and instances when the coverage rate is too low.

Grillo, a doctor, claims there will be guarantees that children who haven't been immunised could be enrolled in classes where the WHO recommended coverage is assured.

However she also caused outrage when, in an interview with major daily Corriere Della Sera on Wednesday, she said that it wasn't realistic to "make people believe that no one will die" of measles.

- Outbreak -

Parents currently have to present pre-school institutions with booklets that list the vaccines, updated by the doctors who administer them.

For the 2019-20 school year plans were in place for educators to get vaccine information on each child directly from local health authorities, a measure designed to bypass the possibility of anti-vax parents falsifying documentation.

Story continues

That measure was adopted in order to fight back against a drop in the number of people being vaccinated that had taken coverage below the 95 percent limit recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO).

That coverage ratio is the minimum required to create the communal immunity that staves off diseases and protects people with compromised immune systems who can't be vaccinated.

Coverage rates increased in Italy following the enaction of the previous government's law, but many regions remain well below the WHO threshold for a number of illnesses.

Data from Italy's National Health Institute released in July showed that four people -- including a 10-month-old baby -- had died from measles between January and May, the same number that died in the whole of 2017. In total over 1,700 people had contracted the disease, while last year 5,400 cases were recorded.

- Fightback -

The WHO says that Italy accounted for nearly a quarter of the 21,315 measles cases recorded across Europe last year, when cases of the disease soared across the continent.

The number of cases in Italy alone last year was close to the entire European total for 2016, a record low of 5,273, according to the WHO.

While both Five Star head Luigi Di Maio and League leader Matteo Salvini say they are in favour of vaccines and have vaccinated their own children, they consider the current law "coercive" and criticise it for blocking children's access to education.

Some people are fighting back against the government, with a petition created by concerned parents against the amendment attracting around 100,000 signatures in just a few days.

Several regional presidents have announced that they intend to enforce the vaccine obligation even if it is withdrawn, while the national association of headteachers has also said that the current law would remain in force and that parents would have to present a medical certificate proving their children have been vaccinated.
A US Marine Corp cadet attends the United States Naval Academy graduation ceremony in Annapolis, Maryland, on May 25, 2018. (Photo: JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images)

Women have been a part of the Marine Corps for 100 years, but that doesnt mean the Marines are free of sexism. As a womans recent tweet has illustrated, females in the military still face plenty of backlash, no matter how good they are at what they do.

If you want to know why Im not re-enlisting, go to the Marine Corps Instagram page and read the comments on ANY picture of a female, Jessica Casey wrote on Twitter. Props to the females who want to stay in and prove these comments wrong, but personally it demotivates me, she added in a second tweet.

If you want to know why Im not re-enlisting go to the Marine Corps Instagram page and read the comments on ANY picture of a female  Jess (@jessicacasey75) August 11, 2018

Props to the females who want to stay in and prove these comments wrong, but personally it demotivates me.  Jess (@jessicacasey75) August 11, 2018

A quick visit to the official Instagram page of the Marine Corps demonstrates Caseys point. On Thursday, the U.S. Marines shared a video on Instagram to mark the 100th anniversary of women being a part of the organization. A number of comments on the post suggest that females are not as capable of fulfilling Marine duties as males are.

God didnt create men and women equal. Thats why literally forever men have been fighting the wars. Our bodies are better suited for it, reads one Instagram comment, in part. The standards are lower than they have ever been in the history of the Marine Corps, another comment says.

Another recent post from the Marine Corps Instagram account shows 1st Lt. Marina Hierl, the first woman to become an infantry officer in the Marines. Her words and image should serve as a proud example for Americans of all genders, but there are a number of sexist comments on that post too.

Story continues

Women should not be in the infantry, period. Mixing men and women in combat only detracts from the mission and in the event of a dual casualty who would be saved first regardless of combat effectiveness, reads a comment on that post, in part. And as with the other post, there are plenty of arguments in the comments section about standards in the Marine Corps.

Based on Caseys tweet and her Instagram, it appears she is a corporal in the Marine Corps, but she has chosen not to reenlist. Casey also tweeted recently that she was accepted to the University of Alabama, so it seems she is choosing to focus on her education. Casey didnt immediately respond to Yahoos request for comment via Twitter.

She also posted previously about how she was just trying to be a Marine, and her male counterparts always told her she didnt belong.

Me:

Male Marines: OK BUT FEMALE PFT AND CFT ARE SO UNFAIR. WOMEN HAVE EVERYTHING HANDED TO THEM IN LIFE. FEMALES DONT BELONG IN THE MILITARY  Jess (@jessicacasey75) August 10, 2018

One person who responded to Caseys tweet encouraged her to speak up to her superior officers and thanked her for her service.

I would ask that you vocalize that with your CoC including company & BN CDRs. They should know that the culture in the USMC still needs to change. Also, thank you for your service. Best of luck!  Timothy Wyant (@timothyjwyant) August 11, 2018

Amid other the responses to Caseys tweet, one Twitter user linked to a Department of Defense report about sexual assault in the military. The report, published in April, found that the 2017 fiscal year saw an increase in the number of military sexual assaults that were reported. The report notes that there were 6,769 military sexual assaults reported in that year, an increase from the 6,172 reports in the 2016 fiscal year. Thats not necessarily bad news, though  it likely signifies that the rate of reporting has increased, not that there have been more assaults.

Of course, sexual assault is a different issue from sexist comments on social media posts. But the responses to Caseys tweet are a reminder that there are many ways women in the military can be mistreated. Theres a reason the tweet seems to have struck a chord with so many people with military experience. Women in the Marine Corps are making tremendous sacrifices for their country  and they deserve the same respect as their male counterparts.

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BEIRUT - Government airstrikes on opposition-held territory in northwest Syria killed at least 22 people, a monitoring group said Friday.

Government forces unleashed a wave of airstrikes across Idlib, Aleppo and Hama provinces after days of building up ground forces at the edge of opposition territory, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The group said 14 people were killed in the Aleppo province and another eight in the province of Idlib.
WASHINGTON - Iran test-fired a short-range anti-ship missile in the Strait of Hormuz during naval drills last week that Washington believes were aimed at sending a message as the United States reimposes sanctions on Tehran, US officials said on Friday.

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The official, however, did not suggest that such a missile test was unusual during naval exercises or that it was carried out unsafely, noting it occurred in what could be described as Iranian territorial waters in the Strait.

According to Fox News, citing three American sources, this was the first ballistic missile test Tehran carried out in over a year.

Iran tests ballistic missile, 2015 (Photo: Reuters)

The Fateh-110 Mod 3 short-range ballistic missile was fired from an Iranian Revolutionary Guards base in Bandar-e-Jask in southeastern Iran and flew over 100 miles shore-to-shore over the Strait of Hormuz, US officials told Fox News.

While the naval drills were highly publicized, in a public act of defiance against the United States, the missile test was kept secret and detected by US spy satellites, Fox News reported.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards confirmed on Sunday it had held war games in the Gulf over the past several days, saying they were aimed at "confronting possible threats" by enemies.

US Army General Joseph Votel, head of the US military's Central Command, said earlier this week the scope and scale of the exercises were similar to ones Iran had carried out in the past. But the timing of this particular set of exercises was designed to get Washington's attention.

"It's pretty clear to us that they were trying to use that exercise to send a message to us that as we approach this period of the sanctions here, that they had some capabilities," Votel told reporters at the Pentagon.

Iran has been furious over US President Donald Trump's decision to pull out of an international agreement on Iran's nuclear program and re-impose sanctions on Tehran. Senior Iranian officials have warned the country would not easily yield to a renewed US campaign to strangle Iran's vital oil exports.

Last month, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei backed President Hassan Rouhani's suggestion that Iran may block Gulf oil exports if its own exports are stopped.

Votel said the US military was keenly aware of Iran's military activities.

"We are aware of what's going on, and we remain ready to protect ourselves as we pursue our objectives of freedom of navigation and the freedom of commerce in international waters," Votel said.
The first China International Import Expo (CIIE) will be hosted in Shanghai from Nov. 5 to 10. A growing number of multinational firms said they would use the expo to strengthen their brand and expand their business.

Next year's CIIE is now accepting reservations, and accounting firm EY has already confirmed participation in the second CIIE.

The CIIE, the world's first import-themed national-level expo, is expected to bring together thousands of enterprises from more than 130 countries and regions.

The first CIIE commercial exhibition will include trade in goods and services. The section of trade in services comprises emerging technologies, service outsourcing, creative design, culture and education, tourism, logistics, and comprehensive services. EY has secured a 72-square-meter exhibition area.

EY employs 18,000 people in more than 20 cities in China. "It is a well-known company, but many participants of CIIE may not know the full range of our services. During CIIE, we plan to present a different image of EY," said Walter Tong, EY Greater China Key Accounts Leader, in an interview with Xinhua.

To embrace the digital future, EY launched its first China innovation hub called Wavespace in Shanghai last month, which is a highly connected global network that provides new business solutions through a digital experience.

"We'll bring our most innovative services containing high-tech elements from our innovation hub such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and blockchain technology to CIIE, in addition to traditional services like tax or advisory," Tong said.

Given the fact that more than 2,800 companies have confirmed participation in the first CIIE and more than 150,000 domestic and international buyers are expected to attend, Tong believes the meaning of CIIE is collaboration and cooperation among companies, governments, and people around the world. "It's a win-win-win event for everyone," he said.

"Another expectation is to get to know more small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) during the event. We want to build relationships with companies when they are small because when they become big, it will be too late," Tong noted.

According to the CIIE Bureau, exhibitor enthusiasm has been beyond expectations and the booth area for businesses has been fully booked. More than 40 companies and institutions, including the Japanese manufacturing company Nachi-Fujikoshi Corp., which was the first to sign up for this year's CIIE, have also signed up for the second CIIE.

"We want to express our confidence that CIIE will be a very successful event, so we want to make sure we'll have the chance and space next year. The EY booth next year will be as exciting and as innovative as this year," Tong said.






Syrian state media said early on Saturday that air defenses had confronted a "hostile target" breaching Syrian air space west of the capital Damascus.

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State news agency SANA, quoting its correspondent, said there were reports of "air defenses confronting a hostile target breaching the skies above the area of Deir al-Asha'ir in the Damascus countryside."

On August 2, Syrian state media reported a similar incident, saying air defense systems intercepted and destroyed an unidentified target in western Damascus. The next day, Syrian sources insisted to Al Mayadeen the target was not Israeli.

Fighting between Syrian forces and rebels (Photo: Reuters)

SANA suggested Israel was to blame for the incursions. "In the past few weeks, the Israeli enemy has attacked military positions," it said.

Israel, concerned that Iran's growing presence in Syria poses a threat to its security, has struck dozens of Iranian and Iran-backed positions in Syria over the course of the country's seven-year conflict.

A spokeswoman for the IDF said it did not comment on foreign reports.

Inlate July, the IDF shot down a Syrian fighter jet that entered Israeli airspace with two Patriot missiles.

The IDF said it monitored the advance of the Syrian Sukhoi fighter jet and shot it down with a pair of Patriot missiles after it penetrated Israeli airspace by about two kilometers (1.2 miles).

The plane apparently crashed inside Syria, with Sky News Arabic reporting it went down in the Yarmouk area.

According to the IDF, the Syrian fighter jeta Sukhoi Su-24 or an Su-22took off from the T4 base, which is being used by Iranian forces in Syria and was attacked by Israel several times in the past, and "was advancing towards Israel at a relatively high speed."

The IDF said after the incident that "Since morning hours, there has been an increase in the internal fighting in Syria, including an increase in the activity of the Syrian Air Force."

"During the day, we identified increased aerial activity in the Quneitra area and in the southern Syrian Golan and sent messages through several channels and in several languages about Israel's security interests, according to which we will not tolerate violations of the 1974 Disengagement Agreements," the army added in a statement.
Russian police raided the Jewish community center in Moscow on Friday as part of an investigation into Alexander Kargin, the representative of Israel's Likud Party in Russia, finding books with anti-Semitic materials there, according to Russian news agency Interfax.

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The investigation "into actions aimed at fomenting hatred or enmity or insulting a group of people based on their ethnicity and religion" was launched after law enforcement in the country received a report about Kargin.

Kargin's lawyer, Igor Zuber, insisted the books did not belong to his client.

Books found in the raid on Kargin's office

"Officials from the Anti-Extremism Center of the Interior Ministry department for the Central Administrative District in Moscow came to the office today. During a search, they discovered nationalistic literature not belonging to Kargin but obviously planted in the office," Zuber told Interfax.

Zuber said Kargin was summoned for police questioning next week to provide explanations.

Kargin himself insisted he was innocent. "The literature seized had been planted on me. Most of the planted literature was anti-Semitic in nature," he told Interfax.

In a Facebook post, Kargin recounted the incident: "This wasn't the Shabbat I expected. I got a call from the synagogue and was told the police was there and asking that I arrive. After I got there I realized they wanted to search my office because they received information I was conducting extremist activity.

"As soon as we entered the office, you could see a pile of books and pages, almost all of which included nationalistic material, in the worst sense of the word. Some were simply anti-Semitic in nature. Books like 'The Final Solution for the Jewish Problem' found their way to me! A Jewish activist! In short, you understand. This entire thing has been planted."

Yudit Keller contributed to this report.
It has been a long time since we've found American-Jewish voices so critical of Israel. For decades, Israel has taken American Jews love and support for granted, and they stood by and worked tirelessly for the Jewish homeland throughout every crisis.

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But something new is happening. More and more young Jews are unable to find a connection to Israel, and against the backdrop of recent news coming out of the only democracy in the Middle East, many of them are quick to do what they have never dared to before: criticize and distance themselves from it.

In the past few weeks, things have seemed to get even worse. With the latest contentious legislation Israel passed at the end of the Knesset's summer session, the international news media has largely ignored the harsh internal criticism it faces at home. Instead, the focus is on the criticism from abroad, such as the claim made publicly in media bodies such as The New York Times that Israel is no longer the democracy it aspired to be.

The Nationality Law passed a few weeks ago is a Basic Law whose purpose is to anchor the national values of the State of Israel with a binding legal status. The law states that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people, and that Jews have a natural right to self-determination. The law codifies the official status of the states symbol, flag, and anthem, along with the Jewish calendar, Jewish holidays and the Hebrew language. The law also states that Israel will encourage Jewish settlement, and that greater Jerusalem is the capital of Israel, and it reduces the status of Arabic from an official language to a language with special status.

Just a day before the Nationality Law passed, various amendments to a surrogacy law were approved, expanding the circle of women entitled to surrogacy, but rejecting those that would have included same-sex couples.

We spoke to several Jewish leaders about this complex reality, what theyre hearing from their communities, and how they think the American-Jewish support for Israel will change in the coming years.

The last few weeks have been a catastrophe, says Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch, senior rabbi at Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on Manhattans Upper West Side. The Nationality Law, for example, presents a serious problem. The law is perceived as racist by Israel's critics, and therefore makes it harder for the rest of us to defend Israel. It is unnecessarily provocative, and certainly could have been drafted to be more inclusive.

Jews in the Diaspora are sensitive to any deterioration of democratic values, Hirsch says. When Jews here hear about things like the Surrogacy Law, which clearly discriminates against LGBT couples, through channels such as The New York Times, they do not recognize or appreciate the debate going on in Israel. They see the move as an anti-democratic, populist and insensitive act.

This perceived disturbing loss of democratic values in Israel makes it impossible for Diaspora communities to stand firmly with Israel. It's extraordinarily harmful, he notes.

Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch (Photo: Don Hamerman)

Hirsch is an enthusiastic Zionist, and, although he is American, he speaks fluent Hebrew. Over the years he has been working for Israel, raising funds, organizing visits and infusing his great community with love for Zionism. But for many months it has sounded different.

I am a rabbi, a Zionist, and my identification with Israel does not depend on who is serving as prime minister. But there are very few Jews outside of Israel who support the latest developmentsand even Orthodox Jews see the Surrogacy Law as problematic and discriminatory. The treatment of others, especially LGBT individuals, has become a barometer for a societys democratic values, and when Jews look around the world and see such discrimination, they automatically associate it with less enlightened countries.

One of the most difficult issues for US Jews, the majority of whom are Conservative or Reform, is the arrest of Rabbi Dov Haiyun. A few weeks ago in Haifa, the Conservative rabbi was detained for police interrogation under the guidance of the Chief Rabbinate, because the court claimed that he was performing illegal marriages. A storm followed, with rabbis, members of Knesset, public figures and organizations condemning this overstep, but it was too late:

This came after years of discrimination against the non-Orthodox movements, Rabbi Hirsch said. The Jews here felt as if their own rabbi had been dragged out of bed at five in the morningand for what? For fulfilling his role as a rabbi?

Rabbi Josh Weinberg, president of the Association of Reform Zionists of America, gave similar sentiments. When Israeli police interrogated Rabbi Haiyun at five in the morning, it made Israel look like the Taliban regime, he said. How can it be that in the startup nation, the police stop a rabbi for having a chuppah at a wedding?

Weinberg, also an American who speaks Hebrew fluently and who has been working to support Israel for many years, is appalled at the situation.

We see a clear process of Judaization and an attempt to turn the ultra-Orthodox into the only legitimate stream. We work with communities throughout America, hosting seminars and all kinds of activities to strengthen Israel, but the situation in Israel is sabotaging our Zionist effort here. We are trying to teach people here to love Israel and strengthen their connections to the Jewish homeland. At this stage it doesnt really matter how controversial these new laws have been within Israel. The bottom line is that it feels like a slap in the face. There have been all sorts of negative developments in Israelcases of racism, poor treatment of asylum seekers and Ethiopians, the conversion law, the failed Western Wall compromise, and so much more, he laments.

Rabbi Josh Weinberg

We're walking a fine line, Weinberg says. We're motivated to support Israel. We will not stop donatingon the contrary. Now we must invest even more in financial and moral support for our movements and for the state of democracy in Israel.

Weinberg says that ARZA is in the midst of a fundraising campaign to strengthen Conservative and Reform communities in Israel. We have recently felt that Israeli democracy is disappearing, says Weinberg. The value of equality that is imposed on the Torah scroll is no longer valid. We ask how it is that we are sympathetic and defending Israel while they make it so hard for us.

It is important for Weinberg to emphasize that the problem is not only, as is commonly thought, among young Jews. Everyone talks about young peoples detached attitudes toward Israel, but Ive started seeing older people, who have supported Israel for decades, begin to give up. The gap between these two large communities is only growing.

Hirsch agrees. The younger generation in general finds it difficult to connect for many reasons. They have even more difficult challenges from a Jewish perspective. But there is hardly a young person who understands these latest developments coming out of Israel," he says.

"Dealing with tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza is defensible, but this new challenge is not. How can I explain something that I myself think is illegitimatearresting a rabbi at 5am in his own home? The long-term damage is irreversible. We will not be able to get their support back. They did not grow up during the Holocaust, or live through the first years of Israels statehood, the Six-Day War, or the quest to save Soviet Jewry. They were born years later.

But its not only them. Members of the community who have stood by Israels side turn to me broken, explaining that it is difficult for them to continue fighting in the face of this new reality. I received an email today from a very active and loyal community member who asked me what happened to our Israel. How could all this happen under the watch of a prime minister who says that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people? And I agree with him. Israel does not exist only for its citizens, but for the entire Jewish people. He is doing harm to this principle, and acting in a historically irresponsible manner. Netanyahu claims that he understands and is most sensitive to the American-Jewish point of view, and that his only interest is to strengthen the Jewish peoplebut he himself is the most damaging of all.

Both Hirsch and Weinberg understand and admit its difficult to reach out to the Israeli public, which in most cases is not sufficiently aware of the crisis that is taking shape.

I do not know how to connect with Israelis and make them understand this, says Hirsch. We must strengthen our movement in Israel, connect with and influence members of the Knesset, and fight in the court of public opinion. Israel must understand that while the current government will not always be in power, the bill will be paid. We are losing the center and left of the American polity, and this is happening under a leader who considers himself an expert on American Jews.

Liberal movements in Israel must be organized and strengthened, and Israelis must understand the impact their choices have on US-Israel relations, says Weinberg. The prime minister already admitted in September that while Reform Jews want recognition, they cannot accept it in Israel.

Hirsch concludes: My motivation has not decreased, on the contrary. But our work has become much more difficult. A leader has to have an army, and the army is shrinking. Ultimately, if the Haredi monopoly on politics and religious life in Israel continues, Israel will be supported primarily by the political right only. Everyone else, including most Jews, will treat Israel as a country whose democracy is flawed.
British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has denied visiting to the graves of the terrorists behind the 1972 Munich Massacre , but photos published by the Daily Mail on Saturday show him at a memorial service for members of the Black September terror organization in Tunisia in 2014.

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In photos taken a year before Corbyn was elected as the leader of the Labour Party, he is seen holding a wreath over the grave of Atef Bseiso, the head of intelligence for the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), who helped plan the attack at the Munich Olympics , which claimed the lives of 11 Israeli athletes.

Source close to Corbyn insisted to the Daily Mail that the 2014 service he attended commemorated the 47 Palestinians killed in an Israeli air strike on a Tunisian PLO base in 1985.





The photos, which were posted on the Palestinian embassy in Tunisia's Facebook page, show Corbyn also standing near the graves of Black September founder Salah Khalaf, his aide Fakhri al-Omari and PLO chief of security Hayel Abdel-Hamid.

Another photo shows Corbyn apparently joining in prayer while at the graves. An insider insisted the Labour leading was not taking part in the Islamic prayer, but merely "copying the others out of respect," according to the Daily Mail.

According to the Daily Mail, the Mossad did not carry out any assassination in Paris in 1991, but Khalaf, al-Omari and Abdel-Hamid were indeed killed that year. Foreign media does attribute the assassination of Atef Bseiso to the Mossad in 1992.

During the 2017 general elections in Britain, Corbyn insisted he was not honoring Bseiso in his visit. "I was in Tunisia at a Palestinian conference and I spoke at that Palestinian conference and I laid a wreath to all those that had died in the air attack that took place on Tunis, on the headquarters of the Palestinian organizations there. And I was accompanied by very many other people who were at a conference searching for peace. The only way we achieve peace is by bringing people together and talking to them."

Videos that came to light a week ago from six and eight years ago show Corbyn calling Hamas terrorists his "brothers" and comparing between the destruction in Gaza to that in Stalingrad and Leningrad during World War WIIessentially comparing Israel to Nazi Germany.

"I was in Gaza three months ago. I saw the mortar shell that had gone through the school buildings, the destroyed UN establishments, the burned out schools, the ruined homes, the destroyed lives, the imprisoned people, the psychological damage to a whole generation, who've been imprisoned for as long as the siege of Leningrad and Stalingrad took place," Corbyn, at the time a backbench MP, told the crowd.

"This is a war crime that has been undertaken, but this time on live television," he added.
IDF Officer Lt. Col. Dr. Ido Dachtman is not the type of soldier that makes front-page news; instead, his job is to provide medical treatment in the West Bank, to both Israelis and Palestinians alike.

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We are on-call 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Dachtman told The Media Line. If there is a civilian with a heart attack, if theres a terror attack, we are always in a state of readiness. It is quite a hard life for medical personnel to serve here, but it is very fulfilling. Its very fulfilling.

Dachtman is based at the headquarters of the IDFs Judea & Samaria Division, from where he oversees approximately 100 personnel, spread out across six regional brigades, each one located in the vicinity of a major Palestinian city. Together, the team is responsible for all emergency medical services in the 3,000 square kilometer region.

The IDF crew responds to an average of three calls per day, coordinating its activities with the Israeli Magen David Adom and Palestinian Red Crescent health services. The crises range from a Jewish woman with labor complications to a Palestinian Muslim cancer patient requiring transportation to an Israeli facility for treatment.

The number one casualty maker in the Judea and Samaria area is car accidents by far, Dachtman said, as we approached the Rehilim juncture, where there is generally at least one fatal crash each month.

We have a few spikes every year, he continued, especially during Ramadan, the Islamic holy month when Muslims fast from sunrise to sundown. This is because they do not eat or drive during the day, but at night they start their lives and some drive very recklessly, Im sorry to say.

Of course, Dachtman expounded, when there is an accident we do not ask questions or point blame. We are here to ensure that the wounded receive the best possible care.

Already this year some 2,000 peopleabout half of them Palestinianhave been treated by the Israeli army.

IDF forces treat car accident victim in West Bank (Photo: The Media Line)

Instinctively, I asked Dachtman how Palestinians react to being helped by what many of them view as the enemy. It quickly became apparent, though, that the topic was off-limits, too sensitive to venture down that road given the longstanding political and security tensions.

There is coordination was about all I extracted out of him, while nevertheless getting the impression that below the surface ties may run deep.

Dachtman did share one particular episode that has stuck with him, recalling how a Palestinian construction worker fell six stories from a structure and sustained a major head wound. The IDF called in an aircraft to evacuate the man.

So we have a Palestinian worker, taken to an Israeli hospital, by (IDF) soldiers, Dachtman noted. Its nice, no?

Shoval Golan is an Israeli paramedic who provided me with a first-hand view into a day in her life.

I take care of Jews, soldiers, everybody, children and adults of all ages. We have all that is needed to treat people in the field, she told The Media Line, adding that most of our patients are Palestinian.

Golan proceeded to show me the insides of one the IDFs new ambulances, replete with state-of-the-art equipment, resembling a mobile trauma center. It has most everything that a hospital does, she explained, while placing particular emphasis on a bottled liquid that in seven minutes can be transformed into the temporary equivalent of human plasma.

Few, if any, stories of Israeli-Palestinian cooperation are ever told, and this one goes firmly against the grain. The sides are not harming each other, but, rather, working in tandem to do the exact opposite.

One small deed for man, repeated enough times over, may be the key to achieving a giant step towards healing the divisions that have long plagued this otherwise beautiful place.

Article written by Charles Bybelezer
Late last month, the Israeli Navy stopped a boat flying the Swedish flag that tried to break the blockade over the Gaza Strip, arresting 12 foreign nationals on board. In an effort to show a different Sweden, Swedish businessman Stefan Abrahamsson, a devout Christian who considers himself an Israel supporter, has decided to sail his own boat to express solidarity with Israel.

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Abrahamsson is the owner of the Elida, a 40-meter-long sailboat, which he intends to sail from Sweden to Israel along with 30-40 crewmen, most of them young Israeli supporters.

The boat will set sail on August 25, and after several stops along the way it is expected to reach the Herzliya Port on October 11, staying there until October 22.

The Elida (Photo: Stefan Abrahamsson)

Stefan Abrahamsson (Photo: Stefan Abrahamsson)

Abrahamsson called on others to join him on his journey to Israel. He said he intends to open his boat to Israeli visitors when he arrives in Herzliya, and asked for help from Israel's Ambassador to Sweden, Ilan Ben-Dov, to secure a place to dock at the Herzliya Marina.

"We want to host as many Israelis as possible on board," he said, promising light refreshments and Swedish music.

Ben-Dov promised Israel would examine the possibility of holding a media-covered reception at the Herzliya Marina.

The Elida flying the Israeli flag (Photo: Stefan Abrahamsson)

This isn't the first time Abrahamsson campaigns for Israel. Last month, during the most important political conference in Swedenattended by the Swedish prime minister, his government and other political partiesAbrahamsson docked his boat at a central spot, flying the Israeli flag.

Abrahamsson also invited Ambassador Ilan Ben-Dov to give three lectures on Israel. The boat was eventually seen by thousands of participants in the conference, which was held at the Swedish island of Gotland over the course of five days.
Thousands of Arab Israelis will arrive in Tel Aviv on Saturday evening for a protest against the Nationality Law as part of a campaign launched earlier this week.

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The protest march will begin at Rabin Square at 8pm and end with a rally outside Beit Jabotinsky. Organizers instructed protesters not to wave any flagsneither Israeli nor Palestinian.

The speakers at the rally include former MK Mohammad Barakeh, who heads the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel; Mazen Ghanayem, the head of the National Committee for the Heads of the Arab Local Authorities; Haaretz publisher Amos Schocken; sociologists Prof. Eva Illouz and Dr. Maha Karkabi Sabah; and historian Kais Firro.





Protesters at Tira Junction against the Nationality Law

The organizations and political parties taking part in the protest include the Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews, Peace Now, the Israel Religious Action Center, Standing Together, Sikkuy, The Coalition Against Racism in Israel, the Mossawa Center, Labor Party youth, Hadash, Meretz, Ta'al, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, ZazimCommunity Action, the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality, Kulan, the Socialist Struggle Movement, the New Israel Fund and Shatil.

In a joint statement, the participating organizations said that the Nationality Law "will turn racism, discrimination, humiliation and segregation into an inseparable part of our lives. Furthermore, racism and discrimination are turning into something desired and central in the State of Israel. The Nationality Law will bring the exclusion and harm of minorities to frightening records, the likes of which we've never seen."

"Our statement is clear: All citizensall of themare equal," the participating organizations declared. "But the government won't recognize this, because they don't have solutions to offer any of usnot to the housing crisis, not to the elderly and the disabled, not to the high cost of living, not to the collapsing health system, and not to the crisis with Diaspora Jewsthey pass unnecessary, frightening and discriminatory laws like the Nationality Law. This law incites, confuses and separates us, the citizens of the State of Israel."

On Saturday night, they said, "we'll go out on the streets and say: We're all equal citizensArabs and Jews, women and men, Mizrahi Jews, Ethiopians, immigrants from the former Soviet Union, members of the LGBT community."

"This segregation and discrimination law is going to leave large portions of the population outside: Ourside of communities with acceptance committees, outside of fair treatment at courts, outside of the citizenry, outside of democracy. We won't allow this," the statement concluded.

Joint List MK Jamal Zahalka said the protest in Tel Aviv was the opening shot of the Arab Israelis' campaign to cancel "the colonial and racist" Nationality Law and "all other discriminatory laws."

Zahalka removed from the Knesset after protesting Nationality Law (Photo: Amit Shabi)

Zahalka asserted the law cannot be amended and must therefore be nixed entirely. "Adding the word 'equality' is not going to save it, as it will contain the seeds of racism in any version. Those who settle for amending the law merely want to give it a mask of hypocrisy, no more," he accused.

"Those who truly oppose the law must adopt the simple and universal principle of a 'state of all its citizens.' Any proposal not based on full equality to allon both the individual and group levelwill be racist and lead to racist practices," Zahalka opined.

He did see a silver lining, saying "despite the fact the law is dangerous and catastrophic, it gives us a clear document that reflects reality and intentions, and from today it's easier to convince elements in the world that the regime in Israel is colonial and racist, and has clear characteristics of forbidden apartheid."

"It's easier to convince the world the Arab citizens in Israel are a minority under threat and must be protected of the tyranny of an aggressive majority that tramples over human rights by leaning on the assertion the state only belongs to some of the citizens, not all of them," the Arab MK added.

Zahalka also argued that the law hurts the rights of the entire Palestinian people, and called for an appropriate Palestinian response, which will include a general strike of Palestinians everywhere.

High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel announces campaign against Nationality Law (Photo: Motti Kimchi)

MK Ayman Odeh, head of the Joint List party, said that he expects people to take to the streets in their thousands in order to express their disagreement with the contentious law.

"Tens of thousands of Arabs and Jews are on their way in buses to Tel Aviv, because today we insist on delivering a clear messagea democratic state is for all its citizens. There is no statement more ethical than seeing tens of thousands of people take to the streets in protest of this apartheid law, he asserted.

The Nationality Law is designed to expel the Arab citizens from their lands. This law harms us in a very cruel manner under the supervision of this radical government. MKs should listen to the demands of the Arab population and resign in order to establish our own parliament that will manage our affairs without interventions from the Knesset, vented Odeh.

However, there are those in the Arab sector that chose not to attend Saturdays protest in Tel Aviv, following a decision to ban Palestinian flags from the demonstration.

Maher Masarwa, a Wadi Ara resident, claimed that prohibiting the flag is unlawful.

I would have liked to join the protest but after hearing that Palestinian flags will not be allowed, I decided against it. There is no law in this country that bans the waving of our flags. No one should have the authority to make a decision such as this one, he raged.

Israel's Arab minority launched their own struggle against the controversial Nationality Law on Tuesday, with the High Follow-Up Committee for Arab Citizens of Israel demanding to cancel it and Adalah petitioning the High Court of Justice against it.

They said they sought the help of EU Foreign Policy chief Federica Mogherini on the matter and that representatives from the committee will meet with her on September 4.

At the same time, the High Follow-Up Committee also turned to the UN secretary-general as well as other international elements, asking them to immediately intervene against the legislation.

Last Saturday night, some 90,000 members of the Druze community and their supporters gathered at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv to protest the Nationality Law. Israel's Bedouin minority also came out against the legislation, which determines only Jews have a right for self-determination in the country.
The United States has turned its back on its NATO ally Turkey over a Christian American pastor and such treatment has annoyed and upset Ankara, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Saturday.

"If the US is turning its back on us...choosing a pastor instead, sorry...we continue our path with decisive steps," Erdogan told a crowd of supporters in Black Sea coastal city of Rize. "This treatment by America of its strategic partner has annoyed us, it has upset us."
A flotilla consisting of round 40 boats set sail from the Port of Gaza to a maritime border between the Gaza Strip and Israel (near the Zikim Beach), as part of the March of Return campaign, it was reported on Saturday.

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Protest flotillas from the strip usually head west and towards the open sea, but this time around the organizers decided to try a different approach in order to convey a message.

Gaza flotilla

"The flotilla represents a message to the Palestinian factions involved in the peace agreement negotiationswe will not agree to any solution that will not lead to the lifting of Gaza blockade," explained the organizers ahead of their departure.

Gaza flotilla

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However, once the boats began approaching the Israeli border, the IDF naval forces had fired warning shots to keep the boats away from the border and one of the Navy ships accelerated in order to create massive waves. The boats, out of fear of capsizing, began to retreat.

Gaza flotilla (Photo: AFP)

In the meantime, Palestinians reported three separate IAF strikes targeting incendiary balloon units in the northern Gaza Strip and east of Gaza City. One Palestinian is reported to have been lightly injured in one of the attacks.

The IDF Spokespersons Unit issued a statement confirming one of the strikes.

Earlier, an incendiary balloon landed near a dining room in the Eshkol Regional Council. Gadi Yarkoni, head of the council, said he refuses to accept Hamas-led arson terror as a routine.

"We are not prepared to accept this threat as part of our everyday life, like it happened with rocket fire, he claimed.

Meanwhile, Jamie McGoldrick, deputy UN envoy to the Middle East, arrived in Gaza on Saturday for a three-hour visit for a discussion with the Hamas leadership regarding a wide scale ceasefire arrangement with Israel.

On Friday, three Palestinians were killed and 300 others wounded in clashes that erupted during a Hamas-led protest along the Gaza border Friday as the terror group and Israel observed a cease-fire, which took hold at 10:45pm on Thursday evening.

Gaza protest (Photo: AFP)

Among the dead were a 22-year-old paramedic and a 55-year-old man, Palestinian health officials said. A third man succumbed to his injuries on Saturday morning.

Around 9,000 Palestinians took part in the protests along the fence in five different locations, some of whom set tires ablaze, hurled stones, explosives and fire bombs at troops.

The soldiers "responded with riot dispersal means and live fire, in accordance with the standard operating procedures", said the IDF Spokespersons Unit.

In addition, an IDF tank shelled a Hamas outpost in the northern Gaza Strip in response to a grenade that had been thrown at soldiers, said the IDF. Another outpost had also been shelled in southern Gaza.

No injuries among the Israeli forces were reported.
Taliban and Uzbek officials say the head of the Taliban's political office in Qatar led a delegation to Uzbekistan to meet senior Foreign Ministry officials in a rare diplomatic forayand the strongest sign yet of the insurgency's increasing political presence in the region.

Taliban political chief Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai represented the insurgents in the four-day talks that ended Friday.
You are here: China

Three suspects were caught and 24 kg of methamphetamine seized on Thursday in a drug trafficking case, police in southwest China's Yunnan Province announced on Friday.

One pistol, 50 bullets, and a vehicle were confiscated at the same time, said police in Nujiang Lisu Autonomous Prefecture.

The suspects allegedly packed the drugs in multi-layer plastic bags and transported them in two backpacks.

The case is under further investigation.

Yunnan is the main focal point of the national anti-drug campaign as it borders the Golden Triangle, known for drug production and trafficking.






Several thousand demonstrators, Arabs and Jews, gathered at Rabin Square in Tel Aviv in order to protest the Nationality Law on Saturday evening. The protesters then marched towards the Tel Aviv Museum of Art where the main rally took place.

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Among those who spoke at the event were former MK Mohammad Barakeh, Chairman of the High Follow-up Committee for Arab Affairs, Mazen Ganaim, Mayor of Sakhnin and Chairman of the National Council of Arab Community Leaders, Prof. Eva Illouz and others.

The protest organizers decided to ban the waving of flags. However, some demonstrators were seen waving Israeli and Palestinian flags.

(Photo: Tal Shahar)

Netanyahu posted on his Twitter page a video from the demonstration of a few protesters waving the Palestinian flag and chanting: "With spirit, with blood we shall redeem you, Palestine" and wrote: "There is no better evidence of the Nationality Law's necessity."

Nationality Law protests

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Former MK Mohammad Barakeh, expressed his support for those who decided to wave the Palestinian flag.

"It is the flag that the Nationality Law tries to erase from history, but it is the flag of a proud nation, he exclaimed.

"All the Jews and all the Arabs are rushing to the square in their thousands in order to repeal this abomination of a law and remove the stain left by the Netanyahu government ... We are closer to a reality of the 1940s than ever before  How this law could have been passed when it does not account for a quarter of the countrys citizens. Israel and Zionism have two options to choose fromgenocide or apartheid. We are here togetherArabs and Jewsto say that we will not allow it," Barakeh continued.

"Prime Minister Netanyahu, we will not go away, you will. As for the Zionist Union, its clear that Mrs. Livni has not really left the Likud party and that Mr. Gabbay has not really left the Likud government," he concluded.

(Photo: Shaul Golan)

The Mayor of Taybeh, Shua'a Mansour Masaru, spoke during the rally, labeling the Nationality Law as very dangerous.

"We gathered here to protest against this racist law which states that there are two types of human beings in this country. It is not a coincidence that all minority groupsMuslims, Druze, Christians and Circassiansare here today in order to saywe do not accept discrimination. This law is very, very dangerous due to a fact that it is a basic law that can influence many other legislations, he vented.

He also warned that following the passing of the law, government institutions might stop the use of Arabic language.

It is possible that there will be a decision to prevent the use of Arabic language in all public institution altogether. Another thing that might happen following the law is that on Independence Day minority members will be prevented from raising any other flag other than the Israeli one. This law is racist and not in line with international law," Masaru added.

Former MK Issam Makhoul emphasized the importance of the demonstration.

"This is one of the most important demonstrations, that demands an alternative to the current way of thinking in Israelthe one that is dangerous to both nations, which tries to delegitimize the Arab sector. We are part of this countrys landscape. Our citizenship stems from our sense of belonging to our homeland, and we will not allow anyone to harm our status, not our national status and not our civil status."

(Photo: Tal Shahar)

Manar, a Nazareth resident, attended the demonstration with her husband and three children.

"From an early age, we have been educating our children about the values of equality and justice, and it was important for us to be here tonight," she said.

Prayer during the protest

MK Michal Rozin (Meretz) also made a speech, criticizing the government of Prime Minister Netanyahu.

"We will not comply with this divide and rule policy of the Netanyahu government. Anyone who believes that the government that discriminates today against one community will not discriminate against another community tomorrow, is mistaken. I am disappointed that some political elements decided to be absent from the demonstration. One can not oppose the Nationality Law and advocate equality for all, and simultaneously refuse to express solidarity with the Israeli Arabs," she bemoaned.

(Photo: Tal Shahar)

Professor of sociology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Eva Illouz, called on different political camps to join forces in order to promote equality.

The political center should stand with the Israeli Arabs, who fought and continue to fight for their status in a society that does not see them, and when it does, it sees them as enemies. If there is something we need to learn from August 11, it is that equality is never provided to us on a silver platter. Today is a historic moment, Jews and Arabs declare that they will fight side by side for equality," she elaborated.

However, there are those in the Arab sector that chose not to attend Saturdays protest, following a decision to ban Palestinian flags.

Maher Masarwa, a Wadi Ara resident, claimed that prohibiting the flag is unlawful.

I would have liked to join the protest but after hearing that Palestinian flags will not be allowed, I decided against it. There is no law in this country that bans the waving of our flags. No one should have the authority to make a decision such as this one, he raged.

The organizations and political parties that took part in the protest included the Israel Association for Ethiopian Jews, Peace Now, the Israel Religious Action Center, Standing Together, Sikkuy, The Coalition Against Racism in Israel, the Mossawa Center, Labor Party youth, Hadash, Meretz, Ta'al, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, ZazimCommunity Action, the Negev Coexistence Forum for Civil Equality, Kulan, the Socialist Struggle Movement, the New Israel Fund and Shatil.
Turkey's president is blaming the country's economic downturn on the United States and other nations that he claims are waging "war" against his country.

Speaking Saturday in the northeastern province of Rize, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said dollars, euros and gold were "the bullets, cannonballs and missiles of the economic war being waged against our country."

Erdogan promised supporters that Turkey was taking necessary precautions to protect its economy "but the most important thing is breaking the hands firing these weapons."
News

Tucson, Arizona - Tucson Sector Border Patrol agents responded to two 911 calls from illegal aliens amid excessive weekend heat resulting in the rescues of six men and a woman west of Tucson.

On Saturday evening, Three Points agents responded to a 911 call west of Tucson and found two El Salvadorian men, ages 18 and 24. The older man required further medical treatment and was transported to a local hospital.

Sunday night, Ajo agents responded to a 911 call originating from 10 miles west of Why and found five individuals; three men and one woman from Guatemala, and one man from Mexico. Their ages ranged from 19 to 27.

All individuals were medically evaluated and their health ensured before being arrested for immigration violations, including the 24-year-old El Salvadoran following his release from the hospital. They were transported to Border Patrol stations for immigration processing.

In the Tucson Sectors harsh desert environment, border security operations often turn into humanitarian rescue missions. Border Patrol officials encourage anyone in distress, or witnessing others in distress, to call 911 or activate a rescue beacon before a casualty occurs.
News

Washington, DC - "Im hereby directing the Department of Defense and Pentagon to immediately begin the process necessary to establish a space force as the sixth branch of the armed forces." ~ President Donald J. Trump

BUILDING SPACE FORCE: President Donald J. Trump and his Administration are laying the groundwork to build Space Force as the sixth branch of the United States military.

On June 18, 2018, President Trump directed the Department of Defense to immediately begin the important process of establishing Space Force as the sixth branch of the armed forces.

The Department of Defense issued a report, pursuant to the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2018, describing the following five actions that can be taken immediately to begin building the Space Force: Accelerate space technology and development initiatives, which were modernization priorities laid out in President Trumps National Defense Strategy; Establish a Space Development Agency charged with developing and fielding new next-generation capabilities for national security space development; Establish a Space Operations Force of professionals who will form a new community of experts working to lead Americas national security space efforts into the future; Establish an operating structure and accountable civilian oversight for Space Force; and Create a United States Space Command, a unified combatant command, to improve, evolve, and plan space warfighting.



DEFENDING AMERICAS INTERESTS: President Trump knows that space is integral to our American way of life and economic prosperity, and is a vital domain for national defense.

With Space Force as a sixth branch of the United States military, Americas interests in space will receive the focus and investment that the domain deserves.

As the worlds space development leader, the United States relies on space for everything from popular commercial systems to critical military and intelligence systems.

Space is also invaluable to American private industry, which is developing revolutionary technologies that will utilize space for exploration, resource extraction, and tourism.

Unfortunately, potential adversaries recognize the importance of space to our country and are actively developing ways to deny our use of it in a crisis. The Director of National Intelligence has warned that multiple countries, including Russia and China, are developing both destructive and nondestructive antisatellite weapons that could come online within a few years.

The United States national security community recognizes the necessity of developing new technologies for space to defend against an increasing array of threats.

LEADING INTO THE FUTURE: Under President Trump, America is reclaiming its heritage as the worlds greatest space-faring Nation and is leading space development into the 21st century.
News

Washington, DC - On Thursday, Commissioner Kevin K. McAleenan announced the selection of Deputy Chief Carla L. Provost as the 18th chief of the U.S. Border Patrol. Chief Provost has served as acting chief of the U.S. Border Patrol since April 2017.

Chief U.S. Border Patrol

Carla L. Provost

There is no one more suited to lead the Border Patrol, said Commissioner McAleenan. It is my distinct honor to appoint Chief Provost to this position. I have absolute confidence in her experience, leadership, judgment and dedication to lead the Border Patrol, as well as her unwavering commitment to our mission, and our agency.

Chief Provost has had a distinguished 23-year career in the U.S. Border Patrol, holding a wide variety of supervisory, management, and leadership positions having worked her way up through the ranks in key operational roles in some of the busiest sectors in the country.

She entered on duty with the U.S. Border Patrol in 1995, as a member of Class 277 and was first assigned as a Border Patrol agent at the Douglas Station in the Tucson Sector. In 1998, she was promoted to a supervisory Border Patrol agent position, and in 2001 to a field operations supervisor position. In 2006, Chief Provost was promoted to assistant chief patrol agent at the Yuma Sector. In 2009, she became patrol agent in charge of the Wellton Station in the Yuma Sector.

In 2011, Chief Provost was appointed to the Senior Executive Service (SES) as deputy chief patrol agent of the El Paso Sector. In 2013, she was named chief patrol agent for the El Centro Sector in Imperial, California, where she led 1,200 employees and oversaw all operations within her area of responsibility. In July 2015, Chief Provost was named deputy assistant commissioner of Internal Affairs, where she oversaw compliance with all CBP-wide programs and policies relating to corruption, misconduct, or mismanagement. She became deputy chief of the U.S. Border Patrol in 2016.

I am humbled and honored to accept this position and the challenges that come with it. said Chief Provost. The Border Patrol is a family, and I will do everything to live up to this great responsibility and represent my family to the best of my ability. I am so proud of the men and women of the Border Patrol. I know first-hand the sacrifices they make every day to protect this country, and recognize the outstanding leadership we have, and the brave and tireless work of our agents. First and foremost, I want to be able to support our personnel with the resources and equipment they need to do their jobs in a safe and effective manner. Our people are our most important resource, and supporting them is my primary responsibility.

Prior to joining the U.S. Border Patrol, Chief Provost served for several years as a police officer with the Riley County Police Department in Manhattan, Kansas. Chief Provost earned a Bachelor of Science in Sociology and Criminal Justice at Kansas State University, and a Master of Science in National-Resource Strategy from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces at the National Defense University in Washington, D.C.
Arizona News

Phoenix, Arizona - Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced a State Grand Jury indicted Laura Lynn Bell, a former Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner, for her alleged involvement in treating Veterans Affairs patients while unlicensed and defrauding multiple insurance companies.

In December of 2016, Bells nursing license was revoked by the Arizona State Board of Nursing. Bell is accused of using stolen identities of nurse practitioners and former patients to bill insurance companies for services that were not rendered. She is further accused of treating three Veterans Affairs patients without a license. It is alleged she forged various identification documents, medical certifications, and other credentialing material in order to achieve her scheme. She is accused of fraudulently receiving over $190,000 from various insurance companies.



Bell is facing twelve felony charges, including Fraudulent Schemes and Artifices, Theft, Money Laundering in the Second Degree, Trafficking in the Identity of Another, and Forgery.



This matter was investigated by the Arizona Department of Insurance Fraud Unit, in conjunction with the Arizona Attorney Generals Office, the Chandler Police Department, U.S. Postal Inspector Services and the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General.



The Arizona Attorney Generals Office is prosecuting the case.



All defendants are presumed innocent until convicted in a court of law.
Arizona News

Phoenix, Arizona - Attorney General Mark Brnovich announced a State Grand Jury indicted 43-year-old Deborah Long, the former business manager for the Western Arizona Vocational Education District (WAVE), for allegedly stealing district monies.

While employed as WAVEs business manager, Long is accused of issuing warrants to herself, issuing warrants to her credit card companies, keeping payments made by parents and others to the district, making personal purchases with WAVE credit cards, and increasing her salary without authorization. Investigators say the total loss to WAVE is $139,284. The conduct is alleged to have taken place between November 2011 and August 2016.



Long is facing seven felony charges, including 1 count of Fraudulent Schemes and Artifices, 5 counts of Theft, and 1 count of Misuse of Public Monies.



Assistant Attorney General Joseph Waters is prosecuting the case.



The Arizona Auditor General investigated this case.



All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Border News

Wellton, Arizona - U.S. Border Patrol agents assigned to the Wellton Station Interstate 8 Immigration Checkpoint made five arrests and seized $247,000 worth of narcotics in two events over the weekend.

At 9:40 a.m. on Saturday, Wellton Station agents referred a white 2016 Honda City for secondary inspection after a Border Patrol canine alerted to an odor it was trained to detect. A subsequent search of the vehicle revealed two false compartments in the floorboard containing 13 packages of methamphetamine and six packages of heroin. The methamphetamine weighed 36.9 pounds with an estimated value of $110,848. The heroin weighed 7.8 pounds with an estimated value of $136,108. The driver, a 31-year-old Border Crossing Card holder from Mexico, was arrested for drug smuggling.

At 1:00 a.m. today, a gray 1999 Ford Explorer exited the highway and attempted to drive around the Interstate 8 Immigration Checkpoint. An immigration stop was conducted on the vehicle, which was occupied by one female driver, three males, and two small children. The driver, a 22-year-old Glendale resident, and two small children were U.S. citizens. The three male passengers were Mexican nationals unlawfully present in the United States.

The driver was arrested for human smuggling and the three Mexican nationals were arrested for immigration violations. The children were turned over to the custody of a relative.

The contraband and both vehicles have been seized.

Federal law allows agents to charge individuals by complaint, a method that allows the filing of criminal activity charges without inferring guilt. An individual is presumed innocent unless or until competent evidence is presented to a jury that establishes guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Yuma Sector Border Patrol agents effectively combat smuggling organizations attempting to illegally transport people and contraband through Southwestern Arizona and California. Citizens can help the Border Patrol and U.S. Customs and Border Protection by calling 1-866-999-8727 toll-free to report suspicious activity. Callers may remain anonymous.
Border News

Douglas, Arizona - Douglas Station Border Patrol agents responded to a request for assistance from a Cochise County Sheriff deputy Saturday evening in Douglas, and arrested two illegal aliens in possession of four handguns.

A deputy with Cochise County stopped a Ford pickup truck on Merritt Avenue, occupied by two male Mexican nationals, ages 37 and 41, both illegally present in the United States. A search of the vehicle revealed one .40 caliber and three 9 mm handguns within arms reach of the men.

Agents arrested the men for being in the country illegally with firearms and seized the weapons for processing. The Cochise County Sheriffs Office impounded the vehicle.

Collaboration between state, tribal, local, and federal law enforcement agencies provides a greater force to combat transnational criminal activity in southern Arizona, improving the safety of our border communities.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials welcome assistance from the community. Citizens can report suspicious activity to the Border Patrol and remain anonymous by calling 1-877-872-7435 toll free. Reporting illicit activity could result in saving someones life.
Border News

Nogales, Arizona - Nogales Station Border Patrol agents arrested a Rio Rico couple Saturday morning at the Interstate 19 Immigration Checkpoint after finding 18 pounds of illegal narcotics in their 2005 Trailblazer.

Agents referred the 56-year-old male U.S. citizen, and 51-year-old female permanent resident from Mexico for further inspection after a Border Patrol canine alerted to an odor it was trained to detect emitting from the rear of the vehicle. During the search, agents found seven packages of cocaine and two packages of methamphetamine.

The drugs had a combined weight exceeding 18 pounds and an estimated value of more than $197,000.

Agents turned the truck, drugs, and suspects over to the Drug Enforcement Administration for processing.

Federal law allows agents to charge individuals by complaint, a method that allows the filing of charges for criminal activity without inferring guilt. An individual is presumed innocent unless and until competent evidence is presented to a jury that establishes guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials welcome assistance from the community. Citizens can report suspicious activity to the Border Patrol and remain anonymous by calling 1-877-872-7435 toll free. Reporting illicit activity could result in saving someones life.
Border News

Nogales, Arizona - U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers at Arizonas Port of Nogales arrested a Mexican national for attempting to smuggle methamphetamine into the United States Tuesday, worth nearly $13,000.

CBP officers at the Morley Pedestrian Crossing referred a 43-year-old woman for further inspection Tuesday morning. When an officer searched the womans purse, two packages of were found and determined to be meth, as well as a third package which was removed from the subjects undergarments. The drugs weighed more than four pounds, with an estimated value of nearly $13,000.

Officers seized the drugs. The subject was turned over to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcements Homeland Security Investigations following her arrest.
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View MarketBeat's top stock picks here.
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- Top highlife artiste Dada Hafco has advised pastors to stop flaunting their wealth

- According to him, it would be better for pastors to support gospel musicians to produce their musical works

Top highlife artiste, Dada Hafco, has taken a strong swipe at some pastors in the country flaunting their wealth in public.

Per a report by Citinewsroom.com sighted by YEN.com.gh, some Ghanaians are unhappy about the display of affluence by some pastors in the country.

According to the Bedianko hit maker, it would be better for pastors to support gospel musicians to produce their musical works than live profligate lifestyles.

READ ALSO: Fans slams Ahoufe Patri for dressing half-naked

Speaking on Zylofon FM on Thursday he also advised established churches in the country to start gospel record labels.

In his admonition to the pastors, Hafco intimated that by exploring the business aspects of gospel music, the church would be able to win more souls for their ministries.

If most of these pastors could invest in gospel music, they could easily propagate the word of God through music, he noted.

READ ALSO: Shatta Wale and Shatta Michy share a kiss on TV to celebrate their reunion

Other musicians who have made similar calls are gospel music duo, Trinity Cross, musician Akesse Brempong, among others.

These pastors that are been referred to are the leader of the Anointed Palace Chapel, Rev. Obofuor and founder of International Gods Way Church, Bishop Daniel Obinim.

YEN.com.gh had earlier reported how Bishop Obinim acquired customized Range Rover vehicles worth $300,000.

READ ALSO: I dated John Dumelo for 2 years - Joselyn Dumas

YEN.com.gh previously reported how Rev. Obofuor also purchased Range Rover vehicle with an estimated value of $300,000.

With this move by these pastors Dada Hafco is not that all happy.

Dada Hafcos latest single Yebewu Nti has already found its place in the playlists of most disc jockeys and music lovers.

Currently, he is one of the vibrant highlife artistes who have resolved to help preserve highlife music.

Watch: Ghana News Today: Shatta Waly May Become A President Of Ghana | #Yencomgh

Your stories and photos are always welcome. Send us a message via YEN's official Facebook page.

Source: Yen
- A landlord, Bassey Wilson, has been sent to court for flogging a tenant

- His act resulted in bruises all over her body and the matter was reported to the police

- The accused was however arrested, but he pleaded not guilty to the offense

A 51-year old landlord, Bassey Wilson, has been arraigned before an Ikeja Magistrates Court in Lagos for allegedly flogging a married woman with a belt.

According to Nigeriafilms.com, the accused allegedly committed the offense on July 7, 2018 at his residence.

The suspect is a businessman, who resides at Ahmadiyya, Meiran, a suburb of Lagos, in Nigeria.

Source: Adomonline.com

READ ALSO: Ibrahim Mahama's debt key to the collapse of UT Bank

Shedding light on the case, the prosecutor, Sgt Godwin Awase, told the court that the accused assaulted Victoria Obioha, his tenant, by flogging her with the belt which resulted in some bruises on her body.

He went on to say that the complainant washed and spread her husbands police uniform and belt on a clothesline.

The accused removed the clothes where the complainant hung them and seized them because there was an argument over where the clothes were spread.

The complainant ran after him in order to retrieve the uniform and belt before entering his apartment.

But the accused turned on her and used her husband s belt to flog her several times all over her body, resulting in injuries. The uniform and belt are still with the accused. The case was reported and the accused was arrested, the prosecutor said.

The offense, he said, contravened Section 173 of the Criminal Law of Lagos State, 2015.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the section prescribes three years jail term for assault.

The accused, however, pleaded not guilty and the Magistrate, F.F. George, granted him bail on self-recognition.

READ ALSO: Ahoufe Patri stuns social media users with a half-naked photo

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Source: Yen
- Married women in Kwasitwikrom in the Agona East District of the Central Region, have expressed worry about the intense noise pollution

- According to the women, the blaring noise interferes with their sexual activities as their husbands easily get distracted during coitus

Married women in Kwasitwikrom in the Agona East District of the Central Region, have identified the intense noise-making in the community as a distraction to their sexual lives.

According to them, the noise produced through sand winning activities usually disturbs their love-making at night.

Some of the frustrated women said their husbands often get distracted during sex due to the blaring noise from the site.

At night when our husbands initiate sex, the noise from the tipper trucks become a major distraction," one of the women said. Photo Source: Google images

READ ALSO: Prez Akufo-Addo cuts long convoy; provides bus for ministers

A wife, who decided to speak on condition of anonymity, lamented the situation, saying she is unable to enjoy sex.

In an interview with Accra-based Class FM, she said her husband is always turned off after spending just a few minutes on top of her due to the noise.

At night when our husbands initiate sex, the noise from the tipper trucks become a major distraction, as a result, we are unable to enjoy sexual intercourse.

For months now, we havent had sex because our husbands give up when they are unable to sustain erection due to the distraction. We need help to address this situation so our sexual lives can bounce back because our feelings are wasting away, she added.

The frustrated wives in Kwasitwikrom, therefore, want government and the local authorities, to regulate the activities of the sand winners in the community.

READ ALSO: UT bank wanted to meet President Mahama over brother's 302m loan

This, they believe, will breed the perfect atmosphere for them to enjoy good sex with their husbands at night

Ghana News Today: Shatta Waly May Become A President Of Ghana | #Yencomgh

READ ALSO: Shatta Wale and Shatta Michy share a kiss on TV to celebrate their reunion

Do you have a hot story or scandal you would like us to publish on YEN.com.gh?

Please contact us on Facebook or Instagram now!

Source: Yen.com.gh
- Former winners of the Miss Ghana beauty pageant have make wild allegations against the CEO Inna Patty

- Some of the winners including 2017 winner, Magaret Dery, have resigned

- The 2015 winner, Antoinette Delali Kemavor has revealed that she was forced to drive Inna Patty from Ghana to Benin and back at age nineteen.

Over the past weeks, many scandals keep rocking some of Ghanas beauty pageants including the foremost Miss Ghana show.

Some past winners of the show, including the 2017 winner, Miss Margaret Dery, Miss Antoinette Delali Kemavor, and others have resigned following many wild allegations they made against the beauty pageant and CEO Inna Patty.

In a report sighted by YEN.com.gh on Ghanacelebrities.com, Antoinette is accusing Inna Patty of slavery and attempted prostitution.

Former Miss Ghana 2015 Antoinette Delali Kemavor. Photo credit: Ghananewspage.com

READ ALSO: 10 photos of Jackie Appiahs son Damien which would make you love him instantly

In a long piece she exclusively sent to Ghanacelebrities.com, Delali wrote about how she was forced to drive Inna Patty from Ghana to Benin and back as if she was a slave when she was a merely nineteen-year-old girl.

She further revealed that after the long drive, Inna later took her to the home of a man she has unknowingly to Delali, arranged with to have her spend the night with him.

In that attempted prostitution which didnt work out, Inna Patty was said to have taken Delali to the mans house, and after she got up to leave, the man asked in wonderment I thought she was sleeping over?.

READ ALSO: Afia Schwar calls down fire on fake prophets over her death prophecy in new hot video

Delali also revealed that though a cash prize was announced together with the car prize, she, the ultimate winner and her first and second runner-ups did not receive any money from Inna or the organizers for so many excuses.

Antoinette again disclosed that Inna also gave her and the other winners a stressful task to go round and solicit funds from ten companies a day, meaning they must reach out to fifty companies each week.

At a point when they could not afford to fuel their own cars with their own monies anymore, Inna asked them to find fuel companies to sponsor them but they were not successful.

After a while I started to drive myself everywhere I was required to go. I was not aware of what happened with the driver but to my knowledge, he one day just stopped working with us. I will usually drive Rebecca on her sponsorship rounds and also go on my sponsorship rounds.

Rebecca and I will always pay for my fuel. Inna gave each of us a task to visit 10 companies individually each day, making 50 companies by the end of the week. This was getting unbearable eventually for us both, driving from company to company and fueling the vehicle ourselves.

It was about time we mentioned it to Inna, and so we did. Her reply to us was she didnt have money either, and she was also going on rounds so the best thing we could do or ourselves was to get a fuel company sponsor. We tried, but it seemed our proposal didnt carry enough weight, Antoinette revealed.

READ ALSO: Shatta Wale finally reveals why he can't marry Michy anytime soon

Read her full account below, unedited

Today I will share with you my Miss Ghana experience. On the 7th of November 2015 I won the Miss Ghana Beauty Pageant. During my year, myself and my runners up each had cars. I was given my car 2 days after the event. I was also given a driver, my first runner up had also received her car however my 2nd runner up (Rebecca) hadnt received her car yet so she will either ride with me or the 1st runner up (Afua).

I didnt win a cash price even though it was advertised that a cash price will be present. I also did not receive a monthly salary. When I asked Inna, she told me that usually when a sponsor gives money as a cash price, it was to be divided and shared as monthly allowance, so since there wasnt any cash price in my year, it automatically means no monthly allowance. She went on to say, that was the reason she was encouraging us to get more sponsorship in form of cash so we could benefit from the 10% she will give to us. So just to make this clear we had no prize money, and no monthly allowance.

After a while I started to drive myself everywhere I was required to go. I was not aware of what happened with the driver but to my knowledge, he one day just stopped working with us. I will usually drive Rebecca on her sponsorship rounds and also go on my sponsorship rounds. Rebecca and I will always pay for my fuel. Inna gave each of us a task to visit 10 companies individually each day, making 50 companies by the end of the week. This was getting unbearable eventually for us both, driving from company to company and fueling the vehicle ourselves. It was about time we mentioned it to Inna, and so we did. Her reply to us was she didnt have money either, and she was also going on rounds so the best thing we could do or ourselves was to get a fuel company sponsor. We tried, but it seemed our proposal didnt carry enough weight.

During that time Rebecca had started going for driving lessons and shortly after got her license. Even then, Inna requested she gets a driver with 10 years experience and other requirements I cannot remember. Each time Rebecca brought someone Inna will not approve so I was tasked to prove she was good enough to drive in order for us to be free to go about our 10 companies each day. So I will let Rebecca drive my car so Inna would see that she was ready and capable. After 5 months Rebeccas car was given to her.

Each time we had an event to attend, we will have to use our own money to sort out or clothes, shoes,make-up, hair etc. How we were able to look Queenly for events was not of any Concern to Inna. She was more concerned about appearance. Always saying one day we will make it but that day never came.

We were all supposed to attend international competitions after winning miss Ghana. Mine was Miss World, Afua Miss Naiades, and Rebecca Miss Africa. At about the time Afua had gone to Benin for her Pageant I was still preparing for Miss World. I however had to pause my preparation to attend the event. The night before the travel I was informed by Inna that the driver will not be able to make it and so I was tasked to drive from Ghana to Benin. I drove Inna to Benin and back. This was when I was given the name Chief Driver.

Now the struggle to Miss World finally hit me. As part of the Miss World requirements, I was asked to shoot a 2minute introductory video of myself and my country and a 5-minute video of my Beauty with a Purpose project. I contacted a videographer friend I met through the Miss Ghana competition. I pleaded with him to help me shoot the video as at that point I was hitting the broke level mark. He was a bit skeptical about shooting the video because, in 2015 after working with Inna he had still not been paid for his work and we were already in 2016. I spoke to Inna and she promised him she would pay after the video was shot and edited. Now, the video is ready but I still hadnt received it because they still hadnt been paid. It took a lot of back n forth till finally, he released to videos to me to be submitted.

Then the issue of the Miss World registration fee. I was supposed to pay 10,000usd as registration fee. Yes, this was in my contract, a contract signed without any legal representative. A contract that was given to us immediately after being chosen as top 20 in the competition. A contract given to us as about 11pm when all contestants where tired and elated to have been selected as final 20. I admit, this was a very strategic and thought out plan.

Anyways, I contacted a few African queens and I learned that the fee they were paying was 5,000 usd. So I was very confused when I heard this. I told Inna and she angrily said, those countries cant be compared to Ghana because we had placed 2nd the Miss World competition and have been attending miss world long before the rest.

Luckily for me, I was only able to raise 5,000usd, and I told her, I honestly couldnt raise anymore because men are beginning to try to take advantage and I wasnt ready for that.

I remember how Ill always go home crying to my family, that I never imagined it to be this hard, looking for sponsorship, enduring all this stress. I felt within that period I was no longer a 19 year old. I felt like a 25/ 26 year old dealing with these issues. I was devastated and still gathered the courage to represent Ghana on that World stage. Making it to top 20 amongst 118 contestants.

In my search to finding that 10,000usd, Inna spoke to me about a man that could help me out with the money. So the night we were to go see this man for dinner, Inna told me be sweet, and I should be friendly. Now, this is why I say Inna is very tactical and manipulative. She invited my runners up, and the Mr Ghana boys. Now they didnt know the reason for the dinner, only Inna and I knew. So we went to this mans house, had dinner, except I didnt eat.

So it was getting late, this was after 10pm so I was telling him that, its getting late Im sure he is tired so I think we should get going. And he said, but I thought you were going to sleep over. Now the question that keeps running into my head is, if there was no communication between this man and Inna what gave him the courage to tell me that? Its either he has some guts or it was planned. Inna didnt admit to it of course but I will always say, when the sun is shining it must as well be day time.

I had to pay for my own gowns to be sewn, get winter clothes, because it was being held during that season. At this point, my pocket had reached rock bottom and I still had more things to pay for.

I bought my own ticket as well. So after this whole struggle to get to Miss World, when it was finally over, I decide to spend a week in the States with my family. I sent Inna a message informing her of my decision.

She refused to agree, she wanted me back in Ghana as soon as possible. Next thing I know she sends the American immigration after me. I wasnt there illegally neither had my visa expired so why was she trying in all her capacity to get me back to Ghana? Then she called the United States Ambassador to Ghana reporting me. I still ignored her and came back a week after.

Now Im in Ghana having a nice meal when I see a news feed about me missing. Stating that I was nowhere to be found after Miss World and organizers have no clue as to my whereabouts.

At this point, I was completely fed up and decided to quit. My term was over anyways and it wasnt my fault Miss Ghana 2016 wasnt held.

So I asked for assistance from a lawyer to help me firstly collect my car back since Inna had seized it because I had refused to return when she wanted me to and to help me resign. They asked me in the presence of my lawyer if I wished to continue until a new Queen was crown and of course, I said no. Next thing I know, my first runner up (Afua) has been picked as the new queen.

Now to my surprise, I find out from the Miss World organization that Inna told them that she was unable to pay the required amount, since she just recently took up as the franchise holder and so, Inna was giving a discount. The amount was supposed to be 3,000 or 4,000 usd says the CEO of Miss World.

Now Inna preaches about looking for the best interest of the brand. And she was able to lie to me asking for 10,000usd when it was so much cheaper. I am so disappointed and heartbroken and I will never wish this experience on anyone.

By Antoinette Delali Kemavor, Miss Ghana 2015.

READ ALSO: Trotro mate jailed for stealing sales

Meanwhile, Margaret Dery has resigned following accusations that at a point she was forced to make money out of dead bodies.

Unable to bear the shame anymore, she had to resign her post as Miss Ghana 2017 to have her peace of mind.

Interestingly, Sika of TV3 Ghanas Most Beautiful season 2015 has also accused a staff of TV3 of demanding sexual favours to help her through the competition.

According to Sika, she didnt agree and so the staff got angry and never wanted to help her out anymore.

READ ALSO: Photo of Jackie Appiah with her ex-husband in good times pops up on the internet

Ghana News Today: Shatta Waly May Become A President Of Ghana | #Yencomgh

READ ALSO: Close friend betrays Sarkodie after his wedding?

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Source: Yen
Sydney, Australia [Photo by Xu Lin / China.org.cn]







Why is India more reticent over having an aggressive foreign policy while showing no intentions of forming any coalition or being a part of an alignment? This is the question that has been baffling foreign policy analysts in Europe and the U.S.

After all, India was supposed to be a pillar of the democratic Quad in the Indo-Pacific. The Quad itself is supposed to be an alliance of liberal democracies, to promote democracy and free trade but also to balance any rising power in the Asia Pacific. The fundamental goal was, therefore, realpolitik, despite the economic underpinning and humanitarian rhetoric. Incidentally, last time the idea of such a realpolitik alignment was scuttled by Kevin Rudd of Australia, out of fear of antagonizing a rising China.

This time, it is different. While the Quad has met twice recently, Australia, the U.S. and Japan are separately planning to build a trilateral partnership in the region, and invest in Indo-Pacific projects to address infrastructure and development and connectivity. According to a briefing by the Australian government, the partnership has one goal in mind, that is to enhance the peace and prosperity of the region.

Employing the local workforce, this economic blitz is aimed to "attract private capital and build a framework of cooperation....The United States, Japan, and Australia have formed a trilateral partnership to mobilize investment in projects that drive economic growth, create opportunities, and foster a free, open, inclusive and prosperous Indo-Pacific," the Australian government briefing read, with the key words being free, open and inclusive.

Getting on with the program, Mike Pompeo has pledged a new 300-million-dollar security fund for Asia. "As part of our commitment to advancing regional security in the Indo-Pacific, the United States is excited to announce nearly $300m in new funding to reinforce security cooperation throughout the entire region," he was quoted to say.

The new security assistance is intended to tackle "transnational threats" as well as U.S. economic commitment to a region to bolster a "free and open Indo-Pacific." Again, the focus is on Indo-Pacific being a region which is considered "free." The implication is clear; the U.S. is opposed to militarization of Asia and is determined to stop that from happening.

However, three important structural barriers remain. Number one, the scale of investment is heavily tilted towards the Chinese. The comparison between the U.S. investing in Asia and China investing in Asia is incomparable. IR theory dictates, that small countries prefer local powers to invest and safeguard rather than bandwagoning with faraway powers. If that is correct, in the future, we will see more bandwagoning behavior from ASEAN and other Asian countries with China, inviting Chinese investment, and even military cooperation.

Which brings me to India. As I have written before, the Indian strategic circle faces a security dilemma. India is the only country to share an actual border with China. India and China are also both nuclear powers which means India doesn't have to depend on any external great power to provide security, and the power in the maritime domain is equally balanced, with India being more favorable towards its own base, and China being more favorable in the rest of the Indo-Pacific region. It is understandable why India would want to avoid giving the impression that India is determined to side with any coalition or aligning with any power, on either side.

Second, the foreign policy history of India suggests that India prefers to remain non-aligned. It can be stated as its cultural DNA.

Third, and most importantly, the Indian strategic community is independent in the way that it prefers to retain strategic autonomy. Indians don't trust any great power, and that means, it will be loath to join any side. If one can argue that India could be theoretically on the side of democracies, it needs to be stated that Indian democracy is a conservative, majoritarian, nationalist democracy and not a liberal democracy, more similar in character with Israel and Hungary, than Australia or Japan. That makes Indian foreign policy narrow.

Australia is not India, and Australian domestic policy is very different than India's. Australia has to choose between Chinese investment and American security, a choice, India won't have to make, given Indian strategic and military autonomy. It is therefore unlikely that India will join any side, a luxury Australia cannot afford and a reality it will soon have to reckon with.

Sumantra Maitra is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:





http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/SumantraMaitra.htm





Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors only, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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The U.S. State Department said on Friday that Secretary of State Mike Pompeo had spoken with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov over phone to discuss the recently announced U.S. sanctions on Russia and the bilateral ties.

In a statement, State Department spokesperson Heather Nauert said Pompeo also discussed the ongoing challenges in Syria with Lavrov.

Pompeo "reiterated that the U.S. seeks an improved relationship with Russia and agreed to future dialogue," read the statement.

Nauert said on Wednesday that Washington had determined that the Russian government "used chemical or biological weapons in violation of international law or has used lethal chemical or biological weapons against its own nationals."

She added that sanctions, which are based on the Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991, will take effect on or around Aug. 22, following a 15-day congressional notification period.

According to senior State Department officials, the sanctions will come in two phases. The first phase will ban the granting of licenses to sell "all national-security sensitive goods or technologies" to Russia.

At the moment, such sales applications are being scrutinized on a case-by-case basis, and Washington "will be presumptively denying such applications" after the sanctions come into force.

They said unless Russia, within three months since the sanctions become effective, provides "reliable assurances" that it will no longer engage in chemical weapons use and allows on-site inspections by the United Nations or other internationally recognized impartial observers, the second batch of "more draconian" sanctions will be imposed.

The officials estimated that the sanctions may affect hundreds of millions of dollars worth of exports, dealing a blow to some 70 percent of the Russian economy and resulting in an approximately 40-percent fall in workforce.

Sergei Skripal, a 66-year-old double agent who worked for the Soviet military's intelligence services before defecting to Britain, and his 33-year-old daughter Yulia were found unconscious on a bench outside a shopping center in the southwestern British city of Salisbury on March 4.

The British government accused Russia of masterminding the poisoning, which it said involved the use of Novichok nerve agent. Russia has denied any involvement.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that the U.S. actions were "absolutely unacceptable," and Moscow "once again most emphatically reject any accusations in the context of a possible involvement of the Russian state in what happened in Salisbury."

The U.S. decision is unfriendly and inconsistent with the constructive atmosphere created after the recent Putin-Trump meeting, he added.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 11)  The House of Representatives has indefinitely suspended deliberations of 2019 national budget, pushing for reversion to the old budgeting system.

House committee on appropriations head, Davao City 1st District Representative Karlo Nograles said that the suspension is due to the opposition of the House against the proposed cash-based system of the Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC).

"And since we will revert to obligation-based budgeting, we will give time to DBCC to make the necessary changes," Nograles told reporters.

On Thursday, members of both the majority and minority blocs of the House of Representatives opposed the cash-based system.

Nograles argued that the new system, which would only allot resources for projects that could be initiated and finished within the year, will greatly lower capital or infrastructure spending of government agencies.

"Mababawasan (ang) mga classroom buildings, mababawasan (ang) health facilities, mababawasan (ang) irrigation projects, mababawasan ang kahit mga new buildings and facilities ng SUCs (State Universities and Colleges), mababawasan ang roads and bridges," Nograles said.

[Translation:The number of classroom buildings, health facilities, irrigation projects, even new buildings and facilities of SUCs, roads and bridges will all be reduced.]

On the other hand, the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) proposed the new cash-based system to hasten the delivery of government projects.

"This shift is expected to quicken program delivery, as well as strengthen the focus and accountability of government as target outputs of government programs become more clearly linked to their appropriated budget," the DBM said in July.
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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday told U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo by phone that Russia categorically rejects new U.S. sanctions over alleged Russian involvement in the Skripal case.

Lavrov reiterated Russia's position that Moscow played no role in the alleged nerve agent attack on ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal in the British city of Salisbury, the foreign ministry said.

Lavrov stressed that neither the United States, nor Britain, nor any other country have provided a single fact to support their accusations, according to a Russian Foreign Ministry statement.

The U.S. State Department said Wednesday that Washington will impose new sanctions on Russia over the alleged poison attack on Skripal and his daughter Yulia in Salisbury in March.

Western countries claim the pair was exposed to a nerve agent and hold Russia responsible, while the Russian government has repeatedly denied any involvement in the case and demanded direct participation in the investigation.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has criticized the U.S. decision on new sanctions and Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Moscow will consider retaliation.

Lavrov and Pompeo also discussed issues on the international agenda, including the situation in Syria, and other topics considered during the meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his U.S. counterpart Donald Trump in Helsinki on July 16.

The two top diplomats agreed to maintain contacts on all issues of mutual interest, the statement said, adding that the phone conversation was initiated by the U.S. side.
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Russia said Friday that new U.S. sanctions on Moscow over an alleged nerve agent attack five months ago is "illegitimate."

Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the issue of possible new U.S. sanctions at a meeting with the country's security council members on Friday, the Kremlin said in a statement.

"Total illegitimacy of such actions from the point of view of international law has been underlined," the statement said.

The U.S. State Department Wednesday vowed to take punitive measures against Russia over an alleged nerve agent attack on ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia in the British city of Salisbury in March.

Russia has denied the accusations and demanded direct participation in the investigation.

On Thursday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov criticized the U.S. decision on new sanctions and Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Moscow will consider retaliation.

The Russian Security Council, a consultative body for the president, consists of key government ministers and agency heads.
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Russia said Friday it blocked a U.S. request Thursday to the United Nations (UN) Security Council Committee to impose sanctions against certain entities allegedly cooperating with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

"The United States evidently wanted to obtain a blessing of the UN Security Council Committee 1718 to the unilateral restrictions it had imposed under baseless pretexts," the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The evidence presented by the United States in support of their proposal is completely inconclusive, the statement said.

Last week, the United States imposed sanctions on an individual and several entities, including Russian commercial bank Agrosoyuz, for allegedly practicing illegal activities bypassing international restrictions on the DPRK.

According to the statement, Russia also rejects the methods used by the U.S. delegation to the UN Security Council and its subsidiary bodies, which attempted to impose hasty decisions advantageous to it without due consideration of other members' opinions.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 11)  Thousands of residents were forced to evacuate after the Marikina River reached third alarm on Saturday.

Marikina Mayor Marcy Teodoro told CNN Philippines that as of 6 p.m., 800 families or 5,000 individuals have left their homes. The city has 13 designated evacuation centers, he added.

"Nagforced evacuation tayo para habang accessible pa yung mga area, makalabas pa yung mga tao (We implemented forced evacuation so they can leave while they can)," Teodoro said.

He said rescue operations are ongoing, as floods of up to four feet high trapped residents in certain areas.

The water level in Marikina River reached 18 meters above sea level at 4:57 p.m., prompting local officials to raise the third alarm.

This means the local government's disaster response unit will implement forced evacuations of residents along the river.

The river quickly rose Saturday afternoon due to heavy downpour, flooding several areas in the city.

The Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA) has also raised red rainfall warning over Metro Manila and Rizal province, warning of serious flooding in these areas.

Two weather disturbances outside the country are enhancing southwest monsoon that is causing the inclement weather, PAGASA said.
Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, August 11)  The first Filipino-made cube satellite (CubeSat) has been launched into orbit Friday afternoon.

Maya-1 was launched from the Japanese experiment module called "Kibo" on the International Space Station at 5:45 p.m.

The 10-cubic-centimeter satellite, which looks slightly bigger than a fist and weighs only a kilogram, is one of the products of the Department of Science and Technology's Philippine Microsatellite (PHL-Microsat) program.

It was turned over to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on May 15 before it was launched to the ISS on June 29.

Maya-1 carries two cameras  a wide-angle and a narrow-angle lens  to capture images and minimum resolution videos for research purposes. It also has a Global Positioning System (GPS) commercial off-the-shelf chip, as well as a magnetometer for measuring the magnetic field in space.

Two other CubeSats from Malaysia and Bhutan were simultaneously launched yesterday.

Meanwhile, another Philippine microsatellite named DIWATA-2 is slated to be launched this year.
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It looks like a simple enough concept, but the problem is that tanks tend to weigh a lot (who knew?), and flying is basically a war against gravity. In order to make the tank light enough to fly, they had to cut weight from the weapons, ammo, headlights, and oh yeah, fuel. This basically made it the world's heaviest box, which would be fine if the goal was to simply drop it on unsuspecting enemy soldiers.

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The amazing part? It actually kind of worked. A bomber brought the winged tank up in the air, and despite the fact that it had to be released early due to the weight, the tank's pilot guided it safely to the ground. The idea was abandoned because the Soviets didn't have any aircraft powerful enough to carry these beasts without falling apart. Still, we like to imagine a German spy was watching the whole thing and had to report back to Hitler with the words "flying tanks."

For more on Soviet aviation, check out The Hammer in the Hammer and the Sickle.

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For more, check out We Once Allowed Radiation In Some Terrifyingly Normal Places and The Inventor Of The Phone Was Obsessed With Sheep Nipples.

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A Christian nurse, Sarah Kuteh (pictured), was sacked from an NHS hospital for daring to suggest that a patient she was treating might like to go to church

How we love fretting about the wrong thing. While the country convulses itself about Islamic face veils, a truly disturbing event, affecting our freedom and our future, goes almost unobserved.

This is the creepy and totalitarian treatment of a Christian nurse, Sarah Kuteh, sacked from an NHS hospital for daring to suggest that a patient she was treating might like to go to church and (horror of horrors) inappropriately gave a Bible to a patient.

The good news is that Ms Kuteh, whose abilities as a nurse have never once been questioned, has now been allowed back to work by the political commissars who increasingly control our country. But the price of this is a humiliating process of self- criticism, of the sort once usual in communist states. Typically, the whole thing is conducted in a hideous mangled form of English which makes a supermarket checkout robot sound like Shakespeare.

To regain the favour of the commissars, she has had to write a reflective screed in which she incorporated your obligations in relation to having clear professional boundaries and not expressing your personal beliefs in an inappropriate way and set out the steps you have taken to address the deficiencies highlighted in your practice. You have addressed how you would act differently in the future. In other words, she has confessed her thought-crime and promised not to repeat it.

Well, that is modern Britain, a slimy, squelchy totalitarian state in which unemployment, rather than the gulag, is used to threaten people into conformism and force them to keep their deepest, beloved beliefs a personal secret while they are on state premises.

How absurd. Christianity is pretty much the origin of modern nursing. I am glad my beloved Aunt Ena, a nurse of extraordinary courage and devotion, and an exemplary Christian in thought, word and deed, did not live to see this era.

But the cultural revolution has a special loathing for Christianity, perhaps precisely because it was until so recently the idea which ruled all our hearts.

And I doubt the same horrible process would have been imposed on a nurse who suggested her patients attended a mosque, or gave them a copy of the Koran. For while the British State loathes Christianity, it fears Islam. So do lots of other people.

It is this fear that has driven much of the stupid frenzy which followed Alexander Boris Johnsons not especially funny or original remarks about niqabs, burkas and letterboxes.

Heres a simple point about both these great religions. If you dont believe in them, and to some extent even if you do, both faiths are a set of political and social opinions, chosen by those who hold them.

Darent Valley Hospital in Dartford, Kent, where Sarah Kuteh was sacked after she was accused of failing to respect diversity

People are quite entitled to disagree with and mock them, as they would with any other manifesto and party. Im against personal rudeness and deliberate offence, such as the Charlie Hebdo cartoons. But Im all in favour of reasoned criticism, and some humour, and Im weary of foolish people calling this Islamophobia as if it was some sort of disease.

Being critical of Islam is not the same thing as the Judophobia which is such a big issue in the Labour Party. Judophobes dislike Jews for being who they unalterably are, not because of what they happen to think at the moment.

For example, the Nazis murdered the distinguished German Christian theologian and Roman Catholic nun, Edith Stein, because she had Jewish ancestors. They went to some trouble to hunt her down in her Dutch convent and drag her to Auschwitz so they could kill her. Thats a phobia in action.

As it happens, I have quite a lot of sympathy with some bits of Islam. On a visit to Iran I was much impressed by a beautiful and highly intelligent young woman, a schoolteacher, who made out a powerful case for modesty in dress, and clearly had not been forced by her husband (very much her equal) into the night-black robes she wore.

Ive come across similar views in Turkey and Egypt. Forced veiling is another matter, but I cannot see that state bans or public jeering are going to make much difference to that.

We have Muslim fellow-citizens among us, for good or ill. They are our neighbours. Were going to have to work out a civilised relationship, in which we can talk frankly to each other. Ive never found any of them upset by serious argument. Many are saddened by much of what they see around them. So am I. Many wish this country was more Christian. So do I.

One of the supreme achievements of a free civilisation is the ability to disagree without hating your opponent. We need to relearn it.

Watch out for the true menace

Amid our exaggerated fear and loathing of Russia, we are strangely uninterested in the dangerous despotism of China, which does not just flatten free speech on its own territory, but seeks to do so here.

A notable critic of Pekings behaviour in Hong Kong, Benedict Rogers, has been the victim of an extraordinary personal attack which must, in my view, have come directly from the Chinese state.

His Surrey neighbours (the entire street) have been sent anonymous letters telling lies about him and denouncing him, trying to soften the impact with fake humour. They include a photograph of him and the words Watch him. The nameless correspondent has even sent a letter to Mr Rogerss mother, in rural Dorset (how did they find her?) saying: We, as a Chinese race care not to be lectured, watched or bullied by your son.

One man, bullying a superpower? I have also heard of Chinese attempts to put pressure on British student societies which have dared to host critics of their regime. It is not enough to silence dissent at home. They want to do it here, too. Watch them.

A mission with an alarming twist

I confess I do quite enjoy the Mission: Impossible films, mainly because the chase scenes provide such wonderful, unexpected views of great and beautiful cities.

I cant ever really understand what is going on, and it worries me that hardly anyone ever gets time to eat anything. But in the latest, the makers seem to have developed some sort of conscience, in which you cant sacrifice an individual (even one of your own paid agents) for the greater good.

If this goes on, the baddies are going to start winning.

Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible - Fallout which was released last month

As idiots and greedy lobbyists continue their well-funded, cynical campaign for legal marijuana, the evidence that this would be crazy still mounts. We now have the confession of the Parkland High shooter Nikolas Cruz, who killed 17 people at the Florida school last February. And lo, like almost every other rampage killer everywhere from Nice to Arizona for the past several years, he turns out to be a heavy user of marijuana. Dont listen to the Big Dope Lobby. Just like Big Tobacco, theyre happy for others to die if they get rich.

I have been banned (I expect for life) from editing the online encyclopaedia, Wikipedia. My sin was to make a joke. This outfit turns out to be run by an anonymous, cut-rate version of the Spanish Inquisition, only without the sense of humour. Id say its reasonably reliable on subjects such as trees and warships. But not about anything controversial.

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A rival columnist on another newspaper wrote last week that even though the burka was ridiculous and made women look like letterboxes and bank-robbers, he still wouldn't ban it.

Well, I happen to know that what that columnist would ban like a shot is me writing anything about this, or him, blonde on blond.

Bad news, bro. Despite last week's evidence to the contrary, we do live in a free country.

Boris Johnson is being investigated by the Tory party after comparing women wearing burqas to letterboxes. Sister Rachel is the latest to come to the his defence

The Foreign Secretary has not apologised for his controversial remarks on burqas

If you can say what you think  and, the polls show, what most of the country thinks  about the burka, the niqab, and the right of women to wear the full-face veil in the UK, it's only fair I can, too.

After all, he says that if he learnt one thing after two years travelling the globe as Foreign Secretary, it is this: that most problems can be solved by treating women equally. Still, I am aware that anything I write could annoy not just him but anyone and everyone.

Our great-grandparents were Jewish, Muslim and Christian. My name is Rachel (that's Hebrew for 'ewe') Sabiha (meaning 'dawn' in Arabic) and Johnson (that's American for the male member).

Johnson's remarks, which he hasn't apologised for, prompted outcry from the Muslim community who protested outside his office on Thursday

I could go on. My brother Leo has a Muslim wife born in Kabul and two half-Afghan Muslim daughters who all speak Farsi. If I had a pound for everyone who has said to me since the referendum, 'Oooh, must be interesting around the Johnson Sunday lunch table', I'd be a rich woman, and all I can say is, imagine the conversations now.

So maybe best to get in my all-purpose apology for what I say well in advance. Sorry everyone!

Now that's out of the way, may I be permitted to put in a few words for the former Foreign Secretary and my forever older brother?

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I read his piece. It read like a column written on a Sunday morning while on holiday in Italy, with a bottle or two of Asti Spumante chilling in the fridge for lunch.

If I'd been phoning it in, as it were, I might have changed the word 'ridiculous' and cut out 'bank robbers', but apart from these two or three words, it seemed fine and fair  in fact, it didn't go far enough to express, in my view, how oppressive the garment is.

When I see a woman wearing one, I don't try to 'other' her. The reverse. I try to imagine myself in her shoes. On the street. All the rest of my family are in casual shorts and T-shirts and flip-flops, but I'm a faceless, unidentifiable ghost in a suffocating black shroud. On the beach, my man in skimpy Speedos (OK, please no) me in hot dark fabric from head to toe, having to eat an ice cream by posting the pudding into my mouth from under a flap beneath my chin.

I wasn't triggered by what he wrote, then, but many people (some of them friends) have felt entitled to call my brother a racist, a creep, and other names that are far more insulting, and nasty, than anything he wrote.

THE main charge of his critics seems to be this. His sun-lounger piece was a nativist dog whistle to the shaggier Tory grassroots in the overgrown outfield of the shires; it was subliminal anti-Muslim messaging meant for a Right-wing audience to reach beyond the thought-policed, well-groomed boundary of 'the bubble'.

In objection to this, 100 Muslim women have written  minus their surnames  to protest, and there are street demos in his Uxbridge constituency. Within the Tory Party, Lord Sheikh and others have called for the whip to be removed. There have been calls for an inquiry. The PM's request for an apology was seconded by Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Tories. Remainers threatened to leave the party.

But it all smelt to an outsider like infighting  a pathetic bout of blue-on-blue, fuelled by rage that Burkagate interrupted the Labour Party's epic self-destruction over anti-Semitism. To me it felt like this: he wrote what he thought, and probably in a hurry.

It happens to be what a lot of people think when they see a woman in a burka, but coming from a former holder of one of the great offices of state, and not a comedian, his words failed the political-correctness stress test. Is that a crime? Cressida Dick, the Met boss, says no, and I agree with her.

Yet many of his gleeful critics declared themselves deeply offended, but still managed to stick the boot in with abandon. They accused him of 'criminalising' women by comparing their appearance to that of bank robbers (surely a bit strong?)

They accused him of dehumanising women, completely missing the main point which is that the burka/niqab dehumanises women. They do not express individuality, they suppress it.

I would like to make it very clear I loathe the idea women will be harassed or abused in the street as a result of any of this. I very much hope they aren't. The thought that it licenses xenophobia is horrifying. But clothes have a language, a meaning, and a message. And what the full-face veil wearer conveys is that she is subscribing to a 'toxic patriarchy controlling women'.

Not my words, by the way  the words of one leading imam, who also said that the fact that many younger women say they choose to wear it and assert their right to hide their faces is proof they have 'internalised this poisonous chauvinism'.

Other notables  such as Lib Dem leader Sir Vince Cable  have wondered whether Boris would be 'derogatory' about nuns and Orthodox Jewish women's costume.

I CAN answer: only, Vince, if these faiths became so extreme that they also demanded the obliteration of the identity of only one sex in the public realm (I might also tell him our aunt Sarah, my mother's sister, was a Catholic nun. She wore a steepling black habit and wimple for 17 years. We called her Auntie Nun).

Demonstrators assembled outside the Hillingdon Conservative Association office in Uxbridge calling for Johnson's suspension from the party

My brother's crime, if that's not too strong a word, was to use some ill-advised and, as it turns out, unoriginal comparisons (the letterbox gag was from the old jokes home and has been used by a Muslim woman in The Guardian as well as the BBC) while being too impeccably liberal in not supporting the Danish niqab ban.

He argued the law should not tell 'a free-born adult woman what she may or may not wear in a public place when she is simply minding her own business'. I don't agree. I'd go along with the Danes, and France, Belgium, Bulgaria and Austria, in banning them.

These countries are not imposing a ban  they are lifting one on the rights of women to feel the sun on their skin, the water on their bodies, and for their children to see their mothers' full faces in the street. They are lifting a ban on the rights of women to be seen without the fear their brothers and husbands and uncles will object that they are 'dishonouring' them in some way.

No, Boris did not go too far  he did not go far enough.

For that I can only apologise.
Tests show the anti-impotence drug may stop age-related macular degeneration. This follows a two-year trial led by scientists at Columbia University in New York. (Stock photo)

It sounds difficult to believe, but Viagra could restore sight to the blind.

Tests show the anti-impotence drug may stop further loss of vision for patients being robbed of their sight  and could even repair damage thats already been done.

A two-year trial led by scientists at Columbia University in New York suggests the little blue pills could stop age-related macular degeneration, or AMD, in its tracks.

The condition is the UKs leading cause of blindness, with about 600,000 Britons already thought to have suffered some loss of vision as a result of it.

Around 90 per cent of cases involve dry AMD, a form of the disease which comes on slowly over several years. The rest involve wet AMD, which can cause blindness in as little as three months.

Dry AMD usually develops after the age of 50 and is caused by the growth of new blood vessels over the macula, a small oval-shaped area at the back of the eye that helps us pick out visual details clearly.

These blood vessels leak fluid, causing scar tissue to form and destroying vision in the centre of the eye  making it difficult to recognise faces, read or watch television.

Recent research has found the condition is partly caused by reduced blood flow to the choroid, a vital layer of tissue that sits in front of the retina  and some small earlier studies had suggested Viagra can improve blood flow to this tissue.

Recent research found the condition is partly caused by reduced blood flow to the choroid, a vital layer of tissue that sits in front of the retina. Studies have suggested Viagra can improve blood flow to this tissue. (Stock photo)

In the Columbia study, five elderly patients with AMD were given two Viagra pills a day for two years.

The results, published in the journal Ophthalmologica, showed the drug improved vision for one participant and completely halted deterioration for the others.

Some drugs can already slow progression of AMD and increase vision in some cases, but the medicines have to be injected into the back of the eye every month.

The researchers said: Viagra offers significant potential for vision retention and recovery. It is notable that patients remained visually stable and there was a significant improvement in vision in one participant.

Professor Sobha Sivaprasad from the Royal College of Ophthalmologists said the Viagra findings were encouraging, although the study was small.

We now need bigger studies to replicate these findings before Viagra can be used as a treatment, she cautioned.

Previous studies have suggested Viagra could help treat a string of ailments, from heart attacks and lung disease to dementia.

The drug became available over the counter in Britain for the first time in March.
James Brabazon is a film-maker and writer who has spent his entire career hanging out in hostile places, his social circle a bunch of spivs, spooks, government assassins and mercenaries. Of all his war stories, a couple stand out. First, there was the day he was savaged by a crocodile and made a tourniquet from his own belt only to pass out when a medic stitched him back together with just a dribble of anaesthetic.

Brabazon, 46, was holding the croc in the approved manner  a bit like bagpipes  when it hit him with a scaly tail sharp as a breadknife on the back of his head and sank its teeth into him, gouging one arm and both thighs. We were nose to nose, he recalls. I gave it a solid left hook, which did nothing other than nearly break my knuckles. A croc wrangler eventually wrestled him free.

James Brabazons work in Liberia made his name and gave him the clout to have his films aired on the BBC, Channel 4, HBO and Netflix

Then they started to stitch me up, through the subcutaneous layers that contain your nerve endings. It hurt a great deal more than being bitten.

That episode in Zimbabwe doesnt feature in his new book, The Break Line. Nor does the second, though it did take place in West Africa, which is where the novel, his first, is set.

Brabazon was many months into a civil war there, holed up with rebel forces in Liberia and surviving on the most meagre of rations, a bowl or two of boiled rice daily. Then he found a solitary tin of condensed milk.

It seemed like a miracle  it meant I could make rice pudding. I was just about to eat it when a rocket-propelled grenade went through the side of the building next door. I stood up, grabbed my pudding and ran down a level. But then another RPG came in and someone started strafing the balcony I was on.

So I put my bowl on the floor, lay down next to it, stuck my face in and lapped it like a cat. I was slurping away with plaster and masonry falling around me. Youd have to have prised that rice pudding from my cold dead fingers to make me stop.

Brabazons work in Liberia made his name and gave him the clout to have his films aired on the BBC, Channel 4, HBO and Netflix. The Break Line is the distillation of a quarter of a century of travel with a camera in one hand and a notebook in the other. Set in Sierra Leone, it sees Special Forces veteran Max McLean on a mission that is non-routine even by his own black ops standards. The first half of the story is a regular thriller, brilliantly informed. The science, the weaponry, the effects of it on the body, the medicine, the military and intelligence structures, the relationship between Whitehall and the Armed Forces and the secret intelligence services, thats all real, says Brabazon.

The second half takes a surprising turn into the realms of fantasy fiction. No spoilers here, but its so twisty and multilayered it would be easy to imagine it as as a computer game. He is already writing a sequel.

Its a long way from the Kent seaside cottage that is his UK home. Brabazon is divorced but has a girlfriend and spends a lot of time there with his two children, aged nine and 11. He grew up longing to prove himself like his grandfathers, both soldiers. Just 19, he left for the West Bank and Gaza. He then went up to Cambridge to read history, cut his teeth on the conflict in the Balkans and has been in hot spots including Afghanistan, Syria, Equatorial Guinea and Amazonian South America ever since.

The closest hes ever come to dying was in Syria in 2012, when a helicopter dropped a barrel bomb on him when he was trapped in the open. The funny thing about barrel bombs, he begins, as if there was anything ever funny about a barrel bomb, is that they whistle. So you can see the things and hear them and you have a very long time to think about them. I felt very calm, there were no regrets for the life Id lived.

Zimbabwe, 2000: James Brabazon winces in pain as the crocodile he had been holding like bagpipes turns and bites him in the thigh

But as it fell it drifted, and I watched it explode further down the valley. I thought, Oh, OK, that was good. Bonus, actually.

He has spent his life trying to tell the truth about conflicts. Ive always tried to tell my stories with honesty, he says. Being a novelist makes me a professional liar. Thatll make a nice change.

The Break Line by James Brabazon is out now (Michael Joseph 12.99). Offer price 10.39 (20 per cent discount) until Aug 26. Order at mailshop.co.uk/books or call 0844 571 0640, p&p is free on orders over 15




1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.

2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.

3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament of the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.

4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.

5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.

6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.

7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.

8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.

9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.

10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.

11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)

12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.

13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.

14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.

15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.

16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.

17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.

18. Gain control of all student newspapers.

19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.

20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.

21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.

22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."

23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.

26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."

27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."

28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."

29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.

30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."

31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.

32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.

33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.

34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.

36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.

37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.

38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand.

39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.

40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.

41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.

42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use united force to solve economic, political or social problems.

43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.

44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.

45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction over nations and individuals alike.
The Meg Cert: 12A, 1hr 53mins

Rating:

At a basic level, The Meg is a very silly film about a group of scientists accidentally unleashing a giant shark that most people believed had been extinct for more than two million years on an unsuspecting world.

Of course, it being summer, a large proportion of that unsuspecting world is inevitably at the beach, happily treading water, blissfully unaware of the new  and very large  dangers that now lie beneath.

Scientifically preposterous, its a classic B-movie thats not particularly well acted, features some truly terrible lines  That living fossil just ate my friend  and some of the toothy visual effects are downright comical.

Scientifically preposterous, The Meg is a classic B-movie thats not particularly well acted, features some truly terrible lines and some downright comical toothy visual effects

But park your brain in a low summer-holiday gear, load up with popcorn, and The Meg, while never great, is certainly a lot of end-of-pier fun. Its not a film to be taken too seriously. After all, its got Jason Statham in it.

Its also a film that visibly demonstrates Hollywoods new-found appetite for attracting Asian audiences and Asian production money, particularly from China.

Much of the underwater action takes place in Chinese coastal waters, its a Chinese beach resort that comes under particular attack, and the films leading lady  and love interest  is played by the Chinese actress Bingbing Li.

But park your brain in a low summer-holiday gear, and the film, while never great, is certainly a lot of fun. Its not a film to be taken too seriously. After all, its got Jason Statham (above) in it

Will that deter British audiences? I wouldnt have thought so: after all, Li  playing a very modern, kick-ass single mother  is decent enough and, besides, most of us have only come to see the shark, the megalodon, or Meg for short, all 25 whopping metres of it.

How does it come to be released on an unsuspecting world? Deep-breath time.

Backed by a larger-than-life billionaire (Rainn Wilson) a state-of-the-art underwater laboratory has been set up to test an outlandish theory proposed by the good Dr Zhang (Winston Chao) that at great depths the bottom of the sea isnt the bottom of the sea at all but a thermo-cline, a frozen layer concealing even greater depths below. And guess what, hes right. Only those greater depths arent empty.

And it shows Hollywood's appetite for attracting Asian audiences with, among other things, a Chinese leading lady, Bingbing Li (above) who is on the submersible Statham must rescue

Which is bad news for the first submersible that sails into them. Very soon it comes under violent attack, is badly damaged and marooned on the sea bed at a depth of over 11,000 metres.

Only one man has ever mounted a successful rescue mission at a depth of over 10,000 metres and he  after a rescue went tragically wrong  is now a divorced drunk living, beer bottle permanently in hand, in Thailand. Ah, thatll be Jonas Taylor (Statham).

Hes the only man in the world who believes the Meg is a living creature andoh yes, its his ex-wife who just happens to be piloting the wrecked mini-sub.

To be fair, director Jon Turteltaub has at least half his tongue firmly in his cheek, and there are one or two very funny lines so there's still a lot of fishy fun to be had

Anyone anticipating one of the best I told you so moments, however, will find the writers are ahead of them.

To be fair, director Jon Turteltaub has at least half his tongue firmly in his cheek, and there are one or two very funny lines. Jonas saves so many lives so often I lost count, and were so familiar with the shark genre that the end does drag a bit.

Acting-wise, this is no ones finest hour and, in this age of ultra-realism, some of the visual effects do underwhelm. But theres still a lot of fishy fun to be had.

SECOND SCREEN

The Darkest Minds (12A)

Rating:

Dog Days (12A)

Rating:

The Negotiator (15)

Rating:

Unfriended: Dark Web (15)

Rating:

The jump from the world of animation to live-action can be a difficult one for film-makers but its a transition the South Korea-born director Jennifer Yuh Nelson, hitherto best known as the director of Kung Fu Panda 2 and 3, makes with modest aplomb with The Darkest Minds. No one, however, could say she was exactly breaking new ground.

Set in a dystopian near-future (yes, another one) where 98 per cent of young teenagers have been killed by an unknown adolescent plague, its a tale of the two per cent who survive. They emerge blessed/cursed with special X-Men-like powers  telekinesis, electricity, flame-throwing etc  which mean the adult world is very frightened of them. Which is why they are herded into special camps, categorised  according to power  by colour and put to work.

Until one day, a small group escapes and goes in search of a special teen army led by the legendary Slip Kid.

Its very derivative, calling to mind anything from The Maze Runner to the Divergent trilogy, via The Fifth Wave, and takes a long time to get going. But it does just about get there, helped by attractive lead performances from Amandla Stenberg and Harris Dickinson and a refreshingly colour-blind take on adolescent love. It is quite violent, though.

Were used to multi-stranded films based around a single event; indeed, the late Garry Marshall made them a speciality with the likes of Valentines Day and New Years Eve. Now director Ken Marino, and screenwriters Elissa Matsueda and Erica Oyama, rework the genre with Dog Days, weaving a tangle of inter-connected Los Angeles-based stories around the therapeutic value of dogs.

At nearly two hours its incredibly long for such a lightweight offering but does have an attractive cast, a deeply sentimental streak and a certain furry charm.

Another week, another period spy thriller set in the Middle East. The Negotiator is set in the powder keg that was Eighties Beirut and stars Jon Hamm and Rosamund Pike (above)

Hot on the heels of last weeks Damascus Cover comes another period spy thriller set in the Middle East, this time in the powder keg that was Eighties Beirut. The Negotiator is definitely a step up, with a stronger cast, led by Jon Hamm and Rosamund Pike, and a more polished screenplay, from Bourne franchise writer Tony Gilroy, about a former diplomat (Hamm) called in to negotiate when his friend and local CIA chief is kidnapped.

Like the 2014 original, Unfriended: Dark Web unfolds entirely on a laptop screen, with Matias settling down for an evening of multi-tasking on the second-hand laptop hes somehow acquired.

But who was the previous owner? Lets just say finding out was too nasty for me.
Within seconds of our meeting, Dr Edith Eger has taken my hand and is giving me a whirlwind tour of her seaside home in La Jolla in San Diego, California. A psychologist who is internationally acclaimed for her work with war veterans, she treats patients at her home  a stunning house crammed with artworks featuring ballet, an abiding childhood passion. Though 90, she is hard to keep up with, zipping around and stopping only to admire the ocean view. I am so blessed to be here, she says.

Considering Ediths early life, blessed isnt the first word that comes to mind. Growing up in Hungary in a Jewish family, her dreams of being an Olympic gymnast were cut short during the Second World War when, at the age of 16, she, her parents and sister Magda were taken to Auschwitz, the concentration camp in occupied Poland. There she lost both her parents at the command of Dr Josef Mengele, the infamous Angel of Death. She remained in Auschwitz for a year where she endured beatings, starvation and the threat of rape. When, in 1945, American troops finally liberated the camp she had been moved to, she was found barely alive among a pile of corpses.

The former Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau is now a memorial and museum

Edith today, left, and aged 19, right, and today, left. Growing up in Hungary in a Jewish family, her dreams of being an Olympic gymnast were cut short during the Second World War when, at the age of 16, she, her parents and sister Magda were taken to Auschwitz

After the war, aged 19, she married Jewish businessman Bela Eger and the couple moved to the US, though she struggled for decades both with survivors guilt and with life as an immigrant. She now works as a therapist, specialising in patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a subject she knows all too well. Im very grateful that I was able to find my inner strength in Auschwitz, she says. They could beat me and torture me, but they could never murder my spirit.

Immaculately dressed and perfectly made-up, Edith speaks softly, with a broad Hungarian accent, despite almost 70 years in the US. She smiles constantly and cries just once when recounting her story  one she has told in her remarkable memoir, The Choice. I was at my book club this morning and the father of one of the women was liberated at the same time as me, in Gunskirchen [Austria]. I call Auschwitz my cherished wound because it taught me compassion. But I dont live there [in my head] any more.

Edith had never even heard of Auschwitz when, on a chilly April morning in 1944, soldiers came and transported her family to the camp  only Ediths elder sister Klara escaped as she was studying music in Budapest at the time. Once at Auschwitz, Edith and her eldest sister Magda were separated, first from their father Lajos and then from their mother Ilona, on orders from Mengele, who told them, Youre going to see your mother very soon. Shes just going to take a shower. Its a moment that has haunted Edith ever since. I give lectures all over the world on the subject of PTSD, yet I still have it myself  I still have nightmares about that time.

From left: sisters Klara, Edith and Magda in 1946. I saw people being shot right in front of me, Edith says. When people tried to flee, they were electrocuted in the barbed wire

Edith and her husband Bela became American citizens in 1955

That first evening, Mengele searched the camp for inmates to entertain him. Edith, forced to dance, performed so well that as a reward, he tossed her a loaf of bread, which she shared with her fellow prisoners. It was an act that was later to save her life.

Her descriptions of life in Auschwitz are horrifying. I saw people being shot right in front of me, she says. When people tried to flee, they were electrocuted in the barbed wire. Worse in some ways was the cruelty administered by some inmates upon each other. One girl, spying Edith as she was admitted to the camp, pointed to the smoke rising from the chimneys and told her: Your mother is burning in there. I just had to keep telling myself that if I could survive today, then tomorrow, Id be free, says Edith, even though I was told that the only way I would get out was as a corpse.

Edith and Bela in 1947 with their newborn daughter Marianne. Bela was a Slovakian camp survivor, whose own mother had been killed during the war

Beatings were commonplace and the threat of worse was never far away. On one occasion, after watching Edith washing, Mengele ordered her to follow him naked into his office. But a phone ringing in the next room disrupted his plans. I didnt know anything about sex, she says. Id had a boyfriend, Eric [before Auschwitz], but I was a complete innocent. I sensed that I was in trouble, so when the phone rang, I ran away. I always wanted to believe there is a God and in that moment, I felt it. I found God in Auschwitz despite the horror. She also found pockets of joy there, such as the competition the young women prisoners held to see who had the best boobs (I won!) and the irrepressible Magda who flirted with a young French prisoner while still captive. She never lost her sense of self.

In spring 1945, Edith and her fellow prisoners were moved from camp to camp during an enforced death march. So weak that she almost collapsed, Edith was carried by the same prisoners with whom shed shared the bread thrown to her by Mengele. They remembered and they carried me so I wouldnt die, she says.

Edith ended up at the camp in Gunskirchen and after it was liberated, she and Magda were sent to stay with a German family to recuperate. Yet even here the horror didnt end. One night a drunken GI liberator forced his way into Ediths room with the intention of rape, until some unknown force stopped him. He came back the next day and apologised, says Edith. He kept coming back and brought me food, taught me how to walk again [during her incarceration, she had broken her back] and how to do the jitterbug, too.

Edith and Marianne on holiday in Atlantic City, 1952 (left), and four years later in El Paso

After the sisters returned home to Hungary, where they were reunited with their sister Klara, Edith started to recover physically, yet the mental scars proved more difficult to heal. I was suicidal after Auschwitz, she admits. My parents were gone, my boyfriend Eric had gone [he had died in Auschwitz just one day before liberation] and I felt I had nothing to get up for in the morning. It took time but I decided that if I lived, then it had to be for something, rather than against something.

Soon after, she met and married Bela Eger, a Slovakian camp survivor, whose own mother had been killed during the war, and in 1949 they moved to the States. At times, Ediths recollections of her life as an immigrant are painful to hear. On one occasion, after boarding a bus in Baltimore and forgetting to pay, she heard the conductors shouts and was instantly transported back to the camp where aggression was the norm, throwing herself down to the floor in incomprehension and fear. I couldnt bear shouting or the sight of barbed wire and even today I still feel those triggers. But now its fleeting.

Edith in the early 80s. In 1980 she returned to Auschwitz to perform the rite of grief that has eluded me all my life

As she and Bela settled into family life with their three children, they never told anyone about their past horrors, burying their pain but finding themselves more psychologically imprisoned than before as the past continued to rear its head. Remembering his months of starvation in the camps, Bela would hoard food. If I asked him to buy two potatoes, hed buy 10lb  we always had to have enough food. Im the other way  Im very careful with what I order in a restaurant. Ill finish everything on my plate and if you dont finish yours, Ill take it home with me as leftovers.

It was during the 1960s, while Edith was studying for a psychology degree, that she reached a turning point. Given a copy of Mans Search for Meaning  a memoir by fellow Auschwitz survivor Viktor Frankl  Edith was struck by its message: that everyone has the freedom to choose their attitude in any set of circumstances. It was a real wake-up call for me to reclaim myself and not be a prisoner of my past.

Josef Mengele, the Nazi camp doctor known as the Angel of Death

She gained a PhD in clinical psychology and became a therapist, using her experiences to help others and encouraging her patients to feel the feelings, as you cant heal what you dont feel. I create an atmosphere with them where they are safe to feel everything. I cry with my patients and I meet them where they are.

In 1980 she returned to Auschwitz to perform the rite of grief that has eluded me all my life. Magda told me I was an idiot for returning, but I wanted to be free. I needed to go back to the lions den and stop running from the lion. When I was there, I saw a man in a uniform and thought he was a Nazi, but then I reached in my pocket and saw my American passport and began to recognise that I didnt have to live there in my mind. I could choose to be free.

Edith still had one more choice to make: whether or not to forgive herself. As a young girl entering Auschwitz with her mother and sister, she saw the women being ushered into two separate lines  the one to the left for those over 40 and under 14; the rest turning to the right. When Mengele asked Edith if Ilona was her mother or sister, she replied: Mother and Ilona was immediately sent to the line on the left, for those sentenced to death. For decades Edith tormented herself with the thought, however unfounded, that if only she had replied: Sister, her mum might have survived.

Have I forgiven myself? Im still working on it, she smiles. Not only did I have survivors guilt, I also had survivors shame  but no one else was doing that to me. I was. We are our own worst enemies. Im much better now, but Im yet to arrive [at self-forgiveness]. As humans, says Edith, We grieve not over what happened but what didnt happen. I remember buying my granddaughter a dress for a dance and starting to cry. I couldnt understand why until I realised it was because I never went to a dance when I was a young girl.

Now, though, Edith dances to her hearts content with her sprightly 93-year-old boyfriend of three years, Eugene. We go swing dancing every Sunday. Bela [who died in 1993] and Edith had divorced and then remarried each other. The first time I married him was as a girl. The second time, I was a woman.

Edith tries to live in the present. I dont get into the coulda, shoulda, wouldas of life. I just say: what now? But I do believe Ill see Eric again, she smiles. I still think about him. And Ill see my parents, too. What will she say to her mum? Oh, I dont need to think about that, she replies. My mum is always with me.

The Choice by Edith Eger will be published in paperback on Thursday by Rider, price 8.99. To order a copy for 7.19 (a 20 per cent discount) until 30 August, visit mailshop.co.uk/books or call 0844 571 0640; p&p is free on orders over 15
With some owners earning a fortune from showcasing their pets on Instagram, Kate Leaver wondered just how hard it could be to make a star of her shih tzu Bertie...

Bertie at the start of his quest for social media superstardom  a walk in the park, surely?

If you have a phone and a pet, chances are youll feel compelled to post photos of your furry friend on social media. Its just how dog and cat people operate these days, with a tech-savvy pet pride that cannot be contained. According to a study by Barkbox, 65 per cent of pet owners post pictures of their small companion on social media each week, and 11 per cent have created profiles specifically for them.

While most accounts are just troves of memories for friends to scroll through, some become big business. Pet influencers, as theyre known, engage ten times the number of users as human influencers. This is not shocking to anyone who owns an animal, of course, because they know their pet deserves global attention.

If theres something unique about your dog, highlight it

Bertie was always destined to be famous. He is my one-year-old rescue shih tzu with a wonky left eye, an oddly large head and a disproportionately elongated body. To me, he is an obvious candidate for social media celebrity.

I already follow more shih tzus than I do humans on Instagram, so I have some idea of how four-legged friends become celebs  hawking designer dog bandanas, posing with a Kardashian. But to help catapult Bertie to Instagram stardom, I need advice from the experts.

First, I speak to the owner of one of the most famous hounds in the world, Marnie The Dog. @marniethedog has two million followers on Instagram, is renowned for her sticking-out tongue and regularly meets celebrities such as Ed Sheeran and Taylor Swift and supplies her owner, Shirley, with her full-time job and income. Now 16-and-a-half years old, the shih tzu, whos been active online since 2013, is semi-retired, taking on fewer jobs (and going to fewer parties). I ask Shirley for the secret to her success.

A photo of Bertie sitting on a shoe box got 106 likes

Bertie on his first birthday, left, and with one of his toys

We got lucky because something about Marnie  her face, her expressions, her voice  resonated with people, she says. Today Instagram is oversaturated so youd be extremely lucky to make it to one million followers. But for me it was about making friends, sharing how adorable Marnie is and making people happy. If your aim is to make your dog famous, that will come through. Youre better off just loving spending time with them.

Luckily for me, Bertie is my favourite companion and all I want is to share his ridiculous little face with other human beings. Frankly I feel selfish keeping his cuteness to myself. I have been known to refer to him as my first-born son and I dote on him like a furry child.

Before I set up Bertie with an account, I look at @marniethedog for inspiration. Her profile includes her name, age, breed, the fact that she was a shelter dog and her hobbies (I love 2 partee, H8 being alone). Her captions are written in Marnies voice, using stilted English and bad grammar, as though shes still learning to speak human  something I bear in mind for Berties account.

Who wants a four-legged millionaire? The doggie stars of the internet command more than 750,000 a year. Theres no formula, but the most successful tend to Be cute and quirky rather than perfect-looking  a wonky eye or a lolling tongue are proven to be popular. Emphasise their uniqueness. So if your pooch likes to destroy cardboard boxes, show it off. Post regularly. Owners also comment and like pictures on other dog accounts, and use hashtags to get more followers. Chase followers. More followers = more money. The Dog Agency only works with pets who have from 50,000 to 1 million followers and connects them to brands such as Google and Dyson, who pay over 10,000 per post. Advertisement

I choose the moniker @littlebertiethedog and for the bio I go with: Small but sturdy shih tzu. Adopted from Battersea. Hobbies: smelling, tiny wees, sass. His profile picture is a handsome snap of him at the park in the sunshine, giving his trademark cheeky side-eye to the camera.

Next, I consult Lindsay, the woman behind @brunotheminidachshund (111,000 followers). If theres something unique about your dog, highlight it, she says. You want them to stand out. Bruno likes destroying cardboard boxes, so I often post videos of him doing that and they do well.

What is Berties unique selling point? He has a wonky left eye that makes him look constantly suspicious and he likes to sit on shoe boxes I say. Perfect, she says. So I kick off with a photo of Bertie sitting on a shoe box  a comical sight given his bottom only just squeezes on to it  with the caption if I fits, I sits. This is the beginning of me writing in Berties voice, which is also the beginning of my descent into a special sort of madness that comes from impersonating your dog online.

If Marnie the Dog is quirky and abrupt with her captions, Bertie is whimsical and brief. I think his motivation is that hes a bit thick but believes hes very wise, I say to my boyfriend one day, as though its perfectly normal.

Michelle, who runs @shihtzubinky (58,300 followers), tells me I have to engage with other Instagram accounts if I want to build a following. Post at the same time every day, maybe twice a day, she says, and like the posts of people who dont follow you but have the same hobbies and interests. So I go on a spree of liking posts of shih tzus and rescue dogs.

Michelle also mentioned that commenting would get Bertie noticed, so I start doing so, as him. Things like you look majestic, I too enjoy the wind in my fur and wanna be frens?. I spend an afternoon writing what kind of dog is this? on every cat account I can find, which makes me laugh for an embarrassingly long time.

Kate Leaver with Bertie

Bertie cosies up to Kate's boyfriend Jono: this pic received 210 likes

Use hashtags, post quality pictures  comb your dog, use good lighting  and use funny captions, advised Michelle. I try to make my page as friendly as possible. It is a dog page  I dont want to talk about any political stuff.

Mental note: nothing controversial. And enjoy it. Dom Smales, CEO and founder of influencer talent agency Gleam Futures, says, The most important thing is that its about having fun. Only dive in if you feel you have the time to commit and think your dog will enjoy it, too. Consistency is key, as is posting regularly. Its a bonus if your dog is cute or unique, and if theres a strong narrative. In short, get creative and the rest will follow.

How to Instagram your dog Kate Cooper-Owens, Battersea Dogs and Cats Homes social media specialist, offers tips on keeping your dog happy DO Make them feel happy and loved, with plenty of attention during photo shoots.

Take natural pictures that capture their personality.

Encourage them with treats.

Be aware of their personal space. DONT Dress them up if it makes them uncomfortable or scared.

Dye them or put them through gimmicky grooming.

Put them in an uncomfortable position. Advertisement

Hes not wrong: dog Instagramming is harder than I expected. I become a bit obsessive about it, each morning eagerly checking how many likes, views and followers Bertie has accrued overnight and spending at least an hour a day working on his presence, plus a weird amount of time scrolling through pictures of dachshunds in hats and talking to shih tzus whove been to the groomer.

As Im posting a picture of Bertie in the bath looking forlorn, I wonder whether Ive reached crazy-dog-lady status yet  and why exactly do I want my dog to have his five minutes of fame? Its similar to wanting to make our kids famous: were proud of our little one and want to show the world how wonderful they are, says psychologist Abigail San. Its an extension of ourselves. Im sure there are other motivations, such as money, but the more genuine instinct is to share the joy. If youre relying on your dogs social media account for validation and your emotional wellbeing depends on it, thats dangerous. But theres nothing wrong with a bit of dog Instagramming.

Endorsement procured, I get chasing new followers. In the first few days, hes getting around 100 a day and more than 100 likes per post, so I get smug and excitable very fast. An American company offers him a bandana (#swag) and a dog backpack company posts a picture of my boyfriend nursing Bertie like a child on their Instagram account, which gets more than 200 likes.

Bertie chilling out

At 750 followers, things stagnate. I put some money behind a post to see if it gives us a boost. This is something a lot of influencers do; paying to have a post appear in the feeds of non-followers. With 50 spread across three posts, plus a frenzied comment output from me, we zoom past the 1,000 follower mark.

By the time this story goes to print, Bertie has 1,065 followers. Most of them are people like me, so Bertie achieves minor-league celebrity status in an underground community of humans who pose as dogs online. He is blissfully oblivious, while I discover the joy of people who just want the world to see their beloved pet in a bow tie.

It can, of course, be extremely lucrative (Doug the Pug allegedly makes 350,000 a year, 13 times the average UK salary), but to make money Id need a few more hundred thousand followers. To go full-time dog Instagram, Id need millions. And its not easy: shooting, posting, liking and commenting is time-consuming, and I found myself losing hours doing it. It is quite lovely, though, so I will probably continue Berties search for fame. If you need us, well be on Instagram.
Theres currently a huge focus on Korean and Japanese beauty. And now were adding A-beauty to the K and J mix: Australian. Yes, theres an influx of great Aussie beauty brands alongside their fellow citizens already leading the global wellness trends (see Kayla Itsines and Sweat, James Duigan and Bodyism, Elle Macpherson with her WelleCo). Not to mention the coolest bathroom brand Aesop, supermodel Miranda Kerr and her Kora Organics beauty line, and the excellent rebranding and packaging of Dr Roebucks, which is run by two sisters, Kim and Zoe.

Part of the ever-growing trend of wellness is skin health, and Australian beauty really speaks to this, coming from a country that is incredibly skin conscious because of the climate and outdoor lifestyle, says Margaret Mitchell, buying director at Space NK. All that outdoor and health focus also means its a big market on the clean beauty front and Cult Beauty says its focusing on a multitude of Australian brands for that reason.

Australia is an ideal place to look for labels that address natural beauty and skin health, adds Margaret Mitchell. Particularly because we are seeing many super-ingredients from Australia, such as eucalyptus, kakadu plum, papaw, quandong, lilly pilly, lemon myrtle and local clays from the rivers and outback.

The brands to buy now

Nude by Nature is a mineral make-up range from down under. We rate its Highlighter Stick, 18, nudebynature.co.uk.

Jurlique herbal recovery Signature Serum, 55, jurlique.co.uk, available from 1 September, is intensely hydrating and contains organic botanic extracts including red clover flower, which boosts the efficacy of hyaluronic acid.

Dr Roebucks Nuddy Ultra Hydrating and Repair Creme, 35, and byron 2-in-1 mask and scrub, 25, both spacenk.com, are clean products that feel light on the skin.

We love the Good Vibes Only Candle, 50, spacenk.com, by Melbournes cool soy-based slogan candle brand Damselfly.

Frank Body is the Aussie coffee-based range  we love its Peppermint Coffee Scrub, 13.95, frankbody.com.

Most unusual fragrance note

Gunpowder  yes, honestly. Its part of Blazing Lily, one of eight in the new McQueen collection of luxury fragrances from Alexander McQueen. Under the guidance of the brands creative director of fashion, Sarah Burton (of Duchess of Cambridge wedding dress fame), this slightly sulphuric note brings an unusual and powerful element to the classic and delicate lily. See the full collection exclusively at Harrods, 175, harrods.com.

Our new lip lust

The California-based vegan brand Lime Crime has its first bricks-and- mortar counter at Selfridges, London, so you can try before you buy. There youll find its top-selling, long-lasting liquid lip Matte Velvetines, the new-generation Lip Plushies (both 18)  still matt but a sheerer effect which can be more flattering to the less youthful mouth, and (drum roll) its first Velvetines Lip Liner (15), launched after much consumer demand. selfridges.com
A little known code governing smart meters includes details of sweeping powers that could take over customer accounts.

It reveals that technology is available to the meter network that could enable suppliers to raid credit balances built up by consumers, turn off supplies remotely, raise prices and even switch problem customers on to a pre-payment scheme. Authority to use these functions has yet to be granted.

Nick Hunn, a wireless technology expert with London-based firm WiFore, fears this might eventually give energy suppliers the ability to act like the fictional Big Brother in the classic novel Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell.

Privacy concerns: An expert fears smart meter technology might eventually give energy suppliers the ability to act like the fictional Big Brother

He says: No one is telling us about all the extra features hidden within smart meters that grant control to suppliers.

'As well as the scope for them to adjust charges, it provides an opportunity to spy on when energy is being used and on what  for example, if you take a shower or bath  and when.

'The industry is forcing households to spend billions on devices that benefit the supplier more than the customer. It seems a bit Big Brother.

THE BIG ROLL-OUT

News of the potential extra powers comes in the wake of a critical report on the roll-out of smart meters from the British Infrastructure Group of Parliamentarians (BIG).

Chaired by Grant Shapps, Conservative MP for Welwyn Hatfield, it says the nation is spending 11billion on obsolete meters.

The all-party group, backed by 93 MPs, also believes the annual savings customers make from paying for gas and electricity via a smart meter has fallen from 26 to just 11.

It wants energy regulator Ofgem to ensure suppliers pass on any savings from the rollout of smart meters to customers instead of pocketing cash themselves.

Campaign: TV star Maxine Peake is the voice of adverts

Widespread anxiety over the smart meter programme and the controlling role that energy firms are playing in the process has not deterred Government-funded lobby group Smart Energy GB.

It has spent millions of pounds on advertising, including in recent weeks TV voiceovers from acclaimed actress Maxine Peake, in an attempt to stem the rising tide of hostility against the project.

The target is to install 53million smart meters in homes and small businesses by the end of 2020.

Smart meters enable a supplier to talk remotely to them by radio waves. They benefit customers as the technology includes a separate hand-sized monitor kept in the home.

Linked to a meter, it shows how much electricity and gas is being used in near real-time.

It is hoped that the monitor, usually kept in the kitchen, will help households cut utility bills as they become aware of when electrical devices are unnecessarily consuming energy, such as when electronic items are left on standby. Smart meters also put an end to estimated bills and the need for customers or suppliers to take a reading.

TAKING CONTROL

The Mail on Sunday has discovered the meters are not all about saving money.

They have the potential to enable suppliers to take control of a customers account  details of which are in an industry-backed code of conduct for energy suppliers known as the Smart Energy Code.

It can already be used to add credit to a customer account. But additional functionality that could be switched on in the future includes enabling suppliers to cut off a households electricity or gas without visiting the property. Suppliers might also add debt to a meter, remove credit on an account, change the charge being levied or turn the meter into a pre-payment device.

Protest: The Mail on Sunday's reports showing devices are not as smart as they might seem

Energy companies state that although smart meters already installed might be able to use some of these functions, they are not switched on. But smart meters offering pre-payment options could be installed as early as next year.

Industry regulator Ofgem is also exploring time-of-use surge pricing where energy tariffs could change half hourly, depending on National Grid demand. This could be monitored and controlled by smart meters. Findings will be published next year.

An Ofgem spokesman says: Smart meters can help consumers control their energy use. A time-of-use tariff could allow households fitted with a smart meter to save money by using electricity at a cheaper time of the day such as during the night.

Energy suppliers insist they will not turn on any of these extra functions without permission from the regulator  and that in many cases the technology is not in place to do it. Moving customers on to pre-payment will only be a measure of last resort.

Keith Anderson, chief executive of Scottish Power, says: Smart meter functions such as taking half-hour data have the potential to benefit consumers by offering savings based on real-time.

THE PROBLEMS

Opportunity: Switching expert Jane Lucy

Currently, first generation smart meters are being rolled out.

Known as SMETS 1  with SMETS standing for Smart Metering Equipment Technical Specification  they have been widely criticised. Up to 10 per cent do not work due to poor mobile reception while as many as half go dumb if someone switches to another provider  with them losing remote access features.

The much-heralded replacement  SMETS 2  is supposed to work across all suppliers, so customers can keep the same meter.

But it has been plagued with problems. Only 9,000 have been installed  and not all work.

Jane Lucy is founder of energy switching service Labrador. She says: The industry is being tight-lipped about the real reason for the delays with SMETS 2. My view is the technology is not yet robust enough.

She also believes that the additional functionality options demanded by energy suppliers  a modification proposal for the code  add to the complexity and may delay new meters.

Lucy says: The potential for suppliers to take control of households energy accounts needs to be carefully policed. With a dispute  perhaps if moving home  a smart meter could be used to let a supplier take money even when it is not you that owes the outstanding debt.

She adds: Of course smart meters can provide an opportunity for households to take control of energy bills and save money, but they are less cost effective than simply switching to a more competitive supplier.

The Government stated in 2009 that all homes in Britain should be fitted with a smart meter by 2020 at the latest.

Yet despite a huge advertising budget of 224million, focused on promoting its positive features, this deadline is now unrealistic.

So far just over a third of all households  about 11million  have had a meter installed. It is expected that the deadline will be extended  a recommendation made in the parliamentary report.

Last week Citizens Advice suggested that 2023 would be more realistic.

The Government Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy is responsible for smart meter policy. It confirmed a proposed change to the Smart Meter Code was raised in February last year to allow suppliers to add additional functions. It stated it will make a decision on the proposal in due course.

Citizens Advice says: You do not have to accept a smart meter if you do not want one. An option is to have a meter installed but ask for the smart functionality to be switched off.

Robert Cheesewright of Smart Energy GB, the organisation promoting the meter rollout, says: Smart meters mean an end to estimated billing and give people a greater understanding of energy use.
Pipe dreams of a quick and easy route to financial freedom are being used to lure a new generation into risky, home-based foreign exchange trading.

Job ads and social media posts are sweeping the country, telling Britons they can earn four-figure sums every month by spending just half an hour a day trading on the currency markets. Those tempted are invited to free workshops or webinars, which are used as a platform to sell expensive training courses.

Accompanying software, said to help customers learn strategies to pinpoint profitable trades, is also sold as part of the package.

I attend two seminars to find out what is involved.

High ambition: 'Flying Trader' Greg Secker owns Learn to Trade

FREE WORKSHOP

A job advert inviting me to start out as a 'forex' trader  with no experience of foreign exchange needed, sounds great  if unlikely.

I can earn a second income straight away, become my own boss in six months  and build a 'concrete and reliable' income using 'recession-proof strategies'. I give it a go, as it seems I have nothing to lose  the advert says initial training is free.

When I click on the apply button I am taken to a web page where I sign up for a free two-hour workshop with Learn to Trade.

My session takes place at a hotel in Stratford, East London. Our group of 18 men and women of all races and ages enter the doors of one of the hotel's suites to the dramatic and rousing soundtrack of Rob Dougan's Clubbed To Death.

When the music stops a brief risk warning message is played over the speakers. We are then shown a slick video about the origins of Learn to Trade and its founder  businessman and 'Flying Trader' Greg Secker, who is known for completing trades while flying in a helicopter and donating commissions to charity. We are told his opinions are much sought after, alongside those of Donald Trump and Bill Clinton.

The video then cuts to footage of Greg the philanthropist  in a jubilant mood at a ceremony in which a hundred new homes in the Greg Secker Foundation Village were formally handed over to their new residents in the Philippines.

The properties were built for families displaced by Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. After the video, presenter Gurdas tells us that joining Learn to Trade was a 'no brainer' for him and that the money to be made is very attractive.

Buzz: The sites claim to bring the energy of the trading floor into homes

He asks the attendees why they are here today. One, Dwaine, wants a better life for his family. We are all assured that trading can fit around our family commitments.

Gurdas then says he can put us in the same buzzy environment as professional traders in the City  though I imagine this would require some suspension of disbelief.

As an added sales push, Gurdas says he is overseeing a 'special project' and wants to recruit 50 people for it. He has been presenting a few seminars around the country in a break from his usual routine, we are told, because normally other people are hired to deliver these presentations.

A search on the internet later suggests this is a tried and tested line.

The workshop focuses on everything that most of us desire  more time with family, less time in the office, financial freedom from the mortgage and bills, a bigger home, money to pay for a wedding, enough to meet children's school fees, secure futures and more holidays. The implication is that forex trading will make the necessary cash.

There follows an introduction to foreign exchange trading. It covers 'pip'  a measure of movement in the exchange rate between a pair of currencies  chart trends when prices move up or down and how Learn to Trade's 'buy, hold or sell' system works.

Stop losses  used to limit losses when a trade does not go your way  are also discussed.

Then it is back to the hard sell. Apparently the word 'job' stands for 'just over broke'  and aspiring to a salary of 40,000 a year only serves to cap our ambitions. That figure is unlikely to be enough for us to achieve our goals.

The next video is of offices around the world where the company's traders gather on the trading floor. Every now and again I spot the logo 'Unlimited Wealth' on screen  the name of another course offered to pupils willing to pay for it.

Dramatic music is played as we see people in an office poring over computers and chatting.

Gurdas tells us that as part of the 'special project' he is overseeing we can access heavily discounted training, mentoring and software for 1,997 plus VAT, a reduction on the usual price of 6,995 plus VAT. This is our only financial commitment, we are told, though we do need to fund a trading account to get started.

Hard sell: The seminars focus on participants' desire for wealth

The account it recommends is with Capital Index  a broker also owned by Secker. When I check its website later I find it admits 79 per cent of its retail clients lose money.

Gurdas says he will not be repeating his offer as 45 places have already been filled  meaning there are just five spaces available for the 18 of us in the room.

The select few will also be asked to participate in a charity event and share their progress over 12 months with a few words to 'inspire others' for a new marketing campaign.

I decide not to take up the offer but, as I leave, I see Dwaine, the earnest young man who said he wanted a better life for his family, make a beeline for the forms and start filling them in purposefully.

I am not convinced and turn my attention to the wealth of other firms offering trading software and forex training via job listings, pop-up ads and Facebook posts.

One pop-up advert comes from Trendsignal, which suggests I can earn a four-figure sum monthly from forex trading  and this time I do not even need to leave the house to get started.

There are a wealth of firms offering trading software and forex training via job listings

A FREE WEBINAR

I take part in Trendsignal's free online webinar to find out more about its 'Sniper trading strategy'.

This is a less slick production than the workshop, but towards the end transformed into the kind of upbeat sales pitch you hear on TV shopping channels.

A 'complete package' costs 3,300 plus VAT. Refunds are allowed for those who change their minds in the first two weeks. Traders can also choose their own broker. But rather than part with my cash, I contact a former pupil whose testimony is on Trendsignal's website.

Lisa Beaney says she is satisfied with the package and claims to have earned a supplementary income from trading. The professional photographer says: 'It gives you a set of rules to follow and overall it made me money.

'You do have months where you make a loss but the other months make up for it and Trendsignal is quite open about this before you start trading.'

She says the downside is that while Trendsignal got her interested in trading and she found the software useful, she had to put in a lot of time and effort herself  swotting up on brokers, the markets and charting options.

Trendsignal boss Adrian Buthee says: 'We teach a specific set of rules for people to follow and cautious risk management techniques. We make sure to do things in an appropriate and fair way.'

He describes advertising via job websites as 'inappropriate' and says this is not something his firm does.

But he adds: 'We use webinars as a way to reach individuals across the world who are interested in learning to trade the markets. Our customers tend to be aged around 55 to 60 and have one eye on retirement.'

James Mathews, head of Learn to Trade said: 'In the past year we have taught hundreds of people at our trading centre a range of strategies and tools to help them start trading the market.'

The firm says traders never risk more than 2 per cent of their account on a single trade. A spokeswoman adds: 'People do turn up and lose money but it is usually those who have not followed risk management rules.'

WHAT IS ACTUALLY BEING TRADED?

What many home-based forex traders are entering into are contracts for difference, or 'CFDs'.

At my Learn to Trade workshop, the risks arising from CFDs were mentioned only briefly, just before the presentation began.

But this is perhaps the most important information. No currencies are physically owned and traded  the customer is essentially betting on the price movements on a currency pair.

So they may be putting a wager on whether the price of sterling will rise or fall against the US dollar in a set period.

They place their 'trades' with a broker, who takes a cut. They can also add a 'stop loss' to limit potential losses if the price of a currency falls too low. European regulators recently stepped in to protect novice customers from the downsides of CFD trading.

Restrictions brought in this month include preventing customers from losing more money than they put into their trading account. This safeguard will be in place for three months and could be extended or adopted more permanently.

The Financial Conduct Authority, which oversees financial services in the UK, 'fully supports' the new rules, which aim to stop customers from unknowingly taking on too much risk.

It comes after research showed that up to 89 per cent of customers across Europe lose money on CFD trades, with losses ranging from 1,400 to 26,000 per account.

WHO SHOULD RISK IT?

Laith Khalaf is senior analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown  a broker for traditional, long-term investors who want to invest in Isas, funds and shares. It does offer CFDs, but only to 'active and experienced investors'.

Khalaf says: 'Currency movements are notoriously difficult to predict with any accuracy and that applies in spades at a time when Brexit, politics and the potential for trade wars are causing ructions in global markets.

'Buying and selling currencies is a risky business. This isn't an area for first-time investors.

'Getting rich slow is a far more reliable strategy than getting rich quick, which can often lead to rags rather than riches.'

Moreover, 'buy before you try' courses are a costly outlay for novices who go on to realise that trading is not for them.

My verdict: Buyer beware!
Mutiny: Ian Malouf says he is seen as a threat to yacht brokers

Australian businessman Ian Malouf is suing the organisers of the Monaco Yacht Show for allegedly barring him from the industrys biggest networking event.

Yacht broker Malouf  who made his fortune through his industrial waste firm Dial A Dump  is understood to have paid around 45,000 for a berth for his 22million super-yacht Mischief at the 2018 show in September.

The organisers confirmed his booking but then cancelled it abruptly and without good cause, Malouf claims.

A lawsuit filed in Monaco last month alleges a breach of contract.

Malouf believes he has been excluded from the show because the industry is controlled by a cosy bunch of superyacht brokers. Ahoy Club, the online charter platform which he founded, undercuts traditional brokers by charging 7 per cent commission instead of 20 per cent.

Malouf is hoping to find a buyer for Mischief at the event, said to be the ultimate showcase for industry influencers.

Around 120 superyachts will be on display, with a quarter for sale. Spokesmen for the organisers declined to comment ahead of a second hearing later this month.
City advisers are in line for 580million of fees in the take-over of Sky as the 26billion bidding battle nears its climax.

Advisers to Rupert Murdoch's 21st Century Fox will be paid as much as 242million for their work on the deal for the pay-TV giant, whose hit shows include Stan Lee's Lucky Man starring James Nesbitt.

Fox holds a 39 per cent stake and wants to buy the part of Sky it does not already own.

High rolling: Sky TV hits include Stan Lee's Lucky Man, starring James Nesbitt and Thekla Reuten

The sums were revealed in Fox's offer document when it officially lodged its 24.5billion bid. Fox faces competition from Comcast, which has tabled a 26billion offer. The Murdoch camp has until September 22 if it wants to match or trump the Comcast offer.

Comcast, which owns the NBC channel in the US and Universal Studios, revealed in its offer document that it is to pay 243million to its advisers.

Sky has run up a 96million bill, taking in bankers, lawyers, PR advisers and accountants.

It means City firms will pocket up to 581million between them from the transatlantic bidding war.

The bulk of Fox's 172million fees are charges for arranging finance that will go to lenders such as Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank and JP Morgan.

Another 38.4million of charges for advice will go to Goldmans, Deutsche and boutique US investment bank Centerview Partners.

The Fox offer document revealed technical changes in its bid so it now only needs 50 per cent of shareholder votes to approve the deal. Previously it needed 75 per cent.
Budget frozen food specialist Iceland is throwing itself into the vegan trend by launching 13 plant-based dishes.

Meat-free cabinets packed with dishes including 'No Bull' Beef and 'No Porkies' Pork will start appearing in its 900 stores across the UK from Monday, September 3.

It follows the success of its No Bull meat-free burger launched earlier this year, which outsold all other burgers in the range to become the best-selling product of the summer.

Iceland's move into more vegan dishes follows the success of its meat-free burger.

The supermarket says there has been a ten-fold increase in the demand for meat-free food, fuelled by celebrity endorsements from star such as Beyonce, Miley Cyrus and Madonna.

One in five UK consumers are now considering going vegan, bosses said.

Iceland's head chef Neil Nugent said: 'The range incorporates entirely new ingredients to us including tofu and wheat-based proteins, and demonstrates how tasty and diverse vegan food can be.'
An influential group of MPs is demanding a full public inquiry into the banks mistreatment of small business customers.

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Fair Business Banking wants an investigation into the complex, and often incestuous, relationships between financial institutions, their numerous advisers and related professions, and the complex regulatory framework that is supposed to uphold the highest standards.

The call is made in a letter from the APPG to Andrew Bailey, chief executive of City regulator the Financial Conduct Authority.

Letter: FCA chief executive Andrew Bailey

The FCA recently said it could not take any action over the plundering of small businesses by RBSs global restructuring group. It said shortcomings at RBS fell outside its regulatory remit  and that it found no evidence of dishonesty or a lack of integrity among senior management.

APPG chairman Kevin Hollinrake said this stance had left the APPG disappointed and extremely concerned.

Lib Dem peer Baroness Kramer, who was on the parliamentary commission on banking standards, backed the APPG, saying an inquiry is needed to restore trust.

A review by advisory group Promontory found no evidence that RBS deliberately drove small businesses to the wall for profit, but it did detail cases where bankers had extracted huge and often arbitrary fees.

The APPG also said it would like any public inquiry to cover scandals about other banks treatment of small businesses.

The Mail on Sunday is campaigning for a tribunal or extended ombudsman service to sort out disputes between banks and small firms.
The sinking of the HMAS Sydney was Australia's biggest and bloodiest wartime mystery, giving rise to a series of bizarre conspiracy theories.

Wreck hunter David Mearns found the sunken vessel in 2008, and now new technology has allowed experts to reconstruct the ship's last moments.

Using sophisticated computer graphics, the new National Geographic series Drain the Oceans provides stunning images of the HMAS Sydney as it sits on the seabed.

Scroll down for video

The sinking of the HMAS Sydney was Australia's biggest and bloodiest wartime mystery, giving rise to a series of bizarre conspiracy theories (pictured is a digital reconstruction of the battle)

Using sophisticated computer graphics, the new National Geographic series Drain the Oceans provides stunning images (pictured) of the HMAS Sydney as it sits on the seabed

The incredible images, created using a special 'drain' technique, show the final position of HMAS Sydney's turrets, and pockmarks from the German guns.

Thanks to the groundbreaking technique the warship can now be seen in detail for the first time in almost 80 years, and new light has been shed on her last battle.

HMAS Sydney went down in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia after an intense battle with German merchant vessel the Kormoran, on November 19, 1941.

All 645 sailors on board the Australian ship were lost, and 317 Nazi crewmen were captured after the Kormoran was scuttled.

The incredible images (pictured), created using a special 'drain' technique, show the final position of HMAS Sydney's turrets, and pockmarks from the German guns

Electric Pictures CEO Andrew Ogilvie said a special 'drain' technique allowed filmmakers to show viewers what shipwrecks would look if the water was removed

Thanks to the groundbreaking technique the warship can now be seen in detail for the first time in almost 80 years, and new light has been shed on her last battle (pictured is a digital reconstruction of the battle)

For years wild conspiracy theories about cover-ups and Japanese involvement thrived, until Mr Mearns' expedition finally put the mystery to rest.

After teaming up with the Australian Government, Mr Mearns used clues left by the Kormoran's captain Theodor Detmers to pinpoint the location of the ship.

The discovery of the German auxiliary cruiser was followed by the HMAS Sydney five days later, which went down with captain Joseph Burnett at the helm.

A close examination of the wreck showed extensive damage caused by German shells and torpedoes, and explained why the ship went down with no survivors.

For years wild conspiracy theories about cover-ups and Japanese involvement thrived, until Mr Mearns' expedition finally put the mystery to rest (pictured are shoes belonging to sailors who went down with the ship lying on the ocean floor)

Wreck hunter David Mearns (pictured) found the sunken vessel in 2008, and now new technology has allowed experts to reconstruct the ship's last moments

The Kormoran was fitted with guns hidden behind false hull plates and secret torpedo tubes, which allowed it to fool the larger Australian ship.

By the time crew on the HMAS Sydney realised they had encountered an enemy vessel it was too late, and the Kormoran was able to overcome its armour and range disadvantages and sink the Australian ship.

The battle marked the largest loss of life in Australian naval history, making up 35 per cent of Royal Australian Navy personnel deaths during the Second World War.

Drain the Oceans is a coproduction between Australian production company Electric Pictures and UK-based Mallinson Sadler Productions, and premiered on August 7.

HMAS Sydney (pictured) went down in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Western Australia after an intense battle with German merchant vessel the Kormoran, on November 19, 1941

The discovery of the German auxiliary cruiser was followed by the HMAS Sydney five days later, which went down with captain Joseph Burnett at the helm (pictured)

Electric Pictures CEO Andrew Ogilvie said the special 'drain' technique allowed filmmakers to show viewers what shipwrecks would look if the water was removed.

'Bathymetric sonar scans, video footage and photogrammetry were used with sophisticated computer-generated graphics to create highly accurate three-dimensional models of the bottom of our oceans, lakes and rivers,' he said.

'This process allows the filmmakers to recreate natural wonders, shipwrecks, ancient ruins and other human artefacts that can be found on the sea floor - revealing them in unprecedented detail, as if they were on dry land.

'For the first time we are able to see what these places look like on a grand scale and with clarity that is simply not possible using traditional underwater photography.'

The Kormoran was fitted with guns hidden behind false hull plates and secret torpedo tubes, which allowed it to fool the larger Australian ship (pictured is the Kormoran's captain, Theodor Detmers)
A disabled passenger claims she was left angry and humiliated after airport staff returned her wheelchair in four pieces with broken parts hidden from her.

Nursing student Lisa, 30, from Doncaster, was flying Ryanair from Barcelona to Liverpool John Lennon airport when staff allegedly damaged her wheelchair while loading it on to aeroplane.

Lisa, who suffers from a condition called arthrogryposis multiplex congenita (AMC), which affects her ability to walk, appeared to film staff in Barcelona trying to load her wheelchair on to the plane recklessly.

When nursing student Lisa was finally reunited with her wheelchair she quickly realised it had been damaged and discovered two suspension springs broken off and wrapped in a towel concealed in the chair's storage space

The 30-year-old who suffers from a condition called arthrogryposis multiplex congenita (AMC), which affects her ability to walk, appeared to film staff in Barcelona trying to load her wheelchair on to the plane recklessly

Then, when she was finally reunited with her wheelchair in Liverpool she quickly realised it had been damaged and discovered two suspension springs broken off and wrapped in a towel concealed in the chair's storage space.

Because the wheelchair no longer had suspension, it scraped across the floor whenever she tried to use it - causing further damage to its essential undercarriage.

A Liverpool John Lennon Airport spokesman told MailOnline they are investigating the incident and said the damage to the wheelchair was unlikely to have been caused at their end, while Barcelona airport has been approached for comment.

Lisa also hit out at airport staff in Barcelona and Liverpool, bemoaning their lack of care, explaining: 'It's not just towels and knickers in a suitcase - this is people's lives.'

Adding that after she had returned to Liverpool she faced a further ordeal lugging her broken wheelchair and four suitcases through the airport with minimal help from staff.

A picture above shows how she had to load her damaged wheelchair onto a trolley and push it through the airport lobby.

When she was finally reunited with her wheelchair in Liverpool she quickly realised it had been damaged and discovered two suspension springs broken off and wrapped in a towel concealed in the chair's storage space

Lisa said that after she had returned to Liverpool she faced a further ordeal lugging her broken wheelchair and four suitcases through the airport with minimal help from staff

She explained: 'The wheelchair is my life line, without it I can't even get to the bathroom. The staff don't even think about the impact it has - without it I'm stuck.

'With my wheelchair broken I was very nearly unable to attend my final four days on placement which meant I could have lost my offer of a job because of it.'

She added: 'I spent three years in university to finally get this placement and have had to complete every day on it to have a chance of securing a job after, the staff have no idea how much not having my wheelchair has effected my prospects of having a job.'

Because the wheelchair no longer had suspension, it scraped across the floor whenever she tried to use it - causing further damage to its essential undercarriage

Lisa hit out at airport staff and bemoaned their lack of care, explaining: 'It's not just towels and knickers in a suitcase - this is people's lives'

Adding insult to injury, Lisa revealed that after staff had damaged her wheelchair, she said they demanded to know how she planned to remove the chair.

'I was furious,' she said. 'They broke it and expected me to move it off the runway.'

After, she was given a manual wheelchair and left with her partner and four suitcases to make her way through the airport unassisted.

She said airports in London she travelled with before tend to have machines to remove the wheelchair, whereas Liverpool seemed ill-equipped.
Legendary guitarist Brian May is heading to the Edinburgh International Book Festival to launch an illustrated biography on the Victorian Scottish photographer, George Washington Wilson.

Wilson, who became the Queen's official photographer in Scotland, is best known for his photographs of the construction of a new castle for Victoria and Albert at Balmoral.

The Aberdeen man spearheaded a form of 3D imagery which captured the imagination of the musician a century later.

The guitarist, who has been collecting vintage photographs since the early days of touring with Queen, owns one of the largest collections of Victorian stereo photographs in the world.

One of two images of Queen Victoria, previously unseen until published in Brian May and Professor Roger Taylors book, George Washington Wilson

May said the 'resulting 3D images proved immensely successful and established Wilsons national reputation as a pre-eminent photographer

The new book contains the incredibly rare pictures of which May and his mentor, Professor Roger Taylor, had restored and then had to design and manufacture a modern 3D-viewer for, which is included in each copy of the book. The viewer, which looks a little like a pair of lab-glasses, is known as 'The Lite OWL'.

May described the book as a 'labour of love', a tribute both to the photographer and Professor Taylor himself, who is an expert on Victorian photography and Wilson's work. He is the author of the book although May is the publisher and has also written the foreword.

For me, the realisation of this book is a double labour of love. I collected George Washington Wilsons stereo cards over the years and have always been excited by his unique portrayal of Scottish landscape in the stereoscope,' May said.

'Im very excited to see this beautiful book finally ready to launch.

May was first inspired by stereoscopic photography when cards featuring 3D images were given away free with breakfast cereal in the 1950s.

New book: Professor Roger Taylor is the leading authority on the artist George Washington Wilson

It led to a lifelong passion for collecting stereo cards and the emergence of his London Stereoscopic Company  dedicated to restoring and republishing Victorian classic cards  as well as original stereoscopic works on other subjects.

May said: 'It's been many years in the making, and I'm confident it will have been worth every minute.

'It presents the life and work of celebrated Scottish landscape photographer George Washington Wilson, who with great skill and flair, photographed the unique beauties of the Scottish countryside in the 1860s with his stereoscopic camera.

'The resulting 3D images proved immensely successful and established Wilson's national reputation as a pre-eminent photographer.'

Professor Taylor said: During the mid-Victorian period George Washington Wilson became a household name for the consistent quality of his photographs.

Above all, he was universally acknowledged as a leading exponent of stereoscopic photography, a fashionable craze which fired up hearts and imaginations throughout the nation.

Brian May said: 'For me, the realisation of this book is a double labour of love. I collected George Washington Wilsons stereo cards over the years and have always been excited by his unique portrayal of Scottish landscape in the stereoscope'

May was first inspired by stereoscopic photography when cards featuring 3D images were given away free with breakfast cereal in the 1950s

For much of the 20th century his work fell out of fashion and was largely disregarded, but this splendid new edition corrects this oversight by presenting his achievements in a way that invites a full reappraisal.

Wilson who started off as a landscape photographer would walk miles across mountains carrying his heavy equipment which he later blamed for his poor health.

His success led him to construct what was described as the most advanced purpose-built photographic centre in the world, near his home in Aberdeen.

When it was gutted by fire in 1882 Victoria sent a telegram of sympathy from Balmoral.

He retired in the late 1880s, leaving his sons to take over the business, and died in 1893.

The launch takes place on Wednesday, August 15, entitled Picturing Victorian Scotland.
This is the moment an angry jogger confronted what he thought was a 'flytipper' who turned out to be a woman dumping parcels in the bushes.

The jogger, who was on his way home from the gym, then notices the woman is dumping 'My Hermes' parcels, suggesting she is working as a courier.

The woman knows she is caught red-handed and begins to clear up the parcels before putting them back in her car.

Reece Chandler confronted the woman who only spoke to say 'it wasn't me'

The incident took place on North Dane Way in Lordswood, Kent, at around 5:30 yesterday.

The jogger, Reece Chandler, said he started videoing because he was 'angry' the woman was littering near a beauty spot.

He told MailOnline: I was jogging home from the gym when I noticed her and I thought she was fly tipping so I started my camera and went over to confront her.

When I started it she didnt say anything.

I went over because I was angry because that area is by a park thats a nice country walk and she was ruining it.'

Although it appears the woman is in a non-company vehicle and has no Hermes insignia, the man says most of the parcels were from the delivery company.

He said: 'When I went over I could see that 95 per cent of the boxes had a My Hermes logo on them.

MyHermes said it was aware of the incident and the police were now involved.

A spokesman said: 'Whilst we have removed service from this individual immediately, our team is liaising with her family to check on her welfare.

'All the parcels have been retrieved and we do not anticipate any delivery delays.'

Mr Chandler can be heard saying to the woman on camera: 'Are you going to pick these up? No, it's all on camera.'

When she was confronted the woman said she didn't throw anything before Mr Chandler told her he had caught the whole thing on camera, she then stayed silent

Mr Chandler said '95 per cent' of the parcels he saw in the bushes had 'My Hermes' on them

The woman then opens her car window and Mr Chandler asks her: 'What are you throwing all this stuff in here for?'

The woman replies: 'It wasn't me' before the jogger tells her he caught the whole act on camera.

Mr Chandler then adds: 'I'll be reporting it, I'll be sending it to the police and the council.'

In the second video the man asks the woman her name and who she's delivering for but she does not respond.



Kent Police told MailOnline they were called at 5.44pm on Thursday 9 August to North Dane Way, Chatham following reports of a vehicle being driven erratically.

They added that a 40-year-old woman from Chatham was arrested on suspicion of drink driving and is currently in custody - but didn't confirm if it was the same woman.
The mother of Michael Brown, the black teen who was killed by a white police officer in Missouri, has announced she is running for city council.

Lezley McSpadden announced her candidacy Friday on Canfield Drive, near where her son was shot and killed on August 9, 2014.

'Almost four years ago to this day, I ran down this very street, and my son was covered in a sheet,' McSpadden said, according to NBC News.

McSpadden has been an activist since her son's death but has never held public office. On Friday, she said she had been surrounded by people who provided her with support and motivation, and they 'knew what happened was wrong and didn't give up the fight.'

Lezley McSpadden announced her candidacy Friday on Canfield Drive, near where her son was shot and killed on August 9th, 2014

'I learned to walk again,' she said. 'And this is one of my first steps: running for Ferguson City Council.'

McSpadden announced that she planned to run for a seat on the Ferguson City Council in April.

She plans to focus on three issues: community policing, economic equality and equitable access to health care for Ferguson's youth.

'If a mother had to watch her son lay on the street for four hours, and watch our community be completely disrespected by the people we elected, what would you do?' she added.

'Almost four years ago to this day, I ran down this very street, and my son was covered in a sheet,' McSpadden said

'You would stand up and you would fight, too.'

The activist was joined by family lawyer Benjamin Crump, who led chants of 'Run, Lezley, run!'

McSpadden's son was unarmed when he was fatally shot during a confrontation with Ferguson officer Darren Wilson, who is white, on Aug. 9, 2014. Witnesses initially said the black teenager had his hands up in surrender at the time of the shooting, though an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice didn't find those accounts credible.

Wilson, who resigned from the Ferguson police force that November, was later cleared of wrongdoing by a St. Louis County grand jury and the U.S. Justice Department.

McSpadden's son was unarmed when he was fatally shot during a confrontation with Ferguson officer Darren Wilson, who is white, on Aug. 9, 2014

McSpadden's appeal to Parson comes just days after longtime St. Louis County prosecutor Bob McCulloch lost his seat in the Democratic primary to Wesley Bell, a black Ferguson city councilman. McCulloch's announcement in 2014 that no charges would be filed against Wilson sparked widespread protests.

Bell, who faces no Republican challengers in November, ran on a progressive platform that included holding police more accountable. On Friday, it was unclear if Bell would consider reopening the investigation himself. Text and phone messages left with Bell were not returned.

McSpadden's petition says Bell's win 'is a clear mandate from the people of St. Louis to reform the criminal justice system, which first begins with securing justice for my son.'

McSpadden has been an activist since her son's death but has never held public office

McCulloch, first elected in 1992, drew considerable criticism for not charging Wilson himself and relying on a grand jury to consider the case. He was also accused of guiding the grand jury to its decision, a charge he has strongly denied.

Calls to reopen the Brown investigation also came Friday from Justin Hansford, the executive director of the Thurgood Marshall Civil Rights Center. He wrote in an op-ed in a Washington Post that Bell's win over McCulloch 'is a sign of hope and change' and that Bell should reopen the case when he becomes prosecutor.

A spokeswoman for Republican Gov. Mike. Parson said his office 'has no legal authority to appoint a special prosecutor in any case.' In Missouri, judges can appoint special prosecutors, often at the request of prosecutors who seek to avoid conflicts of interest.
A judge has dismissed the murder charges of the alleged Los Angeles Skid Row killer who killed 10 homeless men in the 1970s, ending a 40-year legal battle.

Bobby Joe Maxwell, now 68, was jailed in 1979 accused of being the serial killer.

Los Angeles Judge Larry Fidler dismissed all charges against Maxwell following a request from prosecutors on Friday because he only has six months to live.

Maxwell suffered a heart attack last December and has been comatose ever since. Officials say he will likely never recover.

Bobby Joe Maxwell, suspected Los Angeles Skid Row killer who killed 10 homeless men in the 1970s and sentenced to life in prison without parole, has had all murder charges against him dismissed as he only has six months to live, Maxwell pictured above in 1979

His sister Rosie Harmon burst into tears upon hearing the news that comes nearly four decades after his imprisonment. She called her mother following the hearing.

'While Mr. Maxwell was hospitalized, there were sheriffs sitting with him 24/7 and she had to get permission as to when she could come and visit from the sheriff,' Maxwell's attorney Pierpont Laidley said.

'Now he is a free man, she'll be able to visit just like any other visitors,' Laidley said.

In the 1980s Maxwell was convicted of two killings of homeless men on LA's infamous Skid Row.

The appeals court overturned his convictions decades later after it found that he was the victim of a notorious jailhouse snitch, who committed perjury in his two convictions.

Court documents show the appeals court called the case's jailhouse informant, Sidney Storch, a 'habitual liar.'

His sister Rosie Harmon burst into tears upon hearing the news that comes nearly four decades after his imprisonment, pictured above holding a recent photo of Maxwell

The case against Maxwell appeared thin until Storch emerged.

The only physical evidence, the appeals court said, was a palm print found on a bench in an area Maxwell frequented.

Storch, who was Maxwell's cellmate for three weeks, read about the print in news accounts and said he asked Maxwell about it.

He claimed that Maxwell confessed he had made a mistake failing to wear gloves during the stabbings. Maxwell denied making the comment.

In 2013, prosecutors refiled five murder charges against him.

After Maxwell's heart attack and it was confirmed that he was unlikely to regain his health, prosecutors moved to dismiss charges.

He will continue to receive acute medical care at the hospital once he's released from custody.

Deputy District Attorney Robert Grace says the dismissal is a 'compassionate release', stressing that there was no finding of Maxwell's guilt or innocence.

If he recovers, prosecutors will seek to refile the charges.

Maxwell's attorneys said they are absolutely ready to prove his innocence.

'Mr. Maxwell has always insisted that he was innocent, and has fought to prove his innocence for forty years,' another of Maxwell's lawyers, Frederick Alschuler, said.
Three teenagers from Kansas were killed and 10 other people were injured Friday after a church van heading for an outing crashed in southwestern Missouri.

The wreck happened around 10:40 a.m. on Missouri Route 13, five miles north of Bolivar.

The victims have been identified as 16-year-old David Martin from Olathe, 14-year-old Hannah Foy from Louisburg and 17-year-old Samara Bayse from Stillwell.

None of the victims were wearing seat belts, KSHB reports.

The wreck happened around 10:40 a.m. on Missouri Route 13, five miles north of Bolivar

16-year-old David Martin from Olathe, 14-year-old Hannah Foy from Louisburg and 17-year-old Samara Bayse (pictured) from Stillwell, died in the crash

The van was from Faith Chapel Assembly of God in Overland Park, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City. Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. John Lueckenhoff didn't know specifically where the group was going but was told it was a 'youth outing.'

The van had 13 passengers, mostly teenagers but a few adults, Leuckenhoff said. Everyone on board was injured or killed when the van ran off the roadway, struck a tree and overturned. No other vehicles were involved in the accident.

'Absolutely horrible,' Lueckenhoff said.

The 10 injured victims were taken to hospitals in Bolivar and Springfield, about 30 miles south. Three were in serious condition. Lueckenhoff said he didn't know if any of the injuries were life-threatening.

Passengers from a second said that a tire blew out on the first van and the driver lost control after a trailer attached to it started fishtailing

The cause of the accident was under investigation by a crash team from the highway patrol.

A second church van was said to have been following the first, Polk County Coroner Melissa Britton explained.

Passengers on the second van said that a tire blew out on the first van and the driver lost control after a trailer attached to it started fishtailing.

The driver on the second bus - a nurse - rushed to help those who were injured in the crash.

'After the fact, those people came together while they were waiting in the hospital,' said Britton. 'They are an amazing group of people. They were consoling each other and helping each other.'
If you are looking to take your significant other out to dinner on Saturday night in Sydney but don't want to spend your evening waiting for them to get off their phone, this restaurant is for you.

Sydney restaurant Bistecca, on the corner of George and Dalley Street, is now asking its patrons to put their mobile phones in a wooden lockbox.

The idea behind the concept is to promote a space where patrons enjoy 'the space and company they are in'.

A new trend is emerging at some restaurants as the obsession with out mobile phones continues to impact personal relationships

If you are looking to take your significant other out to dinner tonight in Sydney but don't want to spend your evening waiting for them to get off their phone, this restaurant is for you

Bistecca co-owner James Bradey told Broadsheet that social media has its advantages but not at the dinner table.

'Social media is a fantastic way for businesses to connect with audiences, but it shouldn't replace an experience that can be shared among friends,' he said.

'People are surprised, but so far they are [open] to the idea and, post dinner, love it.'

He said the idea first came to him after a forced mobile-free dinner in Italy, when they had no phone data at their restaurant.

'Out of habit, most people check their smartphone, so it was refreshing not reaching for them during dinner. The theme of Bistecca was brainstormed over a mobile-less table,' he said.

The idea behind the concept is to promote a space where patrons enjoy 'the space and company they are in'

The owners don't strictly enforce the rules but encourage it among their patrons.

'Seventy per cent of people are happy to do it, 10 per cent are iffy but come around in the end, probably 20 per cent say no way,' he told The Weekend Australian.

Contact Bar and Kitchen in Woolloomooloo, inner Sydney, is also championing the revolutionary idea, as its name would suggest.

The Italian-Japanese fusion restaurant was founded on the owner Markus Stauder's desire to get his customers to take a digital detox when dining at his Crown street restaurant.

Markus Stauder told Daily Mail Australia, 'The birth of this concept consists of hundreds of these moments when I witnessed people coming to my restaurant to have a good time but that was ruined and disturbed by the phone one way or another.

The owners don't strictly enforce the rules but encourage it among their patrons

'I realised that people are having trouble escaping the virtual world for even just an hour and I thought to myself maybe I should help people get back to their inner selves.'

Mr Stauder said the idea was to create a throwback to the days before our digital obsession.

'We wanted to create a space like it was in the good old days, a place to socialise, go out, meet people, have a chat, relax, switch off and get served high-quality food and drinks,' he said.

Like Bistecca, phones are not banned from Contact Bar and Kitchen, but patrons are encouraged to use the lockers provided.

'The only tip I can give people is to come to contact with an open mind and to get ready to be digitally detoxed,' Mr Stauder said.
Prosecutors say a former Seattle man wanted in connection with an eco-terrorism conspiracy dating back two decades has been arrested in Cuba.

Cuban authorities detained 50-year-old Joseph Mahmoud Dibee before he boarded a flight for Russia.

He pleaded not guilty Friday to federal arson and conspiracy charges in Portland, Oregon.

Joseph Mahmoud Dibee (left last week and right in the 1990s) has been arrested in Cuba after 12 years on the run. He was wanted in connection with an eco-terrorism conspiracy dating back two decades has been arrested in Cuba

Courtesy of KIRO

Prosecutors say that in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Dibee joined about a dozen animal rights and environmental activists in setting fires around the West.

The group targeted a horticulture center at the University of Washington; a federally owned wild horse corral in Susanville, California; and a horse slaughterhouse in Redmond, Oregon, among other properties.

Investigators said Dibee participated in the Susanville and Redmond fires, as well as one at a U.S. Department of Agriculture facility in Olympia, Washington.

Dibee fled the U.S. in December 2005, a month before he was indicted.

One defendant, Josephine Sunshine Overaker, remains at large after fleeing to Europe in 2001.

Dibee allegedly joined about a dozen animal rights and environmental activists in setting fires around the West. One of the was at the Two Elk Lodge Restaurant in Vail, Colorado, in 1998
Newly declassified documents released Friday graphically describe how an accused Al Qaeda operative was stripped naked, repeatedly slammed against walls, waterboarded and confined in boxes for hours at a covert detention site that CIA Director Gina Haspel briefly oversaw after 9/11.

The harsh treatment of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri at the secret lockup in Thailand has been revealed before, and came under the spotlight during Haspel's contentious Senate confirmation this spring.

About a dozen new documents, obtained by the nonprofit National Security Archive, provide more detail.

According to one cable, an interrogator 'snarled' at al-Nashiri and told him: 'You are our prisoner. We are your keepers and it doesn't get much lower than that.'

Gina Haspel (left) oversaw the CIA black site in Thailand in 2002, when Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri was held there and subjected to harsh interrogation techniques

Some of the other cables, essentially field reports sent from the base in Thailand to CIA headquarters, describe forced nudity replaced by a 'towel to wear' and the shaving of al-Nashiri's head and beard while he 'cried and grimaced theatrically.'

Haspel's name and those of other CIA employees who worked at the detention site are redacted from the documents, but public statements and other declassified papers, including the 2004 CIA Inspector General's report, confirm that she was overseeing the site while al-Nashiri was there during the last few months of 2002.

The CIA has disclosed little about Haspel's 30-plus years with the agency, nearly all of it undercover.

During her confirmation, she said she does not support the use of the harsh interrogation techniques that were used at the detention site in Thailand - and others around the world - 'for any purpose.'

CIA psychologists initiated one interrogation session at 4.15am by placing al-Nashiri against the 'walling board' and telling him 'they wanted to know who, what, when, where and how ongoing operations would take place and would stop at nothing to get it.'

When al-Nashiri repeated information he had already provided instead of new information about threats, the psychologists threw him to the floor and a 'security team' ripped off his clothes and shaved his head while he 'moaned and wailed.' They then locked him in a box.

Al-Nashiri, who is currently detained at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is accused of orchestrating the Al Qaeda plot to bomb the U.S. Navy destroyer Cole in 2000.

The attack off the coast of Yemen killed 17 American sailors. His trial is currently on hold.

He was captured in the United Arab Emirates in mid-October 2002, was sent to the detention site in Thailand in November 2002. It was closed the following month.

Al-Nashiri was waterboarded, a technique that simulates drowning, at least three times, beginning November 26, 2002.

'Interrogation escalated rapidly from subject being aggressively debriefed by interrogators while standing at the walling wall, to multiple applications of the walling technique and, ultimately, multiple applications of the watering technique,' said a cable that recounted the interrogation session back to CIA headquarters.

At one point, al-Nashiri was 'left strapped to the waterboard' for 20 minutes so he could 'contemplate his fate,' the cable said. After he was waterboarded, the interrogators covered al-Nashiri's head with a hood and 'left him on the waterboard, moaning, shaking and asking God to help him repeatedly.'

As he was being waterboarded again, the psychologists told al-Nashiri that if he was not honest with them and did not tell them about U.S. operations against the United States, they 'were willing to continue to give subject the same treatment, day in and day out, for months if need be, until subject decided to cooperate.'

The cables recount another instance where the interrogators carried out a 'theatrically flawless' scenario designed to render al-Nashiri, who was hooded at the time, to a further helpless state.

'Security team members burst into the subject's cell, shouting and howling' while one of the interrogators 'walled him five times' and then pretended to interrupt the mock killing and rescue him.

Afterwards, al-Nashiri cried and then 'sat quietly in the corner of his cell on some tissue paper, which he had carefully folded into a pad.'

The National Security Archive, founded in 1985 and based at George Washington University in Washington, uses the Freedom of Information Act to solicit the government to declassify information to provide a more complete understanding of events, particularly related to national security and foreign policy.

The archive filed its FOIA request for the Haspel cables in April after President Donald Trump nominated her to be director of the CIA.

The documents, however, were not released until after the Senate confirmed her as director in mid-May. During his campaign for the presidency, Trump said he backed waterboarding, but has not taken steps to revive its use.

During her confirmation hearings, Haspel said that 'with the benefit of hindsight and my experience as a senior agency leader, the enhanced interrogation program is not one the CIA should have undertaken.'
The number of babies born outside marriage is now higher than the number born to married couples in several European countries, figures show.

In 2016, 43 per cent of children across the EUs 27 countries were born to unmarried mothers, according to the EU statistics arm Eurostat.

But in eight countries, including France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden and Portugal, more than half of women give birth outside of marriage.

It comes after figures last month showed British births outside marriage had reached a record level.

In 2016, 43 per cent of children across the EUs 27 countries were born to unmarried mothers (stock picture)

In England and Wales last year 48.1 per cent of babies were born to single or cohabiting parents  meaning Britain may soon join the ranks of European countries where unmarried mothers are in the majority.

France has the lowest rate of married new parents, with just over four in ten babies now born in wedlock.

The other three countries with a majority of births outside marriage are Bulgaria, Slovenia and Estonia.

By comparison, Germany has just 35.5 per cent of babies born to unmarried parents.

In England and Wales, babies born to unmarried mothers were fewer than a fifth of all newborns until the mid-1980s, and hit 40 per cent in 2001.

In 2017 the proportion ticked up from 47.6 per cent in 2016 after remaining virtually steady for five years.

The ONS said when latest figures were published last month that six out of 10 babies born outside marriage are born to live-in cohabiting couples. But critics pointed out that cohabiting relationships are frequently unstable and short-lived.

In England and Wales last year 48.1 per cent of babies were born to single or cohabiting parents. In comparison Germany has just 35.5 per cent of babies born to unmarried parents (stock picture)

Harry Benson of the Marriage Foundation said that EU countries share a pattern in which higher-earning couples are likely to marry while working class women are likely to give birth while cohabiting or single.

The trend away from marriage has been rippling across Europe, he said. But there is one group of people who continue to marry.

That group is high earners and policymakers, who continue to tell everyone that marriage doesnt matter while embracing marriage themselves.

He added: The problem is that marriage does matter. Marriages are far more stable than cohabitation or any kind of unmarriage, and the behaviour of politicians smacks of hypocrisy.

We need to welcome everybody from all income groups and all classes into marriage, which is a far better basis for the family for adults and for children.
A Wisconsin woman has been killed by a rare blood infection that was brought on by a nip by her new puppy.

Sharon Larson, 58, was bitten by her pup Bo in June, causing a small cut and then fell ill.

The Milwaukee woman developed flu-like symptoms that wouldn't go away and was rushed to the hospital where she tested positive for the Capnocytophaga canimorsus bacteria. Sharom died two days later.

This particular bacteria is found in healthy dog and cat saliva but can lead to infection in humans who are immunocompromised.

Doctors believe the same bacteria was contracted by Wisconsin man Greg Manteufel, 48, who had all his limbs amputated after a lick from his pup.

Sharon Larson, 58, was bitten by her new puppy Bo in June, causing a small cut but later developed a deadly infection that killed her within two days of being diagonsed

Greg Manteuful, 48, became infected with a bacterial pathogen known as capnocytophaga canimorsus, the same bacteria that killed Sharon

'I was told she could get struck by lightning four times and live, win the lottery twice,' her husband Dan Larson told NBC affiliate TMJ4.

'That's how rare this is supposed to be,' he said.

Dan said he thought his wife contracted the flu, but when general medication didn't work he rushed Sharon the hospital.

Within two days, she died.

'I feel like I got robbed. Lost my right arm. My best friend,' Dan said.

The same bacteria is believed to have affected Greg Manteufel who had also developed flu like symptons after a lick from his dog.

When bruising appeared on his arms and legs, the West Bend man was rushed to the emergency room.

Doctors told him a blood infection had spread to all four of his limbs and, due extensive tissue and muscle damage, they would be forced to amputate all of his limbs.

Greg has developed sepsis, or blood poisoning, and his nose, both of his hands and his legs beneath his knees turned black.

Doctors amputated his legs up to his kneecaps and his arms up to his mid-forearms, and need to perform plastic surgery on his nose.

Greg was told the infection was likely transmitted via a lick from his own dog. So far, he's had amputations on his legs up to his kneecaps (left), his arms up to his mid-forearms and will need extensive plastic surgery on his nose (right)

Capnocytophaga Canimorsus is found in the saliva of healthy dogs and cats but can lead to infection in humans who are immunocompromised

WHAT IS THE BACTERIA FOUND IN DOGS' SALIVA? Capnocytophaga Canimorsus, a bacterial pathogen, is typically found in the saliva of cats and dogs. It has the rare ability to cause disease in healthy individuals but has been known to cause severe illness in people with pre-existing conditions or compromised immune system. The bacteria's transmission can occur through bites, licks or even close proximity to the animals. Symptoms usually appear within one to eight days of exposure, but mostly on the second day. They can range from flu-like symptoms to sepsis. Infection can usually be treated effectively with antibiotics but there can be long-term side effects including amputation from gangrene, heart attack, and kidney failure.About 30 percent of all those infected die. Source: CDC Advertisement

'We can't wrap our heads around it that all of a sudden, he's 48 years old and been around dogs all of his life, and then this happens,' his wife Dawn said.

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the bacteria is found in the saliva of healthy dogs and cats.

One 2014 study from Japan found the bacteria to be present in 69 percent of dogs and 54 percent of cats.

The bacteria can be transmitted to humans through bites, licks, or even close proximity with the animal - seeping into the skin even without a cut or scrape.

While most people will not exhibit any symptoms if they become infected, it has been shown to cause severe illness n those who have compromised immune systems, according to a 2003 study from France.

It is unclear if Sharon or Greg had any pre-existing conditions that made them susceptible to the bacteria.
Shocking footage of a young child standing on the roof of a Canadian home just minutes before a heroic bystander pulled him to safety has gone viral.

Viewed over 100,000 times on Facebook as of Friday afternoon, the clip shows a small boy, wearing only a diaper, standing upright on the first-floor rooftop of his residence in Hamilton, Ontario.

As a small crowd gathers below, witnesses begin dialing the authorities alerting them to the situation.

Viewed over 100,000 times on Facebook as of Friday afternoon, the clip shows a small boy, wearing only a diaper, standing upright on a first-floor rooftop

As a small crowd gathers below, witnesses begin dialing the authorities alerting them to the situation

Before the police arrived, however, a 'quick-thinking' witness was able to rescue the child from danger by breaking into the home and grabbing the boy

The Hamilton Star reported that police were called to the scene of the incident at around 3.30pm Wednesday afternoon.

'I was shaking,' Cassandra Fleet told The Star as she drove by the scene. 'My heart was beating out of my chest.'

Before the police arrived, however, a 'quick-thinking' witness was able to rescue the child from danger.

With the residence split into two apartments and the front door locked, authorities said a bystander broke into the downstairs apartment through a screen window and then went upstairs into the upper-level apartment.

From there he was able to grab the boy through an open window, with Fleet providing moral support the whole time, telling the child: 'It's OK buddy. Just stay put, stay by the wall.'

Police said that the boy's mother was napping when he managed to climb onto the rooftop by squeezing through a window with a missing screen.

The boy's mother was 'shocked' to find out what happened while she was asleep, holding the toddler in her arms while the police questioned her about the incident, according to The Star.

Criminal charges are not expected to be filed against the parents of the toddler, Const. Lorraine Edwards told The Star.

But added: 'It only takes a moment for a young child to put themselves in a dangerous situation.'
A popular Instagram fitness model said to be a 'casual' friend of the Kardashian clan has been identified as the blonde who was rushed to the hospital after Kylie Jenner's birthday.

Tammy Hembrow was unable to keep the party going while at the Thursday night festivities at the Delilah in West Hollywood.

The bodacious Australian model was taken from the scene, face down, after paramedics arrived just before midnight, The Blast reports.

Instagram fitness model Tammy Hembrow has been identified as the woman who was seen wheeled from Kylie Jenner's 21 birthday

The mother of two was rushed to hospital from the socialite's 21st birthday party with blackened feet and bruises on her face Thursday from the Delilah in West Hollywood

Hembrow is said to be on friendly terms with the family, appearing in a Good American clothing ad with Khloe Kardashian just last year.

She posted on her Instagram story on Friday, looking to have rebounded from her last night shenanigans.

The Queensland mother-of-two has a fitness app called Tammy Fit where she shares tips on how to live a healthier life.

She has more than 8.6million followers on Instagram.

Hembrow is said to be on friendly terms with the family, appearing in a Good American clothing ad with Khloe Kardashian just last year

She posted on her Instagram story on Friday, looking to have rebounded from her last night shenanigans

Hembrow was seen being wheeled out of West Hollywood restaurant and club Delilah strapped face down on a stretcher.

There is speculation EMTs placed her face down because she was vomiting.

She was loaded into the back of an ambulance as Kylie's father Caitlyn Jenner and her partner Sophia Hutchinson looked on in horror.

Caitlyn looked extremely concerned in photos taken of the carnage on Thursday night, as Hutchinson spoke with security.

The party featured the entire Kardashian-Jenner clan going all out to celebrate the mega-rich reality TV star's coming of age.

Kylie splashed cash on a large ball pit, personalized party favors, a photo booth and even a family mural dedicated to the famous family and their friends.

Kylie had Delilah's outside walls covered in pink tinsel, while the ceilings were bedecked with glistening pink balls which later released pink confetti that showered down on dancing guests.

She was loaded into the back of an ambulance as Kylie's father Caitlyn Jenner and her partner Sophia Hutchinson looked on in horror

Hembrow was seen being wheeled out of the West Hollywood restaurant and club strapped face down on a stretcher

Caitlyn looked extremely concerned in photos taken of the carnage on Thursday night, as Hutchinson spoke with security

When partygoers weren't busting moves on the dance floor, they were able to lark around in a gigantic ball pit filled with pink balls and elaborate love heart balloons.

Kim and Khloe Kardashian shared clips of themselves jumping around in the pit, which was surrounded by mirrors to ensure the glamorous guests were able to fix themselves up after messing around in the pen.

VIP guests including Nicki Minaj, Winnie Harlow, and Dave Chapelle all turned up to party with the birthday girl.

Kylie Jenner turned heads with a flattering magenta frock as she arrived at her party

When party-goers weren't busting moves on the dance floor, they were able to lark around in a gigantic ball pit that was filled with pink balls and elaborate love heart balloons

Kylie ensured her outfit matched the theme as she dazzled in a glistening, skintight playsuit and skyscraper stilettos

The mother-of-one and beauty mogul looked incredible as she debuted her platinum blonde locks while wearing a magenta dress which had a cut-out detail on the waist.

Having given birth to baby Stormi in February, no doubt she was enjoying a rare night out on the town with her famous family, who dressed in brights to celebrate her special night.

Shoulder pads added a retro vibe to her look, while the asymmetrical hem showed off her perfectly sculpted legs.

Delicate magenta ballet-inspired stilettos added a few inches to her 5ft6in frame. Her blonde tresses were parted on the left and surgically combed back and down into a long ponytail.

Her second outfit of the night was a pink sequin strapless unitard which clung to her figure and she wore her locks tied up in a sleek ponytail.
Taxpayers are set to front the bill for Lee Lin Chin's next gig, following her abrupt resignation from SBS last month.

The government has contracted Chin to be the face of a Transport for NSW ad campaign to explain the Epping to Chatswood rail line closures in North Sydney.

It's believed that the former SBS broadcaster has been paid up to $70,000 of taxpayer's money, as the government believes she has a voice of 'authority'.

Taxpayers are set to front the bill for Lee Lin Chin's (pictured) next gig, following her abrupt resignation from SBS last month

The ads are set to go live on September 2, The Daily Telegraph reported.

The campaign is set to feature Chin in fluorescent colours to match the buses that will be replacing the train line.

The closure of the train line will cause disruptions for seven months.

Chin shocked fans when she announced her resignation from SBS last month after broadcasting for almost 40 years.

The Jarkarta-born journalist announced the news, saying there are 'many small to medium-sized reasons' for her unexpected departure.

The broadcaster announced this week she was jetting out to Singapore to escape rumours she was in the midst of a bidding war between networks.

The government has contracted Chin to be the face of a Transport for NSW ad campaign to explain the Epping to Chatswood rail line closures in North Sydney

She announced her move on Twitter, cracking a joke at the paparazzi in the process.

'Goodbye Australia. I shall be spending the next month in Singapore. Try and catch me now Paparazzi!' the Aussie icon wrote.

'In Singapore I can do whatever I like,' she joked.

'Im a native who became a celebrity to white people,' before adding, 'Im essentially above the law.'

Chin shocked fans when she announced her resignation from SBS last month after broadcasting for almost 40 years

Chin began her work with SBS back in 1980, the same year she came to Australia from Singapore, and began hosting SBS World News in 1992.

In an SBS statement provided to Daily Mail Australia, Ms Chin said: 'Having spent the bulk of my professional life at SBS, this isn't by any means an easy decision. I shall be leaving a happy and satisfying role as a newsreader. My friends and colleagues for whom I have fervent respect will be deeply missed.'

Over her time on Australian television, the presenter became one of the country's most popular media personalities.
Six cars have been trapped by a sinkhole that opened up in the parking lot of a Pennsylvania outlet mall.

The hole swallowed the vehicles at about 4.30 pm Friday at Tanger Outlets just east of Lancaster City.

A woman tells WGAL-TV she was inside one of the vehicles during the collapse, and described it like an earthquake.

Bystanders helped her get out safely.

Vehicles sit at the bottom of a sinkhole that opened Friday in a parking lot at Tanger Outlets shopping center in Lancaster, Pennsylvania

No one was hurt, but the vehicles can't be removed until the area is stable.

A woman who answered the phone at the mall office said 'the photos don't lie' about the incident, then hung up.

Shoppers posted photos and videos from the scene on social media showing the cars lying under the parking lot and in the earth.

The Lafayette Fire Company has asked people to avoid the shopping center while it tries to remove the cars from the sinkhole and secure the area.

Lancaster is about 70 miles (113 kilometers) west of Philadelphia.

Shoppers posted images and videos from the scene on social media showing six cars trapped
Government lawyers have written to British veterans asking for their recollections of the 1950s Cyprus conflict as they investigate allegations of wrongdoing by UK troops, it has emerged.

Former Royal Signals Regimental Sergeant Major Sam Bedwell reportedly received a letter asking whether he had witnessed 'anything untoward' during his service in the Cyprus uprising.

Mr Bedwell, 83, said he had not seen any such behaviour and slammed the 'nonsense' of compensation claims against former British soldiers, the Daily Express reported.

Last month the British Government denied any wrongdoing in Cyprus amid claims of rape and torture during the country's struggle for independence.

British troops patrol villages in Cyprus during the 1950s uprising which is now under scrutiny

Britain also appealed against a High Court ruling that claims for human rights abuses could be heard in the UK.

The latest probe came to light after Mr Bedwell received a legal letter asking for 'any recollection of events and matters' related to the controversial clame.

He said: 'I was in Cyprus 62 years ago. I was 21 at the time. It is ridiculous. How old are the claimants?

'They must be aged 80 to 90. It is absolutely bonkers.'

Mr Bedwell said he had only seen 'exemplary' behaviour from British troops under what he called 'very trying circumstances'.

Julian Lewis, the chairman of the Commons Defence Committee, said it was 'outrageous' for officials to go on 'fishing expeditions' so long after the conflict.

Other Cyprus veterans also slammed the latest investigation saying they had been fighting a 'ruthless enemy' and were 'doing their duty'.

One document lodged at the High Court earlier claimed that British colonial forces had raped a 15-year-old girl and tortured civilian detainees with beatings and mock hangings.

Lawyers representing the Cypriots, who were mostly juveniles at the time, said they had irrefutable evidence, including detention and medical records. Britain denies all wrongdoing.

File photo: British soldiers are pictured patrolling in Cyprus. Government lawyers have written to British veterans asking for their recollections of the 1950s Cyprus conflict

The Cyprus insurgency began on April 1, 1955, when the National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters (EOKA) began a four-year insurgency against British authorities determined that 'Cyprus shall never have self-determination'.

Cyprus gained independence in 1960 but Britain still has two large sovereign base areas - RAF Akrotiri and Dhekelia - which remain key to British interests in the Middle East.

Britain has already paid tens of millions of pounds to Afghan and Iraqi civilians after claims resulting from the more recent conflicts in the Middle East.

In 2015 it was found that there had been 1,145 claims in Iraq with 323 of them resulting in almost 19.6 million in out-of-court settlements.

Labour MP Bambos Charalambous, vice-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Cyprus, said one of his constituents had been beaten by British Army captains.

Mr Charalambous said: 'Rape is rape and torture is torture. It doesn't matter how long ago it occurred; anyone who commits these abhorrent acts should always be looking over their shoulder. The idea that the truth should not out because of the passing of time is ridiculous.

'The Cyprus Emergency was a horrible chapter in Britain's colonial history and more and more facts are emerging about the extent of the matter through disclosure of new files made public for the first time.

'This is not an attack on distinguished and honourable servicemen stationed in Cyprus. Instead, it is about terrible acts authorised by Her Majesty's Government at the time via the War Office and Colonial Office.

'It would be right and proper for the Government to admit responsibility now, so that this matter could be properly sorted without a needless and embarrassing battle in open court.

'The most recent revelations in the press about the Government Legal Department contacting former servicemen does seem like they are clutching at straws.

'This is a shambolic matter, which will only damage the UK's reputation on the international stage.'

Kevin Conroy, a lawyer representing the Greek Cypriot claimants, said: 'The evidence shows Her Majesty's Government clearly knew what was going on during the Cyprus Emergency.

'This recent revelation that the Government Legal Department is attempting to gain witness evidence from the junior ranks who are now still alive is a welcome step in the right direction, although the fact they have taken that step came as news to me.

'It is a shame we had to learn it from the press. Given the extent of the cover up at the time I expect that most ex-service men and women will testify similarly to Mr Bedwell. The evidence I have is that the individuals responsible for assaulting our clients was confined to a relatively small group known to the Government at the time.

'I have no intention of besmirching the honour of the vast majority of men and women who served in Cyprus during the Emergency period who, as Mr Bedwell says, found themselves in an extremely difficult situation.'

'It is obvious that torture and human rights abuses did occur. It is now time for the Government to acknowledge that happened publicly and make the right and correct reparations.'
The European Union-driven ban on halogen lightbulbs comes into effect at the end of the month and means householders will have to buy more expensive LED lights. (File photo)

First, the EU controversially banned our traditional incandescent light bulbs and encouraged us to buy halogen bulbs.

Now, they're banning halogen bulbs and doubling the cost of lighting a home.

The European Union-driven ban on halogen lightbulbs comes into effect at the end of the month.

Householders will have to buy more expensive LED lights under measures designed to cut energy use.

The LED bulbs are at least twice as expensive as halogen lights, but advocates argue they are better value because the LED versions use a fraction of the electricity and have a much longer lifespan, potentially 15 years.

The new ban has gone under the radar in Britain, with a recent survey by lighting product company LEDvance finding that two in three Britons had no idea halogen bulbs were on the way out.

Despite the benefits of LEDs, even some supporters of the switch are questioning whether the EU should be forcing the change, warning it could lead to resentment against green policies.

Supermarkets sell halogens for about 2 each, while the equivalent LED versions are about 4 and can be as much as 7.

Buying new bulbs for the 34 lights found in a typical home would cost 68 if they were halogen, but doing the same with the LED versions is likely to be closer to 150.

The ban on the halogen lights has been driven by the EU, and backed by successive UK governments  and seems certain to come in despite Brexit.

The policy initially resulted in the ban on the import and manufacture of high-power traditional incandescent bulbs in 2009.

This was then expanded to other lower-power versions.

Historically, consumers have rejected LED lights because they were expensive and gave off a harsh, bright light but The Energy Saving Trust says the move will help homes cut bills. Pictured: The costs that come with a Halogen bulb

Families were encouraged to switch to alternatives, specifically halogens, which were promoted as green, but these will become obsolete with the adoption of the LED lights commonly used in offices, shops and lamp posts.

Historically, consumers have rejected LED lights because they were expensive and gave off a harsh, bright light.

There were also concerns they may not work in dimmer light fittings, which means they create a constant flickering or buzzing noise.

But prices have fallen significantly recently and it is now possible to produce warmer tones in more expensive LEDs.

At the same time, new lighting systems offer different levels of brightness and colours.

London's Conservative MEP Syed Kamall is positive about benefits of LED bulbs, but said: 'Forcing them on consumers and banning cheaper alternative lightbulbs will come across as heavy-handed and could lead to resentment over 'green' policies.'

The Energy Saving Trust says the move will help homes cut bills because the LED bulbs use about a fifth of the energy burned by halogens.

Stewart Muir, of consumer website TopTenUK.org, said: 'Lighting is an essential, and it tends to be one of the biggest consumers of energy, so the move to end the sale of the expensive halogens will be hugely beneficial.'
President Donald Trump has given House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi a mocking endorsement, urging Democrats to stick with her.

'Democrats, please do not distance yourselves from Nancy Pelosi. She is a wonderful person whose ideas & policies may be bad, but who should definitely be given a 4th chance,' Trump tweeted on Friday evening.

'She is trying very hard & has every right to take down the Democrat Party if she has veered too far left!'

Pelosi would be a top candidate to resume the House speaker's chair if the Democrats retake the lower body in November, but a new poll out on Friday said that more than 50 Democrat candidates for the House had declined to support her for the top job.

Pelosi (seen in June) was first elected to represent California in Congress in 1986, and has been the minority leader since Democrats lost power in 2011

First elected to represent California in Congress in 1986, Pelosi has been the minority leader since Democrats lost power in 2011.

Prior to that, she was House speaker for the Democrats from 2007 to 2011.

Pelosi has been an outspoken critic of Trump, most recently writing in in letter to her Democrat colleagues on Thursday: 'The brazen corruption, cronyism and incompetence of the Trump Administration is reflected in the conduct of House Republicans.'

She called the GOP-run Congress 'a cesspool of self-enrichment, secret money and special interests,' and urged Democrats to use their August recess to emphasize that.

Pelosi, 78, has been the frequent target of Republican lampooning, often due to perceived gaffes.

Trump issued a mocking tweet on Friday night urging Democrats to embrace Nancy Pelosi

In February, she suggested that 'mowing the grass' along the southern border could be a viable alternative to a border wall in places.

'Let's talk about where a more serious structure might be necessary, where fencing will do or mowing the grass so people can't be smuggled through the grass,' she proposed.

Pelosi has signaled her intent to run once more for House speaker if Democrats retake the body in November.

However some of her Congressional colleagues have signaled opposition, with 51 Democrats running who are running for the House saying they won't support the California lawmaker for speaker, according to an NBC News survey of candidates and their public statements

Trump's tweet was apparently in response to the survey, the results of which were released on Friday morning.
After being close to collapse in 2012 with a bleak future ahead, Darrell Lea has made a comeback and is now looking to expand into ice cream and muffins.

The Australian brand is now doing better than ever, after it was rescued by Queensland entrepreneurs, Tony and Christina Quinn.

Under their company name Quadrant Private Equity, the pair have built the business up over the past six years, and is now looking to expand from their iconic chocolate, licorice and sweets.

After being close to collapse in 2012 with a bleak future ahead, Darrell Lea has made a comeback and is now looking to expand into ice cream and muffins

Research has shown that customers are keen on summer treats, and the company plans to bring ice cream back over the warmer months.

Chief executive of Darrell Lea, Tim York, said the company has plans to partner with Everest Ice Cream to sell specialised Darrell Lea flavours.

These include the iconic Rocklea Road, peppermint nougat and peanut brittle.

'Darrell Lea did used to have ice cream at its stalls and in some recent market research ice cream was one of the products that people really wanted to see us put our inclusions, chocolate and peanut brittle and other pieces like that into,' Mr York said.

Darrell Lea also has an upcoming collaboration with Muffin Break and is planning to bring muffins to the menu.

Upon Quadrant Private Equity's takeover of the confectionery company, they shut all Darrell Lea stores country-wide and instead decided to stock their products in retailers.

Research has shown that customers are keen on summer treats, and the company plans to bring ice cream back over summer

Chief executive Tim York (pictured, right), said the company has plans to partner with Everest Ice Cream to sell specialised flavours

The now wide range of retailers include supermarkets and Australia Post, ABC reported.

Mr York said that the company has boomed since the takeover in 2012, with revenue surging from $37.4 million in 2013 to $81.2 million in 2017.

'If you can picture Darrell Lea going from selling in 60 shops where people once or twice a year would walk into those stores to all of a sudden Darrell Lea was available for people in over 3,000 outlets,' Mr York said.

The company has also recently bought sweets brand, Lifesavers, from global giant Nestle.

This means that the lolly favourite will be made in Australia for the first time in almost 20 years.

Mr York also said the company is looking to expand their exports, as it is currently the number three licorice company in America, with room for growth.

The company has hopes to double or even triple their licorice business in America over five years.
Businessman Liam Gordon Murphy said he spiralled into the 'depths of hell' as he fought claims he sexually assaulted women he met on an adult fetish website.

The 42-year-old from Sydney's eastern suburbs, who calls himself 'The Wolf', was acquitted of all charges against him in June, but said going through the court process caused him 'all sorts of harm'.

'It's been absolutely horrific. I really struggle to articulate how bad it was. It was the depths of hell,' he told Saturday Telegraph.

Businessman Liam Gordon Murphy (pictured) spiralled into the 'depths of hell' as he fought claims he sexually assaulted women he met on an adult fetish website

While it was a particularly hard time for himself personally, he said it was the true victims of sexual assault that came out worse off.

'This has done me all sorts of harm but in reality the biggest harm done to anyone (is to) victims. I think they are the ones that are going to suffer most.

'I think cases like mine are a tragedy for victims because they will see this in the media and think, 'this guy could be guilty and he just got away with it'.'

Magistrate Christopher Halburd dismissed charges against Mr Murphy in June, saying it was likely consent differed between 'vanilla' and BDSM (bondage, dominance, submission and sadomasochism) sexual interaction.

Rydges Camperdown (pictured) was the scene of one of the incidents at the centre of the case

He claimed the jury was unlikely to find him guilty given the two complainants had unreliable and conflicting accounts of what happened.

Mr Halburd said in the world of BDSM it could not be assumed that sexual activity involving significant force causing pain and screaming was non-consensual.

Mr Murphy was accused of raping a woman at a Camperdown hotel in June 2015, but was cleared after it was found she reported the incident 16 months after occurred.

She was also found to have lied about WhatsApp messages she sent to Mr Murphy and posted on Fetlife.com she did not 'feel like a victim of his'.

Mr Halburd said in the world of BDSM it could not be assumed that sexual activity involving significant force causing pain and screaming was non-consensual

The second woman was found not to have used the safe word 'red' during her encounter with Mr Murphy at a Potts Point hotel in August 2015.

She had asked him to 'really scare' her, the court heard, which led to Mr Murphy submerging her head in bath water and whipping her with car jumper leads.

Although all charges were dropped against Mr Murphy, he still feared one day his child would be confronted in the playground saying 'your dad's a filthy rapist'.

He said he felt 'guilty' and 'sorry' for the 'hedonist and narcissist' he became as a result of problems he had in 2010, which prompted him to abandon his family.

She had asked him to 'really scare' her, the court heard, which led to Mr Murphy (pictured) submerging her head in bath water and whipping her with car jumper leads

'The Wolf' has since published a book about what he claimed to be his sexual exploits.

A description online for his book read: 'Sexual dominance is not a work of fiction, a paperback novel, or 50 shades of anything for me; it's my life. From a very young age, I felt an overwhelming, sometimes crippling urge to dominate girls and women. To take, to own, to push them until they show me who they really are. But that urge was countered by an equally powerful desire to protect and cherish them.

'This book is a collection of true-life short stories from my early years, grappling with the duality of what I often regarded as my twisted being into adulthood, when I finally learnt to embrace and revel in it. It details some of the amazing sexual encounters I've enjoyed with the spectacular women I've known, and my often conflicted thought processes throughout them.'
The 16-year-old girl who was left seriously injured after being pushed off a 60-foot bridge has finally returned home from the hospital and though she continues to suffer 'physically and emotionally' says she 'does not seek revenge' against the teen who shoved her.

Jordan Holgerson suffered five broken ribs and a punctured lung after she plunged into Moulton Falls on the Lewis River in Yacolt, Washington on Tuesday. Video showing Jordan hesitating to jump and the moment her friend pushes her has gone viral.

Speaking to DailyMail.com, Jordan's aunt Kristie Morgan said Friday 'she went home last night and woke up crying in pain this morning.

'She has a hard time breathing and it gives her a panic attack which makes it even harder to breathe. She is really suffering physically and emotionally.'

Despite the pain, Kristie said her niece is 'in great spirits' and has decided not to seek 'revenge' against the woman who pushed her.

Jordan Holgerson, 16, has returned home from hospital after she was pushed off bridge above Moulton Falls in Washington Tuesday

Her aunt tells DailyMail.com she has returned home from the hospital but is suffering 'psychically and emotionally'. Jordan is pictured recovering with a childhood friend Donovan at home

Jordan is truly the sweetest girl in the world. It doesn't matter what someone does to her she always has someone's best interest at heart. She doesn't wish to seek revenge on her friend. But in my opinion her friend needs to learn a lesson,' Kristie said.

'She could have killed her and it wouldn't be a question at all if she was in trouble for her actions. She would be in jail right now. But that is how Jordan feels,' she added.

The teenager spoke out from hospital on Thursday after the shocking footage went viral.

'I could have died, easily,' she told reporters.

Her mother Genelle is taking 'amazing care of her,' according to Kristie.

It's hard to see her baby like that. I cry every time I'm with Jordan. Its painful to watch her move around and I really wish I could take the pain for her,' she said.

Jordan suffered five cracked ribs, a bruised esophagus, an injured trachea, air bubbles in her chest and a punctured lung.

'She is lucky she is not paralyzed or dead,' her mother told Thoroughbred Daily News.

Jordan said she may have 'blacked out' middair, but was aware and awake when she hit the water.

Someone immediately swam out to rescue the teen after she hit the water and rushed her to PeaceHealth Southwest Washington Medical Center in Vancouver, Washington.

'No, I won't go in,' Jordan can be heard telling her friends as they try to pressure her into jumping off the bridge. Suddenly, one of them pushes her off

Jordan suffered five cracked ribs and internal injuries. She also suffered a bruised esophagus, an injured trachea, air bubbles in her chest and a punctured lung

Holgerson's red and seriously bruised left thigh is pictured above after she slammed into the water from 60ft

One man can be heard on camera asking 'Ready?' before a female friend is seen shoving Jordan off the bridge

The terrifying ordeal was captured on video as Jordan stood on the 60-foot high ledge with her friends gathered behind her.

'No, I won't go in,' Jordan can be heard telling her friends as they try to pressure her to jump off the bridge.

She tells her friends 'no' a second time in the video, but the group still rallies to get her to leap. Then, suddenly, one man asks 'Ready?' and a female friend is seen shoving Jordan off the bridge.

The teen plunges into the water below and lands with a horrifying thud as her friends gasped.

'Oh, that's so f****d,' someone can be heard saying off-camera.

Jordan's mother has since revealed that the friend who pushed Jordan into the water is an adult.

'I'm very upset with her,' said the mother-of-four, who believes the woman should turn herself in. 'She is an adult, and I'm sure she should have known better.'

Jordan said her friend has since said sorry, but that her apologies are not enough.

'I could've died,' she said. 'It could've ended a lot worse, is what I'm thinking about.'

Jordan's sister Kaytlin said she confronted the friend on social media, saying a true friend wouldn't have done that.

'Friends don't push someone from that high so I was p***ed,' Kaytlin said.

Jordan spoke out from hospital on Thursday saying she could have easily died after being pushed off a 60-foot ledge

Her aunt revealed Jordan 'does not seek revenge' against her friend who pushed her

'She pretty much said that she was sorry for doing it and she wouldn't have done it if she knew the outcome of it and that she knows it was an absurd thing to do.

'I think the girl that pushed her should have some sort of consequence because you won't learn your lesson if you think you can could do that again and think it will be fine.'

Ashley Mahree, the woman who posted the shocking clip to YouTube, also said she believes the woman who pushed Jordan should go to jail.

'This looks to be almost criminal... this could have easily taken a life,' Mahree wrote in the YouTube description.

'I think this girl needs to be held accountable in some way.'

Clark County Fire Chief Ben Peeler confirmed it is illegal to jump from the bridge and the Clark County Sheriff's Office is currently investigating the incident.

Kristie has set up a GoFundMe page to raise money for her niece's rising medical expenses.
Police are desperately hunting a couple wanted in relation to the fatal attack of a man in a quiet suburban area on Friday afternoon.

The victim, aged in his 20s, was killed in a brazen daylight assault, involving a samurai sword, in Forest Lodge, near Glebe, inner Sydney, about 2:30pm on Friday.

Police raided a house in a nearby street following the discovery of a gun near the body, but later uncovered it was a replica.

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Police are desperately hunting a couple wanted in relation to the fatal attack of a man in a quiet suburban area on Friday afternoon (officers pictured at the scene)

Police were called to the intersection of Hereford and Minogue crescents at Forest Lodge around 12.40pm to find a body lying in the middle of the road (pictured)

Witnesses said they saw a man aged in his late 20s staggering down the street and collapsing after hearing an altercation.

Resident Alex Ververis arrived home shortly after the incident and described it as 'really unexpected and kind of scary'.

'I came back with my kid after swimming lessons. We know everyone on the street, there's nothing untoward and nothing suspicious,' he told ABC News.

At this stage police have not revealed exactly what caused the victim's fatal injuries, but said a man and woman were seen fighting with him before his death.

Officers followed a trail of blood from the body to a nearby property on Hereford Street, and heavily armed officers carrying a battering ram closed in on the house.

A wide-scale manhunt is now underway and a man and woman are on the run.

Pictures show the body covered in a white blanket surrounded by police at the intersection of Hereford Street and Minogue Crescent.

Witnesses said they saw the victim, believed to be in his late 20s, staggering down the street and collapsing after he was attacked in the suburb of Forest Lodge, near Glebe, on Friday afternoon

Heavily armed police and officers carrying a battering ram closed in on a house nearby in Cross street just after the broad-daylight attack

Pictures show the body covered in a white blanket surrounded by police at the intersection of Hereford Street and Minogue Crescent

Police were called to the intersection around 12.40pm where Acting Superintendent Sam Crisafulli told reporters that the victim was 'sadly found deceased on the street'.

A builder working nearby told 9 News he and his workmates had heard a 'loud bang' and thought someone may have been run over by a car.

'One of the boys ran down to see if he was okay,' the man said.

He said the victim had 'a lot of blood coming out of his head'.

Another witness said she heard a lady yelling: 'Get away. Get the f**k away from me'.

It was initially thought that the two suspects had run into a nearby premises to hide but police are now searching a wider area.

'I am satisfied with a search of the area by police that these people that we are looking for are not around at the moment,' Superintendent Crisafulli said.

The incident is believed to have been targeted and to have occurred after a man and a woman were 'seen in an altercation' with the victim prior to his death.

New South Wales Police is appealing for anyone with information to come forward

Police were called to the intersection around 12.40pm where Acting Superintendent Sam Crisafulli (pictured) told reporters that the victim was 'sadly found deceased on the street'

Several crime scenes have been established along Hereford Street, including inside a private residence

'We've spoken to a number of witnesses who tell us shortly before we were called a man and a woman were in an altercation with another man,' Superintendent Crisafulli said

'We've spoken to a number of witnesses who tell us shortly before we were called a man and a woman were in an altercation with another man,' Superintendent Crisafulli said.

'It was a violent attack with very, very serious consequences.'

New South Wales Police is appealing for anyone with information to come forward.

A man and woman are on the run after a man was killed in Sydney's inner west. Police were called to the intersection around 12.40pm and have reportedly already found a weapon

Detectives from the homicide squad are set to arrive on the scene
A 66-year-old North Carolina woman out for her daily walk was attacked and killed by two pit bulls.

Montgomery County Sheriff Chris Watkins said in a statement that the woman, whose name has not been released, went missing while taking her daily walk on Thursday.

When she didn't return home, her husband called friends and neighbors who helped search the area around the Lake Tillery, North Carolina, development they lived in.

Unable to find her, they called 911, according to the statement obtained by the Montgomery Herald.

Sheriff's deputies and a search and rescue team were sent to the area. Within hours, the woman's body was found by the side of an unused road in the development.

Deputies from the Montgomery County Sheriff's Department and a search and rescue team located the woman's body several hours after she was reported missing by her husband

During the investigation, authorities found two neighborhood pit bulls that had they believe had taken part in the attack based on physical evidence reflecting their involvement.

The dogs were then quarantined.

'The owner agreed for the dogs to be euthanized so they could be forensically examined to see if they suffered from rabies,' Watkins told The News & Observer Saturday, adding that medical examiners also wanted the opportunity to study the pit bulls' jaw sizes.

The woman will be autopsied at the NC Medical Examiner's Office in Raleigh, North Carolina.

The incident is continuing to be viewed as a death investigation, not a criminal investigation, however the district attorney's office is said to be reviewing the case, FOX8 reported.
Once heralded as the passports to a secure and well-paid career, science, technology and maths degrees now have some of Australia's lowest employment rates according to a university head.

The warning for STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) graduates came from Vicki Thomson - chief executive of the Group of Eight universities association.

Ms Thomson's words are backed by industry leaders who say too many graduates are ignorant of the job market or do not have practical experience.

STEM graduates, which includes maths and science degree holders, have some of the worst rates of employment post-university - 10 per cent lower than the average

Around 20 per cent of Australia's near two million domestic students who graduated between 2007 and 2016 were in STEM disciplines - according to the Daily Telegraph.

But maths and science graduates are finding jobs at a rate 10 per cent lower than the average post-graduation, according to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI),

The Go8 chief executive has also called for greater recognition of vocational education.

Group of Eight head Vicki Thomson has called for greater recognition of non-university training courses and warned STEM graduates their degree is no passport to a certain career

In an address to the Graduate Employment Outcomes and Industry Partnership Forum in Sydney, Ms Thompson said Australia would be a 'poorer nation' if it did not give the entire tertiary system the value it deserves.

She said: 'We could not live healthily, safely or successfully without plumbers, electricians, fire safety inspectors - all of which is delivered through VET.'

Ninety-two per cent of trade course graduates found a job straight away, according to a recent report.

Pearson educational consultants published an article last year calling for more government investment in STEAM, with the added 'A' referring to Art.

Meanwhile, Business Chamber CEO Stephen Cartwright said even highly qualified candidates from STEM degrees were struggling to get hired.

He said: 'No qualification by itself these days is a passport to a job.'
Doctors are having to prescribe sleep to people who are under the impression that they're suffering from severe medical conditions.

An alarming amount of people in Sydney have shockingly low rates of knowledge when it comes to looking after themselves.

Research has found that Sydneysiders aren't sleeping enough, which is causing them to become sick due to exhaustion.

Bayer conducted a survey for their 'Health Yourself' campaign that found that almost a quarter of Sydney's population are 'clueless' about how much nightly sleep is healthy.

Doctors are having to prescribe sleep to people who are under the impression that they're suffering from severe medical conditions (stock image)

Just one night of poor sleep can affect mood, metabolism and hand-eye coordination, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Sleep deprivation over a long period of time - under 5.5 hours per night - is linked to long-term health issues such as diabetes, obesity, anxiety and cardiovascular disease.

Sleep deprivation is the reason 67 per cent of people feel run down occasionally, with only one in 10 rating their health as being very good.

It was also found that 20 per cent of Sydney's population didn't realise that the average amount of sleep needed per night was seven to eight hours.

The findings also say that Australians are relying too heavily on health resources to assist them with general self-care.

One in five people go to the doctor to treat 'simple' illnesses such as a cold, and young Australians between 18-24 years of age the guiltiest of doing so.

The survey also found that 52 per cent of Australians talk to their doctor for advice on how to stay healthy.

General practitioner based in Sydney, Dr Ginni Mansberg, said that she has advised patients to take time off work and tell them to sleep at least 10 hours per night.

An alarming amount of people in Sydney have shockingly low rates of knowledge when it comes to looking after themselves

Some people go to her with concerns of a 'significant mental health' problem, to which Dr Mansberg tells them to have a few days off and catch up on sleep.

'When people are bursting into tears at the drop of a hat, being angry, not coping, not performing well at work, conflict with people at work  I'm not going to pull out a script for antidepressants when really this person is having a major sleep deficit,' she said.

Dr Mansberg encourages sleep aids such as herbal remedies and over-the-counter medication to help with their exhaustion.

57 per cent of people incorrectly assuming that the sugar levels are different between low fat foods and full fat versions

She said that women were the worst culprits, believing they have a hormone imbalance when they just need some sleep.

'They get a short-term massive injection of sleep into the bank  and then we can look at what's going on here, whether they do have depression or you're just exhausted and need to sleep.'

Dr Mansberg is worried that it's a sign that people are clueless when it comes to healthy sleeping schedules.

The campaign's research also stated that one-third of people don't know what the recommended intake of fruit and vegetables is per day.

Research has found that Sydney-siders aren't sleeping enough, which is causing them to become sick due to exhaustion (stock image)

The people who are unaware of this are also likely to rate their health as 'very poor', the results say.

There is also a large amount of people who don't understand the difference between sugar levels, with 57 per cent incorrectly assuming that the sugar levels are different between low fat foods and full fat versions.

It is also alarming that one fifth of Sydneysiders don't know that an hour of exercise per day is needed to reduce cardiovascular disease.

Despite the alarming figures and the low self-care knowledge, 70 per cent of those that did the survey rated their health as 'good'.
Shortly after the plane took off, traffic controllers were heard on an Internet livestream speaking to a man identified as 'Rich'.

'There is the runway just off your right side in about a mile, do you see that?' the traffic controller said.

'Oh those guys will try to rough me up if I try land there,' Rich replied. 'I think I might mess something up there too. I wouldn't want to do that. Oh they probably have got anti-aircraft.'

'They don't have any of that stuff, we are just trying to find you a place to land safely.'

'Yeah, not quite ready to bring it down just yet, but holy smokes I need to stop looking at the fuel 'cos it's going down quick.'

'OK, Rich, if you could, could you start a left-hand turn and we'll take you down to the south-east.'

'This is probably jail time for life, huh? I would hope it is for a guy like me. '

Rich: I've got a lot of people that care about me. It's going to disappoint them to hear that I did this.

I would like to apologize to each and every one of them. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose I guess. Never really knew it, until now

Rich: I'm down to 2,100, I started at like 30-something.

Air traffic control: Rich, you said you had 2,100 pounds of fuel left?

Rich: Yeah, I don't know what the burnage, burnout? Is like on a takeoff, but yeah, it's burned quite a bit faster than I expected.

Air traffic control: Right now he's just flying around, and he just needs some help controlling the aircraft.

Rich: Nah I mean, I don't need that much help. I've played some video games before. I would like to figure out how to get this make it pressurized or something so I'm not lightheaded.

Rich: Ah minimum wage. We'll chalk it up to that. Maybe that will grease the gears a little bit with the higher-ups

Rich: Damnit Andrew, people's lives are at stake here.

Air traffic control: Ah Rich, don't say stuff like that.

Rich: I don't want to hurt anyone, I just want you to whisper sweet nothings into my ear.

Rich: Hey do you think if I land this successfully Alaska will give me a job as a pilot?

Air traffic control: You know, I think they would give you a job doing anything if you could pull this off.

Rich: Yeah right! Nah, I'm a white guy

Air traffic control: If you wanted to land, probably your best bet is that runway just ahead and to your left. Again, that's McCourt (sic) Field.

If you wanted to try, that might be the best way to set up and see if you can land there. Or just like the pilot's suggestion, the other option might be over Puget Sound, into the water.

Rich: Dang, did you talk to McCourt, cause I don't know if I'd be happy with you telling me I could land like that, cause I could really mess some stuff up.

Air traffic control: Well Rich I already talked to 'em. Just like me, what we want to see is you not get hurt, or anyone else get hurt. So if you want to try to land, that's the way to go.

Rich: Hey I want the coordinates of that orca, you know, the mama orca with the baby. I want to see that guy.

Rich: Hey, is that pilot on? I want to know what this weather is going to be like in the Olympics (mountains).

Air traffic control: Well, if you can see the Olympics, the weather's good. I can see the Olympics from my window, and it looks pretty good over there.

Rich: Alright, 'cause I felt some, what felt like turbulence around Rainer, but there was no clouds hardly.

Air traffic control: Oh, that's just the wind blowing over all over the bumpy surfaces there.

Captain Bill: Alright Rich, this is Captain Bill. Congratulations, you did that, now let's try to land that airplane safely and not hurt anyone on the ground.

Rich: Alright, damnit, I don't know man, I don't know. I don't want to I was kind of hoping that would be it, you know.

Rich: I'm gonna land it, in a safe kind of manner. I think I'm gonna try to do a barrel roll, and if that goes good, I'm just gonna nose down and call it a night.

Air traffic control: Well Rich, before you do that, let's think about this. I've got another pilot coming up, pilot Joel, in just a minute here I hope. And we'll be able to give you some advice on what to do next.

Rich: I feel like one of my engines is going out or something.

Air traffic control: OK Rich, if you could, you just want to keep that plane right over the water. Maybe keep the aircraft nice and low.

Rich: Just kind of lightheaded, dizzy. Man, the sights went by so fast. I was thinking, like, I'm going to have this moment of serenity, take in all the sights. There's a lot of pretty stuff, but they're prettier in a different context.

Air traffic control: Do you have any idea of how much fuel you have left?

Rich: Oh man, not enough. Not enough to get by. Like, uh, 760? 760 pounds?

Air traffic control: Just flying around the plane, you seem comfortable with that?

Rich: Oh hell yeah, its a blast. Ive played video games before so I know what Im doing a little bit.

Air traffic control: OK, and you can see all the terrain around you, youve got no issue with visibility or anything?

Rich: Naw, everythings peachy, peachy clean. Just did a little circle around Rainer, its beautiful. I think Ive got some gas to go check out the Olympics (mountains).

Rich: I wouldnt know how to land it, I wasnt really planning on landing it.

Rich: Sorry, my mic came off, I threw up a little bit. Im sorry about this, I hope this doesnt ruin your day.

Rich: Man, have you been to the Olympics? These guys are gorgeous, holy smokes.

Air traffic control: Ya, I have been out there, its always a nice drive.

Rich: (inaudible)

Air traffic control: Hey I bet you do. I havent done much hiking over there. But if you could start a left turn, and back towards the east. I know youre getting a good view there, but if you go too much farther in that direction I wont be able to hear you anymore.

Rich: Hey pilot guy, can this thing do a backflip, you think?

Rich: I wouldnt mind just shooting the s**t with you guys, but its all business, you know?
A new study has revealed the evolving tastes of Australian drinkers as more are opting to enjoy mid-strength beers and non-alcoholic beverages.

According to the Euromonitor International's report, the sales of non-alcoholic beverages in Australia have risen by 57 per cent over the past five years.

The national average of alcohol consumed per person has also dropped over the past year from 157.3 litres to 153 litres, 9news reported.

A new report from Euromonitor International has revealed that Australians are increasingly choosing to drink non-alcoholic beverages or mid-strength beer

Research from Nielsen Consumer & Media indicates that millennials are concerned about a healthy lifestyle and take that into consideration when purchasing alcohol

There has also been a growth in popularity of mid-strength beer as it now represents 14.1 per cent of the total beer market.

Research from Nielsen Consumer & Media suggests that millennials, aged between 18 and 34, are less likely to drink than their elders as they've become more concerned by a healthy lifestyle.

'Millennials look for value but they also rate health factors such as low carb, calories, vitamin-fortified and organic as very important; compared to Boomers who favour value and price, particularly when purchasing beer and cider,' the Nielsen report said.

While millennials drink less than older Australians they are more likely to visit a bar or a pub each week.

Millennials are also more likely to spend more money at licensed premises when compared to Generation X and Baby Boomers.
Uber and Lyft have joined Airbnb in saying they may refuse service to protesters involved in the Unite the Right rally this weekend.

The controversial event is planned for Washington DC's Lafayette Park on Sunday, the one year anniversary of protests in Charlottesville, Virginia that devolved into deadly clashes.

Both ride-sharing companies released statements this week that, without directly denouncing Unite the Right participants, made clear that drivers could refuse service to anyone who makes them uncomfortable or violates guidelines against discrimination.

Uber said in a note to drivers that its community guidelines were meant to ensure 'everyone in the vehicle has a shared standard for respect, accountability, and common courtesy'.

Antifa and white nationalists are seen clashing at last year's Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville. Uber and Lyft are allowing drivers to refuse service this year in DC

The company said in a statement to CBS News that drivers have a right to refuse service to riders 'who are disrespectful or who make them feel unsafe'.

Lyft told the outlet that if its drivers 'ever feel uncomfortable or disrespected by a passenger, they can cancel that ride.

Earlier in the week, Airbnb warned that it might ban protesters who are involved in Unite the Right.

The company said protesters who are found to be violating AirBnb's community values risk having their accommodation cancelled and accounts removed.

Airbnb said all its users have to agree to its policies, which state they have: 'to treat everyone in the Airbnb community - regardless of their race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or age - with respect, and without judgment or bias'.

'When we identify and determine that there are those who would be pursuing behavior on the Airbnb platform that would be antithetical to the Airbnb Community Commitment, we seek to take appropriate action, which may include removing them from the platform,' Airbnb said in a statement provided to ABC News.

Uber said in a note to drivers that its community guidelines were meant to ensure 'everyone in the vehicle has a shared standard for respect, accountability, and common courtesy'

The rally on Sunday is being organized by the same people behind the infamous Charlottesville rally.

Airbnb cancelled reservations and accounts ahead of the Charlottesville rally last year as well.

'We acted in advance of last year's horrific event in Charlottesville and if we become aware of similar information we won't hesitate to do so again,' they said in a statement.

Washington authorities have ramped up the capital's emergency level to allow for additional resources to prevent violence ahead of the protest, but some are bracing for confrontation.

Last year's protests in Charlottesville began August 11 and saw hundreds of neo-Nazi sympathizers yelling white nationalist slogans.

They had gathered to protest efforts to remove statues of Confederate leaders, including one of the Confederacy's top general, Robert E Lee.

When the demonstrations continued on August 12, fighting broke out between Unite the Right demonstrators and anti-fascists from a black-clad group called Antifa.

The violence culminated when a car drove into a car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing a woman and injuring 19 people.
With more than 1000 New Zealand ex-pats sent back to their homeland since 2014 the NZ Prime Minister is calling on Australia to put an end to the deportations.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern returned to parliament this week and addressed the rising tensions between New Zealand's justice minister Andrew Little and Home Affairs Minister Peter Dutton.

The deportation of New Zealand citizens back to their home country is viewed unkindly by lawmakers who say they are protecting the rights of New Zealand citizens.

After more than 1000 New Zealand ex-pats were deported back to their homeland since 2014 the NZ Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern (pictured) is calling for Australia to stop deporting kiwis

'We will keep talking about citizenship, we will keep trying to protect the rights of New Zealanders who study, we will keep talking about deportation. None of it holds back the rest though,' Ms Ardern told AAP.

'The reason we raise it is because we hope for some change, but we also acknowledge it's their domestic policy and their right to set it.'

Mr Dutton has been a leading advocate of deporting violent criminals back to their home countries and has taken to social media on a number of occasions to champion his stance.

'Deporting foreign criminals not only protects Australians, but new research shows that it saves money too,' he wrote on his Twitter.

'We saved $116 million from cancelling 184 visas of bikies and organised crime figures.'

Mr Dutton spoke to The Herald Sun and said the move was a nationwide initiative.

'Right across our country weve been working with the state policing agencies to identify the top criminal targets,' he said.

Mr Dutton has been a leading advocate of deporting violent criminals back to their home countries and has taken to social media on a number of occasions to champion his stance

'We saved $116 million from cancelling 184 visas of bikies and organised crime figures,' Mr Dutton said.

'Including outlaw motorcycle gang members who are peddling ice to our young people in rural communities and regional communities and we are cancelling those visas and deporting those people.'

Mr Dutton said he has cancelled more visas of non-citizens who have been convicted of a crime in the last year than Labor did in six years.

'And that means that communities right across this country are safer.'

Despite the contention between parliament offices Ms Ardern said the relationship between New Zealand and Australia would always be an important and strong one.

'We have the kind of relationship that means we can speak frankly with one another and I really value that,' she told AAP.

'I don't think that the fact we have different opinions on a few issues really holds us back.'
Christian Gulzow, 37, was sentenced to 42 years in prison on Friday in Denver

A death-metal who was wearing claw-like gloves and clown-style makeup when he stabbed a homeless man to death has been sentenced to 42 years in prison has been found guilty of stabbing a homeless man to death.

Christian Gulzow, 37, was sentenced on Friday in Denver. He had faced up to 48 years after being convicted in June of second-degree murder in the death of Brian Lucero, 29.

Prosecutors say Gulzow fatally stabbed Lucero in the neck with blades attached to his gloves in the parking lot of Torchy's Tacos on May 23, 2017.

Police have said that witnesses reported seeing a man with white clown makeup with black streaks threatening Lucero, who was living on the streets, in a nearby convenience store.

Authorities have said Gulzow followed Lucero when he left the store. Lucero was later found with a mortal stab wound to his neck.

Denver prosecutors said Christian Gulzow (left), 37, was wearing demonic-clown makeup when he slashed to death 29-year-old Brian Lucero (right) with his claw-like gloves last year

After the assault, Guzlow took off on his scooter, but was later found a few blocks away thanks to Denver's system of surveillance cameras.

Police say that when they found Guzlow, his clothes were covered in blood.

Gulzow was then taken into police custody.

He told interrogators that he was threatened by the homeless victim who yelled at him 'to get out of my alley.'

Gulzow told police that Lucero attacked him and stole his scooter.

Gulzow said he may have hurt Lucero when he tackled him as the 29-year-old vagrant was driving away on Gulzows scooter.

Crime scene: The fatal stabbing took place outside Torchy's Tacos in Denver on May 23, 2017

He also acknowledged that he may have cut Lucero while he jabbed him with his 'clawed glove.'

Witnesses at the scene, however, told a different story, according to police, claiming that Gulzow took swings at Lucero with 2- to 3-inch blades mounted on his gloves, reported Belleville News-Democrat.

Gulzow, who has a jail nickname, Diablo, has a lengthy history of run-ins with the law.

His record includes numerous convictions on domestic violence and assault charges, as well as a felony count of menacing with a deadly weapon.

The 37-year-old father-of-one worked at a local pizza restaurant and sang in a death-metal band, where he went by the name Christof Gulzowpruzenstein.

He was known in the area for riding his scooter while dressed as a demonic clown, a vampire or a ghoul.
A mountain lion that became trapped inside a Colorado home killed a house cat before police and wildlife officers were able to scare it out.

Boulder police say the homeowner came back to the house late Thursday night and found the mountain lion inside.

It appeared that it had pushed through a screen and couldn't get back out.

Boulder police say the homeowner came back to the house late Thursday night and found the mountain lion inside

It appeared that it had pushed through a screen and couldn't get back out, said Boulder Police

A neighbor just sent me a video where you can see the mountain lion peeking out a window pic.twitter.com/fGGFvzw22t  Mitchell Byars (@mitchellbyars) August 10, 2018

The big cat roamed throughout two levels of the home for more than an hour before officers used non-lethal rounds to scare it out the front door and away from the neighborhood, which is just southwest of downtown Boulder.

Police officers, who photographed the mountain lion lying down between a coffee table and a couch, called the break-in worrisome and asked residents to keep ground-level doors and windows locked at night.

'Last night, a mountain lion entered a home on Marine St through a screen door, No people were injured but a house cat was killed,' Boulder police posted to Twitter.

'Please keep ground level doors and windows closed and locked at night and when you are not home. (This is also good advice for bears and burglars.)'

Last month, Lauren Taylor (pictured) came home to find that a mountain lion was sleeping for six or more hours behind her sofa

Last month, a woman from Oregon came home to find that a mountain lion was sleeping for six or more hours behind her sofa.

Lauren Taylor says the lion had been drinking from a fountain nearby her back door, which was open, before letting itself into the home.

'The door was open and the room has huge plants and stairs built around real tree branches, so she likely didn't even realize she was walking indoors until she was inside,' she told friends on Facebook.

'She immediately tried to leave through a closed window, became frightened when someone screamed, and hid behind the sofa.'

Lauren said that when she came to see what was going on, the animal was 'frightened, agitated, and determined to exit through a closed window'.

Eventually, the mountain lion calmed down and hid herself behind the sofa. Lauren says she went outside to see through the window what the beast was doing, and was stunned to find she was asleep.

Lauren said the when she came to see what was going on, the animal was 'frightened, agitated, and determined to exit through a closed window'

The lion stayed behind her couch for six hours - occasionally waking up and making eye contact with Lauren before stretching and going back to sleep

The lion stayed behind her couch for six hours - occasionally waking up and making eye contact with Lauren before stretching and going back to sleep.

Finally, Lauren decided the mountain lion was calm enough for her to try and coax the unwelcome house guest back outside.

'It was just a couple hours to dawn and we needed to prompt her to leave without alarming her so much that she panicked,' she explained.

'I sent telepathic pictures of the routes out of the house via open doors and the route out the backyard, across the creek, through an open field, and back up into the hills.

'We got guidance that the way to rouse her and get her to leave her safe spot behind the sofa without panicking was through drumming.'

Finally, Lauren decided the mountain lion was calm enough for her to try and coax the unwelcome house guest back outside
A team of Australian divers are set to close the lid on the 25-year-long maritime mystery surrounding the final resting place of Captain Cook's Endeavour.

Four experts will delve into the depths of Newport Harbour, Rhode Island, in a renewed search for the vessel, which disappeared from records in 1778.

Following its famous journey with Cook in 1768-1771, it was sold to John Wilkinson in 1775 and renamed Lord Sandwich before archival records named it one of 13 ships to arrive in the US harbour in 1778 as a troop carrier.

The vessel later became a prison ship in that same harbour before ultimately being scuttled - that is, deliberately sunk - to form a blockade against the French Fleet.

It was a document recently discovered by Kathy Abbass of the Rhode Island Marine Archaeology Project which suggested that Lord Sandwich was the very same ship as Captain Cook's famous Endeavour.

A team of Australian divers are set to close the lid on the 25-year-long maritime mystery surrounding the final resting place of Captain Cook's Endeavour (replica)

Sydney-based marine archaeologist James Hunter from the Australian National Maritime Museum will be one of the men tasked with the potential history-making discovery, The Australian reported.

Dr Hunter said the cluster of ships were between 15 and 25 metres beneath the surface, but Endeavour now was likely to be one of five in the area.

'You're dealing with five vessels from the same century, the same decade, roughly the same size, mainly from England,' he said.

'What you have is several shipwreck sites built at the same time and they don't have plaques that say, 'Hey, I'm this ship'.'

Four experts will delve into the depths of Newport Harbour (pictured), Rhode Island, in a renewed search for the vessel, which disappeared from records in 1778

Dr Hunter said being able to identify the ship would be reliant on meticulous investigation, involving scoping out structures in murky, muddy water.

'You get this section of hull that's buried but, if you're lucky, you have elements of that site that are above the mudline. We look at the overall length of the hull. If timbers are exposed, we would look at those timbers.'

He added that often the most crucial giveaways were in the minute details, such as the size of each structure and the types of materials.

Following its famous journey with Cook (illustrated) in 1768-1771, it was sold to John Wilkinson in 1775 and renamed Lord Sandwich before archival records named it one of 13 ships to arrive in the US harbour in 1778

The team of divers seeking to find the wreck of the Endeavour are set to begin their search next month.

Their mission will commence just weeks after the 250th anniversary of Captain Cook's historic departure, on August 25th, aboard the ship from Plymouth, England in 1768.

It is believed the vessel was sunk ten years after it disembarked on that famous journey.
A 19-year-old from Tonga has had a large tumour removed from her jaw in at a Melbourne hospital.

Surgeons extracted the tumour from Silia Tupou'ila's jaw during the eight-hour operation at Cabrini Hospital in the eastern Melbourne suburb of Malvern.

Medical staff at the hospital stepped in to help end Ms Tupou'ila's suffering after she spent five years living with extreme pain.

After 20 days in recovery, the teenager is ready to return to Tonga and get back to the community from which she has felt excluded during her tumour's growth.

Plastic surgeon Dr William Blake, according to Channel 7, said Ms Tupou'ila's jaw would have broken if the benign growth was not removed.

The procedure involved replacing the tumour with a bone from the woman's leg.

Medical staff at a Melbourne hospital stepped in to remove a tumour from the head of a young Tongan woman who had been in extreme pain for 5 years

Ms Tupou'ila said she was looking forward to getting back to singing and her job in her home country.

She said: 'I'm feeling good, I'm feeling better, you know, I'm in a new life now.'

Melanie Likos, from the Children First Foundation (CFF), said that the young woman's trip to the Melbourne hospital was the first time she had left Tonga.

The tumour could have broken her jaw if it was not removed, according to plastic surgeon Dr William Blake

The Tongan 19-year-old is now back in good health and looking forward to returning home -having had the tumour removed and gone through a 20-day recovery

She said: 'This is the very first time she has left Tonga and the first time she has been in a city and in a hospital.'

The CFF arrange for children born with congenital anomalies to be treated outside of their country of birth.

They consult with surgeons and hospitals to then ensure the condition is operable.
An off-duty police officer who was surfing managed to stop two Moroccan men who allegedly trying to rape a British tourist.

The two men were arrested on the beach after the officer heard the woman screaming for help in Tenerife.

The incident happened in the popular holiday resort of Playa de Las Americas, towards the south of the island.

Local reports suggest the woman agreed to go to the beach when she was then set upon by the men. Pictured: the beach at Playa de las Americas in Tenerife (stock image)

Local reports suggest the woman agreed to go to the beach, where she was then targeted after meeting up with one of the men during a night out.

A friend of the first Moroccan man then appeared at the scene, where the police officer was forced to intervene in the incident.

The policeman and his friend were then involved in a brawl with the men and managed to hold the suspects down until colleagues arrived to formally arrest them.

One of the men has been remanded in jail pending an ongoing criminal investigation after appearing in front of a judge at a closed court hearing.

The other suspect, an illegal immigrant, has been sent to a foreigners' holding centre known as a CIE.

The British holidaymaker is understood to have flown back to the UK after giving a statement to police and ratifying her version of events to the same investigating judge who ordered the suspects' remand in custody.
Syria says its air defences fired at a 'hostile target' breaching the country's air space west of the capital Damascus.

State news agency SANA blamed Israel for the incursion and another last Thursday night when its air defences were activated in a similar way in the same area.

'In the past few weeks, the Israeli enemy has attacked military positions,' it said of the engagements near the Lebanese border.

Syria says its air defences fired at a 'hostile target' breaching the country's air space west of the capital Damascus

There were reports of 'air defences confronting a hostile target breaching the skies above the area of Deir al-Asha'ir in the Damascus countryside' early Sunday morning.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said air defences reacted to 'targets aiming at regime and loyalist positions in Deir al-Ashair' near the Lebanese border.

It said Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which has been backing the Damascus government in Syria's seven-year civil war, was present in the area.

There were reports of 'air defences confronting a hostile target breaching the skies above the area of Deir al-Asha'ir in the Damascus countryside' early Sunday morning

Israel, concerned Iran's growing presence in Syria poses a threat to its security, has struck dozens of Iranian and Iran-backed positions in Syria over the course of the country's seven-year conflict.

A spokeswoman for the Israeli military said it did not comment on foreign reports.

Damascus last month took back control of its entire border with the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights and its southwest border with Jordan after an offensive which began in June.
A 16-year-old has died after a driver hit a group of pedestrians.

Officers from the Major Crash Unit are investigating the fatal crash in Monjingup, more than 700km south east of Perth.

At 1.30am on August 11 a car travelling along Davis Road plowed into a group of pedestrians.

A 16-year-old girl was critically injured at 1.30am on August 11 a car travelling along Davis Road plowed into a group of pedestrians (Pictured: general street view of David Road)

Officers from the Major Crash Unit are investigating the fatal crash in Monjingup, more than 700km south east of Perth

The 16-year-old was taken to Esperance Hospital which is nine kilometres south of Monjingup.

She died from her injuries when she arrived at hospital.

A 19-year-old man is helping police with their inquiries.

Investigators are looking into whether speed was a factor in the crash.

Police are urging anyone with information on the crash or saw a white Holden utility before the crash to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000 or make an online report here.
A man who allegedly spat on a strangers baby because he thought 'he didn't like him' has been denied bail.

Derek Frederick Brimson was charged with common assault at Parramatta Bail Court on Saturday for the alleged attack on the boy.

The 67-year-old from Wooloomooloo in Sydney's affluent eastern suburbs allegedly spat on the baby who was in his pram at the time.

Derek Frederick Brimson was charged with common assault at Parramatta Bail Court after he allegedly spat on an 18-month-old boy

Mr Brimson is believed to have approached the 18-month-old, who was in the company of his parents at Town Hall on August 7.

Magistrate Darryl Pearce refused the Mr Brimson's release application and adjourned his matter - involving an 'innocent child'.

He will appear at Central Local Court on August 15.
Further south, in Melbourne, residents experienced rain and hail on Saturday

Southern states have been lashed by freezing cold front and wild winds

Weather will drop by almost ten degrees on Sunday as cold front hits east coast

Sydney enjoyed sunshine on Saturday as the warm temperatures reached 25C

Australia's temperamental weather has continued on with Sydneysiders experiencing unseasonably warm temperatures.

The weekend kicked off with a sunny and incredibly warm 25C in Sydney, seven degrees higher than the average temperature for August.

Senior Forecaster at the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) Philip Landvogt said the average temperature in Sydney for August was 17.9C.

Sydneysiders enjoyed unseasonably high temperatures on Saturday as the city hit 25C. The average temperature for August is 17.9C

A Weatherzone forecaster told Daily Mail Australia that the above average temperatures will continue over the coming months and into October, for all of south-eastern Australia

Despite warm weather on Saturday, the temperature is set to drop by almost ten degrees in Sydney on Sunday. BOM has said the cold front could bring possible snow flurries to the central tablelands

A Weatherzone forecaster told Daily Mail Australia the above average temperatures would likely continue over the coming months and into October, for most of south-eastern Australia.

Sydneysiders were encouraged to make the most of Saturday's warmer weather before temperatures dropped again on Sunday.

'A strong frontal system will be impacting the south-east of the country ahead of a cold front which will cross New South Wales on Sunday,' the forecaster said.

The Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said Sydney residents would wake to crisp temperatures on Sunday.

'A cold change moving through tonight means a cooler start tomorrow for City2Surf. Expecting around 9C at race start, with light W'ly winds strengthening and tending SW'ly during the morning,' BOM said on Twitter.

BOM also said that the cold front could bring possible snow flurries to the central tablelands.

The temperature is expected to drop by almost ten degrees with a maximum of 18C forecast for Sydney on Sunday.

Social media users from Sydney were excited by the unseasonably warm conditions on Saturday (pictured)

There are strong wind warnings for Byron Coast, Coffs Coast, Macquarie Coast, Hunter Coast, Sydney Coast, Illawarra Coast and Batemans Coast.

Winds in Sydney will reach 35 km/h during the morning on Sunday when they turn southwesterly.

Despite Saturday's sunshine on the east-coast, Melbourne was hit with sporadic weather.

Melbourne residents shared their confusion on social media as they were forced to endure volatile conditions.

Twitter users posted images of the hail that braced their backyards while the skies appeared to be clear and sunny.

'Yesterday it was 19 degrees and spring-like. Today started out sunny & not too cold. But then...' wrote one user.

'Melbourne's weather is a troll. Blue skies to hail in a second,' tweeted another.

Melbourne residents tweeted about the weather and how the day started clear and sunny before they endured hail (pictured)

The unfortunate weather in Melbourne is expected to continue on Sunday with a maximum temperature of 14C, local early frost and a 50 per cent chance of rain.

It will be partly cloudy and westerly winds will fluctuate between 25 and 35 km/h.

BOM has warned of severe winds in Victoria in East Gippsland Coast, West Coast, Central Coast and Central Gippsland Coast.

A gust of 115 km/h was recorded at 10.43pm on Friday evening at Mt Buller, around 200 kilometres North East of Melbourne.

In the Northern Territory, BOM has issued a fire warning for Darwin and Adelaide River, Northern Fire Protection Area and Daly South as temperatures continue to soar.
The search continues for a one-year-old boy who has been missing for close to a week.

Harley Bullmore-Dainsley was last seen at Airport West which is 11 kilometres north-west of Melbourne on Sunday August 5.

Police released photos of the child's parents on Saturday and urged anyone with information about the child's whereabouts to contact officers.

Police have release images of Harley's parents in the hope that someone will recognise them (Pictured: Harley's mother Laura Bullmore, 34)

It is believed the infant is with his parents Shane Dainsley, 46, and Laura Bullmore, 34.

Police have release images of Harley's parents in the hope that someone will recognise them.

The 46-year-old and the 34-year-old are known to go to Airport West and Balliang areas.

Police said they held grave concerns for Harley's safety.

Anyone who has seen Harley or his parents, or may have information on where they are, has been urged to contact Avondale Heights Police Station on 9337 6777.
Two people who fled the scene after a man was fatally attacked in a quiet suburban street in Sydney's inner west, remain on the run.

Emergency services were called to the intersection of Hereford Street and Minogue Crescent at Forest Lodge near Glebe at around 12.40pm on Friday after a man was attacked with a samurai sword in broad daylight.

The man died at the scene and is yet to be formally identified but is believed to be a 30-year-old man.

Police released descriptions of a woman and man witnesses saw running from the scene, and appealed for help from the public to locate the pair.

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New South Wales Police has appealed for a woman and man seen fleeing from the scene (pictured) of a fatal assault on Friday to come forward

Witnesses said they saw the victim, believed to be aged 30, staggering down the street and collapsing after he was attacked in the suburb of Forest Lodge, near Glebe, on Friday afternoon

Police would like to speak to a woman described as Caucasian, aged in her early 20s, thin build, about 178cm tall, with bleached blonde hair and dark coloured roots.

She was wearing a black singlet and maroon three-quarter pants at the time.

Her male companion was described as Caucasian, aged in his late 20s medium build, about 178cm tall with short brown hair.

'Police want to reassure the community that the attack is not considered random,' a NSW Police statement said.

Resident Lynn Charlesworth's car (pictured) was covered in blood from the victim as he tried to escape

Police seized a firearm and a number of weapons to be forensically examined but said no shots were fired.

Officers from Leichhardt Police joined forces with detectives from the State Crime Command's Homicide Squad to establish Strike Force Hedda to investigate the man's death.

Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

Police are desperately hunting for a woman and man wanted in relation to the fatal attack of a man in a quiet suburban area on Friday afternoon (officers pictured at the scene)

Police were called to the intersection of Hereford Street and Minogue Crescent at Forest Lodge around 12.40pm to find a body lying in the middle of the road (pictured)

Police raided a house in a nearby street following the discovery of a gun near the body, but later uncovered it was a replica.

Witnesses said they saw the victim staggering down the street and collapsing after hearing an altercation.

Resident Lynne Charlesworth heard a woman's screams and saw the victim slumped in the street, covered in blood.

Her car was covered in his blood as he tried to escape.

'I told him to stay still and he started to roll across the street,' she told reporters on Saturday.

'He got to our car, laid back on it and pulled himself up. He was doing anything to get away, anything at all. His head was covered in blood. I couldn't tell you what his features were.'

Heavily armed police and officers carrying a battering ram closed in on a house nearby in Cross Street just after the fatal attack in broad daylight

Resident Alex Ververis arrived home shortly after the incident and described it as 'really unexpected and kind of scary'.

'I came back with my kid after swimming lessons. We know everyone on the street, there's nothing untoward and nothing suspicious,' he told ABC News.

Police are yet to reveal exactly what caused the victim's fatal injuries, but said a man and woman were seen fighting with him before his death.

Officers followed a trail of blood from the body to a nearby property on Hereford Street, and heavily armed officers carrying a battering ram closed in on the house.

A wide-scale manhunt continued on Saturday while a man and woman remain on the run.

The pair reportedly live on the street where the attack occurred.

Pictures from the scene show the body covered with a white blanket surrounded by police at the intersection of Hereford Street and Minogue Crescent

Police were called to the intersection around 12.40pm on Friday, where Acting Superintendent Sam Crisafulli (pictured) told reporters that the victim was 'sadly found deceased on the street'

A builder working nearby told 9 News he and his workmates had heard a 'loud bang' and thought someone may have been run over by a car.

'One of the boys ran down to see if he was okay,' the man said.

He said the victim had 'a lot of blood coming out of his head'.

Another witness said she heard a lady yelling: 'Get away. Get the f**k away from me'.

The incident is believed to have been targeted and to have occurred after a man and a woman were 'seen in an altercation' with the victim prior to his death.

'We've spoken to a number of witnesses who tell us shortly before we were called a man and a woman were in an altercation with another man,' Superintendent Sam Crisafulli said.

'It was a violent attack with very, very serious consequences.'

Several crime scenes were established along Hereford Street on Friday, including inside a private residence

'We've spoken to a number of witnesses who tell us shortly before we were called a man and a woman were in an altercation with another man,' Superintendent Crisafulli said

A man and woman remain on the run after a man was killed in Sydney's inner west. Police were called to the intersection around 12.40pm on Friday and have reportedly already found a weapon

Detectives from the homicide squad are part of a strike force set up to investigate the man's death
A family-run theme park where a schoolgirl died after falling from a water rapids ride could face prosecution for corporate manslaughter.

A full file has now been handed to prosecutors by police who have been investigating the tragedy over the past 15 months.

Evha Jannath, 11, was killed on the Splash Canyon during a school trip in May last year just four days after celebrating her birthday.

Evha Jannath, 11, was killed after falling off a water rapids ride during a school trip in May 2017

She was killed on the Splash Canyon (pictured) at Drayton Manor near Tamworth, Staffordshire

The star attraction has remained closed ever since and may never reopen.

The pupil from Leicester was jolted from a packed dinghy as she stood up to swap seats with a class mate but was flung into the five-feet-high choppy water and 'sucked under' by fierce rapids.

After an alleged delay by staff at the popular park near Tamworth, Staffordshire, the youngster was rescued and airlifted unconscious to Birmingham Children's Hospital but was pronounced dead shortly after arrival.

A spokesperson for the Crown Prosecution Service told MailOnline today: 'We received a file of evidence from Staffordshire Police on 25 July in relation to an allegation of corporate manslaughter.

After the death of little Evha (pictured) the star attraction has remained closed ever since and may never reopen

This file will now be considered in accordance with the Code for Crown Prosecutors and a decision will be made in due course.'

News of possible criminal charges being brought against 70-year-old owner Colin Bryan, CBE, come as the long awaited full inquest into Evha's death is due to be held in 10 days on August 20.

A post mortem examination revealed she had died from 'blunt force chest trauma.'

Her devastated family say their 'world has been torn apart' and they still mourn her loss and 'miss her every single hour or every single day.'

They have complained through their local MP about the length of time the investigation has taken are still considering bringing civil action against the park.

The family-run theme park could now face prosecution for corporate manslaughter

A spokesperson for Staffordshire Police, who have been conducting a painstakingly inquiry with safety experts, said: 'We continue to investigate and work with the Health and Safety Executive. A file has been submitted to the Crown Prosecution Service and we are awaiting their considered response.'

The force's Chief Inspector John Quilty described it as ' a very intense investigation' as they try to establish exactly how the accident happened.

The CPS will decide over the coming weeks if there if enough evidence to prosecute. The theme park in picturesque Drayton Basset - the fifth biggest in the UK - was once the country estate of Sir Robert Peel, creator of the first British police force and a former Prime Minister.

The park, which is home to Europe's only 'Thomas Land' and attracts up to 5,000-strong daily crowds at peak times, has been packed with families over the summer holidays.

Evha's brother Muhammed Islam has a Pokemon glass, bowl and plate set which the 11-year-old bought at Drayton Manor with the 10 he gave her on the day she died

Drayton Manor previously said Splash Canyon would remain closed until the inquiry has 'fully concluded and the facts established.'

A spokesperson for the Health and Safety Executive said: 'The water ride is closed and there are no imminent plans for it to be reopened while our investigation is ongoing. There is a strong chance the ride will never open again.'

Evha's university student brother Muhammed Islam, 20, said on the first anniversary of her death in May: 'This is a difficult time for our family and the pain is still unbearable.'

After the tragedy which shocked the nation and forced the park to close for four days, the Watford-born victim's heartbroken mum Musammath Nurun Nahar, 44, and dad Muhammed Suable Islam, 47, who is separated from his wife paid tribute to their 'beautiful little girl who was full of love and always smiling.'

Leicester East MP Keith Vaz, who represents the family, said they were 'very concerned about the delay' in the investigation.

He said: 'The concerns of the family are clearly that, one year on, the inquiries have yet to be completed and the coroner's inquest has yet to take place.'

The 20-year-old said on the first anniversary of her death in May: 'This is a difficult time for our family and the pain is still unbearable'

Mr Vaz, who called for tougher safety legislation for theme park water rides during a Commons debate, said discussions were under way. He added: 'I am pleased that agencies are looking into the issue of safety in theme parks.'

Evha, who is of Bangladeshi heritage, was a pupil at the private Jameah Girls Academy in Leicester. Following the tragedy Drayton Manor Park issued a statement saying: 'The terrible incident has left a family grieving and we continue to offer our deepest thoughts and condolences to the family and friends of Evha Jannath.

'We will continue to offer support to all those affected, including colleagues, and will provide all necessary assistance to the relevant authorities.'

A park spokesperson told MailOnline today: 'No charges have been brought by the Police. We continue to cooperate fully with the HSE in its investigation and it would not be appropriate to comment further whilst the authorities carry out their ongoing inquiries. The Drayton Manor community remains deeply saddened by the incident and our thoughts continue to be with the family and friends of Evha Jannath.'

The theme park was founded in 1950 by George and Vera Bryan. The couple bought Peel's country home, which by then had fallen into disrepair along with 80 acres of land for 6,000 in 1949 and turned it into a thriving attraction. Their son Colin has been MD since 1973 and awarded an CBE for his services.
A British mother received a delightful kiss from her son after enduring a hellish stint in a Dubai jail for drinking a glass of wine on a flight from London.

Dr Ellie Holman was pictured with joyous Noah, eight, who was glad to have his mother home after she spent three days locked up in the Arab state with her four-year-old daughter.

The dentist, from Sevenoaks, Kent, has received an apology from the Dubai Government over her detention.

Dr Ellie Holman receives a kiss from her eight-year-old son Noah after being being released from a Dubai prison

Dr Ellie Holman and four-year-old daughter Bibi (pictured together) have been told they can return home after being locked up in a Dubai prison

Dr Holman (pictured with her other daughter, Suri) was detained for drinking a glass of wine in an airport in the Arab state

She was told in a telephone call today that she can leave at any time and will not face any charges. The Dubai Government have also said they will pay for the flights home.

The 44-year-old was with her two eldest children who had flown out to Dubai for a visit when she received the news and said she was 'ecstatic.'

She told MailOnline: 'I can't believe this is over. When I got the call from the government telling me they were dropping the case I was in shock.

'I was told to prepare for a long stay in Dubai and a prison sentence. The man on the phone apologised on behalf of the immigration official who put me and Bibi through all of this. I feel like a weight is off my chest. '

The mother-of-three from Sevenoaks, Kent, is hoping to be home on the first available flight accompanied by her visiting children Suri, nine and Noah, eight.

Dentist Dr Holman, pictured with children (from left) Noah, eight, Bibi, and Suri, nine, said her ordeal began when she was surrounded by armed police after trying to film her argument with an immigration official when he claimed her visa had expired

Her partner Gary, pictured with their children, flew out to Dubai to be with his wife and daughter

Mr Holman said the experience had been 'devastating' for her children, pictured

'I can't wait to be safely on my flight with Noah and Suri, and to put all this behind us,' she said.

Dr Holman's release came after the personal intervention of Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed, according to sources in the UAE.

He is said to have ordered her release after MailOnline's coverage of her ordeal and treatment was covered by media worldwide.

Dr Holman's release came after the personal intervention of Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed (pictured)

Dubai, which attracts over 14m visitors each year, is heavily dependent on tourism.

The publicity about Dr Holman's arrest for drinking a glass of wine could have had a deterrent effect on future travellers.

The dramatic twist came just 48 hours after MailOnline exclusively revealed how the mother-of-three was arrested at Dubai airport following a row with an immigration official over her visa.

During dispute over her visa Dr Holman was asked if she had any drunk any alcohol.

Dr Holman said her daughter Bibi, pictured, was inconsolable during the ordeal and she tried to comfort her by reading her books in the jail

She admitted she was served wine by the cabin crew on the Emirates Airlines flight and was told consumption of alcohol was illegal in the UAE.

She said: 'I have never broken the law in my life and I would not have done so this time if I had known that having a glass of wine in my system was an offence.

'I can't believe Emirates Airline would give a glass of wine to a passenger if they know the consequences are so severe in Dubai.'

Dr Holman, pictured with son Noah, said conditions in the cell were 'filthy, foul-smelling and baking hot'

DR Holman told MailOnline how the dispute over her visa quickly escalated with a 'rude and aggressive' immigration officer.

As her single entry visa has expired he demanded she fly back to London immediately.

When Dr Holman refused as she and her daughter were tired from the long flight there followed a tense standoff.

It was then the immigration officer asked if she had been drinking and she admitted to having a glass of wine with her meal during the eight hour flight.

Despite her protestations, she was marched off to a holding cell where her daughter was forced to urinate on the floor as guards would not let her use a toilet.

After being held for several hours Dr Holman provided a blood sample to Dubai authorities which came back with a reading of 0.04% - well under the UK drink drive limit.

Emirates Airlines offers wine on flights from the UK to Dubai as standard practice (file picture)

With no legal representation and not allowed to speak with her family she and Bibi were taken to an airport detention centre where they spent three days.

They were held for three days in a 'baking hot and foul smelling' room and she was forced to clean toilets and mop the floor.

With her traumatised daughter too terrified to leave her side she was forced to sleep in a canteen area where the lights were kept on 24 hours a day.

During their detention the pair did not eat and Dr Holman said she was unable to sleep during her enforced stay.

'The food smelled like rotting garbage and neither Bibi or I could face trying it. I stayed awake for the whole three days,' she said.

She claims they were also denied a pillow or a change of clothing She said Bibi was in a state of shock and refused to be comforted.

After her release Dr Holman was allowed to stay with friends but her passport was confiscated and she was told it could be up to a year until the matter is resolved.

Her partner Gary flew from their home in Kent to Dubai to collect their youngest daughter.

The couple estimate they have lost over 30,000 in earnings and money spent on legal fees.

Since her arrest Dr Holman's practice in Sevenoaks has been closed.

Dr Holman's ordeal was taken up by the NGO Detained in Dubai.

Its CEO Radha Stirling told MailOnline: 'We welcome the intervention of the Dubai government to dismiss the case against Dr Ellie Holman. This is an appropriate response to the international outrage over what she and her daughter suffered.

'We would reiterate, however, that a single instance of intervention does not resolve the ongoing issue of Dubai's confusing policy on drinking.'

Radha Stirling, CEO of Detained in Dubai, said: 'The government of Dubai owns Emirates Airlines, and Emirates Airlines provides alcohol to international passengers free of charge, thereby essentially entrapping them into breaking UAE law as soon as their flights land.

'Dr Holman accepted a complimentary drink, and was then punished for that by the same government who provided it; and there is every reason to expect this to happen again.

'Dr Holman was handcuffed and ill-treated in detention, and her four year old child is still traumatized by what she and her mother endured. They have every right to compensation for their suffering.

'We continue to strongly advise travelers to avoid the UAE, as it remains the number one destination where foreigners are most likely to face legal problems.

'The dismissal of Dr Holman's case does not change the laws, does not change the policies, and does not mitigate the risks faced by anyone traveling to or through the UAE.'
New Zealand is set to ban foreigners buying homes after a spate of millionaires creating luxury doomsday bunkers has apparently pushed property prices up for local buyers.

It comes after purchases by PayPal founder Peter Thiel and disgraced former NBC host Matt Lauer, who lost his job after allegations of sexual misconduct.

The country's centre-left government, led by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, has blamed the wealthy expats for their major housing crisis with homelessness rates being among the highest in the developed world.

Matt Lauer, disgraced NBC host, bought a long-term lease to the 16,000-acre property in February 2017 which stretches from the mountains down to the shores of Lake Hawaea and Lake Wanaka on the country's south island (pictured)

The upcoming ban comes after purchases by PayPal founder Peter Thiel (right) and disgraced former NBC host Matt Lauer (left), who lost his job after allegations of sexual misconduct

Ms Ardern says the law change banning foreigners from owning most types of homes in New Zealand - due to pass in parliament next week - will help decrease property prices.

This along with plans to create 100,000 affordable housing units in a decade will solve the countrys infrastructure woes and its weak construction industry.

The trend of the super-rich planning a safe space to ride out the apocalypse in New Zealand has become almost a cliche in recent years, report The Telegraph.

LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman told The New Yorker last year: 'Saying you're buying a house in New Zealand is kind of a wink, wink, say no more.

The new bill will allow non-residents to buy new apartments in large builds, with existing homes only being made available to people from Australia and Singapore, due to free trade rules.

Yet David Parker, Minister for Trade and Economic Development, said the bill, which he is responsible, for isnt only about house prices.

In this world of concentrating wealth, we dont want this coterie of ultra-wealthy people overseas being able to outbid successful New Zealanders for what is our birthright, not theirs, he said.

New Zealand (pictured) is set to ban foreigners buying homes after a spate of millionaires creating luxury doomsday bunkers has apparently pushed property prices up for local buyers

However many economists, including the International Monetary Fund, question whether that is actually the case in New Zealand.

Only 3.3 per cent of properties were bought by non-residents in the first three months of this year, official figures released in June show.

Yet in the countrys largest city, Auckland, international buyers made up 18.7 per cent of purchases.

While in glamorous Queenstown, 9.7 per cent of property sales went to foreigners.

But house prices have increased everywhere, said Shamubeel Eaqub, a housing economist with Auckland consultancy Sense Partners.

Graham Wall, an Auckland-based real estate broker whose clients have included the Sultan of Brunei and Mr Thiel said the rich expats he deals with are nervous about the new law.

People are surprised and bemused, having been so welcome here, and they cannot understand the new hostility, he said.

He added that those rich international landowners have created thousands of jobs for New Zealanders and billions of dollars for tourism.

Recently a social housing scheme planned for Queenstown nearly fell through after it lost its European investor, Foundation Capital, in March following the impending ban.

A lawmaker from the centre-Right National party, Amy Adams, claimed she had heard of other housing developments that had failed due to investors being wary of the new law.
Researchers are trialing technology to allow you to read up to 800 words a minute by flashing one word at a time in quick succession.

Tech startup Spritz is experimenting with the technique that aims to boost reading speed by eliminating the time it takes to move your eyes between words.

The company is partnering with the BBC on a project to test the concept on its readers in the hope it will make news consumption on phones easier.

the technology by tech firm Spritz is being tested on readers by the BBC and could allow people to scan through news at up to 800 words a minute

'UK adults now spend more time online and consuming media each day than they do sleeping,' the BBC's Cyrus Saihan said.

'We wanted to see what new technologies could be applied to make this overload of information easier for our audiences to manage.

'The technology that we have used in our experiment works on the theory that, by showing you only one word at a time, your eyes can stay in a fixed position and so don't have to be constantly moving whilst you read.

'As a result, the rate at which you can read can be dramatically increased.'

The BBC wrote in its blog that moving your eyes across a block of text takes up 80 per cent of the time spent reading.

The technology puts one of the central letters of a word in red so you can focus your eyes on that one point and not move them.

The technology was designed as people increasingly consume news on their phones and watches, which have less room for text

The average person reads about 200 words a minute, but the broadcaster set up videos that allow readers to try 300, 400, and 800 words a minute.

Mr Saihan said reading one word at a time took some getting used to, but he and his colleagues found it 'relatively easy' after a few minutes.

He said the technology could become crucial in the future when augmented reality put floating text in the air all around us.

'Reading large blocks of text in mid-air might not be possible. Perhaps speed reading text floating in the air, one word at a time, might become something that the children of the future consider to be the norm,' he said.

Smart watches that have very little room for text could also be able to easily broadcast news to users one word at a time.

However, Coventry University cognitive psychologist Cyriel Diels warned the brain might not be able to keep up and eyes could become strained.

The technology puts one of the central letters of a word in red so you can focus your eyes on that one point and not move them, saving on time spent moving eyes across text

'A big difference with normal self-paced reading is that this system-paced reading requires continuous focus and attention on the display to be able to understand any text,' he told the Telegraph.

'People's ability to follow the text will be different for different people, some may be able to follow it at high speeds whereas others won't.'

Dr Diels said if readers lost their focus at all they would miss words and not be able to make sense of the sentence, and couldn't come back to it.

But he called the technology 'impressive' and said it could be useful in some circumstances, without supplanting traditional reading.
A third Palestinian has died after he was shot by Israeli troops as thousands protested along the Gaza border on Friday.

Ahmed Abu Lulu was shot in a section of the border east of the southern city of Rafah and died of his wounds in hospital on Saturday morning.

He was among at least 131 Palestinians wounded by Israeli bullets during Friday's protests, even as an informal truce ending a deadly flare-up between Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas and the Israeli army largely held.

Smoke rises from an explosion after an Israeli airstrike on the Saidd al-Mis'hal cultural centre in Gaza City on Thursday

The debris of Said Al-Mashal Foundation for Arts and Culture building after Israeli forces conducted airstrikes in the strip's capital city on Thursday

Two others died in the border clashes, Ali al-Alul, 55, and volunteer medic Abdullah al-Qatati, 21, Gaza's health ministry confirmed.

A Palestinian was in critical condition after being shot in the head, but it was not clear if this was Mr Lulu or a fourth protester.

A few thousand protesters gathered in different locations along the border, setting tyres ablaze and throwing stones.

The Israeli army said a grenade was thrown at troops guarding the border with northern Gaza without causing any casualties.

It said troops responded with tank fire against two Hamas posts, despite the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, which controls Gaza.

A wounded Palestinian boy is brought into al-Shifa hospital on Thursday following the Israeli air strike on Gaza City

Acrid black smoke fills the air as Palestinians burn tyres in response to Israeli forces' intervention

The European Union called for an urgent 'de-escalation' and warned the two sides are 'dangerously close' to a full-blown conflict just four years on from their last war.

Extensive air strikes were launched at Gaza on Thursday in retaliation for more than 180 rockets and mortar rounds fired by Hamas and its allies on Wednesday night.

But an unofficial ceasefire agreement between the two foes went into effect around midnight.

This evening a few thousand Palestinians gathered along the border for weekly protests.

On Friday, several thousand protesters gathered in different locations along the border with Israel, setting tyres ablaze and throwing stones, but there were fewer people demonstrating than in previous weeks

Grieving relatives of Abdullah al-Qatati, Palestinian volunteer medic, who was killed by Israeli fire along the Gaza border, mourn at the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Yunis, Gaza on August 10

People inspect the rubble of a building after it was destroyed by an Israeli air strike on Gaza City on Thursday

Palestinian protesters escape from tear gas fired by Israeli troops during a protest at the Gaza Strip's border with Israel

Israel's Iron Dome defence system launches an interceptor missile as rockets are launched from Gaza toward the southern city of Sderot

Mr Qatati was in his 20s and a volunteer with the Hamas medical services. A health ministry spokesman says he was shot in the chest in southern Gaza.

He would be at least the second medic to have been killed by Israeli fire during months of border protests. Today's demonstration was smaller that those of previous weeks.

The Israeli army said a few thousand 'rioters' gathered in a number of sites along the border, with soldiers using live fire and other riot dispersal tactics.

Three Palestinians were killed in the Israeli strikes, while seven Israelis were wounded by Palestinian rocket fire.

It was one of the most serious flareups since the 2014 Gaza war and followed months of escalating tensions.

Palestinians demonstrators take part in clashes with Israeli troops near the border, with two Palestinians protesters shot dead today

A Palestinian woman throws a rock with a slingshot during today's demonstration near the Israel-Gaza border in Khan Yunis, Gaza
Dylan Rogers, 26, is accused of beating up and raping a 22-year-old woman at an apartment in Playa de Palma on Wednesday. Pictured being led out by police

A British man has been arrested after he allegedly tied up and raped a woman in the popular holiday resort of Majorca.

Dylan Rogers, 26, is accused of beating up and raping a 22-year-old woman at an apartment in Playa de Palma on Wednesday. She was rushed to hospital with bruising on her arms, legs and face.

The suspect, who is thought to live and work in Magaluf, was arrested at a neighbouring apartment on Thursday.

He was led into court with his head down, wearing shorts and a T-shirt. He was quizzed by a judge yesterday as part of the criminal proceedings.

Local reports described the suspect as a 6ft 2in rugby player.

Police were called to the scene at 4.30pm on Wednesday and made the arrest in the early hours of Thursday morning.

One insider said: 'She was bound with insulating tape and had bruises on her legs, arms and face.

'The suspect was located in a neighbouring flat and arrested several hours later after officers obtained a key and a warrant to access the property.'

The suspect has not been charged with any crime yet, as is normal in Spain where charges are only laid shortly before trial.

Police sources said the woman, a foreign non-British expat, who was targeted by the suspected attacker alerted authorities after freeing herself from binds.

The suspect (pictured), who is thought to live and work in Magaluf, was arrested at a neighbouring apartment on Thursday
When a family broke out in rashes and blisters, they discovered they were living in a home with dangerously high levels of methamphetamine residue.

The family was unaware when they moved into a four-bedroom rental house in Bundall, on the Gold Coast, on December 15, 2017.

Anthony and Sophie Turner, and their two sons, fell ill within weeks.

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Sophie Turner (pictured left) her husband Anthony (pictured right) and their two children moved into a four-bedroom rental house on the Gold Coast on December 15, 2017

Ms Turner had severe migranes and needed to have an ambulance called to the home on several occasions.

Mr Turner suffered gastro issues and their sons, aged 13 and 19, broke out in painful rashes and blisters.

The couples 19-year-old son was born with a heart problem and their doctor is convinced the meth has had some effect in it's worsening.

Ms Turner told the Gold Coast Bulletin: 'It's just mind-blowing what has happened. It's just been a nightmare.'

Meth Screen, a company that tested the house for methamphetamine, found that in some instances more that 20 times higher than the 0.5 micrograms safety guideline was found.

Ten micrograms were found on multiple occasions, however, the bathroom and the dining room did not return high readings.

Meth Screen found that in some instances more that 20 times higher than the 0.5 micrograms safety guideline was found

Ms Turner had severe migranes and needed to have an ambulance called to their home on several occasions. Mr Turner suffered gastro issues and their sons, ages 13 and 19, broke out in rashes and blisters

The Turners broke their lease in mid-July and now live in Ashmore, also on the Gold Coast.

Ms Turner told The Project: 'We have had to exit the home because it is contaminated. It is unlivable. [We] can't take our possessions with us. It has put our health at risk.'

Ben Patrick, from Grindal & Patrick Lawyers, also told the program: 'If there is any evidence that the previous owner or occupant had used or manufactured methamphetamine I think there has to be an obligation on the person to test that the property is safe.

'We expect that by the end of the year there will be a few decisions that will deal with this topic.'

Ben Patrick, from Grindal & Patrick Lawyers, said he expects legislation surrounding homes, methamphetamine residue and testing will be in place at the end of the year (stock image)

Mr Turner claimed that a former real estate agent said that previous tenants had been evicted by The Professionals Bundal for drug use.

The Professionals Bundall partner Kim Richards denied this and said that they had been evicted for not paying their rent on time.

She told the Gold Coast Bulletin that the home would be professionally cleaned, the Turners were reimbursed their rent for one month and that the Gold Coast City Council would also monitor what was going on.

Ms Richards said: 'We can't prove the previous tenant did this  or who has smoked that drug in the property.'

'It came to us as a complete shock to us and the owners.'
Harold St John Philby pictured before starting on his first journey to Mecca in 1930

Kim Philbys father, a Saudi adviser, was also involved in intelligence and betrayal after being exploited by MI6 to win a propaganda war in the Middle East.

One of the most notorious double-agents, Kim Philby gave secrets to Russia while working for the British secret service and was part of the Cambridge spy ring discovered in 1963.

And a new book has now revealed that his father St John Philby also unwittingly became part of the intelligence force.

The former civil servant, who fell out of favour with the Saudi Arabia monarch, Saud in 1955, after working as an adviser for his predecessor Ibn Saud in the 1920s, was set up by spy John Slade-Baker to unknowingly betray the country.

Philby was expelled from Riyadh and fled to Beirut where he encountered Slade-Baker, a Sunday Times reporter and also MI6 spy.

Slade-Baker fostered the relationship to help protect British interests, especially following a dispute over the oil-rich Buraimi oasis which was claimed by Saud and Britains allies.

Leslie Glass, a British official who specialised in disinformation, said to Slade-Baker that it would be extremely helpful if Philby could air his grievances in print.

Apparently unaware that he was being used by the British secret service, Philby wrote two pieces that detailed the corruption of the Saudi royal family.

One of the most notorious double-agents, Kim Philby (pictured) gave secrets to Russia while working for the British secret service and was part of the Cambridge spy ring

On October 23, with the cabinets say-so, the Sunday Times ran the first piece - three days later forces were sent to capture the oasis. Four days after that the second piece was published.

The manipulation was undercovered by historian James Barr who analysed Slade-Bakers 3,000-page diary for his new book, Lords of the Desert.

The diary reveals in detail the work Slade-Baker did for the MI6, report the Times.

Barr also discovered that Slade-Baker got to know Kim Philby. He wrote in a diary entry for April 11, 1957, when meeting him at the embassy in Amman: I shall be glad to have him here. He is a gentleman and we see eye to eye over the Middle East.

It suggests that for all his talent as a spy, even Slade-Baker was taken in by the double-agent.

Harry St John Philby, who went by his middle name, died in 1960 and his last words were said to be: Im so bored.
A tradesman tragically killed by a falling tree in gale force winds north-east of Melbourne has been remembered as a devoted family man and good bloke with a 'heart of gold'.

Eden Herbert-Allen, 33, had no chance when a tree fell on his car on the Warburton Highway in Lilydale on Friday morning, killing him instantly.

Four cars travelling behind him avoided being struck in the freak accident.

Eden Herbert-Allen (pictured) leaves behind a young wife and four young children aged under-6 after a freak accident claimed his life

A Go Fund Me page has exceeded its original fundraising goal of $15,000 with $22,305 raised within 24 hours.

Proceeds will go towards helping support his heartbroken wife and soul mate of 16 years Michelle, 31, and their four young children.

'As much as we can, we will support the beautiful wife and four children he leaves behind,' his heartbroken older sister Lauren Croxford posted.

'Michelle will need more than we can give her and myself and my family would like to ask you all for help. Losing my little brother has by far been the most difficult day of my life to date, but raising four children under six years old without their dad is unimaginable.'

'It is really difficult because there is no one to blame. It was mother nature,' Ms Croxford told 9 News.

A tree fell on Eden's car (pictured) at Lilydale on Friday, killing the young father-of-four instantly

A Go Fund Me page has been set up to raise funds for Eden Herbert-Allen's shattered family

Mr Herbert-Allen's mates took to social media on Saturday to pay tribute to the cabinet maker who loved cars.

'Such a kind-hearted person. We had some times together your surely going to be missed. Rest easy mate,' one posted.

Another added: 'You were taken way too soon mate. Hope you get to crack a can with the big man upstairs.'

Family friend Stephen Cunningham heard about the freak accident on the radio, originally unaware it was someone he knew.

Friends and family have paid tribute to Eden Herbert-Allen (pictured left)

Four motorists travelling behind the cabinet maker on the Warburton Highway avoided the falling tree (pictured)

'I thought, jeez, that guy's unlucky, not thinking it was it was him,' he told 7 News.

He described Mr Herbert-Allen as 'real friendly with a heart of gold.'

'He was a great dad who loved his kids,' Mr Cunningham said.
The Duke of Sussex managed to take some time for himself after making a private trip earlier this week to Botswana.

Prince Harry, who visited the country without his wife Meghan Markle, met with senior staff and members from the Rhino Conservation Botswana organisation.

Botswana is helping to safeguard the continents population of black and white rhino and the duke takes a keen interest in the RCBs work as its UK patron.

Prince Harry, who visited the country without his wife Meghan Markle, met with senior staff and members from the Rhino Conservation Botswana organisation

The Prince attended the annual meeting in Maun on Wednesday and then went on to see a RCB community project in Xarakao village.

He is now believed to be back in the UK.

The 33-year-old has always loved the African country, deciding to take his then-girlfriend Meghan in 2016 for their third date.

Then the Duke of Sussex visited the country around this time last year to celebrate the former actress 36th birthday.

Meghans engagement ring not only features diamonds from the personal collection of Diana, Princess of Wales, but a stone from Botswana.

Prince Harry carrying out rhino protection work on a previous visit to Botswana

The private trip follows a similar visit he made to the country in January when he carried out another fact-finding mission to learn about the charitys latest developments.

A Kensington Palace spokeswoman said: The Duke of Sussex is on a private working trip to Botswana, to join the annual general meeting for Rhino Conservation Botswana in his capacity as patron. He attended the board meeting in Maun and an RCB community project in Xarakao village.

The royal couple are unlikely to be seen in public until September, as they take a break from the spotlight.

Their last official engagement together was at Sentebale Polo Cup in Berkshire, following a busy schedule last month that included a tour of Dublin.
A man who burnt down his own mother's house, collected hundreds of images of child pornography and threatened to slice a woman's face off has been sentenced to 11 years behind bars.

Damen Stephens, 43, appeared before the Melbourne County Court on Friday for a string of crimes that Judge Lisa Hannan described as 'disgraceful'.

Those crimes date back at least far as 2012, when Stephens began to relentlessly message and stalk a female classmate from a University of Melbourne psychology course, The Age reports.

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Damen Stephens (pictured), 43, appeared before the Melbourne County Court on Friday for a string of crimes that Judge Lisa Hannan described as 'disgraceful'

Those included the possession hundreds of images of child pornography, stalking and threatening a woman, setting fire to his mother's house and attacking three men in a busy Melbourne street in 2017 (pictured)

Stephens reportedly addressed his victim - whom was forced to take a safety order out against him in July 2014 - as 'a red rag to a bull', and told her that 'You're worth me spending the rest of my life in prison for... You shall become the hunted.'

In August 2014, police conducted a search of Stephens' home and uncovered a computer that contained 519 images of child pornography, as well as images of the woman he'd been stalking.

Two years later he started messaging his victim again, telling her 'I'm more on edge than I have ever been... my entire life is dedicated to destroying yours'.

He was arrested and charged before being released on bail in May 2017.

In August 2014, police conducted a search of Stephens' (pictured) home and uncovered a computer that contained 519 images of child pornography, as well and images of the woman he'd been stalking

In October 2017 he assaulted his mother - with whom he was living at the time - bit her thumb so hard that it became partially severed and ultimately set fire to the house, causing $420,000 worth of damage

By October, Stephens was telling his victim that he wanted to dismember her face, writing: 'call me Odin... as I slice and pull your face off'.

That same month he assaulted his mother - with whom he was living at the time - bit her thumb so hard that it became partially severed and ultimately set fire to the house, causing $420,000 worth of damage.

The next night Stephens was sitting at a table outside St Kilda Cellars in Fitzroy Street when he called some nearby men 'f***wits' and savagely attacked them with a knife

The next night, on October 7th, Stephens was sitting at a table outside St Kilda Cellars in Fitzroy Street when he called some nearby men 'f***wits' and savagely attacked them with a knife, a court heard.

One man was stabbed in the stomach, back and torso while two others sustained knife-wounds to their arms.

Police arrested Stephens two days later and charged him with stalking, committing an indictable offence while on bail, possession of child pornography, arson and intentionally causing injury, among other offences.

Judge Hannan called him 'a danger to the community' as he pleaded guilty on Friday, sentencing him to 11 years and one month in jail with a non-parole period of eight years.

He was also handed a $1600 fine, and will be placed on the sex offenders' register for a period of eight years.
A hero RAF pilot who helped decimate Nazi Germanys guided rocket programme during one of the most daring raids of World War II has returned to the scene of the bombing after 75 years.

George Dunn was just 20 when, in 1943, he targeted the designers of the V-2 Vengeance Weapons used to slaughter thousands of British civilians, including women and children.

Last week, the retired Flight Lieutenant made the 800-mile trip from his home in Saltdean, near Brighton, to Peenemunde  the Baltic Sea village where Germanys Army Research Centre developed both the V-2s, and the Doodlebug V-1s.

Last week, George Dunn made the 800-mile trip from his home in Saltdean, near Brighton, to Peenemunde  the Baltic Sea village where Germanys Army Research Centre developed both the V-2s, and the Doodlebug V-1s

Its very strange to be back, but I feel very privileged, said Mr Dunn, who is now 95. Im biased, but I think the raid was one of the most important of the war.

It caused huge damage to the development of those terrible weapons. Our aiming point was the technicians and scientists quarters  without their expertise, the rest of the programme was not much good.

Laying a wreath at a monument to all those who died  including 215 fellow RAF crew from 41 aircraft that were shot down  a clearly moved Mr Dunn paid tribute to the fallen.

At the time we couldnt dwell on them, he said. You just got used to an empty bed next to you when we got back. There was no point in mulling.

Its only now, all these years later, that we can reflect on those that have gone, and pay tribute to them all.

On August 17 1943 Flt Lt Dunn piloted a 76 Squadron Halifax bomber that joined 595 other warplanes on Operation Hydra, named after the multi-headed serpent from Greek mythology.

He did not know it at the time, but the mission was primarily concerned with eliminating men like Walter Thiel, the German rocket scientist who first developed the V-2 at Peenemunde.

It was the first ever guided ballistic missile, and was designed to kill hundreds of civilians in retribution for the Allied bombing of German cities.

Pictured: Walter Thiel the German rocket scientist who first developed the V-2 at Peenemunde

Prime Minister Winston Churchill had ordered we must attack on the heaviest possible scale, but the precise objective was kept from aircrews.

To encourage crews to give their all, their Order 176 included the words: If the attack fails, it will be repeated the next night and on ensuring nights regardless, within practicable limits, of casualties.

Bombs were dropped from just 8,000 ft (2,400 m) instead of the more normal altitude of 19,000ft (5,800 m) during a full moon.

Throughout the attack, Group Captain J.H.Searby acted as Master Bomber, calling in pathfinder markers so as to direct his planes.

George Dunn was just 20 when, in 1943, he targeted the designers of the V-2

Our target was the living quarters of the scientists and engineers and it was regarded as being the most important, said Mr Dunn.

Due to a change of wind direction we were switched to go in on the first wave as the Master Bomber was worried that the coloured air markers dropped by the pathfinders would be blown over the wrong area.

There was very little flak and the Luftwaffe fighters were occupied with an American attack about 100 miles away, so we had no problems dropping our bombs.

Later in the raid when the fourth wave made their approach the Luftwaffe had arrived and 41 aircraft and their crews were lost. I was thankful there had been a change of plan.

This time round, Mr Dunn was flown from Sussex in a Cessna flown by British pilot Jason Carley.

The flight with Jason was brilliant, said Mr Dunn. The weather has been perfect, and we flew at 45,000 feet at 600 mph  very different to a Halifax!

The Peenemunde raid put back the Nazi V weapons programme back by months, and  more crucially still  the killing of Thiel undoubtedly damaged the smooth development of the V2.

Thiel, who was 33 at the time, is thought to have died in a slit trench as he sheltered from the bombardment with his family, including his wife Martha and their two children.

Mr Dunn, who had volunteered to join the RAF as soon as he turned 18 in 1941, ended up flying a total of 44 sorties, 30 in Halifax bombers and 14 in Mosquitos.

Lets be honest, war is terrible thing whichever way you look at it, but civilian deaths are inevitable, he said.

Laying a wreath at a monument to all those who died  including 215 fellow RAF crew from 41 aircraft that were shot down  a clearly moved Mr Dunn paid tribute to the fallen

Bomber Command got a terrible press after the war  at one stage we were called murderers, which is why we said so little about our missions. My parents never asked anything  and I never told them anything.

But I used to think about British people who had been killed in places like London and Coventry. We were all very young men at the time, and had a job to do.

Men of 20 were a lot different in those days to men of 20 today. We had to stand up against the enemy.

It was not until three years after the end of the war that Mr Dunn finally returned to civilian life, rejoining the removals firm Pickfords, managing its Hove office before retirement.

Following Thiels death, there were numerous launch failures with the V-2s, and it was not until September 1944 that some 3000 were launched towards European cities.

Around 2750 civilians were killed and 6500 injured in London by the V-2 attacks, but many of the missiles exploded harmlessly or were misdirected.

The death and injury toll would certainly have been much higher were it not for operations such as Hydra.

It has never received the same kind of publicity as raids such as Operation Chatise in May 1943, which saw the RAFs Dam Busters 617 Squadron use a bouncing bomb to breach a German dam system.
The woman being hunted by police over knife threats against a mother and baby on the London Underground has been revealed as a social media-obsessed student.

Millicent Barnes, 21, was said to have launched a furious verbal attack on a family, including a one-year-old child, last month before implying she had a weapon.

But speaking to MailOnline today, the University of Northampton student, who has thousands of followers online, said she was ganged up on by the family-of-four.

Millicent Barnes, 21, was said to have launched a furious verbal attack on a mother and baby on a Central Line underground train

The University of Northampton student told MailOnline she was the victim and had been ganged up on by the family-of-four

She said: 'I was not carrying a knife, the mother of the child was the person who threatened me after me being shouted at and verbally assaulted by four members of her family.

'Simply because I asked for an apology for the grandfather jamming the pram into my ankle twice. The woman threatened ME with the knife.'

Barnes' comments contradict a statement from British Transport Police (BTP) which said a woman was aggressive, abusive and threatening toward the family.

In a statement released today, BTP said it was looking to speak with Barnes in connection to the incident, but the 21-year-old told MailOnline: 'It's not sorted yet but I am not wanted [by police].'

Police said Barnes left the family and other passengers 'frightened' and 'shaken by her language'

The incident took place after Barnes got on the Central Line train at Bank station last month

Following MailOnline's interview with Barnes, BTP released a statement saying: 'Officers from British Transport Police recently appealed for information after a mother and her child were threatened on board a Central Line train in London.

'The incident happened on board a train travelling between Bank and St Pauls station.

'Following this appeal, a woman in her twenties has contacted BTP and will be interviewed in relation to this matter in due course.

'The public and media are thanked for their help in sharing this appeal.'

The incident happened on July 18 at Bank station on a westbound service at around 6pm.

In a statement on Thursday, BTP said: 'As the the train pulled in to the next stop at St Paul's, a member of TfL staff noticed the row and moved the mother and baby on to another carriage.

'The suspect stayed on the train and continued to abuse witnesses on the carriage who tried to intervene and saw her shout and threaten the mother.'

The student told MailOnline she was 'verbally assaulted by four members of the family'

Barnes said it was actually the mother who threatened her with a weapon during the altercation

Police said the ordeal was 'frightening' and that the young family were 'shaken by this woman's aggressive language'.

Barnes, from South London, has a total of 7,000 followers on Twitter and Instagram and openly spoke about the incident via her accounts.

Some of her followers told the student to hand herself in to police but Barnes told them it was being dealt with.

Millicent told her Twitter followers that she'd spoken to British Transport Police and it was being resolved

In a series of tweets, Barnes admitted 'reacting' during the altercation but claimed she'd never threaten anyone with a blade.

She also recognised she had a temper but continued to protest her innocence to her 5,000 Twitter followers.

She went on to say she'd already spoken with BTP so there was no need to hand herself in.
Confronting photos have revealed the chilling aftermath of a fatal samurai sword attack that shocked residents in a quiet suburban street in broad daylight.

After the man was found lying dead in a Forest Lodge street in Sydney's inner west, confronting photos emerged of a fake gun, black balaclava and knuckledusters left next to his bloodied body.

A man and woman remain on the run after emergency services were called to Hereford Street at Forest Lodge about 12.40pm on Friday following reports a man had been attacked with a samurai sword.

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A confronting photo of a replica gun, balaclava and knuckledusters next to the victim's body revealed the chilling aftermath of a fatal attack in Forest Lodge on Friday

The man died at the scene and is yet to be formally identified but is believed to be a 30-year-old man.

Shocked neighbours said they heard an altercation and a woman screaming before they saw the victim stagger down the street and collapse near intersection of Minogue Crescent.

One witness said she heard a woman yelling: 'Get away. Get the f**k away from me'.

Lynne Charlesworth recalled the victim's final moments as he tried desperately to flee the scene before he succumbed to his severe injuries.

Resident Lynne Charlesworth's car (pictured) was covered in the victim's blood as he tried to flee the scene

'I heard a woman in the street yelling out 'don't' and screaming and I rushed out, thinking she was being attacked,' she told reporters on Saturday.

'When I ran out of the house, I saw a man slumped in the street covered in blood.'

Her car was covered in the victim's blood.

'I told him to stay still and he started to roll across the street,' Ms Charlesworth said.

'He got to our car, laid back on it and pulled himself up. He was doing anything to get away, anything at all. His head was covered in blood. I couldn't tell you what his features were.'

New South Wales Police has appealed for a woman and man seen fleeing from the scene (pictured) of a fatal assault on Friday to come forward

Witnesses said they saw the victim, believed to be aged 30, staggering down the street and collapsing after he was attacked in the suburb of Forest Lodge, near Glebe, on Friday afternoon

Police have released descriptions of a woman and man seen by witnesses running from the scene, and appealed for help from the public to locate the pair.

Police would like to speak to a woman described as Caucasian, aged in her early 20s, thin build, about 178cm tall, with bleached blonde hair and dark coloured roots.

She was wearing a black singlet and maroon three-quarter pants at the time.

Her male companion was described as Caucasian, aged in his late 20s medium build, about 178cm tall with short brown hair.

Police are desperately hunting for a woman and man wanted in relation to the fatal attack of a man in a quiet suburban area on Friday afternoon (officers pictured at the scene)

Police were called to the intersection of Hereford Street and Minogue Crescent at Forest Lodge around 12.40pm to find a body lying in the middle of the road (pictured)

'Police want to reassure the community that the attack is not considered random,' a NSW Police statement said.

Police seized a firearm and a number of weapons to be forensically examined but said no shots were fired.

Officers from Leichhardt Police joined forces with detectives from the State Crime Command's Homicide Squad to establish Strike Force Hedda to investigate the man's death.

Anyone with information is urged to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.

Heavily armed police and officers pictured at the scene after the fatal attack in broad daylight

Police are yet to reveal what caused the victim's fatal injuries, but said a man and woman were seen fighting with him before his death.

A wide-scale manhunt continued on Saturday for the pair, who reportedly live on the street where the deadly attack occurred.

'We've spoken to a number of witnesses who tell us shortly before we were called a man and a woman were in an altercation with another man,' Acting Superintendent Sam Crisafulli said.

'It was a violent attack with very, very serious consequences.'

Pictures from the scene show the body covered with a white blanket surrounded by police at the intersection of Hereford Street and Minogue Crescent

Police were called to the intersection around 12.40pm on Friday, where Acting Superintendent Sam Crisafulli (pictured) told reporters that the victim was 'sadly found deceased on the street'

Several crime scenes were established along Hereford Street on Friday, including inside a private residence

'We've spoken to a number of witnesses who tell us shortly before we were called a man and a woman were in an altercation with another man,' Superintendent Crisafulli said

A man and woman remain on the run after a man was killed in Sydney's inner west. Police were called to the intersection around 12.40pm on Friday and have reportedly already found a weapon
The director of the military manufacturing company in Salisbury has expressed his sympathy after an employee was killed in an explosion on Friday.

Police have confirmed the victim of the Chemring Countermeasures blast was a 29-year-old man from Southampton.

A second man, 26, remains in hospital in a serious but stable condition, according to reports.

A 29-year-old man from Southampton died following an explosion at the Chemring Countermeasures factory in Salisbury. Another employee, 26, is seriously injured

The company's Group Manufacturing Director Ian Johns shared his sympathy to the families of the two victims after yesterday's blaze

Speaking from outside the factory's head offices, Group Manufacturing Director Ian Johns gave his thoughts and prayers to relatives of the two men.

He said: 'We would like to extend our condolences to the families and loved ones of the two men involved.

'Our thoughts and prayers are with those two individuals at this moment in time.'

A fire broke out at the defence firm's facility at around 5pm after the blast in a flare manufacturing building.

The blaze was later extinguished as emergency services contained the incident.

'Regrettably, one employee was fatally injured and another employee is currently receiving treatment in hospital.

'The emergency services attended the scene and the incident was quickly made safe.'

Chemring Countermeasures produce decoy flares for aircrafts used by the UK Ministry of Defence

Operations at the site have been suspended until further notice, Johns added.

Wiltshire Police said it was investigating the explosion with health and safety officers, and reassured the public that they faced no further risk.

The firm said it had also launched a 'full and immediate' investigation.

Police said formal identification is yet to take place on the 29-year-old man, although his family have been informed.

The company, which is the UK Ministry of Defence's design authority in creating decoy flares, is just three miles from the MoD's secretive Porton Down laboratory.

They are the sole UK-based manufacturer for advanced expendable countermeasures for air and sea platforms, against guided missile threats.

The usually sleepy city of Salisbury is still reeling from a Novichok attack, which led to a former Russian spy and his daughter being poisoned

Their products include advanced decoy flares for aircrafts along with infra-red and radio frequency decoys.

Chemring Countermeasures employees over 400 people and their site near Salisbury covers roughly 100 acres.

The usually sleepy city of Salisbury is still reeling from the Novichok crisis, which began with the poisoning of a former Russian spy and his daughter.

Sergei Skripal and his daughter, Yulia, were poisoned with the deadly nerve agent, leading the UK government to point the finger at Russia.

In the aftermath of the attack, a British mother of three died after coming into contact with the chemical.
A former NRL star has turned to Mexico after his cancer began to spread.

The former St George Illawarra Dragons and Cronulla Sharks player, James Walsh, was diagnosed with stage three melanoma in 2009 after his doctor found a swollen lymph node in his groin.

He was told he only had a 50 per cent chance of survival.

Mr Walsh had surgery as soon as possible and was in remission.

However in 2012 he was diagnosed yet again.

Earlier this year scans showed that Mr Walsh's cancer had appeared in places it wasn't previously.

And so his children, Kate and Nathan, started a crowdfunding page for their father to look into alternative treatments.

On the page Mr Walsh's children wrote: 'It has been an incredible journey of highs and lows over the past nine years and through it all dad has remained committed to his health and been an inspiration to both myself, Nathan and many others in his life.

'Anyone who knows James would know he is an extremely passionate, loving and caring man, he will do anything to help others and he has so much more to contribute to those around him.'

In the end Mr Walsh turned to a treatment centre in Mexico where he went six times a week.

James Walsh (pictured) was diagnosed with stage three melanoma in 2009 after his doctor found a swollen lymph node in his groin

The clinic does not use medical immunotherapies like keytruda and opdivo.

These immunotherapies only have a 34 per cent success rate and can have harsh side effects, something Mr Walsh wanted to avoid.

Mr Walsh uploaded a series of videos to YouTube while he was at St Andrews Clinic in Tijuana.

Mr Walsh said his treatment was 'two fold' - a combination of immunotherapy and helping his immune system with what is going on inside his body.

Mr Walsh turned to a treatment centre in Mexico where he went six times a week. He was at St Andrews for five weeks in total and he said in his last update that there had been 'significant changes in his body'

He described his progress as 'steady'.

'And when I say steady I mean a decrease in pain and I have had improvement in body position, for examples, just simple things like lying on my side and back - just general mobility.

'I just want to make it clear I am very grateful to all the people who have helped me get here. I think as someone who wants to do something like this I do think you have to have a fair bit of drive.

'But that drive can only be realised through the generosity of people - not only financial by emotional genorosity and undivided support.

'It is so great to be getting this treatment and it is so great to be feeling better.'

He said that one day he woke up without any pain and felt 'normal'.

Despite the fact St Andrews (pictured) services are offered throughout Mexico the Australian Department of Health won't recognise the validity

Mr Walsh was at St Andrews for five weeks in total and he said in his last update that there had been 'significant changes in his body'.

His cancer decreased by 60 per cent.

Despite the fact St Andrews services, which include low-dose chemotherapy and insulin potentiated therapies, are offered throughout Mexico the Australian Department of Health won't recognise the validity.

Australia's Chief Medical Officer, Professor Brendan Murphy told 9news.com.au: 'This is not offered in Australia because it is not a proven effective treatment for cancer.'

Mr Walsh arrived back in Sydney this week. He has some treatments to continue with and will be able to monitor how things are going. He wants to return to St Andrews later this year

Mr Walsh's stay cost him $45,000 - and he wants to go back.

'Things aren't cheap

'I guess in Australia we are a little bit spoiled because everything - a lot of it - we get for free and we don't even question it.

'Unfortunately when you come to a independent environment you have to pay for what you get.

'I think it has been worth every single penny.'

Mr Walsh arrived back in Sydney this week. He has some treatments to continue with and will be able to monitor how things are going.

He needs to return in four to six weeks for his treatment to be effective, Mr Walsh told the publication.
President Trump is urging 'peace to all Americans' as cities across the US are bracing for Unite the Right 2018 marches this weekend.

Virginia Governor Ralph Northam and the city of Charlottesville have declared a state of emergency in anticipation of the white nationalist parades and protests set to take place in Charlottesville, Washington DC, and other towns this Sunday.

'The riots in Charlottesville a year ago resulted in senseless death and division. We must come together as a nation,' Trump tweeted on Saturday morning.

'I condemn all types of racism and acts of violence. Peace to ALL Americans!' he added.

Learn from mistakes: Trump is urging peace for the upcoming Charlottesville rally anniversary

State police have locked downtown Charlottesville, Virginia on Saturday, checking bags and heightening security in anticipation of the Unite the Right 2018 rally

Hundreds of state police officers descended upon downtown Charlottesville as the city marks the anniversary of last year's rally that quickly erupted in violence

A man is seen passing out Love placards to people passing through the downtown area where a bloody clash between white nationalists and counter-protesters took place last year

In light of the white nationalist rally to take place tomorrow, vendors have been selling counter-protest wares such as these pins

In DC a Unite the Right parade and rally is slated to take place with permits for protest granted in different parts of Capitol Hill.

The march will start at a Metro station near the Capitol at 5pm and end with a demonstration in Lafayette Square Park that sits directly opposite from the White House. The rally permit request estimated about 400 attendees.

Black Lives Matter also have a permit for counter-protests. An individual who plans to burn a Conderedate flag in the park also reportedly received a permit, according to ABC.

Washington DC will tighten security on Sunday with guns being banned from the premises, even for permit holders, according to Police Chief Peter Newsham.

White nationalists will also be kept separate from counter-protesters, according to USA Today.

Last year's rally on August 12 saw rally-goers carry flaming torches and clash with counter-protesters, resulting in the death 32-year-old Heather Heyer

White nationalists, neo-Nazis, KKK members, and the alt-right attacked each other as counter protesters intervened outside Emancipation Park in Charlottesville last year

The parades and rallies exploded in violence on August 12, 2017, leading to heightened safety measures to be added such as National Guard presence

Counter-protests are set to begin at 2pm with a rally in Freedom Plaza that will then proceed to Lafayette Square to face the white nationalist rally. About 1,000 people are expected to turn out for the counter-protest.

In Virginia, heightened security measures for this weekend's events include State Police and Virginia National Guard presence in Charlottesville.

The declaration that was issued on Wednesday will also allocate a whopping $2million to pay for response measures.

Governor Northam urged residents to 'make alternative plans to engaging with planned demonstrations of hate'.

Utter chaos: A car that drove through a crowd of counter protesters at the Charlottesville white nationalist rally pictured above

Senseless death: Heather Heyer, 32, was killed during the protest after a car plowed through a crowd of counter-protesters

'Virginia continues to mourn the three Virginians who lost their lives in the course of the demonstrations a year ago. We hope the anniversary of those events passes peacefully,' he said.

Last year the purpose of the rally on August 12, 2017 was to protest city plans to remove a statue of General Robert E. Lee who led the Confederate army during the Civil War.

What resulted was hundreds of violent clashes between white nationalists, neo-Nazis, KKK members armed with flaming torches and counter protesters.

The violence led to the death of 32-year-old counter protester Heather Heyer who was struck by a car.

Following last year's heated rally, Trump spurred controversy saying 'I think there is blame on both sides' for Charlottesville's deadly violence.

'You had a group on one side that was bad. You had a group on the other side that was also very violent. Nobody wants to say that. Ill say it right now,' he said on the bloodshed.
A Melbourne woman is grieving the devastating loss of not only her mum but also her ashes after gutless thieves ransacked her parents' home.

Andrea Lohmar feared the worst when she arrived at the home in Melbourne's south-east on Thursday night to find the front door had been smashed in.

She raced into the lounge room to find the urn containing her mother's ashes no longer there.

It was the second shocking theft of a loved ones' ashes in Melbourne within hours.

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The stolen ashes were the only thing left Andrea Lohmar (right) had of her mother (left), who died in May

Ms Lohmar posted a photo of the urn on social media in a desperate plea for it to be returned safely.

It's the one thing Ms Lohmar had left of her beloved mother after she died in May.

'My mum's house in Noble Park North was broken into and the urn containing her ashes were stolen,' she posted on Facebook.

'Please share this post far and wide, I need to bring my mum's ashes home! My heart is utterly broken.'

Andrea Lohmar has been inundated with messages of support since posting a photo of the stolen urn on social media in a desperate plea for her mother's ashes to be returned safely

The emotional Facebook post has received 1900 shares and several hundred messages of support within 24 hours.

'Thank you to everyone that posted and shared! Hopefully Ill have a result soon,' Ms Lohmar posted on Saturday night.

Luckily, the thieves didn't see her father's ashes elsewhere in the home.

'My first words were 'mum has gone, where's mum gone?' Ms Lohmar told 7 News.

'It was her final wish to be in an urn and to be in her home and not be out in the cemetery. It's of no use or no value to anyone else, but it's everything to me.'

7 News got in touch with Andrea Lohmar (pictured) to tell her story after reading her emotional plea on Facebook

A devastated Ms Lohmar has since removed all precious possessions from the home, which she will now put on the market.

Her original plan was renovate and move into her parents' home.

'It doesn't feel like home anymore,' Ms Lohmar said.

'I need to bring my mum's ashes home! My heart is utterly broken,' Andrea Lohmar (pictured with her mum) posted on Facebook

The ashes of a man who died six years ago at a music festival were also stolen after thieves broke into his mother's home in Wollert in Melbourne's north on Thursday.

Adriana Buccianti was reunited with her son Daniel's ashes the following day following an emotional plea for their return on ABC Radio.

'I felt like he's gone twice,' she told Daily Mail Australia.
Lauryn Eagle is facing fresh charges after she was allegedly caught driving under the influence of alcohol.

The professional boxer and swimsuit model was pulled over by police after she allegedly drove on the wrong side of the road in the eastern suburbs of Sydney.

According to the Daily Telegraph, the 30-year-old allegedly refused to provide a breath test and was drunk behind the wheel in the early hours of August 1.

Lauryn Eagle (pictured) faces fresh driving charges after allegedly being caught driving under the influence of alcohol in Bondi

The fresh charges come less than a month after the former Miss Teen won an appeal to overturn a conviction for driving under the influence of drugs.

Last year, Eagle tested positive to methamphetamine in a random drug test while she was driving her Audi Q5 in Peakhurst.

She admitted to the offence but pleaded ignorance, claiming she was unaware medication she was taking contained the substance.

In 2017, the professional boxer tested positive to methamphetamine in a random drug test while she was driving her Audi Q5 in Peakhurst at 10am

The former girlfriend of rugby league star Todd Carney said the methamphetamine was in her system because she had taken her ADHD medication.

The judge downgraded the punishment to a section ten and no criminal conviction was recorded.

She is now facing four charges of driving under the influence of alcohol, refusing or failing to submit to a breath test, driving on the wrong side of the road, and not keeping to the left of the median strip.

This will be the first time she is has been charged with driving under the influence.
The son of a police chief in California charged with attacking a 71-year-old Sikh man grinned and waved his middle fingers in the air during his first court appearance on Friday.

Tyrone McAllister, 18, was seen on video giving the finger and smiling to a Fox40 cameraman, the outlet reports. He then drops his hands to his lap before throwing up his middle finger a second time.

McAllister was in court for his arraignment. No bail was set for the teen.

Tyrone McAllister was seen smiling and waving his middle fingers at a cameraman during his first court appearance on Friday

McAllister appeared in court for his arraignment for allegedly a Sikh man. No bail was set for the teen

On Monday, 71-year-old Sahib Singh was attacked by two young men during his morning walk in Manteca, California.

The attack was captured by surveillance cameras and showed the two thugs beating the man while dressed in hoodies. One, who was wearing a black hoodie, was brandishing a gun.

Police identified him as McAllister, the estranged son of Union City Police Department Chief Daryl McAllister.

In a lengthy Facebook post on Wednesday, Chief McAllister told of his disgust at learning his son was involved after being contacted by Manteca Police Department, the investigating department.

'Words can barely describe how embarrassed, dejected, and hurt my wife, daughters, and I feel right now.

'My stomach has been churning from the moment I learned this news, ' he added.

The police chief and his wife then helped officers track his son down and arrest him.

Sahib Singh, 71, was left with serious injuries after being attacked in the street on Monday

The teen has been charged with attempted robbery, elder abuse and assault with a deadly weapon.

The other suspect is a 16-year-old male who has not been named.

Singh, the victim, struggles with English and had difficulty telling police what happened to him after the attack

He was arrested on the same charges and will be transferred to a juvenile facility after being processed.

In his Facebook post, Chief McAllister told how his son had fallen into a 'bad crowd' and had not been at the family home for months.

'My son began to lose his way a couple years ago, while he was a juvenile, running away and getting involved in a bad crowd,' he posted.

'He pretty much divorced his friends and family, associating with people none of us knew.'

'He got into trouble for some theft-related crimes and ended up spending several months in juvenile hall,' Chief McAllister added.

'As an adult, he was again arrested for a theft-related incident, and he ended up spending another three months in adult jail as a result.

'Since being released he has been wayward and has not returned to our family home for several months,' he wrote.

The police chief said he was torn between the desire to protect his child and the oath he took as a law enforcement leader.

Tyrone McAllister, 18, was arrested for the brutal beating of a Sikh man in California on Wednesday. Tyrone is the son of Union City Police Chief Daryl McAllister who helped authorities investigating the incident track the the teen down to arrest him

Ultimately, he decided to help the Manteca Police Department find Tyrone to arrest him.

'My wife and I worked with Manteca PD to help them track him down and arrest him.

'He now faces serious felony charges for which, if convicted, he stands to spend a considerable about of time in prison. My family is shaken to the core. His sisters (one corporate and the other about to start law school), are at a loss to understand any of this.

'It's difficult for us to comprehend how one of three kids who grew up with the same parents, under the same roof, with the same rules and same values and character could wander so far astray.

'We simply don't know why, or how we got here. In the eyes of the public, no matter the irrelevance to the incident, the fact remains that the father of the perpetrator of this despicable crime is a police chief, period.

'One cannot expect the general public (our Sikh community in particular) to factor in any sentiment that would distinguish this from the integrity of my family name. I pray that we, as a community, in conjunction with my family, can get through this and be even stronger as a result,' he said.

Tyrone is pictured on surveillance camera footage, kicking the elderly Sikh man while wearing a black hoodie

Tyrone is also accused of brandishing a gun during the attack. He was arrested along with a 16-year-old who is not being named because of his age

Chief McAllister announced his son's arrest in a lengthy statement on Facebook

Footage of the attack showed the young men approaching Singh and speaking to him before jumping him.

Singh, who struggles with English, later told that he did not understand what the men were saying.

He was left with serious injuries which required him to wear a neck brace.

Singh is one of two Sikh men who have been attacked in small Californian communities in the last week.

The two are not thought to be connected.

Surjit Malhi was putting up campaign signs for local Republicans at night when two men ambushed him, throwing sand in his eyes before beating him in the head, shoulders and neck on July 31.

Police said Monday they are looking for the two men who beat Malhi and spray-painted a neo-Nazi symbol on his truck in what they branded a hate crime.

Malhi, 50, said the men screamed at him to 'go back to your country' before spray-painting the same message and a white supremacist symbol on his truck.
The grandson of a Traveller rights campaigner has died after crashing his pick-up truck into a tree during a police chase.

Patrick Joyce, 24, was killed at Fairview Park, north Dublin, at the junction of Clontarf Road and Malahide Road, early yesterday morning.

He was being followed by gardai when he failed to stop at a checkpoint, with both his 13-year-old brother Richie and his mother Mag in the vehicle.

Patrick Joyce (pictured), 24, was killed at Fairview Park, north Dublin, at the junction of Clontarf Road and Malahide Road, early yesterday morning

He was being followed by gardai when he failed to stop at a checkpoint, with both his 13-year-old brother Richie and his mother Mag in the vehicle (pictured)

His mother was in a critical condition in the Mater Hospital last night while his younger brother had no life-threatening injuries and was being treated at Temple Street Childrens Hospital.

Patricks grandmother, activist Nan Joyce, died in the capital this week, aged 78, and the family journeyed from Belfast for the funeral yesterday.

Before the collision, a garda patrol car noticed the truck was being driven erratically and followed the vehicle.

A source told the Sun: The man was directed to stop by gardai but he continued to drive at speed before losing control and crashing into the tree. Thankfully, no one else lost their lives in the crash.

A spokeswoman for the Garda Ombudsman said the watchdog was making enquiries and an investigation will be launched.

His pick-up truck (pictured) crashed into a tree after a chase with Irish police yesterday

Yesterday the road was closed for several hours while garda forensic collision investigators examined the scene

Yesterday the road was closed for several hours while garda forensic collision investigators examined the scene.

A Garda spokesman confirmed a probe was under way.

The spokesman said: Gardai in Clontarf are investigating a single vehicle fatal road traffic collision that occurred at the Clontarf Road and Malahide Road junction in Dublin in the early hours of Friday.

Anyone with information about the collision is urged to contact Clontarf Garda Station on 01 666 4800.

Local Fianna Fail councillor Deirdre Heney, said the junction between the Malahide Road and Clontarf Road has had a number of accidents in recent years.

She added: It is a spot that has had tragedy in the past, as it is such a busy junction with three converging pieces of traffic.
Merrick Seaman, 33, could be sent to the UK for free treatment on the NHS

A violent child sex offender jailed in Bermuda could be sent to the UK to receive mental health treatment free on the NHS.

A high court in the British overseas territory ruled that Merrick Seaman, 33, should be sent to St Andrew's Healthcare in Northampton for expert care.

Seaman was sentenced to eight years in prison in 2011 for a serious sexual assault on a five-year-old girl who was playing outside the previous year.

Seaman, who suffers from schizophrenia and other mental illnesses, preyed on the young girl who was lagging behind while playing with her cousin and sister.

It was described as a 'very clearly planned' attack with the girl targeted as she 'was unlikely to put up any real struggle'.

Bermuda Supreme Court Judge Shade Subair said in a written judgment: 'The wider purpose is to protect the community from further harm, which Seaman would likely cause if not further detained and treated.'

British taxpayers will pick up the bill if Seaman is moved to the psychiatric facility in Northampton.

Seaman was eligible for parole in April 2013, but it was recommended that his release should be delayed until the risk of him committing further offences was reduced.

Seaman was given another psychiatric review the next year after he said: 'I intend to go on a killing spree when I get out of jail.'

He was convicted of wounding another inmate and had another nine months added to his sentence in 2016.

How long Seaman will spend in the UK was not specified, but Judge Subair said: 'It would be irresponsible for this court to impose an artificial time limit on the period of Seaman's hospital detainment overseas merely for the sake of defining his term of detention.

'However, this court will review and monitor his progress by receipt of progress reports from the applicants at six-month intervals.

'A court hearing review on Seaman's mental health prognosis shall also be held one year from now.'

Seaman's earliest possible release date was June 15, but the Bermuda Government moved him to a psychiatric facility on June 13 so he could be detained under the Mental Health Act.

The Supreme Court judgment released this week said the Ministry of Health and the Bermuda Hospitals Board sought a hospital detention order to allow Seaman to be moved to a UK hospital.

A risk assessment by British psychologist Emcee Chekwas recommended that Seaman receive further treatment as there was a 'high risk' of further offences.

Dr Chekwas said: 'He is likely to be best helped if placed in a medium secure forensic unit with specialist staff with ability to evaluate, diagnose and intervene appropriately to help him.

Seaman could be sent to St Andrew's Healthcare in Northampton (pictured) for expert care

'His current incarceration in Westgate Correctional Facility is merely keeping him in custody, but not addressing the risks and needs he presents.

'The services likely to help him are currently unavailable in Bermuda and, even where intervention abroad could be secured, he will require long-term care.'

Katina Anagnostakis, a forensic psychiatrist at St Andrew's Healthcare, said it was likely Seaman's condition would deteriorate without further treatment.

Dr Anagnostakis said: 'I believe that he will make rapid progress in a more therapeutic and less restricted setting in relation to stability of his mental state and functional rehabilitation.

'Progress in relation to developing his insight and engaging in offence-related work aimed at risk reduction will be more challenging for him given his history and will depend on his motivation.'

Dr Anagnostakis said St Andrews would admit Seaman if the courts in Bermuda and the UK approved the move.

National security minister Wayne Caines said Seaman remained in custody under the Mental Health Act, which allows for 'specialised monitoring'.

The minister added: 'Section C, the Remand Section of the Co-Educational Facility, has been designated a hospital for the purposes of detaining a person suffering from mental disorder, who cannot be securely detained in a conventional or current hospital facility.'

The problem of how to deal with prisoners with psychiatric illness has been discussed for years because of the island's lack of high-security accommodation in a hospital.

The Bermuda Government signed an agreement for the transfer of prisoners to the Birmingham and Solihull Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust in Britain in 2010.

An agreement with St Andrews was signed in 2017, but the BHB said at the time 'complex legal considerations' still had to be resolved.

Parliament passed legislation in June to help those who need psychiatric treatment in a 'medium or high-security unit not available in Bermuda'.

Kim Wilson, the Minister of Health, said prisoners sent to Britain would be treated free of charge under the National Health Service.
A rubbish tip could be slapped with a fine after thousands of pieces of rubbish were blown by the wind and on to their neighbours properties.

The neighbouring homes of the Ravenhall landfill, Melbourne's largest tip, were covered in rubbish after recent strong gusts of wind carried the waste on to their lawn in the past week.

Cleanaway staff spent hours picking up thousands of bits of plastic and rubbish from the site.

Ravenhall landfill - Melbourne's largest tip could be hit with a fine after strong gusts of wind pushed rubbish on to neighbouring properties

Now the operator of Ravenhall landfill could face prosecution for the 'totally unacceptable' amount of litter scattered beyond their boundary.

Cleanaway, ....., slammed the tip's management for the neglect.

'Cleanaway takes its environmental and community responsibilities seriously and is investigating further actions that can be undertaken to minimise the risk from future extreme weather events,' the company said.

The incident is now under investigation and the EPA expect to press charges next week.

CEO of Victoria's Environment Protection Authority, Nial Finegan told Nine News he expected 'every piece of litter byond the boundary of their fence be cleaned up'.

Cleanaway staff spent hours picking up thousands of bits of plastic and rubbish from the site and are investigating the incident

'The EPA will take action to make sure that does occur.'

The head of the community group 'Stop the Tip', Marion Martin described the recent event as 'disgusting'.

'They want an expansion of about 30 years, we're not happy with that, I'd like to see it closed immediately.'
Boris Johnson arrived back in the UK as his party continues to war over his remarks

Boris Johnson has landed back in the UK where his party continues to war over remarks the former foreign secretary made about the burka.

He touched down at Gatwick Airport in Crawley amid calls for him to attend 'diversity training' because he compared face veils to letterboxes in a column.

Fresh from his holiday in Italy, he returns to a divided response as yesterday Tory grandees yesterday demanded that the Conservative Party halt disciplinary proceedings.

Today the politician posed for a selfie with apparent admirers after supporters yesterday rushed to his defence.

Brexiteer Jacob Rees-Mogg saying the fallout is making the Conservative Party look foolish and claiming there is nothing to investigate.

Lord Tebbit, a former Tory chairman, accused party chiefs of inflaming the row and allowing Jeremy Corbyn to escape scrutiny over allegations of anti-Semitism.

His intervention came as allies of the former foreign secretary expressed fresh concerns last night about how the matter has been handled so far by party chairman Brandon Lewis.

Mr Johnson poses for a selfie with apparent admirers at Gatwick as the party continues to be split over his comparison of burkas to letterboxes

The MP was pictured smiling as he returned to the UK from Italy amid calls for him to undergo diversity training

Jacob Rees-Mogg (right) has come to the defence of Boris Johnson (left) and said the Conservative Party is being made to look foolish by the fallout

Boris Johnson has refused calls to apologise despite Theresa May (pictured) saying that his remarks caused offence

The former foreign secretary compared burkas to letterboxes and has refused to apologise for his remarks

They accused Mr Lewis of discussing the case with Tory MPs, which they said breaches a requirement for complaints to be handled confidentially.

The Tory party launched an investigation into Mr Johnson on Thursday after it received a number of complaints about a newspaper article in which he compared Muslim women who wear the burka to letter boxes and bank robbers.

There are suggestions he could be sent for diversity training as punishment.

Lord Tebbitt said last night: 'It is completely absurd. If they investigate him, they will find that he said nothing racist.

'He defended the right of women to wear a burka should they wish to do so, but said that they look like a letter box.

'I suggest the party should not be assisting Corbyn to escape the charge of anti-Semitism which hangs over him.'

A group of demonstrators outside the Hillingdon Conservative Association office on Thursday

Leading Tory backbencher Jacob Rees-Mogg said 'there is nothing to investigate' and that the affair was 'making the Conservative Party look foolish'.

Mr Rees-Mogg suggested the attacks on Mr Johnson's comment were a reflection of 'envy' felt towards him because of 'his many successes, popularity with voters and charisma'.

The howls of outrage directed at the former figurehead of the Leave campaign were 'suspect' and the motivations of those attacking him 'dubious', said the North East Somerset MP.

'Could it be that there is a nervousness that a once and probably future leadership contender is becoming too popular and needs to be stopped?' asked Mr Rees-Mogg.

'This may explain the attempt to use the Conservative Party's disciplinary procedures, but it has been handled so ham-fistedly that it brings only sympathy and support for Mr Johnson.'

What is the Tory disciplinary panel and what punishments could it give Boris? The Tory party launched its new stricter code of conduct in 2017 in the wake of the Westminster sex pest scandal. Under the rules, any member who is accused of flouting the code of conduct could face a grilling by a disciplinary panel. Here is the process which faces Boris Johnson: A panel consisting of no fewer than three people, is appointed by the Party Chairman Brandon Lewis. The panel will include a Tory activist, an independent person and someone nominated by the chairman of the 1922 committee - the powerful body of backbench Conservatives. This panel will investigate the complaint and give their findings to Mr Lewis. If they find Mr Johnson has broken party rules then they will refer him to Theresa May and the Board of the Tory party, who decide what punishment to mete out. They can order a range of punishments - including kicking him out of the party. How does the party decide what punishment to give out? It is up to the PM and the board of the Conservative Party to decide what punishment to give out. The code of conduct states they have discretion to 'take such action as they see fit. This includes, but is not necessarily limited to, suspension of membership or expulsion from the Party.' But it suggests that only the most serious cases will be result in the member being kicked out of the party. The code states: 'Any removal of rights of membership will only be made after due considerations of natural justice.' Advertisement

And he added: 'When Margaret Thatcher was leader, she and Michael Heseltine were hardly soulmates, but she would not have allowed personal rivalry to take the heat off the Labour Party, whose own deep internal divisions are buried in other news now, nor would she have countenanced any attempt to have a show trial.

'Attacking Boris merely helps the Opposition. It is time for good sense to assert itself, free speech to be encouraged and, as the summer rain falls, for hot-headed action to be cooled down.'

Former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith said the party should end its investigation, noting that Mr Johnson made the remarks while setting out why he was opposed to a ban on the burka.

Mr Duncan Smith told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: 'I don't agree that there was anything particularly wrong with what he said. You may not agree with the tone or jokes, but we have a thing called freedom of speech in this country.'

He added: 'I don't think an internal party system should be there to shut down MPs when they speak. You don't always have to agree with what people say, but we do defend the right of people saying it.'

Former party vice-chairman and Tory MP Andrew Rosindell said: 'What is happening to Boris Johnson is a direct attack on our freedom of speech. I fear an eruption of anger amongst our party's core voters and grass-roots activists if this obsessive political correctness doesn't stop.'

Former Tory minister James Duddridge added: 'The Conservative Party has lost the plot if it thinks launching an investigation into Boris's comments is helpful.

'Some people just need to take a cold shower, calm down and have a holiday.'

Supporters of Mr Johnson last night condemned Mr Lewis after Tory MPs wrote in a WhatsApp group that he had held discussions with them about the case.

A former Cabinet minister said: 'The party's code is a legal process that must be conducted fairly and confidentially in accordance with natural justice.

'With his briefing, leaking and off-the-record chats with other MPs, Brandon Lewis has made a mockery of the whole system. His reckless behaviour means the process cannot now be independent or fair.

'This attack on Boris must be abandoned before more harm is done to our party by the party chairman, and Lewis needs to consider his own position given his disastrous role in this fiasco.'

Ken Livingstone calls for Boris Johnson to be kicked out of Tories Ken Livingstone has called for Boris Johnson to be expelled from the Conservative Party over the burka row. The former London mayor, who quit the Labour Party in May after being suspended for alleged anti-Semitism, said the former foreign secretary was 'pandering' to bigotry. Two years ago Mr Livingstone sparked outrage when he said Adolf Hitler supported Zionism 'before he went mad'. He was also heavily criticised in 2005 after accusing a Jewish reporter of behaving 'like a concentration camp guard'. Mr Johnson beat Mr Livingstone in both the 2008 and 2012 London mayoral elections. In an interview with radio station LBC, Mr Livingstone said: 'We've had a real increase in Islamophobic incidents  very often a woman wearing a burka gets it ripped off their face. 'Boris is pandering to that fear of Islam and bigotry. 'We all know Boris one day is going to try and become the next leader of the Tory Party and if he's going to be trying to mobilise bigots in the Tory Party behind him, that's totally wrong. Again and again, he will say things that are completely wrong. He isn't really a politician, he just wants to be a famous celebrity. 'Frankly I think the Tory Party should dump him.' Advertisement

Commons leader Andrea Leadsom yesterday praised one of Mr Johnson's former deputy London mayors after she branded his critics as 'disingenuous'.

In a WhatsApp group for Tory MPs, Mrs Leadsom joined in praise for an article in which Munira Mirza wrote: 'Mockery of religious practices is not everyone's choice of tactic, but to act like it is beyond the pale is disingenuous and hypocritical.'

Mrs Leadsom wrote: 'Agree on the Munira article  she's a smart lady.'

However ,Tory MP Nadine Dorries wrote in the WhatsApp group: 'The party has f**ked up big time and one of the worst f**k ups has been the Prime Minister appearing on national TV calling for Boris to apologise. That went down really, really badly.'

Mr Johnson, who is thought to be on holiday in Italy, has not commented since his column was published on Monday.

A source close to Mr Lewis last night rejected the accusation he had breached confidentiality rules, saying: 'He has not discussed the investigation with anybody. He explained the code of conduct process to two MPs.'
An astonishing new tide of plastic waste is threatening Britains beautiful coastline  tens of thousands of polystyrene bodyboards dumped by thoughtless holidaymakers.

Campaigners believe a remarkable 14,000 of them are being abandoned each year on beaches in the South West alone.

And in a single month, volunteers retrieved more than 600 from just three beaches  Croyde Bay in Devon and Summerleaze and Widemouth Bay in Cornwall.

Discarded bodyboards piled up on a Cornish beach. Campaigners think 14,000 of them are being abandoned on beaches each year

The continued surge in the popularity of bodyboarding and this years hot summer are likely to make the problem even worse.

Many of the boards are made in China and sold for as little as 5.99. They are so flimsy they often snap within minutes.

When they break, polystyrene beads are scattered on to the sand, posing a big risk to wildlife.

Former Spice Girl Geri Horner was criticised on social media just last week after posting a snap of herself holding one of the boards on a Cornish break with husband Christian and their 18-month-old son Montague  though there is no suggestion she discarded it.

Many of the boards that cause the problem are brightly coloured and decorated with cartoon characters to appeal to youngsters.

Neil Hembrow, from Wave Against Waste, a campaign organised by the charity Keep Britain Tidys beachcare programme, said: These boards are basically used either to surf down the sand dunes, where they snap and are left, or they snap after being hit by one or two waves because theyre only 2in thick.

Former spice girl Geri Halliwell and her family with one of the bodyboards

Polystyrene balls spilt from bodyboards scattered on Bude beach in North Devon

The 43-year-old campaigner and keen surfer urged holidaymakers to rent or buy sturdier versions.

We actually found some bodyboards left on the beach still in their wrappers, he added.

People had bought them, wedged them into their cars and they had snapped. The problem with expanded polystyrene is its a plastic and, if these boards split, you get hundreds of polystyrene balls that can spill out. They will float round our oceans and the potential for damage to marine life is huge.

Mother-of-two Deb Rosser, 54, a primary school teacher from Bude, North Cornwall, volunteers to help clear rubbish from local beaches.

She said: Its a problem thats not going to go away unless we raise the issue with the producers, the suppliers, the buyers, the shopkeepers and the public. These cheap bodyboards are always colourful and have got pictures of sharks and dolphins on them.

Theyre pink for the girls, blue for the boys.

That is done because if you take eight-year-olds into a shop, theyre the ones theyre going to want. Its very clever marketing to appeal to children.

A spokesman for Cornwall Council said that recovered boards were incinerated, adding: If people do purchase polystyrene boards, we would encourage them to take them home with them.
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Wildfires continue to rage across Southern California, leaving neighborhoods absolutely decimated as homes are reduced to skeleton frames, trees charred, and the ground covered in a layer of ash, all while Northern California is reeling in the wake of the Carr Fire's damage.

On Friday firefighters worked furiously to contain the Holy Fire burning homes in Lake Elsinore, while crews in the north finally gained ground on the Carr blaze that has been wreaking havoc for the past two weeks, killing eight and destroying hundreds of homes.

Aircrafts were seen making flight after flight to Lake Elsinore to dump water and bright pink retardant to protect the land and nearby foothill communities from being swept up in the fire.

But the fire advancing through the dense, bone-dry brush of the Cleveland National Forest continued to blaze forward.

While the Holy Fire rages on in Southern California, the city of Redding in the northern part of the state is reeling from the aftermath of the Carr Fire's damage, reducing homes to rubble and leaving communities in an ashen state

Once lush forests became an eery sight in Redding, California sidelined by the ashen remains of neighborhood homes Friday

An aerial view reveals how destroyed the Mary Lake community of Redding, California was following the Carr Fire on Friday

Local Emily Scott strolls through the ashen remains of her home that was burnt to the ground on Friday in Shasta, California

Devastating aftermath: Volunteers sift through the charred remains of a home in Redding, California following Friday inferno

Firefighters watched on as they let the Holy blaze burn some hillsides as a way to reduce fuel and make it harder for flames to jump roadways and into communities if the wind picks up again.

A dozen forest cabins were burnt in the fire and one home was lost on Thursday. Firefighters managed to control the flames and prevent it from blazing on into the neighborhoods.

Dan Pritchett lost his home in Thursday's fire, adding he and his brother stayed in the home until a wall of flames roared nearby.

'I turned to him and said, "Lets go." (There were) 100ft flames right on the crest of the hill, right in front of me,' Prichett said to KNBC-TV.

More than 20,000 residents were evacuated as firefighters allowed the fire to get perilously close to their homes, propelled by gusty winds.

The winds are expected to roar again come Saturday afternoon.

Pink retardant was sprinkled across Lake Elsinore in Southern California to protect against incoming fires rolling through hills

The pink spray stained the land in an attempt to protect the foothill communities of Lake Elsinore on Friday

A residential street is covered in fire retardant after it was sprayed from a firefighting aircraft as the Holy Fire burns nearby Friday

Blazing on: The Holy Fire in Southern California continues to rage, leaving charred trees and reducing homes to rubble, pictured on Friday burning through the Cleveland National Forest

Firefighters were able to control parts of the fire Friday evening onto Saturday as 20,000 locals were evacuated

On Friday firefighters stood near advancing wildfires to protect a home in Lake Elsinore, California where the blaze flared up

Searching through the rubble: The inferno left the ashen skeletons of homes in its wake

Planes flew over the area dumping water and pink retardant to protect foothill communities from fire

A man has been charged with deliberately starting the raging Holy Fire which has spread across the southern part of the state.

Forrest Clark, 51, was charged with arson and appeared in court on Friday but his arraignment was postponed.

A resident of the canyon, 51-year-old Forrest Gordon Clark, was charged Thursday with arson and other crimes that could send him to prison for life

Volunteer fire chief Mike Milligan said Clark has been in a decade-long dispute with his neighbors and sent Milligan a letter last week threatening to burn the area down.

Clark claimed his life was being threatened and said the arson charge against him was a lie. A court commissioner ordered his bail remain at $1million.

If convicted, he could face life in prison.

The Holy Fire is just one of nearly 20 blazes across California which has suffered a devastating wildfire season that not only started earlier but has lasted longer and proved more destructive than previous years due to drought, warmer weather attributed to climate change, and home construction deeper into forests.

In Northern California the Mendocino Complex is making history as the largest fire to roar through the state.

As of Saturday, the fire was 60 per cent contained, now threatening 1,500 homes instead of the 12,000 earlier in the week.

So far it has destroyed 119 homes but none in the past few days.

The Holy Fire is just one of 20 to blaze throughout the state as the Mendocino Complex in the north has made history as the largest fire to rage in the nation's history

Taking every last measure: A firefighting helicopter drops water as the Holy Fire burns near homes on Friday

Firefighters keep watch the Holy Fire burning in the Cleveland National Forest in Lake Elsinore on Thursday

The blaze took over the hills in a terrifying display and continued to rage into Saturday afternoon, pictured Thursday

More than 20,000 locals have been evacuated in light on the blazing inferno that has devastated communities

A member of Cal Fire keeps watch the Holy Fire burning in the Cleveland National Forest in Lake Elsinore on Thursday

The hills became a sight from a horror movie as the fire raged on without a sign of stopping any time soon

A back porch is pictured on fire following the raging Holy Fire's fury on Thursday in Lake Elsinore

A firefighter battles the Holy Fire burning in the Cleveland National Forest along a hillside at Temescal Valley in Corona

A firefighter keeps watch as the Holy Fire burns in the Cleveland National Forest along a hillside at Temescal Valley

The Carr Fire also in northwestern California has been raging on for two weeks and has killed six people and burned more than 1,000 homes.

As of Saturday the Carr blaze was 51 per cent contained.

However evacuations were issued for communities near a new fire about 70 miles northeast of Redding, which was destroyed by the Carr blaze.

Yosemite park has also suffered from fires for nearly a month, but firefighters said that cooler weather has helped them tame it.

The part was set to reopen Tuesday following a two-week closure, according to park spokesman Scott Gediman.
A farmer who died after feeding his animals may have been trampled to death by cattle.

Sussex Police said they were called at about 10.30pm on Friday to Groombridge, East Sussex, after concerns were raised about a farmer who had not returned after feeding his livestock.

The man was killed in Groombridge (pictured) in what police say may have been a death caused by his own livestock

Officers say the farmer may have been trampled by his own animals after he fed them in East Sussex

The man was found and pronounced dead at the scene.

'At this time we are not treating this as suspicious and it is believed the farmer may have been trampled by livestock.

'The investigation has been passed to Her Majesty's coroner, and all emergency services personnel have left the scene,' the force said.
The family of a British man found drowned in the Ibizan holiday resort of San Antonio say they believe he was killed.

Relatives are offerring 5,000 for information leading to a conviction after the tourist Anwaar Lahrichi-Greenwood died in San Antonio.

The business consultant's body was found floating in the mouth of the town port, some 48 hours after he was last seen leaving a party in the resort.

The 24-year-old, who described himself as a business consultant, was last seen at 4am on Saturday morning, and had been due to fly home later that day.

Friends and family have paid tribute to him on social media, with his sister praising his 'jokes and smile.. intelligence and gentle nature'.

Heartbreaking: The 24-year-old man, named only as Anwaar, was found dead in the port of San Antonio some 48 hours after he was seen leaving a party in the Ibizan town

'I feel so dead inside knowing I'll never see you again.. knowing you went on holiday and died in the sea alone... I tried to find you with all my power my love,' she writes.

'My bro bro, my best friend..you were the best brother and you made me feel important and special.'

San Antonio police are investigating his death after local sources said there were signs of violence on his body.

However, it was not immediately clear if they were injuries sustained before death or after death that could be compatible with him being hit by a boat or falling on rocks.

Anwaar was last seen leaving a party in San Antonio early on morning Saturday, and had been missing for 48 hours when his remains were found shortly after midday on Sunday.

'Intelligent and gentle': The young man's friends and family have paid tribute to him online

The body of a British tourist has been pulled from the mouth of the port of San Antonio, a popular party destination on the island of Ibiza (stock image)

A post-mortem will take place on Monday.

Just last month a British youngster died just hours after jetting into the same Ibizan party resort.

Jack McDonnell, 22, was rushed to a health centre by friends he was out with and members of a Christian charity who work on the streets in the high season.

He went into cardiac arrest shortly after arriving at the clinic following his earlier collapse.

Health workers at the centre tried to save him by practicing CPR but were unable to save him.
A suicide attack against a Coptic Christian church north of Cairo failed today when the bomber blew himself up when security guards approached him.

The man had been walking among churchgoers, while wearing an explosives belt, and tried to enter the building in the Mostorod district in Qaliubiya province.

But heightened security around the church prevented him from reaching his intended target, state media and security sources said.

Egyptian investigators gather around the body of a suicide bomber whose explosives detonated before reaching the Church of the Virgin Mary, on the northern outskirts of the capital Cairo, on August 11

He detonated the explosives about 250 meters (275 yards) from the church, killing himself. No other fatalities were reported.

The bomber was forced to detonate his suicide belt as a result of the heavy police presence around the church, state media reported.

He was hiding the explosives under a fluorescent vest, state-run newspaper Akhbar el-Youm said.

No group has as yet claimed responsibility for the attempted attack.

An ambulance, Egyptian police forces and investigators gathered on a bridge along the Nile, where a suicide bomber's explosives detonated

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to brief the media.

Mostorod is located about 11.5 kilometers (7.2 miles) north of Cairo.

Egypt's Christians account for about 10 per cent of the country's predominantly Muslim population.

They have been targeted by Islamic militants in a series of attacks since December 2016, that have left more than 100 dead and scores wounded.

Egypt has been under a state of emergency since bombings and suicide attacks targeting minority Coptic Christians killed scores in 2017.

The extremist Islamist State group claimed those attacks.

The government has been struggling to contain an insurgency by Islamic militants led by an affiliate of IS in the northern region of the Sinai Peninsula, but attacks on the mainland have also occurred.

The Egyptian army is currently waging a major operation focused on the Sinai Peninsula to wipe out IS.
New York Rep. Chris Collins declared that he has reversed course and is now suspending his re-election campaign three days after being indicted on charges including insider trading.

'I have decided that it is in the best interests of the constituents of NY-27, the Republican Party and President Donald Trump's agenda for me to suspend my campaign for re-election to Congress,' Collins said in the statement released Saturday morning.

The three-term Republican congressman from New York went on to say he will fill out his term and 'continue to fight the meritless charges brought against me.'

New York Rep. Chris Collins (on Wednesday) has declared that he is suspending his re-election campaign three days after being indicted on charges including insider trading. He allegedly told his son to sell off stock of a biotech company after being warned a drug failed trials

Collins had previously said that he intended to stay on the ballot and run for re-election in November, while fighting the 'meritless' charges against him

The about-face comes after Wednesday's indictment on charges Collins used inside information about a biotechnology company to make illicit stock trades.

At a press conference on Wednesday evening, Collins said that he would remain on the ballot and run for re-election in November.

'After today, I will not address any issues related to Innate Immunotherapeutics outside of the courtroom,' Collins said at the press conference, telling reporters that he would 'mount a vigorous defense in court to clear my name' and that he anticipated being 'fully vindicated and exonerated.'

Wednesday's indictment was tied to Collins' investment in Innate Immunotherapeutics, an Australian biotech firm whose primary work was on a drug to help sufferers of multiple sclerosis.

That drug, MIS416, had the potential for billions in profit because of a lack of treatment for the disease. But it failed its drug trial stage and, when the news became public, the company's stock dropped by 92 percent.

Rep. Chris Collins was one of President Trump's biggest supporters on Capitol Hill, he's seen here at the Congressional Picnic at the White House with Trump and first lady Melania Trump

CBS News footage captured Collins, circled in red, on the phone on the White House South Lawn during the time frame prosecutors charge he was talking to his son about the stock

Rep. Chris Collins (in white shirt) is seen talking on his cell phone during the annual Congressional picnic at the White House as Jared Kushner walked past

EXCLUSIVE: Footage shows New York Rep. Chris Collins on the phone at the White House's Congressional Picnic when he allegedly shared an illegal stock tip with his son. See our timeline of the case against him: https://t.co/ELIdmZdjTv pic.twitter.com/BAv1sZuzgt  CBS News (@CBSNews) August 8, 2018

According to the indictment, it's believed that Collins learned that the drug had failed the trials from an email he received from Innate's CEO at 6.55pm on June 22, while Collins was at the annual Congressional Picnic at the White House.

Collins, who sits on the company's board of directors, was then said to have tried to call his son, Cameron, six times between 7.11pm and 7.16pm, at which point they connected and spoke for six minutes.

Federal investigators allege that stock dumps by Cameron, 25, his fiance's father and other relatives saved them from losing $768,000 when the stock's price plummeted after the trials failure was publicly revealed on June 26.

According to the indictment, Collins could not personally trade away his Innate stock, due to his being under investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics for his ownership of the shares, plus the fact that the shares he owned were held under the Australian stock exchange, which had already placed a hold on sales of Innate stock.

However, Cameron was able to sell the stock he owned in the company, the indictment stated. The day after allegedly receiving the call from his father, Cameron called his brokerage firm at 7.42am and traded over 16,000 shares in stock. Later that day he placed 17 additional orders to sell Innate stock.

All told, Cameron is said to have sold almost 1.4 million shares in Innate stock between June 23 and June 26.

According to the elder Collin's 2016 financial disclosure report, he held a stake in Innate valued between $25million and $50million at that time.

Following the indictment, CBS News revealed Wednesday night that it had found footage of what the news organization believed was the exact moment that Collins made the calls to his son that led to the insider trading indictments.

The time frame of their footage matches the time on the call as outlined in the indictment. In the video, Collins can be seen pacing on his cell phone, as Jared Kushner walks by.

New York congressman Chris Collins had told a Wednesday press conference in Buffalo that he would fight the charges against him and stay on the ballot for his re-election

Collins, who was Donald Trump's first supporter on Capitol Hill; Cameron; and Stephen Zarsky, Cameron's fiancee's father, face 13 counts of alleged securities fraud, wire fraud and false statements.

They also face insider trading charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Jessica Proud, a spokeswoman for the New York state Republican party, said no decision has been made about a possible replacement for Collins on the ballot. She said the party is weighing its options.

House Speaker Paul Ryan said Collins would be removed from the influential House Energy and Commerce Committee 'until the matter is settled.'

Trump has no connection to the case. He promised during his presidential campaign to 'drain the swamp' of Washington corruption.

Collins was one of the first members of Congress to endorse Trump for president in the 2016 Republican primary. He did so before it was clear the business executive had any chance of winning the nomination, saying the country needs 'a chief executive, not a chief politician.'

He has maintained close ties to the White House and acted as a surrogate for Trump.
A grieving couple are campaigning to raise awareness of the potentially lethal dangers posed to newborn babies by the common cold sore virus.

Sarah Higson and James de Malplaquets son Kit died of the virus  which can be passed on by an innocent kiss or touch from a relative or nurse  at just 13 days old.

Now, in a bid to bring hope from tragedy, the couple have set up the Kit Tarka Foundation, a charity to raise awareness of an infection that experts believe claims the lives of at least 65 babies a year.

Kit was healthy when born at the Royal Sussex Hospital in Brighton last September by emergency caesarean at 39 weeks.

Sarah Higson and James de Malplaquets son Kit (pictured) died of the virus  which can be passed on by an innocent kiss or touch from a relative or nurse  at just 13 days old

But a blood sugar problem led to him being placed in special care. Doctors suspected a bacterial infection so gave him antibiotics, but they did not test for viral infection.

The youngster rallied and was discharged, but was rushed back into hospital the next day because he appeared jaundiced.

Despite being given more antibiotics, his condition worsened and he was rushed to the Evelina Childrens Hospital in London, where doctors diagnosed herpes simplex virus (HSV) infection  the same virus that cause cold sores. By then, however, the infection had spread, causing sepsis and multi-organ failure and Kit died the following day.

Charity worker Sarah, 37, had looked on helplessly as doctors tried to save her tiny son.

She said: I remember them trying to resuscitate him, trying to bring him back by pumping his little body. That still haunts me.

Paediatrician Dr Patrick Davies, from Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, said about half of newborn babies who contract HSV die.

Its a very dangerous infection but the earlier its recognised and treated, the better, he said.

If it isnt spotted, babies suffer multi-organ collapse, which is just irretrievable.

Almost nine in ten cases of neonatal HSV involve the baby being infected during childbirth, because the mother has genital herpes.

Baby Kit (pictured) suffered a viral infection which caused sepsis and multiple organ failure

But Sarah had tested negative for the virus and, since she had a caesarean, believes it most likely that Kit was infected by a touch from a nurse or doctor who had a cold sore.

Evidence about baby deaths caused by HSV is scant.

In 1996, a nationwide study concluded it caused eight deaths a year, but a study by Dr Davies in Nottinghamshire in 2014 based on the number of cases there suggested the number of annual deaths nationwide could be at least 65.

The couples foundation has so far raised 15,000 towards the cost of a new nationwide study.

Nicola Ranger, Chief Nursing Officer for the Brighton & Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust, said: HSV infection is very rare in babies and can often be very difficult to diagnose. We are supporting the Kit Tarka Foundation to raise the profile of neonatal HSV infection and absolutely support the Foundations mission and vision.

For more information visit Kit Tarka Foundation.
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The family of a suicidal baggage handler who hijacked an empty Alaska Airlines plane in Seattle on Friday night before taking it for a joyride and crashing to his death said on Saturday they feel 'stunned and heartbroken'.

Richard Russell, a 29-year-old Horizon Air employee, was remembered in a family statement read out by friends at a news conference as a 'faithful husband' to his wife, Hannah, and a 'good friend who was loved by everyone'.

'It may seem difficult for those watching at home to believe, but Beebo was a warm, compassionate man,' they wrote, referring to Russell's nickname.

The family described his death as a 'complete shock', adding: 'We are devastated by these events and Jesus is truly the only one holding this family together right now.'

They also referred to recordings of a conversation between Russell and air traffic controllers in which he said he 'didn't want to hurt anyone' and apologized to his family for what he was about to do.

'As the voice recordings show, Beebo's intent was not to harm anyone and he was right in saying that there are so many people who love him,' they wrote.

Russell, who was described as suicidal by investigators, hijacked the 76-seat plane at around 8pm on Friday after taking the aircraft from the maintenance area.

Although he had security clearance to be near planes, he did not have a pilot's license and it is unclear how he learned how to fly. One expert said he could have picked up some skills by using a computer flight simulator.

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

Richard Russell, a married 29-year-old Horizon Air employee, (seen with his wife, Hannah, left; and in his uniform, right) was remembered in a family statement released at a news conference on Saturday as a 'faithful husband' and a 'good friend'

The family statement was read out by friends of Russell's family on Saturday. None of his family members are thought to have been present

These images show the hijacked Horizon Air Q400 which took off from Seattle-Tacoma Airport on Friday before crashing 25 miles away in south Puget Sound (left, in the air; right, after the crash)

Witnesses described seeing the plane performing barrel rolls and loop-the-loops as the military planes directed it away from highly-populated areas and towards Ketron Island, where it crashed into a ball of flame.

'He did some aerobatics in the airplane that I was shocked to see,' said Rick Christenson, a retired operational supervisor for Horizon Air.

'And for him to do that I would think that he either played in a simulator or what. It looked pretty amazing to me. Maybe it was luck, I don't know.'

During the hijacking, Russell joked with air traffic controllers about how he would be jailed for life for stealing the plane, before telling them he was a 'broken man' with 'a few screws loose'.

'He was a warm, compassionate man': Full statement from the family of hijacker Richard Russell On behalf of the family, we are stunned and heartbroken. It may seem difficult for those watching at home to believe, but Beebo was a warm, compassionate man. It is impossible to encompass who he was in a press release. He was a faithful husband, a loving son, and a good friend. A childhood friend remarked that Beebo was loved by everyone because he was kind and gentle to each person he met. This is a complete shock to us. We are devastated by these events and Jesus is truly the only one holding this family together right now. Without Him we would be hopeless. As the voice recordings show, Beebos intent was not to harm anyone and he was right in saying that there are so many people who love him. We would like to thank the authorities who have been both helpful and respectful, Alaska Air for their resources, the community, his friends and his family for their incredible support and compassion, and Jesus whose steadfast love endures. Wed also like to thank the media for their sensitivity and acknowledging this as the only statement that will be released by the family, and we request that we now be given space to mourn. At this time the family is moving forward with the difficult task of processing our grief. We appreciate your prayers. Thank you Advertisement

He may also have hinted at having used some form of flight simulator in the past in an exchange when he told the officials he did not need help because, 'I've played some video games before'.

Meanwhile, Horizon Air CEO Gary Beck said he was baffled about how Russell picked up the flying skills. 'We don't know how he learned to do that,' he said.

'Commercial aircraft are complex machines. No idea how he achieved that experience.'

Russell had worked for Horizon Air at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport for nearly four years, according to his LinkedIn account, as a ground service agent and an operations agent.

Horizon Air COO Constance von Muehlen said in a video statement that 'our hearts are with the family of the individual on board as well as all our Alaska Air and Horizon Air employees'.

Officials said during a press conference on Saturday that Russell used a push back tractor to rotate the plane 180 degrees before take off.

Debra Eckrote, of the National Transportation Safety Board, said it was conceivable that a ground service agent would be able to start an airplane.

'They don't necessarily use a key, so there's switches that they use to start the aircraft,' she said.

'So if the person has basic understanding  from what I understand he was support personnel, ground personnel  they probably do have at least a basic understanding on how to start the aircraft.'

Russell was born in Key West, Florida and moved to Alaska when he was seven years old, according to a 2017 blog post. He met his wife, Hannah, in 2010 while they were both in school and married one year later. It doesn't appear that they had any children.

According to Russell's blog, he and Hannah opened a bakery called Hannah Marie's Bakery in North Bend, Oregon and ran it for three years.

In 2015, the couple relocated to Seattle 'because we were both so far removed from our families', Russell wrote.

'Failing to convince Hannah of Alaska's greatness, we settled on Sumner because of its close proximity to her family,' he posted.

While living in Seattle, Russell started working for Horizon Air writing that he enjoyed being able to travel to Alaska in his spare time. Russell, who was pursuing his bachelor's degree for social sciences from Washington State University, said he wanted to move up in his company to one day work in a management position.

The Horizon Air worker, however, also had other dreams, writing on his blog that he was considering becoming a military officer.

Russell has worked for Horizon Air at Seattle-Tacoma Airport for nearly four years, according to his LinkedIn account, as a ground service agent and an operations agent

Russell, 29, married his wife Hannah in 2011 after meeting in school the year before. They are seen together in an undated photo

Russell posted several videos on his blog showing him and his wife (pictured) traveling around the globe

Russell's blog is filled with pictures of him and his wife traveling across the globe. The 29-year-old also shared pictures from his wedding day and several videos showcasing what he does at work.

In one video, apparently for a class project, Russell introduces himself as 'Beebo Russell' and says he 'lifts a lot of bags' at his job.

'Like a lot of bags,' he says. 'So many bags.'

He went on to say that because of his job he's been able to visit places like France, Idaho, Mexico, Ireland and Alaska. Russell ended the nearly two-minute long video by sharing photos of his family.

Russell said in a blog post that he and his wife met in Oregon and moved to Seattle in 2015

It does not appear that Russell and his wife had children. The couple are pictured together in a Facebook photo

Pictured above is Russell at what appears to be at a wedding. He posted the photo at the end of one of his YouTube videos

Rick Christenson, retired from Horizon Air, told the DailyMail.com that Russell was 'quiet' and 'a nice kid'.

Christenson didn't supervise Russell's team, but said he saw the 29-year-old in passing while at work.

'He always had a nice smile,' he said. 'He seemed quiet, and he always had a smile. The people that knew him said he was a nice guy.'

Christenson said he was sitting on his deck Friday night at his Tacoma home with his wife, his cousin and his cousin's wife when he saw the Horizon Q400 fly over his house.

'All of a sudden one of the Horizon Q400s came over the house at 500 feet, followed by two F-15s; one was high, one was low,' Christenson said, adding that he knew something was wrong because the plane was flying way too low.

He added in a separate interview: 'Everybody's stunned... that something like this would happen. How could it? Everybody's been through background checks.'

The former supervisor said he grabbed a pair of binoculars to watch the aircraft, admitting that he was 'scared' and 'concerned' because he didn't know what was going on.

'He was doing a lot of weird flying, weird turns,' he said, 'but he was coming back towards us, towards our way.'

Christenson said while the plane was over the water it did a 360 degree roll 'and went into a steep dive'.

'He brought the one wing up and the whole airplane rolled and as it rolled it went into a dive. It looked control,' he said, adding that the plane pulled up with less than 50 feet between the nose of the aircraft and the water.

Christenson said two minutes later there was 'big plume of black smoke', indicating the plane had crashed.

Two F-15 fighter jets scrambled from Portland 'minutes later' to intercept it, according to Pierce County Sheriff's Office. Pictured is the hijacked plane, top, and one of the F-15s beneath it

Smoke and an orange glow are seen on Ketron Island in Washington state, where the plane eventually crash landed

The retired Horizon Air worker also said he doesn't understand how Russell was able to back the aircraft onto the taxiway by himself, although he said it is possible.

'It's not the procedure,' he said, explaining that usually a two-person crew moves aircraft.

Christenson said under normal circumstances one worker is in the cockpit communicating with with the tower, and a second person is on the tractor used to push the plane.

Authorities have said that Russell was in the aircraft alone, but don't know how he moved the plane and took off undetected.

Russell's main role as a ground service agent was to load and unload bags, direct aircraft for takeoff, and de-ice planes in the winter.

According to a job posting, ground service agents are paid roughly $13.75 an hour and as a full-time employee they receive benefits, travel privileges for themselves and family members and are eligible for a bonus program.

Nowhere in the job description does it mention that ground service agents are permitted to fly planes.

Police officers standing at a staging ground at the ferry terminal in Steilacoom. Questions will now be asked about security at the airport and how an unqualified worker was given access to the plane

Emergency services vehicles at the ferry terminal in Steilacoom, Washington, on Friday evening, near by the suspected crash site

'I don't need that much help. I've played some video games before': Suicidal airport employee speaks to air traffic control before crash Shortly after the plane took off, traffic controllers were heard on an Internet livestream speaking to a man identified as 'Rich'. 'There is the runway just off your right side in about a mile, do you see that?' the traffic controller said. 'Oh those guys will try to rough me up if I try land there,' Rich replied. 'I think I might mess something up there too. I wouldn't want to do that. Oh they probably have got anti-aircraft.' 'They don't have any of that stuff, we are just trying to find you a place to land safely.' 'Yeah, not quite ready to bring it down just yet, but holy smokes I need to stop looking at the fuel 'cos it's going down quick.' 'OK, Rich, if you could, could you start a left-hand turn and we'll take you down to the south-east.' 'This is probably jail time for life, huh? I would hope it is for a guy like me. ' Rich: I've got a lot of people that care about me. It's going to disappoint them to hear that I did this. I would like to apologize to each and every one of them. Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose I guess. Never really knew it, until now Rich: I'm down to 2,100, I started at like 30-something. Air traffic control: Rich, you said you had 2,100 pounds of fuel left? Rich: Yeah, I don't know what the burnage, burnout? Is like on a takeoff, but yeah, it's burned quite a bit faster than I expected. Air traffic control: Right now he's just flying around, and he just needs some help controlling the aircraft. Rich: Nah I mean, I don't need that much help. I've played some video games before. I would like to figure out how to get this make it pressurized or something so I'm not lightheaded. Rich: Ah minimum wage. We'll chalk it up to that. Maybe that will grease the gears a little bit with the higher-ups Rich: Damnit Andrew, people's lives are at stake here. Air traffic control: Ah Rich, don't say stuff like that. Rich: I don't want to hurt anyone, I just want you to whisper sweet nothings into my ear. Rich: Hey do you think if I land this successfully Alaska will give me a job as a pilot? Air traffic control: You know, I think they would give you a job doing anything if you could pull this off. Rich: Yeah right! Nah, I'm a white guy Air traffic control: If you wanted to land, probably your best bet is that runway just ahead and to your left. Again, that's McCourt (sic) Field. If you wanted to try, that might be the best way to set up and see if you can land there. Or just like the pilot's suggestion, the other option might be over Puget Sound, into the water. Rich: Dang, did you talk to McCourt, cause I don't know if I'd be happy with you telling me I could land like that, cause I could really mess some stuff up. Air traffic control: Well Rich I already talked to 'em. Just like me, what we want to see is you not get hurt, or anyone else get hurt. So if you want to try to land, that's the way to go. Rich: Hey I want the coordinates of that orca, you know, the mama orca with the baby. I want to see that guy. Rich: Hey, is that pilot on? I want to know what this weather is going to be like in the Olympics (mountains). Air traffic control: Well, if you can see the Olympics, the weather's good. I can see the Olympics from my window, and it looks pretty good over there. Rich: Alright, 'cause I felt some, what felt like turbulence around Rainer, but there was no clouds hardly. Air traffic control: Oh, that's just the wind blowing over all over the bumpy surfaces there. Captain Bill: Alright Rich, this is Captain Bill. Congratulations, you did that, now let's try to land that airplane safely and not hurt anyone on the ground. Rich: Alright, damnit, I don't know man, I don't know. I don't want to I was kind of hoping that would be it, you know. Rich: I'm gonna land it, in a safe kind of manner. I think I'm gonna try to do a barrel roll, and if that goes good, I'm just gonna nose down and call it a night. Air traffic control: Well Rich, before you do that, let's think about this. I've got another pilot coming up, pilot Joel, in just a minute here I hope. And we'll be able to give you some advice on what to do next. Rich: I feel like one of my engines is going out or something. Air traffic control: OK Rich, if you could, you just want to keep that plane right over the water. Maybe keep the aircraft nice and low. Rich: Just kind of lightheaded, dizzy. Man, the sights went by so fast. I was thinking, like, I'm going to have this moment of serenity, take in all the sights. There's a lot of pretty stuff, but they're prettier in a different context. Air traffic control: Do you have any idea of how much fuel you have left? Rich: Oh man, not enough. Not enough to get by. Like, uh, 760? 760 pounds? Air traffic control: Just flying around the plane, you seem comfortable with that? Rich: Oh hell yeah, its a blast. Ive played video games before so I know what Im doing a little bit. Air traffic control: OK, and you can see all the terrain around you, youve got no issue with visibility or anything? Rich: Naw, everythings peachy, peachy clean. Just did a little circle around Rainer, its beautiful. I think Ive got some gas to go check out the Olympics (mountains). Rich: I wouldnt know how to land it, I wasnt really planning on landing it. Rich: Sorry, my mic came off, I threw up a little bit. Im sorry about this, I hope this doesnt ruin your day. Rich: Man, have you been to the Olympics? These guys are gorgeous, holy smokes. Air traffic control: Ya, I have been out there, its always a nice drive. Rich: (inaudible) Air traffic control: Hey I bet you do. I havent done much hiking over there. But if you could start a left turn, and back towards the east. I know youre getting a good view there, but if you go too much farther in that direction I wont be able to hear you anymore. Rich: Hey pilot guy, can this thing do a backflip, you think? Rich: I wouldnt mind just shooting the s**t with you guys, but its all business, you know? Advertisement

During a press conference on Saturday morning NTSB investigator Debra Eckrote said they are trying to determine 'what his process was and where the aircraft was going'.

'He's ground support so, you know, they have access to aircraft,' she said, adding that that we're 'very lucky' the plane went down on a 'very underpopulated island'.

She said the plane came to rest in a thick underbrush on Ketron Island, and first responders had to 'blaze a trail' to get to the wreckage.

Eckrote said the plane is 'highly fragmented' and the wings were torn off in the crash. She said responders could not identify a lot Friday night because there was a fire, but they were taking Saturday to 'focus on the areas that we're looking for'.

Eckrote called the incident 'very usual' and said the FBI were doing a background check on Russell to determine a motive.

'Last night's event is going to push us to learn what we can from this tragedy so that we can ensure this does not happen again at Alaska Air Group or at any other airline,' said Brad Tilden, CEO of Alaska Airlines.

Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said on Saturday morning that president Trump was briefed on the incident and was monitoring the situation. She also praised the response effort for its 'swift action' and ensuring public safety.

Ferry workers stand by as fire trucks are driven onto a ferry boat headed to Ketron Island, Friday, Aug. 10

Alaska Airlines, which owns Horizon Air, confirmed that the plane had taken off without permission and later crashed on Ketron Island

Police said the pilot was a 29-year-old employee from Pierce County, Washington. They said he was acting alone and was 'suicidal'. His name has not yet been released

The FBI released a statement just before midnight in Seattle that they did not anticipate any further details tonight

A map showing Ketron Island, a heavily wooded area inhabited by 24 people, according to the 2000 census

At one point in the flight, Russell asked air traffic controllers: 'Hey do you think if I land this successfully Alaska will give me a job as a pilot?'

The air traffic controller, trying to keep him on side, replied 'you know, I think they would give you a job doing anything if you could pull this off', to which Rich replied: 'Yeah right! Nah, I'm a white guy.'

He was also heard telling traffic controllers he was 'just a broken guy' before telling them he was preparing to go jail.

'This is probably jail time for life, huh? I would hope it is for a guy like me,' he said.

Once again, traffic control tried to get Russell to land.

'There is the runway just off your right side in about a mile, do you see that?' the traffic controller said.

'Oh those guys will try to rough me up if I try land there,' Russell replied. 'I think I might mess something up there too. I wouldn't want to do that. Oh they probably have got anti-aircraft.'

'They don't have any of that stuff, we are just trying to find you a place to land safely,' the traffic controller responded.

Russell told the air traffic controller he wasn't 'quite ready' to bring the plane down.

'But holy smokes I need to stop looking at the fuel 'cos it's going down quick,' he added.

'OK, Rich, if you could, could you start a left-hand turn and we'll take you down to the south-east,' the traffic controller said.

Air Alaska passengers wait in the terminal following the hijacking incident, which grounded planes and led to several flights being delayed

A large Alaska Air aircraft maintenance building is viewed on takeoff from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport in this undated file photo

Ketron Island, where the plane went down, is a densely wooded area home to 24 people, according to the 2000 census. None of the island's residents were thought to have been harmed.

Royal King told The Seattle Times he was photographing a wedding when he saw the low-flying turboprop being chased by to F-15s. He said he didn't see the crash but saw smoke.

'It was unfathomable, it was something out of a movie,' he told the newspaper. 'The smoke lingered. You could still hear the F-15s, which were flying low.'

Horizon Air is part of Alaska Air Group and flies shorter routes throughout the U.S. West.

Sea-Tac is the ninth busiest airport in the US, and flew 46.9 million passengers and more than 425,800 metric tons of air cargo in 2017.

For confidential support in the US call the National Suicide Prevention Line on 1-800-273-8255.

For confidential support in the UK call the Samaritans on 116123 or visit a local Samaritans branch, see www.samaritans.org for details.

For confidential support in Australia call the Lifeline 24-hour crisis support on 13 11 14.
Comedian Jim Davidson launched a foul-mouthed Twitter rant after he claimed he performed to his 'smallest crowd ever' in Cornwall.

The funnyman, 64, hit out at the Princess Pavilion in Falmouth, claiming the venue was at fault for the small attendance because it had not advertised his performance.

In a Tweet he ranted: 'Just arrived at the theatre in Falmouth. Not got a clue. Doing the show with working lights. F*ck this!!!!! People deserve better.'

Jim Davidson launched a Twitter rant after his 'smallest crowd ever' at a comedy gig

He followed it up with: 'There are people in this building asking what I am doing here.'

And Davidson was not finished there - in another Tweet to his 151,000 followers he complained size of the crowd was due to a lack of publicity around the event.

A furious Davidson took to Twitter to slam the venue after nobody turned up to his performance

He said: 'Forgot to say it is the smallest crowd I've played to ever. My fault? Obviously. 1,000 people tomorrow in Torquay.

'Maybe they advertised it!!!! Just got changed in the car park.'

He told one of his followers that a gig he played in Macedonia in 1999 was better.

Last winter Davidson slammed a business in another town in Cornwall, Redruth - claiming the facilities at The Regal hotel were under par.

He said on Facebook : 'Last night's hotel in Redruth. Looked loverly downstairs. But run by millenials. No heating or hot water.'

In the past Davidson has sparked controversy for cracking insensitive jokes about cancer sufferers, blind people, and a woman in a wheelchair.

The Princess Pavilion was unavailable for comment.

Davidson will play a show at The Regal in Redruth on November 16.
The wife of an airline employee who hijacked a plane in Seattle had recorded their seven happy years of marriage on Instagram, calling him 'the man who keeps me laughing'.

Richard Russell has been revealed to be the man who stole an Alaska Airlines jet from the Seattle-Tacoma Airport and took it for an hour-long joyride before crashing on an island in a ball of flames on Friday evening.

His wife Hannah's Instagram is chock full of photos from happier times during the couple's life in Seattle, where the pair moved to after they met in school in 2010.

Rich's job as an airport grounds service agent provided him and Hannah with the opportunity to travel the globe, enjoying adventures everywhere from Alaska to Mexico to France.

The wife of Richard Russell, the man who reportedly hijacked an airplane in Seattle on Friday and took it for an hour-long joyride before crashing on an island in a ball of flames on Friday evening, had documented her seven-year-long marriage to the 29-year-old on Instagram

Hannah, pictured with Rich on a hike at Neakahnie Mountain last September, described her husband as 'the man who keeps me laughing' in one of many happy Instagram posts

Rich's job as a grounds service agent for Horizon Air at Seattle-Tacoma International allowed the couple to travel the world together, touring everywhere from Alaska to Mexico to France

The happy husband portrayed on Hannah's Instagram is a far cry from the self-described 'broken guy' who reportedly committed suicide by plane crash on Friday evening.

At around 8pm the Horizon Air employee stole a 76-seater Horizon Air turboprop Q400 from a maintenance area at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and took to the skies, despite not having any apparent flying experience.

While he was in the air, Russell described himself to air traffic controllers as 'just a broken guy' with 'a few screws loose'.

Witnesses described seeing the aircraft performing barrel rolls and loop-the-loops as the military planes directed it away from highly-populated areas and towards Ketron Island.

'This is probably jail time for life, huh? I would hope it is for a guy like me,' Rich says in an audio clip released by authorities.

Minutes later the jet crashed into the islands in a ball of flames.

The selfie above shows Hannah and Rich during an aerial tour of the Grand Canyon in 2016

The couple traveled to Puerto Rico earlier this year, where Hannah Instagrammed a photo of them sitting on the beach with the caption: 'I'm so thankful for this man!'
The leader of a Christian youth camp accused of savagely beating boys in a scandal that has embroiled the Archbishop of Canterbury has died.

The body of John Smyth, 77, was found on Saturday at his home in Cape Town, South Africa, shortly after British police had requested that he return to the UK for questioning. South African police said he had 'succumbed to death due to natural causes'.

Smyth allegedly groomed teenagers at summer camps where Justin Welby, who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 2013, was a dormitory supervisor in the 1970s.

John Smyth is alleged to have carried out a series of brutal assaults on young men in the 1970s. He was found dead on Saturday. Pictured: Smyth and his wife Anne at their home in Cape Town

Smyth allegedly groomed teenagers at summer camps where Justin Welby, who became Archbishop of Canterbury in 2013, was a dormitory supervisor

Smyth is claimed to have later caned the boys at his home near Winchester in Hampshire.

The Archbishop says it was only many years later that he learnt of the alleged abuse meted out to more than 20 boys who attended the camps.

The Mail on Sunday has learned that Hampshire police had recently contacted Mr Smyth, a former barrister, after prosecutors ruled there was sufficient evidence to question him about the abuse of youngsters.

On hearing of his death, Andy Morse, one of his alleged victims, said: 'As terrible as some of the things he did were, I want everyone to remember he was a child once himself and that his family deserve some peace and quiet at this time.'

Allegations against Mr Smyth first emerged in the early 1980s in an internal report by the Iwerne Trust, which organised the camps  but the allegations were not reported to the police.

An alleged victim went public with concerns that there had been no inquiry five years ago, but it was only after a TV investigation screened last February that police launched an investigation.

Victims are considering legal action against the Archbishop for allegedly failing to act decisively enough after he was informed of the claims against Mr Smyth in 2013.

One victim claims that Smyth told him the beatings would 'help you become holy'. Another alleges that boys were made to wear adult nappies to let their wounds heal.

Richard Scorer, a solicitor acting for the alleged victims, said: 'I have been instructed by a number of Smyth's victims to pursue civil cases against the organisations involved.'

Archbishop Welby has apologised 'unequivocally' on behalf of the Church, but says he was working in Paris when the beatings allegedly occurred.
The New Jersey mother who was the sole survivor of a horrific car crash that claimed her husband and four daughters in July arrived to her family's wake on Friday on a stretcher.

Mary Rose Ballocanag, 53, sat in wheelchair inside the church Church of St. Anastasia in Teaneck, as she greeted family and friends who were overcome with emotion throughout the vigil.

On July 6, Mary Rose Ballocanag, 53, lost her husband Audie Trinidad, 61, and her daughters Kaitlyn, 20, Danna, 17 and 14-year-old twins Melissa and Allison when a wrong-way truck driver smashed into their minivan on Route 1 in Delaware.

Ballocanag spoke few words on Friday, but managed to softly tell The New York Post, 'I'm OK,' at the vigil.

The funeral for her family was held on Saturday, beginning at 9.15am at Fairleigh Dickinson University, which is also located in Teaneck.

Mary Rose Ballocanag, 53, the sole survivor of a horrific car crash that claimed her husband and four daughters in July, arrived to her family's wake in New Jersey on Friday on a stretcher

Upon arriving on Friday to the church site, Ballocanag was dressed all in black and kept her eyes closed as she was wheeled out of an ambulance.

Her left hand was wrapped in a bandage, and she had a cast on one foot.

The widow, a nurse at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan, has endured multiple surgeries since the tragic crash, and still has a long way to go, her family said, after suffering multiple fractures to her arms and legs.

Aside from the physical pain, Ballocanag has suffered immense emotional pain since losing every single member of her immediate family.

'When Audie, Kaitlyn, Danna, Melissa and Allison died, part of me died,' Ballocanag told The Post previously, on July 28.

'And I'm dying inside over and over again,' she added.

Danna, 17 (left), Allison, 14 (third from left), Kaitlyn, 20 (second from right) and Melissa, 14 (right) and were killed in a car crash along, with their father, Audi Marquez Trinidad (center)

Friends and extended family have rallied behind Ballocanag and are helping her with funeral arrangements and expenses; Ballocanag's daughters are shown here

Ballocanag made the comments while receiving treatment at Kessler Rehabilitation Center in Saddle Brook just days after being released from the hospital.

Her brother-in-law said from the beginning that there would be no service until Mary could attend, which she finally could on Friday and Saturday.

'We don't want to do it without her,' said Daniel Trinidad. 'As long as she can be in a wheelchair, we can have it.'

Trinidad, his mother, bro

ther and sister had been traveling six or seven hours to visit Ballocanag and come back home to her home in Teaneck, New Jersey, where they are all staying.

He told the News Journal there was a lot of heartache to work through as the family processed their massive loss.

'They're all gone,' he said of his brother and nieces. 'Why do you have to take all five of them, leave one, please.

'But I guess God is very short on angels  he needs them now.'

On July 6, Ballocanag lost her husband and four daughters when a truck crossed the medium and smashed right into the family's minivan

'When Audie, Kaitlyn, Danna, Melissa and Allison died, part of me died,' Ballocanag told reporters on Saturday (pictured)

Her brother-in-law Daniel Trinidad said there would be no service until Ballocanag (pictured) could attend, which she finally could on Friday and Saturday

Ballocanag and her family had been coming back from vacation in Ocean City, Maryland, when their lives were cut short.

Her oldest daughter, Kaitlyn, had plans to follow in her mother's footsteps, and had just finished her latest semester of nursing school at College of Mount Saint Vincent in The Bronx.

Danna was set to begin her senior year of high school in the fall.

Twins Melissa and Allison were about to join their big sister in the same building, scheduled to start their first year of high school as ninth graders.

They were traveling northbound on Route 1 in Delaware just before 4pm on July 6, when a maroon pickup truck travelling southbound crossed the center median into oncoming traffic - slamming into the family's white Toyota Sienna minivan.

Officials said the Ford pickup, driven by Alvin S. Hubbard Jr., 44, first hit the rear driver's side of a 2002 Mercury Sable, which was being driven by Brian Kern, 24, of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

The collision forced the Mercury Sable to spin out of control.

The truck then rammed directly into the Trinidad family's 1998 Toyota Sienna.

The grieving widow says she plans to sue the driver, Alvin S. Hubbard Jr. in the coming weeks

Photos from the scene show the minivan with its roof ripped off and a tarp covering the inside

Photos from the scene showed the minivan with its roof ripped off and a tarp covering the inside of the vehicle.

The devastated widow has undergone at least six surgeries for her injuries, which included five fractures to her arms and legs, and still needs assistance with simple tasks.

According to the Post, Ballocanag said she plans to sue Hubbard Jr., whose truck veered across the median and smashed into her family's car.

Authorities have not charged Hubbard citing their ongoing investigation into the incident, with an investigation into the incident is expected to take months.

Ballocanag announced her plans to file suit alongside her lawyer, Diana Lucianna, on July 27, according to NBC.

'Justice will not bring them back,' Ballocanag said. 'But we will be in a safer place.'

Friends and extended family have rallied behind Ballocanag and to help her with funeral arrangements and expenses.

The family have launched a GoFundMe to help pay for Ballocanag's medical expenses and her family's funerals.
A senior Church of England bishop last night called for a near-total ban on the wearing of burkas in public.

The former Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, said burkas and niqabs should be outlawed in a wide range of situations where people interact, including in hospitals, GP surgeries, universities and schools.

The cleric said a ban should also extend to areas where there were legitimate security and safety concerns, such as at airports or while driving a car. However, he said it was acceptable for women to wear face veils at home, while in the street and at prayer.

The former Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali, said burkas and niqabs should be outlawed

The controversial call from the Pakistani-born bishop, who led the Diocese of Rochester between 1994 and 2009, drew support last night from Lord Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury. Lord Carey said oppressive veils should not become normalised.

Their comments represent the most powerful intervention to date by senior clerics on the issue. They are likely to add to the fierce debate sparked last week when former Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson wrote a newspaper article on why he opposed a ban on veils in public but compared women in burkas to letter boxes and bank robbers.

His comments have prompted an investigation by the Conservative Party.

Bishop Nazir-Ali told The Mail on Sunday: We have all seen how even male terrorists have escaped arrest by donning a burka and making an effective getaway.

For reasons of national security, there will be places like Parliament or Whitehall or town halls and council chambers where the burka should not be allowed.

He said institutions including universities and schools were justified in wanting to know the identities of visitors or those who worked or studied there.

Staff at airports and courts also needed to see peoples faces.

Perhaps more controversially, he added: Many professions require personal interaction with the client. In business, both the trader and the customer should be able to see one anothers face and to interpret expressions if the transaction is to be mutually beneficial. This is even more true of doctors, dentists, nurses and paramedics.

The bishop said burkas and niqabs should be outlawed in a wide range of situations where people interact, including in hospitals, GP surgeries, universities and schools. Stock image

Warning of the threat posed by the wearing of veils, he said: It is true that some women choose to wear the burka or niqab because they feel it makes them more observant Muslims

It is also true, however, that the burka or niqab is being weaponised by Islamists to impose what they consider to be Islamic character on communities, neighbourhoods and even nations.

In Britain, this has serious implications for the freedom of women, but it also has implications for integration and social cohesion. Where there is widespread use of the face veil, there will be greater isolation from one another and a sense of segregation will grow.

Lord Carey, Archbishop of Canterbury between 1991 and 2002, said he strongly supported the position taken by Bishop Nazir-Ali.

He said: We need to be able to identify people in government buildings, transport centres and tourist attractions, to take three examples. Security concerns trump cultural rights.

But Sir Iqbal Sacranie, a former secretary general of the Muslim Council of Britain, said he was sad that such senior Church figures had failed to defend the basic rights of people to wear whatever they chose.

Lambeth Palace declined to comment last night.

l Read the full article by Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali at mailonsunday.co.uk/bishop.

Former Bishop of Rochester, Michael Nazir-Ali: Banning the Burqa

Boris Johnson likes being provocative. My own experience with him on the radio has been that he makes controversial comments to elicit controversial responses! This makes for good radio but it can offend this or that person or section of the population.We shouldnt be too alarmed by this because freedom of expression necessarily involves the possibility of giving offence, as long as there is no threat to the safety of an individual or community or of discrimination against them.

The furore, however, about his language regarding the appearance of those wearing the burqa or niqab, has meant that many have missed his extremely relaxed attitude to the actual wearing of these garments in public situations.The only restrictions he seems to countenance have to do with private preferences or rules in schools or offices.

Like him,I am not in favour of an absolute ban on the burqa but unlike him, I am in favour of a qualified ban on wearing the burqa or niqab in a wide range of situations.I am not for a total ban because that would violate the freedom of people to dress as they choose when they are at home, with friends or at their place of worship.There are many reasons, however, for restricting the wearing of these garments in a number of important areas of our common life.

Former British Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs Boris Johnson sparked controversy recently with his comments about burkas

I come myself from both a Muslim and Christian family background and have lived and worked in Muslim majority communities.I have had beloved aunts who, at first, wore the burqa and then abandoned it because it was incompatible with their work as schoolteachers.I have seen also how increasingly  modest dress, whether the burqa, on the frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan, the niqab in Egypt or the chador in Iran, is being imposed on women in the name of religion, custom or culture.We cannot assume that such compulsion is not taking place in this country!

We have all seen how even male terrorists have escaped arrest by donning a burqa and making an effective getaway.For reasons of national security, there will be places like Parliament or Whitehall or town halls and council chambers where the burqa should not be allowed.Government and local authority buildings, as well as institutions like universities and schools, will want to know the identities of those who come to visit, work or study, not only at the point of entry but throughout the day.There needs to be legislative and regulatory backing for such bodies to be able to ban the burqa and the niqab on their premises.

Immigration and border control is another area where a ban is required.This is, of course, to determine the identity of those entering or leaving the country but it is also necessary to maintain adequate security in and around our ports and airports.Those responsible for our security need to able to tell, by peoples behaviour in public places, including facial expressions, whether they are a danger to others.The courts have ruled already that a face veil must be removed at the time of testifying but this is not enough.Judge, jurors and counsel will also want to observe the facial expressions, of those involved in a trial, at other stages, when different people are testifying or when counsel for the defence or prosecution are arguing their case.

Some choose to wear the burqa because they feel it makes them more observant Muslims

Many professions require personal interaction with the client.In business, both the trader and the customer should be able to see one anothers face and to interpret expressions, if the transaction is to be mutually beneficial.This is even more true of doctors, dentists, nurses and paramedics.They need to know, from facial expression, how a patient is feeling, if they are in pain and whether pain has been relieved through treatment.Those engaged in therapeutic counselling and in social work, similarly, have to be able to tell, by observing the face, the extent of a persons distress or well being.Both Boris Johnson and Jack Straw have declared that they would refuse to see someone from their constituency if they were wearing a face veil because that would make a real conversation very difficult. Such a difficulty extends to those working in job and advice centres and in any number of community and family projects.

I have seen women driving in some countries with a niqab or other voluminous covering.How they do so safely is a mystery to me! Public safety on roads means that those wearing burqa, niqab or other full head covering, which obscures all round vision, should not be allowed to operate vehicles where they pose a danger to the public.This must also be true of operating certain kinds of machinery at the work place or of working in difficult terrain or challenging weather conditions.Again, the Police, The DVSA and employers will need legislative sanction if they are to enforce such bans.

It is true that some women choose to wear the burqa or niqab because they feel it makes them more observant Muslims although there doesnt seem to be anything in the Quran or in Islamic law that requires this.It is also true, however, that the burqa or niqab is being weaponised by Islamists to impose what they consider to be  Islamic character on communities, neighbourhoods and even nations.Culture and custom can also be appealed to in persuading women to take the face veil.In Britain, this has serious implications for the freedom of women but it also has implications for integration and social cohesion.Where there is widespread use of the face veil, there will be greater isolation from one another and a sense of segregation will grow.

Young Saudis, including three women wearing the traditional niqab and black abayas, relax on the Corniche waterfront in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

While Islamists have succeeded in introducing or re-introducing the veil in a number of countries, other countries, like Egypt, are resisting this trend.The highest Islamic authorities there have banned it in educational institutions and Parliament is considering legislation to ban it altogether.What is happening there has certainly influenced the European debate and we also need to learn from Egypt and other countries about the social and health consequences of observing strict purdah or the seclusion of women, including the wearing of face veils.

Boris Johnson claims that banning the burqa would result in a general crackdown on wearing any religious symbols in public.The Scottish Conservative leader, Ruth Davidson, has said, similarly, that banning the burqa is like banning Christians from wearing the crucifix.Neither of these claims bear examination.A crucifix, or similar religious symbol, does not conceal anyones identity or expression nor can it be used to conceal a weapon which could be a danger to the public.When are we going to stop always seeking equivalences between Christianity and other religious beliefs?Christianity has given us our civilisation, our values and the dignity and freedom of the person.Let us celebrate that instead of always dragging it down to the lowest common denominator!

We need then both to uphold personal freedom and regulation for the sake of the public good.For weighty reasons of security, safety on our roads, control of our borders and professional conduct, the wearing of full face veils can be and should be restricted in our society.
No one tried to post a letter in me. When I went into a NatWest, no one pushed an emergency button, thinking I was about to stick em up.

My main worry, when a few years ago I spent a week wearing a full burka, with only a small gap in the fabric allowing me to see and breathe, was whether or not some wag might toss me in the air and try to hit me over a net, so closely did I resemble a slow-moving shuttlecock.

And today, at the end of a week when a few metres of black fabric has again been the subject of hot debate, its place in a liberal society batted back and forth by men and women who (mostly) have never worn the damn thing, I thought a reminder of what it feels like inside those folds might be apt.

Liz Jones was challenged with spending an entire week wearing a full burka

I remember during my week catching sight of my reflection in a shop window in Knightsbridge. Instead of seeing me, I saw a woman who was hunched and shuffling. A dark, depressed alien. A smudge. A nothing.

Ive long felt antagonistic towards women who wear the burka. I would see a woman on the streets of London, a black crow at the side of a husband or male relative, and Id roll my eyes and tut loudly. I put the rights of women and girls to dress as they please before the rights of people of any particular faith. How dare you demean yourself in this way, I would think as I walked past. You insult every woman who died fighting for your rights and your freedom.

The burka has its origins in the Middle East before Islam, when men and women covered their faces to keep out sand. In Afghanistan, the burka is known as the chadri; it has a thick grill over the mouth and eyes, and is the one I chose to wear. The chadri only became a common sight when the Taliban came to power, banning women from wearing cosmetics, and shoes with a heel: the noise of a heel on pavement was said to be too arousing for men to cope with.

I remember in Kabul meeting former TV newsreaders, businesswomen, who once wore Manolos and lipstick, forced to cover up. They were cowed, mere shadows of their former selves, now unemployed, able only to sit at home.

During my week in the shadows, I soon found out why: there is no way a woman can work in one. Each time I had to go to meet or interview someone, I had to take the headpiece off. I couldnt even see to type. Most importantly, I couldnt think straight.

That first day, I was afraid to put it on. When I did pluck up courage, I felt suffocated, as though forced to live inside a dark tent. I got in my car to go to the station and realised there was no way I could drive safely with my eyes blinkered like a racehorse. Already deaf, the fabric snuffed out any residual sound.

On the walk to the station I could hardly breathe. My shroud made me itch all over, and my eyelashes kept banging against the cloth. A friend recently came back from a spell working in Qatar and said that whenever he drove he had to keep swerving to avoid running over the flocks of women who stumble on to roads. They are like children. They have to be guided by men. None of them speak. Its like the Middle Ages.

I felt scared, vulnerable.

I walked to the kiosk to buy coffee. Mumble mumble, I said to the young man serving. To his credit  the station is in a rural area, so Im sure this was the first time he had encountered a full veil  he didnt bat an eye, and smiled. I pointed. I automatically lifted the cup to my lips. Ah. How was I going to do this? I tried to work the cup up the inside of the cloth, performing an elaborate jig on the platform, but got stuck halfway.

Later that day, at a coffee shop in Fulham, I sat outside at a table, faced with a sandwich and a latte. As I weighed up my hunger, an Arabic man shouted abuse at the white, male photographer sent to chronicle my day. I have no idea what he was saying  perhaps I shouldnt have been eating in public  but the interesting point is that during the entire experiment, he was the only person who gave me any abuse.

Women wearing a burka, clothing that covers their entire bodies shopping at a bazaar

The only time I became furious at my treatment was when, for a domestic flight, I swanned through security unmolested, when normally Im made to remove jacket and shoes. This smacked of PC pandering. I was heartened, though, that throughout my week I was only ever met with helping hands.

Getting into a cab in London I was still called darlin by the driver. Getting out of said cab, a passing decorator opened the door and grabbed my shopping  a burka makes you clumsy, slow, helpless; I spent most of the week feeling like a disabled person.

In fact, the only curious glances I attracted were from small children and my border collies, who started barking like maniacs.

One day, I had lunch with a friend in Primrose Hill. She walked past my table three times. I waggled my Prada bag, which I thought she might recognise.

How fantastic, she said when at last she realised it was me. You dont have to bother to put on make-up or wash your hair. How much spare time you must have! This was a common response from my much-groomed, often scantily-clad female friends.

I admit, too, this rather jokey response had, as someone who never leaves the house without having had my roots retouched, crossed my mind. Arent we in the West equally imprisoned by the pressure to be perfect?

But having worn my burka (its still upstairs in a box, like the ashes of a dead pet), I find that attitude naive. Telling women to cast it off, making a joke of how they appear, is disrespectful of those who are forced to wear what amounts to a mobile prison for fear of being beaten, or worse.

You become not just not female, you become inhuman. All through my week Id worn scent, something I never normally do, so compelling was the feeling I had to be feminine in some small way.

I was supposed, during my sentence in purdah, to wear trainers so as not to expose toe cleavage, but I got so hot I resorted to flip flops: the steam had to escape somehow.

The burka has its origins in the Middle East before Islam, when men and women covered their faces to keep out sand

The second most common response from Western women was that, thank goodness, at least men wont leer. Well, this isnt a problem I face daily. Yes, of course its helpful not to walk along dark alleys in a miniskirt and boob tube, but lets not forget the extremely high incidence of rape in countries where the burka is prevalent. Extreme modesty does not breed safety.

The ridiculous claim the burka protects women from male harassment was wheeled out yet again on Womans Hour. A British Muslim woman defended her choice because not only did it bring her closer to God but because before I used to get men asking for my number, can they have dinner with me.

Ive no idea what she looks like but to evoke that response she must be up there with Ava Gardner. She went on: Im not going to stop because people are ignorant. I have had so much abuse on the train.

Well, she has obviously never travelled with First Great Western. On my trips back and forth I found both passengers and staff courteous. At one point, after a particularly hot day in Regents Park, trying to lick a 99, I wobbled to the buffet car and mumbled for a G&T. Would you like ice with that? the young lady asked, deadpan.

Rather than being the brunt of abuse, I felt that by wearing a veil I was the one being rude. I had to keep tucking my hair back, like Audrey Hepburn as she disappeared forever, married to Christ in The Nuns Story, and started to wonder: what is so disgusting about the female form that it has to be hidden?

On yet another perfect summers day in Hyde Park during my week covered up, I saw a crocodile of schoolchildren, aged maybe nine or ten. Several of the girls were in headscarves: only the small moon of their faces exposed. For the first time I knew how they were feeling: different. Hot. How about, too, marginalised, objectified, kept fresh only for the eyes of their male relatives?

After just a few days, what I mostly felt was exhausted. I asked a young Muslim woman who lives Bristol how on earth she coped and she answered: You just have to get used to it. Id rather not, thanks very much.
The Democratic National Committee used Twitter to serve its lawsuit to WikiLeaks after failing to reach the group through conventional methods.

On Friday, Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC's newly created Twitter account, @ProcessServiceC, posted a tweet reading: '@wikileaks By Court order, you are being served with the following legal documents' and linked to four documents.

Among the documents were the official summons and complaint, both filed in court on April 20.

DNC lawyers tweeted at WikiLeaks to serve the group its election cyberattack lawsuit Friday

Among the four documents that were linked to in the DNC lawyers' tweet was the official lawsuit summons (shown), which had been filed on April 20

Cohen Milstein is the law firm representing the DNC in its lawsuit against President Trump's election campaign, the Russian government, WikiLeaks and others, about the supposed 2016 cyberattack against the Democratic political party, which was aimed at helping to sway the election in Trump's favor.

The tweet, posted at 9:52am, tagged the verified WikiLeaks Twitter handle.

CBS News reported that the Cohen Milstein lawyers resorted to the unusual method of serving a lawsuit via Twitter because they were unable to serve the lawsuit to the WikiLeaks group through email.

To use the Twitter method, the DNC had to file a motion with a New York federal court. The motion was filed in July and consent was given by a federal judge.

In the motion, lawyers argued that reaching out by Twitter made sense because WikiLeaks uses the social media platform regularly. The motion also stated that the group's founder, Julian Assange, is a regular Twitter user and that at least one person at WikiLeaks had read the DNC's lawsuit, based on an April 21 tweet.

DNC lawyers filed a motion in federal court to use Twitter as a method of outreach in July

A judge approved the request after DNC lawyers wrote that they had been unable to reach WikiLeaks through conventional methods, including email

DNC lawyers said that WikiLeaks members actively used Twitter and that this April 21 tweet indicated that WikiLeaks had read the lawsuit which had been filed the previous day

Trump's campaign and one of his sons are also named in the DNC's lawsuit. On July 6, Trump tweeted that they had won the lawsuit, but it appears to still be in progress

The DNC's lawsuit, which also names Trump's campaign, centers on the fact that WikiLeaks published nearly 20,000 emails said to have been stolen off DNC servers prior to the 2016 election and largely related to then candidate Hillary Clinton (Trump and Clinton in 2018)

The WikiLeaks handle, which is followed by 5.4million users, appears to tweet on a daily basis.

The Twitter method had previously been used in California, when a court decided that it was a reasonable way to notify the lawsuit's defendant, who happened to have an active Twitter presence.

Although Trump tweeted on July 6 that he 'Just won lawsuit filed by the DNC and a bunch of Democrat crazies trying to claim the Trump Campaign (and others), colluded with Russia,' it appears as though the lawsuit is still very much active.

Prior to the 2016 election, WikiLeaks published nearly 20,000 emails which were said to have been stolen off the DNC's private servers. The emails were said to have been lifted by a hacker collective that is believed to be run by the Russian government's Main Intelligence Directorate, also known as GRU.

The majority of the emails were said to have been related to presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.

WikiLeaks also published thousands of private emails lifted from Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign chairman, John Podesta.

WikiLeaks has not yet tweeted regarding the lawsuit since Cohen Milstein used Twitter to served them the lawsuit Friday.
Dubai's Attorney General says the British mother supposedly detained over a glass of wine was in fact held over a passport row in which she verbally abused an immigration officer.

Dr Ellie Holman was released with her four-year-old daughter after a hellish stint in jail.

The dentist from Sevenoaks in Kent was pictured with her eight-year-old son, Noah, today after they were reunited.

She spent three days locked up in the Arab state and received an apology from the government for the detention.

But Dubais Attorney General Issa Al Humaidan said the row started with an expired passport, The Sun reports, and ended with her using 'profanity' and photographing an official in a restricted area.

'She was advised by the immigration officer that she could not enter the country with an expired passport,' he said Issa Al Humaidan. 'She then produced an Iranian passport, and was informed by the officer that she could enter the country by issuing a new temporary visa, which allowed a 96-hour stay, and had to change her departure flight according to the new visa.'

Dr Ellie Holman receives a kiss from her eight-year-old son Noah after being being released from a Dubai prison

Dr Ellie Holman and four-year-old daughter Bibi (pictured together) have been told they can return home after being locked up in a Dubai prison

Dr Holman (pictured with her other daughter, Suri) was detained for drinking a glass of wine in an airport in the Arab state

She was told in a telephone call today that she can leave at any time and will not face any charges. The Dubai Government have also said they will pay for the flights home.

The 44-year-old was with her two eldest children who had flown out to Dubai for a visit when she received the news and said she was 'ecstatic.'

She told MailOnline: 'I can't believe this is over. When I got the call from the government telling me they were dropping the case I was in shock.

'I was told to prepare for a long stay in Dubai and a prison sentence. The man on the phone apologised on behalf of the immigration official who put me and Bibi through all of this. I feel like a weight is off my chest. '

The mother-of-three from Sevenoaks, Kent, is hoping to be home on the first available flight accompanied by her visiting children Suri, nine and Noah, eight.

Dentist Dr Holman, pictured with children (from left) Noah, eight, Bibi, and Suri, nine, said her ordeal began when she was surrounded by armed police after trying to film her argument with an immigration official when he claimed her visa had expired

Her partner Gary, pictured with their children, flew out to Dubai to be with his wife and daughter

Mr Holman said the experience had been 'devastating' for her children, pictured

'I can't wait to be safely on my flight with Noah and Suri, and to put all this behind us,' she said.

Dr Holman's release came after the personal intervention of Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed, according to sources in the UAE.

He is said to have ordered her release after MailOnline's coverage of her ordeal and treatment was covered by media worldwide.

Dr Holman's release came after the personal intervention of Dubai's ruler Sheikh Mohammed (pictured)

Dubai, which attracts over 14m visitors each year, is heavily dependent on tourism.

The publicity about Dr Holman's arrest for drinking a glass of wine could have had a deterrent effect on future travellers.

The dramatic twist came just 48 hours after MailOnline exclusively revealed how the mother-of-three was arrested at Dubai airport following a row with an immigration official over her visa.

During dispute over her visa Dr Holman was asked if she had any drunk any alcohol.

Dr Holman said her daughter Bibi, pictured, was inconsolable during the ordeal and she tried to comfort her by reading her books in the jail

She admitted she was served wine by the cabin crew on the Emirates Airlines flight and was told consumption of alcohol was illegal in the UAE.

She said: 'I have never broken the law in my life and I would not have done so this time if I had known that having a glass of wine in my system was an offence.

'I can't believe Emirates Airline would give a glass of wine to a passenger if they know the consequences are so severe in Dubai.'

Dr Holman, pictured with son Noah, said conditions in the cell were 'filthy, foul-smelling and baking hot'

DR Holman told MailOnline how the dispute over her visa quickly escalated with a 'rude and aggressive' immigration officer.

As her single entry visa has expired he demanded she fly back to London immediately.

When Dr Holman refused as she and her daughter were tired from the long flight there followed a tense standoff.

It was then the immigration officer asked if she had been drinking and she admitted to having a glass of wine with her meal during the eight hour flight.

Despite her protestations, she was marched off to a holding cell where her daughter was forced to urinate on the floor as guards would not let her use a toilet.

After being held for several hours Dr Holman provided a blood sample to Dubai authorities which came back with a reading of 0.04% - well under the UK drink drive limit.

Emirates Airlines offers wine on flights from the UK to Dubai as standard practice (file picture)

With no legal representation and not allowed to speak with her family she and Bibi were taken to an airport detention centre where they spent three days.

They were held for three days in a 'baking hot and foul smelling' room and she was forced to clean toilets and mop the floor.

With her traumatised daughter too terrified to leave her side she was forced to sleep in a canteen area where the lights were kept on 24 hours a day.

During their detention the pair did not eat and Dr Holman said she was unable to sleep during her enforced stay.

'The food smelled like rotting garbage and neither Bibi or I could face trying it. I stayed awake for the whole three days,' she said.

She claims they were also denied a pillow or a change of clothing She said Bibi was in a state of shock and refused to be comforted.

After her release Dr Holman was allowed to stay with friends but her passport was confiscated and she was told it could be up to a year until the matter is resolved.

Her partner Gary flew from their home in Kent to Dubai to collect their youngest daughter.

The couple estimate they have lost over 30,000 in earnings and money spent on legal fees.

Since her arrest Dr Holman's practice in Sevenoaks has been closed.

Dr Holman's ordeal was taken up by the NGO Detained in Dubai.

Its CEO Radha Stirling told MailOnline: 'We welcome the intervention of the Dubai government to dismiss the case against Dr Ellie Holman. This is an appropriate response to the international outrage over what she and her daughter suffered.

'We would reiterate, however, that a single instance of intervention does not resolve the ongoing issue of Dubai's confusing policy on drinking.'

Radha Stirling, CEO of Detained in Dubai, said: 'The government of Dubai owns Emirates Airlines, and Emirates Airlines provides alcohol to international passengers free of charge, thereby essentially entrapping them into breaking UAE law as soon as their flights land.

'Dr Holman accepted a complimentary drink, and was then punished for that by the same government who provided it; and there is every reason to expect this to happen again.

'Dr Holman was handcuffed and ill-treated in detention, and her four year old child is still traumatized by what she and her mother endured. They have every right to compensation for their suffering.

'We continue to strongly advise travelers to avoid the UAE, as it remains the number one destination where foreigners are most likely to face legal problems.

'The dismissal of Dr Holman's case does not change the laws, does not change the policies, and does not mitigate the risks faced by anyone traveling to or through the UAE.'
Thomas Markle was in his hospital bed in the Chula Vista Medical Center, San Diego, recovering from a heart attack when his mobile phone rang.

It was just three days before the Royal Wedding and a familiar voice said to him: If you had listened to me this would never have happened.

It was Prince Harry, the man who was about to become his son-in-law, and he was understandably furious having learned Mr Markle had cooperated with the paparazzi to stage photos of him apparently preparing for the Royal Wedding.

Though they have never met, after being introduced by Meghan on the phone, Harry and Mr Markle previously enjoyed a series of warm and chatty phone calls over a period of months.

Thomas Markle pictured with his daughter Meghan. was in his hospital bed in the Chula Vista Medical Center, San Diego, recovering from a heart attack when Harry rang him

They also talked about what to do when news of the Royal romance became public.

Harry told me that I should never go to the Press. That it would end in tears. He said: They will eat you alive. He was right.

On Friday May 11, The Mail on Sunday informed Kensington Palace of the bombshell revelations about Mr Markle we were to publish two days later.

That Friday, Harry called Mr Markle to ask if he had co-operated with the shots which showed him, among other things, supposedly being fitted for a wedding suit for the big day. Mr Markle admits lying to his son-in-law to be, telling him: No, I was being measured for a new hoodie.

Three days after our story was published on May 13, Harry and Meghan called Mr Markle again, though by then he was in hospital recovering from a heart attack. That was when the Prince told him: If you had listened to me this would never have happened.

Mr Markle said he told Harry: Maybe it would be better for you guys if I was dead then you could pretend to be sad. Then I hung up.

In hindsight, he admits Prince Harry was absolutely right to criticise him for dealing with the paparazzi for money.

The intense media spotlight trained on Meghans romance, engagement and marriage to Harry brought chaos to his once-quiet life of retirement in a hilltop home in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, near the US border.

And for now, retired Emmy-award-winning lighting director Mr Markle is royally p***ed off.

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle after their wedding at St George's Chapel on May 19

He is fed up of the constant lies written about him; he is fed up with his life being ruined; he is fed up with Royal aides not offering him any help or guidance.

He has been sold out by several friends and says his family, including his brother Fred, a retired bishop of an Eastern Orthodox Catholic church in Florida, have been vilified: They took a picture of his little church and put it beside a picture of the Queens church. It was insulting and offensive. As he talks, it is clear he is an immensely proud man who has been wounded by some of the actions  or rather inaction  of Palace aides.

When news of Meghans romance broke, he says he was given no advice whatsoever except not to talk to the press. I was hung out to dry. I was being chased and harassed on a daily basis. I didnt know who to turn to.

They (the Palace) gave me no help at all. I felt utterly isolated.

Kensington Palace and its army of advisers have been similarly accused of a communications disaster by commentators after news broke that Mr Markle wouldnt be attending his daughters wedding.

Royal experts questioned why he was left to cope with the glare of the media spotlight, in contrast to the support given by the Royals to Kate Middletons family in the run-up to her wedding with Prince William in 2011.

Thomas Markle (pictured) last night revealed how he dramatically hung up on Prince Harry during a heated telephone call  after the MoS exposed him for staging paparazzi photos

Critics said Royal officials should have brought Mr Markle under their wing to help him deal with and prepare for the wedding.

But behind closed doors, there appears to have long-running rift between the Duchess of Sussex and her father. Since the wedding, Mr Markle has been outspoken about the rift.

A month after the wedding, in a breach of Royal protocol, he told Piers Morgan on Good Morning Britain he had discussed politics with Harry on the phone and claimed the Prince was open to Brexit and urged him to give President Donald Trump a chance.

Mr Markle has also revealed he has not spoken to his daughter since the wedding and that he feels he had been cut off as a punishment for staging the fake paparazzi pictures.

He claimed in a newspaper interview that his daughter looked

terrified in her new role and that she wore a pained smile.

And in another explosive interview with The Mail on Sunday last month, Mr Markle said Princess Diana would have loathed the way he is being frozen out by the Royal Family.

Palace aides are said to have held at least three top-level crisis meetings on how to handle the dysfunctional Markle family in PR terms.

In person, Mr Markle is a far cry from his media caricature, which he describes as the weirdo schlubby dad living in a shack in Mexico drinking beer and eating McDonalds.

His interview with The Mail on Sunday is only the third he has ever given to a newspaper  and he says it will be his last. He says many reports about him have been made up, spun around and others are outright lies.

Prince Harry (pictured) called Mr Markle to ask if he had co-operated for shots which showed him, among other things, supposedly being fitted for a wedding suit

He has lost almost 3st since his heart attack and insists, while he is happy for Meghan, he loathes the circus that has come with her falling for a prince.

His rift with Meghan began after his eldest daughter Samantha and son Tom Jnr  from his first marriage to Roslyn  made openly critical comments about Meghan.

Samantha attacked her half-sister for failing to pay back her father thousands of dollars he spent on her private education and university fees  but Mr Markle points out he had never asked, nor expected, to be repaid as he felt it was his parental duty.

Meghan asked me to tell Samantha to stop talking about her and then asked me to stop talking to Samantha. I have two daughters. I cant stop talking to one of them, he says with a shrug. No father should be asked to turn his back on their children. I love Meghan but I also love Samantha.

Mr Markle is keen to erase the image built up by some sections of the media of him as a sad recluse.

He says: I wish Harry and Meghan well but this isnt going to make or break me. They will remember me when they have a child with my Markle nose.

I have pictures of Meghan and my other kids all over my house in Mexico. My favourite picture of her is a head-shot I did of her, in close-up, wearing a big hat with gloves pulled all the way up her arms. Shes about ten. And she looks like a little duchess.

Despite their disagreements, he insists: I love Harry, I love my daughter. I wish them all the love and best wishes for the future.

But I am not sitting here crying. Im not sitting here being self-pitying. Im not cashing in on the Royal Family. I dont care about the Royal Family. My daughter is a duchess. I dont even know what that really means.
Jeremy Corbyn was embroiled in a fresh anti-Semitism row last night after it was revealed that he gave a wedding speech for an alleged Holocaust denier.

The Labour leader, who has been battling to contain the furore which has been raging in his party for weeks, paid tribute to Husam Zomlot, who was at the centre of a furious row when he appeared to suggest that Israel had fabricated the Holocaust.

Mr Zomlot, 44, told the BBC in 2014: They [Israel] are fabricating all these stories about beheading journalists in Iraq as if they are fabricating also the story of the Holocaust, that it happened in Europe.

It triggered an outcry among Jewish groups, although Mr Zomlot strongly denied that he meant that details of the Holocaust had been fabricated. He said his words were meant to convey that Israel was using both the Holocaust and the murder of Western journalists by Islamic State to justify its murder of Palestine.

Jeremy Corbyn spoke at alleged Holocaust denier Husam Zomlot's wedding, five years before the MP became Labour leader

Mr Zomlot, 44, told the BBC in 2014: They [Israel] are fabricating all these stories about beheading journalists in Iraq as if they are fabricating also the story of the Holocaust, that it happened in Europe

He made the inflammatory remarks shortly after IS posted a video of the beheading of an American photographer James Foley.

Mr Zomlot has also said Israel was founded on the skulls of our nation and accused the country of an ethnic cleansing campaign.

A picture obtained by The Mail on Sunday shows Mr Corbyn speaking at Mr Zomlots marriage to wife Susan, five years before the MP became Labour leader.

Mr Zomlot, who now heads the general delegation of the PLO to the United States, met Mr Corbyn when he was the Ambassador-at-Large at the Palestinian Diplomatic Mission in the UK a decade ago. When Mr Corbyn addressed the Palestine Solidarity Campaign national conference in 2010, he was applauded for describing Zomlot as his close friend and for thanking him for his work in support of the solidarity movement.

A Labour Party spokesman said: Jeremy has been a longstanding supporter of Palestinian rights. He supports a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict and a negotiated settlement that delivers peace and security for both peoples.

Mr Zomlot, pictured here at an anti-Israel demo in 2015 where a swastika is clearly visible, now heads the general delegation of the PLO to the United States

Husam Zomlot is a leading Palestinian political figure and effectively ambassador to the US, having played the same role in Britain.

He has made clear he is not a Holocaust denier  and did so in the same BBC broadcast that is the subject of controversy.

Jeremy attended his wedding in London in 2010, along with a wide range of British and other international diplomats.

Yesterday it was revealed that Mr Corbyn had attended a service to honour Palestinian martyrs at a cemetery in Tunisia, just feet from the graves of terror leaders linked to the Munich massacre in 1972.

Mr Corbyn has battled to contain the row over alleged instances of anti-Semitism by friends and followers and has been accused of failing to tackle anti-Semitic elements within his party.
A woman claims she was left with a broken jaw, a loose tooth and four stitches in her face after she was attacked by Brooklyn rapper Casanova and his entourage at a Manhattan restaurant.

Niya Rucker says she was in The Good Stuff Diner on West 14th Street at around 4.40am on Monday when she began filming her meal on Instagram live to show it off to friends.

Casanova and his crew, who were nearby table, wrongly thought she was filming them and confronted her, she alleges. Rucker says one man put her in a chokehold while the rapper grabbed her arm before taking her phone and deleting the live post.

Niya Rucker (left, speaking on Friday) says she was in The Good Stuff Diner on West 14th Street at around 4.40am on Monday when she was attacked by Casanova (right, in New York on August 10) and his crew

'This this is embarrassing, I haven't eaten food in three days,' Rucker told Pix 11. 'And it's more than just the physical pain.

'People think they can get away with stuff because they've got a bunch of people with them, or a bunch of money, or they think they are somebody. I think I'm somebody too.'

Footage filmed on the night showed Rucker with blood dripping down her face. Rucker said she told the rapper and his crew she was not filming them but they did not listen.

NYPD has issued a warrant for Casanova's arrest, according to TMZ, who reported a law enforcement source as saying Rucker was left needing four stitches in her face.

Rucker says one man put her in a choke-hold while the rapper grabbed her arm before taking her phone and deleting the live post. She posted this footage of her injuries

Members of Casanova's team have since contacted Rucker to ask her to stay quiet, according to Pix 11. Pictured: The Good Stuff Diner in New York where the alleged assault took place

The rapper, 31, and his entourage fled the restaurant after the alleged assault, the source added.

Members of Casanova's team have since contacted Rucker to ask her to stay quiet, according to Pix 11.

Dailymail.com has contacted Casanova for comment.

The rapper is scheduled to appear on stage in Deer Park, New York, on Saturday night.
Newly released emails show that New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon served as NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio's conduit to the celebrity world for several years.

The emails, released to several media outlets on Friday through a Freedom of Information request, span 2014 to 2018 and show the Sex and the City actress's cozy relationship with de Blasio.

Nixon often served as a conduit to City Hall for her celebrity pals, including former co-star Sarah Jessica Parker, who sought assistance for a West Village restaurant in September 2014.

The restaurant, Tea & Sympathy, was struggling with rising rents, and Parker sent Nixon a note lobbying on their behalf, which Nixon forwarded directly to de Blasio.

Newly released emails show that New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon (right) served as NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio's (left) conduit to the celebrity world for several years

Sex and the City co-star Sarah Jessica Parker (left in 2016) was one of the celebrities to seek help from Nixon (right) in seeking assistance from City Hall

'We are having other problems in our neighborhood as well and the city hasn't been responding. Some are issues related to the very things our Mayor was criticising [former Mayor Michael] Bloomberg for,' Parker wrote in the email obtained by the New York Daily News.

'Lots of new little fines and potential shut downs of businesses. Wanting to be supportive and convince our local business leaders that we can get some support and a rational ear as well that De Blasio wasn't just courting votes but listening.'

Another plea for help came to Nixon in 2014 from Oskar Eustis, the Public Theater's Artistic Director overseeing Shakespeare in the Park, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Nixon passed on to de Blasio his complaint that a 'plague' of helicopters flying over Central Park would 'ruin Othello', and the mayor responded personally.

'Thanks for sending this along, Cynthia. That's a new one to meno idea why the helicopters would be over the park. We'll check this out and get you an answer asap,' de Blasio replied.

A few days later, a City Hall official in an email said that he had reached out to air traffic controllers to reduce helicopter noise.

Parker contacted Nixon on behalf of Tea & Sympathy (above) a restaurant in her West Village neighborhood that was struggling with rising rent and city fees

Another plea for help regarding helicopter noise came to Nixon in 2014 from the Artistic Director overseeing Shakespeare in the Park. Pictured: Twelfth Night in Central Park in 2018

However, representatives for both Shakespeare in the Park and Tea & Sympathy told the Journal that their complaints were never actually resolved.

The favors between Nixon and de Blasio went both ways, the emails show, with Nixon marshaling celebrity support for the mayor's pet initiatives, including universal pre-K and NYC Well, a mental health initiative pushed by de Blasio's wife Charlene McCray.

'Cynthia, I should have said this on the phone, but the First Lady is over the moon with all this celebrity engagement. We are doing important work connecting people to resources!' McCray adviser Erin White wrote to Nixon in an October 2016 email reported by the News.

One thing that was not discussed in the emails was Nixon's bid to unseat de Blasio's frequent political foe, Governor Andrew Cuomo. She will face the incumbent Democrat Cuomo in a September 13 Democratic primary.

Nixon spokeswoman Lauren Hitt told the News that Nixon's relationship with de Blasio was no secret.

'As a devoted education activist, it's no secret Cynthia fought hard to elect Mayor de Blasio and to get his education initiatives like universal pre-K passed,' Hitt said. 'Naturally, as people who work closely together do, they sometimes spoke about other things. The rest is just palace intrigue.'
America's ambassador in London has issued a call for the UK to join Donald Trump in putting pressure on Iran.

Britain and its European allies responded with dismay to Mr Trump's decision in May to pull out of the 2015 deal which relieved sanctions on Tehran in return to an end to Iran's military nuclear ambitions.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt joined with his French and German counterparts last week to voice their 'deep regret' at Washington's withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and vow to protect European companies from US reprisals if they continue to trade with Iran.

But Ambassador Woody Johnson urged the UK to rethink its position. In an article in the Sunday Telegraph, he said: 'It is time to move on from the flawed 2015 deal.

Ambassador Woody Johnson (left) urged the UK to rethink its position after Jeremy Hunt (right) voiced concern about the US pulling out of the deal

'We are asking global Britain to use its considerable diplomatic power and influence and join us as we lead a concerted global effort towards a genuinely comprehensive agreement.'

Mr Johnson said the Tehran regime had used the flow of money coming into the country since the easing of sanctions not to improve the lives of ordinary Iranians but to beef up spending on the military and networks of proxy forces and terrorists.

He accused Iran of launching cyber attacks against Western democracies, sponsoring Hizbollah terrorists in Lebanon, arming militants in Yemen and publicly threatening to destroy Israel.

'It is clear that the danger from Iran did not diminish in the wake of the deal,' he said. 'It grew. Far from becoming a more responsible member of the international community, as we had all hoped, Iran grew bolder.'

Trump's decision to pull out of the Iran deal was criticised by the EU and Jeremy Hunt voiced solidarity with the bloc's leaders

He called for a 'united front' among Western nations to force Tehran into a change of course.

'Only by presenting a united front can we exert the maximum possible pressure on the Iranian regime, and get it to finally change course and put an end to its malign and reckless activities both at home and abroad,' said the ambassador.

'If the regime does make tangible and sustained changes to behave like a normal country, America is prepared to resume full commercial and diplomatic relations.

'Iran will be free to develop advanced technologies and play a full role in the global economy. Until then, America is turning up the pressure and we want the UK by our side.'
Military commanders are allowing drug-taking troops to remain in their regiments because the Army is so desperately short of soldiers, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

While the Army officially operates a zero tolerance policy and kicks out squaddies who abuse substances such as cocaine, defence sources say commanding officers have been forced to adopt a far softer approach.

Those claims are supported by figures suggesting a huge rise in the proportion of troops being given a second chance after failing Compulsory Drug Tests (CDTs).

Informed sources say that, despite the likelihood of being involved in making life or death decisions and operating expensive and lethal military equipment, even repeat drug offenders are being let off.

Unlike these two soldiers from 1st Battalion the Irish Guards, some troops have taken drugs. Military chiefs have had to adopt a softer approach amid an Army recruitment crisis

The Mail on Sunday has learned that Royal Military Police officers at one UK base have interviewed the same soldier on three occasions after he failed three CDTs.

For many years, the Army has followed an Exceptional Retention in the Service policy to deal with drug abuse.

It allows troops to avoid dismissal, but only if they can prove their case was truly exceptional and meets four clear criteria.

These are that the soldiers should be 25 or under, or be considered inexperienced; that they must hold a junior rank such as private soldier or lance corporal; that they be first-time offenders; and that commanders are confident of reforming their conduct. However, sources say the manpower crisis is so severe that drug-taking troops are being given undeserved reprieves that fail to meet those criteria.

One officer said: In training depots recruits caught taking drugs just have to write a letter saying theyre sorry and they get let off. In regiments, the cases are decided by the Commanding Officer (COs) who are scared of losing soldiers so theyre bending the rules.

How many troops get a reprieve is driven by the manning requirements of each unit. Some Airborne and Household Division units still attract enough recruits to allow COs to take a hardline approach against drugs.

Theyll kick guys out if they take any category of banned substance or even an illegal bodybuilding supplement.

But these COs are in a very fortunate position. Commanders in the rest of the Army cant afford to lose people so out comes the waiver, especially if the guy is doing an important role which the boss cannot find somebody similarly qualified to carry out.

Despite a multi-million pound recruitment advertising splurge by the Ministry of Defence, the Army remains a crippling 4,000 soldiers short of its target strength of 82,000. Earlier this year, the National Audit Office warned of the biggest Armed Forces personnel shortfall for a decade, with staff shortages of up to 25 per cent in crucial areas including engineers and intelligence analysts.

The numbers of soldiers caught taking drugs rose from 570 in 2015 to 730 in 2016.

Richard Kemp (pictured), a former UK commander in Afghanistan, said the recruitment crisis lay behind the Armys softer attitude towards drug abuse

As a result of failing CDTs, 540 troops were kicked out of the Army in 2015, suggesting exceptional retention was activated on 30 occasions  the equivalent of 5.3 per cent of cases. By contrast, only 170 of the 300 troops who failed CDTs in the first six months of last year were given their marching orders  suggesting 43.3 per cent benefited from the exceptional retention provision.

No figures are yet available for 2018, but defence sources predict the use of the waiver will be higher even than last year. Figures for the RAF reveal failed drug tests doubled from 40 to 80 between 2015 and 2016 and CDT fails for the Royal Navy and Royal Marines rose from 30 to 50 over the same period.

Richard Kemp, a former UK commander in Afghanistan, said the recruitment crisis lay behind the Armys softer attitude towards drug abuse.

COs are misusing the waivers to keep up manning levels, but Im not blaming them for doing so because recruiting and retention in the Army are so bad, he said.

If the Army got better at recruitment and had the resources to convince soldiers to stay in, COs wouldnt have to worry about booting out soldiers who take drugs.

The reality today is that manning is down and units need to keep enough soldiers to be operationally effective. Drug taking in civilian society is also higher than it was ten years ago. Inevitably this has had an adverse impact on recruits and junior soldiers.

News of the relaxation of military drug rules comes ten months after documents obtained by The Mail on Sunday revealed how teenage recruits at the Armys training depots are given second chances if they fail drug tests.

Last night a Ministry of Defence spokesman said: Drug abuse is incompatible with military service and those who fail can expect to be discharged.

In a small number of exceptional circumstances, where an uncharacteristic mistake is made by an individual, second chances may be considered.

This is a longstanding policy and all service personnel are subject to random Compulsory Drug Testing. Recruitment and retention issues are not considered in determining military drug misuse policy.

Statistics show drug misuse is significantly less prevalent among serving personnel than the corresponding civilian demographic.
Residents in the Los Angeles County area are biting back at the abundance of electric pay-per-minute scooters, burning and tossing any that they can get their hands on.

The vandals post their scandalous acts all over social media, as the war-on-scooters amplifies in places like Santa Monica and Beverly Hills.

'They throw them everywhere: in the ocean, in the sand, in the trash can,' Robert Johnson Bey, a Venice Beach maintenance worker, explained to the Los Angeles Times.

Residents in Los Angeles County are vandalizing electric scooters provided by companies Bird and Lyft as local officials rush to put a cap on their abundance

'They throw them everywhere: in the ocean, in the sand, in the trash can,' Robert Johnson Bey, a Venice Beach maintenance worker, said

'Sunday, I was finding kickstands everywhere. Looked like they were snapped off.'

The Los Angeles Police Department's Pacific Division has only received one report pertaining to scooter vandalism. The report resulted in an arrest that eventually led to a case that prosecutors ultimately rejected.

No reports have been made at the Santa Monica Police Department.

Los Angeles Police Department's Pacific Division has only received one report pertaining to scooter vandalism

The report resulted in an arrest that eventually led to a case that prosecutors ultimately rejected

Lt. Michael Soliman of the LAPD Pacific Division's Venice Beach detail, said that he is familiar with the vandalism. He added that he has seen scooters that have been piled up to at least 10ft in height.

But Soliman asserted that they don't really respond to those types of incidents because they aren't reported.

'If we have to prioritize the allocation of our time and resources, first and foremost we're going to prioritize the preservation of life,' Soliman said. 'Protection of property comes second.'

An Instagram account called 'Bird Graveyard' has garnered a huge followings of 24,000 followers, showcasing the destruction of the scooters

Companies Bird and Lime have run into troubles since coming on the LA scene a year ago.

Venice Beach City Council members voted to cap the number of scooters in the street while longer-term regulations were being drafted.

In Beverly Hills, the scooters have been banned for sic months.

Los Angeles City Councilman Paul Koretz demanded that 'all available measures' be taken to outlaw the scooters in the city.

An Instagram account called 'Bird Graveyard' has garnered a huge followings of 24,000 followers, showcasing the destruction of the scooters.

A moderator of the page told the LA Times that they get upwards of 100 videos submitted a day.

'We do not support the vandalism or destruction of any property and are disappointed when it takes place,' Bird spokeswoman Mackenzie Long said in a statement. 'Nor do we support the encouragement, celebration or normalization of this behavior.'

According to Nathan Edelson, a Bird mechanic in Venice, most of the scooters wind up with cut power cables or smashed brakes

A Lime representative said that less than one percent of their scooters have been vandalized nationwide.

According to Nathan Edelson, a Bird mechanic in Venice, most of the scooters wind up with cut power cables or smashed brakes.

Most of his friends who fix scooters make $15 per scooter repair, fixing dozens in a day.

For residents in the area, most of their grievances with the affordable scooters spawns from their tendency to be left all over the place. Residents also get annoyed with the riders who don't follow traffic rules

For residents in the area, most of their grievances with the affordable scooters spawns from their tendency to be left all over the place. Residents also get annoyed with the riders who don't follow traffic rules.

Some feel speed restrictions could help control scooters and their riders in heavily trafficked areas.

It is unknown how much the scooters cost Bird, but inquiries online found that similar rides cost $1,000.

Vandalism of property worth more than $400 is considered a felony but arrest or so unlikely.
With her outsized mop of blonde curls and a distinctive line in rambling patter, Louise Reay is making quite a name for herself in the world of stand-up comedy  and this weekend finds her hard at work in a sweltering basement at the Edinburgh Fringe.

Armed with props that include a headless doll and a giant hand-sewn slice of pizza, her performance is more what you might call surreal than rib-tickling, with jokes about such unlikely subjects as oppression and an unborn child.

There is also a female assistant wearing a moustache.

The estranged husband of Louise Reay is suing her over gags she makes about their failed relationship

But as most in the packed audience know all too well, Ms Reay, 32, would rather be dwelling on a very different theme  her former husband and the abuse she says she suffered at his hands. But she cannot.

And the reason she faces this extraordinary gag? In a case sending chills down the spines of comedians  and married couples  everywhere, estranged husband Thomas Reay, 33, is suing her, claiming she has mined their failed relationship for jokes and is demanding she stop.

He also wants 30,000 in damages for distress, invasion of privacy and damage to his reputation.

Indeed, if Ms Reay strays from the lawyer-approved script that she clutches in her hand, there is every danger she could owe a great deal more money, still.

In other words, her show at the Cabaret Voltaire club is less a comic turn than a new front in a remarkable year-long battle for free speech between two estranged spouses  one which has seen leading comedy stars, including David Baddiel, rally to her side. With Rowan Atkinsons intervention on behalf of Boris Johnson and his controversial mockery of burkas, the subject could hardly be more timely.

Whatever Thomas Reays intentions, it is a case that is shaping up to be one of the most notable matrimonial disputes in British legal history.

But even if she has been silenced at Cabaret Voltaire, The Mail on Sunday can now reveal that Ms Reay has shown no such restraint away from the stage.

She has ripped into Thomas Reay with a series of astonishing allegations  including claims that their relationship was dogged by cruelty, oppression and, on occasion, outright violence with, it is said, a metal chair used as a weapon against her.

New court documents suggest that, incredibly, she was so hungry at times that she was forced to beg him for food. They are allegations that Mr Reay vehemently denies.

I will never stop fighting for this, says a passionate Louise, speaking to this newspaper after a Fringe performance. For a stand-up not to be able to say what they want  everything being controlled by lawyers  its extraordinary. Imagine if everyones jokes were controlled by lawyers. Its bigger than [just] me.

The comedian is being sued for 30,000 in damages for distress, invasion of privacy and damage to the reputation of her estranged husband

The only thing the couple can seem to agree on these days is that their marriage is at an end.

The Reays  he is an accountant, she is a television producer as well as a comedienne  had been together for a decade and married for four years when the relationship began to fracture in 2016.

In February 2017 they separated, but it was that August that the current dispute began when Louise took to the stage at the Edinburgh Fringe to perform her one-woman show. Hard Mode was based on a conversation with Chinese artist and political activist Ai Weiwei about censorship and authoritarianism, themes she underlined by placing sinister masked police on the stage.

The stream-of-consciousness act included some unexpected personal features, too, including references to a nameless male presence in her own life, a man whom she appeared to liken to Chairman Mao.

This person, she told the audience, had thrown a chair at her. This same person controlled her finances, was abusive and questioned her purchase of toilet roll despite him earning more than 10,000 a month.

This anonymous figure might now be free to wonder why your wife always has a headache in bed, she told the audience, who learnt that she didnt feel safe to have a baby.

So it is hard, then, not to have some sympathy for Mr Reay, who says he had no idea about his wifes new comedy material until his parents read reviews of her month-long stint at the Fringe. Alarmed, he commissioned a private investigator to record a performance. The results, he has claimed, left him reeling and humiliated.

His lawyers fired off a letter, following which Ms Reay says she gave her husband an undertaking she would not mention him in any further performances. Then, at the start of the year, he served legal papers claiming defamation, harassment and breach of privacy and data protection regulations.

Mr Reay demanded damages and legal costs and an injunction stopping Ms Reay from publishing any statements about him, actions branded by her as oppressive.

The case could certainly ruin her financially and she has resorted to a GoFundMe page to help raise money for her case.

As stand-up comedians, I believe its the very definition of our job to talk about our lives and social issues, she writes on the website. This has become a free speech issue  and free speech means everything to me. Besides, she says, she had referred to her estranged husband only a couple of times, maybe two minutes in total, in the course of her 50-minute show.

The main gist of those references was to tell the audience how sad I was that my marriage had broken down recently, she says. Now, the new legal papers, obtained by this newspaper, make it clear Ms Reay has embarked on a second and rather more outspoken line of defence. One which makes for explosive reading.

Thomas Reay claims Louise Reay has mined their failed relationship for jokes

Thomas Reay, she alleges, was an aggressive and controlling husband who denied her use of their joint bank account without his permission and permitted her to visit a bakery for a treat just once a week.

She also says he would regularly belittle her, call her stupid and make her repeatedly apologise to him up to ten times or more for having committed some trivial perceived offence against him.

She claims he expected her to do all of their housework, cleaning and cooking, that he controlled her finances and that she would spend her days alone in the apartment without sufficient, or any, food. The papers say she would find herself begging Mr Reay to buy food so she could eat.

Worse still are the allegations of violence. On occasion, according to the documents, she was afraid for her own safety, alleging that Mr Reay threw a metal chair towards where she was sitting. When she told him: This isnt OK. This isnt safe, it is alleged he replied: You made me do it.

Another time, say the papers, he kicked her hard in the leg under the dinner table when she failed to stop talking to a friend about politics.

Is it a coincidence that her new  censored  show features a passing reference to the #metoo movement, although there is no claim the abuse was sexual?

A series of well-known comedians have come to her defence, with Josh Widdicombe, Sara Pascoe and Nish Kumar performing at a special comedy gala in the West End called Ex Appeal. They raised more than 10,000 for her.

Mr Baddiel, whose own performances have made liberal use of his fathers dementia and his mothers sex life, has spoken out, saying it would be a pity if the outcome of this case meant that comedians versions of their histories would have to be constantly checked by lawyers before they could be told on stage.

Mr Reay, meanwhile, vigorously disputes what he calls his wifes upsetting and inflammatory accusations. In court papers of his own, he denies he was financially controlling, high-handed, violent, or that he caused his wife to fear for her personal safety.

While he admits he threw a chair, he says it landed four metres from his wife, while the kicking on the leg was a gentle nudge to the foot when he felt the debate was getting too heated.

He will argue that he had taken last years Edinburgh performance to mean that he had domestically abused her and that, during their relationship, he had engaged in a pattern of oppressive, tyrannical, violent, financially and emotionally controlling, bullying and cruel behaviour towards her.

He believes the show has damaged his reputation and caused him to suffer acute distress and hurt to his feelings. He has his own explanation for the accusations she seemed to make in the show, which he describes an act of revenge in response to his effective termination of their relationship.

Last night, a lawyer acting for Mr Reay told The Mail on Sunday that the Hard Mode show was not only a highly personal attack on him with no justification whatsoever, but it also constituted harassment, amongst other things.

No right to freedom of expression or artistic licence can extend to the publication of such seriously defamatory and false allegations. It is with deep regret that our client has had to pursue legal action in order to protect himself.

Ms Reay, of course, takes a different view.

As the audience filed out of Cabaret Voltaire, an image of a park bench appeared on a screen. On its plaque were the words, Louise Reay was sane and told the truth.

That, of course, will be for the courts to decide  and there are major issues at stake.

But whoever ultimately prevails, even her most committed fans will surely agree that this most poisonous of public rows is no laughing matter.
Theresa May has been dragged in to an extraordinary row between Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson and Treasury Minister Liz Truss over funding for the Armed Forces.

The Mail on Sunday has been told that the bust-up left Ms Truss feeling so threatened by Mr Williamson that the Prime Minister personally assured Ms Truss that she had the support of Downing Street.

It is the latest episode in a long-running campaign by Mr Williamson to secure a funding boost for his department.

Earlier this year, Mr Williamson caused fury in No 10 by fomenting a revolt on the Tory backbenches over MoD funding and warning that he could break Mrs May if she did not find the money.

Bust-up: Liz Truss, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, said: 'We have to recognise that it's not macho to just demand more money'

Mr Williamson argues that to maintain effective operations, defence spending should be boosted by 20 billion over ten years.

Ms Truss, the Chief Secretary to the Treasury, first antagonised Mr Williamson by slapping him down for his public lobbying, saying: We have to recognise that its not macho just to demand more money.

'Its much tougher to demand better value and challenge the blob of vested interests within your department.'

Tensions boiled over during recent discussions between the MoD and the Treasury over Armed Forces funding, including changes to wages and pensions.

A well-placed source said: Gavin became very animated and demanding and it made Liz feel threatened. It soon got back to Downing Street, and Liz sought assurances that she had No 10s support  which she received personally from Theresa.

It is understood Mr Williamson also clashed recently with a second senior Treasury figure, who warned him: Dont ever speak to me like that again.

Mr Williamson has been a thorn in the side of Philip Hammonds department since becoming Defence Secretary last year, prompting one ally of the Chancellor to describe him mockingly to this newspaper as Private Pike.

Theresa May has been dragged in to the extraordinary row

The spending row flared into life after Mrs May announced a 20 billion-a-year boost to the NHS budget earlier this year, leading Mr Hammond to declare there was no money left for similar rises in defence, housing or schools spending.

When Mr Williamson insisted to Mrs May he needed a minimum of 2 billion a year extra for the next decade, she questioned whether the UK had to be a tier one military power.

Mr Williamson responded that after Brexit he thought it would be even more important for the UK to sit at the top table internationally.

Asked about the Liz Truss row, a senior Government source said: The Prime Minister was aware of the disagreement and did speak to the Chief Secretary.

An official spokesman for Mr Williamson said last night: We do not recognise that course of events.

A spokesman for Ms Truss declined to comment.
The child sex abuse case that saw pop mogul Jonathan King handed a seven-year jail sentence has been reopened in the light of fresh evidence  including documents which dramatically undermine the testimony of a star witness at his 2001 trial.

Fresh evidence is being considered by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which will decide whether to order a new appeal. It emerged as a result of Kings trial this year on separate, though related, charges of historic sex abuse, some dating back to 1970.

That case was brought to an end last week when the judge issued a damning ruling, accusing Surrey Police of failing to disclose critical evidence and misleading the court.

Child sex abuse case that saw pop mogul Jonathan King handed a seven-year jail sentence has been reopened

Judge Deborah Taylor told Southwark Crown Court that it would be impossible for King to get a fair trial because the integrity of the criminal justice system and processes have been undermined publicly in a fundamental way by disclosure failures and persistent misleading of the court.

She added: A trial has been aborted due to the failures. The time of the court and public money have been wasted, in a time of scarce resources Continuation would undermine public confidence in the administration of justice.

The Mail on Sunday can reveal that the fresh evidence to be considered by the CCRC includes:

Witness A  one of five underage victims King was convicted of abusing in 2001  who gave a long, unpublished interview to the News of the World four years before he spoke to the police, in which he revealed a very different story from his trial testimony. This newspaper has established he told the reporter in 1997 that he met King when he was with a friend at an amusement arcade, and was not assaulted until weeks later;

In 2001, Witness A said former DJ King first approached him when he was alone at a market stall, drove him in his Rolls-Royce to a peep show and, later that same day, took him to his home, where he assaulted him. The police knew of these discrepancies seven months before the 2001 trial, but allegedly did not disclose the 1997 account to the defence team;

As the MoS first revealed in 2016, an investigation by the author Bob Woffinden, who died earlier this year, shows that another boy King was convicted of abusing was not in the same country as the music mogul throughout the period when he claimed he was certain the alleged abuse took place. He was in England, but tickets, receipts and credit card bills unearthed by Woffinden show that King was in America;

A 2014 report by Merseyside police on Operation Arundel, the original 2001 Surrey investigation, was only disclosed to Kings lawyers shortly before the 2018 case finally collapsed. The report, triggered by Surreys widely criticised investigation of allegations against Jimmy Savile before his death, made sweeping criticisms of the way Arundel officers took statements from alleged victims, saying the method they used increases the possibility of error, and the integrity of any statement taken in this manner is open to question;

The report says officers failed to tape the questions they asked during interviews, while victims statements were written up and signed days if not weeks afterwards from short trigger notes, instead of immediately. The CCRC will now decide whether this casts doubt on all the evidence that convicted King in 2001;

The first Arundel detective to take a statement from an alleged victim of King was Mark Williams-Thomas, now a TV presenter. According to Judge Taylors ruling, after Williams-Thomas left the force, police found a document on his computer offering for sale names and introductions to victims of Mr King. The judge also said that when he left, Williams-Thomas took his police notebooks concerning King with him. The prosecution said he should not have done this because they were force property;

In 2018, though not in 2001, King was charged with abusing Witness B, the alleged victim interviewed by Williams-Thomas. Witness B could not have testified in person because illness had destroyed his ability to speak: the jury would have been asked to convict King on the basis of his 2001 statement. Witness Bs medical records, which showed he had been in numerous mental institutions and had been a drug addict, were only disclosed in June, shortly before the trial collapsed.

Well connected: King, who has a long career in pop, with former Page 3 model Samantha Fox

Yesterday, King, 73, told this newspaper in an exclusive interview: Im naturally delighted by the outcome, but my real hope is to protect others in future, and to let the many teachers, care workers and others who have also been wrongly convicted of so-called historic sexual abuse to have their cases reopened too.

There needs to be change at all levels. But as Judge Taylor has done, we must start with the behaviour of the police.

He said that Surrey Chief Constable Nick Ephgrave, the man ultimately responsible, should resign.

Kings long career in pop began in 1965 when he had a top five hit while still a Cambridge student. He went on to write, perform and produce many more, while also discovering bands such as Genesis.

His contacts were also impeccable. In 2001, Simon Cowell stood him bail, and when he was arrested, King had been offered the chairmanship of recording giant EMI on an annual 5 million salary.

Other famous friends included former Page 3 model Samantha Fox.

He admits the sexual opportunities that success gave him were endless, and some might find his promiscuous behaviour reprehensible.

But he says he never made any secret of it, and was always clear he was not interested in settling down. In a recent video, he ironically described himself as a vile pervert.

Im bisexual, he said, and I had sex with hundreds of people. About 40 per cent were women.

But I found it absurd that in the 1970s and 1980s, I could legally have sex with a 16-year-old girl but not with a boy the same age because the age of consent for gay sex was 21.

So I deliberately broke the law with young men who were over 16, and who wanted to have sex with me.

King insisted he went to elaborate lengths to ensure he never slept with anyone under 16, adding: I was very good at seduction. Im sorry if some people have come to regret having sex with me in later life. But if anyone said no, I accepted it. I knew some of those who made allegations, but I didnt have sex with any of them.

In all, King has faced four trials.

The first  in which he was convicted of abusing boys aged 14 and 15, with offences ranging from buggery to touching inappropriately  led to his seven-year jail sentence, of which he served three and a half years.

The four cases against him CASE ONE King was convicted at the Old Bailey in September 2001 of four counts of indecent assault, one of buggery and one attempted buggery on five boys aged 14 and 15 when the crimes took place in the eighties. He has protested his innocence ever since, but was jailed for seven years. He served half his sentence. This case has now been reopened because of fresh evidence. CASE TWO Two months later, in November 2001, he was found not guilty of sexually assaulting two other underage boys, after one admitted in court he might have been over 16 at the time of the alleged offence. CASE THREE He has been due to face further charges in late 2001, but the prosecution decided not to go ahead with the trial. The charges were left on file  and King was told by his lawyers this meant they would never be revived. CASE FOUR In what legal experts say was a highly unusual move, two of the on file charges were revived in 2015. King was also charged with crimes reported to police in 2001, but where they had taken no action. Facing claims he had abused a total of 10 further underage boys, he was found not guilty of two of the revived charges in June 2018. The whole case was aborted last week after the judge found the police had misled her and so undermined the integrity of the criminal justice system. Advertisement

In the second, in November 2001, he was accused of abusing two boys but found not guilty on all counts.

A third trial due after that was dropped by the prosecution.

The charges he would have faced then were left on file. But King was assured by his lawyers that they would never be revived.

Legal experts say it is highly unusual for charges of this kind to be tried years later. However, this is what happened in Kings fourth trial, which ended last week.

Of the ten alleged victims, seven  including Witness B  had first made statements in 2001, when their claims were either left on file or did not lead to charges.

The other three came forward after King was arrested in 2015 amid huge publicity.

The 2001 trial started in June. In April, Kings defence, led by solicitor Steven Bird and Henry Blaxland QC, had tried to get the case stopped as an abuse of process, arguing it was unfair to revive the old allegations.

At that stage, the judge disagreed. But then, following pressure from Kings defence, further documents were disclosed, including the Merseyside report on Operation Arundel and Witness Bs extensive medical records.

The prosecution, acting on information from the police, had wrongly told the court these documents contained nothing of relevance, and that there was no final version of the Merseyside report  when, in fact, there was, and Surrey Police had a copy in their files.

King was found not guilty on the two charges which had lain on file, including the claim he abused Witness B. Then the case was aborted.

Meanwhile, a long statement to police by the News of the World reporter describing his interview with Witness A in 1997, with its many discrepancies from his 2001 evidence, had also come to light.

Judge Deborah Taylor told Southwark Crown Court that it would be impossible for King to get a fair trial

It had been sent to Kings office as part of a package of unused material in October 2001 but he never examined it because by then he had been convicted, and was in Belmarsh prison.

King said he was sure that the reporters statement had not been disclosed before his trial, and if it had been, his barrister, Ron Thwaites QC, who had a formidable reputation, would have used it to undermine Witness As allegations.

The 2018 prosecution lawyers said it is not possible to say if the reporters statement was disclosed before the 2001 trial or not, but admitted that the information it contained was not in any statement made by [Witness A] himself.

I was misled, Judge Taylor said at the end of last weeks ruling.

She added that, whether the misleading was deliberate or not, to allow this would give rise to a belief that in this type of case, where there are sexual allegations against figures in the public eye, the courts are prepared to sanction the end justifying the means.

Perhaps most astonishingly of all, she also suggested that the 2018 case had not been driven by complainants allegations, but by concerns about reputational damage to Surrey Police in the wake of the Savile case and the consequent Merseyside investigation.

Last night the CCRC confirmed that it had reopened the 2001 case. A spokesman said: We will examine whatever material there may be which is relevant. Anything that concerns witnesses credibility will have a bearing.

Williams-Thomas said he not been given any opportunity to defend myself before the judge issued her ruling, saying that he should have been. He said he left the police with an exemplary record and only kept his notebooks because he was advised to do so.

As to the document the judge said was found on his computer offering to sell details of Kings alleged victims, he said: After two investigations, no action was taken against me.

It must follow that no offences were disclosed. I categorically deny any wrongdoing here or in relation to any of the other criticisms I pride myself on my ability to protect victims of such crimes.

A Surrey Police spokesman said: We recognise there were serious organisational failings in the investigation, particularly in relation to disclosure.

The force deeply regret we did not meet the required standards to ensure a fair trial. For this we wholeheartedly apologise.

The spokesman added that the force had commissioned an independent review and a formal complaint by King was now being investigated. However, Chief Constable Nick Ephgrave had no intention of resigning.
Ex-minister with a mountain to climb: David Davis will this week mount a bid to 'get fit again' with a gruelling hike in the Lake District

Boris Johnson is being urged to anoint David Davis as interim Prime Minister as part of a Brexiteer putsch to oust Theresa May as early as October, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.

The burka row which has engulfed the party in the wake of Mr Johnsons incendiary remarks about Islamic dress, has emboldened anti-May plotters, who think it could help trigger a leadership contest when MPs return to the Commons next month.

Senior allies of Mr Davis have told this newspaper a contest would be a disaster for the country, so the party should agree to make the former Brexit Secretary a caretaker leader until after the UK leaves the EU.

They have privately urged Mr Johnson to agree to the plan and postpone his bid for the leadership until Mr Davis steps down. The latest bout of Tory leadership plotting came as:

Ukips former bankroller Arron Banks announced plans to flood the Tory Party with supporters of Mr Johnson as part of a Donald Trump-style campaign to make him Prime Minister;

Mr Johnsons allies turned their fire on party chairman Brandon Lewis over the probe into the burka comments, accusing him of covering up more serious allegations against a pro-Remain MP;

Plans were drawn up for a series of rallies to be held across the country for leading Brexiteer Tories to set out the case for a hard Brexit;

Mrs Mays former deputy Damian Green warned Mr Johnson against going full Trump by joining forces with Right-wing figures such as Steve Bannon, an ex- adviser to the US President.

Mr Johnson infuriated Tory high command by writing in his newspaper column that burkas made women look like letterboxes.

When Mr Lewis called for the former Foreign Secretary to apologise for the remarks  forcing the Prime Minister to echo his call  he triggered a furious backlash from Mr Johnsons supporters.

Their anger intensified when the party launched a probe that could lead to him being forced to undergo diversity training.

One Boris ally accused Mr Lewis of double standards for sanctioning an inquiry into Mr Johnsons behaviour immediately  but stalling on more serious allegations against another Tory MP who is a Remain supporter.

Boris Johnson, seen returning to Gatwick Airport after a visit to Italy, is being urged to 'park' his own leadership ambitions and allow Mr Davis to take over until Brexit is achieved

Mr Lewis was said to have parked the results of an official party inquiry into bullying claims against the MP  whose identity is known to The Mail on Sunday  even though the probe was months ago.

Tory sources rejected the accusation against Mr Lewis, saying the party board had decided no further action was needed.

Mr Johnsons friends say he has been bombarded with supportive messages from Tory MPs, and is now surging in the leadership stakes.

Last night, one senior party figure predicted Mrs May could face a leadership contest as soon as next month when the Commons returns from its summer break. A contest would be triggered if 48 Tory MPs demand one.

One senior party figure predicted Mrs May could face a leadership contest as soon as next month

The source said: The membership is massively behind Boris on this. If there werent enough Tory MPs ready to support no-confidence letters when we left Westminster last month, there probably will be now.

But Mr Johnson himself is being urged to park his own leadership ambitions and allow Mr Davis to take over until Brexit is achieved.

The coronation plan has been drawn up to try to avoid a full-scale Tory leadership contest, with Davis backers saying only he would be trusted by both Leave and Remain MPs to take up the reins without needing to consult grassroots members.

Sources said the ex-Brexit Secretary would be trusted by both wings of the party to take over the final exit negotiations and deliver a deal which honoured the 2016 referendum.

They point out that Mr Davis was involved in the Tories last so-called leadership coronation  in 2003, when his decision not to stand paved the way for Michael Howard to become leader without a full-scale contest.

One senior ex-Minister said last night: Everyone knows Boris would romp home in any leadership poll where party members get to vote.

The problem is that, with crucial Brexit talks this autumn, we cant afford a full, three-month leadership contest.

As ex-Brexit Secretary, David Davis is the only candidate who could be accepted by Tory MPs without the need for a full-scale contest.

To reassure Boris, were pointing out that David is 70 next birthday. Although hes as fit as a man half his age, he just wouldnt want to serve for years and years.

Mr Johnsons friends insist that he is only the recipient  not the instigator  of other peoples ambitions for him. One said: Boris is taking the summer out to think and reflect and thats the extent of it.

The attempt by Arron Banks to flood the Tory Party with Boris supporters ahead of the next leadership contest will increase concerns in Downing Street that Mr Johnson is becoming the focus of a Trump-style campaign.

Damian Green says his fear now is Boris is being turned into a martyr by the alt-Right

In an article for todays Mail on Sunday, Damian Green says his fear now is Boris is being turned into a martyr by the alt-Right, adding: I am particularly concerned by reports that President Trumps sacked adviser Steve Bannon is forming a Europe-wide far-Right campaign group  and has been in touch with Boris.

'I hope no Conservative politician, including Boris, is taking advice from him about how the party should behave.

It also emerged yesterday that Leave campaigners were drawing up plans for a series of rallies involving Mr Johnson and Mr Davis to make sure that the Government delivers a real Brexit.

One organiser said: The aim will be to keep the Government honest and keep the public attention firmly fixed on a genuine departure from the EU  not the halfway house currently being proposed by No 10.

Last night, Mr Davis was unavailable for comment. But a friend said: David wants to focus on the real challenge this autumn  getting a Brexit deal that will get through Parliament and be acceptable to the Europeans.

Mr Davis is also writing his own account of the Brexit process. One friend said: David is working on a book telling the story of Brexit. Its likely to make the point that had Brussels been more sensible during the negotiations with David Cameron, we wouldnt be where we are now.

'He has hit a snag: Whitehall mandarins are being their usual pedantic self and refusing to release his ministerial diaries, claiming they are Government property.
Close: Arron Banks and Donald Trump

A dramatic attempt to fix the next Tory leadership contest for Boris Johnson is to be launched by Arron Banks, the Ukip donor who campaigned for Brexit during the 2016 EU referendum.

Mr Banks is planning to use an advertising blitz to urge Brexiteers, including 90,000 Leave.eu supporters still on his email list, to join the Tory Party and vote for Mr Johnson in the next leadership election.

The move is similar to the Momentum campaign which flooded the Labour Party with Jeremy Corbyn supporters to secure his election.

But it is Mr Bankss links to Donald Trumps advisers which will most alarm No 10.

Mr Banks travelled with former Ukip leader Nigel Farage to meet Trump shortly after he won the US election.

Mr Banks, whose business interests and links to Russia have come under close scrutiny, has admitted handing the Russian ambassador to the UK a telephone number for Trumps team.

He also has links to Steve Bannon, Trumps former political strategist, who has been courting Mr Johnson to join a pan-European populist alliance against the EU.

Last night, Mr Banks said that Leave.eu had received record donations of 50,000 last month in response to Mrs Mays Chequers deal, which hard Brexiteers oppose.

He said that the campaign would utilise the 1.2 million people who follow the organisation on social media, and claimed that 7,500 supporters had already joined the Tories in order to vote for Mr Johnson.

He added that a number of big Tory donors were looking to back the membership drive.

He said: Mrs May has badly miscalculated. People admire authentic politicians like Boris, not grey robots.
The final YouTube video posted by a Seattle plane hijacker depicts a happily married man with a monotonous job that's only silver lining was the travel opportunities it afforded him.

Richard Russell, 29, stole an Horizon Airlines jet from the Seattle-Tacoma Airport and took it for an hour-long joyride before crashing on an island in a ball of flames on Friday evening.

A video posted to Russell's amateur travel blog in December 2017 provides an intimate view into his life as a grounds service agent for Horizon Airlines, a job that consisted primarily of loading and unloading luggage, paying only $13.75 per hour.

'Hi, I'm Beebo Russell and I'm a grounds service agent. That means, I lift a lot of bags. Like, a lot of bags. So many bags,' he narrates over back-to-back clips of suitcases being loaded on and off of airplanes as a lighthearted tune plays in the background.

'Look at all them bags. Ooh, a purple one,' he says cheekily.

After making the point about the monotony of Russell's job through several drawn-out luggage clips, the video flashes a selfie of the 29-year-old working in the rain, followed by footage of a storm soaking the Sea-Tac tarmac.

'I usually have to work outside in this,' Russell says.

'But, it allows me to do some pretty cool things, too.'

The second half of the two-minute video is devoted to Russell's travels, featuring photos and videos from his different trips around the world.

Several of his adventures were in his wife's home state of Alaska, including a plane tour of the Misty Fjords in Ketchikan and hiking trips at Hatcher Pass in Palmer and Mendenhall Glacier in Juneau.

He also shows off clips from a ski trip at Schweitzer Mountain in Sandpoint, Idaho, and a hiking trip at Precipice Trail in Maine's Acadia National Park.

Outside of the US, one of Russell's favorite locations appears to be France, where he'd toured everywhere from Alsace to Sisteron to the Lavender Field in Valensole.

Other international experiences shown in the video included a hurling match in Dublin, Ireland, and a guys' weekend at Chichen Itza in Mexico.

Russell wraps up the video with several photos at gatherings with friends and family, saying: 'Most importantly, I get to visit those I love most.'
Many of us will notch up several iconic Wonders of the World on our travels over a lifetime, if we are lucky.

We might get to see the Taj Mahal in India, or perhaps Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Australias Great Barrier Reef or the Andean citadel of Machu Picchu. But how about ticking off all these  and more  in one gilt-edged, Pol Roger-fuelled swoop?

And on a luxury trip, with private jets, an executive chef, an on-call doctor, lecturers, flunkies  oh, and access to a mobile lavatory.

Well, now you can. Just as the upper classes had their Grand Tours in the 17th and 18th centuries, today the moneyed classes are jetting off to criss-cross the globe in the shortest possible time, and the greatest possible comfort.

On a TCS World Travel tour, the jet waits for you, rather than you waiting for the jet.

On landing, a chauffeur takes you from a private terminal to your next five-star hotel. Perish the thought of enduring endless security checks at inhospitable airports.

Your cases will be waiting for you, courtesy of the luggage concierge who oversees its hotel transfer. You will also find an envelope containing local currency  what the company calls walking around money.

The next available trip is in January 2019 and comes in at 134,000 per couple

You will take in ten destinations, starting and ending in Orlando, Florida, and spend 86 hours flying. You get a toiletry bag full of LOccitane goodies and, on flights longer than five hours, a three-course meal.

Curious about your fellow passengers? There will be up to 80  mainly Americans of a certain age and net value. Youll fly in a converted Boeing 757 with reclining seats in Italian leather, and Bose noise-cancelling headphones. Flights are westbound (said to reduce jet lag) and take place during the day, so red-eye shouldnt be much of a problem.

Theres no form-filling for immigration and customs. Its all done for you  just sign.

Forgetting which country youre in, or, which UNESCO World Heritage Site youve just visited, is all part of what travel company TCS World Travel, founded in Seattle in 1991, calls a journey of a lifetime.

The next available trip is in January 2019 and comes in at 134,000 per couple.

But first you have to get yourself to Orlando, where you spend a night at the Four Seasons Resort (included in the price), and meet your fellow travellers.

Flying first class from London Heathrow to Orlando can add up to 12,255 per person, or 3,619 if youre prepared to slum it in business class. So the total cost of the trip could be nearly 160,000 per couple.

So what else do you get for your money?

Days one to four: Machu Picchu, Peru

On your marks, get set, and youre off  first to Peru. Most people would go to this bewitching country for two weeks, but youre here for just two full days.

It means a six-hour flight from Orlando to Lima, followed by a private charter to Cusco, which takes one hour and 20 minutes.

Then hop on board the Hiram Bingham train (so named after the American explorer who brought the site to world attention in 1911) through the Sacred Valley of the Incas to Machu Picchu.

Cusco, where your hotel is located, is nearly 12,000ft above sea level, but youll be comfortable at the Belmond Palacio Nazarenas hotel, where the 55 suites have oxygen piped into them.

Some 2,500 people visit Machu Picchu every day, but worry not  you will get VIP entry before dividing into small groups of six to ten per guide.

Go through the Sacred Valley of the Incas to Machu Picchu, above

Days four to six: Easter Island, Chile

The flight from Lima to Easter Island, one of the worlds most remote civilisations, is five hours and 20 minutes.

If you were going on a commercial airline you would need 13 hours to fly via Santiago de Chile.

But theres no time to lose on arrival as you are only here for two nights, staying at the Hangaroa Eco Village and Spa, designed in homage to Orongo, a ceremonial Rapa Nui National Park site.

Rooms are made from cypress logs, clay and volcanic rock. Get up close and personal with the extraordinary Moai statues carved between the 12th to 17th centuries, with heads weighing up to 82 tons.

Youll be given a miniature statue as your pillow present.

The iconic Moai statues can be viewed at Rano Raraku, Easter Island

Days six to seven: Apia, Samoa

You are now on your way to Australia (and should be developing good packing and unpacking skills), stopping for a night (after a, deep breath, nearly ten-hour flight) on this South Pacific island, crossing the international date line and so losing a day in the process.

You check in at the Sheraton Samoa Beach Resort and then visit the former estate of Treasure Island author Robert Louis Stevenson in Vailima.

In the evening you head to a fia-fia feast rooted in Polynesian culture, and are presented with a handmade silk sarong.

In the evening you head to a fia-fia feast rooted in Polynesian culture, and are presented with a handmade silk sarong

Days seven to nine: Great Barrier Reef, Australia

Your bucket list is filling up nicely  indeed, there must be a danger of it overflowing. But, hold tight, here comes yet another UNESCO World Heritage site.

Samoa to Cairns in Queensland, Australia, is a flight of six hours and 25 minutes.

Next you are transferred to the Great Barrier Reef, the planets largest coral reef system, comprising nearly 3,000 reefs and 900 islands stretching for more than 1,600 miles.

Stay two nights at the five-star Pullman Port Douglas Sea Temple Resort and Spa (on a four-mile beach).

Marine experts will take you to the northern reaches of the Great Barrier Reef so you can snorkel among an amazing array of tropical fish. A gift of a boomerang will be waiting in your room, naturally.

Marine experts will take you to the northern reaches of the Great Barrier Reef so you can snorkel among an amazing array of tropical fish

Days nine to 12: Angkor Wat, Cambodia

IF you can no longer abide the person sitting next to you (including, presumably, your other half), this is when everyone has the chance to change seat as part of some sort of aviation musical chairs.

You get three nights in Siem Reap, near Angkor Wat, the largest religious monument in the world, built in the 12th century.

After the seven-and-a-half hour flight from Cairns, the Raffles Grand Hotel should help iron out any stiffness.

Your group will be treated to a private gala dinner in one of the temples after the hordes have departed, plus a performance of a classical Apsara dance.

Your group will be treated to a private gala dinner in one of the temples after the hordes have departed, plus a performance of a classical Apsara dance

Days 12 to 14: Taj Mahal, India

A relatively short hop of under five hours brings you to Agra in Rajasthan, where you land at a military airport, five minutes from the white marble mausoleum commissioned in 1632 by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan to house the body of his favourite wife. It took 20,000 people 22 years to build it.

Stay two nights at the Oberoi Amarvilas, the only hotel with uninterrupted views of Indias greatest treasure.

A guide will also take you to the Red Fort and Emperor Akbars tomb. Crowds are an issue at the Taj Mahal (especially if you want a selfie on the Princess Diana bench, where she sat solo during a Royal tour in the dying days of her marriage), but special guides know how to circumnavigate the hoi polloi.

Taj Mahal, India: It took 20,000 people 22 years to build what became one of the world's most iconic sites

Days 14 to 17: Serengeti Plain, Tanzania

Africa is calling  although it requires a flight of almost eight hours before you get there. You are taken to the Four Seasons Safari Lodge Serengeti for three nights.

Its five-star luxury is your base for Big Five spotting on two game drives each day.

One morning you can enjoy a sunrise hot air balloon ride, and your last dinner will be eaten in the bush, following sundowners and a traditional Majuto dance.

Look out for bone-handled salad tongs as your pillow prezzie  and then steel yourself for boarding that plane once again.

Africa is calling - although it requires a flight of almost eight hours before you get there

Days 17 to 19: Petra and Wadi Rum, Jordan

You might be suffering from too much of a good thing  but keep some enthusiasm in reserve for Petra, which is on most peoples wishlist.

Its (only) five hours away from the Serengeti, and the last bit of the journey requires a mule and cart as you move along the mile-long gorge called the Siq.

The Rose City (called this because of its pinkish hue) was possibly first settled as early as 9,000 BC, and combines traditional Nabataean rock-cut buildings with Hellenistic facades.

Another outing takes you by 4x4 to Wadi Rum, with its lunar-like landscape which was much loved by T.E. Lawrence.

Your room for two nights at the Movenpick will have commanding views of the Great Rift Valley.

The Rose City (called this because of its pinkish hue) was possibly first settled as early as 9,000 BC

Days 19 to 21: Marrakech, Morocco

Sir Winston Churchill loved this crazy city (the flight from Petra is six hours and 40 minutes), saying it was simply the nicest place on Earth to spend an afternoon.

Youve got just 48 hours to be entertained by snake charmers and bamboozled into buying stuff you dont need from persistent traders.

Hopefully, you havent fallen out with too many in your group and youll be nicely cocooned in La Mamounia, one of the most famous hotels in the world. If you tire of the souks, go trekking in the foothills of the Atlas mountains.

On Day 22 you fly back to Florida  or enjoy a cheese and ham toastie on a 29 Easyjet flight from Marrakech to Luton as a welcome back to the real world.
A string of heartbreaking events over the last few weeks has brought heightened attention to a struggling pod of orcas living in the waters off the Pacific Northwest.

It began on July 24, when a 20-year-old mother whale was spotted carrying the body of her dead calf, who had been born less than an hour earlier.

The grieving mother, known as J35 or Tahlequah, has been clinging to the baby ever since, even receiving help from her fellow pod members to keep its body afloat.

Its been two weeks and Tahlequah has not let go, leaving many concerned about her physical and mental wellbeing.

And, in that same group, scientists are now rushing to the aid of a 3-year-old calf dubbed J50 who appears emaciated and may have a life-threatening infection.

The circumstances are extreme  but these are just snippets of the ever-growing problems faced by the orca population in the region.

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A string of heartbreaking events over the last few weeks has brought heightened attention to a struggling pod of orcas living in the waters off the Pacific Northwest. The grieving mother, known as Tahlequah, has been clinging to her baby's body for two weeks (pictured on July 24)

WHAT ARE THE MAIN THREATS TO THESE KILLER WHALES? According to the NOAA, the Southern Resident Killer Whales are up against three main threats: Lack of prey

Boat traffic and noise

Chemical contaminants Chinook salmon are the most nutrient-rich prey available for Southern Resident killer whales. But, the salmon's population has plummeted in recent years, spelling disaster for the whales that rely on them. Noise and overcrowding from boat traffic is considered to be one of the top threats to their existence, along with modern pollution and contaminants lingering in the water from chemicals banned decades ago According to the NOAA, the main contaminants of concern are: PCBs (found in plastics, paints, rubber, electrical equipment), DDT (found in pesticides), and PBDEs (fire retardant chemicals found, for example, in mattresses, TVs, toasters). Advertisement

Southern Resident killer whales, as the species is known, are one of the NOAAs eight species in the spotlight  or those considered to be most at risk of extinction in the near future.

The population now stands at just 75, which researchers say is the lowest number in three decades, made up of three distinct pods: the J-pod, the K-pod, and the L-pod.

All three groups have struggled to get their numbers up in recent years, data from the Center for Whale Research show.

The calf who died late July was the first to have been born in over three years.

According to the NOAA, there are three main factors threatening their survival: lack of prey, vessel traffic and noise, and chemical contaminants.

These whales can be found in the waters off Canada and the northwest United States, where the Chinook salmon population has plummeted.

And, as the fish are the whales main prey, the whales are suffering, too.

In addition to starvation, food scarcity has a number of consequences for the struggling species.

For one, scientists have found that it may be linked to the shockingly high miscarriage rates seen in this population.

Between 2007 and 2014, researchers found that as many as two-third of pregnancies failed, possibly due to stresses brought on by the lack of food.

Pictured, Southern Resident killer whale J50 and her mother, J16, swim off the west coast of Vancouver Island near Port Renfrew, B.C. J50 is the sick whale that a team of experts are hoping to save by giving her antibiotics or feeding her live salmon at sea

Chinook salmon are the most nutrient-rich prey available for Southern Resident killer whales.

In the study published last year, researchers from the University of Washington analyzed hormone levels from 348 scat samples.

This allowed them to differentiate between stress caused by external responses, such as boat traffic, and that resulting from poor nutrition.

And, they found food scarcity was a major player.

Based on our analysis of whale health and pregnancy over this seven-year period, we believe that a low abundance of salmon is the primary factor for low reproductive success among southern resident killer whales, lead author Sam Wasser, a UW professor of biology and director of the Center for Conservation Biology said at the time.

During years of low salmon abundance, we see hormonal signs that nutritional stress is setting in and more pregnancies fail, and this trend has become increasingly common in recent years.

WHY SCIENTISTS THINK WHALES AND DOLPHINS MOURN Whales and dolphins have been spotted 'carrying' or caring for their dead young multiple times. These creatures could be mourning or they have failed to accept or recognise that the offspring or companion has died. Scientists still do not know if aquatic mammals truly recognise death and are looking to carry out more research on this issue. In 2016, scientists found evidence that whales and dolphins hold 'vigils' for their dead. They analysed several cases where mammals clung to the bodies of dead compatriots, and kept vigil over a dead companion. At the time, they said the most likely explanation was mourning. The study compiled observations from 14 events. They found mothers often carried their dead young above the water, often flanked by friends. In many cases, the dead offspring were decomposed, indicating they had been held for a long time. Advertisement

Lack of food may even be causing the pods to behave in ways that are detrimental to their own survival, such as inbreeding.

As of this past spring, only 26 of the 76 whales were breeding, and a study identified at least four whales that were highly inbred.

Its unclear what exactly is causing them to breed within their own families, but the experts say it may arise because families are staying close together to help each other hunt.

We found a hint of a relationship showing that the less diverse you are, the less likely you are to live long, lead author Michael Ford, a conservation biologist at NOAA Fisheries Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle said in April.

We dont yet know how much of a concern that is, but its something we want to look at more carefully. Its possible that some of the problems this population has may be due to inbreeding.

Scientists also identified worrying bacteria in exhaled breath from the killer whales blowholes that suggest they may be at risk of infections similar to diseases that affect humans and land-based animals.

The population now stands at just 75, which researchers say is the lowest number in three decades, made up of three distinct pods: the J-pod, the K-pod, and the L-pod. All three have struggled to get their numbers up, data from the Center for Whale Research show

The researchers from the University of British Columbia identified bacteria and fungi Salmonella, Staphylococcus aureus, Penicillium, and Phoma.

We're not sure if these microbes naturally occur in the marine environment or if they may be terrestrially sourced, explained lead author Stephen Raverty, an adjunct professor at UBC's Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries.

These animals are long ranging and as they migrate along the coast, they are exposed to agricultural runoff and urban discharge which may introduce a variety of microbes into the water.

And, in addition to the environmental factors, the whales are facing increasing threats from human activity.

Noise and overcrowding from boat traffic is considered to be one of the top threats to their existence, along with modern pollution and contaminants lingering in the water from chemicals banned decades ago.

WHAT IS THE SOUTHERN RESIDENT KILLER WHALE AND WHY IS IT UNDER THREAT? The Southern Resident killer whale is one of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Fisheries Species in the Spotlight. This initiative is a concerted agency wide effort to spotlight and save the most highly at risk marine species. The endangered Southern Resident is an icon of the Pacific Northwest but are also among the most contaminated marine mammals in the world. The population census at the end of 2016 counted only 78 Southern Resident killer whales, down from 98 in 1995. In 2003, NOAA Fisheries began a research and conservation program and the Southern Residents were listed as an endangered species in 2005.A recovery plan was completed in 2008. The population continues to struggle and has declined over 10 per cent since 2005. During the spring, summer, and fall, the range of Southern Resident killer whales includes the inland waterways of Washington State and the boundary waters between the United States and Canada. They have been spotted as far south as central California during the winter months and as far north as Southeast Alaska. Noise and overcrowding from boat traffic, as well as a scarce supply of their preferred foodsalmonpose serious threats to this endangered population. Past research has shown that some of the most important threats facing the whales, such as prey limitation and high contaminant levels, cannot be addressed without a long-term commitment. Recovery of threatened salmon, for example, is a monumental task in itself and is expected to take many years. Advertisement

According to the NOAA, the main contaminants threatening these whales are: PCBs (found in plastics, paints, rubber, electrical equipment), DDT (found in pesticides), and PBDEs (fire retardant chemicals found, for example, in mattresses, TVs, toasters).

Conservationists are hard at work trying to protect the dwindling population in the waters off the US and Canada.

The NOAA has outlined a 5-year plan of action to aid in their recovery, and local governments have stepped up their efforts as well.

But, saving the Southern Residents will take a lot of work  and time is running out.

'We are not too late,' Barry Thom, West Coast regional administrator for NOAA Fisheries, said earlier this year.

'From a biology perspective, there are still enough breeding animals, but we need to act soon.'
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NASA have missed their window to send a spacecraft on a mission to fly where no probe has ever gone before  into the suns scorching outer atmosphere.

The probe was initially set to launch at 3.33am ET (8.33am BST) today.

The agency had until 4.38am in Florida (9.38am BST) to take off but a 'condition' meant they missed the window, leaving people disappointed around the world as they tuned into the livestream.

The $1.5billion (1.17billion) Parker Probe was set to blast off atop one of the most powerful rockets in the world.

Once launched, it will eventually hit record-breaking speeds of up to 430,000 miles per hour as it completes 24 orbits of the sun over the course of seven years.

During this time, the craft will swing around Venus seven times, using the planets gravity to push it closer and closer to our star with each pass; eventually, the Parker probe will get within 3.8 million miles of the suns surface.

It will be subjected to temperatures of roughly 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit (1,371C) when it comes closer to the sun than any spacecraft in history  but, behind its thick heat shield, it will only feel like a hot summer day, with this sheltered region maxing out at about 85F (29C).

The launch window at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida opened at 8.53am this morning, but was delayed as NASA investigated 'a condition'.

'At this time, our Parker Solar Probe launch team is in a no-go status as we await further details. Teams are investigating a condition.

'Today's window opened for liftoff at 3.33am ET and closes at 4.38am ET' they said.

They later said the vehicle was cleared for launch, and would take off at 4.28am.

The probe will rely on a series of gravity assists from Venus to slow down its sideways motion, allowing it to get just 3.8 million miles away from the suns surface. This will put the Parker probe well within the suns corona, which extends about 5 million miles above the surface. No spacecraft has ever ventured so close to the sun

The United Launch Alliance Delta IV heavy rocket with the Parker Solar Probe is illuminated ahead of launch at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station

United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket with the Parker Solar Probe onboard shortly after the Mobile Service Tower was rolled back this morning

Parker Solar Probe failed to launch from Cape Canaveral this morning atop a ULA Delta IV Heavy, already one of the most powerful rockets in the world, with a third stage attached.

The mission will be attempted again tomorrow morning.

Crews at the space agency will now have until August 23 to complete the take-off, as this is when the launch window closes.

This mission will require 55 times more energy than would be needed to reach Mars, according to NASA.

The probe will rely on a series of gravity assists from Venus to slow down its sideways motion, allowing it to get just 3.8 million miles away from the suns surface.

As NASA engineer Bobak Ferdowsi pointed out on Twitter, thats the equivalent distance of just 4.43 suns positioned next to each other.

This will put the Parker probe well within the suns corona, which extends about 5 million miles above the surface.

Well be going where no spacecraft has dared go before  within the corona of a star, said project scientist Nicky Fox, of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab.

With each orbit, well be seeing new regions of the suns atmosphere and learning things about stellar mechanics that weve wanted to explore for decades.

NASA live-tweeted the failure to launch this morning

The United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket with the Parker Solar Probe onboard is seen shortly after the Mobile Service Tower was rolled back in the early hours of this morning

NASA counted down this morning to the launch of a $1.5 billion spacecraft that aims to plunge into the Sun's sizzling atmosphere and become humanity's first mission to explore a star

The $1.5 billion (1.17billion) Parker Probe (shown on left attached to the third stage rocket motor) will blast off atop one of the most powerful rockets in the world, eventually hitting record-breaking speeds of up to 430,000 miles per hour as it completes 24 orbits of the sun over the course of seven years

The corona, or the suns outer atmosphere, is home to ultra-hot solar material and some of the most extreme events emanating from our star.

Here, material heats up to millions of degrees, NASA says.

Parker Solar Probes unprecedented access to the corona will let it study the acceleration of solar wind up close, and observe the solar flares and coronal mass ejections that have rippling effects on space weather and communication systems down near Earth.

The craft is named for Dr Eugene Parker, who first predicted the existence of solar wind back in 1958, and is the only living person to have ever had a NASA mission named for them.

The probe is also towing the names of over 1.1 million people who signed up to have their names sent to the sun.

The Parker Solar Probe will launch from Cape Canaveral Saturday morning atop a ULA Delta IV Heavy, already one of the most powerful rockets in the world, with a third stage attached. Above, the massive rocket payload fairing can be seen with the mission emblems

Roughly 1,400 pounds of solar projection and science equipment are protected by an advanced heat shield, which uses a 4.5-inch thick carbon composite foam material between two carbon fiber face sheets. The probe can be seen above as it was lifted onto the third stage rocket motor

This and roughly 1,400 pounds of solar projection and science equipment are protected by an advanced heat shield, which uses a 4.5-inch thick carbon composite foam material between two carbon fibre face sheets.

NASA was planning to send a mission to the solar corona for decades, however, we did not have the technology that could protect a spacecraft and its instruments from the heat, says Adam Szabo, the mission scientist for Parker Solar Probe at NASAs Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt.

Recent advances in materials science gave us the material to fashion a heat shield in front of the spacecraft not only to withstand the extreme heat of the sun, but to remain cool on the backside.

Parker Solar Probes unprecedented access to the corona will let it study the acceleration of solar wind up close, and observe the solar flares and coronal mass ejections that have rippling effects on space weather and communication systems down near Earth

WHAT IS NASA'S PARKER SOLAR PROBE? The Parker Solar Probe (PSP) travelled seven times closer to the sun than any spacecraft before it Nasa's Parker Solar Probe (PSP) will travel seven times closer to the sun than any spacecraft before it by the end of its mission. It launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida, atop a United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket on August 12 2018. The probe flew to the sun's outer atmosphere to study life of stars and their weather events. It is hoped that PSP can help scientists to better understand solar flares - brief eruptions of intense high-energy radiation from the sun's surface that can knock out communications on Earth. Over the next five years the probe will continue to make new discoveries as it moves closer to the Sun, eventually making its closest approach in the year 2024, as it flies 3.9 million miles above the solar surface. The craft faces extremes in heat and radiation and will reach speeds of up to 430,000 miles per hour (700,000 kph) at its closest flyby of the star. The craft's kit includes a white light imager called Whisper, which will take images of solar waves as the craft propels through them at high speeds. To measure the 'bulk plasma' of solar winds - described by Nasa as the 'bread and butter' of the flares - a set of magnetic imaging equipment will also be stored on board. Advertisement

The historic mission will give us the best opportunity yet to study the star that holds up our entire solar system.

And, its one of the last places within our stellar neighborhood that has yet to be explored.

For scientists like myself, the reward of the long, hard work will be the unique set of measurements returned by Parker, Szabo said.

The solar corona is one of the last places in the solar system where no spacecraft has visited before. It gives me the sense of excitement of an explorer.
Bats have had a bad press over the years. Most things you have heard about them are not true. They are not blind, nor is their waste product crazy, although it is hellishly difficult to remove should you find your clothes unfortunately flecked with any.

That warning was issued by conservationists working hard to restore the image of these lovable little creatures. There are around a quarter of a million bats living under the Waugh Bridge in Houston, making it one of the largest colonies in America.

After dusk each evening, thousands of Mexican free-tailed bats emerge every minute from under the bridge in search of food. Its quite a sight, but its the sound more than anything that impresses  like a thousand old-school kettles simultaneously whistling at breakfast. Houstons parks department even provides stadium-style seating so you can enjoy the spectacle.

Reaching for the sky: The Space Center in Houston is one of the city's top tourist attractions

It wasnt just my misconceptions about flying mammals that had to be re-examined. Houston itself turned out to be not quite the soulless place I had expected.

Its much greener than advertised. The 1,500-acre Memorial Park is one of the biggest urban parks in America. There are miles of walking and cycle trails through the park, and if popular culture has taught us not to think of Texans as natural joggers, well popular culture may have got it wrong. There are thousands of them.

In summer the city is stiflingly hot and humid, so if you fancy some time out of the sun you could head to the home of Mission Control in the Apollo era of space travel, which culminated in the 1969 Moon landing.

The Space Centers control room is currently being restored, although I thought the slightly careworn look rather appropriate. I also appreciated the fact that there was an ashtray by every seat, a sight that sets the historic room very much in its era.

Bat out of hell: Mexican free-tailed bats (pictured above) live under the Waugh Bridge

While the Space Center has the feel of a theme park for the kids, its also an impressive educational resource, and pays tribute to the extraordinary bravery of the space pioneers.

I spent only a few days in Houston, and from a sightseeing point of view that was just about right.

But if you are interested in flight  either of small mammals or adventurous humans  its definitely worth a visit.
THE UK government has dished out a 307.5bn/- grant to support the Fifth Phase Governments efforts in enhancing the education sector, curbing corruption and improving healthcare services.

The support was announced yesterday in Dar es Salaam by the UK Secretary of State for International Development, Ms Penny Mordaunt, shortly after meeting President John Magufuli at the State House.

Ms Mordaunt said that her government dished out the additional package for supporting President Magufulis priority ventures, 124.5bn/- of which will be injected into the education sector. She explained that priority would be given to improving the quality of education and ensuring that individuals with disabilities have access to education.

Ms Mordaunt said 23.5bn/- would be channelled into the anti-corruption initiative and the remaining 160bn/- would be spent on healthcare programmes.

This is a sign of increasing and strong commitment between our two nations; we very much want to focus our efforts to ensure that the President is able to achieve his tremendous ambitions for his country and we are really privileged to be a partner in this with Tanzania, she said.

She added that apart from being one of the major donors in terms of international aid budget, UK was also the largest commercial investor in Tanzania, adding that her country was delighted by the Presidents readiness to open doors for more British investors under a win-win relationship.

We will also ensure that the Presidents ambitions for a win-win relationship on business and investment is absolute at the forefront of our partnership, Ms Mordaunt said.

For his part, President Magufuli saluted Ms Mordaunt for the support and asked her to convey his gratitude to the UK Prime Minister, Ms Theresa May, for her countrys enormous contribution in supporting Tanzanias budget, as well as financing various development projects.

I commend Ms Mordaunt for recognising our efforts in improving the quality of education, health services and the anti-corruption initiative  this support will boost our efforts because if our children will have access to quality education, crackdown on corruption and foster a healthy population, we will be in a good position to promote industrialisation and economic growth, President Magufuli noted.

He assured the UK government of proper utilisation of the funds adding that the fifth phase government would strengthen the bilateral relations between the two countries. He noted that the UK was the largest investor in Tanzania and had been providing huge support of its taxpayers money for the development of the East African nation.

The President presented Ms Mordaunt a photo album for Ihungo Secondary School in Kagera Region which was renovated under the support of UK government after being destroyed during the earthquake that hit the region in September 2016.

President Magufuli commended the UK government for its support of 6bn/- which facilitated the reconstruction of the buildings through Tanzania Building Agency (TBA). The meeting was also attended by British High Commissioner Ms Sarah Cooke, and Tanzanias Minister for Foreign Affairs and East African Cooperation, Dr Augustine Mahiga.
Continuing our series featuring the holidays of famous people, this week TV presenter JAN LEEMING, 76, recalls her lifetime of adventures

First holiday I can remember

I was a wartime baby so everything was scarce or rationed, and family holidays were not on the agenda.

My parents separated when I was seven and my sister Gillian was aged one, and they also separated us: my father took me and my mother took my sister.

Having a blast: Jan in Peru pictured alongside a pair of colourful llamas

My first time abroad

My father was in the Army, and serving officers had to deploy abroad for three-year terms.

During that time, the children of Service personnel were allowed one holiday to see their parents. Unfortunately, my break was cancelled because it came at the time of the Suez Crisis.

On his return to the UK, my father made up for the disappointment by sending me on an Erna Low Holiday to Austria with other young people. I remember being enchanted by mountains and cows with bells around their necks.

My honeymoon

Despite my five marriages, Ive been on only one immediately after the wedding honeymoon and that was a very wet week in a B&B in Cornwall. But when I married for a fourth time in 1988, the choice was a couple of weeks in Majorca or a night at the fabulous  and very expensive  Baumaniere Hotel at Les Baux in Provence.

I chose the latter and it was a magical evening, dining under the stars, looking at the floodlit village of Les Baux, and ending with a midnight swim.

My best holiday

Two really stand out. One was a safari to Zambia with the late David Shepherd in 1995. More recently I enjoyed a rather wonderful trip to Burma.

Memories: Jan with son Jonathan (above), who she chose as her perfect travel companion

And my worst

I am a sun lover and my then husband and I wanted an inexpensive mid-winter holiday that wouldnt necessitate a long journey and jetlag, so we went to the Gambia.

The relatively new hotel was dreadful. The food was canteen-style unless you chose to eat in the air-conditioned French restaurant with the same menu every night; the grass around the swimming pool had become a sea of mud; we were plagued by beggars; and I caught some horrible stomach bug. Id never go back.

Essential holiday item

A small bag with medical essentials, having learned my lesson in the Seychelles: I bent down to stroke a kitten and received a bite from a spider. The hotel had absolutely nothing by way of first-aid kit, and when finally we got to the nearest town the chemist was closed. My arm swelled and I was in agony. Had I had antihistamines, the pain would have lessened. So now I always take various tablets, creams and plasters with me.

Double act: Jan pictured with sister Gillian

Dream destination

Although the Dalai Lama no longer lives there, I would love to visit Tibet. Its beautiful monasteries and its air of mystery appeal to my romantic nature.

Mind you, having suffered from altitude sickness when visiting Machu Picchu, Id probably succumb again but it would be worth it.

Perfect companion

A loved one or, if he were free, my son Jonathan. I wish he were happily settled with a companion but he is not and we have had some fabulous holidays.

My favourite place

I love places for different reasons. I am of French descent and love Paris for culture and Provence for history.

For a beach holiday I would choose the Seychelles  the sea is azure and warm and the beaches are fringed with fabulous volcanic rocks out of which springs amazing vegetation.

I recently returned from a Just You singles holiday to Peru, visiting Machu Picchu and meeting a pair of colourful llamas.
She's a film legend, having earned more Oscar nominations without a win than any other living actor.

And Glenn Close looked sensational as she attended an exclusive screening of her latest film, The Wife, at Picturehouse Central in London on Friday evening.

Joined by her on-screen husband Jonathan Pryce, the 71-year-old oozed sophistication in a sharp black trouser suit as she posed for photographs.

Gorgeous: Glenn Close, 71, looked sensational as she attended an exclusive screening of her latest film, The Wife, at Picturehouse Central in London on Friday evening

The Fatal Attraction star showcased her glamorous sense of style in a sheer long-line black blouse with eye-catching leaf detail throughout.

Glenn added height to her slim frame with a pair of black peep toe heels and accessorised with gold drop earrings.

The actress looked youthful with radiant glowing skin enhanced with a dusting of blusher, a slick of mascara and a pretty pink lip.

The screening of the film was followed by a Q&A session with Glenn herself and the movie's director Bjorn Runge.

All smiles: Joined by her on-screen husband Jonathan Pryce, the actress oozed sophistication in a sharp black trouser suit as she posed for photographs

Stylish lady: The Fatal Attraction star showcased her glamorous sense of style in a sheer long-line black blouse with eye-catching leaf detail throughout (Pictured with Michael Xavier and Fred Johanson)

The Wife is a drama starring Glenn and actor Jonathan, 71, and has already garnered some early Oscar buzz.

The veteran stars play a husband and wife - Joe and Joan Castleman - who are preparing to travel to Stockholm, Sweden, where Joe is to be presented with the Nobel Prize for Literature.

But on the eve of the biggest honor in her husband's life, Joan reaches her breaking point after 40 years of living in her husband's shadow.

Stunning: The actress looked youthful with radiant glowing skin enhanced with a dusting of blusher, a slick of mascara and a pretty pink lip

Talented bunch: The screening of the film was followed by a Q&A session with Glenn herself and the movie's director Bjorn Runge (Pictured L-R: Lena Runge, Bjorn Runge, Glenn Close and Jonathan Pryce)

Glenn's daughter Annie, whose father is producer John Starke, appears alongside her famous actress mother in the Bjorn Runge directed flick.

The hotly-anticipated film will be released in the U.K next month.

The movie, based on the bestselling book by Meg Wolitzer, also stars Max Irons, Harry Lloyd, Annie Starke, Elizabeth McGovern and Christian Slater.
Paul Hollywood's girlfriend Summer Monteys-Fullam reportedly stormed home early from their recent Cyprus trip after they spent an 'incredibly tense' night together.

The barmaid, 23, and Bake Off star, 52, allegedly had a strained evening together at a bar last week, which ended with Paul abandoning her to drink with the establishment's owner.

Sources claimed the pair 'didn't look like a happy couple' and Summer decided to cut the romantic holiday short afterwards and jetted home alone.

Bust-up? Paul Hollywood's girlfriend Summer Monteys-Fullam, 23, reportedly stormed home early from their romantic Cyprus holiday after spending incredibly tense night with the chef, 52

'One evening they went to a bar for dinner but hardly exchanged a word,' a source told The Sun.

'He ended up outside drinking with the owner of the bar while she sat inside on her own finishing her food. They certainly didn't look like a happy couple.'

MailOnline has contacted Paul Hollywood's representative for comment.

Summer's alleged decision to leave early comes after Paul's estranged wife, Alex, accused him of cheating with the barmaid - despite him claiming their relationship only began after their marriage had ended.

Rumour has it: Sources claimed the pair 'didn't look like a happy couple' and Summer decided to cut the romantic holiday short afterwards and jetted home alone

Divorce: It comes after Paul's estranged wife, Alex (pictured), accused him of cheating with the barmaid - despite him claiming their relationship only began after their marriage had ended

Alexandra Hollywood plans to name Summer Monteys-Fullam in divorce papers over his 10million fortune.

She is said to be 'fed up of the lies' and disputes the fact that Summer and Paul's relationship only began after their marriage broke down.

Paul, 52, and Alexandra, who married in 1998 and have a 16-year-old son, announced their split in November and are said to have parted ways in early 2017.

The couple ended things days after a holiday to Venice in October. A few weeks later, Paul and Summer's relationship was first revealed.

On New Years Eve, Summer posted a message which read: 'I can only thank my amazing family and boyfriend. I have had my fun and I have had my troubles.

Claims: Alexandra, pictured last year, plans to name Summer in divorce papers over his 10million fortune

'But I can only take that as the path I was meant to lead. I can only thank the people that are close to me including my amazing boyfriend.

'You have turned me from a girl to a woman and to a house woman. I love you so much.'

Summer spoke for the first time of her love for the TV chef in an exclusive interview with MailOnline in May.

She insisted at the time: 'I came [into a relationship with Hollywood] way after his marriage ended.'

Asked if the age gap bothered her, she added: 'I'm fine and I'm enjoying life. I'm not upset I'm happy. Why should it [the age gap] bother me?'

Oh dear: Back in 2013, Alexandra and Paul separated when the TV chef admitted his affair with Marcela Valladolid, his co-star on the US version of Bake Off before getting back together

The former model was whisked off by Hollywood on a romantic 1,000-a-night holiday in Mauritius in April, having met last year at the star's local pub where he organised a party for his estranged wife Alexandra's birthday.

Alexandra and Paul previously separated in 2013 when the TV chef admitted his affair with Marcela Valladolid, his co-star on the US version of Bake Off. The American spin-off was cancelled after just one series for having poor ratings.

The couple reconciled a few months later and he described the incident as 'the biggest mistake of my life' in an interview with BBC radio.

Speaking at the time, he told the BBC he 'was shocked about the whole thing kicking off the way it did... but I deserved it and I've taken it. It was my punishment.'
They put on an amorous display during their romantic boat ride from the island of Ponza to the seaside resort of Porto Cervo.

And, despite being a little windswept, Heidi Klum looked incredible as she arrived at the UNICEF Gala in Porto Cervo, Sardinia, Italy on Friday, hand in hand with her Tokio Hotel guitarist boyfriend Tom Kaulitz.

The supermodel, 45, flaunted her ample cleavage in the plunging black maxi dress and flashed a wide smile as she strolled into the lavish event with her rocker beau, 28.

Wow! Heidi Klum, 48, looked incredible as she arrived at the UNICEF Gala in Porto Cervo, Sardinia, Italy on Friday, hand in hand with her Tokio Hotel guitarist boyfriend Tom Kaulitz, 28

The German beauty showcased her endless pins in the sheer netted skirt of the exquisite maxi dress.

The statement gown was flecked with sparkly silver embellishments, and cinched her in at the waist with the help of a silver metallic belt.

Heidi made her way across the brown carpet in a pair of black strappy sandals and posed for photos with her handsome beau.

The blonde beauty looked the epitome of glamour as she accentuated her busty cleavage with a show-stopping diamond necklace.

Stunning: The supermodel flaunted her ample cleavage in the plunging black maxi dress and flashed a wide smile as she strolled into the lavish event with her rocker beau

Gorgeous: The German beauty showcased her endless pins in the sheer netted skirt of the exquisite maxi dress

The former Victoria's Secret model styled her blonde tresses in loose beachy waves which looked elegantly dishevelled after her sunset boat trip to the star-studded charity event.

Heidi complemented her sun-kissed complexion with a sweep of highlighter and a pink lip, and added a pop of colour with a bold pillar box red mani-pedi.

Meanwhile, Tom was casually-clad in a white vest top and matching trousers, and a pair of converse trainers for the elegant event.

Heidi's bearded beau did slip on a light grey striped jacket to smarten up his look, and even added a crisp white pocket square for good measure.

The pair looked smitten as they smiled widely at each other and stayed joined at the hip as the photographers flashed up a storm.

Svelte: The statement gown was flecked with sparkly silver embellishments, and cinched her in at the waist with the help of a silver metallic belt

Picture perfect: Heidi made her way across the brown carpet in a pair of black strappy sandals and posed for photos with her handsome beau

The romance between the two Germans seems to be going strong since they were first linked together in mid-March.

Heidi and Tom were first seen hanging out together in Pasadena, California, where she was filming America's Got Talent.

Despite romancing someone 17 years younger than her, the model recently hit back at their age gap and admitted that she doesn't even think about it.

Talking to InStyle, she said: 'Lately, Im being reminded more about my age by people other than myself.

'My boyfriend is many years younger than me, and lots of people are questioning that and asking about it. Thats really the only time when age seems to be shoved in my face and I have to give an answer for it.'

Va-va-voom: The blonde beauty looked the epitome of glamour as she accentuated her busty cleavage with a show-stopping diamond necklace

Still got it: The former Victoria's Secret model styled her blonde tresses in loose beachy waves which looked elegantly dishevelled after her sunset boat trip to the star-studded charity event

Happy sailors: The pair put on an amorous display during their romantic boat ride from the island of Ponza to the seaside resort of Porto Cervo for the UNICEF Summer Gala

She added: 'I dont really think about it that much otherwise. You have to just live a happy life without worrying too much about what people think because worrying is only going to give you more wrinkles.'

It is believed to be Heidi's first relationship since she split from art dealer Vito Schnabel, 31, in September after three years together.

She announced the split with the statement: 'I believe that it is important to take time to pause and reflect.'

In June, eyebrows were raised when Vito was pictured kissing a mystery brunette in the early hours in London while Heidi was in New York filming new episodes of America's Next Top Model.

Vito later sent a statement to People that read: 'The claims that have been made are a misinterpretation of an entirely innocent situation.'
It's been claimed Jennifer Hawkins will retire as Myer ambassador over an alleged pay dispute.

But on Friday, the model looked to have not a care in the world as she continued her luxurious Maldives vacation with husband Jake Wall.

The 34-year-old was seen in an Instagram snap lounging on a beach chair alongside her handsome beau, revealing her enviable figure in a skimpy white bikini.

What drama? Bikini-clad Jennifer Hawkins (left), 34, continued her luxurious Maldives vacation with husband Jake Wall (right), 35, on Friday, as it is claimed she will 'retire' as Myer ambassador over a pay dispute

Jennifer looks incredible in the image, showing off her sleek blonde locks, blemish-free visage, lithe arms and washboard stomach.

Shielding her eyes behind a pair of aviator sunglasses, the model also drew attention to her sparkling engagement ring while resting one hand underneath her chin.

Jake, 35, who took the selfie, is shirtless and conceals his gaze with a black cap and coordinating sunglasses.

Jennifer simply captioned the picture-perfect snap with a smiling face with sunglasses emoji, followed by a love heart.

Island life: The genetically-blessed couple have been enjoying a vacation in Maldives for the past six days

The genetically-blessed couple have been enjoying a vacation in Maldives for the past six days.

The holiday comes amid reports that Jennifer is stepping away from retail giant Myer after failing to get the money she wanted during recent contract negotiations.

According to Sydney Morning Herald's Private Sydney, the blonde beauty, who has been a Myer ambassador for almost 12 years, will be replaced by reality star Elyse Knowles, 25, who will do the same job 'at a fraction of the price'.

The publication has claimed Jennifer will officially 'retire' from the role in November, and will have to strut her stuff down the catwalk one last time in the Sydney spring-summer launch later this month, with Elyse.

Saying goodbye? The holiday comes amid reports that Jennifer is stepping away from retail giant Myer after failing to get the money she wanted during recent contract negotiations

Private Sydney has claimed that Jennifer was earning an impressive $1.3 million a year for her Myer gig, while Elyse's contract is worth just $150,000, which has 'ruffled Jennifer's feathers'.

PS reports that Jennifer's team were 'infuriated' last week, with insiders claiming Myer 'planted' stories about Elyse and new spokesperson Josh Gibson, before her departure was announced.

Elyse's career, meanwhile, has been going from strength to strength since she won the thirteenth season of The Block in 2017.

The fitness enthusiast has picked up a string of high-profile endorsements this year, including becoming the face of Seafolly and Davidoff's Cool Water fragrance.

To replace Jen? According to The Sydney Morning Herald, Jennifer will be replaced by reality star Elyse Knowles (pictured), 25, who will do the same job 'at a fraction of the price'

Elyse was announced as an official Myer ambassador in June and previously expressed her excitement at working with Jennifer.

'Jennifer has been a huge inspiration to me growing up and into this industry and I am thrilled to have the chance to work alongside her with Myer,' she told The West last week.

Meanwhile Jennifer already has a lot on her plate, balancing contracts with Colgate and Mount Franklin, along with her own tequila line and fake tan range.

She also develops multi-million dollar properties with her builder husband Jake under their J Group company.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Jennifer and Elyse's management for comment, as well as Myer.
She was questioned by fans about her fuller pout during a fun Instagram video with Love Island beau Paul Knopps, 32, on Wednesday.

And the cosmetics clinic behind Laura Anderson's new look has confirmed what the former Islander opted for in an Instagram post shared on Friday.

The Consultant Clinic behind the reality star's freshly tuned face shared the before and after snaps of Laura's plump pout and rejuvenated complexion, and explained exactly what they tweaked - including her cheeks and her nose.

Making changes: Love Island Laura Anderson's lip fillers CONFIRMED as cosmetics clinic that tweaked her appearance reveal changes to her pout and nose in an Instagram post on Friday

In the snaps, Laura could be seen with her untouched features, while the after shot showed the star with fuller lips, heightened cheeks and a tuned nose.

In their lengthy caption, the clinic highlighted the 'tiny tweaks' that Laura had wanted, and that her puffy appearance on social media was down to the healing of her procedures.

The cosmetics experts wrote: 'In addition to her lips being augmented with aliaxin GP, she also had a slight cartilage deficiency in her nose which we gently corrected and straightened with Aliaxin EV.'

Impressed: Speaking about her time on Love Island, the clinicians called Laura 'a lovely person inside and out' and revealed they 'loved the class and dignity she showed on the reality show

'We added some midface volume and cheekbones to refresh and rejuvenate her face. We think it has genuinely taken years off her, even though she was absolutely stunning to begin with'.

Speaking about her time on Love Island, the clinicians called Laura 'a lovely person inside and out' and revealed they 'loved the class and dignity she showed on the Mallorcan-based reality show.

Laura had her fans speculating she could have tried to tweak her appearance just days after leaving the villa after she shared a video of herself and island beau Paul on Instagram on Wednesday.

The Scottish air-hostess larked around with her handsome stud while waiting to head into the Heat Radio studios in London, but it was Laura's pout that grabbed her fans' attention.

Changing it up? Laura had her fans speculating she could have tried to tweak her appearance just days after leaving the villa after she shared a video of herself and island beau Paul

In the hilarious video, Laura playfully stuck out her tongue and spoke to the camera about being scared to go on live radio.

But fans noticed the reality TV star's lips, with many questioning if she's had any lip fillers since leaving the Mallorcan villa earlier this month.

One fan commented on the video: 'Your lips look so different. No negativity just wondering b4 ppl start the wars lol. Either way you are a total hot lady'.

A change? fans noticed the reality TV star's plump pout, with many questioning if she had any lip fillers since leaving the Mallorcan villa (pictured with Wes Nelson in June)

New look? The Scottish air-hostess larked around with her handsome stud Paul while waiting to head into Heat Radio, but it was Laura's lips that grabbed her fans' attention

While another said: 'You look better without the lip fillers. Still stunning tho'

'Didnt need lips done, looked better before!' suggested another follower, while a forth commented. 'Ohhh Laura, I love you but your lip is too much'.

Later on, Laura shared a snap of herself at The Consultant Clinic in London, which offers a range of non-surgical treatments.

Larking around: In the hilarious video, Laura playfully stuck out her tongue and spoke to the camera about being scared to go on live radio

Reaction: One fan commented on the video: 'Your lips look so different. No negativity just wondering b4 ppl start the wars lol. Either way you are a total hot lady'

Claims: 'Didnt need lips done, looked better before!' suggested another follower, while a forth commented. 'Ohhh Laura, I love you but your lip is too much'

MailOnline have contacted Laura's representatives for comment.

Meanwhile, Laura further disproved any rumours her relationship with Paul is on the rocks as she embarked on an apartment hunt around London, so she can be closer to the Bournemouth hunk and launch her media career.

The blonde beauty took to Instagram to pose a selfie, which she captioned: 'Getting ready in this amazing hotel for my never ending apartment viewings today. Wish me luck.'

Smiles: Later on, Laura shared a snap of herself at The Consultant Clinic in London, which does offer lip fillers as well as other non-surgical treatments

On the hunt: Laura has embarked on an apartment hunt around London, so she can be closer to Paul and launch her media career

Laura previously expressed an interest in relocating to London, having found romance in the Love Island villa.

And she ensured she looked sensational for the viewings as she posed in a black and white striped jumpsuit, plunging at the bust and with a cut-out at the waist.

The bottoms of the outfit stopped just above Laura's ankles, perfectly showing off her coral pink heels.

Laura's foray around London's homes comes after she and Paul had a busy day on Wednesday, appearing on Radio 1 and at ITV.

Cozy: She teased that she and Paul will appear on This Morning next Monday, where she'll finally get to meet Eamonn Holmes - who, on Love Island, she said she had a crush on

Busy: Laura's foray around London's homes comes after she and Paul had a busy day on Wednesday, appearing on Radio 1

She also teased that she and Paul will appear on This Morning next Monday, where she'll finally get to meet Eamonn Holmes - who, on Love Island, she said she had a crush on.

Laura and her hunky beau had been hit with speculation they had broken up after keeping out of the limelight and away from couple selfies since Sunday's Love Island Reunion Show.

But, on the way to Radio 1, the couple were seen sharing a steamy smooch.

After fans commented on their lack of appearances together this week, Laura and Paul put on a defiant display.

All is well: Laura and her hunky beau had been hit with speculation they had broken up after keeping out of the limelight and away from couple selfies since Sunday's Love Island Reunion Show

The smitten pair could barely keep their hands off one another as they leaned in for a steamy smooch and held hands.

Laura also shared a new Instagram video of the couple on their way out as she gushed over her 'stud muffin' boyfriend.

Paul also uploaded clips of the couple's day together, laughing at Laura as they seemed to have an escalator mishap before larking around as they headed for lunch before their radio interview.

While their co-stars have been doing the rounds on TV and radio, Laura and Paul have largely remained out of the spotlight since Sunday night's Love Island Reunion episode.

Laura and Paul finished runner's up in the final Love Island, behind winners Dani Dyer and Jack Fincham, despite being one of the newest couples on the matchmaking show.

Unlucky in love Laura was dumped by both Wes Nelson and Jack Fowler before late arrival Paul stole her heart.
Alexandra Daddario looked like the picture of casual elegance during a girls night out on Thursday.

But it wasn't all smooth sailing for the True Detective actress, who endured a small wardrobe malfunction while out with pals.

As the Baywatch star, 32, walked with a couple of girlfriends, the front of her dress whipped up to expose a hearty amount of leg.

Whoops moment: Alexandra Daddario suffered a wardrobe malfunction when the front of her dress whipped up

Being the consummate lady, she recovered quickly and clamped down on the front of her dress and continued on with her friends to their car.

She even flashed a big beaming smile.

Despite the fashion snafu, the starlet looked amazing in the black and white checkered dress that hugged her lean and curvy figure in all the right ways.

It had a slit going down the right side that gave it some added flare and sass, but the easy leg access is also part of the reason for the wardrobe malfunction.

Taking it with stride: The True Detective actress quickly recovered from her wardrobe malfunction and flashed a big smile

She showed a more casual and youthful side by pairing the number with some colorful slip-on sneakers and minimal make-up.

While her trademark brown tresses were worn long and parted ever-so-slightly to the left.

Alexandra was likely spending some time with her friends since her new beau Ari Melber headed back to New York on Tuesday to host his self-titled news and political program on MSNBC.

Just days ago, the two were spotted having lunch together at a Cuban restaurant in Malibu on Sunday.

Stylish: The 32-year old actress looked fun and youthful in a black and white checkered dress

And at one point, they shared a passionate and romantic kiss inside their car.

Alexandra was most recently linked to Baywatch co-star Zac Effron, but she repeatedly denied any romance and called them 'really good friends.'



The 5ft 8" beauty's acting career also appears to be red hot.

She has four new movies that are now in post-production which includes co-headling alongside Taissa Farmiga in the mystery-thriller We Have Always Lived in the Castle; the psychological thriller Nomis that also stars Henry Cavill and Ben Kingsley; I Am Not a Bird, which is a dramatic thriller; and the drama Lost Transmissions which she co-stars with Simon Pegg and Juno Temple.
Influencer and model Tammy Hembrow was hospitalised in Los Angeles on Thursday night while at Kylie Jenner's 21st birthday party.

The 24-year-old was taken from the scene, face down, after paramedics arrived just before midnight, The Blast reported.

However just hours later on Friday, the blonde looked to have recovered well, enjoying a spot of shopping in upscale Beverly Hills, and documenting it on Instagram.

Back on her feet! Influencer and Kardashian pal Tammy Hembrow (pictured), 24, looked to have recovered well with a spot of shopping in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles, on Friday, after being carried out of Kylie Jenner's 21st birthday party on a stretcher the night prior

Tammy was seen in a low-cut white bodysuit, light-wash jeans, white socks and sneakers, sitting on the steps outside of Swiss luxury watch boutique, Breguet, with a large carry bag.

The mother-of-two accessorised her look with pink reflective narrow-frame sunglasses, with her blonde locks swept into a high ponytail.

Tammy looked to have applied foundation to her complexion and a touch of gloss on her plump pout.

Shopping: Also taking to Instagram Stories, Tammy shared a mirror selfie in a trendy shoe boutique with a female friend

Cute: The blonde also used a cat filter to alter her appearance

Also taking to Instagram Stories, Tammy shared a mirror selfie in a trendy shoe boutique with a female friend, and used a cat filter to alter her appearance.

The shopping trip comes just hours after Tammy was identified as the blonde who was rushed to the hospital at Kylie Jenner's 21st birthday party.

Unable to continue partying, the brand ambassador was taken from the scene at West Hollywood's the Delilah, face down, after paramedics arrived just before midnight, The Blast reported.

The scene: The mother-of-two was rushed to hospital from Kylie Jenner's 21st with blackened feet and bruises on her face, on Thursday from the Delilah in West Hollywood

Carried out: She was loaded into the back of an ambulance as Kylie's father Caitlyn Jenner and her partner Sophia Hutchins looked on in horror

Tammy was seen being wheeled out of the restaurant and club, strapped face down on a stretcher.

She was loaded into the back of an ambulance as Kylie's father Caitlyn Jenner, 68, and Sophia Hutchins, 21, looked on in horror.

Caitlyn looked extremely concerned in photos taken of the carnage on Thursday night, as Sophia spoke with the security detail.

Famous friends: Tammy (right) is said to be on friendly terms with the Jenners and Kardashians, appearing in a Good American clothing ad with Khloe Kardashian (left) in 2017

The party featured the entire Kardashian-Jenner clan, where Kylie had splashed out on a large ball pit, personalised party favours, a photo booth and even a family mural.

Kylie had Delilah's outside walls covered in pink tinsel, while the ceilings were fitted with glistening pink balls which later released pink confetti that showered down on dancing guests.

VIP guests including Nicki Minaj, 35, Winnie Harlow, 24, and Dave Chappelle, 44, all turned up to party with the birthday girl.

Birthday girl: Kylie Jenner (pictured) turned heads with a flattering magenta frock as she arrived at her party

Tammy is said to be on friendly terms with the Kardashian and Jenner families, having appeared in a Good American clothing ad with Khloe Kardashian, 34, just last year.

Tammy has a fitness app called Tammy Fit where she shares tips on how to live a healthier life.

She has more than 8.6million followers on Instagram.

Antics: When party-goers weren't busting moves on the dance floor, they were able to lark around in a gigantic ball pit that was filled with pink balls and elaborate love heart balloons
She's made a career out of flaunting her figure.

And Emily Ratajkowski was jaw-dropping as ever at the annual Unicef Gala held in Porto Cervo, Italy on Friday.

The model/actress, 27, turned heads in a semi-sheer lace look which flashed hints of skin throughout.

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Bombshell: Emily Ratajkowski got hearts racing in a semi-sheer black gown during Friday's Unicef Gala in Porto Cervo, Italy

A tiered skirt added a playful element to Emily's elegant ensemble.

Adding another girly touch, the I Feel Pretty castmate donned heels with ribbons around the ankles.

It was hard to miss the giant rock on Emily's left hand.

The beauty was wed to hubby Sebastian Bear-Mcclard in February after just weeks of dating.

Tiers of joy: A tiered skirt added a playful element to Emily's elegant ensemble

Beauty: She painted her face with an earth-toned glow and sassy winged liner while styling her chestnut locks straight and with a center part

Ratajkowski also accessorized with glimmering drop earrings.

She painted her face with an earth-toned glow and sassy winged liner while styling her chestnut locks straight and with a center part.

Inside the affair, Emily had a fan girl moment as she watched Ricky Martin perform.

Silky smooth: Adding another girly touch, the I Feel Pretty castmate donned heels with silk ribbons around the ankles

Sheer wonder: The model/actress's semi-sheer lace look flashed hints of skin throughout

Before heading to Italy, Emily shared a snapshot from her travels to Paris on Instagram on Wednesday.

Sharing a photo of herself posing against a mirror in a bathroom, the 27-year-old model pushed out her perky derriere and shot a smouldering glance over her shoulder.

And before that the starlet was seen posing it up in bathing suits from her line Inamorata Swim.
It's like something out of a Hollywood movie - only this was real life drama.

Actress Erika Christensen, 35, gave birth a beautiful baby girl named Polly Friday, but not without the help of her husband Cole Maness.

'It happened! It happened this morning,' she wrote along with a photo she shared on Instagram taken moments after the delivery. 'And it will go down in family history because baby girls own, incredible Dad delivered her all by himself.'

Dad to the rescue: Erika Christensen gave birth to her second daughter, Polly, on Friday; her husband Cole Maness delivered the little girl

The Parenthood star looked absolutely blissful in the picture as she cuddles her baby girl while an overjoyed and relieved Cole rests his head against Erika.

'My fault entirely as I didn't know she would come so quickly and didnt call the doc until far too late. He came straight over and arrived about one minute after she joined us in the world. Haha! My Mom too,' the new mom said.

'You shouldve seen their faces when they walked in to hear her little wail. Mom immediately took this picture. So epic. 9:21a (we think) at 7lbs 8oz (we think).

Whoops: Cole was forced to step in and deliver the baby: 'My fault entirely as I didn't know she would come so quickly and didnt call the doc until far too late,' she shared on Instagram

Growing family: the couple already share a two-year old daughter Shane; the couple had a little fun while posing for photographers in March 2016

Doc didnt have time to grab the baby scale in his rush. Meet Ms. Polly. Shes chubby-cheeked and rosy and so beautiful,' she gushed.

The Traffic star initially planned to keep the sex of the child a secret, but she accidentally leaked the news while attending a dinner for the 2018 Women in Film Face of the Future event in June.

While talking with reporters she revealed that her two-year old daughter Shane Maness was happy to become a big sister.

Going strong: Erika and Cole celebrate their third wedding anniversary in September; the couple are pictured at an Oscar party in February 2017

'My mom got her a t-shirt that says, Big sister. She seems to grasp that theres a baby in here. Shes giving the baby some kisses. Hopefully the little one will learn a lot from her sister.'

'Oh, well, there you go,' she added when she realized the gender slip-up.

The happy couple welcomed their first daughter Shane in June 2016. They will celebrate their third wedding anniversary in September.
UPCOMING innovators in the engineering field have all reasons to smile with the envisaged establishment of a centre of excellence in the designated capital city of Dodoma, to improve their handiwork into full-fledged small-scale industrial plants.

The Engineers Registration Board (ERB) has already secured 60 acres of land at Nala in Dodoma where it plans to erect a 10-storey building and workshops to support young engineers whose creations stall before being fully developed for production.

Acting Registrar of ERB, Eng Patrick Barozi, made the revelation when addressing the first ever forum for students from secondary schools and higher institutions of learning in Dar es Salaam yesterday, ahead of the 50th anniversary of ERB slated for Dodoma early next month.

The event which also involved exhibitions on innovations by students in engineering schools, was graced by the Deputy Minister in the Prime Ministers Office (Labour, Employment and Youth), Mr Anthony Mavunde (pictured).

Eng Barozi appealed to the government to disburse grants to the aspiring scientists to enable them improve their creations to support thecountrys industrialisation agenda and attainment of middle-economy status by 2025.

We need more engineers of different cadres for the country to achieve industrial economy status. The number of engineers in Tanzania is still low, the Acting Registrar pointed.

According to Eng Barozi, there are currently 22,228 registered engineers in Tanzania, out of whom only 10 per cent, 2,235 are women. Speaking at the occasion, the deputy minister pointed out that the innovations he watched at the exhibitions could be improved to establish factories which would create employment opportunities for other youths.

I thus urge graduating innovators to secure funds to establish small-scale industries rather than engaging in luxurious goods and lifestyles. Establish groups which can enable you to access loans, he remarked.

According to Mr Mavunde, the Integrated Labour Survey conducted in 2014 indicates that Tanzania has a labour force of 22.3 million people, out of whom 14.4 million are young people aged between 14 and 34.

The government envisions to have 40 per cent of the labour force employed in industries by the year 2025, he stated. Mr Mavunde further explained that the government, through the Association of Tanzania Employers (ATE) and Tanzania Private Sector Foundation (TPSF) is putting final touches on guidelines to enable fresh graduates easily access internships in local and foreign companies.
He is the brother of Oscar-nominated actor James Franco and the husband of Mad Men star Alison Brie.

But Dave Franco, 33, is also an accomplished actor in his own right with a stellar resume.

And on Friday he was spotted looking casual-cool as he headed to an afternoon meeting in Los Angeles.

On the go: Actor Dave Franco was spotted heading to a meeting in Los Angeles on Friday

On this hot summer day, Dave looked sleek in a black and white checkered shirt with fitted black pants and a pair of white sneakers.

He added a pair of dark sunglasses to help keep the Southern California sun out of his eyes and he wore his short brown hair styled back and parted on the left.

The Neighbors star looked to be distracted as he glanced at his cell phone and hurried along to his meeting.

Casual cool: The 33-year old actor wore black pants and a black and white checkered shirt to his afternoon meeting

Hot in the city: The Disaster Artist star has three new movies coming out in the next year

His star is getting brighter: Dave is currently filming Michael Bay's latest big-budget action movie 6 Underground, which also stars Ryan Reynolds

The California-native's star appears to be getting brighter in Hollywood, with roles in several movies that have high-profile directors and co-stars.

He is currently filming Michael Bay's latest big-budget action movie 6 Underground alongside superstar Ryan Reynolds. He has two other films that are now in post-production: Zeroville, which is being directed by his big brother James Franco and Moonlight director Barry Jenkins' new film If Beale Street Could Talk.

And that's all on top of the riveting performance he gave as a struggling heroin addict in the 2018 Netflix drama 6 Balloons.

Dave's lengthy resume in Hollywood includes movies like: Now You See Me (2013), Neighbors (2014), The Little Hours (2017), The Disaster Artist (2017) and The Lego Ninjago Movie (2017).

Power couple: Dave and Alison Brie got married in March 2017 after three years of dating

Things are also appear to be going strong in his personal life. The Warm Bodies star wed wife Alison Brie in March 2017, after three years of dating.

'I was so shocked that I actually burst out laughing, and I asked him a number of times if he was being serious before saying yes, Brie told Larry King of Franco popping the question as reported by People.

'I never wanted to get married, she said. 'I was just like, well thats not my path in life, because Im choosing this crazy lifestyle (acting).'

'Then, you know, I fell in love,' she added. So, blah blah blah, amazing. Acting is fulfilling, but its also not the only thing.
Australian model Cheyenne Tozzi has broken her silence about her pregnancy.

In an interview with an upcoming issue of Harper's Bazaar Australia, the 29-year-old revealed she is going through a delicate time.

'I have rhesus negative blood type... [which means] the body might treat the pregnancy as a virus and cause some real problems,' she said.

'I didn't want anything out there until I knew the baby was going to be healthy:' Pregnant Cheyenne Tozzi has revealed she had terrifying health scare as she prepares to give birth to her first child with boyfriend Marlon Teixeira. Pictured: Cheyenne Tozzi and Marlon Teixeira

'I've been terrified. I didn't want anything out there until I knew the baby was going to be healthy,' the model added.

Rhesus negative is an incompatibility of blood type between mother and baby which, and if left untreated, can result in brain damage, learning difficulties, deafness and blindness, according to Pregnancy, Birth & Baby.

Cheyenne told the publication that she has been undergoing a number injections of anti-D immunoglobulin for treatment.

Health scare: In an interview with an upcoming issue of Harper's Bazaar Australia , the 29-year-old revealed she is going through a delicate pregnancy. 'I have rhesus negative blood type... The body might treat the pregnancy as a virus and cause some real problems,' she said

While her health condition is constantly monitored, the model also revealed that she and her Brazilian model boyfriend Marlon Teixeira are expecting a daughter.

Cheyenne also spoke about her fear at the prospect of becoming a mother, and the support she can expect to receive when her baby is born.

'Of course I'm freaked out about parenting, but Tahyna (her actress sister) has a little girl who I know will be close to mine, and my family always has lots of love and humour and support. We're strong women. I've got role models,' she added.

Happily expecting: In June, the pregnant model and her beau were spotted with her baby bump for the first time outside El Sol Tortillaria Mexican in Cronulla

She recently returned to her family home in Cronulla with Marlon, where they are expected to be based until they welcome the third generation Tozzi daughter.

In June, the pregnant model was spotted with her baby bump for the first time outside El Sol Tortillaria Mexican in Cronulla.

She and her beau were joined by a group of friends, and the glamorous socialite kept it casual in a relaxed white top and a pair of matching trousers.
Ashley Roberts is reportedly on a mission to find love on Strictly Come Dancing.

The 36-year-old dancer is allegedly eager to be paired up with a single male dancer, after having a string of bad luck in the love department, according to The Sun.

Ashley was rumoured to be joining the Strictly lineup earlier this week, after The Sun reported that she was hand-picked by bosses to join the star-studded lineup.

Exciting: Ashley Roberts is reportedly on a mission to find love on Strictly Come Dancing, and is keen to be paired with a hunky single male, according to The Sun

A source said: 'Ashley's been single for years. She feels ready to meet someone and settle down.

'She's had an amazing career and now wants to open her life up to having a serious relationship.

'She's seen plenty of romances blossom on Strictly over the years and hopes that the same could happen for her.'

MailOnline has contacted representatives for Ashley Roberts for comment.

Eager: Sources told The Sun that having been single for years, 36-year-old Ashley is hoping she can find her dream man through an appearance on the BBC show

Strictly has long been the starting point for many a romance, with all manner of stars from Jimi Mistry to Ben Cohen to Gemma Atkinson finding love on the show, though not always with their own dance partner.

This comes following reports that Ashley was hand-picked by bosses to add a bit of glamour to the Strictly lineup, ahead of the official unveiling on Monday (August 13).

The American beauty joins many names on the rumoured lineup, which also includes Steps' Faye Tozer, presenter Scarlett Moffatt and Olympic diver Tom Daley.

Gorgeous: It comes following reports earlier this week that Ashley will join this year's Strictly lineup, which will begin to be announced on Monday (August 13)

A source told The Sun: 'Ashley was a no-brainer for the bookers. She's sexy and sassy and has a bit about her.

'She has danced previously but there's a difference between dancing in a girl band and doing ballroom.

'She definitely has rhythm but sometimes having prior dancing experience can be a hindrance as you have bad habits. But she will definitely look great in the sequins and is a solid signing.'

Ashley, who began dancing at the age of three, is known for her saucy and complex dance routines in award-winning girl group The Pussycat Dolls.

She has since moved into television presenting with a stint on Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway and also competed on I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!
Hollywood heavyweight Hugh Jackman has been enjoying life back in his home town of Sydney for the past several weeks.

And it seems the 49-year-old actor was greeted by some rather loud local guests on Saturday morning.

The Greatest Showman star took to Instagram to share a short clip of himself on the balcony of his luxury Bondi apartment.

'My morning visitors are here!' Hugh Jackman has been greeted by two rather loud rainbow lorikeets during breakfast

He seemed to be ready to do some work on his computer, however two chirping by two native rainbow lorikeets within earshot.

'My morning visitors are here. They want breakfast,' the X-Men star says in his video.

Fans of The Wolverine actor loved his clip, including one who commented: 'They knew an angel was near them so they sang their best songs to you.'

Back in Sydney: The actor flew into to Sydney back in late July with his wife Deborra-Lee Furness (right) and their two adopted children

The actor flew into to Sydney back in late July with his wife Deborra-Lee Furness and their children Oscar, 18, and Ava, 13.

It seems the Aussie has been enjoying an array of local wildlife since his return, aso sharing a selfie of himself with a cockatoo.

The Les Miserables star has also been busy visiting Broome, in the Northern Territory.

Wildlife: It seems the actor has been enjoying the local wildlife since his return, sharing a selfie of himself with a cockatoo

Hanging with the locals! He made a recent trip to Broome, in the Northern Territory and shared a photo of himself with a bearded local

He shared a photo of himself with a bearded local, who the actor said looked like Lord Of The Rings character, the wizard Gandalf.

The Jackman's return to Sydney comes amid rumours the New York-based family are planning to relocate to Australia.

In terms of projects, Hugh has a number of upcoming films, including Broadway 4D, with Christina Aguilera, and The Front Runner, with Vera Farmiga.
She has been wowing fans all over the world on her Reputation tour.

And Taylor Swift once again dazzled an audience of thousands on Friday, as she took to the stage for her latest performance at the Mercedes-Benz stadium in Atlanta.

The 28-year-old American songstress showed off her lean physique in a slew of revealing ensembles during the concert, including a sequinned leotard and thigh-high split chain gown.

Sensational: Taylor Swift once again dazzled an audience of thousands on Friday, as she took to the stage for her latest performance of her Reputation tour in Atlanta

Ever the show-woman, Taylor once again put on a sensational display in a sexy black gown with gold chain finishing during the performance, teamed with black platform boots and a statement dark lip.

The Shake It Off songstress had her blonde bobbed tresses loosely curled for the show, as she belted out an array of her biggest hits.

Taylor also took to the stage with former Fifth Harmony star Camila Cabello and Charli XCX, who have been acting as support for the tour.

Sexy: The 28-year-old American songstress put on a leggy display in a sparkling sequinned leotard and thigh-high boots at one part of the show at the Mercedes-Benz stadium

Show-woman: Taylor also showed off her figure in a thigh-split black gown with gold chain finishing, teaming it with a deep plum lip

Loving it: Taylor also performed with Camila Cabello and Charli XCX, who had been acting as support for the tour

As she continues the US leg of her worldwide tour, rumours have been swirling that Taylor's next big acting role will come in the form of Tom Hooper's big-screen version of the Broadway musical Cats, which begins shooting in the UK this fall.

The Delicate hit-maker is rumoured to be playing Grizabella (Elaine Paige) the once-glamorous, now mangy cat who sings the biggest number, Memory.

The Universal/Working Title adaptation of the Andrew Lloyd Weber classic will also star Jennifer Hudson, Ian McKellen, and James Corden - according to Deadline.

Amazing: Taylor has been dazzling fans all over the world on her Reputation tour, and will next head to Tampa on Tuesday (August 14)

Jaw-dropping: Taylor's 53-date - earning approximately $11.1m - will also take her to Australia and Japan, with the final show taking place in Tokyo in November

Dazzling: Taylor's show comes following reports from Deadling that her next big acting role will be in an adaptation of the musical Cats

The March For Our Lives fundraiser will next take her 53-date, $11.1M-earning Reputation Stadium Tour to Tampa's Raymond James Stadium on Tuesday (August 14).

Her set list included nearly all the songs off her latest album reputation and fan favourites like 'All Too Well' off her Red album and 'Shake It Off' and 'Style' off her 1989 album.

Since Swift has Sunday and Monday off, there's also been speculation she'll attend Fox's Teen Choice Awards where she's nominated for six trophies including 'choice fandom.'

Over the moon: Taylor's fans couldn't hide their excitement at seeing the pop idol live, with roughly 75,000 fans watching from inside the venue
Love Island's Georgia Steel and Sam Bird showed their romance is moving thick and fast on Friday, as the couple were seen hunting for a love nest together in Essex.

The reality TV duo were seen hand-in-hand as they headed to a house viewing together, just 19 days after making their relationship official.

Georgia and Sam have been going from strength to strength since leaving the villa, though the pair were reportedly involved in an awkward exchange with Islander Megan Barton Hanson, after Georgia was believed to have un-followed the Essex beauty on social media.

Sweet: Love Island's Georgia Steel and Sam Bird showed their romance is moving thick and fast on Friday, as the couple were seen hunting for a love nest together in Essex

Georgia was oozing casual chic as she sported a low-key black striped leggings and t-shirt combo, teamed with flat silver pumps and a matching bag.

Meanwhile Sam matched his girlfriend with a similar look, as the couple were leaving an estate agent and making their way to a house viewing.

The couple couldn't hide their delight as they left a property together, hinting that perhaps it could become their new love nest.

Sam and Georgia's relationship has continued to blossom after they made things official just days after leaving the villa.

Out and about: The reality TV couple couldn't hide their delight as they were seen leaving an estate agent's in Essex on

However it was reported that tensions were high between Georgia and Megan when it was discovered that they had unfollowed each other on social media.

The news was reported by The Sun and comes after the pair were involved in a very awkward exchange on Love Island: The Reunion on Sunday night.

Caroline Flack, 38, asked Megan, 24, if it was true she didn't like Georgia, 20, and she said she 'didn't understand her.'

Love it: Sam and Georgia appeared happy with the choice of property, as they sported matching all-black looks for the outing

She said: 'It's not even like that. I'm shy and she is very extroverted, it's not that I didn't like her, I just didn't get it. I wasn't used to being around people like that.'

The camera panned to a visibly irked Georgia who was sitting in the crowd along with her boyfriend Sam, 25. She yelled out: 'It's OK boo. No need to worry darling.'

MailOnline previously contacted representatives for Megan and Georgia for comment.

Megan had famously called Georgia a 'fake b***h' in the villa and was particularly annoyed when she jumped into the swimming pool.

Oops! The couple's outing came it was reported that Georgia shared an awkward exchange with Megan Barton Hanson, as The Sun alleged they unfollowed each other on social media

Elsewhere, Georgia also caused controversy on the Reunion show when she finally apologised to Laura Anderson for kissing Jack Fowler.

The reality star, who ensured her islanders knew how 'real and loyal' she was, exclaimed she would have told Laura if she had 'remembered it that way'.

During a catch up between Caroline, Laura and her hunky beau Paul Knops, the host announced she was going to play a clip of the controversial kiss.

Moments after it played Georgia shouted: 'Oh Laura Darlin' you know if I'd of remembered it that way, you know me boo I would have told you.'

A member of the audience then quipped: 'We all saw it!'

Toe-curling: Georgia also caused controversy on the Love Island reunion show, when she finally apologised to Laura Anderson for kissing Jack Fowler

Before Georgia shot back: 'I would have boo, I would have, I love you Darlin' and that's all that matters.'

Caroline was quick to ask Laura for her take on the kiss as she said it must have been confusing for her at the time, Laura, who defended Jack throughout the ordeal.

She replied: 'It wasn't that confusing... I believed Jack straight away but it was difficult because Georgia seemed so adamant, and that swayed my decision with Jack and I really wanted to be her friend, but she was telling me why don't you believe me, why don't you believe me.'
Biggest Loser host Fiona Falkiner isn't shy in showing off her curvy physique.

So it's no surprise the 35-year-old is relishing in her new gig, modelling for the swimwear brand, Saint Somebody.

On Saturday, Fiona spoke with The Daily Telegraph about the label, which caters for women of all different shapes and sizes.

'Brands are finally realising they need to cater for everyone!' In an interview with The Daily Telegraph on Saturday, The Biggest Loser's Fiona Falkiner spoke candidly about body diversity

Fiona gushed over the Sydney-based label and said she's noticing increasing diversity in the fashion and modelling worlds.

'I have been in this industry for eight or nine years now and the opportunities for curvier girls to get out there and represent brands is incredible and has changed so much,' the beauty stated.

'It is really exciting. Brands are finally realising they need to cater for everyone and they are getting on board with catering to all different types of people and different bodies,' she added.

'The opportunities for curvier girls to get out there and represent brands is incredible': Fiona is welcoming change in the modelling and fashion industries

Fiona has recently returned from a lavish European holiday, where she stripped down for a serious of sizzling swimsuit shots.

In one photo, the TV presenter poured her curves into a skimpy black bikini, much to the delight of her 76,000 fans.

'You look fantastic!' cooed one follower, while another remarked: 'Looking hot as!'

'You look fantastic': In one recent snap, the TV presenter poured her curves into a skimpy black bikini, much to the delight of her 76,000 fans

Fiona hit headlines last year after going public with girlfriend, personal trainer Lara Creber.

The pair split in February, but are rumoured to have have rekindled their romance.

Last month, Fiona was in Dubrovnik, Croatia while Lara also shared snaps from the same city, suggesting that they were on holiday together.

Bikini beautiful! Fiona isn't shy in stripping down to show off her incredible physique
Dan Single has begun a new relationship after announcing his split with wife Bambi Northwood-Blyth in March.

Taking to Instagram on Saturday, the 37-year-old shared an image of his new girlfriend, student Sybil Sweet, and introduced her to his fans.

Alongside the the image, the Ksubi founder wrote: 'So at the end of last year, out of nowhere a girl pops into my life and she is now my girlfriend, we've been real quiet about [it]'.

Moving on: Dan Single has revealed that he's begun a new relationship after announcing his split with wife Bambi Northwood-Blyth (pictured right) in March

He added: 'She studies architecture, loves design, makes stuff, looks after kids, loves French fries and she makes me smile.'

The clothing designer concluded: 'She simply is just Sweet, just like her name says.'

The photograph shows a smiling brunette, who is covering her face and wearing a pink towel around her hair.

The woman is also clad in a sweater that promotes Pour Les Amour Rose, the wine brand Dan started with Bambi.

New love: Taking to Instagram on Saturday, the 37-year-old revealed an image of his new girlfriend, student Sybil Sweet (pictured)

In one of several other emotional Instagram posts made over the course of Saturday, the designer revealed the true reasons for his split from his wife of four years.

He denied that the end of the relationship had anything to do with a Go Fund Me page set up after he fell from a hotel balcony in Paris.

Bambi, a model and TV presenter, was in the Hotel Grand D'Amour apartment with Dan on March 11, 2017, when Dan fell 'feet first' from a bedroom window.

Over: In one of several other emotional posts, the designer revealed the true reasons for his split from his wife of four years. Alongside a pensive image of Bambi (pictured) staring out to sea, Dan explained: 'She has her own dreams to chase and it's her time to do it now'

Well wishes: 'She works hard and is making those dreams come true and I am very proud of her, nothing but good vibes' the entrepreneur added

Over: The glamorous pair were married in 2014 and split after almost four years of marriage. Pictured: Dan and Bambi on their wedding day

Alongside two friends, the 27-year-old was seen rushing to a nearby hospital, where Dan was placed in an induced-coma.

A month later, previously supportive fans turned on him, labelling him 'pathetic' for using fundraising website Go Fund Me to ask for $250,000 to cover hospital bills.

It was later claimed Bambi was 'mortified' about Dan's decision to ask for money, and reports subsequently emerged speculating the pair had split during the fallout.

Long way down: Bambi, a model and TV presenter, was in the Hotel Grand D'Amour (pictured) apartment with Dan on March 11, 2017, when Dan fell 'feet first' from a bedroom window

Funds: A month later, previously supportive fans turned on him, labelling him 'pathetic' for using fundraising website GoFundMe to ask for $250,000 to cover hospital bills. Dan is pictured recovering in hospital

Stress: It was later claimed Bambi was 'mortified' about Dan's decision to ask for money, and reports subsequently emerged speculating the pair had split during the fallout, however Dan has now vehemently denied that was the case

However the lauded fashion icon has now vehemently denied that was the case, instead revealing that there were still 'good vibes' between the pair.

Alongside an image of the model staring out to sea posted to his Instagram, Dan explained: 'By the way [she] didn't leave me because of a stupid go fund me page I don't even remember writing, days out of a coma in a complete morphine haze.'

'She has her own dreams to chase and it's her time to do it now. She works hard and is making those dreams come true and I am very proud of her, nothing but good vibes... Go girl!' the clothing entrepreneur added.

Long road: Alongside an image featuring a brain emoji, Dan also discussed the emotional and physical battle he's endured since his near-fatal fall from that Paris balcony over a year ago

Survivour: 'I have been working hard on my recovery, trying to better understand the inner workings of the mind and connect with the spirit, exercising a lot to mend this body'

In yet another Instagram post, Dan also discussed the emotional and physical battle he's endured since his near-fatal fall from that Paris balcony over a year ago, explaining that he was still suffering the effects of the accident.

'I have been working hard on my recovery, trying to better understand the inner workings of the mind and connect with the spirit, exercising a lot to mend this body,' the Sydney native wrote, adding that he was now back to work on his businesses.

He added: 'I'm at peace with it all. Everything happens for a reason right? I'm surrounded by love... Most of all I'm proud of myself, I got a strong a** mind I've discovered, so here we go!'

Inspired: The former Bang Gang DJ also shared an image of a tattoo which reads 'This too shall pass' - a phrase he formerly saw as a cliche, but which brought him immense comfort while he was in recovering in hospital

Mending: 'I was desperately desperately depressed and someone said to me, 'It's all going to be OK, this too shall pass' and I thought F**K OFFF (sic), but it did pass," Dan wrote. Dan is pictured in March 2018

The former Bang Gang DJ also shared an Instagram image of his new tattoo which reads, 'this too shall pass' - a phrase he explained he formerly saw as a cliche, but which brought him immense comfort while he was in recovering in hospital.

'I had moments in the hospital when I was desperately desperately depressed and someone said to me, "It's all going to be OK, this too shall pass and I thought F**K OFFF (sic) but it did pass. I started thinking it when times were tough, and the tough times they always did pass,' he informed his 25,000 Instagram followers.

In March, exactly twelve months after his Paris balcony fall, Dan shared over twenty emotional Instagram posts confirming his split with Bambi.

Split: In March, exactly twelve months after his Paris balcony fall, Dan confirmed his split with wife Bambi saying: 'When I fell, my hips and pelvis broke in half, and with that our D&B co-dependent relationship broke too'

The designer explained: 'We were no longer joined at the hip. Two people cannot live as one, it's not healthy, you can try but you're really living half a life'

Alongside an image of his estranged wife, he explained: 'When I fell, my hips and pelvis broke in half, and with that our D&B co-dependent relationship broke too.'

He went on: 'We were no longer joined at the hip. Two people cannot live as one, it's not healthy, you can try but you're really living half a life.'

'We both have our own journeys to go on now, ones that we couldn't have gone on together. We are respectful and happy for what each other has got going on, no bad vibes,' the fashion industry personality concluded.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Dan Single for comment.
He's the beloved star of BBC's Poldark, and has wowed audiences in Being Human and the Hobbit franchise.

But Aidan Turner clearly doesn't let his fame stop him from leading a normal life, as he was spotted taking the train on Friday.

The actor, 35, was headed to the gym, and kept a low profile as he arrived at the station where he went unnoticed while waiting with commuters.

Commuter: Aidan Turner kept a low profile as he took the train to the gym ahead of The Lieutenant Of Inishmore performance on Friday

The Irish star opted to wear a casual look for his outing, as he shrugged on a simple grey T-shirt over his muscular torso.

Pairing his dark top with a pair of black jeans, Aidan complemented his outfit of the day with grey trainers.

He looked dapper with his close-cropped beard and messy raven tresses, which he kept hidden underneath a khaki green beanie.

Casual look: The Irish star opted to wear a casual look for his outing, which saw him shrug on a simple grey T-shirt over his muscular torso

Handsome: He looked dapper with his close-cropped beard and messy raven tresses, which he kept hidden underneath a khaki green beanie

Finishing touches: Pairing his dark top with a pair of black jeans, Aidan complemented her simple outfit of the day with grey trainers

Carrying his gym gear in a large brown duffel bag, the actor also got his caffeine fix for the day as he carried a cup with him to the station.

Keeping to himself as he arrived in time for his train, the actor listened to music with one headphone in his ear.

Aidan seemed keen to treat his outing like any other day, as he got ready to have a workout before heading to the Noel Coward theatre for his evening performance.

Low-key: The actor went unnoticed while waiting with commuters for the train

Time for coffee: Carrying his gym gear in a large brown duffel bag, the actor also got his caffeine fix for the day as he carried a cup with him to the station

Keeping a low profile: As Aidan arrived at the train station he listened to music with one headphone in his ear

Aidan has been impressing audiences with his portrayal of an unhinged Irish terrorist in The Lieutenant Of Inishmore since June.

The play, set in 1993 on the island of Inishmore, County Galway, was first performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2001 and was created by Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri director Martin McDonagh.

Aidan plays Padraic, a young, unhinged terrorist who returns home and goes on a murderous rampage when he discovers his cat, who he refers to as his 'best friend in the world', has been killed.

Outing: The actor was keen to treat his outing like any other day, as he got ready to have a workout before heading to the Noel Coward theatre for his evening performance

Wow! Aidan has been impressing audiences with his portrayal of an unhinged Irish terrorist in The Lieutenant Of Inishmore since June

Dark role: Aidan plays Padraic, a young, unhinged terrorist who returns home and goes on a murderous rampage when he discovers his cat has been killed

In true Martin McDonagh style, everything descends into chaos as Padraic storms back into his father Donny's (Denis Conway) home, and tries to exact his revenge but is then interrupted when fellow terrorists turn up on his doorstep.

I think people will be surprised, the actor told the Daily Mail last year, while on a short break from filming the fourth  and penultimate  series of the top-rated BBC television Sunday night drama Poldark.

Its the furthest I can get from Ross Poldark that I can possibly imagine.

Different: I think people will be surprised, the actor told the Daily Mail last year, while on a short break from filming the fourth series of Poldark

Unexpected: He said, Its the furthest I can get from Ross Poldark that I can possibly imagine
She left the bright lights of Hollywood behind for a home in Byron Bay, but often travels back to Los Angeles for work.

And former Home And Away star Isabel Lucas has gushed over her quieter life in the coastal Australian town.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph, the 31-year-old said: 'I'm really happy.'

Not a Thor point! Former Home And Away star Isabel Lucas talks about splitting her time between Los Angeles and Byron Bay despite ex Chris Hemsworth also living in the idyllic coastal town

Although she made the move in 2016, the blonde beauty said she will be travel back and forth between the Australia and the US for work.

She said: 'I'm heading back to Los Angeles in a couple of weeks for work, something that I'm really excited about.'

Byron Bay is also home to her ex boyfriend Chris Hemsworth, who bases himself in the small town with actress wife Elsa Pataky and their three young children.

Former flames: Byron Bay is also home to her ex boyfriend and Chris Hemsworth, who bases himself in the small town with actress wife Elsa Pataky and their three young children

The Hollywood heavyweight and Isabel first met on the set of long-running drama Home And Away and they dated from 2005 to 2008.

Last year, Isabel confirmed to NewsCorp that she relocated to Bryon saying: 'I feel I am happy here, I want to be around my family more, my sister lives in Byron.'

The actress also revealed that despite purchasing her property there 12 months ago she has had little chance to enjoy it.

What a small world! Isabel's ex, Chris and his wife Elsa (pictured), are two of Byron Bay's most famous residents

'I bought my house in Byron about a year ago, although I haven't spent that much time there with work,' Isabel said.

Meanwhile, the blonde recently dazzled Sydney's fashion elite at the David Jones Fashion Show.

Isabel showcased her slender figure in a sequinned navy midi dress, gold open-toe heels and accessorising with the trendy Chloe Small Nile Bracelet Bag.

Sparkling stunner: She recently dazzled Sydney's fashion elite at the David Jones Fashion Show, showcasing her slender figure in a sequinned navy midi dress

The actress starred in season two of the MacGyver reboot as fiesty former CIA agent Samantha Cage.

While she did not elaborate on what specific project she would be working on upon her return to the US, Isabel has a number of projects in the works.

Isabel is set to star alongside Thomas Cocquerel and David Wenham in the Errol Flynn biopic, In Like Flynn.
TANZANIA is among a few African countries which have excelled in putting in place an exemplary loan scheme for students in institutions of higher learning, prompting many other countries in the continent to follow suit.

The Executive Director of the Higher Education Students Loans Board (HESLB), Mr Abdul-Razaq Badru, made the revelation during a meeting with a delegation of officials from Sierra Leone who are in the country for a one-week visit to learn about Tanzanias loan scheme.

The delegation was led by Sierra Leones Deputy Minister for Technical and Higher Education, Dr Turad Senesie, who was flanked by that countrys Principal Deputy Financial Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Mr Matthew Dingie, and other high-ranking officials.

The scheme which offers loans to students in universities was established over 15 years ago and despite some teething challenges here and there, has registered considerable successes, Mr Abdul-Razaq noted.

According to Mr Badru, other countries which have picked a leaf from Tanzanias higher education students loans scheme include Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Malawi and Namibia, among others in the continent.

Currently, there are only ten countries in Africa with loans schemes for students in higher institutions of learning and Tanzania is among the top three in the continent, according to the HESLB chief executive.

Some countries dont see the need to re-invent the wheel and therefore come to us to learn on best practices of operating the scheme, he explained.

The HESLB boss pointed to the fact that had it not been for the scheme, many students from poor families would not have been in position to pursue high-level academic studies.

Speaking at the occasion, the head of the Sierra Leonean delegation, Dr Senesie, said the team had learned a lot of things on running of the system through their engagementwith different stakeholders in Tanzania.

It was through the engagement that we have been enlightened on the legal structure, policy as well as disbursement and recovery of the loans. We are African brothers and thus a model development in the continent is ideal for us, the deputy minister remarked.

Dr Senesie stressed that his country would not reinvent the wheel on the model developed by Tanzania but would instead expand the scope of funding by exploring other sources of financing. In Tanzania, it is the government which dishes the loans.

The amount loaned is based on a cost sharing policy and the financial ability of the central government. The scheme loan is meant to supplement the efforts of parents and guardians and came into force after enactment of Act No.9 of 2004 by the Parliament of the United Republic of Tanzania.

The delegation from Freetown also includes Mr Mohammed Gondoe, (Deputy Director General, National Social Security and Insurance Trust), Dr Alhassan Mansaray (Director, Fiscal Risk Management, Ministry of Finance) as well as Dr Ezekiel Duramany-Lakkoh (Head of Department, University of Sierra Leone) and Mr Osman Kamara (Senior Budget Officer, Ministry of Finance).
Dave 'Hughesy' Hughes has been contemplating having liposuction on his 'man boobs' for more than a year.

And the comedian came one step closer to the procedure this week, having a consultation with a cosmetic surgeon while live on the air.

In a segment for his Hughesy & Kate radio show on Friday, the 47-year old funnyman spoke with Dr. Daniel Lanzer about the insecurity he experiences over his chest.

Making changes? Comedian Dave Hughes consults cosmetic surgeon to have liposuction on his 'MAN BOOBS'... as he names a very famous man who has already had the procedure done

Hughesy explained: 'When I do put photos up on Instagram, depending on the angle and what I'm wearing, I do get man boob comments. And they are hurtful, I won't deny it'.

The star also revealed that his seven-year-old daughter Sadie pointed out his 'man boobs' during a recently family holiday in Japan.

'She said, "Dad, you've got boobs!'' the comedian recalled.

'I do get man boob comments': Hughesy said comments about his chest were 'hurtful'

Dr. Lanzer explained that he could eliminate Hughesy's 'man boobs' via tumescent liposuction.

The 'dermatological cosmetic surgeon' claimed the procedure takes about an hour, is done when the patient is awake, and is extremely popular.

'We sometimes do ten a day!' Dr. Lanzer exclaimed.

Will he get the procedure done? Hughesy shed his shirt to get the doctor's diagnosis on whether or not he needed the surgery

At that point, Hughesy shed his shirt to get the doctor's diagnosis on whether or not he needed the surgery.

Dr. Lanzer stated: 'Hughesy does not have severe gynecomastia [excess breast tissue], but it's moderate It's [the procedure] going to change his life, it's going to make him happier. DO IT!'

The surgeon also revealed he has a number of very happy clients who've already had the procedure done, including pyjama designer Peter Alexander.

Peter called into Hughesy & Kate's program and gushed: 'I went and got liposuction on my boobs and it was the best thing I've ever done!'
She's fast becoming Roxy Jacenko's mini-me.

And on Saturday the PR maven paid tribute to her daughter, Pixie, on her seventh birthday.

The 38-year-old shared an image in which the tot is smiling in front of a massive cake decorated in rainbow sprinkles.

'My best friend who has been so kind to me': Roxy Jacenko shares moving tribute to daughter Pixie on her 7th birthday as celebrations begin with a massive freckle cake

A candle in the shape of the number seven sat atop the cake, surrounded by slim candles lit and ready to blow out.

A giant pink bow sat on the front of the cake with Pixie looking delighted, wearing a white shirt and a navy bow pinned in her hair.

Roxy captioned the image: 'Seven years of joy - 7th birthday celebrations begin this evening for my beautiful little girl'.

Sweet: 'Seven years of joy - 7th birthday celebrations begin this evening for my beautiful little girl,' Roxy wrote online

Gushing: She also called her daughter her 'best friend' writing: 'My best friend who has been so kind and caring to me - beyond her years. Thank you'

She also called her daughter her 'best friend' writing: 'My best friend who has been so kind and caring to me - beyond her years. Thank you'.

The Sweaty Betty founder then explained that there were 'not one but TWO cakes' and it appears celebrations for Pixie's birthday will continue on Sunday.

It comes after it was announced that until August 19, the first-grader will donate $1 from every sale of $25 and over from her Pixie Bow's range, available at Myer, to children's cancer charity Camp Quality.

On it goes! The Sweaty Betty founder then explained that there were 'not one but TWO cakes' and it appears celebrations for Pixie's birthday will continue on Sunday

Donations: It comes after news that until August 19, Pixie will donate $1 from every sale of $25 and over from her Pixie Bow's range to children's cancer charity Camp Quality

'Having experienced cancer, the charity was one that Pixie was very keen to support as she had gone through the cancer process with me,' Roxy told Daily Mail Australia.

As a mum, Roxy wanted Pixie, who has had the fortune of growing up in a wealthy family, to ensure she knows to give back.

'The initiative was one that is important to her and for me as her mother to ensure she understands giving back to the community and the importance of that,' the Sweaty Betty founder tells Daily Mail Australia.
On Friday, it was reported that Elyse Knowles is set to replace Jennifer Hawkins as Myer ambassador.

But the 25-year-old didn't have a care in the world this weekend, sharing an image to Instagram in which she is swimming with a giant turtle.

Seemingly taken during the model's recent Maldives vacation, The Block star is seen deep under the blue ocean, in scuba gear, a turtle alongside her.

Not a care in the world! Model Elyse Knowles dons skimpy white bikini to swim with giant turtle during luxury Maldives vacation after it was reported she will 'replace' Jennifer Hawkins as Myer ambassador

Wearing a pale bikini and her blonde hair in a ponytail, Elyse turns toward the sea creature.

She captioned the image: 'In the deep blue with this beautiful creature so peaceful you are'.

Also seemingly peaceful was the beauty, who has of late been on holiday in paradise with boyfriend Josh Barker.

Beach babe: Elyse looks thrilled to be on holiday

Chilling: Also seemingly peaceful was the beauty, who has of late been on holiday in paradise with boyfriend Josh Barker (pictured right)

Maybe baby: The pair sparked pregnancy rumours this week but the blonde bombshell did clarify that she wasn't expecting

The pair sparked pregnancy rumours this week when Elyse posed to Instagram: 'Our first child Isla #family Something coming, @joshy.barker.'

Although the blonde bombshell did clarify that she wasn't expecting a child and was referring to her pet dog Isla.

It comes after Myer responded to claims that Jennifer Hawkins will 'retire' after nearly 12 years with the retail giant.

Ending: It comes after Myer responded to claims that Jennifer Hawkins (pictured) will 'retire' after nearly 12 years with the retail giant

The Sydney Morning Herald 's Private Sydney claimed on Friday that the model will be replaced by Elyse, who will do the same job 'at a fraction of the price'.

A spokesperson told Daily Mail Australia on Saturday that the 34-year-old's contract will terminate 'at the end of 2018'.

Elyse's career has skyrocketed since she won the thirteenth season of The Block last year, picking up a string of high-profile endorsements including becoming the face of Seafolly and Davidoff's Cool Water fragrance.
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She's been spending some much-needed time in Spain after a difficult few years.

And Danniella Westbrook was spotted frolicking around by the sea on Friday, as she sported a skimpy mismatched bikini to soak up the sunshine.

The 44-year-old actress sported a beaded black bikini top with mismatched orange bottoms, as she writhed about in the waves before seductively strolling along the coast.

Amazing: Danniella Westbrook was spotted frolicking around by the sea on Friday, as she sported a skimpy mismatched bikini to soak up the sunshine in Spain

Keeping her blonde bobbed tresses slick back, Danniella made full use of the sand's exfoliating qualities as she rubbed the grains all over her face.

The former EastEnders star showed off her lean physique in a chic black bikini top with tasselled detailing, teamed with fluorescent orange bottoms.

Danniella was seen enjoying a spot of sunbathing as she kept cool in the watery waves, putting on a seductive display as she let the water writhe around her body under the Spanish summer sky.

Sensational: Danniella had her trim figure on full display as she sported a black bikini top with tasselled detailing teamed with fluorescent orange bottoms

Getting clear: The TV personality seemed to be utilising the benefits of sand as a natural way exfoliate, rubbing it around her face

Tasting the beach: Danniella was seen rubbing the sand all over her body as she knelt in the sea under the Spainish sunset

Seductive: Daniella also put on a sexy display as she lay among the waves, letting the water lap about her under the blazing Spanish sunshine

Sexy: Danniella even looked like a Bond Girl in the making as she made her way out of the water, before kneeling down for a rest

Danniella seems back on the mend after her near-death experience last month.

The I'm A Celebrity star was rushed into intensive care with blood infections, leaving her convinced she was dying.

Posting a snap of herself attached to a drip on Twitter, Danniella wrote a message to thanking her son Kai, 21, and Kerry Katona, 37, for their help.

In November 2016, it was reported that Danniella was suing the makers of Celebrity Botched Up Bodies, with the star claiming dental implants she had fitted on the show left her with blood poisoning.

Breaststroke or butterfly: The I'm A Celebrity star showed off her swimming skills as she pushed herself through the waves

Larking around: With sand all over her face, Daniella was seen trying to make her way through the salty water, with her hair slicked back out of the way

Low-key: The TV personality has been enjoying some time away in Spain, following a difficult few years

Rough ride: Danniella was even rushed into hospital, suffered a near-brush with death after contracting a blood infection

Suffering: Posting a snap of herself attached to a drip on Twitter, Danniella wrote a message to thanking her son Kai, 21, and Kerry Katona, 37, for their help

Open: In November 2016, it was reported that Danniella was suing the makers of Celebrity Botched Up Bodies, with the star claiming dental implants she had fitted on the show left her with blood poisoning

Honest: Danniella has spoken openly about the struggles she's had with her face following the alleged botched surgeries, and recently revealed she is planning to use her ribs to rebuild her cheekbone after suffering from osteoporosis

Danniella previously enthused she was 'hugely proud' of her son Kai after he revealed he has forgiven his mum for taking cocaine while she was pregnant with him in 1996.

The mother wrote on Twitter: 'I am so very proud of my sons interview. Kai is a great son that I am hugely proud of.

'The only person whos opinion I trust & the most loyal person I have in my life . My son is my best friend & my world. Thanks kid 4 being my everything #MySon#Love.' (sic).

Proud: Danniella also recently took to Twitter to share how proud she was of her son Kai, after he gave a no-holds-barred interview with the Daily Star about his relationship with his mum

Delighted: She wrote in her tweet: 'The only person whos opinion I trust & the most loyal person I have in my life . My son is my best friend & my world. Thanks kid 4 being my everything #MySon#Love.'

Sensational: Daniella was looking better than ever as she embraced her inner Bond girl by strolling through the waves

Jovial: She took a low-key stroll along the beach in her revealing bikini, going barefoot so she could feel the warm sand between her toes

Kai confessed he's 'anti-drugs' after seeing the effects of addiction with his mum.

The budding rapper told The Daily Star: 'It's shocking. It hasn't affected me. It's a miracle. I like to forgive, everyone deserves another chance.

'I'm anti-drugs. I don't touch them. I don't take sleeping tablets or even paracetamol. I don't drink alcohol. I don't do stuff that isn't natural.'

Honest: During his interview, Kai admitted he has been warned off drugs after seeing the devastating effect they had on his mum
Carrie Bickmore is well-regarded as one of the most polished presenters on television.

But The Project host has now detailed the very unrefined reality of flying with her two young children.

In a column written for Stellar on Sunday, the 37-year-old recalled 'the pain' of a recent long-haul flight she took home from a family holiday in Hawaii.

'I have baggage - they're aged 3 and 10!' In a hilarious column written for Stellar, Carrie Bickmore has detailed 'the pain' of taking a long-haul flight from Hawaii with her children Ollie and Evie (pictured)

Carrie's column is hilariously titled 'I Have Baggage... Aged 3 and 10', and refers to her kids, Ollie, 10, and Evie, three.

The comedic piece of writing gives an hour-by-hour look at the nightmare flight, which begins with delays on the tarmac.

'Hour 2: Still on the ground. The kids have eaten ALL the snacks I packed for them. I am colouring Evie's book ferociously while she boots the seat in front of her,' the TV host writes.

Doting mum: Carrie and daughter Evie loved their recent holiday in Hawaii (pictured), but the long-haul flight home was another matter

By the third hour, as the plane crosses the Pacific Ocean en route home to Melbourne, the TV star has already handed young Evie an iPad.

However, episodes of Peppa Pig only amuse the youngster for so long, and she's constantly asking her mum to take her back and forth to the toilet.

Meanwhile, Carrie claims a passenger is farting nearby, and the suspect smells continue on for hours.

Adorable: Besotted Carrie frequently shares pictures of her two children on Instagram

Expanding! International flights will get even more difficult for Carrie, as she is set to welcome her third child in the coming months (pictured with partner Chris Walker, Ollie and Evie)

By hour nine, the blonde beauty is left asking herself: 'Are we there yet? Please, for the love of humanity, are we there yet? Why is Australia so far from everywhere?!'

Finally, after eleven hours in the air, Carrie, partner Chris Walker, Ollie and Evie have arrived home and she jokes, 'how quickly we've forgotten the pain'.

However, international flights will get even more difficult for Carrie in future, as she is set to welcome her third child in the coming months.

The beloved star suffered acute morning sickness for the first trimester of her pregnancy, but is now fighting fit ahead of her due date.
She has been hard at work on the set of Stranger Things, throwing herself into the mysterious character of Eleven.

But Millie Bobby Brown was every inch the carefree teen as she continued shooting scenes for the hit Netflix series in Atlanta, Georgia.

The 14-year-old was wearing a pair of light blue suspenders on top of a navy shirt as she danced and played around with her costars in between takes.

Fun on set: Millie Bobby Brown, 14, was back on the Stranger Things set in Atlanta on Saturday wearing a pair of suspenders and a navy shirt as she danced and played with costars in between takes

In a departure from her character's iconic shaved head, she rocked a head full of shoulder-length tresses that were half pulled up with a yellow scrunchie and half left down to hang.

The actress wore a pair of white sneakers with a pair of high-rise jeans.

Millie was filming a scene with her co-star Sadie Sink, who plays Max Mayfield on the series.

She was seen in a hooded, purple, cut-off sweatshirt with a rainbow striped tee underneath on top of mustard yellow high-waisted shorts.

Cast: Millie was filming a scene with her co-star Sadie Sink, who plays Max Mayfield on the series

Styling: Sadie Sink was seen in a hooded, purple, cut-off sweatshirt with a rainbow striped tee underneath on top of mustard yellow high-waisted shorts

What, work? The girls strolled side by side and goofed around as a camera crew followed their every move

Millie: The 14-year-old was wearing a pair of light blue suspenders on top of a navy shirt as she danced and played around with her costars in between takes

Male costars: Also taping and playing around on set with the girls were the Stranger Things male costars, Charlie Heaton, Noah Schnapp, Caleb McLaughlin and Finn Wolfhard

Her signature red locks were put up into a pony tail with a thick, green scrunchie.

The girls strolled side by side and goofed around as a camera crew followed their every move.

Also taping and playing around on set with the girls were the Stranger Things male costars, Charlie Heaton, Noah Schnapp, Caleb McLaughlin and Finn Wolfhard.

It was a busy day on set! Millie Bobby Brown, Sadie Sink, Caleb McLaughlin, Finn Wolfhard, Natalia Dyer, Charlie Heaton and Noah Schnapp filmed a few scenes for the upcoming 'Stranger Things' season in Atlanta on Saturday

Working hard: Actors Noah Schnapp and Finn Wolfhar couldn't dodge cameras as they went in-between takes while taping scenes for the new Stranger Things season

On the job: Charlie Heaton, 24, was caught looking flustered while taping a scene in a baby blue t-shirt paired with khaki pants

Millie seemed to be getting along fine as she has been working through a knee injury as of late.

The actress revealed in mid July that she had split her kneecap, but recently gave fans an update and said she was well on the mend.

'When your knee is nearly healed and youre the happiest girl,' she captioned a grinning snap of herself.

Pretty: Stranger Things actress Natalia Dyer was snapped in a purple dress that had squares cut out of the neckline

The Spanish-born British actress has yet to disclose how she managed to split her kneecap.

She revealed on Instagram on June 16 that she was forced to skip the MTV Movie Awards after suffering the injury, her first ever broken bone.

As of now, the show has not announced when the third season will be released.

Feeling better: Millie got along fine after revealing in mid July that she had split her kneecap
They've been dating since February and appear to be going from strength to strength, often posting loved-up selfies together.

And Charlotte Crosby hinted that she's ready to take the next step with Joshua Ritchie, 24, revealing that she's ready to start preparing for their nuptials.

The 27-year-old Geordie Shore star wrote on Twitter on Saturday: 'I think Im gunna start to the plan my wedding now.'

Thinking ahead: Charlotte Crosby reveals WEDDING plans with beau of six months Joshua Ritchie... despite revealing he hasn't actually proposed yet

She added: 'I mean Im not engaged or haven't been asked but PREPARATION is KEY. HINT.'

Josh seemed less than keen however, replying: 'Hahaha just seen this.. HINT.'

Charlotte has been dating Josh since February but previously dropped the bombshell that she was texting him long before their romance started, as far back as before her split with Stephen Bear in October last year.

In the interview, Charlotte made the shock revelation about her romance with Josh as they grilled each other about their relationship.

Candid: The 27-year-old Geordie Shore star wrote on Twitter on Saturday: 'I think Im gunna start to the plan my wedding now'

Hmm: Charlotte made the announcement on Twitter - but Ex On The Beach star Joshua seemed less than impressed

The star admitted she was tempted to go and see Josh when they both found themselves in Ireland at the same time.

This week she proudly showed off her new 'Joshua' tattoo in flowing script across the back of her neck, as a sweet tribute to her boyfriend - but the snap was met with an outpouring of mockery from fans.

Tagging the tattoo studio in the sultry snap, The Charlotte Show star showed just how serious things have become between her and the Ex On The Beach hunk.

Fans were quick to ridicule the star in the comments with many simply asking 'when will she learn?'

Cheeky: She added: 'I mean Im not engaged or haven't been asked but PREPARATION is KEY. HINT'

Tatts another one: Charlotte went under the tattoo needle in honour of her current love currently, as she unveiled a new inking dedicated to Joshua on Tuesday

Another quipped: 'oops she did it again' while one fan wrote: 'another one to get lasered off.'

Charlotte is no stranger to an inking in honour of a current beau, leading to numerous visits to the laser removal clinic when the romances went sour.

The reality veteran first decided to dedicate a marking to her ex-boyfriend Mitch, who she split from in 2016.

Following on from her M inking was her tattoo collection in association with Bear, which saw the TV twosome get matching cartoon line drawings of fish, with Charlotte's on her wrist and Bear's on his finger. She has since had the inking lasered off.
She is known for showcasing her curves in social media and on runways around the globe.

And Emily Ratajkowski stayed true to form on Saturday, as she shared an Instagram video of herself modeling her best asset while sunbathing on a yacht in Sardinia.

The 27-year-old model pushed out her perky derriere while a sexy male model rested his head beside it in the sultry image.

Sizzling: While enjoying time on a fancy yacht Saturday, Emily Ratajkowski, 27, shared an Instagram video of herself modeling her best asset in a tiny bikini as Australian, male model Jordan Barrett rest his head by her voluptuous bottom

The image she posted to Instagram made her already ample assets look larger than usual thanks to the angle and barely-there thong- bikini bottoms she was wearing.

As the model's brunette hair flowed freely in the wind, 22-year-old model Jordan Barrett snuggled up with her bottom and laid his head on her legs.

The hunk let off a smile as the camera panned on him and lift up his arms.

Some fans were thrown off by the sexy shot since Emily is married to Sebastian Bear-McClard, but quickly came to the conclusion that they're just friends as Jordan was seen posing with several ladies throughout the day.

Too close? As the model's brunette hair flowed freely in the wind, 22-year-old model Jordan Barrett snuggled up with her bottom and laid his head on her legs

It seems like he likes to take photos of Emily as there were several Instagram stories added to his page that showed off their yachting excursion and celebrity guest list.

Fast and Furious star Michelle Rodriguez attended the hangout and made several appearances in Jordan's Instagram posts, too, even sparking dating rumors as they looked very comfortable and cozy together.

In his clips, Michelle could be seen in a white, ruffled bikini rocking long, wet locks.

Emily, Jordan and Michelle were all in Italy to attend the Unicef Summer Gala.

Italian vacation: The Instagram model kept her bikini-theme going throughout the day, though, as she also posed with an Italian flag in a barely-there ensemble

The Instagram model kept her bikini-theme going throughout the day, though, as she also posed with an Italian flag in a barely-there ensemble.

Emily is currently enjoying some time in Italy, though we remain uncertain if it is work or pleasure related.

Last week, Emily spent some time showing off her own swimwear line.

The designer shared a video on Instagram where she plugs a burgundy edition of her company Inamorata's $160 Leucadia swimsuit.

She posed up a storm in the backless one-piece for her 18.8 million followers.

Yachting pals: Fast and Furious star Michelle Rodriguez, 40, attended the yacht hangout and made several appearances in Jordan's Instagram posts, too

Dating? Jordan and Michelle have sparked dating rumors as they have been photographed looking very comfortable and cozy together in the past

Lady in the red dress: She showed off her long legs in a short red dress

On the boat: Emily enjoyed the wind in her hair as the boat jetted across the sea
David Beckham has been persuaded to appear on the cover of next months Vogue magazine with wife Victoria  to avoid further spurious rumours that the couple are set to divorce.

I can reveal that in May, the former England captain insisted he would not feature on the front page picture to go alongside a family interview in the glossy magazine.

The shoot, with Posh and their four children, was arranged to mark ten years of Victorias fashion range. Annoyingly for Vogue, Beckham agreed to appear on the inside pages only.

However, after the couple were forced to deny earlier this summer that their 19-year marriage had hit a rocky patch, David, 43, thought his original decision would prompt yet more silly claims.

Interestingly, the Beckhams believe it was the decision for Posh, 44, to pose with her children  but without David that prompted the whispers in the first place because it made her look like a single mother.

David Beckham has been persuaded to appear on the cover of next months Vogue magazine with wife Victoria  to avoid further spurious rumours that the couple are set to divorce

A source said: Initially David wanted to leave it to Victoria  he didnt want to be her appendage.

Their businesses are run separately, so given that the whole interview and photoshoot was to mark the anniversary of her company, David felt he should leave it to her. Then, of course, the rumour situation happened, which David and Victoria think was started by her posing without him.

After much deliberation, David decided that to avoid even more nonsense when the magazine is published in September, he would go on the cover.

Fortunately, I hear, there were so many lovely family pictures that included the former Manchester United and Real Madrid star that Vogue editor Edward Enninful did not have to order an expensive reshoot. The interview will be the first the couple have done alongside their children  Brooklyn, 19, Romeo, 15, Cruz, 13, and Harper, seven.

Although Victorias high-end fashion label is celebrating its tenth anniversary, it has faced a rocky past 12 months. The firm lost 8.4 million last year, and four months ago Victoria was forced to make 60 staff redundant.

But I hear that the Vogue article will focus on her success as a fashionista and working mother  and Victoria cannot wait to see it in print.

A source said: Their businesses are run separately, so given that the whole interview and photoshoot was to mark the anniversary of her company, David felt he should leave it to her'

Eyebrows were raised when Prince William missed his friend Charlie van Straubenzees wedding in Frensham, Surrey, last weekend  but I think I know why. As the register was signed, Willss first love Rose Farquhar sang Elviss hit Cant Help Falling In Love. Awkward!

Strictly Come Dancing, the show that has turned some of the most unremarkable people in the public eye into stars, has had to break its own recruitment rules. Producers had banned reality TV personalities from the line-up and were hoping to attract Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie. Only theyve ended up with Lee Ryan the former boyband and Celebrity Big Brother hunk.
He's locked in a bitter divorce and custody battle with Angelina Jolie.

And Brad Pitt looked pleased to be focused on work, as he was spotted filming in character for his latest movie, on Friday.

The 54-year-old movie star looked handsome as ever as he shot scenes for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, in Los Angeles.

Looking jolly: Brad Pitt looked pleased to be focused on work, as he was spotted filming in character for his latest movie, on Friday

He was joined on set by Leonardo DiCaprio, for the Tarantino directed movie, due for release on July 26 2019.

Brad, who hit back at Angelina's claims that he's not paying 'meaningful' child support, was reminiscent of his Thelma and Louise big-break, with longer hair in a side parting and cowboy jeans.

The Academy Award winner (for producing 12 Years A Slave) wore a fitted yellow print short over a white T-shirt, showcasing his toned arms.

Hunky: The 54-year-old movie star looked handsome as ever as he shot scenes for Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, in Los Angeles

The hunky star is also seen getting behind the wheel of a classic Cadillac.

In the scene, Brad picked up Leo from an office at Paramount studios.

Leonardo had a tan leather jacket over his mustard and brown ensemble.

Stylish: The hunky star is also seen getting behind the wheel of a classic car

The story is set around the 1969 murder of actress Sharon Tate, played by Margot Robbie.

Leonardo plays Rick Dalton, a washed up Western TV actor trying to make it back into the big time.

Brad, who worked with Tarantino on Inglourious Basterds, plays DiCaprios characters stunt double, Cliff Booth.

Big stars: In the scene, Brad picked up Leo from an office at Paramount studios

Star: Leonardo plays Rick Dalton, a washed up Western TV actor trying to make it back into the big time

In the upcoming film, DiCaprio and Pitts characters look for one last chance at a big film in a Hollywood that has long since left them behind.

Their lives are flipped upside down when their next door neighbor, Tate, is infamously killed by Charles Manson and his cult.

Manson Family members Charles 'Tex' Watson, Susan Atkins and Patricia Krenwinkel butchered Sharon at her and her husband Roman Polanski's Los Angeles home in August 1969 - leaving the word 'PIG' scrawled on the front door in Sharon's blood.

In character: Leonardo had a tan leather jacket over his mustard and brown ensemble

Driving force: The Great Gatsby star got into the Cadillac with Pitt

In the house with Sharon, who was pregnant, were coffee heiress Abigail Folger, Abigal's beau Wojciech Frykowski, and Sharon's hairstylist friend and ex Jay Sebring.

All of them were killed as well - as was Steven Parent, 18, who had swung by the premises that evening to pay a call on its caretaker Bill Garretson, 19. Fortunately for Bill, the Manson Family never came across him.

The next night, Manson Family members entered the home of grocer Leno LaBianca and his wife Rosemary LaBianca, and murdered them too.

On set: Brad got ready to sit behind the wheel

Windows down: In the upcoming film, DiCaprio and Pitts characters look for one last chance at a big film in a Hollywood that has long since left them behind

Charles Manson himself served life in prison and only died this past November, exactly a week after his 83rd birthday.

Brad is concentrating on his work, while Angelina is complaining she has been forced to return to making movies to financially support their children.

Jolie filed for divorce in September 2016, citing irreconcilable differences, and their bitter split is being played out in the media.

Shocking: Their lives are flipped upside down when their next door neighbor, Sharon Tate, is infamously killed by Charles Manson and his cult

A-Listers: The two actors were seen together on the set

They share six children, Maddox, 16, Pax, 14, Zahara, 13, Shiloh, 12, and 10-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox.

After Jolie accused her ex of failing to pay 'meaningful child support' for their six children since their September 2016 split, Pitt hit back saying he'd paid over $9 million during the past 18 months.

Then late on Wednesday, the actress, 43, through her attorney, blasted the actor, 54, accusing him of 'a blatant attempt to obfuscate the truth and distract from the fact that he has not fully met his legal obligations to support the children.'

Warring: The pair, who met on the set of Mr. & Mrs. Smith in 2005, share six children - Maddox, 16, Pax, 14, Zahara, 13, Shiloh, 12, and 10-year-old twins Vivienne and Knox (seen in 2011)

Pictured: Part of the court documents filed by representation for Jolie on Tuesday. The document claims Pitt 'has paid no meaningful child support since separation'

In a statement to UsWeekly, Samantha Bley DeJean of the Law Offices of Bley and Bley said when Jolie left Pitt, taking their children with her, in September 2016, Pitt opted to keep the family home in Los Angeles, that he had kept following his divorce from first wife Jennifer Aniston, including the contents.

The statement said: 'Brad was asked to assist in the expense of a new home for Angelina and the children, but instead he loaned Angelina money, for which he is charging her interest on a payment plan'.

'Angelina will of course honor that loan. A loan is not, however, child support and to represent it as such is misleading and inaccurate.'

'Angelina is asking Brad to pay 50 percent of the children's expenses. He has not. Angelina has had to shoulder the majority of those without his contribution for the past two years. Child support is not optional in California,' the statement on Jolie's behalf went on.

According to The Richest, Jolie's net worth is $160 million while Pitt's is $260 million.

A source went on to claim to UsWeekly that Jolie, who is currently filming Maleficent 2 in London, had been forced to return to work making movies in order to cover the costs associated with raising her children.

'She didn't work for a year and a half to be with the kids and is only working to pay off the house as he kept the family home,' the source alleged.

Meanwhile, Pitt and his team say the Wanted star is simply trying to 'manipulate media coverage' in her favor.

In documents obtained by Dailymail.com, lawyers for Pitt state that Jolie's claims that he has withheld child support are 'calculated to increase the conflict.'

The filing explained the heartthrob star had loaned his ex $8million 'to assist her in purchasing her current residence' and also paid 'over $1.3million in bills for the benefit of [Jolie] and the minor children.'

Friends of Pitt have been rallying to his defense, claiming he is helping to provide for the six kids he shares with Jolie.

Pitt forks over hundreds of thousands each month on therapists for his six children, travel expenses and round-the-clock bodyguards, sources told Page Six.

'The divorce case has been held in front of a private judge to keep it out of the press,' one friend told the gossip site. 'But she filed in LA Superior Court knowing that it would go public and that he would be made out to be a deadbeat dad  which he isn't.'

Another source added: 'Brad has completely lived up to his commitments as far as child support and will continue to do so.'

Custody issues have proved to be the biggest stumbling block in legally ending the marriage.

One such issue is how much time the children get to spend with their father, after he was cleared of any wrongdoing in an investigation that followed allegations Pitt had been 'rough' with one of their children on a private plane.

But another major reason for the bitter battle is Jolie's resentment towards her third husband, UsWeekly claims.

'She can't see past her anger for Brad that he is on his way to getting joint custody,' said the magazine's source.

A source connected to Pitt told TMZ that they believe the Maleficent actress wants 'to kill any relationship he has with his kids'.

They also claim that there has been a lot of screaming on Jolie's part, adding, 'She's fueled with anger and has gotten ridiculously unreasonable.'

A spokesperson for Jolie told People the actress filed in court hoping simply to lessen the stress before sorting out custody arrangements.

They said the filing: 'is to provide closure to the marriage in a way that clears a path toward the next stage of their lives and allows her and Brad to recommit as devoted co-parents to their children.'

On Tuesday, Pitt was seen attending back-to-back meetings with lawyers in Los Angeles.

No doubt it has been a tense few days for the A-lister as an eyewitness told Us Weekly: 'He sat in his car for four to five minutes before getting out once his driver had parked.

'[He] seemed tense. It was as though he had the weight of the world on his mind.'
THE Commissioner General (CG) of the Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA), Mr Charles Kicheere has cautioned his employees who collaborate with tax evaders and traders who involve themselves in black market businesses.

Commissioner Kicheere issued the warning yesterday here when TRA was handing over 52 motorcycles to the police force in Kilimanjaro region. The motorcycles were confiscated by the government through special TRA operations meant to fight black-market trade in the region.

We are made to understand that there are some unfaithful government officials, including those from the TRA who are claimed to be collaborating with tax defaulters and black market traders, those who will be identified within TRA to be engaged in these malpractices will be fired immediately, he warned.

He said TRA has no time to transfer people who will be found collaborating with defaulters from one working station to another, but instead they will be fired immediately and face legal actions against them.

Commenting on the donated motorcycles, CG Kicheere said they were confiscated after special operations that were conducted by TRA officials in collaboration with the members of the police force.

He commended the police officers for their cooperation in making sure the government was getting all revenues it deserves. May I take this opportunity to congratulate the Kilimanjaro Regional Commissioner and her entire regional security council, the co-operation they have accorded us in our efforts to curb tax defaulters and black market traders in Kilimanjaro region is bearing fruits, he said.

He called on all traders to abandon illegal trading activities which he said were affecting the national economy due to the fact that people decided to abandon local produced commodities and opt for those brought inside the country illegally, thus affecting local industries.

On her part, the Kilimanjaro Regional Commissioner (RC), Ms Anna Mghwira commended TRA, saying she will intensify the polices efforts in the fight against black market trading within the region.

There are indications that the good reputation of Kilimanjaro region is being damaged by unfaithful business persons who decide to engage themselves in black market, may I assure you that the Kilimanjaro regional administration will continue to work with TRA to curb this trend, said the RC in a speech that was read on her behalf by the Rombo District Commissioner, Ms Agnes Hokororo.

In his thanking remarks, the Kilimanjaro Regional Police Commander, Mr Khamis Issa thanked TRA for their decision to provide the police force with the motorcycles, promising they will be used as intended.
The Clooneys have been soaking up the sun in Lake Como as George starts work on his new TV series Catch 22.

And the 57-year-old actor whisked wife Amal off for a cosy dinner date at Villa d'Este on Saturday night.

The Human Rights lawyer, 40, looked the epitome of sophistication, dressing for the occasion in a strapless chiffon gown.

True romantic: George Clooney whisked Amal off for a cosy dinner date at Villa d'Este in Lake Como on Saturday night

The canary yellow gown showcased Amal's slender figure, clinging to her trim waist before flowing out into a pleated skirt.

The Lebanese-British beauty flashed plenty of leg in the maxi dress due to its thigh-high side split and added a boost to her frame with a pair of heels.

She styled her chocolate tresses in Hollywood curls and complemented her evening attire with a deep burgundy lipstick.

Breathtaking beauty: The Human Rights lawyer, 40, looked the epitome of sophistication, dressing for the occasion in a strapless chiffon gown for the alfresco dinner

Leggy: The Lebanese-British beauty flashed plenty of leg in the maxi dress due to its thigh-high side split

Glamorous: She styled her chocolate tresses in Hollywood curls and complemented her evening attire with a deep burgundy lipstick

Elegant: The strapless gown showcased Amal's slender figure, clinging to her trim waist before flowing out into a pleated skirt

Clutching a small nude clutch in one hand, Amal linked arms with George as they were guided to their table in the romantic dinner setting.

George also cut an impressive figure for their date night, dressing in a sharp black suit and pale blue shirt, which he left partially unbuttoned.

The couple had previously been enjoying their European trip alongside George's parents Nina and Nick Clooney, as well as Amal's mother Baria Alamuddin, who were notably absent from the occasion.

Handsome: George also cut an impressive figure for their date night, dressing in a sharp black suit and pale blue shirt, which he left partially unbuttoned

Starstruck: Restaurant-goers couldn't believe their eyes as the Hollywood couple made a show-stopping entrance

Sophisticated lady: Clutching a small nude clutch in one hand, Amal linked arms with George as they were guided to their table in the romantic dinner setting

The Clooneys have decamped to Sardinia and Italy for the summer as the actor currently films new TV series Catch 22.

The Hulu hosted series is based on the story of artful dodger Yossarian - a U.S. Air Force bombardier in World War II who is livid at the fact that thousands are trying to kill him, however, the real problem happens to be his own army.

On July 10, a source told MailOnline that George was on his way to the set of Catch 22 when a man in his sixties hit Clooney's scooter with his Mercedes.

His latest commitment: The Clooneys have decamped to Sardinia and Italy for the summer as the actor currently films new TV series Catch 22

George, who was wearing a helmet, reportedly hit his head on the windshield, which shattered on impact.

Clooney was then taken to a nearby hospital, where doctors treated him for injuries to the pelvis, hip, and knees.

'George was treated and released from an Olbia hospital. He is recovering at home and will be fine,' a PR rep told PEOPLE.

Back to his best: George is back on his feet after a motorcycle crash last month

Clooney's wife Amal was by his side at the hospital.

'The accident happened in a very tourist area, so at that time there was not much traffic,' MailOnline's source said.

'Those who saw it will have probably thought of a normal accident also because Clooney's scooter is a normal scooter, there are lots of them around.'
The veterans affairs minister says an investigation in to the actions one of Australia's most decorated soldiers in Afghanistan need to be dealt with properly.

On Saturday, Minister for Veterans Affairs Darren Chester told the ABC it was important the investigation into Ben Roberts-Smith be allowed to run its course.

"Having a trial by media, as it were, would be unfortunate," Mr Chester said.

"We need to wait for that report to come forward before we rush to judgement."

The Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force is inquiring into issues relating to Australian special forces, including Victoria Cross recipient Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith, in Afghanistan.

Corporal Roberts-Smith was also the subject of a complaint made to police in Canberra earlier this year, Fairfax Media reported on Friday.

Mr Chester said evidence was still being gathered for the ongoing investigation by the Australian Defence Force, with a report expected in the coming months.

Accounts from all parties are being heard behind closed doors due to the nature of their work, but Mr Chester deemed to the process to be fair.

"They have the chance to have any allegations properly explored, have the chance to put their side of the story forward," Mr Chester said.

"We sent these young men and women - we send them away, even today, to dangerous parts of the world to defend our values of freedom."

He said it was important they were given the opportunity to express their views in the process conducted by the Inspector-General of the ADF.

Mr Chester has just returned from a trip to the Middle East, where he inspected Australian forces involved mainly in "training the trainers" and advisory duties.

Corporal Roberts-Smith said he would "vigorously" defend himself.

"If and when I am given the opportunity to defend each specific allegation, I am very confident that direct witnesses will categorically demonstrate the falsity of them all," he said in a statement on Friday.
A group of Australian students has used technology to 'e-meet' a girl who fled war-torn South Sudan with her siblings after rebels shot dead their father.

Five teenagers at Melbourne Girls College, in years eight to 10, live-streamed with Lilias, 17, in her classroom at the settlement in Bidi Bidi, Uganda, to better understand the global refugee crisis.

The hook-up, organised by World Vision for its 40 Hour Famine Backpack Challenge, is believed to be the first Australian cohort to livestream to a refugee settlement classroom.

Lilias, 17, left her mother in their home country before leading her four younger siblings on the two-week walk to Uganda in hope of a better future.

"There was a group of rebels who came and just called my father in the evening and just shoot my father up. They even refused the dead body to be buried," she says in a campaign video.

"It is because we have that fear of dying, we saw that our father was picked in front of us, we said 'let's come'."

With dreams of becoming a National Geographic photographer, Lilias turned the camera on herself to share how she helps people who've been through trauma and violence in Peace Clubs at the settlement.

"Peace is a hat of being free, loving one another," she told the Melbourne students.

"My hope is - let peace be there in South Sudan so we should go when the country is settle."

Student Lucy Skelton, 16, said it was important to remember refugees as individual people with their own stories and dreams, not just "as huge numbers" in need.

Another Year 10 student Lucy Vogel said: "(Lilias) is more than just the hardships she has been through, she is a real person."

About 68.5 million people are displaced or refugees across the globe, World Vision figures reveal.

World Vision's 40 Hour Famine Backpack Challenge which aims to raise money for young refugees, runs until Sunday.
Less than a year ago, Jacinda Ardern took on the weight of leading a country and the global fame that came with it.

Now for motherhood.

"I'm seven weeks in. I don't think I can claim to be the knower of all things and a baby whisperer. I'm a new mum and I imagine I'm going to learn a lot of things along the way," New Zealand's prime minister told AAP at the end of her first week back in parliament after six weeks of maternity leave.

"I don't feel like I should be a poster child for anything."

It's fair to say it's been a busy week back in the captain's chair, one laden with a flurry of government announcements, welcomes back, and fierce debate about the state of the economy.

Meanwhile, Ardern's daughter, Neve, has settled into the prime minister's floor of the Beehive government offices.

"(It's) top of my mind: can I be a good politician while also being a good mum? And I believe it's possible, but ask me in three years," Ardern says.

"I, just at the end of every day, have to feel like I did my best for both."

That said, the 38-year-old insists she's got it easier than many new parents and that the logistics have been straight-forward so far.

Partner Clarke Gayford is taking on the role of full-time dad, space has been made for Neve and everything she needs, and the prime minister has a degree of flexibility in her schedule - breaking up her days into three-hour slots to allow for feeding.

"Every parent when they're going back into the workplace makes a bit of an adjustment, and I'll be no different. But in lots of ways I'm also lucky," Ardern says.

"Not everyone has that. I'm in a pretty good position to make this work."

So is there now pressure to set an example for working families?

"I feel that pressure on everything," she replies.

The list that follows includes: proving a complex coalition government can work, living up to the expectations of the progressive movement she leads, doing her best for her country and, now, being the best mother she can be.

"So, you know, pick your guilt," she laughs.

In June, Ardern became the first elected world leader to take maternity leave.

Neve accompanied her mother to a major government announcement on Friday.

The family will takes its first overseas trip together in September to the United Nations in New York.
More than 80,000 people are hitting the pavement in Sydney for the City2Surf fun run.

Sydneysiders are being urged to use public transport as roads across the CBD are blocked for the 14km race from Hyde Park to Bondi Beach.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian, who was at the start of the event, said she was "grateful" the state could enjoy events like this.

Extra security is in place across the city with police officers from the dog and mounted unit as well as traffic and highway patrol working to ensure the safety of participants and spectators.
A half-billion dollar grant awarded to a small Great Barrier Reef foundation is bound to dominate debate when federal politicians return to work after their winter break.

Labor senator Kristina Keneally is leading the charge against the Turnbull government over the $444 million taxpayer-funded funding injection to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.

Senator Keneally told Sky News the public money was handed over in a mad rush without a tender process, signalling the opposition will pursue the issue when parliament resumes on Monday.
The marine is believed to have fallen overboard off the USS Essex amphibious assault ship

The US military said it had launched a search and rescue operation after reports a marine may have fallen overboard from an American warship as it sailed through Philippine waters.

The US 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit said a member, who was not named, may have gone overboard Thursday morning.

Aircraft on board the USS Essex are searching waters off the Sulu Sea and the Surigao Strait while multiple searches are also being made inside the ship itself, the unit said.

The ship was conducting "routine operations in the Sulu Sea" at the time, the California based unit said in the statement, which was posted on its social media sites.

"We remain committed to searching for and finding our marine," the statement quoted its commander, Colonel Chandler Nelms as saying.

"All of our sailors, marines and available assets aboard the USS Essex have been and will continue to be involved in this incredibly important search and rescue operation," added the search commander, US Navy Captain Gerald Olin.

In Manila, Philippine authorities said on Saturday they authorised US ships and aircraft to enter Philippine territory to join in the search, while dispatching their own military search aircraft.

"A US marine fell from a US ship while traversing Philippine waters. We allowed the entry of rescue ships and aircraft," Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told reporters.

"As of now there has been no update on whether the marine has been recovered," Lorenzana added.

The US Marines said an expanded search covering about 3,000 square nautical miles (10,290 square kilometres) was underway.

Sulu Sea sprawls over the central and southern sections of the Asian archipelago, a US military ally.

Surigao Strait is at least 300 kilometres (186 miles) away, off the country's eastern seaboard.

The US statement did not explain why the two separate locations were being searched.
Aerial footage broadcast on Japanese television showed the wreckage of the crashed helicopter surrounded by trees, as the government dispatched aircraft accident investigators to the site

All nine people aboard a rescue helicopter which crashed in a mountainous area in central Japan during a training flight have been confirmed dead, officials said Saturday.

Police and troops organised a search and rescue operation after the helicopter plunged into a forest Friday in Gunma prefecture, northwest of Tokyo.

"All the nine people were confirmed dead by noon today," a local official told AFP.

The victims were disaster management officials and firefighters as well as the pilot and an aviation mechanic, the official said.

Aerial footage broadcast on Japanese television showed the wreckage of the crashed helicopter surrounded by trees, as the government dispatched aircraft accident investigators to the site.

The Bell 412 helicopter left its base Friday morning on a two-hour flight to observe climbing routes from the air but did not return and lost contact with air traffic control.

In February, two pilots were killed in a military helicopter crash in southern Japan. The helicopter went down seven minutes after takeoff, slamming into and setting fire to a house, which was completely destroyed in the accident.

Last year, nine people aboard a helicopter were killed after it crashed during a mountain rescue drill.
Head to head: Ibrahim Boubacar Keita, left, faces off against opposition leader Soumaila Cisse on Sunday

Malians vote on Sunday in a presidential runoff expected to return Ibrahim Boubacar Keita to the helm of a country battling jihadist violence and ethnic attacks.

The second round -- a rerun of the 2013 election between Keita and former finance minister Soumaila Cisse -- is the climax of a campaign in which Mali's security crisis has taken centre stage.

After a first round marred by violence and accusations of fraud, Keita, 73, was credited with 41.7 percent of the vote while Cisse, 68, picked up 17.78 percent.

Despite trailing badly, Cisse insisted on Friday he could "turn things around" on polling day.

"I am not worried about being behind, because I know the difference is due to fraud," Cisse told French radio RFI.

The international community hopes the winner will revive a 2015 accord that Mali, a linchpin state in the troubled Sahel, sees as its cornerstone for peace.

Despite the deal, gathering the government, government-allied groups and former Tuareg rebels, a state of emergency remains in force and heads into its fourth year in November.

Jihadist violence, meanwhile, has spread from northern Mali to the centre and south and spilled into neighbouring Burkina Faso and Niger, often inflaming communal conflicts.

France still has 4,500 troops deployed alongside the UN's 15,000 peacekeepers and a regional G5 Sahel force, aimed at rooting out jihadists and restoring the authority of the state.

- Divided opposition -

Keita is accused by his opponents, including several former ministers, of floundering in his response to the bloodshed. Nearly 300 civilians have died in ethnic clashes this year alone.

But in a pre-election interview with AFP, the president described these attacks as "pockets of violence and remnants of terrorism" and said the state was making a "colossal financial effort" in fighting violence.

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Another concern is falling living standards.

The country became Africa's first cotton producer in 2017-2018, and the economy has been growing at over five percent annually for several years.

But income per capita has fallen since 2014, according to the World Bank, and nearly half of Mali's 18 million citizens live in poverty.

Cisse failed to unite the opposition behind him after the first round on July 29.

Two losing candidates, businessman Aliou Boubacar Diallo and former prime minister Cheick Modibo Diarra, who came in third and fourth, said on Thursday they would not support anyone.

As a result, Keita, commonly named "IBK" after his initials, is clear favourite in the runoff.

"The main question is whether IBK will win by a landslide, as happened in 2013," political analyst Souleymane Drabo told AFP.

- Fraud accusations -

The election campaign and vote were marred by bouts of violence, mainly in the restive northern and central regions.

Not a single ballot was cast in 871 polling stations due to violent attacks, representing nearly a quarter of a million voters.

Painted protest: A Cisse supporter attends a rally to condemn alleged vote rigging

Accusations of fraud mounted in the days following the first round, with three main opposition candidates petitioning the country's top court over alleged ballot-box stuffing and other grievances.

Their challenge was rejected by the court on Wednesday.

Teams from the European Union, the African Union, the regional ECOWAS grouping and the Francophonie organisation sent observers to the poll.

EU observers repeatedly called on the government to publish a detailed list of the results of the first round of voting, while calling for more transparency for Sunday's runoff.

The Malian government responded bluntly, calling on the mission to avoid "jeopardising the electoral process."
Information about who controlled the eastern Afghan city of Ghazni was difficult to confirm with power and mobile services cut to the area after the Taliban destroyed a telecommunications tower

Afghan officials said security forces were in control of the eastern city of Ghazni on Saturday, more than a day after Taliban fighters launched a major onslaught on the provincial capital and as reinforcements continued a clearance operation targeting the militants.

Interior ministry spokesman Najib Danish said fresh reinforcements had arrived in the area and were battling Taliban fighters north of Ghazni, promising that the insurgents were in no position to take control of the city.

"The situation is fully under control. The city is not going to fall," Danish told a press conference, after confusion mounted over the fate of the city following hours of official silence.

A spokesman for US forces in Afghanistan also described the fight for Ghazni as a clearance operation, with sporadic clashes between security forces and insurgents punctuating relative calm.

"The fact remains that the Taliban are unable to seize terrain and unable to match the Afghan security forces or our enablement, retreating once directly and decisively engaged," Lt. Colonel Martin O'Donnell told AFP.

Insurgents entered Ghazni from several directions late Thursday night, attacking media offices and damaging a telecommunications tower, effectively shutting off mobile service to the city as of Friday afternoon -- making information about the fight difficult to verify.

An MP from Ghazni urged caution following Danish's press conference, saying heavy clashes continued to rage between the two sides.

"Intense fighting is still ongoing in Ghazni city. The prison is under attack from several directions, they are trying to free the prisoners," said Nafisa Azimi by telephone from Kabul.

"The fear is spreading in Ghazni as the day ends, the Taliban might intensify their attack as it gets dark," Azimi added.

Danish said at least 25 security forces had died in the fighting along with 150 Taliban fighters. At least one media worker from a local broadcaster was also killed.

Earlier Saturday the Taliban claimed victory in the fight for the embattled city, saying their forces were in control of Ghanzi after routing Afghan troops.

"Last night, our mujahideen have completely conquered a battalion in Ghazni, seizing weapons and ammunitions and four pickup trucks," said Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid in a message to journalists.

"Our mujahideen are protecting the city of Ghazni."

The insurgents frequently exaggerate their battlefield gains and downplay losses incurred during fighting.

Ghazni -- less than two hours by road from Kabul -- has been under increasing danger from massing Taliban fighters for months with reports suggesting insurgents had already infiltrated the city.

The attack was the latest attempt by the Taliban to seize an urban centre and comes as pressure mounts on the insurgents to enter peace talks with the government to end the nearly 17-year-old war.
INDIGENOUS societies in the country are continuing to urge the government to chart a legal recognition framework for the group in the promotion and protection of their rights as it is stipulated in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UDRIP).

The group is estimated to comprise of eight million people in the country, embracing the Maasai, Barbaig, Akie, Taturu and Hadzabe. Among other things, they want the government to legally recognise and protect their income generating activities like ordinary people.

A representative of the group from the Tanzania Pastoralist Community Forum (TPCF), Ms Josephine Herman, touched on the issues in Dar es Salaam, over the week at commemorations of the International Day of the Worlds Indigenous Peoples marked annually on every August 9.

The enactment of a proper law and policy will help safeguard the rights of indigenous people as well as ease implementation of the UN declaration. Improvement of social services like education and health systems in areas where indigenous people reside is also critical, Ms Herman said.

They also proposed that the particular day should be acknowledged and recognised in the national calendar like other special days which are marked annually.

While this years theme is Indigenous Peoples Migration and Movement worldwide, in the country the theme is branded Recognition, Protection and Developing Indigenous Livelihood is to contribute to Industrialised Tanzania.

Since the concept of indigenous people is still contentious, the Executive Secretary of the Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance (CHRAGG), Ms Mary Massay, called upon the group to continue engaging the government through advocacy strategies and consultative dialogues.

Ms Massay observed that the move would help come up with and adoption of a terminology which fits in the Tanzanian context.

As consultation and participation of the communities at the grassroots in the planning and implementation of development projects is a matter of policy and law, the consultation of indigenous people in establishing an industrialised Tanzania is very important by taking into account the livelihoods and attachment of the group to ancestral land, observed Ms Massay.

The TPCF Executive Director, Mr Joseph Parsambei, pointed out that the organisation decided to host the commemorations for the particular day not to go unnoticed. The goal is to promote the ideas of indigenous people, advocate for their rights and air their views, noted Mr Parsambei.

He cited some of the challenges facing the group and require attention as inadequate social services, land conflicts, climate change and its impacts, unequal representation in decision making bodies, lack of legal framework for their recognition, remoteness and infrastructure.
Alaska Airlines said the stolen plane belonged to their sister carrier Horizon Air

Two military F-15 jets were scrambled late Friday after a "suicidal" airline worker stole and later crashed an empty passenger plane from the Seattle-Tacoma airport, local officials said.

Local authorities quickly ruled out terrorism as a motive for the incident, and said the F-15s "were not involved in the crash."

An airline employee "conducted an unauthorized takeoff" of an airplane carrying no passengers at the major airport in the northwestern US state of Washington, airport officials said on Twitter.

The aircraft "crashed in south Puget Sound," Sea-Tac Airport said, adding that normal operations at the transport hub had resumed after a pause.

"This is not a terrorist incident. Confirmed info... this is a single suicide male. We know who he is. No others involved," the Pierce County Sheriff said.

The suspect was identified as a 29-year-old Pierce county resident who "acted alone," the sheriff's office added, confirming that there were "no passengers on the plane" when it crashed.

Video taken by a bystander showed the airplane making a loop, then flying low over a body of water.

Alaska Airlines on Twitter said the airplane was a turboprop Q400 airplane belonging to its sister carrier Horizon Air.

Local media described the man who stole the plane as a mechanic.
A Palestinian protester uses a slingshot next to burning tyres during a demonstration in Gaza along the border with Israel on August 10, 2018

A 40-year-old Palestinian hit by Israeli fire on the Gaza border died of his wounds on Saturday, taking the death toll from protests the previous day to three, the territory's health ministry said.

He was among at least 131 Palestinians wounded by Israeli bullets during Friday's protests, even as an informal truce ending a deadly flare-up between Gaza's Islamist rulers Hamas and the Israeli army largely held.

In all 307 Palestinians were wounded on Friday, some by tear gas, including two journalists and five medics, the health ministry in the coastal enclave said.

It identified the man who died Saturday as Ahmed Abu Lulu, saying he was shot in a section of the border east of the southern city of Rafah, where the two other Palestinians were also killed.

The ministry had earlier identified the other two as Ali al-Alul, 55, and volunteer medic Abdullah al-Qatati, 21.

Colleagues of killed 21-year-old Palestinian volunteer medic Abdullah al-Qatati hold up his blood-stained white cloak during his funeral in the Gaza Strip on August 11, 2018, a day after he was killed during protests along the Israel-Gaza border

Funerals for all three Palestinians took place on Saturday and were attended by thousands of mourners.

Doctors and first responders were among the mourners, in a show of solidarity for Qatati.

On Friday, a few thousand protesters gathered at various locations along the border, setting tyres ablaze and throwing stones, but in smaller numbers than in previous weeks, AFP correspondents said.

The Israeli army said a grenade was thrown at troops without causing any casualties, and that soldiers responded with tank fire at two Hamas posts.

But the border was otherwise calm after a reported deal to end all rocket fire into Israel and air strikes on Gaza appeared to take effect around midnight (2100 GMT) on Thursday.

- Fishermen protest blockade -

There was no official confirmation of the truce from Israel or Hamas, but there were no fresh air strikes on Friday.

Thursday had seen extensive Israeli raids in retaliation for the launching of more than 180 rockets and mortar rounds by Hamas and its allies on Wednesday night.

It was one of the most serious escalations since the 2014 Gaza war and followed months of rising tensions.

Three Palestinians were killed in the Israeli strikes, including a pregnant woman and her 18-month-old daughter. Seven Israelis were wounded by Palestinian rocket fire.

The European Union said Gaza and Israel were "dangerously close" to a new conflict and called for urgent efforts to protect civilians.

At least 168 Palestinians have been killed since the border protests began on March 30, with most succumbing to Israeli fire during demonstrations. Others have died in air strikes.

Over the same period, one Israeli soldier has been shot dead by a Palestinian sniper.

Separately on Saturday, the Israeli army carried out four drone attacks, targeting Palestinians who were flying balloons carrying incendiary devices across the border into Israel, the military said.

Two Palestinians were injured, one of them seriously, Gaza's health ministry said.

Palestinian boats participate in a protest against the more than a decade-long blockade of Gaza on August 11, 2018 with Israel's Rutenberg power station seen in the background

Israeli soldiers also opened fire at some 50 Palestinian fishing boats that sailed off Gaza's northern coast on Saturday to protest Israel's sea and land blockade of the enclave, the fishermen's union said.

It said 200 Palestinians were on the boats but that no one was hurt in the incident.

Israel, which has imposed a crippling blockade on Gaza for a decade, prevents boats from the enclave sailing further than six nautical miles offshore.

In July it further reduced that zone to three miles after scores of kites carried firebombs across the border to burn Israeli farmland.

The Israeli fire service says the devices have sparked hundreds of fires and burned some 3,000 hectares.

Israel says its 10-year blockade of the Mediterranean coastal enclave is necessary to stop the Islamist Hamas rulers of Gaza and other militant groups from obtaining weapons or material that could be used to make them.
An image released by a Damascus-affiliated news outlet on May 10, 2018 shows what it says are air defences intercepting Israeli missiles in Syrian airspace

Syrian air defences engaged an "enemy target" near the border with Lebanon west of Damascus overnight, state news agency SANA reported on Saturday.

"Our air defences confronted an enemy target that penetrated airspace above the area of Deir al-Ashair in the Damascus countryside," SANA said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed air defences had launched missiles, but said it was unclear what they were targeting or whether there was any target at all.

The Britain-based war monitor said Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which has been backing the Damascus government in Syria's seven-year civil war, was present in the area.

Israel has carried out numerous raids in Syria in recent years, targeting government forces, Hezbollah and Iran, another ally of Damascus.

Last week, SANA said Syrian air defences confronted another "enemy attack" west of Damascus. Then too the Observatory, which relies on sources inside Syria for its information, said it was unable to determine who was responsible.

Last month, Syria accused Israel of bombing a military post in the northern province of Aleppo, where the Observatory reported at least nine pro-regime fighters died.
This undated selfie picture available on social media on August 11, 2018 shows Richard B Russell, a ground service agent at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport who stole a plane and flew it for about an hour before crashing on an island

Co-workers said the 29-year-old airport worker nicknamed "Beebo" who commandeered an empty passenger plane from Seattle's main airport, then crashed it into an island in Puget Sound, was "quiet" and "very friendly."

The local sheriff described Horizon Air employee Richard Russell as "suicidal" when he flew off in an empty passenger plane from Seattle's main airport late Friday.

Russell's family, however. used words as "warm" and "compassionate" to describe the married man who once owned a bakery.

Two F-15 fighter jets chased the twin-engine turboprop plane that Russell had hijacked for more than an hour. He flew the Bombardier Q400 plane in a loop -- an improbable stunt caught on video by a surprised bystander -- then slammed it into a sparsely populated island in Puget Sound.

Authorities ruled out any link to terror.

- 'Faithful,' 'compassionate' -

The plane is believed to have flown as low as 100 feet (30 meters) above the water at one point

"It may seem difficult for those watching at home to believe, but Beebo was a warm, compassionate man," read a letter from Russell's family released to the US media.

We are "stunned and heartbroken" by the incident, read the letter, which the family said would be the only statement they would make.

"He was a faithful husband, a loving son, and a good friend ... This is a complete shock to us."

Russell's personal blog, last updated in December 2017, said he was born in Florida and moved to Alaska at age 7 -- information that local authorities corroborated, The Seattle Times reported.

Russell wrote that he met his wife in Oregon state in 2010, married one year later, and opened a bakery that they jointly ran for three years.

The couple then moved to neighboring Washington state in 2015 to be closer to their families, according to the blog.

Russell's role at Horizon, where he had worked since 2015, involved towing aircraft, loading and unloading cargo and luggage, and cleaning the aircraft, officials said. Initial reports said he was an airline mechanic.

Based on the blog Russell seemed to enjoy his job, and used airline travel benefits to visit places like Ireland and France.

Russell was also a leader in Young Life, a local Christian youth ministry.

"He was very, very friendly -- automatically willing to bring everyone in," Hannah Holmes, who was also involved in Young Life, told The Seattle Times.

Rick Christenson, an operational supervisor with Horizon Air who recently retired, told the newspaper that Russell was "a quiet guy. It seemed like he was well liked by the other workers."

- Security concerns -

Eyewitnesses said the plane's acrobatics made them believe at first that it was an air show

Security personnel were shocked by how easily Russell was able to fly off with the 76-seat turboprop plane.

"Everybody's stunned ... that something like this would happen," said Christenson. "How could it? Everybody's been through background checks."

Russell "had access legitimately" to the plane, said Mike Ehl, director of aviation operations at the airport, adding that "no security violations were committed."

"To our knowledge, he didn't have a pilot's license," Gary Beck, CEO of Alaska Airlines affiliate Horizon, told reporters.

"Commercial aircraft are complex machines ... No idea how he achieved that experience."

FBI agent Jay Tabb, who is helping investigate the crash, said officials believe Russell was alone aboard the plane. "But of course, we haven't confirmed that at the crash site," he said.
Chinese officials have sought to limit religious freedoms for Muslims as part of a widespread attempt to bring believers in line with Communist Party dictates

Authorities in northern China delayed the demolition of a massive mosque on Saturday after thousands of people demonstrated to stop its destruction, local residents said, amid a nationwide government drive to tighten restrictions on religious activities.

Across China, officials have sought to limit religious freedoms for Muslims as part of a widespread attempt to bring believers in line with the dictates of the ruling Communist Party.

Protesters began gathering Thursday ahead of a deadline to demolish the grand mosque in the town of Weizhou in the northern Ningxia region, local residents said.

Videos posted on social media in recent days showed protesters gathering in front of the building as police with riot shields stood by.

Holding Chinese flags, they sat quietly on the building's steps and milled around a large plaza, before heading to Friday night prayers, according to the videos, which could not be verified by AFP.

"The government said it's an illegal building, but it's not. The mosque has several hundred years of history," a restaurant owner surnamed Ma told AFP.

Around noon Saturday, a local official had read a document saying that the government would hold off on the mosque's demolition, locals told AFP.

After that, many who had participated in the sit-in dispersed.

- Internet down -

People had come hundreds of kilometres from other Muslim regions to show support and bring food to those in Weizhou, locals said.

Hundreds of security forces had at one point been brought in on civilian buses to secure a perimeter around the area, not allowing outsiders in.

Internet and 4G cellphone service had been cut off to the area, resuming only some 14 kilometres (nine miles) away from Weizhou -- though residents could still make phone calls.

On Saturday evening, a few dozen people sat on folded stools or leaned against their motorbikes in another neighbourhood away from the mosque, watching a movie projected onto a cement wall near a petrol station.

Police cars occasionally drove past, lights flashing, but it was otherwise peaceful.

"They told us the internet was down because of recent rains, but does that really make sense?" said a young man straddling his bike.

"They're afraid of us spreading videos," he aid.

The mosque was rebuilt over the past two years, according to government documents, but the licensing process was not carefully managed and several officials received a "serious warning" from a local disciplinary committee.

In the process, the facade was changed from its previous Chinese style -- featuring sweeping tiled roofs similar to a Buddhist temple -- to what is often described in China as an "Arab" design, with domes and crescents.

Concerns have been growing in Weizhou since the circulation of a government order last week demanding the mosque's demolition on the grounds that it had been rebuilt without the proper permits.

The document said that if the building was not demolished by Friday, August 10, the government would tear it down, locals said. Residents were frustrated because officials had shown support for the construction until now.

Calls to the local county government and the regional Islamic association Saturday went unanswered.

The words "Weizhou mosque" appeared to be censored on China's Twitter-like Weibo platform when AFP tried to search for them.

- 'Sinicization' of religion -

Islam is one of five officially recognised religions in China, home to some 23 million Muslims.

Pressure has been building on the community in recent months as the Communist party moves to tighten the reins on religious expression.

China's top leaders recently called for the "Sinicization" of religious practice -- bringing it in line with "traditional" Chinese values and culture -- and new regulations on religious affairs came into effect in February, sparking concern among rights groups.

The measures increased state supervision of religion in a bid to "block extremism", and in areas with significant Muslim populations, authorities have removed Islamic symbols, such as crescents, from public spaces.

In the far western region of Xinjiang, things have gone much farther, with Muslims being harshly punished for violating regulations banning beards and burqas, and even for the possession of unauthorised Korans.

Concerns about the mosque standoff in Weizhou appeared to be spreading Saturday, as Muslims in other regions expressed solidarity with the protesters.

"We are quietly waiting to see that the problem is satisfactorily resolved," said one open letter posted on Weibo by a mosque in Shanxi province.

If it is not, "we reserve the legal right to go to Ningxia or call on the central government to petition".
Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif says there will be no meeting with the United States in the near future like this one in New York on April 22, 2016

Iran's Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said Saturday there would be no meeting with the United States in the near future following Washington's reimposition of sanctions.

Asked by the conservative Tasnim news agency if there was any plan to meet US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Zarif said: "No, there will be no meeting."

He said there were also no plans for a meeting with US officials on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York next month, which both Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and his US counterpart Donald Trump are due to attend.

"On Trump's recent proposal (of talks), our official stance was announced by the president and by us. Americans are not honest and their addiction to sanctions does not allow any negotiation to take place," Zarif told Tasnim.

It was Iran's most explicit rejection of talks to date, after much speculation that economic pressure would force its leaders back to the table with Washington.

The US reimposed sanctions on Tuesday, following its withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and major powers in May.

Zarif met repeatedly with then US secretary of state John Kerry during the agreement's negotiation and implementation.

Rouhani said last week that Iran "always welcomed negotiations" but that Washington would first have to demonstrate it can be trusted.

"If you're an enemy and you stab the other person with a knife and then you say you want negotiations, then the first thing you have to do is remove the knife."
A Jordanian flag flutters above the Jordanian capital Amman on June 8, 2018

Gunmen killed three members of Jordan's security forces in a shootout Saturday during a raid on a "terrorist" cell a day after an officer died in a rare bomb blast, the government spokeswoman said.

The shootout in the city of Salt, northwest of the capital Amman, came after a home-made bomb exploded Friday under a patrol car at a music festival killing one security force member and wounding six others.

The rare blast hit the security patrol in Al-Fuhais, 12 kilometres (8 miles) west of the capital on Friday evening, the interior ministry said on Saturday.

"It killed Sergeant Ali Adnan Qawqaza and wounded six other members of the patrol," the ministry said, adding that an investigation was underway into the cause of the blast.

Security forces had been deployed to protect the town's annual festival, which hosts prominent Arab music acts.

Later Saturday, security forces raided a house in Salt in search of a suspected "terrorist cell" believed to be behind Friday's bombing, government spokeswoman Jumana Ghneimat said in a statement.

"The suspects refused to surrender and opened heavy fire toward a joint security force," Ghneimat said.

The suspects also "blew up the building in which they were hiding, and which they had booby-trapped earlier", she said, adding that part of the building "collapsed" during the raid.

Three members of the security forces were killed in the shootout and several others, including civilians, were wounded, said Ghneimat, who is also minister of state for media affairs.

Ghneimat did not give details but local Jordanian media, quoting medical sources in Salt, said around 20 people were wounded in the operation.

The security forces eventually arrested three suspects, she said, adding that the operation in Salt was still "ongoing".

- 'Cowardly act' -

Salt lies a few kilometres north of Al-Fuhais, a mostly Christian town.

Ghneimat said that the security forces raided the house in Salt after receiving a tip-off.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Friday's bomb blast and the identity of the suspects in Salt was not immediately known.

Jordan has played a key role in the US-led coalition fighting Islamic State group in neighbouring Syria and Iraq, using its air force against the jihadists and allowing coalition forces to use its bases.

The kingdom was hit by a string of jihadist attacks in 2016, including a suicide bombing in June that killed seven guards near the border with Syria that was claimed by IS.

Months later in December a shooting rampage, also claimed by IS, killed 10 people including a Canadian tourist.

On Saturday Prime Minister Omar al-Razzaz vowed that Jordan would "not be complacent in the hunt for terrorists".

"Jordan will always be at the forefront of the fight against terrorism and obscurantist ideas which target the lives of innocents and try to undermine security and stability," he said in remarks carried by Petra.

According to the interior ministry the bomb that was planted under the patrol car in Al-Fuhais was "home-made".

"This cowardly act will not deter the security forces but strengthen their resolve to carry out their sacred duty to maintain the security of citizens," the ministry said in a statement early Saturday.

An initial report carried by Petra late Friday had said the blast was caused by the explosion of a tear gas grenade.
Three Chinese engineers were among six injured in the suicide attack in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province

At least six people, including three Chinese nationals, were wounded in a suicide attack on a bus in southwestern Pakistan on Saturday, officials said.

An attacker struck the vehicle in the Dalbandin region of Balochistan province, as it transported Chinese engineers working on a mining project in the area.

Local administration and police officials told AFP that three Chinese nationals, two paramilitary soldiers from their security detail, and the bus driver were wounded in the attack.

"The attacker, waiting in a small truck along the route... (detonated) the vehicle when the bus carrying Chinese engineers came close to him," said Dostain Dashti, a senior police officer in the region, around 340 km (210 miles) southwest of the provincial capital Quetta.

Saifullah Khaitran, a senior local administration official, confirmed the attack, adding that all the injured were in stable condition.

Balochistan is home to a long-running ethnic insurgency aimed at seeking greater control over the province's abundant mineral resources.

The engineers were working on the Saindak project, Khaitran said, a joint venture between Pakistan and China to extract gold, copper and silver from an area close to the Iranian border.

Muhammad Ibrahim, the driver of the targeted bus, told AFP from his hospital bed that he had averted major loss by slamming the brakes before the bus hit the attacker's vehicle.

"The whole bus would have burnt if I had not applied the brakes," he said.

Ethnic Baloch insurgents later claimed responsibility for the attack.

"We targeted this bus which was carrying Chinese engineers," Jihand Baloch, a spokesperson for Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), told AFP by phone.

"We attacked them because they are extracting gold from our region, we won't allow it."

Bordering Iran and Afghanistan, Balochistan is the largest of Pakistan's four provinces, and many of its residents have long complained that it does not receive a fair share of its mineral wealth.

Pakistan regularly accuses its eastern neighbour India of funding and arming Baloch separatists, and of targeting development projects in the province.

Beijing has ramped up investment in its South Asian neighbour's infrastructure as part of an ambitious plan to link its far-western Xinjiang region to the Arabian Sea port of Gwadar in Balochistan.
By the time the army fought back, six civilians had died

Six civilians have been killed in an attack attributed to Ugandan Allied Democratic Forces (ADF) rebels in the restive eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, civilian and military sources said Saturday.

Late Friday, the ADF entered the town of Mayi-Moya where "they killed six civilians and injured another", Donat Kibwana, administrator of the Beni territory, told AFP.

The rebels circumvented army positions in the surprise attack, army spokesman Mak Hazukay told AFP, saying the six had been stabbed to death.

Residents of Mayi-Moya, fearing more attacks, have begun leaving their town in search of safer locations, authorities said.

The ADF is a militia created by Muslim rebels to oppose Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni which also operates in the DRC.

They have been in the east of the country since 1995 and are accused of being responsible for a series of massacres of several hundred civilians since 2014 by the Congolese authorities and the UN Mission in the DRC (MONUSCO).

However, in 2015 the New York University Study Group on Congo said it was not just the ADF behind the killings and that other armed elements, including members of the Congolese army, were responsible.
Kerala is battered by the annual monsoon every year but the rains have been particularly severe this season

Flash floods in Kerala have killed 37 people and displaced around 36,000, Indian officials said Saturday, after heavy monsoons led to landslides and overflowing reservoirs across the southern state.

Kerala, famed for its pristine palm-lined beaches and tea plantations, is battered by the monsoon every year but the rains have been particularly severe this season.

Those forced from their homes "have moved to 350 relief camps across the state", an official at the Kerala State Disaster Management control room told AFP.

The army has been roped in for rescue efforts in Kerala after two days of heavy rain drove authorities to open the shutters of 27 reservoirs to drain out the excess water.

One of the five shutters of a large reservoir in the mountainous Idukki district was opened for the first time in 26 years.

"Our state is in the midst of an unprecedented flood havoc," Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan wrote in a statement posted on Twitter.

"The calamity has caused immeasurable misery and devastation. Many lives were lost. Hundreds of homes were totally destroyed," he added, lauding the efforts of rescue teams working in the state from across India.

The US embassy Thursday advised its citizens to avoid the areas affected and monitor local media for weather updates.

More than a million foreign tourists visited Kerala last year, according to official data.

The government of Kerala, which has a population of 33 million people, has imposed a ban on the movement of lorries and tourist vehicles in Idukki.
LEGENDARY comedian and actor Amri Athuman alias King Majuto was laid to rest in his home town of Tanga yesterday, with hundreds mourners lining the streets to escort the icon to his final journey on earth.

Mzee Majuto (70) died at around 7:30pm on Wednesday at the Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) in Dar es Salaam, where he was admitted. The veteran actor and comedian was reported to be suffering from a hernia and had been admitted to the intensive Care Unit due to his deteriorating condition.

Recently he was taken to India for treatment and the government had foot medical bills. On the way to Kiruku Mabokweni village in the outskirt of Tanga City, fans lined the streets as the funeral procession moved from a local mosque, where the service was held before proceeding to the lates farm where he was buried.

People stood alongside the roads and waved to the late Majuto motorcade in honour of the fallen legend and temporarily Tanga city stood still with huge traffic jams. The burial ceremony was led by Tanga Regional Commissioner (RC) Martine Shigella.

Other leaders who attended the burial include Tanga Region CCM Chairman Henry Shekifu, Minister for Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children Ummy Mwalimu, The also include Tanga District Commissioner (DC) Thobias Mwilapwa, Tanga Chief Sheikh Juma Luwuchu who led prayer service.

Speaking at Majutos house at Donge where all activities to bid farewell were held, RC Shigella hailed the deceased as was a symbol for Tanga. He said the late King Majuto always advocated for unity, peace, and harmony and he disliked discrimination.

Several local famous artistes also attended the burial. They include Bongo movies artistes Wema Sepetu, Steve Nyerere, Claud, JB, Mpoki and other junior and underground artistes. The late Mzee Majuto was born in 1948 in Tanga Region and went to Msambwini Primary School in Tanga. He ventured into acting when he was just ten years old.

On Thursday, President John Magufuli has sent condolence message to the Minister for Information, Culture, Arts and Sports, Harrison Mwakyembe, following the death King Majuto.
Cholera is caused by a bacterium transmitted through contaminated food or drinking water

An outbreak of cholera has killed 13 people in Niger's southern Maradi region, which is home to the country's economic capital, officials and the UN said on Saturday.

Nearly 1,000 people, most of them children, have been affected by the outbreak which was first detected just over a month ago, the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid (OCHA) said.

At least 50 of the cases were detected in Maradi city itself, OCHA said.

The first three cases were admitted to hospital in N'Yelwa at the beginning of July, with the number growing to 993 cases by August 7, OCHA said. The figure includes the 13 dead.

But Niger's Health Minister Iliassou Mainassara told local media the government's rapid response had helped "rein in" the outbreak, along with help from the World Health Organization, UNICEF and Doctors Without Borders.

"The situation is under control and monitoring is being stepped up," said the minister, who visited Madarounfa, the area worst hit by the outbreak.

Cholera is caused by a bacterium transmitted through contaminated food or drinking water. It causes acute diarrhoea, with children particularly at risk.

Experts are concerned the highly-contagious disease could spread further following flooding caused by heavy rain in the infected area.
A child is recovered from the rubble of a building in the northern Syrian town of Orum al-Kubra which was the target of fierce bombardment on August 10, 2018

At least 53 civilians including 28 children, have been killed in fierce bombardment Friday that targeted rebel-held areas of northern Syria, a war monitor said updating an earlier toll.

The air strikes and barrel bombs targeted the key opposition-held province of Idlib and a rebel town in the adjacent province of Aleppo, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

In a new toll Saturday, the war monitor said 41 civilians, including 25 children, were killed in the rebel town of Orum al-Kubra in Aleppo province while 12 civilians, three of them children, died in Idlib.

Late Friday the Observatory had given a combined toll of around 30 dead.

"The toll rose after the discovery of new victims under the rubble and the death of some of those who had been wounded," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

The Observatory said it was not clear if the Syrian regime or its Russian backers were responsible for the bombardment of Aleppo, but blamed the allies for pounding Idlib.

Abdel Rahman said Friday's bombardment was the most intense since Idlib was declared a "de-escalation zone" last year.

A crane removes on August 11, 2018 the mangled remains of a car which was destroyed during heavy bombardment of the rebel-held town of Orum al-Kubra in Syria's Aleppo province

He said the death toll in rebel-held areas of Aleppo was the highest since the beginning of 2018.

Idlib contains the largest chunk of territory still in rebel hands, and President Bashar al-Assad has warned it will be his next target after seizing opposition bastions near Damascus and in the country's south.

Rebels have lost swathes of the territory they once controlled in Syria to regime forces over the last few months, including three areas designated as "de-escalation zones".

The Observatory said regime reinforcements, including troops and equipment, had been amassing around the southwestern part of Idlib for several days.

A full-fledged assault would be devastating for the estimated 2.5 million people living in Idlib, many of them rebels and civilians bussed out of other areas that came back under regime control.

Around 60 percent of Idlib is held by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is led by Al-Qaeda's former Syria affiliate.

Rival factions control most of the rest, but Syrian troops have carved out a small southeastern part.

The United Nations appealed Thursday for talks to avert "a civilian bloodbath" in the province, which borders Turkey.

Jan Egeland, head of the UN's humanitarian taskforce for Syria, said the war "cannot be allowed to go to Idlib".

More than 350,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since Syria's civil war started in 2011 with anti-government demonstrations that were brutally repressed.
Moroccan authorities have forcefully relocated hundreds of migrants in recent days from camps and homes in the kingdom's north, a local official and a rights group said Saturday.

"This is an operation that is part of the fight against illegal immigration," said an official speaking on behalf of local authorities in Tangier.

The official estimated that between 1,600 and 1,800 people had been "moved to cities where living conditions are better".

But a representative of a Moroccan human rights organisation told AFP authorities detained and forcefully relocated the migrants, calling the move "illegal".

"The authorities continued Saturday to drive migrants by bus from Nador and Tangier to the town of Tiznit, near Agadir" in the country's south, Omar Naji of the Moroccan Human Rights Association said.

"The operations began on Tuesday and the authorities arrested hundreds of migrants in camps near Nador or in homes in the city," he said.

He was unable to specify how many migrants had been expelled from Tangier.

"There arrests are illegal because they are without judicial warrants" and Morocco, Spain and the European Union are "responsible", said Naji.

The US State Department in a recent report said that while Rabat "drastically decreased forced deportations over the last couple of years, it continued to regularly conduct forced internal relocations of irregular migrants, particularly in Nador".

Spain surpassed Italy this year as the first point of entry for Europe-bound migrants.

Since January, Spain has taken in more than 23,000 migrants -- more than the total number of migrants last year -- after they crossed the Mediterranean, according to the International Organization for Migration.

The European Commission and Spain want to develop an "enhanced partnership" with Morocco on migration issues, including aid for border management.

Most of the migrants transiting through Morocco are of sub-Saharan origin.
Democratic Republic of Congo President Joseph Kabila (left), has tapped former interior minister Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary as his successor to run in December elections

Three opposition heavyweights, a 92-year-old ally of an independence hero and the president's chosen successor are among 25 candidates who have registered to run in the Democratic Republic of Congo's long-awaited elections.

Emmanuel Ramazani Shadary, a former interior minister named by the government on Wednesday as the ruling coalition candidate, was listed as an independent, according to a preliminary electoral commission list issued Friday.

Shadary, who is on an EU sanctions blacklist, was anointed after President Joseph Kabila bowed to intense international and domestic pressure and decided not to run again in the elections scheduled for December 23.

The three main opposition politicians to throw their hats in the ring are Felix Tshisekedi, Jean-Pierre Bemba and Vital Kamerhe, who could eventually decide to line up behind a single candidate.

Tshisekedi, 55, is leader of Congo's oldest opposition party UDPS and the son of longstanding opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi who died last year.

Bemba, also 55, is a former warlord and Kabila rival, who returned to Kinshasa this month after being acquitted of war crimes convictions by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Kamerhe, 59, is the leader of the opposition Union for the Congolese Nation, although he has previously served as parliamentary speaker and information minister.

The oldest candidate is Antoine Gizenga, 92, a former prime minister who was a brother-in-arms to national independence hero Patrice Lumumba and more recently a prime minister under Kabila after he first came to power in 2006.

The electoral body is expected to publish another provisional list of candidates on August 24 and a final list on September 19, just three months ahead of the vote.
BEIJING (AP) - When Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen departs Sunday for Latin America, she'll be traveling to a region she's already visited three times in two years.

She doesn't have many other options.

As Tsai crosses the halfway mark of her first four-year term, an eight-day swing through Paraguay and Belize is a reflection of how Taiwan's diplomatic isolation has worsened in the midst of a suffocating Chinese pressure campaign. Just 18 countries - mostly clustered in Latin America, the South Pacific and Caribbean - still maintain formal ties with the self-ruling island, down from 22 when Tsai entered office in 2016.

FILE - In this April 11, 2018 file photo, Taiwan's President Tsai Ing-wen attends a news conference in Taipei, Taiwan. When Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen departs Sunday, Aug. 12, 2018, for Latin America, she'll be traveling to a region she's already visited three times in two years. As Tsai crosses the halfway mark of her first four-year term, an eight-day swing through Paraguay and Belize is a reflection of how Taiwan's diplomatic isolation has worsened in the midst of a suffocating Chinese pressure campaign. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

Along with luring away Taiwan's allies, China, which considers the island its territory, has frozen contacts with Taipei and sought to constrict its contact with international organizations. It's also bringing increasing economic pressure and most recently has browbeat international airlines and businesses into referring to Taiwan as part of China, a move condemned by Taipei and its ally, the United States.

Still, maintaining even a reduced pool of diplomatic allies is important to maintaining Taiwan's image of itself as a sovereign democracy, and affords its leadership with the occasion to assert their presence abroad. Tsai will also be transiting in Los Angeles and Houston, providing opportunities to meet with overseas Taiwanese civic leaders and American officials.

Although Tsai leads Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party, which favors declaring formal independence from China, she has pursued a moderate China policy since taking office. But that hasn't appeased Beijing, which has demanded that Tsai explicitly acknowledge an informal 1992 agreement that recognizes Taiwan as a part of China.

As a result, Beijing has "gradually rolled out punitive measures across the entire spectrum of activity and interactions," said Jonathan Sullivan, director of China Programs at the University of Nottingham. "Going after allies is high profile and rich in symbolism."

Faced with Beijing's diplomatic onslaught, Tsai has prioritized cementing its ties with remaining allies and backers like the United States and Japan, with which it maintains close relations in the absence of formal diplomatic ties.

At the same time, she's facing a dip in her domestic poll numbers, possibly, Sullivan said, due to a combination of Chinese pressure in the international arena and disappointment in her reform agenda at home.

On her trip this week, Tsai will attend the inauguration of Paraguayan President-elect Mario Abdo Benitez and address the National Assembly in Belize.

China has traditionally moved carefully in Latin America, which it sees as falling under the U.S. sphere of influence, but has scored wins by flipping Panama and the Dominican Republic in the last 14 months at Taiwan's expense, said Zhu Songling, a professor at the Institute of Taiwan Studies at Beijing Union University.

The Dominican Republic ditched Taiwan in May after it refused to match a multi-billion-dollar aid package offered by China. Flavio Dario Espinal, an adviser to the Dominican presidential office, told reporters in May that "socioeconomics reality now force us to change course" and embrace China, its $2 billion-a-year trading partner.

"The Chinese government has long respected the strategic thinking of the U.S. and we have shown restraint in the Americas," Zhu said. "But these countries feel it's in their national interest to flip to China, whose economic clout and attractiveness is on a whole different level compared to Taiwan's."

Tsai is increasingly coming under fire from her political base for her moderate approach to China, which has not ameliorated Chinese pressure.

"Tsai has been criticized in Taiwan for being over-cautious," Sullivan said. "It is a tricky line to steer, but it is becoming increasingly evident that Beijing has decided not to work with the DPP administration and is doing everything it can to undermine it in the short and longer term."
TANJUNG, Indonesia (AP) - Scientists say the powerful Indonesian earthquake that killed nearly 400 people lifted the island it struck by as much as 25 centimeters (10 inches).

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency said on Saturday that 387 people died, jumping from the 321 it reported the previous day, as search and rescue teams continued to sift through the rubble and people already buried by relatives are accounted for.

Using satellite images of Lombok from the days following the Aug. 5 quake, scientists from NASA and the California Institute of Technology's joint rapid imaging project made a ground deformation map and measured changes in the island's surface.

This graphic made available by NASA shows a map of new satellite data produced by scientists with NASA/Caltech's Advanced Rapid Imaging and Analysis project (ARIA) showing ground deformation on the resort island of Lombok, Indonesia following a deadly earthquake on Aug. 5, 2018. Scientists say the powerful Indonesian earthquake that killed more than 300 people lifted the island it struck by as much as 25 centimeters (10 inches). (NASA/JPL-Caltech/Copernicus/ESA via AP)

In the northwest of the island near the epicenter, the rupturing faultline lifted the earth by a quarter of a meter. In other places it dropped by 5-15 centimeters (2-6 inches).

NASA said satellite observations can help authorities respond to earthquakes and other natural or manmade disasters.

Almost 390,000 people, about 10 percent of Lombok's population, are homeless or displaced after the earthquake, which damaged and destroyed about 68,000 homes.

Disaster agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said three districts in the north of Lombok still haven't received any assistance. The governor of West Nusa Tenggara province, which includes Lombok, has extended the official emergency period by two weeks to Aug. 25.

"It's estimated the death toll will continue to grow because there are still victims who are suspected of being buried by landslides and collapsed buildings and there are deaths that have not been recorded," Nugroho said.

The number of evacuees fluctuates, he said, because not all evacuee points have been counted and some people tend to their gardens and properties during the day and return to the tent camps at night. Some people don't need to evacuate because their homes aren't damaged but have come to refugee centers because they feel traumatized.

Nearly a week since the 7.0 quake, Lombok is still reeling but glimmers of normality were returning for some and devout villagers are making plans for temporary replacements of mosques that were flattened.

In Tanjung, one of the worst affected districts in the hard-hit north of the island, a food market opened Saturday and locals bought vegetables and fish. Some shops also opened for business despite being in damaged buildings.

"I had to borrow money from someone to buy morning glory to be resold here," said Natbudi, one of the market vendors. "If I just stay at the camp and don't come here to sell then I don't have money to buy rice."

Lombok, a popular and less developed tourist destination than neighboring Bali, was hit by three strong quakes in little over a week and has endured more than 500 aftershocks.

A July 29 quake killed 16 people. An aftershock measuring magnitude 5.9 on Thursday caused panic, more damage and more than two dozen injuries.

Villager Sunarto, buying fish at the makeshift market, said it was a relief to do something ordinary.

"I feel happy and thank God that finally the market is open," he said. "We can buy our needs while waiting for the situation to get back to normal even though we're still worried."

Indonesia is prone to earthquakes because of its location on the "Ring of Fire," an arc of volcanoes and fault lines in the Pacific Basin. In December 2004, a massive magnitude 9.1 earthquake off Sumatra triggered a tsunami that killed 230,000 people in a dozen countries.

___

Wright reported from Jakarta, Indonesia.

Motorists ride past buildings ruined by Sunday's earthquake in Pamenang, Lombok Island, Indonesia, Friday, Aug. 10, 2018. The north of the popular resort island has been devastated by Sunday's earthquake, damaging thousands of buildings and killing a large number of people. (AP Photo/Fauzy Chaniago)
WASHINGTON (AP) - Newly released documents from Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh's time on the Kenneth Starr team investigating Bill Clinton reveal his resistance to issuing an indictment of a sitting president.

The memo, tucked toward the end of nearly 10,000 pages released Friday, provides greater insight into Kavanaugh's views on executive power that are expected to feature prominently in his Senate confirmation hearings. Democrats have warned that Kavanaugh may be unwilling to protect special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into possible coordination between President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and Russia.

The documents show that on Christmas Eve 1998, Kavanaugh drafted an "Overall Plan" to colleagues providing his thoughts on bringing the independent counsel office's work to a close and suggesting they inform the attorney general that the findings against Clinton be left to the next president.

In this Aug. 7, 2018, photo. President Donald Trump's Supreme Court nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, officiates at the swearing-in of Judge Britt Grant to take a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit in Atlanta at the U.S. District Courthouse in Washington. The Senate will begin a confirmation hearing for Kavanaugh on Sept. 4, the Sen. check Grassley, R-Iowa, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee says.(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

"We believe an indictment should not be pursued while the President is in Office," Kavanaugh wrote.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Republican chairman of the Judiciary Committee, announced Friday that confirmation hearings for Kavanaugh would begin the day after Labor Day. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he hopes to have Trump's nominee confirmed to replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy before the new court session begins Oct. 1.

"We're moving right along," McConnell said during a radio interview in Kentucky ahead of the announcement. "He'll get confirmed. It won't be a landslide, but he'll get confirmed."

The Judiciary Committee will hold up to four days of review, with Kavanaugh to begin facing questions on Day 2, Sept. 5, said committee chairman Sen. Chuck Grassley. Kavanaugh's appearance will be followed by testimony from legal experts and people who know the judge.

The White House, which is determined to have Kavanaugh confirmed before the November elections as Republicans aim to deliver on Trump's priorities, applauded the schedule announcement. But Democrats want access to more documents from Kavanaugh's past as a judge and as an official in the George W. Bush administration.

Grassley, R-Iowa, said there's "plenty of time" to review documents but now it's time for Americans "to hear directly" from Kavanaugh.

So far, the committee has made public Kavanaugh's 17,000-page questionnaire and his more than 300 court cases as an appellate judge. The panel has additionally received 174,000 pages from his work for Bush in the White House counsel's office.

The new documents Friday provide a glimpse into Kavanaugh's years on the Starr team shuttling back and forth to Little Rock for "investigative purposes." He co-wrote a detailed, nearly 300-page memo on deputy White House counsel Vince Foster's suicide.

Hundreds of pages in the Starr files are grand jury proceedings that are redacted. Meanwhile, most of the White House records related to Kavanaugh are being held on a "committee confidential" basis, with just 5,700 pages from his White House years released this week to the public.

Democrats say the Republicans are relying on the cherry-picked files being released primarily by Bush's lawyer, Bill Burck, who is compiling and vetting the documents, rather than the traditional process conducted by the National Archives and Records Administration.

The Archives has said its review of some 1 million pages of Kavanaugh records the committee requested will not be fully available until the end of October. The Archives produced the Starr files.

The top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, said scheduling the hearing before the documents are ready "is not only unprecedented but a new low in Republican efforts to stack the courts."

She said, "It's clear that Republicans want to speed this nomination through before we know who Brett Kavanaugh is."

Nan Aron, president of the Alliance for Justice, called it "jaw-dropping."

"It means that the chairman is telling the American people that this hearing is barreling forward, no matter what, no matter how little information is available to the Senate and public or how many shortcuts the committee has to take," she said.

The White House on Friday welcomed the news of a set date for confirmation hearings.

"With the Senate already reviewing more documents than for any other Supreme Court nominee in history, Chairman Grassley has lived up to his promise to lead an open, transparent and fair process," said White House spokesman Raj Shah. "Judge Kavanaugh looks forward to addressing the Judiciary Committee in public hearings for the American people to view."

Kavanaugh, 53, is a conservative who could tip the court's balance for a generation and play a decisive role on issues like abortion access, gay marriage and executive branch oversight.

He has met privately with almost all the Republican senators and one Democrat as supporters try to build momentum for confirmation.

Because his career has largely been spent in public service, Kavanaugh has an unusually voluminous paper trail. Democrats are particularly pushing for access to his three years as staff secretary for Bush, but Republicans are not including those documents in the review.

GOP Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah said they are conducting the "most thorough vetting process for a nominee in the history of the Supreme Court."

Edwin Meese, the former attorney general to President Ronald Reagan, said, "Democratic senators have the time and they have the material. They have no excuse to obstruct his prompt confirmation."

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Associated Press writer Jill Colvin contributed to this report.
ATLANTA (AP) - Democratic voters were more enthusiastic than Republicans in nearly a dozen federal special elections since President Donald Trump took office, an Associated Press analysis found, giving party leaders hope that even a series of narrow losses in GOP territory bodes well for them in November.

With the special elections now concluded ahead of the fall midterms, an AP review of nine House races and an Alabama special Senate election showed Democratic candidates consistently outperforming Republicans compared to the two parties' usual vote totals in regular general elections.

The strong Democratic turnout is a key factor fueling the party's hopes of regaining control of the House in November for the first time in eight years. It's particularly significant because Democrats often struggle to turn out their voters when a presidential candidate isn't on the ballot. The special election voting numbers could signal a change heading into the fall.

In this Aug. 7, 2018, photo, voters cast their ballots among an array of electronic voting machines in a polling station at the Noor Islamic Cultural Center, Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2018, in Dublin, Ohio. An Associated Press analysis find Democrats with a consistent enthusiasm advantage with nearly a dozen federal special elections now concluded ahead of the November midterms. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

The latest indicator came Tuesday in Ohio, where Republican Troy Balderson holds a narrow lead over his Democratic rival, Danny O'Connor, setting up a potential recount in a suburban and small-town congressional district that President Donald Trump won by more than 11 percentage points and that Republicans have held since 1980.

The AP review went beyond percentage totals and compared special election raw vote totals to what Republicans and Democrats received from the same electorates in 2016. The methodology measures candidates' performance as a percentage of what they could expect in a presidential year when turnout is highest, with the results suggesting which party's coalition is more engaged and excited about the election cycle.

In Ohio, for example, Balderson's 101,500-plus votes amount to less than half of Trump's total in the district and just 40 percent of what former Rep. Pat Tiberi received in his last re-election. O'Connor, meanwhile, pulled in almost 62 percent of Hillary Clinton's 2016 totals and almost 90 percent of what the last Democratic candidate drew alongside the presidential race.

Altogether, Democrats got a higher proportion than Republicans of the party's usual presidential vote in eight out of 11 elections. They exceeded Republicans in 10 out 11 races when comparing the special election totals to the most recent House or Senate race involving the same electorate.

Special elections are not a perfect predictor of November, but if those enthusiasm gaps hold for dozens of more fundamentally competitive seats in November, Democrats would stand a strong chance of emerging with the House majority and be poised for statehouse gains, as well.

The data tracks with high-profile special election outcomes ahead of the 2010 midterms when Republicans flipped control of the House and many state legislatures. This year, the trends are giving the GOP pause.

"Obviously, this is a tough environment for Republicans," said Corry Bliss, executive director of the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC devoted to defending House Republicans' 23-seat majority. An obviously enthusiastic Democratic base, Bliss said, puts the burden on Republican incumbents and open-seat candidates "to give the voters a reason to vote for them."

Trump mocked Democratic optimism this week on Twitter, noting the GOP has a lopsided record in federal special elections. Indeed, Republican candidates won seven of the nine special House races. But all seven were Republican seats to begin with, several of them open in the first place because Trump plucked members from supposedly safe seats to join his administration.

Democrats held a California seat, while Democratic Rep. Conor Lamb flipped a Pennsylvania congressional district Trump had won by almost 20 points. Alabama Sen. Doug Jones also pulled a shocker in a December 2017 contest barely a year after Trump won the state by 28 points.

"The numbers show a Democratic energy in the electorate that Republicans don't have, plus an advantage with independents that Democrats haven't had in a decade," said Democratic pollster Zac McCrary. "That's when waves happen and you win districts you aren't supposed to win."

Certainly, Democrats must contend with a tough Senate map - 10 incumbents are running in states where Trump won - and several GOP-run states have drawn congressional districts to Republicans' advantage, particularly in battleground suburbs that could determine House control. Some regular primaries have shown Republican strength as well: Texas Democrats touted a midterm primary turnout record this March as they try to make the state more competitive, but Republicans answered with their own record.

Still, it's worth noting that Republicans demonstrated enthusiasm advantages ahead of their 2010 sweep, most notably in January 2010 when they flipped the Massachusetts Senate seat in a special election after Ted Kennedy's death. Republican Scott Brown topped Democrat Martha Coakley by amassing 105 percent of John McCain's 2008 presidential vote and 126 percent of what Democrat John Kerry's Senate challenger had mustered 14 months before.

At the time, Democrats mostly blamed Coakley, just as many Republican blamed Lamb's and Jones' opponents for this cycle's upsets.

The strongest overall special election turnout during Trump's presidency came in a suburban Atlanta race that became the most expensive congressional matchup in history. That peak for Republicans involved now-Rep. Karen Handel drawing 84 percent of Trump's total and 67 percent of then-Rep. Tom Price's last election total before his brief stint as Trump's health secretary. Democrat Jon Ossoff, meanwhile, ended up exceeding the 2016 count for Price's opponent. Ossoff got 81 percent of Clinton's total.

Bliss, the Republican super PAC executive, said the Georgia numbers show Republicans' core supporters can be energized in November, as they were in the Atlanta suburbs after Ossoff very nearly won an outright majority in a first round of voting, only to lose a runoff.

"Our base is happy with what President Trump and the Republican Congress is doing," Bliss said. "Our candidates just have to make the stakes clear."

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Follow Barrow on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BillBarrowAP.
TOKYO (AP) - All nine people aboard a Japanese search and rescue helicopter that crashed into the central mountains were confirmed dead Saturday, authorities said.

The Bell 412EP helicopter carrying seven local rescue workers from the Gunma prefecture and two from a flight service company lost contact about an hour after takeoff Friday and crashed.

Prefectural officials said the last person aboard was retrieved Saturday and pronounced dead.

Investigators work near the wreckage of a Japanese search and rescue helicopter that crashed into the central mountains in Nakanojo, Gunma prefecture, northwest of Tokyo Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. All nine people aboard the helicopter were confirmed dead Saturday, authorities said. (Kyodo News via AP)

The helicopter was on a two-hour flight to monitor the opening of a mountain trail. The prefecture said it canceled Saturday's event due to the accident. It wasn't clear what caused the crash.

An investigation continued Saturday at the mountainside crash site, where debris of the helicopter was scattered and trees torn down apparently from the impact of the fall.

Japanese media quoted witnesses as saying the helicopter was flying extremely low in foggy weather before the crash. The GPS data sent from the helicopter indicated it was making a turn a minute before the transmission stopped, Kyodo News reported. It said the helicopter was not carrying a flight data recorder.

Prefectural officials said the helicopter, which was about 20 years old, had its engine repaired in April but had no abnormality since it resumed operations in June.

The wreckage of Gunma prefectural air rescue helicopter Haruna is seen after crashing in Nakanojo town, Gunma prefecture, northwest of Tokyo Friday, Aug. 10, 2018. The wreckage of the Japanese search and rescue helicopter with nine people aboard was found in central Japan mountains Friday hours after it lost contact, and two of them were found dead near the aircraft crash site. (Akiko Matsushita/Kyodo News via AP)

This undated photo from website of Gunma Prefectural Fire Safety Division shows the air rescue helicopter Haruna. The rescue helicopter has crashed in central Japan mountains Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, hours after it lost contact and the condition of nine people aboard is not immediately clear. (Gunma Prefectural Fire Safety Division via AP)
WEIZHOU, China (AP) - A newspaper of the ruling Communist Party said Saturday that no religion is above the law in China, urging officials to stay firm while dealing with a rare protest over the planned demolition of a massive mosque in the northwest.

The Global Times said that local officials in the town of Weizhou in Ningxia, a region that's home to many ethnic minority Hui Muslims, must act against what it described as an illegal expansion of a religious building.

Thousands of Hui people gathered at the towering Grand Mosque on Thursday and Friday to prevent authorities from demolishing the structure, residents contacted by The Associated Press said. It was a rare, public pushback to the party's efforts to rewrite how religions are practiced in the country.

Vehicles are parked outside the Grand Mosque in Weizhou in northwestern China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, early Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. Thousands of Muslims gathered at a mosque in northwestern China on Friday to protest its planned demolition in a rare, public pushback to the government's efforts to rewrite how religions are practiced in the country. (AP Photo/Sam McNeil)

"People are in a lot of pain," said Ma Sengming, a 72-year-old man who was at the protest from Thursday morning until Friday afternoon. "Many people were crying. We can't understand why this is happening."

Ma said the group shouted "Protect faith in China!" and "Love the country, love the faith!"

The protest comes as faith groups that were largely tolerated in the past have seen their freedoms shrink as the government seeks to "Sinicize" religions by making the faithful prioritize allegiance to the officially atheist Communist Party. Islamic crescents and domes have been stripped from mosques, Christian churches have been shut down and Bibles seized, and Tibetan children have been moved from Buddhist temples to schools.

Such efforts were clearly behind the planned demolition of the mosque in Weizhou, where dozens of men, women and children milled about on the mosque steps, on plastic chairs and in the large dirt parking lot early Saturday before dawn prayers. Above them hung long banners from the second story of the mosque that read in Chinese: "Stick to directives of Sinicized religion."

The mosque, an imposing white building lit at night with gold, green and yellow, dwarfs the surrounding dim warren of brick and concrete homes. Its architecture of four minarets and nine domes tipped with crescent moons would be at home anywhere in the Islamic world, save for the large red and yellow Chinese flags fluttering from the ramparts and the wide central staircase.

Authorities were clearly nervous about the unrest. Early Saturday morning, men in plainclothes, including one who identified himself as police, prevented AP reporters from conducting interviews at the mosque and chased them away.

Later Saturday, police stopped the reporters at a checkpoint in the direction of the mosque and detained them for more than an hour before ordering them to turn around, and tailing them with two cars to ensure they did not change course.

The residents of Weizhou were alarmed by news that the government was planning to demolish the mosque despite initially appearing to approve its construction, which was completed just last year.

The authorities now planned to take down eight out of the nine domes topping the mosque on the grounds that the structure was built larger than permitted, said Ma Zhiguo, a resident in his late 70s. But community members were standing their ground, he added.

"How could we allow them to tear down a mosque that is still in good condition?" he said, adding that the mosque conducts prayers attended by about 30,000 Muslims and was built using believers' personal funds.

Officials in the county and city propaganda offices said they were not aware of the situation. Other local authorities could not immediately be reached for comment.

But the Global Times newspaper said in an editorial Saturday that the authorities had to send a message to all religious groups that none of them are above the law.

"Demolishing the mosque is sure to earn the ire of local religious followers. However, if the local government does not react to the illegal act, it will fuel the idea that religions are superior over China's laws," the paper said.

In May, the county disciplinary inspection commission published a notice saying that Weizhou authorities had failed to properly inspect what it said was illegal expansion in the construction of the Grand Mosque. As a result of lax supervision, the notice said, four mosques in the county had received a total of 1.07 million yuan ($156,148) in foreign donations. It did not specify whether the Grand Mosque was among the four.

Ma Sengming said protesters remained at the mosque through the night from Thursday to Friday and were twice visited by a local official who encouraged them to go home. Ma said the official did not make any specific promises, but tried to assure the protesters that the government would work with them on the matter.

More than 100 police officers surrounded the mosque, but did not attempt to stop the protest, according to Ma.

Public demonstrations are rare in China, where the government is often quick to quash any hint of dissent. Under President Xi Jinping, the Communist Party is cracking down on religious expression and attacking what it calls radical ideas among the country's more than 20 million Muslims.

In the far west region of Xinjiang, following sporadic violent attacks by radical Muslim separatists, hundreds of thousands of members of the Uighur and Kazakh Muslim minorities have been arbitrarily detained in indoctrination camps where they are forced to denounce Islam and profess loyalty to the party.

Compared to those ethnic groups, the Hui are culturally much closer to China's Han majority, similar in appearance and speaking a variation of the mainstream Mandarin language.

But recently, reports said authorities have shut down Hui religious schools and Arabic classes and barred children from participating in Muslim activities.

James Leibold, a scholar of Chinese ethnic policies at Melbourne's La Trobe University, said the proposed demolition of the Weizhou mosque appeared to be an effort to assimilate ethnic minorities.

"The ultimate agenda is to erode minority identity and create a sense of belonging and connection to Chinese identity and Chinese culture," Leibold said.

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Wang reported from Beijing. Associated Press researcher Fu Ting contributed to this report.
ON July 18, we marked the Nelson Mandela International Day. The day was declared by the United Nations General Assembly in 2009 to honour the legacy of the former South Africas President in fighting for social justice.

It is celebrated annually on Mandelas birthday, July 18, and this year it had fallen on Mandelas 100th birthday. Mandela is remembered for spearheading the freedom struggle in South Africa, during which he was imprisoned for 27 years.

In the first multi-racial, majority rule and democratic elections in 1994, after his release from prison in 1990, he became the first President of free South Africa for five years until his retirement in 1999. He died on December 5. 2013, aged 95.

As we mark this day, we should remind ourselves about the anti-colonial and anti-apartheid struggle in southern Africa, how it was waged and who rendered support.

During the 1950s and early 1960s, the world witnessed heroic efforts by African nationalists to liberate the continent from colonialism and to crush minority and racist regimes in Zimbabwe and South Africa.

The colonial powers, Great Britain, France, German, Portugal and Belgium, had entrenched themselves in almost the whole of the continent. The Berlin conference of 1884-1885 organized and attended by these European powers, regulated the conquest and partitioning of Africa.

The continent had then become a prey, with everyone with a sharp knife taking a chop. Historians are reminding us that these colonialists did not invade Africa by accidents. It was an elaborate plan by these powers to get cheap raw materials for their industries, to obtain new markets and to expand their hegemony.

Before the colonialists came, teams of missionaries, the so-called explorers and researchers, trekked the continent and their reports back home formed the basis of decisions on how to go about colonizing Africa.

This is how the plunder of Africa began. We also know from history that our ancestors were very welcoming. They did not shun visitors, like traders, merchants and missionaries. The influx of traders and merchants from Persia and Arabia and the old settlements along the East African coast several millennia ago, is a testimony to this.

Other evidence is the establishment of Swahili culture in the Eastern African coast which came as a result of inter-marriages between indigenous Africans on one hand and Arabs and Persians on the other. But our elders were against those who wanted to forcefully take their land and plunder their resources.

That is why Africa has a history of resistance against these foreign invaders. The wars fought by our ancestors in Southern Africa, the Maji Maji and Mkwawa resistance against the Germans in the then Tanganyika and even the Mau Mau uprising against white settlers in Kenya signify the abhorrence towards the ruthless foreign invaders.

The wars fought by our ancestors inspired the African nationalists to continue the struggle to liberate their fatherland. The struggle was by peaceful means in some areas and violent in others. As a result, all the 54 African countries are now independent free from colonialism and racist domination, the latest in that sequence being South Africa, in 1994.

We should ask ourselves today, how this struggle was waged and who supported these efforts. The Southern African liberation struggle was waged during the so-called Cold War-the rivalry between the western capitalist nations.

Led by the United States and the eastern socialist nations, led by the then Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR, now the Russian Federation which assumed the rights and obligations of the Soviet Union after the political changes of 1991).

The rivalry emerged in the aftermath of the Second World War of 1939 to 1945. The First World War was in 1914 to 1918. As the liberation struggle was actually a fight for social justice, it was thought that the western powers would support it with their abundant wealth.

But because of their fear that any military intervention would destroy their investments in Southern Africa being taken care of by the regimes there, these powers did not support the African nationalists efforts.

Instead the eastern camp, led by USSR, supported the struggle which then had taken a different dimension favouring armed struggle after all peaceful efforts were blocked. In this eastern camp was also China and the then East German.

The support was humanitarian, that is food, education and medical and logistical in the form of transport, military advise and equipment. But then, as a result of the cold war rivalry, the USSR was accused by the western powers of trying to implant communism in Africa and making inroads into the continent to ultimately exploit the abundant African natural resources.

But neither the communist bogey nor the exploitation of resources by the USSR occurred in Africa at the successful end of the liberation struggle. As a matter of fact, it is the other camp, the western powers, that are now enjoying abundant African natural resources through trade deals and concessions.

The imaginary threat of communism was well explained by Nelson Mandela in his statement of defence during the Rivonia trial in which he and other South African nationalists were being charged with sabotage and trying to violently bringing down the apartheid regime.

At the outset, Mandela said, I want to say that the suggestion made by the State that the struggle in South Africa is under the influence of foreigners or communists is wholly incorrect.

I have done whatever I did, both as an individual and as a leader of my people, because of my experience in South Africa and my own proudly felt African background, and not because of what any outsider might have said, he said.

He added: In my youth in the Transkei, I listened to the elders of my tribe telling stories of the old days. Amongst the tales they related to me were those of wars fought by our ancestors in defence of the fatherlandI hoped then that life might offer me the opportunity to serve my people and make my own humble contribution to their freedom struggle.

This is what has motivated me in all that I have done in relation to the charges made against me in this case . Nkwabi Ngwanakilala, former Director of Tanzania News Agency (SHIHATA) and former Director of Radio Tanzania, in his 1982 book in Kiswahili Muhtasari wa Mapambano ya Ukombozi Kusini mwa Afrika (Summary of the Liberation Struggle in Southern Africa), dismissed the so-called communist threat.

He said the issue of anti-communism is being brought up by western powers as a bulwark for their status and investments in the area. There is no any country in Southern Africa you could call communist, and those seen to be in that camp are actually with governments pursuing what could be termed African socialism, according to Ngwanakilala.

On Russian involvement in the struggle, Vladimir Shubin, from the Institute of African Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences, tried to put the record straight in his 2008 book The Hot Cold War: The USSR in Southern Africa.

Shubin complained at the tendency of western academics and politicians to look at the armed conflict in Southern Africa through the distorting prism of super powers rivalry during the cold war.  The struggle was part of the world anti-imperialist struggle waged by the socialist community, the national liberation movements and working class of the capitalist countries.

It is true that the struggle was internationalist. That is why there were a lot of sentiments against colonial oppression and apartheid within the western countries themselves. Public rallies and demonstrations were organized in support of the liberation struggle and much-needed humanitarian aid was collected and sent to the liberation movements.
HONOLULU (AP) - Despite a challenging first term marked by both natural and man-made disasters, Hawaii Gov. David Ige won the Democratic primary in his bid for a second term in office Saturday, defeating U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa.

Ige's administration fumbled through a false missile alert that sent the state into a panic in January, a major embarrassment for his administration. But the governor's handling of Kilauea volcano's latest eruption, which destroyed more than 700 homes and displaced thousands, as well as devastating flooding on Kauai got him back on track and he came out ahead of Hanabusa.

"It's been a grueling campaign," Ige said. "It's truly a heart-warming finish to a very, very challenging and exciting time."

Hawaii Gov. David Ige speaks to supporters at his campaign headquarters, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018, in Honolulu. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia)

Ige said he expects to win the general election in November, but he's not going to take his challenger for granted.

"I will not take anything for granted, we are going to gear up for another tough campaign, but we do believe that we have a vision and that the people have spoken," Ige said.

The governor said Hanabusa called him and pledged her support, and that he looks forward to working with her and her supporters over the next several months.

"The most important thing about the election is the fact that we gave people choices, and the people have spoken," said Hanabusa during her concession speech. "It was about giving people the choice."

Hanabusa, who gave up her seat in Congress to challenge Ige, thanked the people that worked on her campaign. "You've given me everything," she said.

"What we will start tomorrow as Democrats is hopefully the healing process," she said. "I will be there."

Former Congressman Ed Case emerged from a crowded field to win the Democratic Party primary in the hopes of filling Hanabusa's spot in Congress.

The 65-year-old fiscal conservative defeated five other major candidates including Lt. Gov. Doug Chin, who is the architect of Hawaii's legal battle against President Donald Trump's travel ban.

"I think voters want Washington to work again, that's the number one issue," said Case. "I was clearly saying we need to fix Washington and we need to work together, and that message clearly resonated with many voters."

He'll face Cam Cavasso, a former state representative who previously ran unsuccessfully for U.S. Senate. Cavasso won the GOP primary. The winner of the Democratic primary is almost guaranteed to win in the general election in Hawaii.

Ige campaigned on his efforts on increasing affordable housing and addressing the state's homeless problem. Hawaii has had the highest rate of homeless per capita in the nation for many years and is one of the most expensive places to live in the country.

The next governor will also face the aftermath of Kilauea volcano's latest destructive eruption that began in May. Most of the residents displaced by the lava flows did not have insurance that would cover lava damage.

The volcano is also the most visited tourist site in the state, and the decline in visitors has caused a ripple effect throughout the local economy.

And despite better relations between the United States and North Korea, Hawaii is still a strategic military outpost in the Pacific that could be the target of foreign military threats.

Daryl Chang, a Republican who works in the medical field in Honolulu, voted for Ige, a Democrat, in Saturday's gubernatorial primary.

"I think he is thoughtful and he does what he thinks is right," Chang said.

Some in Hawaii have been critical of Ige's response to the false missile alert, but Chang, 64, said he doesn't see the governor as being ultimately responsible.

"There's deficiencies in all the departments." Chang said of the emergency department that sent the alert. "I didn't blame Ige for it."

Chang said he knows the Republican nominee doesn't have much of a chance in November, which is why he voted on the Democrat side. If he had voted within his party, he would have chosen state House Minority Leader state Rep. Andria Tupola

"I think Tupola is refreshing," Chang said. "If I were going to vote in the Republican primary I would have voted for her because she's a new voice and maybe she can bring about change."

Tupola won the GOP nomination, defeating former Pearl Harbor nonprofit CEO Ray L'Heureux and former state senator John Carroll.

Tupola said she's excited to move forward to the general election.

"Once you step into the general, then it's any man's game," Tupola said. "It's not a party thing, it's look at the best candidate and make your best vote."

Tupola said one of her primary focuses as governor would be to address affordable housing and to fight for Native Hawaiians to get the opportunity to use land set aside for them decades ago.

But Ige will likely get the job the general election. Hawaii has had only two Republican governors since it became a state and the vast majority of islands' residents consistently vote blue.

Jinjer Boots, 26, a Democrat, voted for Hanabusa. As she left her polling place Saturday with her daughter, Cataleia, 3, Boots said she liked that Hanabusa was fighting for women's rights and that was a major factor for her.

"I like that she fights for women's rights," she said. "I do think that she will speak up more for us, with Ige he was very quiet."

Hawaii Gov. David Ige speaks to supporters at his campaign headquarters, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018, in Honolulu. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia)

Hawaii Gov. David Ige greets supporters at his campaign headquarters, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018, in Honolulu. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia)

U.S. Rep Colleen Hanabusa speaks to supporter at her campaign headquarters, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018, in Honolulu. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia)

U.S. Rep Colleen Hanabusa speaks to supporters at her campaign headquarters, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018, in Honolulu. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia)

U.S. Rep Colleen Hanabusa receives a Hawaiian lei from a supporter at her campaign headquarters, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018, in Honolulu. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia)

Former U.S. Rep Ed Case, left, along with his wife Audrey Case, do last minute campaigning waving at passing cars, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018, in Honolulu. Case is trying to succeed U.S. Rep Colleen Hanabusa, who is running for Hawaii governor. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia)

Hawaii Lt. Gov. Doug Chin, a candidate for Hawaii's 1st Congressional District seat, greats guests at his campaign party, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018, in Honolulu. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia)

Kaniela Ing, a candidate for Hawaii's 1st Congressional District seat, walks into a bar hosting his campaign party, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018, in Honolulu. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia)

In this April 28, 2018 photo, U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, D-Hawaii, who is giving up her seat in Congress to run for Hawaii governor, talks with a guest at an event in Honolulu. Hawaii Gov. David Ige faces a stiff challenge from Hanabusa in the Democratic primary on Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia, File)

In this Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2018 photo, Hawaii Gov. David Ige, right, and first lady Dawn Amano Ige smile after voting early in the state's primary election in Honolulu. Ige is seeking the nomination for a second term in office in Saturday's Democratic primary. He is being challenged by U.S. Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, who is giving up her seat in Congress to challenge the governor. (AP Photo/Caleb Jones)

In this April 6, 2018 photo, state Rep. Andria Tupola, who is running for Hawaii governor in the Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018 primary, speaks at a forum in Honolulu. Tupola said one of her primary focuses as governor would be to address affordable housing. (Dennis Oda/Honolulu Star-Advertiser via AP)

Former U.S. Rep Ed Case, left, along with his wife Audrey Case, do last minute campaigning waving at passing cars, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018, in Honolulu. Case is trying to succeed U.S. Rep Colleen Hanabusa, who is running for Hawaii governor. (AP Photo/Marco Garcia)

Robert Quartero, 50, left, of Honolulu, sits at a table at a polling place during Hawaii's primary election, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018 in Honolulu. The winners of most of the Democratic Party's primary races in Hawaii this weekend will be the favorites to win the general election in November. The most hotly contested matches in this deep blue state on Saturday are for governor and the state's 1st Congressional District. (AP Photo/Caleb Jones)
Here's your look at highlights from the weekly AP photo report, a gallery featuring a mix of front-page photography, the odd image you might have missed and lasting moments our editors think you should see.

This week's gallery includes horse herding at the foothills of a mountain in Turkey, kids sitting on top of a car to watch wildfires in California and a demonstrator confronting riot police in Romania.

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A Palestinian protester wears a plastic bag on his head as a protection from teargas as he waves a national flag during a protest at the Gaza Strip's border with Israel, Friday, Aug.10, 2018. Violence erupted at the Gaza border Friday after the territory's militant Islamic Hamas rulers and Israel appeared to be honoring a cease-fire that ended two days of intense violence amid efforts by neighboring Egypt to negotiate between the two sides. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

This gallery contains photos from the week of Aug. 4-10, 2018.

See the latest AP photo galleries: https://apimagesblog.com

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This gallery was produced by Patrick Sison in New York.

King Bass, 6, left, sits and watches the Holy Fire burn from on top of his parents' car as his sister Princess, 5, rests her head on his shoulder Thursday night, Aug. 9, 2018 in Lake Elsinore, Calif. More than a thousand firefighters battled to keep a raging Southern California forest fire from reaching foothill neighborhoods Friday before the expected return of blustery winds that drove the flames to new ferocity a day earlier. (AP Photo/Patrick Record)

A demonstrator in support of decriminalizing abortion stands outside the congress building in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2018. Following months of increasingly tense debate, lawmakers in Argentina met on Wednesday ahead of a vote on a bill that would decriminalize abortions up to the first 14 weeks of pregnancy. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

The mother, center, of two young children is comforted after she found them stabbed to death in their father's apartment in Houston on Saturday, Aug. 4, 2018. Authorities say that Jean Pierre Ndossoka, the man suspected of fatally stabbing his two children, has been hospitalized after police found him Sunday with a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his car. Court records show he has been charged with capital murder. (Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle via AP)

A relative mourns over the body of Abdullah al-Qutati, 26, at the morgue of the European hospital east of Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, east of Khan Younis, Friday, Aug. 10, 2018. Two Palestinians, including a paramedic, were shot and killed by Israeli fire at a Hamas-led protest along the border, Gaza's Health Ministry said. (AP Photo/Adel Hana)

A man throws a plastic bottle at riot police during protests outside the government headquarters, in Bucharest, Romania, Friday, Aug. 10, 2018. Tens of thousands of Romanians flocked to an anti-government protest in Bucharest on Friday, urging the left-wing government to resign and call an early election. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)

A Kashmiri rebel fires his gun to salute fallen comrades during their joint funeral in Malikgund village, south of Srinagar, Indian controlled Kashmir, Saturday, Aug. 4, 2018. At rebels and an Indian army soldier were killed in gunbattles in disputed Kashmir, triggering violent protests by residents opposed to Indian rule, officials said Saturday. (AP Photo/Dar Yasin)

A military paramedic tends to a boy who's head was injured from Sunday's earthquake at a makeshift hospital in Kayangan, Lombok Island, Indonesia, Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2018. The north of Lombok has been devastated by the magnitude 7.0 quake that struck Sunday night, damaging thousands of buildings and killing dozens. (AP Photo/Fauzy Chaniago)

Crocodiles rest at a farm in the Jordan Valley, West Bank on Monday, Aug. 6, 2018. Hundreds of crocodiles are stuck at the farm where they were brought in the mid-90s to serve as a tourist attraction. Ensuing Palestinian-Israeli violence kept visitors away, prompting the crocodiles' purchase by an entrepreneur hoping to sell them for their skin, but his venture flopped after Israel passed a law in 2012 defining the crocodile as a protected animal, and banning raising the animals for sale as meat or merchandise. (AP Photo/Dusan Vranic)
ISLAMABAD (AP) - Gunmen killed three police in an overnight attack in northern Pakistan, and a suicide bomber wounded three Chinese engineers and three paramilitary guards in a separate incident, officials said Saturday.

Faizullah Faraq, spokesman for the local government of northern Gilgit Baltistan territory, said one of the gunmen who attacked a police post was killed in the ensuing shootout late Friday. Another two police were wounded.

The suicide bomber struck near a bus carrying Chinese engineers from Baluchistan to Karachi on Saturday. Hashim Ghilzai, a senior official in the region, confirmed the six wounded. He said the attacker was in a parked car who blew himself up when the bus got closer to him in the Dalbandin area.

The Baluch Liberation Army, a separatist group, claimed responsibility for the suicide attack - the first time any Baluch separatist group has taken responsibility for a suicide attack.

BLA spokesman Junaid Baluch in a statement on the group's webpage that more such attacks would be carried out on Chinese involved in "exploiting the resources of Baluchistan."

The southwestern province is the scene of a low-level insurgency by Baluch separatists who wants greater share from provincial resources or outright autonomy from Islamabad.

Militants in Pakistan carry out near-daily attacks, mainly targeting security forces. Most of the attacks have been linked to the Pakistani Taliban and other Islamic extremists.
TOKYO (AP) - Japan's government said Saturday that it is looking into reports that a Japanese citizen was detained this month in North Korea.

A report from the broadcaster NTV said the man is a 39-year-old self-claimed "video creator" who was on a group tour in the North and was supposed to return to Japan on Aug. 13. The report said he might have been seized while trying to film a military facility in North Korea's northwestern region.

The man, who is not identified by name, has visited North Korea several times in the past and was arrested in Nampo city, according to TBS television.

The Asahi newspaper reported that the man faces possible spying allegations.

Japan's Foreign Ministry said Saturday that it is looking into the case following the reports. It declined to give further details.

Japan is still trying to secure the release of Japanese abducted to North Korea decades ago, a major dispute between the two countries that have no diplomatic relations.

Japan says North Korea abducted at least 17 Japanese citizens in the 1970s and 1980s to train agents in Japanese culture and language to spy on South Korea.

After decades of denial, North Korea in 2002 acknowledged abducting 13 of them and allowed five to visit Japan, where they stayed. The North says eight others died, but Japanese officials and their families demand their release, saying what North Korea says cannot be trusted.

Amid North Korea's increased diplomatic engagement and dialogue with Japan's other neighbors and the U.S., Japan was seen as out of the loop and was hoping to set up a summit on the sidelines of international conferences later this year. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has expressed hopes to hold talks with the North's leader Kim Jong Un but only when that would lead to a settlement of the abduction issue.

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TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard says it has killed 10 militants in a Kurdish region near the border with Iraq.

The Guard's website said Saturday that the 10 belonged to a "terrorist group affiliated with global arrogance," referring to the United States, and that several other militants were wounded in clashes late Friday. The Guard did not say whether its forces suffered casualties.

The fighting took place near the Kurdish town of Oshnavieh, in an area that has seen occasional clashes between Iranian forces and Kurdish separatists, as well as Islamic State-linked militants.

The Guard said it had confiscated a "remarkable" amount of arms, ammunition and communications equipment.

Last month at least 10 Iranian border guards were killed in an attack by unidentified gunmen near Iraqi border.
Sometimes Alfred Wilson still has to take a moment to collect himself after he pulls open files at the law firm where he works and sees Heather Heyer's handwriting.

"I get choked up and have to gather myself before I talk to the client," said Wilson, who hired Heyer, the 32-year-old paralegal killed nearly a year ago in a car attack during a violent white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

The rally that left Heyer dead and dozens more injured proved to be a watershed moment, both for the racist, fringe "alt-right" movement, and for the city itself. In the year since, many residents like Wilson say the wounds haven't healed. Others say the violence has laid bare divisions over deeper issues of race and economic inequality and what should be done to move forward.

In this Monday, Aug. 6, 2018 photo, Susan Bro, mother of Heather Heyer, who was killed during the Unite the Right rally last year, looks over memorabilia in her office in Charlottesville, Va. "I just would like people to focus on the anniversary, not on Heather, but on the issues that she died for, Black Lives Matter, overpolicing, affordable housing, for more truth and the telling of the history of Charlottesville, and to focus on where they need to go as a community," Bro said. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

"One of my hugest gripes with last year with the people of this town was that people, mostly white folks, kept saying, 'This isn't Charlottesville,'" said Brenda Brown-Grooms, a local pastor and activist. "I wonder what planet they live on. This is exactly who we are."

A Charlottesville native, born in the segregated basement of the University of Virginia hospital, Brown-Grooms said white supremacy was present in Charlottesville long before the rally and is the "elephant in the room" the city now must deal with.

Activists have pushed leaders to address the city's legacies of racism and slavery, its affordable housing crunch and the police department's relationship with the black community, among other issues, since the Aug. 12 rally.

The event was one of the largest gatherings of white nationalists and far-right extremists in a decade. Many participants dressed as if they were headed to battle, shouted racist slurs and clashed violently with counterprotesters. Meanwhile, authorities largely stood by on the fringes of the action near a downtown park with a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee that the city wanted to remove.

The crowd was eventually forced to disperse but a car that authorities say was driven by a man fascinated with Adolf Hitler later plowed into a crowd of peaceful counterprotesters. The day's death toll rose to three when a state police helicopter that had been monitoring the event and assisting with the governor's motorcade crashed, killing two troopers.

In the year since, the city has taken steps toward meeting some of the activists' demands, despite resistance on some issues from the Republican-controlled state legislature . Lawmakers defeated every bill Charlottesville supported in the rally's aftermath, including measures dealing with cities' abilities to remove Confederate monuments.

Responding in part to calls for a closer look at stop-and-frisk policies that disproportionately affect black residents, the city established a new Police Civilian Review Board. The city also has approved funds for affordable housing and workforce development.

Meanwhile, there's been a churn in leadership. The city attorney took a new job, the city manager's contract was not renewed, a spokeswoman quit and the police chief, 50 at the time, retired after less than two years on the job.

The five-person city council has two new faces, and the group picked a different mayor, Nikuyah Walker, a black woman who ran as an independent in the staunchly Democratic town and was previously one of the council's strongest critics.

Walker has clashed publicly with other council members on multiple issues, such as hiring an interim city manager. She recently took to social media to criticize the candidate, the way he was selected and her fellow councilors' behavior.

The council's drama doesn't seem to affect most residents, who "just go on with our lives and watch with quiet amusement," said Charles "Buddy" Weber, an attorney and longtime resident involved in a lawsuit seeking to stop the city from removing the Lee monument. Weber emphasized that not everyone in Charlottesville agrees on the extent and nature of the city's problems.

While the city's been struggling to find its footing, some alt-right leaders are faltering. The rally violence proved a costly debacle for leading figures such as white nationalist Richard Spencer and others who are fighting lawsuits. Many in the movement have been booted from mainstream internet platforms. A few have dropped out altogether.

Only one organizer of last summer's rally seems intent on publicly marking the anniversary. Jason Kessler, a Charlottesville resident and UVA graduate, sued the city after it denied him a permit for an anniversary event. Kessler recently abandoned his lawsuit, but he vowed to press ahead with plans for an Aug. 12 rally in Washington, D.C.

During an interview this summer, Kessler said he was still "coming to terms" with what happened last year and said he apologized to Heyer's family.

But he struck a far more defiant tone when a city attorney questioned him last month. Kessler said during a deposition that he had no regrets or remorse about his role and takes no responsibility for the violence.

While Kessler's plans for the anniversary weekend have shifted, many residents say they're bracing for some sort of white nationalist presence. Officials and law enforcement authorities insist that whatever happens, they will be better prepared. An investigation by a former U.S. attorney found a lack of planning, poor communication and a passive response by law enforcement added to last year's chaos.

Michael Rodi, owner of a downtown restaurant-nightclub, told city and law enforcement officials at a forum for the business community that "if we can make this thing fizzle, the rest of the world looks at us and goes, 'Oh, you're not Nazi Central.'"

Heyer's mother, Susan Bro, who's spent much of the past year working with Wilson on a foundation named for her daughter, said she plans to place flowers Sunday at the site of the attack that claimed Heyer's life. But the day should be about more than just Heyer, Bro said.

"I just would like people to focus on the anniversary, not on Heather, but on the issues that she died for - Black Lives Matter, overpolicing, affordable housing, for more truth and the telling of the history of Charlottesville - and to focus on where they need to go as a community," Bro said.

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Associated Press writer Michael Kunzelman in Silver Spring, Maryland, and AP photographer Steve Helber in Charlottesville contributed to this report. Rankin reported from Richmond and Charlottesville.

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For the complete AP coverage marking one year since the rally in Charlottesville, visit https://apnews.com/tag/CharlottesvilleAYearLater .

In this Monday, Aug. 6, 2018 photo, a statue of Thomas Jefferson is surrounded by fencing and a No Trespassing sign in front of the rotunda on the campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va. The statue was the focal point of a clash between torch carrying white nationalists and students the night before the white nationalist rally in downtown Charlottesville that ended in the death of three people. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

In this Monday, Aug. 6, 2018, photo, a visitor eats lunch in front of a statue of Robert E. Lee that is surrounded by fencing and a No Trespassing sign in Charlottesville, Va., at the park that was the focus of the Unite the Right rally. In the year since, many residents say the wounds haven't healed and others say the violence has laid bare a disagreement about deeper issues of race and economic inequality and what should be done to move forward. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

In this Monday, Aug. 6, 2018 photo, Susan Bro, mother of Heather Heyer, who was killed during the Unite the Right rally last year, looks over memorabilia in her office in Charlottesville, Va. "I just would like people to focus on the anniversary, not on Heather, but on the issues that she died for, Black Lives Matter, overpolicing, affordable housing, for more truth and the telling of the history of Charlottesville, and to focus on where they need to go as a community," Bro said. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

In this Monday, Aug. 6, 2018 photo, statue of Thomas Jefferson is surrounded by fencing and a No Trespassing sign in front of the rotunda on the campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va. The statue was the focal point of a clash between torch carrying white nationalists and students the night before the white nationalist rally in downtown Charlottesville that ended in the death of three people. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
WASHINGTON (AP) - Russia typically brushes off new U.S. sanctions. Not this time.

The Trump administration announcement of export restrictions in response to accusations Moscow used a nerve agent to poison a former Russian spy in Britain sent the ruble tumbling to a two-year low and drew a stern warning from its prime minister. While the initial sanctions may have a limited impact, a second batch expected within months could hit the Russian economy much harder and send already tense relations into a tailspin.

If sanctions are expanded even further to target Russia's top state-controlled banks, freezing their dollar transactions - as proposed under legislation introduced in the Senate this month - it would amount to a "declaration of economic war," Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said Friday.

Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev speaks during a meeting in Kamchatka Peninsula region, Russian Far East, Russia, Friday, Aug. 10, 2018. Russia's prime minister sternly warned the United States on Friday against ramping up sanctions, saying that Moscow will retaliate with economic, political and unspecified "other" means. (Dmitry Astakhov, Sputnik, Government Pool Photo via AP)

So much for President Donald Trump's hopes for better relations with Moscow.

On his watch, the U.S. has imposed a slew of sanctions on Russia for human rights abuses, meddling in the U.S. election and Russian military aggression in Ukraine and Syria. For the most part, they have punished Russian officials and associates of President Vladimir Putin rather than targeting broad economic sectors.

In 2014, both the U.S. and European Union introduced sanctions that restricted Russia's access to global financial markets and to equipment for new energy projects. Those measures were punishing, but the sanctions announced by the Trump administration this past week could be even worse.

The restrictions were triggered under U.S. law on chemical weapons following a formal U.S. determination that Russia used the Novichok nerve agent to poison former Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English city of Salisbury in March.

The first tranche, due to take effect Aug. 22, will deny export licenses to Russia for the purchase of many items with national security implications. Existing sanctions already prohibit the export of most military and security-related items, but now the ban will be extended to goods such as gas turbine engines, electronics and calibration equipment that were previously allowed on a case-by-case basis. The State Department said it could potentially affect hundreds of millions of dollars in trade.

"It's a significant step, but not an overwhelming one," said Daniel Fried, a veteran State Department official who served as chief U.S. coordinator for sanctions policy until he retired last year.

The penny could drop, though, in three months' time.

Russia has 90 days to "provide assurances" that it will not use chemical weapons in the future and allow inspections. If Russia does not comply, Trump will be obligated to impose a second set of sanctions, applying restrictions on at least three from a menu of options: opposing multilateral bank assistance to Russia, broad restrictions on exports and imports, downgrading diplomatic relations, prohibiting air carrier landing rights and barring U.S. banks from making loans to the Russian government. That could do significantly more economic harm and have a lasting, destabilizing effect on the currency and stock markets.

Senior Russian lawmaker Vyacheslav Nikonov said a second set of sanctions may be inevitable and predicted it would pitch relations to new low. The relationship is already routinely described as at its worst since the Cold War.

"They are demanding that Russia (accepts) an obligation to refrain from any further use of chemical and bacteriological weapons, which amounts to our acknowledgement that we have used it. But we haven't," he said.

Things could get even worse if the Defending American Security from Kremlin Aggression Act, which a bipartisan group of senators introduced Aug. 2, makes its way through Congress. It would target Russia's state-controlled banks and freeze their operations in dollars, which would deal a heavy blow to the Russian economy. The prospects for the legislation becoming law remain uncertain.

Medvedev warned the U.S. that such a move would cross a red line and would warrant a Russian response by economic, political or "other means" he did not specify. His tough tone was a departure from past nonchalance from Putin and his lieutenants over the impact of Western sanctions on the Russian economy.

Vladimir Vasilyev, a researcher with the Institute of the U.S. and Canada, a government-funded Moscow think tank, said U.S.-Russian ties were now approaching "the point of no return with no prospect for improvement" in sight.

Fried said that in addition to uncertainty over sanctions, Moscow's strong response this time is likely also being fueled by larger inconsistencies in U.S. policy toward Russia. While Trump has hankered for closer ties with Putin, the government he leads has been far less accommodating.

"Whatever deal the Russians had or thought they had or thought they could get from President Donald Trump, they're not able to get it from Trump's administration," Fried said.

The State Department denied inconsistency in U.S. policy and maintained that sanctions were aimed at encouraging improved behavior from Russia. "We'd like to have a better relationship with the Russian government, recognizing that we have a lot of areas of mutual concern," spokeswoman Heather Nauert said.

Congress has a less diplomatic view.

Trump has repeatedly come under fire from lawmakers, including from his own Republican Party, for his conciliatory statements on Russia, particularly at his joint press conference with Putin at their summit in Helsinki last month where he appeared to doubt U.S. intelligence conclusions that Russia intervened in the 2016 election.

Rep. Ed Royce, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, was among lawmakers who welcomed the U.S. sanctions announced this week. "It's critical that we use every tool at our disposal to confront Putin's use of chemical weapons, as well as his efforts to undermine our democracy," the Republican from California said.

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Isachenkov reported from Moscow.
NEW ORLEANS (AP) - Trumpeter Yoshio Toyama and his wife Keiko moved to the United States 50 years ago to learn about traditional jazz in its birthplace, New Orleans. Nightclubs, churches, house parties, and jazz funerals became their classroom.

The lessons took: Singing with a gravelly voice like the late Louis Armstrong and blowing the trumpet in Armstrong's style, Toyama returned home to make a life of playing jazz. And the man now known as the "Japanese Satchmo" recently found out just how much he's revered by New Orleans' musical community during what could be his band's final gig in the city.

Performing during an annual French Quarter music festival that marks Armstrong's birthday, Satchmo Summerfest, Toyama was given what amounts to a lifetime achievement award noting both his music and his ties to New Orleans, including his work to donate at least 850 musical instruments and more than $130,000 to help musicians and music education in the city.

Trumpet player and singer Yoshio Toyama talks with an admirer in New Orleans on Saturday, Aug. 4, 2018. Known as the "Japanese Sachmo" for his devotion to jazz great Louis Armstrong, Toyama and his wife Keiko Toyama performed with their band the Dixie Saints at Satchmo Summerfest, held annually to mark Armstrong's birthday. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)

Janice Foulks, a board member of the nonprofit French Quarter Festivals Inc., presented Toyama with the "Spirit of Satchmo" award before he performed with his band the Dixie Saints, which includes his wife on banjo and piano.

"We love him. He is such a part of New Orleans," said Foulks. Toyama, who lives with his wife in metro Tokyo, had one of the largest crowds during the three-day festival, which draws heavily upon local jazz fans.

Toyama, 74, had to compose himself before going on with a set that included his versions of Armstrong classics like "What a Wonderful World" and "Hello, Dolly."

"It just happened all of a sudden on stage, nobody told me nothing," Toyama said in an interview conducted by email. "I was in tears and had to knock off playing Satchmo's theme, 'When It's Sleepy Time Down South,' to hide it."

Toyama's journey to the American South was inspired in 1964 while he and his then-future wife were on a student band tour. Already fans of jazz, Toyama said they saw Armstrong perform in Kyoto, Japan, and went backstage after the show.

Toyama knocked on the door and Armstrong told him to come in; Toyama entered but Keiko demurred. "Keiko was chicken and did not dare come in to the dressing room," he said.

Toyama said he wound up blowing the musician's trumpet in a moment he never forgot. With Toyama working for an insurance company, the couple married in 1966 and arrived in New Orleans in early 1968, even though traveling from Japan to the U.S. Gulf Coast at that time was like "going to the moon," he said.

They started out in a low-rent apartment on Bourbon Street and immersed themselves in the city's musical culture, making friends and eating Creole food. They remained for five years as they worked and frequented jazz hotspots including Preservation Hall to learn the craft.

Settling back home in Japan after a shorter stint in New Orleans in the early '70s, Toyama made a career of jazz, which is very popular in Japan. He has recorded and played regular gigs including more than two decades of performing at Tokyo Disneyland, which includes a New Orleans-themed area. Last year, he received the grand prize from the newly formed Japan Jazz Music Association.

Through it all, the Toyamas were regular visitors to New Orleans with annual performances at Satchmo Summerfest since 2003 except for last year because of a death in the family. The couple donated instruments and money to help promote music as an alternative to violence in the city after Katrina, and New Orleans gave back to Japan after a tsunami hit the island nation in 2011.

Toyama is one of those rare people who can bring both individuals and cultures together, said Foulks, who has known him and his wife more than a decade.

"He is a precious man," she said. "He's not just one of those who comes in to play at Satchmo Summerfest. He brings instruments, he visits schools. He does it all."

Toyama said his years of regularly performing in New Orleans with his band may be done, however.

A tour group the couple traveled with has dwindled as members aged, making the journey more expensive, he said, and the 20-hour trip is becoming more of a burden for the couple and the Dixie Saints. Toyama said the future is unclear.

"We will come back more, and hopefully with the band. But (I'm) not sure," he said.

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Associated Press writer Yuri Kageyama contributed to this report from Tokyo.

Jazz musician Yoshio Toyama, second from right, plays with wife Keiko Toyama and other members of the Dixie Saints in New Orleans on Saturday, Aug. 4, 2018. Known as the "Japanese Sachmo" for his devotion to jazz great Louis Armstrong, Toyama and the group played at Satchmo Summerfest, held annually to mark Armstrong's birthday. (AP Photo/Jay Reeves)
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) - The counting of the last ballots in the tight and contentious Republican primary for Kansas governor will stretch out over the next week and still might not settle the race.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach leads Gov. Jeff Colyer by 110 votes out of 313,000-plus cast after late mail-in ballots from all 105 counties were added Friday to totals from advance voting and ballots cast at the polls Tuesday. The state's 105 counties still must review nearly 9,000 provisional ballots and determine how many of them were cast in the Republican primary - and how many will be counted. They have until Aug. 20 to finish that process and certify their local results.

A look at the process for counting the remaining votes and a possible recount:

FILE - In this Jan. 31, 2011, file photo, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, right, confers with Assistant Secretary of State Eric Rucker during a Kansas House Elections Committee hearing on Kobach's bill for cracking down on election fraud at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. Kobach says he's stepping aside from his duties as the state's top elections official while his hotly contested Republican primary race with Gov. Jeff Colyer remains unresolved. Kobach announced his decision Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, in a letter to Colyer. Kobach said he is handing his election duties over to Rucker. (AP Photo/John Hanna, File)

MAIL-IN BALLOTS

The Legislature last year changed the state's law on mail-in ballots so that they were to be counted if they were postmarked Tuesday, the day of the primary, and arrived by Friday. Previously, they had to arrive by Election Day, and in the 2016 general election, more than 500 arrived afterward, said Bryan Caskey, the state elections director in the secretary of state's office.

WHO COUNTS

While Kobach's office provides guidance on the handling of ballots and supervises the counting, the work is done by the counties.

The chief elections officer in each county appoints a bipartisan board of election workers to handle the individual ballots.

The secretary of state appoints an election commissioner in the state's four most populous counties, Johnson, Sedgwick, Shawnee and Wyandotte, and the chief elections officers in the other 101 are elected clerks.

The elections chiefs present their workers' recommendations on whether provisional ballots should be counted to the county commission, which then decides and certifies the final results.

PROVISIONAL BALLOTS

Voters receive provisional ballots at the polls when election workers are not sure they are eligible to vote at that location, or at all. Those ballots are sealed in envelopes and set aside to be reviewed later, with notes about the issues involved. The eligibility of the voters is determined before workers unseal the ballots. Once a ballot is unsealed, workers can see whether it was cast in the Republican or Democratic primary before counting any relevant votes.

Kobach said based on past elections, it's likely that about two-thirds of 9,000 provisional ballots that were filled out Tuesday were cast in the Republican primary and that a majority of them will be counted.

COUNTING DAYS

State law says counties can begin their canvassing Monday. Seventy-six counties plan to start then, including Johnson and Sedgwick.

An additional 14 plan to start Tuesday, two on Wednesday and six on Thursday, including Shawnee and Wyandotte counties. Rooks County in northwest Kansas has scheduled its canvassing for Friday, and six counties have set it for Aug. 20, the deadline to finish.

REQUESTING A RECOUNT

Under a Kansas law specific to statewide races, a candidate must ask for a recount by 5 p.m. Friday. State law has no provision for an automatic recount, no matter how close the race.

A candidate can ask for a recount no matter how large the margin, but he or she must put up funds to cover the full cost of the recount. If the recount changes the result, the candidate seeking it gets his or her money back, and the counties and state cover their costs.

The candidate can seek a recount in only one or a handful of counties, dozens of counties, or statewide. Also, the candidate chooses whether the recount will be machine re-scanning of paper ballots or a hand count of those ballots.

The cost of the recount is determined by the secretary of state's office. Caskey said the office would survey the counties involved in a recount for their estimated costs, then add "a small amount" to cover the state's administrative expenses.

There's no frame of reference for what a recount would cost because there hasn't been one in a statewide race in at least several decades.

A recount must start the day after the candidate requests one, even if the work would start on a Saturday. Counties involved have five days to finish, meaning all of it would be done by Aug. 22 at the latest.

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Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer addresses the media on Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2018, at the Kansas Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. Out-of-power Kansas Democrats smelled opportunity Wednesday in the tight, unsettled GOP primary race for governor between Colyer and Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a close political ally of President Donald Trump and a conservative lightning rod who alienates even some Republicans. (Chris Neal/The Topeka Capital-Journal via AP)

Secretary of State Kris Kobach, surrounded by his family and running mate Wink Hartman, talked to the media during a news conference at the Topeka Capitol Plaza hotel in Topeka, Kan., Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2018. (Thad Allton /The Topeka Capital-Journal via AP)
MOSCOW (AP) - Russia's prison system is contradicting claims about the worsening condition of Oleg Sentsov, a Ukrainian filmmaker imprisoned on a terrorism conviction who has been on a hunger strike for 90 days.

Sentsov is demanding that he and 64 other Ukrainians who he considers political prisoners be released. The case has attracted considerable international attention, with Western nations campaigning for his release.

His lawyer Dmitry Dinze said this week that Sentsov has become increasingly frail and now has a low hemoglobin level.

FILE - In this Tuesday, Aug. 25, 2015 file photo, Oleg Sentsov gestures as the verdict is delivered, as he stands behind bars at a court in Rostov-on-Don, Russia. The lawyer for a hunger-striking Ukrainian filmmaker imprisoned in Russia says his client has become increasingly frail. Wednesday, Aug. 8, 2018 marks the 87th day that Oleg Sentsov has been refusing food in a Russian prison. His lawyer Dmitry Dinze said after visiting him Tuesday that Sentsov has a very low hemoglobin level, resulting in anemia and a slow heartbeat of about 40 beats per minute. (AP Photo, file)

The Federal Penitentiary Service said in a statement Saturday that Sentsov is being given a nutritious formula daily and "as of today, no deficit in body mass or worsening of his health has been observed."

Sentsov, an opponent of Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea, was sentenced to 20 years in 2015.
LOCAL politicians have been advised to avoid using vulgar language when they want to convey their messages to the President.

The piece of advice was given in Dar es Salaam recently, by the Chairperson of the Tanzania Political Parties Council, Mr John Shibuda (pictured), during a meeting organised by the Tanzania Constitution Forum (TCF).

He, however, advised them to use their Political Parties Council to resolve misunderstandings within their parties, saying it is the voice of politicians and was established purposely to regulate political issues in the country.

Political leaders should mind their tongues and avoid using rude language when they want to advise the President so that their recommendations could be considered. Sometimes the president can ignore your views, because of the way you present them, he said.

Mr Shibuda further advised the government leaders and all public institutions to keep records of the achievements of the Fifth Phase government for the benefit of future generations.

The President is doing a great job in the development of our country; so government leaders and their institutions are duty-bound to keep records of its achievements. The citizens have the right to know the good work performed by the President they voted for, he further said.

The TCF Vice-Chairman, Mr Mussa Kombo, said the meeting was focused on discussing constitutional reforms ahead of the 2020 General Election
The Latest on events marking the anniversary of violent white nationalist rallies in Charlottesville, Virginia (all times local):

10:45 a.m.

The president of the University of Virginia has offered an apology to the students and community members who faced off a year ago against white supremacists during a march through campus.

Susan Bro, mother of Heather Heyer who was killed during last year's Unite the Right rally, speaks with reporters at the spot where her daughter was killed in Charlottesville, Va., Friday, Aug. 10, 2018. The governor has declared a state of emergency in anticipation of the anniversary of the rally. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)

UVA President James Ryan spoke to a crowd gathered Saturday morning for a service of reflection on the anniversary of the march. He said that those who stood up against the racists showed remarkable "courage and bravery" and that the university must admit its mistakes.

Critics have said the university was unprepared and didn't do enough to intervene during the clashes, which left several people injured.

Specifically addressing those who were attacked during the march, Ryan said, "I am sorry. We are sorry."

The service also featured musical performances, a poetry reading and a moment of silence.

Among those in attendance was Susan Bro, the mother of 32-year-old Heather Heyer, a counterprotester who was killed the day after the march on campus, when violence unfolded in downtown Charlottesville.

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12:30 a.m.

Police are blocking off streets and mobilizing hundreds of officers for the anniversary of a deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

State and local authorities framed this weekend's heightened security as a necessary precaution, but some community activists are concerned the measures could be a counterproductive overreaction.

An independent investigation of last year's rally violence found the chaos stemmed from a passive response by law enforcement and poor preparation and coordination between state and city police.

University of Virginia professor Lisa Woolfork says she doesn't know anyone who feels safer because of the increased police presence. Woolfork is also a Black Lives Matter Charlottesville organizer.

Susan Bro, mother of Heather Heyer who was killed during last year's Unite the Right rally, speaks with reporters at the spot where her daughter was killed in Charlottesville, Va., Friday, Aug. 10, 2018. The governor has declared a state of emergency in anticipation of the anniversary of the rally. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)nam
LAKE ELSINORE, Calif. (AP) - The Latest on California wildfires (all times local):

8 a.m.

A Southern California wildfire that has been raging for several days south of Los Angeles is now 29 percent contained.

Homes destroyed by a wildfire are seen from an aerial view in the Keswick neighborhood of Redding, Calif., Friday, Aug. 10, 2018. Fire crews have made progress against the biggest blaze in California history but officials say the fire won't be fully contained until September. (AP Photo/Michael Burke)

Officials said the Holy Fire in Cleveland National Forest had grown by Saturday morning to nearly 33 square miles (85 sq. kilometers).

Earlier this week, the fire had threatened homes in Lake Elsinore and nearby communities. Aircraft have been making flight after flight, dumping water and bright pink retardant to protect the foothill communities as the fire sweeps through the dense, bone-dry brush.

The man suspected of setting the blaze, 51-year-old Forrest Clark, appeared in court Friday, but his arraignment was postponed.

Clark made several outbursts, claiming his life was being threatened and said the arson charge against him was a lie. He's being held on $1 million bail.

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11 p.m. (Friday)

Crews are working furiously to keep a Southern California wildfire from burning more homes south of Los Angeles while firefighters in the north have finally gained ground against major blazes.

The so-called Holy Fire in the Cleveland National Forest was threatening thousands of homes in Lake Elsinore and nearby communities after growing by Friday night to nearly 30 square miles (77 square kilometers).

The fire grew a bit Friday after nearly doubling in size overnight. But firefighters also made progress, with containment doubling from 5 to 10 percent.

Gusty winds continued to drive the flames but were expected to ease off overnight before blowing up again Saturday afternoon.

Meanwhile north of San Francisco, the Mendocino Complex - the largest recorded fire in California history - is 60 percent contained.

A swimming pool is all that remains of a hilltop home after being burned by a wildfire that swept through Shasta County an area west of Redding, Calif., Friday, Aug. 10, 2018. (AP Photo/Michael Burke)

A truck and a street are covered in fire retardant dropped by an air tanker as crews battle a wildfire Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, in Lake Elsinore, Calif. Firefighters fought to spare homes Friday from a growing Southern California forest fire, a day after flames came perilously close to neighborhoods and destroyed one house. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Eric Garcia delivers mail in a neighborhood burned in the Carr Fire, Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, in Redding, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Eric Garcia delivers mail in a neighborhood burned in the Carr Fire, Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, in Redding, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Volunteers with Samaritan's Purse sift through the charred remains of a home burned in the Carr Fire, Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, in Redding, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Emilio Manzo evacuates with his two dogs as a wildfire threatens a neighborhood Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, in Lake Elsinore, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Fire crews line up as they watch a wildfire on a ridge top while protecting a residential area Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, in Lake Elsinore, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

A firefighter hoses down hot spots caused by a wildfire Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, in Lake Elsinore, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

A helicopter drops water on to a wildfire Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, in Lake Elsinore, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Rose Wyckoff holds up three kittens to a passing fire truck in a neighborhood destroyed by the Carr Fire, Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, in Redding, Calif. Wyckoff brought the kittens to a veterinarian after she couldn't find the mother. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Volunteers with Samaritan's Purse sift through the charred remains of a home burned in the Carr Fire, Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, in Redding, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher)

A firefighter walks in front of a home as smoke from an advancing wildfire fills the air Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, in Lake Elsinore, Calif. Firefighters are protecting foothill neighborhoods in the city of Lake Elsinore near where the blaze flared up amid unpredictable winds a day earlier. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

Kenny Spliethof rests near the rubble of the home he was renting that was burned in the Carr Fire, Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, in Redding, Calif. (AP Photo/John Locher)
BERKELEY, Calif. (AP) - California college student Anjali Banerjee was watching fireworks during a 2016 celebration on a seafront promenade in the French city of Nice when a man plowed a huge truck through the crowd, killing 86 people and wounding 200.

The University of California, Berkeley incoming senior ran through mobs of people to escape the chaos and later joined classmates to search hospitals and plaster the city with flyers of fellow students reported missing in the July 2016 terrorist attack. She later learned three students were injured, and UC Berkeley junior Nicolas Leslie, 20, was among the dead.

Banerjee and several classmates have since turned their grief into a startup called Archer that builds digital tools to help journalists, investigators and human rights workers tackle terrorism, sanctions evasion, corruption and other global violence.

University of California students, from left, Anjali Banerjee, Alice Ma and Tyler Heintz walk near the university's campus Wednesday, June 6, 2018, in, Berkeley, Calif. The students who were in Nice, France when a terrorist drove a truck down a promenade killing 83 people, including one of their classmates, have channeled their grief and anger into two nonprofits to fight terrorism. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

"In that moment, it was hard finding the correct information. It was hard even going to different police stations. It was chaos," said Banerjee, who is from London.

The lack of official information following the terrorist attack by a Tunisian man led the students to self-organize and rely on locals to navigate the city as they looked for their missing friends. The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the Bastille Day attack.

Collaborating with each other and with the people of Nice made the students realize they could create a space in the digital world to help others do the same in the fight against terrorism, Banerjee said.

The students built a free online platform that makes big data analysis and visualization easy to access and that helps track people and companies that have been sanctioned by the United States for crimes that include money laundering, corruption and terrorism.

They're still working to turn their data analysis tool into a for-profit company, but the startup has achieved some success. Amnesty International is using one of its tools, Archer Meta, to verify photographs of the crackdown by security forces against minority Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar's Rakhine state.

The tool identifies when and where the photographs were taken and can process 50 at once, unlike other readily available internet tools that upload one photo at a time and can pose a security risk, said Sam Dubberley, a researcher with Amnesty International.

"We get photographs in bulk from activists groups in Myanmar, and we have to verify they are true. But uploading one at a time can be mind-numbing, tedious work," he said.

Archer Meta also offers an added layer of security by allowing users to analyze a photo's metadata without relying on an internet connection, Dubberley said.

"These tools are needed in human rights work, but they are prohibitively expensive to develop, and there is no money in it for tech companies to build them," he said.

The group's data analysis tool helps those investigating terrorist financing cases, "but there is a broader community of people who can rely on our tools, including those looking into war crimes, sanction violations or environmental crimes," said Alice Ma, a former UC Berkeley student who founded the startup with Banerjee and classmate Tyler Heintz.

Heintz was also in Nice at the time of the attack. They have since been joined by nearly two dozen other students, including several others who were with them in France as part of a monthlong class and competition hosted by the European Innovation Academy, which focuses on tech entrepreneurship education.

Banerjee, a history major, had considered a career in foreign affairs but after what happened in France, she wanted to take immediate action. Weeks before the attack, her friend Tarishi Jain, a UC Berkeley sophomore, was among 20 hostages killed at a restaurant by militants in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

"A lot of people all over the world exist in this kind of situation on the daily, and we thought it was time somebody suggested another way we could combat it," Banerjee said.

Experiencing the France attack also pushed Heintz, a 20-year-old computer science major, to change his professional goals.

"Before Nice, I was very much on the traditional path of wanting to build the next app that a bunch of people would use for some reason but that doesn't actually change anyone's lives. But building an app that can help you transport your cat or dog just seemed so trivial," he said.

What motivates Heintz and "a lot of us, is the idea that we can build products to help magnify the work of people trying to bring terrorists to justice," he added.

University of California students, from left, Alice Ma,Tyler Heintz and Anjali Banerjee walk near the university's campus Wednesday, June 6, 2018, in, Berkeley, Calif. The students who were in Nice, France when a terrorist drove a truck down a promenade killing 83 people, including one of their classmates, have channeled their grief and anger into two nonprofits to fight terrorism. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

University of California student Anjali Banerjee answers questions during an interview on the university's campus Wednesday, June 6, 2018, in, Berkeley, Calif. Banerjee and other students who were in Nice, France when a terrorist drove a truck down a promenade killing 83 people, including one of their classmates, have channeled their grief and anger into two nonprofits to fight terrorism. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

University of California student Alice Ma answers questions during an interview on the university's campus Wednesday, June 6, 2018, in, Berkeley, Calif. Ma, and other fellow students who were in Nice, France when a terrorist drove a truck down a promenade killing 83 people, including one of their classmates, have channeled their grief and anger into two nonprofits to fight terrorism. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)
ISLAMABAD (AP) - Pakistani military officers will receive training in Russian Federation military institutes under a recent agreement signed by Pakistan and Russia.

The deal underscores Pakistan's increasing reliance on Russia for its military needs amid strained relations with the U.S. It was signed earlier this week during a visit by Russian Deputy Defense Minister Col. Gen. Alexander Fomin.

The deal comes as local media reported the U.S. has stopped financing military training in the U.S. for Pakistani soldiers - a step that Pakistani Sen. Mushahid Hussain called "wrong and counterproductive."

Hussain, chairman of the Foreign Affairs committee, said the U.S. is repeating past mistakes through failed policy of trying to bully and browbeat Pakistan with such shortsighted sanctions.

Media have reported that 66 training slots for Pakistani military officers in U.S. facilities are being abolished.
WASHINGTON (AP) - Tesla CEO Elon Musk used Twitter late Friday to taunt investors who have bet against his company, even though his previous Twitter comments have spurred a government investigation and shareholder lawsuits.

The tweets are aimed at "shorts," or investors who borrowed shares of Tesla and immediately sold them with the hope that Tesla's share price would fall. That would allow the shorts to buy back the stock at a lower price, return the shares to the lender, and pocket the difference.

Shorting a stock can temporarily lower its price, making short investors a frequent target of CEO wrath.

FILE- In this June 14, 2018, file photo Tesla CEO and founder of the Boring Company Elon Musk speaks at a news conference. On Thursday, Aug. 9, Tesla shares have dropped back to near the level they were trading at before Musk tweeted Tuesday that he may take the company private. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato, File)

The Twitter comments could potentially affect Musk's legal situation. On Tuesday he tweeted that he had secured funding to buy all Tesla shares and take the company private. The Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating Musk's disclosure of the potential deal, according to reports earlier this week.

Musk's attitude toward short sellers could be relevant, securities law experts have said. Musk's tweet about taking Tesla private sent the stock soaring 11 percent Tuesday and cost short sellers roughly $1 billion, according to some estimates.

If his motive for the tweet "was frustration with short sellers, then that could be a case of market manipulation," John Coffee Jr., a Columbia University law professor and corporate-governance expert, said earlier this week.

Late Friday Musk mocked short investors in a series of tweets, suggesting his antipathy toward them hasn't dimmed.

"Short shorts coming soon to Tesla merch," Musk tweeted. "What are your fav short shorts?"

James Cox, a professor of securities law at Duke University, downplayed the significance of the Friday tweets, noting that Musk's antipathy toward short sellers is well-known.

"It's hard for me to think that these blasts are going to get him in trouble," Cox said.

On Friday, two lawsuits were filed accusing Musk of seeking to harm short sellers by artificially running up the price of the company's shares through his Tuesday tweets. One tweet on Tuesday said that funding to take Tesla private was "secure." If there is evidence that the financing wasn't fully locked down, Musk's claim would expose him to allegations of fraud, Coffee said.

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AP Business Writer Michael Liedtke contributed to this report from San Francisco.

___

This story has been corrected to say Musk is Tesla CEO, not Tesla founder and CEO.
ISTANBUL (AP) - Turkey's president on Saturday blamed the country's economic downturn on the United States and other nations that he claims are waging "war" against his country.

Speaking in the northeastern province of Rize, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that dollars, euros and gold were now "the bullets, cannonballs and missiles of the economic war being waged against our country."

Erdogan promised supporters that Turkey was taking the necessary precautions to protect its economy but added "the most important thing is breaking the hands firing these weapons."

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters in his Black Sea hometown, Rize, Turkey, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018.(Presidential Press Service via AP, Pool)

Turkey was hit by a financial shockwave this week as its currency nosedived over concerns about the government's economic policies and a trade dispute with the United States.

The lira tumbled 14 percent Friday, to 6.51 per dollar, a massive move for a currency that will make Turkish residents poorer and further erode international investors' confidence in the country. The currency drop is particularly painful for Turkey because it finances a lot of its economic growth with foreign money.

The currency's drop - 41 percent so far this year - is a gauge of fear over a country coming to terms with years of high debt, international concern over Erdogan's push to amass power, and a souring in relations with allies like the U.S.

In an opinion piece published in The New York Times on Friday, Erdogan criticized the tensions with the U.S., saying a "failure to reverse this trend of unilateralism and disrespect will require us to start looking for new friends and allies."

Among the issues, Turkey has arrested an American pastor and put him on trial for espionage and terror-related charges linked to a failed coup attempt in the country two years ago. The pastor has proclaimed his innocence.

The U.S. responded by slapping sanctions on Turkey and threatening more. The sides held talks in Washington this week but failed to resolve the spat.

President Donald Trump on Friday tweeted that he had authorized the doubling of steel and aluminum tariffs on Turkey. He said the tariffs on aluminum imports would be increased to 20 percent and those on steel to 50 percent as the Turkish lira "slides rapidly downward against our very strong Dollar!"

"Our relations with Turkey are not good at this time!" he wrote.

The United States is the biggest destination for Turkish steel exports, with 11 percent of the Turkish export volume. The lira fell further after Trump's tweet.

Turkey later said Erdogan had held a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin to discuss economic ties. It did not disclose details, but the move suggests Turkey might gravitate further from its NATO allies toward cooperation with Russia, whose relations with the West are at their lowest point since the Cold War.

Turkey's woes have been aggravated by investor worries about the economic policies of Erdogan, who won a new term in office in June with sweeping new powers.

Erdogan has been putting pressure on Turkey's central bank to not raise interest rates in order to keep fueling economic growth. He claims higher rates lead to higher inflation - the opposite of what standard economic theory says.

Independent analysts argue the central bank should instead raise rates to tame inflation and support the currency.

Amid the dispute, foreign investors could be spooked and try to pull their money out, reinforcing the currency drop and potentially leading to financial instability.

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters in his Black Sea hometown, Rize, Turkey, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. The banner in the background reads "Long live fully independent Republic of Turkey." (Presidential Press Service via AP, Pool)

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks to the media in Ordu, Turkey, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018.(Presidential Press Service via AP, Pool)

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters in Ordu, Turkey, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018.(Presidential Press Service via AP, Pool)

Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses his supporters in Ordu, Turkey, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018.(Presidential Press Service via AP, Pool)
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) - Members of Israel's Arab minority led a mass protest in central Tel Aviv on Saturday night against a contentious new law that critics say marginalizes the state's non-Jewish citizens.

The rally marked further fallout from the explosive Nation-State law and came a week after thousands of Druze, also members of the Arab minority, packed the same city square last week.

Israel's 1948 declaration of independence defined the country as a Jewish and democratic state and the government says the recently passed bill merely enshrines the country's existing character. But critics say it undercuts Israel's democratic values and sidelines the country's non-Jewish population, namely the Arab community that makes up 20 percent of the country.

An Arab Israeli Arab man holds a sign that reads "Equality now" during a protest against the Jewish nation bill in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. The recently passed law that enshrines Israel's Jewish character and downgrades the standing of Arabic from an official to a "special" language. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

One clause downgrades the Arabic language from official to "special" standing.

Israeli media reported tens of thousands of Jews and Arabs attended the protest. Some Arab protesters waved Palestinian flags and others held signs reading "equality." Some knelt and preformed Muslim prayers.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted footage on Twitter of protesters waving the Palestinian flags. "No better testament to the necessity of the Nation State law," he wrote.

Ayman Odeh, an Arab member of the Israeli parliament, told The Associated Press: "This is the first time that tens of thousands of Arabs have come to Tel Aviv with Jewish democratic groups. They came to say this is not the end of the demonstrations, but the first serious demonstration against the Nation State law."

Many Jewish Israelis, including top retired security officials and politicians, have also harshly criticized the law.

Omar Sultan, from the Arab city of Tira in central Israel, said he was protesting to send a message to Netanyahu.

"This law is against us, against the Arabic language, against peace, against our future in this land, we are the real people of this land, we can't agree on this law," he said.

Israel's Arab citizens enjoy full citizenship rights but face discrimination in some areas of society like jobs and housing. They share the ethnicity and culture of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and often identify with Palestinian nationalism, rather than Israeli.

Tens of thousands of Druze, also members of the Arab minority, packed the same square in the heart of Tel Aviv, Israel's cultural and commercial center, last week. The Druze are followers of a secretive offshoot of Shiite Islam and are considered fiercely loyal to the state and serve in Israel's military, unlike most of the country's other Arab citizens.

Over the years, members of the Druze community have risen to prominence in the military and in politics. Some Druze have said they feel betrayed by the law and several Druze military officers recently said they would stop serving in response to it, sparking fears of widespread insubordination.

Israeli Arabs hold a Palestinian flag during a protest against the Jewish nation bill in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. The recently passed law that enshrines Israel's Jewish character and downgrades the standing of Arabic from an official to a "special" language. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

A man holds a sign that reads "Justice in front of a poster showing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu " during a protest against the Jewish nation bill in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. The recently passed law that enshrines Israel's Jewish character and downgrades the standing of Arabic from an official to a "special" language. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

People march during a protest against the Jewish nation bill in Tel Aviv, Israel, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. The recently passed law that enshrines Israel's Jewish character and downgrades the standing of Arabic from an official to a "special" language. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
ROME (AP) - Pope Francis has told Italian Catholic youths in Rome to pursue their dreams despite job market worries.

Tens of thousands of young people filled Rome's ancient Circus Maximus on Saturday evening to hear Francis advise them to ignore adults who warn against certain professions, saying they are not in demand. Many walked for days to reach the rally.

Francis answered questions submitted in advance. One university student told him that a professor had discouraged her from pursuing her passion in art, saying that studying business instead would better for getting a job.

Pope Francis arrives at Rome's Circus Maximus to lead an evening prayer vigil with youths, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. Thousand of youths gathered for the meeting with the pontiff in preparation for the next World Youth Day that will be held in Panama next year. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Decrying "dreams of convenience," Francis urged them to take "risks on that street of your dreams." He declared that "fear brings pessimism."

Francis has convened an international meeting of bishops at the Vatican in October about youths and their faith.

Pope Francis arrives at Rome's Circus Maximus to lead an evening prayer vigil with youths, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. Thousand of youths gathered for the meeting with the pontiff in preparation for the next World Youth Day that will be held in Panama next year. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Francis arrives at Rome's Circus Maximus to lead an evening prayer vigil with youths, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. Thousand of youths gathered for the meeting with the pontiff in preparation for the next World Youth Day that will be held in Panama next year. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Francis arrives at Rome's Circus Maximus to lead an evening prayer vigil with youths, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. Thousand of youths gathered for the meeting with the pontiff in preparation for the next World Youth Day that will be held in Panama next year. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Francis arrives at Rome's Circus Maximus to lead an evening prayer vigil with youths, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. Thousand of youths gathered for the meeting with the pontiff in preparation for the next World Youth Day that will be held in Panama next year. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Francis delivers his speech as he leads an evening prayer vigil with youths, at Rome's Circus Maximus, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. Thousand of youths gathered for the meeting with the pontiff in preparation for the next World Youth Day that will be held in Panama next year. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Francis arrives at Rome's Circus Maximus to lead an evening prayer vigil with youths, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. Thousand of youths gathered for the meeting with the pontiff in preparation for the next World Youth Day that will be held in Panama next year. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Francis arrives at Rome's Circus Maximus to lead an evening prayer vigil with youths, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. Thousand of youths gathered for the meeting with the pontiff in preparation for the next World Youth Day that will be held in Panama next year. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Pope Francis arrives at Rome's Circus Maximus to lead an evening prayer vigil with youths, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. Thousand of youths gathered for the meeting with the pontiff in preparation for the next World Youth Day that will be held in Panama next year. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Faithful gather in Rome's Circus Maximus as they wait for the arrival of Pope Francis to lead an evening prayer vigil with youths, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. Thousand of youths gathered for the meeting with the pontiff in preparation for the next World Youth Day that will be held in Panama next year. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Faithful gather in Rome's Circus Maximus as they wait for the arrival of Pope Francis to lead an evening prayer vigil with youths, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. Thousand of youths gathered for the meeting with the pontiff in preparation for the next World Youth Day that will be held in Panama next year. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Faithful gather in Rome's Circus Maximus as they wait for the arrival of Pope Francis to lead an evening prayer vigil with youths, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. Thousand of youths gathered for the meeting with the pontiff in preparation for the next World Youth Day that will be held in Panama next year. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Faithful gather in Rome's Circus Maximus as they wait for the arrival of Pope Francis to lead an evening prayer vigil with youths, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018. Thousand of youths gathered for the meeting with the pontiff in preparation for the next World Youth Day that will be held in Panama next year. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)
TORNILLO, Texas (AP) - Texas lawmakers say they have been told atemporary tent shelter in far West Texas for immigrant minors will stay open another month.

State Reps. Ina Minjarez and Diego Bernal of San Antonio told the San Antonio Express-News that they toured the Tornillo facility Friday. About 170 teen boys are being housed in tents at Tornillo. The U.S. government opened the facility in June because its existing shelters were at capacity. More than 2,000 children were put in government shelters after being separated from their parents under the Trump administration's zero-tolerance policy.

U.S. Department of Health and Human Services spokesman Brian Marriott said Saturday that an existing contract for the facility that was due to expire Aug. 13 has been extended by 30 days.
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - Investigators are piecing together how an airline ground agent stole an empty commercial airplane, took off from Sea-Tac International Airport and crashed into a small island in the Puget Sound after being chased by military jets that were quickly scrambled to intercept the aircraft.

Officials said Saturday that the man was a 3.5-year Horizon Airlines employee and had clearance to be among aircraft, but that to their knowledge, he wasn't a licensed pilot.

The 29-year-old used a machine called a pushback tractor to first maneuver the aircraft, which was in a maintenance area, so he could board and then take off Friday evening, authorities said.

The site on Ketron Island in Washington state where an Horizon Air turboprop plane crashed after it was stolen from Sea-Tac International Airport is seen from the air, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018, near Steilacoom, Wash. Investigators were working to find out how an airline employee stole the plane Friday and crashed it after being chased by military jets that were quickly scrambled to intercept the aircraft. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

A U.S. official briefed on the matter told The Associated Press the man was Richard Russell. The official wasn't authorized to discuss the matter and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Video showed the Horizon Air Q400, a turboprop plane that seats 76 people, doing large loops and other dangerous maneuvers as the sun set on Puget Sound.

Two F-15C aircraft were scrambled from Portland and pursued the plane but authorities say they didn't fire on it before it crashed on tiny Ketron Island, southwest of Tacoma, Washington. Video showed fiery flames amid trees on the island, which is sparsely populated and only accessible by ferry. No structures on the ground were damaged by the plane, which sparked a small wildfire.

"It is highly fragmented," Debra Eckrote, the Western Pacific regional chief for the National Transportation Safety Board, said of the plane. "The wings are off, the fuselage is, I think, kind of positioned upside down."

Investigators expect they will be able to recover both the cockpit voice recorder and the event data recorder from the plane.

Russell is presumed to have died in the crash.

He could be heard on audio recordings telling air traffic controllers that he is "just a broken guy."

An air traffic controller tried to convince him to land the airplane.

"There is a runway just off to your right side in about a mile," the controller says, referring to an airfield at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.

"Oh man. Those guys will rough me up if I try and land there," the man responded, later adding "This is probably jail time for life, huh?"

Later the man said: "I've got a lot of people that care about me. It's going to disappoint them to hear that I did this ... Just a broken guy, got a few screws loose, I guess."

Russell's family said in a statement that they are stunned and heartbroken. They referenced the recordings of him talking to air traffic controllers and said and that it's clear Russell, who went by the nickname "Beebo," didn't intend to harm anyone and "he was right in saying that there are so many people who loved him."

Horizon Air is part of Alaska Air Group and flies shorter routes throughout the U.S. West. The Q400 is a turboprop aircraft with 76 seats.

At a news conference in Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, officials from Alaska Airlines and Horizon Air said that they are still working with authorities as they investigate what happened.

"Last night's event is going to push us to learn what we can from this tragedy so that we can ensure this does not happen again at Alaska Air Group or at any other airline," said Brad Tilden, CEO of Alaska Airlines.

The bizarre incident involving a worker who authorities said was suicidal points to one of the biggest potential perils for commercial air travel: airline or airport employees causing mayhem.

"The greatest threat we have to aviation is the insider threat," Erroll Southers, a former FBI agent and transportation security expert, told the AP. "Here we have an employee who was vetted to the level to have access to the aircraft and had a skill set proficient enough to take off with that plane."

Ground service agents direct aircraft for takeoff and gate approach and de-ice planes, as well as handle baggage.

There was no connection to terrorism, said Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the sheriff's department.

Coaches at Wasilla High School in Alaska, where Russell was a football player, wrestler and discus thrower, told the Anchorage Daily News they are shocked at the news.

Track and field coach Gary Howell said he was "absolutely the kind of kid you want on your team."

"He had that energy, that vibrance," Howell said. "He was that kid you high-five in the hallway even if you don't know him."

On social media pages, Russell said he lived in Sumner, Washington, and was married in 2012.

In a humorous YouTube video he posted last year, he talked about his job and included videos and photos of his various travels.

"I lift a lot of bags. Like a lot of bags. So many bags," he said.

___

Ridler reported from, Idaho. AP reporter Mike Balsamo in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

A plane flies past a control tower at Sea-Tac International Airport Friday evening, Aug. 10, 2018, in SeaTac, Wash. An airline mechanic stole an Alaska Airlines plane without any passengers and took off from Sea-Tac International Airport in Washington state on Friday night before crashing near Ketron Island, officials said. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Smoke rises from the site on Ketron Island in Washington state where an Horizon Air turboprop plane crashed Friday after it was stolen from Sea-Tac International Airport as seen from the air, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018, near Steilacoom, Wash. Investigators were working to find out how an airline employee stole the plane Friday and crashed it after being chased by military jets that were quickly scrambled to intercept the aircraft. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Pierce County Sheriff Paul Pastor talks on his phone at a staging area, Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, at the ferry terminal in Steilacoom, Wash., near where a Coast Guard spokeswoman said the agency was responding to a report of a smoke plume and possible plane crash. Earlier in the evening, officials at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport said an Alaska Airlines plane had been stolen and later crashed. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Workers gather in a staging area Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018, near Steilacoom, Wash., near the site on Ketron Island in Washington state where an Horizon Air turboprop plane crashed Friday after it was stolen from Sea-Tac International Airport. Investigators were working to find out how an airline employee stole the plane and crashed it after being chased by military jets that were quickly scrambled to intercept the aircraft. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Alaska Airlines planes sit on the tarmac at Sea-Tac International Airport Friday evening, Aug. 10, 2018, in SeaTac, Wash. An airline mechanic stole an Alaska Airlines plane without any passengers and took off from Sea-Tac International Airport in Washington state on Friday night before crashing near Ketron Island, officials said. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Law enforcement officials stand at a staging area, Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, at the ferry terminal in Steilacoom, Wash., near where a Coast Guard spokeswoman said the agency was responding to a report of a smoke plume and possible plane crash. Earlier in the evening, officials at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport said an Alaska Airlines plane had been stolen and later crashed. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Ffire trucks drive toward a ferry boat headed to Ketron Island, Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, at the ferry terminal in Steilacoom, Wash. An airline mechanic stole an empty Horizon Air turboprop plane, took off from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and was chased by military jets before crashing onto Ketron, a small island in the Puget Sound, on Friday night, officials said. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Ferry workers stand by as fire trucks are parked on a ferry boat headed to Ketron Island, Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, at the ferry terminal in Steilacoom, Wash. An airline mechanic stole an empty Horizon Air turboprop plane, took off from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport and was chased by military jets before crashing onto Ketron, a small island in the Puget Sound, on Friday night, officials said. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

Alaska Airlines planes sit on the tarmac at Sea-Tac International Airport Friday evening, Aug. 10, 2018, in SeaTac, Wash. An airline mechanic stole an Alaska Airlines plane without any passengers and took off from Sea-Tac International Airport in Washington state on Friday night before crashing near Ketron Island, officials said. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Planes sit on the tarmac at Sea-Tac International Airport after service was halted after an Alaska Airlines plane was stolen Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, in Wash. An airline mechanic stole an Alaska Airlines plane without any passengers and took off from Sea-Tac International Airport in Washington state on Friday night before crashing near Ketron Island, officials said. (Bettina Hansen /The Seattle Times via AP)

Alaska Airlines and other planes sit on the tarmac at Sea-Tac International Airport Friday evening, Aug. 10, 2018, in SeaTac, Wash. An airline mechanic stole an Alaska Airlines plane without any passengers and took off from Sea-Tac International Airport in Washington state on Friday night before crashing near Ketron Island, officials said. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Traffic arrives at Sea-Tac International Airport terminal Friday evening, Aug. 10, 2018, in SeaTac, Wash. An airline mechanic stole an Alaska Airlines plane without any passengers and took off from Sea-Tac International Airport in Washington state on Friday night before crashing near Ketron Island, officials said.(AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Law enforcement vehicles are shown, Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, at the ferry terminal in Steilacoom, Wash., near where a Coast Guard spokeswoman said the agency was responding to a report of a smoke plume and possible plane crash. Earlier in the evening, officials at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport said an Alaska Airlines plane had been stolen and later crashed. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

People stand in the Alaska Airlines ticket area at Sea-Tac International Airport Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, in SeaTac, Wash. An airline mechanic stole an Alaska Airlines plane without any passengers and took off from Sea-Tac International Airport in Washington state on Friday night before crashing near Ketron Island, officials said. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

A reader board shows a number of flights delayed at Sea-Tac International Airport Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, in SeaTac, Wash. An airline mechanic stole an Alaska Airlines plane without any passengers and took off from Sea-Tac International Airport in Washington state on Friday night before crashing near Ketron Island, officials said. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

People wait near the luggage area at Sea-Tac International Airport Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, in SeaTac, Wash. An airline mechanic stole an Alaska Airlines plane without any passengers and took off from Sea-Tac International Airport in Washington state on Friday night before crashing near Ketron Island, officials said. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

People stand in the Alaska Airlines ticket area at Sea-Tac International Airport Friday, Aug. 10, 2018, in SeaTac, Wash.An airline mechanic stole an Alaska Airlines plane without any passengers and took off from Sea-Tac International Airport in Washington state on Friday night before crashing near Ketron Island, officials said. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson)

Workers wearing yellow hard hats are seen at upper right from the air Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018, near Steilacoom, Wash., at the site on Ketron Island in Washington state where an Horizon Air turboprop plane crashed after it was stolen from Sea-Tac International Airport Friday. Investigators were working to find out how an airline employee stole the plane and crashed it after being chased by military jets that were quickly scrambled to intercept the aircraft. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

The site on Ketron Island in Washington state where an empty Horizon Air turboprop plane crashed Friday after it was stolen from Sea-Tac International Airport is seen from the air, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018, near Steilacoom, Wash. Investigators were working to find out how an airline employee stole the plane and crashed it after being chased by military jets that were quickly scrambled to intercept the aircraft. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

The site on Ketron Island in Washington state where an empty Horizon Air turboprop plane crashed Friday after it was stolen from Sea-Tac International Airport is seen from the air, Saturday, Aug. 11, 2018, near Steilacoom, Wash. Investigators were working to find out how an airline employee stole the plane and crashed it after being chased by military jets that were quickly scrambled to intercept the aircraft. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)
TANZANIA and Netherlands yesterday signed here an agreement for massive production of Irish potatoes, with the government praising Sagcot for making the enterprise possible.

The document was signed by the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Agriculture, Mr Mathew Mtigumwe and the Dutch Ambassador to Tanzania, Mr Jeroen Verheul. The signing ceremony was witnessed by the Deputy Minister in the Presidents Office, Regional Administration and Local Governments (TAMISEMI), Josephat Kandege, Sagcot officials, RCs and DCs.

Mr Kandege thanked the Dutch government for bringing into Tanzania four companies experienced in potato production that will promote potato value chain and put Tanzania on the world potato map. But he quickly added that the important joint venture was made possible because of the efforts and determination of workers of the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania (Sagcot).

Mr Kandege appealed to the Dutch government to spread this kind of production cooperation to other crops. Mr Verheul said Sagcot played a big role in making the agreement possible, adding that the cardinal aim in the cooperation is to increase potato production output and increase growers disposable income.

He said a potato centre of excellence and a demonstration farm will be built in Uyole, in the environs of Mbeya City. The Sagcot Chief Executive Officer, Mr Geoffrey Kirenga, welcomed the cooperation, explaining that the four companies will invest smoothly in the production of the crop and eliminate erstwhile disappointing challenges.

The potato seed challenge has been overcome. We used to have three varieties; now we have eleven. A lot of potatoes remained in the soil during harvesting. Now we have tools to pull all potatoes from the soil. These are obvious indicators that production and productivity will go up, Mr Kirenga explained.

He said growers and workers will be taught how to use the harvesting implements. Sagcot is a public-private partnership funded by the government and other partners who include UKaid, USAID, Norway and World Bank.
An explosion at a defence firms factory near Salisbury has killed one person and left another in a critical condition.

Fire broke out at the Chemring Countermeasures facility on Friday evening after the blast in a flare manufacturing building.

The blaze was later extinguished as emergency services contained the incident.

Police say the incident has been contained (Yui Mok/PA)

Wiltshire Police said it was investigating the explosion with health and safety officers, and reassured the public that they faced no further risk.

The firm said it had also launched a full and immediate investigation.

A police spokesman said: The ambulance service contacted Wiltshire Police and Dorset and Wiltshire Fire and Rescue Service just after 5pm today following reports of an explosion at the Chemring Countermeasures plant on High Post Road, Netton.

Six fire crews were in attendance. Two were from Salisbury and the rest from Andover, Fordingbridge, Pewsey and Cranbourne and were supported by the incident command vehicle from Devizes.

An initial fire on site has been extinguished. We have two casualties that have been identified.

One of them sadly died at the scene and the other has been taken to hospital in a critical condition.

No further details of the casualties were released and police were yet to inform next of kin on Friday night.

The spokesman added: The incident has been contained and there is no risk to people in the local area.

Wiltshire Police and the Health and Safety Executive will now be leading the investigation into the cause of the incident.

With around 2,600 employees worldwide, Chemring Countermeasures produces flares, chaff and decoys to protect military and civilian air and sea platforms, the companys website says.

It has also designed countermeasure systems for the Eurofighter Typhoon fighter jet.

1/3

Chemring Group PLC confirms that at approximately 5pm on Friday 10th August, an incident occurred in a flare manufacturing building at the Chemring Countermeasures facility, near Salisbury.  Chemring (@Chemring_Group) August 10, 2018

2/3

There has been one fatality and one employee is currently receiving treatment in hospital. The site was immediately evacuated, and the incident brought under control. The emergency services are in attendance.  Chemring (@Chemring_Group) August 10, 2018

3/3

Chemring has launched a full and immediate investigation into the cause of the incident. A further announcement will be made as information becomes available. The thoughts and support of all Chemring Group are with the families at this time.  Chemring (@Chemring_Group) August 10, 2018

The firms business director, Andy Hogben, said in a statement: Chemring Group PLC confirms that at approximately 5pm on Friday August 10 an incident occurred in a flare manufacturing building at the Chemring Countermeasures factory near Salisbury.

There has been one fatality and one employee is currently receiving treatment in hospital.

The site was immediately evacuated and the incident brought under control. The emergency services are in attendance.

Chemring has launched an investigation into the cause of the incident. The thoughts and support of Chemring Group are with the families at this time.
World number one Simona Halep triumphed in a re-match of last years quarter-final against Caroline Garcia to book her spot in the final four at the Rogers Cup.

The pair once again squared up in the last eight in Montreal  but any hopes Garcia had of reversing last years outcome were quickly crushed.

The Frenchwoman started strongly, using her powerful serving to keep Halep at bay for much of the first set.

Simona Halep celebrates her victory over Caroline Garcia (Paul Chiasson/The Canadian Press via AP)

But with the scores finely poised at 5-5, the Romanian ramped up the pressure and reeled off 12 of the last 14 points to seal the set.

The second set was a more one-sided affair, with Halep breaking three times to race to a 7-5 6-1 victory in just 88 minutes.

The top seed had 19 winners and just 12 unforced errors in the encounter, and will now face Australias Ashleigh Barty in the semi-finals.

Number 15 seed Barty ended an impressive run from Kiki Bertens, beating the Dutch number one 6-3 6-1.

Bertens, who had dismissed top-10 seeds Karolina Pliskova and Petra Kvitova on her way to the last eight, struggled with 31 unforced errors and never faced a break point against her opponent.

Barty took a single break of serve in the first set, before breaking three times in the second and capitalising on her first match point.

Meanwhile, defending champion Elina Svitolina continued her run of form  rallying from 4-0 down in the first set to beat Belgiums Elise Mertens.

The number five seed used her impressive forehand to turn the match around, needing four breaks of serve to clinch the first set.

She then saved a break point in the opening game of the second before pulling ahead at 4-3 and claiming a 7-5 6-3 win.

Svitolina will meet reigning US Open champion Sloane Stephens in the semi-finals, after the American thrashed Anastasija Sevastova.

Stephens lost just four games and struck 18 winners on her way to a 6-2 6-2 victory in just 69 minutes.
A suicidal airline mechanic stole an empty Alaska Airlines plane and took off from Sea-Tac International Airport in Washington state before crashing near a small island, officials said.

Preliminary information suggests that the 29-year-old mechanic stole the Horizon Air Q400 and the crash occurred because the person was doing stunts in the air or lack of flying skills, the Pierce County Sheriffs Department said.

Witnesses reported seeing the plane being chased by military aircraft before it crashed near Ketron Island, south west of Tacoma, Washington. There were no passengers aboard.

Alaska Airlines planes sit on the tarmac at Sea-Tac International Airport (Elaine Thompson/AP)

Ed Troyer, a spokesman for the Pierce County Sheriffs Department, said on Twitter that the man was suicidal and there was no connection to terrorism.

Male is confirmed a suicidal male. Acted alone he is 29 year old Pierce county residence . We are working back ground on him now.  Pierce Co Sheriff (@PierceSheriff) August 11, 2018

The sheriffs department said they were working to conduct a background investigation on the man, whose name was not immediately released.

The man could be heard on audio recordings telling air traffic controllers that he is just a broken guy.

@PierceCo is responding to crash on Ketron Island of reported stolen aircraft fm SeaTac. @PierceSheriff and @WestPierce have units on-site or enroute. PC Steilacoom Ferry is supporting response & we apologize for inconvenience to riders. More information to follow.  Pierce Co Executive (@pc_executive) August 11, 2018

The US Coast Guard sent a 45-foot vessel to the crash scene after witnesses reported seeing a large plume of smoke in the air, Petty Officer Ali Flockerzi said.

Horizon Air is part of Alaska Air Group and flies shorter routes throughout the US West. The Q400 is a turboprop aircraft with 76 seats.
Conservative MPs support for Boris Johnson over his comments comparing Muslim women in burkas to bank robbers has shone a light on the underbelly of Islamophobia within the party, the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) has said.

Harun Khan, MCB secretary general, said the former foreign secretarys comments, which have attracted criticism and divided opinion since appearing in the Daily Telegraph on Monday, had a real and worrying impact on the Muslim community.

He also said the MCB received Islamophobic hate mail off the back of the furore, some describing Muslims as barbarians.

Boris Johnson is yet to respond to the furore sparked by his article on Monday (Victoria Jones/PA)

Mr Khans comments came as fellow prominent Conservative Jacob Rees-Mogg said the partys investigation into Mr Johnson had been set up as a show trial in a bid to derail any plans the former Cabinet minister may have to seek the Tory party leadership.

Mr Johnson is yet to respond to the furore sparked by the article, in which he opposed a ban on the burka or niqab, but branded the face-covering veils ridiculous and oppressive and said Muslim women wearing them looked like letter-boxes or bank robbers.

He made no comment to waiting reporters as he returned home from a holiday abroad on Saturday, but is expected to break his silence in his next Telegraph column on Monday.

In a statement, Mr Khan said: The impact of Boris Johnsons comments are real and worrying and indicate the importance of a full, transparent and independent investigation into his conduct, in particular given the lack of action in previous cases of Islamophobia in the party.

The comments and belief by a number of Conservative MPs that not even an apology is required has shone a light on the underbelly of Islamophobia that is present within the party  one that can only be tackled by sincerely changing course and positively responding to calls for an independent inquiry into Islamophobia in the party.

Further condemnation came from Andrew Cooper, David Camerons former Downing Street aide, who pulled no punches with his assessment of Mr Johnson.

In a Twitter post, he wrote: The rottenness of Boris Johnson goes deeper even than his casual racism and his equally casual courting of fascism.

He will advocate literally anything to play to the crowd of the moment. His career is a saga of moral emptiness and lies; pathetic, weak and needy; the opposite of strong.

There were further signs of grassroots Tory anger over the affair, with the Telegraph giving over its whole letters page to reaction from readers after being inundated with messages of support for Mr Johnson.

And it was reported that letters have been sent to the party complaining about chairman Brandon Lewis, whose demand for an apology from Mr Johnson provoked an escalation in the row earlier this week.

Mr Rees-Mogg suggested the attacks on Mr Johnsons comment were a reflection of envy felt towards him because of his many successes, popularity with voters and charisma.

The howls of outrage directed at the former figurehead of the Leave campaign were suspect and the motivations of those attacking him dubious, said the North East Somerset MP.

Could it be that there is a nervousness that a once and probably future leadership contender is becoming too popular and needs to be stopped? asked Mr Rees-Mogg.

This may explain the attempt to use the Conservative Partys disciplinary procedures, but it has been handled so ham-fistedly that it brings only sympathy and support for Mr Johnson.

And he added: When Margaret Thatcher was leader, she and Michael Heseltine were hardly soulmates, but she would not have allowed personal rivalry to take the heat off the Labour Party, whose own deep internal divisions are buried in other news now, nor would she have countenanced any attempt to have a show trial.

Attacking Boris merely helps the Opposition. It is time for good sense to assert itself, free speech to be encouraged and, as the summer rain falls, for hot-headed action to be cooled down.

Mr Johnsons comments on the burka have been branded inflammatory and divisive by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, but the watchdog made clear it was not launching its own investigation.

A panel including one independent figure, one representative of the voluntary party and one nominated by the backbench 1922 Committee, will look into complaints that Mr Johnsons comments breached the Conservative Partys code of conduct.

Under party rules, the head of the panel may dismiss the complaints if they are found to be obviously trivial, lacking in merit or unable to be fairly investigated.

Disciplinary action could lead to Mr Johnson being suspended or even expelled from the Tories, but would risk igniting civil war in a party many of whose members see him as the best option to succeed Mrs May as leader.

But there have also been suggestions that he could be ordered to attend a diversity training course.
The leader of a third major trade union has called on Labour to adopt in full the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliances definition of anti-Semitism.

The call from the general secretary of shopworkers union Usdaw, Paddy Lillis, comes after similar interventions by Unison and the GMB and intensifies pressure for a revision of Labours anti-Semitism code of conduct, currently subject to consultation with Jewish groups.

Jeremy Corbyn was also facing fresh questions about a 2014 visit to a Palestinian cemetery in Tunisia, after claims that photographs showed him holding a wreath near the graves of those responsible for the massacre of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Mr Corbyn was also facing fresh questions about a 2014 visit to a Palestinian cemetery in Tunisia (John Linton/PA)

The visit hit the headlines during last years general election campaign, when Labour said Mr Corbyn had been paying his respects at a memorial to those killed by an Israeli air strike on Palestine Liberation Organisation offices in Tunis in 1985.

But the Daily Mail said that its own visit to the Martyrs Cemetery had shown the memorial was 15 yards away from the spot where Mr Corbyn was pictured in photographs held in the Palestinian Embassy website archive.

The newspaper said the pictures were taken in front of a plaque honouring three men, including the founder of the Black September organisation which carried out the Munich atrocity and yards from the grave of PLO intelligence chief Atef Bseiso.

Saturdays MAIL: Corbyns wreath at graves of Munich terrorists #tomorrowspaperstoday pic.twitter.com/X6rJvpMR24  Helen Miller (@MsHelicat) August 10, 2018

The director of Labour Friends of Israel, Jennifer Gerber, told the Mail: It beggars belief that anyone would wish to honour the terrorists behind the brutal massacre of 11 Israeli athletes at Munich.

However, it is sadly utterly unsurprising that Jeremy Corbyn appears to have done so.

But Labour sources insisted Mr Corbyn had already provided a full answer about his presence in the cemetery, when he said last year: I was in Tunisia at a Palestinian conference and I spoke at that Palestinian conference and I laid a wreath to all those that had died in the air attack that took place on Tunis, on the headquarters of the Palestinian organisations there.

And I was accompanied by very many other people who were at a conference searching for peace.

The pictures emerged amid continuing controversy over Labours refusal to adopt the IHRA text in full, including its list of examples of anti-Semitic behaviour.

Mr Lillis, who is a member of the partys ruling National Executive Committee, told the Jewish News he was shocked to find the party mired in allegations of racism.

EXCLUSIVE: Third Union boss urges Labour to adopt full IHRA definition@PaddyLillisGS of @UsdawUnion follows @DavePrentis of @unisontweets and @Tim_Roache of @GMB_union in demanding a reversal of the @UKLabours position on defining anti-Semitism



https://t.co/8MckZzwjoW  Jewish News (@JewishNewsUK) August 11, 2018

Jeremy Corbyn has clearly stated that there is a problem with anti-Semitism in the Labour Party and he is right in his determination to tackle it, said the Usdaw boss.

If we are to do that, it is essential that the Party regains the trust of Jewish communities. As a first step we should immediately amend the Code of Conduct to adopt the full International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism, including the examples.

Calls for the full adoption of the IHRA text have also been made in the past few days by GMB general secretary Tim Roache and Unisons Dave Prentis.

A Labour Party spokesman said: The code of conduct adopts the IHRA definition and expands on and contextualises its examples to produce robust, legally sound guidelines that a political party can apply to disciplinary cases.

The NEC upheld the adoption of the code of conduct on anti-Semitism, but in recognition of the serious concerns expressed, agreed to re-open the development of the code, in consultation with Jewish community organisations and groups, in order to better reflect their views.
Thousands of Romanians held another anti-government protest on Saturday, a day after a earlier demonstration turned violent, leaving 455 people, including riot police, in need of medical treatment.

Protesters carrying Romanian, EU and other flags rallied outside government offices in Bucharest, the capital, the same place where the protest Friday had degenerated into violence.

Have no fear! Romanians will rise up! they yelled. Police placed traffic restrictions in the area.

A woman wears a headband that reads `no Criminals and a mask reading `Resignation (Andreea Alexandru/AP)

Critics say Romania has lost ground in fighting corruption since the ruling Social Democratic Party assumed power in 2016.

They are urging the government to resign and call a new election.

Earlier Saturday, Romanian riot police defended their use of force at the protest Friday night in which 70 people, including 11 riot police, had to be taken to hospital.

Marius Militaru, a spokesman for Romanias riot police, said police are pursuing charges against eight people for the violence.

Militaru said officers were ordered by Bucharest city officials to evacuate Victory Square late Friday after a protest in front of government offices that drew tens of thousands demanding the governments resignation.

A man poses next to a cardboard model of Romanian Prime Minister Viorica Dancila (Andreea Alexandru/AP)

Another police spokesman, Georgian Enache, said the legitimate state violence was justified because protesters had been warned several times to leave the square.

Riot police fired tear gas and water cannons to quell protesters.

Some people lobbed rocks, bottles and smoke bombs at riot police. Some people sustained head and other injuries while others were overcome by tear gas, authorities said.

Interior minister Carmen Dan said the riot police had not intervened against peaceful protesters, but against dangerous hooligans who attacked the states authority.

But President Klaus Iohannis, a critic of the left-wing government, condemned the brutal intervention of riot police on Friday night.

Three journalists said they were also subjected to police violence.

Austrian public broadcaster ORF said Saturday that a cameraman covering the protest was hit by police with truncheons and the TV presenter with him was shoved up against a wall.

A journalist filming the rally for Romanias Hotnews online website said he was kicked and shoved by riot police.

Isabela Conduruta, a 45-year-old Romanian who has worked as a cleaner for 12 years in Germany, explained why she joined Saturdays protest.

We want to return to Romania, but theres too much corruption and the health care is dismal, she told The Associated Press.
Americas ambassador in London has issued a call for the UK to join Donald Trump in putting pressure on Iran.

Britain and its European allies responded with dismay to Mr Trumps decision in May to pull out of the 2015 deal which relieved sanctions on Tehran in return to an end to Irans military nuclear ambitions.

Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt joined with his French and German counterparts last week to voice their deep regret at Washingtons withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and vow to protect European companies from US reprisals if they continue to trade with Iran.

London has made clear it is committed to the JCPOA but is open to talking to the US about ways to address shared concerns about Irans regional activities.

On Tuesday, Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt said that the US had not got this right and Britain was ready to stand up to Mr Trump, telling the BBC: Sometimes you need to take a stand against friends.

But Ambassador Woody Johnson urged the UK to rethink its position.

In an article in the Sunday Telegraph, he said: It is time to move on from the flawed 2015 deal.

We are asking global Britain to use its considerable diplomatic power and influence and join us as we lead a concerted global effort towards a genuinely comprehensive agreement.

Mr Johnson said the Tehran regime had used the flow of money coming into the country since the easing of sanctions not to improve the lives of ordinary Iranians but to beef up spending on the military and networks of proxy forces and terrorists.

He accused Iran of launching cyber attacks against Western democracies, sponsoring Hizbollah terrorists in Lebanon, arming militants in Yemen and publicly threatening to destroy Israel.

It is clear that the danger from Iran did not diminish in the wake of the deal, he said. It grew.

Far from becoming a more responsible member of the international community, as we had all hoped, Iran grew bolder.

Ambassor Johnson arrived at the US embassy in London in August 2017 (John Stillwell/PA)

He called for a united front among Western nations to force Tehran into a change of course.

Only by presenting a united front can we exert the maximum possible pressure on the Iranian regime, and get it to finally change course and put an end to its malign and reckless activities both at home and abroad, said the ambassador.

If the regime does make tangible and sustained changes to behave like a normal country, America is prepared to resume full commercial and diplomatic relations. Iran will be free to develop advanced technologies and play a full role in the global economy.

Until then, America is turning up the pressure and we want the UK by our side.
By Tom Miles

GENEVA, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Russia largely failed in its bid to overturn the European Union's gas market rules in a World Trade Organization ruling published on Friday.

Russia launched the dispute in 2014, claiming that the EU's "Third Energy Package" and the EU's energy policy overall unfairly restricted and discriminated against Russia's gas export monopoly Gazprom.

Russia argued that the EU broke WTO rules by requiring the "unbundling" of gas transmission assets and production and supply assets, which effectively stopped Gazprom - long the major supplier of gas to Europe - from owning the pipelines through which it sent gas to the European market.

Russia said the EU had unfairly discriminated in favour of liquefied natural gas and upstream pipeline operators by exempting them from those unbundling requirements.

The panel of three WTO adjudicators ruled against Russia on those points.

However, they upheld Russia's complaint about an unbundling exemption for Germany's OPAL pipeline, granted on condition that Gazprom supplied no more than 50 percent of the gas in the pipeline.

The 50 percent cap could only be exceeded if 3 billion cubic metres of gas was released annually at a fixed price to competing suppliers on the Czech market.

The WTO panel also agreed that Croatia, Hungary and Lithuania had discriminated against Russia by requiring a security of energy supply assessment for foreign, but not domestic, pipeline operators.

The European Commission called the ruling an important positive outcome that secured the core elements of the Third Energy Package, a 2009 reform that sought to integrate the EU's energy market while increasing competition.

"The Commission will now analyse the ruling in detail, in particular as regards a limited number of issues on which the WTO-compatibility of EU energy policy has still not been recognised," it said in a statement.

Russia's Economy Ministry said the parts of the ruling that went in its favour would help to improve access for Russian gas on the European market, and to level the playing field for pipeline service providers.

"This is a positive precedent that makes it possible to change the norms that created obstacles for Russian suppliers in the EU market, both in EU legislation and in the legislation of its individual member countries," it said in a statement.

Gazprom said it had always said that European energy policy should take gas suppliers' interests into account, and therefore it was satisfied with the points where Russia had won.

Either side can appeal within 60 days. (Reporting by Tom Miles, additional reporting by Polina Ivanova, Ekaterina Golubkova and Foo Yun Chee Editing by Matthew Mpoke Bigg)
LONDON, Aug 10 (Reuters) - A transparent investigation must be held into an air strike in Yemen which killed dozens of children, a British Foreign Office minister said on Friday.

A Saudi-led coalition said on Friday it would investigate the strike on a bus in northern Yemen, the latest in a series of mass casualty air strikes in Yemen's war.

"Deeply concerned by reports of yesterday's attack in Saada, Yemen resulting in tragic deaths of so many children. Transparent investigation required," Alistair Burt, Minister of State for the Middle East, said on Twitter.

"UK calls on all parties to prevent civilian casualties and to cooperate with UN to reach a lasting political solution in Yemen." (Reporting by Kylie MacLellan; editing by Michael Holden)
By Helen Reid

LONDON, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Anxiety over emerging market assets sent Britain's FTSE 100 down on Friday as a currency crisis in Turkey deepened and Russia's rouble extended losses, dragging exposed stocks down.

The index fell 1 percent, though it outperformed Europe's STOXX 600 and Germany's DAX, which dropped 2.1 percent.

The FTSE 100 fell despite a slide in sterling, which usually supports the exporter-heavy index. The negative relationship between the two has evaporated recently. https://reut.rs/2OkPhOi

Many UK-listed companies derive a significant chunk of revenues from emerging markets, and several Russian companies are listed on the British stock market.

Russian gold miner Evraz was the worst-performing FTSE 100 stock, down 8.8 percent after broker VTB Capital downgraded it and the rouble fell to its lowest since July 2016 on anxiety over a fresh round of U.S. sanctions.

Russia-exposed miners Polymetal and Kaz Minerals fell 2.4 and 1.4 percent.

Smaller UK-listed stocks exposed to Turkey and nearby emerging markets were also bruised.

DP Eurasia, a franchisee of Domino's Pizza which generates 68 percent of sales in Turkey, sank 14.4 percent to the bottom of the small-caps index.

Travel operators On The Beach and Thomas Cook , which sell package holidays to Turkey, fell 4.1 percent and 1.9 percent respectively.

Georgian lenders TBC Bank brought up the rear on the FTSE 250, down 3.7 percent as the Georgian lari sold off.

Emerging markets-focused asset manager Ashmore tumbled 3.7 percent.

The Turkish lira's slide to record lows, as President Tayyip Erdogan dismissed investors' concerns, sent tremors across other emerging markets, with South Africa's rand falling to a six-week low.

This weighed on South Africa-exposed bank Investec, whose shares fell 3 percent. Packaging firm Mondi and miner Anglo American, also founded in South Africa, tumbled 2.3 and 2.6 percent.

Emerging markets-focused lender Standard Chartered fell 1.9 percent.

"Whilst generally EM economies are much stronger than they were 20 or 30 years ago you've still got some countries that are a bit of a mess," said Peter Elston, chief investment officer at Seneca Investment Managers.

"That's occasionally going to cause problems for the asset class as a whole, as it is doing at the moment."

Miners were a big weight on the FTSE 100, with Anglo American and Glencore falling 2.5 percent and 2.7 percent as copper prices fell on a stronger dollar.

Outside EM-driven moves, shares in engine maker Rolls-Royce fell 3.7 percent after JP Morgan downgraded the stock to "underweight".

"Relative to other civil aerospace stocks we follow, we think Rolls-Royce now offers investors a less attractive risk-reward," JPM analysts wrote, arguing the firm is showing deteriorating earnings quality.

The FTSE 250 fell less sharply, down 0.7 percent thanks to its less internationally exposed constituents.

"Mid-caps fell horribly following the (Brexit) vote, and they've since made back everything they've lost and more, which suggests they have been able to thrive in this post-ref vote environment," said Seneca's Elston.

However, he added, "earnings have been very mixed."

Analysts have been cautious on mid-cap earnings, while the index has been declining since a record high hit on June 14.

(Reporting by Helen Reid and Julien Ponthus; editing by Andrew Roche)
. . . JPM avails 10 tractors to SUA, 2bn/- to jack up institutions operations

PRESIDENT John Magufuli has honoured his pledge of providing ten tractors to Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA), to enable the institution produce competent experts in the field of agriculture.

The tractors worth 587.5m/- were handed over to the university yesterday by the Permanent Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Finance and Planning, Mr Doto James in Kibaha, Coast Region on behalf of the President.

The PS said that the institution has been provided with the tractors as part of the governments efforts towards transforming agriculture which employs majority of Tanzanians.

Mr James said that the tractors were an accomplishment of the promise made by President Magufuli during his impromptu visit to SUA headquarters in Morogoro Region in March, this year.

He called upon the university to make proper use of the tractors, noting that the government will make follow ups through the Ministry of Finance and Planning which monitors various development projects for institutions, funded by the government.

He said the institution should use expertise, knowledge and research findings to generate its income, produce competent qualified agricultural graduates who will not only become competent farmers, but also help in improving agricultural production in the country.

The PS also revealed that his office has already paid 2bn/- to SUA that was also promised by the President to mitigate students' accommodation needs by constructing more hostels.

SUA Vice-Chancellor, Professor Raphael Chibunda commended the President saying that his university will use the tractors for intended purposes and assured their safety, since the institution has already prepared a good parking lot for them and that it has got enough experienced experts for maintaining and servicing them.

The handover ceremony took place at Tractor Assembly Plant located in Kibaha District run by the National Development Corporation (NDC). They are assembled by Tanzanian engineers in collaboration with their counterparts from Poland.

According to the NDC Director General, Professor Damian Gabagambi, the tractors are durable and meet all required standards. He said that they are sold at affordable prices, with loan incentives where even poor Tanzanians can access them.

"There are more tractors and we (NDC) have set eight sales and assembling centres in Dodoma, Lindi, Simiyu, Geita, Katavi, Njombe and Manyara to reach more farmers in the country."

The Director General also revealed that his office is planning to work with different stakeholders from private and public sectors in repairing the tractors and that his office will have a total of 23 engineers by the end of this year, who have received technical knowledge in Poland.

The tractors are provided through a soft loan from Poland government and are supplied by URSUS SA Company from the same country.

Tanzania Agricultural Development Bank (TADB) Acting Managing Director, Mr Japhet Justine said his bank was determined to transform farmers from hand hoe agriculture to mechanised farming.

He called upon farmers to utilise the bank through accessing loans which will enable them to engage in modern agriculture.

During his official tour of Morogoro Region, President Magufuli visited SUA and he was informed that the institution was facing a major challenge of tractors and lack of students hostels, a situation that affected provision of education at the university.

The President pledged to provide the institution with tractors and funds for the construction of the hostel.
By Mitra Taj

PUCALLPA, Peru, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Peruvian President Martin Vizcarra told Reuters his government will likely pass laws within six months needed to tap a new lithium and uranium deposit, removing a major hurdle for Canadian miner Plateau Energy Metals' proposed $800 million mine.

Plateau said last month it had found 2.5 million tonnes of high-grade lithium resources and 124 million pounds of uranium resources at its Falchani deposit in southern Peru, and was looking for a partner in what it said could become the world's biggest lithium mine.

But the company identified a lack of regulations on mining radioactive materials in Peru as an obstacle. The lithium at Falchani, a hard-rock deposit, can only be mined by also extracting uranium.

Vizcarra said his energy and mines minister was already working on a legal framework for mining uranium and lithium.

"It has to be soon. I calculate within the next six months," Vizcarra said in an interview on Thursday in the Amazonian town of Pucallpa where he also discussed his proposed referendum on anti-graft measures.

Vizcarra said that with the right "mechanisms," the project could be a key driver of development in the highland region of Puno, where the project is located at an altitude of more than 14,700 feet. "If we manage to do this, that wealth will mainly benefit Puno," he said.

Lithium is largely concentrated in the so-called lithium triangle between Bolivia, Chile and Argentina. But if Plateau can confirm the size of its discovery in reserves, it might attract companies such as China's Tianqi Lithium Corp or U.S.-based Albemarle Corp, to Peru.

Vizcarra, a former governor of a small copper region, took office four months ago after his predecessor, Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, a former Wall Street banker, resigned to avoid impeachment in a graft scandal.

Vizcarra said he did not think that Newmont Mining Corp's Conga gold project or Southern Copper Corp's proposed Tia Maria copper mine - both stalled by farmers' protests - were socially viable yet. "They need to be analyzed," he said.

Vizcarra called a proposed railway for transporting mineral concentrates from Peru's southern mining belt, where MMG Ltd operates the Las Bambas copper operation and Strike Resources wants to build an iron-ore mine, a "good project."

Vizcarra said he would study the project, which was proposed under Kuczynski, next year but believed it would work using a mix of private and public financing. (Reporting by Mitra Taj Editing by James Dalgleish)
BOGOTA, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Colombia will ask the United Nations to designate a special envoy to coordinate humanitarian aid for the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan migrants flooding into countries around the region, the foreign minister said on Friday.

More than a million people have arrived in Colombia from Venezuela over the last year and a half, fleeing a severe economic and political crisis in the socialist country that has caused food and medicine shortages.

"We are going to insist on the strengthening of an emergency humanitarian fund and we are going to propose the creation of a special envoy under the United Nations who can coordinate the multilateral actions that are required because of the humanitarian crisis we are living," foreign minister Carlos Holmes Trujillo, who took office on Tuesday, told journalists.

Colombia has spent millions on aid for Venezuelan migrants, including food, shelter and medical care. Many arrive with only what they can carry and are often underfed.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley on Wednesday announced an additional $9 million in aid to Colombia to help with the crisis, during a visit to the border city of Cucuta.

Trujillo said he had not yet received a formal extradition request from Venezuela for six people it has accused of involvement in the explosion of drones at a military event last week and who are believed to be in Colombia. Venezuela's government has said the incident was a failed assassination attempt.

"I don't like to talk about hypotheses - we'll see. ... I've been told the request for extradition has not formally arrived, if it's going to arrive," the minister said. "If it arrives, we will review it."

Trujillo reiterated that Colombia would withdraw from the Union of South American Nations (Unasur), created a decade ago in an attempt to counterbalance U.S. influence in Latin America, in tandem with several other nations. Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay and Peru have already indefinitely suspended their participation in the body.

"We're consulting with other countries which apparently want to take the same route. If we consolidate a similar decision from these consultations, we'll act in conjunction. If not, we'll withdraw anyway." (Reporting by Luis Jaime Acosta; writing by Julia Symmes Cobb; editing by Jonathan Oatis)
No trains were operated from the Colombo Fort Railway Station this morning, the Railway Control Room said today.

All train journeys were cancelled due to the ongoing strike launched by the Railway Trade Union Alliance (RTUA) on Wednesday over salary anomalies of Railway employees.

Speaking to the Daily Mirror, a spokesman from the Control Room said the night mail train which was scheduled to leave from the Fort Railway Station was also cancelled.

However, he said the trains with fuel carriages left for Kolonnawa this morning. (Chaturanga Samarawickrama)
The United National Party (UNP), the joint opposition and the Tamil National Alliance (TNA), are of the view that the provincial council elections should be conducted under the previous system if it takes time for the new election laws to be operational.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe met representatives of the political parties on Thursday evening to discuss matters relating to the elections. There is a gridlock regarding the new electoral laws which are delaying the provincial councils elections based on a mix of first-past-the post system and proportional representation.

The elections to three provincial councils are long overdue while the term of office of three more councils will expire in October.

TNA MP M.A. Sumanthiran who attended the meeting told Daily Mirror the holding of elections in time was more important than the system which they considered was secondary.

He said the elections should be held under the old system if it takes time to approve the new system. Mr. Sumanthiran said the UNP and the JO were also of the same view.

He said a two-thirds majority could be secured in Parliament to repeal the new law enabling the elections to be held under the previous proportional representation system.

Blurb -- There is a gridlock regarding the new electoral laws which are delaying the provincial councils elections based on a mix of first-past-the post system and proportional representation. (Kelum Bandara)
Everyone eligible should be vaccinated against COVID-19 as a condition of long-distance travel or employment.

Vaccination should be voluntary but those who don't get vaccinated should be frequently tested for COVID-19 as a condition of long-distance travel and employment.

Both vaccination and testing should be voluntary and not required as a condition of long-distance travel or employment.

I defer to the judgment of lawmakers as long as they base their decisions on a consensus of medical professionals.

Vote

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Fairbanks Ranch Country Club is facing a federal lawsuit accusing the club of failing to protect female employees from a general manager who allegedly groped them, solicited nude photographs and even offered one woman to male customers for lap dances.

The federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed the lawsuit Thursday, Aug. 9, after the agency and the club failed to reach a pre-litigation settlement, the agency announced in a news release. The lawsuit alleges the club violated laws against sexual harassment and discrimination and retaliation against employees who complain.The general manager was the clubs sole decision-maker and could hire and fire employees at will, according to the EEOC. He allegedly used his power to require sexual favors in exchange for job benefits and threatened to fire or cut the work hours of employees who refused. The hostile workplace allegedly had some of the women feel their only option was to quit their jobs.

"The allegations of this case are especially shocking, being that a general manager was involved, Christopher Green, director of the EEOCs office in San Diego, said in a statement. Having ultimate hiring authority does not permit leveraging that power to take from those who work for you."

The EEOC also alleges the manager choked one of the clubs female employees.

Because the managers sexual harassment was so prevalent at the club, other male employees felt free to sexually harass their female coworkers as well, the EEOC alleged.

Annie Appel, executive vice president for The Bay Club Company, a group of private member clubs including Fairbanks Ranch Country Club, provided a statement Thursday, Aug. 9, in response to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

The Bay Club Company is aware of the EEOCs allegations and will respond in a timely manner to the claims made in the complaint, the statement said. TBCC is committed to a safe, harassment free work environment for everyone.

The EEOCs lawsuit seeks compensation and punitive damages for the alleged victims and a court order to prevent Fairbanks Ranch from future discrimination.
A Torrey Pines High School graduate whose online threats in May prompted school officials to cancel classes for a day was sentenced Friday, Aug. 10, to a residential treatment facility and placed on probation for five years.

Kevin Matlak, 21, pleaded guilty in July to one count of making a criminal threat.

He posted a photo on his Instagram account showing himself holding an AR-15 assault rifle, an image of a decapitated head, the phrase I hate all of you and a veiled threat that no one was going to graduate from Torrey Pines High, authorities said.

Another post said Get the (expletive) out of San Diego 2K18 before I find u.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Polly Shamoon sentenced Matlak to up to one year in custody, starting immediately at a residential substance abuse treatment facility instead of county jail.

He is to undergo at least six months of substance abuse and mental health treatment at a rural East County facility, Genesis Recovery Inc.

You cant leave without the courts express approval, Shamoon told Matlak.

The judge also ordered Matlak to stay 1,000 yards away from his former high school, to allow law enforcement access to his electronic devices, and to stay away from the three individuals who read his online posts and felt threatened.

Defense attorney Brian Watkins told the judge his client doesnt know those people.

This satisfies the public safety that were very concerned with and hopefully gets him the help he needs, Deputy District Attorney Matthew Greco said after the sentencing.

The three former classmates of Matlak, who graduated in 2015, reported seeing his Instagram posts on May 30 and reported them to San Diego police.

Police confiscated the rifle Matlak had posed with and the next day arrested him in Point Loma. Greco did not say how or where police obtained the rifle.

As soon as Matlak was released from jail on bail, he had himself admitted into a treatment facility, Watkins said at a previous court hearing. Matlak later was released from the facility and booked into jail.

The high school principal decided to cancel classes on May 31 as a precaution because of the threats.

Principal Robb Coppo wrote a letter to the court saying what an impact that day had on him and his staff, Greco said.

The letter said that, before getting word of the arrest, administrators came to the realization that they were going to have to put themselves in harms way in order to ensure that the school was closed, Greco said.

He said Matlak originally was charged with three counts of criminal threats, involving the three reported victims, and could have spent up to four years and four months in prison.

The plea bargain included dismissal of two of the counts and agreement that he would not spend more time behind bars unless he violates the terms of his five-year probation.

A second case against Matlak, in which he was accused of stealing an acquaintances credit card and using it, was dismissed when he pleaded guilty in the school threats case.
I think it is time for white people to be proud of their heritage and stop having it being denegrated in the media. Whites are seen in the media as being racist, "homophobic", evil, resistant of change and just against a new social order. The Jews run the media and they hate white people. Before you call this "racist" look it up. Who runs the media...Ashkenazi Jews. Do Jews hate white people, yes they do and it is pretty clear that they do. They toss out the "Holocaust". "oh Vey, those mean white people, sticking my grandpa Schlomo in an oven and making Aunt Minnie into a lampshade." While "Holocaust museums are sprouting up all over America like McDonalds making lots of shekels forcing children to tour their fantasyland of pajamas, old shoes and suitcases and propagating the same old anti-white line. Jews hate whites and they make money off the tragedy of their ancestors (including a gift shop, look it up). But they consider it a "false narrative" when the Ukrainian Holomodor is brought up, where the mostly Jewish regime in the USSR starved and murdered millions of farmers in the Ukraine in ethnic clensing. All people have suffered genocide. The Jews have committed genocide. Who owned the slave ships in the 1600's-1700's? The roster of owners of slave ships to America reads like the Tel Aviv phonebook, and they have the audacity to call us haters.



Whether you like it or not, whites created everything. Name something that was not created by a white person, there isnt much. Firecrackers? What? If there were no white people, there would be no civilization, no inventions, no anything. You would be living in a mud hut or cave throwing spears at large animals for food and collecting berries. There is no part of the non-white World whose lot wasnt dramatically improved when whites came in and improved their standards of life, literacy and economics.



"Diversity" is a code word for "anti-white". Large companies are forced to hire non whites by the government, if they were not, not many non whites would be hired, because whites do the job much better because whites are more intelligent. How many billions of tax dollars, which forces whites to work long hours and/or multiple jobs to keep up while supporting Shorlanda and her five kids by five "baby daddies" using a welfare card to eat at McDonalds. Shorlanda,"Me dont need to cook, white people cook, my babies needs this money and hambooga." Blacks are 13 percent of the population but commit over 50% of violent and property crime. The rich diversity hypocrites and scum like Bernie Sanders and his thieving wife live behind all white gated communities. Maxine Waters lives among the white people too, why doesnt Maxine live in the district she "serves"? Because she knows it is dangerous and her black ass might get robbed or raped, that's why.



I really dont like modern white people anyway. Just spineless and wont fight for what is there, and too busy watching the JewTube and being indoctrinated that they have been the problem instead of the saviors of humanity. Just pointless people working pointless jobs, chasing a career, paying outrageous taxes without rising up in protest and just sheep to the slaughter. Women with tattoos, goofy people who get married, have a couple of kids and then the first minor sign of trouble demand a divorce, something very easy to get. Women, if your minor child has a different last name than you, that's trashy. Trashy. Many whites give up under this bullshit and turn to the sweet relief of opiates, and the Jewish media again is more than happy to show whites on the sidewalk stoned out of their minds before the happy news of the Sodomite Pride Parade.



The agenda is working. Homosexuality is the new normal normal, the traditional Family is marganalized. Whites are being forced to slave and pay taxes for worthless eaters, and not being able to have their own children (whites dont have kids until their 30's if even while Shorlanda is pushing them out starting at 12 with an increase in white people's taxes, our government supports irresponsibility with reward while penalizes the responsible, sick.)



Too bad the media is ran by white hating jews and we cannot get a real picture of what is really going on in the USA. There are lots of things we need to pay attention to, but the news reports on bullshit like a girl missing in Iowa, or some movie actor dies, or whatever. It is all a ploy, smoke and mirrors and we all eat it up like Shorlanda's fat kids at McDonalds.



America sucks and it is pretty clear why and why most of the World hates America.
Recently, our oldest son got his first jobor, more accurately, he got his first 2 jobs: one at a fast-food franchise popular in the Midwest (lets call it McBurgerQueen, or McBQnote: its not McDonalds, Burger King, or Dairy Queen), the other at a family-owned Korean-Chinese restaurant in our town (well call this place Fresh Spring Rolls, or FSR, after our favorite dish on their menu!). Our son has been working regular shifts at both restaurants on a daily basis, and his reflections on the training process at each place have been fascinating to hear about.

Upon arriving for his first shift at McBQ, our son and the other new hires were shepherded into an hour-long orientation meeting, which was carefully scripted and delivered by a regional manager who had not been involved at all in the hiring process. According to our son, the meeting was really boring and had nothing to do with any of the actual tasks hes been doing since he started actually working at the restaurantit was mostly focused on company history, regulations, and policies, none of which were presented as having any connection to cooking or serving food, or cleaning tasks.

At McBQ, every task is meticulously broken down into sequential steps, and workers are carefully monitored as they shadow a (nominally) more experienced employee during the orientation process. Even jobs as mundane as taking out the trash, or greeting customers, required methodical instructions, guidance, and evaluation before employees were permitted to engage in participating in these jobsleading as a result to massive amounts of down time for employees who are on the clock.

Each McBQ worker is issued a company-provided shirt and hat, and given strict instructions on what kind of slacks, shoes, and sox they may wear to complete the store uniform. One day, our son forgot his blue hat when he left for his shift at McBQ. When he arrived at the restaurant and told his colleague hed forgotten his hat, he was given a grey version of the same hat, and told to report to his station. As soon as his shift supervisor saw him wearing the grey hat he was admonished that he had not yet earned the right to wear the grey hat, and was sent back to find a blue one instead.

McBQ employees are periodically issued special promotional t-shirts that they are allowed to wear in place of their normal work uniform if they reach certain pre-determined sales goals. While these shirts are intended as incentives, our son tells us that the employees dont have any say in how the shirts are designed, or in setting the stores goals, so theres not much buy-in from workers to reach the sales numbers that trigger their ability to wear the shirts.

McBQ employees are not provided with a meal or given a break during their 4 hour shifts. They are allowed to eat foodstale french fries, old chicken stripsthat is past its sell by time and cant be sold to customers.

The work environment at FSR, on the other hand, is markedly different

When he arrived for his first shift at FSR, our son was warmly welcomed by the matriarch of the family-owned establishment, and then immediately thrown into the fire. His first job was packaging to go orders, where he was joined by a colleague who showed him the ropes as they worked together on packing orders of Bibimbop and Kung Pao Chicken. There was no orientation meeting, or company manualjust lots of questions, smiles, and encouragement.

In the first few days our son rotated through many of the jobs that needed to be done at FSRpacking up to-go orders, answering the phone, and working the cash register. During lulls in customer traffic, he observed the chefs in the kitchen, the dishwashers, and the waitstaff as they engaged with customers, picking up hints and tips on how each job was performed. He says he was never bored, even when business was slow, and always learning.

FSR workers are asked to wear mostly black if possible, but there is no store-issued apparel. When he showed one afternoon wearing white socks instead of the preferred black ones, the restaurant manager just smiled and told him it was No big dealit doesnt make the food taste any better! Just try to remember next time.

While there are no promotional giveaways at FSR, the restaurant pools tips for all of the employeesa strategy that encourages each worker to maintain a positive and cheerful attitude when dealing with customers.

During slow times at FSR, all workers are invited to share in family meal, an assortment of dishes prepared by the cooks expressly for the restaurants employees. Our son comes home every night with rave reviews about the traditional Korean and Chinese fare offered up by his colleagues in the kitchen, and regales us with stories about the chefs music battles in the kitchendueling styles and genres played at deafening volumes, often accompanied by dancing and cheering.

While he enjoys both jobs, and appreciates each for its own sake, it should come as no surprise that he looks forward to his shifts at FSR much more than his work at McBQ. At FSR, he says, he feels like part of the group, while the corporate structure at McBQ feels rigid, overly-regimented, and needlessly restrictive. His experiences working at these two restaurants have resulted in an unexpected series of lessons in the differences in working environments between Wall Street and MainStreet, and has been fascinating to observe as his parents.

At the same time, Ive been engaged in one of my favorite parts of my job this summer: helping the newest class of graduates from our music teacher education program as they navigate their first job interviews for teaching positions, both in the state and across the country.

One of these recent alums called the other day for advice, after being offered a teaching position at a charter school. After congratulating him on being offered the position, we chatted about the interview process, and how the school district conducted their search.

The search committee consisted of the charter schools principal, an alum of the school who had been volunteering to run the music program in the absence of a certified music teacher, and the human resources director. None of these individuals was a certified music teacher, and only one had ever taught in a school before.

The only music-specific question my student was asked was whether he played a woodwind or brass instrumentand his answer didnt seem to actually matter, he said.

Instead of being asked to teach a demonstration music lesson or rehearse a group of students, the only thing he was required to do in addition to the interview was to watch a brief video of a multiplication lesson and critique the lesson plan in writing. It seemed clear, he said, that every candidate for a position in the districtregardless of what subject they taughtwas required to watch this same multiplication lesson, and offer an evaluation of the class.

To be clear, my student took no math education courses as part of his program of studynor was he required to do so. Asking a music teacher to critique a multiplication lesson is like asking a math teacher to assess a middle school orchestra rehearsal, or like asking a science teacher to evaluate a kindergarten art class. It betrays the misguided belief that good teaching is good teachingan axiom that only makes sense if youve never taught anyone anything.

Lets contrast the charter schools hiring process with the one I was asked to participate in recently at a local public high school searching for a new music teacher.

The search committee was made up of the building principal, the assistant superintendent in charge of personnel, 5 music teachers from the district, and myself. Other consultants were also brought in to observe the teaching demonstrations that were a part of the hiring process for all candidates

After reviewing the materials from all of the applicants, the search committee narrowed down the list to two finalists, Each candidate was then invited to come for an interview with the committee, followed by a teaching demonstration with a group of volunteer students from the schools music program.

After each teaching demonstration, the students were asked to comment on the candidates performance, and then the committee met to debrief what they had seen. After our deliberations, the committee reached consensus on the top candidate, and the principal was charged with making an offer to the successful candidate.

Although I suspect that this charter schools leaders are simply following a set of hiring guidelines issued from their charter management companys corporate office, these guidelines make about as much sense as McBurgerQueens orientation meetings, or the silly blue hat/grey hat uniform rules that employees are expected to follow.

While corporate education reformers are obsessed with trying to scale up initiatives that they claim are promising, the truth is that schools are not fast-food franchises, and are extraordinarily resistant to such scaling up efforts. In fact, the things that are the most distinctive and wonderful about schoolsjust as with human beingsare not their similarities, but their differences. A school in Detroit shouldnt look like one in Dearborn, or Ann Arbor. Each public school should be unique, and should do its best to identify and serve the needs of the community in which it is located.

Further, public schools are locally-governed, not managed by a corporation thats not accountable to the citizens of that community. So while Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos may believe that schools are nothing more than little business franchises that should be run like Uber, the comparisons between schools and ride-sharing companies are not very flattering:

Betsys analogy here conveniently ignores the fact that taxi companies are not remotely like public schools. Taxi companies are not publicly owned or operated; they are not funded by taxpayer dollars; they are not governed by elected school boards; they are not responsible for serving all of a communitys residents. Her analogy also omits the inconvenient truth that ride sharing apps like Uber and Lyft have competed unfairly with taxi companies in many major metropolitan areas by relying upon unqualified and uncertified drivers, and paying those drivers at rates that are much lower than the prevailing wage for cab drivers in that region.

The truth is that schools are not franchises, charter schools are not public schools, and education is not a business. The only thing public about charter schools is their fundingand much of that winds up being diverted to the accounts of hedge fund managers and investment bankersnot into classrooms, where it belongs.

A lot is being said about school choice in the education policy arena these days. Perhaps the most important choice we can make when it comes to our own schools is to insist that these schools be locally-governed and responsive to their communities.

And to resist the efforts to franchise our public schools so they become bland, standardized carbon-copies of corporate rigidity, rather than the vibrant centers of community life that seem to frighten our Secretary of Education, her husband, and their comrades in the education reform movement so very much


By Sara A. Carter , Aug. 10, 2018





President Trumps attorney, Jay Sekulow said Tuesday that there is an unprecedented level of corruption in the FBI/DOJ investigation into the Trump campaign and its alleged ties to Russia.





The presidents lawyer told Fox News host Sean Hannity, The depth of corruption that led to this investigation and that frankly continues to permeate this investigation is unprecedented.

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FOCUS ON DEFENSE CAPABILITY DEVELOPMENT IN SOUTHEAST ASIA AND OCEANIA
Category Select Category Apparel/Garments Textiles Fashion Technical Textiles Information Technology E-commerce Retail Corporate Association Press Release

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Magilla Loans, a Sacramento, California  based search engine for loans which connects borrowers to banks without requesting personal information, added Joseph Baratta, Global Head of Private Equity at Blackstone, to its Board of Directors.

Baratta will serve alongside Dr. Rao Unnava, co- founder of Angies list and Dean of UC Davis Graduate School of Management.

Over his twenty-year career at Blackstone, Baratta led some successful investments and helped establish the firms private equity business in Europe. Before joining Blackstone, he worked for investment firms Tinicum Incorporated and McCown De Leeuw & Company.

Baratta also worked in the mergers and acquisitions department at Morgan Stanley.

Led by Dean Sioukas, CEO, Magilla Loans is a search engine for loans which connects borrowers to banks without requesting personal information. The platform enables borrowers to search and compare loans without providing a name, social security, or phone number. The loan proposals are presented on its patented MagChart, allowing borrowers to compare the loan terms and choose a lender.

Magilla has already allocated billions of dollars in loans through its website since launching in January 2016.

FinSMEs

11/08/2018
Rise Baking Company, a manufacturer of premium cookies, dessert bars, artisan breads, and flatbreads, has been acquired by Stamford, CT based private equity firm Olympus Partners.

The seller in the deal was private equity firm Arbor Investments.

FinSMEs

11/08/2018

The Press Release

Olympus Lifts its Game, Acquires Rise Baking Company

STAMFORD, Conn., Aug. 9, 2018 /PRNewswire/  Stamford, CT based private equity firm Olympus Partners has acquired Rise Baking Company (Rise), from private equity firm Arbor Investments. Rise is the preeminent manufacturer of premium cookies, dessert bars, artisan breads, and flatbreads. Rises impressive track record of product innovation, consistent high quality service, and food safety has made them a premier supplier to the in-store bakery, foodservice and convenience channels in North America.

Led by CEO, Mike Schultz, Rise Baking Company has a deep and experienced team that has proven to be a value added partner to their customers driving consistent organic growth. The team has also successfully executed and integrated multiple acquisitions, increasing Rises geographic reach, expanding their product offering, and enabling them to better service customers. Headquartered in Minneapolis, MN, Rise employs more than 1,000 people across six facilities in North America.

The Rise management team has built a remarkable business that has led to impressive growth across all of their products and customers. Rise is a well-invested and highly attractive business in the bakery sector, said Mike Horgan, a Partner at Olympus. Jim Conroy, a Managing Partner at Olympus, added, We are thrilled to back this team as they continue to grow their existing business and pursue transformational acquisitions.

Mike Schultz, CEO of Rise, said The entire team is excited to partner with Olympus to continue growing Rise Baking into a North American bakery leader. We have found another great partner who fully supports our team, our employees and our future plans. Olympus is the right partner to help Rise continue to grow in the coming years.